The Dale Jr. Download - 161 - Junior Takes the Reigns as Download Host

Episode Date: February 14, 2017

Dale Jr. talks about what he expects being back at the track at Daytona for true competition, as well as the 2017 rule changes. He also responds to Richard Petty’s recent comments regarding Junior��s decision to return to racing and shares a childhood story of the late Neil Bonnett. 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 Moe Radio. Junior goes to the lead at Daytona. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will lay claim to his first NASCAR Winston Cup victory. Earnhardt Jr. has won the Daytona 500. Hey, everybody. This is the first podcast with me as the new host and Tyler Overstreet. Yep, I'm here. I'm excited. Yep.

I'm here too. Tyler's also a new host. I'm excited about this, Tyler. It's going to be a lot of fun. Every Tuesday, going to have the download with these two guys on. it and we're going to post it on all our social media stuff and you'll be able to listen to it. So anyways, we had a great offseason. It's about time to get ready to go back to racing. We'll leave Saturday to go to Daytona and get ready for the clash and Daytona 500 qualifying.

But in the off season, we had a lot of things happening. We got cleared to race, which was great. We tested December 7th at Darlington, which was a lot of fun, very emotional. Went to Phoenix for two days and had a very fast car. We had a lot of productions and appearances with our partners. It's been great to get back to work and feel like a race car driver again. Also, New Year's Eve got married to my longtime girlfriend, Amy. And it was awesome.

It was a great win. We partied on into the night, celebrated New Year's Eve with everybody. Went on our honeymoon to Hawaii, which was a lot of fun. Didn't get sunburned. I was worried about getting sunburn, but I was able to not get sunburned because I've had bad sunburn before and not liked it. There was no sunburn from Hawaii. No. So we've been getting ready, physically, been working out quite a bit.

Hendrick Motorsports has got all the drivers on a new workout regimen. So you're ready. Yeah, my neck is sore because I get to head banging while I'm on my spin bike. So you should get like a Hans device or something like that. Well, this song, Cardinals, by the Wonder Years, is a song I really like right now. And when it came on, I couldn't help the handbang, and now I got a sore neck. But anyways, the workout has been great. It's been a great kick in the butt.

I want to thank Hendonk Motorsports for putting all that together and getting us drivers going, so we'll be in shape for this race season. You got any thoughts about the off-season? Mine was good. I got engaged. Congratulations. Thank you. I had a lot of time away from Dale, which was awesome.

Whoa. Oh, gosh, sorry. You're right here. Remember that time that you sent me the, do you miss me text? Yes. I expected a positive response, and I got none. It was an amazing response. Yeah.

Well, and here we are. I sure miss you, buddy. I'm ready to get back to. work so let's go ahead and talk about getting back to Daytona we're going to be in the booth for the for the for the clash it's first time back at the track in real competition for like six months so yeah it's a pretty good deal I'm looking forward to that first practice does do you think that's going to be any different than like when we went to Darlington or Phoenix or do you think it's just going to be like we're back Daytona Speed Weeks uh it'll be different I think it'll be a little a little

unique and uh guys are excited I'm excited so there'll be some anticipation anxiety stuff like that Really looking forward to getting into the booth to talk about and watch the clash. Alex is going to get to run the clash in the 88 car. He earned that spot with that poll he got in Phoenix last year. He even has his name on the car this week. Yeah, so this will be the first time he's had his name on the car, which is great for him. Yeah, he earned it. I told him I buy a die cast.

I'm going to buy one. Yeah. Well, maybe I can get one. I know a guy. Anyway, we got a lot of changes for 2017. A lot of new rules. Yeah, the people are talking. Yeah, format changes.

Three stages. Daytona 500 is going to be 60 laps, 60 laps, and 80 laps to finish it. All the race is going to be broken into three segments. A lot of fans, a lot of talk about this in the media. But you're going to – so will that be in the back of your mind, or you're just going to rely on Greg to be like, all right, because you're in the middle of that pack, you're not going to know. Oh, I'm on lap 37.

