A crew chief is the team’s lead strategist in NASCAR—responsible for race strategy, car setup direction, and calling adjustments during the race. The transcript frames Jimmy Fennig’s role as a crew chief as central to his career success.
ASA (American Speed Association) was a regional-to-national stock-car series that served as a stepping stone for drivers and crew members. The hosts describe Jimmy Fennig’s ASA experience as foundational before he moved into NASCAR’s top Cup level.
The pits are where NASCAR teams service the car during scheduled stops and where the crew works on setup changes. The hosts mention Jimmy being in the pits working on cars, highlighting how hands-on crew work and quick adjustments matter in stock-car racing.
The Cup garage refers to the team area and operational environment for NASCAR Cup Series teams. It’s where the highest-level crew members apply experience from lower series to compete at the top.
Concept
ASA stuff
ASA was a smaller racing series that existed before NASCAR became the main destination for many people. It’s mentioned here to show how careers in stock-car racing often start in lower-tier series.
“New car” in NASCAR usually means a newly introduced generation or specification that changes how teams set up the car and how crew roles operate. The speaker highlights that the job is especially challenging with the current generation, implying new rules, aero, or chassis/handling characteristics.
Concept
QC
QC just means “quality control.” It’s how teams double-check that the parts they’re using are built correctly and match the exact specs. In racing, tiny differences can change how the car drives, so QC matters a lot.
Tolerance is how precisely a part is made. If the part is allowed to be slightly bigger or smaller than the ideal size, that can change how it fits and how the car behaves. Racing teams try to keep those variations as small as possible.
They’re talking about chasing very tiny improvements. Instead of one huge upgrade, teams look for lots of small gains that together can help you go faster. That’s why details like part fit and shape matter.
This describes the modern race-car development approach: stacking many small advantages across the vehicle rather than relying on a single dominant performance factor. Body panels and other exterior components can influence airflow, drag, and downforce, so even “tiny” differences in shape or mounting can affect lap times.
RFK is another NASCAR racing team name. It’s connected to the Roush side of the sport, and it’s where the team’s operations and cars get built for races.
Car
Rambler Rebel
The Rambler Rebel is an older American Motors car. The story is that his grandpa had one and used it for racing back when those cars were more common in motorsports.
They’re talking about taking a regular street car and removing the parts you don’t need for racing. That makes it lighter and more focused on performance.
Lighter cars usually feel quicker and handle better. If you remove extra stuff, the car has less to carry around, so it can speed up and turn more easily.
A roll cage is a metal safety frame inside the car. It helps keep the driver protected if the car flips or crashes hard.
Concept
full cage from snout to snout
They’re talking about how complete the safety frame is. A “full” cage covers more of the car, while a smaller/partial one protects but doesn’t reinforce everything.
A dirt track is a race course made of dirt instead of pavement. Dirt changes how the tires grip, so the car feels different and is harder to drive fast.
Topic
sportsman series
A “sportsman series” is a level of stock-car racing below the top divisions. It’s a place where people learn how to race and improve their cars before going bigger.
Topic
late model series
A “late model series” is a type of stock-car racing, usually on short tracks. Teams spend a lot of time tuning the car so it handles well during the race.
When they say “geometry,” they mean how the suspension and wheels are set up relative to each other. That setup changes how the tires grip and how the car turns, especially in corners.
In racing, “GEO” is short for geometry. It means setting up the suspension and steering so the tires stay in the best position while the car turns and bumps around.
Camber is the tilt of the tire. Camber gain means how that tilt changes when the suspension moves, like when you turn and the car leans. Getting it right helps the tire stay “square” to the road for better traction.
An A-frame is a suspension arm that helps hold the wheel in the right position. Changing its length changes how the tire sits and moves, which can affect grip when you’re cornering.
Bump steer is unwanted steering change as the suspension moves over bumps or during cornering. If the steering linkage geometry isn’t matched to suspension travel, the car can “steer itself” unpredictably, hurting stability and driver confidence.
Trial and error means you try a change, watch what happens, and then adjust again. Before modern tools, racers often figured out the best setup this way.
Concept
grip vs track conditions (drier track = less grip)
Tire grip changes depending on the track surface. If the track is drier, the tires may not stick as well, so the car setup has to be adjusted to compensate.
Leaf springs are a suspension part that helps the car absorb bumps. Instead of one coil spring, they use stacked metal strips, and racers can adjust them to change how the car sits and handles.
A weight jack in a race suspension context is an adjustable device used to add or shift load at a corner to change how the suspension works. By loading a specific spring more, teams can influence traction and handling balance.
Coil springs are the common “spring” you see in most cars. They’re usually easier to tune and replace than leaf springs, which use stacked metal strips.
Term
reverse shackle
A reverse shackle is a way of mounting a leaf-spring connection so the axle moves differently when the car hits bumps. Racers use it to help the car stay planted and handle better.
Term
modified (race car)
“Modified” usually means a short-track racing class where the cars are allowed more changes than some other categories. It’s a different style of racing than late model, so drivers sometimes switch classes.
Ball joints are small parts in the suspension that help the wheels move and steer properly. If they wear out, the car can feel loose and tires can wear unevenly.
The alternator is what keeps your car’s battery charged while you drive. If it breaks, the battery can run down and the car may act like it has no power.
Street stock is a type of local racing class where cars are based on regular street cars. The rules usually keep costs down, so people look for affordable parts.
A car crusher is a big machine that squashes cars into scrap metal. It’s used after the yard has taken off any parts that can still be used.
Concept
track championship
A track championship is like a season where racers compete multiple times and earn points. The driver with the most points (or best overall results) wins the championship.
Richard Petty is one of the most famous NASCAR drivers ever. If someone knew about him, it usually meant they were paying attention to the biggest names in the sport.
David Pearson was one of NASCAR’s most successful drivers, known for winning championships and many races. Mentioning him signals the era’s top-tier talent and the sport’s celebrity-level figures.
Dirt and asphalt make the car behave differently. When a driver moves from dirt to asphalt, the tires and handling change, so the team usually has to adjust the car and how they drive.
A lead mechanic is the main person in charge of keeping the race car in good shape. They make sure the car gets fixed, maintained, and ready to run so the driver can focus on racing.
In racing, “maintenance” and “building” are the work that keeps the car running right. It means checking parts, fixing problems, and getting the car ready for the next race.
Dirt and pavement “feel” different to the tires. On dirt the car tends to slide more and grip changes a lot, while asphalt is usually steadier—so drivers and cars often need different setups.
“Turning the car around” refers to quickly preparing and returning the race car for the next session or event. That typically includes cleaning, inspecting, and making any needed adjustments so the car is ready to run again.
Term
Al's garage
A garage is where the cars live and get worked on between races. It’s the place for basic upkeep and repairs so the car is ready to go again.
Term
salvage arms
“Salvage arms” sounds like spare suspension parts taken from older wrecked cars. Teams use these to replace damaged pieces quickly so the car can get back on track.
Concept
fueled the car
“Fueled the car” just means supplying the race car with gas as part of the race team’s job. In racing, how and when you refuel can affect how fast the car can run and when you have to stop.
Term
arco racing
“ARCO racing” is probably a reference to a racing series that was sponsored or supported by ARCO. In stock car history, big fuel companies frequently put their name on the racing events.
Term
ASA racing
“ASA racing” means racing in the ASA series, which was a real stock-car racing organization. Drivers and teams used it as a stepping stone toward bigger, more famous races.
Texas Motor Speedway is a big NASCAR-style race track in Texas. The hosts mention it to highlight that the racing environment changes when you go from smaller tracks to major venues.
A “short track team” is built around racing on shorter circuits where braking, traction, and frequent traffic management matter a lot. The segment frames this as a “powerhouse” because the team’s preparation and car setup are tuned for that specific style of racing.
“Texas World” refers to Texas World Speedway, a former motorsports facility in College Station, Texas. The discussion contrasts it with short-track racing, emphasizing higher speeds and different car setup demands.
A half-mile track is a relatively small oval. Racing there usually means tighter, more intense driving, so the car and setup have to be prepared for that kind of track.
Switching between dirt and asphalt requires major changes in car setup and driving approach because traction characteristics differ dramatically. This segment highlights the crew’s challenge: preparing the same team to be competitive across fundamentally different surfaces.
This is a description of race-team strategy: the crew’s job is to build a car that’s competitive enough to win, not just finish. It ties directly to how setup, preparation, and track adaptation affect results.
They’re talking about a specific racing venue and how the track owner wanted Bobby to come race there. Local tracks can be important for getting drivers noticed and building connections.
A “setup” is how a race car is adjusted for a specific track. If they “missed the setup,” it means the car wasn’t tuned quite right, so it didn’t handle as well as it could.
Concept
PR general manager type guy
They’re describing Benny Ortell as someone who handled both promotion/public relations and management duties. In racing, that kind of job helps coordinate the people and resources needed to run events.
They’re talking about the difference between NASCAR’s top level and other racing series. The idea is that the higher you go, the more specialized and competitive the whole setup becomes.
“Setting the car up” means tuning the race car so it handles the way the driver needs. It can involve things like alignment and suspension adjustments, and it can make a big difference in speed and tire grip.
“Front Geo” is short for front-end geometry—alignment settings like camber, caster, and toe. These angles change how the car turns and how stable it feels under braking and cornering, so teams adjust them to improve grip and reduce tire issues.
Bilstein makes performance shocks (the parts that control how the car moves over bumps). In racing, the right shocks help the car grip and stay steady when you’re turning fast.
“Beta” likely refers to Betamax, another older home video format that competed with VHS. The speaker’s wording suggests they’re recalling the specific playback setup from that time period.
Those phrases mean agreements to get the race car parts and the engine for races. If the deals fall through, a driver may not have the equipment or money needed to keep racing.
It means he had to start over after losing support. In racing, that can happen when you don’t have a team or the right equipment lined up.
Topic
Mark teamed up
They’re talking about how the two people worked together to help Mark get his racing career back on track. It’s more about the team and effort than about a specific car part.
They mention Jerry Gunderman as the person Mark drove for. In racing, that kind of connection usually means you get a team and a place to work on the car every day.
They’re talking about racing at Michigan Speedway for the first time. New tracks can be tough because you have to learn how the car behaves there and adjust your setup.
A fiberglass body uses fiberglass panels instead of metal body panels. It can be lighter and easier to shape for racing, but it has to be built and mounted correctly so it doesn’t crack or come loose.
They’re describing a time when the rules limited what you could change on the race car. That means teams had to follow the rules closely and find performance gains only where the rulebook allowed it.
Term
cut the car up
“Cut the car up” means they did major changes to the car’s body or structure. In racing, big changes like that are often done to meet the rules or to make the car handle better.
