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Term
legends cars
Legends cars are a type of entry-level stock-car racing where the rules and parts are standardized. That helps keep costs lower and makes it easier for new drivers to compete.
Person
Ken Reagan
Ken Reagan is a racing driver the host talks about. In this story, he’s connected to legends cars and is also mentioned as driving the No. 77 car in a famous Daytona finish.
Place
Atlanta motor speedway
Atlanta Motor Speedway is a major NASCAR-era oval track in the Atlanta, Georgia area. It’s known for high-speed racing and has hosted many national series events, making it a meaningful venue for driver development stories.
Person
Kale Yarborough
Kale Yarborough is mentioned as one of the race drivers in the story. The host brings him up to describe the intense door-to-door action near the end of the race.
Term
yellow flags
Yellow flags mean there’s a problem on the track, so drivers have to slow down and drive carefully. It changes how the race is run near the finish.
Person
Richard Prettier
Richard Prettier is another driver mentioned in the story. The host uses him to explain that the race was really intense right near the end.
Term
white and the yellow
Near the end of a NASCAR race, the white flag usually means “one lap to go.” If a yellow caution comes out around then, it can change how the finish plays out.
Term
bandoleros
Bandoleros are smaller, entry-level race cars used for younger drivers. They’re usually less powerful and simpler than other junior race cars, so they can feel different to drive.
Term
three eighths miles
“Three-eighths miles” means the track is very short—less than half a mile around. Short tracks make races more about staying fast through turns and passing close up.
Term
Sonoya
“Sonoya” is the name of a track the speaker says they raced at. The episode segment doesn’t give enough detail to be sure exactly which track it is.
Term
Legend car
A “Legend car” is a race car type that’s built to be pretty similar from car to car. That means young drivers can focus on driving, and the rules keep people from making huge, expensive changes.
Term
tire rule
A “tire rule” is a regulation that limits which tires can be used and/or how they can be prepared. In spec or youth racing, tire rules are used to keep competition closer and reduce the advantage of teams with more money or engineering time.
Term
brake pads
Brake pads are the parts that squeeze against the brake disc to slow the car down. In some race series, rules limit what brake pads you can use so everyone stays closer in speed.
Term
springs and shocks
Springs and shocks are what help the car ride over bumps and stay stable. If a series says they’re “pretty standard,” it means you can’t change them a lot to gain an advantage.
Term
different gear every track
“Different gear every track” means the car’s gearing is adjusted so it matches the track. Tracks with lots of turns usually need gearing that helps you accelerate sooner, while faster tracks need gearing that lets you reach higher speed.
Term
late models
“Late models” are a type of stock-car racing class. Drivers often move into late models as a next step before reaching bigger NASCAR-level series.
Place
Albany, Georgia
Albany, Georgia is where the short-track race took place. The speaker describes it as a small oval track, the kind of place where cars run laps quickly and the racing is close.
Term
quarter mile
A “quarter mile” means the track is about 0.25 miles long per lap. Short tracks like that usually make the racing feel more intense because you’re turning and passing more often.
Term
banking
Banking is how much the track’s turns are tilted. More banking can help cars go faster through turns because the surface helps push the car into the corner.
Term
front end geometry
That phrase means the car’s front suspension alignment. It affects how the front tires sit on the track, which changes how easy the car is to steer and how stable it feels in turns.
Concept
run the top
On an oval track, “the top” is the higher lane near the outside wall. Drivers choose it when they think the car will have more grip there, but it can feel different than driving low.
Concept
run the bottom
“The bottom” is the lower lane near the inside of the track. Drivers use it when they think it’s the best line for grip and speed, but the best lane can change as the track gets used.
Term
painting the line
It’s a way of saying the driver tries to follow the same exact racing line every lap. That helps the car handle the same way and keeps performance from falling off.
Term
hanging on sideways
That phrase means the car’s rear end is sliding out a bit, but the driver is still controlling it. It’s basically describing a looser, more “slidy” way of driving.
Term
loose wheel
A “loose wheel” means the wheel wasn’t tightened correctly. That can make the car feel unstable and can also damage tires and handling—so it’s a big problem in a race.
Term
saving his tires
“Saving his tires” means not driving in a way that destroys the tires too fast. The goal is to stay competitive for longer, not just be fastest for a few laps.
Term
burning the right rear off
That means the right-rear tire wore out really quickly. It usually happens when the car is sliding or turning hard in a way that makes the tire scrub and overheat.
Term
mile and a half
That phrase is about how long the race track is—about 1.5 miles. Track length changes how the cars are driven and set up, including tire wear and how you go through the turns.
Topic
Cup series
NASCAR’s Cup Series is its main, top-tier racing series. It’s hard to be fast every week because everyone is trying just as hard and the competition is very strong.
Place
Loudon
“Loudon” is a NASCAR track in New Hampshire. The speaker is saying they had some of their best chances to run well at that track.
Place
Dover
“Dover” is a NASCAR track in Delaware. The speaker is saying they tend to do well there compared to other places.
Place
Fontana
“Fontana” is a race track in California where NASCAR events are held. On tracks like this, small mistakes—especially involving tires—can quickly affect handling and position.
Term
sideraft
“Sideraft” sounds like a rough attempt to get past by getting close to the other car. In NASCAR, that kind of contact can hit the tires and make the other driver lose control.
Term
sidewall
The sidewall is the tough outer part of the tire. If it gets damaged, the tire can fail and the car can suddenly feel unstable, especially while turning.
Term
caution
A caution is when something unsafe happens on the track, so the race slows down. Everyone has to drive more carefully, and it can give drivers a chance to change strategy or regain position.
Term
qualified six or seventh
“Qualified” means they set their starting spot before the race. Being “six or seventh” means they started near the front, which usually helps you avoid traffic and get clean track position.
Company
Turner Motorsports
Turner Motorsports is a racing team. Here, they’re buying another team and changing to Chevrolet cars, which changes what the drivers and mechanics work with.
Brand
Chevrolets
They switched to Chevrolet race cars. That usually means the whole team has to adapt the car setup and parts to a different manufacturer’s platform.
Place
road America
Road America is a famous race track (a road course) in the U.S. It has lots of turns and elevation changes, so how the car is set up matters a lot.
Term
points with five races to go
They’re talking about the season standings, where drivers earn points at each race. With only a few races left, those points matter a lot for who can still win the title.
Term
Victor Lane
“Victory Lane” (spoken here as “Victor Lane”) is the traditional area at many racing venues where the winner is celebrated after the checkered flag. It’s become a motorsport term for the post-race winner’s podium/celebration spot.
Term
shut the engine off
He’s describing a fuel-saving move where he turns the engine off to use less gas. The idea is to keep going long enough to make it to the end without stopping for fuel.
Term
coast
Here “coast” means he’s letting the car roll without using the engine much. It helps save fuel, especially during a slow-down period like a caution.
Term
pace car speed
During a caution, a pace car leads the field and everyone has to match its speed. If someone doesn’t keep that pace, officials may say they didn’t follow the rules.
Term
25 grand
He’s talking about money that can be paid to get a chance to drive a race car. The point is that wrecking costs a lot more than the upfront payment.
Concept
push it
“Push it” means driving as hard as you safely can to go faster. But in racing, going too hard can also increase the chance of crashing.
Concept
partners on the car
“Partners on the car” means other people or companies helping pay for the car to race. If they’re involved, the team may be more careful about avoiding wrecks and trying to finish well.
Concept
pen and paper
He’s saying there’s a written budget and limits on spending. When there’s a cap, teams have to make choices about how much they can risk or how much they can use during the weekend.
Term
used tires
Used tires are tires that have already been driven on before. They usually don’t grip as well as brand-new tires, so the car feels slower and harder to drive fast.
Term
practice
Practice is the time before the main race where teams and drivers try things out and get the car dialed in. The tires from practice can sometimes be reused later, affecting speed.
Term
new tires
New tires are brand-new tires with full grip. He’s saying that with new tires the car is about a second faster, which shows how big the tire difference is.
Place
Darlington
Darlington is a famous NASCAR race track. If your car is damaged, it’s really hard to pull aside and let others pass, because the track doesn’t give you much room.
Term
850 CC
“850 CC” is the engine size. It’s a way of describing how much air/fuel the engine can move, and smaller numbers usually mean a more controlled, lower-cost race setup.
Topic
first Legends race ever
They’re talking about the very beginning of the Legends series—like the first-ever race. It’s interesting because the cars and rules weren’t fully standardized yet.
Place
Charlotte oval
“Charlotte oval” means the oval race track in Charlotte where stock cars run. Ovals are different from road courses because you’re mostly turning left at speed for long stretches.
Part
struts
Struts are part of the suspension that help the tires stay in contact with the road. They also help control how the car moves when you hit bumps or turn.
Part
spindles
Spindles are the parts that hold the wheel and connect it to the suspension. They help determine how the wheel moves and how the car steers.
Term
front clip
A “front clip” is basically the front section of the car’s body structure. Instead of repairing every bent piece individually, teams replace that whole front section to get the car back racing faster.
Term
jig
A jig is a tool that holds parts in the right spot while you install or repair them. It helps make sure everything lines up correctly after the car is damaged.
Term
flat
Here “flat” means the track isn’t very banked in that area. When corners are flatter, you need more grip and careful throttle control to keep speed without sliding.
Place
turn three
“Turn three” is just the third corner on the track. Mentioning it helps pinpoint where on the course the racing happened.
Term
late model racing
Late model racing is a lower-tier stock-car series run on smaller tracks. A lot of drivers use it to build experience and move up to bigger NASCAR events.
Place
Talladega
Talladega is a super-fast NASCAR track in Alabama. Cars often run in tight groups, so the pace lap is a key moment for getting lined up and ready to race.
Term
pace lap
A pace lap is a slower lap before the race really starts. It helps everyone get lined up and ready—tires and brakes are warmed up and drivers can settle into position.
Term
serial number 1990
A serial number is like a unique ID for the car. It’s used to confirm you’re looking at the exact same chassis, even if the color or body details changed.
Term
bear chassis
The chassis is the car’s main frame. If it’s a “Bear” chassis, that’s the specific builder/model of frame, and it matters because it’s the foundation for how the car handles.
Term
aluminum body
An aluminum body means the car’s outer panels are made of aluminum instead of steel. It can make the car lighter and can affect how the car feels and holds up during racing.
Term
shock mount
It’s the bracket/attachment point that holds the shock (the part that controls bounce) to the car. If it gets bent or damaged, the suspension won’t work the way it’s supposed to.
Concept
legends car racing
Legends car racing is a type of lower-cost, standardized stock-car racing. Since the cars are built to similar rules, the same kind of damage can happen to the same parts.
Term
parallel post
They’re describing the shape/arrangement of the metal support that the shock mounts to. Because the original design wasn’t reinforced, it bent when the suspension hit hard.
Term
gusset
A gusset is a small metal reinforcement you weld in to make a weak spot stronger. It helps stop parts from bending after hits or heavy loads.
Car
Jeep Renegade
The Jeep Renegade is a small SUV. An SUV is a car with more space and a higher driving position than a regular sedan, and it’s designed for everyday driving with some options for rougher roads.
