Door Bumper Clear - 3 - No Holding Back

Episode Date: February 23, 2016

NASCAR Spotters TJ Majors and Brett Griffin discuss how TJ Majors became a spotter, the whole week of Daytona, Country Music and more. Want more DBC? Check out and subscribe to the new DBC YouTube channel! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, what's up, DBC fans? If you haven't heard about Anchor, it's the easiest way to make a podcast. Let us explain. Well, first of all, Freddie, the best part is it's free. There's nothing better than using a free awesome service. To make the process simple and easy, there's creation tools that allow you to record and edit your podcast right from your phone or computer. Anchor helps people find your show by distributing the podcast for you so it can be heard on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and many more platforms. Also, you can make money from your podcast with no. minimum listenership. I like money. It's everything you need to make a podcast in one place. We love using Anchor.

It's a great platform that lets us hear from the fans and reaction theater with Anchors leave a message feature. So when you create your account with Anchor, you can also utilize their feature and make your own podcast. TJ will be your first guest. So download the free Anchor

app or go to anchor.fm. to get started. That's an C-H-O-R.fm. to get started. This is Dale Jr. and you're listening to Dirty Moe Radio. Outside, door, bumper, clear of the 18th. Best car I had here in a long time.

You're going to do it. You're going to win it. Right with you. You're clear. Check the flag. You're win. Hey, everybody. I'm DJ Majors, Spotter of the 88 and the 7th and Xfinity series. And alongside of me is the Brett Griffin.

What's up? Spotter with Clint Boyer, Elliot Sadler. And it's good to be here. And also joining us today is the one and only Kristen Bauer. Hey guys. I just wanted to give you my brief background so you know that I'm not just some random stranger off this street. I was with NASCAR corporate for seven years and mobile one for two. So I don't have as much experience as these two guys next to me.

It's your second week with us. So you're actually the first female to make it back in consecutive weeks. I just really love playing umpire between the two of you. Umpire. I was wondering what she was going to say right there. That is, you know, since you said it, I don't have to. So what you're basically saying is you have a professional background and like T.J. I sure do.

What'd you go to school for? French and Polly Sye. French what? Kissing? French languages. What was the second thing? Political science. I used to.

Would you call that for short terms? Polysci. How do you say Spotter and French? I don't know. You studied French? That was 10 years. I graduated 10 years ago. So did I. I actually won that. Yeah. All right. So we're moving on here now.

We should have a pretty good show today. Today's show is brought to us by One Main. Great sponsor. Had a great debut in Daytona. Finished fourth with Ellie Sadler. So those guys ended up in Victory Lane with Chase Elliott and associated on that car. So One Main has a lot of good things going on right now. probably the best one is presenting the show to these millions of people. Millions of people.

We're worldwide by now. Like prestige. Week three. Worldwide. Yes. Yes. Hey, so before we get into it to the BS session, I think you two should quickly explain what a spotter is and how you both got to be where you are.

Well, how we watch race cars go around in circles. Kind of. I mean, put it bluntly, we basically just watch guys go around in circles. Yeah, I mean, I think our official answer is we're, we're manned. mandated by NASCAR to be on the roof in order for our car to be on the racetrack. So they install us as a safety device. A tool. Safety tool.

Safety tool. You definitely fit that definition better than device. So we're up there to keep the drivers safe, to keep the cars safe, to keep the other competitors safe, to keep the pit crew guys safe. So all in all, we just make the race safer because NASCAR can deliver messages to our drivers through us. We listen to NASCAR on another channel and then talk to our race team on another channel. to deliver that information, but ultimately we're paid by the race team. So I'll let TJ tell you what that

side of the job consists of. Well, I just recently started to get paid here. Unlike Brett, who's been getting paid for about 10 years, I used to do it for free and for fun, because I love my job. No, I mean, we're there just, like Brett said,

main thing, safety, and then as a driver, it's become more and more leaned on us to help the driver make better decisions throughout out the race, smarter decisions, run faster lap times, what other guys are doing to find speed. The competition level was gone up and up and up, and everybody wants that little bit of an edge, so everyone just wants more info, more info, and that's kind of what we've been asked to do. But how did you guys get involved in it? I mean, who asked you, how did you get started?

