WEBVTT - Bonus 1: Gary “Hot Shoe!” Balough 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:06.120 Campsite Media. Can you just tell me what you had 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:09.000 for breakfast? Yeah, so I can set my bone. I 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:12.920 thought my breath was bad or something. Um, oatmeal. You 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:16.959 need more than that. Bacon, eggs, ham and cheese, omelet, 0:00:19.079 --> 0:00:23.680 some caviare French toasts? Are we are? We get to go? 0:00:23.840 --> 0:00:29.600 Are we rolling? Hey? Everyone? This week we're taking a 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:31.680 break from the series to bring you a bonus episode. 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.080 We'll be back to regular programming next week, but right now, 0:00:35.320 --> 0:00:37.400 I want you to meet this guy. He's one of 0:00:37.440 --> 0:00:39.400 the first people I ever spoke to when I started 0:00:39.400 --> 0:00:44.520 working on running Smoke Bones force here Uh freelance writer 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:51.400 of books, Uh, monthly columnists for magazines? What are you 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:55.480 write about? All? Racing? Bones is one of my favorite 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:58.520 motorsports writers out there. A couple of years ago, he 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.560 helped a legendary race car drive to write his autobiography. 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:05.759 That driver's name was Gary hot Chew Blue. I had 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:08.640 to wait a year and Alf and my boss up saying, Gary, 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.720 come on, man, there's other people could write this. The 0:01:11.800 --> 0:01:15.160 voice you're hearing, well, that's the man himself, Gary Blue. 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.240 I said, no, there's there's anyone can do it for me. 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.479 Those around me and go up from me and watched 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.240 me race and new my story and new the players, 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:29.800 and new the people and the bugs, and nobody shouldn't. 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:31.920 Nobody should have done that. Books look like he did it. 0:01:32.360 --> 0:01:34.480 It's in my words, so he cleaned it up a 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:36.759 little bit here and there, but it's actually me talking, 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:41.080 you know. Gary won over a thousand races, several championships, 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.480 and earned himself a reputation as one of the toughest 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.800 competitors in the field, but all of that was overshadowed 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.960 when FBI agents arrested Blue and sixty others for running 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:56.200 a marijuana smuggling operation. To be clear, Gary's story is 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:59.280 quite different from Derek's story, but it does show how 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:02.080 a racers and visions and his skill set can lead 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:05.240 to success just as easily as it can lead to tragedy. 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:07.960 I'll let bones take it away. Gary Blue was a 0:02:08.040 --> 0:02:13.120 kid from UH just outside of Miami Hilia, Florida, who 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:15.320 kind of grew up in the shadow down there of 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:19.320 guys like Bobby and Donnie Allison and Red Farmer drivers 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:24.520 who gained spectacular UH fame and NASCAR UH. Gary was 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.760 about a half a generation behind them, so he not 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:30.800 only saw those guys compete at the local level. They're 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:34.440 all from South Florida. Um, but they recognized him as 0:02:34.480 --> 0:02:37.680 kind of a hungry young kid who was always sneaking 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.800 into the pits, uh, you know, going to every race possible. 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:43.800 He would hitchhick with those guys, bum rides to different tracks. 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:48.320 He just had an enormous hunger and he brought that 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:51.240 hunger to his own racing once he got to be 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:54.360 old enough. You know, built cars, uh, you know, using 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:57.280 the old, tried and true junk yard method back then, 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:01.960 and UH had a desire that that he kind of 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.639 burned with it. He saw these guys as being the best, 0:03:05.200 --> 0:03:08.720 and he wanted to be at that level, and UH 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:12.440 worked his way from the South Florida tracks to dirt 0:03:12.480 --> 0:03:16.560 tracks in Pennsylvania, New Jersey. That paid very well. He had. 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:21.120 He had won all the major short track races that 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:24.000 he ran. He was definitely one of those guys that 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:30.840 everybody acknowledged as being super talented, very aggressive personality, fiery, 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:33.919 you know, had a fight here and there, made an 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:36.760 obscene gesture to an official here and there. He could 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:40.560 be a polarizing figure, but as a guy who writes, 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.920 you want to write about interesting people, and Gary was 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.320 always always interesting. There was always something happening around him. 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:49.760 So you saw Gary race back in the day. I 0:03:49.800 --> 0:03:54.120 saw him race um in the mid seventies for the 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:57.040 first time at Syracuse, New York. There was a mild 0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.240 dirt track at the time. Once a year they'd get 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:02.840 together and October for this big race on the mile track. 