The Dale Jr. Download - 332 - Dave & Ryan Blaney: Can't Have a Plan

Episode Date: March 24, 2021

Dale Earnhardt Jr. invites father-son duo Dave and Ryan Blaney to the table to learn more about the Blaney racing legacy and hear about Ryan’s Cup Series victory on Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway.First, Dale Jr. and co-host Mike Davis address an eventful Xfinity Series race for JR Motorsports in Atlanta. Commenting publicly for the first-time following Noah Gragson backing into Daniel Hemric’s car on pit road and his team’s involvement in a post-race altercation, Dale explains his stance exclusively on the Download.He shares his reaction to both cars over shooting their pit stall late in Saturday’s race and the actions each team took to complete the pit stop. Was it done intentionally? Hear what Dale thinks, what he said to Noah and how he felt hearing Gragson’s jab at Hemric after the fight.Plus, co-team owner Dale shares more insight into the 22-year-old’s approach to racing and how Noah reacts to controversial situations. This and more from Atlanta including his thoughts on Justin Allgaier’s impressive win and Josh Berry’s car being destroyed by the grass.There’s no better time to be joined by the Blaney’s than following Ryan’s first win of 2021. He shares how he enjoyed it and why the focus is shifting quicker than usual to the next cup race.Dave’s father Lou Blaney was the first Blaney to climb behind the wheel of a race car. Hear how his interest in racing started and how it blazed a trail for his family.Did you know a Blaney was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers? Hear the story of how Dave’s brother Dale turned away from a professional basketball career to race.As a Sprint Car Hall of Fame member, Dave’s most success in racing came in a sprint car. Hear him reminisce on his biggest triumphs on the World of Outlaws tour and how the demanding schedule kept him away from home and his young children.When Ryan showed an interest in racing, Dave was ready to teach his son the ropes. However, it wasn’t always a pleasant experience. Find out how hard Dave pushed Ryan and what Ryan thought of his dad’s approach.Not every driver that races has the “it” factor. However, Ryan does and Dave noticed it early on. He tells the story of the night when he knew Ryan could make a career in racing.During his 2012 Xfinity Series debut race at Richmond, Ryan’s strong run put him on the industry’s radar. Hear what Dale noticed about him in that race and how it ended up leading to conversations and opportunities with Team Penske and Brad Keselowski.Many remember Dave leading when the 2012 Daytona 500 went under a red flag following the jet fuel fire. Dale and Dave laugh about that night and reflect on the bizarre situation, and how it almost handed Dave the victory.In his 2019 appearance on the podcast, Ryan admitted he got a speeding ticket and never told his dad. Well, he rehashes the story on this episode and we hear Dave’s reaction for the first time.What did Ryan experience after spinning Dale Jr. out at Martinsville in 2017? He shares what fans said to him leaving the track that day and Dale can’t believe it.Lastly, heading into the Bristol dirt race, the table discusses their expectations, the length of the event and track changes that fans should expect on Sunday.Dave leaves us with funny stories about what Dale Jr. and Dale Sr. have said to him after a couple of run-ins with both of them respectively.In Ask Jr. presented by Xfinity, Dale shares his experience broadcasting the 12 Hours of Sebring and why T.J. Majors is surprisingly stronger than he looks.  Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. The Dell Jr. Download. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. Co-host, Mike Davis, is here. What's up, Mike? Hey, man. Leah and Schultz are in the studio.

We've got a great show. So we got two guests on Ryan and Dave Blaney, thanks to Advanced Auto Parts. They're going to be here today. We've never had Dave on the show. It's been how long? A while. Feels like a long time since Ryan's been here. I thought we had him on last.

year. I had in 2019, so it's been a couple years. All right. So going to be a great show. I've wanted to have Dave on for a long time. Ryan, right off his win. So we'll talk about that. All right, it's going to be a good show. So let's get started. All right, so a lot to talk about in the open, but we do have a lot. So let's just go ahead and get a couple things out of way. Bristol Dirt Races this weekend. I'm racing in the Provitational. It's going to be broadcast on FS1. Wednesday, I'm excited and pumped about that. That's going to be wild on the eye racing simulator.

But I'm going to the Bristol Dirt Race Sunday, pumped up about seeing, that's like can't miss. You have to be there kind of thing. Cup cars on dirt. It's been 50 years, all that stuff. So it is going to be incredible. Adam Stern tweeted that NASCAR is continuing to look at moving the car number from the center of the door, right?

So I believe that it's going to end up being slid back toward the rear tire. It's not going to behind the rear tire. Thank God, I hope. But I believe it's going to end up just getting slid back a little bit. I think that they should just let them put it wherever they want in between the tires, in between the front and the rear tire. If you want to slide the number forward to put your sponsor on the back of the door. Oh, you're saying the team, give the teams the opportunity to put it wherever.

But keep it between the tires, right? Keep it between the front and the rear tire. But I don't know. NASCAR's probably going to tell them where they put it. I'm warming up to it. I think what we saw in the All-Star race last year was okay, minus this. the lights. The underglow?

Yeah, the underglow, none of that. No, wait a second. The big sticking point on that in the past has been, you know, the fact that the identity of the car is all about that number. And therefore, as long as the number size doesn't change, you can get along with it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't change the number size.

Please don't make it smaller to make the, you know, to make more room for this logo. The number is the identity. I was, I recognized that and I noticed that during the EMSA race, during the EMSA broadcast this week, I was sitting there calling the race, and I'm like, the 11 car. Like, I know you can't see the 11 on this car because it's probably about five inches by five inches tall, but this is the 11 car in the lead.

And when I'm, I loved everything about calling the EMSA race, but the fact that the number on the cars are hard to find, right? And they're not easy to see. And I can't tell you the viewer what number of the car is. if you can't see the number, right? I can't say to you, man, 32 cars passing the four car here. You can't see the number on the car, then what am I saying? I need to change what I'm doing.

Well, I don't know. If I've got to do that from the broadcast booth, that's the end of my broadcasting career, pal, because I can't do it. I'm a numbers guy. Like, I look at the number on the car, and I'm going to tell you, you know, the 18 car, and you're going to look at it and go, yep, there it is. I see it. If we take that out, I think that that would basically take the,

it's like taking the batteries out of out of my current my broadcast out of here so all right one question though i noticed after that adam's turn tweet then you went to instagram and basically gave yourself uh into the insta stories the grand finale fireworks display of pictures of cars with the car with their numbers slip back what was that about that that was just me saying hey look this isn't new this isn't something that that that NASCAR this is some new weird thing NASCAR is trying to make us all get used to it's been there for a long time a lot of historic race cars all through the years have put their number in this location. I'm cool with it. That was kind of all that was.

Okay. This is good. This is not good. There was one final picture that I posted of like, don't do this. Dolly Parton says don't do this. Yeah, I had Dolly, a little Dolly Giff. I missed that one. And she's like, if Dolly's saying, don't do it.

Then we don't do it. We don't do it. Yeah. Everybody. All right. Yeah, I just mentioned it 12 hours of Sebring broadcast. I had a blast. I want to do more of those.

I love getting to know more about the drivers, how the series works, how the competition works, everything. I'm learning everything about sports car racing. I can't get enough. So hopefully I'll get more opportunities. I don't know if that'll happen or not going forward, but I loved it. I took the Nova to Charlotte Motor Speedway,

pushed to some of that stuff on social media. So we've been working on this car a long, long time. Obviously, I'm going to take it to Darlington to pace the field before the Xfinity race on Saturday, in a few weeks. I just took it to Charlotte to make sure that it doesn't have any leaks, doesn't run hot, doesn't create any problems for the folks in Darlington.

So it passed with fine colors, everything worked perfectly. The car drives well. No, I did not open it up and run a fast lap. I've got way too much invested in that car to be getting reckless with it. How fast did you go? Probably 100. That seems opening up.

Well, I know in retrospect it's not, but that's good. You didn't go 55, so you, you don't. I test, we went out there and just tested it and made sure it's going to be fine and it works really good. Drives good. So looking forward to tailoring it down to Darlington in a few weeks to be able to let people see it there. Also, I talked to Marcus Smith about bringing it to the auto fair at Charlotte later this year. I do want to send this car out there so people that would love to come take a look at it can get up close and personal.

So we put all this effort into bringing it back. we definitely want to share it. The Xfinity Race at Atlanta, Justin Algarh wins. Amazing. We're pumped for Justin. Martin Trix Jr. dominated the race. I wanted Martin to win. If we couldn't win, I wanted Martin to lap the field.

I'm a big Martin Trix Jr. fan. We're just good friends. Yes, you are. So that didn't happen. Justin wins. Great win for us. We needed a win. We were down as a company.

We were bummed. Josh Barry hit the grass. Funny thing. Josh asked if he could go a long. with us to Charlotte to test the Nova. I noticed he was there, yeah. It didn't dawn on me, but we're standing there, and LW, my brother-in-law, went with me.

He cracked a joke about Marcus and Josh standing within just a few feet of each other after the grass. Being that Marcus is a-Markis owns Atlanta. Yeah. And what was the joke? And I said, well, you know what would be fun. You know, his social media team was there, Marcus's Charlotte Emergency Speedway team. I said, y'all should go over to the turf down there and kneel down and, and you have, Take a picture of Marcus and Josh talking about turf and post it.

It should have fun with this. And so we can all laugh about it and move on. But I saw the race car that Josh ran through the grass, and it not only ripped the splitter off of it, bent the front clip, bit the rear clip. So the front clip got bent, and when the car launched into air and popped a wheelie, the track bar dug into the ground and bent the rear clip.

So you wouldn't believe the damage. A lot of people sat there and wanted to get you route up about the splitter again. Yeah. But, you know, I always just look at, if the car goes off the racetrack, you know, that things can happen. I feel like in the splitter stuff, I've made my point. I'm really, I think I'm just piling on at this point if I keep going. But I mean, yeah, and this wouldn't be a good argument to go anyways because you can race cars don't belong in the grass in the first place. So there you go.

But good. So you made the joke. Leah, you feel threatened a little bit? Got social media mind over here, making some jokes on social? I got to say, I was really proud of everything out of him yesterday. I was in my office. I just was feeling very creative.

Like every two minutes, there was something new that Nova was all over the place. And then, yeah, with Josh and Marcus, that was awesome. You let Marcus drive? Yeah, I did. That was very cool. I love the excitement people feel from the Nova. When I post something on social media, I go and read the comments. and I love how happy this car makes people.

And I can't wait for you to, you know, for the people to get up close to it. And I literally put their eyes on it instead of just seeing it on social media. Noah Gragson got into it again, right? Yeah. A lot of people wanted us to chime in on that as it was happening. But I know better that you want me to wait. Thank you. I saw how you, how you drew me right into that conversation, which is fine.

You were doing Sebring, which is funny. you and I talked about all this much later because you were doing the broadcast. I missed the whole race. Didn't get to see it. I got people texting me going, uh-oh, oh no, oh boy. And I'm like, I'm like, I can't do this right now. Like I'm literally getting toward the second half of the Sebring race and I'm like trying to pay attention and making sure that in case Diffy asked me a question or something,

I'm like, I know what to say. So I had to kind of park it. Anyways, I went back and watched the whole thing multiple times. Me and you text over and over about it and I've watched the videos and all this stuff. And really, when it's two drivers that you have no affiliation with, when it's two drivers that aren't junior motorsports drivers,

you're like, yeah, fight, fight, get them, let them fight. Don't get involved, cruise, don't do that. You know, let the drivers fight it out. But when it's one of your drivers, it feels different. It don't feel that way. You feel like it's almost a personal attack. So when Daniel steps up to Noah and grabs him on pit road, Daniel's stepping to junior motorsports, not just Noah.

If we are going to sit here during the week and tell Noah, man, we got you back. We're going to build you great race cars. We're going to go down the road. We're going to win races. When somebody comes up to him on pit road, you want to have his back, right? You can't tell him all those things and not follow through.

I found that to be pretty interesting because when it was Noah or when it's, you know, Regan Smith in the past or Justin, you're kind of like, you know, you kind of want to have, you want to support them, you want to have their back. But when it's another driver that's not related to you, you're like, yeah, fight, get them. On your own. Duke it out. Who's going to whoop somebody's butt? So that was pretty interesting.

