The Dale Jr. Download - 293 - Roger Penske: The Captain

Episode Date: April 14, 2020

Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s exclusive interview with the great Roger Penske. The two discuss Roger's racing career, dealing with the Rusty Wallace / Dale Earnhardt rivalry, and his success as a car owner in so many racing series. Penske gives insight into how the purchase of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway went down and what it means to own one of the sport's most hallowed grounds. He also lets us in to his company policies, and his approach to the COVID-19 pandemic as a team owner, business owner and series owner. Dale and co-host Mike Davis have the tough conversation regarding the news surrounding Kyle Larson. They also discuss Dale Jr.'s recent news that he is a nominee for the NASCAR Hall of Fame. The DJD crew reveal the most original people they've been around in racing. The crew doesn't hesitate to poke fun at each other for dark Zoom screens and homemade quarantine haircuts. The fans "bring it" with some great questions this week on AskJr presented by Xfinity. 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.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. What kind of Mike you got, or a camera you got, Mike? That's just the built-in one on my laptop. Wow. I don't know. I think we can get you a better one. I can lighten up the background, but I happen to be doing work in the back.

And I didn't really... Oh, I see. I've never saw that before. Well, it just happened, you know, this week. So I'm trying to have that kind of locked out. Why? Why what? it's real. Bring it to the show, man. It's real. Well, I mean, I mean, I'm, I mean, I'm really. Well, you look, you look like I did on the Indy

car race like in a black room. Just, you just see, I just see you. First time I saw you, it scared me. I was whoa, whoa. Turn some lights. Mike's in the dungeon. Yeah. You got like one light bulb in there. People change up in the background. I like it the way it is. That's the first thing you learn about streaming, Mike, is it's not what you like. It's what your viewers like. And we're your viewers. We're viewing you. We want to lighten it up. Okay, I'll lighten it up the background. He's got to pull down so low. He's got to cut some holes in front of it. That has nothing to do light. That has everything to do the haircut. I need a haircut so bad. Yeah, yeah, by the way,

what the hell? You got a haircut? You're not supposed to do that during COVID times. Are we taping right now? Are you talking to me? We're always recording. I was jealous that y'all all got clippers. Y'all all nothing, he did. My wife was without asking and said that she was cutting my hair without, you know, she's doing it. She was doing it. I get it.

I think it worked out well for you. I'd be scared if my wife cut my hair. I cut Taylor's last week. Well, y'all are farm people. I mean, that's what farm people do. Yeah, yeah. You're trying to impress nobody more than cows. All right.

So, like, the standard is not that big. That's why I wasn't worried about it. He hopped off the tractor. You cut his hair and he hop back on. Yeah. Farm people. In between killing. Right.

I'm just messing. Like his whole background's just black, Mike. What are you doing? I think you're exaggerating a little bit. You only pick on the people you love. All right. LFO. What's a laughing?

Laugh. Oh, yeah. Go ahead. What does that stand for, Dale? Go ahead. Let's see how. Let's see how quick you are on this one. I want it to be laugh out loud, but it doesn't look that way.

Laughing for Orville. Laughing for what's in a who? Yeah, yeah. Come on, jokesters. I don't know what does it stand for? It's like, it's like obnoxious. What is it? It's my high school.

What? Laughing for obnoxiousness. It's my high school. Laughing for obnoxious. That's what everybody says all the time. Or it's like the H.S. Like, if it's a high school. school lake yeah well does uh dales moorsville hat have mhs or is it just a big

m i mean do you really need the hs now i don't think so what's the LFO Lakeland I thought that was a band it was a band yeah and most people that see this think that I am just a big groupie especially with the flat bill pulled down your eyes definitely LFO fan I like it let's look it's it's more to do the haircut than the style all right nobody I I tried to give myself a haircut. It's that right. Now we've got to see it. Yeah, we have to see this.

Heads, heads off. Come on. I got to see it. Not exactly the best blend. Do you use a bowl? Mike, it's not that bad. What's that?

It is a thing. The bangs are a little bowl. Not that bad. So you let me give you a haircut? No. Why would I do that? My wife does a pretty good job. You know,

I just, I cannot stand. my hair just does it. It's like a chia mentality. It doesn't just grow. Like I couldn't do a mullet or anything. It just grows like a big, like a big bush.

And so, and it's just hot and I don't like it. And so I was just like, I took clippers and I'm like, enough of this. I mean, I got nobody to impress. I mean,

I'm quarantined. I'm over here. It's a pandemic. What's anybody going to say? And then I'm like, oh, I got to blend it. And so I'm literally got,

you know, how the, how the people do, they, you know, put their fingers in it and just, I took scissors and just started going to town. And I'm like, wow.

Knowing the whole time this was going to end up with me just shaving it. But I didn't. I just wore my big LFO hat. Right. I think we should do the show. We should. Are you ready? Hey, everybody back again for another episode of the Dell Jr. Download with me as usual,

Mike Davis, my co-host. What's up, Mike? LFO. Yeah, LFO. Yeah, LFO. school feeling good about this hat. What is the high school mascot? It's the Warriors. LFOWs. Wors. LFOW. Like the DWs. What does LFO? What does LFO stand for? Lakeview, Fort Oglethorpe.

It's in Fort Oglethorpe, yeah. See, they took Lakeview High School at one point in Fort Oglethorpe and they merged them. Oh, the dash right here in between the L and the F. Copy that, man. Yeah, man. Well, all right. Leavon, you're here. I'm here. Good to see you. Good to be seen. I'm sure I was going to be seen today when we had a little power out of this morning. Did you? Yeah, it didn't come back on until like right before 11. You weathered the storm last night.

Yep, I did. I had some powerful winds coming through the area in tornadoes. Matthew Dillner's here. You're doing well, Matthew, power's on. Yes, the power is on. It never went off. I slept in my little boy's room last night as a safety precaution so I can gather him up up if I needed to. And the winds were scary as heck last night.

They were. I had my phone alerts turned on. Yeah. And, you know, going off big. I don't, I got a couple of warrants. You know, hey, we've got a tornado. What do they call that? It's not a warning.

Watch. Watch. I don't know. Yeah. So, yeah, I had a couple of the alerts ready to be telling me. I tried to stay up. I was going to stay up all night and really be. We were texting pretty late.

Yeah. I was going to try to stay up all night just because I was thinking, you know, it sounds serious, more serious than usual. So I don't want to be caught to not paying attention and not being ready. We had eye. in our room. We put her in a, in a, in a, one of those, you know, I can't remember what they call those things.

I mean, we use them all the time, but the doc tauts or what do they call it things where you. Playpen? Yeah, sort of like that. But they fold up. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But anyway, she slept with us in our bedroom.

There were some, you know, there were some tornadoes down in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina. This thing moved right across the East Coast. from Texas and with a lot of destruction. So our heart goes out to everybody out there, just dealing with this, anybody lost anybody. That was some serious stuff. And something we usually don't get a taste of too often here in North Carolina.

I don't think that I've ever, you know, heard about the potential of tornadoes being that severe in my time. So we're just glad that we ended up okay. Some of the most severe stuff did not come in this area. It's like you got 2020. Like, hey, and one more thing. Yeah. And another thing.

Yeah, I haven't dealt with enough so far. Here's one more thing. Here's another thing. Yeah. It's like, it's April. And I feel like, well, you know, we need to throw a couple more things at you. Catch up with our crisis quota. That's right.

All right, guys, we got Roger Penske on the show today. He's ready to go. You guys want to bring him in? Well, let's do it. Absolutely. This is going to be awesome. We wanted him on the show for a long time. All right.

While Dealer gets Roger. Penske on the line. I got something to tell you. Hello, man. Here to give the traditional command. Our auto races. Today, as a mechanic, as a chief mechanic, and on the midget tracks,

the midget circuits, how do you become a racing driver? Here's the chairman of the board of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It's a distinct pleasure for me today. To introduce our featured speaker of the day,

Hey, there he is. Hey, morning. Look at him. The man himself. Well, I don't know. That was a great run with the boys there yesterday or Saturday. Yeah, and the Indycar. That's a lot of fun.

I didn't realize how you were in that black room. They showed you a couple of times there. You were absolutely focused. I loved it. I was a little camera trickery. I had a green screen behind me, so I made it because I didn't want anybody to see the mess in the room that I was actually racing in. But I need to clean up that room a little bit

so I can pull that green screen out of there. I see you got you some die-cass on the table. Well, I was trying to be like you or I've watched your show and I said I got all my boys your power, New Garden. Of course, Pajinoa. I got my man from Australia and then Rusty and certainly Joey and Blaney. I got us all here.

So I didn't want to miss anything. That's right. It looks great. Where are you zooming us from? Where are you on? I office is about three minutes from my house. So I'm in one of my small conferences rooms right at the office. Very nice.

We want to get right to it, man. And we really appreciate you being on the show. We've wanted to have you on in the studio, but we're going to have to do this a different way today, considering what's going on in the country. So we're glad you're taking the time out and going out of your way to visit with us today. I'd like to start out by asking you, a little bit about your driving career.

And you and many people may call it brief. There's some interesting races that you were entered in. And for people, you know, like me in this particular time, it just seems wild and crazy to think of anyone that had the privilege or the opportunity to compete in the Formula One series back in the early 60s. You raced at Watkins Glen in 1961 and 1962 in Formula One. What was that experience like? Well, I'll tell you, you know, as we built our race team back in those days and with Mark Donahue,

and we had Penske cars over in the U.K., so we were able to build cars over. We built some indie cars, obviously, and built a Formula One car and had the opportunity to race Formula One as a team. And then before that, of course, I had the opportunity to race again at Watkins Glen. I raced in Mexico at the Autodromo down there. It was a short career. I had some finishes in the top ten. but it was amazing.

In those days, you had to have a contact, and I had a contact with the Lotus guys, Colin Chapman, in those days, and they offered me a ride. So pretty exciting it was for me. What was the scenario that played into getting you that opportunity? I mean, were you competing on a regular basis in other series? Give me a bit of a background on your driving career before Formula One. Well, as you know, I really started out as a little bit of a drag racer back in the mid-fifference.

I took my dad's Buick to Akron Dragstrip and wore out the transmission. I remember he went to drive it to work on Monday, couldn't get out of the garage. So I guess I started out as a straight line guy. And then, you know, he took me to Indy in 1951 where I got hooked on racing. And I think at that point kind of started my career. And to me, the chance to race myself, I did some hill climbing. I had a 57 core event in those days. you can buy a competition Corvette, and I had one of those, and you'll get a kick out of this.

