The Dale Jr. Download - 126 - Property Damage, Courtesy of California

Episode Date: March 21, 2016

Travis Peterson, engineer on the No. 88 Nationwide Chevy, weighs in on Sunday’s race at Auto Club Speedway and what the team is working on during their off week. Reaction Theatre is very angry about the untimely caution. 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. I don't know what I've done. I mean, that 41 just kind of pulled right up here. I was all that next quicker than him, so I couldn't react fast enough for that. Hey, everybody, it's Jr. Host Auto Club Speedway. Yeah, that was a pretty good race. We had a lot of fun.

The car was fun to drive. And Auto Club Speedway is a pretty fun race track because it's an old surface. and we run against the wall and you can run in the middle of the corner in the bottom. It's a lot of fun to move around. But anyhow, we thought we had a pretty good car in the second practice of the last practice Saturday. So I was looking forward to the race and seeing how the car was. And when the race started, we had a really, really bad push, just a terrible push, and we couldn't go anywhere, just waiting on the front to turn,

waiting on the front to turn every corner, just real bad type. Kurt Busch was going by us. He was coming from the back because he had started in a backup car. And I guess he thought he kind of was clear for a momentary split second there. But not, you know, I didn't think he was going to just come up in front of me and I have to lift all the way out of gas etiquette there is to leave an outside lane for the guy who's going about 10 or 15 mile hour faster than you. but you know sometimes you don't sometimes other guys don't and he didn't and I smashed him in the back I didn't want to smash him into their back I didn't want to tear my car up so that hurt both of us

hurt him pretty bad and it tore our splitter up it pulled the splitter on the left side up anyways the splitter on the left front was pulled up about two inches and we had a couple bars in there that were bent so they cut the bars that were bent So it would allow the splitter to come back a little bit. And we pulled some Packer out of the left front to get the splitter down even further because the splitter needed to be on the racetrack. And that still wasn't working. So we luckily got another caution, a long enough caution to actually change the right front shock.

And that was a real cool, brave call by Greg to make that change. And you don't usually change shocks in a race. So, yeah, we changed the left front shock. to be able to get the left front down even more. And it still wasn't perfect, but it got it to where we could actually race, you know, and we could move forward, and we started to move forward.

And by, I don't know, 50 laps to go or something, we were running inside the top 10. And moving forward, really, really doing well on a long run. We didn't have short run speed. My car was still pretty tight on the short run. And I didn't have a whole lot of track bar adjustability. in the car and that wasn't really making a big difference anyways so I was just having to put up with being tight for a while but on after about 10 or 15 laps our car would start to swing the back and

turn and get really loose like I like it and near the end of the run I was pretty happy so uh anyhow we um we're going to short pit to try to come in and get tires Jimmy had pitted in the same lap so we come down pit road to to get new tires and jump out there on the racetrack with those new tires and try to get it get an advantage on some guys that hadn't pitted yet for about two or three laps they were all going to have to come to pit road because they couldn't sit there and wait for us to you know just keep putting good laps up and beating them by a second a lap or more for too long so they had to pit too so we were trying to draw everyone to pit road but we wanted to get there first and they called

they called a caution. There was a piece of debris up on the, up against the wall and turn three. I don't know exactly what it was, but I'd seen it there for several laps, probably about 10 or 15 laps. And, yeah,

they called a caution right in the middle of the cycle. So I was frustrated by that. I wished they could have waited till the cycle ended, but that's not my call. That's NASCAR's call. And maybe they saw a different piece of debris. but I don't know so that was a little frustrating at that particular moment we were the

lucky dog lucky for us and we were able to you know get the get that lucky dog and start in the back and I'm real surprised that we finished 11th I thought that we were going to be about 15th or so 18th because it's so hard to pass and our car was struggling with the front splitter being bent we were struggling really bad in traffic especially the further back we got the worst it was so I was having a hard time really moving forward we got a real lucky break with a late late yellow when the 18 had an issue with the right front tire and Greg made some good adjustments for that last

set of tires that gave us ability to make some gains on the restart I've liked it's start started in the outside line because that seemed to be the line that moved forward, but we started on the inside line. But we were still able to come home 11th, and I think that that's pretty good considering everything that we went through. And looking at the nose of the car after the race, it was beat in pretty bad, so I don't think we did ourselves any favors with the damage to the car.

The right side was tore up, too, so there was some side force issues that I'm sure we were struggling with. A lot of guys had a lot of trouble you saw. A lot of cars getting to the fence. A lot of guys blowing tires and spinning out and doing all kinds of stuff. And it was really slick, really challenging out there. And I think that this, I hate to keep talking about it, to be honest with, because I feel like that's all I do.

But the low-down force package is been so damn fun. So damn fun. I don't know how it's going to work at Martinsville. I don't know if we'll even really feel it that much. One of the things that concerns me a little bit that we saw at Phoenix, NASCAR's been taking gear out of the cars. I think that they're worried about straightaway speed or something. I don't know with this small spoiler.