Concept
Speedway racing
Speedway racing is oval-track racing—cars keep going around the track for many laps. Because it’s an oval, setup and driving focus on staying fast through repeated turns and managing speed for the whole run.
“Blown a couple of tires” refers to tire failures severe enough to cause a rapid loss of function, often from overheating, debris, or setup issues. In oval racing, tire management is critical because sustained high loads can quickly turn a small problem into a failure.
Concept
ASA rules (strict on their rules)
ASA (American Speed Association) is described here as having strict rules that limited what teams could change on the car. When a rulebook is tight, teams look for legal ways to gain performance—like fabrication and body work—while staying within the allowed specifications.
Qualifying is when drivers race against the clock to set the starting positions. If you’re “on the pole,” you start in the very first spot at the front of the grid.
A spoiler is a piece on the back of the car that helps it “stick” to the track by shaping the air flow. Even small differences can change how the car feels at speed.
Riverside was a race track that wasn’t an oval. Driving there is different because you have to brake and turn a lot more than on a typical high-speed oval.
The Renault Wind is a small car that you can drive with the top down. It’s made for city and everyday driving, but with the added fun of being a convertible. It may come up when someone is talking about using one car for everything.
Term
two tone blue car
“Two tone” just means the car has two different paint colors. Race teams often use a distinctive look so the car is easy to recognize.
“Outside front roll” describes a starting position on the front row of the grid, specifically the outside lane. In NASCAR, starting position affects early track position and how cleanly you can get up to speed without getting boxed in.
Robert Yates was a well-known NASCAR engine builder. If he’s building the motors, that usually means the team’s engine is being tuned for maximum race performance.
“Full-time cup racing” means racing in the NASCAR top series for most or all of the season, not just a few selected races. It usually requires more commitment from the team and driver to keep improving week after week.
Concept
deal for you
A “deal” here means an agreement to take a new job or role with a racing team. In racing, that kind of change can affect how well the team can prepare and support the car.
Company
exfinity racing
“Xfinity racing” is NASCAR’s second major series. It’s where many drivers and teams build experience before moving up to the biggest NASCAR races.
ASA was a stock-car racing series in the U.S. Going to an “ASA show” means they traveled to race in that particular type of event, not just any local track day.
“Super speedway prowess” just means how good a car is at the fastest NASCAR tracks. Those races are tough because the cars run flat-out for a long time and the aerodynamics and drafting matter a lot.
They’re talking about being able to go practice and try changes on the track. The more you test, the more you learn what adjustments make the car faster and easier to drive.
Horsepower is how much pulling power the engine makes. More horsepower usually helps the car go faster, especially when you’re trying to maintain speed down the straightaways.
When rules allow a bigger spoiler angle, the car usually gets more downforce (more grip). That can help the car feel more stable, but it can also change speed and handling.
Concept
aero balance
Aero balance is basically how the car’s “air grip” is distributed. If you change the spoiler angle, the car can feel like it has more grip in one area than another, changing how it turns.
This means the crash was so serious that the driver couldn’t keep racing. After an injury like that, getting back to racing can be extremely hard, even if someone survives.
“Cup level” means the highest level of NASCAR racing. If a driver is working their way through the Cup level, they’re trying to get a real shot at competing against the best teams and drivers.
They’re talking about a serious head injury. In racing, your brain has to process what’s happening instantly—so an injury can make it unsafe to keep driving. They’re also saying that long ago, doctors didn’t understand these injuries as well as they do today.
Topic
Pensacola
They say the crash happened in Pensacola. That’s where the incident took place before the driver’s injury ended his future racing plans. It’s included to explain how the situation unfolded.
They mention Nashville as a place where the driver was still driving again years later. It’s basically an example that he didn’t fully step away from racing. The point is that he could still enjoy driving after the earlier crash.
They’re talking about how and why Dick Trickle got the chance to race at the highest NASCAR level. It’s basically the story of how the team decided he was the right driver.
Simpson makes racing safety gear. Racing shoes are designed to grip well and help you control the pedals safely, especially when the car is hot and you’re driving hard.
A “cigarette lighter” in a race car is a power outlet/adapter used to run small electronics or accessories. The mention here is about how Dick Trickle was installing one in the car, which also hints at how drivers sometimes brought personal comfort items or used powered devices during stints.
A yellow flag is NASCAR’s way of saying “slow down, something’s wrong.” Drivers have to be careful and follow special rules, especially around pit road.
Even though pit road is slower than the track, it’s still dangerous because cars are moving in and out and everyone is following rules. If you’re not paying attention during a caution, you can end up in the wrong spot and crash.
In NASCAR, teams travel with big trucks that carry the race car and all the gear. The “lounge” is basically a comfortable hangout area for the team while they’re at the track.
“Cup” refers to NASCAR’s top national series, historically called the NASCAR Cup Series. Mentioning “in the 80s” places the speaker’s involvement in the era when teams and cars were evolving rapidly, with different rules and technology than today.
A race team is the group that helps a driver compete. It’s not just the driver—there are people who prepare the car and plan how it’s set up for races.
“Cup program” just means the team was trying to race in NASCAR’s top series. That requires a real race shop and lots of parts and setup work, not just a basic car.
That role is basically the lead mechanic for the engine. In racing, the engine has to be built for power and also to survive long runs, so the builder’s choices matter a lot.
Sponsorship is money from companies that want their name on the car or team. Without it, it’s harder to buy the best parts and keep the team running at a high level.
Concept
right parts
In racing, “right parts” means the parts that work best together for that team’s setup. The wrong parts can hurt speed or cause problems during the race.
They’re saying money was tight, and that makes it harder to compete. Racing costs add up quickly, and if you can’t keep up, you can’t always get the best equipment or support.
Brake calipers are the parts that squeeze the brake pads onto the spinning brake disc. If they’re rebuilt and swapped between races, the brakes stay strong and predictable.
In racing, teams don’t just leave parts alone. They rebuild important parts between races so the car brakes the same way every time and doesn’t surprise you mid-race.
Martinsville is a short oval track where you have to brake a lot and get good traction. Teams test there so the car feels right for that track’s style of racing.
A team owner runs the business side of racing. They’re responsible for the people, equipment, and resources that help the cars compete, so they may think differently than the driver who’s focused on the next lap.
A facility is the team’s garage/workshop where they work on the race cars. If the facility is well set up and the process is smooth, the team can get cars back ready faster.
“Building cars” means the team is putting the race car together and getting it ready to compete. Better preparation usually helps the car run stronger and last longer during the race.
“Build cars” means putting together a race car and setting it up to perform well. It’s not just buying parts—it’s assembling them correctly and making sure the car is ready for racing. Small setup and build choices can change how the car handles.
Concept
hung good bodies
“Hung good bodies” is race-team slang for fitting and mounting the body panels correctly and achieving good aerodynamic alignment. Body fitment affects airflow, drag, and how consistently the car behaves at speed. Even when the chassis is strong, poor body alignment can hurt performance.
A wind tunnel is like a controlled airflow test. Engineers put a car shape in the airflow and measure how the air pushes and pulls on it. That helps them make the car slice through the air better and stay stable at high speed.
In racing, “factory support” means the bigger organization helps the team with money, engineers, and tools. That support can make it easier to improve the car and learn what changes work. Without it, teams often have to do more with less.
Rockingham is a race track name. In this story, it’s mentioned to say when the interview happened. It helps connect the conversation to a specific period in NASCAR.
“Points” are how NASCAR ranks drivers over the whole season. You earn points by finishing well, so being near the top usually means you were consistently strong.
Concept
moved to Kurtz car
When they say someone got “moved to a car,” it usually means they changed teams or who they drive for. Different teams have different cars, parts, and crew, so performance can change a lot.
Term
arrow
It sounds like the speaker is talking about car adjustments, probably related to how the car moves through the air. The transcript likely misheard the exact term, but the point is tuning the car.
Term
Spencer
“Spencer” is the other driver involved in a crash or close call. When that happens, it can mess up the car and force the driver to change how they race.
“Wheel coming off” means the car’s wheel separates from the car. That can be extremely dangerous and usually ruins the race, unless the driver can recover and get to safety.
“Tech” is the inspection process where officials check the car to make sure it follows the rules. It’s one of the final steps that makes the result feel real and official.
The Hall of Fame is an honor that recognizes the biggest stars and most important contributors in racing. If several people you worked with are in it, that usually means you were around top-level talent.
A pit box is the team’s spot in the garage/pit area. When someone says they got a reward from being “on top of a pit box,” they mean they enjoyed leading the team during pit stops.
Term
crank those cars up
It’s a casual way of saying the cars are started and the race is about to get going. The speaker is saying it’s hard to miss that moment at a big event like Daytona.
Term
Speedway program
A “speedway program” is the ongoing effort a racing team runs for track events. It includes getting the cars ready and improving performance over time, not just showing up for a single race.
“SMT” sounds like a specific racing computer/data system the team uses. They’re saying they can watch a lot of what’s happening on Sunday from home using these tools.
A “hot rod” is a car that’s been modified to be more exciting to drive. People often upgrade the engine or suspension, and many builders do the work themselves as a hobby.
A Dodge Charger is a well-known American car model. When someone says they’re building a “hot rod” Charger, they usually mean they’re taking a Charger and modifying it for more fun—often with upgrades to the engine, suspension, or look.
Topic
Hickory
Hickory is referenced as a short-track destination, likely pointing to the Hickory Motor Speedway area. Tracks like this are known for a traditional short-track vibe that can feel similar to earlier eras of racing.
They’re talking about the “Slinger nationals,” which is a racing event at Slinger, Wisconsin. It’s the kind of event where a lot of the same racers show up, so it becomes a yearly reunion.
They mention “Bobby Ellis' Motorsports,” which is a racing team/company they worked with. In racing, these teams are the ones that hire people and help run the cars.
Short tracks are smaller race circuits with tighter corners. Cars and driving styles have to be adjusted because you’re dealing with traffic and lots of close racing.
LIVE
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You're Dale Jr.
Should I say it?
It's Dale Jr. podcast. I gotta say it.
Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr.
download in the Arby's studio.
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Get more meal for your money at Arby's.
Arby's, we have the meats and we've got a great show for you today.
Jimmy Fennig is coming in to tell us about his career.
He was a crew chief in the Cup Series.
We all may remember his days with Kurt Busch as a championship crew chief in 2004.
Mark Martin even is recently Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards.
But way before then, he was working with guys like Bobby Allison.
And in the ASA ranks, he worked with Mark Martin and several other drivers.
And my father would go up to the ASA ranks and run.
And I remember Jimmy being in the pits working on cars.
And they had their own little world up there, their own little racing world up there.
It was very, very competitive, very tough.
Not something that was going to be easy for dad and it showed.
We'd go up there and dad would get his teeth kicked in and Jimmy and those guys
would come down here and bring their knowledge and their success and experience
from their ASA racing and find similar success in the world of NASCAR
inside the Cup garage and can't wait to talk to this guy.
