The Dale Jr. Download - 194 - An Interesting Week on Twitter

Episode Date: September 27, 2017

Dale Earnhardt Jr. discusses his week on Twitter and answers fan questions during the weekly Ask Jr. segment. 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. With another episode of the Dale Jr. download, thanks to Hopeless Records for today's theme song. That was Miles of Heart by the Dangerous Summer. And with me as usual is co-host Tyler Overstreet. Hello. How you doing, Tyler? I'm great.

How are you? I'm doing great. We also have in the studio, Mike Davis. What's up? What's wrong with your voice, Mike? Jeez. It's gone. This is what happens when you have to take phone calls from every TV producer in America calling to get Dale Jr. on their interview.

Junior goes out, starts tweeting stuff, starts making himself into the political conversation. And now I have lost my voice because of all the conversations I've had just on Monday. Well, I hope it comes back, man. Sounds painful. I do too. What do you have planned on the Twitter this week? I'm going to kind of take a break, go back to gifts and jokes. There you go.

Yeah. Gifts are good. People love gifts. I got a little carried away this weekend, and I think Amy didn't go. She had a conflict of her schedule, and she's actually with her family visiting in Texas now. And so I think that maybe I don't know what to do with myself when she's not around. So are you trying to subtly blame her for your actions? No, no, no.

See, I was trying exactly what I was trying not to do. I was trying to say that I need to do better. Yes. Like when she is not around, I just kind of... She keeps you level-headed. She's like my rev limiter. Yeah, he needs to know how to act when he's on his own. Yes.

Yeah, so that was a busy weekend, though. Yes. I got a question. Sure. Is this what we can expect from retirement Dell, like moving forward? Like you... I don't know if I could keep up this pace. This is the ornery old man if I ever saw one.

This is... Everybody is... saying at the racetrack that they're calling, they're saying that my, my give a dam's gone this year. Oh, it is. It's like I was thinking, I thought to myself. I didn't feel like anything changed. If I ever wondered when of the Junior Nation appreciation tour where junior would quit giving a damn, it was New Hampshire. Which is weird because like I spend all this time with him and then it's like normal Dale, normal Dale.

And then you'll see this tweet go out and I'm like, wait, what? I thought we were good. It did not actually start with a tweet. It actually started with a press conference, his weekly media availability. Yeah. Yeah. And I was watching it, and I was cracking up. At the hat or the musket or what? No, no, not even that.

And that was funny, right? That was funny. I was like, oh, my God, Dale's going to be so mad about that. But it actually wasn't. I took it. I was so excited about the musket, to be honest with you. I couldn't believe it. I thought, man, I'm just going to, okay, honest to God, I feel terrible.

saying this. The Patriots come out, and I'm like, I don't understand, you know, they're giving me the Patriots. I thought football team initially, and then I see the actual Patriots come out, and I'm like, I don't know what this is going to be. Are they going to do some kind of dance or something? Then they gave me a hat, and I was like, well, okay, it's just, it's a hat. I'm sure there was something else coming and assuming maybe a charitable portion to it,

which did end up being on the tail end. But then the musket came out, and I'm like, wow. You know, I've told everybody in lieu of gifts like to do some charitable stuff that will help in the community. But I'll be honest, you know, the musket was really cool. I tried to tell Amy, I said, you got to see this freaking musket. I can't wait to bring it home. We're going to hang it on the wall somewhere. And she said, no.

I was like, well, you got to see it first. So I brought it home. She had no idea what to expect. This thing's like seven foot tall. So I showed it to her. She was really impressed, but I still don't think she wants to put it up anyway. Is it heavy? Yeah, it's a real deal.

It came in like a huge box. Very big, heavy wooden box. It was nice. The part that stunned me was that you put the hat on. Me too. It was like a costume party. I was like, oh no, these photos are going to be there forever. You know when the old joke about when, when, what age does a man just stop looking both ways before he backs out of his driveway?

You know, the old guys joke. Yeah. So I'm at that point in my life. No doubt about it. I'm at that point in my life to wear you. I'll put that hat on, what the hell. Yeah. And that ain't all you did.

I mean, like, it was the hat. But then the press conference started, and they asked you about a topic that you really kind of started talking about on the download last week. Yeah. And that was the victory burnouts. I can't talk. God, this is terrible. You sound amazing.

Shut up. It's okay. It's working. Is it okay We'll get you to sing miles apart on the outro God, that'll be awful But okay, you were You went off again

Well, the thing that I think Like you went right at NASCAR Yeah, and I worry about The drivers, my peers and NASCAR upsetting them because I'd done that in the past With some of the comments I made at Watkins Glen upset some of the drivers And I hated that

The the thing that I think we had to remind people is that we have a media availability every week. And I go in there and I get asked whatever the hot topic is. And I answered and that was the one question I got that got a lot of traction. And I am very passionate about it. At any time, at no time do I feel like I'm actually making accusations that people are cheating. I just feel like that there's a small integrity issue in the post-race process. Right.