And I feel like that from a junior motorsports point of view, everybody that was involved down there on pit road was really truly trying to diffuse the situation and break it up. That's probably not what they should be doing, to be honest with you. And I'm torn on this, man, and maybe this isn't entirely, and I'll probably change my mind again down the road. But I think going forward, just let them fight.

Let them fight. So last year, I think going forward, If I'm standing on pit road Saturday, and that happened in front of me, I probably would have done the same thing that LW and the crew guys and all did. Which is getting in. I would have tried to get in the middle of it, break it up. I might have even been very aggressive. And you're into breaking up.

Yeah. A little force. Hopefully I wouldn't have thrown a punch myself or tried to or done anything physical to anybody. I doubt I would have. It's not really my nature. but I probably would have gotten into the middle of it. Like, stop this. This is stupid.

I probably would have grabbed no one, and been like, quit, damn it. But now, after looking at it and thinking about it, and I think you got to let them brawl. I think you'll let them fight, Mike. First of all, when you go interrupt the man's interview, I always take that personal. I hate that.

It's my biggest pet peeve. That's fighting words to me when you go break up a man's interview. Because that means you want all the other. attention now and you're going to come in here in my time and go take it and you're going to sit there and make me look like an idiot by grabbing me telling me stuff. I mean like it's a look. It's an optic that now I have to tend to and probably in a very vulnerable state where I'm trying to deliver, you know, my messages or whatever doing an interview. That's, I hate that. So at that point, whatever happens happens. I definitely think when Daniel comes up there,

that's, that's, Noah's got ever right to do whatever he feels like. he wants to do. And this is Noah. So last year, Noah's run over the 18 car, the monster car, Texas. He was sort of, it had gotten to a point to where the network had created a clip of him doing things, right, on the racetrack and being aggressive. And I sat down with Noah and I said, hey, man, are you okay? Is there really all right with you? You're running into people a lot. Is something bothering you? You got something going on? We talked for an hour, maybe longer. And my advice to him was being aggressive is cool.

There's time to be aggressive. You can't let people run over you. Every once in a while you've got to use a bumper. But maybe you're doing it a little bit too much. You're basically the highlight reel before every Xfinity race. This is what you're going to see today. And so maybe don't do it for a while. Take a summer and just run normal, have fun, go out there and try to race without hitting cars.

When the playoff starts, you can ramp it right back. up, go like hell, do whatever you need to do because it's the playoffs. I feel like that Noah, instead of going, okay, that's what I'll do, you know, as he tried chilling out and didn't like it, instead of dialing it back a little bit and changing his approach, Noah signed up for jiu-jitsu classes. Right? And Noah instead of going, instead of, you know, he went through deal with Harrison. Okay, so when a driver goes through something like that, they see the highlights on TV,

they hear everybody's opinion about it, good and bad. I thought that was a bad thing you did. I thought that was a good thing you did. You got everybody pulling you in all these different directions. I mean, I would have looked at that and went, man, I really don't want to put myself in that position again. I'll try something else so I don't have that type of result, right? It doesn't ever get to that point.

but Noah goes and gets classes to be a better fighter. That's what Noah's, that's what Noah did in his head. He went, I didn't hit him. And so I missed or I want to be a better, I want to be able to protect myself and I want to be able to whip ass. So I guess I'll go get some classes in that. That would have been, that would have not been what I would have decided to do, right? But that's who he is, all right?

And I'm not his handler. I'm not, you know, I can advise him and, give him things, tell him what I would have done differently. And I did. Like I called him just a couple days ago in between the race and today and said, you know, I wouldn't have done this, that and the other take that for whatever it's worth. Can I ask you what exactly he did that you wouldn't have done? I mean, you're saying that he was right to fight.

I know one thing that I wouldn't have wanted him to do, but I want to hear what you say. All right. So I asked Noah, so I asked Noah. about backing into the car on pit road. And I said, I said, what are you, and that's, okay, you know, you can say you didn't do it on purpose. In my opinion, it was reckless.

It was a disregard for what was going on around him. I don't think he was like, I'm going to back into this car. That is, I just think that he was careless. He was like, I don't care about anything other than just me getting into my box. And it was reckless. careless, right? That's what I feel like it was, but intentional, I don't believe it was. All right. So there's a fine line there, I know, and some people might not agree that they can

both be different things, but I told him, I said, all right, you know, you, after going through all that, do you think it was careless or reckless? And he doesn't. He's like, I couldn't have done anything different. I don't know what I would have changed. And I'm like, all right, so going forward. Maybe you're in that position again in the future. Do you do anything different? Do you change something? Are you more careful? He's like, I don't think I could have been. I don't think I can.

I don't think I can be. It's it's a high pressure moment. I'm trying to get my box. I've got to get going. I'm trying to win a race. And I'm like, all right, I just feel like that he he said publicly that he doesn't want to put anybody in danger and he

went never, you know, he went on serious and said that he, you know, doesn't want to get anybody hurt, and he is aware of that. But I just, I think that he should have taken some ownership of it, right? And in the post-race interview, say, that was careless, that was reckless. It was unintentional, but I can try to, I can try to not put myself in that position again and be as reckless or be as, now, you know, I watched the video, Daniel backs into his stall, but he doesn't back all the way into position.

He's a little foot forward maybe. Small stalls, so there's not a lot of, the nine didn't have to go far to hit the car, and he'd barely hit it. Like, you know, if he's really wanting to hit him on purpose, I think he would have hit him a lot harder than that. But so that's why I don't know that it was intentional because it barely, they barely bumped. But it would have been, I think it would be good for Noah to walk away from that and go, I agree that was reckless or careless. At least own some of that, the danger in it, right? That was one part.

The other part that I think could be completely avoidable, and again, I'm not perfect. I've made this mistake myself. In the post-race interview, Noah takes a dig at Daniel's career. All right, if you listen to that interview, everything's great about it until that point. And if he takes that comment,

out of the interview, he looks like a completely different person. But when you place, when you say something to down, to slam a guy or down a guy that's personal, right? You're going after their career. You're going after their talent. That's not, that's not, that's not good. It's not something you need to do. And I just told it, that's what I told, no, I said, look, I said, I've done that.

I've been in those moments where you've got to get a dig in and you feel like you're justified and you feel like, man, people are going to agree with me. They're going to go, yeah, that's right. Well, they don't. A majority of people get turned off by those kind of comments because they're kind of unnecessary and it doesn't help Noah's argument. It doesn't help people go, yeah, maybe Noah's right. Or, okay, I believe Noah didn't do it on purpose or whatever, right?

when you take that kind of a personal dig, people just clue in on that and they forget everything else you've said. And so there's a couple things that I probably didn't wish, you know, happen, but this is the tough part of being an owner. And I think some of these guys that are, you know, I think a lot of the owners have to go through this at some point

and I'm going through it. This is probably one of the more challenging things when it comes to driver-owner relationships that I've dealt with. there's been some tough ones. A couple weeks ago, I was of the opinion and on this show talking about,

I think I'm going to let this play out. I think it was after Homestead he had dogged the... David Star and that race team, Carl Long and all them, and I thought that was unnecessary. Why? Even if you feel that way in your heart,

that's a bad comment to make publicly. That's a bad position to take. You know, against a underfunded team, It's just not a good look, right? Optics are not good there. Especially if you haven't proven your own career. Right.

So, you know, I was thinking in my mind, all right, I'm going to let that play out. You know, maybe he needs to learn something from this naturally. And I'm not going to be able to tell him anything that's going to change his mind or really get through. And I don't know what else I can do other than call him up or sit down with him in person and say, hey, this is some of the things I would have done differently. but he's also his own person. You know, you got to kind of let some of that stuff, you got to let them lessons be learned on their own, right? You mentioned last week that you can't teach it.

You mentioned that, you know, there is such a thing, and there are plenty of examples of when you harness somebody that is, you know, just an outgoing or they find their performances affected in their ability to be outlandish in some ways. When you try to harness it, it affects our performance. I mean, there's a lot of things. examples. I'm happy to go in them, but I just know that there's plenty of examples. You try to, you know, muzzle somebody that's a very talkative person. Well, okay, so Noah, I personally did not

have a single problem with anything that Noah did until the comment about Hemrick's career. Yeah. I literally thought he did not have a choice but to get aggressive when the guy interrupts his interview. I leave it to you drivers to tell me about the pit stall thing. I mean, I don't know enough about it, where the car or the tires inside the box can't tell you know what was this so you guys can tell me if it's possible to get all four of your tires in a box without going all the way back to hemricks car i have no idea um it just seems like dang it man why do you got to go make it personal you were doing so well you you everybody was going to be forgiving or not even blaming you until you force them to have to make a

opinion on your comment. It's the same thing I say to my daughters. My daughters are getting into a fight. My youngest one, Lily, my oldest one, Gracie. And Gracie, Lily will do something, you know, that caused it, and Gracie will be upset about it. And then Gracie will slap her. And Gracie's then like, why are you just not getting on to her? And I'm like, because you forced me to have to tend to this now. Like I was, I was ready to get on to her. I was ready to make that heard the focus of that situation. And then you left me no choice because you went and had to add that last little bit in. And now I got to tend to you both.

I can't do what you think you just hurt yourself. Yeah. You hurt yourself. I'm trying to teach you if you handled it better, then it would go your way. Noah was moving wrong just fine in that post-race interview. And then it's like, you kind of saw it come and you like, oh, don't do it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's like you saw the wheels turning.

and he just like, yeah, I guess I'd feel that way too if my career was going that way. And we're like, God, man, now are we going to have to hear it. Why? No, you don't have to do that. But everything else, though, everything else, like, look, I had no problem with him swinging. I had no problem with that. And I, you know, I don't have an opinion on the pit road thing.

I just felt like that I go with what you. I don't even know that it was careless, frankly. If you can't get into a pit box, that's the question on whether it was careless or not. If it's impossible to turn that, crank that wheel that much without backing up as far as you did, well, then it wasn't careless. But if it was possible to get in there, then it was. I feel like that Jennifer I wrote an article in the AP.

Yeah, last night. Yeah. And I thought one of the things she said is like if you take the lens off of this, if you just look at this, like forget who's in each car, forget everything about that, anything Noah's done in the past and just see that car back up and bump into another car, it looks accidental. That's a good point. And I thought that was interesting because we all look at this and go, well, Noah's done X, Y, and Z and all the things. And so we know he's a little hothead and we know he's wild and reckless, right?

And so when you see what happened on Pitt Road, you go, okay, more recklessness. Well, the bird finger sort of moves you down a direction. It does. For sure. We're forgetting that part. So maybe it's hard to crank the wheel and get all four tires in the pit box with one arm driving because you got the other one dedicated to something else. What he did on pit road is done. I think it would be okay and positive if he would get out and say I was a little bit careless.

Oh, he'd do himself a big favor by doing that. Yeah. Take a little ownership. Take some ownership. Yeah. And then that is, he's worried that, man, I got to be me. I got to go out there and this is the edge I need to go do what I do. and if I don't have this sort of,

if I don't have that energy or bring that approach, I ain't going to get where I want to go. That's not entirely true. No. I don't think that, yeah, you're making the point. I don't even know.

You can be, you can be all those things and be, still be a good guy. Right. You know, right. You don't have to be this villain.

It's the same argument that people make, it's like, they'll say something that gets them fired and they're like, this is free country, free speech. And I like,

no, no, no. There are rules. the speech. Yeah. You can't say anything you want without there being repercussions. You find the repercussions. You can go around and say that. Same thing with him.

You can act your way. You can race your way. You can do all things because you know what's coming. Kyle Bush does things that make me cringe today. Like every day he goes and I'm like, God, then he realized he just doesn't have to do that. But he sort of goes, all right, I'm fine with the repercussions. Yeah. You know, I'll let my performance do it.

That's the difference, though. Noah's going to, if he's going to go down that road, if he's going to be like, I will talk about your mama, I'll talk about your awful career, I'll bring up every loss you got in my post-race interviews because I win every race. Well, then, okay. But until you done that, you are literally making it 10 times harder on yourself because you haven't done it, you haven't backed it up yet. And that's fine, you're young, but that's the difference between Kyle Boe. Everything that Noah did this past weekend, I've seen Kyle Busch do. I've seen, you know, back into cars on pit road. Remember, you know, Harvick and, you know, he's done all these things. He's put people, remember what he did, Hornaday? I mean, like, all these things he did.