I need to do – I need to put myself in this position. Yeah. I think it's going to be important for Greg to kind of remind us what's going on and what's new because it is new. It'll be unnatural to be, you know, thinking about the formats and, you know, that the brakes coming up and what have you and the caution is going to come out. It's going to be new for everybody. Just like the Digital Dash and all these other things that have came in the sport over the last

couple of years, it just takes a little bit of time to get used to. And then at some point, it's going to seem like it's been like this forever. Because right now, some people are like, well, it's cool, whatever. And a lot of people are freaking out thinking it's going to change the way they're races are run, but it's not going to change much. It ain't going to change anything. So I don't think it's a big deal. I think it's a good thing, not a bad thing, not a big deal, not a deal breaker.

So the other change is you only get five minutes to repair your car on pit road. If you go to the garage, you're done. You're out of the race. So I think this one was what I heard the most uproar about from the fans, or the fans probably had the most questions about as far as the particular points of the rule. I like it a lot because if you think about one in particular race at Talladegh last year I was out on the track after a crash

had my car repaired I'm riding around just making laps and Carl Edwards was doing the same thing and his suspension broke and he flew into me and crashed really hard that wouldn't happen had we had this rule last year so I'm really excited about that

I think it's a great it's a great step in the right direction because cars out there riding around with damage no driver wants to be in them no driver wants to be in them No, you know. You're just in the way.

Yeah. I mean, will you, will there be a guy that at the end of the 26 races says, you know what? I needed that point. Yeah, somebody should be pissed off at some point. Yes, they'll be that guy. And, you know, everybody will bring the pitchforks out and say it's a terrible rule because the X guy didn't get the points because he could have been able to get the points. So, you know, that's going to happen.

This is not going to be a perfect rule. There's not a perfect rule for this kind of situation, but I like it. I think there's no driver that wants to be out there riding around on a crash car, no matter of the points that they can game. And, you know, it gets them out of the way from the guys that are trying to win the race. Nobody wants to be in a crash car because you get in the way. Nobody wants crash cars on the track because they get in the way. So if you're fast and quick on pit road, you can get your stuff fixed and continue to race.

So it'll be interesting to see kind of how that falls out and how that kind of plays out in all these races. I think it's going to add good drama to the television coverage. and when these particular things start to happen, it's going to add drama. Do you think they'll have like a five-minute countdown clock? I don't know. I mean, I think they'll give the fans. Right.

I mean, they give the fans a lot. As much access to that information as they can, which fans are going to be sitting there trying to figure out whether the five minutes is running out. That's a good. I mean, I'm sure that's coming down the road. All that kind of technology will be available. So I'm in the, I'm, you know, I'm,

I'm pretty cool with it. I think these changes, you know, they made a big splash, but I don't think they're going to upset the apple cart that much. There's been talk a little bit about less of the practice over the season. Read on Twitter recently, as recent as yesterday, actually, that they may be rethinking that. So we'll stay tuned to see how that plays out.

Less practice over the season, meaning that they're going to eliminate some of the early practices on Saturday, which a lot of the drivers and teams are in favor of, Some of these racetracks would get, you know, get 9 o'clock or 8.30 practice, and it's 30 degrees cooler outside. It's nothing like the car, you know, nothing like the race temps on the surface of the track or in the air. So it's really not the kind of information you need to be gaining. There's better ways to get it.

Practicing at Saturday morning at 8 o'clock is not the way to get that information. So I kind of like that idea and hoping they move forward with it. So are you guys as drivers? You're cool with the idea of possibly doing practice after? Xfinity races or is that something NASCAR probably doesn't want to go back to? Because they did that probably 20 years ago. Yeah, they did. It just makes a really long day for the road guys.

They're going to be in the garage at 6.30, 7 o'clock when it opens, and they'd probably be there until 5, 6, 7 o'clock in the evening. That's just a really long day for the crew on Saturday before the actual race. So I think that's why they did away with that to shorten that afternoon up for those guys. So that would be the best time to practice, though. We've got to talk about something that this is a big change. Yeah, that's a big change. Carl Edwards' sudden retirement through a lot of people for a loop.

