The Dale Jr. Download - 129 - Who’s Manning the ‘Go’ Switch

Episode Date: April 18, 2016

ESPN’s Marty Smith joins the show to paint the behind-the-scenes picture of Peyton Manning’s time with Dale Jr. and the first ever celebrity caller wraps up this week’s Reaction Theatre. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is Dale Jr. and you're listening to Dirty Mo Radio. Hello, there's a pit road here if you need to you. Come up to you guys. See you. I ain't got no power. Hey everybody's Jr. Post Bristol. Second place finish.

And that was a long day. That was probably the, that's probably the hardest. I've worked at Bristol, regardless of the finish. We started out the weekend. We put up a good lap in practice for qualifying, so we thought we had a pretty good car for qualifying, and the car was real fast when we went out and made our mock run. We went to go qualifying and just didn't, you know,

the track had tightened up quite a bit from the Xfinity practice, so we didn't run real well in our qualifying temp. But we started 20th in the race, And under the pace laps, you know, I'm out there warming up the tires and getting the car ready to go. And I'm warming up the brakes. You know, you gas the throttle and you scrub the tires and you break a little bit and heat the brakes up. Nothing crazy. Well, we have a system on our car that is there for a driver who has a stuck throttle.

So when your throttle sticks, the first reaction you had is to slam on the brake pedal. and you're going to apply an extreme amount of pressure to the brakes in that situation and it'll read this brake pressure through sensors and shut the engine off. And the engine will still fire, but it'll be just a misfire. It won't really create any power. But it should take a very large force of brake pressure to make this happen. So I'm out there scrubbing the tires and braking a little bit and heating up the brakes some. Nothing I haven't done in the past.

And apparently it's set this system off. There's two types of systems. There's this system where you use the brake pedal to shut the engine off, the brake pressure. Or you have a button on your steering wheel. I don't like the button because anybody that has a stuck throttle, you're going to hit the wall or whatever you're going to hit. in a matter of a second. And nobody's got time to be mashing a button. So I ain't even thinking about a button.

I'm thinking about freaking out. So this brake pedal, brake pressure sensor is something that I really like and have always used. And I'm glad that we use it at HMS. So once that thing is set off, once someone's applied pressure to it and it kills the power to the engine,

And the way to reset it is to turn the car off and back on. Basically, we call it cycling the ECU. So that's all I needed to do. But in the heat of the moment, you mash the gas, it's not going anywhere. It's popping and spitting and not moving. I don't know what's wrong with it. I'm not thinking that I've engaged this system

because I've not mashed the brake pedal like a maniac. So it was a weird deal. All I needed to do was shut the car off, shut the power of the car off, and cycle the power, turn the power back on, and everything would have been fine. That's what we did on pit road, but, you know, we lost two laps doing it. I could have done it on the racetrack if I was smart enough and not lost the lap. So it caused a lot of trouble. I think the 43 car got ran into the back of. Probably a couple other guys got ran into.

So that wasn't any good. How did that happen? We come out on the racetrack two laps down. We had to work real, real hard all day long. We had to use a lot of people up and do a lot of slide jobs and slamming doors and just going crazy, driving like a maniac all day long trying to get some track position back and just trying to make a day of it. We had about a 10th or 15th place car. We couldn't really get it dialed in and get it comfortable.

And we got to be it. real lucky on those late restarts to to move forward so you know starting on the outside so critical there especially on used tires nobody's going to pit late in the race so you're your cycling tires you're starting on you restarting on used tires and you know that bottom groove just gets worse and worse and worse it was uh it was great to have Peyton at the racetrack for nationwide that was a lot of fun he probably was really overwhelmed we took him down on pit road and there's fans everywhere.

You know, the fans can get right up to the car and get your autograph and so forth. And I think he was really overwhelmed with that because he's like, he was telling me, he's like, man, on game day, we don't talk to anybody. Nobody can get to us and we don't, you know, we're in our, we're in game mode. And it's nothing like this. And so he was really overwhelmed with that and thought that was crazy. I think he hung around for a hundred laps or so. We weren't having a good day.

So he took off. They were having, he was flying back to Colorado. and they were getting some snow, so I think they needed to get out of there before it got too bad. The racetrack was selling banana sandwiches, and a dollar for every sandwich went to Blessings in a Backpack, so I don't know how many of those they sold, but I sure appreciate the track doing that, and the Blessers in the Backpack sure appreciates it. We're still, we still have one week left to take donations at Dell Jr. Sandwich.com. We're up to 45,000, so we're probably going to get to that 50,000 mark we were shooting for, and then some.

So thanks to all the fans who have donated to Dale Jr.com for blessings in a backpack. That's something that you all should be very proud of. Going forward, you know, we just need to get a little bit better. But, you know, it's not so much as just, hey, we need to get better. We try to set up in our car this particular weekend that we've never ran before. We went in the direction that we, you know, it's something we never tried or never really thought to run at Bristol. And we need to do that.

We need to, you know, it's good to get aggressive and try things and see if we can find something that no one else has. And, you know, we didn't really handle that well or the car didn't drive that great, but we ended up with a decent result that we can be proud of, and we can take this information and learn from it and try to make it better. You don't throw it, you don't follow it up and throw it out the,

throw it out in the trash. You go home and try to learn why it didn't work and try to figure it out and make it. work you're going to need that kind of stuff in the chase to be strong so it's you know i felt i felt like we could have took our standards set up there and maybe had an easier day of it but you just never know how those late cautions are going to fall uh kevin harvick knows the guys had a great car struggled on that inside line laid and the 24 did the same thing he drove all the way up to second place and that inside line got him late it's a tough deal starting down there it's pretty

much impossible. So we'll take it. We'll go to Richmond. We're going to run an Xfinity race for Helmonds. Junior Metroports was pretty fast there last year, so I'm looking forward to to running that race. And we'll dial that cup car in. We're going to rerun it during the daytime. It's going to be slick. You ain't going to be able to get no power down off the corner. The car is not going to be driving very good, but that's what the race car drivers enjoy. So I hope you guys Had a good weekend And hopefully enjoyed what we were doing out on the racetrack

And hope you enjoy the download We'll talk to you later All right, thank you, Dale Jr. This is the Dale Jr. download presented by Spy Be Happy with all new Spy Del Jr. paint scheme sunglasses. It's called Livery Series. They're available in the Dirty Moe, General, Daga, McCoy

and Admiral Frames. Get yours today at Spy. bioptic.com. I'm Mike Davis. I'm here with first name, Davis. How are your first name? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well. My man Travis Peterson engineer on the 88 team is here. Travis? You know, much like yesterday's race, this podcast has the potential to start sucking right at the beginning because our boy Taylor is not here. And so this is probably, if there's a time to really make it suck at the beginning, it's probably after this weekend's race. I don't know that I can rebound us to get to a runner-up finish.

But we're going to bring it back. We're going to bring it back. We have a few celebrities coming in this show. Some help. We got some help. Yeah, we got some help coming. Travis, I have been saying all year that this team has a flare for the dramatic. Yeah.

