The Dale Jr. Download - 404 - DIRTY AIR - Bubba Wallace vs. Kyle Larson; Ben Kennedy Aftermath; Dale Jr. Reacts To Kurt Busch Retirement

Episode Date: October 17, 2022

An early-bird, Dirty Air-segment solo special for Dale Jr. Download listeners eager to hear Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s take on current events, including the drama from Sunday’s South Point 400 NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.But first, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mike Davis start Dirty Air by addressing criticism about last week’s interview with Ben Kennedy, NASCAR’s SVP of Strategy & Innovation. The two DJD hosts respond to social media kickback claiming they were too lenient on Kennedy, grandson to the late Bill France Jr. and widely considered to be NASCAR’s next top guy. Did they let him off the hook with softball questions and easy outs?The conversation then pivots to the topic of the hour – the initial mid-race wreck involving Wallace, Larson, and Christopher Bell, as well as the retaliation, shoving match, and post-race interview that ensued. Earnhardt tries to predict what NASCAR’s response will be by drawing from past examples such as Chase Elliott vs. Kyle Busch at Darlington in 2020 and Noah Gragson vs. Sage Karam at Road America earlier this year.That wasn’t the only news from the weekend. Kurt Busch announced he will no longer race full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series as he continues to heal from concussions. This topic was especially personal to Dale Jr., who also had his racing career cut short due to a head injury. What will Kurt do next? Mike Davis has a thought, and Dale Jr. loves the idea.Lastly, on Dirty Air, Earnhardt unpacks the whole saga at Stewart-Haas Racing, where Tony Stewart expressed anger towards NASCAR over the penalties levied against Cole Custer’s No. 41 team, and Gene Haas reportedly made comments to media about Custer’s future. What does this mean for Custer? What about Ryan Preece? Earnhardt weighs in with his usual unfiltered opinion, candor, and honesty.The full episode of The Dale Jr. Download will drop on Tuesday, October 18, complete with Dirty Air presented by Filter Time, Ask Jr presented by Xfinity, and a deep conversation with Erik Jones, driver of the Petty/GMS No. 43, in the guest segment presented by Ally. 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.

What's up, Dale Jenner Download listeners. Happy Monday to all of you. I hope you are doing well. This is Mike Davis here. And, you know, we had an idea. We wanted to try something that we've always wanted to do, just never have done it. And that is start dropping parts of our show out early in the week, almost immediately. And it just so happens we taped this morning.

We had a great conversation about Bubba Wallace and about Kyle Larson, that whole incident at Las Vegas. even Dale and I wanted to address some of the comments that we saw on social media over the week about Ben Kennedy, that episode from last week. So we had a really good conversation. And so we've just decided, I got with Alex, our producer, and said, hey, let's put out dirty air today on Monday. And you know what? You can expect a full show tomorrow, as usual. We had Eric Jones. What an amazing conversation.

Learned so much. I encourage everyone to listen to that tomorrow. We'll put that out. on the feed as usual. But enjoy this. This is something new. We want to see what you think. Dirty Air from the Dale Jr.

Download today, Monday, October 17th. And yeah, enjoy. The following is a production. This is a production of Dirty Bow Media. The Dale Jr., Dale Jr., download. Mike Davis. I don't think Denny Hamlin even touched it.

Dellenhart Jr. Are you kidding me, Mike? In the Bojangles studio, You need to watch the freaking race. I did watch the race. They hit! Just respect everybody's opinion. Let's start there.

It's time for another episode of the Dell Jr. Download. Del Jr. Download. Hey, everybody. Episode 404 of the Dale Jr. Download is here. We got Mike Davis, my co-host. What's up, Mike? Man, nothing much. Yeah.

Nothing much. Man, there's a lot going on. Yeah. Well, we got a cool guest today. Eric Jones is going to come in. Winter in Darlington. For Petty GMS or GMS, whatever it is, I think it's Petty GMS. It is. Petty GMS.

