The Dale Jr. Download - 105 - Watkins Glen: Left Fuming

Episode Date: August 11, 2015

Dale Earnhardt Jr. reports in from his tree house on Dirty Mo Acres; MRN pit road reporter Steve Post calls; Mike Davis gets an earful on Reaction Theatre. 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. All right, DJ, back off. Don't have that conversation on another channel there. Yeah, that's all good. All right, man. Got to go easy, you, man. You're now listening to the Dale Jr. download presented by Spy.

Check out Dale Jr.'s signature dirty Moe sunglasses from Spy at Spyoptic.com. Hey, everybody. It's Jr. Sorry about, I don't know if you can even hear them, the crickets and all kinds of crazy stuff going on. But I'm at the tree house, having a couple of beers. Anyways, we just got home from Watkins Glen, and it was a pretty good race. We came off the trailer really, really fast and real fast. I was actually real happy, thrilled, actually, with the way the car was going speedwise.

We were real tight, though, in the Friday practice, the first one. And I was a little bit worried about that. We worked on our car, but couldn't really fix the balance issues to go faster. but we still had pretty good speed and real consistent. The car was real easy to drive. But in qualifying, we made, you know, the typical changes you make in qualifying to get the car tighter. You can have a lot more grip, a lot more speed, taping off the front grille, so we make a lot of changes.

In qualifying, we were loose in these, you know, in these areas that we were tight Friday, so I was, you know, kind of flexed on what to do for the race. I didn't know if the track had changed some, but anyways, we qualified pretty good. I think we definitely had the speed to qualify inside the top five, and I saw that in the race as far as the speed in the car. Once the race started, we've got to be aggressive on restarts. You've got to be aggressive any time you have an opportunity. If you see a guy, you know, sort of get a couple guys go side by side up through the S's.

you've got to be aggressive on somebody when you get a run on them. So we were definitely trying to do that all day long and getting some pretty good positions on them restarts and taking opportunities to get by guys. You know, our strategy was working really well throughout today. It kept us toward the front. It kept us up, you know, up out of trouble. A lot of things going on in the back.

You can bang up fenders. We saw what happened to Truex there. He got into somebody trying to pass us. lower car and ended up tearing up his front tire so those things you worry about getting there and outside the top you know top 10 but we stayed toward the front all day and had a lot of good speed it came down toward the end of the race and we had some choices to make there were cautions that weren't really falling the way we needed them to fall a lot of guys came down pit road about 10 laps before our window and they were hoping to

come on to pit road once they got inside our window and just take that little bit of fuel they needed, where we would have to pit, change tires and fuel, and they would get, you know, they would get that advantage on us. So they all, you know, a lot of guys came down pit road early, and then we got around six, five or six laps, I guess, or a handful of laps still short of the window and had another yellow. And these yellows aren't falling when we want them to. We don't want yellows at that particular point. The four car and the 20 car pitted, which is interesting. I think that spurred a lot of us to go ahead and pit under that same caution.

So they pitted, and we're really going to gamble on getting a caution laid in the race, which we always do. There's a high percent of a half a percent chance of having a caution late, and we just didn't get it today. But anyways, so we're pitting a little bit early. than we earlier than we want, but it's only because these cautions keep coming out, and we have to come down on Pit Road to get fuel. There's an opportunity here to get fuel and maybe stress our fuel if we get a good caution late.

Anyhow, we come down Pit Road, we come out and we're about five laps short, and we're saving fuel, and once we go green, we're about three and a half laps short. So we're running those last 30 laps or so. expecting you get a yellow, and if we get that one yellow, we're going to be able to save enough to make up those three and a half laps. And we didn't get it. So with about, with about, I don't know, 10, 15 laps ago, we went into save mode, short shifting, lifting real early, maybe not even running full throttle all the way down the back straightway. So we're giving up some time and some positions, but we're trying to stay into that top 10. And had it made, I thought, we started to

started to sputter a little bit coming out of the carousel and then it ran out of gas coming into the second to last turn. So got beat by a couple guys that knocked us out of the top 10. You know, that's just road course racing. You know, people were asking me after the race what I think about fuel mileage races. I'm just going to tell you, you know, if you're racing at road courses or you're tuning to watch a road course race, you're going to see a fuel mileage race, especially at Watkins Glen. We don't have a lot of tire fall off. There's not a lot of You know, versus tires, as far as old versus new, there's not a lot of speed difference. So guys are going to call that race and be aggressive on fuel, and it's going to come down to trying to push that and make that fuel last.

And it didn't work for us. You know, if we get a yellow like you do nine out of ten times, we're fine, but we didn't get that yellow today. So it was a great run for us, though. We had a very fast car all weekend, good competitive speed. We can expect to build on that for next year at the road courses. We've been running good at the road courses the last several trips. So we want to be able to keep that up. And, you know, I think there's a lot of good reasons why we're running better.

Number one, you know, the cars are better than they come off the truck and they're fast. It makes it so easier on me. It's hard for me to be able to make a car faster throughout the weekend. If it doesn't come off the trailer quick, at the road course, course. So, you know, if we come off the trailer slow, we've got a lot of balance issues. It's really difficult for me to help the team or help the crew chief to improve that. And, yeah, I've had conversations with Ronfell, Oswald, and Boris said about that particular thing, and they try to give me, you know, tips and help me understand on things that I can do,

but it's really tough. So if the car comes off the trailer fast like it has the last couple of years, we're going to run well or we're going to have an opportunity to run well. The other thing I think that helps me is no testing. I think when we go test, my inability to really help improve our car at the road courses, that happens at the test at road courses as well. So we spend a day or two at a road course really just running in circles waste of time. We might find some things that can help us. But for the most part, I feel like that no testing, particularly at the road courses,

has helped me a lot versus the complex. competition. We've been fast since they've made that policy change. And so that's been good. I've enjoyed the last several trips to Sonoma and Watkins Glen and I used to dread them and hate those weekends and now I look forward to it. So we'll see how it goes next year. Hopefully we can maintain this momentum and keep having a good time. They're fun tracks when you can run well. Definitely enjoyed all this weekend and look at forward to next year. So that's about it. We're going to Michigan. Everybody on Twitter is telling me they're excited that we're going to Michigan because that's a good track for us but hey you got one thing to remind you about there's a

completely different rule package for this race. We're going to have a giant spoiler on the back, a lot of drag, cars are going to be driving and handling a lot different by themselves in traffic. There's going to be a lot of stuff going on so it's It's going to be a very, very difficult weekend, much like Indy was. So I'm excited to see what this package does at a racetrack like Michigan, whether we have the big draft and the cars running bumper-to-bopper and drafting and passing on the straightaways. That's going to be interesting to see if that happens. And if it does, you're going to see a hell of a race.

