Becoming Earnhardt 1980 Vol. 4 - Jake Packs His Suitcase
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The following is a production of Dirty Moe Media.
This episode of Becoming Earnhardt is brought to you by Bass Pro Shops,
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Later in the episode, my sister Kelly shares her unique perspective on life with Dad away from the racetrack.
Now buckle up, here's a brand new episode of Becoming Earnhardt presented by Bass Pro Shops.
Richard got on with me a little bit last year about Michigan and it was, I took it very well and he was in the right when he said something to me about it.
And it was more or less like a father talking to his son, so it made me feel good if the man respects me enough to let me know what I do wrong.
At this point in our story, Dad might be second guessing the price of starter.
Now he's fresh off a run in with Richard Petty.
And the pressure of running well on a weekly basis is setting in.
It is a tough break indeed for Dale Earnhardt and a bitter pill to swallow this afternoon after having one of the best seasons ever for young sophomore drivers.
On track mistakes, pit road blunders, engine failures, they've reduced his points lead to just 61 points.
The team desperately needs a rally to finish the season on a strong note.
Earnhardt is running 16th and he is 12 laps down.
Well, the car is running, but it is missing very badly and that is smoke coming from the exhaust pipe.
Roland Welottica, the team manager, sort of just throws his hands up.
But Dad and the Oschelin team are about to face their greatest challenge and they're going to get a grim reminder of why Jake Elder earned the nickname Suitcase Jake.
I feel more relaxed, you know, because I feel like I got a driver who's got the experience and he comes in and tells me what the car is doing and then I go ahead and fix it, you know what I mean?
And so, right now I think everything's going to be alright.
You know, if we can run competitively in the top five and win our races this year, the points will come, you know?
So, we're not really worried about the points that much. It's nice to be leading them or nice to be up front, you know, in the top one or two.
But if you're not, we're not going to worry about it until it gets on down and in the season.
Then you can take a look at them because although you know more what's going on with the last of the season and everything, so right now we've got races to win and run right now and the points, you know, they'll come to you.
Dad may be leading the points and he's got a couple of wins, but it hasn't been an easy road so far.
You may remember times when the pit crew came up short in crucial moments such as the final stop at the Daytona 500.
The team also has had some engine failures, which wasn't uncommon back in the day, but if you wanted to win a championship, you had to limit those as much as you can.
This happened in the Twin 125s during Atlanta qualifying. They had some problems and at Darlington in April during the race.
And then there's Dad, whose aggressive driving style has annoyed the competition and at times cost the team some opportunities at good finishes.
The bumping and bagging started on the opening green flag when Dale Earnhardt got a little hard into the first turn.
He got into Richard Petty and eight cars went around.
As we roll into the month of May, Dad and the Australon team are looking for a reset after a rough April.
At Talladega, a rematch from the Daytona 500 is going to unfold.
Buddy Baker and the Grey Ghost versus Dad and his young number two Australon Oldsmobile.
Well, good afternoon everyone from Alabama International Motor Speedway. It's the Winston 500.
It's fast becoming the most exciting stock car race in the world and it's no wonder.
Going into the Winston 500 today, it's a close one. Dale Earnhardt leads Darrell Waltrip by 61 points.
Now that sounds like a lot, but it could be wiped out this afternoon should Earnhardt have a bad finish and Waltrip have a good one.
The fourth starter is the Winston Cup point standing leader, Dale Earnhardt of Canapolas, North Carolina.
Outside front row position in number two, Buddy Baker, Charlotte, North Carolina will start the Naples Regal Ride Oldsmobile
and that is the starting field for the 11th annual Winston 500.
We are 200 yards from the start of green in the Winston 500. Here it is.
As they dive into the first turn, Buddy Baker, David Pearson lead them down into the corner.
Now Yarborough will drop back into fourth place as Dale Earnhardt takes third.
First lap, Baker goes all the way to the bottom of the racetrack and he will lead the first lap.
For the Winston 500, Earnhardt scoots to second. Bonnet challenges for third in turn one.
We see them pushing Darrell Waltrip's car back down Pit Road.
So trouble for the Gatorade Oldsmobile of Darrell Waltrip.
