The Dale Jr. Download - 107 - Bristol: 'We had a good time actually...'

Episode Date: August 25, 2015

After a long night of battling back to finish 9th, Dale Earnhardt Jr. states it was a fun race at Bristol. Team Junior member Jake Backer joins Take's A Nation. Taylor Zarzour eats crow on his Bristol prediction. 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. We're sitting around 12th place. So all that stuff we've been going through, you've been doing a good job, keeping you heard about you. Team, good job, sitting 12. We make the best side of this thing. You're now listening to the Dale Jr. download presented by Spy. Check out Dale Jr.'s signature dirty-mo sunglasses from Spy at Spyoptic.com.

Hey, everybody's Jr. Post-race Bristol. Had a lot of fun. Pretty tough little racetrack. always a good time. I was reading a lot of comments on Twitter. It's kind of funny how people, some people like the new Bristol, what we call it the old Bristol. I myself would love to see it with a layer of asphalt on it one day, but I doubt I'll ever get to drive that, but maybe I'll get to see that one day, but I don't know, I'm never really a big fan of concrete, but still, it's a one-of-a-kind place. you got to love short track racing and when you put those kind of banks

on a half mile track and get that kind of speed and it's just so unique something we just don't see that often and gets kind of bored with all these mile and a halfs and they're all different too but it's just short track racing

is something I don't think we do enough of and these guys are you know there's not really a lot of new tracks popping up but if they were to build a new track and I don't know why somebody wouldn't want to try to build another Bristol anyways great race track, a lot of fun, look forward to going there and running this past weekend.

We had a good time, actually. The car was pretty good right off the trailer. I thought we had good speed. I think we were the fifth best car in practice, surely in the top 10. In qualifying, we had, you know, okay run in practice on a mic run, but when we went out there to actually make our qualifying run, we were wrecking loose, and we finally started to make some and ran an okay lab, but still real disappointed with how qualifying went. That's always been frustrating. We've improved a little bit over the past couple years, but still it's not where it needs to be. And I don't really have an answer for that, but we're just always trying to improve.

Put qualifying behind us as quick as we could and felt like we had a good race car and got the race underway and was really quick. Passing cars, able to move around, change our line, and the car had good grip and the center of the corner in the front the car was turning good which is really important there so things were looking good we had a little trouble on pit road on one of our first stops we had to come back down uh i think a lug a couple lug nuts fell off the wheel as it was going on so he had to come back down pit road and put the lugs missing lugs back on the right front and went ahead and changed the left side so that put us in the back it's real hard to pass there and i didn't do a real damn

good job of trying to work the traffic as quickly and as efficiently as I could in that run. So we ended up getting caught by the leader and eventually put the lap down. Greg made a good call early to take a wave around. And we had about 80 more laps of fuel. Really nothing to lose there. So that was a great call. Had a quick caution and was able to get back on the lead lap, get some tires.

You know, I think we moved up into the top 15 but got lapped again just because of how difficult it is to pass there. I mean, you can get hung up behind a lap car and lose a half a damn straight away. You know, the leader's coming. He can get there quick. And they were some, you know, the 18, 22, 19, those guys were running some pretty badass laps and getting around there pretty quick. We ended up getting a lucky dog, I think once, maybe twice.

I don't even remember. But we were running good enough to be in position to do that. So, you know, it's not nothing to be proud of really to be the lucky dog. But, you've got to be running good to get that position. So I think we were in 12th place. getting the lucky dog one time, or the last car on the lead lap. It was freaking crazy how many cars they were lapping, how fast the pace was for the leaders early in the race,

at least the first 300 laps. Late in the race, actually trying to stay on the lead lap, I slapped the hell out of the wall in turn 3 and 4 real hard with the right rear and bent the wheel, so probably move some things around. Probably bent the rear and housing a little bit. So it tore the side. up to and maybe hurt some of the side force in the car. Ran into the wall again later in the race and turn one and two pretty hard. Trying to get in the corner real high and get the center

to turn and try to get off the corner better and just went in the corner over my head. So, you know, we've done a lot of damage to the car and beat the car up pretty good. But we ended up getting in position late in the race, you know, to get a couple good restarts on the outside and take some track position. So we all, I think we got up the third at one point. It was challenging Bragg. Hiselowski for second till he sort of saw my line and started running that and pulled away from him. But it felt good about it at that moment. You know, started getting real confident that we might be able to get in position on a few of them restarts

and, you know, have some more fun. But I think the damage I did to the car hitting the fence hurt us on that last run. You know, we had pretty good speed on the front end of the run and the back end of the run was pretty slow. The car lost a lot of grip sliding around the back and the front and just loose in tightness the center just a lot of problems with the balance. So we settled in and we got the best finish we could there at the end. But I really, you know, if you hang around and don't do anything too crazy, you can finish in the top 20 there pretty easily if you got, you know, get ready to equipment, obviously.

But, you know, just stay out of trouble and let everybody else make, you know, make their own trouble. but it's a fun race. I really enjoy running there. Look forward to going back. I felt like we made some gains on our speed there. Last several trips, it feels like the car is getting a little bit better and a little bit better,

so we'll see how it is next year. We've got to work on this chase. We've got to get ready for that. We've got a couple races left before that happens. So we're trying to learn as much as we can. I think that it's been commented on in the media, and Jeff and myself, Duquhart and all the people at Hendrick are certainly aware that we need to make some games

and work real hard to try to improve to put ourselves in a more comfortable position going into the chase so we're more confident about our opportunity to win a championship because, you know, we're definitely seeing some teams perform really well right now and just trying to figure out where we need to improve to give a hell of the run for it. I'm not too concerned, you know,

the sport can cycle pretty quickly. and hopefully we'll peak at the right time. But we're working hard. We've got an off weekend coming up. We're going testing Wednesday at Homestead. There's a three-day test there. We were fortunate enough to get to go the third day, so we'll be able to go out there and learn some stuff.

