really needs no introduction. Okay. I don't even know why I'm
up here from this first full-time. Bush Xfinity ride to the last full-time cup season was 20 21 years. He was the most popular driver
between those two series 16 of those 21 years. So if you don't know who he is,
shame on you, okay, it's not his fault. He is so popular. He's got that
single name, Fame thing going, you know, you got by know and
you got sting and you got share and you got Junior. That's it. Okay, that's what he
goes by that's it end of conversation. So I'm going to bring out too. Give us a little insight into
Dale jr. Bring out senior advisor. NASCAR
Mike Hilton class of 2017. Nascar Hall of
Fame inductee. Rick Hendrick and class of 2021, Nascar Hall of Fame. Inductee,
Dale Earnhardt, jr. Yeah. Take a seat. Oh, you can put him over here. Oh, I get to keep my own y'all,
20. All right. Let me get my stuff.
Okay, I can I tell you something for we start you sure
came out. I want to tell red. I used to vote race and the name of my boat was
preparation age from shirts. That's the perfect name for your
vote. I mean, what I ask, why? Yeah, I
just love that. I love that. Alright, I'm going to start with
you, Mike. You're only on the other end. Give us your first memories of
this Gap. Dale, Earnhardt, jr. Well, there's, there's a lot of
people in the room that watch Dale and Kelly and Carrie, come
and grow up in the garage area with their dad and everything.
But if you knew Dale senior, you
knew he had a master plan to put them in race cars. If
that's what they wanted to do. And then and follow through with
it along the way head up had a game in his head that he kept after and they all kind of worked their
way up. And then eventually they all got into the Xfinity
series, which was the Busch Series back in and was pretty
good. I mean some of our Banner years when it was Dale, Junior Matt
Kenseth, every weekend was like Richard Petty and David Pearson
in the old days because they were going to, they were going
to have a race and and then he moved him into
the cup car. But after a few months or weeks,
I guess into the cup car, Dale started coming by and he
said, look, I, you know, I don't know if he's going to
cut it. I don't know if he wants
to do this, you know, I did all
this work and got all this up and running and everything and
he won't take it serious. You got to talk to him. And so that one on for two or
three weeks. So when we show up the racetrack and and Senior
said, I'm sending him over here to talk to him. I said, what am
I supposed to talk to him about yours? Dad? He said, you've got somebody.
He's got to talk to her. So I never did anything Dale walked
off the truck and a few minutes later tied Norris, who
worked for D. I had Dale jr. And toe and I don't know if either one of
them knew what they were in the holler for. But anyway, we
go up and said they on and we started having a kind of a parental conversation
between me and Dale and and spent 30 or 45 minutes talking
about responsibility when she get into the cup garage and that
type of thing and all that. And I don't even know if he
remembers the conversation, but I will tell you that, after all
these years. Dad will be really proud of how serious you've taken your career in this business and
still do so. Yeah, I don't, I wish I did remember
that one. But I the one thing, the one
conversation that I remember, and I guess I ought to thank you
for having that conversation with me. I didn't
know. Dad was in such Dire Straits there for a while. Goodness. I don't know. How come how close
he came to pulling the plug. Did he come close.
Tony goodness gracious. So anyways, I
remember Mike and dad were great friends.
And that was interesting to me because, you
know, mykes mykes, one of the managers
Elite official kind of guy. He's one of the top
guys in the, in the, in the, in the NASCAR
organization drivers are supposed to be friends with
those people. How did they have friendships when the, when the
guys out there racing and he's running the show? You know, and I felt the same
way about dad's relationship
with with Bill jr. I just was so amazed by that friendship that
they had, but the fact that Dad was your
friend and looked at you the way he did, it made me
instantly respect you and and I felt like that we had, you know, we developed a
friendship too. And I took that little bit too far one day and I love telling the story,
but we were Bristol and I got behind
somehow and had a fast car. And I'm A couple laps left in the race.
I'm trying to make up as many spots as I can.
