The Dale Jr. Download - 315 - Justin Allgaier: Gettin' Chippy

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

Back at the table, Dale Earnhardt Jr. brings in one of his drivers, Justin Allgaier, who brings truth and transparency like we've never heard from the driver hungry for his first NASCAR Xfinity Series title. Allgaier opens up about his run-ins with JR Motorsports teammate Noah Gragson and discloses what had him most upset about the situation. What had him ready to fight in Daytona? We uncover the source to his recent chippiness in 2020 and how it has been received.Dale and Justin talk about the new style of racing from young drivers and how back in the day it would result in being sent "oil tank deep" into the wall.The Illinois driver has seen his ups and down this year. His kind approach and generous way of life has resulted in both good and bad, but he remains steadfast and as determined as ever. Allgaier is fresh off a two-race sweep of action at Richmond Raceway and has his #7 JR Motorsports team trending in the right direction at the right time. The win also gave Dale Jr. his first victory as a car-sponsor. With Phoenix as the 2020 season finale, Allgaier knows he must battle through the anxieties and unknowns to make it to the Final Four just to have a shot at the title that has eluded him..Allgaier details his early days in the sport and how his full-time opportunity in the Cup Series took a mental toll. Dale and co-host Mike Davis get the truth about his close-knit relationship with his sponsor Brandt and how other drivers could take note. Justin gives us insight into the other aspects of life., from family to his secret love of graphic design, He also gives us a peek into his life as a test driver and what doing simulation for the upcoming Gen-7 car is like, including the new wheel and tire combination.In Open Segment, Dale talks about his first weekend hosting in the NASCAR on NBC booth and what has him appreciating his colleagues more. Leah brings some great questions in AskJr presented by Xfinity. Dale lets us in on his Ancestry and introduces us to how he learned about his World War II veteran Uncle John. The DJD gang also learns about Adirondack Dinosaurs. Well, not really... but you'll understand what the heck we are talking about as soon as you hear it.That and more as we welcome a driver in-studio for the first time in months for a special Dale Jr. Download. 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.

Marker 1. All right. We got our markers in. Markers are in. You love markers, Mike. We should let Mike do the marker one day. I don't think you can handle that. Perfection.

Is that what the P and Michael P. Davis stands for? Perfection? Yeah. I'm sure that's what my parents were thinking. 48-crack race drive is our weightful word. This is a production of Dirty Moves. Seconds drag until I hear, gentlemen, charge your engine.

People cheer 48 determined men towards the starting flag. Talks the Starved. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. I'm your host, and Mike Davis, my co-hosts is here. Matthew Dillner, Leah. We're all in the house.

Justin Algar is the guest today. It's going to be a great show. Ask Jr. Presented by Xfinity. Let's get started. The chips are down. This is it. They're up.

Reast driver. It's the Dale Jr. Download. The best fan and car will win. All right, Mike. So pretty awesome weekend for Junior Motorsports. Justin Allgaier wins. Both races.

That surprised the hell out of me. We won with filter time on the car. And I joked with my co-owner in that business, Blake Cook, that we are now winning sponsors. Yeah. In NASCAR, something, I mean, I've wanted to accomplish everything. NASCAR, but winning sponsor wasn't on the list just because I never thought that I would own a business that would be sponsoring a car. It's kind of funny because all of my Twitter career, whenever I'd say, hey, man, that driver's pretty good. People would chime in and go,

you should sponsor him. You should sponsor him, Dale Jr. Right, right. Put him in Junior Motorsports and sponsor him. Right. Like, well, I don't, I'm not a sponsor because I'm not an owner of a business. business. I'm the car owner. I need the sponsor part. That's how this works. But now I'm the sponsor. I almost wanted to go change your Wikipedia bio to be like, Dall Earnhardt Jr. is a race winning sponsor in the NASCAR Xfinity series. He's also won two Daytona 500s in his career. I know we're bending, bending the truth. Just a little bit, no? No, no, we're not bending the truth. We're just not sharing the whole truth. We're just not sharing the whole

The whole truth is that you're like there's a majority owner of filter time. Sure. That's not you. But we'll talk about Blake Cook in another episode. This one's all about you and your contribution to the win as a sponsor. So that was pretty amazing to the filter time car is, you know, Blake and Blake comes to me and it's like, hey, you want to do a couple social media posts for me. I'm starting this business about filters to mail filters to people to change out their filters because nobody does it.

And he's so right. And I'm like, oh, man, this will be great. I want to, I want to be a bigger part of this. So I decided to be a partner in the business. So we worked all that out. The business is growing like crazy. Yep. And we had the filter time car in the irasing NASCAR kind of thing.

That's right. That's right. When the COVID was in full effect, you ran. So that was pretty cool to be able to put it on national television in front of people doing that. It's actually been on the Xfinity car before. We raced it at Kentucky, I believe, last year. So, yeah, but it was on the car this weekend, and I'm like, it's neat. Then it goes and wins.

It's neater. Big time. Cool. And now there's a race-winning die cast people can get. Yeah. Oh, is that right? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

There's a car out there. We're going to make a die cast out of it. You know us. How about the hat trick, by the way, for Junior Motorsports this weekend. Three wins this weekend because of Josh Barry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's been good. Yeah, Josh went to Hickory and they ran doubles in him one one and didn't win the other.

Yeah, but you didn't sponsor that car, so I don't even know why we're talking about it. This is about the sponsorship here. It's about you as a show. Another first. and this weekend was the fact that I got the host, the Xfinity race on Saturday. They had the two Xfinity races, the one with the filter time car on Friday.

I got to watch on TV at home. And then went into the booth on Saturday and got the host the race. So what's different about that, right? I ask the same question. When you're watching a broadcast, and for years I really never knew the difference between the roles of the people up in the booth. But they all have a responsibility,

and it's a little bit different. And you obviously can tell that when we're doing the races on TV, Rick brings us in and out of commercials. Rick Allen. Rick Allen brings us in and out of commercials. He has a responsibility that me and Lattard and Burton, we're not even going to touch. We don't want nothing to do with it.

You know, the promo reads, reading the billboards, that's kind of like, you know, NASCAR brought to you by Toyota, things like that, right? So, you know, if there's a, you know, you know, NFL game they want to promote. Rick's going to read that. All those things, right, are Rick's responsibility. And he does the play-by-play. He's going to call pretty much all the restarts when they get to the restart zone.

Or he's going to call all of the last laps. Literally, you know, as the cars are getting down to like three or two to go, Rick sort of takes over. And he has a, he has somewhat of a script or a story. about every driver that could possibly win that race. And when we get down when three or two laps to go, he pulls that page out of that driver

that he thinks is winning, and he starts to read the bullet points. Okay. About that particular driver. Okay. To boister this moment of victory, right? Right. Whatever tribulations and trials that this guy's been through,

whatever might have happened that day or that week, whatever it is. notes and he's going to read it off as that guy's circling the track in the final couple laps they get the white flag presented by credit one bank he's got to read that right that's a paid advertisement that he has to take care of we can't be me and burton and lartr can't be jibber jabbering in that sponsor in that moment yeah right and then rick's going to call him to the finish line and we sort of stop we sort of bow out now if there's some kind of crash or something wild happening. We can chime in with real

genuine reaction, but otherwise it's kind of Rick's role. Well, I got to do that job for the Xfinity race, and I was super nervous. I did a lot of preparation. I called Rick, chatted with him, texts back and forth a bunch about different things and questions. I learned

a lot from Rick, and all of this really makes me appreciate Rick Allen and how good he is and how important he is to the booth. He's our leader in the booth. And, you know, so when we're, when we get to do these jobs, though, it helps us understand. And why do, why do they do these jobs?

Why do? Why does NBC mix it around? Yeah. I think NBC just likes to try things, right? Try new things. But they also like to challenge us. And they want us also, there's probably a small part that they want us to understand and appreciate that role and that job, right? And it helps me become a better analyst, knowing now what Rick's accomplishing and trying to

to accomplish and each thing he's doing. It helps me understand when I need to keep quiet, when I, when, you know, what's coming next? And it helps me understand, too, when my holes are to jump in the conversation better. See all that a lot more clearly. Just, you know, every year, once a year, they send you down into the garage area to be a pit reporter during practice. I've done that for two years in Michigan during the summer. it's nerve-wracking as hell.

I bet. You're only really on camera like three or four times. The practice is an hour, tops. It goes by super fast. But you're so out of your element, you know, and their role and their job is so unlike what we do in the booth. It's a very foreign feeling. And I like that NBC sort of challenges us and puts us in their positions.

And I think they do that particular thing, where they put us in the garage as a pit reporter. strictly to show us how hard that job is to appreciate our pit reporters, to appreciate what they're trying to accomplish and what they're trying to bring to the experience of the race itself. Their role is tough. They're running up and down pit road. They've got a billion stories. A lot of things happening on the fly also that they have to cover and handle.

They got to try to jump. They got to create their opportunities to be a part of the broadcast. Whereas I'm sitting in the booth and I just react. Right. The pit reporters are running up and down pit road, grabbing information and stories. And if they don't hustle, they're not going to bring an opportunity to TV or bring themselves to TV, and they'll disappear. Right? They'll disappear in the broadcast.

You can do that in the booth if you're not careful. But my point, I guess, is the hustle from the pit road, pit reporters is something I really learned to appreciate that I didn't even know existed, right? I didn't even know that they were grinding that hard as I was a driver all those years. They were just there doing a job. I'm curious because I know also how difficult the radio style broadcast for NBC. Was the play-by-play that you did this weekend in any way similar to the radio-style broadcasting? Because you're saying a lot, you're saying way more words, first of all. Radio style is not, I don't really like doing the radio style because it's harder.

when you're in the booth, and there's, especially when there's four of you in there, there's never a moment during the race when everybody looks at you and goes, okay, go. Go talk, talk. You basically just sit there and say anything whenever you feel like saying it. It's just spontaneous, whatever's happening. In radio style, the cars are going around the track, and you know when they get to a certain point that you have to talk.

