Jay Hedgecock on Racing Dale Earnhardt in the 70s

He was the one you didn't want to your back bumper on the last lap because he was going to do whatever. Because he was, what I told somebody about your dad one time was he was not content to run second or third. I mean, he was going to win the race if he could win the race. He didn't race, I don't think, for money. He raced because he liked to race. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half. I don't know if we've ever argued. Did I piss you off over the weekend? I'm still sour that I wasn't the best man at your wedding. Who was your best man, Dale? TJ. TJ. You don't need a cool vest for that race. What are you thinking? Get him, TJ. That's the way it's starting to show. All right, then. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. here for the Dale Jr. Download. Welcome to the Arby's studio. Arby's has got a new meat in three box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We had the meats and today we have the guest segment. We got a great guest coming in today that I'm really excited about. Maybe some of you heard this name, but maybe some of you haven't. Jay Hedgecock is going to be a guest. Jay Hedgecock is a chassis builder. Builds a lot of cars in the short track community. Builds chassis. We bought chassis from him for quite a while now with our late-mile stock stuff. Josh Berry drove his cars, and he has lots of cars in the Cars Tour and across the southeast, building all sorts of stuff. But his story is pretty cool. Started racing, building his own cars back in the 70s. My dad drove his cars a couple times at the short tracks. We'll talk about that. I've seen the photos, have no idea about the stories. he was a witness to some of dad's shenanigans on the short track uh uh courses around the the southeast here when dad was trying to cut his teeth and get his break in nascar um jay built cup cars for dad richard petty um all sorts of people so it's gonna be a lot of fun learning about his story this is a guy that um loved to work on cars loved building them and has made his life doing that, doing just that. And I've seen him. So I bought cars. I bought Hedgecock chassis for years. Didn't really know Jay. Couldn't have picked him out of a lineup. Over the last few years that I've got into the Cars Tour ownership and been going to the track and competing and racing, I've started to meet Jay and see him at the track. And I've wanted to know about this connection with Dad and obviously his story as someone in the industry. So I'm excited about this. This is my personal choice to bring him in. And hopefully you'll enjoy the conversation. Let's bring him in the room, Jay Hedgecott. I'm excited about this. I have gotten to, I don't know you well as I'd like, but I know who you are and I know your name and I've known your name for a long time because you built some really great race cars for my race team at Junior Motorsports. And I recognized your name from some connections to my dad back in the day. It made me want to learn more about you. So thanks for coming out today. Well, good. I'm glad to be here. So Jay Hedgecock has been a chassis builder for how many years now? I built my first race car 55 years ago. Yeah. And I was 15 years old. Yeah. Your dad raced or was involved in racing and drove, I guess, the winning car, one of the winning cars in a feature to the Daytona Beach course and then drove it back home. Tell me that story. Yeah. My dad used to hang around with Bill Blair. Yes. Bill Blair Sr. Yeah. And this was before he got married and had children and stuff. But the year that he won the Daytona 500 is in 1953, and my father drove the Oldsmobile from High Point to Daytona, and then they got it prepped for the race. They changed it, took the headlights out of it, and took the exhaust off of it and put different wheels and tires on it. And they won the race, and then they put it all back together and drove it back to High Point the next day. Wow. Things were quite different back then. So you Was your dad Your earliest memories I suppose of your childhood Your dad was involved in racing Back then He knew a lot of people There was a lot of modified racing Around High Point, Winston-Salem and stuff And there was some guys over in High Point Ken Rush, Harold Rush And Paul Walton And they had repair shops All within 10 feet of each other In a little parking lot And they all had modified cars. And my dad would take me over there. And, you know, the one thing I remember when I was a kid, we got home one night and I asked my dad, I said, what was that in that 55-gallon barrel sitting in the shop? It had all been glass bottles in it. And it turned out it was a beer bottle. And that was the one thing I remember. Back then they ran coupes and coaches and fuel injection and stuff. And it was cool. I mean, I remember they used to let me sit in while dead in and piddled. Yeah. And so you wanted to build your own car. I always wanted to build my own cars And then I started racing midgets when I was 15 years old Micro midgets Micro midgets Yeah, where at? There was a place at Union Cross Speedway Yeah Between Winston and High Point I raced there And then I'd race something in Concord And you built this car yourself? The very first one I had I got it out of my uncle's junkyard My dad and my uncle built it How'd they build it? What do you pull out of the junkyard to build one of the things? Well, back then, they hand-built it in their shop, but it was all like round-cubing and made a sheet metal body, and they raced it around. Different people drove it. Max Barrier used to race. It recently passed away. He drove it, and Ken Rush drove it, and they quit racing it. They quit racing it and went to the junkyard? Went to the junkyard, and I found it in the bulldozer junkyard, I call it, and drug it out, and I got it ready, and then we raced it, and eventually I built another one a couple years later from the ground up I built. Yeah. And so how long did you do that before you, you know, what was the next step? Well, I raced those until I was probably from 15 until I was 19, and then when I was. What kind of racetracks are you competing on? It was like 10th and 8th of a mile, kind of like Millbridge, dirt. There was one in Concord. It was asphalt. I got you. We would go there. And your dad's helping you, taking you? Yeah, they would go with me. What were y'all towing? We didn't tow nothing. We'd put it in the back of the pickup truck. Yeah. I had a 64 Chevrolet pickup truck. My dad bought brand new. We still have it. Yeah. And we would put it in the back of the truck and go to the racetrack and get a couple people to help unload it. And so it was good. So you get up to around 19. You were going to Davidson College? Yeah, Davidson County Community College. Okay. You were enrolled in the General Motors Institute. That's where I was going to transfer to. I was going to take two years of college preparatory classes. What was your ambition? In that moment, were you thinking about going into automotive service repairs? No. What was it? It was just racing. You were going to learn all that and then still go race. Right. You got a job with Tex Pal. Right. Tell me who Tex Pal is. Tex Powell is one of the smartest people I've ever met. You know, he's responsible for me knowing a lot. For folks listening, if you're in the industry, you hear Tex Powell's name a lot over the years. So, yeah, just try to help us understand the individual he was. Yeah, he was really obviously from Texas. And he came up here, and he had a shop in Asheboro. And I happened to be down there with a friend picking up some parts one day. And I'd been working after school at a sheet metal shop. I mean, I was cheap, but a machine shop. And they taught you a lot of stuff about drill, sharpening drill bits and stuff. And when I got there, Tex was trying to drill a hole in something. It was making a terrible noise and squealing. And I just told him, I said, I can sharpen that before you fill me too. And so I sharpened it for him, and then he drilled right through it. And he said, can you sharpen some more before you leave? And so I did. And then he said, what else can you do? I said, well, I can run your lathe and your mill. and he said, well, you want a job? I said, well, I'm in school right now. And so then kind of worked around to where I worked some and then I just quit school and worked there full time. And that's when we was building Benny Parsons cars that LG DeWitt owned. Really? Yes. They were in there. They were in there. What were y'all doing to them? Well, we put clips on them, whatever they needed, you know, help. What other business was he doing in that shop? He was starting the transmission and rear-end business. That's what he was famous for. Famous for, yeah. Yeah, and he was doing that in conjunction with building race cars, too, repairing race cars and stuff. But the big deal was just looking after LG stuff, you know, and then we did some stuff for some different people. You know, there was a couple people that we took Daytona and stuff that they ran. Oh, you'd build the cars or whatever and take them to Daytona? for speed weeks and stuff. The Tex-Pow would become synonymous with transmissions, rearing gears. And I mean, if you raced Cup in the 80s, you had his rear ends, you had his trans, everybody ran his stuff. He was the guy. So you worked there for a while. That must have been quite helpful to be able to be under the tutelage of not only Tex-Pow, but all the other individuals. Who else was working there? Any other recognizable names? Well, Steve Mill worked there. Oh, yeah. He left, and I was still there. Yep. And he went on to work at the Pettys and Jack Roush and stuff. And a lot of the guys that worked down there, there wasn't a lot of us that worked there. It was like two or three at a time. And there was one guy, we called him Zoomer, and he worked in this racing since he left the Tex, and Tex closed down, but he's recently passed away. but uh it was just there's a lot of a lot of people would come in and out you would meet and stuff yeah you know uh waddle wilson used to come up there because he built the motors for lg yeah back then yeah so see him quite a bit um the uh you got hired to drive for cliff stewart right cliff owned a late model sportsman car he owned late model sportsman and cup cars right Grand National car that was a sportsman. I guess this is in, you were 18? I was like 20 years old. Okay. And this would have been right around 70? 