The Dale Jr. Download - 149 - Raceday Turns to Gameday

Episode Date: September 12, 2016

ESPN’s Ryan McGee joins Mike Davis as they take an inside look at Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s appearance on College Gameday and the Battle at Bristol while also analyzing this year’s Chase contenders. 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.

Hey, Junior Nation. Now more than ever, exclusive, entertaining, and free content from the world of Dale Earnhardt Jr. is no further away than your fingertips. It's all thanks to Dale Jr.'s Dirty Moe Radio presented by Exalta. All eight Dirtymoe radio podcasts are available on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and of course, Dale Jr.com. So whether you're at home, at work, in the gym, on the run, or just hanging out, Dirty Moor Radio gives Junior Nation its newest and most versatile way yet to plug directly into the world of Earnhardt. Anytime, anywhere. This is Dale Jr. And you're listening to Dirty Moe Radio. This is another edition of the Dale Jr. download presented by Spy.

The official sunglasses of Dale Earnhardt Jr. Now come with the official camouflage of Dale Jr. That's True Timber. The signature 88 collection sunglasses have True Timber Camel on them. It's an option. You can go buy them. You can do it at Spyoptic.com. I am Mike Davis.

I'm here with First Name Davis. We are without Taylor Zarzer. I hate to start off podcast with a... unfortunate news, but our boy Taylor is just, he lost his father last night. And he tweeted out with something, I don't know if it was an obituary this morning, but it was beautifully written. I retweeted it. His father lost his life last night.

And I think it was a, you know, a battle for some time. But I'm just, our thoughts and prayers are with Taylor. We miss him. We'll do our best to steer the ship, Davis. He said he'd be back next week when I talked to him. Fantastic. I'm definitely thinking of his ours or family. That's right.

So we'll do our best, and we've got a lot to talk about, actually. Davis, you had a big weekend. Yeah, we had a big weekend. Del Jr. had a big weekend on Twitter. I mean, he had a big weekend on Twitter and TV, to be honest with you. What was it, 53 tweets during the race alone? The man tweeted a lot on Saturday night. If this is what we have to look forward to, gentlemen, Twitter will never be the same.

I actually say, if this is what we have to look forward to, ladies and gentlemen, I'm on Twitter will never be the same. I know there's all kinds of articles. He, I don't know how many articles his tweets, his 53 tweet night generated. It was a lot. I mean, the guy, my favorite part was there was a guy at the end said, Hey, Dale Jr., you ever thought of stop tweeting? And Junior sub-tweeted and said, hey, you follow me, pal.

So we're going to have fun with that. We're also going to talk about the weekend at Bristol, the Battle of Bristol. Dale Jr. was the college game day picker on ESPN. I was with him. I can share stories about that. First name Davis was at Bristol doing some work with Taylor. Taylor was the play-by-play radio guy. You were his spotter.

We talked about it last week and the difficulties. I'm curious how difficult it was for you. We'll get to that here in a second. We're also going to call Ryan McGee. This is interesting. So Ryan McGee actually helped Dale Jr. with his picks. But what also Ryan McGee did is he wrote a script. He wrote the intro for the battle at Bristol.

It was voiced over by Dale Jr. Is that right? Voiced over or is it voiceovered? I don't know what it's right. But whatever it is, Dale Jr. did it. And so the whole broadcast on ABC led off with Dale Jr. narrating this piece that Ryan McGee wrote. So I want to talk to him about that.

I want to talk to him about the picks because let me tell you something. I don't know if you know this, Davis. Dale Jr. is 5 and 5 right now on his picks. The game Cox didn't come through. The game cock didn't come through. There were a lot of close games, but here's the funniest part. They threw an NFL game in just for him because it's the Redskins. The only thing separating him between the only thing separating him and a winning record is the Redskins.

Like his hope is on the Redskins versus the Steelers tonight. Oh, God. That can't be a good feeling. As they don't realize this yet? I don't think so, but I'm going to tweet that to him or I'm going to text that to him because I want him to know that his Redskins are. Your credibility as a college game day picker rests on the Redskins. Weirdly enough.

So we're going to get to that, but we'll call Ryan McGee also. Let's just go ahead and call McGee now. What do you think? Sounds good. Speed dial. Ryan McGee, he is the ESP in the magazine senior writer. He covers primarily college athletics and racing, but you see his work in ESPN the magazine. You see it on ESPN.com.

You see him on TV. You hear him on radio. He co-host the 406 podcast with Marty and McGee, which I know a lot of DirtyMov Radio listeners. listen to that. They do it whenever they have time. McGee, in fact, I was going to ask you, of all the things that you've done, the podcast, to me, is your greatest achievement? Do you still do this thing?

I mean, is the 406 still got a pulse? Well, so I appreciate that, and I agree with you, and no one could have possibly seen that coming, especially me and Marty. But, yeah, the podcast kind of gave way. The podcast became a radio show. So we started doing Marty and McGee on, like, live ESPN radio on Saturday afternoon. and that kind of replaced the podcast. And what's interesting is that we hear all the time, particularly from NASCAR fans,

that, you know, radio shows great, but they'd rather go back to the podcast with the dog toys and all that mess. And so I think we might find some time this fall to knock a couple of special edition podcasts out. Because the radio show in the fall when football is going on kind of goes on hiatus and it comes back in January. We might, we might, maybe that'll be our Christmas present. We'll just drop a, drop a 406 right before the holidays. Put me on that list of the people that like the podcast more than the radio show. There's a, there is a dynamic in the podcast that the radio folks don't let you do. Well, the problem is commercial breaks, you know, because the podcast, you just talk until they tell you to shut up.

I mean, you know about that. And so with radio, you know, we got business. There's like, you know, it's a compliment, but we have, we look like, you know, we, we, we're, like, you know, We've sponsors and billboards and commercials and all that stuff. But, yeah, as the radio show has progressed, it has, I'm proud to say, embarrassingly proud to say that it has started to take a turn back toward the idiocy that the podcast was. Good. That's all we want is the idiocy.

That's it. I mean, that's the thing. Radio felt way too professional. It's like when I see you and Marty with your ties on, I'm like, that ain't damn. Come on. Yeah, well, we're beating them down. I think if you were to listen to the first couple of Marty McGee Radio show, and you listened to the last couple of that, particularly the last show we did right before Labor Day before we went on hiatus for the fall.

That was one of the dumbest, easily the dumbest two hours of radio that have ever come out of the Worldwide League of sports. And therefore also you're most proud. Oh, there's no question about it. That's our job. Our job is to try to make those two hours sound like nothing else they do. And some people really like it and some people really don't. And that's fine. That's fine.

Listen, you helped Dale Jr. with his picks this week. I said at the beginning of the podcast here that Dale Jr. called on you to give him some advice on how he's picked these games. There's a lot of teams that he didn't know about. He needed an expert. You were that expert. Dale Jr. is five and five right now, McGee, and he's got the Redskins tonight separating him and a winning pick record. Yeah. How are you feeling about that?

You okay? Well, listen, I'm like Dale Jr. in that, you know, I grew up a Redskins fan. If you grew up in the Carolinas, you were probably a Redskins fan. I was the only team we ever had on a radio or TV. So I'll say this as a lifelong Redskins fan. If that's what you're riding on to get you over the top, you might be in trouble. But no.

That's my point. I'll say this too. His record could have been a lot better. You know, when he and I chatted, you know, I think he, I mean, he was up front and said, Downing Tennessee's the better team. but he goes, but I can't pick Tennessee because Amy. That's right. And that's what he said on the show.

And so there were a couple of picks like that where I think that if, you know, he went with his, he went with his harder with his, you know, with his engagement ring over what he actually thought football-wise. But it was the coolest thing watching him do that. And you were with him, I know. And I was, we were, Marty and I were literally, we were on top of the racetrack. We were on the very top row over.

returns one and two. We were doing a live shots up there for Sports Center and I was on the SEC network and so we were watching you guys from literally I mean like you know a mile away and we could see it. We could see it on the big screens. I was watching my phone and it was cool. I could tell he was probably a little nervous when he got up there

but I was proud of him because you know that's that's quite the environment to walk into if you know I remember when he went to the Tax Slayer Bowl the Gator Bowl. Yeah. to drive the car out on the field and all that. I don't get the coin toss and all that.

