The Dale Jr. Download - 235 - Virtual Reality and the Voodoo Man

Episode Date: October 9, 2018

Dale Earnhardt Jr and the guys kick back on the couch to chat about a Dover, a Pittsburgh pleasure, facing your fears, the greatest pranks ever, 200mph sneezes, the UFC brawl and an update on baby Isla. 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.

Let's go. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. Another episode of the Dale Jr. Why is that so funny? He came in hot. That's the way I always come in. He came in with some energy.

He came in hot. That's how I always say it. You went into that intro like Jimmy Johnson at the Rosal at the last turn. That's how you went into that. I will hop it and destroyed it. Little out of control. Okay. But you got it back together.

Well, we got pretty interesting show. Lots to talk about Wild Weekend. It was. Why? You were there. All of it. Yeah, I was there all of it. Taxi.

This will make that show even more interesting. Yeah, I mean, and it didn't just include Dover. We were in New York. We went to Pittsburgh one night. That was a lot of fun. And then the races were incredible. So we have a lot to talk about for sure. Let's get started.

Let's do it. The Dale Jr. Downloads. Downloads starts now. All right, Mike, so you mentioned it, man. We were in New York, Pittsburgh, Dover, doing a lot of different things. Let's go ahead and start it with the trip to New York City. We are right on the doorstep of releasing this book, Racing to the Finish. My story details my experience with concussions from 2012 all the way through the end of my career.

It details my rehabilitation meeting and working with Mickey Collins at the United Pittsburgh Medical Center. We went up to New York and did Dan Patrick, which was pretty cool. Yes. I love doing Dan Patrick because Dan Patrick is, in my opinion, one of the best interviewers that I've ever came across. He's a guy that I think I tend to want to learn as much as I can from, and he actually is in the NBC family. So I've had a chance to spend a lot of time around him.

Yeah, if I can pull from him some things that I think he does really well, if it's possible to add that to what I do. You should do it right now and ask Mike Davis a real hard, pressing question. But that's not what he does. That's not what Dan does. It is not. Conversational. The great thing about Dan is that he,

He will ask such a short question, but it is exactly the right thing that kicks you into having to, you know, he, he asks this sort, I don't know what his, I don't want to put words in his mouth, but he asks a short question and it almost forces you to elaborate, but it's an inviting, his, his sense, his sort of aura and tone is inviting. Boy, I mean, in a few seconds, you feel like you're sitting down with somebody you can trust that really likes you and wants to know exactly what he's asking. Like, he's genuinely curious himself. And he has, I'm sure he has notes and does his homework on things, but as the interview goes, he kind of pulls from the answer to go to the next question. And he's not afraid to say, oh, really, that part of the answer is interesting to tell me about that. And it's so cool because his questions are really so short. And here was Thursday's example. We got caught, and this is saying something in New York,

because we'd been going to New York for a long time, and we had an incredible time getting through traffic. We were there probably an hour and 40 minutes from the airport, and it made us a little bit late. And of course, we'd been letting the Dan Patrick show guys know, hey, we're struggling, getting through the tunnel, this whole thing. Anyways, we get in there, and so we're in a hurry, and we sit down, and Dale sits down,

interview starts and Dan Patrick's like, what do you like driving in traffic? Yeah. You do well in traffic? And it's just something like that. And it's like a perfect question in the moment to get us started and then off a rolling. Yeah. Very short. Was Mike sitting there cursing the whole time in turn traffic?

I could see Mike in New York traffic just being really pissy. No, no, no, no. I wouldn't do that because then I would be getting Dale Jr. off to a bad start. No, for real. I mean, like he doesn't need that. He doesn't need that anxiety in his life on a backseat of a car. The job that the position that he has, Dan Patrick has today, is so perfect for him. And so I really admire the guy, look up to him, and that was a lot of fun.

Then we went to Rachel Ray. So Rachel Ray is a race fan, NASCAR fan. Really? Yeah. Okay. Benadale Jr. fan. When we've done a lot of charitable initiatives over the years, surprise, surprise, coming through the doors, a donation from Rachel Ray. As a matter of fact, Rachel Ray has been on this show.

Did you know that? I didn't know that. Back when we had the reaction theater segment, she called in to reaction theater. Yeah. So there you go. So great friend of ours, and so it's fun to be on her show for this. I think the second time I've done her show. Yeah.

And we talked about the book, obviously the whole reason to be there. The other thing that we did that was really, really cool, do you want to say that to your white flag? I don't want to screw up your white flag. No, no. Okay. Go ahead and talk about it. But the important thing is that this show hasn't aired yet. It comes out on October 16th, which is next week.

So this is something, whatever he says, we're building up to the next week. We'll get to watch it. So the Rachel Ray Show did a little homework and brought in a fan of NASCAR and a fan of mine. And we surprised the hell out of this guy. So I'll leave it at that. I really, really enjoyed what we did. And then we got to spend a little time back after my segment backstage talking to them a little bit and getting to know them a little more. So that was an additional surprise that I didn't even know it was happening until we got to the show.

So we went there. So you weren't even really briefed on it. That's cool. We went there to talk about the book, and then Rachel Ray had this great surprise for this fan that was there. And for me to be a part of that was a lot of fun, so I would tune in to see that. Yeah. And, yes, I thought New York was a success. We're going to go back to New York in a couple days to continue to promote the book even more on a lot more media outlets.

And then we've got an L.A. trip before Phoenix to where we'll be there for a couple days to promote the book as well. Yeah, the book's doing great. Going back to the original purpose for doing the book to help Mickey and his team, to raise awareness for the United Pittsburgh Medical Center and what they do and to help people who are suffering from concussions, or if you know someone who's going through some issues and they're having trouble getting the right help or they're struggling with their rehabilitation and not making any headway, they should probably call up Mickey and try to schedule an appointment

to go up there and see him, I promise in one or two visits, you have the tools you need to fight and win. And you can go to the University of Pittsburgh Sports Medicine Program website, and the phone number is on there. Dr. Mickey Collins is who Dale's referring to. And you know what, Dale, and I ask this question, do you seriously want to hear your answer? Have you been surprised just in the past month or two months

since we've been talking about the book about how many people have sort of come out of the woodwork and just said, I've needed help, or, you know, I've gone and saw Dr. Collins or anything like that. Have you been surprised by how the reception has been on? that. Yeah, I mean, speaking of Mickey, we went Friday to Pittsburgh to an event that supports the United Pittsburgh Medical Center that was celebrating the work that they do there and celebrating Mickey. So when I've been on the phone with Mickey for the past couple of weeks, trying to talk about

getting to this event with him and supporting him, he's been telling me every time. He's like, hey, you would have no idea. Every week, one, two people come in. We ask them how they found us, how they figured, you know, how they got here. And they'll say from something they saw that Dale did on or that I did on either social media or whatever. Various, I mean, I've talked and been open about my concussions for a long time now, and he says that it's sending people to see him every week. He said the book will even have a more profound effect on that. That's the whole purpose of the book.

And I feel indebted to Mickey for helping me. You know, when somebody does something so important and gives you functionality and quality of living back, you're in debt to them for the rest of your life. And I told Mickey, I said, hey, anytime you're doing something, he has asked me to come talk at certain things and be an example, I guess, an advocate for his research and rehabs. He's asked me to do that in certain times. And this was another example of that this Friday when we went up there to Pittsburgh for the Steelers event.

And I said, hey, man, anytime you got that stuff going on, call me, I will get there. I don't care where I'm at or what I'm doing. I want to be around you. and I want to help you. I want to help people understand what you're doing, show people what's possible for them. You know, whatever I can do, use me, tell me, keep me in the loop.

And, you know, he has used me in the past, and he called me up and said, hey, man, come on. I got this deal in Pittsburgh for the Steelers. They have this fashion show to raise money, and it directly supports this hospital and their research. And so me and you flew up there Friday after we got done working with, with NBC at the racetrack in Dover and went on stage,

talked a little bit about Mickey and his team and what they've accomplished for me personally. Thank him on behalf of all the patience. We got to meet some Pittsburgh Steelers players. We got to meet the owner of the team and his wife. Great folks. Very gracious. Yep.