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:09.480 Gary number one corner. Let's see what happens park, he 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:12.360 drops back up it. Cozy gets up to the barn. 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.600 Now break Cozy moving into it on a three spot 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:19.560 and look at Cozy monor Cozy motoring down the back. 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:22.919 You garry below each till year later he draws a 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:25.680 lot of four pint car line played between the corner, 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:29.480 checkered back and ready now they come out a turn 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:35.400 of a par Yeah, what I come. Gary wanted three 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:39.840 years in a row, seventy six, seven and eight. And 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.039 then every year we'd go to Florida for Daytona speed 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:47.400 Weeks and he would compete nearby at New Smyrna Speedway, UH, 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:50.200 and he was dominant over there quite a bit. So Yeah, 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.400 I saw him in a lot of different UH kinds 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:57.360 of cars and saw him excel in every one. Of them, 0:04:57.360 --> 0:04:59.240 so again it was it just reinforced what I had 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.760 always heard, which was he was just special. There's four 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:05.120 quarters are too straight away. It's pretty easy bath. But 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:07.280 you know what if you get the four quarters better 0:05:07.320 --> 0:05:10.080 and everybody else and didn't have it runs on the 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:12.760 Stralia away, then it handles down the strailway didn't really 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.240 becomes fast. I never want to reach myself, but I've 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.080 always had a lot of really really really good people. 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:21.840 Please them me that worked your ass off and works 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.240 hard as they could and had the hard into it 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:27.120 to win, so we could all win together, and we 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:31.400 went together. What did you see in Gary's racing style 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.200 that set him apart? The first thing anybody notices about 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:36.640 him is that he's super aggressive. You know that that 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:38.760 You know, if the hall opens up, you go for 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:43.039 right now. Uh. If you can't go inside a guy 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:45.279 to pass, which is probably the easiest way, just go 0:05:45.400 --> 0:05:48.840 around him, you know. Just don't don't mess around too 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:52.080 long when you catch a guy do something. Uh. And 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.200 yet a lot of guys who do that, they might 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:58.840 win one night and then crash the next three nights. Gary, 0:05:59.040 --> 0:06:03.599 even though he had that raw aggressiveness, UH, had a 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:06.520 way of winning long races, and those things don't always 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:09.800 go together, so you started to think that there was 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.479 a a real brain there in addition to you know, 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.520 whatever he had naturally, whatever gifts he had, you know, 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:21.760 balance reflects his eyesight, all the things that go into UM, 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:26.400 probably any driver. He also had that that ability to 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:29.880 plot out race. You know. The other thing was the 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:34.840 fact that he had won, you know in bulky, clumsy 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:40.120 dirt track modifies and sleek, fast, well handling as false cars. 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.680 You know, it's like, no matter what he got into UM, 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:49.360 he excelled and then ended up moving back to Florida, 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.760 UH in the late seventies to sort of pursue his 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:56.120 dream of NASCAR racing. By the late seventies, Gary had 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:58.480 managed to win just about every major race east of 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.159 the Mississippi and just about anything with four wheels and 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.880 a motor. For a driver of his caliber, there was 0:07:03.920 --> 0:07:07.159 only one thing on his mind, the NASCAR Cup Series, 0:07:07.440 --> 0:07:11.520 the pinnacle of American motorsports. To pursue that dream, Gary 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:13.720 decided to move back down to South Florida, where he 0:07:13.760 --> 0:07:15.440 knew some race team owners that can help him get 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:17.440 behind the wheel of a Cup car. I mean everybody 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.480 remembers the show Miami Vice. I think that came out 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:22.840 maybe in eighty five, but it was based on what 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.560 all those people in Hollywood had seen for the last 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.080 however many years. Gary got back down there in seventy 0:07:29.120 --> 0:07:33.200 eight or seventy nine, UH in Miami, and you know, 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.200 kind of the way he puts everywhere you looked. There 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:40.880 were people that were driving cars that if you looked 0:07:40.880 --> 0:07:43.520 at him really quickly, wouldn't think they would own. You know, 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:45.800 a guy that you knew was maybe a Saturday night 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:48.760 race or shouldn't be driving around in a Mercedes or 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.080 a Ferrari. And then some of these guys were living 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:56.840 in houses that you knew, based on whatever profession they 0:07:56.840 --> 0:07:59.360 were in, they probably shouldn't have been able to afford. 