I remember, I don't know if it was his very first college football game or I know it was his first ball game, but, you know, people were like, how can that be? And he said what all you hear from race car drivers all the time. When was I going to go to college football games? You know, you're a little busy on the weekend in the fall. And so it's been cool to. It was very cool to see how seriously he took it,

how much fun he had it was. I mean, you mentioned that tax-ler ball. The very first time he did that, he was supposed to drive the car out on the field. And, of course, right when they intro Dale, here he comes. Dale Earnhardt Jr., the car wouldn't crank. Of course. And, you know, that brings me to my next question with you,

because I don't think people understand live TV. Let me tell you something about live TV. You are one slip away from being a YouTube star. Oh, yeah. You know, like, it's like I think about it. And it never ends. It never ends. Like, you think about the poor girl that was singing the National Anthem at the hockey game

and she slipped on the ice when she came out. That happened 15 years ago. You still see that clip. The Florida Gator sharded his pants in the Birmingham Bowl? Yeah. That's his bio now. That's the lead of his bio. Well, how about Carl Lewis?

Carl Lewis, when he sang the star spank or better. Until Ysaint-Bolt came along, the greatest trackings of the athlete of all the time. What about Jeff Gordon singing the seventh inning stretch at Wrigley Field? No, no, that's just it. And, you know, I mean, we mentioned Marty. I mean, Marty, to this day, more people, I swear more people know him. just general people know him from. There's a clip on YouTube of him trying to do a live shot for ESPN,

and they were rehearsing for the big, I think it was either Charlotte or Texas Motor Speedway, the big military salute. And he's trying to do this thing, and they're shooting off howlacers, and there's helicopters landing and everything else. So, yeah, listen, you're exactly right. My brother one time, he goes, you know, I would have thought,

but now there would have been something, you know, from you on YouTube, whatever, I go, dude, it's the greatest thing in the world, hasn't happened to me. You're exactly right. And live TV and especially a giant event, whether it's a bowl game like Taxpayer Bowl or the Daytona 500 or the Battle of Bristol or whatever, man, it's always shocking to me that these things go off relatively without a hitch because there's so many things

that got to happen just right. And so many people got to plan those things. And for the most part, it works out. But when it doesn't, you become infamous. That's right. So this was what was on my mind as we were in the Game Day Motor Home. So this is what happens. We're in the Game Day Motor Home, and there's a camera right outside,

and it's a sea of people. It was a sea of orange. They somehow were able to, you know, like rope off a path for Dale to walk between. I think it was maybe like 100 yards between the bus and the set. And so there's the camera sitting outside the door, and they tell Dale, as soon as the door opens, walk out, and that camera is going to lead you all. the way in. Yeah.

And then we just kind of following him behind him. And so I'm thinking, this is where it happens. It's not on the set. It's coming out of the bus. And plus you got a guy dealing with balance issues.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, hey, this is how this ends right here. Yeah. And this is where Dale fires me because I have arranged this. It's like when you see the Tour de France guys going up to mountain. And all those fans are getting closer and closer and closer and closer.

You're like, how they even navigating that. And that's how I feel sometimes when, when you, And you guys have had to do this together a million times where you've got to go through that, navigate that tunnel of people that's always changing and shifting and twisting. And, you know, it's like a staircase in Harry Potter. You have not yet where it's going to go. That's right. And if you take a wrong step, you're exactly right.

You'll be on TV. Well, listen, they said, 10 seconds before the door opens and I, being the supportive PR guy that I am, right before the door open, I say, don't bust your ass. Yeah, there you go. Right as he walked out. See, there you go. That's why you're a professor. That's the PR lesson.

All you PR students out there, that's how you get it done. That's right there. That's right. Oh, man. There were some good signs out there, too. I meant to tell first name David. First name Davis was a spotter for Taylor and Gino Toretta, which that right there was its own challenge, being that he was as far away for the field.

But Davis and I haven't even had a chance to talk about it, but there were some funny signs out there that we noticed in that walk between the bus and the set. And one of them, there was a gigantic tee. And it said, even Dale Jr. can see this team. And I started laughing. And Amy saw it. And Amy started laughing. And I'm like, that's funny right there.

Like, that is an eye vision, eye test joke that most people probably won't even get. Yeah, because those are the best ones. Oh, yeah. The best game day signs have always been the one that may. And like when I listen to you guys or when Martin I are doing a show, the best jokes are the ones that there's the one guy out there. Yeah. who just, you know, there's going to be one guy out there who's nerdy enough that when I just mentioned the staircase of Harry Potter, he's going to spit coffee out of his truck.

You know what I'm saying? Those are the best kinds of jokes. I like the one. There was the one that you saw almost the whole show, and it was of Dale Jr. and his dad. Yes. And they had superimposed those Tennessee hats on them. Right. I mean, full disclosure, I'm a Tennessee alum.

So I've thoroughly enjoyed that one. There was also one we noticed. And again, this was on the walk, right? It said, Fosters and Ford. It had a beer, a Fosters' beer and a Ford. It said, Fosters and Fords give Dale Jr. concussion-like symptoms. And I said, that's pretty good, too. But the thing is, is that in any other universe, that'd be mean.

Right. But in the Game Day universe, it's hilarious. One of the funniest things ever was when, you know, Todd McShay, who's our analyst, he was a quarterback at Richmond, University of Richmond. and they did Game Day a couple years ago. It was, well, I think it was James Madison. And, of course, they hate Richmond. And the people with the signs out, just going after Todd McShay,

and some of it was so mean that he thought it was the funniest thing ever. My favorite Game Day sign of all the time was, people forget this. Gosh, it was probably 10 years ago. Game Day actually went to Vanderbilt one time. And, you know, Van, I came over, they'd start off like 5 and 0 or 6-0 or whatever, and the best game day sign ever was. You know, the stadium of Vanderbilt was kind of off campus.

They set up on campus, like on their quad. And the library was way off in the background. And so all the people were crowded behind the stage, and there was one guy way out in the background standing on the stairs and was holding the sign that said, you people are blocking the library. And that's still to this day. That's the most Vanderbilt.

Like, that's the funniest sign. That's still my favorite all-time game. That's fantastic. That is good. McGee, if I would have known single Ryan McGee, right, and you picked me, you were about to get married and you picked me to be your best man in your wedding, and you say, hey, listen, you're planning my bachelor party. Mike, I want my bachelor party to be the most memorable, most awesome, most erotic experience

in my life. I would say, well, therefore, Ryan wants a football game at Bristol Motor Speedway with Tennessee volunteers playing and Richard Petty making an appearance for the very employer that McGee works for. Am I wrong? No, you're not wrong at all. And that would probably not be the first time I've used erotic and Richard Petty in the same sense. No, I'll tell you right now, it was, I got there Friday morning, and it was so, it was such a trippy thing because, so, you know, I parked in the same place. I always parked. You know, I'll stop by the same credential office. I talked to the same security guard when I got out of the truck

and these guys in the local sheriff's department, they're big Tennessee guys, I was talking to those guys. The outside of the race track looked exactly the same. You know, there's a big, the Delaware Grandstand, Caliardarbor grandstand, the whole thing, the Sprint Cup banner, all that stuff. You walk underneath the tunnel and turn three, and it's the last great coliseum thing.

The whole thing, it's exactly the same. And then you hit the top, it's the best entrance in motorsports, but you hit the top of turn three to walk down, and there's a freaking football field sitting there. It was the trippiest thing. It was like that for two days. The whole time it was like that.

But yeah, so right before a kickoff, what an amazing pre-game ceremony they did, and it was the funniest thing being with all these college football riders who had never been to a racetrack before, national guys, Chris Lowe, Dennis Dodd, all these guys, and talking to those guys and the looks on their faces, when the anthem was going on, and the card stunt, and, you know, the plane flew over and the fireworks and the whole thing. And it was the most, it was the coolest thing, but it was just, it was Bristol, right?

