The Dale Jr. Download - 403 - Are Charter Prices Too High?; Ben Kennedy on the Future of NASCAR

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

As NASCAR gets ready to celebrate its 75th year of existence in 2023, its premiere division the Cup Series will set out on its most versatile schedule to date. On this week’s episode of The Dale Jr. Download, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis sit down with one of the visionaries responsible for the swift transformation the sport of stock car racing has seen over the last few seasons, NASCAR’s Senior VP of Racing Development & Strategy Ben Kennedy.Born and raised in Daytona Beach, Ben is a fourth-generation member of NASCAR’s founding France family, the son of Lesa France Kennedy and great-grandson of Bill France Sr. While he is only 30 years old, he has been around the sport his entire life in many capacities, from working odd jobs at Daytona International to being in the driver’s seat and owning his own race team. His unique insight and experience have allowed him to rapidly rise through the NASCAR executive ranks, originally taking a position as the General Manager of the Trucks Series in 2018.With the incorporation of the Chicago street race and the Clash at the Coliseum, as well as returning to North Wilkesboro and the Bristol dirt race, the stock car racing mainstay has gone leaps and bounds from its original vision in 1948, while keeping its fundamentals in place. Ben explains that much of the decision to hold events like the street race or the Coliseum was based on wanting to connect to city centers where NASCAR has a large fan base while doing something out of the box, original to the sanctioning body itself.During his time with the NASCAR Operations team, Ben learned a lot about NASCAR’s international fanbase and what efforts are being made to help grow it. While the majority of racing circuits overseas are road course configurations, the team began looking into building temporary oval tracks in stadiums or arenas to help display stock car racing in its original form. He explains that this is what put the L.A. Coliseum on their radar as a potential venue to house such a production.He also goes on to talk about the conception of the Chicago street course and how the team settled on Grant Park as a location. The team originally visited Soldier Field as a possible setting for the Clash event. But due to the current configuration of the field, the potential racing surface would be far too small, thus leading to the event being moved to Los Angeles. However, thanks to Grant Park’s ability to facilitate a large number of spectators, as seen with Lollapalooza every year, the focus turned to creating a street course. With the help of iRacing’s scanning system, they were able to bring a realistic render to life and test it with a cast of NASCAR Cup stars last year.Earlier in the interview, the trio discusses what Ben’s life was like growing up in Daytona and his interests before entering the motorsports world. In 2007, Ben tragically lost his father Dr. Bruce Kennedy in a plane crash, and he and Dale were able to bond over the shock of losing a loved one suddenly. Ben first got behind the wheel of a race car at age 14 when a family friend signed him up for a go-kart course held at New Smyrna Speedway. Ben fell in love with the sport immediately and in the years that followed he quickly progressed through the local Central Florida short track divisions into the regional NASCAR ranks, before finally arriving in the Trucks Series. After having a breakout season in 2014 and making his Xfinity Series debut a couple of seasons later, Ben retired from racing at the end of the 2017 season to begin his journey through the business side of the organization.DIRTY AIRDale’s birthday activitiesWas the caution for the sign the right call?RTA and NASCAR discussions hit a wallBuster’s Trip to Victory LaneASKJR presented by XfinityBirthday memoriesCan iRacing bring a former track to life?Another OEM entering NASCARFavorite childhood vacations 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 podcast. The following is a production of Dirtymode Media. It's alive. It's alive. It's alive. It's alive. This place is kind of quirky, funky. What's the guy with the bolts in there? Frankenstein. Yeah. It's kind of like Frankenstein. And that's what the Oval is. Frankenstein was made from many different things, right?

And he turned out looking pretty weird. What would the Indianapolis road course be? Them two, they're like cousins. The bride of Frankenstein. So that's, uh, that's the bride? Who's the bride? Indy is. Indy is.

Yeah, the Robicay's the Brow. Yeah, the Roval Cay, first. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. at the Bojangles Studio. Back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. Episode 403 here, sitting here with my co-host Mike Davis Mike how you doing great how are you I'm pretty good man I have a birthday yesterday happy birthday thank you man me and Amy went to Cedar Stump Pub that's the name it's in Troutman cool little place had a couple beers to get ripped up I was in bed

been 10 that's not ripped up no no that's all right yeah but uh we got a guest today that's actually on Twitter saying you know don't dial back the party and just because I'm coming on the show oh yeah that's right he did he he He told you to just keep it on the rails, right? Ben Kennedy. Wonder what he would be like getting just completely ripped, just all night, all night, wait until the sun comes up, Ben Kennedy. Probably pretty fun.

Pretty fun. Pretty fun. How much would you expect? I don't know. I don't know what to expect. Of course, it would be fun. Sounds great. Let's ask him.

All right. Have you had any all-nighters? That's right. First question. Okay. So Ben Kennedy is the guest today, and he is, he's going to be pretty interesting. because literally this dude's being groomed to be the next France that leads this sport. And I want that to work, right?

You want to pull for that to happen and that to go well, correct? Heck yeah, you want to work. All right. If we want jobs. Well, so it's going to be awesome to be able to get him on here. At this early point in his trajectory, did I say that right? Close. Close enough.

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

So every time they show up, you know when to change them. Go to FilterTime.com and subscribe now. But this is our Dirty Air. So let's go. So, yeah, talked about my birthday. am I hung over? Nah, a little slightly. Got a little headache.

Do you really? Yeah, yeah. Can't do it like you used to. Boy, that's the truth. You were in bed by 10 and you have a hangover? Well, we started at 4.30, 5 o'clock. Okay. Steady drinking, I mean, one after another.

That's right. So let's actually go through yesterday because I thought your wife pulled off a pretty cool little thing. I don't know if you were surprised by it, but she rented a taco truck for all the employees at Junior Motorsports. You brought the girls over, Amy. the girls and had lunch, a birthday lunch. Is that what started the day?

Mm-hmm. Okay. Mm-hmm. All right. And then what you do from there? Well, I mean, I took out of school. We had waffles. Amy made some waffles.

And, yeah, we had a taco truck out here. That was nice because everybody got to enjoy some tacos. Yep. Yeah, then we went home and hung around the house, took an nap on the couch. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was awesome. That's a birthday present right there. Yeah.

At your age, yeah, for sure. Yeah, when you get up into the high 40s, naps are gifts. Naps are like vacation days almost. Yeah. Hey, hey, let me, I'm going to give you this nap. You mean it? Here's some nap time. A little tear.

It's the greatest of gift anybody's ever given me. Yeah. If we don't get on with this show, it's going to be nap time for these people listening. So the birthday was fine, you know, 48. I told Amy it's kind of depressing. but I don't know I mean 48 is kind of a Jimmy Johnson loves it

but I don't I mean you know 49 ugh you know some numbers just aren't cool no I think you're well past the cool numbers I think the cool numbers you left them in the 20s 47 all these numbers are not fun 50 is a good solid number

I think I might like 55 50 your 50 year birthday your 50th birthday 50th birthday no 51 is a cool number. You're just tying everything to a race car, right? No. Is that what you're doing? No, I'm not. Yeah, you are. Some numbers are boring and some numbers are not boring. So this is your Jimmy Johnson birthday year. What's 49? Give me your best 49. What race car?

Wasn't the BAM car that Ken Schrader? Was that 49? Yeah, Shauna Robinson? Yeah. Anyways. Yeah. So you went, look, then I'm assuming y'all got a babysitter and then you and Amy went out to the pub. Did you take some friends? Man, did we get a babysitter? You brought the kids to the pub? No, let's about themselves. Yeah, no, we had somebody come watch them. We went to this pub.

I'd never been. This place is right down the road. And there's not a lot of bars around Mooresville, to be honestly. There's a few. There's a half dozen. So we checked it out, man, it's awesome. Cedar Stump Pub. They have another, they opened that one about four years ago,

and they got another one in Staceville and met the owner. Cool people, man. That's all. William Byron, he gets his points back, but his penalty went up. It's fine. I wonder why they did that. I don't know. That's so weird.

Everything about that's weird to me. Everything. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's happened. It's over with. Yeah, I guess if you're willing to pay $100,000, you can wreck the hell out of somebody. Some of them probably worth $100,000 just to take it out, right? Yeah.

I think so if you're mad enough or really looking to get. after this guy, get him back for something. You're probably not too worried about the $100 at that point. Yeah, I'm trying to think back when you were racing full time, who would have been a $100,000. And honestly, I mean, do I think that Byron's writing this check? I don't know. I'll be honest with you. No.

I don't remember my fines. I'm sure I had a few. But I never signed a check or handed no money to nobody. Is that right? Not that I remember. But I will say that I guess when, you know, we do know that some drivers have paid their fines because you know, Rusty Wallace paid his impeached.

He needs to be a smart ass one time. And maybe he wasn't going to pay the fine, but he wanted to make a point. So he wanted to be a jerk, right? Man, I'm a little shocked. I don't know why I'm shocked to hear that you never paid a fine. I don't think, I mean, maybe. Maybe you did. Maybe you did and you don't know it.

That's probably true. It's possible that I had, I paid it out of my account. Yeah, yeah, that's probably true. Kelly would be the one to ask this. Yeah, Kelly would know. Yeah, that's true. She wouldn't know. It'd be cool if we had some drivers to maybe chime in on,

social and about whether they paid a fine or an owner pay. I know that there's been situations too in the past where the owner was so furied infuriated about the penalty that he paid it for the driver. He's like, hey, I'm going to take care of this for you. This is BS. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.

Well, okay, so William Byron, we don't think that he paid his $100,000 is what we're saying. I'm not out of it. And we figure somebody else did that. Well, William would tell us. So the caution for the sign. The door bumper clear boys went into this one pretty good, did they? Boy, did they ever. Yeah.

Boy, they're fired up about it. Yeah. And to be clear, and you should go listen to door bumper clear, anybody just so you can hear what we're talking about. But they're not as mad about whether or not you throw the caution. They just, Brett Griffin's mad that there's a sign out there that could even end up on a racetrack to begin with. Like that right there is the travesty in the situation and the thing that everybody should be mad about. And I don't disagree with that. I don't disagree with that.

At this point, these races are too important. Let's just, you know, let's not, let's help ourselves avoid some of these really kind of just laughable issues that we're having at the end of the race. Just help ourselves. And that was one we could have avoided that. Who do you put the responsibility on? People that run the sport, right? People that run the sport is not an answer. It is an answer.

Who is responsible for the damn sign laying on the track? No, no, no. That's not, no. Listen, it's whoever's above them. You got to sign people, whatever. That's going to be on Marcus, right? That's Marcus's team. That's market system.

Right, right, right. But if you are there, if you are being hosted, if you are being hosted and you have an event to put on, ultimately you have final say on things that's going to be potentially interfering with your race. Sure. That's what I mean. So when I say the ultimate responsibility, I think NASCAR has that. Okay. Yeah, I don't like the sign ending up on the racetrack.

And I'm torn on whether you even throw the yellow for it. We had Corey LaJoy spinning down the front straightaway through the grass. Now, he got it turned around, but NASCAR could have absolutely threw a yellow right there, and I wouldn't have been mad at it. I don't like a bullshy yellow. I don't like this debris yellow that never, you know, there's no real debris. We don't really see them anymore like we used to. Gosh, when I was driving.

Oh, you hated that. I'm on the racetrack, and I know it's bullshit. They ain't no damn debris out there. And every freaking week, it seemed like we had a caution with 20 or 10 to go to bunch the damn field up. And that's all it was, because the freaking races, were lacking enough, you know, excitement that they had to figure out a way to, I won't even get, let's not even go down this road. Let's not go, because you went down that road every week on the radio. In fact, if you were to be fine, that would have been it.

We probably went down that road on this show every week back, you know, back then if you want to go back and listen to some of the shows. Yeah, because we used to play your radio chatter. That's what you would talk about. But, I mean, I'm up air in the booth now, and now I see, okay, you know, that was a chance for them to throw the yellow. They held the flag. Good for them. I got to give it to NASCAR. They held the flag and didn't throw the yellow

and they absolutely could have thrown it for Corey LaJoy getting turned down the front straightaway. Then the sign thing comes out, and I'm like, well, shit. Because I wanted to see if, you know, the 20 catches the four. Christopher Bell was coming. Yeah, he thought he could catch him. It was going to be fun to watch.

Yeah. And we ended up with, I mean, a freaking cardboard sign is responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars and damages and playoff hopes dashed and all the things make a list, make a Denny Hamlin list of all of the shit that happened in those final restarts

that affected people monetarily all because that stupid-ass cardboard sign that got knocked off the wall when a car hit it. That's pretty frustrating. Yeah, it's frustrating. I'm not so sure I'm, I wouldn't have thrown the yellow. See, that's where, like, I think that you wouldn't be wrong either way.

Like, I mean, whether you throw the yellow or not, right. I'm not mad to throw the yellow. I'm not. They threw the yellow. They threw the yellow. They threw the, yeah. They threw the, okay. But I would have held on to it there.

If they held onto it for the Corey thing, I thought, oh, they threw it. You know, as soon as I saw it, I said, I wonder if they'll throw it for this. They didn't throw it just a minute ago. It's all in. There's a caution. So here we go. I think that I actually let you guys in the booth influenced my opinion on that. And that was, yeah, yeah, because in the moment when you guys were panning the shot on that sign,

we influenced you. Yeah, yeah, and specifically Steve. Oh, Steve's the big influencer up there. Why are you joking about this? I think it's hilarious. That's a compliment to you guys. I just think it's funny. It's funny?

That's what you're supposed to be doing is a broadcaster. I don't know that we're doing that. Nobody ever tells me this. Well, if you'll let me tell you, I will. So LaTart, y'all are panning on it. You're like, oh, there's a, you didn't know what exactly it was at the moment. At least you didn't elaborate on that. Steve LaTart goes, listen, it's out of the groove for single file cars.

But if anybody goes and tries to, you know, go double wide there, go too wide, then it is in the racing groove. And that's when the caution came out. The problem I had with what Steve was saying in that moment is we're looking at the sign and there's shi, debris, tire debris all around it. I'm like, there ain't no damn groove out there. nobody's running out there. Nobody's making, that's not a passing zone. Ain't nobody going there. Right.

Nobody is, nobody is going in that space. Okay. Because it's dirty as hell. Ain't nobody ran there in hours. Yeah. So there you go. So, you know, I know exactly because the moment. The moment when he said that, I'm looking at it going,

there's a lot of shit laying there too. I ain't nobody running out there. That thing's really not in the way. Boy, it'd have been great if you said that. Well, if anybody, I mean, I don't want to. of getting nitpicky bullshit and pity matches, you know. That's what this is for. Yeah, that's what we're doing right here.

Right, right, right. Not on live on NBC. All right. Okay. You saw Chase Elliott pushing the camera away. A lot of people had some opinions about that. What did you think, Mike? I thought it was a bad look.

Yeah. For Chase. Post race, Chase Elliott, standing there talking to William Byron. One of the NASCAR social media handlers is just filming. You know, there's no audio, I don't believe. And Chase sees it and goes. goes, go on out here. And the person doesn't do as Chase to ask.

So Chase makes another plea for them to move out of the way and actually kind of swats at the camera, whatever, right? How would you describe it? That's exactly right. He didn't just ask him to leave. He didn't start, quote unquote, chasing him a little bit. Like he didn't turn around and started shoeing him away like he was a dog or whatever. And I didn't like to look him because, look, here's the, where was Chase standing?

He wasn't in his hauler. He was right out there with the masses. I mean, what are you going to do? You're trying to look for a private conversation out there. You ain't going to find one. I know, yeah. I hear you. I can't defend it.

I mean, I wish, you know, so I like Chase a lot. I think Chase is a good dude. I think that he gets a hard, he gets a bad rap for sort of having no personality, but I know he has one. It's kind of like the Jimmy Johnson, you know, everybody's like, ah, he's a vanilla he's boring. That's not really what they're saying about Chase. They just don't like how guarded and hidden.

he keeps in his personal life. But I know Chase is cool. And that was out of character. He's never really done that before. So that's why I really am not going to cast. I'm not going to be too critical of this because, I mean, a lot of people are like, well, if it was Kyle Bush, but we've seen that several times with Kyle. He doesn't mind bad looks.

This is the first time with Chase that we've seen something like this. Now Chase does this multiple times going forward. Then I think he might want to address it, right? He might want to look in the mirror a little bit and make some changes. But I just think, you know, the guy that spun out on the last lap, he's sitting there with a five-second lead or whatever he had, probably going to win the race, right? Yeah.

Don't you think? Oh, he wins that race. Yeah, he had five-second lead on them. If there's no cautions at the end, he wins. Here's a couple things that are pissing him off in that moment. Not that this is excusing the move toward the cameraman. He hates – he's pissed off about the car. Yeah.

