November 26, 2024 • 53 mins
Gilbert lost his 8-year-old daughter Samantha to cancer and then lost his 49-year-old wife Nicole. But instead of having a victim mindset about it, he’s honoring them with his dirt track racing car that he named “Nicole’s Dream”, which was to have a car that raises awareness for childhood cancer and funding to cure it. In less than 2 years, he’s raised $46k for St. Jude and other causes.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue with part two of our conversation with
Gilbert House right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors.
(00:28):
So we have Samantha's death and then this. I mean, honestly,
I don't want to put words in your mouth, and
I'm certainly not trying. Nobody knows what you're struggling with
and how hard that must be unless you've gone through yourself.
So please don't mistake what I'm saying here. But it
(00:52):
feels like you and Nicole suffered a decade long depression.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Try to in twenty years, because I mean, we still
we we still want on vacations here and there. But
there was there was always that you could always look over,
even when she's sitting on the beach in Hawaii, you
could see that emptiness center.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
It was just all the time. What if Samantha was here,
What if Samantha's here, she would have babies, now, we'd
be grandparents. What if what if she could not get
that out of her head? She could not she couldn't
move forward, She couldn't move forward, you know, And I
just everybody thought we were never gonna make it. They
gave us two years we'd be divorced. But I'm not
that guy. I just I'm not that guy.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Was that rough?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh it's like I said, She she just you know,
they they try to they try to give her stuff
to help her sleep, because see, she fell asleep that
morning and when she woke up, she was gone. So
she regretted falling asleep, so so sleep at night. She
she has to force herself to go to sleep with pills,
you know. And and so I battled that, and you know,
(01:55):
of course, you know xanax with depression and everything like that.
And and it's not her fault, It's just she needed
it to get through. And but for me, it just
it tore us down. And and I love her to
today she'd die. I still love her, you know, but
I just h I never understand. I guess I never
really truly understand some of the pain she was going through.
So too, I got there, you know, with both of
(02:17):
them men going and and it taught me a lot
about myself. And that's why a lot of I've had
a lot of change in myself is through that experience.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So then at some point Nicole looks at you and says,
I want to see Samantha again.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
This was that's probably around November of twenty twenty, when
COVID was speaking and we had that discussion. We gave
ourselves a shock. I had no, no, we just were We're
hearing all these people are dying around us, you know,
and families are dying. Your husband and wives are dying.
You know, they're they're going over and to finding them
dead in their homes. And we're like, you know, we're
looking at each other, going one of us are going
(02:53):
to make it out of here, you know. And so
we made that decision, and and then on.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Margin decision finally for Nicole take the edge off a
little bit of Samantha's stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I don't know if it took the edge off, it
just gave her. I think it gave her just a
little bit more peace, you know, that that she had
she could she could go to him and talk to God.
That that she didn't have you know before. You know,
I mean, we always believed in God, you know, we
always she always said her prayers every night. But but
the fully, you know, the people don't understand something. They think, oh,
(03:32):
they read a few Bible scriptures and all that. It
takes a lot to fully give yourself over to Christ.
It takes a lot, and you got to you gotta
realize that. You know, I never understood it. You know,
you always hear that term, you know, the wide road
versus the narrow road, and narrow roads tough. It's a
tough road to walk because you're gonna, you're gonna, you're
gonna encounter a lot of things, and a lot of
people are gonna leave your life. You know, they're gonna
(03:54):
just because they're not ready for that walk. They're not
ready for that challenge. And it's and it's and it's tough.
You gotta fight, you you basically you're in a fight
for your life if you if you want to walk
with Christ. It's not easy. It's not It's not an
easy journey. And the Bible will tell you that, you know,
because like I said, you got to live by His
laws and and and do what you know is right
by him. And and people were just so taken in
(04:15):
by this world. They don't they don't want that. And
you'll lose friends because I just had this discussion with
Alex coming down the road that I've lost a lot
of friends because I don't drink anymore. I don't go
to clubs, you know, And and I think I make
them feel uneasy because they you know, they don't they
want to don't. They don't want to drink around me,
they don't want to cuss around me, don't, And so
they just slowly drift apart. Next thing, you know, you
(04:35):
haven't seen him for six months or a year, you know.
But in turn, God has put some such an amazing people,
such amazing families in my life since I've started this
racing program, and and uh, some of them, I talk
to you all over the country, you know. So it's
it's been, it's been very very nice, you know experience.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
So you guys give your selves. Basically, you decide you're
going to have a relationship with the Lord and live
a different way. And then six months later your wife
gets COVID.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Is that what happens? Well, she I was working. I
work a lot of double shifts, you know, and I
was I was worn. Oh yes, I can't even tell
you how, but you know, so we're I'm working and
she's like, hey, why don't you come home Friday? She
goes because she says, don't come home. She goes, I'm sick.
I don't know what I got. I might be the COVID,
I don't know. But she goes, I feel terrible. And
(05:30):
we were sick the year before that. And she goes,
it's worth It's not as bad as it was last year.
We were worse last year. And I said, all right. Well,
by Friday, she goes, man, she goes, can you come home?
And I said yeah. I said, I said, I'll go
ahead and cancel everything and I'll come home by Sunday.
I got it well. By Sunday, I can't even get
out of bed. I mean, I'm I'm literally walking to
the bathroom and I'm passing out.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And so she's trying to get us appointments. Of course,
everything's shelter and place, shelter in place. She's still driving,
she's going through the drive through, picking up medications and
things like that. She's still driving today. For she dies
and I can't get out of bed.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Are you kidding me? No?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I fall off the toilet in the bathroom and I
don't even know how long I lay there. She found
me in there. She come in and clean me up,
put me in bed, kissed me says, she loved me,
lit a cold rag on my head, and went out
in the living room and died that night. That's how
that happened. When I woke up eleven forty something the
next morning, I went out and hollered for her, said, hey,
(06:23):
get up, I said, we got our doctors appoint me today.
She didn't move, so I walked around and said, hey,
you got to get up. And then when I went over,
I seen her face and her and her eyes were
wide open, and I touched her and she was ice cold.
And that's when, you know, I called down one one,
and of course they had me start working on her,
and I said, listen, I'm going to probably pass out.
(06:47):
I said, the front doors on locked. I'll work on
her as long as I can. She says, well, they're
in root, and so so they they come in and
I got up, and they worked on her for a
couple minutes, and she's gone, you know. And uh, so
I called my brother, and uh because I had to
call him, I didn't have, you know, anybody else right
there at the time. And of course he never picked
(07:08):
up the phone, and he picked up on the first ring,
and he just buried his sister in law that just
died out of the blue, you know. And she was
only fifty one and my wife was forty nine. But
he lets out a scream and he came over, and
so I told the paramedic, I said, listen, her dad
listened to the back of subdivision. It's not going to
take along for the rumor mill to get around that
something's going on up here. I said, you got to
(07:29):
tell him. I can't do it. And so I called
him up and I said, Paul, I said, you got
to get over here. I said, they're working on the cold.
Doesn't look good. And so when they got down there,
they met him at the door and they explained to
her that she passed, you know. And of course after
that and everything's just started breaking loose. A lot of
you know, people were coming by and everything. And it
took a long time because, like I said, COVID was
(07:50):
involved and you know, in the corners and all that
kind of stuff, and it was it was just a
long process. And and then so everybody cleared out and
then high laid there all night. Everys would. I said, listen,
I've got to process this, and I can't do this. Yeah,
I said, I got to process this, I can't be
by myself. So everybody left, and so next morning, my
sister in law come and she took me to that
(08:11):
appointment that we were supposed to have. Of Course I've
got my head hanging out the window because that can't
even hardly move. Of course, they gave me some medicine,
and you know, blah blah blah, they don't they don't know.
And I get back and well, my my brother and
my brother in law show up. My brother lacks at
me and says, you're going to hospital. And I was like, why,
he goes, Gilbert, you look like a zombie. I mean,
my hands were this hand here. See how it's all
sunk in. It's still sunk in. I was just so dehydrated.
(08:34):
But I was drinking, but we wasn't drinking the right then,
you know, they wanted to should have been drinking the
pedia light and all that. We thought gatorade water was helping,
but that wasn't helping us. And so so he calls,
he calls the ambulance. Well they won't come get me,
he says, because because you know, they want you to
shelter in place. Oh, so they get in this big
battle on the phone. Well, you know I told you
(08:56):
I was a country boy. Well, my my brother's bigger
country boy than mite. Of course, he starts threat and
to shoot them and everything else. He's mad, and she said,
I'll call the cops. He goes, we'll call him. He goes,
cause I can tell you what dam if my brother dies.
She goes, y'all just carried his wife out of here yesterday.
If he dies, he goes, I'm coming to get you.
And the next thing she goes, what were you talking about, Nicole.
He goes, yes, He goes, they're on the way. So
(09:18):
when they come and got me, they come and got me.
He said can you walk? I said, I can walk
if I got help. He goes, what'd be easier for
the stretcher? So they got me into amlans and he says, hey,
where do you want to go? I said, just take
me to Winchester because I like Winchester Hospital. It's a
little better. So I get up there and they said, well,
we got to put you in this chair. I said
I can't do that. Well they did it, and next
thing you know, I'm I'm out on the floor. And
(09:40):
next thing I remember is I'm laying up there cutting
my clothes off of me. They're shoving needles in my arm.
I got stuff over my face, and you know, and
then I don't know, five or six hours later, the
doctor comes in and says that your heart is completely stopping.
I said, well, we were worried about breathing. Everybody was
dying because of they're breathing. And he he says, Now,
(10:00):
he says, your heart is literally just stopping and just
sitting there going okay, taking off again, he says, And
we got to fix that. And I don't know if
you watch too many horror movies, horror movies when you're
growing up, but have you ever seen the girl that
runs through the hospital and every fourth flight's on and
it's blinking, and there's nobody around, and he's he's chasing,
no doubt all the way. That's the COVID ward at
the hospital back in twenty twenty one. They took me
(10:23):
up there. It's a ghost town. Every third or fourth
light's on, you see nobody, it's complete silence, and they
pull me into this room. No nurses were ever in
the room at the same time. They'd close the door
and speak through the glass. And I made my piece
I made my piece right there again, you know, because
I didn't think I was going to come out.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
There anything literally too.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Oh yeah, And I told my brother, I said, I said,
I said, call Brown's Fenner Home and tell them to
make sure that nothing happens until I get out of here,
or if I don't get out here, that we get
buried together. Quit talking like that, I said, Listen, we're adults.
We got this is bad. I said, I might go
into a coma. I said, I don't know what's gonna
happen with me. And so he called the funeral home,
got it all set up. Funeral home, call me, said,
(11:04):
mister Hess, don't worry. He's but don't you're nothing's gonna
happen to you. But if it does, we'll we'll we'll
get you set up pretty good. And so uh, because
they wouldn't even let me go and even set the
arrangements up until a co I was one hundred percent
COVID free, you know, I wasn't evenllowed in the building.
So we had to wait over a week after I
got out to even set up her funeral.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
So did did she job a heart attack? As well?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, that's that's what they're saying, they say, in her
heart stop. That's that's what they deemed the cause of death,
you know. So of course, of course they put COVID
on there as well. So you know, I mean, everybody's
doing that because of the mandates. You know, they were
getting that that money. These hospitals were getting the money
and everything for it.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
But uh, killer, You've dealt with some losts, brother.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, yeah, you know, But but I've also dealt with
some gain too. Like I said, you know, I would
have rather had my wife in my life for thirty
three years than ever better. We had so we had
some amazing times and and and and the first day
I held my daughter in my hands, you know, to
be a dad, you know, you can't trade that for
anything in the world. So I was lucky. I was lucky,
(12:08):
you know. But like I said, I if we walk
around and we live in grief, we're not living. We're
not living. We're not We're not serving God's purpose at all.
That's not what he has intended for us. And a
lot of people missed that, missed a big picture on that.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
We'll be right back. Okay, when did she die?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
She Darke March fourth, twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
You had to have gone, you had to have been depressed.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Oh, absolutely, Well, Like I said, I don't tell this
to many people, but I've held the gun in my
hand a couple of times, you know, and I've never
to be ana.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I just told it two thousands.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I know that's fine. But I had just discussion with Alex
and us. You know, you hear about people that killed theirself,
and you go, how did that guy get to that point?