It was Bristol, thank you. So all these guys were like, that's the greatest thing I've ever seen. I'm like, yeah, they did it here just three weeks ago. That's right. It's just how they roll, but it was special. And it was cool because right before, right before all that started, guy grabbed me by the back of the neck, and it was Jeb Burton, and Jeff, a big Virginia Tech guy, and, of course, this Ward's son, and Jeff's nephew,

and it was cool to stand up there with him, and Leonard Wood was there. I talked to Rusty Wallace. Rusty Wallace had like 80 people with him from all his car dealerships up in that area. So it was cool. In a 13-second stretch, I shook hands with Rusty Wallace, Philip Fulmer, and Peyton Man. So that kind of sums the day up, right? It was a crazy tone. That is Ryan McGee's strip club right there.

That is Vegas for Ryan McGee. Do you understand what you're saying? I wouldn't walk over there, but the rest of them, yeah. But no, it was great. And, you know, you worry when you go to an event like that about, you know, what's the one thing that's going to go wrong? And it really didn't. I know there was, for fans, there was a bit of a crush,

people trying to get into gates. but I think part of that was, you know, for a race, people arrive all day long, right? Yeah. You know, for the game, people kind of, they just, you know, they go through the gates one hour before kickoff. So I think that was the only snagging the whole thing. But, you know, they also warned people for weeks, get there early, come on in, tailgate, picnic, or whatever. And I think the people that did that, they didn't have a problem. That was it, man.

I mean, you know, in the back of your mind, you're like, is the power going to go out or the field going to start coming up? you know, there was a thunderstorm in the area. What could go wrong here? And nothing went wrong. I mean, it was very rarely at my age, and you and I both are fortunate to have gone to so many great events, very rarely does it all meet the hype and the expectation level, and that game, that whole experience absolutely did.

Well, I was going to ask you if you thought it was a success. It sounds like you say yes. Yeah. In fact, I got a column that should be up like any minute on ESPN.com. and, you know, I'm joking when I write the column, but it's the truth that, you know, the game was over and the fireworks went on forever and the confetti and the whole thing. And Marcus Smith, of course, you know, the president of Blue Way Motorsports and Bruton Smith's son was standing there. And you, I mean, Marcus is one of the all the time good dudes. And I walk right up to him.

I go, hey, all right. I said, great job. He said, thanks. I go, we're going to do it again next year? And he just started smiling. You know, so I mean, I think the question is, what do you do next? But I think those questions are to be asked, you know, in the coming months, not, you know, I felt so good for those guys Saturday night because, like I say, it was, I thought the thing went off without a hitch.

It was interesting because the game and the race were on at the same time. So my question, Ryan, is, you know, can NASCAR claim a win with this Battle of Bristol thing? Oh, yeah. And in fact, you know, Jerry Caldwell, the president of the track. You know, same thing, Jerry's R.A. I've known a guy forever. And I saw him at ACC Media Days. You know, for race fans that don't know, you know, college football conferences had these big media days. And it's two or three days and all the coaches and the star players coming in all the stuff.

And Jerry Falwell, President Ristamospiro, was there. And Jerry and I talked about it. He said, you know, he said, we're still trying to think how do we make sure that there's a NASCAR presence. in the building. And one of the things that he and I talked about, and they did it, was, you know, up in turns one and two and three and four, they had a pace car, and they had five or six, you know, they had five or six race cars up there. And some of them were classic, like they had an old, like Sterling Marlin, Tennessee car, but then a lot of them were recent, and, of course, you know, had the sponsor of the game and all stuff.

But it was cool. And it was, I thought that was great. And then, you know, all those football fans that were tailgating out there, listen, like I said earlier, there's no question when you're out in a parking lot you're at a racetrack. And, you know, the banners hanging on the side of the building. There was one giant one with the two coaches from Virginia Tech and Tennessee. All the rest of it was what you normally see. So it was Cali Yarbrough and Richard Petty and, you know, Dale Earnhardt, senior, all of it.

So it was cool. And, you know, people were parking on the drag strip. And so it was just, there was absolutely a NASCAR presence. You know, I know that several people complained. A Clint Boyer tweeted it on Friday about, you know, they should put the football game on the video screen of Richmond and should put the race on the video screen of Bristol because they scheduled them opposite each other. But yeah, I think it was, I think that NASCAR absolutely came out because there's no question

in my mind. There were so many people at that game that had never been for a race. And I think they absolutely sold it, you know, certainly for the night race next August. Yeah, I hear you, buddy. You know, there was another NASCAR flare in that game. You told me that they played Dale Jr.'s intro on Colossus. Yeah. So let me give a little bit of context here on this.

Dale Jr. narrated the intro to the broadcast on ABC. It was very well written. You might know the guy that wrote it. It was you. He's handsome. I know that. He looks just like Johnny Benson. That's right.

That's right. Johnny Benson wrote the heck out of that script. You know what? Speaking of inside jokes, like, Davis, does that mean anything to you if I say Johnny Benson wrote that script? Davis, does that joke land? No, not what's the unfortunate thing about this, McGee. While we're doing this, Davis, I want you to Google, Google Johnny Benson, and then you tell me why we think that's funny.

That's right. And you just get back to break in any time you want to there, Davis. But, yeah, so Dale Jr. narrates this thing that you were. Because you're the long-lost brother of Johnny Vincent. No, you're exactly right. He's my twin. He is Johnny Benson. Is he not?

So they look just a lot. Yeah, he does. How did this process start? I want you to take us through it there, McGee. When did you start writing, and when did Dale Jr. become kind of the target for this? Well, part of my job at ESPN, and honestly, I'm so fortunate, I get to do so many different things. But one of my favorite things to do is when I was growing up and I wanted to work in sports television, my favorite part of watching any event was the T's, we call it, the Open.

And, you know, I think about watching, you know, SEC football on CBS on Saturday afternoons, and they had that awesome theme. And, you know, the voice is on it and Keith Jackson voice. Oh, so good. The open for the Indianapolis 500 was always my favorite. They played the theme from the movie Delta Force with Lee Marvin and Paul Page would get you all just jacked up for the race and everything. And so my favorite always was like, man, if I could just work on those things. And now I get to do that.

And I get to do it for a lot of different types of events. And so when this game, I mean, this game is for ESPN, I mean, reality is, you know, this game day was, you know, they announced the game day location usually just a week before. Right. They'd known for a year. Right. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And so, you know, that's how long they've been working on this.

And so they came to me a few weeks ago prior to the game and said, you know, we want you. This is perfect for you. We really like for you to write the script. We really want to do a NASCAR crossover, and they said, and we want to work in some of the greatest moments, NASCAR moments at Bristol. These are college football producers. They didn't know. They just knew we want to work in the greatest Bristol moments, so have at it because we don't know about it. And so when we were writing it, it was like, well, who will voice this?

And we got this awesome guy named Norm that I write a lot of stuff for, and we're talking about Norm. And I kind of said, it really should be a race car driver. And I'm like, you know, the most popular race car driver in the business kind of needs some stuff to do right now, we might have a chance. And so when I threw out Dale Jr.'s name, it went crazy. And I think that, honestly, I think that some of the producers were thinking about him anyway, but I don't think they thought it was possible. And at the time, this is before the Darlington Press conference. This is before, you know, Dale Jr. really wasn't in the public eye much. And people were concerned about him and all that.

And so I approached you, right, a week ago. Darlington, it's a press conference. During the Dale Jr. Press conference with Mr. Hendrick and the doctor. Tom is everything. McGee was so enthralled with that press conference. He was over there talking to me, showing me his old school retro ESPN jacket,

and then saying, oh, by the way, we need Dale Jr. to voice over this piece for the intro to battle. So my plan, I'll tell you this. My plan was, I was going to call you on Monday and say, I was going to text you on Monday. I said, hey, listen, I know they're talking to Dale Jr. about being a celebrity picker. They also would like possibly for him to do this.

