Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / The Racers Roundtable: Mr. Excitement! (Jimmy Spencer)

Transcript

The Racers Roundtable: Mr. Excitement! (Jimmy Spencer) · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  Welcome to The Racers Roundtable, a podcast sponsored by the Eastern Museum
• 0:04
  of Motor Racing where history meets horsepower and legends live on each
• 0:09
  episode brings together voices from across the motor sports world, from grassroots
• 0:13
  heroes to seasoned veterans as they share stories, insights, and behind the scenes
• 0:18
  tales that shaped their racing journeys.
• 0:21
  Whether you're a diehard fan of dirt tracks, drag strips, or open wheel icons.
• 0:26
  The racers round table is your seat at the table for candid conversations and
• 0:29
  timeless memories from those who lived it.
• 0:32
  Strap in tight because it's time to talk.
• 0:34
  Racing history, one lap at a time.
• 0:42
  Hi everyone.
• 0:43
  Welcome to the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing.
• 0:45
  We're gonna get started.
• 0:46
  My name is Allison Kreitzer and I'm the executive director here at the museum.
• 0:50
  We're so thrilled to have Jimmy Spencer here with us today.
• 0:53
  I know we're gonna have a very exciting round table.
• 0:56
  Thank you again for coming.
• 0:58
  If you wanna know more about our events, you can always check us out on the
• 1:00
  website emr.org, and I'm so thrilled to have Dave Hare here today to be our mc.
• 1:06
  So I'll turn it over to him.
• 1:07
  Please give Dave and Jimmy a big round of applause.
• 1:11
  Thank you, Allison, and we certainly appreciate the fine work.
• 1:14
  Allison is our executive director and her staff are doing here at the Eastern
• 1:18
  Museum of Motor Racing, and once again, it is primarily a staff of volunteers
• 1:23
  that give their time and efforts in heart to make this facility what it is.
• 1:28
  Today's guest won his first late model race at Port Royal Speedway in 1976.
• 1:33
  He's a multi-time NASCAR modified champion.
• 1:36
  Spent two decades competing in NASCAR's top divisions where he has
• 1:40
  won of 41 drivers to win a race in Cup Xfinity and Truck series competition.
• 1:45
  He would eventually forge a career as a NASCAR media darling.
• 1:48
  And of course, he is the founder of the Burwick School of Etiquette,
• 1:54
  which rose to prominence following the enrollment of Mr. Kurt Bush.
• 1:59
  Please welcome to the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing, the
• 2:01
  pride of Burwick, Pennsylvania.
• 2:03
  Mr. Excitement, Jimmy Spencer,
• 2:08
  thank you.
• 2:08
  It is working.
• 2:09
  Thanks everybody.
• 2:10
  Mr. Paxton, I see you pulling with the microphone over there.
• 2:12
  Is there, is there there something?
• 2:13
  Oh no, don't give him a mic.
• 2:14
  I'm sorry, but we're there.
• 2:16
  He knows too much stuff.
• 2:18
  Spencer.
• 2:18
  Spencer just shut up a little bit.
• 2:21
  Once they heard Spencer was coming, we've got a lot of people that he competed with.
• 2:24
  Big Slim was back here.
• 2:26
  The renter.
• 2:26
  Family's back here.
• 2:27
  I'm sorry, Butch can't be with us.
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  I invited Charlie Wman, but he said, this building's not big enough for a Spencer
• 2:33
  and a Wman, so you take it from there.
• 2:38
  You know, growing up I wanted to run sprint cars and I, and I loved Bobby
• 2:43
  Allen and Lynn Paxton and I, I would watch those guys race and then Bob weer with the
• 2:49
  sprint and I wanted to race a sprint car.
• 2:51
  I told Paxton, and one night I was at Seals Grove, first year of dirt
• 2:55
  racing and Paxton challenged me.
• 2:56
  I got in the sprint car down there his, that ended my career in dirt racing.
• 3:01
  True story.
• 3:02
  He won at Port Royal and I won a Port Royal.
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  I passed Jim Nave on the last corner of the last lap.
• 3:08
  Never touched him.
• 3:09
  And Jim Nave and his wife were fantastic people from near Bedford.
• 3:13
  Somebody threw a beer bottle.
• 3:14
  A lot of people threw stuff that night and they hit my wife, my
• 3:18
  girlfriend in the head, and I said, listen, you son of a bitches, you'll
• 3:22
  never see me in a dirt car again.
• 3:24
  And I never got back in a dirt car.
• 3:26
  I said that was it because my dad had a reputation, but my dad won
• 3:30
  lots and lots of races and I wanted to race sprint cars, and I decided
• 3:33
  I was gonna go asphalt racing.
• 3:35
  That's that set my career in that way, but I definitely wanted to go Indy car racing.
• 3:40
  I know I wasn't as big at the time, and I met AJ Foot, became
• 3:43
  friends with him, Marianne Andretti.
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  And fortunately enough in my career, I even became bigger friends with
• 3:47
  them as we became cup drivers.
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  And boy am I glad you went nascar.
• 3:55
  We had a lot of good friends.
• 3:56
  Old Hogan used to bust his butt all the time.
• 3:59
  Hogan Fogarty, he's a prankster.
• 4:01
  Just so you guys know that Paxton is a piece of work.
• 4:04
  Uh, love, I love Lynn.
• 4:06
  I got with Schrader and oh man, we talk about Paxton all the time and
• 4:10
  I, I gotta tell you something guys.
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  First time here won't be my last.
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  Absolutely incredible what you guys have done here.
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  The motors, the freaking history.
• 4:20
  Stevie Smith.
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  I go down the list.
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  Slim double best right up.
• 4:23
  There he is.
• 4:24
  That's the car I tried to pass, slim on the outside at Lincoln.
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  I got up on the top and I said I got enough room.
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  I was a rookie first year and bam, I hit the wall.
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  My brother said, damn slim, put you in the wall.
• 4:34
  He says, no he didn't.
• 4:35
  I said, he gave me enough room.
• 4:37
  I was dumb enough to run into the wall, but I was telling slim the story.
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  Slim's good to see at renters.
• 4:44
  Oh Jesus, my.
• 4:45
  I gotta tell you a quick story about Butch.
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  Me and Butch, we were racing at Clearfield Sunday evening race.
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  It was dark and I can't recall the car, but there was a pretty bad wreck.
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  And Butch and I running together, we got involved in it.
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  The motor hit roof of my car and butch caught the rear end and the
• 5:01
  whole freaking car busted the apart.
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  And me and Butch are there and we're looking and we said, Butch, I
• 5:05
  think I killed the son of a bitch.
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  And that was Butch.
• 5:09
  Finally, he got out of the rest of his car.
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  You remember Michael Waltrip's incident at Bristol?
• 5:13
  I, it was blocky Watt's car.
• 5:15
  It was a convertible, but it was incredible.
• 5:17
  You meet people in your lifetime, Paxton's, one of 'em,
• 5:19
  Barry Klein a lot more calmer.
• 5:23
  Uh, but Butch is a guy you never forgot.
• 5:27
  And I was telling his wife, I still think the world of Butch and his whole family.
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  So it means a lot to be invited here and see the old people,
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  see all these beautiful faces.
• 5:40
  Oh, nice recovery, nice recovery.
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  See what he learned when he did television.
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  He's so polished now.
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  Race, religion, and politics.
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  Never.
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  After this is done, I want you to tell me about Barry Klein dance when he was not
• 5:56
  calm, because I've never known that part.
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  So you and we can talk later.
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  No, I, I don't know about Barry taught me a lot.
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  Okay.
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  First time with Barry Klein dance.
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  My dad was winning lots of races and he saw the boys coming
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  up, my brother, ed and me.
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  I raced, go-karts.
• 6:11
  Dad said, I think I'm selling my car.
• 6:13
  So we, he sold the car about July or August.
• 6:15
  Like, what the hell did he do that for?
• 6:17
  Well, we didn't know at the time, but he didn't want us racing.
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  We're bored as heck.
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  We don't know what we're gonna do on a Friday or Saturday night.
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  So we see a car somewhere near Clearfield for sale for 3,500
• 6:27
  bucks or something like that.
• 6:29
  So it says, I wanna race dad.
• 6:30
  Dad says, well, go ahead.
• 6:31
  So we went and got it, brought it home.
• 6:33
  Uh, I can't show you because his first night at Seals Grove,
• 6:37
  his legs were shaking so bad and my dad said, eh, and you okay?
• 6:42
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:43
  I'm okay.
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  Well, he proceeded to go out and finish dead last.
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  He said, this car's a piece of crap.
• 6:48
  Dad says, all right, well, we'll work on it and we'll see what we got.
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  So the next week we go to the racetrack.
• 6:53
  He says, dad, you need to get in and see if it's any good.
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  He goes out, what does he do?
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  Starts in the rear, wins the race.
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  I said, yes.
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  There was three races to go in the season.
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  The guy wanted to buy the car so that my dad sells him the car.
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  My dad says, good, we're done racing.
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  That's the first time I met Barry.
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  Barry Klein dance has a car.
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  Uh, I'll never forget that was my first ever race car 64 Chevelle.
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  My dad raced it, won the Chuck Championship, Williams Grove
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  Seals Grove, both the oh man.
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  And that's who became friends with Barry.
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  And when I walked in his shop, he had a old pipe.
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  Calm, never spoke a whole lot, but boy, he could build a damn engine.
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  And he could do anything.
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  And my dad and him won lots of races together.
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  So that's my first time meeting Barry.
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  And then I had the opportunity, Barry worked for me and my Bush team.
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  He took care of Dick Trickles motors and stuff like that.
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  Pretty long time relationship.
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  Barry doesn't talk about himself that much.
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  That's Barry.
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  Yeah.
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  Well Jimmy got here at nine and the story started at 9 0
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  1 and they have not stopped.
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  And there's plenty yet to be told.
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  So I'm not gonna get in the way of that.
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  But I did wanna just bring something up real quickly, and I know we're out
• 7:56
  of alignment here chronologically, but my buddy Paul Shuck is here and
• 7:59
  he reminded me that he said it was this weekend, wasn't sure what year
• 8:02
  it was, but on this weekend you would want a Bush race in Vegas.
• 8:05
  Well, it wouldn't have been this weekend.
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  No, not Vegas.
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  That was the spring race because I, I went there the year earlier.
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  Okay.
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  I went there the year earlier in spring.
• 8:14
  Yep.
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  Was leading the race and the motor blow up, pissed me off.
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  Went back the second time.
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  This is on Friday 'cause I met Ernest Borg nine.
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  That day, Ernest Boite come in and he says, I love the looks of your race car.
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  And I loved Ernest Boite and I didn't ever seen the movie The Theon Adventure, and
• 8:30
  I loved Ernest Boite on McHale's Navy.
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  I mean, that was just, anyway, been very fortunate to meet a lot of people
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  and he came that Saturday morning, he said, look what I found heads up.
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  I said, well tape it to the dash, said you're gonna win today.
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  We won 92 grand, we won.
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  So that was pretty special and that was, uh, one of my biggest paydays ever.
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  And, uh, good memories you talked about, well, your dad was
• 8:53
  such an influence in your life.
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  He was a force.
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  You know, I tell Barry, my dad raised seven kids and my
• 8:59
  mom never went to the races.
• 9:00
  Now she did go to the races with me when I was got into the Cup series at Nationwide
• 9:04
  series, Bush series at the time.
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  But, uh, mom would sit home when dad was racing.
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  She was sitting at rocking chair, rocking man.
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  We'd come home from Ceiling Grove wherever we were at.
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  She bobbled the head count.
• 9:14
  The heads said, okay, go to bed.
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  Now, that was mom.
• 9:16
  God bless her, but dad, he had a temper and attacks him.
• 9:22
  He said, if you pushed him, he gonna push you back twice as hard.
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  That's the way he was.
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  And me and Earnhardt used to talk a lot about my dad because he loved my dad.
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  I've became really good friends with Dale Earnhardt.
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  Every week he would come by the Hollerer and, Hey, pop, how you doing?
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  He, he, he told me, he says Ralph, his dad, Ralph.
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  He says, every time I talked to your dad, he reminds me of my dad.
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  He said, wish my dad was still here like yours.
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  And he billed the Taj Mahal and the whole nine yards.
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  And he comes to the hauler.
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  He goes, Spence.
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  He goes, Jimmy, is your dad here?
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  He says, no, he's coming in tomorrow.
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  It was a Charlotte weekend.
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  He says, okay, next day, here comes Earnhart Pop.
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  I want you to come to my shop Monday after the race.
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  So we did.
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  And I go over there with dad.
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  Earnhart pushes me away.
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  He says, get hell away.
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  He said, I'm gonna show your dad the shop.
• 10:03
  So Earnhart showed us the shop, and I'll never forget as long as I live, but.
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  Yeah, we are all off track.
• 10:10
  Oh no, there's nothing off track either.
• 10:11
  And uh, just run.
• 10:13
  I got my first shot with Buddy Baker and back when we were racing, my dad
• 10:16
  never really liked to race on Sundays.
• 10:18
  'cause of my mom would take all of us to church and then we'd get our candy and
• 10:22
  all that stuff and come home, we'd eat.
• 10:24
  And dad, he was tough.
• 10:26
  But we built a race track.
• 10:27
  It was called iosh, international Race of Shitheads.
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  And my dad built the racetrack down at the junkyard.
• 10:34
  We had a junkyard, the racetrack is still there.
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  My dad invited Buddy Baker and Earnhardt and them all.
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  Oh my God.
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  People would pay big money for the tape if I could find it.
• 10:46
  So we were racing that night, big corn roast and the wind got out.
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  So we had to call the state troopers and block all the people from coming.
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  We were racing there.
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  And Earnhardt has.
• 10:55
  Broke.
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  We've done almost run outta cars.
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  And Buddy Baker's still out there running to me and earn, earn,
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  says, Spencer, I need a car.
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  I need a car.
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  So I said, well jump in.
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  He, hey, he jumped in.
• 11:03
  He jumped in the other side and pushed me over.
• 11:06
  So he's driving the car around because he had busted his ball joint.
• 11:09
  And I says, baker, I said, put him in the damn soupy hole.
• 11:12
  Over in the third turn, we get a hold of Baker and he push that son of a
• 11:15
  bitch, run our keys, pushing him.
• 11:18
  A baker's going, whoa.
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  You have to know buddy.
• 11:22
  He, he, even my first cup run, I was driving for Buddy at the
• 11:25
  time, and buddy's out there in the mud hole and he can't get out.
• 11:28
  He opens the door.
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  Holy cow.
• 11:30
  Long story short here.
• 11:31
  We're up there having a corn roast and everybody's eating it.
• 11:34
  Buddy could always tell a story and buddy always would say, oh God damn.
• 11:38
  Oh God damn.
• 11:39
  But anyway, he says all at once, he says, I know I'm stuck in the soupy
• 11:44
  hole down there in the mud hole.
• 11:45
  And he says, I see Godzilla coming.
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  My brother had a big cat.
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  It was dark, it was nine o'clock at nine 30 at night.
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  Two big eyes on it, you know, two lights.
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  And he come.
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  He says, buddy, I'll get you out of there.
• 11:55
  And he put buddy up.
• 11:56
  Buddy would tell that story to everybody, but Earnhart was there.
• 11:59
  We got pictures of him hugging.
• 12:00
  My mom and dad put his head next to my daddy, his head.
• 12:03
  It's illegal to have this much fun.
• 12:07
  He, he came back the following year and then we had to stop it 'cause it got outta
• 12:11
  control 'cause of the people and stuff.
• 12:13
  But, but six months later he, my dad, he says, Hey, let's go over the farm.
• 12:16
  I'm gonna show you something.
• 12:17
  He said, I wanna build a track like you got.
• 12:19
  And my dad says, let me teach you something buddy.
• 12:20
  He says, you don't have a junkyard.
• 12:22
  Dale says, you're right here.
• 12:23
  Won't do it.
• 12:23
  He why just come up there and race when you have it.
• 12:26
  But we were good friends.
• 12:27
  Earnhart was a pretty special person.
• 12:29
  It hurt the day that we lost him.
• 12:32
  I rush, I ask what?
• 12:33
  Shithead?
• 12:33
  Yeah.
• 12:34
  I'm thinking there's an entire line of apparel there somewhere.
• 12:37
  Just waiting to be, Hey man, you gotta listen.
• 12:40
  Tony Stewart, Richard Childers, I've got another Richard Childers
• 12:43
  in this pilot riding around.
• 12:45
  They run outta cars now.
• 12:46
  My mom was a cleaning fanatic.
• 12:48
  My mom has a laundry car and in the back seat is two laundry baskets.
• 12:52
  Childre says that thing's got the keys in it.
• 12:59
  Child's cousin jumps in the seat.
• 13:00
  He says to the pilot, come on, get, let's go.
• 13:02
  We got a car.
• 13:03
  You can tell Richard.
• 13:03
  He'll tell you the story.
• 13:04
  And my mom goes, Richard, that's my damn laundry car.
• 13:07
  Where you going?
• 13:08
  I'll bring piece.
• 13:13
  And he proceeded to go around.
• 13:14
  And who hits him?
• 13:15
  Earnhardt right in the fricking door.
• 13:18
  And he goes to the pilot.
• 13:20
  Pilot says, that's some bitch is crazy.
• 13:22
  He says, yeah, but he says he really pissed me off.
• 13:23
  'cause he says now he knocked the radio out.
• 13:25
  The radio ain't working.
• 13:27
  But oh the I, if I had it on film, it was just incredible stuff.
• 13:32
  Tony Stewart wanted to do it every fricking week.
• 13:35
  He brought helmets.
• 13:36
  Oh smoke was there And the best one was Robbie Gordon comes up.
• 13:40
  So we're about outta cars.
• 13:42
  That stupid son of a bee goes and takes his rental car.
• 13:46
  He's out there and he knocks the hell out of it.
• 13:47
  And he says to the guy, he said, did you put your shirts on that?
• 13:50
  He said, I hope so.
• 13:53
  And he did.
• 13:53
  He knocked it.
• 13:53
  You can't prove the damage he did to the car.
• 13:56
  Oh, those are good memories.
• 14:00
  So you started out in, in the late model rag.
• 14:03
  Yep.
• 14:03
  Like one year, right around 79.
• 14:05
  Then you went to the modifieds.
• 14:06
  First year 79 incident was a port royal.
• 14:09
  Yeah.
• 14:09
  That prompted your, that prompted it.
• 14:11
  And, uh, I actually went to Maryland Beltsville.
• 14:14
  It wasn't Bush cars, it was Grand Nationals.
• 14:16
  I went down there, I met with Emanuels of Wakus.
• 14:19
  I was gonna go dirt racing because I loved dirt.
• 14:21
  So I went up, Dave Aniel, did all my rear ends and stuff in
• 14:24
  my, I became good friends with Dave after Dave had built cars.
• 14:28
  He won Syracuse and stuff.
• 14:29
  But anyway, Dave said, you don't want to do this.
• 14:31
  He said, you're too good for this.
• 14:32
  He says, you need a asphalt racing.
• 14:34
  And NASCAR was starting a touring series, and the most
• 14:37
  instrumental one was Jack Johnson.
• 14:39
  Jack said, I, I've heard about you dirt racing and your daddy.
• 14:41
  He says, no.
• 14:42
  He says, you want to go asphalt racing?
• 14:44
  He says, as young as you are, you don't need to be doing this dirt, man.
• 14:47
  That's what I did.
• 14:48
  So you would've been think 20.
• 14:49
  Yeah.
• 14:50
  20 years old.
• 14:52
  Not even.
• 14:52
  Yeah.
• 14:52
  Somewhere around there.
• 14:53
  Yeah.
• 14:53
  Got, I think I got my first cup right.
• 14:55
  Late twenties and now they're doing it when they're 16.
• 14:57
  Right?
• 14:58
  Lon Rookie of the year.
• 14:59
  Yeah.
• 14:59
  79. Yep.
• 15:01
  Gail Clark, he built my motors.
• 15:03
  That guy taught me a lot about racing.
• 15:05
  When I first went to Barry's shop, I was impressed how clean it was.
• 15:08
  When I went to Gail Clark's, he would not let you touch the bearings with
• 15:11
  your fingers, the acid on your fingers.
• 15:13
  He says, no, you have to have rubber whatever.
• 15:15
  Gloves chewed my head off.
• 15:17
  I says, oh no, don't touch them.
• 15:18
  No.
• 15:19
  Oh, whoa.
• 15:20
  And Gail was actually the crew chief for Jeff Bodine.
• 15:23
  Okay.
• 15:23
  And, uh, that's how I became known Gail.
• 15:25
  And Gail was the one who told me, he says, you're pretty damn
• 15:27
  good at what you do, buddy.
• 15:28
  You know, it's like Lynn and I were talking before about younger drivers.
• 15:31
  We wanna help 'em.
• 15:32
  You wanna see a young driver do good.
• 15:34
  And so many young drivers today are afraid to ask you.
• 15:38
  Really?
• 15:38
  Yeah, you, you see it a lot.
• 15:40
  I think the internet is changing them, but there's still a lot.
• 15:43
  I was very fortunate when I moved south to race a couple times against
• 15:46
  Richard Petty, Bobby Allison.
• 15:48
  They teach me a lot different times.
• 15:50
  82 and 83.
