The Dale Jr. Download - 104 - Pocono: Wait, We Finished Where?!

Episode Date: August 4, 2015

A day of woes for Dale Earnhardt Jr. resulted in a surprising finish at Pocono; No. 88 team engineer Travis Peterson joins; Dale's road manager Tyler Overstreet takes over White Flag. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is Dale Jr., and you're listening to Dirty Mo Radio. Hot dog, you're doing it. Well, I know it's laugh funny, but that was pretty impressive. You're now listening to the Dale Jr. download presented by Spy. Check out Dale Jr.'s signature dirty-mow sunglasses from Spy at Spyoptic.com. Hey, everybody, it's Jr. Just got home from Pocono. Pretty crazy race.

And not just from my perspective. I've been hearing from everybody. how they were kind of blown away a little bit about the ending there. All those guys running out of gas. I was too. I didn't, you know, I've seen guys running out of gas. I've seen us passing people slow on the track, but I didn't think we'd pass that many guys.

I was surprised to hear that we'd finish fourth when we crossed the finish line. So we'll go ahead and talk about it. Right away when the race weekend began, we've, you know, we go to Pocono with a lot of confidence. We've won the races there last year, and we run in the top five, or have a car capable of running well into the top five pretty much every time we go, as far as I can remember. Ever since they've repaid this track, we've been very strong there. So we showed up with all kinds of confidence, and I particularly think we or expect us to actually run better in the second race there, for whatever reason, the track, to me, just suits me a little bit better. it has in the past. When practice began, we were not very good, had a lot of problems with the car,

a lot of issues with the balance of the car. The car was doing a lot of things. Real tight in turn three, the left front was sliding across the track and the throttle all the way to exit. Just a lot of, you know, the car had bad platform. It felt like it was rolling way over on the right rear. So we just, you know, we were tied into the tunnel, which was really terrible. because the tunnel's a very fast corner. You can't get tight there. You got to really sail into that corner and get out of there quick. We were just having, you know, a lot of issues we'd never really had before,

never really faced before. So I was a little bit worried, and we made a couple race trim runs, and then we went into Qualifying trim. Qualifying was a little bit better, actually, than we were there last time. The car drove better, and we netted a little bit better result. So that was a bit of a plus. Saturday I was excited about getting in the car. I thought, man, we're going to fix these problems.

We're going to sort this car out. This is going to work out. We're going to get this thing handling and running good, and we're going to race well. That didn't happen. We struggled through practice. Right at the end of the second practice, we put a new set of tires on in about six, seven different changes in the car, and we had a lot of speed and comfort.

And so I left the track Saturday feeling like that we made the adjustments that we needed to and we helped the car quite a bit. When the race started, I realized right away we had a real tight car getting into the tunnel. I had to back the tunnel up more than 18 and a couple of the cars that were winning cars. I just couldn't drive into the corner without losing the front end and getting real tight and killing all the exit speed, which ruins the next straightaway. So we had that issue, which was costing us a lot of track time. The car was real tight getting into turn three and pushing real bad through the center. We were real loose in the throttle off of term one. You just get all kinds of problems at Pocono when the car is not handling right because

each corner is so different. Each corner is going to drive different even when the car is handling well. So when the car can be real tight on one end of the track because of a problem and the same problem can make the car loose on the other end because of the banking, you know, term one and two's term one, I call, we'll call it term one here. Turn one's got a lot of banking. Turn three is very flat. So the same issue with the car can create two different balance issues for each corner. So what might be making you real loose off of turn two can make you real tight in turn three.

So it's really a pain in the butt. Anyhow, I realize that, you know, we didn't have a winning car right away, but maybe we could tune on it and improve it. We worked real hard all day long, but never really seemed to help the balance that much. Anyhow, I really didn't notice it when the race started, but when we came on the pit road for one of our first pit stops, I got the car slowed down. In second gear, we have, you know, these lights on the tack that will light up, and we usually use one or two red lights to let me know.

I'm near my speed limit and to hold one red or hold two red lights while we're going down pit road. So I know I'm sort of in this window and I can be safe and not speed, but I can be really close to speeding. But it's a real good way to, you know, it's the way we've always done it. It's what works. The old school method is simply a strip of tape on the tack, and you just line this needle on the tack up with that piece of tape.

And that's how we used to do it years ago before we had all these cool lights. But I come down pit road and I didn't have any lights. So right away, I sort of panicked. And when I got to look and where the needle was, it was above the piece of tape. Because we have the pieces of, I always keep the piece of tape on the tack as sort of a backup plan to the lights. But I've tried to get better and better at using the lights because that's just, that gets you a little closer to the speed without going over, where the piece of tape is kind of a guess. Anyhow, we were speeding, the lights on the tack didn't work.

They never, never worked the rest of the day, so I don't know why that was happening, but anyhow, we got caught for speeding and lost a lot of track positions. So we had to go back to the back because of that. We ended up, you know, getting a chance to work on the car and try to drive up through the field. On one of the next restarts, we were way in the back, so, you know, we're going down the front straightaway. I'm kind of half throttle. There's really nowhere to go to get this, you know, there's nowhere to pass cars, guys in front of me for several rows or two and three wide, and jockeying pretty aggressively for position. And so I'm just sitting there thinking, you know, I'm just going to wait and I didn't see anything in front of me that made a lot of sense.

So I just was going to wait, go into the corner, and run a few laps, try to pass a couple cars. And we were going to have plenty of, we had plenty of time left to drive our way through the field and get a good finish. I really, you know, I'm kind of watching all these guys out the front windshield and I didn't look at the mirror on the left side to see if anybody was on the inside of me. And I'm just going to assume that the 35 was there, Cole Witt. because when I came down, we hit pretty hard, real hard. When I looked at his car, I saw where the donut from my left rear was pretty, you know, behind his right front tire. So he was up on me pretty good when I came down.

So I'm going to assume he was there from the start. Anyhow, it's a bad angle for T.J. to spot. So there's really nothing he could have done to help me. I should have been looking a little better, doing a little more observing what was going on. I just made a mistake. So anyhow, we got lucky and didn't back into anything. Nobody hit us. We beat the damage out, which wasn't too bad.