But anyhow, they're taking gear out of the cars, and that's not fun because you step in the gas in the middle of corner. so like stepping in a bucket of mud. It doesn't even go anywhere because they ain't got no gear. So I think they took a little bit of gear away from the car at Martinsville. Not only does that make the racing worse, I think, because you don't have the throttle response and the gear to drive out of the corner

and to gain on the guy that can't get in the gas. But it also doesn't allow the engine to do any of the engine breaking on D-Sail. So taking the gear out, then you have less engine braking going in the corner so you have to use more physical braking to slow the car down more braking makes more brake temp that's more wheel temp and then you're gonna have the bead failures that we had at at Phoenix the tire failures we had at Phoenix were due to the heat to the wheel coming from the brakes because we don't have enough gear to help us slow

down getting into the corner So I would caution against taking out more gear. Anyhow, we'll just have to put more cooling on the brakes and the beads and all that stuff and try to remember when we're in traffic not to really try to use the brakes all that much or get too aggressive. When you're running alone or you have some room between you and the guys behind you, you need to start lifting around the flag stand and braking very lightly, taking care of your brakes. trying not to burn the brakes off and also not to heat the wheel to melt the bead on the tire.

If we had plenty of gear, that would help us keep the temp out of the brakes, but they're taking gear out for some damn reason. Anyhow, I don't think the lowdown force deal is going to make a big difference in Martinsville, maybe a little looser into the corner, or we're always kind of loose on entry there, maybe a little looser in the corner. Again, that'll create some more, you know, that'll want us to use more brakes and maybe lift a little earlier,

but you're not going to feel a whole bunch. There won't be a huge difference in drive-off or things like that at that track. You're not going quite fast enough to really get the arrow as part of the equation into the handling. We've got Easter. I hope everybody's having a great Easter break.

Me and Amy certainly are. We'll talk to you later. Enjoy the download. Great stuff there. From our guy Jr., this is the Dale Jr. download presented by Spy. Dale Jr.'s latest sunglasses from Spy. The Daga is now offered with Spy's most premium glass lens, featuring HappyLens technology shop the Daga with Happy Glass at SpyOptic.com.

I am still pretty fired up about the entire weekend in California. I'm sure Travis is and all. of you guys are. I mean, I'm impressed that Travis Peterson, engineer on the number 88 team, is in studio with us because those West Coast trips, man, when you're coming back to the East Coast, that takes a toll on the body now. I know you're a lot younger than we are. You can handle it, but, man, I mean, are you tired?

I'm not too bad. You get all screwed up on your time zones, but once you get back and you take the first night and you just wake up and do the first day, you're all right after that. What time did you get back? I want to say 1.30 or 2 in the morning or something like that. Yeah, that's not so horribly bad. That's what time. Travis is going to bed anyway.

Whoa, whoa, now. Yeah, you got a four or five hour flight back, so sleep a little bit on the plane and get going. Up and down race, Mike, you know, there's a lot of disappointment that we need to discuss, certainly, when it comes to the entire weekend. I know Travis will have a lot to say about that. First, 100 laps or so, pretty disappointing, and then clearly a huge change. around maybe lap 100, right after that the caution came out where clearly some improvement was made in the pits that really helped the team for the next 50 some odd laps and a caution that injured part of your device, injured some of your devices. Yeah.

So we need to get to that definitely cost, I think ultimately probably, I would say six or seven spots when it comes to where Dale Jr. finished. during the day, but just a lot of ups and downs, Mike. A lot ups and downs, you're right. A particular device of mine was damaged during this race, specifically during the caution, lap 155 debris that sort of screwed us, Travis, sort of screwed us. Now, I'm not saying it wasn't legit. There was a piece of debris out there, but, yeah, so I was a little frustrated by that.

Now, I want to say, though, that the iPhone that I had, it was not the direct tool in which I was using to vent my frustration but there is a such thing in football called inadvertent contact or what do they call it Taylor when when you when you kind of hit the punter but not really it's just

incident incidental contact right that's sort of what happened it was the phone was inadvertently swept up in the reaction and therefore it sacrificed itself rather no I might add. But I'm still actually bitter by that, the timing

of that caution, because Dale had just reached what felt like the top of Everest. I mean, the first 100 laps of that race were just horrible. It wasn't Batman. It was Bartman. That's who that car was. It was Steve Bartman.

And so you finally get this thing going and you're running lap times as quick as the leaders, Travis. You get into the top 10, you're like, oh, we got enough laps to really make a run at this thing, right? Yeah. And then that caution.

And that changed everything. It changed everything. We had to go. We had to get the lucky dog. Yeah, we did. We actually got the lucky dog on that of because of that yellow because we got back out and we were just the, I think it was the 78 in front of us. It just passed the leader on his fresh tires and then the caution flew. It was a massive.

We started 23rd. You got the free pass. Yeah, we just got done passing the whole freaking field because we had the bad luck and already qualified bad. and then yeah it was it was heartbreaking because it was kind of like you said everybody you said the top of Everest we all thought all right we're finally going to make something good out of this day and then right it just took the wind right out of our sales I mean he drove back up to 11th but I have to agree with what taylor said about probably five or six spots better we could have finished had we had some things go our way there in the last hundred laps all right let's let's get to the elephant in the

room Travis you talked about qualifying poorly on on Friday and I know that's been something that a lot of us a lot of us been discussing. Dale Earnhardt Jr., first of all, is never going to be the greatest qualifier on the planet. Obviously, his father wasn't either. There are plenty of others that drive through the field that are a much better race day driver than they are a qualifier or even a practiser for that matter. And I don't know about you, Mike. I would rather have a great race day driver than a guy that's great in qualifying trim every day. And that's what we have with Dale Jr. But aside from that, I know, Travis, there still had to be a lot of disappointment about Friday. Yeah, we've struggled on Friday this year a lot, and we're working on

everything we can to try them. You know, I don't know if it's the new package. You know, last year at the end of the year, we thought we kind of had a good run. You know, we're making the final round, getting top 10, top 12 spots, and so we kind of want that same theory going into this year, and obviously it hasn't been working. So we've got a lot of ideas, and we've been trying new things. We tried some new stuff to start this week, and then we went back on some of it because, you know, we just only have that one practice, and we had an issue in that practice, and that took some time, and then, you know, Dale said, you know, wanted some more laps, and it's just a combination of all of us getting it right, and we just haven't found it yet, unfortunately.

