The Dale Jr. Download - 176 - Downloading Live at JR Motorsports Fan Day

Episode Date: May 26, 2017

Dale Jr. and Tyler Overstreet record their first live podcast from the Dirty Mo Radio stage at the annual JR Motorsports Fan Day. JRM drivers Elliott Sadler, William Byron, Justin Allgaier, Michael Annett, Josh Berry, and Anthony Alfredo all stop by to talk to the boss about their seasons and share stories from life on the JR Motorsports team. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is Dale Jr. and you're listening to Dirty Mo Radio. All right, guys. Thank you for coming out. This is going to be a live edition of the Dale Jr. download, as Mike said. This is the first time we've ever done this. Usually we have a lot of editing to do, so don't screw this up. I hear a drone. Y'all hear a drone? I do hear that. Anybody got a 12-gauge?

Oh, that's our drone? Is that our drone? Is that a... Hey. That is our drone? Shoot first, ask questions later. It is? He doesn't know. So Mike.

Do I have this mic on? Okay. That mic is on. All right, so, yeah, this is a new thing for us. We've never done a live episode. And we may never do another one. I'm sure we will. But I've had a lot of fun with Tyler.

Tyler is kind of the road manager. He handles our schedule. We'll make sure we're on time for everything. Handles a lot of different things. It's got a pretty difficult job. I make sure the silver sharpies work. Yeah. So, yeah, if we're giving it, silver shoppies,

do not work out of the box. You have to sort of prep them. Yeah. And anyways, Tyler does a great job. We started this podcast this year. Well, the podcast, the download has been around for a long time with Mike as a host. But he turned the keys as the car over to us,

and we're having a blast doing it. Certainly this is an awesome day. I appreciate everybody coming out for Junior Motorsports Fan Day. And you guys get an opportunity to, yeah, give yourselves a hand. I appreciate y'all coming out. Come on, let's hear you. Let's hear you. Free pizza.

I had some of the Hunt brothers for lunch. Very good. Only a tough part about it is, and this is waiting for it to cool off. They made it to start to eat. They're making it fresh. So I've burnt the roof of my mom. mouth this today at lunch. It's very painful. That's unfortunate. We also have all we have a bunch of different booths out here for you guys to enjoy and check out to get to know some of our partners

better, some of the folks that actually make all this for us possible. And anyways, we got a little bit of an announcement to make, Mike. That's right. You want to come on in? Yeah, let's do this. So again, some of you might have already had this sneak peek on this thanks to the wind. But listen, I want to tell you guys what we're doing. As you know, Dale Jr. made a rather well-publicized announcement about a month and a half, two months ago, that this would be his final year in the Cup series. So let's just remind each other, he's still going to race a couple races here, though, so you haven't seen him for the last time in a race car. All right? Junior Motorsports.

Junior Motors just got a lot more important to you, didn't it? So we're going to have a tour, a campaign to carry us out to the back half of the season. You know Jeff Gordon did, Rusty Wallace did, Mark Martin had three or four of them. You remember these types of things. We're going to do the thing too. However, we're not launching it until Daytona, but for you guys, since you came here to Junior Motorsports, and we have a crowd that is watching on Facebook Live right now, we're going to do an unveiling of what this brand will look like, this brand logo.

And also, you guys are getting the first look, first crack at the Junior Nation Appreciation Tour merchandise that's in the Junior Nation store. So I hope that you guys go check it out. There's a lot of options there. But I'm going to turn it over to Dale. Let's uncover this thing. So you guys know what to look for. There you go, folks. The Junior Nation Appreciation Tour. This is what is going to carry us out through 2017. So every time at a racetrack, starting at Daytona, Daytona being July 1st, for the most part, with the exception of Loudoun, we're visiting tracks for the final time. We're going to be doing things to extend our appreciation, Dale's appreciation to all the people, and this is you that has made 18 years,

one of the best careers that we could ever imagine a storybook career. Dale, talk about how much that means to you on what the fans have meant for your career. Yeah, we were thinking about what do we want our message to be as we close out this season. And there'll be, you know, there'll be all kinds of things going on where track promoters and fans as well are going to try to show us their appreciation for everything we did. Well, we want to turn that back on to Junior Nation and all the fans that supported us over the years. This whole season is going to be about our appreciation to you. And this, you know, my career wouldn't have been anything like it was without the support of our fans. It wouldn't have been as successful.

It wouldn't have been as much fun as it's been. It just truly added a whole lot to every day, every race. And, you know, the fan base and Junior Nation, they're the first people there to pick you up off the ground when you're struggling. They're the first people there to celebrate with you when you're winning. They live right there with you side by side through all the ups and downs. And you guys, you invest so much. financially and personally into the relationship and what we do.

So we just want to make sure that you guys understand how much we appreciate that and how much that means to us and how much of a difference that has made in my life and in my career. So we're going to make this, you know, very, you know, we're going to make a lot of fun and show the fans really what they mean to us. And so we're going to have a lot of fun along the way. And we're still working hard, and we still want to go out there. And if I can, you know, the number one thing at the top of list, if we could, you know, I'd love to win some races and give you guys something to be excited about

and give you guys something to enjoy. I know you guys, we're going to show you. We're going to show you how much we appreciate you guys. But I know the number one thing on top of y'all's list is getting wins. and that's what we want to do. So we're working hard on the racetrack, but off the racetrack as well, we'll be doing a lot of fun things

that you guys are going to enjoy. But it's just been an incredible experience for me, and I owe that to the fans, first and foremost. And we're going to make sure that you guys understand that and feel that throughout the rest of the season. Give yourselves a round of applause, folks. It's all about you to follow up on what Dale's saying. There's going to be ideas and things that you'll see us doing at race tracks

at the back half of the season. season that otherwise you're probably not used to seeing and that's all because it's all falls under this junior nation appreciation tours very good so appreciate you coming up here mike and helping us unveil that for the fans in attendance and everybody watching online we'll go ahead and start with a podcast we've got a great show today we're going to we're going to do some interviews we really don't have many people on our show that we've interviewed in the past we did call up jimmy johnson one day and talk to him about on the phone but We got Josh Barry, Anthony Alfredo coming up, the two drivers from our late model team.

We'll talk to them a little bit. We've got other junior motor sports drivers as well. But first off, we get Josh Barry and Anthony up here. Well, obviously, here we are at Fanday. So Fanday is a great opportunity. We always have it around Charlotte. Obviously, Charlotte's kind of our home track, and we're located 30 minutes from the racetrack itself. It's a great.

We have the Friday where we're not actually on the road. racetrack presents a great opportunity for the fans to come out here and check out a little bit about what we got going on and what junior motorsports is all about. Yeah, I've been here since 2009, and this is by far the biggest turnout we've ever had. We were driving in, and they're parked way up the hill that way, way down the hill that way. So thank you again to everybody that's come out and made this an awesome event. I mean, we're really an Xfinity team, but our fan day is by far the biggest turnout, I'm sure, in the sport. Yeah, what's your favorite part about the Junior Motorsports Fan Day events that we've had here?

The autograph session is fun. You like the autograph session? It's a little stressful. I'm sure these people seem to like autographs. I like all the free stuff. Well, the free pizza. They've got free beer over there. Free beer, free ice cream.

Is there free beer? Yeah. Oh, well. What is all y'all's favorite part about it? Hey, and that's my least favorite part. So we'll talk a little bit about the 600 this weekend. We struggled last week in the All-Star race and talked a lot about that in our periscope and everything we do. We really enjoyed doing the periscopes as well.

We've done a few today, actually, to tell everybody what we're doing this morning. We completely changed the setup of the car. We're geared a little bit more toward the 48th car. car set up because he ran the best last week. And Greg and all the guys were actually in the simulator, which is about 30 minutes from here all day to day with Alex Bowman going through different changes. We've worked yesterday on the car.

We have some things we want to improve. They go to the simulator today and actually plug in some ideas on how to fix some of those things. And Alex and I will talk later today. And I called Greg just a few minutes ago and I'll talk to him again tonight. So we're working really, really hard, even today as we speak, on trying to get better for tomorrow's practice, and make sure we give ourselves the best opportunity we can to run better.

We don't want to run like we did last week. I'll touch you on a little bit about Jimmy and the setup. So I called Jimmy. I said, hey, we're going to go a little bit like you ran this past week at an All-Star Race. And I know you guys know Jimmy and what kind of. kind of driver he is. I'll tell you a little bit about the kind of person he is, kind of teammate he is. So I called him. I said, we're going to try, you know, we're going to try to run your setup. I might lean on you a little bit and have some questions. No problem. Call me any time you

want. He's a good guy. So he calls me before we get to the racetrack. Just let me know if you need anything. I'll be available all weekend. And, you know, anytime you've got any questions, just let me know. Midway through practice yesterday, he comes over to the car. I'm in the car. in between runs, and he comes over during practice, like as practice is going with sheets in his hand. And it's a comparison sheet of mine and his throttle and our steering, and the lines are kind of laid over top of each other, and he puts it in the car, and he's like,

here's what I'm doing with the throttle, and here's what you're doing, and I see this and that and the other, and try this and maybe look at this here and really detailed stuff about how each of us is driving the car, because if I'm going to run his setup, I kind of got to learn how to drive it like he's going to drive it, how he makes it work. And so really impressed me that he took that kind of time, even during his practice session that he's in the middle of as well. As soon as practice is over, he calls me or he texts me, says, hey, I'm over at my bus.