• 15:51
  Shangrila, nascar, Winston Racing Series track titles there.
• 15:55
  That was my first, I, uh, bought a car from Rich.
• 15:58
  And I didn't like it.
• 15:59
  Richie Evans?
• 16:00
  Yeah.
• 16:00
  My dad actually bought it and I was selling tires at Evergreen,
• 16:03
  still trying to make money.
• 16:04
  Race Plus had a car lot.
• 16:05
  I knew we were doing good 'cause we were winning races.
• 16:07
  But I remember Ga Clark telling me, you need to go buy a trailer.
• 16:10
  Car me your Troy.
• 16:12
  I said, you know what, I'll call 'em up until I got to lose.
• 16:14
  So I was broke.
• 16:15
  My wife Pat and my sister go on a cruise 'cause I was supposed to go on a cruise.
• 16:19
  And I said, we'll take, take Chrissy.
• 16:21
  So they were on a cruise.
• 16:22
  I stayed home and I sold 13 cars that week at the car lot.
• 16:26
  And I says, yeah, good idea to buy a race car route about now.
• 16:31
  So thirsty come called Maynard up, I says, Hey Maynard, I want a new car.
• 16:35
  I said, listen, I want Chrome on it.
• 16:37
  I want it nice.
• 16:38
  He says, it'd be about 9,200 bucks.
• 16:40
  I says, all right, I'll send you a deposit.
• 16:41
  He says, no, I'll just build you one.
• 16:42
  Don't worry about it.
• 16:43
  And about a week or so he says, I'll have it almost done.
• 16:45
  He says, then send me half the money.
• 16:47
  So I did.
• 16:48
  So you know, pat says, what's that check outta that account for?
• 16:50
  He says, raised car.
• 16:52
  I knew it.
• 16:54
  She was very supportive and so was my dad.
• 16:56
  But we bought a tour car and I ended up becoming the house driver.
• 16:59
  And Maynard said, as as good as you are at a Wego New York,
• 17:01
  you can go anywhere and win.
• 17:03
  He said, when you can master Shangri Law Wego, you can.
• 17:05
  And he was right.
• 17:06
  I've been fortunate to, in every modified race strike I've been at.
• 17:09
  So you transitioned to the ings and you're looking at the asphalt end of things.
• 17:13
  At what point then are you moving toward the Bush series?
• 17:16
  You know, Richie Evans and I were good friends.
• 17:18
  We end, we didn't end up real good friends, but.
• 17:20
  Because you raced the first championships in 84.
• 17:23
  I did, but he said to me, I says, Richie, I says, how come you never went?
• 17:28
  Cup racing goes hell.
• 17:29
  He went down there.
• 17:29
  Do you remember when the built the modifieds?
• 17:31
  He went down there to Daytona on Friday with the NASCAR modifieds.
• 17:35
  Okay.
• 17:35
  He kicked their ass.
• 17:37
  Richie was very good.
• 17:38
  He beat Darryl Waltrip, Bobby Allison, all of them.
• 17:41
  He goes, I make more money driving modifieds than you do Raven Nasco.
• 17:46
  Because he had b Dubt is the sponsor the whole nine yards.
• 17:49
  So in 84, I raced Richie and I went broke.
• 17:52
  I, I, I literally went broke again.
• 17:54
  I said, well, time to go south in 84.
• 17:57
  I started, I started selling a lot of cars and stuff and met some great people.
• 18:01
  I drove for Art Murray out of Rhode Island.
• 18:04
  I drove for Eddie Mke.
• 18:06
  I drove for Renie Garland, not Char Garland outta Canada.
• 18:10
  And was very fortunate.
• 18:12
  They paid me good money and I, I won for him.
• 18:14
  I went to Westboro, went to a lot of these races and you know, I became
• 18:18
  fairly good friends with Richie and he said, whatcha gonna do next year?
• 18:20
  And I said, I'm going south.
• 18:22
  I got a phone call my buddy, you ain't gonna believe what happened today.
• 18:25
  And I says, shit, no, you know, Richie gets killed.
• 18:28
  And then, uh, you know, a month goes by and Hunter calls me up and he says, gene
• 18:32
  DeWit wants you to drive his car modified.
• 18:34
  I said, okay.
• 18:35
  So that sounds like a good deal.
• 18:36
  And, uh, that would've been 80, 86.
• 18:40
  So over the winter, everything's going good.
• 18:42
  I ordered two brand new Toyota cars.
• 18:44
  That was a dream because I was gonna have a Goodyear Tire deal.
• 18:47
  I was gonna have a motor deal and a credit card.
• 18:50
  I never had that.
• 18:51
  And uh, that was pretty cool.
• 18:54
  And I said, man, I can make some money doing modify it.
• 18:56
  So.
• 18:56
  Gene DeWitt's son says to Mr. Dewitt, we can't have him drive.
• 19:01
  He's from Pennsylvania.
• 19:02
  We have to have a New York driver, gene dewitt concrete company.
• 19:05
  So Hutter called me about on and he said, listen.
• 19:07
  He says, Gene's son's saying you can't drive his cars.
• 19:10
  I says, well, that's great.
• 19:11
  I says A month ago, and we gotta be at the circuit.
• 19:13
  He goes, well, Frank Cece asked me you could drive his cars.
• 19:17
  So I said, okay.
• 19:18
  So I went up, Frank had his car sitting there.
• 19:21
  I go to the Shangrila the first night, a week in New York, and I'm leading
• 19:24
  the race, and George Kent passes me.
• 19:26
  George Kent's driving for BEI duet my brother.
• 19:28
  Ed says he does not get passed.
• 19:31
  So something's wrong with that car.
• 19:32
  Well, the crew chief is pissed off and all.
• 19:34
  My brother Ed says, hang on a second.
• 19:36
  We pulled over it said jack it up.
• 19:38
  So we jack it up.
• 19:38
  He takes the rear wheels off and the rear end's bent and said the
• 19:41
  damn rear end's bent in that car.
• 19:42
  Frank, get the hell outta here.
• 19:43
  It's a brand new rear end.
• 19:45
  Well, Ronnie Kent said to Frank, get used to it because that's what's
• 19:49
  gonna happen to you every race.
• 19:50
  Frank said, I got news for you, son of a bitch.
• 19:54
  You guys are in a lot of trouble because they pissed him off.
• 19:57
  So Frank says, whatever you need, go.
• 20:00
  We had George Kent two races to go in the season.
• 20:02
  We had to lock the championship up.
• 20:04
  So Frank Cece was very instrumental in me winning those races.
• 20:08
  But the moral of the story for me was the best story ever.
• 20:11
  I was at a Wigga, New York, and Mr. Dewitt was a fantastic man with a cane.
• 20:15
  Wigga, New York had the best hotdog in the world.
• 20:18
  I said, bats.
• 20:19
  Anyway, I'm standing there and he goes, I'll get that.
• 20:22
  I look Mr. Dewitt.
• 20:24
  He says, Jimmy, come over.
• 20:25
  I wanna talk to you.
• 20:25
  So I go over there and I sit down there by him and he goes, congratulations.
• 20:30
  I said, what's that, Mr. Dewett?
• 20:31
  He says, oh, you, you won this championship.
• 20:33
  He says, you're 10 times the driver I got.
• 20:34
  And he said, Richie always told me that I just wanna take congratulations.
• 20:37
  He said, I made a big mistake.
• 20:38
  I says, is never too late.
• 20:40
  He says, no, I'm done.
• 20:41
  He said My last year.
• 20:43
  And, uh, we won the championship and he quit sponsoring NASCAR modified.
• 20:46
  Then we went on one second time again with Frank, and then we
• 20:49
  decided to go south racing.
• 20:51
  Pretty cool.
• 20:51
  The good memories.
• 20:52
  Tell us about that decision in the move south because it's hard.
• 20:56
  Yeah.
• 20:57
  I mean, we're talking 35 years ago or so.
• 21:00
  Yeah, and it basically, it was a different world then.
• 21:02
  I mean, that's a different culture.
• 21:04
  You know, NASCAR didn't care.
• 21:05
  I was at Stafford Springs, Connecticut about 19 82, 19 83.
• 21:09
  It was Spring Sizzler.
• 21:11
  I went out there and they'd implemented a Hoosier Tire rule.
• 21:14
  Tires were junk.
• 21:16
  They blew right off the beads.
• 21:17
  Well, I blew three of 'em out that day and I lost my front brakes.
• 21:21
  So when I lost my front brakes, I went in to fix 'em.
• 21:23
  And NASCAR says, you're done for the day.
• 21:26
  So, Jim Hunter at Stafford, you have to understand this is the grand stands,
• 21:29
  and this was the back of the grandstand.
• 21:31
  Okay.
• 21:31
  And I was parked right there, and Hunter is out there and he
• 21:34
  goes, so he's making weight.
• 21:36
  Mike Joy's there.
• 21:37
  That's how I got Mr. Excitement.
• 21:41
  So I said, so that was it?
• 21:42
  Yeah, that's what got me, Mr. Excitement.
• 21:44
  So I started to rear field Quebec that second.
• 21:46
  Okay.
• 21:46
  The fans were pounding, right?
• 21:48
  Yeah.
• 21:48
  So anyway, Eddie Young ended up coming to me after the race over.
• 21:51
  They said, we told you not.
• 21:52
  I said, listen, when I pulled out to that tower and that guy had the chain
• 21:56
  there, I didn't run a chain down.
• 21:57
  I said to him, I said, you two options, you either drop
• 21:59
  the chain or I run it over.
• 22:02
  I said he took the smart option.
• 22:03
  I said he dropped the chain, let me go through.
• 22:06
  So I said it wasn't my fault.
• 22:10
  They said that, don't be a smart Alec.
• 22:12
  But anyway, that's them guys.
• 22:14
  That was at Ed Root and Eddie Yarrington.
• 22:16
  So they were gonna find me two grand.
• 22:18
  I call nascar, I get the letter.
• 22:20
  I called Bill France and Bill France goes, hello?
• 22:24
  I said, Mr. France, you heard what happened Sunday at Stafford.
• 22:27
  Uh, yeah, I think I did hear about that.
• 22:30
  He goes, uh, why did you disobey the officials?
• 22:34
  I says, man, Mr. France, Jim Hunter was on the back of the damn grand
• 22:39
  stands waving for me to come on here.
• 22:41
  He was on speakerphone, France.
• 22:43
  He goes, no, no, no.
• 22:45
  I wasn't telling you to come back on the track.
• 22:46
  I was giving you the thumbs up that you have done a good job.
• 22:51
  I said, you sons of bitches, France says, you just keep doing what you're doing.
• 22:57
  I said, what about this flying?
• 22:58
  He says, what?
• 22:58
  Flying?
• 23:00
  So I knew where the strings were pulled down.
• 23:02
  That became Mr. Excitement and then from there became pretty successful,
• 23:08
  not arguing that full season with the Bush series.
• 23:11
  Uh, you end up, I think this is 1988, seventh in the point standings in the 34
• 23:14
  car, you had five top fives, 13 top tens.
• 23:17
  Pretty solid.
• 23:18
  Yeah.
• 23:18
  We were sitting out as in the spring, 89 and I was sitting in the
• 23:22
  garage with me and two other guys working on the car and the phone
• 23:24
  rings and we're in this little shop.
• 23:26
  Herb nabs, man, we were hurting for money.
• 23:29
  Phone rings, they're underneath the car working.
• 23:31
  Hello?
• 23:31
  Yeah, this is Buddy Baker.
• 23:33
  Is Jimmy there?
• 23:34
  I says, yeah, and if you're F-ing buddy, b I'm the president of the United States.
• 23:41
  And I hung the phone up so we didn't have cell phones at the time.
• 23:45
  So anyway, I go back out in the garage and Al goes, who was that?
• 23:48
  Some asshole said he was Buddy Baker and he wanted me to drive his car.
• 23:54
  Do you know Buddy Baker fired Greg Sack yesterday.
• 23:56
  I said, what?
• 23:59
  He goes, they fired Greg Sack yesterday.
• 24:01
  Jesus Christ.
• 24:03
  I.
• 24:05
  Stupid.
• 24:06
  Well, we go back to work.
• 24:07
  About 10, 50 minutes later, the phone rings again.
• 24:10
  I I run in there as quick as I can.
• 24:11
  Is is Jimmy there?
• 24:12
  I I, God Jimmy, you there?
• 24:15
  This is Jimmy.
• 24:15
  He said This is Buddy Baker.
• 24:16
  Do you wanna drive my goddamn race car, don't you?
• 24:19
  I said I'll be over immediately.
• 24:21
  Bring a seat.
• 24:22
  Not supposed, my mom never used God's name of name, but that's what Buddy was.
• 24:26
  Anyway, drove over to the garage, put the car seat in the car, and went to Dover.
• 24:31
  That was my first cup race with Buddy, 1989.
• 24:33
  Gave me my break.
• 24:35
  You almost missed it.
• 24:36
  Can you believe that?
• 24:37
  Unbelievable.
• 24:37
  Drove for Bobby Allison.
• 24:39
  I was.
• 24:39
  I was very fortunate.
• 24:40
  You talked about, uh, your relationship with Dale.
• 24:42
  I've heard you tell a story about time Dale asked you to
• 24:45
  test a car for him at Indy.
• 24:46
  Oh yeah.
• 24:47
  I got one before that.
• 24:48
  Yeah.
• 24:48
  Yeah.
• 24:49
  Whatever you got, bring it on.
• 24:51
  Nobody knew Earnhardt, like he really was Earnhardt.
• 24:54
  He was a hell race car driver, but he was special.
• 24:56
  Like every one of us.
• 24:57
  If you needed something, he'd help you.
• 24:59
  But his persona at the races was different.
• 25:01
  We would go to Isabella's to eat lunch every so often.
• 25:03
  About once a week we were driving to Isabella's and I was sitting
• 25:06
  in the passenger seat, I guess it was about 92, maybe 93 maybe.
• 25:10
  We're driving down Linwood Road and he sees these two black guys
• 25:13
  over there working the church.
• 25:15
  He spins his truck around, he says, Hey boys, what you doing?
• 25:18
  Ah, you know, the old preacher says, we need to get this here leveled out.
• 25:21
  Get in the truck.
• 25:22
  He says, I'm gonna buy you boys lunch.
• 25:23
  So they jump in the truck.
• 25:24
  He has the pack phone.
• 25:26
  Remember the old pack phone?
• 25:27
  They blast you out.
• 25:28
  Yeah.
• 25:29
  I forget who the guy was.
• 25:30
  He says, Hey, tell Blue Max to send a load of two B gravel over here
• 25:33
  to Glenwood Road and Zion Church.
• 25:37
  And he says, get the bobcat and get your ass up there and level that
• 25:40
  great, all that driveway for him.
• 25:42
  Parking area.
• 25:43
  So we go to Isabella's about that time, about an hour.
• 25:46
  'cause they're in our, he loves sweet tea and talk.
• 25:49
  And he loves Sundrop.
• 25:50
  He, oh, he loves Sundrop.
• 25:51
  And we sat there and talked to this two guys.
• 25:53
  We were just super guys and they were up in age and we, we learned a lot
• 25:56
  about them and their church and stuff.
• 25:58
  And we stopped on the way back and it is all level out.
• 26:01
  And he says, I know who you be now, man.
• 26:04
  I, I, I know who you be.
• 26:05
  And that's Southern, that's typical.
• 26:08
  Earnhart goes, you don't worry about it.
• 26:10
  You just don't owe me nothing.
• 26:11
  We are gonna pray for you and earn.
• 26:13
  He says, Earnhart believed in the Lord.
• 26:14
  I, I believe Dale's in a better place.
• 26:16
  He was saved.
• 26:17
  Daryl Waltrip, his wife, Stevie Waltrip was big into that.
• 26:20
  Not preacher, but make sure you were saved and stuff.
• 26:22
  So I think Earnhardt's.
• 26:24
  But that's the stuff that he did.
• 26:25
  I, uh, had two kids and my wife was living in Ville and I promised Pat that I
• 26:30
  would take her and the kids that weekend.
• 26:32
  We were gonna take a weekend off and we're gonna go to Carol's.
• 26:36
  So about a month before that, Earnhart says, Jimmy, I need to come outta shop.
• 26:40
  Alright, so I go to the shop, he says, sit that car.
• 26:42
  He had an old 40 con line seat.
• 26:43
  I sat in the seat and everything else and I says, wow.
• 26:45
  I said, uh, these are comfortable.
• 26:48
  I see why you like him.
• 26:49
  He says, you're driving this thing at Indy for me?
• 26:51
  And I says, oh no, I'm not.
• 26:53
  Ain't gonna happen.
• 26:54
  He says, that's our off weekend.
• 26:56
  You're driving for me.
• 26:56
  I says, I am not driving this car.
• 26:58
  I am not going to Indianapolis.
• 27:00
  He goes, yay, you are.
• 27:01
  I said, I'm not.
• 27:02
  I left.
• 27:03
  Following weekend, we go to the cup race.
• 27:05
  He comes over and he says, you're driving that damn car.
• 27:07
  I says, Dale, I promised Pat that I was taking them kids to Carolyn's on Sunday.
• 27:11
  He says, I promise you, I mean you will be back Saturday night at all costs to have
• 27:15
  them kids at Carolyn's, I promise you.
• 27:18
  And I go, what if it rains?
• 27:20
  He says, Mike, call you, fly You home the.
• 27:22
  I said, okay, I'll do it.
• 27:24
  And I was hurting for money at the time.
• 27:26
  And one thing led to another.
• 27:28
  It was one of the greatest days, one of the greatest weekends.
• 27:31
  I says, babe, I'll be back Saturday night.
• 27:33
  I mean, he promised me she's okay, but, and I think he's
• 27:35
  gonna gimme a couple grand.
• 27:36
  I could use the money.
• 27:37
  So I drive up to Tony U, senior and junior.
• 27:40
  What a great time.
• 27:41
  Get my own motel room.
• 27:42
  I can't believe this crap.
• 27:43
  And I, I don't know why earns doing what he's doing, because he could
• 27:47
  have got some other people to do it.
• 27:48
  I realized after I did it, why he did.
• 27:51
  'cause I was winning some Bush races and he trusted me.
• 27:54
  So I, I said to him, I said, I'll go up there, but I'm not
• 27:57
  going to do nothing to the car.
• 27:59
  He says, make the car the way it's supposed to.
• 28:01
  I want to know.
• 28:02
  I said, okay.
• 28:02
  So he goes into Michigan to the I rock race.
• 28:05
  So he flies back.
• 28:06
  Well, that afternoon, just the man alive, he could draw a freaking
• 28:09
  crowd, that freaking grandstand.
• 28:11
  And they were, they were lined up everywhere, you know, as I was
• 28:15
  practicing with a Saturday and I says, Tony, I said, this is what,
• 28:17
  you know, make a long story short.
• 28:18
  I said, I feel this.
• 28:19
  It needs to be a little bit freer, dead center corner.
• 28:22
  They did everything.
• 28:23
  I said, I fixed it.
• 28:24
  I qualified.
• 28:25
  Fifth, I get in there and he, he comes in, he comes in, he goes, what's the story?
• 28:28
  And I said.
• 28:29
  Dead neutral, little snug to start after about four or five laps, I
• 28:33
  said, that bitch is on the money.
• 28:34
  He said, okay.
• 28:35
  Drives from the rear of the field to the lead.
• 28:37
  And unfortunately he had an air gun break and he ends up
• 28:41
  finishing third in the race.
• 28:42
  We jump in the van on a hill, so there is in the van and Earnhardt's
• 28:46
  in the front seat and Mike's in the other seat and I'm in the back.
• 28:50
  So, oh, oh, Mike, stop there.
• 28:51
  Stop there.
• 28:51
  So he goes and he stops with the pay shack.
• 28:54
  Where you going?
• 28:54
  Uh, don't worry about it.
• 28:57
  And he gets a fricking brown envelope.
• 28:59
  Brown's pack.
• 29:00
  Whoa.
• 29:01
  I know what that is.
• 29:03
  That's dead presidents.
• 29:07
  And we get to the airport before that.
• 29:09
  He says, leave your luggage.
• 29:10
  We get at the airport, we'll get it later.
• 29:12
  You know, you come to the shop, pick it up, I'll drop you off the task.
• 29:14
  'cause we landed a Spencer airport up in near Spencer,
• 29:17
  North Carolina entrance Ville.
• 29:19
  Annapolis go to get into the plant there.
• 29:20
  He says, no you're not.
• 29:22
  Said some stuff to there.
• 29:23
  And he said, yes, he is.
• 29:25
  He's sitting right there.
• 29:26
  So I did.
• 29:26
  So we're coming home and our nurse says, what the hell did you do to that car?
• 29:30
  And I says, nothing.
• 29:31
  I says, Dale, I told you I was gonna get in the car.
• 29:33
  I says, Tony changed the can.
• 29:34
  I said, they realized the can game wasn't right.
• 29:37
  I says, he changed the both upper A arms went out.
• 29:39
  And I said, son, bitch was hooked.
• 29:40
  He says, you're damn right was he goes, what do you think's wrong?
• 29:43
  I says, Dale, the last time I drove a MoSo motor, I believe I could pull spark,
• 29:47
  plug wire off and beat that motor you had.
• 29:50
  And he goes, I know.
• 29:51
  That's what Childress has been telling me.