Because you can't pass. They all, you know, leading the race or in 31st, you ain't going anywhere, right? Yep. And so he's mad about the way this car races. He's leading the race and the cost comes out and it gets spun out and ends up with what he ends up with. I mean, he's as pissed off as you ever going to find him in that moment. So maybe, hopefully, that that's why he made the... he was a little bit out of character in that moment, you know what I mean?

No doubt about that. No doubt about it. And again, I'm not going to get all, you know, critical of it. You willing, you know, you're willing to give him a pass on this one? Yeah, I didn't like to look, but I didn't like it on behalf of him. I didn't, it's not, it had nothing to do with me. I know, I know Chase, and I know Chase, you know, holds himself up, you know, quite well as the most popular person in the sport.

And I just didn't like that look for him, you know, because I know it's not who he is. But I know that, listen, those guys have to be frustrated. I mean, all of them. I mean, like that race, with the exception to the very end, right? Like, thanks to the sign and a couple other things. I mean, that race, you couldn't pass anybody. Nobody could pass. Frustrating as hell.

It had to have been. Yeah, the short track slash road course. Let's just put them together because they're both equally bad in terms of the racing and the passing or the lack of passing and the ability to, you know, really make a difference as a driver. All those, I mean, I sit there and watched it from the booth, man. you'd have those guys that stayed out at the end of stage one to get the stage points cycle to the back of the field and then the next stage would start.

They wouldn't go anywhere. And I mean, Chase Briscoe is sitting there in 20th and ran the whole stage and ended up 18th only because a couple guys pitted or fell out or whatever had trouble. I'm like, shit, nobody could pass. It's so frustrating. Anyhow, we're going to ask Ben about that, you think. Might as well, yeah.

Hey, man, did you know? Do you see that? I'd love to. I think that's a fair question, right? Obviously, you prioritize safety of that car, but that car don't race at all on these short tracks or road courses. I think it's a fair question to Ben. Yeah.

Ben recognized, when Ben looks at that race Sunday, does he recognize that and go, yeah, we need to be thinking about this, right? Let's ask him. I mean, listen, he was a driver, so especially the fact that he's a driver. Yeah. You know, I think he can have a vantage point that's a little different than some of the other people on the top brass. So, Mike, there was a couple things that happened also this week.

The RTA went to the media and made a big plea toward, you know, kind of stating their position. Apparently NASCAR, so there's going to be a new agreement between the RTA and NASCAR, and it's basically an argument over how much the team should get from the next TV deal. The next TV deal will be starting in 20, 2025, I believe. And so it's, you know, it's millions and millions of dollars going to these race teams. If they get $5 million a year per team today, let's just say it's $5 million, the teams would love to get more in the next deal.

The next deal, you know, you would hope that the next deal is more than the last deal. So NASCAR is going to be getting new money and more money for the rights from whatever network. and the teams just think that they should be getting a bit more of that share. And so if they're getting five, maybe they're asking for 15, maybe they're asking for 10. Whatever it is, they sent a, they sent NASCAR pretty much a proposal or an idea of what they expected. NASCAR, and the RTA went to the median and said NASCAR has sat on this for months, and what they came back with eventually was way off. and a very minimal increase over what we're getting.

The teams are frustrated. They feel like they're out of options. And so while where Denny gets, you know, let's just say Denny gets a little, Denny and Harvick, we're a little chastised for going so public in the media on Twitter, right? Yeah. What does the RTA do when they're pushed to the point of last resort? They went public.

They went to the media. They went public. Yep. And so whether you like it or not, or whether, you know, whether NASCAR loves it or whatever, the media is such a great tool and always will be, if you want to get somebody's attention, right, and infuse some change of direction.

And so, you know, the RTA is basically saying, man, this is going to, this is going to get personal. This is going to be, you know, we're putting up a fight. We're going to push hard. We're putting NASCAR. We're bringing this public. public a lot of information that NASCAR would probably prefer not to be public. One of the things that was interesting for me, so I'm a potential owner in the Cup series.

Junior Motorsports could be a future owner in the series, and we are actively out here like a lot of other new owners that are talking to these teams about what these charters are worth, who's willing to sell one, how do we become an owner? And so when I heard what I heard from the RTA, it made me go, hmm, I need to wait and pause. RTA is basically telling me that this charter that I want to buy is a losing proposition or not a money make it's broken. That I can't, I don't want to buy this charter now because it's not a successful business venture. Is that, I mean, that's kind of what I took away from this. But you're saying you're leaping to that based off of the fact that they're not getting what they want out of the TV revenue? they basically said they can't make any money they're all losing money Mike they said they said this they're losing money they're not making money and I

thought too as a potential buyer of a charter that what NASCAR would give them would be way more so when I heard NASCAR's offer was very minimal it made me go oh wow I didn't expect that right I expected NASCAR to go okay guys we feel we we we understand what you're saying so here here's this new number to get y'all a little bit in a better position because basically the teams the teams are saying that 80% 60 to 80% of the money it takes for them to race comes from sponsors that's right if a sponsor like m&Ms wakes up one day and goes we're not here anymore that would that can destroy that team and that puts the that puts the responsibility

the owner to find that 60 to 80% and if he doesn't he's got to fire people he doesn't have a he can't hire the driver he wants like Kyle Bush you know he all of these things tumble into disarray and so they want a little insulation they want a little protection and so instead of getting maybe five million they want that to go up significantly so that the TV money comes to the teams and they can they now aren't solely responsible to depend on the sponsorships to race. And so when, and as an interested owner or interested future purchaser of a charter, I expected that number to get there.

I expected them to be able to achieve what they wanted is, I expected RTA to be able to get this done. And when I heard that NASCAR came with just a very minimal increase, it bothered, it freaked me out a little bit. I understand. But you also get that it could still get done. I mean, this is just one latest iteration of this negotiation, which is going to go over the span of a year, probably,

or maybe at least another year. And the fact is they're just doing it to apply pressure, whether or not that even worked or not is another thing. In fact, do you think that worked? Well, no, but I just feel like it put Pauls on a lot of people that might have been interested to buy into the sport. Yeah, I mean, that's certainly interesting. In fact, everything you just said.

I feel like if a charter, a charter has went literally in just less than a decade from $2 million to $28, $30 million in value. All right. And everybody's wondering if that $28 to $30 million valuation is real or if it's a bubble. And for me, I went from being able to kind of somewhat justify that purchase to saying, no way, not at that number. knowing what I know about what NASCAR came back with as an offer, knowing that these teams are operating in a loss, no way I'm going to go spend $30 million to get a charter that's going to operate at a loss, and I'm not going to get a very minimal amount of money out of the TV deal.

What if the RTA gets what they want and it makes that the cost, let's just say if it's $30 million of the cost, cost of a charter. Now it goes up to 35 just because of the news that they get what they want out of the TV rep. Like you could look at that couple different ways. It scared you off, but at the same time, it's almost like the stock market. The value of those charters do continue to increase, and they've increased at a rapid rate. They have. At a rapid rate. That is scary. But it also, if you look at it like, well,

they're going to continue to rise because of, you know, different developments, one of which would be the TV revenue. That would be the only. development in my mind that would make this thing rise any more than it is now I don't think that there's a bunch of I don't know that I think the demand has decreased a little bit the demand for charters has decreased a little bit now that then he's got he has you know got two charters there'll they're possibly in five years could be new charters available you don't know where you know there could be an RCR a Gibbs or a Stuart Haas who knows right these is is four

teams is operating at four teams the smartest financial situation for these teams you know in five years and 10 years will it be more appealing to be a three-car team or even just a two-car team will that be the norm right um and so then there may be a lot of charters in the market at that point so do you wait right do you wait five years to when there's so many chart there's more charters out there than there are people willing to buy them or wanting to buy them at some point you have to assume that will happen it's just when right like at some point the demand man drops off. I think the demand is high right now. There's more people that are wanting to buy a charter than there are charters. That's true. There's not many charters for sale. Yeah. There's only a

couple willing to even consider selling. So yeah, there is more people wanting to get in than there are. But I don't, you know, I just wonder, I just wonder if that, if you, I wonder if you can get it cheaper. And I wonder what this little debate and, and tug a war, an argument between the RTA and NASCAR does to that perceived price. It's going to do something. Either it increases it or decreases it, but one way or another. Why would that argument decrease it? If they don't get what they want, if the RTA doesn't get what they want,

if they don't end up getting a larger chunk of their TV revenue. We need to talk about what's going to happen in the next month, not when the deal's done. When the deal's done. Okay, well, then in that case, yeah. Because if... But when you said that it scared you off, that may, that leads me to think that you're waiting to see how that develops. should you that's the argument is I don't I don't think you get you think if you can pull the 30 million together now you go ahead and pull the trigger

listen first of all it's easy to come up with a lot of opinions on what you do when it's not your money so I can have an opinion it doesn't really matter it's not my money this is something that maybe I think of it completely different but right now my assumption is is that this is typical negotiations between RTA and NASCAR which is to be expected but it's very public and and maybe they have a public, you know, in the public square they can negotiate this thing, whatever it is. At the end of the day, my bet, my thought is that they're going to get a satisfactory chunk of the TV revenue. Because I also think, as I pay attention to the way TV rights are being done all over the sports landscape right now, those things are just rising. Live events are just rising. People can sit there and scrutinize NASCAR and they can say, oh, man, you know, look at the grandstand.

I don't care what they say. It's a premium for live events, and NASCAR has a lot of live events. And I think that whether you go into the streaming platforms, whatever it is, that price is going up everywhere. So if I have to assume that, I can assume that NASCAR is going up too. I think race teams will end up getting maybe not what they want because you're always going to ask for more. You're always going to ask high, right? That's how you negotiate. But where they're going to end up is probably going to be very satisfactory to all the race teams.

It may take a lot of, you know, hurdles to get there. But I just bet at the end of the day they're going to all come to an agreement because they all need each other. They all need each other. You can't race without the teams. The teams doesn't have a place to go race without NASCAR. And, you know, everyone's trying to jockey for leverage and all that stuff. But at the end of the day, we all need each other. I think they come out with it.

And I also think that that's going to escalate an already escalating price of a charter. Yeah. I don't think that they'll ever be erased, you know, any kind of a work stoppage or anything like that. I don't think it will ever affect the schedule. There's nothing like that that's ever going to happen. So I don't know how much leverage the RTA really has. I don't think they have as much as they think they have. Yeah.

That's my personal opinion. And so if they don't have a lot of leverage, then how do they get the number they won't? NASCAR could just sit there and go... That's a fair point. That's a fair point. You know, I guess my answer to that would be because at the end of the day, Roger Penske, still Roger Penske, Rick Hendrick, still Rick Hendrick. There's some adults in the room

on behalf of RTA that just know how to get deals done. And I think that they're going to be, you know, the thing that makes it happen for them. But do you bring up a fair question? That is a good point. If you don't have leverage, how are you going to get what you want? Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I'm, this fascinating, fascinating stuff. And now, I don't love the, I don't love the current price tag on the charter at all.

And to, to get in there a little lower would be pretty nice. Yeah. And I understand, we had our chance. We had a chance not very long ago to get a charter at six, get a charter at 12. Oh, man, to get that now, wouldn't that be something? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Knowing that, like just even applying that vantage point from it would make the 25, the 30 million to almost feel like impossible. That's right. Now you understand.

Because just how it wasn't that, it was a fraction of that just a few months ago. That's right. Months ago. Yeah. And so now I'm sitting there going, is that 30 real? And what does this conversation do to that number, right? And would it move? There's not a lot of charters on the table. There's maybe one even. to buy, like outright, you know? And so, is that, that's, you're negotiating with one person that knows that they have the one, the only one. If you want to talk about who has leverage. Yeah. It's that person.

Yeah, for sure. Because they're saying, they're naming a price. Yeah, pretty much. And it's, uh, it's, it's a big number. Yep. So, uh, the drivers went into a meeting with NASCAR before the race this weekend. Uh, NASCAR gave them a detailed, uh, you know, slideshow of a lot of the things that they're learning about the car,

some of the changes that will be implemented in 2023 to get the car to where it absorbs a lot more energy, especially specifically the rear of the car. I heard that they're letting the drivers know they're absolutely intending on focusing on the front of the car, what they learn in these tests, crashes. They're going to try to apply it to other areas, which is all great news. One of the questions I asked Steve Phelps on the pit box before the race was, you know, we can ask all the simple questions of what are we doing to get the car better but you got a guy or you got two guys actually sitting on the sidelines how do you get them comfortable to get back

in this car knowing right yeah so that is the toughest part uh i think is a guy who's so if you've not you know if you've not had a concussion you you don't know what that feels like to have to put yourself back in that situation that got you in that you know got you hurt and so it's obvious that this car has an issue. So if you're Alex Bowman, how does the sport get you more confident to get back in this car? Okay, man, they fixed it. I feel better about it.

And I think what they're doing and what they're going to do is absolutely going to give that confidence to the drivers that have been hurt. But I know that that meeting probably didn't go quite as smooth as it should have or could have. We had Cori La Jory came out. and said, man, this is so frustrating. NASCAR is trying to give us all this information, and all we're doing is kind of arguing about the past, and why did you let the car, why did you let this happen?

How did we get to this point? And so while, yeah, I mean, those are fair arguments or fair questions to ask, but the meeting was an opportunity for NASCAR to lay out the future and the plan ahead, and they only got to the time right now. like they had to get in they had they had responsibilities and requirements to where the meeting had to end at a specific time and NASCAR was nowhere near through with their presentation that's frustrating that was the sucky part which is happens every single time you get all the drivers in a room together it's noisy and everybody's got different opinions um and so you know while they're while they all share the same concerns how the road to get there is you know everybody's got a little different opinion about what really needs to be focused on and a couple guys want to ask why it's like this and it all gets just it gets noisy and so I've been in a few of those and the less you know when you can really trim it down and have a very small group it's a little bit easier to to move through the presentation like that but apparently they didn't even finish what they really intended to do NASCAR in terms of being able to lay all of this out there hey here is what we learned in the crash test this week. Here are some of the things we're going to do to the car for 2003. These are the things that we're going to focus on also going forward. They didn't,

you know, that's the, that's the, that's kind of where that is. I think that there intends to be more meetings. So I feel like that NASCAR wants to get them all back together to be able to finish their presentation. And yeah, and there's all these new councils sprouting up. There's a safety council, competition council. They're going to have all these little groups. There's like a full, there's like a, I don't even, I don't, I need to see this council tree because there's like a, there's like a, there's like a, there's like a, there's like a, there's like a there's like a RTA over here and you got the NASCAR then you got the little council, safety council and the complex, I'd like, I'd like to see the council tree and how this council

tree's working. You know who's on it? Yeah, I mean like, yeah, well, what council we need to take seriously. Yeah, for sure. That's good. Well, yeah, that, that would be frustrating for both, both sides of that. We'll have to just stay, stay on it. One of the things that I was, one of the things that I pinged on was Kyle Larson said that he saw the test information and it's not as good as the old car. That's, that I saw that. It's better, but not as good as the old car. And so I'd love to know what information he's got that gives him that impression. I'd love to, you know, I'd love to know if NASCAR feels the same way.

We can ask Ben, I guess. We should ask Ben. We could. That because honestly, that that would be a big problem to go backwards. You don't go backwards. And if it's not as good as the old car or it's not as safe as the old car. I don't know if, I don't know given the parameters that they, that they're in with this car and the size and the shape and everything, whether they can ever get to as good as the old car was.

Look, see, I'm going to start going backwards then. But I would say that that is like, we should have never then gone forward with a new car if it does, if it's not as safe or not as good as the pretext. you just see all the all the advancements that were made in in safety of these cars how can you go develop something that then goes backwards that's look I think the drivers have fair you know their aggravations are fair on that yeah I don't know well it's going to be uh well I can't wait to see the improvements that they have uh I can't wait the NASCAR to make that public and and us to be able to really talk about it in more detail to understand exactly what they're going to do these cars to make them absorb more energy. And I can't wait for the drivers to tell us about those experiences

as they go through that process crashing this car, how much better it feels, what really, what are some of the things that can continue to be improved? You never, you never, ever are going to go, all right, that's done. That's as safe as we can make it, right? That should never be the case and I hope that they always continue to try to make gains and improvements on this car but I doubt we'll hear more conversation about it you know on the day to day but going into the off season it'll come back up as we start to learn more and more about the details of the changes made to the rear clip and the in the center section and so forth some of the things that maybe they implement to the front of the car as well that's going to be a lot of conversation that'll

that a resurface leaning into 2023. Anything else in the dirty air? I know something else. No, no, no. I mean, seriously, before we get to that, is there anything that's got people pissed off that we need to fix? Hannah, you're our official spokesperson of people pissed off.

