The Dale Jr. Download - 203 - When You're Ready to Leave, You Want to Get the Hell Out of There

Episode Date: November 28, 2017

Dale Earnhardt Jr. talks about his successful hunting trip over Thanksgiving weekend, as well as NASCAR's new roster-size mandates and what co-host Tyler Overstreet will be doing in 2018 as he leaves JR Motorsports. 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 Dillon Hart Jr. for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download with my co-host Tyler Overstreet. How are you doing, Tyler? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. Thanks to Hopeless Records for providing today's theme song. That's Northern Lights by the band The Dangerous Summer. They got a new record coming out in January. They were going on tour for a couple months. Hopefully they catch them in January of February on tour.

You think you'd go? They're not coming to Charlotte. I know. I noticed that. I was a little disappointed. I thought we were a good enough market. I know. They're going to Raleigh. They're going to Raleigh. Yeah, they think they're going to Raleigh.

Wow. I'll talk to them because, yeah, that's not acceptable. Right. So anyhow, Thanksgiving has came and went. You guys did something different this year. Well, we just didn't do it. We normally do. Yeah, I guess so we went.

You're talking about their hunting? No, y'all stayed in. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah. So we had that house down in the Keys, and we usually go down there right after the homestead race and stay all the way through Thanksgiving. This year, with Amy pregnant, she just wanted to come home.

And so we spent Thanksgiving over at Moms. And with me and Amy and Carson, and then the day after Thanksgiving, me and Sonny and Sean, my two buddies. from the nationwide commercial. We went to Ohio to deer hunt, and I got a buck, a nice ten-pointer, and that was a lot of fun. Me and Truex had this land together that we share, and LW is a part of the bit as well.

And so LW probably does most of the work up there because he has the most time on his hands. Now maybe I'll be able to do a little more because I'm not racing as much. But me and Tricks pretty much only get up there to hunt. And ALW does all the other work there as far as keeping the food plots going, feeding a, you know, filling up the feeders. And we got a couple farmers and people around there that help us as well.

So it's a real cool community. Is this your first buck? That's the first buck I've gotten from that property. We've had the property about four years. And we've been kind of managing the herd up and hadn't had a lot of shooters there when we first bought it. but it's been getting better every year. Martin's not had a chance to go at all yet,

but he'll probably go to have a week of muzzleloader season in January. He'll probably go for that if he doesn't go before to bow hunt a little bit. But it's all bow hunting, which I enjoy the most. So we got up there, and it was we went hunting in the evenings. We didn't hunt in the morning. If it's cold, I don't like you on the mornings. Yeah, it's real cold. Yeah.

Well, I mean, sometimes they're moving better in the mornings, and you go because of that, but the deer were moving really good in the evenings, so we just hunted the evenings. We had a couple great hunts, saw a lot of deer, and then... Did Sonny or Sean get anything? They didn't. But Sean was there in the turkey hunt, too. Y'all were pretty successful then, too.

Yeah, Sean has never been hunting at all. He went turkey hunting for the first time with us this year and got him a turkey. and this is, I gave him my first bow to practice with for a couple weeks before we went to this deer hunt. And so I kept telling him, man, we're going to practice. And by time I'd get home and get ready to practice, it's dark. So we started, we were practicing in the farm shop. Oh, you'll practice inside? Inside, yeah.

You're like a football team with an indoor training facility. All you really need to be able to shoot is 20 and 30 yards. For a new hunter, especially, anything beyond 30 yards, probably two. far but he went hunting for the first time it's hard to get people to go hunting for the first time if they've never hunted there mean Sean's almost i don't know Sean's like 30 some years old and never had been hunting so it's hard to get people at that age to try it obviously if they haven't been uh it's it's usually not something to interest them like I couldn't probably talk you into going and sitting in a tree right especially early in the morning in the cold yeah the

afternoon maybe in the afternoons we get in a stand it'd be about 50 degrees it's about 35 degrees when we get out. So it gets a little cold toward the end. But we got some tricks to keep your shells warm. Obviously, you got the hot hands. So the hot hands, they make them for your feed, and they make them for, you know, they make these patches you can stick all over your body.

I take the insul hot hand that you're supposed to put in your boots. So the hot hand works with oxygen, right? Right. So when you open it up, starts heating it, it works for about 6 to 10 hours. They're really good. Well, the insul, the one you put on the bottom of your foot to go in your boot

really doesn't work in the boot because it can't get any oxygen once you put your boot on. It's just trapped. So I actually, and it adheses to your sock, I actually put it on my thigh from my knee up. And man, that really, yeah, it really keeps your legs warm. But you can stick those things. They make them for your toes that go on the top of your toe.

