Door Bumper Clear - 365 - Bristol & Steve Park: The Purest Ass Kicking

Episode Date: April 14, 2025

This week on DBC, Freddie Kraft, Tommy Baldwin, and Karsyn Elledge are joined by former NASCAR Cup Series driver Steve Park. Fresh off of the Kyle Larson-dominated Cup & Xfinity races at Bristol, the group dives into the hot topics surrounding the racing over the weekend. But first, Steve Park shares some legendary stories about his time racing with Tommy, and the moment Dale Earnhardt asked him to drive for DEI.  The group later debates NASCAR's use of PJ1 on the surface at Bristol, William Sawalich's contact with Conor Zilisch, only one natural caution on Sunday, and why we shouldn't be upset about Larson's dominating race in the Cup Series. Later the group fields calls on Reaction Theatre, answers questions from the fans in #AskDBC and gives their preview for the long anticipated return of Rockingham this weekend.   Timestamps::49 Steve Park Joins46:00 Spot On/Spot Off1:13:22 Reaction Theatre1:21:26 Ask DBC1:32:16 DBC PicksWant more DBC? Check out and subscribe to the new DBC YouTube channel! Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. 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.

The following is a production of Dirty Mode Media. Should we just go back to being assholes? Yeah, that's what we are, right? Let's continue being an asshole. I am probably closer to Tommy than anybody else in this sport. What the fuck are you talking about? I think the two of you definitely have being assholes covered. Who can really be a bitch when they want to be a bitch?

That was the first person to come to money. I try to stay calm. Here's what pisses me off about that. What is that supposed to be? Exactly what I said. Who are you? Who? You.

Well, fuck it. I guess we'll just go back to being ourselves. Yeah, we'll buckle up because you might get you feeling so. Yeah, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to Door Bumper Clear. I'm Freddie Crafts, Spotted for Bubba Wallace, Dean Thompson this week. Hi, Thomas. What's up, Freddie?

How are you today? I'm okay. You still the competition director at Rick Ware Racing? So far. Yeah. Carson. What's up, guys? Off a fresh weekend at Cordell, and I'm tired.

But I can't imagine why you're tired. The race only ran about three in the morning. Why does that schedule so suck? Why is I stay up like 11, 12 o'clock at night to watch these races? It wasn't the schedule that had us up to 11, 12 o'clock at night. It was all the dumbasses that couldn't stop running into each other. It's every car's race. It's way past my bedtime.

It was past mine too. Imagine how grouchy I was. Let's be honest, the race started after your bedtime. Yeah. Yeah, honestly. It started at 9? I don't even know what time it started. But joining us in studio today, I posted this on Twitter.

I probably told him this in person at the golf trip many times. But my favorite race car driver growing up, I grew up in Kings Park, New York, East Northport, where Stephen grew up, was literally one town over. So had an attachment to him. My childhood was Steve Park, Mike U.Nitzko. That's all I cheered for. So welcome to the studio. Welcome to DBC, Stephen. Well, thanks, Randy.

Finally, you invited me. I've seen Baldwin on the show and obviously Carson for a long time. And all of a sudden I get a text from you. you're like, hey, you want to come on the show on Monday? And I was like, yeah, why not? It's about the time you invited me. Yeah, well, the thing was you were here last week dropping off cake. And it reminded me that you knew where the studio was.

Yeah, well, I knew where it was. Oh, you're buttering up. Thanks for that, by the way. Well, I'll tell you what it happened. It was Dale Jr. was talking on his podcast with Amy. And Amy wanted a carrot cake for her birthday. And Dale Jr. said, no, down south we do red velvet cakes. And she says, no, I want to.

I want a carrot cake. And he says, well, I can just get you a red velvet cake. So a friend of mine owns a bakery den over at Eats and Sweets in Moresville. And he said, I'll bake her a carrot cake, best carrot cake she ever had. I said, well, if you do that, I'll bring it to her. So he did it. And I brought it to her. And they were having their podcasts.

And I walked in. He said, man, I knew it was you. And he sees me carrying a box. He thought I brought him a present. And, you know, usually when people come here, they're bring Dale Jr. stuff. True. And I went over and I was walking towards him.

Then I went over and said, here I'm saying, here's your carrot cake. And she opened it up and she was like, oh my God. And she looked at Junior like, yeah, you are second. Totally, Pete, too. Yeah. Just talk about growing up. I mean, obviously for me growing up, I, you know,

our first time I saw you was driving the 81 car, Riverhead, I think. But your dad raced, your uncle race, just talking about growing up in Long Island. And did you start? I mean, I don't remember. Did you ran anything before? Did you run the modifies?

I ran the pro four car. It's funny story And Tommy knows probably quite a bit of it And I was racing go carts At Eastern Carding Association And I was probably 14 And we were winning a bunch of races And trying to move up in the divisions

Until like a modified go cart And And the president of the club said to my dad Who was a racer Said you get everybody's permission To let your young kid move up And we'll let him do it And so my dad went around

you know, kind of a crow, went up there, everybody signed a petition. They all signed it. And then the president of club said, no, we're not going to let them. And my dad said a few choice words and said, you know what? My kid can race a car at 16 years old, and you're not going to let them race in a modified go-cart. So it sparked my dad and myself into building our first car. And actually, I got a chance to run it at the Islip Speedway, which I grew up. that means how we grew up at and watched our dad's race and never really knew it was going to close.

And I got a chance to race there for a year and a half before it closed. And I'm pretty proud. My dad won the last race at Ice Sleep Speed. Mine too. Did he really? Yeah, right after your dad. All right. I didn't know that.

That's pretty cool, though. Actually, your dad won the last race. The figure race was the last race of the night. Yeah. So pretty cool stuff. And like I said, I got a chance to race. We lied about my age a little bit. No.

That's what he did. He still lies about his age. He hasn't changed. So, you know, I mean, but the majority of the racing I did was at Riverhead. And I always tell my true friends that call me Stephen. Yeah. Everybody else calls me Steve. And people I grew up with and family and friends always call me Stephen.

So that's when you know you're surrounded by good people. Well, I never called you Steve. Not today or not. I remember my dad always said Steve. lot of the things. He calls me a lot of things, but Steven's not one of them. Moving forward, obviously,

success in Riverhead, you moved up, you ran some of the, you guys had success on the modified tour at the time. I don't even know what was it. It wasn't, it was feather light probably then, I think. But then you get hooked up with Tommy. I mean, obviously you guys knew each other, but I mean, you guys had so much success in that the Shiba car. Like, talk, talk about those years and you two idiots working again.

Yeah. Well, you two idiots pretty much hit the nail on the head. But it's funny because, I mean, me and Tommy have known each other since we were probably five or six years old and both of our dads raced and we'd be, you know, as little kids, we'd be underneath the grandstands, you know, finding cigarettes and money falling out of people's pockets and stuff. Bark was smoking, I was. I mean six-year-olds smoked cigarettes.

Started the five years old. Actually, I was selling the cigarettes at the bathroom. When the guys were coming out of the bathroom, I was selling the cigarettes individually, so I had enough money to go racing. But we grew up, like I said, we grew up at Islop and watch a dad's race and, you know, always kind of wish we could get together and race. And Tommy always grew up as a crew chief. You know, he worked with his dad's team and ended up being a crew chief on his dad's team. And I grew up always wanting to drive and race.

And, you know, obviously we had a lot in common growing up on Long Island. And we kind of went in different paths. And when I started running the modified. tour I got my first opportunity in the and TG racing number one car with the United Characetyle and it kind of you know took my took my early success and turned into a tour success and and then through all that got the opportunity to drive in the 77 car one Thompson 300 guys like Tommy kind of was noticing hey you know what this this kid's got something going on he you know we knew if we could get together

it'd be lights out, and we got a chance, you know, to not only just talk about it, but then Tommy put it all together and put this team together and got me driving the car, and now it was time to perform and perform we did. So we unfortunately only had two years together. No, it was only one. Oh, the one year. You ran two years, but Bono and I left after the first year. And it was Bono, Ken Bono Manion and Tommy and myself.

And, you know, we had a great team looking back on it. And about a year after I joined the team, and I should probably tell the story how I joined the team. We talked about the day. Tell the story. This is way before marriage. So this is funny. Last night I told Tommy, I said,

should we tell that story? And he said, I don't know. I said, are you going to get in trouble? He said, well, it's before marriage, but I still might get yelled. I said, well, if Park brings it up, I'm not stopping. So you're – I said, you got it. Did you tee him up for this?

No, I swear to God, I didn't tell him. Well, that's why when I said it, I looked at him. You can tell by his eyes. You can tell the story. I come in complaining about a race. Please tell us it's okay. Please tell the story. All right, I'll tell the...

No, no. We're screwed already. Just tell it. Go ahead. Well, I was driving for TG racing in the one car, and we're having a lot of success. And, you know, Tommy's, you know, obviously the A-car, the Monaco car, and the Modified Tour was one of the... the top teams. And when Tommy got involved, being the crew chief, we got to the end of the one season

and we were testing somewhere together. He gets his story messed up. No, anyway, we're on an airplane. We were flying back. We were at PRI. We were flying home. Either way you were flying home. I know that part.

We were flying home. Yeah, we crossed past over the last those couple days, but then we were drinking. No shit. Yeah, but we crushed, man, you're going to come drive. I don't know, I don't know. So then we started drinking. And then we got on the airplane and we continued to drink. And I was really happy where I was at, you know, it was a growing team.

And, you know, we had some minor success. And it looked like we were going to have, you know, a lot more success. And Tom is like, you need to come drive for my team next year. And I was like, well, you know, we're talking about it and drinking and talking about it. And he's like getting more adamant. You got to come drive for me. You got to come drive for me. I was like, well, I'm not really sure.

He says, uh, so he said, all right, that's fine. So then he says, uh, we were talking about other stuff. He says, well, when we get home, I said, I need a ride. I said, you got a car there? He says, no, my girlfriend's coming to pick me up. And, uh, I said, that's cool. So, uh, we're again talking about going to drive for him. Still drinking.

And, uh, he said, uh, he said, man, I can't. away from my girlfriend to come pick me up. She's going to have a long black trench coat on with nothing on underneath it. And I was like, there ain't no way. I said, if that's true, I'm driving for you next year. That's how the bet went. And so we get off the airplane. We're stumbling off the airplane.

And we're laughing. And sure enough, his girlfriend's there in a long black trench code. High heels. Black heels. And I turned around. Tommy turned around. He smiled. And we high fived.

We said, we're going racing next year. That's how we started. And that's how the Shiba. And that's how the modified infamy started. I mean, I've heard that story a thousand times, and it never gets, it's never done. That's incredible. You know, it's funny. If you look at old NASCAR days, you know, there was so many handshake deals and deals done in bars and stuff like that, you know, contracts written on napkins.

So it's just pretty funny when you get down to the true nitty-gritty of it. Speaking of that and speaking of stories, you probably told a thousand times, you got to, to tell the people that haven't, you know, that aren't familiar with maybe all your background, the story about Dale calling you to drive the Bush car. Well, it's pretty funny. I was racing. Well, actually, Tommy was gone. Bono was gone.

