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Get To Know Legendary Racer "Mad Dog" Mark Miner | Kenny Conversations · Kenny Wallace Media

0:00
Hello everyone and welcome back to Kenny.
0:02
Conversation brought to you by Jags, the leader in high
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0:21
Who is that man we're looking at?
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That is a legend and you just ask Mark Richards or anybody in
0:29
the dirt super late model world, that is Mark Minor.
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He is better known as Mad Dog. Mark, how you doing?
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I'm doing great, Kenny. How about you this morning?
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Man, I'm doing really good and I'm smiling because I know just
0:44
enough about you to get me in trouble.
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And let let's start like this. Your dad, Bob Minor, raced my
0:54
dad at Lake Hill Speedway in Valley Park, MO, and that's when
1:00
I first remember the minors. What do you remember about those
1:04
days your dad racing? Well, I remember my dad had this
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giant Plymouth Rd. runner and what I remember him the most was
1:14
chasing your dad, Russ Wallace, because man, your dad had a fast
1:18
car and my dad was a hard driver and it was just a lot of fun.
1:23
Yeah, did. Did.
1:25
I think I'm wrong? But I'm going to take it.
1:27
What was your dad's sponsor? Was it LK Wood?
1:30
LK Wood Yeah, that is correct. That was Dad's uncle.
1:38
Yeah. Oh, I'll be darned.
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I never knew that. Yeah, it was a family, family
1:43
association. And that was a realtor, right?
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Elk LK Wood Realtor. So they sold homes.
1:48
Yep, up in South Saint Louis there right there.
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Gravois and Gravois and Weber, yes.
1:55
Source We're we're doing what we call a local tour.
1:59
We've had Kevin Gundaker on. Now you were going to have some
2:03
others on. It's kind of funny, Mark,
2:06
because Schrader and you and myself and Tom Hannock and the
2:13
Jumpers, of course you, that's another story.
2:14
But we're down South. We're down here.
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Kevin Gundaker, Bobby Rigo, Mike Hammerly, Rick Canoyer, they're
2:24
all up there N they're in Saint Charles.
2:27
You sure? So you're part of the Southern
2:29
gang. We're down here.
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You are great friends with Kenny Schrader.
2:35
Tell me about marrying into One of my best friends in life is
2:41
Donnie Jumper. Donnie builds race cars,
2:43
impressive race cars. You married into the Jumper
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family, right? Yeah, that's correct.
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You know, I used to go over there and help Ernie, help David
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help Donnie in their shop when I was 1516 years old.
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And we just had a blast. And you know, Teresa, come by me
2:59
one day and I thought, I think, I think there could be a match
3:03
there and maybe that'll, that'll get me an Ernie's race car.
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Oh, I love that. So you So you got a little
3:08
Schrader in you. You're looking for a ride.
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Yeah, Hey, I tried to follow in that song again's footsteps.
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You know, a good mentor. How about that?
3:16
Yeah. OK, so we've established you're
3:19
part of a racing family. Your your your dad, Bob Miner,
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you're part of the, the, our southern group here.
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We're we're on the South side of the arch.
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We're down here towards Memphis, TN and yeah, and our other, our
3:32
other comrades are north of the arch, the gun Dacres and all
3:36
those. But I think where I want to
3:38
start is what I remember you worked when I first witnessed
3:45
your great skills, fabricating skills.
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At the time, the best chassis builder in America was Glenn
3:54
Bope, and you worked at Bope Chassis.
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Tell me about that time on the jig and welding all those cars
4:00
together. Well, that was a great
4:02
experience for me. But what got me going there was
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Dad had a car from Glenn back in the day and that was when your
4:10
brother Rusty worked there up in Ballwin, MO.
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And May And I seen Rusty and his buddy Jeff Thousands welding up
4:18
race cars up there. And I thought, man, this is what
4:21
I want to do. And if I know how to do this, I
4:24
know I can get a ride. I know I can race for the rest
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of my life. So, so in your mind, in your
4:29
I'm, I'm learning something right now in your mind, you
4:32
always wanted to be a race car driver.
4:34
That's correct. Yeah.
4:36
So when you were working with Rusty Wallace and you were
4:40
friends with Kenny Schrader, did you ever dream in a million
4:44
years that those two would go on to be two of the greatest race
4:47
car drivers in America? Well, I don't know how you
4:52
myself, I couldn't picture that, but I know them two guys were
4:55
really good. You know, you know how Kenneth
5:00
Ken trader, he can drive anything rusty.
5:03
He he was so to the point with what he needed to do, wanted to
5:08
do and he would get it done. Yeah, I, I think you're kind of
5:11
like that. You're a hard worker at my time.
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I've been around you. You're you're a focused person.
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You're very successful at everything you do.
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So when you were at Boat Chassis and you mentioned Midnight, we,
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we called him Midnight, which was Jeff Thousand.