How did that person get to that point? How could
it be that love? But when you're in the when
you're in basically the depths of hell, of loneliness in
your own home, and there's nobody there with you, it
grabs you pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
When you got home from work after this, she recovered,
you went back to work. When you're pulling into a
house from work and your daughter's gone and your wife's gone,
it just had to have been a sense of dread
just walking through the.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Door, walking through that door and not smell my wife's perfume,
or her country candles burning with their scenate candles, or
or are the music playing that she always had planning
or having dinner on the table. It's tough. I've set
and cried my eyes out in many of days trying
to eat a meal. You know, I didn't even cook.
I didn't even cook for months in the house. I
(14:02):
just couldn't do it, you know, And that's why I
buried myself and work. Sometimes I work seven days a week,
you know, not always double ships, but I work seven
days a week, just because I don't want to be home,
you know. And it's just, you know, everybody deals with
it in certain ways. But it was hard to look around,
you know, because everything remind you, you know. And then
I wanted to sell the house. And it was just
(14:23):
like I built that house myself, me and her. She
she crawled up on the roof and helped do the shingles.
I mean, she helped you a lot. We did everything
in that house ourselves. That was that was our dream home.
We used to drive by this place and wonder, you know,
we lived in mobile home, you know, when we first
got started, and and like, you know, we love to
have that, you know, we love to have something like that.
One day and you know, me and my sister were
(14:43):
sitting down the garage and I'm sitting there, I got
a race car over here, and big old new truck
out here and new house, you know, all stuff I
worked for and and and I said, you know, that's funny,
I said, Now there's kids riding by her, going, man,
I hope we get that one day, you know. But
but look at look at look at the end result.
I'm by myself with it now, you know. And it's
just that I'm dealing with it. I'm dealing with it,
(15:05):
you know, a little by little.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
So I read where basically you sat around for about
a year and your brother said you better do something
and you're gonna lose yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Well that's what he goes. Why don't you buy the car?
I said, Well, I said, I said, I don't know,
he goes. He goes, Glord. If you don't get out
of this house, you ain't gonna make it, you know,
because he came over. He came over in October and
I was in there soaking because it was my anniversary.
Come on, we're going to races. So he takes me
to port Roll to you know, the races up there,
you know, constantly getting me out of the house, get
(15:38):
me out of the house, you know, and see the
think about it was, is the weird thing about this
after my dad died, me and my brother didn't talk
for ten years. You know, really, I'm not going to
go into the specifics of it, but we just didn't
talk for ten years. He went into a whole, I
went into a whole, you know, just family issues. And
we run into him on the racetrack about six months
for Nicole dad and we started talking again, and then
(16:01):
a god thing, and then when she died, he showed
up five minutes and car and never never left my side.
He's took he took care of everything. He went through
and cleaned the house, all the blankets she was laying
on you I throwed, oh it worshed everything down. He
did everything. You know, He's never left my side on that.
So he just he just pretty much he was like,
(16:21):
you got you gotta If you're gonna do it, you
gotta do it. I said, Well, I said, I do
things my way, I said, And I said, I wanted
to get Gary Stoller to drive my car. That's my
childhood hero. My dad's actually buried in a Gary Stoleer
t shirt. Gary's our guy. And I said, but I
want to drive the car, but I want Gary to
drive it too, I said, because this. This car here
is an exact replica of what he drove in the nineties.
(16:43):
But this is also the only car that my daughter
and wife stood in Victory Lean with was this car.
So it's got a lot of sentimental value. And I
wanted to rebirth this car, and so I told her,
I said, I said. Plus, I said, when I'm going
to do my childhood cancer this program, I'm gonna have
a lot of eyes on me. I said, I don't
want to use car. I want everything nice. He goes, well,
I don't know why you do that. I said, because
I am who I am and you are who you are.
(17:04):
I said, I've got the money to do it, I said,
worked enough to do all this. So, like I said,
we decided that. I went down to the World one
hundred in twenty twenty two and run into Steve Baker.
And Steve Baker is a co owner of Rocket Chassis
up in Shenston, West Virginia, and I talked to him
about buying the car. So, I said, you don't remember me,
I said, but I talked to you about a used car.
(17:25):
What would be the best He says, goe, what I
remember who you are? He guess you standing right down
there to make for him to do that. That was
pretty pretty amazing. And then we got to talk in here.
Come to find out his son's a palette for United.
So yeah, so we got in this big conversation. You know,
we're standing there and turned one at el door speedway
to Water. One hundred cars are racing by, and we said,
they're talking about, you know, family issues, and he goes,
(17:47):
come on up to the shop. He goes, well, we'll
get you set up. So me and Ernie Shirley, a
friend of mine, we rode up and we ordered a
car and everything. And then on December twenty nineth he started.
We went up and picked the car up. It was done,
and the funniest thing happened. So we're we're standing out there.
We doneloaded the car up at the main shop. We
pulled down and we're picking up some parts and stuff
and and and Andy Anderson. He took me up to
(18:09):
UH to pick the car up. I didn't have my
trailer yet. And guess few pools in the parking lot.
Gary stormt no kidding, Steve. Steve Baker goes, Gilbert, you
couldn't make this up. If he was writing a book,
and Gary comes over and he goes, Gilbert, what are
you doing? Because I just talked to Gary at Charlotte,
you know, months before that, talking Hey, I'm building a car.
(18:29):
I want you to race for me.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
He's looking at me like, who is this guy? You
know I'm a fan, but he knows I'm a fan.
He knows me and Nicole. But he's like, but his
wife already is she's over there. This is granted away.
And I said, I'm building something pretty special. I want
you to He goes, well, Gary's laid back, He's got
three hundred and fifty wins. It's the Hall of Famer.
He's like, you put your deal together, you come you
come see me. I said, all right. So so he's
up there and he goes, god, you spent that money
(18:54):
and and and uh and uh. Spaker goes, dude, if
you only knew the piece that he's got setting up
side for you right now, you're gonna flip out.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And uh and I said, hey, I said, if you
don't want to do it, I said, it's fine with me.
And he goes, no, no, no, no, no no. So and
Baker goes, let me tell you what you better do it.
He goes, he you don't know what he what limps,
he went to give you something special and uh. And
so anyway went through the process. And then and then
Tim Fraanker over Freker Sads and Haggerstown, he he did
the original forty four car. And so he set the
(19:25):
car up, you know, and did all the did all
the letter and everything. And he even stood back and goes, skilled,
I know you had a vision, he goes, But man,
he goes, I didn't think this thing was gonna look
this good. And uh. And then when we and then
we then we showed it off the Gary at the
at the our first ever event up at Portoral Speedway,
we had Nicole's Dream childhood Cancer Awareness night and uh
and uh he was just, uh, you can see it's
(19:47):
it's it's funny to look at a sixty some year
old man and the same acting like a kid, you know.
And he walked by that thing and he rubbed the
doors and he looked down and going this man, he goes,
this thing's nice. He's sitting inside of it and he's
roaming and he goes. He goes, man, he goes, he
somebody took some care. I said, it's a new car
because Nowgil where he goes, they did a good job
on this thing.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
And they did so to be clear, you unveiled the
car like you just said, at Port Royal Speedway. It's
called Nicole's Dream, named after his light late wife, Nicole's
dream of having a race car. They're raised awareness for
childhood cancer and right on the front of the nose
(20:25):
of this car it says childhood at Cancer Awareness. And
it's a beautiful red car. And on the tail of
it it's got across at Samantha HM. So this car
racing around every weekend, raising awareness for your loss, and
(20:50):
you've turned a horrifically sad story into a way to
honor their legacy doing some good.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, and also made my wife a promise. She she
had me made a promise because go if I die
before you don't ever let Samantha's name be forgotten. She
constantly kept her alive on Facebook, always posting something, doing something,
and to see what we have done with this she had.
She had no way to imagine that on see see
(21:21):
I never drove one of these cars before. I drove
old old Mustangs and stuff like that. That this was so
I took this car. I took this thing to the
world one hundred. For the first time ever, I drove
one of these cars. I was told, are you crazy?
I said, I don't know, but we'll see. And and
and Plus we run a limited class. They run a superclass,
which is about two hundred more horsepower. I said. But
(21:43):
I want to stand in el door and soak that in,
I said, and get that experience. I said, this is
all the things that me and her wanted to do.
So I'm standing in the middle of eld Door Speedway,
you know, and and and they're they're talking about Speedy
Hayes was the original owner of this car. And and
they're talking about what we're doing and everything like that.
And the most the most amazing thing happened. I'm standing
in the staging area and her favorite driver is Jonathan Davenport,
(22:07):
which he's one just about everything there is to win,
and he carries her decal in his car. When I
ask him to, well, of course, he pulls up the
side of me just because I'm getting ready to pull
out for the track. For the first time, I got
tears rolling down my face and I'm praying, and I'm
talking to my girls, and you know, and I'm looking
over at him and I'm like, am I in a dream?
Is this really happening? You know? And so so on
(22:27):
September the seventh, you know, in twenty twenty three, you know,
Samantha's name was heard all over the country in the
dirt racing world, you know, and and it was just
the most amazing feeling that you could you could ever do,
you know, because there's thousands and thousands of drivers all
across this country would would would give their left arm
to take one lap at Eldor and I and I
(22:49):
got to compete. I knew we wasn't going to make
the race. We didn't have enough motor, I didn't have
the experience, you know. But but you know, it was
funny because the guy got in a wreck and and
and I got slowed down. And the leader, well, of course,
as the leader was the world champion that that that year,
plus he was also the winner of that race that night.
And I got to go door to door him for
three quarters of a laugh, and my buddies in the
(23:09):
grassy heads going to give it their cheer for you,
like you're winning the race. And he come down and
he give me a big old his name's Craig Clyde.
He come down and give me a big old bear
hug and kissed me on the cheek. He says. Brother,
He says, you did something and I'll never get to
do in my life. And if I don't humble you,
you know. And then like Russ had me speak at
the church out there that day, and and people come
down and I had him sign the car all around
(23:29):
the pillars here they signed their names of their their
kids and their family members that they lost to cancer.
And and and to hold my hand while I'm sitting
in the car getting ready to go out. And and
people to tell you, hey, you give me hope. You know,
you give me hope for tomorrow. That's a pretty powerful
thing to have on your shoulders, you know. And and
but uh, you know, it's just me being me, you know.
(23:51):
And uh, it's just uh, you can't put some of
it into words when how it's it's it's funny because
I was dating a girl, you know, a little bit
after that, and she stood at the bar this little
dinner that I was at and I won't mention her name.
She don't like me anymore, But it's okay. But she
looked at me, and she says, Gilbert, she says, when
you first start talking about this, she goes, I thought
(24:12):
you were lying. And I said, well, why would you
think that she goes? This is so outlandish and so
far out there, you know, she goes, go or people
don't get their dreams, I said, she goes. But every
day you come in here, you got a new story something.
You're like, guess what happened to me today? And you know,
and all that. And I was like, well, I'm just
telling you my life, you know, and she goes, Yeah,
(24:32):
she goes, but I've never seen a real life dream
unfold right before my eyes. She goes. And it's it's
it was amazing, you know, and and and and it
is that it's just that you don't a lot of
people will never ever get to do what I get
to do, you know. I mean, I set up in
those grand stands for years and looking down and like,
never even imagine that I would be on and now
I'm not at nowhere new work shape or level. With
(24:55):
some guys, they're just they're just amazing, you know, but
they you know, like I said, but see, we I
guess for society has taught us that, you know, winning,
you have to win, you have to win the event,
you got to do this. Winning comes in so many
different forms.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Just having this car go around the race track is winning.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
And that's and that's what I'm saying. My goals are
not your goals. But I've accomplished all my goals just about.
We haven't won with the car yet, but the very
first night we took this car out, very first time
on the track, set fast time. You know, we did
a memorial race for my wife, so she call she
was the trophy girl. We did a memorial race, run
(25:33):
second almost almost. But the funny thing about us, I
guess who wanted a race? Her favorite local driver, Trevor Feathers.
You're kidding, no, So we got to because he actually
he actually shortened his vacation to come back to run
that race. He goes, go, but I got to find
a car, so brad omsloon need my car, and he
came back and and uh he won our race. And
of course our trophies they're all they're all memorialized by
(25:54):
the coal. She was four foot eleven, so all of
our trophies are four foot eleven, you know. Yep, so
it and so we tried to keep and everything is
implemented with her name. It's Samantha's name in.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
We'll be right back, all right. So in two thousand
and three, you raise twenty thousand dollars for Saint Jude,
twenty twenty three and twenty what I say in two
thousand and three, I'm sorry. In twenty twenty three, you
(26:31):
raised twenty thousand dollars for Saint Jude in honor of Samantha.