Is there anybody pissed off about things? Are we missing anything in the current topics of today? I just saw a tweet that they're hearing Tyler Redder's contracts been bought out by RCR and he'll be joining 2311 next year. There you go. Seven minutes ago. Lee Spencer of seven minutes ago. Well, I believe it then if it's coming from a reputable media person like

Lee. I was just just another something that I saw too is the fact that Dodge is now completely left manufacturer talks after NASCAR said that they were going to lower the horsepower package to become more attractive to new OEMs and here we are where they're like now we're good after they're doing

NHRA which is high horsepower. Right. The Reddick thing I'm not surprised if that happens which if it hasn't happened it will happen I don't think that he races at RCR next year there's been no talk about a car number or any any crew chief assignment for that for a third car for for Tyler I didn't think he was going to be at RCR next year I don't think they want to spend the money to do that and they found a number that they'll find a number or found a number that'll make them happy to pass him on to the next guy right so So that's probably all going to work out like we might have expected, I would assume.

With the Dodge deal, so I believe that there are a lot of people in Dodge that want to be in NASCAR. And it's basically a couple key individuals that are yet to be convinced that it's a good move or something they need to do now. And so while Dodge is not coming right now, I don't think the door is shut on that, them being here in the future next several years. So, you know, I think that there are some people very excited about getting Dodge back in NASCAR that are in the Dodge camp. And I think too, like I saw, and I can't remember where it came from, so I don't know how reputable it is, but I saw that RFK was going to be the team to help spearhead that.

And I think now that you saw success with Bushers win and now that they're doing this, that would be even more incentive to be like, okay, we're going to go to a team that is now in the news and doing well. Yeah, I think this affects RFK and front row because I think both of those were probably likely going to go over to the Dodge deal. But without that, that's a, that, that, create some new challenges for both of those programs because they may have been planning around the fact that they were going to have that new factory support monetary, whatever it might be. And so some new hurdles for them as a company or as a group, both of those organizations to get into going forward in the next year or two.

Not that it's any kind of a setback. It just is not going to be what they hoped it would be in terms of being able to usher in a new manufacturer. Were any public statements made about why they bowed out of the, out of consideration for NASCAR? Did anybody say anything? Do we know why? The one I saw was just that they wanted to focus on their NHRA program and they just didn't feel like this was the time to re-enter to NASCAR. They just were focusing on NHRA, which then comes the irony of the conversation of wanting low horsepower entrance into NASCAR, but we're going to go focus on our high horsepower endeavors. Yeah. So I think that the I think that a lot of key people in Dodge wanted to be wanted this to happen, wanted to get into NASCAR and there were a few individuals that aren't convinced that are that are really in control.

And so I think that the message point about why they didn't come focusing on NHRA is just filler. I see what you're saying. I don't think that it's a, I don't think that they intended it to be a. read between the lines about horsepower, it definitely plays really well into that messaging. And it opens it up for fans to go, you know, what the hell NASCAR? I thought this was going to be absolutely what would bring them in.

But knowing what I know and knowing what I've been here, and I think that there's some people, I think there was a lot of people at Dodge wanting to make it happen. It didn't happen. A couple key people there. I'm not quite convinced it's time to get into NASCAR, but I think the door is still open. I don't think, I think we will have Dodge back into the sport,

but it won't be anytime soon. Now, you know, that isn't, you know, I don't think that that's like a, I don't think that NASCAR goes, you know, well, let's put the horsepower back. No, no, no, no. I don't, I don't understand where. Yeah, I doubt they'd do that.

No, no, no, I know. I'm just saying, like, people are, people, I see the comments or people are like, well, I thought the low horsepower, was supposed to bring in these manufacturers and it's not. So what the hell, you know? And to Hannah's point, they're going to focus on their NHRA stuff, which is all why, you know, big horsepower.

Well, you know, why don't we just go give the drivers what they're asking for and all those things? So I don't, it ain't going to change. It's not going to change NASCAR's direction in terms of, you know, what kind of horsepower number they're aiming for. I think that they, even if they wanted to change it, I think it'd take a little time to turn that around. Because all of the manufacturers that are currently here

have so much invested in this new direction of low horsepower. Or, you know. Yeah. To ask them to change it all, it's going to, they're all going to say, hell no, we're not changing. We got all this invested in all these parts and pieces. No way. We told a story in our lost speedways where when NASCAR tried to go do changing

with the engines short term over. over the span of a week, you had a whole manufacturer revolt and protest, and they bowed out. Yeah, they left the whole sport. Yeah. So. Over the hemie.

Yeah, I mean, even if NASCAR wanted, even if all the fans said, giving the power back, NASCAR went, you got it. The current manufacturers would say, not a freaking chance. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. So we can get on the Buster's trip to Victory Lane. Mike. We got a book, Children's book coming out today. It is out to date. It's out today. right it's out today go buy it anywhere you buy books buster is there also you can go to dale junior

dot com i mean slash buster so let me tell you about this little book so um i got two little girls and when you get kids uh all your friends give you books so i now have like a mini library of children's books hundreds and hundreds of books multiple copies of some of the same books and they only read probably about 2% of these books and so the question in my mind was like well what the hell is it about a book that a kid draws it draws the kid too and that's their book so like Good Night Moon is a book that I love

and you know even today she still likes to have have the book read to her or still likes to read the book and there's other books that I thought that they would love that they just don't dig, you know? And so it made me kind of curious as to what is it about children's books that kids are entertained by? What are sort of some of the key elements, obviously the art, but the storyline as well, the characters. And so I got an opportunity to work with a company to be able to develop this book.

Same company that we worked with, Mike, to do our last book. Racing to the Finish. Racing to the Finish. So they said, hey, man, you want to do a kid's book? We're like, yes, let's give it a shot. So Buster, why Buster, right? If you look at the car and the art around Buster, this was really fun. We actually got to work with a lot of different artists, and we kind of landed on one.

We really liked. The car itself is a bit of a nod to my grandfather, Robert T's car. My dad actually drove a few times in the 70s, a dirt car, Camaro. We talked about that car on this show several times. Buster is dad's nickname when he was a little boy. You didn't know that? I did not know that. I didn't know that.

Really? Yeah. I thought it was somebody's dog. No. Are you kidding me? Buster was Dad's nickname when he was like three, four, five years old. All right. All right.

And so, yeah, there's a couple other, there's two little Easter eggs. Jimmy Jam, who's one of the characters in the book, is a nod to Jimmy Johnson. Because Jimmy Jam's kind of Jimmy Johnson's alter ego. That's the one you've been trying to get out and come on TV, but he won't do it. when Jimmy pulls an all-nighter, you'll meet Jimmy Jam. We also have a Jimmy Jam in the shop. That is true. Coach Hogg is kind of a nod to Gary Hargett, who was sort of my first real mentor when I started racing,

and I ran late models, and Gary was a hog farmer. At one point in his life had been a hog farmer. and so I used to walk out back of the shop and look at these pigs that he had walking in the woods in the pasture about they're massive, right? Anyhow, Coach Hogg is a nod toward him. That explains by Hargat Racing's logo had a pig on it.

So, yeah, so there's... That's right. So there's a, the team that they drive for is punchy motorsports. You'll remember Dr. Jerry Punch. You will, right? Yeah. Well, his next.

A good friend of mine who recently passed away. His nickname was Punchy. That's a nod to him. My friend Punchy was kind of a guy that used to go with. He was a buddy that would go with me to the racetrack when I race late models. And he just recently, like I said, he just recently passed away. So I wanted to name the racing team after him. There's another Easter egg.

What is that? I don't even think you know this. Do you know there's a picture of you as a kid in there? Really? Yeah. Where? In the book? In the book?

I mean, I... I mean, it's a sketch, of course, but it's taken off of... Here. All right, I'm looking. I did not notice that. In Kelly as well. Huh. You're not going to find it.

Oh, I'm not. I don't think so. Well, then help me, Mike. Look. It's on this page. Okay, let me look for it. There's a page with a lot of kids. It's like, where's Waldo?

Rivating podcasting. But where's Dale. I mean, is that me right there? That's it, yeah. That's you. Really? Yeah. Who told you that?

I would know. I was part of the construction of the book. I mean, yeah, I would know. That was taken from an actual photo, and they drew it. You know, one of my favorite things about the book is in the very back on the jacket of the book itself. There's a little blurb here about me with a picture of me, Nicole, and Ila. And I took that picture. that's actually a funny story

that's where you and I I don't even know if you know this but you said I go to day and I'm like we need to you know have the author's photo whatever it is that goes on the back of the book right and he sends me a photo with an iPhone filter like it's like you know those

sketches thing and you tell everybody you know your kids particularly they're like oh look at this art and we're like that's not art it'll never work in real life nobody will ever take you seriously just it's net well then He sends me this, you know, photo that has been... That I filtered.

That has been filtered with one of those, you know, etch-a-sketch-type apps that he has on his phone. And I'm like, oh, my God, the publisher's going to fall out of their seat over this one. And they loved it. Of course they did. They loved it. They oohed and odd. They said, this is the greatest thing ever. And so, now, the photo itself is cute.

I don't want to knock the photo because you got, you know, Ila and Nicole. Nicole's never taken a bad photo just so you know like that's just a fact and so it actually works quite well in this book doesn't it? Because I believe when you look at the actual art of the book it kind of leans into it's like a real picture that leans a little bit into the art of the children's

you know the drawings of the cars and the characters and so forth so I think in a in a book about concussions yes probably not a great picture but in a kid's book it's kind of got this sort of fun element to it. But I love that. I just took that picture in my house.

I propped the phone. I don't even think, I think I propped the phone up and took the photo. That's what I presumed. Yeah. It ain't like Amy holding the phone taking it for me. You know what I'm saying? I think Amy was gone.

And I didn't take it for this reason. I took the picture to send it to Amy or somebody. Right. Hey, look at us. We're having a great time. Because I think maybe Amy was out of town or something. I don't remember what it was. But it was kind of like,

Hey, we got it. You want to make it look like you've had things under control. Kids aren't in the hospital. And so like months, and I put a little filter on it. Months later, he's actually, I put the filter on it when you asked for it. No, I know. I remember. Yeah, that's the part I didn't love.

Months later, he's like, hey man, I need a picture. I'm like, got the perfect picture. Got the perfect picture. And then he threw the filter on it. And I'm like, oh, good Lord. Now we're going to go do this thing. And this is not going to work. And I'm going to have to explain to them.

And then I'm going to go back to you and say they didn't love it. And then, of course, I was wrong. they loved it and I think it actually does work so I'll give you that one. It's Buster's Tripped to Victor Lane. Yeah, I think I'm going to slide on over to a few bookstores locally and sign a few copies. So follow along my social media, dirty mode media, social media, because in the next probably 48 hours, I'm going to hit up a few bookstores or a bookstore and hand sign some of the copies there. And then I'll let you know where those are so you can go.

Go grab them. Well done. Congratulations on the book. You know, coming out the day after your birthday, like a lot of, this has been a good week for you. But this is available again at Delljutor. Backslash Buster or any of the bookstores, anywhere you go, Amazon. And hey, listen, fans, you can get on a children's book bestseller list too, you know. All right. I'm just going to leave that right there. You know, go do your thing. All right. It would help us. You know, you buying these books gets us on a bestseller list. We'd love to do that. So. My favorite part's going to be finding out what the kids like about it. Yeah. Yeah. What they like about Buster. Hey, man, this book right here may make the next generation of race fans. You never know. Are you going to do any children's readings?

You know how, like, authors at some point sit down and they read to all the small children in the library? You should do that. You should do it. I'm just picturing it, right? I'm picturing like all the kids, crisscross, applesauce, and Dale's sitting there. What just happened? Hey, Steve. Your own episode of the Dale Jr. Download.

Oh, man, sorry. I didn't mean to bother you. I was calling check in on your birthday then. Birthday's going good. Well, it went good. Yeah, I don't want to bother you on it. I don't know what plans you had. I didn't want to interrupt your download then.

Hard up. What Steve is this? Steve LaTartreth is now on the Dell Jr. download? Yeah. What's that, Steve? This is a post-virtay check-in. This is like a well-check. Wellness check.

When your friend turns 48, that he's still okay. Hey, hey, Steve. Was it a good call or a bad car to throw the caution for the sign? I think it was a good call. There you go. On the second groove required. There you go. All right.

All right, buddy. Appreciate the wellness check. I'll see in a few days. All right, yes, sir. See. So that'll do it. We should end on Steve LaTart. We end on Steve LaTartre being wrong.

You agree with him. I agree with him. You're good with it. All right. I'm excited about this next guest, man. and we got to thank Ally for sponsoring the guest segment here at the Dale Jr. Download. And I think that we can call Ben and Ally. I've known Ben a really long time, a racer that's part of the France family,

and he is now moving into several different positions within the NASCAR fold. And he's kind of being groomed in a way to take over the sport at some point. I think he's well capable of doing it. I love the way that he's sort of going to. through the different departments to be able to get that experience and understand really how all of this works. And so thankful for Ally to be able to bring this segment to us. And let's get started with the interview, Mike.

Let's do it. There he is. Thanks. Yeah, we're, we're kind of at the point now to where we've got to stop adding stuff. She's going to start looking like a junkyard. You get quite the collection. Yeah. Yeah, we kind of, we've got some pretty funny stuff up here, man.

That car next to you, apparently, that right here on the table. Apparently, like, Pablo Escobar raced. A car. Yeah, like some fan sent us this sort of interesting car that apparently he raced, but there's all kinds of little weird things in this room. That's awesome. Yeah. Dick Trickle, Pitt, sign, Kale Yarborough, uniform from, like, 77, 76.

Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, we actually did. So we did a throwback at Darlington. I think it was 2017 in the Xenity race with a 96 car back in the day. Really? Yeah, it was fun. So, man, I appreciate you coming.

Where'd you come from? Daytona. You flew from Daytona? Wherever. I don't know. I don't have a home anymore. Were you on an airplane today? That's a good start.

I wasn't. No, so I've been here the past week. I was here for the road this past weekend. So I'm here for the past week and just hanging out in Charlotte today. Good old Los Angeles later. Homes in Daytona? Homes primarily in Daytona. Yeah.

I'd say primarily Daytona and then. I spend a decent amount of time in Charlotte. I try to spread my time between the Daytona office, the Charlotte office, and then the Concord Office R&E Center. Daytona, Charlotte, and then my suitcase. For a long time, like NASCAR mainly was Daytona, right? Most of their operations and offices and everything was down there. Is it still, like, mainly Daytona, or how much of the sport is really operated out of the

Charlotte area? That's a good question. So to your point, NASCAR is founded 1948 in Daytona Beach, Florida, actually a little hotel down there called the Streamline Hotel. If you haven't been to it, really cool, and there's a bunch of kind of old pictures

and stuff in there from when they signed the documents to create NASCAR. So founded in 1948, it's always been Daytona, so our headquarters are still in Daytona. And I would say probably a majority of our employee base is based out of there. But then we have Charlotte's offices in Charlotte, which I would say is, you know, marketing, branding, productions, social and digital teams out of there.

And then you have the R&D Center up in Concord, about, you know, 20 minutes away from Charlotte, which is pretty much all competition, which I'm sure you guys have been up to before. So I'd say those are really kind of our three main offices. We have another one in New York, and then we have all the tracks now. Yeah. We have quite a few. Yeah. Those are offices, yeah.

So where'd you grow up? So it grew up in Daytona. Born and raised in Daytona Beach, Florida, pretty much my entire life. Were you an athlete? Yes and no. I played basketball for about six years. I was horrible. I was the MVP my eighth grade year.

Well, you weren't too bad, man. Most MVPs are not horrible. I was going to say, I could relate to being horrible at basketball, but I cannot relate to being an MVP at basketball. Let me put this into perspective, though. I was the MVP in eighth grade. We went zero and 12 that year. We went to the playoffs, and I was in eighth grade. And the team that we were playing in the first round of the playoffs, we won one game

in double overtime. And there were no boys in seventh or eighth grade. So we were playing sixth graders. Six graders versus eight graders. Went to double overtime, and we won by like two points. So that was my shining moment, at least playing the stick and balls for us. And then you, but you guys. got into racing at what age?

I was late, so probably 14 or so. What were your interest before and then? So what, you know, I'd say, you know, I played basketball. You know, we grew up on the water a lot. I guess just being a kid. We surfed. I was kind of big into wakeboarding, so. Where was your home specifically?