The mic's going to be yours, and here you go. It's like getting pushed out on stage. And it can't be no difference from the last lap. They are still single file, 10 car lengths apart. Right. It can't. Over to you, Marty. Every time's got to be something different and unique what you're describing.

So it's a challenge. I don't like being out of the booth and away from the technology and the tools. When we do the radio style, I guess the only place I really have enjoyed it is at the Glyn. Because it's beautiful. It's a great, you know, it's not a bad perspective to be sitting down there in the bus stop all day. And the action where I'm at, my particular spot, is pretty busy. The bus stop, yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, where Jeff is, maybe not so busy. Maybe it was less enjoyable for me if I was over there. I don't really enjoy the radio style, though, at India or other places that we tried it. Yeah. I'd rather be in the booth talking when we're doing ovals and stuff. So, okay, I mean, I've fired away questions at Dale because I made a point not to do that after the race. I wanted to save it for the show. So not only are you doing play-by-play, but now your team wins.

And I know the conflict that you always have of being a broadcaster and having to be fair and be perceived as balance when you have cars that you own. Yeah. Was that any more difficult for you as a play-by-play announcer? Well, no, being the play-by-play guy didn't make it harder. The fact that we were winning just makes it harder. I don't think it would have been any different, more difficult, less difficult being in any position in the booth. But when our cars are doing so well, you know, there was a moment in the race. I think it was early.

I think Noah was up front, and I said something about, you know, this, this, this, is the time of the year where you want your team, if you're the owner, you want your team to peak at this particular time. So I got a little bit too close to it at that moment. I try to completely steer all away from any kind of emotions I'm having as an owner and don't bring that on to the broadcast. And I got close to it a couple times. That one time I felt like I got a little bit too close to it. The fans that are watching don't want that in the broadcast. They don't want that ownership. You cheer and rah, rah, rah for your team or anything like that to happen on the broadcast.

They don't want really any ties or any kind of connection to that happening. So I try to stay as far away from them as can. Sometimes we're kind of forced to talk about it. Especially if you're calling the last lap of a victory. That was Junior, that was Junior Motorsports 50th win right there. That I felt like I did. That was easy. Okay.

Yeah. There was one time, though, I kind of got primed. prompted about the pace of the junior motorsports cars. And the seven and the nine were running good. And I was like, well, it's the owner. Oh, I thought you could say, it's got to be the ownership that's kept making those cars fast. As the owner, this is the time of year where you want your team to be peaking

and going into the playoffs. Gotcha. You know, it's weird about the ebb and flow of the teams, like the 98, Chase Briscoe, dominating winning six, seven races or whatever. And then Cendrick coming on, and then now the seven cars won a couple races. I'm like, well, if you're the owner, this is the time of year you want your team to peak. You want them to be winning now. And so I was like, ooh, I got a little close to it there.

But that's owning it. I mean, like, you can't, yeah. Yeah. It's a constant conflict that I know you struggle with. I'll be honest. You know, looking at the feedback, I was more worried about, was it just good or bad, commentating and hosting. Yeah.

and didn't read or didn't even think to read anything about the ownership side of it. So apparently, for most people, it didn't bother them that I was the owner of a couple of the cars and one of the cars that won the race. Do you want to know the one thing that, like, I love the creativity that NBC Sports does and the way they're mixing up, and you explaining why they do it is also necessary in good context. I don't like the opportunities it creates for trolls to pick apart. other members of the broadcast team.

I hate that part. And because, and it's like you just said, you're looking for it's either good or it's bad. I think that that's extremism that just comes through social media. And that's either it's going to be God, they're looking for two things. God awful.

And so somebody must, you know, somebody's responsible for that. Somebody must apologize or own up to why it was God awful. Or it was fantastic. And therefore, somebody must make changes to make it fantastic every week or something like that. And it's like, why can't it just be good and also be for reasons like appreciating all the responsibilities? I mean, what you're saying right here is that you relied on Rick just in your preparation,

and then you have a new understanding of all of the responsibility that Rick has just because you've been in that situation. Why can't that be enough? Why can't that be okay? That's just, that's the only thing that bothers me about that. Yeah. And I'll do the, I did the hosting on Saturday. morning or Saturday around lunch for the Xfinity race and immediately after

that Rick steps in and we do a cup race with him hosting and I mean it was like it was night and day listening to him do it. I prepared I literally almost wrote down every single word I was going to say all the way from the open to the green flag.

I mean, welcome to Richard and Raceway for NASCAR Xfinity Action. The Virginia is for racing lovers 250 here at here in Richmond, Virginia, I'm Dellenhart Jr. All the things from that moment all the way to the green flag. The invocation, what I was going to say,

teeing up Burton to speak to the driver during the pace laps, what I was going to say to tee up Del Jarrett to mention the in-car cameras and who those sponsors were. Everything was hand. I had it handwritten exactly how I wanted to say it. And I prepared as hard as I could and then Rick comes in there and just does it so effortlessly and it's just, it was, it's just, man, it's a great experience.

I got a long, long way to go to get to where I want to be. I hope to get more opportunities to host a couple of Xfinity races next year. I doubt I'll do it. I'll doubt they'll let me have another one this year, but next year it'd be awesome to host a race or two and continue to work on that. I thought, you know, I'd love to get better at that. And the only way I think I can is to get more opportunities to do it. But I don't want to do a cup race.

I would not want to host no. I don't think I'd want to host a cup race until I got much, much better at it. Got a lot more comfortable with it. Because it's just too big of a moment. It's too important. It's too important of an event to not have the best package you could have. and I think Rick's a guy leading us in that direction. But it was fun.

I'm glad you enjoyed it. Yeah. All right. We're alive. Okay, so we're going to shake things up a little bit before we get to Justin Algear, who will be here in a bit. Let's go to my favorite part of the show every week. That's right.

It's Asked Jr. Brought to you by our friends at Xfinity Podcast Partner and Premier Partner of NASCAR. Let's hear what you sent to Xfinity Racing on Twitter. Leavon is here with the questions. Let's go. First question coming from Justin Bennett about the race this past weekend in Richmond. Do you think that races need cautions or accidents to be a good race? As we saw on Saturday, there were comers and goers.

The tire had fall off and we had multiple leaders. The crew choose had to make their money with the right strategy. I loved the race. I had a lot of fun calling it. I thought it was really interesting. I also would have enjoyed their, you know, being other drama involved. But there wasn't. But it was, when the race was over, once we got near the end, about, you know, I don't know, 20 to go or something like that.

So up until that point, up until everything was pretty much decided, when there was questions in the air, when there was pit strategy, noticing sort of playing themselves out, tires, and all that, that was really interesting. Guys were short pitting all night long, trying to get to pit road and leapfrogging each other into the lead and doing all that. doing all these interesting things. And then I think everybody was pretty much entertained, at least I was, until we figured everything out. You know, with 40, 20 laps to go, we're like, okay, well, it looks like Brad's going to win. You know, if the caution doesn't come out, Brad should win this race and everybody else

is going to finish, you know, about where they are. That's when the wind kind of went out of the sales a little bit, so to speak, but that's okay. that just happens in racing. I mean, if we, I tell you what, I mean, if we want to call that a boring race, then that would mean about 80% of the races in the history of the sport are boring. Because the majority of the races in my lifetime

played out, kind of like that race played out. You know? With that said, I definitely am up for some ideas or some change. I think that Richmond was a much more exciting racetrack when they were sealing the surface of the racetrack. The sealer is, you know, just like any sealer you see on asphalt on the highway or I just seal them a driveway or whatever, right? They put this stuff down. And it's kind of tacky, especially when, you know, the cars, when you drive a race car around it,

it came, it's grippy, but it wears away, and it takes a while for it to wear away, but as it wears away from the predominant groove, which at Richmond is the bottom, you start to chase it or go looking for it up the racetrack, like the cushion moving up the track at a dirt race. And so over the years, cars are going higher and higher and higher,

trying to get into that sealer and get a little bit of, you know, that good, good grip that that bottom groove has lost. And that to me was what made Richmond just so much fun. And they quit sealing it. About how long ago? I don't even know, Mike. But they haven't sealed it in a long time, a while. So I feel like that that would change the way the racing is at Richmond.

Now, the drivers, when you first seal the truck. track, I have to say this, when you first seal the track, it's not going to feel very good. The drivers are not going to like it. And so if they were to seal the track, my prediction would be you'd get a lot of complaining right out of the gate. It's slick, it's slippery, it's funky, unpredictable. But as they kind of work that sealer in after an event, it would be an improvement beyond, right? And it would become better and better and more of a racier racetrack. The sealer, now you're thinking in your mind,

well, why don't they just use the PJ1? That sounds pretty much like the same thing, but it's not. And the application of the PJ1 to me is kind of overused and misused in a lot of ways. It needs this heat and needs. this activation for it needs the cars to to run on it to to kick it in to gear and make it work and then attracts marbles it's like fly tape uh you know and flies you know that you'll so the groove then where the where the pj1 is that you want the cars to go into is now dirty and and and full of grit and crap so i don't like the pj one anymore

I think that if you put that on your racetrack, you're making a mistake. The sealer would be a very risky thing to do because it's going to be a hand... If you go back and read any article about any track that got sealed back in the 90s or whatever, the drivers immediately complained about it because it feels funky when it's brand new

and when the sealer's kind of new, the other part is how does this tire that we have today react to sealer? I don't even know. None of us do. We do know how the tires in the past had reacted to sealer, and you can't assume that today's tire would do the exact same thing. So that's it. That's how I feel by Richmond.