• 29:52
  I said, Dale, your motors are terrible.
• 29:54
  I mean, they were down.
• 29:55
  Major Dennis Fisher was built and they were terrible motors.
• 29:58
  So I fall asleep on the airplane and then Theresa, I land and
• 30:01
  we have a new, new suburban.
• 30:03
  I get in the back seat and he drives me off and eat front my house.
• 30:05
  And he hands me a big white envelope.
• 30:07
  I didn't think nothing of, threw it on the counter.
• 30:09
  Go to bed about seven o'clock, my wife comes in and wakes me up.
• 30:12
  Hey, there's an awful lot of money in that envelope.
• 30:15
  I go, how much is in there?
• 30:17
  She says, $9,000.
• 30:20
  Ah.
• 30:20
  I said, he must have made a mistake.
• 30:21
  Don't worry about it.
• 30:22
  So we got to car Monday.
• 30:23
  I come order an art shop, reach in my back pocket.
• 30:26
  He's up in his office signing autograph, and I throw the envelope down.
• 30:29
  What's the matter?
• 30:30
  I says, I think you made a mistake.
• 30:32
  Well, you want more?
• 30:36
  I, I couldn't believe it.
• 30:37
  And I said, Dale, do you know how much is in there?
• 30:40
  He says, it's worth every penny to me.
• 30:41
  He's, I got 40 grand to do that deal anyway.
• 30:44
  What are you worried about?
• 30:46
  So earn, I made a lot of freaking money.
• 30:49
  That was, that was, that was interesting.
• 30:51
  But good friends with Dale.
• 30:52
  I, it, it hurt that day pretty bad when we lost him.
• 30:55
  But part of the sport, I guess doesn't making any easier.
• 30:58
  No.
• 30:58
  Another guy that Jimmy, that you've talked so fondly about over the years,
• 31:02
  Bobby Allison, tell us about getting hooked up with him and what it was
• 31:05
  like to work with Bobby Allison.
• 31:07
  You know, Joe Gibbs is probably a strong Christian.
• 31:10
  I mean, he gives you his testimony.
• 31:11
  It's absolutely phenomenal.
• 31:13
  And Bobby Allen's pretty close.
• 31:15
  Bobby lost both of his sons.
• 31:16
  Now he's lost.
• 31:17
  Judy.
• 31:18
  Judy, Judy, my dad used to say I finished third at Nazareth,
• 31:22
  passed Bobby Allison to get third.
• 31:25
  He finished fourth.
• 31:26
  He come over, we were talking there.
• 31:28
  He said to me, he said, you did a good job.
• 31:30
  We became pretty good friends.
• 31:32
  And one of my first times at at Daytona, I was parked right next to 'em.
• 31:35
  'cause we were on the outside looking in because they had the points lined up.
• 31:39
  The cars with the points were lined up.
• 31:40
  Then we were in the other garage, Darryl Waltrip, Dale Earnhart.
• 31:43
  'cause they weren't in the points and that's where the new cars had to park.
• 31:45
  I was fortunate.
• 31:46
  Park next to Bobby, I qualified Sabbath.
• 31:48
  He qualified eighth and he's looking at my car and he goes.
• 31:52
  Nope.
• 31:52
  Nope.
• 31:53
  Put that spoiler back up.
• 31:54
  We put the spoiler back up.
• 31:56
  It slowed the car down.
• 31:56
  About two and a half tents.
• 31:58
  Saturday comes and I'm out there and he sees me on the introduction,
• 32:03
  sees me on the pit road.
• 32:04
  He walks by and he looks at my car and he goes, buddy, what did I tell you?
• 32:08
  No, no, no, no, no.
• 32:09
  He said, bump that thing up.
• 32:11
  Second lap coming off a four.
• 32:13
  Caution, caution spin.
• 32:14
  Yeah.
• 32:14
  Who the hell do you think it is?
• 32:17
  Me.
• 32:19
  Here I go spinning into the damn infield.
• 32:21
  I don't hit nothing.
• 32:22
  I said, oh, thank God.
• 32:23
  I says, ed bumped the goddamn spoiler up.
• 32:27
  Like Bobby said, I bumped it up.
• 32:30
  And anyway, that was the year Bobby got hurt.
• 32:32
  Bobby won the Daytona 500 and he won the goodies 300 the day before.
• 32:36
  Won both races.
• 32:37
  Bobby was watching my career with Buddy and all that, and
• 32:40
  I was driving for Dick MoSo.
• 32:42
  What happened was I was driving for Travis.
• 32:44
  Travis ran outta money.
• 32:45
  Travis Carter.
• 32:45
  Travis Carter.
• 32:46
  That would've been 91.
• 32:48
  91. So I was driving for Moosa, the Daily First Aid car and all that.
• 32:52
  We won a bunch of races and I was at Myrtle Beach.
• 32:55
  There was a rain delay at Michigan and they were all watching us at
• 32:58
  Myrtle Beach and I was fortunate enough to make a three laps that day.
• 33:02
  It's weird, but you get a feeling when sometimes the
• 33:03
  good Lord's watching over you.
• 33:05
  So Dick Moroso, who's Robbie was a hell of a race car driver,
• 33:08
  got killed two years earlier.
• 33:10
  Lots of guys drove his race car and he come to Travis, he says Travis,
• 33:13
  he says, I fired Mike Wallace.
• 33:15
  He says, I want Jimmy to drive my car.
• 33:17
  And he says, well, yeah, you can drive his car.
• 33:18
  So I did, and we won three races.
• 33:20
  We were at Myrtle Beach.
• 33:22
  Mark Reno had built a hell of a car.
• 33:24
  Saturday morning comes, Dick goes, Aldi said, you changed the gear.
• 33:28
  I says, yeah.
• 33:29
  I says, I need this gear.
• 33:30
  He said, motor's gonna blow up.
• 33:31
  I says, no, won't.
• 33:32
  I said, I'll lift.
• 33:33
  Be careful.
• 33:33
  'cause he said, if you don't, it's gonna blow up.
• 33:35
  I says, no.
• 33:35
  I'll lift a new tires, it'll turn.
• 33:37
  Look what happened.
• 33:38
  I had that gear in it because on the restart, I was leading the race.
• 33:42
  And the fricking thing jammed in gear.
• 33:44
  The her ship pin broke, so it jammed in third gear.
• 33:47
  So by the time they got it fixed, there was three laps down.
• 33:50
  Go back out on the track.
• 33:51
  Chief Griss was leading the race then, and I made the one lap up.
• 33:53
  I'm sitting there two laps down and the caution comes out and Dick
• 33:56
  Russell comes on the radio races.
• 33:58
  I think you need to park that car and save it for next week.
• 34:00
  And Mark Rina was one of the best crew chief he ever had.
• 34:02
  He says, we don't park nothing, Dick.
• 34:04
  He says, we, you worry about this race, we'll worry about next week.
• 34:07
  Dick says That car's too fast.
• 34:08
  I want to, I want to run it in.
• 34:10
  He says, I don't give a shit.
• 34:11
  We're gonna run it.
• 34:11
  He says, Jimmy, what do you think?
• 34:12
  And I says, I believe we can make these laps up.
• 34:15
  So you would line up back then at the, on the inside.
• 34:18
  Fuck what happened.
• 34:18
  We made up the lap cars.
• 34:19
  Yeah, the lap car we made, we made the laps up and won the race, but
• 34:22
  under the rain delay, you know, got a phone call and it was Bobby Allison.
• 34:26
  He said, you, you're gonna make another lap up?
• 34:28
  I said, yeah.
• 34:29
  He goes, I gotta talk to you on Monday.
• 34:31
  I want you to stop by the shop.
• 34:32
  I said, okay.
• 34:33
  I wouldn't race.
• 34:34
  Monday comes, I go over to see Bobby.
• 34:36
  He goes, I'm having a problem with es.
• 34:37
  They want to leave.
• 34:39
  They want to keep one of the greatest dirt racers ever to drive a dirt late model.
• 34:43
  Jeff Purvis, hell racer good friends with Jeff still is today.
• 34:47
  Jeff tore a bunch of stuff up, Wilkesboro, they tore two more cars up.
• 34:51
  They have one car left in the shop and Bobby calls me up.
• 34:53
  He said, I want you to come over Tuesday, put your scene in the car.
• 34:56
  Pervis is taking all this stuff out.
• 34:58
  He's gone.
• 34:58
  We want you to drive for us.
• 35:00
  Because what had happened was that they put Hut Strickland
• 35:02
  in it and Hut got fired.
• 35:04
  Pervis got put in it and then I got in it.
• 35:06
  It's interesting 'cause Hagerstown, Frank, er, he owns Hagerstown, him, Bob, bill
• 35:11
  B and Bobby were owners of that team.
• 35:13
  They were like 28th in the points, and it was a lot of money.
• 35:16
  If you could move the car in the top 20, I went in there with Jimmy Finning.
• 35:19
  That was the best crew chief I had without a question, even
• 35:22
  though I didn't win with him.
• 35:23
  And we went in that shop.
• 35:25
  There was four races to go.
• 35:26
  We were gonna win Charlotte.
• 35:28
  That was the first one we qualified.
• 35:30
  I was running third and we were tracking down whoever it was at the
• 35:34
  time, and they come on the radio and they said, you are about three tenths
• 35:38
  quicker lap than them guys right now.
• 35:40
  So whatever you're doing, keep doing it.
• 35:41
  And Dick trickle, ironically, wasn't his fault at all.
• 35:44
  Dick Grammy High.
• 35:45
  And I thought I got the wall a little bit, but I didn't.
• 35:48
  It got a little loose.
• 35:50
  And so about seven 30 in the morning on Monday, Bobby said, what are you doing?
• 35:53
  I said, taking the kids to school.
• 35:55
  I want you to come over here as soon as you can.
• 35:56
  I said, okay.
• 35:57
  So Monday, I, I mean I shoot over, I told Pat this, babe, I'm gonna run over here.
• 36:00
  I do.
• 36:01
  Bobby says, come out and show you something.
• 36:03
  So the right rear truck arm was cracked all the way around.
• 36:06
  There was two U bolts that went down the thing like that.
• 36:08
  And there was an eighth inch plate of steel.
• 36:10
  That's the only thing.
• 36:11
  Held it together.
• 36:12
  And Bobby's looking at that and he goes, that's what cost us the race yesterday.
• 36:15
  But more importantly, he said that the good Lord was watching over you.
• 36:18
  'cause he says, if that would've broke, you probably wouldn't be here.
• 36:21
  And I says, holy hell, Bobby.
• 36:23
  He said, you did fourth.
• 36:24
  We got fourth.
• 36:24
  He said, just hang onto to the car.
• 36:26
  'cause Jimmy, I said, Jimmy, this has gotten very, very loose.
• 36:28
  I says, if I step on the brake it gets worse.
• 36:29
  He said, but don't you, you know, so hang on.
• 36:31
  So we hang on about fourth because there're like 20 laps to go in.
• 36:33
  Charlotte, you running pretty fast but you don't know what's gonna break.
• 36:36
  We go test the next week, Tuesday at Rockingham, we're gonna win
• 36:39
  Rockingham and the fricking air gun breaks end up losing a lap.
• 36:43
  Making a lap back up.
• 36:44
  Finish seventh, we go to Phoenix.
• 36:47
  Davy was racing with the championship leading the race and all day long we
• 36:50
  kept having bad pit stops and I said, BA, you have to fix the pit stops.
• 36:55
  He's, I've taken care of it.
• 36:56
  So he gets a new Jackman.
• 36:58
  The last two pit stops, hysteric.
• 36:59
  We come in third.
• 37:00
  Instead of coming in and running sixth or seventh, we come out
• 37:03
  third, the last pit stop of the day.
• 37:05
  Come out running second.
• 37:06
  Wow.
• 37:07
  What an awesome job.
• 37:08
  Great guys.
• 37:08
  I'm coming down pit road, going down the back street.
• 37:10
  I look, I said son of a bitch.
• 37:12
  28 car, Davey.
• 37:14
  Bobby?
• 37:14
  Yeah.
• 37:15
  I said, we got a problem in front of us.
• 37:17
  Jimmy Finney.
• 37:18
  What do you mean?
• 37:18
  I says, you'll see in it less than a minute.
• 37:20
  We were coming down the front straightaway.
• 37:22
  I had an open face helmet on Mike Keys.
• 37:24
  I'm watching him.
• 37:24
  He goes, that's no problem.
• 37:26
  He said, that's just another car that you have to pass today to win this race.
• 37:29
  And I was like, did I just hear that right?
• 37:32
  And I said to myself, holy cow.
• 37:34
  He goes, listen to me buddy.
• 37:35
  He says, you've done a great job today.
• 37:38
  Now that car is racing for the championship, but you need to
• 37:41
  pass that car so we can win.
• 37:43
  And he says, you remember we'll be racing that same position next year.
• 37:46
  So you treat him like you want to be treated and go get him.
• 37:49
  I was absolutely in, couldn't say nothing.
• 37:52
  I waited and Jimmy comes like, is you okay?
• 37:54
  I says, yeah, I'm okay.
• 37:56
  Went back to 1518 lefts to go in the race.
• 37:59
  We passed Davy to get the lead and the fricking motor broke a rocker arm.
• 38:04
  I said, Jesus Christ.
• 38:05
  How the hell could that happen?
• 38:07
  Broke a rocker arm and we still finished.
• 38:09
  Fifth what to Atlanta?
• 38:11
  Had a car capable winning in that race.
• 38:13
  So Davey was in the 28 car that day.
• 38:15
  And I said to Bobby, I said, Bobby, listen to me swerving.
• 38:17
  Irvin is driving like a maniac and he's driving a Kodak car.
• 38:21
  And I says, tell Davey to stay behind me.
• 38:25
  And I says, well, I could protect him.
• 38:26
  Bobby says, yeah, 'cause we were in the top 28 points now and we
• 38:30
  were in the top 10 in the race.
• 38:31
  And my concern was to help Davy win the championship.
• 38:34
  'cause if Davy would've finished in the top 10, he was locked in.
• 38:37
  And at the time we were running like eighth or ninth
• 38:39
  and weren't running that hard.
• 38:41
  And this is no lie.
• 38:42
  You guys go back on YouTube or whatever, you watch that wreck, you
• 38:45
  watch the white and blue, red number 12, go on the inside of that wreck.
• 38:49
  And Davey was ahead of me and he wrecked, unfortunately.
• 38:52
  And Larry Mc Reynolds was the crew chief.
• 38:55
  And I told Bobby what we were gonna do and Bobby went down there
• 38:57
  and told Robert Yates and Larry mc Reynolds never told Davey.
• 39:01
  Pretty pissed off.
• 39:02
  Bobby Allison was pretty pissed off.
• 39:03
  So after Davey wrecks, Bobby says, there's only one thing you can do.
• 39:07
  Go get him.
• 39:08
  Well, that's the day that Alan and Bill ran for the championship.
• 39:11
  Well know it all here, I'm gonna get 'em.
• 39:14
  So I went after their ass and I was as fast as they were, and I
• 39:18
  think I was faster and about a hundred laps to go in the race.
• 39:22
  I was wore out.
• 39:25
  I was like, Hey, no.
• 39:26
  So I come on the radio and I says, yeah, the car's getting a little tight.
• 39:30
  So I started slowing down.
• 39:31
  I was falling outta the seat.
• 39:33
  I still can't believe how tired I was.
• 39:35
  And I realized how in shape you had to beat a race, the intensity
• 39:39
  level that Quicky and Bill put on.
• 39:40
  So after the race was over, we finished fourth, I think Jeff put,
• 39:43
  I end up beating me and I come in.
• 39:44
  I said, Bobby and Jim, I didn't talk to you guys in the holler.
• 39:47
  So we go up in the hall, I close the door and Bobby says, we know what happened.
• 39:51
  I'll help you.
• 39:51
  We gotta fix it.
• 39:52
  Jimmy said, we know what happened, but he says, you're our driver.
• 39:55
  We had a great year, but we didn't have no money.
• 39:57
  But we had a great year.
• 39:58
  But that was the best team I drove for.
• 39:59
  Even I never won.
• 40:00
  It was Bobby Ellison.
• 40:02
  I remember when Davey got killed.
• 40:03
  I was there when Clifford got killed at Michigan.
• 40:05
  He lost both of his boys.
• 40:07
  Bobby Allison was a pretty special person.
• 40:09
  He's still my friend today.
• 40:10
  Talked to him a lot.
• 40:11
  I still talk to him at least once a month.
• 40:13
  Jimmy, there was a story you told, I found just so intriguing.
• 40:16
  You were testing, I guess, driving for Bobby and I think it was super Speedway.
• 40:20
  Yeah.
• 40:20
  And the car was what?
• 40:21
  A little loose?
• 40:22
  Yeah.
• 40:23
  Kicked in and he gave you a piece of advice.
• 40:25
  Just doesn't seem to make sense.
• 40:27
  It did make sense.
• 40:28
  We were at Daytona, you know, we kept working.
• 40:30
  All we worked on was do not turn the steering wheel, try to keep the wheels
• 40:35
  least amount of possible, don't turn the wheel at, try to let the car drive itself.
• 40:39
  And we kept working on working and Bobby would pound in my head,
• 40:41
  whatever you do, keep doing it.
• 40:43
  Identical.
• 40:44
  Don't change your line.
• 40:45
  The computer could pick up the speeds.
• 40:47
  Yeah.
• 40:47
  I said, Bobby, I said, it's a little free.
• 40:49
  I says, when I roll that thing down in the corner, it starts to free up.
• 40:53
  I have to back off the wheel.
• 40:54
  He says, turn it to the right.
• 40:56
  I went, what?
• 40:57
  He goes, when you go down into the corner, take all the pressure off the wheel and
• 41:01
  push it back to the right a little bit.
• 41:02
  He said it'll tighten it up.
• 41:04
  It'll put wedge in it.
• 41:05
  I says, Bobby, man, we're running 200 mile an hour into the corner.
• 41:09
  He goes, trust me, it'll work now.
• 41:11
  You don't panic.
• 41:12
  He said, you just do it gradually.
• 41:14
  And I went out there and I tried it and it worked.
• 41:16
  I was like son and it worked, learned from a lot of this I've never worked
• 41:21
  with Junior, where one in 94 we was at Daytona and Banjo Matthews
• 41:25
  come over, junior goes banjo.
• 41:28
  He goes, boy's complaining about the car doing this and that.
• 41:32
  Banjo had a big thick old pair of glasses.
• 41:34
  Smart son of a big old banjo Matthews.
• 41:36
  And uh, he had built a front steer car with a rear steer suspension.
• 41:40
  The pivot points had to be at the right height.
• 41:42
  And him and Junior, you haven't seen that.
• 41:44
  Them two big old bellies and you know, they laying on the ground
• 41:48
  looking and he take a tape measure.
• 41:50
  Banjo looked at Junior, he says, can't fix this son of a bitch.
• 41:53
  He said They put the clip on wrong.
• 41:55
  I said, boy, that's great.
• 41:56
  So we went on to Daytona.
• 41:58
  Unfortunately we wrecked, which I sort of figured we were gonna have
• 42:00
  with what happened with the front end.
• 42:02
  'cause he could never turn the car back the other way.
• 42:04
  That was after Bobby I was driving.
• 42:05
  This is 94 for the Daytona 500.
• 42:08
  We won Daytona.
• 42:09
  We were beating Ernie back to Talladega in April and finished second Earn Earnhardt.
• 42:14
  That was pretty cool.
• 42:15
  I remember Teddy Musgrave drove my car and he says, there is no way
• 42:18
  you can drive that car that way.
• 42:20
  I says, well, if you ever drove for Bobby Allison, you, you would do that.
• 42:23
  And he says, you, you will wreck.
• 42:25
  I says, no, I don't.
• 42:26
  And we didn't rack.
• 42:27
  I want you to tell just one more short story about Dale.
• 42:29
  There was something he told you that he did before the race on Pit Road.
• 42:33
  Oh man.
• 42:33
  That just sort of separated him from everybody else.
• 42:36
  That was his mindset.
• 42:36
  Tell us about that.
• 42:37
  Yeah, it was, Schrader would come over, we'd all sit in Earnhardt's old
• 42:41
  barn, we'd bullshit steal stories.
• 42:43
  Earnhart had five gallon buckets, you know, the old like pal plaster buckets
• 42:47
  of water, and that was our meeting room.
• 42:49
  So this is before I was cup racing, and this would've been 80, 88.
• 42:52
  We were sitting there one night, I says, Earnhart hated a skunky beer.
• 42:56
  He loved Bud Light.
• 42:57
  He could tell he's not skunky throwing, he'd made Go get more Bud Light.
• 43:01
  But anyway, I says Earnhardt.
• 43:03
  So they were all like Inger.
• 43:04
  And I sat there next to my Earnhardt.
• 43:06
  I says, what makes you think you're so damn good?
• 43:09
  I don't know.
• 43:10
  He said, I guess I just think I'm better than everybody.
• 43:13
  He says, what I do is that before the race starts, he would always get on his car and
• 43:17
  he would sit on the windowsill of his car.
• 43:19
  Slide his butt down in there, get on the window, Silva's car.
• 43:22
  Wherever he started, he'd looked back and he'd go to himself.
• 43:27
  Ain't nobody here good enough to beat me there.
