The Dale Jr. Download - 196 - PJ1 Problems, Bowman's Breakthrough, and More

Episode Date: October 10, 2017

Dale Earnhardt Jr. reflects on an eventful weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway where he crashed early in practice and Alex Bowman captured his first NASCAR win. Also, Junior looks ahead to Talladega and answers your Ask Jr. questions. 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. Thanks to Hopeless Records for providing today's theme song Where I Want to Be by The Dangerous Summer. I'm Dailenhart Jr., and as usual with me is my co-host, Tyler Overstreet. How you doing, Tyler? Excellent, excellent, excellent. We're recording this on what is my 43rd birthday. Happy birthday.

Thanks a lot. Yeah, it's been really cool seeing all of the birthday wishes coming across my phone on social media and in texts from friends and family, fans, people in the industry. It's really awesome. What did you get? Do you get any cool gifts? I did get a cool book that I put on my Instagram account. I'm a big Lawsome Dove fan.

I remember watching that miniseries when it was originally come out on TV. And there's a picture book that sort of tells some behind the scenes about how the movie was, or how the miniseries was made and so forth anyways. I really wanted that. That was cool. That was very cool. Yeah, I mean, it's been a great two days that I've spent with Amy. We were, I was planning on going hunting this week and decided not to take off just yet.

And, you know, just going to dinner with Amy and hanging around the house. And we've been kind of having a good time. Yeah, it's been nice. This is the slowest week you've had and probably since you announced your retirement. Yeah. So I have this entire week free of. obligation and it's the first time this year since the season started that we've had a full week off yeah of nothing so aside from the you know doing the podcast and

things like that which aren't really work right we haven't had to travel or go anywhere right so that's been nice I think it's gonna be refreshing to get to the track and not have been running around all week yeah well speaking of the track we just finished up at Charlotte we had a interesting weekend to say the least NASCAR. You know, it's been, we'll go over it for some of the fans who might not have been paying much attention. But the racetrack decided to put PJ1, which is supposed to be a traction compound that they use at drag strips and so forth to add grip to the racetrack. They did this initially at Bristol Motor Speedway and saw.

you know decent success I suppose and we did think it would help at Charlotte when we've run there at night so because the track is so the track won't you know the track has been repaved many years ago but it's not aging and the asphalt ratio that they used what they mixed into asphalt I believe is a bunch of rubber polymers and that is really just it's sustaining the grip that it originally had when they repaved it.

So when the temperature drops and we have a night race there, everybody just chases the line and runs the bottom. You can run the top, but it's just a longer way around and it's, the top really doesn't work at a racetrack

until the bottom becomes too slow to where that upper groove can become competitive. And when the body, What makes the bottom groove slower is heat and loss of grip. The track becoming slick in the heat of the day. So I think hearing this said over and over and over about Charlotte, the officials there decided, you know what, we're going to move this race to the daytime.

Because they're really, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't know particulars. I don't know exactly what's happening, but I know the track isn't doing well because of attendance is way down. They removed a lot of grandstands from the back straightaway and so forth. They are in, you know, they are in or near panic mode to sort of revive this racetrack. And so they decided hearing all of this conversation and advice from drivers and so forth to move this race to the daytime. great idea well

they added the PJ1 because they had did this last year and it seemed to do okay right yeah they did in the spring yeah or this earlier this year seemed to do okay but for whatever reason the way they applied it uh how it reacted whatever happened in the next several hours between being applied

and the cars getting on the track when we went out there to practice Friday that stuff was slick. It was not... Was this the first time they had put it down and not done the tire dragon thing over it? No, they've done that. That's what they did last, at the last race at Charlotte.

Okay. They applied it without using the tire dragon. What we've seen, what we've seen in the past with this at Bristol and so forth is, it is, it has more grip than an area that's not had it applied. And as the cars run on it and engage, and sort of heat it up or or it activates it somewhat and it becomes even more grippier and tackier. So, you know, we were anticipating it not being a big gaining grip until we started to use it. But when we first went up there and went through that stuff, it was slick and we flew into the fence.