I'll be honest, I think throughout most of my career, I never said
two words to this man in the garage.
He was quiet.
He was not a jokester.
Only time he was smiling was when his car was winning races.
Otherwise, he was all about his business and a little bit intimidating.
So I'm looking forward to talking to him and telling him, you know,
how much we respect him and appreciate him.
Let's get him in the room and get this started.
It's been a long time coming to get you on this show.
You've had a lot of success in NASCAR and won a lot of races with a lot of
different drivers and your your path to NASCAR was was quite an interesting one.
So I've been looking forward to this.
I was around when dad was messing with that ASA stuff in the 80s and late 80s
and and I think that was kind of right around the same time that you were
you were kind of tipping a toe in and out a cup before you eventually stayed here.
And so I want to talk about that a little bit, but
special interest or special projects on today's current car.
We hear all the time how unique this car is comparable to what we raised for
years, how challenging it is, how things have changed in terms of the role of
different chiefs play in their jobs and job descriptions.
You've you certainly lived in all the different eras that the sports experienced.
What is it?
What's what's what's enjoyable about the job you do today?
What what gets you fired up?
Well, what I do today, it's challenging, you know, especially with this new car.
It's always challenging to see with the rules.
They have it, you know, in the sport we got nowadays, it's different.
So you got to really look all over the place.
You know, QC is a big part of our sport right now.
That's kind of overtaken everything, you know, the pieces coming in and out.
There's they vary a little bit.
So we kind of watch that pretty close.
But you know, that's you don't have much room to work.
So you got to, you know, get the best pieces you can on your car every week.
Yeah, I noticed that I, you know, I have some opportunity as a broadcaster
to learn and see a little bit behind some of the curtains.
And and, you know, when I was working at Hendrick, I only knew what we were doing.
I really didn't know much else about outside of our building.
But as a broadcaster, you kind of had the chance to understand some of the challenges
that the teams are faced with.
And when we did put the car together to go around the Daytona 500 a couple of years ago,
I was really surprised by the that I learned just what you mentioned
that all of the parts do have these very tiny, tiny nuances.
And the team has to try to make sure that the best parts are on the car every week.
And it might it's just a little variance of shape or or tolerance.
And and you're looking for hundreds of thousands is, you know, instead of,
you know, big chunks of speed here and there, you're putting together
all these tiny little advantages or things that you think would be advantages
all over the race car with body parts or whatever.
It's really fascinating to me that the teams have found a way to still influence performance,
still have a role in and how how what kind of race car they can build.
And so you still you still feel like, you know, as an individual
and you're able to make a difference.
Yeah, I mean, it's to me, I like challenge, you know, and NASCAR, you know,
put a challenge out there to build the best car every week for for that.
I don't know, you know, you got to look back in in the past to our cars
detailed matter back then, too.
You know, but nowadays with the talents as they have, you got to really be really be close.
Yeah.
So you spent a large majority of your career working at Roush and what is now
RFK and we're going to dive into all that down the road.
But what was the thing that introduced you to racing?
Back in the day when I was a kid, you know, out of high school, like my
my father and grandfather, they they race race cars, you know, so kind of had
it in my blood, if you could say that's what we did.
And what kind of cars were they running?
Old Jalopy's on dirt.
But my grandpa, he worked for American Motors back in the day and he had a
Rambler Rebel and he ran, I think, USAC with it, you know, back in the day.
But it was, you know, something I like, something I enjoyed and out of high
school, I decided to start building the cars and go race on my local dirt track.
Yeah.
Did you have trouble, you know, staying focused in school with all that going on
around you?
No.
And my family, it was difficult for a lot of us to want to go to school,
want to get the grades kind of, you know, dad, he quit school in eighth grade
to race cars in the backyard.
He wanted to be in the shop with, you know, with Ralph.
So he got out of school as quick as he could.
But so you had your family instill the work ethic and your ability to stay
in school, like how, what kind of a student were you?
Well, I got by, you know.
I didn't, I didn't go to college.
You know, I just finished out high school, but really took the classes
that would help me down the road, you know, like metal work and stuff
like that and reading.
But otherwise, that's about where I stayed in high school.
Yeah.
And then, yes, I was glad to get out, you know.
So you built your own cars?
Yeah, built my race myself.
Yep.
My first car was a 63 Ford fastback.
You know, race the local dirt tracks up there in Wisconsin and built that.
Me and my brother, Jeffrey, we built it together.
And then when you say built it, what, what does that consist of?
You just stripped down a street legal car and stripped it down.
Try gut it and I'll get as light as possible back even back then.
You know, weight was a big thing.
Put our own roll cage in it.
You know, I didn't have a full cage from from snout to snout.
Yeah.
So, and then, you know, went to stock our products about my first racing hub.
I thought that was a big day, you know, back in the day there.
I said, wow, look at this piece, you know, so, but it was, it was interesting.
Yeah.
You know, who were you racing against?
Just local guys from town.
It was a Friday, Saturday night.
Saturday night.
What track?
Hales corners.
What is, where's, where's that place at?
That's a, it's a little bit west of Milwaukee.
You know, where Milwaukee is just a little bit West Hales corners.
It was a famous, well, not famous, but it was a local, our local dirt track.
You know, we had a lot of race tracks up there.
You know, we could go race.
Really?
So, but it was fun.
It was enjoyable and it was challenging.
You know, it was kind of, how can I get this better?
How can I do this better?
And that's how I started.
Yeah.
What did you take about driving?
And not too good.
Why?
I don't know.
I built them, went driving them and I just couldn't feel a car good enough.
You know what I mean?
The know where the problems were.
So I hung it up fast enough.
You know, I did a sportsman series and then I did a late model series.
And after the late model series, I just kind of gave it up.
You know, I'd make the semi feature, never made features.
And, you know, were you just, were you discouraged at this point about that?
Or was it like, Hey, you know, I love working on them.
I, I, you've, you obviously made a, made a life as, as an incredible crew chief.
So you found, did you early in your career life?
Did you find joy in the work and building the car, preparing the car?
Did that motivate you as much as driving?
Yeah.
Really?
Working on the car.
Once I got, I enjoyed it more because the more you could, I wasn't a good driver.
Put it that way, but I could consider myself a good builder, good thinker, innovator on stuff,
you know, and that's where I think I, I shine when I was a kid, you know.
What were some of the things that were innovative at the time in terms of geometry?
You know, some guys probably weren't doing a ton of GEO stuff or thinking about,
you know, camber gains and things like that.
Right.
Yeah.
Back in the day stock.
I remember sitting back in the day, we used to just sit there and take a torch and cut our A-frames
and shorten them up to get the camber where we wanted.
You know, that was back in the day.
Didn't have tubular.
We use stock stuff.
And not everybody was probably sharp on exactly what they were trying to accomplish.
Did you, did you draw all this out on the, on the floor?
Well, how did you know what you needed to do?
You kind of think about it.
You think about what's going on with the tire when you get into corner,
how much loads on it, how much it flexes and all that.
And you just say, well, if I want that patch down, I want to make sure I've got it in the right direction.
Yeah.
You know, and that was, you know, back in the day.
Yeah.
But did you, were y'all messing with bump steer?
And no, not that.
No, so.
So all of that engine, you know, ingenuity and creativity is all self-taught.
Just trial and error, you know, trial and error.
Trial and error, you know, we come up with, you know, as dirt tracks, as you know, as the drier to get,
the less grip you got.
So we put a little weight jack in the left rear corner with slots on it so we could load the left rear spring more.
You know, that was our adjustment because we ran leaf springs, not coils.
Right.
So we did stuff like that, you know, just say, OK, how can we do this?
So kind of like a reverse shackle, just had to go up and down in slots to spring.
Man.
Yeah, pretty cool.
You know, you got out of, you got out driving your own car and you went to work for a guy named Al Sheil.
Yep.
As you and your brother, Jeffrey.
Yeah, mainly just me.
What it was is when I was building my cars, he owned a salvage yard.
So we.
He was going over there, getting stuff.
We'd go over there and become friends with him, got a relationship with him and.
He had a car?
He did, yeah.
Was he driving it?
Late model, yeah.
He used to drive modified years ago, then he went to late model.
And so then I decided that he kind of took an interest in me and he says, hey, come work for me.
So I went to work in his salvage yard in the winter and then worked in his shop on race cars during the summer.
Really?
Yeah.
What were you doing in salvage yard?
Oh, I'd cut up cars, you know, cut.
Custom needed something.
You go back there and get it.
Get it.
You know, it was just I was young.
Yeah.
So salvage yards are a thing of the past these days.
You know, I used to, there was a salvage yards down the street from dad's place and on highway three and.
Me and Kerry had run back in there all the time for ball joints and stuff for our street stock car and.
You know, if somebody came in, needed an alternator or whatever, the salvage yard guy, you run back there and pull it off a truck or car, whatever, you know, and that was like.
You know, and they were there were a lot of salvage yards around in our area and I imagine that.
Working in a salvage yard, no, no, every day was different.
There was always something more interesting happening.
And that seems like that would have been a fun place to be.
Yeah, it was fun.
I mean, you would see, you know, people coming in getting this parts, we'd let them go up in the yard to pick some parts, you know, and then the interesting part.
We, the owner Al, he just he bought a crusher car crusher.
So we had a big forklift and.
Throw cars in there.
That'd be fun.
Throw cars in there and watch them get crushed.
The one down the street from dad's.
Some of our old race cars ended up in there and I imagine they ended up going to going to get salvage or recycled for the metal.
But I wish I would have known well enough to not let them go to that.
I could have them to have them today would be pretty interesting.
But.
You.
So you get an opportunity to to you're done driving, you know, and you're going to start working on Al's car.
And y'all would have success when the track championship.
That was in 1971.
So like all through the 70s.
This is what you did.
Yeah, just work for our own.
We raced, you know, back back in Wisconsin back in that day, you'd race.
You can raise seven days a week.
You know, we would raise probably I would say five days a week.
Yeah.
You know, did you pay attention to NASCAR at that time?
Did y'all listen to the race a little bit?
A little bit.
Because NASCAR really in that time is still very big, very big, big, but not, you know, races weren't.
Yeah.
Televised.
And I wonder, I guess I wonder in Wisconsin, what of NASCAR were you hearing and how aware
were you of, you know, the David Pearson's and Richard Petty's of the world?
Yeah.
That was a big deal.
That was a big deal.
You know, David Pearson.
Did you want to did you know then that you might might be headed in that direction or?
Not really.
I wanted to make a living in racing.
Wanted to make a living in racing.
Is it possible to consider that?
Yeah.
It was enjoyable and it was every week was a different challenge.
You know, you had to go there and it was about winning too.