• 43:29
  I believe I can get all those guys in front of me to believe
• 43:31
  I could beat every one of them.
• 43:33
  He'd slide back in the car.
• 43:35
  Determination.
• 43:36
  Paxton could tell you, I mean, you knew you could race against, you knew
• 43:39
  how determination a lot of guys never had the focus and the determination.
• 43:44
  They always would complain about their car.
• 43:46
  Earnhart taught me one time, he said, listen, you have a three foot yard stick.
• 43:50
  You tell them to get that son of the bitch within that three foot yard stick
• 43:53
  and you handle it the rest of the way.
• 43:55
  It's a lot more complicated now, but he was right.
• 43:58
  If it's tight, you loosen it up.
• 43:59
  If it's loose, you tighten it up.
• 44:01
  You have that yard say you gotta drive that car.
• 44:03
  And I, I remember one time Bill Elliot telling me, Ray Abraham says, listen.
• 44:07
  He says, I need you to talk to Casey Kane and, and I think the world of
• 44:10
  Casey and Casey was just over driving all the time and Bill was his teammate.
• 44:14
  Bill says he's the best at telling you this story.
• 44:17
  He says, Gacy, I've done it my whole life.
• 44:19
  I always drove to the edge and beyond and I, I usually didn't come back.
• 44:24
  I says, you got to learn that you only could push that car to nine
• 44:28
  and a half 10, and that's it.
• 44:30
  If you go over, you're gonna wreck, you're wrecking a lot.
• 44:33
  And that's what I did.
• 44:33
  And I says, you, you gotta back up and tell the crew chief to fix that car.
• 44:37
  And the biggest thing that I found in racing was that's why Kirk Schine
• 44:40
  and Earnhart were so good together.
• 44:42
  And Earnhardt hated Larry McReynolds.
• 44:45
  You, you, you hated certain people because they, I knew the day was over for Chad
• 44:49
  au I was sitting with Rick Hendrick and Jimmy Johnson was out there and Chad Au
• 44:54
  was telling him how to drive that car.
• 44:55
  And I said to myself, that's the end of this man.
• 44:58
  You don't become a seven time champ by listening to your crew chief tell
• 45:01
  you how to drive that damn race car.
• 45:03
  And I knew that marriage was over.
• 45:04
  I said, that's instant divorce.
• 45:07
  It's funny because.
• 45:09
  Talking about being booed and yay.
• 45:10
  And we were at WA as Glen and we were coming across the track and
• 45:14
  man, these people were going crazy.
• 45:16
  Yay.
• 45:16
  Oh, you know, and my buddy tc, he's 87 years old with me, my Alex, my
• 45:22
  best friend, and Mike says, tc, can you believe this at TC said No.
• 45:27
  'cause he said the last time he left, hit him sons a bitches
• 45:29
  boot him so bad he couldn't stand it and now they're applauding.
• 45:33
  So Mike said what it just, how it changes.
• 45:36
  But uh, we were getting introduced to Dover and I don't know
• 45:39
  what happened the week before.
• 45:40
  I guess they must have thought I'd done something wrong, which I
• 45:43
  never thought I did anything wrong.
• 45:46
  And we were coming across it, it di intros, they are booing
• 45:51
  and yaying like, no tomorrow.
• 45:53
  I think I started the 17th and Earnhardt was 18th.
• 45:57
  No, Earnhardt come across first.
• 45:59
  Boone Yank going crazy.
• 46:01
  So he's sitting in the back of the pickup truck waiting for me and they
• 46:04
  start boo and yanking for me and I'm like, son, why are they booing?
• 46:08
  Get up in the Hollerer and Earnhardt puts his arm around me
• 46:10
  and he goes, doing good buddy.
• 46:12
  He said, because when they people are yelling, you gotta appreciate it.
• 46:17
  I hate to pick on people.
• 46:18
  But the next guy up was Brett Benign, and then the next guy
• 46:21
  up, they never made a sound.
• 46:23
  I got his point.
• 46:24
  I said, wow, that's interesting.
• 46:26
  And one thing about being booed and yay that you're doing your job.
• 46:30
  And I mean, you look back, AJ Foyt, Mario Andretti, you
• 46:33
  look back, they hate Kyle Bus.
• 46:35
  I'll never eat another Emine M in my life.
• 46:38
  And they're the first ones to buy an Eminem.
• 46:41
  I mean, what the hell is Eminem's got to do?
• 46:44
  It's the greatest candy in the world.
• 46:46
  But Kyle Bus, because he didn't like him, but I had a talk with
• 46:49
  him one time 'cause won Bristol.
• 46:51
  I was doing TV and part-time truck racing.
• 46:53
  He smashed a guitar and then he wins the race at Bristol.
• 46:56
  And he said, this is the worst piece of shit ever drill in my life.
• 46:59
  Now that was the car of the morning.
• 47:00
  He just won the race.
• 47:01
  So the following week, it was the Darlington, I believe, when we were
• 47:03
  gonna go to Texas the following week.
• 47:05
  And Mr. Hendrick and Mr.
• 47:07
  France were up in the hollerer and bust her out and comes over to the
• 47:09
  thing and he goes, Hey, some guys wanna talk to you up in the Hollerer.
• 47:12
  I says, oh shucks, what do I do now?
• 47:14
  So I go up into the Hollerer and old man France is sitting there and.
• 47:18
  He said, close the door, said, I closed the door and they said,
• 47:20
  we need you to do us a favor.
• 47:21
  We need to talk to Kyle.
• 47:22
  And I said, okay, I'll, I'll do that.
• 47:24
  And Bill explained to him that the sport doesn't need him.
• 47:27
  We want him, but if he wants to, we can kick his ass out just like anybody else.
• 47:32
  So you, you know the old story, 'cause I had that talk too, too.
• 47:36
  Certain drivers would tell you what you're doing right and wrong.
• 47:38
  We were in the truck race Thursday, I went to the hauler.
• 47:41
  I knew he was qualified, so I was sitting there waiting at the truck.
• 47:43
  Like we always just sit on the director's chairs.
• 47:46
  And one of the crew members said, you need you, you need to move.
• 47:49
  I says, no, you need to leave me alone.
• 47:51
  'cause I says, I'm in in a talkative mood, which I'm not gonna talk to you anybody.
• 47:55
  I gotta talk to Kyle.
• 47:57
  So you just need to be on your way.
• 47:58
  I said, you need to move.
• 47:59
  I says, no, you don't know what I'm telling you.
• 48:01
  Anyway, long story short, the other guy come over, he says, whoa, whoa, whoa.
• 48:04
  He says, there was an official there.
• 48:06
  He says, get the hell away from here.
• 48:07
  Anyway, so here comes Kyle.
• 48:09
  Very respectful guy.
• 48:10
  Hey Jimmy, what's up?
• 48:11
  I said, need to talk to you.
• 48:12
  So he said, lemme change.
• 48:14
  So he goes up in the hollerer to change.
• 48:15
  He comes back out, he goes, I said, Kyle, I need to talk to you.
• 48:17
  And you go between the two haulers.
• 48:19
  He goes, boy, I don't know if I should do that.
• 48:21
  I, I know what you've done to my brother.
• 48:23
  I says,
• 48:27
  Kyle, he ain't got nothing to do with your brother.
• 48:29
  He's got something to do with you and what's going on.
• 48:32
  All right.
• 48:32
  So we go up in putting holler.
• 48:33
  He's smirking and laughing and everything.
• 48:35
  He said, Kyle, this, this is no joke or matter.
• 48:38
  I said, you realize there's a lot of people in this support
• 48:40
  you respect, but there's two that I respect up more than anybody.
• 48:44
  One of them is your car owner and the other one's Mr. France.
• 48:48
  And I said, the last one either can make you stay or let you leave.
• 48:52
  That's totally up to you.
• 48:54
  I don't know.
• 48:54
  I said, Kyle, if he wants you gone, you can be gone.
• 48:57
  That's just the way NASCAR operates.
• 48:59
  Now, Mr PR knows you're a good draw, but he wants me to
• 49:02
  talk to you about something.
• 49:03
  I said, do you realize how many guys out there raced their whole life and
• 49:07
  never won a trophy and you broke a cherished trophy like you did it?
• 49:11
  The guitar knows I'm serious now.
• 49:13
  He goes, so this is Kyle.
• 49:15
  You stop and think a minute about what you did.
• 49:18
  You disgraced the sport, you disgraced the trophy.
• 49:21
  He says, I got another one for you.
• 49:23
  You just won Bristol.
• 49:24
  That's what we're still selling out.
• 49:26
  120,000 people.
• 49:28
  And you said the car's a piece of shit.
• 49:30
  Kyle, do you know how many guys never won a cup race?
• 49:33
  They want to run a cup and you're, you know, he says, you
• 49:35
  know, thanks for talking to me.
• 49:37
  I said, Kyle, I'm just telling him for your own good.
• 49:38
  Still didn't straighten him out 'cause Rick still fired him,
• 49:41
  but I think straightened him out was Samantha, his wife.
• 49:44
  And he come to me about three years later and he goes, you know what talk we had?
• 49:47
  I said, yeah.
• 49:48
  He says, you know, I thought about.
• 49:50
  And he says, you know, you were right.
• 49:51
  I just wish you would've acted quicker.
• 49:53
  And I think Joe Gibbs helped him a lot too, because I think the biggest
• 49:56
  thing, I was talking to Rick, but he still confides in Rick a lot.
• 50:00
  The biggest thing with Kyle was that Rick and Kyle still do good together.
• 50:04
  Everybody trusts Rick Hendrick, everybody trusts Joe Gibbs and that,
• 50:07
  and you keep a lot of stuff in house.
• 50:09
  I said to myself, can you imagine being a young guy winning races and your car
• 50:13
  owner says, we don't need you any longer.
• 50:16
  And he's the number one card owner in the sport.
• 50:18
  You have to see yourself driving home.
• 50:20
  What the hell just happened?
• 50:21
  And I think that helped him along.
• 50:24
  And then the joke gives, hired him and you know that it was history.
• 50:27
  Hell, the driver talented, one of the greatest guy rights.
• 50:30
  Jimmy, uh, we talk about, we'll call the primary storylines, what's up front.
• 50:34
  Everybody sees, you know, the racing, the rivalry, that type of thing.
• 50:38
  I mean, you've touched on it briefly, but talk a little bit about the secondary
• 50:42
  storyline, the politics of NASCAR and what goes on behind the scenes.
• 50:46
  My buddy Paul had worked for Carlisle Events and they brought Richard
• 50:49
  Petty in for an event and he was having a conversation with Richard.
• 50:53
  And Richard.
• 50:53
  At one point during the conversation said to him, it's not a race, it's a show.
• 50:58
  The one thing that Mr. France Senior started, he saw back in the forties,
• 51:03
  there was promoters putting races on all over the country and nobody had
• 51:07
  organized and nobody had control to where that anybody could race anywhere.
• 51:12
  That's William France.
• 51:13
  That's the old man, and he, he started nascar, him and a bunch of other guys,
• 51:18
  Daytona Beach, the whole nine yards.
• 51:20
  I was talking to Mr. Melvin Joseph one time, the guy that owned built Dover,
• 51:24
  how they were building Talladega and how they relied the people behind the
• 51:28
  scenes that helped them build racetracks.
• 51:31
  And then Bill got in charge and he learned from his dad the same thing.
• 51:36
  I mean, they went through some tough times, but they tried to police the sport.
• 51:41
  They tried to make it as competitive as it was.
• 51:44
  I, I remember when Taurus days, they had the Lumina.
• 51:48
  So the Tauruses came out and that was right after the Thunderbirds.
• 51:52
  And they had won like six or seven in a row.
• 51:55
  And Earnhardt says, bill wants to talk to us.
• 51:58
  So we went into the Hollerer.
• 52:00
  Earnhart said, tell 'em Spence.
• 52:01
  And I said, bill, when them cars getting ya, they gained about
• 52:05
  700 counts of downpours in earn.
• 52:07
  That's what I've been telling you, bill.
• 52:09
  And then I remember one time with the Luminous were way
• 52:11
  better than the Thunderbirds.
• 52:13
  France would adjust the spoilers, adjust the rules to
• 52:17
  try to make the field balanced.
• 52:18
  We you get in the conversation with 'em, he would always sit at
• 52:21
  his desk and the hollerer and he always had his back to the crowd.
• 52:25
  When that hauler was parked, the grant stands was behind him.
• 52:28
  He'd go, that's what we're doing.
• 52:30
  And that message was.
• 52:31
  We're worried about the fans.
• 52:33
  We've got to keep the fans going.
• 52:34
  And I said, bill, how do you police this thing?
• 52:36
  These guys have no clue what they're doing today compared to what we went through.
• 52:40
  We went through the five and five rule.
• 52:41
  We went through fricking rules.
• 52:43
  You talk about changes.
• 52:44
  No fan wants to hear.
• 52:46
  Well, we had a good day today.
• 52:48
  Finished eighth.
• 52:48
  Had a good point.
• 52:49
  What the hell are you talking about?
• 52:51
  Eighth is a good points today.
• 52:53
  What the hell's going on with this sport?
• 52:55
  I remember when Earnhardt and Rusty, I remember how, I mean
• 52:57
  they talk about aero push.
• 52:59
  Hell, a fan could care less about aero fricking push.
• 53:03
  They wanna see a god dang race.
• 53:05
  And that's what Bill always would put on.
• 53:07
  And the drivers were their own worst enemy.
• 53:08
  I mean, bill had to put restrictive plates on this.
• 53:11
  There was two ways to face the restrict the plate races.
• 53:14
  Buddy Bak taught me, if you see a seagull, you follow that son of a bitch.
• 53:18
  Or you could just sit there and say, you know, it's a matter of time.
• 53:21
  I listened to drivers of Daytona and Talladega say, it's just a matter
• 53:24
  of time I gonna be in a wreck.
• 53:25
  Those are the guys, Bobby Allison and Buddy Baker and Junior Johnson loved
• 53:29
  the race against, 'cause they had to beat already old Ben Earnhardt.
• 53:32
  He could see.
• 53:33
  I mean, people would laugh and he was incredible at
• 53:36
  watching the angle of the car.
• 53:37
  I mean, he was one of the best.
• 53:39
  He won all, I mean, do you realize races he's won that Daytona
• 53:42
  500 eluded him how many times.
• 53:44
  But Earn was one of the best plate racers and was taught by Buddy
• 53:47
  Baker and these people like that.
• 53:48
  Those guys were good at what they did, but these guys, they, they diluted the sport.
• 53:53
  Well, he has a better car.
• 53:54
  I remember my dad one time telling me I was racing against Richie.
• 53:58
  I looked over there and I said, son, a bitch.
• 53:59
  He had like four sets of tires up there and everything else.
• 54:02
  Dad said, what's the matter?
• 54:03
  I said, look at that bastard.
• 54:04
  He got all those tires.
• 54:05
  That's his rule.
• 54:06
  How many tires you got on your car?
• 54:08
  Four.
• 54:08
  How many tires do you have on his car?
• 54:10
  Four.
• 54:10
  What's the problem?
• 54:12
  That's old racers.
• 54:14
  It's like Paxton and I were talking Paxton.
• 54:16
  What the hell did you put them things on the side of the car for?
• 54:19
  They were nothing but heat grabbers, and then they never worked, but
• 54:22
  it was because we saw somebody else do it, so we would try it.
• 54:26
  That's where NASCAR lost their way.
• 54:28
  When Bill France died, they lost their way.
• 54:30
  They lost what they're supposed to be doing, and that's putting a show on for
• 54:33
  the people they listened to, the drivers.
• 54:35
  Denny Hammond is the biggest goddamn whiny you'll ever meet in your life.
• 54:41
  I mean, yeah.
• 54:43
  I mean, come on.
• 54:45
  Yeah.
• 54:47
  You know, in all truthfulness, you know, I mean, I'm not saying they're
• 54:50
  not a hell of a racer, but it's like I'm aggravated with football players
• 54:54
  because I played high school football.
• 54:56
  But you want another 25 million?
• 54:58
  And then you want me to buy your jersey and everything else?
• 55:01
  And then, oh, Jesus mighty.
• 55:02
  He hurt his finger.
• 55:06
  Oh, he's gonna be out.
• 55:07
  I love dick Buck.
• 55:08
  We lost him.
• 55:09
  But that son of the bitch played football for one reason to kill the quarterback.
• 55:14
  And that's what we watched it for.
• 55:16
  Okay.
• 55:17
  We watched racing because it, it was a matter of, oh boy, that guy's gone.
• 55:22
  You had a guy that won every week, there wouldn't be nobody in the grandstand.
• 55:27
  That's why you changed your state.
• 55:29
  You did anything you could in your power to try to beat
• 55:31
  that guy that was beating you.
• 55:33
  If he had a Firestone Tire on and you had a Goodyear Tire on, you would've
• 55:36
  say, Hmm, I better try Firestones.
• 55:38
  'cause there are women, it was Monkey Sea Monkey deal
• 55:40
  self-policing the Parliament sing.
• 55:42
  The problem of NASCAR was, is I was doing stuff this, and I, I said to John Darby,
• 55:46
  we were in this meeting about all this stuff and I, I said, you guys are letting
• 55:50
  them do too much stuff to these cars.
• 55:52
  I said, I know how to stop.
• 55:53
  And the engineers go, you didn't even go to school for?
• 55:55
  I said, I'm smarter than any.
• 55:56
  The engineer here they go, what the hell are you talking?
• 55:59
  I went for six years to MIT.
• 56:01
  I said, I don't give a shit where you are.
• 56:02
  And I said, I learned about a Stanley tape measure a long time ago.
• 56:06
  I says, you can't outsmart a Stanley tape measure.
• 56:10
  And they looked at me and Rusty Wallace said, God damn Spence, you're right.
• 56:17
  I begged them to put rules in that plus or minus a quarter
• 56:20
  of an inch on their suspension.
• 56:22
  They would've had not had these problems if they would've stopped
• 56:24
  these cars from bottoming out, looking like Bucks cars going down the track.
• 56:28
  They could have stopped it 10 years ago before the old man, you
• 56:31
  know, the old man died, but they didn't, 'cause they all thought they
• 56:33
  were smarter than the engineers.
• 56:35
  I'm not saying I'm a smart guy, but I'm smart enough to say, wait a minute,
• 56:38
  we're losing people in the seats.
• 56:40
  We're losing our product.
• 56:42
  We're losing the excitement of being Kenny Wallace.
• 56:45
  We're not the water cooler talk anymore.
• 56:47
  Spence, you got a great point.
• 56:48
  Old Kenny was a hundred percent right about that.
• 56:51
  When you're not talking about it on Monday morning, you're in trouble.
• 56:54
  Jimmy, you're 30 years younger.
• 56:56
  Do you drive a NASCAR today?
• 56:57
  Is it an environment where you could thrive?
• 57:00
  Oh yeah.
• 57:00
  I think that, I remember I went to Darlington and one of
• 57:03
  my heroes was Kale Yarborough.
• 57:05
  We were parked at the fourth turn, the original fourth turn at Darlington.
• 57:09
  Earnhart mastered that track, and we were standing and he
• 57:11
  had Derek Koch driving his car.
• 57:13
  And, and Kale was up there watching, and you could see him, you know,
• 57:15
  he's doing the old moves and stuff.
• 57:17
  I was standing there, Travis said, kale come here.
• 57:19
  And he says, kale, think you can still do it.
• 57:22
  He's like, could beat 90% of sons of bitches.
• 57:24
  And the other 10% would know I'm here.
• 57:28
  And the only thing about that is it's true to your mindset,
• 57:32
  but not your physical stamina.
• 57:33
  It's inevitable.
• 57:34
  You can still win race, you can still do good, but you gotta know when it's time to
• 57:38
  say, you know what, it's time to move on.
• 57:40
  And I, I enjoy watching, I still watching nascar and I, I, I, I love Kyle Larson.
• 57:45
  I think Kyle Larson's incredible.
• 57:46
  I like Tyler Reddick.
• 57:48
  Watch Jeff Gordon come up.
• 57:50
  It's fun.
• 57:50
  And there's, there's a lot of guys I, I love watching the, uh, brace
• 57:53
  in January, chili Bowl, chili Bowl.
• 57:56
  That's always a good race.
• 57:57
  I never could fit in a midget, so I couldn't.
• 58:01
  Hell, you didn't fit in my sprint car.
• 58:02
  Oh, I don't.
• 58:03
  I thought you were gonna have to get a torch out to cut.
• 58:05
  Cut me off to Paxton.
• 58:08
  I still think we have a lot of young talent.
• 58:10
  I remember I was telling Barry when I went down to North Carolina
• 58:13
  with my dad, we did really good.
• 58:15
  We won two championships and I had a lot of money.
• 58:17
  My car lot was making a lot of money.
• 58:19
  Our junk guard was doing really good.
• 58:20
  And my dad, I never called him my old man.
• 58:22
  My old man sat there and he goes, it's not too late to turn around.
• 58:25
  We'd drive another 30, 40 miles and he'd say, it's not too late to turn around.
• 58:29
  Had a U-Haul.
• 58:30
  Had a U-Haul.
• 58:30
  I was taking all my stuff to North Carolina to live 1988.
• 58:34
  I says, dad, if I fail, I can always come back.
• 58:37
  Yeah, but you won't fail.
