The Dale Jr. Download - 199 - More Martinsville and Short Track Racing, Please

Episode Date: October 31, 2017

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is fired up after an exciting race at Martinsville. He offers a way to spice up the sport by going smaller instead of bigger and recounts a few times he may have intentionally wrecked another driver during his career. 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. Welcome back to yet another edition of the Dale Jr. download. This is Tyler Overstreet. As always, I'm joined by Dale Earnhardt Jr., the show's namesake. He's on the line. What's up, Dale? Hey, how's it going, Tyler? I'm over here in Texas, hanging out with Amy's family. We're having a great time. That's cool. How's your Halloween? So far so good. They're actually about to have a Halloween costume here at Junior Motorsports. They're about to have a costume? A costume party or contest.

Last year they had it and yeah, they have it like on the shop floor. It's going to be interesting. I'm not dressing up though. Why not? Dang. I have a costume because I'm supposed to attend a costume party tonight. I'm trying to get out of it. But my costume is the left shark from Katie Perry's halftime.

Just because my fiance, she's going to be Harley Quinn from the suicide squad. and she wanted me to be the Joker, but I was like, no, this shark just looks awesome, and it looks like a good time. Are you dressing up? Yes, I am. Adeline is... Adeline is... Adeline is about two years old, and she is Amy's niece. So I guess she's my niece, too. She's going to be dressed up as a little deer, and me and her dad are going to

walk her around. We're going to dress in camo as hunters. And we're going to trick-or-treat here this afternoon. That's cool. Around the neighborhood, yep. When would be the last time that you went trick-or-treating? Oh, I can't remember. I hope everybody's out there is having a great Halloween. It's a fun time. It's a fun time of year. I don't know that a lot of people know this, but the NASCAR driver's owner bus lot celebrates Halloween on the Talladega race weekend.

it's a tradition that they have a lot of things in the in the playground for the kids. All the kids that are in the bus lot will dress up and they'll go from bus to bus and trick or treat. So me and Amy will get a bowl of candy. We'll sit outside the bus and see all the kids come up. It's fun seeing everybody's costumes. And I've learned over the last couple of years that if you have a kid and they dress up, you dress up. So be ready for that, Tyler. me and you both as we start our families,

we're going to have to start dressing up again. I quit dressing up for Halloween a couple, you know, several years ago. Yeah, I don't remember the last time I dressed up. This costume is the first one I've had in a long time. But that's, I think that's fun, especially if you all do like one big, like if your costumes go together. Right, right, right, right. When you play off each other, well, I'm sure that's the only way you can make it work.

But yeah, I think I didn't realize that when you had children that you started that back up. Anyways, we got a lot to talk about. This was a wild weekend. Wild. At one of our favorite tracks, Martinsville. Absolutely. There's so much buzz about what happened at the end of the race. And there was, you know, obviously there's the Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin part.

But there are so many other moving parts to this, too, because you saw Kanzalowski get moved out of the way. The 22 car had the tire rub. ends up getting a flat. The 21 and 4 were going at the whole race. Yeah, they sure were. I was behind them for a good portion of that. Man, it was just such a, it's so fun to be able to take your car to the racetrack, be able to lean on each other, beat and bang without worrying about losing that side force

and down force and all that crap, and race. Damn, that was fun. I'm going to miss racing at Martinsville because, you know, we run at these mile and a half And the cars are so critical to arrow and downforce. And if you barely touch the wall, it can knock outside of your car that can make it really uncompetitive. That's so annoying not being able to really, you know, lean on the car and get into the fence a little bit and not worry about it. We used to race like that all the time, you know, rub the fence, big deal. Now if you rub the fence, you know you got to get to pit road or you can't wait to get the pit road to be able to pull that quarter panel back out to get the damn side force and down force back in the car.

because it won't drive good without it. But in Martinsville, you don't even care about that. Anyways, with all that going on, I got to talk in the Lannin Castle yesterday on the internet. Actually, we were texting back and forth and we were tweeting a little bit too. It got me thinking about all the people that I had intentionally wrecked in my career. Do you want to know the ones that come to mine? Yes.

