The Dale Jr. Download - 261 - Simon Pagenaud: French Kiss the Bricks

Episode Date: June 18, 2019

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s candid and hilarious sit down with Indianapolis 500 winner Simon Pagenaud.  The two racers discuss drinking the winners' milk, facing the factor of fear, hunting and kissing bricks, a long-shot career path, racecars with deer-whistles and the last lap of the 500.  DJD goes full-send on Johnny Sauter vs. Austin Hill, the Ross Chastain DQ and we find out in White-Flag that Dale was once hated and is now a "dadspiration" to one loyal fan.   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.

Here he comes. Here he sits. He's coming. He's sitting now. He's at the 20. He's at the 30. He's putting on his edge. This is a production of Dirty Mo Media.

Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. Welcome to the Dale Jr. Download. Another episode coming at you. Mike Davis, Matthew Dillner, Leavon, everybody's here. We've got Simon Pajino. He's in her house tonight.

That's awesome. Yeah. So Simon is the N-500 champion. He swept the month. of May, won the GP race on the road course, then the pole. Got to hang out with him a little bit of indie. He's coming to the show. Before we get to our guests, we're going to talk about a few things.

Father's Day. Yeah. What did everybody do for Father's Day? Everybody have a good one. You know, Father's Day means something a little new now around there in Hart House. This is my second one. Father's Day is pretty fun for me. Yeah, what did you do?

And, well, it's the one day where, now I always do this, but it's the one day where I do it without any guilt. Right. I lay around on the couch and watch TV. That's it. And it's my day to do it without feeling bad about doing it. But no, we just, we had a big get-together on Saturday. And it was unrelated to Father's Day.

We got a lot of friends in this group text chat. There's about 54 people in it. And we basically are going to have this annual event where all those people are invited to the house and we hang out. That's it. We just, we ordered some Gary's barbecue from Troutman and, you know, just swim in a pool. everybody brings the kids if they want and hang out and so that's what we did all day Saturday so Sunday was a lazy day we cleaned up a little bit and watched TV and Amy has a gift it's not ready or came in yet but she's excited about it so that's got me excited about it

last year if you remember her Father's Day gift was the onesie taco onesie right how can we forget yeah and she was excited about that but I thought it was a joke I was like okay, where's the real gift? You know, this is obviously some kind of gag gift. No, that was the gift. And so this year she says she's got something she thinks that I'll be really excited about. She doesn't have to get me anything, but she's pumped it up, hyped it up, so I'm looking forward to it.

But, yeah, Father's Day is pretty cool. Yeah. I mean, I got people texting me, happy Father's Day. Yeah. Like for, you know, 44 years of my life, that never happened. It's pretty weird. It feels weird. You know, kind of like when you get married and you can, you can.

you can then say my wife, or, you know, instead of my fiance or my girlfriend, you go, my wife. Right. You know, it's weird. It's cool. You're proud of it. But it's strange. It's new. And so it's pretty interesting getting text messages, happy Father's Day.

Because you just never assumed you're going to be a daddy. And now you are. Okay, I guess I'm the only one that experiences this. We never assumed you were going to be a daddy either. Right. That's what I'm saying. Nobody. Yeah.

So, anyways, Father's Day was a lot of fun. And, yeah, I'm trying to think if there was anything else we did. Don't think we did accomplish it. Low-key Father's Day is the best kind of Father's Day. Amy said, hey, what do you want to do? I'm like, I don't want to do anything. That's the Father's Day. That's the kind of Father's Day you aim for right there.

The one where you can just have a guilt-free nothing day. It's awesome. Guilt-free. Yeah. Like, what did you guys do? A lot of the same. Sat around and did not allow myself to feel guilty about it. I mean, we watched the U.S. women's soccer game, and that was yesterday, that was at noon.

and so we watched that for a few hours and then we just kind of, I mean, I just did a lot of nothing. I watched them racing. We had the Xfinity race, the truck race too. Did you like that doubleheader, Xfinity and truck on the same day? I enjoyed it because you got a little break. Hey, the truck race was crazy. We got to talk about that. But you got the truck race.

It was pretty fun. And then you had a little break waiting on that Xfinity race. And that was, you know, even though it was dominated by Christopher Bell, it was still a good race. Yeah, but the double header. But go back to your point, doubleheaders. are nice. I like that. You pack that day full of a good racing. Now let's go back to the truck race. Yeah, so the truck race. We had a, Johnny Sauter gets, had some, got in trouble. We don't know exactly what's going to happen to him. There's a lot of debate on social media about exactly

what his penalty should be if he does get one, whether it's fine or suspension. We'll talk about that. So basically what happened was, is he was out on the racetrack with Austin Hill. All right, Austin Hill and the 16, right. Austin is taking over the 16 truck. He is a, I think He's a deserving driver, but he's coming into a championship truck. A lot of pressure on him to live up to expectations of what that team can do. And maybe he ain't quite met that expectation yet, or he doesn't realize, he hasn't realized what they're capable of just yet, so maybe he's feeling a little pressure. But he's also a big boy.

He's not a little guy, and he's not going to get pushed around by anybody, especially Johnny Sauter. Now, Johnny Sauter is a guy that I don't know that a lot of people are going to run into, ever. and if Johnny pushes around, you just kind of say, hey, you know, that's Johnny. That's what John did. I'm not going to get in the middle of that, right? Does anybody else on this show? Is this me? No, no, no.

Hey, when it comes to, when it comes, I'm too biased to talk about this one because I'm buddies of both of them. So we are, I don't care if you're friends with him. We're on a podcast here. You're supposed to talk about your feelings and talk about your emotions? My point, my question is, is that a Johnny Sauter thing or is that a Sauter family thing? Sauter family thing. I don't think, I never thought Jay was.

that way. Jay was the comments probably of them all. Right. So I don't know if it's a solder family. I think Johnny's just Johnny's just a bulldog. Yeah. So that's a great way explain it. So Johnny's that way. He's a racer. He's developed a racer. He's developed a reputation to be

of this type of guy. And so it was interesting to see anyone challenge him. Okay. So he wrecks him. So Austin Hill. He bumped Austin going into term one. And we don't know what was happening to lead up to that. Maybe Johnny was getting a little impatient. Stuff the week before in Texas.

Okay, so they had a little deal in Texas. And turn three and four, he goes down in there and spins him out. Johnny puts Johnny in the wall. I don't know if he was meaning to wreck him, but he turned him around. Yeah, yeah, he turned around. Yeah, I didn't think he hit him that hard. Well, he said it. He said he did it on purpose.

I know, but I just don't know if he really was trying to wreck him. I just don't think he hit him hard enough for an intentional, I want to put this guy in the fence. That didn't look like a, I'm putting you in the wall. that looked like, I'm going to knock you up the track. And if you can catch it, you can save it. Good for you. Well, Johnny didn't save it. He backed it in a wall.

Then the TV cuts away to something else. And then they cut back, and Johnny is driving through this guy. Cautions out. I saw this a couple times on Lake Mall stock cars. Once at East Carolina most freeway, a little bull ring out there on the East Coast. But I could not believe what I would see him, man. I mean, unreal. Under caution.

Some Bowman Gray stuff right there. And everybody started talking about all the, you know, well, Kyle Busch did it to Hornarday back then. That was way extreme. This other guy's done it and this other guy's done it. And there's been varying penalties. Some guys weren't penalized. You know, Matt Kenseth was set out for a few races. Kyle Busch had to set out the cup race at Texas that weekend.

but there's other cases where this has happened and no penalty at all, no suspension at all. Probably a fine and some points. So that's been a big debate on what should happen to Johnny. Now, it was crazy to see it. Not surprised. Johnny's fiery. He's not going to put up with it. After the race, that kid gets out of his truck and says, I don't care.

Johnny can come, you know, talk to me on whatever. He said he's not going to take it, which I thought was for a humble kid like that, I was very proud of him. Yeah. So he's a big boy. So for the record, they parked Johnny instantly. Like as soon as he did it, they said, all right, bring it into the garage. Sure.

All right. I'm assuming a fine is coming his way. You can take a fine. Well, I'm assuming at least a fine. At least a fine, okay. Do you think a suspension's coming? Is this the debate? The debate, I think, is what should happen?

Should he have to say? Yeah. And so what do you think? And now that, because that, I think if you, so if you don't race, if he doesn't race, people are assuming then that. takes his eligibility out for the championship, right? Because you can't miss a race, right? You can miss a race.

Yeah, but you'll get a waiver. But if they're going to penalize him, they can't turn around then give him a waiver. Yeah, but he's got a win. You can't miss a race. Why can't you miss a race? Because you can't. You have to run all the races. It's a rule.

But then why is Ross Chastine able to... Because he got a waiver. Oh, he got a waiver. Yeah. So you're saying that... Okay, so you're saying... that there's no way they would penalize it and then give him away. I don't think it defeats the purpose.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, is it, what's the best for the series is the question? Why is that the best? That's my question. Okay, what's best for the series in terms of. Penalize him proper? In terms of integrity?

Or in terms of entertainment? Yeah, where do you go? I think you go with integrity, man. Yeah? Because entertainment's fleeting. Entertainment is here and gone. But we, integrity is forever. We're all talking about entertainment.

So, where do we go? It's already is forever, man. That's what you've got to aim at. Let's hit the nail that's going to help us long term. You know, I don't know that you have to suspend Johnny. I think that's a little harsh because that that not only affects, you know, obviously Johnny, but that affects that team. These teams are too fragile.

Right. You know, a cup team in a situation like Kyle Bush at Texas or, you know, those teams can possibly survive that. whereas Johnny, you know, that could be very difficult for a Thor sport to be able to manage going forward. So you have to look at that too as far as, does penalizing Johnny hurt the health of the team, which would therefore hurt the health of the series? Maybe I think you have to do something to affect Johnny's thought process about what he did on the racetrack and whether he would do it again. You've got to deter him from doing it. Probation doesn't really do anything.

Then you can't suspend them, though. I think you're going to have to get in his pocket. Money is a big deal, but you have to go big on money. You can't find these guys' pocket change. You've got to find them something that's going to deter them. And I think points as well. Points are so critical. You've got to make him realize that I can't do this again.

If I'm in this situation, even next year or five years down the road, I'm not going to make that choice that I made because I see that it's made things difficult for me. and I think you have to look at how you can make it challenging for him with his point situation, with his playoff opportunities, and also a financial penalty of some sort that makes it difficult for him or makes it challenging for him or his team. Did you see Marcus Limonis? Yeah, Marcus, go ahead and run that through.

So Marcus chimed in and he said totally unacceptable behavior. Run hard, turn hard, push the limit, but find the clear line between right and wrong. It was crossed, not my call, and it's good that it's not. Yeah, there you go. That last part. So he's upset. Who is this guy? Tell everybody who he is.

You know, involved, of course, with Gander, you know, the series sponsor. But of course, I think it's CNBC, the prophet. You know, he's a pretty well-known guy. So that's a pretty bold statement. Not only did he say that, but he tagged USA Today Fox Sports. Yes. I mean, he tagged a few big names in there. He's the tag-em-all kind of tweeted.

As many as the character space will allow. Can I just say, and I'm probably in the minority here, but I don't think the transgression warrants a suspension. I don't think it does. I don't. I don't think it does. I don't think that you're actually in the majority, Mike. I think a lot of people don't want him to get suspended. Twitter seems to be pulled up like to hang him on a cross.

No kidding. I'm not bringing in the precedents or anything. I'm talking about what I saw. I have no idea what the precedents were. What I saw, I didn't think it warranted a suspension. I thought it warranted him to get parked which he was and find which he will. And I do think that there are, as a judgment call on, what exactly he did, there have been times when the wrecks are unsafe. I mean, I don't think that he just ruined the guy's race is all he did.

Well, actually, you know, he heard him a few spots. I don't know. I mean, the 16 truck was going to finish just inside the top 10 somewhere and he finished just outside the top 10 there. But the guy ended up getting a pretty decent finish out of it regardless. I think that there's a, the first thing that happened. the second thing that happened where Johnny turns the 16 truck going into one and the 16 truck spins Johnny out. We need that. Like we need that. I don't, you know, I don't promote wrecking guys and spinning guys out, but the drama, the color, the, boom, the excitement and the intrigue of all

that, we need it. We don't need to, we do not need to try to divert guys from doing that or try to, we don't need to try to keep the drivers from acting out in between the flags. Now, when the costume flag comes out. I don't want to see a guy go and run over somebody under caution. But to your point, we're starting the show talking about it. Yeah. So that's good. That's what you're saying. You know, we're talking about it. I know. I want, we need more framming and bamming under the, you know, in the race. We need more bumping. We need more aggressiveness. We need guys getting upset and, you know, losing their cool and making, you know, doing things like that. We need that. That's what the sport needs.

And it spilled over into, you know, Johnny doing it under caution. Now, that's the part I think that they should have to try to divert people from doing. That's it. Yeah. Johnny probably agrees afterwards of that, too. I think he would agree afterwards and probably would have handled it differently. If his truck wasn't, you know, a wreck, he would have went up and got him during the race. Yeah.

But I think he thinks his race is over. I'm going to go end his. Yeah. It was a case of road rage. It was it. It's not even a conspiracy. It's a case of road rage. He went and did what he did impulsively.

Probably wishes he hadn't. I don't know. So I don't know if he wishes he hadn't. I know that we do the fine, like you said, you're going to want him to wish he hadn't eventually. And so you can deliver that by a good fine. I agree. You don't think you mess with the points. Man, that's important.

I didn't even think about that until you mentioned it. Yeah, you could. You could take away his points for that race or something. Well, he didn't get many. No, right. I don't think you mess with it. I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to tell you something.

You bring up a good point because the points, man, that does feel. You feel it. I remember when you got docked points, man, we haven't forgot. I haven't forgot it. I mean, like, in my mind, that cost us a championship, 2004. Even after all this time for me, it's still certainly regrettable. That was 25 points. And that's the worst part about it because we were in good shape sitting there in the playoffs.

Had them covered. I mean, yeah. Well, we were in good shape. Yeah. And 25. points took the wind out of ourselves. Like it was, you cannot afford to give up points. One point, much less

25 in a situation like that. So I think that if you went for, if you want to leave him impression, you go after money and points. Johnny was parked in that race. In my mind, that's that's enough as far as trying to take him off the racetrack any further. I wouldn't suspend him for a race.

They did parking after that incident and his truck was probably able to continue. So he had been removed from the racetrack. So I would go after something that would make him think, you know, long and hard about doing it, doing that again, or any other driver, for that matter, doing it again. That's right. You're delivering a message to the whole series.