We got to meet some legends. Franco. Franco Harris. That's awesome. The Immaculate reception. Everybody knows Frank O'Harris from that, but he was an amazing player. And Mel Blount, who was a cornerback for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And I mean, these guys are huge people. I knew that I know that the NFL guys, the guy that play the game today are giants. I mean, you stand next to all these guys, pretty much the whole team was there. We stand around these guys, and they're all foot and a half taller than you, probably 150 pounds bigger than you. And you wonder if that's always been the case. meaning Mel and Franco, yeah, they're big. They're just as big. Right.

Tomlinson, the coach, he looks like he can play right now. Yeah. A guy's in great shape. He's pretty big. How big is Ben? This is a quarterback. Ben's huge. Yeah.

Bam, got to talk to Ben for a minute. We have some people that we both know. Acquaintiffs's super, everybody was just really nice. So it was a great, great experience for me. And awesome to see Mickey and actually got see his whole staff that worked with me directly during my concussion rehabilitation. Good to see those folks really out of the office. Hadn't really ever been around them when they're not wearing their white coats.

That was deep. Yeah. So seeing them and talking to them, me being in a great place personally and professionally in my life, sort of an example of their efforts and work, that was a great experience for me. I meant to tell you that. That was sort of like a fun little reunion that I noticed.

It was. I completely glossed over that. But when you walked. up the way they received you because everybody decided to sit around it was like kind of a reception thing before the event started so they're drinking a beer and whatever and i couldn't believe how they turned it was like uh their their long lost prodigal son is returned and uh that was really neat well the right the patient relationship with with those folks is a personal one when you're injured and you particularly i can't speak for every injury and every illness but with head injuries you are

so vulnerable and compromised and delicate and in fear and just you know you're you're so scared for what what the future holds and they are doctors they are tasked to be specialists in physical therapy or medicine whatever it is so Mickey has a team and they all have a station and an expertise. And so you move from person to person during your visit and they look at what's going on with you and decide what their particular part of the rehabilitation is going to involve. They have this job to, for example, the physical therapist will have a job to give you, you know, therapy to do and to take home, and here it is. And they have to do this job. But all of them at the same time have to be a psychologist and a mental therapist, you know, because, you know,

every time you sit down with somebody, you go through the whole spill. You're like, I'm scared, I'm anxious, I'm scared, this is going to be permanent. Whatever you're, if you're talking to the eye guy or you're talking to the balance guy, if you're talking, you know, whoever you're talking to, you're like, oh, my God, tell me, this is going to be okay, you know, and all of them have to have this sort of parenting type of ability to coddle and say, hey, look, this is going to be fine, you're going to be okay. we're going to fix it. All of them have to have that ability, and they do.

And so in that interaction, I guess you create these really, really great bonds. And obviously, when you get healthy and you're happy, I mean, look at me. I want to do anything I can to help Mickey, help his staff. And so when you see them, you know, it's like seeing family. It's a weird thing. But those are the positives that come out of such a difficult situation. Yeah. But anyway, that was a great time.

It was. I'm glad we went. We flew up there Friday and then flew right back to Dover. And then Saturday, man, we worked practices, watched a pretty interesting Xfinity race, got to work the pit box a little bit. I had some fun doing that. You guys looked like you had a lot of fun. We did. We were pretty busy this past week.

And during Saturday, an interesting thing happened, I bought an Oculus Go. and Oculus Go is a virtual reality headset. All right. And I've had one for a while that's plugged up to my computer, used it for video games and so forth. But this Oculus Go is a standalone. You don't really need your phone. You don't need a computer.

It does all the work for you. All you really need is a wireless connection, Wi-Fi. So it's like virtual reality. Oh, yeah. And you're good to go. But usually virtual reality headsets need a phone or something to plug into. They're just not portable.

This thing is incredibly portable, taking anywhere you want to go. And so I've had it this weekend, and there's this app on there called Face Your Fears, and basically it just kind of puts you in a lot of situations that would probably be very scary for pretty much anybody. And, you know, there's this one where you're a little kid and you're laying in bed,

and it's your five-year-old or eight-year-old bedroom, and middle of the night and everything's going crazy. Shells or drawers are opening, things are floating in there. crazy people were coming out of the closet. And so there's scenarios like that, and you just sit there and go through them. They're about eight minutes long, 10 minutes long.

And each one of them, it's just kind of a scares a shit out of you. And so I put it on Mike, because I was trying to tell Mike, I said, hey, you know, we do this TV show, we do the podcast, we're trying to create original content for Dirty Mo Media. Man, 360.

Virtual reality. That kind of stuff is something we may need to be looking into because I, with this Oculus Go, just made my mind start running about ideas and possibilities for us. And I'd never done it. He'd never done it. So I gave him the headset, Mike,

and you could take it from there. Well, yeah, I'd never done it. I had no idea. You know, we've gone to South by Southwest and they talk about all these things. I'd never actually put one of those Oculus on. And so when he goes, come by the bus, I want you to show,

I want you to see this. So I come by and he puts that thing on me. And he takes me into this face or fierce thing. And I go into this. He also flew a plane. I did fly a plane. that was really cool. You know, I was in a dog fight, and I won.

But anyways, the face-your-fears thing. So we put this video on our social because it was so funny. I didn't know Dale Jr. was rolling on me the whole time. How could I, right? I had the thing on my face. And so we were in this story where you're in a bed and you're in this room, but all of a sudden you look and there's somebody looking at you in the window. Now, I don't like that.

I don't like people looking at me and what. It's your fear. I shut those blinds every night at my house. I don't like just the idea of an open window where people can look in if they chose to. So now I got this little, I don't know, 10-year-old looking at me, creepy-looking 10-year-old looking at me through the window. I didn't like it. He went away.

So I'm sitting there in my room. I'm in my bed. I can't get out of bed, you know. It's not that real. And because this is the point I'd have gone into another room. So I'm still in the bed and then all of a sudden that little creepy 10-year-old now he's in the room. I caught him out of my eye. He's running.

Running across the room. him a little creepy dude and uh but then you know after a while i've seen him i've spotted him he's in the room and then you hear this little voice i'm gonna kill you and i'm like yeah it's getting a little real i don't like this but then we went about two or three minutes and i didn't see the kid and and i'm sitting there and del junior finally speaks up i hadn't heard him this all the time and he goes what's going on i was like i don't i think there might be a glitch in the game i don't you know i don't see anything happening anymore i mean i got the ceiling fan going i got you know drawers will open and rat a little bit but i don't i don't i don't i don't i don't

don't see anything. He's asking me questions. What's going on? I mean, is it froze? I said, I don't think it's froze. I just, I think I might be done. I think I went through the whole thing. And I'm looking around and you can see in our video on social. I'm kind of looking around, looking in the room and everything. Dale's talking to me. And then all of a sudden I look up. I look up and that kid is right above my head and he jumps at me. He jumps at me. That kid, and he's got these really creepy, glowy eyes. And so he was right above my head. and he's like, yeah, and jumps at me. And man, I threw that eye-c-eye-I threw that headset off so fast.

I was like, it scared the crap out of me. I did. And to be honest with you, we cut the video short on social media because what happens after that? That's foul language. Yeah, there was a foul language being thrown around. We couldn't have any of that. It was so creepy. It scared me to death.

And yet, I thought it was awesome. It was so cool. I'm like, I got to go buy me one of these things. He's Oculus. That's where it's at. It was so neat. And then that's when I started playing the video games. But man, is that face your fear?

You had told me a story about Amy. Yeah. Is that the same thing? No. I did the same, get through the same thing with Amy, but it was with the Oculus that I have hooked to my computer. And it's not the, it's not the same. Okay. Did he face his fears?

Did you face your fears? You threw the headset off, right? I had no choice but to face it. It faced me. It was right above my head. Yeah. I'm like, I can't even get any sleep in my room. I'm just trying to get it.

