Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Tony Stewart recall how well they worked together at restrictor plate races, discuss raw vs taught talent and tell some stories about cheating in racing.
LOVE when Tony said "if he drove to the concession stand, I was going to oder the same thing thing behind him." THATS when you know your plan works no matter what.
I love how everyone always bashes Jimmie Johnson for cheating but tony Stewart says it best. Everybody in racing cheats at one point or another so get over yourself
@Mike Smithey Jr. was a great driver at plate races but from 01-05 DEI had the best cars at plate races. It wasn't just Jr. & Tony. Even Michael Waltrip who wasn't a great driver dominated at Daytona & Talladega during that time. Once DEI started falling behind in 2005 they no longer were dominate at plate races. Even when Jr. went to Hendrick he won a few more plate races but the domination he had going from 01-05 was mainly because those DEI cars were better than everyone else's.
Hey guys, Aussie here REALLY getting into Nascar history. Used to watch it with my late father in the 90's but never really understood too much of it back then as i was a kid My dad passed away unexpectedly a few years ago and Im finding myself looking into the things he loved so i can pass them on to my nieces and nephews (no kids of my own) Thank you for doing this Dale Jnr Love from Australia
I remember Tony was always one of my least favorite guys when I was a kid. Now I get excited every time I see an interview or a quote. He's someone NASCAR definitely needs
I bet your dad hated tony. Mine did too, we were a Gordon household because there was only room for one Indiana driver in my Hoosier family. Now Smoke is probably my 2nd favorite
It's not just finance, I've worked on several crews on everything from dirt tracks to low budget road racing and nothing is more soul crushing than seeing a car you've spent weeks building destroyed in a wreck.
The ability to just sense the meaning of another person’s energy is a special thing that doesn’t happen often. You just know without speaking, it’s amazing.
You should race against him in iRacing he much gets into his old personality when he gets shoved by the rookies. "WWWWWOOOA DUDE, YOU'RE THE REAL TONY, AND I JUST KICKED YOUR ASS IN A MIATA, SO THEN NOW IM BETTER THAN U, gib me a tin shed near your track I so I can run moonshine, I deserve it"
Tony is my favorite racer of all time. I like many grew up in a Gordon household but I liked Tony more always. I waited in line for 4 hours to meet him at Home Depot when I was 5, I was the last person ended up meeting that day, it was one of my favorite experiences ever. Miss seeing Tony every week.
Living about 30 minutes south I remember seeing Tony absolutely flying down interstate 65 in his orange Lambo. He had a “SMOKE” license plate. That’s one dude that just loves to go fast at all times lol
Spent most of my young life watching dale Jr in his pops shadow but man you really grew out of that in a hurry. Glad to see you happier outside the car!! Proud of ya Dale. Hope you receive all the blessings coming your way friend
When i was a kid dale jr in the bud 8 car was huge I never felt like he was in his fathers shadow all over my town anyways everyone had an 8 on their car or even a lot of jr flip phone cases
Tony is the man. The media made him out to be a monster but he just takes racing serious and its his passion. The media doesn't like him because he tells them how it is and doesn't fluff it up for them.
Andrew Griffin I wouldn’t necessarily say that. He had a great 2nd half to 2001, only reason why he wasn’t good in 2002 was because of the Fontana wreck, solid season in 2003, and 6 wins in 2004. What messed with Jr was his falling out with the Eury’s at the end of 2004. Even when he went back to working with Tony Jr in 2006 and onward you can tell it just wasn’t the same
This is so great to see these two! I can't believe this was 3 years ago! Anybody remember the EA NASCAR game where they had real race setups, and drivers would tell what happened up to a point, and then you got to take over? I can't tell you how many times I did the end of that Talladega race where Tony said, "I wasn't leaving my wingman." Dale Jr. did the intro video and he said, "OK, guys, you knew this one was coming." I think he started it by saying that he was in the lead pack, but he wasn't in the lead. So much fun in the game...can't imagine driving a car like that!
you guys talk about "bending the rules" it reminds me of a quote by the late Smokey Yunick "If the rules said I couldn't do it... than I didn't!...I just looked for what the rules didn't say!"
That is two different philosophies, one Tony's being inside the box, the other being Yunick's and by far the smarter one to do it until they make rules against it. one is innovative the other just conniving.
@@jennifursun3303 the smartest person doesn't win, the richest does. Limits in racing are what create a good product otherwise you end up with WEC or F1.