He has not been happy here all week. The car has not performed to expectation.
Last year's winner of this race, Bobby Allison, is not going to be racing anymore today. Bobby, what's the problem?
Well, a clutch door up in the car, which is a very unusual situation.
Richard Petty is on Pit Road. Let's go to Jerry Punch.
They eliminated the Petty crew working around the STP Oldsmobile. They've raised the hood on the car.
They also raised the deck. Now they've told Richard to cut the engine off and they're pushing the car slowly back up Pit Road.
And right now, Buddy Baker and Dale Earnhardt have set sail and pulled away from Kale Yarborough by about four seconds.
The two cars fought tooth and nail into the late stages of the race.
Now on lap 155, both cars are going to make their final pit stops.
The leaders are on Pit Road. Buddy Baker and Dale Earnhardt downpitting nose to tail here on Pit Road.
Baker's crew going to the right side of the machine. They will change the right side rubber on the Napa Regal right Oldsmobile.
As well, the Earnhardt car changing right side rubber in its down and away.
Baker's crew will change the left side tires as well, but Earnhardt is away 15.4 seconds.
Jake Elder will elect to take two tires to win Dad the race off of Pit Road and give him a lot of track position.
Whereas Waddell Wilson kept Buddy Baker on Pit Road for a full four tire stop.
Buddy Baker says, I got to admit, I was a little upset about changing four when I came out of the pits and Dale was nowhere in sight.
Let's go to the pits in Ned Jarrett.
Barney was standing by behind the pits of Dale Earnhardt.
I asked Jake Elder, the crew chief on that car, why just two.
He said, well, we can run as fast on the worn left side tires as we could.
If we put all four on it, he said we wanted to break away from him, break that draft as we could.
He says he can go the rest of the distance now without making another pit stop.
And right now with Earnhardt holding the commanding advantage, should Baker be able to chase him down, there might only be a lap or so remaining.
Standing by with Waddell Wilson, the crew chief on that car.
It looks like he's gaining a little bit on Dale at this point, Waddell.
Still time left.
I don't know if we can continue cutting it down like we are or not just.
He chose to change only two tires.
You changed all four after he went back out and you had that deficit.
Did you think that maybe you made a mistake?
No, if I had to do it over again, I'd do the same thing because I knew we could go the distance on four tires and two was questionable and I'll not take a chance on the driver's life.
With the laps that remain, the question is whether or not Buddy Baker can run down Dale Earnhardt.
You can throw the binoculars on the two cars and get both cars in the view right now as Buddy Baker cuts it to 15 car lengths.
Make it 14 and now down to 10 car lengths on the back straightaway and forget the interval because Baker closes in turn three.
Youth versus experience Earnhardt, a much younger driver than Buddy Baker who's done this so many times before.
Here comes Buddy Baker.
Buddy would come out 16 seconds behind Dad, but he would track him down and with two laps to go, pass Dad to win by a few hundred feet.
A challenge for the lead off the number two turn.
Buddy Baker goes downstairs side by side with Dale Earnhardt midway down the back straightaway still too abreast.
Earnhardt is right there, Baker, then Earnhardt by a car length as they go for the finish line.
Buddy Baker will have to drive in the rear view mirror as much as he does in the front.
Here comes Earnhardt down to the bottom of the racetrack as they come across the line.
He's there, but he misses by just about a half a car length.
Dale Earnhardt finishing second.
Give this young driver all the credit in the world.
He put everything he had in it, just couldn't do it, just about a three feet separating first and second as they came across the line.
Dad's going to have to settle for another discouraging runner up finish to the gray ghost.
Dale, do you feel like that you could have caught Buddy?
I tried my best. He just had a little more horsepower, I reckon.
My car was working good as he was, but I just didn't have enough to get back by him once he passed me.
Do you feel like you should have started your acceleration earlier and tried a little harder?
I was accelerating all the way around and I never did let off of it.
It's remarkable though that the Austrian crew can find so much super speedway speed to be able to match Waddell Wilson's creation.
Waddell has years of experience from working at Holmen Moody and has built some of the fastest cars in NASCAR history.