I thought the right front tire blew or we broke a suspension part because the car just went right into the wall. There was no stopping it. cobblish a couple of the guys hit the wall had trouble with this stuff it just was not you know it wasn't it wasn't good you know it was bad uh that this stuff was so slick and you couldn't you couldn't even run up there you were in fear of even getting into it uh and using it i mean it basically ruined that first exfinity practice nobody like the guys ran like three laps each and they're like well we can't even run on this track right now yeah so it was a bad bad deal on friday I'll give the track credit.

They listened to a lot of advice and started to use the tire dragon, which would engage and sort of activate this PJ1 to improve its grip, and it did. They used it quite a, you know, you could see the Xfinity cars in their race run the middle. You saw the cup cars run the middle a lot. But for whatever reason, we never were able to get right up against the wall. That stuff up against the fence still. wasn't quite engaging and still was very slick similar to Friday. So that was really disappointing because I like that line. That's the line I wanted to run and was hoping to run the entire weekend

because of this race being moved to the daytime. So anyhow, we crashed our primary car. We got our backup out. We ran two laps in practice. We ran two laps in qualifying and that was it. We started the race. The car wasn't awesome. It was okay. Super loose. We made a lot. We made a lot of lot of changes during the day. Different things, wedge, track bar, air pressure. We did improve the rear grip in the car, but never really got the car faster. And we set around 17th to 20th, 16th to 20th, the entire race. And then we had our final pit stop.

Our crew was really solid all day long, but on that last pit stop, we came in 17th, and they got us out 13th. And I said, you know, I said, you know, to myself right then that I was going to try to do the best I could to at least maintain that position. They had given us a great opportunity to get a better finish than we really deserved. And then the car deserved at least. And so we were able to do that. It came home 12th. It was great from that standpoint.

And really, if you look at it as a whole weekend to take that backup car and not have any laps on it, I felt like we did. We did a respectable job. Right. I've seen teams do better. Right. But in most of those situations, they have a little more practice time with their backup car, which we didn't. So were you surprised that after the race, you were worn out. Kyle Bush was laid out and had some medical attention.

There were other guys that were exhausted. I saw this. So I got out of my car and went right to the wall to sit down because it was. It was, I just needed to sit down and get my energy back. I drank a couple of bottles of water. I started feeling better. I got up and walked back over to my car, and I looked out across the grass in the infield, and there were four or five ambulances pulled up there.

And I was like, what's going on? Yeah. And so I saw, in that glance of looking at those ambulances, I saw a driver climbing one, and I'm not sure who it was, but I was like, wow, you know, this is a, And then there were, you know, I saw Kyle. I wasn't really surprised by Kyle because he had hit the wall and knocked the crush panels out of his car. And that will definitely give you a difficult experience having to breathe in all that carbon oxide and stuff. So definitely understood his situation.

But I turned back around, looked at Pitwall and saw all the other drivers sitting down just gassed, you know. Truex talked to him later after he got home. and he said he was extremely toasted as well. So, yeah, I mean, it was just very humid. Yeah. Because it wasn't the hottest race of the season. Yeah. You know, those, the hot days aren't that bad.

It's the humid days. And it can be 80 degrees. Right. The humidity is really what kills you in those cars because that just clings around and just bakes you in there. If it's a real hot day, like 95 degrees, or 90 degrees, as long as it's not humid and it's kind of dry, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I remember race at Texas a couple years ago at night. It was, you know, 80 degrees, but it was so freaking

humid. We all about died, but I was a little bit, um, I've been wearing this cool shirt that Jimmy showed me and he wears, he wears it in practice and qualifying and everything. And, uh, so I wore, I've been wearing it in the races since Darlington. And it really helped me a lot. It keeps you nice and comfortable, at least your torso. And so, you know, your head and your torso are the most key components of trying to keep those cool. You know, the weather was a big concern. We had a big system coming into the Gulf that was coming up through the Mid-Atlantic really fast, moving quickly up north.

We got lucky with that. Everybody was just sure that we were going to be racing on Monday or Tuesday. so I was really glad that. Yes, I was very happy about that. It was wet. You know, we had some periods, and it rained out all of practice, which was really.