And we got back out there and ended up, you know, way behind trying to fight to stay on the lead lap. And we had some vibrations that weren't the vibrations. You know, people always talk about our Hendrick cars vibrating and why do they vibrate? They vibrate for a lot of different reasons. But we've improved and fixed, you know, our shifter problems were breaking shifters. That's not the kind of vibration I had. And it wasn't a loose wheel vibration either.

The guys assured me that everything was good. None of the wheels came off had been beaten up like they were loose, so I'm pretty sure all the wheels were fine. I'm just, I don't know, you know, sometimes you can get some tires that'll spin on the wheel. We did have some tires that spun a little bit, but I don't know if that's really what caused it. The right rear shook twice on two different sets.

The right front shook once. on a set and when those tires were shaking and wobbling that bad it knocks about a half a second out of the speed of the car. So we had that problem hampering us as well. Finally you know we got into some clean air and running some decent laps there at the end of the race. Greg said we were you know anywhere from a fifth to a seventh or eighth place car most of the day and I would agree with that. We you know we kind of got lucky with the strategy, the leaders assumed there would be another yellow late in the race to allow them

to save some more fuel and be able to make it without a problem. But for whatever reason, today, there wasn't that late yellow that we're accustomed to having. Any other race, nine times out of ten, you're going to get that yellow. You just will. That's just the way things have been going, the trend we've seen over the last several years is we're going to get these late yellows in these races. It's a bunch to feel back up. But it didn't have today and you know that was lucky for us that was fortunate for us because we were able to pass a lot of guys around out of gas ended up getting a good finish definitely finished better than the car was we were gonna run about 15th or so

and that wasn't you know that wasn't gonna be a good finish we're gonna be very happy about that but sometimes you get lucky and that was us today we'll take it we'll go on the Watkins Glen they say it might rain there's a little rain in the forecast all You know, I know it's early, but that'd be crazy. I've never raced in the rain. A lot of guys haven't. I'm excited about that opportunity to do that.

That'd be kind of fun. Definitely be something different. I've actually drove in the 24 hours, Daytona in the rain, but never ran a big heavy stock car around a track in the rain. So I'm anxious to do that, really, to be honest with you. I know some guys have, and it looks pretty fun. So that would definitely be a twist on the traditional Walkinsville weekend. Junior Motorsports had a great weekend.

I retweeted one of Mike Davis's tweets, summing up our weekend. We had a second place finish in Xfinity with Regan. They had an awesome car. Regan did a good job. Jason Burnett, crew chief in that car. It's been awesome all year. If you know that guy's story, you can appreciate how hard a climb it's been for him to get to where he is and get this opportunity. Second place in the trucks, which was a blessing considering the strategy they had.

Kevin did a great job as he always does he didn't have a winning truck and he got a lot out of it though we ended up winning an arc race Cole kids got a bright future

and excited about working with him next year trying to give him the opportunity to showcase his talents and hopefully we can do a good job giving him that opportunity and our late model cars

had another win Josh Barry went to Orange County and won the cars race He went there the week before and won their weekly show just trying to prep for that cars race. So he's been winning left and right. I've never won at Orange County. T.J. Majors drove a late model for me there a long time ago and run third.

But we've never won a race there. So Josh Berry is sure, sure representing us very, very well at all the local tracks that we love to race at. So we're very, very proud of that, very proud of that late model program, not only for the obvious reasons of going and winning and Josh and all that stuff in our relationship with Speedco, but just to still, you know, to still be racing at these local venues that have meant so much to so many people in our sport over the years, it's such a good feeling. So I love following those guys and,

You know, even if we're not racing at some of these tracks, just kind of keeping up with the Langley's and the Orange counties of the world and making, you know, seeing how they're doing and how who's winning races. And, you know, I used to race against some of these guys. It's pretty crazy. But anyhow, real proud. We had a good weekend. We're going to wrap it up.

I hope you guys enjoying the download and we'll see it to Glenn. There you go. Dale Jr. And that's all we have for this week's download. Yeah, that's it. And for Travis Peterson, Mike Davis, Amanda Wolfmeier, I'm Taylor-Zarzer. We'll be back. this week on the download.

Wow. He emptied the tank there, didn't he? Man, he had some information. You got a lot of stuff. I kind of got nostalgic when he was talking about Orange County Speedway. I don't want to get too far off here, but I cannot remember the guy that runs Orange County Speedway, but I did a local show in Raleigh years ago, and they sponsored my show. And I said, well, the only thing we have left to sponsor is the Carolina Hurricanes hockey

report. And he said, I'll absolutely sponsor that. what I want you to say, it makes no sense for me to sponsor this, but you're going to remember it because it makes no sense. And they did. Orange County. Orange County sponsored the Carolina Hurricanes Hockey Report. There you go. But obviously, Josh Berry said a lot of success there. And he's right, though. He should be talking about all the things that are going on with the

different things he's associated with, junior motorsports and the late model team and a truck team and obviously Xfinity team. And then, oh, by the way, somehow, some way. way that team you knew it all along I think it was pretty obvious when the tack lights went out and then the wreck and then the speeding penalty that we were pretty much going to finish four

right yeah yeah I mean I knew you knew it right well don't tell me you thought we were going to finish force and fourth well I have to say I wasn't so sure but I knew after Brad Keselowski had a couple of incidents hitting people on pit road he was going to finish second right

yeah and his jackman was going to live around to see it yeah yeah that's I mean, I'm not trying to be funny about that. That was crazy. No, it was crazy. What happened there? And I know Travis Peterson, who's here with us, the engineer on the 88 team, he stopped smiling when I started talking about somebody getting hit on pit road.

That's, why, he's jumping out there in front of that car. You had Ty, Casey Kane was at half of pit road. My gosh, think about that. That was nuts. Yeah, even in Friday. You guys were working like crazy after the wreck. Pit Road penalty, obviously. the junior just gave us an idea in great detail what happened there.

Kane can't slow down, hits the pit wall. Yeah. And then the Kislauski's situation? Travis, it was nuts this weekend. Yeah, the whole weekend was pretty crazy. That's the best way to sum of that. Jeb Burton on Saturday. Yeah, well, if you watch the replay, he's almost fall on the exact tire tracks.

He did. He did the job of the same spot. And the reason Casey hit so far down pit wall is he actually almost did a little bit better job of saving it. Yeah. You know, he kind of fish tails it back right when he crosses the pit wall. And that's why he goes so far down. And then he still chaos the wall at high speed. That was wild.