Yeah, but you know what? Do not estimate this team's ability to make it interesting. I'm telling you, there's something to be said. There are teams in sports history that have made a lot of money on merchandise because of their reputation to pick the hard way rather than the easy way. Maybe that's what this team is. You know, we could do it the easy way, but Junior likes to pass. We're going to make it more fun. Maybe that's what you guys. He just likes passing people.

Yeah, he had the most green flag passes of that race yesterday, and you know what? He gets out of the car, he talks about how much fun that was. I mean, I'm not saying it's not weird. I'm just saying sometimes that's an ability all in itself to make it interesting. Well, and one other thing to mention, too, is, you know, Jimmy didn't qualify well. The whole shop seemed to struggle on Friday. So it's not just an issue with the 88, Travis, in fairness. Do you think it just has something to do with setup sometimes when it comes to different race teams?

Yeah, I think as a, you know, we've talked about as a company and we've had some struggles. We haven't been the team that's been up there qualifying 1, 2, 3, 4, or everybody in the top 5 and stuff like that. So we've had those discussions, and we've talked about, you know, putting some more people to really focus on qualifying trim and what little things we need there. You know, one thing we've talked about doing is just kind of completely changing our focus from being anywhere close to a race trim setup and just focusing specifically on a qualifying type setup and trying something like that. But, you know, we're all over the place looking for it.

We just haven't quite found it. A couple things I want to ask, Mike, asked Travis about that happened in the first 100 laps. How big of an issue was the contact with the 41 in terms of impeding juniors progress? That happened about lap 12. Yeah, I mean, it was really early on for the situation that happened. I mean, between – it looked like the 41. He was trying to slide job us, and we had a huge run. His spotter had to have seen it and been telling him that.

And then I don't know if he didn't have the control to stay low, and then we had the big run and didn't have the opportunity. It was, we're watching it on the in-car and everybody's looking around, you know, looking at all the stuff we got on top of the box and all of some, I go, oh, blank. And all the engineers and Greg look up and they're like, what happened? I'm like, man, we just plowed the 41 car. I said he'd come up right in front of us off four. We had he had drawn. So we instantly tried looking at pictures and video and everything to see about the damage.

And we had Travis Matt Car Chief and our picture guys coming up on top of the box looking at photos, trying to plan because we punched a big hole in the nose, pushed up the splitter, damaged the right side. I mean, for that run, until we could come in here and get it fixed, it had to be a bear to drive because it was wrecked pretty good. Yeah, but, you know,

he was saying that it was plowing before that happened. Yeah, yeah. So to Taylor's point, I mean, did that worsen the handling problems or did it just elongate the ability to fix those problems and just complicated more? It definitely made them worse

from a standpoint of like the splitter got knocked up and there was a hole in the nose. But, you know, we all said, too, after the race, we said, you know, had we not had too tight of our, race car we might not have been in that situation we might have been farther forward you know we were hoping to the last few runs of practice felt like we were pretty good we were hoping for a

phoenix type first run where we were just going to drive by a whole bunch of people get to the top 10 and obviously that didn't happen we were still struggling when we got the damage clearly Travis it seems like this place california fontana the grip is just such a problem i mean that it looks like it looks like grated cheese there i mean around the entire track i mean i mean i I mean, maybe we can help them get a repave down there in Fontana. But grip was a major issue, not just for junior, but for everyone, especially the first 100 laps. Yeah, definitely. And I think it's going to be a trend we see this year, too, with the package and the tires and everything they're trying to do is kind of going that way,

because it's typically produced the best racing from a standpoint of people falling off and people being all over the track. So I think that's kind of the product they're going for. And, you know, we really didn't expect to be that bad at the beginning of the race. And we talked about maybe needing to free the car up a little bit. But it was a little bit of a surprise to us that he was that tight. And then obviously we'd ever got a chance to work on it. Well, we got a lot of chances to work on it afterward. We got it pretty decent, but we didn't get to work on it.

In fact, I think Dale probably ran into the back of Kurt just so he gave you more chances to work on it. Yeah. By the way, Mike, I don't know if you, I'm sure you did the way you consumed the race. I really liked how passionate Greg was about fixing it. first time and he he showed a lot of leadership there i thought um in terms of how you handle that situation yeah and and uh man like i i go back to the second caution actually i mean you had the first one that uh you could repair damage but i think you guys were still repairing damage even under the second caution because uh i mean didn't we have to change a shock did we change a shock

during the second like this is when you know you're all types all sorts of bad i mean when you're changing shocks on pit road. And that had nothing to do with running into the back of Kurt, right? I mean, so. Well, it did in a way. It was actually funny. You mentioned changing the shock. When we got back to the truck, me and Jason Seitzinger, our shock guy, got back first.

