The Unexpected Second Life of Vanilla Ice
Annotations will appear as you listen
0:00
77:21
Term
rotisserie for cars
A “car rotisserie” is a special stand that holds a car and lets it spin around. That way, you can work on the car from different angles without moving it constantly. It’s often used when people are restoring or customizing cars.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a sporty car made by Ford, usually with a V8 engine in many versions. In this podcast, it’s being talked about as someone’s first Mustang that they still have. That’s why it’s special to them.
Term
endurance race
An endurance race is a long race where the goal is to keep the car running for hours. It’s not only about being fast—it’s about not breaking things while you’re racing.
Term
burn up the brakes
“Burn up the brakes” means the brakes got so hot that they don’t work as well anymore. In a race, that can happen if you brake really hard over and over.
Term
blow up the engine
“Blow up the engine” means the engine fails badly during the race. Instead of just slowing down, it can stop working completely.
Term
paper clip
They’re describing a tiny, improvised tool used to make a small change on the car. The takeaway is that even small tweaks can matter in racing.
Term
advanced the timing
“Advanced the timing” means the engine’s spark happens a little earlier than usual. That can make the engine feel stronger, but if it’s too early it can cause damage.
Car
Dodge kit car
A kit car is a car you buy as parts and then build yourself. Here, they’re talking about a Dodge kit car that was meant for racers to assemble and then drive in dirt-track racing.
Place
Concorde Speedway
Concorde Speedway is a dirt-track race track. The story says the car was tested and raced there, which mattered for getting noticed.
Term
kit car program
A kit car program is when a company sells a car in kit form so you can put it together yourself. The idea here was to make it easier for racers to build and race their own cars.
Term
modified division
A modified division is a race category where cars can be changed more than in a stock class. The story says his dad raced in that kind of class at the track.
Term
six cylinder division
A six-cylinder division is a race class for cars that have six-cylinder engines. The story says his dad raced in that category at the track.
Car
square body Chevy's
“Square body” is a nickname for older Chevrolet pickup trucks from the 1970s and 1980s. They look boxy and classic, and people like them a lot—especially in crew-cab form.
Term
OBS
“OBS” is truck-nerd shorthand for “old body style.” It means an older generation of pickup trucks with that classic look.
Term
airbags
Airbags are safety cushions inside the car that pop out in a crash to help protect you. The speaker is basically saying they’d rather have the older truck setup.
Term
eye recognition
“Eye recognition” is when a car uses cameras to watch where your eyes are looking. It’s meant to tell if you’re paying attention, especially when the car is doing some driving help.
Term
pneumatic
“Pneumatic” means it uses compressed air to make something move. In this case, it’s describing how the elevators work.
Car
59 Cadillac convertible
This is a 1959 Cadillac convertible—an old-school luxury car from the late 1950s. “Convertible” means the roof can open, so it’s the kind of car people bought for show and cruising.
Term
leak oil
“Oil leak” means the car is losing engine oil. If it gets bad, the engine can run low on oil, which can cause damage.
LIVE
your daddy's car. This is how I learned about you and your dad and the whole story. It's,
you know, that's one of the most amazing stories ever written with any racing of any
form of anything at all, you know, from Ferrari to Fidapaldi's, all your stories of these famous
racers and Schumacher's and everybody, there is no bigger name. Your dad has taken on and you
of this race life, another, like Elvis, man. It's It is, it is,
you are America's heartbeat, dude. The following is a production of Dirty Mo 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 unique show for you today. Yeah, everybody knows we, we love NASCAR around
here, but every now and then we have a guest who's not NASCAR. We've had wrestlers and baseball
players and football players and all types, musicians, singers. Well, we got Vanilla Ice
coming on the show today, Rob Van Winkle. I've met him multiple times throughout my life,
throughout his life. Our paths have crossed multiple times and we're going to talk about that.
He also owns a Deller and Hart race car. We're going to hear about that story and
I once saw him doing home renovations. He's turned this into a television show and he's
apparently very successful in real estate. I did not have that on my bingo card back in
2011 when I first saw it on TV. I'm like, damn. So I need to know about that. Is that real? Is
that what he's doing these days? Well, he's here to talk about it. Let's bring him into the studio.
This episode is presented by Arby's new meat and three bucks. Get more meal for your money
at Arby's. We have the meats.
How you doing, man? I'm good, bud. Good to see you again. Been a while. Yeah. Last time I saw
you was at Pocono coming through to promote a movie as part of. That's right. With Adam Sandler.
Yeah, we'd met before. We'd seen each other Vegas a time or two. Oh man, you remembered that? I do.
You know why I remember that? You know why? Because I'd never heard the rock version of
Ice Ice Baby and we were on the side. We had a little VIP table off to the side of the stage
and you had the full band up there and came I was like, damn. This is like reborn.
This song is good. Hell yeah. Turn you into a teenager again all over again. It was so good.
I'm kind of like a big fan of that brand of music and the sound of the rock. Of course,
I was a kid. I was listening to all the stuff you were making. But anyhow, great to have you here.
We try to get you here and listen. 58 years old. Hey, that is crazy. Is that how old you are?
That is crazy. I'm the oldest teenager here. I don't know about you. I'm only saying that,
man, because you don't look it. Hey man, you know. How are you doing that?
Low lighting. Vegetables. 23 year vegetarian, man. I have bad blood type AB negative and
I had to change my eating habits and I'm trying to stay alive and not have a heart attack.
Well, you look like you're doing a good job. I worked out pretty well. I'm on the dance floor
still. I know, man. You're busy. I see a lot of your content, following on social media,
been following you a long, long time. So I've been kind of keeping up what you got going on.
And your energy, your attitude, your personality is infectious, man. And it's genuine. And so,
and we all kind of want that, right? Well, we all kind of, you know, I got a couple kids
that are five and eight and I get home and I'm tired and I'm like, man, I wish I had their energy,
you know. Yeah, I got eight year old too. I know you. You're that guy that's still like,
it's your age. He is wide open as you are. It's pretty impressive. You know how it works with
those kids. They can't, they don't know that you had your legs hurt and you had a long day. You've
been out in the yard working or racing or whatever you're doing and you come home and it's time to
play, man. Chase them, you know, through the house and yeah, rest doesn't, doesn't matter,
but they keep you young and that's what it's all about. And my mom always said, you know,
if you keep dancing, you'll stay young forever. I said, and she used phrases on me, you know,
she's like, if you, if you keep dancing, you'll always be happy. And I says, why is that mom?
She says, you can't dance if you're miserable. Yeah. And I says, okay. So her philosophy was,
don't take anything in life too serious. Enjoy the ride and enjoy happiness. So every day,
wake up and put your dancing shoes on, not literally, but in a sense of your mind.
Yeah. People tell me, man, don't slow down, stay moving, keep busy. I always think like,
man, when am I going to chill? When am I going to start working? When am I going to start doing
these passion projects and things like that? But it's kind of like, man, I'm afraid if I do
the aches and all that stuff's going to creep in. No, you can't, you can't rest. You know,
the older you get, you got to keep moving and grooving, man. That's the way it works. Otherwise,
that rust catches up to you and you, I raised motocross. So I got a lot of pains, man. I just,
it's hard to tell this story in a cool way, but a week ago I was pulling water hose and I tripped
over a sprinkler head that was stayed up and I fell over and dislocated my shoulder and it came out
to here on me and I had to pop it back in about 27. I was like 27 seconds in major pain and it
just went back in by itself and I was like, oh, that's motocross for you. Yeah. And I yelled,
nobody listened to me. I'm out in the yard, but it would have been crazy if somebody's walking their
dog by, but it was a freak accident. You know, I just fell down, but these things happen, you know.
Oh yeah. And you got pain everywhere. So born in Texas. I was born in Texas. I was born in Dallas,
Baylor hospital on Halloween. Yeah. And you grew up between Texas and Florida,
but you ended up getting back to Texas when your music career started kicking off.
Other way. Other way. Yeah. Texas went to RL Turner High School, then came from there and just
basically I had a girlfriend. My mom had moved to Miami with my stepdad and he worked at Oprah
Tampkin Chevrolet over there. And I was like, no, I got a girlfriend. I'm gonna stay here in Texas.
Really? And it didn't work out. How old were you? 16. And she let you?
Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I was independent all my life. Independent. Oh yeah. I have an older
brother and you know, honestly, I really didn't have much supervision as a kid. I don't have it.
I didn't have any dad. So no figure there to tell you, stop doing that. Yes. Don't do this or
whatever, you know, but I had freedom. So I was a dumpster diver and I had ride my BMX bike, man.