77. 77. So who drove his cup car back then? I know eventually he'd get the Gatorade deal in 80 or something, 81 or something. But he had Ricky Rudd. I think Rusty Wallace drove his car for a year or so with the Algegard sponsorship. but who was driving his cup cars back then at the time daryl bryant was driving them i got you daryl bryant he drove them uh they were the number 50 cars and uh they had three or four cup cars and two or three sportsman cars and his son was friend of mine they we were within a couple years of being the same age and lived in the neighborhood and uh what's his name howard stewart okay he owned uh stewart components where they make water pump fuel yes and stuff like that The Stewart logo that was on race cars forever. Right. Yeah. And so he come to my shop one night, and I was building a modified car. I wanted to race a modified. And Waddell sold me a 427 that they run the big blocks back then. And I was building a modified car, and Howard showed up one night, and he said, you know, Daddy's got all these race cars? And I said, yeah. He said, you want to drive them? And I said, yeah, sure, I'll drive them. He said, I'm serious. I said, he said, I'm going to bring one over tomorrow then if you want to race. I said, we're going to race. He said, we'll go to Carraway. I said, when? He said, this weekend. Holy crap. Like, oh, God. You know, so he showed up with a 69 Chevelle, and we messed with it and got, I got more, I get the seat in there, fitted and all. And back then it was kind of like when your dad first started, he had a Mustang seat, put sides on it, and that's what was in the car at the time. And so we raced that car the rest of the year. In the very last race we were running the thing, it got total loss at Franklin County. And so then we started building. What happened? It was a late afternoon race, and it was, you know, sun going down, and we were running, and nobody could see good enough to see there was a car spun in the corner. And I went flying in the corner, and I locked the brakes up and slid, and I just slid up against him, and I was getting ready to put it in reverse, and about that time, Tommy Houston, he didn't see. He couldn't see for the sun, and he hit me wide open in the back. Man. And so that little fellow got there. What was the racing at the local tracks like Carraway and so forth like comparable to today? It was a lot. There was a lot – there's so much people are able to watch TV that it's harder to get full crowds like you did back then. Back then we would have 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 people a night carry away in places. But it was – the racing was kind of a bit different back then that he was more, I call it, gentleman-like. You know, there wasn't a lot of bump and runs. you know if it was a bump and run it usually got taken care of the next corner yes you know i mean that's what your dad was involved in one of them in one of my cars one night yeah it was just a lot different you know everybody nobody was really making a living i made a living doing it they actually i was fortunate if i got paid a salary and a percentage when i was 21 years old what was it you remember they give me 500 a week to work on them and then i got 40 percent of what's it what you won. Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah. $500 a week back then. Incredible. Right. What would you attribute in your life or career that got you that opportunity? Just Howard and them, you know, just, uh, I mean, Tex taught me so much that I knew what I was doing, working on race cars at a young age. Yeah. And it was, Were you working on their cup cars as well, prepping all that stuff and helping them with everything? Yeah. Yeah. At Texas place. Well, when you went to, uh, Stewart's Cliffs. When you went over there to drive for him, were you helping him? Were you driving for him? Were you working there? Were you? They brought everything to my shop. Everything. We just took the sportsman cars. We didn't bring the cup cars. We just brought sportsman cars, and then we worked on my shop. Did you have, was it just you driving his cars, or did some other dudes drive it? The only guy that drove it besides me when I was there with a, now I drove them all there, and then Morgan Shepard took over, and then the next car that I drove for a guy out of Lexington, I built two cars and your dad drove one. Yes. And then David Pearson drove the other ones at some. Yeah. They do special events. How come you, how come, I guess, what happened with Cliff where Morgan come along? You know, you just want him changing other guards, I guess you'd say. The problem we had was that my cars were way better than my driving was at the time. I was, you know, a year into driving a stock car, and all I knew was you got to run as fast as you can every lap. It looked good for three-quarters of the race. And then, you know, unless you could get tires, you know, back then, back then we could change tires whenever you wanted to. I know. It's crazy. And then unless you had a good costume flag. How come, guys, so today we run, you know, the Cars Tour and late model stocks, and you build a lot of chassis that compete in our series. um you know we run a four tire race you start to race you run 125 laps on the same set back in the 70s and you know when sam hard and butch linley and those guys were racing every single week up and down you know the east coast how were they able to afford doing that well back then the tires were 300 a set yeah but that's i mean the month that was it was still expensive for that time frame still expensive but i mean and there were some guys had tire deals yeah we had we had a partial tire deal, I call it. You know what I mean? We would, I don't know the whole extent to it. And then there were multiple different manufacturers, and Firestone was really good for a while. If you didn't have Firestones, you weren't going to be able to win. Yeah. Things like that. Firestones were the tire to run at Fayetteville. Oh. Fayetteville was hard on tires, and that was, when you went to Fayetteville, you had to have Firestone. You know, went to Goodyear's, when you Carraway, Hickory, places like that you know you was on on the good years but i was i was friends with tom parnell who was a good year dealer yeah and he and so i pretty much stuck to the good years yeah i mean i just couldn't you know i couldn't kind of he was too nice to us you know if they got a new tire out they wanted somebody to try it because they didn't they didn't present nothing to no officials they just said hey here's tire here's tires go run it you know yeah and then sometimes they say don't stack them all four high. Why? Because they might be two inches higher than their normal set. Because they're wider. That's hilarious. So you ran with Stewart from 77 through 81. You had a seventh at the Cardinal 500 Martinsville in 77. You had strong finishes of fourth at the 500, the Cardinal 579, and the Dogwood 500 in 81. Track champions, chips at Carraway in 79 and 80. You ran a Grand American race at Charlotte in 79. When do you meet my dad? I knew him from just racing when I started racing. He'd bring his car around, Gary Hargett's car. That's right. He drove that around. And I would see him then and talk to him some, you know. What was the opinion? Now, no bullsh**, straight up. You can tell me the truth. What was the general opinion of him in 77, 78, when he was carrying his short track car around right before he got up into the cup deal? I mean, he was the one you didn't want to your back bumper on the last lap because he was going to do whatever. Because he was – what I told somebody about your dad one time was when he drove my car and i know he was getting five ten thousand dollars to come race it and he didn't have to take a chance but he was not content to run second or third i mean he was going to win the race if he could win the race and i he didn't race i don't think for money he raced because he liked to race yeah and that's and that's the way i mean he was i mean he did whatever he had to do to get to the front you know i mean he was driving my car at martinville one time and I was running and I qualified in front of him. Well, he was, back then they had restart. When you went into turn three, it was every man for himself. Leader could go. Well, you single file, so you would jump to the outside, whatever you wanted to do. And that one time, I don't know if you know Ronnie Revis, who was B&R engines. Anyway, he was my spotter. Caution come out and he said, Dale's making about five spots per restart on the outside before they come off of turn four. And he said, so just watch. He's about six cars back. He said won you jump beside this guy in front of you and see if you can pick up some spots So I did it when they started in three i jumped outside and about time we started off off the corner ronnie said outside outside three wide the guy was in my door pushing me and then your dad wound up hitting the wall comes off the wall messes up a rim how to make a pit stop and come up at the race so we come over And he said, I said, I tried. I said, I didn't think you was going to get that far up in that short a period of time. And I didn't mean to get you in the wall. And he said, hey, he said, I'd have moved you in the wall too if you'd have been in the middle. So he ends up driving your car. I know I've seen pictures of this, you know, your car at Martinsville with dad's name on it. And then there's a picture of him at Carraway. Is that the only two times that he drove your car? That's only two times he drove it. That was 81? No, that was 1979 when he took over to Austerlin. Really? 