How did you raise twenty thousand?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
We we did some auctions where we drivers donate doors
and quarter panels off their cars, helmets, gloves, driver's suits,
sprint car teams they're different type of car. They give
us parts of their wings, t shirts, just anything you
could think of that they donate, you know. Plus I
do a lot of custom bicycles to make them look
like race cars. And our first custom bicycle that we
(26:58):
auction off part one thousand dollars and and we and
we gave it directly to Connor. You know that that
bike was built for Connor to to raise money for him.
So we we uh, we had a guy bid on
it. It brought nine hundred dollars and the girl that was
bedding on it. Whether she can I just go ahead,
non eight one hundred, so you can give him an
even thousand. I said, sure, you know, and so we did.
We did that, and but we've given away probably about
(27:20):
fifty bicycles so far since we've started. Some of the
bicycles for because my wife wanted to do it. They
used to say they used to give out bicycles a
lot each year, you know, and and what we we
wanted to I want I don't want to mention the trackers.
I don't like putting anybody down. But we used to
go to the track that did it, and they were
all like, oh, we got enough bicycles. You don't have
enough bicycles. When you got thirty forty kids here and
you got ten bicycles, that's right. And so she got
(27:42):
upset about it. So now I'm suddenly I'm gonna take
it on. So so we so we started giving bicycles away.
So we gave we gave thirteen bicycles away that night
of our first auction. Well, Ethan Benson and his brother
they said, girl, but that's the best thing we ever
thought of when we were thought about it, when we
was coming to the track as kids are we gonna
win up? I said, goll tonight and nobody does it anymore.
I said, well we're doing it now. So then this
(28:04):
past Easter, I dressed up as the Easter Bundy in
my racing suit and pull my trailer head and she
let me get all set up. She let me all
get all set up. Lisa to it over at Haggerstown
Speedway and we gave away I think thirteen fourteen bicycles
over there, uh, collar TV set die cast cars. I
got a poster me as a cartoon character that I
that I always give away.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
And then but every kid that walked in that it
was East it was Easter weekend. Every kid walked in
got a pail for the for the candy scramble, and
they got to pick one toy. I go to five
and below. I don't know if you're aware of that.
It's it's a little store, but nothing's over five dollars
before COVID now it's seven. So but but they have
all kinds of toys and stuff, and we set up
big tables and they get to come in and pick
(28:48):
one toy, pick a basket and and and go do
stuff like that. You know, and and and like I said,
through that process, I've met a lot of extraordinary people.
I go through and I'll walk over to the guy
that sells t shirts and I'll buy all his flags
and I'll just go start handing them out where I
got a buddy of mine at Eric Farner, at Farner's
raising collectibles. He sets up he sells die cast and
he has a lot of you know, older stuff that
(29:09):
doesn't sell, so he sells the cheap and I'll buy
a bunch of them. I'll start handing them out. So
I'm stepping beside this guy one thing. Why do you
do that? And I said, because I lost my daughter
to cancer and she never got to have fun at
the track like this. And he goes, man, I lost
my son to cancer. I've had that man at my
house cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and we still talk every day.
Not every day, but you know, we text each other
(29:31):
back and forth and build and build a relationship. All
of that. And I could call that man right now
and say I'm stuck in Tennessee, could you come down
and get me? And he'd be in that truck and
he'd run down the road and come get me.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
So your wife's dream was to give iPads and video
games to kids at the hospital. So you raise money
and bought sixty of these devices and took them to
Walter Reed and Georgetown.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Well, what what we've done is when Samantha was going
through our chemotherapy, you know, back then when we're down
at children, so there was a lot of inner city
kids down there, so they didn't have the money that
we had, and so Samantha would have her little kindle fire,
you know, basically watching movies. And well, now, excuse me,
wasn't the Kendol fire back then it was it was
a little portable DVD player. So my wife's like, when
(30:17):
we get this thing up and run, if we ever
get a chance to do it, I want to make
sure these chemo rooms have stuff that these kids can watch,
you know. And so over time we talked about and
then the Kendles came out and well that'd be better
than the DVD players. So when we when we start
doing this, I well, all this all come about. Down
at work, we have a thing called Fantasy Flight where
they have a thing set up the airport where we
(30:38):
bring in toys and all that stuff, and they have
a whole North Pole set up, and they take the
kids and they fly them around the airport. When they
pull back in, they land at the North Pole. And
but with COVID cut all that out. And so I
put up a challenge at work. Hey, I'm putting up
the first fifteen hundred dollars. If your match it, we're
gonna we're gonna start doing some stuff for the hospitals
and we'll go there locally. Well, like I said, over
(31:00):
the last over the last three years, we've raised sixteen
five hundred dollars through my Nicole's dream in the United
Airlines venture. And so so what we've done is we
started out with Walter Reed and Georgetown. West Virginia Children's
Universally hadn't open up yet, they were still building a
new wing. So what we've done is we went ahead
and we went down there and we took the DVD
(31:21):
players and and and the and the Kendles and a
bunch of different things to Walter Reed and Georgetown because
that's the only places we were going to at a time.
So then over the last two years I told my boss,
I said, hey, I said, you know, West Virginia is
my home. I'd really like to do this here. He
have no issue with it. And I was introduced to
Barbara Shaeffer up there and we got a talking and
(31:43):
we did we did the stuff she goes, but she
really need other things. I said, well, listen, let's let's
do this. Send me your wish list and then what
what what we get out of that. We'll see what
we can do, and then we'll backfield with toys, because
it's like I got to do my toys. And so
what we've done is the first year up there, we did,
like I said, she wanted these baby Einstein's and of
(32:04):
course just to see this on here. This sis Jackson's heart.
This is this is my wife's friend's grandson. He died
of heart disease. I think he was only four months old.
So we were talking about that and they weren't allowed
to touch him. And that's what Barbara was talking about.
These these devices they hang in the beds, they play music,
they vibrate and all that. When you can't touch the
babies to sue them so they don't cry all night
(32:25):
and have heart attacks and have and have issues. And
so what we did is we went out and bought
sixty there. So they're probably hanging into this about every
bed in West Virginia Children's University Hospital. And so, but
we took a lot of other things. Like I said,
the first year we did we did wagons and because
like I said, they pulled us from from uh X
ray too chemo and wagons so make the kids more comfortable.
(32:47):
And then last year I did some really cool stuff.
I took strollers and looked like cars and turn them
into race cars. What the strollers, they're the little little
toy car strollers. And I took them up to my
friend Maharten at Hard and Graphics in Winchester, Virginia, and
he made them look like race cars. He made he
made some of them look like the number one car
of Rocket Chassis house car, and then he did the
(33:08):
red ones for the forty four for us, and so
we took those up there because I wanted people to
see Nicole's dream driving through the hospital, you know. So
so we did that. Plus we went up to Rocket
Chassis and uh they and showed him and Steve. Steve
just flipped out. And but also what Barbara required last year,
she said, yo, work, I want to build overnight bags.
She goes, you know, a lot of people get sprung
(33:28):
at the hospital. He's remember when you all went to
the hospital. She goes, you got stuck. She goes there,
she goes you to know you were getting stuck there,
she goes, we have to build overnight bags. So so
I work with you and out of Airlines. And uh,
they gave me the toiletry kits from the Polaris first
first Class players. They gave me those. Uh we did
through the donations. We bought the pajama bottoms. And then
(33:50):
all my racing family kicked in and they all donated
T shirts. So now if you say you you go
to West Virginia Children's University, there's a possibility if you
got to spend the night, there's a there's a big
possibility you're gonna get a pair of pajama pants, a
racing T shirt, and a United Airlines Polaris lounge toilet
your kid to help you get through that night. You know.
And and but we're big about giving them their lists.
(34:12):
We bought the Mama Roose wings last year. We bought
we bought all kinds of stuff for for the you know,
for the ward itself. But I bought two regular strollers.
I said, I just She goes, well, we can't really
have those because they're hard to clean. I said, no,
these are specific for two different kids. I said, the
first kid that walks out of here or that get
(34:34):
strolled out of here after heart surgery. I said, I
want that to go to that little kid. I said,
for this stroller here, the first kid that that rolls
out of here in remission, that that beat cancer, I
want you to give this to their family. And she goes, well,
I can do that. So so I was tickled to
death that we were allowed to do that.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
So what do you say to the person that has
a heart for service, but it's sitting on the sideline
and isn't really engaged.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Well, this is this is how I look at this.
You know, we're we're here on this earth to inspire people,
you know, to do many different things. You know, like
I said, I actually lost a relationship with a lady
because I talk about God too much. Okay, but we're
back together because we work through it.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
It was because it's it's scary. It's scary for people,
you know, but also too we have guys out there
that that can do this all over the country and
they're sitting on the sidelines, and they and they and they.
You know, how do I go about it? Well, I'm
laying the blueprint for them now right now, you know
how they do it, how to approach it. But they've
got to be a people person and they got it.
(35:48):
And you've got to humble yourself when you come into this.
You just you can't come in this with any kind
of arrogance, and you can't come into it with any
kind of expectations. If you come into it with expectations,
you're going to get hurt because it takes time. Everything
takes time. Just remember one thing, life is all. God's
timing is not our timing, So it takes time and
a lot of times he won't give you the things
you need because he knows you're not ready for it.
(36:10):
See I'm where I'm at right now. I feel like
I'm going to standstill. But there's something that I'm still
maybe I'm not doing right that he's waiting because he
can't hand me that big prize yet because I'm not
ready for it. But I'm trying to inspire people all
across the country to get involved in that. But I
also do and I believe this of all my heart
and I tell my brother this, and he just me
(36:31):
and my brother are two different people when I love
him to death. But there's a guy watching me right now, okay,
And he's asking questions, and he's researching me, and he's
watching me how I carry myself. He's watching me in
situations like we had an incident at the racetrack where
we got our car smashed up. Do you go over
there like the old country boys do and you get
in a fistfight or you walk away? We walked away.
(36:53):
I got a Hall of Fame driver driving for me.
He doesn't carry yourself that way. I don't carry myself
that way. You know. He was very upset. I was upset.
But that night we put this car. We won the
heat race in this car. That's the first time that
this forty four had won a heat race. The symbol
of this car in thirty years, this alleged engine research
on the side. He was standing there. He said, man,
(37:14):
you don't even know what it looked like to see
that thing go across that checker flag. It was just
a heat wind. But then after feature we got we
got beat up and pulled out of the race and
everybody's upset, said, listen, listen, calm down, we're not We
accomplished something tonight. We put the forty four, you know,
in a heat race win for the first time I
got me. I got Gary Stoller a heat win in
(37:37):
the forty four after thirty years. I said, we accomplished something.
I said, God gave us something tonight, and the devil's
trying to take it away with this bunch over here.
I said, we're not going to do that. I said,
We're going to relish in this moment and laugh and
have fun and just have a good time because we
accomplished something. I gave this man a fast race car
first night out, said fast time. I gave him a
card that almost won the race in Nicole's memorial race,
(37:58):
and then he won a heat race, you know, And
and a lot of people said, well that's nothing, that's nothing.
But for me, remember what I told you. My goals
are not your goals. My wins are not your wins.
But whatever makes me happy. And I'm how tickled to death,
you know, I just wish we could have got him
a win, because, like I said to me, to have
Gary win in my car is amazing. You know, we're
getting ready. This whole car will be different next year
(38:19):
because we're we're going in his fiftieth an He's been
racing for fifty years. Man, he'll be seventy next year.
And he's and he's and he's still running up front.
And you know, so I'm doing a very special car
for him for his fiftieth anniversary. You know. But but but,
like I would get back to that point where, like
I talked to my brother, I was like, there's a
guy watching me. He's got tons of money. He but
he can't talk like I can talk. But he's lost.
(38:42):
He's lost a lot in his life, and he wants it.
He wants to he wants to get involved. And he's
and he's asking questions about me right now, and and
and and I feel when when this opportunity happened, I
almost sank. I almost wept because this might have opened
the door up for that guy to see me or
hear me, you know, and it's it's gonna take this thing.
