Ep.313 – Ron Hornaday Jr.

So a man who s***s on his own time.

World's fastest nightlight.

And just-remenced spokesperson.

Ron Hornaday Jr.

If you could describe this lunch we just had in one word, what would it be?

Bull s***.

Fair, fair.

And now for Dinner with Racers, presented by

Continental Tire.

With your hosts, Ryan Eversley and Sean Heckman.

Please hold your radios down.

I've been driving on very angry.

This is the sound of a driver on the radio turning a race.

What do you think I should go ahead and change?

And welcome to Get Another Edition of Dinner with Racers.

I am Sean Heckman.

I'm Ryan Eversley.

And we are sitting at a fading sun here in the late afternoon of Hollywood, California

celebrating our 10th anniversary of Dinner with Racers by eating Johnny Rockets.

Yeah, it was convenient.

Yeah, it worked.

And we're sitting here doing some hosting.

Doing some recaps on a whole season's worth of recordings that we did here 10 years in.

And we'd love to celebrate all sorts of different figures in the sport.

And when it comes to sort of old school legends of NASCAR,

Ron Hornaday is kind of a cool fixture.

Absolutely.

You know, Ron's been one of those guys from the truck series as well as doing Xfinity NASCAR.

But I'd say Trucks is where he really became kind of like the staple of that series.

You know what I mean?

And if you were a young kid coming up against him and doing well against him,

it kind of showed the world like, hey, these people are for real.

And so he became that measuring stick of talent over the truck series.

And we didn't know him at all.

So we weren't really sure what we were getting.

I'd say like if we called him right now, he's coming back to dinner.

Yeah.

Like he was like our guy.

Yeah.

All right, guys.

Yeah, I love Ron Hornaday.

Yeah, most famously there's a thing called Camp Hornaday.

He's notorious for like letting young racers that he believes in sleep on his couch effectively

for free.

He told us we're free to crash on the couch anytime we want to come to the show,

which is pretty cool.

And by the way, NASCAR Hall of Fame.

Yeah, I know he's the real deal.

We actually picked out the restaurant.

I'm only mentioning it because he was like, this place is great.

He was like so stoked about it.

But some of the things you're going to learn about in this episode are being greeted by a father-in-law

with a gun.

Being greeted by Dale Earnhardt in the strangest way we've ever heard.

And working for your dad's biggest rival.

Yeah.

And like we said, we met at the Scratch Kitchen in Moorsville, North Carolina.

Now we posted pictures from this place because it was actual chicken sandwiches.

Yeah.

So you get a pass this time.

I didn't get a pass because I really didn't eat chicken sandwiches.

But they were massive chicken sandwiches.

So if you're in Moorsville, check out Scratch Kitchen.

That was maybe one of the best chicken sandwiches I've ever had in my life.

It was a real chicken sandwich, but I did have to eat it with a knife and fork.

Yeah, no, it was it was huge.

It was awesome.

So yeah, shout out to Ron Hornaday.

You know, and shout out to you guys for already joining with our Patreon.

And if you don't know what the Patreon is, please check out patreon.com forward slash

DWR show.

Quite a few of you have already joined up.

But what we're doing over there is we have some behind the scenes content.

We're doing a little bit more in-depth reviews of some of these episodes we've done in the past,

as well as letting you guys in on inside jokes and just some of the fun that we've had on the

road over these 10 years.

But also we're allowing the fans to know who our guests are going to be before the show goes out,

including adding some questions from you, the guests, which is a lot of fun for us.

But it's been one of those things where we've been doing all the things I mentioned before,

as well as like our race reviews and race previews and then just letting our hair down

and talking trash about racing in general.

And I'd say probably the most fun thing we've done in a long time.

So like I said, patreon.com forward slash DWR show.

And that's one way you can participate.

Another way is you could support Continental Tire, Ryan.

That's right, Sean.

You said it perfectly.

Yes, but you said it even better.

Got Metal Tire.

You were talking when I was trying to, would you let me do it?

Got Metal Tire.

Hashtag dinner with Conti.

Now I use that hashtag dinner with Conti for a reason because that provides very verifiable

and trackable data for Continental Tire to both use and justify why they sponsor us.

So if you're on Instagram and you're buying tires, you're buying Continental products

and you take some photos, when you do that post, not only can tag Continental Tire for us,

but also use the hashtag dinner with Conti.

And that can apply to anything you post.

It doesn't necessarily have to be tires.

Just something fun.

If you want to post, mention us, use that hashtag dinner with Conti.

Or if you're just not a social media person or want to do both,

you can go to dinnerwithracers.com or our Instagram profile.

There is a link in both to Continental Tire's website,

but specifically clicking the link that we provide tells Continental Tire that we sent you.

We get that extra cred and that goes a huge way towards the trackable information that then

justifies keeping this show on the road 10 years later.

You know who else is keeping this show on the road?

Huh?

Shane Van Gisburgen.

I wonder if he stayed at Camp Hornaday.

Guys, we've got to stop.

I really got to piss.

Thanks, Shane.

Now take it away, Ron Hornaday.

All right, we're going to start in five, four, three, two.

All right, you want to come join us?

Let's jump right into it.

So, you were from Palmdale, California.

Yeah.

That's, I was so surprised to learn that.

That's nowhere near here.

That's when California was California.

I don't think it's California anymore.

I don't know how to explain that other than.

But I live in Pasadena right now.

Oh, okay.

So, like, I get it.

I know.

Well, Pasadena's not bad.

Yeah, I like it.

There's certain spots of California that you love and there's some that she didn't even go by.

But yeah, right.

Okay, like so, because you grew up in Palmdale in the late 50s and 60s.

Let's say 70-ish.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because I grew up in Seamy Valley and then I met my wife.

We got married when we were 20 and moved to Palmdale.

It's the only house we can afford.

Okay.

Yeah, all right.

Right on Parablassohira right there.

Yeah, absolutely.

So everyone knows where that's at.

Okay, so have you been to Seamy Valley or Palmdale since then?

I mean, it's a totally different place.

It has.

I want my old house.

Matter of fact, the kid which owns it still owes me the down payment on it because he used

to work for me at Victory Circle Race Car.

I see.

And when I got the phone call from Earnhardt to move back here to drive his truck in 95,

94, I should say, he didn't have the money, so I put the down payment.

So I went by there probably two years ago.

You can't even see the house.

We planted a little tree out front.

The paint is just overgrown and, you know, I guess you don't have a tree trimmer or whatever.

Right, right.

Interesting.

Yeah, it's definitely changed a lot.

It's growing up so much and it's doing it around here.

I've been here 31 years in Morrisville and it's growing everywhere.

Grip in California.

Dad was a racer.

Yep.

Yeah, he did that.

My wife's dad was a racer and their rivals.

They were huge rivals.

Apparently hated each other.

But let's talk about your dad for a little bit because I just read about this a couple

days ago when I was doing my research on you because I went to the Galpin diner like a month ago.

Have you?

Yeah, because they still have this original diner at the dealership there in Los Angeles.

And Galpin is like a big dealership group in like the Valley area.

Well, they were just a little that one corner.

Now they've got the whole four or five, six blocks down there.

So you can go eat at this like old style diner and the food was phenomenal.

And I was like, there's got to be a story here.

So, you know, going back and looking like looking into you, your dad was like part of

the first racing program they had.

Well, he was he was the service manager.

He actually built with the one you were at on Roscoe Boulevard.

He's actually designed and built that.

Yeah.

And when he passed, I had the briefcase and I gave it to

Carl Carl and Bert Bach when they were still alive then.

Yeah.

And they named the service thing after my dad because he kept the whole thing.

Yeah.

So your dad was basically a service manager for Galpin.

Service and parts manager is over everything.

So and they basically started a West Coast NASCAR team out of there and had a lot of

success like one championship a couple of times with 62, 63 or something like that or 63, 64.

And then, you know, he was against Richard and everything at Riverside and Ontario stuff like

that. So how so I mean, we all know Ontario Riverside.

How was the West Coast stock car scene in the 60s?

Well, I ran the Southwest tour.

That's kind of where I made my name.

And it ran from Eureka, California to Stockton, then down to San Bernardino, El Cajon.

So we've had quite a few tracks and the Southwest tour is a touring series.

So we got to race, you know, every Saturday night somewhere.

Yeah.

I moved to LA just after Saugus had gone away.

Yeah.

And it's a shame because it like that seemed like such a cool little place.

It was like anything else.

Nobody nobody knew it.

It's, you know, they called somebody nicknamed me the master of restarts.

Well, it's Saugus.

I mean, they started how many cars showed up and to get your points.

You got to qualify good.

And when you qualify good, they invert the field till you're starting dead last.

So, you know, in 40 laps, you got to figure out how to pass these guys.

Yeah.

And one and two.

And that track was what, a quarter of a mile?

It was three to a mile, not even not even that a little under.

Yeah.

But one or two was flat and three and four, the water ran downhill.

So it was three degrees downhill going towards the wall.

So, I mean, that's kind of helped me in road course racing.

You know, you got to back the corner up, let it roll through the middle and stuff like that.

So, Saugus was, yeah, one of the tracks we had to have a little

finesse to it, you know, learn how to use a bumper a little bit without spinning the guy out and stuff

like that.

So that's where Ron Hornaday senior is like making his name for himself in town.

And then he comes up against a guy named Wild Bill Foster.

He will bill race there every Saturday night.

My dad was kind of like, he was the valley boy.

Bill was up there in Newhall.

So he's like, okay.

So they always thought my dad had the money.

Well, he had this monster got born.

So he always, yeah.

So Newhall even then was sort of a small little nothing town.

It's still sitting there.

His shop has been there for 50 something years in his old Bill's Muffler.

Yeah.

In Newhall.

Yeah.

So he's his nickname is Wild Bill.

Yeah.

A little skinny guy with scrappy type guy who just knew everything.

And it was my second dad.

I mean, he taught me a lot.

But that wasn't like that at first, right?

Not at all.

He hated me.

I mean, when I'm dating his daughter and then I thought she was pregnant.

We had to get married and got the whole shotgun wedding, you know, on the counter and

you get a marry or not, get out of dodge.

So it was a big deal.

Okay.

Wait.

So you're with his daughter.

She gets pregnant.

How does that?

Does he know you're dating?

Well, yeah, because we stayed in this house here to drive by every morning and happy.

She got a phone call every day.

Get that guy out of the house.

Okay.

19 years old.

At 19.

Yeah.

And along comes a baby.

Yep.

Got married before grandma got to see Lindy pregnant.

We had to get married.

So we got married like a year past.

Yeah.

450 something people at our wedding.

We had a white line down the middle.

Nobody can cross.

Every time I go across it, my mom would hit me in the back of the head until we get on my side.

Because these two families will not merge.

It was a kind of a war.

It took 17 years for them to speak.

After the marriage?

After the marriage.

That's crazy.

17 years.

That's crazy.

Because of a stock car rivalry?

Yeah.

Yeah, racing stock.

Yeah, what do you mean?

Of course.

Yeah, just it was funny.

We were at Phoenix, Arizona.

Just got out of a car qualifying.

People come around.

You got to come to your motor home.

You got to go see what's going on.

It's like, oh God, parents are fighting.

Because Bill's got his motor home.

My dad's got his and I got mine.

How old are they at this point?

Oh gosh.

How old are they?

Or yeah.

Yeah, when they're fighting.

I'm just like, I'm seeing grumpy old men here.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, they're grumpy old men.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

You're worried that they're fighting.

Yeah, so they and I run over there and they're both sitting down at a chair.

Yeah.

Drinking a beer together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And it's the first time they spoke and I don't know how many years of our marriage.

So it was a cool.

Again, over stock car racing.

Over stock car racing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

In the Southwest series.

It was actually the West Coast something.

It was kind of like the Cup Series back there.

Yeah, yeah.

But just on the West.

Yeah.

Copy.

Yeah, it was the West Coast division championships.

Because they called it.

But we're not fighting over millions of dollars in sponsorship here.

Yeah, they weren't proud at all.

They just thought.

They doubted how they are.

You got everything handed to you at old man home today.

And you know, I had to work for my stuff.

Yeah.

You know, Bill had his muffler shop and he wouldn't even practice the car.

He'd work until three, four o'clock in the afternoon.

Then get over there, qualify the car and race it.

Because that's all you have time for.

Yeah.

So, I mean, his main thing was an off road.

He had Roger Mears, Machma Smith.

Wow.

He had Roger Mears.

All won the ball hard of him.

Yeah.

So, he worked on his own stuff.

Yeah.

And he's always a Chrysler, Plymouth guy.

Yeah.

And held the car sit for 20 something years.

And Dave Phipps brought it out.

Restored it for the guy.

And still drum break.

Still a 113 inch wheelbase car.

And he ran it the whole season.

And they asked me to run at the last race.

A 100 lap or double points race.

And I got in the lead for somehow.

And I just turned to things sideways.

Nobody could pass me.

So, I ended up winning the last race.

And Bill Foster's car has been sitting in the woods for 22 years.

She's sad to say that.

Did your dad earn this Golden Boy reputation?

Or was this just if you're going to live in Simi Valley,

you're inherently a wealthy guy?

I don't know about that.

That's what I'm saying.

Like, was your dad working on his own stuff?

And they just gave him this rep for no reason?

He had Leon Ruther work on a lot of his stuff.

And it was in San Fernando Valley.

And when he was not racing the Saturday night stuff,

we're talking about the West type car, the bigger car.

It would be in a shop pretty close to Gautam Ford

in San Fernando Valley.

So they'd work on it.

One of them times, you don't see your dad because he's

working in the racing.

So when Wild Bill is saying he's not touching his own cars

and he's just this rich boy racing, it's not true.