Yeah, Saturday was a long day because we got out there probably 9.30 in the morning, sat in the holler, did nothing. And then we stayed around for the Expendie race in the concert. In the concert.

But yeah, I was one of those who was very nervous about racing on Tuesday. Yeah. Because then that would have meant you sit there for yeah Sunday and Monday that is not any fun

one year we did that at Michigan it rained out the race and we didn't race till Tuesday I believe and I sat in that bus for two and a half days just going bonkers

which is weird because the weather forecast were like 80% on Sunday and Monday and obviously it's the local thing or it's the local race so we've dealt with the weather and it hasn't really rained a ton

so we got very lucky but kudos to NASCAR for moving that race up. That's right. Everybody rags on them for what they do wrong, but moving that race up an hour was a good call, I think. Yeah. One big thing that happened over the weekend was your future replacement,

Alex Bowman, got his first win in any of the top three series, which he had been a few haters were saying, oh, he doesn't deserve that ride. He hasn't won. It's crazy. But, I mean, he got in that 42 car, which is a good car. It just won a couple weeks ago. Yeah, he has not raced since March in a truck race and got in there and won.

So for me, it was a little bitter sweep because I wanted them to win in a JRM car. Sure. Also, there's a, you know, there's, well, not really important to get into it, but that also has an effect on the owner's points for the Xfinity series with the 42. Yeah. Fortunately, they had already won that Kentucky race and locked that advance, so it didn't mess us up. but yeah it's just weird

yeah there you know the the um the I can't believe anybody would think that Alex doesn't deserve the opportunity

he's getting he's been grinding and grinding away for a chance to to get a top-notch ride and people would probably compare him to any of those guys

like Matt D Benedetto and you know Lanham Casas I mean, these guys are grind. What they're doing,

what Landon and those guys are doing is tougher, probably mentally. Right, yeah. Than anything else as a driver to temper your optimism, to understand. To go into a race where if I run 15th,

that's like I won the race. Right, yeah. So that's a really, difficult position to be in and not one that I obviously have had a lot of experience with so I'm not um you know those guys can speak on a whole lot better than I can but I certainly respect their effort and grind and attitudes the fact that those guys like I talk to my nephew Jeffrey all the time about you know just sort of helping him maintain a positive look when the situation gets difficult.

And I think that Alex sort of went through that too. And there was times when I'm, you know, I would see Alex in a difficult situation or a frustrating situation. And he, you know, he would muscle through it and work through it and make the best of it. And then when he did get these little opportunities in good stuff,

with good teams, he would make really good choices. Not only would he have a good result, but I would watch him in the races and see how smooth and how he used judgment and how he was just a very smart driver. So he's definitely earned this opportunity. I think that what it did, or at least what I saw from, and I always judge, you know,

we judge a lot of things from social media reaction, because it's a really good place to get that sort of idea of what everybody's thinking. When he won the other night, that checked the box for a lot of fans that were wondering whether they wanted to either pull for the 88 next year, continue to pull for the 88, whether Alex was the guy for the job. It just checked a lot of boxes for a lot of people that, all right, this kid, he's good enough. that that was sort of the last block in the foundation for everyone accepting him into this opportunity and people getting excited about it.

You know, people being like, when we first announced Alex, people are like, I don't know, you know, I don't know how I feel with me retiring and all these emotions. I think that that was sort of the catalyst for here's the future. Yeah. and Alex is it. He did an amazing job when he got out of the car with his interview, covering the loss that the team has had with, they had a death and the family of their partner that was sponsoring the car.

He explained that and honored that individual. He spoke about Rick helping him get the opportunity to drive that particular, particular car. He thanked Gannasi and those folks and the guys on that team. He just really covered everything well. And also, you could see his genuine appreciation for the opportunity and the win. And those are the things that I think fans connect with is that genuine emotion. And, you know, the guys that express that and let that out and be themselves are the ones that are really going to catch this. You know, they're the ones that are going to really get the fan base behind them.