And I had an old beat up diamond back and I would ride that thing all the way to Harry
Hines over there, pass all the hookers, didn't even know what the hookers were and go into this
trash can where I could get sneakers and we were broke and we had all new sneakers. My mom,
what size do you wear? And I'd go in there and they were blemished. So they throw away anyone that
had like a little string hanging off of it and they were almost brand new, perfect, right? And
you had to look close to find the blemish, but that's the reason they would throw them away. So
the whole dumpster was full of shoes. I'd go over there and everybody'd always have new shoes.
I was the cool new shoe kid. I could get anybody new shoes.
I shouldn't have been going that far, had too much freedom as a kid and that was my life, man.
Mom just said, you know, watch out. I don't know. She was at work all day and I never had any
supervision. What did she do for a living? Who? My mom? My mom is, she's a piano teacher, flute
teacher, voice teacher, music teacher. Yeah. Yeah. I never sat down for any lessons. No.
I wished I would have. I was too cool. Yeah. I played piano, man. I'm a motocrosser.
Now I do play the piano. I love it. How did you, how did, so you did get into motocross racing.
How did that, so that you, being a motocross racer and also being into, being in a, you know,
being into break dancing and, and, and rapping and all those things. How did that,
how did those two things coexist? Cause they don't seem like you would,
you would be doing one and the other at the same time, but you were. Oh yeah. Yeah. So you learn
when you, when you're a racer, you know, when the gate drops, the bull, stops, that's a phrase
that you go by and you live by. And that means, you know, you got to pin it to win it. There's
nobody else out here going to do anything for you. Yeah. So I had a time where I was with
my stepdad. He had came out there and he had bought me some bikes and stuff and,
you know, chain, fix my chain, tighten it up, tighten my spokes, get everything air filter
ready to go. And here we are at the race and I'd go out there and get third or fourth place or
something. And then he'd be really mad at me, man, like upset, you know, like I had not talked to
him and what's going on. I mean, I was 40 racers. I got third place. You're way better than these
guys that beat you, man. I said, what do you mean? He says, you got to, I went in your room
last night and I know you were chasing the and you were out. Sorry for my language. So chasing
the cat and, you know, and I was at 3am, I had a girlfriend. I'm 15, you know,
and he's like, you don't commit. If you don't commit, I ain't going to commit. You can change
your own tires now. You can do your own work, haul your bikes to the track and everything,
you know, and you're like, Oh my God, I'm super grateful for everything. I don't know what to do.
Because you're on your own. Didn't say a word to me all the way home, all week, nothing. And he
just, I guess he let me marinate on my thoughts and I told my girlfriend, I can't come over here
anymore. Honey, it's not going to happen. And my mom, my mom was funny because she said, if you
don't have calluses on your hands, I know you're not practicing after school. So you have to do
your homework. And I said, you telling me, I don't have to do any homework. If I practice,
she goes, no. So my dirt bike was always in the back of my truck every day at school and I had to
go practice. And she told my principal, he don't do homework. Not at all. He's committed to motocross
now. And that's how I learned about the word commitment. Ain't nobody going to twist the
throttle for you. You got to do it yourself, man. You got to pin it to win it. And like I said,
you know, when you get drops, there's nobody that can make you go from first to last or last to first
and third to first. And I ended up beating those three guys that beat me quite often after that.
And I learned to take some more practice and more commitment than the next guy that you got to want
to win to want to do it, you know. Yeah. So how did how did break dancing poetry? How did those
things get into your life? So the competitiveness of all that and the independence of being someone
that has to do it on your own, the drive, the ambition and the purpose is all I needed. So I
grew up watching break dancing movies like turbo and ozone. I don't know if you remember those.
They were like a beach street. We're going back to the 80s. Yeah. And when we were little kids,
you had these break dance movies that had this movement come out and you were like,
how does this guy do the wave? Right. How does this guy do all these cool moves and spin on his
head like that? Well, that was me. And I had cardboard and I'd go to the mall and I'd make
40 bucks a day. Really? I'd chase the girls around, eat some pizza, have some change left over,
and I'd make more money. And I told you we were broke, but at my age, I had more money than all
the rich kids because I could go out and hustle, break dance and come home. And I knew the right
door to be at because that's where most people will go in and out. And the security guards loved
it, man. We had a little jam box, the batteries go dead. I said, man, run, grab some batteries,
they're quick. You know, put the new batteries in, people are coming out, especially on the holidays.
Man, we would crush it. Really? 40 bucks a day back in the 80s was a lot of money for a kid 15
years old. All the other kids I knew that were rich, they only had like five bucks allowance.
That was it. Five bucks all week. And I would take their five bucks and I would get that money too
because I was the only kid that was allowed to have a dirt bike. Yeah. And I knew that if I let
these kids wanted to ride these dirt bikes so bad and their parents would never let them have a
dirt bike, you're going to get hurt. And I knew it. they had $5 in their pocket. And I
went out to that field and I said, y'all meet me after school. I'm going out to the field and you
ride my bike around like 67 laps and I make five bucks from you five. I had them lined up,
man. Really? Come home with 20 bucks. Oh man, cover the gas, cover my everything. I always had money.
And we were broke. We couldn't rub two nickels together. Yeah. It's funny because when I raced
motocross and I started doing good and professional, I'd make 1500 bucks on a weekend, right? Yeah.
And I'd come, my brother, he was older. He used to, he, we're cool now. He used to beat me up a
lot. You know, he could have been the cool brother that took me fishing. Was it? No, he beat me up
a lot. We're cool now. But I would go, it motivated me. And I would go into Piggly Wiggly where he
worked in stacking groceries and I'd go in his line and I'd fan that money out of him. And I'd
be like, man, it sure is getting hot in here. What else can we buy today? You know, let's buy
some more. And he'd be sitting there and stacking the groceries and he'd stack my
you know, and he'd probably beat me up that morning, but we're cool now. We laugh about it.
Yeah. But it's funny stuff of motivation, of that how you get to where you are. Yeah. And those
are kind of the key points that gave me my competitive drive. So how do you, do you think
back? I mean, I know that your life, man, there's a lot of happen. A lot of successes. You won,
you won a lot of races when championships in motocross. Obviously, everybody is well aware
of your singing career. But do you, so I was born into the racing thing. My dad was a racer,
his dad was a racer. I know your whole story, but so like, I know your life story probably like
everybody else does. I knew what was there. You didn't have that. You weren't born into what you
ended up becoming, right? So like you created this, you created yourself made. Do you look back
and think like, damn, how did that happen? Do you have moments where, where there are moments in
your life where you're sitting there going, how in the hell did I get here? You know, in the peak
of your success or was it, did it make sense? It made sense. I knew where I was
going. I'm super, like I said, competitive, but I'm also, you know, one thing kids don't have
today is that ambition, the drive and a purpose and a meaning. Those four things right there is
everything it takes to be successful. And without one, you're just a little bit back. You're only
75. You take another one, you're 50. You take another one, you're 25%. How much effort and
commitment you going to put towards what you're doing? How much do you believe in yourself? Are
you going to turn a dream into reality? Can you come from where you are just because no one else
ever has? Can white people rap? My mom even told me white boys don't rap, honey, go get a job. And
that's what my mom should have done because she was making my car payments on my 5.0.
And the rule was if you can make the payments, you can get it. And I'll co-sign for you
three payments in. She was making them. So it was, honey, white boys don't rap. And I said,
mom, I do. And it wasn't even three months later that I ended up buying her house and car and
everything. Yeah, it was really, yeah. And she's now my biggest fan, but it was normal for her.
So let me ask you this. I grew up and experienced your explosion onto the scene
all the way through all of those things to when they write a behind the music on you.
I see you on, flipping houses. I know now you're 58 years old. You have all of this
wisdom and you've come from, you've come back from the dead multiple times, right? I mean,
so I asked, I asked that question.
The song Ice Ice Baby, how, what type, I have to imagine that throughout your entire life,
your relationship and your emotional connection to that song has been a roller coaster.
Oh yeah. Right. I mean, I said here as somebody who's never wrote a song in their life came play
an instrument and think, damn man, it'd be badass to have something like that, like have that one.
It's ultimate. You know, that you're global because of that song, right? But I imagine it
wasn't always something like that for you, right? There was some good. There was a moment I didn't
want to play that song. Right. And I hit that about that time I met you because I was doing the rock
version, what was kind of my anti-me type thing. You were kind of rebelling a little bit against it.
I had to figure out my purpose and meaning in life again after the kind of the wave hit the shore.
But instead of like most people hitting the shore and they sit there and they go,
whoo, I never want to go through that again. I'm more of the guy that says,
I'm swim out and gets another wave. And I did and I am and that's me. I got to stay
active and moving. And you made, I don't want to say made peace with that song, but like you,
you found out a way to, you found out a way to embrace it.
