Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin - Dale Jr. x Denny Hamlin: "Wouldn't Change A Thing"

Episode Date: December 12, 2023

With the first year of podcasting in the books for Denny Hamlin, it’s time to hash it out with the bossman, Dale Jr., in an end-of-the-year performance review. The two cover Denny’s new platform to speak his mind, the moments where he may have pushed the line, and whether or not Denny regrets receiving the infamous penalty early in the year. The two also look ahead towards next year, discussing the possibility of NASCAR implementing an in-season bracket challenge, sports betting in the racing world, adding more horsepower to the Cup cars, and which guest is on the top of Denny’s list to join Actions Detrimental in Season 2.Plus, Hamlin provides an update on his recent shoulder surgery and shares how it impacted him late in the 2023 race season... and even into the offseason, leaving him with plenty of challenges on his hands before 2024.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. There he is. Come on in here, buddy. Have a seat. Hey, everybody. Glad you tuned in. It's time for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. Mike Davis, Dellenhart Jr.

The Bojangl Studio. Got a great guest today. Well, how you doing, Rhiz? I'm doing fine right now. This is every week, okay, Bob? You died on that hill. Your career died on that hill and you were hardheaded. I was a bigger idiot.

I didn't even think about it. You thought about it and didn't ask it. That makes me the bigger idiot. I think so. Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download here in the Bojangles studio. And this is a special holiday Christmas edition of the Dale Jr. download. And we have a guest here.

and as usual our guest segment is presented to you by Ally and Ally's been giving us this great or bringing these great guest segments to us all throughout the year and they've done it again. We're going to talk to Denny Hamlin. Denny Hamlin's in the studio and Denny's going to talk to us about his year as a podcaster, man. I've been excited to talk to you about this.

Haven't really spoke to you all year about the ups and downs of actions detrimental, but I want to hear whether you've had fun. I had a fun year doing it. I appreciate, you know, you offering the opportunity for me to do that this year. It was a lot of fun. It cost me a little bit of money, but that was fine. Let's talk about it. If we didn't think that was going to happen, we were just fooling ourselves, right?

I don't think that. So we met in some office and we're trying to convince you, you know, here's good reasons why you should do this. Here's why this might be fun. I want to know, first off, I don't think any of us thought it's going to cost to see money. right thought we were going to try to make money right but uh i want to know like and from that very first conversation where you were trying to wrap your brain around whether you really could do it you had time you didn't you know you had a lot of things going on did you have the time to do it um did it uh work out the way you thought was it bore or different or what you expected

it was better than expected honestly from a time's perspective i mean um i was really worried about and i asked you a ton of questions about well what how much time am I going to really have to put into this like you know luckily for me you know between Jared you know follow me around everywhere I go on any given race weekend a lot of times he's around me during the week even when I'm not out of track you got Travis there helping on the producing side of things they help me be prepared even if I wasn't yeah going into each episode so you know making sure we had shared notes and you know if I asked them hey I didn't see that wreck.

Like, show me the wreck. Let me see the comments, you know, and then expand upon it from there. So honestly, from a Times perspective, I think that it was better than what I expected. And everything I, you know, it's everything I thought it would be in the first year. So, yeah, pretty happy with it. Did you ever have, did you ever have comments on your, on your show that got a driver's attention? Yeah, I mean, I think you definitely saw it in some driver's interviews, right? I'm sure he'll say this

Monday or whatever right you know so they're tuning in which I mean that's what we hoped for right we hoped to connect to new race fans to kind of educate them on what they just saw or maybe what they didn't see and then we we also wanted to

expand upon the nuts and bolts of the series to the avid race fan that tunes in every week to get them an insider's perspective of you know what maybe the business of NASCAR whatever it might be that you know that that don't see behind the scenes so that part of it was really fun to me and really um you know i i feel like we connected with the people we wanted to to to connect to for sure you

you made a chance you made a choice to record at a unique part of the you know week right you know you wanted to record immediately so right away when were your what was your typical record time like what time a day uh usually 10 a.m um give a take a couple minutes. Monday morning? Monday morning. Yeah, that would be if we... Sometimes though I thought you did it right after the race or...

I did. If we got back before dark, we would do it. So really the race needed to be within probably an hour flight of Charlotte, then I could come back and do it right away. I actually regret not doing it more right after the race, even no matter what the time was, because I just, that Monday morning sucks sometimes, right? So I wish, you know, as a driver, you can't sleep anyway on race night. Yeah.

You know, so I might as well just do it whenever. Yeah, the thoughts of what happened and everything's fresh on your mind, your emotion about it, you know, is a little bit more genuine and real Monday. You had time to kind of think about it and get over some things. You talked about how, you know, so you named this podcast actions detrimental. Kyle Larson came up with that name, by the way. Kyle did. I mean, it's perfect, right?

When we were, when I was here and names were being discussed and there were some good ones, but that's perfect. Yeah. It fits, right? Then literally like five shows in. I mean, we just really getting our feet going, right? Getting our legs. The thing at Phoenix with Chastain and then the comments, which, you know, that was worth it, though.

Let me tell you, you know, because that 50 grand, whatever it was, the points, now the points didn't matter until they did. It turns out they didn't at the end of the day when it came down to that regular season championship. But that ended it with me and Chastain. It was worth 50 grand to me for it to be done. Yeah. You know, and whether it was the actions on the track or, you know, talking through a mic, like to them at that times, like it was worth it to me to get that behind us. It's just been going on too long. So you didn't have a podcast in the past when you'd been in situations like that, right?

