The Dale Jr. Download - 405 - DIRTY AIR - Dale Jr. Announces A Return to Driver's Seat THIS YEAR

Episode Date: October 25, 2022

New week, new format for The Dale Jr. Download. In order to provide Download listeners something to tune in a tad sooner on podcast days, the Dirty Air segment and Ask Jr. segment will be released on their own.The duo started the segment with big news! North Wilkesboro must've given Dale the racing itch because he started the segment by announcing that he will be racing again soon and provides all the details where you can catch the action.Mike couldn't pass up the opportunity to ask Dale about his WWE experience at Monday Night Raw in Charlotte. Dale attended the event as a fan and is on the lookout for a WWE superstar to root for.The full episode of The Dale Jr. Download will drop on Tuesday, October 25, with an announcement-filled interview with Marcus Smith. What has turned into a yearly check-in provides Dale and Marcus the opportunity to break some news around the North Wilkesboro All-Star week.In #AskJr presented by Xfinity, Dale, Mike, Hannah, and Alex discuss what happened to the possum found at JRM after Las Vegas, how the podcast got started, and Tony Stewart's NHRA debut. 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.

Following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Every time he comes in this room, Mike, we spend his money. Gladly. Yes. That's the goal. Today is to find a new, big, shiny thing to buy. That's right. So let's all come together.

All come together. Come together. Yes. And spend Marcus' money. It's Ben Marcus' money. Ben Marcus's money. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr.

Download episode 405 here in the Bojangles studio. with Mike Davis. We got a great guest for you today. Marcus Smith is coming back. He's been on this show more than anybody. But we got a lot of great things to talk to Marcus about. The All-Star race coming up next year. Texas Reconfiguration, what's going on there?

Atlanta. What's the future of that property? Now that they've had the track reconfigured. Nashville, what's going on with Nashville? Hadn't heard a thing about it, Marcus. We got all kinds of other things to, to ask him about the fan experience at these racetracks and some of the new initiatives or what's coming down the line?

What's the next idea? Marcus, every time he comes in this room, Mike, we spend his money. Gladly. Yes. Yeah. Happily. So that's the goal. Today is to find a new big, shiny thing to buy.

That's right. Put some pressure on him to spend more money. Yeah. And so let's all come together. Yes. And spend Marcus's money. Spend Marcus's money. Before we get to that, let's jump into some dirty air, brought to you about filter time.

Dirty air. Not to get down the road. I'm going into the weeds. Let's go in the weeds. Let's go in the weeds. I was trying to build a small addition on this home that I own, and I went in front of the, I went with my architect in front of the review board. Oh, yeah. I finally got approved.

Oh, did you really? Okay, so now that it's finally approved, I'm going to tell you something. If there's one source that has made Dale Jr. Almost imbearable to deal with because he's been in bad – If there's one thing to put him in a bad mood, it's the fact that he kept going in front of this board. What kind of board is it? It's like the zoning board. It's just a – they review any projects, any upgrades, any building, any additions, any kind of –

Yeah, and he kept getting denied. Yeah. I was like, man, I've raced against, you know, Jimmy Johnson, Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick, I have won, crashed, I've been on fire, I've found nothing more more, you know, more debilitating and

frustrating than being declined by the review board. Man, they, they, you can wreck you, you can talk about your mama, but don't decline me at the review board. Oh, God. They, uh, they were tough. But we, um, you know, honestly,

I give, I give, I give my heart time but to be honest with you um it was kind of funny so the first time we take our little idea in front of the review board they were like you know this this we were trying to be like hey we're going to make this little change guys just this little tiny thing we're going to add to the back of the house no no problem and they're like that thing's tiny why is it so small it doesn't look like anything else on the house it doesn't look it looks like an afterthought why don't you make it look like it's part of the build and we're like okay we can make it bigger No problem. Gladly we'll go back and redo this.

So we redraw it larger. The meeting, the next meeting the next month gets canceled. So in the process of the next meeting, they changed four members on the review board out of seven. So when we come back in front of them with our new design that's big and grand and looks just like the rest of the house. At their suggestion. At their suggestion, the new four people go, wow, that's big. I don't like it. It's too big.

