The Dale Jr. Download - 256 - Martin Truex Jr.: Fight Like Hell

Episode Date: May 13, 2019

Dale Earnhardt Jr. hangs with good friend Martin Truex Jr. to chat about his path from clammer to NASCAR Champion. The duo discusses their different hunting approaches, living together in a trailer, late night gaming, career ups and downs, and even get chippy about Truex's incident with Joey Logano.  DJD reveals their most drunk moments which include crawling across a road and peeing in a closet.  Odd History tells the tale of the All Star Race format that thankfully never happened. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. for the Dale Jr. Download. Mike Davis, co-host here, Matthew Lee, is in the house. We've got Martin Trex Jr. coming on the show, guys. It's going to be a lot of fun, man. He is one of my best friends. I can't wait to talk to him, see what he's got going on. So let's get started. And Martin Truex, Jr. is about to be a first-time winner in the NASCAR series.

Are you holding on to nothing? Oh, tell me. This is something Just got to thank you for the opportunity And hopefully we can get in there quick And help get Junior some points for a championship All right, as promise, we got Martin Trex Jr. here is our guest.

Martin, where did you come from? House. Yeah, straight from the house. You know what? Straight from the bed. So the reason why I ask that is because he has a shop like right next to ours. How often do you spend time there?

About once every two weeks. I probably go in there and sign everything and they got a big room for you. You'll see what's going on. stuff out. Yeah. What's going on in there? Y'all got a new...

We got a lot going on. Yeah. We got screen printing business. We're doing a lot of shirts. When did that start? About six months ago. Yeah. And, you know, the foundation runs out of there.

The whole back is, you know, it was a shop built originally for maybe race cars or something, and it's turned into everything but. Yeah, last time I was in there, you had a bunch of your own race cars, one of your brothers' late models, maybe a bass boat or two. But now you're turning a real businessman. trying to get things going you know so so the screen printing business that one I wouldn't have predicted right I mean you thought this you know it just kind of happened well I'm in the I'm in the filter air filter business didn't see that one coming either yeah we'll you know we'll get down to you know what what's going on currently but everybody obviously knows that we were great friends but I know that you know before

you moved up to North Carolina you're racing up north with your family when you're a young boy who's your favorite race car driver your dad really yeah so there's some pictures in your house and i've seen them and there's other drivers in those pictures oh yeah there's delernhardt and there's diff gordon are you just kind of collecting different things yeah i collected different things i was actually i was a gordon fan for a little while yeah so how do you become a gordon fan then earnhardt fan was it was all the way around i was always an earn heart fan and then you pull from both of yeah and then when gordon was like you know getting good i was i don't know you're the one person to figure out how to do that then.

I had a black hat and a rainbow hat, but in the same room, I guess. I like everybody, you know. So your dad was a very good race car driver up north. Yeah. He ran kind of a Bush North series, which is kind of, well, I don't even know what they call it now, Xfinity series up there. It's actually K&N East or whatever, K&N North. It's all changed so much, you know, it's hard to keep up.

Kna and North, who are you? I don't know. What is that? But so you got. into Modifieds. Had your whole family been, had your dad drove modified, your whole family drove modified, and that's kind of where y'all all started? That's where they all started. And so, yeah, that's where I started. Our local track, Wall Stadium, and Dillner probably knows that, but that's what they race there, you know, street stocks and Modifieds. So, yeah, I started in Modifides,

and that's kind of what my family grew up doing and going to all those races. So the modified tour was like a big, you know, big deal for our family. But my dad ended up getting into stock cars because he wanted to try it. He wanted to make a living in racing. Well, he wanted to be halfway making a living and racing. He was still doing the clamming stuff. But he wanted to go run some big races, and he tried a few times, and it didn't work out.

But he did really pretty good in the Bush North Series for a few years. Yeah. First race car. Mine? It was a, let me think of what year it was. I'm going to say it was a 94 Troyer car. Oh. Modified.

You were right in the modified. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so when I ran, they were like, it was a two-barrel class at Wall. So it was, you know, 10-inch tire, two-barrel. So it wasn't like what they run on the tour right now, which is 15-inch tire, you know, 600 some horsepower. The modifies to me have always kind of been intimidated because they don't have fenders. It's easy to jump on top of each other and getting some pretty nasty crashes with those things.

You start out without any racing experience. Well, I've raced go-cars for a long time. So how long did you do that? So I started when I was 11. And when I was 18, I race modified. How many go-kart races do you think you won? I don't know. Hundreds?

No. Yeah, 50. I didn't even race hundreds, I would say, total. I mean, we had short seasons, you know. We didn't travel a lot. My dad was on the road racing, so my mom would take me, actually, to the track a lot. Or my aunt and uncle, my cousin Curtis race. You remember Curtis?

He did. He did. Ran some late models. But we raced together. So sometimes his dad would take us. Sometimes my mom, sometimes his mom. And we just, whatever we could get in the back of the pit. pickup truck, literally, and we go to the races. But we didn't run, you know, we didn't run

tons and tons of races. You know, we had to race to Flemington, we raced into Egypt, back in Jersey. And that was, that was really about it. So, and I even took some time off in there at one point. Really? Yeah. Why did you do that? I think I was about, I don't know, 16 or so. I'm not sure. I can't even remember, like, just the racing wasn't, it wasn't really going well, it wasn't strong. I guess not a lot of people showing up. Your area. The area. It wasn't great. Or it was hunting season. Or, well, you know, 16 or so, you've got other things going on.

It's like, yeah, you know. Get your driver's license. Almost driving, chasing girls, all that fun stuff, you know, but just had a lot going on back then. You say you have a lot going on back then. You also, I mean, you know, I've heard it a hundred times, but I don't know if I really heard the whole story from you. You worked on your dad's, you've worked on your dad's boat. Sure. Like in your mind, so I had this thing going in my life where I didn't think I was going to be a race car driver.

I wasn't winning enough races. That was my reason why I thought I needed to try to figure out how to work in this dealership and be a mechanic. I'm sure there was a point in your life where you're sitting on that boat going, man, am I going to be doing this the rest of my life? Did you have those moments? Yes and no. like I'll be honest with you when I was doing that racing for a living wasn't even on my radar yet so I did I kind of did it the opposite like I was working making money so I could race and and enjoying and honestly enjoying myself I was still in high school working on the weekends to make some money

because you know as a kid you're getting your license you got to have some cash and racing a little bit on the side got to buy tires and all that stuff but so I started that before I even even got serious about racing and just to just to kind of make some money and get get involved with the business it was later that the racing started going well and I actually stopped working on the boats and went to the ask my dad if I could just stay in the shop and work on cars full time and I went from making you know 1500 bucks a week probably on the boats which was really really good money straight at high school sure to like 400 bucks a week just enough to get by to work on but I wanted to work on those race cars so working on your dad's cars my dad's cars the ones I

was driving. So yeah, I mean, it was cool that he gave me that opportunity. And were these modified, was this the modified still? No, when I race, he, he, he, he'd already progress to stock cars. Yeah, when he, when he, when he put me in the Bush North car, that's when I said, hey, I got to quit. If I'm going to do this, I got to give it, you know, everything I got. And so I went in the shop full time. Do you remember when you and I met just out of curiosity? Because I'm, I'm framing up this time frame. And, and when you worked for Finch. Yeah. Did you know Martin, Martin actually filled in a race for Finch. And I was working as my very first year, two, And I remember that car.

In fact, the sponsor of your car, your Bush North car, was the, wasn't it the, the clamming business? Yeah, it was just the family business. Blue and yellow? What year was it? 2002? Yeah. Yeah, I think it was a white car that year. So, you know, we didn't ever, we never heard of True X and anything, but I remember I worked with him that weekend because he, and you did well.

We qualified well. Right. But, yeah, but our expectations weren't like huge. Memory of a racer. We qualified 13th. I'm pretty sure. You might have to take it. No, no, I think that's right.

And then we ran like literally 35 laps and the rotor. All the hat bolts broke out of the brake rotor on the right front. What track was this? It was a Lown, I'm sure. Yeah, Loudoun. So 2000? That was 2002. Yeah.

Because Jimmy Spencer was running that car, but he wouldn't do the non-companyan races. Right. That's right. I think that's what it was. And so you were the one that ran that race for us. Which was made it all the cooler for me when, when you guys got, you know, latched up there. But anyways.

So a lot of people, you know, assume that I was like, hey, this Martin Trix Jr. guy, he's the guy. We're going to get him over at D.E.I. There were a lot more people involved in that connection. Can you talk about that a little bit? Because credit some of the folks that kind of helped me, pointed me toward your direction. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So, Richie Gilmore, who was, you know, he was the lead engine builder at the time.

and you're working for your family. A guy that was a volunteer crew member on my Bush North team, a guy Jerry Califf, he's from New Hampshire, and he would just show up on the weekends because he's from up in the Northeast. He would drive to the track with one of his buddies, and every time we raced up there, he'd help us out. Turns out he was the best man in Richie Gilmore's wedding.

So the connection was just, you know, he was talking to Richie. They would keep in touch, and they're like, hey, man, you ought to see this kid, and he's doing this and that. And so somehow that's how Richie found out about me. And then obviously at some point, you talk, you know, he talked to you about me. And you were starting your team. And I don't know how all that started.

That was something actually we've never even talked about, which until now today. Don't, don't, don't. It'd be interesting to hear from that. But, yeah, I mean, just crazy how you make relationships, you meet people. I mean, it was pretty neat how that all worked out. Yeah, Richie came up to me and he said, we had kind of started a chance. Chance two. Chance one was me, Carrie and Kelly, racing, our late models, right? And basically, it was Dad and Teresa had taken a chance on us, and that was why they call it Chance racing. Chance two. So that went away.

And then a couple years goes by, almost about four or five years goes by, we, DEI, say we, DEI was going to start racing more Xfinity races. And so we started Chance two. And we, we, played around with me running some races and a couple of other people running races with us, and Hank Parker Jr. ran a few races. But Richie came to me one day, and he goes, I got a guy. We're getting ready to go full-time. We're going to go full-time, commit to one driver for the championship, and he goes, this kid, Martin Trex Jr., need to pay attention to him. We're getting ready to go to a couple races. I think we went to New Hampshire, and you were running your north car. You were going to run some of the races with your car in the Xfinity series.

That's right. I remember that. He was like, keep your eye on him. Keep your eye on him. And I don't even know if I'd seen you run yet, and we went to Richmond to test. That's right. And we were standing there, and I had this freaking hot rod race car

that Tony Senior had built. And Bono and all the guys that would eventually be Martin's crew helped on that car as well, helped build it. But it was just a really, really good race car. And we were testing, and I was like, I don't know what to do to it.

It's pretty damn awesome. And I'm just out there making a laugh. I'm really useless at this point. And I saw Martin out there running his car, and we got to talking a little bit. And he was talking about how his car is driving. He was talking about how it wasn't turning very well, and this and that another. And they were kind of struggling on figuring out how to get it to do better. And then I don't think it happened in that conversation.

But then maybe 30 minutes later, I was like, hey, he should just drive my car. Because if you drive, I was thinking to myself, I was like. During the rain delay. Yeah. It was a rain delay, remember? I started shower just not hard, just a little sprinkle. And I was like, thinking to myself, I was like, I never really knew what my car needed until I got a car that did everything.

You know, you drive race cars not knowing if it's as good as it can be, you know, until you get in a better one. And you're like, oh, crap. I didn't know they would turn this well, you know. And I should have been asking for it to do this or trying to figure out how to get to do this. So I was thinking, man, if he gets in this car, he'll know exactly what he's looking for and feel. And at least maybe that'll help him on. his own car.

But it's a right, and so we talked about that, and it never cleared up. It started drizzling around the lunchtime, and we didn't get to finish the test. But that was, and so I think, and that kind of made wanting to get Martin in our car more important. Like, damn it, I wanted him to drive it. Now, damn, we got to get him in the car somewhere, you know, so he can drive these cars. And kind of that's how all that got going. We ended up running a couple races.

We ran Richmond, I think. Ran Richmond, Bristol. We ran like a handful of races and then went full time the next year. And I got a hood off of the car he ran at Richmond. Was that the first race? All-white car? And then we painted one up like my old Robert G. Orange and White, ran that at Bristol.

He was running into top three at Richmond. We had an issue with the motor or something, transmission. I remember everything. I remember all that stuff. Do you remember what your... We ran at Bristol and we just got a little dust up with somebody. Who was it? David Green.

David Green. I remember being down on pit road. He was pissed. David Green still got one coming. Yeah, Jason Radcliffe was his crew chief. He was not T.F. He was needed it. Well, somebody down there was messing around.

Even though you didn't get to drive the car at the test that day, do you recall that conversation and do you recall what you even internally felt when he said and he offered for you to drive that car? I don't remember the exact feeling. I mean, it was a while back, but I just remember thinking, how this guy's serious, like he's just going to let me, this is Della Hart Jr. He's got the fastest car here by like three-tenths.

Yeah, he was so good. He was stupid fast. I'm talking, he ended up, you know, just destroying the field in the race, but I think in a test, he was even quicker than that, like, as far as everybody. Everybody closed up to me. Separation-wise, yeah. But I was just like, I couldn't, you know, I really couldn't believe what was all happening. Were you upset when it didn't get to happen?