There's like a dozen. of those scenarios and after you do one you're kind of like man i really want to do another one but i'm scared that's right and it's the weirdest because it's a it's that's not real i've already done a couple and they they didn't get me like that i don't know if i want to do it either there was there was one the first one there was a jack in the box and it jumped out at you right they're like a toy and then there was another where like if you're scared of clowns i mean some people do not like clowns there's people that don't like a clown uh baby doll that had fallen off and all of a sudden it kind of becomes alive and it's this really you know uh creepy looking clown.

Those things don't do anything for me. But that boy, I tell you what, that old boy looking at me in the window did. A couple of other things this thing does that I thought was incredible. There's an app on it called Wonder and basically you can go all over the world and see pretty much, see some pretty cool stuff, pyramids and Egypt, things like that. We have our house down in Key West. I basically used Google Map and went down and stood in front of the house and looked

around, looked up down the street. No way. Yeah, I went to QS to Ball Street and was looking around. I mean, it's... That's neat. And if you had a beer in your hand, that would even be like... Yeah, that would be pretty... Make that happen, Oculus.

Hey, now, I will say this. I've been with Dale a long time. Been a long time at this point. I don't recall Dale laughing as hard as he did. You were laughing so hard at me. For minutes or minutes, he just couldn't believe it. I was watching that video, like, when I was going to bed that night. It was so good.

The futures. there's no limit. There's no limit to what they can accomplish. Well, I told you this. I think that what they say at South by Southwest is... Exactly. You'll be watching your Super Bowl through the lens of a linebacker coming up. That's incredible.

You'll start consuming sporting events as a player. In the next 10 years, we're all going to have one of those 360 headsets and we'll be doing probably the majority of our, you know, viewer entertainment through something like that. Watching a TV show or a event, concert, sporting event on an 80-inch television will be weird. It will be an old-school idea. What is that iPad?

God, you got dad. Yeah, tablet. The tablet's going to transform into basically a headset. You got to hold it. Everything will be shot in 360. Anyways. That's cool, though. Yeah, we had a lot of fun with that.

That was Saturday. If you want to see that. video of Mike getting scared just go watch because I saw it it's funny it's on all our social media handle dirty mode media my personal handle I want to see after the show I want to see the real version

Saturday night late in the evening Mike Jimmy Johnson played a little prank on Cole Pern and the 78 bunch Cole Pern saw Jimmy riding his bike out on the highway on Saturday or Friday and said hey there's one thing you could do if you want to make it up to the guys for wrecking us in Charlotte you can buy us all

road bikes so Jimmy went down to the local store and got them a bunch of little kid bikes. Put it up on the, put it up on the, the tailgate of the 18-wheeler, the hauler for the 17-18. In the cloak of darkness, which was the funniest thing. Yeah, of course. And so those guys come into the garage in the morning, and everybody in the whole garage gets to enjoy the prank. Great job by Jimmy for being a smart prankster and lighthearted, good guy, like everybody says. With that, it had me thinking.

What are some of the greatest pranks that have been played in the garage? And so I sent out a few text messages to some friends. Okay. Some research. Yeah. This is good. I can't wait to hear this. A lot of different stories came through.

One common name kept popping up with one particular man, Henry Benfield. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. We'll get to it. Mike, you've got a Henry Benfield story yourself. Yes. So you're going to hear Henry Benfield a lot, and we'll explain to you who Henry Benfield is when we get to Mike's story. But this is from one of the Wallace's.

I'm going to try to keep my tipsters anonymous as best I can. Yeah, that's deep background. Yeah, Henry Benfield, he was a truck driver for Junior Johnson, and he was sleeping in a, he used to play pranks all the time. Well, this time they've got the prank on Henry. Oh. Yeah. And so he was sleeping in a rental car during a rain delay at Doe. over and they put an intertube under his car hooked to an air hose and pumped it up until it

exploded. Isn't that awesome? Oh, that won't give up. That is a mean prank. That is. That's funny. As far as snakes, there's a lot of snake pranks. Buddy Parrot, old crew chief from back in the day put a fake rattlesnake in the port of John

of the Phoenix garage and had a lot of fun with that one day. Henry Benfield, he put X-Lax in brownies and gave them people that he, that had pissed him off. That's a Henry go-to prank right there. So Henry has done this on multiple occasions. This is probably illegal today and would probably land you in jail. But I know that he, the rumor is he has done it to NASCAR officials. Yes.

The rumor is that he has done it to track security. Yes. A couple of, let's see. Anybody that's crossed him, don't eat brownies from Benfield. Don't eat brownies or. Donuts, chocolate covered don't, nothing. Don't take any food from Henry Benfield. My dad put sardines in the bottom underneath the seat of Rusty's car.

That's epic. Yeah, and imagine those things cooking. It's getting hot. Cooking it 150, 180 degrees and having to deal with that all day. That is so rank. Chocolate Myers from dad's team. Bungie courted a port of John closed at North World Sparrow with Dale Inman in it. I wouldn't mess with that, so, B.

That you don't mess with him. Chocolate had to hide from Dale Eman for about a month. And Dale Eman was genuinely upset. Yeah. Like wanted to cause physical harm. Yeah. Harold Scott, who was an employee for Bud Moore, when my dad was driving for Bud Moore,

was scared of snakes, and dad would always keep a rubber snake around to throw into the car when Harold was in there working on it. That would happen quite often throughout, throughout the season of 1982, 83. Rusty said he taped a $50 bill to my dad's roof. Oh, that's a superstition thing, isn't it? My dad considered 50.

My dad considered $50 bills really bad luck. Really? And Rusty was racing dad for the championship, so he taped the $50 bill to dad's roof, and dad jumped out of the car screaming like a little girl. Yeah. Because Dad and Rusty, I think we're going back and forth with some pranks. The sardines under the seat,

where dad put sardines under rusty seat was at a test in Phoenix, and it was hotter in hell at that test. And Daryl Jarrett said it stunk like crazy. I wonder if he sent J.R. Rhodes to go get the can of sardines and without any explanation on what he was intending to do with those cans. Hal Needham got a Shakespearean actor friend to walk around the Charlotte garage. Wait, what? Dressed as a voodoo doctor, placing curses on cars.

That is so funny. Placing curses on cars. That would mess up everybody. Dad thought it was a trip. Dale Inman freaked the hell out. Poor Del Inman. Dale Inman went to NASCAR to have the guy ejected out of the garage. That is so funny.

I have never heard that. So I wonder what the guy look like. I don't know. Rick Hendrick played a prank on his driver, Kenny Schrader, and had decaled or panes. painted on the back glass of the race car that he was looking for a driver and had written down this painted and detailed the salary that he was willing to pay when schrader walked into the garage and saw it straighter immediately thought it was a joke he said uh thought it was really funny

i was like rick that would have hurt my feelings if you did that to me and uh also one time he promised schrader a truck have he got the pole if he got the pole with charlotte he gets the pole and so Rick went over and got the worst-looking used truck they could find from the dealership used car a lot and drove it over there and presented it to him. I'm dying to know if you've ever been pranked real bad. Let me think. I didn't really spend a lot of time last night trying to think about my own career if I'd been pranked at all. But I did get pranked really good by, it wasn't really at the racetracker in the garage. Yeah, Tofer.

Yeah, the Tofer prank was terrible. Tofer worked on another race team, but he rented from me. If you rented from me and you were one of my friends, they'd keep your doors locked. Because we would be up partying on a Tuesday or Wednesday night, and, you know, 2 o'clock in the morning, we're kind of bored, run out of songs to play and things to do. And so we'd start going around to people's houses and sneaking in there and pranking them. And so we got the idea that we would go into Tofer's house. And we were going to, I can't remember which came first, but we had a gallon, we had a five-gallon bucket of water and a pound of flour. And we threw the flour on him, then the water, or maybe the water first and then the flour.