Why is it so big? And the other people that were like, hey, you should make that bigger. They're sitting there going, wow, sorry, man. Yeah, we're getting outvoted here. The other people don't like it. So now we're like, wait, we just made it bigger. You said make it bigger. Now we've got to make it smaller again.

So anyways, we went basically back to the original plan with a couple new adjustments. And boom, soon as we walk into the door, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. We all looked at it. You're good to go. And we got approved really quickly. but man, the whole process was really interesting. And, I mean, I'm joking. I'm, you know, lightheartedly complaining here.

No, you're not. Honestly, agreed in the moment. But after, in hindsight, them sort of giving us, get them making us go back and rethink this has allowed us to make some changes that we really didn't know we wanted. So we actually ended up with a way better. what we have now is way better Okay You understand? There's some silver lining

Then very much so I'm really happy with it But man I didn't want to talk about it publicly because we were in the middle of trying to get approved So I didn't want to piss anybody off On the board by saying

You know man this is tough Anybody can go back And listen to old episodes And they can tell which Episodes were taped Right after the meeting And a dejection Yeah

I was sitting Ducing Man sitting in there I know I wouldn't never do this Unless I had an addition to be approved, but sitting in there and listen to other people present and watching the conversations and the, I don't like this. I like this. This is a good idea. Oh, no, I don't like

the review board sort of picking apart. It was fascinating. Hey, can I ask a question about this? Again, you brought us to the weeds, so I'll ask a question in the weeds. Everybody who is listening to this is probably wondering the same thing, so I'm going to ask it. Yeah. Does the board know who you are and did you think that affected the way they were giving you responses or were they being subjective based off of your okay so you don't think they were no my caught my there were people in the room that thought so there were people in the room in in the moment that were like man they're messing with you maybe your architect no i don't want to put that way you don't want to put them out all right i don't call anybody out but there were some people in the room going i think they're

messing with you. Right. But I listened to them discuss multiple of the projects. We'd go sit in there and there'd be four or five that would go before us and they all got treated equally. So they were they were they were everybody. They are equal opportunity ass that's what we like to call no. They were um, EOA. Yeah. Yeah. They listen man they they are there for a purpose and the purpose is to make sure that anything gets built is, you know, per what they want the neighborhood to be like or whatever.

I don't know. I mean, you know, you just, this is an area where you can't just, like, build a, you know, a big giant, 10-story pink building. Right. You know, they've got to prove what you're doing. Yeah, anybody that deals with homeowners associations knows that you can't put this, you can't put your pool right on, right out there next to the sidewalk. Right.

They want it over here in this area, right? And they'd rather you, and they'll tell you. They're like, hey, man, we'd like you to turn the roof, you know, 90 degrees. We don't like, we'd rather the roof be, you know, they're very, won't this window here when they're there? I mean, we are getting in the weeds now. But anyways, I thought you'd like to know, Mike, because I'm happy. I've talked to you about this multiple times. Yeah, and I'm glad to hear that good outcome.

It was. So, yeah, if you're still with us after that conversation, I got some cool news. So I raced in the late-mile stock race at North Wiltsboro earlier this year, had a blast. If I didn't have fun, I wasn't ever going to do it again. I had a great time, so I'm going to do it again. Looking at the schedule, always trying to find opportunities to race. Never know when we're going to make that decision to go race, but we've made one.

All right, let's hear this. Yeah. In 1994, five, and six, I raced at Myrtle Beach Speedway, raced at Nashville Fairgrounds and also a few other tracks. One track in particular I raced at every Friday night, probably 14 to 16 races a year, was Florence. I-95 in South Carolina. It's right near Hartsville, Darlington.

