The Dale Jr. Download - 226 - Pickles, Smokes n' Sandpaper

Episode Date: July 24, 2018

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the DJD guys download after a New Hampshire trip about Kevin Harvick’s attitude, the three-man booth, Rick Allen's sleepless night, the Dick Trickle ‘T’ and why Dale brings his own pickles to work. Plus, special #AskJr questions from racers and fans. 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. It's time to chill out. Take a seat on the couch. It's time for the Dale Jr. Download. All right, let's do this. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. New Dell Jr. download. Co-host, Mike Davis.

Our producer, Matthew Dillner, is back. We're all back from New Hampshire. Mike didn't go. Some of y'all are back. We missed you, Mike. Hey, I missed y'all, too. It's early on a Monday morning. and you guys are chipper.

I am a little surprised by this. First of all, I didn't expect to see you. Can't come in here not ready to do this. Is that right? Yeah, you got to. Tell me more. We've been jumping around outside, running circles in the parking lot. Dillner, is that what you've been doing?

Yeah, man, I'm breaking a sweat, actually, right now. I need a towel. I don't want to lull in action. No, no, okay. As we go through the season, we can't have no boring downloads. All right. We've got to be up on the downloads. So you guys are up.

It's good to see it because there was a point yesterday that I did not think I would be seeing you guys. on a Monday. I know. We barely got the race in yesterday, and the reason why I said, so they needed to be, and this is a rough estimate, but this is pretty close. They needed to be drying the track around 3.30 and racing by 5.

If they weren't green flag at 5, there was no way they could guarantee the full length of the race, and they would have to postpone it to the next day. Visually, you know, up in the booth, so when you're standing up in the booth, this is something you don't recognize and realize when you're down in the garage or in the bus lot as a driver or a crew chief.

standing up in the booth you kind of have this you know you have this height and you can see across the tops of these trees and you can really see you know how bad the weather is and it didn't look good and it was hazy and there was a lot of mist and so you couldn't see very far outside

of the racetrack it was just you know so foggy and the ceiling was so low I didn't think that NASCAR you know why we're right next to the NASCAR booth so I'm watching Helton and them guys walking around in there and looking at their expressions and trying to gauge on how they feel oh because Mike

Kelton has a bunch of different expressions, right? Well, was it this? Or was it this? If they, you know, if they're not even in there, that's typically means that they don't have confidence they're getting ready to start the race. They're not up at the booth to do the job. So one thing I noticed, the first thing I noticed was they removed the steps from the front and straightaway to get into the grandstands to get access to the racetrack through

the grandstands, and then they started bolting the fence together where the step, the hole in the fence was for the steps, right? So I'm thinking, hmm, well, you know, that must be, you know, a positive sign. Dale was calling that, by the way, like a broadcaster, getting us all excited. They have been bolting the fence in as they go into the front straightaway. They had the jet air dryers on the track, the old school Titan-style dryers. They turned them down pit road. That was a great sign.

Hey, we're going to try to draw off pit road. Got to draw up. We're feeling pretty good about the track. They had the jet dryers out there, and they, they turned them. They started drying the track. I mean, in 30 minutes, it was like, hey, we went from now this ain't happening to we're going to do this. So I was glad not only because I got a family in town this week and they were here Sunday, so I was going to miss a day with them. And the other reason why is because we saw a hell of a race.

Yeah. And who knows if we'd got rain delayed, you go to a Monday, everybody's attitudes and, you know, everybody's feeling about the race. Maybe the energy's not there. I don't know if we see the same kind of event. Who knows? Our Monday races is exciting. I mean, there's just, you know, we don't have the crowd typically, and you don't have the viewers typically tuning in.

So Monday races have a little bit of a dull feeling to them. So it was great. We had battles all day long. Didn't really have a clear dominant car. Didn't have a real understanding. We had comers and goers. We thought in practice that Harvick was the dominant car, and then when the race started, he was not really showing.

that and Turex is out there leading then Chase Elliott drives up there. Welcome to 2018 season. Chase. Chase Elliott goes up there and wins the stage. It was awesome. I love seeing the Chevy Chevy's up there contending. It was one Chevy contending. And my, yeah.

When I looked at the lineup, Chase. That's all a bow tie. Chase and then the next Chevrolet was in like 13th. There were five in a row. 13th to 19. Let's give, I mean, we've got to call it straight. So I want them to get up there and run. I grew up in a Chevy family, and they will.

It'll get, you know, it'll get right eventually, but they got a lot of work to do as a whole manufacturer to improve the Camaro, and it'll happen. But Chase, man, to struggle the way the manufacturer has, God dang, did he run good. Yeah. You know what I mean? Solid top five.

That really was a really impressive, you know, a little bit of a race for him. He kind of lost a little bit of his speed as the race went on, but that's the thing about that track. It changes so much. We talked about that all day long. Even without the PJ1, the spray on the track, that place changes so much with how the rubber goes down.

And who's good at the first of the race? Maybe not be, maybe isn't that good at the end of the race. We saw Blaney flying as soon as we dropped the green flag. Blaney's car looked the best out of anybody's. And then later in the race, maybe not quite as good as the rubber came down or the PJ1 wore off in some areas and took his advantage or his groove away. from him. So it was really interesting. We got to see some aggressive driving at the end, which I love to see. Any chance we can get some guys out there swapping a little paint without really putting each other

in the fence. You don't like to see anybody get turned around. Sometimes that's going to happen, though, when guys are aggressive, but we didn't see that. That was good. We got to see guys just kind of pushing and shoving a little bit. I think that that's definitely what the sport needs. That's always been part of the sport. That's always what's been exciting to the fans is when guys get in that. and put a couple donuts on their cars. And you love, I mean, when I was a kid, I would get down on the, on pit road or in the garage, and I like to look at the battle scars. You know what I mean?

That tells the tail. And that place produces that because they're, you know, side by side. They're off the throttle, you know, more than some of the racetracks we go to and pedaling it because, you know, the flat corners there and stuff. And they're not planted into the corner like a mile and a half, you know, on edge. That's what you get with a short track. Oh, don't. I love Steve LaCard, but I'm on your team on that one.

This podcast is over. We're going to cut it short today. We ain't going to talk about that. All I'll say is, I know the poll is a little skewed because it comes from my account, but it was 58% that it is not a short track. 59% I'll put in that vote right now. It has the tendencies, yet the corners are. It is a smaller track.

Right. We don't need to get into that debate. Let me ask you this, though. Did you see it coming when you? Before Harvick put the bumper to Kyle Busch, if you had to bet what would have happened, what were you thinking was going to happen with Harvick? Would he have made that pass clean? Would he have done exactly what he did, or do you think it was going to get nasty?

You know, I thought that Harvick would do whatever he needed to do. He wasn't going to let, if he could get to Kyle, he wasn't going to let Kyle win the race. He was going to win the race, you know. And Harvick is rough like sandpaper, you know, on the racetrack. and, you know, he's going to do, he's going to be aggressive. He doesn't mind being aggressive. He doesn't mind being aggressive off the racetrack. He's one of those guys that when the playoffs start, he's going to be aggressive on the track,

and he's also going to be aggressive in the media and sort of play some of these guys' heads. And he's not afraid to tell him that he's dominant and he's the best car and they're the best team. And he's not worried about Truex. He's not worried about Kyle Bush. He ain't worried about none of them guys. Even when they go out there and they win the race, I ain't worried about that. them. Yeah.

