The Dale Jr. Download - 178 - Dover Debrief and Drivers to Cheer for in 2018

Episode Date: June 6, 2017

Dale Earnhardt Jr. reviews his 11th-place run at Dover, which included a very loose race car and a late-race speeding penalty. He also gives a list of drivers fans should consider cheering for once he retires and talks about Jimmie Johnson's legacy. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is Dale Jr. and you're listening to Dirty Moe Radio. Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. Back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download with co-host Tyler Overstreet. Hello. We got a pretty beefed up show today. We do. We're going to talk about top 10 drivers. Yes.

This is highly anticipated, I believe. That you might can pull for next year. A couple other things. Let's get to it. We're going to talk about the Dover Recap right away. We finished 11th. Tough race. So where do we start?

Basically, been getting a lot of media mentions about our work in the simulator. And we did again this particular week, which makes me a little nervous, because if we don't run well, then people are going to go, don't quit messing with that simulator. or that didn't help very much. But I felt pretty confident going into the weekend.

We did go work on a lot of our setup stuff. I look at the simulator basically as, is it a perfect tool? No, it's still sort of in development. But it's basically like you can go simulate practice. We don't get much practice on the racetrack a lot of time to do what we want to do. we had a long, long list of things that we want to accomplish, and we can't get to all that stuff. You want to find out, I guess, which ones you feel confident that will work, and there's some things on that list that might not work. Do you want to waste valuable practice time, making that change in the garage, and going on the track to try it to find out it doesn't work, and to have to take it all back out of the car?

That really, you know, that's 15, 20 minutes of practice time gone. So the reason why I like the sim or talk about the sim here in the last couple weeks is We go in there and we can shorten that list up We can go into Friday's practice with a lot more confidence that the changes we're going to make are going to be able to affect the car how we want them to And so that's what's great about the sim anyways we went into practice All the things that we had tried into sim seemed to be one. working to improve the car.

We made the car better throughout Friday. We made the car better throughout practices Saturday as well. And then when the race started, the car wasn't good at all. We made some changes the night before the race in anticipation of the car or the track being a particular way, and it was a miss. It took us about probably 300 laps really to get it driving a little bit better. but the car had an inherent issue all day long that never we could never cure we would take off fine on sticker tires one of the best cars i thought top five car for sure we'd run about five to maybe

ten laps and then the all four corners of the car would really start bouncing like a basketball felt like i was being you know felt like all four corners of the car being dribbled around the track by step curry um and it was just really when that's happening there you can't get a hold of the racetrack you're just chasing the car all over the place and that would get worse and worse actually ryan newman texted me monday morning and asked me if i was still loose in um so we struggled with being free on entry getting over the hill going under that uh crossway or going under whatever that thing is the bridge into turn three uh as soon as we'd go into that bridge car was free at that point all the way down into landing just chasing the back

the car and tight from that point on around to the exit of the corner so fighting a lot of issues all day long we um had a caution on lap 3 30 during the green flag pit stops where we were staying out we were actually 19th before the cycle began we had we our car did not do well when we cycled tires and nobody had enough tires to keep putting on stickers every time the cost came out are you on that people running out of tires are you cool with the limit that they put on it. We could talk about that. You know, they just took away one set of tires.

Yeah. I'm all right with it. If our car doesn't cycle, doesn't have a hard time cycling on tires, or if I have to stay out and the car still drives, okay, it's no big deal. But our car didn't handle the cycles very well. We were in 19th when this particular series of Green Flag Pit Stop started. Greg said our strategy was to stay out and hope to get a caution, which we did. That gave us a great track position.

We were running sixth when David Reagan cut a tire with three laps remaining in the race. So that set up a green-white checker. So whenever a caution like that, you guys were pretty much cruising, you were going to finish sixth. Don't say that now. Don't say we were cruising. People think you're just out there riding around to finish six. you're going to give us all, you're going to give to all the drivers a bad,

a bad rep. You were not in position to pass somebody in front of you, and you were not in position to be passed. Yeah. So you were probably going to finish six. You weren't cruising. You were doing all you could do. When that caution comes out,

are you like, hell yeah, maybe I'll finish, maybe I can get fourth or fifth, or are you like, oh, crap, now these guys behind me are going to be up my ass. It depends on how the, how the day's been going. I had been running third all day long, I'm thinking, man, this is a chance for me to get back to third.

If I'd been running 15th to 20th all day long, which I had been, this is probably not something I was looking forward to. We decided to come down pit road. Being in sixth place, that's really kind of a 50-50 decision there to stay out or to pit. I think, you know, if you're on the front row, you have to stay out, as they did. but anybody starting in third would be a terrible place to restart on old tires. Fourth would be okay. I think you would have restarted seventh. If I was sixth when the caution come out, how would I lose a position?

After you pitted, sorry. After you pitted, if you had not sped. You got a hold of me. You got ahead of me here. Sorry. So we come down pit road to take two tires, which I think is a decent call. No big deal. and then I come out of my box and when I came out of the box in first gear

trying to get out of the box as fast as I can once I went to second gear where we actually read pit road speed with the lights on the dash I was over the speed limit so we had to slow down really quickly but that wasn't enough we got busted for speeding that put us back in 16th position for that next restart which was very very disappointing. And unfortunately, for a lot of guys, there was a big wreck on the last lap, and we gained a few spots that way to finish 11th, which took a little bit of the sting out from the speeding penalty. But to sum up the event, the race started. The car wasn't good.

I nearly came unglued on the radio and was a jerk all day long, per my lovely wife's... I concur with her assessment. assessment yeah and so I was a mouthy jerk all day and um but it was hot and we talked about it wasn't hot I was comfortable oh yeah I was trying to help you I was just trying to help you I was just in a bad mood and then I screwed up the whole thing at the end by speeding but um we came out of there with an 11th place finish and uh me and Greg talked at after the race quite a bit about what we can do coming back to over because we certainly we didn't we couldn't we can't replicate that basketball dribble bouncing thing in practice

we just can't it doesn't happen on Friday or Saturday it only happens when the track gets it gets a really large amount of rubber laid down so it's hard to figure out how to fix that with the adjustments that we only have in the race talking to other drivers are they they have the same feedback a lot of drivers did discuss this issue more than we typically do. The track is concrete. It kind of has, it has joints in it to allow the concrete to kind of heat and cool throughout the year.

Right. So it doesn't crack and bust apart. And these joints kind of bow up like an old deck. So, and those joints are kind of every 10 feet, I guess. So when you're riding around the track, even under pace laps, it's like driving over continuous railroad tracks. Is it just as bad at Bristol? No.

Oh. But Dover hasn't, you know, Dover was... Dover's been like 20, 22, 23 years since they've been... It's rough as hell. I don't really like it. I don't, I mean, I'm not...

They're never, they're not, it's not like, you know, anything I say is going to make a difference. I just personally do not like the surface. I love... the shape, configuration, banking. If it were asphalt,

it may likely be one of my favorite tracks. It'd be awesome. Yeah, it would. I'm just not a fan of the concrete, just personal preference. So you only have one more race there. One final event. Yeah, I don't think I'll be signing up

for any Xfinity races there going forward next year or year after that. Check that one off the list. Unless, we forgot out how to get this bouncing fixed. Now then. You think that would be enough as insinity? I'll tell you what. If I run in the top five at the last Dover race,

I will put it at the top of the list for Xfinity races next year. Really? Why not? I'm hoping that that kind of karma gets me in top five. Plus that Dover Xfinity race is pretty short. I'm a believer in making those kind of personal bets to ensure a top five finish. All right. Yeah. So I guess I'm saying if I would run an Xfinity race next year if I can get a top five this year.