• 58:38
  He says, I know that.
• 58:40
  That's pretty cool.
• 58:41
  Good stuff.
• 58:41
  Talking about young drivers, let's go back about 20 years.
• 58:45
  Bristol Motor Speedway and Kurt Bus.
• 58:49
  I, I'll, I'll tell you a quick story about Kurt Busch.
• 58:51
  Yeah, yeah.
• 58:52
  I'm sitting there with old man one day at the driver's meeting.
• 58:56
  At the driver's meeting.
• 58:57
  When you would come through that door and somebody whistle or whatever you
• 59:00
  respect, especially Erhardt, you'd never mess with Richard Pat, Bobby Allison.
• 59:05
  When they called you to the office, you better come.
• 59:08
  I'm sitting there right by Earnhardt, Earnhart, all he sat on the front corner.
• 59:11
  Kurt, what up bitch?
• 59:13
  Naughty.
• 59:13
  Walked that way.
• 59:14
  Kurt and now everybody sees him.
• 59:16
  Kurt, he comes over.
• 59:18
  Kurt sits down in front er.
• 59:19
  I'm sitting right there.
• 59:20
  You stick that finger up in me again.
• 59:23
  I won't break it and both off and stick them up your ass.
• 59:28
  I'm like, oh, Earnhardt hated to be flared.
• 59:33
  Don't ever do that.
• 59:34
  And I went, damn, what's that about?
• 59:35
  He goes, you know me buddy, take anything but a flare.
• 59:38
  He said, he flared me twice.
• 59:40
  He said, Jim, he's a hell of a race car driver, but he has no respect for anybody.
• 59:44
  That's the easiest way to explain it.
• 59:45
  Kurt said that I, he's funny.
• 59:46
  That's somewhere.
• 59:47
  Then it proceeded to go to Bristol.
• 59:51
  He knocked me up at Bristol, tried to not wreck me.
• 59:55
  I says, well, Bobby Allison always taught me this needs to be addressed.
• 59:59
  And I said, well, I'll address it.
• 1:00:01
  We was in Indianapolis.
• 1:00:02
  I decided that he needed to meet the third turn barrier, and he did.
• 1:00:09
  And it, it was smooth.
• 1:00:10
  It was it, oh yeah, Hilton said, Spencer, that's as good as it gets.
• 1:00:15
  And I, I said, what are you talking about?
• 1:00:19
  He says, how the hell did you do that?
• 1:00:22
  Jim Hunter said he was still living.
• 1:00:23
  He goes, Spencer, how did you do this?
• 1:00:25
  What are you guys talking about?
• 1:00:26
  Jimmy Johnson called me up after that wreck.
• 1:00:28
  He was having a problem with Kurt.
• 1:00:30
  Kurt was driving for Pesky.
• 1:00:31
  Then at the time, Jimmy called me up one day.
• 1:00:33
  He goes, SP, I want to talk to you.
• 1:00:35
  I said, okay.
• 1:00:36
  He goes, how do you spin somebody out like you did Kurt?
• 1:00:39
  And I says, well, I'll show you how to do it.
• 1:00:41
  I go to the truck next week and I, I said, you know, Jimmy,
• 1:00:43
  I've been thinking about this.
• 1:00:45
  You don't need to go down that road.
• 1:00:47
  Hey, you're a five time champion.
• 1:00:48
  I said, he's an asshole.
• 1:00:49
  I said, don't go down to his level.
• 1:00:51
  Yeah, but he's, I want to.
• 1:00:52
  I want to take his ass out.
• 1:00:54
  And I said, well, he tried to take him out at Richmond.
• 1:00:57
  And I says, Jimmy, I says, what you did at Richmond, you can't mess
• 1:01:00
  with somebody at Richmond because there's too much break on the car.
• 1:01:03
  You gotta mess with somebody at a track.
• 1:01:05
  Once they lose a little control their history, you don't
• 1:01:08
  mess with 'em on a track.
• 1:01:09
  When they got control of their car, do it at Dover.
• 1:01:11
  You gotta do it where it means something.
• 1:01:13
  When they hit the wall, it's like, man, that hurt.
• 1:01:16
  So.
• 1:01:18
  I showed him how to do it.
• 1:01:19
  I mean, you just, you gotta make it look good.
• 1:01:21
  You gotta stay up on his back bumper and the minute you know he is gonna lift, you
• 1:01:25
  don't lift, but you slam your brake on.
• 1:01:27
  I mean, that's happened in a split second.
• 1:01:29
  And that's what happened to Kurt.
• 1:01:30
  I, I said, okay, you're gonna lift right about now.
• 1:01:33
  And I just pushed him that extra five feet and I said, now something's
• 1:01:36
  going in the wall, but it didn't bother me, didn't cost me a lot of
• 1:01:39
  money because they kicked me out.
• 1:01:41
  I can tell the story because it has to be told.
• 1:01:43
  We had a talk, Jack Rauch was in there, the whole nine yards.
• 1:01:46
  Hilton says, I'm telling you two sons of bitches.
• 1:01:49
  This is over.
• 1:01:50
  If you do anything at all, the next time, when is this gonna be suspended?
• 1:01:54
  I don't want to do it, but I will.
• 1:01:56
  I says, I ain't got a problem.
• 1:01:57
  Well, in the meantime, Tony Stewart ran into it with him.
• 1:02:00
  Everybody had, he goes in the holler and Tony knocked him
• 1:02:03
  right in the end of the nose.
• 1:02:04
  Anyway, we go to Watkins Glen, okay?
• 1:02:07
  Everything's fine following.
• 1:02:08
  We go to Michigan, we're running in the top five.
• 1:02:11
  He keeps trying to knock my fenders in.
• 1:02:12
  He says he run outta gas.
• 1:02:14
  We had a pit for fuel.
• 1:02:15
  Michigan, you're coming in off the fourth turn and there's a pit
• 1:02:18
  opening to come in after the race.
• 1:02:20
  All the haulers are lined up here and I'm coming in and here comes Kurt
• 1:02:24
  rubbing his motors up and he pulls up in front of me to cut me off.
• 1:02:28
  Ah, it's okay.
• 1:02:30
  So he cuts me off.
• 1:02:31
  Mm-hmm.
• 1:02:31
  I pull in behind him, so he's pretending like his car is stalling.
• 1:02:34
  I, I almost bumped him a little bit.
• 1:02:36
  Damnit Kurt.
• 1:02:37
  What?
• 1:02:37
  And then the next thing you know, right in front of the hauler.
• 1:02:40
  In front of your hauler.
• 1:02:41
  In front of my hauler, he sees my seven crew through gas.
• 1:02:43
  Man, me, you know, waving.
• 1:02:44
  Here, here we are.
• 1:02:45
  Kurt slammed his brakes on the stops.
• 1:02:47
  Well, I bumped him going, damnit, yeah, we'll take care of, we'll take care of it.
• 1:02:51
  So Kurt's doing, he goes, Hey, you old bastard.
• 1:02:53
  I hear you.
• 1:02:53
  Right?
• 1:02:54
  So I went over there, I says, Kurt, get out of this car.
• 1:02:57
  I'm gonna put one hand behind my back that'll make it a fair fight.
• 1:03:02
  He goes, listen, you old son of, I'm like, oh me.
• 1:03:04
  So I walked close to the car and he goes, I know where your family lives.
• 1:03:10
  That is the gospel truth.
• 1:03:12
  As long as I live.
• 1:03:13
  I looked at him and I said, no, you're not.
• 1:03:16
  And all I did was just, I didn't realize hitting that hard.
• 1:03:22
  Uh, so I, I knew I was in trouble 'cause the blood squirted.
• 1:03:25
  I said, oh.
• 1:03:28
  So he goes, you broke my goddamn nose.
• 1:03:30
  Yeah, I did.
• 1:03:31
  I hope I did.
• 1:03:32
  So we go into the hauler.
• 1:03:35
  I try to sneak out.
• 1:03:36
  I knew I was in trouble.
• 1:03:37
  You and Mike Davis.
• 1:03:38
  Oh, Mike Davis.
• 1:03:38
  He was driving, right?
• 1:03:39
  I You were laying across the back seat.
• 1:03:42
  You, I says, Mike, he's waiting.
• 1:03:44
  I says, just get the hell out.
• 1:03:46
  Get us to the airplane.
• 1:03:47
  I get on my airplane.
• 1:03:48
  I said, you gotta get us to the air.
• 1:03:49
  He goes, oh no, Jimmy.
• 1:03:50
  He said, these officials are looking for something.
• 1:03:52
  I said, yeah, me.
• 1:03:55
  So the officials are going down through their garage
• 1:03:57
  area, looking at all the cars.
• 1:04:00
  I says, okay, Mike, drive over to the, so we go over to the thing, and
• 1:04:03
  Tony Stewart was the one that told me, he says, called me up Monday.
• 1:04:06
  He says, don't say a word to anybody.
• 1:04:08
  I've been in this situation before.
• 1:04:12
  He says, don't say nothing.
• 1:04:13
  If anybody says anything to say, boy, it's a beautiful day today.
• 1:04:15
  Well, let's talk about Darlington or whatever, which is right.
• 1:04:18
  That's how he handled it.
• 1:04:19
  That's how he did handle it.
• 1:04:20
  It helped me, but it didn't help.
• 1:04:21
  Kurt made him bigger dummy than he was.
• 1:04:23
  So, Helton calls me up, he says.
• 1:04:26
  What'd you do?
• 1:04:27
  I said, I, I only bitch slapped him.
• 1:04:31
  And Elton says, why?
• 1:04:32
  I explained to him Why?
• 1:04:33
  Well, Mike Davis got the tape.
• 1:04:35
  Yep.
• 1:04:35
  Mike Davis got the tape where he said he was gonna F up my family.
• 1:04:39
  He was gonna do this and that.
• 1:04:40
  Afterwards, Mike suspends me from Bristol Truck Race Thursday night
• 1:04:44
  to Bush Race Friday night, and the cup race Saturday night cost me
• 1:04:47
  about a hundred thousand bucks.
• 1:04:49
  Never forget as long as I live, car owner pulled the truck out of the race.
• 1:04:53
  The Bush car finished in the top five and the cup car finish in the top five.
• 1:04:56
  And I felt like I could win.
• 1:04:57
  I was better than the guy that was in the car.
• 1:04:59
  Yeah.
• 1:05:00
  But anyway, I sat at home and said, you know, this sport will go on without you.
• 1:05:04
  And it proved it, but he made me a hero.
• 1:05:07
  Yeah, he made me a hero because the people where Jimmy had all these kind
• 1:05:10
  of shirts, Mongo and the whole nine yards, Kurt proceeded to spin out
• 1:05:14
  Sterling Marlin to win that race.
• 1:05:16
  I'm serious.
• 1:05:17
  People hate him.
• 1:05:18
  He is trying so hard.
• 1:05:19
  He called Mike Davis up to get on Earnhardt's show and all this, and
• 1:05:22
  Earnhardt says, Kurt, nobody likes you.
• 1:05:25
  He said, don't you understand that?
• 1:05:26
  And he's trying to become a TV analyst and stuff like he's a superstar.
• 1:05:30
  Like everybody forgot what he said.
• 1:05:31
  I, I mean, I, we were at Darlington, them NASCAR officials
• 1:05:35
  are some of the best guys.
• 1:05:36
  And the girls, they're fantastic.
• 1:05:38
  They're doing their job.
• 1:05:39
  You never would touch 'em.
• 1:05:40
  Kurt told them, he, I want you guys to lick my sweaty privates,
• 1:05:44
  man, why you don't do that stuff?
• 1:05:47
  That is fighting words my friend.
• 1:05:48
  Yeah, and there were some military men and the one guy said to me, I
• 1:05:52
  says, why don't you whip his ass?
• 1:05:54
  He goes, Jimmy, but we can't because of who we are and
• 1:05:58
  what we do, so we just go on.
• 1:06:00
  But people don't forget those things.
• 1:06:02
  I mean, it was Earnhardt, it was Tony Stewart, not just me.
• 1:06:06
  Go down the list of drivers he's had a run in with and explain to me that
• 1:06:09
  he's right and they're all wrong.
• 1:06:11
  Well, when I was doing my research, I punched into Google, Kurt Bush spins, and
• 1:06:15
  before I could get to Jimmy Spencer, it dropped down this entire list of names
• 1:06:19
  and I went, wow, that's pretty extensive.
• 1:06:22
  You know what's interesting though?
• 1:06:23
  I'm doing tv.
• 1:06:24
  Jack Rauch has got thousands of employee.
• 1:06:27
  Mark Martin calls me up.
• 1:06:28
  He says, Jack wants to talk to you at Darlington.
• 1:06:30
  You know, I says, Jack really pissed me off up there at Michigan last week.
• 1:06:34
  Mark told me you got me arrested and everything else.
• 1:06:36
  I says, Jack, you gotta listen to the story.
• 1:06:38
  And I says, he blew up.
• 1:06:40
  He told me, I says, Jack, I have the most respect for you ever.
• 1:06:43
  I said, can't believe you just said that to me.
• 1:06:44
  I said, well, you can kiss my ass right now, Jack.
• 1:06:46
  I'm done with you.
• 1:06:47
  So in Michigan, I didn't know this.
• 1:06:49
  I could have been arrested, but I said, I have witnesses and all that.
• 1:06:53
  So then afterwards, Jack pursued it.
• 1:06:55
  So the state troopers called me and I said, yes, I did hit him.
• 1:06:58
  But he swung at me.
• 1:06:59
  I moved ducked.
• 1:07:00
  He did.
• 1:07:01
  How stupid are you?
• 1:07:02
  He's sitting in a race car and you're gonna swing it.
• 1:07:05
  You know?
• 1:07:05
  That's stupid.
• 1:07:06
  That's how stupid he is.
• 1:07:08
  And he swings.
• 1:07:08
  I'm like, whoa, what the hell?
• 1:07:11
  But anyway, so Jack comes to the hollerer mark's there Friday night.
• 1:07:15
  He goes, I'm tell you, I'm sorry.
• 1:07:17
  He says, Jack, I can't accept your apology.
• 1:07:19
  It really hurt me.
• 1:07:20
  I said, I have the most respect for you, Roger.
• 1:07:22
  All you guys, this is better.
• 1:07:23
  I said, I hurt.
• 1:07:24
  Well, I'm gonna tell you something.
• 1:07:25
  To make a long story short, he explained a whole nine yards to me about the
• 1:07:28
  fuel, everything he heard the tape, everything else under in the sun.
• 1:07:32
  And then it was actually gonna resurge my career.
• 1:07:35
  He would call me and I was doing tv and that's when Kirk got in
• 1:07:38
  trouble with the cop at Phoenix.
• 1:07:40
  You don't mess messes up, messes up the county in Arizona, that
• 1:07:43
  guy put, he paints his jails pink.
• 1:07:45
  That guy is nobody to fool with him.
• 1:07:46
  Well, Kurt did something wrong.
• 1:07:48
  He disrespected the law.
• 1:07:49
  That's one thing.
• 1:07:50
  Bill France say, never disrespect the military.
• 1:07:53
  Never disrespect the law.
• 1:07:54
  We can handle the hell.
• 1:07:55
  Sterling Marley gotta take it for 110 mile an hour.
• 1:07:57
  And Bill France got it taken care of like, no, tomorrow.
• 1:08:00
  If you respect the people, you're fine.
• 1:08:02
  That's the problem I had with Kurt.
• 1:08:04
  But anyway, so Jack called me up around 1130 that night.
• 1:08:07
  My cell phone rings.
• 1:08:08
  I said, Jack Roush tells me the whole nine yards.
• 1:08:10
  He said, I want him to drive Kurt's car tomorrow, Phoenix.
• 1:08:12
  I says, oh, that's pretty cool, Jack.
• 1:08:14
  I says, yeah.
• 1:08:15
  I said, I think I can do that.
• 1:08:16
  So I'm starting to realize I don't have no helmet, I don't have nothing.
• 1:08:19
  And I said, I can't fit in the seat.
• 1:08:21
  So Jimmy Finn says, well, meet me at the track tomorrow and
• 1:08:24
  we'll figure something out.
• 1:08:25
  The wood brothers didn't want to change the seat.
• 1:08:28
  I was gonna use Michael Waltrip's seat.
• 1:08:29
  So I said, you know what?
• 1:08:30
  Jack said, listen, just drive it next week at Miami, the last race of the year,
• 1:08:34
  and we'll put Kenny Wallace in it there.
• 1:08:36
  Well, Kenny ran like shit in that car.
• 1:08:38
  He convinced the rubber made people that he needed one more shot at it.
• 1:08:42
  I outran Kenny Wallace in Miami with a Don Arnold's car.
• 1:08:46
  God rest his soul.
• 1:08:46
  Good man.
• 1:08:47
  He wanted me to drive his car and I had called him up and
• 1:08:49
  told him what was happening.
• 1:08:50
  He says, that's fine buddy.
• 1:08:51
  You drive that nine seven car, you can win in that car.
• 1:08:53
  Kenny convinced him, and I said to my buddy, tc, after the race is over,
• 1:08:56
  I says, here's my gloves, helmet.
• 1:08:58
  I'm done.
• 1:08:58
  Never driving another car again.
• 1:09:00
  I never did again.
• 1:09:01
  But Kurt did two good things for me, and one of 'em was made me a hero.
• 1:09:05
  The other one was, I finally said, you know, it's time to hang it up.
• 1:09:07
  Your equipment ain't good enough.
• 1:09:08
  The hero part, for those that didn't have a chance to hear this or see it,
• 1:09:12
  you know, on television anywhere, but Mike Davis had gotten a hold of the
• 1:09:16
  in-car radio exchange where Kurt comes on and tells his crew, Hey, I just
• 1:09:21
  tried to wreck him and I messed up.
• 1:09:22
  And Mike sent that to, I believe Dave to Spain.
• 1:09:24
  He did.
• 1:09:25
  And then after that.
• 1:09:26
  Man, your popularity, you're just like Spencer for president.
• 1:09:29
  Yeah.
• 1:09:31
  I could do no wrong.
• 1:09:32
  Yeah, yeah.
• 1:09:33
  Well, you know, the thing is, I think the biggest problem, I never lied and
• 1:09:37
  to nascar, he needed an old man earner.
• 1:09:39
  He might have told the press something wrong, but when you were in that Hollywood
• 1:09:41
  Bill French, you told him what happened, and if you kept your word, but those guys,
• 1:09:45
  you never had nothing to worry about.
• 1:09:46
  And I was tired of watching these guys do stuff on the track.
• 1:09:50
  Oh, I blew a tire.
• 1:09:51
  Well, Jesus crap.
• 1:09:52
  You could see he didn't blow a tire, just watched the film.
• 1:09:55
  And I would tell Rick Minor, he says, Rick, he didn't blow no damn tire.
• 1:09:58
  I says, Teddy was our producer.
• 1:09:59
  He says, Teddy, roll that tape back.
• 1:10:00
  Look.
• 1:10:01
  He goes, damn, you're right.
• 1:10:02
  And I'd call him.
• 1:10:03
  Then the next thing you know, they're all blaming me for their misfortunes.
• 1:10:08
  But the best one was Tony Stewart calls me up.
• 1:10:11
  He goes, Spence, he says, I think I gonna own my own team.
• 1:10:13
  And I said, Tony, if you put any money into this thing, you're stupid.
• 1:10:17
  He goes, well, I ain't got that kind of money, but he says, I've
• 1:10:19
  been offered a deal from Gene Haas.
• 1:10:21
  And I says, that'd be a good deal.
• 1:10:23
  So I said, what is He told me, I mean, give him a percentage, not drive the
• 1:10:26
  car, but you don't play the team.
• 1:10:27
  I said, that's a no brainer.
• 1:10:28
  So Teddy goes, you gotta explain that, how you explain it in the meeting.
• 1:10:31
  I said, I'll explain it to the people.
• 1:10:33
  So I said, here you go.
• 1:10:34
  You got a man named Gene Haas.
• 1:10:35
  He owns two cup cars.
• 1:10:37
  They run like crap.
• 1:10:38
  Now they're Hendrick cars, Hendrick Motors.
• 1:10:40
  He's went through 20 damn different crew chiefs.
• 1:10:43
  He went through everything under the sun except the two drivers.
• 1:10:46
  So I think it's time to get rid of the drivers.
• 1:10:48
  So Jeff Green comes on cussing me and everything else.
• 1:10:51
  He wants to refire, he wants to have a recourse for me on the show.
• 1:10:56
  Confirm to the fans that he's a good driver.
• 1:10:59
  And I said, okay, no.
• 1:11:01
  I says, how many top fights have you had?
• 1:11:03
  Oh, by the way, instead of top fives, he says, how many top tens have you had?
• 1:11:06
  He couldn't answer 'cause he didn't have any.
• 1:11:08
  And I said, Jeff Green needs to be gone.
• 1:11:11
  One thing leads to another.
• 1:11:12
  He comes on the show the next week, Teddy, he goes, Jimmy, you know we're live.
• 1:11:16
  I says, I can handle it fantastically.
• 1:11:18
  Don't worry about it, Teddy.
• 1:11:19
  I'm not going to get you in trouble or anybody.
• 1:11:21
  So I'm looking in the camera and Jeff's on and he goes, you know, you said some
• 1:11:24
  stuff to me last week, Jimmy, about this race team and me and everything else.
