The Dale Jr. Download - 297 - Matt Kenseth: Never Retired

Episode Date: May 12, 2020

Dale Earnhardt Jr hangs out with old friend Matt Kenseth, as he makes a comeback behind the wheel when NASCAR returns to racing. T he former Cup Champion enlightens Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis about his refined workout regiment and how he is approaching this comeback. Speaking of coming back, Matt tells us that he never did use the "R" word, so he never actually retired. So how has his family taken his return to the NASCAR life? And what will this new social-distanced NASCAR life be like? Kenseth also shares how the new deal with Ganassi went down and how he is going into this first race with so many unknowns. He reveals the origins of his original nickname, what he really thinks of watching the iRacing Pro-Invitational Series and how he thinks Dale Jr. is "cheap." Later in the show, Dale gets stumped by some tricky questions on #AskJr presented by Xfinity. The DJD gang discuss Chicagoland Speedway rumors and how Dale Jr didn't go to his high school prom. Oh, and we also tell a tale about a Pakistani magician who took to the high banks of Darlington Raceway... blindfolded. 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 Dirtymo Media. He's back. What about Dale? Where's Dale? I don't know. Some things never change. It's still all about you. It's like when you race, it's different.

He could just show up whenever he wanted to and he says, I'm Dale Jr. But he wants other people to come on his stuff, then he should be proud. Right? Exactly. All right, Dylan, a good show, man. I'll talk you later. Thanks, man. He's going to join us.

Oh, hey. Have you been on here 15? minutes. That's not true. I don't know. I want to be early. Man. Didn't you get my text?

Oh, my God. I was running a little bit. You even wore an M hat for Matt. That's, yeah, that's exactly right. For Matt. All right, everybody just promised today's guest, the man of the hour, Matt, Kansas. Matt, how's it going? Good to see you, buddy.

Doing good. I'm doing great, man. You are big news right now. I didn't hear nothing from you. No text, no phone calls for months. And now I can't get away from you. You're all over Twitter. You're all in the NASCAR news.

I kid you, man. But I think, you know, I shared a, I sent you a message a couple days ago, and I think the whole industry feels the same way about how excited we are for you to be back in a car. And I know it seems like this is something that you're pretty excited about yourself. So tell me about that, man. You came back and helped Roush.

with the sixth car a little bit. And you haven't really been, you know, from what I've been able to say, you haven't really been out there communicating a ton about your personal feelings about retirement and where you were in your head. But here you are presented with this amazing opportunity to step in and to a good car and help this company, help this team, which I know you appreciate doing. How hard was that decision to come back? Was it a hard one?

Was it a easy one? What was that conversation like at home? Yeah, well, I mean, to start with the beginning, been all over the news because nobody's raced for like three months. There is no other news. That's like the perfect time if you're going to come back, right? Slow news or no news week. But yeah, I mean, a step back to a little bit of the beginning of you ask me,

I think about five or six questions in one there. I know. I'll try to remember them all. But, yeah, I mean, I'd say for me, I actually never used the R word. Like everybody's seen, I don't really read my. much of what people say, but I was, you know, people would be like, I was coming out of retirement. For the second time, I was like, well, I never went into retirement. I wasn't currently racing, but I never really retired.

I guess after in 17, you know, once I kind of decided or once I knew I wasn't coming back to JJR, you know, I kind of waited a few months. And there was just really never an opportunity that really felt like the right one for me, like the right fit or somewhere I could be real successful and where I really fit in. And so at that time, I just decided to kind of step away. Like I said, I came back in routes for a while, which was a good experience for me. I felt good to come back and kind of try to help Jack out a little bit and get some things rolling. I knew it was more of a, you know, I hate to say a rebuild, but obviously they weren't running particularly well.

And I knew that it was going to be different than what I was used to doing, you know, my whole career. So, you know, that being said, that was a good experience to go back and do that. but probably wasn't something I wanted to do necessarily full-time. And, you know, had a great season or a great year. Last year, taking a year off, spent some time with the family. And then this just kind of came up out of nowhere. And honestly, it's like one of those things. You know, you think about it for a little bit, talk to Katie a lot about it.

And, you know, it just seemed like the right deal at the right time for me. It's a competitive car. You know, I think they got a great team over there. It's interesting situation, already being in the middle of Maine. before you start racing. So it just felt like the right thing at the right time. Where were you when you got the call? And what were you doing? And when did you get Katie involved? You know, in December, I'll be married for 20 years. So I got Katie involved immediately. Good.

You really do make, you know, all our decisions really, really together. So, you know, I was, I was at home and Mr. Cox was doing stuff with kids. So I've known Max Jones for a long time, and he kind of called me about it. And, you know, I thought about it a little bit, but I didn't think a lot of it. And, you know, called them back a few days later to see how seriously they were and kind of what it was going to look like in a lot of different ways. And then from there, it just didn't take that long. Like I said, it's, you know, usually when you make a driver change or a crew chief change or all that, it's almost always performance related, right? So to have the opportunity to get in a car that's currently running well, I know you're already partway in this season and all that, but it's currently running. well and really they just needed a driver. I just thought it was a good opportunity for me to

take another stab at it and see if I can perform well. What's your objective? Yeah, so personally, what do you hope to accomplish? You know, I hope to be competitive. Again, obviously, it's going to be a steep learning curve. You know, the first sounds like six races, there's not going to be any practice and never driving for this team, different spotter, crew chief, equipment, car, steering, fit. Like, you know, all the things that go into that to make you feel. You know, confident and make you feel comfortable and I'm able to help you relay information. So it's going to be pretty interesting. I'm already a little anxious about that first lap at Garlington. So, but I mean, really, my goals aren't any different than what they used to be. So I'd say I adjusted my

goals in 2018 just because, you know, I knew there was quite some things we had changed, things like that. But every other year I really race my goals. Haven't really been that different. It's just to be the best I can be. You go out and you hope you're you can put everything together and figure out of win. What can you do to prepare yourself for how this car is going to drive with the spoiler and the horsepower and all those things? Do you take a lot of stock in getting an opportunity to run the SIM at all? Do you pour over notes and conversate with engineers and crew cheese and so forth?

What are you trying to do to, I guess, to cut that curve in half? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot more tools today than there was, you know, 10 years ago, if you can't be in a car. I don't think anything replaces being in a car and working with your team and doing all that kind of stuff. But I think with all the S&T data and all the different stuff you can look at from every driver in the field,

every lap they ran the last two years. I mean, you can dig through that stuff. It's endless so you can see the driver inputs and different things they were doing and watching film. And I think a lot of that, talking to Kurt a lot, my teammate Kurt and, you know, talking about Chief, reading through their notes from last year, just all that kind of stuff, I think, to try to be as mentally prepared as you can,

changing up some of the physical training a little bit as well, just to try to be ready for the race. And it looks like it's going to be the first warm day we've had, you know, in a long time, which will be different, I think, for everybody, because everybody's been out of the car for a while. So, you know, change up the physical stuff, I think the last few weeks a little bit, and then just try to be as mentally prepared as you can. Like what?

What are you doing, physical stuff? I mean, what does the change of that mean? Go from 90-mile bike ride to a million-mile bike ride. I mean, like, what do you do? You're already, you know, bionic man. Yeah, right. You know, you can never give away, you know, traits. All your secrets.

Got it. Yeah, look, to look like you, we got to earn it, right? We can't, we can't just, look at that. That is, I'm telling you what, which way to the beach? I'd be honestly, I've rode, I've rode bikes with Matt, and biking is a very social activity, but not so much with Matt, because he's always about 100 yards ahead of me. I can't even carry on a conversation with a guy because he can't hear me so far away. That's not true.

That is. No, it is true. Every time I rode bikes with him, he's like, well, you know, I'm a lot slower. So he's got to get his workout in. He can't sit there and go along with me. He can't wait on anybody, that's for sure. Yeah. You put the miles in.

I know that. Matt, we'll get back to this 42D in a second, but what exactly are you in? You look like you're in an interrogation room. Is this in the Kenseth family compound where you, you know, what the heck is this? You know, this is my office. And I will say it's funny, you know, we built this house six or seven years ago. And everybody thinks they need an office. I'm like, what do I need an office for?

So like the last two weeks is the most I've ever used this. So yeah. So you don't even use your office. I do. You got a little patriotic thing going on behind you. That's nice. I like that. So when we built this house, the person is 40.