So he's brash and I think he gets older. He's more confident to be brash. He's more, he's expressing that even more comfortably. And so that didn't, I didn't see anything that surprised me. I saw shit that excited me. And it was fun to see. I expected, though, that with how sensitive these cars are to air, that as soon as as Harvick got within a few inches, that it would be enough to upset.

Kyle's car and get him over that last final seam and out of the PJ1 in the third groove. And once that right rear tire slips off that, you have to jump by the gas and correct. And Harvick goes by on the inside. I thought that that would happen without Harvick making contact. You did a nice job of explaining that, by the way, when it happened. Yeah, you did. About that, you know, PJ1, and you know, I am a big fan of talking about PJ1, right? I mean, so, but that being said, when that tire,

is outside that groove. You mentioned it. You noticed it when it happened. I thought you did a good job with that. I also thought Burton did a good job. I loved his line when it happened. He said, get away from him as fast as you can as all I can tell you.

Yeah. Well, he had a big old lead as soon as I mean, as soon as they come off too, it took a while. Once you get into the outside groove where nobody's been running, it's full of marbles and dirt and debris and that's going to cake on them hot tires. As soon as the hot tires run across that,

it just cakes all over them. Oh, you're done? for a while? For at least a corner or two before that comes away before you use to work that off the tire. By time they got into turn three, I think Kyle was 50 car links back.

So something like that. Harvick clearly had the faster car that late in the race. Yeah, and Kyle said so. Their post-race interviews showed so much respect for each other. They respect each other's talent. And Kyle knows that he's going to have to handle, deal with Harvick the rest of the way.

all the way in Homestead. And they both probably know they're going to be competing against each other down at Homestead. Now Kyle knows he can do that back to him, too. Oh, yeah. Not that he booger. I don't know that he needed that to know that he could do that back to him. But that being said, you're right.

I mean, that was a point emphasized very clearly by all those guys. What about what Burton said? What do you say? About, you know. He said so many things yesterday. But he said about the bumper and row. He said, get away. He said away from him if you can.

Yeah. Well, I just said that. Yeah. You're not listening to us, are you? You're not. He isn't. He's thinking about modifies and... I'm dreaming of...

He's mad at us. He's dream bars and bumpers and open wheels. He's like, oh, my. While we're talking, he's thinking... Modifides are floating around in his thought cloud. He's thinking those jerks still didn't see my link that I put in our notes last week. I was mad about that.

He was. Did you notice that? What are we talking about now? When I didn't know this. When I sent you a link last week, to watch something for Did You See that? And y'all didn't watch it. You too, Davis.

I was pissed after the show. Why? Because I was pissed. Because if you said me something, I'm going to watch it. I know, but we're kind of busy. He puts in our notes, in our little notes, he says, in all caps, when I put links in, watch it. Is this in the note note? The notes, notes for this week.

What did you should probably just text it? The dirty moflo. He did. He did it to me. He did to me. No, no, no. No, he didn't. Well, because one of the week, y'all,

cut this out because this is all really pointless conversation. Anyways, all right. Not pointless to your feelings, but to the podcast this matters. Well, thanks for caring for my feelings. The podcast this matters. We care about your feelings, not so much to look at the links, but keep sending up to us. We're interested. Anyway, where were we?

Okay, a couple things, though. A couple things, because I'll get us back on track here. So the finish of the race was exciting. You did crack me up a couple times during the broadcast. One, I love your promo reads. I loved even more. I loved even more when you were like, that wasn't my best read. Live on the broadcast.

That was beautiful. And I think, by the way, that really kind of reinforced the feeling that NBC Sports was probably trying to invoke by doing this little testing, this three-man booth this way. But I thought that was kind of cool. You know, this was an idea by our bosses, Sam Flood and folks at NBC to us. put Rick down on pit road so he could experience being a pit reporter. That's going to help him so much in the booth going forward to know that job better

and understand the challenges that those guys face all race long or really all weekend long. He had to understand how hard they work. And those guys, the pit reporters do the most research. They're the ones really doing the most legwork to get information about the drivers and the crewchees. The guys in the booth, we need to go down in the garage and show our face. and talk to people and communicate, but we don't need to dig real deep to get information because that takes away from the opportunity of the pit reporters to do their job.

We can't go up in the holler and then the pit reporter come in there five minutes later. Oh, right, right. You know what I'm saying? Right. Like it's the crew chief job to talk to everybody in NBC sports. That's annoying. So we kind of, there's a bit of a, you know, understanding that, you know, I could text drivers and stuff and ask, you know, questions about to track or whatever,

but, you know, I don't need to be in there getting all that information that pit porters. need and taking the time, really it's more about the time that the drivers are going to allow you to have and the pit, and the crew chiefs are going to allow you to have. They don't want, they don't even talk to everybody on NBC's team. Right. It's, it's, the pit reporters are in the garage working hard. So anyhow, this is great for Rick to see and feel and understand and now going forward that could help him in the booth.

Rick goes down there and he gets to do pit reporter stuff. That's great for him. He had fun. He was scared of death. So I thought that was really interesting. to Rick after the race and he's like man I was I couldn't sleep all weekend I didn't sleep well I was really really nervous and I don't even remember the first few things I had to do what I said when they were over with and I can relate to that but what's interesting is because Rick's been doing this job for so

long yeah that he has those real genuine emotions even today it says a lot about how much he loves the job and how good of a guy he is he could have went in there and went yeah yeah I I got this, whatever, you know. He could have been mad. I'm not in a booth. What is going on, all that. But he was nervous? Like the first day on the job, nervous.

You know what I'm saying? Of course he was. And he hustled. And he worked hard. It's not his discipline. It's not his craft. His craft is completely different. But he's been around it so much.

So I just found that really endearing that he had those emotions and he was so nervous he couldn't sleep. So we try this booth out with me and. me and LaTard and Jeff Burton, well now somebody's got to read these billboards, which is basically the tags that we come in from commercial with, and somebody's got to send us to commercial, and somebody's got to tee up the anthem, and somebody's got to tee up the in-car camera,

you know, all those things that Rick does, that we take for granted when we're standing in the booth with Rick, that he does so effortlessly. Now we've got to do them, and I've read a million prompters. I've done a ton of productions. all my life. We always used to talk and joke about being a one-take wonder and how it was pretty easy and effortless to go in there and do it.

But when you're doing live TV, it's a whole new ballgame, man. You can't get rid of that knot in your stomach of just being nervous because you're on live TV. You can't forget, you can't get it out of your head that all these people are watching. If you screw this up, you never forget that the camera is there. You never forget that you're covering a live event. And so when somebody hands your card goes, All right, Jr. You're going to bring us in from break.

You're going to talk about the NASCAR Monster Cup Energy Series or whatever. You know, you're going to give some monster love here. And our producer's awesome. His name's Marv. And what is that like? Is that literally what he's saying in your ear? Yeah. So how soon before you're actually delivering the read is he saying stuff like this?