I really like running that track anyways. Testing there is pretty fun. Probably going to be pretty warm, but I'm looking forward to going there and trying to learn something that can help us going into the rest of the season. We'll see how this off week goes, try to enjoy ourselves. I think a buddy of mine, I'm a buddy mind is getting married and I'm going to be in the part of that wedding so looking forward to that maybe I'll take some notes

and try to recharge our batteries this last off weekend for the rest of the season and this season has went by pretty fast and I think the end of it's going to go by just as quick so we got to enjoy it and we're looking forward to getting to darlington in a couple weeks we've got the low down force package there a lot of throwback schemes so looking forward to going there and having some fun hopefully with that low down force package and the track surface aging a little bit we're going to see some of the old school darlington come back a lot of darlington stripes and uh hopefully some great racing a good finish so you guys enjoy the download i'll talk you later all right good stuff from dale junior here on the download presented by spy with amanda and mike i'm taylor mike would you like me and you would you like me to eat some crow would you like to recap the race uh or would you like me to start going completely crazy and doing cartwheels over the paint scheme that was unveiled for Darlington.

Do I have to wait any longer? Do I have to wait until later in the podcast to do that, or can I go ahead and tell you how excited I am right now? Wait on the paint scheme, excitement, because I think the Eat and Crow part was probably higher on my priority list. He didn't win. He, you know, I'm real, listen, I was wrong. I was dead wrong.

and I really here's the thing let me just say this though I thought qualifying was going to go a lot better I don't know that Amanda and I have been as giggly as we have right now I was dead flat wrong all right and I'd like to apologize to all the junior nation for my prediction it's not as crazy as hold up maybe somebody else is about Watkins Glenn the last three years but I think we did better at Watkins Glenn no but you know did anybody bring it up to you on Twitter

Or did you just stay off Twitter? I'm going to be honest with you. A really good friend of mine is the president of the Miami Dolphins. And I'm not name dropping. I'm just trying to set a scene here. He's the president of Miami Dolphins. His name is Mike Tannenbaum. And he invited me and my family to go sit in the Dolphins suite at the Panthers game on Saturday night.

So I said, all right, well, we're going to have to record this race. And in fact, Mike actually turned the race on for us. the in the suite and with the Panthers game in front of us. So I got to watch just about every lap there and then came home and watched the rest of it. But I was leaving the stadium, about the fourth quarter, preseason game. And some dude out in the street outside a Bank of America Stadium said, Bet you ain't going to make any more picks, are you? I was like, come on, really?

Like I, Betsy, my wife looks at me like, what's he talking about? I'm just don't worry about it. How does he know who you are? I don't know. I swear to you, outside Bank of America Stadium, some dude says, I bet you ain't going to make any more picks, are you? Were you wearing your Dale Yashirt in the game or something? No, I was not.

I was just wearing normal clothes. Was Betsy? She was terrified is what she was. Yeah, no, she was not wearing the Dale Jr. Sleeveless, no. The Wrangler sleeveless, no. I think about it, but I will not be making any more picks on the show. Well, I don't know.

I mean, you might have a feeling. I think Dale Jr. in the most beautiful Valvaline nationwide 88 cars going to finish last in Darlington. No, I'm kidding. No reverse psychology. I'm making no more picks on the show. Just stick to reporting it, right? I think that's what we should both do.

Can I get to how great the paint scheme is? Sure. I mean, it's Mike. Aren't you fired up for that thing? I love it. I love it. Valvene going way back. I was hoping that that was the one that they were going to unveil.

Honestly, didn't know. I did know a few days ago, But when I found out, I was hoping that was what it was going to be. And, man, it exceeded my expectations. It looks good. And I can't wait to see it under the lights. Yeah, I can't either, man. I was really fired up to see that.

Now, there are so many paint scheme changes, not just with the 88 and Dale Jr., but everybody, and I love college football, and it seems like everybody wears a different uniform every day when they go out and play football except for the beloved crimson. and tied, but even Notre Dame's changing clothes all the time now. So I say that to tell you, Mike, I don't get nearly as fired up over paint scheme changes as most people do typically. I'm pretty fired up over this one.

Well, it's kale. Yeah. Cale, yeah. Yeah, he didn't just say that. No, it's on the front page of NASCAR.com. Are you serious? Dead serious, yeah. Hey, Taylor, did you see the video I tweeted on Sunday?

While I was in church, by the way, a friend of mine, Blaine Sellers, sends me a text with a link. And it is... Stephen Tyler. Say, Dale, yeah. Oh, I did not see that. Yeah, you got to go to my Twitter feed. It's Stephen Tyler.

He says it like three times. He's kind of singing... Now it's time to say kale, yeah. Maybe we get him to say that. He's kind of singing it. I was, like, when Blaine sent that to me again, in church, I had to tweet it. I had to. That was a highlight moment.

I need to check that out for sure. but I'm really fired up about the paint scheme in Darlington. And I'm not making any predictions. That car would look great. Oh, stop. Just stop right there. Just stop already. Let's get to Bristol.