I think I asked you about this a while back and you had forgot. I know. Well, it made me think about. So I'd be surprised if there's a driver that hasn't intentionally wrecked somebody at some point in their career. But here's the ones that I could remember after spending about 20 minutes thinking about it. Carrie Lawrence and Myrtle Beach in 1996, I spun him out off a turn two. For the lead or what? No, we were just kind of coming off the corner and I just didn't.

take care of him. I just sort of got into his quarter panel and seen him into the fence. Stanton Barrett at Pikes Peak in 1998. Spun him out trying to get a caution because I was needing some tires. Okay. Yeah. I ended up having, I ended up going to the

NASCAR hauler at the end of that race and fighting with Tony Stewart. Tony Stewart's crew chief, really. That was the, that was the Xenity race where they called me and Tony Stewart to the hauler because we were running into each other all day long. Oh, so you went to the hauler for Tony Stewart, but nothing for Stanton Barrett, who you read. Well, while I was at the hauler getting my butt-chewed a NASCAR and fighting with Tony Stewart's

crew chief, Staten Barrett's car owner came over there, and he's like, what in the hell did you do that for? And I could not remember, I don't know who this guy is because he doesn't have anything recognizable on him that would say, hey, I'm the owner of this car. And I'm like, what are you talking about, man? and it didn't dawn on me what he was trying to chew my ass for until he walked away. It's pretty funny. Poor guy. Yeah.

I spun Casey Kane at Richmond in 2004. In a cup race. In a cup race. Yep. I got my back of him in the middle of the corner. And I meant to get into the back of him. I guess this would be a case where I didn't want to spin him out. I was just trying to move him, but ended up wrecking him.

Which that's a good point because your spotter this weekend, T.J., he asked you, he felt like the 48 was holding you up and asked you who said, just go ahead and move him, which is easier said than done. I was like, are you crazy? He is my teammate, and he's going for a championship. I'm not going to try to take, I'm not going to risk crashing him to move him. Okay, back on going to the list here. I've spun myself out at Bristol in 2004 on purpose.

I remember that. I would lump that one into the group. That was an intentional wreck. I think you should get a lot of credit for how talented you have to be to spin out at Bristol and not hit anything or get hit yourself. I went to the back and made sure there was a lot of room between me and the next guy. Was that because you had a loose wheel? I had a loose wheel or a flat tire. And if you pit, you're going to go down two laps.

So I thought if I'd spin out and maybe I'd only lose one. But then you got fined anyways. Then I got fine because I admitted it. I kind of bragged about it, which was stupid. And the last one I remember is Kyle Bush at Richmond in 2008. He wrecked me. I don't think he wrecked me on purpose. He just got in the corner hot and loose because it actually cost him the win.

In the first race that year, and so in the second race, I spun him out going in a turn one. On purpose? Yeah. But that was for the lead. I remember that. Yeah. But you locked up the left front and maybe. it smoke a little bit so it didn't look completely obvious.

Had to get in there hard to get to him. So, yeah, so I was thinking about tweeting this list and seeing if I could kickstart some sort of a driver conversation, maybe where drivers would admit to people that they had wrecked at some point in their career with the hashtag intentional wrecking. Do you know of any times when you were intentionally wrecked? I don't. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. That's the thing. I think as a driver, when you get spun out, you never know whether it was on purpose or not. And I bet that there's probably, that's only like one, two, three, four, five instances that I can remember. I bet there's probably five more that I just haven't thought of. And I'm, I'm sure that social media will. Yeah, everybody knows, yeah. They will find those and they will let us know.

And that will be interesting. Seems like you enjoy that. Well, it depends on which end. Like if it's us booting somebody, I would probably enjoy it. But if somebody did that to us, I'd probably be upset. Yeah. But fortunately, you seem to have a good rapport with everybody. So I don't know that anybody in that field, but maybe it's because they don't want to face the wrath of Junior Nation.

Yeah. I did apologize like eight years later to Stanton Barrett. Did he accept the apology? Oh yeah, he's a good guy. Okay. I was like, man, this is bugging me. I did a bad thing. What about the guy at Myrtle Beach or Florence? Terry Lawrence. Terry Lawrence is still in the sport. He builds exhaust for race teams.

He's still around. And I bet he'll be, I bet he will remember, if he hears this, he will remember what that race, that particular race I'm talking about. I remember when I spun him, I don't know why I did it. It was stupid. We weren't even racing in the top three. It was like the first damn lap of the race. We come off a turn two, and I just hit him into quarter panel and turned him in the inside wall.

