Dale Jr. Download: Dale Jr. Confesses He Misses Driving

[Music] why is this so special what makes this this big of a deal it's a great question i thought it was a big deal before it happened right you know man we if we could win one race if we could just get one win with josh and we've worked for years to try to get more opportunities for him and create buzz for him right and we we win race after race after racing the late model car we raced for a decade he's won like 75 features uh multiple track championships a national title last year and we're just working and working and working we've got some great partners that have been able to help us sustain you know continual uh you know performance and and stay on the racetrack in the late model program to be able to you know he just keeps working and keeps trying to improve and getting better and better and you know once you think he's got it mastered he he ramps it up a notch and becomes even more unbeatable i can't over i don't think you can overstate how competitive he is in the late model car everywhere he goes he's the guy to beat or one of the top two or three cars to beat and uh you know when we think about putting him in an xfinity car for uh more than more than just one or two races we've had a couple of races he's only ran about uh 15 or so in his career 13. he had a few races and oh two years ago yeah 16 yeah 14.50 yeah ran at iowa ran a couple places yeah and uh i remember running at homestead and they were good you know we had a real positive run at richmond one night that i remember sitting down at the media center we had won the race and josh had run really well i remember sitting in the media center after that race just pleading with someone to to come on board and help us take josh to the next level and um so disappointed by the lack of sort of response from that you you don't you just put you don't have expectations i mean i i was disappointed and uh thought that maybe that might be what would help us sort of wanna uh you know you're you're just spending your gears and you're hoping that the gears are going to mesh and all of a sudden it's going to start you know the machine is going to start working and it's going to start moving forward but we still haven't sort of caught that cog yet right to get us into the next level without really getting into details owning a xfinity team is you know really we budget to break even we we budget to we budget to to not lose money budget yeah we budget to handle payroll right right get everybody the money we owe them and and pay them the the salary they deserve and what we agreed upon and all that good stuff and we don't you know we we budget to to go race and we know what we got we know what engines are going to cost we know what tires are going to cost and we we we go race and this thing doesn't make money it's not designed you know to to make money and sometimes it does sometimes it doesn't right and we've been doing this sixfinity program for a really long time and we've had more better years than we've had bad years and when we do have any kind of a profit we've we've sort of we've we've saved that right we put that behind we put that in a little safe place in case of any kind of you know necessary need for that type of a you know a quick recovery or any kind of savior or or you know and we've really built up a great little you know cushion to uh to to have in case of an emergency or something like that and and uh here we are with with we had a little void of races that we needed to feel and and we had talked to a lot of drivers corey lejoy was one guy i was excited about um possibly coming here because i knew corey could go out there and win and everybody's dying to see him really get that opportunity but we had talked to a handful of other drivers and and just really never came to uh finalize any kind of agreement with anybody and and i was sitting there i don't remember how the conversation started but i think i reached out to kelly or lw and said hey you know what about josh like can we make this work could we figure this out and so we figured it out right and we kind of you basically what you do and and it's not i wouldn't suggest this for anybody but it's it's what some people do as owners and and people that go racing even even drivers that own their own cars is they'll commit to go race and they'll try to cure those you know acquire those sponsorships as they're going right and so that's kind of what we hoped would happen yeah as we got into the season we would start to pick up partnerships right at the doorstep of these races right at the right at the you know and you'd love to have a package signed months ago last year right we'd love to have something signed now for next year for anything for all our cars but um we went into this without any guarantee on partnerships and so forth race but race and we just we've pieced these together this is something we've done in the past yeah you know we've went to racetracks uh we've we've we've committed to seasons with unsponsored races and we figure it out right we figure it out and so we thought all right we're gonna josh has won the national title this is it this is now or never i knew that if we didn't make this type of a commitment at some point i was going to regret it for the rest of my life and this was this was that opportunity yep this was it joe mattis by the way to go on what you just said i was asking our vice president last night about it and he said we made the decision to bet on ourselves i love that right sure because josh berry you've been you've been advocating for him for so long and it's like now we have this opportunity let's go ahead and make our bet we didn't have the funding to at the time to to go to back that up so you're betting that josh berry will do what he we think he can do sure one of the things that i always had a bad habit of doing is feeling all the pressure and letting that weigh me down and letting you just cut you take yourself right out of the game right last year i believe it was or maybe it was a year before i saw an interview with chase elliott and uh they were like hey man you know you're you're you're here you are for uh opportunity to win a championship uh you know how's the pressure and and my mind immediately went to golly i hate that performance pressure i hate it it's miserable you got the way everybody in the world expecting you to go out there and get this done you got your family you got your crew your team your fans and man you're gonna you just don't want