They're going to have a race on the 19th of November. Practice, I think, is practice qualifies the 18th. The race will be on the 19th. It's the South Carolina 400. This used to be ran at Myrtle Beach. Beach. And this will be the 30th anniversary. The South Carolina 400 was once the Myrtle Beach 400. And I was part of that experience back in the 90s when we ran the 400 at the end of the year. This is the 30th anniversary of that event. And I'm going to compete in it. I'm going to

go enter. I'll be there trying to qualify for it. I think they're going to start around 40 cars. Wow. It'll be a big field. in 2021 they had over 50 cars enter wow so it'll be yeah and there'll be some heavy hitters there i've already seen some of the entries so um yeah we're going to go try to try to make the event let's just say this nascar and flow all right nascar and flow flow racing flow racing they've made an unprecedented investment and commitment in short track racing and grassroots um their revenue this year uh that they generated from their stream

of the grassroots racing has all been reinvested into the tracks, right? Awesome. Yeah, for upgrades, bigger and better events. And so that trend continues with this event here, the South Carolina 400. And so with us supporting this event, we were able to add some additional funds to the payout. Oh, nice. All right. So there'll be a little bit more money for the winner.

Okay. But the majority of the additional investment going into this event will go to the middle and the back of the pack. Oh, wow. This reinforces our shared commitment to ensure that the model, the economic model for these teams and owners serves them well. the payout from last year to this year for last place is double. Wow, that's nice. So that gives them reason. That's a full field already,

and now there's people going to come for the money now. You've got to come try to win some money. So basically, I called Zacharias, who promotes and works with the racetrack, and I said, hey, man, I would luck to run this race. I've been trying to figure out how to get to Florence. I'm probably, you know, if this, if I enjoy what I'm going to do, maybe I run the icebreaker next year, maybe a weekly show sometime in the first half the year before we get to work in the booth. But we've, you know, I talked to my wife and looking at our schedule around Thanksgiving.

I thought about going to Southern National and running the Thanksgiving race there, but I, but my family wants me to go do some other things, so I can't make that event. This is the week before, the weekend before. and so this works great for me. And so I called Steve Zacharias and I called NASCAR. I talked to everybody that I could and we figured out a way to take advantage of this opportunity

and try to bring some more funding to the payout. And to be clear, not for you, but for the field, to give more drivers, more race teams, reason to get there. So when, you know, a set of tires, I don't know, set of tires is $600, $800,000, something like that. I should know what it is. But anyways, it's going to be probably around a 10-tire race, Mike.

So a set and a half of, two sets and a half of tires, right? It's what you're going to pay for if you're going to run the event. And to be able to double basically what 40th place is going to get or take home, I think is a great thing. When I talked to Steve, he's like, hey, man, how should, you know, with these extra funds what should we do and i said i would love to see it go to the back half of the field amen don't you know i don't i don't think you're really going to get more entries or more people entering the race going from you know 10 000 to 15 000 for the winter i said but if a guy knows that he's going to get 1600 instead of 800 for last he's more likely to come and and and

buy the tires of fuel the hotel room all those things and so hopefully that's really the way the the drivers, owners, and everybody that enters sees that additional funding is the same way I see it. So trying to, you know, trying to make a better economical model for these racers. The late model stock car is a blue collar race car. Yes. And now it hasn't gotten, I wouldn't say it's affordable. Racing is never, you know, racing is expensive. but, you know, anywhere you can try to improve the affordability and the economic model is a good thing.

And so hopefully, and also, I, you know, I want this racetrack to survive. Hopefully this is a great way for them to end the season strong and be able to kick off next year in a big way. But anyways, it's going to be a lot of fun. Well, tell us about Florence Speedway. Like, give us the characteristics. How, you know, how big is it? Florence is kind of small. It doesn't have a wall around turns one and two

on the back straightaway or in turns three and four. There's only a wall down the front straightaway. It's really wore out, really abrasive. You can run too wide. There's kind of a higher groove in one and two. You wouldn't prefer to run up there, but you can. Turns three and four, the bottom is really the preferred line. But I went there actually maybe two years ago.

a year and a half ago and practice. So there was a, I forget, whether it was the icebreaker or this race here that we're actually going to run. But a couple years ago, I sent two cars to the racetrack so that on Thursday or Friday I could practice one with Josh running the other one. And then I went on and did whatever I did that weekend, went to the race at Martinsville and broadcast, and Josh raced. But Josh ran the late model. So I've ran some laps there in the past year and a half and had a lot of fun out there doing it that day. but this will be great. I expect that Steve's going to have a great field of cars,

and hopefully a lot of people will come check it out. If you want to buy tickets, they're on sale now, at fm speedway.com. That's fm speedway.com. All the information should be there on the website about how to, you know, not only purchase your tickets, but all of the entries for the race, the scheduling, and everything else is going to be happening there.