And we saw, and this past weekend we saw this incredible example of one car, the 24, being penalized and tech properly or strictly, which I'm for strict and fair penalty. And especially when you get caught doing it on TV. That ought to, you know. Yeah, which is a whole other conversation. Right. But here's a guy that finished, didn't win the race, but he's getting held accountable. And the winner rolls by everyone on pit road with the rear tires blowed out and the rear quarter panel's bent up and more than likely the wheel tub is taken out of the car or damaged.

And it cannot at this point go be held accountable to the same standard because of that. So I wanted to try, maybe I didn't make it clear, maybe I did, but I wanted to make sure that people understand that I'm not saying, hey, everybody that does a burnout and blows the tires is cheating. But I think that NASCAR has an integrity issue in the process that they could take a look at. And they did say that this is not a new conversation, which it's not. Something I've felt this way for years. and we saw after the race Kyle Bush did a burnout celebrated without blowing the tires out

actually text him He didn't blow the tires out of your time No actually text him last night I said I heard that you didn't blow the tires out Is that true? He said yeah I didn't do it I said well I just wanted to make sure I went on my podcast and said that

And so he proved right there You can celebrate give the fans a show Show your enthusiasm and excitement and still be able to be held to the same standard in the integrity of the inspection process as anyone else, second, third, and fourth. So that was all I was saying. Just make a small adjustment to keep them from blowing the tires. I know that some guys, I think that, for example,

some guys do it and it happens maybe accidentally. Maybe it isn't intentional. But it is, it's hard for me to, see a guy be held to the standard the 24 was when the winners rolling into Victor Lane in the shape that he was, those two things, I think, need to, they need to bridge that gap a little bit. But yeah, that was a busy. Well, I think they got the message, didn't they? Well, yeah.

On the 24, do you think that his penalty would have been, happened or been as severe if not for social media? Well, a lot of people didn't feel like his penalty was severe enough. I mean, there's a big conversation about, I think that Newman said the numbers didn't add up. That was his quote. A lot of people are comparing. What did that mean? Well, a lot of people are comparing the penalty for maybe the 11 car.

I got it. Yeah. You know, so they're just, there's a lot. There's a big conversation there about if the penalties are the same, fair, what have you. You know, I leave that up to NASCAR to decide how to penalize, how much to penalize. until you don't agree with it. Well, yeah, of course, until it's you, until it's me. But the one thing that I think is interesting is that it did play out on social media.

NASCAR might not want to believe it or admit to it, but social media, it was a public jury or public detectives, whatever you want to call. It definitely played a factor. It did play a factor. That opens up. But I heard that that whole thing was for. first discovered on Reddit. Right, Reddit. That's what some people say, and then some people will say that other teams were sending in

the photos. I mean, I'm sure it was both happening, but if it's just the teams, I don't know. Like, if all these fans are, uh-huh. Yeah, I think, I believe, regardless of what the truth is, the fans' perception is that social media drove a lot of that. And that will create more of that, like, you know, arm-chievous. there are detectives. You're going to see a lot of fans sharing and chatting and discussing about things that they see

that they would, you know, they're going to be calling out teams and cars once they get their, you know, they get their hands on these photos and during races and so forth. They're going to see things. So this is going to be, this has opened up a whole new can of worms that I think would be interesting to see how that plays out, don't you? I think that this now, this is the start of something. really big with the fans, social media, holding people accountable.

I think it's interesting. I think it's fascinating. I mean, I think this happens in golf too. Like, people will call it in violations. So it's similar to that. Yeah, it is. It's fascinating. Yeah.

Yeah, you don't have to. Because you can look at high-res images. Sure. It's not hard to find them. Right. So it's pretty, if somebody wants to look and be a detective and find something. It's going to be interesting

because it plays out. I think for me it's not surprising or maybe not that crazy because studying photos is an old art form or an old habit to race teams.

I mean, we teams and crew chiefs and engineers have studied photos of cars for a very long time. We look at photos of our own car so we can better understand how our splitter looks or whether we're too high, too low.

They look at photos of the cars during the race to understand, hey, do we need to pull some packer or it's a car on the splitter too hard? This is a, you know, staring at high-res photos of race cars has been going on for a really long time. And you, you know, you do it for a million different reasons. But, and now I think it's just kind of transitioning into the fan base and they're having access to that and they're using it. And they're, this is a great case of that.

but I think it's going to be interesting how that goes forward into the next several years. Well, Dale Jr. wasn't done. He was only beginning. Yeah, you have to have a story for each day of the week. I mean, that was Friday. Saturday then came around. Yeah. And then there was this little situation with Joey Legano.

And I'm, you know, at home and I see the tweet. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, what is this? Do you care to explain? Yeah, sure. Let's do this. Tyler, tell us exactly what happened with Joey Lugano. Ligano. You explain what's going on.