And I was racing the last year for them and trying to get my opportunity to come down south. And, you know, I had numerous people calling me because I was just beating everybody's phone up and going to meet everybody I could at the racetrack. And I had gotten to meet Richard Chilgers through Bobby Hutchins, who was a modified guy. And when Mike Skinner was going from the three truck to the Cup series, I knew the seat was going to open up in the three trucks. So I was just hounding Bobby Hutchins to get me a meeting with Richard, and he introduced me to Richard. And Richard took an interest. And then he was telling Dale, he was like, you know, you got to watch this kid in New Hampshire. and there was a rain out.

So I think we were racing the modified, then the Bush North car, and then the truck. And we'd win a race, and I'd be like two minutes in Victory Lane. I'd run down pit road to get into the modified car. And then the truck series, which was sponsored by Penzel. And then I get a phone call out of the blue because back then, you know, we didn't have all these cell phones. And I had a digital answer machine at home. So the only time you check your messages is when you went home. So I go home from racing on a weekend

And there's a message on my machine And it was Dale And he was like, Steve Park, does Taylor and Hart You need to give me a call, I want to talk to you And he was, you know, you see Dale on TV He's not that nice So I'm like, I'm thinking it's a friend You know

Somebody fucking somebody playing a joke Somebody messing around And so I didn't call him back I was like I didn't tell nobody You know because I don't want people to say Hey yeah, I was us sitting in the bar How come everything starts with a bar? Everything's in the bar.

And then another week goes by and I come back and I'm listening to my messages. All of a sudden, see, bark, Delernhardt. What's wrong with you, man? Come back. And I was like, oh, shit. So I was like, maybe that is him. So I called my mom on the phone and I'm playing the answer machine because she watches TV and racing more than I did because I was always racing. And she goes, man, that's the hell.

You better call them back. so I called back and Dale Earnhardt incorporated to answer the phone and I tell them who I am and they're like oh man Dale's been trying to get a hold you hang on a second and put me on hold and now I'm sweating

I'm like getting ready to pass I'm like is Earnhardt going to be the guy that picks the phone up and it wasn't it was Ty Norris or Don Hawk and one of the guys and they're like man Dale's been trying to get a hold of you you know we want to send a plan up to come pick you up and I got to

people don't know the whole story but I got to tell it because it's so interesting because Randy Smith, my spotter. Cheap Randy. Cheap Randy. They said they're sending the plane up to Hartford to the FBI. You know where it's at? I said, yeah.

And I said, we're going to fly you. We're going to come pick you up, fly you to Richmond where Dale's testing, and then pick up Dale and then go back North Carolina. And then we'll fly you home a day later. So I tell Randy, I said, I need a ride to the airport. I said, Dale Earnhardt, send this plane to come. come pick me up he's like you're right he's like he ain't coming he ain't sending you no plane or nothing i'm like i'm telling you sending me a plane tomorrow i need a ride to the airport so he gives

me a ride to the airport the whole entire time thinking i'm a jerk he's like earnhard's not sending the plane and uh so we go to the airport we're waiting we're waiting and you know about 20 minutes late all of a sudden this learjet comes pulling up with the earnhard crest on the tell and i'm like man i said i told you told you to send the plane for me and two of his pilots got off the plane and I said yes sir he said you ready to go we got to take a leak I said hell no I don't think I'm gonna take a leak for a week and so then we get on the airplane and I'm in the back of the lear jet all by myself the two pilots are in the front I'm looking out the little

window and Randy's looking out the window of the FBO and I'm waving and he's waving like two little kids like we're never going to see each other again like Earnhardt kidnapped him He's never coming back. And sure enough, we went to Richmond, and we sat at the airport in Richmond, and I'm sitting with the two pilots, and I don't even know what they expect. Earnhardt's not there. And they're like, well, when he gets done testing, he's going to be here, and he's going to want to go. And, you know, Dale has always never waited for anybody.

So never met me before. And next thing you know, the door opens up, he comes in like Elvis. He comes in. He's like, parked. I'm like, yes, sir. says, come on, let's go. And I'm like, I jump up. I'm like, go where?

So I just follow them out to the airplane. And next of you know, me and Dale are sitting in the back of his plane. Me and Dale Earnhardt. Yeah. Are sitting in the back of his plane. First time you met him. First time I've ever met by ourselves. And I'm thinking to myself, okay, what am I going to say?

What am I going to do? How am I going to act? And I'm like thinking about my racing career and how to tell him. And he's like, so tell him. Tell me about how you grew up. And I'm telling him growing up on Long Island. He's like, well, what did your dad do? What did your mom do?

And I'm like, for hours, we're talking about my family and my parents. And I'm like, when are you going to ask me about racing? Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I'm like, well, you want to know a little bit about my racing career? He's like, no, I know all about your racing career. Yeah. I want to know more about you personally. Like your family, where you grew up, how you grew up.

So that was just the type of guy he was. He wanted to know more about you. And like I said, you know, your racing career is public knowledge. You know, I mean, it's easy enough to look up, you know, what your past was and what you did in the past. He said, I know about your racing career. I just want to know more about you and your family. Yeah, pretty awesome. I mean, Tommy, I'm sure you guys could talk about modified.

Oh, are we at a time? Yeah, thank you for coming. Yeah, I mean. You know, back then there was no social media. Yeah. And we were at the point of our lives. This is like mid-90s, right? 94.

94. We made a pack that we had to do everything we possibly could to get to the next steps. And we were going to promote ourselves because there's no social media. And we were going to promote ourselves as much as we can. But the only way we were going to be able to promote ourselves was to win. and we had to win. And man, we were fast right off the truck in the beginning year, but we had, for some reason, a lot of stupid things.

Failures, dumb things happen, engine failures, some stuff going on. Leading, should have won, I think we won the last seven out of 11 races on the tour, but we should have won probably 11 out of 16. I mean, we were fast, and I think we lost the championship to Tony Hirschman by three points. He was telling me about it last night. By three points. And the first head. at a year. We did nothing. We broke leading. I mean, leading break. Yeah, and just stuff. I mean,

I think we were on the poll at Nazareth for almost a second that year. And we were leading. We were gone in that race, too, to Spring Sizzle. I mean, I can go on, but we had a lot of success, but we did a really good job that year, making sure when we did have success, we promoted ourselves in the racing papers. We got with a certain writer that we made a pack with him that this is our goal and we need help. And he agreed to help us. So not only was the story about when we won in the paper, it was also a story about us. You know, so he did a really good job of help and promoting us back in the day. And, you know, at the beginning of the year, I had a choice. We sat down. We won the last race at Thompson. by three points, and we were, it was Bono and I sitting with the car owners of Sheba Racing,

Scott and Patty at the time. And, you know, we offered him a deal to stay. And, you know, we weren't getting paid. I mean, I was walking around with $3 in my pocket back then all day long, you know. All of those were. Well, all of us were. Well, Park was getting paid. He's always getting paid. He's always getting paid. But we, Bono and I, we had nothing, you know. So we had to, we had to make a, try to make a deal with them. him and he didn't want to do it. So I don't know how it worked out the next day or two days later, Greg Sacks called me. He says, hey, man, the new Miami race was getting ready to happen two weeks.

He said, hey, man, I need some help. Can you come crew chief my Bush car back then? Yeah, I said, yeah, I got Bono. I said, yeah, I only needs to get set up. And she's ready to go. So I said, all right, you know, I'll fly you down. I'll put you up in a good hotel. You know, Greg was.

Greg was... Superman. He was the badass in the 80s. You know, he was probably the most dominant modified racer back then. He obviously won the Fire Cracker 400 in the Cup race and always was, you know, still get along with them really good. But Bono and I went down there and worked our guts out for three days. The car was...

Didn't even have a crush panel, a radiated duck working. And we never... Still didn't get paid. Still didn't get paid. Yeah, still didn't get paid. And Bono and I, we didn't. didn't know how to do any of that. We worked on modified. So Bono and I, we looked at each other. He said, all right, let's get to work. We got the car there. We qualified sixth.

I think it was like 67 cars that day. Qualified six. And Bo and I was sitting in the hotel and I looked at him. I said, man, you know, we can do this. We can come down here and do this. So between the day car saying no and that weekend, come Thanksgiving time, I was just fed up in Long Island. I was sitting there with no money. You know, my dad was doing everything. He possibly He can, could for me, but, you know, he had, you know, I was old enough that I needed to start taking care of myself, right? Plus, our parents were racing, so they were funding their own. Yeah, I mean, it was just, you know, it was enough's enough, right?

You got to set him free. So I woke up one morning, and I called Bono. I said, I'm leaving at 4 o'clock tomorrow morning. Are you coming or not? And he's up in Massachusetts. I was in Long Island at the time. And he said, I said, I'm leaving. I'm going down.

I'm going to chase a dream. You're coming or not? And Bono said, I'll call you. you back. Well, four hours later, he called him back, all right on my way. So he took a ferry over with his pickup truck. He had a red pickup truck. He had two suitcases, a stereo, and two garbage bags worth of clothes. We loaded up my dad's trailer with some furniture and stuff with all his shit, backed his pickup truck at my dad's shop, which is ours still today, for sale, best offer, and we were gone. We went down to North Carolina with a dream, and here we are today.

And Stephen was at home going, well, what the fuck? I just lost my... We did a lot of work on the phone that year. You know, we did a lot of pre-set-up stuff on the phone. He had success there the next year, but it was time, you know, again, we were building our careers, and we just left it there, you know, a year early. And obviously, Bono's had a bunch of success, and Stephen did too. Tommy did too. Yeah, he's been so bad. Southern 500.

You know, probably the one thing that we miss is that we got a chance. I got a chance to drive for him when he owned his own team. What'd that pay? I think he still owes me, mommy. We were laughing about that during the golf tournament. I just paid back for me working for free for a year. I'm like, hell with him. See, it always works out.

I don't forget, you know. It's funny because it's like, hey, you know, what did that pay? Hell shit, you know, I remind you man. I think he still owes me. He threw me $100 last night. I almost fell on the floor. He said, that's the last one. He said, that's the last one you'll ever see now.

Yeah. I would have went last night if I knew Tommy was throwing money. The bartender's always like, same as always putting on 30's account. Oh, yeah. There you go. Oh, yeah. But I always throw them cash to make up for it. Then he broke my balls and I'm not, no more cash for you.

It's just funny because like Tommy said, you know, when we got a chance, you know, when they got a chance to go down south, I mean, my crew chief and my car chief all left the same time. and Tommy really, you know, didn't. I'm like, man, you're bailing on me. And he didn't bail on me. He just, we worked a lot by phone with setups and stuff. And I, you know, I had to step up a little bit more with the crew chief and make sure if we had issues with the car that we had ways of corrected. And I can't tell you many times I called him and said, Tommy, we're stuck in a hole here.