So everybody's kind of excited about it. I know Michigan's excited about what we got planned. And it's a racetrack that provides you more. opportunities in the corners to run a little higher, a little lower to get out from behind a car with dirty air. And you know with this big spoiler, it's going to make a lot of dirty air. So we're going to need to be able to move and get out from behind these guys and run different lines in the corner when you're trying to catch and pass a car. So we'll see how it works.

I know NASCAR and the drivers are all hoping that it's a good show, and I know you guys are going to tune in to check it out. Either way, I hope you enjoyed the download. We'll talk to you later. man i tell you what i think i prefer dale junior given his explanation with the crickets and the cicadas out there i really do i think it adds an ambiance i'm gonna say it's like a nature moment for you on top of informative i mean this is dirty moe radio uh he's coming to you from dirty mo acres the tree house you got the crickets going i didn't hear any other farm animals out there but uh i don't know i liked it

did you like it i did too i'll tell you what uh good stuff from dale junior i'm mike davis with T.J. Majors, Amanda Wolfmeyer. Taylor, he's off in Oregon doing college football stuff for his program on Sirius XM. So we'll catch him next week. But, TJ, you and I were both at Watkins Glen this weekend, and

I don't know, man. You know, Dale Jr. alludes to the fact that he enjoys going to road courses. Now, we were talking about that after Sonoma, and he brought up a really good or an interesting point, and that was because he said, we don't test there, which if I'm to translate this and interpret it right, because that's

less opportunity for him just to screw it up. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way. That's what he's saying. He's not good enough at road courses for him to be able to give constructive, progressive feedback to help a car get better. So it needs to come off the truck fast. It did this weekend. And I think that last year, I think at Sonoma, Steve LaTart and Dale Jr.,

they'd made the decision not to go test a road course that year. And it was the best Sonoma race that they had. I think that was last year. It might have been two years ago. Same thing again. I thought that was very interesting, but TJ, it was a good weekend. Car was super fast all weekend, qualified well. Strategy just kind of bit us there at the end, but that's going to happen, right?

Yeah, I think he's just saying, you know, the more time he spends on track, it probably at a test, it just makes him further away. You know, he just starts, like he's saying, he's not just not a road course expert enough to be able to help the crew chief really fix the car. So, you know, if we unload fast and just don't have that opportunity to go and kind of mess it up, like you said, then he is really competitive. And he's right about, you know, how the race went and everything. You just don't ever know what's going to happen there.

You might be running 12th and have a shot to win. Yeah, that's right. It was an uncharacteristic Watkins Glen race. I mean, usually you see some of the biggest crashes you've seen all year. It's true. You got your red flag that you normally get. But it wasn't the red flag that we'd want. I mean, there was red flag because James McGrathoerger around the whole track leaking fluid.

It wasn't red flag because somebody went upside down four times. We had a big crash. We had a big crash. It was for fluid the whole way around the track. There's no way. Listen, I have no problem with what Greg Ives and Dale Jr. decided to do there as far as strategy. I don't remember the last time of Watkins-Glen race went the last 30 laps under Green. It just, it doesn't happen.

And so, you know, if the chances are once every lunar eclipse, I like my odds. didn't pay off for us this time, but there's no complete, I mean, they ran fast. Junior's always happy. As long as the car was fast, he can live with it, and he can live with it. It was super fast this weekend. We can get to some of these audio clips right now

and kind of take us to this race. TJ, you know, you and Dale talking early on, there was a caution for this. I think Greg Biffle had a flat. And we were about to pit. I think that's what we're going to hear right here. We were running, it looks like six. We were running six.

This time you'll be clear and clear out real early. 3,900 first. Stay out, stay out. Dump it, dump it, dump it. I guess there's yellow here. Yeah, I didn't even hear it. Okay. That gives me time to explain what the hills going on here.

That was exactly when, who was it? There was a few, I think, Kislauski and a couple others saw the debris and were able to make their way before the caution. We were just, it's just part of the road course deal. You either make the caution or you don't. So that's exactly how Kyle put himself in a position to win at Sonoma. He hit the... That's right.

He caught the caution right. The reason I told him to stay out, I was staring at Pit Road, and don't give me wrong, we hear NASCAR well, but sometimes transmissions get broke up. It's a radio, you know, I don't hear them every time. I mean, 90% of the time you do, but I didn't hear them call the caution. What I saw was the pit light turn red. When I saw the pit light turn red is when I told him to start staying out, because I know if we've pit right there, you're basically... You can either drive through pit road and not get a penalty. I do know that, but you're going to lose a lot of track position.

Or you come down and you make your pit stop and you start tail under the longest line. But that's why I told him to stay out right there. We needed about four more seconds before that caution came out to get to pit road. And you don't want to run the risk of that light. Somebody got bit by that. Kurt did before. Kurt has before at the Glen. I remember it.

He got bit there. When the light switches. Yeah. And it was nothing he could do either. I mean, he could have kept going down pit road, but they may have to stop that race. It's been four years ago or five years ago, but it's, I mean, like, it's just one that falls, man. It's what everybody talks about. Do you get the caution on the right time or don't you?

We came out and we restarted, I think, 16th on lap 28 after that first caution. We'd pit for four tires when, you know, when it was our time. Restarted 16th. Got going again, started making some passes. 12th, 11th was doing well. Caution came out again for debris. There was some really funny transatlantic. mission with Dale Jr. I guess he was trying to get a piece of tape in the floorboard or down by his

feet. Let's play this audio and TJ tell us what we're listening to. Blue pad he is on the floorboard. I got it. Damn, I had to dislocate my shoulder just about to get it, but I don't know if you can see it on it. Yeah, so it was just that break tape under your foot, right? Yeah. I'm glad it's gone. That far. Put your shoulder back in place. P-11 right there, 56 to go whenever we get the green here. What was that, T.J? I think it was just the tape to keep his foot from sliding because you use the brake so much more there. You know, you just don't want your, you're just, you're in the corner. I mean, I think it's to keep his foot from the side.

It's like that grip tape. Sliding off the pedal? If the base your foot slides, you're going to slide off the pedal, you know, so if you keep your heel. So it's on the floorboard instead of actual pedal. Yeah, it's basically keeping his heel grip to it. From what I, that's what I think it was anyway. I don't think it was on the pedal. They showed it on TV, and it was clearly, it looks like a thick piece of tape.

because Dale had it in front of the in-car camera. Yeah. I think it was a piece on the floor. I actually at one point when they had the camera on him, I thought Dale was going to chuck it out the window. That's what I thought. And then he shoved it up in the corner of a car. He's usually pretty good about not anything out the wind.

Yeah. Well, the caution came out again on lap 45. Dale Jr. climbed up to eighth position. Debris from the three car came out. And already you could see strategies starting to formulate and you could kind of see what teams, what they were going to do. Let's play the audio between Dale and Greg.

I'm going to try to stretch you from here. No. All right. How come they come in time? Everybody that pitted there is going to have to come down to do fuel only. They can't make it from here. So the biggest thing is, you know, getting as much gap on those guys. There's about four or five or so that didn't pit behind us.