Yeah, let's set some context here. So he, during qualifying or prior to qualifying, every team goes through tech. His car did not pass tech inspection. They must have gone through, what, three or four times? And he didn't get on the track to qualify. So to penalize him, NASCAR says, okay, you're going to sit out the entire 50-minute final practice on Saturday, which there's two practices. There's a morning practice that was at nine.

and I think the final practice was 1130 to 1220. So they said his penalty is to sit out this practice, but literally he has to get in his car, fire suit, helmet, everything, drive down to the end of pit road and sit there for 50 minutes. And it was pretty warm. So just sitting there.

All right. So I hear this. And his wife is delivering water to him. And, you know, obviously cars. car drivers having to sit on pit road being penalized a portion of practice is nothing new we all have had to do it at some time i believe i have to actually do it at dover yes i think so well we're we're waiting to see but we may have like a 15 to 30 minute on pit road yes yes we went to i think this has happened on a couple occasions to every driver every like this past weekend they're like

15 cars out there during happy hour for 15 minutes man i didn't know that i always knew that you have to start practice late. Yeah, that's what it is. You go out on pit road and wait. I know, but I didn't know you would wait on pit road. Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay.

All right, so that's, okay, so yes, if you're, if you get a 15-minute penalty, you serve it on pit road. Okay. Joey's added up to an entire practice, so they made him serve it on pit road, just like the rest of us. I was, I was surprised because it was the entire practice. He wasn't going to get to run a lap. He wasn't going to get to pull off pit road and, and, and finish.

practice so I was thinking why not just keep them in the garage they're wanting to include the driver in the punishment so this was their way of making Joey understand and be part of the the punishment so he he was a wit you know he was there and accountable to the punishment I thought you know well you know they could have the driver sign autographs at the next race for 50 minutes during happy hour or not during happy hour but during Saturday sometime when they use their time more wisely and put the car in the garage under a car cover so the team can't work on it they don't want the team to be able to utilize that practice time so that's why the car's out on pit road the driver's in it so he's part of the

process and the penalty but anyways when I heard about this I couldn't believe it so I text Joey I said Joey is this true I can't believe it and he goes, yes, it's true. And so my head exploded, and then I sent that tweet. So I regret using the F word. That was pretty immature and regrettable. Why is that? You know, I just don't think you need to cuss to get your point across,

and a lot of times when you do cuss, your point gets lost. I think when you, you know, we do that in argument and discussion and debate. you get it gets heated you start cussing and the cussing shuts down the person who's listening to you or you won't that person you want to listen to you tuned you right out so I think that I you know and and it's just not a good look on on social media so it's regrettable but anyhow but you're also not a guy that deletes tweets because I did not delete no no but I don't think you delete tweets do you I have had to delete a few Oh, I didn't know that. I just figured, like, you know, you bring more attention to it when you delete it.

I agree with that, too. Anyways, okay, keep going on. Hold another conversation. Yeah, it is. When do you delete a tweet? Next week on the Dale Jr. So anyways, I just couldn't believe it. And I think that with everything going on the day before with the burnouts, I don't know.

Everything was on a heightened alert and energy level. that whole weekend something in the air just was driving a lot of uh it was just driving a lot of sort of conversation and and hot topics and it just was snowballing uh for me my emotions and everything going on in my mind and when amy's not there yeah he just unravels she got she got to be there now she got to be there right yeah no but really i mean like i just think that well i you know i think that it it could have been, it just personally, and I know this is not, I feel like this is hard to believe,

but maybe people don't believe this, or maybe NASCAR doesn't feel this way, but I care about the way the sport looks, and I care about the health of the sport. I care, when I say the health of the sport, I mean the success, that people perceive us a certain way. And when we do things like that,

it's like step back and I was like hey why are we doing this this looks stupid I get punishing joey punishing but we don't have to put it on front page right in front of everybody in practice while we're on TV you know this is going to be it was public shaming yes that's what it was and to be honest with you exactly it looks like the the the contention here was in the optics of it and what's fascinating to me as I was observing from my home was that the optics were exactly what NASCAR was going for and exactly what you had a problem with. So it wasn't difference of philosophies as much as it was like they it was a public shaming and you did not agree with the public shaming part of that in the way that looked. And I think that that's exactly what NASCAR was trying to achieve is like, look, you know, the driver doesn't get to just retreat into their motor home.