What do we need to do? And he'd be like, do this, that, and the other thing. And sure enough, we'd go on a win. So, yeah. And I mean. motivated me to go down south too yeah for sure you know if you don't if you don't risk all i don't care what it is if it's racing business or whatever somebody's doing you know the the people that you ever see that are really successful the ones that give up everything risk it all yeah risk it all you know

i mean it's like either either uh tom he always had a he always had a famous saying i don't know if he remembers this he says stick with me you'll be wearing diamonds and and think about it think about that Daytona 500, you know. I mean, the guys that stuck with them were wearing diamonds. And we worked really hard in the latter part of my career to try to get back together and race for Bill Davis. And we had a couple of sponsors that were showing some interest. But, you know, some things really just never really worked out. But, you know, that's the one thing that, you know, I wish that, you know, in my career that we had a shot to get back together and race at the highest level.

Yeah, it would have been fun. actually I think you finished 13th in the old TBR car at Daytona. Yeah, we're running seventh and the shock fell off the left for the shock. The shock wound broke. It was notorious for those cars for that mountain. It wasn't my fault, so don't give me that look. Was that the Richie Evans car? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That's fun. Hey, it's Dale Jr. And for the latest DBC gear, we need you to go to shop.dirtymomedia.com. We've got plenty of options, and we're adding new stuff all the time. shop.dirtymo.media.com. Tony Stewart, Rory Macquarie.

That's what you want to talk about now? Well, I mean, what happened? Let's go over that. What happened? Because you said you didn't want to talk about that. Because you don't want to talk about it. No, I didn't. I said I didn't want to have.

I said I didn't want to have. I need to fix the rope on your house. I want to fix my rope. Let everybody understand. This goes in theme with Park. I'm so. What? I don't know.

I have no idea where he's going with this. I lost. Tony Stewart. What are you thinking of weather? High of age today. I don't know where this is going. I don't know if a lot of people know, but Tony Stewart won an HRA race.

Top Fuel. So that means he has pretty much won everything. I mean, Rory McElroy. Yesterday. Completes the Grand Slam? Grand Slam. So there is only three people in this world that has kind of done the same thing in our sport.

And one of them is Steve Park. He has won modified. He has won a truck, Xfinity, and a cut race. You know who the other two are? Tony Stewart and Jimmy Spencer. Spencer. Those are the only three that have won

all those divisions. I won a pro stock race, too. Spencer win a pro stock race? I got that one-up on somehow. Jimmy's a great guy. To think about Tony Stewart, think about he has won in every major motor sport

except for Formula. And that's just because he'd ever run for him. You can think about that at all the things that he's achieved. Just it's awesome, man. And it's incredible. It's incredible. You know, Hirsch, last night, we were having dinner with Hirschman after the race was over, and he said to ask you if you remember, he spotted for your first dinner.

Was it Bush North, I guess, probably? Bush North at Nazareth. Yeah. And I tell you what, he was one of the best spotters. He was. He sucks now. Does he? Well, I think you are now, Fray.

Yeah, I'm going to. But, yeah, we always had an underfunded Bush North car. Yeah, it was a cheated. It was a white Osmobile, and everybody had the new Monte Carloz. Yeah, we ran the Oldsmobile because they had less body templates. And, you know, we'd build a brand new car and put an old dad's Oldsmobile body on it. And people are like, oh, yeah, these guys are suffering, you know. We were doing a few things that were making the car pretty fast.

But we went to Nazareth. Again, we'd run maybe seven races in the year. We'd go to Nazareth and scrape together a crew. And Herschman spotted for us. And we went out there and we were fast. And we ended up going on and winning the race. And we're all, you know, we all get hype up behind the wheel of the car. And we get yelling and cussing.

And he runs at this even keel. Yeah, just like a herzman. Yeah, like a herchman. You know, where he just, he just, you know, the soothing voice was just something that everybody needs when they're, when they're getting all hyped up. But very informative and just did a good job. And we laugh about it until today. Yeah. Last night he's like, you got to make sure he remembers that.

I said, I'm sure he doesn't forget. Oh, I don't forget that. What else did he want to remind us? I don't remember. Oh, his dad was also up to the ride. Well, his dad was the one talking shit. Yeah. But he wouldn't, you know, big Tony's never going to, never actually going to talk shit.

He wanted us to remind you that you guys lost that championship by whenever it was. Three points. But he was, Tony was, I was talking to Tony to drive the eight car as well. Oh, that's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He didn't, he didn't get on the plane with you that night. No, no. He paid his back. I think he would have fainted if he fainted if he saw a park scene. Yeah. I can't believe that. Oh, man. Anyway, we'll make you stop telling stories for a little while.

We'll talk about some racing. Bristol, Thomas. Bit of a snoozer. Yeah. You could say, I think. Larson led the whole race, it seems like. The thing that I think going into the weekend, I was kind of an unknown, we talked about this in the suite before the race,

and it was tires. You know, we went out there, practiced on Friday on Saturday, and we were courting tires in 30 laps, 30, 40 laps. I saw a lot. I knew Larson was in that first group, and I saw him, he ran about 30 laps and got out of his car. And they were still, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes left. I go, oh, we're having tire problems again.

And we kind of expected that a little bit with the cold temps again. But then just the drastic difference, we talked about it. It was 15 degrees hotter track temp when we started the race than it was the day before. And we had no issues whatsoever. I mean, on the crew chief side, like, how do you prepare for that? Well, I think everybody thought the same thing. I mean, the times backed off. You know, as soon as the Bowman set pace there, you know, he backed it up about half a second.

Then all of a sudden, the five car took off, went to the outside and inside and took the lead. took off and it was like, all right, I guess we're not going to have any issues. But, you know, Bristol and Martinsville, when the tracks are green, they cord. I mean, when we, if we have a, do a rain out at Martinsville and if we start with no practice, no qualifying, we are going to cord tires at Martinsville the first run. The cars, let me take that back. The cars are going to be really good at the end, will cord tires the first run. They will have some issues. And I think you've seen some of that on on Saturday. Track, you know, was kind of green.

They did race, but they, you know, put down the PJ1 and did the stuff. And I mean, at the end of the day, I still think the tire was too hard, especially the left side tire is too hard, which was making the right side tire wear more. You know, the softer you make the left side, the more energy it takes away from the right side tires. So they probably need to work on that a little bit, also to make the racing a little bit better. But look, I'm up there with you guys. There was shit going on around that racetrack, the whole race.

It wasn't boring. No, it wasn't better now. If you were there in the stands, right? The people in the stands, I'm telling you, probably enjoyed that race, because there was some passing. There was some stuff going on. But TVs can't show all of that, right? They can only focus on certain things.

But the race was good. I mean, it was a lot of stuff going on, especially after probably the, lap 100 when up you know at the top groove rubbed up a little bit um it got racy but you know the five car went or the 11 car and when they get in that that zone man they can they can make it turns out they're hard to be yeah i mean it's just good i mean what you can't be mad i like i love dominating races right when we go racing i love to kick everybody's ass that's what we do that's what we're supposed to do right and the five car did it and kudos to them

Kudos to the whole Hendrick Motorsports team for producing that. But it was a good race. I don't think it was, yeah, he made it a snorer, but a lot of stuff going on. The other thing, too, from a driver's standpoint, it's always fun to watch Carl Larson. And it's got to be his dirt background where he is so good at searching around where he's finding grip. And I mean, even like three laps ago, he bounced it off the wall and one and two. You know, he went in high and went over the cushion, you know, but that's normal for him. And like you said, and you see that everywhere we go that you have to, you know, homestead, Bristol, you know, everywhere we go or you're searching for speed somewhere.

He's always the guy you base everything off of. Oh, the five moved here. He's found it. You know, now you're trying to get your guy to do that. So, you know, to your point, that's the guy you. You know, that's the guy you... They can't, though. A lot of times you can't.

Especially homestead or, you know, like, places, like, there's obviously nobody. Redick might be the closest one, but I still think nobody can run the fence like him pretty much anywhere. Like, he just has that feel where he can carry so much entry speed and you just can't combat it. But yeah, what else? Xfinity. Well, guess what? Kyle Larson killed that one again, too. Truck race.

Truck race is pretty good, I thought. You know, that was an inter-race race race race. with the, they started, like you said, they start to race on, you know, green racetrack as it rained all day, and you saw guys cord tires at the end of that first one. I don't know we're going to get to some comments that Lane Riggs made, but, you know, the same thing.

Like, you just, like, it was, it's kind of an unexpected, you don't know what to expect there when the weather's, you know, temperatures down. Did they have a competition caution? I missed the first part of the truck race had a competition caution to 20 or 25. Okay, so he did the right thing.

But the funny that, you know, obviously, you crew chiefs, like, all right, we're going to give you a comp caution to see your tires. Well, I don't want to give up my track position, You know, so now you're... So they don't take it. Then you've got guys, you know, cord and tires. It's on you, though, right?

I mean, that's your decision. But, yeah, it's a fun weekend of racing, I thought. Carson, how was your weekend? It was something. It's always something when Dale comes to race with us. It's about 80 million more people there. But we had a good car count for going to Cordell for the first time. Cordial, my bet.

I'm never going to pronounce it right. We had a good car count. We had 60 cars between both divisions and a lot of new faces in the pros. but unfortunately, to be honest, both of our races were kind of a shit show. They're on my list to work. Yeah, I said before we started, I said, I'm probably going to nominate the car store for a shit show of the week. I love it. But yeah, it was fun, though.

Overall, good weekend, good race track. We only sent one into the watermelon field, so I can't complain to. Old Doug. Yeah, Doug complained about the charges. Did they charge him a park out there? Bishing about. See, just overall shit show. Let me ask you a question, because you'll know this.

What did Stafford used to charge the test? A lot. What's Thompson? I mean, now you're... A lot more than what he was getting charged on Thursday. I mean, look, I mean, that when you go test down here, it's the same, about the same price everywhere. It's $125 an hour pretty much.

I mean, they're not charging much, and they do minimums, two hours, three hours, you know, because they've got to get an ambulance if you want. Yeah. Safety. You have to have track personnel there. You got to have stuff to do. Yeah. I mean, and to everybody's the track and the car.

towards defense, Thursday's not one of their days. Yeah, you don't have to go on Thursday. We do a whole four-hour, five-hour test day on Friday and charge you $200. Yeah, I mean, I've seen that. I was like, well, I don't know what he's kind of complaining about. But I mean, it's, I mean, I remember like when I was with Partridge, it was like thousands of dollars to test that Thompson or Stafford or, you know, like. I was like, so when I saw that, he's complained about like 600 bucks.

I was like, that didn't seem so bad. But I guess, you know, some of the places are a little bit less than that. I guess we go. But, yeah, I had a little fun with that. And I like Doug Doug's a race car driver. And so I saw him when I saw that. Do you see the picture of him parked out there in the waterway? You see?

