Door Bumper Clear - 53 - A Tire Scientist and his Leather Chaps

Episode Date: April 10, 2017

DBC Welcomes Rob Lopes, tire specialist on Dale Jr.'s 88, to the Axalta Studio to talk tires, repaves, and too much BBQ. 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.

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and make your own podcast. TJ will be your first guest. So download the free Anchor app or go to anchor.fm. to get started. That's an C-H-O-R.fm. to get started. This is Dale Jr.

and you're listening to Dirty Moe Radio. Outside, door, bumper, clear of the 18th. Best car I had here in a long time. You're going to do it. You're going to win it. Right with you. You're clear. Check the flag.

You win. Oh, yeah! So, hey, everybody. I'm DJ Majors. Spotter of the 88 cup car, the 7, XFidity, and the 29 truck. Did you say it correctly this time? No, I said Xfidity. I always going to say Xfidity.

That's how I say it, you all. And joining me. Normally? Whoa, whoa, whoa, well, not normally because you've been out. I've missed two of the last three. I'm sorry. I had some social things come up. Social things.

Brett Griffin, Spotter, Clint Boyer, Elliot Sadler, Maitt Snyder, and trucks. And we've got our lovely, lovely co-host, which I have a story about that in a minute. Hey, guys, it's KB. KB. But the biggest news we have here today is our guest. The one and only. Rob Lopes. I don't know about one and only.

From Hendrick Motorsports, Tire Scientist. Yes. And he brought that spare tire. Oh. Oh, wait. Sorry. Sorry. Hey, I'm healthy.

I'm a healthy guy. We both look really healthy. We're about 20 pounds too healthy. 20 pounds too healthy. You're exactly right. 20 pounds too healthy. I had a friend of mine get a hold of me the other day. He says, hey, man, saw you on TV during practice.

He says, you know, the camera adds 10 pounds. I said, well, how many? cameras are on me. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That is true, though. I really think camera does add 10 pounds.

So tell everybody what you do, man, for Dell Jr. and 88 team. Okay. Stop pulling a cord. I like to call myself a tire scientist. I guess the official term is tire specialist, but if you can't make a joke out of yourself, then what's the point?

But I'm the tire specialist, so I handle all of anything that involves those Goodyear tires that we run as it goes through me. I compile all the data, match sets. I'll make some recommendations as far as air pressures and what sets we use in certain circumstances. And there's 40 of us in the cup garage, and we all have different routes to get to basically the same place as far as what we're doing with those tires. We don't get them early. We do get some information early from Goodyear, so we have an idea of what we're dealing with when we get to the racetrack.

But the physical tires, we don't get to prep them until we're there. When you say data, tell everybody what you mean by data. I mean, they'll hear the drivers say terms like codes, stagger. Tell us what all that means. Okay. Basically, I mean, there's a plethora of numbers on any single tire. It ranges from date codes, which is the shift in day that the tire was produced. That's a big deal.

It is really a big deal. It is a month and year code on there when it was built. You can track it down to, you know, exactly. almost probably to within an eight-hour shift of when this tire was produced, any single tire. There's a what they call sequence number on there, which is almost like it's serial number. Spring rate, which is how much force that tire gives back under a certain load at certain pressure. There's mold numbers, which is like the mold style, that number's on there, and the actual mold serial number. so they might have four or five different molds for a certain tire,

and that's how you differentiate. So they're all around, but they're not all alike. Yes, and they're all, and they're handmade by Goodyear and Akron. And the amazing thing is, you know, people say, oh, man, they're so inconsistent. But the consistency of a Goodyear tire has gotten profoundly better as time has passed. And if you've ever gone to Goodyear, Akron, you can go up there and you can go and you watch them build a tire and you think wow it's no wonder that there's a difference in from tire to tire but then you look at it and you look at the way they're built and like you know it's amazing how consistent they are because of the way they're produced how many sets of tires did you sling this weekend and what's the most you'll sling all year at a racetrack they we had an interesting situation with a repave in texas um

They gave us all our tires all in one lump, which isn't the typical race weekend for us. Typically, our tires are divided up. We'll get five sets for practice and qualifying. And they're marked as practice and qualifying tires. And then we'll get another allotment. And it can vary anywhere from five sets to 14 sets for the race. Since it was a repave and they were worried about possibly teams wanting to scuff tires for durability and for performance, It was decided that we would get all our tires on a long

Our maximum amount of sets was 16 You could have up to 16 sets of tires this weekend So you got 16 sets all in one big shot Wow And it was up to you to sift through them To get your practice sets where you want them Get your qualifying set that you wanted And you could put your sets together

If you decided you wanted to scuff your race sets Some teams opted to scuff a lot of tires Some teams didn't scuff many We didn't scuff many We didn't scuff many We had a few just in case we thought we would need them. What we found out was that there wasn't really a performance advantage to run in scuff tires. And there wasn't really a durability issue whether you ran a sticker or a scuff,

which sometimes you run into that at a repaid. They repaid big time, yeah. You know, there's a, when you... That heat cycle a lot of time makes some more durable. Yes, that's exactly right. And sometimes that heat cycle will also improve the performance of the tire, which we didn't see either of that here. And Goodyear, I think, did a good job all things considered with the repave because the behind the scenes thing is that repave was done.

There was very little information about it. Good Year did not have a chance to tire test there. So they brought the – Nobody tested. So they brought the safest tire possible, which was the hardest. Yes. Basically, they brought the hardest tire possible. The standard repave right side.

You think when we go back, we'll go with a softer tire? No. Why not? Can't you pull some strings here? I don't need some tires. I don't, well, you, you saw it yesterday that you could stay out after 25 laps, but you got eight up. Not really. I lost our little bet every week we have here on who we got to win because of that.

Yeah. Well, you saw, you saw that 22. Yeah, that hurt me. That 22 stayed out late yesterday. And the 48 gobbling, I mean, it took a while, but the 48 gobbling up, but then here again. We took too early. about Jimmy and Jimmy's an animal. We took too early and that really jumped us up about 12 spots and that made our,

our car was good and we passed a lot of cars under green too. We, um, the, you know, we're not talking about you yet. Hey, Rob, so on Xfinity Day, you'll come down to the Junior Motorsports pit stalls. What's your role on Xfinity Race Day after you guys are done practicing and qualifying? Oh, okay. That's a pretty good question. Pretty good, Kristen. Got to dig a little deeper.