Probably about a minute. And he'll count it down. We've got a minute. Come back. We've got a minute. 30 seconds. 10, 9, 8, 7. And you're standing there getting ready to read this car.

Are you like... Go down! You're like this? Okay. Watch the Rock's movie skyscraper. Yeah. Hanging off the side of a building, hole fire.

So the reason why I read those... The reason why I was reading the promos that way is because you're trying to put some inflection into it. But at the same time, they need to... If you could see us in the booth more, you would realize like how much fun we're having up there. I think saying that we're, I think using the term goofing off is, it would be incorrect,

but it's loose, and it's fun. It's super loose. Matthew saw it for the first time. I've never seen it. I've never seen a booth or a studio environment so loose. It's kind of fun. It comes across.

Trust me. It comes across. And visually, we're up in there, slapping each other. Oh man, look at this. Look at this. Pointing all over the place.

Look at it. You got, y'all are doing. and you drivers have got your imaginary steering wheel in your hands. It's awesome. And it's so much fun. And it keeps the experience fun. And so the race is enjoyable to do. And when you're handed this read and this card, you can't go into, you know, polish mode.

You're just going to keep, you're going to keep the energy in the room and inflict that into the card. And so you read it and you're going to screw up and you're going to laugh. And they told us before the show, they said, hey, if you screw it up, play on it. laugh about it. Bust each other's balls. That's Marv's catchphrase. Bust this balls. Bust each other's balls about this.

Ball busting in five, four, three, two, one. Bust balls right here. One of the favorite things that Marv does is when the cars are, so we're talking on TV, but the cars are getting ready to have a restart. They're cruising down the back straightaway, double file. We're talking about the, okay, you know, we've got Torexing outside here.

This is where he restarted the last time. You know, this has been a pretty good lane to restart in. Can the inside line do anything? We got somebody new up on the inside. What's he going to do? You got such and such in row two. And we're doing all this, right? We're just talking to feel the time before they get to the DICO restart zone.

And so as we're talking, Marv's in our ear at the same time going, all right, guys, we got our restart. Come on, get this. Fire it up. Get the energy up. Restart. You know, and he's just doing all this in your ear. That's not distracting at all.

It is so funny. and Marv's energy, he's in a booth with about 15 or 30 other people in this truck. Or in a truck. In a truck, right, right. In a trailer. And so he's in there hammering that out in our ear with all those people and trying to keep the energy up in his trailer. But he's also, you know, pushing us and getting us fired up. Because it's like a kick in the butt when he does that.

Yeah. He's like, come on, boy, let's go. It's a restart. Because restarts are our real prime. prime for the picking when it comes to content, excitement, passing, battling, something is going to happen on every single restart, right? And we cannot miss that opportunity to talk about it, right? So he's barred, man, he gets animated and it's so cool that your producers like that.

He's as excited as you are about what's getting ready to happen. And he's like, come on boys, you guys got to kick ass on this restart. Get up on the wheel. I heard him actually, the final 10 laps of Chicago. your first race. And I went into the TV compound, and I could actually hear for the first time that day, Marv in his element.

And he was a total fan in those last 10 laps in Chicago, which course, how could you not be, right? You had Larson and you had Cowbush. But literally, he was screaming in the radio, and I didn't know if you guys could hear him or not. It sounds like you can, actually. Yeah, we hear. But then after the race, he's like, you know,

he got that interview where Rutt was going up to talk to him at the start-finish line, and he's like, look at it. Oh, guys, get the tears. He's crying. He's crying. Get his tears. Get his tears. Oh, my God.

That's great. That's great. It's like, yeah. It was so intoxicating his energy, right? I didn't know he was doing that to you on every restart and stuff, but it sounds like it is. Yeah. And now we know when you're so excited, maybe you got a little coaching, right? So a couple things to wrap up on the booth.

The T-shirts were fun. Yeah. All right. I don't want to do that every week as much as I like it and talked about it being fun. Sport Cona T-shirt. be the bomb? No. No.

No, no, no. I spent so much money on ties and sport coats this spring. I was there. Oh, my God. We're wearing the freaking sports and ties. You don't understand the level of anxiety he takes when it comes to the suits. I bought like 12 shirts, 15 ties, about 10 sports coats because, you know, I was afraid that if I wore the same one too many times, that was going to be something everybody picked on.

So I got a variety, and I was going off of Steve LaTart's advice. on how much to get, and boy, we send it all to NBC. So it travels with the network to races. Our wardrobe does. And they put the wardrobe together and put it in the booth. So I just put on my pants in an undershirt and walk up to the booth. And then I put on my shirt and tie. How nice is that, by the way?

I mean, who doesn't need that in their life? Just to be able to show up and work. Your wife doesn't do that to you where you've got your closet in the morning when you're coming to work? Well, let's be realistic. If it's raining or whatever, even if it ain't raining, you put that stuff on down. in the bus and by time you get up to the booth, it's screw it. No, no, no, it's a good thing. I got it.

They're not going to, they won't let you have it any other way. They don't want you. Right, right, right. Don't go messing up our TV show with your rags and your wet coat. And the other thing, too, is the wardrobe people lay it out to where, hey, these three guys are going to be in the booth. We've got to have them wearing something that's not like contrasting. Oh, yeah, or the same, right? Right, or the same.

Sure, we're in the same time. You got two guys in pink shirts? Hey, you got that at Target. I got that at Target. It was on sale. Yeah. Yeah. So we're definitely, I mean, the T-shirts were fun, but I don't know.

Your T-shirt. Your T-shirt was the bomb, though. Thanks. I'm a little bit torn between not professional and enough. Well, let's just say what it is. This is a podcast. You ended up going with a Dick T-Trickle racing t-shirt that I got from the lady that was on the podcast last week. That was one of the shirts you left here with.

But I got to say the cool factor. They were wearing new Vindexam. I know. See, that was the other thing, too. And you were rocking a real wanted shirt. Well, that's what I thought we were going to do. And to Jeff Burton's defense, he had a ward Burton's shirt, but it was a conflicting partner to one he currently has for himself and his son, Burton, Harrison. And so, Jeff was going to go old school vintage, but they had to abort at the last minute. But yeah, I was hoping that they were, had already, like Steve didn't have a shirt till Friday. and they had to find him that one. So I mean, if we're going to do this, you've got to get in a little more effort. Yeah, got to get into it. Yeah.

Like, Steve, those guys. I know you have a million shirts. What went into choosing a trickle one, though? I want to know that. I went, yes, so I went through all the shirts I had and wanted to do, I wanted one that would get, that people would be like, dang, all right. Yeah. That's what's up.

And I think we, you know, everybody misses Dick Trickle. Yeah. Which he was still around. The stories he could tell. He was so nice. I knew Dick Trickle pretty well. When he drove for Kale Yarborough Racing, their crew chief, Doug Williams,

his son, me and Scott, were great friends. And so I was up in that hauler all the time. Dick Trickle would walk up in the hauler with his briefcase. He had an old square box briefcase, and he'd open it up and have cigarettes and Reesey cups in it. As most people have when they're carrying a briefcase. And the only reason didn't have coffee, and it was because... It was in this other hand.