I think that Alex did a, it was so good to see when he got out of the car. I was, you know, we've never seen him in that situation. Yeah. So that was so good to see how he reacted and handled that. And I thought, you know, man, it just makes me even more excited about next year. I got more excited. So I know I was seeing that same reaction from the fans on social media. It was a great moment for Alex.

You know, and I know that he is, he'll say to me, man, I need to get in a car because I just got to make sure I can, you know, I can still drive or I need to knock the rust off. There's no rust to knock off. I've seen this kid take months away from the car, get back in and be super fast. Right. Like last year when he was driving the JRM car, his first race was Dover and he almost won that race. That is so impressive. Right. That he can be out of, of the car for months at a time, jump in and be a threat to win right out of the gate. That, to me, speaks volumes about his talent and how smooth he is, how confident he is in himself. Man, when he starts to really get on a run next year, it's going to be awesome to watch. Yeah, I would not be, obviously I want one of our cars to win Phoenix. He's running the Phoenix Xfinity race, but I would not be surprised if he won that one. I wouldn't either because he ran that race for us a couple years ago and incredibly smooth, so smooth.

Phoenix is a track where you have to be really disciplined about overdriving it because you can drive through the front tire so easy. And he is so disciplined with that. I agree. I think that he has a great shot of getting another Xfinity win, continuing to fuel the fire and flames of, you know, fuel the fire and flames of, excitement and expectation for his season next year. So if he does win another race, oh my God, people are going to be. Yeah, they're going to be excited.

Yes. But one thing I was confused about is he says he doesn't like the or Bowman, the showman nickname. I think it's great nickname. I know, but his first tweet after he won was hashtag showtime. So that's like he's playing into the showman. Yeah. But he says he doesn't like it.

He needs to decide, or he just needs to accept it. Maybe he's not telling us the full truth. Yeah, he's the showman. Maybe he doesn't know if it's okay to say he likes it. Yeah. Maybe he's supposed to, maybe he's trying to push. He's staying humble. Staying humble pushing that modest approach.

He needs to just accept it. Of course, I think secretly behind closed doors, he loves it. Of course he does. The showman, that's a great nickname. Bowman, the showman. All right, moving on. We got our final Talladega race coming up this weekend. A lot of people have this one circled on the calendar.

Is the race that we could probably win. Do you? Yeah. I also Every time we go there. Yeah, I mean, I have this one, but I also have Martinsville in Texas and Phoenix. Yeah.

So, I mean, we could win any of these races coming up. I agree. But I know whether we are ready for it or not, there are going to be some freaking people at this racetrack that are recounting on us to make a damn show of it. So one of the, one of the, this is a, there are two things that will be going to be incredibly motivating this weekend. All right.

One of them is going to be the fan. support that we're going to see, which I know they'll be out there strong. They love the Earnhardt's at Talladega. I also put that camera on my helmet. Yes, sir. So I'm wearing that helmet cam all weekend, and I purposely asked for that helmet cam for the Talladega race, because imagine, like, with that helmet cam, people going to be able to see what you're doing all the time. Yeah. So, I'm going to have to be, it's going to hold me accountable and motivate me to be aggressive. Yeah. And I want to put some stuff on film that people are going to want to watch.

So between that and the fan support, I think we're going to be in the gas all weekend. Yeah. I think it's going to be a rowdy weekend. I think so too. Hopefully things go well for us and, you know, we have a good weekend, but I'm excited about it. we've got six wins there love to make it seven and yeah we'll see how it goes

all right let's move on to the ask junior part of the show all right we got some good questions I'm usually a little tempered about the questions and the quality you're excited about it today but I think they're a little better okay the first one is going to be at roadster 2485 do you remember your first race

his was in a four cylinder class My first race was at a go-kart track called Sanford, Stanford or Sanford in, I believe, North Carolina somewhere. I was 12 years old, and I flipped. We, I think we, I flipped in the first corner. I went, I went, you know, got tangled up with a guy and ended up going upside down. And dad was there. we flipped the go-kart back over and fixed anything that was messed up and got it going again and finished the race.

