The Dale Jr. Download - 162 - Dale Jr. Dishin’ on Daytona

Episode Date: February 21, 2017

Fresh off a second-place qualifying effort for the Daytona 500 and an afternoon in the FOX broadcast booth, Dale Jr. gives insight on both. He and Tyler Overstreet also discuss the Earnhardt family’s success at the 2.5-mile track. Junior wraps the show by answering fan questions taken during a live Periscope session. 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.

Don't miss season premieres of Dirty Moor Radio podcasts all this week, including Fastlane family, Junior Nation, undam-restricted and back in the day. Go to Dale Jr.com and click the Dirty Moor Radio tab. This is Dale Jr., and you're listening to Dirty Mo Radio. Cannon, Jr. goes to the lead at Daytona. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will lay claim to his first NASCAR Winston Cup victory. Dale Earnhardt Jr. has won the Daytona 500. All right, everybody, welcome to the show.

This is podcast number two, the Dale Jr. download this season. I'm Dailenhart Jr. And with me, as always, are going on in the future. Tyler Overstreet. How you doing, Tyler? I'm great. How are you today? I'm doing pretty good.

We got a lot of great topics to talk about, obviously, the Clash, the Daytona 500, qualifying and all that stuff coming up over the next couple of days. First off, a lot of people wanted to know what happened last week. with the Neil Bonnet story. Yeah, right? They were very curious. I was surprised because that was your idea to throw that in there and then everybody loved it.

But maybe I shouldn't be surprised. Wow, you're surprised that I had a good idea. Ryan McGee actually shared what my father told him about the Neil Bonnet pistol story. So I didn't really get to see what Dad's reaction was because I wasn't around when it happened. The way that Dad told it to Ryan, is that the deer was kind of a pet to Taylor.

And so he was really pissed off. I would be, yeah. Shooting a dog or something. Yeah. So when he confronted Neil, they really had it out. Big time argument. A lot of shouting. But then at some point, they both had to admit that it was a really funny story.

So I guess they kind of, you know, got over it pretty quickly, but probably had a few beers. So thanks Ryan McGee for clearing that up, because I didn't really know how Dad reacted. I just remember the day, nothing else. So imagine how Taylor acted. Yeah, I bet she was, well, she was pretty young. Yeah, I imagine she was pretty tore up. So there you go.

There's the end of the Neil Bonnet pistol story. Rest in peace. Rest in peace pistol. We're going to get to the rest of the show here, so let's get on it. Obviously, the big story from our weekend was Sunday. You qualified second for the Daytona 500, 0.02 seconds off a chase. Yeah. All right.

So when you hear that it's that close, you think about the lap, right? And you think about the things that happen in the lap that maybe cost you that time. One thing that I can say that I might have done our car, or our speed, I guess, is coming to the checkered. I got the splitter into the apron just before the flag stand. that might be I don't know so that's you know you just think about everything you did and maybe

what you could have done better I think you know the launch off pit road is so critical because we only run one lap yeah and you try to get to the wall as fast as possible well yeah I'm just saying going through basically getting through first gear is so critical because the tires want to spin but you don't

so you don't want to spin a tires you're not going to where you got to you know you got a launch really good Because you only got one lap. Yeah. So the launch really affects how fast your lap's going to be. If you don't take off pit road, I remember. Great story. When I first went to Daytona to qualify in the Xfinity series in 1998,

I didn't know that the launch or the get up to speed lap was that big of a deal. Well, back then you had two, right? Still. Well, yeah, I mean, every inch. So I just take off on, you know, take off for my qualifying. lap real gingerly cruising up through the gears you know shifting at about five six thousand r pms i run my lap and i qualified third and i came in i'm excited you qualified third i think so i came in i'm happy tony seniors pissed off i bet what in the f were you doing

pulling off pit road who knows how much time you gave up on the overall run going so slow off pit road He's like, get the hell off pit road. I was like, all right. So that was probably a little bit. Yes, maybe I don't really know how good his was versus mine as far as the launch yesterday. Maybe his launch was a little bit better through first gear, but I know I hit the apron coming to the checkered. That can't be good.

You've got to run as tight as you can to the apron through the corners and through the trial. Obviously, if you're even up to track of foot, it's time. You've got to maintain a little bit to get somewhat of an arc into the corner. Oh, well, yeah. Because otherwise, it seems like it would bog it down. A little bit. I'm just thinking about my eye racing career.

I'm talking about when you're down in the corner, forget the transitions. When you're down in the corner, you've got to be tight. If you're up a track of foot, you're adding feet to the lap. You're adding distance to the lap. That's never good. So I went to, when my dad called me one time, I was working at the dealership changing oil. He called me. I was 16 years old.

He said, I was racing street stocks. And he said, I'm in Talibank. Taleda test and get your helmet and your suit and be ready to get on a plane tomorrow. A little king air. We're going to fly to Taledega. I'm like, well, I must be driving something because he's wanting me bring my help in my suit. And you're only racing street stocks? Yes.

And so we go to, they were testing the new V8 engines for the Xfinity series. They'd been running V6s, so they had Dad's car there by himself, just his car. Dave Marcus was there driving it too. So I get there and they're like, you're going to run some laps. So he said this motor, one of the, this really doesn't matter. He said this motor will blow up if you have thrall it, so you got to run wide open. I guess he thought I wouldn't run wide open. I knew they ran wide open, so I'm going to hold it wide open.