When you were a little kid hanging around the sport back then, these were rough-ass men. Oh, yeah, man. They didn't give it damn whose kid you were. If you's in the way, they was going to tell you to get to hell out of the way and go be where you're supposed to be. And we were trying to get underneath everybody's feet as much as we could to try to be in the middle of everything happening. You know, we wanted to be near the cars and the haulers and everywhere, right? We're always in the way. and Dick Trickle never once said anything about us being in the lounge,

which was his lounge or his hauler. He'd sit down and have a conversation with you, and he didn't know me from Adam. Wow. And this is a legend, you know. He was a legend before he got to Cup. Of course. You know, I know everybody knows that.

But think about it, like here he is coming in the cup, and everybody's like, wow, Dick Trekkles is good. You know, here's Dick Trekkles. He's, oh, and he's a good guy. good car, man. You know, he was in Bobby's car. You would expect, like you said about him, you know, blowing, you know, being like, I got out here, kid, or scramm. But, like, he was like that as a competitor, too, because, like, he, he was famous in the short track scene for if some kid came up to him was like, man, I'm struggling. And he'd tell him, I'm running this spring on the right rear. I'm running

this. Unbelievable. Wow. That's cool. So that's why I wore it out of the ones I had. I thought that was a good one. Which, by the way, you won the poll. Of? Who has the best booth? shirt. 68% said the Dick Trickle shirt over the awesome bill shirt and poor Jeff. Didn't get many votes. Can I just say that one of the greatest, I know that Dick Trickle did not invent this, wasn't the only one that did it, but there's that video of him smoking a cigarette in the race car that just screams badass and just don't care and just don't care or whatever.

And again, I know that probably was not too uncommon back in the days. But man, that's just every, all the drivers. smoked in the 60s, and even in the 70s, you could see pictures or B-roll of the drivers sitting in their cars before the race at Darlington, for example, the Southern 500 or whatever, and they're sitting in their cars, getting ready to put their helmets on, they're going to a cigarette in their mouth, and you know, David Pearson, all those guys sitting there hammering smokes before they get in the race car. But I think around Dick, when Dick was racing, he was the only one that had a lighter in the car. That was such a funny thing for everyone that

He, he, where there's a red flag, you would see smoke coming out of his. Red flag, nothing. I think he did it under caution. Yeah, he would, but it was funny. I remember,

I don't know what race it was. I remember watching it, and I was working in the deal, and you saw them on the backstretch, and you saw smoke coming out of Trickles' car. It's awesome. Is that a tire up? Nope, he's just smoking.

The booth, that was fun. That was fun doing it that way. I think for, I don't know if we'll see it again this year. We might. Throwback? Well, there's going to be so much other things going on with Darlington because of the throwback. I doubt we'll see it there. I think we'll need Rick for that race.

But they may do it at another event, but I don't think we should do it at any of the big high-profile races. It's too important to have Rick there, to have that professionalism and that little bit of polish that we need from Rick. You could tell in that broadcast we did yesterday, yes, it was fun. It was by the see-the-pants. but also I think magnified the importance of Rick. A play-by-play guy. He's the glue. He's the glue that keeps us from getting too loose.

Yeah. And two out of control up there. And we don't need Rick running around. Like that video clip, we all had fun with it of him running. But I'm like, the guy's got a bad back. He's one of the best in the booth that there is. And that guy was running on pit road, man. He could have just, you know, like you said, he could have mailed it in.

He did. Give you an idea of where the camaraderie. and the attitude is with the booth 930 this morning. Get a text from the tart. Man, boys, we've had some kick-ass races and we've had some kick-ass shows. And Rick and Burton and all the guys respond. So that's one thing that I love about our booth, our job, is that these guys are invested.

They love it. They're having fun. I know you can tell, but it's genuine. It's real. And when it's over, we're all high-fiving and back-slapping all the way through. the whole week. Like, we'll, these text messages will keep coming. Like, everybody, get up Monday morning.

Hell yeah! Texting back and forth. Yeah, about 48 hours ago by. Man, that was good. I got to say it again. Man, I had fun. I can't wait to Pocono. And so, there's so much good continuity and friendship, and we really enjoy working

together. It's really intoxicating. It rubs off on everything around you. And I know I've said this a lot, and I say, sound like a broken record, but the fact is that I don't ever remember you looking forward to races. I mean, you're already probably looking forward to Pocono, right? I mean, because of the fun that you're having in the booth.

So that's fun. It's funny you say that. So we went to, I did a nationwide pre-race appearance at the nationwide booth, the HMS tent, really, but I haven't done a nationwide appearance before a race all year. I haven't been at the track. And while I've been at the track, I hadn't been one of my responsibilities, but we still have relationship with nationwide so they wanted us to come over to the tent and talk to all their partners that they had there like we would do as a driver every week so i go in there and i'm talking

to them and i spent about 20 minutes 25 30 minutes in there talking to them and right at the end this guy has answered a couple questions and this guy raises his hand he goes i only i ain't never seen you happier than you are right now and uh what you know can you explain that or open up on that and uh i said you No, it's, as a driver, you can never lose that edge. You can't get, you can't, you can never get rid of that chip on your shoulder, whether it's against, whatever that chip's there for, whether it's against the competition, whether it's against a bad or finish from the week before. That was always like 50% of your, it affected your personality so much, and it went everywhere you went.

Wow. Yeah, think about like, who's the kid in Charlie Brown with the cloud. I mean, that was. Pick then. Really? That's how you would equate that. Pig Pan was had the cloud or pig pen was the dustball? Pigpen was a dustball.

There was a guy with the cloud? I thought there was a guy with a cloud. Or was it just, I don't know, whatever. I probably got that way wrong. You probably. I just love Snoopy, so I'm out. Anyhow. So you walked around with that all the time and you can't get rid of it.

Charlie Brown is the one that always had the bad things happen. Charlie Brown was the actual one. I thought one had a rain cloud following him. Maybe I think of a different show. That's Kurt Bush. He's always got that dark cloud. Oh, geez. What did you got a third?

I'm sorry. Anyways, I get your point. Well, that's interesting. And I was like, I told him, I said, I look at the drivers today and I see it in them. Oh, yeah. I look at them and I look at them and I look at, man, they're so competitive and they're so nose against the grindstone. They're just focused, focus, focus on just one thing. And that's driving and racing and getting better and fixing the problem that they had last week or doing better than they did last week or fixing, you know, fixing where they are on the points or getting a bigger lead or whatever.

It's like that can escape it. And once you do, you know, once you finally can get, you know, retire, whatever it is happens that gets you free of that, you finally get out and under it. I mean, it's not, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's just the way life is. If you're going to drive race cars, you've got to be in there 100%. You've got to mentally be in there 100%. It makes me want to revisit, in my mind, Jeff Gordon, who probably observed the same thing when he retired and went off to his TV gig and was feeling good. We always thought it was, you know, hey, mighty good friend to come back out of retirement.

especially as his offseason just started to help fill in for your role. But man, all these things that I'm hearing you say makes me even appreciate what Jeff did even more. To come back and drive some more. To come back and drive all those races, yeah. I miss driving, you know, and I didn't really feel that way when we started the season, even when, you know, Dayton and so forth, I was happy to be out of the car, happy to not be driving. But the more, the longer the season goes and just getting in there and watching and being around it and seeing the guys race and have fun.

