The Dale Jr. Download - 239 - Mistakes and Accusations

Episode Date: November 6, 2018

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the Download guys get fiery about NASCAR’s blunder, Aric Almirola throwin' shade towards Logano, strong rules reform and TJ’s new/old nickname. Live AskJr questions uncover truths of if Dale was ever a whiner and Mike compares spoiled drivers to the Dixie Chicks. 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.

Damn having corn in the building. Like now I've got corn stuck in my head. Corn stuck in my head. They don't sound like that, Mike. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. I've got my co-host, Mike Davis here. Matthew Dillner, in studio, working the board, doing his magic.

Mike, what we got on the show today? Well, Dale, it was a weekend of mistakes and accusations, I think, from Texas. And you know how in Forrest Gump, Forrest says, Mama always has a way of explaining things So I can understand them You're going to be my mama gump today Because I'm confused And you always have a way to explain things

So Dale this is your show You're going to tell us all about these accusations And all the people who mistakes NASCAR made mistakes Top contenders made mistakes You set us straight today Well I'll try my best Let's get to it

Set Captain Folly level check Cappnaq check Dale Earnhard Jr Mike Davis Check Dell Jr. Gallo Engage All right

guys so let's get to it big takeaway from the weekend man what which takeaway are you going to go to first i know it's there's a lot there's a lot to choose from here you know the race was a tough one to watch i thought you know didn't have a lot of action didn't have a lot of cautions one single groove racetrack let's get to a couple tweets comments from drivers yes from jeff gluck chase elliott on how hard it was to pass at texas i don't know what genius decided to pave this place or take the banking out of turns one and two, but not a good move for the entertainment factor, in my opinion. I love that Chase Elliott is given his opinion.

We want Chase Elliott to engage and share. I know he's doing it indirectly here through Jeff Gluck, but it's great to hear of driver feedback, especially after an event like that. You want to know what the drivers are thinking. Yeah. Yeah, I get it pretty ballsy. Absolutely. Did you see what Eddie Gossett said in response?

What did Eddie Gossett say? Eddie Gossett said, the asphalt has to age. Give it some time. Whether we like it or not, we have to repave every. so often. Give it time. Yeah. I have to agree that they had to repay. I mean, okay, the

track was weeping so badly they had to postpone the IndyCar event from what year 2016. Anyways, the weepers were so bad they had to postpone a major event. This ain't a small thing. They have to move a race to a completely different weekend because

there's weepers in the track, even with a dry racetrack. They couldn't race the damn race. That's a problem. All right. That's a problem if you're on a major network. Sure. All right? You can't keep up your word?

You can't have a race. You can't. You're in the entertainment business. All right. And there was another, there's a couple of race where we had some weepers in Qualifying. It delayed qualifying for hours. Delayed a lot of the progress throughout the weekend. You just can't have that.

And we're not talking about like Concord here where we can get away with running on some weepers. We're talking about speeds. You can't have a weeper. Yeah, they had to fix it. So the track had to. to be repaved. It wasn't a choice of, man, you know, should we repave it? Or maybe we should, you know, what we've seen in Atlanta last couple years where they've

kind of been back and forth on possibly repaving it and not repaving it. That's not what's happening here. This track was in bad shape, needed to repave. So that had to happen. The reconfiguration, though, not sure that I would have done that. Now, with that said, I think the reason, you know, the less banking in one and two is maybe the only thing that created passing in the race. Guys going down in there and getting moved up the racetrack.

And we talked about it in the race. With the less banking, guys have to lift. You can hear it in the cars where they're way off the throttle for a very long time down into the corner. That allows another guy if he wants to be brave enough to drive into the corner deeper and get to the bumper and move you out of the way. We saw it in the Xfinity race on the last lap when Reddick got passed. And by Custer, we saw it when there was a pass for the lead between Blaney and Harvick. I think that that reconfiguration actually created what? little action we did have in the race.

I don't know that I can blame the lack of excitement in that event for the reconfig, but I can say that the surface of the racetrack being new. I mean, we've seen it year after year anytime they've repaved racetrack. That racetrack is not put on a good show. And that's not just exclusive to Texas. That's happened. Any track. Kentucky, Michigan.

I mean, we're going on all the repaves. I don't know a repave that has put on a great show. Right. Let's talk about that, though. There's more things that play a role in. The product of the weekend. The tire, the choice of tire. All right.

And let's go to a tweet from Denny Hamlet. It's naive to think that the 19 package, this is the package that they're going to run next year. You haven't even started running it yet. Less horsepower, more downforce. It's naive to think that the 19 package will fix the one lane racing we saw today at Texas. It is a tire track problem.

The tires do not lay rubber anymore. I'm hoping when a completely new car is designed, which there is expected to be. be a new designed race car coming in a couple years, engines as well. For everyone? Yes. Okay. All right. They're doing this low. Let me get back to the tweet. All right. So it's naive to think that the 19 package will fix the one lane race and we saw today. It's a tire track problem. The tire does not lay rubber. He's hoping that a completely redesigned car will be designed around a tire and wheel combination. That is correct. He also goes on to say you

can't even hardly find a car on the road today that has 15 inch wheels on it. We need something with a durable and tough sidewall to allow Goodyear to put a compound tread that lays rubber. That is what forces us to move off the bottom when the car lays rubber down on the racetrack. Until then, we will continue to chase a quote, unquote, package. And so I have to kind of, I kind of agree with most of that. In 2019, there's a new package coming. It's got more down force, less horsepower. This is a stopgap to what will be eventually a new engine and a new, possibly a new design car.

I don't know that they're going to redesign the car, but there is a new engine package coming in a couple of years that will be an open engine with 550 or whatever horsepower. Till the end, we've got this stopgap of a restricted engine, all right? A band-aid, if you will. Yeah, and that's okay, too. It helps us sort of understand where we're headed and what we need to do to fix it. What Denny's proposing is that if we're going to go to this package, which we are, it's happening, maybe we ought to have a different wheel, a different tire, a smaller tire. a smaller tire less tread width on the racetrack i think that's a great idea i've always thought that what's one way to slow the car if if good year cannot build a softer tire that is durable if a good

year is afraid to build a tire soft that will degrade yet not destroy itself maybe we don't need this much tire on the racetrack maybe a way to get guys to lift off the throttle is to take make the contact patch the actual part of the tire that is touching the racetrack make that smaller okay all right That's an idea. It's a very logical idea that I've heard. A very logical idea that I think would work. Of course, we need testing. I'll be it untested, but go ahead.

Yes. It's a great idea, though. Anything like that would need a lot of testing. Significant testing. Yeah, but keep you. All right. So I'm tracking with you so far. Keep going.

Well, so basically, a lot of drivers disappointed in how difficult it was to pass. A lot of drivers saying don't expect this next year's package to solve all of the issues. It is not a package. I mean, the package, I think, will be pretty interesting at races like that, racetracks like that, but is it going to be as great as it can be? No, it won't. It won't be until we figure all the things out that go along with the package. One of the most common things, one of the most important things to the racetrack

is what connects it to the road, the rubber of the tires. The tire is really the most important thing. The package can be anything, but if it's not the right tire, it's never going to look good. You could put any package on these cars yesterday at Texas, and without the right tire, you're not going to have a good race. So in my mind, they brought a tire that was more durable because we had some tire issues in April. The right front tire was blowing. A lot of people spinning out.

Yeah, a lot of chaos going on. Well, the spinning out's okay. We don't mind about guys spinning out. Okay, but you had some tire. We had right front tires. That's wrong. As long as you have failures is what you don't want. That's right.

Good year says we can't have failures. You can't. You cannot have tires popping and blowing and guys hitting the fence. So they tested, they came back with the Michigan right side tire. And it didn't race well. It's a bad combination for that track. Go back to the wrong board. Go back to testing, try to find another combination of tire that actually rubbers up the racetrack.

Okay, I've got questions, though, for you. One is, it goes back to the beginning of Eddie Gossett's statement. And you are always big, even when you were driving, you were always big about track repaves, and you always had an opinion on that. How long should a fan expect a track to then produce good racing after a repave? A couple years. Five years? We don't know that.

I mean, it's just now that we're starting to repave race tracks. I think you could look. You would have to go back and watch when they reconfigured Atlanta in 96, 97. You'd have to go back and watch pretty much every race until you started to see a trend of racing getting better. I don't know. I mean, it could be five years before a track starts to widen out before a track starts to. But it also could happen overnight. So they changed the tire a lot.

Every week, right? I mean, they're trying new stuff every week. Well, as a track gets repaved, they have to change the tire because it's being a repave. Yeah. And then as the repave starts to age, they have to keep up with that. That's right. They can't leave that same tire on the car. Every once in a while, they'll hit on something that works really good.

And so we need to go back and see why that worked. Understand, hey, man, why did this tire rubber the racetrack up? Why did it make guys start running on the fence all of a sudden? How did that happen? Aging is part of the racetrack, but the tire is the most important component to all of this. Yes. All right. The package is important to an extent.