Listeners of this podcast know this. And yet, every week, you guys never cease to amaze me on how much more you can screw yourselves. Like, what are y'all doing, Travis? Man. What possibly could go wrong next? Let me just clarify. You still come back and finish in the top five. It's almost like we're being punked.

Yeah. It's almost like we're being punked. It's like, or there's a bet out there that's like, okay, what can we do this week and still finishing the top five? Yeah, we keep spotting the field a few laps or something like that. And it's certainly a few positions. It makes our job a lot harder. qualifying has been the issue all year.

Yeah. And people complain about it. And I'm sure they did after this 20th place qualifying effort on Friday. But after lap one, I bet they would love to have 20th back. I mean, it's like, don't complain about 20th until you're 40th. At least we keep proving that the qualifying we can overcome. It makes it a lot harder on all of us, but we get it. We still get up there at some point.

Man, I couldn't believe it. Like, what else could go wrong? And now it's the, you have no power. And I got to be honest, I appreciate Dale Jr. explaining everything in great detail because I didn't understand it myself. And I'm listening to Dale Jr.'s audio there. And I understood that it was a kill mechanism to replace the old, you know, press the button to kill the car, which is a safety mechanism if your throttle gets hung. I didn't know that you guys. I don't know how old, is this a new thing to where, you know, where you get this brake pressure system?

Well, the current setup came with the ECU, when they got away from carburetors and went to fuel injection. Got it. The way it is right now what happened. And he did a great job explaining essentially what happened. It had nothing to do with him warming up the brakes before the race. Just in hindsight, we got on the plane looking at the data and figuring it all out. Basically something was just wrong with that brake pressure, like you said, and it tripped and it read a really, really high value. But it read that value from the moment it turned on on pit road.

So, like he said, it has to reach all these certain things that happen at one time in order to engage that stuck throttle kill that he was talking about. And when he finally went back to the restart, he had enough throttle, enough RPM, and then that break pressure was still high, that then at that point it triggered and it shut it off. So this is just kind of one of those fluky things. I mean, obviously, he didn't do anything in the world. It was a complete freak accident. Like, no idea what's going on.

Like he said, he could have fixed it on track. We didn't know what was wrong at the time. He had to cycle the ECU. didn't end up being anything with the batteries. But how do you cycle the ECU on the track? I mean, I guess you could just, oh, because on the caution laps, I guess you can kill the car. Well, you know, he would have had to do it after he had the issue

because we didn't know we had the issue. I got you. Okay. So, but rolling through one and two on the back stretch or something, he could have just shut the car off, cycled the ECU, and fired it back up and kept going. We wouldn't have to be on pit road. You know, maybe it would have saved us a lap.

At the end of the day, that didn't affect a result, but that, you know, he could have done that had we known. But you never know in that situation what's wrong. You know, it just was it, you know, when we see him just stop on a restart, is it something wrong with the gear? Is it something? It took all the way until he was pulling on pit road for him to say no power. So we just sent the guys over the wall to cycle the ECU and flip the battery switch and just cover all the bases, make sure everything is okay. Okay, so I can accept this.

All right, this is fascinating to me. So I can move past this Bristol incident, and now I'm going back to this. You're telling me that just extreme brake pressure will trigger the car off. If it's paired with throttle. If it's paired with throttle, got you. Because I'm sitting here going, are you telling me, no, anytime some one bar fool just happens to block you and you're going to have to slam on the binders here?

How can the car not? It's saying if I see this much throttle and this much brake at the same time. Something's wrong. You're not really sitting there on both pedals. The only thing that would be is if the throttle was stuck. This is why you have smart people in the sport, Davis. This is why I'm trying to understand it. And he's sitting there going, all right, here, here, dumbass.

This is how this works. Not true. Not true. Okay, so that's what happened. And so Dale Jr. goes two laps down right at the beginning. And much like other weeks this year, he's battling back. Martinsville, you know, got in an early incident, and he had to battle back. And this one I felt like we get the laps back pretty quickly.

Obviously, if you're going to have problems, have them early enough in the race where you've got time to get your laps back. And that's again what happened. and he methodically came back through the field. But I got to ask you, though, during that moment, when the adrenaline of a green flag drop is going on, you've been working all weekend, and you see your car crawling up around the rim,

and it's basically trying not to get run over, I want to know what that conversation on the pit box is like. Well, so it's weird. You know, instantly we all feel exactly like you, Junior Nation, everybody feels. The heart sinks. You're like, oh, gosh, what's wrong? This is terrible.

and then you instantly like we have to switch and go you know let's fix this what's going on let's diagnose it and obviously you know we're looking at it we're seeing that he's stopping and then he tells us he's got no power and he's pulling on pit road so we're like all right you know batteries ECU and those are the two main things when you don't have power right so it's like the ECU cycle that he calls it's like restarting a computer you basically turn off the computer

master reboot exactly so we turn off we Adam jumped over the wall and did the boat for him while he's cycling the ECU. And basically between those two things, we knew we'd cover some kind of a power issue. He fired it up and drove it off. We're like, did you have to remember a password or anything to get? No, okay. There's only one guy inside the car.

You don't have to protect the stuff. Who's got the password? Hold up. Who's got the password? Wow, crazy stuff. And then you come back through there. Dale Jr., just a remarkable drive. I mean, the guy's wheeling it the whole time.

Yeah. Got a little aggressive there, too. Did you notice that? You know, in fact, there was one point where T.J., I think that Dale Jr. kind of got into it a little bit with Ty Dillon, late in the race. And it absolutely cut Ty Dillon's tire, or it put the sheet metal to where it was cutting against tire. T.J. reported the Dell. No, no, you didn't put him in the ball. Everything was good. It happened with the 38. But I'll tell you something. I think Dale Jr. actually started Ty's problems at that point. And I didn't have a problem with it. I mean, Dale Jr. was wheeling it, and he had to get rough in there.

and he was aggressive on restarts. This is the kind of Dale Jr. you like to see, am I wrong? No, I mean, I think he kind of felt bad on the radio chatter. He kind of felt like that wasn't me that put the 14 into the wall. And he was like, no, absolutely not. And then the 38 came along and did what Dale did times 10 is what the TV made it seem like. That's kind of what I felt. If Ty had any problem with Dale, it went completely away once the 38 came crawling.

What did you think, Travis? Yeah, well, it was one of those deals where it was so hard to pass. I mean, you could see it watching it, and everybody's in the high groove. And Dale got to the point where he'd get to somebody for a few laps. He'd try to pass him clean, but every time you'd drive underneath him, you just couldn't make the pass because they had the momentum on the straightaway. So he'd go in, he'd start hitting him in the bumper. Like, hey, I'm here.

Hey, I'm here. You know, let me go. And about the time they didn't, and he'd just start hitting them more or driving in there. And I think he thought he would be able to push up right to the 14 and then maintain the pass, just kind of get him scared enough. He got up in the marbles and he actually hit him, you know, obviously. I don't think it was an intentional deal. This is what I wish you would have done with Jamie McMurray at Texas two weeks ago.