I can't remember which one first, but it just made an incredible, terrible mess, right? And he's trying to go to sleep. He's asleep, trying to, you know, he's got to get up for work. So got him real good, pissed him off. He had a friend that, I had this girl I was dating, and we're at my house. Well, he had a friend of his who had a friend of his who had a, who had a, wife that was pregnant and he had the wife get a pregnancy test and make it positive. He then took the pregnancy test and put it in my bathroom for me to find out in the open. So I came upstairs one day,

come home from something, something. And this girl I'm seeing is in the house and I go upstairs to the bathroom and there's that positive test laying there. And man, I freaked out. So I come walking downstairs and I'm like holding this thing and I'm like you could just tell me like you didn't do it this way you do this I don't know what proper protocol is but it ain't this yeah leaving it in my bathroom I think she she didn't play along I think that she knew that the joke was oh oh okay she knew about the joke but she didn't play a long she's like that's not mine you know And then it was over. But boy, for those few few mere short moments.

That is good. I was so mad. But, yeah, I think. That was a good one. I think one of the best ones. It's so, it's so tough. But I took 2,000 crickets and turned them loose in Josh Schneider's bedroom. But you own the house, too, didn't you?

Yeah, but who cares? No, no, no. I ain't got cleaning up. Right, it wasn't his house, though. So, I mean, these things just went, this thing. were noisy as hell every night when he turned the lights out. He couldn't sleep for a week. Right.

So that was a good one. But anyways, good job, Jimmy. Here's my. Yeah, the Benfield. Oh, yeah, yeah. Sorry. He keeps talking about Henry Biffel. There's actually a couple things he kept mentioning.

This happened at Phoenix. I was. What was it about Phoenix? I don't know, right? Everybody's frank. But I'll tell you what it was about this time. Listen to this. So Henry Binfeld at the time was driving Jimmy Spencer's motor coach.

I was working for Jimmy Spencer. We were at Phoenix, and it was actually in November, and it was kind of cold. Okay. And so we'd been practicing all day. We come in and Henry has got a nice big spread of food he's cooked. And those donuts. There's those big donuts.

And they got chocolate on them. And of course, Jimmy had never seen a donut that he didn't go right for, right? I mean, he's going for the donuts. Be honest with the I was too. Yeah. And Henry's like, I would eat those donuts. And we were like, well, why not? There's X-lax on them donuts.

And we were like, what? As it turns out, this was back in Phoenix before there was a tunnel. Remember, you used to have to cross the track on the backstretch to get in and out. And Henry had been coming in, and there was like 20 minutes until practice started, and they already closed the gate. They wouldn't let him cross. He got mad. Went to Walmart, bought those big old donuts, had a plan.

And he put those X-lax on him. And we literally watched Henry go out and hand those things out to all the security guards. And they're hoofing them. Boom, boom, like two at a time, just down in them. And we were like, oh. And boy, you saw him drop like flies. Boom, taking off, boom, taking off. All these security guards that had not let him cross.

Henry comes back in the bus and we were like, dude, that is so wrong what you're doing. And he goes, that ain't all. Padlocked all those port-a-jones. Oh, no. He pad-locked all the port-a-johns, except one. And he goes, that one over in the corner is, it's open. but I doused gasoline all over the toilet paper.

It's like, I don't even know what that, what is that? Ruthless, man. What is that? Holy cow. He doused the toilet paper in the one port of John that he left open with gasoline. And then the next morning was Sunday, obviously, all of those guards were replaced. They were all, they were all new people. New people.

That's when we realized Henry Benfield is not one to mess with. Yeah, no. He is ruthless. He used to, he used to put, like, ladies under. garments in his buddy's suitcases, knowing good and well that they don't do their laundry at home. Their wife does it. That's ruthless. That is ruthless.

I'll tell you what. When you were telling this last one, it got me thinking, Buddy Baker, I miss him. You know, got to work with him in TNN and stuff, and he was the greatest storyteller I've ever been around. I remember one time we were sitting there in a rain delay, and he told me a story that he was out somewhere at Daytona or somewhere. and obviously having a few barley pops. And they went back to the hotel. And one of the drivers, and I didn't know if it was Curtis Turner or Weatherly, I know there used to be a mountain cat, like a mountain line that these guys had.

Like an actual mountain. No, I'm serious here. So buddy told me that he was drunk as hell. And they got him and they put him in his room. He got undressed. And he said he was naked and he was laying on top of his bed. And he couldn't go to sleep. And he's just sitting there.

And then all of a sudden he just felt like breath. and he stopped and he was just like Oh no And he looked And he just saw these two eyes looking at him Face your fears Breathing on him And he said he screamed like a girl

And went running And went to the door And ran out of the door Naked They were all out there Because they knew it was going to happen Naked as hell They put the mountain cat

In this hotel room Crazy That's That's insane You can't have fun like that anymore No You can't really bring the mountain line to it. No, no.

So I get hurt. Right. These days, you can get sued just for thinking about that idea. All right. Good stuff there. Yeah, Jimmy got them. Jimmy got them. Got them.

Before we actually talk about the race, let's go to an Exalta update. This is your Exalt a race center update. I'm Matthew Dillner. The monster reached out and bit many on NASCAR weekend. On Sunday, Chase Elliott survived Dover International Speedway. and an overtime finish to score his second Cup Series win. The W punches the Dawsonville, Georgia driver's ticket into the next round of the playoffs. On Saturday, Christopher Bell rang the final bell of the opening round of the Xfinity Series playoffs

with a sixth win of the season. He bested Cole Custer and Junior Motorsports top finisher Justin Algeyer. Those three drivers, plus Daniel Hemrick, Elliot Sadler, Tyler, Tyler, Tyler Reddick, and Austin Sindrick will all move on to the round of eight, which begins in two weeks at Kansas Speed. Before Kansas, the rest of NASCAR will head this week to Alabama's Talladega Super Speedway. After their break, the Truck Series continues their playoffs this Saturday. Then on Sunday, the Cup Series goes pack racing with playoff implications on the high banks of Talladega.

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 Exalttacs.com. All right, guys, we've got Pristine Auctions back as a sponsor for this podcast. Auctions are a fun way to shop, right? Heck yeah, dude. You know?

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All right, so let's talk about the race. Chase Elliott wins the race. Kevin Harvick dominated the race. I was standing there in the booth and I had a great time from the start to the finish. The race to me was really interesting. We didn't have any cautions in the first stage. I don't think we had one in the second stage either.

All the drama or the real, you know, wildness was always in the, it's in the third stage. It is every week. And I knew that was coming. Steve said he didn't think it was going to go green all the way to the finish and he was right. But Harvick gets out there and is dominating the race, leading up, you know, up front, had to start the race by points. So you had all of the playoff guys in the top, you know, 12 there trying to get those stage points. And we're learning, I'm seeing the playoff race. I'm seeing it from this vantage point. And when I was in the car over the last couple years,

I didn't notice some things. What I'm noticing now is how important those stage finishes are because guys will get 18, 20 points before the race is over with. It's crazy. And that is what's keeping those guys in the hunt and in position to be able to move into the next round. Those guys that don't have the playoff points. You know, it's really interesting to see who's racing who and how things are shuffling out to finish those stages.

That's why the stages, to me, even when it was a green flag run all the way through, that's why it's really interesting to me is to see who's going to make a mistake on pit road. That's going to take them out of that top 10 to get those stage points. Who's going to surge? Like, Ameriola, he surged up through there and was gaining points while the other guys weren't. And the 42 of Larson had a rough day. Chase Elliott really wasn't having that great of a day. He had an issue with a loose tire,

uncontrolled tire on pit road that took him out of opportunity to gain a lot of points throughout today. But he drove up through there and put himself in position to capitalize when a lot of guys started having trouble. Harvick had a problem on pit road. Actually, yeah, knocked a vows to him out of the tire and had to come back to pit road.

Got a lucky dog, ended up driving back up to sixth place. You know, when Harvick had his trouble, put Eric Amaroli in position to try to finally win a race this year. He's been put in that position before, and it just seems something different, always takes him out, being able to be able to get that win. And, boy, it's tough to see that interview at the end of the race, see the disappointment in his face in his voice. But they're still alive. Clint Boyer had a lot of trouble.

He had failure, lower ball joint on the left front from what I heard broke and put him in the fence, eventually taking him out of the race. But with everybody else having trouble, you know, he can fly his home and gets off the plane and goes, it's not as bad as I thought because so many other people had problems that it still keeps him in the conversation. Because of that wreck that ensued on the restart. That's right. So the only guy that I think is in real, real, real trouble is Alex Bowman,

who really was driving as hard as he could all day long, making something out of nothing and was in position to maybe get a top 10 when he was taken out with that crash on the back straightaway. He is now several, several points out of the top eight. He's going to have to win. at the next two races to be able to advance. And he has the car at Talladega to win the race. He does.