B-minis. No. No, that actually is a good question because one of the facets of my job is to obviously gather information. And the fact that J.R.M.'s association with Hendrick allows me a little more access to what's going on on a Saturday races. I can go up there and I can talk to the J.R.M. teams and say, hey, you know, where you guys are on pressure? What are your tires look like? You know, I can walk into the pit box and put my hands on them. whereas it kind of gets frowned upon.

Like if I were to walk into the, like we'll say Joe Gibbs Racing, Exfinity pits and start putting my hands on their tires and looking at their stuff, they get a little upset at that. I don't know why. Yeah. Why would you do that? But I think I try to do it on most weekends. I mean, obviously there are some weekends that are a little more important to just check things out.

Because you never know, especially when Goodyear brings a new tire. You want to see how it's performing under race conditions. conditions. And with the question of, well, you know, nobody really made a long run in any of our practices, you know, what's this tire going to look like after 25, 30 laps? And most of the tire specialists in our series were up there on Saturday, some a little longer than others. Like I spent probably two, I spent the better part of the race walking up and down pit road

looking at everything because I wanted to gather as much information as I could for our team, my crew chief, Greg Ives there. or any information that was going to help us. Your spotter, T.J. Yeah. T.J. Well, you know. And he, like, let's be honest here.

This guy's been looking at tires since they had spokes. So, I mean, he's been working on tires for a long time. How long have you been in the sport? Probably longer than I should have been. Longer than I should be. I don't think I'm fit to do anything else now at this point. I've been a tire specialist in the Cup series over 20 years. Maybe it's time we post that picture I got to you from back when you were in the war.

Yeah. He came right out of World War II in NASCAR. I think that's one of your better Photoshop. Well, that's not real. I got one more question before we jump in the show. What's the average tire bill per week for these teams now? Because I know it used to be in the $20,000 range. What is it now since releasing them, not buying them?

Well, I don't know. It's not necessarily releasing them either. They belong to us. Right. But we've got to give them back if we don't use them. No. Not anymore. No.

We own them. So we keep them every time now. We can't do anything with them, but we keep them. Right. I mean, and the thing of it is, is we're able now to, I mean, we'll, like the cup teams will sell off to truck teams and sell off to Xfinity teams to try to help them out. Right. Because especially, like, a tire like Texas, this Texas tire, and especially like PJ brought up earlier,

if we go back in the fall with that tire, there'll be some truck teams, some affinity teams say, hey, you know, let me buy it. We know it's an old code because it was. beginning of the season, but, you know, we'll buy a set from you. Right. Just for practice or something like that. And obviously, we will, you know, we might sell it to them at half price or, you know, give them a little bit of a discount.

Right. Just because it's not doing us any good sitting in a warehouse. Right. And if we can help somebody else, then we'll help them. So what's the average bill per weekend nowadays? We'll say average probably close to $30,000. Wow. So when we go back there, though, can a truck team essentially buy like three sets of tires

off anyone to have them off or practice? or can then buy the whatever they're allowed that weekend? I think, and don't. No, this is. Since I don't, since I don't, since I don't. Actually, I have to do all this every week. I think the truck teams and Xfinity teams, they can bring up to three sets, I want to say, from home.

And they can buy. But they can't qualify on that set. I think they can only use them for practice. Like we would ever soak him, right? No. No, no. I mean, I've read stories about that kind of chemicals that make tire softer to make you go faster. I can't say I've ever seen pictures. What's the scariest thing you've ever done with that?

I'm just kidding. So we're going to get into the show. No. So the first segment we're going to get into is spot on, spot off. And I don't know. Have you ever listened to the show? Yes. Oh, you're so.

Big. You've made it. Everybody's listened to this. So spot on, spot off. I'm going to give you guys a topic and you're going to tell me if you like it or dislike it. Are you ready? Right. You're going first.

Texas Motor Speedway repave, spot on or spot off? Man, this is a big, tall order. You take a wonderful racing surface like Texas Motor Speedway that produced great racing. Unfortunately, the track wouldn't dry. We had a small shower last year, and it took six hours to dry it, which I think is what ultimately forces repave. I'm not a fan of repaves. I'm going to go spot off with the fact that they had to do it,

but I will say spot on in the effort that they put forth to try and make this a good race. Well said. Well, I couldn't tell which way you were going to go with that because you kind of flipped it. I was going to go spot off, but I don't care. I liked the racing. I liked to be able to move around. They did a great job, though, making it where we could race a little bit. It wasn't as nearly as sketchy yesterday as I thought it was going to be.

Now, nowhere near as bad as Saturday. No, Saturday was pretty rough. But, you know, they put a lot of work into it. And I wish, I was actually surprised it didn't start before that. Like, we knew what it was going to be like. We should have, they should have been doing that for a week before. Two. Up the whole, you know.

Couldn't believe how chalky it looked. Yeah. Just up the racetrack, though. Like two or three grew up, not all the way against the wall, but they could have been working that deal for a while. Yeah. So, you know, spot on for the effort, but I missed the old track, even if it took six hours of drive.

We'll get it back in 18 years. Yeah. Rob. Rob will still be here. Oh, yeah. Before, before I get to that, you know, I, that, you guys, I don't know if you must have me bugged or something because all these topics that you're teasing me about had come up as like, Loebts, you know, you were well into the series when they built that place. You were here when, you know, the first race and now you're here for the repave.

And I'm like, I don't really know what that says, but, you know, we'll go with it. But that being said, I, I'm kind of going to go with the way Brett went. I mean, spot off on a repave just because repaves can tend to. I mean, it's a necessary evil, but it takes out the character of the race, and Texas had a lot of character. You know, any of these racetracks that are really abrasive and hard on tires tend to make the racing exciting. You know, Atlanta, like they've even put the repave off at Atlanta. And I think that's going to help us for another year. That place is going to be super fast when they pave it because it was fast when they reconfigured it so many years ago.

