The Dale Jr. Download - 391 - Mike Joy: More Than a Mic

Episode Date: July 26, 2022

If you’ve listened to or watched a NASCAR race in the past 50 years, there’s a voice that is synonymous with some of the sport’s biggest moments. Legendary broadcaster Mike Joy joins Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis to fill listeners in on his career, as well as talk shop about the broadcasting craft.After a meteoric rise from the PA booth of New England’s finest short tracks, Joy has gone on to work for almost every major broadcasting network in motorsports over the past five decades. Growing up in Windsor, Connecticut, Joy enrolled at the University of Hartford pursuing a degree in engineering. It was here that he got his first on-air experience after taking a position at the university’s radio station as a play-by-play commentator for sporting events. It was also during these years that he became involved in the world of motorsports. He had developed a love for sports cars as a teenager, thanks to an extensive collection of auto magazines and his father’s acquisition of a two-seater that the two worked on. His admiration for the road racing experts of the day, such as Dan Gurney and Mark Donohue sparked an interest to join the driving ranks himself. But without proper funding or opportunity, he settled into the sport of autocross where competitors could use their street vehicles. His autocross club brought him to Riverside Park Speedway in Agawam, Massachusetts – a small pavement oval located in an amusement park. Thanks to his broadcasting experience, he was asked to hop on the microphone during an autocross meet one Sunday to help inform any park attendees who may have wandered into the track exactly what was happening in the competition. Before long, park owner Ed Carroll noticed that a few hundred people had gathered in the grandstands to watch a single car weaving around barrels, and invited Joy on board to become a fill-in PA announcer. Although he initially turned down the offer, citing a disinterest in the crude jalopies of the oval racing circuit, he attended a Saturday night show at the recommendation of the track’s public relations specialist. After witnessing a mad dash to the finish between two drivers and the effect it had on the audience, Joy thought “I need to be a part of this.”Joy fills Dale and Mike in on how taking the position at Riverside introduced him to the legendary Ken Squier, and how that guided him to joining the Motor Racing Network. He talks about an opportunity he received to call some of the 1975 IROC race at Daytona, and how that moment made him realize that he could have a career in broadcasting. The conversation also dives into the art of commentating, and how different platforms require different approaches. Joy recounts a hilarious story of sneaking into the 1976 Daytona 500 and joining in on the Wood Brothers’ victory lane celebration. He also shares the details of his final conversation with Dale Earnhardt Sr.Although known for his contributions to the sport from inside the broadcaster’s booth, Joy still managed to have a career in road racing, and shares the details of his 1973 IMSA debut, as well as his experiences in the 1993 24 Hours of Daytona.In 2022, Joy celebrated his 22nd consecutive year as lead commentator for the Daytona 500. It also marked his 46th year of involvement with Daytona Speedweeks, a record that may never be eclipsed. DIRTY AIR presented by FiltertimeBefore Mike Joy joins the show, Dale, Mike and Matthew get real about: NASCAR’s wild weekend at Pocono Denny Hamlin’s pass for the lead considered retaliation against Ross Chastain? Ty Gibbs subbing in for Kurt Busch The future of Kyle Busch  ASKJR presented by XfinityAlex Timms brings fan questions to Dale about: The advantage the NextGen rear view camera provides The upcoming modified opening races at North Wilkesboro Hanging with Noah Gragson in victory lane Collecting diecast cars 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. In this corner, he put the dirty in Mo. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. And in this corner, The Hammer from Alabama, Michael, Pete, David. Ladies and gentlemen, this is your main event. Hey, everybody, welcome back for another episode, episode three, 91 of the Dale Jr. Download. I'm your host, Dale Jr.

I'm my co-host, Mike. How's it going? It's going to great. We are here in the Bojangles studio, and we have a great guest coming on. Mike Joy is going to be the guest today. I'm a broadcaster. He's a broadcaster. He's going to be a lot of fun learning from him hearing his story. And we're going to talk a lot about what's been going on in this sport.

So I had a lot happen at Pocono that we've got to talk about. Yeah. And, yeah, so that's pretty much it. A couple of nuggets in there. So are you ready? I think we're ready. Let's do this. Yeah, it's going to be a great show.

Let's get going. Dirty air. Dirty air. You got it. Dirty air is brought to you by Filter Time. There's no better way to deal with Dirty Air than with a filter subscription service that takes care of the hassle. And takes that out of buying air filters for your home. They're delivered right to your door.

So every time they show up, you know when to change them. Go to FilterTime.com and subscribe now. But this is our Dirty Air. So let's go. So this week on Dirty Air, which is brought to you by Filter Time. I'm wearing a Filter Time hat. Hey, man, I like your get-up. I don't know if you're meaning to match.

Did I just get a style compliment from Dale Jr.? It usually matches his shoes. I mean, I usually get just absolutely derailed from it. I'm a matcher. Like I put the shoes with the shirt or a hat with the shirt or I try. You know, not always successful. But I see some, is that effort that I'm seeing? Uh, mild effort.

Okay. I'm just kind of, so you were thinking it when you were getting up this morning, trying that on, putting that together. No, no, like I go, what's getting your shirt am I going to wear? And then I go find a hat that's somewhat close. Ah, yeah. And I'm very rarely nail it. So, like, this is close. I know. I mean, but that's such odd combination of colors.

It's always had to have a little more effort than normal. Hey, I've got a Georgia Southern hat for just about everything, as you now know. That is true. How many do you have? I don't know. Five, six, seven. Oh, okay, that many. Yeah, not.

All right, all right. Well, let's get through some of the topics we'll talk about. Hey, I don't have as many Georgia Southern hats as you do filter time hats. Probably true. So, and I got a filter time hat for you. And that's everybody out there. If you want a filter time hat, let me know. Okay, I want one.

I got them. I'm a new subscriber. I want one. You got it. We should give hats away to new subscribers in the month of, hmm. What's August? August. August.

Yeah. All right, Blake Cook. You heard it. Me and Mike got into a little bit of a disagreement on social media about Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain. So everybody, you know, if you watch the race, this is for you. Over the last several months, there's been a lot of back and forth with Ross and Denny and other guys, but mainly Denny. You know, I'm sure everybody knows about Ross, and we've been building him up and maybe more than we should. I don't know. It's up to debate there, but Ross has had some incidents with Denny, right?

And he had this deal at St. Louis where he puts him out of the way. I don't know why he wanted to do that down in turn one, but he moves Denny out of the way. And then Denny and him have a pretty entertaining going back and forth at St. Louis. He gets into Denny at Atlanta. That was more like hard racing, got loose. But it's another problem for Denny. And we've talked about it on this show. where Denny said, man, I've had enough, and you're like, I don't believe it, it's all talk,

or when are they going to finally do something? We went around and around back. That's paraphrasing somewhat accurately. Yeah, I think that they, a lot of times are full of it. So that happens off a turn to at Pocono. Denny comes, you know, it's a restart. They go down in the corner. Denny's on the inside of Ross, and Denny drifts up a little bit.

There's some contact. Ross ends up in the fence, and Denny goes on. down the straightaway. And so obviously everybody on social media kind of started going, wow, was that retaliation? Was that Denny getting him back or not? And the guys on door bumper clear all are in agreeance with you, I'm assuming? I think that's fair. I think we could say, yeah, they did not seem to think that that was a retaliatory wreck. Right. And I called TJ, just see what he was doing, ended up calling into the show accidentally. That was a, That was hilarious.

You know what reminded me of a morning show, like a John Boy and Billy, like call-in? Yeah. Sounded exactly like all those call-ins I used to hear in the 90s with the John Boy and Billy show. Not to get sidetracked. The funniest part is that they were right in mid-cus, right when you called or when you picked up and you caught it. You're like, God, what's all the profanities right now? Denny texted me last night. He said that call-in was hilarious.

It was. So Denny heard it. He loved it. Oh, so Denny listened to DBC then. Oh, yeah. The drivers might not listen to. They might not admit it, but they do. In other words, they might be full of crap most of the time.

Or Danny saw your tweet and went right to the call-in moment. I doubt that's what happened. Well, you basically timestamped it for everyone. I did, I did. You're right. I'm sure a lot of people right. I did that. I mean, I almost feel like we were so excited to debate this.

You and I. So, yeah, if it was a disagreement, this is a, I think none of us were ever getting, you know, angry about it yet. then why do you do that? For the viewers, you got to say who is on what side. We are going to, Matt. Good.

He's getting there. So, but almost, it almost doesn't feel like it's going to be as fun or as important because of the penalties. See, I disagree with that. It's Nolan Boyd. I disagree with that. Okay.

I disagree with that. I think that the penalties and the fact that Denny Hamlin did not win is irrelevant to the fact of whether Denny retaliated and wrecked him on purpose for the stuff that he did at Gateway in Atlanta. Okay. So you must feel like then it was retaliation. I don't. If the penalties didn't.

No, I'm just saying that one doesn't have to do with the other. Okay. In my mind, like again, where I net out on this, and you and I can discuss this, because I'm curious on if you've changed over the last two days or if you've been emboldened. I'm not. Because I would, it's fair to say, Dale thought, look, you texted. me during the race. You are, I'm listening to your voice call a race on television and I'm getting a text

from you at the same time that said, Denny sent him. Yep. And I was, and I texted back, I disagree, pay attention to the race, you're doing great. Yeah. Because I did want him to not look at the fact that the race was not over. Yeah. Okay. So you, I did not think Denny sent him.

You did. And then afterwards, I believe your argument is Denny proved. that he sent him by what he said in the post-race interview. Yeah. And that didn't change me either. He got out and said, what do you expect me to do? When they asked him, was that retaliation? He goes, what did you expect?

I've got to. Now, then he didn't say, yes, that was a retaliation. Right. He did not. Big check the box. But he can't. He's seen guys get penalized for that. That's right.

Right. Listen, again, Marty asked an opening the question, or he asked a closed into question a yes or no answer and denny gave an open-ended answer which means broad strokes and honestly I think he wasn't talking about retaliation what was he talking about I think that he's talking I think he answered that the only way he could answer that what do you expect me to do I think that they're talking about racing hard and I've got proof I've got proof of I went back and did well do you want to get into that do you want me to get into my argument on this yet go I want you to have every opportunity obviously to state your case sure I

I just got a few comments, but I want to hear how I'm more interested in how you see this is not retaliation. Okay. I, first of all, I think that yesterday's comments that you set up in my office, I think you're wanting me to admit that I'm wrong on something and that you're right on it. And I will tell you that I am wrong in one thing, but not that. I don't think I'm wrong in that. I think Denny did not wreck him. And the reason I don't think Denny wrecked him was two reasons.

One, I don't think you're thinking about payback with less than. 20 to go while you're racing for the win. I think you're thinking about how to win the race and who you're who you're racing to win the race. Now you're the driver. I'm not. So listen, I'm just saying this is a theory here. I just don't think that people are thinking I'm going to pay him back right now, especially when you are both up in front of the field and you've got everybody behind you off of a restart. And I just don't think that that's crossing his mind. That's one. Number two is if what Chase Elliott did to Corey Lejoy at Atlanta is not wrecking somebody, Well, then Denny Hamlin certainly didn't wreck him because what Chase Elliott did and everybody was cool with was that, hey, he just did what he had to do to win.

And Chase ran that guy up the racetrack, even made contact, I believe. Did they make, I can't remember that part. Corey ran right in the back of him. Corey ran, but Corey wrecked himself. We all agree that Chase Elliott did not wreck another man to win that race. And that was far more egregious than what Denny Hamlin did. What? I feel like, I don't even think Denny Hamlin, I don't think Denny Hamlin even touched him.

Are you kidding me, Mike? Hey, door bumper clear, I think they did either. You need to watch the freaking race. I did watch the race. They hit. The smoke come off the cars. I don't think they, listen. Oh, my God.

They might have touched a little bit, but honestly, they didn't touch him like Chase and Corey did. He was up alongside. They were side of a side door slamming. He ran into the wall. Look, maybe he touched it. Listen, all right. I will concede that point. It still doesn't change my point, though.

It doesn't, don't look, don't get distracted on that because I'm saying. I just, I mean, you just lost all credibility saying that they didn't even touch. Then me and DBC did too. DBC said he didn't touch him. Who gives a damn about DBC in this room right now? A lot of other people. A lot of, I'm not alone. I'm not alone in this.

I'm not arguing with DBC. I'm not alone in this. They ain't here. I'm not either. I'm not the only one that thinks this. I got an army behind me. Listen, is Chase Elliott wrecked Corley Joy? No, they weren't side-by-side.

But Denny Hamlin did? Yeah. Hold up, Matthew. Oh, wait. If Denny Hamlin... You got Deghs-I-C, I got Matthew. Denny Hamlin. You're saying Denny Hamlin wrecked Ross, but Chase did not wreck Corey.

Right. You and I just disagree on that. I think that if people that had no problem with what Chase did to win that race, I saw Denny doing this exact same thing. Exact same thing. He was defending his position. Now, let me tell you where I am wrong. I don't think I'm wrong about that.

Okay. I think I'm wrong in interpreting Denny Hamlin's comments after Gateway and after Atlanta, as if it's the same type of aggressive comments as Jimmy Spencer when he says, when you mess with the bull, you get the horns. Or when, like, you know, after the, 87 all-star race where, you know, Bill and your dad went at it and your dad's like, I ain't

taking it, you know, in this post rate. Like when these guys said something, you knew hell was coming with it. I don't think when today's drivers say anything, hell ain't really coming with it. But I wanted it in this case. I felt like it, you know, what, what Ross did to Denny at Gateway warranted hail coming with it. And so when Denny said what he said, we all sort of interpreted it that. By the way, I think I was wrong. in that but I think everybody else was too if anybody would admit it but I went back and watch these interviews right and this is what things Denny said I've reached my peak things just worked themselves out in the end we certainly aren't cutting any breaks going

forward as a driver you make decisions and sometimes you pay for those decisions if you think about it Denny did exactly what he said in those things I went and look back at both of those post race you know comments and I think it's possible that we're all both right in this regard. Denny backed up his words, those words specifically, and it wasn't a retaliatory wreck. Because Denny actually never said that he was going to go pay him back in this big, pyrotechnic, obvious, retaliatory,

hook him on the straightaway type thing. We all sort of wanted it, and I certainly interpreted that in the previous episodes, and I'm like, they ain't going to do a dang thing. This guy, they're not capable. They're not bringing hell with them. They're all talk because, you know, usually when, like Theodore Roosevelt said, speak softly and carry a big stick. Well, if you speak loudly, then usually that's your, that's the extent of your intimidation is when you're going to go out there. Because you know what you still could do?

You could still always just go out back and fight it, fight it out if you want to deliver a message. That's still an option. Nobody, nobody's doing that. So they go talk big on TV. I don't think Denny actually talked nearly as big as what we thought or hoped, and that's certainly I'm putting myself at the top of that list. So I think I was wrong. I think Denny deserves the credit in that he said he was going to race him hard.

He was going to race him hard. He said it literally. He goes, we're certainly not cutting each other any breaks. That's exactly what Denny did in Pocono. He did not cut him any breaks. All right. You know, I think that Denny exited the corner. without any regard for Ross being on his outside.

So if you, you know, beyond, after Ross has hit the wall, if you see Denny's corner exit, he's coming off the corner whether Ross is there or not, out to the wall. And hip on the way by, or as they're exiting the corner, he hips checks Ross. He's up the racetrack, higher than anyone else that's run off the corner. Nobody hit the wall off turn two all day long on a restart.

Nobody got hip checked or ran into, to all day long. Fair, yeah. And so I think that Denny had Ross in a perfect position to retaliate against everything that Ross has done. He basically put the decision in Ross's hands. It's like you're either lifting or you're going in the fence. That's right.

And it was retaliation with a scapple, not a hammer. That was a funny comment that you said on DVC. That was a surgical, clever veteran move. whereas you'll see a young guy such as Gregson use a big hammer and turn a guy on a straightaway. This is how a 41-year-old

with nearly 60 NASCAR wins retaliates. And he doesn't go into the media and say, I'm going to turn this guy on a straightaway at Darlington two weeks from now. Y'all be ready. And he does think about it with 20 laps to go. I know guys that have turned people

on the last lap of a race. Expand on that. He thinks about, he's thinking about gateway. You're saying he is thinking about gateway in Atlanta with 20 laps to go at Pocono. Absolutely. But you're saying he's not thinking about I'm leading this race. He's not leading it.

Where was he? He was trying to pass Ross for the lead. Okay. He's on the front row? Is he on the front row? I don't think he started that restarted on the front row. Do we know? Do not know that.

I'll look at up. Yeah. So they're up there to race for the win. And he knows he's got Ross Chastain on the Out. I give you that. He knows who he's racing for the win. Let me finish. So I have been watching races all my life.

And I have seen plenty of guys wrecked guys out of the lead in retaliation for something else that has happened between them on the racetrack. And certainly inside of 20 laps to go, even on the very last lap, I have seen guys get wrecked because of past history. and feuds that carry on Denny and Give me an example Oh god dang Mike I've fucking lived this My whole fucking life

So you can't think of one example Why you got to cuss Don't cuss It's a fair question I'm just asking I'm trying to get to your side here All right give me Give me five minutes

I'll Google a fucking example Or we can ask them Look I'm all right If you don't have one Then fair Just say that you don't have to get upset Well you know that's bullshit I don't

No you've I didn't mean to ask a question to you about something you just made a truth claim. And so I'm trying to understand your side here. All right. Okay. That's it. I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from. You've been watching races your whole life, and you do see people,

but wreck each other out of the lead because of aggression over something in the past. That's never happened in our sport. You're saying it's happened. I don't, you know more than I do. You're telling me drivers don't think about it with 20 to go. I'm saying that I don't think Denny Hamlin was sitting there retaliating over that. I think Denny Hamlin knew who was beside him? I do think he knew who was beside him.