Then I want to take this on a national level.
(39:04):
You know, I can't do it because of funds, but
there's millionaires all over this world. It says, hey, let's
jump in and let's let's have some fun with this boy.
You know, and what if what if you know? But
you if you can't, if you, if you, if you
venture into something you use football coach, right, yeah, if
you went into every game going well, we might lose
(39:25):
this one to night, what do you think is gonna
happen so fulfilling profits if you don't, if you don't
go into everything thinking you can win. And that's why
I built a car that I know we can win
in any given night. We just got to have everything
lined up. These cars are so complex. The geometry is
the suspension of these cars will drive you completely insane.
And I'm and I and I jumped off from the
deep end of the pool and I'm still learning this stuff.
(39:47):
But but the thing about is if you don't believe
that you can win and don't do it, don't do
anything in your life because if you, if you, if
you don't have confidence in yourself, nobody's gonna have combness.
And and that's the things And that's why I think
some people may think I'm smugging er. It's not that.
It's just that I'm confident. I've got a plan on
my place. You know, when I had my auction. I
already saw it before it happened. I could see the
(40:09):
people over here bedding on the stuff. I could see
people holding up the panels. I could see it all,
you know, I could have I could envision the whole
thing and I and I've already envisioned my new race shop.
You know, when this thing gets big, you know, hey,
you know. But but my ultimate goal is and and
and like I said, I don't say it. Whatever happened,
but it's a big it's a big stretch for me
and my wife. We all sat around, you know how
(40:29):
you have say, talk to your wife, everyone and Lottie
what you would do. We've already we've already picked out
the piece of land that's right down from the house.
That where we're gonna put a twenty five patient hospital
with little cottages all the way around in the church
in the back. And that's going to be Samantha's memorial
right there. You know, we we we got it. But
I learned something the other day. I listened to I
listened to some guys called and everything, and I learned
(40:49):
something the other day. I'm my own worst endemy. He said,
he said, you can't you can't have a dream and
put it in place if you don't have a plan.
And he says, you got to sit down and you
got to.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Draw it up.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
He said, draw up, He said, draw it up, draw
up your dream. You know, he didn't know. I'm listening
scowling on TikTok and everything. He's but you know, whatever
you're doing, draw a picture of it. You know, how
would you do this? Who was the people that you
woul hire? How would you do this? How would you
do that? Have it in place, have have it all
ready to go, so when it does happen to you
know how to sit around wait on it. And and
that that and got me thinking about a lot of stuff.
(41:22):
And so but like I said, I'm you know, everybody
calls me a dreamer. I'm a dreamer. But look at this.
You know, whoever thought, whoever thought I would be a
disposition in my life?
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Right now? We'll be right back, all right. So in
(41:54):
twenty twenty three, you raised twenty k for Saint Jude.
I mean, how much have you raised in total?
Speaker 2 (41:59):
And total we're setting at probably around forty six thousand,
five hundred. We did about thirty thousand direct cash payments
to Saint Jude's and then we've done about sixteen thousand,
five hundred directly through the hospitals.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
And then that's only in a couple few years.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah, and we're hoping that we're we're gearing up right
now for our Christmas deal. And so if we raised
you know, additional four thirty five hundred and four thousand
this year, we could hit that fifty thousand dollars mark.
And it's not about the number per se, It's it's
about what it shows to other people. You know, this
just a ring of fifty thousand, you know, and we
get to hold up that well. We you know, we
always every time we make an accomplishment, we rebuilding these
(42:36):
checks and things like that, and we do it for
to inspire people.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Well and supporting to know you're still working all the time.
I mean, you have a job at a life and
everything else and you're still raising this money and it
can it can be done. And I gotta believe, knowing
you a little bit now, what you raise fifty, you'll
want to raise one hundred.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Like I said, it's we're in at the we're in
it now. I mean it's just that you know, we
have we have some tough days. But but like I said,
it's the biggest thing is is help, you know, and
we get it. This one, it seems like we don't
sure we're gonna get it. It comes out of nowhere.
So phenomenal story. You got a guy who comes from
(43:18):
West Virginia and in his words, grew up poor, married
his high school sweetheart, had his little girl, and it
all taken from him. This little girl dies with leukemia.
Love his life dies from COVID And from that he's
(43:39):
raised thousands of dollars for Saint Jude. Kids have gotten bicycles, kindles, toys,
Baby Einstein's strollers made into race cars, t shirts of
pajama pants. It's gotten his employee United involved, and have
(44:04):
not only put smiles on a lot of kids' faces,
but every weekend goes out and people are reminded of
the difficulties of childhood cancer and the sadness of child's
are cancer, but also the importance of raising money to
help other families who went through what he and Nicole
(44:25):
went through with their daughter Samantha. Raising money to try
to help that be better for others. You know, if
there's not I just can't imagine a better example of
a normal guy. I mean, we're talking about a mechanic
(44:47):
from West Virginia who grow poor, who's had lots of
pain in his life, who's turned that pain into a
dream and done so much for so many honor of
both his wife and his daughter. And Gilbert.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
I just I can't imagine a better example of what
just a normal guy can do. What's next?
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Uh, we're trying to get ready for next year. I'll
go ahead and tell you we've got most of the
pieces in place right now. Not one hundred percent sure
it's all going to come together, but I when I
was down in Charlotte this past week or weekend before last,
I put a lot of things together. We're talking about
building a two seater and see these only hold one driver,
(45:38):
and we're gonna have it set up for Make a
Wish kids and kids with cancer, that that we can
take them a ride around the track, not like we
race is so cool. Well we have them. They haven't
they having for adults? They having for adults. But I've
talked to Butler built Seats down in North Carolina. I've
talked to Simpson Safety Apparel. I've talked to Velocida Race gear.
(45:58):
I've talked to ARC Racing up in Winchester is going
to help me get the card done. Talk to so
many wonderful people that want to jump on board and
help this project out. I've already got it clear with
the Speedway. But you know, like I said, we're trying
to get a few things done. You know, financing is
a deal with that, because, like I said, we got
this car getting ready going for the fiftieth anniversary for Gary.
That's a big deal for me.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
If people want to support that, if people want to
hear more about you, if p is there a website
for this or unfortunately no, I'm trying. How do people
find out? I know somebody listening to us may want
to may want to donate, someone with us, may just
be inspired, want to reach out. How do people find
Gilbert has The quickest.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Way to find me is on TikTok through Nicole's Dream.
If they go and look, if they look up Nicole's Dream,
or if they write, if they look up Gilbert Hess
Racing and everything starts to pop up, all my pictures
and all that stuff like that, they'll find it.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Have an email? An email?
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yeah, I guess I just I guess we could give
it to them. It's a it's a G I L
A E. S at MSN dot com.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Perfect.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Yeah, all of.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Our guests give their an email or some contact because
I'm telling you people will being sorry by your story
and that we'll want to reach out. And I'll tell
you a Gobert from personal experience, it's really nice to
be reached out to people you don't even know who say, hey,
what you had to said. What you had to say
meant something to me, and you'll be shocked at You'll
(47:28):
be shocked at what it was your words and what
you've done and your life story can have there's somebody
listening to us right now. There's probably many people's right
now who are probably dealing with sadness and difficulties the
result of the loss of someone they love, maybe even
to cancer, and hopefully your story could be an inspiration
(47:49):
of ways to overcome that as well. What an amazing story,
Gobert and I deal with that.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
At El Dora, I had a lot of people come
up and did a personal one on one with their
loss and how how they and just astonished that I
could take something and turn it into what I turned
it into. And that made me feel That made me
feel really good.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
You know, your story is the epitome of what a
normal guy can do to make his world better, even
in the face of adversity. Gilbert has you are definitely
a member of the army of normal folks, and your
story is so inspirational. And I cannot tell you how
much I appreciate your candor and you sharing all of
(48:26):
it with us, and I can't wait to see what
you do next.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
I just appreciate the opportunity. And hey, if whoever's listening
out there, any chance you get, just say a little
prayer for Olive and Connor. Like I said, they both relapsed,
you know, this past year, and just they're going through
a difficult time and that means more to me than
anything else in the.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
World knows about that a little.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
It's just that I met I met Connor through Stephanie Jones.
She's she's the girl that works at Valdocia Race Suits.
She designed and my race suit and I bought all
my safety year through them. And you know, a short
time after we had met, she'd called me up with
the phone and told me that that she discovered her
five year old nephew had got brain cancer, and we
(49:06):
went through a few things, and and then Olive, her grandfather,
contacted me through finding me through the racing program. And
you know, she's fourteen years old and she's about on
LIKEMI right now, and she's just she's got a lot
of problems right now going on. And so we do
a lot. We do a lot for those kids. And
like I said again, me and Alex were talking coming
down the road and Steph thanked me for coming in
(49:29):
through their lives. And I'm like, Steph, I don't think
I came into you all's lives. You all came into
my life. I said, because you don't realize something. I said,
you took my level of prayer to all new height
this year. I said, I've never prayed as much as
I prayed for them two kids in my entire life.
I said, it's just been the most amazing experience. I said.
I said. They didn't change I said, I said, I
didn't change them, They changed me. I said, they changed
(49:50):
who I were. They let me see a different side
of myself that I didn't even know how to in me.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
It did phenomenal that through the work that you do,
you always end up getting fifteen times more out of
it than you put in.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Absolutely, Like I said, I just I have met the
most amazing families that support me. You know, I've got
a family. I don't want to name names because then
if I forget, somebody'll feel left doubt. But I've got
several families you know, at Port Royal, at Winchester Speedway,
at Haggerstown Speedway that you know that just bend over
backwards and they know I'm having a difficult day. They
(50:24):
take their time out that text me and say, hey, Gilbert,
what's wrong and everything. And I've got a little boy
I sponsored his goat cart and you know, I showed
up at the track and his grandparents were like, Hey,
come on down here and have breakfast this morning and
pay for my whole weekend, you know, for getting in
the racetrack and all that. You know, I just it
humbles you because I give gifts. I don't get gifts,
you know, And it's it's pretty amazing, you know, when
(50:45):
even even the smallest thing, and uh, you know it
was I went down to Florida to set some deals.
I was trying to get Jonathan Davenport to drive this
car for me. But of course he drives a Longhorn.
This is a rocket chassis. He's not allowed to because
of manufacturer differences. But I also talk to a guy
named Scott Bloomquist, and Scott bloomquists if anybody ever hears
that name. He's the biggest name in dirt track ration ever.
(51:06):
And we was trying to work out a deal. We
were still trying to figure out a few things. But
he was killed in an accident in a plane crash
at his propertly a few months ago, and so it
didn't happen. But what if, you know, what if if
I get one of those guys in this car as well.
Now not the Gary is not the greatest guy in
the world. That's my guy, but you know, just to
take it to another level, and you know, on a
(51:27):
national level. And you know, like I said, I told,
I told Alex, come up the road. I asked everybody
what I want. I don't hold back because the worst
thing he says no. But what if they say yes?
Don't be scared. You know, you got a fifty to
fifty chance. It's either yes or no. And what if
they say yes? And I and like I said, I
(51:49):
wholeheartedly believed the guy I've been talking about is listening
right now, and you helped me get that guy. And
I'm going to take this thing to a new level
and I believe. I believe that with all my heart.
And we'll keep you informed when it does.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
Let's hope it happens.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
There's going to be an email or a phone call
or something going to happen.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
God bless Connor and Olive. Prayers for them, and God
bless Gilbert Has and your work, and God bless the
forty four car Childhood Cancer Awareness Samantha on the back,
Jason's heart doing good work, and all in remembrance of own,
(52:30):
remembrance of your family, Gilbert Has. That's an amazing story.
Thanks sharing it with us, Thank you for having me,
and thank you for joining us this week. If Gilbert
or other guests have inspired you in general, or better yet,
by reaching out to Gilbert and donating to this calls,
following him on TikTok at mister Wayne one zero eight
(52:57):
or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love
to hear about it. You write me anytime at Bill
at Normalfolks dot us, and I promise you I'll respond
If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and
on social subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it.
(53:18):
Join the army at normalfolks dot us. Consider becoming a
Premium member there any and all of these things that
will help us grow an army of normal folks. Thanks
to our producer, Iron Light Labs, I'm Bill Courtney. I'll
see you next week.
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue with part two of our conversation with
Gilbert House right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors.