And people will just kind of justify it by going, look, it's just who Kyle Busch is. You know, he has to have the chip on a shoulder. Michael Jordan had to have a chip on a shoulder. Yeah, but they all have proven themselves, you know, they're champions. So yeah, I think that there's a place in this sport for Noah and the personality like that. And there's people out there that love it. There's people out there that believe in, you know, that support Noah, you know, and support everything that happened on Saturday and dig that kind of style, right,

and that approach. So I believe there's a place in the sport for him. And yeah. And this team, let me ask, let me add one more point. There are people that would have gone to us on social and said, y'all need to do something about that he doesn't deserve that ride let me tell you something i am glad noa graxon is running for this company i am and i'm going to tell you i got a i got a question from a fellow the other day that said you know uh what what is the financial value of having

somebody like a noa graxon and i'm like the financial value i can't speak to i can tell you from a brand and a publicity in a and a PR perspective of which is i which is where i come from i'm sorry you know who you know who had financial value paul minard I wouldn't want to, I wouldn't want him to have to do publicity around. I'd take a Noah Graction, you know, my first driver is Jimmy Spencer. It wasn't financial value there. But by God, man, he was a conversation starter, and I like Noah. I like Noah's conversation being a conversation starter.

I like that he's polarizing. I like all these things. From a PR standpoint, I know. You're not going to convince me that it's bad PR. It's not. Our sport is deprived of people with personalities. And as soon as they show personality, people try to change them. And I hate that about it.

I just wish you wouldn't be personal. That's it. That's the only thing I'd change with him. Well, out of everything we've talked about in this open, a lot of people probably aren't prepared for this. Oh, y'all thought that was something. Oh, yeah. Obviously, the Darlington race is coming soon, and the throwbacks are going to start popping up everywhere. Oh, yeah.

And we got a good one for you. Tire pros came on board for Junior Motorsports just recently as one of our primary sponsors, and they're going to sponsor Josh Berry, and he's going to carry this incredible-looking car for the Darlington race, and here's a good shot of it right there. It's basically the 2001-July Daytona win, and they did a great job, man. I like it.

Got me and Michael on the side of the car. Michael Watcher, my buddy, came down into the infield for that win to celebrate with me. Very cool to have the baseball stripes across the bottom. And it looks great. I love it. So hopefully Josh has a good experience and a lot of fun at Darlington. One of the toughest racetracks to go to without any practice and so forth. This just went out on J.R.M. Social and I'm sitting here reading the early comments.

There's a lot of people excited. Good. Mike Shoup said I just peed myself a little bit. I'm excited about it. But a lot of questions about diegas, when can I get the diegast already? So it's going over quite well. Is it a coincidence at the front end isn't on this car either in this picture? Oh.

Mike. That was bad. Too soon, Mike. Too soon. I hadn't recovered from that when all the post race stuff went down. I don't know. Just a joke. But speaking of diecast, we got our diecast back there.

Not to go cramp on Thai pros. Not to one up. Yeah, but, you know, our die cast, the 77 Dirty Mo Car is out now. Yeah. Well, that's been out, isn't it? Nope. Just come out. They just got the, it's been on pre-order.

They just arrived. Geez. All right. Yeah. What is this? What is this? One year anniversary they've released in addition. It's about to be that.

It's been a while. Yeah, apparently. Let's get our guests in here. Let's bring in Ryan and Dave Blaney in the studio and see what they've got to tell us. Point North Carolina Ryan Blaney You ever believe this could be possible a win in your third start?

This is pretty incredible What's it mean to see the kid having such great success at a young age? It's unbelievable. He does such a good job. Here comes Blaney now, run on the top of the cushion. The winner of Pocono,

Ryan Blaney for the Woodrow. Dave Blady wins a wacky race at Charlotte. Ryan Blaney and the swell will win. Dave Blaney, For an opening, Blaney's gone for the lead. Third generation star. Ryan Blaney wins the folds of honor. Quick Trip 500 in a shocker.

What's up? How's it? It's good over. How are you? It's good to see you. You too. It's been in there. Yeah, not too long. Like, what, a year?

I think a couple. What? I think two years ago. Holy moly. I thought we had him on last year. No, no. I wanted him on. You said absolutely not.

I do not want Ryan Blaney on. Yeah. I remember. I remember you saying that. Yeah. So I was actually didn't want to come on right now because you didn't let me on last year. What? I'm joking.

No, didn't we say we're like, we'll have Blaney on when he wins a race. Yeah. Or he can get dad on. He won the race. And so we said, okay, let's have him on. Yep. But bring his dad. Lucky he worked out.

Well, welcome. Welcome to the show. The big winner. Yeah, thanks. How's the last several hours been? How's the last couple days been after the win? That's normal. You know, just, you know, I had some crew guys over Sunday night just kind of hung out.

But yeah, yesterday, just looking to Bristol Dirt Race, you know. I mean, just you can appreciate it. But then I think you got to look ahead right away. Big time look ahead because of the Bristol Dirt Race. So, well, I mean, maybe not you guys because your family is dirt. Your history is dirt. So, well, I know. Not really yours, right?

Well, I know, but still, you have, you. You've got to have some, you can't, you're probably not as nervous as some of these guys. Like some of these guys are going into this race this weekend, like, no clue. Like I've talked to a couple drivers and they don't, they're like, well, I don't know what said we're going to run. We don't even know how to set the car up. Like, where do we even start? Yeah, I mean, I think that's what a lot of teams are, you know, think about because you're still in your box, right? You're still in your, the only thing different with the cars is, you know, the splitters off of them and there's a different tire.

You know, that's really all that's different. So it's not like you can throw all these parts and pieces like that's on a dirt late model on the thing. So, yeah, it'll be interested to see how everyone unloads. How would you set it up, Dave? I don't know. Good luck. Yeah, no, people all think I have dirt experience. I don't really have that much.

I think it's just that you come from a dirt family. People assume that you just know the discipline. Like you might not have drove a lot of races, but just watching your dad, right? or growing up around it and thinking, man, okay, I know if I threw you in a car, you'd, you'd acclimate well. We'll see. Yeah. Did you even really watch your dad in that phase of your career?

I was young. Okay. So, yeah, but I was like, you were, you know, in Cup by the time. Yeah, you were probably only five years old, right, when I couldn't race in sprint cars. Yeah. So I can see you remember anything. No. Not much.

But, I mean, but that still runs now, you know, I mean, you'll still run a little bit, you know, But, no, I don't remember when you were full in it, you know. But, yeah, now, obviously, when I go to watch your races, it's easy to understand it. How much are you racing now, Dave? Last year, probably maybe 20, less than that year, this year probably a little bit. Why? I don't know. Just calls. Yeah.

I love those cars. Other stuff to do? No, not really. Yeah. Now I got, we got several things going at my race shop. What is going on at your race shop? We're building trailers. We're building restroom trailers.

hand wash trailers that kind of stuff. Okay. Portable restroom trailers, fancy stuff, you know, go to weddings, graduations, all that kind of stuff.

That's kind of nice. Yeah, it's a different. But my race car's over in the corner. I'd much rather be over there, but. Who gets your race car ready? There's just two of us. We just between.

Who's the other guy? Eric Bergen. Who's he? He's been around NASCAR a long time. He was at Bill Davis. He was at Evertonham. He's been around. Did he work with you at Bill Davis when he worked with Bill?

A little bit, not on my team. but he was there at the same time. And he's helped right when we got Ryan started with a K&N car. He'd come over and helped us with that. And it's been 10 years. He's still there in every place. So he's awesome.

So tell me about Lou. Lou was my dad. He started racing when he was really young. Did anybody before him race? No. How did Lou get into it? His dad liked racing. My granddad liked racing.

My dad had two other brothers and all three of them raced. Dad was the oldest. Youngest got killed in a highway accident when he was 20, 21. So he didn't race much. Middle brother Bob raced quite a bit. Was badly injured in a race car accident. So dad was the only one left and ran a long, long time. What kind of car was he injured in?

Like a dirt track, late model type thing in Ohio. What year? Like decade? 70s. Okay. Early to mid-70s. Okay. I got you.

And my dad raced through early 60s to 40 years, probably, yeah. When did he run his last race? 2002. What? Man. Yeah. He raced for a long time and it was really, really good. You're pretty big on your family's history.

And what do you think about, Lou, when you... You know, the only thing that I, you know, I can't really say I regret it, but I wish was different was I wish I was just older, you know, when he was still racing because, you know, Dad said he stopped in, what, 02, 03, somewhere around there. I was only 10 years old, so I can't remember much of kind of watching him race and talking to him. And then he got, you know, he got sick. What year do you think he got started to get sick? Well, that's why we quit, that's why he quit racing.

Yeah. Really, it was starting. Yeah, so he had Alzheimer's and that's, and then, you know, it kind of happened quickly. So it was, it was hard for me to really even. and sit down and like understand racing stuff. You know, I just wish I was older to, to really be able to talk to them and understand what was going. But I love hearing stories about them.

I feel like every time I go to Ohio or some racetracks, a fan has a story about Lou, and I always enjoy listening to that stuff. What kind of driver was he? He was, well, I'm biased probably, but I think most people at Washington would say the same thing. He was the best of both worlds. He ran harder than anybody at the racetrack that he raced with, but he was cleaner than anybody.

And it was one of the guys he won more than anybody as well, and nobody ever booed this guy. You had to like them to run like that. It's impressive when you win all the time and they still cheer you. Yeah, you don't see it much. You don't know. So what got you into racing? I mean, obviously you're influenced by your dad, but like literally my dad put a newspaper down the table in front of me and my brother and there was an article about street stocks on it. That's how we got to driving.

Yeah. How did you, what triggered you? Well, you know, we grew up every week going to the short tracks with him. We race go-carts a little bit when we were in our teens, my brother and I. And I don't know. Are you racing on an oval or road course? Yeah, just dirt track and go-kart stuff. What kind of chassis did you have?

We were talking about this last week. I had a Mar-A. I did too. Yeah. Oh, so he was in the club. He's in the Mar-Gay club. Yeah. Got it.

All right, yeah. There was a club. Apparently there was. It's like the gym club. that would have been late 70s was when I would have done it so I didn't really

bug him to drive a race car he had his own sprint car when I was 1718 and one day he's like well you want to give it a shot here I'm like well yeah but I didn't I wasn't bugging him

relentlessly or anything like that Were you having real success in your go car? We didn't do it that much didn't love it honestly all the we loved the racing part of it. When you say we, who's we? My brother

and I. Were you and him sharing a card, or do you have a cart? No, we both had a cart. He was a year younger and I was, so we, you know, did everything together. And this is Dale. Dale. Dale Blaine. Right. And you're younger, but about 10 inches taller. Ten.

Dang. All right, a foot. No. Other way. So, Dale's a little guy? Dale's a big guy. Oh, I got you. Yeah. Dale was an NBA draft pick. We saw that. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the Lakers, right?

Yes. Yeah. All-American at West Virginia University. He was good. But he only played, what? He quit before. He was drafted in 86, and he quit. Did he go into the organization, the Lakers organization?

Yeah. It's a weird story. And I'm probably not the one to tell it. He's probably one that should tell it. Give it a shot. But this was mid-80s when Magic Johnson, Kareem, all them guys are. And he's a third round, maybe draft pick for them, went to summer lead. and I remember him telling me

Byron Scott maybe was point guard then told me he just whipping Byron Scott in Summer League like okay and he could do it all I mean he was six four jump out of the gym my brother was he was unbelievable athlete so they get into preseason or whatever and they tell them they're gonna keep him like he's he's made the team and he leaves

he wants to go racing bad yeah and I don't know he's never talked much about it and I don't know if he didn't love what was going on in Los Angeles he wasn't a big city kid, right? And he's right in L.A. with all these guys. So you're not necessarily buying all that he's putting out there. Like, you think there might have been some more to it? No. I don't

if I buy it or don't. He just never talked about it much. The Lakers were like a dynasty at the time, and he's a draft pick, and he's whooping Byron Scott, and he just decides to go racing. I mean, like racing had that much of a gravitational pool? Evidently. I guess so. Man. But hey,

and it was tougher back then. It wasn't as many teams in the NBA. before expansion. Yeah. There wasn't as many jobs. So it was hard to make, let alone he drafted. He absolutely had it, had what it took to get to do it. Man, I did not know that.