How'd you get up there? Are we all sick? Yeah. I'm not sick. I'm pumping echinacea through me. I got three kids and a bunch of laps of sleep. Polyside. People that study Polyside probably don't get sick as much. But, all right, I got started.

Most people probably already know a little bit of the story. I met Dell Jr. playing video games in like 1997. And raced myself for a handful of years. Came down here, raced some more. He heard me. I started doing some spotting for like Boris said and stuff

at road courses when I was working in the shop and they found out that I was actually pretty good at spotting, which I don't know if that's good or bad, but went from doing that. Boris' performance definitely showed how good you were. He ran good at the road courses, and that's when he drove that. Sputter was super important there. I will bet my average road course finish with Boris was probably better than yours back then.

Okay. I would be glad to compare Elliott Sonoma finishes to Barcet's any day. I don't have Barstamara raced in a while. We got the Glenn too. He's not, Ellie wasn't a great to go in the road course. You tell him what's going on. tell them. Yeah, it's actually pretty busy. Like Sonoma.

Sonoma's wild, because there's only one of us, so we spot the entire track. Sonoma's like the new Bristol. You know, people are wrecking each other. Yeah, it's actually one of my favorite races, to be honest with you. Sonoma is. It's awesome. And you can see the entire track from up there? Yeah, all stuff for the last corner, basically.

You can see most of it, but you can't see the exit of it. But, you know, after I led Boris saw those solid finishes, I moved up a little bit. And I started spot for Joe Nemechak and Dale Jr. actually got a chance to hear me when they started their Xfinity team. I did the first race for junior motorsports and he called me over to his bus the next morning and asked me to come over there and see him for a minute. So I went over there and he asked me if I would ever be interested in going to work with him. So it took until he went to Hendrick to be able to go work with him,

and I've just been with him ever since. So your first year with him was at Hendrick? Actually, I was having a full year conversation. Yeah. Well, no, I was actually full time before him. But my first full year with him. I mean, you did Sterling, he did some other guys, but your first full season was when Dale Jr.

Left DEI and went to him. That wasn't my first full season spotting. I know, but first one season with him. Yeah, yeah. 2007, I think, maybe, roughly. Cool. Well, I mean, spotting at Daytona, we talked about that on last week's show, you know, how important of a role that we played.

I mean, what did you think of the Daytona 500? I thought I was a good race. I liked it. I really wish we ran the duels in the daytime so we could actually have more of a reading on our cars and stuff. I really would like to run those during the day But our car was good

We just needed to get a couple adjustments in it And I don't think he was Nobody was going to get up there And bust those Gibbs cars It was going to take a It was going to take three or four car effort To really stick together And it didn't seem like anybody

Was really willing to do that So we kind of got trapped back there 12th to 15th a lot And we made some ground up at the end there And he was actually making some Pretty strong moves at the end Getting ready I think we were going to be a factor in the race.

I think we were getting ready to make it interesting and just kind of went downhill out of four. And what happened? I mean, I think everybody's got their perspective, but from your perspective, what happened? Well, I saw what he was doing. He was just working the air on the outside, and he's obviously one of the best at doing it,

and he didn't want to do it all day because it just take the risk all day, no sense in doing it at lap 100 on 200-200-lap race. And he was trying to get to the quarter panel, the three-car off the corner. He was trying to get down to that three car and just had a little too much wheel into it, and it just snapped loose on him. I mean, I don't recall us seeing a lot of single car spins at Daytona since the repave. So for me as a spotter, it's good to see handling factor back into that race.

I mean, Chase Elliott wrecked by himself. No surprise there. He's a rookie first time in the draft. But if that track has a lot of grip, he doesn't do that. You know, second guy, Dale Jr., obviously, you know, Daytona 500 winner multiple times. Harvick saved his. Harvick wrecks his out of four. Yeah, he saved his.

I mean, just a bunch of guys were wrecking on their own. Well, they were fighting it, man. I think that tells us. It tells the teams what kind of cars they're going to have to bring back for the 500 with downforce and grip because we go back to Daytona in July and it's night time. There'll be a ton of grip. We won't see that kind of race. They won't.

