Joe Dan Bailey is the son of legendary NASCAR independent team owner and driver H.B. Bailey.

Joe Dan won the 1990 Daytona 500 with Whitcomb Racing and driver Derrike Cope and the 1993 and 1994 NASCAR Cup Series championships with Dale Earnhardt and Richard Childress Racing.

Now with Toyota Racing Development, Bailey has worked in the sport for more than 40 years. He recently shared highlights of his career and memories of his father with Rick Houston, host of The Scene Vault Podcast.

First of all, do you go by Joe Dan or Bailey?

I’ve battled to go by Joe Dan my entire life, and there’s a story about that. We had a local race track called Myers Speedway. I’m walking up to the stands one day as a little kid going up see my mom in the in the scoring stand, and the PA announcer comes over the speaker, and he goes, “Here comes the only person I know that was named after a motel.”

Come to find out later, we’re racing in Shreveport, Louisiana, and as you pull out the back straightaway, you look across the way there, and it says one mile to the Joe Dan Motel. So my entire life, I battled to keep it as Joe Dan.

Your dad is H.B. Bailey, longtime independent driver. What is your earliest memory of him being involved in racing?

I remember sitting in his car as a little kid. I climbed up in the car. You climb up over the door, the car’s still on the trailer, and sitting there and reading the comics inside the race car. I don’t know how old I was, but it was way, way young. That was first time I ever remember being in a race car.

Other than that, my parents divorced when I was younger. My dad got custody. I lived with my dad, so every evening I would go to my dad’s shop. I started out sweeping the floors and then cleaning bearings, packing bearings and just worked my way up.

I think 1977 or ’79 – with the big car, the 115-inch wheelbase car at Michigan –. was the first time I went across a wall for a pit stop. We were short-handed, and I had to actually carry my own tire and my gun and went across and changed tires there. So that was the first time I remember going across the wall.

It wasn’t like today. I mean, I was wearing jeans, bike knee pads and Saranac gloves. You just went over the wall and did it.

In school, I played football and ran track and stuff like that. I was in good shape so I could do it.

You played Texas high school football? That’s serious.

I didn’t get to play in high school. I played in junior high but in high school, I was racing. Every day after school, I drove over to the shop.

We were very fortunate. He’d run Michigan, he’d run Atlanta, he’d run Texas World, Charlotte, naturally. Darlington … he loved. So during the summertime, I would go over to Houston Intercontinental, get on an airplane, fly to the track, work the weekends with him and then come back.

That’s what I did. I didn’t play football after junior high. I was gone racing.

Did your dad race full time?

Back then – 1971, ’72, ’73 – NASCAR had a series called Grand American and he ran the Grand American series in 1973 full time, or enough where he finished third in points. I think that’s about the only time he ever ran a full schedule.

He’d run 10,12 Cup races a year. He had a big wrecking yard there on the south side of Houston and between dad’s place and (another company) in Houston, they had most of the dealerships in Houston locked up, as far as body parts and stuff like that.

His racing was his hunting and fishing. He would tell you … that’s his hobby. And it was, but it was enough to get me into it where, whenever he wasn’t there, if I went to the track, people would ask me to come change tires for them.

1984 Firecracker 400 (at Daytona) … we’re walking around. Jimmy Means sees me, and he goes, “Hey, what are you doing?” I said, “I’m just over here visiting, dropping a car off.” And he goes, “You wanna change tires today?”

I said, “All right, Jimmy, who’s driving the car today?” And he said, “Well, Ned’s son is getting his start today, Dale.” Dale Jarrett drove Jimmy’s car that day and I changed tires for him. I can’t remember if they paid me or not, and it didn’t matter at that point. You know, it was experience back then.

If we picked up $100, $50 for changing tires for the day, that was great money.

We ran that day, and, you know, Doug Heveron crashes down into one. Cale Yarborough comes down pit lane a lap early after losing the race. Air Force One landed that day. It was a cool day.

And some no-name won the race. What was his name?

Editor’s Note: Rick was JUST kidding, folks. Richard Petty won the event, the 200th NASCAR victory of his career.

Yeah, seeing The King win his 200th race – you know –it was really a neat deal. That’s my ongoing joke. Because of being in it so long, and still being in it and falling into situations like that, I tell people I’m the Forrest Gump of NASCAR.

You see pictures of your dad, right? And he seemed to be an interesting character, just from the pictures. Tell me about your dad. What kind of personality did he have?

My dad was old-school. My dad would yell at you. My dad would correct you. My dad would help you out any way he could. It was like, “I’m going to help this guy. He doesn’t know I’m helping him, but I’m going to help this guy every way I can, until I see he’s beyond it.” And that was kind of the way my dad was.

He helped a lot of people up here get started, helped them out in many different ways, loaned them money, sold them stuff. He used that wrecking yard as a business, but also as a link to stay in racing.

He made me use my manners, and if you didn’t do it, he was on your butt. He was a caring father. He was somebody that wanted to make sure that I was a good person. He loved to watch people have a good time. He’d come to Charlotte, and he’d bring what he called a big fajita wagon – a barbecue pit type thing. And he would come in and cook fajitas for the whole garage area for free. He wanted to share with people and make sure other people had a good time.

He was probably just the most straightforward, kind person that I’ve ever met.

He helped out so many people. Benny Parsons told a story about dad and my mom getting him in the garage area. Tim Brewer started running around with my dad. There were a lot of people that dad helped out to get in the garage area. And that’s why I worked with Brewer. I liked Brewer because the simple fact he was the same way as dad. He was very straightforward. If he had a problem, you never had to guess he had a problem.

Dad was a huge influence and helped me understand how to be, to try to be a good person. I’m not saying I’m a good person, but I’m the person I am today because of him.

My dad passed in 2003. You talk to your dad after a race, and you tell him about this and you tell him about that, and he would tell you the way it really was. You would sit there in the back of your head, you wouldn’t listen, because you were like, he don’t know. He hadn’t been doing this for a long time.

Now, having those phone calls after a race on Monday or whatever with them is something that everybody should value, because one day you don’t have them.