79 he did that. Had a yellow helmet. Yep. Yep. So he's got quite the reputation having raced through 76, 77, 78, running all the short track races. I got so many pictures of him running his Nova all around chasing y'all. and uh like how does the conversation start for him to come drive your car or you you know did you call him did he call you no actually the the track promoter russell hack he called us and said hey he said i'd like to bring dale down here and let him drive your car your second car if y'all with you know fine with it but i didn't own them i just built them got paid and so they called the owner bob sweat and said hey you know work out a deal you know and i'm sure you know five ten thousand dollars drive it and um you know the the night he drove it to caraway i mean it was it was a big race you know 200 laps you know and that night there i had to race one i was about half straight away ahead and him and sam were going at it like tooth and nail people were what they wouldn't watch nothing but them too and so it would come down about five or six laps to go and I spotter says you got about a half straight away just be careful and so I run another lap I come around I get the back straightaway gate and I look up to see where they're at and when I look back down all I see is three foot wide strip of oil and water a guy blew a motor going into three no caution lights no nothing while I let go of the gas thinking please just let me do it well it just is like it sucked into the line of the oil I hit him head on then the caution comes out and so they have a restart with four to go and him and sam are going at it i i just watched a minute of it i thought this is not going in well because one of them move one one in the next one and then the other one next to him so come down the white flag and your dad's leading goes into one sam moves him up the hill they go down the back straight away and your dad makes a bonsai move to move him they both kind of spin and then your dad tries to go to the outside and sam knocks it out of gear or clutches it and come back up and kill it's him the guy running 10th wins the race oh crap and so when the race is over with i mean there was probably five six seven thousand people there yeah and there's pictures of people standing up and i've talked to some of them they said you know the flagman come down there about that time and i was talking to him and he said um i'm sorry about the no caution but he said i watched them i didn't watch you he said it was he said it was we knew it was going to be any moment they were going to be into it and we was watching you never saw hensley blow a motor yeah and i said well you know i understand and you're there's a picture of my shop your dad's sitting on the back of the trailer with me and he he's got him a solo cut and he's like and he's telling me he said hey i'm sorry i tore your race car but he started it he said if he couldn't if i couldn't win he wasn't gonna win yeah and i was like was sam the kind of guy to get upset no i mean he was in the car he was you know mad i'm sure yeah but that was it there wasn't no conversation no no you think you know hearing stories about that and the way people act today anytime anybody has a confrontation on racetrack you'd think that in my mind when I hear this story right of dad and sam going at it tooth and nail and then eventually dad ends up spinning them both out um you'd think there would have been a crowd in the infield and a lot of insults and angry no I mean the fans were more upset well I'm sure yeah but you know because there was there was more dale earnhardt fans there than there were Sam Hartface. Oh, okay. You know what I mean? And it was so, you know, you'd just take and you'd listen to them. But, I mean, as far as the drivers go, you know, it wasn't like people were swinging and stuff, you know. What kind of damage was done to the car? Was it all body damage? His car was all, you know, cosmetic and lower stuff. My car had that front clip. You mentioned being there at Carraway during another race where Dad and Butch Lindley got into it. Marty works here as crew chief on one of the cars, and we talk about our dads all the time. Butch Lindley was considered and still considered today as one of the greatest short track racers in NASCAR history. There's a big push for Butch to try to get himself into the Hall of Fame. He's won over 500 races. The majority of those were NASCAR sanctioned events on the short tracks and tons of track championships. You are a witness to his career. You'd agree with how amazing Butch Lindley was. him and dad apparently had a hell of a battle i've heard like little brief like comments about this but not from anyone who was there yeah i i walked racing then i was probably 16 17 years old and i and so it come down it was another deal you know it was a big race you know two i think 200 lapper and everybody been putting on tires and and it come down to them too and i mean butch was leading and your dad got underneath him right there to end the race and they run side by side they come off forward to get the checkered flag and your dad was trying to get him to lift and uh and squeezed him and and butch didn't he didn't lift and so they he hit the wall climbed the wall and when he comes down he's on top of your dad's car on the roof damn and i mean they when they come out of start finish line sparks are flying and they're i mean there's people i have pictures of it somewhere i've tried to find them but a lot of times people borrow pictures but they when they crossed the line like your dad's hood was about six inches in front of butch's hood and when they stopped they're still hooked together yeah it took them you know two wreckers and you know 30 minutes to get them untangled and they get out you know and you know they're okay yeah no big deal no big deal we raced and you know you won yeah after your deal with um with cliff champion you went and you went and started running more modifieds got into modified racing what was the what was your path well i took and i drove a few people's sportsman cars and then they turned into bush series cars and then i was at um orange county for a race one night there was a nascar tour race there and um i wasn't going to drive i took my helmet and stuff just in case and i was there was a late model race and a and a bush race there and i and i just in case somebody wanted well nobody said anything on friday so we went out partying on friday night and saturday morning i get there the racetrack at orange canyon i feel bad yeah bad the guy comes to me he said hey my driver didn't show up you want to drive my modified car and i said i guess i don't know and he said come on get in it so i went over and went to the bathroom first and and made sure i'm going to throw up in the car and uh so get in the thing and run a few laps and the guy said well we're fast he said you want to race it said yeah i mean i will it was it was a like 40 or 50 some cars that we qualified fourth with the thing and then got about five of us got wrecked on about lap three and and he didn't have he had a little fiberglass seat in there that was not made for me. Broke four or five reels. Damn. When it hit. So then I started driving his car some. And then I would drive other people's cars too. But I always like to modify cars. What are you doing for a living? Now or then? Oh, then. Oh, I was building cars for other people. Yeah. So you had started building chassis and had gotten into a pattern of having regular customers. Right. What kind of cars were you building? Mainly late-mall sportsman cars. Yeah. I built some Phil Parsons, different people, you know, just whoever come in there would want one. You had a jig and build any car. Anytime anybody wanted a car, you built one. Yeah, because I built two jigs whenever I was building the Howard Stewart's cars. Yep. And then the eight cars that I drove. How big was your shop? At the time, it was just a Quanson hut, like 60-foot long by 25-foot wide. Yeah. I had my jigs where I could bolt wheels on them and take them outside because I kept two cars in there. And I had two jigs, and I would take them to work on them, roll them out and stuff. And then I built a shopper. Do you have pictures of all this? Yeah. Oh, man. I bet it's badass. And now the big, the funniest thing is back, I know, you know, Jerry Kennan. Yes. Okay, Jerry worked for me. He crew chiefed me for a while. And we came out with the blue eight car. and we went to Carraway with a thing and we broke the track record the first time. So then, back then, they liked to bet on things. And on my walls of my