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His nickname was His nickname was Midnight, because when it
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was midnight he was washing his hands and going on.
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Right on. Yeah.
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Hey, that's just racing world, right?
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Yeah, because everybody had to work the next day at their real
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jobs. They could oh, oh, midnight and
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Jeff Thousand, everybody at at Penske racing right now.
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Hello. Yeah, Jeff Thousand was it is
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great and was great back in the day.
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Yes, that, Jeff. Was.
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He could Weld, couldn't he? Oh my gosh, he was a great
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fabricator. You know, I just watched him and
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Rusty and thought, you know, I can do this.
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But you know, I was 5 or 6 years younger than them two guys.
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What do you remember about, and this is the reminder now I want
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to tell everybody that Mark Richards with Rocket chassis, he
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mentioned you. Well, we're going to get to how
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great you are. We're we're going to get down
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South in a minute because your story is most fascinating to me.
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It's unbelievable actually. And when we get done with it,
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everybody will understand. So here you are.
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You want to be a race car driver.
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What skills did you have to learn at BOPE?
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I mean, did you bend the tubing? Did you?
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Well, what all did you do? Well, I, I would get the metal,
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the tubing now, the metal rack, cut it, mark it, bend it and
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Weld it. So, you know, I got the whole
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gambit of how to build the car, the chancy on the jig.
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And then Glenn started teaching me about how to put bodies on,
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how the body effects the air, the handling of the car and a
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lot of the geometry in the front end and the rear end of the car.
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He was Glenn was just a great, another great mentor of mine on
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the chassis side. What I remember about Glenn was
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those big fabricating hands and he was so perfect, right?
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Everything he. Sure was.
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His stuff was meticulous, right? He he was, you know, and I think
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that's why he had Rusty working for him at that time by and, and
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not taking anything away from Ken Strader, because you know,
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Ken, he's a fabulous fabricator. Also, him and I used to ride to
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work together out there. Yeah, I'll be darned.
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So your dad's a race car driver. You're in this racing community.
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I'm learning now. I never knew that you wanted to
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be a race car driver. Now at at boats, you're building
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asphalt cars. Now, were these were these
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basically a how car? What were those?
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Yeah, they were. They were how race enterprise
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cars. Glenwood just put a little of of
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his genius in them and had cars for some really fast guys.
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You know, Rusty drove a couple of them who Dick Anderson, Jody
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Ridley. I mean we had some top notch
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Freddy Fryer with some top notch guys in them and that was a
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blast to get to know them guys. Dick Trickle, your hero.
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And what a what a guy to talk to he was.
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Let Let's settle a debate, everybody.
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Everybody down South called Glenn Bop.
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Bop. Is it Is it BOP or is it BOP?
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Depends on what sideline you were on.
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The Macon, Macon County line, you know, on the other side, on
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the other side of the Waffle House.
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That's right. Oh my God, that that's good
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stuff. So all right, let let's keep
8:45
celebrating your career. So how do you get out of the
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asphalt world? And now I, I kind of at this
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time I'm, I'm becoming a race car driver and I lose track of
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you. You, you end up moving to
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Georgia. What area of Georgia?
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Douglasville, GA, which is about 25 miles West of Atlanta.
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Fill in the gap for all of us between both and you going to
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Georgia, What, what was going on there?
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Well, I felt like I had a little business opportunity down at a
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chance to shop there to become a partners with precision Race
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Cars in Douglasville. Jerry Mitten was the owner and
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he liked my skills and I thought, you know what, I don't
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know if I have an opportunity here in Saint Louis, which I may
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have may not, but I had an opportunity to drive a car as
9:35
soon as I got to Atlanta. So you know, that was as a as
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wanting to be a race car driver. You go anywhere you could go to
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get to drive, wouldn't you? Can.
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Oh God, yeah. I mean, yeah, that's a fact.
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But we're celebrating you. So when you left Saint Louis,
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did you did you have a conversation with that owner?
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Like I'll come work for you, but you're going to let me drive
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race cars or how? He could one thing he he lured
10:02
me into it by getting me a ride. And believe me, I couldn't drive
10:06
a nail in snow, man. I hadn't raced but two or three
10:09
times and was lucky a couple times.
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And then, you know, Jerry told people down there, hey, I'm
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bringing a secret weapon in. The only secret about me was
10:18
that I was a weapon when I got on the race.
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Well, we'll just keep following this line of how you got so
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good. Were you now?
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Did you run asphalt or did you go right to dirt?
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I went right to dirt. I'll be dark.
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The first one of the first places I run was Dixie Speedway,
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which which I had been down there.
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Glenn Bolt built a car for Dickie Murphy OK that used on
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Volusia County Speedway. I'll.
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Be doing. Well, the first time I went down
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South was with Dickie Murphy with his car.
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I can't really remember what who the driver was, but him and
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Bobby Kay went there with him and I thought Dixie Speedway was
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the neatest place there ever was.