No, yeah.

But you've got to have something to dig on him.

Yeah.

Of course.

But I mean, his car's raw.

It's clean.

It had nice chrome numbers.

And here's Bill's car.

They beat it out.

His lead tray, my father-in-law's lead tray,

was in the left rear of his car.

And it was like a battery box.

But welded to the frame.

Right.

And they opened it up one night.

They needed a 9-16 coarse-stread nut or something

like that for the trailing arm.

And they opened the box up.

And here's nuts and bolts.

That's his lead tray.

There's nuts and bolts on the back of the car.

That's awesome.

That's amazing.

How did the conversation go when you let him know

that she was pregnant?

Well, he knew it.

I didn't know he knew it.

OK.

And I worked at Galton Ford.

I worked there for 10 years underneath Blinky.

We used to call him.

And he hated me because my dad always fed me the good jobs.

So he called me.

Galton Ford 300.

Yeah.

Mechanics along and the phone's right in the middle.

And Ron Hornady phone call.

Ron Hornady phone call.

We go out there in junior.

You got to say junior.

Yeah, of course.

But I go and answer it.

And it's her dad.

This is Hornady Foster.

Got some beer and come up there and say, cool.

All right, I'll see you after work.

Like I'm thinking.

It's like, I'm only 19 and a half.

How am I going to buy beer?

Well, as you can tell, I'm gray.

I was gray back then.

OK.

So you can get away with it.

I got burned by a coffee pot when I was nine months old.

And then it burned my pigment in my head.

Oh, OK.

You can kind of see the scars.

And yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I was kind of grayish.

So I get a little six pack of coolers,

banquet beer.

Yeah, yeah.

And he's got a muffler shop.

When you walk in the front door.

So you're in your new hall now.

New hall now.

Yeah, OK.

And there's a glass case with all the muffler tips

and, you know, different kind of muffler.

And you just a foot and a half, two foot.

There's another door.

You go to the back room where the bender is in that.

Sure.

I'm trying to think he was an open pit thing.

So he had to go up, put the chain up.

He walked in and see what was.

Walk back out, put the chain up.

You hear him push the bender in there, shut the back door.

He opens the front other door.

Yeah.

And gets to the counter and looks at me,

reaches down and picks up a shotgun.

Jesus Christ.

Seriously.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Uh-huh.

And now you know what's happening.

And he says, do you love my dad?

I said, I love it with all my heart.

She said, are you going to marry her?

And I said, well, eventually, but we're going to, you know,

I'm chasing my racing career.

He said, ball's on you.

You go, well.

Yeah, right.

OK.

He said, you got two opportunities.

Leave Dodge and I'll raise the kid myself.

Oh, wow.

As one of our kids.

Yeah.

Or you marry her before grandma finds out.

We got married two months later.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Happily, 47 years.

Yeah.

47 years.

Yeah, at all time.

Man.

But did grandma ever do the math?

Grandma looked at Lindy after we did our little dance.

And she goes, you're glowing so much with that baby in your belly.

89-year-old grandma found out already.

So that did work.

Yeah, right, right, right.

That's awesome.

But what I'm surprised by is that it sounds like he was your dad's rival,

didn't care for you too much.

And he said, hey, get some beer.

And you didn't think it might be a trap.

Not at all.

Yeah, you're like, it's happening.

That's a foster.

Yeah, it's Bill Foster.

Yeah, we're having beers.

Now, that doesn't happen today, so to speak.

But back then, was that so crazy?

No.

I can tell your stories, because I worked for Bill.

I worked for the first year, and you got to be on time and everything.

The first time I was early, he probably gave me a set of keys after a year.

I opened a shop, get in there, and I hosed down the whole front to get in there.

And I'm in the bathroom.

And it's no bigger than this thing.

It's one of those ones where your knees are hitting the front of the door and they're sitting down there.

And the door just slams open and hits me in the head.

I go, what the hell are you doing?

He goes, eight o'clock.

You're s*** on your own time.

You work through from eight to five.

And I've been there an hour cleaning the shop.

I get it all badass.

You're thinking you're doing like the greatest, like you're being a good employee.

But I s*** on my own time.

Eight to five.

He owns me.

And that's what kind of hard ass the guy was.

Yeah.

He loved him to death.

That's awesome.

You s*** it on your own time.

Yeah, I think I worked for him for 11 years and learned a lot about mufflers.

I mean, he gas-walled at everything back then.

Didn't have a wire feed, so he found about a wire feed.

And I showed him how to use it.

And he thought it sucked.

So, I mean, I said all the world.

Just learned so much.

My first race car came out of his shop.

So, your dad was okay with that?

No, my father told him I wanted to go racing.

So, he calls Rudy Prince.

Rudy Prince is a used car a lot down the street.

He should go over and see Rudy after work.

So, here I go.

And he says, well, you can take that car.

It's a 64-door Mercury.

You know how big that thing is?

That's a good boat.

Yeah, that's the one you want to take to the...

Movies and brought all the kids in the back.

Right, right.

Whole family in there.

So, I'm driving home and ripping the headliner out

and the whole deal.

Well, I don't want them to do with this thing.

I should say a buddy of my wife's.

Yeah.

They grew up together and always went out

to the racetracks and everything with him.

He had a cage and I bought it for five dollars.

Okay.

So, I asked Bill, so on Saturdays and Sundays,

I'd go over to Bill's and cut the floorboard out

and weld the thing in there with the wire welder.

I learned how to talk Bill into getting.

And my first tow up to Antelope Valley Fairgrounds

on a 64-door Mercury on a flatbed trailer

which is only four inches off the ground.

And I still have the trailer.

That's awesome.

But I towed it.

I had a toolbox, a spare tire, and a five-gallon of gas

behind a 78 Ford Courier.

Bottom of the springs out, rubbing the tire welder.

So, I had a jacket up and put two by four

between the leaf springs and the whole deal.

Well, yeah, so you get the, so your first race car,

your dad says go get one from the, from the use lot.

Yep.

Gives you like the biggest, heaviest thing in the world.

You barely make it to the racetrack towing the thing.

Sounds like the tailgate was on the, on the road.

Well, two, two by four stacked, it was all right.

Yeah.

We got there.

I wouldn't let my kids ride with me.

Okay.

You know, so it was too risky.

Right.

And the first year it's like, you know,

I went up there four or five times

and I didn't know what Canberra was.

Right.

Which I did, but I didn't know how to get it in that old.

And where is this?

Animal Valley Fairgrounds.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So the apartment's all around it.

So you got a decimal reading.

You got to be so quiet.

And it's not just stock street cars,

basically with a little cage in it.

You didn't have a store.

We got, you know, $5 cage from, we got a whole total,

maybe $7 the whole thing on the first race.

Absolutely.

Not counting the gas.

And I get shoved off the track,

but I'm teeter tottering when it rips the muffler off,

when they push me off.

Okay.

And I get black flagged because it's too loud.

Oh, wow.

Even at that time.

Yeah.

No, it's just.

And in Antelope Valley, which is,

it's middle of nowhere.

It's like, you know, when you drive the five

up to San Francisco, it's part of the straight line.

Yeah.

It's where the space shuttle lands when it can't land.

Right.

Exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So I get back the next week, we're going to run again.

And it's like, oh man, I got to fix the muffler.

I get there and Bill has took in the head pipe.

Yeah.

And went up to the passenger seat and put the pipe inside

the car and put the muffler in the back seat.

Right.

And made the pipe come out the back window.

Silence.

It's cool.

I'll never rip another muffler off, right?

I mean, I never asked him to do it.

And I thought it was pretty cool.

So I got to get him interested in it.

So three or four races go by and it's like the next year's

coming.

So we put it on a diet.

They get a tire shop to give me some white spoke wheels.

Pretty good and knobby tires, not too bad.

Got some camera in it.

Cut the roof off, probably took 40 pounds out of the car

and had it painted.

And I got a lettered and it looked bad ass.

Now you're a golden boy.

And I still couldn't win with it.

So I put a buddy of mine, Mike Barnett,

and he's a one footed driver.

And I never figured out one footed drivers.

I can, I can heal in tow.

Okay.

So you mean he right foot breaks?

Yeah, right foot breaks.

Yeah, back and forth.

So here I'm dirt, you know, driving it in there strong

with the brakes, try to throw it sideways.

He goes in there nice and easy.

He drives it like the street and he wins the race.

So he basically taught me how to drive dirt.

So I want a couple of races.

One and two races up there with my name.

Somebody called me and said, hey,

will you want to drive my car at Sawyer Speedway?

Yeah, I'd love to.

Well, it's a street stock.

Street stock got street tires and they got a sportsman class

who's got eight inch tires and the sportsmen are 10 inch tires.

I go to practice.

Well, there's 60, 70 cars there.

I jump in line, guess what, I get in the wrong line

that I'm practicing with the sportsmen.

Oh, wow.

Third quick.

Oh, all right.

So you're on eight inch tires and they're not used to be third quick.

So they went and bought me tires.

Well, after the second week in there, I won the heat race.

And they said Hornaday wins again at Sawyer Speedway.

And that's when my dad got interested and said,

man, I didn't know you were that good kid.

You know, I motocross race.

I mean, I had to pick up a lot of dog poop

and hose a lot of, you know, pick a lot of weeds for the motorcycle.

Yeah, yeah.

And he got interested.

So the whole family, you know, my brother-in-law owned the car hauler.

My brother and my dad owned the motor.

And Frank Danny gave it, got us a chassis from Streetway Engineering.

And it took a couple of years and we ended up winning the Sawyer 330,

the Firecracker 150, the big races where nobody said a kid can win.

And I think I was 21, 22 years old.

It took working with your dad's main rival

for your dad to decide you're worthy.

No, I can't say that.

Okay.

But my dad really didn't know it was up there.

What I did, he thought I was just working on.

Got you.

Okay.

You know, it was pretty bad when your mom finds out that you moved out

and you're living with Lindy Foster.

Got you.

Okay.

We're kind of jumping around the whole thing there.

No, that's what we do.

Yeah.

Just a cool story.

And it just goes on where, you know, we raced every weekend.

Kids staying at Grandpa's house.

He had seven acres up there in Akadosi.

You know, that's that beautiful place.

I don't actually.

You got to pass it every time you go from LA to Palmdale.

Oh, okay.

One road over.

Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.

If you follow a pair of blossoms that get on the interstate,

you run right through Akadosi.

It's that random little patch.

Yeah.

So the kids would stay there and we'd have to pick up every Sunday

and then we'd have to work at the ranch.

That was our payback.

We'll watch the kids and work at the ranch.

You get home 10, 11 o'clock at night.

Mow your grass, pick up all the cigarette butts

because you raced cars in the garage.

And that's when we, I was doing from a John Colvin.

He was doing Rev Co-Racing Enterprises back in the day.

And he was getting busy where he was my rival at Saugus

in the sportsman days.

And he said, hey, I want you to drive my car.

I need a championship and driver, his dad owned the car.

So we ended up winning the championship in 79.

We're at the banquet at, I got to think of the name of it,

Laughlin.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So you got a little gamble going and everything like that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My wife and Dennis Dyer, my brother-in-law,

he's another racer, went down to another casino

because they were tired of this one.

I had $100 left.

And my father-in-law gave me a Kino ticket to play.

And it's got those numbers going this way, 35, the 60,

60, the back and forth.

Well, I played it.

Well, I didn't know it was $15 ticket.

So there was my whole $100.

Oh, yeah, you blew it.

You know, one fourth thing.

Yeah.

Well, the second to the last game, I won $7,500.

Oh, wow.

In 79?

Yeah, that was a lot of money.

Holy s***, yeah.

Yeah, you retire.

Yeah, yeah, right.

Well, so the first thing I did, you know, is gave them

to put in the thing, $7,000 together,

a little gamble a little bit.

And we'll hear it with my wife about 3.30 in the morning.

But I go run down the hall and she thought she was in trouble.

I just won.

We get home that night.

Before I went to work, I went to Dave Jackson's,

Jackson Racecars.

Had him $7,000.

I said, I want a race car.

So that was my very first owned race car myself.

So you literally got going off the casino.

Off a game.

Playing Kino.

Well, I mean, my wife put a lot into all the years of.

Sure.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, but that was able to get you the big car.

Yeah, that was my first Southwest tour car

traveling series.

Yeah, when you're winning races, championships,

but you're still hand to mouth to make any of this work.

And it takes a literally Nevada winnings to get yourself.

My last hundred dollars.

Yeah, yeah.

So that's how we did it.

And then, you know, I got into building race cars,

Victory Circle race cars with Dan Press.

And Dan had Sierra Moulton did his own thing.

So we got to do our own thing.

And I mean, I think our biggest,

our biggest thing of building race cars was

Phoenix.

36 cars started to fill the 27 cars I built

started that race.

So that was huge.

We had a pretty good thing back then.

So if you're doing that, you're making money at that point.

No.

Oh, really?

It all goes back to your race car.

You know, you're sponsoring your friends

because you know everybody.

They help you get up to there.

Right, gotta give everybody something.

So you're doing that.

You're building cars.

Do you have any idea that your future is going to be NASCAR?

Not at all.

OK.

Well, you know, Southwest tour was NASCAR.

Well, you know what I'm saying.

But like, what's the goal, I guess?

Yeah, right.

Back then, I didn't know the goal.

I mean, in 1992, we said we're going to go for the championship

of the Southwest tour.

Well, it's a traveling series.

I mean, some of the races are eight hours away,

some are five, some are three.

So it takes a lot.

We'd have my whole deal.

If you work on my race car, you've

got to be there three nights a week.

I'm not paying your pit pass, or I'm not paying your hotel

room, stuff like that.