We got a top five car and I used to get so upset. If I
didn't finish where I thought the car should run and caution comes out and we're
running around in a caution and somebody blew a rotor. And
so there's tiny little brake parts all over the racetrack,
but I don't see them and I'm cussing all over the radio and cussing up at the booth. I don't
know if they can hear me or not. They hear you. Yeah, they hear
you. Well, we going and and run a few more laps under
caution. And they come on radio and they said, hey, they want to
see you at the holler after this is over with and I was like, oh no, they must
be listening. So me and Tony, Senior went up in
the holler and sit down and nobody was up
there yet, and we're sitting there and we're like, me and
Tony Senior. We're getting our game plan. Ready. Tony's mad. I'm mad. We're going to,
we're going to tell them how we feel about it. And as soon as the first person,
He's in the room with his might and we just barely start opening
our mouths, get ready to plead our case, and he said,
you're not talking, you're listening. And he he set the, he set the
tone and that moment for the rest of
our the rest of our friendship and
our lives. I was like, oh, I see how this
is going to work. And and it was so good, you
know? And and then you know, there were times throughout my
career where I go. Hey Mike, you need to go have that
conversation with that guy. He's not, he's not doing right,
you know, but I really appreciated that
because you, you were such a great friend to me, but also you treated me just
like all the other guys and went and you held me
accountable. When I was, you know, when I was out of line,
you straight me right back. And I always wanted to, you know, make you proud. Always
thought about every decision I've ever. Made in the garage or around the
sport or involved in a sport. I wanted it to I wanted it to be
a decision. You'd be happy with, you know, and I know and I
think it's great to have people like that in your life
because you've kind of kept me on a good path. That's good, man. Thank you, you guys. All right, mister Preparation H
here. All right, Rick. We've all. We've all heard the
story about the contract on the napkin. Okay, then that can
contract story. But I want to know about your
first real contract negotiation with
this cat. When you sit down to talk serious about it, and I also want you to tell me how he offered to help the
company later on after he'd been there for a
little while. Well, I talked to Dale and Kelly and my son Ricky said, you know,
he's gonna drive for us one day and I never thought it would
happen. But when we were negotiating, you
know, you're sweating. What do you offer, Dale Earnhardt? You know, so what percentage,
how much salary, what are you going to have to?
What do you have to do? So I had this big sheet of term sheet so I set out
with Dale. And I'm like, okay. I hope he's
gonna like these numbers so I had him to sheet and I said Dale, here's the numbers. He said I don't care about the
numbers. He turned the sheet. Oh, I thought, give it back to
me, you know, but so it should you get that you work
at work, that out with Kelly. So we started we were having a
great conversation and I thought, okay, we're done. He's going to do it. We're happy. We're Smiling and Marshall Carlson. I've sitting
there and they'll stands up and he says, got a couple things. It's important to me. This this is very important to me and I'm thinking we just spent
two hours. I thought it was done. He said, I want to use the
helicopter, but go to Martinsville and to Darlington I said that. Okay. Sure. That's
good. That's no problem. No problem. And and then we say, okay. He says one more. And I thought this is the big
one. Now. He said now this is very important to me. This is this is it, I said, okay, and he said, I
want the skirts on the car, the same color as the car. I said, what, you know, you
okay. Yeah, no problem. Dale. We got, we got the handle, but
not a problem. Not a problem. But those are the only two
things you wanted. You you thought, you thought it was
going to be boom. Boom, something big cars money. He's
wearing, skirts painted. I just was the
paint, Scheme matters to me and back then. Nobody is really
painting the side skirts, and I'm like, man, when the car's
got the painted skirts. It looks like it's so, you know,
it's right on the ground and when the side skirts were like a
black plastic, it looked like it was a foot off the
ground. And I'm like, we got to paint these side
skirts Rick. And he's like, I mean, I needed
to know in that moment. Like if we was going to do this, every
car, I drove had to have the size after the had to be a
deal. Yeah, and I was shot helicopter
and are just hoping that that would get done. Yeah, that was just gravy right
helicopter was just gravy. I need to know side skirts,
dude. I needed those side
skirts. We had the side skirts. Yeah. So
how did how later on as you run together? And And things changed? How did
he offer to help the company? Well, he would people, I think most
people know that Dale's got an unbelievable heart and it was a going through a
recession and everybody was adjusting pay,
and all the teams and we were in
California and he came up to me and he
said, listen, I don't want any of my team to
suffer. I'm going to take a million
dollars out of my salary and I want to give it to the company
to pay. People and I said day like never had
anybody say anything like that and so we didn't do it and he found out that it wasn't
anything. He didn't get the money to check. So he went
to the office and said take it
out of my check. I want to make sure I take care
of the people. So that's the heart of Dale
Earnhardt that it was taken care of the folks in the
organization. Yeah, that's cool, man, I think, I got a I got a credit, just, you know,
obviously all the people that I'm around that influence you to
make choices like that, you know, you would have done the
same thing. I was, you know, influenced by you and
that moment, you know, by my sister by anybody else that I've
worked with and dealt with. And so, you
know, you're a product of the people that you spend time
with and the environment that
you spend time in. And so I was
just, you know, thinking about. Well this you
I've you know, Seen you do so many things. A
lot of people in this room know about some of them but there's a
lot of things that you do. That, doesn't get publicize how
you help people, when somebody's sick, you get
them to the right doctor. You do any you go above and beyond
out of your way to help people that you've never even met
before? And you don't even personally know. And so it's people like you, I guess
that, you know, such a great example for people like
me. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very
much. So, I'm going to ask you to help and you talk about, you know, your relationship with
Mike, but what has his presence meant to you? Number one, and Mike. But at the same time,
and we spoke about this the other day that, you know, when you and Rick started, a lot of people talked about it,
you know, you were brought together. Here's two guys bonded with a bond of tragedy and their lives are Are they going to look for
in this relationship? What did you look for in this
relationship with Rick? Well, I mean, I remember the napkin, you know,
we signed the napkin contract with him when I was 16 and even then that day, a little
tiny part of me was hoping that that was a real contract and that Sandy. And I used to
hang out Ricky and talk to him and me man. It'd be so cool if I
raise for y'all or and and he would and here that
he would go back and tell you that. When me and Jimmy would hang
out. I'd tell him and I'd love to be your teammate. Wouldn't
that be awesome? And, you know, I guess my wife
believes in the Law of Attraction and if you think
about something enough, it might happen to you. And, you
know, we were so blessed to become part
of your family and part of the Hendrix family. And I was, I experienced such a growth and I learned so
much being around. So many talented people and It was amazing, but the
relationship that I that I gained, you know through you was was probably the most important
part all that and just you know, I don't want to say
too much because I mentioned a lot of this in my speech but you know, you mean a lot to a
lot of people you really do you your special
man and you've changed a lot of
people and influence a lot of people's life and such a
positive way. So I hope that I can, you know, following that path
and and and have the same impact on others. You have. I love you buddy.