And so how was the podcast an outlet? Or wasn't it? Yeah. It was an opportunity for you to kind of like just blow some steam, right? Get it off your chest. Yeah, it was. I mean, it's an opportunity that otherwise I would have spouted off to the media. You know, as soon as the race is over and they're chasing me down pit lane before I'd hop on a golf cart and go home.

So it was an outlet. And what I liked about it was, you know, it's what you told me it was going to be is that you've got more time to process your thoughts. You've got more time to expand upon the subject that you're speaking on. So that way, you know, it doesn't get cut up in the media so much to where they grab one sentence, make a headline out of it. Next thing you know, it looks negative until you actually, you know, how many fans really don't even click on an article. They just see the headline, they see the picture, and they come up with a narrative, right? And so it really allowed me to expand upon thoughts on certain subjects. So I like that.

Did you catch yourself throughout the year in the media and go, mentally, maybe not outwardly saying this, but like go, I'm going to save that for my show. I don't want that. I want to make sure this narrative's correct. And the way to do that is right, give it, keep it for my show. Did you find yourself sort of tagging things like that? It was. and it's, you know, you kind of told me that that was coming.

You said that you'll notice, Denny, you're going to start saving a little bit for the show. Like, you're not going to just, you know, spill it all out there during your 20 minutes of media availability on Saturday. And a lot of it, too, allowed me time to really think about it, right? There would be shared notes. And then on top of that, if I'm doing a media availability, there's no one countering or challenging what I might be. insane, right? Where Travis or Jared has an opportunity to do that. So I think that that sometimes stirs up some mental thoughts of like, well, is this the right take or not? Yeah. I really thought Jared did a great job all year. I wasn't, I don't know him very well.

Yeah. You, you know, we were wanting you to be excited about your show. So you, you had some influence over what it looked like, what it was going to be like. And you've, you said, you know, Jared's going to be the guy. And a lot of times when, like, a driver particularly is the host of the show, it's hard to find people that'll counter them. It's hard to find people that will hold them accountable or say, no, that's not really how it happened, man, or you're not really telling the whole truth, right? And you need somebody on your show that can do that.

So I think we ought to celebrate him, man. Jared did a good job. 100%. Adding to the show, keeping things in line, having a great perspective, an alternative opinion. And y'all did have great chemistry, man. Yeah. So who is Jared? How did you meet him?

How did you hire him? Tell us why we should be excited about him going forward. Yeah, so Jared is, he's a great guy first. He's just a great dude. We hired him as my director of social media back in 2019. You know, we saw kind of where NASCAR was going with, you know, promotions. and we knew that, you know, I needed to work on, you know, my social and, you know, it's one thing for one driver to do it. I get it.

But I really challenge Rod Moskowitz at pro sport management to, I want you, you know, listen, Rod, I pay you a fee, right? You manage me. You're my agent, manager. You negotiate deals. You go get deals. You help me build a race team. All these things, right? But I feel like a service that you should provide.

to all the drivers is social media. And I think that that's a very underrated part of what we have to do. We represent a lot of companies. There's hundreds of thousands of FedEx employees or whatever it may be that I represent. So I need to make sure I'm doing that the right way and growing my fan base. He kind of changed his business model into here's the services that we're going to provide for our drivers, one of them being social media. you know that was something that actually was a big recruiting tool i think for you know william byron to go over to pro sport is that william saw my social and was like man i they do a

really good job over there and and that helped you know with that process i think so um yeah i just it was part of pro sport management's hiring to manage denny hamlin social media and you know when when people ask like well how much is jared how much is me you pretty much can get a good idea of who's doing what like you know if we have molly's picks for a super bowl or for uh football picks you know jared edit it's all out i send him a video he edits it all up puts it in there and gets it done so he's been my social media guy for the last four years and i just knew that when you told me kind of here's what you need to look for in a co-host um i'm like this guy he he knows just enough to be dangerous yeah you know he he knew a little bit about

NASCAR growing up he lived you know basically here in kind of the Charlotte area it's just a photographer and he just he's expanded his skill set beyond but beyond doing that and you know I knew it was a simple ask for me to ask him to do it he's he's always right there next to me it I love it during driver intros wherever we're walking out everyone's I mean I honestly I get I hear Jared as much as I hear my name yeah so I love that for him because I know it embarrasses him a little bit in the moments Like the Chastain comments, in those moments, has he ever been like, hey, man, are you sure you want to say this?

Like, because there is a, you, you create the podcast. It's not live, right? You've got a little time to sort of go, hmm, do I really want to put this out there? Maybe I want to dial that back a little bit. They asked me. I mean, Travis and Jared, Jared doesn't ask me as much, are you sure? Now, I do have, you know, there are some people that would care about me getting myself in trouble listening in live while we're recording. Oh, really?

Yeah. So you got to like a little audience sort of. There's a little Zoom. There is a audio only Zoom. Who's on that? Usually Rod is on there. Well, that's probably good, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

I remember in the meeting, he was the one that was kind of most concerned. He was like, we want to do this if it's going to make deal. any more fans. We don't want to do it if it's going to make Denny less fans. He was like mega worried that you were going to get yourself in trouble and right out of the gate. I thought, man, I was in Texas on vacation with Amy and her family when that all went down. And I'm like, I really thought I was like, Danny's never podcasting again. Denny's never, this show's over. He's going to come in and go, look, this was fun, but no more of this. They, I knew. I knew the risk that I was putting myself in, but I'm always one of those people that I don't know this is the

right thing to think. You know, I'm lucky to have Rod because he is the ultimate pessimist when it comes to here's the, you know, the absolute worst that can happen. I think of it like, what really can happen? Like what do we really got to lose here? Like what's the absolute worst, right? And so, yeah, I mean, he listens in Tyler Overstreet. He, he, he, he listens to. Tyler? Yeah, he listens in as well. Really? Yeah. Interesting. Does he provide him? Tyler's my, he's my PR guy. He's the one that he'll be, you know, usually you see a crew walking with me.