You got to know what we have in the race car.

So I had good, loyal guys with me.

And I had a pretty good team back then.

Were they only working for pit passes in hotels?

Yeah.

Because no one's getting paid.

Right.

I wouldn't get paid.

How can they?

I wouldn't like it at all.

I argue with them, buddy.

Because they have to paint in a picture.

There's no such thing as a day rate.

There's no per diem.

No.

Like, you just get in.

Well, I mean, Linda, you would buy pizza or something.

But I mean, you get six guys in a hotel room.

You know, that's what they say.

And so it's six guys in a room.

There's so many stories we tell at the hotel room

to a guy.

We won't even go there.

We won't start on that one.

OK.

Well, it's hard to find people that are that passionate

these days.

Oh.

You know what I mean?

That would do that kind of thing.

So if you're a fan listening to this

and you don't know about that.

Yeah.

You know, it's like, literally, you're demanding

if you want to come work for me at the racetrack,

you got to come work for me during the race week.

Yeah.

On your time.

Yes, I understand.

You're going to get in a car with five other guys.

Yeah.

And they're from the Southwest tour.

And I've always taught anybody about a car from me

or I got this Landlose on helping out.

Your butt's in the seat.

The only thing you got to worry about

is the brakes and the throttle.

Yeah.

That's the only two things.

If you have brakes, you can stop.

If you have a throttle, return springs,

it ain't going to stick.

Right.

So you got to overlook that.

And that's what I've always done.

So nobody can do the carburetor.

Nobody can do all the brakes.

I've led my own brakes.

It came down the last race at Phoenix.

And the cup cars are there.

And it's the grandstands are packed.

Matter of fact, I got a picture of a platform.

I worked at Victor's Circle all day and Thursday.

And we're leaving that Friday morning

because we practice that afternoon.

And it's a seven and a half, eight hour drive.

So I'm home.

I got home at 8.30.

And I haven't scaled my car yet.

I haven't changed at all.

I haven't done nothing.

My brother-in-law lives five houses down.

He said, Ron, can you come up and weld my exhaust?

I got it already in there and everything just welded.

I said, man, I ain't got time.

I got, I mean, we'll leave it three in the morning.

Whole deal.

Lap 13 or 15.

Guess what came through my windshield?

Oh.

His exhaust pipe fell off his race car,

came through, bit the halo down,

came broke my little arm, broke my bone in my arm,

and we're going for the championship.

So Doug George, Rick Crulley, and myself

are going for the championship.

So I'm out of the race in a five and a half inch clutch,

trying to tape the windshield going in and out

to burn the clutch up.

So now I'm sitting here crying.

We got every dime we got.

Here goes the championship, everything we ever did.

So we're behind the wall, pulling transmission out.

And back in the day, the sheet metal went up this way.

So you got to cut the shifter off.

Don't unbolt it because you can't get to it.

They're in a hurry.

And Gordy is dead on stick only.

So couldn't get the new transmission.

He cuts the ears off the new transmission,

but two throws it back in there.

Long story short, Doug George is leading the championship now.

He blows the motor with 30 to go.

The 186 lap race.

Rick Crulley gets the lead.

White flag lap coming up, turn four,

blows the right rear tire.

So this time, 10 laps ago, we get back on the track

with no shifter.

Just get left.

We're trying to get going.

The clutch is still slipping.

We never got it.

Big wreck.

12 car pile up, front straight away.

I think it might have been Dell.

Dell, Waltrip or Schrader, one of those two.

But they weaseled their way through the right.

You see my hand.

Can you guys out there see my hand?

Yes.

They went left and then right.

Yeah, left and right.

Gordy, change your hands.

So I stopped like from here, 20 feet from the start finish line.

I'm getting out of the car and my crew's on the wall yelling at me,

get back in, go across the line, get across the line,

or jump back in the car.

Guess what?

It won't go.

Yeah, it won't go.

It's stuck in here.

Yeah.

I get out and push across the line.

And I say, well, we won the championship by one point.

And I went, wait a minute.

Why do we push across the line?

Because we didn't gain a position on anybody.

Right.

100 and something lapsed out.

Yeah.

We don't have a DNF all year.

I didn't want another DNF.

We're not having a zero.

But those guys were so happy and proud.

And Phoenix is the one mile racetrack.

No.

When they start finish line, when I got out and started

doing the interviews for winning the championship,

they pushed that car in gear, not down Pit Road,

all the way around the racetrack, waving at all the fans.

So that's how dedicated they were.

So the next year, we ain't doing that again.

That was so stressful.

We got tears in our eyes.

Every penny we got to this day,

go out there and win the next three races in a row in the next year in 93.

So we're the only back-to-back champions in 92, 93 in Southwest Tour.

Right.

Is that how you end up on the radar for people to come live here?

You know, get over to Morsville?

Well, then I got a phone call from Dale.

Yeah.

Earnhardt.

Right?

Yeah.

But we were down in Tucson and there was a winter heat.

And it's right about pretty close to Christmas time

because we take a lot of presents down there for the kids down there.

And instead of him mowing grass, I guess he was watching the winter heat there.

And I guess I won, there's 13 races down there.

And I probably won 11 of the 13.

And then the other, we're in a different division, open wheel.

I won all those.

Yeah.

So it just caught his eye.

And I asked Darryl Waldtrip.

He was down there doing us some announcing.

And I said, how come I don't get a phone call?

I mean, this truck series is starting.

I said, Hornet, everybody thinks you're 50 years old with your gray hair.

The next week, my wife dyed my hair.

Guess who I got a phone call from?

No f***ing way.

Look how young I looked.

I mean, it's not your hair.

You look younger.

Holy s***.

So I got a phone call.

So for two cons now?

Yeah.

Okay.

So we're driving home.

No cell phones, right?

So I put the gas station filling up.

Call a shop.

Said, hey, do you guys get a phone call?

Oh yeah.

Larry Nassan, Larry Nassan was a radio announcer.

He's called every Monday morning, screwing with all the guys.

Hey, this is Richard Paddy, wrong home right there.

I got to see how it did this weekend.

Oh, okay.

So when Dale called, they kept hanging up about it with Larry Nassan,

because Dale's got the accent.

They're California people.

Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Also, why is Dale Earnhardt calling a shop?

Right.

Yeah, so it's clearly a radio prank.

So they said, well, he might have, because we've been hanging up,

but we thought it was Larry.

So three, four more hours later, you know, we get to the shop.

Yeah.

And I guess the phone rings as I'm getting out the car.

And they say, it's Dale, it's Dale.

It's a little time to hold on.

I got to take that.

Shit.

Now Dale's got to wait for it.

I'm hearing the theme, man.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sorry, bud.

So he said, hey, the truck's here starting.

You want to drive it?

Hey, yeah, I'd love to.

I'd love to.

He said, all right, I'm going to send you a plane ticket.

Come on out here and see what they got.

Like, no, I got a race this weekend.

I'm busy.

You know, well, he thinks I got 20 guys working on the car.

Well, they all got a job and they work after work.

Yeah.

And there's at least three of them show up.

And so we got to get it ready and turn around.

Also, you just said no to Dale Sr.

But he said, I'll have you back home in time.

Wow.

So he gets to be a first class ticket.

He does.

Page four.

First time I ever flown.

Yeah.

Straight to first class.

In first class.

Yeah.

And it's like what, 93, 94?

94.

Yeah.

Landed Charlotte.

And you could tell where Dale was at when you walk out.

He got carried my bag on.

Yeah.

He had his Chevrolet pickup truck black.

There's a line probably three, four hundred people.

He's there.

Autograph.

So he beeps a horn.

I'll come over there, open the door.

If he's got his foot up on the dashboard.

In a tuxedo and a look back.

And he's got a seven championship trophies in the back.

What?

He just did that.

Did you see the poster?

Oh, he was coming out.

You see the poster with Goodyear?

He did a photo shoot that morning.

He's coming through the media, man.

This is how he travels.

What's he doing with you?

So you haven't seen all the old roads back here.

They're all still small.

Yeah.

Right.

This shop's over here on the highway three.

We drive by all the time.

Yep.

So he brings me up the back road.

Hey, there's Kenshire Interstate.

Instead of driving the Interstate.

Yeah.

So we're running 70, 80 mile an hour on these little 40

mile an hour roads.

With his trophies.

He's passing cars.

With a tuxedo.

He's passing cars and everything.

And we get up there's Dooley and he goes to pass the Dooley

and the Dooley moves over in front of him.

Beep beep.

One finger, you know.

He does it again.

The guy does it again.

So he goes up there and runs in the back of the guy.

Look at about another half a mile.

You can't make this up.

I wish right back then we had a phone you could take,

film it.

And at this point you've known him for 10 minutes.

I raced against him and I ran into him at Phoenix

two years before that.

But you know him well.

Don't know him at all.

First time.

So we go up another half a mile and the guy turns in there

and flips Dale up.

Yeah, right, right.

I figured he's going to stop, go back and beat the guy.

He goes to the next drive.

He turns in and I go, yeah, what was that all about?

He said, the guy's trying to get in my daughter's pants.

I won't let him.

He works for me.

It was the guy.

It was this farm guy working for him.

And how am I supposed to know who the guy is?

You're right, you're right.

You're crazy, right in the back of him.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's amazing.

Yeah, so there's a race shop, drives past a race shop,

shows me all his cows, shows me his ranch in the back,

pulls up there and says, go in there and see Doug Richard.

Then it induced me, didn't it?

And then I'm going into the 3000 miles away from

California where I'm from.

We'll see Doug Richard.

And Doug was like the big crew chief at that time.

Yeah, so I came back and I told him I'd be back

next week after the race.

And we ended up winning that race.

We sold our car out of Victory Lane at Tucson

and moved back there and moved with Doug and Robin Richard.

And then my wife sold Victory Circle

and we had an auto repair store,

little four bay auto repair store.

She sold that and she came back in 95 with the kids.

And at that point you're now in North Carolina.

1995.

And this was because he was starting his truck team.

He started turning around and going back down to Phoenix.

That's the first race at Phoenix.

Oh, funny.

So I sat on the pole and I think I finished fifth.

Didn't know how to save tires and just drove the s*** out of it

and burned the tires off of it.

So obviously you've had a hell of a career since then,

you know, all these celebrities of our sport.

At any point are you like, what is happening right now?

Like from the moment you get off the phone with Dale Earnhardt

to getting a plane ticket to get like, you know,

that's an all time legend.

Yeah, I mean, are you getting phased?

Are you like, holy s***, what is going on?

Like, what is this?

Well, especially because at this time,

the truck series didn't exist.

So it's a whole new program.

He hasn't run a team yet quite like this.

So it's a truck program, a new series, a new team.

And he's got, he runs his own.

And he's a superstar.

Yeah.

Runs his own bush car back then.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, it's a height of fame for him.

And you're like, no, you're not because,

I mean, he's your boss now.

Sure.

You know, before you go up there and talk to him,

like you and I are talking now, but now he's your boss.

Right.

You got to listen when he says fart, you know.

And when you jump, you jump out of high, type of.

But also like, I mean, by this point,

I mean, mid 90s, you're mid 30s.

Right.

So it's not like you're a 19 year old kid.

I think I think I was 33 or 34 when I moved back.

Yeah.

And you'd been living, I don't want to say hand to mouth,

but I mean, you're putting everything you made

back into your race car.

Right.

And then Dale, you know, called me and said,

hey, you know, here's your contract on a piece of paper,

or not, not really.

I'll pay you $60,000, $60,000, that's a hell of a lot of money.

And then he gave me a percentage of like,

top 10, you get 20%, top five, you get 40%.

You win, I'll give you 50%.

And after I won the first couple of races,

he just gave me 50% across the board.

And then that's where I made my money at.

I'm not a millionaire driver.

I'm not a cop driver.

Trucks did not make what cup drivers make.

So just remember that.

You're talking to ancient people, by the way.

Yeah.

But everybody calls you and say, hey, you got money.

Can I have a loan?

Because they'll pull your name up there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Got $11 million.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, it's like, really?

We work in sports cars.

We're not a, yeah.

Have you ever seen my office in my trophy room and everything?

Yeah.

My motto is live every day like a Saturday.

Because you race on Saturdays, you want to have fun.

Well, I did that.

I bought new boats.

I bought new cars.

You're right.

So guess what Ron's got?

So you get signed by Aaron Hart.

You're making $60,000.

But here's the thing I'm hearing is that like,

you know, your 27 chassis are out there,

or 27 cars are out there in the Southwest series.

They're cars that you built.

Your guys are all volunteer crew.

I mean, you're working very, very hard in the Southwest series

to pay your way through.

I'm assuming, Winter Hart, you're a driver.

And now all you have to do is drive.

And you're not 19.

You're in your mid 30s.

In other words, like you've had a lifestyle of doing it this way.

And now it's a massive change in life to not only live in North Carolina,

but like, nah, you just have to drive.

Not that that's easy.

But it's very different from having to work on an exhaust system all night

and then go race the next morning.

So how much of a change is this for you?

It's not.

I didn't change.

Okay.

I still went to the shop.

Still worked on the truck.

You did.

What were you expected to?

Or you just didn't know how to not?

What's that?

Were you expected to work on the truck?

Or you just didn't know how not to do it?

Well, all the kids raced.

So I, you know, after we got done with what we needed to get done on the truck,

I was always taught anybody would ever go for me.

If you are going for the lead,

running good running up front and your wreck thing, I'll fix it.

If you're being stupid or running somebody under yellow and wreck it,

you're going to be over their money more than helping me fix it.

Well, I was pretty stupid a couple of times.

So I was over there and I just started being, you know, just started doing it.

And we were shy on people and Doug needed the help.

And I knew it all well.