I was there for that too, but. Yeah, 97-ish. That was around 97, right? Yes, sir. Yeah. Jeff Bodine set on the pole. Yes, and he held it wide open through three and four, and everybody was just astounded. Totally.

Spot on, spot off. Kyle Bush scrapes the wall at Texas Motor Speedway and is forced to the infield care center. TJ. I mean, spot on. That's part of their precautions. Now, he hit the wall. Granted, it wasn't bad, but literally what's it take? Five minutes to go in there and say, hey, I mean, your guys are going to be working on your car for five minutes anyway.

So go in there, do your deal. There's a fine line there. Where do you draw the line of how hard a guy hits? Where do you draw it? I mean, I know he didn't hit it hard, but, and by the, you know, at least he laid like an infant that he is. So your fan. I'm going spot on with the antics that followed the brush of the wall. So for those of you who haven't seen this, Kyle barely touched the wall.

Like he did not hit it hard. NASCAR's new policy is you have to go to the infield care center. So when they came to him and said, you got to go. he demanded a stretcher cart to take him. And he laid out on it and crossed his hands across his chest like he was laying in a coffin. And whether you like this guy or not, it's obviously that T.J. doesn't.

But whether you like this guy or not, it is hysterical that he went this far to basically just say, look how silly this is, the fact that I've got to go to the care center. I think there's a lot of discussion among the drivers, which we're not always privy to

as to whether or not they're taking this whole concussion protocol too far. I think T.J. makes a really good. good point of we don't know when a hit doesn't look bad but is bad you know and vice versa so i i certainly understand what what nasker's trying to do from a medical standpoint but i think these drivers are maybe kyle had a little bit too much light heart of fun with it i was waiting on a black flag yesterday to come his way for uh for some of those things because i mean let's let's face it rob he went way too far with it yeah you know he and he even he was speaking with our driver on uh later on Friday he was talking with Dale. He goes, I can't believe they made me go to the care center,

you know, for that hit. But here again, with everything that's coming about, and T.J. can speak on this even with even more detail, especially with our driver, with Dale, with everything he went through last year. I mean, that's really open the eyes of the sport as far as concussion protocol and head injuries. And it's always been a big deal on our sport. A head injury has. And it's a big deal in every sport. The NFL has really brought that to the forefront. So with that being said, You know, you need to err on the side of caution. Yeah. You know, you have, you know, you've got to be on the conservative side.

You know what? Because you can't, you brought it up. You can't tell how hard that hit is. I mean, you can, you see some hits and you're like, holy cow, he hit a ton. And they jump right out. And then they'll hop right out. And then there's other times, you know, like he'll pop the fence. Like with our man last year, you know, he hit a couple hard times, but it wasn't the hardest hit that he's ever taken.

And it wasn't the hardest hit that made him go, hey man, hey, hey guys, I got a problem. Yeah. You know, so you, you got to air on the side of caution. And Kyle's going to, he's an outspoken individual anyway. Oh, come on. Tell us how you really feel. You know, I'm just saying he's an outspoken individual.

Kristen, I got a question. Last week, I didn't get to listen to the show because I was busy and I always listen. But I see a tweet and Joy Meyer sitting in here in a uniform. And I'm still yet to understand why that happened. And today we got Robin here and black leather chaps. So is there with jeans on? Can we get that? I think we need to get a new dress code where we wear our uniform and leather chaps.

Done. I think we look really hot. All of us? Yeah, yeah. Producer Josh and a pilot flying deal on his top and then the black leather chaps. Do they make them in people that are six foot eight, Josh? Josh has no microphone this week so we can talk about him. Hey, you know what's really interesting speaking about Josh?

A little off topic for a second. apparently Josh are you playing basketball with us this year he still can't talk he is and yesterday was Josh's birthday by the way happy birthday happy birthday yeah happy birthday 31 candles so we're weren't we're trying to figure out how good Josh is in basketball Josh is a phenomenal golfer I got that big six nine but you didn't play any high school stick under the hoop you did you did play high school he still don't have a headphone people still can't hear just yes or no do you play high school see if you're that tall you don't play high school basketball?

We got a problem. What are you saying? You're probably not that good. And you look great at it. You like you'd be phenomenal basketball players. Josh is just naturally athletic, though. I bet I can dribble better than Josh. Are you athletic?

Me and Josh, one I want. No, you. I'm not like, I'm not Jimmy Johnson, but I'm. PlayStation basketball. He's probably amazing. He's amazing at that. Listen, if you want to play Matt, does Madden count? Yeah.

Yeah, he's an amazing football player on Madden Joe. He's like, you're just never sent. I've never seen any human being wear a crew shirt away from the racetrack, and I just was wondering what was going down with that. What happened with that? Like, was there reasoning for that? He went to Victory Lane. Okay.

And it's their tradition that they wear their crew shirt. Whose tradition? Penskees. Joeys. I don't know. So you're just rolling Chick-fil-A with your Miller-Lite. Yeah, and then he was on, he has his MRN show, so he wore it on that. Victory Lane hat, I mean.

So, I mean, is that? It was clean, though. Is that like, they all do that? They all do that the day after a win. It's not even the same shirt. He wanted to come here clean. He didn't want to smell like beer. I don't think they all do it.

We like beer. I got you. I don't think they all do it. I got you. TJ, are you going to start doing that? No. Why not? He doesn't even come to Victory Lane.

He doesn't even wear his crew shirt on the spotter stand. You look really cute on Monday walking around with that. Look, if we win, if we win, I'll wear it here. Heck yeah, Monday. Fine, I'll do it. Spot on, spot off. Only two off weekends for Cup in 2017. Rob.

Spot off. Spot awful. Do I even need to even expound on that thought? I mean. Just sigh really loud. Just two weekends is tough. It's tough on everybody. I mean, talk about them.

We felt like we've been 16 races into this season right now already. Yeah, we're six races in. I thought we were already 16. Yeah. It's tough. I feel like it's October. Two weekends off is tough. What do you think?