But he said if you lift, it's going to burn a piston. What was the fastest before that was the fastest you had gone? Let's get to this damn story. This is a long story. Oh, boy. So, and I got to wrap it around. It's how it pertains to what you were asking about opening up the wheel off the corner and feeding the car off the corner and not running real tight on the straightway.

So anyways, I'm out there running around and ran some good laps. And then I'm like, you know what? I wasn't even sure what I was doing. So next time I get in this car and run, I'm going to run even better. And I'm running as good as dad and Dave. So I get out there and I open the wheel up and, you know, get out to the fence on the straightaway and drive it down into the corner. And I'm letting the wheel kind of do what it wants through the bumps.

And I ran a second slower. And I said, damn. So I came in, and Dad's like, what the hell are you doing? I said, well, I let the car feed out off the corner against the wall. Don't do that. You're adding feet to the lap. I said, I let the wheel be looser in my hands and kind of let it do its thing through the bumps. Don't do that.

Hold it solid and steady. So what I do now when I go to qualify is I hold the wheel hard as I can and do not let it move when it car goes to a bump. and I run pretty tight, which everybody does now. Everybody's kind of figured that out. You run pretty tight on apron. You obviously don't want to bottle the car down, but you can hear the RPMs and the motor know when you're doing that. So if that answers your question, Tyler, about how do you get around there in qualifying?

A driver really doesn't make that much of a difference. The car's about 98% and 99% of what's going on. The car is going to be doing all the work, but the driver can screw it up. It's your fourth front row start in the Daytona 500. Did you know that? Yeah. You've qualified second three times. The one time you got the pole, you got wrecked in practice,

and I'd start at the back anyways. Yes. And on Sports Center last night, they threw out this stat. You have the best average start of any driver in the Daytona 500 with more than five starts. No kidding. Yep, 5.8. Well, Chase needs to calm down, but... Yeah, Chase is going to get that record here in a few.

more years, especially in that 24, boy, they get it done and qualifying at the plate tracks. Allen, those guys, you know, got to give them credit, they do a great job. That's pretty cool stat. I like being good at stuff. Let's see, we've got to talk about the clash a little bit. Alex Bowman, Bowman, the Showman. He brought it home in third place. I thought, you know, he did a good job, learned some stuff, I'm sure, out there.

He really hasn't had a chance to, he's been out there racing for years, it seems like, but he's not really had a great opportunity to do a ton of drafting in a car that's capable of making the moves that he's trying to do, trying to make. So that was great experience for him. I'm proud of Alex. Looking for him to get more opportunities down the road. He's under the HMF's umbrella. He's in good hands.

So I don't know what he's going to get to do the rest of the season, but we'll see. I think he's going to Vegas. I think he went to Vegas yesterday because he's got to test the wheel force car this week. Well, he is testing the wheel force car, which is a pretty good gig. He's also doing tons of simulation work for us. So, I mean, he's got a job. Yeah, just not the one he really wants. But that's coming down the pipe, I'm sure.

We were up in the booth, everybody, you know, if you tuned in on Sunday, you got to see us do some work. I guess you saw a little work Saturday night, too, during the rain delay. That was kind of fun. I'd never been in the booth that much to begin with, much less a rain delay. So that was kind of a good experience to see kind of what they go through. I thought that there was more booth work during the rain delay, but they actually go to that Hollywood hotel. Yeah, like you guys were chilling.

I spent a ton of time down there. Yeah, we just kind of sat around in our chairs and waited until they said, I get ready, you're coming to the booth for five minutes. So they'd come to the booth, we'd talk a little bit. And then they'd go back down to Hollywood hotel. They wore Clint Boyer out talking to him. So that was great. The race was fun to call.

I didn't get many Kinsquireisms in while I was up there, but there was four of us in the booth. It was kind of hard. Everybody wanted to talk at once. Yeah, but like I told you yesterday, you did a great job not being afraid to interject. I knew I would have to be, you know, maybe aggressive isn't the right word, but I knew I'd have to push to get in there to say anything. Nothing to get.

I mean, those guys are up there doing it every week, so they work as a three-person booth week after week, and they got a groove on, you know, so to fit another guy in there is uncomfortable for everybody. So I really was appreciative for them to have me up there. Jeff and Darrell and Mike, Joy, they were great to work with, treated me, you know, took care of me. Everyone in Fox was like that. They're top notch.

I was going to say, yeah, the production crew, everybody's super nice. I know Barry real well, Barry Landis, and he's always been so supportive. He's going to give me a bunch of tips on things that I can do better. I'm also trying to get that out of a few other people, too, that's all the race. Any advice you guys got that are tuning in? Mike Davis was proud of your crash analysis on the last one. Yeah.

Because you got very excited. I know. It was an exciting moment. Yeah. I mean, that's the last lap. That was a, was that a surprising move that they wrecked each other? I was surprised that Denny, I knew Denny would come down to block, but I was surprised he came as far as he came. I thought maybe he just might try to pinch Brad a little into the apron or something.