I always felt like that the point, you know, the penalties and vines and stuff needed to be stricter and tougher in a lot of these situations. So it'll be interested to see what they do. Yeah. Well, then you had the winner. I mean, the trip-office. The winner-no-winner. So that's the first time that they've taken a win away from somebody.

for being illegal. And it was a situation where it was a winner who was a popular winner. Ross Chastain has decided to go after truck points to try to get himself into the playoffs. He felt like his team had won a race, but they weren't eligible because they weren't claiming truck points. So he's going to claim truck points. And with about eight races left in the season, he's got to win one and work himself into the top 20.

And if he does that, he'll go into the playoffs, which he basically did on Saturday. He won the race. He's about 20 points out. from the top 20 to be eligible to go into the playoffs. He would have got there pretty easy over the next several weeks. Now he not only didn't get the win, but he's also going to have a point penalty for failing. So he's got last place points plus possible point penalty

for failing that inspection post-race. So what hole is he in now? A much more challenging situation. Not only does he have to win, but he has to overcome this deficit now that's grown larger. Man, I mean, just, and it seems to be, like the story of Ross Chastain's career. Yeah.

Hurdles and hurdles and hurdles. Can't take a break. He's just, I just wish tech was, everything that seems to be, everything, it is, everything that they tech them before and after. But that's it.

I don't think you could do that. You'd open up a can of worms, not tech and cars post race. You got to have a tech inspection. You've got to have a process that secures the winner. He failed it. They won't, you know, they'll try harder next time not to do that. Well, they're going to appeal,

but they'll also try not to be low next time. after any race, much less anyone else. Now that this is setting a new precedent of, hey, we will pull the win. This is something incredibly unique. They don't take wins away. All right. They started doing that this year. They said in offseason, look, you're illegal.

You're losing the win. We're going to take wins away. You're not going to find out about it on Tuesday or Wednesday. There's no encumbered wins. All that stuff's gone. So this is what everybody wanted. And now this is what we got. So we got to take it whether we love the winner,

or whether it's Ross Chastain or anybody else winning that race. If they fail, they fail. It's what we asked for. We got what we wish for. So it'll be interesting to see if – and Ross has come on social media and quoted after the race that he is hell-bent to get back to Venture Lane. It's only motivation for those guys.

Feels good about his team. I think they can do it. I mean, I wouldn't count them out. And they're appealing it for what that's worth. I've got a question. I've always wondered this. Anytime somebody has been found too low, okay? There's always that pocket of people that say, well, that may not have been intentional, you know, whether it's somebody, you know, whatever.

Is there a chance that it's not intentional or when somebody is too low, is that an absolutely a self-caused issue that you just really have no room for it? because I'm not exactly sure what they're going to appeal, what their argument is. But I just know that in general, when people are too low, you're like, oh, well, he got out of the car and he stood on top of the car, and that made it too low. Or there's some other, you know, A-9 reason. Is that BS or is there a chance that that is what happened? Well, I don't think that it would be intentional. I don't think that they would set their truck up to get lower as the race went on. I think it's an issue where they were doing something in the suspension, whether a spring or a shock or a bump stop that failed them.

that it reached a, you know, it reached a situation where it didn't hold up to the roughness of that. That's a very rough racetrack. That'll be the place where you're going to miss time or misjudge exactly how much that truck's going to settle over a period of a race. Okay. And so I think it's a situation where maybe a spring failed them. Yeah, they said that there was damage caused during the race, not specifically a spring or something, but Nice Motorsports did issue that statement. Yeah. And that's pretty standard by a team that was found too low.

Yeah, yeah. I think it basically, typically, like, they'll put the springs and the shocks and the thing on the truck or the car, and they're going to run it to the limit. They're going to put it in there where it's right on the verge, and they're going to hope that that stuff's going to hold up during the race, and it's not going to fail. It's not going to, you know, decrease in rate or anything like that and settle the truck. And sometimes it does. I imagine there were quite a few trucks that didn't get ticked that probably weren't going to meet minimum height. It just so happened.

The winner was extremely low per NASCAR. You lost that $50,000 too. If it's extremely low, like if it's more than just a couple thousandths or something like that, I would think that it's a mistake or a part failure or a suspension failure. A bump stop gave up or a spring gave up or something settled. more than they intended it to or more than they expected it to. And I don't know that that will get them out of trouble.

I think if it's something that they, you know, I think if it's damaged, like it's like bent, something bent, suspension bent, like if the clips bent or the front, you know, split or valence of something's bent down, that's something that, you know, you can't, I think they could probably appeal and win that. But if it's a shock or an issue with the suspension part that gave up a little bit that allowed that truck to settle more than normal, I think that that's an appeal they'll lose. But if your niece motorsports or any of those guys

or the driver Ross Chastain, you're hoping that it was physical damage to the nose of that truck that made it fail height. That, to me, would be an arguable offense. Anything else I don't know that they could win an appeal with. So we'll just have to say. You would think, though, that if there was physical damage to the truck,

that that would have been taken into consideration as they were sitting there trying to tech it at the end of the race. I know it went through techs a couple of times trying to achieve height, and it couldn't. and so if there's physical damage visible right there in front of them, they could sit there and argue that with the officials and have that handled right then and there. We'll have to weigh it a couple, a day or two to figure this out.

It's going to be expedited pretty quickly, this new appeal process. It's one and done. You don't go through several avenues of appeals. They'll learn this week what's going on with that. There's one thing they can't take away from him. That's that watermelon smash. That was badass. Pretty sporty.

How does he get that watermelon so fast? They have a bunch of trailers. Yeah, and they just bring it right to it. So PR people have to bring hats. They've got a second person bringing watermelon? No, no, no. Yeah, the watermelon's in the wind bag. And then they had it.

Infinity race was pretty good. Junior Motorsports had a pretty good decent day. I was excited about that. Man, we need a win, but I'll, you know. That's two races, though. We've been getting better. Top ten. Been getting better.

It's getting tense here in the garage. You can feel it. Yeah. Yep. Damn Noah, though, was impressive to come back from that. Yeah, it did a good job. But that's, that was great that they had that extra set of tires to be able to take advantage of everybody at the end.

That was a very good driving by Noah. I know he's trying to get his first win in Xfinity series this year. Dominating performance. I mean, double zero is pretty good. I don't know if you could call it dominating, but Christopher Bell pretty much was a class to field all day.

Custer was decent. Yeah. Those two cars were in a class by themselves. I think those two guys are the favorites for the championship, don't you think? Well, we've got to talk about Reddick. But you never know. Redick had a little trouble.

And he's going to be awesome at Homestead. Oh, yeah. So if you had to pick the four, who would it be? Who would your four be in the Xfinity series for the championship? It would be Reddick, Bell, Custer, and Justin Allgaier. I got you. That's my four. That'd be my four, too.

I think where it sits right now. We all agree. Looking at performance. Yeah. Look at the performance. That looks like the four. Never happened before. And also, we're coming up on Sonoma, which is the last race for Fox.

That means that we are getting ready to go into the booth. You're here and go back to work. Heck yeah. You got your, we got your, we're going. What do they call that where they send that big... The cardboard boxes. Yeah, but they call that something specific. I can't remember what it was.

This is a big letdown anecdote that we just... Yeah, I know. I'm like, what? This is, you know, could be very cuttable. Big cardboard boxes come to the house and I'm going to put my sports coats in them and shift them out today. Oh. Yeah.

Or tomorrow. Got some new ones? No, I'm going to ship the same... I'm like, I took pictures of all the stuff that I put up that I, you know, sent on the road last year, so it's like 10 shirts, eight jackets, 15 ties or something like that. I'm going to send about half. of that stuff this year. I don't know.

They had me wearing the same jacket over and over and over, I noticed. There was one jacket that was quite popular with their... Everybody noticed. Oh, they tell you what to wear? Yeah, we don't pick. So when... Does that work? We send, we ship them the clothes.

The clothes travels in the NBC trucks from track to track. We get there and Baker, Michelle Baker, that handles all this stuff for us at NBC. So we'll text us a picture of the morning of the race. Here's your shirt. and here's your tie and here's your jacket. Do you like it? I want that for everyday life. Because I got to put the pants on, right?

So I got to pick the pant to go with it. Okay. And I have three colors. I got these wrangler pants that I wear. And I have, yeah, I wear them wranglers. Of course you do. Right, yeah, I don't wear anything else. I got black, tan, and gray.

And so I got to figure out which pair of pants going to go with that combo that she picks out. Yeah, last year I sent way too much. Because they kept using like the same two or three jackets every week. and they just put it with a different shirt and tie. Just get like a chili stand on the jacket so they can't use it. No, it's a good jacket. I don't mind.

I don't mind. I'm going to Sonoma. I'm going to Sonoma. That's right. You're going to as a fan. Going as a fan. Watch them hot dogs out there on that racetrack. Hey, boy.

What are you? We could eat some hot dogs while watching some hot dogs. Yeah, we're going to watch them. Superstar NASCARs out there. Race cars. that people. I mean, how much are you going to be slumming it?

Are you going to be sitting it up in a suite or something? I got tickets to the HMS suite. There you go. So he ain't slum. No. I call my buddy Jake Backer, one of my best friends, works over at HMS.

I said, hey, I'm going to the race. I need somewhere to stand. And so he got me some sweet passes for them. That'll be fun. Yeah. I'm going out there with Amy and a couple of her friends, and we're just going to go around the valley

and do all that for a couple days. And then I'm going to go to the race. And then I'm going to Vegas for Nationwide. I got a little deal with Nationwide out in Vegas, and we're also going to do a little promo. Yeah, cool. Can we talk about that? I don't care.

Yeah, yeah, let's talk about it. Go ahead. Well, no, you, it's you. You're leaving Vegas to go to L.A. to do what? The voice is on NBC. Oh, that's right. And so they're wanting me to do a couple promos that sort of, you know, you think it's a voice promo, but it's actually a NASCAR promo.

Of course. Oh, dang, that's awesome. Yeah. Listen, NBC, if nothing else, the way they get Dale Jr. on those crossover opportunities has been just awesome. I mean, you've got to just, I will always be grateful for what they do and how they use Dell. And this voice opera, he happened to be in Vegas, the voice, the producers wanted him to come out there, tape a few things with Blake Shelton. Yeah. Get some good Brett stories from Blake.

Yeah, there you go. It's your homework. Look, and I got an hour to do. I doubt they're going to talk about Brett Griffin. There's a better way to use that hour. Before we bring in our special guest, let's talk about my relationship with Vivalene. It's a special relationship, Mike. Everything they've done with me has been on a custom and personal level.

They're the only motor old brand with a dedicated engine lab that makes them a great partner outside and under the hood. In 2014, they let me do a full. build of one of my all-time favorite car bodies in 1974, the year I was born, Chevy Cheyenne shortbed truck. We took that baby out in raised tail. It was a lot of fun, thanks to Valvilline. We've had a good time working together. Not short on some funny moments.

In 2016, they made me into a bobblehead for their pit pal's promotion. That was pretty cool. A lot of fun, pretty funny. You know, only true friends will do that for you, Mike. Only the best. But I tell you, no other motor oil brand goes that extra mile to build a relationship like Valeline does, which is why I trust them in my engines, and you should too, from high mileage rides that need that thick anti-wear film to new engines that have carbon buildup.

Check out, valene.com slash Dale to find the right product for your engine. That's valene. com slash Dale. All right. Now it's time to bring in our guests, Simon Pashnow. Here you come. Oh, stop already. Look at this.

We love free toys. Go ahead, Mike. Open it up. Any 500 champion Simon Pajonos here. He has brought us a toy. For our table? I'm hoping it would be the brightest car you ever have. It is.

So this one will stick out. Everyone will see this one on TV. Check it out. He's been signed it for you. And it's a sign. Menards to Dale Jr. Thank you. We're going to get somebody to open that thing up, put on the table right now.

So let's get it open up. Come on, Mike. Come on, Mike. Come on. It looks like you've never done it. before. I haven't. We don't get gifts, and they certainly aren't signed. We don't have anything signed. In fact, they're usually the

prototypes and the stuff that's not even legal. He's got his teammate, but he didn't bring it to his post show. So thanks, Simon. Thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you have been... Pretty cool to be here. Yeah, you have been busy. Yes, yes. So, born in 1984, I was born in 74.

Age 35 years old, so that makes me 45. How do you pronounce the town you're from? That's the tough one. Montmoreion. Wait, what? Can you do it? Say it again. This face.

I love your face when I said that. How do you smell it? So it's Mont, Morillon. Montmorillon. Memorial. Yeah. You're pretty good. Very good.

This is where you were born? Yes, that's where I was born. That's still where I have a house there. You still have a house there? I still go back to France there. See all my friends. Yeah? How much time do you spend over there?

About a good, yeah, four weeks a year. I go back for Christmas. Ah, so not a lot. It's okay. Yeah. Have you been back? Life is good. Have you been back recently?

No, I'm actually going back. We're doing a French media tour out of the 500, so we're going back in August, which is a perfect time to go. What will the reception be like now that you've won the Indy 500 when you go back to Memorial? You know, what's really cool is when I won the championship, the City Hall, which is a small town, 6,000 people, right? So I can't go to many places without being noticed. So what they did is they did a reception. We had a show car. We had a trophy and they did a reception.

The whole town showed up. So I signed autograph. So you've been back home since. For like seven hours. Well, that was in 16 when I won the championship. So I think this is going to get even bigger. And we're hoping we're going to do something on the Champs-Elysde in Paris too. Yeah.

I still working on the details. Wow. That would be neat. Yeah, that would be cool. You're a cult hero now. You go back at the Indy 500. You're a professional milk drink. drinker now. Yeah, I do that. I try to do that every morning now. Yeah. You don't do that before?

As a routine. Nope. Nope. So everybody's, I mean, how is the milk cold? Yes. It is. Yes, it is. I was surprised. I've heard bad stories about it. Like? But, well, like it was hot, hot milk. It was going to smell bad. They would give them water hot milk. That's so, that's so cruel. No, but that one was cold and it was so good. Was it? Yeah. Really, really good. You wouldn't believe. So I'm actually on the hunt to try to get that exact same milk. All the brand, yeah. Who's ever asked that question? What brand of milk?

Is this 2%? 1% whole milk, skin milk? What is this? No, that was the, so when I had the chance to go to sort of experience everything about the N. 500 over the past several weeks when I was there, I learned that the drivers fill out like a rider. Yeah. You know, before the, way before the race. Yeah, it's like before the month. even start, they send us an email and they ask, hey, what kind of milk do you want?