They'll be, you could see them off of turn four. You could probably watch the whole race. You probably could have stood on the L line out of four in person and not got hit all day because they were using them. Nobody could run the line off the corner like you could in the duels and stuff. You just come off and you could hold it down on the line. the line you couldn't do that in that race so i liked it i'm ready to go back there and do it again yeah i mean i saw our ratings were down that's disappointing i think that a few things you can contribute that to tony stewart wasn't in the race he's a big deal jeff gordon retires it's a big deal and and quite

frankly i think some of the fans are just sick of all the changes you know i mean we change over time rules green white checker rules restart rules it's confusing if you're not in the sport even someone like me who's been in it for 10 years even the truck race was kind of a learning experience for me because we had that 20-minute clock, which was kind of cool. It was actually kind of interesting because you were trying to decide when you were going to hit pit road. And it actually caused a wreck because everybody was trying to get to pit road that one time, but actually read a caution. So, I don't know.

It's interesting. The truck series is the perfect place to try it with, at least. Yeah, I agree. I just think in general, we've got a good product. You know, we've got a great race. How about the people? Just leave it alone, man. Just stop making changes?

In the grass, on the front stretch before the race? Oh, yeah, tons. Yeah, it was awesome. We had 101,000 people there. And we put on a great show, but I just think the momentum I'm carrying into the new season next year, just leave everything alone. Yeah, I think we need to calm down with the changes and just ride it out for a while. During the Daytona 500, I actually looked to my right,

and I saw you coming back from what I'm guessing was either the elevator or the bathroom. And that was like lap 10. Like bladder problems much, or what's your deal there? Hydrating too much? Why don't you guys were to pick that? I think that was right after we took the lead and I figured it was over. Well, it was over shortly after that. Well, are there bathrooms up there?

Yeah. Thank God here. You have like a lounge? You can go grab a snack? It's way better here. No. So how many times you peeve in a race, man? Depends. What's you're over under?

If there's a good yellow flag, I'll just go just to make sure. Because I'll tell you what happened one time. This is probably seven or eight years ago. You're young for prostate problems. Well, dude, I just drink too much. Okay. I just drink too much. I just drink too much.

I'm worried about you. This is friend to a friend right here. I just drink too much. How are you? Should you go to your doctor for your yearly physical? Yeah. Is that 40? I'm not 40 yet.

I'm not 40. So we'll hold off on that one. I had to go really bad during the race, and I was like, all right, it'll be fine. We'll get a yellow here. That thing went like three straight green flag. Yeah, and I really was considering just going, like being done with it. Like, I was looking for a bottle, and I was going to go right there and just go. Do you tell Dale when you?

you have to go? I usually say I'll be back in a minute. They know. Okay. So, I don't know only under yellow after you make your pit stop and the lucky dogs are already going around and stuff. So if he can't ride around under yellow for a couple laps, like a lap there, not even a lap.

So, um, but yeah, that all, so if there's an opportunity and I even know, and it was hot there, so I drank a little bit. We're freaking athletes up there. We have to hydra. We are athletes. I'm an athlete. You guys are going like, there's only 40 of us in the world. We're elite athletes.

So I just take the opportunity and go. Even if I only really have to go, I'll just go to make sure because I'm never getting back in that scenario that I was in where I was really just getting ready to go. It was bad. Are there any girls up there? Is it any women and it's all men? No. You know how long it take a girl, the girls line to form and finish during two minutes? Dude, imagine leaving downtown Charlotte after drink until 2 a.m.

Yeah. Riding all the way to Morrisville, driving back to Charlotte, and then driving back home without, like, like, outstop for the bathroom. Yeah. You would explode. That's what I felt like. You guys were making me have to pee. We got to check.