Well, you got to get rid of your demons. You got to face your demons and beat the hell out of them
and get them out of there and come back on the dance floor like mama said. And that's what I did.
And, you know, I had a moment there where, you know, I couldn't separate my life from
my entertainment life from my real life. And it took me, like I had a weekend that lasted three
years. For me, I had to learn because it was incredible impact. I had no idea that it was
going to be that big. We're over 600 million records sold. Who could ever imagine anything
like that or even half or quarter of a fraction of that. Before me, there was only Run DMC and
they sold 500,000 copies, which was in hip hop was the hugest, biggest record. We were like,
oh my God, we've hip hop has made it. Run DMC is huge, man. Aerosmith want this way with rap,
huge, all you remember MTV. Oh my God. And we thought that was it. And then my record came out
and my video only cost us $5,000 to make. And that was when they were making like multi-million
dollar videos with Michael Jackson and stuff. And we're like, this will never make it.
This will never make it with this cheap ass video. Number one, most highest rated video of all MTV
ever played. And I still can't believe it. And I'm just like, you know, during the whole experience,
I'm like, I couldn't believe it either. And then I got a phone call says, would you like to be in
the Ninja Turtles movie and make the theme song? And I myself, I'm like, yeah. I mean, and then
you're going to pay me. I'll do this for free or I'll pay you to do it. I was already a Ninja
Turtle fan. And for all these things to just kind of evolve along the way is just part of,
I guess, you know, the history and the impact of everything that the vanilla ice has done,
because I can look back at it and go, wow, to me, it seems like yesterday time goes fast,
which is more of a reason that I'm so positive today, because it's going by, you know, too damn
fast and fast. I want to slow it down and live, you know, and absorb the stuff and the stuff I've
seen in my family, my friends and all my little kids and all the stuff around me. It's, it's a
go so fast when you're doing that stuff, you never get to absorb any of it or enjoy any of it.
So I enjoy my life now a lot more than I did then. And it has been a roller coaster.
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.
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 cowboys hate so bad after all. I think if you bring some smiles, I love the
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 100 million 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 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 knocking about 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.
I 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 Jerome?
He's a good guy. 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 what 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 Jerome.
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 wanted 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 miss the whole shot
up. Not me. I always get really good attacks. 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.
Yeah, I know, I know what you mean. I had, I loved racing. I loved being in, you know,
the last 20 years of my life. I loved it, but it went, I was so, I was busy going from the one thing
to the next thing and often overwhelmed and a little bit apprehensive about
everything I was walking into. You didn't know what was on the side of next door
you're going through. And to your point now, I can kind of, I'm now I got enough control. I can
wait, I can slow this down. I can enjoy this day. I can go see my kids do something with them. Yeah.
That's it. That's me too, man. I'm in that same frame of mind. I'm like, am I going to retire?
You know, everybody around me is like, you'll never retire. You're full of all this energy.
You're the oldest teenager in town. You're coming around. And I'm like, man, I don't know.
I can. And I'm thinking, you know, maybe I will and spend some just, you don't retire. You just
do other things. Yeah. You know, you just switch gears. How old were you when you hit rock bottom?
So it was early. So I hit Ice Ice Baby when I was very young. So the way it goes is time-wise.
I did. I wrote it when I was 16, but it blew up when I was like 19 and then really big when I was
about 20 and then about 23. I really, really hit rock bottom at 27. I almost joined the 27 club.
And that's where I couldn't figure out. And I feel like a lot of people out in the world are
really confused around that age. Yeah. And that's because that's, I think that's where you turn
into an adult from being like a semi adult. You're not, you're kind of a teenager, but you're 27,
and you hit that 27, there's a big confusion in these kids today. And they don't know,
and they don't have answers for their future. And it's very stressful to them. And they turn
to drugs. They're not ready to grow up. They're not ready to grow up, except responsibility, maybe,
and be a lousy adult. And I don't blame them, but you know, you got to do it.
What kept you being, being as successful as you were at 20 years old, 21 years old,
what saved you or what prevented that from happening sooner?
Because I mean, you're, I imagine, I don't know, I've never, but I imagine all of that stuff
was accessible everywhere, all around you, all the pitfalls, all the dangers of success and fame
were all around you. Once you hit that rock star thing, all the stuff you, you never knew it was
around you and offered and given and everything. And I was using it as escape route. So that's
the weekend I last, that lasted three years. How come that didn't happen when you were 21?
What was, was, were there some things that were safeguarding you, some guardrails?
No, I think I was too busy. I think they kept me so busy. There wasn't a minute to breathe. And I'd
had one event to the next event. And I didn't know where life was going. Couldn't,
couldn't keep the schedule in my head long enough to remember all of it. And I just let them kind of,
I turned into a puppet and they just tell me where to go. And I was just like the orchestra
and somebody was just sitting back going, la, la, la. Kind of like Colonel Elvis, you know?
Yes. You do this, you go there, you play here. We're going here tomorrow. I watch my bank account go
and I'm like, okay, this is working out, I guess. I don't know. I'm just keep dancing every day. It's,
you just sing and dance, dance.
So you often said, and I've read it in the notes here and I've read, I've seen you say this,
where you felt like you weren't the, you, you had kind of been cast into a role that truly
wasn't who you were. What, what, what exactly, who were you really? What was the, what was the person
say from that? You know, when you blew up, maybe who was the person that we didn't get to see?
Rob. So Rob is always here and Rob is vanilla ice, but I had to separate that. That was the
part where I was telling Bieber, you know, story. So basically I found out that everything I do on
the entertainment side, I didn't know this and this is how I figured out how to rescue myself,
is that everything on the entertainment side is artificial. So it took my kids, my kids to
straighten me up. They, you know, they see dad and you got to explain to them when dad leaves
the door, it's just artificial out there. If you see about it in a tabloid, if you see it on the news,
that's all just whatever artificial stuff. And then I come home and I'm just dad.
Let's go play in the backyard. Let's go have fun, whatever, you know, and they keep you grounded.
They keep you, give you a purpose other than yourself. And that right there is more motivation
to straighten up and fly straight and do great and start reframing your brain and kind of
reprogramming yourself. That's what it takes. You have to reprogram yourself.
Rob. Yeah. You had a moment where you had to be resuscitated and you, you meant,
you, you credited sort of that moment as for your awakening. Like you, you woke up and said,
Oh yeah. Yeah, I'm done with this. Oh yeah. It's been a long time. I don't drink. I don't smoke.
I don't do anything, man. Nothing like crazy stuff and it never will happen. I don't associate
with that stuff or anybody that does it. Was it literally the, the near death experience that
made you say, man, I'm, I'm ready to get on the other side. Yeah. It scared you straight.
Man, I had a moment that I wanted to go out with hundreds of millions of dollars in the bank,
didn't give a damn about any money. Yep. Money could never buy me happiness. I had a,
because I was so confused with the drugs and your brain don't think right. You turn into almost
like a zombie and you confuse yourself. You complicate things for yourself and you'll exaggerate
how bad things in life are. They're really not as bad as you're making them out to be because
you're in zombie land. And I didn't know this. I never, when I came up, I never did anything.
I went to the keg parties and never drink. They knew it because I had my dirt bike in the back
of the truck. I told you I couldn't drink. I had to go be at the race at 5am and perform and win,
man. I'm not, you can't drink the night before at the keg party, but I had to go to the keg party
because the girls were there. I'm leaving early now because of what I told you, my story commitment
and I had to commit and people knew it. They were like, don't offer him a drink. He don't drink.
He just doesn't do that. And then all of a sudden I hit big as a rock star and I got all the worst
influence people around me and I'm thinking this is an escape from reality for me. Let me just do
this and it started with a little ecstasy stuff. And I can say it with a smile now because we're
talking 30 something years ago, right? So I'm good. But it almost killed me, man. It led to
self-destruction and what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, man. And I have definitely rebuilt
myself and, you know, there's people around me and certain things that I kind of,
that helped me along the way and orchestrate it. And my kids are number one,
motocross racing. I went back to that. Got back to it. motocross. And you started
racing jet skis. And jet skis. You were top 10 in the world. Yep. At one point. By leaving the
racing, I was lost, man. I had to get back into it and I had to, I'm a racer and I would love
racing, man. I got to win. I'm like, yeah, that's Travis Pastrana, one of my good friends, man.
I'm like, I'm super competitive, like Jordan and like, I want to win. Yeah, of course.
It's fun, man. I grew up that way. I race my daughter every day. You want to race to the bed?