I may have missed a few things that popped into my head over the weekend that, oh, man, I would try this. I would try that. All right. Our next question coming from Randy Mitchell. He was listening to Door Bumper Clear this week and T.J. Majors mentioned that he and Steve Littar used to talk about you on Channel 2.

Did you know any of that was going on? So, T.J. let the cat out of the bag years ago when he said that him and Lance McGrew would get in arguments on Channel 2 about it either how I was driving or whatever. And so I knew, you know, that there was a lot of conversation going on that second channel that I wasn't going to be able to listen to.

And it is what it is. I mean, I feel like that having that second channel is helpful because there's a lot of conversation that the spotter and the crew chief need to have that doesn't need to bother the driver. If the crew chief wants to say, I can't see the whole track spotter. Where is the leader running? Is he running the high side now?

I can get that information without bothering the race car driver who's going around the track. You know, and if they want to have chit-chat conversation about who they need to run into or how bad the driver did on that last restart, then they can do that too. I don't think it's all that helpful. Like when T.J. chimed in and said over their second channel, Joey couldn't hear this, but he said, hey, next time maybe we'll run into the two car.

I don't know that that adds nothing to the conversation. And T.J. All spotters are kind of guilty of that. Drivers are guilty of that. crew chiefs rarely jump in the radio and go you know that you know that suck or next time we'll do X Y and Z. Drivers do this all the time you know complain about their teammates or whatever

but I think when the spotters do it it's kind of counterproductive because it kind of I just my opinion I'm not I'm not picking on TJ but but he's that was how this whole thing came up on DBC because you called it out on the broadcast I did not call it out of it. What were they talking about then? Well, no, I mentioned, I, I, I commented on a radio broadcast of TJ. He's on the second channel, and he, so Brad Casasca goes down the corner and misses the bottom

a little bit and just slides up and Joey saw it and reacted to it like, oh man, he's going to hit me and jerked his car up the track. And Brad goes on and takes the lead. It's something that happens all the time. It's not, it's just cars racing. Well, T.J. over the second channel to whoever's on that, I guess, the crew chief and a few other guys and says, I think next time we should have hit him or we could have hit him at Darlington and didn't do that or something like that, right? If we're in that situation again, we should just run into Brad, I guess. And so that's like a snarky sort of conversation.

That's just a snarky comment that does nothing to help. Right. It's sort of, it's just. Spotters being divas. Yeah, it's a diva thing. Yes. It is. The spotters do that a lot, and the drivers can do that.

I don't really ever hear it from the crew chiefs, which is odd. But, you know, they know better than to be chiming in on the radio and saying those things because they're leaders. And they don't want to put that into, they don't want the rest of the team think that that's good practice. Right, and they don't want it on radioactive. Yeah. I just think they don't say it because they don't want to set that example for the rest of the team to follow. You know, and so anyhow, we played it on the TV broadcast, and we all laughed. Ah, got you.

Steve LaTartre said, oh, or somebody, maybe it was Rick, said, T.J. Major's stirring the pot a little bit. I said, never. Never would stir the pot. And we laughed. That's what he was alluding to on door bumper clear. I got it. He's sensitive.

He is. I mean, the week before, I'm telling the whole world how great he is and how he's one of the best spotters out there. So he can take it. He needs to learn how to take a little criticism. I just think it's so cool that we can hear all that. That's such a unique behind the scenes aspect. You can download the next door.

I love it. It's awesome. Our broadcast listens to both channels. They're both public and we're going to play whatever we hear on them, even if, you know, whatever TJ said, the driver could not hear, right? And that was something TJ felt was important to let me know after the race. He's like, hey, I would never tell Joey to go do anything, wreck another guy or whatever. I'm not going to jump on the radio and go, Joey, wreck him.

That's a good, though. You should hit him next time that happens. And I was like, yeah, it's good. But I just want you to know that we hear both your channels. And if you say something even remotely interesting, we're going to play it. And we're not going to give context. You know what I mean? That's awesome.

All right, thoughts up for today. Man, is that it? That's it. We were going to. Okay. You got another one? No. I mean, I got more questions.

When I say I like the Ask Junior segment, I really mean it. One more. One more. We got a question about football. You want to talk about the Washington. Washington football team. So, yeah, I watched that game. Ron Rivera, they were 17.

to zero they were getting beat by Philadelphia, Martin Trix, Jr.'s favorite team. And we came back. We tied the game, 17 and all. There was a fourth down and one near the five-yard line, and instead of kicking the field goal, to either tie or go ahead, we went and went for it and got the first down. And, yeah, Riverboat Ron came out. He's like, I want to let them know, I believe in them. They went on and scored a touchdown, and then kicked another extra a point or kick another field goal to make a 10 point win. So I was pumped, man. It was so fun.

I was sitting there. Amy's on the couch and they're losing and I'm like, oh, I was in such a bad mood. But they turned it around. It's awesome. So looking forward to the rest of the year. The defensive line is amazing. I hate to talk about it too much because there's, you know, I know a lot of people watching. I bet there's probably only like 5%.

Washington fans tuned into this junior right now. So for the 5% of you, you enjoyed that question and that answer, but the rest of you are like, next. Well, that's it. I said it in the intro. This is my favorite part of the show. I love hearing from you guys. Plus, you know it's a good part of the show

because it's always going by so fast. Every week it's fast. It's just like Xfinity Internet. It's extremely fast. Xfinity X-Fi keeps me connected. I honestly can't think of a better way to step to speed with NASCAR and Dirty Mo Media all season long. You heard it here, folks. Don't forget.

Dale's here at the table every week to answer your questions. So get those brains working, get creative, and hit us up at At Xfinity Racing on Twitter using the hashtag Ask Junior for a chance to hear from Dale Jr himself. One more thing before we wrap up, Mike. A big thanks to Xfinity for being a premier partner of NASCAR. Let's get Justin Al-Gyre, this sounds weird, not on Zoom, let's get him in the studio. Bali, baling, yeah, I'm bawling. And green flag is in the air, short track racing. Walk like I talk it, you better got me, I'm baling, baling.

Olliger's going to win again. The flag away the green flag at the field. Comes up to speed and we are underway. The Senate car is gone. I am shocked by how he's been on the drive away. It's gone. Here he comes. Justin Allgaier sweeps the weekend at Richmond.

Winner, winter right here. Gator. Wow. We haven't had somebody walk in the door and sit at the table and so long. I know. It's awesome. Like Kyle Petty and Crair. Is this fun for you?

I'm telling you something, man. You take it for granted all those times. And then all of a sudden you have to go Zoom for almost a year. It is weird watching though Like when you guys have to do the Zoom It's weird to see somebody delayed Like not delayed but like Yeah

On a screen Yeah No trust me It's weird to have a conversation This is why we're glad to have you What's up? So you changed your schedule to be here today I did

What were you supposed to do So I'm supposed to be in the simulator Right now And That seems kind of counterproductive To try to win another race So we We

We got lucky in. You're going to be able to get Simtime. I'm worried. No, I got to go back in this afternoon at like 5 o'clock and stay there and tell. Who do we have to... Who did we piss off to have you here? I don't have to assume we pissed off anybody.

Well, did we? We got one guy from Pratt and Miller that we got him a little nervous. So we're not... You're going to get you Sim Time. Yeah, yeah, we're good. Good, man. All right. And this is all development stuff for...

I can relax. For next year? Two years. Really? You're driving the... Yeah, the next-gen deal. You're driving... Oh, hey.

How's that? It's okay. How's it helping out doing that? Just validating. You know, like the test plan stuff from what they're... Okay, so they go tests and drive the car and then bring that data back and try to make the scene... Try to match it. Yeah.

Huh. All right, so we'll get into more of what we brought you in here for, but let's dive into that a little bit. I know fans probably got a lot of questions just hearing those kind of... of comments. So I always thought about this too. So when I started, when I was kind of going out when I was retiring, the sim was coming in. And they were basically when you'd go drive the sim, a lot of the work you were doing was trying to fix the sim, you know, make the tires right or make things right. So, and the sim is okay. It's not quite as fun as playing I racing online because there's nobody to race and it's not quite perfect and there's some

things that like I say they're trying to fix and make them proof so where how do you uh does that make it difficult to get in there and do it because it's kind of frustrating and you're not really working on this weekend you're not really working on your car your chances to go go faster at the next racetrack yeah we actually do a lot of work with that um I've been lucky enough now the last couple years to drive the wheel force car and what is that tell us what the wheel force yeah the wheel force car is a wheel force transducer and it's a basically it's a a set of wheels that go on a cup car that are completely i mean i'm pretty sure they can tell if i'm if i move wiggle in the seat i mean it literally tells you every bit of detail uh of what's going on with the car you know through the

wheels what what's what's impacting the road and they can look at tire temperatures and and tire slip and just all the details that make, number one, our car is faster. You know, all the manufacturers have a car. All the teams then support that one car. But then also, too, it helps Goodyear. You know, Goodyear is trying to develop a tire that's better week in and week out. And so we're giving them information of how much loads being generated into that tire and how much pressure that tire has got going into the ground.

And it gets interesting because they're not cheap sensors, right? They're really expensive sensors. And every time I go to the track, I'm always worried that if something's going to happen. Yeah, you crash that car and it gets really expensive really quick. Yeah, the wheel force car, basically you'll go to a test and they'll have your car that, say if you're a cup driver, you know, they'll have the car that you're trying to set up and get faster with. And then they'll have the wheel force car. And it will only make about a handful of runs throughout the day.