I don't know if you did. Your tweet was funny. So they ran at Cordille. And there's no backstretched wall, but there's a watermelon field right behind it. So the poor kid got shoved off the racetrack. And then there's just a picture of him out, like the overhead shot. He's just out there parked in the middle of this watermelon bag. So, but yeah, it was, it was, I like to torture people sometimes.

I think you need to start. those races like at 12 in the afternoon. Oh my God. That one, it's not, it was not the schedule, Tommy. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Every car's tour race doesn't end until midnight. That's bullshit.

Only one of the ones with the pros. I felt like the pro race. I mean, I know the end of the late model stock race got a little ugly, but the pro race. The pro race was like on. It was on over here. Somebody had Nick Payne and his iPad. And every time I looked over, the one wreck looked like Talladega. It was.

Way to go, Red. There was a lot of missed shifts in both races. Yeah, it's because people are playing restart games. So I'm like there's no way everybody all of a sudden just forgot how to shift. Let's get Kit fixing this, will you? Well, we're working on it. I'll tell you one thing I didn't want to point out about Friday night's race. Bailey Curry did a really, really good job.

Didn't get the finish he deserved anything. He broke a drive share after something. But that kid has always had a lot of speed and sometimes, you know, kind of doesn't always finish the deal. But like that, I thought he was probably really good there. Yeah, he was good there. And he's, I mean, but he was in position. thought to win that race. He lost the low track position on one of the restarts.

Heim got him. And then, you know, but then obviously he was running the third or fourth and broke a drive shaft. But he had a really good night. I was kind of pulling for him to win or close that deal out. But unfortunately, some bad luck for him. I don't know. Tony Stewart, top fuel on my notes here.

Jesse Love made his cup debut. Jesse Love did make his cup debut. He was really good. He qualified D.C., qualified better than us. He was, I don't even know where he was, 15, 17, something in that range. Yeah. and then he got stuck on the outside early in the race. He was in front of us.

Somebody kind of moved him up off the bottom, and he got stuck and just never was able to get down and went from like 18th, 19th back to probably, I'd say, 30th. And then he was just now, you're back there and you get lapped, and then you're just clawing, you know, uphill battle the rest of the day, which that place is just, you know, I mean, you get going, and it's hard to pass to start. You know, everybody's the same speed when we fire off.

And then the next thing you know, if you're back there, the last 10 cars in line, the leader's on your ass and, I don't know, 20 laps maybe, if that. Yeah, I mean, our goal was to make sure about it, the end of the first stage. We needed to be 26 to better in order not to get lapped. And I think he lapped up to, I think Priest was the lucky dog at 25th. So I was kind of hoping that the pace would slow down so that wouldn't happen. Once the five car took off after he got to lead, I'm like, oh, shit, here we go.

And he just started going through, you know, caught them guys and just went through him. Where'd you had up yesterday? I mean, I don't even know. I don't even know. I didn't know. I didn't contact with, who was that, SVG? Kind of bounce off the side. He didn't spun out.

No, no, I don't. Well, yeah. It was Cody's fault. I think he was guarded not to get to the outside and crowded SVG a little too tight and got SVG down on the bottom and caught that and got loose. And Cody made a nice save. But I was hoping, you know, the 01 was running really good. Corey was running really good.

I think he got up to like 20, fifth of 26th and uh that long green flag got him they they they gambled and tried to stay out try to catch a caution and it never happened and they fell way behind after that yeah it wasn't many cautions yeah it was funny because in the early stages that race even tie gibbs got up on the outside yeah and he went backwards you know he did a good job kind of losing maybe eight spots and muscle on his way back down to the bottom but then you see later on the race guys going to the top and moving forward yeah so So it's like, you know, rub it up.

Yeah, I think when that, when that, you know, PJ1, track bite, whatever it is, gets kind of activated right away in the beginning of the race early in the run. Like, it's funny because you want to pick the outside lane because the outside lane rolls for about a lap and a half, two laps on a restart. So you pick the outside, but then if you can't get down and, you know, within three or four laps, now you're, now you're kind of screwed unless somebody. Poor Riley, I felt bad yesterday. Which what happened to, what happened to tie was, you know, we all kind of teammates, you know, you all talk about it. And like, you don't, nobody wants to be stuck, especially early in the race when, you know, when, you know, happened to tie was the spring race last year if you ran the outside at all you killed your tires like you could not so we're all like we all got to get to the bottom right away so we had talked about

an r-haller with you know if anybody's hung out of line let's try to let them in and i think tie i forget who was back there maybe the 19 i can't remember who it was but like they tried to let tie in and tie just continued to try to move forward and then by the time they you know they got back to where the hole was they were like all right well if you don't want it i'm going to go on and and then tie lost a bunch of spot. So sometimes it's like just situational awareness. Like, is this one spot I'm trying to chase really worth maybe giving up 10 or 15? How do you handle that as a

spotter? If a teammate is creating a hole for you and then you're telling the driver, okay, drop back one more, there's an opening for you. And they keep going on the outside. Well, that's, for me, like, I don't know, Hirschman probably, I don't know how good, like for me and Bubba,

it would be, hey, dumb fuck, back up. You know, you've got to go back here. We're going to get hung. But, you know, and it's, it's, it's, for me, Stephen, it's like, you know, all right, Riley's letting you in, because Riley heard so that I was in yesterday to beginning of the race. And it's like, Riley's going to let you in. And Bubba knew yesterday he had to back up. Like, you know, like I said, it's situation awareness, both of us.

I got to know, he's got to know. Like, that means get the fuck down. But, you know, Ty continue to go on. Now, if that's me, I'm like, all right, Riley is letting you down. I'll give it a two couple stern, you know, hey, we got to back. You know, not saying just blatantly, we got to back up. And then the third one's probably just, all right, dumbass. Like, listen, you know, we got to go back there.

But, yeah, and I felt bad for Riley yesterday because it's Riley and Tyler, who are two teammates, our nose of tail. And Riley kind of backs up and creates a hole to let us in. And as soon as we let us in, Tyler goes to the next corner, pops him up off the bottom and knocks him in the doubt. I was like, damn, Tyler. I thought we were all working again. That was not the plan. Yeah, obviously. But it's, you know, it's a, I'll get into it more with the Lane Riggs comments.

But one thing I did want to talk about, John Edwards, unfortunately, passed. the way this week, John Edwards out, Pears, the same day, I assume. You know, I didn't know Al very well at all. I know he's a journalist, a lot of people. I saw Jeff Gluck, Bianchi, pretty much. Everybody on that side of things was commenting about how influential he was. But John Edwards was somebody I knew a little bit,

and just a guy that always had a smile, always had a joke when he walked past him in the garage, just somebody you always look forward to running into at the racetrack. Yeah, I mean, John was a really, really good guy. I mean, if you needed anything from Hendrick or any questions, asked you everyone would always go to him he would be that that guy that could get all information or whatever you needed and yeah it's a shame that happened and you know Al was a gentle giant you know he was still I think he was still writing for

Ordo Week magazine but he back in the 80s and 90s he was in the garage a lot he was a local I can't remember what local paper he was writing for but I think he also did some stuff for for the NASCAR Winston scene paper and stuff and I think a lot of people looked up to him back then and learned a lot from him. He was one of those writers

that asked if it was okay to ask you these questions before they asked you these questions. He gave you a kind of a debrief of what he was thinking and which allowed you to answer the questions correctly, right? Don't go off emotions.

He always to everybody did that. And he wrote some good stuff. We're going to miss him in our industry, both of them. Yeah, for sure. Last time I saw John was in Vegas a couple weeks ago. I mean, I saw him before. Last time I sat down and was talking to John.

And he was telling me his story. He had wants some money out there. You know, he did pretty well. And he went to the cashier to cash it in. And they were like, all right, well, we don't see where you won this money on the cameras. He's like, well, I was sitting. at this table over here the whole time. He said, I was over there for six hours playing.

I don't know how you don't have me on the camera. So they went through this whole big thing and they wouldn't pay him. Like he's like, they're not going to pay me the money. So he's like, all right, well, whatever. So then he just got, he said, I got out of line, got back in line with a portion of the money I won, went to the chain, you know, like a third, maybe a third of what I won, went to the cashier. Oh, no problem.

Here you go. Cashed it out. What? Got back in line with the other, the second third. No problem. He goes, I got all my money, but it's like, it's just a pain. And that was perfect. That's a perfect analogy of John.

He got shit done very quietly, right? He gambling won a lot of money to didn't see him. Then he was getting ready to get screwed, but he did it very methodically. I mean, that's a perfect analogy. Yeah, he was just, I mean, he was one of the best things. But yeah, so thinking about them, their family, everybody, I mean, they touched so many people in the sport. You saw it all day, you know, whatever it was, Wednesday or Thursday. But anyway, Carson, I guess we can.

Spot on, spot off. Spot on. Spot on Did you want to go first on this one? I think he's a whiny bit. That's what I think. Send it. Why me?

All right, spot on, spot off. Lane Riggs talking about the PJ1 says NASCAR really knows how to screw a racetrack up following the truck race Friday night. Spot on, spot off. Did you sound like you have something to say? Did you get to race when the line moved up to the top? Yeah, I guess.

Like after they kind of put the progressive banking in there, whatever? I didn't I Yes you did. But I never really race when they used the PJ1. Yeah, no, yeah. You know,

they started using that after I kind of retired. Which did you, which race, which bristle did you prefer? Like right around the bottom or when you were able to kind of search around a little bit? I mean, to me, it was always right around the bottom.

It was one of those deals where, you know, if you couldn't hold your car on the bottom and then try to, that's when you got the bump and run. Yeah. Not the dump and run, but you got the bump and run. and, you know, and then there was times where, you know, you didn't mean to run up off the bottom,

but you got in too, you know, got in too hard, and you car wouldn't hold the bottom, and you'd run up off the bottom, and somebody would just give you a little bit of a nudge. And when you got the outside, you got freight trains. So that was the old Bristol for the longest time. And when they went to the progressive banking, I know people did run the outside. And before the PJ won, if you got, if you had guys that would run the outside, they would actually start to put rubber down on the outside and then more people

would move out there but it would take these guys like a Larson which wasn't around when I was around you know that would that would just venture to the outside and commit themselves even if they were going backwards to the outside and then you get two or three guys up there and then next you know

another half a group would open up it used to be fun to watch Larson do this they would put the PJ one on the bottom and Larson we'd all run the bottom for like half of practice back when we practiced for like two hours and Larson would run the bottom, run the bottom, see how his car was, see how his car was, and then he would be the first one.

He'd move to the top. Well, there's so many marbles, because we're all running the bottom, all the marbles would go up the racetracks. So Larson would go up, and like you said, he would be a second slower when he started. He would go up there. He would start to get a little rubber in.