Right. And skip their practice and enjoy their life. off, yeah. And have a day off. No, you've got to be punished with your team as an example of what not to do. And I'll tell you, like, and you use the word punish, Joey told me that he would have rather been outside the car doing something productive with his time that would help the sport. He would rather have been in the grandstand signing autograph or doing something that would

utilize his time properly, help the sport to win, win for everybody. He doesn't get to go lounge around any ice cream or whatever NASCAR thinks he was going to do instead. But he, you know, he ends up sitting there

sort of twiddling his thumbs and not getting a message that NASCAR wants him to get. NASCAR wants him to learn a lesson from this. I don't believe that he, you know, that registered in any of the way. way with Joey, nor would it with me in that circumstance. Do they really think that making the driver sit out there is going to piss them off,

and then they're going to be like, hey, do what you got to do to get this car through tech? Yeah, I think that that's what they believe, that the driver's going to get angry and go back to the crew and the crew chief and say, don't make me sit out there again. Some drivers may feel like they can do that. I personally wouldn't do that. That's not in my nature to go, hey, Greg, dang it. I want Greg to try to get everything he can get. Every team in that garage is being super aggressive with the rulebook

in every area that they can find to get an advantage and speed and performance, and I want my team doing the same thing. If I have to miss practice a time or two, that's part of the process. That's part of just trying to get everything you can. But I also think NASCAR is going to take a look at this as well. They talked about after the fact that maybe they'll do it a little differently next time. I could have handled that differently.

I could have went into the hauler and shared my views instead of going across social media and taking it there. It wasn't really necessary that I go on social media and hammer on NASCAR two days in a row. But, you know, then the reason why I say that is because that's what, what my father would have done. My father would have went into the hauler and said, hey guys,

I want to have a conversation about this. And it worked, you know. And other drivers, you know, it wasn't just dad. It'd be any, you know, other drivers with the same opinion would go in there.

And, uh, that's the way things were done back in the, back in that time. And I still think that that's a way that things can still be done. But social media is so easy, man. Wait, Social media is sort of the modern-day hauler.

I mean, in a way, it's just so much more public. It is useful. It is public. Plus, like with the Chase Elliott, like, oh, he's cheating, he's cheating. You get the fans piling on, too. But at the same time. They seem to, like, crumble when the fans are like. And that worries me a little bit, to be honest with you.

Like, I get that you were going back to something you were addressing at the beginning of, you know, We're in this new era where fans almost have a role in policing the sport. That's also a scary precedent because of how nobody is actually objective. It's not an objective approach. You know, right now, if Junior Nation has any say-so or feels like to have any say-so in how the sport is policed, let me tell you, Kyle Bush doesn't stand a chance of, you know, getting through. That's a good point. And they'll create the, I even worry about, listen, this is an extreme example, but like, even people at the track.

Like, you know, we always talk about those phantom debris cautions. Like, you just don't want to, the governing body still needs to be the governing body. Right. And if there are issues, God, I hate my voice right now, because I'm getting wound up. And this voice don't go well with wound up. But it's like the governing body still has to have the credibility to govern. Right. And the respect to govern.

And I think that ultimately what came down to Dale's issues and what I'm hearing from him is that he felt like the sport wasn't going to be respected in the way that some of those decisions were being made. That's true. Go ahead. I agree with that. My feelings about me taking the Joey Legano issue to social media is next time that happens, I need to think about what I'm doing.

and is that making the sport look? Reflecting, no, it could. Is that making the sport look bad? Yeah, like you may be, you're contributing to it playing out on social media, which is probably. But, you know, me going on there dropping an F bomb and calling NASCAR out, drawing more attention to it, was that necessary? My concern is that the sport looks bad, did I add to that? You know, that's what I need to be a little bit better at next time. And that's why if I had sat there for about five minutes, I probably would.

wouldn't have sent the tweet. I probably would have went into the hauler and gave them my opinion in that manner. And it might take more than one trip to the hauler, but I think you can have the same impact. And my goal isn't to blast NASCAR and get a big old, you know, get a lot of laughs. Right. Yeah, yeah. It's to really say, hey, I don't think this is great. This looks silly for us. to stop doing this. Let's do it differently. You can have that conversation behind, you know, closed doors and the holler. But anyhow, that was Saturday.

Yeah, what's funny is that so my boy, Kurt Colbert, decided to step to retirement Dale on Twitter. And it's funny because I was talking to Kurt yesterday and he said, could you please put out on the podcast that we're all friends here? Because apparently fans have been going at him now. Yeah. But I was like, welcome to our life, bud. Yeah.

But Kurt is a friend of ours, and he was simply, I mean, look, he works for NASCAR. He was like, look, you do the crime, you pay the time. Is that the same? Yeah. It rhymes. It sounds like it might be the same. Yep. So I was like, okay, but did everybody know that that was the crime or that was the time you do for that crime?

Right. And it sounds like, it sounds like I didn't think it was, but it's. sounds like they have been putting on pit road, just not for the fulling for the practice. Yeah, that was the first time ever. Yeah, because we've missed, we misqualifying twice earlier this year at Texas and Kansas, and we didn't sit out the whole time like that. Well, he failed four times. Was it four?

Yeah. Okay. So, God, what were they doing to fail four times? Dude, I'm going to tell you right now. And this, you can take, you can, you can have the camber, you can have the toe go through and the toes illegal on the left rear. change it, literally go to the garage and change the end of the housing to fix the toe, go back through, and it'll show more. I mean, it's just, it's really challenging.