to let anybody down you just don't want to let everybody down and how are you going to face them when you when you don't accomplish this goal right and chase elliott said man this is amazing opportunity i get to go for a championship this weekend i can't believe it this is going to be a blast like what yeah you know and and there's that's there's there's there's there's two types of athletes i think in that in that sense right there's the kind like me that are gonna go oh my god this is hard and i'm so i'm i'm nervous i'm gonna fail and this is miserable and then there's the other guy right chase that's like hell yeah they embrace it let's do it i'm down for this yeah what a great chance right i can't believe i've got this chance to do this right in that moment it really helped me understand like a flaw of my own right that i had all my career and uh anyways when i was talking to josh at the start of the year and i've tried to help him kind of maybe maybe ha take that frame take that take that frame of mind sometimes in conversations over the last several weeks he's like man this is it like if i don't do it this is it this is the end he thinks you know he's sitting there in moments at his house or or in at the track or whenever you know he's having these thoughts in his head like you know he's crashing he's going through the grass at atlanta and he's having you know he's having a great run at phoenix and gets spun out and and you know he flips the bird and he's all over the media you know he's all over social media because he's done something uh unperformance related right and it just isn't going it's smooth and you were getting frustrated you were getting frustrated yourself and he's sitting there going man i'm gonna this is how this is gonna go and then at the end of this 14 whatever races the door's going to close and that's going to be the end of this and then i'm going to have to turn around and go back to running the late model car and always wonder what if or what could have been and i'm like no no no don't don't don't yeah i'm trying like don't do what i would do right yeah um think like look at this like man it's here what i've wanted is right here in front of me yeah and yeah maybe last week didn't go the way i wanted it but i get to go again right right and i get to go back seize it go after it yeah i get to try it next week man i can't wait you know and start like try to look at this as like the gift under the tree that you've wanted all year long and it's finally christmas morning right and uh keep that sort of attitude throughout this process and be thankful that it happened you know what i mean when dad passed away um the like when you lose somebody a lot of times we you know we mourn and we get sad and we get upset and a lot of that is some some of that is some beings is some selfishness because we want them right we want that person here we want them in our lives we we want what they provide to us whether it's happiness and companionship and all these things uh but a great uh reaction to losing somebody that i think helps you sort of process the loss is to appreciate the fact that you've got to be with them right that they happened that you happened that this happened right and be thankful that guy lay i got to be with him for a moment at le you know you know and be thankful for what time that you spent with him right and so it's that same sort of mentality and i you know this really like this is how much it matters i know i'm i know i'm blowing this up into something really really huge but that's really how much it matters to josh and i feel it i can i totally relate right to how he what he's going through in this moment you know this guy he's like every other like you know every other driver out there that's wanted this chance right and now he's in the throes of it and he's it's it's it's been up and down down down and up and down and uh and and he has no guarantee no he has no idea whether this is gonna pan out or whether it's gonna develop into more stuff more racing or if it's going to be a seat at the table just momentarily you know that he's always wanted to sit at nobody knows that no not josh we all want to know i know and that's that's tough that's frustrating and people that just assume that you you have so much control over that situation because you're a team owner how do you address that because they're like dale just put him in a car that i know i see that i've seen that for years on on social media yeah um such a great part of social media is being able to get fan reaction right at your right right at your fingertips and yeah every any any time a driver like goes out there in the truck or xfinity car you know maybe like brett mar moffat he's you know i've been a huge you know fan of his uh way back when he showed out in in michael's car in atlanta that day when he filled in for brick vickers um anytime anybody goes out there and does something good but doesn't really have the the connections or the funding or the means to to advance their career themselves yeah you hear it you know like hey put him in one of your cars sure you got cars and i try and try to you can't just flat out open your books and say hey man this is how we run our business and this is why this isn't possible right but i i mean you gotta you try to tell people like look man this i don't i'm not people will say hey man can you sponsor me right i'm not a sponsor right i'm an owner i need a sponsor just like you need a sponsor and we all have the same problem right we have to have those we have to find those partners and those those commitments from from businesses that want to advertise what they do in their service and so um it's just not you know it's just not easy every time we've had josh berry on the show that's always the natural reaction from people is like hey if you want him so bad put him in a car and you know it's like we don't need to go into the what i would assume is just kind of common sense thing is that the financial implications are one the business models too the other we've got promises to people that are in seats right now you can't just move them out what would that be uh and and so yeah the of course we would love just throw josh in a car that would be awesome wouldn't it yeah and it's funny but you know getting it paid for is also a big chunk of the of the equation and that's off oftentimes the most difficult right you got to pay for it and in this case these 12 races like madness said was it we bet on ourselves and and you thought this