And I was going to wait until Monday, but he said something in the press conference. You know, he and the doctor both kept talking about the recurring theme of the press conference was getting back out there, getting busy, getting involved in some things, doing things that could challenge him a little bit, doing things that would get him out of the house, doing things that would make him feel like a part of the sport again. And when those guys started talking about that, I thought, you know what? the timing of this request might be better than I thought it was going to be. Because I don't want to be, I don't want to be crass and ask in the middle of what started as an emotional thing.

But when they started talking about that, I thought, you know what? I wanted to give you a heads up. Yeah. And there you go. Plus, you know, I feel like you've known until it long enough now that even if I made you mad, we'd have been okay. Oh, yeah. You know, first of all, made me mad about it. I mean, as a matter of fact, I mean, when Dale Jr. was officially.

pulled out of the car, that opened the door for us to revisit a lot of the things that we had to automatically decline. And the game day appearance was one of them. Now, I had not known about this voiceover deal until you mentioned it in the press conference. But I was already thinking, you know, I need to go back and revisit that because, you know, Jerry Caldwell called me four months ago when, you know, to ask me if Dale Jr. would consider doing the game day appearance. I was like, well, how could we? We're going to be in Richmond. Right. And then, you know, he called back and we kind of had a call. conversation here and there, and then ESPN called me, and they're like, we really want

Dale Jr. to do this game day appearance, and I'm like, yeah, well, we're going to be in Richmond. Yeah. But now we know he's not going to be in Richmond, or he doesn't have to be in Richmond. And that sort of opened the door. Good Year had made the request. We, good partners with Good Year, and so Good Year made that happen. But then this is another. I mean, folks don't know.

Good Year spends a lot of money on Game Day. And they have. And college football, yeah, and college football all together. And so they have a big college football spend. So it all just made sense. And so that's how it came to be. But then the narration part with you was just a real treat. And I'm going to tell you something.

When I first read that script, I told you this, but I'm telling the listeners here. When I first read the script in my email, I swear I wanted to tackle somebody. It was so good. In fact, Davis, let's play it right here. To football fans, Bristol Motor Speedway is going to be something totally new. But for us racers, it also feels kind of familiar. 150,000 plus packed to the sky. Ears ringing.

Helmets flying. Hard contact. Even officials throwing flags. For 55 years from the king to the kid, racers have filled these hills with cheers. And booze. My daddy filled them with both. Tonight, they will be filled with orange and maroon,

balls and hokey's. A town and a track divided between. two states. Yeah, they've moved some stuff around for the game, but it's still Bristol. All this green can only mean one thing. Go. Welcome to the Battle of Bristol. So I was so fired up.

You could tell why I was so fired up. Beautifully written by McGee, just brought chills. I was so excited that I tackled Kelly Earnhardt. Now, I'm kidding. I did not tackle Kelly Earnhardt. No, but what I did do is I called first name Davis. I said, listen, man, you got to hear this. This is so good.

And so I read it to him. I didn't ask him if he was on speaker or not. And so this was kind of a secret, but I can trust first name Davis here. And he had it on speaker and the entire hallway heard me like read it. And I was trying to be, you know, like I was trying to be like the craftsman voice guy. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, my daddy got both.

You know, and it was like, and David, and everybody came in there like, hey, man, that sounds real good. And I'm like, Davis, how do they know this? And he goes, well, it was on speaker and you didn't even know it. So that was embarrassing for me. But yeah, dude, that was so cool. I mean, like, I thought you knew. How long did it take you to write that?

Oh, gosh, I don't know. You know, it's funny because when it comes to writing, those things, those things either come really easy and quick or they just, you know, they just eat you alive and you spend a ton of time on it. That one came pretty quick. And the reason that it did was because... It's your fantasy. Yeah, it is.

And I'm pretty familiar. I didn't do a lot of research. I mean, you know, it's Earnhardt-Labonty-95, our Hartle-Labony-99, and, you know, go from there. Right. And also when you write those things, my first question, when a producer calls is, could you write so-and-so script? My first question is, all right, who's going to read it? Because when you write those things, you kind of have, you want to have that voice in the back your head. So if I write something like for me, I might write it completely different.

not right for somebody else. But when I wrote that, I had Dale Jr. in my head. And when we got to that line about, when I got to that line about, you know, the cheers and the booze and my daddy filled them with both, that's when I was like, man, if he doesn't voice this, I'm going to be very sad. Yeah.

But it was great. And I appreciated you guys working with us. And it was a frantic week. But the cool part was how enthusiastic your boss was. Because Dale Jr.'s enthusiasm for it was. And the poor producers, you know, you write these things and you send it off to producers. And Tara was our producer up at ESPN and her, Julie McClone, her supervisor. And the two of them were so excited.

And we're hoping to get it. And then you're just exhausted when you work on a project. Because you're up until, you know, you don't go to bed for two days. And, you know, they're in the edit suite and they're putting that stuff together. And then when Dale Jr. voiced it, which was relatively late, I think it was like the Thursday before the game. That kind of put the win back in there by sales. You can feel it. And so it was cool.

But I'll tell you this, I didn't know they were going to run it on Colossus. And I was just walking around during pregame. And all of a sudden, I'm like, wait, I think this is our thing. And it was like 20 minutes for the game. And the crowd lost their mind. Yeah. And so it was cool. It was cool watching everybody.

That was the other thing, too, is, you know, it's a football crowd and all that. But when you heard how they reacted to when you guys came out of the bus, or when you heard how they reacted to Richard Petty or how they reacted when they announced on the PA that Leonard Wood was in the building. I mean, it was cool because, yeah, it was a football crowd, but there were a lot of racing people there too because they reacted to any NASCAR mention at all

with a big boom, but particularly for the piece we were fortunate to work on. You mentioned when we came out of the bus. I actually was videoing with my phone. I was trying to be discreet about it because I didn't want to be that guy behind Dale with his phone up on camera. So all that came out, I wanted to kind of capture the whole, you know, atmosphere, you know, walking through that crowd because it was so outrageous.

It was so many people. All ended up was a video of like the cop's butt for 20 seconds. You can't be subtle. Yeah, you can hear a lot of people. Yeah. The visual is not great. Yeah, audio is great. So, yeah, I messed up on that one.

The other thing you'll like about that game day appearance, I had a moment. So if you didn't see the actual broadcast, what happens is, you know, Lee Corso makes his pick, and he always brings out the mascot. So he picks Tennessee. He's sitting right beside Dale Jr. He picks Tennessee. They had Smokey, the dog, the actual dog. Yeah.

And the musketeer volunteer guy in the costume and the Davy Crockett costume, he was with them. And so they put them on the desk. there and everybody's kind of going crazy. The Vos fans are going crazy and everything. Well, just about five minutes before that, me and Smokie had a bit of a thing, like a bit of a, I don't want to call it a confrontation, but I'm sitting there.

So Smokey's there, and I'm right beside him, and he starts sniffing my leg. Now, listen, I'm an Alabama guy. I was going to say, he smelled the crimson on you. Well, I don't like dogs sniffing my legs. Cousins can sniff my legs, but not dogs. You understand? I'm from Alabama. So the dog starts sniffing my leg,

and it made me uncomfortable. And Amy says, Amy, Junior's fiance, says, you know, he smells your dog because I have a dog. And I said, I don't give a damn what he smells. Yeah. Well, I'm an Alabama guy. I can't let this happen. I don't care if I'm wearing milkbone here. I don't let him, he don't sniff my leg.

I'm a capulet, man. Yeah. This is, you know, I'm a capulet. But the fact of the matter is the dog was well behaved and trained. And so I didn't make a scene there because, you know, I'm a professional. I'm the guy that says don't bust your ass right before you come out of the bus, but I'm not going to say it out there in front of the crowd. I'm not going to make a scene.

But Smokey actually was well-behaved. I was impressed. I took a picture with him, as a matter of fact. You'll be impressed with that, right? I took a picture with a dog. Yeah. So that was the other thing that was happening behind the scenes. But Junior, to your point, had a fantastic time.

Like even yesterday, I'm in church. And Dale's texting me, man, I just, that was so awesome. This was a day later. And he's still talking about how fantastic of a time it was, which is interesting because those are the very things that really make him nervous, and therefore he usually does not agree to do because live TV, big crowds, talking about a sport. You know, you think, oh, he's a football fan, but college football not really his thing.

