Dale Jr. and Ward Burton Finally Hash Out 2002 Bristol Incident

it is my time it's my time we got to talk about bristol oh yes which which race we're going to talk about well did he have it coming that's all i want to know i didn't do anything did he have it coming i never paid him back he never did oh so used to he still got one coming appreciate it all right let's set this race up who wants to go first i don't know he's running along mid middle of the race or something i don't know when it was in the race but we was running about 10 15th or 20th and uh we we were in the top two were we yeah hell yeah we've been in top 10 all night all right we've been running we're running well we're running and i am i'm trying hard to get by board and the cars were pretty even and if you got a it was kind of thing at bristol if you got to run on somebody it wasn't a big one you weren't going to get a big run on nobody we all running around the bottom of the race track we hopped up out of turn two it was pretty fun back then when the way you run turn two you kind of clipped the apron a little bit and if you did it just right and the guy in front of you didn't do it the way you did it you might have an opportunity because his car would kind of hop up out of the corner and your your car would keep turning and i had to run up up to his bumper and i think i had about three inches and he went down we went down in the corner and he he's coming down and i i i was arcing the heck out of it i was like this i was like i'm work where i'm we're going to hit and i and we hit and it spun him out and he hit the fence and he was right he was mad he should have been mad so when you came back around on the caution laps were you surprised when you saw him down on the track i mean i i was like that never had happened to me before where somebody was that mad at me because i try to i hate conflict and hate hate arguing and fighting and i was just disappointed in not in him but just disappointed when uh growing up with dad and growing up son going to the racetrack right i respect all the guys that dad raced i respect them like they're his you know maybe the others friends or they're you know i don't want to i don't want to do anything it's going to make them mad i wrecked dale jared at watkins glenn stupid just ran over him in the carousel and he come up to me we went to a test at bristol the next week and we pull in and i think it's it's just a tire test or something i pull into the track and my hauler's on one side of the track and dale jarrett is on the other and i was like oh shoot and i mean i ain't been there five minutes and he come in the hauler and he goes did i do something to piss you off and i was like man this is terrible it still feels terrible because i mean i respect this guy right and i don't mess this up now i don't messed up that i want his respect and i don't messed it up and so that was kind of the same feeling that i had with ward and uh because we always had raced good and i i got stuck my nose somewhere i guess i shouldn't have put it hey man you know i've made a bunch of mistakes on the racetrack and you know i've had people uh probably wrecked me more than i wrecked them and um i you know at the end of the day was my was i'm mad was i mattered and mad absolutely but uh you know i i went up to you in richmond i said a little bit something to you but it wasn't running confrontation on you know i i knew that you didn't mean to rape you remember that oh i just went up to him and he i said you should i said you should have called me he said well i didn't know what to say which he which was an honest that's true and i swear just be truthful and i walked off i didn't know why you didn't throw a helmet why did you throw your hands i like my hem if i can get a helmet to fit the last thing i'm going to do is mess at him lord but if you're going to send a message send the message man ain't nobody going to change change throwing gloves at them i mean hell i wasn't well would you my car would have cranked up that eight call wouldn't have finished i can tell you that that's how pissed off i was yeah but you had to check i mean like don't get any mad damn i've always wanted to ask this though but but you race with him the next week did you how long did you carry that oh i don't forget but i owed a lot more to his dad than i did him i mean really that's the only that's the only conflict dale and i raced i don't know of another time we might have rubbed a little bit but i don't remember another time but i was at all irritated at dale about what he'd done on racetrack yeah but you had you had several with the senior you well i could go into we could have a whole show just on that but i mean which driver didn't yeah yeah did you ever throw anything at him he hey he you can be as honest as you want to be about my dad in this room we are we let him have it so he uh nobody we throw gloves well let me just say this if i wreck the three car you're gonna get booed you're gonna get hate mail it's long before social media right if the three car wrecks me it's just racing yeah that's just the way it that's the way it was man jeremy mayfield moved him out of the way and lived to tell about it well i mean heck i i called the big racket talladega uh i think it was um it was 2 000 i think yeah i hit the left my left front got on the apron so dale's you know we all we all holding each other down he didn't do anything wrong my left front that was before that's when they put the line there on there so you can see the line after that and anyway it got me loose and i got into the left rear of dale and that's when dale got hurt he got burnt some bill it and and uh the next week you know when i got out of the car immediately they said what happened i made a mistake i caused a wreck in no lie for four four to five weeks i would get booed at the grandstand but more importantly than that i think we were in california the next week and i'd gotten bill simpson to i'd gone to a full-face helmet finally and he cut my eye porch back because before he was like this and i just i wasn't gonna do it and i i went into your dad's hall and showed it to him because i mean bill was really good he could he could fix belts or or or helmets and and i could see i got my printful visions you know i can see my hands there and i'm not gonna i'm not gonna drive something that blocks it but i i went in there and told you dad again i was sorry and he called me back that day because i had called him i think i waited till monday just say i was sorry i called y'all y'all's office i think he was on the bulldozer doing some work at the farmer which probably yeah but anyway yeah we had a we had a bunch of history i come out the end of it the other way more time than not but [Laughter] so uh so so we can finally put the bristol thing down at least uh hey man you know at the end of the day this this gentleman here sitting at a table with me and i thank you for having me here after your dad passed i mean i can't imagine not only with everything that was going on all the dynamics with your family but you know you had the whole sport on your shoulders i mean you really did and you how you handled that and still do is is amazing i mean there's not a lot of there's not a lot of people that could have done what you did i mean you know back in them days after that happened the half of the stand was red with boaz or shirts or hats i mean to carry that load man you just you did you did an amazing job you still do well i appreciate that man i mean it's a i uh i think the reason why i uh wanted to do as good as i could was because of you guys like you you know the ward burdens by the bonnies dale jarrett's all those people that i raced against and i wanna y'all help me you know not even not even directly but indirectly helped me get from week to week and uh showed me how to act showed me how to handle you know myself in and around the race car in the garage and after races and interviews and all that stuff and i still leaned on you guys and um well i wasn't there much for you you know because you know look i i had a racing life and i got this whole another life and i've it's always been that way with me racing gabe racing gave this other thing this my full-time life of voice so you know i wouldn't know it's there for you i'm just saying you know it just however you did it and continue to do it you just you did an amazing job cause that's that's a hell of a lot of pressure man you know that is i don't care who you are [Music] life is best lived in motion and that's why tire pros gets you ready for all your driving adventures whether it's along corners and curves across city and state lines because we're more than just tires we're auto care too [Music] tire pros so you can focus on the road ahead [Music]