You know, we were kind of stuck. I think it was in Texas. Was it not? We were behind Jamie McMurray for about 50 or 60 laps. It felt like a million. Yeah. And, you know, I like it when Dale rusted up a little bit. Let's see what else here.

I got a lot of notes that I, just from this race. Something I want to ask you about, Travis. Clearly there was a lot of car counting going on on Pet Road. And I want to ask you something about that because I got a little bit annoyed. I know we were doing it, and I know you have to do it because you're trying to get the advantage. But there was a pit stop where Chase Elliott basically stopped. And we were in perfect position to be in, I guess we're trying to be the even number and therefore start on the outside line. That was the preferred lane.

and Chase basically stopped. Does this feel like this stopping and going and log jamming that's going on on pit road? Like this just feels like this is going to be that next ridiculous trend that ultimately is going to be end up in some new NASCAR. It sort of feels like the side skirts being flared out. When every team was doing it, you're like, okay, well, this will last only so long. But this, I don't know, even when it was to our advantage yesterday, it kind of just felt annoying to me.

and it's like, okay, so now we've got TJ doing math up on the roof. What possibly could go wrong? Yeah, you got it wrong the first time, but that was because cars stayed out. It only really applies that, you know, a few tracks where there's a distinct advantage for one lane. Bristol being one of them because of the high lane through the corners. There's a few other tracks where, you know, the high groove doesn't get good traction, so you want to be on the bottom. That's a harder call to make because you're giving up a whole row.

Yeah. You know, when you want to just give up one spot and start on the outside, you're not really starting any different. You just have the preferred lane. So here it's easy to say, yes, try to give up a spot. But it's not going to happen a lot, and there's really no way to police it because, you know, you could just go slow.

Chase took it to the extreme and just stopped. Chase, he stopped. He got out. He, you know, he went to the restroom. He grabbed a big gulp. He got one of them Dale Junior sandwiches and hop back in the car. Yeah, I'm telling you, like, I swear, I've had rest stops, you know, on long trips that weren't as long as what Chase did on pit road for that.

And it just, it aggravated me because I wanted us on that outside. I thought we'd played it perfectly. But, you know, T.J. doing math, that's going to screw us up eventually. And honestly, I think that there are some, you know, you see at least one incident every race where some car gets banged up a little bit trying to be cute and, you know, and get that when you're like, just start on the inside. I thought Dale, when he started on the inside during this race, there was one where he dropped a few positions, but for the most part, he held his own, and his restarts were just killing the other day.

They were fantastic. Now, let me talk to you about this. We did get the benefit of being on the outside row for the last three restarts, which were huge in this finish. They were huge because I told Dale this, yeah, I said it was perfect. We were able to pass cars in pairs. So anytime the next caution came out, we were still even. If we just passed one car, we were done.

If we passed two cars or four or six, we're good, as long as everything works out. That's kind of what happened. And so when they had these restarts happening at the end, he was able to take off, gain a couple more spots, and next thing you know, you're in second place. Could we have, if one more caution, could we have had something for Carl? Start on the inside, I really don't think so. Dale said it, and we all kind of knew it as well.

We had a good car, and we worked on it and got it to where he can maintain position, but I don't think we had a car that was going to drive to the front. You know, we need to do a little better job and get him some more turn and get him a little more drive off because he was struggling with being able to put the throttle down. Yeah. Well, that was kind of why. I mean, you could see, well, you had a good restarting the last one. We were fourth, got right to second, and kind of peaked, but then we just couldn't keep up with the 19.

He was fast. But you had to rough him up, Dale yesterday. You know? Yeah, it wasn't water cooler Dale. It was rough him up, down. We were hoping that he would have one bobble and we could get to his bumper. You know, try the bump and run Bristol, classic deal. But realistically, we didn't have a good enough car to go run him down.

But those restarts were, they were perfect. We were on top of the box just laughing like, All right, we're six. We could use a restart and somebody hit the wall. We're like, wow, that was great. So then we were fourth and we're like, man, we're even again. Oh, hey, there's another caution. This is great.

That's fantastic. Well, second consecutive runner-up finish, third runner-up of this season. Again, they're making it look easy if you just look at the stats. But the fact is this team will find something to do to make it interesting for us. I mean, Travis, do you understand how fun your Sundays could be if you just did it the normal way? Oh, I know. It could be a lot better. Like next week at Richmond, Dale will stop at a railroad section, wait for a long train,

then wait for some kids to cross, and then go. He'll be three laps down, and he'll still finish in the top five. I mean, like, what next? What could happen to Richmond? I mean, yeah, we need a little bit of luck to go our way and they'll help us a lot. But it's cool to see everybody dig deep. Nobody give up. Pit crew, road crew, driver, everybody on top of the box.

You know, just stay with it, figure out a way to get back. It's really cool to see the team putting that much effort in. I think that's going to be great things for us later in the season. I hear you. Dale Jr. 6 in points. No wins yet, four top fives, three runner-up finishes, five top tens. You know, this Bristol, between 2010 and 2015, it was kind of rough stretch there for us.

I mean, it was not a bunch of poor finishes, but it looks like a stretch of mediocrity, which kind of sucks. Bristol was, that was, not, didn't go our way. We've been spotting the field, way too many laps at Bristol. Yeah, right. First time while we came back. Yeah, last year did not go our way. Last year we did the same thing.

It was just a different circumstance. But you went back there in the fall, finished ninth, and you get the second. So it's like we're sort of regaining our old form there at Bristol. Haven't led laps there since 2013. Richmond is going to be kind of the same way. It's kind of hit or miss for us, but, you know, we finished fifth there last September. Haven't led really quality laps there since 2012. can you give us a little insight on this?

You know, actually, before you say that, I was fascinated by what Dale said about the setup because you took to Bristol a setup that he says you hadn't really run before. And I was curious, and made me want to ask you, what is the evolution of a setup? At what point do you guys start implementing or game planning the setup?

It's got to be well before the weekend, right? Yeah, two to three weeks out, we will come up with a real baseline type setup, very similar to the year before. a few tweaks on, you know, things we fought the last race. Then within the week of the event, we have several meetings where Greg, myself, the other engineers, shock guy, car chief, everybody has a little bit input to, hey, this is what we fought last time, here's some ideas on how to make this better, and we kind of just have a big meeting

and lay everything out in order and pick what we want to do with the car. And we did, we went with some stuff we thought was going to help. What we had fought the last few times at Bristol, I think, you know, in hindsight, one thing we kind of miss is we haven't had a day race at Bristol in like two years because they get rain-delayed. That's a good point. So even the spring races in 15 and 14 were nighttime events. That's right. So I think we might have dropped the ball on that a little bit because we were so focused on getting him to turn better that we ended up to loose off.

And that was part of our problem this weekend. So what are you thinking about Richmond? I think we got to take what we learned this week about the day race because it's going to be a similar situation where we haven't been back there for a day race. We do have some good notes. Hopefully look back when there was a day race that got rained out on Sunday, ran on Monday during the day. So try to go back to something that.

