The Dale Jr. Download - 394 - Ty Gibbs: Growing Up Gibbs

Episode Date: August 9, 2022

In just a few short seasons, Ty Gibbs went from winning in the periphery of the stock car world to becoming one of the most polarizing characters in the NASCAR garage. On this week’s episode of The Dale Jr. Download, Ty joins Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis in the Bojangles Studio to discuss his meteoric rise to becoming a focal point in motorsports.Gibbs stunned onlookers when he won the February 2021 NASCAR Xfinity Series event at the Daytona Road Course, in what was his first attempt in the division. After starting deep in the pack on a late restart, Gibbs put on a driving display that saw him pass several cars and even drive through the grass to take the point, holding off accomplished road racer Austin Cindric in the process. The victory would make history, as it made Gibbs the first driver in the modern NASCAR era to win a national series event in his first attempt. While Ty has come off as soft-spoken in many of his public interviews, he gives The Download listeners a rare look into his home life, filling Dale and Mike in about his siblings and new townhouse. After Kurt Busch’s recent hard crash at Pocono, Ty received the call to fill in at the last moment, minutes after finishing second in the Saturday afternoon Xfinity event. He explained that to best prepare for the challenge of driving a car he had zero experience in, he retreated home to run laps on his sim racing setup and sleep in his own bed before returning to Pocono early the next morning for the Cup race. The interview covers Ty’s early years in racing, from competing in shifter karts at venues like the GoPro Motorplex to running late model stock cars on the prestigious CARS tour. He recalls the moment he knew he wanted to pursue a career in racing came after his grandfather Joe, whom he affectionately refers to as “Coach”, took him and his cousin to test a go-kart at Millbridge Speedway. When Mike asked if he has ever struggled with getting acclimated to any type of race vehicle, Ty explained the challenge in transitioning from karts to late models and how it took a couple of years to get comfortable. At one point, he was racing his kart full-time while testing a late model at Hickory Speedway during the week. Dale and Ty dig into the challenge of dealing with the public perception of coming from an established racing family. Ty gave some insight into how he tunes out the criticism he faces, finding that focusing on his love for motorsports keeps him motivated to move forward. Many young racers are forced to grow up in the public eye, and Gibbs talks about his ongoing maturation in dealing with conflicts both on the track and off.Ty’s future has been a hot topic of discussion as he continues to find success in the Xfinity Series and now filling in at 23XI Racing in Kurt Busch’s absence. He explains he ultimately wants to race in many different types of cars, mirroring the career path of Kyle Larson, whom he looks up to in many regards. They also discuss the future of Joe Gibbs Racing and what roles Ty may see himself in as the years roll on. This year in the Xfinity Series, one of the main storylines to watch has been JR Motorsports versus Ty Gibbs. And while usually, you’d never invite your competition into your very race shop, Dale Jr. recognizes that Ty is going to be a part of motorsports for many years to come and is choosing to embrace him. DIRTY AIRBefore Ty joins the show, Dale, Mike, Alex and Hannah discuss: New Kyle Petty shirts available on the DirtyMoMedia.com Dale’s play-by-play commentary at Michigan Bubba Wallace’s passionate post-race interview The modified race opener at North Wilkesboro  ASKJR presented by XfinityThis week the fans asked about: The future’s perspective on today’s NASCAR world Racing left-handed Dale’s most prized vintage t-shirt Applying Mike Joy’s commentary advice 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.

The following is a production. This is a production of Dirtymo Media. What do you think? Did it again? It's a third answer. It's Dad getting son at Michigan. Oh, here you go. Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again.

Another episode of the Dale Jr. download. What number is this? 394. 394. All right. So we got Ty Gibbs coming into the show today. This is going to be exciting because. Tye's been around a while, and I want to get to know this guy.

He's going to be in the sport for a long time, man. Let's embrace this dude. Yeah. Let's get to know him. Yeah. And I know that he's been a little bit guarded on kind of opening up. He's had some criticism that's kind of shut him down a few times. But I think once he gets to this table, we're going to get some truth.

We've got to work on him a little bit. So, you know. Anyways, Mike Davis, good to see you. My co-host. Good to see you, too. in the Bojangles studio. How are you being, man? I mean, you did some PTO, is it called?

Vacation days? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pay time off. I got you. I did last week, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. My kid was running in a Nationals track meet in Greensboro. All right, how did that go? She, I mean, she didn't win, but, you know, that's okay.

She did very well. It was her first ever track meet. You know, what are you going to do? We liked it. She's in track. Yeah. So that was her first track meet. First, this completed her first year of it.

I'm sorry, yeah, but she made it to the National Olympics. What? AAU National Olympics for her age and ran two events. I was proud of her. Okay. It was good stuff. Well, that's pretty cool. I had to bother you a little bit.

I felt bad, but you did say to a message to all of us, hey, I am available by text, so you opened the door. Boy, you did come with some random texts this past week. I did. Yeah, you did. But it was fine with it. I had no shame, no guilt. You were actually proud of things.

Like you were ready to get stuff like the Kyle Petty shirt, for instance. Oh, yeah. You asked me, I'm at my kid's track meet, and Dale's like, when is this Kyle Petty shirt going out? And I'm like, I'm asking the merchandise people, and they come back. They said, Tuesday we'll probably announce it. And he's like, I'm ready to do it now. And, I mean, within the hour. I just was like, why isn't it out yet?

What's the holdup? What are we waiting for? I know Mike had went to, you know, track meets and Olympic sports. games and I was like hey who's in control here who's going to do this and apparently it was just kind of hanging out over here doing nothing and uh I was like okay so I text our people and I said hey man I want to tease this I want to like give a little you know little little little picture a little part of the image or whatever you know play play along on social media and get people trying to guess what it is and and have some fun right and they were like yeah man we'll release it go ahead

It's available. It's online. You can buy it. It's on the website. I'm like, no, no, no. I don't mean I want, you know, it wasn't supposed to go on sale till next Tuesday or Wednesday. Yeah. This Tuesday or Wednesday.

Yeah. Today, tomorrow. That's right. And so I was like, no, no, no, I don't want to put it out now. I was like, I want to, I want the okay for me to have a little fun on social media. I was just bored. I'm sitting at the racetrack, a little bit of time to kill. And, yeah, I wanted, I was afraid that, you know, the news cycle so fast.

Yeah, that phrase was funny. That episode was funny. a week ago, is it going to be still, you know. Yeah, people are going to care? Yeah, right. You definitely got a strike with the iron's hot. That's true. That's true.

And so, but, okay, then what happened? Because within an hour, that thing was out. There was no teasing. Right. So, you know, there was a little misunderstanding on what I was asking for. So they actually just put it public. Here it is. It's on the website.

You can go buy it now. And so then I had to just go ahead and say, okay, shirts out. No tease happening. We're just, hey, it's available. Guess what? You asked for it. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's been selling quite well, I believe. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I wonder what, no joke, this is not a,

I'm wondering, what does Kyle Petty think about all this? So I asked Kyle if he, I showed Kyle the shirt and I said, hey, man, can we make these, you know, you cool? We'll pay you your cut.

He's like, hey, hey, I think it's great, let's do it. And he loved the colors and all that. He's also, you know, got his new book out.

If you haven't, you know, seen Kyle's books, wherever dies is the title of the book. And I think it actually hits stores today. Okay. I was texting with him a little bit earlier, but he was great about it,

and I think it also is a great way to have conversation about him going on and helps him with his book sales and all that stuff. So anyhow, I did tell him that he's going to get part of the proceeds. I think it would be very smart of us to make a sizable donation to the Victory Junction. We can basically take a look at the shirt and how many we sold and then decide what we want to do there, but I think that's something we absolutely should do. Of course.

And there are, yeah, there are a few out there in the universe. So I'm going to get one. I'm excited. And I'm going to get me some sundrop stuff. Oh, yeah. Now that's out there too. I cannot wait to get a hold of some sundrop stuff. I'm breaking the wear your own merch rule.

You know, there's a rule out there unspoke. It's not really written down anywhere. You created the rule for yourself. I did not. So I think, I thought you could wear your own merch, especially if this is like 20 years old merch. Like, you know, nobody's going to, you know, I don't expect like Larson or Chase Elliott to go to, you know,

come walking into the racetrack wearing their brand new shirt they got this year. Okay. They're selling to race fans. But I think if you have a shirt from your late model days or original, that's cool to wear if it's yours. I felt that way, right? But all these, you know, Chase and all these guys are like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Not even late models. They're still too close to their late model career for them to understand why it's okay. That's a great point. That's a great point. But I can't help it, man. So there's a one, I think, that just has sun drop on the front and a three on the back. You know, no name, which is probably the barrier, the barrier of entry. You don't like wearing anything with your name on it.

Yeah, you take the name off, and I think you're kind of free to go, right? There's some, the one shirt with, like, the car and the name on the front and all that, That might be a little bit too much. But then that throwback, we designed one that's actually exactly like the shirts that I had made in 93. We had like 150, 250 of these shirts in 1993 made. That was a lot. Yeah. We were like, holy shit.

I wonder if we can get rid of all these, right? And I've got one. There's a couple circulating out there in the world of the originals. That's cool. So we remade one of those. But I can't wait to get some of that stuff. They got a coozy? I saw.

Coosies. Sundrop number three coosies? I saw the coosies. Yeah, you're a kuzi guy. You love those things. I do. There's a helmet, like a replica helmets. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Shop Junior Nation. Now, they do have a lot of good stuff, including a lot of sun drop. Number three, late model stuff that Dale's talking about. It's available right now. Yep. 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. 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 we had some play-by-play. You did. I had some play-by-and-play. My wife gets on my ass about that. You say we every time about everything. All right. So I did play-by-play.

That's uncomfortable. I did play-by-play this weekend. It was a lot of fun. and man you know we had a great race which makes it better I felt great about my call to the finish line with Harvick good the closer yeah that was good yeah I felt good about all that there were a couple bumps in the road as far as just trying to get to commercial and stuff sometimes some things I say I don't know if you noticed at all but I noticed one sometimes I go terrible I just noticed one mistake I didn't notice any of the commercial ins and outs I know you called a driver by the wrong name.

Yeah, Christopher Bell, for some reason, in the last three or four weeks I've been getting Chris Busher and Christopher Bell mixed up. Like, I think at Indy, I might have called Chris Busher, Chris Busher, Christopher Busher. You know what? But he might be a Christopher. Yeah, he probably is.

He is now. And Rouse went on Twitter and said, I think Dale Jr. just knighted Chris Busher. That's funny. He's sir, Christopher Busher. I know that was fun. They had fun with it. And look, man, you're going to make mistakes.

I listen to my booth buddies all the time, and they're all the time screwing up names and stuff. So I don't think about it. I used to feel so bad about it and just like almost get so embarrassed, you lock up and quit talking. Yeah. Don't do that. I don't do it anymore.

Good. Well, I mean, that's what you would do. Like, if I threw you in the booth, you made a mistake, you'd shut down. It'd be in my head the whole time. Yes, yes, yes. I would try not to shut down, but I would not be able to get it out of my head. down. So post race, man, we saw an emotional interview from Bubba Wallace, and I think

that, so this is, you know, I just, I feel like that as hard as it was to see Bubba in that, that emotion, it's hard, you know, of course, when you're watching somebody feel that way, you can't help but go, man, I want to, you know, I want to, I want to put my arm around that guy and say, hey, you know, this is maybe the point of view you should take, but I think that it was, I hope that it was, a moment for everyone else to be a witness to the pressure that this guy is under.

Because, man, there wasn't nothing fake about that. No. That was as genuine as someone could be in a moment like that. And I am hoping that, you know, for the people that put a lot of pressure on Bubba and give him a lot of time and feed him a lot of criticism, especially particularly online, I hope that those people can see really what this guy is dealing with on a daily basis. And so I felt pretty bad for him, man. And it's easy for me to say, but, you know, I said it after the race on our broadcast.

You know, you've got to take a – I've been in this position, and I wasn't good at this. So this is not – you know, it's a bit hypocritical for me to say this. But if he – you know, you've got to look at the last couple of weeks, all right? They were great runs, top ten finishes, and look at the day where you just ran second. to Kevin Harvick, who is dominant at this racetrack, he was running him down a little bit at the end. Maybe, you know, you could say he had a good enough car to win the race. You got to look those things and go, we are close. Not, not, I failed everybody and, you know, not he felt so small.

He should have, you know, he should take a moment and go, and I think he probably has after the last couple of days, where you go, look, we are close. We're right there. We're on the threshold of getting that win at a non-plate racetrack. Plus, you've got Daytona right around the corner. Another track that you're good at. You know, go, you know, don't psych yourself out. Psych yourself in, right?

Psych yourself up to the moment. And if he can, you know, if he hasn't got that win by the time he goes to Daytona, he can go into Daytona, and I did this in 2001. He can go into Daytona without a thing to lose. lose. No worry about failure, disappointment, no burden, no pressure. You can just go in there and just hammer down, put it all in the line, do everything, anything you want, every single lap, nothing to lose. Yeah, but how you did that, I'll still never know. I mean, I know you went down there and you started drinking. You know, you went down there early. And that right? You did.

Okay. But no, literally, I mean, I still don't know how you were able to compartmentalize all of and then go win that race. Pretty much everywhere I go, I'm trying to start drinking. I mean, new t-shirt. Nothing was unique about that. I mean, there were many times I'd been to, you know, we had that off week before Daytona, and that was our thing. We'd go down there and we'd raise hell because that was our off week, right?

We're going to go out and make the most of it. And we're in Daytona, we can get cleaned up, get sobered up, and we've got to race the next weekend. I know, I know, but the circumstances. Nothing was unique about that. The circumstances. were absolutely unique. Well, when you walk into the racetrack in that type of situation,

it feels like it feels completely different than any other race weekend. Most race weekends, when you go to the racetrack, you got an expectation of every result, right? Qualifying practice, the car, will it turn? How is it going to roll the center? How faster my pit stop is going to be? How buttoned up are we going to be? How mentally tough am I going to be?

I wake up in the morning. What am I going to feel like when I get out of bed Sunday morning? Am I going to be ready to go? Am I going to, you know, you've got all these expectations or things that you feel like you've got to box you got to check, all these little boxes that you need to check, right? And then the final result being the giant box, is that box checked at the end of the day or is it unfulfilled? And when you are in this situation, I think that a lot of the guys will be in when they go to Daytona, no boxes to check. yeah it's it's it's it's it's go for broke and that's a great feeling because you for once get the race without zero pressure it's win or lose there's no man i need to run at least fifth today or god i got

to get enough points to catch this guy there's nothing it's win or lose and that's kind of a it's it's a bit it's a bit freeing uh from the traditional pressures and and and expectations you know i can't I don't know how to make it make sense, but, you know, I feel like I just felt pretty bad for Bubba. I think a lot of people did in that moment and hated to see him get out of the car after that finish, which I was like, man, what a great run. He's had a great string of finishes, and he got out and was falling apart, you know, and that was just tough to see. Self-deprecating, and even the mistake he was, you know, mad at himself for didn't even seem like a mistake.

I mean, he didn't even do anything. He's just saying he could have done things differently, but it's like, wow, he's beating himself up over that. You know, just picking a wrong lane. I should have gone high. I should have gone with Larson really did push Harvick out to that lead. But Bubba could have done anything about that. Bubba gave Lugano a hard time, but that's Joey. Joey raced him the same way.

Joey races everybody. And then earlier in the race, we heard a little, did you listen to the whole thing? And your comment after that happened was hilarious, by the way. True X. Oh, yeah. You're talking about the True X. Yeah. It was so funny because we're like, did I detect anything?

And you just said it. You're like, I detected Sark. I just detected Snark. There's some jabs in there. I saw jabs. I know jabs. Yeah. And you and Lattart.

I mean, that whole back and forth was funny. Yeah. True X and his crew chief got into it on the radio a little bit. They still had a good result. And I've heard that conversation. I've been in that conversation. I've had that conversation with Tony Jr., Tony Sr., Tony Sr.

And I think that just kind of tells you the pressure they feel. They know they got to, you know, they know they're in a bad, they're in a difficult position going into that race if somebody wins, such as Harvick. They know that they need to catch the 12 and pass the 12 or win a race, right? They're going into Richmond where they've got a great track record. But anyhow, you can kind of sense during the race as Martin's starting to see what's unfolding the pressure becomes a public thing, right? Yeah.