It was crazy. Helmets went in the air about. Oh, God, there was one that was like 100 feet in the air. They went out of the camera shot and came back down about 30 seconds later. That was nuts. Really lucky that nobody got hurt in that. That was a big deal. Very lucky.

It was a crazy day. It was no doubt that it was a crazy day. Junior went through a lot of it there. Travis, Mike, let's start with problems and practice. car not handling well, the balance was off. After the entire weekend is over, can you put your finger on some of the reasons why? No.

We struggled when we unloaded and we weren't a whole lot different than we raced the race before, and the overall setup from the two races in the year previous when they won both of them. It wasn't anything that was vastly different that we were trying or anything. It was just subtle little things here and there, but overall the end product should have been close.

And we struggled all practice, all three of them trying to figure out what it was. And like you said, that last change we made in the last practice, we hit on something. But we don't know specifically what it was. We changed, like you said, almost six or seven things. Yeah. Well, it sounds like it.

He said, Junior said like six or seven different setups. Yeah, I mean, we changed the front end, we changed the rear end. We changed everything. And we decided we were going to pull the kitchen sink out of the truck and throw it at the car because we were like, man, we got to change something drastic to make him happy. And all of a sudden, he was real happy that run.

He had a longer run. He got decent speed. and we were like, okay, you know, regardless of what it ended up being what fixed it, we're happy we found some speed. Okay, so whatever that feeling was, did you guys like, did that transfer over into the start of the race Sunday? Or was it kind of back to? We really didn't make a whole lot of adjustments to the car

because we thought we were pretty decent there and everything else. We had tried all weekend. It had great. It had speed, yeah. Yeah, and, you know, the few things he was struggling with at the end of the practice there, even when he was happier that last run, we're still there at the beginning of the race. and we didn't think we were that far off. He was a little upset with the way it was handling,

but from our standpoint, sitting top of the box, similar to Loudoun, he wasn't very happy with the car, but we were pretty fast. It was definitely a top ten car. I mean, find me a driver that's not complaining about a setup. Yeah, I mean, then I'll, you know. Well, if he could have been happy as well and had those things like driving in deeper or whatnot,

we probably could have driven all the way to the front and had a good shot. Like you said, we run really good at Pocono go. There's a lot of confidence. Right. One thing to also mention about that car being a top eight, top six car, whatever you want to call it, Travis is we never really got to see it on a long green flag run before it had any damage or before it had any speeding issues.

And historically, the last few years, Junior's been a great long green flag runner. Yeah, always a long green plays into our hands. And like you said, we didn't really get the opportunity because that first run was so short to the competition caution. And we started having issues instantly. But he had driven pretty far up through the pack to that point. And like, you know, you heard that audio from Greg earlier. We were all excited watching them pick and weave through people on restarts. We kind of thought we had a pretty good shot there to get up front,

and the car changes so much from the top five back, just from the aerodynamic standpoint. And when you get back there, you just develop a lot more issues, too. So if we were to get them back and clean air, we could have been better. Well, out of dirty air back there, there's no question. All right, let's hear about some of these issues, Amanda. Let's go to lap 53, P2 under green, and the tack does not work.

Do you hear me about the light on the back, Greg? Yeah, I hear you. I was letting them clear you. So we'll go to $4,200 from here on now. Your speed there was $60.45 in Section 3 and 60.26. So we're going to figure that out. It's just the light. I'll move better.

Looking for lights and heavy. It is kind of crazy, and Jr. went through it, is the old-school way of looking at it, we have the tape on the tack. Don't go past the tape, right? But then you have the lights that you're trying to be more conditioned to and really pay attention to those. So you can understand if the lights don't work,

how you could make that mistake, Mike. I guess I learned a lot about what our tack looks like in this race yesterday. Because honestly, I mean, I've been around these race cars for a long time, and I've never really looked too deeply into the dashboard. Can you tell us, I mean, Junior did a pretty good job of explaining it, but what exactly are we talking about with this light system? Yeah, so the tacks, you can program them, and there's yellow, green, and red lights that you can adjust in anywhere you want on the tack, really. There's always the top rev limiter one that lights up, but what we use it for is pit road.

You're never going to see those type of low RPMs on track, so it'll never blank or do anything funny when you're down in second gear pit road speed. So you set it up, so that way there's a small window where the tacks light up red is what he likes, and three is where we set the max pit road speed. And you want to get the most you can on pit road. You know, they give you a five-mile-ner window. You want to push it to four and a half mile an hour. Right, right. Or something like that to minimize your time.

Right. So we set up the lights, and basically he drives, and it'll blank yellow, green, and then he kind of has an idea is getting close. Then he levels it off, and he gets right in that window, and he holds usually two red lights is what we shoot for him to hold. Obviously, like they said, they weren't working. We don't really know why. We tried a couple of things telling them in the car to hit the buttons on the tack

and flip cycle power, trying to reset it. but nothing ever happened. It may have gotten completely wiped at some point. You know, we had that red flag. One of the things that maybe could have happened is when you fire everything up and there's all that load going through the electrical system of the car after red flag, it could have done something there because we had that red flag early in the race. That's right.

So that's one of the theories we have that could have happened because we don't really know what it was. But when that's off, you know, he's relying on those lights, he gets on pit road and he starts to accelerate until he sees his lights, right? And all of a sudden he's going, oh, no, there's no lights. And he realizes he's past that point. And he tells us we were speeding. That's a good point, because Kane's incident lasted 10 minutes or so. 15-minute red flag.

Yeah, because they had to reweld the wall up or something. That's right. Part of his car was in the wall. It was nuts. I got to tell you, I'm pretty impressed that he didn't speed again without those lights. Now, like he said, he used to use the old school system. He still has it set up. But for that to be the only thing that you're relying on.

Yeah, the tape line on the dash isn't exactly the most accurate. accurate thing we got. Right. So, listen, I know people are frustrated and all that, but I'm pretty impressed they didn't have any more issues as the day went on. So come back in 26th position, and let's hear what is going on here. This is lap 60 here, Amanda, and some more issues that Dale Jr. and Greg are working through. All right, I'll do all that. I don't know what you did.