Hell yes. Or you're a little relieved. I don't know. It seemed like if that car was that good, I don't know that I would want to be the one. I wanted, I wanted all that. I wanted to see it. The thing is, is like, by time he did get in our cars, the cars didn't have, the cars didn't have that kind of advantage and we didn't have that one light, you know, that one

lightning rod of a race car anymore. Because if I remember, wasn't that the fall race? Yeah. So I believe it was, right? I think it was the fall race. So I didn't run until the following season. Yeah. So I went from, what is the fall Richmond race, August?

Or September. September? So I went from September all the way through the winter. Not racing at all? Well, no. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Because he's like, yeah, you're going to drive my car.

I just want you to jump in there see what it feels like. And then I'm like, well, heck. Is it ever really going to happen? Now, I'm waiting. I got away from September until, I don't know, March, April, May. It was like May for Richmond. Think about that time span where I was like, I almost got to drive that. You know what I mean?

Until waiting and waiting and waiting. I was like, yeah, it's probably never going to happen now. But luckily it all came together when we got to make it happen. Yeah. Eventually, you moved up to North Carolina. Do you remember having that conversation with your dad? Down to North Carolina. Down to.

Down to. Down. Do you remember, like, having that conversation? I don't remember that. I'm going to go live in North Carolina. See you all later. Yeah, I don't really remember that. I think, you know, because I kind of, you know, remember at first, I was still running up north the first year in 03.

So I was still working up there, building cars, racing, and we planning on racing the North Series. We ran some bush races were their own car. And so that first year, I was just kind of back and forth, you know. And once we figured going full time, we didn't even talk about it. He said, he knew, I guess. Everybody knew I was moving, you know. I mean, it was just inevitable. But, yeah, we didn't talk about it.

I mean, they support my parents. They supported everything, you know, that I did. And at that point in time, it was like, you know, they were going to let me do whatever I wanted to. It wasn't like I was a teenager, like some of the kids today that moved to North Carolina to race cars. You know, I was 24 years old. Yeah.

They were like, yeah, you can do whatever that you want at this point. Yeah, right. I'd say that about your dad. You know, there's a lot of dads that support their kids, support their sons and racing. There's some of them that are really aggressive. Your dad, I think because he was a race. racer, he always kind of, he was always there, but he just kind of stood to the side and watched

and was always not, I mean, the true exes in general aren't big talkers, big conversationalists, but, um, say what? Yeah. Until today. Um, but I always appreciate that about your dad. And, you know, I knew that he, he, he respected our operation and thought, man, I got my boy in a great opportunity here. And he, we're just, he just let Bono and those guys go and you, you know, being, in 24 he trusted you to be able to handle it as a driver. But I always appreciate that about your dad, even up to the day. I mean, we work with Ryan here at Junior Motorsports, and he's a supportive father, but he's not like in there hammering the team about,

who's got the best motor here, you know, and all that stuff. And I always like that about your dad. He's just a racer. So you moved to North Carolina. I remember. This is my favorite part of the street. story, by the way. Why? Why do you think that? Because I don't know the situation that Martin was coming from. I don't know if Martin had a place of, I don't know if you had a place of your own or whatnot, but you

moved in and slept on Del's couch for a couple weeks. And I don't know, I just always found it fascinating, this perceived dilemma of I've made it or what the hell am I doing sleeping on Del's couch? And is this really, I made it? I mean, like, I wondered if there was ever a point that you were like, is this is this the top of the mountain? Because you're basically sleeping on a couch, which no disrespect was basically a glorified two-story double wide. Yeah. Right.

And then, uh, the best look, I mean, it was the best looking modular you're going to see. Yeah, sure. It was good. You know, you didn't have doors. You had curtains that you just kind of like just separated the rooms and whatnot. I mean, all I remember about that place was always dark as a damn dungeon. Dark, dark, dark, dark. He slept a lot.

Not a rail light. Not a rail light. You didn't do much during the day or daytime around there. If you're going to sleep during the day, you've got to have it dark. That's right. Hint, you're proving my point. So, like, the mentality that you walked into, I wonder what the, that, it was a culture shock. Yeah, I wonder if it was culture shock.

I'm like, what in the hell is this place? I don't know what we're doing, but this sure is fun, you know? This ain't the clamming business anymore, is it? No, it's a lot more fun than clamming. So am I close into how I perceived that time? Yeah, no, I had a pretty, for me, it was a lot of room. I had a lot of room at the house, and I was thinking, you know, I could be cool to get to know Martin, and hell, he can just move in. I had two extra bedrooms, and so he ended up moving in into one, six months, I think you stayed there until you eventually.

Yeah, it was quite a while. It was a blurter. Yeah. It was something like that. We got a lot of rentals around the Moorsville, and we had a rental just. just down the hill about 100 yards from the house, and he moved in with a friend of mine who become a great friend of his. I mean, all my friends became his friends.

Oh, yeah, he put the Dirty Mo Posse in charge of your career, basically, at that time. Hence, another probably what the hell if I got myself. The guidance was just incredible. Oh, well, I mean, listen, it all worked out, and we could appreciate it. But that is funny. Now, you lived in his house for six months? You say, I didn't know it was that long. I think he lived in there for six months, maybe four months.

did he get his own bedroom right away I don't know that he stayed on the couch at all yeah no I don't think I ever slept on the couch I was like man you're moving in and he's like okay he moved in yes sir boss he was quiet as a mouse like you couldn't sometimes you didn't know he's there but the best thing about it is

we we both liked to race on or race on the internet sim racing on i racing and so forth and back then it was nascar race in 2003 one of the best games ever made It was. For the PC. And I had one room dedicated to computer gaming.

Yep. And we had an octagon. Oh, yeah. We had an octagon table that we built. Right in the middle. Basically, it was a cubicle, and we bought four of them and made an octagon table out of it. We bought four identical computers.

No way. You. Amy gets on my ass all the time because I'm like, we this, we that. She's like, it's not we. It's you. I didn't do a thing about it. about those, yeah, I didn't have nothing to do with that. So I bought four identical computers, and if, I mean, a year goes down the road, all that

crap's obsolete, four brand new computers come back in the house. We're in there, we're in there, upgrading, updating, updating, installing. We got, everybody's got the wheel. I mean, we had it set up, and we had a lot of fun. We raced all night long, sleep all day, eat junk. Yeah. drink beer and he drank you drink captain uh that's his drink captain he's captain morgan guy what are you drinking now a little bit everything yeah yeah you still drink the captain yeah

sometimes do you that's all he drank in moderation all night in moderation when's the last time you did an all-nighter like like the old days oh it's been a while i don't think i've done one this season you're not in condition last year see dale helped you i don't even call i don't they weren't all-nighters they were just that was just normal days back I don't do the sun comes up anymore, so I don't even know if, I call it all night or maybe like a 4 a.m. Oh, wow. Times have changed.

Yeah, I know. So he eventually moved out of the house, and I don't even know why we did that, but, I mean, literally just moved 100 yards away, moved in with my buddies. And you lived there for a couple years. One, we've raced through the Xfinity series. You got two championships with Bono. I remember the one thing that stands out about your about your Xfinity career in those two years

was we went to Darlington and we had a chance to set up the championship, which we did. And Bono, I was like, man, y'all going to run this Wrangler car. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be painted up just like Dad's car. It's not on the table. But it's going to be yellow on the front and blue on the back. It's Dad's paint scheme from 1981, 1981, 1982,

that he ran with Australon, J.D. Stacey, and Richard Childers. And the front's yellow, the back's blue. That's it. It's pretty simple, right? The car pulls up on the racetrack for the pace laps, and I'm standing there on the radio on. I'm pumped up. We're going to wrap this damn championship up right here.

This is going to be awesome. And he pulls up the pace lap, and he's got blue valence tape on it. And I was so mad. I know you guys don't even understand why it pissed me off. This doesn't surprise me. It doesn't surprise Matt. Valence. tape.

Yeah, the valet's tape was blue. And I looked at Bono, and I went, Bono, why in the hell did you not put yellow tape on it? The nose is yellow. Why wouldn't you match it to the nose? The front half the car's yellow, the back half is blue. I will never forget that. But, anyways, Martin, pull your ass back in the drive.

Championship, Shampianhip. Yeah. Hey, I'm particular about my face. He is. I'm like, you screwed this whole thing up, man. But you didn't go on the radio. No, no. Okay, good.

Hell no. Well, I didn't know. because you're bringing it up and Martin's sitting there going like this because he eventually knew about it. Well, after the race, after the race. Oh, I heard about it. Yeah, I heard about it later. Yeah. But we jumped out. Yeah, we jumped out. He wins the race. Parked on the front straightaway, I think. And I mean, this is cool. Like, we were won the damn championship. And we got our big old leather jackets on and I'm standing there. I'm like, in the Wrangler car. Like, this was an incredible, credible feeling. Yeah. Man, guy,

Just in a short time, you went from, you know, working on a boat to being a champion. And I'm changing your lifestyle a bit even, I might say. I mean, that is a – that's quite a change in a short amount of time, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's – it all happened fast. I mean, what can you say? But, gosh, it was fun, you know.

We had so much fun and it just, you know, I got lucky. What can I say? I mean – You got lucky? Well, I mean – Just for some of the breaks? The opportunities. is you think about all those things that had to just fall in place in a year in a year's time or yeah

year and a half maybe you know from that first time we met to win a championship wasn't you know a year and a half in between there so um a lot had to go right you know got got a lot of lucky breaks took advantage of them um man it sure it was fun i remember all of it it's uh it's just cool to you know to see somebody start a team like that and have that opportunity and i i always tell dale man i owe you lot. It's like winning a cup championship now. I always think back to that and think if that hadn't happened, that was the first shoe, the drop, you know, and it was like all these other things came after. Yeah. It would have never ever, I'm telling you, I wouldn't be sitting here right now. So many things that my life had changed because of the opportunity he gave me. It's incredible.

I appreciate all that. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. I wanted to make sure that we credited Richie and other people that help sort of point you in our direction. And apparently the best man in that wedding has something to do with it too, because, I mean, that was the connector that I never knew about, right? I mean. Yeah. One of the greatest things for, you know, me and Martin being friends a long, long time. Martin, and we, I mean, we'll talk about it, but we do a lot of things together.

We're partners in some stuff. But you always wonder, you know, I guess you always kind of wonder about how. how important you are to somebody, you know, and you know what, you know, I know how valuable Martin is to me as a friendship and how much I appreciate that. We, I ran my last race at New Hampshire, and Martin wins a championship.

Martin's on stage. Martin's, I mean, everybody knows Martin's career. He's celebrating the biggest moment of his life. He's got Sherry there, his whole team around him, Cole. They've done this incredible thing. Oh, you're talking about Homestead. Right. Sorry, what did I say?

New Hampshire. Sorry. Homestead. So we're at Homestead. Well, I, you know, I told my guys, I was like, if we finish this race and the cars in one piece, I'm going to pull down pit road, and we're going to drink some beer. That's how I kind of want to close this thing up. They were like, great.

I want to just be with my guys for a minute. And so that took about 45 minutes. We're down there. That's right. Hey, everybody hugging and carrying a beer. And I look over there. Martin's got things going on. He's having his life, the whole time of his life over there.

And it just felt great. you know, Martin, my friend is winning his championship and celebrating that. I'm hanging with my guys like I'd hoped. I was afraid I was going to get crashed. Something bad would happen or something break, and I wouldn't finish, and we wouldn't get to do that. And somebody with a production company that was recording and taking care of all that footage for Martin to be able to keep it, you know,

and even use it in his championship celebration later on at the banquet, said, hey, I was sitting down to do this short interview about something and somebody said man we'll show you something and they ran this little uh they're showing me martin on stage and he's got he's miced which i forgot about by the way yeah of course multiple times so he's got it they mic him as soon as it gets out of the car they stick a mic on there and he's just out he they're just capturing him celebrating yeah and they're like i want to play something in there they put put the tape in they start playing it and it's martin and the guy's celebrating and i was like all right this is cool and uh martin goes and sharing goes

goes, hey, where's Dale? And I was like, damn, he wondered where I was at in that moment, that big, big moment in his life. I've always, you know, thought the world of this guy and always hope that, you know, he valued the friendship as much as I did. And that really said it right there for me. That answered all my questions about what our friendship means to each of us. Just for him to even think about me in that moment where he's, you know, got all these other things happening. You weren't looking for Dale Jarrett by any chance for you.

It was him, right? I do like Dale Jarrett, but I'm not. And I came over there, and my reaction, when Martin turned around and he sees me, I was like, smack him on the chest. I was like, you know, I was like, you did this. You know, I was so happy. And that damn Mike stabbed me in the hand. I didn't know that. Oh, yeah.

I was like, how the hell at the clip? And I was like, Martin, you got a pin. Make sure you warn everyone else to come up here. That's not cool. That's not cool. They stuck that mic on the inside of his lapel, so the pen part was pointing out. The alligator clip. Holy moly did.