And I remember his hood flew way up in the air. Those old fiberglass hoods popped right off. And I thought to myself, you know what? I just spun this guy out. he don't have a lot of money I just bent his front clip he's going to have to spend you know six six eight thousand dollars trying to fix his car I immediately regretted it and felt awful about it

so after you wreck somebody whether it's intentional or not intentional do you are you more cautious like when the race restarts like hey shit I don't want to wreck two guys and oh yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah I mean because you know You know that, yeah, as soon as you spend somebody out, you know, that's big news, right? That's okay, there goes.

The media's talking about it. Everybody's going to be asking you about it. You're going to have to talk about it all week. You're going to go to the race the next weekend and talk about it. So you're certainly like, hey, let me try to keep my nose clean for the rest of the race. I don't want to be that guy that's just, you know, bulldozing everybody all day long. You remember the race where this reminds, that reminds me of a race that Trevor Bain ran at what, Glenn a couple years ago.

Remember when he was knocking dudes off the racetrack? You don't remember that? Well, I mean, that sounds like a lot of Trevor Bain makes it. Man, Trevor Bain. Trevor Bain's got better. He does. He's running pretty well at times this year. It was like two years ago or three years ago.

He pushed like three people off the racetrack. It was so funny watching the race. But he's just trying to run his own race. Them guys getting in the way. I guess the reason why it's funny is because Trevor Bain is this super freaking nice guy. And, you know, he's just really a good person. And then he's in this car and he's driving like, you know, like crazy man. Hey man, put that helmet on.

That's what they say, right? We all, it brings the worst out in all of us. Anyways, so that was a wild race. We did a periscope after the rest. race talking about short track racing. There's a lot of conversation on social media about it. Everybody's like, man, you know, we need more short tracks. And what that made me think about is, so when I was young going to the races, man, it felt

like that every other four races, somebody got spun out, there was some drama going on. You had rivalries that. would pop up out of nowhere that would last for months and then there'd be a new one come along. Dad and Jeff Bidine were spinning each other out. Dad and Ricky Rudd at North Wales, North Wales spending Darrell Waltrip out at the Winston. I mean, the list goes on and on and on. This has been, you know, this ain't nothing that we haven't seen in the sport before. But it seemed like that we saw it a lot more often back in the 80s.

And I think the reason is, is because we had a lot more short tracks. And short tracks breed that style of racing. I mean, what you saw at Martinsville on Sunday, that happened all across the country on Saturday night. Right, yeah, yeah. That's short track racing, you know. And that was probably, Martinsville was definitely like an extreme version of that. But that's kind of what you see when you go to the short track. You want to see some action.

I mean, you see the videos of Bowman Gray. all over the internet. They're so fun to watch, right? Right, because you can't get away from anybody. No. You're going to, the leader is going to check out for a little bit, but he's going to catch the tail end of the field within 20 laps, and they're all going to, then it's everybody,

the whole track is cars on top of you. Right. The conversation that is important to have is, what do we do as a sport going forward? How do we see the positives in this past weekend? And how do we recreate it in? and infuse that into the sport more consistently. I don't want guys wrecking each other every week.

That's not what we're talking about. We're just talking about. The thing that gave me chills was when I got out of the car, and I know you saw this too, when we're standing there watching the big screen. And depending on the face that was on that screen, the grandstands were freaking going crazy. That was the loudest booze I have heard in a long time,

if not ever. There was cheers and booze. It depended on who was on the, you know, put one driver up there, put another driver up there, and the fans were just going bonkers for like 20 minutes after the race. When is the last time that has happened? Right. I mean, really.

I know, like, they'd start booing and I would like run back over to the side so I could see who was on the screen and what they were booing. Right. What's going on? Yeah. What's happened? So the conversation is NASCAR needs to see that, you know, short track racing is their bread and butter, man.

I mean, we need to be at the short tracks. And so, Jeff Gluck always has this poll on Twitter every week that the fans always seem to enjoy being a part of. And it's basically just yes or no, did you like the race? 93% liked the Martinsville race. Damn.

