The Dale Jr. Download - 209 - TAKING NBC FROM SUITS TO SWEATS

Episode Date: March 13, 2018

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mike Davis sit down with special guest Steve Letarte in the NBC Studios to discuss Phoenix, hot drivers, sweatpants and flying squirrels on this special edition of the Dale Jr. Download. 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.

There are any rules to? Do I just follow along? There are no rules. Lovely. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. This is episode six, post-Fenix. I have with me, as usual, my co-host, Mike Davis.

With makeup on. Yeah, actually, we are in NBC studio. This is NBC Sports. Yeah, up here in Connecticut. So Mike is actually wearing makeup today, I think, for the first time. Ever. And we also have... Can you think of another time?

It was another opportunity for me to put on makeup. I don't know. We could talk about that. It's not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Actually, it's somewhat enjoyable. All right. We also have another guest with us that I'm excited about. He's got makeup on, too.

You know what? It's actually even more normal. Ladies and gentlemen, Steve LaTart is here. Man, I've been waiting for this day. Not the makeup, but the invite. The makeup's kind of just normal now. Hey, listen, you've been on the Dale Jr. Download before, my friend.

I have, but never in studio with makeup. This is a big day. This is a big day. And it's awesome to be here at NBC Sports. This is Dale Jr.'s first time. But when this podcast comes out, he will have already been on NASCAR America. But as we tape this, we're about, I don't know, a couple hours before he and you go on NASCAR America. I'm looking forward to it.

So this is sort of a warm-up, maybe? I like this. This is a little real. I don't know if it was a little rehearsal, a little alcoholic drink or something? Well, you said rehearsal and the producer over there started to pick. I backed it up there. I backed out of that one and just went to the alcohol. Well, this is going to be a fun show.

All right. We got a lot to talk about. Let's get to it. The Dale Jr. Download. You're going to do it. You're going to let the download starts now. Sadale Jr., you know what? We did watch the race from Phoenix,

but I really want to encourage people to tune in to NASCAR America and NBC Sports Network all week long to hear what you guys have to say about that. We'll get into it a little bit. But right now, I am just in awe over Steve LaTart being here. Really? And you know why? because he's here playing hurt. He's hurt.

Do you want to tell us what happened? I don't know if I can relive. It's still a little raw. The whole injury is still a little sensitive, but I... So basically, I was being a good father, took my daughter to her favorite restaurant down in Charlotte, and it's a very healthy, vegan type thing. And I got a salad, and it had nuts and fruits and berries and seeds,

and I was eating that salad. One of those seeds hit my... tooth in just the right spot and split a tooth wide open top to bottom through the route called my dentist he told me to come right in wait whoa whoa hold up you called your dentist like you made an appointment like you called him no you didn't you text your dentist yeah why wouldn't i broke a tooth this this is the thing that between dale junior and i that i think is actually you are as entitled as he is by whoa whoa whoa no no i'm telling you right now there's three people on this podcast asked, two of us have their dentist number, and we're the odd ones.

Take a poll, my friend. Nobody gets to text their dentist. You've got to make an appointment. You're saying you text your dentist. I text him at 1230, and I went to see him at 145. He said, yeah, come on in. Broken Tooth, got to get you right in. Man, you're doing better than I am.

See? Right in. I always thought, and I still think, even though Mike disagrees, can't go off. Everybody, you know, most people would won't and probably do have their dentist's phone number. I mean, dentist is an intimate person in your life. He takes care of everything going. on. I would put him in the top two most important people in my life. And when you have a broken

tooth, he moves to number one. Yeah. Like right up the chart. So I went in there. He saw it. Here's where the crushing blow was. He numbed me all up. Said, oh, listen, it's just going to be a little crack. We put a crown on it. And then this is never anything you want to hear. Ooh. What does that mean, Doc? He's like, it's split all the way through. It's going to have to come out. Are you on TV this week? Well, yeah, I am. He's like, all right, we're just going to have to temporary crown it. It's going to really hurt. So basically, middle of this coming week, the tooth is coming out. Yeah. Can we be

there for it? That we should video. Being as all tight and all as you are with your dentist, I assume that it wouldn't be much of a problem. That's a real intimate. Should I text him and ask? That's a real intimate moment between him and his dentist. I don't know if I feel comfortable being there. I can't believe that's such a doctor. If you texted your dentist right now, how long would it be before he replies?

Immediately, because he's probably concerned about your tooth at this very moment. Well, it went one farther if you really must know, is I ran into him at a social gathering three days later at the golf course. And I walked in. Don't even tell me this. I walked in and he said, hey man, how's the tooth? I said, pretty good. He's just, is the crown holding up? I said, well, hold on. And he sat me back in the chair, pulled out his phone light. No. Looked at it. It says, no. Looks good. It'll definitely make it the next week. There are unicorns in your lives. I'm telling you. Both of you. I can't even look at you.

This is not, this is not normal people. And by the way, I know that you're retired. You're retired. You're going to come back down to our level. I don't think your dentist is going to care as much about your teeth. That's not true. I've had the reactions with my dentist since I retired, and he's still the same awesome dentist. Mike, I think you should question your dentist. In fact, I've actually, he's in between dentists, if you want to know the truth. And I have talked to my dentist, and I said, can you give Mike the same service that you give me and all your other patients?

And he said, yeah, he would definitely love to take Mike on as a customer, but Mike won't go see him. So wait, wait, wait, Mrs. Lattart has her dentist's number as well. I'm confident because she had a broken tooth, tax. Got right in with him too. But I've given him an open door to join the club. He's sitting me up for a teeth joke just so you know. I'm not walking down this path.

You know what he calls me, don't you? No. Smarty Jones. It has a great set of teeth. Now that you mention that, it's quite a smile. Does it accent my makeup? It does, but I thought they would have put a little product in your hair. She said I had great hair.

She said that too. If I could get him to go to my dentist, my dentist next time I'd seen him would go. Oh, yeah. That's a great set of choppers. Oh, yeah. I really appreciate that. I'll tell you. That's like working on a Ferrari.

Mike's the kind of guy you want to refer to your dentist. Yeah. Guess what? I don't have a toothache. You know why? I floss. I brush. I don't have a problem.

What's your problem? Go ahead. Knock on wood. When they split, you'll know it. Well, look, I'm glad you got some playing hurt. You're playing hurt. Is this going to affect your performance on NASCAR America? I got to know.

No, no, no, no. But that's why we didn't pull the tooth out. So I had all of them. Do you know how many people would watch if they knew that you were missing a tooth and that when you talked? Like if it even gave a little whistle? Like a little. Like Steve, how are you feeling? Well, I'm pretty good.