I think what he said, you know, just without having looked at anything yet for Richmond as far as trends and what the day is going to do, the grip off is probably going to be huge because it's always an issue at Richmond, let alone during the day when it's hot and slick. But how much does this new downforce package sort of nullify the previous notes? It does, and it doesn't.

The trends of what the track is going to do between different time frames and different conditions will be similar. The overall setup is tweaked because of that just because of the fact that everything changed so much aerodynamically, and that's so huge. You can make all A's in math. Yeah, actually, joking about T.J. doing math. Unfortunately, we weren't on the pit or on the front stretch pit road to help them do the math. I was going to say, you got too many math leads down there to have T.J. counting cars. Again I didn't make an A in statistics

That was the one I didn't get Is that right But I don't consider that math Does Greg Eves know this? Yeah All right We're all concerned about tires At all after seeing

What all JTR was going through No, we were right away But we heard chatter about them Having heat issues And this and that And when we got our first few sets of tire wears We felt like Okay we're not going to have those issues

But you know initially when we started seeing it happen We're like okay Maybe we need to be worried especially because we stayed out in that first start and somebody had blown the tire, but Dale does a great job to taking care of his tires anyways, but... I just thought it was kind of funny that

there's a lot of things that plagued the field, but none of them really plagued y'all. It was like the only thing that hurt y'all was the thing at the very beginning. It mainly plagued the Gibbs cars. They were all fast, but they all hit the wall except the 19. It was pretty interesting.

They all blew tires. All right, well, we're going to review this race through the radio chatter. It's the nationwide. radio chatter replay. Hey, Junior Nation members, did you know that you can get a special discount when you switch to Nationwide?

Call 1-855-346-9-1-30 or visit Nationwide.com forward slash junior nation for more information. Nationwide is on your side. You know what else is on your side? At least for 100 laps? Peyton Manning. Did you talk to Peyton Manning?

Yeah. Really cool, really cool experience having Peyton there. And really the classy the individual you see on TV is just what you get, you know, with him. He walked in the truck, shook everybody's hand, introduced himself like we all didn't know, was Peyton Manning walking in the truck. We had our pre-race meeting, and he was there, and, you know, Greg gives us words of advice

for the race and team moments and stuff, and then we asked Peyton to break down our meeting. We always get together somebody in the team. We pick somebody every week, and it's like, hey, guys, we got a great car, blah, blah, went on three, you know. So we asked. Omaha. I was joking all week that Omaha on three, right? But no, so we asked Peyton if he would do it, if he would break it down.

And he, like in the moment just showed what a great leader he has always been, obviously, to do what he did. But threw it on him in the moment. And he was like, all right, cool, guys. He gave us a little speech about communication, working on our weaknesses and our strength, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then he goes, and we're going to do the nationwide jingle on three. I want you all to do a, hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No.

Wow, that is cool. It was really cool experience, and it was hilarious because that picture that was going around where we're all in the huddle with him or whatever. It was right when he told us we're going to do a nationwide jingles. Everybody's laughing because it was kind of funny. So then we broke it down. I saw that picture. It's a great picture. I'm sure it's on Nationwide 88, Twitter and Facebook.

But check that out. Peyton Manning right there in the middle of it. And all you guys, y'all were smiling. So I didn't know what the joke was. But there it is. The nationwide jingle thing. I mean, what better to get you pumped up to come back from two laps down than a speech by Peyton Manny, man. That's right.

All right. So here's the radio chatter replay. Be prepared for a lot of, I don't know, a lot of drama because that's what we do. Always. All right, buddy. Cover another one to go here, man. May I see you check about that. Everybody well last time, man.

Got some awesome guests here today, man. It's been a good day. Let's go out of fun. Long day. Just be patient, guys. Tight pit road. Be safe. Speak smooth, work hard.

We'll get all our fans on now. Front and rear fans and your brake fans. Gee, great, great, great, rolling good, rolling good. Say hi here, say high, say high, say real high, say real high, say real high. Say real high. Say real high. Clear low to the pit road here if you need to. Clear load of the pit road, come on down here.

Come on down here. Come up to you guys. That's the issue. I ain't got no power. Cycle the UCU. Looks like we had an issue with Battery 1, we're right now on Battery 1 and 2. We're doing a good job out there.

Way to fight back, back up to 16. We'll slow a chip away back. Get us in the top 10, then get us top 5. Battling up there for the win there. Door buffer clear-off. T-10 right there, nice work. Real free, you know, just can't get any rear grid. Fawks, please the track free and up, so we make a barrier adjustment.

You're doing a good job. This thing is got a rear grip. Okay, 10-4. P4 right now. Second row right side. That's the leader in front you. Been doing a great job on the restarts. Ready, great, great, great, great.

All right, you're rolling good, and clear low, clear, clear, clear. Looking inside the 41. You're clear, you're clear, you're clear, clear, clear, clear, clear. You got to use a buff here, door bumper, clear, clear, clear, clear. Right flag, no pressure. Right with you. Right with you, clear, check a flag. Good work.

All right. We hit us. You've got a difficult record there. You finish second with a foot team to teamwork. We'll get the call better. Make sure you get the pull road well. It's an awesome job team. That's a way to fight through that adversity.

That is the nationwide radio chatter replay. Travis, what would be worse? Is it the power shutting off at the beginning of a race, or would it be going without Dale's radio chatter feedback? Probably not the feedback. Like, we can come back from bad incidents on track, and not having any way to tune on the race car and make it better for him and have any indication of what to do.

You know, we could have things to watch him on track and guess at what it's doing, but having him tell us is 90% of how to make our decision. Is there a contingency plan for that? Like, is there a backup? Like, do you guys know signals or something that you could do? There's backup batteries, and we've talked about it. Like, if we don't hear you for however long

and you can't hear us, you know, wave at us while you go by or whatever, so we know to try to switch the radio when he comes in the pit. And we would be trying those things for sure. Sure. All right. Before we head to Reaction Theater, let's do a speed dial with ESPN's Marty Smith. Speed dial. All right.

We got my man Marty Smith from ESPN on the phone right now. Marty, give me the lay of the land. Where are you right now? What are you wearing? I just appreciate you getting my name right, Michael, because I've been called Marty Stewart. I've been called Marty Reed. I've been called Snyder. Marty Snyder.

Incessantly, yes, it's crazy. A couple weeks ago, I was at the University of Michigan's spring football game. This old boy, I was walking by the Port of Johns. That shouldn't be surprising. You were walking out of the Port of John. Actually, not in this particular instance, but normally I would be. I was walking by the row of Port of John's over by the media lot heading into the big house. And this old boy came to sprinting after me.

He's like, Marty Stewart, Marty Stewart, Marty Stewart. And I said, no, no. And he goes, oh, damn it, Marty Reed, Marty Reed. I'm like, I said, I'm sorry. I appreciate you get my first name right, brother. You have a good day. Man, what is your name? My name's Billy Lee.

There you go. There you go. Well, I'm at home for 10 minutes, Michael. It's nice. And I enjoy my weekend. I spent Saturday with Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes, and I spent Sunday with Redneck Jesus. There you go.