Interior degrading. kind of just picked it out and put it on the wall and I liked it. So you got your office, you got your, uh, uptick physical, uh, activities going on. So you're getting back in shape. Uh, I'm curious. It's actually been a down. What's that? It's actually been a down take and we just changed it a little bit. Oh, I got you downtake. Why would I assume that it was more right? You, you, you already were, uh, matting it already. Okay. Would you go so far as to say you missed racing? Yes. So there's a, there's a lot of things I missed about it. Um, you know, there's, it's not the things that everybody would think.

You know, really, I really miss the camaraderie. I really miss being part of a team, you know, part of a unit group that is trying to go out and, you know, beat the best drivers and beat the best teams that built stock cars, you know, go to beat the best and try to be the best you can be. And be part of that link in that change. It takes everybody, you know, doing their job at a high level to be able to be successful at this board or be able to win. And so I really miss being part of that group, the interaction with your team, just the little things, going to the shop. And that's what I miss the most. It's just the people and being part of the team. So if this deal works out really well and turns into something more long term, what, if anything, will you do differently maybe in this chapter?

So this is kind of maybe chapter number two or your second chance. at going back and doing it differently. You know, when I had, when I had to get out of the car for half a season, it sort of gave me this sort of window into retirement. And then I came back and ran that last year. And I told myself, you know, I'm not going to get worked up over this. I'm not going to get stressed out over this. I'm not going to get competitive in this moment because it doesn't help me.

And I'm going to try to appreciate X, Y, and Z. Is there any of that going on for you when you go into this opportunity to where, you know, Because we, I think as drivers, man, we just, it's in our nature to get competitive and watch that scoreboard and want to be on top in every practice and all those things. But you can really make it miserable if you're not careful. Even in the best of time, some of the best, most competitive, successful drivers are miserable people. The majority of the time, you know, so do you think about that at all and going into this with probably a different approach? You know, yes and no, but I would say mostly no. I mean, I feel like everybody has something different inside of them that drives them.

Everybody has different reactions to different things. We're all different. Some of us are more different than others. And I just know kind of the feeling I need to have. I know what it takes for me to be competitive and be my best. And I want to have taken this if I didn't feel like I could put 100% effort in. And that was one thing Katie and I talked about. She's like, you know, you can't go do this if you're not going to be all in, you know.

And I don't want you to worry about being gone from the kids a little bit here doing this or doing an extra. She says, you got to be all in to be your best. And I realize that I'm not getting any younger and you're probably not as, you know, gifted as or talented or however you want to say it, as you were maybe 10 years ago or whatever it may be. So I realize you got to work harder at it. So I think for me, just to put in as much effort as I can possibly put in and try to be the best I can be. you know, I don't want to say that you're going to enjoy it more. I think you're going to learn to appreciate it and you're going to enjoy it when you're running good. You know, but man, for me, I always got to have that sense of urgency in my stomach.

You know, I always have to have that feeling that, you know, you're not secure, you're only as good as your last lap and your last race and all that kind of stuff to try to be better all the time. So I don't know how much different I'll approach it, you know, and to touch one other thing. I mean, like last year, you know, I got a taste of the retirement thing that was awesome. Like, it was the best summer I had ever. So then a lot of ways you look at it. Well, why are you going to do this? Right.

So I think there's a lot of circumstances. Honestly, if this would have came up in February, I think I almost for sure went to done. You know, but we've had going on 10 weeks of being here with the family without really leaving. And, man, we've had, like, there's a lot of terrible things going on in the world right now with the silver lining. It's like all the family time we've had. It's just been great. All the time. We've been able to spend together.

Last summer, all, you know, the whole summer when we were in school every day, we pretty much just got up and said, what we want to do to do this family today? And we just went and did it, you know, and had a great time. So with that being said, it'd be in the middle of May and the season's going to be shorter on the calendar, no matter what, even if you're running as many races, it's still shorter on a calendar. And kids still aren't doing sports and like all that stuff. And I was like, man, if there's ever time, I go do it, it was going to be a little less time away

from home, getting in a great car that hopefully. If I can do my job, we can be competitive in, and you just don't get a lot of those opportunities. It just seemed like it was the right one of the right time. Your little girls are old enough to have a part of conversation on whether you get back in the car or not. And what was their reaction when you told them about this and when you got real serious about it? You know, what was their reaction to you getting back on the road? And will they be able to experience this with you?

Well, I mean, the last part of the question, I have no idea because we don't know what's going to happen, right? Like we don't know if there's going to be fans of the racetrack or if you can bring your buddy to the racetracker, if you can bring your buddy to the racetrack or your family. So I mean, who knows what's going to happen? Svira, it's actually impossible to predict. We just don't know. Everybody has these great plans all laid out, but we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, next week, or whatever. So, you know, I think they're excited, but, you know, they're young. They weren't really part of the decision-making process with us.

Certainly they were the priority in Katie and I making the decision. But when we kind of talked to them about, you know, what we're going to do and what was going on, I mean, obviously, Mallory doesn't know anything about it. She actually likes playing with, like, all the matchbox cars, but little, you know, she likes playing with little race cars and die casts all the time. I don't know why because she knew nothing about barely racing. And Clara kind of remembers Grace Moore and Kalen, you know, more. But it's funny, you know, as kids get older, you know, when they were that age, they don't really, they just remember the things about it. that you would never think anything about. Like they think it was cool and staying them over home.

Like they remember things like that, you know, so, you know, I think they're excited, but I don't know if they 100% understand what it means it. You know, that's usually the case is, you know, it's our own families that are the most hard to impress. You know, it's like, hey, I'm, you know, I'm going to be wheeling that race car or, or, you know, like, yeah, yeah, you know, bring me back a prize or something. You know what I'm saying? It's like, they're hard to impress.

It sounds like that, what do you got to do to impress your own family? your kids, for them to consider this a success. Well, they're impressed when taking camping. That's their favorite thing doing. They go. By the way, entails setting up a tent in the front yard. Have you been doing that? Have you all been, is that how y'all been spending some quarantine time?

Oh, yeah, that's great. But yeah. Clara, who is six, told me the other day, she's like, hey, I was kind of thinking about that racing. And really, all you're doing is driving a car and you're just going to go in circles all the time instead of going somewhere, right? I'm like, I mean, I guess. Yeah, kind of.

Just take that taco and just drive it up and down the driveway fast. You'll be all ready to go. I didn't do that yet, but I thought she was thinking. So you're going to be teammates again with Kurt Bush. You guys were teammates years ago. Probably spent some time talking to Kurt. What's like, I guess, you know Kurt pretty well, and he's a pretty good teammate. He's a lot different, though.

A lot different. This is a new version of Kurt. and what we had years ago. So I guess you've got to be pretty excited about working with him again. Yeah, I am. Kurt was always a great teammate. You know, I never had one issue with Kurt. You know, we always got along well.

He's always a hard worker and doesn't mind putting in the time. And he's great at feedback. He's very unselfish. He's like all the things you'd want, you know, a teammate to be. So it's been a long time since we've worked together. Our communication was always good. and we also got along well, so I'm hoping we can pick right up there. And I know he'll be a big help for me.

He's first, you know, until we get back to track, I start practicing probably more. You know, he'll be a big help to me, and then hopefully I can catch on, you know, fairly soon and help them up. You talked about going to Darlington, no practice, no qualifying. I mean, you're literally going to run your first lap under green flag. That's unprecedented, something we've never done before. You haven't, you know, you never drove for this team. It's been a long time since you've been in a Chevy and felt that Chevrolet power.

So I know that's going to catch you by surprise. But how do you, I mean, what are the things that you can prepare, help yourself prepare for that? I mean, how do you anticipate that happening and going? You remember in 1998, 1999, we used to go practice the Xfinity car with Mark Martin, right? Yeah. And Mark would hit the track like he'd already ran 500 laps. I mean, he could just, he could arc into term one at Charlotte on Friday morning before or anybody's ever been on the racetrack with so much confidence and run such a lap that was just so

impressive. He just could hang it out there. He would arc it bigger into term one than he would ever do in the race just because he could and knew the car was going to do what it needed to do. And so there'll be some guys that go into these races with that mentality. And then there'll be guys on the other side of that to be really careful and work their way up to it. Do you think about that at all? I mean, this is really unprecedented to be going into a race and just say,

hey, we're lining up. You're going to take the green at Darlington, which is probably one of the most challenging and technical tracks that we race on. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, how would you like to be out of those suckers lined up around me? Right. That's what I'm worried about. If you're nervous, what do you think they're like?