I'm just kind of, that would be bad. Yeah. Yeah, every time he said Amarola, you know, all of a sudden you hear this little whistle. Can I give you a little side note though? Yeah. Busted tooth, a lot of soup. down six pounds. Pretty good deal. Pretty good deal. The busted tooth diet is working for me. Yeah. What about that cafeteria visit we took today at NBC sports? Soft pasta. I only ate half of it. I was good. Yeah.

I started to feel bad when our boss rolled in with nothing but salads. Yeah. And I was sitting there with that big bowl of pasta, so I kind of throttled back. Sam Flood came and sat next to us. And then we were all like, I honestly did an inventory of what we got at that point. I didn't care up until then, but I'm like, oh, I mean, now we're sort of like, almost like a job interview. So, all right, so we're here at NBC Sports. It's been a good day. I've had fun. This is our first time here. Dale, what's been your impression so far?

The place is brand new. It looks, everything looks brand new. So clean. They seem to be well organized and there's tons of lights. There are a lot of lights. Now, we've got to give a visual of where we are right now. We're on an actual television set. By the way, I haven't, I can't help but notice they've all left.

Don't you see? They left the cameras rolling and now they're gone. So we literally are the only three people in this studio right now. But it's an immaculate studio. Yeah. This is the set for NASCAR America. No, it's not. No, we're one over.

Oh, really? Yeah, no, we're not in NASCAR America. Will it be similar to this? Yeah, let me just say, been coming up here for years. Big desk, all formal. A man comes and joins us. Big leather chairs in the studio today. This is a big change.

I like this. Let's talk about this. We're going to chip away at that. I mean, we're still going to be wearing suits. Oh, yeah. There's a lot of progress to be made. There's a lot of opportunity. We get down to, you know, sweatpants, switch shirt and jeans.

He went right to sweatpants. That was aggressive. That's a bold move there, Dale. Maybe next year. Right. He let us peek behind of what his strategy with Sam. It's a one-year strategy. I'm going to go from suit to sweatpants.

That's the name of our next podcast, by the way. Suit to Sweatpants. That'll be the NASCAR and NBC podcast, suit to sweatpants. I like that. With Nate Ryan. They like it. Honestly, Stevie has been joking. all day about how he didn't get this treatment.

We had an itinerary. We had a tour of the facility that Stevie says, you've never been on a tour. Oh, I have now because I went with that one today. Right. You had never been into the executive offices. No, I don't go on carpet. And why is that?

So in the race shop, the work area was concrete. Here at the studios, concrete. You get over to the carpet, executives. They don't invite you over the carpet for like rah, rah, good speech pat on the bag. You go to the carpet? you're getting fired. So I don't go to the carpet.

You have a history on the carpet, it seems like. Well, I mean, I've yet to get, I've kept my job. I've yet to be fired. You've never been fired? Have you ever been fired from a job? It's only my second job. Hendrick and here. I mean, work with me.

This is the only places you've ever worked? Yeah. I mean, high school? Hendricks. That was a Hendrick Motor Sports. Dude, that's incredible. I feel like you just met me. We've known each other for years.

No, but these are the only two places you work. I mean, Dale's been fired from a job. Dale had fired from a company that had his own name on it. That's not surprising. If you know me, that's not very surprising. Yeah. Did you have to walk the carpet, the carpet aisle at Deller and Hart Chevrolet when you got fired? I didn't.

They fired me right on the concrete. They just cut me right there on the concrete floor. Didn't even let him go to the carpet. He always wanted to go to the carpet. Didn't even get a warning. Nothing. You kind of knew it was coming. You weren't shocked.

Were you? Changing terrain to get a warning. what was happening. What about Phoenix, guys? You guys watched the race yesterday. I don't know that we need to get too deep in it, but that was, you know, another one, Harvick winning.

Harvick showed a little attitude at the end. Yeah, there's a couple things. I think that Harvick, we knew he'd be fast there. He's great at Atlanta and he's great at Phoenix. I don't think, I think everybody had him picked to be, you know, a contender, if not the winner.

So I don't think anybody's too surprised by the win. I think what was surprising was his approach to handling the media all week. He gave himself a lot of opportunity to talk to the media. He didn't duck or he wasn't sort of ushered away by PR reps or anything like that. He faced the music. And I guess, you know, having the confidence that he had and how he runs at Phoenix giving him the ability to do that.

The other thing, too, can he go win four in a row? That'll be interesting. I think they'll be very strong at Fontana. But I think that there'll be some other cars too that will make the challenge of winning four in a row. a little bit more difficult than what he's faced at Atlanta and Phoenix. He's just so good at those two tracks. He's on the top of everybody's list when he goes to Atlanta and Phoenix. The other thing that I think outside of Harvick is we didn't hear anything about pick guns.

Nope. Nothing about pick guns. So is the pick gun issue, I mean, you know, you're going to have failures with anything mechanical. But I think the pick gun issue looked a lot better this week. And we're definitely, we're not hearing anything. There's been no conversation on social media from Reddit or anybody about cars or anything that they've seen on the racetrack. They didn't get noticed. I mean, now we know that.

Reddit is the police for NASCAR now. They're the governing body. So if Reddit's cool, we're cool. Yeah. So it's been real quiet on social media. And we're moving on to Fontana. I mean, it was a stormy week last week. I think this week's going to be nice and quiet.

And Fontana is an amazing racetrack, but it's on a great race. a lot of grooves. I'm really excited about the series moving to that track and what kind of race we'll see. So you go back to Harvick and the media. What I liked about that is the crew chief. I think his straightforward approach kind of just buckled down the team even more, right?

Instead of putting his team on an island and saying, well, you know, you have to talk to Rod and he's in charge of the cars or avoiding the question, he just took chin high fastballs all day. Wasn't scared of him, answered him. I think that's just one more example how, like Kevin, be a relatively polarizing figure. And you're either kind of in her circle or not. And I think all this did was make sure that Rodney and his team was tight in his circle.

And I think that kind of put them back to back. And they came out swinging at Phoenix. As far as the race, man, it was great racing. The track is starting to age where we see at least two, sometimes three lines. That's really helping. The same crazy strategies of staying out in two tires were still kind of prominent, but they didn't decide the factor. The best car still kind of matriculated their way up through the field.