LIVE
The following is a production of Dirty Moe Media.
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.
We got a great guest for you today.
Reed Sorensen is going to come in here and talk to us
about his career racing cars.
Reed was a, you know, kind of a phenom or there was a lot
of hype around him when he was coming through the ASA ranks.
I remember this.
I remember hearing on the TV, this guy's in the, you know,
Chip Ganassi pipeline.
This guy's getting support and recognition from cup level
owners and he might be the, you know, the next kid up into
the the Bush series at the time.
It was real and there was some, there was some big, big
excitement energy around, around what he might become.
Now, he would get into the O'Reilly series or the Bush
series, win some races, but as when he got to the cup level,
things just did not go well.
I want to talk about that.
I want to get his version of events and see kind of where
he thought things turned sideways.
He's a, he's a good dude.
I've known him a long time.
Easy going, not a, not going to ruffle feathers, not going
to make waves and maybe, you know, that was probably to his
detriment at times.
You kind of let, you know, get pushed around a little bit,
maybe in some of the negotiations or I don't know.
I'm just kind of assuming, but I don't, you know, didn't feel
like when he needed to push back or he needed to like, you
know, be aggressive on his future or his next opportunity
maybe just, I don't know, just didn't have, have that extra
gear, but we're going to find out.
It's going to be great to talk to him.
I've seen him around the racetrack.
I know he's spotting, doing some work there and staying pretty
busy, but let's see what he's been up to.
This episode is presented by Arby's new meat and three box.
Get more meal for your money at Arby's.
We have the meats.
Let's bring Reed into the studio.
First thing I want to ask you out of the gate, a buddy of mine
just brought us up 2016.
Daga, you're in a premium car.
You go out and qualify first in the first round of qualifying.
You went out and set it on a pole and then you, um, nothing
nefarious going on.
You go out in the second round and you were running right
where the premium car traditionally runs.
What did you do to the car to make it go out there and set
on the pole in the first round?
I did not do anything.
Do you know anything about it?
I do not.
Uh, we, it was fast.
Yeah.
Uh, I know we had to come in and change fluids and everything
after one lap.
I took one lap of green and then we put it immediately.
And I know NASCAR was over there and, um, you know, look,
Oh, when the race began, like I had to,
they said this oil can't make it past one lap or two or whatever.
So we came in immediately and it took 10 laps or something
like that to change all the fluids.
And I think NASCAR took the air box and all that good stuff.
But, um, no, I didn't do anything different as far as driving.
I knew it was faster because it was bottom and I was like, yeah,
I thought you maybe knew what they had done to the car to make it.
No, it was fast.
Pat Trison was a creature.
You need to get him in here.
Yeah.
So Bradley Reed Sorensen born February 5th, 1986 in Peachtree
city, Georgia.
Your dad was a racer.
He was.
What, what did he race?
So my dad grew up, um, racing dirt bikes and that was kind of
his passion still as today.
Uh, every week I'll be on the spotter stand.
He's texting me the, you know, the, the running order of the
Supercross or another in moto.
Um, then he got into dirt late models and a little bit of asphalt.
Late models, um, he actually ran one Bush race at linear, you
know, oh yeah.
Um, and if I'm correct, Jeff Gordon won in the baby Ruth car.
There is nothing, but that finished 13th, but that's where
he ran late models.
So he knew the track like the back of his hand.
And, um, yeah, he ran, he ran one race.
But when, when I started racing, he pretty much stopped almost at
the same exact time.
Yeah.
What type of racing did you get involved in quarter minutes out
of the gate?
So where were you racing that at?
Well, we started out in, uh, in Georgia there and at six years
old, but by the time I was 78 we were traveling all
over the country.
Yeah.
Um, not just the Southeast, but we would go, uh, how we
raced in Vegas, we raced in Vancouver, Canada for one of the
grand, um, you know, all over the country, technically, um, not
so much like in the middle of the country, but East coast and
West coast, they had tons of races and I ran three different
classes, um, a lot of traveling.
Man.
Um, when you look back on that part of your life, I, um, was joking
with Connor's village this week after Sunday.
I said, uh, I said, he said, man, this ain't no fun.
I said, well, I hate to tell you this, but the grassroots parts
to probably the funnest of it all.
I said every, every rung up the ladder, it's a little less fun.
I said, so there you have that to look forward to.
But, um, you know, when you think back over all the things
that you got to do, uh, how much fun were you having as a kid
running that quarter midget?
It was a lot of fun.
Yeah.
Because at that time, uh, there was pressure, but not like
as you felt as you got older as a teenager and moving forward.
So you go run a race and then go hop on your bike and go ride
the bike around with your friends and come back and race and
then go goof off again.
And as a kid, you know, we always swam at the hotels.
That was a big thing.
And you know, there was time where you goofed off, but you
started to focus on your racing, um, but you had both going on
and you saw your buddies at the, that you didn't see, you know,
at school and stuff like that.
It was like a whole separate group of friends.
So, um, yeah, it was a lot of fun.
So, um, what you won a national championship in 1997, then
you got into legend cars.
Yes.
Um, well, we, you know, I raced quarter midgets from six to 12.
I guess we got any idea how many races you won.
I mean, it was, we ran it.
Like I said, I ran three classes and we ran all the time.
Uh, maybe my parents have the stats somewhere, but we won a
lot of races and you know, just cause I ran three classes, um,
sometimes four when, cause the Honda engine started coming
around right when I was getting done with it.
So that got popular just cause it was cheaper to run those
Honda engines.
You didn't have to have them rebuilt.
They actually got faster the more you ran them.
Um, but interesting story about legends cars is you're supposed
to be 14 and Ken Reagan actually more or less is the one
that got me approved down there at Atlanta motor speedway.
Um, a lot of people don't know that about Ken.
So Ken, I remember, um, just to, for the people listening,
Ken Reagan is the guy driving the 77 car when Kale Yarborough
and Richard Prettier banging doors in the 1984 July Daytona
race coming to the finish line, the yellow flags out.
It's the light coming to the white and the yellow and whoever
wins is going to have chicken with the president of the United
States cause Reagan has landed and David Reagan, the president
David Reagan, uh, or I'm sorry, Ken Reagan, Ken Reagan is in
the 77 that they're going around as they're coming to the
finish line and Ken Reagan used to run cup all the time and
they're from the area of the Atlanta, Georgia area around
there south and he outside of his racing in
the cup series back in the eighties, which he ran a limited
schedule for many, many years heavily involved in legends
cars and helping people like you.
Yeah.
And he did and he, I don't know if you ever met him, but
he's, he, uh, he's fun to talk to you.
Yeah.
And so you were supposed to be 14.
I was 12 and I went out and, uh, my mom actually had driven
a legends car, uh, my uncle who bought one had my mom and
another woman driving a legends car for fun.
So I got in that one and tested it and, uh, we, we like that
better than the bandoleros because of the power, um, you
know, the suspension, all that stuff.
Bandoleros don't have a suspension.
Yeah.
And that, that is just the power you're wide open all the
way around almost.
And anyways, in my dad's eyes, that was a better learning
tool to move forward and it was, um, so Ken got me approved
before 14 and you're right off the gate there.
We ran Atlanta murder speedway summer shootout here, um,
a little over track on the frustrating way.
Right.
And then there was tracks in Georgia.
We ran, um, you know, three eighths miles linear,
one of them, um, Sonoya, uh, but yeah, that was the legends
car series was fun.
We, we ran those, um, you know, during the summer you'd run
three times a week because you'd run Tuesday here, Thursday
Atlanta and Saturday somewhere.
But, uh, yeah, I actually saw Ken Atlanta race weekend
because they give an award out for the most popular driver
deal in Atlanta murder speedway and it's, it's my award.
So I got to meet, meet the guy and, um, but Ken, yeah, he
helped me out a lot to get in there and got me in the door
a little bit early.
Who's working on this car?
Legend car.
Yeah.
Basically me and my dad.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, they were, I don't know how much you know about
them.
They're fairly easy to work on, um, which is great for someone
of my age, you know, 12, 13 years old, um, to not screw
something up.
They got a tire rule and some limitations.
You can't do a lot of crazy things with brake pads and
things like that.
Uh, springs and shocks pretty standard.
The, yeah.
And the biggest thing like go during the summer is we ran
a different gear every track.
Like even Charlotte animals, two different gears, which
you wouldn't think they would be.
So, you know, they have a big rear end chunk.
So that took, I don't know, for me as a kid, it took 30
minutes, 45 minutes to do it right.
But that was something we had to do every week.
And, uh, you know, during the summer, we'd get back from
here.
Um, you know, I couldn't drive.
I couldn't help my dad drive.
We'd get back at, you know, four or five in the morning.
We just have that next day to get ready for Atlanta.
That's if you don't have any damage, which we seem to, you
could get more damage at Charlotte than you could at
Atlanta.
Yeah.
Tame.
But yeah, I mean, myself and my dad, um, pretty much did
most of that.
Yeah.
And 98, you started racing legends 13 times, uh, 30 times
you won that year and you were the regional, you won the
regional championships, uh, Thursday thunders legend series
out of Atlanta.
You won the championship in the young lines division the
following year in 99 30 wins, uh, Thursday thunders legend
series, you won the championship in the semi pros division.
Um, you would continue with the legends for two more seasons,
84 wins total over that the course of those
two years, uh, won the summer shootout and the pro division
in 2000 and 2002.
You also won the championship with the Thursday thunders
legend series and the pro division.
Um, and then finally graduating the late models.
There's two important races there.
You're on the legends here.
So we won as an Albany, Georgia was 10 grand to win and
which was a ton of money for a legends car race and wouldn't
say that the first one I won, we won two of them out of this.
I think they did three and I was either 12 or 13 and we got
a picture of me holding cash, you know, on the front straightaway,
but that was an Albany, um, pretty unique little racetrack.
I think it was, it's probably a quarter mile, a little bit of
banking. That was fun because as a kid, you know, $10,000
to me was a million, you know, I didn't know any difference
and, uh, I bought a dog with it.
That's what I got a dog with it.
So that was my thing, but we won, we won that race twice,
which was, was pretty neat for us.
Um, you are in high school, 16 years old when you get in a late
model car, um, assuming, um, you ran Lanier predominantly or
where'd you race?
We ran Sonoya too, which is a dirt track now.
Uh, I'm pretty sure Bubba Pollard's family owns it.
Gotcha.
Bubba himself.
I'm not sure.
Um, but so like where my parents live is not too far from
Sonoya right there.
And like I said, now it's dirt.
Um, but yeah, I ran, it was kind of weird.
I had a late model that we bought from Jody Ridley, which I'm sure
you know.
That is bad ass.
Well, the, so the car was old and rickety and I mean in rough
shape, but the motor was awesome.
Oh.
So my dad pretty much bought the car for the motor and it was
a Ford.
So it was a super late model and, you know, places like Lanier
and Sonoya, I mean, hell, you couldn't even get it wide open.
Had so much power.
Um, and we ran down in Florida some, uh, I know you had BJ and
here recently I raced against him and hell, I don't remember
what track it was down there in Florida.
