The Dale Jr. Download - 292 - Kelley Earnhardt Miller: A New Chapter

Episode Date: April 7, 2020

From childhood scars, therapy to leading a Championship winning NASCAR team, Kelley Earnhardt Miller joins her brother Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the day of her new book release. Kelley reveals secrets from the pages "Drive - Nine Lessons to Win in Business and Life." She shares how Dale Earnhardt struggled with fatherhood, how she used therapy change the path of her marriage and life, and how she had to be an advocate for Dale Jr. after the passing of her father. They also discuss running JR Motorsports through the COVID-19 crisis and how she communicates with NASCAR throughout the process. Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis speak about what made Cale Yarborough a true original. Leah raises the roof with fan questions in AskJr presented by Xfinity. Dale & Mike offer their opinions on the iRacing drama from Bristol with Bubba Wallace. Matthew Dillner uses World War II history to offer hope for a new racing boom. The DJD gang laughs over pronouncing words like "Yar-bro" "Oy-al" and "Arthur." 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.

Locked and loaded. This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. The Dell Jr. download in three, two, one. Hey, everybody, it's Dail Jr. Back again for another episode of the Dail Jr. download here at Dirty Mo Media. And with me as always, Leia Vaughn, Matthew, Mike Davis, everybody's here together. Another week of quarantine, another week of reading the news, and staying up to date on how things are progressing in the country.

How's everybody doing? Doing well. I'm not reading the news. I have decided that I'm going through quarantining myself from news. It's doing me. It does me better to not actually stay so up to speed on the news because there's just nothing positive, nothing good. For instance, the tigers catching COVID-19.

I started freaking out over that. And I'm like, why am I freaking out over the tigers catching it at the Bronx Zoo? I've never been. For watching Tiger King. I'm just, I don't know why I'm doing it. And so I've changed my notifications. I'm not going to be getting news updates about Bronx Zoo or Tigers or anything else. I'm going to try this out.

I think it's going to work. Leah. I actually had a period of time from about 2 o'clock on Saturday to about 11 on Sunday where I had no cell phone service. We camped out for the first time of my life down at the farm. And we were kind of down by a creek with limited to no cell phone service. And it was wonderful. Matthew. God, that's awesome.

I wish I was doing that. No, I basically did yard work all weekend. I missed the iras on FS1. I missed about everything this weekend. I did about 70 bags, load and unloaded about 70 bags of mulch. And just yard work, man, nothing exciting here. Nice.

Well, I mean, yeah, being stuck in the house, it ain't going to be all that exciting at times. But it's given us the opportunity to get creative. You know, so that's, that's something that I've found interesting from my house is just the other day, yesterday, actually, we had a neighbor have a calf, a cow get loose. So riding around on the, on our gator, trying to sort of help them track this animal while also keeping our social distancing measures in place was interesting. and, you know, we'll just, we'll get up in the morning, we go outside, we walk around. We might get on the gator and take a lap or we've been getting out of back in the swimming pool now. The weather's a little better because I want her to be the best swimmer she could be.

And I am, I did have a couple days where I didn't look at my phone, particularly looking at it for news. Mike, also, you know, we can take a look at our screen time now. we've been a week since I have changed my settings to where my phone goes to sleep. And I know it's got to be way down as far as the hours I spent. I think last week I had eight hours of screen time on my phone. But I went a couple days where I didn't count, you know, look at the numbers. You know, how many's being affected, it's been infected today. How many in New York?

Oh, the COVID numbers. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I went a couple days without looking at those numbers. And, you know, because I spent. you know the last month watching all the countries the curves and who's who seems to have a grasp on it who's struggling and obviously we were we were really rocketing up there with our numbers and so i was kind of watching that every day but then i took a couple days of not

looking at that information uh i got back kind of plugged in yesterday at how things were going and i have had some uh you know seen some good reports about um things getting a little more stable and some of the numbers going down not only for the United States but overseas as well in Europe. So any news at this point, any kind of news of any kind of drops in the numbers is good news in my mind. So hopefully, you know, and you're hearing from everybody, you know, the people that are important to listen to you're hearing that they feel like that the peak is really just around the corner for this country. And I hope that's the case. I hope that we are, you know, only weeks away from seeing things improve. So I'm still watching it. And, you know,

I kind of, I sort of dedicated like one moment in the day, whether it's when I wake up in the morning or when I go to bed at night, whenever that is to check in, you know, and see how the rest of the country is doing and then, you know, go about my own business. But it's been good. It's been good week. I wonder, you know, this is something. Matthew, I promise you, we're not going to get into a 30-minute discussion over this. But I did wonder, as I was talking to my daughter about this, I said, you know, this is something when it's all said, you'll remember this for the rest of your life. And, you know, I had a great aunt that we always used to just, admittedly, make fun of, because she would always save everything.

But then we found out she grew up in the Great Depression. And so, like, when you grow up in a Great Depression, you don't just waste things. And we were so wasteful, you know, this, and that's just like leftovers at a restaurant, you know. And she's swiping the sweet and low packets off the table and putting them in her purse. And we're like, Anna, come on now. There's a little much, you know. We've got a reputation.

That Davis is here. And so it's like, but you grow up in a time when it alters your social norms and how you act and how you do these things. And I told Gracie, I said, you know, you'll remember this. I said, I'm curious on how we have changed when we come out of it. Is it, you know, are we as chatty when we go to the grocery store? Right now, when I'm at the grocery store, head down, I'm wrapped up like a mummy. And man, anybody gets within six feet of me?

I'm like getting mad about it, right? And I'm like, that's so weird, right? Why am I like that? and yet it's because I'm being overly cautious of it. And I wonder when it's all said and done if we're going to go, you know, here's a good one, shaking hands. I'm a handshaker. I mean, I'm handshake, big hug, but chest bumps.

I mean, I see, I don't even have to know you really. I wonder if I'm going to be a handshaker after this is all said and done or if we're just going to be like. I can already tell you that it will be a long time, no matter what I read in the news or no matter what anybody tells me, about how things have improved. It'll be a long time before I have that trust to go out there and interact with my friends, even.

You know, so I think that, you know, this will all be determined on whether this becomes seasonal. You know, we have to deal with something like this year-round or, you know, annually this virus returns. That would certainly make things very, very challenging and difficult for everybody if this is not a you know not something that we can eradicate entirely but i um i think it'll be a long long i'm it'll be a long time before i trust you know to be able to go out there and mingle and interact and in a real casual carefree way but um you know

everybody'll handle it differently i'm sure we'll see as soon as they you know soon somebody says hey everything's fine everybody can go back to work um you know you're just gonna floodgates are going to open. People are just going to, the parks are going to fill up, arenas, sports arenas, everything is just going to be, everybody's going to snap right back into it, which is great, and especially for the economy in this country, it'll be great. I'm excited about that, to be honest with you. I'm excited about the world getting back to work and seeing everything take off and improve and the economy ramp back up and get going again. I hear you. All right. All right. We got our guest on the show today.

my sister Kelly's going to come on here and tell us about, you know, how things are going for her, obviously, and her family, but also, you know, she's, she's kind of at the helm at the wheel of junior motor sports. And we'll ask her also how she's handling that as a business owner. And what kind of challenges those, you know, those business owners are facing in the sport today. And she's got a new book out. Out today. It's, it's something I'm really excited for her to talk about. And I'm excited for people to read and we want to give her opportunity to tell us about that book as well. All right, everybody, we've got our guest here. Kelly Earnhardt Miller's joined us today on Adele Jr. Download. Kelly, thanks for coming. Yeah, thanks for having me.

We've got a lot to talk about, I know. First off, how are you handling quarantine and everything going on over the last month? How is you and your family doing? Well, we're hanging in there. The kids are bored out of their mind. I've got one doing school and it's only taken on an hour to do a school work. So I'm a little concerned while we're going to school for eight hours or six hours. And my daughter has their, her school has not scheduled schoolwork. So they're getting a little antsy, but we're doing okay. It's getting some working from home and doing a few things outside and getting some more quality time together. So you can't complain about that. Yeah, I've, I've really, really enjoyed being at home a lot. And, you know,

as someone who's traveled a ton in early years and even now with my new job at NBC. This has been a lot of fun for me, just spending a lot of time at home. And I can imagine, I mean, you do got to get creative. And I kind of like that challenge too. But have you and your, you know, have you in LW and the kids all gotten along really well? It is the tension high in your house? What's the temperature? It just depends on what day.

is. So the temperature was really good until my daughter Kennedy came home from California. She's been living with her dad for this semester and something she wanted to try. And so we kind of had our rhythm going on, you know, me, Yel Dove and Wyatt, just the threesome there in the house. And so she's come home and it's been a little challenging at times, but you'll have that. She's a teenage girl. So those out there with teenage girls will totally understand that. And Dale, you'll understand that one day. Mike Davis, you'll understand that one day. I'm starting to understand it. And Dylan or you too. I'm starting to understand it. Earlier, I think. Yes. It starts earlier these days. I am starting to understand it now. And one of the things,

I mean, because I've got a fifth grader and I'm curious with you, I mean, I know why at schoolwork, I wouldn't expect to be too challenging. But right now, I'm having my own fun trying to figure out fifth grade math problems and that kind of stuff, because now she's into fractions and stuff. Has anything from the schoolwork stumped, you? You, I mean, here it is, you run a company. And, you know, we're all supposed to be smart people. And yet nothing can be more humbling than struggling over your kids' schoolwork or if they tell you what the answer is supposed to be.