I know they're having fun, even though they're, you know, and just gouging and grinding for every little piece of grip and asphalt they can get. I know that they're enjoying it deep, deep down inside. They're getting what they want out of it, and that enjoyment of competing. There's moments in the race where I'm like, man, I wish I could, yeah,

I miss that. Sure. Miss that right there. And so I miss it, but, you know, that I don't miss how focused. I don't miss how much you have to, put into it. You know,

it is a lot. And it makes me admire my competitive. The guys I used to compete against, I have even more admiration for them now than I did when I raced with them. Now, now as I'm removed from it, I'm like,

holy crap, it is not a rosy life. You know, to walk around with that chip on your shoulder or that monkey on your back all week long from race to race to race to race. There's such, so much pressure these guys are under.

And for them to go out there, and put on that damn show, that gave us some damn good shows the last several weeks. You got three out of the four were really good races. All of the Xfinity race has been great. We had a little bit of a dud in Kentucky

with the cup race, but the finish was the dud. The rest of the race was pretty decent. We appreciate the whooping. When you're racing, when you're a driver, you're under so much pressure to perform. You're under so much pressure to win, to run well, no matter what team you're with,

there's expectations to do X, Y, Z, and you put a lot of that responsibility on your back because, you know, in your mind and in the team's mind, they gave you the equipment, the car, the tools, and so really if it goes awry, you know, you put a lot of that responsibility on yourself. So I'm free of that, you know, and that makes me admire the drivers more as I realize

just how freaking much that affected me and how much it affects them day to day. And so it's not, Fun traveling like they travel. Oh, yeah, I'm only doing half a year. I'm only four, going on four races in. These guys have been going for weeks and weeks and weeks since February. You've got to respect that.

That's cool. I think we'll do the booth again, that race team booth, but maybe it just doesn't need to be one of the high-profile races. Yeah. It's fun to do it when the race is kind of, when it fits the race environment and that style of race. When the race is kind of loose and fun, then we can do that kind of booth.

but I think for some of the big ticket events, especially the playoffs, we need to be all we can be with Rick up there. 100%. I agree with you. Well, you had a chance to do some promos and reads for the broadcast. I'm shocked to say this, but we actually have a return of our friends at ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter. We did a great job of butchering that one last time.

We never got any feedback. Like specific feedback. Fans thought it was hilarious. Fans, but what did it? I'm from ZipRecru? Yeah, what did ZipRecruiter say? You know what? They didn't give a specific feedback.

Do they know their back? Do they know that we gave them a five-minute read of ZipRecruiter? What if I told you they did give feedback? I want to hear it. Yeah. They could have, I think they would have preferred to have their name of their company pronounced right. Yeah. As people do.

Well, we're going to give it our best shot this time. Yeah, you don't want to be known as Mike DeVees. Although, I've been caught away worse, although. You're right. Thank you. That was pretty good. So, yes, ZipRecruiter, we are thrilled that they are back in giving us a second chance. And equally surprised.

That's right. So, all right, here we go. Drum roll, please. Three. Two, come to promo. Buster balls. Buster balls. Ball busts.

Ball bust. Ball bust. Ballbus. Power. Energy. Restar. I know. It's funny how in the type here, y'all have type, y'all have ZipRecruiter.

And C-R-O-O-T is like capitalized. I have. I have literally made its own word. Cruder. Cruder is its own word, capital C, all caps C-R-O-T-E-R. So we get this one right. I'm still not sure. No, it's not.

And I know, I get that. So zip recruiter is an online sort of... Oh, here we go. Let the bit drink begin in three, two, one. Zip recorder is where you... Zip recorder. Yeah, we're recording this still. Zip recorder?

Did you play a recorder again? What dimension of hell are we in right now trying to get through a zip recruiter read? This is hard. We need to get people in here to try to do this. Like Bing.com or something, something easy. We need to get people in here to do this if they come back to show that it's not just us. I mean, this is a tough thing to do. Is it?

ZipRecruiter is a online catalog of qualified candidates for any type of job you're looking for. If you need hiring simple and fast and smart, and you've got a growing business, is a great way to connect to qualified candidates. So far, so good. You went a little off script. I got a little nervous there, but let's keep going because you haven't actually hit the name of the website yet. Well, the website is ziprecruiter.com slash Dale Jr. Go to, you know, add that slash Dale Jr. on that.

It's important, man. Don't be. Slash somebody else. Yeah. Here we go. Second paragraph. ZipRecruiter sends your jobs to over 100 of the web's leading job boards. They don't stop there.

With powerful matching technology, they scan thousands of resumes to find people with the right experience and invites them to imply to your job. As applications come in, ZipRecruiter. The recruiter analyzes each one and spotlights the top candidate so you never miss a great match. It's so effective that 80% of employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a qualified candidate within the first day. That's impressive. With results like that, it's no wonder that ZipRecruiter is the highest rated hiring site in America. ZipRecruiter!

And the highest rated commercial we've ever had. We did hear somebody do a ZipRecruiter ad and we literally laughed. As a comedian, I forget his name. Somebody sent it to me. Oh, really? Yeah. On Twitter. Oh, you didn't send it to us in the notes.

Someone else, a comedian, I think, has a podcast, has ZipRecruiter as a sponsor, and he, every time he says ZipRecruiter, he goes, well, do it. As right now, you know, my listeners can try, Zip, Recruiter for free at this exclusive web address. ZipRecuritup.com slash Dale Jr. That's zipracurter. Dot com slash. Dale Jr. D-A-L-E-J-R. Again, for those who still refuse to listen to this,

it's Zip. Recuritup.com slash Dale Jr. And if you hit that little 15-second forward thing on that, you're crazy. We're going to get accused of plagiarism. We do that anymore because that was pretty funny. Oh, we just helped that comedian out. If that's what we're on being some exposure, he might argue.

He might help him very much. Right. But anyhow, ZipRecruiter. We're glad you're back. Thank you. Yep. We did not do very well the first time. I think we got a little bit better this time, so chances are you're coming back.

I'll continue to support the podcast. This is the start of a beautiful thing. So we're still within the family of their matching technology. We're still in the deal. This week, let's take it a week by week. We're good. ZipRecruiter. Good job.

Let's throw it to an Exaltor Race Center update. This is your Exaltor Race Center update on Matthew Dillner. Wednesday night, NASCAR's truck series got into a dust-up at Eldora Speedway for the annual Dirt Derby. In a finish for the ages, Grant N-Finger and Chase Briscoe leaned on each other the entire last lap and crossed the line in a photo finish with Chase Briscoe taking the big win. A dirt track ace was the driver who pulled the checkered flag out of the hat when the Xfinity series hit the track at the Magic Mile. Christopher Bell grabbed the top spot at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, his second win in a row. Junior Motorsports top dog was the number seven

of Justin Algeyer, who started seventh and finished seven. The headliner during New England NASCAR weekend was the Cup series. After defeating Mother Nature, Kevin Harvick pushed his way by Kyle Bush to take his series leading sixth the race of the season. This weekend, the Xfinity Series revisits Iowa Speedway on Saturday, while the trucks and cup

duel at the tricky triangle, Pennsylvania's Pocono Raceway. The Junior Motorsports late models had a week off, but they're back in action on July 28th at North Carolina's Hickory Motor Speedway with drivers Jagger Jones and Sam Mayer. 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 Exalta, please visit exaltacS.com. I didn't think anything could top ziprecuter. No, zip recorder. I'll see your zip recorder and raise you a zip recorder. What's this NASCAR dirt crate? Oh, Stewart. Oh, yeah, let's talk about this. You would want to talk about it.