Redneck Jesus and Peyton Manning. That's a hillbillies heaven right there, son. And I want to get to that in a second. But, you know, you were at, you just this week, weekend visited two places that are arguably like on the short list of greatest sporting venues that this country really has to offer. The first had 100,000 people watching a glorified scrimmage. The second had what looked maybe to be half full and that might actually be generous. Yeah, to watch an actual NASCAR Sprint Cup series race.

What did you make of that? Well, first, let's get to Ohio State. You're right. I mean, it's one of those, the horseshoes, one of those places. And that fan base, you being an Alabama guy, you can. relate. It's one of those 10 or 15 fan bases in college football that lives, breed, he said it's their whole identity. And they appreciate those kids and they appreciate, you know, what Coach Myers built. And it's fascinating to watch. I mean, he called them out. He said,

look, we need 100,000. We need to break this record. And they all showed up. They unfortunately had a beautiful day. It was amazing to be there. I have grown to know that man pretty well now and built a great relationship with him. It's always fun to be around those guys. Now, Bristol, I've been surprised in the past about how the spring race has fallen. I'm surprised about Sunday because that's the wrong word, but I guess I'm sad. They have to do something. And I appreciate amenities.

I love that Jerry Caldwell and Bruton Smith and Marcus Smith and their group has, they continue to raise the bar at all of their tracks about fan amenities. And this colossus thing, this huge TV, they got center hung at the track is beautiful. It's stunning. But they need to fix the place. It's about racing. And as Bill France Jr. always said, competition first. Everything else.

And that is not working right now for what the fan base wants to see. And then there's also the subject of ticket prices. They're very high. and if I am, you know, if I'm a guy who's working 412s at the factory, and I love NASCAR racing, and I'm in that market, or I'm in, you know, in the North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Kentucky, you know, those types of states that are kind of in that driving distance region. And I'm out there killing myself to keep the lights on, but I love NASCAR.

I'm choosing the night race eight days a week over the spring race. So if you have to choose between spending your 50s and. bucks at one and spending your 50 bucks at the other, you're spending your 50 bucks at night. Yeah, but they changed this date just a couple years ago, was it a year ago or two years ago? I mean, it used to be in March, and you got it back to where it's a little bit warmer weather, and I, you know, I don't remember crowds looking like that in March. No. They were better.

It just, it's just, honestly, the only word that works for me is sad. And, you know, I can sit here and I can try to fix it, and we can armchair quarterback it all day long, but I think if you have prognosticated and you've seen the numbers and you're two weeks out or whatever that is and you've sold 50,000 tickets to 160,000 seat venue, maybe you eat that loss and you go out to YMCA's or you go out to high schools or you go out to places that are establishments that have and you give them away. in the seats and build your fan base. Yeah.

Something. Because that just doesn't look. I mean, dude, yesterday or Sunday's race, it looked like a Friday practice. Yeah. Yeah, that's what practices used to look like right there. That's true. Well, you know, and we're no experts in this, and I don't mean to put you in the hot seat on that. I just, you went from one extreme to what I felt like was the other in a matter of 48 hours.

And so that's why I wanted your take on it. But we'll move on to what you are, our. experts in, and that is being a redneck. I'm real good. You realize your redneck, right? I am very good at that. Although, isn't it weird? You can't, people that try to do southern accent, like I watch that Nashville show.

Yeah. And those people that try to do those southern accent, it's not like they do a bad job, but you can tell that they're from, like, New York. It just blows my mind that on the Twitter, so many people say that my accent is fake. Do they accuse you that? Every day. God, when have you ever not had this accent? Like, when have you never not had this accent?

That's impossible for somebody to say that to you. It is, in fact, if you see, I can't win, because I've got that contingent, and then I have the contingent on the polar opposite side that are like my buddies from Giles County back home, who are like, man, you've gotten all highfalutin, you don't talk like us anymore. Which is it? I can't win. I can tell you right now what it is. I can tell you what you want to win them back?

You want to win their hearts back? Take a big old bite of that banana mayonnaise sandwich. How about the banana mayo phenomenon? I almost asked Junebug about it yesterday, but I felt like the whole world already knows about it. Well, I mean, but you are like, now I'm saying you are a redneck. I know you. We are good friends.

But you are also health-conscious redneck. And so I would almost bet that mayonnaise is not in your diet. No, I don't eat it. Okay. I refuse to eat it. In fact, if it comes, I'm not a sin-the-food-back kind of guy. but if I order a sandwich with no mayo and it comes with mayo, I will take the knife on the table,

and I will scrape so much mayo off that half of the bread layer comes off. I don't do mayo. And I know that that's against, like, the redneck credo, but it's just not my thing, man. Dale Jr. would be like, hey, you going to eat that? What you going to do? He put some Doritos on and just slurper right on up, wouldn't it? Just to act like cheese dip, right?

Cheese dip. Yeah. He'd stir it up and make Dale Jr. cheese dip. I guarantee you that somebody's going to do that as soon as they hear this. Well, you did an interview with Peyton Manning. We saw it on ESPN last night. I'm curious because Dale Jr. said that he felt like Peyton was overwhelmed by the whole spectacle. Dale even mentioned at the beginning of this podcast.

He said that Peyton was blown away at how available the athletes in this. sport are on game day. You know what I'm saying? But he says on our game day, we are closed off and in our zone and we don't have to do all these meet and greets and everything. But he was blown away by that. What was your impression of Peyton Manning and the time that you had to spend with him? Yeah, I mean, it kind of was, I think, that he, for junior to come into the interview that

I did with those two guys, kind of tells a lot, tells me a lot. because Peyton wanted Dale to be a part of it. And I loved that. I thought that was really cool. And to incorporate both of them into that same conversation was, you know, that can be challenging. But I know Dale so well, and we're so close that I had great confidence that it was going to work great because I knew that Dale would work with me on it. And it was weird because I had already interviewed junior live on SportsCenter in the morning.

The second interview I'd done with Dale in like an hour. And so Peyton comes up and I can see, let's back up a minute to what you said about the availability. I've heard that from so many athletes from other sports because it's true. And, you know, not only have I heard it from athletes in other sports, I've heard it from journalists that kind of parachute into NASCAR. they can't believe when they come that they can just walk right up to some driver and either walk with them or be around them or see them engaging with fans or make a wish or meet and greet. And when they ask about it, and you tell them that is 38 weeks a year that they do that. It's not like this is a special Sunday. It is a very unique skill set.

Now, granted, it's the way they're reared, so to speak, in the way. sport. They have so many moving parts that have to be appeased and greased in order to keep the wheel turn it the right way, which in a franchise model really doesn't apply, right? No, it absolutely doesn't apply. So, you know, Peyton Manning doesn't have to do that. Bryce Harper doesn't have to do that. King Griffey Jr. or, you know, whoever these other guys that come in, they don't have to do those things because their sport isn't reliant on a corporate sponsor. Ours is.

That's right. And the business model demands it. Now, back to Peyton, I loved my time with him. And I just, to have the opportunity to just chat with him and have a little bit of fun and ask him about retirement and hear what he engaged, he and Dale engaged in, was fun for me, knowing that they'd had a conversation that morning. And, you know, Junior was like, man, you know, we just talked about the red skin. Well, what the hell do you tell you about the redskins?