You know, you didn't want to go there and just race.
So and Al was, Al was a very talented race car driver and he won a lot of races, you
know.
So and on asphalt and dirt.
So we started on dirt and we progressed to asphalt, you know, and went up Slinger,
America, you know, different places like that.
Yeah.
And won races there and championships.
So it was enjoyable.
Were you the lead mechanic at that point?
Yeah, I was the lead guy.
You know, that was my baby, you know, just take care of the car maintenance, building,
you know, stuff like that.
But yeah, it was, it was fun back then.
Yeah.
I mean, but it was a lot of work.
You know, racing that many, you know, you race dirt one night, asphalt next dirt.
Turn in the car around every day.
Turn in the car around every day.
Yeah.
Cleaning it, you know.
Did you have much help?
One person helped me the rainy day.
He used to help me.
He was a kind of retired old guy and we'd just go in Al's garage and that garage is
still there to today with no kidding.
Some of Al's cars right inside of it.
Really?
Oh yeah.
Oh damn.
So it's pretty cool.
Is the salvage arms still there?
Still there.
Wow.
So I think his daughter runs it now.
Yeah.
How about that?
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So you did this all through the seventies and night in the early eighties, you'd go
work for a guy named Jerry Gunderman.
Who is he?
Jerry Gunderman owned a trucking company up there and he loved racing.
Just loved it.
You know, he was friends with Al Sheil, you know, and all of us.
We kind of hung out together.
Was Al getting toward retirement or?
No.
What was the situation?
Why would you, why would you leave with the?
Well, I think Jerry come in and he wanted to do more bigger races.
I can't say bigger races.
He wanted to go arco racing, ASA racing, you know, and then eventually he fueled the car
for Bobby, you know, so.
Oh, Bobby Allison.
Yeah.
And he told you this.
Jerry?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And you're like that?
Yeah.
So how'd you tell Al?
We're all friends back then, you know, and Al was Al and just Al, we're going to go work
for Jerry, you know, we're going to go race a couple race tracks, you know, I don't know
where you can say Texas Motor Speedway.
We raced, you know, different race tracks.
So that's what we did and that's we left good friends and everything, you know, Al needed
to help out to help them and that's how that ended up.
Yeah.
So you build a, it says here, you built a powerhouse short track team.
So you work with Jerry in the early 80s, you went, ran some arco stuff, Texas World.
These are different race tracks than what you'd experienced racing with Al in the 70s around
Wisconsin and so forth.
It's slinger and all those others that you mentioned.
What was the, what was that like, I suppose, going from working on a car that's got to
go get around a half mile track every weekend that's going to run dirt one night and asphalt
the next and all these different race tracks to building and working on race cars that
are running 170, 150 miles an hour around Texas World.
I can't say it's a big jump, you know, but you have different, different types of cars
and different races.
So, and my goal every time I went was let's go to win.
You know, no matter it was Al, anybody, anyone of our drivers, you know, let's just prepare
a car good enough that we can go out there and win with.
So we got these bigger tracks and the competition level is getting a little bit harder.
Who did you lean, did you have folks that you leaned on and turn when you, you know, when
you're going to Texas World for the first time or going to some of these bigger tracks
for the first time?
Who were some of the folks that you...
Well, Bobby was a good one for Texas World because he drove that car out of Texas.
How did you become friendly with Bobby yet?
Well, that started back at, I don't know if you're familiar with Wayne Erickson, the owner,
he used to be the owner of Slinger Speedway.
He wanted Bobby to come race his race track.
So, Benny Ortell put all that stuff together and got Bobby up there.
So Bobby brought his own car, his own personal car.
He had an ASA type car and he went up there and ran and he wasn't...
They missed the setup a little, you know, but we ran there every week, you know.
So Benny put that deal together to drive one of Jerry's cars or one of Al's cars up there.
So we went up there and Bobby just, you know, he...
Like this thing drives great?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then ever since that, Bobby and well, Benny put it together where Bobby was in them cars
everywhere.
We went to Rockford, Illinois, you know, stuff like that.
Yeah.
Benny Ortell is sort of a, I don't know, a PR general manager type guy.
He worked with Bobby, worked with my dad for years and Mark Martin, you would know this
just speaking to the viewers about Benny Ortell.
You're going to hear that name maybe once or twice or more in the story.
I would say when dad got involved in ASA, he bought a Dylan car and he ran it out of his
shop down here.
He also missed the setup most often.
I went with him a few times to a couple of races.
I think I went to Wisconsin one night, but, and you were there, I think, down in the pits
working on Mark's car or one of the Miller cars, not even Bobby, but the dad would go
and run and struggle, you know, and I just, I couldn't understand.
It was like, I guess it was the first experience that I'd had realizing that, you know, you're,
it just wasn't going to be that easy to go into that world because it was certainly its
own little world.
ASA, you had, you know, you had Dick Trickle, Butch Miller, all these incredible Seneca,
all these incredible drivers and y'all were, it was almost like its own little NASCAR cup
world up there.
Yeah.
You know, and, and, you know, obviously I think Wiki and others would come out of that,
that, that type of racing.
We would see it on TV, like down here in the early 80s, we, I would see it on TV through
different to TNN and different things.
And yeah, when Dabba go up there, he would get his tail kicked and I always wondered,
like, man, what is it that they know that we don't know?
What are they, Howard, what, what do they do to their cars?
Like, because dad would take him, you know, Tony senior and I think one time he went up
there with Jake Elder to a race, like we took, we had,
One time he went up with me.
Yeah.
Really?
Oh yeah.
I don't know if you know the story.
So anyway, we're sitting there, me and Mark are down south here.
You know, we just started working, you know, I think this was, I don't know what year,
87, you know, and we're 87, 88 in that year.
And your dad called Mark up and says, Mark, you know, come set my Dylan car up.
Yeah.
So Mark called me up one night and me and Mark ended up over at his mother's house.
Yes, it's shot back out back.
Out back there.
So we went in there and stronger and set it up for Milwaukee, for a Milwaukee mile.
Really?
You know, and that was, that was a good deal.
You know, and then actually your dad even flew me up there and his playing with him.
Yeah.
So we flew up there and I think he was leading the race and a lap car took him out.
Yeah.
You know, but he was, he was doing good up there.
Yeah.
What was that car missing?
When they tried to take it and go run it, they wouldn't, they couldn't, they wouldn't,
they wouldn't run well at all.
I mean, I remember this very, very vividly, always was curious as to why dad couldn't,
well, him, him and like their, their idea, you know, of, of, of how they would approach
setting the car up wasn't what was needed.
And they, you know, they'd go up there and, and, but of course, I mean, super competitive.
I just mentioned all the drivers and, you know, and there's tons of guys like you that have
come out of that, the ASA ranks and super talented mechanics and crew chiefs and so forth.
So it wasn't going to be easy for anybody to go up there and race and compete and do
well.
But just like you said, like Bobby took his car, didn't run all that great.
Derek Walshrup would try to time or two moderate success.
Yeah.
You know, what was, what was it about ASA that made it so tough?
And what was, what was it about the men?
What was it about your techniques?
Your, your literal techniques to setting the car up when you went and set dad's car up
in his shop.
Was the rear end not in it?
Right.
Was the, what did they have?
Was there, was there theories around Front Geo?
Just very basic in general, comparable to what you guys were trying to do.
Yeah.
I think, you know, back then why they didn't run is because like you said, the best of
the best were up there.
You know, the Senators, the Mike Eddies, Ed Howells, you know, and we lived and breathed
that.
Yeah.
We never came down here.
Okay.
I'm going to set up a cup car.
The same way.
And the dad was always too, I think dad ran a lot of Bilstein shocks and I don't know
if that was a hot ticket at the, at that particular time.
Like he would be, you know how he, he was so loyal to like certain brands like Goodyear
right?
When the entire wars came in, I ain't running Hoosiers.
I'll go to, I'll go to Charlotte and run 30th all day.
Yeah.
You know, with Dave Marcus in the back running my Goodyears.
And he was, so like he'd have a, he'd get a deal like the Bilstein shock deal and you
guys were probably running something completely different.
But yeah, I don't know.
I always was, I always was surprised by not surprised, I guess, but like impressed with
how difficult it was for dad to go run and be competitive up in those, up in those races
with the ASA guys back in the day.
You, you've had that.
So you're forging this relationship with Bobby and that would be the catalyst to get you
down into, into the cup garage eventually.
I do want to ask you like, so you're, you're working with your racing every now and then
Bobby's coming up there to run with you guys while he's not there, who's driving these
cars you're working on?
Nobody was, you know, they were pretty well sitting.
Well, I can't really say that.
Once while we had Russie Wallace run it, you know, Kaguya, Canada, Russie ran it up there.
Bill Elliott drove it down here at Jeffco, Georgia.
Yeah.
You know, stuff like that.
Jerry, Jerry would get, you know, a couple of races out of them people and, and we're
responsible.
Racing in as much as you wanted to.
Were you racing less?
Probably less.
You know, but at the same.
Is that all right?
No, no, I love racing.
I'm a racer.
So, but, you know, at the same time, you know, we knew that Mark Martin was going to come
back as a race in for Jerry.
You knew that.
Yeah.
So, and then we put that program together and move forward.
So Mark, I remember in 1981, I'm going to just guess there was around 81, 82.
I just moved into my dad's house at the lake and we, me and Kelly, we're giving custody
of, of, of us.
We were giving custody to dad for mom one day.
Our long story, but so I'm in dad's lake house in the basement and he had a TV down
there pool table, a couple of things and Mark Martin comes over.
I don't know who Mark Martin is, but dad's, you know, I'm learning as I'm sitting around
there talking and Mark puts all these tapes in the VHS tape player beta, probably back
then it was a beta tape player and we sat and watched Mark, a lot of his races when
he was driving to the orange and white too.
Beautiful, beautiful race car.
And so Mark is like, here, watch this.
It's me at Nashville.
Here.
It's me at Wisconsin.
Here's all the, and we're watching all these races and dad's just sitting there watching
them and Mark's telling dad about ASA and how awesome it is.
And this is around 8081.
And then, you know, Mark would come run a race or two of his own with his own stuff,
the Buck Stover, the, the, you know, he ran that Pontiac a couple of times and, and, and
we've, everybody's pretty aware of how that fell apart for Mark and Mark had to go home.
Yeah.
And Mark's talked about that, how he had all these deals, chassis deals, engine deals,
and when he went home, he didn't have no deals anymore.
And like he had to work, he had to grind it back, you know, grind from the bottom again.
And how he built that forward at Dylan's, that, that Miller Ford and Dylan's to go
compete again.
And that's, I'm assuming when you guys around the same time, you guys would get back together.
So Mark is coming back.
He's, he's things that work out with him at NASCAR and he's going to go home.