You got to listen to me. That's what I said. I know exactly. You don't think he ran up the track? I think he ran up the track. You don't think they hit? The way Chase Elliott did. No, Chase and they weren't side by side.

Well, they ran up. Hold up. They ran up the track to defend and to eliminate the real estate for them to race. He forced a decision on Ross. This is what he did. He forced a decision because he knew the guy on the outside was incapable of lifting. They hit. Okay, they hit.

Okay. That's debatable. But that, okay. Ross went into the fence. And he went into the fence. Did he steer his car into the wall? It would seem so, did it? No, I think he lost control after the contact.

Well, that's not what Kyle Petty said. What the fuck is Kyle Petty got to do with this? He was at the same race that you were at and observed the same exact thing. Listen, I'm just saying, I'm not alone. You're, here's why I bring up. Kyle Petty or DBC or anybody else. I get that you're not alone. Listen, but you're sitting there making it like, I am lost my mind if I don't think that they made as much contact or this and the other. But I'm like, I'm not, I'm not alone in that. I mean, other people don't think that either.

That's not an argument. Well, it's a response to you trying to tell me that like, you look, you said I've lost all credibility. You're saying that my points don't matter. And I'm like, that's not. Well, you didn't even think they hit, Mike. I would like to see a replay. I'm sending it to you right now. Can we watch it together? Yes.

Yes. Okay, we're all going to watch it together because I think both of you have points and you're tripping all over each other. And I'm sorry to be the mediator there. I think you both have points. Mike, sorry, I think you're wrong. About what?

About the fact that it's just opinion about the fact that he did it intentionally. Okay. But that's opinion so that you're not wrong. What you're wrong about is the contact. That's all. Look, and I'll concede that. And it's coming to you right now.

That doesn't really change my point. So everybody go to your group text and let's watch this together. Let's go to group text. So who's on the front road? Oh, it is Ross just ain't on the outside of him on the front row. So does that mean Denny's leading? Denny is leading. Ross might have been in a control car.

He might have been. He might have chose the outside. I just started it just so you know where I'm at. Okay. I'm watching it too. or they're going into one on mine. Yep. Touch right there.

Slight touch there. There's a touch. It's a slight touch. Again, I mean, listen, look, I can see it. They absolutely, they touch right there. Side by side, they touch.

Now, I'm conceding that. You're not going to tell me that he ran out of room. You're not going to say he hit the wall because of the contact, though. That clearly Denny went up. Yeah, which proves Dale's point. Well, he just said that he wrecked, of the contact. Yeah,

because he ran out of the... Denny drove his up to the wall. They did rake because of the contact. A guy, I mean, a guy can't drive his race car if he gets run into.

He got into the contact. The contact was made because Denny forced him up. I mean, he ran up. Yeah. Denny ran into his left side. Okay. So what does that leave us?

I mean, okay, so we can see it. Now the discrepancy is the opinion on if it was intentional or not. Because we've all agree now that there was contact made. Now just a discrepancy. Okay.

Just opinion. So let me ask you guys this. Let me ask you this. And you can weigh in. Yeah. If you change the cast, if you change the characters who are in those front two cars, and you see this exact same thing play out, what do you call it? Do you call it a wreck or do you call it a racing deal?

If it's Chase Elliott and Coily Joy. That's a good point. Or if it's anybody else, what is that? Is that, oh, well, their damn sure was a vermin. And they had, we don't know what it was, but he definitely was getting, back for something like that was an intentional that was an egregious wreck was is that what you would say to that if you're looking at me you bring up a good point

but knowing that it was uh denny are we changing the cast if that was not denny and ross i'm just saying it take an objective look at that there's no past and those are different characters say it's i would say Kevin harvick and i would say that that that did he broke a code or whoever's on the inside driver broke driver code and ran him out of real estate ran him in the wall. That's fair. That's what happened.

That's literally what you're watching. Did Chase Elliott break code? They weren't side by side, Mike. They went down at Atlanta. Chase was car links ahead of the seven car going into turn one. Lejoy is drafting up on him like you might at Talladega and Daytona, and the nine car went high. Coy run into the back of him and then hit the wall.

Not even close to the same situation. Did Chase Elliott? it go high. Yes, with like 15, 20 other cars. So you're saying, you're saying it breaks driver code to do what exactly? To drive into the left side of a guy? Run him into the fence?

They were literally side by side. If there's no past, it's just, hey man, that guy run me high. He run me in the wall. Ross would get out or whoever and say, damn, he run me in the wall. What the hell? But since they have history, Denny was somewhat

you know in a position to owe him one Ross gets out and goes I deserve that maybe even more well yes he did look what these guys said after the race I think just confirmed my point not yours but that but that or they confirm both of ours I look what did I tell you I feel like I would what did I tell you I was wrong at

and taking Denny's what Denny did exactly what Denny said he was going to do I don't care about that well I'd rather you admit that you're wrong about the retaliation part well I'm not going to Denny's smart. Because that's a difference of opinion. Denny's smart. He saw an opportunity to take. I think Denny does the same thing to anybody.

Anybody he's choosing to race hard? No, he does not. Anybody he's choosing to race hard for a win. He doesn't do the same thing to anybody. He had that chance all day long. He was beside several race cars off a turn two. Not one time did he run anybody into the wall. Not once.

Did you hear what I said? Anybody he's choosing to race hard, whether that be who that, they are or whether it be a everybody hard. Let me finish whether it's whoever he races or whatever time of the race it is. That also matters in this in case what he did all day, you know, on lap 17 versus what he's doing with 17 to go. Wait. Are two different things. Now it matters that it's 17 to go. You said that they don't even think about that. I actually, no, that's, you're saying opposite of what I said. I said it absolutely. He's sitting there. He's got to determine,

Hey, I'm winning this race. I got to beat who. Oh, it's Ross Chastin. It's Cal Bush behind him. It's Kevin Harvick behind me. These are the people I've got to beat. And, of course, you know what time of the race it is. That's my point.

I didn't say it didn't matter. All right. We don't agree. We don't agree. No. No. But listen, I feel like I've conceded a pretty big part, and that is, I'm not conceding it for you, by the way. I'm not conceding it for your.

your joy I don't get joy out of it. Right. But I'm saying, I mean, in doing what the right thing, look, anybody that stepped at me on Twitter, you know, all the bots, of course. They were all like,

all right, well, he did it, he did it, he did it, he sent him. I disagree. I don't think he sent him, but I will tell you, I think that Denny Hamlin did do what he has been saying he would do

and that's raised him hard. By the way, I also said that this is the type of rivalry that this sport needs, and I'm going to tell you something, I love it. We have needed it. Can I ask a question though, Mike? So what do you think, as a race fan, generally, what Denny did was just race him hard? For the win.

Did he just racing hard? For the win. It was 15 to go, 20 to go. For the win, yeah. For the lead and for the win. But that's an important distinction. Do you think that's fair? racing, disregard the history in the past.

You think that's okay to clean a guy out off the corner? I think for the win and for the lead, I think that the entire sport and its fan base has okayed that. Listen, people... No, I'm asking you. I'm telling you, I don't see him. You don't have a problem with the guy. That being the way you race for the lead.

What Denny Hamlin did at Pocono, I do not have a problem with. All right. Absolutely not. No. No. I gave him no room. Look, man. Hey, let me ask you this. I mean, look, there are more aggressive drivers than that in the sport that get the free pass.

Nobody got drove off in the corner. Nobody got ran in the... There are more aggressive drivers in the sport that will go out there for a way. That's true. That's true. Listen, Ross made it clear that when he's going to win races, he'll do what it takes to win. He cleaned them out at Road America. or not Rhode America at Cota.

You know, that they moved to him a couple corners before. He kind of just to give it back to him. And so your question is, do I have a problem with it? I think that when there's a win on the line, I think that there is some more room for grace because of what's at stake, especially with the way the sport is now set up, you got to win. You got to win. You know, and you got to win.

And now you've got to win twice almost if these people, if we keep getting new winners, you better start winning more than one. So it's set up for that. I think that they are playing by the rules that are given them. And so, yeah, I think I would be hypocritical for me to have a problem with somebody that raced that aggressively at the end of the race for a win. You got to kind of let a guy be able to compete. You can't just let a guy, you can't just drive off the corner like the guy's not there.

You got to let people compete. You can't. Well, I think that's where you and I disagree on what exactly. happen in turn two. Again, we're going to disagree on that. All right. Now, I got a question for you. You said you got text, and you don't have to reveal, and you can just say it's none of my business, but you've got, have you talked to Denny about this? No.

Have you talked to Ross? Nope. So you've not talked to either one. No. Okay. But you made it seem like you talked to, like, the principles of the matter, and I just. I got some opinions from people. Okay.

Did any of them disagree with you? Um, just doorbump clear, I guess. Oh, by the way, that's funny. You called DBC after you left my office. Yeah, we talked about that. He left my office where he and I were sitting here having this, a lot of the same conversation. Went to DBC to get validation, and they said, no, we think you're wrong.

All of them did. I was surprised. Me too. I was surprised that Freddie, I was surprised, yeah. He's got to take him out of there. He's paid Bidney. That's right. But Brett would give an honest opinion.

on that. Oh yeah. Brett's never held back on his honesty. But he's never been right all the time either. Hey, listen. Who has? No, no, yeah. No. Listen.

I thought I was surprised if they all voted the same way, that it wasn't retaliation. Yeah. I think that part of me weighs in Denny's personality. He's kind of, he's sly. He's, you got to watch him, clever, tricky. He's, you know, he puts the, when he, When he hires Reddick, he goes on Twitter and tweets the chess piece. So that's his perception of himself.

And also, I think that's a lot of people's perception of him, is that he is clever, sharp, smart. That's why I said, you know, that I feel like that it was a retaliation because I think in his mind he got what he wanted. He accomplished retaliation without really having to turn. turn the guy on the straightaway into the fence. That's the brilliance of it. It's brilliant.

That's the brilliance of it. And that's where I, again, I walk it back. I'm like, I was expecting, you know, you get the bull or you get the horns. That's not what his style is. His style isn't that. And you know what? I don't know that any of their styles are these days. Yeah.

And if they do say it, I think they're full of it. You know, whereas they used to back it up. I'll tell you this. I want those two to be in the final four at Phoenix. Yes. Like nothing. If those two are duking it out for a championship, then turn that whole scenario. into a shower gel.

I'm telling you. Ty Gibbs got into the 45 car after Kurt Bush had to get sideline. The doctors decided that Kurt was not ready to race on Sunday and held him out of the car, which I thought is good for, good for Kurt to have some people around him that are taking care of him. You know, I can't say enough about how things have changed for NASCAR in terms of being able to, you know, lean on some real experts that are on the property to give you a honest opinion about what they think you should do shouldn't do. So sometimes we need the experts there to save us from ourselves and they were there Sunday. And so we wish Kurt the best and I'm sure that he's going to have

all kinds of resources and quality care to be able to get him back behind the wheel ASAP. but so Ty Gibbs this has been a big conversation around the circles that I'm in at the racetrack Martin Trex Jr announces that he's going to run another year we're just we're just going to assume that that's his final season and 19 cars going to open up there's been contract discussions with Kyle Busch that are struggling to come to a conclusion the situation there is that m&Ms is leaving the team at the end of the year and that's a multimillion dollar program and Joe Gibbs has to find a replacement. He does not have one and they're working really diligently to find a sponsor to replace

M&M's. Kyle Bush is asking for a contract, probably somewhere close to, if not the same as his current contract. Joe Gibbs cannot make that commitment without a partner and a sponsor to handle the load of that payout. So that's where they, um, are struggling to, but anyways, Ty gets, you know, Ty is coming through the pipeline. Ty is going to be in a Gibbs car, no question, he's not going anywhere else.

Ty Gibbs is going to drive for his grandfather's company. And the idea was that that would happen in 2024. Everybody's thought was that maybe he's going in the 19 car when Truex walks away. Ty Gibbs gets in the 45 car to relief Kurt Bush, does an excellent job, finishes in the top 20, and I think he proved that he's ready for Cup now. He's overachieved in the Xfinity series. He's shown great maturity. He's continued to improve, make efforts to improve his racecraft.

And with NASCAR in the next gen phase, I think the sooner he can get in those cars, the better. Because as he waits another year in the Xfinity car and his peers are in the next gen car, learning, improving, getting better. he's distancing his self and making that learning curve a little bit steeper to be able to get up to the competition. But anyways, he gets behind the wheel of the 54 car and I think proves that he's ready for cup next year. He would be a absolutely cheaper signed contract than Kyle Bush. Should Kyle Busch's contract not work out? Should they not be able to get that negotiation to come through?

So if you're Joe Gibbs, I think you have to consider that. I think if I'm Kyle Bush, I would sign a contract with a good base, somewhere close to what Joe is probably offering and see if Joe would be okay with incentivizing that contract. If I run, if I get this many top fives, if I finish, you know, in the top three, I get a bigger share of the purse, or if I, you know, make the playoffs, win the championship,

I get X amount of dollars as well. And also have a clause in this contract that you would share in a percentage of any of the sponsorship monies that are brought to that car. So as they're searching for this sponsor, If you're going to sign this contract before that sponsor is signed, you would then be assured some money, more money, as that sponsorship comes through and agree to a certain percentage with Joe Gives.

That's not unprecedented. That's been done in the series before. So I think Kyle and Joe both deserve that. I think they both have earned that from each other to have a bit of an agreement. Look, Kyle, I'll sign this contract now. I'll incentivize it. so if we get to where I want to go with sponsorship and so forth, you're going to get what you want.

But if we fail to do that, you're going to drive for this amount of money while I'm basically losing money. And I think that Joe can do that for only one year. So he can probably only sign a one-year deal with Kyle knowing he's going to lose money without a sponsorship. We also need to consider Kurt Bush. So Kurt Busch has been hinting at retirement for years.

He has this, he's had a rough season, a lot of hard hits. He had some concussion-like symptoms in Pocono. All this may alter his timeline to retirement. All right. And so that's one to be considered as well. I could see a scenario where Ty Gibbs is driving a 2311 car next year. I can see a scenario where Tyler Reddick comes early to 2311.

I could even see a scenario where Kyle Bush is driving a 2311 car. Also, we got to think about who, where's Kyle going to go? Kyle Bush. If he doesn't sign with Joe, where is he going? Who is going to sign him? Now, I think that the people that asked that question are looking at the available options, but they're not thinking about like the creative options. Right.

So the creative options are this. Who is going to sign him? Who is going to sign him is the person that's going to be willing to pay his asking price. Who are those people, all right? It's not Richard Childers Racing. No. They wouldn't pay that. No.

It may be Gene Haas. It may be Gene Haas. It may be. You're asking who can pay that. Yeah, you could argue that Rick Hendrick. Rick Hendrick can pay that. Can pay that. And would pay that.

Yeah. Would he bring Kyle back? A lot of people would say absolutely not. He brought Kyle Larson in. Brought Kyle Larson in. When no one... Nobody was sure about what to do with Kyle Larson. And he brought him in there and spun it and made it work.

He could absolutely spend. this is bringing Kyle home he's matured he's ready we're going to win some races we got unfinished business all those things and not only that but Rick Hendrick has a past of it he's okay with the pariahs of the sport being on his team my point yeah yeah he I mean he's had him yeah the other guy that I think is a possible landing spot and this would be this would be something to consider his colleague I know that that Kyle might not want to go there because of the lack of performance much like Haas I don't know if Kyle Kyle Kyle's going to want to need to drive that car, right?

Now, he could go to Austin. They could win races. Kyle's that good. Even with their performance this year, I think they could go there and he'll run as good as Harvick, if not a little bit better, depending on the scenario, crew chief and all that. Could he go to Collieg and do that? I'm not so sure, but he'd run that car in the top 10, top five. But for Matt, for Collie, if you're, like, he is,

Colleg has poured a ton of money into the sport on the, on the exfinity. level to get to a winning team in the cup level. He is spending money. He has the money. He has the ability. If he is serious about being a legit star team in the cup level, you go get your star driver. You go get that veteran with championships, with wins. You can groom the young guys, absolutely.

But if you see a guy, what is Rick Hendrick do. He goes and gets the stars. He grooms the young guys as well, but he's known to be able to go out there and say that's the best guy on the market and I'm getting him. He's mine. That's exactly the mentality of Denny going to get ready. Doesn't have all the answers, doesn't have the charter, doesn't know how he's going to make this work, but he knows he's got the driver that he wants.

So if your colleague, you've got to be looking at Kyle Bush and calling him up or answering the phone and getting a conversation saying, what would it take? I know what I need to pay you, okay. What else is missing here for you to want to come here? because that is exactly the driver that would put colleague on the front street. Yes, it would. And if they're serious about being in the sport a long time and being, you know, I know they are.

They're serious about winning. They're serious about wanting to be a championship team. They need to be in the middle of the conversation. They should be if they're not already. So to sum that up then, just so I'm clear on where you're at, you're thinking that Ty Gibbs proved that he's ready for Cup this past weekend, and I agree with that. God, I've never been in this race car.