There's a lot of big breaks in between each run for whatever reason. And it goes a little slower sometimes because it's got all this stuff on it. The big giant, the wheels with all the stuff, transducers, is that what you call them? They look like they're really heavy. They are. And so, and very expensive. Always kind of wouldn't run right, wouldn't run the exact line against the fence that I would run. in my real car because I was afraid I was going to hit the fence with all that stuff on there.

And they stick out too. They do. So there's a bar that sticks out around the outside and that's where they get all their temperature measurements from. So it sticks out probably a good, you know, five, six inches. Yeah, I'm trying to visualize this. And it seems like it would be, but it sounds like you're saying big and bulky and heavy. Heavy.

Well, and it also is heavy too when you're driving it. And to Dale's point, you know, because the wheels are heavier, it reacts differently. So, you know, especially, so when I drive it, I'm the only one driving it, and I don't have a proper car to drive. So, you know, I'm just focused on that. So if you were to jump out of a car that you can go be super aggressive with and, you know, really push the speed and then jump into the wheel force car, which is how it used to happen all the time. I mean, I remember for years, that's how even in the Xfinity series when we did it, we tested, we were one of the first ones to test in Iowa. and we had two cars a primary in a backup, and that was a deal.

We did. And you go like two seconds a lap slower, a second to half lap slower with the wheel force car, and you're scared of that the whole time because they're all telling you how much those sensors are on the car as you're doing it, you know, so they want you to know that. So you drive the wheel force car for Chevrolet, when they go have a cup test,

and the wheel force car goes, you're the guy. I was. That's all kind of been put on delay, to be honest with you. you know, in the last year or so we've not really run too much because they were we were waiting on all this for the new car and then with that car being delayed, obviously the tires are kind of locked in. Have you heard, will you go drive the new car at a racetrack? You know, at this point, to be honest, I think probably a lot of the cup guys that would have turned down the wheel force car in the past might be more inclined to take that opportunity just to get lapsed

the new car. I think it's going to be interesting. You know, I think that the new car is very, you know, obviously we don't know a whole lot about it. Even with me going and driving it, so I'm on the simulator, there's not a lot we know about it. You know, there's still a lot of unknowns and obviously a lot of that's been solidified as of late, but, you know, I'm interested to see how it races. I'm interested to see, you know, just in listening to some of the feedback of the drivers that have driven it. What does that think about it? It's just different. You know, It drives different. The way you attack things is different.

You know, just knowing what I know growing up around tires, right? I mean, I've grown up around racing tires my whole life. That's what my family does. And when you, you know, take a wheel and you go from a 15-inch wheel

to an 18-inch wheel, that's a big difference. We all got to be. And that's my biggest question, to be honest with you. Sidewall getting smaller and how that's going to feel to you. You know, the tire is more stiff. It doesn't have as much rotation to it.

And it just, changes everything. It changes tire savings at Richmond, just like this past weekend. Yeah. So the tire is the most critical part, I think, biggest component that affects racing. And so, yeah, I'm cautiously optimistic, I guess, about the new car and the tire because the tire, like you said, the wheel's going to get bigger, so the sidewalk gets smaller. I think the tire gets wider. It does get wider, yeah. I don't know how much, but I think it's maybe an inch or two. More contact patch, more grip. Should be more grip. But yeah, without the, with the sidewall gets smaller,

it therefore becomes stiffer, and then there's less flex and less reaction time to slip. So that's what I've heard from most of the guys that test the car is, it's great, and then you bust your ass. Well, here, okay, a perfect example of all this is, you know, when the buy supply tires kind of went out, and the radial tires came in. It was the same thing.

It was the same concept, right? Because a true radial tire, you know, is built. It's called a radial tire for a reason. It was built with the belt being in a perfect circle around it. Very, very rotationally stiff. And there was no feel. There was no forgiveness, right? Right.

So if you remember, when they first came out of the radial tire, there was a lot of complaining, right? Especially guys that had been around for any number of time. they were like, I'm out, I'm done, I'm retiring. Y'all took away my cover up. I screwed up and now you can tell. And I mean, guys were spinning out that shouldn't have spun out. They were just random, boom. And I think that's where this is at.

Not to that scale, obviously. There's just so many unknowns, you know, and I think that that's a sport of auto racing, though. You know, you look at auto racing as a whole. I mean, when you look at the beach and you got a Hudson out there, when the first proper race car came in, people were probably scratching heads like, what the heck is that thing, you know? And then you got guys like Smokey Unic

that just take it even a step further and go, hey, we're just going to, or banjo or whoever. They go way off in left field, and the people are looking at going, what did that? That's not what I got, you know? So, I don't know. Hopefully, I mean, I don't know how to say this

without sounding. So if the tire makes the guys spin out, more maybe that's what they're wanting. No, I think. Like, listen to, so I say that because listen to Clint Boyer, he says, man, you've got to have more cautions. We got to, no, you know, we don't have enough yellows. We don't have guys getting in trouble and maybe this car will be trickier.

Like, for example, wasn't at William Byron testing it at Fontana and spun out on the, like almost on the straightaway? On the back straightway. Yeah. On the back straight away. Like something must have been weird or broken or wrong, but for that to happen. but this car also they square up the rear tail piece which takes away the flat right rear quarter which the car that we have now was supposed to do that and then you know you the car the Xfinity

series has it no no no the cup car they were supposed to be flat and then you know you show up at the racetrack and you got you know an eighth of an inch as skew to it so they're like well don't bring that back you know and then you set the tolerances a little bit a little bit more and then they show up with a quarter of an inch and you know it just it's just yeah i mean everybody everybody pushes and if the whole field shows up, it's of nobody's interest to tell them, hey, you all, everybody in this field has to cut your tail sections off and move them over.

So then when a whole group of them get by with it, then somebody else does it. And it's just the same reason why the old-style car got so off-centered. Yeah, well, I'm hoping that they don't allow that to happen with the new car and keep the tail pieces centered and keep the quarter panels similar on each side so that they don't draw that straight, right, recorder panel.

Well, I think with the technology that we have today. Like your cars today. Yeah. Right? I mean, looking at the Xfinity cars out in the garage, you know, I mean, with that plastic body, they don't really get to dry, you know, they don't really get to twist that. No.

Quarter panel around. Well, and the Hawkeye, too. You know, you got the, or whatever, the OSS. Yeah. The optical scanning station, I think, is what it's technically stands for. But, you know, you got that where. Now, you know, what used to be, you know, I'm looking right here at the Nova, and I think about they probably had an overall.

Yes. And they probably had a nose template maybe. Maybe. Maybe. You know, whereas. Probably just some measure it. It's become more sophisticated. Yeah, I look at it even when I was racing in the Arka series, you know, you had a lot more

templates, but in between those templates was like a heyday. I mean, there were guys at Daytona Taledega that you physically looked and there was a giant crease in the rear seat pillar, you know, and you're like, man, I got to do a better job, you know. And they don't have a template that precresses it. No. Now, now every detail of that car is scanned with a,

you know, a green light, red light, you know, different color of scanners. Is that why it's called the Hawkeye? I guess so. I think originally that was the brand or something. Oh, is that right? And then that didn't work out the way that, you know, I don't know.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, interesting to hear that you have this whole other life of testing SIM work and all that for this, you know, for the CUP series. Well, it's weird because I actually enjoy it. You know, I know that sounds kind of odd, but for me, you know, I had good people that helped me whenever I came in this sport. And my goal, and you and I have had this conversation because my weakness in all reality is that I like to help people, even when it's at my detriment sometimes. And I like seeing people succeed.

And so part of what I enjoy about the SIM work is trying to help make it as realistic as possible. Because, you know, as we've gone farther along, you know, when I first came to Charlotte, North Carolina, my original contract was signed as a test driver. I didn't come here to be a Xfinity Series driver or a Cup Series driver. I signed a contract to be a test series driver. I just got lucky in the fact that a company got bought out and they couldn't put their name on a race car anymore and that ultimately was what gave me a ride, right?

I mean, that's just how it worked. And so, you know, I came here as a test driver. I didn't do any testing. It actually worked out to, you know, the opposite way of what I thought it was going to be because I thought I was going to get all this experience and learn and then whenever I did make my opportunity to get in the sport, I was going to be prepared and it didn't work out that way.

But nowadays, I mean, you look at the younger, drivers that are coming up and it's hard to get experience. I mean, I racing has bridged that gap so tremendously for our young racers, but what is there past that, right? What is there, you know, when you're looking at movement and doing all those things? And I think that that for me has been a big part of it is just trying to help help our younger generation be able to jump in and do it, you know, easier and be more successful at it.

That's a good, you bring up several good points. I wanted to ask you about the difference of young drivers because you're a while old veteran now. I know I'm old. You've been in the sport 15 years probably, right? I mean, it's been a while since you started. I mean, what year did you win the ARCA? 08.

Oh, eight. So I was a lot. So I was curious about the young drivers these days because now you get, you know, especially in the Xfinity series, you see them come in every year. And they seem to race differently, but you bring up a good point. that they don't get the seat time, the track time, the track time in practice, as you guys would have, back in the day, right?

Yes and no. If you exclude eye racing. Yeah, but like my deal, so whenever I came in, I was basically in the time of when they said basically no testing. So I got here and it was only, so like my first year here was only testing at non-N NASCAR tracks. Right? So we had to go find tracks that weren't on the schedule. And then shortly thereafter, that's when they said, okay, we're done with testing. You're just, there is no more testing.

I ran, I don't know how many laps. I will say I ran at the little Martinsville outside of Rockingham. That is a terrible drive from here, right? It is a lonesome drive to get out there and lapse and lapse and lapse. And when you're doing radiator testing in the middle of July on a hot summer day, you're just like, what am I doing? Right. Like this is, this is miserable. Like, you literally run a full fuel run, 125 laps. You come in and they're like, just stay in the car. We're going to swap radiators and you're going to go back out and do it all over again. You're like, oh, man, all right. But anyway, so that all being said, you know, when I first, my very first race at Charlotte, there was like 63 cars tried to make the race. Twenty-nine, I think were guys that were going to run on Sunday for the cup race, right? It wasn't like it is now. You know, the interesting part to me is that young guys come in now, they got a shot to go win races, right?