So that was impressive. pick gun thing kind of reminds me of the crash clause. Don't we remember the crash clause last year? We left the Daytona 500 and it was the worst thing to ever happen to NASCAR and no cars were ever going to be on the racetrack. And by the time we had the summer, the crash clause, just kind of was what it was. Now it reared his head

in the playoffs when Matt Kenseth got parked because he had an extra man. They have since tweaked on that. So I agree with you. Pit guns have quieted down. Surely not off the radar. There will be something over the next four months where we'll just all just bang our head against the wall and frustration that it has affected the outcome. But with change,

a little bit of penalty, and I think that, you know, I was actually, so when we talk about pick guns, what I was impressed the most is when Steve O'Donnell didn't back down. He was on the radio a couple weeks ago and he said, look, we knew there were going to be problems. We're going to try to fix them or we're going to move forward. I like the fact he didn't hide behind anything. He just kind of raised his hand and said, hey, yeah, you're right. They broke. We have to work on that. Because in the end, we're there to see races, not pick gun races, so. Yeah. But Pitt Road played a big role in the outcome of the race, didn't it? Absolutely. Not the pick guns, but Pitt Road.

Pit stop. Everything. The 18 had the race won. Adam Stevens and Kyle Bush in my mind were in the driver's seat. And Kevin Harvick, well, Al-Acusseson really cracked the seal on pit road to start. First car on Pet Road, great move by Allen. Then right after that was Kevin Harvick. And I was just like, well, Adam, he'll be the next car on Pet Road. And you waited four laps. That's like four seconds. What was the whole, I mean, can you think of any reason why he stayed out? No. I understand Brad Kozlowski, Ryan Newman, staying out to the bitter end, right? That was their only chance. to win that race. You know, do you think that for like a lap or two that was their move, or that was the choice that he had made is to actually run longer? And then he saw like, man, this is a terrible decision. And sort of changed his mind four laps later. Well, and I'd love to listen to the

radio because the lap he pitted, Kyle runs down into three and it's chaos. There's Jimmy's blending and this guy's here. And I don't know if Kyle might have made a decision to pit. Right. Like did Kyle just say, I'm going to lose two seconds right here. I'm just going to hit Pet Road, which I don't think is, you know, Kyle is a veteran driver, you know, if that's what he feels. But, man, they kind of were like on no strategy, right? It's either early or late. Oh, I took it as they had their strategy and they were in the bed they made and they stuck with it at all costs and maybe too much, right?

No, they got a speeding 10 for like 13 over. Oh, that's true. Like either run 9 over and don't get pulled over or run 25 over and get where you're going quicker. Right. Don't run like 13, 13, you're still getting in trouble. Right. That's kind of what they did.

That's interesting. I got to ask you a question though. you said something about, if I may go back to Harvick real quick. You mentioned Childress, and you mentioned Harvick, and then do you think what he was saying was strictly just a message for his team? Is that what I'm hearing you say? I think, I don't know what his thought process was, but I will tell you that I watched the whole weekend.

I watched the whole race. And when he got out in Victory Lane, and they kind of softballed the question was going to let him avoid the issue. He didn't avoid it. He actually corrected Matt Yocham and said, no, no, I've been mad all week. My guys have brought great race cars, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and basically didn't say he agreed or disagreed with the penalty. He didn't get into those muddy waters.

He basically just made the statement that what I heard as a crew chief was, I was very frustrated that my team was reprimanded. This is a great group. They're a great team. And I believe in them. And I dug my heels in as only probably Kevin Harvick can and came out here to prove a point. And what I think that did is that resonated through the team. That just be like, he's our guy.

Not only did he win, but he patted us on the back on the way in. I know that the, you know, my, I've had some issues with Kevin in the past and we all know, you know, the... Just so you know, man, that's not like that book has a chapter. Yeah. I mean, he doesn't have issues with like one or two people. I like Kevin, but he also has a list, you know. Yeah. I mean, we, it was some pretty nasty things going on last year, but I don't know that he could have handled that whole week better and everything that happened at the racetrack.

And I don't know that a lot of drivers would have handled it well at all, especially as often as he put himself in front of the camera. And in the media center, you know, to make a misstep verbally at any point during the weekend, you know, when you're in those type of situations, you almost try to avoid doing media so that you don't make a mistake or misspeak. He actually put himself in opportunities to explain his side of the story and definitely didn't shy away from it. But it was almost refreshing in the day where everybody says, we want everyone to be themselves. And then they are and then, oh, maybe we didn't really like the guy we got because they'll say something silly. It was refreshing for a driver to come out and be like, what did he say the first time?

Can we just quit beating around the bush? Let's go ahead and ask the question. They asked him a softball question and it's media availability. And he's like, look, this is not what people want to hear from me. So let's just get cut to the chase. And you know what? There's always a great story when you back it up in Victory Lane. Right?

If he runs fifth or eighth or ninth, you know, he handled it well and we're off to Fontaine, but they didn't. They won three out of four. Did y'all like what he did after when he climbed out of the car? He said that he said during the week that if he couldn't wait to win the race that you could get out and jump up down on the back of the car. I wasn't surprised.

I think that he had intentions of doing that when he showed up to the track on Thursday or Friday. But I do think there were some people in Phoenix that were thankful that the whole story was about Kevin Harvick, because there have been cars in my mind that I thought were going to run better in Phoenix that didn't. There's some guys that just haven't had a good start to the season. You know, this Kevin Harvick penalty story,

winning three races, that's kind of the media buzz. There's some other stars that are like, oh, thank goodness. Kevin, keep taking all the notice. You know, we don't want any notice. I mean, let's say who. Who are you talking about? Well, I have a list. So I think that Joey Lugano is on my list as a guy that I thought was going to be very good at the Daytona 500,

made a major mistake in the closing laps and hasn't rebounded with any sort of success. I think Jimmy Johnson has been off the radar just has not been fast. And I think as Chase Elliott improves, I'm looking, searching for the 48 to improve at the rate that the 24 has. Or excuse me, the nine, Chase Elliott was very good out at Phoenix. So, like Dale and I've had this conversation, right? So when I look at a car, I say, okay, where does it? he stack up in the field, then where does he stack up in the organization? Because those are really the two scales. So let's take S.H.R. Kevin Harvick won three out of four. So if you're

at SHR driver, you want to run well, well, they put all four in the top ten for the first every time in the company. Seems pretty good, right? So then you've flipped it over to Hedger Motorsports. It's a little more complicated because William Byron, how do you measure a guy that has never really done it before? Alex Bowman, why he has a ton of starts, not a lot of starts and new equipment like he's in, you know. So it's hard to judge. But without a doubt, I think self-immittally, Jimmy would tell you that they are nowhere near where he expects to be. Yeah, I mean, there's no denying that, and I don't think that there's anything that they could say at this point. It's obvious that they should be super concerned, especially after this past weekend.