These cars are so hard to drive, you know, when you do have experience and tests and all that other stuff. Well, he didn't, and yet he went in there and he finished the race. I mean, look, impressive. You think he's ready for Cup. He's also a very affordable option for Joe Gibbs. Joe Gibbs, if he didn't have an option on the Kyle Bush situation, he's got one now. So that's a great point, Mike. If you're Joe Gibbs and you're struggling to get the sponsorship, you could probably bite the bullet for one year.

all right, and say, all right, Kyle, I'm going to give you, I can't get all the way there where you want me to, but I can get this close, and Kyle would probably agree to it. If you're going to knowingly go into a situation where you're going to lose money, potentially, why not hire Ty Gibbs. Invest in your own grandson. Have your own grant. Joe Gibbs is nearly 80 years old, and he's built this program to what it is today. why not get Ty in there now, enjoy watching your grandson drive for that business that you created, and start that process now, right? Why?

What is, I just don't think, yes, another year of Accinity will not hurt Ty Gibbs. He will gain more knowledge, more experience. But it is creating a little bit of distance between him and his fellow competitors once he does go to Cup because they're getting another year in the next-gen car, which is a very new car for everybody. and I think there's no wrong answers here. I just think that there's a lot of variables to play, and this is so compelling to watch and see how this plays out. I felt like going into Pocono and standing in the booth on Sunday,

there was no question that Kyle Busch and Joe Gibbs will absolutely get this deal done. No question. Kyle Busch will drive for the 18 team. He's not going anywhere. But I can absolutely also see some of these other scenarios playing out. and if the right person calls Kyle Bush,

if colleague or Haas and they put the right number in front of him and talk about resources and convince him that the program's going to be going to the right direction, giving him a lot of creative control over who he has for crew chief and all the other things.

This could be exactly what, you know, kind of sends Kyle in that direction. It opens up a lot of doors for Joe as far as Ty gives. So let's talk about, let's talk about Kyle Bush. When I was getting ready to retire, I felt like, man, I was kind of retiring early,

so I started looking at some of the numbers age-wise for some drivers, right? I went, you know, back 20, 30 years about, and looked at all the drivers who retired, when they retired, and their performance. And I roughly, and this is not a scientific, you know, process, but I roughly gathered that around the age of 43, 95% of the drivers peak and nose over. So there is an absolute massive peak in performance around 35 to 43.

All right. That age is really where most drivers are as good as they're ever going to be. And right around 43, for whatever reason, there's a lot. Age, injury, race car, program falls apart, whatever it is. Around 43 is when things sort of go sideways and nose over quite drastically. And there is that 5% that win beyond 40, even into their 50s, can still be good. And we've got some of those guys. And, you know, I think Kyle could possibly absolutely be one of those guys.

But at the least, at the least, Kyle has five to six peak top championship caliber driving years left. Because he's 37, 38, just turned 37, I think. At the least, he's got five damn good years. Sure. That's definitely. And so whoever signs him going to, you know, that's five more years or five years of awesome talent. You know, if you're an owner, that's something that's pretty awesome, pretty excited about. The Hendrick things are compelling.

Now, admittedly that I don't know any of the contract statuses of any of those drivers. Like, you certainly aren't getting rid of Chase Elliott or Kyle Larson. and I have no idea what the Bowman and Byron contracts look like, but Hendricks' neighbors with Kyle Busch as well. Their neighbors, they fly around together, I believe, on the lake. I think that they're a lot, I think they got over whatever the situation was years ago. I could definitely see if there was room in the stable that Rick would absolutely consider doing that. I don't think that he would get hung up on whatever the past aggressions or transgressions are from Kyle Bush.

I think that they're all over that. But especially when you can win at the level that Kyle Bush can. It's compelling. The other compelling thing that you've introduced is him going to 2311 in place of his brother. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, that's another group that seems to be able to, you know, they had the monetary resources to be able to make something. like that happened. Yeah. You know, they're, they're trying to expand to possibly a third charter.

They've got, they're, they're ready to build a new facility as soon as they understand a little bit more about the new agreement with the charter and NASCAR. You know, 2311 sitting there loaded, ready to go. They just got, they're just waiting on a few things to fall into place and especially they need to understand exactly what's going on with the next charter agreement in NASCAR and you're going to see 2311 make some pretty big plays, I think. They got a plan. They got a plan to get way better

and way bigger than they are. And that could include a driver like Kyle. That would be, you know, like I said, would you insert Kyle into your team for five years? Knowing you're going to get that good of driver for another five years? Kyle's not over the hill.

Kyle's not at the end of his, a lot of people are thinking, you know, well, he's struggled in this car. you know, he's going to win races for five more years, if not another championship. Let me tell you the one thing, and again, there's no hurdle that I don't think any of these people can't go figure out and get past, but it just occurred to me as you're talking that Kurt Busch's big monster energy. Monsters on that car, I'm pretty sure, right? They're still on that car, and the energy drink clash between Rowdy and Monster might be a little bit of an issue,

just to consider a work through if that would ever be a situation. Oh, I'm sure there's a ton of there. And to be clear, we're not even talking about Kurt Bush getting replaced. Kurt Bush would have to retire or, you know, make that decision himself. We're not trying to create a brotherly, you know, situation here. I think Kurt, you know, most likely the best case scenario for Kurt is he's out for a couple weeks. He goes and goes, you know, goes to somewhere like the, you know, Pittsburgh Medical Center that I went to. He gets a little, you know, he gets a little homework to do. Yeah. And see some great progress

in relieving his symptoms. It gets cleared in a couple weeks, anywhere from 10 to 14 days. He's got clearance to get back behind the wheel of a race car. And he has, you know, and he'll come back and be great. You know, he'll come back and be as good as he was. I mean, that's best case scenario for Kurt. But, you know, this definitely had, you know, he's had, we just know that he's taught retirement for years and he's sort of you know and he's I think everybody was starting to put the pieces together and go all right maybe maybe next year's is last year with the reddick signing and and you know to have a third team 2311 would have to have a third charter which they don't rightly have at this moment so everybody's just assuming that that means that reddick's going to replace curt and so

but Kurt's still running well if Kurt's winning I don't know that I think he prolongs the retirement. So Kirk can absolutely come back, win some races, decide, all right, I ain't ready to retire. I still win it. I'm still having fun. I'm just going to go ahead and warn you that this conversation, people are going to listen to this podcast, and then they're going to come at you on Twitter because they're going to say, there is one other option. There's this other guy who's talking about wanting to buy a charter in the sport for next year. Who? You? Yeah, well, we're not in any position to. So I'm saying, I'm getting it out there. I'm just saying that's what other people will say

because they have to see them already saying. Where do I, what do they think I'm going to do? What do you think, what do you think their argument is going to be? Because I'm saying, yeah, I'm simply saying that if we do go cup racing at junior motorsports, that is a seat that also becomes open. Would be available for anyone, right? Anyone. Yeah, anyone.

We're going to be looking for the. Can we just go ahead and admit that nobody's affording Kyle Bush in this building? No. We're going to be looking for the Ty Gibbs budget. Yeah. That's right. You may even have to come back and drive that thing just because it's affordable. I'm not cheap, buddy.

What hell? Hey, we do actually have some news we need to go ahead and get out of the way. You know? We've sort of avoiding this one. It's because it's been difficult. So Matthew Dillner is taking a new position that he's really excited about, and he's going to be leaving Dirty Moe Media. and we're you know we're it's a tough situation it's kind of sad um that we're going to have to

see matt go but i know that matt is excited about i know he's really excited about the future and the opportunities he's going to have it's a new challenge for him and it's right in his wheelhouse i'll let him explain what that is but um you know we we've been doing this together for a long time and it's been a lot of fun and we've just kind of gotten used to this being the crew and it's going to be weird and and strange to have a big change

like that because Matt's such a critical part of everything about the show. I wish I could explain to everybody all of the things that Matthew does to get each and every show prepared, ready and finished,

He does so much on the front end. You know a lot of things he does on the back end to get the show to who you guys every week. But, I mean, he's kind of the big engine of the train that pulls us all down the track. So you are going to be hard to replace your work ethic and, you know, you stay late, you do whatever it takes, time away from your family. But also your personality, this larger than life, that will be. the hardest part to put to put in that position is to find somebody that can bring the the joy the fun the excitement that you have the passion that you have and uh we are going to miss you matthew we're excited about your future and we're excited about um i know you're excited to get

going and and do the things you're going to do and get your boots back on the ground at the you know at these racetracks but um we uh we're going to miss you and but this is you know I was I learned a long time ago that people are going to come and go in your life and you just got to appreciate the moments you had with them I've worked with a lot of great people and and it's hard to see that that change and but you know it's going to happen one day nothing lasts forever man we have really we're we're way better because of you this to look at the way this show just to take this show itself much less to hold the third or demode media brand.

We are way, way better because of you. We're in a much, much better position to succeed because of you. And your impression on this business and us is going to be lasting. So can't say enough. And I mean, we'll see it to racetrack. Oh, yeah, that's for sure. So thank you. So you guys have been a lot to my career.

sorry, I'm emotional because I care about you, I care about you and I care about this company. I'm excited about my new opportunity, but you guys are a family. So people come and go in your life, but, you know, you got the biggest ally here, you know, you'll have, you know, going forward. So thank you.

Did you just try to create an ally moment segment here? Is that what you just did? See, that's a man thinking on his way out. Get a sponsor plug. When will we be able to know, when will everybody be able to learn about what your future? Yeah, I'm going to go working for Flow Racing. You know, there's a lot of great streaming companies out there in the marketplace right now,

and Flow is one of them. So I'm going to go working for them. But, you know, until then, I'm going to keep on digging here until the very last day. You know, I want to leave this place with integrity because, you know, I mean, everybody I talk to on the road, whenever I talk, they ask about working with you and Mike, I always tell them one thing. I always tell them when I get let go from NASCAR, first person to call me, Mike Davis, second person to call me, Dale Jr. So that meant a lot to my family, meant a lot to me personally. So like I said, you're always going to have a friend.

And like your sister said to me the other day, once you're family, your family. So no matter where I work, I'm going to always be a dirty Mo guy and your friend and your friend, Mike and everybody in this room. I want to just add one thing that Matthew on his way out has been completely, like completely decent in how he's handled this whole thing. One of the things, I mean, we've known this for three or four weeks now. And then, you know, Alex Thames is sitting right next to him. People know Alex from being the producer and the voice of the Burton continuum. And Alex, it's nice that we can call up some of our awesome young talent into these roles when they occur.

But then Matthew has been, the way Matthew has been in this last month has allowed us to be able to do that. So while we are excited for Alex to take part and be the producer of this show, you know, we certainly know that Matthew, it wasn't possible without Matthew, right? And Matthew's been just the perfect gentleman on how to leave a company. I think he's done a master's class on how you leave a company. He's making sure that we're all Matthew Dillner fans long after he leave. So thank you, Matthew, for that. That means the world to me, you know, as we try to build this company, that you are that type of asset even after you've left. I got, you know, I'm excited to see, you know, what you're going to do with flow,

and I know your brother's involved in that as well, so I'm just going to assume that you're going to get the opportunity to work with him a little bit. but do me a favor, man. Can you get more late model stock action on flow? I'm a subscriber to all of the streaming services. Flow is included. Hampton Heat just was. Yes, Hampton Heat was on there. So it's always, I see a lot of, a lot of dirt racing,

which I love to watch on Flow. But I got you. I know you do, but it's going to be so much fun to every once in a while, see you pop on there. and be able to follow you, and we just are going to be excited. You're a special guy, man, and going to go on and do some great things, and we'll see you on. We'll see you on the other side. Now, as a producer, let's get done with this, Dylan, our time.

There you go. Give us the wrap-up sign. Okay, let me one more time. Let's make a wrap-up. Oh, yeah, and I got one more show. You will be here next week. Yes, sir. This isn't his final show.

Yes, sir. All right. What's up, Dirty Mo Media fans? This is IndyCar driver Connor Daly. And comedian Joey Mulanaro. And we're Speed Street, Dirty Mo Media's newest podcast. We dive into the latest happenings in IndyCar, NASCAR, and F1 every week, as well as life, on and off the track. Speed Street is available now on all major podcasting platforms.

And make sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Speed StreetPod. All right, I'm super excited to have Ally help us bring in this next guest. They sponsor the guest segment every week. Mike, we know how important it is to have allies in your life professionally, personally. I think Mike Joy would be an ally both professionally and personally. He's definitely going to come in here and help us today. Yeah, yeah. So that's what this is about.

We're bringing in an ally, Mike Joy. That's right. He's a favorite amongst the masses is evidenced by the fact that he's requested all the time. And so it's good to have him in here. I think he's going to give us some knowledge. You know, I like his vantage point from the fact that he can speak to the past and the present. All right, man. Way to go, Mike.

Let's welcome. Hey, Mike, Mike, let's welcome Mike. Mike. It'll be enjoyed. Mike. Never enough mics in the room. Mike, let's welcome Mike. Mike, Joy.

Mike, welcome it in. Yeah, we got it. On the inside, five laps, winter take-all. Walter takes it as low as the ball as a bit coming out of two. Got a little loosened up there between one and two, and that gave Earnhardt a three car-linked barges. This is it. This is the money.

Off of four, it is Dale Earnhardt, completing a clean sweep of the Stafford end of the Budweiser's showdown of champions. Hey, how are you? Shirts with stories, man. That's what that's what's up. Y'all wear shirts with stories. I'm sure yours has one. No, it does.

I'm not sure I want to hear it. No, not a story. You're cooler than I am. Yeah. How's it going, Mike? Perfect. Perfect. I wondered if we'd have anything to talk about today after, you know, Jimmy's top five at Iowa

and all of the, everything that happened, you know, out there at the tricky triangle or the bodine triangle as darrell used to call it yeah so uh to be fair to mike uh let's go ahead and ask you the question do you think that denny denny's move on ross was retaliation to what happened in the past or was it just hard racing well let me ask you a question to answer the question if somebody had done you wrong on the race trek did you ever forget no did you give them as much as much room is you would give somebody who had raced you clean all the time? No. Asked and answered.

I thought Kyle Petty nailed it. Absolutely. He said, he left him enough room for his race car. He just didn't leave him any extra. And at that time, Ross could have used a little extra room and he didn't get it. But I did not see that as retaliation. I saw that as good, hard racing. There you go.

And if I was Ross and I knew I was owed one, I might not have. I put my car right there at that moment. So here's kind of the cool thing. Who ends up finishing ahead of Denny in that race? Ross. When NASCAR announced the policy that they were going to take wins away in the national series for big infractions. Who was the first driver to get nailed in a truck race at Iowa? Ross.

That's right. Yeah. Who ended up winning stage two when they took the points away from Denny and Kyle? Ross. It all comes back to Ross. It does. You know, it's kind of funny. All roads.

Kind of funny that way. It's karma. It's everything I can do right now to come across and hug you. No. You know, we agree with, yeah. We've been debating. I think it's retaliation. My colleague, Steve LaTartre, said that's retaliation with a scapple instead of a hammer,

which I said, I'm going to use that. That's 41-year-old, nearly 60 wins, Denny Hamlin, retaliation. Yeah. That's not Noah Gregson retaliation. Oh, no. Right. Right. And so there's different types.

Denny, you know, we argued it. But anyways, good to hear your opinion on it. And I'm sure that makes my feel pretty good. I mean, I feel good. In fact, I think that wraps this interview. I mean, that's what we wanted to Mike. But now, now let's go to the DQ. Yeah.

All right. Yes, we didn't even talk about that. The last time a winner got disqualified post-race was Wilson, North Carolina, April 1960, Zervakis had a big fuel tank, Joe Weatherly got the win. Somebody tweeted yesterday Joe Weatherly had the same fuel tank. He just, and maybe he did, maybe didn't, but he got the win. The last time the first two finishers got disqualified was West Palm Beach, Palm Beach Fairgrounds. And we do Barra Jackson there. You can still see the checkered start

finish line painted there. That's all that's left of that race track. But West Palm Beach, Joe Weatherly and Jim Reed, Joe Weatherly, um, came. Camshaft, Jim Reed, valves. First two got disqualified. Herb Thomas got the win. So there's precedent. Yeah. But it's two, you know, it's like Ralph Earnhardt era.

80 years ago, yeah. Do you have any issue with NASCAR handling it that way? For years, you know, we would never take the win away that you'd keep the trophy. There would be a points of monetary fine, something like that. You're right. Where do you land now? Well, Bobby Allison, Riverside, California, Roger Penskees, Maddoer. They had roller rockers, roller camshaft.

not permitted. They took away the $20,000 for first place, and they took away the points. He kept the win. Richard Petty, win 199 at Charlotte, had left side tires on the right side. They had a big-ass engine in that car. All I remember is Morris Petty,

walking away from the inspectors going, all I'll admit to is 383. You know, the limit was 366, and that thing was like 400 or so. I don't know what it was. But they kept the win, lost the points in the money. Obviously. that was not a sufficient deterrent.

So I agree with the policy. Yes, it was a piece of tape 12, 1, 1,000th of an inch thick. But the rule is you can't add or subtract anything to the parts on this car that are single supplier sourced. You can't do it.

The rule is very clear. So, as I told Wendy, trying to explain it to her before I walked in. It's like the speed limit posted is 55. If the cop pulls you over and writes you a ticket for 56,

Did you break the law and did the punishment fit the crime? It's very, very similar. But the rule is absolute. And NASCAR has a list of things. You don't mess with the tires. You don't mess with the fuel. You don't change single source supplier parts on the new car. That's the rule.

That's the rule. I like that. So if you were going down pit road and pit road speed is 45 miles an hour and you are 45.1, you're going to the end of the longest line. You had broken the rule And so I know that people out there will go Well, I hear this This is a very minimal piece of tape How could, you know, that's not, you can't argue that

No, it's the rule. Now on the speed limit, okay, speed limit's 45 They give you a five mile an hour tolerance. So if you're going 50.001, you get nabbed. Now, when they first instituted that rule, they had stopwatches And they would just time drivers down pit road. Usually, Rusty 1.