I didn't think he would drive across his nose like that, but maybe I don't know. It's hard to say if Denny knew exactly how far he was coming down. He was just trying to throw a block. Brad pulled that same move on. I think it was Kyle Busch for the race win in the July race last year. Brad's getting pretty good at plate racing. The place has got great race cars.

Both the Penske cars were really good. No surprise. Do you think Denny makes that same move if it's somebody besides Brad? Why wouldn't he make it on Brad? Because they've had some history where they didn't get along. Oh, you know, I think I can't insinuate that Danny's a bad person. I mean, I'm not saying he's a bad person. Well, if you're saying he would pick on or he would do something versus Brad, not somebody else?

Yeah. You're saying that he would do a bad thing to Brad? No. What are you saying? I'm saying that he's not the biggest Brad fan. They would do something bad to Brad. Is he going to make that same move on Kyle Bush? It's his teammate.

Is he going to make that move on Jimmy Johnson? Here you are again trying to prove. You're right and I'm wrong. You can't. I hate getting those arguments with you. Hey, when was the last daytime but shootout clash? Shut up. We had just for the listeners.

We're editing this out. We're not editing, edit, edit, edit, edit. We're not editing this out. We are editing this out. We had this conversation on the flight home about when the last daytime clash race was. I said 02. Dale said 06. and I was right.

Tyler can't celebrate being right enough. Exactly. Celebrate that man. Celebrating. Also, one thing, another thing from the clash was, obviously, the situation with the 48. He got loose once and got into Kurt. That pretty much saved him. Then about 25 laps later, got loose and wrecked off turn four.

Similar to what you and Chase both did at Daytona last year. Obviously, that was a big story. People asking you yesterday. So is that like the number one thing y'all are working on for this weekend? Well, I can't speak from Greg on what's on the top of his list, but I'm aware of it, obviously. It's a big concern for me because we fought it with our car particularly. I'm not as much worried about my teammates that, you know,

because they'll try to do it their own way if they think they need to address it. They will. Chad, his comments in the media seem to, he seemed to be pretty, confident that he can fix this, the issues they were having Sunday in the clash. But I, you know, I'm concerned because I spun out twice and Alex spun out once in our plate races last year. So the only race we didn't spin out in, it was a night race at Daytona, but it's a night race, so there's more grip and more, you know, the cars handle a little bit better. So I wouldn't, I'm not surprised that we didn't have that kind of problem there.

You're a little more stable at night. So, yeah, I'm concerned. and I think we're going to put in some effort into trying to, I'll be paying attention to that, and I'll be telling Greg everything I can about, you know, I felt that, you know, I feel like we've got to work on that a little bit. Hopefully we don't have any issues through the whole weekend, or the whole week, actually,

and we get to Daytona 500 with the car in one piece. Will you make a more concentrated effort to draft and practice? Because I know last year most people were doing single car runs and you got to Sunday and it was like, oh, the handling is big. Yeah, I think that we will make a better effort to practice. You can only draft if there's people out there to draft with. Right. Like the Toyota guys seem to go out there altogether.

Yeah, they don't draft with anyone else. So, you know, we'll see. We'll see if there's a big pack, and we're definitely going to try to jump out there any opportunity we can if there's a big enough pack to draft and learn something. I guess anything around 12 cars is decent. Man, it'd be awesome if you get 20 cars out there in a pack, but you just don't have that opportunity over the last several years to do that.

There's not that many cars willing to get in that size of a pack because there's too much of a risk of having an issue. But if you can, anything less than probably 10 or 12 cars is not going to help you learn what you need to learn. So we're going to talk a little bit about, I guess, the history of the Daytona 500, or at least maybe my family's history of the Daytona 500. And there's a lot of history.

Yeah. Dad has 34 wins most all time at Daytona, 34. That's enough to be most all time, I think. Yeah. Anywhere. Yeah. I've got 17. Third most all time.

Tony Stewart has 19. So in 1998, Daytona 500 was dad's one and only Daytona 500 win. Out of the 34 races he won there, which is crazy. You win 34 times you think he'd get. you know, just once, especially when you're that good. Yeah. He had some, you know, close calls. That was 19 years ago.

19 years ago. It took him 20 years to win, and that win was 19 years ago. I mean, where's all the time going? I was going to attend that race, but I flipped my Xfinity car on Saturday and got a concussion. My head hit the door and bit the door. Yeah, we could match this little den. in the doorktop to the helmet. And I, because I got out and I went to the infield care center.

I felt fine. When I got out of the infield care center, there was some media there to do a little live television, and I fell over. So we got back home. I was in a race car underneath the dash working on the iron harness, and I felt like that. This car was on casters, and I felt like that they rolled the car across the shop floor. and I set up and I was like, holy shit, man. And I realized that nobody was around the car.

The car wasn't moving. I thought somebody was playing a joke on me. And so that's my memory of that particular concussion. How many days later was that? One or two days later. Oh, gosh. So, man, concussions are bad. So I was talking to my guys about it and Tommy Senior Tony Jr.

And they were like, yeah, your head hit the door right here. Here's where your helmet hit. That's when you used to wear the open face. helmet too. It was an open face helmet. Jeez. So, racing's dangerous, buddy. Anyways, I was at home on the couch,

dealing with some nausea and stuff like that. So I didn't get to see Dad win his one Daytona 500. The first Daytona 500 that I ever saw in person was the 2000 Daytona 500, which was the first one I raced in. So that was really, it's really interesting because, You would think I would have got to the Daytona 500 at some point. I do remember being down there for speed weeks, qualifying, and so forth. But we would always leave with the Xfinity team, Dad's Bush team.