I know after a couple weeks they were trying to act as if it wasn't a big deal or really not time to get to panic, so to speak, but they're panicking. I think they have to be really concerned. The nine car does give them a little bit of a, you know, hope to be positive. that they can get it turned around because there's the information. This is a car that's running good within the organization. But still, that's not as easy as it looks to take a team within the same walls and make it run just as competitive. It doesn't, you know, it's just not as easy as it looks.

I know. I've been looking at Jimmy Johnson's setup for a decade. Right. Like, let's just be frank, right? If it was that easy, I mean, it's not. Yeah, it's not. So, you know, they have to be super concerned. And I think that's something a lot of people are going to watch.

as we get on into the meat of the season is are they going to be able to improve? And, you know, is Stuart Haas really going to be the team to compete all year long to beat? You know, a lot of years you'll see a team, maybe it's Hendrick or Gibbs or Penske come out of the gate real strong, but then midseason someone else kind of puts it together and becomes the contender in the chase. And so really it never really is the same team all year long. Who is the team that's going to come up through the ranks in mid-season and turn it, turn, you know, turn it on at the right time toward the end of the year to compete with Stuart Haas.

The only counter to that, though, is Martin Trex Jr. won every stage at Vegas last year. And I had this, listen, I went on NASCAR and said the same thing, but like, oh, man, it's February, it's March, give it some time, and then it was April, then it was July, then it was September. He was still winning. And then he was the champion. But I do agree that is the minority. The majority is that, look, with technology, people look at pictures, people look to pictures of your car, they see what concepts you're trying to run on the racetrack.

I really believe that Chevy has a new car, so they at least have potential, right? They've got to be able to say we can improve. I think Toyota had an advantage somewhere in the splitter area. That is a common part this year. A totally legal advantage, but they, hey, applaud them, right? They found something there that made their cars work, and now that has gone away. That's kind of like that unspoken rule. It's new this year, but nobody really talks about it.

That has to have hurt the Toyota's. I don't know what else would have slowed them down a little bit. And obviously, the Fords either have found something, maybe just Kevin Harvick's group has found something. Maybe it's a package. Whatever it is, though, they're good. But like you said, at good tracks. That's exactly right.

Everybody picked Kevin Harvick to win Atlanta. He had a nod at Las Vegas where he dominated. That was the exception. That was the exception. And he did well there. But I'm saying, like, do you expect him to win Fontana? No. I don't either.

I don't. I think that he will be in position to win. But I don't, I don't, yeah, I think he'll be in position to win, but I don't know if he'll dominate like he did at Vegas and certainly Atlanta and Phoenix are his tracks. This is kind of a perfect storm for him to get three in a row or great. This is a great scenario for him to get three in a row. But you have to ask yourself about TrueXO, right? Did he stay good because of the format? So now think about this.

You went early. You're like, ah, we could try this and try that and try it. We did it in 14. We about won Vegas, about one Phoenix because we had nothing to lose. Now you take Kevin Harvick, Rodney, and say, hey, you know what? You have all summer to kind of just. aggressive yeah you know that's scary yeah they're good those guys are good he is he is back to his championship form when he won the championship a couple years ago if not better um nobody can

touch him right now i think that they're fast at fontana and they run up front but i believe that uh larsson um true x the 18 i think those guys will give him a little bit tougher run for his money than what we've seen over the last three weeks Montana is so much fun it's such a to me very very very variables at Fontana with the multiple grooves, you know, guys running the apron and there's, you know, the fall off and pit strategy and so forth. And it's going to be interesting. It's going to be a great race. It's one of my favorite tracks. So we'll be looking forward to that.

The last thing on Phoenix, and I was hearing some guys talk earlier in the week about Phoenix being a short track. Some people compare, some people think that if it's not a mile and a half, if it's under a mile, it's a short track. That's kind of one of my pet peeves. I think... So you think it is or isn't? It isn't. I completely disagree with them. I have Phoenix as a short track in my book.

You think it's a short track? I do. So as a crew chief, if I had break ducks, it was a short track. Okay. That was basically because that would be the type of car I would use. That's the aerodynamic package I would bring. So Phoenix, New Hampshire, Richmond... Yeah, see, I can't see New Hampshire is a short track.

Oh, I do. It's half miles. And I know that Richmond's a little bit bigger, but it's kind of grandfathered in because they changed the configuration. at one point. But for me, short tracks are, there's three. Richmond, Bristol, Martinsville, three short tracks. Good thing we don't go to Iowa, because that would just be a whole blend

situation, get to seven, eights. He wouldn't know what to do. That's a mix. That's not a mix. I mean, Iowa, to me, is not really a short track. It's just a, the front straightaway is a little bit too big, too long. I mean, I can see your argument, but I have it as a short track. Yeah. Interesting. I'm curious as to what other, what, you know, if this is a generational thing, is this? I'll tell you what it is for me. I mean, this is compliant, like, what do I know? but there's so many mile and a halfs that the miles are actually in the minority.

There's fewer of them than all of the mile and a half. So it's not, I don't consider it a short track, or it's not the shortest track. I think those miles, there's so few of them that it feels to me like a short track because of all the other big ones. But it's not a track length thing to me because Dover is an intermediate track. What?

Now, wait a second. If you think New Hampshire is a short track. You don't run brake ducts at Dover. You don't use the brakes. You set it up like Charlotte. Yeah, see, that's, I look at tracks, listen, we already know that I'm kind of messed up. We don't have to spend the whole pod talking about it.

But like, you know, I look at vertical load and all this crazy stuff that people don't look at. Break ducts. If you run breakducks. And vertical load. There's no vertical load at Phoenix. Three and fours flat is a short track. Interesting. I've always kind of wanted to have that conversation because as we get, you know, I don't know, as I get older,

I hear more people refer to New Hampshire or Phoenix as a short track. And I'm like, wait, what? When did it? It was not a short track when we started going there, you know? Right. Short tracks are half miles and anything close to a half mile. And so that's... I got one more thing.

That's one way to close the book on Phoenix. No, no, no. I got one more thing about Phoenix. I want to ask. And I want to ask both you. And we can't spend a whole lot of time on it. But Dale Jr., you had some really interesting tweets during the race. Oh, what are you showing?

I got to know, I got to know the inside joke. So here, people in the, you know, we're in NBC. So when you're in a studio in NBC, everybody can hear. So I just got a text from my boss that said, after this performance, we need you to come. I'm on to the carpet up to my office. Obviously, here he goes. Hey, look, look. But he's down to the concrete.

I'm feeling better. I didn't have to go to the carpet. Sam Flood just walked in. And he's got a smile on his face. Sam Flood just walked in. Either he's smiling at how much of a dumpster fire this is, or he's coming to deliver news that you guys get to wear sweatpants. Because if he heard the carpet comment, he heard that Dale Jr. He's going to try to instigate.