Crazy. Was that one of those deals where you were like, hey, dad, I really, really, really want to run this race? And there was like a lot of build-up to it? No. Oh, okay. They just kind of put you out there. Yeah. We had borrowed a go-kart or bought a go-kart, one of the two from a great friend of ours.

And Mike Herman, his son, Mike Herman, Jr., spots in the, Cup series and Xfinity series. Well, anyways, me and Mike Herman Jr. were teammates. I've actually posted a picture of me and him in our go-carts on Twitter and on social media before. And that was the race. That was my first race. Did you ever win a go-kart?

No. What was the first thing you ever won in? Legends cars. Okay. I'll beat, I won a race on a quarter mile on the front straightaway at Charlotte on pole night, qualifying. So that was the very first car or race that you ever won in any car? That's cool. At Big Daddy Roddy

asks, since Charlotte is going to use their Roval next year, are there any other tracks you'd like to see use new layouts like the Daytona or Indianapolis road courses, for example? You know, I think the indie road course might be interesting to see how the cup cars could race there. I would be willing to do it at tracks where it doesn't seem like the cup cars put good races on. And I think the indie is

definitely in that conversation. I think they want to do it too. Okay. Well, that might be an option you see in the next couple of years. I think it would be interesting and maybe more. I'm sure it would be more, probably a boost attendance. People would watch it. Is it the long-term answer?

That's probably what remains to be seen. It just depends on how exciting. I think, I mean, we have two road course races, Sears Point, Watkins-Linn. and people love them. Yep. So it's a really good chance that it would transfer over

to the Indy Road course and do very well. Yeah, because I mean, that's like that has hosted F1 and it hosts, IndyCar runs their own race there, so I would probably like that. At TJ Mac

is having multiple tire compound choices a possibility for NASCAR similar to what IndyCar uses? You know, I think it is a definite possibility down the road, but it needs to be a definite advantage to use the solver compound. We saw it tried at the All-Star race this year, and there was not a real huge difference in speed

because our cars are so aerodependent. And when we get behind each other, no matter how fast you are, you can run a guy down and be, you know, three, four-tenths faster than him and get stuck behind him. Right. Because you don't have the air and downforce you need to continue to pass. so it would need to be a situation where that softer tire was a real advantage.

I could see it happening though down the road. Would it be better if you did a road course probably as opposed to doing that? Probably so, yeah. At S. Parsons, 19898 will drivers have to serve their final practice penalties from Charlotte at Talladega since practice was rained out? Yes, we will. we have a 45-minute hold for the final practice at Talladega. So you're basically just going to sit out there. It's like it's a 55-minute practice.

Yeah. So that's fine. You know, if there is a practice, if there is a practice that's not very important, it would probably be those practices at the plate tracks because what happens is at the plate track on, especially Talladega, everybody goes out initially in that first practice and starts drafting right out of the back, right out of the gate. and as soon as people start peeling off and going back to the garage, it's really hard to form another pack, and it usually doesn't happen.

Right. And you get enough drafting in that first practice to not need to do it again. You don't want to put your car in danger of getting in a crash or anything like that, so a lot of guys probably don't even practice at all in the second practice. I know that Jimmy will spend probably the entire day running single car runs, not drafting with anyone. That way you just know you maximize your single car speed and it's just going to be fine. So, you know, I think if there's a practice that's the least important, it's those second final practices at Daytona, Talladegas.

So it's not entirely as difficult for us as it would be at Charlotte or any other racetrack to miss that much practice time. At Bam underscore 62, I've always wanted to work in the business side of motorsports. is there any advice you may have for a young professional like me? Tyler, I think you can probably answer this one better. Is this why you put this in there? Because you can answer this one? Maybe. So what I did was I went to UNC Charlotte for marketing, sports marketing specifically.

So you get yourself a degree? Get yourself a degree? That you could utilize. Right. Ideally, you would, your junior and senior year, you would start doing internships. I know a lot of some of the teams do, but the tracks do internships. Tracks does. NASCAR does it?

Yeah, like the marketing agencies do it. Any of that information or experience is helpful. A lot of the people that we deal with, that we work with now at the team, worked for a company called Octagon who was handling sprints at track activation. And now that led them to PR jobs, marketing jobs. So stuff like that is good. Obviously, any job that you're going to do, racing or any field, making contacts in that field is very important.

