“You got a better career in future than anybody we’re arresting”: Dale Sr.’s former rival Gary Balough relives his smuggling bust saga

Dale Sr.'s former rival and Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s podcast guest Gary Balough reminisced about the tragic day when cops arrested him for conspiring in a drug smuggling ring. The short-track racing legend, who amassed over 1000 wins in his career, was once engulfed in unlawful activities with his colleagues but was imprisoned after the big bust.

Balough was a dominant racer in the 1970s and 80s. He locked horns against the seven-time Cup Series champion Dale Earnhardt Sr. in the 1981 Miller High Life 300 NASCAR Late Model Sportsman race, defeating him for the glory. The Florida native ran a handful of NASCAR Cup Series and Xfinity races but kept most of his focus on the Late Models.

However, Balough's drug smuggling attracted law enforcement's intervention, and the fateful moment transpired at 5:00 AM, a few days after the season-opener 1982 Daytona 500, when cops arrested him.

Balough revisited the moment of his arrest, recalling that despite the looming danger, they didn't stall the smuggling operations and revealed what the cops told him during the bust.

"They come at 5 O'clock in the morning and the first thing they said to me was, 'You got a better career in future than anybody we're arresting and we're arresting 70 people this morning," Balough said.

The 70 people indicted in the $300 million smuggling operation involved Balough's boss Billie Harvey, the bigger players in the smuggling ring.

Gary Balough narrowly escaped law enforcement with 15000 pounds of marijuana

Gary Balough & Co. weren't small players wandering streets to sell their product, their ring moved the drugs from one state to another. On one occasion, Balough's people carried 15000 pounds of marijuana shipment in a 58-foot Chris Craft boat. The water seethed inside, and it began sinking.

The conspirers made a frantic call for help to Balough. The former NASCAR driver rushed to the boat with a mud sucker only to realize the gravity of the situation. Moreover, tensions peaked when sirens blared and law enforcement boats were spotted.

However, Gary Balough managed to get the mud sucker working in the nick of time, marginally escaping a horrific ordeal. But he later realized they were "just filming."

"All of a sudden I hear sirens and all this and here they (cops) come down the waterway, chasing this boat...they came past us and I'm looking at them. I just stopped and stood still. They went down the end of the waterway and turned around and chased them back the other way," Balough said via Dirty Mo Media on X.

Following Gary Balough's arrest, NASCAR's then-spokesman Jim Hunter spoke of Balough and Harvey as "not prominent drivers" who might like the high-octane motorsport but surely weren't in it to make a living.