Were you in Newsemer or? Daytona. You were in Daytona at the beach. Because I know that, you know, y'all have. homes in different spaces down there. But that is pretty interesting because I know there's the new Samirna racetrack. There's short track racing. There's local racing.

But I don't go, I don't think a Daytona is a place where, you know, if I'm a kid, I'm going to start my racing career. You know, so maybe that was a bit why you were late. If you had been up here in Charlotte, right, you probably would have been racing Legends cars or Bandoleros or whatever. And I don't know if is there a big, is the opportunity, exists down there for, you know, five, 10, 12-year-old kids to get going. Yeah, it's a good question.

I think to your point, just being up here in Charlotte, I've spent a decent amount of time here since I really got to the Xenity and Cup series or truck series. And, you know, you're just, you're around it so much. It's almost kind of natural. I think growing up in Daytona, you know, you're kind of more around the beach and the water. So, yeah, I think I'd spent more time on that. And I feel like I grew up as a relatively kind of normal kid. and I didn't really think about being on the driving side.

Like, I always knew my mom and my family on the business side. I didn't know a whole lot about the business at all. But I never really had the lens of, oh, maybe I could actually be a race car driver. Right. And a family friend of ours signed me up, unbeknownst to me. So you have Newsomeres Speedway, which is a half-mile track. And then inside of it, you have little New Somerisbeeway, which I think is a 20th of a mile quarter-mitted track. and he signed me up for, it was like an afternoon school,

and I went out there and, you know, you get in this quarter midget, my head was like going through the halo bar because I'm like 14 years old, I've already hit my gross per, I'm so tall. So I went out there and I just, I had a really good time and I'm like, wow, this is, this is pretty cool, but I didn't really think anything else of it. I didn't think that this could be a hobby or a career or anything beyond that. And my dad actually, you know, bought this quarter midget from someone else. It was a used quarter midget.

We kind of pieced it together. It's got a little, you know, four horsepower Honda Motor. And we went out there and, you know, started just racing on Friday nights. Yeah. Remember every Tuesday after school, we go to the track and in practice. And then every Friday night, we would go out and race. And it was a great time. And, you know, it was a good time to, you know, be able to learn.

that sport from kind of a different lens, especially as a kid and a driver. It was a great time to spend with a family and friends, too. Around what year was that? That was, uh... So you were 14? I was 14, yeah. So I would say 2006, I would say. Yeah. You know, your dad passed away in 07. Right. How did you manage to navigate through that? How did that affect you? Yeah, it was, it was tough. And I know that's something you and I, I certainly have in common. And, you know, it's, it's always difficult. And especially when it's when it's unexpected, I think it makes it that much more challenging.

Don't get me wrong. It's always difficult. You know, but as summer of 2007 and my grandfather passed away, and again, you don't want to say it was expected, but he had a lot of health issues. He was in and out of the hospital for a number of years. He was fighting cancer. He finally seemed like he was doing better. And then he made a kind of a turn there.

I remember, I think it was a rain-delayed Dover race. We actually announced it in the middle of the race that he had passed away. It was June 3rd of 2007. So we kind of, you know, got through that. And then a month and a week later, we actually had a family trip planned that afternoon. You know, we had been planning it. And my mom and dad were really excited about. I had planned it for, you know, probably over a year or so.

and my dad was actually trying to get his miles in to be a pilot. There's always a bucket list item that he had had. He wanted to be a pilot and get his pilot's license. So every now and then he would go out, borrow this little Cessna prop plane, and he would go out and fly. So he went out that morning, July 10th, and took off that morning, and about 45 minutes into it, they reported smoke in the cockpit, and then shortly after, fortunately, went down.

So, I mean, it's without a doubt devastating. It's always devastating when you lose a loved one. But I'd say when it's unexpected like that, it's shocking. And I think it taught me a few things. It taught me, I mean, taught me how to grow up really quickly. It taught me, you know, who's really important kind of in my life and who really has my back and cares about me. And, you know, I think one of the kind of biggest things is, you know, a relationship with my mom and I, it was pretty much a two of us. together. You know, you had family and friends, but, you know, it was really the two of us.

And every night we'd have dinner at about 715 and we'd sit on these, you know, little futons and have dinner and really built a great relationship. I'd say those two or three years after. And it's, you know, you never want to say there's a silver lining in those sorts of things. But, you know, I think the relationship that I have with her and a lot of the people that I'm still close to today really came out of those two or three months after that. Wow. Man, that's, that's, you know, I remember when talking about the sudden shock of losing somebody unexpectedly, I forgot, you know, it's been so many years.

I forgot about that being probably the toughest part about it. I guess after a few years, who's helping you? who's the father figure or who's the man in your life that sort of because you know I know your mother's heavily involved in NASCAR and she could absolutely help you know in in court you know steer your racing career but what male figures were a big role in the next several years to kind of get you going um yeah that's a good question you know had my mom for sure um you know we had i just say family friends that were around and really supportive. I think eventually kind of when I got over to the business side, you know, having,

just being around people like Steve Phelps and Steve O'Donnell and kind of male leaders and role models that I could look up to, you know, I think we're helpful. So, you know, I'd say for the most part, it was, it was really a lot of our just kind of friends in the Daytona Beach area that I was able to lean on. Was your dad involved in your racing? You said he bought the cart, but how involved was he with you and your driving? Yeah, so it was my second year of racing the quarter midgets at the time. So, you know, I think we were all kind of learning together, right?

It wasn't like we grew up in a racing family. We knew, you know, how to adjust, you know, the shock absorber or, you know, the track bar, sway bar, whatever it might be. So all of that was completely foreign to us. Because your dad wasn't in the racing business. either. He wasn't. Right. He was a doctor. But he always, I mean, he loved cars. He loved working on things. He had a bunch of, you know, cool cars growing up and hobby cars that he worked on. And he always loved to tinker. So, you know, when we got that quarter midget, he tinkered on it a ton. And we

learned along the way. We'd go out and car wouldn't be that good or the go-kart wouldn't be that good. And we'd slowly make it better. So, you know, he was involved in, you know, the, I would say, the first year of racing quarter midgets and then, you know, the, I guess, the first part of the second year, too. Yeah. And he loved it and he was passionate about it. You know, I wish, looking back now, that he could have, you know, seen me kind of go through my steps afterwards. And, you know, I think being, you know, that time like, like anyone, when you're a teenager, you know, you're kind of a brat and you kind of, you know, disconnect on a lot of things and looking back on it, you know, there are so many similarities that we have. And I have. And I

I hear it all the time, you know, my personality and the things that I love to do that we had in common. We got to share some of that along the way, but I didn't really get into, you know, cars and kind of working on things and all of those things until I would say, you know, 18, 19, and 20, and I really got into it. And then I was like, man, it'd be cool to be able to share some of those experiences. But at the same time, we have so many memories. And, you know, I think the cool part about it is he got to see me, you know, in my first couple of years racing. the last race was one of my first wins, which was really, really cool. He was there?

Yeah, he was there. It was, you know, late June of that year, and he came out and he got to see it. So it was neat. Do you have something of your dads that's like you're, you know, a momento? Yeah, we have some of his watches, some of his jewelry. I wish that there were things that we kind of saved along the way. and they're probably stored away somewhere in a safe that I probably don't know exactly where they're at.

You know, I think at the time is just, you know, and, you know, I'm sure you guys going through this too, you're emotional and, you know, anything that you see that reminds you of him, it brings back a lot of memories, but at the same time, you got to get to a point where you kind of move on too. So I think I, I want to say I kind of disconnected myself from it a little bit. And, you know, now that I've kind of got to a better place and recovered and healed, you know i've been able to go back and look at a lot of those things yeah yeah we're actually i i pulled out my old old quarter midget trailer um a few months ago with one of my buddies that's cool and open it up

um and it was like it was like going back in time um not as impressive as this room it was like going back in time and uh the old set up sheets that say 2007 and 2006 on it um and there's a picture of my dad in there and that was that was really uh really special yeah i think my um you're right about that man, when I lost my dad, I didn't want uniforms and his boots and stuff around, and I wasn't hugging on to that stuff. It was like, you know, I just went in a damn direction, right, as far away from it as I could. But now all these years later, like, I'm trying to get all this stuff back,

and it's okay for it to be sitting in a room next to me, and it doesn't bother, even though it does have an energy. Like, I've got some boots of his. and I feel like the boots are the cool thing because he walked in on him and, you know, he did so many things wearing those boots and he would re-souled his boots. Like he wouldn't just get a new pair. He'd keep that pair and just have a new soul put on them. So.

Yeah. Was it a period of time where you could almost make that turn from? It took a long time. Yeah. It took over a decade for me to get to where I would be, I would want that material, you know, those material things. and I appreciated them and they didn't hurt

you know, they didn't hurt you know to be around them or to be like to look at it and be reminded right it's you know there's a there are those times though like this morning I was looking at a book

there's this guy that came out with this book about the history of Metrolana Motor Speedway and dad raced there a lot and so did Ralph and so I'm reading this book trying to learn as much as I can

about them because this is a really well documented part of their lives that I know nothing about and there's so many things every freaking page I'm like God I want to know only dad

could tell me, if dad were sitting here, I could say, hey, who was this guy? And why is he driving this car, right? And because everybody drove everybody's cars. And, and I just, it makes me wish I could ask him to know more, right? But I agree. And it's like, I think we take this for granted sometimes. And we kind of talk about in the hallways, you know, Mike Helton and a lot of these people have so many stories. And I mean, your dad has so many stories. You have so many stories. You guys, I mean, talk about a lot of these stories. And I think you guys are doing. doing a great job of being able to document it on a podcast like this. We built, this podcast is largely, I believe, people bringing stories to him about his dad

that otherwise he wouldn't know. Yeah. I mean, like, Ned Yost, a baseball manager, was sitting in that chair last week. He was telling us stuff and bringing stuff that, you know, mementos that he had collected years ago that you just don't have, you just don't have access to that anymore. And so that is a gift. And that's interesting to hear you talk about it, Dale, that it took a decade. because as you're saying that,

it occurs to me that there are probably people every week trying to force you to give you a picture or something that maybe you weren't quite ready to look at it yet. Yeah. And everybody was well-intentioned. Yeah. So we're getting in the weeds. I don't want to wear the out of us.

But going to the racetracks the next year with the, or actually that year, going to the racetracks and the threes painted on the apron and all that. Oh, man. So was that, was that, So was that tough to see? It was great but bad. You know what I mean?

It was like, I love this. I want, you know, I thought he was amazing. Sure. I love that everybody else wants to celebrate him and all that, but at the same time, it was so distracting. Yeah. You know, and it was weird. And I remember every third lap of every race, everyone had the three.

I love that. I love that. It was so cool. And I remember the first couple of races after, I forget it was probably Atlanta or something. And everyone put the three out. And it's just like you you couldn't hear anything but the cars at the moment and it was I mean it was emotional like it took you four or five laps to recover after that But it was it was it was special that year and we were talking about it as I was walking in Some of my favorite memory memories of watching you kind of growing up and and racing and it was I mean

Winning the the race in Daytona in August of that year which was insane yeah was crazy so that was that was really cool see I know, I'm sure the months afterwards were really hard, but to be able to go back to Daytona and then when in that eight car was insane. It was crazy. What were you 10 years old or something at that time? 01. I was, yeah. 91 plus 10. How did you stay out of trouble in Daytona?

I used to have a lot of fun. I used to have a lot of fun in that town. And I don't know if I could have lived there and not, you know, not wore out the razzles and all the 600 north and all those places. There's a certain strip on Sea Breeze that has a lot of the places I'm sure you've been to and in mention. The Razzles and 509 and I won't mention a lot of others that are there too. That would be a fun. I mean, you know, plus you have all the bike week and this week and that week and spring break and all that. I mean, how do you navigate?

I've never lived in a town with all this things continuously going on. how do you navigate and have like a normal life with so much of that going on? Yeah, I don't know. You know, I think to your point, there's just naturally when you grow up in something, you're just kind of used to it. It's second nature. There's so many people ask me, it's like, you know, what was it like growing up in the sport and their family and everything?

And I'm like, well, it just kind of felt like, you know, growing up. You know, we go to the track on the weekends. And I would say for the most part, we traveled a lot of those weekends. You know, we're out of town. But at the same time, to your point, you know, throughout the year, you always had those times. And you had bike week and you had spring break. Obviously, speed weeks was really big. The race in July was really big.

You had the turkey rod runs. So there were always events going on throughout the year. You know, naturally there are certain weeks where traffic was so bad. It's like, hey, let's, you know, try to get out of town for a few days and go on a vacation. So we would kind of make the other tradition where we would try to get away when the tourists came in. And then obviously when when there were races out at the track, we're there, you know, pretty much every day. So, you know, I remember, you know, back in the day, speed weeks, I mean, you'd be out there Friday and Saturday. I'd be out at New Smyrna.

But be out there Friday and Saturday of the weekend of, you know, shootout or clash, whatever we called it back then, all the way through the 500. So, you know, there are all these events going on throughout the year in Daytona. It's, you know, it's always been a special place to me. and I think the cool part about it is there's so much history there and so much tradition when you think about Daytona National Speedway and then you go south on the beach to where we race. You know, even pre-Nascar to the streamline hotel. So you have a lot of that, but you can also kind of get away a little bit too. Go down to the beach and hang out with friends or, you know, play basketball or whatever it might be.

So I don't want to breeze through your racing career. You won a – you ended up getting in the truck series, won a truck race. You're racing in the Xfinity Series, and you're racing in the Xfinity Series, you decided to retire. So in in the notes, it was a difficult decision. So tell me, I guess, what I want to know, what I'm most interested in is like how you were 100% bawled in to being a driver. As far as you got, you were absolutely committed and locked in. Why did you quit? You're, you're young. You're, you've got a great opportunity. You're winning. Yeah, you're doing well. Still trying to figure that out.

No, I mean, I think to your point, so, you know, race in the truck series for three years, went to Xfinity Series in 2017, where I was doing kind of part-time RCR, part-time with GMS. And I finally got to the point, and this is kind of what frustrates me a little bit, looking back on it, where I felt comfortable behind the wheel. And there are so many times as I was growing up through those years that I get anxious or nervous or, you know, didn't really know car control that much. And I would say in 2016, we finally kind of had a little bit of a breakout year. Won the race at Bristol, led, you know, laps at a handful of tracks.

We're in the playoffs. And actually, you know, I thought another year or two I would have got to a much better place. You know, to your point, I was pretty locked in on the driving side of it. So, you know, I work out and train every day. I go to the shop, you know, be at the track on the weekend. I was trying to study as much as I can. And so I really looked at it as a career, and I took it, I tried to take it as seriously as I possibly could. And I got to then in 2017, you know, my last race was at Homestead.

And, you know, I had opportunities to continue in 2018. So I had a couple opportunities in the truck side, the Xfinity side, one or two cup opportunities. And, you know, I kind of looked at it. And, you know, some of them were part-time. Some of them, you know, I may have not really had the opportunity to go out and win races. and, you know, I deliberated a lot, right? So, you know, it's probably two months or so of just going back and forth in my head because I love racing.

I was so passionate about it. I wanted to continue to do it. But also kind of look at myself in the mirror and said, you know, I'm 25 years old. I have a lot of energy. I have a lot of passion. I have a lot of passion for the sport. And I think being kind of in my early to mid-20s, I was finally starting to understand the sport a little bit better

and actually kind of understand what was being said. than a lot of these meetings. And I got to the point where, you know, I said, I'm young, I'm hungry. I think I, I think and hope I can make a positive impact on what the future of the sport looks like. No matter what, I feel like I'm going to end up on the business side, that what better time than now when I'm 25 years old to make this leap and go over to the business side of it. So, you know, there's a lot of deliberation. Obviously, you know, talk to family members. I talked to Brent Dewar at the time, talked to Steve O'Donnell, taught to Steve Phelps.

And, you know, it was kind of a leap of faith moment. And I made a call to one of them. I think it was Steve O'Donnell. And it offered me the opportunity to come be the GM of the truck series in 2018. And I told them. And I'm like, there's no going back now. I'm pretty locked in. So made that leap of faith.

And then, you know, send out the messages and do, you know, a couple of media hits. And I think it was about a week or something. later that I had my first day on the job. So you still have a race team that runs right now. Right. What is that team? What does it entail? Where is it? Sure. So that team is down in Daytona Beach, Florida, you know, probably about 10 minutes from the track down there. And so that was a team as traditionally, I guess, the legacy Mark Martin enterprises. So really? Yeah, you had Mark Martin, which, you know, Matt Martin was running there. He had German Colangelo, a handful of drivers. And then as I started my racing career, so I went from the quarter minutes to the Pro Truck Series, which is kind of a local weekly series down at New Smyrna, where I started at Mark Martin Enterprises.