So that'll be interesting to see exactly how aggressive he's willing to get next weekend. You've been in that position before. Yeah. He's going to have to run the race of his life, and he's going to have to make every move with confidence, be assertive, work hard all day long. It's not going to come to him. He's going to have to go take it.

But the rest of the guys are all within strike and distance of each other. going to Daga is going to be, that's going to be a lot of fun. For you. For me, because you're not in the seat anymore. Well, for me, anyone watching, anyone there, anyone tuning in. We've got the ghost points on the west side of the screen throughout the whole race. Which is so helpful. Watching that is so good.

It is. It is. Even in the Xfinity race, you can see the bat. It is so close. Yeah. These guys are racing so hard and they're bouncing all over the place. Yeah. Taledega is going to be insane. It is.

I can't wait. Not only do I think I can describe what the guys are doing in the draft and why they're doing it, but just to watch this playoff round play out, and particularly at this race where it's such an unknown. It's going to be a good time. I hate we have to wait until the weekend for it to happen. Can I ask you real quick? So if you're in that position, you said he's going to have to go after it. We've known in Talladega, when you look at strategy at Talladega, I think,

think there's two rules of thought. One is lay in the back and let them crash out and then go race at the front. The other is try to lead every lap, stay in front of it. What does Bowman do you think have to do? Is laying in the back a real smart strategy? Hell no. Because you still can get caught in it, right? Look, Bowman basically has one hand left at the table, and he just has one hand to play.

He doesn't get to keep playing unless he wins. All right, so he has to push all his chips into the middle of the table. And go after. Just dig in. But I guess I'm talking about more about the beginning and the middle stages of the race. How do you try, if your goal is you've got to be there at the end, what's the best way to be there at the end? Lead every lap.

Lead every lap. That's what you always get. Get out front, stay out front. I didn't always do that, but that's what I learned was the best position to put yourself in. We tried to lay in back game. You can't do it because the field's too competitive. Yeah. When you want to make this, you know, planned move to the front, I mean, if it were that

freaking easy, everybody would be doing it. Right. When you try to make this move to the front, well, what you find out is nobody knows who you are, why you're up there, you haven't been up there all day long, they don't trust you, they don't know what kind of car you got, they don't want to help you because they don't know whether you can complete the moves or make the moves. What you have to do from the start of practice all the way through the weekend is go out there and prove to everyone on the racetrack that you have the superior.

car and that you are the guy that they need to jump on the train with. So when you go out there to make a move, they're going to go, I'm going with him. I've seen what he can do. And so if you're not there all day and then you show up, now them guys want to work with you. They're like, hey, get your ass back to the back where you've been all day. You're not coming up here and stealing a win for me. Yeah, it's like a weekend long audition to our people's trust, huh?

Absolutely. So I'm telling you, after all that racing I've done all my career, I can tell you with confidence, the best thing to do is to go out there with the mentality that you need to be leading every lap and do everything you can in every foot of the racetrack for every lap to try to make that happen, to try to make that a reality. It's not going to happen. You're not going to lead every lap, but your attitude has to be, I need to be leading. Winning stages for Alex?

Not a big deal. He needs to win the race, the points in the stages, not important. But the only way he can win the race, I think, is to be leading it from the start and try to be leading it. You got to work all day long to try to stay up in the top five, working real hard to be leading that race. I thought a good point that we were kind of chit-chatting with the NBC guys on the plane is if Bowman were to win that race, imagine the now you basically have knocked one of the front runners,

the season-long front runners out of the next round because Bowman is a wild card. Chase Elliott, was he a wild card? Yeah, Chase was not in the top eight in points. coming in the Dover. He wins the race. That now moves another player down into that bottom four that really wasn't in there at the start of the day. So, you know, that made it tough on two or three guys. Yeah.

Kyle Larson, Boyer, all those type guys. Yeah, they got to watch out now. Boy, Deg is going to be insane. I cannot wait to watch it. Yeah, they'll be tough. How about the Jimmy Johnson guys? How about the issue with the ball joint there? We talked about it on the opening of the show, how tough that racetrack is.

on equipment. The 14 broke a ball joint, the 48 broke a ball joint before the race started. That wear and tear starts from the time they unload the race car. One time we ran a race there and took the car home and all of the whole package tray and the interior sheet metal of the car had been had been shaken, literally shaken loose from the roll bar. All the spot wells were broken. And so that's how violent that racetrack is. I mentioned it's like riding a skateboard on a sidewalk at 160 miles an hour. You know, to do, do, do, do, do. So it's doing that for four hours.

Yeah. And it's literally can vibrate and shake anything loose. It's not securely mounted. I talked to some crew chiefs before the start of the race, and they say they take extra care in making sure the oil tank's secure and making sure all the driver comfort pieces and parts are secure the cooler and things like that because it will literally just shake something loose and vibrate things apart.

and we saw plenty of examples of that during the race. As much as I hate that concrete surface, I know I hate it. I wish they'd pave it. I think the racetrack would benefit from being an asphalt track. I think the show would benefit from being an asphalt track, but they've got such marketing in that monster. And the fact that they're a concrete, you know, it's a monster mile and a concrete track, they're never going to pave it.

I know. They're never going to pave it. It would be even more of a monster in my mind. I agree. I agree. Yeah, I never equated the concrete to the monster anyways if that was the thing they were doing. But now that you mention it, that's sort of how their monster kind of looks like a big concrete. Thinking, you know, just imagining how they would think from a corporate standpoint,

they just too invested in this monster, you know, Miles the Monster or whatever. And you wouldn't have to get rid of that, man. I know you wouldn't. You could just spray paint his ass. My point is, is that as much as I hate the concrete surface. The fact that the track is as old as it is, the surface was put down in 1995. We don't see many scenarios throughout the season where it really, really tests the machine. Now, the drivers are going through hell.

150 degrees at Chicago, 150 degrees at Darlington, humidity. Vegas. The drivers are going through hell, and it's only going to get worse for them. Now, the cars, on the other hand, are getting tougher, getting stronger, getting more and more durable, engines, parts, pieces. Less and less parts failures, less engine failures. But Dover really puts it to the test, man. That's what I like about that place. I felt pretty good about the broadcast when we were done.

Felt good about the race and the excitement we had. Can't wait for the Alligator, man. Question. Yeah. What was more surprising? Kyle Larson not being a front runner during that race or Denny Hamlin not being able to pass Chase Ler? with fresher tires. Larson, for sure.

The race at the end really is about who gets clear into turn one because the air is so sensitive there with that concrete surface. So when Denny gets behind the nine, it's like turning a dial on the down force of that 11 car for Denny. It's like turning the down force down. As soon as the 9 gets in front of him, you can just crank that down force right out of that 11. And on that concrete surface with no down force,

he's just going to slide. So he can only go so hard and he's just not going to be able to make a pass. You saw it all day long. As soon as they get, as soon as they sort it out after caution or after a restart, wasn't a lot of passing. It was a little bit.

They went a ton of passing, not a bunch of shuffling of the top 10, you know, and they get kind of spread out. If that negates the tire advantage, were you, I guess I thought, I mean, I thought the call for Chase to stay out was so ballsy. And yet, man, I mean, he took off. I mean, he, uh, it was,

a brilliant call. And maybe not nearly as bossy as I thought it was, because if you're saying that the down force is negated, basically, or the advantage. The car out front has such an advantage, especially on a concrete surface. Yeah. Interesting.

And Kyle Larson just, he had the top three, top two times all weekend and then just never really could break you in into the top ten. They were best on five lap average, 10 lap average, 15 lap average in practice. So that would tell you that they should have been great.

He's so good there. usually. Well, he struggled. You'll have that in a big time auto racing. And he doesn't have, you know, a lot of great statistics at Daga. Doesn't mean he can't go in there and not win. I mean, doesn't mean he can't win Daga. Sure.