No, are you serious? Mike, you didn't know that? What? No. Every driver gets to decide. There's only like, it's 2% whole milk. You can ask whatever you want? Any kind.

Yeah. Well, so what did you ask for? I asked for whole milk. All right. I wanted the whole experience. Yeah, you're not going to throw skin milk in Simon. I don't want a 2% experience. No, no.

You want the whole smash. Good for you. That's the cool milk. The cool thing about Indie. that Indy 500 is the traditions, you know. There's so much pageantry and tradition in that whole experience. So we have speed weeks in Daytona,

and it's about 10 days or so where you're down there. I couldn't imagine being there for an entire month. Yeah, it's okay. I love being at the racetrack. I'm sure you do too. I just honestly, and it's such a great atmosphere there in Indy.

That track, you know, it holds something. special. You've been there. It's really strange at night when everything calms down. It's so quiet. It's actually super nice. I love to walk my dog at night. We go and walk around the racetrack. Your dog's famous. Norman? Yeah. Yeah, Norman. That's right.

Does he have his own social media account? Heck yeah, man. You follow me or you'd only follow him? I might just follow him. A lot of people do that. Very pro dog over there. That's great. I was hoping he would join us today. Yeah, I thought about it, but then I...

He could have sat right here. Yeah, he could have sat with me the whole time. I was like, what am I going to do with him for an hour? He's going to start. This is dog-friendly place. Is it? Oh, yeah, yeah. Places to peeve.

I think Friday's at Deuter Motor Sports is bring your dog to our base. It is. Come in here and there'll be dogs everywhere. Next year. There you go. Yeah, that's right. So you were walking, we interrupted you with the dog, but you were walking around the track. I just love being at the track.

So it really doesn't matter to me. I think it would matter more if it was, you know, at a place, slost in middle of nowhere, like Iowa. You ain't going to Iowa for a month. No, I would not. But indie, I don't mind. So, yeah, it's just, you know, we have the grand fruit. The cool thing is they've really done a whole month of activities. You know, we have a, they've made a party that's called the Indie Rev party.

And they basically have anyone from anywhere can come and just have a really good time with the drivers. They cook, basically there's chef coming. And they pair up with a driver. You make your meals. And it's a big party. And people show up. and you just hang out with the drivers. So that's the first weekend of May.

Then you have the Grand Prix, which is, you know, obviously it's cool for people to see what an IndyCar can do, the Grand Prix track, and then the Indianapolis 500. And then on the Tuesday, we switched the cars over to go on the Speedway. So, you know, it's fine because I think we have so much diversity that it's not boring. Man. I mean, two different races, yeah. Yeah.

That's amazing that they turn over the track that quickly, to be honest. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. From a road course to the oval, like, yeah. So have you ever been into the creek to dig out a brick? No, not yet. You're going to do that? Have you heard you?

Actually, you've been in that creek, but that was by mistake. What a second? Was it a dog? I want to hear this. It's a dog story, yeah. Well, we got time. I was fostering a dog. Awful Puff, we called him at the time.

We called her at the time. And she just took her for the geese. And she was just a pup. So, you know, I was fostering. So when I saw her two cough, I got really worried. I was like, oh, man, I'm going to be that guy. I lost the dog. And she ended up close to the creek.

I slid off. Ended up in the creek with my slacks on, my Penske gears on. Yeah. It wasn't pretty. What is the Penske dress code for, no, no, when you have to go into the creek, though, is what I'm saying. Does Roger say something like, Simon, go change your clothes? You can't come back to the trip. You can't meet my sponsors like that's why.

Yeah, no, not really. I had to pressure wash myself After I was snap on comes on handy Yes that's right Dale Jr. ended up in the creek He went looking for bricks I don't know if you saw you did You were busy he was doing pre-raced features

But yeah I found one You did? Yeah Nice So yeah I'd heard about You know

We've been going there With NASCAR for a couple Several years And I'd heard about guys going in the creek And finding bricks And everybody's Got a brick And I didn't

I'd never done it So we You know I got to do it. You got to do it, man. I'm going to give you a little bit. It's a good story. I'll give you a little bit of advice.

I went with Rutledge Wood, who I was working with at NBC, and he said, man, I've dug one out there. We'll have one in 15 minutes. And we got over there, and I, foolishly, I thought I'd walk over there and there'd be bricks laying in the creek bed. You can see the bottom. It's pretty clear water. And I thought, you know, obviously.

So it must be a different creek where I slid off, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Because it wasn't clear. Yeah, it wasn't clear. No. But you don't, you don't, there's not bricks laying around. You got to dig down in there.

And about 10, 12 inches under the surface of the bottom of the creek. And they're in pockets. Like they must have walked over there with wheelbarrows and dumped them in little piles. So you'll go a while and not see any brick or any kind of fragment or anything. Then you'll walk into like a little pile where there's all kinds of fragments and half-broke bricks. And you've got to dig down right there and you're going to find a whole one. Nice. Yeah.

And they have the – I'm definitely going to do it. They have the lettering on them and everything. And even some of them, you can see where they were – were a surface brick where they got rubber and wore out. Oh, that's cool. It's really, really cool. I mean, it's in a history, and no other racetrack, in my mind, has the kind of history that Indy has. Yeah.

You know, I find, you know, 09 is when they built the track. The wildest part of its history for me is in World War II when they banned auto racing, and the people basically just deserted the racetrack, and there's these pictures of the track with trees and big, big bushes and weeds growing up through the, through the cracks and through in between the bricks on the surface of the track. Yeah. In World War I, they had, they used it as an air base to be able to land and take off from. I didn't know that.

Yeah, because they could land the planes on the straightaways. Wow. And they could house the planes there and everything. And then. That's amazing, you know. Right. In 2004, they just closed it and left it for dead. Really, the guy that owned the property was going to sell the track and they were going to develop housing, you know, have a housing development on that property.

And somebody came in near the last minute. to save the track and buy it and bring racing back. It's amazing. Cool story. We're close to racing. I had no idea. Housing development. It almost, you know, disappeared.

Right. It's crazy. So it's funny you said, if I may, when I grew up, I raced in Europe, right? And I went to Monza. First time I ever went to Monza, which over there is a tempo of speed. And I went on a run on my own. And it's in a park. It's beautiful.

I don't know if you've ever been to Monza. Never been. It's in a park and everybody walks in the park. Every, you know, they just jogs and it's really cool. And in the middle of it, you have the racetrack, the racetrack that you see on TV now, but there's still the Oval. Yeah.

The Oval is so banked that you can't actually physically go up to the top. Yeah. And it's just like that. It's deserted, but it's got so much, it's so cool to see it because it's got so much history. Yeah, I've, you know, I've played a lot of video games, and Monsa's like, Monsa's one of the most, famous racetracks in the world.

And Matthew is a ghost track. We call them ghost tracks. Ghost tracks? West Speedways, man. I'm geeked up on that. He is into that. I am as well. I want to go visit that someday so bad.

Mons would be awesome. It's good to see. So you raced, you talked about you raced over, obviously, in France, where you were born. At what point in your career did you, were you ever wanting to be over in the United States racing? Or how did your, how did, is that something you were looking? out there in front of you going, man, this is where I want to be, was it F1? Like, what was your, when you started driving, like, what was your, what was your goal? So, I took backtrack a little bit.

My, you know, I'm not from a racing family. Nobody in my family was racing. You started really late. Yeah, well, I know, I started early go-kart. Okay. But then, yeah, I went into cars pretty late, but the thing is, is, I had no idea. I didn't know which way I had to take. I had nobody to tell me, that's what you need to do. This is direction you need to take. Let me, let me, let me, contact this person to help you out. I had to do it all on my own at a young age. So it was complicated. It was very complicated to have a vision of the sport, if you per se, because I didn't know the industry. So then, you know, I had to grow up pretty quick. I started racing. I was eight when I started go counting. You know, my first race was a complete disaster in the wet. Yeah? Oh, yeah. But that race,

it's still inside me, it still drives me because it was so hard and I hit the wall so many times and I had to push my go-kart myself at 10 years old to get it started because it didn't have a clutch back then. It was such a grueling race that it actually marked me forever. And sometimes when I need it, I just dig inside and find the energy. So I started there and then I used to watch Formula One. I used to watch Indianapolis.

I remember Rick Mears. You know, I remember Mario Andredi. I remember all the big names. And to me, Indianapolis was equal to Formula One. It's always been in my head. Obviously, Europe, we watch more Formula One because it's just more convenient with times. And, you know, we don't have time change. So it's more convenient.

But Indianapolis, to me, it was big. And Nigel came to IndyCar in 92. And when he came to IndyCar, I was six years old. And that's where my passion really started for the sport. So then I really thought, man, it's really. either IndyCar Formula One for me. I mean, it's equal. But, man, it was a complete,

unrealistic dream. There was no way I was going to get there. I mean, I was six years old. Not from a racing family. So there was no way. My family was in supermarket business for a generation. So I was meant to take over

and run the business. So then when I told my dad and my grandpa, that's what I wanted to do, I said, yeah, sure. That's amazing. Yeah, they said, yeah, sure. And then my dad took responsibility. There's a track that was built not far from my home about 20 minutes.

What was it? It's called Cirque du Val de Vienne. Yeah. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. What kind of, it's a go car track? No, it's actually a full-on road course track, beautiful track. I mean, to these days, we could have an IndyCar race.

Really? Oh, yeah, it's beautiful. And they've done a great job. So my dad was in charge of the financial. He was the CFO basically for years. And because of that, I had a door open. Okay, so he was the CFO of that racetrack. Yes.

Okay. He became that, yeah. I got it. Out of whatever. He was good at that, so. But was he that before you became passionate about racing, was he doing that? No. So he got into it sort of because you were now in racing.

Is that what? Is that fair to say? He liked driving cars. Okay. So on the weekend, they would go to that track with his friends and do track days with little hatchbacks. And then the opportunity for him came to take over the financial. And because of that, when he was going to meetings, I would go with him because I loved the racetrack

and I would be allowed to drive the car on the track at 10, 12 years old, because I could drive a car at 10, which I'm sure you did the same on. Well, maybe. Maybe not legally. Not legally. I said in the field. So that's how I'm going to do. got going really and then one day um my mom was was helping me out a lot and my dad was more like

the pragmatic guy not not wanting anything to do with racing um so my mom got me with one of the team owner at the racetrack and said can you just have him test one of your car see how good he is and the guy said he's amazing really you were that good well yeah i guess wow it's like out of nowhere because i had no experience in cars um and then they basically because of uh the team owner uh basically me into a driving selection. It was a driving selection sponsored by Elf, the fuel company. And the winner would gain, it would make money out of it and go racing in Formula Runnel. Oh, right on. And that's where you win. That's where you went. Yeah, that's where you went. And I was 16. And then when you got there, I mean, because this is pretty fascinating that you, that first race in Go-Cart still sticks with you and motivate you.

Yeah. Right. It was that bad. It was really bad. You hit the wall that many times. Oh man, every corner. It was horrible. Every corner. Yeah, people were making fun of me. I remember. But that's what, you know, that's what made me who I am today because it was, you know, it was humiliating.

It was, but I wanted to do it so bad. And that's what gave me that drive and that never give up attitude that even if I'm 10th, I'm going to try to get ninth on the last lap, you know. I'm always going to be like that. Yeah. Because of that moment. But, yeah. We started in go-carts and, you know, we started in, uh, go-carts and,

when I was 12, and my dad hated it. He did? The first race that I ran, I flipped, and it threw me out of the cart. It was a big deal to him. He didn't like the fact that you could get slung out of it, and didn't have seatbelts and roll cages. And eventually, they just quit taking me, you know, and I ended up getting into street stocks at 15.

And I couldn't never humiliate myself badly in streetstocks, because when you crashed, it was usually about 10 of you crashing. If I'm going down, I'm taking half of you all with me. so we need some big crashes in the street stocks but um so you um how long did you race over in europe before you got your opportunity in champ car i guess i never really answered your question the original question um well i came here it was 22 um and that's when i really so how does that happen like you yeah obviously you started racing in the formula renal in 2002 2003 you're in champ car by 2007 champ car atlantic in two thousand seven champ car atlantic in two thousand

So you in four years? Yeah, what happened is at the time, and that's where I didn't answer the question, is, you know, it was Formula One going this way. There was IndyCar going this way and sports cars. Those were my three options. There were opportunities in Japan as well. Because I tried to, not being from racing, I had to be really open-minded. I just wanted to be a race car driver.

I didn't care what the car was at the time. I just wanted to make it. And then I figured that once I would make it, I would work hard to try to make it to where I wanted to be. But because I had to go through all these steps first to just make it, because I couldn't find sponsors, couldn't find enough partners to stay in the sport forever without making money. So I had to make money at first. And I looked at the opportunities. I looked at the field, and Champka Atlantic offered $2 million for the winner of that championship in 2006.

And it was a brand new series, a new car. It was everything that was looking good for me to come in and try. On the other side, I had GP2 in Europe, which was very expensive and no purse at the end. Well, that makes that decision easy. No guarantee whatsoever. The sports cars, which was possible, but I had to bring sponsors, and I wasn't sure I was going to make it. So I told my dad, I said, listen, let me try this. I'm going to go to the US for one year.

Please help me out. I'll find some partners. I find sponsors. I might need some help from you, but give me one more year. And if it doesn't work out, I quit. Yeah. I'll do something else. So that was 2006, and then you go off and you win it.

If you don't win that championship. I'm done with racing. Yeah, completely done. Even if you're in second the championship points. I told my dad, I promised him something. He helped me out. You know, I respect all the effort that he made for me. And it was time.

It was time to court it. Either it was going to work. I think you have to be realistic about how good you are at some point, you know, if I didn't win, then it was probably not good enough to make it anyways. Give me an idea then. I want to understand the pressure than you were dealing with. I mean, more so. How many races is this?

Give me an idea what the series was like. It was a full championship, so 15 races. 15 races, okay. And where would you race? Well, it was actually, it's like it was in delight, basically, at the time. Indy Lights. Okay. The Champ Cow Championship.

So, yeah. It was, I've actually, because I won Indy, some videos, come out of that time. And I look at myself, man, I was white. I was pale. I was skinny. It was one of my worst year because I was so stressed out. Yeah. So stressed out. It was taking a toll on you. Yeah. I think that's what you do when you turn around 35. You're going to do that a lot. Look back of pictures and go, man, I was skinny. So what team are you driving for at that time? Actually, I was with Team Australia. Walker Racing. Yeah, it was actually, with power. I was in in the CHAMCA and I came to the

Chimka Atlantic. So that's how we got really to know each other. And so you win the championship. Is that an automatic promotion into the champ car? It was, yeah. So I won the $2 million purse which went straight to the race team. Obviously I didn't touch any of that. But it looked good. And then we started racing with Walker Racing alongside Wills. So your team moved up? They were already in CHAMCA. Yeah, but did the team that you were working with go with you? No, I moved up to the to the big team.