Okay. So does that make any sense? Yes. Something that happened over the weekend, it didn't affect us at all. But Kyle Bush in the cup race and then Chase Briscoe in the truck race, they lost wheels, like immediately after leaving pit road. The NASCAR rules states that the crew chief tire changer and tire carrier will be suspended four races in the event of losing a wheel due to improper. installation. But it also notes that safety violations would be handled on a case-by-case basis. Yeah. So Scott Miller, who is NASCAR's senior vice president of competition, said it's possible that

they'll look at the intent of whether or not the tire coming off was because of them intentionally doing it. But what do you think? So that's kind of giving them some wiggle room where they might not enforce that penalty that they put in their rulebook. well okay so here's the I guess here's the situation

I guess here's the situation you have to think about obviously this wasn't a they put the rule in place to keep guys from only using putting three lugs on or four lugs on

to be a you know because any lug that you don't put on the wheel is about a second on the pit stop faster so They're obviously You got to keep something in place

To keep that part of the rule Keep that kind of deterrent from guys doing that But I don't think you penalize guys For their tires coming off when they pull off pit road I agree with that Especially I think that NASCAR I mean I trust Scott Miller and these guys to know

That this guy Wasn't trying To To only put on two or three four, two or three or four lugs to speed up his pit stop. He just made such a big mistake that the damn tire came off as he put off pit road. That's obviously just a mistake. That's enough penalty personally.

Right. They just, you know, they stubbed their on toe enough, I think, to, you don't have to. I think I trust Scott enough to know when someone is trying to take advantage of the rule or trying to take advantage of the situation for them to make a judgment, This is a judgment call. I wouldn't have penalized. I would not, going forward, penalized drivers that got, you know, like Kyle and Chase, I wouldn't penalize teams for the wheel coming off as they exit pit road.

But if they go out there and, you know, what if they go out there and it's just a loose wheel, or they improperly, you know, put the wheel on the car. Maybe like, we had a lug behind the wheel at Charlotte. Say I don't realize that or we don't know it. We go out there and the wheel's loose and it comes off after five laps. Now, do you penalize that guy? I think so. I think once the green flag falls, that sort of shuts the door on your opportunity to clean this up yourself.

Yeah, because that would be kind of what, negligence? I just think that that's just a way to do it. I think you can say once the green flag falls, then it's been if the wheel comes off under green flag, it's your ass. But if it comes off pulling off pit road, it's a mistake on your part, come back in, fix it. Because Kyle's, especially for Kyle,

because he had led like the first 20 laps. He had the pole and he never got the lead again. He got back in the top 10, but that ultimately probably spoiled his day. It didn't help things. And it was more of a communication. Who knows how much the damage to the car hurt his arrow. So that's how I would do it.

You know, and I'm sure NASCAR is going to make some adjustments here. Because obviously they weren't trying to do anything funny, you know, so let them roll. But I think once the green flag comes out and your wheel comes off, that's just a potentially dangerous situation anyway. So you've got to have deterrence for that. Right. So another thing that you were getting hit up this weekend on Twitter has probably been since you announced your retirement is fans looking for a new driver to cheer for. And we were very excited to talk about this. We put together a list.

We debated over this. We added names, removed names, and we came up with our list of drivers. And now we're going to tell you who and why you should cheer for them starting in 2018. Yeah, so really, you know, who are we to tell you guys who you want to pull for? But some fans were like, hey, what do I do? And so here's your list. This is really, I mean, anybody in the, this isn't to single anybody out, and I don't want anybody to be butt hurt.

They didn't make the list. We just kind of went through it quickly to throw a couple drivers on there. We're going to start out in no particular order. Alphabetical order. Oh, is it? Yeah, by last name. By last name, alphabetical order. Yes.

Okay. Ryan Blaney. So Ryan Blaney, you would pull for Ryan Blaney. Why? I like Ryan. He's running good. He's got a really good personality. I don't know that most people know that. He's doing a lot of media stuff with NASCAR to get himself out there, which I like because not everyone is doing that stuff. And also he's from a racing family, so I think that's kind of cool. Yep. Ryan Blaney, for me, if you're a fan of social media, you follow racing through social media. Ryan Blaney's going to be your guy.

He's going to give you the most content. He's going to run good. And he's going to be a guy that you can get a lot. You're just going to be able to get a lot of content from him either on social media. He's going to go on the late shows. He's going to be a guy that will say yes to all those things. So if you like seeing your driver here and there doing things and him. being interactive, social.

That's your guy. Austin Dillon. So, I mean, he comes to a racing family too. He's run well. He's come up the NASCAR ladder. He won a truck championship, one an Xfinity championship. He just won the 600. Plus, obviously, he's driving the three car.

So I think that's a natural thing for people to cling to. Yeah, I like everything you said. He drives the number three car. A bit of a goofball, good outgoing attitude, outdoorsman, a bit of a cowboy. So he has a reputation that I think, you know, maybe appeals to some of the core NASCAR fans or some of the older NASCAR fans obviously drives for a really established old team

with a great reputation. Family team. Yep. So RCR, number three, he's kind of helping if you really if you like the fact that you know if you like the fact of a healthy richard childers racing he's going to be part of that yep chase elliott he's got i think the most potential i don't think anybody else you think chase elliott has the most potential talent wise yes um this is the most talented driver on the list yes or in stock cars potentially

the most talent. Yeah, I think so. Okay. Wait, are they all going to be driving different cars, indie cars, F1? Well, we have the other guy, we have Kyle Larson coming out.

Is this a list of F1 and IndyCar? Yeah, I don't think Chase is going to F1 anytime soon. And I don't think Chase is going to run Indy 500 or anything like that. They're all in stock cars, I guess is my point. Yes. Chase Elliott.

Yes. Why do you like Chase? I mean, he seems like a modern day, or like today's version of you kind of coming into, he's got the built-in fan base. You're going to light up social media with that comment. He's got the built-in fan base because of his dad and that he took over the 24.

A lot of similarities. Yes. So now he's got to do his part to take it to the next level. Yeah, I agree. I like Chase Elliott. He has the last name. He has the talent. Very similar situation.

Carrying on a legacy. I think his popularity is going to just, it's already pretty big, and it's just going to continue to get bigger, especially once he starts clicking off some wins. He's with HMS and a great team. And I saw, they threw up a stat the other day. He's like 14 top fives and like 54 starts or something like that, which that's pretty good. He's like one out of every three or four. So he's running up front.

He's fast. So he's going to be around for a long time. Eric Jones. He's all. also very fast. He's, I guess he would be Kyle Busch's protege. Is Kyle Busch 2.0? I don't know that he's quite as in your face with the disappointment when he loses.

But, I mean, he runs a lot of Xfinity races. He's fast immediately in Cup. So he's shown, and I would anticipate eventually he'll go to Gibbs. He's aligned with Gibbs. He runs their Xfinity stuff. he's going to be in good cars for a long time. So he's going to be a guy that's running up front for the next 15, 20 years. All right, Eric Jones, I agree, super fast.

Raw, speed. He's got it. Great talent. He doesn't. He either is kind of shies away from, you know, really putting himself out there. There's not been a lot of opportunity, I guess, or I haven't seen a lot of his. personality. Right.