The ones with the spikes. That thing got me. That's great. Something stung me. That's good. That's funny because I'll never forget that. That was, that moment was. It was captured. I don't remember where we watched it. Maybe it was like on the, what is the radio chatter thing that they do anyways, whatever it was. Yeah, the radioactive. But that moment, I mean, both of you guys were. It definitely wasn't on radioactive, but it was. I remember.

It was something, right. And you both are just elated beyond, which is what you would expect. But that is a cool moment. I didn't know you got injured in the process. Oh, man. He's learned so many things here. Martin, this may be a perfect opportunity because I know that what you're preparing to do for Darlington is basically a big gesture of gratitude. Is it not? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And tell us about that. Oh, well, let's just. Oh, is that what this is?

I brought a car to unfit. So I know Dale, we all know Dale's throwback city freaking everything. Throwback is awesome, you know. That's just Dale's thing. Yeah, and Valance tape color. Don't get that wrong. Almighty. So I was a little weird about this one at first because I'm like nobody throws back to

themselves. Something they drove. You got to throw back to like somebody. Some people do, but we're not saying some. I can't endorse that. Most people. I'm just saying. But then I was like, you know, this would be really cool because as I talked about earlier,

so many things had happened to get to where I'm at right now. And this car was the first car, you know, first real, real sponsored car at. Right? So for Johnny, for Dale, for Chance 2, Bono, all the guys, Richie, everybody who made that deal work happen, we're throwing back to 2004, which is... This is the car you'll run at Darlington. This is going to be our car for Darlington.

Hold that up. Hold that up. So where do you want me to hold it up to? One of the five cases. If you'll just set them on table kind of pointed the way the other ones are pointed. And the cameras are catching pretty good. And make sure it's like pointed exactly right. we need to have Dale go over the paint scheme and see if you got it right

I mean it's pretty it's awesome it's a pretty close match dude it's awesome so yeah I think it's gonna be it's gonna be really fun I'm excited about it that is cool and Bass Pro man I mean they've been such a huge oh man yours yeah Johnny I mean just Johnny Morris that's one of the things Martin they have been with you forever since since this car literally yeah every single year you know even the year I drove I drove the a car a few years. They were still a part of it. They were on the, I don't know, a quarter panel or see post or something and had a relationship and I, you know, did stuff with them away from the

racetrack. So, yeah, I mean, without, without Johnny, you know, another person they owe so much to. He's just an amazing guy. Yeah. Love racing, obviously. Loves, loves, loves NASCAR. Supports a lot of people, you know, RCR, he still does stuff with them, but just lucky to meet people like that along the way and I would have never met him if it wasn't for you know chance to and bail and you know you having that relationship with him so it's a sporty looking car it's a sporty car i love it man i think it's going to make a lot of people happy going to make a lot of martin trik junior fans happy i mean you can't go to darnington on throwback weekend not have a good throwback and that's going to be one of the best ones out on the track one of my favorite ones anyways i'm going to be there

that's right you know you're a race that weekend he's racing that weekend there's my car over there on the corner. This one here. Look at that. Yeah. And I like it. Yeah, thank you. And I'll be in the booth for your race, which would be a lot of fun.

I always get DJ and some, you know, copaying those guys up there. Well, that's cool. That is a neat paint scheme. Both you guys are going to have a fun weekend at Darlington. That's going to be awesome. All right, we'll get back to the Martin Tricks Jr. interview here in a second, but let's talk about a partner of ours, Audible. Listening makes us smarter, more connected people.

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dale junior to 500 500 so i got a question for both you guys i mean is uh as is as as as martin progressed and then went on i mean is that was that the end of chance too because i honestly don't remember how that how that transition happened like and was that always the expectation when Martin progressed on? Go ahead, Martin. Well, I think no, I would say that it wasn't, but when Dale ended up going to Hendrick, that's kind of when that all that did that change. That did that. Yeah, I mean, it was, I think when we, when Chance 2 succeeded with Martin, that was sort of the, I think maybe the whole thing ended up being about getting Martin into the cup level, creating a, you know, a talented driver for DEI, another talented driver

for DEI to be a great part of their cup program. And once that happened, the cup program increased and that team moved up from Chance 2. And so the attention that we needed to put a chance to for it to be successful, we just didn't have the people to do it. And the Cup program needed that focus. Yeah, because we just, we dabbled a little bit part-time with it. after I moved up to the Cup Series to be your teammate. We did.

We ran it. Pop started running it. Tony Sr. started taking care of that car. It was just running out of the cup shop then. But you were still running those races? But we ran a few. Hard time?

We'd run Daytona. Yeah. He's right. We kind of part-time. That's right. Okay. I forgot about that. Yeah.

I remember those races, actually. There was a particular race. You guys would run those things together. And, man, just wear it out of Talladega. We were racing. We were racing fans will remember this. So there was, you know, we're racing this game on, we're racing, NASCAR racing 2003, and you could edit tracks and create, you know, grip and stuff like that.

And there was this guy named Brian Ring that built these racetracks that had grip up against the high line so that it would make multiple groove racing. And they called, they were called BR, whatever, you know, Talladega BR or whatever, Atlanta, BR. Martin and me were out Talladega, we're leading the pack. And I don't know why, but the top was working. and me and him were up there and nobody could beat us if we worked together

and we pushed each other all day long. And we were running the top and I said to my crew chief, I was like, my spotter, I was like, tell Martin, tell they could be our. That's what's happening right now. And he's, and everybody's like, what? What the heck is that? It's like code.

Yeah. Martin was like, oh yeah, I know what you're talking about. I remember. Nobody knew it that meant. Spotter, crew team, no one. They're like, what the hell are these? guys talking about and we're like there we go right and destroyed them i remember somebody i think it was jason leffler maybe but one time a guy got in between us that's who it was yeah and we spit him out like

bar so i was like martin's leading the whole race and uh somehow or another i'd been on martin's tail nobody could nobody could take the lead much less second place and somehow or another i think leffler got in there and I was like, oh no, down the back straightaway, I had such a run. I hit him in the ass so hard. He turned him off the bottom that I almost spun him out, and he shot up out of our way. And I'm like, all right, back to second. Now it's on again. That's a lot of fun.

Is that when you pushed him to the win? Was it like second one or third win of his career? I remember that, yeah. Yeah, that was my first ever race at Talladega. Oh, really? Oh, crap. That was my first one. And, yeah, he pushed me to the win.

I tore up so much crap. Like, you know, Daytona Tala, it took me three years probably to figure out how to just finish. Well, I didn't finish my first race at Daytona. Yeah. What happened? We got the pole and then we got wrecked in practice and we started the race. They fixed the car. Remember the Bono and those guys working like all night to fix the car so we could start the pole and we ran like 15 laps got crashed again?

I was like, oh, this is not a good way to start the season. I'm about to get fired. You know, back then it was. I flipped upside down the first Daytona race and thought. I thought, man, this is going to be a long, long year. Let me throw back to that time as well. One more question. Back to the Dirty Moe Acres.

When did you actually move away from all that? And what was that transition like? Because he was still running as a teammate. Year would have been, let's think about this. It would have been. I know where. So I don't know what year it was, but we went on a guy's trip. and so he met

he met Sherry would have been yeah and they started dating hanging out summer fall of 05 yeah summer fall of 05 we'd go on a guy's trip we come home and he's like guys he's like I've been thinking about it I think I'm going to move move out

he's going to leave the roost you know we're all well the thing so you got it was a big decision it was a big damn decision this was a big deal did you make it during the guys trip probably not. No, no, no. I mean, him and Sherry obviously been talking about this. So think about this.

All right. Josh Schneider, I mean, I'm naming names here and nobody recognizes. But Josh and I mean, they were like. I'll bet more people know his names than you think. Josh Snyder, David Hovis, Sean Brawley, T.J. Majors. There was about eight of us or so that lived on the property. That's right. And rented right there. So we were a crew. And for one of the guys to move was, was a tough decision, not only for him, but for everyone else. You know, because you're like, we see each other all the time. We hang out every day. We hang out all the time.

And, you know, it meant that we weren't going to be racing in the computer room all night no more. It meant we weren't going to be hanging out on the back porch anymore. You know, those things were, but it was, it's what happens. It's part of life and it's part of the process. And Martin wanted to make this change and wanted to spend more time with Sherry, which was an amazing decision, obviously. I mean, he invested in her and she invested in him and they're still together today. But I don't understand where that guy's trip fits.

fits into this story. I don't either. All I'm saying, the guys trip for me is just like the placeholder in time. It was the last, but it was the last hurrah, basically, the group. We didn't know that. We just, we always went on trips. I know that. Yeah.

But that was the last y'all had Martin. Right. In the fold. He was in the game. Left the posse. Got back from the guys, oh, wherever y'all went, if you don't remember where it went, I would imagine it was a good time. It was always a good time.

Because you used to tell me that Martin would, I mean, if he went, if you could talk about all-nighters, Martin could go multiple nights and not sleep. And I remember that a couple times. Martin had a couple gears in him that nobody knew about until it came out at night. And like, he could just stay up all night. I still got that. I'm pretty sure I was born in like Australia or somewhere halfway around the world. Well, your time, your body clock is all messed up. Always, always.

I do best on the West Coast. I used to say it too I was born on the wrong coast I'm born something weird about my clock man I'm telling you it's like it's time to go to bed and I'm waking up

Let's talk about Sherry Yeah sure You know you've Obviously this was probably 2005 Yeah You guys been together for We met in like August

Ever Yeah we met in August Yeah And so You know Tell me what she means to you man Tell me what, tell me how much of a, how much, tell me, tell me what, you know, what she brings the table and how you guys make it work.

Well, a lot. I mean, she brings a lot to the table. Like you said, we met in 05 and, you know, ever since, you know, first week or two we met, we've been, you know, we've been together ever since. We lived together pretty quick. I mean, everything moved pretty fast, and then, of course, and then it stopped moving because we're still not married, but, you know, just. But he says that with a laugh.

I procrastinate a little bit. I'll tell you that. But, yeah, I mean, you know, we've done everything together ever since then. We started our foundation in 2007, you know, to give back and help people because we realize, you know, how lucky and fortunately we were to do this things together. But, yeah, it's been just, it's been fun ride. It's crazy, you know, just how fast time flies. Yeah. All the stuff we talk about it, just, you know, it was a long time ago.

But it just, it feels like yesterday. Really? I mean, to me, I think. It feels like a lifetime ago. I mean, I think for me it does. Well, he hasn't slept yet, so it probably was yesterday. Yeah, no, she's been awesome. My biggest supporter along the way since we met.

You guys got that catwalk for a call that's coming up this week, right? This week. Yeah, this week. I mean, that thing is blown up. That thing has become huge. It's like a NASCAR event itself. I think it's probably one of the premier charity events in NASCAR, no question. Most definitely.

But we're never satisfied. We want it to be bigger every year. You know, this year's looking good. It's her 10th anniversary. Crazy to even think about that. I'm like, 10 years? Are you kidding me? 10 years?

Any big surprises? Any big plans y'all got for this one? Is, you know, participants? You know, it's, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's 10th anniversary. So you're trying to get to bring all the kids that have walked in the past are coming back. So kind of like an alumni type deal, you know. That's cool.

Yeah, it's going to be pretty amazing. So can you tell us who's playing? You just have a good musical act? Oh, yeah. My buddy Adam Sanders, Taylor Phillips, I think you met maybe in Key West, Cole's buddy. Those guys are going to open up. That's going to be awesome. After a party, they're going to open up, singer-songwriter kind of deal, just back and forth, and then Cole's going to play, Coles Wendell. I basically saw this show this past week in Key West.

Was it good? It's good. It's good. What I can remember. That's awesome. So they were all down there? Yeah. The Singer Songwriter Festival is down in Key West. I got you. A few buddies went down there, and they just happened to be playing. But one of the fun things about catwalk for, I think the fact that it's become such a big industry event is because the industry is so much included. I mean, I don't know when the first time y'all had drivers walk, but drivers walk with these kids.

And I've done it a few times, or Newman's done it every single time. But you got any new guys walking this year? Because that's always fun to watch the new guys go through that experience. You got to go. So a lot of people don't know this. You're going to, it's a, it's kind of a fashion show. It's obviously about the kids. But as a driver, when they're like, hey, man, you got to walk.

You're going to walk this year. You're like, yep, going to walk. You got to go downtown Charlotte or somewhere, wherever you guys determine. And we're going to get decked out in some clothes, right? And so I go down, down to Charlotte, and I go into this department store and these ladies, they're ready for you. They know what you're there for. And they got a couple outfits.

And it's stuff that I, you know, I don't dress up. this is me, t-shirt and jeans. So putting on some slacks or a button down, it's... It's a big deal. It's tough. I think it's same thing for more. Same here. But the fashion show will have a theme.

Like one year it was kind of like a Charleston-ish theme and pastels and whatnot. So anyways, that's the theme. You'll see the theme in the clothes, whatever they have there. And you kind of pick whatever you're comfortable with. They kind of try to twist your arm to wear a few different things you're maybe not comfortable with. And then they say, ah, it's for the kids. And then everybody's like, oh, yeah, we'll do it. You know, we got Newman out there, white pants.