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You. Know famous, Very famous.
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Yeah, different, different shaped racetrack, different kind
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of dirt. And I thought to myself, you
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know, someday I'm going to race here.
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And I guess that's kind of what got all that started.
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Yeah, so now we're going to get to the point where you won so
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much and became so good. This is me saying this.
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And Kenny Schrader doesn't like me bragging on him.
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But you got to give me a minute. What, what I remember, what I do
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know about you is during my NASCAR career, I came up for air
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one day to breathe and see, see what was else.
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I did it. And, and they said Mad Dog.
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I'm like, who the Hell's Mad Dog?
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Mark Minor I'm like, really? So you started winning
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everything and and you got this nickname Mad Dog.
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Let's go with that first. I'm sure you beat the hell out
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of somebody, but how did you get Mad Dog as the nickname?
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Well, it was. There's a couple steps of that,
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but the simple, the simple answer to that was back in the
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day, you know, like Jimmy Spencer, there was a during that
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day, there was a lot of NASCAR guys that had nicknames.
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Well, the guy I drove for, he had a couple guys that work for
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us down in the shop that they were kids, 1617 years old that
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they would roll with these nicknames and they would listen
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to Barney Hall and all them guys on the radio back then doing
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that. And they just come up with it
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one day said and there's Mad Dog Binder coming out of turn 4 from
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the checkered flag. You know how it how it started.
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So it was. It didn't have anything to do
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with getting into any fights, any tough driving, any of that.
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You know, you, you're so good to me.
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You're so nice to me. You're you're pleasant.
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But I but I do know that I something tells me to never
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cross you. Is that because I remember your
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dad was a tough ass? It should I should I never cross
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you? Are you a little bit like your
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dad? Oh, you know what?
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This is what I tell people. Kenny here.
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See this here? Yep.
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There's two people in here. Don't believe me?
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Come out. OK.
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I think I I think I know that and I think that's why I stay on
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your good side and how wrong I was.
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I thought you got Mad Dog just because I kind of remember your
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father being a tough ass and and you well, OK, let now you're
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down South. Now we know how you got the
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nickname Mad Dog, and I'm sure those kids, you know filled in
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the appropriate nickname Mad Dog because they knew a little bit
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about you. At times, yes.
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Right. OK.
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Now we're making gains here. I can't tell the whole story at
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once, you know? OK, so how do you OK, you tell
13:54
me that you never drove a race car.
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How do you go from never driving a race car to winning all the
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all these races? What?
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What do you remember about? When was your first win?
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What do you remember? Well, this is pretty amazing.
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My first win was over at Granite City Speedway.
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Oh, my 1981 on the 5/8 mile. Right.
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OK. And one of our local heroes,
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Mike Null, I was, I was following Mike.
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Milzinski. Yeah, and I had a pretty good
14:22
car and come up on Mike and like I said, I didn't know anything
14:27
about driving. You get to him and well, I may
14:29
have spun Mike through the grass coming off of Turn 4.
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Mad Dog. Well, there was no Mad Dog at
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that time. You just bulldozed your way
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through. OK, That's what I thought.
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So after the race, I get out and you remember how big, or you
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know how big Mike is. I'm thinking this guy's going to
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kill me. I don't know even why I did
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that. And he stand there and he waves
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me over with that finger. And he said, Mark, you know, you
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didn't have to do that. You were way faster than I was.
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And at that time I thought, well, thank God Mike's a nice
15:00
guy, you know? It amazes me that, you know, you
15:04
come out of Saint Louis, you're an asphalt guy.
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You get down there, you go dirt, asphalt, dirt, asphalt.
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Kind of. You kind of remind me of Larry
15:11
Phillips, where you're building your own cars and you're just
15:15
racing where there's racing. Did you make a concerted effort
15:19
to go asphalt racing or does it? Was it just the tracks when
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asphalt? Well, the one track Sonoa when
15:26
asphalt I built a car for a guy, Brad Sorenson.
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OK, that's Reed's dad. Oh my God.
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OK. OK, So built a car for Brad, he
15:36
went down to Sonoa and man he run good.
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It was old custom chassis dirt car and I cut the front end off,
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put 3 links suspension on the rear, the asphalt stuff on the
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front and he run really good. And Ronnie, my car owner Ronnie
15:52
Dobbins at that time didn't want to run another dirt car with
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Wayne. So he said, Mark, why don't you
15:58
just build your asphalt car and go run Sonoa and Livonia is
16:02
going to pave and we'll go up there and run, which was about
16:05
100 miles away up to Livonia. So that's kind of how that took
16:09
place. I I think that's fascinating
16:12
because you would never today. I mean, Bubba Pollard's the
16:15
closest we get to where Bubba's a great asphalt racer, but but
16:19
he owns a dirt track and. I just.
16:21
But but I do see a lot of these drivers nowadays when you really
16:25
dig into them. I mean, when when we interviewed
16:27
Jonathan Davenport, you know, he was on asphalt, then he said,
16:31
you know, just seem like dirt was his way to go.