Wallace. And who always got busted for speeding? Rusty Wallace. So the teams and the driver said, I want you to take all the subjectivity out of this. So now it's timed electronically. And yeah, in the loops going down pit road. And if you're that little bit fast, you're busted. And it's that's it. And it's usually Danny Hamlin. And but that's it. It's on the driver to be inside that tolerance. It's on the team to set up his tag. And it's usually Danny Hamlin. And but that's it. But that's it's on the driver to be inside that tolerance. It's on the team to set up his tag. in his lights so that he doesn't bust that speeding limit. And the limit's absolute, just like this rule is an absolute. But haven't there been absolutes over the years? Haven't there been rules that were absolutes that NASCAR did choose to show some grace in areas? Like, you know, I know what's wrong with that car in tech.

Don't bring this back. Don't bring this back. Yeah. I'm on to you. The Jeff Gordon, Ray Everingham, T-Rex. The T-Rex. That's a wonderful car. Don't ever bring it back here.

Right. like that. Okay, but that's, all right. That's what Bud Moore called creative engineering. It's what a lot of people called working in the gray area of the rulebook. Junior Johnson said it best. Well, it ain't cheating. Lesson you get caught. But those are different rules. These are absolutes. The speed limit on pit road is an absolute. And the list of things that we just talked about for this new car are abysmalutes. absolutes. So I agree with, as they were building this sport, Bill Senior, Bill Jr. saying, we want our winner decided on the racetrack. And people go home knowing who won the race, and none of this after the fact. But it's a different sport now than it was then. Yeah.

And you need absolutes. I got to ask one question, and that is, is the penalty given to the 11-18 team enough of a deterrent? We talked about how the monetary. and the point penalty in the past apparently wasn't enough. And now that this was a more heavy-handed penalty of, hey, man, we're taking it all away. It's as if they never went to the racetrack. Well, they get last place points and all that. When you leave this sport, all you're going to take with you is your name and your reputation.

Yes, I think the punishment fits the crime, and I think it will be a sufficient deterrent. I think there's meetings going on early this week, probably at every race shop saying we don't ever want to be in this position. Do you think that the sign that they didn't appeal is proof to your point that they said, hey, man, let's wash your hands of this. We're, let's not argue this. Well, it doesn't, it doesn't prove intent or anything like that.

And it doesn't show what advantage, if any, was gained. But I think what it does is it recognizes that the rule is an absolute. And it respects that. Yes. So, yeah, now, Let's move on. So. I didn't mean us.

I just met that. No, yeah. I think we need to move on. So I was reading some of your, you know, your bio. And I found it interesting that you, your introduction to racing was through sports cars. Yeah. And so talk about, talk about your, you know, how you got your first opportunity to become a broadcaster. Because, I mean, I'm sure there's a lot.

I have. So ever since. I've gotten, and I know this has happened to you because you've been around long enough and a lot of people respect you, but in the short period of time that I've had this opportunity to work in a booth, I've had a couple people come to me and go, I want to get into that line of work. How do I do that? And I'm like, that's a damn good question. And so, like, people would always ask me about how to get into racing, driving, and I had somewhat of an idea, but I have no clue on how to tell somebody like, this is how you get that opportunity. This is

where you go to, this is how you begin. So talk about your being. beginning. Okay. And tell us, say, man, like, you know, I went and I did, I put, I put my nose to the grindstone and this is where I, you know, cut my teeth and all those things. It used to be, you would go to a short track and you would volunteer or try to find a way to get on the PA system and entertain the fans. Some tracks had good PA announcers.

Some tracks had PA announcers that also worked in local TV or radio, and the track knew that by hiring them to work Saturday nights, they could at least get the results on the air, you know, the next day. And that's right. And that worked pretty well. Sports cars. My dad had a sports car. He had a two-seat roadster that he bought that, you know, we had fun with.

And I grew up in Connecticut, and I grew up in the pages of car and driver and road and track and sports car graphic and Auto Week. And Dan Gurney and Jim Clark and Mark Donahue, those were my heroes. I didn't even know there was such a thing as short track racing. You know, my senior year of high school, we went to Bridge Hampton to see the Can-Am cars run. And then we started going to Lime Rock and watching the SCCA cars and Trans Am, which I became very involved with and still am. I knew of Daytona and some of the other big races. But NASCAR at that time, and this is late 1960s, indie cars were the biggest thing in racing, Formula One in Lamont, Trans Am.

And then NASCAR, because NASCAR was a primarily southeastern sport that also occasionally went out to Riverside, California, for no apparent reason, and run on the road course. And Dan Gurney always won, and he was my hero. So a buddy of mine got tickets to the local quarter mile modified track, Riverside Park. And we went up there and we watched the cars run. Well, that was fun, but, you know, I mean, these old coop body cars and they run drum brakes and they, you know, they got a straight axle front end. And I go, what the? You know, what is with this? You know?

And I was used to can-am cars with wings and trans-am cars that were Mustangs and Camaros. And I go, yeah, that's a lot of fun, but I didn't have a desire to go back. Well, in college. So I selected where to go to college based on they would let freshmen have cars. That was important because, you know, well, your car was part of your identity. Yeah. And your car was also, it was your freedom. Okay.

I didn't want to be stuck in some dorm room, you know, some college with 20,000 kids and, you know, I mean, what do you do? Right? I was about cars. I guess I'm stunned that there were colleges that wouldn't let you have a car as a freshman. No, you had to live in the dorm and you didn't get a car. Wow, okay. So that would be a big distinction. Yeah, it would also be a big distraction.

Yeah. And that's why they didn't allow them for one reason. Okay. And two, the University of Hartford had a sports car club, as a lot of colleges did. Some of them even had a racing, University of Pittsburgh had a racing program. You know, sports cars were big. Yeah. A big part of America at that time.

So that's why I went there. And so we started running road rallies, which, you know, on a Sunday afternoon, you have a printed sheet of directions, you know, turn here, find this mailbox, go up and turn here, and, oh, and maintain this average speed, which meant a whole lot of hell raising and driving at not legal speeds to maintain the average speed. It was kind of like rat racing on the street with a purpose and you all ended up in the same place. And you're driving. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we had a driver and a navigator for, you know, for each car. And then auto crossing, which Mike, that's how Mike Stefanox started. with his Camaro, he called it pylon racing,

where you run against the clock in your street car. And we still have Triad Sports Car Club up here, and it's still kind of big among people that don't have a car or the infrastructure or the means to go racing. So autocrossed. And one of the places we autocrossed was Riverside Park Speedway on Sundays.

We'd rent the track for Sunday afternoon. And I was doing football and basketball play-by-play at the university for their, radio station was kind of the dawn of FM College radio, the sports car club said, hey, when you're not running your car, why don't you go up on the PA system? Because people would wander in from the amusement park, see what's going on. So I'm up there talking about what's happening, and, you know, it's exciting. And, you know, this guy and this guy with this car and, you know, this guy, can he beat him? And here comes old Ed Carroll, the fiery Irishman that owned the park.

And he wanted to know why three or 400 people were sitting in the grandstand watching one car on the track at a time instead of out spending money in his amusement park. because they were being entertained. They said, our track announcer, John Wallace Spencer, who was a local weatherman at a TV station and author of books

about things you couldn't prove. He had best-selling books on the Bermuda Triangle, on UFOs, and it's all stuff he pretty much made up. But that was it. You know, it was cool. He was trained as a Shakespearean actor.

So he was a great PA announcer. Because he could really build a moment. I learned so much from him. they said, why don't you, you know, he's sometimes he's away on book tours, so I need a second announcer as an assistant and to fill in. So why don't you come work for us on Saturday nights? Yeah. I said, no thanks. I said, I've seen those cars. I said, they bump and they bang and, you know, they go around. I said, but they're not transam cars or, you know, they're not. That's not what I'm interested in. So his PR guy, Joe Mahoney says, well, why don't you come Saturday night as our guest

and watch and see what you think. Take another look at it. What a good PR guy. So, yeah, was. So I go up in the grandstand and they would get, this is a quarter mile, fifth mile track, flat fifth mile. They would get 50 modifies on Saturday night. 20 would make the feature. So they'd run four heats, top four in each heat advanced to the semi. They'd run two semis. That put 16 cars in the main event. Then they had a B and an A Conci for the last four spots. So in the A Conci, the last lap of the Aconcy, Charlie Glazier comes storming off turn four with somebody on his inside. And Charlie bounces off him, bounces off the wall, beats him to the line by a foot, and the 6,000 people that are there go crazy. I got to be a part of this. So the best part of my friends, most of my

friends for part-time jobs in college had been going, you know, do you want fries with that for $1.55 an hour? And I was working in a Firestone store busting tires for more than $3 an hour because it was a union shop. I thought I was making all the money in the world for a part-time job. And they said, we want you to come and help us out on Saturday nights. We'll pay $25 a night. Wow. Thought I'd gone to heaven. Yeah. You know, that was...

You're rich. You're rich at that point. Well, you know, gas, 35 cents a gallon, $25 bucks to get you a long way. And so had a lot of fun doing that. Became the chief announcer. They would bring Ken Squire in for the big, big events from Vermont. And, you know, Ken was... Even then, the big voice of MRN and CBS and everything, we got to work together.

That was a lot of fun. Learned a lot from Ken. Was it Riverside for a bunch of years? went to Stafford work, went to Thompson, went to Stafford, work with Jackerut there on his dad's track. Jackerute. So I had no idea that Jackerut had been around that long. He and I were the same age. I know.

You know, he's a year younger. Well, but he, so he, he too was like, worked in broadcasting. You know, as far as. So that's Riverside Park. So he broadcasts. So Jack, you know, people will remember Jack broadcasting races being in the pits and all that, right? Yeah, we work together on that. on the PA at Stafford doing an MRN-like broadcast kind of in training.

I did not know his connection. I didn't know where Jack Root came from. His dad owns, his dad and his uncle bought Stafford Speedway from Mal Barlow in 1967 and paved it, and the family still owns it. Yeah. His brother Mark. So he,

so when Jack was doing the races, right, when you see him on TV on Sunday, I don't wonder, why did he, where did he go? Why did he stop? Boy, that's,

to have, I know this is, that's a whole other show. I know. So, Jaggy and I worked at Stafford. He went to Daytona to go work for MRN full-time. A year later, he brought me down to Daytona to work for MRN full-time. He ran the network, co-anchored with Barney Hall.

And in the spring of January 1980s, said, I want to do something else and left. Where did he go? Just somewhere? He ended up doing PR for Junior Johnson. Jackeroute. Yeah. And for Daryl and Neil, he was Junior's PR guy for a while. I think he had a short stint at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

He was part of what Joe Whitlock called the stag party at Charlotte Motor Speedway. People that had gone through Charlotte Motor Speedway like S through a goose, STAG. Anyway, he had a short stint there and then went to ABC, which was always his dream to do indie. Okay. And went to ABC. That's right. He did do a lot of indie stuff. Broadcast indie and NASCAR.

And then he just said, you know what? I'm just going to go back home. Yeah. That's so fascinating. Because I didn't know his story until after the fact. And I grew up watching it on TV. I'm like, man, that guy disappeared. Where did he go?

And then how did he get there in the first place, right? That's how he got there. That's Riverside Park. They ran a 500-lap team race every year. So that's Ron Wyckoff and Bob Polvererie and me interviewing them in Victory Lane after they wanted. So the way a team race worked on a fifth mile. So you had two cars in each team. So one car would start the race and they would tape over his number.

Like if you were the pole car, they'd put a 1 on it. And then this car would be, your teammate would be 1A. He'd be parked in the infield. So you'd go out and you'd race and race and race and race. And when you needed relief, you drove into the infield, tap the bumper of the other car, and he'd go out. Because none of those modifies would make 500 laps, you know, but that's how you got a 500 lap race out of it.

Wow. That was cool. That would be fascinating. How would you like to score that one? Yeah, yeah, I wouldn't want to be a score. No. So this is Stafford. This was the day that I set up a play day.

Look at you. And that's John Oates. Yeah. My buddy's John Oates. So that was 1983. He wanted to run a modified. So we got John Anderson and Bob Polvarian, a bunch of them bring their modifiers up. And Brett Bowdoin.

I'm a huge fan of Darrell Hall and John O'Hood. And we did that. Cool. Well. Love their music. Well, let's get John on the show. I would love to. We can do that.

Look at this guy, Mike. He was just part of some of the stuff that they were doing over at Nashville. He's done a few promos and whatnot for some of the fairground stuff. Yeah. And he raced EMSA. Yeah. With a deal that I got Pontiac to sponsor their tour. That was something I did for two years, three years,

advertising stuff with Pontiac and when I left Daytona. And one of the things we did was put together a rock and roll tour for the Fierro. And it was a three-year tour with Daryl and John. Wow. And just had a blast doing that. Yeah. I tried to get them to play a charity event here for us. I was, yeah, I think so.

Yeah. Man, they're amazing. Yeah. It's still going. So who helped you with your timing? Where did you first learn your timing in the booth? Mark Twain. I love not so much his books, but his speeches.

He was just fantastic. Some of the things he said, and the one that I never forget and that I give to every aspiring broadcaster is, I never learned anything when I was talking. And if you go in the booth and you remember that, that helps everybody, everybody have a good show. And Clinton and I have worked together long enough. Jeff and I worked, you know, long enough, Larry, Dary, Daryl, Buddy Baker, that with a look, we could tell who was loaded and ready to go and who was almost done with what they were saying.

And I know when I'm talking, I know you guys are locked and loaded and you're just ready to fire away. so I need to shorten up these stories so we can get you know so we can talk about more things and that's how you learn to do that so when when we set the booth up for Fox um you remember from talvedega all right you're over there boyers here I'm here you're looking at this monitor I'm looking at that monitor so that we can maintain eye contact yeah because we can say as much to each other with a look as we can with a phrase and and that's how you develop that timing. How long does it take to develop timing with new individuals as they come through the booth? With most people, you fall into it really pretty quickly. And you will know within one show,

you know, pretty much if it's going to work or not. I could be getting to the end of the thought and go like this, and you know, man, you're next. But a lot of time, you just, you don't have to do that. You have a feel for it. The hardest thing for anybody in radio or TV or podcasting is to sit back can listen. And sometimes with the action, that's the best thing to do. Let it unfold. I don't have to tell you every car that's in that wreck as it's happening. I want you to see it and have your own reaction to it. And then we can go back and replays and we can sort all that stuff out. Do you think that, like in your own cadence, is that something that you ever paid much attention to or does it come naturally to you? It comes naturally now, and it probably has for the last, I don't know, 30 years or so,

But, yeah, in the beginning, you do try to develop not so much a rhythm or a cadence, but a means of speaking plainly and helping the listener or viewer understand. So, for example, when we do Barrett Jackson, my buddy, Steve Mignante, who's up on the block with me, he is Dr. Date Code. He knows all the casting numbers and production figures and all that, and he can say, you know, they made 1,268 of these cars. I'm more broad brush in what we do, and I would go, you know, they made around 1,200 of these. Because to the ear, that's much easier to process than an exact number.

So it's things like that and trying to increase the understanding of the listener or the viewer, more so than it is getting the exact thing out there that you'd read in the book or the magazine. what is the process that you take to bring a moment so you know that last lap right car coming off the term for whoever it might be even if it's a single car coming to the finish so there's a there's a a lot of people will realize if you've if you listen to any of these races there's a moment where everyone in the booth lays out and the play-by-play guy is sort of giving the baton and it's his to bring it home and so there may be a race coming up or a moment or a milestone coming up.

Maybe somebody's about to win their 200th race or somebody's about to win Daytona for the first time after trying for 20 years. You have that, you have that knowledge of that moment and that could happen that day, right? How do you, do you prepare beforehand? Do you have it, is it just come so naturally

that all of that just pours out of you in that moment? Because I've been so, I admire that. I admire, I don't have that ability. And working with Rick Allen. Yes, you do. But maybe you haven't prepared for it. Yeah. I want to know how to get there.

That's a difference, I think. For me to be an analyst versus a play-by-play guy, you deliver the moments. And I'm curious as to how you prepare. All right. Well, let's take the most famous example of that, of course, is the 1998 Daytona 500. going into that race well let me back up a year

97 and your dad's sitting on the grid you know and we're getting ready to do the telecast and I'm in the pits and he's sitting on the grid the window net's not up because they know I want to talk to him and he knows what I'm going to ask you know all right Dale this is the 19th time well I'm like you know you know can you finally

know he knows that's what I'm going to ask because that's the question can you finally win this thing so I'm facing the camera and I talk about for the viewers, your dad struggles to win the 500 and how many times he's come close and how much he's lost it. And then I just walked over to the car and knelt down and I went, hey, champ, feeling racy today? And that's just, he gave me this big kind of big smile, smirk. And he just gave the best answer and the best interview ever because I didn't ask him what he thought I was going to

ask him. Yeah. All right. So now let's go to 98 and CBS has made a change. Ken Squire is now the host. I'm in the booth I'm calling the race. I had Greg Fielden, our historian, who's written all those great blue books about the history of NASCAR. And Patrick Perrin, our, our researcher. He's, the blue book. The blue book guy. Where is he in the moment? Where is he in the booth? Yeah, he's in the booth with us. He's like your stat guy. He is the historian, and Patrick Perrin, who still does the same job for Fox, is the stat guy. He's now the stat guy for Chris Myers on the pre-race set. And during the week, I said, all right, I want to know everything about how many times Dale Earnhardt has come close.