Outside your sock, it's just a little, it's just probably, I don't know, about four inches as long as shape of the end of your foot. I stick those in the top of the boot on the inside. And I wear a size 12 boot instead of a size 11 because you're going to have a little more sock. Yeah. And so that puts, that keeps, it's a little, that creates a little space in there where there's some oxygen to where that'll work. And I also stick those on my collarbones and on the, on the, uh, how does it take you guys get ready in the morning?

Not long. So you open up all these hot hands about 20 minutes beforehand so they can get some oxygen and get warm, right? Then you stick them wherever you want, and you put on probably one layer of thermals, and then you put on your out-a-layer. You've got to have – if you're getting in a chain up, you've got to have a safety harness, and we have harnesses in all our tree stands unless they're ladders or redneck blinds. We use a lot of redneck blinds there. And you've got to have your range finder, your bow, your release,

And it sounds like a lot. It's not. I don't really have like a backpack or anything. Everything takes in my pockets. Oh. So. But I dressed the same in like a cold weather football game. Sure.

Yeah. Same thing. The last day we got in the stand to leave or we got in the stand for the last day. We're going to drive home that night. We drove up there six hours, drive home. Oh, you didn't fly? No. Okay.

It was a day after Thanksgiving and I was like, I won't ask my pilots to do that. So they were their family and so forth. They probably had plans for the weekend. and I bought it we bought this property within driving distance so we would drive to it you know so we would not

that's not a long that's not a terrible drive no it wasn't I drove all the way up there and uh but anyhow we're in the stand and I told Sean and Sunday when we were getting into the

the stand Sunday night I said all right now if you shoot anything today it better be worth it because we're gonna if you know if you kill something we're going to have to gut it and take it to the processor and all that stuff

and it's going to delay our time to leave, so it better be worth it. And I hadn't been in the stand for an hour, and this buck walked out, and I got to look at him, and I decided that would be one I'd want to mount. So I went ahead. I had a buck on the ground at 415, and so now I'm like, hey, Sunny, Sean, do y'all want to keep hunting? They can, you know, if they want to hunt until dark, or we can try to get this deer up

and get it gutted and get it to the processor and get on the highway. So they were ready to go. So they got out of their tree stands. We took care of the deer, which I'd never gutted a deer before. That was pretty interesting. Yeah, so Sean's never been hunting. Sean's never been hunting. I've never gutted a deer before.

Sonny's sort of a moderate, you know, novice as well. He doesn't hunt. Do you all just wing it? Yeah. Well, I mean, we Googled. Sean Googled how to do this. You just slice it open. It's like five steps to gutting a deer.

And we had the proper tool. We had the knife and all that particular knife that has this little hook on it that sort of you know Gets into the so you got a the thing about guttnidere is and hold your ears if you have a soft stomach But you don't want to puncture any of the organs especially the stomach itself because that really smells Right. I believe it. Yeah, so They have these knives that that dig into the skin and just open up the skin just enough so it keeps all the organs in one piece. And once you can saw through the sternum

and open all that up, all of it just pours out. It just kind of falls out on one bag. Just on the sidewalk? On to the ground, yeah. And the coyotes and stuff will come get that. I got you. And then you hose out the deer, get it all nice, and we did all this on the forklift of a tractor.

So it's pretty... What do you mean you did it on a forklift? Well, you raise the deer up. Oh, and then it'll just... Yeah, hanging from the tractor. I got you. And so it was pretty, I mean, I'd seen it done 100 times. I'd never done it myself.

Were LW and Truex? Were they disappointed? I've always been on these hunts where they, you know, you get invited to go hunting with some big time company, and, you know, they feed you and they put you in a stand, and they got a cameraman in there filming everything, and then you kill one, and you're going to touch it. You know, next thing you know, you see it.

It's a mount. This is real hunting. So this is a, this is a, yeah, we had to do everything. It was fun. I was the guide taking them into the stand. I went, I drove all the way up there, killed my own deer, gutted my own deer, and then drove home. Well, good. I mean, it's your property, so at least that way it makes it look like you know what you're doing.

Yep. Up there, what we do with the meat, we usually donate the meat, so that's all, that's what we did. Right. And they'll take it. I got a friend there that will take it to the taxidermy up there. So I'll get it in a couple eight to ten months probably. It takes a while. He's probably still doing turkeys from last turkey season and all that.

So you can put this in the house? I'll put it. We're going to keep it in our cabin. We have a Morton's Morton building that we had built one of the smaller ones. And it's got a couple bunks in it and a kitchenette and bathroom. So Trix has already got a deer in there for muzzleloader season last year. We're going to just start putting all our deer in there. Does LW have one?

LW hasn't gotten deer yet on our property. Really? I bet that really irks him. I don't think so because he's had a lease in the same state and had some killed deer on it the last couple years. So he's not hurt. But now do you think he's going to be more aggressive on his next couple hunts? Because he's behind.