Oh, so yeah, they were waiting on you. But then, okay, so then you get the champ car, but then the series folds after, I mean, that's the story of my life, man. Wow. That is story of my life. That's what happened in my whole career. Okay, so what was going through your mind then?

Yeah. Tell me, how did 2007 go for you, performance-wise, and then also with the, you know, with the series folding? Well, 2007 was a big jump because the champ cars, they had the time that had 850 horsepower. I was jumping from a car that had 350 horsepower. That's a big jump.

That's a jump. It was fast and it was tough to drive and they were good competition. So we did okay. I mean, we finished eight in the championship, which was okay. It wasn't fantastic, but all right. And then the championship just fell, folded in the end. So I had nothing. I really did.

Didn't Indy car, you know, it merged with IndyCar and I knew nobody on the IndyCar side, which obviously was a mistake. And, well, I waited for. I mean, I didn't wait, but I worked on another opportunity, which was at the time sports cars. Because I thought I was done again. So I thought I got to find a way to rebuild. So I went to sports car racing with Gilles de Ferren. How did that work out?

Very well. Yeah, that's really what made my career take off again. I would draw for Accura in the sports car. And I learned so much, man. I mean, on the technical side of things, I've never learned so much. Jill was, first of all, he was an engineer. So he was very technical. very open-minded about how to set a car up, how to work on the engine, how to work on the traction

control. We had traction control back then. How to work on all the settings. We did tire development with Michelin, aerodevelopment. I was completely involved with all that because the goal was for me to grow with the team. So I learned a lot and that allowed me to go to the 24 hours of Le Mans next with Peugeot, who was a French team. We had a diesel engine in that car, V-12, about 900 horsepower and we finished second in Le Mans with them. So that's when my career really took off and I got recognized. How many times do you run Le Mans?

From 2008 till 2012. Yeah. You think you're running it again? I would love to. I'd love to, especially now winning Indy. I'd like to, I finish second, so I mean, I'd like to finish it. What's the commitment to running that race? Well, if you want to do it right, you've got to be, first of all,

you need to be in the top team. And the top team will require that you are present. testing every two weeks in France to, you know, because they have test tracks there, to just do simulation of races. We used to do that. We used to do 35-hour simulations. You would show up, and it would just ask you to drive. You wouldn't do any setup change. You would just drive for 30, I mean, obviously three hours at a time, but you would share the car with other drivers. And it was sometimes they would activate the raining system, the sprinklers on the track. It was awesome. It really was awesome. It's hysterical. Yeah. They try to simulate everything.

Everything. We did a pace car. You would ride behind the pace car. You would drive at night, hit some deer sometime. Yes. Yeah. We had some bad experience. Release the deer.

Let's give them the deer. Let's see how they handle this one. You know what's cool about that. You say that. But, you know, we even came up with a system. We had like those whistler on the car at night. They put whistles on the car. So the deer would know that we're on the track.

Oh, wow. Really? Yeah. That's pretty cool. Yeah. Never heard that. Oh my goodness. I wonder what that sounds like.

I, yeah, it was like, like a weird sound. How was that going to wake up a deer? Jeez. They're like dogs, man.

That reminds me of last night, man. I was about to go to bed. And all of a sudden, I hear these things screaming. And I thought it was a baby in my driveway. I'm like, what the head? A baby in my driveway?

What do I do? And I go outside, you know, a bit freaked out. And there's a bunch of fox. outside. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've never heard of Fox scream.

It's the scariest thing. What were they doing? Screaming. Just sitting in your driveway, how? Probably mating or something. Raising hell? Racing hell or mating?

We go a fox party out in Simon's drive-off. What does the Fox say? It brings up to the... That's nice. That's nice. You know, when you did the... If I may divert back from Foxes to racing, when you did the 24-hour racing,

races. You did it twice, right? Back in 2000. Yes. Okay, at Daytona. You did with a Colette, right? I did. Corvette, no one, and then with Crawford and O'4 with Stewart. How much preparation did you do for that in testing? We had the test at the track like a month before the race, and you might get, I don't know, four hours in the car total. Not a lot. You know, in Mike, it's changed now. Back then, the cars were so fragile that when you would start to the race, you knew that you were never going to run over about 80% of your potential.

And it was all about just getting the laps run and getting the car back to the pits to hand it to the next driver. The cars today are bulletproof, and they qualify every lap. Every lap they run in the 24 hours of Daytona. We were there covering the race this year. And I'm sure it's similar in LaMont. They run qualifying laps. Damn.

Every lap. Yeah. It is, every driver's going 110% all the time. Just because the cars are better? Yeah. Because the cars can handle it. Handle it. Yeah.

And the drivers are obviously amazing. Yeah. And so you're watching these guys just put down some incredible laps. Now, when we raced, it was just, hey, man, don't go out there and destroy this thing. Go out, don't break anything. Just bring it back to us in one piece. And, you know, because we were, me and dad, we were generally going to be a couple tents slower than the road course guys.

And everybody knew that going in. And it was all just about trying to just enjoy the. experience but I so going to run that race today it doesn't even like I don't even qualify right I don't I'm not you wouldn't do it uh-uh you would I would maybe run in a lower class or something like that with Corvette or something I think you'd be fine god dang man they're so fast they are fast and the drivers are amazing that's what I mean that's what I dropped the Corvette too back in 15 and man the talent of these guys driving those cars because they're quite different to I'm sure what you drove and and very different to an indy car and I was having issues dealing with the weight of the car and

The movement. And these guys were so fast and nonstop fast. I mean, crazy. Who is the most badass right now at that? A GT? Yeah. Oh, man, there's plenty of them. They're just, they're all within half a tense.

It's crazy. They're all pros. But I like Antonio Garcia. The Corvette team, he's pretty badass. Yeah. Yeah, there's a couple guys that I'd never heard of when I went to 24 hours of Daytona that were just not crazy fast. but it's changed so much. I tried to make that argument when I was there.

They were like, man, you should run this race again. I'm like, it ain't that easy. Like you can't just go and jump in a car in any form of motorsport because the cars are more over the last probably 10 or 20 years. The cars, and I'm talking whether it's World Outlaw, NASCAR, sports car, IndyCar, F1, whatever it is, the cars are so bulletproof and so tough. And the drivers that run that series every single, week are so good that you can't just jump in something and be competitive or expect to be competitive.

If you are, you know, it's amazing and it says a lot about your talent, but people just think you just go go go. Just go drive them. Yeah, but that's what makes crossing platforms so difficult these days. Like it's, it's really hard. Like you ask me about Le Mans. I mean, I'd love to go back, but I'd like to be ready. Right. You know, I want to be in a good car and I want to be giving the team 100%. I don't want to show up and be at 95 because I'd be the weak link exactly I hate that yeah it's horrible when you don't feel like you're doing your best it's just not good yeah that was the part about it when we were when me and dad were running we in the dry we were not going to be as fast as our as our co-drivers and our teammates but when it rained down it kind of neutralized the the whole field for

us and me and dad would run a very comparable laps to our teammates do you how do you feel about your ability in the wet. I love the wet, yeah. It's my favorite. What is it about racing in the rain that you enjoy? I think it's the fact that you have to be curious. You have to be searching for new lines. You have to be always experimenting, a little bit like when you run dirt.

You know, you need to find that spot on the track that has more grip because there's no rubber. You know, you need to find different line, a different flow, I would say. And you need to understand the tire. A lot of the time, since you don't run much in the rain, you don't know what the tires are good for. So is it breaking? Is it lateral? And I love having to search. I love driving in dry, but it's repetitive.

But in the wet, it's never repetitive. And the track changes every lap, so you have to always be on your toes. I agree with that. That's what I loved about racing in the rain is the track always changing and you needing to find wet, even like on the straightaways, getting in the wet and cooling the tires down and doing stuff like that. A lot of, for whatever reason, you know, it feels like as a driver, you got an advantage or you can do it better than the next guy. You know, like you say, in the dry, it's all repetitive. There's the groove.

That's where you run. I would have lost that bet. I would have thought you did not like driving in the rain. Well, that was the NASCAR guys don't like that rain. I loved it. I never got to do it in our stock cars. But when it started raining, I could run lap times with Andy, my teammate, my car, my co-owner, and our teammate car with Ron Felley.

I could compare with those guys in speed. But when it was dry, they were always three-tenths faster. Really? Yeah. I just, I don't know. I think when it rained, they calmed down and they just, they just drove. They backed off what they probably could run because of the danger. And I didn't know any better.

Yeah, I'd run as hard as I could in the rain. Yeah. I'd run as hard as I couldn't rain. Now, I spun off into the grads a couple times. There's nothing more enjoyable for me than watching the NASCAR guys. and usually the Xfinity series. Cracks in the rain? No, race in the rain.

Oh, yeah. It is... And meet Ohio. It is a show from the beginning. I love it. That's funny what. I hate I never got to try it in our stock cars because I always loved it in...

Because it rained like hell in both those Daytona 24-hour races I ran in. I mean, hydroplaining. It was bad. Right. But you ended up running in sports car for a couple years. How do you get back into any car? So that's where I go.

a bit lucky because I was drawing for Accura, right? Right. At the time, IndyCar changed. They had this new car come in in 2012. They had Chevrolet and Honda now becoming, you know, the two manufacturers going for the wind. So now we had competition on the engine side. And that's when things changed for me. That's when I had an opportunity because...

How did that happen? Where I was developing, the sports cars was Accura and Honda. So all of a sudden, I had leverage. I could say, hey, I want to go to IndyCar, and I've helped you do all that, all this development. Could you put me in an IndyCar and I'll do the same? And I'll be completely transparent on everything and I'll be your development driver, which at the time sounded, you know, obviously like a driver would say himself, right? But they had interest at Honda.

They really did. And I was very well connected with the president there at Honda. And they helped me. They put everything they could together to have me drive for Sam Schmidt. Sam Schmidt also put all the money together to make it happen for me. And they offered a great contract. So I took it. You must be a hell of a salesman.

My dad was... Everything I'm hearing about you. My dad was in the business, so, you know. And you had a business background. Yes. And so you didn't have anything handed to. You had to go basically earn whatever you had. So you were able to sell yourself pretty well.

Yes, that's definitely something. I can do. Because you tell the story and you're like, let me be your driver. And they're like, okay. I mean, that doesn't usually happen that way. It took me longer than that to make happen. But a lot of phone calls. You know, you have to be relentless sometimes than I was.

So, you know, I just wanted it so bad that I was going to call you every day if need be. Right on. We're going to take a quick break here. I want to tell you guys about something really important to me. It's my ancestry. We talked about it several times on the show. I've spent years going to. through my genealogy. My family came from Germany through Philadelphia and down to Salisbury,

North Carolina. A lot of my genealogy work has been done using ancestry, and I still use them today to learn more about my story. And all time getting hints on different individuals and people just this past week. I was working on it and got like 50 hints to go through and sort of see whether that stuff's connected to my family or not. But it's a lot of fun. It's kind of like a game. Yeah. You get those little green leaves. There's no end. All right. Ancestry's unique features and record collections give you more complete pictures of people from your past, like the events that shape them, how they made a living, and how long they've been attending school and so forth. Amplify your results, though, by starting a free trial and ancestry and building a tree

so your ancestry has become more than just a name. And I have my DNA kit sent in. That's something that you can link to your tree to give you sort of this three-dimensional view of your family. I can't wait for those results to come in. Got a couple more weeks before they finish that up. pairing that with a tree that I built over the last several years will just enhance my experience on Ancestry and everybody should try it.

It's easy to get started. Go to Ancestry.com slash Dale Jr. today for 20% off your ancestry DNA kit. That's Ancestry.com slash Dale Jr. For 20% off your ancestry DNA kit, Ancestry.com slash Dale Jr. So how did you, so you got back into IndyCar series. You ran from 2011 to present. You won a championship in 2016. When did you start driving for Penske?

2015. Yeah. And what was that transition like? I mean, and I asked that question because in NASCAR, and I think it's probably similar in IndyCar, the companies and the teams have a presence and they have a personality and an attitude, and Penskees is definitely,

all their drivers are expected to appear a certain way, to handle themselves a certain way. Yeah. So how was that transition for you to work for Penske? Well, so my dream was always to drive for Roger. I've always, yeah, I always wanted, well, I remember, you know, from what I said earlier, watching me is on TV with the Marlboro Penske car, and I was like, man, this is the team you've got to be with. That's the team that wins all the time, right?

So in my head, since I was a kid, I learned really quickly that you have to be with the best team because we're all very talented, but, you know, if you want to win, you've got to have the best car. So that was my goal from the beginning. So I wore a black slack even when I was drawing for Saturday. Schmidt. Yeah. Wow. And I shaved every day, even though I was driving for Sam Schmidt. That's a dress for the job you want. Well, yeah. Not the job you have. And, you know, I always think that you have to put, you have to put what you think into the universe. And I was thinking so much about going there that it transpired, I think. And then...

Law of attraction. My wife believes in that. I believe in that, big time. Yeah. Exactly. And, you know, quickly, we're going in touch with Penske, obviously, Gilles de Ferren, who I drove for in sports cars, used to drive for Roger, and told them, told Cindrick and Roger pretty quickly you need to look at this guy. So when I started winning in IndyCar, we started talking. So that was your championship season in 2016. Was that the greatest day of your career when you win the championship? The whole year was amazing. We just dominated. The car suited me perfect. Everything worked our way. You know, everything was aligned. You talk about the car suiting you perfectly explain that. Well, we had the balance of the car all year long was just perfect for my style. So I'm

a late breaker and most of the time when you break late, the front tires don't work enough in the middle, right? So there was a lot of downforce on these cars. And because of that, the front tires were always working. So I was able to keep a very good rear end on the car and with the downforce, make the front work really well. So I was never in difficulty with the car. I was always able to do whatever I wanted easily. So that's why it was such a good year. Now the cars are different. Now the cars are much different.

So I had to adapt quite a bit because, you know, I'm still a leg breaker and it's still my style and it's difficult to get away from your style. But I've had to adjust because now the car turns on throttle and I'm not used to that. And that's not something I've ever been good at. So now I'm having to, you know, break late but get back to throttle, you know, right at the end of braking to make it turn. And it's very antilogical for me. So I've had to adjust.