I just thought about some other stuff that I want to talk to you about. Give me a call. So I called him up and we ran over a few ideas that had just stumbled into his head. And he's like, I would just want to touch base with you on that. we qualified and I got home last night and he called me when I was just getting ready to eat and he called me and he said just wanted to ask you how your laps went and we talked about qualifying and what we're feeling what his car did and went over really both of our days and so just incredible support and he's you know he's I've always said he's a great teammate

those are the reasons why he's a good teammate that makes a good teammate that kind of, you know, where both of you kind of looking out for each other, helping each other. I've been in teams before where the teammates didn't talk really that much at all. The teams didn't communicate that well at all. But at Hendrick, it's a completely different culture. And it's really awesome to have guys like that that you're competing against, but you also, they're transparent and have an open book. So hopefully that's going to pay off for us this weekend and we're going to be able to run well.

We'll find out tomorrow really what kind of race car we got. We didn't practice yesterday at all in qualifying trim or in race trim. So we don't really know exactly what kind of race car we got. We're going to find out tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to it. I'll talk to Greg a little bit more tonight about our day into CEM today, so what they learned there. I guess it's time to bring up our first two guests. We're going to bring them up together.

Yeah. You got enough room over there. You're sitting kind of in the middle of the couch. Somebody can sit right there. That's weird. I mean, let's put it right there. Scoot on down. We're all one team.

We're going to bring up Anthony and Josh Barry, Anthony Alfredo. This is, Anthony is won two races already. Yeah, he swept that hickory, which is Josh's track. Josh, yeah, he came into Josh's track and destroyed him. Just destroyed him. So anyways, Josh Barry, let's introduce Josh. This is his eighth year with Junior Motorsports. Josh is a track champion at Motor Mile in 2012

at Hickory Motor Speedway in 2014 He's got 10 wins from last year 14 wins and 24 races in 2016 I mean 10 wins in 2015 sorry So that's 34 wins over those two periods Those two years He's got two wins this year Why the slow start?

I don't know Just haven't had the luck on our side I guess Well currently your fourth in points you're going to be able to run every car's tour race this year, right? Last year he missed the Cars Tour race to be able to run Iowa in the Xfinity series. Anytime we get an opportunity, we try our hardest to get Josh in an Xfinity race, because really that's logically the next step for him. But it's been a real, real challenging for anyone, for that matter, to move up.

So you missed the race last year, and what I thought you would have probably won a championship had you made that race, just even competed in it, no matter where you finished. obviously with 14 wins and 24 races you had a pretty good year last year so he's fourth in points in the cars tour Anthony is brand new to junior motorsports first year with us he swept the cars tour doubleheader at hickory this year right out of the gate starts winning races and he's currently second in the cars tour points

and they just finished up at Bristol this past weekend or correct so really excited to have you guys up here you guys are kind of like you know, we've always had the late model team, and Josh is a big, big part of its success. Obviously, he's been a part of that team for a really long time, but we love having the late model team because that's really where the core of the sport is. And some of my favorite memories in racing period are from the times in our late model raced. So, Josh, when you started with us, it took a while for that team to find success. and now, you know, you're winning multiple races during the season.

So how did y'all get from relatively being, you know, being an average team and struggling to get those kind of wins to kind of, you know, you could say you're kind of dominating the series at this point? Yeah, it's hard to say. I mean, with racing, it's so many little things, you know. I mean, I think we had, you know, we obviously got a little bit better cars, a little bit better motors. I think, you know, especially on my side, I became a lot better race car driver,

and really the biggest thing with racing is just people. I mean, it's just all about the people that you have around you. And we added Brian Schaefer on our team, and he's been really, really smart. He kind of runs our deal between him and L.W. Miller. And it's just really, we were just able to really kind of focus on what we were missing and get our cars where we needed to be. And really, over the past few years, we've had a lot of success. So between y'all's two cars, how many full-time employees do you have?

Three, including myself. Okay. How many engines do you have? How many engines do your car run? Lately, it's been going through a lot. Lately, we haven't been keeping them together, but usually each one has one or two. Right. And y'all run a different engine to a different track. So you explained that to me, which I couldn't believe it, because when I race late miles, we had one motor, and we just were lucky to have one, or glad to have that motor.

You just wanted one that had a lot of power, whether it really had any power or not, you wanted the motor guy to tell you it had power. And now y'all run different engines per different tracks. And why is that? Just different ranges of power, I guess. Like a lot, you know, the motor that we run in the majority of the time is just the 604 crate motor, which is just a crate motor. And it's a little bit down on power compared to some of the other options.

But a lot of the places we race at are just worn out and slicks. I mean, it'd be like a Darlington or somewhere. And you don't need that power. Yeah, so it actually, I feel like it's kind of like traction control. Yeah. It's like a motor's detuned a little bit. Yeah. So that option for us just seems to worry.

You know, it's just a package. And I think that package works very well with our cars. And, you know, racing at all the worn-out tracks, I think it just allows us to, you know, keep the tires on it longer for the longer races. And it's just been good for us. I mean, the other option is, you know, right now for late miles, you know, what would be a traditional built motor.

And normally that's what we run into places where, you know, there's more grip and more horsepower needed. So when you're racing at Hickory, you actually dial it back and you kind of save the tires. Kind of jealous because we don't do that in the Cup Series. Our tires don't wear out. Yeah. Yeah. It's, I mean, especially, you know, the majority of our races are 125, 150 laps long of races.

So you're not up there, you know, driving away every lap. You kind of sit back and save your tires. Yeah, it's usually work. I found that that works best for me. Usually when I wear them out, they're not good at the end. But, yeah, you know, I mean, you only get one set. So, I mean, that's what you got to do. You've got to make them last.

Well, and how are you going to turn your season around? Only two wins. Let's see, your fourth in points. How are you going to turn your season around where you can win the championship? I don't know. This one right here is running pretty good. But we've just really kind of had some bad luck. You know, the twin races that he won, not knocking you, but I was –

Oh, here we go. Well, you started it, so whatever. But I was in the lead, had engine. failure and actually probably you know I always think about this this was one of those I remember talking with you so many times about things you remember about racing late model racing and how much fun it is you know this was not one of the better memories that I've had I've won a lot of races but the other you know the other week that race the twin race at hickr we blew up on lap 55 I think and oiled the track down terribly which was great for us in this situation we had

a spare motor and we decided it was twin races so we pulled the, you know, pulled the car over there and started pulling the motor out of it. And we actually had the motor out basically as he was winning the first race and then changed the motor and, you know, used our spare or whatever, put our spare in it. And was literally done, they made us go through tech. And we were literally going through tech, you know, warming the motor up as they were on the track for pace laps, just merged out, had to start dead last and started dead last and drove to second without a caution. fresher tires because you know you didn't have that many laps I mean that was that was part of it

I'll give you that that was you know that 15 laps right Hickory is and how hard it is on tires you had you had them yeah you had them about 25 laps on tires didn't you it was closer to about 15 but yeah I mean no I mean how much of a difference is 15 lap tires Anthony a lot that's why he caught me I do he'd say that but either way I mean I'll be on no I'll be honest I mean I never expected to even come back and finish second like that so that was one of those moments where I was like looking back on it, we were all like, man, that was pretty awesome. We just did that. Like, that was pretty fun.

I mean, obviously we didn't win. He won, which was great for our team, but still just for us to be able to, you know, a lot of people would have just put it on the truck, but we decided to go for it. Now, you know, with Anthony running well, I'm interested to know how you guys kind of lean on each other as far setups go. Do you set the cars up? Do you set it up, like, do you give, you know, since you're so good at Hickory, do you take Anthony to the racetrack with your setup?

And y'all kind of, do you go separate race at that point, or do you both kind of follow each other through the day as far as the adjustments you make? How did the two teams operate together? Is it transparent? Do you all share information? Do you kind of separate each other at the racetrack and do want, you know, you kind of own your own terms? No, I mean, when we leave, they're nearly identical. You know, there might be a couple small things that are changes. But, you know, kind of when they get there, normally we kind of go, you know, we start working our own ways, you know, and if they find something that works, you know,

come back to me, hey, you know, we did this, it helped it. So for the most part, we try to keep them pretty close, you know, because it's just easier that way to know, you know, you're at. Because you can always, you know, the big thing for us is like, you know, you don't want to get the car so separate that if one's way off, you can't get it, get it where it needs, you know, get it to where the other car's at. So they're both really close and, you know, we try to keep it that way because it's just so much easier. Yeah. So, Anthony, this is your first season with us. Right out of the gate, you know, you come in and get the, some wins. You ran really good at Hickory.

