The Dale Jr. Download - 212 - WHOOPINS

Episode Date: April 3, 2018

Dale Earnhardt Jr. recalls the time he stole money from his father and the aftermath that ensued. Other topics on this episode: age restrictions in racing, tire dragons at Texas, and Dale's social media blunder. 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.

Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. And with me, as always, is Mike Davis. What's our Mike? Hey, hey. And we got our producer, Matthew Dillner in the house. He's responsible for these cool intros. We got a lot to talk about, so let's get to it. It did it again.

He gave Dillner credit for the intro. Dillner's going to be upset again. Listen, we've got a lot of asked junior questions this week. We've got, I'm curious to know how you're all. weekend win what you do over the Easter break and by the way I want to congratulate you on announcing NBC's fantasy game five hours before they were ready to do that and by the way I think there's a celebration in order happy anniversary to you on the on the first career cup win oh yeah this day 18 years ago does it feel good feels good so let's talk about it all right let's do it do you have any big plans for the off weekend Easter. Take a seat on the couch. It's time for the Dale Jr. Download.

He's a wizard, I tell you. Del, did you have good off weekend? Do you have a good Easter weekend? You know, it's really uneventful. Usually we do a lot of things for Easter, but me and Amy were thinking since this is the last one that we're going to have before our baby gets here, so this is their last, you know,

every holiday after Easter, after this Easter is going to be a holiday with three instead of two of us. It's a big change. Right. Oh, yeah. I know. So I was thinking about how it's taken me to this point in our relationship and marriage to where I feel like I got a pretty good system of being able to remember what to do, when to do it on these occasions, you know, when holidays come cruising in, birthdays, anniversaries for certain things. And now as soon as I get it sorted and get it right with having Amy in my life, we're going to have this.

little girl and now I got to remember a whole other slew of responsibilities. Yeah, I think it's even more than a master reset. It's like you've got to recalibrate your entire mentality on things. Yeah. And there's no way to really explain that until you just have to, you get thrown in the deep in on that. No, I'm probably not even realizing the scope of the whole deal. But yeah, just like, I was terrible at remembering some of the,

smaller things, and I'll give you some things that help me. But for example, the first Christmas that me and Amy had together while we were living in the same house, we come downstairs and her stocking is empty. And mine is overflowing. Oh, boy. Stuff pouring out of it stacked beside it because it can't fit in there. And I'm like, I'm looking at mine going to. going, hell yeah, who did this?

And she's looking at hers going, did you not feel my stock? And I'm like, I didn't know I was supposed to do that. I didn't get the memo on stock and stuff. Yeah, I had no freaking idea. So, you know, to all the girlfriends, all the fiancés out there, you might want to clue your guy in. He might not know.

Don't take it for granted that he. He doesn't know. He don't know. No, he doesn't. And, Amy, I mean, I felt terrible. That's the first thing you notice when you come downstairs is a stocking, and nothing matter the rest of the day. The stocking had set the tone, and we've never forgotten since. Me and LW actually have kind of a deal where we get together every year the day before Christmas to buy all our stocking stuffers,

and it helps both of us kind of remind, remember to do it because it's our thing we do together. And so I've good that you give yourself plenty of time doing the day before Christmas I know well don't worry about it you're not going to have to worry about it anymore because it's all going to be just for the kid now well we'll see I what I guess yeah that's my point is now that I've sort of gotten that figured out I've got a whole new set of responsibilities during these holidays like Easter and Christmas and so forth with our little girl that I'll flub the first year and screw up and get wrong and take me a while to sort it out. Amy says that they have apps for these things, though, that remind guys when to do what they're supposed to do.

That's what my wife says, too, but I forgot her birthday two years in a row. I was at Kentucky this year, dude. I don't know how you feel here. And I talked to her on the phone, and I get to the track. And somebody was like, oh, yeah, you know, it's your wife birthday. Tell her, I said, you know, happy birthday. And I'm like, and they're like, what? I'm like, oh, crap.

And they're like, go call her. I'm like, already did. I don't know how you're still sitting here. I've been worse than that. Two years in a row. Listen, Kevin Harvick loved to remind me of this. Years ago, we were in New York, so this gives you an idea how long it was. We were having our postseason banquet stuff in New York, right?

And I'm sitting there. And for some reason, I'm at a table with him and a couple other people. I don't think you were sitting there. You must have been doing something. And I'm sitting there, and my wife calls, and we start talking, and we start talking. And we're like, hey, how's it going? Good. You've been busy?

Yeah, man, we've been busy. We've been busy. And so we carry on for five minutes. And she goes, happy anniversary. And I mean, I was like, oh, no, that's today. Yeah. And Harvick just like he was rolling in the floor about this. And he's like, man, he goes, he took his wedding ring off, wedding ring off and said, look, it's on the inside of my wedding ring.

I'll never forget. Y'all are making me nervous, wanting me to check my calendar right now. You don't know what you're missing. When you leave here, you're in trouble. What's coming up? I forget. Well, you know what, Dillner and I were talking about this earlier today, and this is the thing that I will tell you is that, like, I went on a weekend getaway just with my family this weekend to the beach.

We go camping every year. Took your old campers, a matter of fact. I sent you a picture every time we do it. And it's like, did I get real pure enjoyment out of this weekend? Because people go like, hey, did you have a good time? Yeah, I mean, I had a good time. You rested? No, not at all.

And it's like, you know what? I don't recall a vacation since I've had kids where I came back feeling rested. I actually came back more tired. And it made me thinking I was telling dinner this, and he agreed with me. Big. Your priorities and your mentality on just off weekends and vacations have changed with kids where you used to want to just, you know, really kind of rest and unwind. Now it's like just creating moments for your kids.

Just give them some memories. With me, it's like make sure their heads don't fall off or something bad. Yeah, make sure they don't get hard. Make sure you don't end up in urgent care. And I've failed on that one a couple times. But it's like, you know, like we are at the beach and they're wanting to swim in the ocean. And all I can think about is don't let them get washed out to sea, you know, or eating by sharks. Or eating by shark.

Right. And it's just like, kids, man, change your whole, not enjoyment, but the way you have to find enjoyment in other places and vacations in off weeks. I think is what I'm trying to say. I know, right? Yeah. I'll be curious after a year. Let's make a note on this, Dillard. In one year.

April, second or third, you know? Yeah. When we come back and do this show, we'll ask Dale, how has he enjoyed the vacation? Yeah. Yeah. I know. All the vacations from here on out are going to be different. It's going to be cool, though.

There's going to be aspects of it that are way more badass than ever. But there's going to be aspects where you're like, man, I need to take a day off or something. So the kids get watched by somebody. So we could have a few cocktails. A year ago, all my friends have kids, right? A lot of people. Most everybody I know has children, and they constantly are sharing what's going on in their lives

with their kids on social media. And a year ago, didn't care. Whatever. Yeah, okay, you and your kids are doing whatever you're doing. And now I'm like, whoa. You know, I'm watching it going like, man, you know, I'm looking, yeah, that's cool, man. Our kids did.

Oh, everybody's happy. Like whose? Give me an example who does it a lot. Oh, well, Amy's family, like her sister has a little girl. It's one year, about a year, 16 months. So we watch videos. She puts a lot of her stuff and shares it with us on Instagram and so forth. And we watch them like we're just amazed and just so funny and all.