I knew how to do things.

So the problem I had in the earlier years,

until I got with Wally Rogers up there at Kevin Harvick,

I finally had to tell him that I'm the driver and you're the crew chief.

Because I'd say, Hey, the thing needs a right front spring or let's, let's change shocks.

And it took me a long time to get that out of my head.

And you, do you think you were, you're getting in the way?

I wouldn't help on ourself.

Yeah, I understand.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't let in the crew chief.

Yeah, you're chasing down things that maybe he could go a different way if he wasn't.

Made him think about something instead of.

You're ticking him off.

Instead of raising the track bar, let's change the right front spring.

Let's make the thing turn instead of getting loose all the way to the corner and make it

turn up a little bit.

So it took a while to learn that and we did and it, it, it sold my career.

When you move down here, obviously, you know,

quite a few people that were doing the West coast races for NASCAR and stuff like that.

But like, who becomes your crew of people that you run around with?

Well, we're fortunate enough, we, a second house was that we bought our first house.

We're a California people.

Man, look at the trees.

They're so beautiful.

Look at this house.

It's full of trees.

So we built a little walkway, a little fire pit down there and all that.

And the wintertime came 300 trees on a half acre lot.

I moved within that next month.

I called the guy we bought the house from because he's a house builder.

So you got another house and he goes, yeah, I got one on the lake just like this.

What's another 100,000 more?

I said, I'll take it.

So then we got a house in the lake.

So if we won, if we didn't race because truck surge wouldn't race, never again.

Hornet days was a party place because it was a

house, a breezeway into the garage.

Well, but no more garage door.

We put French doors, put a pool table, put a little bar, did the whole deal.

And that's where the couch came from.

The Kevin Harvick stuff on, the Jimmy Johnson stuff on.

What's known as Camp Hornet Day?

Yes, yes.

So somebody said, yeah, I don't know why.

So a lot of our fans are not necessarily NASCAR people that we know all the details.

So Camp Hornet Day in NASCAR is very famous, but to somebody who doesn't know what this is,

tell me about Camp Hornet Day.

I don't know why it's been called Camp Hornet Day.

But then we get friends coming over and we wash, ski and have fun.

I guess they got to the point where you, when Kevin, when Kevin.

Harvick.

Yeah.

When Kevin first met, I guess it was Jimmy Johnson was the very first one.

We had a Chevrolet deal and he was racing off road and I was racing trucks.

And he told me he's coming out here and rent a house.

And Herzog is going to pay for a ride for him to run the bus series.

And I said, well, don't, don't rent a house.

I said, save your money, stay at my house.

And within six, eight months, you'll have enough for a down payment.

You know, you pay, you know, $1,500 or $2,000, you'll have a down payment for a house.

Well, he stayed there probably eight months.

And they keep saying the couch is the only reason that couch is there is they got too drunk

downstairs to walk upstairs to the bedroom.

Okay, I got you.

So if you talk to all of them, I think I'm the only one they say that the only thing I really

taught them is how to drink Coors Light.

But effectively this, this off road kid, Jimmy Johnson comes from Southern California, just

like you a little bit further south and effectively stays in like a guest room couch.

Yep.

For the first year of his, his, what's now Xfinity.

The bad part is that we didn't, the house wasn't that big.

There's only a three bedroom.

So he stayed with my son in a bed.

We had two beds in one room.

And then Kevin did the same thing basically.

He got, he got the port of cable and ride and he's running the trucks because he's,

he's still, he won the Winston West championship out there and still out there.

And he was moving back.

Did the same thing with him and he bought a house down the street on the lake and stuff like that.

So where does that, that's, where does that come from?

Like, why do you do that?

I guess I can't be alone.

Okay.

I like that's a real answer.

Yeah.

You know, Lindy and I want to go out to dinner.

We got to call our friends and we got to call our, our, our kids or something like that.

Just, I guess that's why we're married so long.

Yeah, right.

You like having the social aspect.

We'll get mad at you instead of her.

I like that actually.

See that guy, he didn't close his mouth when he ate.

No, he's just snacking.

Yeah.

So we don't do that to ourselves.

Yeah.

But you were fine, but he was a problem.

Yeah.

Yeah, I get that.

That's cool.

Yeah.

But I mean that plays a huge role because you've done this now for several people that have gone

on to some, some big success, but also you've done it for like mechanics and some officials.

Well, you hope you're going to probably talk to Ross in a couple of days.

Right, right.

So I mean, Ross, Ross didn't need that, but he's not very far down the road,

eight hours down there.

And he got a place to stay for a couple nights here and there.

It's not that, did I do it to get padded on the back?

Did I do it?

No.

Sure.

That's how I was.

I just like, we always liked people.

We always had a boat, you know, and it wasn't a speed boat.

It was a pontoon boat.

So we can get 11, 12 people on.

Bill, are you familiar with Bill Riley?

The Riley technology is the shop owner.

He has the exact same philosophy.

Way more women on a bikini on a pontoon boat.

Yeah.

A speed boat.

I can't say that.

I've been married 46 years, but you're right.

He's married too.

So I never thought about the fact that as a truck racer, because there's only so many races,

it's not like cop where it's, it's every other, every weekend.

So what were the parties like in between?

Can't say.

We're on air.

No, they weren't that bad.

You know, my wife never drank.

See how maybe once, twice a year, she might have a Bloody Mary or something like that.

And she's not a very good.

She's not a core of life.

If she, if she has two more, she has one more Bloody Mary than she should have,

your care.

And she'll say, I'm getting dizzy.

So you got 30 seconds to find her place to lay down or take her to bed.

So that's what kind of life, but to put up with all the people we've had there,

and we've had two, 300 people at our house and, and you know, if you win a race,

you're coming home and somebody's got beer and they're going to be on the back porch.

And the worst part about the whole thing was when you did have family or follow

on or somebody over, you couldn't cook a steak.

Everybody sees it.

Hornet's having a party and they'd pull in.

Yeah.

So when you do barbecue, you got to buy 10 steaks and have it for somebody shows up.

And I figured it out when I sold the big house,

you quit buying their steaks and the beer.

You got no more friends.

That's funny how that works.

I got a handful would still hang out and still come by.

But who was never invited back?

Yeah, yeah.

Who out war they're welcome.

We've had a couple people with undercover police and thinking that, you know,

because we've got that many people having fun doing cocaine or smoking dope.

And now, you know, my son owns a hemp store.

We're against all of it.

Right.

My fall largest.

I mean, if one of the kids just found out this guy smoke a dope, they're not allowed around.

And that's just how we grew up.

Yeah.

So yeah, we had that couple of those.

But no, they were pretty good.

That part is when you have an open party.

You don't know who this is.

You wake up in the morning.

You got beer cans in your fireplace.

You got beer cans in your bushes.

Yeah.

But everybody would race as a race team combined.

They'd help Lindy clean the dishes.

They'd help.

She's always cooked.

So I mean, it's nothing like we're spending all day Sunday morning cleaning up.

OK, people took.

We might take a trash bag out to dumpster or something like that.

So as you start driving for Dale, he's obviously got standards that he wants to have

success.

And he also has a name and reputation to uphold.

If it wasn't going well, how would he how would he handle it as a boss?

The good thing about it, he didn't have to say a word.

It's his demeanor.

It's looked right, right.

Something like that.

He's no.

Yep.

I've learned, you know, I'm very, very fortunate enough to drive some good people.

I go for Mr. H. I go for Richard Childress.

I go for AJ Point.

Go for Earnhardt.

Go for Kevin Harvick.

I never had to make an excuse because they're all drove.

They all know.

They've all seen it.

So it's like me to go on there and lie and saying, hey, you know, I missed the brake

pedal or, you know, so it made my job easy.

Just if I screw up, make sure there are money more than fixing it.

The best one is when.

Earnhardt fired me and I still I went bush racing a couple of here and there and

that and I drove for AJ for a year and a half.

And I went back to trucks and Kevin called me and he's had a Christmas party.

And I'm not allowed to come in yet.

So they all had a toast for something.

And then he said, everybody, I want to announce the new driver we're going to have next year.

But before I do, I hired two more fabricators.

And so am I too rough on equipment or?

But they've always called me the bulldog.

I mean, I don't care who it is in front of you.

I'm going to get around you.

I give you a, you know, if I catch it and run you down, I'll give you a little top.

You don't move over.

And it's like, you only get two.

That's when I'm really moving it.

First time for us.

Yeah.

You've been that way.

I mean, you know, insertion, you get underneath the guys three times.

You keep spinning.

It's like, yeah, something's got to get.

Yeah.

We're going to have tire marks or we're going to have broken fiberglass.

It's interesting because I think it was Todd, but I said that you off track your persona doesn't

match your on track persona because on off track, you're really caring about people.

You're really supportive of other people on track, a lot more selfish, a lot more aggressive.

And it's me versus you.

And I don't care.

I got to win.

As we go back to my earlier days, yeah, every position was 50 bucks.

Yeah.

35 bucks.

Yeah.

In my pocket.

And when somebody spun you out or somebody wrecked you, that's taken food off the table.

And then it just made me upset.

And I drove, I drove like I got to prove myself every week.

And I don't know why.

I mean, you know, people say, oh, and you're in the hall of fame.

So I did my job and my wife should be in the hall of fame.

She's going to put up all the bull and all the crap, everything we've ever done.

She, I mean, we blew a motor in our car in Southwest tour and she's doing fingernails.

She'd work all day and come home to a fingernail until 10, 11 o'clock at night

and have the cash to buy for a motor.

That's how my wife was.

And I mean, I would, I wouldn't even be involved in racing right now.

I'm going to enjoy and got a camper and go there.

I don't know.

We got Landon Lewis.

We got to go to watch races.

We got to go watch the kids race to the legend.

There are go-karts over here on Tuesday nights.

Let's go over there.

That's your wife.

That's my wife.

That's awesome.

You know, so that's, and I never told you the first story.

I was working on, when we got the house in Moore Park, we're written, we got married.

I was working on everybody's race car.

I get home at 10, 11 o'clock at night, get up at six.

About the first week, she goes, what are you doing?

I said, I enjoy working on race cars.

I mean, I think I'm a dad.

She goes, why don't you build your own race car?

So that's when you know you married the right wife.

Yeah.

When she says, why don't you build your own?

Stop doing it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So there we go.

That's amazing.

And I miss that whole key moment of my whole career right there.

But if it wasn't her saying, go do it.

She'll be a mechanic.

You'd still be a mechanic.

Never knew what my talent was.

I know I was good on motocross and I hurt myself.

I got a factory ride on Mako and I raced Friday night,

Saturday night, and Sunday I got hurt.

And that end of my career got into the go-karts.

You also glanced over something.

You didn't work on your dad's cars.

Who's that?

You didn't work on your dad's cars, you'd say.

No, because it was always somewhere else.

And then when he was getting ready, I think it was Riverside.

And he had that 63 Falcon, that ass.

A fairly, Falcon, a fairly, yeah.

He's packing the wheel bearings.

Back in the day, you do your hands and you set them on the hub

and then you clean your hub out.

My dad said, don't touch them.

Don't touch them.

So he goes into the house, we have dinner, come back.

And somebody wiped the bearing grease off the bearings.

So he said, Ron told you not to touch it.

Go in the house, go to your room, go do something.

He said, Dad, I didn't touch it.

I didn't touch it.

So I guess about half hour later, maybe 10 minutes later,

it felt like a half hour.

He come back and says, Ron, come back out here.

I'm sorry.

Apologize.

He said, I got one side done, got the other side.

It was gone again.

I was watching the dog click all the wheel bearing grease off that.

So that's what I got to work on the car.

So dogs like wheel bearing grease.

Apparently.

But like 12, 13, were you wrenching for your dad?

Were you going to the track?

Going to the track, not wrenching.

Yeah, I remember wrenched.

Didn't know anything about him.

Can't touch Dad's toolbox, you know, because special tools in there.

Ron knows the thing about that.

I was going to say, lose a finger.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So when you make the jump to trucks, now it's a,

you know, you go from sort of this regional Southwest thing

just on like a mental level.

How big of a change was it having to go to tracks across the country

and that style of racing?

It was cool about as Dell had his own planes.

So we had to fly on a Kair.

Oh, nice.

You know, and trucks were always a day before the Bush series

so they can take us there, race, come back.

And when the truck series started,

they would never go over a mile.

They said the mile tracks are because they're going to go to.

And let's change right away.

I think it an opportunity to run the first year at Daytona,

but I thought they were stupid nuts.

The following year, I was out of a job.

I went to Mr. Hendricks and he says,

well, what do you want to do?

I said, I'd like to try trucks again.

I'm going to go up and see Lee up there at the museum

and get Ricky's truck out of it.

Museum what he just finished second with last year.

So that's how I started my career back again.

I was looking for a job and Mr. Hendricks got Ricky's truck out of there.

He could just do that.

Yep.

Yeah, we should have won Daytona and we left the wheel loose

and had to come back in towards the end.

But yeah, so I prayed and asked off for going to Daytona knowing.

But you were I mean, you were synonymous with the beginning of the truck series.

Really, really cool racing at the time.

You win the champ.

You win a couple of championships doing it.

I mean, you're, yeah, you're the guy.

Obviously, it's the DEI program.

It's the whole thing.

You know, we look at that like to me,

the late 90s, early 2000s era of truck racing was super cool.

It was young up and coming kids against old established veterans

and kind of merging.

And it was perfect.

Exactly.

You put it exactly.

And that's Jack Sprague's Ron Hornaday.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

We needed to make a name for ourselves so we can go to the next level

or have an opportunity with the next level.

So, I mean, racing was intense.

I mean, here's Skinner racing for children's what owns Earnhardt's car.