Hey, it's not like I put in a modified thing in there. Come on, man. Give me a little credit. It's dirt. Okay. Sturt. So Tony Stewart, obviously owner of Eldora is pro having the Xfinity Series or the Cup Series at some time, eventually at their racetrack competing.

I, as an owner in Xfinity Series, tagged on to that conversation on Twitter and said, as a owner in Xfinity Series, I think it would be cool to go there in race. Talk to Kyle Bush on Wednesdays last week. He said as a truck owner, it's not good, it's not fun. They always destroy the trucks. It costs more money for them to go there and race in equipment. and damage and so forth wearing tear than it does than they make and so it's not good for his business model.

Kyle Larson said the trucks, you know, leaving it for the trucks is kind of cool. It's special for the trucks. The trucks have fun there. The drivers love it. The crowd loves it. The fans love it. There's a little bit of talk about if they're going to do a cup or Xfinity race that they need to try to have a little, continue to develop the tire to be a little bit better,

more productive or what have you. I don't know much about dirt tires, but I know that they're really, really critical to how the race is and how the show is. So there would be some, and there's several drivers and people in the industry that commented on developing a better tire for that

if they run more than just trucks. What about broadcaster, Dale? I would say, I don't have an opinion about it either, although I just found it surprising that Kyle Larson took the place. As a broadcaster, man, I'm just like,

hell, yes, I've got this job another week. Right. You know? They haven't fired me. Really? They still buy into this whole thing. After all that stuff Sunday, I'm thinking,

Man, I wonder if they're just being nice when they say that was good. What if they're really back there going, man, what have we done? Just get this guy out of here. Have you seen anybody, any fans on social media just give you hell yet? Yeah. You have? Yeah. Okay.

I have, there's one. There's a couple that you'll see every once in a while. It's like, you don't need to be in the booth. Oh, okay. And there's no reason or they don't want to tell you why. I think they just not Earnhardt fans. They don't want you in the booth. They don't want you on the track.

They don't want you in their lives. They don't want you on their timeline. But they follow you. Of course, you know, you go look at these people's profiles and you don't need to be in the booth. You're no good for NASCAR. And they're following you. So, which is interesting. There you go.

Let's do some Ask Junior questions. How about that? It's time for Ask Junior. I got a question. You have a question for me? Hit us up on Twitter using the hashtag Ask Junior. You can't, we can give you. you on iPad now and you get some special asked you questions this week because we were in New Hampshire

and you gave me the opportunity to go to New Hampshire with a camera and you knew damn well I was geeked up that the geek meter was pegged because I got to see my modified family and that so a few of the modified people and met a bunch of fans of the show in the really behind the stands but in the pit area I was really surprised there was a bunch of modified guys that actually said they were huge fans of the show awesome and Eric Goodale was one of them so hit his first so up this is Eric Goodell driver the number 58 GAF roofing NASCAR wheel modified I got to ask you a question junior is it easier to diagnose the car from in the cockpit driving it or up in the booth watching them go around with your crew chief right by your side so you can cheat a

little bit I also got to ask you I didn't even recognize Dillner walking around the pit area he's got that southern draw now I don't know what you guys are doing to him down there but he definitely ain't from Long Island no more That's awesome. That's a good question. And it's real easy to diagnose the car from the cockpit. You damn sure know which ends sliding around in the booth. When I'm watching a car go through the corner, I'm going to get it wrong a couple times out of ten.

So maybe I'll get it right seven or eight times out of ten. A few times I'm going to say, man, the car looks loose and the driver's going to come over to ready and go, go, I'm plowing. And that's just the way it is. You know, if you're not in there driving it and turning the steering wheel, you're going to get it wrong every once in a while. There you go. All right. Hey, Jr., this is Andy Seiss. Now president of the L.W. Miller fan club.

I want to apologize for the hate mail in the past. We had some bad issues for a while, but I'm happy to say it's in the past. And I had to use the old chrome horn on. This right here, we couldn't afford the chrome. It's painted black, but we used to show our displeasure with each other every once in a while. And I'm just curious in your stock car career, if there was ever a time that you wish you had a a bumper like this? Well, I definitely wish that we had tougher bumpers in our cup cars because I drove up underneath

a couple of guys at Martinsville in the last couple years of my career knocked a radiator out of my car. And with a bumper like the mods, we had to kept on digging. Cow catcher. Right. So, I mean, the way they mount the bumpers in the cup cars, they're low for weight, and they're not strong enough to do anything because of weight. So it's really just cosmetics.

It's in there because it has to be. If you're running the back of somebody, you're going to destroy your car every time. And I've knocked a radio out of my car a couple times at Martinsville just because of the weakness of those front bumpers. And, yeah, every time that happened, it's so damn frustrating because you know that race cars should be able to handle more than that. And, you know, the modifies don't have those issues. No, they could just slam.

Yeah. Let's go to a few fan questions. Hey, Dale. My name is Logan Slavoski. I'm a huge Dale Jr. Download fan. I met Matthew out here at the Junior Motorsports Haller. And Mike Davis, I know you. I've met you in Daytona this year for the Exfinity race.

And I told you I'm coming for a job in a couple of years, so be ready when I come there. But Dale, if you can race with your dad one more time at any track in the world, where would it be? And why? If I could race with Dad? At one track, where would it be? You know, the one track that I, it doesn't exist anymore, but the one track I wished I could have raced on was Atlanta, the original Atlanta. Oh, good. And dad dominated there at the end of the season.

He won so many races at Atlanta. When you would win the last race of the year at Atlanta, they gave you a ski nautique boat, and dad literally was stacking those things into storage unit. He has like four or five, six ski nautics that have never been in water. Wow. You know, I mean, you can only ride in one boat at a time. So that, you know, I thought that was badass.

They don't give away trophies like that anymore. You know, the coolest trophy we probably have on the series is a clock. Yeah. Yeah, he had a few of them too. You know, I would implore the tracks to get back in the business of having material gifts for winners for whatever, whatever reason, whether it's a ski nautique or what have you. Yeah. That kind of thing really makes that race a little bit more special. It doesn't have to be your trophy.

The driver geeks out a little bit more overwinning it. Is it just a trophy or is it that place was such a badass racetrack? It was a ski nautique. It was. No, the track was real badass. The track, I don't know how, whether I would like the track or not. Oh, you didn't race. No, never raised on the original configuration.