She's so cute. And a year ago, I'd be like, yeah, you know. Get them out of here. Whatever. You know, everybody posts pictures. of their kids, but now, like Larson, Shaw's little boy. You know, I'm amazed at watching anything that they're doing with him or whatever he's doing and his reaction to it.

A year ago, it didn't care. It's crazy how having a kid makes you appreciate other people's kids too, you know. Before they were just annoying. Right. I don't. Now you care. I'm sorry. I hurt to admit, but like I could care less.

I've had kids for nine years. Is this what you're trying to say about mine? So for eight years he could care less. Yeah, now he cares. Got it. It's okay. Listen, to be honest with you, I get annoyed by that stuff still. So it's all, you'll go through phases.

You'll go through cyclical. I'm in the phase of, I love seeing other people's kids and them interact with their parents. You even sent me an Instagram message this weekend because I posted on my Insta story a little squabble between my two daughters. That was so funny, though, but I wasn't the only one that liked. enjoyed that. I saw a friend of yours. McGee saw it and he thought it was hilarious. Oh, he did? But he didn't say nothing to me. Well, not everybody said. That's the one thing about, not every... Now you're talking about other people's kids to other your friends now. He mentioned it. But just because somebody didn't heart your thing doesn't mean they don't like. A lot of people

who look at it and don't even think to heart. Oh, no, no. It was a answer story. You can't do that. So we're calling it heart now? You can? You can comment. We're calling it heart now and not like. Whatever, like, heart, whatever. But I'm just saying like. So, tender. A lot of people will read, this is a whole other conversation here. A lot of people, whatever you're putting on social media, don't be upset if it doesn't get all these likes and hearts

and how that you were. I wasn't right. I'm just saying like McGee liked it, but his instincts aren't to say, hey, hello. I was sitting there on the beach, I was a video and my two daughters on the beach, and then they started throwing sand at each other, and I said, okay, I know how this one ends. And I mean, it wasn't

a minute later. I had my youngest screaming at my oldest. He called the shot, man. And I just said, yep. And that's the great thing about that is an Instagram story. He had confidence to send that first one out that said, I know how this is going to end. Yep, I did. That'll be good to show them in about 10 years, too.

It was hilarious. So, listen, I mentioned at the top of the show that you got in front of an NBC announcement. Yeah. Can we give you a little bit of a hard time? Are you going to get upset about this? No. Okay. Good.

I do this a lot, so. So can we just set the table here for a second? NBC has this idea. Yeah. And Dale Jr. is a new employee to the team, as we know. And they had this idea, and they sent out an email. First of all, there was a phone call today to discuss all this, but I don't think Dale was able to be on it because he was at a production, right?

I was at a production for Hellman's. Yep. But I could have been on it, but I forgot. I could have called in. I totally did this up. I was going to. He's owning it. I wasn't even going to go there.

So, because I might be halfway to blame for that. That's why I wasn't going to go there. So they sent also a couple different emails to all of them, like Jeff Burton, Steve LaTart, Landon, Castle, Parker Cliggerman, all of them got this email. The 20 NBC employees and personalities have this email. And in an email it says, like, here's what's up. Here's what you're going to say, but don't get in front of it tonight at 5 o'clock. Meaning don't mention anything about it. Don't mention it in NASCAR America.

I find humor in this because like Dale just said, this ain't the first time we've done this. This ain't the first time. And also, Dale has this personal policy, which I admire. He does not like to delete tweets. He does not delete tweet if you can help it. And there are people that have asked him.

He thinks that it actually defeats the purpose. If you delete a tweet, it looks even more embarrassing and you actually call more attention to it. That being said, he tweets out today the details to this game five minutes before. And Landon Castle, because Landon is Landon, he called Dell out on Twitter. Now, fill in the whole... And what do he say, too?

Well, he told Dale, we weren't supposed to say this yet. And he goes, we had an email that clearly said, and Dale said something like, I just skipped it. Yeah. Yeah, so there's a fantasy NASCAR game that NBC wants all its employees to be in. And so they were a bunch of emails going around to all of us about how to sign up and when they were going to announce it and all this stuff. And, you know, I'm frantically trying to do it.

get in there, get signed up, get my name and all that, and do what they're telling me to do, because we're going to start this weekend at Texas. So what I want to know while you're doing this is in the email, though. So Parker, I'm on Twitter, I'm basically sitting around at the doctor's office with Amy and waiting. And I see Parker Klingerman has tweeted about this fantasy league, and everybody join.

We're all going to be in it. And I'm like, okay, cool, Parker's tweeting it. I'm going to tweet and get that over with. So he jumped to restart. Yeah. And I'm going to tweet my tweet that I'm supposed to tweet and tell everybody about it. So I'm reading my tweet to Amy. And she's like, yeah, it's pretty good.

So I send it out there. NBC Sports NASCAR America Fantasy League. That's the league. NASCAR fan. NBC Sports NASCAR America. Okay. So join the league. Then I see Landon and Parker going back and forth.

And I look and Parker's deleted his tweet. And I thought, oh, no, we can send it out to. soon because I remember something popped in my head about the email saying not to say anything. Oh, so you saw the part in the email. Yeah, but I just forgot. I'm like, what's going on? Parker's tweeting about it. So, hell, I'm just going to get and tweet about it.

If he's tweeting about it, I'll tweet about it and be done with it. And because I'll forget later tonight to send my tweet out. I think it's kind of cool because we got to talking about it and screwing around and goofing around and picking on each other a little bit and maybe got more people kind of listening and looking. And maybe more people are going to join that fantasy league. now. I love how your options are. Either let me tweet it out early in your head or I'm going to forget.

That's like the two, the seesaw in your head is going, just get it out now or I'm going to forget later. I'll never do it. I'd already, well, I'd already forgotten to be on the call. So I was not feeling very confident about myself remembering to tweet this after 5 o'clock. You'd rather hit 500. Yeah, I was like, I've already missed the call. Obviously, this is not on top of my priority list.

There was this moment probably today in Stanford, Connecticut. They realized that the honeymoon is over, and this is the Dale Jr. that they just signed up. Right? The one that was like, you know what? I'll forget about it later. I'm going to just sit that thing sailing right now. Just zip it on out there. But it was all good.

Right. I mean, don't you feel like you brought more people to attention to it? We'll see. You're right. We will see. Yeah. How many fantasy things can you be? involved in it once. You're still playing drafting stuff. Yeah, I have the draft. I'm playing

some draft kings, but, you know, I'm playing like just a half a dozen bucks or something, nothing crazy. I'm just trying to learn how it works for. I'll start losing too much money. But I'm backing out of two fantasy leagues this year in the football side of things. You are? Yeah, I've got four, and I'm really in more than I want to be in. I got too much going on. See, I used to be in like five, and I got out of it, but now the apps are so good where I'm sucked right back in because it's so easy. Yeah, I'm going to do two this year. It's basically my friend's league and then the couples league that we have.

I'm going to get out of, and I haven't even told him yet, but I'm going to get out of the Matthew Berry one, the Celebrity League. And there was a team league with HMS for the 88 car, and I'm going to get out of that too. Yeah, I just ain't got a time to be messing with it. You're not going to have time to mess with two. Be honest with. That's a prediction that I'm making that you'll find out later.