So we get that gap of four to five seconds on them and we'll be golden. Why did they not stay out? That's a good strategy. They're thinking that just coming down. get fuel only, you know, have another 10 laps on their tires. Oh, yes, I understand. We did this same strategy at Pocono last year and won with it. Did we not?

We came in and pitted for four tires. Steve Lattar. This was a really good call by Lattar. We pitted for four tires before everybody else did. And that allowed us to just take fuel only on our final pit stop, and we were able to leapfrog people. Yeah, we leapfrog Jeff. Right.

Now, this was still pretty early in the race, but I think that this is what people are thinking at this point and if they could take splashing goes at the end. Be honest with you, it gets really confusing. I mean, it gets confusing. Obviously, if you're a driver in the car, I know it's confusing for people at home. You fortunately have the benefit of the commentators

and Lattard actually explaining it to you, but there's just multiple strategies going on, and it's sort of hard to kind of keep it all in place, but that was a bit of an indicator on what we were doing at that point. We go on, we restart 8th on lap 49. The caution comes out immediately. The 9 missed a shift on this restart. And I mean, it, like, it wotted up a bunch of cars.

Yeah, a handful of cars. I mean, let me see here. The 5 was the one. Casey Kane really got for the front of it. The one. AJ Almondinger was in that. Like 32. Yeah, so McMurray took a beating on that one.

So we ended up having a decision to make on this. Let's listen to it. Be ready here, guys. We're in our bed right now. We've got to stay out until we get to a window and take our lumps. That's fine. I mean, we only two freaking guys or something. You know, it's just a handful I've got. On the pit road right there. It's not like anything has really changed. No. But if you did, you know, if this thing goes, you know, if they restart us and we go two laps, if we don't get the one to go. You might want to, you know, you can, you've got the officer to come down, top off, change

tires on that, right before we go back to green. Which is sort of what we did. So we ended up doing. There was a red flag during this caution. And then the 4 and 20 had actually pitted before the red flag came out. This kind of changed our thinking on this. So I actually had to ask Dale and T.J. When we were in the airplane coming back, I'm like, why did we end up pitting there when we were, you know,

talking about being in our bed at that point. And, you know, in hindsight, it's a lot easier, especially knowing that there was a caution that was about to come out, you know, a lap after that, certainly threw a wrinkle in it. But we ended up making a pit stop on lap 53, which was our final pit stop. And we went out knowing that we were three and a half lap short. TJ, you immediately go into telling him to save, save, save, save, because you're short. He saved a ton of fuel. Yeah.

If he... I didn't think we were going to make it. Listen, three and a half lap short. Actually, they said three and a half to five laps short at one point. And then you were pretty sure we're three and a half laps short. That's a long way around that racetrack. He made it to the white flag, and then he was able to get it around another lap and take the checker and finish 11th.

Like, how much fuel did he actually save? I don't know. I mean, that's a lot. That is a ton. They can coast a long way, though, but when you hear your three and a half lap short, you don't really ever. And you don't get any cautious to help. you're probably not going to make it.

So that was pretty, that's pretty impressive. I was expecting us to have to make a pit stop there with about three to go. Dale was going to run out, and we were going to, I assumed at that point, when we didn't see any cautions and nothing going on, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. But when it was clear that we were just going to finish this race out green, I was like, all right, we're doomed for a 20-some-odd-place finish because we're going to have to make a pit stop.

But then we never came in. Junior's still out there. Three to go. Two to go. White flag. Now we run out. But hey, let's see if we can get this thing around and he got it around. At that point, I'm happy we finished 11th, to be honest with you.

It could have been worse. I like the gamble. We got two wins. We're safely in the chase. I was really impressed that we finished 11th at that point. I like it. I would have been okay. I was okay with whatever Greg called.

You don't know what's going to happen, man. You don't know if you're going to get the caution or not get the caution. So you basically just flip a coin. Yeah. You know, you don't really know. So you just pick one and go with it and hope it works out. Do you know that last year we qualified seventh and finished 11th at Watkins Glen? Really?

Absolutely. That's kind of creepy. It was a better car. We were much faster, and yet we ended up in the same place qualifying and finishing that we did last year. So, you know, it felt like we improved, felt like this was one of our better Walkins-Gland races just on speed. We just haven't hit the, we just haven't caught the cautions at the right time yet. But that day's coming. That day is coming.

Before his career ends, right? Next year, I guarantee. I'm going to get to that later, but first, let's speed dial. Well, I am looking forward to this. Steve Post from MRN, a pit road announcer on MRN, and our longtime buddy has joined us. And let me tell you something, Steve. I was sitting over in the S's during the Xfinity race

and watching the end of that. And I actually had the Motor Racing Network pulled up and was listening to you guys, and you went into your interview on Pit Road after the race with Ty Dillon, and immediately after that, you became a ring announcer, and I loved it. You, my friend, have a career in boxing, yeah, commentating if this racing gig never works out.

You know, it's funny, and these guys cooperated so well. They timed it so perfectly, you know, right on my interview, which that very rarely happened. You know, it was a funny situation there with it, because during the cool down lap, we are in a commercial break. And Mike Bagley, you know, we're so fortunate with our turn guys, with Dave Moody, Mike Bagley, Kurt Beckner this past weekend. They're still heads up on what's going on.

And Mike Bagley said during the break, he said, Regan Smith is hunting for somebody as he went blowing by him down into the interval. So we were kind of a little conscious, and I remember earlier in the race that, you know, Regan and Ty had gotten into it down in turn number one. So, you know, as I'm standing there interviewing Ty, I literally get through to me with Ty. He was talking to his dad, and his dad stepped aside, Mike stepped the side.

Literally in him with Ty, I looked at my right, and here comes Regan, and he's got Ron Lamaster, your boy, LeMaster, in his cell, in hot pursuit, okay? And I said, they're coming this way, and it's just a matter of whether they interrupt the interview or whether it just happens right after it. Well, Ty, I'm not sure if he saw him coming or not, but he literally wrapped up his answer just as Regan was about 10 feet away. one step back, and it was play-by-play of the pushing and the shoving. You know, sometimes this stuff just falls right into your lap.

And it just was one of those things where it was really funny the way it played out. And I just played they cooperated with us. And I'm also glad I didn't get in the middle of the pushing and shoving. They didn't come my way either because we don't need that either. Well, I was going to ask you that because, you know what, if you get mixed up into that, I like your chances more than I like ringing in ties. I think you could take them both. But this almost didn't seem like.

this is the first time you've called the fight. Like, do you have experience in this kind of thing? I have a huge and vast amount of experience in it because, and this is, and literally I put something on my social media, on my Twitter, my Facebook afterward, and people in the Northeastern Pennsylvania area, they know exactly what I mean. I used to announce one of the early tracks I announced that was a place outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania. It was called Market Tech Speedway, and literally it was a two-sport gig.