I bought it on a GMAC payment book. So everybody talks about your racing budget. Well, I had my General Motors was carrying my budget in those days. But, no, it was really started racing a Corvette and then got into racing Porsches, which were really hot cars and spiders, and ran those on road races and had some successes, then moved into a Cooper. And that's what kind of got me into the Formula One side. had some success. You know, I raced NASCAR out of Riverside with Ray Nichols and the Pontiac. I remember, I raced against Richard at Indianapolis Raceway Park in his first road race, if you can believe it.

Foyt was in there and Darrell Daringer and Eddie Sacks and some of those guys back in those days. I can tell you, it was wild and west, I'll tell you. Did you smoke them? Did you wear them out? Well, Mike, I'll tell you. I didn't realize how. rough it was on the start I got pushed to Floyd or someone pushed me damn near off the track. Then I got back to racing as a road racer and I was leading with 10 laps to go and as usual, I had a mechanical failure. But went on, I think two or three weeks later and we raced out of Riverside and won that race. And ironically, you know, because I ran a NASCAR race,

they wouldn't let me back into the speedway because NASCAR and USAC were having a big fight at that time. So I was put away for 30 days, couldn't get into the, get into the indie track. Oh, really? Yeah. Man, that's interesting. Wow. Well, this is taking an ironical turn in the future, but we won't get, we won't jump ahead. Yeah.

So you are locked out. You get car. How many, how many years do you race? And I also am curious about your dad, because I'm curious on how, where did you get the racing bug in the first place? Well, my dad was born in 1900. My mother in 1907, so it's a long time ago. but he was a terrific man.

He was an engineer. And one thing he taught me, if you want something, you work for it. And I think that was kind of effort equals results. I have that coin that I have. And I think he's embedded that in me in an early age. And I went on to when I wanted something, he said, look, you want a $10 radio?

Go out and make five. I'll give you the other five. And that's kind of how we started, you know, me in the right direction, I'd have to say. And, you know, I worked in a gas station, Dale. back in those days, I think I was 13 or 14 pumping gas and gas was 15 cents a gallon. Things that sure changed, haven't they? Think about it today. And then I worked at a dealership, at a foreign car dealership, I was 15.

And just so I could drive the cars, I didn't have a license, but I would have to work for nothing in those days. But that kind of started, Mike, you know, my interest in cars. And my dad took me to India, obviously, in 51. I guess that kind of injected me to where I am today. one of the chapters in your career, especially in motorsports, is of interest to me, and that's your involvement in stock car racing in the 70s compared to today where you've been a fixture, you know, one of the main teams in the sport for so many decades, so many years, with so much success and championships and wins.

In the 70s, your involvement was a little bit different and a little bit more calculated, I suppose. but um so explain that to me the 70s is one of my favorite eras and i really know nothing you know i didn't live through that particular time but it's so interesting to me to try to learn as much about nascar in the 70s as possible you came in i think in 19702 um you had donnie alison uh donahue dave marcus those guys driving a car you ran a very limited schedule and you ran a and a limited schedule up until, I think, Bobby drove your car in 76 or so for a four year. Eventually, Dave Marcus gets in the car in 77, and you then withdrew entirely. So explain that to me what your approach was to your involvement in NASCAR in the 70s,

why the periodic or limited schedule, what were you trying to accomplish and what was Penske NASCAR? What was your objective back then in the 70s? Well, Dale, I think they really got to look at a whole race team. those days. As you know, we were running in Canham. You know, we were running in Indy at that point. And we had the International Race of Champions that your dad ran in. You remember that? We started that in 72. Then we wanted to take a run in NASCAR. And we built cars right there in our shop in Redding, Pennsylvania. You probably don't know this, but the Monte Carlo that your dad drove was our Monte Carlo that we sold to Rod Austerlin. You didn't know that, did you? I didn't. Oh, no, absolutely.

we go back a long time and you see that three car running in that yellow and blue paint scheme that they had but that was a cam two car you maybe look it up some pictures that was a cam oh yeah monte carlo that we sold to your australin for your dad so we had the team but what had happened we were looking at just what we could do at that point and with all the different racing series including irock we decided we take a pause and focus on indie and the sports car stuff so that really there wasn't any real reason i think we just said hey we're trying to bite off too much then of course we went back don miller talked me into putting rusty in a car in 81 in atlanta you know we had real good success there and then of course we really took a hiatus until 91 when we bought bill

simpson shop over there in morrisville and started our team in the 70s the AMC the maddor why did you guys choose to run that car well remember in the 60s we were racing in transam and we were racing Camaros and we had great success. And American Motors came to me and said, look, would you ever think about running a javelin? Well, at that point, we said, yes, remember, we took a javelin, won the championship. Remember, first thing we did put this brakes on it, nobody had this brakes, put this brakes on it, won it. So we had this relationship with American motors, and then he said, look, why don't you run a Matador? We called that the flying brick back in those days. It wasn't very aerodynamic, but it was a lot of fun. And we were, it was a lot of fun.

we had some good success with it. And I think that Doughty Hugh won the first race with Padador at Riverside, I think, in 73. Absolutely. Yeah, the car did have decent success with Donahue and Bobby. You talked about the two races you ran with Rusty in the early 80s. So you come out with Don Miller. He's like, hey, let's go take this Rusty Wallace cat and go to the racetrack. Where does this car come from?

and who are the people that were responsible for representing you at the racetrack. You just kind of put this together for two races and then it went away. So it must have been a very brief existence. Well, I think we had some guys in the shop. I think we got some help from Banjo Matthews, back in order. I don't remember exactly, but put it together. And we used the crew that we had around the shop that we're doing our other stuff. That's why we all started is you know that.

The one thing I had to do, Russ, to get his haircut. That was the first thing you did. I drove that car. That car is actually I've got it somewhere in some museum But they brought it out maybe what was this 10 years ago Mike We went out to Daytona

And they let me take it for a few laps around Daytona So yeah it's a lot of fun I've always like I said I've been so You know just curious about The 70s and even you know The early 80s Now hold a second You just mentioned Rusty's haircut

Did you not or his hair? Did you not say that? There's something about Rusty's hair I got him to cut it here ultimate. I don't know if it was in the 80s or the 90s, but at one point I said, hey, you won't be able to get your hat on. You're winning these races. You better do a golden barber. Because I don't know the specifics to the Penske standard of looks, although I figured that's not it. Like I know that that's not fits the mold. And so I wondered if he was already breaking the Penske way, you know, Penske material on the first day. No, listen, there's a lot of conversation about that.

I think we have more fun with than anything else. But, you know, I guess, you know, we learned to try to have our stuff look good. Someone asked me where I get this, maybe this model or this mission. I guess I went to military school in the summer for three years. I understand Dale did too. So he said, helped us both. And I think that got me discipline and learned how to work as a team. But no, Rusty, quite honestly, you know, became a great friend.

And we ran a couple of races. and he went on with his career. Then we back, obviously, in 91, we started up, and he became our full-time driver. Yeah, I want to know what that conversation was like. You've been out of the sport for a decade. And what was the draw to come back to NASCAR? Well, I think Don Miller was, Dale was a big part of that

because he was, you know, with Rusty. Rusty was racing for Raymond Beal at that point, you remember. And we ended up with the Miller sponsorship on our Indy car. And they had that sponsorship and wanted us to take on and go into stock cars. And that really probably, you know, the sponsorship plus knowing Rusty,

he won a championship of that. I think he won the championship the year before he came with us. And really Don put us together, knowing Rusty, and it just became a perfect package at that point to go forward. What was different this time around

as opposed to, you know, the chapter in the 70s, what felt different to, you know, sustain your stuff? success to become what you have become today? Well, I think technology, I mean, we didn't know about air pressures. We didn't know about a lot of things. We had a big steering wheel just to put an, you wear a golf shirt and a couple golf gloves and then you got in the car. So safety is certainly different. You know, the technology, you know, we had a guy building the engine. We didn't have dinoes in those

days. We dynom at the racetrack. The same guys that do the pit crew that worked on the car. So all of these things have evolved because of sponsorship and because of technology. And to me, it even got to a point, I think even today that we're going to have maybe a re-engineering of the whole business as we go forward based on the current situations. But at that point, it was, hey, we took the car to the track on a two-wheel trailer. We pulled it with a station wagon. These are all things that certainly have changed today. But those are great days. Lots of friends.

You think about Bob Ailsson jumping out of a stock car jumping in a car, jumping in a car going in. He didn't have any idea about Indianapolis. and you think about the people that want to run there today. And, you know, Bobby, we lost that engine on that car because I think we waited three days because of rain before we could run. Never got that offy warm. And it, of course, seized a piston. I think I bought the third lap.

How did Bobby adapt to the IndyCar and to not only the culture there or the way things are kind of ran? It's quite a bit different than it is the NASCAR. But how did he adapt, in your opinion, to the car itself? Well, Bobby, of course, because of the racing at NASCAR, He came to our shop with his guys. He worked at the shop up and Reading with us. He was already part of the team.

It wasn't adapting. And he just came with us as part of our team. And I think with Donahue and Bentonhausen, the people we had running, you know, had put his arm around him. And he was a great race driver and certainly was a real asset to our team for sure. You talked about Rusty and he was the driver that would be a part of your program starting back in 1991. How important was it to have Rusty as your driver? because I know Rusty, you know, you guys are starting a cup team, brand new team,

hadn't been in the sport for a decade, knowing the ends and outs, you know, finding some shortcuts to progress the team is really critical. And I think you couldn't have picked a better driver and Rusty because he was super hands-on, very smart about the setups of the cars, what he wanted in the cars, was very vocal about what he wanted his car to do and the changes he wanted to make on it. So how critical or helpful do you think he was in kind of getting you guys up to speed and progressing that company quickly? Well, he was almost like a son at that point.

Don Miller and I kind of adopted him, and he really was key because he'd get out of the dino and running stuff on it, and he'd be at the setups. Sometimes we had to slow him down. And we had Jimmy Maycar, you know, in those days and Robin Pemberton, look where they've gone in their careers. But we had 29 people. We bought Simpson's shop, I think, back in 1990 in Moorsville and started that race team. But, you know, we had Banjo Matthews.