Then he'd move to the bottom to have all the shit on it, so he'd move to the bottom, get his tires cleaned up, go back up there. And just as he did it, the whole practice, he would see, all right, now it's a half a second. Now it's two tens. Okay, now they're the same speed. And once the top lane becomes the same speed as the bottom,

it's basically top dominant. You can't complete a pass on the bottom if the top lane is as fast as the bottom lane is. I mean, I don't think by the end of the race, depending on how your car was handling, I don't think either lane was, I thought it was pretty even. It just all depending on who was comfortable where they were running and what the car was doing. I mean, again, I think it was a good race,

but just got dominated by the guy that's really good at dominating reasons. Yeah. Our crew chief Charles let, you know, radioed it to me at one point. He said, all right, top started to come in. And I said, well, I get that. I said, but I see the one coming. The one was really good at running the top.

And I said, I see him coming. I said, but, you know, Chase, it was Chase right behind this. It was Chase Austin Dillon and then the one. And Chase moved up to the top because he saw the one coming. And as soon as he moved to the top, the three just drove by him on the bottom. And they're like, the top's coming in. I go, I can't, like, maybe for some, but not everybody. I said, Chase just moved up and I drove by.

So it's like, you know, it was just car dependent. What was good about, sorry to cut you short, but I'm not. You never apologize when you cut me off. No. Ross had an advantage because he started, it sounds weird, but Ross had an advantage starting in the back. So he got a chance to work the top without any pressure, people behind them, right? If somebody tried doing that from second to 15th, this really, really fast race cars, they're going to get you. But Ross started early.

Ross was one of the first guys to start a movement because he had to make, hey, he had to get up there. I mean, to start where he started and finish where he finished, that's pretty impressive at a place like Bristol, not, you know, of moving up like that. So there was a lot of different stuff going on that, you know, the people watching TV, you know, you got to notice what's going on. And I'm hoping the fans at the track, you know, notice that type of stuff, you know. but when that happened, a bunch of guys happened between 12th and 18th. Whenever they went up, they fell back five, six, seven spots. But as the track got going, it was pretty racing. And I like the Stevens point, I think that, like, you know, I prefer it.

I would rather we just lay the strip down on the bottom and all run the bottom the whole race because you see guys be more aggressive. Like, you know, I saw the end of the Xfinity race for us, especially, like the 88 had a bunch of damage. And you couldn't pass them. You know, he was just fast enough up top to where, you know, we were out there. We were way better than him, but just couldn't complete a pass because the top lane was so dominant at that point. Not, I shouldn't say dominant, but top lane was as fast or maybe a little better than the bottom. So it was hard to complete the pass.

In that situation, it's hard to be aggressive because if you're on the bottom, when you run the bottom back of the old school days, you can get in the guy, move him up to racetrack a little bit. And he just went to the outside lane and probably lost a couple spots until he can get back down. You can't be that aggressive when you're all running the fence because you get in the back of a guy. Now he's probably going to hit the fence. Now he's going to stop in front of you. So now it's... Jack up the hole outside.

So then it's... It forces these guys that be less aggressive because they don't want to hurt themselves. And it's just... I feel like the racing... I know Lane was upset because he won this race last year and he felt like... They quartered tires early.

They were the one of the ones. Lost a lap. He had a battle back. I don't think Chandler minded... His teammate Chandler didn't mind the racetrack being different. But, you know, so it's obviously case-by-case with Lane's comments. But listen, I think...

You say it ruins the racetrack. I think that that's what they need to try to get back to is getting us to run the bottom because I feel like it it's a more exciting race. You'll be more guys getting to guys, you know, knocking them up off the bottom a little bit. And I think it'll be more fun to watch versus just like we saw the game in the Xfinity race. I mean, guys had new tires, 50 lot newer tires and we're struggling to pass us. And, you know, it's just, I really wish that we get back to the,

and probably just my, it's probably a freezing cold take, but it's just my, I want to see him on the bottom and kind of rooting and gouging a little bit more. All right. Moving on. Topic two, William Swalich said he never got the message to check up on Saturday. To that point, Connor Zillich says every week, it's something with Swalich. Spot on, spot off, Tommy. I've seen a replay.

I don't even know how he couldn't see it himself. I mean, I don't understand. That was what I was going to ask, Stephen. Like, I know, obviously, spotters play a role, and it happens fast at Bristol. I mean, it's probably three or four seconds every straightaway, you know, so, like, shit happens quick there. But, like, and that's, you know, you're coming to a wreck. I know we're there to help you. But I got to assume that, like, you're not just solely relying on us.

It's more you, and we're just kind of a voice in the back of your head. Like you're using your own eyeballs a little bit, right? You have to use your own eyeballs. And, you know, bristle is so fast. I mean, you know, getting around there in 15, 16 seconds. And, you know, when the pace slows down, it kind of eases up a little bit. But, you know, it's, you know, it's still a fast race track. And as you know, it's, you know, you can't be driving off the nose of your car.

You've got to be driving at least two or three or four cars ahead. And especially when they get too wide and the outside groove opens up. But, you know, I remember, you know, when I drove, there was never noise and there was never heat. It was always like playing a chess game and watching what was going on in front of you and checking up yourself saying, man, those two are going to wreck. Yeah. And I don't want to be a part of that. So, yeah, you get your spotter. It helps you quite a bit.

And the one thing I can say about Bristol is that as a driver, we're always looking out ahead. We're never really looking behind. That's what you guys come in. And, you know, a lot of times you'd make a move. You'd see something happen and you'd move to the outside. And, you know, the spotter-driver relationship would be that you know the guy's not looking behind him, but you know he's got to make a tenth of a second decision move to the outside. So you just do it.

You just move to the outside. And a lot of times, spot will say, clear on the outside, you know, because seeing something going on. So the thing that drove me crazy with this, and I would have, if I was, so Nick Payne spots for Swalich, I would have quit. I already did quit. This happened to me a couple years ago with somebody else. And the second he blamed me for the wreck that obviously wasn't my fault at the time. I called my days. All right, we're done. I'm not spotting for you anymore. Because for one, Nick was giving plenty of information. Nick, I think got 10 or 11 check out or check out, you know, check, check, check, check, check, before William Pile. And I don't know, you know, but this goes back to what I think we talked about here last week with Hirschman, just zero accountability. You know, like I guess. I guess. it, whatever. Maybe you didn't hear Nick, maybe whatever it is. But, you know, somebody's got to tell this kid, listen, I know what you said there. You know, you didn't get the message that they were checking up, but Nick was telling you. So either you didn't hear him or now you're just throwing Nick under the bus for no fucking reason whatsoever. And somebody's got to get to this

kid and go, hey, listen, that's not right. And either, you know, I haven't even looked, but I haven't seen anything reposted about him going, all right, you know, what I said if he was wrong, my spotter didn't screw up, because that's what happens. And nobody, he's, nobody has the information that we have where we can go back and listen to the audio and say, you know, I saw somebody who posted the video, but, you know, so somebody just watches that interview and goes, God, Nick must be terrible. How could he not tell him that they were, you know, that was happening? And that's the shit that drives me crazy. Like, just have some accountability or or even after the fact when somebody tells you, you know, this is what happened. The guy was telling

you to check up. Why didn't you? Then have, all right, you know, it wasn't on Nick. It was on me, But to this day, now here we are three, four days later, and there's no, still no accountability. And I get it. He's frustrated. He's having a bad year. You know, this is not what they hope for. You know, you come out of ARCA, and there's a lot of comparisons to, you know, Conner Zillich and William Swalich. And you look in the standings, and Conner's up there, fifth and standing in the points with a win already.

And Connor's 23rd, I think he was, you know, and struggling. You know, there's a lot of things that go into that. Yeah. But I'm going to keep quiet on this one. It's first time for everything. Yeah, yeah. I'm going to be politically correct. It's just, let's especially this is for, like, unless you know for fact, then listen,

Bubba has, there's been times where I wrecked Bubba. It was a race at Vegas where we were, we were racing three wide and one, and somebody spun out off a two, and I was so focused in my binoculars on the battle trying to get him clear off of two that I never saw the guy wrecked. And Bubba saw last minute, it looked a lot like the Brennan Pool wrecked the other day, where, you know, Bubba saw him last minute, tries to yank the wheel to left, hits him with the right side door and wrecks bad. And I'm like,

that's 100% my fault, in my mind, you know, whatever. In my mind, I'm like, fuck that's, I fucked that up. I didn't see that guy. I should have done a better job. And after the race, I think it was even yoke him. It was like, you know, you're spotted didn't give you the man. And Bubba's like, no, that's on me. I should.

Like, so like, don't go on TV and blame other people, even if it could be their fault. Don't like, just, whatever happened, happen, move on. But like, the second you go on there and start taking, you know, putting blame on somebody else, especially on your own race team, it really,

it drives me crazy. Yeah, he's, there's no women. He needs to slow down a little bit. He needs to understand that now he is driving a car that has a lot of equal talent, not only equal talent in the field, but equal money.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Oh yeah. So there's no longer, you know, dominance of money.

He, now it's talent. You can put all the, When you get in these three series, it's where it levels out. All levels out. So he just needs to slow down a little bit and, like you said, have a little bit accountability and work a little bit harder at his craft instead of blaming others. And the one thing you've got to think about it, every car is got a steering wheel, a brake pedal, a gas pedal.

So like when you run into somebody, well, you know, you could always get off the gas. You could always get on the brake. Like if you know somebody's coming down and you might have four inches in on them, You know he's coming down. You know, you guys are going to wreck or you're going to rack. Yeah, it's up to you. You know, there is a thing called a brake pedal that you might, you know, give up the spot, but there's, you know, 300 laps left. Yeah.

So, you know, and then just like your point, you know, to be, man, just step up, you know, it's nobody's fault. You're in there by your shelf. You know, I mean, all people doing around you're helping you, your crew, even the people back in the shop, you know, your spotter. So, you know, as a driver, it's, it's. It's really in your hands. So you got to take responsibility for that. On the same breath, because I missed it on the show sheet. What was your guys' perspective on the Brennan Poole, Sheldon Creed accident?

That was my guy's fault. We were coming into the stage racing, I spot for Dean, obviously, and we were racing Jed Burton and Sheldon for the Lucky Dog. And I had just told Dean, I said, you know, if you give these, they're right behind the leader, they're racing their ass off. I said, if you, it was hard to pass, like we said, We were kind of locked in behind those two. Really, we were much better than them, but just couldn't.

Dean was getting a much better run through the center of the corner and just couldn't complete a pass. And I said, just give these guys a couple laps because Jeb Burton and Sheldon Cree, the chances are they're probably going to run into each other. So if you, like, they'll take care of themselves maybe. And then the next corner, he just got a good run. He dove into three, gets in the back, drive straight in the back of Sheldon, turns him around. And I thought we were going to be fine. And it did take, for whatever reason, we were having a, we've trouble with hearing NASCAR this year. has been the first caution the other day, even the flagman didn't hear them.