And so and then don't be afraid to work your way up. I started out by doing social media when that was first kicking off, started doing PR, and now here I am Dale Earnhardt Jr's road manager, managing the road. Managing the road. That's a great answer. T. Burke 34 asked, following up on the story you told at the concert Saturday night, whatever became of the service manager that fired you. So let's tell the whole story.

Oh, goodness. Okay, so I was working at my dad's dealership. I'd been working there about three and a half, four years. I changed oil and did a few other jobs around in the service department. But I really enjoyed working in the service department. I had my uniform and all that good stuff. I took a lot of pride in my stall and being clean and my tools being clean and everything organized. We had a lot of turnover at the service manager position.

So we'd have new guys coming in there trying to. trying to get this service department improved, trying to improve business. This one guy was hired. He had worked as maybe a service writer or something at the dealership before. There was a write-up in the paper about him coming to work it. Really? Yeah, they had like an article like, hey, this service manager, we've hired this guy. Come on out to the store.

so he was real proud of himself. Did he probably pitch that story himself? No, I don't think so. I think it's a Chevrolet store. I'll add a little more to this context of the story. So me and him, I just didn't like the guy much. I don't think he liked me. Carrie really, I'll say that Carrie didn't have my back

because I didn't give him opportunity. Kerry was a service writer. And I was always late to work. I was late to work at 10, 15 minutes every day. It's a 45-minute drive to work. But I was late every day. First one out the door when it was 5 o'clock, probably. So I wasn't awesome as far as accountability,

but I did a great job, I thought, and I made a lot of customers happy. and anyways, this guy, he gets hired, he's a service manager. I would take big old advertisements out of like Rolling Stone, and I took his picture out of that newspaper advertisement. I took his face and I would put it on the bodies of all these people in these advertisements. And they're like, you know, in all these weird poses. And I would cop, I would take it and put it in a copy machine.

and make it black and white, and you could almost look like it was really him. So I would post these all over the service department. And it really pissed this guy off. Like you did this after you guys knew that you didn't like each other? Yeah. I was doing this just because I was bored, and I didn't like him.

And so I don't know what the hell I was thinking, but so I got under the guy's skin pretty bad, making fun of him, making fun of his little advertisement. about being hired as a service manager. He said one of his, you know, one of the first things that he was going to do was have a meeting with the employees of the service department after work. And I said, and one of the guys is complaining one of the other servicemen, one of the

mechanics is like, man, that's crap. We got it. We should, we got to clock out and stay here for this meeting. We should still be able to stay on the clock. Absolutely. So I go over to the guy. He's, you know, this has got me all pissed off. I'm like, yeah, you're right.

I'm going to go tell him. I go over to the service manager and I said, I think we should be able to stay on the clock during this meeting. And he's like, no. I said, well, I ain't staying then. I ain't going to just stay just to have, I didn't think. I'm like, hey, if you ain't going to leave me on the clock, well, I don't really have, I mean, it doesn't sound too mandatory of a meeting.

So I didn't stay. I left. And I came back the next day and he said, you need to damn take a couple days off and think about how bad you want this job. And I like, I was like, oh God. So I knew if I drove all the way back home that my dad would likely turn me around and send me back and be disappointed.

So I didn't have a lot of money. I couldn't afford to be driving up and down the highway. And, you know, I wasn't going to drive 45 minutes home to be turned around and drive 45 and it's back. So I called Dad. I went down to the body shop and called him on the phone and I said, hey, I got a little situation here and I'm just calling you. I'm not needing your help.

I'm just calling you to tell me what to do because I don't want you sending me back because I can't afford the gas just to be burning gas. People would assume that Dad would give us money and all that stuff if he didn't. I get a paycheck. It was probably $130 to $150 after taxes. And me and my brother paid our shared, me and my brother

lived in a double-wide trailer. We shared the bills and everything. So, dad was like, you know what, go in there and tell him you're either working or you're not. And I was like, oh, okay, that's a good direction. So I went in there. I didn't tell the guy that I called my father. I just said, hey, look, I'm either going to work or I'm not working.