quantity, it's still there. They took chalk and wrote, everybody put $5 in the pot and bet and see how fast you can run this week. And I actually broke the track record three weeks in a row and they put a checkmark beside the name who won the money. Yeah. And then that was, you know. That's all still there. Yeah, still there. Yeah. what's in that building now just a lot of store stuff yeah storage stuff any old parts and pieces and things from the history yeah i've got a lot of stuff i've still got a lot of stuff in the other building yeah oh man i bet it's cool to walk through there yeah um so you're building chassis and just kind of you know that's that's fun in your that's how you're making a living is building cars for people and you're still going to the racetrack and driving um you would end up uh finishing third at the track championship in 83 you had 10 wins at orange county speedway you ran the world series of asphalt in new smyrna uh and had a win there although as recent as 1990 uh you won a 150 lapper in 86 at wilkesboro and all in modified stuff um then you had a serious crash at irp in 88 what happened there yes we went up there for a nascar tour race and we've been running there and you know how it is our rp you've raced there before you could stay up top run momentum deal yep and uh we were come about halfway through the race and the guy got into me coming off two and it kind of i turned it a little sideways and when i went to correct it he hit me again and just turned it right and i caught the gate yep right in the middle of the back stretch yeah and when he did it just like shot the car around and i'm going down the back straight away backwards and I can see I'm going go for the wall and the last thing I remember was hook hooking my arm around the head the seat side rest for my shoulder on my ribs and uh you know you didn't have a left side headrest back then and I just remember thinking I need to stop from getting into the wall here on my head and it hit so hard that it shot the rear end out the right side of car and my head went out the window and hit the concrete it did yeah and uh and it was i was unconscious for you know several hours off and on you know i never woke up till they got me to the hospital kenny schrader come to see me because they he told some of me he said i thought he's dead you know he was behind us and he'd come to see me make sure i was all right and they told him he'll be all right i got a pretty bad concussion from the reccussion of the brain slamming back to the right side of my head when they got ready to leave the next day the the um i remember that was sitting there and my buddies were going to carry me back they didn't want me flying an airplane with my concussion and uh i remember one of them the doctor said no you can't let him drive and one of the boys said well if he could drive we wouldn't be here the doctor told me he said look he said you damaged a part of your brain that controls numbers and he said numbers are going be a problem and it may last a week a day a month or a year and may never come back and so i didn't what was the cert what do you recall about those type of symptoms like you had severe headaches you know on the right side you know just anytime if you even try drinking a mouthful of alcohol a glass of wine or anything it hurts so bad you couldn't stand it and uh but i i remember i got home next day the phone bill come in the mail and i was looking at it i was like you know well i remember paying the bill but they crossed in the mail so i needed to subtract the old from the new statement and i looked at the numbers and they were like look like chinese i'm like this is not good yeah and what you do for a living is you know measurements and numbers and it was it's about two weeks later i was went to the restaurant eat breakfast i picked up a newspaper and i was reading it and it got to some numbers and i recognized and i got the waitress's notepad and i wrote some numbers down and i added them up and i asked the guy beside me i said is that right and he said holy shit yeah why yeah i said i just check and just make sure and it just came back Came back like a light switch. Yeah, I've learned the way I kind of feel about things like that in my own experiences. To describe it to somebody, when you have a head injury, it's like clipping some wires or some circuits. And those circuits have to fuse back together. And it is almost, in a lot of cases, like a light switch. Like, you'll have these symptoms. They'll be what they are. They don't, like, ease away. They just are there all the time. and then you wake up one day and it's better. That's exactly the way this was. Yeah. And not everybody's experience is like that, but that's one of the ways it can be experienced when you're recovering from head injuries. Was that the only head injury that you remember having from racing? I'm sure you had plenty of times where you got dinged up. I've had a couple that got knocked out. You know, we crashed at Concord one night, coming off a corner and turned my head on into a wall. And I remember when I come to, couldn't pick my head up, couldn't move my arms and i could see light and people yelling and running around and i and they're looking at me yelling at me and i could move my eyes but nothing else would move and i thought i'm gonna paralyzed and then i remember the roof come off of it and they're getting a backboard down me and then all of a sudden you like tingling all through your extremities and then you can start moving your fingers again it's just a shock what i guess the doctor crazy yeah damn you built some cars in the in the bush series we started building some cup chassis um how did that process happen you you know late model sportsman car obviously changed over the course of of a few years and uh how do you get opportunities i suppose to start building cars on the cup level people just come to see you i mean they know me from racing with like When the petties come to see me, they want me to build cars for him in the 88, 89. Why did they want to start using your business? They just wanted something different. And they had Larry Rathgab. I don't know if you know the name, Larry Rathgab. He was an engineer with Chrysler. He's the one that did the kit cars. Okay. They hired him, and they designed the car and worked with me, and that's what we built in 88 and 89 for Richard. And so they, you know, were, what was your, you know, there's some different, I don't know, I've, there's been different chassis builders over the years and all of them sort of come out with the latest and greatest idea, right? And so what are some of the things I suppose that you felt like that you helped usher in to the chassis builder world? Or what were some of the things that maybe you started doing earlier than other people that might have, you know, kind of set yourself apart? Well, I mean, we, we, Tex told me this, you know, try to make things light as you can, but still make it structurally sound. And that's, that's one thing we've always tried to make a car safe. you know i mean try to don't use no light roll bars and stuff like that and and we just we wound up being able to build them and drive them helps because like when i built richard petty's cars i would test them for him really yeah so i got luckily when they built richmond the new configuration i got to do the test and tire testing for the goodyear radials damn that was the first time they got tested and it just helps whenever you you know i can cut a car up and on saturday go back to the racetrack and drive it and say that's better that's worse yeah and that's kind of i think that helped a lot but me being able to drive some that i can tell if whether it's better or worse myself what are some of the things that a chassis builder has to be um uh always kind of aware of i mean what are the things that you guys are, it feels like where we are today, like there's no more things to learn, right? I know that's not really true because we're always, everything's always obsolete. What was good last year, you know, isn't good enough this year. Everybody tweaks and twists things. I imagine back in the 80s and up through the late 80s, you know, there was still a ton to be learned and improved on these chassis. really the front clip rear clip trailing arm system the front points all that stuff from back then it's very similar to what we're still using today very very close very close um but back then um you know i know that we were getting different chassis from different cars uh you know in the late model world we were doing you know we'd get a townsend car or we'd get a boltonheimer car and the front clips would be quite different you know and um and so there were a lot of different theories, I suppose, you know, it's kind of what, you know, what was it like, you know, going, going back and being a part of the industry back then, being able to be creative, being able to have, being able to know there's like a lot here that you could probably discover, right? Cutting cars apart, running them, driving them, changing them, fixing them, finding little things. How fun was that to be part of that creative process? That was a lot of fun. That was like whenever we tested stuff, you know, I could always tell good or bad. And the big thing we played with back then is like now, you know, we try spindles, you know, back then when we ran the rear steer cars. I don't think you ever ran a probably rear steer car. Yeah. You know, I had, Kelly had a rear steer Boltonheimer late model that I drove a little bit that we got from Robert Elliott. But