We don't talk about it, but I'll do all that. And because I'm dumb, I can't drive it, it's about to wreck in the middle of the corner. It didn't help any of the tightness, so I don't want it in there. It's hurting the hell out of me, whatever we did. It ain't that far. You know, when we put those right side tires on, we put a half round in the right rear. And we took that back out and took one out of the left rear. All right.

Well, the car's wallering all over in the back, spinning out real hard, real bad. real bad shaking the back. I don't know what's going on there. I can imagine what it is. Travis, you don't sound like you're from Georgia, Alabama, or North Carolina, but we would like you to define Walderin for us. Well, you know, re-listened to it through his audio, like, that almost makes you relive the race. And it may have been related to that the vibration he felt like he was feeling, but kind of just listening to it again, walling around almost sounds like he's just loose

off the corner. Like the back end just slips and comes back and slips and comes back to him. And that's the way I would take that now, re-listening to it. When I read it on the paper, I didn't quite get that. But listening to him saying, it gives it a whole new meaning. But that's what I would say. He just, you know, we were struggling. We were trying to free up that entry, try to fix the first part of the corner, see if it helps the rest of it.

And obviously, it just heard exit. And if you can't put the power down for those long straightaways there, it's bad. A lot of swinging for the fences, Mike, on this day. Yeah, but you know what? Through all that frustration that you hear between Jr. and Greg of over the car, that caution actually was very timely for us because pit sequencing had started happening and we got our lap back without a lucky dog. Junior had fallen a lap down because he had to make the additional pit or the pass

through penalty. We fell a lap down. But in between that point and this caution, the leaders had to pit. So Junior actually was on the tail end of the lead, or it was on the lead lap. And then the caution came out. So it actually was very beneficial for us. Unfortunately, they would fall a lap down again, though, as they had the issue, obviously, with the 35.

and let's hear about that on lap 72, and let's hear what T.J. Jr. and Greg had to say. There are a car down there or some, T.J. I can't tell here, man. I'm a mile away from you. Okay. Did you drive through the middle of somebody? No, I just was going into the corner.

Down into the bottom. Somebody ran into the lift for a corner fan. I don't know if there was a car there or not. Hey, guys. It's not as bad as we think here. You know, we're going to have to, you know, clearance that left side. So we'll go four tires. Make sure we clear it in front of the tire here. Yeah, you got a little contact there with 35.

It'll be all right. Oops. You know, anytime your spotter says, I don't know. I didn't see a car down there. Did you drive in somebody? That's probably not a good deal. I really don't mean this to be mean, okay? I really don't.

I'm just going to be honest here. Okay. Cole Witt, a friend of junior motorsports, used to run for junior motorsports. In fairness, he's really short. You know what I mean? Like, maybe he didn't see him. Possibly? Possibly? This is one of the...

I wish you would have brought that up on Twitter. Then I could have been like, reaction theater, 855-740-1902. I mean, if... Joe's short. Amanda, TJ might not have seen him. I mean, maybe he didn't see it. Anyway, we were a little confused about the lap down. Well, the whole time, that was a confusing time.

Yeah. Regardless, the car had a lot of speed, Mike. after that. Well, so they actually made two pit stops, right? Travis, during that caution to repair the damage. Because you spent some time on pit road, repaired it. He went back out there, says I think he had a tire rub. Yeah, the left rear was rubbing the fender there.

By the way, I love the shot on TV with Travis Mack just pounding. Yeah, pounded on that car. Here's the issue with that. So the first time they fixed it, they were adjusting on the fender, right, trying to get the damage back out so it wouldn't have a rub. But at the whole time, the NASCAR official was looking over your shoulder. and they had already called some people for damage repair and pulled them back into pit road. So they're policing that and you're a little nervous.

You don't want to over-adjust it because if you pull them out, everybody knows that's an aerodynamic advantage. Oh, yeah. So you don't want to go too far because the NASCAR's going to make you come back and fix it. So I think somewhere in that, we missed just a chunk of the fender trying to pull it out and it was still rubbing when he back out. He could smell the smoke. That's interesting because I'm going to tell you that NASCAR official was all over.

Yeah. When there's damage repair, they're all over, you make sure you don't over adjust. That's interesting. Good point. That's a very good point. I tell you what, man, my man Peterson here is, he's pretty impressive fella. He's making me smarter. Well, sitting next to him.

I don't really, we don't need Slingerlinter Adam Jordan on anymore. No, I'll say that. Shots fired. All right, let's go to lap 92. Dale feels like he's got something loose in the car. All right, well, I feel like I got something coming loose in the back. I don't know. Okay, 10-4.

Well, we'll do here, guys, when we check the left side up, We're going to check the track bar and check all that. Make sure we put a jackstand underneath there. It felt like it was happening before we ever got hit. It's like a hat on a hub or something weird. It's only in the center of the corner. It's real bad all the way off the corner. Down the straightaway, it's fine.

But it's real bad, and it makes the car real loose, real, real, real hard to drive. Come for it. It's a big problem. We'll see. action that, Travis? Well, we never did find it. We came in because we were tail end, and we kept working on it trying to check parts

to make sure nothing was loose. But, you know, listen to him, say it was center off the corner. You almost think it might have something to do with acceleration, the drive line. But we don't, I don't know. We'll maybe find something this week in the car, but we don't have any idea for sure what it is.

We just know Dale's pretty sensitive. And he can feel so much of that stuff that any little vibration just throws off his feel in the car and it makes him slow down, like he said. Yeah, Jimmy Johnson once said that to me. He said it's kind of hard to, explain because you're never going to be in the car with another driver. But he did say that he feels like Junior can sense so many more things about a car than he can.

And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that's a bad thing. But it's fascinating each driver and what they sense and what they don't sense. Yep. Yeah. And like you said, I mean, it's kind of, I've only worked with Dale this last year, specifically working, listening to him talk. But a lot of the guys on the team and other people through history that I try to learn from their experience,

they talk by how he's a very sensitive driver. So something like that, you know, it hurts you because if he can feel that, and it's a detriment to his other feel and match trying to make you a hard go fast. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think all of us learn a lot listening to Dale Jr. every week dissect the race and all the different experiences that he has. So we certainly appreciate getting your perspective here this week on the download as well, Travis. And yeah, I think also Junior did a very good job of trying to describe the issues with the vibration.