Suits to sweats. That's a heavy transition. I was just going for like a sweatpants or a sweatshirt and like some jeans. Right, right. Dale Jeter's going straight for the jogging. Well, the first time, I'll tell you a story, the first time that I was going to go into the booth, was it Talladega or Martinsville? Which one was the first? I think Talladega was first.

Yeah. I was convinced that I was going to go up there in my hoodie. Oh, you were just going to roll right over there? In my mind, that was completely acceptable. And Amy's like, you're not wearing that. No way. Why would you think that's acceptable? Like what?

Because that's me. No, no, no. No, no. But who have you, you've never seen a broadcast booth? with anybody in a hoodie and a sweatshirt. I don't know why I thought that would be okay, but I did. And she said, you're not going to wear it. Thank God, Amy exists.

Well, I would have, some, you know, Sam or you or someone would have not let that happen. But had it been up to me, I'd have been standing there in my hoodie. And if it would have happened, don't you think the open would have been like glad to see you dressed up? You bet, you know. This is the Exaltor Race Center update. I'm Natalie Thayther. Both Cup and Exfinity competed in. Phoenix over the weekend. Kevin Harvick won his third race of the season at Sunday's

Ticket Guardian 500, making that three out of four race wins this season. He's your cup points leader by 12 points over Kyle Busch. On Saturday, Brad Keselowski won the DC Solar 200 Xfinity Series race. Junior Motorsports drivers, Justin Algear finished second, Elliott Sadler 9th, Tyler Reddick 10th, and Michael Annette 17. The Junior Motorsports late models competed at the season opener at Tri-County Speedway for Do the Doe 150. Rookie J. Rookie J. Sam Mayer crossed the finish line and third, and Josh Berry ended up fifth. This has been your Exaltor Race Center update. Exalta is the official paint partner of NASCAR, developing, manufacturing, and supplying

coatings to all types of vehicles and industrial applications. For more on Exalta, visit Exaltescs.com. Look, this is what I was going to ask you guys real quick. You had some interesting tweets about Bowman in the whole 88 situation and the cool suit. Do you want to explain that? And Stevie, being that you were a crew chief on the 88, what's your take on it as well? Yeah. So, you know, DW and those guys were talking a little bit about.

about a cool suit. When it fails, it gets really, it can be very uncomfortable and the old one's wood, but this new one is really thin. It's basically the same material as the undershirt that we already wear. If guys wear under layer,

it's the same material. So if it fails, it doesn't get really uncomfortable. It's not a big deal at all, actually. And the fluid that runs through it is a gel. It's not a water. And you just have to kind of wear one to know. I would actually,

there's no, there's no jail running through the sleeve or the lower part of the shirt. So I cut that all off because I wouldn't wear anything under my suit. Like I wouldn't run an extra layer of underwear. You know what I'm saying? So I'd have my underwear on and then that cool shirt with the sleeves cut off. And then, because I just didn't like all that material bunching up under my uniform. But it's very comfortable.

It's really like Alex. And I talked to Alex and Greg after the race. The issue they had was a part failure in the electrical system that shut down everything, breaks, all the comfort inside the car. And people say, you know, why does he need any comfort? Well, if you've ever raced with a full-faced helmet on with no fan running in it, you would know why that you have that stuff. It's completely... Well, that's not a fair statement. That's like playing football a man down.

My point is, like, well, he doesn't need comfort. Well, everyone he's racing has it. Yeah, right. Maybe like a marathon runner, you get to, like, miles 25. Oh, no water for you. You're leading. Take your water away. to just run the rest.

We used to run open face helmets, which were pretty comfortable, and I didn't want to switch to a full face because it didn't push as much air as I would have liked, you know, and the open face was just better for, there's air moving all the time. And so it took me a while to switch over. When that fan breaks, it's awful inside the helmet. But anyhow, what's more critical, I think, is that he didn't have any break fans. The real critical fans, that can... You know why?

Because Phoenix was a short track and get brake for him. That could alter the balance. balance of the car terribly and just he's he's racing with you know seven cylinders instead of eight at that particular point sounds awful yeah it does it just you know with the brakes i was really surprised if he truly did race without any brake fans how they didn't melt the bead on the tire and to finish where he did and finish well i mean and people don't want to hear this but you know why the winds are great there are way more races than the winds where i would have i was impressed with the performance that dale and i had right whether it was you know a third place at

Sonoma or there were other races that were for whatever the reason. My point being Alex, even though he has a lot of starts, he hasn't really been in the limelight as much, for him to nurse a car that his team let him down, right? They had a part fail. He didn't mean to, but they let him down. Then he didn't give him a gun to bring to the gunfight, right? He was behind to do that and finish on the lead lap and not blow a tire. Hey, I applaud him. Give me your best, Dale Jr. if the, if the electrical system is down and the brakes are out and his cool system is out. I would have turned my radio off at that point, so I wouldn't have heard him.

Listen, my best ever Dale Jr. is we go to Martinsville one time, and my man has hit everything there. And that's like lap 70. Yeah. And then all of a sudden it was like, the light came on. And I quote, I don't know if I have enough Fenders to run 500 laps. Like I wanted to key the mic and be like, oh, first ever start here? No, you've started your 20 times. Like 20 times you've been here.

And it started like off the curb lap six hooking. I want to say Joey Lugano or Brad. And it was bad. Hey, you won there. Whatever happened, he came back and won there. Y'all got to have a grandfather clock because Adel Jr. And Steve Littart winning Martinsville. I'm telling you.

You never thought it would happen that. He'll laugh when I say this. But if Kevin Harvick had a rear bumper, we'd have won there twice. Yeah, I don't know. Because he passed us clean and you were all the way to the fuel cell and he had nothing to hit. Yeah. Oh, was it that race? No, our first ever time there.

We took the lead. We passed Kyle Busch in the closing laps and with like two or three to go. I pick on Kevin. He passed us clean. We got in the corner too loose. Kevin went by us, but my man was determined. He went down into three, and we were like a foot under his rear bumper, but there was nothing to hit. It just kind of mushed in.

So he just butchered the corner then. Yeah, it's fine. You'll have that. You'll have that. What is Steve LaTarre? You know, I always love Steve LaTartre. When you would just raise hell on the radio about something, there's only one crew chief in the world that would react the way Steve LaTart would.

I don't think there was anything could get him rattled. I don't think it was anything to get a rattled. No. You just, you know, 10-4, buddy, you just keep my own will on that thing. I mean, it's like, whatever it was, and I was like, wow, he is,

you're not going to get, you're not going to shake him. No, I can say that I probably gave him a lot of opportunities to get short with me or, you know, grab me by the arm and say, listen there, you better straighten up. But I can't think of any time where, you know, he shot back at me as many times as I was, mouth and off in general than anybody.