You would announce racing for a while, and then you would announce fighting for a while. And it was just part of the territory. You literally, you know, one year we came in there and said, we're going to clean this place up, and then nobody showed up. You know, everyone came to Mocketech to see the racing, but they came to see the scuffling and the fighting. So I do have quite a bit of experience calling fighting. As a matter of fact, in Mocketech, we had a flag or a big guy.

This guy had to be 350 pounds named Ziggy, and Vigie would throw the cautious. when there was a fight in the grandstands. The race would be cautioned for a fight in the grandstands so me the announcer could call it. Here's what got interesting, because Ziggy knew everybody there. If Ziggy knew one of the participants in the fight,

he would throw the red flag and come into the grandstands and join the fest in it. I mean, it's just, it's one of those places that was earlier in my career, had so much fun there. We would party then after the races all night. long. It was one of those things I think about I joke with some friends that are from that area.

I could not do one half a night at Market Tech like I used to do. But the racing and the fighting experience, I did get there and how about that Saturday afternoon? It came in handy. It sure did. I mean, you just flowed right into it. In fact, do we have a clip of that, Amanda? Yeah, I called our good friends at MRN, Postie, and got your clip.

Yeah, let's listen to the Jim Lampley of NASCAR right here. Well, unfortunately, there are a little bit of emotions down here, and Regan Smith is making his way in to confront Ty Dillon on it. They are talking. Regan grabs them by the nap of the shirt. Now they're pushing, now they're shoving. Officials are in between them now. Regan Smith and Ty Dillon going at it. Regan grabs at him.

They are just pushing and shoving right now. There's a number of officials, number of team members in. One, two, three, four, five, six officials in here between Regan Smith and Ty Dillon. Ty mentioned in his interview that he was disappointed in himself, got down there. Regan Smith disappointed in Ty apparently came over. No punches were thrown, just a lot of pushing and shoving. That is good. Have you heard that?

Is that the first time you've heard that? I actually saw just about a half hour ago. I got thinking about it knowing I was going to chat with you guys, and I actually went on YouTube, and you can catch bits and pieces of it with one of the plays on YouTube. But that's the first time I heard it. Yeah, I got it. I'm not ashamed of that.

That was all right. You nailed it. You nailed it. And, you know, later, because again, I was listening to you guys. I was at the track. Later, I got to watch the replay of what exactly happened. And it was exactly like I thought in my head based off of your call of it. So very nicely done.

That's good. Well, let's switch gears here a little bit because, you know, I caught a conversation between you and T.J. Before we started this interview. And T.J. had something that was very interesting. TJ, what did you tell Steve? He was my very first interview when I was driving for. Junior Motorsports and a street stocker Concord. I went down there into Concord and went to some little studio and Steve was there and I was nervous as

as I could be to do it too. Well, it's pretty nervous. I'll tell you what, Steve, so there you go. You've got that to your resume too. Yeah. T.J. How about that? T.J.'s first interview.

That was such a cool era of my life because, as you know, I did PR for a lot of years. Yeah. The PR, and I enjoyed every day of life doing that, but I really wanted to pursue a career in broadcast. with MRN or wherever this took me. And so the way this came about is Time Warner Cable was doing races at Concord Speedway at the time where T.J. came down and raced junior streetstock. So Time Warner Cable was doing racing. I showed up there one night, and what I was there for, I had just a little bit of ago this was,

a cassette David Hyatt, long time. I know Steve Gant and Woody Kane, who were the two guys named Randy Gwettley, and Randy and Steve had gotten into an argument that night. I can get a job broadcasting. And he said, well, I'm sure. Steve and Woody would like to have you to have you to sit in the time Warner cable building coming down and doing the show with us and just on the short tracks. Yeah, I had a lot of fun racing there. I ran nine races there. We actually

picked up one win, but Concord, I feel like they like to fight there a lot too. There's a trend here. I don't know. Yeah, maybe it's you. Maybe it's you, Steve. Maybe it's you, you bring it out of it, Steve. Steve, you mentioned about your PR days, and I know you don't know this, but, you know, I began in 2002. I was Jimmy Spencer's then the Bush series, now Xfinity Series, PR rep when he was driving for James Finch. And my story was, I served my last day at a newspaper that I was working at on a Tuesday.

I moved to Charlotte on a Wednesday, and they flew me directly down to Daytona on a Thursday. I'd never been on an airplane. I didn't have a credit card. I was completely green, and Speed Weeks had already started. Steve, I went into the Benny Con, which you remember, as the old PR. room, the old media center there, and I sat down and you were the first PR rep that I actually met. And again, you don't remember, I believe you were Ricky Rudd's PR rep.

Is that right? Yeah, that's how I would have been doing PR for Ricky Rudd with the Texasel howbling, yeah. And you were very gracious and kind to me, and I was, I knew nobody. I had not even met my driver yet. And obviously, that was an event to itself as well. Ricky liked to fight a lot, too. Ricky liked to fight a lot too. Steve, it follows Steve.

Jimmy liked to fight a lot too. Yeah. How about that? There's a theme to this show, that's for sure. And I've got a dog and a cat here that are fighting us, by the way, while we're doing that. Steve, we'll close with getting your impression on the cup race on Sunday. I don't know if you were in Dale's pit. Did you have Dale's pit?

No, I did not, no. But Dale runs out of fuel on the white flag left. Obviously, fuel played into it. What was your big takeaway from the race? Were you shocked on how it all unfolded? Not really, because we kind of expect that at Watkins, but I think if there is a surprise to me, it's that Pocono Watkins Glen, we have fuel mileage races.

No shock in that. But Pocono Watkins, then, we have fuel mileage races with no caution at the end of them. You know, we usually talk about fuel mileage races, and we talk about can we make it to the green-white checker. That's usually our caution story with, we're going to have cautions, doesn't extend the length of the race. But for these teams and drivers to have to work this backward, I had Todd Gordon's bit with Joey Logano for Pocono,

and at one time he just looks down on me. He's like, you know, like, where's the caution at? And it was the same thing with Kevin Harvick. I had Harvick's bet, and they made it a lot harder that I think they even thought they were going to make it with no cautions. But I think that was the thing, and it was fascinating and very interesting racing. I struggle with how this plays out on the radio

and a struggle with how it plays out on TV. He doesn't want everyone to hear what is a strategy. I just enjoy the races. I enjoy the race. This guy that X would capitalize just enjoy being up at the Fingerlakes, Larry Watkins, run just a great place. It was massive. So, I mean, that was great to see as well. Yeah, I believe it was sold out from what I heard.

But, yeah, you know, you bring up an interesting point. I've got to ask you, do you ever interview a crew chief late in the race and actually believe what they're saying to you? No. No, we don't. You know, I mean, but that's about it on the broadcast. A guy like lucky enough to get his attention, a question like that, and that's great.