You can't shoot what's not there. I mean, you have to hope it. I'm going to remind him whenever I see him. Sure. I know he spends a lot of time. And like you said, he does a lot of the work. putting the stands in and whatnot? We have probably about 900 acres.

There's probably about six shooter bucks on this property. And, I mean, they leave the property and go to other people's properties. We talk to all the people around there and the farmers, and they all see the same deer we do. And you just, I mean, we have a handful of stands, so you just got to be in the right place at the right time. And it was meant to be. I've been on, we've been hunting that property for four years.

I haven't killed a deer in five years. We've been on that property for four years, and that's the first shooter buck I've seen. Right. LW, we were hunting there about a month ago, and LW in about five hunts while he was there with me, he saw a shooter book every hunt, just not within range. So it's just kind of a...

It's just meant to be. Me, yeah. I mean, you've got to know what they're doing and why they're doing it and why they're moving. It's a lot of fun. I mean, I've learned so much about food plots and rotating food plots and the habits of the deer and why they do what they do and the moon and how that plays a role.

movement of the deer and how much they're going to move. And you are conveniently wearing a shirt that says catching deers today. Yeah. Is that just coincidence? Are you still on your eye? Well, it was the closest. It was a close, when I went to get my sweater out of the closet, this was the most conveniently placed one.

Yeah. It's a good, today's the perfect day to wear it. Yes. Also, this morning, we announced the launching of the Dale and Amy Earnhardt fund benefiting nationwide children's hospital that's right i'll let you talk a little bit about what that is why you guys wanted to do that yeah so the nationwide our you know our partner has has been very close with nationwide children's hospital obviously it's named after nationwide so when i started working with them they introduced me to the hospital and said hey this is something

And, you know, we have the Dale Junior Foundation. We work with a lot of different charities, make a wish. And they're just introducing me to this hospital saying this is what we do. This is where we put a lot of, you know, focus a lot of our charitable efforts. And we want you to learn about the hospital. I went up there and visited several times, been up there more than, you know, probably a dozen times to visit. And the more often I went. And each time I went, I learned a little bit more and started taking people with me, my wife, Amy, my team, to be able to go up there and experience what they're doing is really incredible.

You get to go into where these premature babies are being taken care of and hear some of the stories from the parents about some of the struggles they're dealing with and how, you know, they're saving the lives of these babies. they weren't able to save five to ten years ago because of research they've been able to develop. And this is just one particular wing at the hotel. I mean, there's so many different things that they're doing in there. But you meet all these kids that have been affected by the great things going on there. You make relationships for those people and their families. So over several years, I've gotten closer to the hospital.

And they've really kind of taken us in and really shown us what they're all about. and included us in a lot of things that they do. So they actually named or renamed an activity room in the building after me and Amy, which was overwhelming. I really didn't expect anything like that. This activity room is where I would visit this activity room every time I go there, so I knew the room really well.

This is where the kids go to, they play games, they do activities, they do a lot of rehabilitation within there. Obviously, while they're playing those games and activities, they're doing rehabilitation. This is also the room where they go to graduate from the hospital when they're going to go back home and continue their care in home. So there's a lot of great things. This is a fun room for the kids.

The kids love going into this area, and they know that when they're there, this is going to be a fun afternoon or fun period of the day. So they named this room after us a couple, about a year and a half ago. We went up there more recently and sat down and they talked to us about creating this fund. And would we, you know, be interested in participating in more in the hospital and trying to be a bigger part of it? So really, this is kind of the first step in that direction of partnering more with the hospital. I'd been, I would consider up to this point me, I was just a guest of nationwide.

Right. You know, so this is a bit of us, this is the first step in us sort of partnering with the hospital and getting more involved. And we're going to, you know, it's going to be exciting to continue to be part of their family. And we're still going to continue to work with our foundation with Make a Wish and Blessing in a Backpack and all the programs that we've been a part of for many, many years. we're still going to continue. But this is a new venture for us to be a part of and something that I think Amy really, really loves, especially as having a kid and going through all that,

going through the pregnancy and understanding, you know, what having a child's all about. Imagine, you know, your child needing, you know, serious help from somebody like the nationwide children hospital. And that's being available to. to you at no cost. Yeah. It's pretty incredible.