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And the stories fascinate me on how you how these drivers like
16:37
yourself get to these these situations.
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Now, you know, one of the greatest Kenny conversations for
16:46
dirt racers was Mark Richards with Rocket Chassis.
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I want to ask you, why do you think Mark Richards talk highly
16:55
of you? Where, where did where did you
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run in what kind of what? Why do you think Mark Richards
17:00
knew about you? He he just mentioned you.
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Well, I think it was because of the Bob Chassis situation.
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He know he worked for, I think he worked for Rodney Combs at
17:11
that time at Richardson, worked in between like a WRC.
17:16
They built the house and get chance.
17:18
He's bringing them back to West Virginia.
17:20
But I think his competition was us at Bob Chassis and at at one
17:26
point he probably didn't know I did the welding a lot of the
17:29
fabrication work and what have you.
17:31
So when he found that out, he's like, holy cow, I didn't I, I
17:35
didn't know how blended all that stuff.
17:37
But now, I guess we know. Isn't this great?
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These are great. You know, the kids nowadays,
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they mean well, but they just talk and you know, they don't
17:46
show the respect. And when you put the dots
17:48
together, it is amazing the way you guys built, built your own
17:53
race cars, raced them. I want to get your opinion on
17:56
nowadays and I just dreamed this up because of listening to you.
18:01
Nowadays we buy the framing cage and once you get the framing
18:06
cage, you literally bolt everything on that there.
18:09
There's bolt on Tabitry. Do you think racing is better
18:13
off now? I understand you know, we walked
18:15
through 1 foot of snow back in the day.
18:18
You know, it's kind of it's kind of a joke, but what do you think
18:21
of the the way you race cars are built nowadays?
18:24
Is it? Is it better or not?
18:27
Well, I think it's better because you have more time to
18:29
race. We used to just work our ever
18:31
loving tails off. We'd get a frame.
18:33
I had my success on dirt in a master built OK and we would go
18:38
up to Indiana, get a frame, bring it back and we'd have that
18:40
sucker put together, have it painted, interior in it, put
18:44
together to race in like 6 days and we were just wore outgoing
18:49
to the races. But that was just the way you
18:50
did it back then. So I think it's much easier on
18:55
the guys these days, which is great because man, that
18:58
traveling just wears you down. Yeah, you're, you're, you're a,
19:02
you're a happy man. You, you make me happy right
19:05
now. You inspire me.
19:06
Because when I present these conversations, I I truly want to
19:10
be neutral. I like what you said because I
19:12
agree with you. I, I think times are better now.
19:14
I mean, social media is bad, but yet we like it.
19:17
Yeah, there's good and bad to everything, isn't there, Mark?
19:20
There sure is. You know, life is just a roller
19:22
coaster and you just got to get hit the highs and lows and.
19:26
Yeah, I like being able to buy my cars right now from Nick
19:30
Hoffman and kind of, you know, take it easy on them.
19:33
You're right. My God, We, we used to melt our
19:35
own lead. We used to go downtown Saint
19:38
Louis and buy it. And they buy 10 sheet of Lexan
19:41
and we'd make the windshields. We were wore out, weren't we?
19:44
You're right, we were better. Hey, you've been there.
19:47
You know that? Holy smokes.
19:49
You know that's probably what's wrong with us.
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What did you say? Oh, we melted lead.
19:54
The sulfur gotta have it throw up.
19:59
Rusty would. Rusty would say Herman.
20:01
Go up. Go up to child's.
20:03
Get the tire weights from all the tires.
20:05
That's right. Go to go up on pages of Jones
20:08
and Lockhart, melt the lead and I'd come back stick as a so
20:12
yeah, you're right. OK now this is the part that
20:17
fascinates me at at the start I said your life fascinates me.
20:20
So now in in my opinion, you accomplish this amazing goal.
20:25
You move South, you do it all. By the way, where are your
20:29
trophies at? Did you keep them or did you win
20:31
so much you give them away? No, I actually have them.
20:33
I have part of them in my basement at home and I have part
20:36
of them here at the towing yard. Good.
20:38
That makes me happy. Yeah, sure do.
20:41
OK, so now I always say there's there's a turning point in
20:46
everybody's life. It's like, how did you get here?
20:49
What did you do then? Explain to me this turning point
20:52
Where you're, you're kicking butt, you're doing good, you're
20:56
you're you, you've realized your dream now because remember, to
20:59
start, you wanted to be a race car driver and now you are.
21:02
Now you're winning. How in the world did we start
21:05
heading back home to where you are right now?
21:08
Why did we come back to St. Louis, MO?
21:11
Well, you know, started a family.
21:14
Conrad and Candace. Yeah.
21:16
I kind of thought that they needed me at home occasionally.
21:21
They needed to know their grandparents and I got tired of
21:25
staying in motels and in the truck up and down the road.
