The Dale Jr. Download - 219 - The Dale and Matt Show!

Episode Date: May 22, 2018

Longtime friend, competitor and jokester Matt Kenseth get together to chat about racing, rules, cycling, ebay and give questionable advise on fatherhood. They also share a laugh talking about Kyle Busch’s Charlotte post-race press conference. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download on Dirty Mo Media. Yes. I'm a co-host, Mike Davis. How's it going? Matthew Dillner.

Yeah. He's here. Got your dysentery shirt out. This is a big week. Well, see, I thought a lot more people knew what that meant. Oh, I don't know what it is. Yeah, I'm wearing this shirt that says you have died of dysentery, and it's got a horse in the wagon.

It's from the Oregon Trail video game. Played that in junior high every day. I remember that. That was the ultimate. That was the end result if you had a bad day. Yeah, and it's also kind of how we feel during Charlotte Race Week. So this is all kind of... Really?

Is it? I don't even know what dysentery is, actually. Dissentery is... I know it's a disease that people died off on an organ trail. I think it's like terrible, really, really bad diarrhea. Okay, so it is like Charlotte Race Week. Okay. Got it.

All right, that is the same. Or a lack of sleep. Yeah. Lack of sleep. You've got a lack of sleep. You've been having a rough weekend. Yeah, yeah. Little Isla has been...

wide open in the middle of the night. So it's happened. Yeah. Well, she slept pretty good for a while. I don't know. Hey, I'm new. So I don't know whether this is normal or not. So I'm not going to complain.

She's been waking us both up. We'll just say that. All right. Love it. Love to hear this. Yeah. Dinner's over there feeling good about it. Yeah.

Welcome to the club. Yeah. The one thing, though, is that she's not, I can get her to go back to sleep. So that's good. Cool, man. I can't imagine her screaming the, you know, the whole three and a half hours between her feeds so far.

She is doing that. Well, listen, every week now we have Isleros updates. So we now know that this one is, she has not slept. That's good to know. Sleepless in Moresville. Forgive, Del, if he's a little wiry. I'm all right. Yeah, he has his whole career.

His whole life has been preparing for all-nighters. So that's kind of how I feel about that. Yeah, I'm used to it. Yeah. We'll talk about that. We've got the All-Star race to talk about a little bit. We had the Aero Package. I know you were excited about that.

We have the truck race. I don't know if you noticed this, but there was some pure talent coming up through the field there at the end of that truck race. I don't know if you noticed that or not. We could talk about that. But also, we had an asked junior question this week from somebody named Amelda. She asked, what are the chances you and Mike Davis can get Matt Kenseth to go on your podcast?

The fans would love it. Dale, what do you think about that? I'd love to have Matt on the podcast. I mean, me and Matt have been friends for a really long time. And, you know, he's a hard guy to nail down. And really, if we could get him in this room and finally get him to talk about some of the things we'd like to talk to Matt about, that'd be great. great. Matt, you game?

Not really, but I'm already here. All right, let's do the Dale Jr. download. We got Matt Kinsett's at the Dale Jr. In the same room, they're peas and carrots. Let's do it. Pee's and carrots. The youngster, the 19-year-old, Matt Kenshin. They're going to speedway. 19-year-old. What are you doing way up front now? It was a dark horse.

A rookie has won. A Coca-Cola. Your 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup champion. Here comes Jr. to the outside. Side by side with Kensett. He rocks. Matt Kenseth wins that I toned 500. Joining us in the Exalta Studio.

It's Matt Kenseth. The Dale Jr. download starts now. Oh, man, that's a good intro. Good job, Matthew. Did that feel good? Thanks. Yeah. Oh, you weren't talking to me. We had to pump up Kensett somehow, man.

Did that pump you up? Get the blood flowing. Look, look. Look how pumped up he looked. People have a hard time distinguishing the difference in my moods. at times. Yeah. This is my pumped up one. This is it.

Wow. No, no, I've seen it's pumped up. You know what it's pumped up is? Yeah. It's when that banjo at Lambo is playing for the 60th, 70th time. It sounds like a banjo. It sounded like a banjo. Me and Dale have exaggerated that.

I have the tip-over-on. What is it? And then I turn around. And then we look over and Matt is literally on his, on his feet going, go, Pat, go. He was standing in his seat. We got to say with the Wisconsin accent, right? It's like a go, pack, go. I've got to throw that in there.

That's excited, Matt. But we're not able to achieve that here in the Exalted studio. That's only at Lambo. They never know. We just started. The intro was a good way to get it going. Now we just got to build them up. Yeah.

So thanks for coming on, Matt. Sure. You have had a pretty busy last couple of weeks. So it's good to have you on the show. We can get to talk about it a little bit. All right. You're back behind the wheel of a race car, back in the Cup series, back with Roush. Great storyline.

I think everybody's excited about that. Obviously, you know, everybody's counting on you now to figure out how to get this company going, you know, going back kind of trending toward the positives. I know it's only been a couple weeks and really you've got to get to a lot more racetracks to sort of digress into all the things. Hope we don't digress. Well, you know, sort of look into what's going on with the team. But so far, how's that experience been? I don't think that, you know, I don't think anybody saw this coming.

Like you're going back to Raush and going back to where you started. Yeah, I didn't really see it coming either. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't really, you know, laid out for very long. So you were sitting out, so you, this all kind of happened in a quick span of a few weeks or something? Yeah, probably off and on for a couple months. Oh, really? Yeah.

Something like that. It was off and it was on and it was on. kind of turned into into what it turned into. So, yeah, how has experience been so far? So there's been some positives. It was nice to get back. There's a lot of people that I know that still work there that work there way back when I started racing for Rausch.

So it's been good to get back there. It's been good to get the racetrack for a couple weeks and kind of try to evaluate a little bit, you know, where I think we're at and try to identify some weak spots and some strong spots and what I think we need to work on, which I don't know that I can really help necessarily or not. So it's been interesting. It's been really different for me because it's a different role than I've ever felt like I've had through my racing career, right?

I mean, I know that, let's be realistic. I'm not showing up there with really any idea, I think, from anybody of winning races, and you're not racing for a championship and you're not racing full-time. and I kind of now know where I feel like they're at and how much work we need to do to get back to an extremely competitive environment. I'm not, you know, so it's just a lot different role, different feeling, you know, that I've ever had before. It's more of a project.

When you, where were you personally as a driver having been out of the car? Even for just this short period of time, you know how competitive Cup Series is. And just to even miss, you know, a few weeks can take you a little bit of time to sort of get back used to the swing of things. or get back into the mode of driving. So how are you as a driver? Well, you know, I don't think I've ever been that good of a driver. So being out for a while, may or may not have helped that.

I don't feel like it's, I mean, I got back in the car in Kansas, and I felt like in a couple laps, I felt normal. And of that particular run, I think her second lap was our fastest lap of that run. But with that being said, I've raced two weeks and I ran pretty much dead last, both the other two weeks, you know, I can't say the 17 ran a very big amount better than we did. So both cars were, it was definitely more of a struggle than I thought, you know, the first two weeks. But like you said, I think you need some time to run a little bit and get a little bit more, get some other racetracks, get some more races in and kind of get a feel from there. So Jack, I remember a couple weeks ago, Jack Rouse was talking about how he saw himself maybe being around another

two or three years. You never know whether, how much to take away from that. And I know you've only been there a couple weeks, but what does the future of the Rouse organization look like to you? And what's its potential? Well, that's hard to say because as far as, you know, what it looks like, because I'm not really in the business end, you know what I mean? I've never, you know, I know you've been in every end of the racing spectrum.

I've never been in the ownership end or the management end or selling sponsorship end or any of that stuff. So the business part's really hard for me to comment on. I think the competition side, obviously the fords are really fast this year. Obviously, the engines run really good with Doug, you know, building the engines. So you know the stuff is there. I think it's a matter of putting it together and getting the right stuff designed and just making some gains. I mean, you know how competitive it is.