Absolutely....I always told people Robby Gordon could drive the wheels off anything. Watching him drive off-road is an art form. Larson would be winning as much as the Big 3 if he had a better ride. Hopefully this season the Chevy's have worked the kinks out of the Camaro body style. That was a pretty significant body change from the SS to the Camaro.
Gained your respect??? Tony is a racers racer and one of very few and it's actually great that there seems to be more drivers trying to do what foyt and co used to and win in everything
I was such a huge NASCAR fan. Frankly, now, I get up in the middle of the night to watch Aussie V8 Supercars and GT3/GT-LM racing. The V8 supercar races are freaking awesome.
Brian Jones they actually accelerate faster than F1, sound like a jet winding up because they intentionally made the motors noisy, and this coming season will finally be able to complete a whole race on a charge. Up until now the drivers would make a crazy car swap in the pits halfway through the race. They try to tune the charge in the batteries so the drivers have to come up with strategy to make it last to the end, it’s not uncommon to see a driver push too hard and run out of battery on the last lap. They also have a push to pass system similar to F1. All in all I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the series, it’s gotten much better since it’s first year or two.
Brian Jones it’s generally good racing, there are some gimmicks but they do really involve the fans in the sport. I went and saw them when they came to Long Beach and it was entertaining, very quiet though
I absolutely love your podcasts. This one with Tony Stewart was awesome 👍😎 I love how y'all figured out how to work together and realizing that y'all pretty much had the same thought process and of course the mental focus to go out and drive your races your own way and that's phenomenal especially since you and Tony weren't on the same team. Great show 💞🤗💞🏁🏆🏁🙏🙏🙏
These guys were my childhood racers. Also really liked watching Jimmy Johnson and Gordon. Never really been a huge nascar fan until now and it used to feel so magical and important
Jr’s smirk when Tony brought up Robby Gordon. You could tell both of them were kinda biting down hard to play nice. I really can’t believe Tony paid Robby a compliment. But I agree with him totally. Robby is a helluva racer in everything from grocery carts to Baja. Man is awesome talent.
Tony and Robby were the same person, Robby just had a shorter temper and gave less fucks, which I didn't think was possible if we are talking about Smoke😂 They may not have liked Robby tht much, but they knew he knew how to race. Agree nice to see👍🏻
Thses 2 were definitely unstoppable when they got hooked up on the track. I was soo hoping that he was gonna get JR on his team when he started Stewart-Haas.
BoogerWhisperer A desk??? That thing looks like the runway off an aircraft carrier, you could hold midget racing on just half. You all could interview Typhoid Mary with that separation there would be no chance to getting sick.
“I passed you down the back straightaway, and you didn’t side draft me” I don’t remember it, I’d have to see it to remember it. “Jamie pull that video up of me passing him”
One of my fondest NASCAR memories from when I was a kid is watching Junior and Smoke fighting for the lead in the last laps of the 2004 Daytona 500. Miss seeing these guys race.
talent - born with the skills needed to compete without anything more than a little coaching skill - earned knowledge gained from practice and hard work both can be turned into pure gold.
It's amazing how much they race and how fast they go and can remember who was around them and what they could have done differently in that specific situation.
Tony and Jr. were a couple of the last real "racers"; Dale doing Sports Car and NASCAR at the same time and Tony doing 1100 miles in 1 day at 2 tracks!
Totally. I mean I was an open wheel purist. I despised IRL. I consider those years to be completely null and void on the open wheel end. The money went to IRL, but the real talent went to CHAMPCAR. That being said, to do the double takes a serious set of balls. And I will permanently hold Tony in a high regard for doing it. Thing is though... If he had come in during the real glory days before the split, he STILL would have won. Tony Stewart might be the most talented wheel man that has ever lived. He deserves to be spoken of in the same circles as Mario, AJ, Little Al, Emmerson... The guy could drive a day old ham sandwich to victory. I tip my hat Sir.
@@tr1338 thats a half truth after 03 the talent exodus to the IRL was almost complete, CART was obviously always the better series, the better philosophy and thats reflected in IndyCar today.
Yep. NASCAR just isn't NASCAR since they retired. It wasn't as impactful when Jeff Gordon retired, and it won't be when Jimmie Johnson retires. These two are just different. Built different.
The Tech From Heaven's 1st Church of Memes - LOL, yep. I'd have to say Chad Knaus was a bit of a modern day Smokey Yunick. Smokey said: It ain't cheatin!' unless you get caught.
Gotta admit I’ve never been a fan of Tony’s but the more I watch interviews with him I’ve learned that he’s a smart man and he’s actually a down to earth guy that cares a lot about the sport I’ve become a fan of SMOKE. I wish I would’ve been a fan earlier.