They changed it in 96, I believe. So I wish that they would change it back. And we don't, you know, it'd be a mile and a half that doesn't have a dog leg in it. It'd be its own unique mile and a half racetrack or mile and a quarter, whatever that would be once they reconfigured it. And I think that would be appealing to me and everyone else. The track is a favorite of mine as it is, but never got to run there. And Dad being so dominant, it'd be cool to.

learn some things from them. Hi, Dale Jr. This is Jocelyn from Marlborough, Massachusetts. When are we going to see your daughter at the track? Wow. You know, Amy brought her to Daytona, and she's only 10 weeks at that time, I think. So she doesn't know. She's at the racetrack.

But Amoskowski had his kid at this age in Victor Lane a couple times already. I thought it was obnoxious, but, you know, two of the wrong. I guess, yeah. I think Amy's going to come to three more. races through September. I'm not sure exactly how many you go to for the whole year. But yeah, Ila's going to come when Amy comes. Hey, Jr., I got like a

really important question for you. This is more important than religion, politics, anything like that. In all seriousness, if you were a vegetable, what vegetable did you choose to be? I was a vegetable. What vegetable would I choose to be? Golly. I got nothing.

Yeah, what vegetable? You don't know what you'd be? I don't know. If you wanted a lot of hair, you could be a broccoli. Bob Rossdale That's interesting question Oh man I don't know I know you don't want to be

Yeah I know you don't want to be corn Because you don't like being corny Oh gosh That was it That was the last action Come on man It is the last question You got to pick a vegetable for the guy

You know I don't know I never thought of it I think I've probably changed my mind So I'm going to say tomato But Yeah It's tomatoes a fruit Tomato's a fruit

I thought tomato is a vegetable Nope Is it? See that's why I should I shouldn't have answered. I shouldn't have answered because now I feel like a fool. Yeah. No, you're not alone.

You're not alone. I thought it was a damn vegetable, too. Maybe that's a, we get back. I would say, hey, I'll say cucumber. So I could get pickled. Oh, wait. Yeah, about that. About that.

About that. What? You took your own jar of pickles up to the booth? All right. So, all right, you want to get into this? It's a little weird. Here we go. I have been counting calories to try to cut some weight.

And I got up to 186. I usually am in the 170s, and I wanted to get back down to 172, which is what I was, and I was into my 20s. And so I used this app called Lose It, where you count calories. And I have been ordering these meals, pre-made meals, to eat for lunch and dinner for the last three months or two months, for the last, you know, 60 days. I've been eating these pre-made meals for lunch and dinner. It's a place in Concord called Chop and Chisel.

So Amy and I have been spending it's about $10 a meal. They'll deliver for $10 to your house every Sunday. So really it's pretty, you know, pretty reasonable price-wise. And so I lost this morning when I got on a scale. It's $172. Congratulations. I have to be particular and I get a system of what I'm going to eat and I'm going to eat that, that, and that's the way it's going to be.

I'd get up in the morning and have a protein bar for breakfast. I'd have one of those meals with a couple pickles for lunch. I'd have one of those meals with a couple pickles for dinner. I love these max pickles that they sell in Phoenix near the racetrack. Oh, that's right. They gave you some. Well, they might have gave me some, but also my bus driver, Kenny bought me a ton. So every time we go to Phoenix, we get cases of these pickles and bring them home, and they last all year.

And so I've been eating a ton of them here lately. I work with Brad Dardy in the booth before, and they, they, They would always have to make sure they had things of cookies because that dude would eat some sweets. I've never seen somebody bring pickles to the booth. I don't have a rider. I bring my own stuff. You got to worry about me. I don't need new extra favors.

Your rider would be hysterical if you did have one, though. I would like 17 jars of pickles. If you're trying to be disciplined about what you're eating and trying to do some things to cut that weight, you can't cut corners. You can't go up to the booth and just say, you know, I'll just eat something up there because they're going to have. They ain't trying to, you know, help you watch your waistband. up there. They're just going to have things that you're going to eat when you get hungry. That's almost like Mark Martin level stuff when you start showing up to places bringing your own sack lunch. Mark Martin level is, hey Mark, we're all going to Applebee's. You want to go? Yes, I'll go with you guys.

All right, we're going to Applebee's. Sit down, order. Everybody orders something off the menu. Mark says, hey, I want a chicken breast. No salt, no pepper. Nothing. No seasoning. No seasoning. No seasoning. No pepper. No seasoning. No pepper. No seasoning. No pepper. No seasoning. No seasoning. Don't even cooking in oil. You know anything of that? No, just chicken breast. Plain chicken breast. Nothing on it.

No seasoning, no salt, no pepper. So that's Mark Marlil. I'll add another level to that. I remember he would show up at Hendrick Motorsports luncheons, and he would just bring his like, like he was going to school. He would have his paper sack, and he would just bring his own lunch. Dale brought his own cooler. Everybody thought it was the funniest thing.

I have my own cooler with all that in there, the pickles. Oh, so you took your own. Yeah. Oh, I really envisioned you. literally kidding off a golf cart heading up the thing carrying a jar of pickle no he had a briefcase and he a satchel briefcase and he had a cooler all right yeah he was prepared good for you i mean i'm not going to knock well i thought it was weird i got down to my he didn't share any pickles i got down to my goal today so i had a you know i sent i sent out a text to a few friends that i've

been talking about this with and we celebrated this morning did you celebrate with a gravy biscuit some pop i was celebrated with a gravy biscuit all right i celebrated with a protein bar there you go good for you that's that's party animal right but i might How far have we come from the Dell Junior days? There's a day when I celebrate with a six pack of protein bars. I might have a few budd 55s today. Oh, God. Wow.

Come on. You raise this much hell in your life. You better just watch it. Miller 64's, okay? I'll have some Miller 64s. This is how you... I had to treat myself to 10 extra calories. This is how you end up diving in a pole and bushing your head open.

All right. You all ready to do some white flag? What do you say? I don't, you get... No racing puns. No racing puns. White flag. Keep coming, bud.

White flag right there. White flag. White flag. Mike. Hey, Davise. If you're going to Pocono Raceway this weekend, Dale's favorite band, the Dangerous Summer, is playing a concert Saturday night at the infill block party stage.

Freak pumped. Talk to us about this. All right. So, you know, I've been trying to see the Danger Summer live for so long. Me and Blaney went to Pittsburgh and watched him play. a show, but it was a real small 30-minute set. They were up and down, and it was quick. I was like, damn it, I want to see a whole set,

and them guys just rocking as hard as they can go. And so I've been trying to go see a show, and I can't, because Amy's been pregnant, and then we had the baby, and just need to be home. And I said, I know what I'll do. I'll try to get them scheduled for a race. Get them out to a race. So I call my buddy Tim Dugger, who plays a lot of the racetracks

throughout the season. I said, hey, Tim, you're in this deal. You know how this goes. I'm trying to get a dangerous summer to maybe play. one of the races, how do I do that, and how should I do it? And he said, you know what, you probably should call Pocono. Got a race coming up. They're pretty easy to work with.

I think that'd be a good dangerous summers from Boston or from Maryland, somewhere up there. I don't know where they're from. They're from the northeast. And so they're going to be pissed. They're going to be pissed out. I don't know that. Baltimore. That's where you.