BJ pretty solid.
He was.
Yeah.
Um, but I remember racing against him.
Uh, and, uh, you know, I ran, we kind of ran in Florida, Georgia.
Um, we didn't run a whole lot before I got into ASA though.
I didn't, I don't have a lot of late model starts.
Yeah.
So, and then we kind of jumped into ASA.
How did that happen?
So that's when I first heard about you.
Um, was the ASA deal.
So we started, you know, trying to figure out what direction to
go and at the time it was on TV, uh, ASA racing was on TV and
competition was good.
Um, the cars had those, I believe they're LS one crate engines.
Yep.
So realistically they, they were financially not too bad.
It's, you know, cause there's a family operation still, you know,
y'all run this yourselves.
Yes.
And, um, you know, we had Joey clan who was winning in ASA that time.
He actually worked for my dad when I was running quartermages.
He was going to, I don't know if you know who Joey is.
Um, he ran the Bruco car in the series there and probably Oh five.
Yeah.
Oh four.
No, probably Oh four.
Uh, anyways, circle back around.
He was winning a bunch of races in ASA and, um, we knew him and saw
that direction and the competition in ASA at that time was awesome.
You know, I was, you had Butch Miller in there, Kevin Sawinsky,
uh, Gary St.
Amat, you know, just a whole list.
It's crazy.
You'd show up to the racetrack and there's 25, you know, badass.
Weaning cars.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I tested a bunch.
We bought a car, used car.
Um, who'd you buy the car from?
You know, it's Joey's team.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh, Steve Dale.
Yeah, you tested first.
Yeah.
Well, we bought it and, and then just kind of made the decision.
We're going to do it.
And I ran, I think the, just keep my Ricky status, um, six races or
something like that.
Um, and we did well.
Yeah.
And, uh, you know, we, we,
how do you consider, what do you contribute your ability, your
success to like that?
I'll, you ran, uh, seven top tens and your best finish of fourth
at Irindale and five flags.
Um, the, you weren't full time, but you, you're running good right
out of the gate.
That was the one thing that was, um, interesting to me because
you just mentioned, you just talked about how tough the series was.
There was full fields every week.
Every car looked good.
Every car was well built, well maintained, fast.
The competition was tight close from, from first to last.
There wasn't like a big variance of, of speed.
Um, you know, Gary Stamot would run top 51 week and 20th the next.
You just, you could, um, it reminds me a lot of the cars tour today
where you show up to the race track and there's 28 fast race cars.
For sure.
No one's slow.
Uh, but you get in there and we're competitive right out of the gate.
Well, we tried to make sure we did everything right.
Cause if, I mean, you know, even in the cars tour, if you show up wrong,
you didn't get a, you won't, you won't have a chance.
So we got some help from people we knew.
And my dad is fairly smart on race cars as well.
I'll give him a lot of credit too.
Um, and we, my dad actually raced port city race cars back in the day.
Um, you know, when I was two probably, um, and Harley.
Hey, who just passed away started port city race cars up in Michigan
and, uh, he helped us out quite a bit.
So we had help, um, from people that my dad knew and things like that,
but we tried to make sure we didn't overlook anything.
And the, you know, all the front end geometry was right.
And I mean, we, we didn't show up with a piece of junk and I was a hero.
You know what I mean?
We tried to make sure everything was right and done correctly and that I was
prepared and, uh, yeah, we just, we, we had a, uh, streak of good runs there
and kept my rookie status, but Erwin Dale, did you ever get to run there?
No, that's the first place for me that I had to run the top.
And, uh, everybody's run the bottom was a new track and you know, everything
I've raced, I'm used to painting the line, you know, and, uh, the top two or three
were, had moved up and they're like a car length off the wall.
And then I moved up and like I finished fourth, I think, and we'd lapped almost
up to seventh or eighth because there's only like four of us running the top up
there.
Yeah.
So I was like the first place I remembered like actually moving up and
changing grooves.
So that was really cool.
Wow.
You ran, uh, you ran full season there in, uh, in 2003 had a, uh, best finish
of second, uh, fourth into points and ran, uh, again in 04 and you got, that's
when you kind of got linked up with chip.
Correct.
Good.
Assy.
Well, you had target as a sponsorship, uh, on your late model.
Um, you get your first win in the series at Charlotte.
Finish fifth into points.
Talk about how you got a, you ended up signing a development deal with chip.
How did that come together?
Lauren Reneer.
Really?
Yes.
Oh, um, Lauren Reneer is, uh, you know, the son of.
Leneer that, uh, that family that owned the 28, the gray ghost, the coolest paint
scheme in all of history.
Um, and he still today is a facilitator of, uh, you know, young talent working
predominantly with Chevrolet.
Um, and so that's fascinating.
He's been doing that.
He's had that role for a very, very long time.
Yeah.
Being a bit of a scout.
He, correct.
And he, you know, more or less found me, if you will, but I think it helped.
Like I said, ASA was on TV.
And so that the year before I linked up with chip, my dad was still paying
all the bills and it was so going back to say an ASA was cheap.
It wasn't that cheap.
So it was still struggle for my family to race.
Yeah.
Um, probably spending more money than they should have to have me at race track.
Cause ASA was, you know, I forget how many races, 20 maybe or something like that.
It was a professional racing.
It was with guys that would have four or five full-time people.
We had one and the rest were volunteers.
So we were, we were to the point where my parents were going to be done financially.
Like they can't do anymore.
So when Lauren Reneer found me, um, that helped us that following year to
get some funds to run the next year.
And, uh, yeah, he linked the whole deal up with, with Genasi and, and, uh, you
know, that was, that was, I did.
I couldn't tell you the first time I met him.
I think it was at a race track somewhere.
Um, but yeah, I mean, I was, you know, that at that point it's like, I'm
actually going to get a shot to do this and, uh,
you started to feel like, man, I see a, I see a pathway.
Dirty Mo Media has a new show coming out this cowboy life.
It's featuring Tiffany and Jerome Davis.
They are the PBR's royal couple and you won't want to miss it.
Here's the trailer.
Bring the energy.
Wake up.
I can tell that through all these stories, you draw your, you know, your
world championship.
I know that in your head, you've always said, I'm going to be a podcast.
You know, I hope that at the end of the day that it'll bring somebody
that hasn't really been around this life that we live and it brings them
to a whole new world and somebody will say, dang, maybe the cowboys
ain't so bad after all.
I think if you can bring some smiles, I love the hero Jerome stories
and just how he carries himself.
So I'm all about if people can get a grin out of it,
if they can smile a little bit.
What's it going to be like Jerome to have Tiffany as a co-host to a
podcast?
Whoa, man.
See this gift of gab I have, maybe it'll come in a little handy on this deal.
If I keep Tiffany quiet every now and then, so she'll let me talk,
we'll be in good shape.
The only bad thing is I'm going to have to hear your stories that I've
heard a 100000000 times.
I'm going to have to hear them another time.
They just get better every time.
Yeah, they do get a little more added into them every time.
I don't know why she puts up with me and why she helps living this
life that we go through, but she does and she's, she's awesome.
It's March 14th, 1998 from when they opened the gate to when you get hit.
What do you remember from that?
The bull I had that night was knock him out, John, and I'd been on
him before and he had hit me in the face in Vegas one time.
So I knew that I had to really stay over the front end and try not to
let him hit me in the face.
As it worked that night, he got me rocked back and hit me in the
face and knocked me out when he did.
I dove in the ground, broke my neck.
Went from being at the top of my game to the worst part of my life.
You know, all happened within a gate opening at a bull riding.
I was as mad at God because I was like, why did you do this to drone?
He's a good guy.
Um, you needed him on your team out here.
We were supposed to be getting married in May.
Right after I got hurt, I was at the hospital and I told T.F.
I said, I don't think this is going to work.
You need to, we need to regroup.
This is not the trail you need to be going down.
And if she would have left that day, I wouldn't have blamed her, you
know, on her side.
I mean, and I never would have said a bad word about her.
I never gave thought about leaving.
That wasn't an option because I still had drone.
I couldn't talk her into it.
So I was kind of glad she hung around.
I'll be honest.
I lived through it and it just made me tougher.
And I was able to make a pretty good living at the sport.
It's been good to me when I look around and see, you know,
everything that's here today, it all comes from the love of the sport.
I mean, everything I want to do had to do with being a cowboy.
What is going on with the birds over there?
You just missed this whole shot.
I'm going to redo it, but I could, the birds missed the whole shot up.
Not me.
I thought we'd get a get a tax.
You're like that dog bit.
I thought the birds was coming after us.
There was so many of them.
Just stay focused.
It's going to really bring a new light to what this cowboy life's really about.
So everybody's, we, you know, we, I watched the ASA series on TV and we're starting to hear your name
and we're starting to hear about this Chip Ganassi relationship.
And we're starting to hear that you're in this sort of pipeline developmental deal.
And so then we're all, I say we like the NASCAR industry or the folks like myself that are kind of, you know,
just, you know, keeping an eye on things, start watching more ASA races to see,
because there was a big buzz around you.
Do you, do you recall that?
There was a lot of, you know, when Chip sort of tapped you or tagged you as kind of like somebody in his,
you know, maybe in his future plans, there was a, it was very similar to Casey Atwood.
It was very similar to the hype around him, the excitement around him,
this young kid that sort of in this, you know, he's in this, he's got these connections with Hamilton
and he's driving the Blue 43 at Nashville and, you know, there was, there was just some excitement around you.
That was really, really cool.
Do you remember the tension, I guess, you know, that had that shifted in like a year's time for you,
where nobody really knew who you were except for the people in the ASA series that you're racing with.
And now all of a sudden, you know, Chip Ganesi and more people are paying attention.
Yeah, I think I felt that, you know, my first race was at IRP there and we qualified very well.
I think it was third maybe, or fourth.
So probably, you know, I ran there, Atlanta and I can't remember if we ran one more that year,
but that's kind of when I started to feel, you know, I don't know what you call it,
just feel different, more people knew I was and what was going on at that point.
Yeah. What was it like running Atlanta, Charlotte, a place like that?
For, in the Bush series?
Yeah.
Well, you know, Atlanta.
To get out of the ASA car and the short track scene and...
It was different, but our cars are really good.
I remember Atlanta, we ran the ASA race.
I think it was the day before I ran the Bush race.
And the ASA car kind of reminds you like the Trek series, like the center corner speeds,
super fast, but they're slow down straight away, wide open all the way around.
You know, and then the Bush car, the next day you're hanging on sideways,
but we actually had a car that probably could have won that race.
We had a loose wheel, but I think we actually maybe even led some laps in that race.
I'll never forget Matt, Matt Kenseth let me by in that race.
I've never experienced that before.
Yeah.
No one's ever let me by in any race.
Right.
And I was like, oh, okay.
You know, that's how these guys do this.
Yeah.
Cause I was faster than him and I'll never forget that.
He let me by and then, you know, I'm sure he got back by me at some point cause he was
saving his tires and I was just, you know, at Atlanta I was just getting after it and
sideways through every corner, just burning the right rear off.