There's three people. There's Austin Payton. He's my manager, my day-to-day manager. You got Jared, social media, and he got Tyler. So, yeah. Jared's making sure I look good in photos. Tyler's making sure I don't say anything I shouldn't. and Austin's just kind of keep me in a safe space there. Yeah, goodness. You know, when you got opportunities to call other on-track incidents, right, not even involving you, you've done, have you ever done TV? No.

I mean, I did one... You've made some guest spots, right? I did one Xfinity race. For Fox. I did one Xfinity race for Fox. I think it was in February. Yeah. So in that kind of experience, plus with the podcast, you'll,

have to or you know at time i mean sometimes there's just like a big story and you can't like not comment on it right people are going to go hey you know why are you dodging this right you have to almost feel you feel almost obligated to make a comment um when you're finding yourself in those situations where you got to make comments or criticize or have an opinion about guys you're actually racing with um or friends yeah or friends right like for example the larsen thing right that went down um and how were you how did you choose to handle that on your show, right? So how do you, are you trying to, like, you got to be honest.

You got to, hey, man, I feel this way. I feel the way, I feel, I feel I'm right here. But are you also trying to figure out a way, is he listening to this show? Are you trying to use the show and your comments to sort of mend the fence? What's the deal? All the above. Yeah. All the above.

I always assume that everyone I'm talking about or talking good about is listening. Yeah. You just have to have that because, you know, honestly I felt like my job was to it didn't matter who it was I tried to call a spade a spate yeah and there was many times I called myself a spate and and said that I I made a move I probably shouldn't have right I try my best to to see it so you know subjectively but I also know that you know fans will see it however they want to see it and it's not always going to the line and it's just my

opinion and I know I'm not always going to be right. That's for sure. But it's just my opinion. I have this, I have this platform to give my opinion. And I think that, you know, a lot of the, the fan uproar towards the end of the year, a lot of it was because I am opinionated. I do believe that I have more fans that I've ever had by far. It's not close. However, the counter Denny Hamlin fans, the ones that don't like me at all, are louder than they've ever been. So it's just been more noise. But I do believe that it did what we we hoped. And that was, you know, build a platform, build a fan base, build a brand, and see

where this thing goes. Yeah. I mean, I think that would you say that the podcast has been a way to kind of put you over to the fan base grow? Like you say, man, I think you have gained more fans. I think people have gotten to know you better through the show. You can't help but learn really who's somebody. is when they're putting themselves out there like that and people will choose to like or not like

what they hear right and what they learn seems like that you've grown your fan base but to your point right you you've also stoked the fire a little bit with some of the people that don't like you they're still listening i think all of those things are great right i feel like a lot so some of our drivers i'm not going to namey names don't want any noise right they don't want to get near the noise they don't want to get the noise they don't want to ruffle any feathers get anybody riled up they just want to live this sort of quiet existence and go race a car in front of, you know, be this megastar. But otherwise.

And that's okay. Yeah. And that's okay. Do I think that it stunts the growth of the sport? I do. But it, but that's their individual, that they're staying true to who they are, right?

And I believe me, I am being true to who I am. Well, I've been this way for a long time. I know, but like, you know, you guys, I'm going to compare a lot of what I saw at the end of the year,

almost like wrestling promos and things like that, right? You get out of the car after you win. I mean, you've just ran 500 laps at Bristol, and you get out and really cut a wrestling promo, which was one of the best things that happened all year long. I mean, I know you're witty, and I know you're pretty good at comebacks and talking shit, and you've always kind of been that guy in your inner circle.

You never really been publicly. like that outwardly, right, to the fan base or to the industry. And I don't think it was a, uh, not a, it wasn't a bad thing. I was perfect, right? But you jump out of that car after racing all race long and cut a wrestling promo. And it was like, I mean, if I'm NASCAR, I'm sitting there going, holy shit, this is the greatest thing ever, right? We need this.

This is what we need every week, right? A guy, win a race, get out and say some cool shit, right? Whether he's, you know, whether he's going at his haters or whether he's, or whether he's, he's saying something, you know, completely positive toward his fans, whatever it is, right? You get, and so I, you know, I feel like that the show, did the show play a role in that, right, to allow you to sort of get more comfortable with, you know, in that moment, right, in front of thousands or millions of people watching on TV, right? Were you more comfortable to do that because this sort of newfound ability of communication

and expression yourself through your podcast. Yes, I think so. I mean, I think you'll see it quite a bit during the Netflix special when it comes out. So that's another thing, man. And I don't want to tie all this to, we're not going to sit here and give this show, we're not going to give the podcast all of this credit.

But I've talked to Netflix people. They told me you're like the easiest guy to get a hold of, to get, you know, everything they ask. Yes, no problem. You got it. My rule of thought was very simple with them. You get everything you want, every access you want until I say no. Yeah.

You know, when it comes from in the car, on the car, through the fans, into the bus, short of me going to the bathroom, I mean, whatever you want, you get it until I say no. And they never put me, in my opinion, in a place where I was uncomfortable with them. So I just gave them all the access that they needed. So I feel like though that you're, I don't think that you were that eager to be that way, you know, a couple years ago, right? What's different? Your podcasting, Netflix show, All Access, whatever y'all need. We're trying to build a sport.

I know. But you're also, you're busy. You're an owner. You've got a million things to do, right? And now you're adding in like this. There are great things that are promoting you, promoting yourself and your partners. but man we're just so used to drivers being very particular selective and you're doing everything and anything you can get your hands on.