You know, now you're off by, you know, three or four tenths and your last, you know, it used to be you're off by three or four tents and you run seventh or eighth or eighth. right so it's just it's just so competitive and and um you got to you know do all the little things right so i mean i think obviously there's a lot of room for improvement i think the potential is there um you know but certainly i think it's going to take some work and probably probably a little more patience a little more time than maybe i originally thought during all the media for this uh with you coming back a lot of people and uh and i read a lot of stories and comments about you maybe having a role, aside from being the driver or of the race car, you talked about having not any idea of what's going on with the business side of the organization

and not having any involvement there at this particular time. But there's been a lot of articles or some talk about maybe that's a role for you down the road. Is that even interesting to you to have involvement in the company outside of the driver's seat? Yeah, that's a hard question to answer. I mean, I think I really got to get farther down the road. What does Matt Kenseth wants to do when he is? You had to. It's a time to be pondering.

Yeah, how you have. When you're done driving one day, what do you want to do? What do you see yourself doing? You know, it's pretty busy at my house, and I really, really, really, really love being home with my wife and kids. I've learned very early through this process that I don't have to do anything professionally. I don't really have the, you know, I really don't have like a big emptiness like, oh, man, I wish I was out. doing this. You know, I'd be honest, you go back and, like, it tears me up on a Friday morning not to be able to drive the kids to school. Just, like, all little things that you will someday

understand. I mean, just picking them up from school and driving them in gymnastics and doing all that. Most people would be like, oh, gosh, I can't believe I got to go do all that. But I love it. Like, I love every minute of it. And that's kind of all the stuff you miss. And with the ages of my girls right now from, you know, five months old to eight years old, there's a lot of years of doing that stuff and enjoying those experiences with your kids. So I don't feel like I have any urgency or need to have to do anything from a professional level to use up my time. I do have to say, you know, I was not bored. When I took this on, I wasn't really missing racing that much when I took this on. You know, I did it because I felt like I could help, or hoped I could help.

And I felt like I wanted to do it for Jack and try to help him out. He's done so much for my career. but obviously though Jack and Mark, you know, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. And if I could kind of repay him for helping me get started and giving me my first cup ride and like, and doing all that and get to me where I was, if I could help help him somehow get the organization running better and kind of help repay that, I felt like that was something I wanted to do. And plus it's a different role. It wasn't full time. So there's the time commits not the same as his running every single week and still felt like I had a lot of family time this summer and this fall.

And like I said, it kind of gave me a project and a goal. something to try to get involved with and help with and see if that's something that interests me in the future. Yeah. That's interesting because I wondered if, to what degree of arm twisting would it take to get Matt back into the car and if it was the right opportunity? And you just answered that.

You weren't looking to get right back into a car. You were actually enjoying your life. And I understand that now. I think it would take a lot to get him back. In fact, the only thing I think it would take to get him back is if you got back. And now that you've got back, Dale's actually reconsidering going back now to part of it.

No, I'm kidding. That's what we're going to talk about. And I'm only running a part-time schedule. And the races, I'm not running. Dale's going to run. You want to share your seat with him? Is that what you're saying? Okay.

All right. Where do we go? Where do we start, right? He just runs some cup races with you. The band's back together. He's like, shut up to you. I'm starting to notice that there's things about it that I miss. I didn't.

Like when the season started, I was so glad that I was at home and watching or so glad I had the time to do this or that. I walk around and see things around my house and property. the projects and things that I want to get involved in that I would always have to have put off or pay somebody to do. Pay somebody to do. Things that I didn't want to do. You know, when you're racing and busy, you don't want to do those things. And now that I'm home, I'm like, I'm going to tackle that.

I'm going to do this. I'm going to cut the grass myself. I'll go do it. Yeah, you got something you want to do in the woods or whatever. And I've enjoyed that. But over the last probably a couple months, I have noticed like, man, I really miss X, Y, I wish I was running this practice. Practice was getting ready to start for Kansas.

And I think it was like the final practice. And I'm like, man, I really wish I could run that practice. That's a fun practice. There's, you know, maybe not the race, but that practice is pretty fun. And I don't know, some things like that are cropping up in my timeline and my weekends. Still isn't enough to drive me back to getting in the race car. You know, it's interesting for sure. And it's, for me, I know you've had to kind of put it off now that you're back in the car.

You put that adjustment off for a while until you'll be back out of the car. one day and go back into figuring your life out. I want to go back to the beginning, man. We've been friends for a very long time. I don't really even know how our friendship started other than we got along, you know. And we always kind of saw, you may know more particulars, but we always were together. And whether we were competing on the racetrack and points or in the garage or whatever and appearances, it just seems like we were always around each other,

and you were always easy to talk to, really easy guy to get along with. And we were, I don't know, as much as we competed early on in our careers, even on in the Cup Series, we sort of, our careers were so parallel, I thought. We never, we always got along, which was interesting to me.

It would, you know, you would think guys like that would see each other as competitors and be competitive on and off the track as well, but we weren't really than that competitive off the track, and I thought. So we've been good friends for a real long time. Do you remember how our friendship kind of started? Or what is some of the memories, I guess, from back in 97 or 98 when we started to race on the same tracks together?

That's the funny thing about getting to be the age that we are and hitting the wall as many times. I can't remember any of it. I don't know. I'm just kidding. Yeah, I mean, I remember when we started racing together. And I think we both ran some races. And did you run a full season, 97?

I ran only eight or six. Yeah, so I think I ran part of the season 97. So, you know, we started 98 together and parked by each other a lot. Yeah. Started talking to you a lot. And I think I always felt like your dad kind of liked me, probably because I was one of the guys didn't want anything from you. Yeah. So, you know, so I was enjoyed hanging out with you and racing with you.

And we didn't get into it and racetrack too many times. Although I do remember the time at Dover when I got wrecked out. And here's what's funny about it is like Katie, which is typical, right? But Katie was so mad about it, right? Like, I think she finally got over it a couple years ago. Wow. I wasn't even that mad about me. It was.

So what happened? We were racing. Okay, I remember this. I was thinking about this since we've been in this room. Because I wanted to talk about our friendship from way back then. And that's one of the moments where our relationship was really tested. It could have completely went off the rails. Matt was dominating at Dover.

I was running second to him all day long, but I couldn't get within. five car links. He had a better car. We had a restart midway or about midway through the race and I had gotten under him and wrecked him. I got loose in turn to, I wrecked us both really, but I got loose underneath him and sent us both into the fence and we both finished pretty bad but it hurt him more than me. Cost him the win, you know, that would have been a great point state for him. We were battling in the points championship together. Pretty tall.

fight battle, pretty competitive battle. It seemed like every week we're right there together. And we'd always race each other really well. And that was the first time that we didn't or I didn't, you know. And luckily, I guess for me, I'm almost glad that I wrecked two. So that, well, really. You didn't win? No.

Oh, okay. I'm kind of, I would have felt like, I mean, I don't know how I would have been able to have apologized for that and been, and been genuine. and sincere enough had I not also wrecked, you know. Had I went on and finished from the top five and, boy, you know, 150 points for me, 60 for Matt or whatever, I don't know that I would have felt very good about that. It would have been your entire Victory Lane interview in that time. Yeah, it would have.

It would have. What year was that? I wasn't even really maxed. I knew it was an accident. I have a heart. I know you know that it was because I screwed myself in the process. So it took different from. If I were you, though, I would have been so mad because of the carelessness.

You know, you hate when other drivers are careless. Were you at DEI or Hendrick at this point? This is 1998. Oh, this was way back then. Come on. Okay, okay. 98. I thought you're supposed to know your stuff.