That is probably the toughest thing as a driver is understanding when the car changes how to change your driver style. We have telemetry to where all the drivers can look at everything everybody's doing. Throttle trace, steering trace. You guys have that same accessibility for other teams and other drivers throttle and steering trace. Well, we don't have that yet. I'm sure we will someday, but we work with Dartfish, which is a system. They overlay the videos of two cars. So you get to see that.

I know in F1 they do cool stuff, like they record the sound of the engines, so they know the gearing pattern and all that stuff. We don't have that yet, but I'm sure we will at some point. Yeah. But trying to change, understanding, first off, that's the mark of an excellent race car drivers, understanding how the car has changed and how that's going to challenge your driving style. But trying to change that habit, I find it almost impossible. Yeah, I agree with you.

Like he says, he's a late breaker. He's a guy that's going to charge a corner and break hard late. Right. Some guys trail break early and don't break as hard, but trail break early and deeper down in the corner. I mean, it's really, and some guys use the throttle differently. Kevin Harvick was a guy that we'd go to Charlotte, some of the big mile and a half tracks, and he would never be all the way out of the gas. He would always have a little bit of throttle, 20% of throttle in the middle of the corner.

We never could understand how he drove the car that way, how it turned, you know? Yeah, exactly. I would look at Jimmy's throttle and steering, and he would do things differently than me, and trying to drive like someone else is impossible. You've developed this pattern or this habit. Yeah. And trying to get rid of that is... And by the time you figured out, they changed the car on you?

I mean, because I remember when they went to the car tomorrow, or whatever we called that, and I think that is what we called it. Couldn't come up with a shorter name for that, could we? But that one, to me, I don't know that you ever really loved that car, did you? Well, there's cars that you just don't like to drive. And I mean, I'm sure that you've had your experience. You've ran a lot of different stuff over.

You ran everything. Yeah. So, I mean, is there, what was the, what was the car that was probably the worst driving car? In general, not specific to a team or just like, what was the most challenging? Not that go-kart race, though, you were 10. Unforgiving car that you drove. Well, actually, you know, I think last year was tough for me. I really did.

Yeah, we had, it was the most unpredictable car I've driven, and I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't get my head around it. So I really had to work in deep, dig deep, but couldn't really figure it out. And then it took us the whole winner to work on it, and now it's fine. But we worked hard as a team. What were some of the challenges? The thing I couldn't feel when the car was snapping. The car was snap, you know, it would roll and snap, and I wasn't able to feel it.

You know, I didn't know when it was coming, so a lot of the time I was getting caught out. And I'm not someone who crashes a lot. But last year, man, I crashed so many times. I hit the wall so many times, and I went off the track so many times that I lost. confidence also. So, you know, it's very difficult when you get in that cycle because you can't get out of it. And when you think you see the light at the end of the tunnel, then you have another moment and it takes you back. So, but that's what this team is really good at. You know, we were in a place last year, but then we hit the track this year and it's completely different. So that was

nice. And so with that said, at the Indy 500, during the month, where you're going to, where you won the Grand Prix, you won the poll, and you won the Indy 500, there was conversation about security of your ride, and all that kind of popped up at the end of the race, and Roger Pinsky put it to bed quickly. I mean, he's like, hey, we just dominated this month, and he's my guy, he's my driver, and you talk about losing your confidence, so do you have it back? You've got to be as confident as you've ever been. I have been confidence since the beginning of the year, because in testing it felt really good.

Like I said, the team did such a good show, but give you. me what I needed. So I have felt since the beginning of the year that we could contend for the championship. Indy, I tell you what, I've been waiting for Indy since the end of last year, because I think, you know, we obviously won that race and he deserved it, but I also felt like I had a shot, at least to fight with him for it. And I kind of blew it on the last pit sequence. And I blew it in 15 when I had a very, very good car to win it also. So I've slowly been working on it year after year. What did you do on that pit sequence that you I just didn't have a good outlap, didn't have a good in-lap, didn't stop quick enough in the box, you know, all the little details.

Just the little things. The big, yeah, the little details that makes such a big difference. That was one of the things that I found surprising. I've watched the N-500 on TV a million times. But seeing it in person, you really get to be able, you really get to understand how critical every single pit stop is, every in-lap, every out-lap. All that stuff is developing down to the end of the race. Yeah. In the Daytona 500, for example, with the draft, and obviously the draft at IndyCar 2,

everything's not so critical. Every moment is not so definitive toward the end of the race. But in the Indy 500, it is. It is big time. You can't let up for a second. Every little thing you have to do perfectly. And the outlapse were the most focused on part, I think, for most of the teams this year, because everybody understood how that did affect a race and how that's been a big,

how that played a huge role in the last race at Indy. So you guys are out there. I remember in the last practice, I sat there and watched you guys practice. I saw you. Every time I was living the pitch, you were right there. I was like, I'm going to give him a good burn out. Swerved out. I was watching everybody.

I know you guys are scuffing some tires, but you also were working on your outlaps. Yes, I was. Like, y'all spent a majority of that practice, that final practice, like sort of perfecting that outlap or understanding just how much grip and how hard you can charge? Yeah, it's a very good valid point because there's so much to gain on that turn two. It's so narrow.

It's so, and it's grass everywhere, right, around you. Yeah, yeah. You make one mistake you're off. That inside road, whatever you call it. And it's bumpy. It's not easy. Is it? Yeah, and in turn two, you're going to turn two, and the road drops opposite banking.

And it's actually, you don't get to feel the car at all. It's just like it's floating. It's a really weird feeling. Not very enjoyable because if you lose it, you're going straight onto the racetrack and it's not good. In front of somebody. Yeah. I noticed that when I was driving in the two-seater. I know we were going half speed, but when we pulled off the pit road, the way, I mean, Mario went around.

Oh, he goes. He goes. He's flying around that pit exit lane. And I was thinking in my head, I'm like, I'm extremely uncomfortable. Yeah. That's how it feels to drive an indica. Right. all the time,

every last. You guys are going twice as fast. The faster you go, the better it feels. Like, it's just horrible to drive 180 because the cars are not low enough to the ground. You know, the downfall doesn't pushes you to the ground enough.

The faster you go, the more downforce, the better it feels. And the car is designed, the setup is designed to be running at 2.25, 2.30 miles an hour. It's not made to be 220 and lifting in the corners. So when you find yourself in traffic

is when it becomes difficult because you're lifting. The right head comes up and you lose rear grip and it's just it's just a mess yeah i was noticing that too like at the end of the straightaway i was sitting there on the pit box during the whole race and all i heard all the guys backfiring popping and spit i had no idea that there was that much lifting in that race i mean i just didn't know that they were they were the cars really in your hands yeah it is you know and you're in the race you guys are are driving those cars lifting and trying to put yourself in position to get runs and

be able to get around guys. I was really surprised by that. Yeah, and it's, you know, they've done a good job in the car. They've changed in the formula. I think now it's, it's really good. We're right on the limit of having just enough downforce, but just enough to follow, but also it's hard to drive. You know, it's not like you're flat out behind people easily. And we see it with the crashes that happens. It's just like you lose it and it's done. But qualifying is also, man, it's a, so in qualifying, it's one of my favorite exercise. Yeah, right? Well, it's wide open. But it's wide open, But that's the trick. It's wide open.

Some tracks, it's better to be wide open. So you put enough downforce to be just wide open, but on the limit of sliding. Sometimes if you take too much downforce, you're still wide open, but sliding, you lose grip. You lose time. But it's the balance of how much downforce do you need and how much full throttle you're going to have. So at Indianapolis, though, what is that balance? Is it just wide open the whole way around? All the years have been around.

It's better to be wide open, but right on the limit. I mean, you come out of the car and your heart rate is up in 180. Yeah, it's like you're shaking. Because the car is on the limit. You're sliding one inch mistake if you get your apex too late or too early and you're off in the wall. Did you feel good about your qualifying lap? I mean, obviously you won the poll. But, you know, when Will was here, he gave us a really good idea of how the heart rate.

Like his heart rate got some ridiculous number. And you're just on the edge the whole time. What did you feel like during your lap that won the pole for the Indy 500? Well, my car was pretty hooked up. So you were feeling good. I was feeling really good, yeah. I was feeling really good. The biggest thing is you don't know what you're going to do until you cross start finish.

So I looked at the dash first lap 230. I'm like, whoa, that's okay. We needed a bit more speed here. Second lap 230. I'm like, whoa, it's holding really well. Third lap, 230 again. I'm like, okay, I got a shot now. So fourth lap was about managing anti-roll bars.

and white jacket to make sure that the car was going to be lose enough, so I wouldn't scrub too much speed. The biggest thing in Indy cars these days in qualifying, if you steer too much, you lose a lot of speed. Right. So it was about being as much as possible on the limit. So you were freeing the car up as you ran? Very super free.

With each lap, you were adjusting the car and making it free. To stay free. Yeah, to stay free. Because I watched the laps and there's a little bit of fall off, right? Yeah. Some of that is the engine, Plenum getting hot. So you're losing horsepower. Really?

Yeah. Some of that is temperature. Now, I'm ignorant, though. So help me. What exactly are you doing to free your car up while you're driving? That's a good point. Sorry, I was in my... No, no, it's okay.

It's a good point. Well, we have something similar to the track bar that they have in NASCAR, but it's a weight jacker. So it's the right rear damper or shock is being basically compressed and that sends weight to the left front tire. The more weight you have there, the more the car turns left. So you adjust that you've got about 20 adjustments either way. So you can make the car understeer or oversteer, depending on that. And then you've got anterior bars adjustments, front and rear bar, basically,

that will make the car turn a little more? And so how do you actually execute that adjustment? Is it just a switch? So yeah, we've got buttons on the steering wheel, and then two bars in the car. And where on the track will you make those adjustments when you're doing a lap? Between corners, depending on the wind also. You look at the wind socket, and depending where you cross the wind, you adjust that. So a lot of the time I'll adjust.

If I have a headwind, I put one click on the right side to make the car turn a little less because the wind is going to pick up the front wing. Oh, okay. Wow. There's a lot going on in your head there. How much were you adjusting the car in those final laps? About, yeah, every corners. Really?

In the race? In the race? Not much. Really. No, that thing was pretty good. You had a lot going on. That thing was really good. Yeah.

I didn't have to do much, much. How, so in the final laps of that race, you were extremely aggressive trying to make sure that you didn't give Rossi any opportunity. Thank you, by the way. Why is that? Learned from you. I did.

That breaking the draft did, yeah, yeah. Is that right? I watched you a lot, Daytona, on what you did and how you were doing it. I know you were using it to push you, but I actually used it the other way because the carter is different, right? So, but, yeah, I've been watching a lot of, of NASCAR because you guys run so much on oval you know a lot more than we do about oval racing like we unfortunately we only have six oval race a year and they're all different kind

of ovals so it takes you a long time to learn the tricks because you don't get to do it enough and the craft yeah exactly so what's your feeling about ovals you i mean you grew up racing road course my my opinion was to help you shape your answer when i when i ran when i grew up i wanted to race stock cars and stock cars were ovals and we went to a couple road courses because we had to and I hated them. And I did badly at them because I had a bad attitude about it. Now, near the end of my career, I fell in love with them. And I really enjoyed racing at those racetracks at the end of my career.

But I never strived to become a road racer. It just wasn't, my focus was ovals, stock cars. Your focus was road racing, driving on road courses all your life. And now you're in a series where there are quite a few ovals. Yeah. And we talked to Will about his struggles on ovals, and now how he's become one of the better oval racers and how he enjoys it.

How do you feel about those? Yeah, it's very similar for me. I had no idea what an oval was until I showed up here in 2012. So obviously I knew Indy was always going to be one of my goals since I was a little kid, so I knew I had to be good at it. But it seemed to be a very far unrealistic dream, quite frankly.

I thought I would have a better chance to win Le Mans or other races. So for me, Indie was always going to be that big, big dream, almost unachievable. But my first indie, 2012, was a disaster. I got into turn one. Everybody told me how tough tongue one was going to be, and the problem is I listened too much,

and I lived so much, I was last after that first corner. So, but then from then, it's been increasingly better and better every year. I think, like you said, I hated it to start. I learned to love it, and I got better at it, because when you love something, you learn to do it better. I think what I enjoy the most is I kind of like the fear factor. I really do. I'm a bit of a daredevil inside.

So I enjoy the speed. I enjoy being on the limit, knowing that there are consequences. It's actually something that excites me. So all of that made it so I enjoyed it more and more. And then studying. I study a lot. So studying the racecraft of each and everyone. on Oval is something that I really enjoy.

And I think I feed off that and it became better. So, all right, we've got to go back to these last three laps of the Indy 500, though, because that was an amazing three laps. All right, so take us through your head. All right, you have had this dominant car all month, basically. You've been feeling good. Your confidence is an all-time high. And then Rossi passes you, all right?

What's in your mind right at that moment? So at that moment, I'm like, the actual thing I said to myself when he goes around me in turn one is perfect. Perfect. I was so worried that he was going to wait. I was so worried that he was going to wait for the last lap and do it. And if he did it on the last lap, he could have won the race. I knew that it would take me three corners to get him back.

I knew I didn't need a full lap to get him back. So that was good. So I knew even if he got me on the opening of the last lap, I could still get him, but it would be tight. So when he got me three laps to go, I'm like, man, you shouldn't have done that. Wow. And then I made sure that I had enough of a gap to get a huge momentum for the next lap, which was one lap in one corner, one lap in two corner.

And then when I got him around turn three, you know, I took his air off when I turned, and he backed off quite a bit. Then honestly, by the white flag, he was so far, I thought I had it. But then on the backstretch, on the last lap, then he got really close. He had a good turn two, and I had to pull the Dale Junior card there. you are all over the place. I mean, you guys, you guys were on one side of the, I mean, you guys, I don't, you know what, you bring up Dale Jr., but that does remind me of the way he would run Daytona in the closing

laps. I mean, those guys are all over the place, but you and Rossi, it was amazing. Yeah, my last cow did in my game was to break the draft, you know, find a way to break the draft. And, you know, obviously, I was able to finish the corner really low to break the draft because my car was just sensational. And then he couldn't really do the same. so that would gain me a little bit. And then when he started drafting

and just moved to the high side, then he couldn't move as quick as me. So, you know, I did it again. And that was just enough to be inside of turn three, and I wasn't going to lift. I wasn't going to lift no matter what. Have you heard an explanation why he made that pass so early?