Didn't know any better, but I had a blast and maybe Atlanta was probably one of the
more fun mile and a half's to, to get that when you know, one of your first Bush starts
and it was fun.
You ended up, you ran some marker races, had some good success and then you had a finish
of fourth at homestead in a rally series or the, the, the Bush series for Chip Ganassi
at the end of 2004, you're going to go full time in 05.
So that pathway that you're talking about that you saw for yourself is, is a real thing.
How old are you in at the end of 2004?
18.
And knowing what you know now, like, what would you go back and tell that kid that's
getting ready to race that knows, Hey, all right, next year, full time with Chip Ganassi
or rally series or Bush series.
What would you tell him?
I mean, it's wild to think back cause it's, it feels like some of that stuff was yesterday,
but it's 20 years ago and maybe just to slow down and just take it all in because I feel
like everything was moving so fast at that time, you know, it was just happening and
you know, you have the off season next thing, you know, it's Daytona and it's like you're
getting ready for the first full year.
So my advice would be maybe just to kind of slow everything down a little bit.
That sounds kind of weird to say, but cause you can't ever go back and do it.
So yeah, just feel like everything happened so fast that, you know, next thing you know,
it's halfway through the season.
Who was in your ear advising you, supporting you, helping you with like, you know, emotional
challenges, personal challenges.
You go into your first year of anything at the NASCAR level and man, you run into some,
you know, figurative walls.
You run into some mental challenges and some emotional challenges.
There's tough days that you don't know how to pull yourself up out of.
Right.
Who was helping you with all of that?
My parents.
I mean, I'm still.
Even then?
Yeah.
Even then.
They came to a lot of races.
You know, they'd worked their whole life to get me there.
So your dad's in your ear helping you?
Yeah.
And you know, Lauren was my spotter.
Lauren's still part of that?
Yep.
And he spotted for me.
So he was, you know, on a weekly basis because he's been around the business his whole life
too.
And yeah, I mean, he was my spotter and then during the week I'd lean on him.
Brian Patty was my crew chief.
And he was another guy that I leaned on because he, you know, he had been around the sport
too and been around racing his whole life.
So I leaned on him quite a bit that first year.
You dominated Nashville winning your first race.
You got another win at Gateway 4th in the points.
Carl Edwards got you in the brook of the year.
I know how that feels losing a mat in the cup brick of the year.
Who won that year?
Was it Truex?
Maybe.
Yeah.
I think you're right.
Yeah.
So I mean, it was a hefty group.
It was.
Yeah.
Good crop of young drivers.
You know, you win, you win a couple of races.
Are you thinking, damn, you know, this is not that hard.
I don't know.
You know, what's, what's your.
I don't know if not that hard is there.
It's the right word is other than I can do this and racing against like two of the guys
you just named.
And it's like, I already know they're, they're badass, you know, and I'm like, Hey, I can
race with these guys.
And I remember that first year.
Yeah.
We expected every week to be in the top 10.
Yeah.
Even if it was somewhere that I hadn't been to or whatnot, we expected to be top 10.
And if we weren't, we were disappointed and our cars are really good.
They were.
Yes.
And there was very rarely a time that we showed up and we weren't at least okay.
Um, you know, we, we didn't show up and we're 25th and left field.
We always showed up at least okay.
And a lot of times we showed up fast.
And I mean, I remember, you know, going to Bristol, um, you know, back when we had practice
and stuff like that, like when we would go do a mock run, like I expected to be P one.
Like that's how, you know, aggressive our mindset was, is like, we expect this out of
ourselves to be fast every week.
And, and, you know, the competition was, was really hard.
Uh, but we felt like we had the equipment and, you know, and Brian did a great job with
the cars and they were fast.
Um, yeah, we expected a lot of ourselves, but we rarely had a weekend to put us at
doubt, you know, and it was, so going back to what you said, this is easy.
We never had a weekend that said, well, we're not as good as them.
We never felt that way.
Um, you know, you would, you would have success in the O'Reilly series and then
get, uh, called up to the cup side and oh seven.
Oh six.
Oh six.
Um, you ran full time cup in oh seven.
Oh six too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, so happened quick.
Yeah.
So you had one year of O'Reilly.
Correct.
And then you're in the cup car full time.
You replaced mirrors.
Um, before mirrors, uh, Spencer was in the car.
Chip's team was still trying to chip didn't at that point have like an A plus team yet.
Um, Spencer had some runs.
There was some moments and none of us, I don't think I'll say none of us.
I won't put you in that bucket, but none of the people around that time really
knew whether the car was better than it was.
Jimmy was going to Jimmy Spencer, you know, and he would have a badass run at Bristol.
And then I've seen some clips of that.
I kind of forgot like, dang, he was running pretty good.
He would have a good run here and there, you know, and you're like, okay, how much
is it?
How good is Jimmy and how do you handicap the car?
How do you know how good the equipment is?
I'm always thinking about those things.
I kind of think I know how good this driver is.
So then that lets me know, maybe the car is this good.
The car is better or not as good.
He's carrying the car or whatever.
Right.
And we couldn't never really get a good bead on what Chip Ganassi's program was like,
how competitive the cars were.
Um, how focused was he on the cars comparable to what his any program was?
Cause that was kind of his, his baby, right?
And he was very successful with that.
Um, and still is.
Yes.
Would he put in what was necessary to get his cup stuff to where it needed to go?
That was always kind of the things I thought about with his program back when Jimmy was
driving and then when Mears gets in there, Mears has some good runs.
Jimmy Ellidge was the crew chief on that car.
So I paid a little bit close attention to it because Jimmy was, um, the father of,
of my nieces and so forth.
And so we had good relationships.
Um, and I always pulled for him.
Um, and he would, uh, you and him would work together.
Right out of the gate.
Yeah.
A couple of years together.
So when you get into the cup car, um, we're, you know, the statistics are there,
not, you know, it was a struggle to make speed and figure it out.
What was the, what was the biggest, damn, this is different moment.
You know,
Well, just as I told you the, the first year in the Bush series, we were fast every
week and it came natural.
And you know, you never had doubt in yourself as a driver or the team didn't have doubt.
And you get in the cup series.
And while I was there, chips cup program was never great.
And it wasn't because of lack of effort.
We had great people there and you know, chip never cut any corners or anything.
It's just the cup series is hard.
You know that being around it and, you know, cause everybody else is working just as hard
and not cutting any corners either.
And we just kind of had a roller coaster of trying to get better.
And, you know, we would show spurts of being fast and then might go a month with
not being fast.
Right.
And, you know, we just never could get a consistent, I think base.
And that wasn't just me.
That was all the drivers.
And, you know, David Strimme moved up at the same time as I did.
And we, you know, faced the similar issues just with not being as competitive as we
wanted to be.
And it was tough.
I mean, the first year we, we didn't expect to go set the world on fire.
Me being a rookie, the team not being where it should be.
And we had, we did have some, some good runs.
And there was a few times where I thought we had a car that could win.
Loudon being one of them.
Dover.
We ran, we always are in good at Dover.
And so like I said, there was, you know, times where we were like, all right,
our stuff's good here, but why aren't we good at these other, the next month of
races?
So it was, it was a lot of hard work.
And like I said, we had great people there.
And it wasn't from lack of effort or there was nothing we, anybody did wrong.
We just were struggling.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
It made me think of a moment.
I've got an apology for you for Fontana.
I was trying to sideraft you and knocked a lesser tire off your car,
knocked a sidewall out of the left rear.
What, did you need a caution or something?
No, we were racing for position.
And I was trying to pass you and I remember talking, I remember talking.
How do you remember that?
I just came, it just came to me.
I don't know.
I don't, I don't, I'm, my memory ain't the best, but we were racing down the front
straightaway and I tried to sideraft you and, and touched your left rear tire and it knocked
the sidewall out of it.
And you, and you ended up going in the corner and getting out of shape.
Um, but there, there, I guess there were those, when you said, man, we had some good
runs.
I'm like, you did.
You would have days where you'd be like, you know, you're running eighth, 10th, top
five, whatever.
And, and something would happen or some, you know, some bad luck, maybe something on
pit road or what have you.
Um, Jimmy too.
And he'll appreciate this.
Elich.
Jimmy Elich was a bit of a gunslinger.
He was at times.
Yeah.
And even with the, you know, he was always chasing the trick that no one had figured
out yet with front end setups.
Yes.
And he found it a few times.
Yeah, he did.
Going back to that New Hampshire.
Yeah.
He, he had a different.
Cold binding and all types of things.
It was, it was the wild, wild West back then.
It was.
Yeah.
And, um, Jimmy was pretty creative.
He was.
And he was good at it.
Uh, you know, back then too, the bodies were so big.
And I do remember a time where there was some conflict of interest from
engineering, from Indy car side and our people in the NASCAR building,
like what they were going to do to the bodies and, uh,
difference of opinions, which is out of my control.
I'm just the driver standing back here, but I do remember that.
And I do remember Jimmy, uh, being involved in, in the debate.
Yes.
Um, how would your time at chips come to an end?
So we ran three years and kind of more or less ran the same all three years.
Like I said, there was glimmers of, of good running and, uh,
a chip always treated me great, um, throughout the whole time and never,
never a bad time between myself and him, uh, other than we both wanted to run
better.
Um, but I think, you know, any team that's not running well has that.
So, you know, we did get the pole at Indy, which was,
I think we could have had two years in a row, uh, with the same car,
but I wrecked and I guess it was those six I wrecked.
Speaking of Jimmy, this and memory, I'll never forget this.
So you remember how I used to have the shift lights?
Yes.
So at Indy, we're doing our mock runs and we were already top five on the
board.
I was a little tight.
It's a little, so I come to three and four hall and ask my shift light
comes on like 15 car links earlier than the lap I'd already posted.
I'm like, all right, we're going to be bad ass.
Well, I went off in the one and just came out, backed it in,
destroyed the car.
Well, he had let, if I remember correct, like two and a half pounds out of both
left sides.
And I remember afterwards I'm like, damn it, Jimmy.
I was like, I just needed a little bit.
Yeah.
That's a bunch.
So we, the next year that was a place that we had to rebound and we,
that's the year we got the pole.
Yeah.
It's actually, I'm pretty sure it was the same car.
Yeah.
We wrecked that car a few times and it was still fast every time.
I don't understand that.
Still never will.
I know.
You always have those cars no matter how bad you treat them.
They're always good.
It was, it was good for Casey too.
It had gotten beat up all through the years, but going back to my time with
Chip, we, you know, at the end of it, a lot of people don't know.
I had an option to stay there for three more years and probably should have.
Um, but I thought the decision I made to go to Gillette's was the right one.
That was supposed to be a three year deal as well.
And ended up being one, but a lot of people don't know.
I had a chance to stay with Chip for three years.
Um, and like I said, Chip, Chip always treated me extremely fair with everything.
You had options on the table and you, you decided to go a different route.
Yeah.
And, and just with a, let's remember the Gillette, Evernham deal was promoted
as this like, man, this, this Gillette piece of the puzzle, they've got success
in all these other things, right?
This is really going to take raised deal to the next level.
Yeah.