• 1:11:29
  And I said, yeah, Jeff, I did.
• 1:11:31
  I says, okay.
• 1:11:31
  I says, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do, buddy.
• 1:11:33
  Tomorrow morning, eight o'clock Monday, you're the boss of that team.
• 1:11:37
  What are you gonna do?
• 1:11:38
  What's the first thing you're gonna do know?
• 1:11:42
  I mean, he, he, he don't know what he's gonna do.
• 1:11:44
  Well, no, because he need to fire the driver.
• 1:11:46
  Johnny Roberts catches it real quick and never again did he say anything.
• 1:11:49
  Well, Brian Vickers was another one.
• 1:11:51
  He was gonna sue me 'cause I said some stuff to him about he
• 1:11:54
  was gonna win the race and Jimmy Johnson didn't run outta gas.
• 1:11:57
  Oh, he, no, Jimmy Johnson didn't run outta gas.
• 1:11:59
  You weren't gonna win that race anyway.
• 1:12:01
  He went on gas mileage, all kinds of stuff like that.
• 1:12:03
  But you know, it's one of them deals that I tried to bring this,
• 1:12:06
  the other slide to the fans and that's what the crane towel was for.
• 1:12:10
  The crane towel was intended.
• 1:12:12
  Here you go.
• 1:12:12
  You need some help crying this towel, because that's the only
• 1:12:15
  relief you're gonna get from me.
• 1:12:16
  Did you have a favorite crying towel moment?
• 1:12:19
  'cause there were some classics.
• 1:12:21
  God, that's a tough one.
• 1:12:22
  I kind of like the, uh, Kevin Harvick, who was he mixing up with?
• 1:12:25
  And he left his helmet on and you, you had said he's gonna get in so much trouble
• 1:12:29
  with Delena, and then you made the comment that Delena would've taken her helmet off.
• 1:12:34
  And then the try and tell was just that was with Biffle.
• 1:12:36
  Okay.
• 1:12:37
  That dates back.
• 1:12:38
  Okay.
• 1:12:39
  I was driving the yellow freight car that was in Richmond?
• 1:12:42
  No, I think it was Bristol.
• 1:12:43
  I think I figured second or third and Harvick and Bhel were behind me.
• 1:12:48
  That's when he was driving for Childress and freaking Harvick.
• 1:12:53
  You remember Greg Biffle gave me a black eye?
• 1:12:55
  Do you remember that?
• 1:12:55
  Yeah.
• 1:12:56
  That was great.
• 1:12:56
  That makeup artist did a fantastic job.
• 1:12:58
  Diff comes in and slides across the table because I can
• 1:13:00
  have fun with all those guys.
• 1:13:01
  The best funny I ever had was Tony Stewarts and Harvick, and they're
• 1:13:05
  there and they're, I go, you guys look like two banny roosters.
• 1:13:08
  I says, punch one another and makes something happen.
• 1:13:10
  You know?
• 1:13:10
  I mean, God dang, you guys are standing up.
• 1:13:13
  The people wanna see something and he's just standing there like, David
• 1:13:16
  says, what the hell is a ba rooster?
• 1:13:19
  He says, I don't know.
• 1:13:20
  I said, he just looks like a ba rooster.
• 1:13:22
  The official says, why'd you get the hell outta here?
• 1:13:24
  He says, no.
• 1:13:25
  Jesus Mady.
• 1:13:26
  I said, it's so exciting.
• 1:13:27
  I said, we need to see something.
• 1:13:28
  Harvick done that to Ricky Rudd.
• 1:13:30
  Now, Ricky Rudds says You wouldn't want to fool around with Ricky.
• 1:13:32
  But Harvick done that to Ricky Rudd at Richmond.
• 1:13:34
  He was driving the 28 car.
• 1:13:36
  I remember Harvick flying across like a stunt guy, but the other
• 1:13:40
  one was, uh, Jack Sprague.
• 1:13:42
  We was at Bristol ish.
• 1:13:44
  Cost me race.
• 1:13:44
  He was a lap car in the way, you know, I mean, I have less than three laps to go.
• 1:13:48
  I gotta just bumped and moved him up the racetrack, right?
• 1:13:50
  He comes running down the pit wall and I went, come on.
• 1:13:55
  I said, 'cause he knows he can't come over here.
• 1:13:57
  Really?
• 1:13:58
  Didn't do nothing wrong.
• 1:13:58
  Well, then they called me in the holler and, and, and I said to him, I
• 1:14:02
  says, well, I wasn't gonna punch him.
• 1:14:03
  I said, because he's too small.
• 1:14:05
  I said, that wouldn't be fair.
• 1:14:06
  I says, obviously can't talk to him about it.
• 1:14:08
  Which I wouldn't, 'cause it's not fair, you know, to have a fight for no reason.
• 1:14:12
  Banny Rooster, I, I would've to say that.
• 1:14:14
  One of my favorite, I remember I was doing a TV show and oh my,
• 1:14:18
  my guy Taylor, look, he loved me.
• 1:14:20
  Ben was a good guy.
• 1:14:20
  And he goes, Spence, he said, I'm waiting to get Harvick and smoke on.
• 1:14:23
  I said, well, I'll take care of it.
• 1:14:25
  So we're poking them.
• 1:14:26
  And that was after Indianapolis when Tony won the race and Harper got
• 1:14:29
  together and they were really good friends and I was good friends with
• 1:14:32
  to, I was good friends with all of 'em.
• 1:14:33
  So Dave Burns is waiting there and he's, you know, I'm new to TV and
• 1:14:37
  I come over and the girl goes, Hey, we're gonna have him on at this time.
• 1:14:42
  I says, I says, gimme five minutes.
• 1:14:43
  Yeah, he says, I'll be back.
• 1:14:45
  So s is waiting there with the mic.
• 1:14:47
  You know, I, I got like 10 minutes and we're going off the air 'cause
• 1:14:50
  they were coming on the air at five after one or whatever it was for live.
• 1:14:54
  Okay.
• 1:14:55
  I said, oh hell.
• 1:14:56
  I says, it's 10 up.
• 1:14:57
  We got plenty of time.
• 1:14:57
  So I says, Teddy, I won live.
• 1:14:59
  I says, Teddy, I got him.
• 1:15:00
  Come here.
• 1:15:01
  Heart comes over from my right talking and I see Tony coming.
• 1:15:04
  I go Smoke.
• 1:15:04
  Get your ass over here.
• 1:15:05
  So I put 'em together and we're talking.
• 1:15:07
  I says, explain to the fans out there.
• 1:15:09
  There's no hard feelings.
• 1:15:10
  What happened?
• 1:15:11
  It was racing.
• 1:15:11
  We cut, I got the mic and them two sons of bitches pushed me
• 1:15:14
  over the guardrail on my, on tv.
• 1:15:18
  The both of, I'm sitting there and they push me over.
• 1:15:20
  The penny will always show that shot.
• 1:15:21
  So afterwards, Dave Burns comes over and he says, you ever do that again?
• 1:15:26
  I'll have your job.
• 1:15:27
  Woo.
• 1:15:28
  I said, I'm scared.
• 1:15:29
  I said, let me tell you something, birds.
• 1:15:30
  I said, when you can draw as many fans as we can on a Sunday morning, then
• 1:15:34
  you can tell me I can have my job.
• 1:15:36
  But I says, until you catch two and a half million people watching this show,
• 1:15:39
  I ain't got nothing to worry about.
• 1:15:41
  And that's what the stories I did, because I was, and, and they would trust me.
• 1:15:44
  Roger Penske would tell me stuff, Richard Childress, you
• 1:15:47
  couldn't take it to the air.
• 1:15:49
  And Teddy would be upset.
• 1:15:50
  I knew that Kurt Bush was fired and Teddy begged me three weeks
• 1:15:53
  earlier, he says, tell him, tell him.
• 1:15:55
  I says, Teddy, I cannot do that.
• 1:15:56
  I said, I cannot tell you that Kurt Bush was fired because I says
• 1:16:00
  that was nce between me and Jack.
• 1:16:02
  And he, he's like, I don't blame you.
• 1:16:03
  We knew what was going on and a lot of stuff.
• 1:16:05
  And they just wanted to vent themselves, but they wanted to trust you too.
• 1:16:08
  They had to be able to talk about their crew chiefs or whatever.
• 1:16:11
  'cause they couldn't talk to nobody else 'cause they could explain it to you.
• 1:16:14
  That was the trust factor.
• 1:16:16
  A lot of trust.
• 1:16:16
  Yeah.
• 1:16:17
  I wanna go back to your trips to Victory Lane.
• 1:16:19
  Talk about the win over Ernie Irvin at Daytona.
• 1:16:23
  Those last five laps or so.
• 1:16:24
  Man, you.
• 1:16:25
  Wow, you were setting him up, checking your options.
• 1:16:28
  Well, the cars were, were real equal and all day long.
• 1:16:31
  I kept telling Junior, I said, junior, I can't quite hold it wide open.
• 1:16:34
  27th at this point.
• 1:16:35
  Yeah.
• 1:16:35
  I was in the 27th and Ernie was in the 28 and I said, the only way you can hold it
• 1:16:39
  wide open is if you get in front of him.
• 1:16:41
  Because it's, when I'm in front, I can hold it wide open and Junior says, okay.
• 1:16:44
  He says, well, I'll take care of it.
• 1:16:45
  So the last pit stop Junior says to Mike Hill, put a little more spoiler in it.
• 1:16:50
  Just put a little more spoiler in it so that'll not lift.
• 1:16:53
  So then I knew that I, could I not lift?
• 1:16:55
  Then I was falling and I trying to figure out how to get by him, and we had mirrors.
• 1:16:59
  You could just see the guy's eyes in the mirror.
• 1:17:01
  When you watch these quarterbacks like Mahomes, it's incredible to
• 1:17:03
  watch the closeups of the quarterbacks when they got their helmet there,
• 1:17:07
  but they're looking to the right.
• 1:17:08
  It's amazing the perception.
• 1:17:10
  NASCAR's no dip.
• 1:17:11
  You're looking in the car and you can see it and you can see
• 1:17:13
  his eyes, you know, so natural.
• 1:17:15
  Sure.
• 1:17:15
  You go radio silent.
• 1:17:16
  The last few laps in the race, every driver just wants to be quiet.
• 1:17:19
  You gotta hit your marks, hit your marks.
• 1:17:21
  You don't need to tell me to hit my marks.
• 1:17:23
  I know what I gotta do.
• 1:17:24
  Shut the hell up.
• 1:17:25
  And that's the biggest thing.
• 1:17:26
  They just kept watching them.
• 1:17:28
  I said, the only way I can get 'em but I gotta is somehow get along.
• 1:17:31
  So because you block and the blocks today, they don't respect the blocks.
• 1:17:36
  That's what causes the wrecks at Daytona and Talladega.
• 1:17:38
  I mean, they go to block, they just smash into one another.
• 1:17:41
  Cause big wrecks, we didn't do it.
• 1:17:42
  We had a little bit of class.
• 1:17:44
  If you blocked, you said, okay, if I get alongside of them, so
• 1:17:46
  you can't really block me anymore.
• 1:17:48
  Then you gotta respect the guy.
• 1:17:50
  And then sometimes you eat the goose.
• 1:17:52
  Sometimes the goose eats you.
• 1:17:53
  No, that's not how that goes.
• 1:17:55
  That'll work for today.
• 1:17:57
  Sometimes.
• 1:17:58
  How the hell does that work?
• 1:17:59
  Sometimes.
• 1:18:00
  Sometimes it'll get you the bug.
• 1:18:01
  The bug anyway, unfortunately for the bug.
• 1:18:04
  But anyway, so then once I said, you know what, if I could get the
• 1:18:07
  timing right and I could get him in the corner where he can't be looking
• 1:18:11
  in your mirror, he'll lose me.
• 1:18:13
  Yeah.
• 1:18:13
  Bam.
• 1:18:14
  I go down and instead of going to the bottom of the racetrack
• 1:18:17
  with him, I shot that baby up to the top, holding it wide open.
• 1:18:20
  And I knew he was looking.
• 1:18:21
  I could see him look and he's like, oh shit.
• 1:18:24
  So he had to get to the top.
• 1:18:25
  Once he got back, then they had that little bit of room to get alongside
• 1:18:28
  of him, and then the two cars came.
• 1:18:30
  It was awesome.
• 1:18:31
  I mean, you know, but Ernie was a, a good friend.
• 1:18:33
  Ernie was a hell of a driver.
• 1:18:35
  He got hurt really bad twice.
• 1:18:37
  That's what took him out.
• 1:18:38
  Yeah.
• 1:18:38
  You know, his head injuries.
• 1:18:39
  That moved there.
• 1:18:40
  You came down off of two.
• 1:18:42
  Yep.
• 1:18:42
  And got under and they had a huge run.
• 1:18:43
  But then you get beside him getting into three and four and you guys
• 1:18:46
  are door to door off of four.
• 1:18:47
  How in the world did you hold it down there?
• 1:18:49
  Well, when you finally got, well, you know, give Nie a lot
• 1:18:52
  of credit, both could wrecked.
• 1:18:53
  I talked to David Pearson.
• 1:18:55
  God rest his soul.
• 1:18:55
  Loved him to death.
• 1:18:57
  But he wrecked Petty in 1976.
• 1:18:59
  So I became good friends with them guys.
• 1:19:01
  Ernie could have done the same thing and turned me, who would've won?
• 1:19:04
  Who knows?
• 1:19:05
  But Ernie was racing for the championship.
• 1:19:07
  Ernie got hurt that year.
• 1:19:09
  Ernie had heard of Michigan that year and Ernie was leading points,
• 1:19:12
  so I didn't know that at the time, but you gotta think about it.
• 1:19:14
  And Miami Reynolds says, don't forget the big picture.
• 1:19:16
  Don't forget the big picture.
• 1:19:18
  I remember Pearson and Petty.
• 1:19:20
  I thought David Pearson was one of the greatest drivers, if not the greatest
• 1:19:24
  driver of all time, because I remember Junior Johnson telling me the stories.
• 1:19:28
  David Pearson was a silver fox.
• 1:19:30
  I was driving to Talladega with Buddy Baker and we're going through
• 1:19:33
  Atlanta my first year, and I says, baker, he says, who's probably one of
• 1:19:37
  the best drivers you drove against?
• 1:19:39
  He says, I'll tell you what buddy.
• 1:19:40
  He says, I'm gonna tell you the best driver.
• 1:19:42
  Well, I think ever lived your dad?
• 1:19:44
  He says, no, no, no.
• 1:19:45
  He, I That for Bud Moore, we were in Atlanta.
• 1:19:47
  I led majority of the race.
• 1:19:49
  We come in the second pit, stop, come back out.
• 1:19:52
  I'm almost ready to lap.
• 1:19:53
  Pearson never could lap him.
• 1:19:55
  Third pit stop, almost ready to lap.
• 1:19:57
  Pearson never could lap him.
• 1:19:59
  Last pit stop, come out first.
• 1:20:01
  Who's second Pearson?
• 1:20:03
  He goes, got the cigarette in his hand.
• 1:20:07
  He's waving to Buddy
• 1:20:11
  B. Said he had a mind game like no tomorrow.
• 1:20:13
  And he said he proceeded to beat me.
• 1:20:15
  Pearson was special, but Pearson knew that the Hemis, they had an
• 1:20:19
  advantage over the fours at the time.
• 1:20:21
  When Pearson passed Petty, he says, damn, I screwed up because he says that son of a
• 1:20:27
  bitch ain't gonna pass me to the last lap.
• 1:20:30
  The drivers know that was like 12 laps to go.
• 1:20:32
  Think back to this race, think back to Pearson telling you this story.
• 1:20:36
  The Pearson saying, I'm in trouble.
• 1:20:38
  So you're plan it all along, plan it all along.
• 1:20:40
  And he said, I realized that he wasn't as good as I thought he was,
• 1:20:44
  but I knew what he was gonna do.
• 1:20:46
  He was gonna take a shot at getting underneath me.
• 1:20:48
  So when he got underneath me, he says, I knew that he had a lift.
• 1:20:52
  And he says, I kept giving him room, kept giving him room.
• 1:20:56
  And he says that son of a bitch wasn't lifting Jimmy.
• 1:20:58
  And he says, gonna wreck me.
• 1:21:00
  And he says, no you're not.
• 1:21:02
  He turned into it and he took Petty out.
• 1:21:05
  Petty got pushed across the line and Pearson won to 500.
• 1:21:08
  That to me is priceless.
• 1:21:09
  To hear David tell the story, he said, I knew I messed up so many times you
• 1:21:13
  could hear, and I just screwed up.
• 1:21:15
  And you remember those things.
• 1:21:16
  I remember Richard Petty saying, never forgot the ones that I should have won.
• 1:21:20
  Those are the ones that bother you.
• 1:21:21
  They were great guys.
• 1:21:22
  Bobby, oh man, I these, these guys.
• 1:21:25
  Incredible.
• 1:21:26
  And that was half a car length wind there for me with Ernie.
• 1:21:29
  Oh, it was close.
• 1:21:30
  If that you see it today where there's a couple only, the cars
• 1:21:33
  are so competitive, so equal.
• 1:21:35
  It was a few inches.
• 1:21:36
  I didn't know one.
• 1:21:37
  I mean he didn't either.
• 1:21:38
  He congratulated me afterwards.
• 1:21:40
  But yeah, we bumped a couple times.
• 1:21:41
  But you try to side draft.
• 1:21:43
  And what he was trying to do is he kept pushing against me,
• 1:21:45
  trying to slow me down and I would keep turn off, try to break off.
• 1:21:49
  'cause I knew it was gonna come down to just close.
• 1:21:52
  Wow.
• 1:21:52
  If you're gonna win your first one, that's the way to do it.
• 1:21:54
  It was awesome.
• 1:21:55
  I should've won a lot more, but we were rocking him.
• 1:21:58
  Peter Guy was building the motors.
• 1:22:00
  Robert Yates came, he's dead and gone, but he come, he would always look at the
• 1:22:03
  cars and he looked at the motor and he, he said to Donny, he says, Donny, he says.
• 1:22:07
  Them gator belts.
• 1:22:09
  The Goodyear belts are gonna turn in the race.
• 1:22:12
  He's, I'm gonna send you down instead.
• 1:22:13
  The deco belts, I've had them turn on the dyno.
• 1:22:15
  They would run those motors for 500 miles on an endurance test on the dyno.
• 1:22:19
  Robert Yates would 500 miles on the dyno to know it, that it would break.
• 1:22:23
  I was a rocking when I was leading the damn race.
• 1:22:26
  Erna ended up winning it.
• 1:22:27
  He ended up passing brick mast, the god dang thing, ran hot, turned
• 1:22:31
  the fan belt, cooked the motor, and another time I, I was loving to death.
• 1:22:35
  He's no longer with his, Harold Elliot was Rusty Wallace's Indian builder,
• 1:22:38
  and Harold Elliot worked for us and he built the motor at Bristol.
• 1:22:41
  He said to me, he says, no idea why Travis has a spirit
• 1:22:44
  throttle linkage in that toolbox.
• 1:22:47
  And he, he tried to get Travis to put on a quarter inch highman, but it was
• 1:22:51
  actually a bike, a half inch aluminum, I guess you would call it Hexagon, T six.
• 1:22:56
  Okay.
• 1:22:56
  On the throttle linkage.
• 1:22:57
  I was practicing Saturday afternoon before the race, and Harry can't come over.
• 1:23:01
  And I told Travis, I says, Travis, I just don't like the
• 1:23:04
  way it's coming off of Ford.
• 1:23:05
  And Harry come over and he says, listen, that car's good
• 1:23:07
  enough to win this race, Jimmy.
• 1:23:08
  I said, I told Harry what I'm doing, Harry.
• 1:23:10
  He says, Travis, do what you used to do to me.
• 1:23:12
  Travis went to that truck, got a Carrera shock.
• 1:23:15
  Everybody's got a bill seat, and he puts a, he says, go try that.
• 1:23:18
  He tried it.
• 1:23:19
  I says, wow, that thing fixed.
• 1:23:20
  It ran five lap.
• 1:23:21
  I pulled in.
• 1:23:21
  I says, Travis, I don't know what the hell you done.
• 1:23:23
  I said, I fixed it.
• 1:23:24
  Let 200 and I don't know how many laps getting ready to lap.
• 1:23:27
  Quickie fifth place.
• 1:23:29
  He says, you need to slow down.
• 1:23:30
  I says, Travis, I did.
• 1:23:31
  And he goes, okay, well if you did to keep doing what you're doing,
• 1:23:34
  I was running two tenths quicker, a lap than anybody on the track.
• 1:23:37
  The car was incredible.
• 1:23:38
  Same car I won with the, with junior.
• 1:23:40
  It was a banjo front steer, rear steer, front clip with a front steer.
• 1:23:44
  It was incredible, incredible car.
• 1:23:46
  It would go through the corners.
• 1:23:47
  And I was explaining to Barry Klein, I said, the car would never, the Campbell
• 1:23:50
  wouldn't change in the cast area, you know, there caster gain or nothing.
• 1:23:52
  So whatever you had, it was gonna stay.
• 1:23:55
  And once you adjust to the car, the fuel, no matter what, it would stay the same.
• 1:23:58
  It was incredible.