Well, I think my car was a little better. So he knew if he had a chance he had to take it. Plus, if it went yellow, he won the race. So, I mean, you know, at that point, you don't have a choice. You've got to go if you have a run. you have to take it. One of the fascinating things for me about watching that race was how for the first three-quarter

of the race roughly, everybody was playing fuel mileage. And so everybody, you guys are dialing the fuel in and out of the car. And you can't really tell exactly who has the best car. Yeah. And you were hell bent to lead the race. Yeah. And it was doing bad things for your fuel mileage. It was.

Right? It was a bit stressful at one point. So how did you, I know it all worked out, but you were at one point basically, short on fuel. Yeah. You know, and everyone else had put them, well, Ross and a few other guys

had put themselves in a really good position as far as being able to get to the end of the race. And where, there was a conversation that your team was trying to tell you that you needed to save fuel and you were like, nope, I'm not,

I'm going to run hard, I'm running out front, I'm leading this race. Why? Tell me about that. So it's a great point that you make and it goes back a few years. In 2015,

I played the game. of saving fuel and I was second third I had the best car I had just as good of a car in 15 I really should have won it but I played the game and I stayed second third and it came the end of the race I was second third I was well positioned but I realized well you have what I realized now that I should have been first because what happened is is when we got 30 laps to the end everything started to get exciting everybody started to try to jump each other and then I fell back to fifth and then I tried too hard to come back and I knocked my front wing off

passing a back marker so that really sticked with me I was like okay and then the year we won probably is the same thing we say fuel we say fuel you lose that one tenths of a second per stint which puts you back in

third position by the end of the race and then you're not in the right position so this race I told my team I said listen this race I'm going to attack I don't want to be in the pack third that 30 laps to go because it's not where you want to be. And the weather was also questionable.

We thought it could rain. So I thought, you know, I'm just going to put myself up front. So, yeah, it was a bit stressful because we did consume too much fuel. But once I realized it, because it takes me a while sometimes to realize what's going on, once I really understood the message, I put myself behind Joseph, New Garden, where the time was coming up pretty strong. So I put myself behind him, and I turned off the turbos and just went, you know, have throttle on the straightaway, and we gained about eight laps of fuel there.

Oh, wow. In about 25 laps. So as the race, Mike, as you're sitting on the spitbox with me and the race is playing out, you don't know. You've watched 75% of this race happen. He's dominated and led every lap pretty much, but you still don't know what anyone else has. Yeah. And then as soon as everybody got in, as soon as we had that caution that put everybody good on fuel,

it's like, oh, man. How good is Rossi? Or, you know, how good is he? How good is anyone else? Sato, they kept talking about coming. Yes, Sato was on the- Yeah, that's another thing. He's strong.

He's always good at Indy. He just has, I always think that, like, there's guys, people say that, you know, Dayton and Taladega is like a lottery, and, you know, it's all luck, and it's just how, you know, missing the wrecks, and anybody can win there. But it's not.

You know, you'll see the same people up at the front all the time. And Sato and Indy just seem to fit. The way you drive that race, racetrack, the air, he understands how the car drives and how the air is and drafting and so forth. And he just has a mental mentality that fits well with that racetrack. So I wasn't no surprise as to him running up front, but fearless. I was so shocked. He's fearless. I was so impressed, I guess, by how entertaining that race was with watching the fuel mileage. When you talk about fuel mileage in NASCAR, it's usually a bummer. Nobody wants to see a fuel

mileage race. Yeah. But that was so intriguing. Knowing you guys were short, knowing you weren't willing to give up the leave, it was, and everybody can control how much fuel they're using, so as the race is playing out, you don't really know who's got the fastest car. And so when the fuel game was over with, Townsend Bell said, all these cars have a kill mode, and everybody's car is going to be turned up to 10, wide open. Everybody's car is going to be set on kill mode, and we're about to see, really, who has the best race.

Were you at all nervous at that point about just have I seen everything that Rossi has? Have I seen everything that Sato has? I was aware of Rossi because I watched him in practice and I knew he was the best car in traffic of every cars I've seen. I thought all two weeks I thought I had the best car. But then Rossi right at the end on Friday became strong. He found out something. So I was very worried about him because I know he's a very good racer. He's got a good craft and he won Indies.

So obviously he's got that desire to get number two, right? So, you know, I keep watching the pylon when I go by on front straddle to see the numbers, you know, who's where. Oh, just where people run. And I could see Rossi at number 20, what is he, 27, 27 come up, come up, come up, come up. I'm like, man, he's going to be the guy, he's going to be the guy. And then, you know, it's funny what you said is actually having to say fuel was a blessing because when I put myself behind Joseph, that's when I realized how good my car was. That's when I was like, because actually on my own, on the racetrack wasn't easy when I was up front. I actually was really loose and I was struggling just to stay on the racetrack.

But then when I got behind Joseph, my car was actually better in traffic than I was alone. So I was like, hmm, okay, I've got this. I've got this. And it was good because then that's when I managed to learn a little bit what to position myself and that helped me to pass Ross in the end. Yeah. You win the race and it was documented. by Jeff Gluck who hung out, one of the guys. That was a cool one, yeah. Yeah, he covers NASCAR and has for years,

so I followed him on social media, and he sort of hung out and documented the process for you. What was that like, and what are some of the moments after that race that stick out to you that are memorable moments? Well, that's my favorite ever moment, drinking the milk, pouring the milk over my head. You know, I'm an whole in kind of guy,

so I mean that big I just went for it I was like yeah the whole thing yeah I poured it best memory of my life it will be forever just actually it's a funny thing but you know just feeling the milk on my face tasting the drips just is a moment of realization for me that you know I just won that that race the biggest race in the world in my opinion so I felt at the time that's when because I mean you finish the race and everybody's putting you left and right and you got to do pictures you got to do that and all of a sudden you get the milk and it's your moment right so uh just you in the milk to me that was my moment yeah that was really uh special yeah how about kissing the bricks kissing the bricks was cool um but there's nothing like the milk

for me yeah yeah the bricks were warm yeah i didn't even think about that right yeah so i was going to do a french kiss and everything and then i like where your heads are yeah and then yeah it's too warm I was worried my tongue was going to stick to it. I guess it, but it is sort of a French kiss. I mean, no matter how you approach those bricks in your case, let me ask you guys something. You know, you've won the Indianapolis 500. I mean, I'm sitting at a table of a two gentlemen that have won the biggest races there are. Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500.

And everything I'm hearing you guys say, you've got races from 2012 that are entering into your mind. And you can't get that go-kart race from when you were 10 years old out of your head. The mental gymnastics that are going on in your... guy's head. I am blown away. How do you keep your mental game on those last laps of the biggest races that you will ever race? How do you prevent yourself from having one minor mental lapse that will cost you the whole thing? You have every opportunity in every corner to do that, and yet you somehow be able to avoid it. How do you do it? Explain to mere mortals how you guys are able to do that.

We'll see what Junior says, but personally, I experienced my highest moment of concentration ever in that race. And it's funny that it happened at that race, because it's the most important one. But I had no doubt. I didn't even think about the outcome. I knew what I was doing. Everything was in slow motion. Everything was happening pretty slow.

And I could see the game. You know, it's like I was almost like the manager of the game, right? I was almost not in it, but I was acting toward it. It was the weirdest thing. And so I had no stress. I had no bad thoughts. I have had races where it's the opposite. Like the Grand Prix in the wet two weeks prior,

I actually had a bit of emotion come up, and it was very difficult to control. I controlled it, but I would say the last lap, I wasn't 100%. So, you know, I think you constantly work on it to try to keep your emotion in check. That's really what drivers have to do. You had some emotions come up. Yeah.

Explain that. Well, it was a race that I really had to go get in the Grand Prix. I was seventh on the restart. It was wet. Before the pit stop, I was in the lead. I just lost the race, basically. So I had to dig deep. It was in the wet.

It was very unlikely I was going to win this race, but there was a bit of hope. I went to get it, and that was probably my best drive in the wet ever. and so I had some emotion. I had some, you know, I thought I was going to cry in the car, to be honest with you. Before the race was finished. Before the race was finished, yeah. And my legs started shaking a little bit. I have no idea why.

You know, I obviously need to work on it to understand because it would probably make me better in the future. But it obviously did because in India I had no problem. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think, you know, there's, I've won two days a total of five hunters, but I lost a lot of them. You lose a lot of races. And as that, one of the things that Simon said earlier, you know, when he was in the

N-500 and he got behind his teammate Joseph, and he realized how good his car was. So imagine you're out there in a Daytona 500. You've been there practicing all weekend. As things happened throughout that race, and you realize this car is amazing, your confidence just gets so good, so big. Like you have more confidence in those moments than you'll ever have outside the car. Then you'll ever, that you'll never experience that type of confidence when you're not in that race car, you know.

And you just become, I don't know, you know, in those unique moments, like when he wins the NDy 500 or someone wins a Daytona 500 like myself, you just become unbeatable. Your confidence is so strong in him. heavy that you start you're doing things and thinking of what your next move is and making that move before everyone else thinks to do it. You can counter everything that Rossi's doing. You know exactly what he's trying to accomplish and you know how to defend it and you're confident in your car so you make the move every time. You put your car where it needs to be to counter whatever's

happening around you. When you're not as confident, you make that decision just that split second late or you don't make it at all because you don't have the confidence. Yeah, exactly. So for me, it's all about confidence. I think confidence, as you're building that confidence throughout the race, doing things with your car and it's surprising you and it's impressing you, you're like, I can't, I can't screw this up. This car is too good. Yeah, exactly. I don't want to be the reason. I've got no excuse. My team can see how great this car is. Yeah. I'm not going to be able to mask this. If I screw it up, I'm not going to be able to hide it for anybody. Right.

Did Rossi do anything? He mentions being able to predict the moves. Did he do anything other than passing you early? By calling that last night, did he do anything that you weren't expecting? No. Everything you knew was coming. Yeah. I mean, the one thing I was expecting is him to do the move on the inside of the Fonts Strait away.

That's why I blocked that. So he would choose the outside. But it surprised me that I didn't try harder, you know, to make that move stick. But I guess his car was probably better on the high side. maybe? I don't know. I really don't know, but he seemed like he was trying on the outside more than the inside. It's amazing. Hey, one other thing about Indy, not about the race, but you know, you mentioned seeing Dale Jr. there earlier in the week. That's cool when we met, actually. Yeah, I want to ask you about that. Do you, I mean, do you recall that moment when you guys were able to met? Because he came

back. He was holding a tray of barbecue ribs. Oh, he's. I'd like to meet him to? Yeah. Yeah, right. I think it was pasta. Why were you holding a tray? What were you doing? In my mind, it was barking ribs. Are you the caterer or something for the team? No, he was going to eat. I was going to eat. Oh, you were going to eat yourself.

Pasta chicken was ready. Like every day, I guess I'm so boring with food for lunch. But I have great dinners, but not good lunch. Well, you're at the track. But Junior showed up, and I've always been a big fan, really. You know, you and Jimmy, for me, I've always been a big fan. I should say Joey and Kisielowski. I love them, and they're the best guys.

I mean, we hang out all the time. But I've always been a big fan, obviously. And I remember your father when I first came to the U.S., first time I came to the U.S. 2005, I bought this jug, number three jug. Really? Yeah. And it had like, the bottom was like ice, right? So you would pour your coke on it, and then it would stay cold.

Oh, really? That was awesome. I've never seen that in my life before. So that was cool. Anyway, I remember your father really clearly as the greatest. So that was awesome. So it was a big honor for me to meet Junior. And then Damon Hill showed up at the same time.

Yeah, right. Damon Hill was also one of my hero when I was a kid. So it was the weirdest thing. I wanted to talk to Junior. I wanted to talk to Damon Hill. I was like, what do I do? And I got this barbecue and I want to eat to eat. So, no, you know, it's awesome, but it's funny for me.

I'm just, honestly, I'm a race fan. You know, I love racing. I love what I do but I also have heroes right so being in the middle of my heroes is the weirdest thing I enjoy it but Dale you told us that he took you over to the cars

and this was a funny story because when he was at the ND 500 and he came back and he had a lot of stories to tell us and one of them was that you took him over to see the car and then the thing that surprised me was that he got in the car in Will Powers car right am I telling this right? Yeah not mine

because mine was not going to be He didn't want to be touching him Nobody touches me. This is my question. That is my question. Is it when he told us he sat in Will Powers car, I think we were doing a show and we were all like, is that okay?

Because if somebody went and sat in Dale's car during a race weekend, he wouldn't be okay with that. Was Willpower okay with that? Yeah, no, I'd say it's a story funny. He had a hint of, don't get too comfortable. That's what you said. He said that, you know, he was like, you know, smiling and saying, it's my sit.

It's my sit. out of my car. No, it's totally cool. I mean, it's, you know, it's great for us to have this interaction with junior, with, with, with, with other people that are not in IndyCar, because you want to have that cross-promotion. That's an NBC sports network doing really well right now. It's showing both sports. And it doesn't matter if you love NASCAR or if you love IndyCar and you're a fan of one or the other. It would be great if you actually looked at the other one and maybe became a fan of the other one too.

because it's different sports, it's different set of skills, but we're still racing, and you're going to get what you want out of this show, basically. That's what I think is really cool. Yeah, the hospitality was amazing. I mean, I know as a driver, when you walk up, I know he's got his food, he's getting ready to go eat. I didn't want to derail his, because you're hungry, you know.

You're working, you're ready to eat, lunchtime. I don't like nothing getting money. You didn't like the people messed you up. I don't like nothing getting my way. That's right. You wouldn't either. I thought he would, you know, it's great to meet him and then he was going to go about his business, but he took time to come over and talk a little bit about the cars.

And it was great. I really appreciate it. And then as I got to, they tasked me with a chance to interview him coming off the intro stage. And again, I'm like, man, I wonder what kind of, you know, wonder what kind of personality he's going to have for this because he's getting ready to race. and this. Like when we would, I was just thinking, like, man, I don't know, I might be. I did forget about that interview. That's true. Yeah. I was like, man, I don't know. I'm nervous. You know, I'm not, I don't, it's right before he gets in the car. He's getting ready to run. He's a pole man. He's getting running around the biggest race of his, of the year and maybe his career.

Is he going to want to talk? And total professional was in a great mood. That was a big deal for me. Like that, that meant a lot to me to be able to interview him coming right off intro stage right before he gets in the car. and I'm thinking all day, all morning, like, what am I going to ask him? I don't even remember what I asked you, but I don't remember either. I was just trying to figure out, like, what would be a good, respectable, professional thing to ask him as he's getting ready to get in the car? I mean, I've always been in the situation that he's in where people were interviewing me, but I've never been the guy giving the interview. So that was a really, really nervous moment for me. Yeah.