That is Maryland. You had it, right? Yeah, they're from Baltimore. So, you know, that kind of Pocono area, there'll be some fans up there, not too far. So with Dugger's advice, I called up Pocono. I said, man, I'll intro the band. I don't care what I got to do. You're going to pay these guys what you normally pay somebody to come out there and play,

and they're going to come play, and we're going to have fun. And so they got a sponsor for the event. Oh, cool. The dangerous summer can come because there's no scheduling conflict. So they're going to play Saturday night around 945. Yeah, this ain't no 30 minutes set. This is 945 to 1130. Yeah.

That's doing it right there. So the only thing I'm a little nervous about is my boss, Sam Flood, knowing I'm out that late before race, but we'll be sharp and ready to go on Sunday morning. Well, we'll see. I can't wait to see this band play, and we're going to be down there. We're going to introduce the band. We're going to watch them. We're going to be right there with everybody, all the fans, anybody that comes.

So there's a neat thing about this is if you don't have a ticket to the race, you can still come to the concert. Ten bucks per car. So fill that damn car. Really? Yeah. So if you drive in with a car, I don't care how many people you got in it, it's $10. Convertible.

It looks like Richard Petty's car coming to victory. You can have 20 people in a suburban, and it's 10 bucks. That's awesome. So if you don't have a ticket to the race, you can still come see this show. They're going to have fireworks before the show, and Dangerous Summer is supposed to go on 945. And typically, you know how rock bands are. That probably means around 1015, 1030.

Yeah, well, go to Pocono Raceway.com for tickets. And I did not know that you could do it independently from the race ticket, but you could buy a race ticket there too. I hope everybody enjoys it. Cool. We'll see how it goes. Maybe it leads to some new gigs. More gigs at racetracks.

Pre-order Dale Jr.'s book, Race Into the Finish at Dell Jr.com. This is the book everyone is talking about, as Dale shares the full details about his struggle with concussions and his decision to hang her up. Del Jr. announced on Saturday during NBC Sports Live broadcast of cup practice, a new twist of the Dell Jr. Foundation's driven to give gloves program. That's right. So we've been doing the Driven to Give Gloves Program over the last couple of years.

I've wore the gloves. We'd auction them off. We've done it several different ways. Well, for this year, we're going to do it. It's one event only. At Watkins Glen, 36 drivers will be wearing the skull gloves. That's four in the extended series and 32 in the Cup Series. That's right.

And all those drivers are going to race with the gloves. They're going to sign them. I'm going to sign them. After the race, we're going to put them up on NASCAR's Foundation auction website. So the NASCAR Foundation auction websites where you'll be able to find these gloves to bid on August 8th. The following week. All right. And so everything, every dime that these gloves raise goes right to the Dale and Amy Earnhardt Fund at the hospital.

Nationwide Children's Hospital. Me and Amy started a fund at the hospital. All right. We've already raised over a million dollars for this fund. The money goes directly into the fund, and the money in that fund helps for research at the hospital. We've already funded research for a program to understand how pets influence child therapy for injury. So how pet therapy can be a combination of other normal therapies to help rehabilitate.

injury and so forth in these children. So that's interesting. Yeah. You know, dogs can, you know, whatever, pet, but dogs in particular can speed up recovery just to be by changing the personality and outlook of that child, giving that child the confidence and the outlook to battle whatever they're dealing with. Yeah.

And so you can, we know how anxiety can slow down the pace of rehabilitation, whether it's with head injuries, even bodily injuries with bone. and so forth, any kind of injury, anxiety and depression and frustration can hamper that process. Yeah. And so, you know, dogs and pets can combat that anxiety. You know, we're trying, so we did a program to help understand that a little further and understand how to utilize the pet therapy even more. That's just a small example of what this fund's directly doing for the hospital is really cool.

We're going to the hospital in a short period of time to take another visit. We're taking Alex Bowman. He's never been. It's going to be fun to show Alex around as the driver of the 88 car. He's going to be running the hospital paint scheme at Watkins Glen. And so to be able to show Alex all about the hospital is going to be a blast. We'll be continuing to fund more research at the hospital with the Ami, the Dale and Amy. I want to say Amy first because she's my wife, but the Dale and Amy Earnhardt Foundation is going to be helping with research as we go forward.

So we'll be showing these gloves during the race weekend. You're going to hear more about it. The Watkins Glen Race Week. Yep, two weeks, Watkins Lynn. We're going to be showing that, talking about it even more. It's been a lot of fun. I want to say one last thing, and this is really important. I want to thank all the drivers for being involved.

Amen. And you've noticed this for years. The drivers race the shit out of each other, beat each other and push each other out of the way. But tomorrow, if Kevin Harvick called Kyle Bush and said, I got something I'm doing with my foundation, I need your support. Kyle would be there right away. And all the drivers jump right on board. some couldn't do this because of partnership conflicts and so forth everyone wanted to be a part of it we got everybody involved that we could and so I

got to thank all the drivers for helping us here they all the drivers do this repeatedly throughout the season with other people's foundations and so forth they're asked about being involved in these type of things constantly and they never turn it down they never fail to be involved so appreciate it we're gonna have a lot fun one more thing about the nationwide children's hospital I wasn't planning on saying anything about this but the asked junior question segment that we're going to have moving forward is going to have a

patient at the Nationwide Children's Hospital asking questions via video like you did today. So we will get to answer questions each week from somebody at the National Children's Hospital. I am really looking forward to that. I'm excited about that. I like the videos for As Junior so that was cool. It's cool to see those

mod guys wanting to ask some questions and see that they're fans of the shows. I didn't plan that they were legitimately fans of the show which is the cooler part but our social media accounts to David, make sure we follow them. We had some fun with them this weekend. IG, little Twitter action,

little Facebook's, Dirty Moe Media. Yeah, I was getting to that. But we go ahead and follow the Dirty Mo Instagram account. You did a nice job on that this week, by the way. It was enjoyable to see some of that stuff. Be sure to watch Wednesday with Dell version of NASCAR America this Wednesday. Special guest Chase Elliott.

Yeah. That's going to be fine. Chase Elliott on the show. Last week we had Kyle Bush and Kyle did a great job. Brave reviews about that. Good show. Chase, you got to bring it, buddy. That's right.

So that'll be fun. Is that going to be back to the normal time? 5 p.m.? We had to move to 6 because of qualifying for Eldor and the trucks. We'll be back at 5 o'clock. That'll be NBC Sports Network with Chase Elliott, Dale Jr. Also, you can catch the TV version of this show to Dale Jr. Download Thursday at 5.30 p.m. on NBC Sports Network.

Lastly, we have to take a moment and congratulate golf for Kevin Kisner on his second-place in the British Open yesterday. Kevin is a partner of the new Whiskey River Myrtle Beach. sure is. Oh, no way. Yes. And he finished second in the British Open. And so, listen, I think the moral of the story is if you partner with us on things, good things happen. Okay. That's what we're trying to say. So congrats Kevin. Here comes Tiger. So close was a stroke behind the winner. But anyways, good things for him. That's it. Yeah, man. Good show. See you guys next week. This bit of bad assery was made by Dirtymo Media. Dirty Mo!