Well, we're only in second grade with Wyatt. So it's not very challenging. You know, we're doing some, I don't know, eight letter spelling words and, you know, writing sentences and doing double-digit math and things like that. But, yeah, nothing that stumped me yet. But when Kennedy gets started, I can probably attest that that would be difficult. And I know a lot of parents are out there struggling because either they're trying to do it online with their kids or they're trying to teach their kids the concepts and different things.

And the schools are all doing it very differently. And some kids I know are really six to eight hours a day, which sounds astounding to try to, if you're a working parent, if you're in the health care and you're still working, or if you're trying to work from home and you're juggling the noise and all the different That's it. Trying to get done. It's the juggling. The juggling is very hard to work and teach them and entertain them.

Yeah. Yeah, that is. Well, Kelly, you have, you know, you're heavily involved in the day-to-day at junior motor sports overseeing pretty much every aspect of the company from top to bottom. And nobody better than you, I think, give us a real understanding of what these teams are going through through this process as we sit around and hope, for the virus itself to improve and the state that the country's going in, the state that the country's in right now, we hope for that to approve.

This also had a huge effect on businesses, and, you know, NASCAR is not immune to that. Companies and the teams are not immune to that. So talk about that a little bit about what kind of challenges that Junior Motorsports is facing right now to maintain, you know, whatever they can until they can get back to the racetrack. Yeah, you know, the first week, we've been out of work now three full weeks. And so the first week for me was like real emotional. Just, you know, anytime there's unknown, there's fear thrown at you, you're not sure, you know, how you're going to do your job when you can't do it the way you've always done it, right? But since then, three weeks later,

it's just like doing this podcast. You know, we figured out ways to communicate, ways to do things. I think the folks that are struggling the most are, you know, our actual mechanics and the guys that go on the road and the crew chiefs and the actual competition department of motorsports because they can't really do anything. And they're all itching to be working on race cars. And I know from conversations that we've been having with the crew chiefs and some of those folks that that's been really difficult for them. Their home life is probably a little crazy too because their wives and kids aren't used to them being home. and while you want the extra time, it's a different dynamic when they're there all the time. So, you know, I've just heard a lot of different things from them.

And, you know, for the most part, we're chug along and working. It's been a struggle to figure out with not knowing when NASCAR is going to race again. How long does this problem exist? And how long can we keep things in play like we're trying to do and keep people paid and all of these fun things that, you know, as a business owner, you have to think about how far is your cash going to go, what your cash flow look like and different things like that. So we've been, you know, looking into doing all kinds of Excel spreadsheets and things like that, trying to figure that out. But with the unknown of when

we go racing, it's really difficult to kind of figure that part out. With the opportunity of, you know, Fox or, you know, eye racing to be broadcasting events on, Saturdays and Sundays, there's some small opportunity there for your partners to get a little bit of exposure. How seriously are the teams addressing that, accepting that opportunity? Where's JRM, you know, kind of fit into that category of using this sort of unusual method of creating exposure and engagement with fans? Yeah, you know, that's been a great opportunity to have our racing. And I was laughing yesterday at OWW. He's sitting on the couch watching the wrist of our race.

And he gets up and he goes, I can't believe I'm sitting on the couch watching a computer race, you know. And then he goes right back to the couch and sits down. And it was about 16 laps to go. And I was trying to get him to get up and do something. And he's like, no, there's only 16 laps to go. To answer your question, though, yeah, it's a great opportunity to try. to plug and play your partners. You know, on the cup side, I think, with the drivers, most of the drivers that are in the series are running their sponsors, which makes a lot of sense.

And for us, having you doing the racing, we can, you know, pull partners and do different things with you where it makes sense. And then Justin Algeyer and his partners, you know, so we can give some love to the other people that are associated with junior motorsports too. But, you know, the rest of it kind of works the same, the social media engagement and the marketing pieces of it and the fun things and creative things that you can come up with to to try to engage the fans you know works no different than when we're on the race track and when you're watching the race on television so just kind of figuring out those what do you call them liverys the paint schemes the livery schemes yeah the livery yeah I use the word livery

just because I know it's probably going to get in or somebody skin I don't really love that word either paint schemes is what I like to use but um Yeah, it's funny because this whole thing is thrown everybody for a loop and we're all having to get creative on how we communicate and how, and the irasing thing has, you know, been a nice blessing. I know I've been a huge supporter of that service and talking about it all the freaking time, but it has been nice to have that as a bit of a way to deliver to our sponsors and give them some content, some sort of,

interaction, engagement with fans. Kelly, you know, you've been some of the discussions with, you know, with NASCAR on their plans and what is NASCAR doing? What is the sport doing as a whole to help our teams or to help kind of keep things in order and keep everybody positive about the future? Yeah, I mean, you know, essentially they've just said, you know, reach out if there's anything we can think of that we need. You know, but I think they're kind of holding information close to the best in a sense in terms of,

you know, dates because they don't want to get anybody too hopeful. You know, I was just saying to someone last night, this scheduling thing is going to be very difficult. I was listening to Trump say that the NFL schedule, they thought that, you know, they would go off on key in August. and the California governor said, not in my state, you know, we'll listen to this, this, this, and this, and this and decide if that's appropriate.

So, you know, you're going to have this federal government thing, you're going to have the state governments and all this kind of stuff playing into what NASCAR. And I think NASCAR is just standing by kind of taking it all in, not trying to get ahead of it, you know, really listening to whomever their, you know, officials are that are giving them the best information that they can and we're just all kind of trying to take their lead. But, you know, it's really, really hard to be in a holding pattern.

It's really difficult. When this is what you do and this is your life, thank goodness, we have some other facets to our business like Dirtymo Media and, you know, some other things that kind of can take your attention away. And I've got something big going on. Yes, you do. You've got a big thing. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, we wanted to get to that part of the conversation. So now is a good time. Yeah, let me show you. Today is the day. You are officially going on bookshelves and an author. Yeah, an author. First off, you know, tell us the name of the book. Tell us where we can buy this book.

That's most important. Yeah, right. So it's Drive by Kelly Earnhardt Miller and I listens to win a business in life. And if you go to Kelly Earnhardt Drive.com, there's all the information that you need to know on different outlets. are carrying it. I said it's going to be so difficult. You know, Amazon's going to be your friend because obviously online shipping, I think a lot of the bookstores are doing online shipping too. So Bam and Barnes and Noble and places like that. We're doing copies as well on shop junior nation.com so people can go to

our website. But this is, I've really fretted up until this day of the book release, not because I'm nervous to be released in a book, but under the circumstances of everything that we're facing is, I wasn't sure what to do. But my book. I have a feeling that people are reading more books now than usually any other time of the year. So this may be a blessing for authors like you coming out with new material. Also, there's, aside from the physical copy of the book, the online orders as well. Yeah.

I wanted to know, Kelly, you know, have you always wanted to write a book? You know, you've seen, I've had a couple book opportunities. We just recently did one, but also did one years ago earlier in my racing career. So you've kind of been able to watch that sort of in close proximity play out. Is writing a book or being an author about your story? Because there is a lot of personal information in this book about your childhood and so forth that I think is going to be awesome for people to read. Was writing a book something that was always in the back of your mind?

Or is this something that come around over the last couple of years? Yeah, no, I've really never thought about writing a book. And to be honest, it was a conversation with your book publisher in one of our meetings that she looked at me and she said, have you ever thought about writing a book? And I said, well, you know, not really. But, you know, if I wanted to talk about something, this is what I would want to talk about. And you alluded to a lot about growing up in our childhood. And really, it's kind of the relationship with our dad that I speak a lot to.

and for me, I never really thought about putting that out there, but through years of feeling like, not that I really knew I was making the mistakes then, but in my relationship with LW, I knew that I did not want to have another failed marriage when we first met in 2010. And so I started going to therapy in a couple years into our relationship with our kids

and having a blended family. There was just lots of different reasons. And the reason that we went to therapy first was for one of the daughters, and then I ended up in my own therapy, which was cool. And I think everybody in the world needs therapy. That's just my own personal opinion. We all got something that we need to talk out and work through. And so kind of going through that process is really what led me to thinking that now is the time and it's okay, because it's kind of putting a bow on my healing process and my thoughts and experience.