Yes. So you were talking about your dad, giving, coming up to you and asking you about driving his car. So your litter, you know, your car is sitting there and he's like, you want to race it this weekend. Where you, I mean, I imagine you weren't too nervous about that, right? You were like, yeah, I'm ready to go? No, I was more nervous than I was.

heck yeah ready to go okay well you why were you nervous i don't know um just something new i wasn't a kid to fly into everything i guess was something new and different and i i don't think i was tentative in the car i went right out there and wrecked it running wide open but i was still nervous before i got in it probably but i didn't you know in our area he was a he was a big name and i didn't you know you went through this 10 times more than me but the kind of pressure you come when you come behind yeah your dad like that but but but i didn't really feel that for some reason. I guess I wasn't smart enough to even feel it. Too young.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So how'd it go? It went good. We ran a family car for my dad for two, three years, and he was smart enough to send me out traveling a little bit, racing, different guys, different tracks, not just sticking right around home, which is what made you better back in those days. And it went well enough for a couple years where at that point in a sprint car racing, there was lots of guys with race cars, and so I got hired by this. guy that guy and it kind of took off from there and he didn't have to pay the bill anymore. So this is happening in the early 80s and your brother's not racing yet? Yeah, he's in college playing ball and you think that you know you're racing and

how much you're maybe having fun doing it and all that sort of was. Oh yeah. Draw for him. No doubt he's getting older and older and I've already got man he was he played he got drafted then he played a couple years and after he left the Lakers he actually tried to go back. He left. Oh, really? Yeah, he left, and who was the guy? Pat Riley was a coach. And I think this is in Pat Riley's book.

He talks about Dale a little bit. Wow. Yeah. And so Dale said, change his mind. I want to go back. So they took him back, but then at the end of training camp, they let him go to keep another big guy or something. So he goes to that, I don't know what the minor league was at that point. I forget, CBA was called, I guess.

He played that couple years, won a title, one year, got hurt the next year. and he had blew out his ACL, and back then that was a year to get back. Sure. And then immediately did the other one, so here we go, full-time racing. And he's late getting started at that, you know. Do you look at your career in the Dirty Moe Basketball League sort of in the same way as Uncle Dale's career in the India? He jumps like his Uncle Dale. I'll tell you that.

He does. I'm kidding. I still think that rim was like a couple inches. Whoa. Because I could dunk on your rim and I know I can't dunk. I don't remember him dunking on our rink. Oh, yeah. In a game?

Well, not in a game, but like messing around. It was an imperfect league. Even the height of the rim. Yeah. It was a little low. But it made me feel good at least, so it made me feel like an athlete. So Dale didn't, they went back, didn't really work out as far as going to the NBA. So does he try to go back racing?

Yeah, he hadn't even started racing yet. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, after his second knee. surgery, he just got full-time into racing, and he had to be 26 by that point, which is, yeah, yeah. But he still ended up with a really good career. Yeah.

So when he starts and you're running, you and him real tight, right? Growing up, right? You're really tight, doing everything together? We're really tight now. Back then, you know, he's younger than me. He can beat me at every single thing we ever do, right? He's way bigger, better athlete. Now I've been driving a while.

I've got a little edge on him in the driving category to start. Right. But, yeah, I helped get his first car and get him going and helped him. What did you do? How did you get him a car? Well, a guy that had been helping my car owner, he wanted to have his own car. So, well, let's do something with Dale. And so we got him a car going and helped him, you know, figure out how to work on and how to drive it.

How, how, like, what was that like? Because, like, I went through this a little bit with my brother Kerry. Yeah. Where I grew up with dad and I went to the races. And, man, I just had, I had all the. knowledge of being there and experiencing it and watching it and Carrie didn't grow up with us didn't go to the races so when Kerry got into racing man he was green didn't he hadn't experienced nothing right

couldn't didn't know how to begin to drive a car and so what was that like for you having finally you're the guy that has all of the experience and doing well and now your brother's trying to do something that you're really good at yeah I was I was all in you know we were helping as all we could and it's just about getting experience in time and trying to shortcut his learning curve by explaining something. If you see them do it wrong once, explain it and don't let them do it wrong 15 times. Same thing as it was with you as a youngster. So that's all you can do is help them learn quicker is all you can do.

You ran your first NASCAR race in Rockingham, 1992. So I remember racing you into Bush Series in 98. That was kind of when you got your best sort of, I thought at the time was your first shot. Well, it was really. The 92 thing was a little guy named Stan Hoover from Ohio. He ran an archa car a few times, and I ran it a few times, and he's got a wild thought of running a cup race here and there, and we did go to a couple. But no, that was. Was it good, frustrating?

It was an eye-opening. I had never even said anything like that and went to Rockingham and tried to run 500 laps, and I couldn't even make it. I mean, I couldn't even. How so? Well, like, I could make it. Were you out? Yeah. I mean, you were used to the heat.

You weren't, I mean, it was just craziness. Yeah. So did you park it? I think it parked itself. They parked itself? I couldn't even do that. You're pushing the clutch in? He said you ran some...

He says you ran some Arca races. What was that experience like? That was fun. Where at? We ran... I think I ran third at an arc race at Atlanta behind Skinner and a RCR car and Tim Steele. bad fast at that point. So we were okay. I ran one at Michigan. What was that like, though, going from the world, you know, the dirt world and running sideways to having to drive something

straight? Yeah, new world. But I had done a lot of different things in my dirt career, different types of cars. So it wasn't just one thing for me, but it was not any pavement. So, well, actually, it was a tiny bit of pavement in a silver crown car. Okay. But just, yeah, stock cars and huge tracks and going that fast was all that. different but how did you have to what was the toughest part about it i mean because i'm asked what i'm asking for is when you know when we see guys any car guys come down to nascar or dirt guys go drive a cup car or vice for you know those guys go drive a dirt car yeah right there's a this is a completely different discipline there's different things you're doing with your hands and your

feet and uh what was the toughest part i think for just for just getting even in the ballpark right so i i i remember some of these nascar races when i first went and i probably did it in 98 every year I'd go I'd get in the infield go down to the corner and watch practice whether it was cup practice or whatever at that point and watch where they lifted where they picked up everything I could try to learn just the basics of of getting up to speed yeah thank how long did that take when did you start to feel comfortable I started at 98 you know and ran I a bit a year I mean I felt like I could win a bush race in the mid-99 so it was a good year yeah So I ran Amico in my late model stock car in the 90s before I got to the Bush Series.

And it was the best, you ran this, it was just their high octane, Amico 93. It made the most power on the dino more power than the racing gas, unicow gas. And so instead, I had, we had free unicou gas everywhere, but we'd drive to the gas station and get to Amico. Really? Yeah. for on the way to the racetrack. It was, uh, when he came, when he came into the busheries, I was like that car. I like Amico.

He had the Amico car. And it was a really, really pretty car. Did you think it was a good looking? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because I did. I thought, I mean, and the Pontiac body was kind of sexy. And so it was just a, and he was a cool guy.

He was the Hemico guy. Yeah. Well, that's where you got your gas. Yeah. It's as simple as that. They would like you just for, just for that. I could have got him, so. I don't remember your mask it.

Yeah. Wow. Oh, that could have saved it by butt. You were past Amicoagascar, isn't it? Yeah. I didn't know you. I didn't know you. I didn't know what kind of person you were.

Obviously, you're a great person and an awesome dude to know. But I didn't know you, but I already liked you, right, before we ever met. Got a leg up. Yeah. Gosh. And we got to race against each other a little bit, too, and we're getting ahead of myself. But, you know, thinking about your sprint car career, what's the biggest moment? Looking at your statistics, I mean, you've won everything.

sick they're crazy yeah so i mean give me like what's your daytona 500 moment um i don't know there were some big races that that if you want them um like you were that you had it forever those ones stuck in your head like they can't take this away from me i want it um the knoxville nationals was probably the between the kings royal call it at el dora with stewart's track now and the knoxville nationals those were the two biggest and um in one in a five-year period there I drove a car for a guy named Casey Luna and Kenny Wooder taking care of it. And that was probably the best car I was ever in. We won a good bit of the big races were all in that car.

So that was a cool time winning those. I guess I'd rather win those than 40 other regular nights. You'd take those, and we did have some good luck in the big races. Yeah. So what year was, what were you, what were you born? 93. 93. So he comes along.

You're still racing dirt. Are you actively trying to get into stock cars? Because, you know, you ran your car and you got a cup starter two. Are you, is that like a, are you aiming towards something? Are you just like, I'm going to just race and race. I'm happy running dirt? Yeah, I wasn't aiming at it at all. I felt like I had one of the best dirt teams going.

The guy taking care of it was awesome. I could win. We had our chance to win nightly. against back in those days, Steve Kinzer, Sammy Swindell, those are the best maybe ever. Yeah. I was stuck, I was stuck racing with them every night. I'll put it that way, but they made me, obviously, way better than I would have been racing without them.

But no, I had no intentions, and all of a sudden got hooked up with a guy named Lee Dorrington that was involved with Amico, and they were looking at sprint car racing, but at the same time, they were looking at NASCAR as well. So maybe even look at me from the NASCAR thing. And they ended up hooking up with Bill Davis, so if I thought if I could get with Bill Davis in a nationwide car, that would be a good, it's not like I'm going down there begging for a ride. This is a pretty good situation to start.

So I thought, yeah, let's go. So not only did Amico appeal to you, but that's what got you into NASCAR, that relationship. Is there any point in the 98 season where, I mean, you left this amazing experience? You left something that you knew well, you were good at it. You were, you know, is there any point in 98 or I guess where you were thinking, man, I miss some things that I'm not getting here?

Yes. Several. But I did sell my house immediately in Ohio and moved to North Carolina. You made the commitment. Yeah. So that probably saved me from. Backing out. Screw it.

I'm going back. Wow. But everybody at Bill Davis was awesome. And it didn't go great to start. And it kept getting better. but there was no backing up there. Everybody knew that there was going to be a learning curve, and it paid off. Who's the oldest between you and your sister?

Oh, I'm the middle child, so Emma is the oldest one. She's three years older than me, and then I have a younger one, Aaron, who's three years younger. Okay, so you're having kids. When's everybody getting born here in the early 90s? Well, you were 93. I was 93. Emma was 90. Aaron was 96.

96. So I came to North Carolina, she was two. So having three kids in that little span of time while you're racing, winning, what kind of challenges does that percent? Major. Not really, because my wife did it all. I got you. I mean, did it all. And there was a decent amount of time where I was living in North Carolina in 98, and she moved

and wait until school was out that year to move down. So there was months and months where we were living. in two states. Wow, yeah. She takes care of everything all the time. She's awesome. How do y'all manage that? So, I mean, I'm married, got kids in my head.

I can't imagine me and my wife not living, not being in the same place. Well, if I was running sprint cars, it was not uncommon to be gone for a month and a half. Yeah. I mean, that's just how you did it. You went from Pennsylvania to Indiana to Iowa to Colorado to California and California and just kept racing every weekend. and then you worked way back. When did y'all get married?

Well, I think that's a bad question to ask me. I bet you don't look at me. I don't know. I guess my question, I guess what I'm wondering is she married. She knew the deal. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, you guys have been married a while.

So, like, you, she knew what the racing lifestyle was like. Yeah. Probably makes that conversation easier. But still, I mean, a month and a half. Like, you're calling home as often as you can. Yeah. But are those conversations ever, like, As you pick up the phone and she's like, hey, like get the hell home.

No, never, ever. That seems amazing. It's impossible. It's impossible. Can't even fathom that. I'm married up. That's all I can say. Well, she was from, you know, close to Knoxville.

Okay. Right. So I think she, their family, her family went to races a lot. Well, she, yeah, she had a, yeah, she was around it a lot. That makes sense. Yeah. It was no, she's, I don't remember any time she ever. called and I need help, I need anything, I need anything, never, ever.

Really? Yeah, see, see how well. When is he, when do you, are you, does the family ever travel? Oh, yeah. Just all the summers, but when I got school time, then they were home. How was he in school? You answer. I'm not great.

I mean, I'm not going to deny it. No, I, uh, my teachers would always say that I wasn't fully applying myself in school. That's what they always say. Yeah, that was probably, that was probably my fault. Partly my fault. Why you say that? Well, I should have helped him along with applying himself. I did it in his racing brutally.