And he just looked at me and went, we changed the shock. And I said, yeah, man, I think that's like the quote of the week. I said, I'm going to use that as a hashtag later. When I tweeted about the race, I was like, hashtag, we changed the shock. But see, the fact that that was such an important deal in this race. for us and yet it was hard to even tell for me from where I was watching if we actually did change the shock

because of all the other stuff that we also were doing just to try to fix that car. That second caution the one where Kyle Larson just pummeled the inside wall. I mean that huge wreck we pitted twice and made extensive changes to the car, more repair,

change the shock and to be honest with you that's sort of where it started turning around for us. I mean I know you couldn't tell right off the bat, but we restarted in 33rd on lap 54. The next pit stop that we had was the green flag pit stop on lap 84. Took more big changes in that one, but that's when you really started to feel the tide turn and junior started making a lot of passes.

And also the big thing was we were running lap times that were competitive with the front runners. So, I mean, to your point, Taylor, fixing the changes that they had during that second caution turned out to be very, very significant for the team to be able to get the car. only repaired but also running competitive lap times. Travis, it also seemed like the more you freed up the car, the better it performed too. I know Junior kept talking about that, especially in the middle. And by the time, the reason why Mike threw everything destroyed his property was because by the time you get to lap 154, when that caution came out, and Junior is not, it's not a fluky

P9. It's a deserving P9 by the time you get to that point. Yeah, I mean, it was crazy. I mean, so we had the damage, and it pushed up the nose, and that really hurt the front down for us. So we put a major effort, that's why we changed the shock. We had to change the travels of the race car enough to get it back to where it looked reasonable on track, because outside of that, you're just giving up so much speed.

You know, whether handling's right or not, you'd give up speed if your front ends way up in the air. And so we did that, then we started making changes, and obviously we were too tight when the car was not damaged, so then we had to free it up for that as well as, fixing the attitude. And like you said, we finally got back, you know, running top 10. We're looking at the stints and all the tools we got to analyze the lap times. And we're thinking, man, you know, if we could just get some track position here, we'll be all right.

So that was part of the call there. We decided, all right, we're going to try to leapfrog a few guys here, short pit him a little bit. We're inside of our window to make it on another stop. You know, okay, we hear the 48's coming. These other guys are coming. So we come down pit road, pit and a very, very untimely debris caution. That's all I can say about it. I don't know. So, Mike, would you please describe what happened at your house? Yeah.

Well, you know, the attorneys told me I can say very little about this, actually, because there's some litigation going on right now. Is that litigation that's been filed by Sarah or? No, it's followed by me. I'm trying to find out who exactly would be responsible for this. Is it NASCAR because they threw the caution? or is it the person that had the debris to begin with? But to answer your question, Taylor, let's just say the phone had hard contact,

much akin to like, you know how hard Danica hit the wall after Casey Rector? That was sort of what my phone did. I tell you what, man, that was a whole other thing right there. Holy gracious. Wow. I like Casey and all of them. Come on, man. Man, oh, man.

That needs to be on that segment. of ESPN that come on. Come on. I mean, that was your lap down. That was welcome to the hauler immediately right there. Yeah. Now, Mike, were you, was the damage done outdoors or outdoors? Indoor's.

Mm. Yeah. You know, if there's a lesson to be learned on this, if you're going to be emotional about it, don't damage property for 10th place. I mean, like, I was, that's what I was good. When we wrecked Amelia at Daytona, you should have wrecked something. Right. I mean, there's a time and a place to damage property.

I agree with that. I can tell you that I threw my phone into a field, which didn't do any damage. But when you run out of gas on the backstretch and you're going to win the 600, I mean, like, I threw my phone into a field. All right. But, yeah, I was going to say that. You know, when you're a ninth and you throw it at lap 154, I mean, come on, man. You got to calm it down a little bit. I do like your tweet, though.

You gave yourself some hell. you said I've now been without a working iPhone for more than two hours in that time I've learned that I've a wife, two kids, and a dog. And that's nice. That was a nice development that happened on account of my phone being disabled. So for the record, our trusty IT department is up there trying to work on my phone right now. And so we'll see how that goes. Good luck with that, Martin. Oh, trust me.

I can tell you, Martin was thrilled to start his week off with me. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, they come back and finish 11th, and it was a great effort to finish, starting 23rd with 40 laps to go to still pick up 12 spots. And as you mentioned, Jr. loves passing cars on Green Flag Run. So his attitude was really good after the race. I want to say this now because I have bit my tongue about this.

And I know that Junior has been in both paint schemes. I just have to say this. Superman over Batman. It doesn't mean Jimmy over Dale. It just means Superman over Batman. And I just want to state for the record, Mike, that in the future, if this ever is done again, I hope Dale Jr. gets to be Superman instead of Batman.

I've not gone that deep in it. I did tweet out the average finish Dale Jr. has, and it's better in Batman than it is Superman. He's driven both. He started his career off in 1998 when he won the then the Bush Series championship. he drove a Superman car. But he's not done very well in Superman cars. In fact, I just go so far as to say,

I just as soon keep the regular paint scheme on the car and we just go let the big dog eat. That would be my strong preference. Yeah, just let the dog eat and let him with his regular paint scheme. I just have always been more of a Superman fan than a Batman fan. Well, that's because you like guys that wear their underwear on the outside. Really, more than anything, it's an ability to fly. I just would, I mean, the underwear, I don't have any issue with that either, yes.

but I would just rather have the ability to fly than anything else. The thing that was most frustrating is you know I love Jimmy. He's absolutely my second favorite driver. But the great thing about that this rivalry the last few days is I got to really dislike and cheer against Jimmy again. And that was fun. Although it usually works out the same way it always does when you cheer against Jimmy. He wins the race and then he needles the fire out of you afterwards. So, yeah.