Well, imagine him. I know. I mean, he was nervous because he was nervous. You guys, you drivers do it. I mean, this is a compliment, but you do a good job on race day. Your race day self does a good job of masking and going through the motions, knowing good and well. I mean, the Indy 500, I'm just looking at it on TV, that looks like one of the most crowded

concerts I've ever seen, much less of pit road race. I mean, you know, it's got to be pandemonium and you just have to basically somehow compartmentalize it, I would assume. That was the part that was most, had me the most nervous about interviewing him. at that particular moment because I have been to some big races, and Daytona 500 is busy on pit road, but nothing like the Indy 500. There's nothing that's comparable to the amount of people that are there.

You can't move. And as a driver, you're looking around going, I don't know if anybody really realizes what I'm getting ready to do. Right, right. And then I need to get myself into this space. And like, you can't wait to get in your car, because you know when you get in your car, on your helmet on, nobody can get to you.

That's the best moment. Right? You're like, you're insulated. And that's all you can, that's all your hope, that's all you're waiting to do is to be able to get in there and just quit, quit hearing and quit thinking about everything else and just drive. And I knew that I was another hurdle. You're one more.

I was one, I was another hurdle in between him getting into that car. I really didn't feel that way because, like I said, what. Your attitude was incredible. I, I felt no anxiety that day. Right. You can tell. really, really, you know, ready to go. I just felt like I, you know, like when you go to an exam and you've done your homework,

and you feel like, yeah, I'm going to make this. That's how I felt this morning. So that morning, you know, it was also cool that I got to see you before the race to me. So, you know, I thought that was a good question, which I don't remember. I don't remember the interview. I guess that's a good question. That's important if it's not memorable for the wrong reasons. Right, right.

Because if he remembered it, there'd be a problem. There would be a reason why he remembered it. That's good. So we talked about, you know, you getting more comfortable with the ovals. There's some rumor about Pocono going away. And you talk about Fear Factor. Is there a track any more wild to race on in any car than Pocono? Pocono is definitely one of the most fearful.

What other tracks compared? Well, Texas is a different feel for us, but it's so fast. You know, you get so much load on your head, like in the banking that, you know, for two days I actually feel dizzy after. You know, I can't sleep that night because my bed is just, it's not that I would drink or anything, but my bed's spinning. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it's crazy. So Texas is very different than Indy in that sense. It's a very different kind of race. Well, you talked about, you love in the Fear Factor. So if you lost Pocono, Would you care? I mean, is it a track that you'd like to go to?

I've seen some, honestly, I'd be very honest. Yeah, be honest. I've seen bad stuff in Pocono, really bad stuff. Yeah. Too many. Yeah. I don't like to see that. And I think, you know, obviously, maybe the package that we had wasn't right.

Maybe we could make it better. We've had great racing, but we need a lot of downforce to do that. And then it becomes more of a pack race than anything else. So I'm not a big fan of pack racing because I love to pedal the car around in the corners. You want some. You won't be off the rob and so forth. Yeah. Well, I want to slide it.

I want to, you know, I want to, I want to tune my car so it's the best, right? So if it's back racing, the cars, it doesn't matter if it's good or bad. So that's not driving to me. If you could add a race track to the schedule anywhere. And I used to love Fontana. Sorry, I caught you there, but I used to love Fontana. I used to love going there, but we didn't have the crowd, so it didn't work out. Yeah.

I like that track, too, because it had a lot of different length. Exactly. You can move around. You can move around. You can choose your lane. You can make your car work wherever you want to make it work. So is there a road course in the world that you wish you were. My home track.

Yeah. I would love to, man, I was just thinking about that. I would love to take, you know, to have my car there just to do a lap with my car. And then the crowd would be pretty good, I think. You know, we've had races there in the past where we had 70,000 people show up, which is pretty good. So, yeah, it would be awesome. You live in Moorsville. What's your impressions of race city, USA?

How long have you lived here? I actually live across the border. I'm in Cornelius. Cornelius. How long have you lived here? Five years. How you like it? I love it.

I love the lake. We live on the Rile on the Lake. I love boat days. I don't drive it. Haley, my fiancé, drives the boat. I hate driving the boat. Really? Why is that?

Just I don't get the current kind of thing. So you have anxiety. Yeah, it's like you get to the dock and you're like, when am I going to hit the duck, you know? Which side am I going to hurt? The race car drive, the indie car driver has anxiety over driving a boat. You reverse and it goes backwards the wrong way. I mean, it's just like driving a trailer. It's horrible.

But I love it. I love it here. The fact that you can, you know, for me, my dad always told me, listen, when you choose a place to leave, you're going to find a place where you're happy. You want to wake up, you want to smile when you look outside. And, you know, we got this house on the lake. We did some work to it, which I love. I really enjoy doing that. Not myself, but just seeing the evolution is something I enjoy. And being able to go on the lake and be with friends, for me, is everything.

Is this some place you think you'll stay after you're done driving? I think so. I think, you know, the weather is great. Lake is fantastic. It's reasonable. It's not too expensive. It's not like California. So why not?

Is there any kind of rivalry in the garage area between the U.S. drivers and the international drivers? I don't know if it's about nationality, but I think it's just about drivers in general. We like to be good assholes. Good people and bad people? A lot of them. I consider myself as one too. You know, you got to be. I think you have to be because it's a bit of a, you have to be selfish, right? You have to be selfish sometimes. I personally, I don't, you know, I just think I've got to do my job. If you want to do your job, you can't be sidetrack. It's not, to me, it's not vacation when you go to the race track. Is there, is there rivalries between teammates?

Oh, way, of course, there is. But we're very friendly because we know that we have to work together to make the Penske cars work and to make a Penske car win. We know that's our first duty. And then after that, the best may win. And I think, you know, we've been racing together since 2005 in Europe and we know each other. And I think, you know, we've both won. So we're at that point where it's like, yeah, if he's better, that day, he's going to win.

And it's like, it's not a big deal. But now there's young kids coming up and they think differently. They want to kick your ass, right? And I want to kick their ass just as much. So, you know, it's funny. It's changing. Obviously, I used to be the young kid and now it's changing. But I actually enjoy that position.

quite a bit more. What's your thoughts on a cup, IndyCar companion weekend? I would love it. I think it would be awesome to do the roval together at Chinchalette. Yeah. Could you guys run there? Because of those big turtle shell, you know, kind of curbs that we have? That's okay.

Yeah. I'm sure we could. I mean. Transitions? Yeah. It's fine. Yeah, the banking transitions and all that? I don't think that would be a problem.

I don't know. I mean, with the wings we have, it'd be fine. Yeah. grip so I think it would be fine I think you know we race on street course tiny tiny we raced in Houston in a parking lot once in 2014 reliant park so we could race anywhere really I mean those cars can do anything so you know it's actually surprising slow to the ground the suspensions are actually quite good yeah we have really good absorption of the bumps so that would be a good one I'd love to do the roovo yeah drive it interesting drive your car

drive my car yeah have you ever thought about driving NASCAR yeah have you ever thought about drive in NASCAR. Yeah. Now that, did that happen when you... When I made a movie, you mean? When I was in that movie? I was wondering if that would come up.

You did the video for us. Yes, I did. It was so funny. Can I say something about that? Yeah. Actually, I sent it to Jeremy, Troiano, our PR guy. More than PR guy, actually,

sorry, Jeremy. He does a lot. He's the boss. He's our boss. And I said, I said, I rewatched the video and I'm actually quite good at this. It was amazing. It was just spot on, wasn't it?

It was perfect. It made me wonder how long you've been doing it. I mean, like, it's just, it's easy. I just do the French accent. I know, but it's very easy for me to do. The mannerisms were perfect. It's a lot harder for me to do the Moroosville accent. Jean-Girard is impersonating Simon Pajino is what it is.

I think so. Every single day. Every single day. Really? Every day. You get tired of that of it. No. It's okay because I enjoy the movie myself.

It's my kind of humor. I love Will Ferrell. Sasha Barron Cohen, to me, he's like, he's the craziest. He's a genius. It's a good thing you don't remember Dale's interview before the race, because that's what he actually asked you to do. He wanted you to do that. Is that right?

Right before he climbed in the race car. So to me, it's fine. And you know what? If it means that it's going to attract people to IndyCar, then I'll do whatever it takes. Accents and hula hoops, man. Whatever it takes. So Roger has a...

Sorry. The Xfinity, Roger has that Xfinity team, and we run quite a few road courses on the Xfinity schedule. Do you and Will Powering you guys ever need a little Roger to put y'all guys in that car for a race? Well, I'd love to. I'd love to. We actually, yeah, we went to Australia once and did a V8 supercar race, but that was before I was at Penske.

You ran? I ran the V8 Supercar, yeah. I did three years. Holy cow, you love that. Three years, only the Sulf of Paradise race. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, because they did the, they'd pair you with a, they'd pair you with one of the regulars in that series. Yeah.

And then we wrecked too much, so they stopped doing it. Yeah, it was bad. But that was fun. Their cars are very similar. Is it? Is it? Is it? Probably the closest thing that I can think of outside of Star Car racing would be being supercar.

It's hard to drive, man. Really? Wow. Yeah. Yeah, there's those skinny tires, they don't last very long. Porsche cup tires they have. Yeah. Yeah.

So that was good. And I'd love to do, I'll tell you what, I would. rather drive a I'd love to try a cup car on the novel

more than the road course because just be super honest I think I'm driving the best

car there is on a road course you know there's tons of grip great tires lots of

down force those are very nimble cars and fun to drive I think you know I would be

taken aback a little bit in a cup car on a road course you found a challenge

yes well it would be difficult for me to find the braking zone because it

would be so much earlier the movement of the car would be quite a bit different. So it would be different. But on a oval, I think obviously those cars seems like they're made to be on a novel. You know that the NASCAR, the cup car

is basically the marriage of a Chevro pickup truck rear end and like a Nova, Camaro mid-70s Camero front clip. So I don't know what they're made for, but they're definitely not made to go around road courses. I'll promise you to that. man i'm glad that we got a chance to hang out with you and talk to you my experience at indy was incredible and it was because of hospitality guys like you being so accessible and so

kind with your time and um it made that i mean i knew i was going to have fun watching the race and being there for the race but the community is incredible you guys got a great thing going on and one of the things that i'm most impressed by all the drivers is how you guys all work together and pull together for the series. You all seem to take a responsibility for the sport as a whole being healthy, growing. You all put time in. You have the autograph sessions that you all do every weekend. But you all seem to work together to try to help the sport.

It's fun to watch. I'm a big fan. And congratulations on your most recent success. Good luck going forward. We need to get lunch. We do. I'm learning. I think. Like, I had no idea all you guys live so close.

We're doing barbecue? We'll do some barbecue. Risk it? Yeah, we'll go to Gary's and Cornice or, I mean, in Troutman. Yeah, there you go. But we appreciate you coming out, man. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

It's fun to have the opportunity to talk about it all. And being with you, I mean, obviously, you know, the thing that's great is about sharing stories, right? Because there are so many good stories in racing that the fans don't get to hear, right? Because, you know, you only have so much time on TV. you only have so much time to talk and the interviews are always the same. So I really enjoy these kind of interviews,

this kind of time, especially with a proper racer like you because, you know, obviously, you know what you're talking about, you know the details that go into winning a race like when you won in Daytona. You know what it took. And you know, when we explained

what it feels like to be at a high level of concentration, you can't explain that in any other interviews. So I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you very much because I think that's what That's what's missing. All right, dude. We'll be watching going forward.

Good luck. Thank you. Thank you, Simon. Robin Hood is an investing app that lets you buy and sell stocks, ETS. We wonder what those are. Options and cryptos. All commission free. While other brokerages charge up to $10 for every trade,

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how to invest in the market as you build your portfolio. Discover new stocks, track your favorite companies and get custom notifications for price movements so that you never miss the right moment to invest. Robin Hood is giving listeners of the Dale Jr. download a free stock like Apple or Sprint to help you build your portfolio. Sign up at Dale Jr.com. All right, Valvillin question of the week time, Dale Jr., I love this question because it's about dads and their kids.

You know, the greatest thing to me about Father's Day is when the kids put effort into the gift. and then they kind of give it to you and you're just waiting to see, you know, they're waiting to see your reaction, you know, if you get their approval. And so a lot of them, like my daughters will spend a lot of time on cards and they'll do things themselves. So let's flip the script. Dale Jr., is there a do-it-yourself project that you have in mind for your kid, Ila?

Maybe you've already done it before. Maybe you've built something for, or maybe you've done something, or maybe you have something in mind. What do you think? Something in mind. I got something in mind. So my sister bought. a little kid's sort of playhouse for Carson a long time ago, and it's been setting unused for a while.

My mom was actually keeping a lot of her gardening stuff in there. But we moved it to my house, and we've put it out in the yard, and we need some TLCs. So over the next, we got no hurry because I was only 14 months old, but over the next year, a year or two, we're going to remodel this little playhouse. That's cool. Yeah, it's got a little loft up in it, and it's wired for TV and whatnot. They're not going to put no TV in it, but it's wired for, you know. Wi-Fi. Well, you know, I got to figure out exactly what, you know, what she really going to need in there.

What she don't need is a TV. Dad, the service in here sucks. Yeah, she's going to have a tablet anyways, probably, so she ain't want to even use the TV. But we've got to figure out how to build it out and make it functional for her where she can get in there and play, have a little kitchenette and whatnot, so her and her friends can playhouse and do all the things they want to do. But, yeah, so that's something cool going on with the house there, a little DIY there.

That'll be cool. You know, clubhouses are something that every dad at some point thinks they can build. I don't have something that's already existing, but I'm sitting there, and I'm like, yeah, so that tree there, how does this work? And I've even gone online and look at, like, you know, playhouse, clubhouse-type specs. You know, there's a lot of them. You can make them out of, what do you call those, palettes? Oh, yeah. You can go to a website and make them out of pallets or whatnot.

So eventually it's coming. Now, of course, my kids, if it's happening, I need to do it. I mean, there's 10 and seven now. So, like, you know, playhouse about to run out of time on that because they're not going to care very soon. Yeah, what's the max age? When's the playhouse? There's a tree house that I think, I'm pretty sure my dad had a hand in building it, but it's not my grandparents' house, and it's still there.

and when I go to my grandparents, I look at it and I'm like, when I was a kid, this thing was huge, right? Well, now that I'm grown, it's as tall as me, but it's still there. And I'm always like, man, can I go up in that? Can I hunt out of it? It would be a great deer stand out. That's right, your tree house, you got a massive deer stand if we want to call that. Let us all get up on that day. Hunt from all angles.