I don't know. You think I'm nervous. You know, I think, you know, seriously, I mean, I think, just have to, it's hard for me because I think most of us that race are like this, but like, I can't stand being passed, right? Like the worst thing ever is like you got cars going by and you're going backwards and, you know, doing all that. So I think you need to, you know, have the right mindset going in there and adjust your expectations at least for the first run until you get to at least the first caution to, you know, to not wreck and not get too worked up

if you lose a hunk of spots. So it's still 400 miles. And, you know, it's hard to, past these days and just kind of look at the big picture. You're not going to learn anything. You're not going to get any better if you're sitting in the garage. So you need to get through those first groups of corners, try to get a field for the car and hopefully start to start working your way up. Is it a question maybe that both you guys can answer? How long does it take to get acclimated to a new team with, you know,

not just a crew chief, but just, you know, all the guys that you're kind of depending on around you. How long does that take? Well, I mean, that's a, that's a question that doesn't really apply to today because, You know, right now, the shop's kind of a skeleton crew. Everybody's got to work in shifts, you know, because they can't all work together. Everybody's pretty much in full protective gear. You know, people that can work from home are working from home.

So, like, I haven't even met my engineers face-to-face. We've done a call like this, you know. But so there's no testing. There's no practice. So there's so many things that is going to make this, you know, happen way quicker or be more challenging than if you're making a normal team swap, you know. I'm sure Dale Jr. can, you know, comment on this too. But usually when you change with the team, you have a whole offseason.

So you'll go to the shop, you'll take guys to lunch, you'll hang out, you'll visit them in the gym, you go watch pit stop practice, you get used to everybody in the shop. You spend a lot of time kind of getting to know everybody, getting an understanding system, how they go about things, a lot of face-to-face time. And you can't really do hardly any of that right now. So that'll be a challenge.

We'll see how long it takes, but I know it's going to be more challenging than typically it would be. What opportunities you had to talk to Chip, and how much did you really know Chip before all this, and are you getting to know him a lot now? You know, I didn't really know him that well. I mean, obviously, you know, I've both seen him in the garage for the last 20 years

or maybe not quite that, yeah, I guess about 20 years and race against him and done all that. But, you know, he strikes me as one of those people that a little bit like Robbie Reiser, Like when you're on his team, you know, you're going to get along great and he's all about it. And when you're not on his team, he's your enemy. Right. So like that's the feeling I get.

I'm not saying that's right. So I've never really had a long conversation with him, honestly, until, you know, two weeks ago. It was the first time we really ever really ever talked to him, you know, very much. So I know a lot about him, but don't really know him, you know, personally like it would maybe some others. Yeah, he's a racer, it seems like to me. And he drove and was a competitor. at one point in his career. And I kind of appreciate when the owner or the crew chief or engineer has some driving

background. They kind of understand what you're dealing with and the struggles that you're going through. And when you're talking about the car and all those things, they can kind of plug in. And he likes winners. And he picked the winner, you know, when he chose you to come into this situation, it's a challenging situation. But I don't think he could have picked a better person to come in there. You're the total package.

You're a champion. You're a winner. and, you know, if I was in that situation, it would have been a no-brainer to do the same thing. So looking forward to get things on the racing front. I feel like that do you feel like you have sort of unfinished business? Have you packaged that and put that away over the last couple of years, or is that still sort of on your shoulder to go out there and prove anything to anybody or to yourself? Yeah, I mean, maybe myself a little bit.

You know, I always feel like, you know, you want to be your best and, you know, you still think you can be competitive. You still think you can win, but can you? You know, I guess you'll find out. But I don't know. I will have to say that up to this point, I don't know that I was ever totally at peace, you know, with the whole situation and like the end at the time for when I was driving, you know, kind of how things ended at the JGR. I was never really 100% of piece of that, to be honest. And, you know, even the last deal just wasn't, it just way it ended. It just didn't quite turn out how I was hoping it would necessarily.

So I'm looking forward to have another chance. I'm really excited about it. I mean, it's hard to tell if I'm excited or not excited at times. People have told me, hard guy to read, I've been told. I can't believe that. But I'm pretty excited. It's as excited as I've been to go racing in as long as I can remember, to be honest with this. I'm looking forward to getting back to the track.

Like I said, it's a unique opportunity. at a very unique time. There's a lot of challenges. I mean, I like challenges, but it's definitely going to be challenging these first bunch of weeks to get started. So I'm looking forward to getting going, and hopefully this first race goes okay,

and we can go from there. So before we let you go, I wanted to ask you about running super late models. You've ran a few races over the last couple of years, had a lot of fun, I'm sure, with that, and good success with it as well. What dictates what dictates what you are going to do, what races you're going to run in that kind of situation.

That's always been something I've been curious about. It seems easy for guys that are cup drivers, cup regulars, to do what they want to do. But when you aren't a cup regular, you have really a whole, you know, a lot of opportunities out there to do anything and everything you want, drive pretty much any car that you'd like to drive. So how do you go about making those choices

and deciding what you will and won't do? Where's that going in the future? I know that now you're back in the 42 car. You're focusing on on that 100%. Yeah, I don't foresee driving anything this year except for the 42 car. You know, it's different than what it once was. I mean, what you kind of said is true, you know,

15 years ago probably like you get different opportunities. You know, if you want to go drive somebody's a Trinity car, you know, you call them especially as your buddy. You want to be like, hey, man, let's go run that road course or let's go do this. And they're like, yeah, let's get a sponsor. Let's go do it. And it's like, how much money you got to bring me? You know, so it's definitely a different sport than what it once was in a lot of, in a lot of different ways.

But the lay model stuff is different. My friend Joe Wood and Jason Schuller run that Pathfinder chassis in Wisconsin, and they'll put a house car together every once in a while. Whenever we want to run some races and we'll go a little run, so you're Madison and some local short track stuff. So we did a couple races last year. We're going to do some more, and it just kind of didn't end up working out with my schedule and some other things that I wanted to do last year. So, but it's fun to go back. It's, it's changed a lot, too, you know, than. How is it different?

I think just that, mainly the cars and stuff have just changed a lot, you know, compared to how they used to feel and drive and what you used to work on. I mean, they're just like everything else, you know, they're on bump stops, and they're just a lot more complicated and just have, you know, it's just different, you know, than it was. But it's fun. It's fun to go back and race with some of the younger guys and kind of see the new guys that are kind of working their way through and kind of see what they're made of.

It's all fun. You went back and you. you won. Did that surprise you or because that's competitive, you know, super late models, late models, that's a very, very competitive type of racing to be involved in. And you went back and were competitive and won races on a very limited schedule. So was that kind of comforting but surprising at the same time? Yeah, Slinger's been fun. You know, we've ran pretty well at Slinger the last a bunch of times I went up there. But we got very fortunate

to the last one. Ty Majesky runs a late mile up there at Toby's, and he's like so much faster than everybody, especially in the long run. And he got away by a long way. I just kind of loved him. I couldn't keep up in the long run. We're going to finish second or third.

And then I got a couple late cautions. I could run pretty fast for about five laps. And I got a caution with like four to go. And I was able to stay alongside where he couldn't get in front of me. And he kind of bumped the wall on the backstretch, coming to the checker, it gave me just enough room to kind of get in there and slide up the track a little for the win. So it was a really exciting win.

It's always fun to win no matter what you're doing. That's why we all do it. You know, but he definitely had a better car. He was definitely, definitely going to get in. No matter who has the better car, if you literally go in there and win, and you got a sense of humor, and I know you, you ought to get out of the car and just be like, big daddy, Maddie, still got it, boys, you know? I mean, come on, right?

lean into it a little bit. No, I usually just look around and make sure nothing's going to come flying out of the grandstand. Oh, did you do something? All the cans are going to be empty, so you feel fairly safe. Why would anybody do that to you, Matt? I don't know. I'm just saying. Well, why would, okay, so your nickname from back in the day was Matt the Brat, was it not?