• 1:23:58
  Made a pit stop and come back out on the pitch leading the race.
• 1:24:02
  And I says, Travis, I says, the gas PO just went to the floor.
• 1:24:04
  Travis Carter's never won the curse.
• 1:24:07
  And he says, don't you F with me, Jimmy.
• 1:24:08
  I says, Travis, I'm telling you that's what's wrong with it.
• 1:24:11
  The throttle linkage broke.
• 1:24:12
  That was the biggest heartbreak I had it.
• 1:24:13
  I wanted to win Bristol.
• 1:24:15
  So I won a couple times in the Bush car.
• 1:24:16
  I never won the.
• 1:24:17
  Kurt Costy, the one that put the 41 7 car, Tommy Baldwin Ram me outta
• 1:24:21
  gas, which just racing Dick's car.
• 1:24:25
  Oh, did we have a car that night?
• 1:24:26
  In fact, Robert Gates bought the car from Dick Roso the following week.
• 1:24:30
  Highman broke today, the NASCAR engine builders, they don't break the technology.
• 1:24:35
  The sport has progressed so long, even in sprint cars, dirt late, anything.
• 1:24:39
  They don't break.
• 1:24:40
  The guys have gotten so smart.
• 1:24:41
  We don't have no bearing failures anymore.
• 1:24:44
  We don't have hardly any piston failures, valve nothing.
• 1:24:46
  I mean, when they adjust the valves down, they don't adjust 'em.
• 1:24:49
  They put shims underneath the push rod and the, the rocker arm.
• 1:24:53
  I said there's no nuts and bolts to break.
• 1:24:55
  I lost so many modified races when I was telling Barry would,
• 1:24:58
  Hutter, you used to loosen the the poly lock and you tighten it down.
• 1:25:02
  If you tighten it down too much, it'll crack.
• 1:25:04
  I remember I was at Richmond, man, that car was fast.
• 1:25:08
  I practiced.
• 1:25:09
  You always would be there early.
• 1:25:10
  And I said to the kid, I said, what do you, I said to Tommy,
• 1:25:12
  I said, what is he doing?
• 1:25:13
  Trip said that he had one of the, no, the push rod wasn't lined up to
• 1:25:17
  the rocker arm and it slipped out.
• 1:25:18
  I said, the motor's gonna blow up and bent the valve.
• 1:25:21
  They said, you're not a motor builder.
• 1:25:22
  I said, I'm telling you right now that I know what I'm talking about.
• 1:25:25
  That push rod cocked that rocker arm and it bent the valve well for seven hours.
• 1:25:31
  They kept convincing me there was nothing gonna happen.
• 1:25:33
  Well guess who was leading a goddamn race but a hundred something
• 1:25:36
  laps to go and the motor blow up.
• 1:25:39
  Me and then they wanted to talk to me.
• 1:25:42
  I says, you just gonna all kiss my fat ass?
• 1:25:44
  And I walked out and I mean, you just, you don't forget I was gonna win.
• 1:25:48
  I had just won the third race in a row at freaking Richmond in the Bush series.
• 1:25:52
  I loved it.
• 1:25:53
  They said, well, how'd you know it was gonna happen, motor builder?
• 1:25:54
  I said, I damn.
• 1:25:55
  I know what happened About 10 years ago, we were at a Oswego, New York, and my
• 1:25:59
  brother Edward, was adjusting the valves.
• 1:26:01
  And I watched him, this thing slipped, and Bobby Jacobi said, eh, that wasn't good.
• 1:26:05
  So Hunter comes and Hunter changes it.
• 1:26:07
  I says, and Hunter said it might've bent the valve.
• 1:26:09
  I said, let's change the motor.
• 1:26:10
  I said, we got another one in there.
• 1:26:11
  No, he said it'll be okay.
• 1:26:13
  Guess who was leading that race?
• 1:26:15
  And the motor blew up?
• 1:26:16
  Well, it broke the rocker arm with about 10 laps to go.
• 1:26:19
  Me and I ended up finishing second because of it.
• 1:26:21
  You don't forget the ones you lose just the way it is.
• 1:26:25
  Let me go one more question and then, uh, we'll wrap things up.
• 1:26:27
  We'll have, um, a couple questions from the crowd before we let you
• 1:26:30
  go here, but, you know, we talk a little bit about the technical end
• 1:26:33
  of NASCAR and big league racing.
• 1:26:35
  How much cheating goes on.
• 1:26:37
  I, I heard Dale Jr. Say on one occasion, he said, I don't think
• 1:26:40
  I've ever driven a legal car.
• 1:26:41
  Oh, I he exaggerates for publicity.
• 1:26:44
  All right, fair enough.
• 1:26:45
  I'm serious.
• 1:26:46
  I do not believe that there's a lot of cheating going on in nascar.
• 1:26:49
  I believe there was years ago, I think in the last 20 years, there isn't.
• 1:26:55
  I remember when Junior Johnson would go to Wilkesboro, he always
• 1:26:58
  wondered why Terry Le Barney, whoever drove junior's car, Wilkesboro
• 1:27:01
  one, I saw the wheels of his shop.
• 1:27:03
  So what they did.
• 1:27:04
  Is they melted lead on the inside of the wheel around the interior of the wheel.
• 1:27:10
  Okay?
• 1:27:10
  Then they would mount two tires.
• 1:27:12
  Well, the first couple times they let 'em get away of both tire
• 1:27:15
  changes, but then they come down and say, ah, something's fishy.
• 1:27:18
  They went out.
• 1:27:18
  So then they got down to one.
• 1:27:19
  It was 130 pounds of lead in that fricking wheel, and Shorty Edwards, they pushed
• 1:27:25
  the car through tech, get it weighed.
• 1:27:27
  They would say, ah shit, we got a leak in that tire.
• 1:27:30
  Well, nascar, well you can change the tire.
• 1:27:32
  And they were nascar, never smart enough to check it.
• 1:27:35
  And they would roll that tire back and take two men and a truck to
• 1:27:38
  lift that damn thing up and they proceeded to go on and win the race.
• 1:27:41
  Well, hell, they're 120 pounds later.
• 1:27:43
  This is the cheating.
• 1:27:44
  That was funny.
• 1:27:44
  They had a guy named Bud Green weighed about 130 pounds, a 1 35
• 1:27:49
  pounds short hell of a farmer.
• 1:27:50
  He was junior's main hog man.
• 1:27:52
  He would take care of the cattle and everything else.
• 1:27:54
  Now Bud was a pretty short guy and Fri Tim Brewer would slide that son
• 1:27:59
  of a bitch in the trunk of the car.
• 1:28:03
  They would lift the trunk up and they'd roll his ass in the damn trunk of the car.
• 1:28:07
  He would rule out of the car and they'd hurry up, put a hanky on his thing.
• 1:28:11
  Somebody said that You need to watch that.
• 1:28:12
  So Dick Beaty, God dressed his soul.
• 1:28:14
  He was, they was at Wilkesboro or somewhere.
• 1:28:17
  They're rolling the car around the back and Dick's over there by the
• 1:28:20
  ambulance and he's standing there and he's watching and he goes, he more five.
• 1:28:25
  And they'd go by the ambulance and he goes, what did.
• 1:28:28
  Six.
• 1:28:29
  Okay.
• 1:28:31
  He comes over, stop.
• 1:28:32
  He goes.
• 1:28:33
  Now boys, there was five yous.
• 1:28:35
  When you come around that ambulance, now there's six.
• 1:28:38
  And Brewer, Dick, you need a goddamn pair of glasses.
• 1:28:43
  Dick says.
• 1:28:44
  You might be goddamn right, but right now you're gonna goddamn pull
• 1:28:47
  that car in and we weigh it and we weighed it was 135 pounds light
• 1:28:53
  and goes to brew.
• 1:28:53
  You ever do that to me again?
• 1:28:55
  You're gone.
• 1:28:57
  That was the stuff, you know, they used to put wax when they p and g demo
• 1:29:01
  motors, they don't do that stuff anymore.
• 1:29:03
  They used to cheat on the bodies a lot.
• 1:29:06
  You know, cheaters get caught one way or the other.
• 1:29:08
  I won't deny it.
• 1:29:09
  We were at Daytona and uh, I was driving my own car and David McKay, he was a
• 1:29:14
  pretty smart guy and he raised bull semen and he would freeze it in liquid nitrogen.
• 1:29:20
  So we were sitting there one day and he goes, got me an idea.
• 1:29:24
  He says, I believe I could freeze two of those shocks to hold that car up an inch.
• 1:29:29
  And when it haws out.
• 1:29:30
  It'll drop an inch.
• 1:29:32
  I says, uh, Richard, if you could do that, I kicked their ass.
• 1:29:36
  He said, okay, well we'll try it.
• 1:29:37
  So they played with it for about two weeks in that garage.
• 1:29:39
  They finally figured it out.
• 1:29:41
  So NASCAR caught it.
• 1:29:42
  Okay?
• 1:29:43
  We knew that the car had to be 38 inches or whatever the height of the quarter
• 1:29:47
  panel was, 34 and a half, whatever it was on the right rear quarter panel.
• 1:29:51
  And then he had one inch difference, and the right rear was high.
• 1:29:54
  We would never want to be high because it's disadvantage.
• 1:29:58
  So they're rolling that car through tech, and Billy Kerrwood said the CR that comes
• 1:30:01
  over and he goes, Billy, your car's like a eight three sixteen's high, Billy.
• 1:30:04
  He says, oh, Jesus Christ.
• 1:30:05
  He says, you know, Jimmy, if I touch a jack bolt on this
• 1:30:08
  car, he'll fucking fire me.
• 1:30:09
  So Fisher says, well, I think you should lower it.
• 1:30:11
  He says, no.
• 1:30:12
  He says, he told me, do not touch that car.
• 1:30:14
  He says, well, I'm just telling you, you got a disadvantage.
• 1:30:17
  I didn't know what happened.
• 1:30:18
  You know, we're going through driver intros and I come walking
• 1:30:20
  over and they're sitting there and I keep staring at the car.
• 1:30:23
  I'm like, okay.
• 1:30:24
  What do you think?
• 1:30:25
  Uh, David says, I might have left him in a little too long.
• 1:30:28
  Him,
• 1:30:30
  he said.
• 1:30:32
  Okay, what can I expect?
• 1:30:34
  He says, oh boy.
• 1:30:35
  He says, well, they won't break, but he says, oh, you're gonna have
• 1:30:37
  a hell of a a chop to it, you know?
• 1:30:39
  Alright.
• 1:30:40
  So I decided that I could wreck it's bouncing and I went, oh boy.
• 1:30:45
  So I said, but go to the rear of the field.
• 1:30:47
  So I went to the last place.
• 1:30:48
  I kept trying, I said, boy, I hope the heat heated up and luck would have it.
• 1:30:52
  They had us go one more pay lap and we got it and they said, oh, they're fine now.
• 1:30:56
  And, but I went to the lead and I was gonna win that race.
• 1:30:59
  And my t and l motor blowed up.
• 1:31:01
  So there you go.
• 1:31:02
  And that car was so fast.
• 1:31:04
  And then we went to Daytona.
• 1:31:05
  I said illegal as could be.
• 1:31:07
  I was a hundred percent legal.
• 1:31:08
  'cause my mom always said, if you cheat it, you get caught somehow.
• 1:31:11
  And that was the truth.
• 1:31:12
  That is a good example.
• 1:31:13
  When we cheated that car, it didn't win.
• 1:31:16
  But anyway, so we went through tech, everything.
• 1:31:17
  The car is so fast.
• 1:31:19
  I spent a lot of money newly put the body on the whole nine yards.
• 1:31:22
  We're leading the race at Daytona.
• 1:31:24
  I come on the radio and they said there's a caution with
• 1:31:27
  like 55 laps to go or whatever.
• 1:31:29
  And I said to the crew, I said, they said, what do you wanna do?
• 1:31:32
  And I said, well, I don't want to pit if we don't have to.
• 1:31:34
  I said, okay, if we pick, can we make it to the end of the race?
• 1:31:36
  And they said, no you can't.
• 1:31:37
  I said, we gotta pin again, no matter what they said.
• 1:31:39
  Yeah.
• 1:31:40
  I said We don't need tires.
• 1:31:41
  I says, why get back like Bobby Allison taught me.
• 1:31:43
  Why get back in the rattlesnake pit?
• 1:31:45
  So I stayed out front leading the race.
• 1:31:47
  Well I led the race all the way up to 90, 91 laps.
• 1:31:51
  It was 120 lap race.
• 1:31:52
  Well they had to start pitting around lap 1 0 5 to one 10.
• 1:31:55
  I waited as long as I could, I could down pit road.
• 1:31:58
  I know I was running 10 mile an hour slower than I was supposed to.
• 1:32:02
  I had that thing.
• 1:32:03
  I was only caught on pit road and I'm coming down pit road
• 1:32:06
  in first gear at 4,700 RPMs and it was supposed to be 5,700.
• 1:32:10
  I'm watching the thing.
• 1:32:10
  I pulled in.
• 1:32:11
  No tires fuel only 'cause you never wear tires out at Daytona.
• 1:32:16
  Come back out on the pit road, come back out a track and they
• 1:32:19
  said, post the car speeding.
• 1:32:22
  So I wasn't, Gary Nelson was up in the booth and he goes,
• 1:32:25
  Les, he wasn't speeding.
• 1:32:28
  David Hoots said he wasn't speeding.
• 1:32:29
  Les, the girl that I knew said they both said the same thing,
• 1:32:33
  but Les said you were speeding.
• 1:32:34
  And he says, I said, post the car.
• 1:32:37
  This is what was wrong with nascar.
• 1:32:39
  To a certain point that was his vendetta to get me.
• 1:32:42
  If he post the car, I have to come down Pit Road.
• 1:32:44
  I come right out behind Dale Jarret and Grissom and Bechtel
• 1:32:48
  Corporation owned Grissom's car.
• 1:32:49
  And one of Jared's people come down and say, Hey, if you protect
• 1:32:52
  us, we'll get you a set of tires.
• 1:32:54
  Well, buddy Parrot come down and Buddy says, gimme them radios said,
• 1:32:59
  buddy Parrot puts the radios on.
• 1:33:00
  He goes, Jimmy?
• 1:33:01
  I said, yeah, who's this?
• 1:33:02
  He says, this is bp.
• 1:33:04
  What do you want, buddy?
• 1:33:05
  He said, make sure you, uh, push us to victory.
• 1:33:07
  You're gonna take care of me, don't you worry about it.
• 1:33:10
  So I, I knew then I was in good shape, so it was a lot more than a set of tires.
• 1:33:15
  So I says, tell Steve to get behind me.
• 1:33:18
  We'll pass Jared with five laps to go.
• 1:33:21
  So now here comes no.
• 1:33:22
  And all Les Richter on the radio, they could scan every one of us.
• 1:33:26
  Mr. Spencer, I don't believe you need to be in that field of cars, the three cars.
• 1:33:31
  And I went, I, I, I can't hear you.
• 1:33:33
  You got bad communication.
• 1:33:36
  He goes, I don't believe you need to be in that field of cars.
• 1:33:39
  And the race was winding down.
• 1:33:40
  And I, I said to Grissom, let's go.
• 1:33:43
  And I said, on the radio, I take the lead, Grissom's second, Jared's third.
• 1:33:47
  'cause Jared we're going down the straightaway.
• 1:33:49
  Jared's going.
• 1:33:51
  He knew.
• 1:33:52
  So we come in, I says, now listen to the spotter.
• 1:33:54
  I says, you tell Steve we're going down the back straighter.
• 1:33:57
  I'm gonna go to the high site.
• 1:33:58
  Go on win Ray.
• 1:33:59
  So he did.
• 1:34:00
  I went in the next day, the Daytona 500.
• 1:34:02
  I was bitching to bill about it.
• 1:34:04
  And Bill says, well, we can get to the bottom of it.
• 1:34:06
  So we go in there, Les comes in and he says, yeah, I posted your ass.
• 1:34:10
  He's, I told you I was gonna get you for what you said.
• 1:34:13
  At Bristol.
• 1:34:14
  And I'm like, what are you talking about day?
• 1:34:15
  You know the whole, he's, I told you we hold the black flag
• 1:34:19
  cost me the Daytona goodies 300.
• 1:34:21
  Never forgot.
• 1:34:21
  And they wonder why I couldn't stand that son of a bay.
• 1:34:23
  And I told him I, I could never whip his ass.
• 1:34:25
  'cause he was a professional football player.
• 1:34:27
  You got your ass stomped.
• 1:34:28
  Yeah.
• 1:34:29
  But they knew how to get back at you.
• 1:34:30
  They, they would say there's foam rubber coming out of a car, debris on the track.
• 1:34:35
  Denny Hammond always complains about that.
• 1:34:37
  You know so many stories you hear about, put it out.
• 1:34:39
  I remember Bill France would say, put it out because.
• 1:34:43
  You'd rather err on the side of caution than not, you know?
• 1:34:46
  Now they don't even put a caution flag out.
• 1:34:49
  And to me, I think that's a mistake.
• 1:34:50
  Well, great insights.
• 1:34:52
  We certainly appreciate that.
• 1:34:53
  Jimmy, thank you for everything.
• 1:34:54
  We have a little bit of time here.
• 1:34:55
  Let's, uh, see anyone has any questions for Jimmy?
• 1:34:58
  Talk about, what the hell would you bring that up for?
• 1:35:05
  Well, I'll explain it to you.
• 1:35:07
  I had the 70th year of Snap-on Tools on my truck.
• 1:35:10
  That was the 10th anniversary of the Craftsman Truck Series.
• 1:35:13
  Who would you want to win the race anyway?
• 1:35:16
  NASCAR has a line.
• 1:35:18
  That you go back to that line when the caution comes out,
• 1:35:22
  not the line that's there.
• 1:35:23
  The last line at the caution light plus they have a timer
• 1:35:26
  and they have a timer stamp.
• 1:35:29
  When that caution comes out, that timer stamps that caution.
• 1:35:31
  You can't lie when that caution come out.
• 1:35:34
  I went by the start finish line under white flag, and then down the
• 1:35:38
  straightaway the caution came out.
• 1:35:39
  So I had already locked myself in.
• 1:35:42
  They went to the fourth turn camera to get the angle.
• 1:35:46
  This way of Bobby Hamilton passing me, congratulating me that I won the
• 1:35:49
  race and they said he won the race.
• 1:35:51
  So I pulled in the victory lane because they said you won the race, which I
• 1:35:54
  did win the race, and somebody made a decision that I didn't win the race.
• 1:35:59
  I don't think it would've been too bright for craftsmen to have
• 1:36:01
  a snap on truck, win the race.
• 1:36:03
  Plus he had a good excuse.
• 1:36:05
  You know, I sat in there and I says, first time I ever was backed outta Victory Lane.
• 1:36:09
  And Hilton said to me, thanks for doing that afterwards.
• 1:36:12
  And I said, well, I'm getting paid by TV and stuff, and I know that if, if
• 1:36:16
  I would've done that, it could have fired me for what I was gonna say.
• 1:36:18
  But I said, you know what?
• 1:36:20
  You guys have effed me my whole life and you wonder why I've got
• 1:36:23
  a chip on my shoulder for it.
• 1:36:24
  That's the reason I said, Mike, show me the timestamp.
• 1:36:28
  They still, to this day won't show you the timestamp of the caution
• 1:36:33
  and the position rest my case.
• 1:36:35
  But hey, what you, Hey, you know what, Bobby Hamilton, God rest his soul.
• 1:36:38
  He is in hand the good Lord, so he won the race.
• 1:36:41
  Another question for Jimmy.
• 1:36:43
  Yes, sir.
• 1:36:43
  Jimmy admit you crashed.
• 1:36:44
  Wound up, down.
• 1:36:45
  Oh, Wally, Dolly.
• 1:36:46
  What did Wally's Wally Dolly, what did the window that say to you?
• 1:36:50
  He wouldn't put it down.
• 1:36:51
  He was driving for Bud Moore.
• 1:36:52
  I was running the third spot, and that dumb ass wrecked me.
• 1:36:56
  And he was five laps down.
• 1:36:57
  I was just mad.
• 1:36:59
  You know, it's funny, that Peterson guy that grabbed me on the back.
• 1:37:01
  Yeah.
• 1:37:02
  I threw him off, you know, and I was going to drop him.
• 1:37:04
  And I realized, you know, he was watching Daytona 500 and died in his lounge chair.
• 1:37:10
  He was a good guy.
• 1:37:11
  All the officials.
• 1:37:11
  I had the utmost respect for him.
• 1:37:13
  You never would fight.
• 1:37:14
  Put an official, but Wally, you know, he knew I was pretty mad.
• 1:37:17
  I, I remember when Michael Waltrip done that to, uh, leg speed.
• 1:37:21
  Yeah.
• 1:37:21
  You know, you're gonna hurt yourself, but you're like, you just, Paxton, how
• 1:37:24
  many times have you lost a race lot?
• 1:37:27
  That's what I'm getting at you.
• 1:37:28
  No, no, but that's what I'm getting at you.
• 1:37:30
  And you, you're, so how did that get away?
• 1:37:32
  And you're just so tense up.
• 1:37:34
  Yeah.
• 1:37:35
  You gave what you're like, what?
• 1:37:36
  Dang.
