From Living In A Motel To Winning A NASCAR Championship with Kyle Larson | Dale Jr. Download

[Music] what makes you move to North Carolina uh towards the end of 14 I was working a lot working on my car or our car trying to get that thing better like trying to figure out how to go faster wanted to learn more and I was almost every night of the week helping buddies on their cars their their late models uh um for multiple reasons one was I wanted to to learn how to work on a car how to make it go faster yep so by the end of 2014 I'm like man like I'm I'm wore out like I'm working all the time on race cars at night and I loved it I freaking it was amazing that's so I'm like man I wonder if I could go like to North Carolina because at that point like I had kind of figured out that this is where everybody was everybody's in Charlotte y and I wonder if I could go to North Carolina and and get a job to work on race cars for a living and I had raced against a guy never talked to him but I raced against him a couple times at the Dells in 14 and I had seen he had moved here and so the first two weeks of 15 in January I I took off of work which was wasn't a big deal it was snowing and windy so we weren't doing roofs um and I drive to North Carolina I'm going to go find a job and I gave myself two weeks if I can't find a job in two weeks then it's then I'll you know figure something else out I I'll stay stay in Wisconsin for another year and try to figure out a different route or something different and of course I had a bunch of resumés made up and I mean there was there was nothing on it right I was a roofer I was a roofer that worked on on my buddy's late models and did a little bit of my own racing um so I came down and got a a long-term like Hotel thing Motel thing and I stayed there and every day I would go to race shops I would hit like six or seven or eight race shops a day everywhere morisville Concord I was everywhere anything from modified teams late model teams Cup teams it didn't matter I dropped one off here really yeah yeah and uh the first week goes by and on Friday I talked to an ARCA team down in the drag strip Park and he sounded somewhat promising um that he would consider me so I'm like all right that's my first hit right everybody else was like didn't want to talk to me didn't have time like H yeah put your resume in there we'll look over it right y so the second week rolls around Monday comes and goes we're driving all the way all over the place two my buddies came down with me just to hang out yep and Monday nothing Tuesday it's like mid morning I drop I stopped by uh Richie Waters Waters Motorsports late model team and he was doing some truck stuff too as well and uh I walk in there's like I walk up and there's nobody in the office like the office is empty I can see through the glass windows so there's a door off to the side that says employees only and I'm like well like yeah let's see what you know what's behind this door cuz at this point I don't have anything to lose so I open the door and I look in and there's like a bunch of late models lined up and I'm like man that's that's awesome right so I walk in and there's two guys working on a setup plate one younger kid about my age and another guy older guy he wasn't that old but uh grumpy old fell Bobby Gil and I walk up to him and Bobby looks at me like I'm in the wrong place like what are you doing in here you know but that's just how he was um so I'm like yeah here to drop off a resume and I'm like sweating bullets I'm like man I'm I shouldn't be in here right so Hand him a resume he says yeah boss is upstairs I'll get it to him I'm like all right thanks and I go out the door and I'm like well that was a waste like he's going to throw that right in the trash can and so we sit in the parking lot for probably 5 minutes and I'm on on uh on on my maps trying to figure out where this ARCA team was that I was at Friday cuz I hadn't heard from him so I'm like I'm going to drive over there and just show my face again like see see what what I can make happen um and uh so we leave and my phone rings and it's a 704 number and I'm like all right this is the arcet team calling me so I answer it and it's Richie Waters he says hey you just dropped the resume off yep uh can you come back talk I'm like yeah absolutely be right there so make a U-turn go back and I go up in his office and we sit down and we talk and work out a deal talked to him for like 20 minutes made shook his hand told him I could start on Monday yeah this was Tuesday and I'm like sh okay like I'm starting Monday I still got to go back home to get my stuff and take my buddy's back and then and come back and find a place to live yeah so we go back home before I we went home I messaged this guy that had race against in 14 but had never met him I'm like hey like I'm in the area and like looking for a job so I had met up with him like over that weekend he's like yeah if you if you get lucky enough to get a job like yeah you can sleep on my couch you know so I call him after I left Richie hey I need a place to stay next week and I go home and yeah that's how that's how it started loaded up my stuff and came back and uh started working for Richie so you go to the you go to the snowball derby with Richie in 2015 there you established Contra contact at MDM Motorsports um you worked for them in 2016 under Marty Lindley who's here yep um you ran K&N East in an arc series uh with drivers like Kyle Benjamin and Harrison Burton and Zane Smith and that's recent yeah you had a cousin that worked over at gassie and um got you hooked up over there to interview with Chad on the 48 car yeah for Jimmy Johnson yeah so Ron Ron Malik was car chiefing on the 48 so his now wife Ashley was at gassie so my cousin Ruben was in con like knew her yep so that's how the contact happened with Ron do you remember going into Chad's office or did you have a yeah so you'd been around for let's say um three and a half years kind of so the conversation with Chad actually started in early of 18 like like the end of 17 yeah so i' had been been