I would go down there with them and experience Daytona for the time that they were there, and then I would go home. So I never was able to, I just never was there. Back then you guys drove back and forth. So it wasn't like, nowadays it's easy to get your kid to the track. Yeah, an airplane. Yeah. So, yeah, the first one I saw was the first one I was in, which that was really cool.

I felt like that I had joined a fraternity. You know, I was on the starting grid looking around at guys like Terry Labani and Dale Jarrett and going, wow, I can't believe I'm here. So I don't really, I don't, the only thing I remember about that race was, there was a couple things. One time I tried to block Dale Jarrett. He was in his 88 quality care car. I used to like Dale Jarrett and quality care car. Well, that's good. He was very fast, right?

I was okay. He was really, really fast. So I got in his way one time on the back straightway, and he hit me in the ass so freaking hard. It about knocked my head off. So I remember that. Did you get out of the way? I don't know.

I can't remember. And I remember I didn't work with Dad so much so that. it pleased him. So after the race, he was very upset with me that I did not work with him. I'm like, I don't know nothing about working with nobody. I'm trying to get the front. So anytime my car would get a run, I'd go somewhere with it. And he's like, his car didn't drive very good, didn't handle good.

He was really ticked off at the end of that race. He finished 12th or something. I finished right there around him, maybe a spot or two in front of him. I can't really remember. And he's like, no one or neither one of us did any good. You wouldn't work with anybody. I was like, you know, you're not my responsibility. Dad.

Oh, so he was just pissed off because he had a bad day. Yes. He always took it out on me. When we raced around, when we raced together, if he had a bad day, some way it was my fault. So that was all I remember about the 2000 Daytona 500. I do remember some of Dad's bigger heartbreaks. In 1986, he ran out of gas. Pretty much had, he had to, Jeff Bodine was in there and ended up winning the race.

Jeff would have given him a run for the money, but I thought Dad had it. but he ran out of gas. I remember him coming down pit road. They didn't have pit road speed. He's flying down pit road with like two or three laps left, sliding through his pit stall. Okay, that's what I was going to ask if that was the one where he slid through the pit stall. He slid through the pit stall wide open, just grinding gears.

Pissed off. 1990, runs over a little piece of a bell housing and blows out of the right of your tire. Derek Cope goes on to win the race. This happens in turn three on the last lap. I was like, hell, what a badass. Drove a damn car in a turn three with no right rear tire to 100,9 mile and iron, didn't even hit the wall. Yeah. Ripped the whole quarter panel off.

I thought that was cool. So, and his rookie year is one of my favorites, the 1979 Daytona 500. Obviously, we remember that race because of the fight in turn three, the king, Richard Petty, coming to the finish line to win. the first live telecast flag-to-flag race for NASCAR as a sport. And here's Dad in it as a rookie, his first attempt, and he's up there drafting and passing in leading laps, legitimately a quick competitive car. He actually finished in top 10 and did well all day.

Didn't have the best car. I mean, the one, the 11, Kell Yarborough, Donnie Allison. Those guys were leading consistently. but dad had enough speed in his car to be able to get up there and race with him and stay with him, stay in the lead pack. So that was pretty awesome. They were talking about him throughout the race, and it's so funny how they talked about him then and how we would know him and remember him now.

He wasn't the intimidator, and he was a young guy racing with the veterans, so it was funny to listen to him, describe him, or talk about where he came from and all that stuff. That's pretty crazy for your first Daytona race, and you leading some laps like that back then, I would say. Yeah, I mean, there weren't but six, eight competitive cars. So to be in a car even with enough speed and quality to do that was a, he's pretty lucky guy. I would think at that point. He was quite the wheelman. He was.

So we got a lot of great history at Daytona. I'm hoping that we'd go down here and have some success and add to those wins. I'd love to pass Tony Stewart and be second. Yeah, if you win the duel and the 500. Yeah. So we'll have to come back in July and try to break that tie. I want to read a few tidbits here about Daytona International Speedway, the history of the track.

I think, Tyler, you might be surprised by some of this stuff. Were you surprised? Well, it's just good to read every once in a while. Not just anything, but great stuff about Daytona. Let's see, there's 37 different drivers have won the Daytona 500. 37. And what, this would be about the 50? This is the 59th run.

37 different drivers. That's pretty impressive. Richie Petty has seven. Oh, Daytona 500 wins. So he won seven, and there's 37 different drivers. Yeah. So there's only like a couple, you know, multi-winners. Yeah.

And you're one of them. Yeah. The last two Daytona 500s were first-time winners. I mean, if there's 37 different ones, there's probably a lot of first-time winners. And they're surprised it's just the last two. There are only two in the last two in the last two. The last five Daytona 500s that are the first-time winners. The last five Daytona 500s, only two first-time winners.

Does that make sense to you? That makes sense. 11 drivers have won multiple Daytona 500s, including you. Yes, you just said that. I know. We're reiterating how awesome that you are. You are. Well, that's, you know, 10 active drivers have won the Daytona 500.