Well, you know, that race actually started. well before Sunday, even well before they got to the weekend, because that became a social media war between Jimmy and Dale. And I tell you what, they were both impressive in what they brought. They were, but don't you feel like Junior's a little too nice sometimes? Like he's a nice guy, Taylor? He is, he's a nice guy. It's friendly banter.

Yeah. Travis, thoughts on this? I mean, I felt like Jimmy was willing to go a bit further than Junior was. I will give you that. I felt like Jimmy got a little more aggressive. the gifts, but we were having a blast with it. I mean, not only, you know, just us team guys razzing each other, but watching the Twitter battle unfold and then, you know, on race day, the crew guys had their capes and their

supermans on the logos, and we had the Cape Crusader stuff, and it was actually fun. I like the one-off stuff. Yeah, both of you guys disappoint me immensely right now, because is it not clear? Jimmy had help. Dale's doing that all on his own. Jimmy had a team of people helping him And you'll go sit there and knock Dale As if Jimmy won't

No, I'm just saying One more reason I love Junior Because he's a really nice guy The fact that Junior knows how to do all that On his own is why he should let Junior want He just started Twitter a few years ago Right He's on it

He wins Twitter every day He did win I do love how he doesn't hold back When it comes to Joey Legano though All right So I was still not over the whole 155 caution deal, okay? This was now after the race.

What did Joey do? Yeah, I don't know either. I want somebody to tell me. I called first name Davis. I said, Davis, why is everybody going at Joey Lugano? I'm seeing the hashtags and I'm not going to repeat them. What happened there? I know he got mixed up with Truex.

Did they have a post-race scuffle or something? So Truex's crew chief tweeted some not-so-very-nice things immediately after the race. But what inspired all of that? I'm guessing the contact Lugano made with Truex. towards the end. The contact, but possibly no contact? I mean, because I don't know that he actually hit him. I don't know, but I thought he did watching the replay,

but maybe he didn't, but I don't think Cole was very happy about it. Look, I'm all about falsely accusing somebody, so I can get on board with the contact, even though there wasn't any contact. But I just didn't know what happened afterwards. I saw Kyle Busch getting on Twitter and getting a little animated with people. The whole deal was pretty good, actually. Everybody on Twitter was pretty awesome last night.

got that big long flight to think about it and so they got nothing to do but sit in their airplanes with their Wi-Fi and just, you know, mix it up. I mean, I'd rather see Daytona infield fights between drivers instead of this Twitter little war they have, but. Look at you. Amen to that. Amen to that. Like Davis is like Mr. Twitter and I mean, I love Twitter and it's entertaining, but I wish everybody quit hiding behind their phones. Hey, of the three of us, I'm the only one that damaged property yesterday. It's a 10-year anniversary of Twitter and Lord knows it has changed our patience and how much how much we're willing to really research a topic and how we out-shock everyone all the time.

But I'm with Travis. Let's go to old school brawling instead of just Twitter wars in the future. To my point, Taylor, we seem to have a flare for the dramatic. And one day when we get this qualifying thing figured out, y'all are going to miss the days when we started 27th. It was so much fun. It's not passing 20 cars anymore. That's right.

You're going to be bored, and you're going to be like, I like the days when we started in the middle of the pack and had to race our way. You're right. Junior is definitely one of the best tweeters, and the way he uses it is very, very clever. And first name Davis, because he's phenomenal, included some of his great tweets that he sent on the plane on the way back home. Somebody asked him when the last time he could pass like this in a race car was, and he said before the car of tomorrow, 2004-ish,

and that certainly is a really good sign and that should give all his fans a tremendous amount of confidence on how he would celebrate a title this year. Quote, I'd never turn off the lights till February, end quote. That would be a great three-month party to maybe participate in from time to time.

I love this next one. On a bucket list item for him to drink one beer at every country at Epcot Walt Disney World, I keep getting stuck at Germany and get over-served. I really know that. that feeling and I'm with him on that. I really have some point you want to say, man, I did it.

I got through there and I'm not being taken out on a stretcher. Somebody asked him if he could do the ND5, wants to do, the ND 500 and Coke 600. His response, that's like asking if Bob down at the mill wants to work a double shift tomorrow. Bob ain't trying to hear that. That's good. That's good. I like that.

Also, what Travis said earlier about the debris caution and first name Davis said, His response was, where's this ducking piece of debris at? So clearly, he is a little frustrated by that. He wants North Carolina to win the NCAA tournament because he cheers for a different team in every sport, which is infuriating. North Carolina, South Carolina, the Redskins, the Hornets. I mean, I can buy into that. That's a lot all over the place.

Let's pick a team. Let's pick a team and ride that way for a while. On the track, he's looking forward to the most. He says the next one, in this case, Martinsville, I'm having a blast this year. The last three to five years have been so much fun. He's in a really, really good place right now. And the race is coming up. Martinsville, Texas, Lord knows, sloppy yellow is going to be in rare form there.