There's a lot to digest. Before we get to all the race audio, a few things I want to talk to you all about. Dale Jr. just mentioned New Bristol versus Old Bristol. I have camped at Bristol four or five times. Love it there. It is maybe my favorite place for a spectator sporting event. I mean that. In all of sports.

it is the the and he's right if if i were to build a track i would build a short track and i agree with him i would build an asphalt short track and i would have a coliseum just like bristol you just feel like you're in some sort of really important place when you're in there and there's nowhere for the noise to go it's a throwback place i love the atmosphere i do like some of the changes they've made in the last few years to make the racing a little bit better closer to the fence mike but absolutely old Bristol. I would prefer some asphalt being laid down on that track where you could really see some beaten and banging there at the end.

Lugano holding off Harvick was phenomenal. A few years ago, Kenseth holding off cane was phenomenal. But as the laps go on and their 50 to 100 laps on a green flag run, I'd like to see a little bit more competition. And I think we might get that if we had some asphalt. How about you? I think everybody feels the same way.

I wanted asphalt well before this weekend's race. I mean, the asphalt at Bristol, back the way it was, you know, back in the 80s, that was the way to race. I mean, that was also when Dover was phenomenal. The racing at Dover was just incredible. But anyways, I mean, like, I didn't need this past weekend's race to feel that way. I was like you, though. I was a little underwhelmed by the competition, the competitiveness of the race cars. I mean, when you can't pass at Bristol, what can you do other than just wreck?

or, you know, Carl Edwards had a flat tire. And, you know, so it started becoming, like, actual mechanical issues that were causing the fallout of a Bristol race. Well, that's not why you fall out of Bristol. You fall out of Bristol because somebody wrecked you or, you know, you're coming across the rail or you're trying to avoid another wreck and they were coming down the track or whatever. And so it lacked that. It certainly did. I'm not so sure that they knew that that was coming. I don't know.

I didn't get the feeling like this, what am I trying to say? I feel like they were all surprised. By the way, the lack of passing. The only one that seemed to be passing was a leader. Man, they were putting lap cars down. And Kyle Busch, after that penalty at the end, the last 50 laps, him coming through the field was nuts. But he's always been great there.

Here's my problem with it. I know that there's racetracks where you have restart lines that are preferable over others. You know, outside group versus inside group. We've talked about it countless times here. I just hate it when it's Bristol. You know? Yeah. No, you want both lines to go.

and listen, it was to the benefit of our driver being in the outside line a couple of times. The last four restarts down from the outside. But to your point, it'd be great if, look, either line is going to work. And we've seen, Martinsville is an example of that. Sometimes it's the outside. Sometimes it's the inside. Most of the time you want to be on the inside there. Right.

But regardless, it's flat track. It goes back and forth. It's flat track, mostly. I mean, you just know what you're going to get. Bristol, I just. On a high bank track like that, you want to see. It kind of stinks that you had that. I mean, I think back to the day before in the Xfinity Series race,

Kevin Harvick, who was running one of our cars, I think he restarted on the inside every single restart. That guy could, every time there was a caution, or when he pitted and he came out of it, he always ended up in the odd line. And you don't want to see a race decided that way. And Kevin Harvick lost positions after every restart. That ought to tell you something.

Yeah, that's a good point. point, hey, listen, Dale Jr. was a battling an SOB on, that whole team was on Saturday night. And I loved watching how hard they fought to finish ninth. And I wished we could have had about three more cautions, because on those man on restarts, he was checked out starting on the top row. And as he mentioned, competing with Kislauski to even get the second spot there for a couple of laps.

And I did chuckle when he was talking about hitting the wall, but I got no problem with it. I mean, he's doing anything and everything he can to stay on the lead lap, and he's trying his best to get up there with the leaders. So coming from 20th to be running third at some point under 100 laps to go, it was quite an achievement, I thought. Yeah, I mean, there's a couple ways you can look at it. You can be the camp that says, you know, we're lucky to get 9th,

seeing how we start a 20th and had unscheduled stop for a loose wheel and needed two lucky dogs and that we're lucky. Or you can look at it through the lens that we showed resistance. in the wake of crisis moments by starting 20th and having two lucky dogs and an unscheduled pit stop. So both are probably right. The fact of the matter is we did get some lucky breaks in the fact that we were restarting on the outside in those last four or five restarts, which by the way covered the last half

of the race. And that also we were a short run car. How often does that happen? I mean, that never happens. We actually were better on the short runs than we were the long runs. I think the back-end housing might have had something to do with that as rear-end housing, as Dale Jr. were saying. But listen, I really appreciate the effort. I would much rather have a team and a driver that's great in race trim and great in a race than it's just a great qualifier.

And I'd rather have it the way that we have it. But having said that, as Dale Jr. said, and you can tell how much it bothers him. It bothers everybody qualifying. To win a championship, Mike, that's got to improve. during the chase. Qualifying, pit stops. There's a lot of things that actually need to be. The overall speed, I think Junior said it in his audio at the beginning of this podcast.

They recognize the fact that they're not as fast as some of these other teams and they're trying to find out how to get that. And when he said Jeff, he's talking about Doug Newcart and Jeff. He wasn't talking about Jeff Gordon. He was talking about Jeff Andrews, the motor guy. So those are things that they're having to do, and they know that they got just a short time to do it. now because chase starts soon. You've got to three races left. Two weeks from now it's Darlington.