You tell us a little about your experience there. The first time to Hickory won the bigger racetracks. You had to been a dream just to even go there and run laps. I would have been thrilled to have had the opportunity at such a young age to run at Hickory or at Bristol. So tell us a little bit about that weekend. Bristol was awesome. It was just pulling out there compared to Hickory or something when you pull on the track. It was definitely, you know, you've become really appreciative of the whole sport and everything.

but it was a pretty good weekend. I mean, Josh and I were both pretty fast, and the race track's way different than we've been on. It's so much faster, and there's a lot of grip. And the race, well, I got into the fence and qualifying, so I kind of messed this up, bent the track bar mount, and bent a lot of stuff, so everybody on the team works so hard, like so hard changing the rear end, the hubs, drive shaft,

a lot of right front work. I got smacked a pretty good. we had to change a lot, started dead last, and they did, because of the rain coming, they broke the race up into 50-lap segments, so we ended up being in ninth at the end of the first segment, you know, from start to 30th. So I'm like, wow, like, I thought, I didn't know how I was going to drive. I had no idea if it was going to be good, if it was going to be bad, but it was pretty good. So we went out at the second segment, and we're running the top five about to get a couple cars on a restart and probably run third, maybe even if there's a late race,

we start, you know, get a shot at the win or something. But I got into a guy in front of me, and he ended up wrecking, so they sent us to the back again. And there was only 25 laps left, so it wasn't quite enough time, but we still came from last all the way to 6th again. So, I mean, just to finish that race wasn't a bad thing because they tore up some stuff over there. But it was a lot of fun. I learned a ton and to drive from the back twice. I think we showed what we're capable of doing, which is a good thing. Right. So since you're new, tell us a little bit about where you're from and what your racing experience has been prior to coming to junior motorsports and driving the late malls here.

Yeah, so I'm from Ridgefield, Connecticut originally. So I still live there, but I'm down here most of the time for the race season. And I started racing go-karts and I was six years old. And I did that for quite a few years until I was about 10 or 12. And then I took almost five years off from racing, just playing sports and everything. I'm like, why the heck did I stop racing? You know, that's the thing I was the best at. It was my favorite thing to do. I enjoyed it the most. So I got into a legend car at the end of the 2014 season, so I ran throughout the winter.

I ran, and that's when I started coming down here because, you know, obviously it snow is up there, so you can't do any racing in the off season. So I ran winter heat at Charlotte and then winter nationals at Orlando, Florida. And then I only ran about 12 races, and then I got into a stock car after that and ran limited late models in 2015 and last year as well I ran a few late mall stock starts last year so uh I had some experience in stock cars and I've I'd won two races a championship last year and limited late models so it was kind of you know coming here now is definitely helps us because I have some experience so it we kind of start moving get rolling a little bit faster and it's definitely helped but

just to be with this race team so I'm really grateful for just uh I mean how respected it is and I don't know it's just so cool I mean Dale Jr's right here you kidding me but even Josh I mean I when I first got to a stock car we go to Hickory Josh is you know when you think of Hickory you think Josh Barry he wins there every night so to be racing alongside of him and have him mentor me and learning from him helps a lot well we really are excited about what you guys are going to accomplish the rest of the season how many more races are in the cars tour Anthony how many more y'all got What?

11 more? 10 or 11. 10 left? Is that enough for Josh to rebound? Yes. Is it? And Anthony, your second points. I mean, are you starting to think, are you getting nervous about maybe, hey, Matt, could win this championship in my first year?

Are you even thinking about that, or you just kind of, you're still in the honeymoon phase? No, I think we can, honestly. The first car store race of the year, we had a DNF at Concord, and then, you know, all the competitors in that series. years are really, really good. But it turns out, I mean, Josh and another great driver, Deke McCaskill, they both had DNFs too, and then after Bristol, we're second in points now. We won those two races, so I guess we're back in it, so we're going to try to go all the way. Cool, ma'am.

Well, we appreciate you having you guys up here. Give Anthony and Josh a round of applause for being a good sports. Good luck to those guys in the cars tour the rest of the season. Y'all represent us really well at the racetrack, and really appreciate you guys. So we'll be talking to you. to bring up our next guest Michael Annette, Junior Motorsports Driver. Driver of the number five pilot, flying J. Chevrolet. All right. Give Michael a hand.

Hi, guys. This is Michael's first year with us as well. Currently sixth in Xfinity points. Three top tens in a row. We're on a roll right now. We didn't want to see the two weeks off, that's for sure. Really? It's too early.

Who doesn't want two weeks off? I want two weeks off in July. Yeah. They'll give you two more off in, like, October. Yeah, yeah. It's, I mean, we always enjoy it. You know, you still find something fun to do, but when, like you said,

when you got three top tens in a row and your season kind of started off slower than you wanted it to, you want to keep going. What will you do in the two off weekends? What are your hobbies? I'm all over the place. I can go to the beach where you were just talking about. I love going to Nashville.

Just Nashville. The town? Well, we went for a Dirk's Bentley concert. But right now, I'd love to go watch the Predators in the Stanley Cup finals. Just any reason to go to Nashville, I'm on a plane or in a car. All right. So Tyler just mentioned your last several races. You've been finishing really well.

Season kind of started off a little struggle, which is with a new team, a brand new team, really. We expected it to take a little while to sort of start to make sense. But you're doing really well in the points. What do you think is the thing that's helped you all the most to start getting that consistency? And what's the next step for y'all? How do you find yourself getting better and being even more competitive? Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me, obviously, you mentioned, started a team really late working with a new crew chief. I'd actually worked with my crew chief about five years ago at Russie Wallace Raised.

He was an engineer, so we knew each other a little bit. It's his first time being a crew chief as well. So it took a lot of learning, and now we're starting to understand each other's language. You know, you and I were talking earlier. I spent three years in the Cup Series in a car that, you know, if we finished 30th, we were pretty happy with it. So I kind of had to get back in that mentality of, you know, dog eat dog, you know, fighting late restarts. And that's been the biggest difference. But right now we just, we got to qualify better.

We got to start getting some segment points. That's when you look at how many Justin and William and Elliott have acquired compared to me. I mean, it's just, it's huge. So I'd love to be up there, one, two, three, four. We're going to keep working hard and try to get that done. You've got some experience working with your crew chief. You guys worked together in the past, right? You can explain that a little bit.

Yep. I spent a year in what was then the nationwide series with Rusty Walls Racing. And Jason Stockert, he was. engineer and I think we went through two or three crew chiefs that year, but he was, he stayed to be the engineer the whole time. Well, tell us a little bit about the pilot business and you've been with them for a really long time, Flying Jay. Explain that relationship because it goes a little bit farther, it goes beyond racing.

Yeah, it does. I mean, I'm fortunate enough. My dad has a large trucking company up in Des Moines, Iowa. a lot of trucks, so that means we're buying a lot of diesel, too. So that got us in the door, got us the first few meetings, and really agreed on a lot of things. But, I mean, they started on my first late model with, you know, a sticker that big. And now it's, you know, in the second to premiere series in NASCAR on the hood on the quarter panel. So it's started off as a partnership.

Now it's a family deal, you know. They really, I know those guys well because, It has been a long relationship, and hopefully they'll be around for a really long time. So your family has been in racing for a really long time. You run a throwback scheme. It's kind of a throwback scheme each year, the black car. Tell us a little bit about family history and racing and how far back that goes. Yeah, growing up, like I said, my dad's company is in Des Moines, Iowa, and his uncle, or I'm sorry, his

brother, my uncle, took him to Knoxville Raceway, which I'm sure everybody knows about, and I was actually there when I was three days old. And watching what Dale and I've talked about it's probably one of the coolest paint schemes there is. It's that black with the gold prism, number one,

that Sammi Swindell drove for so many years. And what's unfortunate is NASCAR won't let us do it right. We have to do that fake prism. They won't let us do it right. We try every year, but it's not going to change. NASCAR has a way of doing stuff like that.

Yeah, they won't have, that prism is similar to what I use in our, in our cup numbers. And we have to, it's funny, a long time ago, NASCAR got rid of, wouldn't allow you to run reflective numbers. If y'all remember the Grey Ghost, Darrow Walter, the Wood Brothers, they all ran reflective numbers, and NASCAR took that away. When they started running the, the sensors on the, what do they call those things, on the back of the car, the lap time deals. Transponder, yeah.

So the transponder was getting screwed up with a reflective numbers. And that was one of the reasons. Probably some more reasons than that. And so when, anyways, long story short, I wanted to run like an old dirt-style number with that prism, just like you're talking about. And we had to send NASCAR like six different versions of it, and they could pick the most reflective one we were able

use, you know, and it was because I wanted to get as far as I could with it, and we showed up a couple times with it a bit too reflective, and they made us change it, but actually we had, I went to Phoenix. I did up a whole side of the car, like, but it was miniature. You could actually, it was like this big, and it had number 88 and the sponsor and everything on it, and I took Mike Hilton in between the haulers, and I showed it to him, and I said, will you approve this, so I could run it. Not so much.

Kind of like the old-school way of doing things instead of going into the boardroom. We were in between the haulers and he's going, oh, this is not, this is a little too reflective right here. So he did not approve that? I eventually got it approved. I knew that was the way to do it. If I sent it through the office, they had a thumbs down. So you got to get them, get them at the racetrack. They always tell us it's because it doesn't show up in pictures, right?

Really? Yeah, and I'm like, we send them pictures of my old late model. I'm like, this looks great. Look at these dirt late models that all run them. They figured it out. Just have Dale take it. It magically works that way. I honestly, well, we tried it at Richard Petty Motorsports

and the King couldn't get done, so it'll be... Oh, hey! Now, that's some news. That makes you feel pretty good. Well, man, we appreciate you having you own. Love having you a part of Junior Motorsports. Thank you. And we're excited about the rest of the season.

We've got a solid spot in the points right now, hoping to build on that. You guys are going to continue to build on your consistency and see what we can do in that chase. It's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, definitely. Hopefully many wins to come here. Absolutely. Thank you, buddy. Thank you, guys.