Like immediately. You run your first race, you got a shot to go win a race. When I came in, you were happy if you finished 10th because you still were in the middle of all these cup guys. And you didn't race disrespectfully because you ended up oil tank deep in the fence because you were racing guys that had been around. They had experience and they had, they had earned respect, right? And they weren't trying to earn respect. Now, in the sport, you've got a lot of guys that are coming in, and they're getting in cars that maybe used to be occupied by cup guys.

They feel like or they perceive that they don't have respect, so they want to earn it, right? And there's two ways to go about that. You can either race clean and you can, you know, be respectful, but you're not going to get that. wow factor you're not going to you may not go win races or you can push to no end and you know you're going to make some mistakes you're going to you're going to crash some cars um and you might have the opportunity to make a big a big splash and go on and and get that next opportunity so it's it's hard to it's hard to be upset at somebody because that's just the

situation that we're in you know but i also raced against you know guys like jacks bragg and jimmy Spencer and and and uh the guys that would put you oil tank deep into the fence right I got lucky I I don't know that I ever got put me personally I don't think I ever got put old tank deep but I watched a lot of guys do that yeah you know it was just different it was just a different time so um you're coming off a pretty amazing weekend at Richmond and the last I mean you won at Dover and you've now swept the weekend at Richmond what uh what what changed what you know you know You were, I thought you had great speed throughout the year. There were, you know, Bristol, super fast car.

You always fast at Bristol. But what changed? I mean, you seemed, this to me, we had some conversations, and this seemed like a really frustrating year at times for you. You turned it around and won three races in a very short period of time, you know, so. Three of the last six. Yeah, three the last six, yeah. And here's the crazy part.

Nothing's changed. Yeah. Literally, literally nothing's changed. So how do you go, do you say to yourself, yeah, we're getting the breaks. Things are, you know, we're not getting the bad luck. We're not getting the weird stuff that was happening to us. Hubs going bad and weird things like that that would happen to, you know, frustrations with teammates, things like that. All that kind of goes away, winning fixes everything.

It does. I don't know. I mean, you know, when it's all said and done. I think that there's just a lot of things that have gone our way here lately. You know, and that you both have been around this sport long enough to know that when it's your day, it's your day. You literally don't have to have the fastest race car. You don't have to have the fastest pit stops on pit road. You don't have to pick the right lane on a restart.

Like, none of that really is the deciding factor, right? And I tell people all the time, luck is when opportunity meets preparation. I've always said that. My dad told me that when I was a kid, you know, and he said, listen, he said, the opportunities aren't always going to be there, but that you better be prepared when they get there. Because if you're not, you're going to call it bad luck. And it's not bad luck. You just weren't prepared. And I look at 2020 and I say, okay, on this hand, I had all these races that we were prepared and the opportunities didn't come.

And I look at this hand and I say, okay, all the opportunities came and we just, we weren't prepared, right? So I've been down both sides of that road already this year. In 2020, yeah. 2020, right? Okay. And, you know, you brought up teammate battles, right? So, you know, No and I obviously have had our challenges in 2020. But what's interesting about it is I'm not, I really wasn't even mad about what happened on the racetrack.

Are you talking about Bristol specifically? Yeah, Bristol specifically, but then even, even afterwards, you know, the conversations that he and I had. and Dale Dale knows you know kind of what went on behind the scenes and obviously

there was a lot that went on behind the scenes as much as what happened on the scenes it wasn't the on track issues that were the challenges

and that's hard that's hard to believe because the on track stuff was enough to make anybody frustrated right

it was but it was but it wasn't right I mean it was just it was it was an interesting time. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, you know, I, again, going back to helping people, you know, my goal has been to help people. And when Noah called me about the opportunity

to come here to junior motor sports, what should I do? Should I stay? Or, you know, should I stay and do what I'm doing at? KBM, should I switch and come over? You know, I told him then. I said, I will help you any way that I can. You know, I'm 100%. I will gladly help you. I felt like I did that, right? I felt like that was, I held true to that. And so the on-track stuff is what it is. There were some things that happened, you know, out of the car that made me mad, you know, and I was mad, 100% I was mad.

But, you know, ultimately, I would say right now, he and I are in a good place, you know, and it took not talking to each other for a good long while and not associating with each other and and now we're in a good place. He actually bought my lunch at Richmond. No, it did? Yeah, he bought my lunch before we went to the race track. Okay, so I'm putting all this together. All right, so first of all, you and Noah had on track and off track stuff that you had to sort out

and basically separating yourselves help fix that. My question, though, is if you would have won the first two races of the year, would it, would all the stuff that you're talking about been as frustrating? Or was it the fact that you were not winning? You went, you know, the first two races. 19. I went 60 races without a win. 60 races without a win. Okay. If that wasn't a factor, how is it different then?

Because of the off-track stuff. Okay. Right. I mean, I think that's just what it is. It is what it is. And I mean, the on-track stuff doesn't help. I mean, look, I blew up at Daytona with AJ, right? I mean, flat. I mean, that's the maddest I think I've ever been, right? But it wasn't.

You were mad. I was mad. Oh, yeah. I'd never seen that. I'd never seen that. I mean, like, that was a level of chippiness I'd never seen out of you. And the worst part was I wasn't even really mad at AJ. Really?

I mean, I was mad at AJ, but it was like I was, I was just mad at the world. 2020. Yeah, 20, like I was just, I would have fought anybody that walked up there at that moment. You know what I mean? Like, I was ready. I was just, I was mad. But it just, I mean, I think going to your point, yeah, it doesn't. help when things have happened the way that they've happened and we've been close to

win in and you know you mentioned hub failure we had a hub failure we had this we had that you know things that just shouldn't happen but they do i mean i i i look at bristol in the last five races at bristol i'm not sure how we haven't won one right i mean we had a cut tire the hub failed we had um just stupid stuff that you go man that that can't happen this many times in a row and it does You know, I look at Phoenix this year. You mentioned winning the first couple races. I mean, Phoenix, we had the best car. Nobody could keep up with us.

And we made a pitch strategy play, and the caution never comes out. You know, we get caution after caution, and then when we need one, we can't get one. Yeah. You know, so it's just, I mean, we still head on. I think we finished like fifth or sixth with no tires. You mentioned Phoenix, and everybody knows you fast at Phoenix. Were you pretty excited to know? that they change the schedule in your favor?

You know, I think that that, you know, if you had the choice between Phoenix and Homestead, I'm sure you'd pick Phoenix. Oh, all day, every day. Yeah, not that I don't like Homestead. For sure. Put Phoenix on the club. Yeah.

But here's my challenge. And this is everybody, you know, when they announced it last year that they were going to go to Phoenix, they were like, oh, man, aren't you so excited? And I'm like, well, I'm excited if I make it, you know. But there's only four of us that are going to go there. And you doubled your playoff point. this weekend at Richmond.

That helps. Yeah. It doesn't fix anything. Doesn't hurt. I'd like to have like 300 and then never have to worry about a single round. I mean, how cool would that be if you could go into each playoff round and say, I can't be beat? Like I can't fall out of the top four. That'd be awesome. I'd be down with that.

Now, we can do that. I can go win it somewhere in the first three, and I can go win it somewhere in the second three, and I don't have to worry about it. But what worries you most? The two wild cards, you know, Daytona, or excuse me, Tal'Dega and the Roval. You know, I think. Yeah, but, I mean, I think it's just, you're just in that situation, right? I mean, there's so much stuff that can happen. Sure.

I mean, those are just the places where you go, man, I hope we make it out of there. This is out of the playoffs, right? And then you go into the playoffs and you're like, ooh, I have to make it out of there. I can't. I mean, especially right now as tight as all 12 of us really kind of are, there is literally no way to manage that. Especially this year, watching in the broadcasts, it seems like that there's like no respect,

and the drivers are younger guys. They dump each other for no reason sometimes. just seems like that I don't know you know there was I guess if you were out there if I was you right in years past you know you'd be in this situation trying you got 10 12 guys trying to move forward in the playoffs there was there was a limit to what you would be willing to do to somebody right now that limits changed 100% it's what guys are willing to do to somebody and walk away go, hey, that's hard racing. That's changed. What made that different? Is it the guys just being younger? Is it how the drivers are being raised as they

come through their ranks before they ever get to Xfinity Series? I think that's part of it. But I think the biggest challenge right now is where are you going to go? Right? Everybody's looking at. So there's the opportunity, the next opportunity and the challenges of getting that next opportunity are what is what's making these guys sort of... Yeah, I think so. More aggressive toward each other. You think about the Cupside right now.

How many open seats are there in the Cups series? There's not. I mean, there's guys that are literally quitting their jobs, right? With cars because they feel like they need that better ride. Well, if you're in Xfinity or in trucks and you're looking to make that splash in the Cup series, You're looking up there and you're like, well, if he didn't think it to work, I don't think it to work, right? So then you're like, well, I'm going to wait until the next open seat.

That's the good open seat comes up. And now you look at right now, you look at it, and everybody's like, oh, man, who's going to 48? Who's going to the 14? You know, is Clint going to stay in the 14? But, I mean, Jimmy retiring opens a seat, right? And I don't see, you know, Harvick or Kurt or Clint. I don't see those guys wanting to retire anytime soon. Everybody feels like they got...