And then Bristol. And you know what? Bristol's taken a lot of heat in recent years, Mike, about attendance for this race. I think backing this race up by three or four weeks is going to really do wonders. I have higher expectations in terms of how well attended it will be, how fired up fans will be for that. I sure hope so. Bristol puts a lot of emphasis, maybe even more than the other tracks to market their races. Because I think they have an outstanding product to offer fans. And anybody that hasn't been to Bristol, you just have to trust us on that.

If you have been to Bristol, you know what we're talking about. That is an outstanding product that they have. And so, yeah, I'm excited about these races too. I mean, these are races now that you feel like are in Junior's wheelhouse just from a mental's approach. I mean, like, he looks forward to go into races. You can't say that about some. You can't say that about a road course. So you just know that mentally, Junior's probably not as optimistic.

When he's optimistic or when any driver's optimistic about the racetrack that they're about to race at, I honestly think you can see that. Look at Kevin Harvick when he goes to Phoenix in California, those places. Martinsville, Bristol, these are juniors, you know, Fontana. These are his wheelhouse. So I look forward to that. All right. It's time to now hear some radio chatter presented by Nationwide.

Junior Nation members, did you know that you can get a special discount when you switch to Nationwide? Call 1-855-346-913 or visit Nationwide.com forward slash junior nation for more information. Nationwide is on your side. Okay, guys, it's always fun coming here at Auto Club Speedway, especially with the nationwide Batman car. talked in our meeting. You know, we've got to be poised. We've got to have tenacity. We've got to continue to do our jobs. A pit road on the racetrack and on the pit box. Let's do that today and we'll have a great finish. Thanks for all the hard work guys. You put it in every week. I appreciate it. The line just come up in front of us like that.

We just smell the left front there. Rubin. PJ, just check the right side. The left front should be all right. Yeah, just sit it kind of square. Great. All right. Yeah, we need to work on it. Obviously guys the less time we spend in here the better but I want to make sure it sticks right the first time I don't know what I've done I mean I that 41 just kind of pull right up here I was hauling next quicker than him so I couldn't react fast enough for that didn't make any difference on the car the car is awful okay last adjustment was the one the direction I'll let you know for before it's hard a till that part of these are best lap times that we've had so far nice with the leaders last dent there

We were right on top of the leaders, top five guys. So really good job finding where you need to run. Get us some lap time. We got 88 to go. Place are we in. You are in 16th place, 16th place. Where am I not on the outside here? What's going on with these guys?

I'm at this time. You are three, two, one. Go, go, go. Puckshunds out for debris. Wow. I believe we are the lucky dog. Wave around, either way. It's a debris.

Somewhere in three. Yeah, it's been up. I think I know what it is. It's right up in the outside groove, but it's been there a long time. I think it had to wait it on this one's right here. Like a bunch of rubber or something. Caution's out. Caution's out.

18 hit the wall up with a flat tire all over the place here. Go on in a NASCAR overtime here. Ready, grig, good, good, good, good, good, good. T11, right. Good job, guys. I don't know. I feel like I did. I don't know how I could have stopped from you.

No, you did great. It's a great getting it fixed up. I think we had a top eight car there. Pitted one lap early. It costs us a little bit. So we'll go get them. And again, that's Radio Chatter Replay, presented by Nationwide. It is time now for reaction theater.

I just going to say, fuck you to Kurt Busch, you son of a bitch. And my race view is not working, and I'm kind of pissed off. But Junior's making recovery, so, hell yeah. This was during the race. I love a caller that calls reaction theater during the race. That means that you're putting your emotions out there without knowing how the outcome is, and that takes balls. I think you should start doing that, too, obviously.

Well, I would call, but my phone was broken. Sarah, I got to borrow your phone. That's what I did, Davis. Am I wrong? I was texting Davis Williams from my wife's phone. I said, do not save this number. Well, my man must have been talking to me online or something. because he's like, hey, I broke my phone.

I'm Twitter direct messaging you right now. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Lord help us. Who's next? What in the fuck is going on here? Greg. How long have you been in NASCAR, God?

What the fuck can we pick? Can we not pit? Between you, T.J. And hell even dead. What the f*** are we doing? He gets the fucking lucky dog, but you don't know if he can pit after the leaders. I just about fucking rip my computer out of the.

wall and through it. Listen to you guys on the radio not knowing what the to do. If you guys want to win races or not, what's going on here? Get together. I want to watch the motherfuck and win. Holy shit, people. God, you don't know the fucking rules?

Wow. You're embarrassing. Come on. Do something. Get your ass back up there, pit, and do it. I don't know how you guys can't be on the same page here. What's up, man? Come on.

Happy Sunday. Hope you had a great one. That's a lot of anger. for something that it really didn't change anything. Yeah. It absolutely. It just rolled right down and pit road and came back down and pitted the next lap and we were going to start in the exact same spot.

He was awfully angry about something like that. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. One of these days I'm going to go to the fucking race and if they're in the middle of gray flag pit tops and they try to throw a fucking yellow, I'm going to change that son of a fission hat every time we try to throw a fucking costume flag. That's completely screwed Junior's top 10 run up.

I think he was like seventh or eight. And they didn't come back to break my fist. I had to come back from break. He's 23rd. And I'm just fired up. Something has to be done about this jack- that kept telling these stupid tawcions. I don't even know what the hell it was for.