I should have done it in school. If you had applied that to school, I would have been a bang, honor student. Why do you say that you were, you say you pushed him brutally in racing? What does that mean? Well, I don't know. Learning's hard.

Learning's not easy. and I saw a lot of kids and their parents race and we started in quarter midgets, Bandoleros, Legend cars. We ran them all and ran two different things, probably most of the time. Legend cars and quarter midgets, Panelleros and quarter midgets,

late models and something else. Yeah, I think we, heck, I think the first year I ran late models, we were still running quarter midgets. Yeah. You know, because we love the quarter midgette's stuff so much. But you go, we go practice and test and even through races and, you know, all I can do is explain the basics. It's all you can do to get them started.

Well, then all you can do is correct mistakes quickly to not keep repeating them and get in the right habits. And sometimes that was hard. I mean, did you get impatient? I mean, like if you have zero to Lugano's old man. Oh, I don't know. Where are you in here? Well, I don't know that scale. I don't know Mr. Lugano.

All right. So we're trying to figure out how, like, how can we bet? Brian. What do you mean? Yeah, Ryan. He wasn't mean, you know, but there was, you know, a decent amount of Stern talking to, for sure. And I would, you know, I look back on that. I can't either.

I mean, I look back on that and I prefer that. You know, if you sugarcoat stuff, you know, I feel like it doesn't quite get through if you're baby in somewhat or sugarcoat. I would rather tell me right away what I'm messing up on and do it in a way to where it's really good to make me think about it so I don't do it again. So I liked it, you know. That time you might not realize it, but looking back on it, you're like, man, I'm happy. The better way. You know, I think it's good to really, you know, get the point across. How are you when you were, you know, your dad explained how he was emotionally about trying to race, getting out of the go-card into the,

sprint car he wasn't badgering his dad hardcore he was it just kind of happened uh naturally are you poking at him uh hey man how do i how do i get into something how do i do i do i do i do i know i think it was i think as i just kind of got older we just kind of took the different steps you know like like how does that how does you all have that first conversation of do you want to do Do you want to try this? I ask him. Yeah. Yeah.

How to go? I remember. I remember we had multiple conversations whenever we would, you know, about get ready to run a new car. You know, he would always ask me, are you sure you want to do this? You know, you sure you want to race? I don't want to push you in anything. And, you know, I always did yes, you know. So, yeah, that was, I think that was your idea of, like, yeah, now it's time for a legend car.

Now it's time for late models and things like that. What's, you're talking about running a lot of different stuff and a lot of different cars which one do you miss the most? Oh, man, I love the quarter midgett stuff. That was so much fun, all the different classes. A lot of talented kids in the quarter midgette stuff, especially back when I was running. There was so many cars.

Like you go to the Grands, right? That's like they're at Daytona 500. And it could be, you know, wherever, Huntsville, Alabama, you know, wherever. And, I mean, how many cars you'd say would show up for a Grans race? 800? Yeah. How many? 800?

But there's, you know, there's 10 different classes. Yeah, sure. But there's still might be 100 in your class and 10 make the name. Yeah, Lord. That's amazing. Yeah. I miss that stuff. That was a lot of fun.

Yeah. To go run. And super late models. I love super late models too. Really? Yeah. I liked them. We went.

I've never drove one. You were a late model stock guy? Yeah. I loved the super late model stuff. We never did late model stocks. We were in that past series, and it was a really good series that ran, you know, and, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Virginia. And, you know, it was a pretty solid, with a lot of good competition in it.

And we ran that for many years, I think. And I missed those cars. They went some really, really great racetracks. How did you help him in his career out? I mean, we talked about how you've, you know, you coached him a bit. But how are you, what were you doing to create these opportunities for him? Well, I could create some, right, as far as I could afford to race. some and the super late model thing we could do and the only reason I don't remember how it came

about but I think late model stock you maybe had to be 18 to run a NASCAR event in the super you could be 14 we had 14 we could take them and run against the best guys in the country anywhere and so that looked like the way to do it but who are some of the people that were helping you with him well past the super late model so we we decided to get a K&N car and we had friends of ours from Ohio, Jim Weller, and his son raced, super late models as well up in Ohio, Pennsylvania. So we decided to go in on a K&N car. Both of them are going to drive. Ryan's going to drive a little bit. Jimmy's going to drive a little bit. So that kind of morphed into the next year. Jimmy had his own team, and we kind of had our own, but we could only do

four or five races. And then we got help. And he won one of those four or five at Phoenix in our own car. Yeah. Like K&N car, yeah, we'd only run the bigger tracks. We wouldn't go run the short Where's that car sitting and during the time you're racing it like where is this car sitting? It's a bad shop. It all did it all right there. Well, we take it, it was an old Turner car. Trent Owen. Yeah, he achieved it.

He cheered it. He was awesome. We take it to Turner and put on scales and stuff like that. I tried to hire Trent one time. He wouldn't come work here. He's a good kid. He's a good guy. Awesome dude.

And well then we had to, so things kept getting better. You win in a K&N race. They went out in Phoenix and then. I got an RETT. Arco, I went, actually paid Billy Venturini to put him in an Arka car. And Billy, I think Billy approached me about it. He had seen him run and won. They said, you should think about it.

Okay. So we went to Winchester? That was my first one. Winchester, like, new track record, crazy, crazy fast. He was. I led like, I think it was 250 lap race. I led like 230, and we blew a right front tire. But I just, I remember the practice day that I went to.

Yeah. And Billy, they'd run so much. They're like, okay, here's what we should start at for race speeds. And if we do a mock-up run, here's what we should run. And so your first laps on the track were way below the mock-up run speed. He was thinking you'd run. So I'm like, stop him before it gets out of hand here. Yeah.

And fast. The archer stuff, that ticks me off, man, because I ran like, well, we ran some races for Billy. Yeah. We ran Winchester. I think we ran IRP one year with him. Yeah. And Jonathan Davis was crew chief in it. No kidding.

Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Wait, Jonathan Davis? I hired Jonathan. In the shop? Yeah. Oh, yeah. He was crew chief in it.

So you were on your own, huh? That's why we lost the race. For sure. Turn the speakers on out there. Yeah. Yeah. I think those are the only two we ran for Ventrini. And then I ran for Cunningham a little bit the next year because we were with,

got with Penske. Or maybe it was a couple years after that we ran Coneyham. But I ran like seven Arca races and 0 for 7, but should have won six of them. So that kind of makes me mad. never won an archer. It's funny, too. I mean, you just won your, you just won Atlanta in a cup car, and you, like, can't let go of those.

Yeah. You just can't. The ones you lose. Oh, man. You just, they probably be worse than you enjoy the ones you win. Yeah. And, like, dominating these archer races. It's just something stupid happens.

I blame Jonathan from one of them. That's a good place to place. That's good. I'm curious, though. Ryan, at what point did you think you could make a career out of it? And I'm wondering if you had a moment where you thought he had the it factor. I don't know. You know, I definitely wasn't early.

Like, you know, as a teenager, you know, 13, 14, run the late models. You don't think that. You're just trying to do the best you can. And I probably didn't think I could make a career out of it until, you know, really we started running good, like, in the arc stuff and the can and stuff. You know, running the NASCAR tracks that the cup guys run on, running pretty good. I was like, man, we're running good. And then when, you know, I got with Penske, I was like, well, we must be doing something halfway right.

but then still you got to keep running well right no of course but like it's some like i remember when dale junior like even at DEI they didn't even give him the opportunity to run that 98 the year that he won the the championship i don't think you knew that you were in that car until like a week before and so well you walked in the shop and they had his name i mean like so like he certainly at that point wasn't making wasn't thinking about a career i mean like so obviously you got to make it but saying at this point when you get the Penske ride like okay maybe this really can happen when did you think that he had the potential to make it happen i was way before that was it i can tell you the night okay let's hear it it was at orange county oh my and our asa start no your first super late model

start oh yeah yeah he was 14 yeah you look 10 tiny look and we were that's the first race we'd run we tested a lot had robert hamkey and robbie working on i mean we had good dang good stuff Yeah. Good guys. And we tested at Orange County, Hickory, and we'd run really good. So he shows up, qualifies in the middle of the field. And I remember driver introductions. I was standing around with you, and other drivers are looking at me like I'm a criminal.

Got this little 10-year-old looking kid in this car. Like, what are you doing? The dad of the year. And they throw, I'm on top of my trailer. Kyle Bush has got his late model team there. his dad Tom come over and stood on top of my trailer. We stand on top of my trailer. And he goes from about 14th, 16th to 4th in about 40 laps at Orange County, up the hill,

driving under him, around him. I mean, like, we're standing out like, is Kyle Busch driving this car? He's 14, first race. I mean, I knew right there he had it. He don't know if it's going to get you there, but holy crap. That was the night. We had battery trouble. They didn't finish.

I thought we were on third. That was 40. was enough for me. Yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. The one race that I remember, and probably the first time I saw Ryan race, was at Richmond in the, what? 2012.

2012. And Tommy Baldwin's car. So Tommy had a bush car. And a lot of respect to Tommy, but his cars, you know, weren't exactly front-running race cars. And you drove the car and into top ten. Yeah, we ended up running a seventh that night. And I think I remember talking to you a little bit. Just briefly getting a sense of sort of the urgency of where he was in his career.

And it was, I got the impression that that was, that y'all worked really hard to put just that little deal together and didn't know what was going to happen next. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah, we had good friends. And, well, the seal rap came on, Jeff Welch, Kurt Wilson out of Indianapolis. So Ryan race a late model and started helping a little bit. And then he ran really good in the archa car.

and then they had the arc a car at IRP. It was a full seal wrap car. Yeah. So between those guys and me and a couple other friends, we put enough money together to run five bush races, expenditure races. How did you know Tommy? Oh, I knew Tommy.

Well. That's the time you were driving a cup car for him. Yeah, but I met him at Bill Davis's, I guess when I first showed up, he was at Bill's. He was? And yeah, and I knew of him before that when he had hit him in his dad, he had made him, but I don't think I'd ever met him until I got to. So how did the conversation?

start? Well, we were just looking. We got some money raised to go get it. So I actually called Gil Martin at RCR and bought a car from. I said, I need your best car. Because Gil was my first crew chief in the Bush series. So I need the best car you can let go for Ryan. So we ran an engine over there. You got one car, one engine, and Tommy agreed to take care of it, bring it to the track, do the whole thing. So show up and run. In the long run, he was so fast that night. I think he could have won if it played out right. But really, I think he raced back then.

I know Brad was racing, Hamlin was racing, Casey Kane was racing. Everybody was racing at night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know if you'll explain it this way, but he got hired by Penske after that race. Really? His first Bush race. Wait, boy, wait, wait, okay. Yeah, so go ahead, Dale.

So you run, I remember that night. You run the race and you win, what do you mean that night? Well, they started talking to you after that. Yeah. At the track or call you up on the phone? No. No. No, we, uh...

How do you, Ryan? I forget, I'm 27. Then? So then, 2012, I was... This is where the schooling comes in, right? 19? Yeah. Yeah, I was 19 when we made those starts.

And they're calling you? I did not, I don't remember if I got a call. Like, RP didn't call me. Right. Well, I was Tim Sindrick or Mike Nelson. I had talked to Mike Nelson before that about it Because at that point they had Parker Klingerman And they might have had a couple other guys

Doing some testing and a little bit of running Yeah So I talked to those guys about considering you And told them what you'd done But then after that race they got back with me Yeah And I know Kentucky was the next race you ran Yeah we ran no we ran

Darlington and I wrecked about lap one and a half And I was like oh my God my career's over Done for real row one week And then I can't show my face anymore. For real. Like, that's exactly the way you're feeling. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Like, because there was all the, oh, yeah, just, oh, man, I'm so good. Ran 7th. You know, I'm so good. Oh, we're going to Darlington. It's nothing. Whose car was that? That was the same car. Okay.

Killed it. That was the end of that car. Did the tank slapper off two and destroyed the fence. And lap one and a half. I was like, well, I'm done. This is fun. And I'm going to go back right on late models. And then, but we still had some more starts, you know.

