Jay Hedgecock on Racing Dale Earnhardt in the 70s

The Dale Jr. Download

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with a pillar of the short track racing community this week, longtime racer and chassis builder Jay Hedgecock. After growing up in a family with rich NASCAR history and attending the local modified race shops with his father, Jay entered the racing world himself, racing a micro midget that he dug out of his uncle’s junkyard. The work he’d do to get the midget back into racing condition would begin 55 years in the field. He’d receive the education of a lifetime when he happened upon a job in Tex Powell’s shop, after sharpening some drill bits for the automotive legend. Jay had firsthand experience working on NASCAR Cup cars through Tex, and before long, thanks to friend Howard Stewart, he’d find himself behind the wheel of a stock car as well.

 

After spending years building and racing late model sportsman cars, Jay would return to his true love in racing: the modfieds. He’d go on to win multiple championships with the Southern Modified Auto Racing Tour and track titles all over the heavily contested Virginia/North Carolina region. All the while, he continued his car building efforts and went on to build short track machines for Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. Today, Jay remains one of the most successful and celebrated car builders in the country, supplying late model stocks to much of the CARS Tour field and NASCAR Weekly champions.

Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia 


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

More description

Dale Earnhardt Jr. sits down with a pillar of the short track racing community this week, longtime racer and chassis builder Jay Hedgecock. After growing up in a family with rich NASCAR history and attending the local modified race shops with his father, Jay entered the racing world himself, racing a micro midget that he dug out of his uncle’s junkyard. The work he’d do to get the midget back into racing condition would begin 55 years in the field. He’d receive the education of a lifetime when he happened upon a job in Tex Powell’s shop, after sharpening some drill bits for the automotive legend. Jay had firsthand experience working on NASCAR Cup cars through Tex, and before long, thanks to friend Howard Stewart, he’d find himself behind the wheel of a stock car as well.

 

After spending years building and racing late model sportsman cars, Jay would return to his true love in racing: the modfieds. He’d go on to win multiple championships with the Southern Modified Auto Racing Tour and track titles all over the heavily contested Virginia/North Carolina region. All the while, he continued his car building efforts and went on to build short track machines for Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt. Today, Jay remains one of the most successful and celebrated car builders in the country, supplying late model stocks to much of the CARS Tour field and NASCAR Weekly champions.

Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia 


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

2026-02-11 82 min
Listen elsewhere

Available Results

Generated results are saved to your library for reuse and search.

No generated results are available for this episode yet.

Transcript

No transcript is available for this episode yet.
Sign in to generate a transcript for review.
Sign in

Chapters

No chapters available.