The Dale Jr. Download - 34 - Kansas II with Rob Lopes

Episode Date: October 8, 2013

Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaves Kansas with third straight top-10. Tire specialist Rob Lopes discusses tires, tracks, and working with Junior. 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 Dale Jr., and you're listening to Dirty Moe Radio. Looks like a grassfire. There's bush on fire one time we came up here. There was one somewhere. It was either here in Chicago and the burning bush. The Dale Jr. download starts now. All right, with Mike Davis and Dustin Lee. I am Taylor Zarzer.

We're about to talk about Dale Jr.'s eighth place finish in Kansas. But that was the most redneck thing I've ever heard in my life. The Burning Bush just now, and I loved it. I heard it live on Sunday. and I mean, I laughed out loud. You know what off. I mean, I really did. Junior was saying in the plane afterwards that he really does remember that,

and he thinks that that was at the test where he hit the where he crashed and had the concussion. He also remembers the burning bush. I don't know if the concussion had anything to do with that. Well, let me ask you this question before we move on, and we'll make it fast, I promise. But I am as guilty as any person alive of being more redneck around the redneck people. Yes. Okay. I mean, bringing out my redneck side among my redneck friends, okay,

but being more civilized and sophisticated around those that are not redneck. You're a chameleon. Right. Like, I mean, I see Dale Earnhardt Jr. in Bristol, Connecticut on ESPN or whatever, and he's not nearly as Mooresville, North Carolina. Right. He's not saying anything smells like, hey. Right.

And so what brought that out in him? Because that's great. I love it. But, like, Lartartre, I mean, you know, Lartart and T.J aren't the biggest rednecks in the world, are they? No, but there was a smoke. It brought out a caution. Okay, so if something catches fire, you turn into a redneck. Is that basically what happens?

If there's enough time to assess the situation and give some commentary on it, which obviously this allowed, then Junior's got to offer his commentary. And he said, it smells like, hey. That was awesome. And then he said, hey, you remember that burning bush one time on the test? Yeah, yeah. And it was on. It was great. I mean, seriously, how can you not love the guy when you hear stuff like that?

Okay, let's talk about the eighth place finish in Kansas. Mike, you were there to witness it. This is the third consecutive week where I felt like they had one of the best cars on the track. I don't know that anybody was going to beat Harvick, but I felt like Junior had the second or third best car out there, did you? I did. They led lapsed. Fourth straight race, they've led lapsed.

That hasn't happened all year. You know, got up there. You know, the thing was that car was really good on long runs, and we just didn't happen to have any long runs because of all the cautions, and that was because of the tire, I can't wait to talk to Rob Lopes here in a little bit on speed dial and kind of get his opinion, and he can educate us on that. So we didn't really get any long green flag runs, and that car clearly was a green flag run type of car,

but it still showed great speed, and I thought it was a good race for them. Yeah, I did too. And, again, you have to have a lot of confidence about the way that this team is running, just how every single day they've been so consistent, whether it's practice, qualifying, and the race. I feel like at least in these last few races, we've seen really this whole team come together. What did you think about going into this weekend? Because you had a tire test, you had a new tire,

and there were so many question marks about it, this was kind of a unique situation in that what you saw on the practice sheets, and junior was kind of, I think, 11th and 12th, you know, happy hour. It was not as good as the earlier practices, but you had such extreme temperature changes. And it's like, what are you going to actually have for the race? Yeah, I mean, I didn't know what to expect. I didn't either.

It was a little nervous. And I think a lot of people were frustrated, probably no one more than Kyle Bush. But Carl Edwards was frustrated. A lot of guys after the race was like, man, that's the hardest I've ever held the wheel of my life. Absolutely. They were saying that. Because instead, especially with cautions flying, it made it even harder because she couldn't get any heat under the tire. You know, it's almost like everybody preferred long green flag runs.

I know Junior would have. I am glad you said that because Junior said as soon as he got out of the car that he, He was exhausted from the cautions because sawing the wheel back and forth for 15 cautions, just trying to keep the heat and the tires. He was exhausted and he was happy to see green flags just for the break, just so he could quit sawing on the wheel. I don't think that this team needs to lose sight of our man, Dan, the junior fan, who you saw a few days ago. Wearing an affliction shirt taking selfies of himself. Yeah, I saw some of him.