The top two races of this year are both Martinsville races, 90 and 93%. It's a hell of a racetrack too. The first, I think the first 1.5 mile race is 16th on the list. That's incredible. Yeah. So I've been following this poll because it's very simple. But I think it's super telling.

NASCAR needs to go to the short tracks. NASCAR needs to build short tracks. They need to trim down some of the mile and a half shows, go to some of these tracks only once and get more short tracks into the schedule, man. they need a short track every month. If this is what's going to happen, I agree. They need one there every month.

Our sport would grow and be so popular and so big. People would be tuning in to see what happens next. Imagine if we were leaving Martinsville after everything that happened at the end of that race and going to Bristol. Yeah. Holy moly. You know some shit was going to go down. Well, that's the way it used to be. we used to you know you you'd see a guy get spun out they'd they'd be upset and all mad at each other

and you was going to another short track the next week and it was going to happen again man right like i don't want to see um like i don't i don't know that chase needs to wreck denny but if denny's passing him i expect him to be pinching him and making it hard on him to pass oh yeah everybody's going to be watching that duo right you're gonna you're gonna be seeing you know and that would if you had short tracks and that type of action weekly you would have have very, you'd have a lot of combinations like that, driver versus driver, that you would be paying attention to every week, man. I thought it, you know, I thought it was interesting.

Did you think the lights added to that? Yeah. I think night racing brings a certain energy, a bit more aggressive energy, I think. Right. Like the last 100 laps of that race, it was like two different races. 400 laps were a good race. race, but then the last 100 were intense. Right.

The intensity seems to be different at night races, and I can't really figure out what that is, but it always has been the case. Like the Daytona races, day versus night, they feel different. There's intensity in the night air. I don't know what the hell it is, but it certainly feels that way, no matter the racetrack, whether, you know, if it's night race. I don't really like night races at mile and a halfs, though, because they're already boring in the daytime, and at night they're trying.

tracks get so much more grip and speed, the racing gets even more boring. But night race at a short track is fine, because you're going to have action. Right. And that's where everybody started. You didn't start running Sunday afternoon 1 o'clock races. You ran Friday nights, Saturday nights at short tracks. So I thought it was awesome. I wonder what the fans think about the two-day show.

I know that most of folks in the industry seem to be okay with it. Except for Eddie Gossich. Eddie doesn't like it. Well, Eddie wants to sell hot dogs on Friday. Right. He'd sell them on Thursday if he could, if he could have us there. Yeah, I mean, that's what a promoter is supposed to do. From our standpoint, I thought it was fine.

I'm not huge on the qualifying on Sunday, but. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'd just rather race on Sunday, too. I think we could do everything. We could just have one practice and then qualify on Sunday. Saturday. I thought it was great. I think they're going to do a lot of these next year. I'm hearing maybe even half the schedule maybe two-day shows. That'll be pretty interesting to see. This one in particular had a practice before and after the truck race. What did you think about that?

I loved it. Okay, so this is, when I was going, I feel like I say this all the time, but when I was going to the races when I was younger, they always had, that's what happened. Happy Hour was. Happy Hour, they named it Happy Hour because it was after, it was usually around four or five o'clock. It was the end of the day. Happy Hour, when you hear Happy Hour, what do you think? Go to the bar, have a beer, right? Yep, after work. Right. So that's kind of why they named this practice happy hour. It's because it's the last practice of the day. It was sort of like going to the bar and having a beer. It was always after the Xfinity Race. The track is completely rubbered up. It's going to be as similar to what you'll feel. in the race as possible. It's the best time.

It's exactly where, you know, what you'd love to be able to practice on. When we practice in the mornings, the track doesn't have as much rubber on it. It changes quite a bit as the extended cars run their race on it. And you'd love the opportunity to get out there and drive on it in that situation. So we had that chance. We got to practice on the track after the truck race. It was awesome. It felt old school.