Then it's three weeks now. It's Richmond on Saturday night, and that's it. And it's playoff's time, if you will. All right, let's hear some in-car audio here, Amanda. Let's start with what happened early on. Lap 50, they pitted from 16th, and they put two right-side tires on, and there was some lug nut problems. Let's hear that.

We have to come back down at pit, put the rest of the lugnuts on the right front, Chase left side tires, follow fuel. Here you come. 10-4. B-1 to go next time by. You got past the lift. You're good, buddy. Go, go, go.

Yeah, you're fine. Pace cars, I have an airing trees. And, you know, seven laps later on the restart, Mike, starting 38. So it cost them a lot of spots. You know, Bristol's been weird this year to us. If you think about the first race, we had a loose wheel before we ever made a pit stop, which I don't even know was possible. And that happened to us.

And then when we went to go change it, then we ended up having to get... I don't even remember. Amanda was... I can't think of the part, but when a loose wheel will rub, sometimes the... Forgive me, I'm not a car person,

but the whole that it hangs on. You're the wife of a car person. Yeah, I know, but it's just ain't like any other husband or wife. It goes in one ear and out the other. But I guess basically what the tire hangs on, I think, can get damaged. if the loose wheels rubbing on it. And so NASCAR had a policy where they had to approve this and the other.

We ended up a couple laps down. Still came back and finished 16th, I believe. So it's just been a weird track force this year. I remember that. And yeah, we kind of leave forever. We were hoping to get the lucky dog and get back to one lap down instead of two laps down. Yeah, that was crazy. All right.

68 laps of Green Flag racing after that. And went a lap down during that span and picked up 11 spots. Here's Greg Ives, crew chief on what was going on at lap 125. If all the leaders in front of us, PJ, Pitt, we're going to have to take the wave around. Yes, all the leaders in front of us. It looks like they all pit in front of us. We'll take the wave around here. So we got about 80 laps we could go on this tank here, so it's got to be a nice and patient, nice and smooth.

And that's exactly what they were, very patient. So you look at it here, Mike, a couple laps later. They restart in 21st. Caution comes out. They did lose a couple of spots there, but as some long green flag runs were going, they were picking up a bunch of spots. Yeah, I mean, they got fortunate there because they had a caution that come out 14 laps later. And so they were able to come in and pick, get caught up, get caught up on gas and everything. So that was another lucky break that I failed to even consider when we were talking about our lucky breaks a little bit ago.

So that was one. That was a key one. lap 247 it went a lap down again and act but actually up to 17th so if you think about all the issues at lap of 50 when they went them I guess between lap 50 and lap 57 when they were 38th by the time you get to lap 2547 they're in 17th so they've made up a tremendous amount of ground but some damage was done to the right side as Dale junior already talked about. Let's hear what he said during the race. I hate it pretty hard. I know it was about the balance. I mean, you saw it, man.

Took off a great car, and then the right front air pressure, you get way too high or something. It's real tightness of center. It don't change on the entrance and the exit, but it's real tightness center. Okay, tough luck. We'll take a look at that right side. We're the first car one left now. We'll get the lucky dog here so we can clean it up real good guys. This is the part where Dale Jr. actually said on the radio that he felt silly for hitting the wall. He was doing really well staying in front of Joey Lugano. Was a Lugano that was leading? Yes.

Ligano's leading, and Dale Jr. actually held him off well. He did for a while. For a while. Yeah. And then he hit that corner and it just shot right up and hit to the wall. And Joey went blowing by him. And Jr. says, boy, I really feel silly about how that happened. But it does happen.

I don't really feel like they, Amanda, I don't really feel like they lost any spots, though, as they were working on all that damage? Well, not really. I mean, when you're getting the lucky dog or the free pass, whatever, you know, you've got time to clean up that damage. You're at the tail end of the field. And really, you're kind of basically sitting because if he was the first car lap down,

you're at the tail end, you're basically sitting in the same spot. Yeah, that's true. I mean, he actually gained a spot. He gained a spot because he didn't lose a position when he hit the wall. He was still 13th. And then Carl Edwards had a flat like 10 laps later. Yeah. Or not even 10 laps later.

Carl was running second or third. Second. And then... Come on, Kip. Put the new tire on. So he... Yeah, so Junior, when that caution came out at a 359, Junior was in 12th.

That caution came out when Kyle Larson hit the wall. Yeah, to your point, they'd come up to 13th. Again, a lucky dog going up to 12th at lap 357. They were up in the top 10 all the way to 9th at lap 370, which was just really amazing, given all the issues they had. And Dale Jr. wanted to keep track of those lap cars. Deep track of the lap cars. We need one.

We need odd numbers to pit and we'll stay out. If even numbers come or nobody comes, what you want to do? If we're odd, we're pitting. If one or more, you know, if any odd numbers come or staying out, if anybody or any even. And no fuel, guys, no fuel. No tankers, Greg. No takers.

Okay. We'll pet. Isn't that amazing the strategy? And for those that have always been ignorant to the sport and just don't give it a chance, first of all, I don't really have any time for them. But secondly, one of the things that they just completely fail to or don't have any interest in trying to understand is the remarkable strategy that goes on in an NASCAR race. And there's, how about that example right there? To the point we were talking about earlier, Mike, you know, if you're on the bottom, you're just going to get freight trained on a restart. And if you're at the top, you're going to pick up so many spots.

and the driver knows that, the crew chief knows that, the spotter, everybody knows that, and obviously spur of the moment you're going to have to make that choice whether to pit or not. Well, and it worked out for them because they restarted 10th because one person behind him stayed out. So everybody in front of him stayed out. One person behind him stayed out. He came in 9th, and it actually gave him the preferred starting spot at 10th. Picked up four spots. Right away.