Yeah, but you know, if you know Todd Bailey, the announcer up there, a friend of mine, I mean, honestly, I don't know. I'm sure he just came up with accent, Ryan. Oh, come on. No, no, no, no, no. I don't mind. He's not like a super deep thinker, right? He was probably just like, one man, he just came out.

He's like, hey, wait, that sounds good together. He's like, I got, I go, Matt the rat. He ain't like that. Matt the brat. Yeah, so you just go with. He didn't care of whatever they like. So there's no bratty stories. I mean, come on.

I bet there has to be something. You know, I don't know. He always just said that he came up with that because at the time, I was much younger than the people I was racing against. Yeah. So. You're not, I don't know, but that's what he was told. I heard that, you know, before you got in the bush car, that you,

you were driving the bush car for, you just mentioned it. Rizers. Yeah, for Robbie. So before you raced his car, y'all raced against each other. Yeah. And y'all weren't quite friendly, right? Weren't y'all kind of competitive? Yeah, not an all friendly.

Right. So how did. Okay. He was a big bully, and I was like the little kid just starting, and he was like the big bully. Tell me how y'all go from completely not getting along to him calling you up and saying, hey, man, I need you to come help me, you know, drive my car and my Xfinity program. I don't know. That's a great question.

So I was in North Carolina racing my late model one time, and we had two races in a row, so we were staying down here for a few days. And, you know, I knew Robbie. It was been a couple of years since we were racing us each other. And we stopped over at his Bush Series shop just to kind of say hi or whatever. And he was super nice, like walked us around and showed us everything. And that was really about it. And then didn't really keep contact with him.

And then it was about a month later, I was racing Rougemont down here in a late mile again. It was after the race. And he called me. And as I was doing, I told him I was driving back to Wisconsin. And he asked if I come by at the bush shop. So you turned and drove down to Denver, North Carolina. and kind of met with him and his dad and said that they wanted me to drive the next week in Nashville and that they had to change drivers to the wrecking all time and just wanted to try something

different. So that's kind of how it happened. So obviously I took it, drove to Wisconsin, then drove to Nashville and ran my first racer room and working together as teammates, we hit it off right away and just took like one practice and I knew it was going to work. So I think with his driving background and his work ethic and his dad from, running a business and all that. It was just a really neat fit, really neat family team at the time. How were y'all as competitive as you were in such a quick short period of time? You had a Chevrolet. I remember when you went to Nashville and ran that first race. You come into the next season and win at Rockingham earlier, early in the year when you

move Stewart out of the way for a pretty exciting win. No sponsor. Well, you just got the Like a steel. But anyhow, my question is, is I saw Robbie, he came to test his car at Myrtle Beach, and I had my late model and I was testing it. And I'd watch the Xfinity races. And I could see how Robbie's team ran. They weren't performing super well. And it was a small team.

You get with the program and they got better at the same time. What were the pieces of the puzzle? Was there some influence from Roush even then that was. was helping that team, or was it just you and Robbie and y'all, y'all sort of put, you know, you know, moving pieces around with what you had to improve? What made that car better outside of obviously you and your talent? But what, how did the team get so much better in such a short period of time? You know, Robbie and I just hit it off right away, I think was, was the big thing early on, you know, us both being from Wisconsin, were both real hands-on

and built all our own stuff and I was still building my own shocks. And, like, we just, just, you know, we just hit off pretty good right away. I can't remember the exact date when I started kind of working with Roush a little bit. And then it was still, you know, even all the way through the end of 99, there was a little bit of Roush influence there, kind of, but it was more just, you know, I could ask Mark Martin what shocks he was running, and he would try in the right direction, like that type of thing. It wasn't like a shared technology or building our cars.

I mean, we were still running Chevys at the time and all that. So there was a little help there, probably 99 more than, more than any other year when I ran full time with them. But I think just, you know how it is, just a combination. You know, I think that Robbie and I were able to speak the same language and work really well together and it was a productive relationship. And, you know, especially back then, I think if the driver of Creechee's relationship isn't good, you're probably not going to run good no matter what happens, right?

But if it is good, you know, there's a lot more potential. You know, you just have the potential to do that much better. because if your crew chief believes what you're saying, what you say he's buying into it, and the driver's buying into one of the crew chief's telling you, and you have that relationship, it's much easier to be successful. Dale, you didn't run against Matt at all, did you, in late model?

I'm just curious, because you seem to know a lot about his past. I didn't know if that was from your friendship or if you guys actually had met before you guys started going into the Bush series, now it's called Google, Mike. What's that? Oh, Google. Google. Google.

I think the, You know, me and Matt didn't race against each other in late models. He ran a super late model, and I ran a late model stock. But it just always fascinated me because I, so I was at that test. I think it was like a Friday before the Xfinity race at Myrtle Beach in around 96 or so. And I have my car and I'm running it and we broke something. And I, the only person, I didn't have the part that I needed. It was a weird stud for, it was something that I wouldn't carry on my truck or my little goose neck.

But so I was like, oh, man, I guess I got to go over there and ask Robbie if he's got it. And they were there testing his car, just him driving it. And I didn't know them. And I didn't know if they shoot me away or what. But I walked over there and I was like, hey, I got this thing and I broke it. And he's like, I got one. And went in there and got it to me. And I was like, dang.

I was like, man, I appreciate that. We get to keep testing. We don't have to go home. And then, you know, and so I knew Robbie and how he was running, but then I paid even more attention after that. And then when Matt got in the car, you know, they had Tim Bender or somebody driving. I can't remember who it was that was having trouble. Yeah.

And so Matt got in it, and it shot, you know, it improved dramatically. And I always just was curious as to how Matt felt that team improved. I knew that Roush wasn't a big involvement in it that early, but, you know, it was hard to be competitive in the series with a team like that, like a small Mono Pops team. You know, there were so many teams like that that had this sort of track record for running mid-pack or worse, and they really elevated their game. I always wondered how Matt felt about that and how he felt they accomplished that.

Yeah, I mean, it's hard for me to comment on before I got there because I never really knew 10. I wasn't really at the races, and they were only partly into the, the season. So when I started with them in 97, I mean, they had, I mean, you know how it was then. You bought everything, right? You'd buy a car from Hopkins and you'd take it and have the best guy you knew, put a body on it. You know, bought motors from somewhere. We had motors from K-Tech that came out of Michigan. So you kind of had all those pieces that were all kind of basic what everybody ran and put it together. And then I felt like from there it was just more communication and like

old school setup stuff, right? Like springs and shocks and sway bars and just like all the normal basic stuff. So I felt like they spent the money, you know, and got decent cars and got, you know, pretty put the bodies on, got decent bodies put on their cars, which was the two big chunks and the engine. So I felt like they had, you know, decent stuff. We just had to figure out how to try to get it together. So, Matt, because we know you, I'm curious, did you watch any of the pro-invitational series iraicing stuff over the past month? I can't wait to hear this. Yes, exactly. You understand. I want to hear your honest opinion.

Did you watch it? And what was your opinion? Well, the first question is no, it's hard to have an opinion on. Okay, well, that may explain your reason. It's a serious thing if you want me to be honest. I don't even really have time to play video games that much. And I like playing video games. Like, I like playing Madden and stuff.

But, like, I don't have any interest in watching somebody else play video games. Like, if you want to play me in a game of Maddenor, we both actively participating in it, I think it would be fun. But for me to watch you and Dale Jr. play madden in the city here and be like, oh, it's cool. You can just do that slant row. Okay. I just didn't really get into that. I think it was great.

I heard there was a ton of viewers, and I heard some of it was, you know, kind of interesting, but it's just, it's crazy. It just tells you where we are society right now, how much everybody's dying for live sports. So I think everybody's super excited for Sunday. I know I am. And it'll be cool. get some real cars on the track. I just would, I knew that that was the way Matt would feel about the, you know,

just in the platform in general, but when you don't really have any other options. Yeah, it's a great idea. And nobody's trying to say that it's the same. I just wondered if that might change you a little bit. It's like be more receptive to it because there's nothing else going on. And if maybe you caught a couple races thought it was entertaining how maybe, I don't know, John Hunter and I'ma-check is taking out people or whatever. And I don't know.