I promise you. No, no, no, I disagree because, dude, I do half of my fantasy stuff. When my baby, when Annabelle's like at night or whatever, I'm doing the feeding and she falls asleep and you need a little time, just take that phone out. I'm, like, scrolling through my Yahoo and it's. Yeah, I'll be able to find it. That's when you do it. You'll find out.

No, because I make my moves at late at night where nobody else is. I've been pretty sucky. What do you want? You want to do the top three guys? game, Matthew? Yeah. So here's a deal, man. I was thinking about show content, and I literally had a dream about it, and I woke up thinking, okay, man, I got this all, I got this all, and I forgot all about it. So I was like, what the heck can we do in the show where there's no racing? My nephew always used to stay over my house, and at night, he just sit there 20,000 times. Give me your top

three favorite this, top three, favorite that. So I figured it would be fun. If each one of us picked out of top three, we didn't talk about this at all. and ask a top three favorite of something. So who wants start off? Top three. Okay. Think back to when you were a kid. Oh, yeah.

The top three ass whoopens, troubles, parental disciplines. Oh, boy. Gotcha. Okay. I'll go. He has plenty of two. Now is it getting or receiving? I'm just going to name three and really they could be.

Receiving. Any of them. All of them have, any one of them could be number one, two or three. Okay. They're all pretty severe. They're all pretty severe. I stole 80 bucks out of my dad's chart. I stole $80 out of my dad's chains jar and ball a game boy.

Game Boy! Oh, my gosh. Hey, back then. Dude, it was hot. Teresa put locks on every door in the house after that. How much trouble did you get in? Teresa put locks on every door in the house. That was pretty damn embarrassing and shameful.

I figured she just does that for decoration. I was literally locked out of every door but my own. I brought home a long sheet of homework or class work that I had not done for the week. That brought the belt. Oh, Daddy. From the intimidating. I had the belt from daddy was terrible. What would that be like?

I don't, it was as what you would imagine. Oh, what did I imagine? He's got a big buckle as a handle. The seventh circle of hell is what I imagine. Yeah, it was awful. I mean, seriously, like, they probably don't ever end. It would end. It would end.

The next day. Oh, my gosh, that would be relentless. Yeah. Okay. So the funny thing is, you say, like, hey, times you got in trouble. And he's just like, I got them. Well, there's are the two. He was a problem kid.

Yeah. Not a problem kid. He was a bit of a rebellion. It's a chievous. Yeah. A rebel. I right around, I mean, I got sitting in military school for being. Yeah, that's top three.

Yeah. I was sent to military school as punishment really for being, I was getting expelled from Christian school. I had been written up so many times for talking to class and just being a jokester and not paying attention. and not listening and if you got rode up a certain amount of times they were going to expel you no questions asked no matter how severe the write-ups were and I'd had the amount that you needed we were taking a break for Christmas vacation and when I came back I would be expelled they were going to expel me and because my last write-up was processing at the end of the after the Christmas vacation and so my parents decided to take me out of that school and

send me to military school was sort of a last-ditch effort to figure, you know, get me to, you know, figure it out. And it did. It worked. I liked, I credited military school with being so good for me. I'm sure it's not for everybody, but it taught me a lot that I was really, really close to leaving Mooresville for my senior years in high school to go back and do my senior year at Oak Ridge where I went.

But I just really thought it was a great experience. The first year, I mean, first half a year, I went in my seventh grade year, the last half of my seventh grade and all of my eighth. And it was hard as hell being away from home. You know, you cried for a couple weeks, missing home real bad. That was the hardest part of military school. I would assume that it was all the everything else. I mean, everything that comes with military school. Well, you got to remember you're doing it with a lot of the new kids, too.

You're not alone. And every kid there hates being there, hates the situation. and you meet a lot of kids that are in there for really freaking bad things. You know, there's kids out there that are, there's kids that are in that school because they can't stop shoplifting. Or they do that and they think that there's nothing wrong with shoplifting, you know, just stuff like that. And you would be with kids that just had no structure in their lives, you know. And you were, you know, you were roommates with them or they were living down the hall and, you know, you were all kind of going through that experience together,

and you made it, you made the best of it. You know, we would, we did a lot of fun things, you know. We would, we would fight with the other dorms and roll their dorm and the middle of the night. And, uh,

we, I remember going around, all the bathrooms and filling the bath, filling these little duffel bags with rolls of toilet paper to go roll the dorm across the street. I don't sound like military school. That sounds like summer camp. It was.

At times it was like summer camp. I mean, we just, you know, you're kids. You're going to goof off and try to go against authority. Can I tell you a story real quick? And I know this breaks away from our top three game,

but I want to tell you something real quick. Where we went vacation this past week was very close to Paris Island. Do you know what's on Paris Island? Marine boot camp. Oh, yeah, that's right. And so we were like, hey, there's a museum. It was a rainy day. We said, hey, there's this Paris Island museum.

And there's some stuff about the Marines. Let's go to the museum. So we went and realized that we got to go through a couple checkpoints. We're like, well, that's weird. I didn't know it was near the military boot camp. Hear it? No, no, it's on it. And so here it is.

I'm driving down this road and I've got my two daughters and my nine-year-old and they've never seen anything like a military base or certainly like what goes on at military, our Marine boot camp, right? And we are driving and all of a sudden there is, we pass this drill instructor that is just dressing down this guy, right? I mean, and then we go down a road a little bit. We're just going to the museum. It's on the base. I cannot figure out how this is even possible, right? Yeah. And we go past this other one.

There was a female drill sergeant who had this girl in a sand pit, and she was, like, punishing her, and she was having to do these up downs with her hands in a sandpit, and she was just, like, in her face, and my daughter was like, what is going on here? We got to leave. This is not good. And I'm like, hey, listen, if they start shooting at us, duck.

And your wife's like, drop them off, drop them off. But it was a mate, we were on Marine boot camp base. How'd you get in there? The museum is on it. You can go to it. It's open to the public. It baffles me, and I can't explain why, but I would urge you to go to the museum. It just sounds like you were in a secure area.

I'm just imagining in my head like this is kind of like Christmas vacation, but the family goes to it, stumbles into a military camp. Anyways, it was good for the daughters to see what is out there to send someone. Come on, Davis. Top three, man. Of punishment. I was generally a good kid. So I know that, like, grades, like, one of the things that still stings is.

I want that last statement retracted from the, because none of us believe that. What? That I was a good kid? No one believes that anyways. I never. It's in your opinion, dude. The worst I got is, I was, because I made a, because I made a C on a report card, I got taken off the basketball team. I mean, that was horrible for me.

Yeah. And that was for my dad. I mean, that wasn't from the school. So that makes sense to how your game is a little. Yeah, I missed a couple games. Now, now it's. It's really hurt you. It's transpired to how I play in the Dirtymoe basketball league, for sure.

That stunned, stunned your ability. Let's see. In college, I got in trouble with a professor for cheating, which was, you know, obviously a big deal. Let's hear some details on this. Well, I copied somebody's work. and I did it. We were copying me and a buddy of mine who was on the soccer team and we're in the hallway and it was just one of the things.