I mean, it's probably look great.
Yeah.
And it was strictly from a performance side in my head because we had
struggled for three years at chips and like I said, it wasn't, I didn't think
we had bad people or chip didn't want to win.
Like it was nothing like that.
I was just like, this team seems to have maybe better potential to run.
Right.
So it was strictly a competitive mindset to make that choice, which, you know,
ultimately was maybe not the right one.
Yeah.
That team merges with Yates in 2010 and you were released.
How'd you, how'd you hear about the news?
How'd that go down?
Well, I knew it was happening the year before.
Yeah.
I mean, it was just the end of the year was a disaster.
I mean, they switched teams and they were going to shut down the team actually.
And I would have not finished that year off, but they, you know,
basically didn't pay me for portion of the year, but it kept all the guys employed.
So that was the main focus for me is to keep, keep everybody their job at
least to the, to the end of the year.
So we finished out, but yeah, it was kind of the last third of the year.
Kind of a disaster.
Really?
Yeah.
Are you scrambling to try to figure out what to do next?
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean, at this point, you know, you're, you're lost because it's like, I was just
here that we're here.
It's like, what do we do next?
And, you know, I didn't have really an idea what was going to happen next.
You know, and then as far as like good rides open and things like that,
it's, there wasn't a lot of options.
No.
So.
You end up sharing a rally ride with, with Vickers at Bronn.
Yes.
In 2010, you get, you'd eventually take over the entire season in that car
having runner up finishes at Nashville Gateway.
And there's an opportunity for you to get to Red Bull.
Yeah.
With Jimmy as the crew chief, nonetheless.
Did you know that?
No.
Yeah.
So going back to the Bronn thing, I was very appreciative from Todd Bronn.
And I'd known him for a while.
And that, the opportunity he gave me like that year in 2010 kind of brought us,
brought me back to like, I told you, we expected to be top 10 every week.
It brought that mentality back.
I know it's a series down, but it's still got your confidence back.
And I was, you know, I was racing against Carl Edwards and Keselowski.
I'm like, I'm right there with those guys.
So I'm like, Hey, you know, I can still race with these guys.
And these guys are winning on Sundays.
So that kind of, for me, was a booster in confidence where it was almost down in the dumps.
Yeah.
And, you know, I'm sure you've been there before too.
And it's, it's like, you really start down everything about yourself.
But that, that 2010 at Bronn, you know, it's like we finished.
I mean, top 10s we had, it was almost every week.
And that kind of helps reverse some of that.
And yeah.
And then getting the opportunity to run the Red Bull car with Jimmy was a lot of fun.
And they, you know, they were kind of up and down too, as far as, you know,
being competitive and whatnot, but we had some, we had some good runs.
I remember Charlotte, there was one of our, one of our really good ones.
And we qualified six or seventh, but I remember I had nailed one in the
two and screwed up three and four.
Otherwise we probably could have the pole, but I messed up three and four.
But yeah, Jimmy was fun to work with.
He actually helped get me into that car.
And that was fun.
They're kind of like the juvenated me on, you know, I was running good in the,
in the Bronn car and then got to run that one as well.
We continued to race in the rally series.
Turner Motorsports would acquire Bronn racing.
They'd switched to Chevrolets.
You ran full time with them in 2011, the $32 general car that we all
remember really well.
One at road America, back to Victor Lane, several top five finishes leading the
points with five races to go in the season, your third and points.
Turner's going to announce you no longer are driving the car.
That wasn't good.
How'd that happen?
You know, from what I was told, he, and he, you know, passed away.
So I can't speak of what he has said or didn't.
He didn't like something I said about the car at some point, it not being good.
But if you could go back to talk to yourself during that year in 2011,
what would you tell yourself?
Well, I don't know because do you think there's things that you did that you
shouldn't have done or said?
I want to start back at the beginning of that year.
So Trent Owens is a crew chief and he's rock star.
Yeah.
And he's still crew chief.
Yes.
He's on the 16th.
That's right.
I talked to him this week, but I put so much effort into that season because
I was like, this is my chance to win a championship.
And I was, you know, the shop was just right over here.
Yeah.
And I was there every day and, you know, Trent was excellent.
Yes.
And him and I got along.
We tried to hire him here.
Did you?
Yeah.
Right around the same time.
For whatever reason, he's a super calm guy and he understood for me, like he
understood what I wanted out of the car.
And we ran so good the year before, like we were prepared for 2011 to have a
shot at the championship, which we did.
So I had the same guys as I had had the year before, great group of guys.
And, you know, even all of them, when that happened, we're like, what the hell?
Like all my guys, I was with every week.
It was very peculiar.
I still do this day, don't fully understand it.
So to answer your question, I don't know what I would have done different to
make that not happen, but I do remember, you know, talking to him like, hey,
what, you know, let me finish this year.
You tried it.
I put so much work into this.
And it just didn't happen.
I'm saying that.
Was there, was the conversations tense where they was that?
I mean, how, how really voice?
I mean, how does it was the casually did this made this decision?
It was the oddest thing I've ever experienced.
But in saying that, you had to be devastated.
Oh, was that I was in tears, to be honest.
Because it, like I said, we had worked so hard that year to put ourselves in
that position.
And those were the guys I've had for two years.
Like those are my guys.
Like what do you mean?
You're going to, they put, um, Vickers in there, which was, he's fine too.
They all knew him.
And I remember the next week, Vickers, like came up to me and was like, man,
because I'm so sorry.
He's like, it's not me.
I'm like, I know it's not you.
Um, and I know Dollar General left the end of that year too.
And I think they knew that.
Um, I don't know.
I don't think that had anything to do with it because I had a great, you know,
I had a fantastic relationship with, with Dollar General, but they weren't
staying the next year.
Yeah.
Um, but I said, I worked hard for, for Dollar General were the team atmosphere
was awesome, but I didn't know Steve that well.
He lived in Texas and wasn't around much.
Um, I didn't really know him that well, but so when it happened, it was very
strange, but you know, I just had to finish off the year and, uh, did what I
could.
That was the, you know, that was the beginning of what would almost be a
decade long.
You bouncing around, patching things together, trying.
I want to go back to road America there.
Do you remember that race?
No.
You don't know.
So Ron Fellows was in your car.
You don't remember any of that?
No.
So I'm about to.
So I have something else funny to say too.
So, you know, Justin was my teammate and, you know, and Justin and I have been
friends since quarter of major days.
So he wrecked me at Atlanta when we were teammates and that was pissed off at him
for a while, but we're, we're friends now.
But, uh, you know, him and I ran the same when I say that, like we were right
there and points together and whatnot and everything, but road America, he
was leading and ran out of gas under caution.
And so him and I were both up there and Papas and a few of them had gotten in
wrecks and it just worked out the way.
But when the caution came out, fellows passed me under caution.
So he thought he'd won the race.
Well, we're all saving fuel.
So as soon as I saw the caution lights and caution, I'm shut the engine off
and coast and still a hundred and something miles an hour.
And yeah, they tried to say I didn't keep pace car speed, which we did.
So we ended up winning the race, but he was mad as hell.
Oh, fellows was cause he's like, oh, is he never lifted the other came out.
He drove all the way to the pace car full speed.
But yeah.
And it's funny when Justin won the championship and I talked to him, I said,
you know, because I'm not the same age too.
I was like, I think I could still do it.
If I was in the right and he's like, I know you could.
And it just reminds me like back in 2011, him and I were teammates and we, you
know, ran the same, ran good.
And it's like, if in the back of my head is a race car driver, which I'm sure
you think about too.
It's like, when you run Bristol and run good, you're like, man.
So when Justin won the championship and I was funny, I was like that.
I told a couple of the guys, I was like, I can still do it.
If I was out there, you know.
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You ran a couple races for Jimmy Means and different teams in 2012.
Jimmy's a hero of mine.
You ran, you were slated to run full-time O'Reilly in 2013 for Curtis Key in the 40.
You'd fill in for Michael Annette at Richie Petty Motorsports a few races running 10th in his car.
You replaced Scott Speed at Levine family racing, finished in 37th at Phoenix.
You ran for Tommy Baldwin in 2014.
Yeah.
So some of those were not Tommy's, but the other ones were starting parts.
Yeah.
Right.
Which I'm sure you remember those.
Yeah.
The starting part thing was not something I was proud to do, but it's kind of one of those
things like if you stay home, people won't know you're not there.
Out of sight out of mind.
So, and then it paid okay.
So it's like, well, I'm going to make a living.
I'm still out there.
Still driving.
Yeah.
And then 2014 for Tommy was back to the normal.
We're racing every week.
Racing a little bit.
Yeah.
And I mean, I raced against you when I ran that whole year.
We were, you know, underdogs on a big level, but that was actually had a lot of fun that year.
Todd Parrot was my crew chief, which I didn't know Todd that well.
Yeah.
And he was kind of in a spot where he was, you know, needed something like that to get him
back on track of what he needed.
And we had, we had a lot of fun that year because we, we had our own race within a race.
So I can't remember how they, how they NASCAR did it, but there was different groups.
I think we were in group C.
So we were against like BK, front row us.
And I don't remember exactly how it worked out, but if you outran them, you got paid
more or the team did.
So I know Tommy had me set up on an incentive scale.
Like if we outrun them, then you get paid more.
So we had a, we might finish 27th, but if I outran all those guys,
Yeah.
And it's, it sounds silly, but that's, I mean, it gave us a goal every week.
It's like, these guys are on our playing field.
Yep.
Let's go beat them.
Yeah.
I had never heard about that until we started, we helped Spire once at Darlington with a
little bit of money with Dirty Mo Media, like 12 grand or something.
I was there.
Yeah.
With Ross.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so we paid really close attention to, to, to that weekend and what they were trying
to do.
And very similar.
Like I learned through Dickerson, he's like, all right, man, we're budgeted to run 27th.
We're budgeted to run 30th today.
We need to run 30th or we've extended ourselves a little bit and we need to run 25th.
Yeah.
You know?
And you, Ross and you yourself in these cars throughout these years, at times maybe had,
maybe could have pushed and tried just a little more to see if you could try to get a little,
you couldn't.
That was not the name of the game.
That wasn't the name of the game.
No.
You're like, Hey man, we got 25th.
That's what we're supposed to do.
Let's get that.
Right.
That's not, well, we can get 20 second maybe, maybe.
So, but you weren't allowed to really, you had to go by the book.
And the book and the script was written before the race was run.
Yeah.
And, you know, like Ross and I both ran a premium at that point and Jay Robinson on it and Jay's
another person that, you know, treated me very well.
And I tell people this, him and I had a handshake deal the whole time I drove for him and he
did me right.
But he would put me in the car because at that part of the field, really, you don't have
it anymore in the cup series, but people would show up with money.
Hey, this guy's got 25 grand to come drive the car.
Well, there was several times he would keep me in the car because he knew I wouldn't wreck
it.
Yeah.
That's better than getting at 25 grand and spending 75 fixing it.
Yeah.
Or what?
And finishing worse or whatnot.
But there was several times where he's like, no, I'm going to keep reading the car.