What's changed? Because what's the worst that can happen? I mean, Gibbs fires me. Okay, fine, I'll go drive for myself. I mean, I just think about what is the worst that can happen if I'm really true to myself. Were you that way three or four years ago, five years ago? maybe not probably not publicly right right because i changed i think that you know having the same sponsor for a real long time kind of pushing the edge of like what what are they okay with and what are they

not right you that long to get there or get some what you're getting toward that well you told you to me you talked about it like you're getting you're not near retirement you got several years left but you can see it right and you're kind of like yeah who's gears i'm just going to do it level goes down for sure and I just what is to me what is the worst that can happen and it's and I just yes I'm more publicly now myself that I was in private always yes that's just that's how it's been and what I we we have found now is that the 11 car in particular I'm not going to get as specifics but we're doing as well sponsorship wise that we've been in a very,

very long time. Yeah. And a lot of them, you know, it was partners that came in for, for a small little bit, loved the experience, loved who I was,

vocally with my podcast, the Bristol stuff, they loved it. And they were like, we're in for more, you know. And so it's turned now into a very positive things where brands are wanting to be associated versus,

you know, the counter to that is a lot of people don't say, don't want to rock the boat because they don't want to disrupt the sponsors that they have. You know, as far as like personal service deals and all that, it's, we're in a better spot than I've ever been. Right. Who at, um, who at, um, who at Gibbs is the person that say, you know, say there's a concern. Who, who's calling you?

Joe. So Joe does, like, so I'm, you know, beyond past, let's, let's just get past the chastain. in it where y'all got penalized and all that in the back half of the year was there a moment where you felt like joe and gibbs appreciated the value of the podcast yes i think that people like dave alperin certainly do i mean they certainly they listen for their own reasons each and every week um but joe i you know do i think he's a podcast listener probably not but he probably gets you know he there's a head of uh public relations at jgr that probably fills him in each week of like you know is there anything we should be highlights here's anything we should

be concerned about anything that you know a sponsor may call and ask you about x because then he said why right and so there was only one and honestly i can't even remember what it was but he said to me he's like you know i was kind of a little bit worried when he said this um But the sponsors has not said anything about it. And so it's okay. What about now that you've got a year under your belt as a host of a show, what creatively has that started in your mind? Because you've got your own race team, right?

And you're seeing how this is a nice little tool, good little addition to be able to create content, control narrative, you know, entertain partners and so forth. Have you started thinking about how you can utilize this within your own program at 2311? I have. Certainly, I think that, you know, there's certain things. And trust me, when things like the negotiating committees going on with NASCAR, and I'm saying things publicly on, you know, those negotiations or whatever it might be,

you know there's many times where curdles to say i don't control denny you know he he i think in a way he's he's saying that i'm not telling him to go say anything but i ain't stopping them either right right so you know there's some important things that we need to get settled and we need to you know need to have better on the team ownership side so you know he just kind of lets me go with that Now, there's been times where I've pushed the edge a little bit with NASCAR, with the team, and, you know, giving away a little bit too much information here and there. But it's, I feel like, you know, it's a line that you do learn how to walk.

And there are times where I do pull back in a sense of like, this boat ain't worth rocking right now. Yeah. You know what I mean? So it's just, you know, it's just you have to do it. You have to do it live, right? You can't edit, you know, what you say. when you're commentating a race, right? It's coming and it's coming now.

I at least have an opportunity to, you know, when I do, you know, do record, I've got a little window of about five hours to tell them to put something in or take something out. And so very rarely have we edited stuff out. We've pretty much kept it pretty raw. You know, I've been contacted in the past in recently by, by, some team owners about how they could use our platform to tell the ownership side of the story, right?

So would it be fair for fans to think that maybe the podcast is a nice piece in your arsenal in terms? I would love to have Curtis come on. And there's been times where he's been so frustrated. He says, I want to come on. Record now. Then five hours later, he's like, take it all out. Exactly right.

So, you know, those who don't know, you know, Curtis Polk has been Michael Jordan's manager for, gosh, decades and decades, decades. So I do think that there's an opportunity there, right, to continue to grow it. I would love to see continued growth into year two. And I think just brainstorming with you guys on figuring out how to do that. Do you guys pay attention to viewership numbers, things like that? Do you? Yes and no. I mean, not religiously, no.

You know, I couldn't even tell you kind of how we stack up with other NASCAR podcasts or motorsports podcast. But, you know, it seems like it's, you know, pretty good. Yeah. Now, in the motorsports world, you're doing awesome. And it gets competitive when you start looking at the iTunes charts and so forth. you can start getting. And it's odd, man. You'll have like one week

where you thought it was just a normal basic show and it just does really well. Some of the stuff that, so that's another thing too with podcasting. And I want to know if you feel the same way. I'll come in with a note and I'm like, this is going to be, they're going to love this.

And it's flat. It just go, people hear it and there's no reaction. And then they're going bonkers over some shit. I said that it didn't, I didn't think it meant nothing, right? something I did at home or something in my everyday life. And so it's hard to know what people want to hear because you'll think, you know,

man, these things will kill. This is going to be entertaining. They're going to love this. Oh, man, we laughed our ass off in here for 15 minutes. Don't care. And then there's something in the back half of the show that we didn't even think was a big deal that they just loved. I mean, I think that one thing that I'm entertaining is,

You know, and maybe I want to hear your opinion is like, should I have more guests? I'm, I just worry about my interviewing skills. It can't get better if you don't try. I know. You know, I had William Byron on. That was fun. The Joe one, my mom. Those are, I thought those were all really, really good.