I want to know how many laps of this race he's never led. And it was like lap 92, 94, and of course, 200. We're the only laps he'd never led in the race. And so they built this whole thing of what had happened to date. So you'll hear it when you watch the tape. with 20 laps to go, I'd say, okay, now, you know, 11 times Dale Earnhardt has led this race with 20 laps to go, you know, because he was leading. If he wasn't leading, I wouldn't say it. 10 laps to go. Okay, here's how many times that's happened. Five laps to go. Here's how many times

that had happened. I swear, by lap 199, probably even Darrell wanted him to win. You know, Darrell was in the race. All right, I'm exaggerating. But so between Greg and Patrick, they had research this thing eight ways to Sunday. So I had read it all and I'm very lucky that I'm able to retain things for a couple of days, you know, like those old disqualifications. I read that a couple days ago. I don't remember that from 1955, but I read it and I can retain it. So I knew pretty much everything they had laid out. And so in the last lap, the emotion takes over. You take everything that you've studied and that you've learned and that you've prepared, but you don't, You don't read it.

You let the emotion take over and you be in the moment and you enjoy it. And the viewer enjoys it with you as that car comes to the flag, whether it's, you know, Danny winning his 47th race or Earnhardt winning his first 500 or whatever else happens. You want to do it in the moment because that's genuine. And that's you. That's fascinating. And people will remember that. It's not easy.

No, it's good. You want it to look easy, but hell, it's not easy. It takes a lot of prep and it takes a lot of work. Yeah. I'll tell you one more, though. I think that sometimes you guys can be your own biggest critic, right? Always. And so, like, you know, the fans reacted, you know, when your first race, when the whole

slide job incident, you know, that was you being in the moment in the most truest form possible, right? By definition, in the moment, you're calling it as that happened. And I don't know. I'd love to know your opinion, Mike, but like that, I thought that was just a memorable, brilliant moment in racing, and you weren't even trying. No. It was perfect because it was not so much the perfect description of what was happening,

but it was the element of surprise in your voice that got everybody. That's what everybody remembers. Right, right. And that can only come from being genuinely surprised, you know, as you were. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Well, man, I've always kind of wanted to talk to you about, you know, when I went to work with you,

I got to do a race with you, Jay Tonwood with Bush Clash. Yep. And that was so much fun. And I will tell you, when we were sitting there, I, so I've always admired Ken and Barney Hall. My heroes. Yeah. And the, we got a car out of control.

We got a car spinning, you know, those moments where when they see it, they genuinely dive into this, this thrilling thing happening on track, you know. and when we went to do this bush the clash i'm thinking oh boy if a car gets loose i can't wait i cannot wait till somebody's out of control we got a car out of control and sure enough brad and denny get together in term one and if you listen to the audio like i'm just i'm just verbatim screaming whatever i'd heard from like watching all these old races for the 80s right that's great and um it was like i was like i was I was living a dream, right?

Because when you're a little kid playing with basketball cars on a rug, you know, you're doing Barney Hall. You're doing, you know, you're listening to the race on the radio, and you're doing what they're saying, you know, you're saying what they're saying, right? And mimicking everything they do. But then, you know, I got the chance to go work with you this year. And I had so many questions by this point in my life about, like, you know,

the job and how to prepare and how to, you know, I can ask Rick and, you know, Steve and Jeff Burton, they haven't been doing it their whole life, you know. Don't have that history that you have and that Rick has. But it's just fascinating to be able to try to understand can is a play-by-play guy born with the tools, or is that something that can be developed? Can a guy become a play-by-play guy? Can a guy learn the, you know, I know the cadence isn't the right word, but can a guy learn the timing? You can. Rick did. Rick Allen was a football and basketball announcer, and he came to racing through a speed channel and learned the sport.

That was the hardest thing for him to learn. He already was a very good and very gifted announcer. The hardest thing, I think, for people who don't do this is what you are, saying now is what you thought of half a second to three seconds ago. And they put it all together. And if you're lucky and if you're young enough, it comes out right. Now, no, seriously, as you age, I don't know why I keep confusing. Eric Jones and Christopher Bell, maybe because they both used to drive the same car, you know, or whatever. But I'll say Christopher Jones or I'll say Eric Bell.

And people on Twitter jump all over me. It's like, you know what? Sorry. Yeah. Okay? But that's just part of the process as you age, that that half a second to three seconds sometimes gets jumbled and confused. And sometimes, at some point, I'm going to make enough mistakes. They're going to say, why don't you go sit over here instead of up in the booth anymore?

And I'm going to go, okay, had a great run. But in the meantime, I think it's very, very hard to learn to have all these balls spinning in the air at once. and keep them all spinning and keep the viewer informed, educated, and entertained all at the same time. It is a very unique skill set to be able to do that at the network TV level successfully and for a long time. We've talked about my dad's passing at Daytona multiple times at this table. And when you're put in a position like that, you know, when you're put in a position like that, you know, when you're putting in a position where you're... So when

Austin Dillon crashes into the grandstands, you know, into the fence at Daytona, that was the first race for Rick and Jeff. They talked about this. That was their very first race. They had no idea what to do. They literally both took two steps back in the booth

because they wanted Rick to know, like, we don't know what to do. And that's okay. Yeah. And that's good. Again, you're not going to learn anything when you're talking. So I think that's when it's incumbent on the play-by-play person to take control and command of the situation. Do not guess and do not theorize except in a general sense of, all right, what usually happens in this case is this happens, then that happens, and we'll wait to see

what happens next. You know, as we, as we did with Ryan Newman, there was so much we couldn't say. We are handcuffed in every one of these situations by the fact that the information flow from NASCAR comes to a screaming halt, and they won't tell you anything. Right. The track won't tell you anything. The NASCAR won't tell you anything. Nobody. And that's where, you know, obviously the truck's not going to show replays until we see a driver get out until we see that he's okay. You know, we're going to wait. In the Newman crash, there were things that we knew based on the response of the people around the car, but no one would confirm for us. And we weren't going to speculate. So waiting is hard, especially in live TV. Things keep ticking. Waiting is hard. But I think that's

where you fall back on your play-by-play person due to his training to overview the situation and not sugarcoat it and yet not alarm anybody until you have facts. What about when you have, you know, you can't not make friendship? You know, in this, you can't not have relationships with the drivers and some friendly, some, some, some just a working relationship. How do you manage, you know, you're calling the balls or strikes and, you know, when drivers go out there and have contact or whatever, makes a mistake? Do you have, you know, driver, how do you handle that? How do you handle sort of being biased or not biased? The same way you do.

This is not Dale Jr. your car owner. This is Dale Jr. the broadcaster. I got my headset on. I got to do this job. And it's like, what is your, what's your obligation at that time? And when you have a headset on, your obligation is to the fans and to the sport. And it's not to your friendships. Alan Quickey and I were very good friends.

Ricky Rudd and I were good friends. And you develop those friendships over a period of years and a matter of time. Rusty and our good friends. You know, there's just a lot of people like that. And yes, when you're looking at the rundown, you're going to glance down, you're going to see how they're doing. But you can't call them on the track any different than you call anybody else. You ever had anybody call you afterwards and say, hey, man, why did you say that? Your dad.

Really? In a roundabout way. Yeah. We're at North Wilkesboro, and it was pretty early in your dad's career. And he had described his driving as short track driving as Frammon and Bammon. That was his phrase. Well, I picked it up, used it a lot on the radio. Your dad was exciting to watch on the short tracks.

We're at Wilkesboro, Barney Hall says, Dale wants to talk to you. I said, well, okay, I'll go see him. No, he says, he says, he's over sitting in my Buick in the infield. He says, why don't you go over and have a seat and talk to him? And your dad says, you've got to quit this for him and Abama and stuff. He says, you're giving me a bad name. You're giving me a bad reputation.

You know, people are upset about the way I'm driving. I said, well, Dale, I said, my obligation is to the radio listeners and to NASCAR and to the sport. And I got a call, you know, like I see it. I said, you're aggressive. He says, yeah, man, he says, but I'm not wrecking people. I'm not, you know, I'm not dumping people in the fence. He says, I'm, yeah, I'm moving him out of the way. We had a great talk, and I learned his philosophy of how he drove.

It did adjust what I did as a broadcaster. I wasn't kind to him if he wrecked somebody. I said he wrecks somebody, okay? But I much more understood what he was trying to accomplish and how he drove than I did before. And again, I thank Barney Hall for that, because Barney was everybody's friend. He was agent for a few people, too, you know, that nobody knew about. But he had everybody's respect. Yeah, we sorted it out, and we had a great relationship from that point on.

And, of course, he went on to do great things, and the fans loved it. It was all good. What was your emotions about going to do Daytona for the first time? Well, I had been to Daytona. In 75, we went down there with the Nesmera Super Bowl. modifies, which were mostly wing sprinters and cut downs. And we did a Florida tour that included West Palm Beach and Vero Beach and a bunch of tracks.

And I got to go to the track. And since Ken was the chief announcer, I got to do some PA for the IROC race, which was really cool in 75. What do you mean when you say you got to do some PA for the IROC? Well, Ken says, I was helping MRN just a little bit, you know, doing some stuff. And Squire says, why don't you come on up to the booth and watch the IROC race with us? You know, and here, why don't you do a few laps on the PA? It was like, holy dome.

Like, really? Wow. I mean, I rock. This was, you know, world-class drivers. This is as big as it got. And got to do some of that. And, of course, that led to some part-time stuff with MRN. It was just, it was big.

It was, I mean, Daytona is as big as it gets in this sport. Indianapolis, Daytona. But that's when I knew that not only was this just so much fun, and of course, never felt like work. But this could be a career. path. Yeah. You know?

That was the moment? And this was the top. Yeah. You would, you, you'd already made a career at it. Well, just doing short track. I was doing short tracks five nights a week. But gosh, and the biggest track I'd ever been to was Martinsville. Yeah.

And it's like, this is, man, Daytona. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I was, you got that picture of Buddy Baker back up there. And right above the D in that tower was the public address booth. Above the T were the NASCAR officials and above the A was radio. But I was up there in that booth call in the office. calling the I Rock Race.

It was like, oh, my gosh. Underneath the roof? Up above. See where the D is where it says Daytona, white on blue? Oh, oh, oh, oh, the top in the crow's nest. Yeah. Okay. Wow.

And that was, I said, man, this could really, this could really be something. This could be a career, maybe. I'd like to ask you, Mike, about MRN specifically, because a lot of what I'm hearing you say, I can't help but think that MRN conditioned. Like the thinking three seconds ahead of what you say. Yeah. Like MRN and anybody doing radio, that's, That's a separate craft than TV because you're obviously having to paint a whole different picture, right?

Word pictures. So my question to you is, did in fact MRN condition you for what we're hearing you, you know, how you apply TV? Also, if so, how? And what was the cadence like trying to get that down? So three very different jobs, public address radio TV. The public address announcer to racetrack has one job. make sure that when every fan walks out of that grandstand that night, they are committed to come back next week.

Don't care how you do that, but that's your one job. If you can't do that, you don't have a job. Neither is anybody else if that grandstand doesn't have people in it. Radio, you're painting word pictures. You have to say, the Good Rent Chevrolet. And when you say that, everybody knows what you mean. If you say the three car, people have to think about it. But if you say, well, there's the good rent Chevrolet, everybody knows.

So that's radio. And radio, dead air, is horrible. It's the worst thing in the world of radio. But you know doing radio that when you're talking, there's nine other guys that are just waiting to push the button and can't wait. TV, the biggest transition is from radio to television. And this is what Squire did so well. And what I've tried to do is oftentimes just shut up and let the picture tell the story. because it's not radio with pictures.

It's television. It's a whole different thing. So the way MRN work was pretty cool, the cars come by the start-finish line and either Ken or Barney or Barney and Jackie, whoever was in the booth, would talk about them. And as the car they were talking about got to that point, the announcer in turn one and two would pick up.

They would be done with their thought by that point. And I knew if I was up on that five-story scaffold in turn one, I'd pick them up right there. And I would carry them until they'd take them up right there. And I would carry them until they exited turn two, and then I would drop them. And in the 79 Daytona 500, Gary Gerald would pick him up on the backstretch. And as they went over his shoulder into turn three and four, Dave to Spain would pick him up. Okay?

And then this would repeat, pretty much. So we get down to the last lap of the 79 Daytona 500. I'm up on that scaffold that I didn't want to climb up there. I'm not a heights, you know, guy, five stories up on a spindly scaffold. But I knew if I didn't get up there, I didn't have a job that day. and we're calling the race. And here they come off turn two, you know, and it's Donnie and Cale. And Gary Gerald's calling the wreck as it happens, going off into turn three.

And he goes, we'll have a new leader. And Jackerute in the booth goes, they're in turn two in front of Mike Joy. And I go, whoa, crazy. And you can hear it in my boy, it's Richard Petty. You know, man, I was surprised as anybody. It's Richard Petty. And he's got Daryl and AJ right behind him. And, you know, here they come out of turn two.

And I mentioned who the three cars are that are going to be racing for the win, and Richard Petty's up there. And the race finishes. So post script on that one, A.J. Floyd ends up third. AJ Floyd came to, you know, he only ran a few races with NASCAR back then, and he came to Daytona and didn't have a spotter. So they run the IROC race. Paul Page does IROC for ABC.

He says, Paige, he says, you're a good talker. You've seen a lot of these races. I need you to be my spotter on Sunday. Okay. So they get down about five laps to go, and AJ goes. Page, he said, can we catch the leaders? Oh, no, AJ, they're three quarters of a lap in front of you. Donnie and Cale, they're going to win this thing.

They're going away. He says, good. This thing's pushing like a dump truck. I can't drive it anymore. Third pace doesn't pay much more than fifth. I'm going to just let these guys go. And he lets Richard and Darrell go. He lines up behind him.

He ends up finishing third. Oh, my goodness. I think to this day he blames it on Paul Page. Did you know that? That is an amazing story. Wow. That's hard to believe. It's hard to believe.

Especially the 1979 Daytona 500. I mean, like that is so epic. So there's a picture of you and the broadcast team on all wearing your vests. You, Ned, Barney and Eli. Those were blue suede jackets. So Jim Foster, my boss at Daytona, had a deal. He needed a couple of suits from a guy who ran a men's store in Daytona, and they said that they'd outfit the MRN broadcasters

and mention the guy's store, Leonard Dobie, mention him on the radio. And I guess Foster got a wardrobe out of it, and we each got a jacket. So that was the PR photo for that whole deal. That's pretty interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

So in that moment, though, are you, like you said, that was kind of the... That was 81 or 2, so I'm the head of the network and anchoring with Barney, and Ned is the lead pit reporter, you know, and Eli's one of the turn guys. And you're on your way. Yeah.

You're basically, it took you that long to get to where you were like, oh man, I'm going to make a, this is going to be my life. Yeah. Yeah, I was full time in Daytona. I was,

I was committed. Was there anybody, was there anything in you that was still like, was, what was, was NASCAR like? Oh, NASCAR was it. That was, NASCAR was.

Because you had started, you know, your mind and your heart and your, your origins were in sports cars. Sports cars and then modified. And, you know, but no, this was full-time. NASCAR was the only full-time gig.

IndyCar didn't have enough races. Okay. NASCAR was it. It was the only radio network. You know, TV was only a few races. So MRN was, you know, that was kind of the top of the mountain. only did three races a year. That was it. Yeah. So CBS had the final four, as they do now. And as part of that contract, they have to do the final round of every, a whole lot of other

Division I sports, either live or on tape. So I did 14 different sports for CBS, you know, during that period. I find that really fascinating because when I first got my opportunity with NBC, they were like, we're going to send you here, we're going to send you there. And that was kind of a selling. point, which was exciting. Sure. But as I started doing the job, I realized, well, to do the NASCAR side well, I really need to know every single thing I can know about it, right? Just live, live, live it. And now that I, the more I absorb information-wise about the NASCAR stuff

so that I can be as good as possible in the booth, the more I realize how inadequate I feel when I go do these other things because I'm not as prepared. I'm not as knowledgeable. I know you can embrace that, you know, fish out of water, but you can only do that so many times. You can only, you can only go to your first Kentucky Derby once. But I get it. So I started Benny Parsons in radio, in TV. We were doing tape delay shows for some of the tracks that didn't want live TV because they were afraid they wouldn't get people in the grandstand. We were doing these shows for Miz Lu. And Benny goes, man, I don't know if I, I don't know if I can do this. He says, I, I can't be Barney Hall.

I can't be you. I can't be Ken Squire. I said, Benny, that already got me. All they want out of you is you be the best Benny Parsons you can be. And he went, well, I can do that. Perfect. And he made a career out of it. So you go into these new sports, and nobody is asking you to be an expert.

Nobody is asking you to know everybody and everything. But they know, the viewers know you. They want to see these sports through your eyes. What are your reactions? What are you enjoying? What looks odd to you? Even as the play-by-play guy, say like Lee Diffey, for example, does he'll, he's, I see this guy everywhere. Yeah.