Any thoughts on that moving forward? Yeah, like I said, we're going to do our best to find it. When we get back to the shop, we don't know what it was. Luckily, we can rule out things like the standard issues we've had in the past, and we don't think it was a loose wheel. And you can take those things and say, all right, at least we know we don't have any of those issues anymore. Hopefully you can narrow down what it was, or maybe it was just some freak thing.

Because he said at the end of the race, he didn't feel it that last run. So whatever it was, it kind of worked itself out. There's a lot of shifting going on at that place, too. It could have been a number of different things. Yeah, it's very possible that, you know, he said earlier in the race, he thought he may have missed a shift somewhere between last. 50 and 60 on all those restarts. So that could have been something too, but we don't know for sure.

Here's what I do know. I'm looking at my notes here. Whatever he felt was loose and however much sensitivity he has in his ass and all that stuff, I don't know about that. What I do know is that he came out and restarted 30th. At that point is when I figured that we had a fourth place finish. There's no question about it. You know, we had one more green flag pit stop to go.

I felt like fourth was a good place for us to end up. I have to tell you, that is the most fun way to finish four. Junior doesn't like finishing fourth that way. You'd rather have a lot of speed and finish fourth. I get it. But if you're a fan or you're on the team or you're associated in some way, watching them go from the very back to finishing the race fourth, those last 30-some-odd laps were really fun.

Man, we were pretty mopey on top of the box. I'm not going to lie. We felt like everything had gone wrong and we were sad. Gosh, what can go right? But honestly, when they all started the pit, we were like, man, if this thing goes green, we have a shot of that. a decent finish here. Yeah.

Because we're like, there's no way. There ain't going to make it from that. Yeah, but you want to know something. You say there's no way. I had just had this conversation with L.W. Miller the day before, after watching the Xfinity race,

where we were hoping that, who won the Xfinity race? Blaney. Blaney did, yeah. Right. And Regan was sitting there in second place, and Blaney, like, does he have enough fuel?

And I'm like, they always have enough fuel. I could, I think, like, I was trying to think, but the last time I saw somebody run out of fuel on the last two laps. I think it was actually us. for the 600.

You know what I'm saying? So I'm like, you know what? These guys, I'm not buying into this whole, is there enough fuel? Kyle Bush, Legano, they're all going to save enough fuel. They're all masters of this. And dang if half of them didn't run out. I swear, I was even going to tell you, Lugano and then Truex and then Kyle Busch, I was laughing hysterically.

Like, typically, I don't, typically I don't cheer for someone else's demise. well, there's one guy in particular. Anyway, I don't typically cheer for somebody else's demise, especially if they already have a win. Like Truex is one of the junior's best buddies. I was laughing when they were running out of it. Because they already have wins. They're in the chase. They're fine.

But just watching that happen. Like, oh, there we go. There goes another one. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe. I was Hawke-Hawson all of a sudden. I couldn't believe it because I just don't remember the last time we've had a race where people were legitimately dropping like flies. It was crazy. With more than, like, before

with the white flag lap actually. So, yeah, it was nice. Who do you think had the best car on Sunday? That's a great question. Harvick had a great car, but he had an engine problem. He launched. He was so early that he had that issue. I'd say 22, 18, 4, 41, those guys were definitely good.

We knew when we got up there, we passed other cars, and then we couldn't really pass those guys, so they were definitely good cars. It was nuts. All right, well. It was nuts. It was nuts. But now Mike Davis, it's here. his race. He's been calling it for years. Junior's going to get a win at Watkins Glen.

Travis. What do I got to do to get you guys to win at Watkins Glen? I need this. I need this. Is there in a background or why you need it that bad? I need it. Well, first of all, there's a story. I'm going to call Travis out. You need to familiarize yourself a little bit more at this down mode, not when you're just on it. Just in general. You know, okay. You do, because it's fun. As you can tell, we have a blast. Junior teaches us a lot each week. but we've done over a hundred of these now. And since the very beginning, this man right here has been predicting that Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was going to win at Watkins Glen.

So now every time he has a top five finish in Sonoma, Mike goes, hey, I told it. Warm it up. That's not the same thing. Okay, that's in California. It's not in New York. Yes, it's a road course, but it's a different type of road course. He's been calling for a win in Watkins Glen. Now, he's had a lot of success.

He's definitely gained on it a lot. I'll give you that in the last couple of years. Gamed on it. Gamed on it. But I didn't know that you meant he was going to win in the rain in Watkins Glen. See, because that's a different story all together. Listen, if I predicted that Dale Junior would finish fourth at lap 90 of this past week's race, don't you think I know what I'm talking about about Watkins Glen?

No. No, I don't. I mean, I know how to call these things. Junior is going to, before his career's over, he will win a race at Watkins Glen. What about this weekend? In the rain. God, I hope it. That would be kind of fun.

The rain would be interesting. And Dale likes all that weird stuff, the unique type of racing like that. So, you know, he may just excel at it like out of nowhere. All right, I'm looking ahead here. The forecast does not look that bad on Sunday. Only a 20% chance of rain in Watkins Glen. Now, Friday is a different story. Could see a lot of showers on Friday.

but Saturday and Sunday the weekend forecast It's not low. I'll tell you right now, put that thing away. We look at that all week, right, and then it's never right until about a day before. All right, it's time for reaction theater, and as you know, we have been given away some pretty sweet gifts to a caller we feel deserving

of some spy swag. Maybe we'll make Travis decide who the best person. That's a great idea. Hopefully we've got some good ones today on top of the earbuds, sunglasses, and wireless speaker up for grabs. Don't forget, you can go online to spyoptic.com. and get yourself a pair of Dale Jr.'s signature 88 shades.

This includes the Dirty Mo, McCoy, Quanta, General, and Farah for the ladies. Once you are ready to check out in her discount code nationwide 88 and get 20% off of that purchase. I'm a big fan myself. Yes, you are. You're looking good with him. Travis, we're going to pick a caller. It doesn't have to be the happiest.

It doesn't have to be, it just needs to be the most memorable. Yes. Okay. I get to hear them all first. Oh, absolutely. We're going to, in fact, you pick a random number now. No, no, no. Nope, nope.

We're just going to see what we got. We all get a vote. Here we go. Man, after a day like we had today, man, I'll take a fourth place finish over anywhere where we were running today. Holy catfish! I'm drinking about as hard as Junior 1, Martinsville, Talladega, and Daytona. I'm just going to go up and have me some good old redneck fun.