Channel: Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Dirty Mo Media

Views: 187,864

Rating: 4.9720516 out of 5

Keywords: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Dale Jr., Ward Burton, NASCAR, Dirty Mo Media, Dale Jr. podcast

Id: x_g07nKDsQc

Length: 10min 2sec (602 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 10 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Soupjr48]

I liked this whole interview it was nice to hear more about Ward.

I know everyone likes poking fun at his drawl but I seriously thought his other brothers name was Braun until Mike said Brian

[u/Eticket9]

Dude was a hippie when they were extinct, just excels at whatever he does, this was fun. Will listen to the podcast to hear what I missed on TV. Interesting about Sidewalls and performance that I hadn't heard before, quite a newsgrab there..

[u/srosslx1986]

Just wondering did Dale record a bunch of interviews at once? last couple of episodes had nothing about the race before, and the ask jr questions have been canned like from JRM motorsports or xfinity drivers.

[u/vcjr78]

We all really need to thank Dale Jr. for these podcasts. Every one of them is so interesting and intriguing. This is a great one as well.

I think what's most interesting is that I remember the on-track stories from a good amount of his guests. This is stuff I've never heard or read before and I've followed NASCAR since the late 80s.

[u/ryanp978]

Ward is a gem of a human. This one delivered

[u/BuschWhackerReviews]

This was one of the best episodes ever

[u/Das_Beer_Baron]

Ward seems like such a cool dude. This was a great interview and the Bristol incident was hilarious. I really wonder what the sport/Ward’s career would’ve looked like had he taken some of those offers over his career.

[u/MaxPres24]

The Dale Jr. Download is one of the best things to happen to the sport. I know like 4 people who started watching because of the download

[u/RedditUser24567]

As if his drawl wasn’t pronounced enough, it sounded like he had a lozenge or piece of candy or something in his mouth while he was talking. Really enhanced it.