Can you name the 10? You? Yep. Jimmy. Yep. Lugano. Denny. I, uh, yeah, I like where you.

you're going. I don't. No, I don't. Matt Kenseth. Oh, yeah, he won a couple. Michael Walter? Oh, I didn't know he's that. He's in the 500.

This is the last race. Trevor Bain. Oh, yeah. Harvick, you forgot him? Yeah. Jay and Murray won in 2010 and Ryan Newman in 2008. Dang.

I forgot all those. The last 14 Daytona 500 polls were won by 14 different drivers until this season. Chase has done it two years in a row. Allen has three in a row with Jeff Chase and Chase. That's very impressive.

That is. I'm telling you, man, Alan is smart. Nine drivers got their first career polls in the Daytona 500, including three of the last four races. Danica Patrick, Austin Dillon, and Chase Elliott. See, everybody, that brings up something. Everybody was like, oh, it's a conspiracy. Dale's going to get the poll, or Daniel Suarez is going to get the poll,

and we did not get the poll. Who said there was a conspiracy? People talk. Oh, my gosh. Dale Jarrett's the last driver to win the, Dayton's. from the pole in 2000. Pretty interesting. You'd think that, you know,

pole winner, fast car. You hold it wide open. That race is so crazy. Yeah. It's pretty interesting. All right, two drivers. Only career win is at the Daytona 500. Who are those two drivers?

Trevor Bain and Derek Cope. Derek Cope won at Dover. The same season that he won the Daytona 500. Mario Andretti, 1967. That was before my time. Well, these things are, important to know. You need to study your history.

How about this? This is a pretty unique stat. The fewest laps led by Dayton 500 winner are two by Jane McMurray in 2010. And all of his laps that he led were after the scheduled distance of 200 laps. He led lap 207 and 208. Isn't that credible? That is pretty crazy. That is crazy.

So nobody's ever just made the last lap pass and that was the only lap they led? I just told you. Yeah. I heard you tell me. Most runner-up finishes into the 500. That has five, and I have four. Well, don't like tie him this year. That would suck.

I'm kidding. The Daytona 500 went on to win the championship nine times. Richard Petty did it four, Jimmy Johnson twice, once by Lee Petty, Kell Yarborough, and Jeff Gordon. Did you know that Dale Earnhardt won five straight Xfinity races? That's the record? Well, I'm sure.

What did you win? Three? I'd be talking about someone else if they had one more. Tony won a bunch, and you won a bunch their first stretch. You bring up a stat. Let's see. All right, so you did know Delernhardt won five straight Xfinity races at Daytona in the February Xfinity race.

How many dual races in a row has he won? It's either nine or ten. God, that's ten. You can't have two answers. Anyways, let's get on down next topic, 2017. look. What's your outlook on 2017, Tyler? For the 88 team.

I'm expecting a couple wins and to be... Two wins? That's it? A few wins. Yeah. I expect to win the 500. Oh. Yeah. And then just one other win after that. Yeah. Homestead.

I hear you. I hear you. Go to the championship. Now, a few wins. Because if you watched last year, there were races and there were just a missed opportunities to where you could have had better finishes. Well, that's every year. And you ran 18 races and finished second four times.

People kind of lose sight of that. Yeah, we had a good year started. We ran great at Phoenix. Yeah. We ran great at Texas. Yeah, so maybe. You know, I think that coming out of the box here after being out of the car for six months, you know, I was thinking about this last couple, last 24 hours with how kind of disappointed I was that we got beat for the poll.

I was thinking, man, you know, just a few hours before that poll, I was just glad to be there. Just glad to be back and be in the car. And so I tempered my expectations for this year, and that lasted until I got beat for the pole. So that was a little disappointed. So I realized that I'm not going to be able to control my competitive fire passion. as well as I wanted to. I get really been out of shape when we don't do well, and I want to get better at that.

So trying not to set goals and setting yourself up for any kind of disappointment is something that I thought might be a good practice, but, you know, I'm going to, you know, you're going to get out there and race and want to win and be disappointed with anything less. But I told Greg, I said, I think we can come out of here and be just as strong as we were last year right out of the gate.

we're going to be, you know, we're going to be competitive and have an opportunity. I told him, I said, as far as I'm concerned, me and you, we're, you know, this team, we're top three. We should go to the track, and I feel like we can run top three. If we don't, we need it, you know, we'll get the answers why and work on it. But I don't think that we have to, you know, build momentum and knock off a bunch of rust or anything. anything like that. I think we can hit the track and be competitive right away. And I like all the tracks that we start to season with. We always kind of start really strong anyways.

So I look forward to having some good competitive runs early in the first third a year. And it's going to be interesting, you know, with all the changes they made on how the points all shake out. But same for everybody. So figure it out. That's right. We don't really have goals, team goals, top fives, wins, da-da-da-da. We don't really set, you know, specific numbers. We definitely want to make the playoffs,

and we want to be there at Homestead for the opportunity to win the championship. That's really all that matters. Each year you kind of define your goals a little bit differently, or you have a better idea, I guess, of what you can't accomplish knowing what you did last year. But this is a different situation, having been off for six months. So we're just hit the track. Take some great race cars to the racetrack, and Greg's in a great, great place,

you know, attitude-wise and mentally. I think the team is, you know, the team is pretty much still the same group of guys that we were all there last year. So just have a new engine tuner. We do, and he's a great guy, a lot of fun to work with already, already a favorite amongst the group. All the guys getting along great with him. Anyways, you know, looking forward to looking beyond,

Daytona a little bit. Atlanta, you know, we got this new low downforce package. Atlanta is going to be the track where that is going to be the toughest. Yeah. Gosh, that place is so slick. Imagine with less downforce than we had last year. I can't wait to go there and see what that's like. We always ran great at Phoenix.