As we roll into Nashville the next week, it's another quiet weekend, if you will.
Dad finishing sixth.
Richard Petty would win again though, keeping himself alive in the points race.
And then the teams are going to go into Dover and Dad is going to suffer another engine failure.
This is number four on the season and this happens with 26 laps to go in the race.
And to make matters worse, the king, Richard Petty, is going to finish second to Bobby Allison.
Bobby Allison coming home victorious. Richard Petty will finish in second spot.
It seems like Bobby Allison, Richard Petty, Kaleyar Burrell and Daryl Walter are able to capitalize on Dad's bad days at the racetrack.
And I know this probably is weighing on Dad's mind as he leaves Dover.
The final race of May is the World 600.
It's a massive race because it's right here in our backyard.
Our family all want to come and see what's going on and be a part of the weekend.
So you know everyone in Kanapolis is bugging Dad for tickets and trying to see if they can get out there to see Dad perform.
It's a great racetrack that I spent a ton of time at growing up.
The Earnhardt family and its friends, the Uries and so forth, would always camp in the infield towards turn one.
On part of the road course, there's a big large hill that we would all get on top of with our campers to be able to give ourselves the best point of view during the race.
And me and all the other kids would race our toy cars down that hill.
So a lot of pressure on Dad, I think, is he's going into the Charlotte race.
It's where he made his first start, all the families in town.
But it's going to be a 600 weekend to forget.
It's also going to have a major impact on Dad's championship effort.
The problems might have begun when the team elected to run the Melliella 300 sportsman race on Saturday.
Mechanic Larry Penn was supposed to work on this sportsman car and then Jake Elder obviously is supposed to oversee it.
Larry apparently never shows up.
When Jake Elder asks where Penn was, Roland Valaca, the team manager says he quit.
But Jake says Larry Penn didn't quit.
And he goes on to say Roland lied and I don't like anyone to lie to me.
Jake says I told Roland that I was going to try to win both races then quit after the checkered flag fell on Sunday.
I had had it.
Jake felt that working on this sportsman car was a distraction from the Cup program, which they desperately needed to get back on track.
Jake was vocal with his frustration saying there are too many good jobs around to have to put up with this frustration.
I don't want to have a heart attack over this thing, but if I don't slow down, I'm going to be in the ground.
You know, Jake was Jake.
Jake gets mad.
Jake throws stuff.
That's Doug Richard.
He would get something on his mind or just didn't like it and he'd blow up.
He went on to point out that the other major runners in the Cup series like Petty and Kale, they weren't running the sportsman series race and for good reason.
Now in the Saturday sportsman race, Dad's going to qualify second and get swept up in an accident completing only 99 laps to finish 24th.
So in Jake's eyes, he was right about that being a waste of time.
Good afternoon, everyone at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
The cars are on the Speedway in just one more time around.
They'll cut them loose for the start of the world 600 here this afternoon and what looks to be Mike Joy, the biggest crowd the Speedway has ever enjoyed.
Earnhardt really shining here at the Charlotte Motor Speedway this afternoon.
And in the world 600, Dad's going to blow a tire on lap 276 and cause a major crash with Bobby Allison, David Pearson and Kale Yarbrough.
Trouble up in turn number four.
It's Earnhardt and Allison is a spin and crash.
Yarbrough spinning.
Pearson and Yarbrough both smash into Earnhardt.
They run into the barrier right over the tunnel.
Allison backs it right into the guardrail at the entrance of Pit Road.
Four of the top cars have hit the wall and spun up in turn number four.
Jake Elner is taking the crew over to the garage area.
They had the car up on the jacks.
They're using the cutting torches, cutting away sheet metal.
I'd just like to mention that Earnhardt's crew, the Australian crew, came up and down Pit Road.
They were borrowing equipment.
They borrowed a set of torches and tanks to cut away some of the sheet metal from the Junior Johnson crew.
They were going from crew to crew down on the Halsey Ellison crew borrowing, I think, a hammer or two or some pry bars.
Now, Benny Parsons and Darrell Waltrip would go on to have one of the most thrilling races for the finish in NASCAR history.