Thanks, sir. If you love Dale Jr., then Exaltor Racing is your go-to social media account on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. It brings you insiders info all weekend long on the 88 team. It's at Exaltor Racing, a must follow for any del. Junior fan. Do you want to call up their next guest? Are you going to just call them all up? Is he here?

I was surprised you even talked during Michael's deal. You wouldn't even talk during the late model guys deal. That's because there's only three mics and there were four people. Oh. Oh. Well, that's not my fault. Well, it's not my fault either. No.

I had a lot of questions for the late model guys. But now this particular, yeah, and so in the Michael interview you had a mic. I know. Okay. But you were asking such intelligent questions. Well, butt in. I don't want to insert my not intelligence. My lack of knowledge of prism numbers and reflective numbers and transponders.

And I'm just like, wow, that car looks good right there. Yep. I like that car a lot. And the history that that car running in the Dirt Series way back in the day is pretty cool. And it makes a great-looking race car, man. Black cars are just cool. They're going to run it a couple times. I know. They're going to run it this year.

He's got another throwback car for Darlington. It looks like one of the old sprint cars, so that'll be cool too. Yeah. So our next guest has been at Junior Moore Sports for a couple years now. This is the second year. He's been around a while. He's pretty good.

Is he? Justin? Yes. Yeah, he's good. Just give it away like that. It's okay. So Justin Algar is our next guest. Where's he at?

Yeah. Somebody called Justin. He's supposed to be up here. Is he getting a beer? He's getting a beer. I don't think Justin drinks. Yeah, Justin doesn't drink. Wow.

Bring me one too. So Justin's been a part of the team for a while. Let's see what your show sheet says about Justin. He's second in the series points. If the playoff started today, he would be number one. Woody. Yeah. That's right.

He's got one win at Phoenix. Somebody says not true. I don't know. One win at Phoenix. three top five finishes and five top tens. He leads the Xfinity regulars in playoff points with seven. He leads all Xfinity drivers in laps lead. That's pretty cool.

Yeah. That means they're running good. He probably should have won the last two races. Yeah. Which are controversial the way we lost them. I was disappointed that the cautions came out at Richmond. And it was frustrating. Yeah.

It was frustrating. We'll just leave with that. Yeah, because I asked you, so, that happened, then I asked you something, and then you're like, no. And I'm like, what's wrong? Pissed off about that. I was like, all right. I'll go outside.

Yep. Qualifines in 10 minutes. Oh, yeah. We were at the racetrack and that happened. Here he comes. He's in there eating some briars. Here comes, Justin. Are you going to ask him some questions?

No. I'm going to do all the talking. You're the host of this show. It ain't the Tyler Overstreet download. You're the co-host. He's not one. Tyler's in a terrible mood today. What do you mean?

He's always in a terrible mood. He's usually not this hard to work with. He's always in a bad mood. Always. This guy behind me just said, bring him a beer. That's a solution to everything. So today you're wearing the briars.

I've been doing wardrobe changes. Yeah, I've had Briars, and then I was Brandt, and then I'm back to Briars. And so Breyers is ice cream. How do you keep from eating all the ice cream? Well, so the best way to do it is they have these, like, nice little,

portion control. Yeah, portion control. That's the best way to do it. What's your favorite flavor of this stuff? Well, they have chocolate and vanilla over there, and I'm normally a chocolate guy, but the vanilla is amazing. It's got like the little vanilla bean. It's real.

They should dial up some birthday cake ice cream. That's good stuff. See, the problem with portion control, though, is if you eat 10 cups, it's not good for you. Like, you know, one cup. Like, they make them small like that, so you only eat one cup. And I always leave like, man, I need to eat more. so then you eat another one and another one and then you like, man, I eat.

Well, they make the cups the right size. What you do with the cups? Yes, they do. When you go to the grocery store and you buy the big tub of it, you just sit down on the couch and eat it straight out there. It's the right size. That's, yeah. Well, if you ride a bike, you can eat all ice cream you want.

That's technically true, yeah. And drink the beer. This is Dale's logic with riding a bike. Oh, yeah, I can eat this, this, this, this. He sent a picture to our cycling group that's got, like, how many beers you earned. Yeah. Like, I didn't even know that was a thing.

Oh. There's an option on your garment. that you can say, you know, for it to tell you how many beers you've burned, or how many calories you've actually lost? Earned or earned? How many calories you've lost so you can equate that to how many beers you could drink? Oh. I mean, I was impressed.

I mean, you've got to have motivation. Is beer like the standard thing? No, it's just one of the things you can choose. You can have this many chips. I don't know if they have the option to put in how many spicy tuna rolls I can eat. Yeah. I know that would probably what you would choose.

That would be amazing. This man goes to, uh, he, we both eat a lot sushi and he goes to the same, he goes to the same joint and eats the same role every freaking time. If you know something works, why would you go away from it?

It drives me crazy because there's so many options and you just keep it's the same boring thing. What does this have to do about how awesome Justin's doing? This isn't about me and you. This is about Justin. We've been running the same. every week, same boring thing. No. Good. Yeah. That's where this was going. Yeah. Sorry. They've been

up front leading laps. It's terrible, right? It's boring. Even, like, he's led more laps than all the cup guys, too. Yeah. It's pretty incredible. Yeah. Oh, hey. That's good. Hey, I didn't know that. I mean, that's a hell of an accomplishment. That is. I didn't even know that. You didn't know that? No. Yeah, so. I do know that we, like, we... I asked Tyler to bring some color to this show and Man, you're doing such a great job. It's those little nuggets, right?

It's the little nuggets of information. Just asking you shall receive. Yeah, that's all you had to do was ask. Did you, like, prepare for all, like, 37 guests you got on the day? Yeah, I've got stats. I had all this information about Anthony Alfredo. He's running better than Josh Barry. Weird.

Yeah, but Josh's had really bad luck. Michael Annette, that's not my problem. That's not Anthony's problem either. Michael Annette, three top tens in a row. You should have been two wins in a row. row. So let me ask you a question about that. I'm pissed off in the bus.

Tyler's pissed off. Tyler's not. He's like, hey, man, what's going on? I'm like, well, did you just watch the end of the exfini race? No. I watched it. Hey, you know, real quick. I will say this.

Like, if you told me that you lived in Colorado and you had a medical card, it would not surprise me. Like, his typical demeanor is just like, like, you're waiting for him to say he needs he's got the munchies. I'm just throwing that out of. Hey. He's kind of like Eeyore. Yeah.

It's kind of like Eeyer, yeah. I just like to give off this persona. That way, people, whenever I'm in like a jovial mood, they're like, wow, he's really happy to do that. All right. Well, enough about me. I was incredibly pissed off after the Richmond race. How do you, like, you got, you had to get out and accept the dash for cash in a weird, weird

situation. Now, how did you handle that really well? No, I did. I actually apologize to the folks of Xfinity because I said, because we went to Philly a couple weeks ago and did the takeover at Philly. And I told him, I said, you know, I feel terrible because I got out of that car and pissed off is probably an understatement, right? Like, I mean, like, it was terrible. And that, you know, like, obviously last year you won. And we were like, I was hoping we'd finish second, to be honest with you.

But we had a shot at the end with a late race restart. And I thought, man, this is going to be cool. And then it didn't work out. And so, like, I was aggravated that one, but this one, like, really hurt, right? Like, it was, like, really, like, the knife was deep. And so I apologize to folks in Xunia. I said, I don't want you to think that holding that check up or being part, like, having that honor of winning the Xenonitis your dash for cash was not, like, wanted, right? Like, that's a cool program.

I mean, it helps so many things, you know, go forward. And at Junior Motorsports, we've been lucky enough. We've won quite a few of them, so that's cool. I'm going to hold this because I'm scared. You thought I was going to hit you in the head, didn't you? I'm really worried the wind's picking up. This thing's going to take off. It might.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like a giant billboard. It's like a wind sale. I wish somebody would come get it. So yeah, I did have a... The worst part is honestly, like, I really wish Elliot and I could have raced it out. Like, I wish we could have gone at the end. Because, like, I mean, neither one of us would have wrecked each other to win the race.

How do you know? Well, I'm pretty sure of that. But I feel like it would have been one of those. epic battles that you just go, man, this is, this is cool. And Richmond in the daytime, that was an awesome race to begin with. Like, I'm a night. Dale told him to move it back to the nighttime. Hey, I'm a night guy, right?

I like, I love night racing, but I did feel like that was a good race. Now, we could go there for the next 10 years in the daytime, and it'd be terrible. But that race itself was fun because we were on the fence, on the bottom, through the middle, whatever. How about the Phoenix race? It was good. It was good. It was good. It was something exciting where you won.

It caused a party. Yeah, that was an awesome party. You guys were apparently drinking a lot of wine on the way. I was not. I bet you feel weird now even. Oh, somebody was. There was some wine being drank on the plane, yes. What are you just watching?

It was cold pizza and wine. Because, like, they ordered pizza for the plane fight back because they, I mean, I guess they assumed we weren't going to win the race. I don't know. Poor planet. And then, like, we win the race. So you got Victory Lane. And, I mean, we were there for a while, too, in Victory Lane.

I mean, they had a ton of people. So I think every one of them cornered you two in Victory Lane. I felt bad. Like, I looked over and Dale's like, you know, trying to enjoy Victory Lane. He's, like, smiling for pictures. I enjoyed it. It's fine. I know.