Got it right. So, I mean, there's so much going on. I can't get it right. It's Petty GMS, but as soon as you said it, I was like, oh, I have doubts. What is it? I need to hear it. Every time I say anything, that's exactly the next thought. I have doubts?

I have doubts about what I just said. Is that really the way, you know. You're saying that you have doubts about things you said. I doubt everything that I say. anyways we got a great episode for you a lot going on Eric's going to be great I can't wait to talk to him I've wanted him to come on here we're going to get him a copy of Buster's trip to Victory Lane

Eric Jones goes on his social media and does these little reads for reads children's books I think he's got an initiative a charitable initiative or something in terms of promoting and raising awareness for reading and well he's going to tell us all about it. I'm curious. And also, I want to talk to him about the loss of his dad, how that affected him. It happened in a very young part of his life, right in the middle of the start of his cup career. I need to know how he, you know, pulled it together. He had to grow up super fast. I can't even

imagine. So I can't wait to talk to him about that. And obviously, his perseverance, right? We see guys all the time lose top rides and sometimes they don't recover. And man, he is not gave up and he's clawed, scratched, and drove to Victory Lane in just a few weeks ago or a few months ago at Darlington in a fantastic fashion. So got a lot to talk about with Eric. It's going to be awesome to have a current driver here. Let's talk about some dirty air. Dirty air brought to you by filter time. If you need air filters, if you're tired of going and buy them yourself,

if you forgot to change them, go to filtertime.com and subscribe, and I'll send you your air filters. When you won't, you can quit anytime. There's no contracts or anything like that. So just let me help you out. Last week we had Ben Kennedy on the show, and a lot of people gave us a hard time because they felt like we went easy on Ben. And here's my response to that.

I took a bit I was a little bit I took a fence to a little bit me too and so here's the thing when Ben before Ben walked into the room I really was not

100% sure about his stature position responsibility's role in the business in the company but the more we studied him for you know as we do

everybody that comes on to the show and the more he talked and discussed in the room at the table, the more I'm understanding that Ben Kennedy is really just a young guy that's going through the system that's sort of like when my dad gave me a job over at the dealership, I changed oil, I worked in the body shop a little while, taping cars. I helped the assistant, I assisted the engine guy pulling transmissions and motors. There was not, I worked in every area of that dealership service department and Collision Center, except for on the alignment machine, because they wanted me to get experience.

And so I wasn't running the show. I had no influence over the decisions being made in that service department, over who to hire, who to fire, which direction we were going, whether we were making money, losing money. I was in there learning the ropes, and that is exactly what Ben Kennedy's doing right now. Now, he is going to one day, hopefully, take over the reins. and it will be probably department by department before he ever gets to the very top where say a Jim France or Lisa Kennedy is.

So here's my problem. That's the problem. That's the issue with really asking him those tough questions about why are we doing this or safety on the car or Ben isn't the one with those answers. And Ben isn't the one today that's going to go be making the changes in steering the ship. Not even in the meetings.

No. That's right. And so it's absolutely, and I have no problem saying this, and if you disagree, that is fine. You don't have to agree with everything I say. But it's unfair to sit here and hammer him with the big bullet points of the sport, and expect him to give us answers,

that a Steve Phelps is going to give us or a Mike Helton or a Steve O'Donnell. You know, those are the guys that we would ask those questions of and expect, hey, tell me why this happened, tell me what we're doing, and tell me why we're doing this and why, you know, you can ask those guys, Steve Phelps and O'Donnell, those questions and expect them to have the answers and expect them to be the ones making those choices. That is not who Ben Kennedy is today. and so I sort of started realizing, I mean, I came in with some hope that I would be able to ask him a few things about the direction of the sport.