Yeah. Every time we've ever gone up there, it just, it's like a light switch and makes you realize what's important in life. Like when you see these kids and meet them and their families, it's not all fun and games up there. Yeah. Obviously, they have the rehab, the activity center, and that's just like a nice little way for them to sort of get away from what's really going on and do like the fun and games

while they're rehabbing. So they'll be playing Wii, Nintendo Wii, as they do their activities. That's actually rehab for them while they're also having fun. So it's very eye-opening to go there in all the trips we've made. I agree with you. So I'm excited about that, and we're going to have more and more news on that as we move along. But that's something we're really excited about, and you'll hear a lot more about as a year comes,

as we get through the new year and get on into 2018. So not much NASCAR news over the past week with the holiday, but the one big story was the standardized roster sizes. Yeah. Which I don't know that it was intended to be as big a news as it was, but I think it is, if you really think about it, so they've limited road crews in all three series. Now, the Cup Series, you can have 12 road crew members, Xfinity 7 crew members, and trucks, six road crew members.

And then for pit crews, they have eliminated one spot. So it's always been six guys. Now it'll be five guys over the wall. Yeah, I mean, this is a big deal. The road crew basically is the team that flies to the racetrack to meet the car when the car gets there. They are the guys that take the car through inspection, get it through practice qualifying. and I don't know how they really plan to relegate how big your road crew is. I mean, there's a lot of freaking people that fly to the racetrack for HMS.

Right. You've got a lot of management folks, and I think that there would be a way to veil some of the people that are there. Right, because like a PR rep and a market. marketing rep and people who quote unquote serve or like are there to serve the sponsor. Yeah. And like truck drivers maybe, they don't necessarily, I don't think they count for your 12. And then you get like one management person per car or two cars. I don't know how they're going to police this.

Right. It just seems like a real. But they say that I was reading, you have to submit your roster. Yeah. Like leading into the week. And then the crew guy will have like a number on his shirt. Yeah, apparently the roster crew will be assigned letters or numbers on their uniforms and on arm bands to identify their duties. Yeah.

Yeah, I wonder if this will last very long. I just don't know whether this is. The arm band sounds weird. Yeah, it's strange. It's going to be hard to monitor. I wonder where this really came from. Is this something that the owners want it? because to try to control cost a little bit more,

whether, you know, maybe the, because think about how this really does affect a lot of things. You've got, obviously, salaries that maybe adjusts the salaries and takes a few salaries off the table. Main thing, hotel rooms and travel, air travel, those things are major expenses for the teams. If this, you know, it goes across the industry, this saves probably a ton of money on travel and accommodations and so forth.

It's going to be Which I tried to figure that They probably spend like 20 grand Probably 15 to 20 grand per person To travel them every year I won't be surprised I guess If the road crew Limitations

For the new guidelines as far as the standard roster I won't be surprised If that's a non Non-story like on end of the season The road crew. Yep. Yeah, because I was thinking about, like, J.R.M, our teams are pretty small anyways. Yeah.

So I think where you're going to lose out is maybe you lose an engineer. Yeah. I just think that, no, I just think that this will be long, this will be, I think that this will be confusing and difficult and forgotten halfway through halfway through. I do, too. I don't even know that it'll be halfway through. Right. It might be a West Coast swing. Right. the pit crew thing is going to be weird for a little bit, but I think...

I think it's here to stay. Yeah, which that part's kind of weird, because if you just cut out a guy, that's not really going to save you money because you're just going to spend more on the other five guys, right? I reckon. I mean, that's typically what tends to happen. Teams just... Right. You try to create these opportunities to maybe save some money or...

what have you and if teams have the money they're going to spend it right um there there is a guy on every team that uh is not happy about this right right there's a guy on every team that this on overwall crew that that's that's his livelihood and his job and he's losing it yeah so that's the unfortunate part to this um but it will make i think the pit stops a little more interesting to watch the guys will have to get a little more creative to try to find ways to to make the stops faster. I don't know how much this affects the speed of the stops from... I think initially it will, but then...

I think that they'll find ways to cut that speed back down. The gas man is only allowed to gas the car, where in other times he could be helping with the tires and so forth. Do you think that the cutting out a guy will have as much impact as the standardized gun that they're going to use? On time, on speed. Yeah. the standard gun will probably be quite a bit slower than the guns that they've been developing.

So that will, yeah, so that will probably have more of an impact on pit stop times. And the standardized guns are also going to cost the teams several thousand dollars a year. Yeah, so that money you save on that guy is going to be. Well, no, okay, so there are only, there are only, you know, not every team in the garage is spending millions of dollars developing these guns. So, yeah. JR Motorsports or or some of the, you know,

front row or some of them teams may not be spending money on developing guns, right? But now they're going to be asked to buy this standardized gun and use it. That's going to be about $20,000 to $30,000. Oh, so it's really, instead of saving you money,

you're spending money that you weren't spending anyways. Right. Because our pit crews come through Hendrick anyways. Yeah. So we're just on the trickle-down effect of that. We weren't spending money on guns. Right. Now we're going to have to spend money.