I am not counting anyone out. Yeah. Anyone can win Degas. It's going to be Kuzlowski. I feel confident. Well, yeah, if there's favorites, it's certainly the Penske cars, the 12, 22, and the two. Yeah. Those forwards of the Penske team have been dominant at the plate tracks.

And you hear it in the confidence of the drivers, Joe Laganon, and Brad Kiselowski, when you talk about Talladega, both of them say, I'm ready. Not a lot of drivers are really excited about that race. Those two guys are looking forward to it. Yeah, that'll tell you something. Your mental approach to these tracks, that's good for a tenth or two. You can't say that any better. The confidence and mental approach, I struggled probably the first half of my career

with specific racetracks because I hated them. And I would go to them going, I hate this, I don't want to do this, but I got to. And we would end up having a terrible race. run Darlington, Rockingham, Sonoma, I can name several that I did not want to go to and do not want to race on and we would have a shit weekend because of it. So if you got a great attitude and the rest of the field has a bad attitude, that swings from one end of the spectrum to the other, that's an advantage. Absolutely.

You go out there with a positive attitude and you're excited and ready and looking forward to that race, you're going to make moves with confidence with Talladega is all. about making moves and making moves with confidence, making them quicker and before the guy around you that can make the same move. Everybody sees the line moving. Everybody sees it moving and says, I want to get in that line. It's going forward. So everybody tries to get in that line all the same time.

It's the guy who saw it first and the guy who knew it was about to happen that gets there. All right? Brack Azlowski, Joey Lagano, those two guys will be my favorites. All right, did you see that? We've got to talk about this fight, man, UFC. craziness. Oh, yes. All right, so there are two things there.

A lot of people saw this. Derek Lewis interview. All right, so this guy is fighting. He's fighting this really tall, tall, lanky Russian. Derek Lewis is just trying the whole fight to hit him with this right hand. Pretty straightforward approach. Just going to hit him with this right hand. It's going to be over.

So everybody's watching and watching and watching. And the Russian is popping him in the face and hitting him around and beating him pretty good. But Derek Lewis still prodding forward. prodding forward, he's got that right hand. And if he can hit him one good time, it's going to be over. Well, it's going all the way to the end of the third round, 10 seconds left. You're thinking, man, if this ends, the rest of him's going to win. He's probably done the better job here.

Boom. Finally, Derek Lewis connects with the right hand and laid him out. And then proceeds to have the best interview that I've ever seen for a UFC fight, at least. he talks he takes his pants off Mike and did you see the interview Mike Joe Rogan goes up and says all right man first question why did you take your pants off my balls were hot Joe Rogan says

I understand I understand if Gold Bond doesn't sponsor him now forget about it and then Joe Rogan says well you're number two and you just won this fight this was a great fight this guy that put you in position for a title fight and he goes I ain't ready for no top of

to fight because look at me, man, I'm tired. I need to get on the treadmill. I need to get on the cardio plan. I'm not even close to being ready for no title fight. I don't know what you're talking about. Never heard anybody say that. Oh, my God. So, great interview.

And then Joe Rogan said that Derek Lewis has the best Instagram in the USC game, and I went and looked, and he does. Okay, I'll have to follow that. It's all videos and just funny shit. All right, so then Connard McGregor fights Kabib. I don't even know how to say. Yeah, that's a long. I just say Kabib.

long, long name. So, Connor wasn't the favorite. Right. All right. And so they go into the fight. Kabib, you know, is doing a great job. Got on top of him and was beating the shit out of him in the first round.

And then using his ground grappling to stay on top of Connor and keep the pressure on Connor. And yeah, Connor was having a tough time and getting frustrated. And then eventually it really got to be similar to the Diaz fight that he lost. Whereas he's on the ground a lot and he's being controlled a lot in the run. on the ground and it's starting to get more and more frustrating for him and he put himself in a compromising position and lost with a red-necked choke which is pretty much the same move that Diaz beat him with. After that, though, that outcome was what I had expected.

After that, Khabib jumps over the rail to go after somebody, I guess, in Connors' camp. His teammate or... One of Khabi's teammates jumps the rail to go into the ring and knocks the hell out of Connor. I think he shook Connor up. Yeah. And. He was from behind. Sucker bunch of that.

Yeah. I never saw a good shot of it. But anyways, all that craziness going on. Everybody was in, everybody was up in arms about that. I really didn't think it was that big of a deal. Really? Really? Even Mike Tyson chimed up and said something about it.

Like, he'd never seen anything like that. This is talking about a guy that bit of frigging guy's ear off. I know. Why did you not think it was much a big deal? All right. We and you have been to boxing matches. We have. At one boxing match in particular, I think, in a span of about 30 minutes,

we saw five different fights in the stands. I mean, feet from us. That's the environment. You know, that's the energy. That's the aura in the building, right? Is that there's some, there's conflict. There's an aura of tension and conflict. And just, in fact, pop off any minute.

And intoxication. Yes, and beer and this. It's just a recipe that's a dangerous game. Right. Right? It's a little weird. All right. So you feel that when you go to a boxing match.

So when I was a little kid and I'd watch wrestling on TV, what do you do? You grab a pillow, start mimicking what you see, right? Well, when you're in a boxing match, watch guys beat each other, and somebody starts smelding off of you. What's your first thing? What's the first thing coming to mind? I really won't pop this guy in the face. Well, some people do it. All right?

And so it's a recipe for that type of thing, and you have to be careful, and I know that UFC and boxing organizations do the best they can, make it a great experience for anybody who buys a ticket, but you can feel that tension that something could go wrong at any minute. And so when it happened, I wasn't all that surprised because the UFC is a violent game. And the guys that get in there to do that,

imagine the mentality you need to have to want to get in the ring and almost bare-knuckle beat the shit out of somebody. That is a special person that has a certain way about life and a certain view. It just, to me, I wasn't that surprised. I'm like, these guys are fighters. That's what they do. It was perpetuated because of Connor going after those guys at the bus and all that, going to jail.

This goes back six months. And so this violence and sort of no-holds-barred lawlessness has come. kind of been perpetuated for months. And when the guy jumped the rail and went after somebody on Connor's team or whatever that was being a smart ass, wasn't surprised by it because it's sort of been ongoing. Yeah, it's been simmering. Almost. You know, I'd said before the fight, you and I had been talking about it, and I had just

watched the press conference from a few days before. And I had said, this is such an act. Connor McGregor's act is starting to get old. I can expect him just to come in there and act like that the fighter is the most hated person in the world, but this is all a game. And I stand corrected because that is not an act. It seems to be real. In this case, particularly, they hated each other.

And now I know because, frankly, now I got the full scope of the animosity that had been building. And I thought Connor McGregor held himself with class after that race. After that race. After the fight. But the fact is, is that I did think it was a big deal. And what I can't go wrap my head around is the common thinking would be this is great for UFC. We get this a lot of NASCAR. You know, the people that would say you've got to have the Rex to make the NASCAR entertainment.

And yet, Dana White was saying, no, this was a complete joke. This is not who we are. This is terrible for our sport. This is embarrassing for me. I've been working 18 years to build a brand. This is not what I wanted to be. And everybody's like, even in the press conference, I don't know if you watched Dana White's press conference,

but they were like, Dana, this feels like a good thing. I mean, you had as many viewers as you've ever had for a UFC fight watching, and this is going to take the headlines. And he's like, no, I don't agree with that. I don't know where I net out on that, by the way. I don't know if that's a good thing for your FC. I can kind of see my way.

I'll be honest with you. I'm glad he's not embracing it. From a fan point of view, there needs to be, it makes me feel good knowing that there's some sensible, heads at the top that are looking down on this going, we can't let this get become the norm. Yeah. This is, this is, this, this can't be

whatever UFC fight is about and and we got to have a little control here. That makes me feel good. When I say, when I say that I didn't think it was a big deal, what I mean is, it was definitely a big deal in, in the sense of I was very worried that Khabi could be suspended, could lose the belt that he holds. They're talking about that. I was very

worried that this guy that had worked so hard to just beat one of the best in the business had just jeopardized everything that he had accomplished in a mere, just in the moment. That sucked. What I mean, as far as, is it a big deal going forward for UFC? No, I think it's awesome, like you say, I mean, they're going to have more and more people, if they have a rematch, more people are going to buy that one than bought this one. I'm not a USC guy.