So I'm excited, man. I've been looking forward to get back behind the wheel of our late model cars. Had such a great time at North Wiltsboro. Blast on the racetrack with all those guys beating and banging. And hopefully we get a full day of, you know, I go right back to the same thing, man. I just want to see the checker flag, man. I know. Give me the laps.

And then you'll go contend for the win and all that stuff. And I know you're going to shake your head. I know. But Hannah, you and I sat next to each other at Wilkesboro. And I said, what do I say? This is the same fool that was sitting there going, I just want to finish all the laps. And I'm like, he's up there.

And he's up there about to win the dang thing. So, yeah, we got you. We know what your stick is. If you were going to drive a car across country. I'm not saying I'd be different. If you're going to drive a car cross country, you just hope that you don't have any issues, right? Sure.

That's all I'm saying. I got you. I want to get there to the finish line without any drama. Naturally. And just, hey, man, I'll have a blast. I know I'm going to have a blast. And I expect to run relatively competitively

because I'm driving one of the best race cars in the field. That's right. That's right. You're going to be running, you know, Carson's a, Carson just won the championship in the cars tour. So you guys put out some good machines. We got great equipment. Yeah, we got great equipment.

All right. So this will be fun. People can buy tickets at fmspeedway.com. And I guess the assumption is that flow racing is going to also broadcast it for anybody that can't be in Florence, South Carolina, you can watch this race on flow. Yeah. That'll be cool. And I don't know if it has to be said or anything, but this is, I don't have a PSA, a personal service agreement with anybody that we've mentioned.

There is no backdoor fee coming to me for any of this. I don't want anybody to think that I'm kind of back, you know, kind of gouging or getting anything in my pocket down, you know, down the road. This is basically just to go have some fun, try to do something great for Florence. which has done so many great things for me personally in my life. I had so many amazing experiences there back in the 90s. I raced there in 94, 95, 96, multiple races, and I've been looking forward to an opportunity to, you know, always said I was going to go back and race late models

once I got done driving full-time in the Cup series. So here we are. It's really happening. I took my sweet-ass time getting there, but I'm excited about it. I want to ask you about something. Yeah. You went to the WWE last night. I did.

I did. I went to Monday Night Raw. I'd never. So I have watched wrestling since I was a little boy in the 80s laying in the floor of the bedroom on Saturday mornings after cartoons. They always had wrestling with Dusty Roads and Oly and Arne Anderson and Rick Flair and Magnum TA and all those guys. totally blanchard so um i was big into that never missed it and then uh huge fan of stone cold obviously the rock and all of that um back in the late 90s i started kind of getting back into it pretty big because all of the acedelco exfinity team tony junior tony senior all those guys watched it

you know they get together as a group and um so got back heavy into it again. All of those years, man, I've never been to a live show. Wow. Yeah, so this was a great opportunity. I went to, they came to Charlotte. W.W.E. was incredible. The hospitality, they took us around, toured the place, showed us how their production works. Saw a lot of things that I was very familiar with, the production truck, understanding of how the whole thing is shot and filmed. and then, you know, it was a three-hour live show from 8 to 11, and we took our seats. We had great seats right behind the, I guess, right behind the announcer's booth or the

announcer's table. Yeah, you were close. And so, and multiple times, man, the wresters got slammed on the table right there in front of us. It was insane. It was so much fun. So for anybody who's, even if you're just a casual fan or maybe you're not a fan, I would encourage you to go because it is, it's entertainment and it was very entertaining.

I went in there really with kind of an open mind to not knowing what to expect. A buddy mine said, hey man, drink a couple beers, take it in, just enjoy it. It's fun. Relax. Don't overthink it. And so we sat down and it really reminded me of, you know, it's a live show. It's a live production. It's a live entertainment show.

that you are just sitting there witnessing, and they do a really good job of, even though they're recording for a live network, they do a great job of making the fan that's personally present understand what's going on. Now, there's commercial breaks and other things where the lights go off, and there's about three minutes of just some promos

and stuff being thrown up onto the Jumbotron that the whole audience doesn't see, right? But otherwise, I really, you know, I've been to a few live shows with my family. I've been to live shows with Amy in Vegas. When I took my family to some live shows in Gatlinburg, it's really a similar experience in terms of your enjoyment. It's crescendoes. So you sit down, you're watching a couple matches, and they build you up.