We had some of the pieces that you could buy from other people. but Rusty was the core. He not only could drive it, and he was a great guy with our sponsors in those days, Dale. Even then, of course, we had to have the commercial value to go forward. And Rusty certainly, in many, many ways made a big difference for us in that area. So looking on the table there, the die-cast cars you got, the V8 supercar. So you just started that team maybe a decade ago. You hadn't been involved in V8 supercars or any series in Australia before that, had you? Well, no, but about five years ago, we made an investment in the engine business and truck distribution in New Zealand, Australia. And we'd heard about supercars, you know, you had Ambrose had come here and raced. You remember in our NASCAR Cup series?

And so we decided in order to build our brand in Australia that we went into the supercar. And that was, I think, four years ago to be exact. And at that time, we had basically, you know, the 10. team that had been, Dick, certainly Johnson, had been really a key guy there. He was a Dale Earnhardt, a senior in Australia. And they were down on their knees. So we went in and partnered with them and ran a couple of years and then had the opportunity as we got our feet on the ground to hire McLaughlin and Fabian Coulthard. And to me, those were Cooltard first and then McLaughlin and we're able to get the Shell sponsorship through our relationship with

Shell Penzo over in the U.S. And I'll tell you, we just did the same thing we did here. You know, we invested in people. It's all about people, the driver. And again, we were able to put together a winning team. And, you know, obviously, Scott's won the championship for two years. Should have won a three years in a row. We had a pit stop that we always continue to fight against the guys down there that we didn't

speed into pits. But you know how that is you never win those. But it's been a great team, and we've had great success last year, winning over 20 races down there. Of course, they change the rules as they always do. Nothing has changed in racing even that far away. But it's a great team today, and it's interesting. We go to the racetrack with one car, and we race Saturday and Sunday. And you think about, and we have the same people that are doing work on the car of the same people that do the pit stops.

So there's some things in that model that can help us maybe in the future as we look at costs. But again, to me, it's really been a business venture, but also a sporting venture for us and a brand builder in Australia. I love the V8 Supercar Series and went over to Australia, about 2006 to Phillip Island to see a race myself. And just a big fan. It really is the NASCAR of Australia. They are very aggressive. and the drivers are just really extremely talented. And we've seen some of those guys come over here

and have great success in our cars. So I was really excited to see you get involved in the V8 Supercar Series because it really brings some legitimacy and credibility to the series to have an owner like yourself involved. So pretty impressed by the success you've had there. What does he not race? What do you not race that you want to race? What is it like?

Monster trucks? Yeah, what's next? We don't race motorcycles. So even though I did a little motorcycle racing myself way back in early, did some TT racing, not very success, broke my ankle. That was enough. But no, I think that we've touched them all. One of the races that is on my bucket list is to try to race at LaMalle and win that race.

I guess that's one of the big races worldwide that we've won Bathurst now this year. Of course, the other successes the guys have had as a team. but that would be one that's probably still on our bucket list. Yeah. How do you feel like you can accomplish that? How do you put a team together to go win that? Well, I think, Dale, with the Accra team we have today running in the sports car series, and we won that series last year, the MSA series, we've got the basic team.

We've got some great drivers, Montoya, you know, we've got Ricky Taylor. We've got, you know, many of the guys that today could be key for us as we go forward. So it's a matter of getting the right car and understanding the rules. The rules today are really in somewhat of a, I guess I wouldn't, I don't want to say turmoil, but in a change. Obviously, they want to be able to bring more, rather than just have two manufacturers running out front. Let's have 10 or 12 or 13 cars like we have at Sebring and Daytona. The last hour, after 23 hours, you've got eight or 10 cars that can win the race. And I think that would make Dayton or the Lamont race something even bigger.

but that's something that we really have on our bucket list. But again, timing, as you know, is everything. Absolutely. On your cup side, you've got kind of two guys with some great experience, with some great excess, and Brad Keselowski and Joe Lugano. And I want to ask you about Joey here in a minute. But, you know, you got Ryan Blaney as a young guy, obviously with a lot of talent.

He wants to be able to get the success of his teammates. And I believe he can accomplish that. that. As an owner, you know, how do you view working with those young guys? You, you know, I mentioned Joey and you gave Joey a second chance, you know, you saw something in Joey that other people didn't see and was able to develop him into a really a championship race car driver. You see the same thing in Ryan, and how's his progress coming in your opinion? Well, you know, Ryan, I think when he first came in our motor, a moment of years ago, now the skinny little guy and now he's all bulked up and he's he's really a really a great young man and to me look

we look number one is the guy wanted any kind of racing and he was a winner you know obviously he's been able technically to connect with our engineering team and really on the third side you know it's the commercial side he's been a home run with our sponsors so I would say I check all those boxes he's had some success on the racetrack I think you saw this year he could have been he could I won some races he didn't this year early on, but it's always the case. I think he's on a great trajectory and certainly has brought a lot to the team. And the one good thing about the three drivers we have, then Matt obviously working over with the Woods brothers. I think we've got a great format for the future. And having Ryan come through the Woods program and then coming to us

and with his support, we made some changes on the crew chiefs this year. And it's all worked out well. And I think that I couldn't be happier with the line if we have now. Mr. Penske, if I drove for you, what would you be telling me your expectations are for me to succeed? How would I succeed? What do you tell your drivers on their first day? Well, look, number one, we don't need drivers to pay to run on our race team. I didn't hire you because you brought a bag of money today. I brought you because you had talent and you had the kind of experience that we wanted, and I felt you'd fit into our team as a person.

What I would say is, look, I've been a driver. Dale's been a driver. and I know when he talks to these young drivers he has, what we want to do, go out there and do your best. This is not about winning the first race or setting on the first pole. And I think what I try to do early on and through the whole time period is, look,

it's not always going to be pretty out there. So what I have to do is keep my shoulder to shoulder with the driver to be sure he knows he's got all the support. But I would just tell you do your best. You know, you've been owner in motorsports for a really long time, and you remind me a lot of my buddy and old boss, Rick Hendrick. And I always give Rick a hard time because he doesn't have to work. He doesn't have to keep going.

He doesn't have to keep pushing and trying to succeed and win races. He could go enjoy himself. He has a lot of opportunity and a lot of places he can go just to hang out and fish or do nothing. What is it at your age that continues to push you to be a competitor? What is it? Why aren't you guys somewhere enjoying all the success that you've had over the years? What keeps you coming back and getting up in the morning good to work? Well, I'll tell you, Dale, I've got over 60,000 people working for us worldwide today.

And just the fact I've got to worry about those people under these circumstances, the reason I come in every day. And this race team has built our brain on a worldwide basis. And success we have is bred through the entire organization. It's given us the opportunity to bring a lot of young people up, maybe not in a race car, but in a car dealership or in a rental counter at our transportation. truck dealerships. I think Rick feels the same way. This is something, you know, my fishing trip and maybe golf game is going to the racetrack on Saturday to see guys like you compete. But

the relationships that have spawned from the racing side into my business have been amazing. And I think there's always tension. There's always something in racing or in business that keeps your head on. And I think that's helped me at my age to stay focused and want to be a winner. And I think the most important thing is that I can lead and support the team members, the business members, and our partners around the world every day. And that's my main thought today as we go through this CBID-19. It's first and foremost in my mind. And I think that we have to give back. We try to do that as a company. I do it as an individual. And certainly my family does. Now, hold on. Yeah, we'll get to COVID-19 in a second. But you're not just maintaining. You're adding

on and you're not adding on a couple of boards of directors here you're acquiring big properties so this is no small undertaking you know i know you've been asked this already but we'll ask it again why why one question is why are you not wanting to slow down but the other question is why are you adding on to stuff so substantial and you know magnificent that we're talking about an entire racing series an entire you know one of the most iconic speedways ever Well, your first question is, look, I love what I'm doing. I'm motivated. My wife of 46 years continues to support me along with my 13 grandchildren. So to me, my grandchildren learned their numbers by looking at the race cars on the racetrack, but that's a short story.

But more important, you ask the question about adding on. And quite honestly, if we were sitting here six months ago doing the same program, we'd be talking about. something else. But on the grid at Laguna Sika back at the end of September, Tony George came up to me. In fact, at the brickyard, I met him up in the Pagoni. He said, look, I'd like to talk to you about the future. I didn't really know exactly what he meant. Then I saw him at Laguna, just before the start of the race, he said, Roger, I really want to get together and talk about the future. And I remembered what he had said to me a couple weeks earlier at the brickyard. So I went down to Indy for New Gardens Championship dinner and got

there two or three hours early and met with Ian Mark Miles. And we went through a long discussion somewhat emotional with Tony about that the trustees had decided that it was time that they looked at, you know, selling the Speedway. The trustees have an opportunity and the former governor of Indiana. Mitch Daniels was a lead trustee. They'd sold Claver Girl, which was their flower business, back in Terre Haute. And so we sat down and talked about it. And to me, it's opportunity. You know, I've always looked at undervalued, underperforming businesses. But here was a big pivot for me. This was a successful business. It was something that we had a lot of domain knowledge. Remember we went Michigan and bankruptcy. We built California. We were,

co-owners of Homestead with the Francis. We had Rockingham. We run the races at Belle Isle today. Our team does. So when I had that opportunity, I said one thing. I said, I'm very interested. So the next day, you know, we signed a confidentiality agreement and kept it completely quiet. We went through a process, I think on October 4th, we announced a merger agreement and then went on and had the opportunity to close this early in January. But I said to someone the other day, you'll get a kick on it. I said, I think I owned the track inside. I didn't know I was going to own the outside.

So I'm flat out and trying how we can make it better for the guest experience. And, you know, obviously, every step I take in that track, and when I go to the museum, I see such history. It's just amazing. And the other day, I asked one of historians, you have any pictures of the 51 race? Sure enough, they had about 25 pictures. The guys in leather jackets, the car side by side,

little old wood pagoda there, to think I was sitting in the grandstands in those days to see those pictures. That was your first race, right? That was the first time you had been there? Yeah. Yeah, think about that. That's wild. That's awesome. But when does this acquisition, if not already, when is it worth it to you?

When is it successful? Well, I don't think I'll ever know that in my lifetime. Someone else will make that decision for me, maybe 10 or 15 or 20 years from now. But I hope that we bring a lot of guest experience. We've been great racing there. It's the history. It's iconic. And what Dale, what you don't realize, this is a generational race.

Think about the number of tickets that are sold just 500 hours after the event. People want those same tickets. And when you think about coming into this tough period we have now, the amount of people that had committed to come to the track for the race, so you don't give up your tickets. you keep them and you pass them on to the next generation. And the worldwide notoriety and to think about, you know, they have 250 to 300,000 people and we do have 230,000 real seats.