Like what happens in the room when these speak? people who have this authority go, okay, guys, we're going to race 40 weeks and we're going to give them two off. Like, what do you think actually goes through their heads? They're not the ones going 40 weeks. Right. I was just going to say they're not traveling that much and they're not in the garage and if they are, they're darn sure not on the same schedule we are. We have so many opportunities to make the schedule flow makes sense. You know, we now have a 26 race regular season, a 10-week playoff. We could easily do 10 weeks, take a week off. Do 10 weeks, take a week off. Do six weeks, take a week off, give us a week off to promote the playoff, and then tend to run it out

for the final deal. But not even, even if that's not perfect, two weekends off over the course of 40 weeks is brutal, especially when at the end we do 17 or 18 in a row. That's not going to, 10 weeks off and then off isn't going to fit your Daytona deal because you want to run the 500 then have a week off. I'm off for having a lot of different things. I want to race every other weekend. We used to, well, I think we used to start the season a lot earlier in February. We did. We started right behind the Super Bowl.

And now that the NFL has moved their schedule around, that makes life a little hard on us. I mean, there's a lot of moving parts here that goes on our schedule. You guys all know. Was that in the 70s? No. It may have been in the 70s. I was even young. A couple years ago, it was all right.

It's hard, man. It's hard on our families. And look, I mean, we could all find something else to do. but we love our sport. It's not a matter of we're in here, about it. It's a matter of two weekends simply isn't enough. It's tough.

It's going to make things a lot more difficult. And I've always made the statement, like when they, the first time they pushed the 500 back and they gave us that extra week in February. And then they did it again this year. And it's like, you know, I don't need that extra week during the winter.

No. I need that week in June. The middle of summer. Yeah. By that point, you're just waiting for the season to start anyway. Yeah, you're usually amped up anyway, ready to go in. Yeah, I agree. I'd rather start a week earlier and have another weekend.

But here again, you know, we're just like there's a lot of things we aren't privy to on the level that we're at. We can have our opinions on it. And there's, like I said, there's a lot of nuts and bolts that go into this. And I'm sure that it's the phrase I like to use and a lot of people use is it's way above my pay grade. So I'm not even going to pretend to know what's going on. If you put all three of our pay. raised together, we got a conversation point. Surely we can talk to somebody.

Spot on, spot off. Ryan Blaney's run at Texas. Brett? I didn't, you know, I saw the guy leading the race. Spot on to him winning a stage. I'm a huge Wood Brothers fan because that was my first gig in the Cup series was with Eddie and Lynn Wood. So spot on to how well he ran, won a stage.

You know, I kind of saw him once he got mired back in traffic that he was pretty stale. So I'm not sure how that car was built or what was going. on but when he was in traffic he was nowhere near as dominant as he was when he was out front yeah like any car that gets back there i knew when he didn't pit with that four or five laps to go in that stage i knew he was in a and there wasn't a long wasn't a lot of race there was a lot of race left but not a whole race i knew he was going to be in trouble at that point you know you can um but spot on to them running good though they're competitive every week jimmy and larsen pitt at the same time ran one-two so i don't know if something happened to larsen i read of something about a bad pit stop

or something. He drove through too many boxes. Got a penalty. Oh. Yeah. That's just, I mean, that's just flat out not paying attention. Yeah. Well, it happens every week.

But I will say this about this guy. He has the least amount of experience, full-time experience of anybody in the Cup series. Yes, this is his second year in Cup compared to Sores and Jones and some of those guys. But he didn't get there running a full series in trucks or a full series in Xfinity. he got there running part-time gigs, pieced together schedules, and then he shows up last year for his first full-time season. So this is really only his second full-time season in a touring car. So we're going to see those guys make this more mistakes.

Who's that? Larson? No. Blaney? Yeah, Blaney. Yeah, he had two full season in the trucks. Did he? Yeah, driving for Brad. Really?

He drove that 29 for two years. Full-time? Yeah. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. But, I mean, he went from there. Did he win? Yeah, he's won a couple.

I thought he ran like piece together stuff No he ran he ran Bradstruck for Full time deal yeah full time He was the he was the main truck Okay yeah but I mean After that he never had a A real real good Xfinity car to really get his feet stepped well He's got 10 12 races a year yeah but that's not that many

No So he's doing like this is carrying over from last year We you know Chase and Ryan are They're exceptional guys Yeah they're gonna be here for a long time You know and it's uh I can't tell you right now which one's going to win first. And here's the thing.

There's so many things that our fan base needs, our hardcore fan base needs, because NASCAR has gone out and tried to develop all of these niches and tried to expand who their fan really is. We need a guy like this, like Chase Elliott and Blaney, to come in and run well because they're a legacy guy. We can tap back into somebody that was a Bill Elliott fan or tap back into somebody that was a Blaney fan. Kids too will latch on them.

It's great. We got kids liking Kyle Larson. These aren't a rent-a-ride guy. These are bad guys. These are guys that are going to be A drivers. Run a ride. These are going to be A-list drivers down the road here. Can you smile at that?

That's funny. Have you seen some of these clowns? I've seen the clowns. Yeah. You remember that clown last year that you met at the sandbar? Man, let's talk about David's Star this year. He's the new clown. Get the fuck out of the way, dude.

It is annoying in the Xfinity race. Is he not the guy? Who's the guy right now? Who's the guy? Everybody we talk about this, the guy, they get out of the way. Me and Timmy Hill got a tiff last year on Twitter, and I said basically that he was in the way, and he sent back, stay classy, and I sit back, stay out of the way.

And he got out of the way. So maybe David Starr listens to this podcast, and he'll get the hell out of the way. That's not happening. I refer to him as the blind guy. The blind guy? I have been referring to him. I said, clear the blind guy every time we pass him out.

Because you don't know where he's going to be. Right. He's the type of guy that goes to the, you'll be inside off the corner, and he doesn't go all the way to the fence. No. So your driver's like overreacting trying to stay off because he's expecting that guy to go to the wall. Yeah. And I don't know if he don't know where he's at or what he's doing or if he's doing it on purpose.