He did a terrible job of that. It was very blurry. Like, come on, man, you're in the room with Junior and Mike Dave. Davis, get a real picture. Just go up to somebody and say, come on, man, take a picture. I got him a real picture, but that wasn't his favorite. His favorite was the selfie he took of himself with Junior behind him. It was funny.

But anyway, I don't want to lose sight of his message that he delivered after Chicago, which I completely believe in. And this team obviously has been consistent, but they got to win one of these. All right, let's get to some of this stuff. And let's hear what happened during the race. The early tire assessment, this is caution to lap 43, Dale Jr. is in third place. Here we go. That's probably the pace. I wouldn't go any harder. 29 short fabric. And again, as you said, we'll talk to Rob Lopes coming up about this.

But clearly, as you can hear there, that is something that everyone was paying such close attention to. Oh, yeah. They made the pit stop. And then everybody on pit road was kind of walking up and down pit road, trying to see what other teams' tire wear looked like. It was basically everybody in the same boat. Let's just kind of compare notes here. Let's hear the next clip. This is when Dale Junior took the lead. This is under the third caution. Lap 87. Some great communication between Stevie and T.J. And certainly a shout out to the crew who did an excellent job in the pits. Here we go. TJ outside. Run one more. T. Koff is out. Keep coming here. Keep coming there. Keep coming there. Keep coming here.

There you go, bud. You're going to be the leader safe. There you go. And they did a great job. T.J. paying very close attention to that. There was debris out there. And they stay out. They lead a lap and then they do a damn good job in the pits to keep that lead another solid day by the pit crew i'm glad you mentioned that because they kept them out there in the lead that was the first time he took the lead of the day not not the last uh but it just heads heads up by tj again we've had this for several weeks in a row now uh just heady calling and and just noticing what's going on jimmy johnson had just made a pit stop he kept junior out there on the track it was just really great call i don't know about you but after this race um i i had to go out and and pick up my

kids, they went to some birthday party, and, like, you know, you had to go through a couple of lights. And when I saw, like, a yellow light, like, I got angry. Like, I was like, oh, no, no, wait a minute. No, I'm not watching the race anymore. But I felt like a caution was being flew again. I mean, my gosh, I just had caution flags in my head after watching that thing. And speaking of that, here's caution number 14 when Dale Jr. wants to pit under green. Steve LaTart almost has an accident in his pants.

And here's the rest. We got to come home. Guys in the pit, they're going to have to. Above it, their caution is going to come out here. They hit it there. It's going to be down there in one and two. You got nobody in your mirror watch for it. I was thinking, what you're saying?

No, no. We don't want a pit. To me, gentlemen. We've got to have that whole can and no more. So we've got to go on the gas man. Covey, you watch a gas man. They'll literally leave on the jack. Just could get going.

All right, obviously, a couple things to talk about here. First of all, he was in fourth position. He was behind Kislowski. Kislauski spun the tires. Junior then had to back up. The whole field checked up behind him as well. Junior thought for a minute there he had a flat tire, lost a whole lot of ground.

Very quickly made it up, though, and clearly had one of the best cars on the track. And then because of debris, Junior was concerned, thought he had to come in. So it was a confusing time. The world's greatest communicator, Steve LaTart, as you hear there in that clip, says we've got to get all the gas in. But something tells me if Junior comes down under green,

Even the world's most patient, calm communicator will look for some Jack Daniels. Right. Junior saw a piece of debris and people pitting and was confused there for a second. But about the restart, I know that he and Casey Kane were talking after the race, and both were questioning exactly what happened on that restart. Casey lined up right behind Dale Jr., and they didn't really know what happened. All they could conclude was that Brad was slow and it bottled them up, and it really affected Dale Jr.

Okay, good stuff there to start the show off. Only the most passionate junior fans watch races while eating Dale Jr. Potato Chips. Are you one of them? You can be. Go to DaleJR. Foods.com and get your Dale Jr. Potato Tips today. That's Dale Jr. Foods.com. You like that? Did you like it?

No, I did. By the way, Anchorman 2 is coming out. Let's go Speed Dial. Speed Dial. Let's bring in Rob Lopes, Tire Specialist on the number 88 team from Hendrick Motorsports. We know Mike, obviously, the new tire. compound at Kansas had a major effect on the entire weekend. So since there's so much discussion about tires, let's bring him in.

Bringing the guy that knows, right? That's right. Rob, you there, buddy? Yeah, I'm here. Man, thank you for joining us. We just needed to bring in an expert, man, because Taylor and I don't really know what we're talking about most of the time. So thanks for joining us.