But so it was like, you know, two hours post-race or three hours post-race, whatever it was when we finally got on the plane. So the pizza was cold. It was terrible. But at least we had pizza and drinks and it was a good time. Did you get some pizza over there? I did. That was the first thing I did this morning. Ice cream and then pizza is not cold.

It's completely hot. Yeah, the, the, you tongue and your roof of your mouth, if you're not careful, will not live very long. I've never heard of anybody complaining about pizza being too hot until today. Hang on, hang on, no, no. If you take a bite of pizza and it's too hot and the cheese like sticks to the roof of your mouth or to like your, then you're trying to drag it out of your mouth and you burn your lip, like it's, it is bad. Maybe you should shave that beard and it won't take so long to drag out. I was eating the same pizza Tyler was eating, and it was burning the hell out of my mouth.

And he was just like... Yeah, you got to know how to eat a pizza. So I think you might be right about the medical card. I see, I told you. I told you. It's what it is. His face was turning really, really red. I'm like, wow, that is a hot pizza, apparently. Be a man about it.

So do you have, like, an uncannily hot mouth? No, I just eat a lot of pizza. every Saturday night on the road. His mouth is calloused. So growing up, he used to eat the little warheads. Do you remember those? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

You could prowess your tongue and you rip your mouth and you just eat it enough of those. Yeah. You eat enough of those and you learn. All right, so you've had a really good season. You got a lot of speed this year. Last year, it seemed like it was close but no cigar a lot of different times. We were excited about you getting an opportunity to get your first win. This year, man, I mean, you finished out last year,

really almost winning the championship, ran incredibly well at Homestead. Do you think the team seems to be a little bit improved even beyond last year? How do you maintain this competition and the success? So when you go into the playoffs, you put yourself in that same position, but make a little bit of a difference to win that championship.

You know, the one thing that was interesting last, year for me was, you know, I came into this group that had kind of already been together, right? Most of the guys that all worked with each other and there was just, like I was the new guy, right? So like walking into school when you're the new guy, you don't really know where you fit in. You don't know how things work. You're trying to learn it all. And they ran like a well-old machine. The problem with that, though, is when you go to the racetrack, you're still trying to learn each other.

And sometimes when the team works so well together, it's hard for the driver to really. really figure out how to make that connection a little bit better. You know, you're trying to learn and understand. And I feel like, you know, we started out the season. We started out slow. And to be honest with, I've been very vocal about kind of the struggles that I had on the Cupside and, like, mentally and physically just where I was at when I came in to hear Junior Motors.

I wasn't in a good place. I was because I was coming here, and I knew that I had a good opportunity. but like when I ended the season in 2015, there was a lot of, there was a lot of reservation and unknowns for me and where I was at with my career and what I wanted to accomplish. And to be honest with the question of whether I even wanted to go to the racetrack again ever or not. So last year, like the beginning of the season was we were just focused on I wanted to get back to 100% and understand those guys.

By the end of the year, I felt like we were jelled together, we were learned each other, we were really doing a good job as a group. and I feel like the off-season just made that stronger. You know, like, we just kept building on the things that we learned at the end of the year and we ended Homestead good. That always helps. If I'd hit the wall, like, 37 less times, we'd have probably won the championship. Or if Colwitt wasn't in front of me, I'm not sure which one, but.

Yeah, we all remember that. Restart. But, you know, I feel like we just came into this season. Like, we came out of the off-season. We said, okay, we know where we need to be at. We know what we need to focus on, and we did it. And I got wrecked the first two races, which was terrible. But it was like once we got to where we went to racetracks

where we had good luck and things worked, we had the speed. And, you know, luck is when opportunity to meet preparation. We had the preparation. We just needed the opportunity. We had that and it worked. Well, I appreciate it, man. Quickly before we let you go, you had a little practice yesterday for this race tomorrow, how you feel about your car.

It's really good. We actually fired off out of the truck. I think we made like a 22-lap run the first run of the day, and then we started off second practice late, and we ran like a 25-lap run. And normally, and you've been on the Xfinity side, with the limited amount of tires, you run two-three-lap runs.

You don't ever run a long run. And so we felt like the car was good enough if we could just focus on the long haul. So I feel really good about it. Either way, we got ice cream in the pits, so I'm not sure how that's going to work out when I come in for a pit stop, but I think tomorrow's going to be a lot of fun.

All right, buddy. We appreciate you coming on. Thank you, buddy. Good luck tomorrow. Thank you. William. Yeah. Find him.

Somebody find William. Yeah. Somebody find Willie. He's ready. Justin, man. He's a talker. What? I mean, a good way.

Yeah. Talk about, talk. You know, you just ask him a question. He'll just run on and on. Yeah. Very nice guy. Very, very nice guy. We don't give many interviews, so this is all new for us.

Many or any? Many. This is our second interview. Yeah. had Jimmy Johnson and it was like five o'clock in the morning where he was. He was in Colorado. I was like, there's no way he's going to be awake. He was up and working out. Yeah. He said he had to get up early in workouts so he could get it done for his kids woke up. Yeah. We don't have kids, so we don't know nothing about that. Yeah. You got dogs.

Otherwise, that would be incredibly impressive. When are you going to have kids? I don't know. When are you going to have kids? I got to get married first. You're already married. But you're getting ready to get married. Next year. Yep. I don't know. Yeah. Maybe they can grow up together. Depends. Maybe you'll have a son and I'll have a daughter and they could be just destined.

My gosh. That's just, I hate to think. Yeah. That would be. The Christmases would be amazing. Oh. Interesting. Where is William?

We've had a really good time with Justin being part of the team. He's a great spokesman for his sponsor. Now, William, on the other hand, he's a young guy. He's not got a lot of... Still a good spokesman for his sponsor. I know, but he's young guy. So he's gaining experience. But he came right out of the box with pretty incredible personality.

marketable. Don't you think? Yes. Good kid. Very good race car driver. Well, he's got a dang t-shirt on today. He's got a t-shirt. I was just talking about him up.

Oh, my gosh. He's walking around here like Dale Jr. wearing a t-shirt. Yeah. Like he just came out from changing somebody's oil. Yeah. We're waiting on you, bud.

There he is. William Byron. That sounds like a race car driver's name, doesn't it? Two first names. William Byron. Wasn't a Byron? is the first champion. Red Byron.

He's going to the Hall of Fame. William Byron. That sounds like a race car driver, man. You should be glad. That's good. That's really going to work out for you down the road. I hope so. Here comes a fast, William Byron.

Which announcer do you think is going to talk like that? Me? Oh, hey. Hey. Who knows? I might be doing the announcement. William Byron, coming down the front straight away. Taking lead.

so William you have the funny so I'm gonna give Kyle Bush a little crap right now for a minute okay so Kyle Bush so Kyle Bush my friend yeah yeah yeah so Kyle has this truck series team

you go drive for Kyle and after you get done driving for Kyle you come back to drive for us and Kyle's like you're you're welcome for teaching you know teaching this kid all I know but he forgets that you actually drove for us first.

Yeah. So we might have taught you a few things that actually helped you in the truck. He wants to take all the credit for how good you are. Of course, that's just way Kyle is. But we're really excited to have you back. We really, really enjoyed working with you on the late model side. You know, can't say enough about the kind of guy you are. Appreciate that.

Outside the car. Inside the car, hail the driver. So we're excited to have you back with us. and you're kind of part of the future and you're having a great year. I know there's a couple things you'd like to do different. A couple races you'd like to have back, but man, it's a long season.

And that's what the great part about having the chase is is that you can make these mistakes and sort of learn from them and be ready in the chase not to do that, right? Yeah, that's what you learn, right? Exactly. I mean, we got time to figure it out for the chase. And, you know, with our Xfinity series,

we, you know, luckily with our equipment and everything, we can make the chase, I think. You know, so we can really build on the rest of the season and get to the chase and have a good race or good couple races. Yeah. What's been the biggest difference between the truck last year and Xfinity this year? Is it the more cup drivers or? Yeah. Probably the cup drivers.

I mean, the cup drivers just don't make the mistakes that, you know, in the truck series, you can sometimes make some passes on restarts or make up five, ten spots easier. And the Xfinity series, you maybe make up two or three, but it's not. wholesale like you can in the truck series. So that's probably the biggest difference. All right. So your sponsor, Liberty University, you're actually going, you're taking classes, right? You're finishing up. How much more you got? Three years. Three years less. I go a while.

Was this like a seven-year degree? What is this? How many years? You just... I'm one year in. You're one year in. Freshman year. So I was in high school and then took some classes in high school to try and speed out the process. And you're going to do all this online? Yeah, all online. Right? Yeah.

How hard is that? It's pretty difficult. Like, who's grading you? I mean, is it Tyler grading you on these classes? Who's just a person behind the computer saying, you know, so there's no way to trick the system? There isn't. I mean,

so nobody, what if I was on the computer doing your stuff? I've tried. And I was, what if I was really smart? It might work. What do they know it's you? Yeah. I'd be good. I guess they just, whoever's got the login and everything.

you got to kind of log in through the system. So there is a way to trick it. So just give me the password. There is a way to trick it. I mean, there is kind of a way to trick it. I think Liberty's over there, though. Yeah. They might figure that out.