You guys were the only one's born at that box? Hell, I don't know. It could have been 99. I don't know. It was an extended series. It seemed like both seasons were sort of the same where it was me and Matt, race for the championship. I lost both of them. The reason that's interesting is he said that Katie just got over that like a couple

years ago. I was kind of kidding. Yeah, but those things tend to fester. I mean, you brought it up. Yeah, because it was a joke. I think of something. Well, that's interesting. I never remembered any of you guys like literally crossing paths to, where there's a lot

of animosity. I do, though, could always hold Matt Kenseth to making a comment after a race if he rubbed you wrong somehow. It would be like this. Dale Jr. gets out of the drafting hell. You know, like Matt would always say that. Oh, please. You know you do that.

And then, like, I remember the 2005 race you was. Can you find the actual clip of that? Every year, twice a year, four times a year. But like the 2005 race that he won. No, no, no. I don't know what I was going to say. The 2005 race that you won on fuel mileage, Matt dominated Chicago. Oh, yeah.

Matt led every stinking lap. We'd go make kind of just a flyer pit strategy call, right, late the race, and you win the race. And I remember you visibly being just upset about it. You were always polite and cordial enough. I mean, that was a friendship coming out. I'm mad at him. I was mad because we're only car to get four tires. Sure.

Right. He got two tires. And then I remember that race. And it was like my home track. And we had the, uh, USG was their sponsor. And they were sponsored to race. And, um, I don't know if it was the year before or the year after Gordon wrecked me right at then.

And we were leading. And like, we came so close to winning that race. And we were, we were dominating it. We did everything right all weekend. We were the fastest in practice. And, uh, we came in with like 15 or 20 ago and put four tires on. I think the top four got two tires. I just didn't have enough time to get through there.

So I was more mad at. the situation which anybody would be obviously you're not mad at the guy for winning. That was really the only good thing that happened to me that year. That right? That was it. 2005. So, you know, Dale Jr. had that big year in 2004-1-6 races. Then they decided because as you do when you win six races, you make a crew chief change.

And so then that was our 2005 where we were just. Who was a crew chief? Tony Sr. and Tony Jr. were the crew chiefs in 2004. And we went from in a matter of three weeks, the last three race, the last three races of season, we went from. being thrilled because we won Phoenix, I think, right at the end of the year. Happy, everybody's happy. By the time we left homestead, we couldn't stand each other, and we broke up. Couldn't believe it.

I think about it today, and I'm like, what was freaking stupid? Pete Rondo for the first 10 races. Crew Chief for 10 races. Ben, Steve Mill did the rest of the year. Yeah. I think eventually you guys put Tony Jr. back on at the end, right? Maybe that was 2006. It went to a lot.

So it's Steve's fault you won, got two tires. It was Steve Mill Meele made the call. Jerk. Yeah. Now he knows who to be bad at. That was cool. Winning the race with Steve Mille?

Yeah. Because you know how, I mean, he was such a, he was a big deal at Roush. Yeah, so first time I tested a cup car, I went to Darlington. They, Roush hired me just to kind of hang out in, I might have been in 98. And it was before the spring race. And Mark was testing. It was before that test in real. So Mark and Burton were there.

And I remember Jeff Gordon was there. and I was kind of just hanging out with Mark. He's like, bring your stuff, we're going to let you drive. Never been in Darlington. Oh, my God. Never been a cup car. Wow. So maybe it was 97, because I don't think I've ever been in Darlington before.

Actually, I know I never raced at Darlington before, so it might have been in a fall of 97. Anyway, so I went there and went to test that car, and Steve was the crew chief, and he was like, he wanted nothing to do with it, right? He's like, man, I'm kidding, that car, he's going to go and wreck that thing. And we went out and we went out and we're actually really fast. I did almost rack a head tapered off of two and just about wrecked it. But we're actually really fast, and like, I can. came in and he was like all enthused and like throwing springs at it and trying like working like crazy and Mark's like you have no idea he doesn't get like this he wants nothing to do with you

driving it and he's like you got to have him super impressed to have him working on a car like that so actually let me drive it for about a half a day it was uh it was pretty fun dang man Steve was cool yeah I always enjoyed him man his attitude energy hard worker good energy yeah and his history appreciation I guess for history I like that too when I'd go in his office he had all kinds of cool pictures on the walls and stuff yeah real fun guy. So I'm a new father. You got three girls, right?

Four girls now. Holy cow. Girl factory. Well, who's counting? I can't keep up. And five kids. Yeah, y'all got a new baby. Mallory's five months.

Five months. So this is all fresh then. This is good. You were telling me. You've already messed it all up. I told you the pilot advice I gave everybody. It sounds like you already screwed it all that. What did I do?

You told me you're up in the middle of night with a baby, right? Yeah. Well, why? Yeah, what do you do wrong? What's wrong with that? Here's the thing I tell all new fathers, right? You make sure that mama breastfeeds and you make sure she doesn't stop breastfeeding

for like a year. Yeah. And then you get to sleep all night because you can't do anything about a crying baby. Oh, geez. You're going to get him killed. I'm just saying, it's true. There goes every Matt Kenseth female fan.

You're like, I mean, seriously, like, you know, Kaelin would cry and I get up. I'm like, you get up, kind of sympathy wake up, right? You wake up and you feel bad for mom. You're like, ugh. You know, then you realize, well, what am I going to do except for have us both tired in the morning, right? Oh, my God. So then after that, you know, she gets, I mean, still, like, I have no idea what time Mallor got up last night.

I know she got up, but I have no idea what time she got up. And, like, it's not being mean, but it's great for the dads. Wow. And then I'm not tired in the morning. So I get up, and this morning I got up and help make breakfast and walk the dog and emptied the dishwasher and drove the kids of school and, like that all that stuff. So you're in your keep? Yeah, I mean, so then you can kind of both function a little bit. this particular time in the morning?

Oh, no, she's getting the kids ready and stuff, but she gets a little rest time, I think, when I run the school, depending on she's awake or not. You're just guessing. You're just in a nap somewhere. It's like with four kids that hatch, it's a pretty, get a little rest time.

Yeah, it's pretty much a two-person project. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I bet. I mean, she could do it all. She does do it all when I'm gone, but it's a lot. I can't imagine having four kids. And I'm just, you know, going through,

we've only, you know, this is like three weeks. and trying to figure out, it's like a puzzle, you know, trying to figure out how this puzzle works. It's going to be either a wet diaper, she's hungry, or she's sleepy, and trying to figure out which one of those three makes her stop being upset. Outside of that, really, I haven't learned too much. I mean, here's the thing. Okay, so remember us. Remember when she says, honey, this breast-fine thing's starting to be a lot for me.

I think we need to switch for the formula. You say, no. Why? I just told you why. He didn't listen to me. All right. I just told you and you didn't listen. You already forgot rule number one.

Because you'll be feeding her. I won't be feeding her. Because I'll be feeding her. Yes. I understand. Yes. So you can get some sleep. And it's way more healthy for the baby.

Let's just hope Amy doesn't listen to this. Yeah. It's more healthy. Yeah. Right now she's breastfeeding. So here's the other thing. The first two, three months, it's just not much happening. Yeah.

That's it's not how I remember it. No. No. No. No. What I mean is they eat sleep, pee, and poop. And there's just not much happening. Way more enjoyable after about month three because then they kind of notice you and they smile and they move and they're like three months.

Three or four. Like right now, like Mallory is actually really fun. Like she'll see you, she'll smile, she'll look at things, she'll kind of talk and, you know, like wants to pull the dog's hair and like do all that kind of stuff. I was wondering when that happens because. Yeah, the first couple months you're like, hello, anybody in there. Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm trying to say about there's not much happening. I see her and I'm wanting to think she sees me, but I'm not real sure.

She has no idea what's going on right now. Yeah. I wonder what's going to do. on in their heads at this time. Yeah, you'll wonder that for your whole life. We'll have to wait for the Matt Kenseth for Dad's book. I just gave you all my information. It'd be like a half a chapter.