But the more we discussed with him, the more I understood that he's not the guy to be asking those questions. And I really think I'll be wasting my time and his to try to ask him a question that he really isn't going to be able to answer. We did get to a couple things that I thought he had some influence on, and I thought he shed some light on a few. few things about street courses and wanting more short tracks and other things and I was glad to hear a few of those things we he opened up without us really even asking him to about his father's death and we went down to the day about how that experience was for him which I thought was really compelling and I appreciated him doing that he didn't have to come in here and he probably he probably came in here with a with a plan right about how much he was going to be transparent but that was a

a really human moment right there. That was a really genuine moment. So I enjoyed the interview. Do I wish that I was interviewing Ben Kennedy, the lead of NASCAR? Yes. And we will one day. But we want him to want to come back to the room. Right. When that's the case. I just didn't feel like that it was, I didn't feel like asking him the tough questions was warranted because I didn't think he was the guy

with those answers. Yeah. Yeah. I was a little surprised by some of the backlash that we saw. And typically we kind of like let that stuff go. But you know what? It made me realize there's, there seems to be a natural tendency when people think NASCAR brass or they think of the France family. They immediately leap to a judgment. Yeah.

And you and I didn't come into this thing starting with that judgment, right? Like we wanted to get to know him. I wanted, I'd never met him. We did ask some pretty direct questions about things that we knew were not his in his lane. like the sign coming out at Charlotte. But you know why we did that? I wanted to see what his leadership style kind of looks like,

or I wanted to see if he takes things personal as a France family member, but also somebody that's being groomed through the system. I wanted to see a little peek behind the curtain of who he is as a person, because then you get a sense of what he might be like as a leader. Why people are so, they seem to gravitate towards him. It's certainly like your Mike Hilton, your Steve O'Donnells, you're Steve Phelps. All of these people say he's legit, right?

Well, I kind of wanted to see it and know why. But it wasn't like we were going to be like, you're a France. Explain yourself. Right. That would be completely unfair. We would never get him back. The fact is, is that I thought we were extremely fair to him because we wanted to get a sense of his leadership style.

We also did get a peek behind the curtain. I was curious on how a schedule is built. It becomes such a prevalent point of conversation for us. on podcasts and whatnot when the schedules are announced and you're looking at the Chicago Street Course. Well, we do know he has a lot to do with that. And I think the Chicago Street Course people already have this adverse reaction to it. And the race hasn't even happened yet.

Yeah. Like maybe the race sucks. Maybe it does. But you and I are of the, there's a great chance we're going to still prefer ovals after that street course. I just have that feeling. However, let's wait till we cast judge. on a race for when it happens.

And if it becomes this disaster, whatever. But the fact is, is that you definitely want somebody that's going to take some swings. I think that that's what we wanted to see if he's the guy that's going to be taking swings. Yeah. Well, I hope to certainly have him back. And it'll be interesting to watch his progression. Now that we kind of know where he is in the system and in his career path, it would be interesting to have him back as he moves from, you know,

when he is he moves around in the organization, right, and continues to learn. But anyways, you know, if you're disappointed in that interview and thought we should have went a little harder, maybe one day that'll be the way I feel I can go at Ben. But just didn't think it was, we wanted, you know, is the other thing, too, that was interesting, Mike, and I think maybe this will be surprising to some people, is that was Ben's first, long form interview ever. He has never done a long form interview, meaning, I guess that means what, over 15, 20 minutes?

Half hours what I typically get. He sat down and chatted with different people in the media over his career, you know, quick interviews and so forth, but never really sat down and done a long form. That was a very first time. And they mentioned that with him coming in. They were like, hey, man, this is the first time he's ever done anything like this. This will be a great experience for him.

So, I mean, this was literally more of his, you know, formal education as a future leader of NASCAR was to come here and be on this show. Right? Yeah. And so do we want to be the ass-a-che that make him leave the room and go, boy, I regret doing that. I don't want anybody to ever walk out of this room and say, I don't ever want to come back here. Or they were treated unfairly. Right. Right, right.