I never really knew that. I didn't count them all yet, but maybe I'll do that one day while I'm hanging around. There were two things that happened to me at Indianapolis Speedway that are far more memorable and rewarding experiences that I think fans would just love to have the perspective of. One of them was driving the pace car leading the Indianapolis 500, looking back in the mirror and seeing those cars.

So I had been out on the grid, I had stood by the cars in the garage, I had been in all of the technology. I sat in the cars, one of your cars, thought that I had really gotten a great introduction into, know, what these cars were about. But really seeing them lined up behind you in that mirror was a really emotional experience. And they really did look like a squadron of fighter planes, low to the ground, in formation. I'll never forget it.

The other experience that I'll always hold deer is climbing in that creek out there behind the racetrack to fish out a brick. So I love history and especially last year. Yeah, I love history and I love tangible history. I don't care. Just today we was walking around on the property looking for wind damage from these stores we had a night seeing a fence post with old Bob wire hanging off of it from some farmer putting the ground 70 years ago. I love just tangible history. I'd be able to go down in that creek and dig 12, 15 inches down into the creek bed.

to pull out a full brick. Now there's a bunch of fragments, and they're up close to the surface, but if you want the real deal, you've got to go deep to pull out something that was on that racetrack and that those cars had crossed over. You can look at it and see the rubber

that it's worked into the surface, the top surface of the race, of the brick itself. Just really is hard to, it's hard to imagine, you know, what that brick saw and what it was exposed to and the history that it was part of. And so that track is, it must be a really emotional thing to possess such a historical

racetrack or landmark. And I'm not, I promise you, we're not trying to put you in the rocking chair, but who, beyond, you mentioned it. Like the success of this racetrack will be known beyond your years. Who is, who are those people? Who are those people that are going to carry on your legacy to maintain, the legacy of Indianapolis to continue Penske as a motorsports operation juggernaut. Who are the people that you're trusting to manage that going forward?

Dale, just before I answer that, you know, I had the chance to drive the pace car for the hundred. And I said exactly the same thing you did. When I looked in the mirror, it looked like a bunch of fighter planes, low to the ground, ready to take off. I said exactly the same thing. But, you know, from a forward thinking and when I think about the track and ownership, we've got some very good people there.

Mark Miles is the CEO. You know, we're Penske Entertainment, owns that venue. You know, we have the IMSP, which is the production company. We certainly have IndyCar, but it's in all our businesses, we have people that have the responsibility to run these. And remember, you know, our family has been involved in the racetrack business for a long time. and I would expect them to stay completely involved. And then the people we have, Mark, my Doug Bowles,

who you know, just does an outstanding job, you know, running that speedway for Mark and the team. But the internal, you know, Kelly, who runs the ticketing, and the John Lewis and the people outside are running the outside of the track, we just got some terrific people. And that's why your race team is successful, right? You can't work on every car. You can't make every call in the successful business.

But you talk about Rick and some, of the people your dad was like that. These guys knew what they wanted, but relied on those key people. And that's what I'm going to do in the future. And hopefully, someone will give us a great card here 20 years from now. Hopefully, we've made it a better guest experience. It's a great racetrack. We've got great racing. You saw the race last year. So I think that, that's something that certainly, I hope, will be a plus for everyone in the future. Have you ever gone waiting in that creek? I have not. But I've seen the brief. Now that you've heard Dale's story, do you sort of to want to? I've got to go, I got to go find that out. I can't believe you've never done that.

So you hang around with the right people. You find out something you don't know. I'm going to have to do that. I'll report back. I thought everybody that was involved in Indy knew all the bricks were in the creek and there's still a lot of them. It's funny because Rutledge Wood is the one that told me, man, we're going to go back here and we're going to get you a brick. I'm like, all right, because I've heard about other drivers, NASCAR guys going back in there waiting in the creek to get their bricks. And so I'm thinking I'm just going to go back here and we're going to see a lot of bricks. I'm just going to pick one up there. I got my brick. And we go back there and man, we're looking and we're not finding, you know, a nice full brick, just a bunch of busted ones. And then

there, you know, there was some debris and glass and you got to be careful walking around out there. And then we figured it out. So you got to imagine they were probably taking them things over there in the back of a truck or something and dumping them off using a wheelbarrow something in piles, right? We would find them in clusters, like big piles, but they are now, you know, several inches underneath the surface of the creek. So if you want to find a brick, you got to dig down further than you think, and they're going to be in these little clusters, right? So when you start to run into a bunch of fragments, go down, go down into the ground, and man, there's a bunch of full bricks all piled up like probably three, four feet underground.

It's, I'm trying to imagine this in my mind when they pulled them all up because there were thousands of millions of them, right? And that they pulled off that racetrack and ended up throwing most of them over into creek. This is why we wanted to have you on because we didn't know if you actually knew what exactly, what kind of gold mine you just purchased. I didn't think we'd be able to tell you. I didn't think we'd be able to tell anything new today.

let me say this that I have a brick someone has given me a brick but I can't lie to you I've never been to the creek to get a brick but I can tell you that's going to be on my bucket list here 30 days I'll let you guys I'll let you guys know I'll maybe have to pull my pants up and walk out there right now yeah yes sir that's right I know a good spot where there's still some more down in this one little cluster you know you mentioned the virus and how that's affected how that's foremost on your mind and important to what you're doing day to day and how you're managing your businesses. How is that affecting your company? You know, you can expand on that as much as you want, how it's affecting Penske Motorsports, how you guys are managing that,

and also how you feel like it's affect our organizations of NASCAR, IndyCar, and how they can move forward and, you know, have success beyond this. Well, look, number one, as you are, and I'm sure every other race team and business around the country, around the world are concerned about their people, and your friends, your families, and your team members. And that's priority one for me to think about Spain, Italy, Germany, and the UK being closed. So we have thousands of people working there. And they were the first cities and countries to be hit. And each one of those has had a different program to support, you know, the humans that are in those in those countries. and we're still locked down.

Fortunately, in many of those countries, they're supplying people with small incentives, payments to help them live on a day-to-day basis. You've seen that already here in the United States. But what we're trying to do is be sure the safety and the health is number one. But in every single case, we're taking it business by business. As you know, in our business,

we have the truck rental business. Well, today we're an essential business because people need vehicles, FedEx, UPS, the hospitals, you know, some of the food people, all of these people are coming to us. So we're certainly doing a job to supply those people with our business and certainly our trucks. But on the auto side, you're an auto dealer, you know in Florida. You know, right now it's tough. You know, we're doing our business online. Services open in many cases.

But to me, we're not sure how we get out the other end, to be honest with you. I think the fact that many of our people are people that are taking care of their mothers, their fathers, their kids, the schooling. And to have this pressure of no income is very, very difficult. Now, the government has done a lot, small businesses, some of the things the Fed is done to support businesses in the United States, and they're doing that in other countries. But let's focus where we live today is a big step forward. The unfortunate thing is everybody think it's going to be, we fall into this V and we're going

to come straight out. I think it's going to be a longer time because the capital that has been lost in the stock market, people's 401Ks, people invested. This capital doesn't come back all of a sudden when this virus is gone. So that's going to be something we all have to deal with. But, you know, with the continued support of the cities and the states and the federal government, we're going to take some of the hurt away from us. But for me, I think we've got to be very smart on how we come out.

We've got to look at the individual mandates that we have in the cities and the states as far as social distancing, you know, stay at home, et cetera, on some of these things, unless it's essential to do your business. And hopefully that this virus will hit the peak here sometime in April here before end of April that we'll have it. It'll start coming down. And at that point, you know, we've got all this technology. We're a great country with technology. Just look at what the doctors and science are doing today to try to find a vaccine. Hopefully that vaccine will be available and they'll have tested it in groups. And the health care people can get that first so then we can come in as individuals

and hopefully get inoculated with something like that. But from my perspective, you know, it's a tough time. I never realized that, you know, as you grow your business, that we ever have something like this, you don't dream about it. I've never seen it before. You haven't. None of us have. And I think from a motorsports perspective, motorsports has kept a lot of people this country happy. Think about your dad and what he brought to

NASCAR and made this sport. They called him an intimidator, but on the other hand, I don't know if you know this. He was a great friend of mine. We love boats together. And I remember he and Rusty always had this, you know, fist fight going on. But one day we're at Michigan and we're in practice. And he had, he and your dad, Rusty, were just rubbing in the practice. And he came in and he said, what the hell were you doing? I said, I was just selling T-shirts with Dale. And the other good story, just to pivot here a little bit, was we were racing at Homestead, the last race of the year, Mike.

And we were staying over at, we had our boats over at Ocean Reef. And Rusty had a helicopter. And Dale said, hey, could I get a ride over to the track? Well, he didn't know I was going to fly it. So I get in, and Bill Brooks got in the right front and Rusty and Dale are in the back seat. So I took off and Brooks put his hands up like, Dale couldn't believe it. The only time I ever had control of Dale Earnhardt's senior was that day fly to the tram racetrack. So that's a good one.

But to come back to motorsports and to think about where we are, our teams right now, we haven't been in the shop now for probably three weeks. And, you know, primarily that's only people that needed to get. get in we're waiting till we get you know the ability to come in under the proper requirements will obviously social distancing we will certainly adhere to but it's going to be interesting to find out when we can start and there's all sorts of scenarios both on the Indycar side we move the Indy 500 late in August so we want to if we can preserve that race that's something we want to do I've been in discussions

with Jim and with Steve Phelps over their scheduling can we run together that's kind of how we put this brickyard together you know, with the two races. So it's going to have to be a lot of creativity, not only personally, financially and also socially. And I think for us today, everyday changes. And with that, we're going to have to get smarter and smarter. But this is a great country. There's a lot of great people. And think about the people in the armed forces, the men and women that are keeping us safe every day in the first responders. And all these health care people, you see these people in mass and things like that. But what's happening? The motorsports,

community is giving back. Think about building mass, building all of these things that you need to have to help these areas. So we got to pull together. And I'm not certainly a politician. I'm not a scientist. I'm a business person and I'm a racer. And I know that racers come out, can always come out on top. So I'm hoping that together we put our arms together as a team and we come together and make this happen and make our country better as we come out of here. Amen to that. I'm just curious, have you watched any of the eye racing? And my second follow-up question to that would be, did you, did you notice the number three on Saturday? And did you like what you saw? I could tell you that I've watched every iras for two reasons. Number one, we're trying to

promote IndyCar. And number two, I got a couple of my boys in there that have been pretty active. But the biggest news we had is when I got the call Mike and said, hey, Dale's thinking about running. I said, well, how can we be sure that he runs? And I think that, no, I saw that car, that nationwide car. It was terrific and interesting to see he and McLaughlin, you know, kind of the outsiders coming in and running with the big boys. It's pretty good. And, you know, pretty smart, weren't they?