And yet, I think it went great. I think it was awesome. I just, you know. Well, it was great. I mean, listen, it's game day. You know, that's the thing. And it's, you know, obviously, you know, I get very excited about all things of ESPN. I've been with the company in most of my adult life.

But game day is game day. You know, people that don't even care. My daughter is 11 years old and can care less about sports for the most part. But you know what? At 1145 on a Saturday morning, she will magically appear in front of the TV and go, has coach made his picks yet? You know, it's just, it's an institution. And so to be a part of that was cool. And so I'm really, it was cool to have you guys there,

but it was just great to see Dale Jr. So enthusiastic about it. And, you know, you think about being, you know, I don't ever see you guys. And I saw you at Darlington on that Sunday and then was on the phone with you guys a lot this week as working on this other stuff. And it was just cool to go from, you know, he had to have been nervous Sunday at Darlington for that press conference.

Yeah. But there's a different kind of nervous, you know. And it's just very cool for me to watch him have such a great time. You know, the start of a week that could have been very rough and ended on the highest possible note. And I tell you this, and we all won him back in a race car. It's pretty cool with him live tweeting the Richmond race. You know, running around that racetrack in that stadium on Saturday night with that game going on. And I'm trying to keep an eye on the chase.

And, you know, Dale Jr. live tweeting helped me out a lot because it kept me to. gave me a chance to keep one eye on the race before, you know, you can imagine cell service was a little crowded with 160,000 people there. And so his live tweeting helped me out a lot because it wasn't a way I was going to be a live stream of that race. That's good because it occurred to me that Dale Jr.'s tweeting his frequency of tweets and the manner of which he was tweeting almost made him that annoying tweeter. Like he was making goes at the TV broadcast. He called, you know, he called Toyota a turd.

You know, the TRD. He says he calls him a turd. He's like, all right, he's sort of trolling now. This is the kind of people we don't like. But he also then would drop in some informative stuff. The guy is the guy that hijacks your timeline, you know? That's right. I remember one year, I was like at the Clemson, South Carolina game and Joey

Meyer, the spotter. All of a sudden, I realized I was overdoing it when Joey Meyer is a great. dude. And he puts on Twitter, he goes, hey, has anybody seen any updates on the Clemson South Carolina game? Like, that's all he tweeted. And that's when I realized, oh, wait, I think I might be overcooking. Well, you know, to Dale Jr., he was saying something to me yesterday about his tweeting. And I said, listen, it never once crossed my mind to unfollow you and definitely not to block you. But I did think about muting you for a while. But, you know, listen, nowhere else you're going to get commentary from a guy who was, you

you know, in a race car, you know, not that long ago, and we'll hopefully be in a race car pretty soon. And so, no, I thought it was cool. But like I say, he did me a huge favor because it's hard to keep, you know, and this is the way it is for me every fall. But it was particularly hard Saturday night trying to keep one eye on the game, literally having a right in front of me, and keeping a one eye on the race that was happening a few hours off the road.

I hear you. Hey, speaking of racing, the chase field is set. We have our 16 drivers. One of them is going to be a 216 champion. We've got some new faces in there. What's your first impressions of this Chase class? I like it. You know, I like the mix.

I mean, you know, we're at that, we're kind of at one of those weird, and this happens. We're at one of those transitional periods right now where, you know, you got your veterans and obviously there's Tony and he's on the way out. And then you got your Chase Elliott's of the world and, you know, Kyle Larson or whatever. So there's, I like it when we have these kind of crossover times where we're kind of hitting, you know, the top of this cycle where, you know, the older guy. are kind of rotating out the door and the younger guys are coming in. I think about last year at Homestead, and, you know, that was the Jeff Gordon farewell tour, that Homestead thing.

And when it was the coolest thing being at the press conference with the four contenders and how Kyle Bush, who, you know, ended up winning a championship 72 hours later, would not stop talking about how much he loved Jeff Gordon and how he grew up loving Jeff Gordon and how what an honor it was for him to be there. racing against Joe Gordon, and Joe Gordon's last race, they have a four championship. And so that's why I like those kinds of times, you know, because, you know, same thing. We got Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, these guys, racing against her heroes. And so I like the field a lot.

I tell you this, man, a guy that you guys are all very familiar with around there and a buddy to Dale Jr., for sure, keep your eye on Mr. Truex. I'm telling you, all this bad luck they've had in the 19 races, wherever was where they could have won and didn't. but that's a team that they're getting it together now, consistency-wise, and, you know, this isn't going to phase him. He's been there now when it comes to the Final Four. So I know he's a buddy of y'all, and he's someone that I think people aren't talking about,

and probably they should be. Yeah, I was just wondering here. We were asking this question last week. What driver can be the most appealing to Junior Nation, now that Junior Nation doesn't have Dale Jr.? Like, who can they latch on to, at least for the rest of 216. And Truex is one of the front runners. I think a couple people think Chase Elliott.

What is your opinion on that? Well, and what's cool, to me, if you're Adele Jr. fan, you got a lot of options. Because obviously, you got the Hendrik Motorsports option, and there's two guys there. And, you know, and if you're a Chevy Loyalist, you got plenty of guys there. But you think about Brad Kislauski and Martin Truex Jr., who, and it's not even a discussion, wouldn't be, where they would not be where they are today without Dale Jr. That's right. And they're buddies of his.

And so to me, I think there are a lot of options there if you're a Dell Jr. fan. But, you know, I always think that's an underrated story, you know, the chance two thing and Jaram Motorsports and, you know, the fact that Del Jr. was, you know, doing talent scouting and giving these guys chances. And now, I mean, literally two of the guys that he discovered and gave a big break, those guys are, you know, both going to, you know, one of the guys. Um's won a championship. One of them almost did.

And now they both have another chance. And then you throw in, obviously, the Hedron Motorsports Ang and all that stuff. I think, I think, I think junior fans, I know they're bummed their guys not in it, but I think they got a lot of options. So, well, all right, but who's your vote? Is it Truix? For Junior Nation? Yeah.

I mean, listen, I like all those guys are talking about. But for me, there's no better story in the sport than Martin Truex. And, you know, this is the guy that, again, was. was plucked out of relative obscurity by Donor Hart Jr. And put in a position to do this. This is a guy with ties to, you know, DEI. You know, this is a guy with, to me, to me, Brad and Martin are the last guys left that kind of did it the old school way. Climbing up the ladder.

Just win to the point that they can't ignore you. And then you wait until you get a big break. And then when you get it, take advantage of it. And then you throw in, you know, obviously we all know about, you know, Sherry Pollock's cancer fight. and plus he's just a great dude. There's nothing not to like about that guy. And so, yeah, I mean, listen, I understand he might not drive the brand of automobile that you care for. But I can tell you this, when he wins a race, the garage reacts differently, the entire garage than they do to someone else.

And when I say that, what I mean is it reminds me a lot of like when Mark Martin would win in the last decade of his career. The entire garage is happy for him. And I think that's how everybody feels about Martin. trucks. Well, Ryan McGee, I think we've taken up way more of your time. I really appreciate this. I've enjoyed talking to you a lot over the past couple weeks, starting at Darlington. You were looking good with your retro ESPN outfit. Don't know where you got it. You know what? Knowing you, you probably had it all along from when you were a kid or something. Well, I had the hat. I had to find the jacket. Those were authentic. But the hat and the jacket

both were about 1982, which was right in the time period. My wife says that if I worked on other things just around the house half as hard as I work on my Darlington outfits, then I wouldn't be in the doghouse as much as I am. Well, you could have one cool yard sale if you ever do that one day. I'm going to tell you something. You got some stuff. You got some stuff over the years you've collected. You don't seem to get rid of it.

Well, that's the other problem I have my wife. So, yeah, the pack rat thing, the hoarder thing is an issue. But I don't hoard junk. I hoard cool stuff. I will say that. At least you think it's cool. Now, what your wife, it actually might be defined as junk, but who knows? Yeah, well, you don't think that the wife appreciates the fact that I got a bail call sitting here in my office.