First one wins. Mark said, go. Yeah. It's just something we do. It's you grow up that way and
it's fun. All through all of this, even, you know, after you went back to racing, you continued to
make records, continued to release go like, I would wonder if, you
would take a break from music. You, you know, you'd say, all right, I'm going to take a break
from this. I'm not toward a lot, toward a lot last year. I'm going to give, stop for
a minute. What makes you, I mean, I would say that if you're having fun racing jet skis or dirt
bikes or being a family man, flipping houses, which I want to talk to you about shortly,
why would you want to go back to music? Fans, fans, man. They kept asking for fans. They keep
asking and I got so many out there, man. And I love them. I know that they, I wouldn't be anything
without them. And it's, you know, to cater to them is what I do. And I have a line that says,
never cater to a hater, just say later and cater to the fans that appreciate you, you know, because
there's a lot of them. And I just felt like, you know what, I owe them something. And I think they,
and they're calling for me. And I think they want to relive the greatest decade ever, the last of
the great decades before computers ruined the world, man. And I'm so, I miss it. And I know that
I try to explain it to my kids. I got a 28 year old and I'm like, listen,
I'm sorry, we had it better. We really did. And this isn't an old guy talking. We really did. And
these computers have taken this world and slammed it and turned it around and put it in a big snow
globe and shaking it up. And I feel sorry for them. You remember like the passion we had for just
shining up a car, your first car, even if it was a piece of ****. I'm proud. This is mine. I got
freedom. They don't have that passion no more. No, they don't. They don't get to go meet on the corner
and do a thousand U turns, trying to look for chicks or kids. There's kids today, they turn 16
and they do not sprint to get their driver's license. I'm like, no, they, some of them don't
even care. They don't care. We got Uber. We got anything. We got people to take us to the wall.
Your driver's license? I might get it next year. They don't want to leave the house. The hell.
They want to sit and play Fortnite all day and meet people on Fortnite and TikTok or whatever.
And we socialize getting out of the house. They could not wait to get my driver's license. Man.
I can't believe that that's not like still. We got in trouble for not coming home on time.
And these kids can't even leave the house. It's like, get out of here. She goes,
dad, what am I going to do? I go, climb a tree. She goes, climb a tree. Really? At my age, I go,
yeah, try it. She tried it. She loved it. She goes, dad, I actually liked it.
You really climbed a tree. She's like, yeah. And she liked it.
Let's see. Things you can do. Just walk out the door. It'll come to you.
Hey, this is Dale Hart Jr. And for all the latest Dale Jr. download gear, including the
I'm old drinks and beer t-shirt we've been talking about here around the office,
head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch.
So the, I don't know, man. It was probably about 2011, I guess, when you were on TV,
flipping houses or remodeling houses. I had no idea. So the season started, I think, in 2010 or
11. Yeah. So I turn on my television and there you are remodeling this house in Florida. And
I'll be honest, like I had, I'd met you, you know, briefly in a couple of places. And it always,
you know, obviously, you know, vanilla ice, you're, you're a f***ing badass. It's, it's awesome to
to get a chance to say hey to you anytime. Same to you, man. But there, I didn't know you,
know you. And I see you on this show. And I'm like, man, this, this dude is, he enjoys this
and he knows you're creative. Me and my wife watched it. And we were just talking about it
this morning. And I was like, you remember how good he was at doing that? And he knows all
the things in there doing the work. You kind of, in a weird way, inspired me and my wife to
remodel a home on, on television as well, which we would have never. That's right.
Yeah. I remember. We would have probably never done that. That's right. I forgot. Yes. So you did.
I watched it. Yeah. It was great. Thanks. Well, I turned yours on right. And I'm like,
this is, I'm gonna watch this. So I'm watching it. And you're talking about how much success
you're having, how much fun you're having. You got all your boys around you working and helping.
And, and I was just impressed, man, because not a lot of people would, would not a lot of people,
not, not many at all would do, would experience what you experienced with your musical success,
right? And go through the down times, the tough times and come out the other end with it with a,
a good attitude to a work ethic to go do something completely out of the norm, right?
So to see you in that space was, was shocking, but to also see you thriving and like, hey,
how you're, to your point, how you were able to separate yourself from what wasn't reality,
to be you and go do something completely different was just motivating. And I'm wondering, you know,
I guess, you know, you've talked about all of the, the success you've had in real estate.
Yeah. So explain that. How did you get into that? How did that fall into your life?
Didn't plan it. Didn't plan it at all. Could never have said, hey, in 20 years after my record,
I'm going to start doing this just never. So what happened is I got my, I got hit,
we got hit by Hurricane Andrew. I lived on Star Island. Okay. Hurricane Andrew is one of the
biggest category fives to ever hit anywhere. And it, I was right on Star Island right first hit,
you know, so it really destroyed my house completely. And I just finished building it
and wrote the last check to the designers, walked around with the designers, looked at what they
did, everything. And maybe 23 months later, the hurricane ripped the roof off and just
two feet of water through my house. All my plaques are floating in there and just ripped my windows,
doors, everything, everything shredded it. Right. Instead of hiring them again, I just paid them.
I said, I'm just going to do it myself. And I did it. And it took me forever because it's
slow and I'm OCD. So I have to not change that color. Nope, don't like that one, change that
color too. I'm OCD. So it's, and I developed a weird passion in a, in a weird way that I never
saw coming that I actually finished it and go, wow, this was awesome. I actually enjoyed that.
Right. And then at the same time, I had bought all these houses around the country that I had
never seen. And I thought I had lost millions of dollars just by buying these houses that I'd never
seen. And I'm like, that was stupid. There's just cobwebs. I didn't rent them out. I didn't do
anything. They just sit there years and years go by. I'm on tour. Never even forgot I had them.
Really? It's a paper and a file and I still have homes I forget I got. And they just marinate.
But, but the truth is, I go, well, that was a waste. I'm a dumb rock star. I probably just
lost all that money and let's just sell them. And I ended up making millions when I sold them.
I didn't even change the paint or nothing. And I was like, you can make money that easy in real
estate. And then I got the passion for the design end. And I'm like, let's go buy some more.
Let's go buy a bunch more homes and let's start doing this. And, and, and I can design them.
I like this. And that's kind of how it developed. I didn't plan it, but the hurricane helped me
motivate myself to do that. And then about 19 years ago, I went to design school and I actually
got a degree because I had to go to all these seminars and I read all these books on how to
really be successful in real estate. And that's where I just kept getting deeper and deeper
and deeper. And I just kept smelling the money in every single aspect of it. And I was like,
this is fun. And I'm getting money for it. So I said, let's just keep going. And I worked
my way up from the smaller homes to the multi millions. And I know, I don't know if you know
Palm Beach very well, but it's in the 20 millions ranges. And they're all over the place. And I'm
up in that range now. And me and my boy, Wes over there are building all these crazy things. We
showcase turntables and ladies, shoe rotisseries. And nobody else does that on TV because we're
in Palm Beach. We don't really have a ceiling. There is no like, oh, you better check the comps
down the street. What comps? That's $30 million house next door. But I learned how to buy these
homes allow me to do that to actually comp. And what happened is I learned how to buy tax leans.
And when you buy tax leans, that's what where everybody would because it's pennies on the
dollar. So basically a $4 million house you pick up for $2 million or half or less. And that's what
I was doing. And I'm still doing that. And it's basically just getting a lawyer to go to the
courthouse and coming out with all the tax leans of the day. And then you go to the auctions and
you bid on them and you win. And I started buying homes out of India, because in 08 that housing
crunch hit. And India bought all the mom and pop bank loans that all foreclosed and short-sailed on.
Wow. And they bought everything in a book. And then they resold it to Americans. Nobody knows
this. I knew this. So at 3am, I got a cup of coffee. I'm up there with a laptop. And every time you
button, your enter button, it's a $10,000 increment. So I'm bidding on these houses.
And I learned how to win every one of them. And I can get them for pennies on the dollar. I'm
going to tell you my secret. So I go into India. You have to show proof of funds. And you enter
this auction. And you're in the auction, 3am. Coffee's happening. You let that thing time down
to the last 10 seconds. You just barely hit it to see if anybody's awake. And every time you hit
it, somebody's going, oh, I'll hit mine back. And now I'm the leader of this auction. And you let
them feel and you see them going back and forth and you just watch it. And I'm American, man.
I grew up playing video games. And when that thing hits 10 seconds, did I win? Oh my God,
I won. Every time I win. The first three, I go, oh, I better hit it. Better hit it all slow.
Lost everyone. I go, man, I'm just going to, I don't even know how much I paid. But I know it's
under the, you know, appraised value. So I buy homes for way below the appraised value.