That's fine. Obviously, Chad Kanois has had a fair amount of success. We actually called it. We actually joked around. We called it. The crew chief ignores us. We used to call it Finneck. I don't believe any of them, and that's their job.

I think it's great. That's awesome. Well, Steve, thank you so much. You definitely, I am blown away at how professional and how good you guys are on the motor racing network each and every week. And then you took it up to a whole new level this past weekend, and we appreciate you keeping the peace even a little bit. I think you did your job, but you also kept it all. You know, those guys, it was a heated discussion. Nothing really got out of control down there.

But really appreciate you. You also, your Wing Nation, how's that going? That's going fantastic. Actually, leave Wednesday for the Knoxville Nationals. We do that. We have live shows from Knoxville on MMRN.com, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday nights. Yeah, this is Mecca Week for me. The Knoxville Nationals is the greatest event in motorsports, in my opinion.

And we'll be out there all week long with Wing Nation, and then a Saturday morning show on Mab TV. So, you know, just living the dream with the sprint car world as well as the NASCAR stuff. 9.30 a.m. on Saturdays on MAF TV, you can catch Wing Nation. And Steve Post, anytime those guys are at the track on Motor Racing Network, you just got to tune in. They do a fantastic job. Steve, thank you so much, buddy. Thanks, guys. Appreciate it.

See you, Steve. All right, it is time for reaction theater. And as you know, if you called in, it is your chance to win some spy swag on top of the earbuds and wireless speaker up for grabs. Don't forget, you can go online to Spyoptic. and get yourself a pair of Dell Jr. Signature 88 shades. This includes the Dirty Moe, McCoy, Quanta, General Farah for T.J. Once you are ready to check out, enter discount code nationwide 88 and get 20% off. Hey, Mike.

What's that? Sorry to interrupt this read here, but Taylor just called in. Taylor from Oregon? Yeah. Are you serious? You're right. Taylor! Taylor!

DJ is beautiful with those fair of sunglasses on, by the way. I had to call in. I know that I've been out in the ballot on college football assignments. We're out here interviewing the Oregon Ducks for the season. But I just wanted to remind you of a tweet that you sent out on Friday. You were giving a conversation out on Twitter that you had with crew chief Greg Ishe about how great the 88 car looked in practice. It was. And I've called his shot said, we're going to win the race on Sunday.

You're getting all fired up. You copy me on the tweet. So for the last two years, you've been called. Paul in your shot about Washington Glenn, what happened on Sunday, Mike? Do you really want to know what happened? I think I actually was right. I think you screwed it up. I did.

Yeah, you. You and all those people last week that laughed at Kyle Bush, and I tweeted last week, I said, hey, don't laugh. We're going to need that gallon of fuel. And we did. You guys messed up my prediction. So I went out there and siphoned a little bit of gas out of the car. car is what you're saying with your karma yes that's what you did you and your friends hold on i was much more comfortable when everybody was calling in blaming tj for all they still will i'm sure they will

yeah i hear you i knew you wouldn't forget about that though taylor so i this is actually not surprising me that you are calling from or the university of oregon just to put this in my face i i guess i had it coming but if you remember i said that he'll have one before his career is over his career's not over. I'm still going to get a walking Glen win. You have said that, and you have also taken credit for all the success they've had in Sonoma recently, even though you called for a Washington

Glenn win. But I have to admit to you this. What I watched on Sunday proved to me that you're right, that one day Dale Earnhardt Jr. will win at Washington Glen. I have to admit to you, as much as I want to bust your chops, which you deserve, because you did try to call your shot, and you're calling it for years. Now you've got even I've called

it shot. As much I want to bust your job for that. After what I witnessed and how competitive that car was on Sunday, I don't care about where he finished. That was much better than an 11th place car. Yeah. I think you're right. I think the way that they practice top 10 in qualifying,

I'm with you, man. I think that this is going to happen in the next few years. He can get around that place for sure. If he has a speedy car, he was happy all weekend with the way it unloaded and the way he qualified. He lost some, he said he lost about three tenths in the is during his qualifying lap that he wish he had that to do over again because he would have qualified a lot better. And then, you know, the way we just got, we got hurt by strategy. And if I'm, if I'm going to just call it, like I saw it,

we didn't have the best car. That's the fact. We did not have the best car. But he can get around that track. And I do think that, you know, a win isn't as far off as we once thought it was. No, you're right. You're right. And he might not had the best car, but he had one of the best cars. And that's what gave me a lot of confidence, I think, moving forward. And certainly, listen, Michigan is a place. He's had a lot of success, and everybody's fired up for that, and I get it. But I want people to listen to the podcast next week. I'll be back in studio, and next week, Mike,

I want people to listen to the podcast because I am going to make an emphatic prediction next week on the podcast. An emphatic prediction. Hey, will you do me a favor? Will you wear your sleeveless Wrangler shirt when you're? do it? Yeah. I will bring the sleeveless Wrangler. I will be wearing my McCoy spy optic sunglasses that have the little smiley face up in the corner.

There you go. And I am going to make an emphatic prediction next week on the Dale Jr. download. Well, I look forward to it, my man. Safe travels. I hope you're doing well out in Oregon. I look forward to having you back in the studio. We're going to catch the rest of these reaction theaters. I don't think anybody would have actually remembered that I had a prediction.

last week, so I'm not expecting anybody else to bring that up in the reaction. Yeah, I'm sure that's not about to happen. Well, Amanda, I miss you guys, and Amanda does look a little bit better than T.J. With those fair sunglasses. Just a tiny bit. It's that big head of his. Go catch some ducks, man. You jinked us.

Go catch some ducks, he says. All right, buddy. See you, boy. See you guys. All right. You ready? Let's hear some of these calls. First off, got to thank Joey Legano and becoming the second girl to ever win on a road course in NASCAR.

Congratulations out there. Also, I got some serious issues. One is this rules package. Yeah, it sucks on roadcourses, too. So that's every track it sucks on. Also, Greg Lies, start calling a better race, please. Because you're really starting to ruin my Sundays and Saturday night due to bad crew-cheeping.

And pit crew, come on, get in the game. Do you want to win on a track that's not on our sticker, plate you're at it's a team sport come on one beer jeez man who was the first girl to win on road course i don't know i was trying to think of that myself i don't know i don't either not and joey kyle not that joey is the second girl i'm not saying that i'm saying chill i'm great man it's a road course yeah i mean sometimes these things just don't work out and also the new rules package wasn't at wakins glen let me just tell you that race was competitive it was not there was five cars in a line there.

You don't ever see that a road course like that. Normally they check out. In the beginning there, there was the 42 us. I mean, there was four or five us that were close. And that's what you want. I thought it was great. Okay, first thing, Mike Davis, love you dearly, but please don't ever go to a race again.