I got me some whiskey. We're not firing anyone because, obviously, if we can rally back from what happened to us today and finish four, that's a really damn good job. Okay, so everyone's reinstated. Everything I said last week is off the record. Damn, yeah. Like, Travis, you can continue to work. I hope he didn't fire Travis last week.

Good thing. It might have fired Travis. Had we run out of fuel, it might have been a different story. Travis was up to send me last week, but hey, you're fine. That would be awkward, wouldn't it? Welcome back. Oh, on air. Yeah. Who's next?

It's like an emotional roller coaster ride here at my house. We get up there at this damn race. We've taken out positions, moving up on the track, looking good, looking fast. Next thing I know. Oh, June bug out there speeding on pit road. Their own damn fault gets in the back. You know, everybody 25th back, usually going to wreck the damn car anyway. The next thing I know, we back there riding around all day.

I thought we didn't get on the bus with Kevin Harvick. Took off with the house and some cold bubwizers until the next thing I know the race is over. Damn it, we get to pull out a fourth place. Way to hang in there, guys. That's all I can say. I like that. I like that. That was good.

I thought we were on the bus for Harvick. That was a fair recap of our race right there. Who's next? First of all, I've got to give a nice round of applause to the 88 team for stealing the golden horseshoe away from Kyle Bush. Because after having such a ducky race with a speeding penalty and a spin, and we still finish to finish for it, and more importantly, that 18 finally running out of gas and not winning a race,

God, I think we had the goal. I think we definitely had it straight up there, and I'm not going to even say where, because we all know where that is. Hashtag no beers. I have to tell you, a lot of people are questioning Kyle Busch and his team for going for the win because of their situation right now in the points. With all due respect to David Gilliland and Cole Witt, Kyle Busch is 13 points out of 30th.

Yeah. It was totally fine for him to go for the win. He's going to be in the top 30, folks, barring an absolute disaster. I'd love to listen to that conversation. they tell Kyle Busch not to go after a win and get for points. Oh, it was pretty entertaining, actually. We listened to him on the radio, and his crew chief said, you need to slow down.

You got five seconds. You're going to run out of fuel. Slow down. Sorry, I can't hear you. I can't hear you. I can't hear you. I can't hear you. I'm getting Twitter update.

I see 17th, and then the next tweet I see it's fourth. Oh, my God. I think there were a lot of people like her that gave up. On Sunday, it said the hell at this. You know what? For once, I'm going to make my significant other happy. I'm going to do the honey-do list. I'm going to cut the grass.

I'll do something. And they might have missed a fourth place finish, Mike Davis. You know what? Again, I keep going back. It was pretty obvious we were going to finish fourth. I don't know why you would have had to quit watching. Yeah. I'm sure you were.

He quit watching go do something, come back, watch the last laugh. That's all it really mattered. And then you had the greatest day ever. I will say it was funny watching. I was watching the NASCAR.com leaderboard, and it didn't even know what to make of the situation, to be honest with it. Because as he crossed the line, it went 12th, 7th, 18th, 4th, 12th, 4th. It's like, it's almost like NASCAR.com just threw up at saying.

Our timing at the track didn't even have it right. We had no idea it was going on. We're a month or so into NBC slash NBC Sports Network. coverage, and I like it a lot. I think they do a really good job, and the graphics are good, following where the leaders are, et cetera. It was a chaos on the top of my screen in the last five minutes of that podcast. I think they did a great job of covering that. That's got to be tough when all these cars start falling back like that to cover who wins. It's like, I don't even know. I don't know. Stevie knows about these situations. Who's next? Well, that's a way to turn

chicken and the chicken salad but I kept on waiting to see Mike Davis out there pushing the 18 car to victory. Oh, stop. Come on. Travis, let me tell you what happened.

I like that one. Yeah, I'll stop. I congratulate Kyle Busch last week. I just congratulate him. And all of a sudden, everybody thinks I'm like the biggest Kyle Busch fan. I mean, I thought he was...

I think you've got to be impressed with it. If you win, you know how hard this is. That's right. You know how hard this is. And I'm just saying when you do what he's done, you just got to tip your cap to the guy. I mean, you'll just, that's kind of expected. Mike had his phone out here, Travis, last week,

and there was something on his screen. He was texting with Kyle Bush, and it said, let's talk about Rowdy Radio. I don't know. Love or hate the guy. It's been impressively. Yeah, that's right. Who's next?

Routy Radio. Watch out. Somebody's going to steal that. He wasn't having it. He wasn't having it. Rec, no problem. Left part of the car, f*** up. No problem.

Go back to the rear. No problem. Beating penalty. I don't give a shit. I'm going to keep digging. That's what champions do. And we will look back at this race at the end of the year and say, holy shit, what an awesome fucking day.

Hey, I think we got a new leader in the clubhouse. I mean, listen, and he's right. And I know that you guys had to be bummed about the day. a hundred or so laps in, but nobody gave up. Everybody was still swinging, doing everything they can, and you know what? I really believe, in part, that's one of the reasons the car finished fourth. Yeah, there's no quit on anybody in the team.

And it stems from Dale. You know, he said a lot of time, we've had issues, wrecks, whatever, and he says, every single car I can beat is worth it to me. Yeah. And that's the way we go about it. And anytime you do something bad, you can always learn from it, too, whether it's you try something else on the car that you make a big swing and you learn or what, but we never stopped.

I was listening a good bit to, I'm not going to say his name, but I was listening to another car a good bit yesterday. And he has the worst attitude you can possibly imagine. And that has a lot to do, I think, with why that team that I'm not going to mention is struggling. And the attitude on the 88 couldn't be more different. And I do think that is a huge factor. I wonder who it is.

Can we guess? I'm not going to say it. I don't want to, you know, I'm not here. here to spit on anyone else that's really struggling this year. Moving on. Wow, what a difference a year makes. Last year, two great cars, sweep at Pocono. This year, just all kinds of problems.

Today, vibrations, speeding penalty on pit road. I guess about the only other thing bad that could happen is if Dale called out to T.J. And he wasn't there for some reason. Anyway, somehow managed to get fortunate and luck into a top five finish with the fourth place. That's great. But we've got to get back on the winning track. Go get them next week. Dale yeah.