21:27
You know, it's it's a tough life and thought, well, we'll just
21:32
move back to Saint Louis. What am I going to do?
21:34
I have no idea. But I know I can still Weld and
21:37
fabricate. But I wanted something a little
21:40
more than that. So we started a tow company.
21:43
You talked about Conrad. I want to comment on him right
21:48
now while you just said it. Sometimes I forget to Satan.
21:51
I let it go and like, darn it, I forgot about that.
21:53
But you, Conrad is your son and he is a chip off the old block.
21:58
He is like you 100%. He worked so hard.
22:02
You allowed him to work for me for a couple summers.
22:07
He he is something else. And now I know he has a boy and
22:11
I know you're we'll get to that in a minute.
22:13
But Conrad, I mean you, I know you're proud of him.
22:18
Did you, did you, did you tutor him along?
22:21
Did you, did you keep your eye on him?
22:22
I know he went to, you know, college, things like that.
22:26
Tell me about your son Conrad. Well, he just he always loved
22:29
the racing. He raced a four Wheeler around
22:34
the shop when we were in Atlanta area, but when we got here he
22:37
got him a 4 cylinder, won 13 races in his first year race go
22:42
karts down there. Pevely won several races,
22:45
starter got a mod won. He won one race in a mod
22:49
division and all of all the boys were there that weekend.
22:53
So and watching that, I cried my eyes out.
22:57
And he he won. And yeah, he he does a great job
23:01
and he he pretty much runs our business right now.
23:03
He's the day-to-day operations manager here.
23:06
OK, so let me just say this and then we'll back up.
23:11
You don't own a normal tow truck company.
23:14
This is my opinion. You own one of the biggest man.
23:18
When I see your tow trucks go up and down the highways here, I'm
23:20
like holy moly, these tow trucks are huge.
23:27
Now you do got the small tow trucks, but OK, now I just want
23:31
everybody to know that you are incredibly successful right now.
23:35
You are the envy to a lot of dirt racers because a lot of
23:38
these guys, they end up being vagabonds.
23:41
I'm not going to name names. And we talk about this with
23:44
Jonathan Davenport, you know, with Nick Hoffman.
23:48
You, you got out unscathed. You, you could have been poor.
23:53
You could have been a Vagabond. Now you are the hottest thing in
23:57
Saint Louis. OK, now you're you're rolling
23:59
back up the hill. You come up to you're coming
24:02
back home. Tell me, how in the hell did
24:05
this happen? Mark this tow truck company.
24:09
Well, Teresa's dad, Ernie Jumper, thought, you know, Mark,
24:14
you're a pretty aggressive guy. I think, You know, he had a
24:17
little Body Shop and he had tow trucks come into his place.
24:19
And he thought, you know, Mark, as aggressive as you are, if you
24:22
bought a truck, you would do just fine.
24:24
Yeah. OK.
24:25
Well, we'll, we'll do that. We'll buy a truck and see how it
24:27
works out. Well, 25 years later, I think it
24:29
worked out. But it wasn't because of me.
24:32
It wasn't because of Teresa. It was because of all the people
24:35
around us, we have a network of people that has helped us
24:40
phenomenal, phenomenally, not whatever that word is, but.
24:44
Schrader messed that word up too.
24:46
It must be a Missouri thing. It must be, yeah.
24:50
Yeah. But one of the guys you've
24:52
already mentioned, his name that helped us tremendously is Ed
24:55
Petroff. You know, we went, we went to
24:57
get into heavy duty towing business and we would have
25:03
really struggled without Ed's help.
25:06
Yeah. What a phenomenal guy he has
25:08
been to Miners Toeing. OK, we, we, we still have the
25:11
journey to go on. I still got lots of questions,
25:13
but let's start right there, OK? Eddie Petroff is well known in
25:19
the dirt racing world. He's known to buy, you know, we,
25:23
we lost Scott Bloomquist, but he was known to give Scott, you
25:28
know, couple $50,000 motors. We know that Petroff spent
25:33
probably millions of dollars on dirt racing.
25:35
If you added it all up, what what do you think made Petrov
25:39
like you and and work with you? Because Eddie Petrov owns a
25:45
company like yours on the on the Illinois side, just right across
25:50
the river. Why did he take a liking to you?
25:53
Well, Ed, Ed does a lot of work in Saint Louis also, just to
25:57
make sure we have all that right to start with.
25:59
But I believe that he liked my work ethic and we were part of
26:06
the racing community. The Racing Network is phenomenal
26:10
about keeping everybody together and that's what I think it was
26:15
about. And do you think you know that?
26:18
I remember Bill Elliott one time.
26:20
I'm in a driver's meeting, and Bill Elliot said something to me
26:24
that I I still remember this day, he said there's room for
26:26
everybody. Yeah.