Which would never happen. Yeah, I mean, it looked like a sailor. Newman. He's awesome. Yeah, he does it. He's amazing. But it's so fun to watch, like, the new driver, the driver's not walked before, like the young guys that come in.

It's fun to watch them go through this process. Because it's a big event. It's very powerful. And when you're standing backstage, you're watching, like, Blaney or Chase or those guys going, where if they get it? get how important this is and if they're having fun and, you know, because you're nervous, you're going to walk out in front all in people the first time I did it. I was scared.

I was nervous to walk out there and the kids aren't. They're like having a blast, you know. But I think that's why it's become such a big event. Not only do you have a great actor or somebody that you're going to see that's going to be a lot of fun like Cole Swindale and those guys, but you get to be involved. You know, you get to be a part of it. And that helps you also learn about it. Like when you're a part of the event and you're there watching listening and understanding all the things that are happening and what Martin and Sherry have been able to accomplish, I think that makes everybody sort of feel invested in it.

So I'm excited if you guys. Me and Amy are out of town, so we're not going to be able to be there this year. But I know it's going to be amazing. The first timer we have this time will be Blaney. So we had our pizza and painting deal a few weeks ago. I saw, yeah. At Rescue Ranch. Blaney came.

He was really awesome with the kid he's going to walk with. He's, I know he was a little bit nervous, but... I was disappointed that I didn't get invited to the painting, and I assumed it was just because mine was so good last year. Yours was so good. We couldn't bring you back and make it look bad. What was it? Well, so we had, it was a sandcastle.

Was that last year? I think it's two years ago. Yeah, I can't remember. Anyhow, this is up in my house, this sandcastle painting that I made. Amies is right next to it. Oh, Bob Ross. Yeah. Yeah.

Happy trees. Anyways. Yeah, I took art in school. I feel pretty good about, I feel pretty confident, you know. And I Googled. Like, we're sitting there getting ready to paint this stuff. All the kids are around, other drivers, Newman, TriX, everybody. And we're getting ready to paint ours.

Amy's starting to paint. And I Googled Sandcastle to get, like, an image. He totally cheated. He didn't even follow the script. I just wanted some shading ideas and destroyed Amy. That's great. So I'm like, Amy, I love these photos we did. I love these paintings we did.

We got to put them up. in the QS house. I don't know. I think it's awesome. That is really cool. If Martin remembers it. I just like it because I'm like, look how good mine is,

Amy, and it just wears her out. I just remember that everybody, you know, you kind of, there's an instructor up front, you know, and they give you the steps

and they tell you what colors and how to do it and all this, and everybody looks pretty similar, and then you get Dales over here. He's like, hey, everybody, look at this. Mine looks, nothing like anyone else's. Everything I know about,

that this all makes sense. Amy was so annoyed. No blue valence tape. Right, right, right. Don't get that wrong, though. So a lot of fans always ask me. One of the popular questions that you get when you're out there is who are your friends

on the racetrack, who your friends off the racetrack? Yeah. So who's your best buddy out there right now? My best buddy out there now is Newman. Right. We spend a lot of time together out, you know, hunting and fishing. Every time that I was at the racetrack, you know, up to the, 2017, Turex will be parked next to me most times.

Yeah. You can always count on there being about eight rod and reels stacked up against the bus. Depends on where you're at, you know, where we're at. So we got some, we got some honey holes along the way there. And you just kind of watch until those rod and reels weren't there anymore. And you knew they were, him and Newman were at a fishing hole somewhere. That's right.

That's right. Okay, so who's not your friends? I mean, he asked that part too. You kind of know that. All the rest of them. All right. All right. No, I mean, I pretty much get along with everybody, you know.

Yeah. But I don't really hang out with any of them other than Ryan. It's a tough balance. You know, you try to be, it's hard to be friends with, you know, somebody you're going to race that hard against. So me and Newman just have a good respect for each other, relationship. How did that start?

Because, y'all, I'm seriously, y'all's friendship is really, really tight compared to the drivers, compared to most drivers. Y'all spend time, like, not a lot of drivers are going to spend time together on the race weekend. That's right. You know what I mean? And y'all hunt together and so forth. Yeah, I mean, just, I think it was just fishing.

started fishing together and it's like, you know, just hit it off there. Do y'all get competitive? We don't even hang out that much. It's just if we're somewhere to go. Like we have our spots. Doing the fishing. See, I don't fish. When you're doing that fishing.

I don't think that's what they mean. I don't think that's how they refer to it. Hey, you want to go do that fishing thing? You want to do that fishing thing? I don't fish. You want to go fish the fish today? Catching deer. Yeah.

You'll do that too. Catching release. You just gave a big. A big shout out to catching deer there. Yeah. They'll be happy. Yeah, they will. What is hunting would Dale like, by the way?

I don't want to know that. Tell me about this. We're the complete freaking opposite when it comes to hunting. Okay, so I'll just say that. I don't know if we're a complete opposite, but it's on his phone. He'll practice his bow, and I'm exaggerating, Bright, but he'll shoot his bow almost every day. and, you know, dozens and dozens of shots, right? So if you go look at his target, it's just destroyed.

It's just disintegrated. I'm like, time to get a new target. A long time ago. And I got my bow in the case, and it gets shot when I'm up in the stand. Oh, he's taking it out of the piece. So Martin and me will be talking, and he's like, hey, okay, let's go hunting. We're going to go hunting. Yeah, you shot your bow yet this year?

No. Nope. We get there. Time to go hunting. Let me shoot it that thing a few times. Pown, p, pown, okay, shooting. Doing good. I think that's going to kill it.

So that's it. And so that's what I mean when I say we're the complete opposite. Martin is the best guy to be friends with when it comes to hunting because, you know, I mean, I know some of the general rules about wind and all that, but I forget some of it. You know, I don't retain it. And this guy is like an encyclopedia, knows all the things that you need to be thinking about. Got all the cool gadgets and stuff. and stuff, and so that's why I love hunting with him.

I mean, LW is the same way, LW's particular, and LW is kind of the guy that controls, he's got our side by sides, and he's got everything charged up. He knows we're going to have in the cupboard to eat and all that stuff. And you guys, you're obviously talking about it because you guys both together jointly owned land in Ohio, right? Yeah, me and Truex and my brother-in-law, LW, are partners on this property in Ohio, and we've owned it like six years almost. Man, crazy, right?

Yeah, since 2015, so four years, I guess. Martin is that, to me, he comes off as that guy that, like, you know, you're, I don't even know what the word is, but, like, you enjoy hunting, but you ain't going out there if it's too below zero. Well, crap. Oh, come on. I ain't staying out there. No, no, no, yeah.

When we were hunting in Missouri, I think. Yeah, that year you went. I didn't go that year, but you went with Tony Jr. No. Minus eight. Yeah. Yeah. It's freezing.

He was the only one left. Everybody else stayed in. No, I'll go out. Like, when I'm there, I'm there to do it. Unless, you know, I don't go in the morning hunts, though. Trix goes and gets up in the morning. Which makes no sense, because you like to get up early now, and I don't. Yeah.

Yeah. But I mean, there's something you get up for, though. Yeah. This show and hunting. Hey, you guys have no idea. Martin gets up and goes to morning hunts. The morning hunts, so if you know anything about deer hunt, In the morning hunts, the evening hunts you hunt on a field, particularly most of the time.

You're going to hunt an open field, a food plot or something, because they're going to come in there and eat. Right. Yeah. Right. As the sun going down. That's fun sitting in a field watching them come in there and eat. In the morning, you got a fight, you've got a hope in my mind, this is what it's like. You're sitting a deer stand in the middle of the woods hoping they're going to walk by coming out.

It's like, hell, pick a spot on a thousand acres and hope his ass is going to come by there. I don't sound like no fun. Like, I know they're coming into that field because that's where the food he is, but I ain't going to stand in the woods and hope that the tree's going to walk by on that particular morning. Like, no way.

Is this what it's like? It's just funny to hear his thought process on things. Get into his mind. Is this what it's like? I mean, is this what he's saying at Hunt Camp? Yeah, but I mean, it's more of an educated guest than just picking a tree in the middle of the woods and sitting in it and praying the guy

to the son of a gun walks by you. yeah no there's more to it it's a fun part of it the challenge you know it's not all about just you know having the deer you won't walk by i mean it typically never happens but yeah it's all about putting all the pieces together which makes it fun between me and trex we get invited to hunt everywhere yeah um trick really you don't where we go everywhere come on you can't i don't know every time i talk to you where you're not going to ohio i'm going to montana right Right. Right.

I'm going over here to Missouri. I'm going to the Alps. Yeah. So we get invited on hunts when we, you know, people will say, hey, man, we'd love to have you hunting, give you a business car and all that stuff. I don't want to go. I'm just insecure and don't want to go somewhere else to someone else's property and hunt. I just don't, it's like driving someone else's car. I want to drive the car I own.

Not your car. I'm not driving your car home. Right. So, but, you know, True X is comfortable. He's confident in his hunting. skills and abilities and he's going to go have a good hunt. When he gets an opportunity to hunt somewhere where there's a big deer, he's going to go do it. So I've been on a few of these hunts with him.

Yeah. And it's intimidating. So when I do love to hunt bow and I really love to bow hunt, which I think Martin got me into that. And I got a couple shotguns ready, but I just don't enjoy, you know, I just don't enjoy it as much as bow hunt. So we bought this property together. So that's where we go hunt. And that's, we have, we have this. property and we talked about it for our future and our kids futures and our family's futures

and all that stuff right so it's going to be around for a long time it's kind of something that keeps us connected keeps us together place for us to go spend time he's a race car driver i'm never going to see his ass otherwise i know how that works yeah so uh you know and it's it gives us something to talk about you know how we're man the best thing about the the whole experience for me is i've learned a lot about managing this land from him and LW as they're talking about moving the food plots around and cutting out of field and all that stuff and watching like Martin the freaking thing about Martin is so we start getting these deer on our cameras and it's not hunting season but we're looking at them and talking about you know this is a shooter and this isn't a shooter and

this isn't a shooter and I'm learning all about that and um two years ago next year deer come back on the camera oh yeah martin's Martin's like oh yeah yeah, that's that buck from that plot, that food plot over there. Oh, yeah, he's a, he's a, you remember him, he looked like this. Remember him, yeah. Scouting report. So Martin can look at all the pictures and remember the deer from not only last year, but the year before, and understand, like, how they're growing their progress, where they're at, where their feet. Like, so that's the thing, I guess that's the one thing that I'm a little jealous of or envious of,

is that Martin knows where those deer are going to go. Martin knows the tree they're going to walk by. Because he does the time. As if they wrecked him back in 1999 or something. That's crazy. I can remember all that, and I can remember my setups from 98 in my Modified, but I can't remember people's names. He studies this. It's so hard.

And I'm like, oh, man, you know, if I want to get the big guy, I don't, I need to do that. I need to be able to know where the big guy's going to be. Martin already knows. Martin going to tell me where he is? It depends. It's pretty fun. That's funny. Yeah.

Well, you know, a couple things about what you just said. One, you know, the insecurities that you might have about going to other people's properties there, it would probably help if you shot the bow a little bit before you went out there. That could help. I can't. I ain't got time to do that. You got no time to practice. Who needs practice? Practice.

Practice. We used to. We used to call Martin up. We'd practice a little bit. But it's tough. Yeah. It's tough. I got a couple things, Martin.

If we get back to racing here. There's something fascinating about the trajectory. of your career. And that is what is perceived to be misfortunes end up being fortunate. Blessings. Right. Right. And I can't think of anybody else that has the stories quite like you do.

So I guess, you know, I want just kind of your gut, maybe even short answer, one word answer. When I talk about when people bring up, well, you've talked about Chance 2 and Dale, when you went to MWR, when people bring up MWR, what is your gut reaction and how you look? back at that time. Well, it's, I mean, it's more complicated than that. It's not just like a one, you know, it was, it was good, it was bad. I mean, it was everything in between. You know, we had good times and bad, but obviously the way it ended, it sucked. I mean, it was awful. Not just for me, for a lot of people, you know, but like anything else, you know, you, you're only, you know, I learned a lot from, from all that stuff. All the bad stuff made the good stuff, you know,

feel, it was worthwhile. It felt great. Feel great. The good stuff, feel great. But I learned a lot in all those crappy days and when stuff was going bad, whether it was DEI or whether it was, you know, MWR. First year of Furniture Row, I mean, it was completely awful as well. That was my next question, Furniture Row. Yeah, man, you just, it teaches you, you know, to appreciate the good days and to fight like hell when the days are bad. I mean, that's just kind of, that's the end of the story. All right. You know, you work your ass off to get where you're at. All of a sudden stuff goes haywire and you're like, wait a minute, I'm not, I'm not done yet. You know, I can remember going to MWR and people are like,

you think you can win here? I'm like, damn right, if I didn't think I could win here, I wouldn't be here, you know? I can remember that was like it was yesterday. We had this big roundtable with reporters when we announced, you know, I was driving that car and they're like, you know, they pretty much, they didn't say it, but they looked at me pretty much said, you can't win here, you know, and I did. When did you realize, when did you think that, truly think that when you were at Furniture

Road, that I could win here? I never thought I couldn't. Really? No. No, as bad as, as 2014 was, you know, I knew that, you know, like the other times, and the other places I was at, you know, just a few changes, some hard work, you know, and you never know what you can do. So, you know, you just, you always, I think, believe in your mind that you can win no matter what's going on.