So me and Tyler compiled a top-rumored reasons for Carl's retirement. This is brought to you by Preppers-only.com. We don't know that these are true. We don't. It's just what we hear. These are just rumors. So we're going to go down the list. Number one, he was bought out by the sponsor so Daniel Suarez could move up into the Cup series.

Number two, balled out by Ford to eventually drive for Stuart Haas. Number three, balled out by Dodge for their future team to NASCAR. Number four, wants to run for political office in Missouri. I like that one. Number five, purchase a missile silo to begin preparing for Doomsday. Who started that one? I don't know. Number six, wants to start a broadcasting career with Fox.

All right, we ask you fans to send in any other rumors that you've heard about why Carl retired. We're wishing Carl the best. We want to know, though. Yeah, we do. Remember, brought to you by Preppersonly.com. So we're going to talk about this next topic, and this got a lot of press. I was seeing this in my timeline on Twitter quite a bit. Oh, yeah.

So Richard Petty, he gets on Race Hub and had a few comments. They talked a little bit about my return coming back from a concussion. And this is his quote. I was a little disappointed that he did return. I just feel like he got through it two or three times, and he had some big knocks on his head. I've had them two. I think I still live in one of them today, but hitting mine was never that bad. Yeah.

So the headlines that we kept seeing was Petty disappointed in my return. Right, which that is kind of the case with modern day internet, social media, is you want people to read your article. It's clickbait. So basically Richard Petty, what I think about that, I think Richard, and I'll tell you about mine and his relationship, for the longest time when I'd see Richard, I'd go up to him and shake his hand out of respect for him and everything that he's done for this sport. And he was always very nice. But ever since I was injured and on my return, every time I see him now, he grabs me by. the arm and kind of gives me this big bear hug or something or puts his arm around you and asks you how you doing and ask you if you're taking care of yourself and he's way more engaged and i wouldn't

have instigated that because he's a legend uh but he's super engaged with me now and he's always asking me about my you know concerned about my well-being so i think that his comment is basically saying i'm worried about dale jr this is you know this is me caring about dale's a person nothing more Genuinely cares. Genuine. Yep. And I know that he's that kind of guy and haven't been around him and seen, you know, like I say, he's been way more engaging.

So I'm not too, I'm not disappointed in his comment. I think that he's just looking out for him, man, which I appreciate. So I tweeted earlier a couple days ago about a Neil Bynette story. It was the Neil passed away 23 years ago. And we just, you know, we're thinking about Neil. and remembering some fine stories. So here's my Neil Bonnet story. It'll be quick.

I didn't really have a lot of interaction with Neil that much. Again, when it comes to the legends like Richard Petting, Neil Bonnet, my dad, I just stood there, didn't talk unless you were talking to. So I didn't have a lot of conversations or joking around with Neil. A lot of respect for the guy. I saw him a lot. But one day, I spent quite a bit of time with him, and it was the most incredible experience that I've ever had.

I don't think I'll ever have one like this. Very odd. Anyways, I'm working on my lake model in the shop. Neil has went down to the, he came in and says, where's your dad? I don't know where he is. All right, well, I'm going to grab a fish pole. Go down here at the pond of fish. Tell him I'm down there fishing.

Okay, Neil. So, you know, Neil goes and goes down to the pond and goes to fish, and I continue to work on my car in the lake model shop. We had a deer on our property that was given to us by a family. The deer had been in a car accident that had, broken its nose, and it was, people had taken this deer and nursed it back to life, and it was very comfortable around people. It was like a pet deer, but it was like a 10-point buck, a pretty big buck for pet.

So, yeah, you would walk up into the driveway, and he would come up to you and lick on your and butt his head into your leg and stuff and want to play. He's never aggressive. We call him Pistol. I don't know why. But anyways, Pistol was in rut, and he wanted to play with Neil, so he's bumping into Neil with his legs. But he's got his rack, and it's annoying Neil. So Neil's like pushing the deer away.