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:03.640 And I think he got curious about that and some 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:08.240 of the people he started driving for. We're most definitely 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:11.160 wrapped up in that end of life. I mean, I 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:15.440 remember going to New Smyrna every February and seeing three 0:08:15.520 --> 0:08:19.320 or four guys, uh every year, and they were all 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:22.960 South Florida guys were you knew there. It wasn't a 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.360 rumor that they'd been involved in something like that. It 0:08:25.440 --> 0:08:27.560 was a well known fact. You know, these guys have 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:32.080 beautiful race cars and beautiful tow vehicles and gorgeous trailers, 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:34.440 and you knew the money was coming from somewhere. There 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:36.360 were no big sponsors on the side of the car, 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:39.360 and it was kind of just like an open wink wink, 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:42.240 kind of a secret that that's what they were into. 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.760 It made perfect sense that racers would feature prominently in 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:48.440 the drug smuggling scene back in the day. The skill 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:50.440 set that made you successful in the drug business would 0:08:50.480 --> 0:08:54.160 serve you well in racing, and vice versa. I think 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:58.319 what racers also have is that, you know, that willingness 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:00.880 to risk things. You know, the best brain all have 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:05.760 a high degree of being comfortable with risk. They're all 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:09.480 decisive thinkers. As we said, a lot of them are 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:13.480 good plan A, plan B, plan C type people. Because 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.760 in a race, you know, it's the old boxing thing. 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:18.920 Everybody has a plan to get hitting the nose well 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:20.880 and racing, everybody has a plan till they throw the 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:23.400 green flag. So if plan A doesn't work, you go 0:09:23.440 --> 0:09:25.600 to plan B. You go to you know, you're gonna 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:27.520 pass this guy on the outside, and then he moves over, 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:28.839 so you gotta pass him. On the bottom. You know, 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:33.160 you're very reactive. And the way Gary says that somebody 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:35.800 told him, you know, you'd be perfect for this. You know, 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:37.679 if you want to kind of just get a feel 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.160 for what it's like, you can come on one of 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.160 these trips and you can be what's called a counter. 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:48.240 And the counter was if you you and your friends 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:52.439 from South Florida, we're going to the Bahamas somewhere in 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:56.000 a little cove or someplace, and you were meeting another 0:09:56.040 --> 0:10:00.640 group that was, in this case Colombians, and they had 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:03.000 a counter on their boat, and you had a counter 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:05.440 on your boat. And what the counter was was the 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:10.440 guy who as they unloaded thirty seven bales or whatever 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:13.080 it was, how whatever the amount was from their boat 0:10:13.120 --> 0:10:17.079 onto your boat, their counter agreed that they had unloaded 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:19.080 thirty seven, and you were the guy that counted and 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:23.320 saw that, okay, we've got thirty seven. And then so 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.520 you know he did it the first time. Uh, it 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:30.000 went off without a hitch. You know, got home, made 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:31.640 the kind of money that you wouldn't have made if 0:10:31.679 --> 0:10:34.160 you won every race for two or three months at 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:36.200 the short track level. And I think once you do 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:38.720 it and get away with it, no matter what it 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:40.680 is in life, if you get away with something wants, 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:43.920 it's gonna be easier the second time, I think, and 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.360 it obviously was for him, and you know, you go 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.079 again and then you go again, and I think he 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:51.280 just sort of found himself deeper and deeper and deeper 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:53.640 into it until there might come a point where you 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:55.000 don't even think of yourself as being in it and and 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:59.079 in it anymore. You you are just in it. Yeahsh 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:03.959 was winn into you know what I mean? Like, Wowey 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:11.760 was laid better than Rachel. I can tell you that more. 