This is absolutely my favorite finish in racing history in terms of swapping the lead and watching two cars sort of engage with each other.
It was incredible.
Back at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, Darrell Waltrip has been up, down and sideways all over.
Benny Parsons looking for the lead, 13 laps to go.
Trying to cross Benny up and Benny downstairs, Waltrip upstairs, side by side in turn number two.
Now it's Waltrip right alongside.
It's an even, Stephen Paddle, down the back straightaway.
They are still side by side in turn three, turn four.
Here they come.
They're absolutely dead even coming off the turn.
We've been here six and a half hours, but nobody's complaining.
Waltrip, though, just tagged Parsons a bit and got the car almost sideways coming off and turned four as he applied the bumper.
Waltrip is right down on the apron.
He is working off of the left rear corner of Parsons.
He's trying to move to the inside.
Out of the corner, Benny Parsons leads Darrell Waltrip down to the start finish line and he will win the 21st Annual World 600.
Benny is going to come out ahead in the end and win the race.
The bad news for dad, King Richard is going to come home in fourth place and the points lead is now cut to 45.
It's the lowest it had been since Richmond earlier in the year.
The next day, Jake Elder will pack his suitcase.
He goes to the shop, hands in his keys and credit cards to Roland and he walks out.
I don't feel like I felt like there was tension about to the point of where he was going to leave, right?
Because most people don't leave with success.
Jake was old school.
He played the kind of enforcer and if he said, hey, you need to put this right front spring in there, that's what he wanted to do.
This is Tim Brewer who served as co-crew chief for Kale Yarborough in 1980.
At some point in time, I think Jake was just a little bit old school for the new regime and the young kids from California, they were, well, they can take care of this, they can do this,
and, you know, they can still win with Dale Earnhardt and Jake, he just, he didn't want to hear about it.
The Australian crew are sorry to see Jake go. This guy is a legend. He knows his stuff, builds great race cars, makes them go fast,
but the company, the team, they're optimistic that this is not going to disrupt their season.
Dad's going to say, I think the world of Jake and I highly respect him and I hate to see him go.
A race car driver likes to feel stability in the team. He wanted people that he knew had his back.
So anytime there's team changes like that, Dale was not happy, particularly if he had believed in that person and felt that person was essential to his success.
Roland says that the problems had been brewing way back since the Bristol race in March.
And he also says this is not a one man team. No one man quitting this team will make any difference. There's a strong opinion.
Roland goes on to say, I like Jake, but he needs a break. Take six months off. He's worked awful hard. I can't say anything bad about him.
This job got to be a little bit too much for him. The pressure was getting to him. We have a dynamic team. We're not backing off. It's full steam ahead.
Roland is an SOB and very jealous of anybody that knows more than him, which is about everybody.
That's engine builder Lou LaRosa.
He come out of California and his profession was laying carpet, not racing.
He come here and he found out he was nothing. It started highly good people. Roland wouldn't make a pimple on Jake's ass.
Unconfirmed reports to stock car racing magazine even had Jake being dismissed by Australin if Jake didn't quit.
Jake, however, was far less kind, saying Roland could screw up a five car funeral.
Roland is jealous because he knew if the car won, I'd get some credit.
Dave Marcus told me I'd never be able to get along with him and he was exactly right. And since Earnhardt got some money, you don't even know him. He's as cocky as they come.
I wish I'd never gone there. They never appreciated a thing I did.
Problem started back in Atlanta. No team is a one man team. I had three good people, but five who couldn't care if the car blew up every race.
There are four things you must have to have a winning combination. You don't cut corners. You all pull together like a football team.
If you get a good crew chief, you treat him like a human being. And if he doesn't do the job, you're firing.
You don't mix alcohol and dope with business, not with somebody's life on the line. Man, Jake. He was an opinionated guy.
Throughout the year, people have different temperaments. Once you figure them out, they're a whole lot easier to work with.
Don't push their buttons. Don't do something intentionally just to make them mad. I think that's a big part of it.
He was the backbone, so to speak. And when he came around, Earnhardt understood what Jake was telling him.
And I mean, they made a tough combination.