But what the rubber meets the road, man. That is what is the most important part of the whole equation. That's why Goodyear's job is the toughest job in the sport. Tougher than the governing body. Sure. Goodyear is the key. Yeah. All of our answers.

Well, it has a significant role because it's keeping the pieces of machinery in place in which to run. And you're also asking it to wear off so it can produce good racing. I mean, who wants that job? Give me a tire that wears out, falls off, but doesn't blow up. But doesn't blow up. All right. Go. And then let us complain about it when it doesn't go exactly our way, which gets to my second question,

is that after seeing Denny Hamlin's tweets and Chase Jellet, and I'm not saying they're wrong. I'm not saying they, I like it when drivers speak their mind. But it's just an exhausting conversation for an objective fan like myself to get hit in the face and have to care. I said this on this show earlier in the year. it doesn't apply to my everyday life so packages and you know and tires and Denny's like I liked what Denny said about well if we don't how many 15 inch tires do you see anybody using all right now you're kind of talking in my language but it's just an exhausting thing and my I guess my question to you about when can we expect a track to start to kind of work in is that how long do we have to

keep talking about packages and stuff or is this a product of something else there's a lot of other opinions. These are a product for the mile and a half tracks. Repave or not. Yeah. You got other people, you know, yourself are on the more short track

bandwagon. You got people say, NASCAR needs to eliminate the side force in the cars. I agree with that. NASCAR needs to scrap the damn splitter. Somebody else. Those two right there.

NASCAR needs to listen to drivers more. I mean, it's like, well, where's the end game here? And that's where I'm kind of just... Well, you got close to it right there. Okay. What's the ultimate Dale Jr. Package here?

NASCAR doesn't need to listen to the drivers. Like the NASCAR needs to listen to some drivers. Okay. NASCAR doesn't need to listen to every single fan. Yes. When they have opinions, they need to listen to some fans. Not every driver, not every fan, just some.

They need to pick and choose the guys that they can trust and they believe are giving them the straight stuff. And go to those guys and use those guys. We don't need a council. We don't need organization. Just pick a couple guys you trust. Get them up in the haller every once in a while. Take their information and use it. But isn't it what the council was designed for?

No. It is what it's designed to keep us from gathering in another. Okay. The reason the council's here. Unifying or something? We were going to organize as drivers, and the council came in to combat that. This basically kind of stopped that. The council did some good things, though.

I mean, nothing against the council. I think it worked for a while. I don't know what the council's doing right now. I'm not in the council, and I shouldn't know. But I think that they should pick a couple guys and just pick their brains one-on-one. and the guys they can trust to really understand. Like Denny, some of Denny's points are valid. Go to Denny.

Say, Denny, let's sit down and talk about this. Give us some, you know, just Denny, one-on-one. No one else in the room. When you sit down with eight or ten drivers and you try to talk about wheels, 15-inch wheels, you're going to get all kinds of conversation, all kinds of noise. Everybody's going to root into that conversation. Let's sit down with just Denny. Let's sit down with just Chase.

Say, what can you add here, Chase? What can you do? What can you tell us right now one-on-one? And then if you like what he says, you know, put it to use. If you don't like it, go to the next driver. I got you. Well, I guess that to me you'd have to earn that spot. Denny has, Chase hasn't yet.

Well, that's up to them. Of course, of course. But my point is that you've got to know that they're coming in from the right place. You went down a long list of things, side force. Yeah. I mean, we could talk, this is a very, very, very deep, deep conversation. It goes all the way back to when we went away from the COT to the new body style that we have now, we took we had an opportunity we centered up the noses you remember the noses

used to be slid over with a big left front giant fender absolutely well they center up the noses but they didn't center the tail all right they let the tail stay over to the right so we can have this straight quarter panel for whatever reason I'm not sure so we've had opportunities and we've missed them to take side force out of the cars and center the center the tail piece up and do do these little things you know that that could that could be taken out of the argument so we can center on really what the key issues are. I think Denny points out some really unique ideas as far as tires and wheels,

because I'm a big believer in the fact that the tire is the first domino. All right. Without a good tire, without a tire that rubber's in the track, without a tire that allows you to move around and widen up the groove, I don't care what the car is. You're not going to have the same race. So that's where it starts. So you're saying this rules package may not actually do as much as we expected to do next year

unless the tires are dressed. Is that what I'm hearing? The rule package next year will not be as great as it can be unless the tires are always the right tire for that particular track. The rule package for 2018 will not reach its potential without the proper tire at each track. And it's a tough target to hit. And obviously they missed it this weekend,

but that tire did not put any rubber down. The outside groove never came in. It was never a real, I mean, it was okay for restarts, but that was it. Boy, was it okay for restarts. Yeah. Well, the bottom was so slick. But anyhow, that's against, that's a whole other argument of it.

I think this is a, you know, we got a couple things here to address. I think this package is a neat idea for next year. But don't be, don't, don't be so sure that you're going to go to Kentucky, which was a real snoozer, and see a great race. I mean, we've got to make sure that we're doing everything we can to put a tire on the car, even with this new package that will rubber down the racetrack, and widen out that groove. And I'm sure I don't have all,

I don't have all the answers. I don't. Guys that have the answers are probably the guys that are driving the cars and they're working on the cars, all right? I know that the engineers

are good, dear, super smart, but drivers know why and how and when a racetrack starts to work and widen out and become racy and fun. Drivers sense that and know that. They're out there on the track when it's happening.

So those would be the guys that I would be going to. I would pick a handful of drivers that I trusted and try to get together and figure this out. You know, it should be worth stating here that Denny Hamlin's tweets were in response to a media member who said this, and I want to get your take on this, Dale. Are we really taking freshly repaved nighttime Texas as the launching point to justify the 2019 package?

It's like the Vegas and Chicago land under the sun never happened. Both good races, right? Oh, yeah. You saw a race with more grip than power to justify adding more grip and less power. I am beside myself. Yeah. No, it's right. He's right. Texas, I didn't walk out of Texas going,

2019 is going to fix this. No. No. I don't think, like you said, I don't think it's the guaranteed savior of any of them. I think, I would. Hope. We all hope.

I would narrow up my argument and say, if we go back to Texas with this tire, with the 2019 package, we might be, we might again have an issue. We might again not deliver. Yeah. Right.

So let's, let's, I hope, I'm surely will. I mean, they're going to have, they're going to have to test. this package at a lot of different tracks and I'm certain that Goodyear will be open to and able to adjust the tire and change the tire and we'll see how that works

out. But there's a couple tracks there that they need to really focus on, Kentucky, Texas. Yeah. One more question for you on this. You know, you were there, I wasn't. Did they try any of those rubber laying tactics that, you know, we've seen other tracks? Yeah, dragon. Did they do the dragon? They did the dragon and just

turns one and two. And just turned and flatter returns. The 20 degree bank turns. It's not really. flat. Yeah, they used it in one end. I didn't ask why they didn't use it in the other end. The track has actually changed colors a lot. I mean, it's not dark at all. It's gray. It looks like it's kind of aging quickly. I think that they applied some treatment to it, Lyme or something to make that process speed up. But I'm not in the car, so I can't, you know, I can't say for sure if the track is aging rapidly or not. Well, we heard from the guys or some of the guys that did. And so they

They had a lot to say about it. Yeah, they did. It was an interesting weekend. We had interesting race and interesting comments after the race. Well, there was more to it this week. More to it than just the tires and the grip and whatnot. There was NASCAR admitting a major mistake that I thought was compelling enough just in the fact that they admitted it in kind of very strong position that Steve O'Donnell took.

And that had to do with the 48. Basically, this goes back into, again, additional rules that frankly I couldn't even you can't hardly even remember what all the rules are but I guess if you want to set the table with what the rules are and then people going through the inspection and then we can kind of take it from there because there was a lot of comments on this as well the timeline Dale is what's most interesting about this that that you laid out even for us yeah Jimmy Johnson going through pre-race inspection on the day of he failed it twice I'm sorry did he fail it twice yeah he failed it twice but passed it a third time I think the rule must be that you have to fail it three times. If you fail it three times, you get moved in the back. He got moved at the back even though he only failed it twice and did not, I think the kind of the bigger issue was that the team did not even get notified until they were like basically rolling off pit road and then hence the problem. Yeah, so the command of fire your angels were given and right about that times when Chad Canouse said he found out the 48 would have to go to the rear

for failing inspections. So nearly 90 minutes after the car passed the final third inspection, Canals was told that he had to go to the rear. And in that moment, moment, it's command to start your ends. I mean, engines. Yeah. All right. In that small space between that and the green flag, they argued their case and... To no avail. They obviously didn't get it overturned. If they had learned earlier, I mean, some of the media members said that they were informed roughly 15 minutes before that. 15, yes. I mean, if they had that extra 15 minutes on the grid, they might have been able to argue their case and win their case. You know, that's the part that's intriguing to me at this timeline.