Always look forward to going there. We tested there, so feel confident we can go in there and run well. But, again, going to Daytona, try to win that Daytona 500 and get the year kicked off right. we'll see how it goes from there NASCAR's got a new concussion protocol Tyler the fans I'm sure seen a little bit about this on

social media and so forth some articles have been written about it basically it's a very small change as far as you know drivers are creatures of habit we like repetition

doing the same thing all the time this is really not asking us anything that we're not comfortable with doing in the past when a driver driver crashed. If he couldn't drive his car back to the pits, he had to get into the ambulance, and they took him the Oval Care Center and checked him out. And if you could drive your car back to the garage, you could just go home. So now if you have crashed and you take your car to the garage,

you've got to get checked out. They'll take you to the infield care center, and they're also doing these scans, right? Yep. So we can get our head scanned and make sure everything's clear. So I like this. I think it's a very small change, but a good change in the right direction to sort of, the drivers need to be protected from themselves. So, you know, a lot of times, and also if you do have a concussion,

you're not going to be making great decisions. You know, judgment is impaired. For example, last year at Michigan, you drove the car back to the garage. Yes. So this scenario, you would have got checked out before leaving the track, right? Which is good.

It is good. So we're happy about that. Applaud it. Celebrate it. Good job NASCAR. Let's get to the Twitter questions this week. Do you hope Chase takes the top or bottle on Sunday? I'm imagining that Chase is going to take the top and want me to let him in.

You know, that's just my... That's good teamwork. Yeah, I mean, that's what we've done in the past. So I'm assuming that's probably going to come up in the team meetings, that kind of discussion. so I'm ready. I'm ready for that discussion. How does starting on the front road change your approach to the race? It doesn't.

You know, I think that the race is so long, it might change your approach a little bit toward the week and how you go through the week. I don't know. I mean, I've wrecked them. I've sat on the pole and wrecked my car and had to get out of backup before. So we've been through anything you can have been through

in speed weeks before. So I don't know. The race is so long, you're going to be up and down and facing all kinds of different adversity throughout the day. So I don't think it really is an advantage. I guess picking your pit stall is a huge advantage. So we'll have a great pit stall. Maybe be able to avoid some calamity on pit road. Otherwise, I don't know what other advantages it might have.

Someone else asked, why has Daytona become such a handful as far as the handling, particularly daytime? Yeah, I mean, it's just the beach. It's sandblasted throughout the year, the wind, you know, blowing the sand around, kind of blasts the track. And, you know, another track that does this similarly is Fontana. It's kind of in a dust bowl. So it's, you kind of get, you know, good wear and tear throughout the season, throughout the year, throughout the winters on the surface.

And this track is starting to gray up, you know, starting to age quite a bit. and it was very slick before they repaved it. Tons of fun, and I can't wait until it continues to age. Every time we come back, you're hoping that it's slicker and harder to get a hold of. Because it's fun, you know, it's not as fun when it's just about who has the fastest car. When you get it 10, 15, 20 laps into run and it starts to become more about handling than actual power and speed. that's something that you think as a driver you can have an influence on you're working on that in practice with your crew chief if you got a great crew chief he's going to give you a good handling

car that's where you can really get advantage and have some fun you know driving racing trying to drive a car around the track what's your thoughts on biffle not getting a quality ride you know i don't uh you know if you watched biffle on social media this winter he's been a lot different like he's just enjoying himself. Yeah. Okay. And I think I can relate being out of the car. It gave me a new perspective, I think, on just what life's about or just what life

might be like after driving. And I think that he, I think he's okay with it. You know, it didn't seem like he's too damn worried. You know, if you're just following social media, it seems like he was just having a good time and enjoying himself. And I don't think that, you know, he's a pretty smart guy. I don't think he's wasted his earnings. I think he's probably set himself up really well and has other opportunities.

Sounds like he might be doing some TV. Yeah, he's working for NBC, I think. Yeah, so. He's fine. Yeah. I'm, you know, I actually, I would consider us good friends. And if I know him, I think that he's all right. If he gets a quality opportunity, he'll take it.

Otherwise, he's, you know, he was, he's, you don't know it when you look at him, but he's like 46, 47 years old. I mean, he's been around a while. How many more years did he really want to run anyways? I mean, if he got a great race car, he'd keep running forever, but you're not always going to have that great equipment. Especially when you get up that age, I mean, sponsor opportunities thin out because the sponsors have a certain target demographic. that they need to go for. Does a 47-year-old male hit that demographic? Well, those areas start to thin out and get a little smaller.

Obviously, there's a lot of talent coming up through a series, and those guys are going to get the opportunities. Somebody's going to have to, you know, somebody's going to replace you at some point. Me too. Somebody asked about your eye twitch. You tweet. Yeah.