Nobody wants to retire early. Everybody wants to retire early. So, all right. There's a couple things there that pop into my mind. The guys that are betting on themselves in the Cup series, Matt de Benedetto a year ago or two years ago, quits the 32 car without a plan, right? Without a sure ride.

Gets the 95 deal and that all works out for him and he's into 21 Wood Brothers car for the foreseeable future. Bubba Wallace says that he's done a similar thing, making a choice to step away from Richard Petty Motorsports and is without a real guarantee. Corley LaJoy. Just did it. Yeah, just did the same thing.

He left the 32 car after a couple years of stacking pennies, as he likes to say, with no plan. He's got a little, you know, he's got people supporting him. partners and so forth to take to another team or another deal, but usually you don't leave programs without a plan or at least a verbal

commitment from somebody else. Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. Huh? Yeah, you do. You're saying you do leave. Listen, I've been down this road. I know what it does to you mentally and physically. When you hit that point, you've got to leave.

Yeah. Like you got to walk away from it. Even though that you don't have a guarantee ride? What if you don't get your guaranteed ride? Doesn't matter. What if you don't get another ride? What if you're sitting on the sidelines and you, because it's like a out of mind, out of sight of line kind of thing.

Listen, this sport will forget about you. I don't care. Like in a minute. Yeah, I don't care. And you say, you can say that now, how old are you? 34. 34. You're still pretty young.

You can say that. but if you were 24, 28. Listen, I went through this. I was ready to walk away. I mean, it just happened that we rode in the back of a truck together and this whole deal happened. But, like, I was done. Can we just go ahead and say,

I mean, are you talking about your cup experience? You were ready to, so you had had such a difficult time with how that went and what your experience was like. Oh, 100%. That you were like, man, I'd rather be doing nothing than this. I despised race cars. at that point. The only exciting part for me was the fact that I knew I could come here and I could go for wins in a championship. But wait a second. That would then prove his point

that how long between the end of Harry Scott to the beginning of junior motorsports did you go without knowing without a plan? Because he's saying you would want a plan. Well my deal was only one week. I got notified that I was not going to be back in the 51 car and I rode with Dale the next week at Darlington and like we had a conversation about junior motor sports and what you know what was happening here what was going on and

there I mean there still wasn't he didn't say hey you want to sign a contract right here in the back of this truck but you know at least there was there was a little bit of hey you know what there are some good opportunities available but here's the challenge that you run into when I went cup racing it was the one of the

coolest moments of my career, right? Because that's what everybody wants, right? Everybody wants to go cup racing. Everybody wants to feel like they have an opportunity to go and compete. Our deal was really interesting because what we thought we were getting into, and even what really Harry Scott thought he was getting into of what we were going to have for equipment and just, you know, we made a lot of changes. I mean, this is the crazy part. So Phoenix Racing, James Finch had an incredible program, and they did things their way. And they had cars. And they had cars, that were, you know, they ran really good with the equipment they had. Well, we had some things that, we had some alliances and things that when I came in,

okay, so I run a few races, we had some decent finishes, you know, and finished top 15 in the cup side a couple times before the end of the year. And going into the next season, I was excited, right? I mean, you can run top 15 in a lower tier team on a cup side. You're really exceeding, right? So we made a bunch of changes. We used different cars. we had different people.

You know, it's just a lot that changed over the winter. And, you know, one of the things that was interesting for me is what we thought we were getting, well, that didn't work out. So then we were kind of left scrambling and we had to get some cars. And the only cars we could find at the time were obviously Hendrick cars, but they were older. You know, I mean, we were 300 cars behind on our newest cars. We were 500 cars behind on some of our short track and speedway cars. of what, you know, the hender guys were running.

I mean, 500 cars. You know, my, my, my speedway cars were like 5, 503 or 563 or something like that. You know, my, my newest car that we had was like 800, 806 or 807, something like that. And that came right at the end. And, you know, we were just, we were just behind the eight ball. We didn't have the resources. You know, we thought we had kind of a way to have some resources and then that deal went away. And so then you're stuck in a bubble.

And we were in Spartanburg, South Carolina. And I'm going to tell you, this is not a knock on any person that worked at Phoenix Racing or H. Scott Motorsports. Every person that worked at those two organizations worked their tails off. I mean, the blood, sweat, and tears that went into it. I look at Johnny Davis now, right? And Johnny is now what those guys were in their organization. and you want to talk about grinders, somebody that just puts effort and time. Yeah.

I mean, they spend every penny they got, but they don't do it based on money. They run lean. They run beyond lean. I mean, listen, when I worked with Finch, I mean, he had one pit crew pit two cars and during the same race one time. Right. He didn't care. No. He's like, I'm not going to buy another pit crew. I'm going to have the same pick.

What about if they pit on the same life? He's like, well, they're not going to. Right. We're going to make sure of that. Right. But, you know, it just, it did things for me. mentally that I don't ever want to get back to that place.

So there's that part, right, with the guys in the Cup series that are like, hey, I'm pulling the plug on what's happening right this minute and I want to see if, you know, if there's a better deal, I'm going to take it. If there's not, I can't keep doing what I'm doing. Right way to live.

Then you have the Xfinity guys that you race with every week that don't see their opportunities in the next level. Chase Briscoe, right? He talks about finding out what his responsibilities are for the next season in December and like at the last minute.

And like really there was a real question mark about whether he was even going to run this year. What were they going to do with their organization with Cole moving up? Would they keep him? what would they do, not have any extended cars? Cendrick, you know, he says, hey, just because my dad works it, Penske's not a lock for me to be able to go there,

and obviously there's not any cars open at that team. They could form a fourth car, but they're probably not going to do that. He could get waged into the Woodbrothers deal, but that would send Maddie D out, which wouldn't be popular. And so a lot of these guys, like Noah, right, for example, Noah's looking up going, when's the door going to, open for me to somewhere, right? 100%.

And it's not as open as it, I feel like it used to be. Right. And time's running out for all those guys, right? And I think, too, you know, a sponsorship, I mean, look, I'm wearing a brand professional agricultural shirt, but this shirt is a small piece of what really has been an incredible relationship for me, right? but but I know whether you win one race no races or 10 races you know without their support I'm not here in this sport right because they went through this with you they went through all

of this with you I mean if you you're talking about cup they were with you on the cup team they were with you before that right yes so they went with you even through the valleys and stuff like that which is quite fascinating if he's talking about like this is no place to live and I'm yes you can go out there without anything to do. But to do it with also a sponsor, which they're beyond a sponsor. The Brant family is like family to you. Oh, 100%.

They are family. They're not like family. They are family to you. And so they even went through that. Maybe it's for another conversation for another day, but it's fascinating how what their, the trajectory of their emotions would have been like going through this thing with you as well.

Because they've stuck with you. 100%. And yet you were, you were bouncing in, and with it sounds like it's some even a short period of time without real certainty on what your next stop was right at one point I debated going to work for brand just okay I'm done racing you know and Rick and I had that conversation is that right yeah

why not you know if you would have left stock car racing would you have went to work for brand and race dirt cars out in the oh 100% yeah that's what you did yeah I mean and I would say you know going even if you'd take that route and you say, okay, I would go work for Brand. You know, I would still go back to you and do the family business, right, and be part of that, and that would tie under the racing. I'd still race, but it wouldn't,

my outlook on racing is a lot different than most. Like, if I don't ever win again, I'll be disappointed, but I won't be, it's not what has defined my racing career, right? like I'm I don't know I don't well I don't I don't I don't look at the the successes the same as a lot of people do so like for me going to the cup side and being successful was going there and competing I mean you know the the top 10 we had at Bristol was awesome right I mean awesome like I think we could have we we got crashed like with three to go and still finished seventh or six or whatever it ended up being right and the whole splitter was knocked off of it I think we could have run Top five had the splitter not got knocked off of it, you know, late race restart. But like, I don't, I don't measure success by how we finish on the racetrack. Like, if I leave this sport and I've been lucky enough to stay in this sport for the number of years that I have, and, you know, I've been lucky enough to win a ton of races.

But the next one isn't going to define the rest of my career, right? It's not going to define the rest of my life. There's still a lot of things that I want to do outside of racing that I think I can accomplish. even if I race until I'm 40 or 45 or whatever that number is. But then I look at it too. I mean, you know, different than you do. You know, I look at my daughter and, you know, when you're racing and you're gone all the time, it makes that more challenging, right?

And I've changed my perception of life when I had a kid. Kids will do it, boy. They really will. I don't care what you do. I don't care if you, you know, you work a 9 to 5 or if you're, you know, your job. is to be gone every day of the year. Kids will change your outlook on everything, and mine has done that.

I think one thing that people could learn people, I think one thing that drivers, young drivers coming up could learn from you, is the partnership relationship, the one you've developed with Rick Brandt, y'all are like family. And, you know, you don't have to, I don't, if I'm talking to a young driver,

You don't have to take it to that extent. I mean, that relationship might not organically be, you know, be a reality. But for drivers today in our sport, I think it's real critical for them to make relationships with the CEOs of the brands that are on the side of their cars. And the people that run those partnerships at the racetrack, obviously know in every individual who's a part. of that racing program for that business, but also knowing, you know, when the, when the CEO comes to the race or when the CEO comes to the shop, being there and welcoming them and creating a relationship

with them and finding things in common that you like and can do together. And you develop these partnerships that last a long time because of that friendship. They believe in you. Like Rick, Rick Brant will go wherever you go. You know what I'm saying? If you said, Rick, we can win races, and we're going to take this wheelbarrel, and it's going to be the way to do it, he would probably go, you know, that's a weird way of going about it, but I'm with you.

We're going to paint the wheelbarrel red. We are going to paint it red. There's no question. It is going to be red. But, you know, a point to you that that's interesting to me, Rick thinks that it's interesting that more CEOs and more executives aren't at the track. Yeah.