(00:28):
So we have Samantha's death and then this. I mean, honestly,
I don't want to put words in your mouth, and
I'm certainly not trying. Nobody knows what you're struggling with
and how hard that must be unless you've gone through yourself.
So please don't mistake what I'm saying here. But it
(00:52):
feels like you and Nicole suffered a decade long depression.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Try to in twenty years, because I mean, we still
we we still want on vacations here and there. But
there was there was always that you could always look over,
even when she's sitting on the beach in Hawaii, you
could see that emptiness center.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
You know.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
It was just all the time. What if Samantha was here,
What if Samantha's here, she would have babies, now, we'd
be grandparents. What if what if she could not get
that out of her head? She could not she couldn't
move forward, She couldn't move forward, you know, And I
just everybody thought we were never gonna make it. They
gave us two years we'd be divorced. But I'm not
that guy. I just I'm not that guy.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Was that rough?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh it's like I said, She she just you know,
they they try to they try to give her stuff
to help her sleep, because see, she fell asleep that
morning and when she woke up, she was gone. So
she regretted falling asleep, so so sleep at night. She
she has to force herself to go to sleep with pills,
you know. And and so I battled that, and you know,
(01:55):
of course, you know xanax with depression and everything like that.
And and it's not her fault, It's just she needed
it to get through. And but for me, it just
it tore us down. And and I love her to
today she'd die. I still love her, you know, but
I just h I never understand. I guess I never
really truly understand some of the pain she was going through.
So too, I got there, you know, with both of
(02:17):
them men going and and it taught me a lot
about myself. And that's why a lot of I've had
a lot of change in myself is through that experience.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
So then at some point Nicole looks at you and says,
I want to see Samantha again.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
This was that's probably around November of twenty twenty, when
COVID was speaking and we had that discussion. We gave
ourselves a shock. I had no, no, we just were We're
hearing all these people are dying around us, you know,
and families are dying. Your husband and wives are dying.
You know, they're they're going over and to finding them
dead in their homes. And we're like, you know, we're
looking at each other, going one of us are going
(02:53):
to make it out of here, you know. And so
we made that decision, and and then on.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Margin decision finally for Nicole take the edge off a
little bit of Samantha's stuff.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
I don't know if it took the edge off, it
just gave her. I think it gave her just a
little bit more peace, you know, that that she had
she could she could go to him and talk to God.
That that she didn't have you know before. You know,
I mean, we always believed in God, you know, we
always she always said her prayers every night. But but
the fully, you know, the people don't understand something. They think, oh,
(03:32):
they read a few Bible scriptures and all that. It
takes a lot to fully give yourself over to Christ.
It takes a lot, and you got to you gotta
realize that. You know, I never understood it. You know,
you always hear that term, you know, the wide road
versus the narrow road, and narrow roads tough. It's a
tough road to walk because you're gonna, you're gonna, you're
gonna encounter a lot of things, and a lot of
people are gonna leave your life. You know, they're gonna
(03:54):
just because they're not ready for that walk. They're not
ready for that challenge. And it's and it's and it's tough.
You gotta fight, you you basically you're in a fight
for your life if you if you want to walk
with Christ. It's not easy. It's not It's not an
easy journey. And the Bible will tell you that, you know,
because like I said, you got to live by His
laws and and and do what you know is right
by him. And and people were just so taken in
(04:15):
by this world. They don't they don't want that. And
you'll lose friends because I just had this discussion with
Alex coming down the road that I've lost a lot
of friends because I don't drink anymore. I don't go
to clubs, you know, And and I think I make
them feel uneasy because they you know, they don't they
want to don't. They don't want to drink around me,
they don't want to cuss around me, don't, And so
they just slowly drift apart. Next thing, you know, you
(04:35):
haven't seen him for six months or a year, you know.
But in turn, God has put some such an amazing people,
such amazing families in my life since I've started this
racing program, and and uh, some of them, I talk
to you all over the country, you know. So it's
it's been, it's been very very nice, you know experience.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
So you guys give your selves. Basically, you decide you're
going to have a relationship with the Lord and live
a different way. And then six months later your wife
gets COVID.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Is that what happens? Well, she I was working. I
work a lot of double shifts, you know, and I
was I was worn. Oh yes, I can't even tell
you how, but you know, so we're I'm working and
she's like, hey, why don't you come home Friday? She
goes because she says, don't come home. She goes, I'm sick.
I don't know what I got. I might be the COVID,
I don't know. But she goes, I feel terrible. And
(05:30):
we were sick the year before that. And she goes,
it's worth It's not as bad as it was last year.
We were worse last year. And I said, all right. Well,
by Friday, she goes, man, she goes, can you come home?
And I said yeah. I said, I said, I'll go
ahead and cancel everything and I'll come home by Sunday.
I got it well. By Sunday, I can't even get
out of bed. I mean, I'm I'm literally walking to
the bathroom and I'm passing out.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
And so she's trying to get us appointments. Of course,
everything's shelter and place, shelter in place. She's still driving,
she's going through the drive through, picking up medications and
things like that. She's still driving today. For she dies
and I can't get out of bed.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Are you kidding me? No?
Speaker 2 (06:03):
I fall off the toilet in the bathroom and I
don't even know how long I lay there. She found
me in there. She come in and clean me up,
put me in bed, kissed me says, she loved me,
lit a cold rag on my head, and went out
in the living room and died that night. That's how
that happened. When I woke up eleven forty something the
next morning, I went out and hollered for her, said, hey,
(06:23):
get up, I said, we got our doctors appoint me today.
She didn't move, so I walked around and said, hey,
you got to get up. And then when I went over,
I seen her face and her and her eyes were
wide open, and I touched her and she was ice cold.
And that's when, you know, I called down one one,
and of course they had me start working on her,
and I said, listen, I'm going to probably pass out.
(06:47):
I said, the front doors on locked. I'll work on
her as long as I can. She says, well, they're
in root, and so so they they come in and
I got up, and they worked on her for a
couple minutes, and she's gone, you know. And uh, so
I called my brother, and uh because I had to
call him, I didn't have, you know, anybody else right
there at the time. And of course he never picked
(07:08):
up the phone, and he picked up on the first ring,
and he just buried his sister in law that just
died out of the blue, you know. And she was
only fifty one and my wife was forty nine. But
he lets out a scream and he came over, and
so I told the paramedic, I said, listen, her dad
listened to the back of subdivision. It's not going to
take along for the rumor mill to get around that
something's going on up here. I said, you got to
(07:29):
tell him. I can't do it. And so I called
him up and I said, Paul, I said, you got
to get over here. I said, they're working on the cold.
Doesn't look good. And so when they got down there,
they met him at the door and they explained to
her that she passed, you know. And of course after
that and everything's just started breaking loose. A lot of
you know, people were coming by and everything. And it
took a long time because, like I said, COVID was
(07:50):
involved and you know, in the corners and all that
kind of stuff, and it was it was just a
long process. And and then so everybody cleared out and
then high laid there all night. Everys would. I said, listen,
I've got to process this, and I can't do this. Yeah,
I said, I got to process this, I can't be
by myself. So everybody left, and so next morning, my
sister in law come and she took me to that
(08:11):
appointment that we were supposed to have. Of Course I've
got my head hanging out the window because that can't
even hardly move. Of course, they gave me some medicine,
and you know, blah blah blah, they don't they don't know.
And I get back and well, my my brother and
my brother in law show up. My brother lacks at
me and says, you're going to hospital. And I was like, why,
he goes, Gilbert, you look like a zombie. I mean,
my hands were this hand here. See how it's all
sunk in. It's still sunk in. I was just so dehydrated.
(08:34):
But I was drinking, but we wasn't drinking the right then,
you know, they wanted to should have been drinking the
pedia light and all that. We thought gatorade water was helping,
but that wasn't helping us. And so so he calls,
he calls the ambulance. Well they won't come get me,
he says, because because you know, they want you to
shelter in place. Oh, so they get in this big
battle on the phone. Well, you know I told you
(08:56):
I was a country boy. Well, my my brother's bigger
country boy than mite. Of course, he starts threat and
to shoot them and everything else. He's mad, and she said,
I'll call the cops. He goes, we'll call him. He goes,
cause I can tell you what dam if my brother dies.
She goes, y'all just carried his wife out of here yesterday.
If he dies, he goes, I'm coming to get you.
And the next thing she goes, what were you talking about, Nicole.
He goes, yes, He goes, they're on the way. So
(09:18):
when they come and got me, they come and got me.
He said can you walk? I said, I can walk
if I got help. He goes, what'd be easier for
the stretcher? So they got me into amlans and he says, hey,
where do you want to go? I said, just take
me to Winchester because I like Winchester Hospital. It's a
little better. So I get up there and they said, well,
we got to put you in this chair. I said
I can't do that. Well they did it, and next
thing you know, I'm I'm out on the floor. And
(09:40):
next thing I remember is I'm laying up there cutting
my clothes off of me. They're shoving needles in my arm.
I got stuff over my face, and you know, and
then I don't know, five or six hours later, the
doctor comes in and says that your heart is completely stopping.
I said, well, we were worried about breathing. Everybody was
dying because of they're breathing. And he he says, Now,
(10:00):
he says, your heart is literally just stopping and just
sitting there going okay, taking off again, he says, And
we got to fix that. And I don't know if
you watch too many horror movies, horror movies when you're
growing up, but have you ever seen the girl that
runs through the hospital and every fourth flight's on and
it's blinking, and there's nobody around, and he's he's chasing,
no doubt all the way. That's the COVID ward at
the hospital back in twenty twenty one. They took me
(10:23):
up there. It's a ghost town. Every third or fourth
light's on, you see nobody, it's complete silence, and they
pull me into this room. No nurses were ever in
the room at the same time. They'd close the door
and speak through the glass. And I made my piece
I made my piece right there again, you know, because
I didn't think I was going to come out.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
There anything literally too.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Oh yeah, And I told my brother, I said, I said,
I said, call Brown's Fenner Home and tell them to
make sure that nothing happens until I get out of here,
or if I don't get out here, that we get
buried together. Quit talking like that, I said, Listen, we're adults.
We got this is bad. I said, I might go
into a coma. I said, I don't know what's gonna
happen with me. And so he called the funeral home,
got it all set up. Funeral home, call me, said,
(11:04):
mister Hess, don't worry. He's but don't you're nothing's gonna
happen to you. But if it does, we'll we'll we'll
get you set up pretty good. And so uh, because
they wouldn't even let me go and even set the
arrangements up until a co I was one hundred percent
COVID free, you know, I wasn't evenllowed in the building.
So we had to wait over a week after I
got out to even set up her funeral.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
So did did she job a heart attack? As well?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Well, that's that's what they're saying, they say, in her
heart stop. That's that's what they deemed the cause of death,
you know. So of course, of course they put COVID
on there as well. So you know, I mean, everybody's
doing that because of the mandates. You know, they were
getting that that money. These hospitals were getting the money
and everything for it.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
But uh, killer, You've dealt with some losts, brother.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, yeah, you know, But but I've also dealt with
some gain too. Like I said, you know, I would
have rather had my wife in my life for thirty
three years than ever better. We had so we had
some amazing times and and and and the first day
I held my daughter in my hands, you know, to
be a dad, you know, you can't trade that for
anything in the world. So I was lucky. I was lucky,
(12:08):
you know. But like I said, I if we walk
around and we live in grief, we're not living. We're
not living. We're not We're not serving God's purpose at all.
That's not what he has intended for us. And a
lot of people missed that, missed a big picture on that.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
We'll be right back. Okay, when did she die?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
She Darke March fourth, twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
You had to have gone, you had to have been depressed.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Oh, absolutely, Well, Like I said, I don't tell this
to many people, but I've held the gun in my
hand a couple of times, you know, and I've never
to be ana.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
I just told it two thousands.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
I know that's fine. But I had just discussion with Alex
and us. You know, you hear about people that killed theirself,
and you go, how did that guy get to that point?
How did that person get to that point? How could
it be that love? But when you're in the when
you're in basically the depths of hell, of loneliness in
your own home, and there's nobody there with you, it
grabs you pretty quick.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
When you got home from work after this, she recovered,
you went back to work. When you're pulling into a
house from work and your daughter's gone and your wife's gone,
it just had to have been a sense of dread
just walking through the.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Door, walking through that door and not smell my wife's perfume,
or her country candles burning with their scenate candles, or
or are the music playing that she always had planning
or having dinner on the table. It's tough. I've set
and cried my eyes out in many of days trying
to eat a meal. You know, I didn't even cook.