Yeah, so the media knew it right when it was happening, but the team did not. So when the team finds out, there's not enough time for them to correct it, argue their case. And then NASCAR realizes the mistake moments into the event after it's over, it's done, it's happened, it can't undo it. Yeah. What are you going to do? You can't cry over spilt milk. Let's just get out. We can't.

But at the same time, man, you know, there's ways we can maybe improve the system. What do you think? Oh, yeah. I mean, there's definitely ways we can communicate better. NASCAR admitted, look, we screwed up. We see the flaws in our communications, and we've got to fix that. This can't happen again, and it's all on them. There was no, you know, they put no responsibility on Chad or anyone but themselves.

But, you know, this just cannot happen, especially, I mean, imagine if Jimmy had been in the chase or the playoffs. Imagine if he had been a playoff eligible driver in a situation like Martin Trix Jr. or Kurt Bush. right around the cut line with two races to go to get to homestead and one of those guys get smoothed to the rear accidentally because of a mistake. Yeah. I think that would be catastrophic for the sport. We're lucky that, you know, Jimmy was not a playoff driver,

but still, it's embarrassing. I think that NASCAR is certainly embarrassed by it. Rarely do they make these type of mistakes. Right. So you've got to give them a little bit of credit there because they don't have a real history of having these type of flaws. Now, there's a lot of things we might disagree with NASCAR on, and that certainly happens week to week,

but rarely do they make this type of mistake. Certainly this will be a wake-up call for NASCAR, for everyone involved in NASCAR, to avoid this type of situation in the future, because this cannot be an occurrence that happens any time in the near future. And it won't. You know, remember last week we were talking about how, depending on how much you were affected by a situation,

whether it affects your worldview on it or your situation? I found it just so interesting that I'm going to read you a couple reactions to this, And you can easily tell some that it affected some that didn't. Now, you know, Tony Stewart took this stance. We're the only series in the world where you get to go through tech three times and fail twice. They still let you go through a third time. It shouldn't be this difficult. Help me understand why cars are failing tech two or three times each on race day to begin with, actually.

I mean, that's a question that, you know, you guys that have been racing for ages on ages. I mean, I as a fan don't understand how you could be passing tech all weekend. And then on race day, you're failing so much that this becomes an issue. Rodney Childers said, I think the communication is really good right now. So let's establish what the communication is then. He thinks it's good. No changes. Jeff Gluck said, look, I know you all are pretty pissed, but actually I'm not outraged by this.

It didn't affect a playoff driver. Yeah. You know, and so if it did, it would have been a bigger deal, but I'm just not outraged. And, you know, Kelly Crandall was saying the amount of rules we have makes your headspin after a while we're trying to keep up. That's where I'm at. In this age of outrage, I guess it's not a real popular thing to just not have a strong opinion on something. I'm not outraged. Yeah.

I don't think anyone's outraged. We're lucky. Lucky that it didn't happen to apply. Listen, Jimmy was going to start 23rd. Instead, he started what? 30th. I know. I don't like minimalizing it either.

I don't like saying, you know, it's no big deal. You know, he's going to start in the back anyway. I don't like minima, and I'm not pointing at you. But you got to say it's a mistake. It can't happen again. And if it does, then there should be outrage. Well, we would fall into the category of minimizing it if NASCAR hadn't already taken ownership of the mistake. If they had not taken ownership, we're like,

Look, it's no big deal. But they took ownership of it. I like what Tony Stewart said. Why are we passing two, three times? Who cares about past? You know, why? You know, I'm a believer in a stern, strict system that penalizes and has penalties and deterrence that are incredibly severe that would make you never want to fail. Tech, ever.

Yeah. Yeah. I see that in the snowball dirt. with that guy, Ricky Brooks, you go down there and they call it the Room of Doom. He runs such a tight tech that people are scared of pushing the envelopes. That's sort of like in college football, the new targeting rule where you get suspended another, like a whole game afterwards. The idea people hate this rule because it's like, how can you punish somebody like that?

But the idea is to make them have to change their muscle memory on how they've always been taught to tackle. You've got to change that. And it's got to be so severe of a penalty. that you've got to want to, you know, hit differently. And I think that's what you're saying. No, yeah. I think we need, I've always felt like that the sport needed to be tougher on the teams,

on the opponents in those situations, you know, when you're failing tech and so forth or not passing. I don't know what the ultimate penalty would have been for failing the first time before a race, but I kind of have to agree with Tony there. We have a system that allows people to push in. and, you know, flirt with the gray area, it should scare you from wanting to do that, you know, and not make you afraid of pushing the gray area.

Do you agree with Rodney Chilers that, like, the communication is fine? Like, would you ever want to go back to a system where you had NASCAR officials in every pit where, you know, a crew chief could just lay into them anytime they wanted to and they could have a direct report back to the tower? Rodney Childers is talking about this after he had won a race. That's exactly right. And, you know, he don't, he's just like, man, life's good. Life's good for me.

Everything's awesome. Right. What am I do? Complaint about the communication? Worked out well for me. I want to race. What am I? Yeah, I'm coming in here to bash NASCAR.

Right. Right. If it happens, that goes back to the point. Depending on who it happened to, you know, it affects your opinion on. Not that I think, Rodney's telling a lie, but he's got no reason to stir the pot right there. He's going home with a trophy. Bottom line is, if I mess up on this podcast, right? And you tell me, hey, Dillner, you screw this up.

Okay. you examine what you did, you learn from it, and you progress after that. And as long as NASCAR realizes a mistake, which they did very clearly, very adamantly, and then they move on from it by learning from it, then there's nothing to be outraged about either. It's not nothing to be outraged about, but we do need stricter penalties, we need less rules. And they've tried to do that. I mean, everybody says we need less rules we do, but they've tried to consolidate. You know, they tried to trim down the tech process.

and there's less officials. It's an automated process now. And so they've made some, they've done some things. I mean, think about how tough, what was that, ILS or whatever that way. Oh, yeah, yeah. All right, think about that system. Remember how everybody complaining about that thing, not reading the same every time a car went through there? Oh, you're talking about like the laser deal in that?

Where they put the stuff in the wheels. Remember where we were? So where we are today is really good. All right. We're in a better place than we were in. But we can always continue to make it better, trimming more rules, unnecessary rules. It is tough for a crew chief, though, on pit road.

If you're on pit road, official is responsible for a certain amount of pits now. So it used to be that there was officials at every darn pit. So it's harder to get that communication up to the tower. Plus, they govern the biggest crop of rule breakers there are in sports. It's like we're tombstone this industry. You know, a bunch of cowboys with the red sashes. This is true. But everybody carries a smartphone in their pocket.

there's so many people like O'Donnell or anybody who are any of those officials could contact Chad, any of those folks at Hendrick Motorsports to alert them of the situation there's no excuse for the

team finding out so late the last thing I'll say about this is hmm oh this will be good he's having to think how when you say hmm we need less rules you know unless we need less to have to worry about

we need less to have to you know tech Like tech shouldn't be such a giant process. But the rules that we do have, the rules that we do keep, those are rules. And if you break those rules, that should be it. You know, I don't care what happens to my car. If I break a rule, if we're wrong, if you can prove to me and show me, look, you're wrong. We measured it. It's over.

You're out. All right, man. So what the rule is. I'm out. Yeah. I can live with that. And that's what we don't have right now. We have a system of, you know, well, okay, you go through again.

We're going to dock you some practice time. We're going to take away your car, chief, you know. You're saying send them to the back the first time they, uh, yeah. Or something even more severe. Even more severe than that. You've got to give them hell, man. You got to go hard. You got to make it.

If he's the, wide air pair. Yeah, he's the sheriff in town. Look out, man, but I like it. You got to make the, you got to make it to where they will not, they will. will make sure that this car is going to pass this particular rule. Don't even get on the edge. Yeah. Because it's too dangerous.

The teams can do that, but they don't have to do that. They're not being held to that as standard. It's a culture of, I mean, it's push it as hard as I can get. Let me push it as far as close to that borderline as I can go. Whereas it needs to be a culture of, I ain't getting close to that. No, because I know what happens. I ain't getting close to that. You know, I'm not going to push it that far because that's, I can't afford to lose this battle.

I can't afford to break this rule. If anything, you are consistent on this. Because I remember earlier in the year when we were talking about the yellow line rule. And you were just asking for clarity. You were just asking for distinct. What is the rule? And so there's no, well, I got forced or I did this or I did that. Something happened.

No, rule is the rule. You can't go down there. And you were looking at it. And so that was where because that's where NASCAR kept getting into problem. Well, here's what we had determined. We determined that the air was 10 degrees to the west. And so therefore it must push across. or a little bit below the line,

so we're going to give him an okay. He's all right. It's just like, you know, what's the rule? You were screaming for that at the beginning. Yeah. What else did we get? Did you, everybody was messing up, even top contenders. Did you mess up anything?