And I was nervous about, you know, our dad is an amazing individual. I can't, you know, stress that enough in terms of, you know, he accomplished so much on the racetrack. I mean, we all know it, right. And, I mean, he had a heart of gold. The relationships that he had with most everyone in his life were really positive relationships. But he really seemed to struggle being a dad. And he really seemed to struggle with the relationships with his children. and that's what I wanted to talk about, you know,

is for part of my process. And so that's what I share. And that was really difficult thinking about talking, you know, for somebody that the fans love so much thinking about and speaking about him in that way. But I think that they'll find it, I think they'll understand, especially if your parents, you get it. You know, I think it's nothing that's, you know, too negative.

It's just my experience. And that's okay. You can talk about that. So tell me, you know, I know that I've read the book and I gave you some feedback. And I'm sure LW, your husband has read the book and gave you feedback and other people close to you. Who has read the book? You don't have to really give me a name. But you've had to have had people read this book that are outside of that circle of trust to give you some more genuine critical feedback on just what you were concerned about.

the intimate details of your childhood and your relationship with Dale Earnhardt. So what is the feedback been from what you would perceive the every man or the neighbor next door that's going to buy or read this book? What's the feedback from that person been like? Most of, you know, that really don't know the story have said that they feel it's very respectful. They get it. a lot of people have said at the time that we were being raised, this was kind of the way of parenting, right? We're a whole new age of parenting these days.

And, you know, that, you know, this, the way that our dad parented and the discipline, now I think it was a bit extreme, but the discipline that he imposed on us and some of the different things that we experienced, you know, so many people just say that was kind of the way it was. and they can remember their own fathers being that way or their father's fathers being that way and things like that.

But I haven't had any negative feedback out. The true test, I think, will be our race fans. Those loyal Delernhardt fans that get a different, get something different that they, you know, it's not been touted about him being a father, right? So they know him as a racer. They know him as a badass racer. They got all these descriptive, great descriptives for him.

So they'll be the true test. I can give you mine. You and I haven't talked about this. And I don't know where I fall into that category that Dale speaks of, but I'm going to tell you, the first time I read it, we were sort of in the process of which we were looking for typos, right? Kelly, you gave you. It was a manuscript. And so I didn't read it on the personal level in which it's written. I read it from a complete editorial type thing.

When I read the book, you gave me a book and it was really special and you had a nice sweet note in it. and I really enjoyed it. And I read it again. And my God, how personal it gets right off the jump, man. And so here's my takeaways. First of all, it's not a racing book. And also I wondered, you know, how are you going to bridge the gap

between having such detail to your childhood and the issues that you're carrying and making it a business book, nine lessons to win in business and in life? And the reality is that you can't not tell that beginning. part if we're going to understand who you are and how you evolved into the business person that you are. Secondly, I feel like there was a moment in the book where your dad got it.

We just hadn't been able to see it. And it was when he sent you flowers at college. It made me even tear up because he missed you. And I thought that this is a very human moment in which you're seeking a relationship, like a deep personal relationship with someone that you haven't got it from. and that moment that you got the flowers was it was touching and it was a very huge

and I think that opened up into what's buried within the tough exterior that that everybody knows is Dale Earnhardt deep down we knew that that's what you'd been looking for and I just didn't seem to come out a whole lot and you had been looking for a lot more the one part I will say that blew me away

and it blows me away probably because I was around for it I just didn't know it. And that was the issue that you would have had in the DEI situation when your dad's gone, you're now taking over Dale Jr's business in the complete change of dynamic in the conversation that happens in the conference rooms at Dale Earnhardt Incorporated,

which up until then, nobody had Dale Jr.'s voice, nobody was looking out for him. And now there's an advocate for Dale Jr., and that person is you. man, I could feel the tension in the room just reading the book. Like, you know what I'm saying? I can't imagine how awkward it was when it's like they're just not used to having somebody go, no, that's not what we're going to do because this is not in the best interest of Dale Jr.

That takes somebody strong, courageous. I mean, the din, just in, and now it could really process to me because of what I had just read in the childhood and how much, how, how, how. the role you had to play, the glove you had to put on your hand to now do it in this new job was extraordinarily difficult, extraordinarily difficult. And I can't even imagine being there in real time. Yeah. There's two things I want to address that you said.

You know, one was, you know, the story about the flowers. And really, so, you know, that happens when I'm in my third year of college and which I'm probably 21, 2021, 20, because Dale came to my 21st birthday at my new appointment. apartment in Concord when I moved home. But 20. And so then we lose our dad at 27. I do think that, you know, we have a younger sister Taylor who's 16 years younger than me. Raising her, I believe, you know, gave insight to dad where opportunities that he missed with us. And I do really believe that he was working to kind of forge those relationships and different things like that. And, you know, Dale going into NASCAR, and that was really great for their relationship because they could bond over something that, you know, they could talk about and do. So I really do think that that was coming, and then we lost them.

And we just didn't get that opportunity. You know, we didn't get that opportunity to make amends. And, you know, Dale, the DEI stuff, you know, dad was Dale's advocate. And that was fine with Dale. I mean, hey, it was all going really well, you know. Of course. And dad could be the voice when, you know, he needed to speak up with Teresa. And I think, you know, that's obviously what we lost.

I mean, that's what we lost from a family standpoint, from a business standpoint, was that voice to kind of be that liaison between everybody and Teresa and dad. And so, yeah, stepped into that role. And which I kind of had always been that person right now. the lunchroom or military school. But Kelly, the fact that, again, you put so much detail into the way, the weeks and months leading up to February 2001, and the fact that you had a baby,

and where he's showing Carson around is so moving, but you had some stuff left unsaid when he died. Yeah. Yeah. That's something to carry for the rest of your life, and I can't imagine as easy. Do you feel like you've hit, is knowing that he was making amends in places? Has that been enough to kind of get you at a place of a forgiveness or at a point where you can move on with it? Yeah, you know what helped me the most was going through therapy and realizing that, you know,

the way he did things was just the way he did things. And he didn't have anybody else telling him. him any different. And that's what he thought was okay. I can remember stories that my aunts would talk about Ralph, their dad, and dad's dad. And, you know, how he was just, I mean, he was a hard-nosed father. And so that's what my dad lived under. And then, you know, we have dad and a couple different marriages and a couple different kids

coming out of that in different situations. And so what I learned through therapy is just that's okay. And what I learned is that that's, I wanted mine to be different. You know, I wanted my relationship with my kids to be different and understanding that. And so that's how I'm okay with it. Really, there's, there were things left unstead that really bothered me for a lot of years. But giving him grace and giving him that understanding that that's just what he knew, you know, that you really, it's hard to fault him for it and be angry about it.

When, after you go through therapy, you kind of see how the minds work. work, you know, not all goes. So, Kelly, we, you know, I think we all would really appreciate you being so open and honest about that part of your life. But the book is about your success as a businesswoman and your approach to, you know, how you handle and approach your business and your professional work. So give us a little bit of an insight on what readers are going to learn or, how they'll be enlightened by that particular part of the book.

I mean, it is, you know, the book itself is about, you know, nine ways to be successful in your, in your profession. So tell us those, you know, tell us what's going to enlighten the fans when they read this. Yeah, you know, I think everybody will see the relationship between the first part of the book and the time that we spend and talking about that and the nine lessons to win in business and life, right? because they're all things that kind of stem out of just my experience. You know, I can't really say it any differently. Being authentic, being approachable.

I don't know about you, Dale, but I feel like, you know, a lot of our life was lived where we maybe had to be something that we really didn't want to be. I mean, you went through years of down your hair and rebelling and things like that, you know, because we were, at times it was like we needed to conform to a certain thing, right, being the kids of Deller and heart. And so being authentic. Being approachable, you know, being approachable is very important to me through my relationship with my employees and letting them know that I'm, you know, I'll do the same job that I ask them

to do if they need something, come to me. Sometimes it even bites me because they'll skip their supervisor and come straight to me. So sometimes I can be a little too approachable, I guess. But, you know, and I talk about letting go to move things forward, customizing your communication, kind of knowing your audience, who you're talking to. I think that's really important. important. I talk about aiming for the win-win, and that's a lesson that I learned from dad in life was really, you know, that a win-win is really needed when you're working, especially in our business with partners, that they get something out of it, we get something out of it so that we can kind of forge a long-term relationship. But you know, I talk about

manager and your motions and balance some work in life. So they're all kind of applicable lessons that, you know, kind of makes sense when you read the whole. thing. And Mike and Mike, Leah, Matt, they can all attest to whether it's true or not, right, guys? Well, listen, when you talk about approachable, that to me means I can literally holler from my office out to your office. And even when I'm not hollering, you still pretty much hear everything I'm saying because I'm not the quietest person, but you are extremely approachable. Those things, when you read that book, they all make sense to us as employees. I hope that that is the situation for people to be able to understand that who are not your employees because that's

because I think that there's some really good lessons that people can apply even if they do run a staff like they need to they need to understand that like this is a leadership book I think you know it's a lot about just relationships with people right all of them can be kind of applied whether any kind of relationship so it can be a family relationship personal work business a partnership you know, B-to-B, whatever, any kind of really relationship. It's what it all boils down to, doesn't it? I mean, in everything, it's relationships. People want to be treated well.