But yeah. His car this weekend had spots for What a Burger? They should have said, what the fuck? Josh. Good Lord. See, Rob, you don't see all this from Pitt Road, man. No, I don't. You guys definitely have a better view of all this.

Well, it's a type of guy. Like this week, the big thing was if there was a hole on the bottom when you got passed, you dove in it. So you could have a 15th and 16th place car, still pretty competitive cars at that point, passing him with about four car lengths between him. He's type of guy that will yank the wheel left and come down in between them and just be all up in the way. And then you're on the break and you're getting wrecked from behind. And then you're getting past from behind because you get the check up real hard. He's the guy right now, right? Am I wrong?

He was this weekend. I mean, Derek Cope's not far behind him. No, and a cup car, a cup car. Oh, my God. Should we pick for the races? So you have to pick the winner and the guy. The guy. The guy doesn't change much.

The guy whose complete car is a blind spot. Hashtag the guy. Yeah, the guy. All right. We're going to take a break. We'll be right back. All right. Yo.

This is your Exaltor Race Center update. I'm Mike Davis. Junior Nation can breathe again as Dale Jr. and the Exalta race team finally put together a complete race and came home with a fifth place finish at Texas on Sunday. It was Junior's first top five. since June 6, 2016 at Pocono, which was the week before his concussion at Michigan and five weeks before his abrupt end for the 2016 season. With the finish, Dale Jr. jumps up five spots in the cup standings and is now 20th heading into the off week.

In the Xfinity race on Saturday, William Byron's number nine exalted up pre-ferk Chevrolet, lead lead, lead-in-Junei-Juhrieubert Chevrolet, lead, and a seventh-place-plice-Lead. Elliot Sadler ended up 10th and he maintained his points lead. Justin Algaier finished 13th and Michael Annette 20th. In the late models, Junior Motorsports Josh Barry won the first twin 40 at Hickory Motor Speedway Saturday night, and he finished third in the second race. Anthony Alfredo finished 6 and 7th, respectfully. The win was Barry's second win of the season. If you weren't following Exalta Racing on social media over the weekend,

you missed out on up-to-the-minute updates, photos, and information on Dell Jr. Exalta Racing has you covered on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. All you have to do, search them at Exalta Racing. Follow and enjoy. One Main Financial is the largest consumer finance company in the United States, and it dates back over 100 years. T.J, I did not know that, but I did know that if you were in need of a loan and your finances have taken a turn, one main can help.

So race down to the closest one main branch and get back on track. You know that with more than seven. 1,700 locations, there is bound to be one near you. There's actually one really close to us where we're at right now. So find your closest one main at one mainfinancial.com. Lending made personal. Hey, we're back. So we're going to get into Fast Lane.

And this is where I'm going to give the guys a topic to debate. And each person gets 30 seconds, Brett T.J. and Rob. Four of the topics are racing in the last one. Oh, boy, what is this one going to be? Oh, it's a good one. Maybe. We got Brett in here. I got my answer.

I know you do. Question one. 16 cars were ready for qualifying when the first session began at Texas. The rest of the field was in the garage going through tech. What's the deal here? Brett? I don't know what the deal is. I hope Rob can tell us, but I'm going to tell you what the real deal is.

The fans are losing when this happens. If I'm a Dell Jr. fan, if I'm a Joy Lugano fan, if I'm a Clint Boyer fan, and I pay to come watch qualifying, and my guy can't even get out of the garage, I've lost. We have to give these guys an opportunity. opportunity to pass the process to get a lap. And it is absurd that only 16 out of 40 are sitting on pit road when it starts. Yeah, I hate it for the fans, but I'm...

They hate it for the fans, but, you know, they give us a shot to go through, and it's our own fault. Like, they give us, we have the attempt to go through qualifying, or go through the qualifying tech, and if we push the envelope too far and we got to roll around again, we don't make it. That's our own fault. Like, you make your own luck. and we didn't do a good job of that weekend. Yeah.

From the ground side of it, yeah, the tech process is... You got 30 seconds. It's a slow process to begin with, and... 20. If you... Stop it. If you are outside that box and you have to roll around, you're putting yourself in jeopardy and missing it.

So you... You kind of do it to yourself, but at the same time, you know, we're in a pretty tight box, and the window's pretty small as far as time goes. And, I mean, just to expand upon that with you. Wait a minute. You're usually through. I know, but we're talking to you.

He gets a rebuttal. The last person gets a rebuttal. So we're talking if you're one 30 second of an inch off, you got to go back through. Yes. And part of what makes it longer, and I don't know if everybody knows this, is now if you fail any one station in tech, you have to go through the entire process again. You just don't go back to the station that you fail. And a station that you've passed, you can now fail even if you haven't touched it.

Even if you haven't touched it because that gives the inspectors and we'll look at templates. That gives them another chance to look at your car. Right. You know, and they say, hey, you know what? I missed this the last time. And that's not right. Fix that too. And now you have 24 cars that are not making it on the pit road to have a chance to qualify,

which tells me there's a problem with the system. If it's we need more time, make more time. If we need more something, make more something. I think it might be a little bit of both. I mean, I think they give us a pretty good. window to get through tech, but at the same time as we, as competitors, have to be a little smarter and realize that, you know, and we're trying to get all we can get. Yeah.

And that's the nature of the beast. We're not losing. We, the teams are not losing. Yes, we lose a, get a bad pit stop selection. But at the end of the day, we're still going to be in the race. The people that are losing are the people investing their time and money to watch qualifying and not see their guy qualify. That's the end.

That's where it all lands from. I, you make a solid point there. Definitely. I won the debate. We're going to the next one. Boss man, Dale Jr. posted a top five finish on the freshly repaved and reconfigured Texas Motor Speedway. Has the 88 turned the corner?

T.J. I feel like we've already turned the corner before. We just had bad luck. I don't know if, you know, we, like, you make your own luck. We sped at Martinsville, put ourselves in the back. We had a shot at the top 10 there. We've had fast cars. We just haven't had to finish it.