That they were not treated fairly in that. And that's important to us. And to be honest with you, it would be like if somebody came to you and wanted you to explain every wreck that your dad caused. And it's like, if you did an interview, a long form interview that way, and they're like, okay, your dad, Richmond, you know, 83, whatever it is. It's like, wait a second, that's not for you. You got your own career. You got your own thing. And I think that that's the guy.

Listen, I want people to understand. We're just trying to learn and get to know people, right? And we come out on the back end, knowing more than when we came in, then we would feel good about that. All right. So let's move on to Bubba Wallace and Larson, a little shove and match you on the front straightaway right in front of everybody and a national television audience on big NBC. A very public experience. So, you know, I think that the public opinion is that, you know, they're racing through the corner. Larson's getting loose.

Coming up the racetrack, he kind of makes things tight off the corner, squeezes Bubba a little bit. I'd be pissed off if that was me driving Bubba's car off the corner like that, and the guy's in your door. Larson did make it three wide on the inside down into three and shallowed up the entry and lost the car and drifted up the racetrack. They hit the wall. The popular opinion is that Bubba steered down the racetrack,

jumped in the throttle, and hit Larson in the right rear quarter panel. I think it's basically at this point, not NASCAR's position to dive through the data and find intent. I think it's more of really Bubba's position to provide the data that proves that there was no intent. I mean, to me, it looks like it was pretty obvious, I guess, is my point, that Bubba tried to take him out. And if he's saying he didn't, he needs to prove why he didn't is what you're saying, right? Bubba's saying exactly what he needs to say and not admit it. Right. That was Byron's mistake.

And so the, but I think everybody, for the most part, is pretty sure that that was an intentional clip of the right rear quarter panel that sends the five car into the wall. It takes the 20 car out. Bubba gets out of the car, walks down the apron, and then there's the shoving match. My position on this, I think this is very, I think NASCAR. is going to look at it the same way and look at it through the same lens as they looked at the Gregson incident as they looked at the Byron incident. The Byron and Gregson incident were different, but I think it's probably a little more similar with what Noah did at Road America in terms of Reck and Sage Karam on the straightaway, took out a lot of cars.

I think that, you know, Noah got 30 points, 35 grand. Byron's was adjusted to no points 100 grand. But I could see this since NASCAR went and changed the rules, they changed the wording in the rulebook post the Byron incident. So once Byron wins the appeal, NASCAR goes into the rulebook. There was a line in the rule book that Mike that said when somebody wrecks somebody on purpose, there could be points and or a fine. They took the or out.

So now it's points and a fine. That's the way it reads. and that's how they won the appeal, was that and or. And so NASCAR's adjusted that line in there so that there will be a points component to the next penalty given to a driver for doing something like that, right? Wrecking somebody on purpose.

I think if I had to guess, it's going to be 100 points, 100 owner points, 100 driver points, and $100,000. Could be a little more on the monetary side because of the speed of the, you know, going 150 miles an hour and having that intentional crash a little higher speed i i could see them maybe maybe going a little higher there was also the issue with bubba getting out of his car and walking down the apron i think that nascar made a rule a couple a year or two ago about getting out of your car

and walking down the racetrack or walking anywhere going away being on the racetrack yeah i don't know i don't know if it's being on the track just leaving your car right after a crack i don't know what the i can't remember exactly what the rule was i was kind of digging for that but couldn't find it they may have a problem with that i don't know if they'll do that do anything. I think for some reason I want to think Chase Elliott did it, got out of his car. Was it at Darlington when he got wrecked by Kyle Busch? He got out of his car. They made a rule. Yeah, I don't know the exact rule, but you're right. You have to be, you have to be escorted by an AMR safety person into the ambulance if you're not able to drive your car back into the pay area,

and he was not having it. Right. And so they may look at that and have a problem with that. I don't know if they did anything with Chase and they might not do anything on that type. I'm saying, will there be a monetary issue with that? I don't know. But anyways, that's kind of the way I look at it. You know, the detail that NASCAR has about what Bubba did with a steering throttle and all those things will be massively detailed, way more than we were able to show you on television. And so they'll have a lot of information to be able to be able to.