Most time I would direct my anger at TJ and so he was... And rightly so. Sometimes he was like, you know, I kind of want to hear TJ. Listen, only twice. Once we disagreed at Michigan, because they changed the tire and we were out of laps and it was a not good weekend. And then we won, who knew. And the other one was the first ever Richmond race trying to make the playoffs. We got in a wreck, had nothing to do with us.

Clint Boyer wrecked. We ran in him the whole nine yards. but then I couldn't get through to him that our car is destroyed to stop hitting stuff and he got out and this is when I wanted to strangle him everybody was happy and he got out and he looked at the front looked to me and he was like man that thing was pretty messed up like I hadn't told him like it was a secret

but that's all right listen I'm the same way that story about Michigan we're not going to tell it here because there's going to be this book I can't wait it's going to be great and Steve Lattart tells the story about Michigan in their very first fight their very first argument really. Yeah, because you guys never argued. But the very...

Now, you know when we fight now what's going to happen? It's going to be on TV. I know, right? It's going to be awesome. I can't wait. All right, let's move on. Let's see all. Y'all want to do some...

Did you see that? All right. Did you see that? Dale Jr., you have one. I do. I have one. You saw something. I did see something.

So it's been revealed on social media. And I don't know if this was well known throughout, you know, throughout the NASCAR fandom. But CMT is in the early stages of developing a TV show with all the wives and girlfriends. Well, not all of them, but a handful of wives and girlfriends of NASCAR drivers. And I think they've shot the pilot. And it's not determined exactly who's going to be involved in the show, but we do know who's in the pilot. And being a fan, and I'm a fan of a lot of Bravo TV, and Amy watches it all the time.

So I see some of the housewives shows. If it's anything like that, this is going to be awesome. If it's anything like what we know the capabilities are of the people that are in the pilot, it's going to be something. Now, you saw the tweet from Adam Stern this morning. Is that right? Yeah. And what did Adam say? Just what I said.

He said that. Just what you said. CMPT's in the early stages developing a reality show in the lives of NASCAR driver's spouses per the source. The precise cast is not confirmed, but those involved in the pilot include Samantha Bush, Ashley Bush, Whitney Dillon, Whitney, Ms. Fish, who is. Jordan Fish. Yep. She's with Denny. and Mariel Lane.

Who? Yeah. Who? Oh, let's see who Mariel is. Oh, Mariel is one of the monster girls. Oh. Yeah. And so, yeah.

That's right. All right. So she's, Whitney's and her very good friends. So there's a ton of personality there. Yeah. And they all, I think they all interact and hang out together. It's really got a great opportunity to be pretty entertaining. You're saying you can't wait.

I can't wait. I can't wait. Yeah. Steve, what do you say about this? This isn't a sports business daily. I know, that's legit, right? I mean, this isn't gossip anymore. We've been talking about this thing for weeks.

Amy had heard about it. I heard about it from Amy. We were on a plane right, probably back from coming back from Daytona, I think. Listen, I'm setting my DVR right now. Totally, right? I can't wait. I mean, come on NASCAR. Who's not going to watch that?

I'm super excited about it and can't wait for the pilot. I hope that they pick it up. I'm pretty sure they will. I'm pretty sure it'll get a season at least. And we'll see. We'll see if it's, you know, because it's on CMT, it's not on Bravo, but we'll CMT give it that housewife spent. Oh, yes.

I mean, the blueprint's out there. The blueprint of success is out there. So are you even a little bit concerned that it might embarrass the sport? Absolutely not. No. Not in this day and age. In this environment, this will work today maybe where it wouldn't have 10, 20 years ago. Listen, so I'm going to pick on, let's pick one, Denny Hamlet.

He's a professional athlete. there are things that professional athletes have that the rest of us won't. They're successful, right? He has a plane. He has a big house. He has this. What this show, I think, will do is the show that he has kids and he has a life. And my point is, to your point, Dale, this will open the door that these guys that drive race cars and their wives and girlfriends and their girlfriends's friends, they're real life, right?

They have drama like the rest of us. They have fun like the rest of us. They have, you know, in this traveling circus that NASCAR can become because, they're real life. it's the same group in every city, I think it's going to be an interesting kind of sneak peek into what's like behind and outside of the race cars. Yeah, if anything, it will shed quite a little bit of light on the personalities of the drivers and their wives and girlfriends.

And so I'm excited about it. That was one of the, did you see that? I got another one, man. Let's hear it. So there was a tweet by a guy I followed NASCAR man who said in 19, now just this is a little bit of a, this will blow your mind. In 1953 at age 12, Morgan Shepard bought his first car for $12.50. Two flying squirrels, a gray squirrel, and a 20-gauge shotgun.

Is that? What is it? I don't know how to value the flying squirrels versus the gray squirrel is really where I'm struggling right now. Where do you get this information? I mean, had to come straight from Morgan, right? I think it's a bill of sale maybe? You wouldn't know how to read it I mean

Oh no no I didn't say that I don't know if it was like What is a flying squirrel and where do they How does one obtain one? It's a joke It ain't a joke It is a joke No it's not

That Morgan Shepard didn't buy a car Why who would make up a there? Come on it was a joke I don't know I think it's true I am with Dailin No in Morgan Shepard I think this is a real possibility

You think A tweet that said That Morgan Shepard Bought a car NASCAR. This isn't NASCAR chasm. This is the... He's not the only one that's full of crap on Twitter. Most of them are.

All right. I think we should... You know what? Here's what I learned today. I heard that NBC has this crack staff of people that research and build graphics and, like, Stevie, all you do is you just tell them what you want and they do it. Do this. If they don't want to try to research this, maybe NASCAR Reddit could figure it out for us. Reddit for sure, Ken.

NASCAR Reddit, of course they will. What are we thinking? All right. Let's do some Ask Junior. It's time for Ask Junior. I got a question. You have a question for me? Hit us up on Twitter.

Using the hashtag Ask Junior. Ask Junior questions. Adele, are you ready? Yeah. Steve LaTartre, you chime in anytime you want. This is from Craig Jones. Harvick is 42 and dominating. Is he in the prime of his career?

J.J. is 42. MJG is 37 and won the title last year. I think he means M.T. Michael Jordan. M.J. Martin Trucks Jr. Yeah, that's got to be a Dillner. That's a Dillner typo.

Yeah, that's a Dillner typo. What do you consider the prime of the driver? Well, I mean, I don't know whether he's in the prime of his year, but I think he would say that he's in great health. He's in a great position with an amazing team. Everything is just really lined up perfectly for this type of performance. And, you know, we've seen drivers in the past that actually are more, you know, as competitive or, you know, having some of their better years on into the mid-40s and even under their 50s in this sport. There's those rare occurrences when that happens.