Secondly, why the hell did we not pit when it was 30 laps ago and we had the caution? We wouldn't have run him out of gas. He wouldn't have at least gotten a top ten finish probably. This is fucking bullshit. I know we got two wins. I know we're in the fucking chase. when there's

a in front of us that are getting a their third win or God forbid Kyle Bush getting his fifth win we're screwed this sucks

Junior's busted his butt the whole day for an 11th place finished that sucks I love that I mean I wish just find her

and bring she needs to bring her crystal ball or next race if she can no she's she's fine listen

I've been to a lot of wins I've been to a lot more losses. I don't think my presence there did any of that. Look, if there's some scientific proof where me being at the track prevented us from winning, I will gladly stay home. Gladly stay home. You're just trying to get out of travel. You know what? In fact, I agree with her. I agree with her. I was at the track. That prevented us from winning. Oh, my gosh. First time caller. Guys did a great job. Two wins.

We're in a chase. No worries about taking a chance. I'm blaming this day on my Mike Davis, because Mike, for the last couple of months, has been saying, oh, yeah, Dale's going to win, Markins the winning. Mike, stop saying that, dude. Is he going to curse and drink somebody to say Kyle Bush is going to win the championship? Have a great day, guys, no beers, taking the dogs out. I still think that I didn't actually curse this. I think that everybody that laughed last week, and this brought up on Twitter,

TJ, I don't know if you saw this or not, but everybody started going, L-O-L, ha, ha, Kyle Busch ran out of gas, and I said, don't laugh. We'll need that gas. We'll need it. That's a superstitious. That's a rule in NASCAR. You don't go laughing at others' misfortune. And they said, no, it's Kyle.

You got to laugh. And I'm like, all right, that's not. Well, here it is. We ran out of gas. We could have used that extra lap. Where would we have finished, though, for real? We weren't going to win. Where would we have finished?

Sixth. Fifth? Because, I mean, like, he ran out coming to the white flag. So he would have, you know, did a lot of coasting. He did a lot of. Here's the deal. If we were good. fuel, then we could have went harder.

Yeah, we could have gone harder. I don't think the 18 would have got around us. I don't think the 22 would even got to us if he didn't have to conserve fuel. Right. I don't think with any of them would have got to us. We had enough speed in our car to maintain where we were at. So if all the other guys ran out, we... So you're saying we would have fit...

Because we were running forth. We could have won if we were good on field. But we weren't in that... It's hard to say we would have won because we weren't in that boat. We knew we were going to be short. We pitted knowing we were going to short. planning on cautions. Yeah.

So that's just the bed we made. So yeah, it wasn't my fault. Hey, I did everything I could do to help us win. Obviously, a subplot has formed with RCR and Regan Smith. I hope Regan deliberately wrecks Ty in the Savage Manor next week because it's embarrassing to see Ty in the number three car. Also, I want to talk about JRM 360. It's been lacklust here this season.

Mike Davis, I'm calling you out. I used to look forward to these videos, and I don't know. There needs to be another German takeover. episode with Martin Friedrich and needs to be spoken entirely in German. That'd be exciting. Come on, man. Improve the product. We've done that. That's what I was thinking. In fact, how many times have we had him in these episodes?

No offense to this guy, but I feel like an episode spoken in all German is going to be very boring. That's right. Yeah. Not to mention it'll take us a week to do. Even Martin isn't that fluent in German. I don't know. But thanks for your feedback.

back i mean we have a good time doing jeremy's but that's not our primary job here no it's it's not even our secondary job here yeah i mean like we don't try to be anything and it takes a lot of work to actually sure i guess i appreciate when people expect it to just you know be this academy award winning comedic thing every week but honestly the point of 360 is to show uh some personality behind the scenes and it's what we kind of do on the side that's just kind of a fact but uh these are Great call. Yeah. Yeah,

they're just ripping me. That's good. Okay, I finally got my damn phone charge. I just want to call to tell T.J. He needs to take some lessons on selling from Mike Davis. Oh. Sweet out shirt and not let nobody know until Sunday that they won't be ready to order until Monday.

Come on, TJ. Just like the point I was making about people that laughed last week and therefore ran us out of gas, You had to have a comment right before this caller, and then you caught one. Right in the fake. I did. That guy. I mean, if I would have known, listen, man, it's the Internet. It'll be there tomorrow, too.

You'll be on there. You sold a lot of them this past weekend. Yeah, we sold like 40 of them off the truck at the racetrack, and it'll be in Michigan, too, I think. But he doesn't know. It's going to be a Michigan, and I might even go out there Sunday morning. And what? Ray asked me if I'd go out there. He said he sells a lot of them there.

Sign. I don't want to ruin the shirt. It's so nice and still nice and clean looking, man. Hey, can I tell a quick story, Amanda? This weekend. I mean, this is nothing new. I mean, like, T.J. does this. He's done it for years, but he rode with Dale and I out to this appearance.

We had a sprint appearance before the race on Sunday, and T.J. rode with us. You want to know why? Because T.J.'s sprint appearance was immediately following. Are you kidding me? You had your own sprint appearance? Yes. Yeah. I do it like, I do probably.

Probably 12 of them, 15 of them a year, probably. Do any other spotters to them? Two of them. Two of them do. We split them up. Me, Earl, and Brett Griffin. Yeah. Okay.

But we split them up. I like to help sprint out. I like to help entertain guests. It's just funny. I mean, like, you know, that's going to come up. You know, it's funnier. If we're doing a podcast, it's going to come up. You know, what's funnier is when Junior was in there and kind of telling how we met and how we would race each other and stuff.

Because that's the other thing. Exactly. So, T.J. goes with us to the sprint. That's why I grew up, too, though. Listen, we go in there and like the first two questions to Dale Jr. are about T.J. Yeah. Well, he tells him. It was like a T.J. Love Fest. He tells him the story about how we met and how we would always race each other for the win.

But I don't remember it being that way as much. I remember him trying to catch me more. Oh. That's why. The biggest issue that I have with this weekend was the altercation with Regan Smith and Ty Dillon on Saturday. I believe that they need to let these guys fight and stay out of the way. or these guys don't need to fight at all because that little, I don't even know if you call it a fight or not.

It looked more like two old ladies fighting over a bargain on Black Friday. It was pretty pathetic. But anyways, I'm ready for Michigan. I think we need to take a hot rod up there and try to win the race, which I know we will. Anyways, Dale yeah, I can't wait to hear the download. Dale, yeah, man. Hey, can I just make a comment about that?