Yeah. What? She's crying, change your diaper. With a five-month-old, three-month-old, one-month-old. Oh, girl, I always go top to bottom when you change a diaper, too. What do you mean? Yeah. The wipe.

Yeah. See, you got it. You don't want to give them an infection. You're all set. You don't wipe the poop up. Yeah, I'm glad you know that. Yeah. Yeah.

So with, so what? Just making sure you never know what you were like, nobody told me. No, that's great information. What? Okay, I'm not going to talk anymore. It's your interview. Go ahead.

I want to know what was the one thing that you. So at our home, we have a Fisher Price thing that rocks. She loves it. There's other things like this, you know, this other gizmo we got that she sits in. Don't like it. Is there one in particular at your house that you, your go-to. I forgot about rule number three. Yep. You want real number three? Yeah.

So Whitney Yates taught us this when we had Kalin. So I would strongly suggest getting rid of any kind of swing or anything that moves. Yeah. Because it puts them in a habit of having to move to go to sleep. Okay. And Whitney told us this, so Katie used to, like Kalin went sleep, you know, it's her first child, she's walking around with her and she's singing to her and she's rocking her and getting her sleep. As soon as you lay her in her career, bah, they're crying, right? And so Whitney came over one day in typical Whitney fashion.

She's not real subtle about things. Started kind of chewing Katie out. She said, what are you doing? You can't do that. You can't rock them and all the stuff. So anyway, so it took like two weeks of screaming and crying, which was just awful. You know, because every time you said them in there, cry, you know, you can't get to stop. And so we learned after Kalin to get rid of anything that moves.

Like even people that got to drive them around in the car, skip them asleep or the swings. They only sleep in them swings and all that. It's not good because eventually you've got to sleep in their crib or bed that doesn't move. So we got rid of all that stuff, and it's been amazing. All our kids sleep pretty good. Wow, that makes sense. Interesting. I'd never heard of that.

Yeah. That's interesting. So we got rid of like, we got rid of all those swings and all. We don't put her in anything that moves. That's interesting. Yeah. I was hoping that wasn't. To sleep.

I was hoping that wouldn't be what you said. Well, because you think about it, right? They're rocking. I've done ball like five things that swing. Yeah. Just different motions, you know. Did you save the receipt? Oh, no.

Yeah. Oh, he's stuck with them. We have, we have about four. She only likes one, though, so. I mean, maybe it's different for everybody, but for all our kids, I would say that holds true. I have an eBay account. Usually I just eBay stuff that I don't need. Yeah, I bet you change a little bit what you buy on there. I sold a ton of my biking stuff.

Why? Because it wasn't using it. You know how, well, you probably didn't do this because you're perfect. Sold it on eBay? Because you're perfect. I went through about 10 different seats to find the right saddle and or find a good saddle, and I went and sold all my saddles over the last couple months. You got an account?

I could sell some stuff. I got a lot of stuff at home I'd like to sell. Yes. I've never rebate before. Really? No. Yeah. You're talking to an expert right here.

I sold about... Do they know what's your stuff? No. No. But they don't care. I mean, they're getting... What's your username? I don't want to tell.

I sold about seven or eight seats about six helmets and some shoes and... Why did you have six helmets? I don't know. I get a bunch of helmets. You just acquire them. I acquire them. Jimmy Johnson, hands down stuff. Seriously, now you're selling Jimmy stuff?

No. Now look what you did. You didn't sell his bike that you still have. Oh, hell no. I can still, I still don't know. One thing I learned about Dale Jr. is don't ever lend them anything. Because if you lend him something, then he thinks that he owns it forever. That is not true.

It sells it on eBay. I was like, Jimmy, when you get your bike? I'm like, Dale Jue's like, I don't give that bike back. It's my first bike. I'm like, well, no, actually that's Jimmy's bike. He let you use to ride my first time. He's like, no, no, I'm connected to that. I can't give it back.

Is that true or false? It is true. Jimmy gave me a bike. It's a 2012. No, wait a minute. Did he give it to you or let you use it? Jimmy loaned me a bike. It's a 2012 trek.

It was at my house for a year before I actually wrote it. Then I wrote it for a year. No, but what happened the first time he wrote it? So the shifter was all broke. No. Because you didn't ought to shift it, remember? No, because I didn't have the battery. Oh.

He forgot to give me the battery and the charger. Uh-oh. But, yeah, I did ride it trying to figure out that. But since I've got it, I've changed the crank. I've changed the seatpost and the seat. I've changed the handlebars. I mean, it's pretty much not his body. I think it pretty much wasn't his bike when he dropped it off.

I put it a couple hundred. A couple hundred. A couple hundred. Does Jimmy know that you made all those changes to his bike? All right. So at least he knows. So that's how we can convince ourselves that it's not Jimmy's bike anymore. Yeah, there you go.

It's understanding. Yeah. Right? That's the logic. I'm going to go home and start an eBay account when I get home. I'm going to sell some mild stuff. Listen, for about a month, it was the only time we see Dale Jr. I got so much stuff at home stacked up everywhere.

I'm like, how would I get rid of that stuff? I selling all that stuff from, so when you buy... Can I just give you 10% commission? You sell it off for me? I'll bring it over. I would need 30 at least. 30%. 30%.

It's a tough bargain. No kidding. I mean, it's not easy. You got to take pictures. I'll probably give it to them to sell, and you'll think it's his. You have to take pictures of everything. You have to take pictures. Then you've got to research what it's selling for to know about it.

You've got a set of reserve price. There are a little attention to detail that I'm a little surprised that he even gets excited about it because printing labels. I mean, like, who's done that? And yet he would get excited about print labels? Yeah. You print your own label, and then I bring it over here and turn it into this front desk, and they ship it out of here. That's what we'll do for you. So it comes from Junior Motorsports.

So they know it's yours eventually. It ships from here. Well. It could be anybody, though. Could be you. So will you pay my shipping if I bring this stuff over here and drop it off? I sold about $2,600 worth of bike stuff a couple weeks ago. Nice.

What are you going to do with all your money? I've done turned around and spent it on other eBay items. Spent about baby swings? He buys t-shirts. Whipes. Sipes. It was all profit because he e-bate other people's stuff. I think your ratings may go way down after the show.

No, they won't. No. Does anybody listen besides family? I guess I had everybody in Cambridge. So we're talking about cycling. You're still riding, obviously. Did you take your bike and ride in Kansas with the guys on the road? Well, I rode just a little bit because we did that Mount Mitchell on Monday.

Oh, God. You just did that again? Yeah. I didn't see a bunch of social media activity around that because last year I remember it was a big deal. Everybody was talking about it. A lot of social media. I could, I was pretty easy to follow.

Who was the ones who put it all on there? I don't know, but I heard about, you know, heard about how good McMurray was and. He didn't run as good. I beat him this year. So that's why there was no social media activity.

How did Jimmy do? You know, so here's the thing with Jimmy. So Jimmy wasn't really feeling great. So got to the last climb and I was ahead of him for about an hour and a half. like a ways ahead of him like I look behind me and no Jimmy right and he had George and another professional cyclist

with him so I'm not sure what all happened and how we got there so I'm not going to insinuate anything I'm not insinuating anything I don't know but he was dying and I was pedaling away and we got to the welcome center in the park which is only about a mile and a half in the top and it's pretty much feels like it's straight uphill from there to the finish it's only about a mile

and a half and all of a sudden I hear something and I'm going through a little station with waters and stuff and I'm pedaling through there and everybody was about dying because at this time we're like five hours and 50 minutes into this and uh and a hundred miles and i'll say here's something behind me and here's jimmy and george and another guy and he kind of pedals peddles by me real slow i'm like there's no way this is happening i said just there's no i looked at i was like just so you know there's no way this happening right and i was pretty much dead too so we got to the very top and we turned the last corner and you can see

the finish line up there and we were kind of was right by him and it was straight up and i sprinted to the finish and uh so i beat him by a minute and so i beat him by a minute and so i beat him by a minute and my whole left leg locked up and cramped up and I pretty much almost fell off the bike going across the finish. But I beat my time by last year by a half hour. Holy crap. And so I was really excited.

