Jimmy Fennig Talks Bobby Allison’s Daytona 500 Win & Career-Ending Crash

The Dale Jr. Download

Dirty Mo Media & SiriusXM

Sports

4.8 • 9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 April 2026

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dale Earnhardt Jr. welcomed one of the fiercest competitors and hardest workers in the NASCAR garage to the Download this week, longtime championship-winning crew chief Jimmy Fennig. Best known for his thirty-year tenure at Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing, Jimmy helped elevate a young Kurt Busch to his lone NASCAR Cup Championship in 2004. Jimmy’s journey to the top of NASCAR’s crew chief rankings came from humble beginnings in southeastern Wisconsin. After growing up under the roof of two generations of dirt racers, Jimmy and his brother Jeffrey decided to try their own hand at the craft, building and racing a sportsman car out of local Hales Corner Speedway. Jimmy quickly realized he preferred turning wrenches to rubbing fenders, and he took a job preparing cars for Wisconsin legend Al Schill. It was through this connection that he’d meet Bobby Allison at Slinger Speedway, beginning a long friendship that brought Jimmy into the NASCAR fold.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The following is a production of Dirtymo Media.
0:06.7	You're Dale Jr.
0:09.9	Should I say it?
0:11.4	It's Dale Jr. podcast, I got to say it.
0:16.0	Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dell Jr. download in the Arby's
0:21.8	studio. I want to tell you about the Arby's new Meat and Three Box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's.
0:27.1	Arby's, we have the meats, and we've got a great show for you today. Jimmy Finning is coming in
0:31.6	to tell us about his career. He was a crew chief in the Cup series. We all may remember his days with Kurt Bush
0:40.2	as a championship crew chief in 2004, Mark Martin, even as recently Mackenzie, Carl Edwards.
0:48.4	But way before then, he was working with guys like Bobby Allison and in the ASA ranks.
0:56.3	He worked with Mark Martin and several other drivers.
1:00.8	My father would go up to the ASA ranks and run and I remember Jimmy being in the pits working on cars.
1:08.2	And they had their own little world up there, their own little racing world up there.
1:14.8	It was very, very competitive, very tough, not something that was going to be easy for dad,
1:21.0	and it showed.
1:21.8	We'd go up there and dad would get his teeth kicked in, and Jimmy and those guys would
1:27.3	come down here and bring their knowledge and their
1:31.3	success and experience from their ASA racing and find similar success in the world of NASCAR
1:38.8	inside the cup garage and I can't wait to talk to this guy I'll'll be honest, I think throughout most of my career,
1:46.5	I never said two words to this man in the garage.
1:49.3	He was quiet.
1:50.8	He was not a jokester.
	...

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