You know, it was a shot in the dark here. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, I'm not, you know. No. I'm sure it was neat to watch, but I mean, I got four little girls at home and like, we're doing stuff. I mean, I'd rather be out, you know, camping with them or going doing something than watching some people play video games because, like, when you crash and they say

you can get a reset and go to pit road and start over, I'm like, I mean, I mean, that's cool if you're the guy. I feel the same way about the resets. I don't know. I know, you know, I don't know juniors are big into that. You love doing it. I think I probably like doing it. but just being a driver and like watching other people race it or play it.

I just didn't really. Well, I mean, actually, that was what I was wondering is that if you did watch it, did it make you kind of want to participate? But it sounds like you never even got your, you let yourself get that far. Yeah, I didn't watch it. So, you know, because if you did, Katie being the, if you're going to do this, you need to be all in, man, you'd be coming in with a spaceship type of rig.

You know what I'm saying? Matt would all of a sudden have gone from. I'm not for this. Now all of a sudden he's got something that he's like, show me the biggest one. Denny Hamlin, okay, go bigger. See, you see. No, not even a chance, right?

I mean, I mean. Matt's very frugal. Are you really? Yes, extremely. But so is Junior on certain things. No, no, I agree with that. No. He's actually cheap on certain things.

I'm just, wait, I was going to say cheap, but I used the nice word, frugal. and here you went right to cheap. I like to call him the brokest rich guy I know. Yeah. Like, you know, if you're going to a drive-thru, he don't carry any cash or anything on him, so you better be ready to pay for both of them.

Yeah. Oh, man, I guess I forgot my wallet, guys. But all right. Well, so, you know, Dale is frugal. You and so you are too. Good. Well, no, I wouldn't have lunch and dinner, though. I always,

Matt always made me feel comfortable about my frugleness. because he had you beat. No, because it's just, you know, I felt mad about being frugal or guilty about it. I'd be like, well, Matt, look at mad. He's frugalness. Me and I say that, well, me and Matt, like, literally were just about every week, side by side in the bus slot. We came up in the Xfinity Series together.

We raced in a cup series out of the gate together. We pretty much, our careers were always kind of side by side, you know, figuratively and literally. And so we always kind of bounce things off each other. So if he was very frugal about something, then it made me more comfortable with being frugal as well. Okay, so Matt, you'll appreciate this, being that you've got a litter of kids.

So Dale Jr. tells me the other day we're on the phone, and we were talking about swing sets, and he's like, did you know he's having another kid? Yeah, I know, I've heard. You know, I found out because they must have put on Instagram and somebody told me he follows me. Oh, yeah, right, right, right. No, that was the news until you came in.

and took all the publicity. I didn't know that when I was going to have a child, I was supposed to text you, Matt. Right, don't you? All roads lead through Matt. If that's the case, I got to get on the fall and start sending out some text messages. There's a lot of people I haven't texted about this.

Hey, Matt, I think we're thinking about Chipotle for dinner. Are you good with that? Run it all through that. But Matt, so hold on. So Dale says to me, I mean, just speaking of this, you know, frugleness, he's like a thing Amy wants us to get a swing set for Ila or a play set but they're so expensive and I'm like hell get out of a play set this this is a no brighter they're not all that much

I mean he's like no man they're so pricey and I'm like get her a swing set so uh you know how you know how just to comment to that you know how I justified it Matt this is how you would justify that too. Since I'm having another kid, I basically split the price in two. So that's more affordable. That's how I justified it in my mind. I'm like, well, you know, really I'm paying for half of this. I know. I got an awesome one. Mine was almost free. So many kids over here. That's right. That's right. You paid for your stuff 10 times over, right? Yeah. All right. All right, man. Well, I appreciate you coming on today. I know you got a lot of things do this week to get ready for the race.

We wish you well, buddy, and we're so glad to see you back out there. It's going to be fun watching you progress and watching you figure it out. It's going to be a great time. Thanks, man. Appreciate having me on. All right, buddy. Take care. We'll see you the track.

See it. All right, so interesting information on social media these days. It's kind of floating around in a lot of different channels, but there's some information coming in from Chicago or about Chicago. the Speedway out there. Okay. That, well, there's potential that they're going to develop this land. This track's going to go away.

Matthew Dillner, you sent me some information about that. Why don't you back us up here about what you know and where this information's coming from? Yeah, well, the other week there was the announcement that Chicago land would not have its race on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule this year. that was also followed up with a bunch of layoffs, unfortunately, for those people. And now there was a leak that showed potential redevelopment plans to make it into possibly a multi-purpose industrial complex. And that would, in turn, kind of make Chicago Land Speedway a lost speedway. Of course, none of us want to see that, but that's the reality that we're living in these days.

and Jerry Jordan put out a article about it yesterday of the day before, and some definitely stirred up the pot on the web. What was the leak? It was the leak from a credible, like a legitimate source? Yes, it was from a government site within Joliet. And then they decided to table the discussion until July. Yeah, it was supposed to be during a meeting in April, but it got delayed until July. And so like the plan for that kind of got leaked is what I'm seeing.

Yeah. Wow. So they're going to. Yeah. So this real potential, this track will never hold another date that we might lose Chicago entirely. We know that the schedule was going to be revamped and renewed going in the next season. And if we lose Chicago, that'll be a sad one.

I've won a race there. 2005. Yeah. So, and I thought it was a really cool market for us. And not, you know, pretty fun racetrack. You know, it's put on a really, really good race, really wide and abrasive surface. They don't make a lot of those. I know that people are going to say that it's a cookie cutter track,

and we've got plenty of those out there for sure. But we don't have a lot of them that had that type of racing where you could run from the fence to the apron all day long. I wonder what it means for the drag strip there because there's the drag strip across the street too. And the short track as well. You're right, Leah. So that's all in question right. And I think it, you know, it's to be expected during times like this that things, a lot of things can be reconsidered.

And a lot of things can be, you know, everybody starts to sort of look at where they're going and what they're doing and what they've been doing. And we all can sit at home and think about whether we need to make any adjustments to that. And we felt, I felt, I say we, I felt there were to be casualties in this restructure of the schedule. Yes. you know there would be casualties and and if you're going to bring in new revenue new race tracks or new locations of any kind someone will have to lose but i never considered the fact that we would lose the track entirely like you know i thought some that had two dates may go back to one things like that but i didn't think that we would just quit going altogether at some of these racetracks but it's uh you know we've heard that as as as well about fontana they're There's been some conversations about that land and its future and what that means for the racetrack there. But this sounds pretty serious for Chicago.

Well, that would be interesting about Fontana being that we lost, you know, the tracks that we lost to go to Fontana way back when. Wasn't Rockingham and Rockingham sort of the casualties of that? Yeah, so that's interesting. I got to tell you, and Dale, you're 100% right. I mean, there were going to be repercussions on this revamp schedule one way or another. And it sounds to me, from what I'm hearing, and I'm hearing it for the first time as far as this Chicago land redevelopment. But that has nothing to do with NASCAR.

That has everything to do with the government and the locals there. And they're making their plans for the future, which they're well within their right to do. Real quick update here, because it just posted right as we're starting to show that Michael Schwartz, Jolietz, Director of City Planning Commission said that the track will remain that, The rezoning had to deal with the parking lots and whatnot. It's kind of odd because the rezoning plans obviously went over all the facility. So we don't know. We'll see.

Well, I'm glad they put a statement out because silence on, you know, with all that information sort of leaking and silence on that almost was affirmation of its truth. But so for them to come out, you know, if they're doing any kind of rezoning or rezone or, you know, if they're taking away parking lots, maybe they don't need as much spaces they have or they don't feel like they need as much spaces they have available to them in terms of parking. So they're going to make some better use of that.

It is like 15,000 acres or some crazy number, right? So let's hope that Chicago sticks around. But whichever sport the red direction is going in, I'm staying on the bus. I'm riding. I'm not going to tell you a little bit different. When I'm watching that Wilkesboro race over the weekend, that e-race, you know, it didn't make me go into the camp of we need to rebuild Wilkesboro, but it did make me wonder why we can't have tracks like that, those short tracks like that. It looked so awesome. And, you know, Richmond is sort of this, Dale, you're going to hate it when I say this, but just from a visual standpoint from somebody that wouldn't know how anything drives.

Richmond to me is sort of the closest thing we got to what I saw with Wilkesboro. And like I don't compare Bristol to it because it's just a completely different looking track. But I don't know, man. It just made me wish we had more of those. And so take that for what it's worth. It looked cool. More short tracks, Mike. Yeah, I wish that's an original idea.