And I was just mad. We wrecked that car. because it was a really good car and then yeah I think the next one was Kentucky and we ran seventh there too we ran seventh or eighth of Kentucky yeah the thing I remember about it was them telling you they were gonna do yeah well I remember talking to Brad after that race because Brad was running too and I had I had dinner with Brad and the guy who was running his truck team at the time Wayne Sederington that week and you know Parked Klingerman was driving for him their truck and

Penske's Exfittany car and I guess it wasn't working out the way they wanted to and they were kind of looking for a driver and just you know got really fortunate it lined up and the timing was correct

so Brad was a big part of getting me in there too you know talking to Brad and then I'm saying Brad probably pushed the whole thing I'm certain Brad was the main part of him getting a shot wow that now that's interesting

you know still a teammate that's cool yeah it is cool you guys did you know Brad pretty well, or are you meeting these guys sort of for the first time? The first time I talked to Brad was after that Kentucky race. He'd come up to me, welcome back to the pits. The reason I ask is Brad always has some unique first impression on people. You never know which way it's going to go. I got a good first

impression of them. What was it? It was during the days that we did the tandem drafting at Talladega. So I was in Baldwin's car. He calls me during the week. He said, we need to talk about running together. The heck you want to run together with me for? And so we show up at Tal'Dagic, he called me, hey, come over to my motorhome. And he's got all this film ready of guys drafting and pushing and situations. I'm like, holy, this guy is on it. It is unbelievable.

Yeah. And then during the race, we did it all day, and I think we finished third and fourth doing it. And they were in the middle of the chase. And it was a big day for Brad and that team to finish, you know, finish a race at Talladega and finish good. So it was incredible. He was really good during the race. It was perfect. It was a coolest experience the whole weekend.

Do you remember where when they had the red flag at Daytona on the back straightaway and everybody got out of their cars? He's leading the race. I think you were driving Tommy's car. Do you remember that? I remember all of it. Did you think you might end up winning that race? Well, half me didn't want any part of it. And half of me, like, okay.

Why? I don't know. You just don't want to win them that way? No. He'd be the biggest asterick in NASCAR history. Well, I feel like you'd learn to live with it. There wasn't another driver in the field, Ryan, that wanted to get back in their cars. Yeah.

And, yeah, everybody wanted Dave to win that race. I've told you before, he wouldn't leave my car. Yeah. He wanted to see what happened if I won that race. Yeah. I remember being there. I remember. Yeah.

Well, you guys ran that race on a Monday, right? Because it rained. I don't remember that, but I think it was Monday night. It was. It was. What was, July, 2012. I think it was when Juan crashed in turn three in the fire. Yeah, I think that was 2012.

Yeah. I remember because I was there all week and during speed weeks, all that stuff. And it gets rained out and I got to go to school on Monday. So I'm sitting at the house pissed off under this red flag because I was like, I'm there all week. Dad's going to win this race and I'm not going to be there. So, but ended up not happening. But I was like, man, put it in work all week. I won the race to the Port-A-John, so I was good.

it's all coming back to me that's right so Juan hits that was that the 500 or was that the summer race because I thought that was 500 that was the 500 yeah yeah yeah I'm not changing my story

go with it go with it right no but it was yeah one hits the jet dryer big explosion you guys are parked for how long like an hour we got out everybody standing around talking you and Brad make your race to the Port of John

we race to Port of John Brad took his famous or picture from inside the car and the phone. Got phones banned from race cars. There's a lot happening in that. That was a big night. Yeah.

I didn't realize Dave was winning, though. He was leading to race? Man. We had gotten damage, and everybody had, the caution had come out, everybody pitted, but we just stayed out because we were going to take a little bit to fix the damage. So by staying out, then it happened, and we were on our way to pit road, but we ended up in the front. Yeah. So it was a weird thing.

I would have learned to live with it. I would have been out of the last. I know. I wouldn't have worried about it. Daytona 500. They still got to etch your name on that trophy. It would have been funny. You'd have had to give up that car for a year with the damage and all.

That would have been nice. It'd have been nice. You co-owned Sharon Speedway? Yes. What is co-own on a race track alike? It was our home track. I grew up two, three miles from it. So it's always been part of my dad didn't race there full time.

At times it was a pavement track, maybe from the all. the 70s it was a pavement track, so we drove past it every week to go racing a dirt track. But it got to the point where it had been a dirt track for quite a while. And some friends, Jim, Jim Weller and the Corrilla family went in and bought it. And it's been an experience. We've had it for 20 years. It's been a long time. So who messes with that?

We've got Dave Willoughby and his wife take care of it day to day up there. How far you get up there much? No. I'll go race up there this summer. several times, but as far as going up and handling anything, no. My wife, Lisa, does a bunch, all the financial side of it, along with everybody's, it seems like. It's okay. It's a good racetrack. It's not on the scale of Eldor as far as size, you know, facility size. It's kind of smaller, but the track is nice. It race is nice. It's good. It's just interesting

to me because it's something you probably just wouldn't have to do. Like it's not a money making business, I imagine. No. But you do it. Just calls. Yeah. Yeah. It's racing. Yeah. Well, when we bought it, it was a big half mile. And we thought the racing would be way better if it was smaller.

So we immediately shrunk it. And my dad, his whole life, had a sawmill lumber yard, is what he worked. And that was kind of phasing out. So he dove right into the racetrack side of it. And he and my brother were part of changing it all over. So you've done this, I think about a lot of the dads and sons that are going to Mill Bridge every week and doing that and across the country really and you've did that with Ryan Ryan's successful he's made it he worked hard to get there but you were definitely a big

influence on that what's the what's the best advice and maybe what are some of the some of the mistakes that can be made when you're trying to support your son and help him sort of get through his teenage years and make it into racing I don't know yeah I don't know it's weird know a bunch of dads back then they'd have a plan. We're going to do this. You can't have a plan. No plan. Just got to let the kid do what he wants to do.

Follow his lead. Maybe if he wants to race more, okay, let's race more. But don't say, hey, we're going to race this many times. So kind of follow their lead. Everybody does it different. I'm sure it works both ways as far as patting them on the back after every time they get out of the car. And great job, great job. Well, I wouldn't that weigh so much.

I don't think that makes you uncommon, actually. I don't see a whole lot of back patent. going on these days. You know, I look at, you're right, there's a lot of drivers out there that are, got their kids running these things. They look like they're two or three years old. They're out there running these, you know, go carts and midgets and whatnot. But it feels like they may be a little hard on them already.

I don't know. It feels like it. Were you eight or nine when we started? I think it was nine. Nine? And I wouldn't do it any earlier. There's tons of them out there so early. And they can't even really comprehend what they need to do.

So you can't teach them. So they're not gaining any of them. from it except maybe a bad experience yeah so I don't know so be pet you can be patient yes yeah yeah don't rush out there right when he turns at the age limit to do it if you think maybe he's ready but yeah he wasn't ready it's not gonna create an advantage long term I don't think so yeah what about the speeding ticket which one do you just want well the bad one that I talked about yeah you brought it up on two your dad didn't know about it did you know about the speeding ticket I got

your car I heard about it when you're on here. Okay. I knew it. I knew you didn't know about it. But why did you tell the story again? Yeah, sure. Okay. Well, I forget what year it was. We were running late models and so it had had to been 2010 maybe. I was 18. Yep. So yeah, 2010, 2011. We were running that caraway, run a race, CRA race, that Southern six-pack deal. And like Ross Kenneth was there, mad son, Jeff Fultz was running. We led that whole race. They shortened it. Because I forget there were a time limit or something. So they shortened the race.

But we already restricted the motor down. We run a super late model for a long race, 150 lap race. I think it only ended up being 100. So we didn't have as much power as we probably needed to for a short race like that. But we're leading the whole thing. He's setting this up big time. I know I can see an excuse coming here. Got to a restart.

Anyway, Ross Kent just punts me into one and we both go up the track. Jeff holds a pass. Somewhere there's a speaking ticket somewhere in this store. I'm just setting up why I got the speeding ticket, because this all was the reason I got the speeding ticket. Ross Kendall should have paid for that speeding ticket. Because it's set me into one, and he's up the track two, so we both don't even win the race.

Anyway, I'm taking my little sister to gymnastics the next day. I'm driving your car, and I drop her off, and I just was thinking about that race. I was so pissed off. I was like, man, we had that race one. It's BS. So, I mean, I'm wide open in your car going down. this road and we crest the hill and a cop passes me and we make eye contact I'm like

oh like so I was stopped by the time he like turned around I was just window and down I might have had my ID like already out the window so and he came don't drive angry that's in a movie I think I know yeah but that one was bad mom was furious how does your dad never find out I think mom would have known mom did you saw mom knew mom knew mom knew you probably Mom thought, and I was scared too, that, like, Dad would not let me race for a while. Really? Because it was like, it was, I was like 90 in a 40. It was 93 and a 45.

Yeah. And so that was a bad one. And mom was put the fear of mom in me. And I haven't had one really. I got my, the one I've gotten after that was like last year. And it was five over. You got one last year? Yeah, I got one headed back.

We were in Richmond and you were racing the dirt track over there. and I was going to the racetrack and I didn't see the speed limit drop real fast and he kind of tagged me like a few miles away from the track. So you mentioned you're being angry a day later and I see like you have that trait of like getting mad mad. Sometimes.

Nothing. Like it doesn't matter. I just know that you have this sort of part of you where it's different than most people. At least most drivers, I'm comparing you. I want to know if explain. Right. He just gets mad, like really, really mad.

Angry. He's got anger issues. Well, I mean, he doesn't. Example. I want an example. Like, we're pretty good pals. Yeah. But if I race you hard or something, you were, I'm not as pal anymore.

You did. You did. You did. You did. You did. Martin'sville? Yeah. Oh, yes.

We did. We wrecked me. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. If somebody was uninvited to drink beers afterwards, I don't remember the details. But, like, I just know having been around you and spent time with you and listened to you, and you're telling that story right there. Like, you will, you'll get mad at something, and it burns inside of you.

So, it does. He doesn't get it from his mother, I'll just say that. So is that yours? Is that you? Yes. like y'all outwardly y'all don't

you'd never know it until you compete with like I competed with you and that's where I saw it like I'd never see it you'd never see it in conversation or hanging out you don't get upset at somebody and want to fight them in a bar

but when you get behind the wheel of a race car this when you get frustrated it's like a level it's pretty high believe it or not that's actually gotten better over the years

they used to be bad at it and now it's it's gotten better over the few years. Well, Dale retired. He left the sport. You didn't have anybody to be so angry about it. I remember when I spun you out.

Yeah. I think you were... Accidentally. We banged. Yeah, I was still outside, and he put me in the fence. And then I didn't even mean to spin you out. It was like a weird...

Didn't take much. Kind of thing. And turned you around and tell you what, leaving the track that night, it was pretty funny. It was pretty funny. No, like just fans. I know. I didn't say anything to you.

Was that? No, you didn't say nothing. No, did the fans? Did the fans? They were not. No, they were not nice. What did they say to you? Oh, they were like, oh, spinning junior out, you're deep .

Walking back to my bus, I was like, I had one guy be like, watch out for me on Twitter tonight. Why don't you said that to me? Oh, it's funny. I'm gonna get you on Twitter. I was like, you're right here. Say what you gotta say right here. That'll learn him.

That'll get him. He ain't gonna do that. So that personality trait is you. You've always kind of been that way? A little bit. I never knew that. that. Well, go ahead.

Same thing. It gets better with age. Yeah, okay. I must have, when I ran across you, it was way better. I got to be honest. I'm learning so much about Ryan right now that I had no idea about it. And now, he always came across this really self-critical. I think if, I would have always, I would have believed that he gets mad at himself a lot.

I remember after Indy in the Bush race, you thought you had, you felt like you should have won that race. That was bad. Yeah. You were so mad at your. yourself what happened it was 20 2015 yeah 2015 at indy we were running the exfinity race and Kyle Busch was best car all day and we beat him on a restart like 20 to go kind of gaping him a little bit but he was staying pretty close and I come off two on white on the last lap and just missed it

missed turn two and he ended up passing me and lost the race so that was that was bad that was a rough one for sure how many times you're going to have a chance to win a race at indie for roger and lose it like that, that was pretty bad. I thought I was going to get fired. What? Yeah. How many times have you thought you were going to get fired? This is the second time it's come up in this conversation.