And that allows you to do whatever you want to them. I can turn around and sell them and make
money just like they are. Which is why I sit on a lot of properties. You know, people don't understand
why I sit on it and don't see it because I've never seen it. The way it works is I don't care to see
it. All I need to know, all I do is have my attorney that goes to the courthouse. He gives me
the auction. I buy the property. I've had property 30 something years, you know, that I've never seen
it, never even went over there. And I don't care. Some of the houses I own have snakes coming out
of them and cockroaches and fall in a park collapsing and they're worth millions. You know why?
Because I bought them so low and I don't do anything with them. They're just sitting there
marinating because I bought them on an appraised value. All I needed to know was the auction is
here. It says you can buy this land, you know, acreage or whatever for 700 grand and it appraises
right there at $3 million. I'll take it. I don't know why, but I take them and I get all this land
and it's just sitting there and that's how you accumulate it. And the kids can have it. I'll
never sell it. All my cars, speaking of cars, I got to talk about your daddy's car. I got your
daddy's car. But that's how the real estate worked for me and I just kept learning and learning and
going, this is freaking awesome, man. And I enjoy it. This is passion and I can make and it's art
and music was art too. So it's the same kind of artistic thing and you can go, wow, I did that.
And I used to get letters and people coming up to me in airports, even the houses I sell,
they say, I'm going to renew my vows with my husband. This is the perfect house. I don't want
to change anything. I love it. We're going to stay here. You know how good that makes you feel
that every color choice you made and the tiles and everything that you've done, they love and
they're not going to change anything and they write you a note like that. It's like, this is
rewarding. So I was like, man, I really starting to love this stuff. And then I got the call for
the TV show because one question, how did that find out? How did they learn? I didn't want it.
So I got, I did the behind the music on VH1. You remember that. And the guy who produced that was
Matt Levine out of New York and he called me up out of the random. He goes, wow, hey, Rob, you
answered. I go, yeah, I haven't talked to you in years. This is Matt Levine. I said, hey, Matt.
And he goes, I saw on Forbes, on Forbes, they had a segment on me. They did an interview and then
the question was funny. It says, how did you not end up like MC Hammer?
I know. That's my next question. And they go, well, I went into real estate and that was on
Forbes. They picked it up and he's called me up and he says, listen, would you like to do a TV show?
And I go, no. And he goes, why not? I said, because I don't want people to see me like that.
I don't want them to see me all normal and it's just not, I think I need to hide behind my music
like Prince. Prince, you know, he's mystery. You don't know how he lives. You don't know where he
lives. Does he ride dirt bikes? What does he do? You don't know. And I'm thinking, I don't want
people to see me so normal and swinging a hammer with a toe. I don't think that's cool.
Nobody will care. This will tank. I don't want it. And he goes, just, we're just going to film you,
let you do what you want. I said, all right, whatever, man, this is going to tank. I didn't know.
And then we're 10 seasons and we just signed to HBO a month ago and we're on HBO now. We got two
new seasons. What? Yeah, yeah, we got 12 now. 12. We got nine with the network and now we just signed
to HBO. We got, and it's amazing that that many years since 10 and now we didn't think we'd even
get a second season. Yeah. So for me, it's like it motivates you. People talking to you, it makes
you go, what am I going to do for the next one? So when you see my show, it just elevates. And
that's why you see like, God, how can I top that? Dude, look what we did. And I go, we got to put
a rotisserie for cars in. What's that? Oh, it's where it spins. And you don't have to do a U-turn,
you can drive in the garage and go out and you have to back up in a little driveway. And it's
just cool and you can put your Ferrari on it. Okay. We got to do rotisseries because we have 70%
women watching our show. We got to cater to them. This ain't a bunch of construction men.
We need floral print in the carpet. We need a cascading waterfall going down to a tub for a lady
to sit in. A man will never use it. And then I saw the ratings go. So if you see these bedrooms
and these bathrooms, I mean, I do, you know, 2000 square foot bathroom, just for the women,
because I know that they're watching and they're like, honey, at home, all my friends get in
trouble. They don't even have a toolkit. And they're like, bro, we tore it up really easily,
but now we can't put it back together. And I'm like, yeah, the demo is the easy part.
You know, you see us running through walls on TV, but it's, you got to put it back together.
Everyone leaves are like scratching their head. And that's it, man. We started catering to the
women and you can see all these great things instead of just like a normal kitchen or a renovation.
You'll see these crazy things that just helped the ratings blow through the roof. We have over
100 million viewers. And I just couldn't believe it. And I'm just, so it kept fueling me to get,
you know, get something new in the house that I can keep coming up with. That's bad ass. And
that's where we are today, man. I'm honored that they still got it. And they still wanted the,
you know, see the vanilla ice project. Yeah. I think it was the, I think people love a good
comeback. You know, and I think that's what it was. But if the house is suck, they suck.
Like when you, when I saw you on the first show I saw, I wasn't, I mean,
Amy's looking at the design choices, but I'm watching you. And I'm like,
damn, look at this guy, man. He's, this is a comeback. This is, that's what America's all
about. Right? Everybody loves a good redemption story. And, you know, so I think it was just
cool to see you thriving. Thank you. And yeah, and I'm glad the show's done well. It's fun to
watch. And, uh, and you know, you know, it's not like you're in a place, it's not like you're,
you're faking it. You know what you're doing. Yeah. I've seen those shows out there. You can
tell right away when they got a tool belt on and there's no tools in it. I was like, what is he got
as a prop? So, so when I'm reading the notes and I saw this as well in some old stuff, um,
you know, you, you saying that you had all these houses and that you had all this fortune and
that you had all this money in the bank when you hit rock bottom. So you had, but you had also
signed away some of the, some of the rights to your music, right? In multiple situations,
right? And you had, you had the, you know, I don't know what then what ended up being the
settlement on, on the, um, the deal with, uh, with Queen and them. So I mean, you know, you had,
you created this music, it was popular, but you ended up at some points in different times
having to give away some of the rights to some of it. So where did your fortune come from?
Was it still that successful that you still were able to enjoy the, you know, the fruits of the
labor? Or did you continue, continue after, you know, aside, take ice, ice, baby off the table.
Did you make your fortune with the rest of the work you did?
I have completely crushed it in real estate, like beyond what you could imagine,
like beyond even the ice, ice, baby, it's unreal. Real estate, you can print your own money,
you know that man, you hear the stories, people got to have a place to live. You know how I,
I, I, you know, who's a amazing, calculative guy is one of the greatest investors of in the
world, Warren Buffett, and he can calculate numbers real quick. And it's very simple.
And I listened to one interview he did when everybody thought he was crazy. And they said,
and it was 09 after the housing crunch went down the trains. So it was a, I think Pacific Railroad
train all across the country. He bought it. And his investment team said, you shouldn't buy this,
it's losing a billion dollars a year. You don't want to tank with it. It's let it
turn around and then buy it one of the way up. He's like, nah, this is simple for me.
I'm going to buy it right now. And it's at rock bottom because I calculated in the world,
when I was born, had less than 1.8 billion. And I'm still alive. And I'm at eight point
something billion. Now he calculated, he goes, people need goods, they need places to live,
and they need it. And these trains are going to be very valuable. And sure enough, he turned
out to be the greatest investor of all time. The trains make billions of dollars. And it's
been one of the greatest investments for him. And he owns all the trains. Yeah. So I mean,
I realized like, you know, no matter what, you, you hold on to any house 10 years,
even if you would have bought one in 08 when everybody bailed out. And they said,
foreclosure, short sale, we got to go just like our neighbor. If you would have just stayed and
paid and sold your house in 18, 10 years, you would have made money, a ton of it, and just
paid your mortgage. You should have never bailed. Now you're bankrupt, you're living and renting.
It's just a matter of this. Use your brain, man. And if you could just use it a little bit and,
and, you know, to stop looking through the windshield wipers and get you one of these
opportunities, just look at it one time. That's an opportunity. And that's how many that pass you
by one opportunity and not take it, man. And you got to run with it. And that's how you turn
dreams that never develop in anything into reality. And I know you got to commit.
That's all you, your car collection. Let's talk about it. So what's, you have a car that
dad only got two cars way back in the day. Yeah, you only got two cars. No, I only got two cars.
We need to talk about. Okay, let's talk about cars we can talk about. I got celebrity cars that
are cool, but only one celebrity car that I want to talk about you. And that's your daddy's car.
I mean, I still got my 5.0 Mustang, which is cool. Your very first one. Yeah,
still got that. That's awesome. I think people appreciate you. Oh, it still gives me a boner
when I drive it. But, but, but, but the, your daddy's car, this is how I learned about you and
your dad and the whole story. It's, you know, that's one of the most amazing stories ever written
with any racing of any form of anything at all, you know, from Ferrari to Fittipaldi's,
all your stories of these famous racers and Schumacher's and everybody. There is no bigger name.