She better appreciate that. She better appreciate that. I'm telling you what. And she better appreciate that the Ryan McGee fantasy just played out. And I don't think she was part of it. I mean, was she part? Can we build her into this battle at Bristol fantasy that weekend that you just had? Oh, yeah.

I tried to take her, but she's a Tennessee grad. I met her on campus, met her on the hill. So she's a part of her. She grew up in Knoxville and all that. But she elected. But I tell you this, though, I spent, so we get done with TV at like 1230. And I remember Marty Smith going, dude, we got like seven and a half hours to kickoff. What are we going to do?

Because you didn't want to leave and get stuck in traffic trying to come back. So I kind of hung out in the truck. And I took a nap, and I had my old Richard Petty Jacket on that I wore on TV. and I kind of hung out in the truck, and I just took pictures of the craziest-looking fans and texted them to my wife. That's what I did all that long. So, yes, she was a part of the fantasy that became a reality. That's a fantastic.

That's fantastic because, you know, first of all, when we arrived, which was about 1030, I mean, the traffic was real. I mean, it was all the way out of the interstate there at Bristol. And so, yeah, you weren't getting out of there and getting back in any time. We had to have a police escort. But we also stated, you know, one more thing that was kind of, that cool about that. Dr. Jerry Punch came in and visited us while we were in the motorhome, which is always good to see Dr. Punch.

Yeah. Yeah. No, no. It was cool to me that they got Jerry involved because, you know, I wrote a piece for uspn.com on Friday about all of the crossovers between college football and NASCAR because, you know, I kind of live in this world where this time of year, all my NASCAR followers on Twitter are like, quit talking about football. All my football followers are like, quit on my NASCAR.

but then I have my people, you know, the group that believe in both. But I wrote that story on Friday, and we went A through Z of things you didn't know about the crossover. And P was punch because, you know, Jerry was my hero growing up. I mean, he started doing NASCAR races when he was pinned in 1984, started doing college football just a few years later. And, I mean, he always had the dream job. And the rest of us have just been trying to do the same thing. This happened over the weekend.

When I first see Dr. Punch any time, I think he was. in days of thunder. That makes him awesome. He was in days of thunder. I love that about Dr. Jerry Punch. Still gets checks. I worked with him on an RPM tonight show we did on ESPN 2 long until 20 years ago.

And Jerry, I remember when I picked him up at his house and he got the mail and he had a check from Paramount Pictures. And the movie at that point was like five years old. He got pretty big checks. And he still gets them every year, but I think now they're like for a buck 25. But

And you know what? I probably account for 50 cents of that every time he gets a new check because that movie will never get old to me. Special tires, Harry? What's he talking about? That was his line. I love it. It looks like Harry has a little explaining to do. There you go.

Brother, I appreciate you. You can follow Ryan McGee at ESPN McGee. And keep kicking butt, man. You're doing great. And just appreciate all your help with Dale Jr. over the weeks, giving him his five wins. and the five losses. I don't know if you gave him the South Carolina pick or the, I know you didn't give him the Virginia Tech pick.

So I won't blame all those. He picked those two with his heart. He didn't pick those with his brain. Otherwise, he would seven and three. But I appreciate you, man. Have a good day. We'll see you. All right, Davis, first name, Davis,

you find any of Johnny Benson stuff. I'll autograph it for you. All right, thank you. See you. Let's move on to reaction theater. But first, be happy with the all-new Spy, Dale Jr. scheme sunglasses. I'm going to tell you something, David. Those sunglasses came in handy for me over the weekend.

I mean, it was beautiful weather at Bristol. I had my spies with me, and by God, I used them. I don't know about you at night. Probably making it out. I was there during the day. I couldn't stop, I was down the sideline, couldn't stop taking pictures because it was so crazy. Did you take a lot of pictures? I took a ton, and I wore my spies the whole time.

Taylor and I both. Oh, he's got his spies. Good. Because, you know, I gave him a pair of spies. You know, I want to make sure he's using them, right? Yeah, I know. They're great sunglasses. It is like superstars.

And the newest of the Dale Jr. line is the true timber camouflage. Like we said at the beginning of the show, you can go to SpyOptic.com right now. Check them out. The sunglasses. The Dale Jr. sunglasses with True Timber camouflage. Let's hear Reaction Theater. Obviously, NASCAR had their Toyota-loving glasses on. Any Hamlin jumped out last restart.

There is no way that that restart was legal. God. I'm getting really Fing Tardy He's fucking Taurus winning all the goddamn time Too bad We were looking pretty good

There in that 88 car Let's go on to Chicago And let's go ruin The chase race with Alex Bowman Alex, yeah Alex, yeah You know, I was looking back Through Dale Jr's tweets right now

He had a comment about that Denny Hamlin restart Yeah, here it is He says, Amazing restart from Denny Hamlin, wow And then he sub-tweeted somebody It's a B-Dog Driver 36 says, not amazing. He went three car lengths too early, to which Dale replied,

well, even if he did, the confetti guns are not easy to reload. What does that mean? I don't know. I guess, like, if they're going to disqualify it didn't eat some. It's too late. It's going to take too long to get the confetti back in the guns. Yeah, no, no, that's right. Okay, so he's being funny there.

Man, you know what? I've got to say some of Dale Jr's tweets made me think he probably was drinking in some of these. The KFC guy tweet was hilarious. Where is that? Let's see here. I didn't like Krisy KFC guy until he did karaoke. Then I was like, that's my dude. That's it.

I didn't like Krispy KFC guy until he did karaoke. Then I was like, that's my dude. There was a funnier one. Hold on. So he said, here was one, Sonic commercials make me want to stay far, far away from Sonic. There was, boy, he took a couple shots at Rick Allen racing, our buddy Rick Allen. He said something early in the race. I'm trying to find it.

But he says, let me tell you, Rick Allen, do not be surprised by that Exaltta 88 race team on pit road. Ben's solid all season, son. Like, anytime you throw a son in, he's son somebody. That changes the whole tone of a tweet or a conversation. Does it not? Definitely. That is sons people all the time. It's reaction theater.

Right. And I don't think they've become friends with him after that. You son somebody. He sons somebody. He sons you today, actually, in Reaction Theater. Oh, really? I think he does. I can't remember. But he definitely makes fun of you.

All right, what's next? Hey, Junior Nation, this is Candy. I think it would be a great idea if we all voted for Dale Earnhardt Jr. For most popular driver for 2016. I know he's working on his health, and that's wonderful. And I expect a great recovery from him. But what an honor it would be if we as Junior Nation showed how proud we were of him. Dale yeah.

Yeah, he's still in the running for most popular driver. It's popular driver.com. You can go vote for him right now. All right. Try to get him number 14. Be a big deal. Be a big deal if you voted. Dale Jr.

as your most popular driver. Well, Sunday morning, didn't catch much of the race, spent the day at the battle at Bristol, even though it was the sucketeers from Tennessee. Mike Davis, who the hell told you you can come out of the college game day bus with his shirt untuck, son. And the head of the cops cleared out a trail for Junior coming right by me,

and then they take him a different way. I believe you had something to do with that, Mike Davis, you suck. But Junior kicked ass on the game day. I did get to hear Mike Davis sucks. I'm not sure if he got to hear it or not, but we did say it. Hell yeah. Well, I did not actually hear that. I did not hear it.

So I did not remember ready to take it over there a few sides. signs. Oh, and I did see a few dial yes signs. Yeah, if you deal yes signs, and then I guess supposedly there was a Mike Davis sucks

Yale at some point. Well, good. I'm glad I didn't hear that. But I was looking good at Game Day, by the way. It's called style. I'm sorry I didn't wear my overalls, pal. That's not the only reaction to your

call making fun of you about your shirt being untouched. Oh, really? Yeah. This has got to be all Dan's. It's got to be all Dato's people. It is. Rednecks.

Hill Jacks. It is Team Slop of Yellow. Yeah. I'll tell you one thing. The only thing crazier than Ryan Newman believing that we've not landed on the moon is Tony Stewart believing Ryan Newman will someday win a championship. Both those dudes are crazier in a house rat. How about Dale Jr. at Bristol Motor Speedway for College of Game Day?