So I don't know. You have to have everything go your way to run good in this series and even have a little luck at times and we've been lacking the luck part that's you robes oh i didn't know sorry i guess you're second on the sheet there so hey so yeah i got to agree with t jay and you do make your own luck here and you definitely we we have fast cars and i think this top five for us has definitely is going to be a shot in the arm and it stopped the bleeding as far as some of our poor performances and it's and and you know we need to make our own luck and we need to be better so yeah here's what i think's fun about this 88 car you take tracks like California like Atlanta where we see a lot of tire wear places

where Adele Jr. has historically run well and he didn't run that well then you take him to martinsville and you take him to Texas where there's no tireware and he's hauling ass so it's almost like hendrick motorsports is saying man we're really fast at places where there's no tireware I'll be curious to see what happens if we get to Bristol and there's a lot of tireware I think turning the corner is going to mean we get to a place and he and he's back fast everywhere because there's really not a bad track for guy. Yeah, we've got the speed and the stuff that we need to go fast. We just have to put the puzzles all together in the pieces and just maybe sacrifice a couple of chickens, get a box KFC, something. I don't even know what that meant. You don't remember Major League? Joe Booz Rom?

Yeah. Sorry or whatever. Despite everyone thinking we are 16 races into the 2017 schedule, we are six races into it. Who in your opinion is better than you? Better than you, better than you thought they would be and who is worse? I would say the 88 is worse than I thought we would be. I didn't really expect us to be in the 20s and points, six races in. Better, I mean, there's several cars that are sitting up there toward the front. Like that 21, I mean, the 21's

running really well and they're sitting right up there near the top. The two CGR cars are both up there, you know, front. So Ryan Newman is my pick for who is better than I thought he would be. This guy won a race within the first five weeks of the year. He's locked in the playoff. It's hard to argue against a win. I think Rob makes a valid point.

I think we all thought the 88 would be better. But I certainly didn't see Matt Kenseth wrecking three out of the first six weeks either. So I've got to say he's probably a lot worse off than I thought he'd be. Yeah, I would say worse off would be the 88. I thought, you know, we normally go to, we start off with one of our strong tracks. we normally come out of there pretty decent. So as far as, I don't know, the 31 doesn't really, I don't feel like he's been exceptionally strong.

He was okay at Atlanta and he pulled one out of the hat at Phoenix and that was kind of luck. But, you know, I think Larson's probably the biggest surprise so far knocking out of them top twos. I mean, I didn't see him come out here doing that. Jimmy Johnson took home the six shooters from Texas but ended up getting IVs after the race. He is in phenomenal shape, so what's the deal?

The deal is this. They don't let air inside of these race cars. These guys are burning up. They're cooking in there. It's 1,200 degrees under their feet and they're hot. I mean, you take a guy like Jimmy Johnson. He's probably losing 5, 6, 7 pounds during a race, you know, where we've got temperatures in the 80s.

So even a guy that can be a triathlete and run and ride a bicycle and literally train for this moment when his drink system isn't working, he's suffering physically. I mean, he was about to fall out during the Claire B. Lang video. took three bags of fluids. That's a big deal. Yeah, I'm going to go with Brett on that, too. You know, the guy's in phenomenal shape,

and even Dale's following his footsteps, doing some riding and getting more physical shape. But there's no air in those race cars to breathe and fresh air for them. And, you know, those fresh air systems, those drink systems are critical for those guys. And it's big. Yeah, I think Jimmy's probably one of the most fit guys in the field.

There's probably three or four of them that are really, really fit, McMurray, Jimmy. But, you know, when you can't, can't even to see Jimmy, they'd be handing them guys, water bottles are in a race and snacking him. Every caution to see a rapper fly out of McMurray's window.

He's snacking on something. You know, to see, that tells you how hot and how hard these guys are driving. I know Dale Jr. at one point said his hands were numb. He's holding the wheels so hard, just focusing, you know. So these guys are athletes.

I've got a training tip for them on these bicycles. If they'd wear these leather chaps that Rob's got on, They'd sweat more. And chafe more. They'd have more drag. Like, they'd train harder because of that. You know, it's funny you say that because we got a lot of guys on our teams. And there's a lot of guys in the garage that do a lot of riding on Saturday.

You know, team guys, you know, they'll go off there on a Saturday. And there's 20 of them and got these bikes. And I, me being me, I made a little joke. I said, you know, I'm going to go get a beach cruiser. And I'm going to put it on our trailer. So that way, I can ride on Saturdays. And they're like, well, you mean, you're really going to struggle pedaling that heavy bike. I'm like, well, you know, y'all got it backwards.

Yeah. Like, y'all buy these $5,000 light bikes, weighs two pounds. I said, and you got to go ride 50 miles to get a workout out of it. Hell no. I'm going to ride a big old heavy beach cruiser. I ride it for an hour or 30 minutes. It don't matter. Ride it for 30 minutes, and I'll be back showered having dinner one.

Y'all just getting back in your spandex. And a beer. And a beer. And that spandex thing just doesn't look, right? It's called a kit. That's called a kit. Yes, the spandex thing. Kit up.

Yeah. All right. I'm a cyclist. I'll fight you. So another spotter, McMurray spotter, actually, Tyler Green. I'm a biker. He says, uh. Biker.

He says, hey, Brett, let's go to this place to eat. And I'm like, what's the name of it? He's like, hard eight. And I envision all these guys sitting around his spandex. And I'm like, I don't think this is my kind of place. The name of it's hard eight. I mean, it sounds like the opposite of a shoe show. I'm like, nah, I'm good.

Anyway, it was a good barbecue. The off-the-wall topic. Alex Baldwin's Bill O'Reilly. On Saturday Night Live might be better than his Trump impersonation. Which is your favorite skit from SNL? Rob. Does it have to be those two fellas? No.

No? It can be any skit. More cowbell. Blue Oyster Cult. More cowbell. That's all you need to know. Ding, ding. Sorry, ding.

TJ. I like. TJ doesn't watch SNL. I don't. The only thing I can remember is night at the Roxbury. I haven't watched SNL since more cowbell. Mango. The Night of the Roxbury episode is hilarious.