that's the only car I ever drove that was a rear steer. Right. And then we kind of progressed away from the rear steer stuff to the Chevelle type suspension. Because that's basically what everything was based off of back then was a 64 Chevelle. And everybody just kind of took one of those and then jigged off of that. And you made your points and stuff. And then for a while you know it became the craze was a drop snout We did that in the Busch series in the late 90s You know early 2000s we were still running drop snout cars Why was, and that would come and go. Right. You know, everybody have an inch and a half drop, and then everybody go back to standard. And then everybody go back to drops again. Why was, why? I think a lot of that is monkey see, monkey do. Yeah. But I mean, somebody, the tires change. The tire may determine some of that. I think a lot of it's determined by the tire. Yeah. Because, I mean, like the tire we ran this past weekend at Florence is different than we ran last year. Really? Yeah. It reacts different. And it just set up from last year that we led with didn't work, you know, this year. And it's the same way with Cup everything back then. They changed the tire, you know, then drop snout's the way to go. You know, and some drivers like the drop snout car. I mean, regardless of the tire. You know, they just, they felt more comfortable with that. Yeah. We predominantly run the drop snout car at all the short track stuff. I don't know that we were really taking drop snouts to Speedways, but like Charlotte even. But once you drove one and you're, and you got it in your mind that that thing cut the corner better, you were convinced, you know, and it took a lot for you to, to believe anything, believe otherwise, you know, it'd have to be a significant, you know, you'd be at a test somewhere with a standard and a drop and that, that standard would have to do some pretty damn good stuff to convince you otherwise. Right. But the drop wasn't the way to go. That was when we had the Bush cars back in the 89 or the 98, 99 season, the redheaded stepchild and all that stuff, the red chassis, those are our drops down cars and felt, and everybody was buying them because we were just doing so well with them. But you ended up building, you talked about building cars for Richard Petty. you were the one that built the chassis for the car that flipped down the front straightaway at Daytona. Not the way you want to see that go, but you talk about building safe race cars. That was a hell of a wreck. And Richard's, you know, toward the back end of his career at that point, you know, those wrecks are harder to, you know, harder to walk out of in his case. And you had to be pretty happy with how that thing held up considering all the things that went through during that crash yeah because i was standing on pit road you know and then and when it happened right in front of us i'm like oh no this is bad yeah you know and he when he finally stopped you know it the flipping part wasn't so bad but when he got hit in the left front and spun him so fast where dale inman's on the radio going you know dale and richard you're all right you're all right you're right never said a word never said a word richard you're all right you're all right and He finally came on the radio, and he said, yeah, I'm all right, I'm all right, but I can't see nothing. He said, my eyes aren't working. And the doctors said when he spun it so fast that the blood vessels and all, the blood went out of his eyes. Jesus. And he couldn't see. And then, you know, the biggest problem he had was his knees and stuff were banged up so bad. Sure. And so I was going to relief drive for him at Richmond. Really? The next race. They had me up there at standby. And we was in the trailer the morning of the race, and he said, you going to be all right? I said, yeah, I'll be all right. And he said, well, just get your suit on when this race starts. And he said, if I feel bad, we'll just make it stop, whatever we do, lose a lap, whatever we do. And the doctor come in there, and they start taking fluid out of his knees. And I'm like, there's no way he's going to run this race. And shoot, about first cost to come out, We run good. And he said, I'm going to be fine. He said, yeah, I ain't going to get out. So I just went and took the driving suit off and watched, you know. You ran, you know, you talk about being a standby for him. You had raced in the Cup Series a handful of times, but not many. You raced, your debut was at North Wiltsboro in 93. you'd run a two starts in 94 at wilkesboro martinsville all short tracks you had a bad crash at pocono um had an engine from ernie elliot running good in practice uh made an adjustment and got got yourself turned around backwards broke your ankle we rented a racetrack and back when you could rent the racetrack and we were by ourself up there that day oh and uh and time wise i was slow but we had a motor in there that ernie had given me to test with and he said it's just it'll get you around the racetrack and so we kept working on it working on it and really didn't run fast and i called terry labani i said where do i need to lift going into one and he said well you need to live about you know number five or something on the board you know there he said where you lifting i said one he said you don't have no motor you know he said if it drives good you'll be fine so we come back and ernie sent us a new motor and we got the racetrack ernie said this thing is better than than uh bills i'm telling you he said it's gonna be better than bills so we were top 10 fastest first practice i had a guy dean johnson that uh was crew chief men he come over and this one spoiler at a spoiler height rule but you could put it whatever you want to angle was he said you can you run faster than that on another mock run said yeah i guess so he said i'm gonna lay take some spoiler out of it wrong thing to do yeah i get into one down there just before i go to third gear it turns around backwards and i hit the water driver's door golly and it ricochets off the wall and comes back down and i remember coming back down and the four cars on a mock run and he comes by my nose at 175 mile an hour miss me as i'm sliding backwards and the spotters on the radio yelling are you all right are you all right and i'm still sliding and then finally ernie yell it he's on he's over in the garage here i heard him yell at the boy with the talking to me and he said he's still he said not through wrecking leave him alone So you broke your ankle there? Yeah. Yeah, I got – the adrenaline's going. You don't realize you hurt. You know, you get out and step and your leg folds up, and then my knee was dislocated where it caught the steering column. So it just won them deals, you know, you kind of – You ran – that was – I wonder what year that was. What year was that? That was 94, I think. You ran the All-Star Open in 95 in a ride sponsored by Diamond Rio. Right. How did that come about? Well, Mr. Wilson owned the cars. He was vice president at R.J. Reynolds. Yeah. Who took care of the cars? We kept them at our shop. Damn. All right. And then we'd been messing with some people, the Blue Rhino people, the propane people. Yeah. They were just starting, and they wanted to be on the car. and they knew some people in the music industry. And so they come by the shop one night, Mr. Wilson did, and he said, I think we got us a sponsor. He said, you know about Diamond Rio? And I said, trucks? And he said, no. He said, country music. So he said, go get some CDs and listen to them. And so they're going to sponsor us. And so it was a good deal. They were nice, really nice. we went to several uh shows with them and um but it was i got in the middle of a divorce and the the racing was you know bracing and with two young children you know it's kind of they had people come in to buy into the team and they wanted to change you know because we went to went to richmond and i missed a race by two thousandth of a second you know and then and And so they just kind of like went to other directions. Yeah. I was upset, but you can't blame them. You know, this money and this sport. That was the end of your career on the, you know, in terms of cup racing and bush starts. You know, eventually you would build cup cars for dad. The car that dad wrecked Terry with at Bristol was your race car, your chassis. At the time, Kevin Hamlin was the crew chief on the car. They had their own chassis shop, but they came over to you looking for something different. Well, they were buying cars from Hopkins then. Yeah. And so then Kevin and them come into the shop and wanted, they decided they wanted to try something different. What were you going to do that's different? I don't know. It was just, my cars were going to be a little bit lighter. Yeah. Like at the time, I had bought a die that the Plymouth Tube Company that makes roll bar pipe, and they made us a um a die that i bought and they would run a meal run of my robot tube and it was 90 000 plus or minus a half where everybody else was 95 000 period and um and i got to choose my the carbon rate and i wanted the type of tensile strength i wanted and it made a difference yeah and so we built they come over and wanted to they said build us two cars but don't tell nobody yeah Don't tell nobody who they're for. And I got them done, and they come pick them up. And that one evening after work, and took them to RCR. And the next morning, I don't think they— It's lucky they still had the job. Really? Yeah. It didn't go over the way. It didn't? No. Why? Who was mad? Yeah, I