I don't think anybody's ever said that. So let me introduce that into the conversation. Yeah. Well, with the pandemic and how that's affected the economy, it's certainly had the same effect on NASCAR. I do not see any chance whatsoever of any future project involving North Wiltsboro, Rockyham, or any other old track. That's off the table until big revenue can start coming in for some of these businesses. NASCAR and so forth.

So with that said, I feel like that this is a, whether it's intentional or just a forced direction because of the economics of it all, when we were racing at Wilkesboro, Rockingham and we had a lot smaller crowds, like it'd sell the place out and it'd be $60,000,

whatever. Same thing at Bristol for years in the 80s and 90s. We just kept adding to see. out and seats, out and seats, right? And we just were getting bigger and bigger, right? And then the balloon popped and now we're coming back off of that high. And we're understanding or we're finding where we fit back, you know, where we fit, right?

And we don't fit in some of the bigger venues that are holding 180,000 people. We will again one day. We may. Things change. Yeah. Things change. The way people consume, you know, this is a bigger conversation. I don't want to really get down this rabbit hole, but the way people are consuming the sports

changed as well. Yes. But anyhow, I don't have a problem with us going back to smaller venues. I don't see it as a negative or a bad sign for us to go try to race in front of 60,000 or 50,000 people at a short track. I just, you know, I don't. I still think we'd have an amazing product put on network television. I still think that people would consume it just as eagerly.

And if that's where we're headed long term, and this is a part of that, you know, a track such as Chicago going away, you know, I wish it wouldn't. I wish I would love to see Chicago succeed and stay on the schedule. But if it's inevitable for us to be headed toward this kind of going back to some version,

previous version of ourselves where we might have been in the 80s or early 90s as a sport in terms of attendance and tracks and so forth. I don't have a problem of that. And that's why I don't really ever buy into the idea that we're failing, that we're not healthy, that we can't succeed, we can't win in any environment. People love to race. Owners love to own cars, drivers love to drive them. NASCAR loves to organize races.

That's all you need. Fans are going to show up and consume it. Whether it's on a grand scale, whether it's for 40,000, 60,000, or 180,000 people. I've been in all of it, and it was all great. So for me, it can succeed anywhere. Go ahead, Mike. On that note, I just want to tell you,

as we get back racing this coming week, the thought occurred to me that I hope the drivers, especially the young ones understand the situation and the opportunity that we have because you know we had the Daytona 500 this year and everything lined up

to really be a big day for the sport and then it rained right and it felt like a big downer I think we have a situation again where if the drivers can take a different approach and not be a little selfish not be the mentality of I'm just glad to be back racing

but rather understand that the whole world is going to be watching right we have an unprecedented opportunity well unprecedented maybe similar to 79 right 1979 you got the whole world watching i hope they bring it i'm telling leave it all out on the table just go after it and if something you know tits you off own it don't sit there and play uh well this will get in try i i really need to almost i hope that they take a mentality of a showman not to make it fake or phony don't get me wrong but I'm saying is don't just be so narrow-minded that I'm just glad to be back racing because

I'm getting bored in the house. But this is a opportunity for the sport. And I was thinking about this this weekend that, you know, people that really have a grasp of the situation understand the opportunity you have in front of them. And this one could be it for our sport if they hit on all cylinders. Yes. You know, a lot of things have to happen and let them that happen naturally. And if they don't, they don't. But the worst thing that could happen is that we have a fantastic race and then you know you have a driver that just gives kind of a you know a bad take or you know or just you know get storms off if you get pissed off do the interview share your emotions call people out race your race race race as hard as you can don't let people I mean give us a show

because this is the time when we can really maximize on it yeah that's a great point that's a great point um and I think that the key that another thing that's key that tie on to the back end of that is as we go into the fall and everyone else starts firing up all these other sports. Every sport that we know or you can think of is going to be happening. We are, you know, we're going to be fighting for attention. And so however we can come out of the gate, I think, can set the momentum. We see that in our numbers as a network. Yes.

And we look at that as NBC. We watch how Fox does at the start of the year because they're, their numbers and success directly plays into how our season is going to go. We say our season, but how our coverage is going to go. And the fans, even though they are changing networks at midseason, their mood and their excitement about the year is the same, who the players are, what the storylines are, how they've been fed that information,

and how they've consumed it is all the same. And so how we come out of the gate is going to be really, really critical. to how we can sustain our success beyond that through this fall. That is, you know, if everything goes according to plan, you know, the big fear and what people are starting to talk about is if anybody stubs their toe and what could derail this and send us all back home. So hopefully everybody does everything they need to do. Yeah, bring it.

We have a great successful. Yeah, we have a great successful race on the track and everybody gets home healthy. Right, here we go. We're going to get ready to live stream. I'm being live on YouTube. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. Welcome to the YouTube portion of this podcast, the Dale Jr. download.

Brought to you by Xfinity, some great partners of our sport and partners of this podcast. They sponsor the Ask Junior portion. So this is obviously coming to you on our DirtyMoh Media YouTube page. Make sure you follow DirtyMoh Media on all social. handles. Leah's here to handle your questions. Mike Davis here as well. So let's get started, Leah.

All right. First question is from David Cardin. Who is a driver that's not a household name, past or present, that you wish you could have raced against? Not a household. Not a household name. My gosh. Did he wish he could race against?

Have raced against? Okay. Wish you could have raced against. Like an old short tracker or something? Oh, who's that? God. I, you know, I don't think about things like that. And let me explain.

I don't, there's not a time in my career where I thought, man, I'd really love to race that guy. You know, like Tim Richmond, people might think, man, you know, Tim Richmond, he was cool, what would have been like to see him continue his career, had he not passed away? I think about things like that. but I never went, you know, I never looked at a guy and went, man, I'd love to have raced him, especially a name that isn't a household name.

I just wanted to win. I didn't want to feel the race up with people that I wanted to race. I never really kind of approached you that way. I don't know how else to sort of articulate that, Mike. You know what I'm saying? Does that make any sense? The household name thing makes that almost impossible because let me give you an example. Like, you know, if you went down a road like saying Scott Bloomquist, well, you know,

even Scott Blumquist isn't, I mean, yeah, I mean, he's very popular. It's hugely popular, right? But, but I wouldn't even want to, I never wanted to race him. No, no, understood, but I'm just using it as a hypothetical. It's just to not be, I mean, like most people would say something like, I don't know, AJ Floyd or, you know, whoever, but that's, so to say not a household name would have to be somebody like, you know, cousin that nobody knows about or something. Yeah. Being on the racetrack with somebody is not a enjoyable experience.

That's a good point. Right. Yeah. Being on the racetrack with a competitor in a race is not something you look forward to. You know, it's part of the, it's a necessary part of it that you don't necessarily, you know, you don't, it doesn't make it fun or it doesn't make it, it, it can make it less fun. You know, you can't have guys that you hate to race. There's a lot of those. That's an easy question. But there's no guy, you know, there were guys that you like to beat. That probably would be the other question is who would,

that would probably be the way to ask that question is to say, who out there would you love to race against to beat? To beat, who would you want to beat? And that would be guys like, you know, my dad. Every time I race dad, I wanted to beat him. I wanted to finish ahead of him every single time. I'm beating Kellyer R. I was like that.

But I never enjoyed racing against a guy, if that makes sense. It's kind of like when you play video games with your buddies and you win some, you lose some, but do you really love the opponent or the game, right? Does that make sense? Yeah, so every time you would say, that was fun. Hey, Martin, that was fun or whatever. You're talking about the actual race, not the fact that it was Martin. Yeah, I'm surprised.

Yeah, I got you. That actually was fun. I enjoyed that. We didn't, yeah, we didn't become enemies in that time. We were racing each other. We actually enjoyed it. Yeah, so I never, yeah. There you go.

I don't know. I guess I answered that. So there's another Mike Davis in this world, and he wants to know why are your dad's 1984-85 Wrangler cars referred to as the Blue Goose. Can you explain that? God, I don't even know. No. You don't know.

That would have been a good question for David Allen a few weeks ago. Oh, yeah. Blue Goose. Somebody figured that out for us. All right. Somebody let us know. I've heard that faintly somewhere, but I don't even know what that means. Alexander Brown wants to know.