They want to be treated fairly. And then the, but also, you want to be treated fairly in that there's an expectation for somebody that has a job. There's an expectation for you to fulfill it, you know, with your best possible, you know, talents and whatnot and skills. And if you don't, and there's, you know, there's repercussions for that. But I think you, I think you're extremely fair. And, I mean, it's a fantastic.

book. I mean, people need to get this book. And there's no better time to do it than right now, because I think there's a lot of life lessons that can be applied at any time. Yeah, really good time to read books for sure. I've been, I've pulled out a few myself that I want to try to get through. But, you know, I really think that even if there's just one nugget that someone gets at, you know, my book is not, you're not going to read this and then like go out and just be Mrs. or Mr. Successful, right? There's just something in here that will probably, you know, tug at your own heart or your own mind.

That's something that you can put into play that works for you because everybody leads differently. Everybody's success looks different. And, you know, so I just want people to understand. It's kind of my experience. And, you know, hopefully there's a nugget in there that they can learn. Well, I really think you did a great job putting your book together. Thank you.

And I'm really excited for you to receive the feedback from it. It's really going to be more than you can imagine. It's going to be more to you than you even know when people come to you and say exactly what you just said. This really stood out to me. They're going to bring to you the book. They're going to bring to you stories about how it's affected their lives or how they've taken that nugget or this piece and applied it. it to themselves. You're going to love that. You're going to love that experience.

You're going to love it. You're going to love it. It's just, yeah, you were open and honest and transparent and we love that about you. And I'm hoping that also, like you say, not only is going to help some people and hope and it helps you, hoping it gives you some satisfaction. Well, they say, close the book. That whole situation. I felt like it did. Well, hopefully you write. Hopefully you write another one. Hopefully it gives you, hopefully gives you some motivation to do more. But we appreciate you coming on today. And hopefully everybody at home stays healthy.

And I know that you are also, you know, we can't thank you enough, Kelly, as a few of the employees here on this show. I think we speak for all the employees at Junior Motorsports and saying that we really, really appreciate your leadership and the tough decisions that you've had to make throughout this process to keep this company afloat and to keep us to where we can continue whenever that happens going back to the racetrack. So from everybody at Junior Motors Force, we were just so thankful for your leadership. You are so tough and a little bulldog.

And you just do such a great job at leading our company. So everybody is, you know, I know everybody doesn't have a direct connection. or direct line to you maybe in these in these times but we can speak for them and tell them tell you that you're just so appreciated. Well, thank you. Yeah, thank you for coming on and enjoy your week. All right, guys. Thanks much.

Appreciate it. Bye. I like that. It's like a theme song, Leah. All right, guys, we. Live-ish. There it is. It was loading.

All right, we are here on YouTube live. back. This is Asht Jr., presented by Exfidelity. Dale, the first question is coming from Gabe Raushed. UCE NASCAR earning a regular televised spot after the pandemic is over. Seems like there are a lot of people getting into the show. You know, if I had to guess, I'd say no. You know, drivers, once they go back to their real jobs aren't going to want to, you know, they're not going to want to put the time in. A lot of them aren't SIM racers at heart. And so I don't see them wanting to put the time in.

There won't be any necessary or need. There won't be a need for the organizations, their partners to do that as well, because they'll have the real thing. I still think that there would be a little bit of a demand for it, you know, but not as much as what we're seeing today. You know, right now nobody has any sports. There's no life sports.

You're getting a million. 900,000 to 1.3 million people tuning in to watch these virtual races. But once the real thing comes back, I think you've got to cut that number by quite a bit in demand. So I just don't know if it'll maintain or even any kind of resemblance of it will be around once we go back to racing. But there is the Coke series that are the real pros of the iRacing service that run every other Tuesday, Junior Motorsports has a team in that series that runs with Michael Conti

and Brad Davies as our drivers. These guys are better at this than anybody else in the real NASCAR realm, and they're fun to watch. So, you know, that series is annual, and we're right in the thick of it every other Tuesday on e-NASCAR.com is where you can watch that. So that will continue. And for me, it's a better, it's a better show. It's, you know, a lot less crashing and goofing off and and wrecking and carrying on and those guys are going for a lot of money. So there's a $300,000 person in that championship for those drivers. So it's pretty lucrative for them. Planet Productions is on YouTube and they want to know what are your recommendations for old

races to watch during the pandemic to pass the time? You know, whatever you want to watch, watch. I don't really know that I can tell you what you want to see, but if I want to watch an old race, I'd typically lean in toward the 70s. You know, I lived to see the 80s and 90s and present day. What I wasn't around for was anything in the 70s and before. So I try to, I tend to usually go toward that to see something, you know, obviously that I've never seen. And also the personalities from the 70s, David Pearson-Kale Yarborough, Richard Petty, the Dodge, the Chevy Laguna, all those cars, you know, they look like exactly like the car on the street going around the racetrack. It just was, to me, the most, you know, it's just an incredible time

for our sport. So I go to the 70s, but, you know, 80s were great too. I watch, I got a lot of those races to be able to watch any time I want. So, you know, everybody has their kind of decade that they appreciate the most. All right. Amber Bitten once know, if you can have a famous actor, virtual voice as your spotter, who would it be?

Tom Hanks. Mike, what do you think? It's a good one. Tom Hanks. What about a... James Earl Jones. James Earl Jones.

I was about to say it. James Earl Jones. No kid. We were watching Field of Dreams the other day. And just the guys got a vote. Morgan Freeman, I think, you know, between those two. I don't know, man.

Morgan would be too quiet. I don't know. I like my chances. I don't even know if I can do an impression, but it would even, you know, there's a crash in turn three. I mean, it's better than I got. He's off the track. It's clear.

I don't know. Who played Harry Hogg in Days of Thunder? Oh, yeah. I can see him. I don't know his name, though. Oh, my God. And he's literally my favorite actor of all time. Robert, Robert Deval.

I was getting mixed up with Mike Deval, sorry. He'd be, Robert Deval be a good one. They should get some, you know, some actors to voice over that. I go a sling blade. Why don't you want something? I reckon you're clear. Okay, you're obviously not somebody that needs to be in eye racing. You're not going to take it seriously.

You're going to get disqualified like Daniel Swarrier. Is there a week? I reckon you calls that wrecking. Hmm. Why? Next question. Nathaniel Stallnaker, he says he just watched a video about your dad's offer to drive the Indy 500 in 1999. They also said he might have tested an IndyCar later that year, so any truth to that, do you know?

Nah, not that I know of. I think we'd all know that. If he'd ever drove an Indy car, there'd be pictures floating around the internet and all kinds of crazy stuff. But, you know, at that part in his career, I could understand him. turning it down. I think when you're 20 or 30 years old, you're young, you're, you know, you're fit and ready to rock and go drive or do anything, man, you know, in your 40s, you don't quite have the physique for an indie car. I mean, trying to climb into one of those things is not the easiest thing in the world, although, you know, AJ Ford was in one for quite a while.

but dad I don't think was was up for the challenge at that particular point in his career physically, mentally and all that. So, you know, I think if you'd asked him when he was in his 20s, he definitely would have jumped at the opportunity. Next question is from Zach Robles. What's one skill that you would like to learn in the future? Golfing. You know, I've always kind of, you know, a lot of people that I know, a lot of my friends,

golf. People remember Sean and Sunny, close friends of mine. They've been in a couple of, one of the nationwide commercial and so forth. They play golf. Regan Smith, my friend Brandon Suggs, Michael Walter, LaTart, Rick Allen, they all play golf all the time, you know. And I never go, never would go. I have golf sim here at the house and should be playing on it more often to probably get myself into better golf and shape and get better at playing and striking the ball. But I'd love to be able to go out and casually play golf and somewhat enjoy it. You know, I know it would be easy to get competitive and frustrated and all that.