Like, there was a debris caution right away. I think it was Harrison Burton had a flat or something. I think he threw some debris out. And now knowing that we have hard time hearing them, that the, you know, I'm watching the flagman. And next thing you know, we're all checking up. And the flagman hasn't even put the yellow out yet, but the lights are on. So it's like, you know, but so in this situation, I don't know exactly when the yellow

came out, but it seemed a little late after the double zero spun. And that we talked about, you know, especially, you know, maybe you can talk about how the banking is so much. that when you're in the corner, you can't really see very far down the straightaway, right? Yeah, it's tough because you're really looking at the top right part of your windshield because of the banking. And the banking is so severe there that it does hinder some of your view. But again, you know, getting a chance to watch some of the replays on that. You know, we always had a saying back in the day where it's like, you know,

costing turned to, well, I'm trying to get there as fast as I can. You know, it's like, you know, when you see something going on or you see smoke. Yeah, you start passing everybody real fast. Something's happening. Slow down. That's a blind spot right there, though, too. And again, it happens so fast, but, man, I tore up that car. I mean, it destroyed that race car.

Rear-in housing laying on the front stretch. And Poole hardly makes any mistakes. He's a pretty good race car driver. He does a good job of what he's driving, and that team puts an all-out effort of the funding that they have. And, you know, he's always putting nice programs together. Him and his group really do a nice job with that. I hated to see that because you know that really put a denton for what they had going on. I thought he was on a really good trajectory for a while there, but he got kind of caught up in that DC solar mess at Canassi.

He was, you know, on the verge of winning races, he probably won. There was a Taleday guy. I think he probably won or was close to winning. They ended up going back on the caution and taking it away from him. But, you know, but yeah, it's just like you said, it's like, it's hard. He's running the top. He's coming off the top and there's a car sitting. And it really wasn't, I mean, there was nowhere to go.

I don't think he could have cleared him high. He tried the last minute. He was getting the information. Brandon, I'm sorry, Brandon Lyons is his spotter. And he must have said bottom about 5,000 times. And it's just, you know, it's just, like you said, it happens quick. It's literally, if you break it down 15 seconds, it's, you know, three or four seconds, you know, each straight away in a corner. You know, it's, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not.

All right, there was only one natural caution on Sundays. 500 lap race at Bristol, spot on, spot off. Who did I ask last time? You? It doesn't matter. Yeah, I mean, whoever you feel, whatever you feel like. Let's ask you.

What do you think? Honestly, this is actually a good question for you. And it's not just this, this race, but any race, like, that kind of gets strung out. Like, how's that watching it on, like, we ran whatever the last stage was, 230-something laps on the green. Yeah, well, I mean, kind of like Tommy said earlier, like on TV, it is boring to watch

because they can't cover everything that's going on on the racetrack. But, I mean, when you're there and you see it in person, you're in the grandstands, there's other shit going on. There's other things to watch. So, I mean, I'll be honest. I didn't get to catch a lot of it on Sunday because I was driving back from Cordial, but I think I got home in time to watch, like, the last stage. But the cars tour, like, if you have a, if you have a, yeah, but you still, you still had a,

What is it, is it 45 laps? Yeah. You know, so they run green for 45 consecutive laps. They throw a caution. Is that something you, like, you'd like about the cars to or more so than, like, we ran. They don't need that. They have their race is longer than in a cup race. That's where it kind of started.

I think that triggered the shit show at the end. Yeah. I mean, yes and no, right? Because, again, there, I mean, especially this weekend, there, there's a lot of good racing going on everywhere on the racetrack. And ours didn't really get too. strung out where they were running around there not racing side by side and it wasn't fun to watch. So I mean, yes and no, sometimes I think for the entertainment factor to bunch them back up and

for the fans in the grandstands, you know, they might appreciate that. But on the topic of this weekend exactly, no. You know what I love. I mean, being a fan watching TV, well, why don't we put it out to the race fans? Because how about when there's a lot of cautions and like NASCAR throws too many cautions? Yeah. Well, now there's none or one. All right.

So was that a really good race because it was not a lot of cautions? Or was it a horrible race because it wasn't a lot of cautions? And then when there is, why is that such a bad race? Exactly. It can't win. So I'm sure this is for both of you, really. But I'm sure there was really dependent on how your car was running. But like what it's like, how did you feel about, I mean, you live the era of the phantom debris caution that would happen.

And, you know, it's before stage breaks. We had stage breaks before. They're just going to give me points. But, you know, like, if you're, obviously, if you're running good, you just want to keep going. But, like, would you prefer a race? Obviously, you don't want to race that's ever caution marred. But if you're on a 200-lap run at Bristol, you just keep running, like, no matter how you're running? I mean, I always love to race.

And, you know, the cautions, you know, cautions, breed cautions. That's entertainment. You know, that's television. That's good for the fans. bunching the cars back up again. I see why we have these stage breaks and stuff now, but you know, the old era

of Richard Petty leading the race by, or winning a race by like three lapses, you know, something we're never going to see anymore, but I was always a true believer, if, you know, if you brought the best car to the racetrack, you would want it to stay green as much as possible, especially

like Larson. Yeah. You know, had the best car out there. Even when Carson's one caution did come out. He still showed he had the best car. So there's no win. I don't think there's no answer or there's no win to what you like what you don't like. But I was like the less cautions, the better the race was because there's less cars crashing. What do you like, Freddie with baseball? Do you like to go nine in and three hours and 15 minutes, 12 to 10 game or a zero to zero game? What do you? Yeah. I prefer probably a, a,

pitcher's duel, to be honest. You know, I prefer just like, I say on here all the time and I get shit for it. Like, I just want, like, the purest form of anything. You know what I mean? Like the, like, I rather that race yesterday. I know it's, Megan on the way home was like, I can't believe they didn't, you know, find a way to throw a caution. I'm like, I'm glad they didn't. And we were struggling, you know, like, we were backing up at that point. We were 18, 19. Just, I mean, I really, really wanted a caution when we were, we stayed out and we're running third. And I'm like, we could flip the whole script right here. But like, at the same time, I don't want a bullshit caution. I want, you know, somebody get, and I told Bubba this early in the race, you know,

we were obviously all concerned about tires being in the race, and Bubba started to use, like, a little bit of a diamond line, and we were concerned about running the outside again because nobody really knew what was going on. And I said, listen, the way this is playing out in the beginning, nobody's racing each other. Like the second you get underneath somebody, they just lift and try to get in line, we're not going to have a caution in this stage, the way this is going. Unless the leader gets there and some guys get a little rambunctious around the leader, I said, you know, we're not going to have a yellow here. So you're going to have to make these tires last 120 laps and this was like, you know, 60 laps into the run. And that's just kind of the way

the whole race played out. You know, there was no, and maybe that's a product of, you know, we always say these cars are a little too easy to drive. I mean, we saw more spins in qualifying than we saw in the race on Saturday, on Sunday. So it's just, you know, it's, but I was, I was 100% fine with it, even though we're not having a great day. Like, I'd just rather, let me talk about, our caution's a caution. And if it's not warranted, don't throw it, you know, and I was, and you're kind of the same boat as us. Obviously, you know, wanted to caution sometimes, strategy-wise, but you're struggling a little bit, but I think that you don't

want just a, you know, I don't want to throw a caution every hundred laps just because we might make it a little boring. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, that was the purest ass kicking. It was good to see. Yeah. You know, somebody doing a great job. That was an old Nolan Ryan, no hitter there, right? Yeah. Well, that kind of leads us

into our next spot-on, spot-off topic. Kyle Larson led 688 of 800 laps on Saturday and Sunday. And much like Tommy has said multiple times today, Denny Hamlin said, we should not throw mud on the racing because someone goes out there and dominates. Spot on, spot off Tommy. Yeah, I mean, that's what racers do, man.

We go to race and go to win. I mean, I don't have any issue with it. I don't. I mean, just because I wish the fan from the TV to the stand could see. Yeah. It was. And maybe that's something that's, Maybe that's something to talk about.

I mean, TV covers the top five guys, maybe, top four. Yeah. You know, and there's other battles going on all the time. And, you know, people said, well, that was a boring race. Well, maybe it was boring watching it on TV because they were just covering the leaders. You know, it would almost be something to think about. And I'm not a TV producer or nothing. I thought she.

But I'm saying, it would be nice to scan back, especially when there's no cautions. Yeah. You know, and it's like a rain delay. Yeah, I mean, we're looking for things to talk about. Well, let's go back to some other races that are going on for 20th. I always say the best race on the racetrack is the Lucky Dog race. If you just go back and watch that. Did you see Priest?

He got the Lucky Dog three times in the road, you know, both the caution and both the stages. But he was a nemesis to the five car. I mean, drove his ass off to get that Lucky Dog and got the 71 at the end coming to the stage break. But, yeah. That's the battle. I mean, that's always a battle. You know, if you're ever looking for a battle, just find out, figure out who the Lucky Dog is

because those guys are racing their asses off. And that's a good point. That might be something that, you know, the TV should start to look at. Especially when there's a long green track. Because it was with the five every time. The thing was making the Lucky Dog. Yeah, the thing that I, like, for me getting to scan around a little bit,

you know, we're kind of running the bottom and we got a little bit of gap and stuff. And you look up and just watching Larson carve through traffic is, it was unbelievable. And he was, listen, he can say whatever he wants. That son of a bitch is on a mission to lap the whole field on Saturday. He was asking, you can hear his radio, he's asking how many do I got a lap down,

how many more to go? And thank God for stage breaks, because if we didn't have stage breaks in that race, he would have lapped us all. Yeah. Like, it was not going to be... He panicked the wall with three to go. So was he to ease up the last couple laps?

I don't think so. You know, I'm like, man, this guy's going to throw it all away. Yeah, it's, you know... He just did a phenomenal job. And the thing, you know, I saw people, you know, this car, this car. How can't you blame the car? You know, you're talking about the boring race or whatever.

He did the same shit on Saturday. He did the 1-0-03, right? And that's the, you know, that's the, you know, the car on Saturday is the one everybody says this thing puts on the best race ever. And, you know, this is the best car. I don't know why the cup car, this, that. He, listen, you don't want that guy in that expanding car because we might not ever win again. You know, he said this a couple weeks ago and he said, you know, I could, I'd have 50 wins already if we, you know, running the last generation car. But, and listen, the other thing I want, you know, we talked about this last.

We have a couple weeks ago after Martinsville. Everybody's like, we need the cup guys back in the Xfinity races. You sure? You sure you want that? Yeah. Because this is what you're going to get. I mean, that was Saturday. I mean, it was impressive yesterday.

Danny could at least kind of hang with him a little bit, you know, have a straightaway back or so. Saturday, he was in his own world. That was not even, I mean, it wasn't a race on Saturday. You always got to talk about Denny. Yeah, he's good. Denny's great. Danny's great. Oh, actually, fuck Danny.

Oh, you know. I don't even know. I don't even know. I don't even know what he was talking about. He called me Frat Freddy the other day in a group text. And I don't even know. I don't know if he was saying I drink too much, which is possible. But I don't really drink that much.

And then, or he just misspelled fat. And either way, either way, he can kiss my ass as far as that. Just to clear that up. I mean, he's still great because he still signs my checks. But, you know, that text was unneeded, I think. There was, how about Denny when he won the last two at Bristol or three? He had won the last two, yeah. Well, you know, Kyle.