I start off on cup. I don't know if I'm missing something, please tell me. But I'm so mad right now, I don't even remember what happened. But I'm just sick. I'm tired of these untowling yellow flags. I'm going to take it. trouble the one of these days

if I never make it to a race turn. Hell yeah, go get him in Martinsville. We need that guy's information,

Davis, need to get him some tickets immediately to go to Martinsville in case debris caution comes out at the

wrong time. So we can work on that. Yeah. Who's next? Well, if you had told us I started the race,

we was going to have a finishing in the 11th position, I said load that ugly ass back man car up on the trailer and take her back to Charlotte. First thought comes in my mind with Daddo,

that whiskey river, you know, last few years, you know, me and Daddo included, we've not had the best of luck at a race. So I'm getting ready to text him and ask him what the hell he was doing going to the race. You know, we don't do that. Only one he's allowed to go to his text, that's because he's the mayor of Texas. I have the junior hit the wrong bush there. They should have hit Kyle Busch, but I don't have it on half there. Dale yeah.

Dale yeah. Hell yeah. I forgot what I was. Oh, yeah. That's great. Well, I find myself in a weird position not be able to get pissed about the race. I mean, when you start 27 and you work all day, even with some troubles on the, on the caution in the pit, and the end up 11.

Cute, man. I kind of feel like we stole something there. Although I'm not super happy, man, I guess I'm kind of, a little happy. I mean, we finished 11. We were ninth in the points. Our race team knows exactly how to get it done on race day.

I just sure wish we'd start a little bit closer to the front as we move forward. I sure hope somebody else says it, but I'm not going to say Mike Davis sucks this week, but I am going to go with qualifying sucks. But other than that, you can't making any friends. You can't drive for a shit. It reminds me of a time

way back when the 88 was run out of that shop and they couldn't do either. So maybe it's just your turn to have the curse. Ooh. That's kind of strong. Strong feelings right there. You went back to 2008 and 2009. He did. That's digging

deep right there. He summed up my emotion on the race pretty good though. I mean, like you don't feel bad because of all the stuff we overcame. But it was going to feel like a win. We finished about fifth where we thought we might have had a shot at. Oh, yeah. And then, you know, we still got back to 11th. We're like, oh, it's not terrible.

And we fit a lot. I mean, Jimmy won the freaking race for crying out loud. I mean, he was running seventh or eighth if the caution doesn't come out, you know. I mean, so I think that that's what's frustrating is, yeah, you don't want to get too upset because of all the issues. But in the same respect, man, I mean, who knows? You know, maybe we get three or four spots on pit road and that last caution if we're fifth or sixth at that time. Yeah. And then you got an actual shot to win the race.

So I think that's the frustrating part. But to your point, Travis. But take it and move on. Who's next? Batman gets his wings clip today. Man, what a lousy weekend. Lousy day, lousy weekend. Yeah, I got to give you props for the 88 team coming back and finish in 11th,

but bringing a car that was that pathetic to the track. and it's just a continuous theme. Gotta get it better, guys. Got to get better at getting off the truck faster and better at qualifying. So at least now you're going to Martinsville where you run very well and hopefully we can turn this thing around and get a W.

So let's get them next week, baby. Dale yeah. Dale yeah. Look, I mean, I think we get to a point where we're just stating the obvious. I mean, nobody does. There's nobody over here that doesn't recognize it to qualify. Yeah. And Friday, you know, unloading needs to be better.

But I'm going to stick by my argument. Y'all going to miss these days when Dale Jr. When Dale Jr. starts just, you know, winning polls and unloading, and it's just going to be what we put a cover over it on the second practice. Y'all going to miss these days when it was way more fun. Dale and Art Jr. passes 75 cards in a 39-man field, qualifying 30th and winning the race. You saw it could be done this weekend, right?

Like 140 something? That was something. That was awesome. 143? 143. That's most in the field. Wow. That's remarkable.

Who's next? Finally, the Dale has come back to Auto Club Speedway. And what did you say your name is? It doesn't matter what your name is. Kurt Busch, I dug your monkey shit down, know-you-roll Boulevard, hung a right on a Gibroni Drive, and checked your monkey-ass into the Smackdown Hotel. If you smell what the Dale is cooking. Oh, no.

10 beer flavored waters. Hashtag day, yeah, hashtag, let's go get another grandfather clock. He threw in the rock music there. They did. Yeah. How about that? You got to get points for creativity there. Submarine mic, don't ever change, ever.

If you can bring that enthusiasm to an 11th place finish. Wait until we went. Don't change. Don't change. That's Reaction Theater. It's open 24-7, 365. You know, every week for the last three years, I've made fun of Mike Davis because he puts in that the number is toll-free. It's 2016.

You can doubt any 10-digit number in the continental United States or Hawaii chances are to Canada and not have to worry about it costing any more money than you dialing your next-door neighbor. But it does apply this week because Mike Davis does not have a phone. So if you don't have a phone and you have to go to a pay phone, the number is toll-free. 855-740-190-2. And again, it's open 24-7-365. All right, you've got to be happy with the all-new spy Dale Jr. Paint Scheme sunglasses.

It's called Delivery Series. They're available in the popular Dirty Mode, General Daga McCoy. And Admiral Frames get yours today at spyoptic.com. Mike Davis, white flag. White flag right there, white flag. All right, this white flag is brought to you by me. All right, Taylor, I'm sponsoring it. And I've got something specifically to say to parents or grandparents or aunts and uncles, okay?