You can tell everybody all the way up into that moment, no, man, we're good, we're good. I didn't think Martin did anything wrong. My question to you is, do you think the crew chief could have backed it up a little bit, backed it down a little bit? I need to hear the comments again, I guess. I mean, Martin was, Martin was complaining like any other driver complains. Right.

Give him the benefit of the doubt. They're in the car. It's hot. And the crew chief called him out on his restarts. That's what he did. It's very Chad Canousy. It was a little Chad Canousy. But we don't know, you know, this might be, you know, this could have been something building.

I don't want to put too much fault on small as this crew chief because this could be something building. There could be conversations going on in the holler that we don't hear on the phone with those guys where they get a little chipper with each other or just our matter of fact. people would think me and Tony Jr. were going to get out and fight. Oh, my God. Right? Yeah. We'd have conversations over the radio, and people thought, I mean, that was how the DEI conversation, that's how the split with the EI and the URIs.

That's how the conversation began. People were hearing what we were saying to each other on the radio and how we were acting to each other, and they went, we've got to get them away from each other. Yeah, it can't be healthy. Yeah. We'd have been perfectly fine had they just left us alone. It might have took in a little while. This is just what y'all did.

This is just what y'all would do. I mean, you sure, y'all did. We went to Hendrick. Me and Tony Jr. did the same thing. We go to Hendrick. Everything's good. Cars are fast. Everything's good.

But man, I mean, every week we're on the radio at each other. I remember, yeah. He was, we just were taking jabs, left him right at each other, and that was just what we did. And Hendrick, Rick and them were hearing that for the first time, even when things were good, where our cars were running good. And they're like, what in the hell's wrong with y'all? Yeah. And y'all were like, nothing. Yeah, we're like, what do you mean?

Right. That's right. I remember it was culture shop. We were like brothers. And they had a hard time with it. They never got comfortable with it. And eventually, you know, when the results started dipping for Tony Jr. and me, you know, they came in and went, man. It was all right when things were okay and y'all were running decent. But when the results aren't there and y'all are bickering, everybody's listening to it, fans, media, it looks bad. There's the Steve LaTart Rodney Childers way of thinking in which your job is to to make sure that the driver can vent and do whatever they want, but don't go add fuel to the fire. Steve's up him.

Steve would defuse it. He would defuse it. He had a way. And Rodney Childers is going to be very quiet. There's others just like them. Then there's the Tony Senior. Or the, I don't know. I mean, you know, even Martin's crew chief may.

I don't know him, but it's like, then there's a way it's like, no, no, you need to be told. And I don't care what type. Chad Gannouse is going to tell Jimmy Johnson how to drive the car for better or worse. And who's right? I mean, Chad Gnows is a Hall of Famer or a future Hall of Famer. You know, I just, I was wondering if there was ever a crew chief that would ever try that for your dad. Was it Dave Smith or, you know.

If a crew chief ever got Lipy on the radio with dad, he wouldn't be there. That's right. Very long. That's what I would have assumed. But that's good. He wasn't going to put up with none of that. I got some news on my social media the other day. Checking my social media.

You seen that shit? It's hilarious. Have you all seen that? You've seen it. What are you talking about? Pete, these... I love it, man. So I watch the reels on my Instagram,

and these guys, either with their girlfriend or their wives, whatever, their significant other, right? They film them in the morning as soon as they wake up and grab their phone. And there's this little... The song, it's like a jingle or something. Time to check my social media.

It's the Lion King. Yes. Right. Got to get on the internet. or something like that, right? Yes, it's hilarious. So anyways, I was waking up, grabbing my phone, checking my social media.

Have you ever done that to Amy? Have you ever thought about doing that to Amy? So I've got great reels of Amy. I've got a really, really fun one. But she won't let me post any of them because she's particular about the way she looks. So I can't, there will be no time in my life when I will be filming my wife without her consent and posting it.

That's the right call. Yeah. It's unfortunate. It's super unfortunate for all of us, but it's bright calm. How do these other guys get away with it? They just put it out there and then ask for forgiveness later. You just got to leave it on your phone, and then when she starts doing something, you're like, well, I got this video.

I will post. It's ammo. Yeah, exactly. So I got, you know, the, there's this one video I got of her just driving. She's just kind of pulling away from a red light. And then you pair it with this sound. It's like a guy going through the gears in a, in like a Mazda or something. It's like, da-da-da-da-da-da.

It's this awesome sound of this guy like lighting it up, leaving a stop sign, right? Yeah. And I got Amy over there driving. It's just really funny to me. And I was like, I can't wait to post this. And she's like, you're not putting that on the internet. Look at the, I look terrible. I'm like, man, that's no fun for me.

Right. This is no fun. I can make all kinds of. of reels with her well don't delete them just save them maybe one day yeah maybe one day you'll get the green light well so you got to keep taping them if it's just out she doesn't like the way she looks in the video then there's going to be that one time when she's okay with it and then so you can't stop tap it you got to do it but anyways i was checking my internet the other day my social media and oh yeah you're getting to a point on this one i'm getting old when i when you're like hey man i's

taking my internet yeah nobody says that i just started saying that out of nowhere, right? I know I'm all over the place here. So usually I would say, hey, man, I was looking on Twitter. I was looking on a specific app. But I haven't gotten so old and lazy. I am now saying, yeah, man, I was checking the internet. The web, yeah, yeah.

So, surfing the web? I'm not liking these subtle changes. Stand your ground, dude. Don't change, don't change. You be you. It's happening without my control, man. You surf that internet. So Marco Andretti will race in the Xfinity series and at the Roval.

Ah, an NBC race. Yes. This is good. It's good, but it's so funny that how we got to the Marco Andretti news was... I found it out on the internet. Very interesting way... I was at the World Wide Web. On the line.

I was on the line. Diled up. It was dialed up. Checking my AOL. Bring that back. I'm excited for Marco. He's done really good in the... What is it, the XRS?

Is that saying that right? SRX. SRX. I can't never remember what it's called. So he's been good in that thing. And, well, won the championship. He did. Yeah.

With a broken hand. Yeah, with a broken wrist. Right. So, but Marco's going to get a, he's, so the interesting thing to me is I've been texting with Marco for two years. And he's like, hey, man, any opportunity, let's figure something out. Let's try to make something work. And just couldn't never really get it done.

and so he's got an opportunity to race the big machine car I think the number 48 which is a good car it's got RCR affiliation and you know so I can't wait to see how he does yeah I think in a that car with a reasonable driver should run 10th to 15th and so that I go into that race with that in mind and I'll see how Marco kind of nets out mm-hmm The tough part is, is the roval is a difficult track to learn. He knows a lot of road courses, but he doesn't know the roval. Yeah. And so not like he would want to know it, right?

He knows a lot of other racetracks by the back of his hand, but this place is kind of quirky, funky. I think that's right. What you said? Quarky and funky. No, but it's, what's the guy with the bolts in his neck? Frankenstein. Yeah.

It's kind of like Frankenstein. Frankenstein was not my first thought when I was thinking about what to call the roble Frankenstein was made from many different things right okay okay and he turned out looking pretty weird right yeah he did that's what the roval is the frankenstein of racetracks I'm sorry look it is it puts on some great races there's some big moments that happen there but in terms of like if you're going to design a road course yeah what would indianapolis not be the roeble what would the indianapolis road course be them two are They're like cousins.

Who's Frankenstein's cousin? Come on, quick. Who knows this? Is there an actual answer? Yeah, I don't know. What was Frankenstein's girlfriend? Lisa, I don't know. She was also, so he was, you know, they made Frankenstein and he was lonely.

So the guy, you know, the scientist, what's his name? Dr. Jekyll? I don't think I've ever seen this. Didn't Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? And he's the one that made Frankenstein? No, that's two. Dr. Frankenstein made Frankenstein. Okay, okay, see.

All right, so then they made a female for him. And it's literally just called the bride of Frankenstein. The bride of Frankenstein. So that's, uh, that's the bride. Who's the bride? Indy is. Indy is. Indy's the bride.

Yeah, the roval came first, I think. No. Well, I mean, the, for the stock cars. Yeah, for the stock cars. Yes, that's true. Yeah, Andy, you're the bride. We're going to have so much debate from our listeners on this one. Yeah.

Who here went to the mod race in North Wiltsboro? You did. I did, of course. Some people in this room did. Yeah, Michael went. Yeah, Micah was there. Dustin was there. Wow, a lot of people showed up for that thing.

Yeah. Did you enjoy it? I have not asked you about your experience only because I wanted to save it for the show. No, it's amazing. You know, the mods are, the mods, they sound awesome. They thunder around that racetrack, literally. And they had to save tires. So there was a lot of side-by-side racing.

early on. There was a lot of guys positioning themselves where they wanted to be to try to save tires. And there was some good back and forth happening, but it was a great race, really exciting. Kind of emotional. It was a vibe, man.

And the crowd full grandstands all down the front straightaway, slam full. And I had a little scissor lift on the back straightaway, and I'd raise that thing up just high enough to kind of see the front straightaway, and try not to block anybody's line of sight. for the back straightaway.

And we had a great time, man, drank some beer, watched some racing, and we watched all the classes run, the four cylinders, everybody. And then we used on out of there and went home. Did it live up to expectations? Because you had probably pretty high expectations, right? The crowd, the experience has a fan. Yeah, the crowd exceeded my expectations.

The experience of being there exceeded my expectations. We got there and walked around early. It was hot as hell. But we walked around looking at cars. and meeting people and shaking hands and thanking people for coming, especially a lot of the four-cylinder guys. We walked around and they were coming up on pictures and stuff and just thanking them for being there.

And everybody was like, yeah, man, we're so happy to be here. This is awesome. We can't wait to go race around this track, right? Everybody was so, you know, even if they knew they weren't going to be competitive, they were just so happy to actually have an opportunity to race at North Wolfsboro. And so everybody was, everybody was in a great mood now I went over to the modified garage

walked around Harvick was there looking around being curious which was just cool to see was Tony Jr. there? I didn't see Tony Jr. was Bert Myers? Bert Myers was there okay Newman wins the race couldn't have been I mean there was some

anybody could have won that race that had been great but the fact that Newman wins it was kind of cool that brought a lot of recognition to it because people were going to talk about that on the internet and that would bring a lot more eyeballs and awareness to what's going there this month.

There's a race this weekend at Northwoodsboro. Super late models are racing. And so if you haven't got your ticket, you haven't seen the Maws, didn't get a chance to go out there and you got the free, you know, you got some time off this weekend. Bubba Pallard and all the super late model guys that have been kicking butt all across the country are going to be out there racing. Should be a lot of fun.

But yeah, man, looking forward to racing there at the end of the month. but anyways, tickets are about 15 bucks a piece. Walk-up tickets are available. Let's see, concession prices are really, really cheap. That was so nice to see. Yeah, like reasonable. Parking is free. Right there at the racetrack, there's plenty of spaces to park.

So free parking, reasonable, low prices on concessions, and great seats. I got a little secret for you guys. Okay. If you get there early and you want to get your seat from the grandstands, try to sit near the start finish line because the press boxes that are still there, the old press boxes cast a great shadow across the grandstands earlier in the day than as you would be, you know, if you were down toward turn one or toward turn four, you're going to be in the sun a little bit longer.

But it's awesome, awesome experience. You're going to see some awesome race in there with the super late models. some very popular names. What's up, Dirty Mo Media fans? This is IndyCar driver, Connor Danyl. And comedian, Joey Mulanero. 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. Well, I'm pretty excited about this next guest. I want to thank Ally for giving us our... opportunity to bring in some pretty cool people to this podcast. Ally's been a great supporter for us here at Dirtymo Media and for the Dale Jr. Download as they sponsor our guest segments every single week.

And this week's guest, Ty Gibbs, is, I think, you know, he's not misunderstood. I just think a lot of people don't know his history. We don't know everything about him. We're going to learn a lot about where, you know, where he cut his teeth. and this kid comes into the Xfinity Series and wins on a road course out of the gate. He's really good everywhere he goes. He's fast everywhere he goes. And we know he's got a great race car, but there's got to be some talent there.

And we're going to find out how he created and crafted that ability. And so let's get started, Mike. Let's do it, man. Get him in the room. Let's head it. Now let's go. Everybody get this thing. Let's go.

Get over with. NFL coaches work hard. And they talked about this being their Super Bowl. Hey, expect that kind of effort. His grandfather is a legend. But none worked harder than Joe Gibbs. When it's your grandson, it's definitely different. It's like a dream come to me.

In an 18 years old, he's going to win in his first... Here's Ty Gibbs, a victory at Daytona. If I was describing Ty, Look at Gibbs. He has always been after it. That is the best way to say it. Ty Gibbs, Sam Mayer. Helmut's on.

Oh, that's a lot of time. Gibbs going after Sam Mayer, and we've got to fight at Martinsville. Yeah, well, I try to talk to him, and they got all on my face. So, you know, at that point, we've got to start fighting. We've got to start fighting, fighting.

We've got to go out there. Youngest winner in the Xfinity series. Ty Gibbs is the main. How's it going, Ty? Good, are you? We're doing great. Thanks for coming, man. No, for sure. I've been listening for a while, so I just come in. Yeah, for sure. I listened. So my coach came in and did one, and I started kind of listening

more and more. But it was cool. You call him coach? Coachie. Who? Coachie. That's I call him coachy. Really? Yeah. Who would we talk about? My grandfather. You call your grandfather, coachee? Well, it was more out all of us, all of the cousins. Everybody. Yeah. Well, you listen to like Doug Williams and stuff like that. They would call him coach. So that was where I kind of got it from. We kind of kept it. How long? Way back, right?

Yeah, like, young, I always knew him as coach. I never call him Grandpa. That was, so my mom said I call Papa. I never called Grandpa. It's funny because we, our daughter's name is, one of my daughters is Nicole. We call her Nicolie. Yeah.

I don't know what the hell for it. Wow, we added that, you know, back in the, but we did. Are you feeling a little nostalgic day now? He just dropped to Doug Williams. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's Doug Williams' birthday. Is it? Yeah.

Really? Happy birthday, Doug Williams. That's why we wanted to invite you today. We just knew that this Doug Williams celebration was going to be. My brother keeps up all of all stuff, so I kind of could see when he posted on his Instagram. He's 16. He just got his license. He's a loose cannon out there.

He's out there free. Oh, man. He's mobile. Yeah. He's got a car. What kind of car? So he had, we got a Jeep, and then it wasn't working for his style of driving, so we got him a four runner. He got a four runner.

He's a red one of the red one. So it's actually really nice, and I really like him. How old are you? I was 19. So how was that growing up with him? So I've got two brothers and one sister. So it was just chaos. Full house. Full house. Full packed house.

So it was chaos kind of grown up. I actually moved out. I moved out last September. So it's been nice. It's been quiet. Whoa, whoa, whoa. You moved away. I moved away. Got your own place.

Got my own place. You don't have to tell us where you live, but is it, you got an apartment, duplex house? I have a townhouse. Townhouse. Right now, I lived in the apartment for six months, and then I moved into a townhouse. And how has your, it's like first night in your townhouse by yourself? Well, was that weird? It was more the apartment.

It was weird. Yeah, because my mom kind of just dropped me off. And I was my pack and stuff. And I'm like, whoa, this is a little bit more. By yourself. Yeah, like I'm putting, you know, hanging stuff up. And it was, I've never, I mean, I live always with my parents. Right.

I wasn't having to, you know, do the dishes. Or I was doing the dishes, but I wasn't having to do laundry all the time. And, well, I remember the first night. I remember first night I stayed, you know, lived by myself, and I was laying there going, it's quiet, it's weird, I don't really like this. It was different. It was cool, though. Wait, are we talking about the house across the street from DEI?

Yeah. Does that count as going out and living on your own? Does it? I guess, all right. I mean, if it's across the street. Yeah. They got an eye on you, though. I think when we moved over there, I think Dad and them, I don't even know if they had their house finished yet, but we were literally across the street from D.

Yeah, that's awesome. I could see it. Do you, do you, so you do you, so you do you. Do you do laundry or do you? I do all. Do you cook? No. Do you have anything in your refrigerator?

I door dash. Okay. And then I do, I have frozen meals that I prepare. Isn't it weird how we all, I mean, was anybody else kind of a little bit nervous with the door dashing at the first at first? I was kind of like, really? I really got, really got strangers, you know, bringing our food now. Is that what we're doing? It's a little weird, but it's nice.