I know. I'll be right back. Oh, man. All right, let's get into the fast lane. So let me give you a quick overview of what it is. I'm going to give TJ and Brett a topic to debate, and we're going to alternate who responds first. Each person will get 30 seconds to voice their opinion, and then whoever responded first

will get a 30 second rebuttal. Four of the topics will pertain to racing, and two of them will be what we consider off-the-wall non-racing. topics. You ready? Re what? Re-what? What? Rebuttal. Oh, brother. Is that too big a word? Pollyside French word right there? No kidding. All right. First question, here we go. In the Xfinity race this past Saturday in Daytona, Junior Motorsports took three of the top four spots. T.J., what do you think? That's awesome. We've left there with a huge debt before. As far as Junior Motorsports, we've left there

with three or four wrecked race cars, and that's not cheap. So it's really good to come out of there and see the cars run strong all day and be up front and have a solid finishes for everybody. That's all you got. What else do you want me to say? You got 30 seconds. You took like 15. Dang.

Strong outing, strong debut for J.R.M. For the 2016 season, obviously bringing home three of the top four. Huge Casey Kane fan. Love a guy of death as a friend. A little bit disappointed with him in the closing laps that he kept staying committed to the 22 car to the point that he did because I felt like if he had bailed away from the 22, you got to get the best car out of the draft.

Otherwise, he's going to take you up there and dump you and win the race, which he almost did anyway. Thankfully, Chase held him off. But, man, I really wanted to see a one, two, three, finished with JRM cars. Super close. One main brought home a fourth, and, man, all in all, a great week. I mean, do you need some tissues here? The guy's trying to win a race, man.

What's he supposed to do? Throw the anchor out and let the guy not push a guy. his chance to win was following that guy up there and take the victory. I mean, that guy wants to win. I don't blame a guy from wanting to win. Casey needs some pumped up a little bit for the season, man. He's had a rough goal at it last year. So, go Casey.

Question two, in the Daytona 500 on Sunday, let's hit on Denny Hamlin's final lap. Brett, you predicted this outcome last week on door bumper clear, and T.J. tried to wheeze a lot of the question and start talking about Gremlins. So before I get to my 30 seconds, can we cue my clip from last week? Denny Hamlin, the Gibbs cars in general were stupid strong. We touched on that earlier.

And Denny is one of the best plate racers. I mean, we saw him kind of invent the tandem at Talladega. We've seen him win several sprint unlimited races. And I think him winning the unlimited and the 500 this year is the first time that's been done since like Dale Jarrett way back in the day. So no doubt how good of a race car driver and a plate racer, Denny Hamlin is. And now he's got a Daytona 500 championship to add to his portfolio. Yeah, I don't, not a huge fan of it, so, blah. I just about threw up in my mouth there a second ago, but it is what it is.

You can't take away from him. He is a really good plate racer. He ran good all week. He was fast all week, all speed weeks he was fast. He normally is. The Gibbs cars came out with a plan, and they stuck to it, and it worked out. I'm not, I think Matt Kenseth or Truex probably had a better shot at winning that race. They definitely made some mistakes right there, at least Kensington.

that at the end, he should have won that race. But part of it... Kenseth didn't have his normal spotter. I think that may have heard him off four. Denny made a hell of a move shooting the middle. By the time Matt knew it and came down, Matt got hit and made a heck of a save. But, man, Denny Hamlin made their move out of four

to get in position to win. Then he side drafted perfectly to execute that to beat Martin back to the line. Tremendous Daytona 500. We all have to wait 51 weeks to get another shot at it. And that's one race where it finished in second on back. You literally go home sad, you know you got to wait another year to have a shot.

So touching on what you guys were talking about, how do you feel about the Toyota as a manufacturer dominating the 500? The Toyota's, like I said, they had a game plan. They stuck to it, and it was really annoying to be stuck behind it. Wasn't a huge fan of being back there behind it, but they worked together. Five cars working together, five fast cars, and five smart drivers that stay dedicated to each other. I think it also might have cost them to win,

but hey man, they did it right. I mean, Toyota's first Daytona 500. They've sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into this sport in a relatively short amount of time to Americanize their brand. And what better way to Americanize a foreign brand than to be able to win the great American race? So despite what we may or may not agree with from a brand standpoint, for those guys from a marketing standpoint, home run,

Daytona 500 champions, big deal. I think they're dominating also costs, I think they also were afraid to kind of race each other at the end, except for Denny. I think Truex could have had a better shot at winning that race had he pulled out. I think their commitment to each other also hurt the guys up front. The guy that was aggressive won the race, and he wasn't afraid to make it a daring move that could have wiped out all four or five of them in one move. But I think it won them the race, and I also think it cost a few of them the race.