Wasn't it at Kentucky this weekend with the Xfinity cars, they had to hold up a blanket because the sun was glaring into the laser platform? Yeah. It was making the laser platform go bonkers like it held up. Elliot Sadler and all our guys, and he's like, man, this is a, we're going to miss qualifying, and this ain't our fault. Yeah, they had a big old moving blanket. To block the sun. It's a real sophisticated system right there. Hey, easy, T.J.

Wow. I got a question about T.J. real quick. Did you guys catch the tweet of him? I think it was about a week ago where it was basically an advertisement for a scented candle company. That's Amy Walsh. That's Amy Walsh? Yes. She owns that.

My question was going to be who owns that company or who is paying T.J. to make that tweet. No, he's just being a good friend. It's Amy Walsh and Travis Stock, who's on our team. That's cool. Yeah, they started a candle company. We haven't tweeted about it, but we have a lot at my house, too. Well, retirement dell still might tweet about it.

If that old candle company rubs him wrong now. If it rubs him wrong, if it ain't sent, if it don't put out the right cent. Yeah, don't do it. Don't, yeah. That was Saturday. Sunday, the race happened. And so then comes Monday morning. Now, this started off very interesting to me.

I want to start by saying this. When Dale Jr. FaceTimed you from his bed at, I don't know, 8 a.m., 9 a.m., and whatever it was, 8 o'clock. You know it's going to be good. And so hit answer, and there he is, hair going all to hell. I don't think he's ever FaceTime me and not look like that. Yeah, right, right.

Yeah, he may have been actually up in my head. He may just got to get back from a bike ride for a no. He jerks. And so he goes, I've done it again. Now, the thing is funny about that is that we actually try to avoid politics. Do we not? Yeah, I think somebody asked him in an interview last week. Is there anything that you would try to avoid?

And he said politics. Yeah. And I was like, it's just that there's no way. I hate talking politics. Of course. I think this is the reason why you were FaceTiming because you were like giving me a heads up that you had just tweeted a political tweet. And so I looked at it. And when I saw it, to be honest with you, I was.

I wasn't surprised because as I had watched this whole protest stuff play out over the weekend with the NFL and then, of course, with President Trump, I could tell that this was going to kind of rub you wrong because I know who Dale is. First of all, Dale aims to please people. All right. If I'm wrong, you can correct me. But I know you go out of your way, whether you would like to admit it or not. I like to please people. You like to please people and you respect people. Everybody.

Okay. The second thing I knew was that when Richard Petty and Richard Childress said what they said, which they were entitled to say that, and they weren't trying to speak on behalf of the entire industry. They were speaking on behalf of themselves, which is fair, and you can do that. And I never questioned that at all. That being said, when NASCAR didn't actually put out their own statement, Richard Childress and Richard Petty's comments were basically the industry's statements for 24 hours, which carried over. into Monday. Yep. And people were now taking shots at our beloved NASCAR.

And when it comes down to it, it's like when, you know, somebody's talking about your mama. You take offense to it. You don't want NASCAR put in a bad life. And I knew that Dale would have a problem with that. And that's why I wasn't necessarily surprised by your tweet. Am I wrong or am I right? No, I think you're right.

I kept seeing a lot of negativity about NASCAR on social media. And it's just the same tired stigma that we've dealt with for many of them. many years. And so I didn't feel like that, you know, Richard's comments and Richard Petty's comments were the way the entire sport felt. I know that that was, like you said, I mean, I think that Richard was talking for himself. And through North Carolina law, they had the right to do the things that they said they would do. That's right. And they had the right to their opinion. That's right. You know, and so I just didn't want anyone in speaking for me. And I felt like that you could assume that those might be my own personal feelings as well. So I wanted to make that clear. Well, that said,

I stand for the flag during the national anthem. Always have, always will. We have a incredibly large military presence at our races. We go above and beyond to show our patriotism and what it means to be Americans and how proud we are of that and how proud we are of the flag and what it stands for. So no surprise to me, everyone at the track stood and addressed the flag. And, address the flag during the anthem which i think will continue but i also understand that the you know the man next to me if he wants to do something different that's his right and i'm i might not agree with everything somebody does but i it's their right to to have that opportunity to do that and i can't take that away from them and i don't want them taking it away from me that's the way i feel

about it yeah i'm still i'm still trying to find where i land on all this to be honest with you and it's I understand what people's constitutional rights are. Okay, so I do feel still rubbed wrong, not for me, but on behalf of like people I know or people that military. Military, right. I still feel weird about people choosing that time to protest. Right. That being said, I don't rush to judgment on them. I choose not to because I know what their constitutional rights are.

Right. And I don't know what it's like to walk in their shoes. Exactly. And if I can be compassionate towards that, and at least saying, I only can speak for me, but at least if I can admit, I don't know what it's like to walk in your shoes. And therefore, I'm not going to judge you on what you do. I feel like that's kind of where I end up landing. Is it I still feel very awkward about it, which may be the very point in which they picked that time.