Right, right.

And the worst thing we ever got into was Hornaday.

Just kidding.

Sit down.

That's our you're wrecking out there.

Get out there and learn how to race or quit wrecking our stuff.

Both of them.

Yeah.

Richard and Dale.

And Dale.

Yeah, y'all are not us.

So that's that's the phone call you are that sit down meeting at the racetrack.

The truck series is very different today.

The business of truck racing is very, very different.

So what do you see when you look at it?

I don't know if this will put it in perspective.

About three, four years ago, I had a phone call and said,

hey, Ron, you guys are shredding.

I haven't again.

I said, well, not really.

Well, I got a brand new truck.

Here's a crew chief.

Here's a motor.

And I want you to run Martinville.

I said, oh, yeah, I'm pretty good at Martinville.

Yeah.

His next question was how much money can you bring?

And that's bad things with the sport is I got this kid.

I keep saying Landon Lewis.

Yeah, yeah.

He's got so much talent.

He came to me when he was 11 years old.

When everything go cards, I put him a dirt car.

We put him in the archer cars.

We put him in the back running trucks just to get the experience.

And he ain't got no money.

But he's got the best talent out there.

So they'll come up.

He's racing with Kevin right now.

So and it's hard.

And I told my wife that I had a lot of opportunity

to run Martinville.

And she says, Ron, you know, you're tipping in on the racetrack.

You know, when you put your helmet on that you want to win.

What do you do when that kid runs into you?

You let him go and you spin him and wreck him like you used to.

You find out he's 16 or 15 because he allowed to run 15.

Yeah, yeah.

These are just kids.

And I started thinking, I said, you're right.

Because I mean, I did.

I had the three bump rules.

You run into me, you know, more than twice.

I'm moving, I'm moving over and let you go by.

And it's going to be fun.

There's one thing when it's Skinner and he's the same age or whatever.

But if you're a 16 year old kid, you got to get us.

I mean, hell, there are a lot of race 15 now.

You know, also a Skinner knows that even if he doesn't like you,

he'll respect you.

He gets what you're doing.

He will respect my guy.

He knows whatever he pushed dishes out.

He's going to get back.

Exactly right.

Yeah.

And that's that's the big difference between veterans and new

new calendars or entitlement.

Yeah, you know, people that didn't have to earn it.

Yeah, because yeah, because I have plenty of people I risked

and said I don't give a s*** about at all,

but I'm not going to just run them off the road

because they're racing me hard.

I'll race them hard too.

And that's part of it, you know.

But I think Sean Heckman once said,

I put I put the quote here.

I want to make sure I get this verbatim correct

because we're talking about this yesterday.

Now it's just rich kids driving like dips.

Sean Heckman.

That's what I was doing on the truck series.

Which I agree.

It's quite a lot.

So I'm going to put it, my grandson about four years ago,

we were at the fair and they had a simulator in there.

Okay.

He said, hey, Papi, come in here and race me in here.

I said, no, dude, I had enough racing.

He says, yeah, you don't get hurt in these things.

You just get a new truck, push a button.

Yeah, right.

And I think that's how these kids think.

That's not far off.

They didn't race when I did.

When you hit the wall, you had no soft walls.

You had no neck device.

Oh, yeah.

You guys are in your seats.

You hit the wall, you hit all.

Yeah, people are hurt.

Your impact test was this.

So I mean, it's a flashlight.

Yeah, it's a flashlight.

No hand in your face.

And I don't know how to say it.

I mean, the cup cars seem like they were,

when they first started were real rigid

and people were getting hurt in them.

They started respecting them.

And now it's back to where they're the same speed.

They're all, everybody's all out from, you know,

first to 43rd.

They're all wide open.

So I hate to say you guys,

this is probably the best chicken sandwich I've had.

I was thinking the same thing.

Yeah.

So we have a running joke that everywhere we go,

Sean orders a chicken sandwich.

But this time it's actually real.

It's really good.

Yeah, it's fantastic.

Yeah, it's quite a project.

So you have a ton of success in the truck series.

Kevin Harvick, who's also a California kid,

came out on your couch.

You've got a real strong connection with him and his family

and their whole participation in the sport.

What's the first interaction between you and Kevin?

How do you remember it went?

Uh, Bakersfield.

He was 16 years old, the kid.

Yeah.

You know, and I was racing the Southwest Tour.

Yeah.

He's been the kid.

He was, I mean, he had to be 16 to get at Mason Run.

And like, well, his birthday's this weekend,

and he's been racing for three years.

So how, he's turning 16.

So that's why his cars call him the kid.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But yeah, I mean, he was good back then.

And we've had our moments, not on the racetrack or anything

like that.

But he had a hard on for Jack Sprague.

I got this little autograph session at a bar.

And we had a few, got to the point where we come on Kevin.

We got to go.

We went to the hotel and I drove him.

And he was sitting behind the seat.

And I'm running about 80 down the interstate.

I'm full.

You're out there in Orlando.

And Sammy's in the front seat.

Kevin's in the back.

And he's got my eyes closed, pinned.

I can't get his hands off.

And it's like, now I'm slowing down to 30 mile an hour

on this interstate.

I just ran five miles.

Yeah.

So we saw about a gas station.

He keeps doing the old prowl poking you, hitting you.

And I said, Kevin, get the f out of here.

Just leave me alone.

Yeah.

I finally pulled the gas thing out and just dumped him

with gas.

And at the time, I smoked.

Yeah.

Keep lighting my lighter.

Here you go, bud.

Come on a little closer.

So I mean, we've had our fun.

We did that.

And he was another one.

He was my boss a couple times.

Once he had his success, he eventually hired you back

to then go run the trucks.

Right.

And then we got a crew chief where I couldn't get in

the top five.

I couldn't get out of my own way.

Qualifying 18th in a whole deal.

So I got a phone call on Monday morning up there.

And here's Rick Crilly, Delana Kevin, the lawyer, the engineer.

And it's like, so what's going on, Ron?

I said, what are you talking about?

He said, was your truck?

I mean, are you getting old?

Do you mean the Bothernia, Scania?

I said, so Rick Crilly's at the racetrack every weekend.

He used to drive.

He gets photos and everything at the truck.

I said, pull up his computer and look at your nose on your

truck with seal off and mine's five and a half inches

off the ground.

So just to set the tone on that real quick, because we don't

do that in sports cars, they'll have photographers during

the track sessions taking photos of the vehicle, sending it

to the engineers and the crew chiefs.

Making sure the balance of the front or seal off the aerodynamics.

So it keeps it down for us.

Keeps running with tape.

So if yours is in the air, if you're off the deck, basically.

What's it going to do?

You know, the nose is going to float.

It's not going to turn.

The time you get off the gas, the nose is floating.

And when it lands, now your springs come in effect,

and then your sideways.

Yeah.

Yeah, but a mid session, there'll be photographers sending

photos of the truck to help you guys make them faster.

We don't do it.

I think that's really cool.

Right, right.

You know, I told Kevin, I said, if you think it's me,

I mean, I'm willing to quit or you can fire me.

I mean, I got, but I mean, give me an opportunity.

Let me drive your stuff one weekend and with that,

I'll go down the shop.

Let me take about what we're going to do and all that stuff.

We started looking at the pictures and we're like, wow.

You know, and I guess the first two races,

I went up there and won in his trucks.

Oh, well, he actually did it.

He did the swap.

Well, he didn't drive mine.

Okay.

He didn't drive mine.

Yeah.

You got to drive a new truck with all that.

Okay, okay.

That's the tell.

Yeah.

He's like, I'm not going to do that.

Yeah, yeah, right.

And then we got Rick Wren, which I'd really disliked Rick Wren.

My son got in, was driving racing back then too.

And he got into his driver on a small little 3-8 mile race

track and it's like, you're going to get into everybody.

He said some bad things about my kids.

Like you little rich bastards, something like that.

You didn't work for it.

Well, my kid, if he's put his truck together for race

and I find the bolt loose, you're taking the whole truck back apart.

And that one bolt flew, something else flew.

And that's how I taught him, you know?

So Rick become my crew chief and we're in good.

We want to race here, run race there.

And that's when we won five-year-old.

We clicked on something.

And Rick was that crew chief, but you ask a question.

He will not just give you an answer to make you happy.

And I go, where did he go?

I mean, it's 20 minutes later and I'm, get out of the truck.

He's up in there and he's got the whole front of the office

in front of the truck filled with papers trying to find that answer.

Every driver he drove for here.

I know I got the answer.

It's in my notebook.

Oh, wow.

That's what you want because he's taking your feedback serious.

And that's how he was.

He was one of those fine tune.

He's not just saying you're wrong.

Put something in it, let me go try it.

See if it's right or wrong.

Hold on, we'll get it right.

See the diligence.

And that's the things you've gone to.

And then that's what I told you while we were on it.

All right, front spring and that would be good.

And you know, all that put a little more wedge in it, track bar.

Let him do his thing.

Let him create it.

How did you and Rick get on after that?

Great.

You'll do.

Say winning fixes a lot of problems.

Well, it's not even that.

It's just he's not the guy you thought.

Right, for sure.

And he didn't know Lonnie's story.

So he actually won over my son.

And I didn't know.

Sure.

He worked on your own and you got your own sponsor.

Yeah.

Makes a big difference.

And this was at a time when people thought this guy's way too old.

And then you're out still kicking ass.

Yeah.

Kevin Hart saved my life.

Saved my life.

I was racing for him.

And just set the timeline.

I mean, what year?

Because you at this point.

I won for the 0-9 and 11.

I won championships.

So there were a year before there and a year in the middle.

Because a year before you were sort of.

Arguably you were falling out of favor in the sense of people

weren't necessarily looking at you the way they used to.

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm a good looking dude, man.

I don't look at you.

No, I don't die.

It's got that beautiful.

I dyed my hair back then.

Yeah, exactly.

But anyways, so.

I forgot what I was going to say.

Kevin Hart saved your life.

Kevin Hart.

Kevin Hart saved my life.

So I've always been 202 to 205 racing.

I worked out, not worked out, but I always kept in shape.

I got down to 134 pounds.

Jesus Christ.

Oh, all right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I just got my pinnacle out.

Okay.

Get on the race, set race.

I hear about my height.

What are you, six foot, six one?

No, I'm 5'11.

5'11, okay.

I got shorter because I'm older than you now, 5'10.

But I've always been because I always drank beer.

So I went to my doc and I've been going to him.

Yeah, 5'11, 134 is.

Yeah, I mean, and then you weren't doing anything different, right?

No.

In the morning, now I was getting milkshakes at Wendy's.

I was getting different.

Trying to get weight back on.

Then I started getting the shakes.

So going to my docs up the butt, down the throat,

the whole deal, you know, CAT scans.

He can't find nothing.

So Kevin called me up there and he wasn't there.

And Rick Crowley was there when we jumped in the car

and Crowley takes me to the hospital.

And I said, you know, I already went through all this.

I paid everything.

I said, I'm not paying it down.

No, this is Kevin's doc.

Kevin wants you to see this guy.

So I walk in and you can tell I always wear a hat.

And the guy comes walking out the door and says,

hey, I'm Dr. Shulman So and I'm Ron.

He's looking and staring at me.

He said, hey, take your hat off.

He grabs my hair and says, you got grave disease.

So what's that?

Yeah, what's grave disease?

Is your thyroid is working too hard

and it's eating your muscles.

Like some people get fat.

Right, right.

Sorry for spitting at you.

That's the food we're eating.

Now you know it's real.

That's legend.

But now you have braces.

So I can use a little.

I call my wife and I said,

Lindy, there's box that I got grave disease and everything.

Talk to him.

See what it is.

So Lindy's talking to him and she's okay.

What do we do?

She's looking at his diet and we'll give him those.

She says, well, can we do it?

You got two more, two more months left of racing

and all that stuff.

And he goes, no, he'll be dead by then.

Holy s**t.

Well, how quickly it gone from like 200 to 130?

Two months, month and a half.

Oh, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, that's a bad trajectory.

Yeah, that's part of the body.

Yeah.

So I mean, the bad part is we were running,

we were at California and we qualified good

and the end of the race, like eight.

But Kevin, no less 10 miles from throttle

or second, I'm going to burn.

It's a two mile track.

I said, I don't want you yelling before Kevin.

I said, it wasn't me.

It was the truck.

I mean, it's rattle stocking.

The butterfly busted.

Yes, I fixed it.

Yeah.

With the ignition.

So you ended up going and seeing this doctor.

He tells you, I have a great disease.

What happens next?

So we'll go to my doc and we go up.

You're fired.

No, he just said, go see your own physician

and no whole deal.

Yeah.

So they look at your diet.

So they eat, drink what you're doing.

Sure.

Keep your beer or everything up.

Yeah.

And then you go up there and they take your blood work

and they do a swab and then you do it for like three days.

And they nuke.

They give me a pill to nuke out.

So I go up there.

It's in Saintsville.

It's about 20 minutes from there.

And the nurse comes out and they already got what they're going

to do is the dosage and everything.

She comes out a full hazmat suit.

But it looks like an urn.

Like somebody's dead.

And Chopin's just hanging up with a pill.

And she says, grab it.

I said, if you're like that.

I don't want to touch it.

Yeah, right.

And you're not touching it.

No, I'm not.

Dump it in.

So they dumped it in.

So now it's supposed to be better.

Can't be around kids.

Got to wipe the toilet seat.

So now you're nuclear.

So now I'm laying in bed that night.

My wife comes in and turns the lights off.

Turns them off.

I said, what the eff are you doing?

She goes, Ryan, it's so funny.

You say your neck's glowing.

I said, you know what I'm saying?

Oh, shit.

That's crazy.

I was just kidding.

What?