Do you get some Sunday morning breakfast and you're laying in bed after long, after long, It's interesting how we get used to it. Now we doordash, you don't think nothing of it. You're quicker to trust people, I guess, when you're hungry. Yeah, well, now that I see, okay, it comes stapled up or boxed up. You know, I don't know, people eating fries when I, on the way over. They eat my fries, right? I would be eating fries, right?

If somebody was like, if I was a door-dasher and somebody was like, order some bojong, I'd be like, I'm not riding in here with the smell and not eating this. God Almighty, you'd be eating. The worst door dasher ever. Yeah. So I guess really I'm the problem. You're the problem. Look, you found, you figured it out early.

I can tell because everybody's looking like, no, never thought that. Never occurred to me. Never worried about the door dasher. No, it's stapled up. It's packaged up nicely. I know. I've seen it and I'm pretty, I trust it now. Not to derail the conversation, but one thing that has weirded me out lately,

speaking of like, this is kind of the same thing is like utensils at restaurants. Uh-huh. Oh, man, I don't know. The plastic ones? Yes, no, the metal ones. Oh, I do plastic. All our lives, all my life. The hand is that right there having a moment. And it's like, don't do this, do not do this.

You know how this started for me? And then we're going to get back on track. So I went to, I love sushi, right? And so, of course, we've been, I mean, I've been going to restaurants all my life eating utensils, metal utensils, no big deal, right? Not even I thought about it. We went to South Korea. You and I did, yeah.

And we're at the place getting ready to. eat and they throw down a box, a little tray of all these metal chopsticks. That's right. And I'm like, ooh, where are the wooden ones that come wrapped? Right? Where, I don't, these are, someone's used these. And then I'm like, I've connected

the dot to the freaking utensils. You've literally been doing this every day for your entire life. Now I can't not think about it. When I go to a restaurant, I'm sitting there going, don't think about it, don't think about it. I'm holding this fork and I'm like, who's he? Who's eat with this fort? Did this thing get steamed?

So, yeah, am I? I'm the only one. No, and now it's in my head. I mean, you've got a point. Apparently, Ty had this figured out. He doesn't do anything but plastic. Well, when I first moved in, I didn't have any, I wasn't going out to buy nice utensils because I didn't even.

I was like, I'm just going to go by plastic ones and I can throw them away and I don't have to do the dishes. And that was my logic on it. And I kind of just kept it going because I'm like, no one's eating off of this before. Yeah. And my grandfather is a germ freak. my dad is dream freak and I kind of just inherited it

in the last couple months. I never really thought I was, but maybe it's a good thing though, it's safe. I mean, you're not risking getting sick. Maybe the pandemic's made us all a little more self-aware. I'm going to bring my own. I'm just going to bring my own silverware from now on.

That's an idea. Yeah. But I now have seen the metal utensils from, you know, the sushi joints, the metal, I've seen them here in America. And I've been like,

whoa, no. No, no, no, no, no. Where's the wooden ones? I know you got them back there. Well, Ty. So I'm trying to understand what this townhouse now looks like. You got your, you got your nothing, you got frozen meals, you door dash most of the time. I got peaches last week.

Why? They're good. It's a peach season, right? Is it? I didn't know. Okay, so you got peaches. So like if we were to do MTV Cribs. You guys would be pumped.

Would it be awesome? Yeah. Okay. What have you done to make this? So it's your own. I have a, it's a three bedroom and my upstairs floors, my bedroom and my sim room. And I have a gaming setup and I play my games with my buddies. What are you playing?

So I haven't played, I've been pretty busy, but I usually play like a Fortnite call duty. There's some new games like fall, fall guys. That's cool. I'm still trying to get the hang of that one. So me, I need to invite you to play Hell Let Loose with me and my friends. Yeah. So Hell Let Loose is a World War II shooter and pretty fun. So we play on Steam.

I love to. I have Steam. I'm all on that. So, yeah, but I'll show you guys' pictures after this. So the whole room, my idea was to do something crazy. Because I've had that in my apartment was just bland and just a regular wall. No, I didn't hang anything up because you couldn't hang stuff up in the apartments getting the walls. I had all my trophies on the ground.

And I had my simulator and my gaming setup. So this room, I'm like, before I move in, I tell my mom, I'm like, I just want to do something crazy. Like, I want to do like, I want to get just super artsy. I want, like, just to be stuff everywhere, like, you know, colors and lines. And I just, for a similar room, I'm like, I just want to do something really cool. And so we got this guy come over and do it. He did a really great job. He's done some paintings for me in the house, too.

I just like that stuff. And my dad kind of has started to like this stuff. So I took it from him. And, you know, so they do this thing. They paint it. And I remember, I come in there for the first time. I'm like, what in the hell? It literally looks like a birthday room at a jump house.

You ever have been to one of those? They're just like pink and yellow and blue, and I'm like, oh. Not what you wanted? Now, I inherited it a little bit, so it's not bad. And we did some more, we did some more black lines. It still looks pretty cool, but it's still a little more on the birthday side. But I like it. It gives me something to look at when I'm in there, you know, I'm bored.

It's on the roof? It's on iriscing everywhere. Oh, it's everywhere. I'll show you guys a picture. I'll show you guys a picture. We need to see it. It's crazy. Yeah, you get in there and you're like, whoa.

So you race on our i racing? Yeah, I'm on i racing. Any other motorsports games? I've done NASCAR heat, but I don't play on Xbox that much. Eye racing is probably the best. I've done some aesthetic or not set a car, is R-factor too. I've done some R-factor stuff because I can mod it and nestled in.

It's pretty fun. But besides, I haven't really done too much besides the racing stuff on there. When they called you, we're going to jump around a little bit, but when did you get the call that you might be driving the car at Pocono? What time of the day were headed back to the airport. I was with my buddy Drew Dollar. He's like one of my closest friends. That name's familiar.

Yeah, so he's raced and he's done some stuff for us. And, you know, we were driving back. I remember Coach called me. You were still in Pennsylvania? Yeah, I'm driving our rental car. Gotcha. And we're, I don't know what highway we were on, but we're on the way back to the airport and it's all dark.

And I remember I got the call and I'm like, heck yeah. Like, I was like, you know, you get your butterflies a little bit in your stomach. And I was very excited. and coach just trying to micromanage the whole situation. I'm not calling them out or anything. But we were just parked on the side of the road for about an hour and a half, just trying to figure out what I need to do. And I'm like, all I want to do is just go home.

And all the broadcast mentioned that I went to a T or D simulator, but I was to my house to my simulator. Yep. So you went home to your townhouse? I flew back. I'm like, I just need to go back and get a good night's sleep in my bed, which was only like five hours. And I was like, I just want to run on my simulator for a little bit,

like just to get my feet wet, just to get acclimated because I didn't run any sim for this at all. Like I've never, I haven't done anything for the cup car. Right. Not nothing. Nothing. No cup stuff. I've done just on eye racing and eye racing still.

We're still getting closer on that. But so I got back, I did the sim and then I ate steak and shake and went to bed and woke up and left at five or six 30 in the morning. Yeah. We flew back up and I was ready and then it was announced and I was ready to go. Yeah. So how did the butterflies do when you got closer and close? I don't know. I feel like I've done really good with pressure. I feel like I've kind of grown up on a

pressure pressured household. I raced BMX for a while with my dad and my dad was very competitive. So I remember the most pressure I've ever felt in any type of racing situation was racing BMX when I was nine. Over anything I've done, over Cup and Expendity Arco Championship. That's just how it was. But I feel like God gave me that so I could kind of learn how to cope with it at a young age and I've built on Calis on that since then. So I think I was more trying to figure out how loose I could get the car just so I could get the car just so I could like just to I didn't want to wreck or just so I knew what I had you know what I'm saying I like I was just trying to reframe my situation I'm like I could be nervous but I want to race good and do good job and just figure out I was like I just want to know how loose I can get so I'm

asking everybody I'm asking all the drivers and I'm like yeah how far yeah yeah yeah how far you get it out there and you know they're like not too far and I'm like all right that sounds good I don't really know what that is so I'm not sure they know yet either yeah yeah but it was a chaos It was just so much. And I feel like the best way to describe it, I told my friends this, I was like, have you played NBA 2K? No. So they have career mode.

And you go from being a high school player, college player, to being an NBA. And you've got all of a sudden, you know, they've got all these cameras on you. And that's exactly how I felt. I'm putting the McDonald's suit on with the Jordan logo, and I'm wearing Jordan shoes. And, like, I mean, more media I've ever seen my life on me. I don't, like, people are screaming. Bob was screaming at me. And Claire B was screaming at me.

And I'm like, ah, I don't know. Who am I supposed to answer to? Like, I don't know what, I've never been in a situation. So it was just a lot. It was really quick. And it was super cool. It was like, moment I'll never forget. I remember standing in the media and I'm just like, I mean, it was from here to the wall was just thick with people.

Before the race. Yeah, before. Yeah. They put you in the media center. I don't know how to put this thing in gear yet. And I got all the media around me. That's right. Yeah, because the sequential and all that.

Which is sequential, I got lucky because my go cart feels the same. I have a shifter go cart. So it's pretty close. It's a little bit different than linkage feeling of it is in the walls and the shifter, but it feels pretty close. It's not too bad. I think it's really fun. When you got in the car, what was the first thing that you were like, okay, this is going to take a little time? Oh, yeah.

What about the car was the first obvious thing of different? Yeah, so of course, they run sawbelts and I run Hendricks seats. I've always ran Hendricks seat, so I didn't have a seat poor. And so I jumped in Kurtz and it was too low, and I jumped in Bubba's. I run Bobba's in the simulator. It's really close. And I remember getting there for the first time I'm strapping down and I'm like, gosh, I can't see anything.

I remember being super, super laid back. And I remember the dash being like right here. And I'm like, oh, this is going to be big. Yeah, I was way lower than I thought. You know, because I'm sitting in the car before the race and I'm trying to figure out. I'm like, I think I'm okay. You know, like I'm in the garage, which is completely different.

I'm high, you know, but I get in there. And I remember driving off and I'm like, I'm really low. Like, this is. I remember it feels like being thrown in the car when they set you down low for the first time, you're like, I can't see anything, but they said this is going to be fast, so let's do it. And that's exactly how I felt.

I'm like, I can't see anything. And the sound of the engine was different, just the way it sounds. I feel like I race was really close to that, which is actually super cool, so it kind of gave me a good feel. And then just making sure I have the clutch in for a little bit before I pull in gear,

so I don't break the transactual. So that's just the little stuff. Yeah. You drove the race in that position. I was just like, oh, I don't want to wreck it. I got a blister right here, actually, from this weekend. One of the things that I thought was so fascinating and so smart was the, and it's hard to do this because racers, racers, race teams, they just don't think this way.

But we were sitting in the booth and we were thinking, man, you know, Steve's a crew chief, right? So he's got the crew chief mine. And it's easy for him to have these great ideas sitting in the booth. You've got the 40,000 foot view. And it's like, oh, that's obvious what the crew chief needs to do in this situation. This is the call, two tires, right? but when you're down on ground level, it's harder to see everything

and what else is going on to be able to make that decision. But we're sitting up there and Steve's like, they can run that whole first stage without even really trying. He won't get lapped. He can go out there and just go as easy as he wants and take his time and he won't get lapped. That's what they should do. And so we're sitting there and I was like,

man, that's a great idea. Man, if somebody, if I was tie, and knowing how I was nervous for my first race, if somebody said, hey man, just go figure it out. Don't worry about your lap time. We're going to be fine. And I would be like, man, what a relief. That's really what I'd love to do.

And that's exactly what they told you. They came with the radio and they're like, hey, man, we're going to chill. We're just going to fall back, you know. And when you heard that, were you like, that's a nice relief? I don't know. I wanted to go. Really? Yeah.

I just wanted to. I was going to be easy for the first couple of hours. I want to figure out how much it was. But the Xfinity deal, I know it was so close to Arc Car just the way the road course was. I raced Arcard a year before in an Xfinity car. car so down force wasn't made that much in the infill road course that they DRC but I remember at an next finney car I'm like let's go like I feel good and I'm gonna hammer down and in this car I was like oh this feels a little sketchy like you know so I was like I'm gonna take it easy and then we kind of

rode around and then they tighten me up a little bit I was I got a little bit free you know it was the way the car handles this is completely different so I remember I just kind of was stuck back there and they kind of just worked our way up and up and up yeah did you ever have any big moments yeah so I got so they were like run the outside of the 20 so the 24 passed me and I was kind of running outside of them I was actually at the end of the race I was fighting for 15th yeah um and I just got passed for 14th and I was 15th at the time by William and remember I offset to the right on the outside into term one and I have my right side and the PJ one and I remember the car went like this it did this slow and then it did like

the hospital hop and I'm like oh and then I kind of gathered it back up and I got past a couple more and it finished 17th or 16th but uh it was it that was probably the biggest moment I had just super quick, really quick. Yeah. How about the steering, the, you know, the rack steering? You've raised cars with Rack opinion steering before, maybe? Yep, Trans Am car. The only thing.

I've never drove a super with it, but I've never driven super in general, but I've drove Trans Am car. So that wasn't too far? No, not too far. It was a little different, but it was good. I think we had put for the next rate, like from Michigan, my steering was a little stiffer because it was really free, like loose and easy to turn before. So I had more something than the hold on to.

Yeah. This past weekend, you end up in the top 10 when you get out of the top ten when you get out of the car what's your feeling about that result i was frustrated because we were i feel like way capable of running better than that um and the car was really good and bubba ran really good uh but i got caught spain and section 18 just as 60.01 i was just a little bit but it was enough to cut call and um i was more frustrated about that because we would came out in the top i think we came out six or fifth or six or something like what point of the race was that at the last stage so it was like 30 ago yeah it was the last the last segment i got you wow i was frustrated with

that because I knew I was like man I could have made had the top five or if I I mean if you got clean air you're gonna you're gonna have a shot to win you know what I'm saying and I mean never say never so I mean I was just mine because I took myself out of the opportunity yeah yeah y'all had a lot of speed all the all the toyotas were fast all weekend well about the digital mirror do you use that is that in your car yeah I use it I think the it's good I think it's funny because people get are really comfortable with it because I remember at Pocono I realized they had it because I remember like somebody came in front of me and cleared themselves. It was, they were clear, but it was like, I'm like, dang, that was clear.

People were getting comfortable with it. So that's funny. I like it, though, but it's like, I race in front of you because they can see everything. We kept seeing that. So I've been seeing that, especially this weekend, I noticed it a bunch. Guys just, like, fitting their cars into, like, these tight, tight spots coming off too, because you can't, you'll get trained, right? And same thing on before.

And I was like, I've never seen this before with the old cars and the old mirrors and all that, you know. But now with this digital mirror, it's just a lot, you're able to be a little more aggressive. And it's weird seeing your car from way up here because the rear view of cameras, like, right at the roof. Yeah, right at the top of the back of the roof.

And so it's like a third-person view kind of camera. Like, so you're kind of looking back there and you're like, that's just weird. I like to, I think the, you know, the field of view was really good. I feel like I had a lot more room to look. But this is the coloring, we need to change the coloring so I can see it a little bit better

through my visor. It was like a little bit bright. Oh, yeah. Weird. I know. It took a little of the GECU. I was still going off of the regular mirrors, so. I can't see.

So I tested the Hendricks car at Daytona, and I couldn't see nothing out the regular mirror. Speedway car? Yeah. But there's a lot more going on in the back of the car at the speedways, but I just couldn't see anything out of that. Yeah, no, it took me. So I used it. I was passing a couple guys just off of four. I just would use it to know I'm clear so I could get it in front and get pushed by the bubble.

So it's cool. It's going to get people, it's going to get. really cool. I think it's going to be super cool. It's futuristic, so it's going to be definitely different. I can't understand how he doesn't have more of a learning curve. I mean, like he's and this has kind of been his whole, I mean, he's young and he's escalated through the ranks quickly, but like he hasn't had any real struggles over anything. You win the Arc of Championship, you win the Xfinity, rookie of the year, you're, you know, competing with us to win this Xfinity championship. Trying to compete with you guys. Shoot, you're doing well. And you had this

you know, a remarkable race even this past weekend. And then you go hop in these, you know, cars that even the best in the world are still trying to figure out of drive and you get a top 10. I mean, like, I guess so. I guess we're sort of, it's scary if I'm a competitor in the Cup series to think about why you're not having to learn anything or taking a long time. And I don't, have you ever had to struggle through anything like this? Or is it all just, do you pick it up this quickly?