Colpern. What about Colprone when I bring up? I don't know anything about him other than, he's like, he's almost like the Messiah. Messiah. I mean, gosh, almighty. Evil Canadian genius. I mean, geez. It's like skinny Dr. Evil.

Right. Tell me, what about Colpern do I need to know? Like, he's just, he's different. He's just different than anyone I've ever worked with. He hates, hates, like, to lose, to not win. Finish second, he's pissed off. You know what I mean? He's just always mad, I'll tell you that.

That's one thing, but people don't know about him. Really? Yeah, he doesn't. Always mad. He doesn't look mad. He just kind of looks serious. Mad. Yeah.

He's mad. He's a mad scientist. But, no, great guy. And, you know, he just, God, he's just, that fire is burning bright. You know what I mean? He's always digging, always working for something. Crew chiefs and drivers. I mean, you know, there's some people that would say a good crew chief makes the driver.

There's others that say a good driver makes the crew chief. What are your, both of your thoughts on that? Well, I think it's a combination. You know, I think it's, you know, your personalities kind of have to be a little different, you know, like Cole and I think work well together because we're so different. Literally, I have to, you know, keep him calm a lot of the time. Literally behind the scenes and during the race, he's got to kind of keep me calm without, and he gets mad at the same time. But it can be tough. You know, I think personality-wise, it's kind of tough.

I think Creechie is critical, you know. Today, with these cars, the car is everything. You know, you just can't make up for a car that's not going to be competitive. And so that crew chiefs where, you know, the crew chiefs that can bring performance is so important today. A couple things I wanted to ask you for. We let you go, Martin. I gave you a lot of shit last year at Martinsville when you didn't get more aggressive with Joey Lugano. And me and you had a personal conversation about that.

And you said, look, I don't use my bumper. I'm not going to run over a guy. tell me, explain to me when you're going to use your bumper. When are you going to be aggressive as a driver? I don't know. I don't know. You're just going to be a snap decision? It's going to have to be.

Yeah. Have you ever moved a guy out of the way for a position? Not on, well. On purpose. You ever lean on him? Yeah, I mean, I have before a few times, but I mean, I just don't run somebody over for no reason. You know what I'm saying? What's your definition of running a guy over?

what happened to me in Martinsville yeah you know and here's here's why so like I would be totally okay if that with that if I was if I was leading guy run me down yeah you know a couple laps to go whatever last lap hey okay yeah move me

bump me out of the way but when I just worked seven eight nine ten laps to pass your ass without touching you maybe a slight rub in the quarter panel to just go in the next corner and just drive through the back of me

Yeah. That's not how I do it. You know, and I wouldn't, I would not have done that. So, whatever, if you think I'm right or I'm wrong, I don't give a shit. Like, that's just my opinion. Even with everything on the line, like, does that not change it at all for you if you're, if it's like that elimination and that has to win, has to win, have to win factor in the playoffs? No.

That doesn't change it? No. Not for me. That's commendable. It is commendable. That just makes me feel bad about myself because I don't know if I, I'm not a good person. I'm not a good person.

I would dump the shit out of somebody. I don't care how clean they were. Yeah, I mean, you know, in hindsight, it's like, you know, I wish that I wish I would have done it differently. Yeah. Because, you know, let's face it, I would have had back-to-back jamming chips. Yeah. I'll tell you this.

Like, in that moment, my frustration was over, I was, my frustration over it was because of my own career. Like, I was so nice all the time. Too nice. That's a good point. People would do the same thing. Yes, they would. And I'm sitting here thinking, damn it, Martin's too nice.

Damn, he's going to regret that. You know, one day down the road, you're going to go, you know what? I would wreck him today. If it was presented with that opportunity right now, I would have just pushed him out of the way and took off, you know. So. Now, hold on.

I'm curious. I mean, there will come a time, I'm sure, when I'll say the same thing. Yeah. You know, but, hey, you let you let you, make decisions every day you have to live with. It's not just race cars. The way you regretted that he didn't move, Joey, are you harboring some regret in a particular incident

where you wish you would have done an aggressive... Oh, yeah. Like what? Harvick? Not just... Which Harvick? No, we've been through this. He tried.

I tried, man. His bumper was destroyed. That's right. And I drove all the way to almost a fuel cell. I'm like, there's nothing happening. Not even moving him, hardly at all. And it was over. Okay, but not Harvey. I mean there's a there's a dozen uh I ran in the back of Newman off turn two at the

Winston and I thought I hit him hard enough but his ass never lifted drove right out of it and drove away and won the race 2003 I don't want to yeah I don't know I had another damn I mean my car was so fast uh so there's those regrets that like um could would have should a moment's like why did I do that why didn't I many of those I mean that happens with everything yeah so all right um how's the transition been for you and Cole uh to Gibbs I mean you guys furniture road for so long you're going to Gibbs I think everybody was kind of wondering will this change their performance at all will they fit into a bigger team that does everybody does things differently culture's different uh obviously that stuff's going great yeah it's been

good I mean you know honestly for me it's it's the least the least of amount of change if somebody had to go through was me because it was, I'm just a driver, right? So, I mean, I'm not in the shop every day. I don't have to make the big decisions, all that stuff. So for me, it was pretty simple. You notice anything different about the cars? Cars are the same. Just look the same. Yeah, pretty, pretty, I would always, they're pretty close. When I went from one team to the other, and I know the same team, same guy's building your stuff. Yeah. But I always felt like, man, it just turns different. The steering wheel has, feels different. Something just a little tiny things, not better or worse. It just something's a little

different. Yeah, there's some things different, like the brakes feel different, and the steering box feels a little different. And that weird? Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy how like you just get so tuned into feels like. Pressures and mashing a brake or something. Yeah. Get somebody else's car, you're like, what the hell you can't even drive it. Any big surprises moving over there? No. No. The team debriefs, you pretty much in those already. Yeah. I mean, none of that's any different. Not really, no. Yeah. So it's like you're already in that company. Yeah, that's why I said that's easy for me. It's just for all the guys that had to, you know,

we had, but we have about eight guys from furniture row, I think so. A couple shop guys, you know, handful of row guys. That was a big deal for them to have to move, you know,

Colorado, Victor families that move out here. And then, of course, the chain of command that Cole has to, has to work through now, you know, he was in the shop.

He was a man. He was always just the guy. But there's, there's a system. Positives and negatives to it, you know, like anything else. All right.

So we don't really cover a ton of current racing. Like, we don't, we don't, We don't do a segment where we talk about the yesterday's race. Sure. We had an event at Kansas that was pretty damn amazing from a reviewer standpoint. Sucked from my standpoint.

It sucked for your standpoint. Where did you finish? I don't even remember. Uh-oh. 19th. It wasn't memorable. It was definitely not memorable. All right.

So there's been a lot of talk about the package and what drivers think about it. A lot of drivers are starting to get a little more vocal about their opinions, not liking it. Some drivers like it Some drivers don't like it Yesterday for all You know For most people's standpoint Or Sunday was a big win

Or Saturday night was a big win So I mean I haven't watched it yet So I'm not sure what it looked like I don't think you will That doesn't sound like you're going to spend the time to do that Yeah Maybe until the next Kansas race

When you're doing a little recon So where do you think we're going How do you think this is going to work out? Are you asking about the package? Yes Which track, which day. All right. So, it's, it's, it's, it's, you think it's, you think it's good some places?

Yeah, yeah. But it's not for every place. It's not for every place. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot more you're wanting to say here. I can tell. Well, yeah, there is.

Has there been, is there somebody saying to you, Martin, don't say stuff about the package. Isn't, yeah, well, probably. Well, you would know. Is he sitting behind you? Is his name Tyler Overstreet? He looks over. Don't don't say what you want. Don't say what you told me Friday.

No, I think, I don't know, it's just, it's such a challenge. You know, my opinion, we need to get, we need to, I'm kind of different than everybody else though. You know what I mean? Like, you're, you have a completely different opinion now than when you drove. Right. You know, so, so I'm still, I still got the driver opinion. Right, yeah, yeah. I want, I want racing to be, you know, what I think it should be.

and that's not exactly what we have now. That doesn't mean it's not good or it's not making people happy. Sure. You know what I'm saying? So I really like the load down force that direction. This is the complete opposite of that. So I'm not a huge fan of it.

I'll be honest. I think we need to go the other direction. You know, get the cars off the ground, get to the air. Right now, it gets so bad behind other cars. I can't even explain it. Yeah. It is five times worse behind a car than what you drove.

No question. It's worse in traffic than any. anything I've ever been in my life, you know, in my racing career. And so I think that's the wrong direction. But, you know, that's my, that's just my opinion. Yeah. 10-4. Everybody has one.

I think you have, I think a lot of people have that opinion about the downforce. I feel like, though, you know, if you could, you know, if NASCAR could snap their fingers and unengineer the cars and everybody unlearn everything and get them off the ground, they'd certainly want to do that. I wonder, and I've not heard anything. I don't know anything about the next generation. of car that they're building, but I'm wondering if the drivers do

know about the direction that they're going with that car. Is that a car that they're going to try to undo some of those things where is this car I mean, do you know anything about the development of the next generation car? I've heard bits and pieces. Are they positive things? Are they things that you're hearing good

things about? There's so much on the table right now. I think the owners are a big part of that decision, making those decisions, owner of council, and you know, there's so many so many groups that get together meet these days. But there's just a lot of things on the table. What they're going to standardize?

What parts and pieces is everybody going to have that's the same? What are we still going to be able to build? So, I mean, it's really tough to say right now. Yeah. I keep hearing people say the cars are too easy to drive for the drivers to be able to show the talent. I would definitely disagree with that. I still think, you know, you see the really good drivers and teams winning. I mean, you know, if you look at it.

who's won this year and the same guys still seem to be running up front. From what I can feel and see out there, I mean, they're still hard to drive, you know, right? I mean, you're always, it's always going to be hard when it's competition and you're trying to be better than the best, right? You're always, you're always measured up against whoever the best is that weekend. And you, you know, look at us, we wind over, go to Kansas for a 19th. I mean, that's just how tough it is, right? So it's still tough, but it's in a different way.

Just between us, how did you feel about the package at Talladega versus Daytona? No replete. Well, the restrict plate versus the tapered spacer, having a little more power. Way more fun. Way more fun. Way more fun. Like, I crashed. You know, I'm usually, and I was like, I don't even care.

I had fun. You know what I mean? It was a fun race for sure. What was different about it that made it so much more fun at Talladega? The runs? The runs were big. You could just, it was like you're a kid out there. You just like, I've got to run.

I'm going to see what I can do with it. You know, it was just constantly moving. and constantly making moves. And you didn't have to worry about staying in line and being, you know, being like, man, I got to stay in line. I can't make a move or I'm going to lose to me spots. I'll never get back up here. You know what I mean?

It just was, you were like throwing hellmeries all day. Yeah. It seemed like that too kept the field from forming that high line that ended up, that ended up dominating the race for that period of time. Yep. Because those runs are so good, you weren't going to have everybody sort of pigeonholed into that top crop groove and being controlled, you could jump out and make passes and dig.

So I thought that was good. I feel the same way about the package. I mean, I hate to even get into conversation about it. And that's why we don't talk about it a ton here. Mike hates the word package to begin with. I think that we really got to as a sport. Why are we saying package, Mike? No, no.

Package. Yeah, he phrased that kind of oddly, to be honest with you. I think that we really just, from. a narrative standpoint need to get past this talking about rules packages every single week so we can talk about something different. As a guy who's not drove the cars this year, I'm super, super

curious. I would have loved to have been in that race at Kansas, just so I kind of know, like, okay, here's what they're dealing with. So I'm interested, but I feel the same way. I don't really care what horsepower they have. They can have 550,000. Doesn't matter to me. I think they should have zero

downforce and as much drag as you can put on the front of the nose of that thing and let it eat. I just love that you can cuss on this show. It's my favorite part. Did you not know that? Let's start over. I know.

Let's get cussing Martin. Oh, crap. Let's get profane Martin. Can we just hit a marker every time? We just do the whole thing. We want this to be the Dell Jr. download BR. I mean, because that apparently is what's up. That was Talladega BR.

We want to know what's up. This is the Martin's your XBR. Yeah. I love that. Well, that's cool. It is after, it is after nine now. So I might start to wake up. Where do you go from here?

Where are you going? What's your two? I got a big day. What do you got to be good? Yeah, I got a big day. I got a lot of stuff to do at the shop. Okay. For real?

Yeah, my shop. Then go to my shop, do some stuff, and then go to Joe Gibbs racing and team meeting. It's Monday. Team meetings. Everybody wants to meet on Monday. Yep. Well, man. Wonderful.

I've enjoyed it. I have two. Thank you for being here. and so early. I really do appreciate it. We usually do this in the afternoon, but Tyler said that you were more of a morning person, so we bumped this up at 9 a.m.