Man, he likes Kurt. We're going to do well with him. So it was fascinating, you know, and then as soon as we got done, there was that dynamic again. You know, Junior's grabbing Peyton like, come on, man, it's time for me to be introduced. Off they go. Yeah. And, you know, the most pressing question, because to me, like the most pressing question

coming out of the Super Bowl was not, is he going to retire or not? It was, how in the Sam, hell, does Popper? Papa John get to be the first person that you high-five after you win the Super Bowl. And then I come back last night and I look at Twitter before I go to bed. And it's funny because I didn't even think about this. Because after he won the Super Bowl, he's like, I'm going to go drink a whole lot of butter. Well, I had the opportunity right there to be like Peyton. I know a guy who has some Budwisers.

I know a guy who can get you a bud or two. Standing right beside you. He doesn't need Dale Jr. I bet Peyton Manning. He can get a butter. I bet Peyton Manning can get his hands on a beer or two. Well, what do you think the bigger story was from Sunday? Was it Dale Jr. coming from two laps down to finish second after those issues on lap one?

Was it Gibbs Racing having three of its four cars, have all those early problems, and then the one that didn't won? Or if I know Marty Smith, I would almost think that there was a little part of Marty that just loved that Matt de Benedetto finishing six story. Good for him. What was the story from Sunday? I just think it continues to be Gibbs. Yeah, unfortunately. I saw Jason Hedleski, Carl Edwards, Spotter, in a gym this morning. Jason works out in my gym.

And I'm like, I don't know what y'all found, dude, but what it's four of the first, it was that eight, the race eight, right? Yeah, race eight. So they've won four of the first eight. And Daytona wasn't a fluke because if Denny doesn't win, you know, Matt was leading in turn four, Martin was right behind him, which is a Gibbs car, even though furniture row is kind of its own thing, but it's a Gibbs car. And then you got Denny, who's right there to take the win.

So that's not a fluke. And Kyle Bush wins two in a row, and now Carl goes to Victory Lane. And Matt's been fast, they just can't close. They've had issue after issue. So it's amazing to see what they've done. And I talked to Carl, right when I got done with Junior and Peyton yesterday, and they were, you know, junior whisked him off to driver entrance. as Carl walks up.

He's like, what's up, man? Good to see it's racetrack. And I'm like, what are you doing, man? You're making so much speed. He goes, it's the littlest things that add up to so much. So it doesn't seem like they found some great, you know, new engineering trick. I don't know what it is because, you know, guys like you and me and Davis, they could tell us exactly what they're doing and we'd go, huh?

Right. But according to him, it's not like this huge gain. it's just little things that are really adding up to big games. And it's been very impressive, and I don't see him slowing down any. Now, I was very impressed with Junior's rally to start that way and to make his way back through the field to keep digging. Over 500 laps was very impressive. But I'm always an underdog guy.

Yeah. So way to go, Matt. Well, Martin, brother, I appreciate you. You know, I was just sitting here thinking, I bet Ryan McGee likes a banana manet sandwich. I bet he does, too. You just know he does. You know, he's not scared to bust out that old helmet and start, you know, start lathering up that bread.

White bread even. You know he didn't even. Sugar full white bread. You know, some of these old boys, they're not a bit scared to eat simple sugar. They don't care. Yeah, that's right. I could see little Ryan McGee eating there watching Richard Petty race on the TV eating a banana's mayonnaise sandwich. Now listen, little Marty.

Now hold on now. little Marty wasn't a bit scared to eat a banana manet sandwich and i hate a million of them and you know what was crazy this is real crazy we put cheese on it too hold on let me try let me try to let me try to process this information this is listen let me tell you something the last two weeks of my life have been around this sandwich and now i've i've just had this new development that i got to i got to understand you know but listen when i was a kid we didn't have any money dude we're we're pretty poor my daddy busted his tail,

keep food on table. So it wasn't even Velvita singles, man. It was like the food lion mama would buy. And we'd eat banana, mayonnaise, we'd throw that food lion cheese

thing on it, the orange cheese. It wasn't no white American cheese. It was like rubber. It was basically like a piece of silicone that they'd just lop off and throw it in some cellophane. And we put that on there

and we'd eat it like it was the greatest thing ever. What does that taste like? It was good. It was good back then. I mean, listen, my best friend, since I was three years old, Mark Vincent, he's now a trainer for the Tampa Bay Race. We'd go to Sam's when I was a kid, right?

And it was 60 miles away. Sam's was 60 miles. It was a big trip. And we load up in the car. My daddy's Dodson 210. It was yellow. Canary yellow dots in 210. And we'd haul off down to Roanoke,

and we would fill that dotson 210 until the rear bumper was on the ground. My daddy loved Reisty cups, so he'd splurred on those Reisty cups. Well, Bones and me would sneak those Reisty cups, and we'd sit there and watch the Atlanta Braves and eat like four Recy Cups a piece and drink a mountain dew and like be boys been a health fanatic.

You don't have any problem bouncing off walls already so you didn't need any help in that category. It drives Lainey nut. Like, nut. Lany is a saint. Lainty is an angel. Everyone can agree on that. Buddy, I appreciate you being on the Dell

Your Downloads. It's been too long and I appreciate your time. I appreciate all you do for ESPN and for all of the fans. Don't listen to the haters on Twitter. A lot of us appreciate it, buddy, most of us. And so you're doing good work, man. We're proud of you, and I appreciate you being on. First class people.

I love y'all. See you, buddy. Later. All right. And it's time for Reaction Theater. Davis, did we have some good calls this week? Yeah, I think there's some pretty good calls. There's a great song in here.

As a celebrity. As a celebrity? Yeah. Fantastic. Let's hear it. Who's a fucking job? One job, motherfucker, B. One job, other B.

Charge got the Battery. Mother. Biff. One job, charge got the Banner. I'm not a NASCAR guy, put fuel in it, put tires on it, make sure the battery is charged. Isn't that like A, B, B, C, mother.

He'll be a hell of a race to come all the way up again. Was that Dato? That was. So he's calling during the race? Yeah. From the grandstands. Because it was pretty loud back there in the background. So Dato's calling from the grandstands.

And at the heat of the moment, doesn't really know what's going on, and he's calling a reaction theater. That's a man right there. I appreciate his effort. Let me clear it up for you. It wasn't a battery. So sorry. But nobody cares about facts. We care about the nature of the call.

how many profane words we can put in it. I mean, that was impressive. That was impressive. Nice job, Dado. Calling from the race. I love calls from the racetrack. I love them even more when the race hasn't even ended yet. And in this case, it hadn't really even started.

All right, seven to go. Before anything happens, great job. Dale Jr. 88 team. It's been a blast watching this race. What a great recovery. I'm excited. It looks like you just got a chance here.

Hey, they can get it done. Dale, yeah, and beer. So another call that was during the race before it ended. Yeah. I wonder how many people. I didn't notice this, Dave, maybe you did. I wonder how many people melted down on social media. It was pretty crazy.