Right away. It went from 10th to 6th. That was a huge restart because I don't know what happened on the inside. Like it actually went slower than just its normal restarts on the bottom line. Junior went shot out of a cannon. 10th to the 6th, then I think that he actually went up to maybe even 4th and then lost a couple of as the run went on. But did restart in 6 that lap 429 and here are Greg I have thoughts about that. Yeah, we're running 6 here.

There's 13 cars on the lead lab, so pit here. We go not pit now. The caution was 40 to go and then pipped in. It'll be too late. At that four. Four tires here. If we finish six to 13, I don't give a . Let's try to win.

Yeah, 104. You know, I know you know. You win it's going to be hard, but I keep trying. I love it, man. I love it. I love hearing that. It's got to fire you up if you're a fan of the 88, hearing your driver say something like that.

And he certainly did, Mike. Gave it everything he had, and as he mentioned, He got up there with Kozlowski for a second, battling for second, but ultimately finished in ninth on that long green flag run. And in the competition, the car, as the long green flag went on, just didn't have much for those guys in the front. Another thing that was sort of unfortunate about Bristol was the long, you end the race with a long green flag run.

You're not used to, and you don't prepare yourself mentally for a Bristol race where there's a long green flag run to end the race. Yeah, well, it was funny because, when he was battling Kislauski for second, and it was obvious that Kislowski was taking his line away from him. Then immediately, I think Hamlin was maybe fourth. Maybe it was Harvick. But whoever was fourth, immediately I start saying,

okay, pass junior, caution fly. Past junior, caution fly. Yeah, don't know why they're fourth, though. Exactly. So you can restart and get up there again. But it didn't happen, and I won't be making any more picks. So there you go. There's your recap of what happened there in the night race at Bristol.

All right, it's time for reaction theater and our chance to hand out some spy swag. One lucky person is going to receive either a pair of spy earbuds or their wireless speaker. If you aren't lucky enough to win, don't forget, you can go online to spyoptic.com and get yourself a pair of Dale Jr. signature 88 shades. It includes the Dirty Mo, McCoy, Quanta, General, and Farrah for the ladies. Once you are ready to check out inner discount code nationwide 88, and get 20% off of that purchase. All right, let's hear them.

I'm sure I'm going to get destroyed. Not the result we were looking for tonight. Didn't want to see Lugano and Victory Lane. I wanted to see Dale Jr. there, of course, but way to battle all night. Car was a lap down a couple of different times, but Greg and the boys battle back got the car right. We'll be ready to go for next week.

Very proud of the run, Dale had tonight. Great job, boys. Dale, yeah. Dale, yeah. Great call. So far, so good for you, Taylor. Yeah, I love these guys. This is great.

Who's next? Well, I don't know who's not getting all their lug nuts tight down there, but, hey, and it's getting ridiculous. I'm sure Amanda could have done a better job getting all five tight. I'm just playing around. But we had a pretty solid night. You know, obviously overcame, getting trapped a lap down, got those lucky dogs.

But, you do the hell of a job in those wee starts and pick up spots. But, you know, night's not too bad considering what we over games. So I'm going to go in the off week and just chill, and hopefully we can get back out of it at Dongton. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Dale, yeah, you know, I've been trained to defend women, being that I'm married to one and have two daughters. In fairness to Amanda, I bet she could probably change lug nuts better than I could.

So I don't know that's fair to pick on her. I actually tried to simulate a pit stop in my living room one night, and I about blew my knee out. So after that happened, I was just like, I'm done. I'm done with this. Were you drinking? I probably was. Kip was probably trying to defend himself on something, and I was like, it had. You have an easy job, and then I, you know.

Yeah, I mean, I was asking not because of you almost blowing your knee out, but how you got the idea to simulate a pit stop in your living room in the first place? Exactly. Yeah. It seems like there might have been something cold involved. All right, who's next? To be a lap down three times, come back and get a damn top ten finish. That's a hell over the day. That says a lot.

Ain't no quit in this 80s. You got to give them that even though that car was a piece of shit. Coming back for a nice place finish. And please, Taylor, do not predict a win again. None of y'all. Don't say anything about winning Darlington. Maybe we'll show up there, and I ain't going to say it either. Make something happen.

There, yeah. Kyle's doing so well. No, he's right. I'm not going to be making any more predictions. Since we are so superstitious, though, maybe we need to get your boy Dato to start running again. Because remember two years ago, when he started running, those last nine, remember this, Mike, if they would have had the format they've got now, two years ago. ago, Dale Earnhardt Jr. would have won the championship.

And Datto started running before every single race. Well, let me tell you something. Datto was at Bristol. Datto was there and he sends me a text because I had arranged for him some tickets for him and some buddies is. He says, thanks for the seats. I'll be talking about yesterday for a long time. I haven't read the news yet, but I kind of remember that race being boring.

Didn't stop me from having a good time. Clearly. Clearly. Well, that's great that he went to the race, but again, we need him to call into reaction theater and start running if we're going to win a championship. I'm just saying. I mean, if he's a team player. Right. Do what you got to do, man.