I'm like, oh, man, I didn't do it. I forgot. Hey, dude, you know, this was a thing that we would do, you know. And so, and so you've done it before, but you just got call. Literally, I've got his paper and my paper and I'm in the, we're sitting in the hallway before class, and I'm literally copying it. And then I look up and she is standing over top of me. Damn.

Oh, that was terrible. Yeah. And so that was a big deal. And to be honest with you, I think I got, yeah, yeah, that wasn't the only time I got caught cheating in college. I had this little Spanish three problem that I couldn't get past for that little help. I mean, that third Spanish is hard. Dang straight, it's hard. I mean, you think after the first or second one you've learned it all, there's more?

Listen, you make your jokes, but I'll tell you, I was struggling. What is in Spanish three? Once you've learned one and two, that's pretty much obvious. Kind of speak it faster. In one and two, you learn the words, and Spanish three, you're supposed to put them all together and formulate a sentence, I think. Good luck. In Spanish one, you count to ten. Spanish two, you do your ABCs, and then Spanish three, you're supposed to make sense of it all.

Yeah. I don't know. So I think that was, I can't think of it. I mean, I was. I was a good kid. I want to say that even though I got in trouble for pulling all that $80 out of my dad's change jar, I was real proud of myself for the ingenuity. because it was a big, you know, the big glass water bottles, the old ones. This is in the, like, the mid-80s.

And he'd had this jar in his room for ever since I'd been there, and he threw all his pocket change when you get home from work or whatever in this jar. And I got the antenna off the car, put duct tape on the end, and fished $80 and quarters out of that. No. Are you serious? Yeah. We're a little McGiver here.

You should have been rewarded for that. I know it. I'm not punished. that the housekeeper told on me. But dad could see, you know, dad could see the difference. 80 quarters is a lot. Yeah, that definitely made a difference in the level of change in that drawer.

You might have been better to take like $20 out of the time. Isn't it funny when you're a kid how you think you have the perfect plan? Oh, yeah. And it's, I mean, your parents, like five minutes, they're like, oh, come on, you idiot. I see it happening now. Like, I see my daughter thinking she's outsmarted us. And I'm like, come on down this road. Just humor me a little bit.

Entertain Daddy here for a second. Let me see if you really think you're this smart. They do. They think they're that smart. Yeah. And it's so predictable. I can't wait to be on the other end of that for a change. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, dude, that is fun. I can't wait for you. I want to see how your dad speech develops. Like, how you lay down the law. You're not going to let Amy do all that, are you? I'm not going to be able to do it without laughing. It's hard. Especially like if you got like my youngest daughter, she's so cute when she's upset and she's even cuter when she gets mad.

I mean, it's the story the other day. And it's like, man, it is like I can't help but laugh. But man, you're not going to let Amy do all the day. You got to be the, you got to have a little bit of this. You still got to be the boss. Smackdown, the lawgiver. I'll do what Amy tells me to do. Oh, good heavens.

Come on. You're going to be, you're going to. I'm sure I'm going to be really pissed at all. Oh, yeah. You can't let your kid. run around like a, you know, lawless idiot. I will be genuinely upset about some things and I'll let her know it. I can't wait.

I want to live this. I'm just going to live this like on the sidelines. It's kind of watching. Like I'll be like over here and I'm like, okay, look, uh-oh, y'all. Look, little Earnhardt's done messed up. Dale's going to be pissed. Uh-oh, Amy's pissed. She's more pissed.

He's going to just have that. He's going to have that. He's pissed it down. This is going to be good. He's going to pull out that fabric belt. Oh, yeah. The belt that I got was. a championship belt.

You got sevens all over your ass. No, it was the 19th. You, I didn't get an ass whooping when I was that old. This was the 80s championship belt. It was a leather belt and had this white, this kind of a... Three?

It had this white leather lace on the wrap, you know, kind of a fringe on the outside. You can look at the pictures of it. It was a big sum of bitch. God dang. He's got the Richard Childers 3 imprinted on his ass. He wasn't driving for Richard then.

Oh, he wasn't? 1980, Mike. Well, when was the... How old were you when you got your last whooping, you reckon? It had to been in the mid-80s, right? Yeah, but... Ten? That was...

This was the belt he used. All right. The same belt. Oh, that belt feels like it hurt. You know it did. All right, Delano, what did you do? Oh, me. I think well my dad always said if you if you ever start a fight you'll be in more trouble than you'll ever know but you can finish one so I got in trouble I got I got out of school suspension for five days because I kind of flick the toggle switch because some kids jumped me and I went off on this kid and beat this poor little kid up pretty bad but but you didn't start it I didn't start it man he jumped me so I finished it but I'd say the one that stands out

for me because I don't want to go too long on this would be I was in fourth grade fifth grade Mrs. Lundgren's class and my favorite race car driver was Charlie Jizumbeck modified racer and for a year or two I had his Ernie Willsberg number five modified in my trapper keeper pencil case it was a clear pencil case and I cut this picture out of a stock car racing magazine or a circle track and I had that thing in there perfect and he passed away in a race in Martinsville and that year. year, I remember this kid just relentlessly bullying me and picking on me. But man, you got a dead guy's freaking picture in your trapper keeper. And he kept on, so I just got pissed and popped them in the nose.

And got sent down to the principal's office at a Catholic school, which was a nun. It wasn't too nice and got in trouble with my parents. Once I told my parents what it was about, they eased off on me, but I was still in trouble with school. The Catholic school, man, it'd be hard not to get in trouble. That kid never, hey, that kid never picked on Charlie Giusezobacker and me. again. I bet. I can see you, I see the old Dillner boys getting in a few fights. Yeah, we must Dillners used to get, I'm more laid back now. South's done good for me. Good. Thank

goodness. I'd hate to have to fight you today, you know, up here in the office or something. All right. This is good stuff. Let's throw it to an Exaltor Race Center update. We'll be right back. This is the Exaltor Race Center update. I'm Natalie Sather. We hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Easter holiday. All NASCAR series were off in honor of Easter. Both Cups and Xfinity will compete at Texas Motor Speedway this upcoming weekend. Junior Motorsports late model drivers Josh Barry and Sam Mayer will hit the track this upcoming weekend as they are scheduled to compete in the Cars Tour event at Wake County Speedway in Raleigh, North Carolina. This has been your Exalta 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 Exulta, visit exultaCS.com. All right, this week there was an article that was interesting. I don't know if you read it. Dustin Long put out an article about age limits in racing. And this is just an interesting topic, no matter what part of the sport you're in. There was a 13-year-old Jake Garcia who became the youngest driver to ever run a late model at Nashville Fairgrounds at 13 years old. And what I find interesting, you field a car.