I found this part maybe to be the most fascinating point of the season. You know, Jake was very opinionated.
And didn't mind telling you exactly what he expected out of dad or what he thought. And he was critical, but seemed somewhat fair.
But man, when things got ugly, he got ugly. It was wild to see him making these public comments into the media.
And Jake Elder and the crew have more concern about him kind of wearing himself and his equipment out and not having anything left for the last 50 or 60 miles of this race.
Now, a week later, Jake's going to walk back a lot of these harsh comments and even apologize to Rod Osterlin and Roland Vlatka.
Jake says, I called Rod Osterlin to apologize to him. I want to apologize to Roland Vlatka, too. A lot of things I said were true.
But a lot of them didn't come out the way I wanted. I'm man enough to eat those words and I take back a lot of what I said.
I was upset because a wheel broke or we might have won the sportsman race on Saturday and a tire exploded or we might have won the World 600.
The next week, Jake's going to write a letter to the editor of the Grand National Scene. The Grand National Scene is kind of like the New York Times for NASCAR.
And in that letter, it's going to say, the entire story was completely blown out of proportion.
And that Gene Granger, who is the writer for the article in which Jake said all of those nasty things, owes Jake and Osterlin Racing an apology.
Jake denies calling Dad cocky or mentioning anything about dope or alcohol and says his comments about Rod and Roland were twisted around.
And then the next week on June 19th, Robert E. Griggs, the publisher of Grand National Scene, publishes an article defending his editor Gene Granger.
Griggs is going to write, Jake Elder is a man whose character has been finely tuned by his experiences both in his personal and professional life.
His reputation is larger than life. The old cliche fits, the record speaks for the man.
Nothing will serve as an excuse for Elder's letter last week in which, in effect, called Gene Granger a liar.
The record of Jake Elder still speaks for the man. Shame on you, Jake. You're a better man than your actions showed.
Man, that is just wild. So I'm going to go off script here for a second.
You know, Jake, again, I get he's got a volatile personality and he leads with emotion all the time.
We've heard it back when he and Dad won at Bristol during Dad's rookie year.
Jake's comments post-race, he leads with emotion everywhere he goes.
And a lot of times speaks on that emotion before he thinks about the repercussions from those comments.
And when he was pissed off about how Australin or Roland Laka were running the team and the decisions they were making, he just wants to up and quit.
You know, I'll just quit. I'll just go do something else.
That was his reaction to any type of situation that he was frustrated with, thus the nickname suitcase Jake.
It was a fun nickname, but not entirely flattering towards Jake.
No question he has an incredible record and absolutely no question does he build fast race cars and win races.
But man, it just seems like back then it was just people just couldn't talk things out.
We saw this with even the great David Pearson and the Wood Brothers.
Who knows what went on behind closed doors.
If this was going on publicly, who knows what was happening in the office when these guys got in there and got to cussing at each other.
Just wild.
But Jake's done and this is a time of uncertainty for the Australin team.
Who's going to lead them? Who's going to replace Jake's experience?
Now there are some rumors that the Australin team is trying to grab Travis Carter from Junior Johnson's championship operation.
And without a seasoned veteran on top of the pit box, the NASCAR media have declared dad's championship hopes to be over.
We'll be back with more Becoming Earnhardt presented by Bass Pro Shoppe soon.
But first, here's my sister Kelly with a little something about my family's long history with Johnny Morris.
My earliest memory of meeting Johnny was around, you know, the time that he started sponsoring my dad's race car.
In 1998, we did the gold Bass Pro car for the Winston and I worked at Action Performance, which, you know, was the company that made all the diecasts and T-shirts and hats at the time.
And so the Winston paint scheme was always a really big deal with my dad.
You know, it started in 96, I think, with the silver car that was ahead.
And my relationship with Johnny really didn't, you know, start till later when we started having a relationship with him here at Junior Motorsports.
I know that Johnny, you know, holds my dad in a really high regard.
What is the story behind the man black? I mean, what drives him?
Even most recently with this documentary, you know, Johnny called Del and I and, you know, just told him what it meant to him to watch the documentary.
Not just about my dad, but about relationships with Del and I and relationships with other people.