They said swallow this?

Yeah.

Put that in your body.

He'll be glad.

But she, they wouldn't touch it.

They wouldn't mean to grab it.

But I said, no.

No, you do it.

But you know, Lindy's hung around.

She, I mean, good dogs, kids or anything.

That's kind of weird.

Then it goes after a while.

And now I got to be in Centroid the rest of my life.

So Centroid was pretty expensive when you bought it.

Sure.

So we get a guy who knows a guy.

How'd you do?

You know, he's a party bill in the whole bill.

And he says, yeah.

So we're getting him out of Florida.

Yeah.

Get him to knock on the door.

Hey, I'm doing an interview.

Well, cruelly everybody's sad of that.

Talk to cruelly.

Talk to Harvick.

They're doing a lifetime store on me.

Oh, I know.

So I said, well, come on in.

So the guy comes in the house.

He said, we got a place to talk.

I said, well, you talk here.

My kids know my whole life.

Yeah.

So now we, so we go out back.

And he throws his book down.

Says, Steroids Nations.

So what's that?

He said, you just Steroids, don't you?

I said, I got to.

I got to.

I got to stay alive.

Yeah.

I mean, I have to.

Yeah.

Well, I guess he busted Lance Armstrong.

Oh.

He wants to be the guy who busts a cup.

Yeah, right.

A NASCAR guy.

So how did you get my information?

It's a hippo law.

Yeah.

Right.

Well, all the baseball players and we get them Florida.

It got busted.

My name was on the list.

Oh, wow.

No way.

But the place we're getting in Florida.

Yeah.

So getting them cheaper is not the answer.

Yeah.

Right.

Yes.

Yeah.

Paper.

Pull price.

So that was that whole Ron Horley on Steroids.

So Lindy was asking.

What's all for the grave stuff?

Yeah.

All the grazes.

And I'm still on a thyroid pill every morning.

So Lindy asked a guy.

We have to test people before we podcast.

I don't care.

He's like, well, you're not going to like this.

So Lindy comes home.

So Lindy can go home.

This guy's going to go, well, I don't want that.

Yeah.

So I'm going to show him my fire suit.

How much I lost.

I mean, I've got a little kid cutting where.

I went to the hospital.

What do you want from him?

So he said, you better be lucky.

I got a hold of it before somebody else did.

Well, he's going to do the story.

Hold your days on.

And Lindy looks at him.

He goes, do you really think that Steroids

is going to make you push a gas pedal on the right?

Yeah.

None of this makes any sense in like,

and the scope of like what Land's Arms Wrong did.

Yeah.

Versus like a guy in trucks.

Right.

Well, he basically tried to get me fired.

So here, here I had to call Kevin

and luckily Kevin's out of function

with all the big wigs at NASCAR.

Yeah, right.

And explain the story.

And they said, we'll bring all your paperwork,

all your hospital.

Yeah.

And then we were at Loudon, New Hampshire

and 6.30 in the morning.

We're talking the whole media that horned

at these on steroids, which is.

And the guy was there.

Oh, nice.

He came.

Oh, and the guy was, you know, big shot.

I'm, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, right.

And everybody told him to get the boot in

and don't get out.

Yeah, absolutely.

It was pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah.

I had my, and the coolest part about it is

before I even went in there,

Bobby Labani come over.

Yeah.

And I got your back, buddy.

We love it.

I got the same thing.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, he helps, yeah.

I went through the same thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Call Edwards, come run over, dude.

Don't worry about it.

I got your back.

I was like, if anybody should be concerned, it's Edwards.

Dude's ripped.

Yeah, that's crazy.

But I am actually impressed to hear that.

I wish we could quit talking.

I would have really enjoyed that better.

But now you know where to go.

Yeah, I'm back.

I'm going back.

We'll get you up for the road.

Yeah.

He's just driving to the car.

I do appreciate that.

Not only Kevin, but the series was like,

hey, it's the medical thing versus going,

no, let's just buy the book.

Like it says, whereas there's clearly

a reason you need this.

Yeah.

There's a talk to describe reason.

Right.

Wait, so what happened with the nuclear stuff?

Like what?

Well, take it.

Oh, I don't know where it goes.

No, I mean, but like.

They never burned my butter or anything.

I don't know.

But like, all of them went out of it.

It was like, stay away from the kids and your wife

for a few days.

Like, when does that all?

A month or so, I guess.

Oh, because the half-life.

Yeah.

I guess when you turn the lights off,

and they'll go in a while.

But I mean, I called her every name in the book.

I said, what are you doing?

I said, I'm here sick, and you're playing games with me.

Well, now she doesn't need a nightlight.

Yeah, exactly.

So I can read.

Oh, you sleep on the side.

It's warm in here.

All right.

So we have a Patreon thing, which is like an online,

for our followers.

That, yeah, yeah.

And so they have a couple of questions for you.

The first one from Bart Wegner.

Bart Wegner asks, at the end of the 1992 Southwest tour season

at Phoenix, taking an exhaust pipe through the windshield

and pushing the car across the line

after a big rip off turn four in the last lap,

I guess the question would be, who had the bigger balls?

You or Rick Carelli?

What kind of question is that?

I don't know.

It's a fan question.

But both of them say he's being e-wrecked and I pushed.

Yeah, I don't know.

But wait, at what point did you, in that whole thing,

at what point did you find out that that was the exhaust

that you didn't fix?

End of the race.

Okay.

I'm like, God damn it.

Yeah.

As they're like bandaging your arm.

But you're not.

And your brother lost with the impact.

But you're not like, you're not in slow motion

seeing it come through.

You're like, you're going, s**t.

Oh, wait.

I did this.

And I mean, I built the cars and it's bent the halo down.

And I was like, that's hard to put in a bar up there.

Yeah, that's a huge deal.

Because that could have been a big deal.

Yeah.

So I would always, if anyone ever says,

like, who has bigger balls, you or someone else,

I'm just going to say, yeah, it's me.

You know, just so we'll say you had it.

Let me ask my wife.

I don't know.

I have no idea.

I don't really care.

Yeah.

That's the real answer.

Yeah.

Carl Cacuzza asks, how angry were you with Dale

when he gave the cup ride to Michael Waltrip instead of to you?

Did you feel betrayed?

And what was it like to drive for AJ Foyt

and less than top level equipment?

So Ty Norris comes down and grabs me today.

Dale wants to talk to you.

And this is what's cool.

DEI is now expanding to a cup program.

You've been their truck guy.

So it makes sense that you would then advance.

You're going to resign.

You're going to resign and be part of this cup deal that he's doing.

They didn't start this cup deal yet.

They didn't even talk about it.

Got it.

Yeah.

I know they were building because they had Junior

start getting up there.

They didn't know they were going to start the second or third car.

Right.

Go to C Park, Junior.

Yeah.

So how do I see this nicely?

You can't.

So I sit down and they'll stare at you and

you got to look at another option.

I go, what?

He said, we're going to go a different direction.

You got to look at another option.

Well, in that time, his phone rings.

He said, I got to take this.

Can you step out?

I said, are you freaking serious?

You're firing me and you're taking a phone call over me?

So Ty Norris took me out there and I'm punching walls down my howl.

Yeah.

All that way.

What time of year is this?

It's in the morning.

I mean, but like where in the season are you?

In the springtime.

No, wintertime coming.

Yeah, wintertime.

So it's late.

Yeah, late.

In the year.

We're done.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But hopefully to reside.

So he said, just sit down and hang out.

I said, no, I got in the elevator, went downstairs,

got in the truck, just did a burnout.

And I stopped in the front.

I called my wife.

I said, honey, I just got fired from Dell,

but I got his truck.

Do I leave his truck here?

Can you come get me?

What am I supposed to do?

What more do you do?

Yeah, yeah, like I got his truck.

You got fired.

Do I take his truck?

Yeah.

No, I take Chevrolet's truck home.

So in that time, Dell called me.

I said, just take a deep breath, calm down,

come back and talk to me.

OK.

So I'm going to go back the next morning.

And he goes, hey, I can make this easy and make it hard.

We're just going to different directions with a sponsor.

And you don't fit the profile what they need,

which when the race green flag dropped,

I passed all of them, you know, the first in AJ's car.

So he said, you know, I can help you

on the direction you need to go.

Or it can make it harder on you, basically.

Right, right.

And he did.

You know, AJ gave me an opportunity and made it easy on him.

He made it easy on him.

He could he had to say one word in the media would have been

I'd have been the dick to the media.

Yeah, yeah, he did make life hard for you.

No, he actually supported me.

I mean, up until two years ago, we still got a check.

We still get a check from royalties from souvenir.

Oh, that's cool.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

You still got $1.75 here for.

Hey, man.

Hey, yeah.

Get all that up.

But I mean, that's where Dell helped me out a lot of

all the bike casts he did and changed the different colors

of the trucks or moving things around were bike casts.

That's where you made most of your money.

You know, you start to give me 50% instead of a third,

a third, a third, you give me 50% across the board.

So, yeah.

So that happens.

Getting AJ stuff, qualify second to last.

Mike Wallace was last.

The lap three, I'm leading the race.

Mike Wallace, we pushed right up the middle.

And Trisha came over out of the race and Dell said,

I think I made the wrong mistake.

Yeah, right.

But AJ, everybody thought he's a hard ass.

He's like my dad.

He just wants results.

He's going to yell.

He's going to throw shit.

Yeah.

It's my dad.

He never punched you.

Right, right, right.

I can't say.

I've seen him in Victor Lane push people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got a couple like that.

Yeah, yeah.

So, I mean, you know, and then I had a two year deal

and it's like, hey, we're going to release you and all that.

That's why you stole me for another year.

Like, no, you didn't live up to your bargain.

I said, no, you didn't.

My wife's been taking notes since second race

because I've seen how this was going.

And you think it's a new car or it's the same center section.

You put a front and rear clip on it.

So Tommy, your son, whoever is doing this stealing from that.

Because twice now you said you had a brand new car

with new bodies.

I mean, they're not brand new.

They're rebuilt.

Interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah, he's getting new stuff.

So that's where they kind of like started going down.

They ran for another year and then you don't see him no more.

Yeah, right.

Because somebody was putting money in their pockets.

Somebody, I believe, I don't know for a fact, but I heard that.

But the equipment wasn't brand new.

But when I seen AJ at the track the year after,

he said, I kicked his ass.

I fired him.

He's not no longer with me.

Right.

So he found something out.

Yeah.

But back then, if you're not running the best of the best,

you're not, you just can't.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, still like that.

But like, back then, really bad.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know if you guys know this guy.

I think his name's Jeff Gordon.

I heard of him.

Yeah.

So I finally got the thing running good.

But next two races, we've got to really run.

Yeah.

We're at Dover and I'm running third.

Yeah.

I think there's 50 to go, 40 to go, last pit stop.

All of a sudden I come up four and I get dumped.

Thrukebunk Martin out with me in the whole deal.

So he goes, we're running up front.

We're sitting next week.

Driver's intro and Jeff Gordon come over and he goes,

I guess I owe you apology.

I said, no, you don't.

You just got to build a new race car when I'm done.

And he goes, no, I thought you were a lap down.

And I really had a lot of pressure from this guy.

So I figured I'd move you and I moved you a little too far.

I said, no, you weren't in my way.

I just passed you, if you remember.

He thought I was a lap down.

So it's a long story short.

We finally got the car.

Two or three races really good and other than that.

And AJ's deal, Indianapolis.

He didn't get his s*** at any other rate.

So we missed the race the first year at Indy.

The second time there, he puts the shocks on off his Indy car.

Well, if you know them, they're this big around

and they're triple adjustable.

So they got 40 clicks both ways.

So we tested there.

We practice there and go to qualify.

Pick the shocks off.

So what do I do now?

And I got to throw four shocks on to go to qualify.

And he blames me for not making the race.

But why did he do that?

Because it just weren't working?

He knew him.

He knows his own shocks as Indy car.

He didn't know the other ones.

Oh, right.

But he could do the rebound, the compression.

He could take bleed out.

Yeah.

He had a triple deal.

So he knew his shock.

AJ's his shock down.

Push it up and down.

Okay.

Too much.

Yeah, right.

I can do the old days.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we do a pass along question from guest to guest.

We had dinner last night with Shane Van Gisburgen.

The one a guy.

Yeah.

Superstar, right?

I thought I was a badass.

I owned every track record at Sears Point and road course.

Yeah.

I've owned every road course except for Portland.

Yellow flag.

Bragg's on fire.

I look up.

The guy stopped in front of me to my radio drill.

So I've owned every road course in trucks.

That sucks.

But Shane, on what he's doing.

Yeah, he's pretty amazing.

Yeah.

His question for you is what would you do different

about the Texas incident with Kyle Busch

and what would you do different after it?

Nothing.

I mean, I ran Kyle down and he knows the draft

as well as I do.

And he got to the side of me and drafted up back next to me

that whole deal.

They never show the whole laughs before that

where I ran him down and passed him.

And then he got the drafts run back up there.

You already know he's going to be in my record about it.

I don't want to get it loose.

So we just touched the fence.

I was hauling ass back to the pits

because I knew we had to get it fixed.

I mean, I was just going to be a fender and put some tires on it.

And as soon as I hit the brake to turn,

I went to get in there and he hooked me and did that.

So I don't know what I could have done any different.

Sure, sure.

Other knowing him yelling and his spotter yelling at him,

a Kyle, Kyle, Kyle type deal.

That's one of our greatest NASCAR radio things ever

because it's so insane.

And then, you know, getting out of the truck,

going straight over to saying NASCAR says,

if you do anything, we can't do nothing to him.

But if you take a swing at him.

Yeah.