I've had some interaction with him on Twitter, but as far as just like hearing him in interviews and hearing him talk and, you know, discuss things on TV or on radio or what have you, there's not a lot of that out there that I've seen. He is going to be part of the broadcast this weekend at the Pocono Race for the truck series. No, Exfianity Race. He's going to be part of the live broadcasts. They're doing all drivers' broadcast. So we'll all get to see a little bit of his personality in that particular broadcast.

which will be interesting because I think he probably has a great personality. Yeah. And, I mean, he's wearing – he's got this mullet. Yeah. So he kind of knows how to pick on himself and doesn't take himself too seriously. I think he has a great personality. I would encourage him to show that more. But you do also – when I'm around him at the racetrack,

You do see a very, very focused game-faced kind of guy. Yeah. But there is a side of him that's the complete opposite that I think that he should probably, you know, he could definitely show the fans more to give them an opportunity, I guess, to get to know him. But I think there's going to be great things for Eric Jones in his future. Kyle Larson. As we talked about a while back.

Points leader. Points later. Dominate pretty much. No, wait, he's not leading. He's not in the point. Oh, true X leading the points. But he dominates a lot of race leader. I don't know.

They're going back and forth. Back and forth. He is dominating the series. Do what you say? Yes. And Xfinity. He's got three Xfinity wins. Yep.

And as we talked about a while back, he is the last true racer. Self-proclaimed last true racer. Yeah. I think if you're a true race fan, this is the guy. For the true race fan. Right. You just put it together. He's running a cup.

he's running Xfinity. I bet you he runs trucks. He'll run that Eldora race. He runs sprint cars. He's the modern day, AJ Foyt, Tony Stewart. Yeah, I think he even raced with Carson

at Millbridge a couple weeks ago. That's what he grew up racing, I guess, was a micro midgets or whatever they call, mini-sprints, whatever they else. He legit runs everything

and runs well and everything. My only thing about him is I think he's on the verge of being a little too, good in Expinity because he's still eligible to run like the dash for cash races. And so when he goes and beats up on the Expinity guys and the Dash for Cash race to like Kyle Bush and Kevin Harvick can't run, then I'm like eh. But he's an incredible racer. And I think it's cool that he's willing to go race anything and he's good when he's doing all that. Yeah, I agree with all that. Kyle Larson.

He is, I mean, this is a talented list. I mean, when you're talking about these drivers, they don't really set each other. No one stands apart. And they're all in fast cars. In talent. Carl Larson is another incredibly skilled driver, another guy with a great personality, really funny, family man. Yep. Squeaky clean.

Does it get in trouble. Yeah. Race is hard. Some people are thinking, you know, he's getting this, there's a little bit of chatter in the media about whether he's aggressive enough or, you know, he's finished second a lot and why is he not winning more races? I think Truex thought he was aggressive on Sunday. He was racing pretty hard for the league.

Yeah. Trust me, Kyle Larson has no problem putting the chrome horn to you. Yeah. Yeah. So that guy there would be one I personally would be inclined to consider. to pull for. And he's the guy we talked about not all of them would run, could run F1 or Indy 500s.

He's the guy that could. He's a guy that could for sure. And might. I expect him to run the Indy 500 within five years. I wouldn't be surprised, especially and teamed up with Ganesi. Ricky Stenhouse. I like Stenhouse because he has literally come from the bottom of the Xfinity series. His first year he was wrecked so much that they made him go work in the,

fab shop to fix his own cars. And then... I don't know that to be true. Is that true? Yeah. Whenever him and Colin Braun were running cars? They wrecked a lot. So he worked his way up from that.

And he won two expanding championships. His first few years in Cup weren't the greatest. This year he's run pretty well. He's teamed up with Brian Patty. Brian Patty. And then obviously he won the pole and the race at Talladega. So, and he's a little bit like Larsen. He'll run the sprint cars and the chili bowl and stuff like that.

So he's another guy that's running different disciplines of racing. I agree. Rick Stenhouse, fun guy. Good friend, great personality. He's a really, he's a hard, he's a hard racer. Like when he's on the racetrack, he races very, he doesn't race aggressive or silly or over his head, but he'll run you hard. And now he's in a pretty good situation where his cars have good speed.

And he's having his best year to date, I think, in the series. He'd be a good guy that I think's going to be around for a while and going to continue to get better. Daniel Suarez. Daniel Suarez, so he seems to, I don't know Daniel, but he seems like he's got a pretty cool, fun personality. Yep. Obviously, he won the Xfinity Championship last year. and then I like that he's teamed with Gibbs. He's with the team that Carl almost won the championship with last year.

Plus, obviously, he can appeal to a different fan base in Mexico. So I think that's good for the sport as a whole. I don't know that everyone's going to care about that, but I think that he can reach different people that Ricky Stenhouse might not reach. Yeah. So there's one thing that I like about Daniel Suarez, being part of the series and being good and talented. So NASCAR's always kind of been an American sport with American drivers.

We've had a couple guys come in, Juan Pablo, that are international talents. But we haven't really kind of broken through that barrier and became a global sport, much like F1 is. and I think that that is the logical progression for NASCAR at some point you want it to become a sport that goes and races in Mexico, Brazil, Canada, even overseas. Right. We had to, you know, we tried to kind of crack that mold, break through that barrier when we were going to Japan and racing.

That was the whole purpose of going over there was to try to create some interest globally outside the United States in the sport. that was a huge undertaking for the teams in the sport to go over there. And that was the reason for those efforts. So having drivers in the sport that are born outside of America and I think increases that our ability to be an appealing sport globally. Right, because it's a natural connection.

Yeah. So, I mean, Daniel, he is a great guy. I've had a lot of interaction with him trying to get to know him. and he's super nice, man. Really cool. So he's a guy that I personally pull for. Yeah, and he's starting to run pretty well. He finished fifth or six the other day.

Jimmy Johnson. So Jimmy's on this list. So far we've been talking about young guys. But maybe you don't want a young guy. Maybe you want a veteran. Maybe you want to go from veteran to veteran. Yeah. You want a guy that's established.

We're going to name off some people that are pretty, It's obvious that these are, you know, talented guys with great track records. Maybe they appreciate how good of a teammate Jimmy has been to you. Right. So Jimmy Johnson, a veteran driver. Obviously, you're going to be able to get a guy that's winning races now. And championships. And championships.

If you've become an admirer of what he's accomplished, tying Kiel Yarborough and wins, seven-time champion, tie my dad and Richard Petty. He's All-American, great personnel. family man family man uh not afraid to get his hands dirty uh just pull all around cool guy yeah so he's an obvious choice for for the good guy yep and then the good cop bad cop that's what we're gonna play here so then you got Kyle Bush he's kind of the he's he's he wears the black hat he wins a lot of races too wins a lot of races he creates a little controversy here and there

not liked by everyone, but he does have a rabid core fan base. He does drive the candy car. A lot of young fans like Kyle Bush just because he drives a candy car. Right. So, and I do like Eminem's myself. Who doesn't?

Kyle is going to keep it interested. You're going to be entertained. Yeah, and he said last week that he... He ain't changing. Which is, I think, good for the sport. I do too. Got to have good personality. So we got Jimmy on one end of the spectrum, Kyle, and the other.

Those are two guys that are obvious choices if you want to go with winners, winning now. And then another guy you could go with winning now is your good friend, Martin Truex. Yep. So he's already won twice this year, four times last year. He's with that Furniture Row, 1718, which is fast every single week. So Martin Truex Jr. is a neat choice because, It's unorthodox. They are a team up in Denver, Colorado.

So for the longest time in the sport, if you weren't in Charlotte, you were an outsider that nobody really, I mean, the only team, I guess that was, it was almost impressive that RCR was as good as they were way up and welcome, North Carolina. So if you were outside of this little bubble, industry bubble down here in North Carolina, Now, people didn't take you seriously at all because you couldn't get any of the good help. Nobody wanted to move outside of this industry. They felt like if they went outside this industry, they would lose connection, opportunity, and continue to grow up, grow, and get promoted.