Your dad has taken on and you of this race life, another
like Elvis, man. It's It is, it is. You are America's heartbeat, dude. And we love
you. I got goosebumps thinking about it, man. And I'm just excited as you, me coming here for it to
see you. And by the way, we got to get a picture because I'm hanging it up in the museum next to
the car, man. I told Wes on the way here, but I got your dad's car, man, that he first, his first
race car that he raced a V8 in. Yeah. And that's the Saturday night special. That's right. And that
was made by Ruth Geb. And Ruth Geb tried out three guys racers back then. And he pulled your dad
because he was badass at circle track dirt racing, six cylinders. And they pulled him out of there
and they said, let me test you out in this new form of racing, this endurance race. And not only did
he have the fastest lab time by far, he didn't burn up the brakes. He didn't blow up the engine. He
brought it in with finesse. And that's what they were looking for. And that was the start of his
career. And I'm like, God, man. And I read every story and dissected it about that. And I know that
number two car and I know that number three car and every development of every evolution along
the way. And I find it more fascinating the stuff that's not so out there. That's the early, early
parts. You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. And I just, I don't know, me and Wes and my boys,
we can sit around there and talk about it. Wes called me one night and he goes, bro,
you got to go down there. I said, I'm asleep. He goes, bro, go down there. I have, you know,
go down to the museum. I said, okay, got me out of bed literally because he read a story all night
long on that car. He says he had a paper clip and that paper clip would go, he peeled it open.
And so it was long and it would go down his race suit and he would pull it out and he had a little
bitty pen hole right above the steering wheel. I didn't believe it was there. And it, and you
could see it all scribbled up around it. I had to get the phone out and zoom in and look at it and
then there is a little hole there. And I guess it advanced the timing or something a little bit
by doing something there. And, uh, and it's in the story of the car, the history of it. And it
came with it. So I just thought it was cool. And I didn't believe him. And he had me out there in
my robe looking up and I was like, damn, bro, it is there. This is cool. So we find out little
things with that car and things they did just to win and, and get ahead. And, and I even remember
story about your, your dad borrowing some friend's car and his dad got mad and went out and raced it
and tore it up or something, brought it back. There's so many cool stories that are, you don't need
a phone. You don't need anything. You can just sit down and tell front porch stories all day long.
Yeah. And what a great American heroic story to, you know, to be a part of this great country we
live in. Absolutely. I mean, the Earnhardt name is Elvis Presley right up there with it, man.
I would agree that dad's, yeah, dad's, it's crazy, man. Just dad brother. It's you too, man. And you,
well, that story with you though, and how heart touching it is watching you grow up with him.
Yeah. Bro, I'm honored to be here with you, man, in the same room with you. Yeah, I appreciate that.
Yeah. So the car that you have was a Dodge kit car. And I met your sister today, man. Oh, yeah.
God, she looked just like your dad. I was like, the eyes in the face. And I'm like, oh my God,
I didn't know what to say, man. Yeah, she does. Sorry to cut you off. No, it's fine. He drove that car
at dirt track around here, not too far from here, Concorde Speedway. They were the, the
Petties and Dodge were trying to put together a kit car program that a racer could buy this car,
and it would come to the racer and they could be able to build it themselves.
And a lot, it was actually kind of successful for about four or five years, the kit car program.
Yeah. And they wanted, were going to test this car at Concorde and they wanted
Ralph Earnhardt to do it, but Ralph was busy and he suggested dad. And to your point, dad had been
running the modified division or the six cylinder division at Concorde. And so he goes out there
and chose up to test this car and did really well. And it kind of, it kind of was the,
it kind of was an important moment because it, the people that were working on that car had
some connections and it would, they would go back and say, man, Ralph's son's pretty decent.
Like we should kind of keep our eye on him. And that was, I think Ralph did that on purpose.
Like, yeah, I can't do it. Plant the seed to do it. And it ended up being a kind of the genesis
or the beginning of his, his career, but he'd only been racing for a couple of years really,
because I think it's happened to 73 or 73. Yeah. So pretty neat deal. I've seen you on
TV talking about that car, that blue car. You did. I hope you've seen it, man. That's so cool,
brother. It's my honor, man. My buddy Donny that works with me is my master carpenter. I came in
there one time. He goes, do you mind if I go see that car? I said, go ahead, brother. I said,
where's Donny, man? We've been outside. I said, where is he, man? He's still in there. He's still
in there. He walked in there with six pack. Six packs finished. I sit there and I looked at him.
I walked in and he said, Donny, you're all right. Turn around. He was in tears. I said,
what is going on, man? He goes, I'm having a moment with this car. The NASCAR nut,
old redneck from Carolina, just bad-ass dude carpenter, bad-ass carpenter. You see him on
the show with me. Build anything. He is huge, huge earn harder. Everything fan NASCAR. And he
was just sitting there having a moment and I was like, I realized what that car can do to a person
by just feeling it, the energy. And I have his seat too. I don't even know if you knew that.
So he was kind of narrow back then. I can't even fit in it. He was skinny dude. He was young back
then, but he was a little skinny and he got in there. I can't even fit in it. We had to remove
that seat and I set it up and I got it in the museum and I even kept the little liner that
same museum. What kind of museum you got? I got a car museum, a Ninja Turtle Museum
cars and 31 cars. Yeah. It's fun. I get a lot more. I got there about three the other
day. Really? I'm getting old trucks, man. I'm getting in the old crew cab trucks, 70s. Forge?
Forge. Yeah. I got into the square body Chevy's. Yeah. Like 70s or 80s. Crew cabs are bad-ass,
they're on the square bodies. Yes. OBS. That's the way to go. Forget the airbags. They've gotten
big, man. They're awesome. You could get a square body like a 77 or an 85 square body.
You could get those cheap like 10 years ago, man. They do the roof now. It's ridiculous.
Especially after they've announced eye recognition coming out in the new Superduties,
but they do have an eight liter. But I mean, they got all these new cars coming out with eye
recognition, no driving, lane changing and nobody wants that. I don't know why they're wasting
time and money on it. Yeah, I know. So you're still doing real estate. What does that operation
look like? So I basically pick and choose. I'm building a brewery right now, the Vanilla Ice
Brewery downtown. So you guys, if you get a chance to come over and go to that, that's Vanilla Ice
Brewery. I got about the old Masonic Temple. So it's got four floors and we're filming it.
So that'll be out there. You'll be seeing that. We just finished two seasons of Vanilla Ice Project
in St. Augustine, Florida, where we do a lot of history too, because there's a lot of history
there. We showcase a lot of that, the Fort and the cool stuff and history of America and Florida.
And two houses we built on the beach on A1A Beachfront Avenue, ironically. And on this intro,
this one, I'm driving down the beach A1A in my 5.0 and I don't pull it out for nothing. It don't
drive. My cars, I don't drive them. They just sit there and I'm driving that 5.0 out for this one
because it's on A1A and I'm serious. I had a boner, man. I'm driving that thing down and I'm
pulling in. I'm like, I'm on A1A. I feel like this is 1989 and I'm on A1A and I had a moment,
you know, like Donny had with this car and I'm in my 5.0 and it was just ironic, but we used that
footage for the show. So that's the opening of the show and I get out with a tool belt.
How many houses are you working on at once? So right now, I've probably got 34 I'm
doing right now, but when you do bigger ones, you do less of them. When you do smaller ones,
you do more of them. And a lot of them, I don't do spec homes anymore. I don't do them for clients
anymore. I just do them for myself and then I sell them, you know, but I'm just gotten really good
at it and I don't like to spread myself too thin. But for a lot of my friends, they want,
I have them backed up and they wait for me. I need that turntable. I put in these special
elevators. They're pneumatic. So it's like the bank teller, they want those. I got them lined up.
So you have to wait for me and they go, we'll wait, we'll wait. I need those garage doors. So
everything they see, I do on the show, all my friends that they want, they want it.
And so when you come in, you send your boys over and I send my boys over only for my friends,
man. They got all the fancy garage doors and cool car lifts and turntables.
And you, are you moving from house to house, just kind of checking in on progress? Are you,
are you physically still like as we see on the show, are you at the house doing some of the
physical work? Yeah, I do a little other physical work because it's fun, you know, and I like to
get out there and mix it up with the boys and you can actually get a better sense of what's going on
and how the finish line is looking and everything comes in more focus when you're not traveling and
doing, you know, traveling, traveling a bunch. Oh yeah, I do the I love the nineties tour.
That's right. Tell me about that. So the I love the nineties tour is me, you got Salt and Peppa,
Tone Loak, Young MC, Color Me Bad, Naughty by Nature, Montell Jordan. Has that started?