• 1:37:37
  You know, and you're just so.
• 1:37:38
  And you're aggravated for not having a good finish.
• 1:37:41
  I mean, that's, that's the thing.
• 1:37:42
  I mean, wow.
• 1:37:43
  I, I, Bristol, I remember Prestol one time I was driving for Dick Morso.
• 1:37:49
  There was 12 laps to go.
• 1:37:50
  Morgan Shepherd wrecked me.
• 1:37:52
  He didn't intentionally do it, it was just that he was out.
• 1:37:55
  And I'm like, cop dang, Morgan, what the, just slow the hell down.
• 1:37:58
  He wrecked me.
• 1:37:59
  I went to the car, give him peace of my mind and he was in there.
• 1:38:03
  Oh, think guy broke my shoulder and all, you know, looking for mercy.
• 1:38:06
  I said, you listen, you old son, you're gonna pay for this deer.
• 1:38:09
  You just cost me Bristol with seven or eight laps to go in the race.
• 1:38:12
  The next day.
• 1:38:13
  The both wood brothers, the woodies, I call 'em, they come over.
• 1:38:16
  I was driving Rosa's Cup car.
• 1:38:17
  They come over and they said, Mr. Excitement, will you
• 1:38:21
  do, will you do us a favor?
• 1:38:22
  I said, boys, I'm not messing with your car.
• 1:38:25
  I got too much respect for you guys.
• 1:38:27
  You got my word.
• 1:38:28
  But if he messes with me tonight, I'll park his possess in the fifth bleacher
• 1:38:33
  and they say he will not do that.
• 1:38:35
  He's more concerned about what you're gonna do tonight.
• 1:38:37
  He says, no, I'm not.
• 1:38:37
  And I outran him anyway.
• 1:38:38
  But you just had respect for one another for the folks in the back, on
• 1:38:42
  or off the track, if there's one event you could change, what would that be?
• 1:38:45
  Hell,
• 1:38:49
  uh, probably not having the jack break at Pocono when I was driving.
• 1:38:55
  Bobby Allison.
• 1:38:56
  We were gonna win that race, and the jack broke on the last
• 1:39:00
  pit stop, and that haunted me.
• 1:39:02
  The olis were fantastic.
• 1:39:03
  I love Pocono.
• 1:39:05
  We were talking about Ru Well, I was there.
• 1:39:07
  I was at Pocono, and Mark Donahue was one of my heroes.
• 1:39:10
  Won his first IndyCar race there.
• 1:39:12
  Mario.
• 1:39:13
  I used to, I wanted to drive Indy cars.
• 1:39:15
  Pocono was a special place.
• 1:39:17
  I went to Poconos and I'm, I'm saying, all right, I think I can get into pits.
• 1:39:21
  So as they were pushing the IndyCar in, I just put a rag in my back
• 1:39:24
  pocket and I pushed the car in with them and I'm over there and
• 1:39:30
  God dang, I wanted to meet AJ Fo.
• 1:39:32
  And he hit the block.
• 1:39:33
  Number 14.
• 1:39:34
  He always was in the front pit row.
• 1:39:36
  And I said, well, I'll just go in there and check it out.
• 1:39:37
  I'm over there and I'm looking at the car.
• 1:39:40
  He comes over and he bumps me.
• 1:39:42
  I go, oh, what's up buddy?
• 1:39:44
  Holy shit, aj.
• 1:39:45
  He says, what are you doing there, buddy?
• 1:39:47
  I says, man, I says.
• 1:39:48
  These cars intrigue me.
• 1:39:50
  I, I love Indy cars.
• 1:39:51
  I'm racing a little bit of dirt cars, but I love to run Indy cars.
• 1:39:55
  He goes, really?
• 1:39:56
  And I said, yeah.
• 1:39:57
  He said, they're pretty cool.
• 1:39:58
  And I got the meeting.
• 1:39:59
  He said, well keep it up.
• 1:40:00
  You know, you're going the right route.
• 1:40:01
  And I, me and Tyson talked about that, about going dirt route, then going
• 1:40:05
  asphalt because I first started dirt.
• 1:40:07
  And you look at Tony Stewart, you look at Jeff Gordon, you look at these
• 1:40:11
  guys that came from dirt to asphalt.
• 1:40:13
  They had better car control.
• 1:40:15
  And that, that means a lot.
• 1:40:16
  But Pocono is pretty special.
• 1:40:18
  I, uh, I never had a lot.
• 1:40:19
  I won token in the modified, but he never had the luck I
• 1:40:22
  needed in the cup car there.
• 1:40:23
  You would pretty cool for you didn't want it.
• 1:40:25
  Jimmy, you said you love Indy cars.
• 1:40:26
  Did you and Chip Asse have a badge?
• 1:40:28
  Yeah.
• 1:40:29
  Chip at me a hundred bucks.
• 1:40:30
  I couldn't fit in the Indy car.
• 1:40:33
  And he won.
• 1:40:34
  No, I fit in it.
• 1:40:35
  I tested it.
• 1:40:37
  Kenny Brack was driving it and we went there for a target shoot and the guy's
• 1:40:40
  still, his crew chief for Scott Dixon now.
• 1:40:42
  And Chip goes, did this fat as in that car.
• 1:40:46
  And the guy goes, yeah.
• 1:40:47
  He says, okay, now I have to let him on the track.
• 1:40:50
  Uh, court said that I could go on the track and Kenny Brack told me what I had
• 1:40:54
  to do and I said, I don't wanna wreck the car because they're very easy to wreck.
• 1:40:58
  You've actually felt the down force about 70, 80 mile an hour.
• 1:41:01
  And he told me where to go.
• 1:41:03
  So I got in the car, they made all the adjustments.
• 1:41:06
  Bill Fran sent me a picture.
• 1:41:08
  Oh man, it was funny.
• 1:41:08
  I had a lot of publicity at that one, but I actually drove the Indy
• 1:41:11
  car at Seabring in Florida and I got it up to where I was three and a
• 1:41:17
  half seconds slower than they were.
• 1:41:20
  Tony Glover comes over and he goes, Spence.
• 1:41:22
  What adjustments do we need to make?
• 1:41:24
  And I knew he was having fun.
• 1:41:25
  And I says, take this helmet, put it in there, and put another helmet on somebody
• 1:41:31
  that knows what the hell they're doing.
• 1:41:33
  Because I, I, I knew that it, it's not the car, it's the driver.
• 1:41:36
  But I says, Tony, how much time do I have to make up?
• 1:41:39
  He goes, I think 3.9 seconds.
• 1:41:42
  I says, 39 hundreds of a second.
• 1:41:43
  I can make that up.
• 1:41:45
  He says, no, 3.9 seconds.
• 1:41:48
  I said, I don't think I can make that up.
• 1:41:50
  Jimmy Johnson found that out.
• 1:41:52
  There's a lot to those Indy cars.
• 1:41:54
  There's a lot to a sprint car.
• 1:41:55
  I mean, every, oh, you just get in there and you turn it and you
• 1:41:58
  hold the son of a bitch wide open.
• 1:42:00
  No, I drove a spare car one time.
• 1:42:01
  There's a lot to him.
• 1:42:03
  They're more than people realize.
• 1:42:04
  You just don't sit 'em in there and hold 'em wide open and go around the racetrack.
• 1:42:07
  You better know what you're doing.
• 1:42:09
  Now we're gonna have Spencer back and the next time we're gonna take
• 1:42:17
  you got time for two more questions.
• 1:42:19
  If given the opportunity, would you accept an offer to run the SRX tour?
• 1:42:23
  I had an offer, no, I don't want to do it.
• 1:42:25
  Last time I drove a car was in Canada, finished third, and if
• 1:42:29
  I would listen to the damn crew chief, I probably would've won.
• 1:42:32
  Hardheaded me.
• 1:42:33
  You're not supposed to listen to the crew chief, you said?
• 1:42:35
  No, I didn't say that.
• 1:42:36
  I said, when the crew chief tells you how to drive the car, would
• 1:42:39
  you tell the crew chief what to do?
• 1:42:42
  That's time for you to quit.
• 1:42:43
  Alright.
• 1:42:44
  No, I, I wouldn't drive the SRX because I think that.
• 1:42:47
  I'd have to lose 40 pounds maybe, and I just don't want my
• 1:42:52
  grandchildren to have those memories.
• 1:42:55
  I think there's a lot better things to do than race.
• 1:42:58
  If you wanna race local and enjoy it, that's fine, but if
• 1:43:02
  you wanna go cup racing, you're gonna have to mortgage your house.
• 1:43:07
  Your mom and dad's house.
• 1:43:09
  Your grandfather and your grandmother's house and then you're gonna have to
• 1:43:13
  tell 'em you'll do anything you can for the next 10 years to pay for it.
• 1:43:16
  Because what has happened to the NASCAR sport?
• 1:43:18
  I got in on talent.
• 1:43:20
  Dale Earner got in on talent and Rusty Wallace and you go down a
• 1:43:23
  list of drivers, you got the phone call because you could do it today.
• 1:43:27
  It's not how good you are, it's how damn much money can you bring me?
• 1:43:31
  And that sucks because there's so many talented drivers out there
• 1:43:35
  that don't not ever get a shot.
• 1:43:36
  There's some people out there driving that they cannot ever be as good as
• 1:43:41
  some of the guys that are out there.
• 1:43:43
  They're not gonna get the brakes, unfortunately.
• 1:43:46
  Alright, final question, Joe.
• 1:43:47
  For the same race I kicked his ass.
• 1:43:52
  First year race in the port world, I was leading the race.
• 1:43:55
  I, I didn't win.
• 1:43:56
  I was going for my first ever win.
• 1:43:58
  I think he needed five feet and I left four feet, eight inches.
• 1:44:03
  And he, he moved you over?
• 1:44:06
  He moved me over.
• 1:44:07
  And I said, son of a bitch, dad.
• 1:44:11
  And he ended up beating me.
• 1:44:12
  I got second, this is like my fifth or sixth race of the year now.
• 1:44:15
  I had a good car 'cause my own man could set the cars up and
• 1:44:18
  it was a Barry Klein dance car.
• 1:44:19
  I proceeded to ignore him.
• 1:44:21
  I wouldn't talk to him for about three or four weeks.
• 1:44:25
  Mom said this gotta stop.
• 1:44:27
  We were eating supper one night.
• 1:44:28
  She said, this has gotta stop.
• 1:44:30
  I said, your son of a bitch, dad.
• 1:44:31
  Why did you do that to me?
• 1:44:33
  And he goes.
• 1:44:34
  I didn't do nothing anybody else wouldn't do.
• 1:44:36
  He goes, how much room did you leave me?
• 1:44:38
  And I said, you're right.
• 1:44:39
  I left you too much room.
• 1:44:41
  He said, you just drove in a little too far.
• 1:44:43
  You got the car tailing in the middle of one and two.
• 1:44:47
  And he got up underneath me.
• 1:44:48
  I did race against him.
• 1:44:49
  I did win my first race against him.
• 1:44:51
  That Jimmy Nave deal.
• 1:44:52
  I knew it was time to move on.
• 1:44:54
  I didn't wanna race against my dad and I didn't want, he didn't want me.
• 1:44:58
  To do what he did for 25 or 30 years.
• 1:45:01
  But I remember one time he wanted to run a modified, Tim Richard was one
• 1:45:05
  of the best drivers you can imagine.
• 1:45:07
  The promoter at Shangrila, the promoter says to me, he says, I
• 1:45:11
  know you bring two cars to track.
• 1:45:12
  I wanna run a car for Tim.
• 1:45:13
  Richard.
• 1:45:14
  So I said Okay, made a deal with him and Tim Richmond comes in, both cars
• 1:45:18
  are sitting there and my brother Eddie, Tim goes, what's that car?
• 1:45:21
  And he says, well, the last time he was out with that car,
• 1:45:24
  I think he wanted Thompson.
• 1:45:25
  And he goes, what about that car?
• 1:45:27
  He says He won with this car last week.
• 1:45:29
  He goes, that's the one I want.
• 1:45:30
  Okay.
• 1:45:31
  I gave that car to Tim and talking about a driver knowing more than the crew chief.
• 1:45:35
  So we go out and we're racing.
• 1:45:37
  Tim kept telling him, he says, you need to free that car up.
• 1:45:39
  And Ed says, Tim, you don't need no more stagger.
• 1:45:42
  He goes, gimme a quarter inch more stagger.
• 1:45:44
  And he says, Jimmy will kick your ass.
• 1:45:46
  He'll give you a quarter inch more stagger he so I can hang onto it.
• 1:45:49
  So it was a 50 lap race, Tim got out in front of me.
• 1:45:52
  We had good cars, Tim.
• 1:45:54
  He got ahead of me on the one restart and he takes the lead.
• 1:45:57
  I says, it could be hard to beat him.
• 1:45:58
  And all at once, I'm watching a Goodyear Tire on the asphalt.
• 1:46:02
  They would, they would wafer the inside edge, the outside edges.
• 1:46:06
  He had too much stagger and I had open face.
• 1:46:08
  Somehow I could see it.
• 1:46:09
  And I saw I got him now, and sure enough, I bumped him a little
• 1:46:12
  bit, my own car, and I ended up passing him and, and beating him.
• 1:46:15
  So the following week my dad says, you can't do that to me.
• 1:46:19
  So.
• 1:46:20
  I said, dad, you could drive that car.
• 1:46:22
  So dad drives it.
• 1:46:25
  He starts in the back.
• 1:46:26
  We're out there racing.
• 1:46:27
  It was a, it was a hundred lapper, I think, and my dad was up in age, man.
• 1:46:31
  He pulls in the pits.
• 1:46:33
  Ed says, dad, what the hell did you pull in for?
• 1:46:35
  He said, I got a bad vibration.
• 1:46:37
  There's a bad vibration in it.
• 1:46:38
  After the race was over, I ended up, I ended up winning race.
• 1:46:42
  I said, dad, what happened?
• 1:46:43
  He says, I wasn't gonna let you lap me.
• 1:46:44
  You think I'm stupid?
• 1:46:49
  Oh my God.
• 1:46:51
  Oh, oh.
• 1:46:53
  They all liked my dad.
• 1:46:54
  My dad was a character.
• 1:46:56
  He was a good man.
• 1:46:57
  Classic.
• 1:46:58
  My dad drove sprint cars.
• 1:47:00
  They weren't sprint cars.
• 1:47:01
  Lynn, what the hell would they call?
• 1:47:02
  They were super modern, super mods and you know.
• 1:47:05
  But anyway, so my dad was back in the sixties, I was, I would've been 19 61, 62.
• 1:47:11
  I think my sister was born in 61.
• 1:47:13
  My dad was driving for what?
• 1:47:14
  You weres.
• 1:47:15
  Who was the guy that drove your cars?
• 1:47:17
  Emrick.
• 1:47:17
  Mr. Emrick had a lot of money and he wanted his cars to look nice.
• 1:47:20
  Yeah, well, dad drove for two brothers up near Pitton, Pennsylvania that
• 1:47:25
  had coops that they were winning.
• 1:47:27
  All my dad won lots of races for him.
• 1:47:30
  They had two full-time mechanics, Paxton, two full-time mechanics
• 1:47:33
  working on my dad's car.
• 1:47:34
  So they said, ed, we we want to go to Indy.
• 1:47:36
  And Dad says, yeah, I'll go to Indy.
• 1:47:38
  They go to Indy and he takes all the tests that he's supposed to and
• 1:47:41
  everything, and I guess it was about 61 or 62 that killed a bunch of guys.
• 1:47:46
  Which is normal.
• 1:47:47
  Dad sat there and the next day he was supposed to go on the track.
• 1:47:50
  The Chevy dealer said, ed, what are you thinking?
• 1:47:52
  He goes, man, guys.
• 1:47:53
  He said, I think I can do it.
• 1:47:55
  In fact, I know I can do it, but I got Fran at home with seven kids and
• 1:47:59
  I got a big business and if something happens to me, who's gonna run it?
• 1:48:02
  That right there stopped my dad from going to IndyCar racing
• 1:48:06
  because of what happened.
• 1:48:08
  He was always so supportive of me and my NASCAR Cup series because
• 1:48:13
  I know my dad could have made it.
• 1:48:14
  A lot of these guys are, I know these guys could have run Richie Evans.
• 1:48:18
  I guarantee you a Paxton.
• 1:48:19
  We saw Dave bla.
• 1:48:20
  There's so many guys that could have ran the Cup series, but the problem
• 1:48:25
  was they weren't making no more money than you guys were making in the days.
• 1:48:29
  They weren't making as much.
• 1:48:30
  They weren't making as much.
• 1:48:31
  Paxton, you're a hundred percent right.
• 1:48:33
  You could make more money.
• 1:48:34
  I remember Richie Evans telling me that he made more money than they were.
• 1:48:37
  Won in the Cup races.
• 1:48:39
  The only thing that made the Cup Series more popular was if you look
• 1:48:42
  back at the sixties, the cup race, you were lucky to get $400 to start
• 1:48:48
  a race and he only won 10 or 15,000.
• 1:48:51
  And I remember winning some modified races in the eighties that paid 15,
• 1:48:55
  18,000 to 100 lap, 200 lap races, and now they're not even paying three or 4,000.
• 1:49:01
  But to me it was a big disparity and I think there were so many
• 1:49:04
  good racers in the sixties and seventies that didn't race.
• 1:49:08
  And then you had to go up against Richard Petty who was backed by Chrysler.
• 1:49:11
  Plymouth Dodge.
• 1:49:12
  I mean that that's what made Holman Moody what they were.
• 1:49:15
  Holman Moony could beat the Petty, especially with Pearson.
• 1:49:18
  I remember Junior Johnson telling me that if Bobby Allison would've
• 1:49:21
  stayed with me in 1972, Richard Petty would not have seven championships.
• 1:49:26
  But Bobby Allison, I love him to death.
• 1:49:28
  He wanted half.
• 1:49:29
  The Dean of sponsorship money from Coca-Cola Junior told me
• 1:49:33
  that story of his own mouth.
• 1:49:34
  And Bobby didn't do it.
• 1:49:35
  But you look at who won all his kale, won a championship.
• 1:49:38
  Darryl Walham, bill Elliott, you didn't go down.
• 1:49:40
  The people that won championships for Junior, he was pretty special.
• 1:49:44
  But those guys, bud Moore, they had cliques.
• 1:49:47
  The wood brothers.
• 1:49:48
  But they all knew they needed money to race.
• 1:49:51
  That's how they survived.
• 1:49:52
  And it was all sponsorship money really.
• 1:49:54
  It wasn't the winnings.
• 1:49:56
  So how does the driver come up with, with their number in your family?
• 1:49:59
  You had the 24 for years, you and your dad.
• 1:50:01
  You know, my dad would come up with 24.
• 1:50:04
  I wanted 24, and they wouldn't take it.
• 1:50:05
  Then they gave it to Jeff Gordon.
• 1:50:07
  My dad used to own a gas station, and at the time gas was mostly
• 1:50:12
  16, 17, 18 cents a gallon.
• 1:50:14
  He never was over 20 cents.
• 1:50:16
  And it was never under 15 cents.
• 1:50:18
  And that's why we used the two and four.
• 1:50:19
  That's the truth.
• 1:50:20
  And there's a lady, somebody has a picture from Langhorn and there's a white 24.
• 1:50:26
  Those are gas station numbers on my attached car.
• 1:50:30
  24. Yes.
• 1:50:33
  That's gas station numbers.
• 1:50:34
  And that's how we got 24.
• 1:50:36
  And you look through my whole career, I was 24.
• 1:50:38
  24 junior.
• 1:50:39
  That's beautiful.
• 1:50:40
  That's how you added Amazing, perfect sense.
• 1:50:42
  How did you get one?
• 1:50:43
  Paxton?
• 1:50:44
  You used to paint.
• 1:50:49
  You asked why know It's Paxton.
• 1:50:52
  Yeah.
• 1:50:53
  Why?
• 1:50:53
  Why one and one a?
• 1:50:54
  Well, one A was for Alan Allen.
• 1:50:56
  Yeah.
• 1:50:56
  Allen.
• 1:50:57
  And then one was for Paxton.
• 1:50:58
  Well, we started with one and three, so that's how it first started.
• 1:51:01
  We had a number one and Alan didn't like that.
• 1:51:04
  Then we got one A and three 'cause Oman to drive the hippie.
• 1:51:07
  Wow.
• 1:51:09
  That's how most of the guys took the numbers.
• 1:51:11
  The owners.
• 1:51:11
  Junior Johnson.
• 1:51:13
  11 was the number baby.
• 1:51:15
  That was it.
• 1:51:16
  And Earnhardt.
• 1:51:17
  Always told me that he wanted the three because childs got the three.
• 1:51:21
  But he said that two when he won his first races and all that in three
• 1:51:24
  was always better than number two.
• 1:51:25
  'cause it was always one better and And Earnhardt had that slanted three.
• 1:51:31
  I mean it was just, you know, that was a hell of a marriage.
• 1:51:33
  Him and childs good people.
• 1:51:35
  Well that's a great way to end the day.
• 1:51:37
  Well, we appreciate everybody coming out today, Jimmy.
• 1:51:40
  It has been an incredible day.
• 1:51:41
  Thank you so much.
• 1:51:43
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• 1:51:52
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• 1:51:56
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• 1:52:06
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