Actually, I felt pretty good and I put in a lot better effort than I did last year. One of the best things about the race weekend was usually every Friday right after the first practice around noon. Most of us would meet up and we'd go for about a 20 to 4. 40 mile ride and get out of the racetrack for a couple hours and then be back and plenty of time

for qualifying. And that was a real good, kind of a good therapy to disconnect from the racetrack for a bit. And I would always go into qualifying in a much better place mentally because if I set at the racetrack, I'd just overthink and wear myself out. And by time qualifying came, I was already kind of frustrated and just in a sh**y mood. And so. Can you say that out here? Yeah, you can. Moot? Shoot. Moot. But I would ride with you guys or whoever on that Friday ride. And Jimmy always talked about it too, how mentally it was good for him to sort of get away for a bit. Plus, the other thing, too, man, is I would never see much of the racetracks outside of, you know, the bus lot.

Man, there's some really cool areas around. Like, Kansas has that awesome park that we go ride on. There's a big loop. It's about five miles on the racetrack, a huge lake, big dam, big. paved like six, eight-mile loop around that place that's perfect for cycling, taking your wife or the dogs or the kids just to get away from the racetrack for 30 minutes to a couple hours. There's places like that at all these racetracks that I didn't even know existed.

You're riding just as much as you did last year. I mean, being retired, did you ride more? Yeah, a little bit more. Or not retired. I'm sorry. Being out of the car. Unemployed. You did ride more.

I noticed that you went on vacation a lot or you were skiing. We went skiing for about a week. Ended up this year just kind of the way it ended up. End up being over the week of the 500. We went to tell you ride. We usually go there every year. I love that place. It's my favorite place anywhere to go.

How long have you been skiing? So ironically, being from Wisconsin and all this stuff, I never skied. And Katie and I, of all places, we ended up in telly ride one time over our anniversary in December and went out there and took ski lessons. So we were on like little magic carpet with a little four-year-olds and stuff, which is pretty funny, three-year-olds. And there's us standing there. I don't know what year that was, to be honest with you.

Time kind of all runs together for me, but it wasn't really that long ago, 10, 12 years ago, probably something like that. And then we just, we really love the places. We've tried all kinds of different places going skiing and stuff, and I just always like going back there. What do you like about it? I just like everything about it. The mountain is awesome. It's got everything from easy to extremely hard.

It's super casual, laid back. Lift lines are never long. The town is awesome. It's like built in this box canyon on the backside of the mountain. if you can ski down that side if you want. It's just truly convenient. It's really, really neat. Did you get to pick your schedule as you came back

and did you pick races that still let you do that kind of stuff? Or no? Yes and no. I mean, mostly no. Okay. Trevor's running all the advocate races. I got it. There's some of the empty ones that I'm filling in.

Some of them probably are not going to do. You know, but so it's just kind of the way it worked out. What races were you excited about? Then I'm going to ask you about the ones. Was I excited about or I'm excited about? Which races are you excited about, what tracks? So I was excited to go to Kansas because I felt like that was a relatively easy, straightforward track, pretty smooth.

I felt like it would be easy to evaluate kind of, you know, where we're at. I feel like it's one of my better tracks. Like I said, I think it's one of the easier tracks at least to just, get around. I mean, there's hard challenging things about it too, right? Like trying to make the top make speed around the top and like whatever. But, you know, but I think it's an easy track to evaluate and everything. And it was, it went really bad for us. So that was a little disheartening. It has me a little worried about the rest of them coming up. So that was probably the first one I was looking forward to, honestly. Charlotte can be a little bit, a little bit tricky.

So I'm not sure about this weekend. The rest of ones are on there. What am I looking forward to the most out of all the tracks is a good question. Michigan, going to Michigan, a couple weeks. I don't really know. I think about the rest of them coming up. Well, no, I am. I just can't even think of all the tracks I'm going to, to be honest with you. So I just, I'd say Kansas was probably the most anxious I was to get there and kind of see what it was like.

Yeah. I remember when I was racing that I mean, sometimes I can hardly remember which track was next, you know. Yeah. I mean, some of the tracks I like the most are probably not going to be on schedule, like Bristol. I was hoping to run Bristol. You're not going to run Bristol.

I don't think I'm going to run Bristol. I don't know yet for sure. What about Dayton and Talldega? Daytona Teladiga, I opted out of. Yeah. Don't want to run any plate races. Nah, not really. I'm telling you, that is...

Are you running Chicago? It does not appear to be. Man, I'm doing that. That's our first race, NBC. Yeah, that's why I'm not going to do it. The thought of Dale Jr. being up in the booth critiquing every lap of yours just doesn't seem like fun for you, right? Terrible. Terrible time.

You know, it does. What I thought was funny, though, is I did the NBC shoot the other day, and I was like, this is pretty cool because Dale Jr. is going to be there, a new big NBC stud. And I realized I just sent all the peons, and Junior wasn't there. I was there. He was there. I was there.

And when I say peons, I'm talking about, you know, like Burton. Oh. He is not going to be happy. I'm just kidding. He loves that. Except for it loves me. He loves you. He loves you.

He loves you. So anyway, I did see everybody there except for you. I was there. What were you doing? Lurking in the shadows. Oh, I don't see you. Matt, you mind being up hanging around, answering some questions talking? That was a question, so yeah, no problem.

You're good. I just answered it. Well, let's get to the rest of the show. How about an Exalta Race Center update? This is your Exalta Race Center Update on Matthew Dillner. Charlotte Motor Speedway played host of the NASCAR All-Star Race this weekend. While a new rules package was the big talk, nothing was new on the top of the scoreboard as Kevin Harvick continued his series dominance

in taking the win and the million-dollar check. On Saturday night, the trucks put on a show under the lights at Charlotte, Nesita, Wisconsin's Johnny Sauter, led over half of the race and drove to his third win of the season over Kyle Bush and Brandon Jones. The Junior Motorsports Late Mile program competed at Tennessee's Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend in the U.S. Short Track Nationals. And Clement Weather cut the race short on lap 64 of the 100-lap event, J.R.M. Drivers Josh Berry finished fifth, and Sam Mayer was scored ninth in the Cars Tour event. After a two-week break, the NASCAR Xfinity Series will be back in action this Saturday, while the Cup cars go 600 miles on Sunday to cap off Charlotte Motor Speedway's Memorial Day weekend. This has been your Exalta Race Center update.

Zalta is the official paint partner of NASCAR, developing manufacturing and supplying coatings to all types of vehicles and industrial applications. For more on Exalta, please visit ExalttaCS.com. Hey, Dale Jr., while Matt's still here, I want to talk about the Aero Package. I know you were looking forward to that in the All-Star Race. Matt was in it. Won the pole? I mean, my man won the pole.

He's going to roll his eyes at it, but listen, guys, take your turn and tell us what your impressions were of the race and of the arrow package, both from your position, Dale, and also from Mr. Driver over here. Of course, he was looking forward to it. He was watching it. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I, are you supposed to go first? You're the host.

I was just going to say, you know, the, whatever they call it. Now, is it the Open or what do they call that first thing? The Open. The Open. There you go. So the end of that last segment of the Open was awesome to watch. I mean, it was really great to watch, right? And here's a fact from TV.

And honestly, even from the grandstands, unless you're there one day and they change rules to the next day, I mean, you can't really tell a difference from 170 to 190, right? I mean, on TV, it certainly can't, you know, except for the straightways look longer. So I thought that race was great. The race I was in, I didn't really rewatch, to be honest with you. And we ran really, really bad. So I'm probably a bad guy to evaluate it. You know, but I thought that first race especially was really good. Yeah, I was excited that NASCAR was just trying something.