And Kevin Harvick could be one of those guys that could be competitive in winning races on into his mid-to-late 40s. Why not? You know, there's guys that can accomplish that. I did a lot of research when I was getting ready to step out of the car. And the trend generally for drivers is it starts to nose over right around the age of 43. as far as guys being successful, what they were able to accomplish, and what they accomplished beyond the age of 43.

In a lot of cases, it sort of seemed to flatline or nose over a little bit at that age. But for Harvick, I don't see that been a possibility for him. I think that if he wants to, it really, he's going to have to decide, I think he'll still be competitive when he's really considering his retirement age. And that's rare for drivers. A lot of times they don't, you know, a lot of times they probably stick around a little longer than they should or, you know, aren't quite as competitive as they'd like to be in those last few years of their career. But I believe that he's still going to be winning races when he made a mental note that maybe this would be when I would retire. And he's going to have to say, man, maybe I should stick around some more, you know, if I'm still winning races.

Well, I think he's put himself in the prime. Yeah. Because it's more than just the guy inside the car. You can never just measure the driver by himself. it's not that simple. And Kevin Harvick has positioned himself both business-wise and conditioning-wise and skill-wise to have the best opportunity.

His championship year will always be the prime until he can back that up. Four races in, he's backing it up. But as we said earlier, there's a long way to go. There's something about Kevin that is unique in his ability to do that, to put himself in the right position and to know exactly what he needs and how to obtain it.

He's tenacious outside the car and how he positions himself for success and everything he does. So I think that he can be competitive much later in his career than a lot of guys will have the potential to be because of that. So, you know, I don't know if he's in his prime. I think that he would say that he was as good years ago, just maybe not in the right opportunity. Right, right. I mean, Jimmy Johnson, I mean, nobody's going to be in better physical condition to Jimmy Johnson right now,

but he's just the team and the company's not running well. So does it mean Jimmy's not in his prime? I mean, that's... Nobody wants to have this conversation, but it's impossible to separate the driver in the car in 2018. That's my opinion. Tell me what you mean. Explain that.

There's no way possible you can know if it's driver or car because they're combined. Because a... I agree with that. Because a vehicle that wins a... Not the guy in 20th, but the race-winning vehicle, the guy good enough to beat the other 39, you cannot tell me which is more... important because you have to have both.

Whatever track, wherever they are, it's impossible because you just cannot, you know, you can't break those apart to run at the top level. Yeah. I think when I hear that question, though, the one thing that I think about is that, you know, 43 is sort of that age where they either continue that success or they don't. And I think he's one of the rare ones that could win races, really as long as he wanted to win races because he knows how to put himself in the car that he needs to win. Everything. Yeah. He knows a lot of drivers know what kind of car they want, but they don't know how to put themselves in that position. And he does. He knows exactly how to get himself where he has all the tools that he needs to go win races.

That's a good question. Here's another good one. Regarding Matt De Benedetto's Twitter video about sponsorship, by the way, this is from Deanna, what is the craziest way you have ever asked or acquired sponsorship? Would you be opposed to fans getting together to raise money for a driver through a GoFundMe or other campaigns? I think that that has been done before on maybe a different level. And it just would, fans would quickly learn that it takes, it's going to take a lot more than they're, and they're probably able to donate or provide. And, or would the,

more than they'd be willing to provide. Because it's, uh, it was great what Harvick and, uh, Denny and those guys did. But that $5,000 is such a small, two sets of theirs.

Yeah. It's, so, it's such a small piece compared, you know, to what they really, you know, spent that weekend. What was the total that he ended up with?

I mean, a couple people. I don't know, but it was, you know, he deserved it. I feel Matt goes out of his way on social media and things to entertain the fans. He's a good spokesman most of the time for the sport. I've had to see him really saying anything crazy. And I applaud Denny who said, hey, you know what, I did it because someone gave me a break one time. I'm going to give it to him, Kevin the same way, which we just said, look, I'm successful. So here, and Darrell Walter, you know, so I applaud it all.

Yeah, that was great. But that, you know, I think that people would be surprised at how. much money it takes for these guys to get the racetrack and that five that money raised for him got him through the weekend right there's a there's a there's how many races left this year and 10 well however many more years he wants to race that he's still going to have to fight for yep and so I don't know if it's physically I don't know if it's possible for a go fund me to fund an entire race team gosh not consistently for getting it like a one-off maybe right but no I don't know if that's yeah I don't know if that's realistic no no no

All right. Billy Doughty, who's your pick to win the NCAA basketball championship? You wouldn't even reveal that right now? I mean, you guys are probably in some pools? Are you in pools? Latar, you were going around the day trying to get a pool going, weren't you? I had the opportunity to enter some, but I'll be 100% honest. I've been, I'm yet too lazy to fill a bracket out. So at this point, I'm in no pools.

Okay, but do you have a pick? Do you got anybody you're pulling for? Nope. He probably knows. He probably knows who he's going to pick. He just doesn't want to tell him, buddy, because it's probably. goes against his heart. Like I have picked, but I'm not telling because it's not

a team that I'm a huge, it's not my team. But I'm going to win my, you know, I filled out my bracket this morning and I'm in it to win. Who's pulled? Last year. Am I in this pool? You want to come in there? I mean, I might.

All right. I don't know. It's $10. Hold on. You got to pick with your heart because if so. No, no, no, no. You don't pick with your heart. That's what I did last year and I lost. That's why I told Mike he could. This year, I'm picking by the strength. You put some more into this. Team, yeah. I read like one article.

I thought that I did a lot of work. Listen, I'll pay you $10 to tell you that Alabama's going all the way. Okay. Mark Hurwick, what drew you to the Laguna and Oldsmobile in your personal collection? And did you get the Grey Ghost car hung in your garage yet? I haven't got the Grey Ghost hung up yet. We're still building a frame for it. And I like those cars in their connection to racing and the era.

The late 70s, I just love those style of cars. I love everything about NASCAR in that particular. time frame from you know anywhere in the 70s but mainly 79 78 77 the laguna was a great race car they eventually wouldn't allow Chevrolet to use it went to the Monte Carlo the laguna was really nice aerodynamically especially on the front end and the seven the oldsville cutless uh 442 was just the car to have at Daytona for a period of time you know and I always tell this story all the time but like in 1980 eight out of the ten cars in the top ten starting positions for the 1980 Daytona 500 were 442s.