It reminded me of the old days, which I like. Yeah, I like it. I mean, obviously everybody wants to get. get out of there sooner. Like typically I stay for an Xfinity race and then I jet out and go back to the hotel, go eat, whatever. But I didn't mind it the other day. I mean, it wasn't, you get that Friday back, which we didn't really get our Friday

back. We worked. Yeah, that's the only thing about the two days, that's the only thing about the two days show that I don't like is that y'all keep, y'all just take that Friday that they give me and y'all make me work on it. Yeah, buddy. I don't like that. We're making the partners happy, which Friday we did the, uh,

good year weatherman segment so that was that was interesting that got a lot of feedback on social media yeah i thought that was fun and uh i was afraid i was gonna screw it up but i think i did okay and uh that made me realize how spoiled we are though because i was like waking up at 3 30 a m one time and i was just i was dead we were complaining about how early we had to be up larry sprinkle is up every day at two in the morning and works all day yeah and he does Like, he does, it's crazy. He says he sleeps four hours. But I had fun doing that.

It seemed like the good year folks were happy. Everybody on social media seemed to like it. But yeah, so two-day shows, open up your Fridays for work. I know, and I don't like it. Sorry about that. I'm supposed to have an extra day off. That is the one thing. I know Greg I've talked about is that the teams are kind of trying to learn how to manage that, too,

because if you give those guys an opportunity a day to work in the shop, then they're going to work in the shop. Yeah, I agree. Just kind of trying to manage people also and manage their time off. Yep. But it was good. Martin'sville was an awesome weekend. I wish we could go there four or five times a year.

It would be fun. Plus, it's only two hours from here, so it's convenient for us. One more thing we'll touch on real quick. Amy drove the pace car. Yes, she did. I think that, yeah, I think that's the first time of driver's wife. has drove the pace car. I think it might be something that catches on.

Maybe that could be like a tradition that Martinsville starts. Yep, I think it would be a great idea. If that car is pink, you know, they should have maybe a Kansas survivor or somebody in there. Right. I think it would be cool to have just, you know, race fans, you know, maybe just, you know, give, it's such a neat experience that I think that they could maximize that opportunity to give it to someone that would really appreciate it. I know that the folks that have done it in the past.

I'm not telling that the guys that have done it this year don't appreciate it. But, man, I never really thought about pace car drivers until my wife did it. And now I'm like, hmm. Yeah, she said the most anxious she was was just walking across the stage, though. She didn't. She was very, she wouldn't stay out there to shake all the driver's hands. she wouldn't go to the driver's meeting because they were going to introduce her as the pace car driver. And she's like, nobody wants to listen to that crap.

So I was like, well, okay. She did awesome job, though. She had so much fun. I had millions of questions. You know one thing I learned about driving the pace car is when they get going up to speed, they just put on cruise control. Did you know that? Yeah, I learned that too because I did the practice I rode in the back. For some reason, I thought that was interesting.

Cruise control. It makes perfect sense, but yeah, I didn't, I didn't, because we just watch them going around, and you have your perspective of it. So it's like, yeah, whatever, it's going 30 mile an hour. The guy's holding it 30. But yeah, so they just punch it, cruise control. The one thing that was funny is they wanted her to make like a hard left to come back into the garage. Yeah.

And during the practice, it was like, because it's a 90 degree. So you hit the break. And I think in the race, she actually gassed it up. to get away from the field. I was like, oh, have fun making that left. At 35 mile an hour, it's a little more difficult than you think. Yeah, 30 mile an hour going through the turns felt faster than I anticipated. Yeah, that was pretty cool for Amy.

I was real proud of her for doing that. And I hope that they do extend that opportunity to the folks that I think we would find interesting to drive the pace car. All right, now we're going to go to our Ask Junior questions. always we get these questions on Twitter using the hashtag Ask Jr. First question, at Bradley 88 Billy asked, it's good to see fans have passion, but did the guy going after Denny Hamlin on Pitt Road cross the line? Absolutely. Yeah, that concerned me a lot.

Yeah, I was very worried to see that. You know, the fans, I love to see, I loved to see how much energy there was at that racetrack at the end of that race and for a very long period after the race. Fans are super excited, but you don't need confrontation no matter whether it's a fan and driver or fan on fan, whatever, you know, you just don't need that kind of energy going on. You don't need people doing that. I hated to see that because you don't like to see people get arrested, but I imagine they took that guy out of there in handcuffs.