I got to ask you, so going into a weekend like this where you know you're going to have a new tire compound, like what is the anxiety level of the tire specialist? I mean, speak for yourself, but I mean, every team has a tire specialist. What do you guys thinking when you're going into a new track or going into a track with a new tire and you're not sure really what to expect? Well, just like you said, I mean, obviously it's a new animal for us and you don't know what to expect. Even if you go to that track and you have an idea different than when you tested and because there'll be more rubber on the racetrack, there will be more cars there.

You just really don't know what to expect. You don't know how the tire that you've been on a year or a couple races, you know what that tire characteristics are, you know what to look for, if it's going to wear heavy, if it's not going to like Kansas this week. I mean, we didn't have any experience with that tire. We want a good year's cutting-edge product. Learn as we went. You know, the words that you just said that make the most sense to me are conditions, high temperatures. Okay, because you went and you tested, and the conditions and the high temperatures were there, and then you get there and you wake up Sunday morning, and it's 39 degrees.

Everybody's wearing, you know, like, ski equipment, and you get out there, and it's just, just over 50 degrees when the race starts. I mean, so what is your level of confidence or slash uncertainty because the temperature is 25 degrees cooler? Well, I mean, Thursday and Friday when we were there, the temperatures were in the 80s, you know, high 70s. The sun was out all the time. The tires are going to be warmer. And then you go ahead and you, you know, flip your 20-some degrees for Saturday.

Obviously, you know, if you lay a piece of rubber out and it's going to get more pliable, well, you take that same piece of rubber and drop it 30 degrees and there's no sun. beating on it, no temperature to it. I mean, Goodyear brought us trying to accommodate that new racetrack. I mean, they couldn't foresee that temperature. And I think it played a big part, behave quite the way. Got you, buddy. All right, so listen, I got to ask you this. You know, everybody listens to the radio chatter. Now, before the race, before it went green, Dale Jr. was actually under caution or on his warm-up laps, and he started talking about a conversation that he had with Brad Kozlowski. Let's play this clip real quick. And then, and then, Rob, I want you to

kind of tell us, explain to us what they're talking about. about. All right, let's play the clip. First in the garage yesterday. You know what to believe him. Yeah, we were all joking. I mean, we did see. Rain that came Friday really made that racetrack green washed all the rubber off from the

previous two days. And that's always going to increase tire. I think every team had some significant changes in their tire. Being Brad is just trying to get in Dale's headwork. Should you create a rule, Rob, where you say, listen, you can play Madden with him, you can play video games, fantasy football, but you are

required not to listen to him when it comes to racing. When it comes to racing, I mean, he's pretty, he's pretty, pretty hard, and he's pretty tough, you know, mentally. Rob, you know, one thing that just came to my mind is that, you know, everybody's, everybody is an expert and a critic of Goodyear. And if you didn't know that, just go to Twitter and everybody, you know, you'll see that. But the fact is, is we had no tire blowouts.

We had a new tire. We had no tire blowouts. So was it a successful weekend on this new tire? Certainly it had an effect on the race. You had multiple cautions, many cautions. And drivers, if you heard them in practice, they were really talking about attitudes of their car that they'd never really experienced. But, again, we didn't have any tire failures.

Right. And what you can contribute that to is that new tire that Goodyear brought. And what they did is they brought in the areas that we use Atlanta call them, they called a zone tread used on the same tire on the right side. And what it worked out to be is the inside thirds, the cool temperatures that they're other than not something like that. But heat is what cost in its life. However, with the cool temperature, it gave us less grip.

Therefore, the caution you saw were. Gotcha. And I think most of that was brought on by the really cool temperatures we experience. Rob has a big following on Twitter. You can follow them there. Tire Guy 88, and it's Tire Guy 80 is all spelled out. And then the number eight. And a couple questions from the fans, one from Chris Nulte.

And this is a good one. And, you know, if you play golf, a lot of people don't like to play Target golf. They like to play grip it and rip it golf. If you're a baseball player, a lot of right-handed pitchers don't want to pitch in Yankee Stadium because of the short porch and right field. From a tire standpoint, is there a certain track or tracks where you're like, oh, this is going to be a mess with the tire? Well, I mean, from a personal standpoint, any track that we go to that becomes a nightmare because you're just going to roar to get reset.