And, you know, Johnny is like family first, faith and being outdoors.
And so when you interact with him, it's very personal on a personal level.
You know, he doesn't call to talk to you really about business or anything like that.
And everything that he does has a very personal relationship connection to it.
He just really holds my dad in a very high regard.
I think that, you know, in the years that they were able to work together, they got to spend a lot of time together.
And my dad was made up of those same things, you know, they had a lot in common in terms of things that were important to them and what mattered to them.
Johnny just is like a mentor.
Interactions with Johnny are relational.
He comes at it from a passion and from an enjoyment of things he does.
So, you know, whether it's NASCAR or whether it's my son racing or whether we're talking about, you know, we go out to Big Cedar to his place in Missouri or things like that.
Like everything is, all the little details matter and how you're enjoying your time matters to Johnny.
So, you know, he just, I tell him, sometimes I just like to share things with him because it's almost like you're sharing it with your dad, so to speak.
Like he's a mentor and you look up to him and, you know, he's just somebody that you're able to share, you know, some special time and special meanings because he makes you feel that way.
The Earnhardt family has always relied on Bass Pro Shops for our outdoor adventures and that tradition continues with me today.
I grew up shopping there and now it's a place I love sharing with my own family.
Gearing up together for everything from weekend getaways to fishing in the pond.
I'm also incredibly grateful for the support Johnny Morris and the entire Bass Pro team have shown across our business ventures, from the race team to Dirty Momedia.
They believe in what we're building and they've stood behind us every step of the way.
They're not just great partners, they're great people.
I also admire Bass Pro's unwavering commitment to those who serve our country.
Their Legendary Salute program is one of the many ways they show support, offering a 10% everyday discount to active duty military, veterans and first responders.
It's their way of saying thank you to the heroes who protect our freedom and way of life.
To learn more and see full details, visit BassPro.com backslash Legendary Salute.
This isn't the end of Jake Elder though.
And soon after, DiGard hires him to serve as Daryl Waltrupp's crew chief.
Now Daryl love Jake Elder.
It's just a deal where I know his abilities and I know what he can do for a racing team.
I think the Australian team is a good indication.
I think Jake built that team to the caliber it is right now.
They had a great past together having worked together in the early to mid-70s.
So once Jake was clear out of the Australian garage, Daryl goes vocal to the gardeners who own DiGard Racing to make this hire.
He's that kind of person.
He's a hard worker.
He wakes up at two o'clock in the morning thinking about a race car.
He's called me in the past when he used to work for me at two or three o'clock in the morning.
So I got to change that race car.
I'm just not happy with it.
That's the kind of person I like working on my car.
He's thinking about it all the time.
He's interested in it.
I think it's going to be a beautiful combination.
I'm really looking forward to the rest of the season.
You might recall that things aren't exactly peachy over at the DiGard team.
So a crew chief change was well in order.
Buddy Parrot was already fired once during the off season, taking the blame for the 1979 championship collapse.
But Daryl Walsher convinced the gardeners to rehire Buddy Parrot for 1980.
So he's back on top of the pit box at the beginning of the season.
But things didn't improve.
And after the early engine failure in the Daytona 500.
The first lap actually when I took the green flag it actually started missing.
Daryl's quoted saying,
All I can say is this team isn't any better than when I came here in 1975.
Boy, that's a dig.
That's four or five years.
He said they ain't any better in four or five years.
Man, Daryl, he was rough.
I know that Daryl was very unhappy.
That's Buddy Parrot.
Man, it was a job to me.
My job was to prepare the car for the race and to try to, I mean, be up on that pit box and to make pit calls and win the race.
That was my job.
I wanted to go get a hat in Victor Lane, you know?
Maybe Daryl's not believing in me.
All of a sudden I'm telling Daryl to please back off at a race.
We had the field lapped and I'm begging him to back off.
Oh, Buddy, this thing feels so good.
Sure enough, boom, hits the wall and takes us out of the race.
Well, that was kind of the first of many problems we had.
So after an engine failure and a 26-place finish at Michigan, Buddy Parrot gets fired again.
And Jake Elder is now the die-guard crew chief.