Yeah. It is for us to be uncomfortable. Yeah. I respect you because, especially in an era when it's really hard to. consider everybody's feelings and be compassionate to everybody in the room. You know, you still strive to do that. And so for that matter, I mean, I really respect that. And I think that, you know, we would be a lot better off if we just try to take other people's considerations, other people's worldviews, and factor them in. And listen, it's still a process for me. I'm not,

I'm not batting a thousand on that. Right. I'm not. I've got my flaws and I get, I get emotional and I get, you know, pissed off about when people I feel like are disrespecting something. But if we're going to make any progress, I got to be the bigger person too and that and factor in everyone's feelings on stuff. I think if you look at any time that we've ever really chimed in on social issues, it came from a place of compassion. And that's exactly the, that's my first reaction. I hate conflict and confrontation argument.

And I always try to keep my mind open to this other person's point of view. I need to do what I need to try to understand. And so like you, I don't rush to judgment on anybody's choices. It's not easy to be honest. I know. And I hope that they wouldn't rush to judgment on my choice. Right. You know, my choice to stand and salute the flag comes from my personal experiences

and what I know and think. All right, now we're going to get to our Ask Junior questions. As always, we take these on Twitter. You said that we didn't have that many of this week. We didn't. Why not? There were a lot about politics. Oh.

At Oz, U.B. I don't know what this person's name is. What do you look for in young drivers? Number of wins, skill in inferior equipment, sponsor backing, all the above, or none of the above. My goodness. Well, so the elephant in the room is sponsor backing. Right. We don't race without a sponsor.

I don't care how badly we want to race if we don't have the money to go to the track to do it. We can't do it. If a driver brings a sponsor with him, that's great. that if he already has and that's that feels that's not you know that's not something that should be

frowned upon if you see a guy get a ride and bring his sponsor with him the sponsor is marketing the driver right so he may have created this relationship early in his career

early in his racing life and nurtured this relationship to the much like we've done with nationwide we started nationwide with a very small personal service agreement it's grown to a full-time cup sponsor this guy might have done the same thing and now they're ready to jump into the next level so if he comes along with a partner uh that's awesome for an owner and so it's gotten really common for drivers and this was i don't know it happened in the 80s and 90s as well when i was around then but drivers would move from team to team with the same sponsor.

I mean, that's, you know, they build that relationship and marketing that driver. So the sponsorship is probably, I mean, the sponsorship is at the top of list. Let's just be honest. Then you want to look at talent. And can this driver do the job if we give him the equipment? And a lot of times, in most cases, it's about the equipment. All these drivers have some innate ability to win. to race.

They get to this level for a reason. But can you give them the parts and the pieces of the cars that will be competitive? So. I mean, a good example of that is we just signed Tyler Reddick for next year. Yeah. So he's got some sponsorship, but he also proved Saturday that he can win races. Yeah. I mean, that's the best example, best case scenario.

Right. You hire a driver with a sponsor. He goes out wins next week. Right. So that will help you add additional sponsors. I was sitting there watching that going, man, this is too good to be true. Right. What a great year we're going to have next year.

Yeah. He stomped him. He did. So, yeah. So, I mean, you wish you could just say, that's a great race car driver. Put him in the car. Let's go race. But it really comes down to one thing in that sponsorship.

Right. Which is the way NASCAR has always been. I mean, obviously now you need more sponsorship because the cost of racing is just going up. Yes. But yeah. At K. DiGoa, 29. Sorry about that. Where do you see yourself in five to ten years?

My gosh. Hopefully, I have a couple kids and still in the booth broadcasting. Really, hopefully not too much changes. really no cup team no cup team hopefully junior motorsports is still here right racing hopefully nothing changes i really like everything the way it is just want to add some kids just add some kids to it at bow carney asked if you had to choose to battle one would you choose 100 duck sized horses or 100 horse sized ducks oh my gosh battling you got to battle these right yes well definitely probably the duck-sized horses.

I mean, horse-sized ducks, I don't want to battle them. Yeah. So little horses. Yeah. That's pretty easy. Be like a bunch of little dogs.

I think the question is maybe 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized ducks. This is how they worded it. Well, it's obviously, if this is the way they want to word it, it's always going to be answered with 100 duck-sized horses. What if it was one-horse-sized duck? I'd probably try the duck. One-on-one? Yeah.

At My Kids Daddy 24 asks, How is it determined who you fly with this week? You said you flew with Blaney, Newman, and Truex. Well, Blaney and Newman and Truex hopped a ride on my plane. Really, they just say, hey, can I catch a ride home? And I'm like, yep, no problem. We've got room. Blaney either rides on a team plane.

Sometimes he rides with us if he's got to get home, if he's got to get up, go somewhere early in the morning Monday. Maybe he'll try to catch a ride with us. Newman and Truex, we shared a hanger together for a while. now me and Turex share a hanger. So sometimes it's not often, but Newman will catch a ride every once in a while. Truex, maybe this is probably the only time he'll do it this year.