And, yeah, I mean, he, even when Ross got in the car, you know, he wanted us to push it.
And we wanted to finish the best we could, especially if we had partners on the car.
But it was definitely, there was a pen and paper with how much we're spending and what
we're allowed to do.
And, you know, I remember even racing against, you know, the other guys that I've raced against
my whole life in the cup series and like, listen, I was like, some of these times that
I'm racing against you guys, I'm on your used tires from practice racing.
And, you know, a lot of people have never been in a slow car, don't understand how hard
it is.
Like we're already a second off with new tires.
Yeah.
And then we're putting your old tires on that you don't want anymore that were free.
And I'm still trying to keep up and stay out of your way.
Yeah.
It was, it was more difficult to do that.
And you can probably even ask someone like Ross is it was more difficult doing that than
running top 10 with a good car.
Yeah.
It's hard.
Yes.
And then you're trying not to, you know, piss everybody off in that while you're doing it
and not hit anything at the same time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, like so you and I both been in races where we damaged a car and we're out there
just limping around.
That's terrible.
You go to a place like Darlington where there's nowhere to get out of the way.
And you're, you know, you got to run 350 miles in the freaking way, you know, and you're doing,
yeah, you're doing your best.
And that's, uh, it's a funny story when my daughter was born, she's 10 now.
It was Darlington weekend.
It's a reminder because you mentioned Darlington and I think she was, she was an emergency
C-section and my wife had lost a lot of blood and it was a Tuesday, Wednesday, maybe Tuesday,
Wednesday.
It was our first child.
And I called Jay on like Thursday morning.
I'm like, Hey, I said, I'm not going to, to race this weekend.
It's like, I'm going to, I want to take my daughter home and be there cause neither one
of us knew what the hell we were doing.
So I didn't want to leave my wife behind for two days.
It's like, I'm going to, I'm going to stay home with her.
And he was like, no problem.
He's, I got to understand completely.
Well, and TJ Bell got in the car and he's a great friend of mine.
And we talk about it once every three or four months got him in the car and he hit the wall
and he had to hit somebody in the wall, maybe.
And Jay was, I mean, it wasn't maybe that Monday morning.
He's like, if you were in the car, that would have never happened.
You know, he's like, as soon as you got out, someone damaged the car and you know, teach
it like hell, someone ran into me, you know, it's like, but I'll just never forget that
because, you know, then I got right back in and, uh, you know, he was all about, like
I said, he had that, that pen and paper out and we had to, but the good thing is it kept
everybody employed.
I mean, if you go out and tear stuff up and do things like that, then you can't operate.
So that was a stressful way of racing on a different level.
And a lot of, a lot of guys don't ever have to experience that.
I don't know if you'll remember this, but one of the more, bigger moments
of that stress of trying to take something and make, you know, take nothing and make
something out of it happened during, uh, uh, the 2015 Daytona 500.
Um, I guess, uh, there was an accident in the qualifying race.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
With Clint, um, Clint got out and told you you were to be in desperate.
I was.
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
So, so I spot the 44 now, which is John Cohen, the same owner.
We ran this weekend and with the Ailey driving.
Um, yeah, that's when we had that, in my opinion, the dumb ass group qualifying.
Yes.
You know, and when we, when you leave pit road, so we did, we had a PME engine in it.
Okay.
So we're already down however many horsepower.
A lot.
So when you, when we were leaving pit road, like I can't be the last car.
You'll lose a draft.
I'll lose it.
Yep.
So we're all leaving and jockeying around and, um, I forget who was in front of me.
It may have been Justin in the, I think he was in the, maybe in the 51.
Yeah.
I can't remember.
They all stacked up.
I had the brakes and someone ran into me and it may have been Clint.
So my whole left rear was all bowed out, you know, catching air.
Yeah.
So when we get out there and I was actually in the prime spot to probably run a really
fast laps, because we had a group ahead of us.
And then I was the leader of our group, which I technically needed to be like second or
third.
I didn't need to be the lead car with damage and no motor.
So Clint got impatient and I don't know if you remember it or not.
We went off into one and he like tried to make a move and I'm trying to block.
So I'm barely looking out the windshield.
I'm blocking the whole time and then he just caught me just enough.
And then we wrecked and that car exploded in the wall and he came over raising
hell and, uh, right.
I mean, but I was, I was battling for myself and my, and my team and it's like, yeah,
it looks pretty stupid now that we all wrecked, but it's not all my fault.
Yeah.
And then to continue on with that story, you know, I ran for Tommy the year before.
So we had to buy a car that I had raced here before from Tommy and we made the race
that, that following Thursday, finished seventh in the duels.
Oh damn.
So we kind of rejuvenated ourselves.
Um, you know, I, we don't, I'm not going to go through it.
You, you bounced around different teams, um, all the way until, you know, you made
your final start in 2020 at Michigan.
Did you know that that was it?
I didn't.
You're going to go, you're going to become a spotter in the rally series in 2021.
Was that the first time you'd ever spotted a race or thought about spotting?
I'd spotted sporadically.
Um, so the main guy I've spotted for is Josh Williams.
Yeah.
Um, so I had spotted for him sporadically, but nothing full time.
Yeah.
So that's what I'm still doing that now, but no, I didn't really have like a set
out plan and I didn't ever know.
How old were you in 2020?
I'm 40 now.
So 30, 35, I guess 34.
And so honestly, man, looking at this on paper, you're a winning driver battling for a championship
in 2011 in the rally series.
And you get yanked out of that car for, for, um, no obvious reason before five races before
the end of the season.
You, you don't, you, you never get another real decent opportunity as in a competitive
ride for the remainder, I guess for the next, uh, nine years.
Correct.
Um, I imagine, you know, it was a long nine years, but you.
You kept going, trying to, you know, you're trying to be out there.
You just, like you said, you try and, you know, out of sight, out of mind.
If you go home and you don't show up, people just assume that you, you decided to quit.
You know, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think so.
And so you have, you have to keep coming back and, and this is making a living.
You're making a living.
How do you make that decision to, this is my, one of my favorite questions that I like
to talk about because I deal with some of this myself, but how do you make the decision
that I'm no longer a race car driver and then I'm going to go this other route.
I've got, I know that your family and, and providing for your family is a massive part
of that, but you, the selfish part of you that wants to race cars, how do you like,
how, what was that conversation like with yourself about, all right, man, I think this
is the end of that.
And I'm going to go now try this other thing and well, I didn't pick it.
So that makes it even more difficult.
It's not like I said, there's a lot of people that sent that chair that it didn't get to
pick it too.
You know, yeah.
Yeah.
And, you know, the last, like you said, it was kind of a rough nine years of just, I'll
tell you the biggest thing is.
And I think when BJ was here, he could kind of portray a little bit of this too as well.
It's like the, the competitiveness of you kind of gets lost.
So you go to the racetrack every weekend, you're just there making a living.
Um, you don't, you know, your job is to do this, this and this, but it's not to go win.
You can't allow yourself to, to get competitive.
No.
Cause you're going to get disappointed more often than not.
Well, and I finally was able to kind of flip it into a positive.
So I try to make each and every weekend enjoyable with whether it be just with the guys and
keeping them positive.
And, um, you know, still, you're still driving a race car, making a living.
It's not like I'm, you know, doing the worst job in the world.
It's still pretty bad ass that you're able to do that and make a living.
So mentally I turned it into a positive and I tried to enjoy myself.
And, uh, you know, like I said, having working for Jay, he treated me very good.
Um, enjoyed working for him.
So there was a lot of positives that were kind of hidden in there.
You just had to bring him out.
Right.
And that helped a lot.
And then I never really knew when the last race was or was going to be because it was
so sporadic of, of when I was racing, when I wasn't, and, uh, I just never really knew.
And I think if the new car hadn't came, and this is my true belief, if that new car hadn't
came, I would feel like premium rate, premium motorsports would still be in business and
probably still ran some more.
Um, but when that new car came, you know, they pulled out and, uh, sold to Rick Ware,
if I'm, if I'm correct on that and everything.
So when the new car came, it was kind of like, well, my, what am I doing?
And, and the opportunities were a little bit different with this new car and the charter
system.
And, um, you just don't have that back and you know, this, the back 67 teams that,
you know, had driver rotation and different things going on now.
It's just like you have your set guys and not that that's a bad thing.
Yeah.
Um, is this different than it was.
So there's not like a cup car that I could run half the season for that doesn't have a
driver.
I mean, this doesn't exist.
Yeah.
And now as far as like, would I go get in a car to run around the back of the cup car
right now?
Probably not.
But if, you know, say, Hey, like when you run Bristol, like, could I get in a badass
rally car?
Hell yeah.
Sure.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Uh, you know, and like BJ ran a DGM car at Dover and I spotted for him and we had a power steering
lawn leak, but he was running pretty good.
And you know, it's like me and BJ, same like he just went out there and did it.
Like, I know I could do it.
Yeah.
And like he was having fun.
Yeah.
He qualified 18th or 19th or something.
And I think we could have finished pretty well.
So times like that, I'm like, man, I, it would be fun to go.
Got a little left in the tank.
Yeah.
For sure.
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Do you ever think about, uh, short track racing?
Not like, Hey man, I'm going to pick this up and put a lot of effort into this.
But like, you know, there's probably a route to a race or two or just to go scratch an itch.
Like I run two or three races a year in my late model.
And I, I get in that car and I'll run, I'll be part way through the race and go, yeah,
I remember all the things that I love about it.
And I remember all the reasons why I don't do it every week.
Yeah.
And I'm, and it's just like a chicks a box, you know, to where I don't grab myself crazy
thinking, man, I really, really miss it.
Cause I do.
I'm watching it just like you, right on your first spot.
And I'm in the booth watching it going.
Part of, there's a, there's a little 25% of me that is aching that I'm not out there anymore.
Yeah.
You know, for sure.
And it's that probably, maybe that never goes away.
I don't know.
Yeah.
But Josh Williams has tried to get me to run like the snowflake a couple of years.
Why don't you?
Well, I don't know.
It's like, well, what kind of.
Why are we showing up with?
Well, I mean, maybe don't go run the snowflake, maybe run something else.
It's a, if it's a pro late model, you know, go show up at a car store race on in the
middle of, you know, on a Friday night or Saturday night somewhere where it could happen.
Some, you know, it's the thing that I did.
So I wanted to drive my late model stock cars so badly over the last decade.
And I didn't because I was afraid of getting beat.
And I was, um, I was like, man, I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
They're in run 12th or something.
They may look at you.
And they're going to be like, I beat junior.
I beat junior.
I can, I'm a cup guy.
I could be cup guy.
Look, I just beat junior.
And so, but then I saw Chase Elliott go try to run the, the, um, uh, either the Tulsa
shoot out or, or the chili ball and he got his ass kicked and he was like, I'm going
to get my ass kicked and it's fine.
I'm glad I tried this.
You guys do it every week.
I was like, damn, I need that attitude.
I need to like drop, get rid of my pride and my ego.
Just shed it.
I need to go out.
I should have did this 10 years ago.
I didn't.
I should have, I should have ran a thousand late model races right between now and the
last 10 years, but I waited and till like 2023 to finally do it.