Yeah, for sure. Thank you. So I think that my biggest struggle I think was late model stock. I feel like just getting because I went from a go cart to a light model and that took a while to use and what is a while in your like it took my product two years to two okay it's just to get a feel for because it's a completely different perimeter car and you know create laid model so it's just completely different and the way to feel is this during you know I've never had a steering box before ever that was the first time I had one that was a go cards did you win at all yeah I did you know I had here and there I definitely think that my outlook on life and racing change after I got out of it. So I think I a completely different driver from the end and now. Of course, I learn more stuff, but I feel like my mindset has changed a lot. All right. Well, then explain that on the live side. Like, I feel like the biggest thing for me was, is every, I want to be the best driver ever.

That's what all the drivers want to be. And the biggest thing for me was, if this isn't going to help me racing, doing playing basketball or anything, is this, if this isn't going to help me become a better race grader, I'm not doing it. You know, I play, like, golf because I grew up my grandfather plays golf and I feel like that's a good connection. I like it too because I feel like it helps me practice how to control on motions when I smoke one of the neighbor's yard. I feel like everything I put in my life or I've had, I have a lot of distractions, but that's life in general.

And I feel like I just try to stay focused as much as I can. I grew up in the back of the CNC shop and the cup shop with a little simulator on iraicing. I remember that's how I practiced the car control and I learned how to do that just back there. I was 13, just trying to figure out how much I could, how much loose I could get, how, what's the edge? I raised BMX, and I feel like that helped me with the rhythm flowing and getting that kind of sensation. So there's a lot I've learned, and I've been, God's blessed me so much, I've been very

thankful for all of it, but just making sure everything I do is, if it isn't going to help me, you know, is going to my friend's house late and I can help me? You know what I'm saying? Like, is all this going to help me? And if it doesn't help me, then just forget about it. Because I feel like I've got once a lifetime of opportunity, and I'm very blessed of where I'm going to be and I have a great life so I just want to make sure I'm using all of it to become the best I can be. So what was the moment when you decided that you know you wanted to drive

cars? Yeah so coach took me and my cousin actually Jason, JD's kid and we went to Millbridge and we did tested Max Mike's McLaughlin's go-kart and I remember that's the first time and I've grew up in dirt I love dirt like I just that's just I like I race BMX and I've done mount bikes and I've done road bikes. So dirt is really cool and I feel like I have a good connection with it. Motorcycles. How old were you when this happened? I was a little 10. I just, I think I was just about to 11 and I was the first time I got in the go cart and I'm like and it wasn't too powerful but I'm like this is I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed the asphalt side of it too. I just enjoyed the general aspect of race and I think the biggest thing was you know invention was

racing was build off of you know we're building cars doing like I've listened to Darrell Waltrop talking about, you know, bloodshot coming out of the other else. Just stuff like that, you know, like that's invention. I feel like I just always was so fascinating about how making a piece of metal go fast. Like, I just thought that was the coolest thing when I was younger. And, you know, I used to build those little cars, and I forgot what they're called. Soapbox? Yeah.

Yeah. We used to build those. And I was in control building it. And I thought that was the coolest thing. So I just had a love for racing like that. And I just thought that was so fascinating. So you went to Mill Bridge and ran a go-kart. And where you, like, got to do.

this and y'all went right away i remember i just like i just was i was going to do it i feel like i was always going to do it like you said you're like you're a racer i'm a racer i just knew i was going to do it like i just that was the thing like i wanted to do it but i was like we're doing this like i was all in and um my cousin actually raced with me for a while he eventually stopped and went back to school he's he's too smart he's he's not going to be a crew chief and i'm telling them all the time i'm like you could do all this he can be most bad-the-bone crew chief you got to do it yeah but he's He goes to clumpton. But yeah, we, you know, coach took us there.

And that was like when I was like, I'm really want to do this. This is like my, what's the one I want to do. Yeah. And so what happened next? Like, if you've now decided that you want to do it, did coach go ahead and did he buy a car? What happened? We got to go cart. I remember we got to go.

We both had two co-carts. And I remember I was, that was the most competitive in my life. I've ever been racing my cousin. And then you've raced your family before. So, I mean, I was so competitive. And, you know, we're talking crap to each other. out there practicing restarts. And I remember, I'm like, I think I racked myself a couple times

because I'd just come down, you know, in the one, just trying to get the lead. So I just like super competitive. And we, you know, eventually got go-carts and we got asphalt go-cars. And we kind of progressed and progressed and then just, you know, end up in a late model of an arc. Who was racing, who was going with you and helping you with your go-kart? So I, um, I, I had Tim shut.

So he works at GoPro Motorplex. I had him for a little bit. And then I eventually moved to Billy Feltz. And Billy is with me for most of my racing career so far. And he helped me, you know, tremendously I'm out. You know, I can give enough credit to all he was done. I feel like he was a father figure in my life. My parents can go with me everywhere.

My mom, you know, is managing my sister and my brother and my younger brother and doing real estate at the same time. Just an awesome job. And then my dad's managing the cup team and the motocross team. So I had somebody with me. And he was like a father figure in my life. So thank you to Billy for that. And then now I, you know, have Austin with me.

So Austin's with me. You know, I'm keeping him in tracks. Yeah. So when you're, what kind of race tracks are you going to? So we did no bridge. I did a lot of asphalt go-kart stuff. I never actually race. Is that road course?

So I did the GoPro Buterplex. I did USBKS WKA racing. I did GoPro. I went to Newcastle in Indiana. So that's how you got so good at roadcourses. I feel like I just grew up in it. And I think the most, I feel like I race can actually help me out a lot. course all of everything yeah yeah and I think the go cards was a good foundation for how like what I

needed for racecraft yeah aerodynamics getting this draft and timing my draft so all that I feel like just kind of added up and my dad was very not very hard on me but he's very he's so competitive my dad and grandpa like just being around them want to win a lot and I feel like they take it so so much so seriously I mean my grandfather slept in his office for hell for a week at the time just doing football place. So I grew up under their, not pressure, but just their guidance. And so everything had to be perfect. And if I won and it wasn't perfect, it still wasn't perfect, they didn't count. I mean, I won, but there's stuff I didn't do right. I missed this restart up. I did this. I looked like a joke. You know, there's like all this stuff that added up. So, but we raced all over in Newcastle,

Indiana. I went from up north, down south. We were Daytona good car track. So I went from all the all around. So when did you, when are you learning that you're going to get in a late model? Gosh, I can't remember if I was 15 or 16. Actually, I think I was 14.

And I was, we called Greg Marlow. My dad to race with Greg Marlowe. Greg is an awesome person. I feel like Greg taught me a lot about racing and a lot about, you know, how much I really wanted. And I feel like Greg was my learning curve. I really do truly,

I believe that. And, you know, God put Greg in my life and Greg was awesome. He's a very great, you know, guidance and role model in my life. And so we would, we would test at Hickory twice a week for like the whole summer and I remember that was so much fun like I just doing laps I always remember just like I'm never done laps around people because I've been

go-car tracks and they've been small but doing the laps at Hickory like around the trailer I just thought that was so cool and I've gone to so many cup races I've gone to so many cup races so many cup races so me experience that was super cool and I did twice a week I'd race uh we test them Tuesdays and Thursdays and I'd race to go I race dirt carts on Wednesday nights and I'd race to go I'd race go-carts on the weekend so it was just chaos so you're racing your go-carts on the weekends but testing the late model in the middle of the week yeah twice twice a week but not racing the late model no I wouldn't race and then we kind of we did it for like a couple months just like five five months just getting acclimated wow and then I'd have dexter can I'd come out there and run with me

dexter's awesome and so Dexter come around with me a Dexter could come run with me and we like so I just get a feel for how wide my car is and you know how close I am to the wall and who's you know inside of me how much room I have to leave for them just just all the little basics, but I grew up kind of with that, and then we kind of progressed my first late mall race at Track County. Awesome. One of my favorite race tracks. I love it, because I can run the top and the bottom.

That's the first Late Mall truck I've ever been to when I could do that. What was it again? Track County. Okay. Track County is just above Hickory. Got it. Kelly raced at Track County Friday nights. Yeah.

So, and my dad and Kelly and all the race, my JD racing all the same, so around kind of the same era. But I just remember going to Triad County. It was so cool because I could run the top and the most. middle and I thought that was just the coolest thing. I felt like Bristol. Yeah. You know, and so I fired off there. It was my first time. I'm a race. I finished sixth. I wrecked somebody coming to the checker. Oh, no. Yeah. And like accidentally? I just wanted to finish a spot better. And I didn't understand. Like I'm 14. Yeah. So I didn't, I didn't understand it. And this is funny. So I'm with Greg at the time. And I remember coming to the checker, I just drove through him. And I just, I don't,

I don't know why. I just, I truly just, yeah, it happens. I just was going for it. And I apologize ice again. You've got to be careful, wrecking people up there. Oh, so just wait. So after the race, I remember my dad kind of giggled. And he said, all right, when he comes down here, you got to tell him this is my first little race, I'm sorry. And remember, this dude comes down here.

He's probably the size of daughter. He's a big dude, you know, Brad. Brad Daugherty? Big dude. And I'm like, I'm 15, and I'm probably, I'm smaller than I am now, and I'm a small guy. And I remember, I remember I was looking at a late mile, and this dude comes super tall. he comes right next to me he looks in the car he says gosh where's Greg I remember he's wanted to talk to Greg Marlowe and so they kind of yelled each other but it was

my fault but I remember I remember looking up in the car I'm like oh man I mean just straight up drove through him like I think I knocked the radiator on my car you know everything's flimsy in those but I just drove through him like hit the fuel selling his car yeah those are um so Greg I when I was racing late miles in the 90s Mike we used to watch Greg race. You know, Greg would run the big race at Martinsville and just the dominant. You know, there's a lot of big names in late Milestock from those days, but he was one of them. Drove the O'7 car.

I've wore his shirt on the show O'Time or two. Red and white. He had a black car there for a while, too. Yeah. But just a really well-respected guy, hard racer. And probably a great guy, you know, to really kind of learn from and develop a, you know, a driving style. He had a pretty, people admired his style. And he was, it was very lucky for you, I guess, that he was there in Tri-County.

I remember going to Tri-County and Kelly raced up there, and we'd get into it, and you didn't know if you were going to get out of there or not. Yeah, because they were tough. It's eye-opening. Is it a rowdy bun? Yeah. And I was small like him back then. Right, you were.

We're going to fight your way out of there, that's for sure. How were you received? And the question is prefaced by saying, obviously, with the Gibbs name, and you Dale, I mean, obviously, y'all have names that you're bringing into your, you know, your new racing career. So how do you think you were received, forget the fact that you ran that guy over in your first race? Strait Durham. Did you have any issues being a Gibbs? Like to other people or to my family?

No, no, no, to other people, to competitors, to, you know. Yeah, so it definitely was different. So I grew up in, like, you know, private schools in Charlotte. And, you know, I just was used to that group. But I wanted to become a race car driver so bad. Like, I thought that was the coolest. And I enjoyed all of it. I feel like I was, you know, made to just drive race cars.

I feel like that was the main thing. I learned all these things in my life just to do it. But coming to, you know, race with, you know, way out here in Tri-County and Hickory, I was, I remember, you know, I don't remember listening to too much of what people said, just because I just grew up not listening to that. And my dad and my grandfather was rock tough. And so I remember I never was supposed to listen to my feelings and what people thought about me. And so, but I remember having, you know, times for sure where I've got,

called daddy's money or you know silver spoon which is I'm always going to call that but I remember I just was so interested and fascinated with racing I didn't care what it was going to take I just wanted to do it I was involved I actually worked at their shop and I took you know I cleaned the cars I come in Monday morning I had all my work pants I write up my dad in the morning so and I got picked up at seven o'clock at night and I remember I just want to be race car driver I loved it I loved every part of it and I remember cleaning the wheel wells and with lacquer thinner break you know break cleaner just making sure rubber was off the cars. I remember that was just, I just wanted to be a part of race. And I didn't want to, you know, be this person that was held high above everybody or put low. I just wanted to

be in race and I loved it. And as matter what people were going to say, I'm never, we can't control what people are going to say. You can't, you know. I know you can't control it, but it affects people. You're human, right? I mean, how do you deal with that? So I've definitely had eye-oping moments for sure. I remember I've had moments where I've caliced over those feelings. I remember the first time I've got attention I remember I had 2021 I had horrible interview at Daytona I just was But hurt I didn't want in and I remember I was like

This place isn't a real race track I just saying stuff that didn't yeah just saying stuff that Just I was frustrated and I was saying stuff that did You know make sense but when you know I get frustrated That's stuff you know I got control my feelings and compartmentalize my feelings But I remember just saying stupid stuff like that But remember getting hated by a lot by Del Jarrett and just I remember it was eye opening I'm like well I have a lot

People are not against me right now I need to turn the eye, but just stuff I can't control. And I've had moments where, like, I got in a fight with your driver, and I remember a lot of attention from that. And I've always got called, you know, silver spinning all that. But I feel like those are IOPB moments. I feel like I've caliced over them. So it's almost helped me in the moments.

And then the scenarios were horrible. I wish they never happened, but that's part of life. And I learned a lot from, you know, those moments. And luckily, the week after the day-time interview, I won the Xenity race, and I kind of apologize for that. So I feel like that made up a little bit of it. Sure. So I feel like, you know, there's a lot of, like, different, you know, ways I look at it.

But I just like Kyle's separate. One of the things that I've noticed about you that I really appreciate is that you're very self-aware. And so, thank you. We, you know, there's not a driver in this, in NASCAR that hasn't had a bad interview, right? But there's a lot of guys that don't recognize it, right? And there's a lot of guys that continue that same, you know, person, the same activity or the same. habits going forward man and a lot of times like it's it's common I've done it too where a broadcaster or somebody that's calling the race or whatever or a personality in

the sport says something that you don't like so and it bothers you man and you're like a lot of times basically you kind of put that person on a list and they stay on that list forever yeah and no matter whether you know and this might be a per you know so there was a there was a broadcaster that said something something about me a really long time ago and it bothered me and it still bothers me today and I know that guy is not a bad guy I know he's a cool guy but it's just hard to like let it go let it go yeah it sticks with you I feel like I have the same exact feeling and I've been through a lot I've been through with people I feel like not betrayed me but not respected me and I feel like respect is a

big thing in life I feel like for me I just just something I know this like I feel like when I give respect to people and respect me not on the track I'm talking in person I feel like that bothers me It likes a fire in me. And so I've had moments where, you know, kids, I'm not giving names, but have not respected me in person face-to-face. And I don't like that, you know, other drivers and stuff. And that's just part of life. But I feel like, you know, you've got to pray for randomies. And I think that's the one thing I do.

I can't control that. You know, you can't control what they're feeling. And so I just don't, I can't let it bother you. Are you going to waste your time on it? You just said something, Dale. I mean, I'm wondering, and both of you can answer this, is it harder to hear when people say, daddy bought you everything, your silver spoon, whatever it is, or is it harder to hear people question your driving ability?

I think that it depends on what part of your career you're in. So I think when your TIE's age, for me, it was probably more bothersome to hear somebody say that you, you got everything handed to you to get to that point. And then about mid-way through your career, that goes away. It no longer bothers you. You're so far into it, you're like, yeah, whatever, okay, if you feel that way, I'm, you know,

I'm mid-way through my, you know, this career. And then the last half of your career, when any driver gets annoyed when somebody questions their true talent, right? Their ability. Yeah. Any driver is going to be bothered with that. But like if somebody were, you know, in the last 10 or 15 years of my career,

somebody were to talk about, you know, your daddy helped you get everywhere you rode his, you know, coattails or whatever, they didn't bother me like it did when I was young. When I was young and you'd hear that. Yeah, I was, I was after to get everybody. I remember, I remember just hearing it, and I was like, they're telling me that my mom and my dad bought me everything. And I'm like, didn't your mom just buy you dinner?

Like, you know, where'd you live when you're younger? You know what I'm saying? Like, I guess there's such different scenarios, but I feel like that, like, how can you call some, how can you say that, you know, your mom and daddy's bite you everything? I'm like, your dad buy you your first go cart. Right. Like, how does that make, that's uneducated? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah.