but to make their decision on the intent in that moment. And I feel like with the information they'll have, they'll be confident on what they decide. And so that's why I feel like it'll be more about what Bubba can bring to the table in terms of evidence that, hey, man, there wasn't any intent. I think that it'll be easy for NASCAR to prove their case, and it'll be up to Bubba whether he has anything to be able to bring to the table and saying, hey, man, this is part of the car that was broken.

that it didn't allow me to, you know, steer the car correctly or whatever. So, well, it remains to be seen on what really comes from that. But I think it will be handled very similarly to Noah's issue at Road America, and that'll be the end of it. I don't disagree with anything you said. I want to ask you about the post-race interview, though, like the exchange with Bubba and Marty? Yeah.

Did you have an opinion about that. I thought I actually kind of liked it. But did you think anything of it? Well, the only thing that I thought was interesting, is Marty um marty you know

Marty kept kept fishing yeah you know and so the reason why that's interesting to me is because I've been I'm in the meetings in that's in I'm in the meetings or in I'm privy to conversation

about our what our bosses think about our interviews and the questions we ask particularly with the pit reporters so the pit reporters are put in a unique situation where they are the ones that have to stand there in that moment, it's uncomfortable.

The driver's mad. He doesn't want to even be there. He knows he's getting ready to have to ask the question that he doesn't want to get asked, right? This happens in tons of interviews. How many times will we see Kyle Bush roll his eyes or, you know. At Marty. Marty seems to be that guy every time, right? Yeah.

So, you know, I've done it, you know. So every, this is a tough situation for the people. pit reporter, but he's doing a job. And Marty kept doing his job, which I found pretty, a very veteran-like sort of interview from Marty. He's as good as they come. This guy, this guy's been a pit reporter, the majority of his career. And he's been doing this for as long as I can remember, way back in the early days of my career. And Marty, over the last, not to get out of not to get off topic here, but Marty over the last couple of years has been doing our pre and post race shows. So Marty has to study really, really hard to do that post-race show.

You've got to know the whole script. Yeah. Right. And so he has to do, he has to study for that. He has to study for everything he's going to do during the race for his hits on Pit Road. He has to change in out of costume. He's got to wear a suit and a tie pretty much for the, for the, for the, for the, uh, the pre and the post right and then he's got to jump back into his pit you know his pit road stuff

this guy works harder than anybody anybody on our on our talent right when it comes to talent he works harder than anybody and and but i just that was i don't even remember what bubba said he said he said you're fishing or quit fishing yeah right literally what he said yeah which i kind of liked that moment because it was a driver who wasn't giving us the i just hate it for my guys they just worked so hard. My car was fast. I mean, like he said those things, but he also had a moment of, of, you know, vulnerability and emotion, which is what we expect at a Bubba. So that was vintage Bubba, right? But then I also like the fact that Marty didn't back down from it. Marty's like, I'm not fishing. I wish Marty would have stayed with the question and made him answer it, but he actually moved on to the next thing, which I thought,

but I thought they both had a very, it was a beautiful moment for me because I'm like, thinking you got a driver who's, you know, really got all the guards down and he's emotional and he's showing it. And I will always appreciate that about Bubba. I did not, I agreed with everything you said about the situation. So we're not going to rehash that. But I do appreciate Bubba brings it on the interviews for better or worse. And then I also liked, I thought Marty showed why he's such a professional by not just letting him get away with it and dictate the next move. Yeah. It was, it was, uh, that, that moment. I don't know, the race, the first stage was kind of,

it was uneventful in the first stage, and the groove was right around the bottom, and so the cars weren't really moving around a lot. And then all of a sudden, man, that race changed for the better in terms of drama and excitement. All the way to the end, there was something happened. We had a great battle for the win between Chastain Legano. Anyhow, yeah, I think they'll look,

this situation is the same way they did with Gregson, but I could see the, and so I don't know what the multiplier is from Xfinity to Cup, anybody's guess on what that is. If Gregson's 30 points and $30,000, I would say that, you know, that sounds like about a hundred point, $150,000 fine coming to Bubba in 2311. The tough part about that, I think, is that the, you know, they put Bubba in the 45 for the owner's points. There's some monetary gain for them, to try to finish as well as possible with the 45 and the owner's points. That if they get a sizeable owner's points penalty, I don't know if that, you know, that's obviously not a good thing.