You guys knew better. You guys knew better. All right. Well, thank you, Martin. It's been fun. Yeah, I appreciate it, guys. You got it, buddy. Enjoy your day, man.

You too. All right, guys, so to keep going with the show here, we had Leah put out a question of sorts, and we got some really freaking interesting responses. We do a lot of social media, and I think this one for me was my favorite read as far as going through the comments. Tell us what we got. Finish this sentence, I was so drunk once that I.

Dot, dot, dot, dot. And Martinsville Speedway chimed in almost immediately, briefly changed hot dog suppliers. That was a good one. That is funny because they did that, didn't they? Yeah, it took a lot of heat for that. I was pissed with those kind of dogs. Did people freak out?

Yeah, people freaked out. Traditionalist hated that crap. Jesse Jones is the hot dog there. So what are some of the other more memorable ones? We had a good one. Somebody submitted this. An employee at Dirty Moe crawled across A1A in Daytona because we couldn't stand. We did obey the law and use the crosswalk, though.

I wonder who that was. Matthew. Jason Allison, you know him. I know. I kind of remembered it because we were a little. Okay, Mondays, remember we had those off Daytona? No. No?

Well, there was a party bus. They ended up on your party bus. Y'all are on my party bus. Your party bus. And we ended up at that place where it's $10. How in the hell did I get roped into this? I don't know, but this is good. Somehow you were responsible.

Then I ended with me being so drunk. I poured a drink on my brother's head. We got kicked out of two other places. And, yeah, we crawled across street, which I thought I remembered. And then the next night we were hung over at this dinner finally eating. And Gordon's pick crew came up to us. I was like, man, y'all were drunk as hell last night. I was like, oh, well, you saw us?

Where did you see us? And he was like, crawling across A1-A. I'm like, oh, crap. It was real. Yeah. It was dangerous. Dumb. Not smart.

Dumb. Another not smart. Dave, my hand fell in the toilet water after I puked and flushed. The cold water felt so good on my hand that I put the other hand in on purpose and passed out that way. My God. I'm glad it was the cold flush. Yeah. He at least flushed it.

Have y'all ever heard about putting a person's hand in a cup of water while they're asleep and they'll be them. Have you ever done this? I've never been able to. I've never done that. No, we've never done that experiment. But I've heard that that works. Right? Yeah.

Have you ever drawn on somebody when they're drunk? Oh, yeah. Well, touching their face. Not even when they're drunk. I mean, just whenever they go to sleep. Used to happen all the time when we was in soccer. What else did you have? Hermit Hill, he got married to his now ex-wife.

He was drunk. He got drunk and got married. Apparently it didn't last. Lisa, she put her iPhone 5 in the microwave. if she thought it was a hot dog. Oh, wow. That's drunk. That's pretty drunk.

I wonder what that does. It probably blows up. Did it blow up? I'm kind of curious about. I'm sure. It's metal. Like, I put a chick flay sandwich with the wrapper in a microwave and it about destroyed the kitchen.

So, I mean, a phone is definitely going to have severe consequences. Dang. If microwaved. That's bad. Y'all have never put. Put a metal. Yeah, foil, ten foil backs. It was like blue.

It was like... It was like... It was like... Catching on fire. Yeah, it's crazy. I didn't know that. Yeah. Try it.

It makes sense. Don't put no foil metal or... I'm like, I never would have thought about it. It's a wrapper for a sandwich, right? You don't think it's got foil, but on the interior it does. Yeah. Wow, that's interesting. What else?

That's scary. I want to know this guy. Yeah, do you have one? I get to go last. You got one? Oh, boy. Davis has got to have one, too. You know, Leah doesn't have crap.

Mike, did you have one, Mike? I was drunk that I did. The only thing that comes to mind is that I was so drunk once that I really, if I was ever close to a divorce, it was because I got into the moonshine one time after July 4th party. And something about moonshine with me. Like, moonshine makes you think you got muscles that you don't have. It makes you say things you don't need to.

It makes you see things that you don't see. And next thing you know, you don't remember anything. And that was that was me. Now, in college, I had a bunch of stories. I don't even think they're that abnormal. I mean, if you haven't woken up naked by a swimming pool that you don't know where it is or how you got there, I mean, what have you done in your life? That's kind of like David.

He wrote in and said he went to a party in Manhattan and woke up in Philadelphia. That's good. That's pretty big. That's a different city. Not sure how you do that, but it sounds interesting. Leah, have you got any experiences personal? No way. I'm a control freak.

I cannot let myself like get that. Yeah. Whatever. But you've been drunk. Yeah. Okay. When's the last time you've been drunk? Probably like last fall.

I don't think I... You don't do anything stupid when you're drinking. No. Full crap. You know what? I gotta get to the bottom of this. This is the thing. We should get her drunk.

No. Sounds... Sounds... Sounds HR-e kind of... Sounds a little like a human resource issue that we would have. We got to go have some great juice at the western town someday. Okay. All right.

Maybe we don't go get her drunk. All right. What do you got, Dale? I couldn't remember. And that's the end of the story. So I asked Amy, I said, man, you know, I'd have to really spend a lot of time on it to remember something, not that I, you know. And she said, well, you, me and her, when we first started dating, we'd been partying with friends for hours. Everybody went home.

and we weren't tired. And I said, hey, you know, it would be good as if we, you know, have you, me and her just started a date? And I said, have you ever raced? You know, I got these go-carts and we can go race. I got this little small little, little tiny road course track. It's kind of shaped like a kidney. And I was like, it's right next to this creek.

And we just finished it probably a couple months ago. I was like, let's, she's like, yeah, let's go. Let's go check you out. Let's go race. I'll do it. And so we got on these golf cards. two o'clock in the morning, and I mean, it's dark. We're racing, there's no lights at this track.

Oh, on a golf cart? No, we got on a go cart. Okay. But it's not lit, like it's dark. And there was a building on one end of it, so that was the only light that we had was sort of of the corner lights off that building shining across it. But I ran into her in this corner, and she didn't lift off the gas. When I hit her, she just mashed the throttle wide open and just held it.

and almost went into the creek. She got up on top of this. She went over the berm that was sort of the protective berm to keep people from going into the creek. And the back tire got hung up on the root, this tree that was kind of growing out of the side of the bank of the creek. And she's literally hanging into the creek. And it's like six foot down, almost straight down into this creek, man. And it scared the hell out of me. I jumped up.

She's laughing. I thought I've done ruin this relationship. right here. She's going to be so mad that she doesn't want you. Well, you were a route away from ruining that relationship. I can promise you. Yeah. So we had that going on and then one time of peeing the closet. That was it. All right. Hold on. Hold on. We ain't letting that skirt by, man. Look at him. He's picking up. He's like, next second.

You got to talk to our friends of Alvillian. I got a buddy of mine that peed, his wife woke up and he was peeing in the dresser. And it was going down through all the drawers. And his wife got so mad that she smacked him and he started crying. Was it like that? Well, I was, so I saw a friend of mine do that. We were at a, we were at a party one time and we were all sort of, everybody was crashing in this one bedroom.

And so literally, like, people were sleeping everywhere in closets and the floor was covered, the bed was covered. All of us kind of woke up to this puddles, dripping, water pouring into a puddle sound, you know, it's just water, like a, like, like, We sprung a leak in the ceiling. And it was a friend of mine peeing. He basically stood up, and he wasn't even in the corner. He just stood up right where he was and started peeing into the floor, around everyone.

Did that friend just leave the studio? No. Because he has his own urination story. Oh, yes. True X. Yeah. The parking garage in the parking garage and got around. I'm arrested.

Yeah. Okay. After that happened. Me and my buddies, we used to do that anytime we'd pee publicly. We'd hold up a number one finger and say, we're taking a true X. Yep. So, all right, so the buddy peed. Yeah, so that may, I'm like, I've heard of that.

I've heard of people peeing in corners and stuff, but I've never witnessed it. Wow, that's drunk. That's really, really drunk. Well, one night, I was hanging out with some friends, and we stayed up real late, and I was basically at a friend's house, and we were in this two-story garage. and me, a guy and his girlfriend, were staying up there, and they just were like,

hey, hey, hey, and I woke up, and I had walked over to the closet. It was just a shallow closet, opened the door and was standing in the doorway, peeing into the closet. My buddy woke me up out of my sleep while I was standing there. Oh, my gosh.

That's so funny. That's like that scene in Hangover, too, where Zach Galaphanacus is peeing, and he's asleep and the tiger is sitting next to him. I'm standing there thinking, I've done it. I didn't think this was possible, right? I've heard about people doing this, and now this is officially the low point.

So you realize, did you realize when he was waking you up, what you were doing? Yes. Oh, man. And so I'm thinking, oh, my God, that's really easier than I thought. It's easier to do than I thought. And ever since then, every time I go on a gas trip, it's not often that I do that but when I go on a guys trip it's like

all right guys there's a couple rules here they are and one of them is like don't pee in the corner like really like start when you get to this house or get to this place like think about where the bathrooms are learn where they are so muscle memory that's so funny

if you get so drunk in the middle of the night I don't have you peeing in the corner of the bedroom we had somebody on Twitter right in Trevor Williams he peed into a fan blowing back at it. Unreal. That's bad. That's good stuff.

So that's pretty drunk. Peeing into a fan. And closets. Yeah. And closets, yeah. Hey, man, I was in an unfamiliar place. That's how that happens, you know. Nobody does this in their own room in their own house.

That's why you've got to leave the bathroom light on. That's why you need to know where the bathroom is. So when you wake up or when you sleepwalk into, you know, you know where you're going. You don't go to a closet. Or a dresser drawer. My goodness. Y'all crazy. Let's hear about our friends over at Vavilene.

As many of you probably know, I was sponsored by Vivalene for several years, and I even drove a Vivalene car at Darlington back in 2015. That baby was hot. That's a deal in our life. That was a pretty car. Honestly, it was. A lot of drivers are sponsored by Motor Oles, but Vavilene, man, they're something different. They were more than just a logo on the suit or on the quarter panel of the car.

Vavilene was a true partner, and they were always hands-on in helping us make our engines perform better. They'd send teams over to Charlotte to work directly with our engine guys in the garage to squeeze out a few more horsepower out of our engines. We literally mixed oils together to find the best combination to give us the best power and the best performance. Well, the best power and the best, you know, what is it I'm looking for? We don't want the motor blow, so it needs to be durable. Durable. There you go. Yeah, durability.

Bulletproof. Bulletproof, yeah. All right, it didn't matter if we were running at plate races, road courses, short tracks are intermediates. They always had a solution because those tracks take different types of oils. Different types of motors need different types of oils. They would always have solutions for us to make our stuff run better. Vavilene even helped me get the monkey off my back at Martinsville in 2014,

where I got my first win ever on NASCAR's oldest track. That's why Valvaline is the only motor I trust in my engines, and it's why you should trust them in your engines too. From high mileage rides that need that thick anti-wear fines, to newer engines that have carbon buildups. Head over to valvilline.com slash del to find the product spec out for gear engine. That's valedine.com slash dell. This is the Ask Junior portion of the segment presented to you by our friends at Nationwide.

Leah is at the controls right now taking your questions. Appreciate everybody for tuning in and pouring into our YouTube channel. And obviously you follow Dirty Mo Media on YouTube. Follow us on all the other social media handles, Twitter, Instagram. and so forth, support the Dirty Mo Media platform. What we got, Leah? First question, Jane from Michigan wants to know. How many times a day do you Google something?

Oh, man. Probably don't even realize that. You know when I branded my arm a long time ago? DMP? Yeah, we put a brand on our arm. Somebody gave me a steak brander, and we got drinking one night and thought, man, we should all brand ourselves. We're buddies, let's do it.

And you don't know how many people slap you on the arm every day. until you have a brand trying to heal, and it hurts like hell when anybody touched it. And so I bet that we Google five to ten times more than we realize. I'll probably Google a dozen things today. What you think? All right. No, not already.

During the day, a dozen. That's a lot. But you know what? I mean, I think he's right. I think that you Google, I mean, like, I bet I'm probably pushing 10 maybe. Yeah. I was going to say like three to five. Listen, you think about just in our conversations when we're talking about something,

we need instant research. We'll just Google it without even. It's almost like muscle memory, right? Yeah. So here's the thing. Yesterday, for example, I have a lot of old programs, old racing programs, in the bathroom at the house. And when I go in there, do my business, I sit down and I read these old programs. And I see these names of drivers in these lineups and finishing orders and so forth.

and I'm like, hmm, I wonder what kind of career that guy had, Google. I go over to the phone. Yeah, I go over the phone. I'm like, huh, Steve Crispman, I want to have any races he ran in the Cup Series, Bobby Walwack, you know, and did I wonder what Bobby Allison's career was like after 1984. How many how many of the top five as you have next year? You know, just start Googling random stats in motorsports. And so that's at least five, I do that at least four or five times a day,

Googling something Specific racing type. Yeah, something historic in racing. It's usually nine times out of ten I go to racing reference, which I did not know. I think I heard it was owned by NASCAR. Racing records. Are you serious?