Oh, in other words, like, if they're going to penalize him,

you have to stay away from him.

Yeah, you say, well, we'll handle it.

If you're going to put it in your own hands, we got to.

We can't get involved.

Yeah, yeah.

So his trailer sparked next to mine.

Yeah.

Son of a bitch.

And, you know, I'm yelling at him.

Right, right, right, right, right.

So I get inside the trailer and I'm three quarters naked,

got my underwear on.

Do you really put my pants on and he gets on the radio

and he starts clapping to John.

Oh, like on the NASCAR broadcast.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He gets on TV and says, you know,

and I ran that thing with one leg in my pants.

I just put your belt on the car.

I broke through his door and Mr. Hilton was sitting there

and he goes, Ron.

Don't do it.

Yeah.

Get out.

Because this was 2011, right?

No, 2011 championship was.

That's right.

10 or 11.

Yeah.

10 because no one would have been 12, maybe.

Maybe it's not.

And we're going to win the champ.

I'll get it.

Yeah.

We're right there in the points.

Either way, this was this had to that point

been an interesting season because you'd been down

and then all of a sudden you had this string of several races

where now all of a sudden you're back in the championship hunt.

Right.

Mathematically, you still have a shot of Texas goes well.

Right.

And so it seemed like in that moment when Kyle

just deliberately takes you out under yellow,

that the fans, the people in the sport,

the garages, everyone turned on him with this

because no one wanted to see this happen to you.

Oh, I was a hard hit for one.

I mean, the transmission ended up in the gut.

Yeah.

I mean, it was a seed over there.

Front facing impact, yeah.

2011, 2011.

Did you ever have a follow-up with Kyle later,

like put it all behind you?

I haven't seen him on the bar yet.

I have.

You got to put it in the past because his kids racing

down the track and you see him all the time.

The Asgard banded him.

Yeah.

He couldn't race the following week.

And they wouldn't let him race until he talked to me.

Right.

So he waited all the way until Friday afternoon.

The last minute.

Because he thought he was still going to get in the truck.

Sure.

Or whatever he was going to drive that day.

And they went let him.

Yeah.

So he called me the night before and we took him.

Like, Kyle, you're the best out there.

I haven't seen nobody better.

Yeah.

If you just shut your mouth on TV.

Yeah.

Be the humble guy you are.

Just take the loss.

Take the loss.

The loss of wins.

And went on and yeah, yeah, yeah.

I said, why'd you do it?

You know, I just had a bad day.

I said everybody, you know, I haven't finished a cup race

in three or four races.

And you know, and it just rubbed me wrong.

Like, but now I find out he thinks I've done something

to another racetrack.

Yeah, right.

When he was a kid.

Oh, okay.

Yeah.

So the guy that called you didn't tell you the story of

why he probably wasn't mad.

No.

Yeah.

Because you've always said that phone call was very

underwhelming that you weren't.

He didn't win you over with that phone call.

Yeah.

No.

But after I did call him and say, did he call you?

And I said, yeah, but I don't know what we got out of it.

Yeah.

He knows he's the best.

You know, the don't sink.

Yeah, yeah.

And you're still mad.

And my balls still hurt.

Yeah, yeah.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Did you ever listen to the spotter video?

Like the audio from it?

It's like,

because his spotter's on your team.

He's trying so hard to save you.

Yeah.

Because he's literally like, stop, stop.

Like, it's no longer a professional communication

between a driver and a spotter.

It's literally a person being like,

what the f**k are you doing, dude?

Like, calm down, calm down, calm down.

Please stop, stop, stop.

Yeah, god damn it.

Yeah.

It's it's impressive how obviously like,

what are you doing, dude?

Is what his guy's saying.

Yeah.

We're going to have dinner with Ross Chastain tonight.

Yeah.

So if you could ever think of a pass along question

that we could use to ask Ross, what would that be?

Why don't he still love me anymore?

There we go.

Oh, that's great.

What do you think?

He called me all the time.

Okay.

No, he's busy.

Yeah.

So when did you get to the Hall of Fame call?

Um, I didn't even know about it.

Yeah.

And I think Wayne Adams, the one,

he's a series director of the truck series.

Yeah.

And he said, I got some news for you, bud.

He said, what's that?

What do I do now?

And he said, you're nominated for the Hall of Fame.

I was like, oh, that's cool.

So I think Jimmy Johnson's want to really push it through

because everybody knows what I've done on the racetrack.

Everybody knows, you know, give my wife all the credit

because I wouldn't do the half the shit.

I mean, I wouldn't have been it.

I would have quit racing a long time ago.

I'd have been the gutter guy drinking beer.

Yeah.

But, um, I think Jimmy finally told him who Ron Horde was,

what he does for people, what he, what I did for him,

what I, you know, just take care of people.

We've got a place.

Yeah.

Give him rides home or moan in your car or, you know,

I've always just been the guy who just, whatever, you know,

just, you fill it with gas or wash it, you know,

type the old, that's how I always learned.

Normally Hall of Fame, it's, you know, it's a,

it's a cup driver that's won a bunch of stuff

or it's a legendary team owner or whoever.

You were the first to sort of this person

who'd done something in trucks or kind of established that had,

was it even on your radar or something that would happen?

You gotta remember, I raced for money.

I raced to put food on the table.

Hall of Fame won the round.

Yeah, right.

I think it's cool.

I think it's great for the fans to come see

what everybody's done.

But the coolest thing, the week before,

we had a racetrack at Bakerfield with Landon

and there's something happened on the track

and I'm yelling at the official.

I'm doing my point and I know him

and I pushed a little harder than I should.

Still at it, yeah, yeah.

I was, it was Monday, Monday morning.

Do you know who Jim Francis?

Technically our boss.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I get a phone call from Jim Francis.

I said, yes, yes, sir, I'm sorry, I guess.

Whatever I did, yeah.

I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry.

And I knew that we couldn't have without the official.

I was like, oh my God.

Well, you think he's calling you about like a Bakersfield race official?

Who called me before to get fine?

Jerry Cook, you know?

Okay, sure, okay, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I'm California.

How do you know about it already?

Jerry Francis getting involved in this stuff, yeah, right.

Well, he went on and everything and just talked about my career

and what I'd done and what I did this and all that.

And he says, and I'm going to push you in the top 75

greatest drivers in that car.

Yeah, how cool.

I cried.

Yeah, I sat there.

My wife was filming me.

She knew it was coming because they sent something to mail

with the car and everything else.

That's sitting there going.

And the way he said it, because him and I go back a while.

Sure.

Bulls***.

And then he's your boss.

That's his playground you're playing in.

Absolutely, yeah.

And how he put it knowing, not just, I'm just another racer,

but knowing what I've done and who I helped and stuff like that

and how he put it in short words and put that top 75

just tear started coming up.

That's so cool.

And I thought it was better than as good as the Hall of Fame.

Hall of Fame's great, but put you in the top 75 greatest drivers in that car.

And it's like, what did I do to deserve it?

I just want, I raced, did what I love and I enjoy it.

I mean, I can't read or write that well.

And they ain't about racing.

I really don't care about it.

So I mean, I had to ride and work on race cars.

I work on cars and just learn street smart, I guess.

Yeah.

That's so cool.

I love that you thought it was going to swing the other way.

He's like, you've won 51 truck races, four championships.

And I got to deal with it.

And now you're yelling at this and you're like, wait, what?

No.

But is that your default that you always think you're in trouble?

Yeah.

Always.

Well, you get called to that big red.

So serious point.

Yeah.

Boar said you all know Boar said you're one of the best road course racers.

Absolutely.

He's been on the show.

He's beat me many times road course, but I learned so much from him.

And I helped him on short track when he ran the year and he helped me on that.

That's cool.

And I, as you can tell, I forget a lot of stuff, whatever you want to say.

And so I have to do things every time.

So we're there and the restart line is the same spot every time.

Yeah.

And I'm leading the race and he's second.

Well, he don't go.

Okay.

He does the old.

Oh, he's trying to back you up.

Green, white checkered.

They black flag me in a white flag.

Yeah.

They were giving me the checkered flag.

Why parking victory lane?

Yeah.

Because you won.

Yeah.

So I talked to Boar.

His jets fell out of his carburetor.

So it was flooded.

And then once he got going, it was fine because it's your full throttle.

Sure, sure.

So he fought for me.

They took the race away and gave it to Joe Rutman.

So I left the car and truck and victory lane.

Yeah, you figured out.

So we're inside the NASCAR hauling and it's on a slant.

Yeah.

And I'm doing the M efforts.

And they're smiling at me and then that.

And this chair comes rolling down.

Boy, I kicked the chair.

Yeah.

It was up there and then yelling at him again.

And here comes the chair again.

About the third time I picked the chair up and threw it on the ground.

I said, you guys ain't going to change your mind.

I said, no.

If you guys all that stuff, walk outside,

sign a call of autographs.

Walk back in.

That's a hit of the kids.

Yeah.

Walk back in.

So you guys come over for a beer later.

So in NASCAR's trailer, they got a job and you got a job.

You fight for everything you got.

But when you walk out, nothing's set.

Yeah.

And then you go back in and say, we're still friends.

Come and have a beer later.

Yeah.

And that's how my racing always was.

That's how it should be.

Skinner and I, we get on the track and we yell each other point fingers.

We pass that gate.

Our family don't know what's going on.

They don't know who hit the gas.

They don't know who turned the steering wheel.

Yeah.

So you go have a beer.

You cook out and let your dog, let his dog bite your arm.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Totally.

Yeah.

And that's, and that's.

Jack Sprague was the only one that held a grudge.

Okay.

You know what?

This week's at a time, but he gets over it and he still has a beer with you.

But I mean, I think that's how it is.

The kids nowadays, they want to tackle and fight and everything.

And the picker will get into it.

Yeah.

You don't know why you fighting for him.

Right.

Like let them handle it.

So Bubba, Bubba and Law Wilson, I got into under yellow.

And he did, they all flipped off, hit the brakes and I got into them.

But we're only running 35.

It's kind of like a Kyle Busch deal.

But yeah, he gets in the fence.

Nowhere near as much as I can.

And after the race, here he comes, you know, and it's like,

stand back.

They're getting in front of my picker.

Stand back.

I deserve to get hit in the mouth, but he hits it in the mouth.

Yeah.

Sorry, dude.

You know what you did?

You know what I did?

You shouldn't have, you shouldn't have got on the brakes and I wouldn't have got on the,

I wouldn't have turned into you.

So I mean, that's simpler than you pushing him, him, shoving him and that.

The other thing is like, what'd you do?

So my wife's the best.

So I'll just be the way, nobody's allowed in the pits.

Okay.

Women.

Right.

White pants back in the day.

Okay.

So, over that, main event, that guy gets spun out.

Go to the back.

So she comes in the pit and she goes, Jim Gilliam was with the tire guy, but

he was, I took care of it, Ron.

I went with Jim Gilliam and told him, but an asshole of he was there.

So what'd you do that for?

I said, I spun myself out.

Right.

I got him to the door and I turned left out.

Now I gotta go answer this.

I turned left out.

Since the worst thing I ever had to do, Ron, is go up and apologize to Jim Gilliam.

I'm really sorry about all that.

But people don't understand that they see something different.

She's watched racing her whole life, but you get him to there and you get him to your door,

you turn left, you can get them loose, but he didn't get on the gas.

He was smart.

I drove across his nose and spun myself out.

If you're on the grass and hit my door, he'll just run out.

I love it.

You had to go.

Sorry about all that back there.

I had it wrong.

No, she did.

I did.

No, no, no.

I'm not going to go over and apologize for spinning myself out.

Can you do that?

I slowed up and racing and I got fired before the last race and then Mr. Turner helped me out in

truck and what a great deal.

And they had a following up their two partners.

So they pulled and going for another championship with three points out of the championship.

Long story short, wouldn't they have the eight hours race at the Roval down here?

Yeah.

At Charlotte, the Roval.

Well, it wasn't a battle back in the 80s.

Not you guys.

No.

So I don't know what it's like.

I got a picture of the car.

I got a limiter.

Anyways, no, it's just a bad ass car.

The children's built three degrees.

Cameron rear six in the front really handled good.

Anyways, they had this race out there.

Yeah.

I want to be one of the drivers.

Get out there.

And I'm, wow, this thing's sick and I'm driving all the way to the one.

Are you testing?

Testing because we're going to race that weekend.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

So I've got probably 15 laughs in it.

Yeah.

Brand new $2,000 helmet, brand new fire suit.

Yeah.

Deal.

I'm going to go back and racing.

Big time.

Little Fergie.

Right.

Not a road course racer, dirt racer,

but he races on the inside of the track.

Okay.

The small one on the legend cars.

Yeah.

Two seconds faster than me.

Guess what my helmet did.

He hung it up.

That was the last time.

Yeah.

And that was it.

Yeah.

Yep.

I gave my brand new helmet to this little kid.

Here you go, bud.

You got a brand new $2,000 helmet.

Was it a daytime prototype?

No, no, no, no.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

He still just had that Crawford for a minute.

But that would have been.

Yeah.

You did it for the kid, for them to get there.

So you mentioned hanging up your helmet.

You were last, one of the last of the open face guys.

Yeah.

And that's because you could smoke in the car.

Well, I never smoked in Earnhardt stuff and everything,

but when I raced for Wayne Spears.

Yeah.

Rick Crowley beat me at his home track, Colorado.

Okay.

So Wayne calls me and I'm down at the shop.

So what do you need, Wayne?

He goes, look in the truck or look in the car.

I look in there and there's a little box.

And there's a cigarette lighter.

It goes that way.

He said, you ran that in a nicotine at a race.

That's why Crowley beat you.

I want you to smoke every yellow flag.