And you're going to buy it. And I was just like, what the hell? It was chaos. Yeah. I think that it's smart to have that sentiment in that version. Burbage and language out there from Dana White that, hey, I don't, this is not what we're about. I think that's great.

I want to hear that, and I'm glad he's saying it. But on the other side, and they don't, you know what was interesting is as soon as all that shit started going down, the camera's pulled back. They said, we're not going to promote, this is not what we're about. We're not promoting this. We're not going to promote this. That was amazing. I couldn't believe it.

I'm like, get up in their clothes. Exactly. I want to see what's going on. Their conviction to say, this is not what we're going to promote. I thought was really cool. I know. right? I can believe it.

I cannot believe it. And Dillner, just to explain, this stuff happened. As soon as he jumped over the railing to go into the crowd, the camera went as wide as you can possibly go on the entire arena. The arena. And the guy says, you cannot make out what's going on really. And the guy said, this ain't what the USC is about, we ain't promoting this.

It was a split-second decision. I mean, like, it was like, no. So think about that. Think about that from the mindset of a TV producer. That's the opposite of what you normally would do. Think about what's happening in the producing truck. Yes. What's happening from the UFC to producing truck to the camera guy to the analyst.

All that happened in a split second. Backing out, not promoting it, tell them not promote. Tell them we're not promoting it. You make a, you know, you comment that we're not promoting it. And all that happened so quickly. And they were unified in that whole thing. Yeah. That was amazing.

Yeah, that was amazing. The unification between Joe Rogan saying, this is a black guy on the sport, as it's happening, the camera going wide, as it's happening. Yeah. That was impressive. of as hell. The best shots of that are people with their phones. I mean, like, you saw on social media afterwards.

Yeah. Well, it would have been a big damn deal in a bad way, in a negative way, had somebody gotten severely injured by that ruckus outside the ring. The guy jumping in the ring to hit Connor, he should be ejected, suspended, never allowed back into the sport. Damn straight. That type of action, you can't have that going on. I don't care whether you're a fighter or a fan or whatever.

You know, you got to take that and set an example now that we're not going to. going to allow it and put the guy on the side of lines for good. It seems like if you say that, then you've got to take Khabib and give him the same severe type punishment for going out of the ring after someone. What they do is what they do. I just feel bad for the guy because you know, you got to know he worked so hard to be able to beat one of the best. You got to know how much, you got to imagine, think about how much he put into it and

to risk it all and it be all for nothing would be a terrible story, a tragedy almost. I wonder if he regrets it. now, now that he slept on. I wonder if he regret. He did not regret it in a press conference in his press conference. In the ring, he was trying really hard to explain to somebody's, his reasoning for going out there. And you couldn't understand it or make sense of what he was trying to do.

But he was like, he wanted his belt. Yeah. You know, and Dana White's like, I'm not giving you your belt. You won't make it out of here. Yeah. None of us want to see you get the belt right here because the fans are going to go crazy. but he was seemed to be trying to give a good, what he thought was an excellent reason for jumping out of the ring.

Did he talk about that in the post conference? Here's what he said in his prayer. He did not take questions. It was a very short thing, but what he said, everybody's talking about me jumping in the ring, and I don't understand why we're not also talking about what the guy has been saying, both McGregor and his camp about my religion, about my family. For months, I've been enduring, and I've not said anything.

I know that everybody's want to focus on me jumping out of the ring. the ring, but you guys don't focus on what has led up to this. And they've been going at my family and my, my religion, both that were incredibly important to me. This report is about respect. It's not about disrespect. It's to be about respecting the other people. And there's things that are off limits.

And when you're promoting or when you're doing this, and he went off limits. He hit below the belt repeatedly and repeatedly. And I took it, I took it, I took it. And that's apparently what the guy outside the ring was still doing in that. moment because if you remember as soon as McGregor tapped, Kabib really kind of let that outlet of emotion go in the moment at McGregor.

Yeah. He yelled at him, he shouted at him and then he, and then when he came up, he made eye contact with that dude down the outside. He throws his mouthpiece at him and then something was said. And that's, I think that it was more of the stuff that he considers out of bounds and he

just lost it. And so I thought it was an interesting thing. He didn't take questions. It does not validate the decision to go jump out of the crowd. You just can't have that. He didn't try to make that okay. He just simply said, that's not all there was to this story. Sure, I assume there wasn't.

I assumed there was way more to it. I wanted to really know, and I think a lot of people do, what it was that triggered him to jump out of that ring. That's our, did you see that? We're going to move on to the Ask Junior. It's time for Ask Junior. I got a question. You have a question for me?

Hit us up on Twitter using the hashtag Ask Junior. All right, Asht Jr. presented by Nationwide, our good friends at Nationwide, of course, at Nationwide Children's Hospital and Dale's deal recently with a home fire drill 120. People chiming in with questions from all over the internet. Hashtag Ask Junior. Jeremy, this is, you pick on me for these unusual questions every week lately, but this one's as unusual as I've heard of a recent question. Jeremy Spoken, the podcast today. That's good. There's been no better setup for a question.

Junior, you mentioned the spark that there's a spark maybe needed in the sport on this podcast. He says, my question is, why can we run the tracks in the opposite direction? That's a terrible idea. I have never even heard that. It was so odd that I'm like, I'm putting it in there just to get that reaction right there. When you think about all the crazy promoters in the world, does anybody even thought to do that? No, that's not. Even the craziest or crazy.

You're giving it too much time, Mike. Yeah, all right. Next. Sean Elliott, what's your all-time favorite helmet design and what made it so special? Yeah, so, all right, I'll tell this story. It's about Kenny Irwin. Rest in peace. But I was with Kenny Irwin.

I was 16 years old. We were sitting on Pitwall at Sharp Mary Speedway, and we had been invited to drive in the fast-track driving school. I was sitting on wall. I had this helmet with me. It was just white. and Kenny Irwin had this helmet with him, and it was really nice and painted up. And this guy come,

and one of the guys that was also at the school, another driver walked over and bumped Kenny's helmet, knocked it off pit wall on the ground. Kenny picked it up, and it was a big chip in it. And he was pissed. And I was like, watching all this go down, and I'm like, man, I never thought about it, but I'd always wanted this badass paint scheme on my helmet,

and I see all these other guys before one, see Kenny's helmet, and I'm thinking, man, that sucks if you get a chip like that. Here comes my career. I start racing in Xfinity Series and racing in 98-99 Cup Series and got me some badass helmets painted, right? And I kept chipping them.

And when they paint these helmets, they put a lot of time into them and they put a lot of layers on it and stuff, it's easy to chip. I'm getting more and more frustrated because these cool helmets are getting chipped up. But I don't, you know, because you bang them around in the car,

taking them off, in the roll bars and, you know, all that stuff, these open-faced helmets. And so I just went to carbon fiber and black. I said, I'm done. I'm done worrying about my helmet being chipped. It's like, I need to focus on my car.

Why am I worried about this badass paint scheme and all this helmet stuff? And I'm just, I need to think about my car. So give me a black helmet from here on out. And I told the guy that painted my helmets. I said, look, I'm going to plain helmets, but you do whatever you want on the back, whatever you want. And he used to paint backdrops for Guns and Roses concerts and other people. And so he started painting skulls on it and stuff like that. Nick.

And True X and me had the same guy, and we pretty much get the same thing. We get a black helmet and paint a skull on the back. And as it got further and further into the last couple years of my career, he started getting a little more creative, putting some more designs on it and stuff like that. But I pretty much just left it up to him. If I think about my favorite helmets, it's definitely those first few that he put all that time in and painted the whole thing. And the ones that I was so worried about scratching and nicking and busting up,

I've got the Xfinity helmet that I used in 1999. And, you know, those are probably the ones. ones that are most precious to me. All right. Actually, let me skip that one. Oh, uh, must have been a stupid question that you thought was cool at the moment. And how stupid must it be? Yeah, they're skipping it now.