Was this a, was this a, did the mistakes barrel over into the TV booth? Or was it just on the track? Well, you know, we make a lot of mistakes up in the TV booth, but I don't know if you guys would even know it. Well, not unless you tell us. That means they do a good job. I mean, you must know of one. You wouldn't have brought this up.

No, no. No, but we haven't even talked about it. Listen, there were so many mistakes. I mean, there were pit crew guys sitting on a wall. Clint Boyer gets docked. I mean, a guy just sitting there. Too many people over the wall just because he was sitting there watching. I did too, right?

You had that. You had a couple of guys, Truex, loose wheels, and you had a little bit of animosity I felt between crew chiefs and drivers and a lot of blame games going on. Yeah, that was strange. Yeah, right? Yeah. Eric Amarola blaming Joey Legano for getting him loose said he was on his door real tight. And then he said, over his radio, he's like, he's got nothing to race four.

He can finish fifth, eleventh. It don't matter. But damn, how can you expect a guy to race like that? Right. Exactly. Thank you. You're racing. I thought Amarola was so off on this one.

I'm like, did you watch the replay? I mean, he's like, yes, they're side by side. Don't knock the one side by side race we got going on. There's one side by side race. And we're going to be like, he did wrong. He should have race to be different. He should have got to watch. No.

Amarola is a. explanation on this. He got side by, he got on my door. Yes. It's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? I'll be,

let me clear up something. So there is a, if a guy goes down in the corner and he drives literally inches off your car, that's something that drivers don't really appreciate. That's not what happened in this situation. I'm just making sure that people understand. I'm thinking that Eric being so far off on this. I'm thinking that Eric thought the 22 was really close to him and was

and was taking the side force off his car. He wasn't. He was actually a good distance away from him. He couldn't actually get any higher. He would have been in the damn, you know, he'd have been into damn marbles spinning out. He was as high as he could possibly be. They went off in the corner and it never changed.

Joey never got to his door so much so that it would have spun him right around. But I think that that's what Eric felt because Eric got loose and said, he's only good, he had to been crowding me because there's no way I would have gotten loose. He had to have been on my door. He's thinking this, right? And so he bents right on. He hits the mic. He's falling back.

He's lost these spots. He knows he's mad, ashamed, or embarrassed one to his team. So he hits the mic. This is what I've done a million times. He hits the mic. And he goes, that guy, blah, whatever comes out, right? And so I'm sure he, after hearing it back, he probably wishes that he had not said that. But he goes and doubles down on pit road after his post-race interview and says that Joey could have finished fifth, eleventh.

It wouldn't have mattered. Why is it matter to him? That is such a bad point of view because jammed. I mean, everybody's there to try to win that race. I don't care what the playoff situation is. And it just wasn't his day. It's just a weak argument. Yeah, that was so strange to hear a driver.

Maybe I've said, have I ever said that? Did you expect another driver not to race hard? I don't want this to come back on me. I don't ever remember saying that. That guy should have never race me that hard because he's already won or he don't need to win. today. I cannot think of any. If anything, you've always taken the position, even when you guys have mixed up, you mix it up with somebody. You've always been like, well, that was fun.

You've always took the fun route, to a fault maybe. But, you know, I can't recall maybe fans can help us out on that one. If Dale Jr. has ever whined about another driver. That would be, this would be what I want. Racing him too hard. Or about anything. I would like to see fans' opinions on when I might have been When was I the farthest off base on anything? Racing related.

Racing. Oh, okay. Oh, got you. All right. Let me know. I know I have. I just can't think of it right now. But I'm sure I've gotten a wreck or something and blamed the wrong guy or didn't take ownership of some mistake I made.

That would be interesting to see. Well, I mean, I'm even trying to think of times when you've taken just a strong stance on one. Talladega was the one that I can think of. the strongest stance you ever took, but that's well documented. The bloodthirsty. In racing to the finish, yes, you can go see that. There was other things going on in mind that. I still feel that way.

About Restrictor plate racing? That's, well, the fact that, like, we. You can't get suspended now. Well. In Restricted plate racing, when you go to the racetrack and you keep wrecking on the last lap. And even when you're not in the wreck, you keep seeing a last lap wreck over and over. And it's like nothing changes. Nobody said, nobody in the whole place is going, you know what?

this isn't so good. What about the time you and Robbie Gordon got into it at Bristol? There's a famous picture where you were flipping him a bird. That was at Bristol. I was roughing him up trying to get by him. He was a lap down. I was running like eighth or tenth or something with only a few laps to go. And I had a very fast car, and I was trying to get as many spots as I could.

And he was a lap down racing the lead lap cars like he was on the lead lap. Yeah, that's totally different. That's different. I know. I couldn't remember. I was like, get the hell out of the way. So I bumped him and pushed him up the racetrack and the race was over. and after the race, he comes down on pit road and knocks the radio.

He knocked the radiator out of his car. Okay, so that doesn't count. You're well justified in that. He deserved that finger. Did Todd Bodine get deserved to be called a cue ball head of pool? Yes. Okay, okay. He was on the inside of me and got loose and put me in the fence and at Pike's Peak.

So he wrecked you. You got to be wrecked. I mean, like, yeah, all right. Yeah, I think you went your whole career without being a whiny baby. We'll find out. Somebody will chime in. That's saying something. That is saying something.

On the track, right? We're making sure. We're saying on the track. I've been a whiny baby a lot off the train. Good thing. This could be a good Asked Junior Live question that we can see. Yeah, maybe somebody when we do it live will already have the answer. Well, good stuff.

Let's go on to Pristine Auction Reed. Got them guys back. Love it. Yeah. We do love pristineauction.com. I mean to keep coming back supporting this show, so we're going to support them. Pristine Auction is an online sports auction site where you can bid on and win authentic sports memorabilia from the comfort of your home. So you can have daily auctions where the bids only started a buck.

So all the bids started a dollar. There's daily auctions. There's also the 10-minute auction. So the 10-minute auction sounds fun to me, where an item pops up. You've got 10 minutes. You've got to decide quick whether you want or not and how much you're willing to pay for it. I went to do one the other day, but it was like there wasn't anything that I really wanted to buy, but I almost did it because I just wanted to experience it. The joy of the 10-minute auction.

Regardless, maybe they found something there, right? What was it you were looking for? No, no, no, maybe they found, like, you know, how to make online bidding fun, man, shorten up the auction time. You know, instead of these long, drawn-out seven-10-day auctions, yeah, where you need to freaking be notified on your phone and all that, you get 10 minutes. It's an option. It's another option, kind of like poker tournaments. You've got all kinds of different poker tournaments. Some of the deals on there are pretty insane.

There's a signed 11 by 14 Dayton 500 winner photo of Joey Legano. Get it now. It's starting at one buck. It's on there right now for a buck. Amarola is going to take him out now. So get it now. Amarola probably won't go. Surely, even after Martinsville, it'll go for more than a dollar.

That's right. I'm giving him crap. He got a lot of booze. I saw somebody tweet that. As long as they're making noise. That's all right. That's what Dad said. Dad says as long as they're making noise.

Anyways, Pristine, they guarantee the authenticity of all their items and everything you purchase comes fully authenticated by only the most trusted sources. Like I've said before, I've signed for these guys. It's the real deal. I went and signed for them. Nice guys. Good people. So go check out pristineauction.com.

now you'll be hooked. It's free to register. All right. So you don't have to pay. It's free to bid. And it's also, you only pay for the items you win. So that makes sense to me. I don't know why I have to tell you that.

Why would you pay for an item you lost? Yeah, that's right. All right. So that's pristine auction, spelled P-R-I-S-T-I-E-Oction.com. And when you register, this is really important, folks. When you register, be sure to select Dale Jr. Download from the drop-down menu in the How Did You Hear About Us section. So that lets them know that we sent you there.

Dang, straight it does. Going to support the people that support your podcast, man. Eshrat. All right, so we got one race to go before we get the homestead. Phoenix. Here's a good question. There's a lot of questions about what's going to happen about Phoenix. Why?

New configuration, man, as far as the where the start finish line, restarts are going to be fun. You're one of those. It's going to be cool. All right. It is not a reconfiguration. Oh, I choose, okay, I stand corrected. I used a wrong damn word.

All right. Don't say it's a reconfiguration. It's not. The damn track is the same. Yeah. They move the start-finish line from the front stretch over to turn two, off of turn two, actually, right before the dog leg. So that's the new, I don't know, is that the new front straightway? It's a very short stretch of straight racetrack, so I guess you could call it the front stretch.