And the driving ability, I feel like you, I mean, I feel like you realize, like, you can't control what people are going to say. You know what I'm saying? There's days where we're going to shoot bad on the course, you know, we're going to have a bad race. But I feel like you just got there and do it. And I feel like, like, you have the love and a passion for the sport, and I do. I feel like my love and passion takes over all of that. Like, the love covers all of that. You know what I'm saying?

Like, I feel like that's what people are going to say. That's whatever. But I go out here and I love driving race cars. That means more than anything. I mean, there's times we're going to have to be isolated, but you're not the most favorite person in the world, but I love racing so much. That's what I mean, I'm not here for the people.

I'm here to drive cars. Yeah. So the first time I got to watch you drive was when you started racing the late model with Greg. We were racing Josh and our cars, and so I was watching the Cars Tour races, what you were a part of. And I wonder what your feelings are. I'm getting ready to go run a Cars Tour race at North Westboro,

and I'm nervous. says, hell, I haven't raced a late model since 1997. I thought you have. I practiced it, tested it. I haven't raced against people. Hey, what year were you born real quick? 2002. Okay, just wanted to get that out there since I'm throwing dates.

Wow. Haven't raced since before you were born. When I raced late models, it was way competitive compared to like Xfinity. Like, Exfinity, I won. When I got in a cup car, we won races. I'd run into top five. But you go around at Myrtle Beach. Yeah, but I'd go there.

I ran 159 late model races. I remember seeing you pictures there. I won three. Yeah, really? I won three out of 1509. I've only won one there. I only won one time there. Yeah.

And I raced there a bunch. I found late model stocks to be the toughest. It's like the truck series, Exfinity Series. To win. I feel like it's because the cars are so close and everybody's, I mean, it's been the same car. I mean, you've used same brakes since 80.

You know what I'm saying? So everybody's so close. I feel like the truck series is so close. We're running, everybody has spec engines, so everybody's pretty close. So I feel like it's a truck series, then you're going to have guys that are driving, you know, you're a little bit down for us, you know, all gripped up. So there's more of guys like the Xfinity guys.

I feel like, so it's like all the bad in the one. Yeah. The guys are really good. And, you know, Josh is phenomenal in the late mall stock. And, you know, everybody's very vigilant in how we're saving tires and, you know, all that. There's just so much that are, there's so much of a notebook that's been going on since the 70s.

You know, it's the same car. Yeah. I'm anxious to find out what my experience is going to be like, and I think it's going to be a bit of a shock. It'll be fun. I think it's like a good level. I hope so. Not a reunion, but it's like you can almost reset and redo it again

and relive that experience, which I feel like not that many people are going to do, and I think that's awesome. Do you miss driving that car? I don't know. I feel like not really. So I have so much fun with the cup car next thing the car. I think that's the most.

Is there anything? out there that you watch or would like to try? Super late model. I never drove a straight rail car besides a transam car. I love I drive a super late model. I wish I could race dirt every single day of the week. You could race midgets and micros and sprint cars and dirt late models, but I'm not allowed to.

I wish I was. Oh, well. Coach, pretty strict on that. Coach said. And me and Christopher, they're kind of the same. You know, Christopher gets to do some more. I miss it. So if you, if there was a, you know, a Toyota super late model and, you know,

running snowball or something. Would he let you go do it? I would for sure love to. Probably, yeah, he'll let me go do that stuff. But the dirt stuff he's scared about. One of our two of your kids' days, and he got hurt. I think that was, I was going to go test one. And they were a Phoenix race, and then he hurt his back.

So that was the end of it for me. But I really, I wish I could race. I remember racing dirt carts. I remember it was a little stressful. My dad was pretty on me, and, you know, the whole group was on me. But I remember after I got out of it, I was kind of done with it, because I'm like, this I'm just, it's rough and I'm shaking my head and I got a headache after dang five laps. You know, it's, it's, it tracks super dry.

But I remember like, I look back now and I'm like, I wish I kept doing that. I wish I could have kept racing dirt carts. Yeah. And I wish I could progress to micros and late mall stocks or late or late, or late, I just want to race all that. And I get the sense of it on the high racing. Like I can go race six races at, you know, Port Royal or El Dora or something like that. Weed sport or just something like I just, I love the dirt racing.

And I wish I could do it all the time. but I'm not, I can't. Get Austin to work it into your contract with your grandfather. I mean, this can happen, right? It's better. It's, your wrist come with it. Yeah, but the idea is. When I'm going to do when I'm retired,

I'm like, be racing everything. I'm going to be like, Jimmy, I'll be like, I'm going to retire. He's already playing the car. I'm like a race in the car. I love that. I wish I could, I want to do that. I want to do everything when I'm done. 19 year old kids planning his retirement.

So when you're in the, when you eventually get into the cups here, will you have will that open the door for you to at least go micro racing or something like that at Millbridge even just for a couple here's the thing I would I would I want to go do it but I want to test I want to right I want to be good I don't want to go so maybe you don't even need to right I know that's why I never that's why it took me to since 1997 to run a late mile race yeah like you I want to yeah I want to go I want to least like I thought it was cool just the you know never race anything in dirt and then go up there and they test in a couple times and learn and you don't even need and show up and run good I feel like that'd be super

cool. Like, I just think, like, and I feel like, in my case, being the Silver Spoon, I feel like, you know, I want to go race everything. I want to show people that I'm not that. And I'm not here to show people, but I just, it'd be cool to, you know, let people know that I'm, I want to race. You're a racer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I look at Kyle Larson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have talked with him a couple times. And I just, like, you know, he's racing all in up in Pennsylvania and New York and, you know, all around the PA. Like, I just think that's so cool. I wish, I wish I could do everything. I remember I've had talks with Coachman, like, I wish I wanted to be able to run all of it. And the talk.

But you look at Kyle Larson, he runs everything and he's the best right now, but you look at Jimmy Johnson in the past. Jimmy just raised Cup, and he was a seven-time champion, probably the best statistically, I mean, one of the best statistically ever race in the Cup Series. So, I mean, it's not, I don't know necessarily how much is going to help you, but if you're a racer, you're a racer. Yeah. I don't know that it helps Larson literally on Sunday, but, yeah. I think it's awesome. Awesome. I look up to Kyle. I've looked up to Kyle.

I think everybody admires what he is. For sure. And, you know, I just think that's so cool. You know, he shows up to dirt. Like, I mean, I don't think he started around dirt laid miles until a couple of years ago. And I think he has in the past. But he showed up and just was beating them and taking their money. I think that's the coolest thing. Yeah.

He said, and they interviewed him before the race Sunday. And he was like, yeah, it hadn't been a good week, man. We haven't won but one race. We race 14. My God. Eleven. I think that's what it was 11 because they're an indie race. I was like, oh man, I didn't even know that he was racing all week.

I thought there was a, you know, maybe one run one. We only hear when he wins, which is pretty much every week. Right. We don't hear about it. Well, it was it 33 times last year. Yeah. It was like 82. Stupid.

Yeah, stupid statistics last year. Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. So when did you run the Trans Am car? At 2019. So my first race was Rhode Atlanta. I remember rural Atlanta is still my favorite recourse I've ever been to my life.

I only did it three times. So it wasn't like I did it to hold a car. year. I only did it, you know, I wrote Atlanta, and I did mid-Ohio, and then I raced Walkins Glen. I actually wrecked Riley, my team, my brother, basically, at the time, clean him out last corner there. What to hell? Yeah. I remember I was racing for a second, and, like, you wrecked him for second. No, no, no, no. I racked him for, like, seven. But I raised, a race. Oh, actually, I think we're 14th. Oh, my gosh. So, I was racing the bus stop, and these road course guys, like, if you get this spot, you got let, you got to let him have it,

and I'm a stock car guy, so I'm driving them down in the corner, you know, saying like I pulled next to him with a bus stop else in the last side he has on the right and he just came over because he thought he had the spot but I'm driving I'm a racer I'm going for it yeah and he raided me in the grass I remember I spun and wreck we both wrecked and so I fired her back up and it was all green flag because they did just do local yellows and I drove all the way back to Riley and uh come in the last corner I mean so I'm I have his brothers with Riley I mean not so much anymore he's a different team now um but I was hurt riley Hurst yeah he's like my old brother And so I've known him.

Y'all are close. Super close. I see him every day from 2017 to 2020. You know, so every day. Like, I mean, every single day in the race shop, we go get lunch, go get dinner, everything. We've had a rivalry. We've gotten us a couple of scruffles at the race shop, a couple wrestles. That's what brothers do.

Okay. Yeah. And so. Like, like, you know. Like, got mad. We were not punching, but, like, wrestling, like, respectfully fighting. But there's. Like what brothers did.

Like, my brothers beat the things. out of each other. But there's some element of anger in this, right? Like it's not just like... There's a disagreement. Well, here's the thing. Riley has... Riley, I was Riley's brother. He has a sister, but he didn't have a brother. He had cousins, but so me and Riley had their brother rivalry.

You know what I'm saying? And me and my brothers would beat the breaks off of each other through our whole life. And my cousins, like, we've been fighting our whole life. That's just the way, you know, that's how it is. You've had the same thing, you know what I'm saying? Like, we've just had a couple scruffles. So me and Riley had a couple or we've wrestled a couple times.

Not wrestle, but like just got mad and one of us are in a headlock. You know, that's just red in the face. Sure. Yeah. But last corner, Walkins Glen, I remember I'm like, I'm not going to let him beat me.

And I remember I drove all the way in the right getting in because there's a grass patch on the right in the inside curb. And remember, I drove to the right because I'm past them. And there's a guy right in front of Riley, and Riley goes past him at the same time. And so I'm all the way,

I'm on the grass. Remember, I clip the grass and it hop, and I cleaned both of us out. And I'll never forget this. We were both back in the fence. I mean, feel so deep, last corner, like the wings all full up on the above the greenhouse. I remember I looked to Riley,

and I see Riley shake his head, and I'm like, oh, damn it. And then I see him after, and remember the first thing I said to him, because I got all the fence out, I'm like, why didn't you leave me enough room? And I'm the one that racked them. Of course, I think it took, like, two weeks for me to tell him

that I was like, I'm sorry, man. That's that funny. I would have thought he'd come after you a little bit more than that, though. No, he was mad. He didn't talk to me for a couple days. Have you been in a real fight after a race? Oh, no. I mean, only with.

Well, when would you have been in a fight? Just at school and just, I mean, just with my brothers and cousins. They just got mad or playing football and got cheap shot it and got physical. Yeah. Just, I mean, but I grew up with so many boys and there's a bunch of beating and banging. What are we to make of the post race at Martinsville? with Sam. Was that a was that were both you guys triggered? I mean I just happened. I mean, looking back, I mean, I wish it never happened just because it was it just sucked. But I feel like

I learned a lot from it and I'm thankful for that. But I just was frustrated. I feel like, you know, I got cheap shot at a little bit, but it was for the win, which was understandable in his position is for 100 grand. But I was, I lost the race. If I didn't miss the bottom, all the one hundred grand and the damn clock and I walked out of there all pumped. But I missed the bottom in 191 and so I just was frustrated and I feel like you know I got didn't take taking advantage of I just got moved out of the way and I was just frustrated because of that so I just was tempers were high were you were you were you were you were you're surprised in how you reacted I mean that's when we learned Todd Gibbs could throw a punch I well I just was I no not really I just wanted to get the point across

that I was frustrated and I felt like I I walked away and I feel like he came back up to me and and stuck his finger on my face and if everybody's like he never took the helmet all If you go back and watch, I took my right Hans off, and I was taking my helmet off at the time, and he came back up to me. But it's understandable in his point. You know, I hit him after the race. So it just was, it just was a mess. And I'm the one that fired. I'm the one that started it because, I mean, I missed the bottom, and I hit him after the race.

You didn't look, you looked like you had thrown a punch before. That's right. That's my point. I grew up with three brothers and four other boy cousins, and we played football, and coach would take this over to J.D.'s house, we play football and ride bikes. You swung on plenty of, plenty of those guys. I mean, yeah, we're roughing several boys and we're beating and banging each other. You know, that's just... Throwing a punch does not come naturally for people.

It doesn't. Yeah, luckily, I mean, it helped out a little bit. It happens to boys. I've been thankful for that. I think a lot of people were impressed. That's my point. It's like, oh, he's done this before or he has really good training. But I didn't want people to be thankful for that.

You know what I'm saying? I didn't like that because I didn't want to get... Like, that doesn't show what I'm here for. You know what I'm saying? Jesus didn't want me getting a fight. I didn't want to do that. You don't have to explain yourself here. Listen, at this table, we appreciate fights.

We appreciate cheating. We appreciate all the things that everybody else appreciates it, but they don't admit it. We'll admit it here. You know, we thought that's when we got respect for you. Innovation. There we go. Yeah, I don't mean cheating. Innovation.

I got to be honest with you. You know, there was a point this year where you all so impressed me. You wouldn't know this because it wasn't on the track. It was when our friends at Door Bumper Clear said something that I think, was incorrect. I was a little, I felt like taking advantage of in that situation. And, and you know what, you know what Ty did? He called up Brett. He called up Brett and had the conversation himself. Didn't do it through PR reps. Didn't do it to everybody else. I just was frustrated for what they said. They said, so Taldega, I got big run by 39 and it was dead

sideways down the straightaway. And I came back. And I just, you know how this? I was super easy on the wheel. And I remember I just almost got turned by the air. And at the same time, I hooked the 11 and I wrecked 11 and I straight up erect them and I wrecked myself watered myself up way worse than any of them but I remember he said that I flipped them off which I mean if you go back

and watch and Zoom and I have pictures on my phone and I sent it to him but I think I did I don't know if I did or not but I call them and I remember it was just my hand because I was like easy you know and they said that you know if you're speedway racing you can't be flipping people off out the window but I was speedway racing I was waving the sky off because he's

pushed me too hard and you know how that is I'm like hey man easy like that's too much um and so they said i flipped them off and i was just frustrated and i was like i'm a racer i want to speak up and i'm not just going to be some servicemen that's not going to talk you know what i'm saying that's my point i want to talk yeah not only that i think that drivers a lot of times um now i think it's not just drivers but anybody uses text messages as your i don't have to talk to somebody face to face and you not only didn't text you called up and had a man-to-man comment conversation and you were your best self-advocate. You didn't ask anybody else to do it.

And that's when I realized, hey, listen, I think that Ty actually is a lot more mature and a lot more man about this than what people are giving him credit for. I appreciated you doing that. And by the way, I think Brett did too. I think those guys did. I mean, I listen to a show here and there and there and all like all this guys, you know, Casey and Brett and T. And they're wrong all the time. So that wasn't the only time. No. And I give, I give, I give him a little crap here and there but uh i just i just felt like i was like i mean i'm gonna be around the sport for a while i think hopefully and i want to be able to have good relationships so i was like i might as well calm and just make sure that we get the point across because i'm the one that did it and i didn't

flip them off my hand was at the window all my four fingers or five fingers got the window so i just was making sure have you ever flipped anybody all yes in a race car i learned that Kyle told me not to do that new or he sat me down he yelled at me bush really Kyle bush told you something about it so that i was on live TV and it wasn't Martin'sville on the lapers. Did he tell you that he's also flipped people off? Yeah, you know, but he gave me, he's a bit of a hypocrite. Yeah. Flip them off at Phoenix. Oh, yeah. Well, we've had a lot flipping off. And I learned, I feel like over the last two years, I've learned a lot about respect just from getting in the higher series and, you know, we're earning respect. I'm getting a lot of getting a cup series. I don't want to wreck somebody, you know what I'm saying. I just want to learn respect. And so I remember getting mad at lappers or something, you know, they're, because they have the mind of their own on sometimes. I remember. I got ran high at Marcel on that. I just flung the bird out the window.

And I mean, that's not who I, I mean, that's not who I am. And I don't talk like that, but I remember flipping a couple people off. And I start, you get comfortable with it. I don't know if you have. Start doing it, yeah. You start doing it all the time. This is effective. And so Kyle came to you, he saw you doing this other people?

Yeah, he said, you just need to calm down, man. You just need to calm down. You didn't flip him off. No. But he came to you and said. But I would flip my, I flip my, I'd flip my, I'd raise Drew Dollar. He's my buddies. I flip him off just for fun.

Kyle came to you and said, hey, man, stop. When you need you stop doing that? Stop doing that. Yeah, he said, what the, he said, what are you doing? Stop. You need you just relax. That's interesting. I remember he brought up some driver and I'm like, man, that guy, I'm like, man,

that guy's, that guy's just crazy. He's a hack, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And he's like, what is wrong with you? You need to relax. That's funny. We were sitting in the, after Exfinity Practice at Road America, he won the next day. I was beating him.