And that might be interesting to see how that all rolls out. This would be a good week to listen to Door Bumper Clear if anybody's out there. You're wearing your DBC shirt, I am. Yeah. Tell them what you said when you walked in. It's either going to be the best door bumper clear ever or the very last. I don't disagree with that either. I'll be curious to see what Freddy's got to say about that.

For sure. Kurt Bush announced his retirement, and, you know, for me, I'm sad and happy about that. You know, I hate that Kurt is ending his career prematurely. I know that he, like everybody, would love to end whatever they're doing on their own terms and make that decision for themselves. but in our sport sometimes that decision is made for you by multiple reasons, whether it's injury or performance or the team going in a new direction, a young driver pushing you out, whatever it may be.

But I really am proud of Kurt for sort of realizing where he is, having some self-awareness, listening to the doctors. Also, he is recognizing the natural, you know, cycle of this sport. And I think that I, you know, when I was going through what I went through in 2016, I raced that final year, all of those decisions were made with Alex Bowman's future in mind. Even the decision to come back and run that final year in 2017, we all sat down and said, hey Alex, this is going to be your car, but I need you to wait a year.

You know, and you're going to get to do some things. You're going to go drive an Xfinity car and a couple of, but you're going to sit around a lot too. And I just need to do this one last year, right? But I felt that as we, you know, as I was watching Alex drive my car at the back end of 2016, and maybe Kurt's done this too, right? As Kurt's been at the racetrack and watched the other drivers drive his car, as hard as it is to watch another driver drive your car. You also watch that driver bring in this youthful excitement,

this passion, this determination to make it. And I bet that Kurt sees that in these younger drivers. He sees it in Ty Gibbs. He probably sees it in Reddick, knowing Reddick's coming over there to drive. And he's looking at them and going, yeah, they're hungrier than I. I am today. These guys, I can't stand in their way here, right? I got to get out of the way of this natural cycle of progression. And that's kind of the way I felt too about Alex. You know, I looked at our team, and I bet Kurt may be doing this. I looked at my team and Kurt maybe looks at his team

and goes, you know, they deserve this opportunity with Reddick. And they're excited about this new fresh opportunity with Reddick, right? And so while Kurt would, if Kurt were to get healthy and stay in the car, he would be amazing and do great things. But he's also understanding and recognizing that it's someone else's time, you know? And so, um, I felt, you know, that, that, that, that, that, that, I, picked up on that a little bit in some of the words he was using in the media and some of the things he said. I thought that was really cool. Because that way Kurt also doesn't have to put this whole thing on the injury. And it sort of gives you, as the individual having to step away, a little relief, you know,

that there's multiple reasons here, multiple good things, there's some silver lining, there's all kinds of various components that will be affected by this in a positive way. You know, this whole thing doesn't have to be sad and depressing. And so I was really glad to hear that from Kurt, because this, type of situation can be really damning and hard on the driver. And, you know, Kirk could have been walking around with a cloud over him in a really bad space. But it appears that, you know, he's sort of channeling some positivity and using some of the positive things that will be coming out of this as a way to get him through it. and I hope that he is able to get healthy and I hope that he is able to do these bucket list items

that he mentioned go do whatever he wants to do drive a car whatever it is a trip he wants to take a place he wants to go see what something experienced that he wants to wants to go through whether it's even racing related it doesn't matter but I just hope that you know whatever it is he wants to do he can he can he can go do it a lot of times we get we get you know we it kind of in a state of depression. And even though we had these things on our list or had this intention and wanted to set out and go do these things, we end up going home and sitting on the couch and not going anywhere and not doing anything.