They're deer ain't going to cross here. Somebody can fix breakfast. That'd be funny. Yeah. Have you guys, Matthew, you do anything? Yeah. Yeah, actually, we've got a swing set kind of thing for Hudson and now Annabelle, and we got a little plastic little junkie. And you built it?

Well, we put it together. But my wife and my, hold on the DIY project. Hold on. My wife and my in-laws got together this week, and they bought pavers, and they're going to put pavers that go from that area to the other little thing and paint. them like hopscots, like different colors, one, two, three. Like my in-laws have been in town, and most people hate their in-laws or dislike them. My in-laws are cool as heck. And they're doing the DIY.

I got to help them, though, you know, for sure, or else it's not mine. There you go. I think we still need a ruling on if that's a DIY, but we'll get back next week. Anytime you're helping somebody, that defeats the purpose. Do it yourselves with others. Right. From high mileage rides that need that thick anti-wear film, the newer engines that have that carbon buildup and carbon build-up.

Head over to valvillin.com slash Dale to find product spec for your engine. All righty. Ask Junior time. Are we live? We are alive. This is the Ask Junior portion of the show. Brought to you by our friends at Nationwide. Nationwide.

You looked at me like you wanted me to sing the jingle. Nationwide is on your side. Very good guys. Yeah. I don't sing the jingle much. You just did. Yeah. So we got some good questions today Leah.

Yeah, first question. A lot of people after the Joe Gibbs episode last week, they are dying to know what is in this pimento cheese stuffed tomato. Do you have the recipe? Can you share it? It's just pome. So it's the baby tomatoes. It's the little cherries?

Yeah, little cherries. And they hollowed them out and filled it with pomella cheese. And so that's simple, but effective. You baked it or something? Nope. Oh, so you were just popping those things one after another, right? I meanto nuggets. I was, like, envisioning the big, like a big...

No, that would be disgusting. He's on his interview. That's like a half a... That's like a quarter pound of mint of cheese. Oh, gross. Another thing that you've kind of stirred up. Nope. Mr. Earnhardt.

Everyone wants to know what's the Wednesday news. Oh, yeah. It's not Wednesday. It's not Wednesday. It's not Wednesday. But, Sarah, like, Can I just say, you were like a toddler with sharp objects with you and Twitter. You are.

What did I do? You just, it's like, I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to have to monitor him all weekend to see if he announces this ahead of time. When you put up that Instagram last week, I was like, I went into full panic mode. I'm like, what is this about? Like, oh my gosh. He is like, I mean, he even like put a little bit out there. Like, I'm going to put a little teaser. What did I do?

Hashtag the bands back together? Yeah, what's wrong with that? Everybody's ever going to figure this out. Oh, man. Nobody's ever going to figure it out. And the person that wants to announce it is going to be the one that announces it. And that's not my, it's not me. And, but I want people to know.

I want people to know that I'm excited about it. The reason I say that he has announced things prior to. I have. Yes, he has. I just want everybody to know that I'm excited about it and want everyone else to anticipate it. So anticipate it. And when it comes out Wednesday, can all just go, heck yeah, that's cool.

Dale Jr. would be the guy like, I knew it before y'all did. I knew it before he did. I told you. I'm not that guy. It's really cool news, and it's going to be fun. It is. It is that. It is that. Yes, it is. So Mike knows what it is. Did anybody else know what it is? Anybody? I have a guess. I have a guess, and I'm not going to guess, obviously, because of your life. I kind of force the people that tell me about it after your tweets. It's cool. It's going to be fun. All right. Moving on. Scott, on the YouTube chat.

He wants to know, have you ever driven an asphalt modified? I have not. I've never drove one of those. I've not really drove too many types of vehicles. Yeah, so no asphalt modified for me. I mean, I guess I could try it. It'd be interesting to try, but I can't imagine. L.W. Miller, my brother-in-law, big-time asphalt modified racer,

talks highly of them. Yes, he loves them. Hey, true X run won a lot. Me and Matthew were going through old NASCAR publications, those season previews that I have of my office. Oh, yeah, we saw a funny picture of LW back in 1994. Our buddy Groot House chiming in on the YouTube live chat. Have you ever tried spotting for another driver?

I did. I spotted for Brad Means. So if you know Jimmy Means, they used to race in the Cup Series. He had the Alka-Seltzer car. He owns an Spinity car now that David Starr drives at Orange 52. Well, me and Brad were best friends growing up. Still great friends today, but we were really close, hanging out a lot. And he raced at Tri-County in a limited late-model car, and I went up there to spot for him one time.

He started on the pole of the race, and after the first lap, the guy behind him just dove bomb, dove bombed, dive-bombed. Dive-bub-bub. It was made up a word. He dive-bombed Brad into term one, and I clear Brad. into that corner and the guy wrecked him and drove over the left front tire ripped the hood off and just destroyed this guy's car Brad's car and I had to help Brad get some parts and pieces for it to be able to put it back together but so I

spotted once and caught and my car wrecked in the second lap of the race I never spotted again I felt like I was I was responsible for that so bad spotting uh Zach Barnett wants to know is that a die cast of Ralph Earnhardt's car behind you on the wall If so, where did you find that? Yeah, that was given to me by a fan that made that. There's a little black pickup truck with the car on the trailer and a picture of Ralph's car that they've remodeled. We've gotten up.

This broom is full of little tiny knickknacks that we've collected over the years. I don't remember who exactly gave that to me, but it's next to Ralph's got a trophy right here next to it. I got a lot of Ralph Earnhardt's trophies in my first. possession. So there's one, though, that is over at DEI that I would love to have, and that's the 1956 Sportsman Championship Trophy. Oh.

Yeah. I think she's got, I think Teresa has the 56 championship trophy and maybe Greenville Pickens Track Championship trophy. There's three trophies over there, Mamma all said. Just ask her for it. That's a beautiful, too. Next question. Next question.

J.D. Harshfield, he wants to know, will we see the cup cars on dirt in the next five or 10 years? I wouldn't bet any money on it, but if they do it, they do it one day. The only thing they talk about is how they would accommodate those cars being able to pit and how would the race be ran. Obviously, you can't run it like you'd run a regular cup race where all those guys are going to come down pit road and change tires. You're going to have to have some sort of halftime break or break every 100 laps

to allow guys to get in there and pit and pit safely and resellers. at the field and go back racing again. Like they do that in the trucks where they have like a little stoppage to be able to. Yeah. So they'd have to do it like we've never done it before. And sort of jumping through all those hurdles is probably the biggest challenge. But I'd certainly love to see it. I'd love to see anything unique like that in our sport.

So it may happen, but I wouldn't. I'm not, it's too much of a risk. The odds are too high for me to putting money down on it. All right, guys. I think that's all we have time for today. Thanks to Nationwide for supporting us as a podcast. That's the Ask Junior segment. Keep talking about it.

White flag right there. White flag. All right, white flag. I'm going to start off saying happy birthday to my daughter, Lily. It's her seventh birthday today. She's a big fan of the show. Happy birthday, Lily. Yeah, so there you go, Lily.

Apple podcast ratings and reviews this week. First of all, thank you to everybody that continues to do that. We get a lot. And so here's a couple. Here's a couple. Wave 94 wrote on Tuesday. it's not often that I'll admit I'm wrong about anything. That being said, I hated Dale Jr.

For many, many years. Not disliked. And that's all he said. So let's move on to the next foot. No, I'm kidding. I thought he was an entitled brat. Wow. I thought he was just trading on his dad's name and I was a fan of his dad's.

But a friend of mine told me about the John Forst podcast and I've been hooked ever since. I've come to realize just how wrong I was for so long about Jr. I hate that I was so close-minded. about him and who I thought he was. It's a lesson that I'll use in life from this point on. And for that, I'd like to say to Dale Jr., thank you for being you, even though it took me so long to see it. Hey, wow.

Hey. Got him turned, turned him around. Just like Johnny Sauter, did Austin Hill, turned him around. Why did we wait to the end to talk about this? This is nice. Yeah, you could have pumped his tires earlier, and he would have been like, wow. No, I thought that's, hey, listen, a little self-evaluation of your show. Hey, I liked it.

Austin Hunter, let's get this one. Hold on. Austin Hunter wrote on Thursday. Love the show. Dale Jr., listening to you talk about having your daughter has helped me realize I can handle being a dad as well. Now my wife and I are expecting in November. No way. Wow.

Thank you, Dale, for the confidence. Thank you for the confidence and a life-changing decision. Holy crap. Congratulations, Austin Hunter. Good coach, Dale. Congratulations, Dale, on your new couple sex therapy profession that you're doing. Very well. Good stuff.

He's like, get in there, boys. What you got to do is... We're going to move the white flag to the front of the show. This is the best part of the show. It's the best part of the podcast. Del Jr. inspiring, you know, inspiring couples. Your life. Have fun.

Having babies. Procreate. Oh, my goodness. Good Apple reviews this week. That's like, I like those. You can end it over there. As Dale said a little while ago, catch Dale Jr. download on NBC Sports Network Tuesdays at 5 p.m. Eastern. And I've got a dumb question, and I'm admitting

it's dumb. If you're in California, do you see it at 2 p.m. or do you see it at 5 p.m. Pacific time? It's always 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time is what you advertise most TV shows. The people that are on the West Coast understand that if they just see East E.T. They have to do the math? They know, but they're trained in that. So like late night shows come on at 1130 no matter what time zone you're in. kind of different. So that's not us. They don't do that for us. They don't do that. Producer Brian. It's two o'clock. He's shrugging his shoulder. He's just sitting over there with that incredible mustache. So 5 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday. 2 p.m. Pacific. I've gone ahead and let you know what time it's coming on on NBC Sports Network. So there you go. You can catch it out. Watch our

ratings jump now. Now that we have solved that riddle. A lot of people are asking about can they see our show full on internet. And I'm here to say, we put the good stuff on our YouTube page. I mean, you don't want to see the sucky stuff. You want to see the good stuff. We put the good stuff on YouTube page. So subscribe to our YouTube channel. Yeah. That's what it's there for. So you can see the good stuff.

And then they go on YouTube and beg us on YouTube for full videos. The full show. Oh, they do that. Oh, yeah. Got to keep them Watt and more? Yeah, you got to say Watt and more. Come on. Our YouTube channel has grown a lot.

A lot. And I'm really appreciative of everybody that does subscribe to you. Tell your friends about it. That's been an emphasis for us this year is our YouTube channel. So follow it, Dirty Mo Media, and also on all social media. media platforms. Also, I want to ask one more time to visit our partners of this show. We had ancestry.

We had Robin Hood. Robin Hood. Right, right. And you're about to hear pristine auction. So special thanks to them. Special thanks to Cadence 13 for all they do. And Dale, you got an odd history for us this week? Yeah, man.

We got some odd history. It's a quick one, apparently. So odd? Yeah. It wasn't odd for long, was it? All right. We're headed to Sonoma, found out a little odd history. from this California racetrack.

The year is 1969. It's the first year that NASCAR's Winston West Series was going to race at Sears Point in Sonoma. The August race, the track received an unusual entry, and the name was clearly made up. A mystery driver entered under the name, the Spirit of Sonoma. They'd be driving a 1967 Ford Galaxy.

No other information was given. And even track officials had no idea who the driver was going to be. Obviously, the vetting process wasn't fully developed back in 1969. Officials were told, however, that this driver was an FIA licensed racer, and had won races at Daytona and Sebring, which made everybody wonder, dang, could it be Mario Andreddy or Dan Gernary? You know, who could it be? Is it only two, I think.

Cue the disappointing music. When practice finally began, the spirit of Sonoma was finally unmasked. It was Steve Freunds, is how you said that? Steve Froins. Froinnes? He's from that Freundness family. He's from that Freunds. He's a sports car racer from California, so it's Froins.

I was thinking if he's French, he might say that differently. Freud. We get Simon back in here, Fron's. The Spirit of Sonoma moniker didn't bring him any good luck either. He finished 19th after losing a rear-in gear 36 laps into the contest. The Cup series didn't compete at Sonoma for another 20 years. But Froins, he did go on to compete in two-cup races. in the 70s.

Another well-known California road course. Ontario. Riverside International Speedway. Oh, that's oval. You're right. You're right. The spirit of Riverside has entered the race. Guys, something completely different.

That's pretty weird. Hey, we got to thank our friend NASCAR man. Yeah. Go on Twitter and follow a NASCAR man. He's a great follow. Tons of odd stories like this. I love it. And we appreciate him.

for supporting the podcast allowing us to read a few of these, queuing some of these up. Wonder what next weeks will be. We're going to Chicago. I mean, it's kind of a- gangster. Gangster. Gangsta. He's just a gangster?

Gangsta. I am so lame. I should not even say gangster. No. Ever. All right. There you go. All right.

Good show, guys. Really enjoyed Simon. Enjoyed this whole show. You can listen to that accent all day. Yeah. I love the way he says NASCAR. Yeah, good. How does it say Maskar?

I can't even try it. No, go ahead. I'm not going to do it. Be bold for once in your life and do something. Poor Leah. For once in your life. You know, ask her, hey, what kind of favorite tool do you have in your toolbox? I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. They're not wrong. Really? I thought you're going to be nice to stick out to me. She's sitting in here, cuddling on her blanket. Hold on, hold on. Try to absorb this advice.

She's got a blanket. Try to. I want a snuggy. I want a snuggy. I want to delgerner download snuggy. Try to absorb the advice. Can you get her that? Hey, can you bring her the onesie for her?

Don't be offended. Take this lesson and learn. Yeah, you're among friends here. Friends are honest with you. If we're going to start this, I'm bringing back Tuesday thoughts and Wednesday wisdom from Dale where he says all this crazy stuff and we just make him look. That's your rebellious answer. Why are you not doing that?

Yeah. Yeah. What was that one we did last? I guess it was about gravy. That was probably my favorite. Why are you not doing that? Can we get that onesy for her? No.

The top of one. She looks good sitting here in a taco once. My wife's too proud of the gift. She won't let it leave the house. Anyway, we should probably end the show. All right, yeah. Bye. Appreciate y'all tuning in.

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There's no fakes, no forgeries, and those are everywhere, but not at Pristine. Before the show, Dillner, he spotted an 8 by 10 because loyal listeners to the show know that that's the go-to-size photographs. This was autographed by the King Richard Petty for 20 bucks, so go to, yeah, go to pristineauction. Now you'll be hooked. It's free to register, free to bid. You only pay for the items you win. That's Pristine Auction. Spell P-R-I-S-T-I-N-E-Oction.com.

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