Um, and it was a, did you know Mark all that well in the, in the late 70s or not really?
Not really very well, no.
Yeah.
So you wouldn't, you, were you aware of this, you know, this sort of punching the gut that
he would, he, you know, he would describe it as one of the most difficult parts of his
life when he, when he came up, came down here to race, it didn't work out.
He thought it was going to work out.
Like, why wouldn't it work out?
Um, and it didn't.
Um, when you got, when you, you and him teamed up, you know, I imagine he was, uh, desperate
to, to, to get, you know, stabilize his, his racing career and, and kind of get himself
back on track.
Was that, what was, what was his demeanor?
What was, what was working with Mark like?
It was, it was great.
You know, I mean, we came down and Jerry Gunderman, he went and drove for Jerry Gunderman.
Miller was our sponsor, you know, thank Bobby and Benny for putting all that stuff together
and from there on there, every day at Jerry had a shop.
The every day Mark was there at seven o'clock with us, work on his race cars.
And he was there to load them and get in the hauler and drive them to the racetrack.
You know, so he was devoted to go win.
Yeah.
You know, so it was, it was a real good relationship, you know, because we both were striving to
win.
We do anything to them cars, you know, you know, I'll never forget.
But we were running Michigan for the first time.
Speedway.
Yeah.
With an ASA car.
With ASA.
Fiberglass body.
Yeah.
Fiberglass body that was.
Always amazed me.
Y'all went to Michigan to do that.
Yeah.
And believe it or not, it was a five star body and he had rules.
You couldn't change a car.
Well, we go because they thought everything, you know, was stocked from five star.
Well, my brother was good at fiberglass.
So what we do is cut the car up and what do we do in Speedway racing?
Narrow them up.
So that's exactly what we did for Michigan and we blew a couple of tires in the middle
of people were there.
So they got kind of discouraged because we were like two laps down and they left, went
home and then they read the next day that we won the race.
You know, come from two laps down.
Yeah, no kidding.
So, but I mean, it was, that's so much challenging stuff you could do back then.
You know, creativity, creativity, you know, that's the same because back then ASA was
pretty strict on their rules, you know, but they couldn't police everything.
And as a racer, you're going to keep challenging them.
That's right.
That's your job.
You know, I'll never forget the day we're in Anderson, Indiana and we qualified, I think
on the pole.
And after you got done qualifying, you park in the middle and you back your car up like
this.
We ended up backing up the Bob Seneca and everybody looks in our spoiler was probably about an
inch taller than him.
So anyway, you know, but they, none was said, but we had to calm it down a little bit.
But that way they were challenging us too, you know, so we're not the only people that
were challenged.
It was great racing, great racing.
And Mark wanted to get back and be part of that.
Yeah.
So y'all had a lot of success and won the Winchester 400.
Y'all would run some cup races together.
Yes.
Was this the Black Ford or what car was this?
This was the Black O2.
Yeah.
O2.
Orange numbers.
O2.
Black car.
Beautiful car.
We hauled ass.
It was fast.
We went to Daytona with that car.
It was a banjo car.
Went to Daytona and narrowed everything up real nice.
Went to Daytona.
I forgot how we did, but not all right, you know.
And then the next time we says, well, let's go to Riverside with it.
Oh.
So now we wind it back out because we only have one car, you know.
So Jerry's sit there when we put in the truck and trailer and hauled it all the way out
to Riverside and went out there and was running good.
I know what happened.
But the best part was when we, it was a two tone blue car, Jerry's truck and cars.
And we went to Atlanta with it.
The last race at Atlanta.
Yeah.
Sat on the outside front roll, you know, and then Robert Yates was building our motors,
you know, awesome power, awesome.
And I guess Kale gave him a little bit of, Kale Yarbell gave him a little bit of hell.
How come I didn't get that motor?
So anyway, that was sort of three races we ran.
And it was a learning curve, you know, because it's no different.
We're going into their ball field and try racing with them, you know.
But it was, I had it been great for Mark to kind of come back and get an opportunity
to open the door again to possible cup career.
Cause I mean, there was, there was a, there are hard for people to believe that there was a moment
where Mark's cup career was absolutely in doubt in those early 80s.
You, I want to step back before, before this all happened.
You were convinced by Bobby Allison to take a job at die guard in 1984.
You came down here.
Bobby's relationship with the team was deteriorating and he advised you to go back home.
And I have to imagine that this relationship with Bobby Allison was one on trust and respect
for him to come to you and go, he wanted you down here.
And then when the situation wasn't what he thought it should be
and it wasn't going to be good for all of y'all, he, he sort of, it kind of tipped you off, right?
To the, Hey man, might want to get out of here, go back and y'all would eventually, you know, reunite.
So talk about that.
Talk about the, the relationship with Bobby, the trust for him to come to you and say, Hey man,
this isn't working out and this is about to implode.
I'd get out of the way.
I'd go, I'd go take care of yourself and go get where you need to be.
Yeah, that worked out, you know, what it really, what happened there.
But like you said, Bobby and the gardeners were falling out at the time, a little bit of falling out.
And at that time, Robert Gates and Kerry Nelson were running a place and they came up to me with a five year contract.
And I says to Bobby, I says, well, they want a five year contract.
Bobby, what do you want me to do?
You know, and Bobby says, go home.
He says, go back to Wisconsin.
He says, and I'll call you when I'm ready again.
You know, I says, okay, Bobby, you know, I appreciate what you've done.
And I went back.
No question.
No.
I mean, I respected that man.
You're a guy that's gotten down here with a five year roadmap in front of you.
How do you not take that?
A lot of people would have.
No, because I had the respect for Bobby Allison.
And if Bobby Allison was getting along with these owners for some reason.
You know, you didn't need to be there.
Why did I need to be there?
Because Bobby brought me down there, you know.
So if Bobby left and I'm sitting there and while this was Bobby's guy, maybe ship him out of here too.
So I didn't, we all left in good terms, you know.
And I, you know, got a trailer, put all my furniture and me and wife went back up to Milwaukee.
And you went up there and that would be the opportunity you'd have to work.
Jerry takes you right back.
There's like, come on, we got this deal.
We're going to go some race with Mark.
Yeah.
So that went really well.
You ended up finishing 11th at Dover in one of those cup races with Mark.
But you would, you would return to, to full-time cup racing with Bobby as the crew chief in 87.
So two years with Mark racing.
He is a racing.
Right.
Yeah.
Yep.
Two years back home and then Bobby calls you.
Yeah.
And says, Hey, I'm, I told you I'd call you here.
Here we are.
I got a deal for you.
You're going to go to chief.
He found a home at Stavola brothers and Billy and Mickey were super nice people.
And Bobby called me up and he says, Jimmy, come on back down.
You know, I want you as my crew chief.
And I think this was the fall of 86.
And I says, okay, no problem.
So I,
What'd you tell Mark?
Huh?
Well, at that point, I think Mark was looking to, you know, and then Mark, when I talked to Mark about it and Jerry, they
says, do not turn that offer down.
Sure.
You've got to go.
Okay.
You know, so I got blessings from Mark and Jerry.
So, and then, fortunately enough, Jack picked Mark up right after that.
And everything kind of worked out the same or, or maybe he was exfinity racing before that.
Yeah.
Mark would go run that 31.
Yeah.
I ran white 31 forward for a couple of years.
But that's how, that's how it did.
I had so much trust in Bobby, you know, so I went down there for the true story.
I went down there for an interview for Stavola Brothers and I got off the airplane because
they flew me down there.
I said, wow, this is big, you know, get the flag commercial.
So I walked down the runway.
This is before all the strict rules at the airport.
I walked down the runway and who's standing there waiting for me at the gate?
Bobby Allison.
Yeah.
I said, if this man sits there wants to be out here to do that for me, I'll do anything for him.
So, and that's how that turned out.
So you and Bobby would work together, use the crew chief at Stavola Brothers.
You also ran, ran some more.
Did y'all run?
Did you and Bobby go back up north and run any, may I say stuff?
Jerry, Jerry would still have a car there.
You know, Bobby, I would get in the airplane with Bobby when they put a car together.
I think all the time.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
In fact, I remember now we went up to Oswego, New York, you know, me, the engine builder
and Bobby Keith Alman.
We went up to Oswego, New York to run an ASA show.
Yeah.
I mean, Bobby's probably, I don't know, 45, 50 years old at this point, but he would be,
I remember when he got hurt at Pocono, dad would fill in for a few of the obligations that
he was committed to, right, to run these races on a Friday night.
He's supposed to be at this racetrack to run some car on a Saturday in the neighborhood
of the, you know, wherever the cup race was in the country at that point.
But Bobby was racing, if the cup, Bobby, Bobby would often book a race in the area within
somewhere of that, you know, that cup race on a Friday or Saturday night at a local track,
right?
Go inside autographs to run a car, drive some houses car.
Literally almost every week.
I mean, the guy was like Kyle Larson is today.
Yep.
Right.
A lot of people don't really know or recall or remember that about Bobby, but I mean,
all the way into his late 40s, this man would race every night of the week if he could.
You won the Daytona 500 together in 1988, and I don't know how you had that Buick calling
out all that much ass because the Buick wasn't a nose of the Buick wasn't known.
It was not known for its super speedway prowess, but you know, it was an amazing car.
You know, and talk about what it feels like as a crew chief to build a car like that because,
you know, guys like, you know, Reneer would have a car like that with Buddy Baker in the,
in around 7980 called the Grey Ghost.
Robert Yates built a few cars like that for Dale Jarrett.
And, you know, he had a little string of about three or four years at Daytona.
You just weren't going to beat the blue car.
And so, and Bill Elliott, you know, they had their little string in the mid 80s as well.
But that Buick, nobody was worried about the Buicks.
No, not Dan.
Yeah.
But y'all built the bet.
Y'all had the best car there that weekend.
I mean, Davey and Robert's car, the 28, which was lights out back then.
Yeah.
Couldn't pass you.
What does it feel like when you think about that car and what it was like to put that thing together?
That thing was pretty special.
Well, everything lit up back then.
You could test whenever you wanted to go test.
Yeah.
So what we did with that car, you know, we went to Talladega and we tested like three days,
messing with the nose, messing with this, messing with that.
Bobby was right there doing every day.
He was in that thing and he would participate in some of the stuff, you know,
because Bobby was very sharp on race cars.
So anyway, we spent three days there testing.
And then I got to give a lot of credit to Keith Allman for the horsepower he brought to the racetrack.
So it was a combination of everybody and it's the little stuff.
That's why I keep saying it's a little stuff to make the big difference.
Yeah.
We stack a bunch of those little things together.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then here's a tenth there.
Here's a tenth there.
You know, so that's how that developed.
Yeah.
Standing in Victor Lane as a champion of the Daytona 500.
Not many people get to experience what that feels like.