is josh's window now i wonder i want to know i um i want to ask you this question because you threw a lot of people by surprise when you said you just broke down and cried and i was going to ask why that is i think you've been explaining it honestly you've been explaining it all this stuff that you've been saying about josh but do you sense that there was a an element of vindication for you because you've been such a josh berry advocate do you think there was any of that no um no i mean i'm sure there's some of that i'm sure i feel some of that personally but um you know we've uh i don't know where that emotion comes from because there's a lot i think that that you know i'm standing there in my in in the house watching the race with amy and ayla and everybody there and i think that emotion comes from wanting josh to get there wanting josh wanting josh to show people what he could do um why is that what why is why did josh all of us why did josh get that that out of you as far as you've had a lot of people that drove for you what did josh do to earn desire for him to succeed so much that it would drive you to an emotional reaction such as that i think that i yeah i don't know man i you know i miss i miss driving really really bad and uh part of that emotion you know part of the emotion is is that um i miss i don't know man i don't really the that emotion that moment was happy for josh i think you know knowing everything that we've put into it for a decade knowing how he's you know looked up that ladder and all those other people that are going by him into the truck series in the xfinity series and him wondering like when's this gonna be me that's that's will it ever be me yes um missing racing missing my dad any other little tiny tinge of emotion anything that would give you any emotion going on in your life yeah your kids uh whatever all that just come pop pile and fly it out all at once right um you know how it is like when you if one little thing that happens to you in the day makes you emotional all the other emotions just oppressing sort of come out with it right i gotcha and so i think that was part of that um i've been missing racing pretty bad uh recently and don't know how to uh it's gotten worse as the as i've been as i've moved away from the day i retired getting further away from it it's not gotten easier it's gotten harder to to come to terms with the fact that that that's it you know that's the end my career is over you know i miss being a regular i miss going to the track and being in that fraternity and you know there's a lot of things about it that i didn't enjoy that i've forgotten does that make sense yeah i could think of something right right now like you would you'll you know you'll you'll have that relationship um you know you're young in your teens or 20s or whatever and you got this relationship that you think is great and then then then you see the flaws in it and you you decide that it's not for you and you you move on and then six months still later a year later or whatever you see that person and you think oh man i like that relationship i want to get back in it and you do right you both make that choice to be back together and then i mean in a week you're like oh no i i forgot about all the things that i didn't like about this oh yeah yeah right so i know that that's there that i just don't realize like man you've made the choice and you made it for a reason and it's made and you've you're you you got to figure you got to come to terms with it but but that's okay you can still say that you miss racing i do you miss racing this is a profound development right here it's not perfect it is i'm telling you i haven't heard this so you miss it and that's okay so are you saying that josh's success is sort of helping you process this i mean like how are you tying this back to josh i don't know i'm just saying that you're just saying all the emotions all the emotions are suppressing and it released at once i got you i feel like too you know there is something to there's some guilt with not being able to provide josh with better opportunities right there's some there's i feel like that i have i always go back in my mind and go man did we miss this what we're doing today with josh what we're doing with this little package of half a season is this was this was this there was this opportunity there before that we just didn't figure it out did we not try hard enough to make this happen did we miss something did we miss a chance to put him in a car i feel so much responsibility right to help him you know get where he wants to go and he's looking around going man this what's what's what's what's the missing piece right you got i look at the shop and you got working everything's working well you got all the employees and all these cars everywhere right i can look out there now there's just cars all colors right there's white and gray red and orange and there's people and there's stuff and there's why are we racing why can i race why can't i i feel this responsibility when he walks in here and looks around i'm like yeah i know it looks like we could just load up and go but it's not that easy and i feel like um you know and for the record that's all self-inflicted josh has never once done anything to make you feel put that pressure on me right for sure josh has never asked a question dude you know what's up with all the race cars right you know you feel that pressure you know you feel people just like the people ask on social media like wait wait why why is this so hard right sure um i know why this is yeah it's you said it there has never been anybody and i can't think of anybody in any sport that's been more of a team player that you want to succeed and you want to repay the favor he has mentored people that are racing in cup today yeah and people process that and never once complained he's a special guy man i'm telling you uh it's been fun we really this is really something that started from nothing it came from nothing hey do you want to hear more of that conversation with josh berry well listen to the whole podcast the dale jr download available on all major podcast platforms

Channel: Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Dirty Mo Media

Views: 101,512

Rating: 4.9299612 out of 5

Keywords: Dale Earnhardt Jr., NASCAR, Dale Jr., Dale Jr. Download, Dale Jr. podcast, Mike Davis, Dirty Mo Media, JR Motorsports, Josh Berry, Xfinity Racing

Id: MOBbzCCPe5s

Length: 21min 1sec (1261 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 16 2021