I did late models there for a couple of years. And then as I transitioned over to, which was the K&NE series at time, the ARCA East Series, that's kind of when we made the transition from Mark Martin Enterprises over to Ben Kennedy Racing. And we just run it ever since. So I did, you know, three years there in the K&N series. And then as I moved on to the truck series, I said, we have great people here. We have, you know, a great kind of, you know, infrastructure and resources. And, you know, what better way to kind of continue this on and put some drivers that are going to be in, you know, the national series in the future, hopefully the Cup series in the future, and kind of continue it forward. So, you know, they competed in the ARCAE series for a number of years as well as pro and super late model.

Yeah. I'd say the focus right now is really pro and supers. You know, so the, you know, snowball derbies, Winchester 400s, all-American races is kind of a really core focus. And it's really just about finding local drivers down there and trying to give them an opportunity to go out and succeed and, you know, try to make it successful. And, you know, it's kind of fun because you have the business side of it

or, you know, I'm on the kind of NASCAR side. I've had the driving kind of experience, but then also having the team owner experience. Yeah, I think it challenges you, and you probably see this too, having JRM, is to just think differently as you go through those different, you know, kind of perspectives. Yeah, I have the late mall stock program that we still run, and I just think I love to do it because it's kind of the brute or the core of, you know, stock car racing in general, you know, is those short track programs. And it helps me kind of keep my perspective in order, right, in terms of trying to run this. this program here, it's also fun. But I found it fascinating that you're continuing that program,

considering everything else you've got going on. And I think it's great that you do that. It's good. I would say that from the outside looking in, you basically, when you decided to take on that change of getting out of the race car and going into the business side, you've sort of been placed in all these little unique spots to be able to just absorb.

and learn, right? And as fast and as quickly as possible, gather as much information as you can about how this sport operates. So in that time frame, what has been probably, you know, talk, tell me what's been the most surprising thing that you've learned about NASCAR. Gosh, that's a good question. I would say is the amount of, the amount of work, and, you know, a lot of this goes back to, so, you know, next year you're going to be celebrating under 75 years. Just kind of talking, about history and experience, there's a reason for a lot of things that happen, whether it's in the offices or on the race weekend, and a lot of that is based on experience, right? So if there's something that happened on the racetrack at a certain point, you learn from it and you implement it.

And, you know, I think what was surprising to me, and I was talking to someone about this the other night, is as you get into it and, you know, just think about the competition side as an example, all the procedures that are in place from, you know, a race official to a race director to, you know, the person that's over fire and safety, all of these folks, I mean, they have a set process throughout the week, whether it's, you know, at the R&D Center on Tuesday and Wednesday or when they get to the track. And I think as a driver, I always kind of took that for granted. I'm like, you just kind of show up at the track and put together a race and, you know,

there's a caution car and there's safety vehicles and all these things. but the amount of planning and prep work that goes into that was really impressive to me and eye-opening to me and really trying to be, you know, you have to be reactive sometimes, right? Because, I mean, this sport throws us curveballs left and right. We're not going to avoid that, but to also be as proactive as you possibly can. And we're never going to be, we're never going to be perfect at the end of the day. But I think I certainly learned a lot about that, especially my first year being on the truck side. and then as I got to other areas of the business,

I think I just continued to get a lot more. But I think one of the most eye-opening things for me as I came kind of into this role, and I went to Daytona and I went to Atlanta for those first couple of races, is, you know, as we all come to the track, we come with such a different experience, right? So, you know, if you're a driver or, you know,

a team member or an official or a NASCAR, you know, employee or a fan, your experiences are so. different. But I think it's remarkable that we all come together and we all, our focus at the end of days to put on a really good show for our fans, put on an exciting race on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And we're all tuned in and, you know, kind of locked in on that. So I think it's, it's really remarkable how just the overall industry operates, you know, even putting NASCAR side, you know, teams, broadcast partners, you know, you've probably seen it a lot kind of coming from the driver's side, the team side, and being on the broadcast side, it's remarkable how to, you know,

you have so many different areas of the industry that really come together, put on a race. Yeah, I agree. When I got into broadcasting, it was kind of the same experience in terms of, I didn't know, I didn't realize how much it took to get this broadcast done, right? And how many different individuals were responsible for so many different things. And I took it for granted as a driver. Sure. And I had opinions on how badly they did or how they could do it better or what their problem was, right?

Yeah. But it's always easier when you're sitting on your couch at home. Yeah, for sure. It's so true. I have a ton of respect for everyone that's in the booth because, I mean, you've got to be locked in, right? For several hours. And then you have a rain delay. And it's, you know, how do you continue to create content along the way?

So Bill France Senior starts this NASCAR thing. Junior takes over and it's awesome. I mean, just so much growth. One of the things that I appreciated about both of them was, was how sternly they ran the business. Right. And while Mike Hilton had a lot of those qualities as well, like, hey man, this is how the show is going to be ran, get in line, right?

Right. I feel like that it's kind of lost a little bit of that over the last several decades, and it's moved in a direction toward tons of collaboration, right? A lot of working, like NASCAR, you know, loosening. up a little bit of that grasp and control, and now there's RTA, there's driver councils, and there's a lot of collaboration, right? If you're to be groomed, as I've said, multiple times on this podcast about you, if you're to be kind of in a position to eventually take over that role, what's your vision for the sport? Do you look at the way that Bill Sr.

and junior did business? Do you appreciate some qualities about that? For me, I know this is such a broad question, but for me, I am really stuck in my ways and want it to be like it was. I know that's totally unrealistic. I know that I need to be open-minded toward things like racing in the Coliseum or a street course race at Chicago, right? I've got to figure out a way to like accept these new things coming and changing. And I think fans kind of suffer from the same thing. Sure. I want to know, like, when you look at the past and you, and that's your family, they ran it that way, and they have, there's some good qualities about that, but there's, there's, there's, there's, there's,

there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, there's, what is your vision? Yeah, I think, so to your point, um, you know, you think about Bill senior and Bill Jr. I would say, to, to your point, they kind of really led and, and steered the ship along the way, right? Not just NASCAR, but the industry. And I think through that, they got a ton of respect. You know, there was a ton of respect in the garage area to both of them, you know, to Mike Elton and a lot of the folks that have come along the way. To your point, I think it shifted a little bit. You know, as a lot of things have kind of shifted with at times is to be a little more kind of collaborative and have a little bit kind of less of a veil between NASCAR and the industry.

I think you still need some of that in certain ways. But at the same time, and I was talking about this earlier around Daytona 500 weekend earlier this year, is you think about and we talk about the growth of the sport and ratings and tenants, whatever we want to get into. And I think a lot of it sure is going to a next-gen car, doing different things from a scheduling perspective. I think the thing that sometimes gets overlooked is a collaboration that we have. the collaboration between NASCAR and the teams, NASCAR, the track partners, the broadcast partners,

whoever it might be, I think those relationships and those partnerships are stronger than it's ever been before. And I think more voices are being heard to help kind of craft what the future of the sport looks like. And, you know, I think that's kind of helped us set up ourselves to where we've been the past two or three years.

And I think as we think about the future, I think it'll probably continue to be more that. I mean, don't get me wrong, at the end of the day, if we need to sit whoever it is down and say, hey, this isn't how things work or we need to do things differently, I think we still need to be able to have those conversations. But at the same time, there are so many different thoughts and opinions and just great ideas out there. And don't get me wrong, there's going to be a lot of ideas that we can't implement. I mean, I'd love to implement every single idea. A lot of them, you know, some of them aren't feasible, some of them are feasible, some of them we just, we can't do.

There's a lot of ideas, and I've kind of disengaged with social media. I should probably get back on. That's where a lot of bad ideas start. I was disengaged in social media. But I will say, I get a lot of good ideas on social media. I get a lot of ideas where I would love to come out and say, hey, here's the five reasons for why we can't do that. And I can't do that. Because you probably have five very good reasons that would make, you know, let's first understand, like, what is your role today?

Yeah, so my title is racing development, which is, I would say, a section of competition. So racing operations, weekly and touring, you know, probably two or three areas of competition. Competition is pretty broad. You know, Steve O'Donnell and John Probst and a lot of those guys kind of really lead a lot of things from a competition perspective. But I would say I'm getting more involved back in that area. And then strategy and innovation. And I would say the real kind of focus there is, is, obviously scheduling and building out the future schedules. So, you know, I would say lately,

it's probably been, I'd say, majority scheduling related. But then along the way, there's a bunch of ad hoc projects that come in, too. So, you know, whether it's kind of thinking about what the future charter system looks like or, you know, sitting in on some of the competition meetings or we'll have a meeting where we say, hey, we want to, you know, develop whatever it is and we have to, but we have to find parking spots at Daytona that we can kind of replace them with. So every day is a little bit different, but I think it makes it interesting. It makes it challenging, and it certainly keeps you engaged. It seems like if you wanted to, you could be in a Zoom call every minute of the day.

Yes. I have some of those days. Right. And it's like 8 to 6, and then I get home, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I have like 100 emails that I've got to go through right now. Right. So I love airplane flights because you get live live live. I've done airplane. No one else talking to you and just knock it out.

So do you know what the root is for you in terms of, you know, Jim appears in this moment to kind of be the guy? If there's, you know, when there's the time, there needs to be a final decision and it needs to be one person. It's kind of Jim. Is there a path, you know, a plan for when that person is you? Or is this sort of just kind of going by the flow? Is this a day-to-day, year-to-year kind of thing? Yeah, I would say, I think it's really getting experience. And what I've told people, which I want them to hold me accountable on,

is I don't want to take a position or be put in a position that I'm not ready for. You know, if I have opportunities to continue to grow in the business, fantastic. But I need to have the credentials and the experience to be able to take that stuff. The last thing that I want to do is take a step that I'm not ready for or that might hurt a certain area of the business or support. So without a doubt, that's kind of, I would say rule number one for me. And I think as you kind of think about just from a high level kind of my career over the past five years being at NASCAR, started in competition. I'd say I spent a decent amount of time on international my second year and then started to get more involved on the scheduling side.

and have now come full circle back to competition. So I think my future will probably, at least for the next couple of years, will be a little more competition focus, certainly scheduling being a part of that, certainly racing ops and weekly and touring some of the things that I'm doing today being a part of that, but probably taking on a bigger role in the competition area in the next two or three years.

But I think to your point, you know, Jim is the CEO of our company and kind of leading it along the way. Steve Phelps, you know, kind of right at his side, and I think has done a tremendous job as you think about, you know, all the changes that we've had and really kind of changing the culture of where we're going in the future. And then, you know, Steve O'Donnell, and I think the great part about it is we have a really strong leadership team around us. And a lot of really good leaders, a lot of good people that I can lean on and hopefully people that I can help out along the way, too. Ben, can I ask you about scheduling? Sure.

You mentioned that a couple times, and so I have always been curious on all the things, all the things that you are considering when building a schedule. It has to be enormously complicated. So I don't know if we can boil it down into practical things, but like, let's try. Try to give us an idea of how you would approach building a schedule. Yeah, I would say, and I'll try to keep it as simple as I'd possibly. Right. So what we basically start with is we're going to start working on a 20th.

24 schedule right now. So we start with a 2023 schedule. We literally drag it's an Excel sheet. We'll drag it from one cell over a couple more cells and build out status quo, 2023 schedule, 2024 schedule. Here's what it looks like. And that's our starting point. And then for us, it's really about saying, you know, looking at our existing tracks, hey, what's working well, what's continuing to exceed, what's doing okay. So you're looking at revenue and all that stuff? I mean, you're looking at their ticket sales. I mean, how How granular? I would say it's less revenue-based for us.

So, you know, we try to collect as much data as we possibly can. So, I'd say from a high level of three or four buckets, there's the fan data that we collect. Okay. So NASCAR fan council, which are your most avid fans. You do UGov studies, which are probably more casual fans. So you get a lot of fan data from there. Obviously, talk to our broadcast partners. So Fox and NBC, what is their perspective?

What are they seeing from a tune-in percentage? perspective, look at ratings and viewership, which markets are performing well. Team, so every year or two, we'll do a team survey. We did a team survey this summer. I've had the chance to sit down with those teams and get a lot of feedback, hey, which markets you feel like are important from a partnership perspective, which ones are really moving the needle. OEM partners, you know, Premier partners and kind of on down the list, we'll collect as much of that data as we possibly can and then kind of looked at, you know, existing tracks. How do we think existing tracks are performing from, you know, a viewership perspective, from a

tenant's perspective, from a racing product perspective, you know, what are our team saying about it? Try to collect as much as we possibly can to look at our existing tracks and then to think about new tracks and new venues. And I would put that in kind of two or three buckets. So you have your existing tracks, a North Wilkesboro Speedway or, you know, a Coda as an example. And then you just have new markets. and this is where we've kind of gotten out of our swimming lane a little bit with a Coliseum or Chicago where we say, hey, we have a lot of fans here or we have a lot of growth in this market.

This is a big opportunity to kind of tap into both our existing fan base that might be a little more casual, but also bring a lot of new fans out that haven't been to a sport before. And I think for us it's really got to be, hey, how do we dip our toe in both of those waters? where we're still leaning into those big moments throughout the season, right? So Daytona 500, Cook 600, Bristol Night Race, Darlington on Labor Day weekend that are really special to our sport and really making those big moments within the schedule. But where there's opportunities for us to continue to grow and go into some of those new markets, like a Los Angeles or Chicago, you know, those are kind of the opportunities that we look at.

So that's the first group. That's the first group. Yeah. There's two other groups, but it gets into the weeds after that. So then basically, if I'm hearing you right, you know, you start with the current schedule, and then almost immediately, though, you're into fan council stuff, or I'm sorry, you're into fans, you know, data and things that you know, and then almost immediately you're already sort of contemplating new ideas, which would have led to my next question is like,

where does the ideas of Chicago or the L.A. Coliseum, where are those, seated or how are those seated? What bar are you at when you come up with that idea? That's a really good question. I couldn't tell you the answer to either one of those. Well, I could tell you. So, you know, I think L.A. was a market that we had looked at in Southern California. And as you look at a lot of those data, look at our database, look at, you go-gov studies, all those things. We have more fans in that Los Angeles DMA than any other market in the United States or the world for that matter. New York's number two, Chicago is number three.

So I think those were kind of three different just general markets we were looking at as, hey, here's two or three things, two or three areas that we want to potentially look at. And, you know, for Los Angeles in particular, we have a great track out at Fontana. You know, we've seen some great racing there, especially the past few years. We also felt like, hey, there's an opportunity for us to do something new and bold and different. and, you know, as a part of that, we're really looking at kind of our exhibition races. So you had the, you know, Clash, which was a shootout. It was on Saturday.

And I remember growing up Saturday at Daytona, it was a really big deal. Everyone would come out. I mean, you would be racing there. It was huge. And then you move it to Sunday. And then we eventually moved it to Tuesday on the road course. And, you know, it felt like an opportunity for us to just do something a little bit different. get out of the box.

So we came up with this idea in the fall of 2019, and actually the Coliseum in particular started, I'd say more on the international side. So, you know, kind of being on that international side, I guess in whatever it was, 2019, you know, we were looking at new markets and, hey, where could we go and race in the future? And we were looking at this market,

I'm not talking about the national series, it's creating a localized, you know, series in a new market. we were looking at a market overseas, and it had four racetracks you could realistically race at. They were all road courses. They didn't have any ovals. And you had a ton of soccer stadiums and Olympic teams, and we're like, hey, this might be an opportunity. And one of the people on the team came up with the idea of building a temporary track inside of it. So I looked at it for a little while.

That market ultimately didn't come to fruition. We're like, could we do something like that in the States? and we're thinking about the Los Angeles market, and then we bumped into the LA Coliseum, and, you know, think about the history of the Coliseum, you know, 100 years to the date that we broke the ground on the project is when they started building the project, the Coliseum. And, you know, the field itself was big enough,

and we're like, hey, this could be a really good opportunity for us to do something different. And ultimately, one thing led to another. We made some progress in late 2019, early 20, 2020. Obviously, a lot of things went on pause and hold during the pandemic and then picked it up in 21. Is it realistic for that race at the Coliseum to happen year on and year in year out as far as the economics of building that track and tearing it apart? So I think to your earlier question as I think about economics, yeah, that's something that

we always look at and our board certainly holds us accountable on. That race for us isn't about economics. It would be great if it is, but it calls. cost a ton of money to build a temporary track and then tear it all apart. So, you know, I think the next couple of years will certainly be keeping our eyes on it. You know, how does it perform from, you know, attendance perspective, viewership perspective, all of those things. But I think the big part of it is, you know, this year it was new, it was bold, it was different, felt like a success. I think the question will be is, what does it look like in a year two? Does it still have that lure? And how do we keep a lot of things that went well? And then also introduce

some new elements to it to keep it exciting. Yeah. So how much influence and involvement do you have in this Chicago Street course? That was a fun thing that I racing had a role in as far as being able to give you the opportunity to actually, you know, virtually see what this could be. It felt like at some point that it kind of went away. Then it comes back and it's actually happening in real life. We were in that market.