You got to find purpose. You got to find purpose in the post-racing career. And that's still to be determined. I hope he finds it. Yeah. I think he will. He's very busy in terms, you know, what I've been. witnessing out of him over the last several months, even going through his rehab and whatnot,

he's busy day to day, right? He's occupying himself with many things and going to places and doing stuff and still actively involved in all his responsibilities off track in terms of his partners and sponsors and charitable initiatives. So I think that he'll be, he won't be a guy that ends up stuck on the couch wondering what to do with the rest of his life. I do not see Kurt doing that, but I want my vote for him and just for the the ironical part of this is for him to become a NASCAR official or lead the competition department one day. Would that not just be funny? I've just what that's what I'm pulling for. I'm on the record to say that's what I'm not saying next year.

I'm not even saying two years. I'm saying one day run competition for NASCAR. I'm going to be honest with you. I think that that is a hell of an idea. I never I never even thought about that, Mike, but damn, knowing that, knowing the deal. detailed way he is about his racing and test. When he goes to tests and so forth, he's super thorough with his feedback and very knowledgeable of the car and understanding what's going on.

Pretty smart guy when it comes to just the technology and so forth. Yeah. Got an interesting mind that I could see would probably maybe benefit NASCAR and the technical side if he was a part of the competition in terms of officiating, so forth, whether he'd want to do that. I don't know, but I could see Kurt Busch. succeeding there, possibly even maybe one day being up in the NASCAR booth and in a race director position or something like that.

Regardless of what he does, he is a great communicator. He does actually put thoughts together and communicates him. Listen, we take that stuff for granted, but there's not a lot of people that are, you know, really good at that, and he is one of them. He actually does. You know, the booth in the NASCAR booth, where the race control is, has many past drivers in it. Chad Little, Elton Sawyer, just to name a few. So a busy week for SHR, Cole Custer Penalized at the Roval. Tony Stewart, mad at NASCAR, over in the NHRA garage

just going to town. Let her fly. Boy. That didn't really, I mean, Tony Stewart, Matt NASCAR is not a new thing. Not shocked. No surprise. You know, entertaining, always is. Yeah. Where did you hear this information about Gene Haas? Jenna Fryer tweeted it out, like, before the race. Okay, the Gene Haas wants Cole Custer to have another year to prove himself. Yeah. And that Tony Stewart wants Ryan Priest in that car.

Yeah. Interesting. I saw that. That was from Gene Haas on the grid. That's what Jenna said. Wow. That's right. I thought that was pretty open and candid for someone.

Well, imagine being a driver and seeing that come across Twitter. Like, sorry, but you're going to get out of the car and be like, oh, well, apparently one of my bosses doesn't want me in the car and the other one does, like, sorry, but I thought I would create a pretty uncomfortable situation for me. Yeah, I wonder how that goes with, and I don't want to piss Jenna off, but like, so does Jenna say to

Gene, hey Gene, can I use this on the record? Is this on the record that you're telling me that Tony Stewart wants priests and you want? Listen, I mean, I think Jenna does give people the courtesy of a confirmation of what's on the record and off the record. So he had. So, Jean knew that he was

telling Jenna to publicly go and say that Tony Stewart wants priests and the Custer would hear this? My assumption is yes but it would just be an assumption I don't know. Custer would breathe this and now today Custer's walking around in his house going freaking Tony Stewart wants Ryan Priese instead of me. And I wonder if these conversations have already been had behind closed doors. Maybe yeah. That's my assumption. When I read that I didn't think that was news to Colcuster but it could be. Listen there's a lot of times we all think that teams are talking to each other and they're not, or certainly talking to drivers and they're not.