Let's talk about Daytona's quote-unquote slippery track. Brett, I think I saw you tweeting about this. You want to elaborate? Yeah, I mean, before the race, I basically sent out a tweet that said it's going to be hot, it's going to be slick, and we haven't been in these conditions in the cup cars since we've been here. And when you look back at the Unlimited and you look back at the duels, they're both run at night. The track is cool. The track has a lot of grip.

And when you start the Daytona 500 and it's 75 degrees with a track temp probably around 90 degrees, all of those oils are going to come up from the asphalt and make it super slick. And that's why we saw single car wrecks. we didn't have the big one so obviously those guys were on their peas and cues in the draft but we've not seen single cars wrecked yeah it was definitely slick like he said there's we we had we had some daytime practices but nobody it was the time nobody's going to go out there and tear up their 500 car in them we need to we need a solid race with 30 25 30 cars in it to to get during the day and them conditions more like a thursday you know nobody practices after thursday in a big pack you might run with your teammates five or six cars if that we made single car runs and it's probably hurt us in the long run but you know that's just a product of what we've had we had a slick track it was the same for everybody which is the good news the bad news is nobody knew what to expect so when the green flag dropped and we all got 20 laps on our tires and those guys are tied off and loose through the center and we see chase elliott

you're wrecking by himself you know kevin harvick making a tremendous save not to wreck that's a product of the track and in order for us to make it a better race we're going to have to have to have practice in real life conditions, race conditions. All right, the first off-the-wall topic is to T.J. How about Dale Jr.'s piano playing skills? Oh, his piano playing skills. I was more

interested in the vacuum cleaner that he had out. You know, you guess when you get to that stage in life, you buy pianos that play themselves, so that's pretty cool. But I was more intrigued that he was vacuuming.

I didn't know Dale and you played the piano. It was a Twitter video. He doesn't really play the piano. It looked like he was playing a piano, but it was playing itself. I missed that video. Then he got up and it was still playing.

But you would think he was playing, but he's not a piano player. Can he sing? No. I can't play our sing. I can dance and rap. You can wrap? The second off-the-wall topic,

I want to know who you think is the best country music singer of all time, Brett. Best country music singer of all time. It's a real shame Michael Jackson didn't sing country music. So since he can't be eligible, man, it's a hard, hard, hard choice to say George Strait

or George Strait. So I am definitely going on with George Strait. Love that guy. My country singing knowledge is really, really low. It's like the Westminster Dog Show knowledge for Brett. Yeah, pretty much. Or like Polly Sigh. I don't know a lot about Polly Sye either, but

I don't know. I really, um, Tim McGraw. Can I go with him? He's got a lot of, you can buy a CD of his, and it's got like 30 songs that you might know. Garth Brooks. Who the ladies like, Garth? Whoever all the hot women like this, who I'll go with. He's kind of like 90s, 2000s, right now?

Aren't you? Ooh. Did you hit the wrong one? Did he just say that Tim McGraw is the best country music singer ever? Dude, that's like embarrassing to. But I started with, I started with I don't know a lot about country. I don't. George Strakes the man.

I'm trying to play something. Does he sing? Some crazy dreams. Listen to that. You're right. You can't sing. God. That guy's a legend.

Great, great fast lane topic, Kristen. You came with something I knew something about. So wait a minute. Wait a minute. I've been in a country music video. Old Red. Anybody ever heard of that? Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. That goes on Twitter today. I'm going to find a picture. I've been in a video too, man. It was a Matthew Good video. with a gnome. When you just started been in a video, I got worried,

and I'm glad you came back to that. You saw them? Yeah. Hey, I've got the video on my phone, actually. I'll show you all. Of me? No. No, there's no videos of you on my phone.

No. Oh, man. You guys want to do word association? No, I want to ask him. What is word association? So I'm going to say six words and alternate between the two of you where you have to quickly say the first thing

that comes to mine. No thinking about it like last week. Brett, This is going to piss people off, but yeah. Sunglasses. Stevie Wonder. T.J. Spaghetti. Moms.