But I didn't, I didn't think I did much in there. I just kind of let them go. So the, my favorite, I think Dan Patrick's one of the best in the business, right, to interview. and if you listen to him, his questions are super short. Why'd you do that? What was that for? How come? I mean, he forces the person to have to tell everything, right?

Yeah. And so, and yeah, one of the biggest mistakes that they'll tell you when you get into broadcasting and interviewing is don't put the answer in your question, right? And so don't try to steer somebody toward what you're trying to get out of them. and because you basically give them the answer and they can just go yep that's right and so but when you're with somebody that you know like your mother or your friends or another driver it's just a conversation at that point and I think everybody really enjoyed it the people that people are the the guests that I think you should have guests when it makes sense and I think

they should be oh he's going to have that person on there you know that they should be like you know, some guy, like, like, you got to get Chase on there one day. You and him had the run-in, right? When I had, you know, run-ins with people and I'd bring them into the show, I mean, of course, I've waited a while. I'm not going to have them on the next week, but a year or two or three years later, people want to hear us hash that out and hear us tell our versions right there in the same room.

They love it. So I think, you know, and you've had, you know, if you've had long enough career where you've got plenty of drivers where you've had some Mississippi. understandings with to have them come on the show and you know especially yeah yeah almost all of them pretty much just not all of me yeah I mean I one have you talked let me ask you this intros drivers intros or when y'all you know when the drivers are together is any of them ever ever ever y'all ever joke or laugh about being on like hey man you not really really no not really um I mean we'll talk at times people will say, you're right bringing up this point.

Like, we got to fix this or that or whatever. And I'm like, all right, well, you tell them too. You know, people just hear for me. Are you surprised too that they're listening to your show? Am I surprised? No, because, I mean, honestly, drivers don't listen. If one of my competitors had a podcast, I would listen. You would?

Absolutely. Golly. Absolutely. Because I want to hear their perspective. I generally care about what their perspective is and what how did they see the race go down? Is it what I thought? You know, I just, I am curious. All right, let me ask you this.

So say you listen to Joey Lugano's podcast. He does a little show, right? Yeah. So say you listen to it. Which I, you know, do I turn it on? No, but I do listen to the highlights. Yeah. So you listen to the show and you like strongly disagree with something he said.

Are you going to go on your show and go, I heard Joey say this? Absolutely. I did it all year. All year when drivers made certain comments on a show or through the media, I would expand upon it all year long. Really? Absolutely. But again, it's just an opinion. It's not all a fact.

It's just how I see things, right? Yeah. And one thing that I was actually worried about too when it comes to actually asking, you know, I fear rejection a little bit is that are they going to, is the PR team going to let them come on? my show. Oh, you think you're going to get your feelings hurt if they said no? You feel rejection? Denny Hamlin does not fear rejection. Not in that kind of way. Not in that kind of way.

What I'm saying is that, you know, no Hendrick Motorsports said no. That, you know, they're worried I'm going to send you down a rabbit hole and get you in trouble. What kind of way does Denny Hamlin fear rejection? I thought. From the organizations? Just from Rick Hendon? Yeah. Which is why I'm surprised William Byron.

Are you thinking, I want to ask the driver, the driver's probably fine, but his race team might say no because they think I'm going to get them in trouble. Yes. That. That. Hmm. Yeah. I ain't worried about the drivers.

I'm worried about their team. But then I would just have a bunch of stiff necks. I know. That's what I would do. I'd go on my show and say, what a bunch of stiff necks? I asked them to come on. The team wouldn't let him. That burn them, man.

They'd have to rethink their whole PR, right? Ah, you're a good point. That's a good point. We're not letting the drivers. I know. This is good. We're working stuff out. I mean, it might burn a bridge, but I don't know.

Dale, I don't think I'm really too concerned about that. I know, yeah. All right. So, is there a guest that you would like to have on? Chasting. Pick one. Ross, right? And you've asked him.

I have not. Well, you should. I know. I will. I mean, you and him communicate. You got his number. Yeah. Right.

What's the last time? What's the last thing y'all have text about? Oh man, the last time we text is there was clearly an incident. Oh. Yeah. I mean. I thought you and him were good. I know, but that's how long, that's how long it's been since we've text.

We've talked in person since then. Okay. You know, just like what? Small talk, you know. Okay, okay. He's standing right there. I'm standing right there. Did y'all ever have?

You can't ignore each other. You got to just, hey, how's it going? How's it going? Yeah. And so that's good. How's your car? Car's good. Yeah.

And so you're, that happens and you're like, we're good. We're good. Okay. You walk away from that going, you walk away from that going, I think we're good. I think we're, I think, I think in my mind we're good based off of what happens on the racetrack. Oh, the driving around each other is different. And so, so I've asked Ross to come on the show, he will. Sometimes he has to, you know, he gets the, you know, watermelon farming and he can't, you know, he has to change a schedule around or something.

But he's pretty easy. and I think are you so you should that should be your finale of season two so you got to start big and you got to end big

and you got to have something good and I was thinking starting with chastain well you could but then how you could because by the end of next year you're going to have another chastain to invite on I'm sure I'll get in you'll have another driver

for sure so you got to start with a big guest you got to end with a big guest and then there's the summer lull that you got to be careful of. You've got to have some fun things happening in the summer months. For whatever reason, I don't know why people kind of mellow out. Because we don't have an end season bracket. We did. I know. You came up with one. 70 some thousand people filled out a bracket. Yeah. You came up with that. Who came up with that? I did. Just sitting in by yourself. It came from 15 years ago,

DirecTV had a end season bracket. Nobody ever knew about it. Why didn't they know about it? It paid $100,000. Because they gave me $100,000. You won it? Yes. But you won the bracket? Yes.