My favorite segment of all time. First 500 I ever watched I was 11 years old (1993 Dale and Dale show) and superspeedway racing has always been my favorite type of racing since, both watching and video games. These 2 had an amazing run for about 6 straight years where they became my favorite drivers of that era because of it. 2 great drivers from about the most opposite of ways to get to the sport, and yet so similar thinkers when it came to Daytona and Dega, they were the class of the field in that era… Then they repaved the track: The tandem twin car racing era was insane, learned that trick when Talladega was redone about 3 years earlier, and when NASCAR refit the plate and radiator to end that was kinda crappy, but who knows how many more driver could’ve been hurt going that fast..
Love seeing these , new to this but ya so cool to see 🤘 cant stop watching all my favs back in the day & jr 🏁🏁🏁 miss seein ya race but this is even better , thank you & y'all have a merry Christmas & happy new year 🎅🎅🎅
Smoke turtled behind his teamamtes after pushing Robby and Robby came back string. We tolerated Smokes bipolarism so much he ended up killing a young man.
@@edblair5253 That young man had no businesses staying on that dirt track. A human being is not going to fair well being hit by a moving car. People can scream all day long that Tony hit him on purpose. But we all know not be standing around in a dirt track.
It's so cool to see Smoke get his spirit back. That litigation dragged on, and you could tell it took a lot of the fun out of his racing. So glad to hear his stories and see him smiling again!
Paul Letchworth y’all are ignorant casual fans of racing. Kid was high and decided running up to cars on an active track was a good idea, especially wearing a dark suit at night. Play stupid games get stupid prizes.
JR with the Def Leppard T, and Smoke with a Hurley hoodie, Pyromania was the first cassette I got it for christmas 1982, And half my clothes are Hurley ! I dont think its a coincidence that they were my 2 fav drivers after Sr. died! These two punks (lol)brought me so many good memories!
I remember a video of Tony from years before this video of him discussing this race. In the video Tony explained that he could not run high which is how Dale passed him. Thus, Tony stayed low and really couldn’t do anything about it.
I miss seeing smoke racing. I love what he's done with Eldora. I'd love to see a true mile dirt track and maby see nascar three day show on the dirt "hint hint smoke"
The only things I've seen negative about him is just his anger on track otherwise he's just a smartass. Personally, I like a smartass. They remind me of my family.
His passion for racing was unreal..he would get so upset about the big picture that others couldn't see. Great chilled guy off the track. All the best to Tony.
Dale Jr representing the dirty mo (Mooresville nc baby) race city. Home of DEI, alot of Nascar drivers and shops, adam's performance, Gibbs race cars and the one and only Mooresville dragstrip. Love u Dale jr
I agree, Def Leppard is pretty awesome.I'm not a huge racing fan,but i always liked Jr.,since we are about the same age.Enjoying these podcasts for sure.
reading between the lines is how I got my dad 5 championships in 2 years. -one rule was the cam had to remain stock lift so I took that and we had cams made that had a longer duration so rather then opening the valve further the valve was open longer - and the rule about shaving the head we shaved the head with in the rules but also shaved the block to achieve the same benefits of shaving the head further - the rule that states we couldn't bore the cylinder's out we got away with by saying we had to hone the cylinder and guess it was too aggressive - or the rule we could only use pump gas with no aditives so wed go to the airport and get aviation gas it still technically came from a pump
2fastHarley aviation gas has higher octane rating (like race fuel) allowing them to run higher compression and make more power. And since they had to have “pump gas” it was the highest octane fuel they could get at a pump.
Loved Tony since his early days in midgets. I remember our shop owner, Ed Pink, saying " he's a nice kid and will be a champion some day. Bob East and Pink put the little Ford powered cars together and Tony hauled butt...big time
Tony's talking about being beat by Bill Balog 17B at Plymouth Dirt Track in Plymouth, WI. He got beat outta Turn 4 both times last summer. IRA vs. ASoSCS Shows
I really like this program. have they ever done a show on the decline of nascar? I'd be interested in hearing they more inside perspective of these guys
I grew up a diehard, Dale Earnhardt fan but once I learned who Tim Richmond was I always wondered if he hadn't died just before my time would Dale SR still be my favorite. Crazy, naturally gifted driver. Rob Gordon is a beast too.
Sr and Smoke were always my favorite drivers. Say what you want about Tony. But he is one of the greatest talents and probably one of the smartest people in NASCAR history.