And so that's, you know, I know that there are most. be some feeling in NASCAR that we need to stay there. Like you mentioned it. You mentioned it as one of the biggest markets for us is Chicago. And so how involved have you been in this project coming together? I'd say pretty involved along the way. And the kind of genesis of the Chicago concept happened around the fall of 2019. We met up with someone we worked with who had this idea in the past.

and we said, hey, this might be something that we want to explore in the future. We actually went out to Soldier Field. That was one of our first options for the Coliseum concept. How to come that didn't work? Because NASCAR raced in Soldier Field. It did, yeah. And that was one of the reasons we actually looked at it, because they race, I think there was a cup race there in 1956, I want to say.

It was actually pretty cool. We went in there. They had pictures of it. So we looked at the Soldier Field. The challenge with that was just the size of it. So, you know, you could probably build a track, but, you know, Coliseum was a quarter mile. That would probably be a six or seventh. Okay.

It would be tiny. Okay. It would be super tiny. So as soon as we saw that, you know, we kind of put that off to the side. But then we started looking at at this concept of doing a street course in Chicago. And that was, you know, kind of similar to Coliseum. We made some headway. Obviously, pandemic went on pause.

And I think similar to Coliseum, we really. kind of leaned into eye racing to be able to test out some of these new concepts. And that's where it came to fruition because our sport has never done a street course race in our sports history, at least on the Cup Series side. So we said, first of all, is it feasible? And I think a good way of testing it out before we put a shovel in the ground in the Coliseum or build a track out in Chicago is testing it virtually. So that's when we went out, we scanned the city streets, in Chicago, and then they built that track. We did the race, which I think was June 2nd or June 3rd of last year,

to be able to test it out, see how it went. And then I would say conversations really picked up after that. And then, you know, ultimately led to July of this year where we announced it. So what do you say to people who go, well, there's other street courses in wherever, right, in the country that are great street courses. and it's all about trying to be in that specific market for you. Yeah, I think the market is a big part of it. I think, frankly, the location was a big part of it, too.

But it's right in the heart of Chicago. They have L'Apluza there every summer, probably over 100,000 people every day for that event. And as soon as we started exploring the concept of doing something in Grant Park, I think that was a big part of it, to be in the heart of Chicago and do an event like that. that in front of, you know, so many people and with the aerial shots that, you know, you'll see on NBC next year, are just going to be spectacular. So I think that was a big part of it. And,

you, we looked at other street courses and street tracks along the way. I think naturally, we just kind of wanted, it's going to be our first event. We want something we can own, something that could be unique to us, you know, being our first street course is, hey, let's be big, let's be bold, let's be out of the box. And as soon as this opportunity in Chicago, and in particular, Grant Park came together, we said, hey, this is a great opportunity. Let's put our heads together and actually see if we can figure this out. So the logistics of doing all that, that was the one thing that I find probably the most hard to wrap my brain around is you saying you want to own it.

So this happening, you know, beyond this year seems to be a big challenge. which when you have a, this is the way my mind works, but when you have a street course at an established street course, they understand how to put that street course together and then how to take it back apart. And they do this year and year out for whatever series that's running it. And for this Chicago street course, this will be its first iteration.

This will be the first time that any of this has ever happened. And the logistics of that alone, and being able to build this street course in this functioning space, Right. It seems to be massive. It's huge. And so when you're... No pressure.

Right. When you take on this responsibility, what is the payout? What's the payoff that makes you go, I'm glad we did this and we absolutely have to do this again next year. Because it seems like to me that I would probably get to the end of it and go, glad we did it. Yeah, it's a big deal. But damn, we're not doing this again. you know, this was too much. So what's the payout?

Yeah, I mean, to your point, it's going to be a huge lift, you know, not just the walls and fencing. I mean, that's one component of it, but temporary stands, temporary suites, temporary hospitality, and it's all the things that you'd see around a street course. So I think the good news is we've got, so Julie Gese, who's been our track president, Phoenix, she's going to be heading up the project. She's been in Chicago a lot the past two months, meeting with a lot of the different stakeholders in the areas. So she's going to be heading it up.

And then we've got a lot of other really great consultants that have run a lot of these other street courses before. So I think we have some really good people working on this, which is fantastic. We have an event productions partner that's going to help kind of build it out and bring it to life that's based out of Austin, Texas. It will also be a part of this. So I'm confident we have the right group of people to do it. And, you know, kind of leading that team was the people that worked on, you know, the Daytona project and the Phoenix project. So we've got a lot of really good people around it. It is a huge risk.

Coliseum was a big risk. This is a big risk as well. So, you know, it's a huge risk. There's a lot of challenges along the way. You know, that said, for us to kind of create, again, something that's new and different and unique for us to be able to engage a market like Chicago, have a lot of, you know, fans that came out to, you know, a road America or Chicago land come to that. event, but then also a lot of new fans come to the event too. So, you know, Coliseum, I think it was over 70% hadn't been to a NASCAR race before. So if I were to guess, I think it'll probably be a lot the same. It probably have a lot of fans out there. A lot of people have been to NASCAR races.

You'll probably have a lot of people that haven't been to NASCAR races. So I think that's the opportunity and just, you know, naturally being able, you can't really put a number or, you know, value on it. It's not really tangible, but just doing a street race in the heart of a really big city, I think just kind of speaks for itself. This goes back to one of Dale's questions a few questions ago when he was talking about your leadership style and collaboration. Sure. How is it? If you're going to be collaborative, you know what you've also opened the door to? A lot of people criticizing and a lot of people saying it's not going to work. And Dale, you're saying you're asking a question about, you know, how do you convince yourself

to do it again? I don't think you ever allow yourself to do it the first time because there would be so many people telling you that it's not going to work or this is going to be the problem. you would convince yourself it's not worth a risk. You admit, Ben, that it's a big risk. So you're collaborative and you're taking big risks, which means you're opening yourself up to a lot of people chirping at you, podcast host, all these things, all these people are sitting there with their opinions. How do you get rid of that and find yourself or give yourself enough to go forward with a risk

and shut out and compartmentalize all of the negative. and the cynicism and just the bad ideas and the just the constant chirping that you guys have to deal with. Yeah. And to your point, we're always going to have bad ideas along the way. You know, you can't improve unless you fail along the way. I'm not saying that, you know, Coliseum failed or Chicago is going to fail next year. We're going to make some ideas that work and we're going to make some ideas that, that frankly, don't work. But we don't know unless we really try at the end of the day. So, yeah, I think that's kind of the opportunity around it. And, you know, I think as we got together for the first time,

and I guess it was 2019 and really put the scheduling group together, about 12 to 14 people, you know, we all had thoughts and opinions and perspectives about, oh, we should be racing here, we shouldn't be racing there, whatever it might be. We said, you know, let's do our best to kind of put that off to the side and just look at data. Let's look at absolutely everything. And, you know, granted, it's a ton of. to look at and there's a lot of opinions out there. But let's look at data and help that try to drive the decisions for where we go in the future

of the schedule. So, you know, to your point, there are, you know, there's certainly people that doubt it. There's people that are excited about it. You know, that said, unless we actually go out and try some of these certain, these things along the way, we'll never know. And, you know, there's no better way. And we kind of, you know, we talk about tradition and making some of these big events. Well, if you think about a lot of the tradition that we have in our sports,

it was rooted on innovation back in the day. Yeah. And going to a lot of these different things and running a 600-mile race and running, you know, bristle under the lights, whatever it might be, it was rooted in tradition. So, you know, it would be great to create our own traditions. Again, I'm not saying that either one of these are going to be traditions for the future, but we at least have to have to get out of our comfort zone and be able to try a little bit. Do you take things personal when you hear negative stuff?

Not Ben the SVP. I'm talking about Ben, the MVP of the eighth. grade basketball team. Do you take things personal at NASCAR when people are negative about NASCAR? I try not to. Yeah, the biggest thing I would say is if you have ideas, like, let's be constructive about them. Like, you know, give us good ideas along the way. And, you know, I think there's kind of a line in there somewhere, right, where there's criticism and then it kind of goes beyond that. Look, I'm all for criticism and feedback. I mean, that's the only way we're going to improve and get better, right?

But there is a line in there. And there are, frankly, there are times that that hurts. So, you know, I'd say for the most part, we get a lot of, you know, feedback and thoughts and ideas. For the most part, it doesn't really hurt me a whole lot. But I try to, you know, there are some good ideas in there that we can take and kind of craft and mold and try to turn into a reality. Yeah.

When I think about the street course or, you know, the Coliseum race, I try to remind myself about, you know, Big Bill, Build, and Daytona. Sure. You know, and imagining, putting myself back in that time and going, I imagine how much criticism he got for like, what are you building? You're building those what track? This guy's out of his mind. There's nothing like, yeah, there's nothing like that.

Yeah. Right. And he was going, and it worked, right? And it's our, it's a cornerstone part of our foundation today. And so I try to, I try not to be too, I try to be a little more open-minded toward like a, a street course race because I frankly think that it would be really cool to see our cars racing on a street course

and that being part of our DNA so when we went to be clear, to be transparent about it I mean when I look at the race this past weekend at the Roval it's very difficult for the guys to kind of outbreak each other past do things like that so when you're watching a race like when you're thinking

about your you know this big street course at Chicago next year that you want to be a massive success do you do you clue into what the road course racing looks like and whether you like what you see whether you think you would love to see something different are you are you in a position to be able to you know tap somebody on the shoulder and go hey man I wonder if we can make some changes here because this you know sure so you know when you say competition that's a that's a big that's a big thing

yeah that you're a part of and so you know the short track road course part of this car is not quite as good as the mile and a half part right there's some really great races that we've had and we're going to see some great racing before the end of this year's out but i think there's some there's some realistic criticism on how the car races at a short track for sure the martinsville race was a big a big disappointment but the road courses it it's fun as hell to watch them run around that racetrack but it was difficult for them you know they all seem to be able to have the same abilities um and so we When you look at that, do you have concern? And do you have the ability to have the influence on making changes or improving the own track product? Yeah, I think to your point, so I think if you look at the intermediate racing this year, I think it's been pretty good. 19 different winners.

And you look at all the data across the board of passes really, delta between first and second, passes throughout the field. every metric is up, up significantly, or the highest we've ever seen. So I think the intermediate has been really good. I think to your point, the opportunity for us is on those short tracks and is on those road courses. So there's a lot of other people that are much smarter than me as it relates to competition, how we can make short tracks and road courses in particular or better. Part of it probably comes down to speed and arrow and a lot of the new elements that are incorporated in this next-gen car.

that we frankly haven't had before in previous generation. So there's a lot of other people that are much smaller, smarter than me that I think can ultimately help set ourselves up for success in those areas. And those are things that we're continuing to look at. So how do we continue to protect the intermediate racing, which I feel like has been pretty good, while finding improvements on the short tracks and road courses. And there are groups set up with team folks and drivers to ultimately try to find success and get better racing there.

Is there urgency? Yes. Yeah. I would say so. I mean, the urgency is, you know, I'd say right now is really around safety and making sure that we get this car right. You know, that's a priority for us as well as, you know, the competition and being sure that that is good.

Yeah, we, I mean, we were talking about that earlier in the show where the drivers had the meeting with NASCAR and unfortunately with the bickering and debate in the room, they didn't really get to lay out the entire. plan going forward, but apparently NASCAR's, you know, been doing a lot of good work in the background, the crash testing this week. Are you privy to those type of, I'm sure you can be in those meetings? I'm sure you can have access to all of this stuff. How involved in that have you been as recent as this week? Yeah, so I had the opportunity to sit in on Saturday at the driver's meeting.

And, you know, Steve Phelps mentioned this weekend on the NBC hit that he did. and then he mentioned at the beginning of the driver's meeting, that safety is, as we think about developing this next-gen car, as we thought about developing a next-end car, safety is one of the key pillars of that vehicle. And without a doubt, it needs to be. Safety has always been core to our sport, and we're going to continue to improve.

And I think the challenge of safety is there's never a final destination. It's a continuous journey. If we could wave our magic wand and you hit a wall at 150 miles an hour and feel nothing, if we could get there that'd be fantastic we can't you know that said as you think about the the development of the next-gen car from a safety perspective is really developed for those catastrophic incidents a Ryan Newman like incident at Daytona or a Joey Logano incident where you had the intrusion from the roof or the Codyware incident that we had at Texas a few weeks ago which was the

highest ever delta v so that highest ever speed or I should say speed change from the moment before he hit the wall to the moment after you hit the wall that we've ever recorded and we started recording back in 2011. So he hit the wall at 160 miles an hour. And for him to be able to come out of that car relatively unscathed, I think kind of speaks a lot for the safety of the car from that perspective. So I think the opportunity really is from the rear impacts. And don't get me wrong from a front impact and a side impact perspective, we can continue to get back. better and improve. I think the big opportunity, at least in the near term, is improving these rear

impacts. And that was some of the data that we shared with the drivers on Saturday was a crash test that we did on, I guess, Wednesday of last week, where we essentially had the, okay, say the status quo or the next gen car that we have today on the track next to this, you know, next gen car that has essentially a reconfigured rear clip. and a bumper structure that's a little more flexible as a thinner material. And if you look at it visually, when we started kind of visually, the impact looks much less severe and you have much more crushed zone. So we did it 33 miles an hour, which would be a pretty high rate of speed for a rear impact.

And then we did the 18 miles an hour as well. And then we looked at the data. And I think if you look at the data overall, really trying to help on any impact, in particular is bringing down that max G load or that peak. You could have a longer duration of an incident, which is, you know, you don't want to say it's better, but it's a little bit better to have a longer duration if you're bringing that peak G load down. And what we saw in some of those tests is that peak G load did come down quite a bit.

Is it perfect? It's not. Can it be improved? Absolutely. But I think it was a step in the right direction for us as we think about those rear impacts. and then we're continuing to think about other areas as well. So, you know, safer walls is an example. What happens if you have a front impact or a rear impact?

What happens on the other side of that car and making sure that if you're hitting a wall at 150 or 60 miles an hour, that it absorbs? But if you're hitting it at 20 or 30 miles an hour, it's doing the same thing in absorbing. So that's another area that we're looking at. And then actually listen to you guys a couple weeks ago, kind of talking about the headphone as well. and that's another area we're thinking about, you know, different types of foam. And then also how does the driver kind of put the foam in and around their head. Yeah. So, yeah.

I guess, you know, in your position, when you watch the race, you know, when you watch the roval, I guess what type of conversations do you have with O'Donnell and these guys about what you just saw? I mean, what's the typical next few days like? And do y'all even talk about, you know, race product and dissect it the way that we do as fans? Do y'all talk about procedure? What's one of the critical things that – because everybody – I imagine there's some sort of like a competition meeting, right? Yeah. Like a team says, okay, you know, we had this great strategy, but then this is something we probably could have done better.

Or, you know, they debrief, right? Right. Do you all debrief, in a sense, about an individual race? especially, you know, you know, if you have one that's, you know, maybe you didn't, you didn't favor, maybe Martinsville, right? Right. That race was, you saw some things where you're like, oh, man, we've got to get better there. We had a organizational test to try to find some ways to, you know, make that car race better on that short track. How quickly do y'all have those, you know, debriefing moments?

Yeah, so I'd say, you know, right after the race, there's a link that we'll go out to the fan council. And they'll fill out, you know, four or five questions, and then there'll be an open kind of comment box where you can put in any thoughts you might have good, bad, and different, you know, tell us what you thought about the race. So we'll take a lot of that data, we'll look at it, we'll compare it to other years, and then we'll take all the loop data, so the different loops around the track, and we'll look at, you know, again, passes, you know, for a lead, passes throughout the field. There are a handful of metrics that we'll look at, and then we'll compare that race to previous races. And, you know, kind of along those lines, we'll also have,

a group that will meet one or two times on Tuesday, where they'll essentially do a post race. So if you're sitting up in race control and you might see certain things of how we could do better, how we could think differently, either about calling a race or where the banners go, whatever it might be, they'll be making a list. And we'll talk through that in the meeting on Tuesday.