money on guns. So that's a little bit of a, you know, it'll be interesting to see how this works out. But from a fans point of view, don't concern yourself with the expense so much. Or I think from a fan's point of view, in my mind, I'm going to be interested to see how fast the the stops are. Does this create competition on pit road? Does this create a level playing field to where you're not getting beat by a gun? or you're not getting beat by a guy that's only putting four lug nuts on instead of five,

or you're getting beat literally by making less mistakes. Right. Being a smoother, being a well-fined-tuned crew that can do things consistently. That's how it used to be back in the day. You know, you had great teams. You had fast teams that were consistently beating. their counterparts. We found

way, we'll always find ways to get into the technology side of the sport and make things faster and quicker and this maybe draws it back a little bit toward putting it in the hands of the actual tire guys and, and Jackman and so forth, where

you have, you know, it comes down to the individuals themselves to make this pit stop very fast. With the standardized gun, that definitely takes a lot of the technology off the table. I think it's to be an interesting off season from like a choreography standpoint

of trying to figure out what the fastest way is. Right. I think as a fan, that's the things you need to pay attention to is to what are these teams doing creatively to make these pit stops quicker. And there's only a few things that they can do with the five guys. So that's going to be pretty fun to watch and that'll continue to develop and evolve over the course of the season. And, yeah. The other NASCAR news of the week was Tony Stewart got engaged.

Yeah. Holy crap. You know, I, Tony's a great friend. Just saw recently that he was riding bikes. Apparently, he was seeing some of the impact on. fitness with some of the guys that have started cycling over at the shop. A lot of the guys on the, not only do the driver's cycle, but tons of guys in each of the team cycle. There's a group that goes and rides every day at lunch at HMS, a big group.

So over at Stuart Hawth, the same thing's happening. They ride every day. And he's starting to see some of the, you know, the shop guys actually getting more fit and in better shape. So he decided to, and he's been on a quest, I think, personally. to do better for himself physically. And I've known him well enough to know that he's made a lot of changes in his life personally to try to be in better shape over the last several years. And so, yeah, he picked up his bike.

I asked him the other day if we were going to go riding together. He said once he got up to speed, we'd take off. So that'll be a lot of fun ride with Tony. And now he's got engaged. so we got a wedding to go to. There you go. Yeah. That's cool, though.

I think that'll be a fun wedding. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think any Tony Stewart party is probably a good party. I wonder where this wedding's going to be. Yeah. I don't know. I wonder if he'll do it in like a far off location

or will he make it simple for all of us and have it in the United States somewhere? I would assume it would be in the United States. But I wonder, will it be here? Will it be in Indiana? Right. Well, that's one I probably wouldn't want to miss, right? Right. I think it's going to be a big time.

I think so. He'll probably have pretty good band play, too. He knows people. He has kid rock play his band or plays wedding. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing how all that plays out. Good job, Tony. And he must have found somebody that makes every day better. We got some Tyler News.

So we probably should have led the show with this. Why not? This would have got everything off to the wrong. Why are you? It's not sad. It's good. So we have some Tyler news, and I'll let Tyler. So my last day at Junior Motorsports is going to be next Tuesday.

I've worked here for eight and a half years. I started as an intern, but I'm going, I've taken a job at Joe Gibbs Racing. I'll be working with Daniel Suarez next year. So I'm excited about it. It's going to be a big chance. going from the most popular guy to a young guy, but we've spent all year talking about all these young guys and like what I think that the sport, obviously it's in a weird spot right now, but I'm excited about all these young guys and the prospect of working with one of them.

Obviously Gibbs is a top-notch organization, so I'll be working with Daniel. I start there on the 11th. So this is probably my last Dale Jr. Download podcast. What are you going to do from now until then? I work here until next Tuesday. Right. And then I'll take a couple days off. A couple days. That's a lot.

That's a lot of days. Three days off. You're starting when? Oh, you're starting in December? Yeah, yeah. I thought you meant January. No, no. That would be a lot of it.

I know. I don't know why you didn't take advantage of that. Why would you? I want to get in there for a week or so and kind of get settled and then do my Christmas, then come back and be ready to go. Gotcha. Because we'll probably hit the ground in January. running. But yeah, it was everybody here, including you, Kelly, Mike, that I work with very closely,

has been very supportive of it. So I'm excited about it. It may be good news for the people that listen to this podcast. They may be like, hell yeah, he's finally gone. I think that they're excited for you like the rest of us are. This is a, it is difficult because you've been here for so long. And I remember when you asked what opportunities there might be. over here for you and we got you got you the internship and it was basically a prove it kind of deal. Yeah, it was really only a two-month internship. And with like two weeks left, I emailed Thayer Lobiel, who was over marketing at the time. I was like, hey, can I just stay through the semester?