There's a new, one thing I'm excited about that no one else will ever care about. There's a new TV booth. Well, thank God because you don't have to walk up the stairs that you used to have to. Apparently the old TV booth was the worst one on the series. That's what I keep hearing. But they got a new TV booth, so I'm excited about that. But anyhow, so let me ask you two guys a question. Do you guys think we're going to see a different race because they move the start-finish line?

No. I think you're going to see different restarts. And it's going to be fun. That's about it. I'm glad you guys got your heads on straight today because that's the way I feel. We're not going to see a different race. It's the same damn racetrack. But the restart should be pretty interesting.

Guys are going to get runs on each other. We're going to see them going fanning out through that. that dog leg like they do all the time. Going into turn three, there's going to be a lot of decisions to be made. Well, we get a lot of restarts. Obviously, we're going to get some after the stages, but, you know, it's a short race. What is?

300 laps. It depends on whether we'll get a lot of those restarts. Otherwise, you know, the race is really going to look pretty similar to what we've seen in the past. Kevin Harvick has been automatic at Phoenix. Yeah. His record there speaks for itself. But he doesn't have to win now, although I expect him to go compete.

Eric Amarola may think he might right around in 10th, but Kevin Harvest is going to go. You didn't like that joke? I liked it, but I don't know how you didn't laugh at that. It's not even a joke. I mean, like, that's right. Eric Amarola apparently is the only one that's big people. He's not allowed to race.

We're just picking on. But that being said, I mean, do you agree that? Harvick's going to go there and try to win. And he probably will, actually. I mean, Harvick is so good at Phoenix. But he's locked in. The Gano's locked in. Kyle Bush is plus 28.

Yep. True X is in fourth at plus 25. So Kurt Busch, Chase, Elliott, Amarola, and Boyer. Pretty much going to have to win, right? I believe that Kurt Bush cannot point his way in. You know, there's so many cars in the back. Turex would have to get knocked completely out of the race. Right.

For Kurt Busch to be able to point his way in. The crazy thing about sitting there watching at Texas race is, as the first stage is going, Trix had to start in the back of the race, back of the field. Kurt Busch started the race at minus 25 to Martin Trix Jr. After the first stage, it was minus 16. Okay, wow, yeah, because all the True X's problems.

At the end of the race, though, back to minus 25. Exactly where they started, right? True X had a workman-like day at Texas. True X says after the race, God is testing them. Yeah, and I was surprised. I never heard him say the, you know, never heard, never heard talk about that guy. You never heard him to break out his theology and intermix it with his racing. You can speak on that.

Yeah, I could, but I won't. I don't think God's testing him. You don't? I think they had a loose will. I think that's what happened And they've had other little misfortunes So Kurt had a real good shot at trying to narrow that gap a little bit But they didn't get the performance they wanted at the end of the day

And ended up coming out of there Really the same way they walked into Texas So he has to win Chase has to win But he had you know chase runs pretty decent there Eric Amarola Clint Boyer All those guys yeah they got to win Chase runs very well there

He finished second and third at Phoenix his last two times there I think it's Harvick Cobbush Martin Trex Jr. and Joe Ligano and Homestead Joe Legano is a legitimate contender. I'm telling you, man. Third place this past weekend. One at Martinsville. He's clicking, man.

He is. He's clicking at the right time. Jeff Burton talked about it a lot during the broadcast. One of the things that Joey has, aside from being pretty fast on the racetrack, is an incredible pit crew right now. That is what puts you in position to win races. You can have a great race car, but if you can't maintain or gain a few spots on pit road, if you continue to lose one or two spots, you cannot –

you can't get by these guys. guys up front. They're just too fast. Everybody in the top five is running about the same speed. So you cannot afford to give up positions on pit road. Pit crew is incredibly important. They will have to be flawless at Homestead. And right now they're clicking, I think, almost as good as anybody. If we're talking about Phoenix, the Xfinity Series race is going to actually be a pretty interesting thing to, too, especially with us and Justin Algear. Yeah. Yeah, he's found himself in a situation. Yeah, I mean, Justin and Christopher Bell both in a difficult situation. Yeah.

whoever, who would ever thought the guys, the two guys that have done so well all season long, but that's the way this playoff system is. And if you don't perform when it matters, you can find yourself out of it. And Justin and Christopher both are possibly going to go to Homestead without a shot at even racing for the title. That's something. I can't believe it. Incredible. But Algar, we were looking at this.

I mean, earlier in the year, he finished second to Kozlowski at Phoenix. He does well there. Just got to stay out of the mess. Cole Custer pulled off the unthinkable by winning this weekend at Texas. Motor Speedway. That was huge. He was not going to be able to point his way in. He would have to win either Texas or Phoenix. He won at Texas, and he is the guy

who won the last Homestead race. Oh, that's right. He's been really good in those 1.5s. Dominated homestead. So Cole Custer, I think, right now may be the championship favorite. All right. Yeah. Let's do an Exaltor Race Center update. We'll be right back.

This is your Exaltor Race Center update. I'm Matthew Dillner. Kevin Harvick's Cup Series performance on Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway was pure dominance. The Bakersfield, California native led 177 laps en route to a win that puts him in the championship final four in Homestead, Miami, Florida. He and Joey Legano are both locked in with two spots remaining and only one race to go before the final. On Saturday, the Xfinity series was back in action. Things got physical on the last lap as Cole Custer muscled by Tyler Reddick to win, forcing his way into the championship

at 4 at Homestead. After Texas, Reddick, Elliott Sadler, and Daniel Hemmerich are currently in a points position to make the finale with one race to go to determine who makes it to Homestead. The trucks went round and round under the lights at Texas on Friday night. Todd Gilliland was less than a lap away from his first truck series win when his number four ran out of fuel, handing the win and a spot in the championship race to Justin Haley. Haley and his GMS teammate Johnny Sauter are now both locked into Homestead. To the short tracks we go, the cars tour wrapped up its season at South Boston Speedway in Virginia,

and Junior Motorsports late model driver Josh Berry finished with a strong fourth place effort. Teammate Sam Mayer finished eight. One to go. It all comes down to this weekend. ISM Raceway in Phoenix, Arizona. One race in each of NASCAR's Big Three Series will determine who races for the championship at Homestead. This has been your Exalta Race Center update. Exxalta is the official.

official paint partner of NASCAR, developing, manufacturing, and supplying coatings to all types of vehicles and industrial applications. For more on our great partner, Exalta, visit them at ExaltacS.com. All right, so we had a couple of guests coming in the shop this morning that I think pretty interesting for me, at least. There's a group organization called DreamOn 3 that brought in a guest, Dalyan Carver, from Robinsonville, North Carolina. Dalyland was involved in a motorcycle dirt bike accident that has left him paralyzed.

And his request was to come by the shop, take a look around and get a little tour. We popped in here and sat down and talked to him for a while. Big time hunter. Okay. We shared some great hunting stories. They bear hunt over there in Robinsonville where he's from. But we got to spend a lot of time with Dailen. And while me and Dailen are hanging out, Jonathan Davis.

Not your cousin, but... Somebody else. Jonathan Davis from corn. Oh, the singer from corn. The lead singer from corn and the rest of the band. I got a text from my friend Stephen the other day, and he said, do you have any interest in making Jonathan Davis from corn that they were going to come by Junior Motorsports?

They're driving from Florida to Pittsburgh, and they have to stop, so their bus drivers cannot drive that entire distance. They have to stop, so they have to find something to do. And apparently, Jonathan wanted to come by and check out our shop and tour the race shop. come on through if you want to and I'm like hell yeah I'll be there so me and Dalyan were in

the gift shop and Jonathan Davis and his crew comes walking in and so me and Dailin both Dailin knew who Jonathan Davis was He did? Oh that's cool yeah so it was That's cool it was like Two Worlds Colliding there is weird because I've been a I've been a fan

of their music a long long time And uh... Because they've been around a long long time They've been around a while yeah And on me and I I had her six-month appointment today this morning. So me and Amy drove to the doctor nine o'clock to get that done, and we listened to corn all the way there.

And I was like, as you do on a six-month appointment. I was like, Amy, I got to get ready for Jonathan Davis, man. I got to get pumped up. Huge corn fan. Love, love, that's kind of my style of music. I went from grunge to alternative to punk. I didn't know you got that heavy. Yeah.

Yeah. I couldn't believe he was here, man. It was awesome, standing there talking to him, thanking him for. the music they've made and continue to make. Every time I get to meet a band that I like or a musician, I don't know what exactly they like to hear from a fan, but my thing is to say thanks for making your music because I have freaking enjoyed the shit out of it, right?

That's interesting, yeah. That's what I'm doing. I'm listening to your stuff, so thanks. I know it's so basic, but I don't know what else to say, you know. Those things can get awkward if you. If you don't come with an idea of what you want to say. I've seen them get awkward, you know, a lot of standing around. I kind of wanted to know, you know, what made him want to come here of all the things he could have done on his trip.