How are you able to acquire the Unicall 76 Globe from North Wilkesboro? Well, I think I saw a picture or a video. Somebody did it with a draw. of the racetrack and I was watching it and saw that 76 ball and for whatever reason so most of my life when I so if you're going to play a video game and I've played a lot of video games and I still play a lot of video games today especially when you're like in call of duty or counter strike or any of those first person shooters right when you when you jump in the game it says hey what's your name what do you want people to see is your tag or if you

you start a gamer tag on Xbox, right? You're going to, you're going to name, you know, give yourself this cool name. For decades, I've used Unicow 76. And I, the reason why I used Unicow 76 is because I love the colors. Orange is my favorite color and paired with blue. It's just a cool combination. And it was prevalent in NASCAR. And I just thought it sounded cool. Unicow 76. Just sounds cool. So I always used Unicow 76, whenever I would, I still use it today, like when I play video games or use a need a game or tag or something like anything. So when I saw that 76 sign still standing at the end of Pitt Road at North Wilsonboro after all these years, I mean two, two decades later, it's still

sitting there. I reached out to Marcus Smith and them and said, hey man, are you guys going to do anything with that? I'd love to take it. I'm with the intent to put it back up to make it functional to save it, keep it. And I've got a big 76 ball that was hanging outside the racetrack at Talladega. They actually would climb up in this, the MRN guys would climb up inside it and call the race from that, you know, that corner, wherever this ball was located. They were four around the racetrack in Talladega at the time. When Sonoco came in, they came and took them all down.

So they would lay them outside out back in the field behind the track. And I drove by. Schrader got one. I got one. I don't know where the other two went. Colby is on YouTube and he wants to know, do you think there will be any more pro-invitational's in the future? Maybe an off-season all-star race? I think that there will. This was too successful. And the participation from the drivers increased and they seemed to find enjoyment in it. At first, a lot of them were racing and weren't good.

And when you're not good at something and you're kind of asked to do it, not really out of preference, you don't really enjoy it. But as they got better, it became something they really started to enjoy. They started to see light at the end of the tunnel. So I've been in the conversations with some of the people at eye racing. They would love to have winter heat style event, some sort of a short series when the race season's over,

maybe in December, January or something like that, to just a very short, abbreviated version of the pro-invitational. And we'll see what that looks like. And I'm certainly expected to be a possibility. Brady Reaver wants to know, do you think there will be multiple winners or one or two dominant cars in these upcoming races? You know, that's the thing that I fear, I guess, or I worry about the most is, you know, and I've seen this my entire life as a fan or a driver.

being involved in motorsports, you'll show up to the racetrack and somebody just hits on it, just hits on it. They're just out. They're just in a field, in a league of their own, right? And I expect that to be a real possibility at several of these races when you show up and don't practice and don't qualify and you just line them up. You're going to have some guys that miss it big time, some drivers that are miserable in the car because it is driving terribly and so bad that there aren't anything they're able to do in the pits to fix it.

So I would have my scanner going because it's going to be a hot topic, right? Scanner is going to be scanner chatter on the drivers is going to be colorful. So that's one thing that I'm anticipating. But yeah, I expect to see a couple guys really either by hard work, engineering dedication, or sheer luck really hit on a hot setup that separates them from the field at each of these tracks we go to. And it might not be the same car or team every time. It could be, you know, whereas usually in seasons we see organizations that thrive over a

period of time, this could be a little more spotty and a little more. It's real opportunistic opportunity, you know, really opportunistic opportunity for people, if that's even a word. It's prime for the, you know, picking, man. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's it's not going to be anything that we've seen before, I'm sure. All right, guys, that's it for today. Opportunistic opportunities. Very opportune.

Keep your eyes open. Thank you guys for tuning in to Ask Junior Portionist podcast presented by Xfinity. Hey, Mike. Hey, Dale. Hey, have you watched anything good at home in the last few months? Yeah, actually, you know, I got into this show on Hulu called Handsmaid Tail. It was really good.

Handsmaid Tail. Yeah. Really? Yeah. Well, if you guys want to watch Handmaid's Tale, is that right, Mike? That's it. Handmaid's deal. If you guys want to watch that,

here's your opportunity because Xfinity customers, for Xfinity customers, it's watchathon week now through May 17th. And it's the perfect time to finally watch all these hits shows and movies that we've been talking about for free. Billions on Showtime, it's there, Outlander on Stars, that's there too. And for the first time, Hulu and Peacock, NBC's new streaming surface is there as well. Hey, Mike, we've got something coming up on Peacock soon, don't we? You better believe the very people that bring you the Dale Jr.

or download are also currently in production of Lost Speedways. It'll be exclusively on Peacock. Now's the perfect time to catch that show you've always wanted to try. Just say, show me watchathon into your Xfinity X1 voice remote and let us know what you've been binging. And let us know what you've been binging. Ben binging, been binging, been binging. Ben binging.

Ben binging. Ben binging. Ben binging. Ben binging. That's tough, man. All right, odd history. Buckle up, enjoy. Odd history.

All right. We've spoken about the big pre-race stunts before on the show. Humpey Wheeler, he was here, and we found out about cool stuff of Jimmy the Greek, right? Jimmy the Flying Greek. And how he had never actually jumped a bus before he was jumping buses. That's right. Right?

So Jimmy the, you know, When Humpy hired Jimmy, he just, he's like, hey, he need me to do, jump the butt. Well, we got a new one. Well, an old one. And an odd one. Cuda bucks. Cuda bucks. Cuda bucks.

Cuda. I think I've heard of this. Cuda. Cuda. Cuda. Cuda. Cuda. Okay.

This was a 63-year-old mystic Firewalker and. magician, and he was a special guest in the May 1968 race weekend at Darlington Raceway. Oh, yeah, I've heard about this guy. He was born in Kashmir, Kashmir, Pakistan, and became world famous for doing many unusual and dangerous things while blindfolded. He would shoot cans off children's heads with a pellet gun. He would read dates off of coins. That doesn't seem too hard. and more.

Hold it. Not only did he shoot kids' heads off, but he also... No, he's on points. He would read the date on a coin. Better than anybody. Blindfolded.

Let's get that straight. He didn't shoot kids' heads off. Head's heads are falling off. During a practice day in May 1968, Bucks was in the press room and impressed track pitch. PR director Jim Hunter by covering his face with two sections of newspaper and copying lines Hunter Drew and playing tic-tac-toe. All blindfolded, right?

Now the famous magician wanted to take his talents to outside and he wanted to go up on the high banks of Darlington. He wanted to drive around the lady in black blindfolded. He'd performed this stunt at Hickory Speedway back in the 50s. because I have tweeted about this guy. Ah, yeah, many months ago. And he also did this at New Jersey Old Bridge Stadium. But this was Darlington. To prove beyond a doubt that he couldn't see anything,

he had Leroy Yarbril cover his eyes with dough, then cotton, and then he finally wrapped his head and layers of cloth, which Leroyeroy said was just like doing up a mummy. I don't know how Leroyer did that. Just like I used to do when I rolled down. up them mummies. In my Egyptian days. Bucks walked over to a convertible and he got in it.

Now get this, Yarbril actually hopped in with Kuda Bucks. Leroy said he's not going to hurt himself, so I should be safe. That's crazy. Interesting mentality. So there's Leroy in the backseat of a convertible with a blindfolded Pakistani magician, magician behind the wheel.

old Kuda made it happen. He pulled off pit road and made a lap and he didn't hit a thing. And at Darlington, that's saying something. So in my, so I've got all these books or magazines from the 50s. I've got some old race programs from Hickory Speedway that they were sending out. And they were, they had this guy come over every weekend. He was there almost every weekend in the mid-50s. And he would drive around the track blind.

line folded around to parked cars. They would park cars out on the track, and he'd pull out there and drive around the track without hitting the cars, weaving in and out of them. He did some sort of weird thing, you know, different type of trick each week. And so it's interesting.

I did not know that they sort of hung on to this dude and brought him on out to Darlington in 1968. I mean, he'd been around Hickory doing it for a while in the 50s. Pretty cool. Hey, with no practice. With no practice for qualifying this coming weekend, I bet a bunch of them drivers going to look like. Kuda bucks.

They said he had a sixth sense. Okay. Last call. All right, everybody. Last call. Great show, Mike. Yeah, man. Great show, Lee.