And then they bring you back down. Then they build you back up and then they bring you back down. There's a purpose behind every match and every moment that is intentionally affecting your emotion and what you're seeing, right? There's a purpose to it. There's a process. And it's really interesting. And I enjoyed it. So sitting there, I found myself like, you know,

Getting more and more into it as it went, getting more and more comfortable with, like, getting close to the rail and as they're, I mean, the tables right there and the announcer table, they're slamming. And everybody around us is like into it all. Get them. Yeah. Slam them. Yeah.

Do it. One more time. And, you know, it's, it's addicting. Yeah. You know. It's an adrenaline rush, I imagine. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And so, like, you get this sort of big rush of adrenaline and excitement. and then they bring you back down. That's so interesting. That's just as compelling to me as anything because they know how to manage your, you can't stay at a 10 for three hours. Yeah, they told me that before.

So they were giving us a tour back and they're like, hey, man, you know, there's a purpose and a plan behind every show in terms of how they want you to feel, right, as an audience member. And so I was sitting there and had that in my mind as we were going through the whole three hours. And it was fun, man.

And to not really know absolutely what the storylines are, you know, there's some shows on TV, like, man, if you hadn't seen the first five episodes, you can't jump in on episode six. You've got to go back and start from the beginning to really, you can't join your wife in episode six and expect to know, you know, to have any enjoyment out of this, right? Because you've missed so much.

What's going on? Why is he mad? You know, what? one. And so with my experience, having not, I do not know the storylines, you know, and so I've, recognized several of the players, but I don't really know who's, who's mad at who and who's trying to trick who and who's, because there's a lot of conversation, there's a lot of audio, there's a lot of talking back and forth, there's a lot of setting up, you know, the disagreements. There's a lot of conversations backstage that we see on the Jumbotron, a pre-recorded stuff of

them telling you about the storyline, right? And so having never, say, if you just showed up, never watched their match all year, you will have fun. They'll prepare you. They will. Yeah. They sort of, you know, they bridge the gap really cleanly to bring you up to speed and have you very clearly understand this guy's the jerk, this guy's the good guy.

You don't have to figure it out. And there's a lot of, honestly, man, you know, when you're watching it home on TV, the cameras are very, very helpful in being able to to use a little camera magic and smoking mirrors, right, to set up a dramatic moment. In person, it's equally as, hey, look over here, and then this is happening over here, right? I wasn't being in person, being there in person, I wasn't privy to some of the trickery as far as like, so they had, you know, they would have a, they, you know, they, you know, the match is happening in front of you, and then off to the right, there's a, there's something

that catches your attention, a wrestler, something's doing something, and then something's happening behind you, they trick you. They get you looking one way, and then they surprise you over here, even in person, right? There's all those things happening that the network audience sees. It was just compelling, man. Did you meet any wrestlers? Yeah. Did any of them win you? Like, you know, you might not have known who they were. Maybe you did a little bit but did he him like you're like i like that person yeah that's the that was the thing so um if i can be kind of quite honest about it um the wrestlers that i liked were dusty roads magnum t a stone cold uh i did like the rock but not at first um but the guys that i like are you know the guys that i like

are kind of like blue collar, t-shirt and jeans. You know, for me, I'm still looking, that's why I went. I told, I got some friends of mine that go all the time. And I said, I want to get back into it. I need to find that Steve Austin. I need to find that Dusty Rhodes character that I want to connect to. And so that's my, I guess that's what I'm looking for, is to try to find that one character that I'm like,

man, that's cool. That's the guy next door, beer drinking, buddy that I want to hang out with. Yeah, right. There's no hacksaw Jim Duggins out there right now is what you're saying. Like people that you're like, all right, they're not trying to look pretty. Where is, yeah, that's what I'm looking for. It's like, where is that buddy, you know, beer drinking guy that's pulling the motor out of his car in his garage? Right.