Oh, the driver got $100,000? Yes. When did this happen? Was I in this? Back in like 2010-ish? I wasn't good enough. Yeah, DirecTV had a bracket. They would mention it sometimes on TV.

I'd never heard of it. But like someone needs to look at the end-season tournament for the NBA and what it has done for their this is the dog days of NBA where no one really cares and like you just when it's 80 some games it's like man what's the difference in Thursday night or Saturday night right sure they made it matter in the middle of the season

so I just you know listen I had talks with NASCAR after they saw how many people participated in this bracket that this bracket challenge do you came up with the bracket bracket challenge right we it was kind of a podcast social media thing. How many people signed up?

79,000 something. 79,000 something. And that's, by the way, it only came through the dirty-mo media channels. Period. And we had some rickety old website. Yeah. Because we didn't think 79,000 people were going to sign up. And you couldn't search your, it was tough.

You couldn't really, didn't really know how well you did unless you were in the first page. Yes. Hopefully. So, anyhow. You came up with this, based off of that DirecTV thing, and who did you tell about this? Let's re-chart our steps here. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's important for our sport, and I stand by.

They need to take this. And I told them, because they said, listen, we're afraid we're going to get left at the doorstep here. If you keep going with this, and we're not a part of it. Well, why don't they want to be a part of it? It costs them money. They like to spend money. Look at Chicago Road Course. this you're preaching to the choir here i agree with you but i think it should pay three million

dollars to the winter oh that's a lot of money seven point seven billion dollars okay really all right so what do you think it's going to return an audience that will make the next tv deal okay let's say they do it for the next seven years and it costs them three million dollars that's 21 million dollars okay you don't think it will bump up the tuesday TV ratings through those summer months enough to up the average of viewers to then get a return on that 21 million? I think it would be worth it. 100%. Three million to the winner and nothing else?

I don't. Listen, I call it, you know, whatever you want to do. Two or three million for the winner. You know, you make it pass a certain round. You start getting paid. It's 50 grand. Then 100 grand if you make it to the semis, blah, blah, blah, blah. I told you how we did it.

You would give it to NASCAR? 100%. Why? Because it'd be good for the sports. court and I'll get a return down the road. My race team would get, you know, the return would be, you know, we're sharing revenue, TV revenue. We'll just get a share of this and the other.

That it'll be more for the sponsors to talk about. So when TV, it brings narratives and subjects to talk about. Hey, holy shit, look at this battle for 17th. That may not be important, but in this bracket it is. And look how hard they're racing for 17. Yeah. The back end half of the field races harder than any, any other part of the field

throughout every single race. So if it doesn't, if NASCAR doesn't take ownership, we just can keep doing it? We're going to do it ourselves then. Doing it ourselves. Yeah. I like it.

So that's a great way to segue into sports books. North Carolina is opening up sports books or opening up the ability to be able to gamble legally. What are your thoughts on that? Are you thinking, you know, that that's going to have a heavy impact on our sport? How do you think that that affects us? I think it will have a good impact on the sport. A heavy impact is a stretch for now.

People don't play, people don't gamble much on racing, and they don't really play a ton of fantasy. So I kind of connect the two, right? Gambling on something, you do it because it's fun. Winning and losing. Losing sucks, winning is fun. playing fantasy sports, same sort of thing. And you can win money doing that.

But when I look at NASCAR, their fantasy platform ain't terrible. There's a lot of potential there. I've played a lot of fantasy NASCAR over the last several years through NBC. And it's fun. But it hasn't really taken off. Okay. And I feel like that that's sort of very similar to the temperature people are around gambling on racing. Okay.

Well, turn on to ESPN right now, and there's a show talking about which fantasy players you should be picking up right now or which spread you should be betting on. There's none of that in NASCAR. That's right. Unless you tune in to Dirty Modo, which I tune into just because I want to know which guys are really strong at this racetrack. Because when I'm doing homework of like, you know, who do I need to be checking out on SMT or whatever? like there's you can start to draw consistencies of like these guys they've done the work right but again

that's through dirty mo's media and so there's just not enough information for our casual fan to make an educated bet so until we have more fantasy or betting shows in NASCAR TV needs to be one of them you got to have a half hour designated somewhere in there every other sport has some sort of

fantasy or betting show to at least give the people, I mean, you might as well just play roulette and red or black if, if you don't know what you're doing, right? So people who are in sports betting like to have an edge. And their edge is having some sort of, you know what? That guy's history is good. And here's what you, he may have finished 26 last year, but there's a little asterisk on that. Now, there's some people on social media that try to help the casual better and you can go find their handles, but it's just not enough. That's why there's not enough momentum of sports.

There's just, you got to create some shows. And NASCAR has got this new production studio that they're opening up. I think some sort of fantasy or betting show needs to be part of their priority. 100%. I agree with that. All right, man. Well,

that was a, I feel pretty good. You're happy doing podcasts, right? Feel pretty good about that. Going into next year, standing on the gas. Action is detrimental full steam ahead, right? Yep. Anything you're going to just keep it status quo, anything new,

any add any components? Yeah, I mean, I think that the guest thing would be the one thing that I think, you know, even if it's once a month. The first show of every month, we just say, we're going to have a guest and we start lining them up. because I think that it really would be helpful for me at times to have another competitor there with a very fresh mind of what just happened to kind of get some dialogue going to see like where should I be going with this show and what should I be expanding on how much you know I also want to know