26:28
I think I find it amazing that Petrov didn't look at you as,
26:32
you know, the enemy. You know you're you're going to
26:36
take some of his tow truck money away from you, but you're saying
26:41
because you're a racer. Yeah.
26:44
And he, he probably knew that because at one point and says,
26:48
oh, minor, within about 10 years, you won't need me anymore
26:51
then. Well, he, he, he is, he is still
26:55
growing even at whatever age Ed is at.
26:58
He's 5 or 6 years older than I am, but he is still hard at it.
27:02
It would be very difficult to catch and run with Ed.
27:06
Yeah, yeah. But that's cool because I, I'm
27:09
going to make a joke about this, so go with me.
27:11
It's it's like my brother Rusty, everybody says to you, you know,
27:15
that they'll tease me or, or some people are just mean to me.
27:18
And that's fine, though my brother Rusty's great,
27:22
Schrader's great, and I stay my lane.
27:25
I know who the hell I am. Right on and.
27:27
And so I like what you just said, you know, You know,
27:30
Eddie's the man. Yeah, absolutely.
27:33
And and you stay your lane. I like that.
27:36
You know, and you, you get people that say, you know, you
27:40
know her. I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to
27:41
do all this on my own. Well, when people are as crazy
27:44
as heck, you or I or straighter or Petroff, none of us have ever
27:48
done anything on our own, have we?
27:50
We need help. Yeah, we need a lot of help and
27:53
it takes a. Netroke no trophy.
27:55
There's a Here you go, here's a trophy.
27:56
You did it on your own. You get the buzzer.
28:01
So yeah, it takes a lot of help and fortunately we've been
28:04
around the right people and good people all of our life.
28:09
So I want to go back to, are you are you telling me that it was
28:13
Ernie Jumper? Now, let's talk about that in a
28:17
minute. OK.
28:18
So Donnie Jumper and Dave Jumper, those are the kids.
28:22
Donnie Jumper builds impressive race cars.
28:25
Dave owns a great automotive repair shop.
28:28
Everybody's hard workers. But you're telling me Ernie was
28:31
the one that said you should get a tow truck company?
28:34
Yeah, what a what a incredible story, you know, because Ernie
28:38
always motivated me. You know, I was seem like
28:41
growing up we were just broke. So if I worked out The Body Shop
28:45
with him a little bit and Ernie would always pull out $100 bill
28:49
and say, OK, you guys go get lunch.
28:51
You know what, I want to be like that Ernie jumper guy, man, he's
28:53
always got $100 bill. That's cool.
28:57
So that was kind of my motivation.
28:59
And you know, Ernie doesn't know it.
29:02
My wife will see Ernie down at River City Casino.
29:06
You know, we work hard, We're stressed out.
29:09
Nothing wrong with going down there on the weekend and having
29:11
a little fun gambling, but I just want to give an attaboy now
29:15
that you brought this up, you know, Kenny Schrader credits
29:17
Ernie Jumper. The great Kenny Schrader credits
29:20
Ernie Jumper to everything. Schrader would joke.
29:25
He said the reason I I went with Ernie because he paid for my my
29:28
pit pass. Hey, there's that $100 bill
29:31
again. Yeah, so, so we all have those
29:34
people. So this is great, Ernie.
29:38
And if Donnie or Dave are listen to this, it is amazing the
29:42
people that inspire us and that sometimes it's later in life it
29:47
is that we give them their due. I hope.
29:49
I hope Ernie listens to this. Or somebody tells Ernie that he
29:53
has inspired Kenny Schrader. And you.
29:54
Yeah, he's pretty big. Yeah.
29:58
So now you're married to his daughter.
30:00
What about that 40? 43 years.
30:03
That's so awesome. Congratulations.
30:06
Well, thanks. You got some pictures behind you
30:10
and we all see them. Yeah.
30:13
Now when you. Let's go here now.
30:15
So you're back here and you're growing the tow truck company,
30:19
but you still don't got the racing out of your blood.
30:23
As I look at the pictures that when you get back to Saint
30:26
Louis, you say, OK, I'm not going to run a super late model,
30:29
but I'm going to run an A mod and you kicked everybody's butt
30:32
and you won. Tell me about those days when
30:35
you get back. Why did you run the A mod when
30:37
you got back to Saint Louis? Well, I just, we had a group of
30:41
people that put me in a car. Oh, OK.
30:45
So you know how things go. I had a partner.
30:50
Shriner. Shriner.
30:51
Hey partner. So, you know, through all that,
30:56
you know, how close we all are and, you know, just got to
31:01
racing and doing a little better down there.
31:03
Peevely I-55 Speedway and had a blast and got a new car from
31:08
brother-in-law Donnie Jumper. And that made that go better.
31:11
And let's see, we won the championship and what year down
31:14
there 2012, we won. We won the Pepsi, Pepsi
31:18
Nationals in 2005. Yeah.