You decide. and he said to have have somebody help you load up your stuff and get on out of here so I think that he had the intention of firing me to begin with yeah and he wanted to get me out of there a couple days so he could bring in another mechanic in my position and then to get rid of them and just lay me off so I drove home and dad saw me coming in the gate and he's like ah I can't so he fired you I was like yeah he's like I can't believe that guy fired you what's he thinking and I'm like well that sounds like a good business I was like well dad I didn't tell him that I'd called you and I didn't tell him I didn't he didn't know that you have any idea that this is going on so he just

thought you know he was being stern and I was like I'm more worried about what I'm going to do for money I don't want to go get a stupid job somewhere else and he said I'll pay you to work here for a time being so he made me go he made I had had one thing I had to do every day and that was shovel out the horse barn And after I was done with that, I worked on Kelly's late model. So I built Kelly a brand new car in that period of time. I would take her to the racetrack. And it was awesome.

I got paid a little bit more money than I was making at the dealership. I went back up to the dealership at the end of the week to pick up my last paycheck. And I told that guy if there was ever a junior out there. on that sign that said Dillon Hars Chevrolet that I was, he would be the first person that I would fire. And I think about two months after I, how did he respond to that? Oh, he just, I don't know, he just laughed or something. I don't know.

It wasn't like a big argument. About two months after I left, they got, they fired him. I guess that he wouldn't make him much of a difference over there. And I think he was managing a car wash. Oh, so? a herd, but I don't know where this guy is now. We're probably going to find out. What's his name?

I don't know. I don't remember. But, um, he, he remembers. Oh, yeah. Well, he probably remembers a story entirely different than this. This is how I remember it. Um, I wish that he would call us, call us up and share his side of this story. I don't know.

I'm still bitter. I know, but, but I'm actually not because it's, I am bitter. I'm, you know, I didn't like the way it turned out, but I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I admit my involvement to... Yeah, but you can't just fire the boss's son. Oh, yeah, I mean, I probably would have tried to put him somewhere else. Like, if I was him, I would be like, you know what, I'm going to move you down in the body shop and let them let you be their problem.

Right. I mean, that's a terrible... Because there's tons of jobs around there. And I did a lot of different jobs there. But anyways, it was great. I got to work on Kelly's car, got to go to racetrack with her. And get paid more. And get paid more.

And then, yeah, I was working. on race cars, which is all I wanted to do to begin with. So you really... Maybe I could thank you. If I get the chance to talk to him about how he helped. He's a catalyst. My firing. At A underscore Cundman, 88 asked, if you hadn't made the deal to get on Twitter

if you won the 2014-day Tona 500, do you think you would have joined eventually? Yeah, probably so. I think, you know, there was some hesitation there because I assume that Twitter was really just going to open yourself up to just mountains of criticism and really evil mean people, not just people like, hey, you suck as a driver, but people talking about your family and all that stuff. So I don't need any of that in my life. Nobody else does either.

But I found it to be that part of it is there. but it's really easy to shrug off. And I think the more people, the longer we are around social media or it's around us, the more easier it becomes to just sort of, you know, disregard that nonsense. And I think, you know, I've really, I really enjoy it. So I think for sure I would probably have gotten on there at some point. I don't know how that would have happened, but... Yeah, that's what I wonder, like, what would have...

What would have been to Catalyst to get me on there? Yeah. Yeah, I don't really know. I do enjoy, you know, I don't have... We have accounts on all kinds of platforms, but the two... The two that I use exclusively, myself, are my Instagram and my Twitter. Yep. And so, you know, I have a Snapchat, but I don't...

I really just, it's kind of a placeholder, right? right now. I'm not really active on there. Yeah. But like your Instagram just shares to Facebook anyway, so you're populating the Facebook. A lot of Facebook content. Yeah, so that's exactly right. So it's fun,

though. I like Instagram. Yeah, it's growing. Mm-hmm. At AC Beach 24 asks, do you think NASCAR sealing the engines in 2018 will have an impact on post-race burnouts? That's a good question. I read today that they've gone like three weeks in a row now and nobody's popping tires.