Or that he's skipping it. This one's, okay, you know what? I'm going to go with a stupid one since you're all picking on me. Here we go. There we go. Because I want you to debunk this if this is not true. Yeah. Okay.

Aaron chimes in and says, do you remember the time that you and Tony Stewart skip practice at Bristol to attend a kid rock concert in West Virginia? We never skip practice. practiced. That's what I thought. Yeah. Well, it's debunk now. Yeah. No, Tony Jr., Tony, Sr. would not have allowed that. Roll up your butt. Me and Tony, me and Tony Stewart did go to a concert.

I think it was either Thursday night or Friday night over Bristol Race Weekend, but we didn't skip any practice. Aaron, what are you talking about, Aaron? No, I'm glad you asked it. It's good. That was a good time. Well, it was on the internet. We want to debunk that crap. All right. One last one here. This one's pretty good, actually.

This is Joe chiming in. This is weeks ago, and I figure with Talladega coming, this is a perfect time to bring this one up. Have you, Jr. ever sneezed during a race? And if so, how did you handle it? Because she nearly drives off the road when it happens. Oh, my gosh. Good question.

Is it? Yeah, I think it is. Yeah, man. I've actually always thought that. When I sneeze, it's a sneeze, and it just carry on. There's people, though, that do violently sneeze. I have no idea how you sneeze. But there's something that it could be a driving hazard. I don't remember sneezing a lot as a race car

driver, but it's happened at times. I'm sure. But at Talladega. But at Talladega, man, if you're three-wide... Like, I sneeze pretty hard, and I hold them in, my wife gets mad at me for that. And I couldn't imagine if I had a big old sneeze. Well, I think that during three-wide competition at Talladega,

that your body mentally shuts down some activities and sneezing is one of them. Like you don't sneeze. You never will. In the moment, you're never going to sneeze. Because your body is that focused. Yep. I need to see scientific proof on that one. Okay.

Tell me if you've ever seen a Olympic sprinting. sneeze in the middle of a sprint or a marathon jogger sneeze in the middle of the Boston marathon or anyone where a football player sneeze in the middle of an 80-yard touchdown catch I can't think of one you're right yeah so in those moments when your mind is mentally focused on something so much it your those things will not happen Graham cano didn't sneeze he kicked that 63 year old 63 yard field goal and boom 63 year old good try Like the field goal, it was a great effort there, Matthew. He kicked it back in 1950, and it's still, it's just now right.

It's a 63-year-old field goal. I thought he's going to kick a 63-year-old man. Sounds terrible. Screw it, white flag. White flag right there, white flag. Kicking as a 63-year-old man would be more points in three. You get more points for that. It's terrible, Mike.

It is. We are one week away from the official release of the book, Racing to the Finish. In fact, those that have preordered we've noticed on social media are starting to get them. They're starting to get them. What did we leave out? Oh, my God. I just read something in the white flag.

I can't wait until you get to it. So you were talking about the book? I was. Yeah. Well, what happened? Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

So you're talking about the book. Okay. I guess I think. I'm not exactly sure what you were doing. We were talking about a book. Yep. A book racing to the finish. It is releasing next week, and for next week's podcast, by the way, we're going to have Ryan McGee on.

Oh, yeah. That's going to be cool. Yeah, that would be fun. McGee co-wrote this book with Dale Jr. That will be fun. As Dale mentioned earlier in the show on Tuesday, October 16th, the same day the book drops. Watch Rachel Ray's show. We've already talked about the coolness of that.

Junior, this week, you're taking ownership of your brand new 2019 Chevy Silverado. Yeah, yes. Even making a road trip out of it? Well, I'm going to drive at home from Talladega. I'm buying it from my dealership down in Tallahassee. We got a Chevy store in a Cadillac store in Tallahassee. Buying a truck there. They're going to bring it up to Dago for me and I'll drive home.

And everybody listening right now is going to be like, dude, you own the dealership. Why don't you just get it for free? That's not how this works. That's not how it. Or get it shipped up or something. I have to buy the car. Everything. I want to own it.

Everything has a price. So maybe this is what you were just getting excited about right now. As this podcast drops out, you can go to YouTube right now and watch the return. It's a behind the scene. Finally, I get to see it. Candid documentation of Dale Jr.'s weekend back behind the wheel. And by the way, a little insider information, he damn near won the race. You know what I'm saying?

Led a lot of laps. You damn it won the race. I didn't. If I finished fourth or fifth. That's not damn near winning. Caution. The caution bit you. You want, all right.

That caution didn't come out. It felt a whole lot different from inside the car. Well, you would say that. It's a lot of fun. I'm telling you. You almost want it. The only place you can find this video is on Dirty Mo Media's YouTube page, subscribe to it now.

And lastly, I will say, because I know Del Jr. would have no intention to say in this, but somebody in this room has a birthday this week. And so I want me and the owner to be the first to wish you a happy birthday this week. Hey! Oh, man. And I hope you have. You finally get your gap in me a little bit. How was your 44th?

Any good? I'm not 44. I'm 41. Mike's the youngest person in this room. He's got the most gray hair of anybody. I know. It's true. It's true.

Tell me how your 44 goes. He's got the most gray hair. and the oldest style haircut. Yeah, he does have that kind of like wafty little thing going up top. Hey, I was born with it. What am I going to do? I can't do anything about it.

Just like you're born with that perfect set of chomper. I mean, right. There's some things that are great, some things that are flawed. Mike's haircut is always reminding me of the sun in the monsters. Oh, really? Yeah.

That's what it reminds you of. The original. Of all the things. Does he have that? The original monsters. It does. He does have a little point. Yes.

I never noticed that. All right. Now I have a new thing for y'all to pick on it. I was, by the way, I started this conversation off by wishing this idiot a happy birthday. I take it back. Not a happy birthday for you. I hope it's a sad birthday for you. Sad birthday.

No birthday for you. Right. Birthday for a whole year. You know, this week is a nice, clean week with no work. I'm going to put work on this week for you. Emails at 6 a.m. Every hour. Dillner's not switching the studio up at all.

I'm serious. No, happy birthday, bud. I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoy your week off whatever you're doing with family. I know you deserve it because you've been away from them a lot. You've been talking to Ila through a phone a lot the past few days. That's pathetic. I got to wake her up this morning.

Greatest thing ever. So, all right, everybody's always asked me how Ila is and what she's doing. So this morning, I mean, you go away for two days and you come back and you come back and swear like they've learned some major stuff. Right. Just like 48 hours. So I go and I put her on a changing table and I'm changing her diaper and she grabbed my elbow and was like and looking at me. And I'm like, hey, you know, the first time she's ever grabbed me.

Like. Oh, really? Yeah. I was like, holy cow. She grabbed me. You learned how to do that. Yeah. And then I had one of their wipes.

You know, I got a wipe and I had one in my hand and she's starting to grab the wipe. I'm like, hey, what are you doing? That's new. She's grabbing. She's just grabbing for things. Just starting to grab. Boy, that's going to, yeah, yeah. I was so excited.

She's exploring and she's curious now. I was so freaking floored when she did that because I haven't seen her for three days and she just started doing that while I was gone. And then when I picked her up and put her on, when I carry her, I carry her like this and I was carrying her downstairs and she reached and grabbed me on the face and grabbed my neck and was rubbing my neck and touching me like this. Because I've been talking to her in FaceTime. forever and she's like you're real right she'd never done that before like reach out and grab

touch you and feel your face oh my god good for you that's a birthday present that's all you need right dude i was like melted good she did that i can't wait i'm going back home right now soon as i wonder you're in a really good move when you came in here even though it's early well we'll put you there fellas hey uh we will end this on a high note by saying happy birthday to dale uh dillner thank you for all your work i mean we've been busting our butt on this video and there's been a long hours and some early mornings. Return. Dillner is running on

not Dunkin' Donuts, and that's a change for him. The first for a show. So you're doing great. But thank you guys. And look for that video. It's out on YouTube right now. Go check it out. It's a lot of fun. Take care, guys. See you. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Dirty Mo.