I thought it was terrific. Yeah. I hope Dale, you're going to run again with us, but I thought it was terrific for us. And I thank you for taking the time to join the IndyCar series. said, hey, maybe when you decide if you want to run their reel at the Indy 500, maybe you give me a call, we'll see if we can't get you a good car. Yeah, if I ever did, you'd be the guy to call first.

Yeah. Terrific job. Gang, thank you. I really appreciate that. Let me ask you, you know, as a car owner, I don't know that we've really had that perspective from a, from a car owner, either in, you know, you're in Indie and you're in NASCAR. We are using eye racing, simulation racing as a way to sort of bridge our, you know, the engagement with our fans till we can get back to the racetrack.

This is sort of sufficing that, that urge to see some racing and see our drivers compete. It's doing a really good job, in my opinion. How do you, the owner, you know, feel about that? And how is that helping your partnerships, your relationships with your sponsors? because otherwise they would have no engagement, no presence on network, television, or social media. And this is creating quite a buzz, you know, through those partnerships and engagement with your PR people, your licensing people, and the drivers themselves. So as an owner, how important is that to you?

Is it doing a really good job for you? Well, I think, number one, it's technology that we've had and people have now taken it to the next eye racing guys. I know you're involved with those things to a certain extent have done a terrific job. And think about the sticking ball sports can't do this, can they? You know, we're unique in the case that we have this. And people, kids have run little cars around the room, haven't they before, just as a young boy. And to think about today that we can go ir racing, look, number one, it's real because the guys you can see, I know that Will and Scott certainly and as Pazzano, and I'm sure you do, they're on this thing for hours.

In fact, they said they're getting trouble with their girlfriends and wives now. spending so much time at the track. But the technology has been terrific, but more important is I think that what it's done has kept us relevant because it keeps our drivers. They're in social media. They're talking about it. The cars, the sponsors, I think is key.

When we look back at some of the numbers, I think when you ran at Bristol the other day, it had 50% of the people really were watching, real people watching that they had at the race. You know, the actual race, when he looked at the television, audience. And we had about the same when we ran, I think, two weeks ago. So to me, that's giving us relevance. It's keeping our sport, our really our model, our license in front of our fans. And it's

creating a lot of interest. One thing I do think that we got to be careful, we don't oversaturate it. We can't run every single week and every driver because you want to keep, you know, Earnhardt, is he an indie driver or is he a stock car driver? You know, we talk about this internally. And we don't want to to cross-pollinize because I think NASCAR fans want to say what's going on with the NASCAR people. Now, what we wanted to have in India, let's have a couple of extra people that could come in, you know, invited guests like Dale, like Jimmy have been. I think that really makes a difference. But again, too much is too much. I think it's like everything else we do. So, I think, Dale, you're probably a good student of that and with your relationship with the people. Let's make these events real

because sooner or later, we'll get too much of it. I think we want to keep it really in a position where every time there is one, it's something special. Yeah, I agree with that, buddy. Man, we appreciate your time today. Like I said, it's the top of the interview. I know you went out of your way to be here with us. Our fans and listeners really appreciate it. You're an amazing guy.

One of the best public speakers that I've ever seen in my life because you speak from the heart. And I want to tell you, that brings to mine, when I would go up to accept an award or any kind of opportunity when I was public speaking, I leaned on a speech, a prepared speech for all of my career, until I saw you speak. I don't know where exactly we were at, whether it was the Xfinity banquet or the NASCAR banquet, but I saw you speak and you did this entire speech and thanked every individual, all the people throughout your company from the heart. And it really motivated me to do the same.

So thanks to you. Now when I go up there and get an opportunity to talk to anybody, I rarely ever prepare any remarks or any, because I want it to feel and be genuine, and I want my heart to be in it. So I appreciate that about you because I know, it says a lot about your character and who you are to be able to go up there and give a speech like that anytime that it's necessary.

So again, appreciate everything you've done for motorsports across the board, everything you're going to do in the future. we're so thankful to have you on the show buddy. Dale, thank you for the kind comments. And I say this from my heart. You, your dad, your family have been real, real models for me and help me build my mission as I've gone through motorsports. Thank you very much.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Open sick. All right. Yeah, that next door app. So cool. Y'all know who's been neighborly, even in a pandemic, Matthew. you can, you know, do you put on the door?

Barbecue at my house. No, I don't know, but we've got an old man group now started. I know this won't make the show, but a bunch of older gentlemen, my neighborhood invited me to be part of their like biscuit club. This is gold. And we snow, this ain't gold. We sit six feet apart from each other on the sky's driveway and we eat biscuits and we just shoot the crap. This sounds miserable. I love it.

I'm like a closet 80 year old. A biscuit club. So David Homas does that too. Like they sit out there in this little neighborhood. They sit six feet apart in lawn chairs and hang out and drink beer and grill and do whatever. But it's funny. You and David both made sure, which he does in his post, his social media post, to say, hey, we keep the six foot distance. Look at us.

Look at us all in my picture. six foot apart. Knowing damn well when you ain't taking no picture. Y'all are standing right beside each other. Exactly. Bobby. Is that homemade gravy on that biscuit? Bobby,

you're making that sundrop cake again this week? Larry, I'll trade you a liver mush for that sausage. Yes. Give me that biscuit. You know y'all are getting all closed to each other. No. Not, not.

I ain't believing that shit about six feet. You lied. At the biscuit club, I'm not. But my neighbor next door when they come over, I'll go within six feet of him because I know he's been quarantine too. Okay. You have to act like everybody has it. That's right. Okay.

Open segment. Yeah. What's the name of this? Didn't we figure out what the name was? No, a bunch of people had stupid advice like green flag pit stops. Nothing beats open segment. I didn't think there was good advice. Nothing's as good as open segment.

It's not the name or the lack of the name. that I have a problem with. Y'all know that, right? Yeah. No. It's the fact that you say, time for the open segment, as,

as if, hey, it's like on that, it's like Jimmy Fallon. That broadcast in New Hampshire. Hey, I'm going to read this promo. Exactly.

It's like, it's like if Jimmy Fallon were to walk out on the tonight show go, now is the monologue. I'm going to tell a joke, and the punchline will be, and then he tells it. I mean,

it's like, it doesn't seem natural. That's my problem. I don't care about the name. All right. Well, let's talk about, we got a big 6,000 pound elephant in the room. It's not a joke.

Let's talk about it. Kyle Larson went on social, well, not on social media, but he was racing online on a Twitch stream, which is broadcast by a lot of people that are in the race, says the N-word. He thought he was communicating to, a small circle of friends, but it was being broadcast to everybody. And it's, Mike, you wrote an article about this on Dirtymo Media. Yeah, I did this morning. Yeah, I just,

I was trying to process my thoughts and I'm trying to understand like, you know, what am I willing to, what, what am I willing to say about this? I mean, because I, you know, it's just so weird and it's, you know, layer of anxiety. I mean, it's just, and so I did. I wrote a little piece of where my feelings were, and it wasn't, you know, tacked on with anybody's name other than mine. You can go to, if you want to know where I'm at, you can go there. But I'm just, you know, where I net out with that is I think, here's the thing. I think that we could get caught up in looking at all the bad things. And there are many, all the bad things that sort of come out of this.

Like the way it makes our sport look or like what the punishment. Is it too much or is it not enough? And I think all of those are distractions. to what the root of the problem is. And the root of the problem is, why is that even in anyone's vernacular to begin with at this point? And that's what I don't understand, because if it's in your vernacular, then you, in those moments of surprise or, you know, or anger or whatever, that you say things that you don't think about. And it's, I just don't, I worry about how something like this transpires into other problems. problems that are no, no better than what Kyle said, frankly, in my opinion. I mean, the stuff

that I see on social media in a response to this kind of thing is just as troubling to me on the way people react to it. And I just speak for myself, frankly. I don't, I'm not letting everybody, I'm not speaking for anybody else. And so I just think that Kyle Larson probably regrets it and I've seen his apology now, but and I hope that he gets back. I hope he does. I'm sure he's, you know but there's just some things that are hard to hard to get by and this is one of them yeah yeah i mean that makes me i mean it's feel bad for Kyle i hate i hate confrontation i hate when people make mistakes and and and i hated i hated that for Kyle um but i feel you know i feel my first genuine reaction to it was the same thing like if you don't have that word in your vocabulary

you don't have to be careful. You don't have to take, you know, you don't have to take certain steps to prepare yourself from putting yourself in that situation. If it's not part of your, you know, if it's not something you use, then you never have to be concerned. And I kind of, you know, I kind of did, I did go toward thinking about, all right, you know, the court of public opinion will, will handle. Kyle and Kyle will handle Kyle with his

apology and whatever his decision is going forward to to repair his image and his reputation. That's on him. That's up to him and how people perceive him is on them.

I went from, hey man, look, you shouldn't have that word in your vocabulary. Don't ever use it. You won't have to worry about being careful making a mistake or slipping up. Just don't have it in your vocabulary. That's number one. And then I did go to, as an owner in the sport, these are difficult times, very delicate times. The teams are extremely fragile right now.

This does, you don't want to give any partner that you have right now a reason to consider their involvement and their commitment. And you don't, and that puts, you know, employees at risks. And, you know, and it just really makes things very challenging. And then again, I go from that also to the stereotypes that this sport has been clouded in for decades. And the people that have worked in the last couple several years, very hard, the people in the industry that have worked and the fans that have pushed to change that narrative, all that work seems to, you know, take a couple steps back.

It works against those efforts. I got a question for you. Are we, we've just experienced the second week in a row where somebody has slipped up in using this new platform now so quickly present and public. Like we are not used to it being this way. And so are we experiencing a learning curve on what the, what the expectations are,

and people are learning the hard way on just, how awful of a situation they're in being so publicly streamed. I'm just saying it seems like we've gone two weeks in a row where somebody has misused this platform in a way that has cost them in the real life. And I wonder if it's a big stick of dynamite that we're all playing with sometimes without realizing it. Yeah, see, that's another concern for me is that this is going to be a lot of the, no, I don't know if it's fault, but a lot of the attention is going to be put on Twitch or streaming or irasing even. Yeah.