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:27.640 After the break you're listening to running Smoked by the 0:11:27.640 --> 0:11:30.840 early the team owners Gary was working with in South 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:32.800 Florida had managed to get him into a Cup car. 0:11:33.400 --> 0:11:36.480 The equipment wasn't top notch, so Gary wasn't leading laps 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:39.719 or competing for the win, but he was making a mark. Nonetheless, 0:11:40.000 --> 0:11:41.880 did drug money contribute to him getting all the way 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:43.719 to the Cup Scares? Yeah? I think on on some 0:11:43.800 --> 0:11:46.280 level it did because it financed his short track stuff. 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.360 He was already unbelievably talented, but he was able to 0:11:49.400 --> 0:11:51.960 do not just him, but I mean he drove for 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:53.920 some people who were involved in too so you were 0:11:53.960 --> 0:11:57.560 in better equipment than you've ever been in UM. I 0:11:57.600 --> 0:12:02.240 think it made more people look at him for Gary 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:05.640 Blue entered the Daytona five hundred, the highest profile event 0:12:05.720 --> 0:12:09.000 in the whole NASCAR season. The Daytona five hundred, the 0:12:09.120 --> 0:12:13.440 great American race from every corner of the country. For 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:17.640 the twenty fourth consecutive year, stock car racing's faithful returned 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:21.439 last week to Daytona Beach. They partied, They soaked up 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:25.680 the sun, had beer and barbecue last Sunday the five hundred, 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.120 traditionally a ten car battle all day long and a 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:31.559 race that tells us a lot about who's gonna run 0:12:31.640 --> 0:12:34.400 strong for the rest of the season. That left Kale 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.480 Yarborough and Darryl Waltrip as the only real contenders, but 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.400 Yarborough couldn't avoid us spinning Gary Blue. Kale made it 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.200 to the pitch, changed tires and held on to finish second. 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:48.520 Waltrip fell out with a blown engine, avoiding the destruction 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:51.520 to win it easily. Bobby Allison, though he ran out 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:53.360 of gas on the cool off laugh and had to 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:57.000 be pushed to victory lane. Despite some mechanical troubles that day, 0:12:57.200 --> 0:13:00.439 Gary finished in the eleventh place. It would be last 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:04.199 time he would ever race at Daytona. After that Daytona 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:09.880 five hundred four days later, UH, seventy different people were 0:13:10.040 --> 0:13:12.640 sort of rounded up in the wee hours of the morning, 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:15.200 all across Florida, and a couple of more up in 0:13:15.240 --> 0:13:18.439 North Carolina. So there were seventy people in that ring. 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:23.400 UH indicted. Two drivers will not see action at Richmond. 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:26.040 They have some explaining to do to the FBI. In 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.480 the pre dawned darkness Thursday morning, federal agents arrested NASCAR 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:33.080 driver Gary Blue, who finished eleventh and last week's Daytona. Five. 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:36.200 The drivers and sixty eight other people were indicted on 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:41.960 drug smuggling charges. Organization would offload marijuana from mother ships, 0:13:42.320 --> 0:13:44.920 bring it into this country, and then have it unloaded 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:48.760 again and stored. Would be eventually turned over to owners 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.240 or buyers of this marijuana, and the group handling the 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:57.360 off floating and importation would receive a percentage of the 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:01.360 marijuana as payment for their services. During its two and 0:14:01.360 --> 0:14:05.079 a half year investigation, the FBI received total cooperation from 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.120 NASCAR in tracing the drug rings efforts to use stock 0:14:08.120 --> 0:14:11.480 car racing as a front for its activities Also arrested 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:14.040 were a number of mechanics associated with those drivers, and 0:14:14.160 --> 0:14:17.720 six million dollars in property was seized as well. Gary 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:21.520 was the most visible name on the bunch. I was 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:23.960 living in Connecticut at the time, and I don't remember 0:14:24.040 --> 0:14:26.000 it was in the Hartford paper or one of the 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:30.240 one of the New York daily papers, but his picture 0:14:30.320 --> 0:14:33.920 was in their Biggest Life, you know, getting lead out 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:35.880 and he was wearing a jacket. It was winter, even 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:38.560 in Florida was winter and having a you know, an 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.440 FBI guy has scored him along, you know, head down 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.200 in the home. It looked like a typical purp walk 0:14:44.240 --> 0:14:47.120 type photo and it was. It was kind of jarring 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.760 at the time, even though it was kind of an 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.880 open an open secret what a lot of those guys 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.040 were doing. It was just like, oh my god, you 0:14:56.080 --> 0:14:59.440 know this. You hate to say, poor Gary because it 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:02.080 was a mistake that he made, you know, he made 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:04.200 his own decisions and paid for it. But it was 