And we were talking about the car and he's asking all these crazy questions about shims and stuff. And I'm like, I don't even know what that is. is. And then finally, when it gets brought up, he's like, are we going to have the talk now or not? And then he finally is like, you need to stop. You just need to relax. And then I took

that and I'm like, all right, you know, I relax a little bit. And then I go look at somebody like Kyle Arson, which is one of the best drivers probably ever walk on a face to earth. You know, there's a bunch of them, but he's on that list. And I like at him, and he's won a cup championship, probably more to come. And all these races

more than probably all over when, just because he's racing and all this dirt stuff. And I'm like, That guy has gotten one altercation and was at Tilly Bull with, I can't remember who it was, but it wasn't even an altercation. It was just a yelling match. And I'm like, besides that, he's, you know, erased people hard, but he doesn't wreck, when he's not wrecking people with him, he's respectable. And I was like, that's who I want to be.

I want to be like him. I want to be as fast as him. I want to be as fast as Kyle. I want to be as smooth as Denny. And I was like, I took all that. And I was like, that's who I want to be. And I've, sometimes it's failed. Like, I've got a fight at Mardsville with Sam and I've, you know, said bad things on the

radio, you know, cuss. Sure. Yeah, yeah. But I took it. I'm like, that's who I want to be like, I want to be like that guy. Like that guy's, that guy's good. I want to be like him. When, I remember when I came into the Cup series flipping someone off, like when you're

in your teens, late teens, 20s. Stastastroen. Flipping someone off is not like a big deal. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I'm just letting you know I'm bad. You know, flip me off. I don't care. It's fine.

But to a guy that's like 35 and older, you take it. They get personal about that. Now, I'm now at that place, right, where if I'm out on the racetrack and especially a younger driver flips you off, it flips a switch that I didn't know was there. Yeah. Because I remember doing it when I was younger and I think it was Rusty Wallace or somebody. I was either getting this conversation from Rusty or I was listening to it. And it was basically like, look, man, if you're going to flip somebody off, be ready to get your ass run over in the next corner because that's what's going to happen. because that's like that enrages a driver more than giving them a donut or even running in the back of them.

Yeah. For some reason. That one gesture. It's personal. It is personal. It's you doing it. I mean, you know, the car, if you're right. Hook somebody or your door somebody, that's, you're doing it too.

But it's your hand sticking out the window. Yeah. Not your team's card. You could use a guy up in the corner and he might just use you up in the next one. But if you flipped him off in the corner, he's going to wreck you. Or get wrecked him. Yes. You're going to get a fight.

You're going to get a fight after the race. Yeah. Yeah. It's weird. That's fascinated. It feels like I've seen a lot of birds fly out the window. Now I need to sort of pay attention to who's throwing it and who's receiving it. I just look at people that do it, and I've done it.

I'm completely hypocrite. I've done it too. I've done probably more than the people I'm talking about. But I like, I like at somebody do it in their hands. Way out. Yeah, I'm just like, that just doesn't, that just doesn't look professional. You know what I'm saying? Like, I just don't feel like that is, it just looks, I just don't think it looks right.

You know, and I've read people and got flipped off, and that's, I mean, that was my fault. and I probably should have flipped off, but I just don't think, I just doesn't think, I don't think it looks like a professional, you know, I just don't, I just don't think about that. And I mean, there's times where you're going to have to, where, I mean, you keep a hand all different way, but people are, you're going to get, you're going to flip people off, but I feel like just getting a little bump or something, like your whole hands out the window. You try to touch the sky. You don't have to say names, but is there people in the Xfinity series right now that will flip you off and not get away with it? You would make sure they would not get away with it. I haven't thought about that. Maybe, maybe, A little bit, but I just... It's case by case, man. I just think in the moment. The biggest thing is, if somebody's slipping you off or you're racing something hard, just get by them and go, your car's faster than that. That's why I always got told.

Don't work around with them, you know? Just go. You pass them and go. You're faster. It's hard, though, in the moment. For sure, 1,000 percent. But I feel like that's, once you learn that and you keep your, you don't get, you know, win the race and you get too high and you forget about those stuff.

You just keep yourself at, you see level, and you learn it. You keep all those tools underneath you, and you use that in all the situations. I mean, you can't, you're going to be good. So when you go to the Xfinity series, I know you've probably felt prepared for that opportunity, but what were the nerves? I was more nervous to make my Xfinity server for my Cup Star, I can tell you that. I was just because I have more time to think about it, but I'm like, I've watched, like, Justin Alleyer race for a while, and I look up to, you know, not look up to him,

but I've just seen him race and I've admired him and, you know, racing all these different guys. I remember watching Cindric race and I'm like, that guy's good. So I'm just, like, racing with a minute. I'm in the NASCAR now. So that was cool. I feel like the transition was pretty not too bad honestly that oval stuff took me a little bit to get used to

I remember just feeling that rotate so much more like the rotation less side force less spoiler less front down force so the rotation the car was definitely different a Phoenix was the first time I got to race in an oval next Vinny car I finished second there because Jeb wrecked everybody on the restart

which helped me out but I wasn't going to finish second I just got out of the throttle because I had the onboard I remember seeing go down three wide or four five wide bottom and I'm like, there ain't no way he's making it. And so I just jump out of the thrall.

You restart like 8th or 10th or something. I remember that, yes. Yeah. And so, yeah, like the transition wasn't too bad. I remember racing Daytona Road, of course, the first one, and I won. But I raced our car before. Don't gloss over that. You're saying the transition wasn't too bad.

You literally won in your first Xfinity race. But the way the car felt, I raced our credit before and having the traditional housing in the steering box, not like the cup stuff. It was pretty close. A little bit more horsepower, but I could main. I like to have that feel where I could just rest my throttle on the foot or my foot

on the where I could roll speed and you know feel tires I like that and so it was fun it was racing there but it was really cool yeah it's nice to know it's nice to learn about where your ability at road courses came from and hear it about your history I feel like a lot of it was eye racing I know man because the feel so I remember learning how to drive a legend car on the irasing them because I was spinning the tires when you first getting you see my friends get in there they're horrible you know how the same thing And they're spinning tires and they're oversteering. I remember learning all those little things in there in the back of the CNC shop.

And it smelled like metal back there. But I also think that your GoPro laps and stuff like that. I feel like that helps, but I don't think that was the whole case. I feel like learning how to drive the car on edge, which I racing was like because you don't have motion and you don't know how it's slipping besides your visuals. The visuals are giving you a cue.

I feel like that's good for cup stuff now. Good point. But for the, you know, learning how to get the car control, like in the road course stuff. I just feel like it was not overdriving and just like getting the feel for like what how much I had. Yeah. That's a damn smart statement right there.

Just, you know, when you're racing on eye racing, you don't have C of the pants feel. Your cues off the visuals. On the wheel and the wheel. In the fact that the cup is actually moved in that direction. Yeah.

I think it helps. There's more of a benefit to younger kids. And I grew up in video games playing Halo reach when I was younger. Just like all these video games. I grew up, I played more video games than anybody. Like I just like that. My family always did it.

Yeah. It's what we were due. You'd be surprised. You did? I know you're all in it. I'm a big gamer, but like, man, when I, when me and like all through the 2000s, like MacKinseth, he's playing Madden in his bus. He's a big Madden guy.

Yeah, everybody, so yeah, we've done all that. And I think that only helps for visual cues. It all helps. That's a good point. So the Xfinity series, you're in a great race car. You've got great ability, great talent. You show up every week feeling like, you know, you got to feel like, hey, man, we got a shot to win everywhere we go.

You know, it's hard to believe that this is, you know, this is your first full season. It's definitely crazy. It feels like you've been here for like three or four years. Yeah. Doesn't it? It does for me. And if it's only my 40th race coming up next. Right.

40th Xfinity race. Walkins gone, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, so when did you run your first full season? Last season? ARCA. And cars two or late Mollstocks. In the Xfinity series?

This year. This year? Because I only ran 18 last year. I only ran like three quarters or a little less than three quarters of what the season was. Okay. I wish I could race more. Right. And so.

But I only look at like the X-FIN series. I'm like, it's only 33 races. We're race 19. I'm like, dang, I don't have that many left of you this year. I want to go race more. So, I mean, that's a good point. That's a good case to argue you stand in the Xfinity series for next year. Right?

I don't know. Yeah. Or figure it out. You're going to figure it out. So. I want to race much as I can. And I definitely want to be back in Xen games. When you, if and when you go into the Cup series, you'll want to continue to run.

Yeah. Many is like that. Yeah. Especially with practice limited like it is. As many as I possibly can. I'm just not even, I feel like the cup car is so different. The Cup car almost sells my Xfinity car, but I feel like the Cup car so different. The Xfinity car gives me good seat time.

But I feel like I just want to race. I just want to win more. And I want to be able to beat everybody more. I just like to practice like, you know, when the college comes out, shutting my car off. I just like all that little stuff and turn my switches and make sure everything's the right way. I just like the racing and I like the racecraft and feeling them involved with it. That's why I just want to keep doing it more and more and more.

When the new next-gen car came out and the sequential shifting and the steering being a little different and all that, a lot of the cup guys moved away from any kind of idea of running Xfinity races. Yeah. And now they're coming back. Yep. Yeah, I think people are just getting, I think cup, you don't have much practice. It's stressful and people just want to go race. I feel like that's people coming down. I think it's cool when people come down.

I really like it. I wish NASCAR never limited to cup drivers coming down next venue series besides the playoffs stuff. I wish that was never a rule because I want to race Kyle. I want to get better. I want to race Kyle Larson.

I want to get better. I want to race William Byron. I want to learn all of all these guys. I want to race them. I want to beat them. And I wish it never, NASCAR never limited. I understand why,

but I wish they never limited us cup drivers doing that. When you went into the cup garage, did you feel a different vibe in there compared to the Xfinite garage? It was weird like saying next to like Chase Elliott and Joe Ligano with my suit on. I've talked to him before without my suit,

but just like, you're in there. Yeah, I'm all in. I'm talking to Martin. We're about to go race. You know, like, that's cool. It was just cool. What do you think about Martin? I like Martin a lot.

I think Martin is, like, I think he's a straight badass. I think he's, you know, all in. I think he's fishes and hans, but he race cars. And I think he's like the, he's so raw talent that is insane. I remember watching a good next finney car, Atlanta. last year he was supposed he almost won they got a speeding up at road the last section but I remember like just watched him drive him and how he never even put the seat until Thursday before the race and he hasn't been an extenant car and I don't know how long and he got in there and

almost won it and I mean kill them yeah and I thought that was so cool and you know he's he does all this other stuff and he lives a lifestyle away from racing and I do the same thing my life outside of racing is isolate like completely different night and day I think that's so cool and I like Martin. I think I look up to him and I got to race him this weekend pretty hard too, so that was really cool. Having driven Denny's car for a couple weeks, have you got the chance to meet Michael? I've not. I haven't got to meet him. I've got to meet him. I've texted him here and back, which is really cool, and he's all on, so I think that's awesome too. And, I mean, we all know that, but he's dedicated. I think he watches all everything to make sure he's, you know, making sure

that his team's running the best. So I think that's all. I really, I really like that. You grew up around Denny. I mean, he's been. he's part of the family, right? Coach has got some other grandsons, Kyle and Denny. Yeah. So, you know, what, I guess it's probably not odd at all to be, you know, or it's not unique or kind of, it's probably very seamless to go drive his car, right? I think it's, it was really cool to get the call.

I feel like I have a, I've known Denny for a while, but I never really get to talk to him until the last couple of years, just because I'm driving for his team and I'm around him and his, almost his teammates. So same with Kyle. I've talked to Kyle a bunch. You know, Kyle text me all the time. So I've had great relationships with them. And Danny's been a very big help, you know, making sure I'm doing the right thing.

And I'm waiting, you know, seated in the car and I'm getting the right stuff blacked out. And then, you know, on the roll bar. It's just like he's all detail. He's really good with that. And he's been big help. I'm sure I'm looking at the right thing. So he's been very big. And I'm, you know, it's been blessed to have these guys around me.

I'm curious on, you know, as well, wait for Kurt to rehab and heal back. Are you just kind of like waiting to get calls and you're just on standby on a week-to-week basis? How does that process working? For me, so, I mean, like we all have all said, we will hope he gets better as soon as we can. A hundred percent. And, you know, he holds up. But for me, I'm just, I'm just here. And if I can drive, I can drive. If I can't drive, I want to learn. And I've practiced the simulator, you know, making sure I'm just in case I get the call I'm there. How late in the week do you expect to go before you find out for sure if you're racing?

I don't know. It's been, the last three weeks have been, it's been here and there. Like, it's been late. It's been early. You got it. Right, right, right. But it's been different for all of them. So I just make sure I'm prepared.

And I feel like confidence, and I don't use confidence to race, but confidence comes from preparation because you're confidence in what you've done. You've practiced that step millions of times. So I just do it all just to make sure, watch the film, watching SMT, watching data, watching, you know, doing the eye racing, doing the simulator, just making sure I've done everything going. And if I got to get the call, I get the call. If I don't, I don't, but I can learn from it at least. Talk about your dad and his role in Joe Gibbs racing. Like, you know, so this is a little unfair to ask because you're so young, but, you know, there's a conversation in the sport about there's a lot

of teams that are, you know, the owners are getting up there in age. For sure. Right? And so, You know, and you're young, and maybe, you know, they shield you from that. And you probably even personally, you know, don't even need to really be worried about all these things at your age. I know where I'm going, so I'm not scared about it. I know where he's going, so it's the least of my concerns. But what you do you have a feeling about what the plan is? I mean, there's a lot. So my dad is very great with all that.

He takes care of it. He moved from the motocross team. So my uncle got sick, and he moved eventually over to the Cup team in 2016. team. First time he was back, they won a day 10 to 500, which is awesome. Yeah. And so, yeah, he does all of it. He's very hands-on. He's very, he works very hard. He's very professional. So, and he wants to win, I think, more than the same as everybody in that building. And I've got, you know, a bunch of smart cousins and brothers that could

eventually run it. I'm doing my duty now. I'm racing. I've been in it my whole life. I'll know how much if I want to run it or not after. I mean, stuff changes. are they get older. I might be running there. I've got phenomenally smart cousins. So outside of coach, you know, there's a lot of people that are involved in the family? Not right now. My cousin, my JD's oldest, he pits on the 20.

He's a 20 changer. So he got his first one in New Hampshire, which I was so pumped for him. And then my cousin Miller, he plays at App, he's a tight end. And my cousin Jason goes to Clemson, my youngest color, Taylor, Taylor, he plays golf. He's very good at golf, and I'm stealing all those tips from him. But he's really good. So, you know, and I've got two brothers that could eventually run in, and my cousins can. They all, I feel like everybody has a part in it.

It's their company. It's all of our company, you know, and I think it's a family company. So, you know, they have a whole part. We have Dave Alpern and his kids are really, really smart. So there's just a bunch of smart people around, which would be lucky about that. I'm probably not the smartest one. So I'm just going to stick to driving cars. Yeah.

What does your dad feel like Have you and him had any kind of conversations about Just how well this is all went? No, not at all I don't talk to my dad about that stuff He never did he never is he ever say Good job is the only thing I get but that's how it's always been I feel like we're here

He never he never gets out of the car and I've bewildered look on his face When he sees you because you're like You're his son you just want to know he definitely He definitely loves it and he's you know He smiles and gives me knuckles I remember going to the victory line and I always see him. That's it.

But my dad's quiet and my dad's isolated. And that's how he works though. So, you know, he's giving up cold, but he's out of the victory lane. He's going and he's going back by himself. That's how he is. And I've always, that's never, that's all of what I know. And it's funny watching, you know, like, I see all these people's, I go to my friend's house and see these relationships with their dads. And I'm like, I never, that's just so weird to me.

You know what I have and I love my dad. And he loves me. But this is what, this is what it's always been like. It's we're business. There's nothing else. It's for business. My mom does real estate and was the highest seller in Charlotte last year. She sold $95 million in houses last year in total.