How does he have the mental capacity, right, to not only do all the, all the, what I would call his full-time routine, but then be sent to a track and field meeting. Okay. Now, play-by-play is different, and Lee is great. Yeah. He is great. He has an excitement level that I could only dream of. it's on all the time and like when I would go do

lacrosse for CBS they call me up one day and they go what do you know about lacrosse? I said well it's this game that the Indians played in colonial time where they would run around a field beating the crap out of each other with sticks and every once in a while this ball would roll between

two posts for no apparent reason I was just just hamming it up with them and they go great you're going to Rutgers do the college lacrosse championship said okay I said give me the best thing about doing college sports is nobody has a long career. So you don't have to learn that much about a whole lot of players, okay, because college careers are short. You know, there's turnover. So give me a tape of the last three years telecast so I can learn the language and the flow and the info

and then give me a good analyst. And we'll do the show. So that's what you do. You become a generalist. And this is where that kind of key trait of being able to read something and remember it for three or four days, that's where that comes in. Because the study time you have is pretty short. What if you don't have that trait? No, then you make a really good analyst. That's really funny. That reminds me of something that I think you came back from your Talladega experience with Fox this year. And you came back sort of comparing yourself with Clint Boyer on how you guys prepared for a race. And I know that you get very, you know,

you take a lot of notes. Yeah, that's how I remember something is to write it. Perfect, perfect. And then Boyer thought that was insane. That's right. If I, and try it. If you write something down, you will remember it better and longer

than if someone tells it to you and you think about it. I'm almost ashamed to have like, we're all sitting together throughout the weekend, the tart and Jeff and them. and I'm almost ashamed to let them see my notes because it's really just the most obvious things, but I need to write it. That's right.

Because if I write it, it's there for a couple days instead of five hours, right? Hey, well, don't show it to them. You're doing it for you. You're not doing it for them. I'm not showing it to them, but we'll be side by side in a production meeting and I'm writing down these most mundane,

obvious things about the day, right? Everybody prepares differently. Larry Mack had the greatest quote about DW. He says, yeah, DW's preparation. He says he walks up. in the booth with his hard card and a smile. You know? Everybody does it differently.

If it works for you, perfect. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. Not to worry about. Not at all. I had conversations with Eli Gold for a while because, you know, I always was impressed the fact, again, MRN is just, they are heroes, anybody that's been in MRN,

because the way their cadence is and they just never seem to misstep, I don't know how they do it, but especially turn announcers, right? And so the fact that he was doing that going to Alabama football and back and I was interested just know how he prepared, right? How did he do it? And also in such a short window. And people forget Eli also came from hockey. Like he was doing hockey where good luck pronouncing all those names.

Right. And not messing that up. And so like his meticulous process was just intriguing to me. And then he said the same thing. You said, everybody does this differently. Yeah. Right. Everybody does it differently.

And some people have to, but the writing it down is an interesting point. I always thought that, yeah, I mean, I mean, remembering stuff in the moment, like you're having to remember stuff in the moment that may or may not even happen, that's going to be the challenge, right? But you guys do it effortlessly, it seems. My knowledge base, and I tell people this on Barrett Jackson, I said it might be two miles wide. It's only an inch deep. You know, you have to prepare for every eventuality. That 1998 race, we didn't prepare just on your dad.

We prepared on a lot of people we thought could win that race. and what it would take to do that and what it would mean, you know, but you got to be prepared. What are some of your, what you like to think back in some of your most memorable moments calling last laps or maybe at specific races? Do you have those in your mind that you think back too often? 79, of course. Right. You know, like we talked, the 76 Daytona 500. I did not work that race.

All right. I don't know how much of this story I can tell. I guess might as well tell all of it. Well, that's good for us. Yeah. They ran a modifides on Friday at Daytona. Now, remember, I was down there with Nesmer with the supermodified guys. I didn't have a pass.

A very good friend of mine who raced in the modified race had a pit pass for the weekend. So he went in the pits. We walked a long way down the chain link fence. He took his pass, stuck it through the fence. I walked to the gate, walked in, gave him back his pass. Heck yeah. Oh, we were good. I was right on pit road.

And I ended up as the race was winding down, standing right behind Leonard Wood. And those cars came off turn four, Richard and David, and we can't see him. All we can do is hear Ken Squire on the radio with that wonderful call of the last lap of the 76 Daytona 500.

You know? And I can recite it. I know it by heart. You know, I know a lot of people do. And the woods won because Pearson clutched it, kept the motor running, kept feathering the throttle, kept the motor running, crawled across the line. Benny Parsons was a lap down, Richard Second. Everybody in the pit, everybody just whooping it up, hollering it up, everybody all got up, started running toward Victory Lane. I just ran right with him.

I had my little camera. I'm in Victory Lane. I got pictures. I got, you know, all that stuff. To me, that was the coolest Daytona 500 ever. Yeah. You know, and I didn't even belong there, right? But they didn't stop you.

It led to something. You know, well, I was with the team. You know, I just ran in with everybody. That's right. Leonard and I still laughed about this to the day. I didn't know Leonard, but I knew they were in position to win the race, either them or the Petty's, and the Petty's already had a huge crowd around them. So that's just where I happen to be.

But broadcast moments, not, you know, I think the things I treasure out of this sport are more the friendships and the conversations. and I wanted to tell you about the last conversation I had with your dad. It was Wednesday of Speed Week in 2001, and he, Larry and I were walking down pit road, Larry McReynolds, and there's your dad, and we start talking to him. All he wanted to talk about was this, and how much fun he had had in the Rolex 24 hours racing with you. I mean, it was, we weren't talking to Dale the race driver.

We were talking to Dale, the dad, who had just had the most fun week ever and couldn't wait to do it again. He said, you know, when I get done with this NASCAR stuff, he says, maybe we'll go run Lamont. Maybe we'll go, you know, we'll do some more of this, road racing. He said, this was fun. And it was the most animated and the most fun and the most loose that I'd seen him in the last three years. Yeah. And I just thought, you know, man, this could be, this going to be a great year. I know that he had a great, I know that he had a great unique experience in the Corvette.

Yeah. And he wanted to run more. He wanted to race. Absolutely. Yeah, he wanted to race in the, he talked about racing in the 24 hours of, or the LaMalle race. And he actually that year, you know, or the next year. Yeah. I don't know if, I don't know if he'd plan in retirement or whatever, but.

And it was funny because that that made such a mark on me that, you know, my son's here, Scott's here, you know, and he's 23 now. And we built a couple of BMWs to go road racing, and now we got a historic Trans-Am car. And, I mean, that's all I think about is he and I get to go out and get on track together. I can't catch him. I can't keep up with him. Was he with you and what is the lemons that you did this year? Yeah, we thought he was.

Yeah, we run the Lemon Square. So talk about that because I've actually been interested in what that's all about. So tell me about your experience racing in the lemons. Okay. So the 24 hours of lemons is a race for, and this is right off their website, $500 crap cans. Your car can't cost more than $500. Somebody can buy it? You can buy one or you can build one, but you're not supposed to invest more than $500,

except for safety equipment. How do they... If they think your car is overbuilt, they penalize you laps. Okay. Subjective, I guess. Yeah, it's all very subjective. You know, that and penalties and stuff. So we have Brian Feren and Ken Adams, two guys that have historic Trans-Anboss Mustangs.

They built this car to fool around with. So it's a Ford Fairmont, and it's Turd-Brown. And every Lemon's car has to have a theme. So it's like Welcome to the Fairmont, like the big hotel in San Francisco, has the big thing on the door and stuff like that. When he says theme, he means, like, some of these are, they go big with their things. They really go big. And they kind of forget why they're there to race. Yes.

The great thing about a Fairmont is underneath a Fairmont is a fox body Mustang. Suspension, floor pan, everything. Same as a fox body mustache. So there's all kinds of speed parts available. So we've got a bunch of used ones and stuff and trying to stay within the limit, nod, nod, wink, wink. And we have a blast. We usually run Sonoma.

We run that, they call it the Ars-Freeza-Paloosa, the first weekend of December. So usually I'd go to the NASCAR banquet, go straight to Sonoma, you know, and get ready to jump in the car. So the way they run a 24 hours race is they run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. And then 10 a.m. to about 4 or 5 p.m. Sunday. Oh, that's fine. That's their idea. Oh, so they break it in half. Yeah.

So they break it up. Now, the way they start the race is really cool. Okay. At 10 minutes to 10 in the morning, they go, track's open. And everybody goes out on track and starts milling around, driving around. All right. And when the time's right, they wave the flag. Doesn't matter who's where.

They just wave the flag, start the race. So you could be leading, you can be almost a lap down. But that's democratic. That's very fair. Fair to everybody. And so how safe is it for someone curious to get involved? Okay. You have to run DOT tires.

So that limits corner speed. You know, 100. I think it's 100 treadwear tires. Where do you get the tires that you ran? Oh, shoot. I mean, just. Tire rack, mainly. To mainly, because they're street tires, but they're made to go racing on a street legal tire.

Gotcha. I think we run Toyos or, you know, Maxis or Zoom Flats or something. Do you run the whole race on one tire? Yeah, you can run the whole weekend on one set of tires if you don't hit any, you know, don't bang anything up. And it's, it's safe. The really good cars are the BMWs and the Porsches. But, I mean, there's, you know. There's $500 Porsche's up there.

I'm thinking the same thing. We've seen an AMC pacer out there. We saw a guy that put an El Camino, no, a Ranchero nose on a Porsche 944, you know, and there's cars with different engines that they came with. There's all kinds of crap out there, okay? There was a Volvo station wagon with a coffin sticking out of the back and a skeleton a hand sticking out of the coffin, you know, just crazy. But it's fun.

Come with us. When did you get in the car? First off, when it rains, I'm in the car. Oh, you're the rain guy. I'm the rain guy. I really enjoy racing in the rain, and I think it's because, at my advanced age, the G-loading in the corners,

you don't have the same kind of corner speed that you have in the dry, and I guess, I need Scott to weigh in here, but I guess I'm faster in the wet compared to the fast guys than I am in the dry compared to the fast guys. I had the same experience in the Corvette. The day totaled 24 hours. Okay.

When the rains came and there, I got a little more competitive. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm in it when it's wet. But otherwise, you know, we'll do an hour and a half stint or an hour stint between fuel loads. And we'll usually, we'll double stint him because he's the youngest guys. Right. The rest of us are all in our 60s or 70s.

So we'll double or triple stint him. Then we'll put him in the team car. And, you know, you get plenty of track time. Oh, wow. And it's fun. I'm sure it's fun. I've been so curious to try it. Oh, yeah.

We've got to get you. gin one. Now, there's another group called Chumpcar. They changed her name now to Champ Car, since IndyCar doesn't use that anymore, but they started as Chumpcar. Shrader and the Labonis would run VIR and Chumpcar in an old police crowned Victoria and just have a blast and stuff. I know Biffel did that as well one year. I actually won it, I think. Yeah, it's, I mean, there's pro drivers, there's, there's guys that don't even have a race license that do it. But Lemons is fun racing. Yeah, it looks like it. It's cool. You ever heard, you ever heard of this? Well, we heard it in research in lost speedways.

I think dirty money media should enter a car. Yeah, I'm all about it, actually. Will you drive for us? Will you be our driver? Let's go. Or, you know, I've got a rain driver at least now. You're driving. Yeah, you're driving too.

The mic and mics will do the driver. That's right. And Dale. Yeah, you got to hear of any other. We need to find another Dale. So now here, so that's right. So here's now, the coolest thing about it is when you're out there, okay, when you're out there and you come up on a car that you passed 40 minutes ago,

you don't know if that's the same. driver in that car. And if the guy is going to treat you the same way in that corner, or if the guy is going to run all over your nose or what, you just, you don't know who's out there. So you make contact there once in a wide range. Casual contact.

What did I do? But your car can withstand? Yeah, casual contact. We've never not finished a race due to contact. We once, last time we ran Sears Point, at the very top of turn seven, I had the throttle cable brake. Oh. Yeah.

And somehow I found a way to coast it and idle it. And I got back to the pits and we got a fixed and went on. If you don't get back to the pits, are you done? No, they pull you in. Okay. So they'll fix it. They have hot, what they call hot pulls. Yeah.

Is they'll pull you in while the race is going on. How many entries are there? Okay. You know, 125 hundred 50 cars. How awesome is this? Sure. Oh my gosh. And I'll start at one.

Yeah, everybody starts at once. Oh. You're thinking it. We're thinking the same thing. I've been dying to do this. We're going to do it. We've got to do this. Dirty Mo Media will build this in.

We've got to do it. Yeah. Are we going to row? Are we going to pull it on a trailer all the way to Sonoma? That'd be fun. No, no, no. They run them all over the country. Yeah, but I know that's the same.

We love Snow. We're a road trip. Kind of like the guys did in the 70s going out there to race the cup racing riverside. No reason why we would go. We'll probably pass about 10 different places that are doing the same thing just to get to. Yeah. But we want to go somewhere we know, right? Like Watkins or Sonoma or somewhere.

Yeah, that would be fun. Wackens got them long straightaway. I don't know. Especially like he used to just hate going to both of those road courses, you know, when he was full-time driving in the Cup Series. So did Dale. But, you know. He didn't like it either.

He hated road racing to start. I once asked Buddy Bake, we're at Riverside, California. I said, buddy, I said, how do you get through the S's? And he gave me this kind of screwed up look. He says, you mean that straight away that's half dirt on each side? Yeah, that one, yeah. And that's how NASCAR guys approached road racing. Dan Gurney beat those guys every year just by being smooth and staying on the racetrack.

I watched a replay of like, I think it was 87 or something. at Riverside and there was one part of the S's that dad continuously cut lap after lap for like a series. Not every single lap of the race, but there was like four laps in a row where there's this one and he just kept going through the dirt. There's the video that a lot of people have seen where he passes Bodine around the lap car and the dirt. He's like, okay, I'm just going to start going straight through here. That was a short way. Yeah.

And then he went to Bond around to Bill Cooper. Yes. Talk your dad, how to road race. It was amazing. I just talked to Skip Barber just before we were going to go up and do his vintage race lime rock Labor Day weekend. Bill Cooper is exactly the reason why I was able to compete with Ron Fellows in 1999 in the Xfinity Series race.

I would have never been competitive had it not been working with Bill Cooper at Bondarant. Exactly. You learn that science of road racing and it just opens up a whole different view of that kind of competition. Yeah, it makes it tolerable at least, at the least. Cool. Yeah. I don't know what else you want to get to.

I've got two things I'd love to ask my. How do you deal with critics of your TV broadcast? Great question. Whether it's on social, because you're active on social media. Sure. And tell me, everyone now seems to be a TV expert. Everybody's a TV expert. Well, if you own a TV, you're a TV expert.

You know how to turn it on and turn it off. Yeah. Okay. How do you deal with that? That's my question number one. The first thing, I have never, I'm on Twitter primarily. And because Fox made us get on Twitter, and it was all as a result of the jet dryer incident at Daytona, and the time the pavement was coming up in one and two,

all the drivers and their families and the teams all knew about it. We didn't know about it, but it was all on Twitter. There's a, bam, we got to get on here. And so everybody on Fox got on Twitter. And I have never blocked anybody on Twitter. Never. Because if I'm going to listen to the compliments, I also need to listen to the complaints. I want to hear what people are think. They're not always kind about it. Right. That's okay. You know, it's okay. But I want to know what people are thinking and

what we're doing, whether we're doing too much of something or too little of something, whether we're not explaining something well enough, or whether it's, you don't have to tell us every race that there's five lugnuts. Well, yeah, we don't tell them that anymore. Okay. There's only one. Yeah. So I appreciate the criticism,

but I need, I don't often respond to critics directly. sometimes get that little lighter out and flame them just a little bit and that's always fun but usually I've learned just okay

sometimes I'll type out a really heated response and I'll look at it for a few minutes and then I'll delete it you know it just I did the same thing okay I want to know what they're thinking but I need to keep it at arm's length Kyle Petty and I just had this conversation

just the other day about people people light Kyle up all the time and he goes right back after him at Twitter, and that's okay. That's his method of dealing with it. And I said, we do this telecast for an audience of one. At Fox, that was David Hill, who started Fox Sports.

It's now Eric Shanks, who's the head of Fox Sports. At NBC, it might be Sam Flood. I said, we do it for an audience of one, and as long as that one is happy with what we're doing, life is good. And Kyle agreed completely. You know, he says, oh, that's, you know, truer words, man. And so that's it. You want to do the broadcast for the fans.

All right. But your job, you don't report to NASCAR. You report to the network and to the person at the network that's in charge. They'll get input from NASCAR and from other people that probably would never call you directly and say, boy, I didn't like what you said. So it'll come through there and then it'll get to you. But it's okay. The criticism is fine. It's kind of like when a driver says, I don't care if they're cheering or booing as long as they're making noise.

I don't want to get up there and hear crickets. It's the same thing. People are passionate about this sport. I'm glad that they have strong opinions, and I'm glad it's fine if they don't agree with what I say, or Clint or Jeff or you or anybody. It's great that they have a great opinion about it. Now, the people that say,

all you talk about is Toyota. Well, no. All you talk about is Chevrolet. All you talk about is Hendrik. It's like, okay, it's like what I asked Bill Gazzaway, was NASCAR's long time ahead of competition. We're flying back from a race on the NASCAR plane. And Bill's having a drag on one of those Winstons

that he always seemed to have perpetually in his hand or in his lip. And I said, how do you know when you've got it just right? And you've got what Coach Richter described as the level playing field. And he took a long drag off that cigarette. And he blew a smoke ring and he said, when everybody's bitching just a little. That's when you got it right. Wow, that's good.

So that's okay. Yeah, that's interesting. Thank you for answering that. My second question would be, and it could be for both of you guys. I'm curious. You guys aren't the executives that are making these decisions, but your TV minds, your TV people. How does the television rights negotiations, especially as you get into the years leading up to them, how does that affect? There's two things that you cannot pay any attention to and do this job well.