31:21
And that's when there was like 60 cars show up for that baby,
31:23
you know? You reminded everybody you're
31:26
still a bad ass. Well, the the other cool thing.
31:29
See right behind me there scrubbing Speedway?
31:31
Oh yeah. Two years ago, Schrader got me a
31:34
ride in Mike Vaughn's car from down there in Georgia.
31:39
And we go down there hadn't hadn't raced a car in six years.
31:42
And man, we exceeded our expectations.
31:45
Like unbelievable. I won the race and Schrader run
31:48
2nd and that's how a gun. Schrader got out of the car and
31:52
he looked at me like what? He had the biggest smile on his
31:56
face, like his son had just won his very first race.
32:00
And I wanted to cry because that's a true friend there.
32:04
I want to talk about that moment for a minute because Kenny told
32:07
me everything about that moment. You, you know, I want, I want to
32:12
say this in in a right way. It's weird, right?
32:17
Because Father John that married Kim and I, he said be careful
32:21
young man, competition will kill you.
32:24
You know, when when we go to people's funerals, we're like,
32:26
oh, I liked him, but boy, we roughed each other up so bad.
32:30
And I think that's what competition does.
32:32
So you know, when you won that race last year, you know, Kenny
32:41
had already made it to NASCAR. He had already done everything
32:43
there is. He truly was OK with you
32:47
whipping his ass be because I think we've overcome that.
32:52
Now you know that it was OK for you to outrun him.
32:56
Yeah, we didn't have nothing to prove.
32:57
We were just racing for the fun of it for the most part, you
33:01
know? And I have a picture here of
33:02
Kenny coming up next to me at the next to the car I was
33:07
driving. And he's given me the biggest
33:09
hug and the smile on his face and a smile on my face is
33:12
priceless. But but I also think, I also
33:15
think that's a way of Kenny saying, hey, you know, Mark's
33:19
always been good. This doesn't surprise me.
33:21
But he's been out of the race car so long.
33:23
Holy crap. So Kenny tells me the story that
33:30
the night before you guys are practicing and, and, and he says
33:34
that you said the car was a little tight or a little loose
33:36
and you did some things here and there and you and you you
33:40
practice the night before. Tell me about that night where
33:44
you shook it down when you got in the car.
33:46
Did you have the Jitterbugs? Oh, you better believe it.
33:49
You know, I'm like, you know, I, I really got pumped up for this
33:53
race through a couple press releases that a guy did for me.
33:57
And I'm thinking, I'm not sure I should have said all that stuff
34:00
or maybe not had that story pumped up so big.
34:04
But anyway, just go out there and did all I could do and it
34:09
worked out that night. Yeah.
34:11
Well that that's really awesome and I'll never forget that Kenny
34:16
was so full of happiness for you all right, let's get to modern
34:21
era here we are this tow truck company it it to me.
34:28
I I, I'm so excited for you because when I go up and down
34:31
the major interstates and I, I see these tow trucks, you know,
34:35
whoever's with me, if, if I'm by myself, I, you know, way.
34:39
But I told my wife, I said, look at that.
34:42
I said, you know, because I do want to go back to this.
34:46
You, you got away unscathed. And that's what amazes me the
34:51
most, how many dirt racers took it all the way to the Vagabond
34:56
end to where they quit dirt racing.
34:58
They want it all. These dirt racers won everything
35:01
they want, Eldora. They want it all and they're
35:04
broke. Do you ever think that you got,
35:06
do you ever think that you got away unscathed?
35:11
No. Oh, I, I don't know how to
35:15
answer that. Everything worked out for
35:19
whatever reason, just got the right right people around us and
35:26
the right family members and it worked.
35:29
I'm so excited for you. You know, one that one thing
35:32
that I did want to say about the race in upheavally that maybe
35:35
some people didn't understand or know about me that we had a very
35:40
skeleton crew back at the towing company at that day.
35:43
So I would get get all my stuff ready, go race, come back home,
35:46
unload it and go right back to work at midnight and work till
35:50
you know like 7 or 8 the next morning till another crew came
35:53
in. The race car was the race car
35:56
was second. Yes.
35:58
And that's just, that's just what had to happen to make the
36:00
race car happen too, even though we had good partners on our race
36:04
car to help us financially, you know, so.
36:07
Yeah, this, this makes me happy. We'll kind of end on a note like
36:12
that where Nick Hoffman and, and I always remind this, I always
36:17
remind people every every three months or so, I remember dirt
36:20
racers, you know, we got to sell T-shirts to stay alive.
36:25
I'm like, guys, that's a tough life, you know?
36:28
And here here's here's Nick. He's got elite chassis and he's
36:32
doing it right. And, and look at you.
36:35
So congratulations, I I want to celebrate you as a winning dirt
36:40
racer throughout America. I want to celebrate you as a
36:44
incredibly successful man. I don't know how much money you
36:48
got, but it looks like you're worth millions because them damn
36:50
tow trucks, they're honkers. They're honkers, baby.