But if I could just be marginally better, I think I'd be able to go and have phone with my friends and not be too hard on myself, you know, and just have a fun time out on the course. So hopefully one day I'll put the time. time and effort in. I mean, that's how really it is, is just putting down, putting that effort in and putting it on the calendar, go do it. A lot of people on the YouTube chat asking, you know, what's going on at home? Do you have any new animals? And, you know, how is, how's everything with the animals on the ranch? Dogs are great. You know, this has been their life as long as they've been around. So nothing really new. They're loving it because we're here all the time and able to play

with them. You know, the Buffalo, all that stuff still going. strong. No new animals. But, you know, we, it's, it's warming up outside, so we're spending a lot more time outdoors now, as opposed to earlier a month ago. And Isla is a really good swimmer. And so with a pool right here in the backyard, I really want her to get more comfortable with the water. And so we're swimming a lot this week. This past week we've been swimming. We'll swim a lot this week as well. But I love to get her in the pool and she loves it, loves it. And so she just has the best time.

And we got her, we borrowed an old sandbox. I don't, I think it might have been a sandbox, just a plastic thing, you know, on the legs, holds maybe a couple bags of sand in it. But we got that out there. And she's playing in the sandbox a lot too. So I think it used to be Carson's sandbox when she was a little girl. but so basically, I'm telling you, man, it's not a lot to do. I mean, I'm on these phone calls all the time,

Skyping and FaceTiming and doing interviews and meetings, and we got some pretty cool stuff coming up this week. As a matter of fact, we got some great stuff coming up this week with NBC. SN, there's going to be an ira racing component on the NASCAR Americas all week long. This is Racing Week in America on NBCSN, in. So there'll be a ton of racing stuff, old races and so forth. And Wednesday is a day that I'm going to dedicate to interacting on Twitter and so forth with what you're going to be seeing on the programming. There'll be a lot of races on there that have some sort of a play on my career

or some connection to me. So on Wednesday I'll be quite active on Twitter. But NASCAR America each day is going to have an irising component involved in it in the short track showdown, a short track challenge is what it's called. And so we have a lot of racing to do this week, and it should be pretty fun. But, you know, trying to race on the Sim and have fun and running those races on Sunday, you've got to practice for them. You've got to put in some laps, especially to get good at tracks like Bristol. And we've got Richmond coming up in a couple weeks.

So I've been trying to spend time on that, balance the time that I spent on the Sim with Ila and Amy. and Amy's been cooking a lot. So we've been making a lot of meals. She's a great cook, so she's been having some fun with that. It's been an interesting experience around here, but things are really good. All right, guys, that's it for today. Thanks everybody on YouTube for joining us,

and thank you to XFinity for being a partner on this. So we had another race this week, Bristol. It was a bit of a different experience than we had at Homestead in Texas. and I will go off of Jeff Gluck and his tweet of, was it a good race or was it not a good race, as proof that maybe Bristol wasn't quite the positive experience for everybody that we had at Homestead and Texas. And for my vantage point, it was pretty fun up until I got dumped by Garrett Smithley.

I gave him a little grief for that, but it's all good. You told him to eat a turd if we're being very specific. Hey, he at the moment. I was really upset. I'm sitting there riding in the ninth place. I'm thinking, you know what, this is not too bad after everything that we've been through. I sped on pit road and screwed myself, lost all the track position that I had. That's the most realistic Bristol moment that I can imagine going into the virtual world

is that Dale Jr. sped on pit road at Bristol. Well, I've sped a few times, not quite as often as Denny Hamlin, but I think that, you know, it was fun. We had heat races. They were good. and, you know, there was a lot of cautions in the race, but it's a lot of these guys don't have a lot of time on the system. A lot of them aren't putting in the time.

Some are. You can tell who's putting a lot of time in. Kyle Bush, Ryan Preece, Jimmy Johnson, look how much he's improved over since Homestead. A lot of the guys, they're not getting in there and practicing during the week until, you know, hours before the race. And so, and that's fine, you know, they can approach this however they won't. So they're, you know, they're going to have that type of experience or a bad negative experience if they don't, if they don't try to improve.

You know, but it was, you know, it was a bit frustrating to have, have a lot of cautions. And then when you're on, when you're in network television, you know, they're in commercial, the caution comes out. They go to commercial. We're ready to go back to green. We come by and get the one to go. And race control adds another lap because we're not back from commercial. They did that multiple times. That is the most annoying part from a driver's perspective is to be sitting there getting caution after caution after caution.

And then on top of that, they're adding extra laps to the cautions. You want to go ahead and get going again. And in most cases, they're adding two laps to the caution process to additional pace laps. And that's a bit frustrating, but they want to wait till the commercials are over to go back to green. and they timed that out. But, you know, there were some drivers getting frustrated, and Bubba Wallace up and quit right in the middle of his race. So we have two resets.

We have the, if we get crashed, you can come down pit road, and your car will automatically be repaired to brand new. And you go back out there and can compete. And in this particular race at Bristol, they anticipated more crashing. They wanted, they're afraid that one of the big names in the field will get wiped out and not be able to compete. And so wiped out early in the race. And so they want to give these resets to avoid that.

And so they had two resets at Bristol. I think that they didn't need two resets, but they did. They had two resets for everybody. So everybody that's crashing just keeps crashing, right? They crashed their car and they get the reset and keep crashing. whereas if we didn't have the resets, the crashers would weave themselves out. Sure, they're going to take out some innocent bystanders,

bystanders at times when they do that. But the field gets smaller, less crashing happens. Then we get the long green flag runs that they're hoping for. But yeah, Bubba got into a wreck with Boyer and ended up crashing and quit the game. He caught a lot of grief on that on social media. I caught a grief from his sponsors, people sponsoring him in this race.

were very upset and even went on Twitter and got pretty brutally honest with it. Sponsors went on Twitter and called him out for quitting? Yeah, you didn't see that. Yeah, they said. No, I staying off Twitter right now. So I didn't see it. Blue Emu is their sponsor. Leah is looking for it right here.

Wow, that's something right there. They were sponsoring Lannin Castle for last couple of weeks, and now they picked up Bubba for this weekend. And they're actually a sponsor, I believe, on his cup car in real life. So they are a partner of his at Richard Petty Motorsports. So this has ramifications that are really, really run a lot deeper than just this simulation and had a little fun on Sundays with IRA. There's like articles out there, Dale, that he might have lost his sponsor.

Did the sponsor just mean on iraicing? You know, like, I don't know right now. You know what I mean? No, I don't know. Well, either way, it's not good. I didn't think what he did. I went back because I didn't see the race because I was doing yard work. and I went back and looked at his reaction, the replay of it?

I didn't think it was that bad. All right, here it is. So Bubba tweeted, you know, bahaha, I'm dying in my mentions right now. I ruined so many people's day by quitting a video game. A video game. Damn quarantine life is rough. And then Blue Emu responded with a GIF that said, was like Donald Trump, you're fired. And then GTK, which I would think is got to know where you stand.

Bye, bye, Bubba. We're interested in drugs. drivers, not quitters. Who said that? Blue Eboo's Twitter account. Blue Eboo said, oh, wow. Yes. That's something.

I mean, listen. It's heavy. It is. So, you know, I think that before, you know, there's plenty of time for Richard Petty Motorsports to, you know, for them to get in a room and talk it out and sort this out. And I'm sure it most likely might not have an effect on their partnership. going forward. But, you know, I think that there is, you know, if they're, you know, if they're giving,

if they're putting a commitment in for Bubba to be a competitor and a professional, I think that he, he didn't uphold his end of the bargain on that side of it. So, you know, regardless of what you feel like his reaction was, was not that bad or, or whether he was right or wrong, if you're a sponsor and you're saying, you know, okay, man, we're going to, we're going to, he had, you know, they sent him a decal pack and all kinds of things to visually have their logos around in his webcam as they, as they, you know, they did that with Landon as well. They're putting an investment in this. They want to get the best return they can on that and not a negative, not to be, you know, put in a negative light. And I think that Bubba, Bubba crossed that line. So, you know, I think it's

unfortunate. I know Bubba, but a lot of people don't. A lot of, you know, a lot of people are going to that's going to be their first impression of Bubba, or that's going to be the only impression that they have of him. So it's a, it's a, you know, and it's easy as heck to cross that line. It's easy for Bubba to do that. It's easy for anybody to do that, especially with video games.

I don't know what it is about video games that bring the worst out in people, but I've been a, I've been that person. I've been in Madden Leagues with T.J. majors and a bunch of other people, and God, I've wanted to quit so bad in the middle of these games that the guys running the, the same exact play over and over and over and just rubbing it in your face and you're losing 55 to 14 and it's the last thing you want to do is keep playing the second half of the game.