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:07.080 there was something I think that resonated in people that 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:09.840 you know that maybe he was more of a shame 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.640 uh to have that happened to than than some guys were, 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:16.400 because you kind of thought, and I still think it's 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:19.320 a what what might have been in the next couple 0:15:19.320 --> 0:15:22.320 of weekends. Guys that sort of knew him before and 0:15:22.400 --> 0:15:25.200 had enough respect for him that without saying this, they 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.080 were kind of saying, you know, you really did screw 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.400 up here. But you know, you're our our friend, you're 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.880 our fellow competitor. Maybe let's not talk about it. You know, 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:36.760 you don't you don't have to say that. You just 0:15:36.840 --> 0:15:39.200 kind of know, let's not talk about it. But yeah, 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:41.680 you are ostracized on some level because you're not going 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:46.080 to get a medicine avenue, you know, advertising executive making 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.920 a sponsorship decision that goes in your favor if you've 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:53.640 been indicted for drug smuggling. So on that level, yeah, 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:55.960 he was oscracized. This The sport kind of let him 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:59.760 stay around, you know, Nascar. I'm sure it was a 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:01.440 hell of a thing for them to decide, what do 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:05.400 you do with this guy? He was found guilty. You know, 0:16:05.440 --> 0:16:07.880 it had to be a heck of a a line 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.200 for them to walk and a heck of a fairly 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:16.080 fast decision for them to make. They have rated winning, 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:18.680 they got all the money, got all the time. They 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:20.840 make your rules, they say, what I want to say, 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.240 do what they want to do. That's what the system is. 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:26.640 You're not going to beat him. Like I said before, 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:28.960 for your first thing is when they said the United 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:33.440 States America versus carry blue. That's your first thing right there. 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:37.080 You think you're gonna go against the United States government 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:42.040 and vet him here an idiot, here an idiot. But 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:44.080 you know, he fought it for a long time. They appealed, 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:49.200 and he continued to race until uh So for four 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:52.840 years he was out and about, although you know you're 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:55.640 here in trial a lot of the time. Uh he 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:59.000 did manage to run and win some fairly big short 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:02.600 track races in that time. He won the championship of 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:06.959 a late model series called the All Pro UH Series, 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:08.880 which was really big in the South. It was kind 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:12.280 of a maybe like the racing version of single A 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.600 baseball or something, you know, a respected minor league. He 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:20.440 won the championship for that, went to the awards banquet 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:26.600 in the beginning of eight seven, celebrated the championship, got up, 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.160 got the trophy, got the pictures, got the prize money, 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.160 the whole deal, and Monday morning he had to turn 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:37.040 himself in. So the cliche he always uses is that's 0:17:37.040 --> 0:17:38.800 what it felt like to be champion for a day. 0:17:39.359 --> 0:17:41.880 You know, he had Sunday. He did admit that they 0:17:41.920 --> 0:17:44.640 celebrated pretty hard. You know, you've got nothing to lose 0:17:44.680 --> 0:17:48.240 at that point, and UH, Monday morning he had to 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:52.560 report to UH federal facility and I think the first 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.439 one was Texas, UH and that was it. You know, 0:17:55.480 --> 0:17:59.320 You're flew there on Sunday, reported on Monday, and began 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:06.560 a series of a few years behind bars. And I'm 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:11.720 sure that had to be a an amazing UH come 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:14.679 down for a guy who had been, you know, for 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:17.119 a lot of his life, had been kind of the 0:18:17.119 --> 0:18:19.280 the toast of the party. And I mean not necessarily 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:22.000 party parties, but you know, you're the guy in victory lane. 0:18:22.000 --> 0:18:24.080 You're the guy that people want autographs from. You're the 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:26.600 guy that people want to meet UH. You're the guy 0:18:26.640 --> 0:18:29.600 that car owners want to drive their equipment. You're the 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.960 guy that rivals looked to for inspiration as a driver 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:40.440 and maybe for UH chassis set up technology, wisdom as 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:42.960 a competitor. You know, he was. He was always on 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:45.280 top of his game that way too. So you go 0:18:45.400 --> 0:18:48.240 from being, you know, a guy who has been celebrated 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:50.280 for most of your life to be in just a 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:56.040 number uh, in a very very you know, bad place around. 