I didn't even cook for months in the house. I
(14:02):
just couldn't do it, you know, And that's why I
buried myself and work. Sometimes I work seven days a week,
you know, not always double ships, but I work seven
days a week, just because I don't want to be home,
you know. And it's just, you know, everybody deals with
it in certain ways. But it was hard to look around,
you know, because everything remind you, you know. And then
I wanted to sell the house. And it was just
(14:23):
like I built that house myself, me and her. She
she crawled up on the roof and helped do the shingles.
I mean, she helped you a lot. We did everything
in that house ourselves. That was that was our dream home.
We used to drive by this place and wonder, you know,
we lived in mobile home, you know, when we first
got started, and and like, you know, we love to
have that, you know, we love to have something like that.
One day and you know, me and my sister were
(14:43):
sitting down the garage and I'm sitting there, I got
a race car over here, and big old new truck
out here and new house, you know, all stuff I
worked for and and and I said, you know, that's funny,
I said, Now there's kids riding by her, going, man,
I hope we get that one day, you know. But
but look at look at look at the end result.
I'm by myself with it now, you know. And it's
just that I'm dealing with it. I'm dealing with it,
(15:05):
you know, a little by little.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
So I read where basically you sat around for about
a year and your brother said you better do something
and you're gonna lose yourself.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Well that's what he goes. Why don't you buy the car?
I said, Well, I said, I said, I don't know,
he goes. He goes, Glord. If you don't get out
of this house, you ain't gonna make it, you know,
because he came over. He came over in October and
I was in there soaking because it was my anniversary.
Come on, we're going to races. So he takes me
to port Roll to you know, the races up there,
you know, constantly getting me out of the house, get
(15:38):
me out of the house, you know, and see the
think about it was, is the weird thing about this
after my dad died, me and my brother didn't talk
for ten years. You know, really, I'm not going to
go into the specifics of it, but we just didn't
talk for ten years. He went into a whole, I
went into a whole, you know, just family issues. And
we run into him on the racetrack about six months
for Nicole dad and we started talking again, and then
(16:01):
a god thing, and then when she died, he showed
up five minutes and car and never never left my side.
He's took he took care of everything. He went through
and cleaned the house, all the blankets she was laying
on you I throwed, oh it worshed everything down. He
did everything. You know, He's never left my side on that.
So he just he just pretty much he was like,
(16:21):
you got you gotta If you're gonna do it, you
gotta do it. I said, Well, I said, I do
things my way, I said, And I said, I wanted
to get Gary Stoller to drive my car. That's my
childhood hero. My dad's actually buried in a Gary Stoleer
t shirt. Gary's our guy. And I said, but I
want to drive the car, but I want Gary to
drive it too, I said, because this. This car here
is an exact replica of what he drove in the nineties.
(16:43):
But this is also the only car that my daughter
and wife stood in Victory Lean with was this car.
So it's got a lot of sentimental value. And I
wanted to rebirth this car, and so I told her,
I said, I said. Plus, I said, when I'm going
to do my childhood cancer this program, I'm gonna have
a lot of eyes on me. I said, I don't
want to use car. I want everything nice. He goes, well,
I don't know why you do that. I said, because
I am who I am and you are who you are.
(17:04):
I said, I've got the money to do it, I said,
worked enough to do all this. So, like I said,
we decided that. I went down to the World one
hundred in twenty twenty two and run into Steve Baker.
And Steve Baker is a co owner of Rocket Chassis
up in Shenston, West Virginia, and I talked to him
about buying the car. So, I said, you don't remember me,
I said, but I talked to you about a used car.
(17:25):
What would be the best He says, goe, what I
remember who you are? He guess you standing right down
there to make for him to do that. That was
pretty pretty amazing. And then we got to talk in here.
Come to find out his son's a palette for United.
So yeah, so we got in this big conversation. You know,
we're standing there and turned one at el door speedway
to Water. One hundred cars are racing by, and we said,
they're talking about, you know, family issues, and he goes,
(17:47):
come on up to the shop. He goes, well, we'll
get you set up. So me and Ernie Shirley, a
friend of mine, we rode up and we ordered a
car and everything. And then on December twenty nineth he started.
We went up and picked the car up. It was done,
and the funniest thing happened. So we're we're standing out there.
We doneloaded the car up at the main shop. We
pulled down and we're picking up some parts and stuff
and and and Andy Anderson. He took me up to
(18:09):
UH to pick the car up. I didn't have my
trailer yet. And guess few pools in the parking lot.
Gary stormt no kidding, Steve. Steve Baker goes, Gilbert, you
couldn't make this up. If he was writing a book,
and Gary comes over and he goes, Gilbert, what are
you doing? Because I just talked to Gary at Charlotte,
you know, months before that, talking Hey, I'm building a car.
(18:29):
I want you to race for me.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
He's looking at me like, who is this guy? You
know I'm a fan, but he knows I'm a fan.
He knows me and Nicole. But he's like, but his
wife already is she's over there. This is granted away.
And I said, I'm building something pretty special. I want
you to He goes, well, Gary's laid back, He's got
three hundred and fifty wins. It's the Hall of Famer.
He's like, you put your deal together, you come you
come see me. I said, all right. So so he's
up there and he goes, god, you spent that money
(18:54):
and and and uh and uh. Spaker goes, dude, if
you only knew the piece that he's got setting up
side for you right now, you're gonna flip out.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And uh and I said, hey, I said, if you
don't want to do it, I said, it's fine with me.
And he goes, no, no, no, no, no no. So and
Baker goes, let me tell you what you better do it.
He goes, he you don't know what he what limps,
he went to give you something special and uh. And
so anyway went through the process. And then and then
Tim Fraanker over Freker Sads and Haggerstown, he he did
the original forty four car. And so he set the
(19:25):
car up, you know, and did all the did all
the letter and everything. And he even stood back and goes, skilled,
I know you had a vision, he goes, But man,
he goes, I didn't think this thing was gonna look
this good. And uh. And then when we and then
we then we showed it off the Gary at the
at the our first ever event up at Portoral Speedway,
we had Nicole's Dream childhood Cancer Awareness night and uh
and uh he was just, uh, you can see it's
(19:47):
it's it's funny to look at a sixty some year
old man and the same acting like a kid, you know.
And he walked by that thing and he rubbed the
doors and he looked down and going this man, he goes,
this thing's nice. He's sitting inside of it and he's
roaming and he goes. He goes, man, he goes, he
somebody took some care. I said, it's a new car
because Nowgil where he goes, they did a good job
on this thing.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
And they did so to be clear, you unveiled the
car like you just said, at Port Royal Speedway. It's
called Nicole's Dream, named after his light late wife, Nicole's
dream of having a race car. They're raised awareness for
childhood cancer and right on the front of the nose
(20:25):
of this car it says childhood at Cancer Awareness. And
it's a beautiful red car. And on the tail of
it it's got across at Samantha HM. So this car
racing around every weekend, raising awareness for your loss, and
(20:50):
you've turned a horrifically sad story into a way to
honor their legacy doing some good.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Yeah, and also made my wife a promise. She she
had me made a promise because go if I die
before you don't ever let Samantha's name be forgotten. She
constantly kept her alive on Facebook, always posting something, doing something,
and to see what we have done with this she had.
She had no way to imagine that on see see
(21:21):
I never drove one of these cars before. I drove
old old Mustangs and stuff like that. That this was so
I took this car. I took this thing to the
world one hundred. For the first time ever, I drove
one of these cars. I was told, are you crazy?
I said, I don't know, but we'll see. And and
and Plus we run a limited class. They run a superclass,
which is about two hundred more horsepower. I said. But
(21:43):
I want to stand in el door and soak that in,
I said, and get that experience. I said, this is
all the things that me and her wanted to do.
So I'm standing in the middle of eld Door Speedway,
you know, and and and they're they're talking about Speedy
Hayes was the original owner of this car. And and
they're talking about what we're doing and everything like that.
And the most the most amazing thing happened. I'm standing
in the staging area and her favorite driver is Jonathan Davenport,
(22:07):
which he's one just about everything there is to win,
and he carries her decal in his car. When I
ask him to, well, of course, he pulls up the
side of me just because I'm getting ready to pull
out for the track. For the first time, I got
tears rolling down my face and I'm praying, and I'm
talking to my girls, and you know, and I'm looking
over at him and I'm like, am I in a dream?
Is this really happening? You know? And so so on
(22:27):
September the seventh, you know, in twenty twenty three, you know,
Samantha's name was heard all over the country in the
dirt racing world, you know, and and it was just
the most amazing feeling that you could you could ever do,
you know, because there's thousands and thousands of drivers all
across this country would would would give their left arm
to take one lap at Eldor and I and I
(22:49):
got to compete. I knew we wasn't going to make
the race. We didn't have enough motor, I didn't have
the experience, you know. But but you know, it was
funny because the guy got in a wreck and and
and I got slowed down. And the leader, well, of course,
as the leader was the world champion that that that year,
plus he was also the winner of that race that night.
And I got to go door to door him for
three quarters of a laugh, and my buddies in the
(23:09):
grassy heads going to give it their cheer for you,
like you're winning the race. And he come down and
he give me a big old his name's Craig Clyde.
He come down and give me a big old bear
hug and kissed me on the cheek. He says. Brother,
He says, you did something and I'll never get to
do in my life. And if I don't humble you,
you know. And then like Russ had me speak at
the church out there that day, and and people come
down and I had him sign the car all around
(23:29):
the pillars here they signed their names of their their
kids and their family members that they lost to cancer.
And and and to hold my hand while I'm sitting
in the car getting ready to go out. And and
people to tell you, hey, you give me hope. You know,
you give me hope for tomorrow. That's a pretty powerful
thing to have on your shoulders, you know. And and
but uh, you know, it's just me being me, you know.
(23:51):
And uh, it's just uh, you can't put some of
it into words when how it's it's it's funny because
I was dating a girl, you know, a little bit
after that, and she stood at the bar this little
dinner that I was at and I won't mention her name.
She don't like me anymore, But it's okay. But she
looked at me, and she says, Gilbert, she says, when
you first start talking about this, she goes, I thought
(24:12):
you were lying. And I said, well, why would you
think that she goes? This is so outlandish and so
far out there, you know, she goes, go or people
don't get their dreams, I said, she goes. But every
day you come in here, you got a new story something.
You're like, guess what happened to me today? And you know,
and all that. And I was like, well, I'm just
telling you my life, you know, and she goes, Yeah,
(24:32):
she goes, but I've never seen a real life dream
unfold right before my eyes. She goes. And it's it's
it was amazing, you know, and and and and it
is that it's just that you don't a lot of
people will never ever get to do what I get
to do, you know. I mean, I set up in
those grand stands for years and looking down and like,
never even imagine that I would be on and now
I'm not at nowhere new work shape or level. With
(24:55):
some guys, they're just they're just amazing, you know, but
they you know, like I said, but see, we I
guess for society has taught us that, you know, winning,
you have to win, you have to win the event,
you got to do this. Winning comes in so many
different forms.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
Just having this car go around the race track is winning.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
And that's and that's what I'm saying. My goals are
not your goals. But I've accomplished all my goals just about.
We haven't won with the car yet, but the very
first night we took this car out, very first time
on the track, set fast time. You know, we did
a memorial race for my wife, so she call she
was the trophy girl. We did a memorial race, run
(25:33):
second almost almost. But the funny thing about us, I
guess who wanted a race? Her favorite local driver, Trevor Feathers.
You're kidding, no, So we got to because he actually
he actually shortened his vacation to come back to run
that race. He goes, go, but I got to find
a car, so brad omsloon need my car, and he
came back and and uh he won our race. And
of course our trophies they're all they're all memorialized by
(25:54):
the coal. She was four foot eleven, so all of
our trophies are four foot eleven, you know. Yep, so
it and so we tried to keep and everything is
implemented with her name. It's Samantha's name in.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
We'll be right back, all right. So in two thousand
and three, you raise twenty thousand dollars for Saint Jude,
twenty twenty three and twenty what I say in two
thousand and three, I'm sorry. In twenty twenty three, you
(26:31):
raised twenty thousand dollars for Saint Jude in honor of Samantha.
How did you raise twenty thousand?