I mean, Travis said it earlier, like, they felt the same way all of Junior Nation and everybody felt. I mean, their heart sunk. I'm pretty sure all the Junior Nation heart sunk and they went to Twitter to vent. Travis, did you go to Twitter to vent? I did. I was like, right over the box. After we fixed it, I was like, gosh, dang. All right, what's next?

Woo! I just walked out of Brisbane or C-way. I'm in traffic walking down the hill. And damn, what a fucking show today. Damn! Two laps down the beginning. The second place. Yeah, that's how you fucking do it.

Woo, damn yeah. Hell yeah. Can't add any more than that. Well, I tell you what, I'm sitting in church this morning and look down on my phone at lap three. The heck, we're already two laps down. I bow to Mike Davis and threw my phone across the sanctuary, but it didn't. And I was patient, and church sends, and I'm keeping track of my phone.

And next thing I know, we got one lap back. We got both laps back, and heck, we're running top five all of a sudden. Hell yeah. And, man, great recovery by the 88 guys, Greg, and over-the-wall guys were gaining spots on Pair Road, Dale's Will in that car, and come home second after a day. I couldn't be more pleased Well actually I could because that 18 car got put in the wall about 10 times So good day for NASCAR

Super cool to see Matt de Benedetto However the heck you say his name Him finishes 6th and Trevor Bain finished 5th What? You know that just gave me an idea I'm talking about how awesome it is when people call from the track I wonder if anybody has ever thought or would try To call from church

During the service that. Just don't look while you're in church. There is that. And then when you come back, everything will be fine. You won't even know we were two lapsed down. I'm assuming this church. I'm assuming this guy's on the West Coast because, I mean, church... This is 1.30. I mean, definitely not

a Baptist church. Baptist Church let out at noon. If it goes at 1205, man, people start getting mad. There's a NASCAR race on. Over? Did you say over? Nothing is over until we decide it is. Wasn't over when the Germans bombed poor harbor? Hell no. Germans?

And it ain't over now, because when the going gets tough, Junior gets going. Who's with me? Let's go. What the f*** happened to the ECO he used to know? Where's its spirit? Where's its power, huh? This could be the greatest race of his life, but you're going to let it be the worst? Ooh, we're afraid to go with you, Jr. We might get in trouble.

Well, just kiss his a f***es from now on. Not me. I'm not going to take this. Kurt, he's a dead man. Dead! Submarine Mike's right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. Right. Junior's got to take those .

Now he could have done it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think he had to go all out. I think this situation absolutely required a really futile and stupid gesture to be done on somebody's part. Let's do it! Hashtag Delia! Hashtag nice comeback.

Hashtag 15 beer flavored waters. Hashtag Mike Davis and Datto suck. Wow. We don't have to say anything other than... Did he say the German bomb Pearl Harbor? Do you know what movie that's from, right? Davis, do you know what movie? Animal House?

Yes, that's Animal House. But, you know, there are, between submarine Mike and his wife, there are synchronized swimmers that don't have the teamwork that Submarine Mike and his wife put into reaction theater calls. That was absurd. That was so absurd. All right, go ahead. Well, I'm sick and tired of Mike Davis talking about where we qualify at.

I think we need to just start from pit road every race, and we'll least finish second or better. So you stink because my boys are sitting here and I can't say the other word. First name, David, you're awesome. Charger's, you're awesome. I can't. I'm so excited that Junior was able to come through and still finish second. So, boys, what do we have to say?

Hell yeah. Get the family involved. Why is everybody hating on you today? Oh, it's part of the deal. It's just part of the deal. It's part of being Mike Davis. But, you know, starting on pit road. That's a thought, Travis.

You want to try that next week? We did this week. Yeah, pretty much, right? We just rolled around to it after we bottled the field. We don't want to do that again. Next week, we're going to chain Dale to the dashboard. And he's going to have to free himself like David Copper Pit. What's next?

So, Junior starts the race two laps down and finishes P2. We all know he's a heck of a driver, but anybody who's been cracking on Gray, about great guys this year. He took a step back and realized that without his team and his quarterback, Junior never would have taken second today. They had a 10-placed car best. But I got to tell you, that team is focused, and that team works together, and they're jolling,

and he's going to have a few wins this year. Dale, yeah. You know, I do joke about this, about having a flare for the dramatic, but to be honest with you, I may be serious just for a moment, Travis. You guys really are kicking butt. I mean, like, to face all the adversity that you've had through eight races. And also understanding that qualifying is something you guys are working on and trying to get better. No, no mystery there.

Man, you're turning out some finishes right now that are keeping you right in the hunt. So when things start clicking, my goodness, you know, be right there. Exactly right. I don't know. And that's the only compliment I think I might give you this podcast. I heard. That's all I need right there, just one. All right.

Hell yeah, Dale, yeah. Second place, two in a row. I'm coming, some and coming. Way to find it out, guys. Way to find it out. I had no doubt we would get up there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, woo, yeah.

Yeah, woo, yeah. Enthusiasm award right there. That's it. Yeah. There you go. What's next? I had to be a del junior fan. He's got grit and he's got speed.

And you had one hell of a race today. I'm Bristol, Tennessee. So I gladly stand up next to you with the Big Dale yet today. From two laps down to second place. Go and get them 88. Do we still pick a favorite? That was gold right there. That's our song, I think.

Wow. Wow, who was that? Do we know who that was? I can text him and figure it out. his phone number. That's interesting. Wow, good job. Good job.

That was incredible. You know, do they play that God bless the USA of Bristol seems like every year. I don't know if, and I think it's actually for the night race in the fall because they do that, you know, the kids sing the national anthem. Did they do it? Before. I don't know if they didn't put on TV, but somebody sang. Wow. Maybe it was him.

That was perfect. That was good. Very impressive. What's next? Last one. Hey Dale Jr. This is Double R. Rachel Ray calling.

Hey, Mike, hey Taylor. I just wanted to call in and wish the 88 team lots of luck this season. You guys, it looks strong each week, and I cannot wait to see you celebrating in Victory Lane. Now, I do have to say, I do not know about the banana mayo situation. Banana mayo sandwich on thin white bread. I just got to take a breath on that. But you know what? I do know about blessings in a backpack.

I love and support that. that, I'm down with it, and I'm going to pledge you because we have the lookout for our kids, those going hungry, and those that we want to get proper nutrition in school. I'm down with that, and I'm going to pledge 5K. Wow. Hey, finish it off. And then hopefully somebody will match. So there you go.

I hope to see you guys soon. Give them hell on the track. Dale, yeah. Dale, yeah, Rachel, Ray. Are you serious? If it weren't for the song, I might have a new favorite. I'm telling you what? That really was Rachel Ray.

That was Rachel Ray. Wow. She even gave a Delia? She got a Delia and $5,000. And $5,000. Oh, yeah, I forgot. No, no, no, no. That's more important than the Delia.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What am I thinking? Yeah. Finished off the $50,000 you're talking about. How cool is that? You've got to be a listener to know about Delia. Yeah, you would think. Yeah.