Stone Cold Steve Austin was so good at that. He got you right there, the blue collar feel. That's all you had to say, the beer drinking. I mean, like he made that his identity. And man, could you gravitate towards it? I'm with you on that. Yeah. And so I guess, you know, while some people may like the characters, the MIS is hilarious, you know, you got to have those different characters, right?

But I think, you know, trying to find something that's really like, man, that guy could, that's my neighbor. That could be my, you know, that's the guy next door or the guy at the bar, trying to find somebody who's that every man type of, type of persona, right? I guess that's what I'm looking for. Yeah. And I'm sure that that character's out there or coming, you know, and they don't, they don't, you know, you can't just, Steve Austin just doesn't happen out of nowhere, right?

Right. That took years for him to. He gave us the backstory when he was on our show. That was so fascinating. Yeah. That was so fun. I watched just a little bit of the, like the social stuff. And I saw the part where Corey LaJoy was chugging a beer and you were right next to him

or a couple seats over. And I just, I got tickled at watching you guys just be in that moment because, that Corey was clearly like performing, right? Like he was performing. Yeah. Corey had a deal with AJ Styles where they took, you know, they talked about, they had a promo with NASCAR.

AJ came to the track and Corey and him hung out a bit. I think they took him, Burton took him around, some laps in the race car. And so I got to meet him briefly and super cool guy. and yeah Corey was Corey was having fun with that that's Corey's element

he enjoy he's enjoying himself but I had a lot of fun man and seeing it live in person made me think what it must have been like to be watching those cage matches back in the day with all the blood and the gore

WrestleMania is God oh my gosh you're right yeah oh yeah and they told me they're like man this is you know there's 20,000 people but go to go to WrestleMania when there's a you know, 100,000 people, it's a massive difference in the experience. Yeah. Well, cool, man.

I'm glad you had a good time, and I'm glad you went. That's awesome. I'm going to try to find that guy, that character that I'm going to connect to me. I'm sure, listen, social media, there's a good use for it. And it's when people can educate you, and I'm sure that people will tweet at you and that kind of stuff. I met a lot of wrestlers, and I hesitate to really talk about it because I just want to say, like, man, all of them were so nice. But there are some that are bad guys. Right? And one of them told me, he's like, hey, man, it is really cool to meet you. I am so, so glad you're here. But when I walk out onto that, the nice guy is gone.

I love it. They were out of character when they're meeting you. Yeah. He's like, when you see me out there, don't, you know, don't be taken aback by the, you know, my character because I'm not. He's an EOA. Yeah. Equal Opportunity ass. That's right. But then there was. one guy that came through that seemed to be in character all the time oh is that right but you know the great ones are like rick flair wasn't born rick flair right and he lives it every day yeah yeah every day wherever you go you don't when you meet that man if you bumped into him in airport he is rick flair he's on he's never off yeah i've i know we've met it and i think stone cold's the same way Even the rock to an extent is the same. Like when I, I mean, he seems like it.

That is, that is extreme talent is what that is. And, but it, I don't know, man. I think that they also, nothing, I think also, man, they just like, they're in that moment and that role so much. They just, it just becomes who they are. It becomes their identity. Yeah. They just leave it on.

Instead of switching it off. they switch it off and then eventually man they just quit switching it off see that was my impression of Stone Cold was that he he was out of care I felt like we definitely saw him

out of character and that there was a distinct difference on when he's everyday Steve Austin and when he was the Stone Cold character because it's almost like Stone Cold was a heel wasn't he wasn't he a heel

I mean like he was a heel that everybody loved which made it very interesting but you know he he didn't I don't know that was another thing that was interesting and I you know maybe this shit interesting to most people but I was sitting there and there's there's some

legit bad guys that people are cheering okay so I had like I say man I was with some friends of mine that go a lot and they know the whole thing right they know all the characters and storyline and I'm like you know I can tell this is the ass I can tell this is the bad guy but I hear you know there's there's 20% of people standing up clapping for this person and you know and I think that you know I guess I shouldn't be surprised not you know some bad still have fans, right? Some bad guys still have people that connect to that character.

Right. For whatever reason, right. Right, right. I just assumed, you know, at a live event, I'm sitting at home watching it, and I'm like, yeah, everybody's for the good guy. Everybody's against the bad guy. But not true in person. In person, there's some people that are like, yeah, kick his ass, villain.