0:18:58.160 --> 0:19:00.320 He reached a point where you realized. I think when 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:02.280 he first came out, he thought, Okay, I've paid my 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:06.080 debt to society. I'll make it back. You know, I'll 0:19:06.320 --> 0:19:09.320 win all these major short track races. I'll show everybody 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:11.479 that I was, that I am what I was before, 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.920 and I'll get back to the cup level. But life 0:19:15.920 --> 0:19:19.439 had moved on, you don't. You're no longer, um, the 0:19:19.520 --> 0:19:21.800 hot young guy that he was at one time, and 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.920 racing had changed to now where you know, a young 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.080 guy was no longer thirty or thirty two. Now the 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:32.639 young guys were so you know, if you're in your forties, 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:34.679 you were almost an old man at that point. It 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:38.960 was gonna be really exceptional if you got there. And yeah, 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.800 he was exceptional talent wise, but you've also got that 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:45.560 giant albatross around your neck is having been a convicted 0:19:46.480 --> 0:19:50.280 drug smuggler. So there was no upside really for any 0:19:50.320 --> 0:19:53.720 major team hiring a guy like Gary. He was still 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.600 incredibly talented, but there's a lot of incredibly talented race 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:01.120 drivers out there, and and um, he reached the point 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.000 where he realized he wasn't gonna make it anymore. He 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:06.399 was living in Charlotte at this time when he was 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:09.159 trying to rebuild his career and went to Florida, and 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:12.560 as he puts it, kind of got talked into, well, 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:15.680 why don't you just go on this one one more run? 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.240 You know, just you know, just you need a little money. 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:21.000 You know this will be good. And as he said, 0:20:21.040 --> 0:20:23.320 you do it once you're sort of right back into it. 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:26.760 He jokes about this, but he's also deadly serious when 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.400 he says it. He said, I I approached my smuggling 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:34.360 like I approached my racing. He was prepared. He had 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:38.560 contingency plans for everything. Well, he had backup fuel pumps 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.680 and backup you know, backups for backups. He was very 0:20:42.720 --> 0:20:44.800 well prepared if something went wrong in the middle of 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:47.040 the night on the ocean, where otherwise you just sort 0:20:47.080 --> 0:20:50.399 of float around out there with a broken down boat 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:54.080 waiting for the somebody to discover you. And if somebody 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.520 is the coast guard or the d e A, you 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.680 know you're going back to jail. I mean, all myself 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:02.480 is nice as I couldn't life, as I couldn't claim 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:07.000 as I could and hard at tested, buying different stuff 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:11.080 and different butters, different he said, I smuggled the same 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:14.640 way with my boats, because when you break down, you're 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:19.960 in trouble. You can't show that stuff over. So I 0:21:20.000 --> 0:21:22.199 think that probably the people that were involved in that 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:24.520 like to having him around because he was good from 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:26.840 that standpoint. He knew what he was doing. But all 0:21:26.840 --> 0:21:29.800 the preparations and concealed compartments in the world won't help 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:32.240 if the d a already has eyes on you before 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:35.080 you even leave the dock. As soon as he picked 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:37.560 up his load and started back towards land, he was 0:21:37.560 --> 0:21:41.120 surrounded by police. Gary Blue spent the next six years 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:44.080 in prison and was let out in The shame that 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:46.840 time is that he didn't learn from his mistake. You 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:48.960 know your now your family is back into it again. 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:52.080 Now you're back in prison. Uh, you know, so there's 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:55.080 two levels of it. It was a shame for so 0:21:55.119 --> 0:21:57.920 many people who knew him to see him go through 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:00.720 that the first time, because you thought, you know what 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:05.000 a waste of talent, enormous talent. And I should say 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:08.479 that the the landscape had changed from a pop culture 0:22:08.520 --> 0:22:11.080 point of view, you know, Miami Vice wasn't cool in 0:22:11.119 --> 0:22:12.840 the nineties, you know what I mean, Nobody looked at 0:22:12.840 --> 0:22:15.120 it like a fun outlaw thing anymore. You know, by then, 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:19.520 the whole drug thing, you know there, everybody knew by 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:22.399 then what what told drugs took on families and kids 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:25.760 and and uh crime in cities. You know, it was 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:29.680