And it shouldn't. I mean, this was a mistake. This was a mistake that happened and it just happened to be in that theater, in that, in that environment, you know, and I don't know that Twitch or streaming or that culture bears any responsibility there. That was a mistake that he made. And so I, you know, because I guess selfishly, like I'm, I've spent this time in quarantine learning a lot about streaming, learning a lot about Twitch, learning a lot about why people do it,

how to do it successfully, what's good, what's bad, how people are making money doing it. Why would they, what are they investing in their time and all that and trying to, and I'm really finding this really unique community and meeting and getting to know some pretty interesting people. And so I'd hate to see that, well, you know, he shouldn't have been streaming or He shouldn't have been in that environment. He shouldn't have been putting himself in that situation. That's not it. I think it goes back to your point, Mike.

Don't use the word. If it's not in your vocabulary, you don't have to worry about what situation you're in wherever you are. You're never going to use it. My question has less to do with his example and more to do with the fact that I'm not referring to Larson. Over the weekend, you were in the IndyCar race and you came to me on Thursday talking about how these drivers

are so ramped up. And man, they say mean things to each of. these IndyCar drivers, and we were sort of laughing about it, and it gave us this perception of Indycar as a whole after one practice session on the way they were so kind of chipper, chippy at each other and, you know, get, you know, Willpower was so just, yeah, yeah, yeah, on practice. And it did formulate an opinion that we had of drivers, and it might have even been stereotypical. It might have been like their little whiny babies. Might have been. I don't know. But, so, So let's remove the Kyle Larson thing and just say in this platform, it is actually exposing us

on a different, if not more level. The transparency is even more. Who knew? And I wonder if we're not prepared for that level of transparency without it affecting the way people view us. I mean, you've got people losing sponsors already. And so now we're sitting here laughing about the IndyCar racers during a practice session. It didn't really get any better during the race, if you asked my opinion. and that's just the limited stuff that I heard.

Yeah. And I guess that's a better example to what I'm trying to get at. I get frustrated in racing online, and you hear other drivers get frustrated. And we chat back and forth. And, you know, I feel like even maybe there's a couple guys that were a little bit more whineer or a little bit more agitated vocal about it than others. One guy in particular just, you know, just really just on the button, and just talking and talking and talking about how this is all, you know,

they're conspiring against him to lose, you know, to keep your going in this race. It was hilarious. But we, you know, we've met these guys and sat down and talked to them and shared conversations with them, and we know who they are, you know, and I was in a mad league with T.J. And, you know, there were 28 owners, real owners in this league. And, you know, there were some guys like Brad Gislaski would take Calvin Johnson as the lions, and he would line Calvin Johnson up at tight-in. I remember this.

You couldn't beat it. He'd run a streak and catch the ball, and any time he needed a first down, he got it. And, you know, T.J. wouldn't blitz any of his linemen, defensive linemen. He would put them all in spy. So when the ball got hiked, they would drop into coverage and just sit there in coverage and follow the quarterback. You couldn't. It was really debilitating.

to be honest with you and frustrating. And it was really like unrealistic. We used to get so freaking mad, so mad, right? And just we had guys quitting, rage quitting in the middle of games, quitting the league, you know, sending out emails, I'm out of here, this sucks, cheater. This guy, he keeps doing X, Y, and Z, and I can't, I'm done with the stupid league.

And they'd be back next week, begging of you. back in. So I've seen, and Madd's the perfect example, because I think Madden, to be honest with, he probably brings the worst out in people. Now, video games in general, do that. But, you know, so in, when I hear these guys kind of chirping at each other, it just reminds me of, of that sort of ability for video games sort of bring this frustration out. And it also brings out the same, same excitement in winning, like whatever that emotion is, the happiness, the joy of winning, the frustration of losing. It's as equally as real and evident whether it's a real race car or a simulator. Like when Simon Pajina won the race Saturday in IndyCar, he said it. He's like, I'm as happy

about this as winning a real race. Genuinely meant that. Willpower. I led all the laps. I had a great shot of win. I'm mad that I didn't. These other guys went on fuel. knowledge. That's BS. He was just as disappointed as, and he might not admit it. Probably never will admit it, but he's probably as angry or got under his skin just as it would have been a real race car. So that comes out over the microphone sometimes when they're talking because they're just so used to being blunt. They're race car drivers, you know, they get right to the point. And so that kind of stuff does really, I laugh at it and I know that, you know, somebody that here's that on a stream is going to go, wow, you know, I didn't, that guy he really is.

If video games, and I'm not calling this video games, but you're just, I'm taking your work. If Madden, or whatever it is, brings out the worst of an individual, then now. It can. No, no, I'm not saying everybody, but I'm saying it can then having it on such a sudden public forum, all of a sudden, like the... I think that that, you know, and this, if we're got, we are still keeping Larson's deal separate from this. Separate.

I'm not referring to Larson. Absolutely not. No, no, no. What he, what happened there has no bearing on this conversation. Exactly. Um, but we're just talking about showing your personality and being a little,

being a little bit of an over-complainer. Yes. Or calling somebody an a-hole. Yes. Or getting genuinely angry at something. Because you would admit you take a deliberate effort to not say things that you might want to say. Do you not? Yeah.

Well, so I do. I know that we're streaming. I know that we're streaming live over Stefan's feed to however many people, 20-some thousand on Facebook and so forth, whatever. So I know people are watching. So there was one point when I was pulling out in practice right before the race started. Stefan had started his stream. I'm sure people were on it. and I asked the guys as I was coming off the road I said hey cars pulling out on the racetrack

blending into traffic do you want us to stay low or high and they said stay low so I said no problem come off turn four I get down on the apron Sebastian Bourdais in front of me came out on pit road with me he stayed on the racetrack surface just above the apron at Michigan and they all crashed you know because he squeezed them they were two or three wide and when they got the helm at four wide and they bounced off each other and I'm like if I said the F word. I said, you know, in response to Sebastian, like, why didn't he get on the apron? He's sitting there and he can see me, you know, in the mirror on the apron. Why didn't he just come down there? He's like, we were talking on the radio to everybody. Like, they want us to go low.

And as soon as I said the F word, I went, oh, it's like, I've just said that on the stream. My goodness. You know, and, you know, I was talking, this is, yeah, I mean, this is, it is what it is. I've said a few cuss words on the broadcast, you know, and gotten a pass. But if I say an F-bomb on the broadcast, that won't be no pass. They're going to be no, man, a bit of laughing about that. Now, there'll be a lot of fans probably think it's funny, but I will be in big trouble, you know. And so I think, you know, I think you just have to try to do better job, even when you're at home, around your family, around your daughter, to choose, choose not to use those words. And I don't do as good a job of that as I can or could.

Because if I say the F word, which I do quite a bit during the day, my wife reminds me, if I say that in everyday life, in a comfortable moment of whatever emotion, it could be said on a broadcast, you know, and that's a very, that's a very terrible risk to take. but I think that the concern I think the one thing that we need to be aware of if we're going to continue to race online we're going to continue to allow anyone to stream any of the drivers freely stream their point of view while they're hearing the audio that's coming in from the driver chat and all that everyone that's in this race just needs to be aware that you are being streamed and that should be an unsaid unspoken sort of code that

hey man I'm going into this public arena I need to you know try not to cuss try not to say anything ignorant and you know be a good representative of not only myself but you know the organization I race for and the people that are watching that are pulling for me and pulling for our program you're all I think even in some of the pickup races

I take that very seriously even when I get on there just to have fun Like I don't get into those spats, you know, that you tend to have where guys go, you mean, you cut me off. I'm wrecking you. You can't F and drive, Earnhardt, you know, whatever. I'm not going to get into those comments and those discussions because it leads nowhere, you know, and it'll be a clip online somewhere of my rebuttal to this guys digging me, you know. And that's all they're trying to do is become YouTube famous, you know, by getting you to say something stupid.

you know, so you just have to be aware that in this arena, man, everything's, everything's live and everybody can see it and watch it and clip it up real quick and put it out there on the internet and live forever. In other words, apply the same standards you would apply if you were at the racetrack or doing your actual job, not at home. That's you're applying the same standards. And I think that's where a lot of people probably went into the last several weeks appreciating and thinking it's great that this thing is giving NASCAR relevancy and racing its relevancy,

but having exactly transferred the standards in which you would apply at the racetrack, and therefore are getting caught a little bit with, you know, you can't quit during the middle of a race. You wouldn't quit during the middle of a race. Bubba Wallace if you were running that car regularly. So why would you apply that same standard here? Well, probably because what he's used to doing during a gaming situation. Right. So. How real the Sim is, right? I just feel like that you got if there's real if there's real repercussions on the line,

whether it's, you know, soiling your own reputation or partnerships that you have that depend on you doing a good job of representing them, you got to walk in there. And when you sit down in that chair, you're going to work. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I don't, you know, people are going to say, oh, it's getting too serious.

This is, you know, taking all the fun. I'm sorry. I am too. That's the way you've got to approach it. Absolutely. You still enjoy what you're doing. You can still sit down there and have fun with it. Now, I've got to practice what I preach.

You know, I'm going to be putting them situations where I'm going to bite your tongue and not lash out at somebody that, you know, might have done you wrong. And I've done, you know, like Smithley, right? Smithley. Garrett Smithley runs over me at Bristol, clean me out. You know, we take care of each other. I always race hard, but I like to take care of the people around me. You know, I don't go in the corner and, yeah, if I adore this guy and he gets, you know,

he finishes 20th, I don't care. That's not my mentality. I race like, man, I love this position, but I'm not going to cost this guy 20 spots. Right. Trying to get it. You know, especially in a sim race. Well, I think Garrett went in there and, you know, didn't take care of me, right? and it cost me a top 10.

And in that moment, I was as angry as I would have been in a real race car. And I told him to eat. And I did it over a private chat. I even went to his name and clicked private message. But I knew as soon as I was sending that while I was sending it. I knew that that could be on Twitter in two minutes less than that. And it was. But you've got to be aware that everything you say and do.

And it's tongue and cheek. and we had a little fun with it. And, you know, he's a good guy and has done a good job sort of being a good ambassador for this sim racing life that we're all living right now. But you just got to know that everything you type, say, you do is, you know, going to be up for criticism or debate while you're out there racing. And, you know, so, yeah, I sit down there and I remember like, hey, man, this is serious. Like, man, it was no more apparent than when I was running that indie race the other day.

Like I was in somebody else's house. You know, it's like I felt like I was over at my, you know, when me and Amy started dating, meeting the parents for the first time. It's like, man, you want to do everything right. You want to, you want to be, you want to look presentable, you want to speak well, you want to leave and then have a great impression of you, all those things. So you were on your best. The other guys, though, it felt like Chuckie Cheese during the middle of a birthday party

where they're all fighting. Oh, man. Those guys. I can't see. I can't see stuff I can't say. I'm glad Mike's on the show. I'm telling you. I'm telling you.

