MOORESVILLE, N.C. (April 18, 2018) – Ten years ago this week, Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. occupied the same space in the same corner on the same track, and the results electrified—and further polarized—an already-at-fever-pitch sector of NASCAR’s fan base.

On Tuesday, the two parties sat down in the Axalta Racing Studio on the campus of JR Motorsports and cleared the air via the Dale Jr. Download podcast.

Boy, did they clear the air.

Starting off with beer and donuts (at 8 a.m., by the way), the two drivers sat down with co-host Mike Davis and just went on a nearly 90-minute discussion that ranged all over the place, starting with the Rumble in Richmond that still is talked about today.

For those who don’t remember, the upshot of the Rumble was, Dale Jr. and Kyle collided with three laps to go while battling for the lead. Dale Jr. got spun out of the lead and the 107,000 people jammed into the stands just flat melted down. Stuff was being thrown, there was a lot of invective being slung, and there was a real fear that something would spill over and cause a true hooligan moment.

Earnhardt Jr. was the white knight and Busch wore the black hat in those days, and the fan bases clashed like Alabama and Auburn. There was no middle ground between them; either you were ‘fer or agin’ one or the other.

It left a lasting mark on both drivers, and they—with the help of an article by NASCAR journalist Jeff Gluck that recounted the whole story—distilled it down to the molecule.

Here’s an example:

“I knew that the wreck wasn’t intentional, but it was when you would get out of the car and say things...if it was just ‘hey, man, that was racing...I got into the corner too deep...’ But you wouldn’t. You’d get out of the car and say, ‘Ah, blank it...I don’t care. So what? So what he got wrecked?’ You had such a chip on your shoulder,” Earnhardt Jr. said.

Busch asked the question that made the interview complete.

“Did you know that it wasn’t purposeful?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Earnhardt Jr. replied.

The two declared their mutual respect for each other, testified to the fact that they wanted to be friendly but couldn’t figure out how to get it done. A wide-ranging discussion hit all the high points, and you’ll walk away with a clearer understanding of the rivalry, their respective careers and the way that it could have gone had things been different.

There was talk of the incident where Dale Jr. jumped into Kyle’s Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet when Kyle had left the track (which kicked off a lot of the perceived antagonism from Busch), the instances where the two came together on the track both pre- and post-Rumble, and the effects of marriage and growing up as drivers and as men. It is well worth the listen.

The #AskJunior segment was lights-out as well. You can listen to the Dale Jr. Download here, or download it from Apple Podcasts or SoundCloud.