Sam Mayer is in your late model program. He's a 14-year-old. And there's a lot of capable young drivers out there. But this brings up an awesome debate. Should there be an age limit? to run late models. You know, when does it stop? Are we going to have 10-year-olds,

nine-year-olds running late models and not coming up through bandos and many stocks and, you know, things like that? What's your thought on it? I never, you know, I have a hard time believing, you know, when we go to Millbridge, that they have five-year-olds

and go-carts out there racing competitively. You know, I find that just crazy, but I've seen these dads get these kids in carts at three years old. you know, and take them just to run, you know, laps in the driveway and get the kid understanding what a line is, what a lap is, what the group, you know, how to create momentum and driving the right, get in the right driving line. And it's so interesting, I guess, what these kids can understand how they can know the ins and outs of racing at that such a young age. And they can,

you know, it just depends on what they're exposed to. when they're young. You can't expect a 13-year-old. You're just going to take that age as an example. But you can't, if you've got a 13-year-old that has no experience in racing, has not been around racing, I think it's quite dangerous to put him in anything like a super late-mall car or late-money car or anything like that

and put him out on the racetrack. If this is a kid that's raced go-kart since he was four or five years old, that's a little different conversation. I mean, he's got a ton of experience. driving race cars or racing competitively. There are, I'm sure, some guidelines. We are going younger and younger and younger and younger. There needs to be some sort of a structure that is put in place to keep this from getting out of hand.

That's for sure. What would you suggest? Well, I don't know. I mean, I don't know that I have enough information about each case. I think you'd have to think about limiting age. What I think about is there's so many freaking, just take super late models, for example, there's so many different series around the country. How do you get them all to obey a set of guidelines where these kids will just go find

the series that they can compete in? You know, people are going to jump through the hoops to get their kid out on the track. So you can't, you're never going to get all these super late model series and organizations to abide by the same rule. Things are different, though, because let me interrupt you there. Yeah, go ahead. I mean, I think you started in a street stock, right, at Concord. Your first Bush Series race, you were 21.

Yeah. Okay, the whole trend seemed to go younger and younger and younger in our sport, especially with Jeff Gordon, who was 18, I believe, in 1990 when he started his first Bush race, not in his first full season. and that's when the trend started. But you grew up where you drove a streetstock. You graduated to a limited late model type car, a late model.

You know, the progression I'm seeing lately in racing is these kids are running go-karts or a bandalero and they're going right into a full-fledged late model. That's my question. Is that right at such a young age? Yeah, I think that there needs to be some guidelines put in place to keep this from getting out of hand. I think that it's going young,

and younger and younger and younger. It's getting to a point to where people are starting to talk about it and bring it up, and it's a topic of conversation, so I think it definitely needs to be addressed or considered. Some kind of guideline needs to be considered to keep the progression natural. You know, there's a lot of times when there's people that are on the racetrack that don't belong out there, and it happens in bandeleroes. It happens in Lake models.

It happens in the truck series. It happens in the arc series. I mean, we see it all the time. even in the Cup series at times in the last 20 years there's been a race or two where a guy maybe shouldn't have been out on the track so we question the eligibility of drivers all the time no matter the series the age so you're always going to have that you're never going to fix this completely but maybe there should be some sort of expectation placed upon these parents that your kid needs to be on this track you know as far as

their progression from here to here to here before they get, you know, into something at such a young age. I just, I believe, you know, a 13-year-old kid driving super late models, you know, how old do you got to be to be able to get into a truck? How old do you got to be? 16 at the short tracks, I believe, and 18 at the speedway. Well, if that's the case, pretty sure. Yeah, I mean, if that's the case, then the father's looking, if the dad's like, hey, I want to get my son into the truck series, and I got the money to do it, and he can race, they're already, you know, thinking that far ahead, going, well, he can be in a truck at 16, getting in a late model or super late at 13's not really all that big of a deal. Is it crazy, though? I don't know.

What are you concerned about? Their safety or their mental capacity to be able to handle a car? I don't understand. I guess I'm just opinion. opinionated on it. You know, like, it just seems to creep down lower and lower and lower. And there's some accomplished raceguard drivers already at 14. I get that.

It just seems like there needs to be, when does it stop is my concern. But what is the concern is what I'm asking? My concern is two things. Safety of a child, of course. Safety of a child, okay. And second of all, the health of our sport, when instead of having, you know, a short track series that are a mix of veterans, and, you know, upcomers and this and that,

you got a bunch of, you know, rich 12-year-olds out there, just, you know, being plucked and put into late models when they don't belong in there. I like the school of seeing a kid come up running a dirt car, you know, a bandit, you know,

a beginner class in a full-size-type race car before they step into something as powerful as a super late model. And that's just my opinion. Maybe I'm too old school on that. What is in between Bandolero? and late model super late model you can run a host of things you could run straight stock you could choose that you could run a limited late mile say up here at hickory or something or um you can you can you can run even a legend's car which isn't a full size car but gives you definitely that uh power to weight

ratio edginess uh you know not the balance it you know that you would need in in a heavy stock car but give you that progression at least just my just my opinion i wanted to know that's the whole thing about this i want to know your your take on i think it's interesting yeah i mean we all have opinions on Yeah, I mean, there's going to be rare occasions. I guess not everybody's trying to put their 13-year-old in a car. This is one kid. Yeah. And there needs to be someone in every, you're never going to get all these series

to do the same thing and abide by a set of rules. So hopefully in each series, there's a guy, a steward, or somebody that says, I can't allow this. If he sees it to get to a point to where you're like 10, 11, 12-year-old, so forth, and he just, he looks at this kid's body of work and says he has not, he doesn't have enough experience to be here. Hopefully the right people are running those, those series and those organizations to be able to make the proper decision and not just, you know, let all comers, you know,

come on in there and make a mistake. At the same time, look at William Byron. Like he came in, ran Legends cars, then right into late models one couple of years. You know, he just, he went right up the ranks. I just look at him as an anomaly, though. I know we've said that before. I haven't seen anybody in this sport in my 40-something years of existence come in with no experience. I know, but nobody's.

And do as good as he has. Yeah, I know. But a lot of guys don't get that opportunity. You know, it's not because, I mean, there's a lot of people in William would probably tell you this, that could do it too, do the same thing. Given that same opportunity to go from series to series to series, but literally late model, truck, you know, he went from late models to super's and sort of trucks, Exfantity Cup,

all in a matter of like four or five years. You give that same opportunity to a lot of accomplished short track drivers and they'll probably more often than not show the same amount of success that he did. I just don't think that a lot of people have, I mean, that's a whole other conversation. But what I think I'm trying to say is that if you look at William Byron's progression. That argues for the kid to get that chance at 13, 12, 14 years old to be in a late model. I don't know whether I have a problem with that, you know, 13 year old or not, but I think, I don't know who this kid is. I don't know what his history is, where he raced, did he win,

was he good, was he smart, did he make good decisions on the racetrack? The one thing I do know, if he doesn't belong there, he'll get called out pretty quick. Then the mistake of did we bring him up too soon lies on the you know that's the responsibility of the people that were got in his career all right you all ready to move on to ask junior 10 4 it's time for ask junior you have a question for me hit us up on twitter using the hashtag ask junior all right ask junior a bunch of fans chiming in using the hashtag ask junior uh patrick kinser wants to know if wrangler were to sponsor you for a throwback NASCAR throwback weekend at darlington Xfinity series, would you do it?

I'd love to run Darlington again, and that track's definitely on my list of considerations when we look at running more races. And if Rangler pays for it. Exactly. Sure. All right, the next question is my favorite, I think. Nick Graff wants to know who could party longer without blowing a motor. You or Clint Bore?

Me, easy. Clint blows his motors pretty early in the morning. Is that because he's burning the right rear off or what's a deal? I don't know. Some people just... A 500 mile are you? He blows his motor to make room. That's all.