Well, that's the thoughts of Daryl Walkrip when I asked Jake how he felt about being back with Daryl.
Yeah, I feel more relaxed, you know, because I feel like I got a driver who's got the spirit and he comes in and tells me what the car is doing and then I go ahead and fix it.
Right now, I think everything's going to be all right.
Now, this did not solve die-guards problems, however.
They'd suffer another engine failure and a 31st-place finish at the Firecracker 400.
This is Jake's first race in charge.
Jake Elder just threw up his hands, told one of the other crew members he had blown up.
The first race I ever fell out of in my life, but I'm not upset about it or anything because I had the best car on the racetrack.
At Michigan in August, Daryl Walkrip would blow two engines into two qualifying sessions and had to borrow a car from Joel Halpern to run the race.
We blew two engines.
Both times we were trying to qualify and we had two engine failures and we didn't make the race.
To this, Daryl Walkrip said that he was fed up with die-guards team management and that he was no longer inspired, again expressing that he wants out of his contract.
The situation continues to build and things come to a head at Charlotte in October.
Daryl Walkrip's quoted as saying, if I don't get away from these gardeners, they're going to drag me down the tubes with them.
Bill Gardner arrived at the track with Daryl Walkrip's contract in hand, announcing that he was looking for someone to drive their car in 1981.
But he insisted that he intends to keep Daryl under contract and he would put him in lesser equipment unless Daryl gets in line.
That's wild.
What in the world?
Well, most of the drivers and mechanics and crew chiefs that are here for the National 500 this weekend have made the comment in the last couple of days how in the world can Daryl Walkrip keep his mind on running a race here at Charlotte this afternoon.
There's been such a tug of war between Walkrip and his two car owners, Jim and Bill Gardner.
Bill Gardner is going to even do an interview on the broadcast pre-race of the Charlotte race with Bruce Jenner, who is an Olympic athlete and also an amateur racer.
Bruce had gotten a telegram sent from Bill Gardner inquiring about his interest in driving the 88 car for die guard next year.
A telegram also went to Johnny Rutherford and Paul Newman, among others.
Now, I believe that this was a bit of a publicity stunt to sort of threaten Daryl Walkrip into getting in line.
I had this contract.
It was irrevocable and you couldn't put a value on it.
When I would try to find out what I got to do to get out of this contract, you can't get out of this contract.
You are a rare commodity and there's no way to put a value on this contract.
And so it took some finagling to finally get around to what it took to get out of that contract.
The saga would be resolved, though, at Atlanta with a meeting being called and Daryl Walkrip saying,
I'm a free man.
I'm committed to running the final races for them, but after that I'm free.
So it was $300,000 for me to get out of that contract.
So we go to the bank on Monday morning with, I had the $300,000, which is, they're talking 1980.
$300,000, a lot of money.
So we go in, we sit down, we sign all the papers and we get ready to leave.
Bill Gates said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, you owe me $25,000 more.
I said, for what?
He said, are you in the Bush Clash?
I said, yeah.
He said, well, you'll probably win it and I want my half now.
So I had to give him $25,000 more, $325,000.
So the dramatic saga of Daryl Walkrip and Dygard Racing seems to have an end point.
And where Daryl goes from here, we'll learn later in the story.
All of this crew chief turmoil that we talked about with Jake Elder quitting the team really doesn't help Dad all that much.
At Texas in June, Kale Yarbrough is going to pick up another win and Richard Petty is going to finish second.
Now Dad was in contention at points in this race, but he suffered from some hitting problems and had to settle for ninth.
And it's going to cut his points lead down to just 18 points.
Dad's going to bounce back with a quiet fifth place finish at Riverside, following Daryl Walkrip and Kale Yarbrough to the finish line.
And at Michigan, Dad's going to lead at several points during the race, but he'd suffer mechanical problems and fall three laps down causing him to finish in 12.
He has the hood up on the car, so he must have lost a cylinder or something badly wrong with that car.
And he'd leave Michigan with only a 13 point lead over King Richard Petty.
At this point, Rod Osterlin is going to make a major gamble on the team's future.