I mean, you had to have one if you wanted to be competitive. Plus, it's a little Laguna. I mean, that just sounds cool. Laguna, that's a cool name. It is. Last question is going to be from Chad. Now that you have done handyman work and see how easy some of it can be. Easy.

Yeah. If it's easy. I know, that's funny. Do you feel like you were charged fairly when you paid someone to do work for you before? Never. I mean, I'm more angry, I guess, that I didn't do a lot of it myself. you know, looking back going, man, I could have done that myself. And that's the thing.

So I would walk around my property and look at something. Before you tell everyone that you can do more, Amy and people are going to listen to this. That's fine. You don't walk yourself into a honey-do list from a man who has worked on this list. I look at things at my house in the past and I would go, oh, man, I would be angry. Oh, darn, that's messed. You know, I got to get that fixed.

Man, I didn't have time, racing, this and that another. And now I walk around and go, I got. know what I need. I can do that. I can patch that up and whatever. Because I have learned as I'm doing this renovation project that I, you know, being mechanically inclined has helped me, you know, get some of these jobs done and find out, you know, some shortcuts and learned a ton and just wish I to, you know, tried to apply myself sooner. So this will be a quick story. I built my wife a garden box. Pretty big. I saw that. Four by six. A cedar stained. It is great. When I put the picture on social media, the major outcry was, no, you didn't.

Oh. Which then, you know, my whole life I've tried to like downplay whatever. They didn't believe you did it. No way you built that. That's a badge of honor. Well, my whole life I tried to downplay my ability so I didn't get included in these honeydews. But at that moment, I realized I perhaps downplayed them too far. The common, you know, everyone was like, you can't do that.

Because I want to be like, look, I mean, have a YouTube video and a screw gun? Like, don't get carried away. I didn't fly the space shuttle, but they didn't think I could do it. Do you know the type of fruit and vegetables you're going to get out of this box? Oh, yes. Have you seen them work? So if you really want to know the truth. You know they don't grow pudding pops in the car.

No, no. I'm telling you what happened. My wife said I want a garden. So I first went to my local home improvement store and bought the little four footers. And she did that for three years. And after three years of commitment, then I built her the box that she wanted from where to go. But I had to see three years of there's kale and pepper. My daughter's a vegetarian.

So she's big into the garden. How's your daughter? She's 12. She's a vegetarian? She's a vegetarian? Yeah, we went through this. How do you think I broke a tooth? Beer and barbecue would have never broke this tooth.

My mom and sister, or my mom and Amy built two boxes last year, and I could not believe what grows out of them boxes. Crazy. It doesn't look, nothing like the store or stuff. It's different, too, according to my daughter. It's like stuff you see in pictures, you know? Better or worse? Better. Better.

Better. Like the cauliflower head is like twice as big as what you see at the store. Everything's just better, more colorful, brighter. Less chemical? Tons. Cale eaters. And the kale tastes better out of the garden box. Yeah.

I could not believe how good this stuff looked, blown away. That's cool. They did do that. I remember your mom and Amy. So you're in the garden box building business now. You know it. You're in the granite sink building business now that we've been able to follow that. So both of you have a pretty good job.

First and last granite sink. I mean, come on now. I don't know for the right price. What I'm thinking about now is I need some spotlights in my garden box. So I'm going to have my man come over. Exterior lighting. So I did all the exterior lighting. year light last week, 30 lights, three transformers.

That was fun. How much are you going to charge him? How much are we going to charge him? I mean, if you're going to have him come over, it's not free, is it? All right, we can work this out. He thinks his TV landmine stuff, like, you've got to walk through this field. You've got to pay attention where you're stepping. I'm going to help him out.

We'll see if we work something out. I really enjoyed doing the landscaping lights. Yeah. Probably a cold adult beverage and a little bit of, you can get pretty creative. Yeah. See, that's all that's a time. Maybe some old race stories. Yeah, right.

Maybe that Martens will race where he hit everything and have enoughender to finish. That'd be a good time. Yeah. Yeah. Just think about it. I mean, I put a sale. I bought a sale off at eBay and attached it to this tree and attached it to the ground and have this sail in and around all the bushes and, you know, lit it, uplit it.

So I know we're not going to put a sale in your yard, but you can start going ahead and getting creative and thinking about things we can do. You're an hour away from making TV gold. what are your closing thoughts for this podcast and we'll wrap this up hopefully um dealer can do something with all this especially since he hasn't been here to listen to all this is our first to it for the first time this is great this is it's fun right part yeah i mean we're in this you know immaculate studio or kickback here it's never going to be this good again just so you know if we do it back at junior mergersports we don't really have all this i'd love to actually have you come over to the exalted studio and you can do this again right yeah i'll come at home you will i mean like you know you used to be a regular on the del

You, in fact, back when me and Taylor Zarser did it, I'd call you up. You were on, you know, almost weekly. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd get a text and it'd be like, hey, man, you got some time? We need a little help this week. And I'll get home.

And this was every week, by the way. I mean, like, even the weeks that I didn't have Stevie on, I would call it. I'm like, listen, I don't know what to make this. You just spell it out for me. I'm like, you know what? Probably just be better to have you on, and you can just do all this. And I won't take credit for it. Good.

It's good. This is a good warm up for the TV. Yeah. I hope you guys go make some TV magic. Your ratings are going to go through the roof. I hope everybody watches NASCAR America this week and watches these guys do your thing and appreciate it. And I really appreciate NBC for letting us have the keys to the studio today. The whole team has been awesome.

And to be honest with you, we should also mention, as we close us out, that the Dell Jr. download, for most weeks, when you're not here on NASCAR America, you will be able to see at least seven, eight minutes of the Dell Jr. Download on NASCAR, on NBC Sport. network and so that's a lot of fun that's new that's very exciting to see the clips on NASCAR america and look forward to that the rest of the year and um i'm excited about today man trying i know this is uh are you nervous i'm nervous yeah of course i mean hey listen don't wear sweatpants day one we're going to start with the suits we're going to work our way to the sweatpants i would never not sweatpants well you're going to wear a hoodie to the booty if he's nervous what what advice

do you give him right now just have a conversation that's all you're going to do right I think actually doing this podcast before it has knocked a little of the best off. I don't know that the show is going to be any better, but. Oh, I think you're going to be good. I actually got to sit in the production meeting, and I heard what you guys are going to do, and I think that they've set you guys up to really do well. I think that they're putting y'all in a position, do what you best. That's one thing I've learned about NBC is they set you up to succeed.

Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have all the things you need. Yeah. They know my limitations, probably better than I know them, so they keep me within the walls. All right, guys, good job. And thank you, everybody listening.

Subscribe, download, listen, rate, review all those things. Follow us on social media. And we'll talk to you later. I think we did well.