One is ratings Okay And the other is rights negotiations So you channel it out It doesn't have anything to do with us Right Okay Glenn Jarrett's one of my best friends

Okay Ned's son Dale Jarrett's older brother And when Glenn started in television After his career in the Bush series As NASCAR's chief wall tester For many years I thought that was an obvious joke I guess it wasn't

All right No Glenn's one of my best friends And I said Here is the circle of television, you do the show, the check arrives, and it cashes. They call you to do the next show. As long as that circle remains unbroken, you've got a career. But that's the key, though, that you would agree that it's natural that people start concerned about their jobs and getting that check. And if the television rights negotiations alter that or affect that, which they would,

especially if, you know, if it went to a different network. No, it's simple. long as Fox has the races, I have this seat. It's an honor and a privilege, and I love what I do, and I want to do it as long as they will let me. If has happened when CBS lost the rights to Fox, if Fox loses the rights to somebody else, hello, Sandy Montag, my longtime agent, and one of the starters of SRX, he's one of the owners of SRX,

Sandy, you better call whoever has the rights, and let's see if we can get in with them. I can't worry about that. All I can do is the best job that I can do and hope that whoever has the rights would like me to continue to do it. That's all. That's all you can do. I guess that's fair enough.

Do you have a different opinion? Or do you have an opinion on this? Yeah, I mean, I'm absolutely concerned about what it's going to happen and, you know, everything. I like it. I like the way everything is, right? Got used to doing things the way we're doing it. I'll talk to you later.

I'll talk to you off camera about that. But yeah. Yeah. And so I think for me, I'm nervous. And it is, you know, it's out there, you know, the change or the thing or whatever happens. I mean, just like, I'm absolutely the same way about the next charter deal with the NASCAR, right? What is going to happen? All right.

So here's the TV deal. Let me, here's the simple thing. When the rights negotiations are over, I guarantee you, you will. will be the first person hired by whoever gets the TV deal. And that's not blowing smoke. What makes you say that? You're the straw that stirs the drink. That's a Reggie Jackson line.

Is it? Yeah. You have so little to worry about. Don't even worry about worrying about it. Well, I know, but I mean, I like who I work with and I like, you know. And all that's great. All that's great. It's like David Hill hired Daryl Walter.

Daryl was right out of the car and wanted to do TV and built a team around him. Yeah. I said, you don't even worry about it. All right. You start worrying about it. You call me. I'll talk you out of it. I absolutely agree with you that worrying about it does you no good.

That's right. It does hurt you when you're in the, you're trying to, you know, do the job on Sunday. Exactly. Just do the best job you can. It's anything that's distraction. Yeah, I think that you also said it a little bit here, and I'll just be very literal. Who he is working with mattered so much in where you went, who you, you know, and that you were even going to get into broadcasting. like I don't know that you would have ever gone to NBC with Steve LaTart not being there

I just my personal opinion I don't know you you paid a different Steve LaTart being there was a matter so like I think that was a big hill it was a big cool thing your concern isn't just for yourself in fact it's probably more so for the team than it would be just you so I think that's fair what is all what is there what is there to do for you that what's left what have you not done I mean you know is there anything that is out there I would like to pass my son on the racetrack legitimately. Just, damn it, just once.

Just so, you know, when he was asking the question, your son was grinning ear to ear the whole time. So he knew, he knows. Yeah. But in the broadcast. I'm okay being one of the old slow guys out there, but I don't want to be the oldest, slowest guy out. In your profession.

Well, let's talk about that. Like, you have driving, a lot of people don't know this. You're a race car driver. This is 1973. that's my first race car. Oh, look at this. We built a car for EMSA for the Radio Challenge series. Perfect.

A buddy of mine built it. We put the roll cage in it, and it's a capri, Mercury Capri, 2-liter Capri, for the RS series, second year of the series, that's at Lime Rock. We ran out a roll-cage tubing. Outside of this rented garage, there had been a dog-run, a kennel with dog-run and cages. Yeah. And some of the tubing ended up in a little. car, you know, just, I don't know how that happened.

You ran in the 24 hours of Daytona? No, not with this. No, I did eventually, yeah. With this, we ran the radio channel. What car did you run the Daytona? Paterson, the radio guy, put this together for us to run the 24 hours with Jeff Purvis and Jeff Swindell and Squeak Kennedy out of Daytona Beach who had a 93, a GTO class Camaro. In 1993? Yep.

And Purvis brought a run pitman motor from Finch to put in the car. And we were doing great. We had a fifth driver, I won't name, who was a rental driver to buy tires. And about 5 a.m., he turned Runt's beautiful aluminum of cylinder heads into aluminum whiz. And we were done. And I had put a camera in the car, and we have video of him missing shifts. It was painful. And we were done.

But we had such a blast. Yeah. But I mean, so for everyone listening, you had some legitimate racing experience. Yeah, I raced. I race sports. CCA came out with a class that Dorsey Shrader helped them initiate called Speck Racer.

And that's my car that I ran through all of the 90s. So the spec racers on iRacing as well. Yeah. Yeah, it was one of the first cars they put on iRacing. So Vivalian sponsored us. That was the car. Looks like you're about to have an accident right here. I don't know.

There's another car going the wrong way. Oh, well, hopefully that's him, not me. Right. Or I wouldn't have chosen that picture, right? But yeah, that was the car that I ran the most. We'd run 14, 15 times a year. We'd tow all over the country and running that. Great fun.

Maybe not today, but when you were a, you know, when you're a broadcaster, having any seat time behind the wheel had to have been quite a benefit. Oh, it was awesome. Like for other play-by-play guys who have never drove a race car, right? I really think that gave me an edge over a lot of people. Not because it made me an expert, but it allowed. me to ask much better questions. Oh, yeah.

About what was going on on the racetrack and what was happening or, you know, what was happening in the seat. Yeah. So I loved, loved, and I loved the spec racer because I wasn't racing against somebody's engineering staff, against somebody's $20 million shop, you know, or the CNC machine in the garage behind their house. Everybody had the same stuff. It was, it was a driver's class.

And that's why it was so much fun. We'd had, I remember. going to the June sprints and I qualified, I don't know, a second or two off the pole and I was 30th, you know, in a 40-some car field. So it was a blast. And I love doing it. Love the chance to run Daytona in the 24 hours. Realized I really wasn't good enough to be doing that, but boy, it was fun. And now we, you know, vintage racing is great fun because it's, it's the cars that are still as fast as we remember them being. We're just older and slower. So it's okay. Would you say that running the Daytona 24-hour race was the biggest race that you ran?

Oh, absolutely. Would you say that you had some serious anxiety and nerves before, you know, as you're getting ready to climb into the car to do your first stint? Yeah, but I couldn't tell was I more nervous or was I more excited? Yeah. You know, I mean, those emotions are very similar. Yeah. So you just combine the two of them and have all the fun you can.

Yeah. And we did. Well, what an approach. That's the approach to life. I mean, everything he does is we just got to listen to it and apply. it. The terrifying emotion always was overriding for me. Well, you know, though, the most nervous that I've ever experienced him,

I've been with Dale since 2004, it was just a week or so ago when he was asked to do play-by-play at New Hampshire, by the way. Which I've done it before, but I don't know why I was so nervous for this particular one. Well, you get nervous, though, anytime. I mean, listen, being asked to be a play-by-play person, that is like doing an entirely different job. It was terrifying.

When he came up to do that Bush class, with us. He walked in the booth and I could see the deer in the headlights. I was like, what am I getting myself into? And I wouldn't play to that. I would not play to that. I just all right, here's what we're doing. Here's where you sit. Here's what we do. Here's what button to push.

And you have a thought. Say it. Yeah. And throw you in and that was it. And don't let the emotion or the nervousness overcome the excitement. and what you're trying to do.

It's kind of like I got a new favorite. Most of my favorite sayings are Mark Twain, but Clint Eastwood said something in an interview a couple years ago. They said, what is your secret to longevity and success? He says, I get up, I wake up every morning, I get up out of bed, and I don't let the old man in. And it's the same thing going to the booth. You get up there and you walk in the door

and you don't let that nervous guy in with you. Yeah. You know? Yeah. You have fun with it. Not be worried about it or nervous about it. Yeah. Man, it's so easy.

It's easy to like get overcome with nerves, but it's also just as easy to just go in there and enjoy it and be genuine about it. And then it's everything you hoped it would be. It's the greatest job in the world. It is fun. You know, especially since it doesn't feel the least bit like work. Yeah, it doesn't. It's fun.

Why do they ask you to do that, though? The play-by-play? Yeah, what caused that? I asked for it. Oh, you did? Yeah. Well, you got what you got? And I'm proud of you for that because you're trying to stretch your wings and stretch yourself.

And I think one of the things that helped make me an effective play-by-play person was that I had spent so many years in the pits for CBS that I knew what those reporters were thinking and what they were prepared to do. and somebody says, hey, let's get down to the pits. I don't spend a whole lot of time getting there. It's just like Jamie, you know, or Regan, you know, because they're ready. I mean, they're locked and loaded and ready. They've been selling that story for the last two or three minutes trying to get it on the air. Good, let's hear it. Maybe it'll take us in a different direction, that kind of thing.

So the more different things you expose yourself to, do a race in the pits. Have some fun doing that, you know. You'll be much better, you know, you'll be well-rounded and understand the challenge. of each of the other people you're working with. That's cool. You can't know what it's like to be down in the garage trying to do a practice until you get down there and put the pack on and have to go up to those drivers and try to engage them in a moment

when they're trying to do a job. And it does make you appreciate your pit reporters a lot more. And when I went into play-by-play, so the toughest part for me, and this is, I doubt you had any trouble since you've, really grew into this, been doing this your whole life, but the language, there's an entire language in the production truck. There's like shorthand, there's all kinds of different names for things that make no sense. And there's no, there's nobody that's going to go,

oh, we got a new guy. So today, SOT, which is sound on tape, well, that, that's basically, we're going to play a little video, okay? We're going to play a little video. Nobody talk. They're not going to do that. I do remember in the Bush clash, I remember I'd see the quizzical look. Oh, my gosh. And we'd go to commercial, and then I'd explain those things in commercial, you know, in commercial. So that you were on the same page as we were. Well, it would have been so helpful.

There's a whole new language that you have to learn. And it took a while because nobody's going to explain it to you. You've got to ask, hey, what does Elvis mean? What does this mean? What does the SOT mean? And so what sound on tape to a shut up, what does that even mean? And so, and each producer, has their own way of saying these things in shorthand.

And so going and doing play-by-play allowed me to really kind of understand exactly what Rick's job is. In turn, in turn, especially this, you know, this year, I'm seeing it is actually making people appreciate Rick and how hard his job is. People think that you just walk in and just start going and it just comes out and it just happens, right? Like a show, the play-to-play, the analyst, they're like, well, why did y'all screw that up? that's so easy. It's not easy. It's, it's very, it's very challenging. Rick's so good at it. He makes it,

you know, you as well. Y'all make it so easy. But I think it makes people appreciate, you know, just how good Rick is, because when you put somebody else in there, you see a mark of difference, you know, in the quality of the show. The hardest thing for me is even to this day, all right, there's a crash happening out in turn number three, and you're looking way off in the distance. Because we watch the monitor about a half to a third of the time and watch the track most of the time to develop the flow of the race and who's where. And you see cars crash and go, well, yeah, you know, I think that's the 31 car. Meanwhile, all the people at home are seeing the close-up shot of, no, it's not at the 81 car. And you idiot.

So the hardest thing is to turn your focus away from the racetrack and down to the TV monitor when something big happens. so that you're seeing what people are seeing at home. That's hard for a play-by-play or for an analyst because you're used to looking at the cars out on the track, not on the monitor. And then I'll go back and watch the tape and I want other people do this. Oh, man, how did we screw that up? Well, it's because you're not watching the monitor. You're watching the racetrack.

People don't, they don't excuse that. Is there anything out there that you haven't done that you wish you would have done? Yeah, you asked me that 20 minutes ago, and here we are. I just want to know, like, is there something in the broadcasting media field that you still have on your list? The one thing I had for a long time was I wanted to do Major League Baseball, because I grew up a baseball fan. I was a Yankees and a Cubs fan, and, you know, those were my heroes growing up before I really got into auto racing. And Fox sent me to Tampa Bay to do a game between the Twins and the Rays. And the Rays had always been the last place team in the division.

and they were, you know, garbage, bottom feeders. And they won their way into the playoffs. That day clinched a spot in the playoffs. This was 2008. Amazing, correct. Recent. Yeah. I feel like it's recent.

Yeah. And that was really exciting. Yeah, it was recent years ago. So that was, but, you know, when you're a kid and baseball is all you think about and baseball cards, you know, instead of playing with toy cars. You got to do that one major league baseball game? Got to do that one major league baseball game. That's it.

Yeah. Well, and I, and I, and I, appreciate that because Fox, CBS, the networks, they have experts in each sport doing play-by-play. If that had not been the case, I never would have got a chance to do auto racing at the network level. If it was always Chris Schenkel and Jim McKay and Bill Fleming and just the regular guys of Vince Culley, they had Ken Squire, who was an expert. They got me who was an expert, or Dave to Spain, or whoever. So I appreciate that the slots in these other sports, and I got to do college football. for CBS. That was great. But you want people who are immersed in those sports to be doing them,

not somebody who comes in from the racetrack to do one game. So it was fun to do. We'd love to have done it again, but things didn't go that way. That's okay. You got to check that box. You're like the moonlight gram of baseball. Yeah. There you go. Is there a race that you haven't done that you'd love to do? The Indy 500, you know, greatest spectacle in racing. 24 hours of LeMont. You know, we did the Rolex at Daytona a number of times for TV, many, many times, but, you know, Lamont and Indy were always big. But you know what? I get to do the Daytona 500 every year and broadcast that every year. And I've been part of the live broadcast at Daytona for either radio or TV since 1977.

And that's a run that, you know, I don't think anybody's ever going to eclipse that. So I'm real proud of that. give that up for for anything else in broadcasting no really so i brought you present okay um this is cool sylvia wilkinson uh is probably best known as uh john morton's better have racer john morton yeah and in 1982 she's self-financed going out and doing the interviews that are in this book um the book company didn't pay her to go she had to pay her own way and you know get a press pass and interview people but what this is that is the book This book is, it's called Dirt Tracks to Glory, and it's a lot about the early days of the sport.

But it's also interviews with the people in the sport, and it becomes kind of a, where were you in 82? When the sport was really taken off and really starting to get big. And the book has been out of print for a long, long time, just got re-released. She has signed this copy to you, and I have to, and it's kind of a thank you for a favor you did for me. I said, what do you get the guy who has everything? I said, well, how about knowledge? How about something he doesn't have? There are just some cool.

The book is available now, and I should have bookmarked a couple pages to show you. I learned a lot reading this. Can't find the stupid page I want to show you. TikTok, time is fleeting. Anyway, but we were going to, oh, there it is. This is 1966. This is Wendell Scott in a Trans Am Mustang at VIR. They had got Wendell a ride in the Trans Am series to help sell tickets.

They're at VIR. And it's just so cool photos. But we started this deal talking about rivalries, you know, and we got a good one building right now. But this is 1982, and I'll get my cheaters out here, Richard Petty in 1982. Well, me and Bobby Allison whooped one another in races from time to time, but I swear I never hit his car until he hit me first. You can bend fenders in stock car racing without hurting one another. He says, I'm no sane. I never pretended to be a bunch of times I've come up behind somebody.

I've lap 10 or 15 times and deliberately tapped him or maybe run him down off the track because he didn't belong out there. Bobby Allison says, I don't think it was supposed to be tap, tap, tap, tap. It was more like colunk. After that, I didn't hesitate to colunk Richard when the opportunity arose. That was the greatest rivalry in racing, Petty and Allison. I remember in Rockingham going to a restaurant, I think it was the Lobster there in Rockingham. And Richard's team was in there having dinner.

Bobby's team walked in, saw Richard's team walk out. They weren't going to be in the same restaurant together. They didn't want to be in the same town together. That was speuding. But Dirt Tracks of Gloria, Sylvia Wilkinson's book is awesome. And I know you're going to enjoy it. We just had Mike Joy read us a book. The voice of Mike Joy just read us a story.

That right there. Hey, you want to read him some Buster? Buster's trip to Victor Lain. This is my daughter, so I can't give this to you, but I can't get you. I can't get you one. Buster's trip to Victor Lane, our child, a children's book that me and my wife been a part of creating. Buster was dad's nickname when he was a little boy. I didn't know that.

Yeah, I didn't either till just recently. That's cool. And this car might remind you of Robert G's dirt car from the 70s. There's a lot of little nuggets in there, but Buster goes to, well, Buster goes to help a teammate go to Victor Lane. Oh, that's awesome. But yeah, we have a lot of fun with that. That's coming out soon. Cool.

But thank you for the book. I love, I got a library in my house full of all types. I mean, people ask me all the time about, or they put me and you in the same sentence in terms of being historians. Of course, I tell everybody that I'm not even close to you. Sure, you are. But I have a library that this will have a home in that I think you really appreciate. Awesome. You'll enjoy reading that.

I will. And we enjoyed hearing from you today. I want to thank you for coming and spending some time with. You know, we talk about your heroes, my heroes, Barney Hall, Ken, Benny Parsons, yours is as much a role player and a key cog in the wheel as those guys were in this sport. And your impact in this sport will be celebrated and long-lasting. You've helped tell the story to millions and millions of people about all the things that have happened in this sport for so long and you continue to do that. People love you.