I didn't actually say it with Steve Post, but aside from here, him wrecking us. I have no problems with Ty Dillon. He actually took full responsibility for that after the race, which, you know, everybody says, including T.J., like, well, of course you did. It was his fault. But they don't usually do that, do they? No. They don't. That's usually when they walk away without common. That's right. Ty Dillon took full responsibility for it. Regan was understandably upset. They had a heat, I guess it was a little bit more than a heated discussion, but I wouldn't even call it a fight. So for us to characterize that as a fight, well, then if you do that,

then yes, it didn't, you know, it looked like a couple of, what do you say, ladies fight. A lady's fighting over a black. But it wasn't a fight. It was a heated discussion that, you know, they grabbed each other and, you know, got their points across, and that was fine. Well, we just got home from the glen, and I just wanted to give T.J. majors a shout out. Yeah. I did a good job today. The first time in three weeks we didn't go into turn one and get spun out by somebody. I have to clear us right.

Anyway, good job, Dale. Car went good, and it was a lot of fun. In the essence today, it was a party. So, Dale, yeah. This was the first time in a few weeks that you didn't get us wrecked. You didn't see my tweet? I said, I ruined my streak. You did have a streak going.

I did have a streak going. TJ and I were talking, though. I think on the Sprint Cup schedule, these last three weeks are probably the most difficult for a spotter. Now, of course, he has two other helpers. Do you have one or two helpers yesterday? I had two. You had two? Yeah.

Okay. I had the guy in the S's in the bus stop. So there you go. There's the reason why T.J. didn't get us crashed because he was only spotting one third of the track. Actually, I had almost. You think about it, you got the last two corners, the first corner, and then turn two. That's a pretty good portion of the track. The guy in the S's didn't really have to do anything in the bus stop.

You're calling him out saying he was useless? I wouldn't have put him there if he was useless. You know, you wanted me to go to the S's up at the Xfinity race. That's another story, too. nervous alley over here wouldn't do it well i have reasons i mean first of all i was doing my job with dale we weren't done in the cup garage until the exfinity race was starting okay so there's that i wasn't going to just leave dale um secondly i'm not so sure that was the only reason either i mean like here's the thing you said you've spotted before for jimmy's good driving i have i have and it was not

an enjoyable experience jimmy is no longer driving it was not an enjoyable experience i told t jrubes that I wanted, I would go over there if he had nobody else to do it, but I only wanted to stay on Channel 2, which really he didn't want to talk on Channel 1. It doesn't even help. You know why? I don't need that kind of, I don't need to be accountable for any wrecks. I just doesn't need to happen. That's not good for anybody.

That's all I've done the last two weeks. Yeah, but you get paid for that. So do you. No, no. See, yeah, if I'm getting paid for it, okay, if that's my job, okay. But, you know, I don't, like, volunteer to be the guy that got a wreck and lose a charge. championship. No, I better get something out of that. Thanks for the car. Well, for years right here on this podcast, I've heard Mike Damn Davis say, Junior's going to win a road course, Junior's going to

win Watkins Flynn. Then I thought the line, the stars had a line. Tyler was gone to the beach, Davis is going to the racetrack. I said, holy shit. Honey, we got to put my paycheck on Dale Jr. to win. 20 to one off, you can't lose. Well, dumb fuck me, forgot it was Mike Davis and charged his whole damn thing. I should have known it would have imploded. How'd be damned? What am I going to tell my daughter when she wants to know why we're not having any dinner? I'm just going to tell her Mike Davis stole it, sweetheart. Mike Davis is an evil bad man. You know what? If I ain't any money left. I'd pay Regan Smith going there and whoop Mike Davis is a lot. But, hell, he may not even need any money. He's on

a roll. Damn it. Hey, listen, if that's what it takes to get data to start calling in. I know it. I miss that, man. I mean, come on. Listen, again, I did it. I did everything I could do for this team. I got us there. I got us fast. I got us a good qualifying spot. Tell me, were you disappointed and starting seven? I was not. I was honestly surprised

by that. Yeah. We were going to qualify there last year. Why is nobody calling about that? We haven't qualified seventh and how long. We were going to qualify good last year. We were going to qualify really good last year. We melted the breaks. And another thing, this isn't juniors last year. Why are they acting like the game, Jeff Gordon? I will defend you on that.

If we go back to maybe last week, I think it was, you did say within his career. I will defend you. We want to win now. What else we got? That's it. That was our last time. I can't wait to show you. Reaction theater is open 24-7.

All you have to do is call toll-free 855740-1902 and leave us your voicemail message. We'll play the best each and every week right here on Dirtymoor radio. We need to pick a winner. Yes, we do. TJ, what do you think? I know which one I like. I like the one that... I like all of them that ripped you.

Amanda, you may actually have to decide this one. What do you think? You know what? The lady that, what number was it here? The lady that was cursing a lot. I liked her. Yeah. I liked her.

Or do we want to give it to Dado? Dato had a good point. I mean, listen. Dato made me laugh the hardest out of everybody, although the call about T.J.'s made me laugh too, where he said you finally didn't mess up a restart. All right. What's our vote?

I say Datto. I like Datto is the best, too. He was the most, I don't know, he was the most educated on it kind of. Oh, great. You're calling people uneducated. Yeah. Well, you know what. Way to go.

Yeah, we've insulted somebody. Well, Datto, Dado is the winner. We need to send him some, we don't need to send him shades. We need to send him some, like, wireless speakers or something. Yeah, camping or something. That would be handy. Yeah, sloppy yellow is going to say. Time now for It Takes the Nation, presented by Nationwide.

So we did something a little different this week on. Takes a Nation with me being at the race track. I actually got one of our team members on the 88 team. Andy Quillan, our truck driver. We call him Squigs. Truck or Squigs. You probably follow him on Twitter and if not you should. We got him during the race and so here is the audio. Here's Takes a Nation with Andy Quillan that we got during the race at Watkins Glen. Here I am on Takes the Nation and I tell you what, the guy that I got right here with me now is the reason we get to the racetrack. Is the reason we have a race car? It's the reason we have a race car. It's the reason. that the tools get here.

Andy, welcome to Takes a Nation finally. Yes, it's got to be back. And you guys probably know him by Trucker Squiggs is his Twitter account, right? Trucker Squiggs? Mm-hmm. And so how long have you been at Hendrick Motorsports? Been at Hendriss for two years.

I've been driving NASCAR haulers for about five years now. So who did you start with? OSA with Danny Gill with a truck team back in 2010, did a year there, and then moved up to the 95 car, which Michael McDowell drives was there for two years and they went over to Stremies for six months and I came at Hendricks here and just mainly was just got knowing people,

knowing this and that and heard an opening came up or people wanted me because they saw how hard I worked. And you are a hard worker. I mean, we're actually in the middle of the Watkins Glen race right now and here you are working. I'm actually stopping you from working. So take me through a day. Let's just talk about race day.