That was the best part, there was another. another cool part. The truth comes out and he's from Charlotte and so he's pumping up, he's like wearing a Hornets jersey and that was cool because it made you feel proud of like Charlotte, North Carolina

all that. That's that kind of moment was really great. Also Bradshaw, which is an old legend, a Hall of Famer, he comes out and he's got a cowboy hat on. He's from Texas I guess and he talked massive, massive of shit about Charlotte.

Oh, is that right? Yes. So he gets in the ring and he's like, he's like, you know, talking, he's just buried us. That's, and the whole place is like, boo, the whole place, like 100%. Nobody was cheering that. That is hilarious. And then his wrestler goes in, you know, gets in the ring and wrestles, and he's shouting, the best, another great part was like when the wrestlers interact with the crowd.

So while they're wrestling and they're beating somebody else, up somebody around us would go you suck and the wrestler goes no you suck and they talk to the crowd and they're they do so so when they went when they go over with the crowd that's when they're winning it's such a weird thing man you're sitting there and you're like you're sitting there and you're hearing the crowd say things to this guy in the ring that you're like oh shoot man that was me that was rude that was so rude but that's what he wants because then he can interact back and he's going oh he's winning he's winning the crowd over not you know he's you you you want the crowd to either massively love you or massively hate you yeah one or the other

don't be a relevant don't be in between because you're irrelevant almost right when they're indifferent you're you're screwed when they could give a shi-less you're in big trouble that's a good point and so the bad guys in my opinion kind of have it the easiest because How hard is it to piss somebody off? Right. Making somebody appreciate you and love you is a challenge, but to piss somebody off is pretty easy. All you got to do is insult them.

Yeah. And so climbing that ring, be a real jackass, and go back and forth during the match with the crowd, you get the whole place pissed off at you. They're booing it, and they hate you. Steve Austin said that. He goes, yeah, it's easier to be a hill. Yeah.

That's why people wanted to be a hill. Yeah. It's insane. That is so funny and cool. I'm glad to hear that. All right, that's going to do it for Dirty Air. this week. I hope you guys appreciate it. I hope you love the announcement about Florence.

Let us know if you're going to try to make it out. If not, let us know if you're going to tune in by watching on Flow. Dirty Air brought to you by Filter Time. Filter Time is a subscription air filter business. I'm a co-owner with a friend of mine, Blake Cook, and we

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And we'd love you to sign up. Let's see, you're all good. They can hear us. So we are good to go. Thank you all for being patient, man. Anyways, you got some questions that you guys sent in to ask, or at Xfinity Racing on Twitter, so let's get right to it. All right, this first one comes from Cowboy 858,

and he says, what's the final update on the possum that was found after Vegas? We really don't think that the possum came from Vegas, obviously. everybody on social media was telling me there's no possums out there but we don't think that he got into the truck on the trip home so it's possible that while the truck got here and they put the lift gate down and we had some of the shop doors open that he came in and got into the collar that way and we unload the car and there he is um so once they removed him he took off in the direction like he knew where he was going that's what they said to me So anyways Possum's back where he belongs And we're going to probably Put that car on the sideline for the rest of the year Just to make sure he didn't chew any of the wiring up

And I think it was one of Justin Algeyer's cars So we're going to make sure that Justin didn't have any issues for the final remaining two races I appreciated the memes that came from the possum This next one comes from Sean Berg He says what do you think of Tony Stewart making his NHRA debut this weekend as a driver. Insane.

Insane. So I love this because, you know, we watch Tony race in, you know, I know, I know Tony has raced all types of vehicles, indie cars, cup cars, dirt cars and all that. And so he's probably not a great example of this, but when, you know, when a cup guy goes and runs the Indy 500, it's incredible. It's cool to watch. You know, it's challenging. They're experiencing something so new.

and it's fun to see how they adapt to it. And it's also fun to see our, you know, Tony is a hero to so many people. Tony is a, you know, so many people followed his career, supported his career, and they get to continue to do that, which is amazing for those people, right? I'm a big fan of Tony, and I love to, you know, see him active and behind the wheel. and so this will be a great way for all of us to engage in something that he's doing. And so I think it's a cool thing, especially with people that really, really followed his career closely. They have to be thrilled with the fact that they're going to be able to now have a new sort of reinvention of Tony Stewart as a racer in a whole other discipline.