O'Arson was a nary one. Would have won that one. Yeah, exactly. And then three in a row. The last one, didn't he? Yeah. Oh, so, Danny won the last two springs? Spring and fall.

Oh, I got you. Oh, I got you. Between the two of them, it was five to last eight. Not bad. Carson. Anything got you? I mean, I know you're a little fired up about your weekend. How was the rest of the week?

I actually do have. Uh-oh. Here we go. And it does go along with Cordial. I got called a bitch by a fan in the grandstands this weekend. met you. I got to get this guy's name. Shut up, Tommy.

We get his resume. It was something else getting you fired up. Oh, the stage breaks. It was, I think it was 15, 16 laps. And listen, they were doing it on purpose. It wasn't like, you know, they were just lost. They were doing it on purpose to burn laps because of the tire concerns. But it was unnecessary once we saw the end of the first stage.

I seen some guys maybe had a little bit of courting at the end of 120 lap run. but that was just because we talked about the great race track started off fresh. We did it last year once we saw all the shit show, and I understood that because now if we kept going, we were going to run out of tires. There was no concerns of tires after we got off the first stage break, and we just continue to do it all race long. It just seemed unnecessary to me, and it was annoying, I would say, slightly. All right, moving on to our normal procedure. It's time for reaction theater where fans can call in and voice their opinions from this weekend's race.

Well, I guess Hung Money had that thing Wrapped around his race because he actually won this one. Of course, if I had rubber that good, I wouldn't have any kids. Wow. Somebody called in, you know, Larson's nickname is Young Money. And somebody called in last year and said, he must be Hung Money because he steps on his dick everywhere. Because he kept spinning out.

Shit. So now we're back to Hung Money. You won the race? Thank God. Fox zoomed in real close so I could count the dots on. Kyle Larson's car instead of watching the race between Ryan Priest and Michael McDow. So he's talking about zooming in on the leader instead of kind of panning out. And I think that's one of the things that we struggle with.

We get so zoomed in. First of all, you lose all the sensation of speed, I think, the closer you get to the car. And then you lose the peripheral of, you know, what's going on around the leader. And like you said, if you would have zoomed out a little bit, you would have caught that battle between Priest and McDowell for the lucky dog. How about that finish, watching them to swap the lead back and forth, come down to the final moment, that was epic. To see Rory finally win the Masters was just, that was so exciting. So excited.

I had no clue what he was talking about for a second. I was like, I knew it was going to be some kind of wise-ass idea. I knew it was like, oh, you know, he's either going to go one, but then I realize his master's. That was an epic finish. Epic. Yeah. We're going to Ireland on Wednesday, and I was like, I hope they don't burn the whole country down. Dugger informed me that maybe Northern Ireland, and we're heading, there's not exactly, they don't get along maybe.

So I think we're heading would be fine. Thanks for the invite. Hey, Meg surprised me. I didn't know who's happening. It's a birthday. No, we're just going. We were supposed to go around Christmas, and we failed and went somewhere else, so they surprised me with this trip, told me on St. Patty's Day. Scott home from the fastest bristol race I've ever seen here, Denny, talking about how track temperature seems to be the tire problem.

Somebody needs to call it in NHL. Freddy, call your buddies over there. We need to get that Miami outdoor game in January where it's 80 degrees technology to keep the ice cold on the Bristol surface somehow. Maybe I have to keep the track cold if tires wear out. Yeah, I mean, Andrew brought this up in our group text last night. I thought it was a good point about, you know, maybe it's, you're walking a fine line because, because talking about moving the race up. Is it beneficial to move the race up in the schedule where it may be a little colder

and the track tank will be lower so you see the tire where you see everything. But then you get into the fan experience of does the fan want to be sitting in the grandstands when it's 40 degrees outside? And, you know, like that race on Friday night was kind of miserable for the fans. It was kind of damp and wet and 30, 40 degrees, you know, whatever it was that night. You know, so it would definitely, it's, we talk about all the time, you know, hot slick racetracks, you know, are the best race. a lot of times, but then you also have a fan sitting in the grandstands and it's 110 degrees.

You know, so it's, it's, you know, you got to weigh the on-track product with the overall fan experience sometimes. And it would be, it would be better racing if the track was colder. I shouldn't say better racing. It would be more of a entertaining race, a bit of a shit show if we were just wearing tires out like we did on Saturday. But, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't think you want to put fans in the stands when it's 30, 40 degrees outside. Oh, well, the track might, beer sales would go up. Yeah, I was going to say personally, I'd rather freeze and watch a good raised and sweat and be bored. That's true.

We have one more. Freddie, you talked about on Twitter. If anyone has any good C-Park memories and this guy can't call them. Can we play this one? We can. Oh, no. Steve, huge fan of yours, man.

Got a quick story for you. I was laying in bed one night in elementary school. Mom came to my bedroom. Hands me the phone and says, here, if one wants to talk to you. I'm like, okay? It was you. On the phone. My grandmother's phone. You met her at a Longhorn Steakhouse bar

after the Atlanta race she was talking to you she had a grandson with a big NASCAR fan you said I want to talk to him and so she called me talked for a few minutes became a huge 20 words after that

and I've been following the sports since That's cool Yeah that's pretty cool And you know Sort of my personality was You know I was always amazed I mean I grew up

You know on Long Island And you know Never asked to be You know Rich and famous Just wanted to be one of the best race car drivers and you know when when people like you know um appreciate what you've done in your career it's uh you know people come up to me and say well my son's your biggest fan and like

where's he at well he's home right now i'm like call him up and they call him up and i talked to him on the phone i mean what's what's the big deal it's so easy to take five minutes of your time takes five minutes and i always love to tell the story because he brought up the steakhouse and uh was that a Steakhouse in Florida. And as I'm sitting down with my family and my son, I'm looking and I can see this guy and this woman and they're looking and talking. You know, I'm looking over at me and talking. I'm like, oh, race fans.

And next thing you know, they get up and leave. And we finish eating and then we order dessert and we're eating our dessert and stuff and we're talking, taking our time. And we paid a bill and maybe an hour after they left. You know, we get done paid a bill, walk outside desk, sitting outside on the bench. And I'm like, Mr. Park, we're waiting for you to come out. I'm like, are you kidding me? You've been waiting here for an hour?

I'm like, why don't you just come over and say hello? Or bought him all by my dinner. Yeah, yeah. Because you're so cheap, you would have been happy. I wouldn't order my dessert. Yeah. You know what I mean? But it's just so funny because then, you know, you stop and take pictures.

He had in his head they bought him dinner. That's why he ordered dessert. He never gets dessert when he's paying. When they brought me to bill, I was mad. Yeah, exactly. He's like, them some bitches didn't buy. But it's just funny that, you know, people think of the race fans as, you know, being bothersome. And they're not.

I mean, I mean, how respectful is that? And then wait for an hour? Yeah. You know, and it's amazing. Like, somebody would wait an hour for you to come out just so they could say hello. And I'm like taking pictures and signing stuff and talking to the kids and, you know, making an experience that it takes you no effort, no time, no money to do that. Yeah. I mean, if you see me out and you're waiting to say hi, don't just come say hi, because it's no telling when I'm going to leave.

Yeah. How often is that going to happen to you, Freddie? It happens often a bigger house. And then if I call you fat, it's P-A-T. It's P-A-T. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're bad on that show, man. You're kicking it on the show.

That's fat. You know, Megan last night we were driving home and she said, you know, you can tell Stephen that he broke my heart. And I was like, uh-oh. Like, but Megan's dad, so Megan's dad, was Donnie on the eight car? Were you guys? Yeah. So he was a tire guy.

He was a tire guy. and she said, you know, you know, everybody, everybody in the world. And her mom, Carol, she's, she works on a lot. She was a spotter. Scorer. Yeah. She said, you know, everybody in the world, Stephen announced he's moving North Carolina, he's going to drive the A.C. Delco car car.

And everybody in the world, I mean, back on Long Island, it was like, you know, we knew it. You know, one of our guys made it. We're going to, we're all cheering together. And Meg's like, I was heartbroken because that man, he wasn't driving the eight car anymore. I was like, so I'll be happy to tell Stephen, you've ruined my life's, my life's life when she was 12 years old or whatever it was. Like I said, we've known, I've known the,

Her family and Carol and Don, and, I mean, for so many years. And, you know, we all grew up in New England racing together. And, you know, what a great family. And somebody, you talk about families that dedicate their lives to racing. That's all they ever wanted to do. And that's all they're probably still doing even in retirement. I know they're supporting us. He came with me, Donnie came with me to Rockingham test.

He's like, can you mind if I just ride down and hang out with you? I was like, no, absolutely. Come on. So he just, he loves it. So, you know. Well, to leave an audio message 24-7, you can call our number at 704-802-9-572, and we'll play the best ones each week on the show. And it is now time for AskDBC, where you can send in your questions on X each week using hashtag AskDBC. Jessica would like to know everyone's thoughts on NASCAR going back to Rockingham.

For me, obviously, Rockingham. My favorite story about Rockingham recently is, have you heard this about Casey Kane? You know, Casey Kane's going back to run. Yeah, yeah. He's running Richard Childers Carlin. this week. So he's on Dale's show, or he told Dale this before the show, I think. So he goes, he signs up for the race. We had a test about, I don't know, a couple months ago. And Casey shows up and he goes, when did they pave this place?

He thought it was going to be old worn out Rocky Hammy. He's going to kick everybody's ass again. But now they're going to be hauling ass at this place on Saturday. It was Friday and Saturday, I guess, the races are? Friday's a truck race and Saturday's expense. So I got to, with Casey, when we got together there, and the week leading up to Rockingham, I gave him an egg. Put him a little gas, but I said, I want you to carry this. Every time I see you, wherever I'm at, wherever I'm doing, I want you to have this egg in your hand or in your pocket.

And, you know, Casey, he's so quiet, he's so bashful. He looked at me like I had ten heads, you know, he's like. Like a real egg, like. Real egg, real egg, not an Easter egg? Nope, nope, a real egg. Hard boiled? Nope, no, not a hard boil, a real egg. What's a trick?

And I said, I want you to hold it. He's like, why? I said, because I am going to remind you that with your gas pedal at Rockingham, the whole race about the egg and the gas pedal, and don't break it. And he's like, you know, okay, okay. So all week he held on to that egg, all week. And it was about 20, 30 to go. And he's second, right? his battle in Kenseth for the win in his rookie year.

Finally it was like three to go and I'm like, would you take that effing egg out of the gas pedal? And I think we lost by, I don't know, half a bumper or something. But yeah, that was, every time he see me, he showed me the egg, you know. It was pretty cool. Obviously, Rockingham has a lot of meaning to you.