They bought them. Racing reference was going to shut down and NASCAR actually bought it. Damn right. Thank you. They needed to because their site never had crap on it about old history. Thank you, NASCAR. Because I use racing reference daily for something. I use it a lot too.

Oh, yeah. All right, moving on. So who was that from, Jane? Yeah, Jane from Michigan, aka Leah from right here. What's funny, by the way, is it what the people at YouTube don't realize is that we just got done wrapping up a conversation about the things that we've done because we were the drunk, we were drunk, things that we've done. And being branding yourself never came up in Dale's example. And I could see that Leah was like, you branded yourself, but that wasn't even remotely the craziest thing you've done. done, right?

Yeah, that shocked me. Yeah. Anyways, all right. I reckon, yeah, well, you know, a lot of, you know, college football players are often, you know, you brand themselves with their,

uh, team's logo or whatever, uh, yeah, you see, you do. And so, yeah, we thought, you know,

one day we got, when Josh started it, he was going to take bottle caps and put the Olympics, uh, rings on his arm with bottle caps, which was terribly, a terrible idea, of course.

We had this steak brander, and it said DMP, and we're like, man, let's put that, let's brand their arms. Yeah, you know, stupid idea. It's awful. That's funny. All right, go ahead. All right. Jessica Ogden, she wants to know what other sports you would like to be a part of hosting or broadcasting? You know, dang, you know, that's tough to answer.

I love doing the races, and selfishly I'd love to broadcast the Daytona 500, our own races. and outside of NASCAR and Cup events, I think, you know, I'm doing it. Like, I'd love to be able to go to the Olympics a few more years. I don't know how long NBC plans to send me to those, so I'm just hoping to even go to the next one, if that's an option. The Olympics was such a great experience because it's about the best athletes in the world, and they're all dedicated their whole lives to this moment. So just being around that and experiencing all the countries sort of get together for one cause is a great feeling.

You're obviously proud of the United States and all that, and you're there supporting them. But watching all the other countries kind of come together for one purpose is fun. So I think going to the next Olympics summer would be cool seeing the Summer Olympics somewhere. But yeah, man, what else is there? I've done – I'm going to do the N.500 this year – or it is. month. We did the Kentucky Derby last month. Stanley Cup playoffs. Have you done Formula One? I did the playoffs. I haven't done Formula One.

Yeah, that's on my list, too. I just love to go to a race, to a Formula One race, much less cover it. Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but do the people that are actually broadcasting it, are they even there? And don't they, don't the people that are broadcasting, they're not actually there. They're not there, yeah. So they're in a booth somewhere. They're in a local booth somewhere in the States. Dang. Okay.

Speaking of the Indy 500, Patrick asked what part are you most looking forward to? I don't know. See, I can't, I don't want to, there's multiple things. So it's not one thing that stands out. I'm excited to stand next to a true indie car. You know, the cars that I've been around are show cars, cars from the past. There's a difference in our sport between a show car and a car that just competed or a car that's getting ready to compete in that moment.

there's a difference. You can see it. I know it when I see it. When I look at a show car, I know it's a show car immediately. And I know that's probably there's that difference in IndyCar too. So when I go to the race, I'm going to be standing next to a car that I know is able to compete and it's got the best of the best, right? That'll be cool to be in the presence of those machines. I'm looking forward to meeting several of the drivers, you know, seeing how those guys approach their weekend and approach that race. everybody has been telling me that being on the grid before the race starts is probably the most important thing to witness and be a part of and I hope to get the chance to sort of have a little personal moment, you know, where I'm maybe not working to take that in, just even just for a few minutes. I want to hear your take. I'm dying to hear your take when you come back on that. Sure. So that'll, you know, there's a lot of things that are going to be really cool. Obviously, we're going to hang out with Rutt a lot. We're going to do probably, I'm guessing I haven't heard anything from NBC. see about the plans, but I'm assuming that it's going to be very similar to what me and Rut

did at the Derby, which I love to do with Rut. He's a ton of fun. Plus, I get to basically see all elements of an event when I'm with Rut because he's going to go everywhere. Instead of sitting in a booth the entire time or on top of a pit box the entire time, I get to sort of hop around and see. Because the Indy 500 to me, I'm sure, it's more than just about pit road. It's more than just about being on the grid. It's more than just about the garage. I mean, there's so many places at that racetrack that have history.

And obviously, we're going to go to a snake pit. Everybody knows that's where everybody's... I have friends that go to the snake pit every year, and I swear they don't even have a clue that a race is going on. Right. Like, they have no clue there's not actually a race. Sure. So, I mean, I want to see all these layers to it.

CB Dream Ever 80 wants to know. What's your favorite all-time rock band? Oh, man. That's so hard, yeah. Hi, one of my favorite singers is Matthew Good. He's from Canada. I've been a fan of his since the late 90s. A band that I've been a big fan of here over the last several years is Danger Summer.

They just got a new album out called Mother Nature. You know, three doors down, I was a big fan of theirs. They just have so many great singles, R-E-M. A lot of alternative. I was a huge Nirvana fan, Pearl Jam fan, and so through the year ever ever clear all the bands that came out of that sort of grunge alternative wave in the in the 90s I was a huge huge fan of that and that's typically if I'm going to go pop in a station from streaming radio nine times out of 10 it's going to be 90s alternative and yeah so that's that's pretty much my genre

all right last question we get this one often Brandon Hurley wants to know how did you You had Mike meet. You get this question often. Yeah, people ask us a lot, like how you guys, because you guys have such a good relationship. They want to know how it all started. Mike was hired. Jade Gersh was sort of my PR guy, publicist. He did a little bit of everything between, he was the link between me and Budweiser.

Budweiser hired his company fingerprint to manage that relationship and have me where I needed to be at all times. Eventually, Jade was getting so busy. and actually successful with his company that he hired Mike. And Mike became that guy that would travel with me and go, you know, give Jade a couple weekends off. And it became more and more. And next thing you know, you know, Mike's the guy at the race.

Mike's the guy at the, you know, the production. Mike's the guy at the, you know, Jade still went to those big key events to make sure that the relationship was strong and healthy. But Mike became the guy that I used, you know, spent a lot of time with. And luckily when the opportunity came about for us to get him over here at Junior Motorsports, he was interested in making that change because it's been one of the best tires that I've ever made as a driver and as a businessman to bring Mike over here. I mean, you've done, we can go on and on.

He's been, he's wore a ton of hats at this place. Yeah, that was 2004 when he hired me. That was a long time ago. Or no, that was actually when I started with Jay, 2004. First race won the Daytona 500. I was like, Yeah. Best job ever.

Best decision ever. All right, guys. That's all we have time for today. Thanks, Nationwide for sponsoring this. Appreciate all the great questions as usual. You guys deliver. Speaking of Nationwide, we're doing a segment right now, and we have a lot of fun on this show, but we also are doing something with Nationwide that is very important to Dale and I and Matthew, Leah.

and I really hope that the listeners actually join us on this. And so for the past two weeks, we've been sharing the story of John Tummelson, a Navy SEAL who died in Afghanistan in 2011, and whose name is going to be on Alex Bowman's number 88 car at the World 600 at Charlotte. And that race is just next Sunday, guys. I mean, this thing's coming up, May 26. So our goal is this, is that by the time you see Tummelson's name on the car, that you feel like you know him, right?

And it's a special paint scheme. You're going to see it. And so we want you to know his story. and that's why we're doing this. So today we give you chapter three. It's a very candid and emotional conversation that we had with John's sisters, Christy and Joy. And so here it is. Christy and Joy, you've told us about your brother John Tomlson's childhood, how at 13 he knew he wanted to be a Navy SEAL. And how he chased his dream, it certainly wasn't easy. As fate would have it, about the time John finally became a seal. My fellow citizens. My fellow citizens. America.

went to war. American and coalition forces in the early stages of military operations to this army around. What can you tell us about his deployments? He said his first four deployments were boring because he didn't see gunfire. He didn't see action. I'm like, boring is good. He's like, no, boring's not good. That's like you going to college for four years to do what you want to do and then never being able to do your job. Like, I want to go there and I want to see action. Do you think he was telling you the truth? Oh, I'm sure he saw action. I mean, he had to have. They don't send seals over there to sit around and eat bonbons.

You know, it's like, I mean, they're doing stuff, right? I would think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure they were. When did John leave for his fifth and ultimately his final deployment? On his birthday, 35th birthday, July 1st of 2011. And then was killed August 6th, so I was over there just slightly a month. Well, actually, I talked to him this Sunday. before he was killed. I was on my way out the door to go to church and saw it was him and

answered the phone quick. And they said, I just had a couple minutes, just wanted to call, tell you, I love you, everything's going well. And then later sent an email out to everybody that said, you guys, this is the best deployment of my life. I'm having the greatest time. These are the best bunch of guys. Everything's going great. The Taliban is taking responsibility for shooting down a U.S. helicopter. More than 30 people were killed and there are reports. It's still, yeah, to this day, the biggest loss of, single, biggest loss. Largest loss of life. In one day, or one mission.

Yeah, at one time. 31 total, so 30 guys and then one working dog. But it took out his entire team. They said it would take them over 20 years to replace those caliber of men to get that team built back up. How does one receive that type of news? It's not something you can ever prepare yourself for. you know, we, he used to always tell us, I mean, when he went on his first deployment, don't watch the news.

By the time you see it on the news, you guys would have already been notified. So if you hear something on the news and they say somebody was killed, it's not me because somebody would have been at your door. Well, little did he didn't think about. They lost 31. They had 31 families. They had to, or 30 families, they had to notify. Officials say 31 U.S. Special Operation Troops and seven Afghan commandos

8 o'clock that morning, my husband called me. He was at work, and he's like, hey, he's like, I know this is probably no big deal, but he's like, can you turn on the news and see what they're saying? There was a chopper that went down and was carrying special forces. He's like, I just have a bad feeling. And I instantly, in that moment, I can't describe it. AP sources say the majority of those killed were from Navy SEAL Team 6.

I knew he was gone. I mean, I'd heard of crashes a million times other on his deployments, but that time I just knew. Called my dad and told him, you know, I said, do you have the news on? No, what's going on? And I said, well, it may not be nothing, dad, but... It is the single deadliest incident for U.S. forces during the decade-long war. You know, here's the thing, and he instantly, too, he's like, I don't know, I don't have a good feeling.

There's three officers that came to his door, and they said, when he opened the door, he had a picture of my brother sitting by his chair, and he said, I've been expecting you. And then my mom, she shops and my dad calls her and says, where are you? And she's like, I'm in Cedar Falls. I'm doing some shopping. And she said she's thinking, why does he care? You know, why does he care that I'm shopping? Like, I'll be home.

And so got home. And by that time, you know, a lot of my dad's family was there. So there was cars at her house while their anniversary was coming up the next month. She thought we were throwing her a surprise anniversary party. And so my dad walks out the door. And my mom says, what's going on? and he says, we lost our son today. Confirmed through a senior military official, they were Navy SEALs.

This, as you know, beyond a very, very small community of these highly trained elite U.S. forces. The funeral. There was a really moving photo that went viral. It was of John's dog, Hawkeye, laying at the foot of his casket. Tell me about that. He actually had it in his will. His will was pretty much laid out what songs he wanted in his son. funeral and the one requirement was Hawkeye had to be at the funeral.

Scott did give him a command to lay down, but he did go over to the casket and lay down in front of the casket, and that's the picture that you saw. If I'm telling a story and people don't really remember, and I say, well, remember the picture that went viral at the chocolate lab? And they're like, that was your brother? So it still connects people. And I think it represents, for me anyways, the loyalty that my brother had as a son, as an uncle, as a brother, as a friend, as a teammate. You know, that loyalty that the dog had to the very end.

So John's been gone almost eight years. How have y'all been able to heal? To be honest, I don't know if the healing's over. So listen, I mean, that I can't tell you, I guess as emotional is that conversation. got, I think I was able to just channel that emotion into gratitude for not just John and not just Christia joy, but for our service men and women that just really put their lives on the line and sacrifice so much. And that's what I get out of that. And so, Dale, I mean, you know, we're going to be approaching the World 600 and obviously NASCAR and nationwide. They do just such

a fantastic job of doing that very thing. And that is recognizing and remembering our service members that just do this ultimate sacrifice. I'm just so glad that they're open to telling his story and sharing with that or else we wouldn't know how important this man was and how much he means to his family, how much he means of this country. So it takes a lot of strength to be able to do that. And we are so thankful that we, you know, we get to spread his story and it starts with those girls and they're doing amazing things.

Yeah, but next week we'll conclude this series with exactly what nationwide is doing and how, and basically this paint scheme, which is fantastic. Dale, you've seen it already, but we'll talk about that in the next chapter. All right, it's time for the Valvalink DIY segment in the question of the week. Dale, we just had Mother's Day this past weekend, and it made us wonder, have you ever actually made a gift yourself for your wife or your mom or whoever it is? I mean, have you ever gone and just done something rather than buy it or just create the gift? Well, let me just see. I have not until just recently. And it's not even creating a gift.