He said there's a deep connection with J.R. Rhodes that he has, some people he knows, knows J.R. And J.R. has actually tried to get us together for years. Oh. Yeah. So I didn't know that. I didn't either. But I was so glad to meet Jonathan Davis, big fan, and it just happened randomly. You know what I mean?

I wasn't at a race or at a concert or somewhere that you would expect to meet the guy. The guy came here and me and Dayland both got to say hello to him, get a picture made. Dalen was like, I came, you know, this is crazy. You know, came to meet you, but you're going to meet the elite singer of corn just random as hell. That is cool. Yeah, that's cool. I hope that he got to meet Jonathan Davis. Jonathan Davis got to meet Jonathan Davis.

Oh, from the five cars. On his tour. Yeah, we have an employee here that name is Jonathan Davis. I'm sure he did. Right. Wow. That would be strange. That would be.

Jonathan Davis would absolutely make it even more strange, just if he has that opportunity. We got a did you see that? Do we? Yeah, this is a, did you see that as a segment on the show that we do every once in a while when we get a really, really good tweet or something that happened on the Internet? Just whatever, you know, can be anything. And this is a really good one. Matthew, I'm going to let you tee this up.

All right, man. Literally. Literally. So your longtime friend there, T.J. Majors, who of course is one of the hosts of Door Bumper Clear, they gave him a lot of crap on it on the podcast this week. There was a high school yearbook photo found. And it had all these things underneath the photo and they listed nicknames. And we learned that old T.J, your former spotter there, his nicknames included T-Bone and T-Pot. This is where I saw it. I saw Travis Mac tweeting. We go, aren't you glad the name T-Pot didn't stick? T.J. And I'm like, no, no, it's sticking. If it didn't stick, it's back. I'm calling a teapot from now on. His name is now T-Pot. Well, you know, they bring back all things for throwback. I mean, we're going bring his nickname back, man. T-Pot. Did you, I mean, you're T-J's buddy. Did you know his name was T-Pot?

I did not know that his name was T-Pot. We have a group chat, and we have been really hammering on him for his nicknames. So, T-Pot was probably, and it wasn't T-Pot as in T-E-A. You have it spelled out here on the show sheet as a teapot, as in T-E-A-Pot. But it's the letter T. It was the letter pot. T-Pot. Yeah. And T-J seemed to reference that maybe he was called that because of his, because of not T-I, but the pot part.

Uh-oh. Yeah. Watch out now. And he said that I actually re-c-created the, I retweeted the original tweet, and he said, thanks for that. I'm probably going to get a test for NASCAR. And so he should. I mean, if he's going to be so bold as to say that, I mean, I mean, he's basically daring NASCAR.

I mean, Pincey's going to have to evaluate this employment. What do they got? Poor T-Pot. Hippie up on the spotter stand up there, and what do we got here? Although Joey's doing well enough right now. I doubt they want to go disrupt that little flow going. Anyhow, pretty funny. There's another one here.

Yeah, what is this? I didn't know if we're going to mention this, but I figured that I put out two there. Somebody tweeted back to our show and screenshot at the NBC show, Dale. And I could show you the picture here. Yeah, let's see it. and picked on the way Mike Davis sits and crosses his legs. I do the same thing. Yeah.

I know? Do you cross it that tight? Yeah. Yeah. This is the thing I said to deal. So I guess it's just everybody hating on Mike Davis. Well, they said, what do they say? They said that I sit like a lady?

Yeah, they said that it was very feminine. It says, Matt, don't know if you see this. But what the hell? Mike, I mean, how do you, that is how a woman sits. Is that right? You see the legs? A little feminine for me, just saying. I used to never sit like this.

No, but you got your, yeah. Well, I used to sit like this, but now my leg would slide off my knee. This is what it is. I told Dillard this. I said, these couches sit so far back that you start getting slouchy, and when you get slouchy, the leg just kind of naturally gets over this. I mean, we start leaning. If we were in a chair, you don't sit like this real close. But when you're leaned all back, that's what it does.

I said like that today. I said like that a lot these days. But I never used to do that. I don't know what happens. I think it's an age thing. I wonder if this lady who's awful critical. Wonder how she's sitting when she's listening to the podcast. I'd like to know.

Yeah, well, they must be looking at the TV. This is actually bad podcasting right now because we're talking about the way we sit and they can't actually see it. It's about crossing the legs. And I bet every dollar I got, Brian ain't putting this on the TV show this week. He's like, probably not.

Let's just get on into it. It's time for Ask Jr. Live! Yes, we are live. All right, everybody. I guess you see us on YouTube. Tube here. Hey, everybody.

Dirty Mode Media. Appreciate everybody who's following this handle. This is our Ask Junior portion of the show. It's brought to you

by Nationwide Insurance. So appreciate nationwide for supporting the podcast. Matthew Dielner is going to pull our questions. One of the questions

that we had for you guys is we were talking about Eric Amarola and how kind of wild and way off we thought his comments were about how he was

raced by Joy. We're trying to think of if I had ever been in the same situation and said anything completely ridiculous after a race. Yeah, we're basically trying to think if you've ever whined like a little, like a whiner. Whatever. It was wrong in it. Yeah. Any kind of wrong, baseless whining comments. Winy whiners.

I'm sure there's some out there. Hold up. On the track, because we have a lot of those moments off the track. We won't. We'll take anything. If he's a whiny whiner right after race, right before race, any. anything like that and it was completely off base. Hey, one person already chiming in,

we can give a little question while the room populates here. Somebody chiming in from the UK noticed when you used to drive on the ovals, you put both of your hands at times to one side when you turn the wheel. Just wondering why you did that and how you held the wheel typically on a road course. On a road course, I would drive 10 and 2 unless it was a big corner, then I might get over here and tug on it like this. this. Mark Martin drove that way.

They called it the Arkansas pull. Where he was like this? Yeah. Yeah. And so you drive down a straightaway, and as you're starting to go into the corner, you move your hand over here, and you just get more leverage on that steering wheel, and you just go to town getting that thing worked through the center of the corner. If I drove like this, I don't know, I couldn't do that through the corner.

It just felt weird to have your hand up here in your way. I don't know. It's the way I always drove. I think my father drove the same way. For me, I think it's not an old-school way. It's just a different way because I've seen guys from in-car cameras of the 70s and 80s driving at 10 and 2. Brad Casillaski drives this way. And I've tried it in a test, and it's weird.

You get used to doing it one way and you can't really ever change those habits. Good question, though. 18 Diego wants to know. This is a good one. Offseason podcast? Offseason podcast? Yeah, with a question mark. Are there going to be any off-season podcasts?

Matthew wants to know if we're going to do any podcasts. I guess we could do it. No, this is 18 Diego, man. This is not me. Well, you get to choose which questions you want to ask. So I know you're interested in. I guess we can negotiate this right now. What you think, Mike?

Should we do any podcast during? I think we could. No problem. I think we could if there's moments that warrant it. I think that we ultimately need to kind of hit a little master reset and leave everybody with their holiday. season, but if there's things that need to be addressed. What if we dropped one in December and one in January?

That's not a bad idea. Here's one thing is that we're going to be redoing our studio. So it's not like we could just pop in here. We're going to be doing some construction here. Yeah, we are remodeling a little bit bigger space to try to give you guys a little something better to look at than this crap. We've got to be able to stretch out. You know, Dale, you always used to pick on me on a few of the questions that I'd choose.

Like, if you're on a desert island with Martin Trigg. And they don't come from me, man. I'm telling you, we're right here, Mysterious 6-2-3. This is actually a pretty cool one. If you could build a four-car cup team with past or present drivers who have never won a championship. Oh, my God. I mean, who's in the pool? Who would you choose?

I mean, there's some good guys that haven't won championships. Well, I need to see the list. So I'm a list guy. I mean, Mark Martin would be an obvious choice on there. Tim Richmond. Mark Martin, Denny Hamlin. And for anybody complains about me, my choice of, He's won every race, but he hasn't won a championship,

so kind of like Mark Martin in that sense. Carl Edwards? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ooh. We didn't even talk about it. That's a really good one. Well, he was just there at this weekend.

So he's on your mind. Yeah, it's fresh on my mind. And Chase Elliott. I mean, that's a no-brainer because the guy's probably going to have a great career, and I'm going to get on that train early. So put him on my team now. So Mark Martin is the only non-current driver on your team. Carl Edwards.

That's true. Edwards. Yeah. I just saw it. All right, there you go. That hasn't won a championship yet. Yeah. Martinsville Speedway actually chiming in here.

Hey, that's awesome. I mean, the track. Somebody at the track. Yeah, the track is a lot. They have a great social media handy. Yes, they do. A lot of tracks do. The Martinsville's pretty cool, though.

They're cool in all parts, man. Big fan, they said, please respond. Where is your Martinsville win car? We know where the clock is. Where's the car? Holy cow. I don't know. They probably kept it.