It's hard to know how many you're going to need to have. Like Atlanta is a really high wear track right now. And that gives me a headache just for the simple fact that we just know we're going to put tires on. I mean, every track's a little bit different. There's not, I've been doing this almost 20 years. This is like my 19th season and Cup. And I don't really give me headaches anymore.

I'm just kind of, usually the highway to have our team have some success. Rob, we like the city of Darlington, South Carolina. We like the people there. I mean, you know, listen. But we can, we can. say, listen, you've got to change a lot of tires at the lady of black. Well, I'll tell you what, speaking, it's funny you mentioned that racetrack as reader we experienced on what I've noticed in the last couple of years is she's getting

her character back as far as needing to put rubber on every chance. I would say you're going to be right back where you were here in a year or two. Good stuff. Last question we had from Corey O'Day, Rob. What is your favorite part about working with junior? That's a pretty good question. My favorite part about working with Junior, I mean, he's got a really great personality, and he's fun to work with. I mean, he demands a lot out of us.

He stays calm when he deals with us. And in general, you know, he's with him because you can relate to him, you can talk with him. And he's just one of the guys. He's part of the team. He doesn't separate himself from us at all. Rob, as we let – So I think that just makes it easy. Yeah, as we let you go, Rob, obviously everybody wants a win, and everybody in Junior Nation is talking about how this team needs a win.

but is it fair to say this team is about as close as you can remember? Yeah, I mean, we've been close so many times this year, and one thing or another has had great cars all year, calls great driving. I mean, the team's working really hard, and it seems like when we're in position, just bad luck. I mean, it's not for lack of performance. It's just, I mean, you just need some good fortune to be on your side.

Well said. Rob Lopes, tire guy, tire specialist on the number 88 team. Again, follow him on Twitter, tire guy 88. Thank you, Rob. Hey, I appreciate you guys having me on. Thanks. Have a great day. We'll see you.

Reaction theater time. You know, it's open 24-7. Chicago blew up in the last lap and a half like Jimmy Johnson's did yesterday instead of way early. I mean, Jimmy Johnson has definitely got a golden horseshoe stuck up his ass because that thing could have ended bad one position because his engine was blowing up towards the tail end of the race. Throw 30 points on top of Dale Jr. right now. He's like third, fourth and points. for a championship plugging away, boys. Maybe I should wear my lucky shirt, Davis.

What do you think? I was going to say the only thing wrong is his affliction shirt. That's it. You didn't like that, huh? Listen, I know you can't think like that, but, man, he's right. I mean, it is. It is frustrating because of when that happened in Chicago. Next.

Yes, yes. How about TJ? You remind you Dale Jr. Every time there was a car, like, cleaning them tires up. It's club of them being good. for that one time and he spun the tires. I don't know why Dale Jr., couldn't, you know, realize that everybody else was scrubbing. Never scrubbed the men, and I knew exactly what was going to happen. Maybe I need to take you a place, T.J. You need to get on the ball. Got to remember,

clean them tires up. That's your job. Make sure they work hard. They don't give up. If T.J. gets sick. We know where to turn. Next. Hell, man. We had a fire in the stands. Man, you don't get that every week. That's freaking awesome. Dustin, can we please play what Junior said again? Looks like maybe a grass fire or something. Putting there, bush on the fire one time we came up here. There was one somewhere.

It was either here in Chicago and the burning bush. And again, that's just further validation when Marty and McGee on their podcast put Junior on the Redneck Mount Rushmore. Yeah. I mean, he belongs. Next. I thought, yeah, Junior had a good day. He's only 30 points out of third, man.

This thing's far from over. Everybody counted, you know, counted him out. I said it was a three-horse race. All it takes is, you know, one bad race and a win here or there. He'll be right back in it. So way to go, fellas. He's got some good tracks coming up, too. Daga.

He's the best restrict to play driver around. Still is. Let's get him. I'm telling you. I'm more fired up about Charlotte Motor Speedway, Martin'sville, and Texas. I'm the least fired up about Daga right now. Out of all the tracks remaining. Yeah, I'm with you.

Next. In three races, Dale Earnhardt Jr. has made five positions. in the chase. He should be leading come in the points, come Homestead, or maybe even Phoenix. So that should be an optimistic. I know we got points to make up, but I'm proud of my boy, and let's go get him in Charlotte.