Actually, we did have an issue with the... Yeah, about that. We had it all. In fairness, DJ was a mile away, but, yeah, there was an issue with that as well. I know in all seriousness, Travis, I do know that, you guys are fired up because you finished fourth, but because of all the issues it went on, that only motivates everyone even more to get back out there at the track next week.

Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we always want to rebound a lot stronger to forget that way. But you've got a little bit more motivation being that it's Watkins Glen? Yeah, definitely. And Mike Davis has put you on, yeah. That's all I need to know.

Mike that just makes you want to win Watkins Glen. That's all I need to know. Who's next? Who's next? Hey, hey, why don't you go down to the optical center and get yourself some high-office. I think description lenses

I think we might have a new leader. He's working hard for that, though. I don't know. That's a little too much. That's funny. That's Tim Brock. That is my man, Tim. Last one.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a faithful race that started on a triangle inside the Keystone State. Junior had a mighty racing car, the crew chief braven shore. Many drivers said sail that day. 400 miles, 400 miles. The racing started getting tough. The 88 was spun.

If not for the courage of the fearless crew, his Chevy would be lost. His Chevy would be lost. The Windows 1088 came in fourth place today. Our superstar! The Hendrick Bunch and Amy two. Here inside the top five! hashtag deal you hashtag eat it haters hey listen he's already won some spy swag

we can't give him some more oh is there is there a jingle man all the time oh man I thought that one was clever yeah all right Travis what you think you went the guy that my man Joe Brock that was calling out TJ we the awesome bleeping day fella who went through all the issues pushing the 18 card of victory is pretty funny

we had we had a couple that pretty funny at the beginning as well. You know, I don't really want to support all the swear words, but I thought that was probably the best. That was pretty good. Yep. At the end of the day, that's kind of how we all felt. You just limited it down to like seven of the cost. No, no, no, no, there was one with about 20 of them in there. What an awesome bleeping day. He wants that guy.

That's our guy. Over my man, Timmy Brock. Play number six real quick. Play number six. Sorry. Make sure we get the right one here. All right. Dale Jr., he wasn't having it. Rec? No problem. Left part of the car. F*** up. No problem. Go back to the rear. No problem. Beating penalty. I don't give a sh-h. I'm coming to the front.

I'm going to keep digging. And that's what champions do. And we will look back at this race at the end of the year and say, holy shit, what an awesome fucking day. There you go. That's your guy. Is that your winner? That's my guy. All right. Because he called us for the championship.

I mean, that's... There you go. That's sold me right there. Reaction Theater is open 24-7. All you have to do is call toll-free. 1-855-740-1902. If you're calling toll-free, you might want to spend a few more dollars and get a new phone. And leave us your voicemail message, and we'll play the best each week right here on Dirty Mo Radio.

Time now for It Takes the Nation presented by Nationwide. I feel like there is a big misconception about a certain role here at Junior Motorsports, and it's a role of our road manager for Dale Jr. It's a position I had for a long time and several others after me, but now belongs to Tyler Overstreet. And Tyler Overstreet is in here. Before I get to the misconception, let's start from the ground level, Tyler. What is your job?

I basically handled day-to-day Dale's calendar facilitating a lot of requests. I'm essentially a funnel between our HMS partners, our PSA partners, JARM, so that he's getting information from one source. I mean, obviously he also talks to you about some stuff. He talks to Kelly about a lot of stuff. But when it comes to production dates, appearance requests, weekend schedules, when we're flying out, All this stuff comes through me and we interact and figure that out together. Yeah.

There are many vocations, actually, in this role. This is where it gets complicated. There are many vocations. Administrative Assistant is certainly one of them. I'm not saying it's the most pleasurable part of the job. I'm saying that it's definitely one of them. You're scheduling. You're working on a calendar.

Logistics, a big one. Public relations, a big one. Media relations, a big one. So, you know, we get this question all the time. How are you different than, say, Laura Scott's position at Hendrick Motorsports or my position here at Junior Motorsports? Sometimes it gets a little foggy for people. So let's just break it down. Explain the functionality between what we call Team Junior, you know, on the median marketing side.

So Laura works for Hendrick Motorsports. She works out of Concord. Maybe they call that Charlotte right there by the track. And she's facilitating media requests. NBC goes to her. NASCAR goes to her on a lot of stuff. and she will get the request, pull them together, send them to me and Dale on Tuesday or Wednesday of the week leading into, you're going to do a lot of your media stuff on Friday afternoon between practices. So she's facilitating media requests.

You also have Jake Backer, who is our marketing rep at Hendrick. And he is working with Nationwide, Diet Duke, Kelly Blue Book, all of our sponsors. They're asking for production days months in advance, appearances, months and months. advance so we can get this stuff organized and pulled together so they're working more so with the nationwide folks and diet do obviously i still have a relationship with those guys too you do as well sure but they're interacting on a day-to-day basis managing that relationship when it comes to hendrick and that number 88 car my role is well yeah obviously i'm still worried about the 88 car but my number one focus is to make sure that everything's working well for dale junior that's right

Whether that's the number 88 cup car, number 88 expedity car, being the owner of JRM, working with Wrangler and Chevrolet and those guys on the PSA side. PSA is being personal service agreements. These are things that are not necessarily team sponsors, but they are Dell Jr. sponsors on a personal service level. Also, head trainer, we recently announced that doesn't have anything to do the Hendrip side. It does with Dell. That's where you are an account rep, so to speak. these people. So, yeah, like, you and I, we interact a lot with head trainer because that's coming through

Junior Motorsports representing Dale's brand directly. Mike is really, he's like the godfather over Dale's brand to where, like, he's like, eh, that doesn't really fit, doesn't make sense, it's not authentic. Believe it or not, as much as Mike jokes around and everybody's like, man, I would love to be Mike Davis, he's doing. prank people all day. Yeah, yeah. That's more, not exactly what Mike does.

so he does these podcasts. He does 360. He's involved with all that. But he's going, last week he went out of town for a sponsor meeting. At the end of the day, he is a very creative mind behind a lot of the stuff that we do, whether it's goodies, Helmonds, just a lot of the brands. And he can provide me and Dale with a lot of common sense. And some of the emails that Mike sends are very blunt.