But you have to, you have to play, you have to finish. It's a code. It's a respect for everybody else that's involved. It's respect for Blue Emo or whoever it is that's sponsoring your car. So, you know, I think that he could have handled that a whole lot differently and a little bit better. But this is interesting. I'm learning it for the first time, right? I didn't catch all this on Twitter.

I wasn't even able to watch the race. So this is interesting because I would bet, you guys correct me if I'm wrong, I would bet this brings out two sides. One is it's a gaming and you guys are taking, you know, corporate sponsorships are coming in here and messing up something good. Is that, you know, maybe that's one person's take or whatever because, you know, what started off is just good old fun drivers getting together. Then there's the other side that you just said is that, listen,

There's sponsorships and there's expectations. And maybe this is a mismatch of expectations. Bubba Wallace thinks this is just something that he's doing voluntarily, not getting paid for it, whereas the reality in just a span of a few weeks, in fact, I would even say in one week, this thing went from perhaps just a good voluntary fund to a small business or a large business if you're irration.

But right now, like when other sports, are hemorrhaging. NASCAR is actually finding ways to continue the business of it, and therefore you have to treat it like you would real racing because there are expectations and sponsorships and people to satisfy. Because Dale, you said in the first week, you thought you were so proud that you ran the filter time paint scheme and you thought that a lot of people were forced to run paint schemes that they didn't want to run or whatever. But that's because instantly sponsors are having to use this platform to get some bang for their buck while we're down like it or leave it. Bubba just quits like it's, you know, just in any old video game.

Yeah. When- Bubba just didn't see the big picture. Exactly. And that's it, you know, and it's easy to be trapped in your home, quarantine in a bubble and not see the big picture. I get it. But somebody should say to Bubba, hey, there's a lot more on the line than what you're aware of.

There's people's livelihood at stake here, you know, keeping these partners happy, keeps money coming in the door and keeps this guy employed or this guy employed. Thank you. And so those are the, you know, those are the things that I guess I think you have to think about is if you're a racer for an organization, maybe you don't love sim racing. Maybe you're not a big fan of it. But your organization is pressuring you into competing. you have to take on the role of, hey, my job is to do whatever I can to help our organization so that we can keep our employees and keep this thing going. I want to do everything.

In your mind, you've got to think I want to do everything I can to help us bridge the gap till from quarantine life to real racing again. And that's what this is doing. This is really, it's is really doing that. It's not, it's not an idea that it's doing it. It's not a hope that it's doing it. And by the way, don't take Dale Jr's word for that. And anybody listening going,

that's just Dale Jr. Because he's an ira racing advocate or that's just us because we're just going along with it. We learned from our own sponsor when Dale Jr. ran the Hellman's car last week at Texas. Our sponsor was ecstatic with and so appreciative of the return they got for us running that paint scheme. We don't take our word for it. Take it from the people that spend the money themselves. You know, I know that the organizations across the sport are being put in a position to, you know, to make these hard decisions on employees, right?

They are. And some have already had to make those decisions. And it may have to make more. You know, everybody's literally living week to week on numbers and projections and hope and possibility of when we can get back to the racetrack with fans or without fans or whatever, sooner or later, whatever. And if you can extend that partnership another month, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, whatever, if you can give them deliverables on social media hits, TV viewership, there's a million

people tuning into these races on Sunday, or whatever NBC is going to be doing during the week, there's viewership there as well by the hundreds of thousands. So that's, this is a real opportunity to do that, you know, and I think that as a driver, that's how you have to approach it. Even if you're, if you're having fun, great, have fun with it, then you love doing it. If you're not in love with it, just remember about the people's lives that you're affecting by being a part of it and get in, and get in there and grind it out and, you know, and try to try to, try to have some fun with it. try to make it as fun as possible. And just to, you know, and I'm sure that Bubba's going to, and we're using Bubba's example here, but there's other drivers in the series that are going through this process as well.

But, you know, Bubba's going to make, Bubba's going to think about it and do it differently next time. And, you know, there's other things going on too. You know, we got, there was a race on Saturday. Think about this one. And this is just news to me coming in, but there's a race on Saturday. Saturday for Xfinity and truck guys that was broadcast on social media on e-naskar.com. There's also a series called the replacements that's been put together by a lot of industry

guys, spotters, crew chiefs. There's a mixed bag of people that compete in this replacement series that also streams on the internet on every other Tuesday. So a couple of different industry initiatives that also hold races for fans to watch and opportunities for people to see their drivers on the racetrack, but the partners as well to get that experience and opportunity. Unfortunately, in either one of those series, I don't believe that the Ford guys are allowed to compete because the cars they are using are not Ford manufacturer cars. So yeah, so this is getting more serious by the week. So the replacement guys, the replacement series is racing.

They chose to race street stocks at Myrtle Beach this week. No Ford guys are allowed to compete in that from what I hear. In the race on Saturday that the industry or that NASCAR and I racing and Fox are putting together, whoever's involved in that, it's basically the truckers and the Infinity guys and a few other mixed in there to compete. They ran at Bristol Saturday night and had a great viewing audience. A lot of these guys are streaming on Twitch and using this opportunity to keep their partners happy. No Ford drivers were allowed to run in that because the car itself, even though you can strip every single logo and brand identity from it and decal it and paint it however you want, the body is an old Chevrolet.

They don't have any other options for the street socks? There is no. no the street stock in i racing is a chevick american yeah there's no uh you know even in trucks and exfinity in those classes they don't have all three manufacturers across the board only in the cup series i believe do they have all three manufacturers to be able to accommodate um Toyota and forward and shit um so it's been it's been pretty interesting that's just another sort of you know and then the first week or two of doing these races and actually put these on TV and broadcasting them. It was the Wild West. You know, everybody's just kind of

going on, there was no written rules and everybody was just doing and trying to, trying to give something for people to see and watch and enjoy. And after a few weeks, yeah, man, it's starting to get, it's starting to get heavy, you know, manufacturers are pushing buttons and networks are pushing buttons and owners. I'm hearing from drivers in some of the organizations that they have, they still have team meetings every week with this crew chiefs engineers, just as they did while they were racing on the traditional NASCAR schedule, that they're planning practices,

that their drivers are mandatorily expected to compete and practice in together, that they're all hovering over this in the same manner that they did to compete and run well. And basically drivers, Like, you've seen, I'm only assuming this. I haven't spoke to anybody, but Brad Caslowski and Joel Agone show up for Bristol after taking a week off. I would assume that that was because their organization and partners said,

hey, we'd love you to be out there. If you're going to, you know, if everybody else is out there, now meeting people are watching, we need you to be out there, right? I can imagine that that expectation or pressure, whatever you want to call it, is the same across the board for guys at HMS, Hendrick Motorsports, for Gibbs guys, whatever. And so, you know, and they're also expected to run well, right? Not only are they wanted, not only are their partners and sponsors and owners wanting them to be there, but they're also

wanting to be up front, you know, and how do you go to, you know, an owner or a sponsor and say, well, I'm just not good, you know, I haven't got 10 years of sim racing experience. I'm not going to run and, you know, I'm not going to go out here and just win like William Byron or running the top five every time like Timmy Hill. I feel like I'm pretty decent at it and shoot. I kind of struggle against some of these guys, but it's really been an interesting social experiment, to be honest with you, and to watch it from my vantage point to see the industry navigate it and evolve as we go.

it's pretty interesting, and I don't know what that means for this going forward. You know, we're going to, we have Easter break, but I believe there's conversations about having a race, even on this Sunday, and which if they do, I'll be in, I'll compete in. And then we'll go to Richmond, and we'll continue to Talladega and on through the schedule as forever how long. I don't even know how much longer this is going to go, but, It's interesting to see how it's changing so rapidly over the last couple of weeks. Your guys' thoughts?

I got one thought that I thought of when I was watching some replays of racing the other night because I was watching a replay of a dirt race. I racing. I don't know why I've been, I never thought it would get to this. But it made me think of something. And I had a few conversations about this the past week. There's no sports going on right now. And we're the sport that's doing something on a national stage.

on TV, all that. That's great. That's awesome for our sport. There's a boom coming. You know, the last time sports got shut down more than when it was, when 9-11 happened, the last time sports was shut down was in the 40s, we were shut down for four years. Everything except for baseball was shut down in this country as far as sports. So, you know, because there was tire shortages, fuel shortages. Everything went towards World War II. and then in 1945 when it came back, from the upper levels of our sport to the grassroots level, there was just ginormous boom.