My favorite, first of all, I don't like Allie Ball and I think he's a prick. But my favorite Saturday Night Live skit was Justin Timberlake Dick in a Box. That was funny. I didn't see that one too. It's pretty funny. That is really good. And it's a good song. Yeah, it is.

My dick in the box. It's a good one, Josh. Josh, this was your question. Don't be hating on my answer. We're going to go into hashtag AskDBC, where producer Josh has chosen a question. A few questions off of the interwebs to ask the guys today. At Plummer Daver 1 asks, Brett, since you started working in NASCAR, how many races have you missed? I have three kids, and I missed three races.

All were missed so my kids could be born. Been doing this 18 years. I did schedule one kid to be born on Fontana weekend back in the day. Yes, the doctor says, we're going to have this kid sometime around September the 7th to the night. And I said, we're going to have it September the 4th, because that means I don't have to go to Fontana. We should have never been out there on Labor Day anyway, Rob. You know that. I agree with you.

I definitely agree with you on that. I think I've missed three since 2000, late 4-ish. You got your guts cut out. Yeah, I had some surgery, and that was it. I planned the kid in Charlotte Weeks, so that was worked out perfectly. Yeah. I'm good like that. Nine months advance?

No. You know, the Charlotte Weeks is perfect. Yeah. Between the, I mean, it doesn't get it. But you still got to get nine months to get to that point. Yeah, man, I'm good. So what, wait, was the magic? When did the magic happen?

That was like seven years ago. You think I remember? All right, Lopes. How many of you missed it? The last time the magic happened. How many of you missed in the 38, nine years you've been in the sport? I don't have an exact number. If I had to guess, I'd say I'd probably missed maybe 10 races in the two plus decades I've been doing this.

Been a few, but not many, I would say. At Adam King 883S, does T.J. think that they could have won the race if they could have gotten out front in clean air? Yeah, absolutely. I think we could have won the race. Clean air is huge. You know, Jimmy was really good, but our car was good. We were just kind of stuck back there. I would have definitely have taken my chances at that. Adam's kissing your ass.

Thanks, Adam. Adam King. At full draw 59 asked, did use of tire dragon at Texas? Just go with it, Kristen. This says dragon, Josh. That's what they were saying. Oh, is that what they were saying? Yeah, that's what it was called Tired Dragon.

It's laid it go. No. Okay, I'm sorry. Just read the question. I apologize to Josh right now. I refuse. It's not his birthday anymore. Did use of Tire Dragon at Texas make a difference in bringing in the second groove?

I'd say that's probably leaning more toward me. I would say yes. And the tire, for those that don't know, that Tire Dragon is an apparatus that is that. Apparast. That is a machine. It is a machine. that they pull behind a tractor it has the compound of tires that we're running for that weekend and the machine turns the tires in the opposite direction that it's being dragged across so the tires

are turning in reverse as you're pulling this machine forward it's putting rubber spread and rubber down it's the premise the same premise is used in nHRA if you've ever going to an hRA so watch them do their track prep they had the same principle there and NASCAR has has developed a machine to to do the same thing for us to help our track prep. And it comes in handy, a lot of these places that are a little more abrasive or you need to widen that groove out before we get there. It's just. So they ran that until like 1 a.m., didn't they?

Yeah, they did it. They were on track right after the Xfinity race. And they, and they, I think they focused more on one and two. They really wanted to widen one and two out. Yeah. And I think it, I definitely think it could help. A lot less banking than one of two. And I think it might have helped the restarts.

It definitely helped that groove come in later in the day for us. T.J. was one. one of the few guys that were actually trying to run up there a little bit. We actually made a couple passes up there. We caught Brad and got, you could only use it really when there's some traffic around. The other guy, just if he checked up the littlest bit, you could just roll around him up there and make it happen. We probably tried it too much in three and four, but it was worth a shot.

I mean, if you could, you're stuck, so, you know, why not try it? And it was effective at times, so you're not going to go by yourself. better than Saturday. Way better. Yeah, you're not going to go there and make speed. I felt sorry for anybody there Saturday. Saturday was tough. It was a, I mean, it was an exciting race fighting for the bottom, but, yeah.

At Rifleman 28S, thoughts tonight on the idea of an all-star race at Martinsville? Sure. Turn the lights on. Let's go. Heat races, feature. I mean, typically the series sponsor has a lot of say in what that weekend looks like. You know, I mean, I think Sprint did a phenomenal job of having pit crew competition. and parades and obviously the race itself they had a big say in the format the number of cars they

wanted in it who was going to get in it i'm a big fan of putting winners only in it then we say well that's not enough cars let's put you know the chase participants in it and so within it's 16 cars immediately and so man i don't know i feel like the all-star race needs to be somewhere that we can race we can pass and these guys can go for a million bucks but i don't i don't i haven't heard a lot about it this year rob i don't know what you've heard uh i haven't heard a lot about what our format's going to be for the All-Star race. I agree with you, like, race winners and past winners of that race to a certain point. Yeah.

Like, I think for the All-Star race is, it's a 10-year window. It is. It used to be five. Now it's 10. And then winners, past winners, and I think that works out really well. It puts a, you know, it needs to be special. It can't have, you know, three-quarters of the field in there. It needs to be special.

As far as the location goes, I'll say. it's good at Charlotte because it backs right up to the 600. It puts us from a selfish standpoint. It puts us at home for two straight weeks. And that's a big thing. I think that's big for the team guys. You know, it lets their families come in, spend a little time, you know, right there getting into the summers Memorial Day weekend.

Your families can come in, you know, hang out. You can have your friends come in. You take your families to the racetrack. You know, a lot of the teams, you know, will get blocks of tickets for their, for their employees and the team. team members, it just gives a chance for everybody to just kind of maybe take a breath, stay in your own bed, you don't have to travel, the trucks don't have to go all that far, you know, I think it has its place in Charlotte since, you know, this is basically the home

to, what, 98% of the teams? Yeah. Sprint made a major investment into this race and to the effort of it. So I think it's a big question mark for me to say, what is Monster really going to do? Because when you look at them at the racetrack, they have their small footprint, but that's it. They're not doing suites. They're not doing a lot of TV stuff, which Sprint was doing all that. So the big question for me is, who's going to take and head this thing up now?