So, I mean, it would have been believable that they would have been talking about Cole Custer, considering we were on the heels of a big penalty from the Roval, which Cole was involved in. I don't know if that's what sort of predicated the conversation. I have no idea. I know that at times I even forget that Cole Custer's out there. So it's certainly a reasonable question to know what his future at SHR is like. And I know that people are big into Ryan Priest, frankly. I mean, I think that everybody's wanting him to get his shot.

Let me, let's be clear. If we put a poll out and said, hey, you're an owner. You're hiring one of these two drivers. Priest is going to win that vote over Cole Custer. But to be clear, I mean, Cole Custer won a buttload of Xfinity Series races the year before he came to the Cup Series. And SHR has not performed well. They don't, they haven't ran well this year. They are, you know, they are having some good high.

points here in the back half of the season. Harvard won a few races. The 14th is still well alive in the points battle going into the final round. But I've been experienced this. Four car teams, okay? Four car teams. Traditionally

80, 90% of the time, only two, maybe three will run really well. That fourth car of the four car team typically is going to run there's going to be a car, right? Right.

They all four don't run. They all four don't win. They all four don't run the same, right? They've ran mid-packed this year at best for at least the first half the year and Cole is in, has been running the sh-hs.

I can't really, I mean, if all the SHR cars cars were running into top ten and Cole's back there in 30th, then I'll go, hey man, all right, Cole, it's time to time to change your career path, right? It's time to maybe move over into the business side of it.

His dad is a big part of running that organization, and that could be his future. But, you know, if he wants to keep racing and keep racing, but I think, honestly, in my mind, unless something drastic changes in the next 12 months, I don't think that Cole's going to be around much longer in the Cup series. And to only say that, to, to, he's going, he's going to be faced with a dilemma of what am I going to do?

Am I going to go drive a truck or Xfinity car because I like to race? Or am I going to wrap my brain around the idea that I need to change my lane and look at what my dad's doing or try to become part of, you know, the, the, the management side of this business? and what opportunity is really there for Cole in that respect. But, you know, he is vulnerable in terms of his, I mean, it's obvious that he's vulnerable because, you know, one of his owners. Yeah, doesn't want him in the car. But Tony may refute that. Tony may say, hey, I don't actually feel that way.

But, you know, I just feel like that his days are numbered and he might need to start, you know, having a plan B, and maybe he already has one, right? Maybe he's already has this decision made out in his mind. Well, and I wonder if this wasn't a point of contention until Eric Almarolla decided that he wasn't retiring. Because if he wasn't retiring, that 10 car was going to be open. So then Priest probably would have went there, and then Cole Custer's ride probably wouldn't even have been in question.

And now all of a sudden there's nowhere to put Priest. So who's going to go? Eric brings sponsorship with Smithfield. No, you're right. So I wonder if that was not even a conversation until this all came back up. And all of a sudden they're like, uh-oh, we've got five drivers that we want. want four cars, first one out. I think you're right.

But I also know that Priest was offered a contract from a non-Ford car in a different series. So that makes me wonder just how aligned with Ford and SHR and how in that pipeline priest still is today. Yeah. Right? I know he was sort of, it seemed, it seemed at least earlier even in this year that priest was part of the plans, the future plans, but hearing that he was offered and considering

a ride in a different manufacturer in a different series, makes me wonder how tight is that relationship with SHR. It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out. We'll just start watching drag races and see if Tony has something to say on a week-to-week basis. Maybe priest is in the drag races. There you have it. Dirty Air presented by Filter Time, Episode 404. The full show will be out tomorrow.

Let's call it late afternoon. Give me some time to eat some breakfast. You know, kind of get the day going and then crank that thing out. With guest Eric Jones, it was a great conversation, guys. I enjoyed sitting back here in the booth and just listening to Eric talk about his career, his father's passing. And what all went down with JGR, it was really, really interesting. You're not going to want to miss it. Dale right now is in New York.

York doing a media tour for his brand new children's book, Buster's Trip to Victory Lane, which is available now, and you can get it wherever you get books. So yeah, pick that up and enjoy the full episode tomorrow, and we'll see you tomorrow. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.