I couldn't believe it. I love the intense nature of willpower in his best moments and sometimes in his worst moments. And that's what I love about them. Even the ir racing officials were getting a little testy. And so they should have. Yeah, their patience was running out with these guys. Power was recommending that they actually restart the race because of the big crash at the

beginning. And throw a yellow in the middle of the race because his fuel mileage was bad. Because his fuel mileage was bad. Right. And I'm like, is this real world talk here? Is this? It's like he's and he's, and then as soon as I thought, oh, he's kidding. I hear somebody else go, I could use a caution too. He comes right now. He goes. Hey, West. He's talking to race control. Hey. Yeah, we can use a caution. We're not throwing a caution unless there's a big pile up. Okay, guys. Those other guys that got the pit on lap one got an advantage. Because they can't. They chose the pit.

It's called strategy. It was so funny. Hey, on a much lighter note, can we just say congratulations for being a nominee for the NASCAR Hall of Fame? Do we not talk about this last week? It didn't happen in the last show. It happened since then. Oh.

You were a NASCAR Hall of Fame nominee now. Yeah, man, I got to be honest with you. I know you are so proud of it. I know that you, you know, in your humility and everything you express that. But I got to tell you, for all of us that work with you and for you, it's almost just as much an honor for us, too. And so I think we all sort of kind of share in the excitement for it, to be honest with you. Please share in it. It's such an awesome honor.

And congratulations on that. Man, it is. So you're right, Mike. So to get that kind of recognition, it took, you know, Kelly, you and the list goes on. on and on and on. So absolutely you guys should feel some ownership and some accomplishment, some sense of pride and accomplishment in that because it doesn't happen without you guys. I certainly wouldn't have made the choices that I needed to make to be able to succeed and not only have the statistics on the racetrack, but also the personal

decisions and choices of being coming an owner in the Xfinity series. how we went about that process to become successful. The decisions I made outside the car to be a representative of not only myself, but the sport and ambassador for my partners and all that. It's all sort of culminated toward this total package that's been judged to get this acknowledgement, right? And you guys played a starring role in all of that. And so, you know, it is a, it is sort of a giant,

team effort. And yeah, I think it's really cool. I can't, you know, I can't wait to, you know, I can't wait to see how it all plays out. And, you know, I don't, I can't really say that I'm super nervous about being chosen as one of the inductees for this class. I can't say that I would feel any real disappointment if I was passed over. There's so many deserving guys and I'm not just saying those words. I know that, so you know, when you lose a race, you know, say you finish sixth, and you look at those guys in front of you, it really sucks when you see a couple that you know you should have beat, that you know you're better than. Well, if I don't win this race, I know that the guys that are in front of me belong there, right?

I'm never going to go, damn it, why, how did he get in? That's a snub. That's never going to, I'm never going to have that emotion because this is, you know, this is, class that I'm in and if I'm in a few more going forward there's going to be worthy worthy people that deserve to go in so if that happens it happens but it's going to be fun to watch the process sort of play itself out and I was really really happy with the response that I saw from the you know from the nomination that was really nice you always kind of wonder there's going to be the people out there that weren't a big fan of your career that that are going to be

hard on you whether you deserve it or not and all that but the response that I've saw has been very positive so that's meant a lot to me because that does that is a component for me you know as much as you kind of try not to let that bother you or affect you it does it's going to be part of part of the experience so it's been real positive my wife was super super thrilled gave me a huge hug so yeah you know it's it's awesome. It's an awesome thing. I even got some texts from Hall of Famers, guys that are already in there. Yeah, that was so nice. Tony Stewart, Ray, Everhamham, and several others have already reached out to congratulate me. You know what it is. You know, it occurred to me. Without the Hall of Fame or without any Hall of Fame, you got to explain to

Ila who never got to watch you race or will remember it. You know, what you... every thought of this. What you achieved. I was a big deal, Isla. I'll tell you what, I won me some races now. You know how we were just a few weeks ago. I haven't explained to Brexton, Bush. You know, he won two-day Tijuana 500s, you know?

And it was cute and it was just, you know, this fun little moment. Well, you go have the same conversation with Isla, right? And you don't know whether it's going to even register the significance of it. With the Hall of Fame, hoping you make it. And I feel confident you get in. But even with this nomination, even with the nomination, that's one less thing. It's a validator, right? It justifies everything.

And it kind of does the explaining for you. It does it. And I think that's kind of a cool thing. It's like, you know, if you get into the Hall of Fame and you have that part of that corner of that building that's dedicated to you for the rest of your life. Yeah. It doesn't matter how long you could be long gone. And Ila could sit there and go, you know, my dad was a big deal. and my dad did something special,

and they're remembering him for eternity here. That's what's cool about Hall of Fame stuff. Yeah, I never even thought about that, and that's such a great way of looking at it because it will be, I will be so eager for Alla to understand what my racing career was about and what I did for all those years,

and hopefully that'll be able to help her get an idea. So thanks, yeah, man. I appreciate you guys. And I'm glad you guys feel it too. I'm glad you feel a sense of pride in that and you should. All right, buddy. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr.

here for the Dell Jr. download. This is the Ask Junior part of the show presented by Xfinity. I had Leah Vaugh, our social media expert, who has been combing the internet for your awesome questions. And she's going to pull them up. So what you got there, Leah? All right. First question.

This was kind of a fun one that I saw. Dave Newman wants to know in the three doors down video for the road I'm on, how much driving did you and Tony Stewart actually get to do? Well, all of it. So, yeah, I would say me and Tony did 95% of the driving that you see in the video. There were a couple pieces of driving that they had done before we got there. But, yeah, all the stuff around the racetrack and driving to the track, driving around in the streets.

That was me and Tony. I was really surprised that they basically, you know, had us sitting there at a stoplight. We shot the couple looks at the stoplight, me and looking at Tony, the girl and all that. And then they were like, you guys are going to do the driving here to this and you're going to turn here.

And I'm thinking, wow, we're doing it. Okay. I thought they'd have some stunt guys, but I figure out how to drive this Tahoe or whatever I'm driving here on the fly. Like, okay, we're going to do some, drifts and all kinds of good stuff. But, I mean, we got a hold of it pretty quick and had some fun with it and never,

never ran into each other. We came off close a few times, but it was a good time. The funny thing is, is we shot that video all night long. Like, we got there and started at 10 o'clock at night and shot all through the middle of the night. And, oh, man, it got to drag in there around three, four, five in the morning. trying to stay alert, like look like you hadn't met up all night, looking like you weren't tired, but pretty interesting.

Let's stick on the music topic because we actually have another question. Kathy Smith, have you been listening to much music during quarantine? If so, what artists and songs you've been playing recently? So let's look at the phone. My buddy Tim Dugger, country music artists, just came out with a small LP, a small new collection of songs that I have been talking about quite a bit on social media. And I love those songs.

It's really good. Here, let me go to my recently added. David Nail and the Well Ravens. All right. So this is a really good song called In My Head on that record. I like David Nail and some of his music. Tim Dugger, Home Away from Home. That should be the number one country song

in America today. Home Away from Home by Tim Dugger. If you don't play that and want to get up and do something and have some fun, if that doesn't get you in the mood, I don't know what will. Speaking of Tim Dugger, did you see what he just tweeted about you? No. Jimmy means race and said, let's reverse the question. Who is the rudest driver you've ever encountered?

And Dugger chimes in, says, Dale Jr., if you try to take over and control the music, he gets pissing. Yeah, well, he's right. he is right about that me and tim me and tim get on the touch tunes at the bar and i mean it's we're we're we're spending that extra quarter to jump in line and and get our songs played it's and there's songs like we'll have we'll have some of songs teed up individually we're sitting there playing our songs and trying to beat each other as you box we'll leave and that thing's still playing our music for two days oh my gosh it's crazy all right

Jessica Holler, she saw pictures of your haircut on your Instagram. So how did it go with Amy cutting your hair? Any mishaps? No, no, no problem at all. She was pretty good. And we just did like a kind of a number four on the sides. We got the back a little closer with the three. We did a six to blend the ridge.

And then we did an eight. and then we hand we use the tremors up on the front so um obviously you know there's if you're really able to to see the you know you're not faded perfectly everywhere and not blended really well in some spaces but the my real my real uh my real hair cutter hairdresser or whatever she'll be able to tune all that up but i'm i was just glad to get that stuff off man i couldn't even wear a hat none of my hats fit i was i was thinking i was going to like it i was like man I'm never cutting it. I'm going to see how long it gets.

But it just keeps going up, right? My hair don't grow out and down like I wish. Like it just grows up, up, up. And Amy just finally, she didn't even tell me. She's like, I got a box. I'm waiting on it. I hadn't showed up yet. I'm like, all right, what's in the box?

She goes, clippers. I'm like, clippers. You cut my hair? She's like, yep. You're getting a haircut. So I didn't even get to choose, which is probably good. Our friend Higgies back this week, he wants to know what characteristics of the virtual indie car stood out to you the most

in what ways was driving that car different than a cup or vicinity car at Michigan. Well, the arrow, the dirty air was real bad. And it was really not a problem if you were in first or second. You were in really, really good shape and the car drove really good and turned. really good but as you got further back in the pack and I qualified real bad for some reason but so I'm sitting around 15th early in the race and I had zero front grip and it's just a you're dying a slow death with that right front tire burn it off and there's really nothing you could do because if you drive harder to try to get further up toward the front you just burn that right front off sooner

and end up fading really quickly at the tail end of the tire run the tire degradation in that race car and that sim is pretty heavy. And so you kind of have to fall back almost to the, almost losing the draft, but enough to get a little bit of turnability and clean air on the front to where the front will work without killing that right front tire. It was a very, very kind of frustrating way to run the race. I was hoping for a lot of cautions and attrition

that would eventually put me closer toward the front to where I could take advantage of some of that cleaner air, but it never happened. All right, we got one more question. This one coming from Dave, since NBC aired a couple classic races that you won over the last week. What's another race of yours that you'd like to see them re-air? Yeah, the All-Star Race, you know, the 1987 All-Star Race. I think one of the coolest races that I was ever able to see in person.