I know you go on and win plenty of races in your cup careers as a crew chief,
even a championship with Kurt Busch.
But I always tell people like what, I don't know of anything that matches what it feels like
the moment a car crosses the finish line in the Daytona 500.
And you know that you've won that one because it's such an elusive race,
at least it has been in my family.
But so maybe I feel a unique way about it.
But in terms of just your joy in a specific moment of time,
winning the Daytona 500 is as good as it's ever gotten for me.
What was that like for you when that car pulls into Victor Lane with Bobby behind the wheel?
No, it was, you can't believe it.
It's just stunning.
You know what I'm saying?
You just say, wow, we just did this.
Yeah.
So I thought it was, you know, for the first time doing it,
I mean, we won the firecracker the year before with Bobby,
but that one there, the Daytona 500,
and that's the biggest wonder is and to go ahead and win, that was unbelievable.
Yeah, you're down there for 14 days.
Yeah.
And you talked about the testing.
So I mean, all these things have to go right.
And then I got to sit there.
I got to give Bobby credit.
You know, Bobby was a wheel man and he come in the last,
I'll never forget this last pit stop, come in,
let's do four tires and Jimmy knocked that spoiler down 10 degrees.
Really?
Yeah.
So we're sitting there with that back then 10 degrees of spoiler was laid back flat.
Holy crap.
He got in a car just, you know, but I mean, that's Bobby known what,
that was a good part about it.
Yeah.
You know, kind of like your dad knows what he needs.
Back then you, so that, that'll be, you'll see pictures of these cars sitting on pit road
after qualifying the drivers would kneel down beside them.
And then there was a little window of time when NASCAR didn't regulate the angle of the rear spoiler.
They would eventually come in with a 20 degree rule that would become a 40 degree rule, right?
45 and so forth.
But it was a time in the mid 80s where you could literally have that thing flat as you want.
And what was it like?
I mean, I imagine you didn't think much of it because the driver would go out there and drive it,
but to lay a spoiler down flat today would be quite a thing.
Quite a, quite a, quite a crazy, you know, thought.
Yeah.
But back then, you know, how did you get the car to handle?
Say if you were going to take the rear spoiler off a car today, like what's, what's,
how do you get the thing to stick?
Well, you weren't going to get it to stick with spoiler off.
Yeah.
But I mean, Bobby knew what he had.
You know, not, it wasn't, we were maybe running 25 degrees and he just put it down to 10, you know.
So when you get back to that, back that far on a spoiler, the difference wasn't that much, you know.
Yeah.
So, but it was, I mean, it was the right call as long as he could handle it and he did, you know.
Yeah.
Unbelievable.
I've never, I always wondered in my mind like what those cars felt like, what they drove like,
what driving a car with 10 degrees of spoiler felt like going down the back straightaway as RPM drives
and you're thinking about how to get it into the corner and driving through there as fast as you can.
So you worked with Bobby's, you worked with Bobby until he was injured.
That was a very difficult day.
Dad and Bobby were close.
I was young, only about 13 at the time.
But that had a, that was a big, big moment in a lot of our lives.
And it had a huge effect on my dad.
I can imagine that, you know, is that whole day, is that whole experience a blur for you?
Is there, is there, you know, because I, you know, when you look at pictures of the car, you can hardly believe that Bobby could survive it.
Yeah.
You know.
It was a bad day, you know.
I mean, I fact tell you a little story.
I saved that car.
I put it on the roof of Stavolda Brothers and put it away with a cover on it so nobody could see it.
Not on the roof, outside, inside.
So just in case Bobby wanted to see it, you know, when he got better.
Yeah.
You know, but after that happened and to see him like that, I says, wow, you know, this guy done all these things.
Yeah.
Unbelievable thing for, for me, for racing, for NASCAR, you know, you, you just couldn't believe it, you know.
And then, yeah, I know your dad had a good relationship with him.
Bobby's road back to just a decent quality of life was a very long one.
You had to go, you carried on, you know, with the race team, the race team had to carry on.
There's all kinds of employees, livelihoods at stake.
How, how challenging was that for you?
You know, the last, I mean, I don't know, you know, when, when these type of things happen in our lives,
we're not sure what we're, where we're supposed to be or what we're supposed to do or what we want to do, right?
But I think we go back to the racetrack because that's a that that's something that can take our mind off of the pain or whatever remorse or sadness we're going through.
But it's kind of where we're, I couldn't imagine, I couldn't imagine being anywhere else.
Yeah.
I mean, that's the best therapy there is, you know, if you want to call it therapy, you know, that's what I call it.
So you go out there and then, by the way, that's what Bobby would have wanted.
And by the way, Bobby wants results too, even though he's laying in a hospital bed.
You know, I, so I kind of put that in perspective and say, okay, guys, Bobby's gonna, he's gonna come through.
Let's go, let's go to work in Windows form.
Yeah.
You know, so, and I had a lot of good team members there that, you know, that worked for me that stayed with me and went after it.
Yeah.
Got to work with Mike Alexander.
Oh, yeah.
Who was a talent.
He'd been kind of grinding through opportunities in the Cup level in the 80s with Dave Marcus and a couple different teams,
but never really could land a great opportunity.
But this was a good opportunity for him.
What was the potential for Mike?
He would end up having some injuries of his own, some things that would kind of slow down his sideline, his career.
Where was the height for him?
What could he have become given, given the chance?
Yeah.
Mike, Mike was a super, super nice guy, very talented.
People don't realize how talented Mike was, you know.
And when we put him in the car and we ran that year, I think he finished third at Atlanta.
We had a lot of top, top 10s, you know, not a win, but there was, you could see we could get there.
Yes.
And, and Mike wanted to get there, you know.
Unfortunately, as everything else, he goes to Pensacola on the snowball and crashes and now he's got a brain injury, you know.
But as far as his talent, you know, I would, I would consider him as good as Mark Martin to this day.
Really?
Well, right there with him.
Yeah.
Because when we were racing ASA, he was racing all pro down south.
Yes.
And those two were probably the best, you know.
I'm glad you said that because I don't think a lot of people would have recognized the name Mike Alexander.
There's a lot of people that would.
But he's kind of, I don't want to use the phrase what if, but there was real potential, real talent there.
And when he has the injury, I mean, head injuries back then weren't as studied as they are today.
Did you, did you realize right away that, that, that his future driving with you guys was, was, was over?
Not really.
Because, you know, after that winter, you know, he come up to the shop, we talk, you know, I seen improvement.
I could see a little difference in the speech, you know, but he says, I'm going to be all right.
I'm going to be all right.
You know, so you got to take his word, you know.
And next thing I know, no, it's not going to make it, you know.
So then he realized he wasn't going to make it either, you know.
He would eventually find himself back behind the wheel of a race car.
And I mean, I think even as recent as four or five years ago is running a car over at Nashville or something doing something, having some fun.
So he, he got to continue to drive race cars, just not at the couple level.
This would give you guys the opportunity to work with Dick Trickle, the 55 year old rookie.
You know, you knew Dick really well from the ASA days.
Dick was celebrated like him coming into the cup series.
I know he'd had opportunities in the 70s and some one offs here and there and some different things, but for whatever reason, and maybe his own choosing.
He was, he was dominant up north in the ASA ranks.
And, but he was presented with this opportunity to come down and drive your car.
How did that come together? Why Dick Trickle?
Well, because I knew him from back then and then we had a meeting about it with the stuff old brothers, you know.
And I says, well, why don't we give Dick a call, you know, because I knew how good Dick was, you know.
You don't win all those races by not being good.
So we gave him a call and he accepted the offer to come down and, you know, drive the car.
I think our first race was Rockingham and I'll never forget this one because old Dick was from the north, you know, and Dick always wore cowboy boots.
So he got there and I had a set of driving shoes for him because I know the interior of these cars are hotter than the ASA cars.
You know, I said, Dick, you're going to need to take these boots off and put these Simpson shoes on, you know.
And he says, no, I'm going to be all right. I'm going to be all right.
And I said to him, I said, OK, so I think halfway during the race, hey, I had a yelling.
He says, I need them shoes.
So I said, OK, four tires and a set of shoes, guys.
Did he have a cigarette lighter in your car?
Oh, yeah, he put it in there.
He did.
Oh, yeah.
Now, let me ask you this.
When he comes into the shop and he's putting a cigarette lighter in the car, what is what is what are you guys thinking?
I'm sure you probably knew it was coming.
It knew it was coming because that's all he did.
You know, I mean, it's coffee and cigarettes, you know.
So but you have to explain it to the other boys on the shop.
Yeah.
On the shop floor.
Just bear with it.
You know, this is him, you know.
And then I'll never forget this day that guys kind of got mad when we were at Dover running and yellow flag comes out.
And Dover pit road, you know, it's hard to get to.
And evidently he committed to admitted this, you know, to me, but on the old flag coming in the pits, he crashed in the pit road.
I said, what were you doing?
You know, lighting up a cigarette, you know, because he missed it under yellow.
Yeah.
You know, I couldn't believe it.
I said, okay, Dick.
He wouldn't admit it or he did.
He didn't admit it.
Yeah.
No.
You think that's what happened?
Oh, yeah, because he was too quiet.
Yes.
Too quiet.
And Dick was a super person, you know.
Yeah.
I got to know him better.
I got really lucky to get to know him better.
When he goes to drive for Kale into 66 drop art at car, I was friends with the, the crew chief son.
I'd be up in the hauler lounge with with my buddy.
As soon as I got the racetrack, I go look for my friends, Brad means Jimmy's son.
And we'd go up in there and Dick would come up in the lounge in between.
You know, he, when he'd get to the track, you know, he'd come up in there and throw his briefcase down.
And in his briefcase, he'd have a pair of underwear and some recent cups and a pack of cigarettes or a carton of cigarettes.
There's nothing else.
And I'm like, he's going to open up his briefcase.
There'll be notes and money and this and that.
That's none of that.
But, um, and he was, he, he was always so nice.
Like we're, we're this, we're 15, 14 year old punk kids doing, we got, we're not working.
We're not showing any initiative.
Um, we're just in the way.
And he was never, he was never like, get out of here.
What are y'all doing in here?
He was just, as soon as he came in there, he started talking to you, asking you questions.
And I always thought that was awesome.
Yeah.
Because, you know, he looked like he was a, um, a very, uh, grizzly old, you know, tough,
you know, got to seeing it and done it all.
Um, didn't have no time for no, you know, no patience for no punk kids running around.
But, um, and then later in life, uh, he would come to a couple of our charity events and stuff and always super, super cool.
You would go work with Bobby Allison's team.
He would, Bobby would start his own team.
Bobby started his own team.
Yep.
That was, um, something I thought was interesting and I didn't recall that, um, part of your career.
Cause I mean, you've been around this deal a long time, right?