You had the most tracks ever built. You had a series and things just booming. I think this irasing thing is so unique because I think it's almost like teasing us and teasing us to where when this boom comes, I don't know, I just think we need to be ready to harness it. you know, and, and celebrate the boom, because the boom is coming. And I think the whole eye racing thing has kept me interested and wanting me to come back.

And I can't believe I'm saying that because I'm not anti-eye racing like Mike, you know, was back in the day. Back in the day, you were a little harsh on them. But I just can't believe that it's actually teasing me enough and it's just making me want more. And I can't wait to come back. And I think there's going to be a huge boom that we haven't seen since those days in World War II. Well, I'd like to hope that same thing, Matthew, and I think that that might be the best thing I've ever heard you say on this podcast. Not the shortest.

Sorry. It wasn't that long. I thought it was really well put and a great job by you. And I hope you're right. I really do. And while you were saying that, I tried to imagine in my mind what it's, going to be like to walk out on a racetrack and hear a car pull out and go around and down the back straightaway. You know, pick yourself standing in the garage area at Texas Motor Speedway

and hear a car pull out on the track in that first early morning practice and wind out down the back straightaway. It's almost going to be like hearing it for the first time. It's really going to be a great experience. And I think that even us or anybody else, I can't imagine how good that's going to feel. It's going to feel better than you think. And until that time, I think your eye racing has a great opportunity. They're doing a great job. I racing is going to capitalize. But I think that we, the sport, the industry and fans, have a great opportunity to just enjoy it.

Just enjoy it. And I will say this too. Anytime anybody says the word video game in association eye racing, I stop listening right there. And I'm not going to get in the argument of, is it, how real is it? You can think what you want to think. But when you're when you're using that term video game to be derogatory to put something, to put it down, to put it in this place where you think it belongs, I shut out. I'm not paying attention.

So I just think it's a great opportunity for us to try to have something of fun to do. We don't really, we can take it seriously because there is some implications. There is some good that can come of it, some use that we can, good use that we can put it to for ourselves, for our own businesses, for our own organizations, but we can also have that balance of fun and enjoyment and not, you know, I was a little annoyed with myself and how annoyed I was at Garrett Smithley reckoned me at Bristol. I was like, why am I, I shouldn't be annoyed at this. This is not, you know, you know, I, I mean, I hate you did it, but yeah, right? So what about Kyle Bush wrecking you? Why can't we?

come on. It was like way after the fact. It didn't even matter at that point. We're getting back on right now. I'm not going to get it. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to let. I'm not going to.

He texts me. He's like, man on my screen, we had a half a car link between us. And I'm like, well, it's all right. I'm cool. He's like, how do I get people to not hit me anymore? And I'm like, well, that's just part of it. Because I think he got run over a few times earlier in the race. But,

Garrett Smith said that on his screen, you were way clear. He didn't mean to wreck you. I, fine. I mean, you know, it is. It's totally fine. You know, in the moment you get so wrapped up in it, and it's so easy to push yourself into this space that's really not healthy, you know, of, you know, there's a lot of pressure to perform,

to compete, to do well. I don't really have that same pressures maybe Bubba Wallace does or Jimmy Johnson or any of these other guys. I mean, there's a lot of pressure for these guys to put their brands on TV, to run up front, to learn on a really quick, short curve to get to where they can get that exposure. And that's all you have right now is that on TV exposure, right? You can't offer anything else. There's no other, I mean, there's a little social media engagement,

but if you're not running well, none of it works. And so, I don't know. I think we just need to remember why we're doing this. We're just trying to entertain people, but everybody wants to have a good time at it. And Bristol was probably the worst case scenario, just kind of a perfect storm of a very, very, very challenging track. And a lot of various skill levels amongst all the drivers in there. And a very short TV window to work in. you know so there's there's times when the cars are crashing and they probably should

throw a caution but they don't because TV's running behind and we don't want to go over the hour or whatever and then there's times when TV does want a caution you know because they need to put commercials on TV so it's a there's a lot of moving parts and a lot of people working hard to try to put together this whole thing and everybody's trying to do it from different locations this guy's over here at home and this guy's over here doing his So we should just enjoy it. There's a lot of people working hard trying to make something good happen.

Hey, Dell Jr. Download. This is TJM Majors, and we want you to come listen to our podcast, door bumper clear. Yo, it's Brett Griffin. This week, my guy, Timmy Hill is in the house. Freddy's guy, or former guy, Garrett Smithley's in here, too,

for us to talk about the next-gen car, ir racing, running, going to Lowe's, school teachers, you name it, we're talking about it. Hey, it's Freddie Kraft. And luckily, my actual guy, Bubba Wallace, Didn't do anything exciting this week, but you don't want to miss us this week and every week.

Listen and subscribe on Doorbubber Clear on all major podcast platforms. All right, it's time for the Vavilene segment. There are a lot of originals in the world, and man, there are a bunch of originals in motorsports. Well, Vavilene is the original motor oil, and that has inspired us to talk about originals here on the Dale Junior download.

So, guys, let's go around the horn here and ask about a true original in our sport, Kale Yarber. Dale Jr., you love Cale Yarborough. What about Cale Yarborough do you love? I like Cal Yerboro

because he, you know, he's a little short compared to most race car drivers, but he's very fiery, you know, and like a little stick of dynamite and didn't take no mess from nobody and stood up for himself

and his career was really interesting to me too. And he, you know, he kind of starts out in stock cars. And he has this little IndyCar deal where he goes and runs the Indy 500 and messes around with that for a little bit. And then he comes back to stock cars again. He drove for the Wood Brothers, one of the most potent teams at the time. And ended up over at Cali Yarborough, where he had a lot of success, three championships

in a row. Nobody ever thought that that would be broken. And obviously he was well known for a lot of things, the fight in 1979 at Daytona 500, where him and Bobby Allison, Donnie Allison, got into it after the end of the race where they had to crash down the back straight away, running at over 200 miles an hour at Daytona

and crashing on his second lap in Daytona, flipping over in the Hardy's number 28 car. That Hardy's car was really iconic paint scheme that he was really popular for. And, you know, he just, he became an owner and really put a lot of effort behind, I think, being an owner and had some reasonable success when you go back and look at his teams and the performance that the cars had. There were a couple of high spots in his ownership 10 years. You know, he hasn't changed much.

We ran into him a couple years ago when we ran a Vivalene paint scheme at Darlington for throwback weekend. And he came out to talk to us because he also ran a Vivaling paint scheme himself in around 1981 with M.C. Anderson is in the number 27 car. And he really is the same guy, you know. And obviously he's up there in years and his body's betraying him a little bit, his knees. are bad, and this, that, and the other, but the personality is still there. And I just really liked him. I felt like that, you know, he reminded me a lot of my dad in, uh, in his personality and attitude and approach to racing. He was, he was pretty aggressive, uh, raced hard and, and, uh, I don't know, you know, he just had this, and he had this, he had this, he had this,

he had this, he had this, some people have it and some don't, some drivers come. Um, and, and, um, some drivers come into the sport, a lot of drivers coming to the sport with no aura, no it. And they're just who they are and they bring nothing else to the table. And he, like a few drivers, really become bigger than life, you know, more than human. The popularity and so forth transcends just the bubble of racing and motorsports. You know, he did, after he one day, Tony went on Duke's a Hazard. I'm a little kid watching Duke's a Hazard. I'm a little kid watching Duke's a Hazard. at night and there's Kell Yarbril on my TV. That's crazy, you know, because we didn't see race car drivers on TV unless they were driving

race cars, you know. And so I'm like, wow, Kelly Arboral is a big deal. This is back around 8384 when that happened. So I just liked him. I didn't, you know, when I'm a fan of a race car driver, there's one thing I want my driver to do. or not necessarily. There's one thing I want him to not do,

and that's disappoint me. You know, you're not going to win every race. You're not going to finish first all the time. You're going to break. You're going to crash. You're going to make mistakes. But don't get out of the car and disappoint me with anything you're saying or do,

you know, with your body language or whatever. And Kale never would do that. Kale never disappointed you. Dailen Hart never disappointed you. I think it's where I sort of, see the similarities between them because Kel never said anything that he didn't mean and he never said anything that you didn't believe was true, you know,

and he had some dustups with some people. He sure did, and he had many opportunities to say the wrong thing or disappoint you as a fan, and he never did. Good stuff. I like my race car driver to make race car sounds. So when I, you know, when David Hobbs told us that story last year, that was one of the all-time greats. Listen, I know that just happened a few months ago to us,

but that right there was the epitome of badass right there. And when he, like Dale mentioned those commercials, too, looking back at some of those Hardee's commercials and stuff like that too, man. You know, when I think of Cali Yarbrough, I think a fried chicken, I think of biscuits.