But 1987 and then mine in 2000, when it is a rookie, really just. was an amazing experience for me. Probably I have a hard time saying like this is my number one win, this is my favorite win. I don't have any win that I could say that about, but I know that the All-Star wins in that argument. Like I know without a doubt that whatever the others are, they're fighting with this All-Star win for number one. So that was a cool one.

I think the Richmond race where I passed dad and held off Terry Labonte to win my second race in 2000 was pretty cool. Anytime I got the race around dad, I like watching those. Because I imagine, you know, this is what I, like in the Indy car on the simulator, I would rewatch the video of practicing stuff and I would watch from the car behind me so I could watch myself drive the corner. and then I would criticize my driving, right? So I would, and I do that with the cup stuff too. When I watch a replay of the race or whatever, I get in the car, I get in the cockpit of the car behind me

and sort of criticize my entry, man, I drove in the corner wrong or what I did wrong in the middle of the corner or what could I do better? How am I driving the track and how can I do that better? And you can really see from that point of view. And so I've always wondered, in the rare moments when I was around my dad, what was he seeing when I would pass him? Like I passed him at Richmond for that win, passed him to go up there and win the All-Star race in 2000. Sitting in his car, him driving the way he was, you know, kind of always focused on his deal with the blinders on.

And then here I go by, I'll bet for a moment. Maybe he kind of looked up and just, maybe just enjoyed that for a second or I don't know, was very proud for a moment or what, right? I don't know. But I wonder, you know, what that view was like for him as he's watching his car that he owns with his son at the wheel, right? Moving and driving and entering the corner and arcing and rolling the center and thralling up and doing all the things that are making it work.

All right, guys, that's it for today. Awesome. That was some good questions. Thanks, Leah. Thanks to everybody who tuned in and offered up some great questions. I hope you guys are doing well out there. We can't wait to get back to the big table. Can't wait to get back to Norm.

I know you guys can't either. This is Ask Junior. Dale Jr. Download, presented by Xfinity. Mike, do your daughters have your iPod? Yeah, why? They were in here. Commenting? They're in the stream.

They're commenting. I saw one that comes through and it's a, is your year's name is Mike Davis? It said Mike Davis is my dad. That's funny. But I didn't want to say anything because I wasn't like sure. That's awesome. That's hysterical.

Trumbemakers. That's adorable. It's time for the Valvilline segment. You know, we like to be original here at Dirtymo Media. Nobody wants some of the vanilla stuff. So we want to be different. When we talk about originals for us, Valvaline comes to mind. They're the original Motorola.

See what I did there? Motor old. Motoro. We have inspired us to talk about originals in our sport. This week, let's get a little personal. We'll start with you, Leah, and then we'll go around the horn and end with Dale Jr. Who's the most original racing personality that you have spent time with or been around in this sport? And why?

Oh, that's easy. Antron Brown, and anybody that's ever watched him or talked to him knows exactly why. He is one of a kind, the most charismatic, entertaining guy. But once he gets in the race car, he means business. And it's really cool to watch that transition. and I feel like that's something that you don't find very often. So Antron Brown. Antron Brown.

All right, Matthew. I thought you was going to say force. Go Antron. I would say from my childhoods, Carl Bugsy Stevens, who was a modified racer, ransom grand national races, is actually down south. But he was just one of those guys that you could come up to as a kid. And he'd always have something funny to say.

You know, he'd have that cigar clenched between his teeth with an open-faced helmet. Bones, Boucher, wrote a good book about him. It's one of my favorite books. I've got two copies. And he was the epitome of that 60s, 70s, 80s, you know, character race car driver that a lot of us grew up and adored. I never knew that's how you pronounce Bones' last name, by the way. I've pronounced it every other way. Bousier, Bouser, Buker, Bay.

I had no idea. I've known him for years and I never had the nerve accent. Great guy. Mike out there perpetuating the bad pronunciation of his last name. What about you, Mike? I am, because I know that I can't go use an original name that Dale does, is probably thinking I'm going to say already, I'm not going to that direction.

I'm going to go with the first ever Earnhardt that I ever work for or worked with. Carrie Dale Earnhardt, an original. Boom, Hauer is the closest thing like him. But it ain't just like Carrie Earnhardt. I'm going with Carrie Earnhardt. Wow. Do I need to even explain? Wayne Wired.

I mean, like, I have not understood a single word he has said in 20 years. I mean, I don't know. I mean, everybody else I can translate what they're saying. I can't with Kerry. So I need an interpreter. And he's the only one I need. You know, the best part, listen, if you go and listen to old dirty moe media podcasts of Earnhardt Outdoors when Carrie was on it, it's hysterical.

We actually had a podcast host that nobody could quite understand. And if you could understand him, that was the podcast for you anyways. I love Kerry, though. I think he's incredible. He's an awesome human being. I worked for him in 2002. The same year I was working with Spencer. Is that the Supercuts car?

It was that super. It was for Fitz Bradshaw. He had a sponsor, MyTel, the phone network at the time. And they were a client of my companies. And so I'd have to go over to do MyTel Race Report. when Kerry would race every night and again. So I'd go over there, met Kerry very early on and did a, you know, and he would best with me.

I mean, he was something else. But I always rooted for him that year. I mean, that was a crazy year. He almost won. Kansas, and Jeff Burton in that game car beat him. And I think Kerry finished second in the Bush series then. Anyways, Xfinity series now. So Kerry Earnhardt's my vote.

Man, some tough ones to follow him. man, I have been around some doozies. It's hard for me to figure out. You know, there's so many on this list, but I would say Tony Stewart to me because this guy can be fiery. He can be, you know, we've seen him be aggressive,

physically aggressive with reporters and fans even. Just unapologizing. in most cases, wears his heart on his sleeve, his emotions on his sleeve, but has a heart, you know, that's extremely impressive, you know, just a really, you know, I've seen him and and known him to get super emotional about some things that I think would surprise a lot of people. but we have had some and our friendship has been all over the board all over the board from the dang bottom to the top and back again you know so we had some some up and down times between us over the last couple of decades just such a colorful guy the really the modern day

a.J. Foight you know and you got to you got to think AJ Foote's in the original and I think Tony Stewart's is our generation's AJ Ford. Hard to beat that. I agree with you. Tony Stewart, definitely original. All right, listen, for 150 years, people have trusted Valvillin in their cars, and we've trusted them in our race cars too. Valvaline, the original motor oil. Odd history. In the past odd history, we talked about the 1959 race

at the Half Mile Wilson Fairgrounds in eastern North Carolina. If you remember, it was the race that was delayed because the grandstands caught fire before the green flag actually happened. So the next year, another odd occurrence took place at Wilson. When NASCAR returned during Easter weekend, at the end of the 200 laps,

the winner was Emmanuel Zervicus. It was the first win of the Virginia driver's career, but it didn't last long. NASCAR came looking under the rear of the Monroe Shook-owned number 85 Chevrolet. Rumor has it that second-place

finisher Joe Weatherly went to NASCAR officials and demanded Zervicus fuel cell be checked. You see, Zervicus had run the entire 100-mile 200-lap event without making a pit stop. During the inspection, which NASCAR Technical Inspector Norris Friel said was routine, the gas tank was found to hold a half-gallon more gas than the 22 gallons the rules allowed. Zervicus claimed the rough surface of the dirt track

caused his tank to expand during the race. NASCAR took away his winnings, disqualified him, and gave the win to Joe Weatherly. Later, Weatherly was asked how that he knew Zervokka's car had an illegal gas tank. Joe's response, because I was running the same tank that he was. That's funny.

It is. Oh, man. Hey, I like that. Yeah. Honesty. Yeah. Can't beat honesty. Yeah.

So for fans, they're going to go, wait a minute, how do you get a half, how do you get a half gallon more in the tank? Or how did an additional half gallon? So, and I've, this, we did, we used to do this and probably still do. But you basically just take an air hose and stick it into the filler neck and force. and force air into the gas tank to expand it, right? You're trying to make the gas tank sort of the bladder expand to its full capacity by pressurizing it. And then it kind of buckles the canister itself,

balloons the canister, the steel tank that the gas bladder is housed inside of and allows you to get additional fuel into what is, or what should be a 22-gallon cell. So I imagine back then they may have been running a stock fuel cell. This is 1959. I'm sure the sales were likely stock, but you could still probably pressurize and inflate those things just a little bit. Get another half gallon in there, Mike.

What happened that we lost a race to Brad Tislauski where he got us on fuel. He should have run out. Do you remember this? Kansas. Vegas, one of those tracks. A couple times. And there was a trend going on where they basically had an extra lap or extra two laps of fuel.

How were they doing that? I mean, I don't know how they were doing it in particularly, but if you're not, you know, if everybody inflated the tank just to maximize that as much as they could, people ran an aggressively, obnoxiously long fuel line up to the pump, fuel pump in front of the car from the fuel cell before that was rule a rule was made to regulate that and then you could you know you could obviously run as big a line as you wanted to at one point so you could house as much fuel in that fuel line as possible before the rules were made to limit that but there I mean if there's not a rule for it yeah where there's where there is no rule that's opportunity right

yeah I guess that would have been a better question for roger pinsky right Last call. All right. Hey, everybody. That was a great show. Appreciate Roger coming on. Roger Penske. Got to give him a hand for, you know,

hey, tough trying to get out and get anything done. And it's really asking a lot for him to come on to the show. We really appreciate that. Great-ass junior questions that everybody sent in. Good job, Leah. Appreciate everybody for tuning in. One important announcement. And this is all that we're going to give you today for the last lap.

Sorry, for a white flag? What's it called? The last call. I didn't get right. It's not the open segment, so don't worry. For the last call, we got one thing to tell you. One thing only. We're back.

We're back. TV. We're back on TV. That's right. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, but if you like our show, NBC has agreed to put us back on television. So we're going to see how this works out. Yeah.

It's in your hands, Brian, Goodwin. Yeah, it's right, producer, Brian. It's all back to you, buddy. So it's at 4 p.m. If this succeed, that's the one change. It's all on you. Yes, if it doesn't succeed, it's Brian's fault. Is that what we're going with?

I'm down. Hey, I'm with that. Hey, I'm with that. If it doesn't work, it's Brian's fault. If it succeeds, it's obviously because of us. Yeah. So 4 o'clock Wednesday, 4 o'clock Wednesday. 4 o'clock on Wednesday.

The Dale Jr. Download is back on TV. on NBCSN. We appreciate Brian, James, everybody behind the scenes that helps us put this together and it's going the extra mile to bring us back to TV.

I hope you guys enjoy what you see. We'll see you next week. This bit of bad assery was bad assery was made by Dirtymo Media. Dirty Mo!