A lot of fun. Good show, Lee. Good show, Matthew. All right, anybody want to get any merch? I got to get some merch. So we've been shooting this Lass Speedway stuff, and I've been seeing all the merch. All our guys are wearing.

right. I don't, I'm sick of this, Mike. Listen, you got a whole stack of it in my office. We just happen to be self-isolating. I want hats and t-shirts. I got you. You do. You do. I know. And I knew this is coming. Look at Leah right now. Wait, I was, there's, yeah, Leah's got it on. Merch? No, there is. Do I need to go to dirtymo Media.com and use the, use the code DJD10 to get my 10% off? Well, if you do, you will get 10% off using that discount code. I think that's what's important. here. Yes. That's what I'll do.

There's a white shirt that says Dirty Mo on it, and then there's this white and blue trucker cap that I really love. Go to Dirtymodea.com, DJD10, for 10% off. Subscribe to Dirtymoe Media's YouTube channel. New content

from the past few days includes the Bringing Back Wilkesboro short documentary, about 20 minutes of your time, and you will not be wasting it. It's a great documentary. Twitch highlights from my race at Wilkesboro that we ran last Saturday. Very funny stuff. Did you like that?

I thought y'all did a great job. It was great. That was good. I thought y'all did a great job with those highlights. Jason Schultz. John Hunter. John Hunter. There's some boys out there, Spazzoz.

That was my favorite line. Spasset out. It's like somebody walks around, you know, it's like something when somebody walks in the room, you know, it's like something when somebody walks in the room with a dangerous object and they don't realize how they put everybody else in the room at risk? That's a great analogy. That's what it's like racing some of those guys. Yeah.

It's like, man, you cannot control the car you're driving. All of last week's podcast highlights. Yes. All of last week's podcast highlights. Not just this show. Door bumper clear. That's right. All the highlights are on the Dirty Mo Media YouTube channel.

This is the best YouTube channel on YouTube. clearly. So go subscribe. On that note, when a lot of people say, man, I wish y'all would put the TV show or put more in the TV show, we basically put everything that is from our podcast on this YouTube channel, and it is basically an extended TV show. So there you go. Just go to the YouTube channel. It's that simple. This is a reminder that the TV show that Mike's talking about airs at 4 p.m. Eastern on Wednesdays. That's right. NBC Sports Network.

Wednesdays 4 p.m. Eastern, NBC Sports Network to watch the Dale Jr. download. We want to congratulate all of the graduates of the class of 2020. This has been an unusual year for everybody. You guys included, but we're proud of you. Congratulations. Have fun. Enjoy yourself. When everything sort of gets back to normal. Do what you got to do to have fun.

Go enjoy yourself. Congratulations. Class of 2020 graduates. Nobody wants to add anything. Any congratulations to you? Well, yeah, I'll say congratulations to my nephew, Blaze. One of my favorite people, a good person. He's graduating, and he's sad that he didn't get to do his prom

and didn't get to do his final varsity baseball year. I didn't go to prom either. I didn't go to prom. You didn't go to prom? No, you know Bill Jeter didn't go to prom. He ain't going to hang out of the prom? I'm with you, Matt. Could you have gone to prom?

Could you have gone to prom? Did you turn down anybody for the prom? That's what I want to know. Were the girls asking the guys in your time? That's weird. Okay. I don't even know where you're trying to go with that. I'm saying, could you have gone to the prom?

Did you not want to go to the prom? He just asked me if somebody asked me to go to the prom. Well, the guy asked the girl. That was how it worked in my time. Was that the problem? you just didn't want to ask anybody? No girl that I liked was already had a boyfriend.

Screw her. Story in my high school career. Hope it was fun, girl. Hope you had fun. See what you missed out on. Hey, I was probably hanging out with my race car. That's the story we're going. Streaming.

Doing some video. Papyrus. Yeah. I was racing. I was hanging out with my streetstock. Like all the winners do. Yeah. You're missing one of prom.

Stupid prom. I love prom. Prom is cool. So. How is that crazy? Like literally everyone that could go to prom or homecoming went. Like it wasn't. Really?

Yeah. Just because you were popular. Let me be honest. No, no. No, no. No, no. Let me just sit there. Was not popular.

I wasn't popular at all in my school. In fact, I got a ton of stuff crap from people about being, you know, my dad, if he had a bad race, I got a lot of crap on Monday. If he run over somebody or was involved in any kind of altercation, he was pretty controversial. And then other kids really fed off of that. They gave Kelly a hard time too. She was in a lot of fights. But anyways, in my house, dad and Teresa weren't.

like encouraging like hey Kelly do you want to get you got let's go get your dress mark asked you to the prom we got to get you a dress no no that was going on in our house they weren't asking us what the hell was going on at school they weren't arranging the photos no they weren't they didn't even know prom was coming or going they wanted to know what those damn grades were they weren't good you know you damn your ass knew it but Otherwise, the socializing at school, our household wasn't, like, encouraging about that. You know, whereas when I see on, you know, sitcom television shows and so forth, how the household's quite encouraging, and everybody's kind of in on the, you know, the whole thing, right?

Mm-hmm. That was like that in my place. So there you have it. Yeah, there you have. So not being. Your leader, Leah. You want to know. Popularity, Leah.

I went to a, I would go, I would go to a couple dances. Like I went to, oh, really? Yeah. So we, if we had a dance, I might. Well, the prom's a dance. It's not the same. There's two different things. They're two, so too.

I guess I'm not an expert. I didn't go to either. When you go, never went to a dance or prom. When you go to the dance, you don't have, you're not actually going for the dancing. You're just going to hang out, sit on the bleachers and bullshit with your friends and get out of the house. you're not dressing up you're not doing anything you're not dressing up or anything we're

basically what you wore the day of school but the prom obviously the whole big production yeah do you know the day after my prom I was at uh the prom was on a Saturday night and then I was at Talladega for a cup race on Sunday with my dad and my brother I want to say Sterling Marlin I like you in that Kodak car was your was your family like hey man you know is there do would you like to drive the you know, the family car or this other, you know, the, you're, those type of things. Yeah, that shit wasn't.

Yeah, no, yeah. You definitely lived a different life for sure. Sucked. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I would have went to prom. I say we have a junior motor sports prom. You know what I'd rather have?

A class reunion. We've had those two. I don't want to do that. My class don't, my class don't reune. Reunion. So you know what? That's where, you know, back, This is a little lesson for all those people in high school.

When you're voting for your class president and all those electives, where they're going to make a difference is in 20 years when it's time to get the reunions together. Because our class president, who happens to be one of my best friends, he is so good at getting the band back together. And so we had a 10, we had a 5 year, a 10 year, a 20. I mean, like, at this point, we've had a bunch of reunions. But yeah, dude, and they're great.

I love my high school, Morrisville. This is a Morseville hat. Oh. I hate mine. But I don't, I wouldn't even wear mine. I want to go to reunion.

Really? Ugh. Find that girl. Guys? Find that girl you want to take the palm. I stay in touch with a few of the few of the folks I went to school with with my class and so forth.

I've made a little more effort over the last year to do that through social media and so forth. And they're like, hey, Dale, Dale. What do you? You know what I mean? Yeah.

I'll be like, hey, Hey, man, what's going on? Been 20 years. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. And they'd be like, hey, weird. Weird hearing from you out of nowhere.

You went to so many different schools. That would also be hard to kind of get lasting. This is it. I claim this one, the one I graduated from. That's the one that matters. Yeah, I know. But you know, my point's still valid. I mean, like, you know,

I would say as much you moved around on early days would have made it a little bit difficult to establish big long-lasting friendships for life. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. 10-4. Okay.

All right. That was fun. Yeah, good last call. Let's not talk about high school anymore. We'll say bye-bye. That was fine. That was a great conversation. I hate high school.

I want you to say goodbye. I want you to say goodbye. Goodbye. No, I want you to sign us off. Bye. Can you be better than that, stronger? The show's over. Thicker, leaner.

The show's over. everybody. Bye. Okay. The show's over. Is it over? It'll be another one next week. Perfect.

The show's over. There's another one next week. Get on with your lives. You're boring miserable lives. We'll be back to entertain you in a week. Get out of here. Goodbye. Hit the road.

Aunt. We're still in quarantine. Oh yeah, right. That's right. Just sit still until I call your name. Don't hit the road. Stay right where you are. We'll be back Monday.

All right. Jeez. Bye. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.