So nobody ever took that team seriously, the Furniture Road team. Now they're one of the best teams in the sport. Yeah. doing it all the way up there in Colorado. It's a three-hour flight. Yeah. I don't even know how long the drive is. It's impressive, man.

And now they're a two-car team with Eric Jones. And that car, both of those cars are fast. Mark Trex Jr. is an outdoorsman, Abbott Hunter. A lot of race fans connect to that. Super nice guy. All the stuff that him and Sherry do for charity. Credibly, yeah, incredible charitable work outside the race car. He is a junior.

Yeah, can't beat that. Came from a family of racers. Great story there. And he kind of went through, he's always been fast, but then he went through that little phase where he'd be leading a race, dominating a race, and something dumb would happen. So it's awesome to see him now he's able to win these races

and not have a loose wheel or this or that happen at the end of these races. So Martin's a good guy to pick. I do. I think that's right. All right, we got one dark horse. So that's our list of drivers that we were going to talk about. We got one little dark horse guy.

Now, if you like, if you want to start with a guy who's not really established just yet, now we've named a lot of people that are in pretty good positions with teams, so forth. So if you want to pick a guy that I think is just as talented as these guys, but you kind of want to work your way up with him. Yeah. Chris Busher. Yep. I think that Chris did an amazing job in the Xfinity series.

Outran our cars in the Roush stuff, which nothing gets roused, but I thought he did an amazing job. Yep. I think he really does a good job in the car he's in now. It's a brand new team. It's not one of the more higher-funded operations, and I think he gets quite a bit out of that race car. I think he's the better of those two cars.

Yeah. So you're going to hurt AJ Amadeemers feeling. I didn't say who drove the other car. Okay. But he's going to figure that out. Oh my gosh. I just don't know why you want to do that. Doing some subtle math here. Well, who drives down another car?

I don't know that AJ. He's going to take some offense. I like AJ too. We can throw him in as another dark horse. Whoa, but now you're trying to dig yourself out of his hole. We can only have one dark horse. Okay. So, Busher is your dark horse. He, uh, I think he'll, I think he's going to, what I'm doing here is I'm trying to set you up with a guy. that I think is going to make it, and you can go on that ride with him.

Yeah. All right? He can probably work on his own cars. He seems like an old school kind of guy. His family's got some history. And then there's one driver. One driver. That we haven't mentioned yet.

Whoever drives the 88 car next year. Hell, it could be one of those guys we've already talked about. Yeah. But whoever, they're just going to say, you can pull for whoever gets in that car. Yeah. All right. I think that's going to be the natural selection. I can't wait.

I'm excited for them to figure all that out, aren't you? Yeah. Who's going to be that guy? Yeah. They should announce it on this show. Whoever that, yeah, they should. We should be the ones to announce it right here. But you can pull for whoever that guy is.

Yeah. So that's like we're giving you a little mystery. Like a... I think that's who I'll pull for just because of... Like the prize in the crackerjack box. Yeah. That'll probably... This will be the...

You can take these 10 drivers or whatever's behind door number three. Yeah. Just take the surprise. Yeah. All right. Well, there's your list. I'm sure there's a lot of guys on there that we, you know, a lot of guys that didn't make this list that are, that, you know, probably should be on it. Tweet us and let us know if you're leaning toward any of these particular drivers.

Also give us an explanation as to why. Use the hashtag DJD. We would love to hear what you guys are thinking about this. I'm very interested to hear the fans' feedback. Who are you leaning toward? probably the 88. Okay, you're going to take the mystery driver. Because I know the team guys, so I want to still support them.

I'm going to pull for true X. Always have. And Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott and Daniel Suarez and Eric Jones. I'm going to, yeah, it's tough. I don't know who after that. I probably can't make that decision until I. Are you going to be the guy that wears one driver's t-shirt and another guy's hat? Do people do that?

Yeah, I saw a guy the other day. Casey Kane and Kyle Busch. It was a weird combo. Yeah. I saw somebody in Charlotte who had a Stenhouse hat and shirt on, went up and talked to them. They said they were just a Ford fan, so they were going to be a Keslowski the next day. I thought that was pretty cool. There's a couple of things I wanted to talk about before we got to our ass junior.

So they had Gordon Ramsey at the race. Yeah. So again, we'd just think about old Gordon being there. Um, what I thought about Gordon is I was trying to move the rental car outside the track and him and his posse were walking in the middle of the road in the bus slot. And I wasn't a fan of that. They didn't even bother to step to the left or right or anything. Disrespectful. So somebody had the right idea at NASCAR to give him the Strange Witch shocker and let him talk a bunch of trash about it.

Yeah, yeah. Thanks to NASCAR. Appreciate it, NASCAR. Smart move. All right. Gordon Ramsey, yeah I'm not sure about that guy Yeah

Yeah Not sure whether I'm a fan or not Do you want to read his quote About what he said about it? Yeah, I read it this boy, I'm pretty pissed off about it You know, I did get an email from Myron Mixing that said he's full of shit Oh, yeah

Wow And I agree with Myron Yeah About he's just Myron's just You know Myron's like hey I grew up on Those sandwiches as well

I mean I wasn't surprised That Gordon Ramsey wasn't a fan Yeah But damn you don't have to bash the sandwich cursing and stuff about it. Also, let's see, we were watching the Xfinity race, the stages.

Yeah. Okay? So we wanted to talk about, this is basically, I'm just wanting to ask the fans what they think about this. So guys, late in these stages,

guys are staying, some guys stay out to get the stage points, but they know that it's going to hurt their opportunity to win the race. One example, I guess would be Bubba Wallace.

I wouldn't say Bobba Wallace. I would say William Byron, our guy at Texas, he stayed a couple of leaders that came into pit with probably five laps to go in a stage. That's one of, like Bubba did that too. All these guys pitted. Well, Bubba was trying, I mean, all these guys pitted laid in the,

this is the point. All these guys pitted laid in the stage. Others stay out to try to get the bonus points for the stage. but they knowingly make winning the race more challenging or harder to do. So the guys that pit with five laps to go in the stage or 10 laps to go on the stage, they're the ones that cycle toward the front when the stage ends and everyone else comes to pit road. And now a guy that just won the stage is sitting outside the top five and track position was so critical at Dover and they didn't get back toward the front.

Really, only Larson and Blaney were able to drive up through there. But yeah, so you're basically... This is like a new phenomenon in racing due to the stages. Yeah, so you're pretty much foregoing your actual finish to get more points. So... Hoping that... You're still hoping that somehow or another you get the finish you want. Right.

You're still hoping for that, but you're going to take your... It's not working out for a lot of these guys. Yeah, you're taking your 7, 8, 9, 10 points in stage 2 and giving up a couple of... in stage three in the final. Yeah, so if I'm a fan, I don't want my guy to finish second stage two, be like, yeah, we're second at lap 100. But at lap 200, when the actual checker flag finishes were ninth and be happy about it. I mean, regardless of what the, you may, the points may net out about the same, but if I'm a fan,

I'm not happy that my guy is. Who's your favorite baseball team? The Red Sox. So the Red Sox score five runs in the sixth inning. Yeah. Like we're rallying, we're having a good time in the fourth inning. But knowingly lose the game. Yeah, you still lose nine to five.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, you just remember that good time you had in the fourth inning. Oh, you had a great inning. So, yeah, I don't know how you fix that. Yeah, I don't either. I don't know whether it's wrong. We're going to ask the fans, so let us know how you feel about how these stages are

affecting strategy. Yeah, I mean, the only way around it maybe is that you don't give out the 10 points from first to 10th. In the stages? Yeah. Why are you having the stages? Well, you would just have the playoff point, like a stage win. So winning would be the only thing that matters. Yeah.