No, Rachel, Ray, didn't I? Now, I'll tell you what, guys. We've reached a new plateau. We're over there. It only goes downhill from there. Yeah, where are you at? Dang, Door Bumper Clear podcast. That's right.

DJ! I don't see any celebrities calling you, buddy. Rachel Ray, thank you, Rachel Ray. We really appreciate that. And thank you for the $5,000 donated. That right there means a lot to Dale Jr. I'm going to tell you. I mean, he mentioned it right there in the audio of his recapping his race.

He also mentioned how much that fundraiser has meant to him. It ends this week. And so Rachel Ray, calling Reaction Theater. That's got to go into the old Reaction Theater Hall of Fame. It is. Now the first celebrity to call Reaction Theater. I mean, if Datto doesn't count, then yeah. I mean, I think so.

Let's think about this for a second. Who else would have called Reaction Theater? I mean, there's Reaction Theater celebrities like Dado, but like... But she's like legitimate. Yeah. She's got a TV show. She's got a TV show. I don't know if Datto has a TV show.

Not yet. Public access in Texas. Rachel Ray and Datto might be a good TV show. Yeah. So, well, that's cool. Thank you, Rachel Ray. I don't even want to go to White Flag now. I just want to end it on that, but we'll go to White Flag anyway.

Be happy, Travis. Be happy, Davis. Thanks. With the all-new spy Dale Jr. paint scheme sunglasses, it's called Livery Series. They're available in the popular Dirty Mode, General Daga McCoy, and Admiral Frames. Get yours today at spyoptic.com. Let's throw the white flag. White flag right there, white flag.

All right, it's a light week for Dale Jr. heading into a second final double duty weekend of the year. His second final double duty? Second and final day weekend. Oh, I got you. That's good for us. Yeah. There you go.

not good for us. Travis is all, he's already forgotten his junior motorsports roots. It's good for the 88 car. I got it. Reminder that this is a stop on the Jerm 16 Tour, special Junior Nation ticket offer for Saturday's Xfinity Race. For just $20, you will get a ticket in the race in a special Junior Nation fan section, no Kyle Busch fans allowed, and you will receive an exclusive Junior Nation 2016 Tour T-shirt.

Did you just add that Cowbush thing there? No. Did Tyler actually write that? Okay, that's funny, Tyler. Tyler's got jokes today. But seriously, that's a good deal. $20. Yeah.

But, yeah, so Saturday Xfinity Series race, Dale Jr.'s in it, and the Helm's car, you can go for $20. That's doing it. And sit in a section for Dale Jr. fans. And because of that joke, this white flag is sponsored by Tyler Avers Street. There you go.

All right. Also, our friends at Exalta are still chipping away at getting to 20,000 followers on Twitter at Exaltor racing, and they're following me to Pocono sweepstakes. They get to 20,000 followers before May 13th, and Dale Jr. goes on to win the Exalta We paid winners 400 at Pocono Raceway. Exaltos is giving away $88,000.

Okay, just stop right there. Travis, I don't want to say there's pressure on you here. But we're following Exaltor racing. We're going to get them to 20,000 followers. Then it's sort of on you. If Dale Jr. wins Pocono, then somebody wins $88,000. Are you understanding what we're saying here? I think we're going to happen.

You got one job to do. You got one job. We're doing the heavy lifting here. We're doing the heavy lifting. We're gaining the followers for Exaltor Racing, which Exaltor Racing, if you don't already follow them, they're putting out some fantastic content on their Twitter feed. So that's happening. It's on you, Travis.

Get Dale Win at Pocono. He'll do his part. I'm just worried about the car start. Yeah. We can handle that, man. We run good there. And Exaltz people are great when we've met them so far this year. So anything we can do for them to be awesome.

There you go. On to the weekend. Friday, Dale will have three practices, one cup, two Exfinity, before qualifying wraps the day on the cup side. Saturday, Dale will be driving at number 8 Helm. Helm. Chevrolet in the Xfinity race. Heat races start at 12.30 p.m. on Fox Sports 1. Those will be two of those, 35 laps each, then a 140-lap main event. What did you think about the heat races this past weekend? I thought they were kind of boring, actually. Yeah.

And there wasn't much action. It's really hard to pass there. It's not a great place for it. But everybody said, like, that they thought it helped. all the teams tune in their car more for the main event, which made, I thought the main event was pretty exciting. Yeah. So if it ends up being a good product in the main event, I'm happy for it. For Richmond International Raceway this weekend, they'll be selling the Dale Jr. banana and mayonnaise sandwiches.

Again? That was announced Monday, yep, and donate half the proceeds to the Dell Junior Foundation's fundraiser supporting blessings in a backpack. That's two weeks in a row. Fantastic. We're getting some support from the tracks. That's good.

Absolutely. On Sunday, Dale's driving the number 88 Mountain Dew, do shit, do... What? Mountain do-sision Chevrolet. Do not take that out. Do-sision. Dave is totally just about it. You might have to beat yourself.

Right. Du-sision. Mountain-Doo-Sysion. Is that a hard word to say for you? I was thrown off by the do-sision. Number eight, do-sision car. So tell us again what's happening with the do-sision car. The do-sision, Chevrolet in the Sprint Cup race.

1 p.m. Fox. Got it. The Doe Sision campaign launches today at Mountain Dew.com forward slash do Sision 2016. Fans go there and vote for either Mountain Dew Baja Blast or Mountain Dew Pitch Black. Jever one gets the most votes will be on the shelves later this summer. The Shushisans on the shelves. Dushishin.

The poor God got murdered by this. Yeah. Oh, man. Dushishin. Guess it won't be the voice on the do Shishin commercials. It won't be first name. I have failed two auditions this year. All right.

That's about it. It should be an exciting weekend with Dale Ren in both ways. We've got a theme to the white flag today. Davis totally is going to be reading white flag from here on out every week. This white flag brought to you by a list. Oh, man, that was funny. That was funny. All right.

Well, I think that's about it from the Exaltza Studios here on this Monday. And they adopt us. Travis, thanks for being here, brother. Hey, no problem. A lot more sleep this week. Yeah, good for you. I love having you in the studio, man. You give a lot of credibility of this thing.

I would say we didn't come back to a second place finish, but we did rebound quite nicely. Would you say so? No, Davis, I don't want you to say a thing. Two embarrassments there at the end. Yeah, that's right. We got lap there at the end. No, we brought it right home.

Rachel Ray brought it home at the end. Rachel Ray. I'm telling you, man. That was exciting. All right. Thank you, Rachel Ray. Thank you, Marty Smith. Thank you, Davis. Thank you, Travis. This is the Dale Jr. Download presented by Spy. Thanks for listening to Dirty Moe Radio. Hey, Dirty Mo Radio listeners. Make sure you follow at Exalta Racing on Twitter. Because if they reach 20,000 followers before May 13th, they'll partner with Pocono Raceway and give away $88,000 to one lucky winner if Dale Jr. wins the Exaltza.

We paint winners 400. Go follow them. At Exalta Racing, you'll be glad you did.