You come to the cup stuff in the 80s.
A lot of us people in the industry and fans of the industry absolutely know all the things you did with Mark and Kurt and all the things that would happen.
There's this sort of space and time where, um, where there's, uh, you know, you spent seven years, six years working on Bob, Bobby's team when Bobby, Bobby is now, um, you know, healed as much as he possibly can be.
Um, he's not going to race cars again, but he's going to have a race team and he's going to try his ass off to make sure it's functioning.
And there were some good years, um, uh, when that car had real speed, but it had to have been a challenge, uh, putting the deal.
You know, he had a lot of deals that come together.
The Ray Bessis deal would seem to be a decent one.
At least the car had really relatively solid speed in them, in them during the, during that period of time.
But, um, there was also a lot of challenges, you know, you had a lot of different drivers.
I'm going to listen and Mike Alexander, Jeff Purvis, Hut Strickland, Spencer, Chuck bound, Tim Steele, Derek Cope, um, some interesting names.
Yeah.
A lot of different drivers, you know, it was challenging.
Uh, in fact, we had to build the team up.
We had to start the team that way.
And, uh, Bobby's brother-in-law, uh, Tom Kincaid was a lawyer and he was more or less built, you know, started the deal up, you know.
And, uh, we actually rented space by Norman Agree.
Yes.
And built cars.
So we started there building race cars for the Cup program, you know.
And then finally, uh, uh, Frank Plessinger and, uh, Nathan Sims.
Nathan.
Yeah.
Nathan built that building that Bobby's in.
Yep.
And built your dad's too.
Yeah.
So, but they were all good friends of Bobby's and want to see something happen for Bobby, you know.
So they put, we put it all together.
Uh, me and Keith Alman.
Keith Alman was a big part of, you know, Bobby Allison Motorsports.
He was a head engine builder.
Yep.
And we laid out the building with Nathan, showed him where we wanted stuff, how we want to flow, everything else.
And Nathan put it all together and started racing then.
And, uh, I think Hut Strickland was our first driver that we had in the car.
And ran with Hut for a few years.
Uh, and, uh, things didn't really work out or I don't know what happened there.
But we went and moved on to a few other drivers.
And at times it was, uh, kind of a struggle because financially, you know, you got to have sponsorship to run, to run good, to get the right parts or I feel it's to this day and age, you know.
So, and we're not really struggling, but we were not like Rick Hendricks, you know, stuff like that.
Financially.
Financially was tough.
Yeah.
But, uh, we made it work, you know, I mean, the guys, everybody there worked hard.
I mean, get them on one race.
We have two sets of brake calipers.
We rebuild them, get them on the car for the next race, you know, stuff like that.
But it was challenging.
It was fun.
It was, we're trying to win.
And I always told the guys, let's go this week and win this race.
No matter what driver was in that car, that was my motto.
I don't care what steering wheel or where let's go win this race.
This is what we're here to do.
And, uh, sometimes we were good, you know, Spencer, he was good, you know, he all more good.
You know, we had some good runs, bad runs, but it was good.
It was good.
And we tried building up the best we could.
Yeah.
You know, the funny, not the funny part, but it's some people don't know on of a, we're in Martinsville testing back then we could test a lot.
You know, so we took hut, Strickland up there testing with Ronnie Hopkins.
We were doing some Akron stuff, you know, and Bobby was up there.
And next thing I seen, uh, I was standing next to Bobby and I said, what do you think Bobby?
He takes his wallet out of his back pocket, puts it in the toolbox and says hut.
Bobby jumped in.
They're kidding.
Yeah.
After he's heard.
Yeah.
And he went around around on how many times, you know, he got within a couple of tents of hut.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
But I was, I was, I'd never heard that.
Never heard.
No, a lot of people don't know that one, you know, but, you know, that's his desire to get back in there.
And he got back in and he ran, ran, ran, you know, and I says, man, what a feeling that is.
Yeah.
To watch that man get back in a race car.
Yeah.
Even though it wasn't the smartest move on my part by letting him in, but he owned the company.
He owns the cars.
Yeah.
Bobby knew he's going to do what he's going to do, but that was, that was a good story to everybody know that.
Yeah.
He still had to drive back then.
I was going to ask you what, what was it like?
You know, it was Bobby, the owner, right?
Now he's out of the car and I think as owners, drivers have less patience, right?
But Bobby, I mean, obviously knows the, the challenges you all are up against as the owner of the team.
You know what, given the right opportunity, you know, what do you think that deal could have turned into?
I think pretty good, you know, because we had the facility was awesome.
You know, everything was flowed out, right?
We had good people building cars.
Steve Levitt come over there and help build cars.
You know, Steve, he did and we hung good bodies.
You know, probably needed some more factory support, you know, far as wind tunnels and stuff like that.
But otherwise it all depends what you get, you know, and how you use it.
Yeah.
But unfortunately.
You stayed there to the very end.
And Bobby, you know, kind of took down there.
We're don't have the money anymore.
And so we part of ways.
Yeah.
The, the, that would present the opportunity to put you where you are today.
Yeah.
Yeah, that was quite a 1997.
You'd go work for Roush Racing.
Yeah.
It was the fall of 96 Rockingham and I had my interview with Jack in Mark's, Mark's hauler.
So Jack interviewed me because Mark pushed it.
Mark wanted, Mark wanted a change or something.
And he wanted me down there to help him, you know, run the, run his program.
So, and Steve did an awesome job.
Steve Meal, you know, putting everything together, did awesome job.
And Mark just wanted a different change or a different look at stuff.
So I interviewed with Jack and that went okay.
You know, I just, Jack's a different person.
Oh yeah.
He is.
You know, and I sit there with Jack.
I says, okay, you know, I didn't have a job then, you know, I was out of work for a couple
of weeks or whatever.
So I said, okay, I'll take it, you know, and then it was up in Liberty then.
So fall of 96 and all of 97, I drive back and forth from Liberty to, I used to live by
the Speedway there.
And yeah, it's hour 45 one way.
Whoo.
But anyway, did that.
And then that was a great opportunity that Jack gave me and Mark gave me.
There are not many people, if any, in the industry today that would drive an hour or
45 minutes one way for a job.
Yeah.
Not nowadays.
Things have changed.
They have changed.
So, but that's the drive you had to have back then.
You, you'd work with Mark, you'd get four wins in 97.
And you'd have this really solid, you know, several years, runner up in points, seven
wins in 98, twice in 99, third in points.
You'd have your final win together in 2000.
And then you would get moved to Kurtz car in 2002.
Why, why make the change?
Well, we were doing good.
You know, I mean, 98 was our best year, I think, you know, as far as wins and finishes.
But throughout the rest of the years, you know, we'd keep, I'd keep working on an arrow,
working, you know, setups, trying to get it better and better and better.
But we weren't moving the needle, if that makes sense.
So what they've, Mark wanted to do, he probably figured, well, let's make a change here and
see if we can spark a new life here, you know, and see what the next crew chief can
do.
No different than when Steve, I replace Steve Meal, you know, let's, Mark wanted to change
here.
So Mark wanted this change.
And fortunately, I didn't know what it was going to play out on.
But Jeff Burton kind of says, Hey, why don't you put Jimmy with Kurt?
Yeah.
And I, Kurt, Kurt was relatively, I mean, he's in like his, his, he just moved into the
cup series.
He just moved in.
What were your thoughts about, you know, going to a, you had been with veterans your entire
life.
Yeah.
Most part, right?
Even Dick Trickle in his first career, first career season in the cup series was in his
fifties.
But, you know, you got a young guy and Kurt and we would all, we'll all, you know, Kurt's
a hall of famer.
We all would learn what Kurt would become and what kind of driver he was.
But coming into a deal with a rookie driver where you, I guess you're kind of like, yeah,
let's go for it.
Yeah.
I mean, the thing about Kurt, I, I seen the speed he'd get out of a race car, you know,
and I seen that probably the year before I did a full time for him and he kind of missed
the show at Atlanta because he didn't, you know, goofed up qualifying and then he got
mad, went home.
I says, okay, now what am I dealing with, you know, for the next year?
But I admired what he got out of a race car for our speed, you know, and then when I started
working with him, talking with him and meeting them, you know, because previously I said,
I know we worked for Jack, but we didn't really talk to each other.
Yeah.
Like we did when we worked full time together, you know, so it was, it was good and I respected
what his visions were where he went to go and how fast he went to get there.
Where you, you were with him when he was running into Spencer and having all this going on.
What were you, what were you, what was your advice to him during that period of time?
You know, where you did you, you know, he curts his own man, right?
Can make his own choices.
But where, where, what kind of a, were you literally just a crew chief?
I'm going to work on the car.
I'm going to tell you what we're going to do with the race car and what the plan is for
the weekend. Or were you also with this young guy who's a little misguided at times?
Were you giving advice?
Yeah.
Telling him, hey dude, get together.
I would, I would try helping him out personally because his, he would blow up on everything,
you know, and then I would have to say that you got to calm down, you know, it's going
to get better. This ain't a bad day, you know, let's keep working on it.
In fact, me and him, both when he sports to the colleges, you know, I even went with him,
you know. Yeah.
And, but, you know, he started listening, but, you know, Kurt was Kurt, you know, I'd
never forget the tone of, the tone was 500 or whatever.
I had to key him off the radio because he was swearing too much and David Hoots kept
putting his laps down when sitting on pit road, you know, so I just key the radio so
nobody could hear him. You know, I know he got mad at me for that, but hey, this is reality.
So, but he turned out, he, Kurt's a pleasant person once you get to know him, you know what
I mean? And there's no pressure on him.
Yeah.
You know, so yeah.
I mean, I think the Kurt we know today is not the same guy that you know, you were working
with in 2002.
The you have a lot of success with him and eventually you win a championship.
You know, I, I, everybody remembers the wheel coming off at just the right time and Kurt
making an incredible move to get to pit road.
Yeah.
In a moment saving the day, you know,
um, y'all had a lot of speed that year and, uh, Kurt and you did everything you needed
to do to get the points needed to win that championship.
And so, you know, obviously you've had so, so much success over, over your life.
You got to do all these great things with Bobby and, and Mark and, and, um, you know,
built, built Bobby's race team from the ground up.
Um, where it is winning that title with Kurt rank and, uh, in all the things that you've,
you've been able to accomplish.
It's, it's right up there with everything, you know, I mean, that's what we strive for.
Like I keep saying, we're there to win, you know, then to win a, then win a championship
in that the highest level of sports racing there is.
I says, wow, this is pretty special.
You know, it kind of, um, you had, if I, if I can say it, you, you had a ton of respect
in the garage from the industry.
I, um, I was a witness to it.
Um, winning that championship is kind of like the, uh, the final, you know, outside
of a hall of fame nomination.