That might be the only way to fix that, but then that would go away from rewarding points as you go. Which was part of their messaging. Well, yeah. And it's, yeah. I mean, I don't hate, a lot of people hate the stages or think they hate the stages. I like it. I think, I like the stages. I don't, or I don't, not, I don't have a problem with it.

Yeah. You know, I don't know whether I really like it, but I don't not, I don't, I don't find any fault in it or it doesn't. It's just an interesting strategy. Yeah. I'm a little interested, though, as far as how the fans really feel about it. I don't think that the fan, I've not really heard a fan opinion, a broad opinion on how the stages feel at this particular point of season. Right.

Like I've heard, oh, I don't like them, but you can't give me like a valid reason. Yeah. You don't like the five-minute break that let you go to the bathroom? Do your best try to give us a good valid reason on why you do like the stages or don't like the stages really more about how it affects the strategy with these guys pitting before the end of the stage and so forth and how that cycles the field around a little bit. Let us know. Obviously, hashtag DJD.

Also, after the race, we talked a little bit in a periscope, did a post-race periscope, which we've been doing every week. We talked about the green-white checkered overtime line. So this has gotten a lot of play in the media as well. I read an article, or they had Jeff Burton and Dale Jarrett talking about it on the TV show last night. basically when I'm doing the periscope the fans are just throwing up ideas of things to talk about

somebody said overtime line I'm like okay yeah overtime line I was a part of the discussion to create an overtime line and my initial idea to NASCAR was we were trying to fix

what happened with Austin Dillon at Daytona when he flipped into the grandstands I said you need an overtime line at Dayton and Talladega put it on the backstretch if we cross that line and the caution comes out, the race is over. If we don't cross that line and the college comes out, we have another green white checker.

This was a bit of a combination of trying to fix what happened with Austin reckoned at the start finish line in front of the grandstands and what happened to us at Talladega with Ligano winning the race as the caution came out right after we got the green. So my opinion was try to, fix Talladega and Daytona. I really didn't think or asked or proposed that they

change anything at any other tracks where we continued to do what three attempts. We had originally a three attempt rule at Green White Checkers. What I was trying to say in the Periscope is that I think that they should, they could, without

much complaint at all, go back to unlimited or three attempts or whatever Green White Checkers at all the other racetracks so that we finish under green, but knowingly have to do something different at Daytona, Talladega. If you can't break up the pack racing,

which is really dangerous for a green-white checkered, then you've got to do something to keep it safe at Daytona and Talladega. So, and I probably shouldn't have said crap, because I don't want to take, I don't want it, really the discussion doesn't have anything to do with Jimmy, winning that race. It doesn't, I've never been a,

I don't see where the green, I don't see where the overtime line has benefited or not benefited me. It has nothing to do with me. Yeah. It was a little weird. I was confused because I knew y'all were all the way to turn three when the caution came out. Yeah.

And then like somebody was griping about, oh, they didn't pass overtime line. The other thing too is, is we sit, I sit in the driver's meeting every week. week and we watch a video that explains this over time line over and over and over. And every time I hear that video, my initial thought is we overcomplicate things in the sport. And the sport should be as easy and simple as we can make it. Straightforward.

Show up, qualify, green flag, race, checkered, winner, go home. And when I, it's weekend, week after week after week watching this video has, I just never, I got a bad taste of my mouth with that overtime line. I just can't love it. Yeah, I think I wish that if you get the white flag and then there's a wreck and there's a need for the caution to come out, throw the caution, let the race be done. But if you take, if you don't get to the white flag, then I think you should try again. I think, yeah. So that's kind of where that came from. They're not going to change it.

I probably, I was just babbling. But yeah, I agree with Daytona Talladega and then the road courses. Those could drag on forever if you don't get past. Bring white checkers at road courses. Well, typically the road course is such a big track that somebody gets knocked off into the sand. They just let them sit there until a finish. Yes. But, you know, that's really where all that came from.

Ron. The other thing, too, is talk about, you know, how big a deal. I think, I don't know. I mean, we did, so Jimmy Johnson ties Kell Yarborough. He wins one more race. He's going to tie Daryl and Bobby Allison. For what, fourth aisle's time? Something like that?

I think, yeah, he tied for six with kale. Yeah. More and likely, he's going to get that 84th win. and he wore a Cal Yarbarael helmet as a foreshadowing of events. Yeah. How do you feel about that? I mean, he wore the seven-time helmet last year with your dad and Richard Petty. Before he won the seventh championship.

He wore it for the seven, yeah, for the Homestead Race. Oh, wow. Yeah. You think that he wears those helmets as like a motivation or something? Motivation. Maybe. Yeah. you don't want to wear it, then not win,

because then it's like, oh, that's weird. Well, I think he showed me the helmet. Yeah. During, I think it was on Saturday. And then I didn't, but I didn't know he wore it in a race. Because after the race, he's like, he was like, good run. I was like, yeah, awesome job, man.

Tying Kale. And I said, you get that helmet out now. Because I thought he would win the race, then wear the helmet. Like, hey, Kale, you're a man. man, I tied you. But then I saw the pictures of him wearing it, and I was like, oh, I didn't know he wore it in the race. Okay.

But that's just boss, man. I mean, I'm going to win this race, so I'm wearing this helmet today. He's pretty good at Dover, so he probably had a clue. But, yeah. I wonder how long he would have worn it. Every week. Yeah, just, what if he had never won again? Just wear this Kell Yarbray helmet for the rest of his career.

I guess now, though, he's going to have. A Daryl and Bobby helmet. Yeah, like one on one side and one on the other. Pretty cool. You think someday somebody's going to be wearing a Jimmy Johnson helmet whenever they're trying to tie him? Yeah. It's hard to fathom.

If it's possible. Yeah, it's hard to fathom how awesome he is because you're living it. Yeah. So in like 20 years, people will be like, wow. I know. I was saying the same thing. When he won five championships in a row, I could not believe there was.

wasn't more like heads exploding. Yeah. Because five in a row, I just don't think, like you say, I mean, it'll be 50 years before we look back and go, holy cow. Yeah. That is incredible. And it is a bit, I don't know, frustrating is the right word, that we don't celebrate it enough while Jimmy is doing it. So he, he in turn can enjoy that credibility or acknowledgement because he deserves it. So that was pretty interesting.

He actually got a hold of Kail. I saw where he tweeted where he tracked down Kail's number and talked to him, said that was a blast. That's cool. He grew up a Kale fan watching on the West Coast. I told him, I was like, I was equally a Kale fan as well. He said, we didn't get a lot of coverage of NASCAR where I was at, but I would fire up to TV to watch the 28 car run.

Did you see him rocking that 28 Hardy's hat? I liked it. Good retro hat. Also, one last thing before we get to the last, Asch Jr. is the basketball game. Hell yeah. We had a legendary basketball game, and Mike Davis can come on in because he's part of the team. So the DMBL is the Dirty Mo Basketball League.

We started it about, what, five years ago, six years ago, maybe more? I think it was 2010. I think we're in year seven. Okay. Yeah, we took a year off. It's 35 guys, five teams. You've got seven guys on each team. We play three on three.

Half court. Half court. It's a freaking blast. Yeah. We all have jerseys. We got a trophy that we keep passing around each season. A big one. A big trophy.