Speaker 2 (26:37):
We we did some auctions where we drivers donate doors
and quarter panels off their cars, helmets, gloves, driver's suits,
sprint car teams they're different type of car. They give
us parts of their wings, t shirts, just anything you
could think of that they donate, you know. Plus I
do a lot of custom bicycles to make them look
like race cars. And our first custom bicycle that we
(26:58):
auction off part one thousand dollars and and we and
we gave it directly to Connor. You know that that
bike was built for Connor to to raise money for him.
So we we uh, we had a guy bid on
it. It brought nine hundred dollars and the girl that was
bedding on it. Whether she can I just go ahead,
non eight one hundred, so you can give him an
even thousand. I said, sure, you know, and so we did.
We did that, and but we've given away probably about
(27:20):
fifty bicycles so far since we've started. Some of the
bicycles for because my wife wanted to do it. They
used to say they used to give out bicycles a
lot each year, you know, and and what we we
wanted to I want I don't want to mention the trackers.
I don't like putting anybody down. But we used to
go to the track that did it, and they were
all like, oh, we got enough bicycles. You don't have
enough bicycles. When you got thirty forty kids here and
you got ten bicycles, that's right. And so she got
(27:42):
upset about it. So now I'm suddenly I'm gonna take
it on. So so we so we started giving bicycles away.
So we gave we gave thirteen bicycles away that night
of our first auction. Well, Ethan Benson and his brother
they said, girl, but that's the best thing we ever
thought of when we were thought about it, when we
was coming to the track as kids are we gonna
win up? I said, goll tonight and nobody does it anymore.
I said, well we're doing it now. So then this
(28:04):
past Easter, I dressed up as the Easter Bundy in
my racing suit and pull my trailer head and she
let me get all set up. She let me all
get all set up. Lisa to it over at Haggerstown
Speedway and we gave away I think thirteen fourteen bicycles
over there, uh, collar TV set die cast cars. I
got a poster me as a cartoon character that I
that I always give away.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
And then but every kid that walked in that it
was East it was Easter weekend. Every kid walked in
got a pail for the for the candy scramble, and
they got to pick one toy. I go to five
and below. I don't know if you're aware of that.
It's it's a little store, but nothing's over five dollars
before COVID now it's seven. So but but they have
all kinds of toys and stuff, and we set up
big tables and they get to come in and pick
(28:48):
one toy, pick a basket and and and go do
stuff like that. You know, and and and like I said,
through that process, I've met a lot of extraordinary people.
I go through and I'll walk over to the guy
that sells t shirts and I'll buy all his flags
and I'll just go start handing them out where I
got a buddy of mine at Eric Farner, at Farner's
raising collectibles. He sets up he sells die cast and
he has a lot of you know, older stuff that
(29:09):
doesn't sell, so he sells the cheap and I'll buy
a bunch of them. I'll start handing them out. So
I'm stepping beside this guy one thing. Why do you
do that? And I said, because I lost my daughter
to cancer and she never got to have fun at
the track like this. And he goes, man, I lost
my son to cancer. I've had that man at my
house cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and we still talk every day.
Not every day, but you know, we text each other
(29:31):
back and forth and build and build a relationship. All
of that. And I could call that man right now
and say I'm stuck in Tennessee, could you come down
and get me? And he'd be in that truck and
he'd run down the road and come get me.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
So your wife's dream was to give iPads and video
games to kids at the hospital. So you raise money
and bought sixty of these devices and took them to
Walter Reed and Georgetown.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Well, what what we've done is when Samantha was going
through our chemotherapy, you know, back then when we're down
at children, so there was a lot of inner city
kids down there, so they didn't have the money that
we had, and so Samantha would have her little kindle fire,
you know, basically watching movies. And well, now, excuse me,
wasn't the Kendol fire back then it was it was
a little portable DVD player. So my wife's like, when
(30:17):
we get this thing up and run, if we ever
get a chance to do it, I want to make
sure these chemo rooms have stuff that these kids can watch,
you know. And so over time we talked about and
then the Kendles came out and well that'd be better
than the DVD players. So when we when we start
doing this, I well, all this all come about. Down
at work, we have a thing called Fantasy Flight where
they have a thing set up the airport where we
(30:38):
bring in toys and all that stuff, and they have
a whole North Pole set up, and they take the
kids and they fly them around the airport. When they
pull back in, they land at the North Pole. And
but with COVID cut all that out. And so I
put up a challenge at work. Hey, I'm putting up
the first fifteen hundred dollars. If your match it, we're
gonna we're gonna start doing some stuff for the hospitals
and we'll go there locally. Well, like I said, over
(31:00):
the last over the last three years, we've raised sixteen
five hundred dollars through my Nicole's dream in the United
Airlines venture. And so so what we've done is we
started out with Walter Reed and Georgetown. West Virginia Children's
Universally hadn't open up yet, they were still building a
new wing. So what we've done is we went ahead
and we went down there and we took the DVD
(31:21):
players and and and the and the Kendles and a
bunch of different things to Walter Reed and Georgetown because
that's the only places we were going to at a time.
So then over the last two years I told my boss,
I said, hey, I said, you know, West Virginia is
my home. I'd really like to do this here. He
have no issue with it. And I was introduced to
Barbara Shaeffer up there and we got a talking and
(31:43):
we did we did the stuff she goes, but she
really need other things. I said, well, listen, let's let's
do this. Send me your wish list and then what
what what we get out of that. We'll see what
we can do, and then we'll backfield with toys, because
it's like I got to do my toys. And so
what we've done is the first year up there, we did,
like I said, she wanted these baby Einstein's and of
(32:04):
course just to see this on here. This sis Jackson's heart.
This is this is my wife's friend's grandson. He died
of heart disease. I think he was only four months old.
So we were talking about that and they weren't allowed
to touch him. And that's what Barbara was talking about.
These these devices they hang in the beds, they play music,
they vibrate and all that. When you can't touch the
babies to sue them so they don't cry all night
(32:25):
and have heart attacks and have and have issues. And
so what we did is we went out and bought
sixty there. So they're probably hanging into this about every
bed in West Virginia Children's University Hospital. And so, but
we took a lot of other things. Like I said,
the first year we did we did wagons and because
like I said, they pulled us from from uh X
ray too chemo and wagons so make the kids more comfortable.
(32:47):
And then last year I did some really cool stuff.
I took strollers and looked like cars and turn them
into race cars. What the strollers, they're the little little
toy car strollers. And I took them up to my
friend Maharten at Hard and Graphics in Winchester, Virginia, and
he made them look like race cars. He made he
made some of them look like the number one car
of Rocket Chassis house car, and then he did the
(33:08):
red ones for the forty four for us, and so
we took those up there because I wanted people to
see Nicole's dream driving through the hospital, you know. So
so we did that. Plus we went up to Rocket
Chassis and uh they and showed him and Steve. Steve
just flipped out. And but also what Barbara required last year,
she said, yo, work, I want to build overnight bags.
She goes, you know, a lot of people get sprung
(33:28):
at the hospital. He's remember when you all went to
the hospital. She goes, you got stuck. She goes there,
she goes you to know you were getting stuck there,
she goes, we have to build overnight bags. So so
I work with you and out of Airlines. And uh,
they gave me the toiletry kits from the Polaris first
first Class players. They gave me those. Uh we did
through the donations. We bought the pajama bottoms. And then
(33:50):
all my racing family kicked in and they all donated
T shirts. So now if you say you you go
to West Virginia Children's University, there's a possibility if you
got to spend the night, there's a there's a big
possibility you're gonna get a pair of pajama pants, a
racing T shirt, and a United Airlines Polaris lounge toilet
your kid to help you get through that night. You know.
And and but we're big about giving them their lists.
(34:12):
We bought the Mama Roose wings last year. We bought
we bought all kinds of stuff for for the you know,
for the ward itself. But I bought two regular strollers.
I said, I just She goes, well, we can't really
have those because they're hard to clean. I said, no,
these are specific for two different kids. I said, the
first kid that walks out of here or that get
(34:34):
strolled out of here after heart surgery. I said, I
want that to go to that little kid. I said,
for this stroller here, the first kid that that rolls
out of here in remission, that that beat cancer, I
want you to give this to their family. And she goes, well,
I can do that. So so I was tickled to
death that we were allowed to do that.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
So what do you say to the person that has
a heart for service, but it's sitting on the sideline
and isn't really engaged.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Well, this is this is how I look at this.
You know, we're we're here on this earth to inspire people,
you know, to do many different things. You know, like
I said, I actually lost a relationship with a lady
because I talk about God too much. Okay, but we're
back together because we work through it.
Speaker 1 (35:27):
You know.
Speaker 2 (35:27):
It was because it's it's scary. It's scary for people,
you know, but also too we have guys out there
that that can do this all over the country and
they're sitting on the sidelines, and they and they and they.
You know, how do I go about it? Well, I'm
laying the blueprint for them now right now, you know
how they do it, how to approach it. But they've
got to be a people person and they got it.
(35:48):
And you've got to humble yourself when you come into this.
You just you can't come in this with any kind
of arrogance, and you can't come into it with any
kind of expectations. If you come into it with expectations,
you're going to get hurt because it takes time. Everything
takes time. Just remember one thing, life is all. God's
timing is not our timing, So it takes time and
a lot of times he won't give you the things
you need because he knows you're not ready for it.
(36:10):
See I'm where I'm at right now. I feel like
I'm going to standstill. But there's something that I'm still
maybe I'm not doing right that he's waiting because he
can't hand me that big prize yet because I'm not
ready for it. But I'm trying to inspire people all
across the country to get involved in that. But I
also do and I believe this of all my heart
and I tell my brother this, and he just me
(36:31):
and my brother are two different people when I love
him to death. But there's a guy watching me right now, okay,
And he's asking questions, and he's researching me, and he's
watching me how I carry myself. He's watching me in
situations like we had an incident at the racetrack where
we got our car smashed up. Do you go over
there like the old country boys do and you get
in a fistfight or you walk away? We walked away.
(36:53):
I got a Hall of Fame driver driving for me.
He doesn't carry yourself that way. I don't carry myself
that way. You know. He was very upset. I was upset.
But that night we put this car. We won the
heat race in this car. That's the first time that
this forty four had won a heat race. The symbol
of this car in thirty years, this alleged engine research
on the side. He was standing there. He said, man,
(37:14):
you don't even know what it looked like to see
that thing go across that checker flag. It was just
a heat wind. But then after feature we got we
got beat up and pulled out of the race and
everybody's upset, said, listen, listen, calm down, we're not We
accomplished something tonight. We put the forty four, you know,
in a heat race win for the first time I
got me. I got Gary Stoller a heat win in
(37:37):
the forty four after thirty years. I said, we accomplished something.
I said, God gave us something tonight, and the devil's
trying to take it away with this bunch over here.
I said, we're not going to do that. I said,
We're going to relish in this moment and laugh and
have fun and just have a good time because we
accomplished something. I gave this man a fast race car
first night out, said fast time. I gave him a
card that almost won the race in Nicole's memorial race,
(37:58):
and then he won a heat race, you know, And
and a lot of people said, well that's nothing, that's nothing.
But for me, remember what I told you. My goals
are not your goals. My wins are not your wins.
But whatever makes me happy. And I'm how tickled to death,
you know, I just wish we could have got him
a win, because, like I said to me, to have
Gary win in my car is amazing. You know, we're
getting ready. This whole car will be different next year
(38:19):
because we're we're going in his fiftieth an He's been
racing for fifty years. Man, he'll be seventy next year.
And he's and he's and he's still running up front.
And you know, so I'm doing a very special car
for him for his fiftieth anniversary. You know. But but but,
like I would get back to that point where, like
I talked to my brother, I was like, there's a
guy watching me. He's got tons of money. He but
he can't talk like I can talk. But he's lost.
(38:42):
He's lost a lot in his life, and he wants it.
He wants to he wants to get involved. And he's
and he's asking questions about me right now, and and
and and I feel when when this opportunity happened, I
almost sank. I almost wept because this might have opened
the door up for that guy to see me or
hear me, you know, and it's it's gonna take this thing.
Then I want to take this on a national level.
(39:04):
You know, I can't do it because of funds, but
there's millionaires all over this world. It says, hey, let's
jump in and let's let's have some fun with this boy.