On June 17th, he decides to promote 20 year old front tire changer, Doug Richard, up to the crew chief position.
Lee is the Earnhardt crew headed by 20 year old Doug Richard, a relative newcomer to the racing circuit.
About the only thing anybody, well, first of all, nobody could figure out how to spell his name and then how to pronounce it.
Who's this young kid from California that suddenly is Del Earnhardt's crew chief?
His personality was so opposite from Jake's.
Roland Laca told Stockcar Racing Magazine, Doug's young, but that doesn't mean he's inexperienced.
He was just a kid.
If he just stood and learned from Jake, he'd have been a superstar too. He had the ability.
I mean, I learned a lot from Jake.
You know, Jake was one of them guys that he had a lot of experience at a lot of other places, you know, prior to coming to us.
So absorbing that kind of knowledge just by being around it.
So there's 15 races left to go in the 1980s schedule and with the points lead at a razor thin margin,
Dad and the Australian team are going to need a major boost in performance to stay ahead of the King and Kale Yarborough to lock up this championship.
Earnhardt takes the moment to look over the new situation and Kale Yarborough really put on a show here for the fans.
Crew chief Jake Elder leaves Dad and the Australian crew high and dry with a falling points lead and a room of broken in.
Jake Elder, Walshrop's Gatorade crew chief is on the headset of communication with Daryl.
With half the season left to go and no seasoned veteran to run the ship,
Rod Osterland makes a gutsy call to promote young Doug Richard to take over.
Let's talk to 20 year old Doug Rockert who has done a beautiful job. Doug, congratulations. He's the crew chief on this car.
Doug with just a handful of years of experience will have to find a way to rally the Osterland troops
and help defend a 13 point lead with two of the greatest stock car racers in history charging in quickly.
Kale shuts the door on Dale Earnhardt.
Becoming Earnhardt is a Dirty Mo Media original podcast series.
It is written and produced by me, Dale Earnhardt Jr., with Bobby Marcos and Colby Bass.
Sound design by Alex Timbs, Production Assistance, Tim Powers, Mike Davis, Michael Caldwell and Evan Vecchia.
This project is in partnership with MRN, the Motor Racing Network and the Appalachian State University stock car collection.
Special thanks to SiriusXM, Silver Tribe Media, NASCARman and Bob Ellis.
For additional Dirty Mo Media content, visit our YouTube page and follow us on all major social media platforms.
Thank you to Johnny Morris and Bass Pro Shops for bringing us another episode of Becoming Earnhardt.
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About this episode
Pressure mounts for Dale Earnhardt’s 1980 run as mechanical woes, pit mistakes, and aggressive driving whittle his points lead down. The episode spotlights the Winston 500 at Talladega, where “two tires” strategy and late-race drafting drama end with Earnhardt second to Buddy Baker. Then the World 600 at Charlotte brings a tire blowout and a massive crash, while crew chief Jake Elder’s volatile relationship with team management erupts—culminating in his abrupt exit and the “suitcase Jake” nickname. The fallout includes new leadership and fresh uncertainty for the championship chase.
Original notes
Imagine being a sophomore, leading the NASCAR points with Richard Petty, Darrell Waltrip and Cale Yarborough breathing down your neck. That was Dale Earnhardt’s reality in May of 1980. He and the Osterlund Team are fresh off back-to-back wins in hot pursuit of more trophies, but the competition is heating up. The young outfit gets a lesson in stock car excellence from Buddy Baker and Waddell Wilson, as Dale has a rematch with the Gray Ghost at Talladega. After a quiet race at Nashville and an engine failure at Dover, things begin boiling over in the 2-car’s garage.
As the Cup Series returns home for World 600 weekend, there was a tension you could cut with a knife between team management and legendary crew chief Jake Elder. The decision is made to turn their focus away from their Cup program to run the Mello Yello 300 Late Model Sportsman race, and Jake declares he’s had enough. To make matters worse, the weekend proves disastrous when a cut tire dashes Dale’s hopes of a hometown victory and slashes his points lead in half. The next day, Dale and the Osterlund team get a harsh reminder of why they call Jake Elder: “Suitcase”.
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