People, you have been one of our most requested guests. We talk about paying attention to people and what they're saying and good constructive criticism. Get you on the show is one of those things that we hear all the time. We're so thankful to have the opportunity to talk to you. You're such an amazing storyteller. We enjoy listening to everything you have to say and we can sit here for hours. So thank you so much. I enjoy the the moments that I've had to be able to stand in the booth with you. It's been an honor each time that I've been able to do it. We'll love a future opportunity down the road to do that again. We will. Don't worry. I hope so. Yeah, me too. So always fun to have you around and talk to you and listen

to you and wishing you the best and hope to either be teammates or competing with you at a future Lemons race. We want it. Yeah, we want to do this. We were definitely going to find a way. fake and I think we need a combination of younger guys and older guys and and pros and amateurs and and because that's how you have the most fun I've always wanted to do it you are the catalyst let's go thank you Mike Joy on the Dale Jr. download we're live we're live we're doing we're doing we're doing it live we're doing it's so comfortable all right so we're live yes we are All right, good. All right, guys, it's finally time for the best part of the show.

And it's the Ask Junior part. It's brought to you by Xfinity. Excited to have Xfinity supporting this part of the podcast. They do a lot for the sport. I mean, everything that they've ever done, we're just so thankful for. But supporting our podcast and everything we do here at Dremo Media, we're glad to have them. And you guys have sent a lot of questions to them throughout the year and this week

for the Asked Junior segment. You've been sending them to Xfinity Racing on Twitter, and we're going to get right to it. Yes, so the first one is from CWC Media. Dale, how much easier would it have been at Daytona and Talladega with that rearview camera and not having just to count on T.J's guidance? I think that review camera would have got me in trouble, man. But, you know, it just, I had never really, you know, I used one a little bit at the test in Daytona, but didn't have cars around me really too much.

but we're watching we were doing our practice TV show and we were talking about that camera in Chris Busher's car and then got to talking about it in the race a little bit and once we got to see a car kind of around you, behind you,

and what that really looks like in the camera and he's driving and the camera's right here so I mean he's kind of looking out out this side of the car to go around the corner or looking around the racetrack and so you can just kind of look down look, it's all right there. You got, you got all this information.

And literally, we know how Dirty Air plays a huge role. Basically, if you're a lead car and you want to make it harder for the guy to pass you, you know, and he's four or five car links back and he's closing, right? Over time, he's getting closer and closer. He's ran you down from 10 car links, 20 car links, whatever. Well, if you see him in that little mirror, man, you just run where he's, He runs in the corner. You just watch him go into the corner and you just kind of fade up the track or down the track in his way.

And you're taking away his down force. You're taking away his grip. You're taking away his ability to get any closer to you. And so while we're watching this technology and this driver use it, my first thought was, wow, this is a cool mirror. Man, it's so clear. And you can see so much. that's awesome and then I thought no no I hate it you can block and you can you can see too much

and now you can use it as a way to not allow somebody to pass you and now passing has gotten harder no oh man it was such a swing of emotion from like this is really cool check it out we're going to draw I got the Telestrator I'm going to draw look here look here viewers a Telestrade I was doing it I was the one draw on I'm like look here viewers there it is, man.

Look how cool that thing is. And then five seconds later, I was like, wait a minute, I hate this. Now you can block more. You can make it harder to pass. You know, it's, I'm not sure I love it anymore. Man, I really was excited about it. And I thought, okay, technology moving forward and all those things. But man, it's too good.

So at Dayton and Talladega. Too good. Dang, man, you just, you don't, hey, I mean, you might need to tell T. T.J. that just to hush for a minute. I got it, right? Oh, man, I'm good. I got this perfect mirror right here is telling me everything. Maybe you just tell T.J. to hush, even if you don't have to do it.

What happens when you're watching the mirror and the spotter's not right? Or you're watching the mirror and you're like, wait, the spotter's been telling me that all this time and it's not exactly the way it is. Right? Oh, man. They've been saying they're at my door, my bumper this whole time. He wasn't at my door. I was clear. Yeah.

I don't know. Hey, listen. Now they will, yeah. Blindfold them, I always say. Yeah. Blindfold them, guys. I don't make the race a good. I don't think that mirror is anybody's best friend.

I don't think it is. And aside from the guy driving the car, if he likes it and he's using it and he's helping him, you know, throw blocks or take, take the air off of guys behind him and block and run wherever, you know, run wherever they're running. That, that's the only guy that likes it. I think it promotes less passing, the ability to. because man that the old mirror with this car the new car it was pretty hard to see out of the old car really hard to see out of the because there's all kinds of things going on in the back of this car now and the slits in the back glass distort the hell out of what you're seeing through the old through the mirror that's mounted the traditional mirror it it distorts it everything in the back when you look out the back glass through that mirror everything is is shifted this way and those little slats really skew everything And it's impossible to, like, tell where a guy is on your right rear or whether a guy's on your left side without looking at this little A-post mirror, right?

Now you've got a digital camera that's clear as day, and it's the whole, it's like a backup camera on a car, man. I mean, I tell Amy, I'm like, you could trust the hell out of this thing. You can back this thing in anywhere. You don't have to even look. Just look at the camera. You don't have to look outside the vehicle at all. Next question's from...

He's like, you're getting ready to get yourself into trouble. I was like, why? I mean, like, what is the one? An aggressive opinion about mirrors. Damn those mirrors. Was the question even about mirrors? First of all.

Is there ever a better example of like old man syndrome than somebody that's disin technology because it allows too much visibility? All right. Well, if they want some old man syndrome, just listen to dirty air. There's plenty of them there. Yeah, dirty air will have it.

I just thought of a point I wish I'd have brought up in dirty year, but let's not regress. Keep going. From mirrors to North Wilkesboro. As you do. North Wilkesboro returns to racing next week. I know Dale you're racing August 31st, but will you be there for any of the twin 50 lap tour modify races? And what excites you about next week overall? Yeah, I am going to go to the modified races. So North Wiltsboro, for those of you have been out of the loop, out of the country. North Willsboro is back.

They are racing this month of August. The first race, as you mentioned, is the Modifieds on the second. There's a 50 lapper on the second and a 50 lapper on the third. I will be going to the second and probably going to the third as well, but I'm not going to miss the first one for sure. So get your tickets. Hey, I believe they're 20 bucks. The tickets?

A general mission ticket. As far as I know, it's only $20,000. Hold on. You know this past week, you said you had to go back and say you've been giving bad information. So are we sure? Hey, let's go check it out. So go to North Wiltsboro Speedway.com, Matthew. It's north Wilkesboro Speedway.com.

And you can get your tickets there. If the general mission ticket is 20 bucks, and for some reason you can't make it there, right, you can get it on pay-per-view. Racing America will be offering this on paperview for any day. It's 2499. 2499 a day. That's right on Racingamerica.com. All right.

So you get you an event ticket or a pay-per-view on Racing America, and that's directly supporting North Wiltsboro and the revival efforts there. So they're going to have asphalt racing the entire month of August. They'll be the modifies next week, Tuesday and Wednesday. They got pro-late models, super late models, all kinds of racing going on on each weekend of this month, and then the 31st I'm going to be racing in the Cars Tour Race. So North Wilkesboro Speedway.com. Matthew, did you figure out how much ticket costs?

Yeah, actually, it's Cheaperdale. Oh, my gosh. You could buy a season pass, which is cool for all the asphalt events, which is pretty cool. That's a real good deal. But the general admission one. How much is that? $75 to $100 for all the events. That's insane.

I'll probably just do that. Yeah. Because that's way easier. Even if you don't go to all of them. Yeah, it's still pays for itself. You're trying to support the Speedway, so that's a good idea. The touring modified, actually, there's crate mods and many stocks also, is $15 a day. That's incredible, dude.

$15 a day to go to North Westboro. On one day, you can go to both, if you want, that's $30. There's, what of the series are there? Oh, it's a Carolina, crate mods, which is the 602 crate modifies. Smaller tire, different engine. And the mini-stocks, which are huge in this area. Three series will race on the second and the third.

I think each weekend and every race package, even when the late-mile stocks are there on the 31st, there's a limited stock series as well. And that's midweek shows for people listening. Yeah. So they'll be, yeah. So if you can come, if you can't come on Wednesday, go buy a ticket to one of the weekend shows this month in August. but if you can come

Come on out there, man. Got to see racing at North Willsborough. I want to say this. So this is probably not what they want me to say, but we don't know if this track has a future. There's no guarantees, right? You could be coming to the last race

or the last opportunity to see a race. This could be it. We don't know. There's no guarantees. We hope that everybody comes out It's supported. The interest continues and the revitalization and the repaving and the rebuilding and all that in 2020. It's planned happens.

We want that to happen. But you've got to come out and support it for that to actually be put into motion. Also, lastly, in October, so as soon as we're done racing in August, they're going to dig up the surface. They're going to turn North Westboro into a dirt track. They're not putting dirt on the track. They're digging up the old, as well. They're going back down to the original dirt that they raced on in you know 60 70 years ago when this track was built and

There'll be an entire month of October full of dirt racing I'm more excited about that And what I mean is I'm more excited to put them up see that like I've dirt The whole track is gonna be a dirt track. I cannot wait to just hell I mean aside from actually seeing a race I just want to walk up there on a at the interest gate and look at it and go, holy hell, they really did it. Yeah. It's dirt.

That is going to be something to see. Yeah. And then to put cars out there and watch them race, I am not missing that. I'm really excited. I mean, I'm obviously excited to race myself. I'm looking forward to going to the mods next week, but dang, the dirt racing stuff is, I can't believe that's really going to happen. I want to echo one thing that he said, and that is that, you know, going and buying a ticket

is supporting the race. Listen, there's some of you that proximity alone is. is going to prevent you from being able to go to the race. I want you to know that even doing the pay-per-view stuff is directly supporting North Wilkesboro Speedways revival efforts. Racingamerica.com, they are working directly with the track. The streaming partner is to make sure that you guys have access to watch this race. So, yeah, they even want you in those grandstands, by the way.

They want people there, but if you cannot be there, you are still supporting the track by doing the pay-per-view. Last thing I'll say about that before we move on is the racing starts around 6, 7 o'clock at night. So these are night races. it'll be lit that tracks never had lights never be never had night racing so it'll be an awesome opportunity to go out there and watch north willisboro under the lights as well so we won't all be sitting in the hot sun in the middle of the afternoon hopefully it'll be a little more comfortable in the evening when we start racing awesome next question's from jason born not that jason born

wow how do we know we don't know that i'm just going to assume it's him yeah how much fun is victory lane with noah his celebrations always seem to be awesome so that Yeah, it is pretty fun. He's, I was on top of the pit box during the peacock pit box during the end of the race. And so he comes down front straightaway. They tape a flag, American flag to the windshield. He does a burnout. He gets out, climbs the fence, throws up.

Twice. He threw up at the fence, and then he threw up again right before the interview. He could tell him, you could see he was stalling because he was not done. And then he drank any shotgun of beer. A shotgun, a bud light cherry or whatever that is. What is that red one? It's a bud light selters. A light apple or whatever it is.

I don't know. It's the can that's got the red flannel. I don't even know. Maybe it's just a bush light. Maybe it's just straight up bushlight. Bush latte. Yeah. So anyhow, he shotguns it, right?

And I know he likes white claws and all those things. I see him in Victor Lane. I'm like, I got this cool picture of me and Justin Algar at New Hampshire drinking a beer mid-chug. And I said, man, we're going to take that same picture. And he goes, I don't like beer. I don't like beer. I don't like beer, man. And I'm like, just hold the damn thing.

Don't even have to drink it. Just act like you're drinking it. Shoot. Take this picture. And Junior Motorsports made a quick little reel about that. That's right. But I was like, wait, I just saw it. you shotgunning a beer on the front straight away now i know you don't i know you drink a beer you'll drink

a beer for show yeah right yeah we're drinking this beer i got my picture but uh he's a little more he's a little more calm in the physical victory lane i think you know when he gets i and i was the same way like you get out there you just get out of the car you are not ready for what your body does when you get out of the car and your adrenaline goes from like here to hear. I mean, you're still high, but it drops in such a significant amount in such a very short period of time. You get, you get, like, you're talking so fast in your interview. You're like a hundred mile an hour about everything going on and you're not breathing. And you just held your breath, you held your breath for the last two laps, at least. I know he held his breath

for the last couple of laps. You believe it or not, you can do that. And I used to hold my breath in qualifying. I held my breath at the end of the races and you get out and you're like, you almost pass out. I never got to where I was vomiting or nauseous, but I don't know how some of them guys get out and don't have a more visual reaction, but like no idea. But the one thing, I guess, what I want to say is we need more of that.

Guys is a hell of a personality. You might not like it. You might not like him, but you want that in your sport. You want guys with different personalities and that are all over the map, right? You want variety in terms of what you're getting ready to see when somebody goes out on the racetrack and does a job and then when they celebrate a win or whatever, right?

You don't want them all acting the same. And we've had a lot of guys sort of right in the same vein for a long, long time, right? So it's good to see some of these younger guys with some personality coming in. Our last question is from Brian Campbell. Do you collect die cast cars? And if so, what are some of your favorites? Pretty much. I think we just took them all out of your house and put them in here, didn't we?

Do we collect die-cats car? I've got two towers in my house. I got my first tower a couple years ago. So a tower basically is this thing that spins, and it has cars on all four sides, and just open this little glass thing and stick them in there. I got one tower that's all my dad, and the majority are 80 or 90% of them are customs.

And I got a lot of his novas and stuff from the 70s that he raised, to asphalt novas. There's this guy that I've been become friends with that builds these for me and he sells some stuff on eBay as well. So I got a lot of

great customs, die casts. A couple models, couple plastic builds in there as well. But it's always the custom stuff. I really enjoy all the custom jobs. Some of the other stuff that I like are the prototypes

which you'll usually have like a white, there's one right here that had a little white, white sticker on the windshield. That's kind of like the prototype that comes through the office to get the approval. And then once it's approved, they go into production. And so that's one like the very first ones getting made. Those are always cool. Mike's got one in front of him. Yeah.

You've got the prototype of that 77. So that little white piece of sticker on the front. Anyhow, we do collect them. I used to not collect them. You used to not collect DICAS at all. I had a Matt Kansas Dicast from his rookie year in the Cup series. He gave me one, and I just held on to it and a couple others. But here in the last four years, five years, man, I have dove in to the Dicast collecting.

And it's always usually that custom stuff out there that's hard to find. Somebody spent some time in making. Nice job. Remind everybody that's watching this. We, you know, subscribe to our YouTube channel if you haven't already. You might have found this on a Twitter link or something. something else but yeah subscribe because we're going to be putting a lot more content out xxfinity x5 great partner of ours we're so thankful for them they build uh they got a great service

and a great product fast internet you can do everything you want to do at your home i got so many uh i actually did did i had some fun last week i got on my um router and looked at everything that was connected to it and i was going to try to do my best to hardwire more stuff to the router instead of having everything over the air through Wi-Fi. And that was a fun little challenge, some dad-j-s that I did. Well, anyways, I have the service and I enjoy it, and I dive right into it, man. It gives me all that flexibility, and there's some great, the user interface and everything on the app and everything else across the website to be able to adjust and control whatever you want. Is there always there?

Good stuff. Yeah. Listen. I'll come over to your house, Mike, fix your internet. Dude, I can use some help. Yeah. I know why you don't have accent. He probably doesn't have.

No, listen, if I have tech questions, I call it down. He probably needs things cleaned up a little bit, I'm sure. Probably. Listen, if you want the Wi-Fi coverage that delivers the speed your devices need, send your, I'm sorry, I'm jumping ahead. I've butchered this one. So your crew can stay in the fast lane on race day, get Xfinity X-5. Remember everyone to send your ask junior questions to Xfinity Racing on Twitter.

Also, yeah, subscribe to our YouTube page. All right, everybody. Thank you, Exfinity. We appreciate you. Hopefully, y'all are checking into, if you're not an Xfinity customer, checking into what they provide. Switching over. Come to join us.

All right, Mike. So, great show. Mike Joy was awesome. Awesome to learn about his history. It was different. I didn't know. I thought his, to learn his introduction to motorsports, it was different than I expected. The sports cars and wasn't really getting into the,

into the joluppies or the oval racing and all that, and it kind of something he had to acquire a taste for. Right. I enjoy just being around Mike Joy. It's a voice that we've almost, you know, we've grown up with, right? And to have him in the room was an honor, and I'm glad we had him. Well, it's fun to talk to him. Enjoy the conversation with you, even though we don't agree.

It's really not the first time we've disagreed. Not even this week. Nope. And not the first time that we've argued. Not even this week. and so anyhow it'll be fun to hear people's debate and I'm sure that you'll be disappointed with their reactions

as usual me yeah because you feel like that you know just because it's me oh yeah but I'm right on that yes you are you feel like just because it's me that everybody just goes along with what I say

and that everybody jumps on your ass listen that is true and yet I'm fine with it because I don't listen this is no disrespect to people on Twitter. If you're going to just, you know, jump in wherever Dale says, sort of like Matthew did, then that's okay. I know where you're, I know where you're staying.

I know, I need to say that I admire your willingness to, to be studious in your opinion and strong-minded, even though you know that that type of response is coming, you are still willing to sit at this table and give us your best. even if I don't agree with your opinion I appreciate your passion for giving it and it's a key part of what makes this show great so I just want to say good job today

thank you Matthew we know you got one more show dude we could just sit here and go on and on and maybe we will next week maybe that's what we'll do. Let's close up shop. No guess next week we're just going to talk about Matthew no guess next week just start pouring

out your feelings, Matthew. Let's see where we go. All right. All right, y'all. Enjoy the day, man. 391 is in the books. We'll see you next week. Check out Dirtymo Media. On Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.