You know, and he thinks that it's odd, right? self-available for sure. Oh, 100%. And not just to me. All the guys that work on this crew, all the guys in the shop. People in this building. Yeah, I mean, just he is, he is, he's just a people person, right? He's down to earth.

But here's the other part of that that I will say is it goes more than just that relationship. You know, one of the coolest things for me, probably throughout all of this, you know, especially this past weekend at Richmond, but one of the coolest things for me was the amount of text messages that that I get from obviously their family, right? Their employees, their customers, their distributors, you know. But the fact that you even know that they have distributors. I've been there. I mean, we wouldn't hung out with a lot of them, you know.

I think I'm saying that the lesson, though, is for the drivers of the cars, the young drivers of the cars, to know that detail. Yeah. The distributor has Justin's number. Yes. Right. The text in the first place.

Yes. Yeah. But I think, too, I look at, okay, when you came up, right, you probably went to some race teams that had sponsors. Yeah. I didn't have to get this. I didn't have to put this at much effort in. Right. I did not have to know the CEOs or the distributors or their buddies.

I didn't have to go hunting with them or go on vacation. know the family by name. None of that. It was different. It was a different time. Yeah, some of it happened, but I think when... I think, too, real quick, though, I think the interesting part for me and all this is,

is that when you look at what drivers used to be accountable for, right? There are still a lot of drivers that want to live in that space. Yep. That's not viable anymore. No, I mean, you look at a contract and you say, okay, I need to do two photo sessions, right? and if they want a third, well, no, I'm not doing that

or you're paying me a lot of money, right? Right, right. And that's just not the way that it works, you know, and that's just not how it happens. They're not not sustainability of a long-term relationship. That's true. I think there's a, but you see, so there's a couple, I'll name a couple drivers

that really work hard to develop these type of relationships like you have with Rick Brandt. Jed Burton does a great job Yeah Grines hard Yeah With his partner

That's why I was so happy for him This week and finish the second Like I knew on that last restart If anybody wanted to win that race more than me It might have been that guy On the outside of me I don't disagree at all He works really hard on his partnerships

Developing those partnerships Yeah Treating those people Give them You know going the extra mile Noah's gotten better At building relationships With his partners

This Black Rifle Coffee, Bass Pro Shop deal, has they... It's blossomed. Became pals, right? I mean, that organically happened. And now they want to, you know, they want to be a part of more with him. So, Corey Lejoy that I mentioned. That's a great job. Yeah, has a few partners in tow wherever he's going to go because of the hard work that he's put in to cultivate those relationships.

And I just wonder if a lot of drivers understand. understand that that's necessary. I think I'm not talking about cup drivers, ma'am. Some should think that way. Yeah, some should think that way, but I'm not going to tell them how to feel or how to think. Nemichick comes to mind. He works his guts

out, building, developing partnerships and keep them. But a lot of younger guys coming into the Xfinity series, I think a lot of the truck drivers do this already, particularly a lot of the smaller teams. Obviously, a lot of smaller teams in the Xfinity series, developing cultivate their partnerships on their own,

know everybody on their car by name. But I think a lot of the younger drivers, if there was sort of a, you want to help people, you know what you could do? That you, it would be neat is a seminar on that sponsored driver relationship. Because I think you do it as good as anybody

because of the success that you've had, you know, maintaining brand is a, it's hard to keep businesses in this sport. and entertained in this sport. And, you know, and I think you could, you could, you know, you've worked your, you've worked hard to help a lot of people, to help a lot of drivers.

If you could figure out a way to get a breakthrough there on some of these guys. You know, when I was, when I came into the sport, I was like you said, I was, I saw the, here's my responsibilities. I'm going to have to do this many appearances and this many meet and greets and this many photo shoots and if I do that I've made them happy. That's not true, you know. You got to show up to those deals with a smile on your face, but you also got to be personable and when you're caught talking to somebody that's a partner, you've got to remember their name and know their name and exchange phone numbers and stay in touch and stay in contact.

Well, I think too, knowing people, you know, it's no different than in the shop. You know, and I come in here a lot and I hang out with these guys and it's been really weird, you know, post-COVID, you know, just because of restrictions and all that. But, you know, when it comes to it, my goal, right, is not to fake being friends with these guys, right? I don't want to, I don't want to walk in here and they're like, well, here comes Justin again. He's just being fake, you know, and doing whatever he's got to do. My goal is to when, when you walk in this race shop and I talk to each one of these guys, And again, knowing, you know, family members or what's going on in their lives or whatever, hey, I saw you got a new truck outside or, you know, whatever it is.

You know, those are real relationships for me, right? And those are relationships that long after the fenders and engines are gone, you know, I hope when I'm 70, right, I can sit down and we can sit by the campfire and we can have conversations about, man, how cool was it back, you know, 30 years ago when we were doing X, Y, or Z, right? And, you know, I think that the interesting part for me is I've been lucky enough to be around this work for long before I started driving. But I've been around guys and, you know, Shrader is one of those guys that you look at his career. And he's the same, he's the same as what you're talking about right now. He's a grinder.

He's a grind. He was well before his time. But he made everybody feel like they were part of the program. and they and they he knew the value of people right like no matter what brand is on the side of your car no matter what you're advertising what you're selling what you're promoting it whatever whatever your job is right none of that matters because it's all about people it's about the customer it's about the people that are buying the product it's about the people that are making the product it's about the people that are selling the product it's about the CEOs that are writing you know they're telling their employees what they need to do.

That's all of this in this whole thing. Everything we do is all about people. And that's, you know, that's my number one goal. And I think that that's why I look at the way I do of racing. Because at the end of the day, if I have a good relationship with the people that work on my car and I, you know, do the right things with the people around me, the success on track doesn't. I mean, it matters, but it doesn't. And my dad was, listen, my dad, 100%. a thousand percent was a great example for me right when i watched my dad work his guts out to do

things that most people look at and they go man i wish i could i wish i had that opportunity right well you could you just had to work 48 hours straight and drive all night through you know and go find this deal here so that you could get something cheaper so that you could you know trade it out for this i mean that's that's just how my dad operated we didn't have any money but we We made things work well above our means because he was willing to put in the work. And that's what's kind of driven me to be in the position that I'm in. I hope people see that. You know, I think you named a bunch of drivers that it is so easy and obvious to see the effort and time that they put into it.

If you truly look at it, it is so easy to see the effort and time they put into it. And it makes me disappointed that more of those guys don't have better opportunities. For sure. Oh, yeah. I'm curious about something. You, and I know you got to run here shortly, so I'll try to make this one quick. You said at the very beginning of this thing that it's sometimes to your detriment that you like to help people. Yeah.

I'm wondering what you think, well, first of all, what is that detriment? Two, what do you think people, what is your identity that you think fans think of you? That I'm a snowflake. Okay. Honestly. Like, you know how many people that it made mad that I got angry? Daytona. You're saying it made people mad that you were mad? Yeah, like, they were mad and they're like, you weren't going to do nothing. You never have. You never will. You know, like, you know,

the biggest one was take your helmet off, right? Which in the grand team, I think that I probably should have, but I mean, it was what it was, right? Um, but, you know, I don't know. I, like, I don't really know what people think of me, but like, everybody's got a persona, right? I mean, you know, Dale Senior, you know, you either loved him or you hated him, right? And that wasn't for me to judge. I loved him. That wasn't my style. Like, I wasn't the guy that was going to drive in there and rattle you cage. Right. But I liked it. But then I, like Jimmy, I love Jimmy Johnson. Like, the guy is an incredible person. People that get to know Jimmy, you walk away from knowing and Jimmy and you're like, man, that guy is like the guy, right?

I mean, he's just cool. But people accuse him of being too vanilla. 100%. And I don't know why. Okay. Do people accuse you being too vanilla? Oh, yeah. And so then when you get mad, they get mad too?

Yeah. Well, that's somewhat hypocritical, isn't it? Yeah, but it's no, I mean. You know what's interesting to me on that? And the reason I kind of ask is that you're talking about to be real in front of your team and to be real, you know, and to really want to know more about them and being a people person. Well, a human element is also getting angry and frustrated, which you've also exhibited this year. And so, you know, I'm almost saying that should be something you shouldn't apologize for

because if we want real, you got to take the good with the good and the bad with the bad. If you're frustrated, you can just as easily fake that to your detriment as well. Could you not? Yeah, I think so. But, you know, when it's all said and done, I work really hard. I work really hard to, I work really hard to not be that guy. To not be the frustrated angry guy? Yeah. I mean, you know, look, I'm, there's no, I'm never hidden my faith, right? Like, I'm, I pray on the radio before the race for the guys.

Like, I try to be, I want to make sure whenever I'm all said and done that I'm not a different person when I walk out of the racetrack and I walk and get my rental car and I, you know, I drive home or whatever it is. Like, what you see with me, I feel like, is what I am outside of the racetrack and who I am outside the racetrack. And yeah, I'm boring. Like, I don't really do a whole lot. You know, I love hanging out with my family. You know, I love spending time with them. I like graphic design, you know, like... What do you mean about graphic design? Yeah. Well, I mean, I designed all my race cars.

when I was growing up and decouled all my own race cars and and you know I cut the I cut the vinyl or printed the vinyl and you know I mean back go beyond that your graphic design yeah I mean I I designed uh no I'm saying like when you say graphic design what's fun for you to design besides oh anything anything um you know my buddy Blake cook last night we were working on some drawings for his son Carter for a t-shirt for for Carter for the motorcycle racing you know um By the way, too, congratulations. I mean, how cool was it to get filter time in Victory Lane? I mean, it was cool to get Brant and Victory Lane, too,

just because I had won in everything but a Brant car lately. But, you know, we convinced Brandt to switch races, right? We convinced them to go to Saturday night because... Well, we just thought we would have won either way. Well, I know that, but in the moment, like, we had to unwrap the car after Friday night. And all I could think about post-race was like, man, I just hope. I hope I can win tomorrow because if I don't win in a brand car, I'm going to be so disappointed. Like I was so pumped up and I mean, I FaceTime Blake since the race is over and I was pumped

for Blake and you know and then the panic set in right because like then you're going, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? Like I can't I can't win in one and not the other. And then I had only won in blue cars this year. I had one in a red car. So I mean, I felt like I had to get that done. But the graphic design side of it, I literally, I don't appreciate my skills. I I wish I was better. Like I've even debated taking like art classes because I would love to be better at it. But I could sit down and it's cool now because my daughter sits down with me and, you know, my helmet, my playoff helmet has always been kind of an extension of like my art, right?