And my brothers play baseball. My brother goes to football and baseball every day. Younger brother is the same. My sister is phenomenally smart and looking at going to Cornell. It's just phenomenally smart. It does rides horses and wants to be a veterinarian. So everybody has talents and everybody's, we're all business at the house. you know so it's it's just so different going to other people's houses and see you know we're

waking everybody's waking up they're having family breakfasts and my dad's cooked their dad's cooking pancakes and I'm like we just work everybody gets their food we're working hard so we do and I feel like that's I've been blessed and God's blessed me with a great feeling to grow up with him to what I'm doing now is I learned so much from growing up with my family because that's how it's always been there's no different if you did wrong it's wrong if you did right it's right there's no almost there's no good job or there's no like almost there good job it's you got to it's business business where do you find camaraderie and where do you find where do you find you know a genuine you know partnership relationship friendship your buddies whatever it is where do you go to just

kind of have that normalcy uh so like i said live by myself i have a dog his name is bronson he's a european deborman he's a big boy um and so i have uh you know i have great friends I live around. I love going playing golf. I love a completely different life out of racing. Are these friends connected to racing? Some of them are, some of them are. And I'm very close to my cousins. Jackson, he's Pitts-South money. Like I said, he just moved right down the street for me. So I got dinner with him. I just went dinner with him last night. And my best friend, Drew, he just moved down. He's going to UGA this year, so he's out. But I'll be able to see him a lot. So I just have a lot of good people I can go hang out with. And I just live a completely different life out of racing.

What about coach outside of racing? Do you ever have any? Oh, yeah. So when I was younger, I used to go with him a lot, a lot, a lot. So we used to, my parents, my mom would drop me off and we'd go play golf with them. Oh, okay. It was chaos. We'd go raid the sports store or something.

You know, like we're going to go carts at Victory Lane and all that. So we've had a lot of great times. Played a lot of golf. I'm trying to pick that up now just so I can beat them. So if your dad, Koi, is hands off and really, draw separation between, you know, the dad role and the business role. Yeah, but it's not, he doesn't draw it himself. That's just how it's always been.

No, no, I understand. But it's not him doing it. Coach was, I feel like the same way because he was coaching all at the same time. He was hardly home. That was my question. But that's the way we made. That's how they've made their living. That's how their life was.

Well, like after you just had your first top ten in cup, what would coach say to you about that? Coach is all, he loved, he, I've, I've, I've a great relationship with Coach. He's all on it. He's all over the grandkids. He loves us. He seems to be the kind of person that would, that is the one that would be there going, I can't believe you just did that. He couldn't be more proud.

He's always happy and he always loves seeing us. Yeah, he always loves seeing us all around. So, coach is, coach, yeah, he'll give me it. He'll give me it. He'll slap. Good job. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, no, he loves it.

He's on it. I like seeing that. I could see how you would want to always make him proud. Like when he was here, like I don't ever think about that stuff. Is that right? If I do something wrong, I feel like I need to fix it, but I don't, I don't feel like I have to make people proud. I just do it to do, like I just, my job, my race cars, I drive driving race cars, I love it. And I wouldn't do it if I would love it.

But it's my job. And I do, I treat it as my job. But I don't like go to turn it to people happy. That's fair. I just want to win. And I never do it to make them happy. I don't do something to make them happy. But if I do something wrong, I got to fix it.

That's my guilt feeling. I understand completely. I just, my, my thought is being around Coach Gibbs, being around Rick Hendrick, being around some of these guys. It's like, yeah, man, I could work for them. I got to grow up around Rick, too. These are not bad people to grow up around. My youngest are my middle brother. He is best friends with Rick's grandson, Hendrick Carlson.

And so we got to grow up around the Carlson's, and I got to see Rick. And, yeah, Marshall and them. Interesting. They're awesome. And I've got to go over their house a bunch. They're great people. It's just cool growing up around, like the coolest people. And I'm so thankful for that.

When we think about Joe Gibbs and his past with Washington as a, coach and like what what where are you with all that does that I just think it's cool they won three Super Bowls do you watch all that you see I never I mean I don't look at them different but I just like think it's cool something like with your dad like I know but I just think that's I grew up so I grew up around it yeah with my dad yeah and the comparison that I'll give you is you're a lot like Chase in the in the in the in the in the sense that chase didn't see a lot of his dad's career yeah right no I never I so I got to see the part the end of it so he retired in 2007. My dad actually was there with him

the whole time. Yeah, he was a coach. And so, yeah, and I got to be, I got to kind of, I remember going to games, riding in. I remember being with the Snyders and being with Jerry, their grands, or their kids. So I just remember being around the whole family of the commanders. Okay. I got those moments I'll never for you. And I remember the coolest thing I was are you, are you a fan, is it like locked in? Oh yeah, I'm blood. For all the, yeah, you're all in. Yeah. And I remember

playing with my cousins in years. So after the football games, Washington, we played a home game. I didn't really go to that many of way games on a couple. I was basically at Panthers. I wouldn't go to way games because, well, I did go to Panthers. But we were around the Eagles and stuff like that, and it was just a wreck for jails in the stadium. Like, it just was horrible. I never wanted to go to like them.

I don't do anything with them. It took some convincing for me to go to watch Washington play at Charlotte because I'm like, wow. It's not home. It's not home. Yeah. I remember listening to The Chance and everything. but the coolest thing, I'll never be able, like, nothing will top this. You know, I've done some cool stuff in my life, but this is one of the coolest

is after we win, after they take the TV's cameras down the lines that they run what the TV's running around, if we've won, we got to go play in the field after. And I thought that was the coolest thing. And it was all of my cousins, my brothers, my sister would be out there, and then we'd be with Jerry, and we'd be throwing football around, and there'd be some people some of the stands. But I remember just, like, looking at the grass and the, be tore up and like the paint and like I thought that nothing will beat that like that is the coolest thing I'll ever I'll ever remember and I remember we'd want to win more than anybody in that

stadium just we could play out there I was at a couple games so a long time ago when um uh Janzo Hall and and Washington beat Dallas we stayed late Santana Moss yeah but I think DeAngel Angel Hall intercepted a pass and did a pick six and then we had a we had the Dallas got down there to inside the 20 at the end of the game. And Romo, there was a pass interference offensive or something. Yeah. Or a holding call or something. But we ended up winning. They were about to score, and it was a big win.

And we hung around, and there's kids out on the field. Hell, it might have been you. That's probably. Well, I remember seeing you again. We'd fly up and go to the deal. You saw him in the game? No, we would go. I don't remember if we were in the same plan, but we would still find the same area.

I see him, yeah. At the airport. Yeah. Yeah. I think I might have, that was a Monday night game. You were there. I was there with you. With boxes you guys sit in.

We sat in the very center of the owner suite. Yeah, yeah. So that's what we, yeah. So I'm ever seen. I think I'm, I definitely were ever seen it. We should go. You.

I love it. I love going. I didn't go last year. And I haven't been in a couple years. Yeah, we haven't gone. Yeah. COVID ruined everything. Just like the way of ruined everything.

I asked Denny if he, because Denny's a watching a fan and I'm like, Denny, we should go to some game. We should go to a game, right? Like, why not? Yeah. We're all in this industry together. We should just go to a game one day.

Yeah. No, I love, I love going. Let me know. We always take buses and it's awesome. For sure. I'll text you. Yeah. Hey, I got to ask you this before you leave.

We've got to size up this Xfinity Series championship in the playoffs. I mean, we've got to do it. We're in the building. You are in the building. It's funny. I got my broadcasters hat on right now. Well, look, it's funny because, you know, typically in Tuesdays when we're doing this podcast, you know, people in the shop will look in here.

I can see them from my vantage point, and they'll look in here. I've seen a couple double takes, though, today. They're like, wait, wait, wait, what a second. Did we let the government race? I'm in enemy territory. Yeah, you are. But for real, this is, you know, we've had a good season at Junior Motorsports, and you've had a terrific season.

So what's your mindset heading into the playoffs, and, you know, what are you thinking about this? I mean, just capitalizing on everything I can, getting the most points I can, I can. I mean, winning can't beat that. So just, I mean, doing as best as I can to do the best. finish as I can. I feel like everybody's like what's your different mindset going to this and this racing cup and all that. I'm just like it's the same for me race not a dirt late model rate or a dirt cart race or racing in a cup series. It's just the same. It's just racing. I just want to do the best I can.

And I feel like I take it more from a military side of it. If I have to complete the mission, if I can't complete it, then I'm do the best I can till up to that point. I have to, you know, keep going and put away all my feelings and just do my job and do the best I can. I can't control if wheels loose or if our truck arm breaks or something just ridiculous happens. I just can only control what I can control. And that's the best time I do. Man, I tell you, that's scary for us because. But I mean, if I waste my time thinking about that stuff, I just know, I'm not going to enjoy

my life. You just seem to be well within your years here is that, you know, typically you could count on all right, well, look, he's having a great year, but he's, you're not a rookie, but you're in your first full season, you know, the pressure will get to him. I don't think it will for you. I think you seem to be able to. That's my childhood. Fend off pressure and compartmentalizer, whatever it is you do.

Well, I'll give you guys. It doesn't affect you. I'll give you guys the inside of that. So, the talk about the feeling situation. I've a great relationship with our creator, Jesus. And I feel like my, there's a Bible verse that says, you know, take a hold of my yoke and give me all of your burdens. And ever since I heard that, I don't have to feel any pressure because I have not control all that stuff. And he knows what you're going to do and you're going to do and what I'm going to do in the next 10 minutes.

and how long I'm going to live for. So I don't have to worry about any of that stuff. And I enjoy my life every second of it, ever since I heard that. And so I give him all of my uncomfortable feelings, my anxiety, none of us are supposed to hold anxiety or all that stuff,

because that's all evil, and he's already defeated evil. So I give it all to him, and I don't have to worry about that stuff. And that's the inside of happiness right there. I don't have to worry about any of the feelings. There's not such thing as that. Will you come to a motivational speech for our team?

I would love to. I love to spread the words. word. But like that's just, I feel like for, you know, listen to the stories of the Bible and people like Daniels thrown in the lines then and people, Meshach and all those guys in the Bendigo were throwing into a fire and they didn't die because they know where they're going and they know exactly where they give their feelings to you. None of us were created to hold any of that stuff. That's why I'm happy and I love where I'm at. There's nothing else that can defeat that. And my time on earth is just a grain of sand compared to the time I'll spend in heaven

compared to the universe. There's so much more. I know that it's, I admire your, I admire your faith. And I know that Joe, Joe walks around, Joe is our Joe. Joe Gibbs. Oh, Joe Gibbs. With tracks. Joe Gibbs walks around and Joe Gibbs is standing in the pits.

With this tracks. Yeah. I have this all over my house. Joe Gibbs is standing in the pits every single weekend, right? His pit, somebody's pit, he's in his cup pits, right? All he's in his cup pits, right? what's he got in his hand Mike he's got something in his hand probably those tracks he's talking about like the little so he has the tracks and it's a game plan for life yeah and they have a whole deal that runs

that jan boston actually runs it and they have all the bowel verses and it's the introduction but i feel like taking that aside i feel like when i gained my relationship with jesus i was so happy that i didn't know how to express it besides share the word and it helped me out so much i've gone through anxiety worse i feel like worse than a lot of people have like i didn't know how to control myself i didn't know The only thing I could do is go and sit in the dark room because that's how I could reset my brain. But once I figured out, I don't have to deal with this. This is not my control. I give it to God.

Then all of that went away and all of that went away. And I can do it in a race car. I give all my feelings. My nervousness, my butterflies. I don't control it to that. I give that to God because he tells us to do it. And that's going to create all of us. So I'm going to listen to him.

But like I said, when you learn and are so thankful and happy for something like that, you have to share it because it's going to help other people out. And that's what I was here to do is to, I feel like just to drive race guards and share the word. That's all I'm here to do. And if I'm going to be a janitor next month, then that's what I'm going to do because that's my calling. And I'm going to do it, but I'm happy because the only thing that can bring me true joy is Jesus. I just think it's so cool that Joe in the moment when he's, you know, he's the leader of these race teams and they're getting ready to race and there's this, you know, everything's on the line. Sponsorship.

That that's what he has in his hand. and he's got a handful of them to give to whoever he thinks might need one in that moment, right? Gosh, I got so many of those around my house. They're everywhere. There's not a minute of the day when he's not trying to connect somebody to their fate. Because that's the joy and the happiness that he has in him. Because it explodes, it explodes inside of you. Yeah, it's pretty interesting.

Good luck. I mean, good luck in the championship. I mean, I'm going to tell you something, Dale. We thought, well, we weren't sure if he was a talker or not. We were going to have to maybe open him up a little bit. I love it. I love it. This guy here, you know, you've won me over.

But you've won me over before today. I'm telling you. Thanks, Mike. I really appreciate kind of how you self-advocate for yourself. And, boy, you do have a good head on your shoulders. You sure? I think so. I think so.

Hey, listen. At times. Listen, hey, we all. have flaws, Mark, don't we? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I hope that that's the case, but I think it's the key is owning them. I mean, listen, you have no problem admitting when you run people over, you know, and I would imagine that there'll be other people that actually get run over. You might even fling a bird out the window. For sure. It's going to be there. Hopefully not to the wrong person, though. Yeah, man, we appreciate you coming in here. For sure. Been a lot of fun watching your race.

Been more fun getting to know who you are. Thank you. And like we said a few times on the show today, you're going to be around for a while, right? And I think that this is a great opportunity for not only us here at this table, but everybody listening to really get to know you a little bit better. You know, we're not provided that much opportunity to kind of see somebody beyond what we're, you know, what we, what we witness on Saturdays. And so it's really, it's really a great opportunity, man. and I admire you and your self-awareness, your adaptability, and your quest to improve, not just your skill, but yourself. And you're going to be a lot of fun to watch over the next several years in this sport.

So thank you so much, man. Good luck going forward. Yeah, we're going to try to race you hard, but. You guys are good. I got to get our stuff a little bit better, and we can maybe hang with you. I feel the other way around, man. And I feel like that I said that on the front of the grid at the Xfinity races. We should just drag cars.

Yeah, we should. Just everybody getting there. I feel like Joe. We could roll dice. We've chased y'all. We've chased y'all for over a decade. And so it feels like to me that Joe Gibbs is always going to be that sort of, that rabbit that we're always, everybody in the series is after. Well, thanks for let me come on.

I'm very enjoyed. And it's very cool for me and a great opportunity for me because I've listened to a lot of these. And I think it's super cool to be able to come on and, you know, sit. and seats for awesome people have sat and drivers have sat. And it's just cool to talk to you guys. I enjoy every bit of it. So whenever you want to come back on, give me a call. We're going to definitely have you back on.

For sure. You know, once we get you in the Cup Series for a half a year or so, we want you to come in here and tell us how your experience is going. We'll do. Yeah. Yeah, that's always a lot of fun to see the rookies when they're getting. Oh, man. It's a lot different.

Yeah. Sundays are different. It's hard. All right, man. Appreciate your time. you guys. Ty Gibbs on the Delginer Download. You know, Mike, whether I've been in the garage, right, as a driver or in the studio

as a member of the media, the biggest lesson I've learned over the years is that we are all better off with an ally, a friend, a partner. My favorite part of the download has always been the opportunity it gives me to connect with such a wide range of people. They love racing as much as I do, and it means so much to me that when we leave the guest segment, leave it with a feeling that I can call each and every guest on the download of true ally.

Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the show and the entire Dirty Mo Media team. The return to North Wilkesboro is something you're not going to want to miss. Hey, Dale Jr. Download fans, this is Alex Timms, and I'm here to tell you that tickets are still available at www.n.n.warkwiltsboro Speedway.com. If you can't make it out to the track, don't worry. purchase the pay-per-view on Racing America for any day of racing action at Racingamerica. That's racingamerica.tv. Purchasing an event ticket or pay-per-view on Racing America directly supports North Wilkesboro

and its revival efforts. All righty, we are live on YouTube for Ask Junior. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr., and thank you guys for tuning in to the Ask Junior portion of the show. Thank you, Exfinity, for everything you do for the Dale Jr. download and Dirtymo Media. I am a customer. I love my X-Finity X-5. And, yeah, still no outages. I think I don't know what I'm on day 600 and something.

And haven't had any issues. Hadn't had a call for service. I did have somebody rip my line when they parked on the public parking area of my front yard. I got a public parking just beyond my fence line. And somebody hit the dang telephone pole and ripped the line. and I called Exfinity and a service guy was out there and fixed it

the same day. There you go. I was pretty happy about that. I went out there and watched him do it and annoyed him the whole time. Probably did. I was definitely one of those guys. That's when you're becoming your parents.