Let's not even talk about the weekdays when you're driving. stuff. Just race day from start to finish. What are you doing? Race day, get in, stop the cooler, do a little cleaning, help get the pick guys ready with all their stuff. When the guys run the car, I usually fuel it, bring the fuel over to them, fuel it. Other than that, kind of just doing some small cleaning, see if the guys, if anybody's like, hey, we need this, we need that for the race. Once the car leaves the garage, tear scales down, clean up, come back to the truck, kind of taking care of more stuff, do it a little, meeting and by the time the race starts I'm already starting cleaning the trailer prepping prepping to load cleaning and get everything taken care of so when

race is done we can just load up and I can get going down the road how long after the race is over will you be hitting the road it usually is an hour or two after a race okay just kind of just takes you know if we got to do tech or whatever and then just loading up everything guys get changed then it takes a little while to get haulers kind of get out and then in order right getting out in traffic so it kind of varies, mostly between an hour and two hours. On an average week, do you always have a co-driver? Yes, pretty much every week.

A lot of times I'll go to the track by myself, but like when we do the West Coast trips, or if we're leaving the shop late, Scott will come with me then going to the racetrack. But most of the time, I'm usually going by myself to the track. Like while Bristol coming up, I'll do that whole weekend by myself. Driving up there, driving back, it's only three hours. A lot of places that we go to, there's always these haul of parades and fans. that to be the driver the 88 nationwide series hauler and being around fans during parades? Oh, that's pretty good. If anybody watched the video, Watkins Glen shared, they'll hear me coming

because I got some loud train horns on there. But it's pretty cool. It's Bristol's are one of our favorites. You know, it's at night, so everybody sees the lights and everything else on the trailers. And the tracks do quite a bit for us, like, you know, have dinner and stuff and contest, stuff like that, which is pretty cool. They kind of help out and stuff. So it's always good to do them. You get a lot of people come out. Like, you know, they've never seen something like, you know, big trailers and stuff. Well, you can follow this guy, Trucker Squiggs.

He takes a lot of pictures. There's a lot of tweeting on the road. And it's really fascinating. And he's the best of the business. And we're glad to have him here on the 88 Nationwide Series team. Trucker, thank you, buddy. No problem. I'm glad to have you on Takes a Nation.

I really appreciate Andy for taking time during the race. He was actually working to talk with Takes a Nation. Junior Nation members, did you know. know that you can get a special discount when you switch to Nationwide. It's true. Call 877-697-2246 or visit Nationwide.com forward slash junior nation. That's J.R. Nation for more information. Remember, Nationwide is on your side.

I'm Tip Daniels and here's what we've got this week on Dirty Mo Radio. On Wednesday, Brenda Jackson and Mike Davis will be making a much anticipated return to Fastlane family presented by well of professionals as they fill in for cash. Kelly. Thursday, Heath White and Regan Smith hosts another episode of Junior Motorsports Up Front presented by Dale's pale ale. And I'd be willing to bet this past weekend's NASCAR Expinity Race at Watkins Glen might come up. Don't forget, you can always catch Dale Jr's at track press conferences on said Jr. presented by Nationwide. Dirty Mo Radio podcasts are available free of charge 24-7 on Dale Jr.com, iTunes, and all major podcasting outlets.

All right, back for the second week in a row for White Flag is none other than Tyler Overstreet, who's back from the beach, looks rested, looks relaxed. I'm just glad he came back. It's White Flag time. White Flag right there, White Flag. All right, Dale Jr. is headed to Darlington Raceway on Tuesday for a production leading up to the Southern 500 next month. Still can't tell you what the car sponsor is quite yet, but can tell you it's going to be really cool. TJ's making a lot of gestures.

and look for an announcement on the Darlington car coming up soon. We head to Michigan on Friday for practicing qualifying. It's a two-and-a-half-hour practice on Friday to give them extra tack-time with the high-drag arrow package. Uh-oh. High-drag. What's tack-time? Yeah, what is tack-time. You know what they should also give him?

Track time. Yeah, they'll give him some track time, too. Then on Saturday. He forgot how to talk at the beach, I guess. I know. It was very relaxing. Tech time. Two practices in the morning before.

Junior puts on an owner hat to watch Alex Bowman driving the number double zero Haas Automation Truck at Michigan. That's right. Then the J-RM Xfinity teams will be racing at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in the nationwide Children's Hospital 200. I know Regan has a special purple paint scheme. It's got giraffes and cupcakes on it to support his patient. His patient?

Paythent. Patent. Patent. Patent. Chase Elliott-Bin-Rose will also have. kids teach it on their cars. To learn more about the Nationwide Children's Hospital

and the kids who will be hanging out with the junior motorsports teams, visit nationwide childrens.org backslash NCH 200. Sunday, if you're at the track, Dale Jr. is stopping by the Chevy stage at 12 p.m. for a question and answer session

right before the driver's meeting and the race starts at 2.30 p.m. Eastern Time on NBC Sports Network. Like I said last week, if you do not have NBC Sports Network, Network, have no fear. They stream the races online at NBCSports.com and via their live extra app. Check both those out.

I actually downloaded that this past week in at Watkins Glen. I used it in Sonoma. Watch the IndyCar race. Actually, hold up. I tried to download it, but there's actually not any cell service in the entire county that Watkins Glen is in. That's not true. It is true.

That place doesn't have a cell tower anywhere. He tries to download in a three-mile stretch where there's no service. Yeah. In the woods? Yeah, I mean, that place, TJ. They help them out. They barely have landlines in that area, and you're trying to download an app. That is a good app, though. But when I got back, I finally was able to complete the download.

I mean, you can watch it. It is a good app. We get a lot of Facebook comments about not being able to watch the race, but if you can leave a comment on Facebook, you can download that app or go to that website and watch the race. All right, well, that's interesting. Keep us posted on how that goes. But Tyler, I appreciate you.

you reading the white flag again tj thank you as always amanda thank you taylor hope you're doing well at an organ appreciate you calling in and giving me a hard time mighty nice of you uh but uh also before we cut out of here i do want to send our thoughts and condolences to the family of buddy baker we lost buddy on monday morning uh one of nascar's all-time greats and certainly a fan favorite on serious xm radio so we'll definitely miss the gentle giant as uh he was affectionately known as and our thoughts and prayers are with the family. Take care. We'll talk to you next week here on the Dale Jr. Download,

presented by a spy. Thanks for listening to Dirty Moe Radio. All right, well, we're done with this week's Dale Jr. download. Mike, did you enjoy Walkins, Glenn? I did actually enjoy Watkins, Glenn. We had a good time. You know what else I enjoyed? I actually had a couple people come up to me wearing spy sunglasses.

They were very complimentary of J.R. 360. One of them was actually a security. security guard at Watkins Glen. He was a security guard at one of the gates at the track. He hollered at me and he was very complimentary of J.R. 360 and he was also wearing his spy shades, which he wanted me to make sure I noticed. So I didn't catch his name, but I guess he listens to us and he watches our video, so I appreciate him. Yeah. I would have liked to find out did he his 20% discount. That's exactly what I was thinking. I hope he did. I should have asked him. Yeah. Because you know what? If he didn't, he could have.

You can just go to spyoptic.com and check out Intercode Nationwide 88, and you'll get that 20% off. That's all it takes.