The one thing that I'm really worried about is just Charlotte Motor Speedway. So the way this track's attendance has win over the last several years, the way the action at the racetracks have been since the repay really, I've been worried more just about that racetrack. And I saw this as a really neat opportunity to try to fix the track. And not, I wasn't really looking at it as a fix for anything. beyond that. Because, I mean, the race at Texas was awesome this year.

I think we can have, you know, the race at Kansas was a great race. There's a lot of conversation on social media about what to do, where this goes. Chicago's social media accounts tweeting that they want this package now. I don't think that's necessary to take this anywhere outside of Charlotte. That maybe Indy, this is kind of where this came from with the Xfinity race last year at Indianapolis Motor Streetway. It's just a track that the stock cars don't really put on a great show. go at and maybe they could take it there.

Maybe Kentucky. I think Larson spoke up about maybe trying it at Kentucky, so at least until that surface ages out. I think, though, that for Charlotte-Mur Speedway, for the All-Star race, it was a great idea whether it worked or not, even if it failed. Still a cool idea for NASCAR to try to make some kind of a change for the sake of this racetrack alone.

Because at the pace this racetrack's going, it's in real trouble. The attendance there is way down, tearing seats out. I mean, we're going to race on the roval for crying out loud to try to spur some interest and excitement into this facility, which I hope that's successful. So I really thought it was a great gutsy move by the whole industry. I know the drivers were involved.

Everybody was involved in the whole thing. I thought it went well. It went better than my expectations, actually. I thought that the open is always a good race. You know, and so when the open... That's true. It was a good race last year. Yeah.

Some good stuff too, yeah. And I think that track, because the surface is so good, too good, it races really well during the day and not very good at night because the bottom groove gets so much grip and so much speed, it becomes too dominant at night. And I was worried about that happening for the All-Star race this year. But I was even texting back and forth with Marcus Smith. I was like, man, I hope that bottom doesn't become too dominant

and to get single file. It didn't. I was really happy with what I saw. I think that they can take this package and take some information from the drivers and input from the drivers and even improve on this package and make it even better. And my wife said something to me that really stood out as a casual fan that she is. She said, you know, they look like they're going faster to me because they're closer together.

I was watching it and I'm like, you know, yeah, when they are side by side and going through the corner, you don't even think about the visual difference in speed. It's exciting. You know, there's, I felt adrenaline in me watching it, you know. that wasn't there last year. So I think it's unanimous from following along in the media and social media and so forth that most people really appreciated what they saw. And hopefully this is something that Charlotte can look at next year on down the line.

There's a lot of roadblocks or hurdles to cross to get this kind of package into the 600 or the 500-mile race at Charlotte. It has to go through the owners and a few other things before they can. and implement it. It's not as easy as just saying, well, that was nice in the All-Star Race. Let's do it this week in the 600. With the RTA and everything else, there's a lot of legal parameters and limitations to keep things like that from happening because the owners, this will be a spend for the owners. And there'll be guys trying to spend money engineering this package and trying to find speed in it. What tends to happen in our sport when something like this comes along, whether

it's a new plate at the Talladega-Datona or a new spoiler or splitter change. What happens, I mean, the sport goes into spin mode. They start trying to figure out how to make this part faster or be the best, you know, make the best car they can, make the faster car they can. I guess do you think that as teams learn this package, what happens to it? Does the racing sort of, do we lose some of the excitement that we had this past weekend? Has the teams start to learn how to make this package work? Yeah, I mean, that's funny.

That was the only thing I was going to add to it. I mean, I really believe that. I mean, they throw those package on it. They do it pretty late. So some people spent some time in a wind tunnel, but probably not a ton. We ended up with basically no practice before qualifying. You end up with an hour practice before the race, and you go race them. So typically, in my opinion, when you take any kind of rules change and you throw it on there real quick,

the results are much different than when you get a lot of time to work on it. So realistically, everybody's going to get better at it. Everybody's going to get faster in the corner. The field's going to be closer together. and more than likely it'll single it out. I mean, it's just kind of what happens. I remember when we did the first low-down force test at Michigan, took all the spoiler off and a splutter off.

We're like, man, this is great. This is like going back to 2002. You could get up behind some end the left rear, and they'd get a little loose, and you'd pass them, and you couldn't stall you out and all that. And then you get to the racetrack after, you know, a month or so of it, and it's still probably better, but everybody figures it out. And it kind of brings the field back together again.

Yeah. Yeah, that's the only thing I'm a little worried about, and I hate to be so apprehensive or I did like the package, but still kind of pumping the brakes. Yeah, you have to. I mean, look, look. On just, you know, this, it doesn't check every single box just yet. The other thing that had a potential of doing, too,

and it happened a little bit in the races. You could almost, like if it was during the daytime, I think it almost would have got single file on the top, like we see at plate races a lot. I was running third or something in the beginning, and I did not run well at all, and I couldn't quite get slid up in front of Ricky, and they're all stacked up in the top, and the bottom car would stall out, and you'd lose three or four cars would pass you on a straightaway.

So there you're like, oh, man, do I try to make a moving pass or I get back up in line? Exactly. And I don't know if we want to see that at Dumbford tracks. I don't, I don't as a fan, right? You're right. I don't mind watching it four times a year. I don't want to watch it every week. I want to see a car that's faster that's running second or third,

not be screwed because he's in the bottom lane and, like, five cars pass him because of a draft. I want to be able to see him in there racing that guy, you know, see the door open and go race that guy for the spot and not get stalled out so bad, and everybody stack up and push the next guy by. I was talking to Martin Trix Jr. a little bit before the race, and he told me that the side draft is almost non-existent, and he thinks it's because of those parts that they put on the front of the car that brings the air out around the tire, around the front tires. And he said something about that has killed the side draft with this package. So like you say, when you're on the bottom and a train starts on your outside, it never ends till the next corner. Yeah.

And so your ability to side draft and kind of defend that a little bit is gone. It didn't even really get most of it back in the corner because you're in the gas so much that even the top guys had to lift. They had so much less drag all pushing each other that you still couldn't get it back. So it was like you had to almost find a place to get in line on a straightaway and then go make the move in the corner, hope to carry enough speed like Kyle Arson, some of those guys could, to clear the next. guy, you know, before he got the next straightaway. It seemed like sometimes when I was watching a race that I saw side draft, and then to hear Martin talk about it, it was a lot less side draft than what we typically have at a lot of

the racetracks. I don't know what you felt. It felt like you could slow them up a little bit, but... Because side draft is a fun tool. But for me, they're all going by me so fast. It was hard to pull them back. All right. Well, you know, we're going to wrap that up, this little conversation about that package

up with the idea that we're going to go right back to the same racetrack for six. hundred miles with the original package that we've been running all year long. It'll be so interesting to see this all back to back and see people's reaction from it post-race. I almost dread that, to be honest with you. Because so many uninformed, uneducated opinions get spout out. It's just, it's exhausting at that point, but we are absolutely going to hear it. Oh, yeah. It's going to be quite the conversation.

You know, NASCAR sucks because they didn't bring back that package when it was so obvious. That was the way to get. I'm like, God, you know, here we go. Well, we could have a really exciting race and people be confused as to what to do next. But think about it. No matter what happens this weekend, the next time we go to Charlotte, we run the roval. So that's another monkey ranch in the whole thing. For the future history of Charlotte, for the future.

It's a very interesting year. Huh? Please tell me you're doing that race. The roval at Charlotte. I might not opt it out of that one, too. Did you test it all? No. I mean, obviously, I haven't had a chance to do.

It's going to be interested to go. Really? That's what I hear from everybody. All the driver's opinion. All the driver's opinion. Wait, people like wrecking. Well, not everybody. Drivers don't.