Right. And the thing that disappointed me on Twitter is, well, like 80% of the people were. were like absolutely that was ridiculous you can't do that it's going to ruin the hot pass access for other people um but people are like oh well you shouldn't have wrecked him i'm like that's not the point there the point is like what if you just don't like Kyle Bush you can't and it could be pre-race for all i care yeah and you don't need people just wandering around out there if i get pissed off so last year for example cam newton got knocked out in the fact that Alkins game. If I've got a field pass, does that mean, oh, after the game, I can just walk out

on the field and run up to this guy that knocked him out because I'm pissed off? No. Right. So, I mean, it's awesome NASCAR gives such great fan access, but after the race, they need, there needs to be some sort of line drawn. The other day, you were talking to Greg after the race, and I'm having to run back and forth trying to explain to people like, hey, we need you just give them some space. they're debriefing after the race. We're trying to improve for the next race. And it's not a time to get an autograph. It's not time to get a picture.

There's those opportunities on Saturday or after qualifying. But before and after the race, they need to let you, before the race, focus on what you're about to do. After the race, let you talk about what just happened. Because, I mean, while you've only got three races left, Greg and that team have to come back to Martin'sville in the spring. So you're trying to download all this information as quick as possible. And it's just not a place for fans to be out there, quite honest.

Yeah, as far as, you know, that guy, I saw, I saw a different video than I think they showed on social media. And that guy was wanting to tell Denny that he sucked. And I don't know that the guy was going, you know, from what I could see, I didn't know, I didn't think the guy was trying to physically. Physically assault, Denny. But it still, you never know. it still just wasn't, it just wasn't, it's not shit you need to be doing as a person, you know. But anyhow, I'm glad that they had good security there to control that situation. It was good that they stepped in so quickly before it got out of hand.

I saw one of Denny's crewmen down there. Those guys are always the first to get in the middle of a situation and just, you know, and to bring it down. That's a great thing about a crew. pit crew. They always got the drivers back. Yeah, and like, if you want to heckle them, tell them they suck, cuss at them, I don't care, but do it from the other side of the fence. Well, I don't know. I kind of like hearing it sometimes.

In the pit? Well, I mean, fans are all over, you know. They don't have, it's not like this, the fans are just in the grandstands time. I know, but if I go to a football game and I have field access, you, okay, so you have to get this hot pass from somebody who is... Get in the grandstands. Get off the field, Tyler. Yeah. Somebody who's involved in the industry got you this pass.

So you're representing that person, that team, that sponsor, whatever. So I feel like you need to act accordingly. I guess. I just don't want people running around going crazy. Well, that, nobody wants that. Yeah. At J-Love underscore 40 asks, do you guys still wear cool suits during the cold or is it still hot in the car? We did not wear the cool suit this weekend, did not need it.

It draws about seven amps. We use all the amps we have in the car that the alternator can put out. So if we don't need it, we don't run it because we could probably use those seven amps somewhere else. Plus, it was a balmy day. It was dice in the car. Was it? A little sweat. I got a little sweaty.

It was cold and super windy down there in the pit. Which I didn't stay out there. very long. I went in the media center. But the 88 team had a nice little space heater. You went in the media center, hon. Big surprise. Hey, man, you can watch the race on TV and you can watch the scoring

monitor. Very nice. And stay out of the way. At R. Jalias asked, did you ever dress up as a NASCAR driver when you were a kid for Halloween? If not, what did you dress up as? I was a football player every Halloween.

Every Halloween. Okay, so there's just, when you're a little kid, your parents basically dress you up, they make that choice for you, right? Yep. So up until my parents, when my parents quit buying me those plastic costumes with the rubber band mask and all that, once I was able to make my own choices, I had shoulder pads, the jersey, the, and the pants, the pants with the pads and the helmet. I was a football player for like five years straight. The same player? Yeah.

It was just red, had no number on it or nothing. Helmette was white. You could dress as a right tackle for the redskins right now. I was a free agent. I dressed up as a free agent. Oh. I'm just waiting for my team to pick me up. All right.

At C. Romo underscore 81. Since we're going back to Texas, talk about the first time you hopped in a Hendrick car after you and Kyle Busch crashed there and you ended up finishing the race in that car. Talk about it, huh? Yeah. Well, this is what I remember. Tony Stewart spun out in front of us.