Now, I bet I got a side or something somewhere. They probably did chop it up and put it in trading cards or some crap. Well, you do have a side panel from that paint scheme on your wall in the dirty dome. Yeah, but that was from a wreck of that. I don't know. Was it? Yeah, that's what? That side, I got parts of that car somewhere, but I don't know that I've got the whole thing.

The chassis I did not get, so it would have been the shell, the side, the roof, the hood, something. More unlikely, though, it did get chopped up and put in trading cards. Hey, I like this. Somebody just commented. this isn't a question, but Kevin Carter thumbs up to you for this. Ben through your concussion process himself. Your book has inspired me to go back to the doctor. Hey.

Thank you. That's all the book needs to be doing is trying to inspire people to take care of themselves. Thank you so much. That's awesome. Colby Chancellor chiming in. Dale, what do you think led to the culture change, so to say, of hard racing drivers of the 80s and 90s and the gentleman, let's talk and get along slash whiners that we have? the last two years.

That's a bold question. That is a bold question. There's a lot that's changed in the sport. We all live together on the weekends and these motorhome lots, and the drivers spend a lot of time in close proximity to each other. Social media, media in general. So if you get into it with a guy, you better be ready to be seeing, hearing, reading, talking,

being asked about, discussing that issue for quite a while. It's not over and done. Like if you run over a guy and spin him out for a win, you're going to hear about it for the rest of that week. And then when you go to that track again six months later, we're going to see all those clips and they're going to be running that stuff and promoting that race, using all that stuff over and over again, and you're probably going to get asked about it when you go back to that racetrack.

So I think that that might in a way deter guys from going through that process. You know, I know it certainly wasn't a lot of fun for me whenever it happened. I was caught up any kind of controversy. It was more pain in the ass than anything. So I tried to avoid that as much as possible. Everybody, you know, wants to have activity on social media and wants to be able to promote themselves on social media. But you go on there and you've got to hear everybody's opinion about what you did the past weekend.

Like Joe Lugano, I really didn't think the guy did anything wrong. And, man, is he counting? He's catching hell. People booing him at the intros this weekend. Everybody's comments after the race about his move being classless. It doesn't make any sense to me. For that win, I mean, yeah, if you're going to win the race, it's worth it. But if you're trying to do it and you don't win the race, is it really worth it?

You know, you go through that a couple times. Maybe you think twice about doing it, you know, the next opportunity. I think a lot of people say and act a certain way to try to quell that media storm, you know, to try to muffle that as much as you can. That makes sense. Try to keep that fire from burning too bright and too loud, too hot because you just really don't want to put up with it. Race car drivers want to race. We don't mind knocking each other out of the way for wins.

But dealing with the repercussions and the public perception afterwards and the noise, you know, in the media throughout the week, the rest of the week can be difficult. Some person on here actually thinks Mike Davis that they've always said that you look like Tony Uri Sr. Him? I mean, these people need some glasses here. We've got to get better cameras. I mean, at least he's got the hat on covering the Silver Fox impersonation today. No, I've never heard that. I've been told I look a lot like Carl Edwards, and I get that.

Carl Edwards, really? I get that. I get that. It's the abs. It's everything else. But no, I've never heard Tony's senior. Do you want to weigh in on the one before that? We were talking about the drivers from the 70s and 80s.

Oh, yeah. So the drivers from the 70s 80s, what was the real thing the guy said that led to the drivers being these tough, hardcore racers of the 80s and 90s to the now, let's be friends with each other, whiners of the last few years, they said. The question is, what led to that? Yeah. Too much money. too much insulation like ourselves. We are part of the problems. This PR reps, this marketing reps.

We coddle these little and they sit there and they complain and they get entitled and they're not that. Most of them ain't even that good. They don't even need to be, they don't deserve motor homes or jets. And they think they're entitled to them and they just need to go out and shut up and race.

I'm glad you asked that. Drivers need to shut up and dance. If we say dance, they need to dance for however long we tell them how to tell. They just need to shut up and dance. All this stuff that the drivers complain about, they just need to drive a car. Kind of like the Dixie Chicks.

They just needed to sing. My God. Drivers in a dance. Whoa. Oh, my God. Are you okay? I'm just playing. None of that was true.

All right. Somebody did chime in. I forgot to, I can't see their name now, that wanted to know what was your favorite part in particular? Is there a favorite part of the book that really just resonates with you? I think the part with Amy. I guess.

Talking about my wife. I think it was important for me to clear the air on some things there with her and then explain to people what she did through that whole process. Somebody was chiming in and asking before this chat room is just blowing up. It's scrolling everywhere. This is awesome, man. I can understand why. And now it's going to be like, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.

Wanted to know how often do drivers get mad and scream in the car without actually keying up? I don't know. We don't know. How would we know? Well, you're a driver. so maybe you can speak from your perspective. And no one's there to see it. Do you hear? I mean, what the fuck?

I, uh... What kind of question is that? Well, we know, yeah, we know Kurt Buschke's up, so... I've done that. Like, okay, so this goes back to the, you know, the drivers of today being different than the drivers of past. Like, I would get so sick of hearing people talk about or play or complain about my comments on my own radio during a race

that a lot of times I just quit talking on the radio and when I wanted to complain or bitch about something or be whining, I just stopped doing it and I would just scream or cuss instead of keying the mic I'd just cuss and raise hell in there by myself. Oh, to have a recording of those moments when he's not key in the mic, that would be hysterical. Yeah, there's times when I've MFed.

Tony? Certain people. They'll never know. Tony Jr. Tony Sr. Probably got caught it. Your transmissions were gold back in the eight days. Well, the ones you heard.

All right, somebody chabbing in here saying, what do you think of one of your nicknames? This is a nickname that you don't hear very often. But I think Marty Smith was one of the ones that used to call you this time to time. Redneck Jesus. That always made me uncomfortable when he would say that. Is it because of... Because of what?

I mean, you're... Oh, it's the part where you go, I'm a man of the cloth? Is that what... Is that what you're going to say? You're a deacon. I was. I mean, my term is over. Oh, is?

No, no. It's just, I know you, and you're like, whatever is the opposite of a narcissist. What is that? A humble guy. I don't know what the opposite of a narc. But it's like, so when Marty Smith would say, hey, hey, look, it's redneck Jesus. And you're like, what are you supposed to say to that? I know.

I know. I never knew how to respond to it. But I always took it as a compliment. I never took it as anybody. I was very, you know, sensitive to being picked on. being so damn short all my life when I was a kid. I was really, really short. And so I get very, I get really critical of anybody trying to nickname me or do anything like

that. So, because I always feel like somebody's trying to pick on me. Okay. Oh, okay. That's interesting. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But I never felt that way when Marty Smith or anybody would ever call me that, but it's a bit of a,

it felt like a bit of an overstatement. An overreach. Yes, an overreach. A few people wanting to know who's going to drive for Jerry, We're not year. Well, we already announced one of them. Yeah. So, hey, you'll just have to stay tuned, right?

Yes. There you go. We are not talking about that right now. That's right. Listen, just a little quick break in the action. I had put out there for some help on Twitter come up with the time when Dale Jr. was a whiny baby. Oh, did you get in?

And his assertion was wrong. And nobody can really come up with anything. I think that we were right in this, that we can't think of anything. They said, well, not Dale, but as fans. Yeah, sure. So that's fun. But we're not talking about the fans.

We're talking about Dale. Never whined about anything even after a race. Took whatever for whatever happened. Y'all are being too nice now. This is your moment to really say what you think. Lay into him. Yeah. I'm trying to encourage that.

Come on. He's giving you permission to give him hell. Just give him hell. When was he wrong? And he was just. It's happened many times. Every time. We have had times when you have called somebody a nickname or caught him.

But you feel like you were well justified because you got wrecked and that's true. Yeah. A few people chiming in to talk about this. And, hey, if they're asking for it, give the people what they want. Sir, Jack's Sports Show wants to know. What would your thoughts of NASCAR going electric or running an E-series, live formula, you say? I don't know if I'm into that.

But, you know, I'd still broadcast it. I just, I need to really know about the technology and how it could or couldn't be manipulated. That would be the only thing. I like that answer. Somebody said, the time at Michigan with Mark Martin. I don't remember the events, but I remember you saying you were pissed off. So that was way off?

They felt like I was well. They thought you were way off. Oh, what was it again, Dillner? I remember this. We were racing at Michigan, and coming off a turn two, Mark ran me in the fence. I had to lift and lost a handful of spots, six spots or something. I'd been running eight all day long, all day long, and then I was going to finish 14th. And I was so mad because I want to finish where I think I was supposed to finish.

and Mark is with a teammate. Yeah. And he came off the corner like, hey, you're not even there. Yeah. Screw you. I remember that. And so I got out of the car and I said,

damn it, Mark, bra, bra, bra, and everybody was like, what? Mark, no. Mark don't do that. Mark never do that, man. Come on. Yeah. And even Mark was like, I don't really remember that.