I mean, winning the championship, you're a championship crew chief just because
your effort and inability on the racetrack and the success you're having, but actually
go out there and, and when that title and hold that trophy, um, uh, it, it, it puts you
in another elite category, uh, with other people that you may admire.
Um, so I always thought that was, uh, that was pretty interesting.
I mean, I had heard the stories about how, um, you had kind of been recruited by Bobby
to get up here and then you worked with Mark and won all his races and, and got with Kurt
and Kurt was, uh, successful and, um, but it, and now, and all of those things are amazing,
but that title really kind of like, it's a period at the end of the sentence.
Yeah. That, that, that championship, when it's something you'll never forget, you know,
you know, I'll never forget when we wanted at the racetrack, it didn't sink into me.
You know, I said, okay, guys, let's get the sink through tech.
Let's get a load of, you know, we got to work tomorrow.
You know, and then I got thinking, okay, wait a minute, let's enjoy this a little bit,
you know, for the guys, you know, but the biggest thing I enjoyed was going to New York,
going, going to the White House. Yes.
You know, all the, all the points you get to, yes. Yes. And I says, wow, this is special that
I would have never, never been able to do without winning this championship. Yeah.
So all the hard work kind of paid off, you know, so, and it's, it's just, it was my year to win it
or whatever. You know, Jack told me the year before, after Matt Kintz won his, he says,
all right, next year you got to win it. And sure enough, we won it, you know.
Y'all, you know, you'd continue to work with Kurt until 06 should get paired up with Jamie,
McMurray, and you'd work with him for a while. You were promoted to head of
Roush Racing's Bush series program. So you were multitasking, right? As crew chief still,
because you would be David Reagan's crew chief on the six car 07, Matt's crew chief in 2010.
You won three races with him. You worked with Carl Edwards. You would eventually retire in 2014.
I had the privilege of working with all these talented race car drivers. You know,
it was just amazing that I got to work with them all. You know, in fact, every one of them,
every one of them are, that I worked with are five of them are in the Hall of Fame. You know,
so I thought that was a very big privilege to work with people like that.
You're 72 years old and when you retired, I'm almost say, if I can do the math, you were 60.
Why this is, I mean, I'm a guy who just got as much of a reward from being on top of a pit
box or building a race car is driving one. How difficult was it to make that choice?
Because it's easy to say at the end of the season, when you're standing there at the final race and
you are worn down to the nub to go, yeah, I could take a little time off. That would be nice.
But you know, when they crank those cars up in Daytona and you're not there,
that is a hard thing to reckon with, right? How was that experience for you? I know you
continue. You had a role in the program. You had a role in the operation. You were still an asset to
the team. You were still there needed. You found a niche, but you're not, you're not the crew chief
anymore. Like you're, did you miss the competition? Did you miss the process of leading the team or
building the cars, preparing the cars? Yeah, I missed the process of leading the team, you know,
because back then, after I, after I stepped off the box, I still was involved, you know. In fact,
I was pretty much involved with the Speedway program, you know, and I continue on that program
there. And but I was involved hands on. But it took me about six months to say, okay, I don't miss
the box anymore. Yeah. You know, and then as the years progressed from there, well, if I'm not at
the racetrack, I don't really miss it, you know, yeah. So because what I sit right now with technology
way it is change completely. Oh my God, I can sit on, I can sit on my chair at home. And I got four
computers in front of me that I watch everything on Sunday. Yeah. Everything, you know, SMT,
everything. And I can, I see more there than I can see at the racetrack. Yeah. So that's,
that's the way I feel it. And I'm still involved on Sundays, seeing what the guys doing, where
they're getting beat, you know, stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you've, you became the executive
vice president of competition 2020. As you mentioned, you're in special projects, inducted into the
Southeastern Wisconsin Short Track Hall of Fame in 2024. It's been quite the career. And honestly,
man, sitting here in front of you, you seem like you're in really, really good health. Good solid,
solid sharp mind at 72 years old, you know, you're still, you're still adding to something,
you're still an asset, a piece, a part of something. What's how far do you take it?
Me, I like to keep going. Yeah. You know, I mean, there's no beach that you want to go sit on.
No, I'm not a retired life. I, if I do retire right now, I play a little bit golf and I build
my own hot rods. You know, I got a collection of hot rods that I've been building over the years,
and I build them myself. What's the current project? Six, eight Dodge Charger.
Okay. Really? Yeah. Yeah. But I've got, and I never sold them. They're sitting in my garage,
you know, you build them in this parking. He'd never drive them. In fact, I even got the,
it's quite an honor to get this from Edsel Ford was winning championship. I got a 2006 GT,
40 in my garage with 74 miles and I never drove it. Wow. In 2006, I took it home and parked it,
you know. Yeah. So, but that's what I enjoy, you know, when I'm not involved, you know,
thinking about the next move here, next move there, you know, you ever get out to a short track?
Nah. Yeah. Nah, I gotta, I usually don't get out, you know. Yeah.
It's a different atmosphere now than when it used to be, if that makes sense. You know,
there's different people running now. There's, and like I say, with technology, it is. I see more
at home. Yeah. And I can't see. Well, I mean, like a local short track or
Oh, like Hickory or something. Like get out to something that would remind you of
where you were in the early 80s or the 70s. Like an experience like that. I don't know. One day,
I'm going to take a trip back up to the slinger for the slinger nationals. You know what I mean?
So it really should. But because I enjoy that, you know, going up there and seeing all the guys
and going to see all the same people. Yeah. Yeah. They'll just be a lot older and a lot older.
They'll have families running around. Well, I've enjoyed this talk, man.
You know, I've always admired you and it's funny, man. Me and you never really talked that much
at the racetrack. I was kind of always intimidated by you, to be honest with you.
I usually don't talk much. I know, you don't. You don't. But I mean, you were just about your job
and you really were only, you were, did you, I mean, outside of your own team, who were your
friends? What other drivers did you have people that you admired or had conversations with? Did
you have much of a relationship with dad outside of just going to that race with him? Oh yeah.
Your dad was, he tried to hire me one time. Really? Yeah. When you're going to come work for me,
I said, well, I'm pretty happy with Jack right now. You know, so that was good. But, you know,
I, Ray Everham, when I was at Bobby Ellis' Motorsports, you know, right there by the
way, Ray would stop at night because I always worked day and night, you know, he would stop in
and we'd hang out together. And that's when he was first coming from Iraq into the deal. And
I would not help my kind of show him areas I was working on, you know, so, but I consider Ray was
a pretty good friend. Mike Beam was a good friend of mine, you know, so, but it was all good. You
know, I was just, I kind of stayed in my own world, you know, because I focus on my own stuff. Oh,
yeah. You know, I don't care what you have, you have or you have, I'm going to have something
better. Yeah. That was my mind thought. Yeah. You know, so that's how it worked out. Well,
it worked out pretty good. You want a ton of races, had a very successful career, championship
winning, crew chief, and, and man, got to work with some very, very fascinating personalities.
Yes. Yeah. Very fortunate I'm working with all them talent theories. Absolutely. Well,
I appreciate you giving us some time today. Okay. Thank you, Jimmy. Appreciate it.
All right. Jimmy Fending on the Dell Jr. Download.
So, Jimmy was, was a lot of fun to talk to. I, you know, I didn't know what to expect. I kind of
thought I knew what his personality was like just being around him in the garage. He just seemed to
always be a super serious guy, super quiet, not really a jokester or one. You know, a lot of the
guys in the garage in the cup days in the nineties and 2000s, a lot of, you know, in between work,
it was always a lot of goofing around. Everybody picking and prodding and, and being goof,
goof balls, not this guy. He was all about his job and going fast and man, to hear that dad tried
to hire him on time, that would have been the thing to see them two work together. They'd have
probably won a good chunk of races had to have the opportunity and he seemed like he could go
anywhere and, and get the victory lane. You know, of course he got to drive. He got to work with a
lot of very talented drivers, a long list, but he shared success with all of them. So, thankful to
he, thankful to he gave us some time today. I wanted to, you know, get him on the show, check
that box and tell him how much I appreciated him and respected him. And I hope you all enjoyed
the conversation. 72 years old, 2004 NASCAR Cup Series champion, crew chief, 40 time winning
crew chief at the cup level. Who knows how many races he won in the ASA ranks in the short tracks
as a, as a crew chief, but pretty outstanding. Hope you enjoyed the show. Thank you for joining
us today in the RB studio. It's always great to have you all on board for the guest segments.
Don't forget about Arby's new meat and three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's.
Arby's, we have the meats. We'll see you tomorrow. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram, Facebook,
X and TikTok.
About this episode
Jimmy Fennig recounts his path from building dirt-track cars in Wisconsin to becoming a championship NASCAR crew chief, with stops through ASA, Roush/RFK, and the Cup garage. Dale Jr. and Fennig dig into the modern challenge of the Next Gen car—tiny part tolerances, QC, and rules shaping performance. Big highlights include Fennig’s early bond with Bobby Allison, the Daytona 500 win in 1988 (including spoiler-angle strategy), and the emotional aftermath of Allison’s career-ending crash. The conversation also covers Fennig’s later success with Mark Martin and Kurt Busch, plus his post-crew-chief role and ongoing projects.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomed one of the fiercest competitors and hardest workers in the NASCAR garage to the Download this week, longtime championship-winning crew chief Jimmy Fennig. Best known for his thirty-year tenure at Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, Jimmy helped elevate a young Kurt Busch to his lone NASCAR Cup Championship in 2004. Jimmy’s journey to the top of NASCAR’s crew chief rankings came from humble beginnings in southeastern Wisconsin. After growing up under the roof of two generations of dirt racers, Jimmy and his brother Jeffrey decided to try their own hand at the craft, building and racing a sportsman car out of local Hales Corner Speedway. Jimmy quickly realized he preferred turning wrenches to rubbing fenders, and he took a job preparing cars for Wisconsin legend Al Schill.
It was through this connection that he’d meet Bobby Allison at Slinger Speedway, beginning a long friendship that brought Jimmy into the NASCAR fold. Jimmy experienced a short track pinnacle, winning the 1986 American Speed Association Championship with Mark Martin, and it was off to the races in stock car land. Jimmy would join Bobby at the burgeoning Stavola Brothers Racing outfit, and they’d capture the 1988 Daytona 500. After Bobby’s tragic career-ending crash at Pocono, he’d take on an ownership role, and Jimmy would follow along, sitting atop the box for Hut Stricklin, Jeff Purvis, and others. When Bobby Allison Motorsports shuttered in 1996, Jimmy was the last one out of the shop, and he’d part for the Liberty, North Carolina location of Roush to reunite with Mark Martin.
Dale and Jimmy’s conversation covers the tough competition of ASA in the 1980s, the loyalty and grit of Bobby Allison, and achieving the top accomplishments NASCAR has to offer.
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