That was freaking awesome, man. Taylor did fantastic on the call. And how about Mike Davis walking off the bus? Looking like he was at a damn kegger with one of the, the UT or Virginia Tech frat boy, the damn extra long buttoned down shirt untucked down to his knees. Good God, who's your damn wardrope stylist? You need to fire them and hire somebody else.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this, but my favorite Dale Jr. moment of all time is after September 11th, when he won at Dover, and after the race was over on the cooled out, lap. He said, where's that big American flag at? And somebody ran out a big American flag to Dale Jr. And he drove around that damn racetrack with that American flag. I cried. I had goosebumps. I was laughing. I was cheering. I'm getting goosebumps. Just thinking about that race right now. That was a time that we all needed to be pulled together. And that certainly helped heal a lot of

a lot of bad feelings and a lot of open wounds. Dale, yeah. You know what, This is what pisses me off about sloppy yellow cause. You know, he's going to take a shot at you, but then he's going to end on a patriotic note, which you can't disagree with him, right? I mean, like, you're going to end on the sentimental, emotional. It was a great last 30 seconds I call. I'd rather you just eliminate that part next time, maybe.

Because he goes to about five different topics. I wanted people to remember that. All right. So, okay, where do we start here? First and foremost, Newman and Tony Stewart. Now, I saw the wreck, and I even heard the comments. I thought it was actually quite funny. It almost was like that Newman, it was his moment to get a lot of things off of his mind, off his chest,

and he had that moment to do it. And it looked like years of baggage that were coming up. Did it feel that way to you? Did you notice it? Well, the Touchdown Radio Network broadcast this weekend was in association with PRN. Yeah. So we had Doug Rice and Jim Noble and a bunch of guys with us. And like during TV commercial breaks or some, I don't know, non-actual.

times on the field, that was basically the talk of the booth. Oh, about Newman and Stewart? And what was the overall reaction to it? A lot of laughs. Yeah. That I can't believe he said that. In fact, Dale Jr. even had a tweet. Let's go back to the Dell Jr. tweets here.

What did he say? Well, I can't find the Newman one yet, but I do see this. At NASCAR on NBC nonstop would be cool, accompanied with Pandora Radio. And then he tweets a picture of Yoda for no reason. Does anybody actually know what he was talking about there? I don't know. but on an episode of Judy Murder Sports up front last year, he revealed that Yoda was his favorite Star Wars character.

Okay, there we go. He likes to a way he talks. Oh, well, I don't know. He has Newman in here somewhere. But anyways, Dan. Oh, and another thing about Dan real quick, they accused Submarine Mike of scripting everything. How scripted can you be when you've got two of Team Sloppy Yellow calling about the same thing?

Like, you talk about the coordination that gets involved here. First of all, Team Slopiello, they're not smart enough to be able to have an original thought of their own. They all have to take off their leader. And so he tells them what to do. You can't get more scripted than that. Am I wrong? Maybe.

I didn't even see you come off the bus with an untucked shirt. Right. That's your other problem. You're looking for the wrong guy. Don't notice me. I saw Tyler, though. I didn't see Mike Davis. He did have his shirt tucked in.

Yeah, he did. Tyler did. Good morning, Junior Nation. Hey, this is not a test. This is Rubin and Racing. Time to rock it from Chicago, to the Homestead Miami Speedway. I just want to begin by saying to Sloppy Bee Yellow,

what it is, what it shall be, what it was. His call out there today is Stanky and Schenck with continued stanky and Scheme next week. Next call, there's a chance of continued Crappy with a whining rant scope coming up from the south. And now, here are the headlines. Didi-Dee-D-D-D-D-D-D. Here they come right now.

D-Degh, Dado found to be dumber than Forrest Gump. T.J. found stuck to the toilet seat and back of sloppy yellow. Also, Datto decided they released Sloppy Yellow-related bath products. An incredible thing, yes, it's the new Dope on a rope. That's right. Dope on a rope. Wash with it. Never to have to watch his periscopes again.

Thank you. Hashtag Dale, yeah? Hashtag Mike Davis Rock. Hashtag anybody but Dado. I'm not already sure what I just listened to. Yeah. Let me tell you something. You know what's actually funny? So I think Taylor, yeah, it was Taylor last.

week that challenged submarine Mike to start periscoping. Now, I don't know if Mike had actually periscope before this. He may have. But I noticed he did a couple of periscopes after that because Taylor called him out. Did you watch any of these? I did not. I think it should not be that entertaining, to be honest with you. And anybody that doesn't listen to Dirty Moe Radio probably would think it'd be awful.

But knowing submarine Mike, and the funniest part, there's two things about his periscopes that are just so god awful, they're funny. One is when somebody text him or calls him, the ringtones he has are so loud. It's like, dude, turn those things down about a couple hundred notches. And then just what the ringtones are are hilarious. It makes you want to text him. I don't know if he assigns ringtones specifically to different people, whatever.

It's just, it's obnoxious. The other thing is our pal Billy Bradley sits there and trolls him the whole time. and submarine Mike cannot ignore it. Like he can't, he won't mute him or block him, but he also can't ignore it. Because I think Billy Bradley might be one of the few people that are actually on there watching it, me and Billy and a couple other people.

So that's, listen, I will go watch a submarine periscope way more than the Dan Periscope pouring concrete. I'll watch Submarry Mike just to watch Billy Bradley troll him. It's kind of funny. It is. You have to check it out. And he's sitting there in this recliner, not giving a shit, right? He's like, like, his hair's looking like hell.

He's sitting there in his like Pittsburgh Steelers shirt. And it's just like, man, you know, don't fix yourself up. Don't fix yourself up for this broadcast or anything, Mike. Just go right at it. Anyways, that's good. Is that it? That's it. That's reaction theater.

You can hear it here every week on the Dell Jr. download call 855740 1902. I apologize. Davis, I'm usually the one that tweets that out or posted after race. I forgot. You were off working, man. You're doing your job there at the Battle of Bristol. I let you down. I didn't even send it out until like Sunday night.

So we got the Junior Nation president's calls in. Although I would have hoped that people don't need a reminder these days, right? I mean, like, have we got to a point where now what, you're four or five? Out of side out of mind. I guess. I hear you. Let's get to the nation. I tell you what I've really enjoyed these days.

Have you? Yeah. Last week's was awesome. Last week's was awesome. Oh, man, the 9-11 guy. I don't even know who I would vote for here. I know I know. It's difficult.

But Nationwide is proud to sponsor the NASCAR Foundation's Betty Jane France Humanitarian Award given to one NASCAR fan who is making an impact in their community with children's charities. Visit NASCAR.com slash award to watch the stories of four amazing finalists and vote today and every day for your favorite. We've been playing them right here each week here on the Dale Jr. download. This week we've got Logan. Logan is a young college student that is a huge NASCAR fan and he started a foundation to make sure all kids feel included. Wow, this is going to be good, I can tell already. For a college-age kid, he has done some amazing things with his foundation.

He's a big Tony Stewart fan. Guess he doesn't like Ryan Newman, does he? And he was at Pocono, got to meet Jeff Gordon, came back on Monday after the rain out. So let's listen to Logan's story. Michaela is a girl in our third grade class. She's in a wheelchair and has a lot of disabilities, but that does not mean we cannot be friends. On Michaela's first day of third grade, her mom came in and told us all about her. My name is Logan Hopley. I helped co-found Michaela's voice in 2010 to help spread the message of inclusion.

I met Michaela in our third grade class. We were doing our own autobiographies, but we realized that Michaela couldn't write hers. We went on to write her own biography, and long story short, that turned into a book. He became friends with Michaela almost instantly. because the children, as they got to know Michaela and Michaela's needs, it just brought them to another level of compassion and education. We had already published the book that Logan and Michaela and their classmates wrote, and it was already so powerful that I think it gave credibility to our idea. It's important to teach children the message of inclusion from the very beginning.

It enriches not only their lives, but it also enriches your life. It taught me how to be a better friend and how to accept people with disabilities of all kind. What's really unique about Michaela's voices, we inspire kids to share the message of inclusion. We give them an opportunity to teach our community how we all should act, and they always live up to that.