And holy it's fun.
And yes, I get my teeth kicked in, but I get the, it gets me enough laps and enough
to enjoy it, but also remember why I don't really want to do it every week.
Right.
And you got a little left in the tank and man, if he's got a, if Josh has got a pro
late model somewhere, I mean, he's sent that the, they sent that, um, Camden.
What's his name?
Bowlin.
Yeah.
The kid with the red car.
They went and qualified right next to me at, uh, the car store race at Wilkesboro in
23.
Yeah.
He's fast.
And that was Josh.
So I mean, Josh has got some decent stuff or show up and go run a legends race somewhere.
Josh has got plenty of damn legends cars laying around everywhere.
I just hate for you to, you're still young enough to go like, get, get the competitive
juices flowing a little bit and nobody even needs to know you're doing it.
Look at Paul Monart racing trans and nobody even knows it's happening.
I paid attention.
I know, but no, you know what I'm saying?
Like the, he ain't, he ain't, you know, he's just having fun.
Um, and if he wasn't winning, it wouldn't be no big deal.
He's still having fun.
Yeah.
He's, he actually has a, I don't know if he's moved, but he has a storage unit over
like two down for mine.
Yeah.
And you know him pretty well.
And not, not well enough.
Well, I just, I would be over there tinkering around on something.
He'd be over there.
He makes like furniture and stuff.
And Paul Monart.
Yeah.
I've tried to.
So, dude, he's awesome.
So I saw him, I was at a friend's place, uh, hanging out and I saw him and I was
like, damn, dude, uh, you're, you're out there winning trans and races.
I didn't even know you were still racing.
He's like, yeah, yeah, I'm still racing.
I was like, uh, would you come on my download, man?
Let's talk about it.
People want to hear from you.
He's like, yeah, let's do it.
And then like a couple of days later, he gets cold feet.
I don't want to do it.
I ain't gonna do it.
I don't want to do it.
Like he don't want to be, he don't care to be like telling people what he's up to.
He just doesn't want to, but to hear he's making furniture and a storage unit is
hilarious.
It's funny.
It's perfect Paul Monart.
I don't know how much money he's worth, which doesn't matter.
But I remember being over there with a friend of mine and he didn't know it was
and maybe he did, but we like left.
I was like, you never know that guy's damn Monard's billionaire.
Yeah.
Never know royalty.
Yeah.
And just make it furniture.
Yeah.
Well, racing is transient car.
It sounds, I mean, everybody's got their own deal to, but going back to the racing
thing, like you have two kids now, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
So how do you as well?
How are they seven and 10?
Same.
So I'm five and eight.
So right?
Kind of close.
You know, that.
What are they doing?
Baseball and dance.
There's a lot.
You got a lot going on.
So that helps.
So go back where you said like that, that itch.
You know, I get a little bit of it spotting, which may be different from you doing TV.
Like spotting, I get to, you know, get into it and I'm trying to help achieve
someone finishing better.
Yes.
I get a little bit of it there.
Are you spotting every single week?
Yes.
The 92 car and the 76.
You don't have weeks off.
No, not all the weekends, but during the week, I kind of do whatever I want.
Right.
Which allows me to do stuff with my kids, but the kids keeping me busy kind of helps
me get that.
Out of my head a little bit.
Yeah.
Cause I get the race and like, I don't have to go race, but what I then, like I said,
every once in a while, I get Dover.
Like I'm like, damn, I was like, BJ just had a hell of a time out there.
And, you know, I was like that and Dover is one of my favorite places.
And I got me thinking, you know, I'd be fun to go do it again.
Yeah, I agree.
Well, I got a couple of cars.
Hell, I might figure out how to get you in a, in a late model race or something.
So I'm going to lose about 20 pounds and I'll be ready.
So you got to get me heads up.
There's plenty of guys just like you out there.
Like Bubba.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You'll be fine.
Man.
So you've been spotting over the last several years.
And you're 40 years old.
And, you know, what's, what is, what's on the list of things that you haven't done
you want to do could be completely off the racing path.
What is, I know you're, you know, you're taking care of your kids.
They've got to grow up.
Um, you know, you want to make sure that they're in a good spot and when they head
off to school or whatever they're going to end up doing with their lives, you want
to put them in a good place.
But, uh, what are some of the things that you personally would like to go see, do
experience?
Um, other than certain vacations that me and my wife have talked about, but
like what, where Alaska?
Yeah, I've never been either.
No, neither is my wife, but I've heard good things about it.
Uh, my in-laws went to South Africa.
That didn't, doesn't sound like something I would want to do.
They had a good time, but, um, other than like just places that we want to go
see and, uh, things like that, I mean, just the next 10, 12 years is kind of
like you with you, like you got to, everything's surrounding the children.
So everything you do is around them.
Um, I'd still would like to, I haven't really got a good cup of spotting gig yet.
So I'd like to do that before I get out of the sport.
Yeah.
Um, I'll wait on TJ to retire.
Yeah.
So that's something that's something you have on your radar is like, man,
trying to level up.
Yeah.
And just to, uh, I haven't had an opportunity to be with, you know, uh, a
good cup team.
Yeah.
Like I spotted for Spire for a couple of years.
Um, but yeah, that would be a goal on this, on the racing side of it.
But as far as like stuff outside of racing, um, you know, we, we enjoy
ourselves now when we can, we, um, you know, take, take the kids down to
Florida, um, during the summer for a couple of weeks down in Ponson,
I don't know if you know where that is, where the light house is down there.
I swear I saw you on a bike down there.
I was.
I think I did see you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We used to ride, we'd leave the track and ride that.
We'd ride the lighthouse, turn around, go back.
Yep.
It's, that's a good little ride right there.
It is.
It's flat.
Kick your ass.
The only problem was is getting back across the bridge because you're done.
You're kind of wore out and tired.
Yeah.
And then you forget, I've got to go back over the bridge.
And that was always the one, that was where my ass would get kept.
Yeah.
That's the last, the last little push, but yeah.
I mean, other than that, um, you know, my wife's a school teacher, so she'll
be teaching for a while, you know, so, but yeah, once we get.
She's great.
She teach first.
Damn.
Yeah.
I bet she has some stories.
Well, man, I've appreciated this conversation.
Um, I've always, uh, been fascinated by your ability, your talent.
Um, and, you know, kind of, always kind of curious of, of, you know, how things,
why things worked out, why some things didn't work out.
Uh, a lot of people, I think are still fans of yours.
Uh, obviously by the requests that we get, uh, we have a pretty good finger
or thumb on, on the, on the requests and who people want us to bring in here.
And your name comes up quite often.
Oh, it's fun to come on.
And it's, it's funny, like I'll, since I've been spotting, you know, you
have to walk back and forth from the garage to the tunnel or whatever.
And every week there'll be somebody stopping me like, read, what have you
been doing?
Like they don't even know that I'm still around.
I'm like, I'm still here.
Yeah.
I'm just up on the roof now, you know, so that happens at least a couple
times a week where, you know, someone will stop me and chat and, you know, we'll
shoot a little bit and tell them what I'm doing now.
A lot of them have no idea they don't.
And so this will be good.
They're going to enjoy this.
Um, good luck, man, on the spot and gig going forward.
Uh, if I call you about running a race one day, we'll, we'll, we'll see if we
can't put something together and have some fun.
I've got race cars, you'll go run or just go play.
Just go jump in a car, go play somewhere.
Um, but you need to talk to Josh Williams too, man.
That'd be fun to go run.
Like they run legends cars, middle of the week is Charlie.
Just go over and have a little fun one.
Come on now.
Late model sounds more fun.
Late models.
Yeah.
I feel like the, from what he's told me this, you know, the legends car guys,
they, uh, they wreck quite a bit.
So, so they ran legends.
Um, I say wreck and then they run each other over.
I raced the third legends car ever built.
Really?
I raced legends.
They're very inaugural year.
What year was that?
Uh, it had to have been, let me think here, 1990.
I didn't realize that.
So my car was the third one built and it had an 850 CC in it.
They had 1100s or 1200s in other cars.
They're like the 10th and you know, they changed the engine package to a little
bit bigger engine after about five cars.
And then they, you know, they, when I ran, when we ran our first race, it was the
very first legends race ever.
And it was on the Charlotte oval in front of the flag stand in front of the grand
stand on like Saturday before the Raleigh race or the Bush race in 1990.
And they only had about eight or 12 legends cars built.
Period.
Total, total.
And the Allison brothers were the ones that were building them.
They didn't have 600 racing back then.
So like Kenny, Allison, Donnie's sons, Kenny, Ronald and Donald, two twins, they
built legends cars and they were the, the supplier and I worked there.
I got a speeding ticket and my daddy told me I had to pay for my law year.
So I went and got a job and building them, building legends cars.
I was basically, I would get the struts off of the Japanese cars and cut the
spindles and then they would, you know, take it from there.
But, um, I did a lot of parts washing like that.
Yeah.
You know, um, I was the first person to ever clip a legends car.
Guy, guy, guy dropped the yolk guy, the rear end on the back straight away.
Remember the dirt track off turn off a turn three at Charlotte.
Yep.
So guy dropped the yolk on the rear end on the back straightaway and I went
straight off the track into the guard rail and bent the first front clip ever.
All legends cars didn't get hurt.
No.
I mean, I just, it just bent the front clip and I went to Kenny and I said, Hey, I
think I need a front clip.
And he goes, we've never put a front clip on one yet.
This will be a first.
So we had, you know, we go throw it on the jig and put a new front clip on it.
That's interesting.
Cause that, you know, that I found my car.
Oh, did you?
Yes.
Where is it?
So, um, my car, my dad ended up selling my car.
Uh, I ran it that first year.
I won one race, um, on the flat Charlotte oval at the front straightaway.
And I, um, I ran a cup, I won a couple of races on the dirt track behind turn three.
And then after the end of that year, I went late model racing.
So dad sold my car to, um, you know, the guy that owned that truck that does the
pace lap at sharp, uh, Talladega, the never met him.
But yeah, yeah, I mean, um, yeah, he, that's, that and him were friends.
He passed away, right?
He did.
Yeah.
His son raced and dad sold the car to them.
Well, they raced it and then kept it, do it in a shed somewhere.
So there's a sitting there and Kenny Allison, who built it originally found it, called
me cause they still live over here where their original shop was right near, um, uh,
Salisbury and he's like, Hey, I got your car.
And I'm like, how did, how do you know it's mine?
I mean, it's serial number 1990.
I don't know how it's got, and it ain't the same color or nothing.
And he's like, Oh, I got it.
I know I got it.
And so I go over there and it's a bear chassis.
It's got the body still on it.
It had a aluminum body.
We had a aluminum bodies back then the whole side, top roof, everything, aluminum.
And, uh, I knew it was mine because in, in a race at Charlotte on the front
of straightaway, I will hop the guy and it went on nose like this.
And when it slammed down, it, it bit the shock mount on the right rear.
Well, it kept it that way.
I beat it straight and put a strut in there.
Oh, so there and that strut still there.