You know, and what if what if you know? But
you if you can't, if you, if you, if you
venture into something you use football coach, right, yeah, if
you went into every game going well, we might lose
(39:25):
this one to night, what do you think is gonna
happen so fulfilling profits if you don't, if you don't
go into everything thinking you can win. And that's why
I built a car that I know we can win
in any given night. We just got to have everything
lined up. These cars are so complex. The geometry is
the suspension of these cars will drive you completely insane.
And I'm and I and I jumped off from the
deep end of the pool and I'm still learning this stuff.
(39:47):
But but the thing about is if you don't believe
that you can win and don't do it, don't do
anything in your life because if you, if you, if
you don't have confidence in yourself, nobody's gonna have combness.
And and that's the things And that's why I think
some people may think I'm smugging er. It's not that.
It's just that I'm confident. I've got a plan on
my place. You know, when I had my auction. I
already saw it before it happened. I could see the
(40:09):
people over here bedding on the stuff. I could see
people holding up the panels. I could see it all,
you know, I could have I could envision the whole
thing and I and I've already envisioned my new race shop.
You know, when this thing gets big, you know, hey,
you know. But but my ultimate goal is and and
and like I said, I don't say it. Whatever happened,
but it's a big it's a big stretch for me
and my wife. We all sat around, you know how
(40:29):
you have say, talk to your wife, everyone and Lottie
what you would do. We've already we've already picked out
the piece of land that's right down from the house.
That where we're gonna put a twenty five patient hospital
with little cottages all the way around in the church
in the back. And that's going to be Samantha's memorial
right there. You know, we we we got it. But
I learned something the other day. I listened to I
listened to some guys called and everything, and I learned
(40:49):
something the other day. I'm my own worst endemy. He said,
he said, you can't you can't have a dream and
put it in place if you don't have a plan.
And he says, you got to sit down and you
got to.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Draw it up.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
He said, draw up, He said, draw it up, draw
up your dream. You know, he didn't know. I'm listening
scowling on TikTok and everything. He's but you know, whatever
you're doing, draw a picture of it. You know, how
would you do this? Who was the people that you
woul hire? How would you do this? How would you
do that? Have it in place, have have it all
ready to go, so when it does happen to you
know how to sit around wait on it. And and
that that and got me thinking about a lot of stuff.
(41:22):
And so but like I said, I'm you know, everybody
calls me a dreamer. I'm a dreamer. But look at this.
You know, whoever thought, whoever thought I would be a
disposition in my life?
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Right now? We'll be right back, all right. So in
(41:54):
twenty twenty three, you raised twenty k for Saint Jude.
I mean, how much have you raised in total?
Speaker 2 (41:59):
And total we're setting at probably around forty six thousand,
five hundred. We did about thirty thousand direct cash payments
to Saint Jude's and then we've done about sixteen thousand,
five hundred directly through the hospitals.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
And then that's only in a couple few years.
Speaker 2 (42:13):
Yeah, and we're hoping that we're we're gearing up right
now for our Christmas deal. And so if we raised
you know, additional four thirty five hundred and four thousand
this year, we could hit that fifty thousand dollars mark.
And it's not about the number per se, It's it's
about what it shows to other people. You know, this
just a ring of fifty thousand, you know, and we
get to hold up that well. We you know, we
always every time we make an accomplishment, we rebuilding these
(42:36):
checks and things like that, and we do it for
to inspire people.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Well and supporting to know you're still working all the time.
I mean, you have a job at a life and
everything else and you're still raising this money and it
can it can be done. And I gotta believe, knowing
you a little bit now, what you raise fifty, you'll
want to raise one hundred.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Like I said, it's we're in at the we're in
it now. I mean it's just that you know, we
have we have some tough days. But but like I said,
it's the biggest thing is is help, you know, and
we get it. This one, it seems like we don't
sure we're gonna get it. It comes out of nowhere.
So phenomenal story. You got a guy who comes from
(43:18):
West Virginia and in his words, grew up poor, married
his high school sweetheart, had his little girl, and it
all taken from him. This little girl dies with leukemia.
Love his life dies from COVID And from that he's
(43:39):
raised thousands of dollars for Saint Jude. Kids have gotten bicycles, kindles, toys,
Baby Einstein's strollers made into race cars, t shirts of
pajama pants. It's gotten his employee United involved, and have
(44:04):
not only put smiles on a lot of kids' faces,
but every weekend goes out and people are reminded of
the difficulties of childhood cancer and the sadness of child's
are cancer, but also the importance of raising money to
help other families who went through what he and Nicole
(44:25):
went through with their daughter Samantha. Raising money to try
to help that be better for others. You know, if
there's not I just can't imagine a better example of
a normal guy. I mean, we're talking about a mechanic
(44:47):
from West Virginia who grow poor, who's had lots of
pain in his life, who's turned that pain into a
dream and done so much for so many honor of
both his wife and his daughter. And Gilbert.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
I just I can't imagine a better example of what
just a normal guy can do. What's next?
Speaker 2 (45:16):
Uh, we're trying to get ready for next year. I'll
go ahead and tell you we've got most of the
pieces in place right now. Not one hundred percent sure
it's all going to come together, but I when I
was down in Charlotte this past week or weekend before last,
I put a lot of things together. We're talking about
building a two seater and see these only hold one driver,
(45:38):
and we're gonna have it set up for Make a
Wish kids and kids with cancer, that that we can
take them a ride around the track, not like we
race is so cool. Well we have them. They haven't
they having for adults? They having for adults. But I've
talked to Butler built Seats down in North Carolina. I've
talked to Simpson Safety Apparel. I've talked to Velocida Race gear.
(45:58):
I've talked to ARC Racing up in Winchester is going
to help me get the card done. Talk to so
many wonderful people that want to jump on board and
help this project out. I've already got it clear with
the Speedway. But you know, like I said, we're trying
to get a few things done. You know, financing is
a deal with that, because, like I said, we got
this car getting ready going for the fiftieth anniversary for Gary.
That's a big deal for me.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
If people want to support that, if people want to
hear more about you, if p is there a website
for this or unfortunately no, I'm trying. How do people
find out? I know somebody listening to us may want
to may want to donate, someone with us, may just
be inspired, want to reach out. How do people find
Gilbert has The quickest.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
Way to find me is on TikTok through Nicole's Dream.
If they go and look, if they look up Nicole's Dream,
or if they write, if they look up Gilbert Hess
Racing and everything starts to pop up, all my pictures
and all that stuff like that, they'll find it.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Have an email? An email?
Speaker 2 (46:54):
Yeah, I guess I just I guess we could give
it to them. It's a it's a G I L
A E. S at MSN dot com.
Speaker 1 (47:02):
Perfect.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Yeah, all of.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
Our guests give their an email or some contact because
I'm telling you people will being sorry by your story
and that we'll want to reach out. And I'll tell
you a Gobert from personal experience, it's really nice to
be reached out to people you don't even know who say, hey,
what you had to said. What you had to say
meant something to me, and you'll be shocked at You'll
(47:28):
be shocked at what it was your words and what
you've done and your life story can have there's somebody
listening to us right now. There's probably many people's right
now who are probably dealing with sadness and difficulties the
result of the loss of someone they love, maybe even
to cancer, and hopefully your story could be an inspiration
(47:49):
of ways to overcome that as well. What an amazing story,
Gobert and I deal with that.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
At El Dora, I had a lot of people come
up and did a personal one on one with their
loss and how how they and just astonished that I
could take something and turn it into what I turned
it into. And that made me feel That made me
feel really good.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
You know, your story is the epitome of what a
normal guy can do to make his world better, even
in the face of adversity. Gilbert has you are definitely
a member of the army of normal folks, and your
story is so inspirational. And I cannot tell you how
much I appreciate your candor and you sharing all of
(48:26):
it with us, and I can't wait to see what
you do next.
Speaker 2 (48:29):
I just appreciate the opportunity. And hey, if whoever's listening
out there, any chance you get, just say a little
prayer for Olive and Connor. Like I said, they both relapsed,
you know, this past year, and just they're going through
a difficult time and that means more to me than
anything else in the.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
World knows about that a little.
Speaker 2 (48:46):
It's just that I met I met Connor through Stephanie Jones.
She's she's the girl that works at Valdocia Race Suits.
She designed and my race suit and I bought all
my safety year through them. And you know, a short
time after we had met, she'd called me up with
the phone and told me that that she discovered her
five year old nephew had got brain cancer, and we
(49:06):
went through a few things, and and then Olive, her grandfather,
contacted me through finding me through the racing program. And
you know, she's fourteen years old and she's about on
LIKEMI right now, and she's just she's got a lot
of problems right now going on. And so we do
a lot. We do a lot for those kids. And
like I said again, me and Alex were talking coming
down the road and Steph thanked me for coming in
(49:29):
through their lives. And I'm like, Steph, I don't think
I came into you all's lives. You all came into
my life. I said, because you don't realize something. I said,
you took my level of prayer to all new height
this year. I said, I've never prayed as much as
I prayed for them two kids in my entire life.
I said, it's just been the most amazing experience. I said.
I said. They didn't change I said, I said, I
didn't change them, They changed me. I said, they changed
(49:50):
who I were. They let me see a different side
of myself that I didn't even know how to in me.
Speaker 1 (49:55):
It did phenomenal that through the work that you do,
you always end up getting fifteen times more out of
it than you put in.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Absolutely, Like I said, I just I have met the
most amazing families that support me. You know, I've got
a family. I don't want to name names because then
if I forget, somebody'll feel left doubt. But I've got
several families you know, at Port Royal, at Winchester Speedway,
at Haggerstown Speedway that you know that just bend over
backwards and they know I'm having a difficult day. They
(50:24):
take their time out that text me and say, hey, Gilbert,
what's wrong and everything. And I've got a little boy
I sponsored his goat cart and you know, I showed
up at the track and his grandparents were like, Hey,
come on down here and have breakfast this morning and
pay for my whole weekend, you know, for getting in
the racetrack and all that. You know, I just it
humbles you because I give gifts. I don't get gifts,
you know, And it's it's pretty amazing, you know, when
(50:45):
even even the smallest thing, and uh, you know it
was I went down to Florida to set some deals.
I was trying to get Jonathan Davenport to drive this
car for me. But of course he drives a Longhorn.
This is a rocket chassis. He's not allowed to because
of manufacturer differences. But I also talk to a guy
named Scott Bloomquist, and Scott bloomquists if anybody ever hears
that name. He's the biggest name in dirt track ration ever.
(51:06):
And we was trying to work out a deal. We
were still trying to figure out a few things. But
he was killed in an accident in a plane crash
at his propertly a few months ago, and so it
didn't happen. But what if, you know, what if if
I get one of those guys in this car as well.
Now not the Gary is not the greatest guy in
the world. That's my guy, but you know, just to
take it to another level, and you know, on a
(51:27):
national level. And you know, like I said, I told,
I told Alex, come up the road. I asked everybody
what I want. I don't hold back because the worst
thing he says no. But what if they say yes?
Don't be scared. You know, you got a fifty to
fifty chance. It's either yes or no. And what if
they say yes? And I and like I said, I
(51:49):
wholeheartedly believed the guy I've been talking about is listening
right now, and you helped me get that guy. And
I'm going to take this thing to a new level
and I believe. I believe that with all my heart.
And we'll keep you informed when it does.
Speaker 1 (52:04):
Let's hope it happens.
Speaker 2 (52:04):
There's going to be an email or a phone call
or something going to happen.
Speaker 1 (52:07):
God bless Connor and Olive. Prayers for them, and God
bless Gilbert Has and your work, and God bless the
forty four car Childhood Cancer Awareness Samantha on the back,
Jason's heart doing good work, and all in remembrance of own,
(52:30):
remembrance of your family, Gilbert Has. That's an amazing story.
Thanks sharing it with us, Thank you for having me,
and thank you for joining us this week. If Gilbert
or other guests have inspired you in general, or better yet,
by reaching out to Gilbert and donating to this calls,
following him on TikTok at mister Wayne one zero eight
(52:57):
or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love
to hear about it. You write me anytime at Bill
at Normalfolks dot us, and I promise you I'll respond
If you enjoyed this episode, share it with friends and
on social subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review it.
(53:18):
Join the army at normalfolks dot us. Consider becoming a
Premium member there any and all of these things that
will help us grow an army of normal folks. Thanks
to our producer, Iron Light Labs, I'm Bill Courtney. I'll
see you next week.
Host
Bill Courtney
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