Mr. Penske, I was running the cup race for the Woodbrothers that year. Yeah. That was part-time in 15. And he had his, Roger had his bus there. He called me in Sunday morning. I was like, here it is. Here it comes, man. And he was, gave me some good words of encouragement.

You're almost fired. In my mind. In my mind. That what Roger said? I was like, oh my gosh, man. This is it. Done. Probably not even going to run this cup race today.

And no, he was very nice about everything. How do you handle those races where he's done that? You know, he's made a mistake. He lost, you know, a race at Indy. Could have been great. What's the first thing you, as the father, saying to him, are you trying to pick him back up or are you going like, what were you thinking? I didn't say anything.

Really? I don't say anything until the next day, maybe. Well, okay, but the next day. I'm saying, what's the next thing you say to him? You can't say anything. The only thing I used to get upset was not, if I didn't feel like he was trying hard enough. Oh, yeah, that's a good one for that.

That was the biggest thing. And then it was just correcting mistakes and, okay, you're still doing it. But something like that, just missing it going forward. You know, that's racing. You can't get upset at that. Effort. That's one, like, looking at your kids, even today, it's like I'm looking at my daughters,

and I'm like, God, you weren't even. trying out there and she's like I'm just going to get the mail dad I mean you know whatever it is and it's like no do it better harder go run look at anybody in any top sport the guys that get after it to artists they right they rise to the top so Ryan your advanced auto parts has been a big supporter of years over the years and they got this at advanced my track challenge coming up on the dirt race at Bristol it's definitely got a short track feel to it tell us about the advance my

track challenge what is that yeah so well advanced auto parts got with us last year and um you know it's great to have them in the sport you know it's a it's a great company and um you know getting to know everybody so they're on my car at bristol this weekend uh for the dirt race so that's that's pretty good but yeah they're doing the advance my track challenge they do a lot with short tracks right now um and with the weekly series they call it so the challenge is they've got 22 um tracks across us and Canada that are participating in the Advance My Track Challenge. And voting's already open. It's actually started today, March 23rd.

So by the time this comes out, it already starts. So you can vote at Advancemytrack.com. And what you do is they'll have all these 22 tracks, and the voting will go on here till May 9th. And the top six tracks will receive a final two-day voting that goes on made 9th and 10th. And so the winner will get 50 grand to, you know, for the facility to enhance kind of all the fan experience second gets 15,000, third gets 10,000. So that's what they want to do.

You know, short tracks is obviously we've been sitting around talking about how we grew up racing and stuff like that. And, you know, they've done a great job at Vance has of, you know, really trying to help out, you know, where everyone kind of comes from. And, you know, I've raced at a lot of these tracks before, you know, Wake County and South Boston, Berlin up and Michigan. There are a lot of great tracks on the list. So yeah, if you're a fan and go out and vote because it's really going to help these tracks out. On your race car each weekend, instead of Advances logo on the C-post, they're going to have one of the different tracks represented. That's pretty cool. Yeah, so they do it on both the left and the right C-posts. It's two different tracks. So that's cool. You know, that just shows how much they care about these short tracks.

Each track featured on your car each will receive $1,200 bucks. Where do you go to vote? You go to advancemytrack.com. Advancemytrack.com. Right on. So voting's already open by the time this comes out. This is pretty key because you guys know this really well. Way back in the 70s and the 80s and through the 90s,

the Winston support through NASCAR all fed all the way down to the bottom and the short track ranks and all these tracks were NASCAR sanctioned. And Winston had them paint the walls and everything just looked really cool. and there was a great connection and bomb between the local track and the big series. And I think Advance is sort of filling that gap now with programs like this. So big props to Advance Auto Parts for doing so much for short track racing and the local short track racing. 50 grand, by the way. I mean, as a racetrack owner, that goes a long way, doesn't it?

Gigantic. Yeah. Gigantic. That's a game changer right there. Yeah. I know they're on Tony Stewart Sprint Car at the moment I've seen it this year. So, yeah, all about that world. This is, in fact, that's got to be there.

pretty big customer base as well. Yeah, we won the National Championship for the Late Mile Stocker, the Western Racing Series is what it used to be called, but now it's the Advanced Auto Park Short Track series, and we're very, very proud of it. Amazing trophy. Yeah. And I know Advance has to pay for it, so...

That makes them special. And I'll tell you what, and they were so nice. We win the trophy, and we bring it here, and I wanted to get a second one made to give to one of our sponsors, or our two sponsors, and they paid for that. Oh, is that right? Yeah, good folks.

You know, when we were doing lost speedways last year, it really kind of brought up the fact that people really have, not only just have connections to their loss, to their speedways, to their local tracks, but it's personal. Like it's a personal relationship. That's the part we didn't really know until we did that show. And so when you give people an opportunity to show that meaningful, that relationship like this, like going out and voting,

I mean, if you can get your track $50,000, I think they're going to come out of the woodwork. I mean, this is when people really get to show what's important. And so I love this. I love this program. It's awesome. Well, we're lucky to have them for sure. And them showing, you know, coming on board to do a handful of primaries last year, you know,

and continuing through this year that just shows, you know, pretty much a new company coming in the sport that hasn't been in the sport, at least in a while. So Advance and Carquest are, Advance owns Carquest, too. So I know CarQuest was, were they at Hendrick for a little bit? Yeah, I think so. But I don't think Advance was part of that yet. So just to have them, you know, you talk about new companies coming into the sport. And then not only being on a car, but doing what they're doing now with the weekly series is really cool to see.

Well, man, coming off your win in Atlanta, I know you got an unknown, a complete unknown at Bristol. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be sitting up in a suite watching. Nice. Yeah. So. What? Yeah, sorry.

I should have kept that to myself. I got a big question, though. So I know that we don't know what's set up to put in the car. You don't know whether you're going to how to drive the car and all the things. You're going to learn all that really quickly. But you know this, 250 laps in a dirt race. I mean, this thing, that's going to be hard. Feels long.

It's, their dirt races aren't long, races, typically. What's the longest dirt race you ever ran? Maybe 200 laps. So what car was that? It would have been what they call a big block modified or maybe even a silver crime car. We might have went 150. But yeah, this is going to be long race. So I ran, I mean, I've ran a 10-lap match race on dirt and felt like I'd ran 200 laps.

Yeah. What car do you run? It was one of them four-cylinder modified like Kenny Wallace. I don't know if it's four-cylinder. Were you hanging on a little too tight? Or, I mean, what got you so tired? I think I held my breath the whole time. Forgot to breathe.

So I think that that's going to be the biggest, you know, you guys can tell me your opinion, but I think that's going to be the biggest shock to everybody is just how physical this race is going to be. I think so. No, granted, so when the dirt late models were there last week, you know, they were running mid-15 second laps. I think we'll be in the 20, 21 second, you know, probably. and the track got really rough, you know. Now, it won't get as rough, I don't think, because we're not going as fast through the corners. Those cars tear up a lot of, you know, of the dirt.

But I'm just curious to see, and no one knows this, how the track is going to change, you know, how they're going to start the track for us. They can't start it with a lot of moisture on it because, you know, we have windshields, things like that. You can't take up windshield. So just to see how much the track changes over that, over the weekend and over the whole race. You know, I think that's just, there's another thing that's up in the air that no one really knows.

That does present a challenge that you guys have windshields. You won't be able to have, you know, you're not going to be tearing off, tear offs from your visor. So what are some of the, are there anything that you all are conversating about as far as preventative maintenance to keep the windshield from becoming, you know, impossible to see out of? Well, we get a little, like, a little screen, like a plexiglass screen on the hood. I think to deflect it like the trucks used to do.

How much does that really do to do? reflect. I don't think it does that much. Because those have been, I used to, you know, you see them on Arka cars way back. I mean, as long, Arca's run dirt for years, decades. And even cup cars, even Richard Petty and them guys, when they would run dirt, they'd have something on the windshield on the hood. And I'm like, what is that really doing? Yeah. Is it actually moving that much air out of the windch, out of the path of the windshield?

I'm not sure. We run them in the trucks at Eldora, but it was never, the track was never, you know, tacky enough to really, like, sling dirt. when you were racing somebody like it'd start off a little tacky in practice but did you ever have a race at adored in the truck where the windshield was bad no no they got they got so dried dried off the track did that it would just get dusty all right i'm not going to worry about it then so but i don't know i like put some find some slick stuff you can put on the windshield i guess if it does maybe it'll just kind of slide off but you ran the trucks yeah ran at the 13 dad ran in 2013 two our teammates yep for brad and i ran at 14 as well So what is from that experience? What's your comfort level going into this race? Not bad. I mean, I think no one knows what to expect, right? I mean, you could have, you know, people have, be really struggling.

But I thought the trucks were pretty good, you know, just different track and things like that. I don't know. I look forward to it. It's going to be fun. So just have to be easy. What else about the season you look forward to? It's nice to get a win out of the way early. That's for sure.

You know, we never won this early before. So that part's nice. But, you know, just going through the year. You know, I thought we did a great job Sunday of working through what we needed to work through. And, you know, as Todd and I get to know each other better, you know, that just helps, you know, time with somebody. Y'all made a big change. You're talking about Todd. Y'all made a change the year before last with crew cheese.

Everybody got, it's kind of like a duck, duck, duck, goose kind of thing going on where everybody changed crew cheese. In my mind, I like where you ended up, right? Yeah, Todd's great. I mean, so it was really the driver moved with the whole team. So, like, I got the whole old 22 team. Wow. You know, Kozlowski got all my team and Joey got Brad's team. So it was like driver and spotter moved, like, and everyone else stayed.

Would you tell me if one of those guys, one of those drivers was thinking, hmm, I don't like my thing, my deal. My deal, this wasn't good for me. I don't know. I like mine. So, you know, I can't speak for those guys. I mean, obviously they ran great. You know, last year they both of them were in the championship four.

Good point. You know, both of them won multiple races. Your cars had the most speed, in my opinion. Yeah, we just didn't really capitalize and things didn't work out. But, you know, hopefully, you know, Todd and I sat down this offseason to figure it out, all right, what did we do well that we can continue to do well, or what do we really need to work on and pinpoint those things and apply them? And I think we've been doing a pretty decent job, but applying them just have to keep going.

Well, man, you know, you. You got to be enjoying watching him succeed and probably has become bigger and better than your dreams ever imagined. No doubt. I'm proud of who he is. I mean, he's a good kid, got his head on straight. As far as me looking at him, as talented and as fast as anybody in the Cup Series, it's just stacking experience on top to get there. There's one last thing I wanted to say.

I appreciate everything. You're support of the Pittsburgh Medical Center. that I went to to get my head straightened out. You went through a similar experience and they helped you. But not only that, after the fact, you're actively supporting sharing people, your story. That takes a lot of bravery to say, hey, man, I had this problem. I went and got it fixed because it sends a lot of people in that right direction. And I'm sure you're hearing stories about how sharing your own experiences help others.

But I really appreciate you doing that. It's been great to talk to you guys. Dave, I've thought the world of you for a really long time. You're an amazing dude. You got a great son, and he's got an amazing future. So we're just glad to have y'all's time. I know you've got a busy week. Thanks for stopping by.

No problem. Big winner. Thank you. Yes, sir. Hey, do you remember a race? This is how good he is. You remember a race at Darlington? It was a cup race.

Yeah. Everybody. Oh, yeah. That wreck right at the end? Yes. So there was a big melee on the front. straight away and we dive out of the way and I dive down and threw the infield up the track and smash right into the side of the deal.

Just blew smoke and right out on the side. And race is over. We're getting my car ready and I see here he comes walking off. And he should be mad. And he just walks over, stands beside me. Good try, Dave. He walked off. I don't know.

Different than I expected. I don't even know. Is that an insult or is that like, is that a, Come. It was a good try. I mean, yeah, he had done the same thing. I did if he was in that position. Yeah.

It was just, it was funny, though. Yeah. It wasn't what I expected. I admired you and always respected you, even before we got to racing together. It was like, you know, you were a legend coming to try to do, try to make NASCAR work. At the same time, I was trying to make NASCAR work. So we were both kind of rookies in a sense. Yeah.