Yeah. It's just great. And it's pretty much the same core guys, but every once in a while we get a couple guys that leave and a couple new guys come in. It's mostly my friends, your friends, employees at Junior Motorsports. And we had a hell of a game last night. We were going to, we were playing against. the Cleveland or the no we're the Cleveland convicts yeah we were playing against the Statesville steamers yeah and on the steamers team is Ryan Blaney Tony Mayoff Travis

Peterson is the engineer on the 88 which Tony is probably 6 465 Peterson is probably 6 3 6 4 so they got some big guys the captain of this team is Regan Smith yeah when they finish when we finished the draft, which we have a live draft with beer and pizza. And when we finished the draft, everybody was like, oh, that's the team. And they were undefeated until last night. And I drafted, I'm the captain of our team, and I drafted all you guys because I was looking at last year's stats and y'all are all the top scorers, the top shooters. We're a team of shooters.

And damn, if we didn't do it. Yeah. No thanks to me, I fouled out. Yeah, Tyler fouled out. Tyler set a dirty-moe basketball league record with the earliest foul out. Like, we just started the second half. Oh, God. I mean, we weren't two or three minutes into the second half.

I couldn't believe it. And Tyler fouled out. So that left us with five guys. And Tyler is our second tallest guy. So we really, we start off small. He fouls out. You were left with the band of misfits here, and we took down the Giants. We did.

That was so much fun. Yeah. But, wait, wait, wait, I want to give credit. credit is due here. Who would your game ball go to, Tyler? Game ball? Yeah, if we were giving out the, you know, the game ball. He's going to have a hard time with this one.

Well, he shouldn't be because this is pretty easy. Would it go to Dale? You'd dang straight it would go to Dale. I dropped him a dime one time and he made the shot. I was very, I was very surprised. I'm not just saying this. I felt like that was the difference because we rotate out. Yeah.

You know, we put it in the other. the three, like, you know, Coach here, Coach Earnhardt calls out, you know, calls out the team, puts in the three. And, like, he put in, like, six points, like, bam, bam, bam, you know. And. Which is unprecedented. Well, I'll let him speak to that.

I don't want to be the one to say that. I hadn't scored all. We've had, what, this is our third game? Yeah. And I hadn't scored yet. So. But you came in and just. He came in.

Yeah. Like he's Steph Curry. Even on the, on the court, it was very impressive. I played up to the competition, man. I showed out. But, yeah. Your coaching strategy was all good. Was it?

Yeah. It was like you had planned it. Well, we talked a lot about playing Tony and trying to beat Tony. Yeah. That's funny. We can say, all right, to give everyone an idea of what we felt the disadvantage was, is we did not try to think X's and O's against this team. We started trying to think of psychological warfare.

Like, that was our best chance. Dale, get in his head. Like, start talking smack. Really, like, you know, tell him, don't forget who your boss. is. Like right when you're D&M up or, you know, you're one more foul and you're fired. You know, or something like that.

Just mess with his career in the game. And we didn't even have to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I could believe it. Well, we still did. Did you? I heckled him hard in the third and fourth quarter.

I didn't know that. When they got back to around five points, three points, I was like, every time he had the ball, I'm like, what's that tattoo say? Because he has this little, you know, literature on his inner. inner bicep and I'm like It's not English It's something, yeah

It's not English? I don't think so Oh, it was pretty fun that But yeah, it was a great victory And then you Instagramed TJ Majors amazing Let's talk about that Real quick

So the second game was T.J. Majors His team is the hog legs Against The Cougars Who's on the Cougars But Greg Ives Yeah, Greg Ives It was a really good game as well

and it came down to a last second shot. And of course, T.J.'s calling for the ball, which was a bad mistake, really, to begin with. But then what happens? I was videotaping it because I was hoping something good would happen. One second left on the clock. And this is the second, last, this is the second, like, play they've called. Yeah, with seconds left in the game.

All right. That's right. Now, let's backtrack a little bit. before, if you've watched that video on Instagram, T.J. taking this shot. Right before that, they had a timeout with like five seconds left or something. They go over there to they drop a play. We're like, hmm, what kind of play they're going to drop? T.J. is not the best player on that team.

Right. And they were down by one point. They were only down by one. Sure enough, they passed the ball in, set a few picks, throw it to T.J. And he throws up a three that misses. They got the rebound called a timeout. One second left. All right.

T.J. gets him back over there again. He's not even the captain. I don't believe. Martin Friedrich is. They go over there to drop another play. What is it? Same play. T.J.

Pass the ball in, set a pick, get the ball to T.J. And he had this like double. He traveled. He traveled, first of all. But, oh, my gosh, if the ref would have called the travel right there and not even let him shoot. I would have hoisted the referee on my shoulders and carried him wherever he wanted to go. If he would have caught a travel on T.J.

Because T. If anybody knows T.J. majors, he argues with the ref. every time he touches the ball. Like he is the most oppressed person on the court all the time. And so, but he also is always guilty. Like whatever the ref calls, he's never like out to get T.J. T.J. travels with the ball. You could have packed a suitcase for him.

And they didn't call it. He fires up a brick. T.J. in hindsight, probably wish they were to call it travel because then he wouldn't have got that shot off, which was horrendous. Yes. But it goes down an Instagram infamy there. We have it from multiple angles. I think Adam's wife got it from the back in slow motion. I wouldn't have posted it, but he asked for the ball in two consecutive plays to win the game.

And having Stefan on their team, which is such a great player, Steph could have drove and won the game. They were only down by one. They didn't need a three-pointer, and T.J. fired up two-three. And he was like four feet behind the arc when he shot. Steph Curry, man. All right, guys, we're going to get to our ads. Ask Junior questions. As always, send us your questions using the hashtag Ask Junior.

We're joined by Mike Davis. Obviously, he's our moderator. He'll fire off the questions to Dale. I'll offer some meaningless insight as well. So let's get to it. Some of these questions might be for you, Tyler. You never know. But not this one.

I like this question. Just Move 54. Just asked, why is it so difficult, Dale, to drive another driver's set up? that's a good question you know some guys like let me try to figure this out some guys like different sensations

when they drive a car some guys like to drive cars loose some guys like to drive cars tight Jeff Gordon entering the turn he wants to be able to tug on the wheel he wants there to be some feedback as he's turning so that was one thing that they would kind of build into the car to give him that with a steering box and so forth so guys like different sensations and the you know i've always liked a car with a real high track bar

and a lot of wedge in it maybe jimmy or someone else likes cars or traditionally the likes of setups that are built around the track bar being low and the wedge being out of the car those combinations of those two adjustments kind of work and sync with each other. That's just kind of how it is. I don't know. We've been to racetracks where one team's running one type of spring in the front. I'll put it in my car and not like it and change to a completely different setup and go just as fast. and drive, in my opinion, way better.

There's a lot of things, too, that make it difficult to compare setups because we set the front-end geo on our car up differently than maybe the 24 does. All the front slugs, the push-up and pull up, and the geometry in the uppers and lowers, the toe is different. the bump steers different a lot of that stuff in the front end and how the front end works you can't really replicate from car to car so that that also dictates really what kind of springs and shocks you're going to run so there's a lot of different things going on there that even though you might say uh i'm going to make i'm going to take all these exfinity cars here at

junior motorsports and we're going to put the same setup in all of them they're not identical You can put the same spring shocks, sway bars, and track bar settings, but they're still not carbon copies. Because you've got to look at where they are on their geometry, all their front suspension settings. How do they have the rear end in the car? There's a lot of things that will dictate how the car is going to drive, aside from the standard things like shock springs. Are there tracks where it's like your setup is completely, different and then tracks where they're probably more similar. So like a flat track, it might be similar and a...