He did your wrong. Yeah, I felt like it. But I appreciate you. Somebody found one that they thought I was way off, whether, you know. That's what we wanted. Yeah. Trying to be honest. Trying to be transparent.

I remember after that, after I said that, most people were like, your way off. I remember that. I remember the reaction that week to those comments were junior, you know, just hush. Zach brought up something that we've already alluded to, and I was just asking you about it, but it's interesting to hear somebody else remember it. I never heard him whine about the race or gripe about other drivers except for Robbie Gordon that one time at Bristol. All right, so Robbie, I was running in 10th or so with a handful of laps to go. This is the same race, I think, where me and Tony Senior might got called to the hauler for cousin raising hell.

Yeah, they threw a lake yellow. We were running tents. We had a real fast car, and I just wanted to get as many cars as I could with what little laps we had left. Robbie Gordon was a lap down, racing in the top 10 with the lead lap cars, and I was like, damn, Marr—Robby, get the hell out of the way, you know. And he wouldn't. So I hit him and knocked him out of the way, and I went on about my business trying to pass as many guys as I could. And so when we come down pit road after the race, he ran in the back of my car and knocked the radiator out of his car. I mean, tore his car all to hell.

And so I jumped out and one of his crew chief, or not his crew chief, but one of his crew members came over there running their mouth. And that was the guy is flipping off, not Robbie. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Okay. So his crew come over there, and I was ready to fight. You were. I was ready to get my ass whoop.

Yeah. If that's what, I mean, that's the thing. Like, if you're going to fight, basically you just have to be ready to get your ass whooped. Okay. I'd be willing. And if you're willing to get your ass, you're ready to fight. I don't know.

I was feeling pretty froggy that day. And then it probably came all down when they said, please report to the NASCAR hauler. Mike Hilton would like to have a word with you. And Mike was mad at us because we had been raising hell over the radio during the caution for them, for NASCAR to throw the green flag. And I was like, man, laps are clicking off.

I'm losing opportunities to get further toward the front with every lap that we run under caution. What the heck? or what the F is NASCAR doing, the track's fine, but, you know, just raising hell. And so Mike Hilton said, do me a favor. Don't, you know, he said this in a very nice way. He said, don't, you know, don't talk about NASCAR on the radio. That was a fun conversation we had at the appreciation event in Vegas last year when we had Mike Hilton on stage. And we're like, hey, Mike, we've always wanted to know.

I mean, I know you know, but we've always wanted to know what goes on in those conversations inside the NASCAR holler. And he put it out there. Yeah, me and Tony Sr. are sitting in there by ourselves. We walked into that NASCAR hauler and they said, go right up to the lounge up front. So we walked in there and nobody was in there. So me and Tony sat down and we're sitting there talking back and forth about what happened, getting our stories straight or whatever. And soon as Mike Helton walks in, me and Tony Sr.

started to open our mouths to plead our case. We were like, hey, man, I'm too. And Mike Helton said, y'all two are going to shut up and listen. Y'all aren't doing any talking. I'm going to do the talking. That's what he said. And he said, I don't want to hear one more word about NASCAR on your radio for the rest of your career. For the rest of your career.

He's like, he just basically said, never again, do you need to say anything bad about NASCAR on your radio? And I'm sure, you know, I straightened it up for a long while. I'm sure there's some instances where I might have let it slip every once in a while. But that is Matt. I was so disappointed in myself because Mike Hilton and dad were such good friends. and I wanted Mike Hilton to think I was awesome because I had so much respect for him. And in that moment, he didn't think very much of me. And I was so disappointed in myself.

And ever since then, I've worked really hard to try to, you know, make sure I had that man's respect. But I had never seen anybody shut Tony Sr. up before in my life, except for Mike Hilton. Well, the fact is that you do have somebody here on Twitter that was saying, never to a reporter, but you did act like a whiny person a few times on your radio channel. So Mike Hilton would agree with that. Absolutely. You know, somebody else brought up the Daga race in 2012, but found out later he had a concussion. So these are things that we...

Definitely a lot of whiny instances on the radio. Yeah, that's where... That's the whining channel. I mean, that's where, you know, you got to have a pressure relief. I'm telling you, man, there's something about that radio and the way it's the way that the transmission sounds that makes you sound whineer than you really are. No, I'm sure. Hey, Jeff Gordon, when you talk to him in person, he sounds a lot higher pitched on the radio. Like when you'd hear him get on there and be like,

Array, the car just isn't really, you know. He doesn't sound that one. I'm sure it's the transmission why Jeff Gordon sounds whining. Sure. All right, man. A lot of questions in. Thanks for everybody joining us on Ask Junior Live, presented by Nationwide.

It's awesome. If we didn't get to your question, hey, we'll try to get to some of them next week and make sure you join us. We love doing this live on YouTube. All right, Mike. That's a lot of fun. Pretty good show.

It was. We covered tons of crap. We did. Let's do a white flag. All right. You want to? Keep on the bud. White flag right there.

White flag. Go to Dell Jr.com ford slash book right now to place your order for racing to the finish. While you're there, you can take the How Well Do You Know Del Jr.? Quiz. Did you see J.R.M. 360 last week? Yes, it was great. Can you believe that the person that did the worst on the how well did Del Jr.? How Well, Do You Know Del Jr. was your cousin?

Danny Earhart, Jr., yeah. Are you shocked by that? No, not really. I probably know even less about him. That's next week. How well do you know Danny and Arnard Jr? Yeah, let's do it. See, I never get to be in on the games.

I want to be in the games. We got to get you on on a prank. That's what we got to do. I want to play the tricket. No, I don't want to do prank. We did one that's coming. I want to play the games. I want a day I'm getting to do the questionnaire.

How well do we know Danny Earnhardt Jr. How do you know well do you know Mike Davis? You know, the thing about Danny Jr., there was a little bit of a pompous attitude. It was like he was a little. He was happy that he didn't know anything about you. It was cool to not know. It was too cool for school. You're like, hey, what about the book?

What book? Don't even know what you're talking about. Oh, stop it. If you have a pulse, you knew that. What's the book? Right. What's the book? Don't know anything about a book.

So, like, yes, I sensed it. I picked up what Danny was putting down. But anyways, all right. Speaking of the book, Dale will be going to Los Angeles this week. I'll be going with him to promote racing to the finish. We'll be on shows like Joe Rogan Experience, Steve Harvey's show,

Bite the Mike with Mike Tyson. What? Rich Eisen's show. Hell yes. What? You're going on with Boy. Hold on. Did you just say Mike Tyson?

Mike the Mike is his podcast. Really? Mike Tyson, yeah. Oh, damn. That's what I know, right? Right. Yeah. That's something.

You know what? I'm going to tell you something. Mike Tyson is one of the ones, I would have lost this bet. But he is very articulate. Oh, yeah. In his post-fighting career. Like he did that HBO special that was fantastic. Fantastic.

And he was on stage delivering. a speech. I mean, it's like, you would have lost that bet, but he was fighting. Right. But, man, he's good. And so, yeah, that'll be a fun one. You know, Rogan, Tyson, Rich Eisen. I can't wait.

Joe Rogan's going to be a lot of fun. So you guys are going to, you think with Tyson, are you going to have the microphone boom arm that comes out, or are you going to have headsets on that cover your ears? Oh, God. Are you in your jokes? The fuck does that even mean? Just want to know.

Because Tyson bit Evander Holyfield's ear, remember? Oh, man. That's terrible. Dillner is our comedian. No. Failed comedian. Right. Check out Dale Jr.com this week to get specifics on times and dates.

You can also check out this right here. This is a People magazine. The number 12th issue has a nice piece on Dale Jr. And Amy and even Isla Rose. A lot of photos here. There's a bookmark in the top of there. It'll take you right from the page. But still it took them a while.

Happened upon this one. But that's in the November 12th issue of People Magazine. You can go check that out right now. We have two more shows after this. Both of them one-hour shows on NBC Sports Network. Our producer, Brian, is getting ready. He's so excited to produce a one-hour Dell Shooter Download two times in a row. This one should have been one hour show.

It could have been, right? We had a lot to say. Thanks again to our partners nationwide and Chevrolet. They're always key contributors to Delgitjutor download and pristine auction. Be sure to follow Dirty Mo Media on all social media platforms, including our new and approved YouTube channel, which now has its own custom URL, guys. Oh. YouTube.com slash Del Dirtymo Media.

Not Dale Dirtymo Media, just slash Dirty Mo Media. So there's that. We got a new social media person started. After about four or five months of searching, we found one. So we got big expectations. Dale, anything you want to close us down with? I think we had a great show. Thanks for everybody for listening.

Anything incorrect that you disagree with? Screw you. That's right. I don't even want to hear it, you drivers. You whiny drivers. See it. This bit of bad assery was made by Dirtymo Media. Dirtymo!