at MDM for two years but Chad wouldn't hire me he said I didn't have enough experience right like I was way too green I didn't I didn't know what I was doing for sure I'm like man all right so we talked that whole winter like back and forth and then Ryan came off the road Jesse becomes a new car Chief and now I'm like in contact with him he's he's Jesse's still trying to get me on January rolls around and I tell him I'm like look I'm going to commit to MDM and to Marty to to work for them for 2018 through the championship we're running for the championship with Zan Smith and ARCA so I'm not going to walk out halfway through the season so like just so you know so I would really like to make this happen like if we can and Chad wouldn't do it he said I didn't have enough experience still so I'm like all right so it goes a couple months into the season my phone rings it's Chad he says hey uh I need I need a mechanic I'm like so as time had gone on from when I became a race fan and like figured out how the sport was the 48 was the Pinnacle when I moved here that was my goal I wanted to work for the best team for the best crew chief driver combination like they were they were the best that's what I wanted to do I wanted to be the best be part of the best beat the best and now we're you know a couple months into the season and I tell him no thanks like I turn it down I tell them no like it's what I wanted I wanted to work on the 48 but we're in in I think it was like June and I'm like no like I told you beginning of the year if I commit to something like or commit to someone that's what I stick to I'm I can't I can't bail halfway through the season and I'm like man like this is is probably a mistake I will never get that opportunity again yeah never get it and then as that summer went on they stayed in contact and sure enough it all came down to in October uh they hired me we went to Kansas for our finale ARCA finale our race is Friday my hire date was Saturday at hendrik and MDM guys I helped them we we loaded everything they went home Chad left me his uh his keys and his rental car and the address to their hotel and like I didn't know any of the guy I knew Jesse sort of like I had met with him I think twice during that time but I didn't know any of the mechanics like I didn't know anybody and so now I wake up the next morning in their hotel and go with them to the racetrack like trying to meet everybody and just like figure it out as I as we go so they have a Fillin front end mechanic and I'm supposed to Shadow him all weekend all right so I like watch everything he does figure out how how everything works and we go back to the shop Tuesday morning or whatever it was that next week and all right you're the friend and mechanic on 48 like I'm like I thought I was going to Shadow him for another like week week or two or something you know nope it's all you so we go to Martinsville and I'm the primary mechanic on a cup car and I've never worked on a cup car like I I don't know what I'm doing yeah um Jesus but that but at the end of the day it's it's nuts and bolts and wres and and I figured it out so you worked on that team until um they change over to the five and kyl Lon comes to race uh and y'all win a championship um you also as we've as you've mentioned a couple times you um build a street stock car and you're back to driving and you're driving good you're winning races um you've moved off of the Road off of the cup stuff right now you're kind of um you're doing some track cars and turning old gen sixes into public you know cars of sale to public uh folks you worked on the garage 56 program as a front end mechanic there you went overseas to the race yep um and you started an automotive repair company called Yoda yod Yoda Automotive based in Canapolis North Carolina yep are you what's your plan um my plan is to do short track racing that's you love driving your street stock I do right you want to do that as much as you can I want to do that as much as I can that was that was the motivation for Mo you know you won this Championship as a mechanic on the five car for Larson but that was the motivation to move away from that because you hadn't been there long yeah right you could have stayed there made great money right yeah but you're like I gotta drive I want to race that part and part of that decision to to leave Cup racing also happened with NASCAR going away from the car the practice oh practice yeah and so when we had the 1hour practice sessions or hour and a halfs you could work as a mechanic yeah I could work like when we had changes spring changes yeah shock Chang your job that like whatever it was that the competitor in me like it was it was yeah it was a team aspect right you're trying to win as a team but at the same time I was I'm so competitive that I I would watch other mechanics do their shock changes do their spring changes I would like count in my head how long it took them and I'm like I'm G to I'm going to beat that I'm going to be faster and better than that and I'm I'm just super competitive right right so when practice went away now that that goes away yeah you don't you don't really have that anymore yeah so I I needed another challenge I I I needed a challenge and it kind of fell into the same time my car was done we were winning races cars fast and it rekindled the passion I had for racing which was on the short tracks like that's the reason I got into racing was because going to the short tracks yeah we watch it on on TV but that's that was the whole reason um so now that's my goal is to do short track racing race my street stock um I'd like to move up in the late models at some point you know if if money happens right sponsors that type of stuff and run Yoda Automotive

Channel: Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Dirty Mo Media

Views: 87,874

Keywords: Dale Earnhardt Jr., Dale Jr. Download, Marlin Yoder, Amish, Racing, Sports, Podcast, Dirty Mo Media, Kyle Larson, Championship, NASCAR

Id: XGOK0GdTGgY

Length: 16min 10sec (970 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 18 2024