But I just, I got a little lesson from Amy not long ago about handwritten notes. All right? That's not necessarily crafting a gift together, but you're crafting some words. A lot of times we're just guilty of running out there. You know, it's more about the gift. and we're putting so much thought into the actual gift that we're buying or putting together. We grabbed just a simple card and put our name on it. Amy has said to me one day, you know, you've never written me a note.

Because I got a note from somebody. And it was during the time when my mom was in the hospital fighting cancer. And my sister, we were making a shift between I was leaving the hospital and Kelly was coming in. to be with mom. Kelly left a note on my truck and was like, you know, you're an amazing brother and you're an amazing son.

And I just, you know, just a very short little note. And I took it home and I showed it to Amy and she was obviously like, man, that's awesome. Well, fast forward to a couple weeks down the road. I'm getting ready to give Amy this card. And she says, you've never written me a note.

that note and how you told me that made you feel about, you know, your sister, how that, not how that made you feel that your sister felt that way and was just thinking of you enough to write that in that kind of difficult time for even her and mom and me. And so, I don't know, man, the handwritten note goes a long way, says that you, you know, because it's all about the effort. It's not really about the prize or the value of the gift or the, you know, the, you know, the creativity of the card. It's really about your thought behind it and your effort behind it. So that was one thing that stood out.

I helped, I don't know that it was a gift, but even today, I'm proud of it, but one time I built Kelly a race car. Yeah. And, you know, when I think gift, I'm like, well, birthdays, anniversary, stuff like that, but sometimes you can just gift somebody something out of the blue. Yeah. on my car every day. I had to travel out an hour and a half to see my car, work on my car, so I didn't do that every single day. But I worked on my sisters. It was right there in front of me

every day. She had two cars, and this one was a car that we had bought from a person that was used. And we, I say we, I was tasked or asked to tear it apart and clean it up and rebuild it. And so we ended up needing it. in a pinch when her car was wrecked. And so she got to drive this car that I built and I always took a lot of pride in that. Even today, I think about it very fondly. I was proud that I was able to,

I was proud that I knew how to build a car for the first thing. But I was also extremely proud to build that car that my sister would drive. And I don't, you know, I'm thinking back other than that. I can't really think of other things that I made me. That's pretty stout. I mean, built a race car.

Yeah, you built a race car. He would be like, hey, Mike, what did you build? A bear? I made all kinds of little funny stuff for my mom when I was in school. You know, the school would say, hey, we're going to make a Thanksgiving card or some crap. Christmas ornament. Popsicle sticks. I've got some of that stuff, but you guys got any good stories?

You know, I just tried this just in the last year. I built my wife a coffee table. Wow. Oh, yeah. Didn't know anything about woodworking, and you can look at the coffee table and determine that for yourself. I don't know anything about it. But she loves it, right? And we all love it.

And so we, and kind of my girls help me with it. And so we really just kind of just used common sense. I did not know anything. Like this table right here, it doesn't look like this, you know, okay. But it made me also appreciate woodworking. And, you know, Rick Allen does that stuff. Okay. And he's amazing at it.

Right. So I can see myself doing more projects like that. Yeah, I think the best gift I've ever gotten. My brother built me a coffee table this past Christmas. Wow, the coffee table things. He worked so hard on that thing. He put so many hours into it. And we loaded it up.

I drove back here from Illinois. I was bound in a term when to get this thing in my apartment by myself. Like I had to go up two flights of stairs. And I'm sitting there like, I got it in the door. And I was like, well, I made it this far. Like, I can get it up these stairs. And I've... Taby.

Oh, it's huge. Yeah. I mean, he just, he worked so hard on it. And I was like, I'm getting this thing in right now. And I did. I pushed it up the stairs, made the corner. and pushed up the second step, and I was like, yes, I did it. Didn't scratch it?

Nope, didn't scratch. I had it covered in towel, so that made it easier to scoot. Yeah, you got a better coffee table than my wife got. Let's just be real. Dillner, are you done anything? I built a little barren wood shop for my grandma, but actually I didn't build anything like my wife, okay, because I thought when you said that, my wife, for her birthday, she went off to Kansas, so while I was gone, I wanted to put up a hammock for her.

You know, it's kind of easy, you know, but I went out and I met. measured all the trees, you know, to determine what tree would be good. And I found it right in the corner of my yard, these two trees that would work. So I cleared out the woods right there and, you know, put down some mulch and put down some stones and stuff and gave her a nice little hammock area. That's awesome. That's awesome. Very good. Nice. All right, man. She hasn't used it after the first year. Just sorry. That's a thought that can. That's good stuff. Thank you to Valvene for sponsoring this segment, go to valvene.com slash Dale, valvene.com slash Dale for more interesting DIY stuff. And that's that.

It's dinner time. But your stomach is rumbling and you still don't know what you're going to eat tonight. Does that sound familiar, Mike? Just like that. Okay. I even use that voice. Well, with DoorDash, you don't need to get up from the couch to get a meal cooking. You don't even have to get off the couch. Get the meal cooking. DoorDash connects you to all of your favorite restaurants. in your city. Ordering is easy.

Just use the DoorDash app and choose what you want to eat. And your Door Dasher, is that trademarked? I didn't ever heard. Your Dasher will bring it right to you wherever you are. Order from your local go-toes or choose from your favorite change like Chipotle, Wendy's Chick-Billet. That's awesome. And the Cheese State Factory.

They're all on there, plus more. Lee and Matthew use DoorDash. Y'all do? Yeah. All right. So when you're nose-down working on the podcast, you know, and you just don't have time to grab lunch. Sometimes you're running a little late and you can't even get dinner.

Or dinner. Or dinner. Y'all just hit up, y'all just hit up the DoorDash app on your phone and the milk comes right to you. Right here to the shop. Holy cow. Unreal. They do that. Pomodoro's chicken parmesan.

We got it all set up. And you're pretty satisfied with the meal. Yes, and the delivery. That's most important. Your dasher. Your dasher. My dasher, man. How about your dasher?

My datcher. My darser. center. Your dashers. Is your dashing or personal and conversational? Yeah, I just give them the tip and say thanks. Bye. Eat.

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Don't worry about dinner. Let dinner come to you with DoorDash. Keep coming, bud. White flag right there. White flag right. All right. I'm going to start us off in White Flaggdale. We got a couple more Apple iTunes podcast reviews to start us off.

Kaiser 1124. I absolutely love this podcast. It is my Tuesday routine, especially while I am in college. We're a podcast for the millennials. Y'all knew that? That's what I'm telling you. A.F. Podcast.

We didn't talk. about that paint scheme. Yeah. My friends know Tuesday mornings are my podcast mornings, and I am not to be bothered. So there you go. Daniel C3-88 says, my mother and father both suffered from addiction problems. And so growing up was not the greatest. The only thing that saved me from my unfortunate childhood was race day and seeing you, Dale Jr.,

race and win. When you retired, I was unsure what to do, but I discovered this podcast and now can follow weekly just as I always have. Thank you for giving me something to look forward to every week. So there you go. That's very nice. Very nice. Hayden Stig says,

Dale, the vortex theory is true. And that's really all, he says, it's all caps and a lot of exclamation points. So he just wants us to know that it's true.

Let's see here. S. Williams and Veteran Built Racing both say they both, they started listening just a few weeks ago. So we got some new listeners. That's always nice to hear. Yes.

Veteran Built Racing ads that they are in their rookie season at a local short track in southern Indiana. This made me start thinking, guys. I want to get your opinions real quick. I started something a long time ago, a long time when we first started doing this podcast where I made decals.

And I would hand them out or I would send them to anybody that raced in any short track or whatever. And I said, if you want to put this on your car, you will be part of Dirty Mo Racing. You know, we'll follow your career. We'll celebrate you. There was a girl, Jim of Rainer, who were good friends without in England who did this. He put it on her little street stock car and she would send us pictures. And this made me think, I need to do that again. I want to get decals made.

And if anybody is racing, we want you to, if you want to identify it with us, I mean, you may not want to. And that's not perfectly understandable after you hear our drunk stories and everything that we do. But that being said, I'm going to get some decals made. And if people race and you want to run a dirty moe decal on it, hey, put it on there, send us a picture. You're officially on our team. That's all it takes, right? I love it. You like that idea or no.

I love it. All right. We're going to do that. I love stickers. Yeah, you do. You put some in Key West. You put them all over the place. And the only ones I got now are the old dirty moo radio.

ones. We don't have any dirty moe media stuff. I'm on that one. That's going to be something I do. Dale said it earlier, but I'll say it again, follow Dirty Mo Media on all our social channels, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. That's at Dirty Mo Media. This week's TV show. Good luck. I'm looking over at our producer

right now. I mean, midnight. We couldn't come up with anything better than midnight this week, huh? It's like March badness, man. We're going to have some midnight ball. We're going to have some midnight TV watchers. Maybe they'll air at another time like they did the will power thing. Maybe it'll get multiple airings. We will not be doing live streaming during commercial break for that.

Also, a reminder that if you love Dale Jr. download, you'll also probably like our sister podcast, Door Bumper Clear with Brett Griffin, T.J. Majors and Casey Boat. I'm sure Brett will have some fun with the whole Eric Jones situation they had this week. That'll be fun to hear him. They might have been prank last week. They might have been. I don't know that I'm claiming anything.

I think Dillner may have been in some of the fellas in this room, but the J.R.M. 360 had a little fun with Door Bumper Clear last week, so if you want to check that out, go to our YouTube page. That's where you'll find it. One more thanks to the sponsors for this week's show, Audible. Dale had a lot of fun reading that one, DoorDash, Valvaline, and Nationwide. And always thanks to our partners at Cadence 13, Dale. And last thing, actually, is a lot of the reviews this week talk about how much they like the odd history. Good. I love odd history. I love history, and odd history is even better.

we have a good one this week. This one surprised me. We got the All-Star race coming up in a few weeks, and I thought that the crazy, weird, dumb, you know, even dumb format changes and ideas that have been proposed. We're just part of the future. Part of the present. Part of our sort of the public perception

of the All-Star race. Right. Oh, it needs to go to a new track. We need to do this. We need to do that. All the crazy ideas. Well, they added some crazy ones way back in the day, too.

It ain't just now. Some ideas are bad. Some ideas are good. And some don't happen at all. And thankfully, this one didn't. In 1987, Charlotte Murder Speedway proposed a format for the All-Star Race. This is an 87.

I know. This wasn't that long ago. It was like the second. It was like the second or second all-star race had been run. I know it. I know it. So going into the third All-Star race.

All right. All right. They wanted to allow the Pulse sitter to be able to throw two caution flags that would last four laps whenever they wanted. The driver, not the team. Yeah. So the driver could choose when the yellow flag would be thrown at any point in the race. He had to choose two cautions to be thrown.

It was mandatory that he chose when they would happen, but it was his choice when. But it's mandatory. Mandatory. You had to do it. They weren't like in his pocket And he could use them if he wanted He had to use them And he could choose when

The starting lineup would have been set By the number of wins The previous year So in 87, Tim Richmond Would have been able to call For all the cautions From behind the wheel The two cautions

This format obviously was never used Thankfully I think that would have been If somebody said I didn't I don't know that it's as crazy as you think Really? The driver calling cautions from the car?

If somebody came with me and said, hey, man, this format's been suggested, I would have not have, I would have said this is probably something that Kiselowski came up with. Oh, really? I would have thought Humphi. No. This is a Kzlowski. This is new. This is some kind of hijinks that this new generation's got.

But no, this was, this probably was Humphi's idea. It probably was, right? From 1987. Yeah. Yeah. Who won the 87? Dale Earnhardt. That's why I felt like you did with that long.

Is it all like that the passing the grass? Is that that one? So there would have been a lot more to passing the grass for if you could have the, you know, call the cautions. Yeah. That would have been. I don't know. Earnhardt got to call the caution. I got to get this crap off.

Oh, man. I don't know. It does feel all star. We have been so conditioned now that where wacky doesn't even seem that abnormal to us anymore. When it comes to the conversation of All Star Race. So I mean, we have this typed up piece of information here that's, That's period to date. I guess this was sent out to NASCAR and a few other people in the industry.

But yeah, it says the race needs to be different as far as possible from the Bush Clash. And it needs as many unique twists as possible. It needs to contain elements that aren't available in other events. And that's true. I think that it shouldn't be anywhere near what the Bush Clash is. Those are two different races. That's why the Bush Clash should be about polls and the All-Star race is about wins. That makes them different enough for me.

And yeah, the All-Star Race can have all the gimmicks. Yeah, but you don't like them when they come out with it. You want some consistency. Well, the 87 All-Star Race was so good, so I would just go right back to that. That's right. It ain't about the format. The format does not make a great race. It's about the cars and the drivers behind the wheel, and that's where you get the fireworks from.

So forget, I don't know why they waste all that time worrying about the format. Just go back to 87, keep it that way, lean on the drivers to bring the show. All right. Good stuff, guys. Appreciate the show, guys. Thanks for everybody tuning in. I hope you enjoyed it. Truex is great. Who's next week? You want to go ahead and tell them? Do I know? Oh, yeah, do you want to tell? He's a big guy.

Yeah. Mike Helton's next week, guys. It's going to be a lot of fun. Can't wait. We're going to get some stories from him. We'll see you then.