So just listen to me now. You know a kid who loves racing, right? And you know a kid who probably loves Dale Jr. So listen to how you can give them a memory of a lifetime. On April 23rd, 2016, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is racing in the Xfinity Series race at Richmond. Now, this race is on a Saturday, so there's no school the next day. The race is only 300 miles, so it's perfect for kids, especially mine. Their attention span doesn't go 500 miles or 400 at Richmond.

300 is the perfect distance. Dale Jr. will be in the race so you can take your kid to watch Jr. Now, here's where it even gets better. Kids 12 and under get in free. adult tickets are only $20. There's more. You can sit in a specific Junior Nation section. There's more.

You can receive a free Junior Motorsports on tour t-shirt. This is all part of a special ticket package just for Junior Nation. You can buy it now at R-I-R.com backslash Junior Nation. That's J-R-Nation. R-I-R.com back-slash-J-R-Nation or call 866-455-7-223. You will not find a better opportunity to take a kid to watch Junior race, you don't even have to pay for the kid. Just bring them.

They get them free as long as they're 12 or under, and they get to watch Dale Junior race in a 300-mile at Richmond. And Richmond is my favorite track. Taylor, I know you like Martinsville. I know Bristol's your up to. Richmond is my favorite track. It's just so good. For much of the same reasons, you like the other short tracks.

Yeah, no, I love it, too. It's absolutely on the list. And I love going to that race. I love great place to have a cold one with Junior Nation outside, too. I love that it has two I wish they had four races to be honest with you Oh absolutely Richmond is so good

I mean like I don't remember a sucky race at Richmond I don't think that I don't think you can have I was pretty mad at Kyle Bush when he wrecked this one But as far as the race itself goes I mean honestly if you weren't You know emotionally connected to Dale Jr You would say that that was an exciting race And an entertaining race the way it all unfolded

So anyways again that's you're not going to find a better deal to a NASCAR race. And if you're Junior Nation and you love Dale Jr. And many of you do if you're listening to this podcast, you really need to take us up on that deal. Second worst was when we had a wreck like two laps in, the final race to the chase. Steve Lattartre almost had an absolute physical heart attack

on the up there watching the race. I remember that race. He almost did. I mean, really, you can call him right now. He will tell you he almost absolutely dropped out of heart attack. We needed to race our way. into the chase or we were right there on the bubble and there was that was uh that's happened several times for dale where we went into that richmond race and i remember one with it DEI where it got

really uh the anxiety was up there um anyways the NASCAR Xfinity series has uh two off weeks as we mentioned earlier in this show uh so uh they will return to action at texas motor speedway on april i'll go ahead and mention that junior is in that race as well we we have junior motorsports entering four cars junior will be in the number 88 goodies Chevrolet Chase Elliott will be in the number five, Taxpayer.com, Chevrolet. You see what we did there? See, Chase can't drive the 88 because Dale Jr.'s driving the 88. You see?

So we got to put... Stole it from them. Chase in the five. But it would be cool if you could kind of do like short tracks to do it, have an 88A and an 88B. You know, like on the street stocks or something, you know? Just borrow the 24 for a weekend. Yeah, I hear you. Well, I don't know how that works.

Bring back the 9, something like that. I'm sure that probably cost a lot. Bring back the 9. There you go. By the way, we missed this last week, but I want to give a shout out to Josh Barry, who started his 2016 in usual Josh Barry form. He won the second round of the Big Ten Challenge at Hickory Motor Speedway. Also, it was the Junior Motorsports debut of Christian Eckus.

Taylor, you want to feel old? Guess how old Christian Eckus is? I couldn't tell you. 15. What? 15. No. We have got a driver at Junior Motorsports who is 15 years old.

And he finished fourth. his debut. That ain't bad. Young Christian Echis finished fourth in his JRM debut. I'm older than dirt. So, yeah, we've got 15-year-olds working for us now. So anyways, but congrats to both of those guys, Josh Berry and Christian Eckus. To keep up with all these guys, young drivers, old drivers, we got them both here.

Shooterb Motorsports. Just go to jrmrmracing.com. The Sprint Cup series won't have two weeks off, unfortunately, Travis, but you do have one. So you've got all that time to build your office. your deck and everything. You'll see those guys and girl, girl pop up at Martinville Speedway on April 3rd. And Jr. will, thankfully, he'll be back in his familiar nationwide 88 colors. That's it, Tyler.

All right. That's it, huh? Well, I thought you were going to let Apple sponsor this white flag segment since you are no longer have one of their devices, at least one that works. I don't know, man. if they can't sustain the pressure of a just a simple debris caution and they don't build a more sturdy device than this, I can't let them sponsor this. Well, we got a week off, everybody.

Hope everybody has a great Easter. And Travis, thanks for coming in, my friend. Hey, no problem. Thanks for having me. Very good stuff, man. Appreciate Travis Peterson. Thanks to Mike Davis, to Davis Williams. I'm Taylor Zarzer.

You've been listening to the Dale Jr. Download presented by a spy. Thanks for listening to Dirty Mo Radio. Hey, Junior Nation. Thank you for listening to the Dale Jr. download presented by Spy. Be happy with the all-new spy Dale Jr. paint scheme sunglasses. It's called Delivery series. They're available in the popular Dirty Mo, General Dega, McCoy, and Admiral Frames. Get yours today at Spyoptic.com.