But you obviously were established. than me in another discipline, so it was pretty cool. I had the same thing happen with your dad a little bit. Oh, yeah. In 2000, we were rookies in 2000. So we were Daytona, first race. We're out there in drafting practice. And somehow I'm beside your dad, and everybody's wiggling around,

and somehow my left front touched his right rear. And it was no big deal. We just all kept going. So two laps later, my left front goes down, in the wall I go. Oh, no. So we're over there trying to work on my car and fix it, and here comes your dad walking over. I'm like, oh, I'm not sure how this is going to go eat it. He goes to say, Dave, you've got to get off the track if there's contact and practice.

I mean, he's just trying to tell me you can't stay out there. I'm like, well, I know, you're right. It was cool. I just never, I never, I don't know, it wasn't much of a talker. I didn't deal with your dad much as far as, you know, it wasn't a chit-chat guy. Yeah, neither was he. Yeah, I know, and we just never. But he shot.

You weren't a chit-chat guy. Not at all. Yeah. I always like to bug him on the driver's intros because you couldn't run from you there. Yeah. One day your dad, I ran, it was a Bush race at Michigan. I'm pretty sure you won it. It was a race.

Remember that race that Jeff Gordon came back and ran a Pepsi car? Yeah. And I think I qualified on a poll. You guys took off. And at one point during the race, I ran you down from a long way back. There was only one pit stop. I think in those races, 100 laps, pit at 50. And I come out way behind and maybe finish there.

But at the end of it, I'm getting out of my car on pit road. Your dad walks by and he says, good job, Dave. I'm like, I looked around. Yeah. There's another Dave here. That's funny. That was awesome. That is neat.

Yeah. I wish I knew them better. I did too. Yeah. I wish I got to race him a little bit more. Yeah. Well, man, again, we appreciate it. Yeah.

You guys are great. You're a great family. Keep winning, buddy. We'll try. Thanks for having me. We enjoy watching. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Dave.

Ryan and Dave Blaney on the Dale Jr. download. It's finally time for the best part of the show. Ash Jr. brought to you by Xfinity, premier partner of NASCAR. How about we get right into the questions that you sent at Xfinity Racing on Twitter? Yeah, so let's get these questions going. See what you guys got on top of mind here. Our first question's coming from Higgie. Was there anything about the EMSA race at

see-ring that caught you by surprise, perhaps something that you learned by covering these endurance races that you didn't see or notice while you were driving in the past? Well, you know, there's a 10-minute answer to that, but it's a, yeah, the race was really, really good. And, you know, if you didn't watch it, you missed a pretty exciting race. For some reason, I really enjoy the endurance races calling the race being part of the broadcast. You know, you're forced to kind of, follow along with every moment, every, you know, when we take breaks and step out of the booth, we still are watching the race and trying to, you know, stay on top of what's happening so that when we hop back in the booth after a couple hours of break, you feel like you're really

aware of everything that's been going on and what everybody's challenges are, because throughout the race, every team faces some sort of obstacle difficulty, and it's just really fascinating to me. I've, I got into broadcasting in my, mind was like man I'm just going to do NASCAR it's all I want to do I don't care about doing anything else I don't want to climb up the broadcasting ladder and do anything beyond just NASCAR races but my opinion about that has kind of changed a lot plus getting to work with Diffy and Calvin and Townsend and the rest of the crew you know you meet a lot of different people in the NBC family whether they're you know on-air talent or anybody in

the production team so it's great to make those connections and show people what you're capable of so that maybe next time they're doing a show they want you to be there and want you to be a part of it so i get to learn from watching those guys diff is amazing and his he's he's just kind of a jack of all trades can do anything you put him in the booth and he can run the show and just a lot of fun to get to know uh calvin and townsen is housous he's kind of sneaky funny throws in some pretty funny one-liners throughout the race but I just love learning more about EMSA, learning more about what they're trying to do

and who they're becoming. You know, they changed the sport. They've changed a lot of the rules, and they kind of continue to evolve and do things that they can to try to improve the show. And I think a lot of the things that, well, I'll just say that we've covered two races, the 24-hour of Daytona and the 12-hour C-Bring,

and they've both been fantastic. We had drama to the very, very finish of a 12-hour race at SeaBring. It was crazy. There was a lot of things that were impressive. But obviously, I think at the end for Sebastian Bourdain, the wing broke, and he lost a ton of rear down force, and I guess, or, yeah, and so the car became really, really challenging for him to drive, and he lost this really comfortable lead that he had.

and so he had probably three or four cars within a couple seconds right on his tail. And in that moment, he, I don't know if he recognized exactly what broke, but he made changes inside the car with the sway bars and whatnot and all the tools that he had inside to change the balance of the car and kind of stopped the bleeding, so to speak, and got up on the wheel and didn't lose the lead. I just don't know that a lot of drivers would have been able to find another gear, find some more inner strength or whatever you want to call that.

You're exhausted. It's a long race. A part failure at that moment could take all the wind and energy out of the moment. And, man, he flexed and made it happen and really, really cool. Plus, if you really know anything about Sebastian's career and the crash at Texas in any car and the setback there and some of the things that he's been through, I have to imagine that that was a really great feeling for him

to come out on top, but also have sort of put the car on his back and carried it to victory lane. So I just was really impressed with what I experienced and saw from a completely different discipline of motorsport. and so I'm I'm I for the most part the you know people can be really particular the the motorsport families like you know dirt and NASCAR and emson all there they're very passionate about those you know sports that they are those divisions or disciplines that they follow and I just appreciate everybody kind of being cool with me being there I'm a

NASCAR guy you know so I try not to you know annoy them with my NASCAR So I just try to compliment the show and learn. It's fun. Our next question coming from Timothy Robertson. Can you talk about your dad's 89 Bush car at Daytona, the Lowe's Foods car? Why the one race deal with Pontiac? How did that come about? Okay.

Yeah, back around, what year was that? 89? Yeah, it seems about right. I think Buddy Baker was That was Buddy Baker's team and Buddy was going to drive the car in the Xfinity race And I think it might have been a different number And Buddy got hurt

Something happened But he needed to still enter that car in the race to be able to get the sponsorship money That was promised to him And so I think Dad drove the car for him I think that That might have been the same year that dad crashed his car in practice. There might be some, I might be incorrect, but I know dad was down there with a Monte Carlo

and wreck. No, I think he ended up racing his own car, his other car in that race. But anyhow, dad, maybe he wasn't even entered in the Xfinity race, but he was doing a favor, doing a solid, I think, to Buddy Baker so that Buddy could have his car raced and accumulate the sponsorship money promised to the team and all that while Buddy was getting well. So it was kind of like a favor. I think they did okay.

kind of ran top 10 most of the race. I don't even know where he finished. Our next question coming from Andrew Bluff. What are your thoughts on the tire allotment in the Xfinity Series? And is that something the Cups Series should consider? Well, the Cups Series does have a tire allotment or limit on tires. And sometimes it places like Darlington where there's a lot of wear in a long race, they have to be particular about when they're going to come down pit road and take those tires.

It's obviously not as difficult as what the Xfinity guys face. where they only have a couple sets and they know that they can't put tires on every single time a caution comes out. You know, I think that if the teams want that, if the teams want to spend less money, that's a great place to look at the tire bill and the expensive tires. But I think if they cut one set of tires out at a lot of these racetracks, it's, you know, it's less than $100,000, like 20 grand or 40 grand or something like that in savings. And will that make the racing that much different or better? I don't know.

So for me, they got a great system going. I don't see anything wrong with it. I don't think it's broke. Don't think it really needs any adjusting. We kind of need, you know, kind of need to leave it alone, I think. One more question from A.B., who's watching on YouTube and who apparently has already listened to Door Bumper Clear from yesterday. T.J. talks about being in your boxing ring twice. Is that true or false?

True. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So we would, it was peer pressure, you know, we would get, you know, we would basically, you know, say you got, you know, you're hanging out with your buddies and you got two guys that are like, I'll get in there. And they're like, yeah, I'll get in there with you. And so you go to the boxing ring, those two guys get in there. And then everybody starts to realize I'm going to have to get in there. in there. That's going to, somebody's going to, I'm going to get forced, you know, like the peer pressure,

right? And so the two guys that originally are going to fight, fight, and everybody else is by, at some point, the next, you know, before we leave, everybody's in the ring, right? At one time or another. It's like, it's like, look at the other guy. We're like, you know we're going to have to probably do this. I don't want to, but, you know, listen, I guess we're going to have to. I guess, yeah. And it's fun. I mean, everybody. would get in there and get popped in the nose and then that was kind of the that was your pass to get out it's funny tj says he whipped the first guy but then he got in there with josh schneider who has him by about you know a hundred pounds probably and he said that's where i think he's still scarred from that that was his final

fight he didn't get back in after that i remember t j was down t j was down to get in there with this one guy and they got in there in fault yeah so he wasn't like it wasn't like didn't take much pressure to get t j to get in there with one particular person I know. He's deceptively strong. He is, dude. It's hard to admit this, but me and him have arm wrestled for years, and I can't beat him. Most people cannot beat T.J. in arm wrestling. I've never seen anybody beat him.

Thanks for having my back on this. It's true. I don't know where the strength comes from because it doesn't look like he could beat you. So that's why I continue to try to, you know, eventually defeat him. him one day, but... He says he bailed a hay back in New York when he was a kid, and everybody on Twitter blasted him. They're like, ain't no way you've ever bailed hay.

But if he did, that would explain it. Yeah. He's strong. It's crazy. You learn something new every day. All right, guys. I think that's a great note to end on. Yeah, it is.

Man, the Ask Junior segment, it's never long enough. It just goes by too fast, Mike. That is probably because you're trying to keep up with the speed of Xfinity X-Fi, Dell. Yeah, it's fast, reliable, and powerful. With X-Finity, you can do more of what you love with faster Internet. That's right, everybody. X-Fi is more than fast, so you can keep your crew connected and protected. Don't forget to send your Ask Junior questions to at Xfinity Racing on Twitter.

And again, before we hit the road, thanks to Xfinity, the premier partner of NASCAR. The Dell Jr. Download TV show this week on NBC Sports Network, It's Thursday at 7 p.m. Eastern time. Thursday at 7 p.m. on NBC Sports Network. Bounces around a little bit, but, you know, Wednesday, Thursday. This week's Thursday. The 2021 I-Racing Pro Invitational Series season debut at Bristol Dirt is on Wednesday. It airs at 8 p.m. Eastern on Fox Sports 1.

Dale's in it. He talked about it earlier in the show. So it would be fun to watch that again. Door bumper clear. I'm going to tell you something, guys. It's a good show this week. Good show. Mike, this is, I tweeted.

about it before I came in here. This is how you handle a dispute or a disagreement, right? Mike Joy, Freddie Kraft, got at each other a little bit, maybe a little Brett Griffin peppered in there a time or two because he always has a thing to say, you know? But Mike Joy came on the show this week, on the door bumper clear, and they ironed it out.

Didn't change their opinions. And I think Freddie still agreed that he was full of shit. He only apologized for saying it in such a manner. So anyways, I didn't want to give away everything. I just think that it was a great conversation between people and also a very relevant topic. So door bumper clears out. Mike Joy, guest, Brett, Freddie, and T.J. clear the air with him over their opinions about his tweets,

calling out drivers with funding. Plus, hear what T.J. said about Kyle Larson saying he hates Joey Lugano after the Atlanta finish. I thought that was hilarious, by the way. I mean, I didn't even understand it. Kyle Larson got passed by Blaney. Okay? And I know Ligano's coming, and he's behind him. But he just got passed for the win, basically, and he's like, I hate Joey Lugano.

I mean, am I missing something? Or was that? Well, Larson was catching Joey and Blaney was catching Larson. So he's going back to something that had already happened. Yeah, he was just mad that Joey was in front of him, maybe creating dirty air. I got it. I got it. All right, so maybe my timing was off.

Anyways, there's never a bad time to hate Joe Lugano. Am I wrong, everybody? Reaction theater did. Did that? See, I haven't got to Reaction Theater. Best Reaction Theater. of the year so far. It's amazing.

All right. So good. All right. And I'm kidding about Joe Lugano. There is good times to hate. Yeah, good show this week on Doorbumber Clear, good show today with the download. And I appreciate everybody listening to this. And also, I appreciate everyone's comments that they leave in the Apple reviews.

We don't really talk about that much like we used to, but I happened to go and check them out the other day. Man, a lot of people reacting to stuff. So yeah, I appreciate it. And have a good week, everybody. We'll talk to you later. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Dirty Mo.