36:55
I I think I own the lug nuts on them, the bank owns the rest.
36:58
Well, that, that's that's business, you know, here, Mark
37:02
Martin said it to me best. Yeah, he said.
37:04
Herman, there's a cost to business.
37:07
Anybody that's in business owes the bank.
37:10
There you go. Because no, no, nobody going to
37:13
just pay cash for a tow truck. And if and if you do, maybe
37:17
you're missing out on taking that money and doing something
37:20
else with it. Well, can.
37:22
I can I tell you one more little story here because because it
37:26
involves your brother. OK, Rusty, I just seen him on
37:29
Round Table with Danny Sullivan the other day.
37:33
Mav TV. Yeah, awesome, awesome program
37:36
with him and Tony Stewart. But you know, when Rusty was
37:40
racing, he, like he said, had his head in the carburetor and
37:43
all that, and Rodger asked him. Mr. Penske said, well, what are
37:47
you going to do after you get done racing?
37:48
Well, I'm never going to stop racing.
37:51
And then after a while, I guess Rusty thought about it and he
37:54
thought, well, I guess I'm going to have to do something.
37:57
And that's kind of the way I thought, you know, racing is not
37:59
going to sustain us all our life.
38:02
So that was where the towing came from.
38:05
Yeah, I almost feel like now I'm thinking about the NFL, when all
38:09
these players were making millions of dollars and they
38:11
were broke immediately. And so the NFL created a
38:14
college, OK, we're going to pay you your $30 million a year, but
38:19
first thing you're going to do is understand money.
38:21
I feel, I feel like we need one of these for our dirt racers.
38:26
And I just don't want anybody to go through what I went through.
38:29
I was so scared to death. You know, Mark, my biggest fear
38:33
was living under a bridge in a cardboard box, you know, just
38:37
scared to death. Sure.
38:39
You know. Yeah, so, well, I'm happy you
38:43
told that story because it it means that, you know, we learn
38:48
along the way. And Rusty taught me, Dick
38:50
Trickle taught me. I learned from Larry Phillips.
38:53
I take quotes from everybody. Everybody taught me something.
38:57
And you just shared. Let me let me ask you this.
39:03
We look at people that do good things because that that's who
39:06
we want to pay attention to it, you know.
39:08
Besides Rusty and Schrader, are there any other quotes that come
39:12
to your mind or just anybody else?
39:14
It could be anybody. I mean, is anybody else?
39:18
I'm sure there's more, but them are the ones that just stuck
39:21
with me over the last couple days because that's what I was
39:25
paying attention to. Yeah, yeah, Rodger Penske told.
39:29
I'm going to tell you this, and you've heard this one, too,
39:31
Rodger Penske told Rusty. You better learn how to golf
39:35
because that's where all the business is done on the golf
39:37
course now. Now just like you, you, you and
39:41
you and Rusty golf more than anybody.
39:45
Do you do any business on the golf course, Mark?
39:47
Oh, you better believe it. I usually 2 rounds a week at
39:51
least. Yeah, so.
39:53
And do you take any of your business partners?
39:55
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, we have some.
39:58
We have some scrambles for like the Saint Louis County Police
40:00
Department and different benefits and Boys and Girls Club
40:03
in Saint Louis. And so, yeah, we get involved.
40:07
You do good things. I just want to tell you I do got
40:09
to get. I got 2 torn tendons in that
40:11
right shoulder and that's why I don't go golfing with you
40:14
anymore. I've got to bite the bullet.
40:16
I probably got to get cut and get the surgery on it right now.
40:19
I could probably just take a pitch and wedge.
40:24
Well, Mad Dog, Mark Minor. You got anything else, Mark?
40:29
I'm, I'm sure I do, but this has been a great, great morning and
40:33
an honor to be on here with you. Erm, and what a great show you
40:38
have. I've listened to all of them so
40:39
far. Well, thank you.
40:41
All right, everybody. We've had Kevin Gun Baker.
40:44
We've had Mark Minor. This is the Kenny conversation.
40:47
We're calling this the local tour.
40:49
Yeah. Mike Harrison.
40:52
The great Mike Harrison, one of the greatest modified racers of
40:55
all time. Oh, you better believe it.
40:56
He's a man's man. He's going to, I'm going to call
40:59
him up. He said he would do it.
41:01
So the local tour is going to keep on rolling.
41:05
Listen up everybody. Remember we are in podcast form,
41:09
but we are over on Dale Earnhardt Junior's Dirty MO
41:12
Media podcast. So for all the podcast, if you
41:16
want to listen over to, you can listen to this on The Dirty the
41:21
Kenny conversations are on Dirty MO Media podcast.
41:25
If you want to see Mark Miner's pretty face, just stay right
41:29
here on YouTube until next time. We're going to keep on rolling,
41:33
Mark. We'll see you later.
41:34
See you later, everybody. All right.
41:36
Thank you so much.