That's right. Who's next? All of a sudden, Kyle Boyish has become the greatest racer runner. We all know he was good in trucks. We all know he was good in Xfinity, but never in the sprint. And all of a sudden, he's the best racer. Well, excuse me. They gave him too many concessions to get into.

to the chase, but when Junior had a concussion, they gave him no concession. He had to try. This is nothing but a setup by NASCAR. So all I have to say is go, junior, go, show them and win the championship. Thank you. I love this for no other reason that usually when people are talking about conspiracy theories, they're saying that Junior is the recipient of the, you know, gets the good end of it. This time now he's getting screwed by NASCAR.

No NASCAR. trying to kick a man-wise down, I guess. Listen, you know good and well. I've made it very clear on this podcast that I'm not the biggest fan of the way that NASCAR ruled on that. However, is he saying that just now Kyle Bush knows what he's doing in the Cup series? A few years ago, he won all three races, truck, Xfinity, and Cup races at Bristol, which had never been done before.

He's won 33 races at the Cup level, 73 Xfinity races, which is a record, and 44 truck races. I don't think all of a sudden Kyle Bush in 2015 learned how to drive. I think he's known how to do that for a while. Well, if he keeps it up, he might make something of his life there. Hey, you know what? That guy in the 18 car.

Yeah, he's pretty good. He's got some upside to him. By all means, I don't want to compliment him too much or I'll be the one out there pushing him. That's right. Yeah, Mike Davis and Kyle Bush, Rowdy Radio. Routy Radio. Who's next?

So I'm not going to lie, after we had to come back down pit road again to change the tires, I was really good-h-hast. I was ready to say, let's fire every guy on the pit team. But, you know, after the end of the race, I noticed that you guys really bounced back to fought all night, and that was good. That's a championship form right there to be able to make something that bad that has happened, turn into something good. I am more concerned.

I think we should be leading more laps. These guys that were racing for the championship, they're out there, and they're competing and they're in contention to win every weekend. And it seems like we're kind of lagging behind. Dale yeah. Hashtag five beers. Yeah. I can't disagree.

I mean, it's quite like you see it. I mean, definitely needs more speed. You need to catch up with some of the guys. No doubt about it. But who would you rather be right now at Hendrick Motorsports? I've always wanted to rather be us, even when Jimmy was running championships. But maybe I'm a little biased. But I get what your point is, Taylor.

Yeah. I mean, I'm not trying to. to suggest they're as fast as the Penske guys or the Gibbs guys right now who are both of those teams are on fire. But, you know, I do think that right now in Hendrick, they're the most competitive car, but like Junior said,

it's cyclical. And if there's going to be a swoon during the year, I want it to happen in the summer, for sure. You know, the thing about Jimmy, I can't figure out what's going on with Jeff Gordon. I can't. I quit trying to figure that out a lot of time barely in the chase right now. Yeah. And even Casey, but Jimmy's not

in case he's out of the chase. Jimmy has the most weird things that are happening to him, like uncharacteristic 48 things. Do you see that? You know like last week when he missed his pit stall. It does feel a little extreme. Like he's had some summer swoons before, but this one probably takes the cake. Again, what we said, Casey Kane is an 18th place right now.

I mean, he is 37 points at a 16th place with two races to go. So almost certainly needs to get a win at Darlington. at Richmond in order to qualify for the chase. And if two people win races that are outside the top 16, Jeff Gordon is in a world of trouble. All right, who's next? Look, I just let the race. I'm walking back to my car right now.

I am proud of Dale, which are three lives down or two, some of the guys. Finish nights, that's pretty f***ed. But I do it look on. All right? Hendrick, get the shit together. Pick, crew, get the shit together. Kind of playing games.

Overall, good finish. There you. Let's go, baby. Mike, I don't have any problem with Joey Lugano personally at all. I don't really know him very well. But I can't stand to watch him win races. I'm going to be honest with you. And I know Junior and Matt Kenseth are boys,

but watching Kenseth and Ligano, Kenseth and Ligano win races, I don't know, man. I'm sure maybe some people that are listening to this podcast can tweet me and tell me if I'm crazy or not. I just can't stand watching the, those guys win races. Oh boy.

Taylor? Taylor? Hey, you there? What was that? I got so animated just now that I turned off the equipment with my big left toe. The power cord.

I turned that little orange button that's lit up on your power strip. I turned it off. I don't, I just, I'm tired of watching Lugano and Kinsa win the races, all right? What do you want me to say? Yeah, you got so upset that you killed the

power to you. Am I alone when I say that, Mike? Are you pleading the fifth on that? No, I've been saying this all year. I mean, I don't care to watch Lugano win races. I do, I am impressed with his talent. Sure. But I'm not so much inclined to gravitate towards his personality or lack of.

Yeah, like, I mean, listen. There's nothing, I like old school. There's nothing old school about him. Right. He's like new money. Well, I'll tell you this. Now, there are some young guns. Like Kyle Larson's having a really tough year. But like if he wins a race, I don't know.

I get fired up watching him drive around for some reason. But you know how I've always liked Jimmy. I love Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex, those guys. If Junior's not going to win a race, then those are the guys that I want to see win. But I don't know, man. During the LaTart era, after Dale Jr. one at Daytona. We've had a lot of Lugano and Kinseth wins.

Yeah, yeah. I'm blamed Littart. Well, you start predicting wins for Ligano will be all right. Let's play one more. When he's trying to get this money for the rent for Thunder Valley, always

losing spanned because of the drivers can't drive for shit. In my eyes, I've done seen some crazy things at the track. Got a couple guys working on the car just for me but I gotta keep my game tight like Kobe on game that's taken from my bar so no matter know that is right D drivers cheap duncine drivers steal done seen shady drivers making shady deals just messed up where I drive but that's just how it is it might be new to you

but it's been like this for years you know it's hot out here for the Dale when he's trying to get this money for the rent for Thunder Valley always leaves him span because other Drive the can't drive a . Hashtag deal, yeah, hashtag that one was hard. Hashtag Nice comeback. That was clever.