Because I don't know that Monster is going to make additional investments around this particular venue or if NASCAR is going to have to take the full lead on it and do whatever they want. So, again, I haven't heard a lot about this year alone, not to mention the future, but Martinsville would be a great track. I don't think you want to go further than Martinsville, Charlotte, or Bristol. I think those are all close enough to go and have fun at that. Wilkesboro. You know, I was just thinking the same thing.

If we were going to run an all-star race, let's run it at North Wilkesboro. And that'd be the only place that's the only, even if it was the only time we go there. They don't even have to be on the schedule. Let's go to North Brook, Wilkesboro. As far as the field, I'm fine with the winners and maybe past winners and then maybe run a couple heat races with guys, just a couple, you know, for a short track. That'd be pretty exciting.

Yeah. So totally. Totally. Do you all have anything to rant about today? Rob, do you have a rant? Anything that really ticked you off this past weekend? I don't think. In general, not just racing related.

No. Yeah. The only thing that really ticked me off this weekend is the fact that I just have no willpower. Like you brought up hard eight, I have no willpower when I walk in that place. I dropped $50 on damn dinner. God, how many pounds did you eat? What did you eat? Like I was, I think, too forkfuls of food away from being completely miserable.

I dropped 30 bucks and I wouldn't believe it. I mean, I walked in there and I said I want some of that no more. Give me some of that. No, I need more of that. I need, no, give me that. Yeah, and add two of those. No, make it four. And give me a hunk of those ribs.

And then you walk inside. Oh, I need a corn. Oh, I need some of that corn. That cheesy corn is like, oh, well, dude, you got to have the banana. Pudding, you got to have the macaroni and cheese. And, you know, and then they give you the free baked beans. You know, all you can eat baked beans. I'm like, I ain't got time for that baked beans.

Nobody told me they had jalapinas in them. Who puts jalapinas and baked beans? They do. That's not good for post-reveans. It's amazing. No, that's not good. You got to eat there early, I think. Yeah, but yeah, so I'm, I'm ranting against myself because of fact, I have no willpower when it comes to the feedback. I'm going to jump on these tracks again, and we beat them to death. We're going to beat them some more. We've got executives saying we need quieter race cars. When we get to the track and our phones don't even work. A guy like Jeff Gluck who makes his living on, and look, you can say what you want to about Jeff Gluck. This guy now works for the fans. He doesn't work for a click publication. He doesn't work for a news periodical that needs readers. He only gets paid if fans help him pay his bills.

His freaking phone doesn't work, so he can't do his job. Imagine being an 18-year-old sitting in those stands where their phone not working. Forget about quieting the race cars. Work on getting our facilities up to date with technology so that we have Wi-Fi, we have service, and we can communicate. It's ridiculous. Can I interjecting that? I'm going to get on that, too, because that's something that's funny.

The whole quiet of race car thing. It is a race car, folks. I mean, if you want quiet, the Masters was this weekend. Yeah. Go watch. If you want quieter race cars, I mean, okay, if we're going to have quieter race cars, you know, electric cars, you know, we can talk about this all day long. But, y'all, we need to put mufflers on these cars.

The cost alone for us to do that is going to be unbelievable for the team. Not to mention the fact, if we're going to have quieter race cars, then the flyover better be a glider. Yeah. It better be a glider. If we're going to quiet these race cars down, then that fly over better be a glider because I'm going to tell you what,

when those jets come over our heads the other day, I'm a fucking. And you guys are up on the roof. They came from behind us, so I didn't see them. I didn't know. You know, I mean, heck, when we're in Daytona, I feel like if you guys put your hand up, you touch the wing.

Yeah. They were pretty low. They scared me yesterday. This weekend, they normally come at you head on so you can watch them fly over. Well, this weekend they came from behind the front stretch. Mm-hmm. And because I'm a phenomenal spot,

I've seen them before they got there. I've seen them. I sharded. I ain't a lot. They was, it's loud. It's gross. It's definitely, we don't need to discuss that. Yeah.

Speaking of that, do you guys, you guys need to do your picks for next week. No, we're doing next year. Oh, no. All three. All three. That's pretty amazing. The only one of the year, right, where they're all off. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. So we're doing a show next week. Kristen, are you around? Sure. I'm here. Josh, you here? I got something that is.

discuss next week anyway. Hey, hey, we're doing a special show at Whiskey River, downtown Charlotte. Have we announced that yet? No. Let's announce it now. Announce. Is it final, though?

I don't know the details. I don't know if it was final yet, but. Josh didn't know we were doing it. But during Speed Weeks, we're going to be live at Whiskey River. We're going to bring some good friends with us. It's going to be fun. There's going to be booze involved. Yeah, we may.

We're going to Uber. I might even have a beer that one. Can we get an Uber sponsor? Sure. Did you say a beer? Beer should never be single. If I got to drive home. Uber.

That's a long Uber. Natalie said she'd be the DD. That's damn Uber is going to be like 60 bucks. Dude, you can ride from here to California, and Uber's like $49. That seems inaccurate, wildly. Rob, thanks for coming on, brother. I appreciate you all having out a good time. Thank you.

Make sure you recognize this Exalted studio. Oh, absolutely. A fast loan. If you need a fast loan, one main financial. Dot com. If you like trade your, same day. Same day long. Same day loans.

Yeah. So these whole chaps thing, you can go by like 10 pairs of different colors of chaps if you go get a loan real quick. Or if you want to leave here and go buy a Volkswagen Beetle, you can. I'm just going to go ahead and just climb back on that Harley that's sitting out there. Leave and never come back. Make my way on back to Concord, I believe. The show's history.

We're out. See you. I see you. You've been listening to Door Bumper Clear, brought to you by One Main. For updates on Elliott Sadler and the number one junior motorsports team, Go to One Main Racing.com. Thanks for listening to Dirtymoor Radio.