It's been going for eight years. We've haven't stopped. So we're supposed to go about eight
months. I thought this was a new thing. I started this tour because I thought like a DJ and I'm
like, you know, let's put this together and put all the songs that you would hear at a wedding
today so that everybody can take me to a show. I say I'm going to go to a show. When does it
start? How long does it last? How many headline acts are there or whatever? Yeah, all of that. I
just said and that's the I love the nineties tour. I had like, yeah, no, it's four hours and it's
the most awesome. You can't sit down. Everybody's a teenager. You'll recognize every song. How long
is each person set? 20 to 30 starts off shorter ones and then as the acts go on, they get longer
and then I play an hour and it's amazing, man. I mean, you'll dance like you're in a Zumba class
and you'll be like, I'm a grown ass man. Go ninja, go ninja, go. You don't care. Not for the night.
You're not a grown ass man. You're a teenager in high school again and you really live in it.
So that's been successful nine years. We're in stadiums right now. We have the highest gross
alcohol sales rate of any concert going right now because there's an expendable income of people
that got the babysitters at home and they are living like a teenager for the night. Damn.
It's unbelievable. The success of it is really taken off, but I have to tell the network and
everybody that and the, you know, booking agents. I said weekends only because on Monday I got to
be my real age and I got to go into construction life and start, you know, finishing what I got
going. When do you relax? You know, I took a time management course, went to Hawaii and took this
and it teaches you a lot. How do you have time for everything? Well, time management course came in
and they said, you need to free up your life of all these things that occupy your time that you
don't even know you're doing. How many people ever wait in the line take over an hour to get
there from start to finish. And at the end of your life, the guy that's presenting the course,
he holds it up and he goes, look how many years you've wasted on your life just doing something
that doesn't even pay you. What else could you do with that time? Yeah. And then they show you
other things in life that you might do that, you know, how much time you sit there in a car or
something, just all kinds of little things that freeze up time. And once you free those up,
it gives you free time, more time to do the things you want to do. Real estate, if you want to be
successful or go start a new business, have time to do other things that you never had time for,
that's what it's all about. You still ride bikes? I still ride bikes. I got that electric one,
the Stark Varian. Oh my God, it's a rocket. Drag Grace any bike out there and smoke them.
I told Jeremy McGrath the other day, he says, I got a 500 for you. You can come do this whole
shot challenge. I said, 500, can I do it in the Stark? He goes, that wouldn't be fair.
I said, you're Jeremy McGrath. He goes, that Starks fast. You know, I'm talking about that
electrical, right? Oh my God, yeah. It's a game changer. They outlawed it in the Moat and the
Supercross. This electric bike will just destroy a KX450 like it's sitting still. So you're
traveling around doing concerts, you're still doing real estate. If you take a vacation,
where do you go? Well, we got a vacation house in St. Augustine. A lot of the houses on the show,
I don't sell them. You don't see the sell. It's not a flip house show. It's just the A to B. It's
zero to hero. We show the renovation. There's no sale. So I keep the houses. Like I told you,
the 10 year thing. So I keep them and I got four of them sitting in line in St. Augustine. That's
where our vacation is on the beach on A1A. And I got a dock and a boat and we get away, no traffic.
And it's just me and my little eight year old, my wife, and we just have a good time on the beach,
marinating. Throw my phone away, go back to the 90s. The best time ever. Tell a bunch of stories,
do little cookouts. Yep. What about being a dad? Greatest thing in life. Best accomplishment I've
ever had, by far. What does she like to do? My daughters, all of them, they're great in different
ways. I have three and took on another of four girls. Yeah, 28, 26, 16, and seven.
We have big birthdays for the seven. She's the boss. She's Priscilla's her name. We're huge Elvis
fans. So we, me and mommy went to Graceland and pretty much made out in every room and took a
selfie. He's like, yes, I know we're in the jungle room. Kiss me. And it's like, what do we
name our daughter? We're like Priscilla. It's like done. So it worked out. But yeah, we're
geeked out on all that kind of stuff. Mommy's a car girl, which is rare to find a woman that likes
cars. And I was like, this is a keeper, man. She's got cooler cars than I got. I buy her cars. Yeah,
she's got 59 Cadillac convertible, the Barretts. Oh man, cars that are just like,
whoo. And hers don't leak oil and mine all do.
I got all the engines. There's better not legal. That's so funny. I, uh, I'm an Elvis fan too.
I've had a room in my house for, I don't know, 30 years called the Elvis room. It's the guest
bedroom. I gotta come over, man. Everything in it's Elvis. The headboards, the headboards, the
cake with the, you let people stay on the back. Oh yeah. Yeah. It's got all kinds of Elvis memorabilia
in it. Hell yeah. I've been big Elvis. I used to go to my mama's house, um, dad, you know,
dad's mom on my, on my dad's side. And I'd go to her house when I was a little boy. She had Elvis
playing all the time. She was like that little, you know, that teenager in the front row screaming
at the concert. She was a diehard king. And so, um, yeah, I would always hear him, his music
when I was little. So I just became, and he's got some great songs. I mean, they're great songs.
He's the greatest man. We have a king. America's got a king. It's called Elvis, you know, just live
it up. That's him. Ain't nobody, you know, there's the prince. Do you have, I'm sure you have some
pretty cool memorabilia and stuff. You got any cool Elvis? I do. I wish I had more. I have a car
that Dean Martin owned that I bought from Dean Martin off Hollywood cars. And this car Elvis,
he loaned it to Elvis. And the story is Elvis was, uh, they were driving this car and back then in
56, it's a continental. It's not a Lincoln. It's continental. It's really cool car. Uh, very expensive
car at $14,000. Uh, that was the most expensive car in the world in 1956 because every car, even
the top Cadillac was $4,000. So it was like, why would anybody buy this? So all the celebrities
bought them. It's probably the most famous Elvis car photo that you see with him is that car.
And I got that car and they parked it. They had, they were driving drunk and they
parked it on the actual Vegas golf course where Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe were supposedly
dating. And they had an airplane flying around in surveillance trying to film it.
And they didn't know they were drunk. They parked that car there. It was there for a week and a
half. They forgot where they'd left it. And the groundskeeper came back and found that car and
said, there's somebody's cars out here and we don't know what's going on. And they found that was
Dean Martin. And that's the car I got. The rat pack's been in it. Marilyn Monroe's been in it.
I got all these paperwork on it and that's one of the cool cars I got. So that's kind of my Elvis,
closest Elvis memorabilia. My buddy Gino has his glasses, his bracelet and he's friends with the
ginger girl that was the last person dating him. And he flies to her house and somewhere in Tennessee
and buys all this stuff that she's had for all these years. He's bought the ring, the bracelet,
the glasses that say TCB, the necklace and a gun. Damn. All Elvis. I go over there and hold it,
man. And it's like, kind of like when I feel look at your dad's car, you know,
it's that energy about it. You know, you feel the presence and that energy there. And you go,
like, God, I just got to try them glasses on. Man. And you know, and then he shows the picture of
him wearing them and you know, you're touching them. It's a, it's some, it makes you feel some
type of way, man. I agree. Magic. Yeah. What about you? What do you got? tell me your
Elvis stuff? Well, I hesitate to say this, but I've got a, I've got a framed autograph and I
don't, I mean, you never know what that's, if that's just legit or not, but it's, it's not like I'm
ever going to, you know, I don't need anybody to believe it or not believe it. It's my right. It's
whatever it matter. It means something to me, but some, the person that gave it to me swears up
and down. It was legit. They didn't sell it to me. They just gave it to me knowing I was a fan.
Yeah. And so, I mean, that, that to me, I'm pretty pumped about.
All, most of the other stuff I have are like little cantinas and stuff of him.
Yeah. You know, my memo had a bunch of that stuff and I got a few of them.
You call your memo. That's what I call my, my grandma, my memo. That's the best killer, man.
Yeah. So, um, yeah. I, um, so do you have like a plan? Do you have a vision of what,
what the next five years and the next 10 years look like? I told you when you got here,
you look like you're in great shape. So like, uh, and I, and we talked about not quitting,
not stopping. That's for sure. So, but I, you know, you may not stop, but you may shift gears.
Yeah. So I don't know. Um, I try to like not think too far in the future,
everything that I've tried to think or whatever, it just went a different direction. You think
you're going to do this and then all of a sudden you're building houses. Huh? You know, life can,
you never know who you, yesterday's history, tomorrow's a mystery. You know, you never know
what tomorrow's going to bring. You could meet someone that could change your life,
you know, you could get married, you could be your job opportunity and you're living in a
different place. So for me, I just say, you know what, I set little goals and stuff here and there,
but who knows what tomorrow's going to bring day by day, man. Yeah. You're, um, I've been
seeing you a little bit on the, on the news here lately talking about the great American state
fair. Yeah. Yeah. It's all over the place, man. They got me, uh, wanting to not feel proud to be
an American. And why am I not allowed to be proud to be an American? I feel like I should be,
and I'm going to stand up for that. And I am me and that's, I can't speak for all my other friends
and whatever their reasoning behind what their choices are as theirs. I speak for myself and I
feel honored, proud. And, um, my mom thinks it's the greatest thing, you know, and I don't know why
there's such a fuss. I'm, you know, when you're from the nineties, like me or something, you just
can't understand why everything is so seriously taken so serious today. For sure. Like I really
feel sorry for these kids 30 and under because they are so ripped in every direction, confusion-wise
with the social media and all the stories and the news channels trying to divide the country.