I was nervous he was going to win, and we were going to have to leave him. It's his. Why? It's his problem. I wasn't nervous about that at all. That's funny that would make you nervous. Well, he was supposed to actually fly home.

If he wins, he's probably going to be plenty happy. He's not going to get over it. He's going to be fine. He'll be talking. He'll be like, hey, I'm going to... I know, but his team plane goes back to Denver, so... Well, he has a plane that could come get him. Oh, that's true.

It's a hangar when we landed. It would just be a long flight. Same time. I know it would be a long flight to go up there just to get him. Well, he's not on it. I know. But he was actually supposed to fly home with us from Kansas, anyone, Kansas. Yeah.

Well, what happened? Did you get nervous? No. Me and Amy were talking... I was talking to Amy during the race, and I was like, And we're like, yeah, he's going to have to flatten his own way home. Yeah. But then he was winning on Sunday.

So I was like, man, it's not like I could call you up and say, hey, are we going to just leave Truex if he wins? You asked me. Did I? Yes. You said, what happens if he wins? I said he'll have to find a ride home. I don't remember. Okay.

I was talking about politics. So at Kimmy for me, will you ever show us your bike ride videos again? I hear you mention them, but don't see them anymore. I don't think she might not be on Instagram. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so about three weeks ago, I was on Instagram and everybody wonders whether we read all the comments. So I was on Instagram and I posted a ride that I took and usually we ride on Fridays in between practice and qualifying and then we'll ride again after practice on Saturday if we can. after you turn 40

you if you don't work out and you want to keep eating the same garbage you're going to gain weight so I jump on the bike so I don't have to change I don't have to, you know, so I can still drink beer and I can still eat the same garbage I want to eat. So I ride the bike for fitness

and Jimmy, when I go for a ride on Friday or Saturday, Jimmy's there, Matt's there, Chase is there, Jamie McMurray, Daniel Suarez, Casey Kane, the list goes on and on. Eric Amarola, all these drivers also ride. We all have to do something to stay in shape. Riding is the easiest. Seems like it's like the most natural form of exercise

that maybe a race car drive would take. Staying on tires, riding, driving, shifting gears. It comes in, you know, it kind of feels natural. It's fun. But anyways, I was posting my rides, and a guy said one of the fans responded on Instagram that I was riding my bike too much and none of my fans wanted to see me riding my bike. And nobody wanted to watch me watch these videos. This is proof that somebody does. Yes.

So, what a jerk thing to say. I know. He's like, man, nobody wants to see this crap. Get in your car. Have you ever gone on an Instagram post and just wrote like a rude comment like this? that? No. Yeah, me neither.

I don't, I, you know, maybe it's having a bad day. It just, I was like, damn, I was just, I was just sharing,

you know, what I'm trying, what I'm doing. Yeah. So, social media is about like, hey, this is what I'm doing,

this is where I'm at, for everyone. Right. Right. For you, like, hey, I'm doing this today. Cool.

Yeah. This is what's up. And your friends, I got friends that follow me. They want to see where I'm at, what I'm doing, what I'm riding my bike, what the hell ever I'm doing,

right and so that made me think like golly i guess nobody i guess you know not nobody but i guess maybe this isn't as cool as i thought so i kind of chilled out on posting those you do like one a week yeah maybe not more well i rode the same route friday and saturday in new hampshire so i didn't post it twice did they even post it i don't think you did well that's why i'll get back to posting them for uh at kimmy for me me at Chris Stamper 1 asked, will you drive the NBC car next year like Jeff Burton does now, even though it's Toyota, or would it have to be a Chevrolet? It probably has to be a Chevrolet.

I have a Chevrolet personal service agreement, so I cannot drive to Toyota. And we race Chevroletes here, so it has to be Chevrolet. It has to be Chevrolet, which I don't think that's very fun. To do that car? No. It doesn't, yeah. And I don't think that, what is it, what do you get out of it? What do you think the fans get out of it?

I don't know, because they've been doing it for so long, it seems, to where I don't know that you're learning anything new. But maybe if it's a new fan, somebody who's never watched a NASCAR race, that may be enlightening. When I see it, I think about how much it costs to get that thing to every race and whether it's worth that for the network. What's, you know, whether we return on it. I imagine Toyota sponsors it and spends the money on it and pays for it.

Yeah. But I wonder whether the effort and the trouble, the hassle of doing it, getting it to the track. For what ends up being like a three-minute segment. Yeah, whether the segment's even that good. I haven't really watched it enough to know whether the second is good or not. You're usually a little busy when this is being airing or airing. Yeah. I don't know.

At Mike Elders asks, do you have a car that travels with you every week or is there always a rental? It seems like you're always in the same vehicle on all your periscopes. Yeah, well, it's a rental every week. I mean, it's usually always a Tahoe or a suburban, so that's why it would look the same. TJ's always driving. You sat in the front this week. I did it? I did.