And then I would say part and parcel to that, you also have another group that is really looking at that data of how was a racing product, how did it perform, what did our fans think about it, and how do we continue to improve? And that's, I mean, that's something if we could change it overnight, absolutely we'd love to. But I think similar to, you know, kind of what we've had in the past is ultimately changing this car or making changes to 40 cars across the entire field takes changes and you don't want to, you don't want it to be a piecemeal change. You want to be a holistic change. And sometimes that takes time. It takes time to come up with a solution. And then it

takes time to really go out and be able to implement it with the suppliers. So, you know, I would say that's just an ongoing process that we have. But to your point, we'll have a competition meeting where everyone will get together. We'll do a post on, you know, Charlotte O'Wall, in this case, for this week. And then going into next week, we'll kind of have our eyes forward on Las Vegas. Do you personally, I mean, I know you personally have interest in the on-track product, but do you, with your responsibilities within the NASCAR organization, is it part of your workload to be involved in that? I would say yes and no.

You know, any thoughts or perspectives that I have, I definitely kind of pass along. I would say, you know, a lot of that probably really lives in John Proops or Scott Miller's area. you know, John Propp's really, you know, built this kind of next-gen car and his focus on the different R&D projects that we have from a competition perspective. And as it relates to anything, you know, setup-wise or anything that we could do to create, you know, better racing on short tracks or road courses, I would say he's really kind of at the spear of that. So, you know, I'll have kind of thoughts and feedback along the way, but I don't necessarily sit in those meetings. I got you. Every day. Yeah.

How closely are you guys going to? to be watching the Martinsville race. We'll be watching it for sure. I think everyone's going to be watching it, but we'll be watching it. I am curious, you know, we had a challenging race in the spring of this year. I don't know how much of that is a product of the temperatures. I don't know how much of that is a product of, you know, arrow or lack of speed of this car. I don't know what the ultimate answer is.

It'll be interesting to see what it races like during the day here in a few weeks. Hopefully it's a better race. product than what we had in the spring. Regardless, I think it's going to be exciting with, you know, coffee racing going into Phoenix. Yeah. You brought it up a little bit ago. So where do the banners go and the signs go?

We must know now. Who knew that this was a competition conversation, by the way? But you had the situation just a few days ago where now there's a sign on the race track. Sure. And it when, let me ask, so we were having this debate earlier. When I saw the sign on the track, my am. Marcus Smith, I think the world of him. But in that moment, I would just assume that this is his responsibility or as a track owner, you know, where you're, you know, you glue in the sign of the wall.

That's kind of you, you, I trust that you have that sign to where it's not going to end up on the racetrack. And so, but, you know, ultimately, you know, ultimately it's NASCAR who's going to face the criticism for, the sign being on the racetrack if people found it, you know, difficult to understand. But, you know, kind of when, so let's just say when the sign lays on the racetrack, what is the protocol? What, what do you go to Marcus and go, hey, man, let's try to fix that? What the hell, Marcus? Yeah.

Do you go to Marcus and say, no more signs next year? I mean, what is the, what is. So is that even a, or is it a problem? Is it not a problem? No, it is, without a doubt. It's a challenge. It was a challenge in the Xfinity race. you know, it was a challenge that we had in the cup race, too.

And, you know, after the Xenity race, we had a conversation with them about the boards in particular and the proximity from the board to the track. To the track. You're talking about the ones in the grass. Yes. Yeah. So if you looked at, if you looked at the Xenity race, you look at the cup race, they moved them.

They were moved back. I didn't notice. And they're angled a little bit, too. Okay. So that was a step in the right direction. And then we got to the cup race, then we had the other board that came out on the track. So before we go into a race weekend, every week, weekend, we'll have a group of people that will walk around the track and they're looking at

everything from lines on the track to loops to where the pillars are placed in the safer barrier to those signs and making sure that those signs are secure. That one in particular, I think it was in turn five on that right-hander. That one unfortunately came off. I'm going to assume that it was a car that got into it. If we had a camera on that spot for every second of the race, we'd be able to see it. Unfortunately, we don't have that today. I'd love to have that. But we don't. So I think a car got into it. It got loose and then ultimately ended up on the racetrack. But, you know, we're constantly, so we have a replay system and race control that is looking at pretty much every camera, you know, throughout the field of all the cameras that you guys have on NBC, some of the in-car cameras as well.

And then as soon as we pick up on something, you know, we'll throw a caution. So, you know, Granted, at the end of day, no one's perfect. We're all human. But as soon as we saw that on camera, we said, you know, we've got to put the caution out. So, you know, I don't know exactly how long it was there. You know, I think it was probably a lap or two before we were able to pick it up on one of those cameras. But as soon as we did, we put the caution out. Yeah.

I was, you know, things like that are kind of, I mean, when you're, if I don't know if I'd have saw that walking around the track earlier in the week, right? No, I don't like this side here. It feels too close. This is going to come off. Yeah, this guy. I don't know if you do. No, there's no way. Listen, again, I mean, you mentioned at the beginning about when Del asked about things that, you know, were somewhat unexpected to things that you learned right off the bat when you started taking these management positions in NASCAR, you mentioned the word curveballs.

Is it fair to say that this year has thrown more curve balls than in recent years? I think so. I don't know. It feels that way. I've been here for a few years, but I feel like there's a lot of curve balls this year. I mean, it seems like it. So I guess then my question would be, any live sport is always,

or any live entertainment is going to have curveballs, right? At what point that are they legitimately avoidable? Like, or some of them. I mean, not all are going to be avoidable, but like, you know, does it feel like that the increase in curveballs didn't have to be an increase in curve balls, right? Like, and I'll give you a few examples, just to kind of give us going.

You know, the rain in Daytona, you know, starting to rain and turn forward and this stuff. You know, like, I'd list, we debate all this stuff every week because we're all, you know, Monday morning quarterbacks. And we're like, you know, how could they not see this coming? They've got people all over the track. But then again, it's rain. What are you going to do?

It comes out of the sky. It rains with this place. But then there's also tires at Bristol, right? And there's, you know, you get William Byron and Denny Hamlin doing theatrics in a race. And it's like, okay, at what point does NASCAR have to go, okay, there's curveballs and there's also things that we've got to get a better handle on it because we're not managing the event, right? Right.

Yeah, I think to your point, without a doubt, there's always going to be curve balls and there's always going to be the unexpected, right? I think it's paramount on us to make sure that we minimize those amount of curve balls. And to your point, it's always easier for us to be the Monday morning quarterback where we look back on things and we'll say, hey, we would have done it a different way, or would have done this or wouldn't have done that. At the end of the day, there are going to be times that we're naturally going to have to be reactive. The question is, do you learn from, you know, those mistakes that you have along the way, whatever it might be?

And then how do you be as proactive as you possibly can? And especially as we get down towards the end of this year, you know, talking about Martin Zill in a cutoff race, talking about, you know, Phoenix. The last thing that we want to happen is to jeopardize, you know, someone that's going to be in the round of eight, trying to get into the round of four to compete for the championship race, and then to jeopardize someone in Phoenix. That's the absolute last thing that we want. So, you know, it's paramount on us to make sure that we minimize that as much as we can,

and we learn from that, too. So, you know, taking Daytona as an example, where you had the rain that came up in turn one, you know, I think in retrospect, you could probably go back and say, if there's rain in the area, we should throw caution and bring everyone down pit road. there's also going to be moments where there's rain in the area, you bring everyone down pit road, and we're all looking at each other.

Why aren't we on the track right now? That's 100% true. So there's a fine line in there somewhere, and I think that one in particular, it was difficult because we were constantly monitoring it, monitoring all the onboards, and didn't pick up any rain at all until they, so remember it was the Y in Daytona in turn one

when you saw two or three drops that came, on onto the camera lens and it was literally seemed like a hundred feet later the entire field was was wrecking so that was a I mean that was a really challenging scenario so you know what we're now thinking about is hey how do you make sure you have a perimeter around the outside of the track that if rain gets triggered in a you know a parking lot outside of term one you can have a notification that comes in that you know that so I think it's trying to be more smart about those things as we continue to go forward that That was, to your point, that was a curveball for sure.

Oh, yeah. You know, and I'm not concerned about this car improving safety-wise. I mean, I know that drivers would love to have this new rear-clip design today. I know that NASCAR has a lot of ideas and already a lot of changes they plan to implement. Every time that NASCAR reacts, in my experience, to anything, they give you more than you ask for. or they're going, you know, when they, when they're triggered to change protocol or, or an update to a car or whatever it may be, it goes far, it goes beyond what would be probably be expected in so that it absolutely solves the problem.

And so I guess in my heart, you know, I feel like by time we go back to Daytona, that the car's safety won't still be an issue. That's my, that's, that's my expectation. The one thing that I know that is always a moving target is the product, on track product, right? And as every time you change one thing, there's another thing that reacts to that. The other thing I think is the schedule, you know, it's also, for whatever reason, never, it's like safety.

There's like this, I mean, you can, you're on top of it. When you look at the schedule and you think, think, okay, man, we've made some great changes here. And then you go through the year and you get to the end of year and you go, well, there were some things that happened that I didn't see coming. Or there was some unintended consequences to making the changes that we made. And so, well, could you ever see, you know, yourself having that schedule where at the end of the year, you go, man, that was freaking perfect.

Man, that was, nailed it. Nailed it. Nailed it. I would love if perfection existed. Yeah. It'd be great. No, I mean, it'd be great if everything could be perfect. I don't think we'll ever get there.

It's a never-ending journey. So I think to your point, I think we'll look back on, you know, schedule in particular and say, hey, there were some things that worked. There were probably some things that didn't work. And how do we continue to improve on that? I think to your point, so I think from a product perspective, I think the short tracks and road courses are an opportunity for sure and to be able to improve that. I think just generally something that we're continuing to think about is how do we make sure that we come to these tracks that it's full and it looks really good.

And we have it packed. I'd say another area that I think is an opportunity for us is reimagining the fan experience. I think there was a period of time there where you go to, you know, a Martin Zill in the Kansas and, you know, the pre-race looked exactly the same and the midway might have looked similar. So, you know, we've brought on a new person that's really focused on fan experience. How do you reimagine the midway? How do you reimagine some of the elements of the pre-race experience? So I would say, as we think about it, those are probably two or three areas that we're kind of really focused on. Obviously, you know, the car being a big part of that is the racing product and safety is really core to us in what we do and what we need to continue to drive.

But all of these other projects that we continue to think about, whether it's, you know, or fan experience or you start to get into e-sports or sports betting or NFTs. I mean, the list just goes on and on of the different projects we're working on. And I think we've seen a lot of successes in a lot of areas, but, hey, there's all these opportunities for us to continue to get better and improve. When you look at the schedule, you've got, you know, you said that when y'all kind of came together as a group, that everybody decided to sort of take a, you know, just drop their own agendas or wishes or feelings and really look at data.

Forget, let's not look at data. You've got a couple of extra weeks. Where would you, where do you think we should be going? You've got a couple, you can add a couple dates to the schedule. You can add a couple days to the schedule. Tell me a market that you think would be a great market that we're not in. Put me on the spot now. So I would say, and I would like to get your guys' perspective on this too,

not just what I say, but just markets in general. I think the opportunities for us, so the Pacific Northwest, we had an extended race there this year. It was in the middle of the pouring rain, and they had a ton of people that came out. And it was a really good event overall. So I don't know what that looks like in the future, but you think about Seattle, you think about Portland. While, you know, it may not be a market as big as a Los Angeles or Chicago, what we're seeing is there's a lot of growth there. A ton of growth over the past three or four years. So I think that's an opportunity, potentially Colorado, potentially the Northeast.

I think that's another really important area of the country. You know, Pocono has one race now. New Hampshire has one race. Dover has one race. So I think that's another big opportunity for us, whether that be in the New York area, the New Jersey area, the Philadelphia area. And then I think outside of that, you start to think north of the border and south of the border. Could we go up to Mexico or could we go up to Canada and have a race?

And, you know, I remember we were running at CTMP with a truck series. We had huge crowds out there. And when the Xfinity series went down to Mexico, you had huge crowds. You know, Formula One goes out there. I probably have over 100,000 people. So I think those are big opportunities. I'm not saying today that we're going to go cup racing and, you know, Europe or whatever it is. But I think at least in North America, I think that could be an opportunity as we think about the future,

probably more so in the near term of the schedule. No, I like that. I think those are some great ideas. Okay, in terms of the current schedule and the types of racetracks we go to, what types of racetracks would you see, would you like to see more of in the schedule? Does that even... Short tracks. Yeah, so more short tracks. Short tracks, number one on the list, without a doubt.

I think continue to get to more short tracks is important. And I think as you look at it, so add fans, casual fans kind of next to each other. tracks both number one. Ad fans number two, super Cways, casual fans number two, road courses. And I think where we've gone from a scheduling perspective, as you think about it, or the past I guess three years it'll be now, is we've gone to more road courses. And I think that's just naturally happened because, you know, those are the places, at least in the near term, we felt like could be cup ready within a year or two. North Wilkesboro, now being a good example of that when we go there for the all-star race of being able to get that facility ready to be able to host a cup race.

So I think, you know, ideally we'd go to more short tracks. I think, you know, we're probably to a little bit of saturation level on the road course side, you know, maybe one or two street courses. But I think the cool part about it and the cool part that you think about our schedule from a high level is just a diversity in it. I mean, you know, in order to be a cup driver and be able to compete to make it to a playoffs, so you got to race on a short track, intermediate track, a super speedway, a road course, a street course, you know, if you want to put the Coliseum in there, you put the Coliseum in there, a dirt track. The diversity that we have in the schedule is probably greater than we've seen ever before. And I think that's really a testament to these drivers, that they've got to be able to adapt to all these different types of racetracks and racing environments.

And it's not to say that we're going to put a ton of road courses on the schedule. Oval tracks are still core to our schedule and where we need to continue to be. And I think a big part of that is continuing to look at short tracks in the future. Is there – I don't know what – I don't know if this even exists or if you have an answer for this. But what is a thing about NASCAR that you – what is a new innovation or a new project or a new idea out there that you guys – are you yourself personally excited about or thinking is a possibility for us, you know, out in the future? Is there anything like that? I mean, you know, we got a next-gen car that's relatively, you know, way ahead of its time in terms of where we were.

There's a big change from the traditional race car we've had. The street course would be an idea, you know, that I'd say we thought, you know, we didn't know if we'd ever see anything like that. Sure. Especially in Chicago. So is there something out there that you're like, you know, we're not? not working on it. We're not planning it, but it is something that I'd love to see happen one day. There's probably a list of them somewhere. But I'd say that the things that we're continuing to think about is the evolution of the vehicle and, you know, the power train and just your

relationship with the vehicle in particular. What do you mean by your relationship with the vehicle? Well, I just think about growing up. I had a 2004 Mustang that I worked on and I tuned on the engine and I tweaked it. And, you know, that was really kind of core to the vehicle, is the motor and the power and everything that comes along with it. And that's still core to the vehicle. But now a lot of it has, you know, kind of transitioned to the technology that lives inside the vehicle and what the sound system sounds like and, you know, the big screen dashes that they have and everything. So, you know, I think the vehicle just in general has kind of evolved over, you know, especially the past to decades or so, is how do you think about that going forward? So, you know, I think something

that's core to us in our racing product is racing stock cars and racing stock cars that are allowed and have, you know, that kind of grown to them. You know, but as you think about the future, there's eventually going to be a balance of how relevant are you to what's on the streets outside here. You know, as you think about electric, as you think about, you know, hydrogen or hydrogen combustion, there's all these different types of power trains that are starting to come along. And I think people's relationship to a vehicle, especially as you think about millennials and Gen Z, is a little bit different. It's a little bit less about the motor and the power train, and it might be a little more about the technology inside. So I think that's something that we're

just, we're continuing to think about is where does NASCAR live in the realm of the evolution of the vehicle? So I'd say that's kind of one. And then, you know, I'd say the second one, and, you know, I think Steve Phelps has talked a little bit about this, as you think about some of our biggest opportunities to continue to grow as a sport. You know, here in the U.S., you know, we're the biggest motorsports in America right now. And we've got to continue to grow that and continue to make sure we're doing a good job there. And outside of that, we have series in Canada, we have series in Mexico, and we have series in Europe. I think there's an opportunity for us to continue to expand into New York.

new markets and new territories. And I think it's always amazing when we bring racing to some of these new markets and be able to see fans come out for the very first time in a completely different market that has never seen a NASCAR race before or a stock car race before and come out and see it. And now you've got, you have a falling. And, you know, you get a, it's a brand's hatch. You have over 50,000 people that will come out for one of our Europe series races. Or, you know, up in Canada, we'll have over 100,000 people over the week.

again for one of our Pinti series races. And it's always, it's mind-blowing to me because, you know, our core is the U.S. and continuing to grow that. But, you know, being able to go to some of these other markets and areas and be able to bring NASCAR racing to them, I think, is a huge opportunity as we think about our future. I don't remember where this conversation came up, but you remember the Rockingham Speedway in Europe? It's kind of, it's an oval.