He blows the motor. Clint blows the motor to make room and keep digging. Yeah, I agree with that. He just pulls that motor out, puts in a new one, and keeps going. Yeah. All right, Steph says, being that you will be eligible for the Hall of Fame in a few years, how do you feel about the voting process? Do you think it's done right?

Do you think it's fair, not fair? Too few put in, or too many put in? I don't really know. I seems like it's working as designed. I'm really not quite sure exactly who all's involved in the voting. But the one thing that I think that it's hard for people, it's hard for the Hall of Fame to do is get all the right people in there. You know, so when we first started the Hall of Fame,

I was like, man, the first class should be like 25 guys. But you can't celebrate everybody the way you want to in one night. And there's a lot of guys that might, there's a lot of guys that aren't around anymore that belong in there that are getting sort of passed over because of people that are going in that are newer or still alive. We remember, you know, we remember the more recent accomplishments. A lot of people, maybe a lot of people that weren't around or alive when some of these other guys were doing what they were doing. so we've forgotten or what they really, their impact on the sport isn't, as, I don't know, is it felt as strongly.

That's true. That's 100%. Yeah. So, I mean, that's one of my favorite parts about the NASCAR Hall of Fame is when people get in there, and I don't even know their story, I just know their name, but I have no idea why they're even in there.

And when you hear what they did, I know. You kind of feel dumb that why you didn't know that already. Yeah. There's a lot. I mean, everybody, Everybody's going to have different opinions on this, and I'm not sitting here standing on the soupbox saying this is right,

this is the way it should be. But there's a lot of guys that belong in there that aren't in there that probably won't have to wait another round or two and probably shouldn't have to wait another round or two. There's some guys in there that got put in that belong in there. And everyone who's been voted for and has been inducted belongs in the Hall of Fame. There's just only five seats a year. and there's probably, you know, 10 to 20 times more deserving people, you know,

than we'll get inducted. And it's just, it's tough to sit and be patient, right, to, that all, you know, for all these guys to get what's due to them. All right. Last question here. Joe wants to know what's something important that you forgot to bring to the racetrack during your career? Cheap.

Have you ever forgotten, like, your helmet, your gloves, or something stupid? I went to a race in the Xfinity Series and had forgotten my shoes and borrowed a pair from Adam Petty. And I won the race. I think it was at South Boston. I still have the shoes. You still have Adam Petty's shoes? Yes. That's cool.

That's a great. Well, he wasn't going to ask for him back for sure. No. I think, yeah, after I had worn them, gnarled off sweaty and all that mess. Yeah. So I've never forgotten my helmet and I got to a certain point in my career where I wasn't responsible for that anymore. For people that are, you know, for anyone who doesn't know, there's an interior guy for most teams. I'm sure there's not one for every driver in the garage, but my interior guy, Adam Jordan, was the best interior guy in the whole garage.

He just came off the road the same time I did. He was incredible, and his job was making sure that the interior of the car was the way it needed to be, and we had a lot of things in there that we had to work on and continue to work on, but he was responsible for the helmet and where it was, the earplugs and where they were, the gloves. It was awesome. He was so good. And everything, there was never a nick or a scratch on a visor or everything was just perfect. For all those years, I worked with him.

A driver will be, if you have an interior guy, that's the one guy you're going to be the closest with on the team because he is in control of everything within your reach, you know. And you and him work with where you want things to be and where you want buttons and switches and how to trim things down and make everything simpler and if your seat's comfortable or not and where the headrest is and do you want to try this and that and the other? When I was going through all my stuff with my concussions,

we made lots of changes in my car to try to make it better, try to make it safer. And moving that seat, just a quarter of an inch, is a real pain in the ass. That seat's bolted in that car in eight or so different places and to make that small change of the seat or the height of the headrest isn't just as easy as making a new insert. And so a lot of times we could just make a new insert,

but a lot of times we had to move a lot of things, and Adam never once complained. That question also reminded me of a time. I remember when you were doing your handprint and footprint in Daytona Museum for being a Daytona 500 winner, and for some reason, I can't recall exactly why. We ended up having to borrow Del Jarrett's shoes to put your foot in. Do you remember that?

Nope. You don't remember that at all. No. Yeah, your footprint, wherever that thing is these days. For the Daytona 500 win from 2004? 2004. So this would have been 2005-200-6. So I put on DJ's shoes.

Yeah, we were supposed to do it like at the Media Day the next year. And we did. Oh, yeah, you were wearing your shoes that you were going to race. Not put in concrete. Oh, that's right. That's what it was. Yeah, we were wearing the shoes and Spinity race. That's right.

We didn't bring an extra pair of shoes. And that was probably my fault, actually. I probably didn't like. I only wore one pair. Once I got a pair broke in, I didn't like wearing it. Shoes hurt. The driving shoes hurt until you got them broke in. And so once I got a pair, I wore the same helmet, the same shoes all the time, the same gloves.

That's why Juan Pablo used to have his guy breaking his shoes for him and his gloves a new pair every week. Yeah. Is that right? Gonzo. That's interesting. I wore the same shoes all year until the damn things were falling apart. Yeah. I wore the same pair of shoes all year, the same helmet all year, the same gloves is.

long as I could till the gloves wore off war holes in them. That's interesting. Because once they're war in, they're so comfortable. Who got time

for some new gloves? It was stupid because now I don't have, well, the thing is, is people are like, people call all the time going, man,

let's swap helmets. I'm like, I ain't got no damn helmets. I got one. I'm keeping it. They think we got a new helmet every week. But I'm like,

man, I ain't got no damn helmets. I'd love to. But in suits, I only had like three suits. for the first half of year, then another three for the second half of the year. Those get gone quick.

And like I said, I had one pair of shoes all year. Did you see that? Let's do. Did you see that? I still screw that up. Did you see that? I have not said that right yet. What is that?

Like that's all folks. Did you see that? I saw something, guys. I saw something. I don't know if y'all saw this. I think Dale saw it. but I saw something this week. Bill Jr. went at Old Langley Speedway on Twitter.

Poor Langley Speedway. No, he complimented him at the end. They just trying to have a race. He's like I did. He did say something about, I'm glad that they're still holding, you know, races and doing a good job. I am.

All right. Tell us what happened. All right. So they had a race this weekend, uh, twin. I've been, you know, a lot of time on my hands. I'm not racing myself. You've been watching some short track racing, man. I've been watching a lot of racing lately.

And it's been great. on the weekends, I just stream whatever's happening around locally, and they were showing the Langley race activities on Saturday night. They had a twin 75 lap feature. I was talking to Jeb Bush who was there. He had his car there. And so I'm watching the race, texting with Jab. Jab Bush.

I'm sorry, Jeb Bush. I mean, Jeb Burton. You had Jeb Bush are talking about it. Jim. he's going to be pissed. Jeb Burton, me and him were chatting. Me and him were texting back and forth.

And I'm watching the race. And so we're watching the race. And Philip Morris, who's won four national championships, raced forever. One, who knows how many short track races, one of the best that's ever done it. So he's out there racing,

and Falk is running first, and Morris gets by him, wins the first 75. Okay. They invert 8, and they're... Philip works his way back up through there, but then he starts falling off, and I'm like, wow, he must have burnt his tires up or something,

but I didn't know it, but he had a tire going down. And they didn't show... I didn't see how he got spun out. I thought he spun out on his own, but they show him spun out up in the top of turn 3 and 4, and I'm like, man, he's having a hard time with it this second 75, and there was a lot of wrecks in this. It was a wild 75 lap, or the second one was a wild one.