Take Cali Arbor. And, uh, Cali Yarbrough. Oh, geez. I think the northern town in the Yarborough part is interesting Cal Yarbrough Hey

Carol Yarbrough Mike you say it Hail Yarbrough You say it too Just like him Yard bro No it's not Yarr bro It's not Yarr bro

That's like Leroy Yarbrough Is not Yarrboro Kail Yarbrough Kail Yarbrough Kail Yarbrough Kail Yarbrough Not Yarr bro Because if

Yeah bro Yarbrough is Learroney It sounds like you put an L at the end of his name Nice, I hear it. Say it again. Kill Yarbril.

Am I wrong? Oh, a little bit. I detect it. Yeah, I never noticed it. I hear a Yarbore. Kale Yarbril. Like Earl? I can say the word Earl.

Kelly Yardl. Kind of like how Southerners would say oil. It would be like Earl. Earl. And the Yankees. Oh, let me. me tell you something in this valvilline read i'm having to uh really change the way i say that word i do not say what word read oh oh oh oh oh oh oh i say oil oh yeah oil oil i don't say oil i got to change oil but i'm doing

it for this read because i don't i'm pretty sure y'all are gonna i was like valvilline motor rule that's funny as they i never get up on that hey mike give me the er yeah i can't wait for your mike I need a cord. Oh, no, that's really how I would say it. That's really is. You know, cordole. Well, here we sound like Kerry. It sounds so funny when he says it normally,

oil, oil. That is how Carrie would say it. He would not say oil. Look that hard on the why. You're saying it like olive oil. Olive oil, olive oil. Well, here we go. We're going to find out how it's going to be, Rick,

because for 150 years, people have trusted Valvaline in their cars, and we've trusted them in our race cars, too. Valeline, the original motor oil. That's awful. Motor oil. Oil. I don't know how I say it. Motor oil.

I know how you say it. Motor oil. I said that way. Is that how you say? I think so. That's how I say it. That's exactly how. Everybody always says something about your ambulance.

Ambolins. And I noticed today one that like had me beaming today because I was like, that's so awesome. It's your author. You say Arthur. Author. You say Arthur. So I was looking for a picture of Arthur, the kid character, to send a leap to you guys. And I couldn't find it on my phone.

I picked up on that too. I was trying not to giggle like out loud. But yeah, you're all right. Y'all should. No, because whenever we do that, I don't want you to be like, why y'all laughing at me? I never missed a chance to call him out on that, but I missed it. I didn't hear him. Arthur, he says it all.

He says like four times in a row. It's amazing. Yeah. Arthur. That's awesome. Arthur. Arthur. I love that movie.

Oh, shoot. I forgot about the movie. Hey, did you know, they filmed part of Arthur, the movie at Danbury Race Arena in Connecticut, the old lost man? And that's song, Arthur's theme. What? The song, Arthur's theme to the movie. It's a great song, just a great song.

Da-na-na-na-na-na-da-da-da-da-da-da-na-da. There's no words. I don't remember it, damn it. I haven't seen that forever. This is what I like to hear Del say. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Here we go.

Hey, Siri. Play Arthur's theme. Here's Arthur's Theem Best That You Can Do by Christopher Cross. Why are we listening? Such you. This is Arthur's theme. There are words. I'm sorry.

I know that we'll make the pod. It also. Such a great song. Hey, we didn't play enough to get soon. That's right. You got up to 20 second. Dale, all right, say this. You ready?

Yeah. Signal. Say it again. Signal. He's being so careful. I know. Signal. He's saying how he, no.

That's right. Yeah, I say sing, no. That's what you say, single. Single. Single like single like you're single.

Oh, like N-G-L-E. I don't say single. Yes, you do. I say single. I don't say single. I do it.

N-E-L. Sing-no. Sing-no. That's not right. Yeah. It's still wrong. It's still wrong. I don't,

but that's how I say. I don't say single. I say the word single when I mean single. but for signal, I go sing-n-n-l. It's like an extra N. Yeah, he does another N in it. You just like N. I put another end in there.

I say that sounds way better. All right, let's move on. What do we got next? Good stuff. Last call. I've taken that word and I made the word better. Is that what you've done? I know.

Now we know it's better. This word is not, clearly not good. It needs an end. You gave it one. You gave it two or three. Sing-no. Last call. Last call.

Pour the last call. Last call. All right, guys, time for last call. We're going to wrap up this show. But first off, I want to tell you guys about you want some signed race gloves. I mean, people wouldn't want some signed skeleton race gloves. I'm going to tell you how you can get them. Go to pledge it.org.

That's pledge it. P-L-E-D-G-E-I-T. Pledgeit.org slash Dale Jr. minus sign or hyphen relief. I don't like the word or dash.

Dash is good. Dash. So pledge it. dot org slash Dale Jr. Dash relief. He said minus sign. I don't know why.

I don't know why we couldn't make this little simpler with people. Remember, put that minus sign in. That is a complicated web address, right? It is a complicated web address. address, but if you go there, you can get, you can enter to win these sign gloves, and it's going to COVID-19 relief. So it's going to help some people out. How much money you got to put in there,

Mike? $25.25 donation. Right. And I checked it out. And we've raised, so we've raised $4,100 so far, and our goal is $10,000. Oh, my. Okay. Well, if we get to $10, I'll match it. Oh, there you go. Dale Jr. will match it. And I hope I don't, you know, hope you believe me, because I will. Get to 10, I'll match it. The Today Show, I'm going to go on the Today Show. That's right.

Oh, this week. All right. This Thursday at 9 o'clock in the morning, sometime during the 9 o'clock hour, I'm going on the Today Show. I got a call with them either today or tomorrow to do a free interview, but we're going to go on there and talk about ira-racing and everything else. So that'll be fun.

Yep. momedia.com, use the discount code, DJD10. And I'm going to give you 10% off on anything you buy at dirtymovedia.com. Dirtymovedia merch. Yeah, Lee is wearing it. Speaking of Dirtymo Media. I got my shirt on. And, that's nice.

Awesome. Good looking shirt. I love the shirts. Very good. The Dale Jr. Download TV show is returning to NBCSN next Wednesday, 4 p.m. Eastern Time. Okay, 4 p.m. Back on TV.

Yeah, we're back. And I'm excited about that because I love our show and I think that we belong on TV. So that'll be fun for us, fun for everybody who sees it. Also, this week, it's Racing Week in America on NBCSN all week long, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We're going to have races on eye racing with a select few drivers. We've got about 16, 18 guys. We're going to have match races. is there's six drivers in each race.

We're racing at Rockingham. Oh. On Monday. On Tuesday, we're going to Lucas Oil Speedway. I like to call it. IRP. There we go. Yep.

And then Wednesday, we're going to go to Myrtle Beach. Whoa. And then the, yeah, Merle Beach Speedway. The final race, the final race for all the marbles, the championship will be at Martinsville. And only the winners of those, there's two, there's two races in each track. and the winners of those races go to the Martinsville main event. And then Steve Lattard also gets to pick a provisional from each event too. So I might need to rely on that at Myrtle Beach because I'm going to get some pretty tough competitors in our race.

But yeah, eye racing each day on NASCAR America will have an eye racing component. It'll be a short little match race. I think people will enjoy what we put together. And there will be, I believe, beyond that. enough, you know, we'll continue to have a creative, unique ir racing component on the NBC Sports Network. So excited about that. Also, we talked to her today on the podcast, my sister Kelly, her book, Drive.

Nine Lessons to Win in Business and in Life is out now. You can order it wherever books are sold or go to Kelly Earnhardtrive.com. That's Kelly Earnhardt Drive.com. It's a great book. I promise you're going to learn a lot about. not only the success in her life and the business lessons she's learned, the nine lessons that she wants you to learn about to win in business and in life, but also about her childhood.

And I'm excited for that. All right, guys, that's the end of the show, man. I appreciate everybody tuning in. It's been a lot of fun to put this one together. And can't wait the next week, man. I don't know, one second. I got something for the end. I like when he calls an audible.

Yeah. Screen time. We talked about it last week. Eight hours and three minutes from March 22nd to 29. Mike, you told me to put my phone where it automatically closed after a minute, only down to six hours. So I lost two hours. That's significant a day.

Two hours a day, right? Yes, sir. And so this week I'm only averaging three, up to today, I'm only averaging three hours in 26 minutes. There you go. Congratulations on that. Mine went up 56% last week because now my girls are using it to do their schoolwork, my iPad at least.

So it's up 56%. Feels like I have a problem and I should go to seek counseling now because 56% increases significant. We've long thought you should seek counseling. Not for your TV. Not for my iPad. Not for my screen time. All right. Enjoyed the show.

I did too. Let's wrap it up. We'll talk to you guys next week. All right, guys. Have a good day. You guys, too. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.