At Michaela's voice, we focus on three areas of inclusion. We focus on academics, which we go into schools and perform assemblies for children to share the message. We also focus on athletics, which is the event, the tri-for inclusion, that we just had our fourth annual event, as well as the arts, where we have a Wheels of Friendship program for students who create large pieces of artwork on canvas. We give them to schools to also share the message. Since Logan has been nine years old, he really has been Michaela's voice.

And he speaks on her behalf, and he speaks on the behalf of all children, with special needs. I don't find what I'm doing as something that's special. I hope that people look at this, and I hope that they are inspired to further share the message of inclusion in their community, just like we've done in ours. It doesn't matter if your friend is in a wheelchair. Their disabilities don't mean you cannot be friends.

Having a friend with a disability is cool. Fantastic stuff. I tell you what, I want to keep playing these things throughout the rest of the year. They're that good. I think they give a nice touch, and thank you for Nationwide, our proud sponsor here on the Dale Jr. Download And also for all the work they do with the NASCAR Foundation, Betty Jane France Award,

and also all the stuff they do with Dale Jr. It's a lot. They unrolled a few new commercials recently. And so you can check those out a few hundred times during the race. So let's go to White Flag. White Flag right there, white flag. To get all the latest news, photos, and schedule for Dells Exalt and Number 88. That's good.

I'm glad you say it that way, Davis, because it is still Dells Exalt to 88. I mean, let's make no mistake about that. You've got other guys driving Dale's Exaltta 88, but you can head over to exaltor racing.com right now. Remember, you can catch photo galleries of Dale Jr. And much more each week on exaltor racing.com. White flag was written by Tyler, so this ought to be good. Dale Jr. will be back to work tomorrow on a new Mountain Dew project.

Look for it to debut next month leading up to the Talladega race. And that's all he leaves us. He's a little cliffhanger there, huh? There you go. He's a little teaser. Tyler's throwing to start us off on White Flag. He's good writing these. I almost want to call him down here right now.

Just say, what's the deal, man? Give him some more info. Why are you teasing me like that? Sources say that the Mountain Dew thing is going to be awesome. All right. So a friendly reminder, it's not just a reminder. It is a friendly reminder because I don't want you to think we're not friends here. There is less than a week remaining in the weekend with the 88's raffle.

Winner will meet Dale Jr. and Carolina Panthers Pro Bowl tied in Greg Olson. In addition to an incredible VIP experience at both the NASCAR race in Charlotte and the Panthers Monday, Monday night game in October. Go to Weekend with the88s.com to sign up. Tickets are $18.88 each in proceeds benefit Levine Children's Hospital. I'll go ahead and I'm not going to tease anybody. I'm going to go ahead and tell them what's up. So this week's Jeron 360 is going to be on Weekend with the 88.

So right now our man Dustin Lee and Natalie Sather is down there verified Natalie Sather. Not just Natalie Sater, but verified Speed Sater. Because I don't want you guys following the. wrong speed saithers. There's a lot of postures out there. Get the verified speed saither. They're out there doing some work right now, taping. I think they actually got an interview with Greg Olson today. Oh wow. That's awesome. And that's not a tease. That's just a fact, Tyler. There you go. Also, our friends at Chevrolet and Nationwide have teamed up to give away a brand new Chevrolet Silverado. The more people that sign up, the bigger the prize gets. If 100,000 people enter,

they're going to give away a 2016 Chevrolet Silverado LTZ and a trip for four to Las Vegas for NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Championship Week in December. You can sign up at win your Chevy.com. Win your Chevy.com. That's fantastic. Man, I'll tell you what, I would try to get that Chevy Silverado right now. I know we have so many great sweepstakes and stuff.

I know. I hate that I can't enter them. Who said that, though? Is there something in the employee manual when we become employees here? Oh, I just figured it there. Yeah, well, see, I was wondering that. I threw my name, they'd be like, oh, no, he, Davis came win. So, you know, I was wondering this the other day, too.

Like, the weekend idiot thing is so sweet. So of the two, which one would you? The weekend idiot. Okay, see, I would take the Chevy Silverado. I want to win that. And you know what, when I do? If I were to win it, I would not even apologize. Like, people would think, well, you couldn't be real.

You've got to be quiet or people think conspiracy. You could think it all you want to while I drive away in my Silverado. I don't even care. I will spike the football. I will do a burnout in your drive. way if you talk smack about me winning the Chevy Silverado. That's how I feel about it. But you would go after the weekend with the 80s.

Man, you, so we were talking about Ryan McGee's fantasy weekend. Like, I think that actually, the weekend with the 88s might be your fantasy. That would be your strip club. That would be your Vegas trip. Would it? No. Maybe. If you can.

No, still, you'd still take the strip club, huh? No. Maybe, like, if it's like a, and then if they added like a South Carolina game on that Saturday. Okay. No, you're right. You would need some sort of South Carolina game costs. And then, like, if the Hornets were playing on Friday. Okay, so now it's like impossible.

Okay, right. Okay. So we need, like, all of the sports seasons to be in season for you to actually live out your fantasy. Yeah, yeah. So you're saying the Braves game as the South Carolina Gamecocks, although they might think keeping you away from one of their games would be your fantasy. Yeah, I'm like super glad I missed the game on Saturday. God, they looked horrible, right?

Yeah, I didn't even rewatch it. So, and then you would need some, You need a Hornets game. So you need football, baseball, basketball, and racing season all in one. Yeah, that'd be cool. Man, keep fantasizing, buddy. Thanks. Let's see here.

When you're Jerry, otherwise we'll be tuned. I'm sorry, I'm messing up Tyler's flow. I've got to pick up here where it says otherwise, so it may not even make sense. Otherwise, we'll be tuned in just like everyone else. To the first race of the chase this weekend at Chicagoland Speedway, Alex Bowman will be in the number 88 exalts at Chevrolette Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. on NBC Sports Network.

No Xfinity series race. No, there is Chicago. And we got Clint. Clint is my boyer. Why would Tyler not put that in here? It's Monday. It might be still Saturday. Come on.

He doesn't even go to the racetrack anymore. He doesn't have that. Mondays are the same as any other day for him. God. So we do it. Yeah, we obviously do have an Xfinity series. race, Chicago land. And Clint Boyer makes his appearance.

Clint Boyer is driving our 88. Kind of a big deal. Did you just say Clint is my boyer? Yeah. Your team sloppy yellow. No, I just think it's hilarious. Okay. We also have a truck race this weekend.

Yeah, we're truck race Friday night. Cole Custer. Cole Custer. Hey, hey, listen. Get a W. Wait. First of all, Cole Custer has to win this race to get in the chase, right? Yeah.

And this will be his first race since the whole John Hunter and Imachek thing. See, why would you not put this in here? That's a big deal. All right, that is the Dale Jr. download, which really ended up being the Ryan McGee download. But we appreciate Ryan McGee for being on here because, listen, I'm going to tell you something. We just worked with him so much. I wanted him to come on and kind of share. Him and I can both share some of the stuff, the insights into what went into this weekend.

Because I hope people enjoyed seeing Dale Jr. I thought he was in his element. I thought he was fantastic on that set. And also I thought that whole intro for the battle at Bristol was just phenomenal. The way Dale read it, the way Ryan wrote it. And then the way it was played, the way it was edited, the video that went with it. It was so good. I don't know where people can see that.

We played it here, but I want people to be able to see it. Maybe ESPN will do it. Yeah, I'll do some digging. Yeah, I'll do some digging on it. We need to do that. But thank you, First Name Davis. And also, let's just say it again, Taylor, we're thinking about your brother. We're looking forward to having you back.

But thoughts and prayers with you as you guys are down there with your family after the loss of your dad. That's heartbreaking. but we're thinking about you, buddy. And thank you for listening to the Dale Jr. Download, presented by Spy. This is Natalie Saither. Tune in to Motor Mouse every other Wednesday to listen to Katie Carson and I ask drivers off-the-wall questions

with even better answers right here on DirtyMoe Radio. Thanks for listening to DirtyMoe Radio.