Like she enjoys that. But now she'll sit down with me and she's like, Dad, can we draw? You know, can we sit down and draw? And it's fun for me, you know, teaching her how to shade, you know, to make things look realistic or how to how to draw a certain shape. or whatever. So I don't know. It's just been fun to kind of dive down that path. And it doesn't line up like, I don't know,

it doesn't necessarily line up with sport of auto racing all that much. I don't know. He likes it. But like people tend to kind of separate those a little bit. I don't know why either, but I think if you're a cool, like, masculine race car driver, you're not supposed to be into drawings. Yeah. I mean, I don't know why that is, but I am.

and I know lots of other people that are. I'm still bummed, though. Because we're like five years into a relationship, and I still can't convince them to put painted tight skirts on my car. My man is the king of painted tight skirts in my car. Oh, you can't convince Dale? I mean, I have lobbied to no end in my deal. You're going to have to try to find another root instead of paint.

I know, that's the problem. My, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, brand red is paint only. There is no vinyl that matches it. Oh, yeah. So painted side skirts are kind of... So all the cars that are brand cars are painted? All of them. We do not wrap a single car.

I didn't even know that. So it's an exalted color that is... If you remember the flames for Jeff Gordon's car? It's actually the color. Same one? Same color. Yeah, and it's like... So my car is kind of odd

because it takes like five layers of paint to be able to make that color, you know? It's not... It is 100. percent counterproductive for all of my guys that work on the racetrack. But, you know, they don't complain. That's why you don't have painted sidescurs because of that right there. It is. It is. But I mean, we could like alter design to where, you know, the sidescuit could be a different color. Like them yellow. We tried, we tried making them corn at one point. Black.

Black is no good. They disappear. Dillner, no. Black is no good. They do. They disappear. The car looks short and long. The car looks shorter higher off the ground. I look like there's no sidescarts and I'd like that. Well, I mean, if you want to take them off That would be okay if the nose wasn't low to the ground But then the car looks funky when you got to... Listen, if I could just race this car right here. The Nova.

I mean, if I could just... If we could all have that car... Honestly, I think your best, cheapest route is probably to make the side skirt yellow. Bring that stripe around, bring that yellow around to the splitter, make the splitter yellow. We did... So my very first car was black on the bottom.

bottom. And so like it was like 10 inches up on the side. It was black. And it was cool because it had like, you know, it went below. But the problem was is that it was black and then it, it blended in. But. Or you can do white and then make the brand pop on the quarter panel. I don't disagree with that. But, but going back to relationships, um, you've met Carl. And and Carl from Brand is, for sure. And, uh, he came from my brand identity agency. So like, they created brand identities for corporations. So, like, colors and designs and details are his, like, that's his thing. Yeah.

And white is not part of, I'm actually surprised we have a yellow number. I really am, just based on. Look, they're moving it for us right now. They are moving it right now. I love it. Get a better look at this. For the podcast listeners, we're literally looking out the glass here and looking at the Brant car as we discuss it.

The cornfields of glory down the side. Yeah. They got cool. You loved that when they came out with that design, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People to this day still are so mad at me that we don't run a corn number.

NASCAR wouldn't allow it. So we had a number had drawn up at one point. That corn kernels in it. And NASCAR was like now. No, we had the corn rows, the corn stripes. No, we did have that, but we had a number with corn in it as well. And NASCAR said, come on. Yeah, we need to lobby them on that.

Well, man, I know you got to get to the sim. you got things to do. We'll get you on here one day and talk about your life. We just kind of had a conversation. We didn't hit, yeah, but this was fascinating. Sure. By the way, just congratulations, man. Thank you.

I mean, literally, we were so ecstatic. And he, by the way, Dale texts me out on the Friday night winning, and he's like, they need to put race-winning sponsor on my Hall of Fame placard. I like it. Hey, listen, I was pumped. I was pumped because, I mean, and I, and I, and I, I said this yesterday, Dale has accomplished so much in his career, right? You gave me something I never heard. But I mean, would you have ever expected that? Oh no. Never. I mean, just in talking to

Blake, too. I mean, that's the thing, right? Like, this is, this was fun to do. But, but then when it happens this way, you're like, man, that's cool, you know? Oh, yeah. So. Tell the story. Well, I just appreciate y'all let me come on. I have, I've watched and I've seen it. All the guests come on. and I love the behind the scenes of what what's going on, right? And I'm just appreciative of y'all let me be on. Yeah, well, thanks for coming on. We enjoyed the conversation. Appreciate it.

And I expect nothing less than a victory this weekend. Hey, why not? Three in a row. Bristol's your track, man. You're pretty fast there. I hope so. More more. I got to not miss the bottom and let my teammate get next to me.

More playoff points. Yeah, let's leave Bristol on a little bit better terms with our teammates. Let's go get more playoff points. Speaking of traitor, he's right here. There is, yeah. That was by design. That was by design.

All right, cool. All right, buddy. Thanks, guys. Odd history. We head to Bristol where tempers, at least in the past, could get the best of a driver. Oh, they still do. A driver known to have a temper back in the day was Curtis Turner.

Pops, as many called him, was known for being hard on his equipment, too. He was pretty abusive on his cars, and sometimes that included running into his team. teammates. In a race at Darlington in the late 1950s, Curtis was driving a Ford for Holman Moody. He was running alongside teammate Joe Weatherly. Curtis kept knocking the hell out of Weatherly, according to Ralph Moody.

So on the next pit stop, Moody told Curtis, if he kept driving like that, the crew would not pit him. Turner went back on the track and drove as hard as he could. And true to their word, the crew refused to change his tires when he came back to the pits. Turner drove out of the pits and hit the wall in protest. But it wasn't over then. The next day, Turner was still mad at the way his Holman-Moodie team treated him. So he took his brand-new Cadillac

and drove down to the Holman and Moody's shop and proceeded to crash right through the garage door, back out, and drive away from the battered racing shop. I cannot believe that. That sounds like fiction. Imagine if Noah Drexon got pissy and... That sounds like pure fiction to me, but that's true. Wow.

Right. That's a little aggressive reaction. In fact, I mean, the Cadillac had to be a little banged up, too. I would imagine before you go smashing it through the garage. Last call. Last call. This week we had a guest back in the house. That was nice.

Having a guest back in the house. In the house. What would you say? Back at the table? We had guests back in the studio, right? Back in a studio. Because this isn't a house. It is.

I guess. It's not. It threw me. This week. We also welcome a former junior motorsports driver back in 2021. Sam Mayer returns to drive an Xfinity Series car out of our stables. If you remember, Sam drove for our late model program with our veteran Josh Barry and very pretty darn well.

He's had some success in other cars since then. He's won races and a title in NASCAR's K&N Pro Series. He's currently the points leader in the Ark of Menards East. Arka Showdown Champion standings, not several wins in that series. Mary has also made six truck starts in 2020. Very similar path, I guess, to William Byron. Sam's coming back through the Junior Motorsports Building in the Xfinity Series. Man, I'll be honest.

Feels good. Feels good. Having guys come from our late model program, go out, do trucks in Archer and whatever they're going to do, and then come back to the Xfinity Series. It feels great. Dirty Mo Media website. Yes, we have a cool website. You can access the podcast.

You can access some of our video content. Mike also writes some content on there. You need to go read what Mike's writing, boy. He's stirring up the pot. Check it all out. Dirtymode.com. Delt Jr. Download is on TV Wednesday, 6 p.m. Eastern. The Ernie Irnie Irvine Show was awesome last week.

I think you enjoyed Justin this week. Half Miles. Bring the Smiley. miles. A little of trivia. We head to Bristol this week, one of the coolest half miles in America, but it wasn't the first. Any guesses, Mike or Leah? On what the first half mile track was? I got nothing. Nothing. I had no idea. Winchester Speedway in Indiana opened in 1916. 37 degrees of banking. That's significant. Yeah, that's a lot of banking. At first, I think it was 45, and then they reduced it. It was designed by a famous promoter, Frank Funk.

What a name. You may remember the name Frank Funk from Lost Speedways. Funk was the promoter of the deadly jungle Park Speedway, Winchester, and its sister track Salem Speedway in Indiana are still going strong today. Winchester 400 coming up, October 10th. There you go. A couple of wild racetracks in Indiana. Yeah.

All right. Indiana. All right, guys. That's a great show. Appreciate Justin Algarer, making time for us today to come over here and just have a great conversation. That was just fun just to talk.

The open segment, a lot of fun there. Ask Jr., that was good too. Bristol this weekend, I can't wait, Xfinity Series action, Cup Series action. We're going to be calling it all, and then hang out on Sunday. Nothing going on on Sunday. I like a Sunday off every now and then.

Yeah. Only eight races to go in the Cup Series, and season's going to be over. Kind of not ready for it to end. Me neither. All right. Well, hope you guys have a great week. Thanks for tuning in. Take it easy.

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