And so I ended up staying for my whole senior year of college and graduated on a Saturday and then started on a Monday. And my initial job was whenever Facebook and Twitter were just becoming like an asset. a marketing asset, and I was handling all that here and kind of transitioned up, started doing more PR, and then took over this role. Actually, banquet week of 2014. Yep. That was the first thing I went to was the banquet.

And you've been our, we've called it the road manager, where basically you're in charge of the entire calendar through the year, whatever we're doing, everything we're doing, whether it's at the racetrack, whether it's a practice, whether it's being anything, thing that happens this banquet week, all the, I'm trying to figure out how to paint the picture for everybody.

So if we're doing it, logistics. Yes. Yeah. If we're doing it, you're in charge of making sure we know where it's at, who's going to be there, who's involved, what we're going to be doing. When you need to be there, what you've got to wear. If somebody says, hey, we don't, you know, Mountain Dew wants us over at a Walmart down in Florida, you know the whole run of show.

Right. Like from the moment we get there all the way to the moment we leave, everything that we're going to be doing your calling and contact these people. It's a really busy, you know, it's a full plate. I've been so proud of you to see how you worked your way up. You did a great job. And this, I will say this, this particular position that you filled over the last several years has been one that's difficult to feel.

And I think that we found a perfect fit. with you and I appreciate I appreciate everything you've done over the last couple years and I know Daniel pretty well having rode bikes with him and gotten to know him a little bit and he's a really really good guy I think if you were going to work for somebody I didn't like it'd be a little harder but I think that Daniel

has a great future in the sport he's a really really good guy Gibbs is a great place I think to work Joe and his family are an incredible employers, and I know that you're going to be in good hands, and I can't wait to hear about how they feel about you. I think that you're leaving here, having learned what you've learned, and you're taking a lot of great tools there

that I think that they'll be quite impressed with. I think they're going to really like the person that you are and the work ethic that you have. So, you know, that makes, that's kind of something I guess that we get a little bit proud of is when somebody leaves here and goes somewhere else that we hear, you know, really good things about it on the backside. I can't wait to hit you up for NBC sit-down interview next year. Yeah. Well, yeah, we'll see. I mean, I don't know how that actually gets done, but we're going to do it.

That'll be weird. We're going to do it that. The back way. It's going to be like, hey, Dale. How about you sit down with him and do this interview? Yeah. Okay. So it's exciting news.

The download will miss you. But even more than that, I'm going to miss you. Junior Motorsports is going to miss you. But we, you know, we'll remain friends. We have a lot of things we do outside of our job that will keep us connected and part of each other's lives. So that's a good thing as well. So very exciting news for Tyre. and we'll have information on, you know, who's going to be my co-host next year at the podcast.

You got any advice? There's a man in this building that would be a great co-host. Well, I hope. I don't want to have to do any outside hiring. Yeah. I think Mike is the perfect candidate to co-host this show. Yeah, I've talked to Mike and thinking that he might be time to bring Mike back to the podcast. Okay.

All right. Now we're going to get to our Ask Junior questions. As always, we get these on Twitter using the hashtag Ask Junior. First question at Patrick Star 42 asks, any chance you can get that number eight back at Junior Motorsports. It would be cool to see you do your Xfinity races in a number eight car. Man, that would be cool. Let's try. You could do that.

I think in the Xfinity like BJ McLeod or somebody like that has it. So it's possible. Yeah. The only thing is is that stylized date. is still owned by DEI, so I'd have to, would it be our, would it even be fun to run a number eight that doesn't look like the number eight? I don't know if I'd want to. Right. I wouldn't want to run a number eight unless it was that eight.

Right. You don't want to run like your 88, but with just the eight, because then it's not the same. Like to just slice it in half? Well, we can't run that eight that everybody is familiar with because they don't. I know. Like the current font that's on your 88. Yeah. It's similar.

It's similar enough that we'd probably be in legal trouble trying to use that font because it's so similar. What about if you use your grandpa Ralph's 8? That one's cool. It's probably as well owned by DEI. Just paint one on there. I don't know. That's the thing about it. It's not as simple as just saying, yeah, let's be number 8 and let's put that 8 on the car and go run it because...

You could be number 8. It just wouldn't be the same. Someone, yeah, I mean, D.I. owns that trademark to that font and that number and the way it looks, and you can't, especially someone like me, I couldn't run it. They'd come after me. I mean, I would come after anybody that tried to run it if I owned it. Right. Right. So, probably still going to be 88. Yeah. That's a good number. At Meldy Girl 88, which I want to mention, I mispronounce her name so bad that I think she changed her Twitter handle to be easier. But at MeldieGrelty-Gurl. LD Girl 88S. Have you ever taken Tyler hunting with you? And also, what do you do to pass the time while you're up in your hunting blind while waiting for a deer? Well, I'll answer the first part. No, because I don't like to wake up early and I don't like the cold.