I don't know if he is having some stomach trouble or what, but if he go back to his logic a moment ago, I'm pretty pumped about that because I'm going to be in Texas for that race. So that means he'll be on the verge of taking the lead. Was that the best Delia we've ever had? Next. So there I was at qualifying on Friday, standing on the grid having a good time with some of my pals.

And out walks Mike David. And I'm like, Mike, pleasure to meet you. I'm Zach. It was great to meet you, Mike. And I had a good run for Juniebug on Sunday. I tried to find you around the car. Really had no interest in talking to Junior. Just want to talk to one of the mics.

You guys do a great job. Delia, and I guess, Mike, yeah. Okay. Well, Mike, yeah, doesn't work nearly as well as Dale yet. But it was cool meeting this guy. It was also cool meeting a lot of people who listened to the podcast. We saw them all weekend at Kansas, and it was really cool.

Next. Can you tell me why Dale Jr. being the in-race reporter, only gets one interview from NASCAR. Sure, he gets one under the pace laps, but every other driver gets three or four. Unfair, NASCAR. He got two, by the way. Got to, and another thing, that's not NASCAR. We don't need to bang on NASCAR. No, it's, that's ESPN's decision on, hey, does it make sense to talk to our in-car race reporter at this time?

But he got two. He did get two. Yeah. Next. This morning, Jones goes to Texas and eat some barbecue, and now I can't get the Dale Jr. download on Monday. Maybe it's time for a ball. That's interesting idea. Yeah.

All right. All right. I know people are going to be calling in upset over that Reese. start and junior spun the tires and he lost positions but you know what he's going for it he's digging hard that's what's happening

he's driving all out and that's all I want to see every week driving all out and that's exactly what he was doing extremely well said yeah next well Adele you had another good run today it's the same that you got guys that

just drive like idiots on restarts and I think NASCAR should try to think about going back to the single fall restarts because it's just freaking chaos out there. But hey, buddy, you're doing good out there. Dale yeah. Let's get us a win. We're all going to be living in a van down by the river.

Okay. I've missed that skip, by the way. All right, there you go. That's Reaction Theater. It's open 24-7. All you have to do is call toll-free like it's 1983, 1-855-740-1902. Leave us your voicemail message, and we'll play the best each week right here on Dirty Mo Radio.

Now, don't forget, there are four flavors of Dale Jr. potato chips, crispy original, zesty alpine, creole and green onion, and Carolina barbecue. Go to Dale Jr. Foods.com right now and get yours today. Let's throw the white flag. Today at Junior Motors, Dale Jr. is handing over the keys of his very own Corvette to the winner of the win Dale Jr.'s ride contest. It's a summer-long promotion that Dale Jr. Foundation puts on very successful. It's the third year in a row that he's given away one of his cars for the foundation.

Speaking of the foundation, tomorrow, Dale will be giving ride-alongs at Charlotte Motor Speedway to people who purchase tickets for such a privilege. This is a closed event. I'm just letting you know what's on junior's calendar. Nice. Thursday, Junior will be on track without passengers, Taylor. That's good. As the weekend starts early in the Cup Series with practice and qualifying on Thursday.

Now, the Bank of America 500 is Saturday night at 7.30 p.m. Eastern on ABC. Dale Jr. will be in the Time Warner Cable paint scheme. The nationwide race is Friday night at 730. P.m. Eastern Time on ESPN 2. Brad Sweet will be in the number five great clip Chevrolet. Regan Smith, fresh off his near win at Kansas. Yeah. He will be in the number seven goodies, headache relief shot Chevrolet.

We're excited about that. Finally, a special thanks to Texas Motor Speedway, Eddie Gossich, Mike Zizzo, hard-eight barbecue. The great fans of Texas, they made Thursday nights appearance so much fun. And if you want tickets for the upcoming Texas race, go to Texas Motor Speedway.com. That's it. All right. Thanks to Dustin Lee.

Thanks to Rob Lopes. Thanks to Mike Davis. Thanks to some dude named Billy that fixed my time Warner cable and actually gave me a two-week refund. Wow. I'm Taylor-Zarzer. You've been listening to the Dale Jr. download. Thanks for listening to Dirty Moe Radio. Have you tried the new Dale Jr. potato chips?

Are you wondering where you can find them? Today is your lucky day. Go to Dale Jr. Foods.com to see where you can find the chips in your area or place an order online. You can have them shipped right to you. That's DaleJ.R. Foods.com.