And Neil's fishing on the bank of this pond, and the buck charged him and tackled him, hit him in the back of the legs and knocked him down the ground, and then got on top of him. So Neil rose over. The buck is spearing him in the chest and poked holes in his chest. and poked holes in his chest. And the buck's trying to drive him across the ground, right? So this is the story from Neil. So Neil finally gets out from under pistol and gets in between a tree

and waxed pistol with a log that he picked up off the ground and got enough time to get to the truck. So he runs to the truck. He comes driving up to the shop, opens the door, and his shirt's got blood on his shirt, shirt's ripped all up. He walks in the door. I don't know what's going on. I know none of this at this point moment.

Neil bust into the door, looking like hell. He says, where's your daddy's gun? It's in the office somewhere. Neil, it's behind the door. So Daddy had a rifle behind the door. He goes and grabs it and says, come on. So I'm like, holy shit, what's happening? So I go jump in the truck and I'm driving.

He's like, drive. Go down here to the, go down toward the pond. So we're driving through the gate of Dad's property behind DEI. over this knoll, there's pistol standing way off about 100 yards away. He says, stop the truck. He stops the, I stop the truck. He hops out, lays the gun across the hood of the truck, and shoots the deer. Gets back in the truck.

Right. You're not like, no, don't shoot pistol. No, it's happening so fast. I don't ask Neil Bonnet to do nothing. You know, I'm not telling Neil Bont and nothing. So Neil's like, go drive over there to it. We drive over there to it. The deer's deceased.

Yeah. And he is angry with this thing. and they're just very angry, cussing this deer and hollering at it, and jumps back in the truck. I took him back up to the shop. He walked back in there, put the gun away, and walked out. So I, it was shocking, you know, 30, 40 minutes. But it showed me, like, I didn't think anybody was as tough or as, you know,

when it came to my dad, nobody told Dad what to do. and that showed me that dad's friendship with Neil was mutual. If Neil could walk back on that property and shoot any of those deer without question and not have any concern over dad's reaction, I knew they were buddies. Yeah. So anyways, kind of a shocking story. A lot of people might not be proud with the way the deer's demise,

but that was my Neil Bonnet story. We got some Twitter questions. Yep. I compiled these using our hashtag Ask Junior. that's hashtag ask jr yeah not ask junior yeah as in i'm an ass sometimes it's more a sk yeah and it's jr not the not the word junior yeah the k is very important i think we got it clear so let's hear them questions louis oh oh six seven asked are your glasses prescribed if so will you have to wear contacts when you race you know i went to an eye doctor and and yes they were prescribed

I went and got, my doctor told me when I got my glasses that I would, they would help restore my vision. And when I went to get my physical wearing no glasses at all, I'm 2020 in both eyes. And each eye separately, I'm 2013. I do not need to wear glasses or contacts while racing. At Billy Jr. 88 asks, who decides which name will be on your car's windshield, Dale Jr. or Earnhardt, Jr. I've seen both in 2017 picks. Well, I wanted, we had Earnhardt Jr. on there, obviously, for many years, and I said, you know what? It says Dale Jr. on the door.

Over the door, let's just put Dale Jr. on the windshield. But I don't know whether we're going to get that at all now, I think. We're going to find out this weekend. Yeah, we're going to find out when we get the racetrack, whether the title sponsor for the series is going to take over the windshield of the car for all the drivers. I hope not. And that would put our names, I assume, on the back glass, which I don't really like that much in the Xfinity series. At Nick D. Race Life asked, what are the major changes implemented for Cup Car? I guess arrow-wise this season, how will these changes improve racing?

I really don't know what the changes are. Maybe the less down force. There's less down force everywhere. We ran this package at Michigan last year. Actually, incidentally, the track where I wrecked got the concussion. But you were hauling ass there. Yeah, we were running great. Yeah, had a good car.