you know I'd love to know the general fan base that listens to actions detrimental what do you want to hear more of the basics like i started doing it towards the end of the year nascar 101 when i knew i was starting to get off the rails a little bit and get too technical i would break you down in it okay here's why i'm here's the elementary what i want what i'm talking about here do i need to do more of the the basics of naskar because there's been very you know people that i met over the last year that hey i tuned in your show for the first time they're not avid naskar fans they're like i really like the naskar one-one because you know i i heard them say this on TV. I had no idea what they're talking about. And so I think our sport is at times

very hard to figure out if you're a casual. And so I'm trying to educate that new fan a little bit. And so do I need to keep expanding upon that or do I continue to make it kind of more technical and you know, talk about the driving stuff? Yeah. I think I think you do a good job. There's times when, you know, as a car owner, you got an opinion about what NASCAR needs to be doing. And when you give a valid reason that kind of sometimes does get into the grass. It's really helpful not to look at you as an opportunist, you know, when it comes to, you know, as a car owner, right, we all got to look out for each other, trying to get ourselves in the best position we can.

But when you give me a good reason why you need something or want something to happen, it's hard to argue that. So I want to ask you just a couple things for you. I let you go. Thank you for coming today. busy time of the year everybody's scrambling trying to get everything

I got a lot of my hands yeah I bet literally you ever try to wipe your ass with the other hand I'm serious that's why I shaped my head

people he can't the reason why he's talking about this is because he had a shoulder surgery so I mean that just came out of nowhere I just want people to know that you're not just gonna spring into a conversation you said literally and I said yeah

because I mean you you'll bust through the toilet paper pretty quick you wipe for the other hand. I'm pretty much good at wiping with one hand. The other hand, I don't even try. Well, you ought to. Yeah, I just, I realized for a while there, it was like during the banquet, I couldn't

raise my right hand. So, you know, that's, of course, my dominant hand. And I'm trying to fix my hair. So you just cut it all off. And I'm like, so you just buzzed it off. I said, for time being, this got to go. I was wondering what the hell you get. It's got to go.

Yeah. Listen, I'm not all brink. Britney Spears right now. I got a bad... I got a bad hand. I got a bad wing. All right. Is it still bad? Is it still bad? I don't know how long does it take. It's bad. I don't know how evasive the surgery was.

It was much worse than what they anticipated once they got in there. Okay. So three months. I got three months before I can really do much. But yeah, I just... What are you doing to get your shoulder tore up? Well, I had an incident. So I had a bone spurt. That was, that's a, that's a genetic, hereditary thing. A lot of drivers had, I mean, three drivers had, we all had our right shoulders worked on me, Reddick and Chase.

Reddick, too. Yeah. Yeah, he was right after me. And so I was, I was out. I was still out, but evidently he was, when he started coming to, he started cussing out the doctors and all kinds of stuff. It was pretty funny. But his, so we went in for the same thing, basically, which is a bone spur.

But I knew that I, I knew that I had done it. the Thursday before the Vegas race. I had a sports incident and I ended up popping two tendons in the right shoulder on top of the bone spur. And then once I started kept driving on the last five races, it just, it was destroying some stuff in there. There's some rotator cuff that had to get repaired as well. So went from a three week recovery to now three months.

Damn, three months. So when will you be 100%? When you hope you'll be 100%. man i i honestly i'm not going to be a hundred percent for a while probably late february early march but i don't think anything can be as bad as what the end of the season was gotcha i i mean i couldn't there was two there was a two race stint where i mean i couldn't hit switches on the dash i couldn't change the break bias if i had to there's there's just no way i couldn't reach it um i couldn't get my right shoulder up and um so i just really struggled the last you know five races i had to go from a

you know, a guy that always kind of guided with the right hand and I would see my right hand, and that's how it would, to be in just a left hand pull driver. And so I, you know, I couldn't run my cars as loose because I just couldn't correct. And it was a, it was a challenge. So I'll start the year, not 100%, but definitely better than what I ended last year. There was a test at Phoenix to try to improve the short track package or learn more. I've not heard a bunch about that. It's been kind of quiet. You as a car owner, I'm sure you're in the conversations about what's going on there. What do you think they'd learned at the test? What did they not get accomplished? I hadn't heard much either. I mean, I actually was thinking on the way here that to get the guys

at 2311 and JGR to send me all the summary from the test. I did look at all the drivers that did make comments. I looked at what they had to say. There's also a driver. text in which they were commenting kind of live as they were making changes. It didn't seem like there was big game changers. Again, most of them felt like tires were the biggest changes that they made. Really? Yeah. I mean, there was, you know, that new up-down splitter they said was maybe marginally, you know, better.

I'm surprised that these components aren't making a bigger difference in Lory Strat. Because they tried a bunch of stuff at Richmond and they're like, I couldn't tell what you put on there. If you didn't tell me, I wouldn't know. Dale, why are we trying to fix Arrow at Martin'sville? We're running 65 miles an hour. Run the fendor and the front bumper knocked off of it. It's just not going to drive different.

Arrow is not the answer on the short tracks. And I know we keep beating this dead horse, but it's just arrow is not the answer. It's a grip to horsepower ratio that we have tightened up over the last 10 years, really. we used to be 900 some horsepower and tires used to fall off a bunch and now the tires don't fall off and you got less horsepower so it doesn't wear it out. We have less downforce than we ever had. So less downforce equals less tire wear. So as they continue to keep taking downforce off, you've got to move the tire with it to make it, I mean, beyond soft. I mean, I'm talking about gumball soft.