Yeah. At least I don't think they do. No, they don't. Although there's some of them that might. They drive like a lot. I mean, I don't know. They drive like that, dude. I shouldn't talk.

If I wrecked both weeks so far, I'm two for two. So, all right. I got one more, I got another thing, guys. So when you were out of the car at the first, half of year, did you watch any races? A little bit, but hey, I want to say something. I'm going to say something since we're still talking about that package. So I know you're such a historian and how you love all the history of the sport and everything.

So I was watching. I was trying to watch practice or something and it was raining. So they played that special, that one hot night special. You watch that? I'm sure you've watched it, right? So that's the kind of racing I like. Right. So everybody talks about plates and side by side and siderafted and hitting each other and like,

oh, it was great. It was a big lot of cars. Well, everybody claims that was the most exciting race ever and all the cars were 10 car lengths apart. And what made it exciting is, is you didn't have the sides dragging on the ground. You didn't have a splitter in the front that was sealed up. The car wasn't like every gain you'd make, say, let's be honest, 90% of its arrow, right? So it's all arrow. And these are supposed to be spec cars, but it's all arrow, all your gains.

So these cars back then, they're trying to hang on to them. There's no side force because the sides are cut way up and not a lot of down force. And you catch somebody, and like your dad tried to block it then, and he got to his left ear. I don't even know if he hit him, but spun them out and he couldn't hang on to it. it and then he slid up and next guy passed him i mean that's what i wish we could get racing back to is the guy who can wrestle the car or the best the guy who can you know get close to somebody can actually get close to him and he'll get offline if you move him offline a little bit and you can get back to racing because this makes less of that this is going to be more of a plate race because

you can i guarantee with those huge spoilers and aside stuck in the ground you're running as somebody as hard as you want to and you're probably not going to be able to spin them out it's a different style of racing and like me that's the kind of race and i miss even when we started it with someone like that. You know, you caught, if you could, you could, if you're faster, you're going to catch a guy and you're going to pass them. You weren't going to run side by side, but you're going to pass them. So for me as a fan, and every fan is different.

I don't really care about side by side racing. I want to see the fastest car, catch the guy in front of him and be able to pass him. Absolutely. That's just my opinion. I hate the splitter. I hate splitter. I'm with you, man. Well, sides are all on the ground, too, as part of it.

They got big flat sides. I'm not smart enough to figure out how to get the cars off the ground again or, or, I know you could roll the doors and take the straight sides off the cars, take the flat sides off the cars and roll the doors under a little bit like they used to be back in the late 90s. But I know how to get rid of that splitter. I know that the splitter, you know, we can go on and on. But yeah, the splitter basically has everybody living and racing in the same spot as far as their cars and their arrow and everything. Yeah, right.

Arrow is. I'm not smart enough. And you can't un-learn things. So I don't know that you'd ever get back to that, obviously. but it'd be neat if somehow we could figure out how to get back to that kind of racing where you could catch somebody, you could move them offline, you could pass them, you know. Yes, you couldn't run side by side, but I don't know, I was a fan way before I was ever a driver. Me too.

And I could give a rat's tail whether they ran side by side for four laps or not. As long as that guy could catch the fast, you know, if it was faster and he could catch a guy in front of him and pass them and drive away, I was okay with that because that's racing. You know what I mean? That's what it's about. I always appreciated a good ass whoopin when a guy would just destroy the field. but I'm with you. It's very frustrating to watch a faster car run a guy down and get stuck there.

Orgy alongside him, I can't complete the pass. Speaking of which, I mean, you appreciate a good ass weapon. I mean, still the law of physics prevailed and, you know, the all-star of the season still won the all-star race. And he still, as many lead changes as there were, there weren't in the last 10 or 11 laps. That was Kevin. And so it still all sort of sorted itself out, even after all the gimmicks and tricks. Small sample size, though. The one thing that I wanted to ask you about is you said you watched a little bit of racing while you were out of the car first half the season.

My whole opinion about a lot of things in the sport turned like 180 degrees being out of the car versus driving. Like what I liked and wanted and thought was needed and thought was important. Like he missed practice. I mean, whoever saw that coming? Yeah. Just fundamentals about the sport. What helps the sport? What does it help the sport?

What's important for TV and fans and this and that and the other? a lot of things that I didn't like or liked as a driver I don't like being at while I'm out of the car watching on TV. A lot of things that I hated as a driver. Now that I'm out of the car watching it, I think I'm like. You know, have you seen any of those things or went through that yourself being out of the car watching as a fan? Not really. I can't say I watched a ton of racing until this deal came up. And then I'd, you know, watch closer, obviously, and tried to see what Trevor and Ricky were doing and kind of, you know, get a little bit more.

Stuff like stage racing and just things that have been implemented in the sport of rules and so forth. I don't love everything, but there's some things that I could care less about or didn't care for as a driver that now as a fan or someone watching the race I get and I appreciate. Yeah. Yeah. I don't feel much different as a fan than it is a driver. I guess to answer your question. I mean, I think that you want to see the sport governed as other professional sports are governed, and you'd like it to be consistent.

Real quick, I want to ask something, because I heard something earlier that just kind of piqued my interest, Matt. You talked about the Mount Washington bike deal and about how that. Mount Mitchell? He was being a lot of attention, wasn't he? You talked about that. They sound a little similar. I mean, you had the mountain part, right? I have the Mount part, right?

But you talked about how that final little bit there, you have that competitive drive. You know, and you come across as this laid back dude, right? But there's that competitive drive in all y'all, no matter what you exude. All you all and exude. You got that in one sentence. That's some Yankee English. All you all and exude. So last year, obviously, you didn't go out the way you wanted to go out.

This year you come back. You get to some. What's about bicycling now or racing? No, we're talking about race. Oh. And obviously, you want to go out on your terms. You know, Dale went out on his terms. You didn't get to go out on your terms at that time.

You get this opportunity now. How much did losing your deal the way it did now drive you this year on that competitive level? Kind of like that last, you know, a little bit of that bike race. How much does that drive you going to? You know, none, honestly. I mean, I think if it was, I mean, if I had like a, you know, being my bonnet about that and I was going to go show them, you know, I probably wouldn't, you know, except. But not out of spite, but more from. the personal level. It doesn't drive you?

You know what they call it in school when they're like in kindergarten and junior kindergarten and somebody interrupts this way? They call it volcano-mouthing them. And you just volcanoed me, Matt. I miss you so much. You just volcano me. Interviewing you is the most fun thing I've ever done. Now to finish my story, if it was like out of like, you know, not spite, but like, man, I'm going to show them, I can still do it. I'm going to go whip their tail every week and all that. I mean, you know, I'm not dumb enough to know that I'm going to go drive.

it and take it from 22nd to first. It's just not going to happen overnight. Now, I hope, I mean, that's a long-term goal is to get Rochevindman racing back to being a competitive team like it was at one time when you thought about going to the track. Who do you got to beat? You know, they're going to be one of the guys you've got to beat. But I know that's not going to happen overnight. It's probably not going to happen next month.

It's going to take some time, and I realize that. So that being said, you know, kind of being let go out of, or not just, I wasn't let go. I just wasn't resigned, and they put somebody else in that car. So not being resigned there and doing all that really didn't have anything to do with this because if I felt like that and I didn't feel like I was in the right frame of mind, this isn't something I would have done. It's not something I would have accepted if I was real, you know, hell-bent on showing them that they made a mistake and I was going to go beat them every week if that makes sense. All right. Let's do, did you see that real quick. How can you do it? Did you see that on a podcast? Well, you're about to find out.

You're about to find out. So, yeah, this is our did you see that second. segment of the show. Matt wants to know how you do that on a podcast. I'm going to find out. Yeah. Basically, did you see that, Matt, is something on, I don't know, it can be social media. It can be, I don't know, any kind of topic that struck you as odd or interesting or funny. And we have a pretty good one for this weekend. Our guest from several weeks ago, Kyle Bush, gave us another golden nugget, man.