Man, my eyes been twitching. My right there. My eyelid, right the right, the right, the right, one at the, on the bottom side. It's been tuition for a month. I didn't know whether I was raising too much hail because I got married and we went on on my honeymoon.

But, or Amy says something about magnesium. But my doctor, I text him today. And he says, I'm in a remote village in Honduras. And I'm getting these, you know,

I'm barely getting my text messages. You probably just need rest. I was like, sorry to bother you, Doc. He's on a mission. He's a badass. So, I mean, when I say he's on a mission, he's on a real mission. So I was thinking, man, I just need to not worry about my eye twitch. He's out there helping people.

And another question related to getting married. How many of these different color rings do you have? Oh, really? So I've noticed that I'm wearing, I got the black one on today. Let's see. I got them all right here. Let me get them out of this bag here. I got, uh, we got red, gray, bright red, blue,

Leon green, three different blues, four blues. I got a camo one. Okay, just lime green, orange. I also have my real wedding ring, my wooden one that Amy got me. I don't know, let's see 15, 15 different colors. My favorite part is that you color coordinating with like the fire. suit. Oh, yeah.

I wear blue with my blue fire suit. Yeah, which makes sense, I guess. Thanks. You could just go black and be boring. Boring. You know who else wears these? Who? Your favorite quarterback, Kurt Cousins.

That's my second favorite quarterback. If he had socks, like Cam Newton has socks. Graham Ray Hall. Another Qualo ring wearer. Say that three times fast. Qualo ring, quailo ring, quail. I can't say wearer. That's the hiccup for me. Try it.

Let's get back to the question. Somebody asked, do you think that the clash should be a daytime race moving forward? Hell, yes. You think they'll do it? Did you see my timeline? Boy, I was retweeting like hell. Anytime anybody said anything good about the clash being in it during the day, I was retweeting it. I've been saying for a long time that the clash needs to be a day race.

What these people were thinking running that thing at night. Ain't nobody's showing up for that. Anyways, you got qualifying, clash, sell one ticket, come see both. I thought yesterday's schedule being at the track was awesome. Yeah, they used to do it that way. Somebody knew what they were doing when they started this thing. So I kind of, yeah, I think that they saw that it was a good deal. I don't know if they'll admit it and change it.

That'll be, that's a big question going into next year. The thing about it is, is there's more to it than just, hey, NASCAR, this is what you need to do. The tracks got to have a lot, the tracks have a ton of influence on what happens and when it happens. And the tracks need things happening every day. So the people are there buying stuff. You know, souvenirs, refreshments, whatever. And if they put everything on one day, the tracks can't make any money. That's why we practice on Friday, Saturday.

They could make this a one-day show in a couple of racetracks or a two-day show at places like Texas and so forth. But the tracks can't make you money that way. They need people to come in, spend money on camping, lodging, all that stuff. Speaking of lodging, there's been some hubbub about the expense of the lodging in Daytona. So it's more to get a hotel room in Daytona for the Daytona 500 than it is to get a hotel room for the Super Bowl. Do you hear that? I heard that.

That's ridiculous. Yeah. I mean, it's ridiculous. I believe it. It's ridiculous that that's happening. Yeah. So the drivers are speaking up. Who else is going to speak up?

I know the fans are complaining. Yeah. We got the towns. And this is Eric Almorela and I are talking to talking about this. Eric says the towns, the tracks, the sport, the drivers. Everybody needs to get together and get this fixed. We got, somebody asked, what is the last old race you watched? Oh, man.

The Daytona 500, 1979, was on Fox. the other day. So I was watching that. What about it like on your server at home? On my server at home? See, I don't think people, I've been reading some articles about my server at home

and they're really not, they're not really painting the picture just right. It's not hundreds of races. It's thousands of races. And it's not at your home. It's in my office. It's in your office. But I can access it from anywhere

in the country on my iPad or I can watch it in my basement or whatever. Any race, I can dial it up. I use the Plex app to do this. And I can dial it up and pick any race and watch it right on cue. And there's races from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, all the way up to about mid-90s. So there's, like, so many freaking races.

I've got as many races as I think that are actually available or were telecast. So tons of races. The last one I watched, man, I don't know. That's hard to say. Somebody asked, what, is there something specific you? pay attention to in those races? No, no, no, no. I'm just, no, no, I'm not like learning anything.

I'm just watching them because I love to watch old stuff. So I'm a history buff. I like to learn about, you know, military history. So I watch a lot of military channel, history channel, obviously, aptly named. Also, you know, obviously anything with old racing magazines, and that don't mean, don't mean I need people to send me stuff. Now, I don't want people sending all kinds of old magazines because I got just about everything that there ever was.

I have all kinds of programs, race programs from back in the 70s and 80s. I have every race program from 1974. That was, I think, a Christmas present. Very creative Christmas present, I might add. You know, it's hard sometimes to come up with a great idea for what you get people for Christmas. Well, think about their birth year and get them some. some sort of magazine, every article from that, every magazine from that year, every one they

published and that deals with something they're interested in. That'd be kind of cool. For a buddy of mine, I got him every time magazine from the year he was born. So that was, you know, I have all of the stock car racing magazines, every single one they ever made, all the Circle Track magazines, every one they ever made. I had to buy some, you know, the older ones I bought on eBay. So I got a lot of history. I like really learning what I can. I see these old pictures, and I have a big old photo stream.