mean, people kind of over the crew chiefs were not happy. Yeah. That they just went out on their own and did it. Uh-huh. And they tested them, you know, started testing them. And they were always good, real good. And then finally, they Pocono Dale wrecked last practice after qualifying. And they carried mine as a backup every week. And they pulled mine off. And he started in the rear. And I think he ran third or something. He should have needed just a little bit more. He could have won the race. That was, there was one car he loved was serial number 44. And he wanted to run that thing everywhere. we didn't run those speedways was all short track and charlotte and stuff because we were they raced at richmond one night and he got in a wreck down there and knocked right front corner off and smashed some dark bottom two door bars up and they called me and said look we got to be at charlotte wednesday we'll have a sanctuary shop in the morning sunday morning at eight o'clock and we need it back by that night we had to call my guys say look get shop we got to fix the car We put half front clip on it, two dual bars. They picked it up, and they was at Charlotte with the thing Wednesday. Dang. And then that's the car he ran at Bristol when he rattled Terry's cage. Yeah. That was your only career win as a chassis builder. Right. What was the decision, I suppose, to, you know, go the route you went where now you're a household name in the short track industry in terms of late models, late model stocks. Everybody's buying cars from you. How come that opportunity and the success of those cars didn't develop into something more long-term or even other opportunities with other teams? I don't know. A lot of it, most people didn't even know that we were building them. All right, yeah. I mean, I've got pictures. Do you wish you'd have done that differently? Nah. Could you? The way, I mean, I'm still satisfied with where I'm at. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yes, you could have built more of them. Yeah. And I built some for Stavola Brothers. Yeah. And Hamilton drove them. Yep. And stuff. And so, but I mean, I built different ones. But I don't know. I kind of like the short track deal. I don't know. To me, it's a lot of fun on Saturday night, and I just like dealing with people, short track racing and stuff. The speedway racing stuff is fine and all, and there's more money in it, obviously, but I just kind of grew up with a short track deal, and I just kind of enjoy that. That's where I still go every week. Yeah. Yeah, so currently, you know, you build chassis for us at Junior Rotorsports for our late models and other teams as well across the cars tour, across late model stocks. What other chassis do y'all build? We do some super late models a little bit, and I'm starting to build some modified cars again. I've had people call me wanting me to build some modified cars, so I got a new one started. It'll be a house car. Damn. Where will it run? we'll run that southern modified yep deal with who probably jason myers i'm gonna test it some yeah jason myers works for me part-time does he yeah i didn't know that yeah he works ups gets off of there third ship and then he yeah he comes over he's a good dude yeah yeah he's funny where is your shop at it's in high point high point yeah and it's been it's been there since all these years yeah i built i was at mortinsville racing in 1983 and uh i was at the hotel that night and my my grandfather he loved racing but he didn't really want me racing yeah you know and he had money and uh he would always come up to the front of the shop the quonson hut and roll the window down he said why didn't you end saturday night and well you know got outrun grandpa but i was there at the hotel and the phone rang and i answered and my my mother said your grandpa's here and he wants to know how big a building you want i said what do you mean he said he's going to build you a building i said well i don't know and he said well here's your options he gave me the options i said well i'm going to take the biggest one i'm going to take the smallest when i get in the middle yeah and he said all right he said i'll have the bulldozer over there tomorrow morning when you get home from the race start bulldozing trees down forgot where you're gonna put it so we built the first building was like a 60 no it's 40 by 75 and then in 88 i added on and now like 225 by how many employees you got 12 12 employees building uh how many cars a year you think it just depends i mean uh the most i've ever built in one year was like 35 yeah you know but it varies from the majority of your cars late mile stock right this time yeah what do you enjoy about late mile stock racing it's just fun to work on them and just try to make them go faster you know we've got mason diaz driving forth this year and he's he's really good he's a good dude yeah yeah he's a good driver he knows what he's doing yeah he's kind of been looking for opportunity over the last couple of years right yeah we had some pretty good runs with him last year sat on the pole at a speedway with him and then got spun out and um but he he's he's really good and and sometimes he we have trouble qualifying that we've been working on that but he know he really He knows he has his race craft down good. You know, we would have been good Saturday night, but, you know, they kind of jammed up and we got turned around in that deal. It was just nobody's fault. Yeah. We want him racing deals. Yeah, for sure. What's that schedule look like this year? How do you decide how much you're going to race your house cars? We're going to run every car's tour race. No kidding. Run all the cars tour races. How did you decide that? That's what Mason wants to do, Mason. I know, but, like, you have to make financial sense of it. Yeah, well, I mean, he's got sponsor money. Yeah. so it takes me he put some stuff together right he was frustrated a couple years ago trying to figure some things out he drove our car at Hickory one weekend and I think he's a hell of a little driver yeah and he works hard we know his dad owns Southern National for folks out there listening and and and Mason when Southern National is having their events Mason works really really hard running the program or helping the event come off well so he's not afraid of hard work no he's When he runs that racetrack down there, it's like clockwork. That's right. I'm telling you, it's whatever the schedule is. It stays on schedule, and everything runs really well. Does he get by the shop? He comes by here once in a while. Yeah. He's supposed to come by here. We're going to go test here pretty soon. Where? We're going to go to Southern National and test. Yeah, all right. Got to get ready for the cars to race. Got to get ready for the lead-off event. Yeah, I'm excited. I want to tell folks, your cars have won numerous national titles. The Advance Auto Parts Series titles in 12 times. 08, 09, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 20, 21, 23, and 24. Numerous Cars Tour Championships. 16, 17, 22, 23, 24, 25. So as a chassis builder in the late model stocks and, you know, the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, what is you know you've seen a lot of change you've seen even in the recent years our tires have changed a lot over the course of the past couple of years the cars tours went through a lot of change and growth um you know i i sit i sit down all the time uh and just contemplate you know what direction we're headed and are we are we um doing what we need to be doing so that we can sustained success, right? And, and everybody is, as, as long as we've ever raced, I mean, you can pull magazines out of the, out of the rack in the, from the eighties, the seventies, it don't matter. Everybody talked about how expensive it was and it's always going to be an expensive hobby. Um, but what are some of the things I suppose that you are concerned about? What are some things that you think, you know, as short trackers, us, as an industry, us, us all trying to pull this in the right direction. What are some of the things you think we need to be aware of, mindful of? What are some of the things, you know, that you're excited about, looking forward to? You know, I miss this idea. So a couple of years ago, Landon Huffman made a YouTube video about how much it cost him to go race at Hickory. He had a weekly car that he ran out of his dad's shop and he basically itemized his entire season down to about 60 grand. And when me and Kelly and Carrie were racing our late models at Hickory Tri-County and DeBeach annually, I think our budget was around $60,000 in the 90s. That's a lot of money, but, you know, it is going to be an expensive hobby. I don't think it's going to get any cheaper than that. But we've seen costs rising. we've seen you know there's there's you know there's more teams have full time employees tires have gone up you know you mentioned how tires used to be 300 a set I remember when we go to the beach and race in the 90s they were 400 a set they're twice that now those things are out of our control there's a lot of things that we can't you know we can't control it we can't tell Goodyear or Hoosier how much to charge for their tires But, you know, what are some of the, what do you, I want this to last forever. You know, I love, I don't, I don't even like to call it grassroots race. I love short track racing. I love our local shows. I love our, our cars tour. I love super late models, pro late models. I love what's happening down in Daytona right now with new Smyrna and speed weeks and all that good stuff. I love seeing what going on at Berlin all the great successes across the country what Harvick done with the West Tour What do we need to do As a guy who seen this forever what do we need to do to be mindful that it continues I think the way you're doing the Cars Tour, there's so much publicity. I get people in the local restaurant I go to, the farmers and people that have no idea about racing. They just know that I miss the race car, but they watch the Cars Tour races. There's so much interest in the Cars Tour stuff that it makes it easier to, I think, for people to get sponsor money, you know, just because of the publicity that you bring and the whole series is brought to TV, you know, and I think that that in itself is going to translate down to other short tracks, not necessarily the Cars Tour, but these other people say, you know, hey, you know, this Cars Tour deal, you know, is a good deal, and maybe these people at Carraway want some money and we don't mind sponsoring them because TV is – TV, it hurts in a way it hurts the grandstands, but in the long run it's better because of the amount of people you actually get to see that are watching the race. Yeah. That's, you know, it's kind of a – Double-A sword for sure. Right. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, there's a balance to be cast between being a touring series that's trying to succeed, profit, pay for, you know, we have a forecasted cost of how much it costs to run the series, and we want to be able to bring in, break even, and the series has to be, has to afford itself. With that said, we have to be mindful of the local racers at South Boston, the local racers at Carraway, and the landscape has changed. Even what our local tracks are doing, the feature car, you know, has some tracks gone away from the late-mall stock and more toward a limited, which in my mind, I mean, the limited is the same car. Same car. Just a little bit less power, which I actually kind of want to embrace. I like the idea of the limited car being the feature car, the primary car at some of these tracks because it is more affordable um it is it is kind of it's head it's it's hedging back toward you know the possibility of that guy having that race car in his in his garage outside the house you know that we right we all depend on for the local show um you know i've i've always uh you know really enjoyed being around i'm the same as you like i I would prefer to be standing in that pits at Florence during the icebreaker as opposed to the garage at a big event somewhere. And it's nothing personal. It's just I do know that all the people that are, for example, the icebreaker this past weekend, the people that are there are there because they want to be. Right. every single person there is there because they are absolutely in love with it right and um and it's a it's a it's really an interesting thing and it took me a while to get back there um it took me a while to get back to it i should have i had opportunities to race my car and race with josh or do be closer to that whole deal and experience more with what josh was doing in our late models josh barry but i i was hesitant and i should have done it sooner but it's been a lot of fun to get plugged back into it. And, uh, you've been a witness to it for all these years. Obviously, um, you know, the engine builders, everybody's got very similar power. There's not like a guy out there with a bunch of advanced, you know, a bunch of more power than anyone else. Um, whereas, you know, the chassis builders there, you've got the competition, uh, in the world you always have. Um, you know, how do you navigate that? How do you, how do you stay competitive still build a safe car um you know you'll have people come in i i i think a great example would be when tony jury tony jr and those guys uh got in the fury deal and the fury car was a brand new chassis and they kind of took over some market share and was competitive with hamkey and and other builders and all that ebbs and flows and builders kind of come and go how do you not haven't how do you navigate that and stay competitive well the big thing is you got to have good people driving it and working on it but in like i say you got to win races you got to win races you know for me to stay in business i tell somebody's got to win somebody's got to wreck that's just bottom line i get it so you got to have a car crossing the finish line then you got to have one to fix right so but i mean we we work on stuff all the time you know we have pull down rig at the shop and we work on that and my son experiments and try we try different spindles and stuff and you know you just gotta it doesn't take much to be 15th to first when you're talking about 900 and so if you come up with a spindle or a combination or a shock package that you know that works and picks you up 900 then you know that puts you up front and that's what that's what we do you know i mean and having people you know like your drivers you know with josh and josh when when josh figured it out josh was impossible to beat yeah i mean when he finally is that good for business yes yes very good yes but i mean that's you know and the coaffles are really good in your car and they they're really nice and i mean they they win races and and that's your man shafer that looks after the deal he and i are old school yep and uh he me and him get along good and they We exchange ideas and stuff. And that's what I got to do. You can't just sit on what you've got. You know, you got to keep working. You know, we come up with some things this winter that we did to cars. And, you know, and I think it's made them better. And you're not going to build a car and find a half a second. Days of that are over and done with. You know, you've got little by little creep up on it. What advice would you give to me and Kevin and all the guys running the tour on how to make sure the tour is successful and the car is successful, the chassis is successful? I think about the late model stock car. It's a regional car. It lives in this bubble. It's not a national car. It's not like a pro or a super. I mean, I would love for it to become, have a bigger footprint, but that we own. it's difficult uh uh for our owners to want to travel farther than we're going some of these races but um you know what's what advice would you give to us as a as a tour to try to i mean the way things are going right now i mean it's on the right path you have you have really good people you know carson and really good looking after things the racetrack and i mean everything me right now was is good like i told you we get so much so many people calling inquiries Like my wife showed me emails this morning, people wanting to rent race cars, inquired in the car store. Yeah. What is the, you know, I know that there's, I know that our owners, you know, balk at, you know, traveling further than our bubble. As a chassis builder, you know, is it advantageous for you to have the car racing further out into the Midwest or up north? Or what would, where do you, does it matter? Does it make a difference to you? Do you want to see? I mean, the more they race, you know, different places. You know, we had hinted about taking it down to New Smyrna and trying to find a way to be a part of Speed Weeks just because we thought that would be a great showcase for our series. Berlin is begging us to come up there and race, you know, but it's a haul. Right. Long way to go. But these tracks are calling. They're wanting to see how to get the cars to where their fans are asking for it. Our owners are absolutely not interested in it, and I can totally understand that, and I don't want to do anything that's going to deter our teams from competing with us. So it's a weird sort of juxtaposition to be in where I think a guy like you would love to sell cars more nationally. And there's some of our owners that would probably benefit from the tour becoming a bigger, having a bigger footprint. But, yeah, I don't know how to, I don't know, I'm not really pursuing that seriously, but I'm just kind of curious as to, like, if you ever did want to kind of expand the tour, how could you do it where everybody would be all in, you know, pulling the same road in the same direction? Yeah, I mean, I think before I said it was, I think somebody's going to present y'all with enough money to entice people to go. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's people just working with you all now that want to be part of this deal and sponsor it. You know, like I sponsored the pole ward since it was started for several years. And, I mean, there's people with a lot more money than I ever thought about having that are wanting to get into your sport just because of what it's become now. You know, and I think, you know, you start, you come up with a deal where somebody wants to sponsor the series and say, okay, we're going to pay $25,000 to win every race. you're going to get people to drive their truck that far. So that's a great question. We're getting toward to wrapping up here, but I've, so I don't, never owned a series before, didn't have any experience. Don't pretend to have all the answers or know exactly how to do it, but we're, we're working hard and we're, we, it is on our mind and we're doing, we're working on it every day. You know, we're, we're trying our hardest. I have I've had an interesting experience trying to find out what gets teams excited and about coming to the racetrack and so I've I've had teams go out of their way to go race for big first place money in a race that that didn't pay anything from second on back, right? And they loved it. They were like, I'm going to run that. That pays this big check. Knowing that the odds of them actually winning the race, you know, were tough. But they knew that they were going to that race and going to go all out and spend all the money and effort that it took to go do that. And then you'll have a race where it pays relatively nice on the front end, but the back end's boosted. And nobody seems to recognize. like you would think like, Hey man, I'm old. You know, if it costs you 2,200 bucks to just get to the racetrack and get everything, your tires and your, your $2,200 in, as soon as you buckle up to go practice, I'm going to, you know, if the back end of the purse covered that, you'd think that would draw a lot of interest, but it really doesn't seem to do that. I don't know if the late model stock bubble is as big as it can be. I mean, there's only, like I said, it's only racing in this sort of small geographical area. There's only, if you had to guess how many late model stock, operating late model stock cars, even at the regular shows, there's probably 200, 250 cars. In that realm. Right. They get 80 cars for the big race at Martinsville. That used to get 180, 160, 120. Yeah. You know, how do we get there? How do we get there? How do we, when you put that, you know, when you, when you, instead of paying $1,400 for last, you have a race where you pay $2,500 for last. Where are the 10, 15, 20 cars that's supposed to show up? How do we get there? I like to say, I think that it's going to be come through there being able to get more sponsors. Yeah. I just think that, you know, there's so many of the companies that are looking at this deal here now. You know what I mean? We talk to people all the time, you know, about it. And then there's going to be interest shown that's going to be presented to people with money that's going to help them get to the racetrack, whether they can afford to or not on their own. Yeah. And I just think that, because like I said, like I told you before, you know, the interest in Cars Tour is right now is probably 10 times what it was five years ago. I mean, like I said, everybody. Do you think it would be in our best interest to do a better service to our teams in terms of showcasing their partners? Like what I'm hearing from you, and I mean this is common sense, but what I'm hearing from you, I'm thinking more about the purse. What strings am I not pulling with the purse to draw everybody there? It ain't the purse. They need the support on the front end from ex-partner or local business or whatever. And so should I, therefore, maybe put more of a spotlight on all of these individual partners on these race cars, right, that are coming to our racetrack to make sure that those people are walking out of there feeling like they're getting a showcase? I think the sponsor deals, I mean, it helps whenever you showcase them on, you know, when you're doing the racetrack and you're on flow. Yeah. You know, like here's, you know, your, to say, Lowe's car. Right. Or whatever, you know. And then, because whenever I was, I drove modified cars, Lowe's actually sponsored me before they sponsored Jimmy Johnson. Yeah. And we took in, we won a race at North Wilkesboro in a modified car with Lowe's sponsor on it. And they, we had a meeting up there and they told me that the amount of air time that they got was equivalent to like $300,000 in money spent on a commercial. Right. And it was free. Yeah. And that's kind of, I think a lot of these companies will see that, you know, because, you know, I don't know the exact fan base that Flow has for car tour races, but I know like Wilkesboro and stuff is like good. Yeah. Really good. Yeah, yeah. I mean. Yeah, Wilkesboro is a great race for us. Yeah. And I just, I think that it's not going to be what y'all are done purse wise. I think that the thing that y'all are doing is going to help get people's money just through other companies coming in, wanting their name on a race car. All right. Well, we can certainly do a better job there. I'm glad to walk out of here with some insight and some advice. Jay, it's been a lot of fun talking to you, man. I'm glad you came here today. You're one of those individuals, like your last name is recognizable mainly through your success as a chassis builder, particularly in the local, you know, short track scene. But I wanted people to hear your story in full and kind of know where you came from because I myself wanted to personally know more about that. And I like seeing it at the racetrack. I like you being involved. Thank you for the impact that you've had on all these drivers over the years, all the cars you've built for people, all the supports you've gave people. you know you don't you don't really ever you don't cross me as one of those guys that kind of sits back and reflects on much of that but you've you've you know you've personally influenced tons of careers in all the chassis and cars you build and all the racetracks you've been to and people you've supported I mean you know there's in the short track world if you got a guy building motors you know when you go to the racetrack he's got five engines there up and down pit road and he goes and he tunes on them. He makes sure everybody's happy. And I see you doing the same thing. Even if you have a house car there, you come by, you check in on us, you make sure we're doing all right. Got any questions, got any challenges. And I appreciate that, that support. So just looking forward to seeing you at the racetrack this year. Glad you're going to be at a lot of car store races. And yeah, we'll see you at the racetrack. Well, I appreciate you having me on the show. It's been good and we'll see you around at the racetrack soon. Yes, sir. All right, so that's Jay Hedgecock and a great conversation. Learned a ton. Man, would I give anything to have been a witness to some of the short track races that he saw Dad run at Carraway and other places. Tangling with Butch Lindley across the finish line, barely beating him. Wrecking with Sam Ard. Just incredible. I can't imagine what it must have been like to be there and watch all that go down. But Jay was around for all of that and didn't know he built that car that Richard Petty flipped down the front straightaway. Did not know he built cars for my dad that dad would drive in the Cup Series. And so, yeah, I know he's been building late model stocks for a long time and his cars have been around for quite a while, but hadn't a lot of knowledge beyond that. And so it was great to get him in here. And every now and then, you know, we kind of, I like to bring those guys in here because it kind of, I get this story, I get this question all the time. There's some kids standing out here on the front porch of junior motorsports right now that are students over at the Technical NASCAR Institute, and they want to know how to get into this sport. And there's not an answer. There's no way, there's no easy answer. You know, they just, they would prefer that you would have an opening in this building and hire them into that role and off they go. But sometimes you got to be kind of like Jay Hedgecock and just create it yourself, right? Just Jay Hedgecock didn't start building his first race car thinking, man, this is, I'm going to make a living building race cars. He built it because he wanted to race. He wanted to go to the racetrack. He wanted to build a car and go see it compete. You know, and he did that well enough that he started to accumulate customers, people that wanted him to build cars for them. You know, and that's just a process. It's a long, long road. But every now and then I love to get those guys in here because we get to hear like the genuine path of one of the routes now, you know, to get into this industry. Certainly was a different route than I took. I was kind of born into it, but not everybody's that fortunate. So awesome to learn from Jay. Awesome to get some insight from Jay on the current state of short track racing and some of the things that he likes about the Tour and what the Tour can do better. And, yeah, I think he enjoyed being here. So we got a lot of things to talk about before we close out the show. Just want to make you all know that we will have a live show down in Daytona Thursday the 12th at the Fan Zone inside the racetrack. Dirty Mo Media will be live on Sirius XM. We've done this last year. I'll be on from 3 to 4 p.m. with Jeff Gluck, Freddie Craft. We're going to have some others come on as well. Jeff Gordon, Ryan Blaney. From 4 to 4.30, there'll be like a crossover show with Dirty Mo Media and Sirius XM. And then from 4.30 to 6, Sirius XM Speedway with Dave Moody. our show will drop on the podcast and YouTube later that night also we've got new merch out Dirty Mo Media merch for 2026 it's pretty awesome the green flag collection has dropped also we got a Valentine's Day line that's perfect if you're buying for someone on Valentine's Day hoodies, tees, flags, the whole deal go to shopdirtymomedia.com alright so I've enjoyed it this week in the Arby's studio Thank you to Arby's new partner, part of our programming here at Dirty Mo Media. Don't forget about Arby's new meat in three box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats. We're off to Daytona. We're in Daytona. We're live show in Daytona. We're going to have a lot of fun this week. We're going to try to win us an Xfinity race, try to get into the Daytona 500, and we're going to come back next week and tell you all about it. We'll see you. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok. you