Very clever. And quite funny, I have to say. It was not the most beautiful version I've ever heard, but definitely give him credit. Now, he's won before. Has he not? Mike? He has. But you know what? He definitely has

help with this. I wonder. Can we give it to her? This is what I'm down to. It's either, it's got to be submarine Mike there with that little hip-hop version. Or it's the dude that called me out. See, I was voting for the guy that called Taylor out. I think we should. Give it to the guy that called me out.

I deserve it. Mike, that was good, though, buddy. That was really good. I'm impressed. Caller number three, congratulations. And you get the spy swag this week. Reaction theater is open 24-7. All you have to do is call toll-free, 1-8-55-7-40-190.

If you do call toll-free, please let us know because I didn't know that was still possible, and you can 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. So at the beginning of this podcast, Dale Jr. spoke about being in a wedding this weekend. He even said that he was going to be taking notes to apply to his own wedding. So I figured, you know, we need to talk to the guy who, whether he realizes it or not, might be a little bit of inspiration to Junior's wedding, whenever that is. So Jake Backer, if you didn't have pressure on you already this weekend, first of all, congratulations.

Thank you for your wedding coming up. But I don't know, man. I feel a little bit more pressure for you if Junior's taking notes. You've got to perform. I'm not sure what he's going to be able to take out of our wedding. I just hope that my only fears are that we get good weather and that my fiancé shows up. Yeah. Because I told her yesterday that I had had dreamed three nights in a row that she didn't show up to the wedding.

So as long as she shows up and it doesn't rain, then we'll be good. If the only note that Dale Jr. leaves with is make sure the bride shows up, then you've done your job. Which is key to every good wedding. Yeah, it's important. You're getting married Saturday, is it? That's correct. Yep, we're getting married Saturday evening here right outside of Charlotte. Awesome.

Well, let's tell people what you do. You actually are one of the key members on Team Junior. Me and Laura Scott sort of kind of gave us that name years ago, and you have been on this 88 team for a long time. You're an account rep at Hendrick Motorsports. Can you kind of explain what you do and how you came to know Jr.? Yeah, so I have been the account rep on the 880s. for, I think this is my fifth season, it's almost five full years now.

And I oversee all of the sponsorships for his car at Kendrick. So the nationwide Diet Mountain Dew, Microsoft, Kelly Blue Book, Balvelin, all those partners work through me to activate around Dale. So, you know, commercial spots, production days, appearances, all that stuff. They worked through me on that. So I came to do it because I was working for actually Pepsi's sport marketing agency. And when AMP signed Dale at the end of 2007, beginning in 2008, I went over and started working on the racing program over there.

And I got to know the people at Hendrick and got to know Dale. And then I came over at the end of 2010 to be in my current role. So then, you know, kind of from there, him and I just became buddies. And when him and aging, Amy started dating, I started bringing Lisa over, Amy and Lisa became real good friends. So we've just kind of, you know, been getting better and better friends ever since. Yeah, and that's awesome. You have been a great friend of the program, and looking forward to your marriage with Lisa,

who is also a friend of ours, and we love her to death. So this is a good way to spend an off weekend if I'm you, getting married to Lisa. Yeah. And I said that was really my one, I didn't have a hesitation to ask Dale to be in the wedding, but, you know, I never liked to ask him to do stuff. Right. And with it being his last off weekend, I kind of had a little bit of anxiety about it because I, you know, I wanted him to be able to have some off time and go on vacation or do something.

But he was great about it and was excited. And, yeah, there's really no better way for me to be spending my last off weekend. When you're in this sport, people don't realize you've got to see. schedule key events around off weekends. I had to do the same thing with my wedding. Yeah. The week after homesteads. The wedding weekends a year. That's right. That's how it works. So, okay. So, yeah, you don't like asking junior stuff. But if you're the account rep and you represent these sponsors, you know what? I feel like Valvilline or nationwide, somebody might want to just throw a hat on him for your wedding. And you would have to be the one to have to ask him to do that.

How can we make this happen? This is going to be a non-branded event. That was part of the deal I had to sign with him. I got you, yeah. He's not going to have to wear a T-shirt, right? No, and we're keeping it pretty casual. I almost didn't even have him wear a tie, but as long as he'll throw on a tie in a tie tack, that'll be fine. This is awesome.

That's great. All right, listen, this has been a busy week for you, not just because of weddings, but because of sponsor announcements. You unveiled an awesome paint scheme this week with the 88 Valvaling car that's going to run at Darlington. Can you give us a little bit of insight on how that developed and how much... I mean, Junior was chomping at the bit to get this thing announced,

and it was everything you could do just to kind of keep him quiet, right? But how did that develop and how do we get to this awesome paint scheme? Well, you know, when Valvine came to us with the idea after Darlington announced that they wanted to do this whole throwback theme, I mean, it was really an easy process for us, easier than it is normally just because, you know, Dale's super into the history of sport, and Cale pretty much laid it out there for him, you know, with the paint team that he ran back in the 80s. So all we really had to do was mimic exactly what he did. Dale's a big stickler

on details, especially when it comes to paint schemes and fire suits and, you know, things like that. A lot of the time, you know, we'll go through 20, 30 rounds of revisions until we get something exactly how he wanted it, but with this, all he wanted to do is keep it exactly like Kail had it. So, you know, down to every last detail, we had to match. So we went through a bunch of old photos, and we actually found one photo where Kail was standing in front of the car and had these bright blue Carolina shoes on. So we went and had Alpine stars make those up to match exactly what we had. But this one was pretty easy for us. Not much back and forth. Valvlin has been great for work with. We went out to Darwin's.