It's like the only big. oval exist over there. And it's called Rockingham? Yeah, it's called Rockingham. It was... I thought you were going to talk about that one time the street. No, no, no. No, it's, it also closed.

And I think somebody told me the other day that they were thinking about bringing it back or trying to bring it back. But when you think about taking racing to Canada, to Europe even one day, do you think about taking your... You know, you said ovals are at the core of our DNA. do you think about taking that product to them or is it like you know if we can get on whatever

we can get on road course whatever it is because in my mind i've always it's i know it's it's easier said than than done but for me when i when i would have a fan come up to me and say i'm going to my first race where should i go i always tell them the bristol night race instead of the daytona 500 although i love the daytona 500 and the spectacle and the pre-race and all of the tradition. I know that that Bristol night race in the proximity of the fans and it's incredible. It's the only place you'll ever get that experience. And so

when we were talking about going west of the Mississippi years ago with Fontana and other, you know, and going to Mexico or other places, I'm like, man, if we could just take that Bristol night race experience and just plop it here and take it up there and take it down.

But it's a, you know, there's a, you'd have to be able to track. I think it's impossible to make all that happen. But When you, as a visionary over the future of the sport, look at taking it to these markets, what do you see them watching? What type of race do you see them experiencing when you say, man, NASCAR is coming to town? Yeah, I think, you know, so where we have these kind of localized series now, so Canada, Mexico and Europe, you know, there's ovals in Canada and Mexico.

There's a couple of ovals in Europe that we race at, but not a ton. It's mostly road courses. So I think to your point, trying to find a way. to create a road course, or create a short track, I should say. And I think that's where the Coliseum comes into play, where you go to a place that already has that infrastructure and the stands and the suites. The only element that is missing is that racetrack.

And I think that was a big part of doing the Coliseum is proof of concept. If you prove that concept out, could you then scale it in some of these other localized series where we could create a temporary short track somewhere to test it out, know, see how it performs in that market. If it makes sense, then either continue to race there on the temporary track or maybe you start to develop, you know, other short tracks in that market. So I think it's in a way, it's kind of really trying to test your way to success in a lot

of those areas. I mean, we're not going to go everywhere and, you know, people are just going to love NASCAR racing. But I think, you know, kind of as we think about the, you know, evolution of that and going into these new markets, being able to test our way into the tracks they already have there today. but then if there are opportunities for us to bring short tracks in some of those markets is great too because that's I mean to your point that really kind of gets back to to what we do here yeah well man I'm excited I appreciate you making the time and coming all this way and thank you guys you know I appreciate it I know this has been a long time coming and I apologize because I know we've had to

like reschedicate yeah we were as complicated about that as you were we also had to get schedules things so know you've been very patient with us I'd hesitate to ask you too much you know because You know, a lot of the questions I think that people would love to ask you are just quite unfair because you're 30 years old and you're sort of, you're in, you're still in the process of exploring and understanding and absorbing. So, you know, and no one knows what the future entails. But man, I think that there are a lot of people that are pulling for you. And there are a lot of people, me, one of them, that are hopeful to see you succeed and truly become, you know, one of the great leaders in this. because I think that when we have that person, we really have succeeded well in the past.

And you obviously do have the passion, and you do care about it deeply. You're putting in the work. You've done that since day one. I really appreciate your man, and yeah, any way we can be an asset to you here, appreciate it. We're happy to do that.

And vice versa, and thank you, thank you for saying that. That really means a lot, and really appreciate everything that you guys do. I mean, you guys are a big part of the sport, and you in particular, our huge voice for our sports. So I appreciate you continuing to support it and being, you know, a big part of it too.

Yeah. So I know that you're well aware. I won't always say everything. You don't always like everything that I'm going to say. But sometimes I'm wrong. But I do enjoy being a part of it. I'm saying I think my passion is similar to yours. And, but you definitely have a better look behind the curtain in terms of how this business works

and how it's ran. I'm sure we would all be blown away and taken aback by the, you know, the complexity of the business and the challenges and how things just aren't that easy to snap your fingers and make things happen. Sure. But we appreciate you, man. We're going to have you back and continue this relationship. When we get some, you know, when we get down the road a couple years,

we'll have you come update us on where you're at and what you're doing. and what's the new position you're in? Yep. But thanks for coming, man. Appreciate it. Yeah, thank you guys. Appreciate it. Ben Kennedy on the Dale Jr. 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, I leave it with a feeling that I can call each and every guest on the download a true ally. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the show and the entire Gertie Mo Media team.

All right, it's finally time from our favorite part of the show, Ash Jr., brought to you by Xfinity. Let's take a look at the questions that the fans have sent us. You've been sending questions to Xfinity Racing on Twitter, and doing a great job of it. They've been a pretty good, pretty good, a little run here last several, several shows of good questions. Hannah's back. So Hannah, Hannah.

Hannah's going to help us out with these questions. Welcome back, Hannah. Thank you. Glad to be back. Yeah, the first one comes from Ryan Johnson, of course, you know, belated happy birthday. But do you have any favorite memories of your birthday that happen to fall on a day you are racing

or just a favorite birthday memory in general? It's funny, man. My sister Kelly posted this picture on her social media of me and her, I bet I was four or five years old. And there's a birthday cake with a little Formula One indie style open wheel car on the top of it. And me and Kelly are just looking at the cake, right? And I remember taking those car, I've taken that car off the cake. There was another car identical to it, just a different color that came in a set, right? And so mom put one, one of them on the cake.

Here's your cake. We pull the car off and clean it up and now I have two cars and I'm playing with them. I remember that. Like when I seen that picture, I was like, damn, I remember playing with that little car that day. And so that makes me,

it makes me kind of think back to like what's your earliest memory, right? Earliest childlike memory. And when you see those type of, when you see a picture like that, you might go, oh, you know, I don't remember that day. I don't know what year that is. I don't know how old I am. I don't remember Kelly, you know, what we did.

I do remember the little car and playing with that little car. I remember my fourth birthday celebration. And in my mind, the memory goes, we're in Mammal's Kitchen. It's probably 1978. Dad and mom aren't, I don't. aren't together anymore. They're kind of in the middle of their separation or going through their divorce or separation.

So dad and her aren't, you know, I don't see them in the same places together anymore. And so that makes sense to me that during the morning and during the day, Mama was telling me that Dad wasn't in town or Dad wasn't going to be around. I asked her if I would see him or I just remember wanting to know

if Dad was going to be at Mamals when I go, for my birthday cake or whatever and she was saying no so we're in my mamma's kitchen uh mamma mom and there were seems like there one or two other people there to have to have cake or whatever and uh dad come right dad comes into the kitchen on a big tonka truck you know yellow steel tonka truck and so he come in i mean this thing was big because he's squatting down sitting on it, you know, roll it, you know, Flintstone style coming in there. And I remember for some reason in my memory, he's wearing like black jeans or blue jeans and a white t-shirt, you know. And I don't know if that's really what happened. This may have never happened. But in my memory,

that's my fourth birthday. And so, and I've told that story a few times. And I've told that story a few times. to mom and other people and they didn't refute anything about it so I don't know if it happened at mamaw's house maybe it was somewhere else you know but I do know dad came in on a tonka truck he in my mind he wasn't supposed to be there that day it was like a little surprise my mom had for me and now knowing what I know about their you know the years they got separated and and how their marriage fell apart that was right in the middle of it October of 78 would have been pretty much you know, toward the end of their, as they were terminating their marriage. So for that to have happened was pretty interesting to me.

Because from that moment on, when I saw Dad, I only saw, you know, when I was with them, I was with them separately. They would never did anything ever again together as a family. So anyways, I'm getting down the road on that. But those are, that's a fun birthday memory for me. I really don't remember many birthdays or what I did on my 16th or my 21st or I'd have to really think about it. But there's a couple that stick out and it's those. You don't remember your 21st because you don't remember your 21st?

I don't know what I was doing. This next one comes from Corey Schramm. And it's in regards to ir racing and scanning racetracks such as Riverside that are no longer around. Does iRacing need a physical racetrack to create one, or can they recreate one digitally? So they could absolutely create an estimation, right? There's no question that, you know, before they ever started scanning tracks, papyrus was building tracks in a program called Sandbox and, you know,

taking their best guesses and measurements to be able to develop whatever they felt like this track should look like and they would get pretty close and that's why most video games did it for years so there's no question that they could go try to create a

version of Riverside or an old track but they won't or they don't they're pride themselves on being able to make something exactly the way it is to the to the thousands of an inch all the

imperfections, the bumps, everything about this is every, every building, every object at the track is in the exact perfect spot and looks as it's supposed to look. And so when that's their sort of mission, to their core, that's their mission, right, is to make these things perfect and make it exactly as it is. And so while they do make throwback race cars, right, they do make, you know, they did make a North Wiltsboro, but they had the physical track there to scan, and then they looked at, you know, old racing footage and so forth

to be able to get the surrounding, you know, the guardrail and all the other things that aren't physically there anymore as good as they possibly could. So I think that, you know, as we exhaust all the real racetracks out there that we can scan, if we ever get to a point to where they want to get more creative

and get outside the box a little bit and try to create something that doesn't exist anymore. It would be interesting what that ended up looking like. It's doable. We've got fans tuning in all the way from Ireland, England, France, that are hanging out with us on YouTube. But another one of the questions, we kind of talked about it a little bit at the top of the show,

was the news that Dodge is not considering re-entering NASCAR. But what do you think it would take for another OEM, specifically not Dodgers? to try and enter the sport. I don't know. I don't know what it takes. Hundreds of millions of dollars. I don't know what it would cost.

So I've never been a part of anything that would be, that would give me an idea of what that might entail for a manufacturer or somebody to come into the sport. I know that, you know, I was around when Toyota came, but I know they spent a bunch of money to get. to where they are today, and they continue to invest millions of dollars into the sport or into their teams. So, I mean, the number one word, I guess, for a manufacturer to come would be massive

commitment, you know, to a long-term plan, and to know that you're not going to get a return on that investment out of the, out, up front. That's going, you're going to lose money in the first several years, and you're going to lose a lot the races. Because I don't know that NASCAR would ever, and I don't know that NASCAR would ever allow like a Honda or somebody to come in and I automatically reach Victory Lane, right, and start winning races without a bunch of pushback and criticism from not only fans,

but other manufacturers, right? And so if you looked at Toyota, this is my impression of it was they kind of had to crawl before they could walk. They allowed them to become somewhat competitive in trucks, then Xfinity, then Cup, right? And it was sort of this natural progression before, you know,

they became dominant at the top level or, you know, I feel like that'd be a tough part is when you bring in a new manufacturer to be NASCAR and some sort of, you know, be able to put them in between the bumpers and say, hey, here's the guidelines,

that you have to work within and to make sure they didn't go out there and upset the playing field any but I know it costs a lot of money to bring a new manufacturer in and they'd be they'd have to be willing to invest a lot to get there to even be a part of it I'm just picturing calling a pit stop and calling someone's Honda coming to a stop in their stall like it just doesn't sound it just doesn't sound I got a question I got a question for you you remember how James Finn when you know you talk about the last owner that just didn't give a damn and he would he would switch the manufacturer decals on his car for the same car he put Chevrolet on it one week put Pontiac on it the next week right this I remember this back in 2002 what is there anything that would stop an owner from just

putting let's just call it an independent owner from putting another car on the racetrack or at least like a Honda decal or anything like that but anything stopped them from that NASCAR has in the rule book what cars are allowed to run. Okay. So you cannot do that. What specific models, you know, and they, they are the owners of the single source parts to be able to sell you the, you know, the part to be able to run what you want, right? Yeah, the parts will all be the same.

I'm just talking about branding. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, if you want to be a Honda sponsored car, I'm sure you could. Yeah, because that's what Finch would do. Again, same car, all parts, but just would just, just to spite people, the manufacturer in NASCAR and anybody else that it crossed him. he would just go and just switch all these things up.

I don't know why anybody would want to do that today. Yeah. I'd say my super late model used to be a Pontiac. Well, Pontiac knows. Last question comes from Tom Riggs. What is your favorite vacation you went on as a kid? Oh, boy. My favorite vacation.

You know, we didn't take vacations as kids. You know, my, you know, with dad racing, we were, our vacations were going to the racetrack. Daytona was great because, you know, you would race in the morning and you'd be on the beach in the afternoon. I've got pictures of us, you know, getting buried in the sand at Daytona throughout the weekend. So that was kind of fun because most racetracks you went to and you never really left the track. You was a hotel. You had the hotel, the pool at the hotel, you know, and then you was at the racetrack,

and that was pretty much the weekend. But in Daytona and July, you had the beach and you had the pool at the hotel. they were it was it was an experience you were other families vacationing so even though you were going to go to the racetrack which was awesome as a kid uh you did sort of get this vacation experience otherwise uh twice a year we went to see mom in norfolk uh we went in the summertime we went in we went during christmas uh and i just said uh you know i'd watch mtv and eat bowls and bowls of cereal while i was on those vacations so uh you know it wasn't much pretty much to it.

It was great. I loved it, but it wasn't, nothing memorable. What was the go-to cereal? My go-to cereal was probably, Lucky Charms was amazing, fruity pebbles,

and honeycomb. Ooh, honeycombs. Yeah. That was pretty good. Cooker Kris. Those of rip your damn mouth up. Yeah, you'd get like,

you have your mouth all tore up on the top. You ain't lying. You had lying the big old cookie chunks. Yeah, the roof of your mouth. You let that sit in the milk just a little bit. You didn't even go right to it. Just soften those things up a little bit. Oh, man.

Yeah. All righty. Well, that is it for this week's Ask Junior Questions. I'm glad we got that cookie crisp mention in there. Yeah. And this is only going to happen during the Ask Junior segment because you guys ask such great questions and you get us to those spaces. So I appreciate everybody for tuning in and supporting us.

Everybody, have a great week. and we'll see you. All right, man, that was a great show, Mike. Thanks for Ben giving us a little bit of time today. Guy's been pretty busy, and he's being pulled in a lot of directions, probably super overwhelmed. But I've known him a long time and like his demeanor. And I think that, you know, in my mind,

I think that there should be sort of a lead character at the top of the mountain that really has the final decision, right? And the sport has always had that type of person when it's been really, really successful with Bill France, senior and junior. When those two guys were really in control, we had so much incredible growth. And I really feel like Ben has a potential to be just like that

in the coming years. I'm excited about that potential for him. I think that super level-headed guy and really, really cares about the sport, and the sport needs that person so badly. So I'm excited. I'm glad that we're able to talk to him. And I'll be one of his biggest cheerleaders. You know, I kind of always have hope to see the sport get back to that kind of position

to where we had like a true France leading the fold. Jim's done an amazing job over the last several years to sort of bridge the gap to the future and bends the future. So excited to be able to share with our listeners a little bit about him. And hopefully they feel pretty good about what they heard. A lot of great conversation in our dirty air. A lot of topics there to go to choose from. A lot happening in a sport.

I mean, we didn't even talk about the play. playoffs and the potential championship being crowned in Phoenix. But we'll be talking about that over the next couple of weeks. We sure will. Listen, everybody, don't forget, Buster's trip to victory lane is available now. Yeah. Go rush out, get it. If you haven't already, Dalejutor.com backslash Buster or just find a bookstore.

All right. We're wrapping up this season. Just a few more episodes left, and we've got some awesome guests coming up. We can't wait to announce. And I hope everybody's in the Halloween spirit, man. I am ready to do some trick-or-treating, man. My kids are pumped up. That's cool, man.

All right. You're going to dress up, Mike? I haven't even thought about it. I haven't even thought about it. So right now, no. Do you get to choose? Wait. Are your kids at a certain age where you get to choose you're dressing up or not?

Because, I mean, I've already got my mission. I've been handed my outfit. You have been handed. See, that's not happened. That's not been my experience. No, it hasn't. No. I'm excited about it.

I like my outfit. We're going to keep it as secret for now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. We don't want to do it. It's not an original idea. Most or not. No, but it's a good one.

All right. Well, hope everybody's feeling that Halloween spirit, man. We're going to have some fun over the next couple weeks, and everybody enjoy your week, and we'll see you to race track. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.