Not really. We go to... I mean, here lately we've been leaning on Jimmy, so we go... We kind of start together, and then as the weekend goes, we kind of, you know, each of us tries little things that we personally like. And we may end up with one, you know, maybe a different right rear spring, or maybe I like the smaller front bar. maybe he liked the track bar higher on the right side by an inch,

little things like that. But for the most part, the theories are similar. I got you. I'm cracking up with some of these comments. There's a lot of good comments right now. You've been invited on a couple fishing trips already. What for? Listen.

Why fishing trips? I don't know. There must be a lot of fishermen on this. That's what retired people do. Is that it? Golden years. Right. He did a commercial about it.

That's right. Can't be doing commercials now. Let's see here. Mike Belcher 85, would you ever host SNL, especially once your schedule opens up next year? You know, I would, I probably won't get that invite. That time has came and went. If I was ever going to get an invite to do SNL, it would probably have been after we won a Daytona 500. You have been invited to do SNL, I think.

If I remember back in the Bud days. Yeah, back when we won our first Daytona 500, I believe there was an option. opportunity or a window of opportunity to do it. But I probably would not host S&L. Why not? I just, I mean, I don't know. Sure, I'd do it. Don't we do it?

Just like that. Tyler asks, why not? And all of a sudden he flips 180. It's all the takes. I'd probably do it. I don't know. Of course you could do it. Okay.

Yes. See what we do around here? It didn't take much persuasion. He would be very nervous about it. I don't want to, I mean, I just don't want to, make people think that, you know, I would just, I don't want people to think that I'm like, you know, waiting on that S&L invite. Right.

Right. You don't want this to actually be your back door way of trying to get on S&L right now. Wink, wink, nod. Let's see here. I saw a question here. Hold on one second. Okay. This is for both of you, but Dale, you start.

What was your favorite car that your dad drove? Oh, man. I always love the 87 Monte Carlo Yellow and Blue Wrangler. 87 Monty Carlo. This is by Jay Rose. Either 86 or 87. They were kind of similar.

But that, I don't know. He always, you know, he just kicked their butt in that car. I liked the, I think it was probably the first special car that he ever ran, the silver car. Yep. I think that was the first. The All-Star race? Yeah, the first All-Star race I ever went to. Wow.

I forgot about that one. But that's a good-looking car. Yeah. Did you ever just like the? Lumina. Like, I remember... I don't like the word Lumina. You didn't?

Don't think it's a good name for a car. Did you think that back when the Lumina was the car? Monty Carlo, though, I like is a cool name for a car. If you took Lumina out as far as the word goes, did you like the body style of the limina? Yes. Okay. All right.

Well, yeah, I did. It was boxy. I liked the Lumina. I did not like the Moni Carlo that followed. The first Moni Carlo? The round one? Yeah. the round one.

That's right. I remember that. Mike Grubb, 83 asked. That I drove in as a rookie in 99. Yeah. What do you think of winning drivers destroying their cars during burnouts with shredded tires?

Are they hiding something or are they just celebrating? Okay. My opinion and theory is that it's possible and it's highly possible that if you destroy the tire to take the car, you have to put a tire on it. You have to put another tire on it.

The car has to be jacked up. That's right. Does this not present opportunity for someone to take advantage of changing something, doing, you know, is it not open the window, I guess, of opportunity for teams in that situation? I would think yes. So why not just say, hey, you blow the tire? That's how you got to go through tech. I've asked.

Oh, yeah. That's interesting. If you want to blow it, then you're going to fail. Yeah. Terribly. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's what they should do. Is there a reason you think they don't do that?

I can't think of a good one. I could argue it for a mask car. Because you don't want to, you know, the burnouts fans look forward to a burnout. I don't have a problem with a burnout. I know. But you can do those within reason. Of course you could. I look at.

I mean, I look at... But is it through the burnout where they typically ruin their car? Yeah. Yeah. But I look at doing... I don't... If I won a race, I would... I blew a right rear tire or I blew a tire doing a burnout at Richmond.

And I did it, it was like accidentally. It popped and it was like, oh, my God. Sure, it was accidentally. You started this. Yeah. Dale did it. So I am aware that I have done it. back in like 2006.

But it's not like... It's pretty common nowadays. It is common now. I compare it to... Smashing a guitar. I hate that. So like a rock and... Yeah.

You know, a rock star, you know, smashing a guitar. Some guys get off on it. Kirkabane, he loved to tear up the amps and everything else. jump into drum sets and do all kinds of crazy stuff. So that's kind of what I personally compare it to. Some guys are that excited and just want to damn just tear something up.

Yeah. But I do think that it does present opportunity and open a bit of a Pandora's box with what can happen. Right. And you have to put a tire on the car. The car has to get jacked up. And that kind of creates some doubt, like if something's fishy. Right, I mean, if you, okay, say you don't blow out the tire. Are you going to allow teams jack the cars up?

Yeah. And change tires before they go through tech? Then plus you could be like, oh, well, it could be because of that damage. They're not allowing guys to jack up the car and change tires and do all kinds of things in between winning the race and tech. They're not. Yeah. The car does go to Victory Lane. but they don't allow the car to go get, you know, it's all changed.

Right. So, yeah, they should just. You go to tech like that. It does make the inspection process a little shady. So I think that NASCAR should step in and make it change there. All right? Because we're not scared of taking tough questions, right? Obviously not.

Right. Kelly Pedrick Carlton on Facebook just asked. I was at Dover this weekend. I'm just curious, what goes through your mind immediately when you hear that you've been caught speeding on pit road? Is it anger? Is it no, I didn't? Is it disappointment? What's the first thought when you hear those words?

Embarrassment? um is one so so what you remember when oh goddang so do you remember when this is random as hell but i think it was uh remember michigan was playing in the final four yeah and called the time out was that weber chris weber chris weber calls a timeout what that's how you feel wow that's got to be embarrassing that is embarrassing it's yeah wow It's like a... It's your fault. Yeah.

Being part of the team, it's a little bit of a punch in the gut. Yeah. When you're in a team activity, you don't want to be the guy that screwed it up for everybody else. And literally, with three laps to go in the race, I ruined an opportunity of top five for everyone on the team that had worked the entire race, listening to me cuss and cuss about that car. I mean, I made it about as miserable as I could for everybody that was involved. And then we get down there looking at a great opportunity to salvage an incredible finish, considering how we ran, and I blew it. So it's really embarrassing.

There's no excuse. There's no, oh, well, this happened and that happened, and darn it. You know, there's no. Especially when they tell you where you sped and you can be like, Oh, yeah. I know what. There's no hiding from it. Yeah.

You know, there's no not owning that. Yeah. So it happens. Well, I mean, I'm over it today, but boy, it's tough right in the moment. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. D. Kessling-03 asks, would you come out of Cup retirement to race Martinsville under the lights? So, Tyler, good note here you have.

The Falls race starts at 3 p.m. so we'll end under the lights. So there, you're going to get your opportunity. So you're going to get your opportunity. Yeah. But let's just erase that and just say, would Dale come out of his cup retirement to race Martin's under the lights? I'm retiring from full-time cup racing. So what if they make... Read into that as you will?

It's obviously, it's obvious, I mean, every driver, myself included that retires, is not completely shutting the door on ever racing a cup car again. Right. Jeff Gordon is the perfect sense. one is. Yeah. I mean, I don't care what any driver says.

The right opportunity comes along, they're going to do it. Yeah. So, I love racing at Martinsville. I don't know whether, if I have the urge to drive

and this, and then, you know, there are a couple things got to line up there. I've got to have the want to do it. And the right opportunity has to present itself.