Cause it was, uh, this where the, on the, on the old original legends cars, this
shock, the top shock mount for the rears was in a bung that was in the center of
this post and it was a parallel post and there was no gusset or nothing.
So it bent that post up like this.
I beat her straight and welded a little gusset in there.
That was in there.
And last few years, my car.
No, did you keep it?
Oh, I still got it.
It's just like I found it.
I think I want to restore it, but like, I guess a lot of work to do and I'm not
going to do it.
I don't got time to do it.
Somebody would.
Yeah.
But yeah, man, I had some legends car racing.
It's fun.
We, I told somebody the story the other day, like what you do with all your
legends stuff, Mark Martin bought everything we owned.
He showed up in a renegade.
For his son.
Yeah.
And when I say took everything, everything.
Damn.
So I was like, well, it's one way to get rid of all your stuff.
But yeah, I don't know how much they race with her or whatnot, but they're
like, don't touch it.
Leave it as you had it.
And they came and loaded all the up and took off with it.
So do you have anything in your possession of your past that's something
very personal to you besides trophies or anything like that?
We, so we had an ASA car that my dad kept for, because ASA actually went out of
business and remember, which is sad.
Um, we had one of those cars, which is he ended up selling it and, you know,
had that crate motor in it, which I think that's what the person wanted anyways.
But I think some of those chassis they turned over for SCCA racing, I believe
you could use them for, but they're more or less kind of useless.
Um, but he kept that for a couple of years and he's like, you, do you want to
sell it or keep it?
I'm like, I just get rid of it, you know, but you wish you had it.
I mean, I don't know what I'd do with it.
It's kind of like some of the stuff you have.
Like, I don't know what I would do with it.
I'm glad I got the legend's car.
It's sitting there just collecting dust, but I'm glad I got it.
I don't know.
Somebody, someday somebody might want to, yeah, that, I mean that, and I think we
have, uh, I don't have it in my possession, but I think one of my, one
of my earlier quarter midgets, we know where it is, and it's in Georgia.
I don't think anybody's doing anything with it.
So, dude, um, I think it's still there.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah.
So, but we, you know, helmets, suits.
Yeah.
Got helmets, yeah.
I had some of the, uh, you know, I have a few prize helmets, but my, how
would your son, 77 he'll not get about that stuff for a while.
I'm sure.
But at some point, like I'm sure he's like curious, maybe he's curious now,
but man, there will be a day and it may be way off into the future.
Like he is going to obsess over your career and all those little things.
So like, hang on to that stuff.
Like don't think that, oh, he won't get about it.
Cause he might not like give that vibe because I'm that way with my girls.
Yeah, they kind of do kind of don't they?
Yeah.
My girls don't, they're not into it.
No.
You know, and I know this is going to sound, I'm going to sound like an idiot.
I did not think about the next generation and they might have kids.
They might have sons.
They might have a son that really freaking digs it.
Yeah.
Right.
And so, cause I was thinking to myself, and maybe this isn't something you're
worried about at all, but I got all this sheet metal.
I got suits, helmets, sheet metal, all kinds of and I hoard it and I'm still
bringing in, like if I can find a door or something, I'm after it.
I'm trying to get it.
Yeah.
And, uh, and then it dawned on me when I'm like, the only person that really
gives you about any of this is me.
Like, you know, the kids don't really, you know, they're, they're girls.
They're not, they're not too into it.
They might want to possess it.
They might care about it, but they're not going to know the value in it.
They're not going to know the stories really behind it, not the way I do.
But then somebody said, well, they might have sons and I thought they might.
I never thought of it.
Right.
Yeah.
Like they might have sons.
So I started collecting baseball cards and stuff.
I got back in the cards.
Well, you got plenty of those.
Man, I love it.
So I was going to say one of the coolest I want to have is, is so Dan Weldon was
a teammate, target teammate, right?
And him and I became good friends and I have one of his helmets.
That's probably any, you know, little message on there.
And that's nice.
That's my coolest helmet.
Okay.
Um, he actually talked to my in-law.
So a lot of people know this either my father-in-law, this kind of wraps back
around the chip grew up with chip.
Yeah.
That's so, so chip and my father-in-law were like best friends.
Um, so anyways, my in-laws were in Sonoma for the Indy car race.
I've known Dan for about a year at this point and he was a talker.
Big talker you could ever imagine.
Yeah.
So he, you know, talked to my in-laws cause I was, we were dating at the time.
You know, we weren't married yet.
And he talked so much and I'm like, you know, goofing around.
Obviously at the end there was a good thing, but he, he called me and he's like,
yeah, just talk to your future in-laws and told them all the stuff about you.
So good luck with that.
And let's never forget like, I'm like, man, he was, that's just the way he was.
And, uh, I lost him too soon, but he was a unique individual.
And that was cool to the working for chip to meet people like from the other
side of the world, literally that, you know, racing was between him and Dixon.
And, um, but yeah, we would go do, you know, these target photo shoots and stuff.
And he was just, he was crazy.
Yeah.
Something else.
Yeah.
I got to hang out with him a little bit when Dan, yeah, we did some national
guard stuff at Indy together.
Yeah.
He was super nice.
Yeah.
You never know.
I mean, I, you meet these, uh, you cross paths with the Indy car guys and
they're from all over the world, right?
And you don't know what type of personality or type of person you're
going to end up working with that day.
He was super cool.
So the first year, you know, I was, those guys have been making pretty good
money for a while and I'll never forget this either.
We were doing a photo shoot and maybe Texas or somewhere like that.
I don't remember where, where, and something happened where the planes
were, weren't being able to take off that night until the next day or something
like them, it was like middle of the day.
Like let's just rent a plane and go home.
We'll just split it and we'll drop, we'll get dropped off and then take you to
Charlotte and like, I mean, I never rented a plane before.
I'm like, I don't know about that.
Yeah.
And they're like, come on, man.
Like you're a cup driver.
You can do it.
And I'm like, I had a song down there.
Dan kept giving me, I was like, all right, fine.
I'll split it with you.
Not the whole time.
I thought they were bulls*** me.
Like they're not really going to rent a plane.
And, you know, cause I'd be, you know, I've never done anything like that
before in my life.
Yeah.
Real expensive.
And I was like, yeah, they're just bulls*** me.
And I was 20 years old and they got one and I had to split it with them.
I was like, all right, you guys weren't kidding.
I'll never forget.
Cause Dan was like, all right, man, you're a cup driver.
You got big money.
You make way more than we do.
I'm like, I don't think so, but yeah, that was one of my, one of the funniest
times cause this went over on for like two or three hours.
Yeah.
Cause they always pick on me and I'm like, they're just going to rent a plane.
Well, we did.
Damn.
And it was a nice one when we made it home and everything was good.
And you got the bill.
I think they charged my credit card.
Damn.
Somehow.
And I don't remember exactly, but we split it.
So, but yeah, yeah.
Well, man, I appreciate the stories.
People are going to be glad to hear you're out there kicking ass.
And, um, and now hopefully they'll give you a hard time about trying to get back
in a race car so we can see you race one or two more times, man.
I love seeing guys like you get out there and do it another time or two.
I know I'm, I'm kicking and I'm kicking that horse as hard as I can.
Are you going to run another round?
I got, I don't know, man.
I don't know.
Somebody came up to me the other day and asked me if they run one at
Wilkesboro if I'm in.
Well, you know, where else they should run one and I'm pretty sure you
like this place here.
I know you do and they don't run there anymore.
Yeah, Richmond.
Oh yeah.
I don't understand.
I loved Richmond.
Yeah.
And I, Richmond is, I don't want to say easy, but it's perfect for old guys like us.
Yeah.
And it's, uh, yeah.
It slows down or two seconds over running.
We were talking about the other day.
I was like, I can't believe they don't race there anymore because it's a great race.
I know.
Um, that's perfect for the rally series.
It is.
And, uh, that's, that's another, I told you there's places I miss.
That's one of them just being there and like, you know, I knew how to get
around that place pretty good and yeah, that's, that's definitely what I
agree for sure.
Well, man, um, appreciate you coming through.
Yeah, I was glad to come on and maybe answer a few questions that
somebody didn't know the answer.
That's right.
Resourcing on the Dell junior download.
All right.
So that was resourcing on the Dell junior download and it's awesome to talk to him.
Thanks for the suggestion on social media and Instagram follower or somebody
that was, uh, commenting on the dirty moment media post suggested that we've
heard it from other folks as well.
We listen, we read the comments.
Sometimes we get in the comments and, uh, this was a lot of fun.
I've known, read a long time.
I've always thought a lot about him.
I always wondered, you know, man, under the right circumstances, could he have made
it, could he have been a cup winner, could he have been a cup champion?
Um, he certainly had a lot of talent.
And, um, hopefully, uh, you know, hopefully he gets to run another race or two.
I bet he'd be surprised at how much he enjoyed that and he wants to get
no rally car, but, uh, and maybe he could, but, um, anyways, thank you, uh, read
for, for coming through and, um, appreciate, uh, everybody for joining us today
here in the Arby's studio.
Don't forget about Arby's new meet and three box.
Get more meal for your money at Arby's.
We have the meats.
We have another show for you tomorrow with Amy, uh, with bless your heart.
And, uh, we'll be heading to the racetrack and, uh, and poke another this weekend.
Y'all enjoy.
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About this episode
Reed Sorenson’s path from ASA hype to NASCAR Cup struggles gets a full rewind, with Dale Jr. framing him as a “phenom” who moved through the “Chip Ganassi pipeline.” The conversation also digs into how spec-series rules and tire/gear choices shape results, plus the reality of Cup consistency: “It’s just the cup series is hard.” Along the way, they trade stories about Legends cars, mock-run expectations, and the tire strategy that can decide who passes when.
Original notes
Dale Earnhardt Jr. invites a one-time rising star in the NASCAR garage, Georgia’s own Reed Sorenson. After having a meteoric rise from the American Speed Association to becoming a development driver for Chip Ganassi Racing, Reed was on everyone’s radar in stock car racing. He would enter the O’Reilly Series ranks in winning fashion, just narrowly missing out on Rookie of the Year honors to NASCAR Hall of Famer Carl Edwards. Ganassi tabbed him to replace Casey Mears in the Cup Series, and before Reed knew it, he was living his racing dreams at the young age of 20. Once there, though, Reed quickly realized that every rung up the ladder in racing brought more challenges, and a series of missteps and bad deals would leave him searching for a stable opportunity in racing.
Reed comes from a racing family. His father, Brad, was a longtime mainstay in the Southeast late model scene, running local tracks like Lanier on a weekly basis and even making a Busch Grand National start in 1992. Once Reed was old enough to reach the pedals, though, his family focused completely on his racing endeavors. He’d start out in quarter midgets and win his way across North America before graduating to Legend cars. Legend cars led to late models, and Reed caught the eye of Lorin Ranier during his time racing with ASA, which helped facilitate his introduction to Ganassi. Reed would experience the triumph of being one of the sports’ top prospects before years of dealing with the cruel reality of the world of racing.
Dale Jr. and Reed discuss his rapid ascent to the NASCAR Cup grid, his near-misses and opportunities, and his departure from full-time racing.
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