And I'm like, man, I wouldn't. I'm not sure I would have said that to Dale. It gets this point across, and then Dale's like, yeah, that's a good idea. Man, Dale have a long history. See, a lot of the times, a lot of the ways that Dale and I talk to, I would never want you to say that. Like, I would be mad at you if you did that. Yeah. But Dale and I go way, way, way back.

Because I was in that role. Yeah. I was in that role. The roles changed. But when I came off the road, Dale was gracious enough to let me hire for this position so I could kind of sit back and. and sort of run the department, but also then take on some of these other things that I wanted to do. Dirty Moe Radio 360, and then start becoming more involved in his brand building.

And so that's why your position was so vital is that somebody had to take over. But it's a very difficult position. You said something very, very important. Your job centers around Dale Jr. Right. And this is where the misconception comes in. Because of all the vocations I spoke about that sort of play into this road manager, updating people on Twitter is not one of them.

Now, it doesn't mean that Tyler's not able to do that when he wants to. He can, but that role is not about that. There are other people that do that, and they do it well. This role is about taking care of Dale, and Dale needs somebody like that. But Tyler, in all seriousness, man, you have done an awesome job. And when you're doing an awesome job, this is how you know. If Dale's not complaining about it, because that means you're taking care of Dale. If anybody else is saying, well, where does you know, why hasn't he tweeted?

Well, that's not his job. His job is taking care of Dale, and I tell you what, Dale's been thrilled this year at all the stuff you've been able to do with him, and I've been very happy to. That's all the compliment I'm going to give you, though,

because that's awesome. Yeah, because that's more than I. Now it's officially uncomfortable for me. But thank you for being here on Takes a Nation, Tyler. We'll do this again sometime. Hey, folks, between now and August 7th, that's Friday, Nationwide is asking fans to show their support of Dale Jr.

And the number 88 team by sharing their fondest memories, personal experiences and most exciting stories. Fans can submit their stories, photos or videos, via Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook using the hashtag My Dell Story. That's hashtag My Dell Story. They can also submit them at my Dale story.com. Check out the website to see all these amazing stories, pictures and videos from Junior Nation. They're pretty special, and they're going to pick a winner that is going to ultimately get to meet Dale again.

And you know what? Tyler Overstreet will get that on his schedule and book it. Tyler, you're aware of that. You're going to book some lucky winner of the My Dell story campaign is going to get to meet Dale. You're going to handle that, right? Yeah, we're looking forward to it. That's right.

We'll see you soon. There you go. And folks, don't forget, Nationwide is on your side. Hey, everybody, I'm Tiff Daniels, and here's what's coming up on Dirty Mo Radio. On Wednesday, Kelly will be joined by Janice Amarola, wife of junior motorsports alum, Eric Amarola, on Fastlane family presented by Wella Professionals. Thursday, Heath White and Regan Smith will be back with another episode of Junior Motorsports Upfront presented by Dale's Pale Ale and they'll have Josh Barry in the studio, although the topic this week won't be just racing.

And don't forget, you can always catch Dale Jr's at-track press conferences on said Junior presented by nationwide. Dirtymo Radio podcasts are available free of charge 24-7 on Dale Jr.com, iTunes, and all major podcasting outlets. Tyler, you stick around. It's time now for white flag. Yeah. White flag right there, white flag. Let's go. Let's see what you got here.

What you got, Tyler? All right. Dale Jr. has a pretty light week this week, which means he has nothing going on. Oh, it means you have nothing going on. Exactly. Exactly. My favorite kind of week.

He goes to Watkins Glen on Friday for two practices, qualifying Saturday. The race on NBC Sports Network. If you don't have NBC Sports Network, check out their NBCSports.com or the live extra app. We get a lot of questions looking for the race. You can watch it online, so if you can hear this podcast, you can watch the race. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's a fair point. Make it our fault.

That's a fair point. Well, I'm just trying to help people watch the races. There you go. Also, if you haven't checked out the Junior Nation fan survey, you can find links on our website, Dale Jr.com, jaramracing.com, and our Facebook and Twitter accounts, Mike Davis keeps tweeting it. So if you haven't seen it, wait, whoa, what's that supposed to make? You tweet it like every 20 minutes.

Oh, easy. I do not. liar. But if you, yeah, we're trying to just deliver better content. Mike Davis is struggling. So he needs you to help him. And plus if you, you could win a $250 gift card. So that's a cool opportunity if you just want to waste three or four minutes of your life to help Mike Davis. Very big news for Watkins Glen this week. Mike Davis will be making a rare at-track appearance. Wait, what? Yeah. Going to Watkins Glen? If we're going to win, Taylor. I'll tell you what, if we get him to Victory Lane, there's never going to be a celebration like that.

This is going to be rowdy. Are you kidding me? So I'm going to the beach. Oh, good for you, Tyler. Let me taste it. I'm going to do my best to disturb your vacation. I bet you are. I will.

Tyler, you can tell you vacation. There's no vacations in this deal. 36 months strong. No, Tyler, you take, I'm on your team. You go to the vacation. There you go. I might come with you. Mike has been predicting for years that Dale Earnhardt Jr.

going to win in Watkins Glen. If he is there for the victory, you're never going to hear the end of this. How much did you influence Tyler's off time? None. He told me to leave it. You can go this week, but I think the Watkins Glen weekend, you can probably take your vacation. Yeah, exactly.

I'm going to tell you something. You guys talking about rain. Yeah? I'm not signing up for rain. No rain? No, no, no, no, no. Okay. Well, right now the forecast looks good,

but like Travis said, that will change six times in the next few days. Tyler, it's good to see you. Good job. Yeah. Travis Peterson did an excellent job this week. We appreciate him. We thank Amanda Wolfmeyer, who doesn't even have a headset anymore. Thanks to Tyler, thanks to Mike.

Thanks to Dale and Hart Jr. I'm Taylor's artist to remind you that we appreciate you listening to the Dale Jr. Download presented by Spy. Thanks for listening to Dirty Moe Radio. Well, that'll wrap another episode of the Dale Jr. download presented by Spy. And guys, remember go online to Spyoptic.com. Choose your favorite Dale Jr. signature 88 pair of sunglasses. And when you're at checkout, enter discount code nationwide 88.

and make sure you get your 20% off your purchase. Happy shopping, guys.