Yeah, the worst co-pilot ever. I still had to navigate from the back seat. At Sprint 76, do teams get any of the TV deal money between NASCAR and Fox NBC? That's how they pay out the point fund, right? Yeah. So, yes. Yeah, the teams get some TV money. Yeah.

All that has, I don't know if anybody really knows how much anymore because when the new agreement came out, they quit talking about how much prize money there was. They don't say that anymore. So a lot of that stuff isn't quite as out in the open anymore. Right. This guy had a weird name, but his other name was Funkatronics. So we'll go with that. said, I'm a NASCAR novice here. What is the first step to becoming a driver?

It looks cool. Oh, my gosh, he is a novice. The first step to becoming a driver, well, you know, you can get you a four-cylinder car out of the junkyard and go racing the four-cylinder class at your local track. Or you can get right in the street stocks. I would start there. That's going to cost you about 500 bucks probably at the cheapest to get into that entry level. Not going to be very competitive, but at least you don't need to worry about spending a lot of money. money on your car try to learn how to drive it first once you start to feel like you get

understanding how the car works and how to drive it how to fix it then you can put a little money into performance how does that sound that sounds so you can race a street stock for 500 bucks yeah I did I bought I mean I went down the junkyard talked a guy out of the car for $200 I rebuilt the motor you could be rebuild kit for a hundred bucks or something just gaskets rebuild the motor I went down to the tire store into the back of the tire store where they keep used tires got a set of used tires for 20 bucks so you weren't very successful in this i mean we would run fourth to tenth like in street stocks did they put fresh tires on every week you could buy race specific tires from the track they're those are more expensive

yeah they were 100 about 80 bucks a piece or something oh but those were much faster right had a lot more grip. The street tire is really hard. It doesn't have as much grip. But just to get yourself on the track, you're not going to go right out of the gate and win every damn race. So don't waste all your money up front because you've got to go out there and wreck that thing a few times. You will. You're going to go out there. Inevitably, yeah. You've got to go out there and screw up and make mistakes. So don't, you know, don't spend all your money until you feel like you've kind of gotten the car figured out and how to drive it

and understand what you got yourself into. Hannah, oh, you have more? Like, so when you get your paycheck. Yeah. Right? I'm not going to be racing. No, but say, do you invest all of it in the market or just put a little bit in there? In the what?

Stock market. I do that about once a year. Right, but do you put it all in there at once? You don't invest everything like in bulk. No. Just kind of go a little of time, right? That's it. That's how you should invest.

That's how you should start investing. That's how you invest in your racing career. Oh, yeah, it has to grow. Yeah. At Hanner Tart. asked which track do you wish could come back to being on the NASCAR circuit? I don't. None? None? Yeah, do you have one? You're not like one of those people who's like Rockingham, North Wilkesboro. Well, I used to be, but it's never going to happen, so I gave up.

This is why, this is Wish. Oh, man. Nashville Fairgrounds. Oh. I told you one and now you're like, it had potential to come back and then they missed up. I told you one and that was not good enough. That would have been cool. I like, I used to like that track on NASCAR racing 2003. It's a great track. It's a great track in real life, Tyler. Is it? It was very good in the Sim world. All right.

That's all the questions we have for this week. All right. As always, you can send your questions on Twitter using the hashtag Ask Junior. 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 80s. It's at Exaltza Racing, a must follow for any Dale Jr. fan. Thursday, we've got a Mountain Dew appearance at Walmart store 3197 in Tampa, Florida. We'll be there at 3.30 p.m. signed some autographs.

Sounds good. It's open to 200 people, so call that store. What do you mean, Good Lord? That's not a lot. They're just going to have 200 people there? There's going to be 200 people, then you're going to do a Q&A, and then you have to meet some other folks while you're Friday, practice in qualifying in Dover, qualifying to 3.40 p.m. Eastern Time on NBC Sports Network. I will not be in Dover this weekend. This is my last... Yeah, I heard you. I heard you. The first time. This is the last time. It's like the sixth time you said that. Last time I'll ever be able to watch you race on TV.

I hope you enjoy it. Saturday. Practices at 10.30 and one Exfinity race at 2.2. 4. P.m. Eastern Time on NBC Sports Network. That's the second race of their chase or playoffs, whatever they call them now. Sunday, the Cup race is at 2 p.m. Eastern Time on NBC Sports Network. Your final time at Dover.

Will you miss it? No, I'm not a big concrete track fan. You guys just tested there, what, like six weeks ago? Yeah. Probably got her dialed in. Hopefully. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the concrete tracks,

but it's, I do look forward to each of these last races, just to get the laps, just to be out there driving and having fun. Having fun, man. Won't be able to drive it no more after this, so got to get it, you know, got to take it all in. All right. Yeah. All right, folks.

Enjoy the show. Y'all take it easy. Have a good week. See ya. The Dale Jr. download and all Dirtymo Radio podcasts are made possible by Exalta. 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.

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