As he does. He does not let you down. When he goes in the media center, it's Charlotte. It's Charlotte. It's Charlotte. It's Charlotte. Especially at Charlotte. He does not know how to go into a media center. It's Charlotte. and walk out without making himself a story there. So he runs second in the truck race to Johnny Sauter, and he had this to say. Kyle, you overcame some adversity on pit road to work your way back up.

Can you talk about how you made your way back through the field? Pure talent. That's about it. My pit crew did absolutely nothing to help me out tonight. My truck drove like shit, and these splitters are absolutely horrendous. You can't pass in traffic. You can't race alongside anybody. You can't get within five truck lengths of no one.

But somehow, some way, I was able to get back. to the front. Had a blast. Is that real? That's real. You didn't hear it? You didn't hear about this? I got to be totally honest. I don't want to really watch or listen or read anything.

Well, man, you're missing out. This is so funny. Especially when Matt goes, or when the Kyle goes. We could call him Matt. Sorry. When Kyle goes into the media center. They're so similar. One thing that I know Kyle is talking about is they've changed the splitters on the trucks.

They changed on the cut cars too right around Dover. And they went to a, it's apparently taking a lot of downforce or front grip away from from and made the cars flat splitter right yeah it made which was supposed to be a flat splitter all the time until let everybody make them not flat right yeah yeah right and so now i guess it's made the cars worse than traffic by a few people that i've talked to a couple of drivers that i've talked to have that opinion um so that's kind of one of things he was trying to hammer but man is it great when he does that i mean remember the one last year where he dropped the mic everything's great everything's great i'm not surprised

right um and then he tripped over something on the way yeah that was that was kind of funny yeah i love it man this vintage Kyle Busch right there was as soon as that happened we all started texting each other it was like if there was another consideration for something we're going to bring up they just took a back seat because that was our all of our favorite moment of the weekend yeah is when Kyle Busch said that and good for him yeah i mean i can blue i missed it i missed the race too yeah i did too i don't know what the heck i think me and amy had went You were probably changing diapers. How'd you get to dinner?

Me and Amy had date night. Again, you had a second date night. That was that night. Did you take the baby? Truck race. No. We went for two. It was prom night too because everybody was in there eating.

But me and Amy went to epic steakhouse in Mooresville and the truck race was going on. And then we got home and I just saw the very end. I know I wasn't really doing anything that night. Thanks for inviting Katie and I. Third wheel. It's our first night. And Amy's first date night since we've had the baby. I know, that would have been so nice to share that with us.

No. No. Matter of fact, though, it's funny, he says this, because me and him's been texting back and forth, probably for about three freaking months, about trying to get to go to dinner. Yeah, I keep giving the options. You're like, nah, I can't. You have not given me any option.

Yeah, you did. You're like, I can't that night. I've got to take a nap and I got to do dirty, dirty mold podcast with Kyle. You're not telling the truth, man. You haven't given me any dates. Yeah, I did. You're so vague. You're like,

eh, oh. And I texted back. Like, Katie said we could do it this night, but I can't do it that night. I'll have to talk to Katie. Tuesdays are good. I'm like,

well, just tell her what's Tuesday. My favorite was, though, Dale Jr. tells me that you're kidding. Oh, he's getting his phone now. Oh, boy. I'm going to show you something. Okay.

Is that like an old flip phone? No, he's got a real phone. No, I'm not my phone. Well, the last time I texted you, I was like, haven't been on Twitter lately. Have you had your baby yet? His font's still small.

Oh, so he hasn't gotten the old man eyes. No. right here when we're going to eat shoot when you want to Tuesdays and Thursdays are no good for me possibly Wednesday I'll see if Amy can get with Katie

and obligate me I don't know what that means and you to dinner can't wait to catch up soon that was on the 17th yeah then he texted me on the 23rd because his producers tell him you're gonna wheel the six

sounds cool I told you possibly Wednesday I'll get with Amy let you know and you never let me know so that's not vague I said Wednesday and you said I'll see if aiming and get with Katie well I try

then never heard back from you were vague So that was... Tuesday's good. Thursdays good. So that was April 17th. That was a month and four days ago. Okay, so three days out of any week. It was a month and four days ago.

Four days ago. No, I said Wednesday. Hey, get to the part of your text conversation where Dale Jr. asked you to come on the podcast. And you said, I don't talk to media anymore. No, that's not what it is. No, he said, you're going to wheel the six. Sounds cool.

And I said, got to be careful with you media folk. Oh. Then he sent back before I text you, I told my folks, I wouldn't be able to get it out of you anyway. So now you get to bust Dale's chops like you bust the rest of the BD's Japs. How fun is that going to be? Did he say something? Oh, man.

Poor Daryl. No, no. GarageCamp used to be always like that. It's a bad honor. Is it guys with the same first name? You know, I guess. I don't know. When I get mad at you, I call it Matthew.

What was your question? Are you competitive? I call you Matthew when you get on me. The question was, now you always bust our chops, the media members. And it's kind of a fun thing between all of us. Now he's a media member, man. You're going to bust his chops to you or what? No, I don't, you know.

Dale Jr.'s kind of sensitive. I can joke a little bit. He can't really bust his chops. He knows this is true. He's true. I like taking it. Hey, look at that. He's got a cycling tan line.

He did go ride a little bit this one. That's one of the rules. You've got to have a sharp, crisp tan line. That's pretty good one. Rule or sharp. Yeah, you're out there for a little bit. That's Matthew. I like it.

Matthew Kinsis, did you see that? Yeah. Your tan line. That's how this works. His arm, folks, his arm. Let's go to your white flag Oh, this would be quick Okay

Ready? Yeah, there's only one more lap then It's pretty quick It's a little slower the plate But not much A couple seconds Keep coming bud White flag right there

White flag right there, white flag The Dale Jr. Download will be live this Friday You ready for our live show Dale? Yeah Wait, this isn't live? No Well, it's live, it's happening right now

It actually is sort of live This is a little bit of a precursor Because we do have people watching this But we'll be outside on Friday the 25th, so if you guys want to come check it out, also Doorbumber Clear is going to be doing a live show. Moving on, pre-order your copy, Adel Jr.'s new book. Man, have you done this yet?

Racing to the finish. My story, Dale Jr. McGee. He's standing right there. Ryan McGee wrote it. He's writing it right now. He's writing it right now. He's writing it right now.

I think he suckered me into buying that first book. He's writing this part. What? I think he suckered me into buying that first book. How? I don't know. You're not going to do it. We talked about you. I was like, hey man, can I get a copy of that book?

He's like, yeah, sure, they're 1099. You can order them here. Get it on eBay. That's where you can go get it. Pre-order your copy at Dale Jr.com. Ford slash book, the DIY Network will premiere the show Renovation Reality. Dale Jr. and Amy on June 2nd at 9 p.m. Eastern. That's the first of a four-part series.

They'll air each Saturday after that. There's still time to win Dale Jr.'s ride. Go to win Del Jr.'sride.com and enter into that contest, and that's it. I got a question. What is it? Where's this? Skate Patch. In this room?

Yeah. You're about to be sent to it. Matt, thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me. We appreciate it. I'm, you know, that must have felt incredibly good to have all your peers so excited for you coming back. That was one of the things that stuck out to me when you came back to get back behind the wheel of the race car these last couple weeks is how many of the drivers in the field spoke up about how excited they were to have. have you in the field and have you around because you're such fun got to be around and it is going

to be exciting to see how you can help this company and help this team over the next several weeks and end of the rest of the season good luck with that and i will see you at the racetrack because we're going to start broadcasting here at chicago in july so he ain't going to see him there i know but not that one not detona after that either no he'll see me down the road i will see you down the I hope. Something goes terribly wrong on the road. All right, bud. Thanks.

Thanks for having me out. Check out Dirtymo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.