I went to the property one time and it was a long day. Yeah, Tyler did go to the property once and he won't go back. I was the first picture on that one deer came. Yeah. Just rolling the list. Yep. which that was you know I uh most of stands have service so you can play on your phone and we actually just text back and forth

if anybody's see anything and what's going on in their stand and we're texting if Torex isn't there he's we're texting him or he texting us what's what's going on so everybody you know anybody that has any knowledge that we're there is usually bugging us about what we're seeing and what we're doing and what we're going to do tomorrow we were going to hunt tomorrow and what did you text whenever you got the deer the other day i said a text to true x and l w that we had i had a deer down in the field oh and then i went over there and i laid my bow down and i put the phone on the bow and i put a 10 second timer on it took a picture with me and the deer and sent it to them oh yeah did they send you like the congrats text

where it has all the balloons no no lw is super excited true x um was giving me crap. About what? I don't know. He just giving me a hard time. He killed, the deer he killed with the muzzleloader last year is a little bit bigger. So, yeah. So he's giving me a hard time about that.

But plus he's all, I think he's still celebrating. I believe it. Did you see that picture of him and his family at Thanksgiving? And they had that big banner. I would have stole it too. That's awesome. Yeah. At Scott Glover 4 asks,

some drivers have said they give away their trophies. Have you ever given any of yours away? If so, to who and why? Good Lord. I hope I haven't. Usually if we went like a, if we went a race, I might sometimes give the checker flag away

to one of the crew guys or Greg. I've gave Greg a couple trophies in the last couple years. I know you gave Steve Berg the poll. trophy from Talladega. Yeah, we won a pole trophy. He was over the Super Speedway program for the 4888 shop. It just depends. I mean, if, you know, the race, the actual trophy that you win from race, we keep all

those, but the owner gets one as well, if it's a pole trophy or something like that, I mean, sometimes you might want to give it to somebody who has a big influence on trying to get that pole. And Bergey, you know, as a Speedway guy, he does all the bodies. So he's somebody I've definitely. and want to give that to. At Justin underscore Pallaza asks, have you read any baby books yet?

No. I got a lot of them to read, though. Good Lord, we've been getting them. Everywhere I go, somebody hands me a baby book. But I've got... You look at the apps, though, right? Yeah, I have this app on my phone that tells me all kinds of great stuff.

What's the comparison fruit now? Right now it's a... Let's see. I think we're still... It's a big lie. Turnip. Turnip. Let me see.

It might be a turnip. It was, yeah, we're a turnip for one more day. And then what's it go to? I won't, you know, that's the big surprise. Oh, it's a surprise. Yeah. Oh. 22 weeks and one day left.

Oh. Oh, it gives you a countdown. Oh, yeah. There's all kinds of information. That's faints. Yep. At 88 underscore Dale underscore junior underscore fan asked, what is on your Christmas list this year? So me and Amy have our phones and we create photo streams for each other.

So we just basically tell each other what we want for Christmas. And in my list, I have, I want the, I want to be part of the barbecue of the month club. I got that gift for my groomsman. And I got them a six-month barbecue of the month, so they would get a package once a month for six months, and it had ribs and all kinds of sticks. It's a lot in one package. Right.

There's like ribs, sausage, barbecue salt. I mean, there's quite a bit in these little packages that come, and it keeps coming, so it's a great gift. Yeah. You can get it for a year or whatever. So for one Christmas, like two or three years ago, out of the blue, Casey Cain bought me a pig of the month for a year.

Greatest gift. I was like Casey, man. What a guy. Yeah. It was awesome. So I would like to get back on that deal. It's a pair of shoes. I want some we got our beach cruisers that we ride around on Key West and I want some

fenders for it that are made out of wood and it kind of look like surfboards. Oh yeah. That's kind of finish. I got you. for both so I want some of those a couple

cycling jerseys apparently there's this there's a virtual reality headset that's coming out that you don't need a phone for or a computer for anything it just has the apps in it so like it'll have Twitter app

and all that stuff in it and you can just put it on and read Twitter but you sit on your couch yeah I mean obviously you're going to look stupid, but you don't care if you're in virtual reality. You don't care what you look like. Yeah, so I want one of those.

It's like a gift for both of you. It's arriving early in 2018, though, so that won't be a Christmas gift. That's like a gift for you and then like a comedy gift for Amy because now she can just be like, look at this guy. You can effortly enter virtual reality with no PC or wires attached. The Oculus Go is an all-in-one VR headset made to fit you designed with breathable fabrics, some adjustable straps

and the best lenses. This sounds just not like a good idea. I don't know. I mean, if you just have it by your bed on your man, you know, and then you wake up in the morning

and throw it on and read Twitter and check out the news and I mean, I do that stuff anyways on my iPad. All right. Wait, I'm not done my list. My gosh, how many things you got this year? Well, that's just a couple?