And that's what started in my tweet. I was like, I had some kind of gif, you know, trying to be a smart ass. No. So Philip comes down pit road and comes back out and restarts and drives by everybody and wins the race. Why? And I said. Tell them why. I will.

I said, Jab, did they just let him put tires on? He goes, yep. I was like, that's not right, you know? And I was just started. I was like, I can't believe they let him put tires on. That is not, you know, you should be, so the racetrack tweaks me back. Like, what are you supposed to, I said, there's no tie rule? He says, what kind of rule would you have in that certain situation?

And I think I said something about, well, it's not hard to have an old tire where they used up, you know, old wheel we've used up tire on it in that situation. You throw that on there and send the guy back out there to finish the race. His race is done. And they, I was blown away that they felt like, hell, just putting two brand new tires on and sending them. out there was fair for everyone else who had been scraping and grinding through that whole 75 lap race. In my history, every time you put a tire on, you got penalized the lap. And that should have been the penalty if he's going to put on a sticker or anything relatively

new, it's that he loses a lap per tire. And that's just tough luck in racing, in a race where you're supposed to race on the same set of tires. If there's no tire rule, then let everybody come in and change tires. Flat or not? So he cuts, apparently the track said that he had a flat, a legitimate tire that was flat that they had. They tweeted you to this.

Yeah. Philip Morris had a flat tire that was confirmed by officials, so he was allowed to change the tire. Right. Well, he had a flat that was legit. Philip says they had to actually pick the car up. They had another tire with a piece of metal in it. And so he was allowed to change both of them.

but that just gave him such an unfair advantage and he wins walking away and everybody the track and Philip you know Phillips obviously okay with it oh yeah I would be too I mean if the if I'm in Phillips position I do the same thing you're a racer and this is

Philip is amazing yeah this is the rule the track's decision that I'm arguing little side trivia Philip bought a race car from DEI back when we were racing in the Bush series and I raced against him in the Xfinity series in 99

He actually beat us at Rockingham with our own car, a great little race car. But I've known him and of him for a very, very long time. But I just could not believe that he came in there and got two brand new tires and went out there, and he wins, and everybody's okay with it. The second place car filed a protest. They allowed the protest, but then announced the results official. I think Lee Falk was in the race as well. Is that it?

That's right? C.E. Falk? or C.E. Falk, I'm sorry. Who's Lee Falk? Is there so many damn Falks? That's if Lee Pulliam and C.E. Falk had a baby. Well, C.E. Falk. He was agreeing with me.

I'm sure a lot of other people were, too. You said this smells. Yeah. And they said to you, just curious, how would you rework the tire rule for that situation? Yeah. And you said, ain't hard to keep a few wheels and disadvantaged tires on hand for someone like that. And I don't think that you and Langley went back and forth after that. No.

But that was that. Yeah. I feel like that, I mean, this isn't new. This is, I feel like that if you change a tire, that's a lap penalty. If you want to, you know, and they could either do that, which is what tracks have done forever in a race where you're not allowed to change the tires. Or they could make you put on a set of old worn out tires. But that's even, that's just a, that sounds like too hard of a deal to sort of, that's a, yeah, that's a judgment call. And you don't want those.

I don't care if you're changing a flat or not If you put on a sticker, you're down a lap Yeah, I like that You put on two, you're down two laps You like that, I like it too It's what tracks have been doing for the last 50 freaking years, Langley That crap there is just not right I mean, it ain't

That guy that run second should have been the winner of the race Here's another, did you see that? I don't know if you saw it, But Texas Motor Speedway was a sub-tweeting Kentucky Speedway's tire dragon I guess they loaned them the tire dragon. Texas Motor Speedway was applying grip for their race this weekend. But it was not that they were applying grip.

It was where they're applying grip that is the problem. Yeah. So the tire dragon is basically this machine that uses racing tires to lay rubber down on the racetrack before the crews and the race teams get there. They've been doing this a lot of the repaves to create a racing groove initially. on a brand new track. It just puts a groove down. Yep.

Right. And then also they can use it to widen the groove, put rubber in a second groove. Kentucky's been repaved a couple years ago. They're using this tire dragon deal today coming up on this weekend's event. You've got two questions here. Is it necessary to continue to use the tire dragon at a certain point after a repave? This track's, you know, got a couple years on it now.

Is it, do we, how long do you continue to? to use the tire dragon. The bigger question really is, where do you use it? Where on the track do you use it? And this is, I called, I texted a few drivers

and asked them if, if I was sort of on the right track here because this is how I felt when I was racing. Do not use the tire dragon in the groove. The race teams and the drivers will rubber that in all for you.

The natural groove, the natural line, the bottom, whatever you're talking about, right? Wherever they're going to run, don't even use it there. Right.

They'll do that. Right. Put the dragon where you want them to be. Right. Where you want them to go, where they're not going to go unless you use the dragon. So that's the second groove or the top. The top. Wherever else.

You know, put the tire dragon, put that rubber down outside of the groove. Right. So that you, maybe the teams, and this is not unrealistic, but maybe the teams actually show up and start there and work their way into the natural groove. applying the rubber where they're going to run in addition to a second groove just really defeats the purpose they're going to run the bottom over and over and over that that doesn't the Tired Dragon does not work in the groove it just lays rubber down the cars work in the groove the cars make the groove really serviceable and if there is a if they're putting that rubber down on the bottom groove the guys are going to run there immediately and that second groove is really pointless You know, it is better because of the tire dragon. But the preferred application, I believe, would be to skip the natural groove wherever the teams run,

which in Texas case is the very bottom. Skip that. Don't tire dragon that. Just tire dragon the middle and up up the racetrack. Yeah. I mean, look, it seems like in every conversation, the narrative is always this. Trying to promote side-by-side racing. Yeah.

That's it, right? Side-by-side racing. Whether it's a rules check. whether somebody did this, whether somebody's doing this. So you're trying to promote side-by-side racing to make a better show. So wouldn't you want to put in rubber to promote side-by-side racing? And that would be doing exactly what you said. Go ahead.

I'm not a dirt track expert. I didn't run a lot of dirt. But at dirt tracks, they like to, when they actually get the track worked in, they like to work in the area where the drivers aren't running. Yep. So if you see a bottom shot type race track where everybody's sticking on the bottom and there's some track prep, they'll actually go and work the top groove and hope they can build a better track. Yeah, so you can have side by side or a race.

So if the bottom is working at a dirt track and everybody's running there and a few, you know, first handful of heat races or whatever been all boring run on the bottom, they'll go out there and prep the track and work on it some more and try to widen it out and increase, you know, the opportunity to race in the middle and top groove. All right. So imagine if you go to Texas without any tire rubber down. No dragon. Where are they going to run?

They're going to all run on the bottom. That's the natural groove. All right. So if you wanted to make a better racetrack, you would rubber in the middle or the high side. Or the top. Not the racing groove. You feeling good about the Texas race this weekend now that you know the tire dragon is rubbering in? I'm going to eventually.