Brett. Pull. Danica. T.J. Highlator. Uh, nothing. I don't think of nothing. Banana. Oh, gee. T.J. Easy. Easy, Brett. You get excited.

T.J. Gray. This wall. Okay, that was great. Once again, a real ground pleaser. That was gray. What in the hell am I going to think about when you say highlighter? French polizade. I don't think of anything when you say highlighter.

I use highlights every day. But you don't use, like, papers. You're not like in an office, shuffling things around. No, I'm not shuffling. I don't shuffle. Thanks for wearing shoes today. Yeah, you know, thanks for wearing your, are you going to wear them this weekend? Probably.

Yeah. You better. Yeah. It's supposed to be kind of cold. These have a different kind of fur. Look at that. Holy gosh, dude. Yeah.

They're turned down right now. You got, wait until I turn up. Boots with a fur. My shoes even turn up. You got apple bottom jeans too. Yeah. It looks like you got a chihuahua right around your ankle.

I know. Fur feels good. All right. So I got a round I want to go on. And I think that T.J. May be in support of my ramp. My blood pressure is going up. Just thinking about it.

So during the Xfinity race, we're not allowed to. tandem draft. Tandum draft for you newbies means the two cars cannot lock together and form as one there's a 120 lap race and for 80 laps they allow Joy Lagano to be tandem with cars to make moves now that's not up to Joy to to be in violation of the ruler in compliance he's trying to go as fast as he can go which is what race car drivers do NASCAR's job is to officiate the tandem and we were told in drivers meeting we were told on the radio numerous times

You cannot tandem draft yet we saw Lugano used David Starr in the 44 for 15 plus consecutive laps That was on the outside of us the whole time. I was hollering about it They were going to lose the draft they were going to lose the lead draft Joey Ligano got tandem with him brought him back to the lead packet took him 15 laps to do it And we're talking David Starr here yes he pushed David Starr to 10th and then he moved behind out from behind David Starr and David Starr lost the draft Not to mention, like David Starr, that dude can't walk to his refrigerator without hitting something. And he's outside of us for all them laughs.

I was nervous as hell, man. So if I'm at a basketball game and the guy dribbling just picks up the ball at half court runs and does a layup, they call a traveling violation. So we either have to do away with this tandem rule and allow it or we have to actually enforce it. Because I was put a disadvantage at the end of the race because they allowed the tandem once again. Casey and the 22 were tandem. on the outside. Chase made the block, broke him up, which was what he needed to do. Then Lugano gets tandem with Chase, and they go out front and win.

You make it sound like this tandem costs you the win. The tandem definitely cost me a shot. I took the lead off of two, and tandem changed that outcome of the race. Now, they want to fuss about drivers changing outcomes of races by wrecking people. How about don't change the outcome of the race by enforcing rules? Either enforce the rule or don't enforce the rule. All right, Atlanta. What you got?

Top one or two, bottom three and four. That's where we'll be at. I don't know, looking forward to it. This is the first true test of where the gains have been made for down force in the offseason's coming up. Gibbs cars have been fast at mile and a half, so I expect them to be fast, but now it's going to see what everyone else has gained or if they've lost any. It's going to be interesting. Team Valance.

Hashtag Team Valence. Yeah, I'm all for it. That's what I used to do, too, on Sunday mornings when I started spotting. That was my job Sunday morning, put new valence on the car and stuff. You never let me touch the car. It's probably for the best. Yeah. It's probably, yeah.

Bloody Marys. Can I please get Bloody Marys on this show? Bloody Mary Bar. You can't? Bring one. Yeah, can't I? Make producer Josh do it. Yeah.

You want to flower for the top? I'm done with the two of you. All right. See you guys next week. Halle. Appreciate you this. The door bummer clear. Thanks to the guys at One Main for presenting this wonderful show.

And, uh, T.J. Man, I'll see you in Atlanta. Yeah. Thanks for coming out. Thanks, One Main. Thanks, Kristen, for coming by and being a co-ho. Come back next week, please. We can't keep making changes. We need co-hosts.

Josh, come back next week. We'll do. Okay. Hala. I'm out. Bye, everyone. At one main financial, we believe in the importance of community. That means partnering with our neighbors to reach common goals,

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