That was a probably, I mean, is that your biggest cup win, probably? I would have sort of almost memorable, I should say. No, I think Watkins Glen, only because Dale was still with us. Yeah. Rocket Ham was emotional, but, you know, I always go back. You know, when I first went there in the cup car, we were like 25th,

and I'm like, man, I just, you know, I feel like I'm driving hell out of the car, you know, and I can't get no speed out of it. And Dale says, he says, next practice, he said, I'm going to meet out on pit road, get out as early as possible. So we get out early, and Dale's at the end of pit road, and I come behind him. We pull out on the track. And, you know, we're, we pull out on track and we're going through the gears and we're racing. And I'm following Dale.

And he's going to show me the line around the racetrack. Well, I almost wrecked him because we're going down the front straightaway. And I'm like two carlings behind. And, you know, we go off and turn one. And all of a sudden, like, probably no exaggeration, like maybe 15 car links before I would ever lift off the gas. He lifts up, you know, gets off the gas. And I am just on the. brakes trying to slow the car down to keep from running into the back of Dale. I'm like,

what hell is he doing? And next to, you know, he's like, you know, through the corner on the gas, and now I'm four car legs behind him. So we go down on the back stretch, and I'm running down the backstretch, and all of a sudden he just takes his foot off the gas. So I almost run into the back of him again. Get the car slowed down and get to the bottom of the track, and now he's six cars in front of me. I'm like, all right, I see what's going on here. And, uh, you know, You know, it was the same deal. And then he also told me one of the things he said, the hardest thing is you've got to control.

You know, we talk about tires. And we talk about Rockingham and wore tires out like crazy. And he said, you got to remember the start of the race. You're going to see a car go past you. And you're going to see the sponsor on the back. And then you're going to see that sponsor disappear. He says, but I guarantee you in 20, 30 laps. You'll start seeing that sponsor get closer and closer and closer.

and you don't even like not even it was like taking candy from a baby it was like you know what they're going to run like a rabbit wear their stuff out and once they wear their stuff out they slow down three seconds yeah and if you just maintain a moderate pace but as a race car driver it's hard how do you you know i mean as cards are leaving you and and disappearing into the sunset you know you just want to go catch them and uh and you know it worked out for us and i always said you know We did the gas strategy. We ran out of gas on the last lap. We didn't have tires.

We didn't have gas. We stayed out, did the track position thing. And just from conserving tires, we just barely had enough to hang on at the end. But that's how you went Rockingham. You guys got any shit show nominees for the week? Leave the cards store out of it. I'm just going to say that right now. Sorry, Carson.

They're going to be on the list. I said I might. Let me tell you. Let me tell you my shit show of the week. Okay, Meg came with me to Bristol. So we're in bed the other night, and this is not going where you think it is. I don't worry. Jesus Christ.

She is in a panic. And I'm like, what are you? Like, she's throwing pillows around and looking. I'm like, what are you looking for? Did she think you lost your wallet again? No. She goes, I can't find my glasses. So I let her look for another two or three minutes, and she's throwing shit around.

And she's getting frantic. And I said, you mean the ones you're wearing? And she's like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. She just laid back down. I was like, okay, babe, good job. Maybe it's time for bed or what? Do you think?

I think I finally drove her to the point where she just lost all of her marbles. Bless. So Meg might be mine, but I think cars to her is probably going to have to get an honorable mention. Would they run out of gas or just, what was the story there? I think one or two late model stocks ran out of gas towards the very end. But that was. It was just. But we were close to a lot more people.

It was just, you know, it was. We just ran too many caution. You mentioned it earlier. Cautions, breed cautions. I know Dale said, you know, there was burning laps under yellow, maybe one or two extra each time. But, you know, it's just, you throw that comp caution after a 45 lap run

and it just mayhem. Basically the restarts. You know, it was, I know, the restarts were what was causing a lot of our issues. Carson Loft did a really good job. Drove back up into the top five. He missed a shift. He's the one that ended up taking Dale out.

You know, but somebody else, I think, Minnie Tyrell missed a shift. Mini, Basset. The Basset missed one. I know he got collected in one where somebody missed. He got collected in the... But it was just... It seemed like every restart.

It was a big pile up into one because somebody was missing his shift. Because they can't figure out how to operate the restart zone. I don't know what transmissions are using, but Dale said like, you know, he's like, well, we are using these old and equated transmissions. And I'm like, don't you own the series? Like, you can probably do something about this if you don't like the transmission.

I will say, like, it was... There's $7,000 transmissions. Those ones? Yeah, they're not cheap. Never mind. They're pretty good. Yeah. But, uh, shit show.

Who else? You got any shit shows? I don't have any. Modified race is good. Poor Luke got the boot on the last lap. No, you get the boot? No, you didn't get the boot? It was not bad. It was not dirty.

You just moved him up racetrack. Yeah, it was a good race. And they ended up second. 13 year old, Polly Hartwood did a really good job. I think both of them did a really good job. Luke tried to bait him to go to the outside, going into three. on the last lap and Polly said, no, I'm not going to do that.

I'm just going to push you to the outside and get underneath you. And he did. They both did really good. And Polly did a really good job of saving his tires, running about fourth or fifth the most of the race, Luke. And he's 13? 13, yeah.

He's going to be a good one. He's an eighth grader. He's been racing along his whole life. And he's been running and modified for three years now, believe it or not. But, yeah, he's a good racer. and Luke controlled the whole race. Probably a little bit too hard, but I think the way that the racing's going,

you're going to have to do that a little bit more. But, yeah, Polly did a good job and finish it. And you got to beat Herschman. Was he there? He was there. I never saw him on TV. I know Tony, Big Tony called and said, nice you can go down there, waste your money,

just ride around six, saving tires, and not have anything left to go. Yeah, when it was time for him to go, he didn't have anything left. He was a little off. He was a little off. The only time I seen Tony, I mean, Matt all night was he had to jump out of his car right before the race. And he had his helmet and his hand.

He jumped over pit wall, ran into the trailer. I'm like, what the hell is he got going? I must have had some radio problems. But, yeah, he struggled. I don't know. I guess Brennan Pool. We got to put Brandon Pool on the list just because of the aftermath of what was laid across the front straightaway. The wreck was a shit show.

Yeah. Not Brennan Pull's fault, but it was a shit show of a wreck. Any short track stuff? I don't, I don't, do you guys find anything? I don't see anything crazy going on. I don't see anything crazy going on. No, truck's flipping over. Cars tour.

Shit show. Always. You could put Meg. Always is a stretch. I'm going to need you to back her down there. I mean, let's get this shorter, you know. It's Carson's fault. I blame Carson.

Yeah. I mean, it's really good racing. You know, you want to put that guy on the list? Call him a shit show. What guy? You're a friend from the guy that called you a bitch. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

It was going to turn into a shit show if I had a little bit more time. Oh. That guy don't know how lucky there was not another glass of wine. Poor mom. Or mom. Mom would have went to their ass. Oh, boy. Yeah, I don't, there was a, not much.

Not much. There was a pretty uneventful weekend. We could, okay, maybe instead of nominating the car store as a whole, can we just nominate Doug for being in the watermelon fields? Poor Doug. Poor Doug. If this poll makes it to Twitter with our mediocre nomination, so you can go vote on it on well, not Twitter ads.

Vote for Meg. They're not going to be able to hear this. The poll's going to be out before they hear this. Poor Meg. Meg and her glasses. Yeah, Meg's glasses. Just so she doesn't feel bad. You do that all the time?

I usually have my sunglasses on my hat. And then I start yelling at people like, did anybody take my damn sunglasses? And they're all looking up at my hat. I'm like, oh, shit. It's a common occurrence. I always thought that was age, but Meg's, not old nothing. Not all nothing.

You hit a couple times. That's what everybody wants a point. All right. Let's get into some DBC picks. Hirsch won last week. The guests are kicking our ass out. And I said this is the second time some insider trading has happened and they won. That's true.

Like Hamlin picked Ligon or not Ligon. God, what am I saying? Bowman. And then Hirsch picked Ty Gibbs and then they win a DBC picks. So you got a pick this week's teeth. We're on page three, Tommy. Tal or Dager? It's not a layup race.

I'll take Austin Sindrick. Nice. Chris Bush. I'm going to go with Josh Berry. Josh Barry. I see a trend. Thinking J.J. Yelly. But I hit my head.

I'm going to go with Chase Elliott. Chase Elliott. That's good. Yeah, Rockingham, I know. I'm not going. Are you going? I'm going to go Friday. Luke and I.

Luke's not racing. No, just to be with the 66 guys. That's good. Yeah, it's going to be interesting race. You know, again, kind of the racing purist of he wishes it was still the old worn out, but I'm sure they had, you know, it's been years since we raced on us, and that surface was probably falling apart. So it's, I went to the test, and it's going to look nothing like the rocket cam.

You remember, they are hauling ass through there. So it'll be an interesting race. I'm worried it might be difficult to pass because, you know, we see this a lot, new pavement, kind of become a single lane deal, I think. But it'll be fun to watch at least. I mean, just the fact that it's so different from what you used to seeing in a rock name. Don't, like, it was fast back then for the first lap,

first two laps. On Saturday mornings, when we used to have to practice at 8, 9 o'clock in the morning, that place was fast. It'll be interesting. Carson, were you off to anything this week? You're racing? Millbridge?

I race Wednesday, and we're going on a family camping trip for Easter this week. Where are you guys going? I don't actually know. Who's included? It is my mom, L.W., Kennedy, Wyatt, and my dad. we're all going on a He's in town?

Yeah, yeah, he's been here for the last two weeks Jesus, all right, Jimmy thanks for texting us and another invite, yeah. I know, well, and he's got to go back to California, I think, after this race this week, and then he'll be back

for a majority of the summer, so I'll tell him to hit you guys up if you're not too mad at him now. Come hang out. Well, I think that'll do it for this episode, Stephen, we appreciate you dropping by finally. I mean, I've been asking you for years to come on here.

You've been blow me on. Yeah. Text me like Friday. Can you come on Monday? Answer was like, yes. I'm like, remind me. Yeah. On Sunday when I'm flying back.

Thomas, you're going racing Wednesday? Wednesday at Thompson. Yep. Luke and I. NASCAR modified Wheel and tour. Reeled you right back into the tour. Yeah. One rain out. Rain out.

One right now. Reeled you right back in. I had a plan. Jimmy Wilson did it did me right. And changed his mind. All right. Well, it was good to see everybody. and we were we just Bristol this week.

I saw a bunch of people down by the bottom of the elevator through some of the suites. I will say I met a couple of BBC fans at Cordill this weekend too. Surprising, right? People actually listening. I know. That guy knew exactly what to call you. Yeah, that's maybe how that guy knew I was a bitch.

Yeah, sure. Anyway, thanks for listening. Thanks again, Stephen for dropping by. Thomas, good luck Wednesday. We'll see you guys. We will not be here in no show next week without the cup race. Plus my fat ass is going to be in Ireland drinking. God, I get a week away from you guys.

You get a little reprieve from us, Carson. We'll be back the week after the Talladega race. Thanks for listening. We're out. See you. See ya. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.