You're rubbering in the normal groove? What are you thinking about this weekend? You know, I really hope that enough drives. drivers are, you know, they're using the council and so forth to communicate with NASCAR. If this is something the drivers are concerned about or think that would help, hopefully they're using their channels to be able to get through the racetracks. But it really comes, that tire dragon and where it's used is decided on by the tracks. Yes.

Not NASCAR, not officials. Exactly. Executives. No, that's right. It's the promoters, the owners. They are the ones that are out there prepping the track. The people that put the stuff down in the corner at Bristol, that's the track. Which I don't understand.

Why wouldn't you want to, if you were a promoter, want side-by-side racing and want to do that, which they do, but then they do something like that. And I don't understand. Well, you'd be surprised. You'd be surprised at how big the disconnect is. You'd be surprised. They want the best race that they can put on. Of course they do. You'd just be surprised that this doesn't cross their mind.

Didn't Charlotte Motor Speedway do this last year? wasn't Charlotte one of the tracks They applied the grip They applied that spray But they applied it Well they were supposed to do the middle groove But some they The communication lines got confused

And to prove your point They went and sprayed the bottom Right And then they went Then they went and pressure washed it off Which it doesn't really work that way And said all everything's gonna be fine Oh so you're saying that was just a mistake

That was a mistake Because of this They didn't do that up all right There's a big, all right, so just if you, even if you try to tell them where to put it, even if the top shelf guys know, all right, this is where we're going to put it, it doesn't always translate down to the man who's actually spraying it, whether in this case the sticky stuff or the guy driving the tire dragon. You know, the promoter might be sitting in his office going,

we're going to put it in the middle. But by time the information gets to guy driving the tire dragon, he'll keep going around the bottom. It's a difference between Boss Hogg and Enos. There's a disconnect there. Although you think Eddie Gossich would just jump at the opportunity to drive the tire dragon if it meant promoting his race and promoting it. Hey, maybe you should.

Come on, Eddie, man. You know, come on, Eddie. All the time. You should drive the tire dragon. This brings up a really awesome idea, all right? Eddie Gossage, and I'm sure he'll hear about this, he needs to let Kyle Larson and Ricky Stenhouse run the tire dragon for next Texas. I like it. Let's just say it right now.

I love it too. Why those two? They're dirt guys. They kind of know track and prep. They have a good, I mean, I'm just taking them two. They like to hang out together. They had the funny stuff going on at the snow day and Martinsville where they're, you know, shoveling snow off the track and all that. I think it'd be a great promotion for the race track. I think also it'd be a great learning and educational experience for the track promoters

and owners to get those two guys in there to prep that track. It does not give them any kind of an advantage. But it also would be a great educational piece for the tracks going forward that are going to use this tire dragon. Because I really think the tire dragon has some positives and merits, and it could be used at a lot more racetracks if they were trying to work in a groove that's an alternative to the traditional groove. Say about maybe Dover.

Go to Dover and put a ton of rubber down right around the wall and about 20 foot off the fence. That'll be awesome. And see if that's where guys want to run all day. You don't know. It might work. It might not work. But it's worth diving into.

And this is a way to start to learn and get educated on that kind of stuff. But let Ricky and Kyle do it because they know so much about track prep with the dirt cars. And they kind of have a good idea, I think, about where that tire dragon needs to be used. Dear Mr. Gossage. Dear Gossage. Keep coming, bud. White flag right there. White flag.

I guess it is. No heads up there. White flag this week. Let me find our week. So you had a Unilever production today. We got some stuff to do Wednesday. That's assuming you remember to do it. That's a NASCAR America production call.

But we also got a couple things. We're working on a time for Dan Patrick. That'll be a fun call in that I feel we can go ahead and promote even though we don't have that nailed down yet. But we'll do that. It'll be on NASCAR America, 5 o'clock Wednesday. That's right. It'll be me and Steve LaTart and Neil Jarrett and Christopher is going to be. All right.

Dale Jarrett, Steve, with Tark, Christopher. That'll be a fun show. Is it on that big table again? Yes. The square round table. The square round oak pine table. The square around oak pine table. Right.

I saw that last week where Kyle Petty was like, it's pine, it's pine. Yeah. But they call it the big oak table. It's been a fun damn show. I've enjoyed doing it. Yeah, y'all do well on that. And also, I guess we can go ahead and just let them know that there's a fantasy game, the NBC Sports, NASCAR, America Fantasy League,

that you guys can join into. Dale, since you, you know, let all the information on that out early, do you have the information on how they can go sign up for that? NASCAR.com. There you go. NASCAR.com, go do that. Join the NBC Sports NASCAR America Fantasy League.

Compete against all those guys. Then you've got a Chevrolet appearance this week in Las Vegas. Yes. Find out to Las Vegas to the Hard Rock for a Chevrolet appearance. I'll be there for a couple hours and then zipping on back to the house. Zip back to the house. NBC rehearsals this weekend.

Yeah, so we're going to rehearse a broadcast on Sunday. Nice. For the Texas Cup race. So this will be like a little, people are like, hey, what do you do to get ready? What are you doing to get ready for this new gig? This is one of those deals. We're going to be in a booth somewhere in Charlotte, undisclosed location. Me, Jeff Burton, Rick Allen, and Steve LaTartan, we're going to sort of do a rough.

That would be cool. A rough broadcast. Yeah. of this weekend's race. It'll be rough. It should be rough. Lots to learn. Yeah, that'll be cool.

The other thing I want to just put on the end of this white flag is Windale Jr's Ride. Go to Windale Jr.'sride.com to register. Yeah, buy a raffle ticket. Go to my Twitter handle. It's a pin tweet. I pin that tweet. All the information is there on my Twitter handle. If you want to buy a raffle for this car, I've been driving it around.

It's badass. I actually drove it today. over to the Unilever appearance. It's got a crap ton of power. It's silver. Red break calipers. Got some cool red bead of paint around the wheel. It's just a really, really cool Corvette.

Probably of all the cars that we raffled off, we've done a lot of vets over the last couple years. This is definitely my favorite. It's getting a little bit of pollen on it. I'll have that washed off before. That's nice. Well, hey, I'm driving it. Yeah, there you go.

You know, we don't let these, it is when my ride, we got to get out there and take it on the highway. Yeah, so we put some miles on it, me and Amy go to dinner or something like that. He's got to get rid of it because there's no back seat. You know what, he's adding to his family now. So this is not an efficient car for him. So it's winddale Jr's ride.com, $25 raffle ticket. Go to Dale Jr.'s Twitter. He's got the pin tweet right at the top.

You can go to read all about it there. And there's not an unlimited number of raffle tickets. There's not. There's only so many, so make sure you get on there and get them bald. There's not an unlimited number. Right. I see what you're saying. Yeah, there's not an unlimited.

Why don't you just say there's a limited number? I could say that. That was a double negative. There's a limited number. There's a limited number of tickets. Don't not do that. Honestly, right. That increases your chances of winning is what that does.

All right, right. It decreases your chances of losing. My rides. My ride's here. I've got to go. Your bride's been here. She's probably impatient, ready for you to get out of here. It's a great show.

I think we had a lot of good content here. Well done, everybody. Another round of applause. People are going to enjoy this one. I hope so. I hope so. Get out of here before you forget something else. Bye!