Hell, the rain tires lasted 25 laps on a dry track. And it was awesome because the minute somebody, wore a tire down to be bald, their lap time was awful and they'd start to drop, right? So how can we get our tires to actually wear? We'll be the game changer because obviously they're not going to go back to horsepower. Yeah, I thought they talked about like everything was on the table. They made a comment. Everything but horseback.

They just will not do it. And I can tell you as an engine, I can tell you as a team owner, our engine bills when they was 700 or 800 horsepower versus right now is no different. So I don't understand why going back and taking a 50 cent piece of aluminum that is a tapered spacer and opening that thing back up to 750, I can't make sense of why we're not doing it. Because the engine builders, Doug Yates came on and says, we can change that next week. The components ain't really going to change that much. We're going to get the same durability out of it.

There's just something going on where they will not do it. And I hate the excuse of, well, new manufacturers, that. Like, until someone knocks on my door and says, we're coming in, all right, we'll only come in if it's this. Yeah. That's fine. Everyone, hey, can everyone buy in?

We have a new manufacturer coming. We're going to reduce horsepower at $6.50. Yeah. Until that day comes, make your product that you've got now better. Yeah. There was a moment where they were going to change the transactual to try to figure out how to get rid of the shifting. And then they decided not. Can't do that either.

They decided not to do that. do it. You can't. Can I tell you what? They were going to do it at the test and I heard that they scratched it off of the list because it was going to take too long for all of the teams to make the adjustment, to make the change. And it was like, it was on this list. Am I wrong? It was. I didn't know they aborted it. And then it aborted. Yeah, they didn't try it. You just get me fired up and you get me upset. Went all the way to Phoenix. I'm getting upset. Went all the way to Phoenix and this like took it off the list.

I know. No, no. Well, listen, I applaud the effort to try to get the shifting out because I think the shifting is a bad thing. It's a bad thing because Oval track racing is momentum-based. When someone misses the center of the corner or you can roll a little better, you gain that speed all the way down straightaway. When you shift, you can miss a corner, grab a gear, and you regain your momentum. That's bad. However, when I looked at like what NASCAR was proposing for getting rid of shifting at Martin's We're like, that ain't going to work.

Our minimum RPM is going to be like 5,000. We are going to mat it. And our car will be so stuck because we have no horsepower. Again, another thing that horsepower would help is that now we could run 5,000 RPMs, but since we have, because we have 100 more horsepower, now we will start to buzz the tires. But you can't, they push the maximum RPM, you know, back in your day, not to age you too much.

I mean, I know we're close, but, you know, we were running 9. $9,200. They push that top end down to like, $8,800 or $8,700 now. So what that is done is that if that's our max that we can run at the end of the straightaway, if we go to no shifting, we're now going to be running so low RPM through the center that it's just going to be slot cars. It won't. It's not going to work.

We actually need the shifting to, you know, get the tires to wear because, I mean, we will literally mat it. We nearly mad it right now. at Martinsville off the corner for the entire run. You can't, because the top end RPM is so limited that the bottom end is way too low and our cars have no horsepower, so it's going to have terrible torque and it'll be worse for racing until they fix it.

Good year brought that tire to Martinsville. I thought that tire looked better. And I'm telling you from the booth, man, rubbered the track in. Awesome. Rubber's stacking up on the track. Cars are having to start to move around and straddle and do things to get around

the corner and it. Yes. I agree. It looked like a counter. I was more entertained. Agree. We didn't move around. But once that track, once the pores filled up with rubber, the tire stopped wearing.

I mean, that's why you saw people with, I mean, Eric Elmerola and others and there was many other. Yeah. It had on fucking 60 lap tires and used to be you would, I mean, throw an anchor. I want to race in Martinsville there in 2010 or restarted ninth with six to go. go and won the race. Because tires meant that much. But, you know, and the reason we want tires to mean something is because it creates comers

and goers. When the race cars are all the same now like they are. Yeah. The drivers share data, everything. Everything is so similar, you're going to get similar lap times. And that's why the field is, there is more parity. But, golly, once we all get going in that train, we're all running the same speed. So that tire...

You see it in the monitors. Yeah, that tire they put on the car at Martinsville had more. rubber and it created more temperature but it was the same compound so it still didn't wear more. It's got to wear out. Gosh, we got to get to a tire that gets it wears.

And it wears after tracks are rubbered up, not just when the track is green. Every tire will wear when the track is green. And that's the problem we have with tire tests is we don't have enough cars to really build and cover up those pores because that's when we really see what tire where we got. Well, man, we can talk all day. Thanks for coming today.

I was really curious to talk to you about your experience as a podcaster, and I'm glad that you've enjoyed it because I think it's a hell of an asset for the sport. It's a great service for the sport to hear from the drivers from themselves, and I think hopefully it's encouraging to other drivers as well to start thinking about how to do this. But anyways, man, thank you. I hope you're having a great offseason. I know that you're dealing with the shoulder thing, but hopefully everything's going well, and you get your Christmas shopping done for your girls, and have you a great holiday, Christmas holiday, and happy new year.

Thanks. I appreciate y'all, and appreciate you for giving me the opportunity. I certainly was apprehensive to start, but I really enjoyed this journey of starting this podcast, and obviously doing it for multiple reasons. Some of them selfishly, and some of them is to help this sport continue to grow and give ourselves and our fans some more content. So proud to do it. And next year is going to be a fun one. Awesome. Well, thank you, man.

Denny Hamelin on the Dale Jr. Download. Man, I'm really excited to have Ally help us bring the guest segment every week. It's one of my favorite parts of the download. We get to talk to so many different people in racing, outside of racing. But everybody that comes in here, I want them to have had a good time. I want them to want to come back. I want them to feel like an ally to Dirty Mo Media. Thank you, Ally, for your kids.

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