It can't just be this kind of hoping to prayer. Right. We got a sponsor for one race. And a random team, yeah. I mean, it's got to be a good situation. Typically, it's going to be in a relief driver kind of role or an opportunity like that where you know it's an established team.

Right. And to be honest with you, I mean, it's not like you're going to be sitting around just waiting for the phone to ring. So if whatever your second career is beyond this year, you may or may not be able to. Yeah. You may. But I mean, as far as, am I just like hell-bent? No, I'm not ever driving race cars. I'm going to have Exfinity races.

I'm going to race Exfinity for Junior Motorsports as often as they need and whatever opportunities that presents. So if I'm doing that, why would I be ignorant and shut the door to any other opportunity? A truck race would be fun at night at Martinsville. Maybe I'll get a phone call. There you go. D. Lafave 22. It would need to be a Chevy, though.

Exactly. Absolutely. That's true. Are you watching the NBA finals or the Stanley Cup finals? If so, which teams are you cheering for? That's a good question. Actually, we're going to talk about our plans for the rest of the week in looking ahead. But I guess we can go ahead and tell them.

We're going to the game three in Cleveland. We got an invite from Goodyear to go. Good Year is a new partner with Cleveland Cavaliers. They're going to be on their jerseys next year. Right. So they invited us up to the game, and, yeah, sounds like a great time. So me and Amy are going to go. I think Mike's coming.

Yep. I think that it's an opportunity to see some of the greatest players, I think, in the game ever. Yeah, this is an incredible final. Yeah. Even though the first two games have been decidedly won by the Warriors. Warriors, it's still good TV. To be able to see that Warriors team and then to see LeBron on the same court. I'm curious.

Pretty awesome. Yeah, I've been to Hornets games, so I kind of have an idea of what watching the game live is like. And people always say, like, man, you know, I'm watching races on TV, but you can't really get a sense of what the energy and the cars and the whole experience is. like unless you see it live, I kind of, I'm excited about the opportunity to see the finals in person. Yeah, I went to the-Bron and see Curry and those guys play right there in front of me. I went to the Super Bowl last year, and it's ramped up considerably, so I can only imagine with all those guys on the court.

I don't, you know, I'm a hornet fan. I'm not going to wear my hornet skier to the game, but if you did, that would be priceless. Wear like a throwback starter jacket. I like to watch. I want to see LeBron in person just to say I saw him because I think he's going to be a guy that, you know, people talk about for many generations and Curry. You know, he grew up around here, played a Davison.

He's incredible. So to see him live, it's going to be a lot of fun too. But I don't know exactly who I'm pulling for. I know we've met LeBron. John James. Have you met Steph Curry? I did? Yes, you did. When?

Bristol. He was at Bristol probably five, six years ago. Really? And he came to our car. No kidding. Left a big impression on you. That's awesome. I don't remember that.

Yeah, it happened. Wow. I bet there's even a picture of it. I'm glad Mike filled you in on this. So LeBron sees you tomorrow. He's not like, hey, remember that time? Yeah, if you see LeBron, say, good to see you again, LeBron. I doubt I get a chance to meet the players.

That would be cool. They did, yeah, I doubt that will happen also. They did say, depending on what time we get there, that you'd have the chance to go on the floor to watch them warm up, you know, and kind of just. I'm excited about it to see how they compare to the DMB. I just want to be there. Let's compare the Cleveland Cavs versus the Cleveland Convicts

and see which one is better. The Cleveland Convicts, just so we're all clear, that's after Cleveland, North Carolina. We're not trying to emulate the Cleveland Cavs. Yeah. We do often emulate them. Ask Steph Curry about that free throw contest. Yeah, Tyler beat Steph Curry in a free throw contest.

Yeah, when I was 10. They both with the same basketball camp. Yeah, at North Carolina, Chapel Hill. And he beat him in a contest. Yeah. You didn't know that, Mike? I did not. I mean, I'm looking here.

I thought we talked about that in front of you. Yeah. So they divide you up and like by age, and so we were both in the 10-year-old deal. And there's probably 60 kids in there, and somehow I won. And you got a free pair of shoes. His career has taken off. Mine has dropped off.

You're still one hell of a perimeter shooter, buddy. Yeah. You are. Yeah. When you don't foul out. Yeah, exactly. I'm not good at defense, so there's the fouls. All right, there's two questions we got here left.

Fishing on 101 asked over the years, which body style of cup cars did you like running the most? That's a good question. I like the ones that we have now. I think these cars look really cool. Aside from that, probably I thought, and I wasn't really crazy about the 2001 Chevy's. They had that funny rear spoiler that was kind of a wavy-looking thing. Oh, that was ugly. Plus the front was kind of like a...

The whole car was just awful looking. The COT was terrible. I'm going to go 98-99 Xfinity cars. Okay. I liked like the 2005, 2006 cup cars. The ones are all twisted up. I thought they looked cool. Yeah, 04.

Yeah. 05. Last question, D. Gibson 44 asked, do you think Pocono will still be a fuel mileage strategy race, even with the stages in place? I mean, you're going to see a little bit of everything, just like we talked about. I think this is going to be, like,

our discussion about the Dover strategies. This might be where it comes in. Yeah. Because track position is so big. It's going to be interesting at places like Pocono and Indy, where you, at Indy for sure, where you can pit without getting lapped. Yeah.

What will guys do? They pit, you know, well, they got a lot of guys pit before the stage end. Gibbs guys did that at Talladega, and it helped them for the next stage. So it'll be interesting to see. I think this is a, you know, this is a developing story. Yeah, we'll see. Thanks, everyone, for asking your questions.

Keep them coming. Use hashtag Ask Junior. We do this every week. Next week, I think we're actually going to be taping on Monday. Monday, yes. Yeah, don't come out here to the Junior Sports next week. We won't be here. Don't come on Tuesday.

You can come on Monday afternoon. What time? 3 o'clock. All right. There you go. Thanks, guys. 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 Dale Jr. fan. All right, looking ahead, we talked about the NBA Finals, Game 3 Warriors v. Cavaliers in Cleveland. Thanks to Good Year. We'll be going to that. Friday, we have practice and qualifying. Qualifying is at 415, Eastern on Fox Sports 1.

Saturday we have practice and at Xfinity Race. The Xfinity race is at 1 o'clock on Fox. That's where all the drivers are doing the broadcast. Yeah, so it should be interesting. I know, that'll be fun. Sunday, the race is at 3 p.m. 3. 3.m. Eastern.

Goodness, gracious. Goodness. Hopefully there's no rain. Don't forget. It's not at a normal. reasonable time. It's going to be at 3 o'clock. Fox Sports 1 is covering the race.

So you can have your dinner with this race. I cannot be more upset or disappointed that we're starting these races so late. I think the rest of the year they either start at 2 or 3. It's ridiculous. It is ridiculous, man. I hate it for like the guys in the shop are going to get home at midnight from a Pocono race, Yeah. Which is stupid.

But they didn't ask my opinion. Yeah. The races should be after church. Yep. One o'clock. Yes. After church. Come home.

God. All right. That's the show. I think it was a great show. I did too. Good job. Good effort here. You got it.

Enjoy it. Have a good week, folks. And we'll see you in Pocono. The Dale Jr. download and all Dirtymo Radio podcast are made possible by Exaltta. You can subscribe to all eight programs on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud, and all major podcasting outlets. As always, you can listen to Dirty Mo Radio podcast on Dale Jr.com. Follow us on Twitter at Dale Jr., at Overstreet Tyler, and at Dirtymo Radio. Also, check out the Dirty Mo Radio Facebook page.

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