Lincoln a couple weeks ago and took some photos and got some interviews with Dale and Kail. And, you know, kind of talked about the history of their brand and the sport. And it's a pretty fun day. So it's been really easy so far, and I think the car is going to look great on track. It will. What was Kail like to work with? Cale was awesome. I was surprised how funny he was.

Yeah. You know, he was a little bit under the weather. I think he just had shoulder surgery and his knee was bothering him a little bit. But he was in super high spirit, and, you know, it was neat to just be able to sit there and kind of watch him and Dale interact and, you know, talk about Balbulin and talk about kind of his history at Darlington. It was just a neat day. Well, brother, congratulations again. We're happy for you. It's going to be a good week.

Try not to think about work because you need to concentrate on making sure Lisa shows up. That's important. Because, again, you don't want to be the guy that actually talks junior out of this whole marriage business. Like, you don't want to be that guy, do you? No, no, I don't think anybody can talk him out of it at this point. I think he's a lucky guy and he made a good decision. He sure did. Both of you guys did.

Hey, Junior Nation, did you know that you can get a special discount when you switch to Nationwide? You got to call 877-97-2246 or visit nationwide.com forward slash junior nation for more information. And remember, Nationwide is on your side. All right, let's throw the white flag. White flag right there, white flag. Well, this white flag is brought to you by Esmeralda's, fortune telling and palm reading, official fortune Taylor for Taylor Zarser and his sports

prediction since 2007. Call Esmeralda at 855-740-1902 and leave her voicemail on why you should be her next client. Unbelievable. I picked Jason Day to win the PGA and I was feeling good and didn't work out. I'm done. So Esmeralda, that's who you go to, huh?

That's from now on, yes. Who I will be going to. I wanted Valvaline to sponsor. through this because just how badass that car looks for Darlington but hey that's fine well I understand speaking of Alvalley and I was going to speak a little bit more to that they do more than lubricate your motor they do great paint schemes Dale Jr. unveiled the emvelled the Darlington paint scheme on Monday you can go check his Twitter feed out for that it's a 1981 Kale Yallboro paint scheme and it leads me to ask the question

Taylor how do you think that they unveiled paint schemes back in 1981 that's a good question I don't know Not on Twitter. No, no. With Lynn Devon posing next to him? That's one thing I could think of. I got a good Linda Vaughn story. Maybe I'll say that one for the next episode.

It's funny. Did Kayle go out on his property in South Carolina and just scream, hey, we got a new paint scheme this week? No, I just figured they just unload it. That's probably how they unveiled paint schemes back then. Junior, he said this in his audio, but Junior in the number 88 team is testing down at Homestead, Miami Speedway, this week. Taylor, has Esmerelda giving you any insight to how that test will go?

I'm never going to hear the end of this, am I. As you know, the Cup series is off this week, but the Xfinity Series is still going. It just happens to be a road course. Does Esmeralda actually remember who won the last road course in the Xfinity series? Here we go. I'm just curious. I'm asking if, I don't know, I don't talk. Regan Smith.

That's right. Esmirelda remembers. Regan Smith, Chase Elliott, and Ben Rhodes will get after it at Road America this week. Oh, cool. And the race is on Saturday, both televised on NBC Sports Network. Lastly, you'll want to see the show Raceline this week as they are airing a feature on, wait on it, Dirty Mo Radio. That's right. We're excited about this.

Raceline is televised on Mab TV on Saturday mornings at 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time. You can also check it out on Racelineonline.com. Now tell me, you're going to have to repeat that again. Somebody's doing what on Dirty Moe Radio on television? Do I have to put a suit on? No, it's already been taped. We actually, they taped Regan Smith's podcast, Junior Motorsports, up front. Oh, okay.

And they got Regan. They wanted the big guns. All right. Yeah. Well, if you want to see. They wanted us, but then your prediction was so miserable. You didn't want to show my guns with the sleeveless, they'll with the Wrangler T-shirt? Again, you were, you were queued up to be the focal point of this feature on race line.

And then your prediction just completely whiffed. And they said, we got, we got to have a lot of it. Can he imagine if he would have won? That would have been great. You know what was funny about that, Taylor? Even TJ. Like, you came out with, you know, with your big prediction. Nope.

And Taylor's looking around the room for support. And TJ's like, you ain't getting it for me. Yeah, he's like, man. He looks at me. He goes, how the hell are we going to get past qualified? And I was like, God, this may not go so well. So really, TJ's the one to, you know. What a downer.

No, and I'm just saying his prediction is probably more accurate. That's unfair. Well, T.J. didn't call a win for Darlington, but he did feel pretty good going there. He did. That's true. That's true. Well, we'll get him to really start making picks if that happened. I did notice a tweet from somebody went to Taylor and said, leave the stupid stuff to Mike Davis. He doesn't better. I saw that. That was funny. I cracked up. That's pretty funny. All right, there you go. That's another episode of the Dale Jr. Download presented by a spy. Thanks to Dale Jr.

Thanks to Amanda. Thanks to Mike. I'm Taylor. I'm done with predictions. We'll talk to you soon. 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.'s 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.