So now you got an owner telling you to smoke.

What was this?

Wayne Spears before Harvick's up in 92.

That's not 93.

And you would throw a cigarette out the window

and people would see you think you're sparking.

It was August here.

We had the automatic, the A1 automatic.

Yeah.

No torque converter.

So I mean, here I am warming tires up.

Put my D on the wheel.

Cigarette in your mouth.

Just the beer.

Put the cigarette out.

The cigarette will hit the windshield

and you put it in gear and go.

Good glory days.

Just like we do today.

Glory days.

Let's talk a little bit about Lindy

because it sounds like without Lindy

there is no Ron Hornaday Jr.

She's had a bunch of different projects.

Gears ago, I remember being up here for something

and I think I walked into the Elsie's.

What was the name of the store?

The old like antique store kind of.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

I can't remember anything about it.

We own the building there.

I don't know what it's called.

She's changed it.

She set up for three or four years.

Mrs. Tels.

Thank you.

She had it for three or four years.

She had an old building out there.

We were going to build race shops

and there was an old house

when she started it out there

and then we bought this building.

And then so on and so forth.

So now it's 704 him.

10,000 square foot of 704 him.

For CBD and a lot of people don't know it.

How good it helps to that.

So you and Ronnie's part of this, right?

My son owns it.

Yeah.

So you guys started 704 him.

It was an all hemp and cannabis based CBD.

It started with CBD and dates and stuff like that.

And just seeing how much

elderly I should say,

what used to do it to get high

and now they're doing it for health.

Right.

I mean how much it's been helping everybody.

And the CBD I've been taking a long time.

It's an old all natural CBD,

whatever it's helped potty aches.

But a lot of people don't know

and you get older hurts.

And it's not the golden years.

Yeah.

Right.

No, for sure.

We didn't have soft walls back then.

So good point.

So are you involved with that company?

Is that whatever he needs?

I do.

Okay.

Sure.

Yeah.

Just being a dad.

Well, he's got three stores now.

So you're always making countertops

or making something.

Right.

I stay away because all my granddaughters work there.

I got my whole families.

What do you want to say?

Into the marijuana,

but it's not marijuana.

But my wife goes to work every day still.

Because the kids work there.

Well, it seems like they rotate.

She's written a children's book

or I'm sure maybe more.

There's been different stores in that building.

She works with your kids now.

And also it seems like she kind of handled

the merch and stuff for you throughout the day.

Fan clubs.

Yeah.

Everything.

Right.

Would you have been able to be as successful

as you are if she wasn't around?

No.

I'd be that guy in that gutter.

I'd just be another guy.

I'd be gray-haired, long-haired, tattooed,

smoking, drinking, working on your race car.

Right.

That's the track.

I'd be over at the Instagrams.

Right.

We'd love you.

Looking for their free sandwich.

Yeah.

No, I mean, I think people recognize Lindy more so

because of my gray hair now.

If I don't have my glasses on or my hat,

they would never recognize me.

So they recognize Lindy more than me.

And to this day, she's still, I mean, the fan mail,

the fan mail I got, she's every month,

she's got it laid out, all tagged and everything.

I mean, she made all the cookies for the kids this weekend

because Landon's racing, Kitsie's racing,

Keelan's racing.

She makes all cookies with their names

and their race car numbers.

She never stops, you know?

She made, I made a greenhouse for her now.

Yeah.

It's not done.

I'm doing it wrong.

So I got to redo this.

She took it yesterday and I go see the grid.

And suddenly it's a greenhouse.

I'll make a door.

It opens up so the air comes through.

That's good.

You know something?

She's always doing something, always.

I read before her father passed away

that you two were joined at the hip.

Her dad and I.

Yeah.

He, tough times.

Yeah.

At first when we, I was a punk kid.

Yeah.

That sex with his daughter.

You had a literal shotgun weapon.

And he found out that, you know,

it took a while to get the keys

and he finally went on vacation

after three years of me having the keys.

Right.

And I called every one of my friends up

not to do a free buffer to get paid.

Yeah.

He came back, you know, a week later

and I had wads of cash for him.

Yeah.

I haven't made this money, you know?

I called everybody.

Yeah, right, right.

It's just to show him who I was and all that.

I can, I can earn.

We bought him a house out here.

Yeah.

Um, we're living in right now.

Sold the house on the lake.

But his arthritis was getting bad.

So he went to Arizona.

So he thinks the house he was living in out here

was his, so I owe him equity.

Yeah.

So I said, well, you got my Lowe's card.

Yeah.

So whatever you need.

Got it.

I didn't know you could buy saw at Lowe's.

He paid for a, and you're in Arizona.

Why would you need grass anyways?

You buy rock and cactus.

He's got new sprinklers.

Yeah, yeah.

We bought three loaded truckers in there

and built the wall up.

Fix his pool and the whole deal.

And got just everything he wanted,

his old texture cowboy look,

walls with a brick in it and stuff.

And he got to enjoy it for a couple months

and he passed.

And we had it and we're going to keep it

because we enjoy Arizona.

And we take the side-by-sides and go riding for miles.

You go all the way to Vegas if you want.

And the pool guy didn't tell us to pump with that.

So now the pool's green.

We've got neighbor Collins.

And then neighbor next door never told us

that the sprinklers broke.

So it ran for a week and a half.

That was $800 water bill.

Nice.

You know, if people ain't going to help us,

you know, we're going to put a renter in there.

Yeah, right.

It was a, it was a hud on, but I mean,

we redid that from ceiling to floor.

Yeah.

And redid the whole nice, beautiful house.

And we sold it and now we don't go back out there.

Yeah.

If you think back to 18-year-old Ron Hornaday Jr.,

do you think that you, could you imagine that you and him

would be best buds later in life?

I did.

I just, you know, getting Lindy pregnant?

No.

That's, that was his, you know, she's the oldest

and that was his girl.

And, and he looked after him.

He, he's the dad.

He's on a race and he leaves, cleans up, takes him to dinner.

And then that's the morning we're getting up and we're going

bottle hunting.

We're going to go do something with the kids.

We're going to go to the desert.

We're going to, and he's always that guy.

And then when he had grandkids, which he thanks me for it

because she got along with my grand, his first grandson

and did everything.

What about horses?

Did everything.

I mean, and that's what kind of guy he was.

And too many stories.

Yeah.

Way too many stories.

It's crazy that when she first got pregnant,

I'm sure you thought, oh, I don't know what's next for my

life now.

And yet.

Let me know when you're telling your dad so I don't get killed.

But no point in you thinking that this series of events is

going to lead you to never the greatest driving career you

could have.

And it was all, it was that one day I got home at 1130

instead of 11.

She said, why don't you build your own race car?

And that's what started it because that, that Monday morning

going to work.

Yeah.

Talked with my dad and my dad called Rudy Prince.

I got a car and she was there all the way.

Yeah.

She was painting numbers on it.

You know.

Awesome.

She started doing fingernails to paint on them.

She can take a picture of you race car, you and Victor

laying with a trophy and painted on that fingernail.

And to this day, she's probably still kids.

She's a little shaky.

As soon as the brush was down there, it stops.

So as we wrap out, can you pitch Landon Lewis to us?

Like, why should I root for that kid?

You don't need a root for him.

You just got to meet the guy.

The kid, it's just so polite.

So when you say, I want to thank the Lord to get out,

he goes to church and he's not working on the race cars.

His parents make him go to the church.

That's what kind of parents has had.

Landon came to me when he was 11 years old, his dad did.

And my grandson was racing up there, Dublin.

And he's 12, 13, winning races.

Little kid couldn't, couldn't see over the steering wheel.

But I mean, I wouldn't move the seat.

I'd move all the pedals in the steering wheel to him.

So he's seen how safe my cars were.

I already inched three quarter k's.

I didn't have inch and a half k's like every other.

So we put him in it and Billy Workman's gonna drive him for me.

And he, very good at dirt.

The third race out, Landon's in this dirt car,

passing Billy on the outside for a second, scraping his part.

So I said, the kids got it.

He's so humble about anything and everything he does.

He's the only one I know,

but they didn't have to tell him to come wash his car

or if you wreck it, come work on it.

He wanted to learn.

And if we were here at lunch and you were talking about him,

he'd buy lunch as a kind of person he is.

He might not have the money, but he would.

I don't know.

I just see a lot of me in him how when he goes to qualify,

he takes it wide for the green flag as restarts.

Just everything's ever done and he listens.

You know, he's got Kevin Harvick.

He's got anybody he wants to talk to on his palm.

But to make me humble, I guess,

there's still to make the old guy.

He still asks me questions and I know it's,

he don't need me.

He's got another, but just to keep me in a loop.

Hey, we're going to test him.

You want to go or we're doing this.

And he's very thoughtful.

He got, and the hardest thing he's ever done

is chase his own money this year, sponsorship to run for Kevin.

And he's calling him every week and telling him how he's done.

Thank you.

We just got a family.

We met down in Phoenix and there's old, older than me.

So that's old.

And they just, what can I do for land in?

I said, what do you mean?

And he said, well, we don't want to name or nothing on it.

Put the Kevin Harvick Foundation on there.

I want to give him 20 grand.

I want to give him 25 grand or something.

And that's what the kid, just because he took time with them

at the racetrack the year before and signed autographs

and explained his life to him.

And that's what kind of kid he is.

It might have been too long, what you wanted to hear.

No, but me, I'm done talking to you.

I got to do something.

He's not that way.

He's not going to make you feel uncomfortable.

Hey, I got to go change that.

Sure, I'll be right, you know.

Always looking away and always doing something.

And when you meet him, I mean, you will.

I mean, you can, you can talk to Ross about Ross knows about.

Okay.

And anything he's ever got into, he's won.

Yeah.

How do you think Keelan's career is going to go?

Well, that's another thing you got landing.

You got landing with Kevin buying two legend cars,

one old one and one new one.

Yeah.

And learning how to beat bumpers off.

Because the first time we went down to Florida,

I had to teach Keelan how to weld,

because he knocked five bumpers off and five times out.

I said, if you get a race like that,

you're going to have to learn how to weld.

Right.

And after, and then it's funny because they,

they do testing on Wednesdays on the go-kart track.

Well, they do jog and run, what's that called?

Yeah, calisthenics.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then they go down to Joe's shop and they learn fighting.

Kickboxing.

And I said, you little s*** the way you're driving on that front bumper,

you better learn how to fight.

You're going to need to know.

But no, Kevin bought two cars and let Landon and him go out there

and Landon's unbelievable.

He's the only driver who's won the road course, the dirt,

and the oval asphalt, old dirt and road course in the same year.

Yeah.

And legends.

Yeah.

And Landon's the second one.

So they just go out there and just learn

how to move each other out of the way and all that.

To watch Kevin and him, me knowing Kevin as the kid.

Sure.

And now he's putting his hands over your eyes when you're driving on the road.

And now seeing him with his son of collecting baseball cards,

Keelan's with his own money, it's cool.

So people are going to hit play on this episode.

Like what do you want people to think of Ron Hornaday

if they've never heard of you?

Well, to be honest, I really don't care what people think of me.

As long as they talk about me good or bad,

I've always thought that as long as they're talking about you.

But I just want them to realize that racing is not everything,

but it is a family sport.

It is fun.

It is dangerous.

But something to put your kids into because they're geometry.

There's physics.

There's all kinds of stuff in racing.

And there's a lot of programs you can go to.

I still support the little Saturday night.

You know, if they say Ron Hornaday is here,

will you drop the flag?

I still pay for my pet pass.

I don't want no freebie because if it wasn't for Saturday night racing,

I wouldn't have a place to go to NASCAR,

I wouldn't have a place to go anywhere else.

My wife says the next champion of Cup is sitting on the couch.

Can't afford it.

So I just want people to know that I'm an honest guy,

that I've never had to cheat anybody.

I've never had to do anything to get where I'm at.

You've had to cheat?

You've had to cheat your hair color?

I wouldn't cheat.

They sold it.

I didn't steal it.

Well, steroids.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's a little harder.

Turn the wheel harder.

Yeah, sometimes you had to.

We had no power steering back there.

Some of them.

I'm not that old, but yeah.

Well, I'd say with that, Continental's got the check.

Thank you, Continental.

I'm finished.

Well, I missed the kick in the big game.

Made my driving test.

Misbound my ex-girlfriend's name on the tattoo on my chest.

Cause I can't do nothing right.

And I can't seem to get lost.

I forgot who what it looks like on the other side of the road.

Yeah, I picked a fight with a boxer.

Suppressed an angel's horn.

He'd be hard to take to the doctor.

And lost my mama's dog.

Call home the left or the red light.

And lost my right to drive.

Just show me to the shallow wind.

And I'm so gonna die right here.

Cause I can't do nothing right.

And I can't seem to get lost.

Oh, I forgot who what it looks like on the other side of the road.

So I'm sitting on this bar stool in this dirty downtown bar.

Drinking all my money.

And I'm sitting in the bathroom stall.

A man of my disposition should still be around the hall.

But if I didn't make bad decisions,

I wouldn't make no decisions at all.

Cause I can't do nothing right.

And I can't seem to get lost.

I forgot who what it looks like on the other side of the road.

Yes, I forgot who what it looks like on the other side of the road.

Ep.313 – Ron Hornaday Jr.

About this episode

Galpin

NASCAR

stock car racing

restored

drum brake

wheelbase

mufflers

Mercury 64-door

Ford Courier

leaf springs

white spoke wheels

knobby tires

cut the roof off

painted

street stock

Victory Circle race cars

throttle return springs

exhaust pipe

halo

championship

clutch

transmission

blows the motor

white flag lap

Hudson Hornet

Chrysler Daytona

power steering

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Dinner with Racers