You're you're a special special. Y'all didn't think y'all thought
we were going to have a good laugh up here. This is
gotten pretty heavy. You know, I will say this what has it meant to you and and I've said this to you
before but as we've set in the NBC bus and we've talked
about it, your leadership role and when you step out of that
car and said, you know, I've got to take a
risk. For me, I've got to put myself
first. That opened that door for future generations of
drivers to follow down that road. You became in more ways
than you'll ever know a leader for this sport in that moment. Is that your legacy that that
that part of it? Well make you Collins. The guy that helped me
through a lot of the rehab from my concussions and sitting right
here at my table. And and so I think that
would show, you know, how important all of that experience is. To me
and how important the work that Mickey does and countless
other people across the country, do so much so much for for people that are,
that are needing that type of help and that type of
Rehabilitation. I didn't, I didn't really want
to be the spokesman, but I had such a great positive experience
through working with Mickey that I wanted to. If
anyone else, you know was struggling or maybe
they didn't even know, they were struggling or maybe
they did it. Maybe they were living with something that they
didn't know they could fix. I wanted to try to get them in
front of Mickey if I could and and help them learn that they can, they can
improve the quality of life. And and so we talk about that
all the time. It's been an amazing experience
and I've learned so much to it. I wouldn't ever want to go
through it again, but I come out the other end so much better off. And we've been able to work together
and help a lot of people. And it's just you just want
people to be able to enjoy their lives and have a good
quality of life. And there's, you know, there's
guys like Mickey out there that can make that happen. So, last question, most popular driver 16 times in
21 years. More most popular driver
trophies are more trips to the to the truck to talk to
Hilton. Which number I will tell you right now. That was the
last trip. It took 11. You only went. Well, I'm pretty
sure, I don't think I've got called in there again. I got called in the Xfinity
trailer with Tony Stewart. One time back in 99 that big, a fun
story to tell, but yeah, I don't, I don't remember
every really getting drug in there for being in trouble. No,
except I'd ask you to come help. What? Other drivers and it helped.
Yes. Oh, yeah. There was a I was going to tell you. I was
gonna leave that out of my speech. I'll tell it right now.
But so one time I'm walking through the garage and Mike
comes up to me and he's like, hey, I need to talk to you when you
get a minute. And what goes through your mind,
when you hear that for my killed, I'm walking around. Going man.
What have I done? I'm running it back to my head. I'm playing
it back. What have I said? Who do I run into what I say in the media? What did I do at the bar? The
other night. And so I'm running it through my
half. I can't figure it out. I go into the holler and I said,
I like Mike. I got few minutes man. What you need and he goes, I need you to talk to a couple of these young
drivers and he named a couple guys. And
I was like Man, that's a relief but me really me that. I'm the one that needs to go set
them straight or give them advice. You sure. But you know, that was that was a
moment where I felt like I kind of turned the corner and I saw
this guy looking at me as somebody that he thought could help somebody else
and that motivated me to continue to try to be that
type of person. But that was a that was I was
pretty nervous about what we were going to talk about that
day and boy, I was relieved, it wasn't Not about me. It was we're going to help somebody
else. Listen, that's good. Thank you.
I don't know any other better way to end it than that. So,
thank you guys for doing this. Thank you for for being here
tonight and congratulations to you do. Congratulations on your
own the nightmare. He said everybody. Thank you guys. Thank
you. Thank you guys, man.