When you're like annoying the serviceman or somebody, you call somebody to come to your house and you're like, hey man, tell me how you're fixing this. That's right, because I don't want to have to call you the next time it happens. I want to do it myself. Yeah.

You don't want to tell it. You don't want them to know that, but you're like, what are you doing now? Now, anyhow, what were we doing? I don't know. It's been this kind of day, though, by the way. It's been a day.

But anyways, you send in your questions to Add Xfinity Racing on Twitter, and Hannah is back. She's going to give us the best ones, her favorites. She p-channed all the ones she didn't like. Thank you, thank you. This first one comes from Duke. It says, part of the fun from your old Back in the Day show

was watching your eyes bug out at some of the wild things that used to happen in NASCAR. What's something that's commonplace today that you think we're going to look back in 20 or 30 years from now and say, oh my gosh, I cannot believe they used to do that? Well, I was actually maybe thinking about this the other day. Remember when in the pandemic we had double headers

and we would do the 20 car invert? So we were looking at Harvick's stats and embedded in some of the stats that we were looking at was the fact that in the last five out of six cup races at Michigan, the winner came out of the top three. The only reason why it's not six out of six is because of that 20 car invert that put Harvick in the back of the field for that double header than for the second of the double header.

So anyways, I was thinking I was like, man, double headers. and inverts. Like, you know, that's crazy. And then I was reading yesterday a magazine about NASCAR back in like the 50s and the 60s, and they used to do double headers with inverts. And so, yeah, I mean, you know, I think when we were starting to do those things in the pandemic. I think we all were like, wow, can you believe we're doing this? Well, they had done it before. That's one thing that popped in my mind. And I think there will be a time 10 years from now, 15 years from

now. We'll look back on, can you believe we showed up and didn't practice and just started the race? No practice. Not a lap. I mean, there were races that, you know, we were, there was the races where Josh Barry and guys, you know, that were getting their first opportunities in the trucks in the Cup series and the Xfinity series. that they didn't have any laps. You just start the race. I mean, that still blows my mind today, and I think in 10 years from now, we're definitely going to be talking about that

and devilheaders and inverts. Can you believe NASCAR Cup Series inverted 20 cars? I mean, that's crazy. Even now, two years removed. Even just the no-practice thing, I think about some of those kids that made their rookie debuts when we'd cover truck races, and they'd be like, well, have you ever ran a super speedway?

Nope. You ever been here before? Nope, haven't. I'm like, what are you expecting? Don't know, I'll talk, you know, maybe listening to the radio after the first 10 laps because when we take the green, that's the first time we're going to have been on this track. I'm like, that doesn't make me feel good in my tummy.

I can't imagine that makes anyone else feel good, especially the people you're around. How about, how about, can you believe the Xfinity series didn't at one time use SUVs? I mean, like, didn't they actually put gas in those cars, didn't plug them up to charge them? Wow, that's crazy. You're getting, you're going to triggers some people, Mike. Yeah, yeah.

People are going to have to be getting on the internet to look that one up, Mike. The experience is to use cars. What? Yikes. So this one comes from Austin Hager. It says recently started getting into collecting vintage race shirts, has a pretty good collection of his own. What is your most prized vintage shirt and how did you get it? Does it come with a cool story?

Oh, man. My most, I've got so many. I think my favorite vintage shirt, and I can't even wear it. that that my dad had a not a 1980 uh and it's this round logo and it's got the number two car and i believe it's a 442 old will and it says either 1979 rookie the year or 1980 champion one of those two and i was looking for one forever and i finally found a couple on the internet but they're too small Like so, you know, a large in 1980 is like a medium now. Yeah.

And so if you're a collector of vintage shirts, you know this very well. But you'll, because, you know, when you go on eBay or anywhere to buy a shirt, you're always like, what's pit to pit measurement? Because that'll tell you whether this is like, you know, you know, medium or large in today's standards because the standards are different from from 40 or 50 years ago and so yeah people I guess were we were all smaller they were skinny about it yeah traditionally as a as a race you know human race we were all you know we've all gotten uh fat so anyhow um I you know I can't wear the shirt so I had

to have this pisses me off. Because it's too small. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, way too small. It's a large, but I can't, it's tight, not happening. Medium. Yes.

And so, and I can't find an XL or a double XL, which that might actually, and it even, even like the sleeve length and the collar is weird, it's all, it just doesn't work. So I asked a person that is in the middle of the industry that knows how to make a shirt. to make me, to remake this shirt, right? And I, the, the product that he gave me back was unacceptable. So the shirt, the original, has, it's, so this is, this is kind of like an iron on, right? The shirt that I'm wearing right now, this is, this design and graphic is a heavy, almost like a rubbery. It was a heat press, yeah, design.

That's what I got back. the shirt from 1980, the original, it's screen printed, yeah. Yes. And so that's what I wanted. And this guy that, I mean, this, I'm telling you, man, I was like, what? He did, he did, he gave me that shirt back. And I'm like, no, no, no, this is crap. This is like a big old, this thing, this is like a big old hard thing on your, yeah.

I won't, I won't just. When you take it off, it still kind of stands up by itself because there's so much. I was like, nah, I can't even wear the new one. And I was so disappointed. I'm not going to give up, though. He just told me that it would just cost too much money to remake it because I can't legally make it. I can't legally make it and sell it, right?

I'm not selling it. But anyway, so making a small batch, it's not financially smart because it would cost too much money to make it the other way. Does this all make sense? It makes sense. I just can't believe it would cost that much money not to do a small batch, though.

Well, you have to make like the multiple layers of the screen print. No, no. I'm not saying it would be. cheap. I'm just saying... I know, but I just... Basically, how much do you want to pay for this shirt? To get it right, you get it right. I just assumed that if it's me asking

for this and if I can't get it, then it can't get done. That's a fair point. I don't disagree with you on that. If you can't get it done, and nobody else could it. I didn't push it any further. I was like, you got it. Okay. But damn it, you know, I'm crying for help here. Somebody out there.

Somebody out there. I'll give you the shirt. You can make it. He's kidding. I've got a couple of them and we'll just keep it between us and we'll make this shirt illegally and I'll keep a few and I need this shirt made because I want to wear it and I can't

and I'm not wearing this big cardboard thing on my chest or whatever. Especially in the summer. Yeah. No, you want it to be loose. That's what I don't like about old vintage shirts too is they always have the really high neckline too

and it's like a small neckline and even on the women cut shirts they have that thick collar that comes up here and you're just like, like it's tight and it's tight, and I'm like, I just feel like you did those old shirts choke you out. I agree, yeah. All right, next one. From Mike's modern makes.

Maybe he can make you this shirt. After your conversation with Mike Joy, did you take anything he said to you on the podcast and try to implement in calling the race on Sunday? I didn't stand there in the booth and like have things top of mind, but I certainly listened to Mike and try to absorb some things and think about things. a little bit differently going forward, but nothing like specific. I will say, man, you know, North, I did not feel great about North Willisbury as far as the play-by-play job I did.

About North Wilkesboro. I'm sorry, North, New Hampshire. There we go. And so, thanks, Mike. You're welcome. I didn't feel good about New Hampshire. So, you know, there was a lot of reasons why, and, but anyways, we got done with the day, and I was like, you know, that was, I didn't like it.

But I felt real, I was real happy. Regardless of what anyone else out, I mean, everyone could be so critical over what I did Sunday, but I feel good about it. And, yeah, I just went in there with a bit looser of an attitude, and I feel like it was kind of like, hey, man, this is my last play-up play of the year, and I was going to just do it the way I wanted to do it. Hey, on that note, NBC, NASCAR and NBC's social media put out a nice little clip of you guys calling that wreck. And I loved that. Did you see it, Hannah?

Yeah, of all of you guys sitting there looking out of it. Yeah, I like that. People wanted to see the, when we called Chris Rale and Ross Tessanes, they were disappointed that that one wasn't included in the real. And there was a couple other moments in there. But I had a fun time. So my problem is, is like, when you go in the broadcast booth and you're getting ready to do a promo or you're going to read any kind of a card or a billboard, which is basically like, hey, man, the NASCAR mobile app, you know, free time and free time and whatever. You know, when you're reading those cards, it's on a card and you're just reading it. It's hard not to read it and get into a radio voice, right?

Everybody in here possesses a radio voice. You've probably, some of you may have never, ever used it, but it's in there. and I can put you in that position and that radio voice is going to start and you can't not do it right it's like it just starts happening and so I really I went into this race going

I'm going my boss keeps telling me man we just want you to be like you're on the podcast and so you know what I'm just going to do this race just like I am in that room just like I am now and drop it F bombs all over the place no no I was just going to read more casual so I read the promos and everything and did everything a lot more casually.

I still had some awkward, cringe moments trying to go to commercial and whatever. That's always kind of weird because you're sitting there watching the race. You know, in the middle of the conversation with you guys and then the producer goes, all right, we're going to commercial, 10, 9. And you're like, okay, now I've got to figure out what to say, right?

I've got to come up with something. It's easier when it's just natural. And that's the one moment where you're not given an option to be natural. It's so clunky and it's like all of a sudden the pressure comes in. They have us bring it back from commercial on pit road. Sometimes they're like, and it's an audible.

They'll be like, all right, bring us back from commercial now, three, two. And you're like, we're back here. Like you have to think about where you are, what's going on. And then like continue coming back from commercial break. You're really good at that, though, Hannah. I mean, I've always been impressed. But I wanted to ask you a question. I forgot about this.

And that is, I noticed something during your call of a wreck. And I wanted to know if it was a coincidence or if it was deliberate intentional. Because I heard, I think Steve was in the middle of saying something. and then you said, we have a crash. And I remember you said that even with Mike Joy in that conversation about like that's kind of an old school way of like an old MRN way of calling a wreck. And you said that almost verbatim, it might have been the Christopher Bell. It was.

Was it that one? Yeah. We have a crash on the front. Was that you like playing out exactly how you wanted to call a crash? All of my life when I was watching, all of my life when I was at home in the 80s. listening to the races on the radio, you're listening to the race happen. Such, such in the lead, such as a couple car links back.

This guy's in second and third and fourth. And anytime there was an accident or a cart with a blown motor or anything unique different happening around the racetrack, the corner guys of MRN, whoever's in each corner, they came on the air loud and it was action. this is happening in this corner yeah right and that was just how the job was done

and so we got we got into a place in the 2000s in the in the last decade where there would be a battle for the lead and the same monotone

conversation would just continue when there's a battle for the lead you know this you know you there was no change in tempo no change in energy, no change in excitement when there was a race for the lead or a guy brushed the wall or somebody lost control or the, you know, there was no real change in energy. And I just always admired the way the radio MRN guys did it.

And so when that happened on Sunday with Christopher Bell, man, that was my natural reaction. Yeah, it was so good. Like I didn't have to, I didn't force that or I didn't have to pretend that or like that's just how I've heard. all my life. And so when I see a crash, if I'm standing in the grandstands, right, watching raise my buddies, if you're the first one to see the crash,

what you do. Yeah, you smack the hell out of the guy beside you. Yeah. Yeah. Point. That's right. Your point. That's your reaction in the booth.

Right? But it's verbal. And so the crazy thing about that, I will say, like, in that moment, Christopher Bell, Ross, the 99, and then on the next pit,

that's the following pit stop under that yellow, Denny Hamlin. The four guys that we were sitting there watching race for the lead were all eliminated from winning that race. Right in that very moment, that little contact with Christopher Bell and the front straightaway in Ross changed the entire race. And so you were, and you knew it. As soon as you realized, oh, shit, that's Christopher Bell in the one car. The 99's a lap down. And those three guys all are going to be. be affected by this and then we had the pit stop and then he gets you know uh penalty or something

you're like yeah yeah well damn that's it that's them all four guys that were they they were racing for this win or no longer race for the win and look at the lineup look at all these names now that are gonna have a shot at this bubba harvick all those guys were down crazy crazy change but um i had a great time man and i just chilled and and you know felt good about it perfect well that is it for this week's year. Well, appreciate it. Everybody's glad, I'm sure, to have Hannah back. Hannah, we're glad you're back.

And I appreciate everything. Xfinity does for us here at the Dale Junior download in Dirtymoe Media. And thanks for the great questions. Also, make sure you're subscribed, right? That's right. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. We're going to be putting out Roots and Revival, the first installment this week. What is Roots and Revival?

Our North Wilkesboro series, we're going to do Dirtymo Media, as what I mean by we. some individuals in this room are putting this all together. We're going to have, right now it's scheduled to be like 11 total videos all going to be exclusively on our YouTube channel. And it's going to document this not just Dale Jr's return to Wilkesboro, but it's going to document this entire month and just kind of like what it means. I'm really excited about it. I think this is going to be something that Dirty Mo Media, it'll be something that we are as proud of as Lost Speedways or anything else.

So it'll all be on DirtyMomedia's YouTube channel. Check it out. Okay, y'all, so that was a great episode. What was the number? 394? Yeah. All right, 394 is in the book. It's a lot. Boy, it feels like 15,000 episodes. It does.

So, Mike, did you enjoy talking to Ty? Oh, man, I really, I have a new appreciation for him. I thought he would be hard to talk to. I thought he was, you know, he's a 19-year-old kid. Most 19-year-olds don't really talk that well. He did. He had a lot to say. He answered every single question that we asked.

I couldn't have been more impressed. That shouldn't piss off any other 19-year-olds, what you just said. I mean, listen, I was won as well a long time ago. I was an absolute off-the-talker at 19. I mean, yeah. But, you know, he's, and we're going to race him for a championship, you know, God willing, that we're going to be all in that. We've got guys that have been competing all year, winning races, he's been winning races.

It could end up being a really good race for the Xfinity Series championship with him. I like that we can have those people in the room. Right. You would never, ever invite the competition. over to your race shop. Right, right. But since we're, you know, doing a podcast, it's kind of fun, it's kind of a fun bit of circumstances.

Yeah, it is. And it was fun for me being where I sit at this table, seeing the people look in the window in this glass right here and they were like, wait a second, is that who I think it is? And yeah, it's exactly who. Also great to get some good feedback on last week's episode with Randy Lanier. I just started reading the book. It's been pretty awesome. Can't wait to finish that.

Hope everybody enjoys their week. and yeah, take it easy. What else is going on? What are you doing the rest of the meet? Track meets, Mike? No track meets. Olympic Games, Olympic trials? No Olympic trials.

This is the last week. My girls are gone, so it's sort of like our last week of freedom. Dude, you're going fishing? Yeah, I did last night, as a matter of fact. Again? Yeah. Wait. Dude, I've been out on the lake, man.

I've been fishing. fishing. I'll probably go get tonight. One last thing before we close the show. Speaking of Lake, did you see Brett tweeted that he had his, he's tweeted that he had his first lake beer yesterday. That's got to be false. I don't believe that.

Had his first lake, like as in he's never had a beer on the lake? This year. He said, first lake beer of the summer. It's really just a whole old bullshit tweet to promote his freaking couch, racing coozy. Everybody can see through this shit. And now we're

Think we're a bunch of idiots Who's the idiot this week? He's the idiot. I don't know. I was going to say, I still have Brett blocked on Twitter, so. Brett should be his own. Yeah, I still got him blocked. Brett should be his own idiot

in the next doorwiper clear for that tweet alone. I don't think he would ever bring himself to call himself an idiot. I don't know. I don't think he's capable of doing that. He's not capable. But we are absolutely capable of calling him an idiot ourselves. We got to have an ask Brett segment and see what the hell that was all about.

That's bullshit. You think people really fall for that kind of shi-advertisement? If they do, they're the same people that think that the Couch Racer social accounts isn't Brett tweeting on the Couch Racer. He'll retweet the Couch Racer thing

and react to a question. His own question. He just did three minutes ago. I know it. I crack up at that. I do too. He'd be like, great question. I will answer that.

Oh, man, you're right, Cal Couch racer awesome job. Oh, Coucher! You're so smart. Oh, man. Not pulling us. Not pulling us. And that Coucher Coosie is a little oddly tall.

Did you see it? I didn't see it. It's on a beer, a bottle, but it's actually for a stovepipe, I think. It's just, oh, it's oddly tall. I've got to go check it out now. Everybody have a great week. Enjoy the show. I hope you learned a lot about Ty and Brett.

And Brett. Yeah. We'll see you. y'all later.