These are the wrong answers. So, all right, so you're taking all these classes online. You're driving race cars. Like, when do you do the classes? Like, is this like, do you have a, in your mind, do you have a, like, 8 o'clock in the morning, I got a test. It should go that way. Or do you take this test just whenever you feel like it?

Well, it should go that way. It should be like I have a schedule, but normally it comes down to like Sunday or Monday and I'm Sunday night and I'm like, man, I got to do some work, get it done for Monday night. So you're just kind of bankers hours. Yeah. This college is incredible. Does the guy driving the Liberty University car get preferential treatment? Yeah, sounds like it.

You would think. I mean, but it's kind of the same. Like, I go in the class and there's like. a class introduction for each class and nobody knows who I am or anything. So you actually do go to some classes in person? I did. I did last semester during the truck series, but with our schedule, I kind of have to take it online more. That Exfinity schedule is so brutal.

Two weeks off. Terrible. It's brutal. Those two weeks off must have been for your two weeks off. I don't know. Spring break. Is that like a spring break down to Panama City? Probably.

Yeah? Oh, see. God. Wow, probably. He didn't even deny it. Yeah. So, okay, so do you go to spring break with other online students? Oh, man, that would be, that would be fun. Share notes.

Yeah. Yeah, notes on what we did. Like, being an online student, like, you don't have the classroom. You're not making, you know, you're not at school. Yeah. So when you go to spring break, I mean, who do you bunk with? I mean, really just the high school friends. Oh, so you still keep in touch with all your high school friends.

You just, you just, you just, you just, you just, you, you just, you, you, kind of tag along on their spring break. Exactly. Just kind of meet up with them, say, you know, where they're in from real school? I go to online classes, but can I stay in y'all's house? Do you and your friends have a cool nickname, like the Dirty Mo Posse? I don't know. Are you making fun of us?

No, I don't know. Are you making fun of my Posse? He just said, what is it called? It's FTB, so, like, for the boys. But that's pretty normal. For the boys. Yeah. That's pretty good.

This guy over here might be one of the boys. Is that like a, is that y'all? Do you have that branded on your arm yet? Five or six of us. I don't know if I should get it branded. That might be a little bit. It hurts a little. It might hurt a little bit.

But it goes away, the pain, not the brand. Yeah. But, but yeah, that's our kind of, some of them are coming to Charlotte this weekend. Some of your, what, some of the FTB. FTB boys are coming. Will they be on pit road? No, I don't think. Oh.

I mean, they'll be drinking beer in the bus lot. Probably. Well, a couple years. A couple years. Illegal enough. Keep it a couple of years down. Tyler. Use your head.

Use your head. For the boys. For the boys. Sorry, FTP. Ratted them out. Yeah. So when you, when you get, when do you turn 21? A couple years.

Like 19 right now. All right. So when I, when you all turn, when each of you all turn 21, I know a guy has a bar. So how's the season? how's the season look for the rest we need to talk about your year and it's kind of been a roller coaster up and down what is the races I guess

that you're looking forward to the most have you been to all the tracks that we're going to race at pretty much I mean the only one we didn't go to was California in the truck in Darlington but we tested Darlington so how was the talent it was fun I remember when I first went to test

Darnison how was it? It was awesome your first lap you weren't scared No first lap I was scared I was like there's no way this thing's so narrow. I mean, I thought Charlotte's pretty narrow mile and a half and you go to, you go to Darlington. It's like one lane. It feels like, tunnel vision. How long before you hit the wall? Actually, second day. Second day I hit the wall. But yeah, it took a while, but finally did. So it was worth it. Happens a lot in the race, so just be ready for that. Yeah. I'll tell you a little trick. Yeah. It's a mount a four by four block of wood in the right door in between the roll cage. and the door. Is that still legal?

I don't know. I mean, that way that when you hit the wall, it never hits the tire never hits the wall. You just hit the roll cage and the four by four, keep it from, keep you from moving the rear-en-house and bending things around. So, yeah, just a little trick. I mean, I hit it pretty good at first.

They're not going to look in there. You can just get it in that foam air, hide it in that foam. It's going to run inside until the cruise ship right now. They're never going to look. It's a great idea, Dale had. Yeah. Paint it, what colors the foam?

It's like light blue. Paint it light blue. Blend right in. Oh, yeah. It was a couple years ago. Somebody, the door opened like a can opener because all that foam came out or something. Was that at Darlington? I don't know.

Yeah, I think so. So, yeah, do that. And we'll see if hopefully your door does not rip open like a can opener. But if it does, it'll be wood everywhere. Just four by four. Just one? Just one. One four by four.

Well, you think you stack them up in there? Yeah. It's a lot of weight. Yeah, it sounds like a lot of weight. He doesn't know nothing about cars. I know. He knows about the horny. He edits and produces.

What do you mean? I watch cars go in circle every week. I know which way they go. Go left. Left, left. Yep. Four tires. Yep.

Four shocks. Four springs. Okay, you know a few things about cars. We're not going to go over. over everything that you know. So, William, when you were a kid growing up, did you follow racing? Did you watch an ass car?

Who was your favorite driver? Favorite driver was Jimmy, honestly. And then I was probably six years old. Actually, watched truck races when I was like four, well, not four, but probably five or six years old. Went to the first race, Martinsville. That was awesome race to go to. Tony Stewart actually climbed the fence.

He did a burnout, climbed the fence, and just got into it since then just went to six. seven or eight races a year. I went to both Charlottes, both All-Star Race, everything. This is an incredible piece of information or statistic. How long have you been driving? Five years.

So he's in the Xfinity Series. He's only been driving cars, period. Only really in competitive motorsports for five years, right? You started legitimately on eye racing. Yeah. Well, this guy was doing eye racing. I mean, he was doing interviews, and you were in the media center or something, and you did, you were, they got the iraicing champion out there,

and they were talking about, you know, how realistic it was. So I was like, man, this might be a good way for me to get closer to the sport, kind of understand, you know, doing setups and doing all that stuff, and just started to drive that. It was a blast, and just kind of, that was how I got started. Right. So I do a little ir racing maybe. My career is set to prosper as well.

Let that sink in. Let's let that sink in from it. So I don't know if you can really put this into words, but how with only five, like growing up, watching this sport, being a fan of it, and then driving, only driving for five years, and having accelerated so quickly to where you are today, you're literally one rung below the top level, the ultimate level in the North American motorsport,

you're one step away from that. Like how do you go out there and have the confidence to compete against these cup guys and run as well as you do with being as, you know, being as green as you are and, you know, lacking the experience, how do you go out there and trust what you're feeling in the car and put it in those spots and hit the lap and go through qualifying and do all those things? I mean, there has to be an incredible amount of, I don't know if intimidation is the right word, but how do you get up and build yourself up confidence-wise knowing really that you just kind of started driving race cars just five years ago? Yeah, I mean, I think just watching the access to tapes that we have and some of the stuff that we can watch during the week,

that's helped me so much because I don't have those, like, ideas of how it should be. I just kind of go out there and watch, you know, whoever's doing well and kind of trying to, emulate what that is. So I think I just kind of just doing the watching the tapes during the week and watching the old races and trying to see what I can do to make myself look like that. That's kind of how I've how I've done it is just hey this is what this guy looked like he did last year and I think it's going to hopefully work. Yeah, that's incredible because yeah you can't I can't imagine going to some of these places with no information, visual information references and any kind of understanding of what to expect.

And that's really incredible. Do you think that you still, I race at all? Do you race some of the tracks before you go to them? I do. Like last, well, when we're in Charlotte, I mean, it's easy to just come from home. And so I did probably 30 or so practice laps before practice and just tried to make it as fresh on my mind when I got to the racetrack and kind of, you know, we got the access to the simulator now.

And, you know, I get to go in there like I think Tuesday or Wednesday I was in there. And they're letting me do some of the some of the. different things for them. So that's helped me just have an access point to be comfortable when I get to the racetrack. Yeah, that's incredible. So those things weren't around years ago, and those are making a difference in accelerating these young guys' careers, the ir racing software that any of you guys, myself included, can go run in our own homes and the full simulator that we have, that Chevrolet has built.

can accelerate a guy's career like this and keep him fresh and give him the confidence going to these racetracks when he's never seen him before, raced at him before. Well, thanks, William. Thank you. Appreciate having you all, buddy. Thanks, Dale. All right. Yeah, get back in there and get to work.

Looks like he's in the middle of the job. Well, that old William, man, he's a good kid. Yeah, he is. Does you know his very first press release for coming to Junior Motorsport? He was written in crayon. No. I wrote it, though. you wrote it in crayon.

Yes. That's how far you've came. Yeah, I know. You started out writing press releases in crayon. Yeah. Tyler. That's how old I am nowadays. Tyler has a pretty cool story.

So Tyler started in this company as an intern. He came up to me, he said, I don't know how to do it, but I want to get in racing. That's not how it went. I sent you an email. You said, he didn't respond to the email. He sent me an email, and I was like, do you look. He forwarded it. Then I brought it out of the delete folder.

Just to delete it again. Two deletes. And here I am. And here he is. Somehow. I know. I've tried to stop it. I know.

All right. We got another guest coming up as you guys see. Elliot Sallel, a good friend. He's got some kind of picture, man. What you got? North Carolina. I got some for Tyler. Oh, man.