I'm rambling, but I have a big old photo stream on my phone that has 1,500 pictures on it of my dad. And none of them are newer than 1987. So it's dad, Ralph, and some other drivers in there, too. but it's specific to people that I'm fans of. Jimmy Means is in there. But 1,500 photos of dad and my grandfather and all that stuff from before 1987. So I like the old stuff.

I just want to watch them races just to see what happened. Somebody asked if you could run a car from any era, like if y'all could run a race. Yeah, 1979. I'm not, that's not, you know, I'm not stuck on 79, but 77, 78, 79. I would love to have raced Laguna. That was in the sport, Chevy product in the sport for a couple years. Kelle Yarborough won a couple championships in it.

Oldsmobile 442. I would have loved to race one of them at Daytona. Those things were the car to have. In the 1980, Daytona 500, the eight of the top 10 starters were Oldsmobile. 442 so if you didn't have one of them you were up a creek would you want to run Daytona or what track would you want to run I don't care you don't care it yeah I mean it's all about the car you think you could do no power steering they asked well listen but people don't know about power steering then and today so they

used to run specific caster settings that would allow the car to kind of turn left on its own they still do that today but But the cars without power steering actually weren't, they were hard, tough to do, but not like today's cars. If we lost power steering, you can't hardly drive these things. The way they do the caster and the front end settings and all that stuff, it's almost impossible to turn it in the garage when it isn't running. Like if we go to Martinsville with low air pressure, we got like eight pounds in the left front tire, you can't turn a wheel. You have to fire the car up to be able to turn a steering wheel. So, and to drive around the garage without power steering is almost impossible.

But, so the caster settings and the geometry settings in the cars then and today make a big difference. And that's why those guys, you know, they set the car up to drive easier without power steering. Somebody, you know, eventually brought that in. I think Jeff Bodine brought power steering in the early 80s, first car to have power steering. So I'm not sure I'm 100% correct on that, but I believe that's what I'm. I know. All right. I think we've taken enough Twitter questions today.

That was a lot of Twitter questions. Was it? Yeah, it was. That was kind of fun. It was. So we did this a little differently than we did last week. Last week we did the hashtag, so you'd send your question in on Twitter. This time, obviously, we're doing the Periscope.

And so if you want to be able to ask your question, you need to tune into the Periscope. Yep. Let us know how you liked it this way versus last week. I enjoyed this way myself. and again, keep sending us that feedback. All right, we recorded this podcast on Monday, and the reason why is because we have a, today on Tuesday, we're in New York.

So we have to go, all the drivers actually get sent all over the country to promote the Daytona 500. For example, Eric Amarola, we talking to him on the way home from the clash. He's going to Tampa, where he's born and raised, right? Yes, yes. And so he's going to promote some of the race there, and everybody's kind of in our own little part of the country

doing something to promote the race. We were picked by NASCAR to go to New York. I don't mind going to New York. It's the biggest media market, so. It is. It's going to be a full day. We're going to shoot. It's going to be cold, too.

It is very cold. Bring your scarfs, bring your big jackets. Especially the Today's show stuff's outside. So that's going to be, yeah, New York. We got a full weekend after that. Thursday, we got practice in the morning, then the duels. 7 p.m. Eastern on Fox Sports 1. You're in the second duel, so yours will start around 9.

Yeah, if you want to skip the first one, go ahead. Friday, Exalt the event with the track in the morning. We're going out to that injector. Injector, yeah, out front. So we'll be doing that Friday morning. Two practices in the afternoon. I have a Hellman's appearance at a wall, Walmart on Belleville Road, five miles from the track.

And that's at 6 o'clock. Yep. So if you want to come out to see us at Walmart for Helmonds, 6 o'clock on Billville Road, Saturday going to the Chevy stage outside the main grandstand at 1130 a.m. For Q&A, that's always a lot of fun, actually. Yeah. The Chevy stage Q&A. Well, they always have a great crowd.

Final practice is also Saturday. Is that a four hour? That's a four-hour practice? No, hour and a half. Hour and a half? Yeah. Oh. Exfinity race at 3.30 on Fox Sports One.

We've got five race cars in that race. That's a lot of the five for two years to win. Five race cars. Oh, my. So Sunday, obviously we've got the Daytona 500. It starts at 2 p.m. That's a little late. Should be starting at noon, don't you think?

Yeah. 2 p.m. Eastern on Fox. The pre-race starts about 1 p.m. they'll be airing interviews with me. Actually, they're going to be airing interviews with Amy and Jeff Gordon. Am I in there, too? You're in there, too. Well, hell, it does.

All right. So I'll be in that interview as well. They'll be airing that on the pre-races around 1 p.m. You're just like the side part of that. Yeah. All right, everybody. I hope you enjoyed the show. Thank you to Exalta for making it happen from the Exalta Studios here at Junior Motorsports.

That's right. Be sure to subscribe to the show through Dale Jr.com. iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher. I like saying that. And all the major podcasting outlets. And let us know your feedback on Twitter. It's at Dale Jr. and at Overstreet Tyler and also the Dirty Mo Radio accounts on Twitter and Facebook.

Awesome. See you guys next time. See ya. Thanks for listening to Dirty Mo 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.

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