He laid down a ton of smoke spinning his tires. He just laid in the throttle when he got loose. So I slowed down. I couldn't see anything. Kyle slowed down, but we hit each other. Kyle running the back of me. It bent our car. It bent the suspension, the rear suspension and the rear-in-housing so bad.

that we parked our car. They were working on the five car probably about 50 yards away from me. One of the crew members that I'm a friend of came running over and said, hey man, we can't find Kyle? Can you jump in the car? You mind driving it and finishing the race?

And I was like, freaking awesome. I've never drove a Hendrick car before. I'd love to. Because, you know, as a driver, you look at your competitors and you're like, wonder what does car drive like? Wonder what does motor feels like, right? So I jumped in that thing

Well I started climbing in and I couldn't fit in the seat So I had to sit sort of sideways Because the seat was so small Oh yeah Yeah so I kind of had to go into the seat Cocked sideways And it was really tight and uncomfortable But we made it work

I got out there and drove it around And drove pretty good for a car that was wrecked And Could you tell like a noticeable difference in No I just didn't I didn't really take any stock in it because the car had been wrecked pretty badly. But it was nice to feel the engine and sort of compare their motor to hours.

And it was pretty neat. So I think, you know, I kind of have that nostalgia for the history of the sport. And I remember back in the day, drivers used to get in and out of each other's cars all the time. So for me, that was like old school. Like, oh, hell, yeah, I'll relief drive. I've never, you. Yeah. I've only been able to relieve drive like a couple times.

I drove for Glenn Allen Jr. at St. Louis in an Xfinity series in 97. He threw up. He got out and threw up. His car had been crashed and knocked all the crush panels out. It was about 105 degrees outside. So he was getting sick. So he got out and I got in and finished the race.

When I got in it, he was in 22nd place, and I finished in 14th, I think. There you go. At Road Raider 3 asked, do you think that the nature of this playoff format is causing drivers to be more aggressive, a la the finish and post-race activities at Martinsville? No, I just think short-track racing under the lights. I see a lot of people talking about the format and how that's creating this type of dramatic stuff,

but we've seen it before, so it's not the format. I think it's just short-track racing, man. And then at ex-Sailor Dan asked, would you like to see Martinsville be like Bristol and Richmond by switching to one-day race and one night race? Like solely night race I think all short track races Should be at night

All of them There you go All right We should run at Martinsville Three or four times a year That'd be awesome Once every Like once every quarter there

Right That's all to ask junior questions For this week As always send us your questions Using the hashtag ask Juneer 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 Exaltza Racing, a must follow for any Dale Jr. fan. All right, looking ahead Thursday. We got an Exalt Appearance at Seema Show in Vegas. That would be fun. Yeah, go out to Vegas real quick.

Yeah, you'll be in the Exaltza booth. So if you're there, stop by and say hello. Friday, practice and qualifying at 6.15 p.m. Eastern on NBC Sports Network. Saturday, we're getting inducted into the... the Texas Motor Sports Hall of Fame. When you say we, you mean you. Me. I'm getting inducted.

Okay, I'm getting inducted into the Texas Motorsports Hall of Fame. We got two practices at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern. And the Exfinity races is 8.30. Late. 8.30 Eastern. It would be 7.30 local. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's a late start. Yeah, that's late. I don't know why.

NBC Sports Network for the affinity race. Sunday, we got the Chevy Stage Q&A at 1030 in the morning. We race at 2 p.m. Eastern on NBC. Sports Network. Yep. We ran fifth there in the spring, so. Yep.

It should be a fun race. Always a good track for you. I'm looking forward to Texas. All right, well, that's the show, folks. Appreciate y'all tuning in. Have a good week. Happy Halloween. See ya.

Speak your name. Boy, it's down right now. I know that I don't know how to hear me say. I wish it was me. The Dale Jr. download and all Dirtymo Radio podcasts 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. And why did I just try? You love lost a lot But I won't let this die You know God this is trying to be in the atmosphere Another reason not to fear the sky No not deny So that's my hope

And why yeah I just strike You know I've lost a lot I'm not this die You know God there's been the atmosphere Another reason like to fear the sky No not tonight Thanks for the hell's my hope and why can I just try? You know I've lost a lot, but I won't like this die.

You know I've got this fella being the atmosphere. I'm not the reason, not to fear the sky. No, not tonight, no, not tonight. Thanks for listening to Dirty Mo Radio.