Yeah, it's crazy. Very good. Yeah, Trix when I were talking about that Sunday night. And because he said, hey, I didn't pop any tires. Did you notice? And I said, I sure did because I watched him. Oh, yeah. And I watched.

I said, hey, them tires still got air in them. He tried to tell me after Chicago, that that was the only time all year he had popped his tire. Did you see the guy on Twitter? I saw the guy on Twitter and Instagram show like every mile and a half race that he won. All of his quarter panels were tore all to hell. And I'm like, Mark, why you got a lot of me, man? Yeah.

Don't lie to your friends. Yep. But nobody's done it. It's been cool. But do you think the engines will? I don't really know. You know, I think that's a bad. They still do the engine in Xfinity and people still do it.

Yeah. I don't know if it'll have much of an effect on the celebrations. at Bradley 88 Billy asked if you took Tyler and T.J. hunting, who would get lost first trying to find their way back without using a GPS? Tyler. Why? Well, I just think TJ's, I just think TJ would find his way back. I, I put this in here so that you could say that TJ would get lost. Well, you, and you've ruined the answer. Misfired. Unbelievable. Let's move on. At Zoom Buck 80 asked Brad Kislauski is running a throwback scheme at Daga to honor you and what you have done for him. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I was really surprised and shocked.

I don't know that the driver's, I don't know, I can't recall a driver ever do anything like that. But I'm honored and it's a hell of an effort to do that by him. Yeah. So for people that don't know, he's running a scheme that resembles the all white. white side skirts Navy car that he raced for junior motorsports in 2008 it's the one he got his first

two Xfinity wins in yeah um so he um you know a lot of guys are I've heard some incredible compliments from uh drivers and people in the industry about um

it just I've just heard some great things this year and it's meant a lot to me it's meant so much to to hear people appreciate you and uh this is this is really going the extra mile. Right, because I mean, he's still active in the playoffs. Yes.

And we're competing against each other. Right. I told him, I said, it's going to be weird seeing that car out there and me having to try to pass you. And you're like being so nice and me like having to be your competitor. It's really a side draft right off where it says hashtag cheers to Dale Jr. Right. So it's going to be odd. But I just, I'm just overwhelmed by, uh, my heart is so full.

from everything that people have done this year and this just continues to add to it and Brad's a pretty classy guy so not surprised that he would do this but man it makes you feel so good maybe he'll finish second this weekend maybe he'll help us win

that'd be awesome all right that's all the Asked Junior questions this week I thought it was a good list yeah it was good questions so I'm sorry you didn't get the answer you want it on a few. It's okay. But as always, send us your questions on Twitter using the hashtag Ask Junior, and we'll pick the best ones.

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 Exaltar Racing, a must follow for any Dale Jr. fan. All right, real quick, looking ahead. We've got Friday coming up two practices, 1 o'clock and 3 o'clock on So that should be, we're going to be sitting out that second one, so no need to. You get a good look at the Mountain Dew Chevrolet sitting on pit road.

Yeah, crawl down on pit road and we'll sign some autographs. I'll drop to win a net. Saturday, qualifying at 415. 415 Eastern Time. Eastern Time, NBC Sports Network. Yeah. And then Sunday, we have a Q&A on the Chevy stage. That's always a lot of fun, actually.

They brought, they're bringing a stage this week. usually they have like the smaller display with the pit box yeah it's a big stage yeah because you're going to be there and it's talladega they're bringing a big stage well it's always a good time so come out to the Chevy stage for that it's at 10 10 a.m. outside the main grandstands uh the races at two o'clock on NBC yeah so the big channel yep very exciting so um should be some birdie good ratings for this one i anticipate yeah it should be a fun one too yeah hopefully we have a good one guys, we're going to be trying our ass off to make this a good race

that everybody's going to be proud of. And thanks for listening. It's a good show. Yep. See ya. The Dale Jr. download and all Dirtymo Radio podcasts are made possible by Exaltta. You can subscribe to all eight programs on iTunes,

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