But anyways, less down force. These won't change the racing that much, but it should allow us to get a little closer to each other. We want to get close. We want to be right on each other's bumper in the corner. and with the bigger spoiler, it seemed to be harder to do that. So less downforce should help everyone. There's a lot of changes within how the rear-in-housins are working and what they're allowing for us as far as the rear-enhausens' toe and skew,

which I like a lot. So that may be more of an impact than the spoiler. Yeah, and that's even less side-force down-force. Okay, so we're going in that direction. At Adam Ken 192-8-4-996 asked if you had to choose, Would you rather win a World 600 or the Southern 500? Adam, I love that you still call it the World 600 and the Southern 500. The World 600, I told these guys at Charlotte the other day.

I said, you've got to bring back that name. That's an iconic name. Everybody remembers the World 600. You can say it's presented by X or whatever, but bring back the World 600. You know the Daytona 500 is always going to be the Daytona 500 presented by. Were they receptive to this? I don't think so. It hasn't changed yet.

So I would love to win the World 600. That's our home track, so to speak. It's right down the road. I went to all the Charlotte races as a kid. It's a 600-mile event, which is unique to any other race in the series. My high school is actually about half a mile outside turn three. No kidding. Yeah.

So that would be my home track, too. Oh, I think I've been over there. That would be a big win. I know what you're talking about. At Side Pipes asked, what are your top beard grooming tips? You know what? I don't really have any great, I don't do a good job. I don't think if grooming my beard.

I've seen other beards that have envy. four but I trim mine with in steps so I'll go short at the neck and as I get out to the chin I've gone about three or four steps longer so it'll be like a three four five six to the chin from the neck to the chin kind of builds a little shape into your beard and I do that also from the sideburns forward maybe a three four or five to the sideburns to the chin that's all I can tell you and I always keep the keep the mustache shorter a long hairy When the mustache is as long as any other part of the beard, it's kind of weird. Getting down into your lips and stuff.

Well, not bad. I mean, it's even up, you know, just the length of the mustache is kind of, I don't know, it hurts to me a little bit. Jimmy came pretty aggressive with the beard game. He did. He had a great beard. I liked it. I told him to keep it.

What do you think he's coming to the Daytona with? I said if he, well, I told him to keep the beard. He'd probably get some more drafting help because it's just cool looking. Looking ahead, we got one practice for Saturday. Four hours. Four hours for the Daytona 5. So that'll be all qualifying runs, I assume. The Clash broadcast begins at 8 p.m. Eastern on Fox Sports 1,

so tune in. I'll be up in the booth at some point in that race. Sunday, the Daytona 500 qualifying starts at 3.15 p.m. on Fox. Monday, we'll be recording next week's podcast. We'll post it Tuesday and every Tuesday. Tuesday, going to New York to promote the Daytona 500. We're going to do the day show in the morning. We're going to do the Dan Patrick show, which I'll be co-hosting or what?

No, you'll be on there for about 20, 30 minutes. All right, and then we're going to watch What Happens Live on Bravo with Andy, which I'm a, Andy, actually me and Amy are huge fans of Andy and several of the shows that are on Bravo. So that's going to be a lot of fun. We've never done that one, so that'll be cool. I know that Ryan, I know that Ryan.

Blaney did watch What Happens Live. And he enjoyed it? Yeah, of course. Okay. All right. Also, we got a few other things on the docket. that day while we're in New York to promote the race. Every driver has to go somewhere to promote the Daytona 500.

New York was the place that NASCAR wants to go, so that's where we're going to go. I hope everyone enjoyed the show. That was our first. We're excited about it this year. It's going to be a lot of fun. Be sure to subscribe to the show through Dale Jr.com. Also find us on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, and all the other major podcasting outlets. Let us know your feedback on Twitter.

It's at Dale Jr. at Overstreet Tyler, or obviously the Dirty Mail Radio, Facebook, and Twitter. Let us know what you like, what you didn't like, how he can improve. All right. Sounds good to me. We'll talk to you later. See you next time. See ya. Thanks for listening to Dirty Moe Radio.

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 Dirty Moe 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, Dirtymore Radio gives Junior Nation its newest and most versatile way yet to plug directly into the world of Earnhardt, anytime, anywhere.