Look at that, buddy. What a guy. Wait a minute. Don't delete it. Don't delete it. Yeah. Hey, buddy. What are you doing giving him? Gifts.

Hey, he probably heard. He doesn't need... He's part of, like, you know, Tar Hill Nation kind of thing. He don't need gifts. He gave him a gift, man. Is he getting you a parking pass or something? Yeah, I need two parking passes. I'll get you one.

I'll get you two. I got them. No, Dale is no longer a North Carolina fan. He runs around telling people, oh, I like Kentucky now. That's not true. Yes. I don't believe that. He did.

I just got a basketball sign by the championship team this year. That's just because you were showing off because I was at the table. I'm not a fan. You were like, hey, Tyler, look at this. Huh? How'd you get a signed basketball? I bought it at a charity event. Oh, okay.

Casey Keynes. Oh, very good. I hope it's real. I'm sure it's real. Yep. It's pretty cool. But I'm not a fan. No.

Actually, have you been to a game? No. You need to go to a game. I know. Doesn't your, you tell us. We have really good tickets. Yes. So my dad has been in the Rams Club over 50 years.

What's the Rams Club? That means he donates money to. I've been to the school for over 50 years. So my brother and I have probably been doing it over 30 years to the school. So we got a pretty good team. You're in the Rams Club? Yeah. Because I'm a fan.

Yes, sir. Like a real fan. Not a stand on the sideline fan. I'm in there with them fan. Win or lose? I'm not liking this invite to the game too much. Yeah. Front row right there.

I mean, you might get sweaty from them, but you'll be good. We got pretty good seats. You need to go to game one time. It'd be fun. I would love to go. Maybe if they play a checking. Don't take, nope, you're not invited. Why?

Delete. Delete. Unbelievable. Yeah. They win my ticket. If we go and we have fun, then you can come next time. Oh, yeah. We got to let him check it out first.

It's taking 42 years. I'm going to go check it out. By the time he gets around to the second game, it might be too late. Yeah, it could be. So, man, we got a lot of things that we can talk about. We've been in France for a long time. Yep. Let me tell you first time I ever race against this guy.

He run over me. we were at Myrtle Beach. I didn't mean to. Yep. On the straightaway. You don't hit people on a straightaway. This guy. Bump drafting, man.

Bump, you know. We're at Myrtle Beach, and our tires got a hundred laps on them. I can't even get full of throttle. And my car was kind of a piece of junk. And he runs in the back of me on a straightaway. What kind of guy? That's no way to start a friendship. That's not a good way to start a friendship.

It's a good way to end it. Thank God it didn't. Yeah, yeah. I'd be sitting here today with you guys. But that was fun back there. And I tried to explain to people and they're like, hey, you know, how cool is it, you know, driving for junior? I was like, man, we had so much fun back in the day. Yeah.

You know, we went to Myrtle Beach and raced. And somehow I ended up in his clan. And they were really bad influences, but ended up racing pretty good. I'm surprised you got any hearing left having to ride in the back. We would always go down to, what was it, Tuesday night? Tuesday night. Maybe a couple nights a week. Yeah.

We'd always go down to Charlotte. to the club and back in our 20s. Yeah, early 20s. Early 20s. And, boy, I don't know how you survived the sound system in the back of that Impala. You had the best sound system in that black Impala. Everybody remember those Impala S-S? Yeah.

They had the biggest, like six of us could get in the trunk. Dale had it full of speakers. I mean, just from one side to the other, like real state of the art. And we get in the car and we put in limp biscuit. Yep. And we'd sit beside the show going, why this is so cold. This music is great. Huh? Are you hungry? What?

All the way down. Thank God we had a guy that would drive us down that was Timmy. Timmy Petchick, who was really good. He actually put the body on my car in 1997 when I sat on the pole at Daytona. He was like the body guy. And then a couple years later, he's driving us to have a nice day cafe in downtown Charlotte. Yeah. That was pretty fun. That was an awesome car.

That was really cool. Yeah. I sold that car to a senator or a congressman or something. I don't know why he would want a car like that. With the speakers? Yes. Why wouldn't you want it? I don't know.

Do you think he played limp biscuit as loud as you did? I don't know. Back in the day. So one of the things that I always thought was really cool was your win with the Woodbrothers at Bristol. And you're holding everybody off. You had some older tires. Yes. So how did you make that happen?

So there was all a mistake. Right. So Pat Trison was my crew chief at the time, and he was trying to decide whether to stay out or not to stay out. And he was like, well, just stay out unless I tell you something different. So I go past the commitment line. He's going, all right, pit. I'm already past pit road, dude. Oh, you got to pit. We need to pit next time by. So we're going to pit anyway. And then we come around again, and I'm going, why not just stay out? Just see what happens. We're going to get run over. You're going to wreck the car. You're going to, you know, we're going to turn it all pieces of a good car. I said, well, let's just stay out. So we stayed out and won the race. So, you know, I'm emotional as I can be, and it's cool, and it's awesome. And I pull in the Victory Lane, and Eddie and Lynn Wood are both crying. And I'm like, this is awesome. You know, the biggest payback, and I think the thanks you can give to a car owner is winning a race. And so when I was pulled in the Victory Lane, and those guys were all crying, and I was like, man, this is pretty cool. And Lynn Wood was there, and he said, of all the race track,

we'd ever won at, we had never won at Bristol. Wow. That was the first win for the Wood Brothers at Bristol. So they're like, look, we're going back to the shop tonight. All the guys in the shop want to come hang out at the shop tonight. So I got in the car with Eddie Wood, and we drove back to Stewart, Virginia, that night from Bristol. It's a couple hour drive. And the whole town of Stewart was there.

And they had toilet papered the whole shop. They had toilet papered Eddie, Lynn, and Kim, the sister's houses. It was all toilet. it was the neatest thing. It's like the whole town opened back up in Stewart, Virginia, that night for the win. That's funny. So that was... I never heard that.

Yeah, that was a special night. That was pretty cool. So there's some nights when you get in toilet paper, getting your house toilet papered is good. It's right. And that was a good one. That was a good. I've had it happen a couple times. So if I go toilet paper, Tyler's house.

It's all good. It's good. What? That means something good has happened. Oh. Fortunately, I live in a townhome community. I only have one tree out front. Oh, we can make something happen.

That'd be a quick job. Yeah. The neighbors, HOA, would be pissed. So, Ellie, you've been working Junior Motorsports for a couple years now. It's really been a great combination. We had some great on-track success. You're working with a Kevin Mander and a crew chief that I really think a lot of. He's the man.

So tell us a bit about y'all's relationship. And you've kind of been, you've worked with a lot of different guys and teams and companies. And what stands out, I guess, about this relationship with you and him? Well, I'll tell, you know, I'm going to tell a story on you real quick. So, you know, we decide, and we get all this put together, and I'm coming to drive for you, right? So at Dover, we're going to announce it, and it's pouring down rain. So you were like, hey, you know, come over to the bus. We're going to announce this, you know, on social networking, and you and I start talking,

and we start talking about crew chief stuff. And you're like, I got this guy named Kevin Menoran, man. He's helped me so much. and my cup career, and we run good now. We win races. And I'm like, man, a new crew chief, first time, man, I'm scared. Oh, trust me. It'll be fine.

Trust what you kept saying. Trust me, man. It's going to be good, man. He's good. Trust me. You're going to be fast. It's going to be good. I was there for this, yeah.

I mean, it was in his bus. And I'm like, I trust you. I mean, it's your team. You know, you know, we got to come out the box strong and one main's in a, you know, a resigning year, and we got to be good. It's good, man. It's going to be good. It's going to be fast.

You can do it. We give you the tools, and you can do it. I'm like, all right, man. I've got miss speech before. I know. I've seen that look in his eye before. All right, we can do this. And honestly, is the best thing that could ever happen to me being with Kevin.

You were right. That dude is really smart. His attitude is great. His demeanor. He doesn't lose his cool, which makes everybody else around him calm. Crew Chiefs that get excited. Like, everybody around him gets excited, too. So I think his even demeanor

And like sometimes, you know, beginning Like man, it's just too tight It's just too tight You need to fix it? And I get excited He go, all right man, we're fix it Right Man, you're not excited enough man I'm like really tight

Okay man we're fix it All right this is cool man He's pretty laid back So anyway he and he's been great for my career I think he is honestly Energize me And made it feel like I have all the confidence in the world

that no matter how my car practices, I feel like we're going to fix it. Yeah. You know, my car might be a little tight hair, a little loose there. And if I can give him the right information, I feel like, you know what, we're going to be okay. I'll tell you, we didn't have the best practice yesterday. But the way the car drove at the very end and his ideas, he and I talked this morning, I'm like, you know what, we're going to be pretty good tomorrow. We're going to be fine.

So it's cool to have that kind of relationship with, you know, with your crew chief and with your guys. And we definitely all believe in each other. And you know, there's not a better feeling in the world as a driver to walk into a shop with your guys and you're all looking each other face to face. And you're like, yep, we believe in each other. We're going to be fine this weekend. So I think that's the relationship we have and many shows. We've been pretty successful.

And somebody gave me a stat the other day of the 70% of the races I have driven for junior motorsports, we have been first place in the points, which is a crazy stat. So that's a that is awesome. That's pretty cool. And I wish I could say it's all because of me, but it's not, man. I got a good group of guys behind me, and they make it fun every week. Yeah. Well, we really enjoyed, you know, we talked about it when we first started thinking about working together.