They'll be able to go to races. they'll be able to support by the merch, you know, wear the shirt, all those things. That'll be so much fun for them. And the access that I know I've been to those races, the access that they get will be incredible. It'll be a great, it'll be a great thing, man. It's a big, big thing for drag racing for sure to have, has such a great name like Tony Stewart, actually competing on the track. A lot of people are trying in on our YouTube chat saying that the possum needs to be a part of your next children's book.

Be a good little addition. But this next one comes from Charlie Bonds. He says, hey, guys, new listener here. I was wondering who came up with the idea to start a podcast and why? Mike. Mike Davis. That's the reason why we're here is because this was all Mike's vision. As uncomfortable as he is hearing about this.

Mike came to me one day and said, we're going to create a podcast. We're going to develop a media. arm. We already had, we already were creating content here with J.R. 360, which was really popular. I was super proud of that. Mike was an amazing host for that for many years. And we, we just had a ton of fun with it. It was great for morale in the company. Everybody got to be a part of it in some way, shape, or form over the years. So it was a really, really good tool all around. It helped the company. It helped our employees. It helped our partners. But anyways,

I think that the confidence and the ability to learn how to create content gave Mike the confidence to branch out. He saw the boom of podcast before anyone else did in this building and knew we needed to be in this space. It was a great way for us to engage with fans, a great way for me to talk about my races and give some quick audio on the way home that was fresh all. You know, my mind's fresh on the race and can explain what we're doing and what's going on. Anyways, that's how it started. And it was rough, man, when we were, as far as the, in my opinion, man, when you look at, if you go back and listen to the first shows, man, it's not even the same show anymore. It's so different, so change, so it's evolved and it's a fun thing about it.

Is that, you know, podcasts, if you want, everybody's getting into podcasts, and I would encourage you if you're interested about it to do it, try it. It is fun, you know, and it's really free. You know, you can kind of create and do whatever you want. It's blank canvas and talk about whatever it is you enjoy and do, share it with your friends, share it with other people, trying to grow your, just trying to grow your listener base. All those things are a good challenge.

And it's relatively affordable as far as the equipment and all the things you need to be able to put it together. You learn a ton about it and about yourself. So also it's helped me a ton to be a better interviewer, but we can talk about that another day. It was a good thing that Mike did. All right, this last question. NASCAR just announced, you know,

we always talk about schedule innovation here and the changes that are coming. Well, NASCAR just announced that the NASCAR Euro Series is going ice racing next year in Finland, March 3rd and 4th. Do you think that would ever be anything that we would explore here stateside? I don't think so. Man, that's crazy.

I mean, I imagine up there it's probably not this crazy idea because there's a ton of ice. But I know that I'll be tuning in to see that. And that should be pretty interesting. But I don't think we'll ever see it in Expendity racing or trucks. You never know, though, man. Hey, the guy we got coming in here today, if it's been an idea in somebody's head, it'd be his. That's what I'm saying. We had Ben Kennedy on a couple weeks ago, and he said they were exploring some initiatives,

and I did not know that ice racing in Finland was one of them. So the Pinty Series. Yeah. Right. They are NASCAR. They're part of the NASCAR. Yeah, the Canadian tour. Yeah.

They're part of the NASCAR fold. So this is not like some, you know, this is something that they'll be paying attention to. You know, if it goes really, really well. NASCAR on ice. watching. Yeah. All right. Well, that is it for this week.

Talk about all throttle time. Talk about tire fall off. I mean, there's one way we can get those cars loosened up. Yeah, no kidding. They run spikes on them. Well, that is it for this week's Ask Junior again. We appreciate everyone hanging in there with us. All right, well, thanks for tuning in.

This was a lot of fun, as usual. Thanks to Xfinity for everything they do. I encourage you to check out the interview with Marcus that we'll be putting out. And have a great week, man. Appreciate it again, Xfinity for everything. they do for us. X-Fi is great.

It's a great service and I'm a customer and enjoy it. And we'll see you next week. Check out Dirty Mo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram.