DRO: Do you still have that communication?

DL: Oh yeah, sure -

DRO: Are you competitive with her?

DL: Oh, are you kidding me? That is the Bud car, this is the Miller car, I mean c'mon.... you know - We don't talk racing much you know, they know what they're doing, I know what we're doing and it's just family stuff, how you doing, you win anything (gambling in Vegas)last night, you know, stuff like that, but as far as the racing, not much, no. I mean, if Tim has a question you know, he'll ask me, if I have a question I'll ask him. But as far as to go and sit down and talk about the race cars, nah, done it too many years to do it.

DRO: You've had some really interesting bosses, including Larry Minor.

DL: Larry wasn't my boss, he had the Miller Beer sponsorship and Miller told him he needed to get me to run on his team. It was all my equipment, it was my cars my trucks, my operation, I owned everything. And that's the only way I would do it. I wouldn't drive Larry Minor's car and that's what he wanted me to do. I mean he could get anyone to drive the car, but he couldn't get anybody to run the car the way that we ran the car and so I never let anyone get control of me.

DRO: Your relationship with Snake and your relationship with Connie Kalitta, those are very different relationships, they're very different people.

DL: Connie and I have known each other for 35 years. He's from Michigan. We raced on the same nasty, slippery tracks at one time or another. The relationship that we had was entirely different than when I went to work for him. 'Cause I had told him at the time, I said, "Connie, the way to ruin a good friendship is for me to come to work with you, because you're not going to like the way that I'm going to want to do this." And I was looking at one of his race cars, and it's pretty hard to tell someone that they have an ugly baby, right? But I said Connie, "I don't even have a clue on how to run this race car." I just couldn't tell him it was a piece of shit. Sorry, you know? From that day on, he never questioned one thing that I did, not one thing, and I told him, "It's going to cost you a million dollars to run this car." He said, "I spent two (million) last year."

And when it was all said and done, we ran the season for a little over $700,000 and I told him this is how much it costs. He said really? I said yeah, I'm going to take that other $260 (thousand) and build you a new (race) shop. He said I could have it and I built him a shop where both semis were housed inside, we had a complete machine shop inside and that's how Kalitta Motor Sports came to where it is today. They have a very nice facility in Michigan now, they built another new shop since I was there.

Connie and I are good friends, if he asked me for anything, he'd have it and vice versa.

DRO: How does that contrast with Snake?

DL: Snake tried to hire me (in the) fall of 1998 in Seattle. He called and he said, would you come and talk with me? I said sure, I'll come, so I got on the bus and we talked a little bit and he said, "How'd you like to come to work for me?" I said, "I don't think so, you know, I don't think it'd work." And he says, "Why? What's the deal?"

"I never liked you." That's what I told him, I said "I never liked you." He said, "Well, I never wanted to go to dinner with you either."

You know? I mean, you got to be out front.

DRO: You've got to live with him, right?

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