And we're like, ma'am, we're going to have fun. This will be great. But even in the back of both of our minds, we're thinking, man, we've got to win. You know, we've got to win. It can be fun. But, dang, if we got, you know, I got to give you what you need. I got to do my job, too. You got to do your job.

And it's worked out that way. It's like a dream come true. You know, it was funny about it is I was more nervous coming to race here than any other jobs I've had in racing. And it's not your name. It's that it's our friendship, right? Because we all been around each other and try to take each other. I was scared. I was scared for that same reason.

Yeah. I was like, man, I can't disappoint him. I can't see the same thing. Kelly, they'll give me a good opportunity, man. we got to go. So when we were able to win Talladega early in the season, kind of took the pressure off, man. And then we got to trust our gut more.

Man, well, look, you said, man, trust me, man, you're going to be good. It's going to be fast. It's good, man. It's good, man. It's going to be good. I'm telling you, man, the reason why I run so good because, man, he's good. You're going to be fast.

Yeah. See, I can say that man because it worked. Yeah, I can remember that. Otherwise, this might be a little awkward. Yeah. If we sat here, it'd be crickets if we hadn't won and run as good as we've been running. So, you know, I get the question all the time now. I mean, the last couple years about, well, you know, you're 42 years old now, you know, retiring or what you're thinking?

I'm like, dude, I'm having a ball. Yeah, what about cup racing? They can have cup racing. I say, man, I've got a great race team. And honestly, Kevin and Tyler and all the guys on the team have really kind of feel like a kid again. Yeah. It's fun. You can see it.

You can definitely see it in your demeanor. I see it in you every time I'm around you. I see you really enjoying yourself. You got a great home life. You want to talk about that a little bit. You got a lot of things going on there. Yeah, it's cool. My wife and kids were actually here earlier,

and they've left to go to some kind of ranch that you feed animals from a car. Oh, it's not rescue ranch. Lazy five ranch. Oh, that one? Yeah. I don't really know why it's called that. I don't know. I remember going there when I was in elementary school.

Yeah. Yeah, no, I've got a great home life. You know, I've got two kids now, seven and five, and we play ball every, pretty much we're at the ballpark every night. So my daughter plays tee ball, my son plays coach pitch, and it's a cool way to kind of regenerate everything from racing. So we go through the racing weekend, and Kevin and I have our call on Monday. We pretty much talk every, I wear that crap out of him every day, but Mondays we go

through all our stuff, and then I can kind of do stuff with the kids and ball and all the stuff with school that we're heavily involved in. It's kind of like you're refreshed for the weekend again. Are you the coach pitching? I am the coach. I coach six different teams last year. Six teams? Six different teams.

What? I love it, man. You got to you. When I grow up, I don't pitch in every league. Oh. Like soccer, I'm a soccer coach, too. What's your secret as a coach? I mean, if you're pitching.

So my dad was a coach, my brother's a coach, and now I'm a coach. It's like it's in our family, right? other than the racing ball. What's your secret? The secret to pitching is most men that pitch the kids make a huge mistake in trying to throw the ball overhand. Because you're taught as a kid from a very early age, go goalposts to throw the ball, but you throw it overhand so the ball's dropping. The secret to pitching the young kids is actually pushing the ball.

Whether you're doing it underhand to girls or overhand the boys, you have to push the ball and makes the ball more level. That gives them a better opportunity. Way better opportunity. And aim for the bat. So the kid gets it. It's in there. I go, all right, Dale, give me a swing.

So you see what their swing is. Then you're like, all right, I got to aim for the bat. Because he's going to make the same swing again. So you aim for the bat. But a lot of people, you've got to learn how to push the ball when pitching a young kids. The ball doesn't move. So if you're a, what's age group?

The T ball is four, five, and six. I'm a coaching that. Four, five, and six. And I'm coaching coach pitch, which is seven and eight. And then the other six team or the other one. I also coach a women's soft. football team. They're older. They're 18 and above. You coached the team. I coached the team. And we won the state championship last year in our area. Do you think that this is like a trick? We had a second career for you.

I will 100% be a high school basketball coach when I finish racing. Man, all right. You heard you hear of here. My dream is to when racing's done, when I'm not competitive anymore and I don't eat, sleep, drink it as much as I do. I'll hang the helmet up and go straight into coaching at home. You want to be a college? I don't want to go college. Too much recruiting and traveling. I want to do more high school. They don't recruit in high school.

I don't believe that. We don't recruit as much. We don't travel as much because really the kids can't come from like states away. All right. So Tyler is a high school kid, not playing too good. It's not going to make the team, so you're going to cut him. So give us a little coach. I'm sorry.

Try better next year. Wow. But here you go. Here's a camp, a ticket to my camp. Yeah. You know, that it's an X amount of dollars to join. $500 a week. And if you do that, then I'll help you.

That's a terrible speech. It's bad, isn't it? Yeah. I haven't got that far yet. You crushed their dream. Then try to cut anybody yet. Yeah. That's going to be a tough part of the job.

It is. But it's fun. I tell you, I love it. And coaching the girls, I've learned a lot, especially the older girls. I learned a lot. It's, you can really, I have tricks as a third base coach, and I've learned that you can throw the other girls' teams off a bunch. So I'll give you an example.

So if we have, say, my wife's on second base, Amanda, so she's on second base and somebody's up to bat, I'll be yelling instructions to them. If I say your name, I want you to listen to what I'm saying. If I don't say your name, I'm just saying it just for the defense to throw them off. All right, listen, this girl's going to hit it the third base, okay? As soon as she throws it to first, she don't have a really good arm. But as soon as she tries to throw it at the first, I need you running. You coming this way. So I'm putting all that in their head.

It's messing them up. Man, that's like Simon says. You have to listen. And I may or may not have been doing that in coach pitch, seven, eight-year-olds. Uh-oh. Some, just a little bit. Hey, it's very competitive. We're very competitive, and we have all-stars, and everybody's got to play good.

That's funny. Well, we appreciate you coming on. Oh, you're throwing me off after that? No, ain't you got to sign autographs or something? I thought I was, am I sorry? I didn't count. I just signed a bunch upstairs. I didn't count.

I signed a bunch of hats that you signed. Tyler, does he have to sign more? You got a sign more. He's got to sign more. I gave you a present. Well, hey, Kelly said you got a sign. Hey, we don't mess with the boss lady. There you go.

I get that question all time. She, she's the boss. She is the boss. She does. She does a great job. You thought otherwise. I thought, well, I thought you had more say-so, but you're like me and my sister. I say, yes, it's, it's,

See, that's exactly what I was thinking. I'd have done the same thing. Good idea. Good idea. Well, we love having you as part of the team. Look forward to the rest of the season, doing an awesome job. I appreciate it. Yeah, buddy.

You've got no worries. We'll get down into the chase and get our stuff ready to go. We'll give you the tools. Give me the tools. You're going to be fast, man. Trust me. Trust me. I love it.

All right, buddy. Thank you guys for all for coming today, man. Makes it special for all of us. Thank you, man. I already got one. I'm a big fan. You got one and gave it to me. Damn.

So I get that one? Nope. More for me, bud. All right. So I give mine to him. See how he is? Yeah. All right.

That's cool. Oh, Elliot, man. We've been friends a really long time. He's done an amazing job for our company. And Brett, you know, Brett, his buddy there, Brad. Spotter Brett. Everybody married a Spotter, Brett. He does that

other podcast. That was a little woo there. Door bumper clear. Not much cheering for Brett. Well, him and TJ have a podcast. They think theirs is pretty good. Door bumper. The crowd was nowhere near this big. I don't think anybody here listened to it. Yeah.

So, that's it. That's it. That's all of our interviews. That's it. We appreciate everybody hanging out today. It's been fun. Yeah, it has. We're going to do this more often, maybe. I really enjoyed this. Yeah, maybe we could go down to Whiskey River and do it or... Yeah.

We can go to a racetrack. We go to a lot of racetracks. We do it. I did buy a mobile unit for podcasting. We'll just tell one of those stages at the track. Like, hey, we're coming out there. Martinsville. That's a great place.

Bristol. Let's just name all the tracks. Yeah. Name them all. Every track. Daytona, New Hampshire. Well, we appreciate all you guys coming out and listening today. this has been a lot of fun.

Thanks for all the folks that junior motorsports are setting up the stage. All of our partners for coming out and being such good sports is showing off all their brands and giving away a bunch of free stuff.

We usually record this on Tuesday mornings at 8 a.m. That's right. Inside the retail store. So if you're ever in town, you're welcome to stop by, see us. Not this Tuesday. Not this Tuesday.

I'm going to be south of Mexico for a couple days, so we're not going to do it this Tuesday. Most Tuesday. Most Tuesday. So is it the next Tuesday? It will be the next Tuesday. Or you can listen online, Dale Jr.com, iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher. Are you doing this?

I just didn't have to, didn't even have to read the sheet. You want to do it? I just did. Okay. What's your Twitter handle? They can follow you on Twitter. They can follow us on Twitter at Dale Jr. at Overstreet Tyler and at Dale Jr. No.

Dirty Bear Radio. Radio. Yes. And what other social platform is DirtyBow Radio? You can also listen to all the podcasts on Dale Jr.com. There you go. Thank you guys. I appreciate it.

Thanks for listening to Dirty Moe Radio.