![]() The following years of the Yates story read like a novel. Doug admits the Yates engines were cranking out about 50-horsepower more than the other Ford engines. While young phenom Rusty Wallace was in line to be their driver, Yates took a swing in a different direction, choosing a racer with a familiar pedigree, Davey Allison. With Allison's raw talent and the straightaway speed of Yates Engines, it created speed that even the Intimidator wasn't pleased with. Doug carefully details the alignment with Ranier-Lundy racing that led eventually led to the creation of Robert Yates Racing. Rick Hendrick was using his engines when Ford set up the next opportunity. In 1985, just two years after his engine won, Yates watched the Great American Race from his television.īut soon the sport that came calling for Yates again. It wasn't until Robert's final months, before cancer took his life, that son Doug found a way to get them together to bury the hatchet.ĭoug gives us a unique perspective on DiGard’s successes, like the ‘83 title run w/ Bobby Allison and the Daytona 500 win that some called “bumper-gate.” He also details dynamics that led to the fall of DiGard and his father leaving the sport. Darrell Waltrip's departure from DiGard resulted in unspoken animosity that spanned decades. The departure caused tension between Robert and Junior for years. When DiGard Racing came calling, Robert packed up and left the farm. Doug details the formidable years they spent in Wilkes County and how it prepared them for their racing timeline. Living on a farm, just steps away from a modest laboratory of speed, Robert Yates crafted horsepower into the wee hours of the night with his young son right beside him. The Yates family uprooted, and went to work for NASCAR car-owner and folk hero Junior Johnson. But life in Charlotte shifted to the hills of North Wilkesboro. Growing up in North Carolina, the epicenter of modern stock car racing, Doug knew nothing different than his father Robert working on engines. ![]() Master engine builder Doug Yates, son of NASCAR Hall of Famer Robert Yates, comes to "the table of truth" to share stories with Dale Earnhardt Jr., and co-host Mike Davis, about a family legacy filled with ups, downs and everything between.
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