I mean, I've always said a pair of shoes, a couple of jersees. Let's see, more shoes. Oh. I want some deer cams. More deer cams? Yeah. You got like new locations you want these at?

Well, I bought some deer cams. These are the wireless ones that send the pictures to your phone. I bought them about five years ago, and they're kind of old, and they don't send a really nice picture. Can't really tell what you're looking at. Oh, so you just want to upgrade. You can see it's a deer, but you can't see the rack well enough to, you know, to tell them apart and learn what the deer look like

and figure out which ones you want to, you know. So these would be like high-deaf. These are better, yeah. So get a couple of them. They're expensive, though. That's it. Yeah, that's it. Cool.

That's all the Ask Junior questions we have this week. As always, you can send those questions using the hashtag Ask Junior, and we'll pick the best ones to answer each week. 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. Looking ahead, Tuesday, that's today.

We are going to Vegas, and I'm going to Vegas. Not going. Tyler's not going. This will be my first true test, Tylerless test. I've made a very in-depth schedule for it. You have prepared me well for this. Tuesday, we're going to the appreciation event in Vegas. It's sold out.

Yep. Mike Davis said, which is great. I saw the guest list. I can't tell you who's on it, but I saw it. Is it going to be fun? It should be fun. Okay. I'm a little nervous.

So the appreciation events in Vegas. I'm hosting it, co-hosting it with Mike Davis. Mike Davis chose the guests. I don't know who it is. It's about an hour and a half long. We're going to sit down and interview these people right off the cuff. No preparation whatsoever. I don't even have an opening monologue.

I'm just going to get up there and do it. You should probably have a beer before you do it. Knock the edge off. I don't know if that would make much difference. I don't know if that would make it better or worse. It'll be fun either way, I think. I think Mike is very prepared. Is he?

Well, all right. This is going to be proof that he's the guy for this podcast. Hopefully he gives me an opportunity to speak. He's a talker. Wednesday, we've got the Myers Brother luncheon that we're going to go to. Then we're doing Blaney's podcast. I think it's his last podcast this year. Yeah, it's at that NASCAR after the lap.

So it's pretty late. I guess it'll air on Thursday. Okay. It's pretty late in east time. What's this other news? It's your, you have to tweet it out. It's on your calendar, but people will be excited about it, I think. I think.

Okay, let's hope. They'll be happy but sad. Yeah. Why? Why will they be sad? That should not be a sad thing. I know, but. I'm not going to say because it might give it away.

Damn. Because you won't be doing your old job anymore. Okay, so there's some news that we're going to announce on Wednesday. So stay tuned. And then Thursday is the banquet. Thursday. Usually is on Friday, but this year it's Thursday. We'll find out if we have won the 15th most popular driver reward.

I like your chances. We're going to celebrate Truex. Yes. And then there's a little after party. We'll go to that. and hang around, have a little fun, and then I think we're coming home. I don't think we're spending the night.

Oh, that was a good idea last year when we left in the middle of the night. Yeah. I thought that was a great idea. I mean, it's the kind of thing about, Vegas is like the only town that you do that. Like, if you go anywhere else in the country and you're there, you know, vacation or whatever, you never leave it two in the morning. Yeah. You don't go.

All right, y'all ready to go? It's midnight. Let's just go. Yeah. But in Vegas, it seems okay to leave at any moment during the day. Vegas is just, you're ready to leave at any moment during the day. It's just a weird town. It's just a weird town.

And when you're ready to leave, you're ready to get the hell out of there. Yes, yeah. You don't want to hang out. If you're ready to leave at two in the morning for Vegas, it's just not a place you want to wait until the morning. No. Vegas in the morning is weird because you go downstairs through the lobby and there's people that are still up. Yeah. Yeah, you can always tell who's still up.

Yeah, it's a weird feeling. Yeah. It's a town, they say it's a town that never sleeps. Is that right, or is that city that never sleeps or is that New York? I think that's New York. It needs to be Vegas. It could be Vegas, too. Because it's true.

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas? People definitely sleep in New York. But yeah, Vegas will be fun. Yeah, so, all right, last podcast, Tyler. Thank you for the podcasting. Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity on the podcast and at Junior Motors Sports. And thank you to all of the fans who have been very supportive of me in this role

and not giving me too much crap. Well, you got. It's been a very fun and enlightening, eye-opening ride. That's right. I'm excited about the new opportunity. I'm excited about what Junior Motorsports has got going on, what you've got going on. So yeah. Yes, sir.

Have a happy holidays, everyone. Take it easy. 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 Dirtymoor 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. Take it by your word.

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