People forget we're all one. We're all fly the same flag, man, and we can celebrate this country
and we can sell it without, and as a musician and an entertainer, we're not, I don't feel like we
should be political. We're just going to celebrate turning 250. It shouldn't be that big of a deal,
right? Well, it's a big deal for the country. That's what I'm saying, man. It's just a birthday.
Let's have, let's have fun. We cannot let 250 come and go. 250. Let's go. Let's celebrate it once
in a lifetime, man. Well, I'm excited for you, man. Thank you. Um, the, uh, of all the bands,
I gotta ask you a couple more questions. Of all the bands that you toured with, opened for,
um, who was your favorite? Who was, who were the coolest? Who were the, who was the person or
the group that treated you the best? Ah, when I was opening up for them. Anytime. Opening up,
playing with, touring with anyone. I got a lot of great friends out there and we just lost one,
Rob Bass, and, um, he was a great friend of mine for over 30 years, you know? Dude, that it takes
to, I had to buy multiple copies of that cassette because it would start squeaking after I played
this and dance like crazy doing that. That was, that was the real hyper dancing too. That was,
man, I had to be in good shape. The beat on that song. Yes. Had everybody. Everybody. Big hit.
Yeah, it was. I got tone low out there with me. He's one of my, we've been knowing each other
forever. He's a great dude, man. I saw him play in, uh, Alabama, probably 2000 and funky cold
Medina. The best. I love it. Listening to all the songs you grew up to and, you
know, the ones that have passed, you know, Bismarck E and, um, we had, you know, Tupac was a friend.
We've had, you know, so many have passed, uh, ODB from the Wutang Clan and, you know, Shock G.
So many people that I know were on, we were all together on the ship hop cruise even and they're
all not with us no more. It's kind of strange, you know, and then Rob just fell off. So for
me, it's like, you got to make the best of every moment and, you know, enjoy this life because
it's over quick, man. You got to enjoy this ride. Closer to, we're closer to the finish line.
Well, you got to start thinking about that. You get wiser as you go and you say, I got to start
enjoying this more. I mean, it's an option. And, and if you, if you know that you, you start leaning
towards, let's go have some fun. Yeah. Let's enjoy this life. Let's go to smiles are contagious.
And if you sit around in the sorrow and soaking in all these negative things,
you'll live that life and it'll be a miserable life and you'll never go dancing.
Got to dance. Well, we'll keep dancing, man. That's it. I appreciate you. Hey, Rob. I appreciate
you. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you. I appreciate you, man. And we got to get a picture. We will.
And, uh, appreciate you, man. This is such an honor to be here and tell these stories. And,
I've been looking for this, looking forward to this forever. So appreciate you, but
Robert Matthew Van Winkle. Hey, what a cool name. Nice. Cool. The other one.
All right, man. That was a great interview with Rob vanilla ice.
He probably likes to go by Rob, I suppose. I didn't ask him that, but vanilla ice,
everybody knows him is that he's global. Um,
he was, uh, you know, I've, I've met the guy multiple times. I grew up, uh,
when his music blew up, I was a kid in school and, um, I'm glad he brought up Rob base because,
it takes two was one of my favorite songs. Um, I still listen to that every now and then.
It's one of those one songs, you know, all the words too, but, uh,
just a lot of fun to talk to him and trying to get him here for a while. We've met on multiple
occasions and I'll, I'll tell you this. Um, I guess it was probably 2006 or so. I went, uh,
was in Vegas, went to a club with a bunch of my buddies. He's, we talked about it. He's playing
he's playing on stage probably about 10, 15 feet away from me and they took a break
just a little five minute break and he'd come over to the table and we bullsh** for a minute
and then they called him back to the stage and, um, I remember that. I was like, Hey man, I remember
us, uh, I remember us being there and I remember you, I'd been drinking, but I remember us being
there and I remember you playing and it was badass and you played ice, ice, baby, the rock
version. I'd never heard it, but it was like really good. It was kind of like had a little
corn vibe to it. Amy's like, y'all, Amy's like, I saw a picture of y'all that night,
a picture in you and him that y'all took together and I'm like, dang, I don't remember taking a
picture with him. And he goes, he says this after we got up from the table. He goes, yeah,
we took a picture. You actually came in saying ice, ice, baby on, on the stage and I was like,
I sang ice, ice, baby on the stage at the club. He goes, yes. I'm like, oh, he goes,
you were feeling pretty good. But, um, so it's cool to get him on the stage or on the, on the
show and, uh, we talked about the Earnhardt car that he has and I've been so curious about his,
I'll be straight. I'll be, I've been so curious about his wealth and his, uh, real estate and how
he did that. I, he's just, it's just one of those, it's one of those stories that ain't supposed to
end well. Man, this guy blew up, um, whether you, whether he ended up getting taken advantage of or
whatever, he ended up getting messed up on drugs and, and gotten a really, really bad spot, almost
died. And sometimes you can come out of that and just at least exist, you know, and, and have
somewhat of a productive life. But not a lot of people do. And not only did he not, not only did
he exist, he, he became richer than he'd ever dreamed of becoming through his hard work in
real estate and the, and the studying, you know, he talked about going to, going and doing and,
and learning. Yeah, Scott, you gotta understand, he's, he's got this, he's recognizable no matter
where he goes and what he does. He had to at some point realize like, if I go out there and do this,
if I extend myself, go into real estate, go into these classrooms and, and, and learn this. Everybody
in there is going to know about ice, ice, baby. They're everybody, everybody meets is going to
tell them about this when they heard it, what they thought about it. And it's gotta be exhausting.
But he didn't, he kept, he just found, you know, he was motivated by the, by the financial success
or rewards on the other end. And, um, damn it, dude, he just did it. And he's now very successful.
Yeah, I don't even understand it. I don't even know if I'd have the guts to cast a line, you
know, like he did, he cast the line and he baked the hook, cast the line and reeled in to all these
big fish. And now he's doing amazing and still gets to go singing songs for people that love to hear
them. So he still gets the stance, you know, stage, get that adrenaline rush that he got
as a, as a entertainer. Pretty cool. So, um, thanks for him coming through. Uh, 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 and we'll see you tomorrow. Check out dirty mo media on Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok.
About this episode
Vanilla Ice (Rob Van Winkle) joins Dale Jr. to connect the dots between pop stardom and a surprising “second life.” They revisit how Dale Jr. last saw him at Pocono, and how Vanilla Ice describes massive “Ice Ice Baby” impact—plus the low points that followed. The conversation turns to resilience: motocross, injuries, near-death perspective, and staying active. It also covers reinvention through real estate and even a TV production detail about adding a “rotisserie for cars.”
Original notes
Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down for an in-depth conversation with one of the most iconic figures of the 1990s, multi-platinum recording artist Rob Van Winkle, better known as Vanilla Ice. After being raised in the Dallas, Texas area, Rob found his way into the drastically different worlds of motocross racing and breakdancing. These uncommon interests helped fuel a competitive nature in his teenage years, and he would soon pivot to an interest in poetry and hip hop. Rob explains that he developed performing skills at a local mall where he’d breakdance and freestyle rap for shoppers and onlookers. His dancing abilities and daredevil nature would eventually land him on stage at a local hip hop nightclub in Dallas called City Lights, where he won over the club’s management and audiences alike.
Rob would sign on with a manager and record label and record his iconic song “Ice Ice Baby”, which he had originally penned at age 16. By age 20, he had sold six million records and had the best-selling hip hop recording at that time. But international stardom had its price, and Rob fell into the clutches of drug abuse and was taken advantage of by several professionals around him, including his old record label. Rob would step away from the music industry for some time and thrust himself into the world of real estate, where he discovered a love for home renovation. This passion would eventually morph into the long-running television show “The Vanilla Ice Project”, which he reveals was just recently picked up by HBO. Dale and Rob’s conversation covers his redemption arc, his wild car collection, which includes a 1970s Dale Earnhardt Sr. dirt car, and how the rewards of fatherhood outweigh the riches of fame.
Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
The Dale Jr. Download
Dirty Mo Media, SiriusXM
0:00
77:21