The Dale Jr. Download - 412 - I'd Rather Lose Than Be Bored

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis are back in the Bojangles Studio for another edition of the Dale Jr. Download. As always, it’s time to kick off the week with Dirty Air, discussing the past weekend and current events. On this episode, the guys discuss: Valentine’s Day plans (1:00) Dale’s race weekend at Florence Motor Speedway (6:48) NASCAR’s new short track/road course race package (16:00) Daytona 500 predictions (30:00) During the Ask Jr. segment (44:30) of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding: Dale Jr’s Daytona 500 wins Super Bowl thoughts Drivers making weight  Earnhardt references in music 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.

There's about four people in this room with burgundy clothes on. You guys all planned it. Y'all didn't get the memo? I didn't get the memo. Nice observation there. I wonder if you've got a lot more observations that you just don't share with us because it hurt our feelings or something. Or because he thinks they're too silly or random?

Yeah. But that one was like on the fringe. They might like this one. Yeah. This one might get a chuckle maybe. You know, like the little intro laugh. What do you make? Sitting at him?

Am I honed over? Well, that's not what Kyle Petty said. Nah, a little slightly. Are you kidding me, Mike? You need to watch the freaking race. I did watch the race. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Dale Jr.

Download. This is Dirty Air with a little ass junior on the back end. Episode 412. I'm Dalyan Hart Jr. with me as my co-host, Mike Davis, here in the Bojangles studio. Mike, how you doing? Not bad, not bad. Yep. So happy Valentine's Day. Oh, thank you.

Right? Thank you. Same to you. Yeah. So I got up this morning. Amy had some presents out on the table, bags for each girl, Ila and Nicole and me. And she bought us all of vinyl records. Dang. Yeah, right. Amy got me like this trio of vinyl records love songs.

Juice Newton, Elvis Presley. and the righteous brothers. She got the girls a couple of vinyl records of some of their favorite stuff and just some knick-knack candy and things like that in the bag. But super thoughtful. Never, never, never fall short. What'd you get her? This is interesting.

So I'm going to take her to dinner tonight, right? And so I'm calling around this morning to book me a reservation, a couple of places around here that would be nice to go to. And I settled on an operation that I think she'd appreciate. So I was dropping the girls off in the car pool or the school line. And I asked somebody to call. I know there's a person that I know that knows this restaurant. And I was like, hey, can you call that restaurant that you know so well and see if they got an opening for two at 630?

and they told my friend they already had a reservation for you I didn't set it up I ain't you hitting set it up I'm pretty sure because I called her and I said hey man let's do some dinner tonight yeah that'd be fun it's gonna be busy well it'll be fun but

isn't that weird? Oh yeah The place already has a reservation I didn't set and no and you still don't know who said it? Well this is a mystery that we ought to uncover man I'm not sure I want to know.

Maybe, yeah, because somebody's actually setting up a reservation under your name. Mm-hmm. For themselves. Yeah. Not you. And I'm going to meet them at 630. That's right. We're going to find out who this imposter is.

Oh, man. There's some people I want it to be. Somebody. Yeah. Has, uh... They went in and played the Dale Jr. card, and they're not Dale Jr. It's not their card to play. Maybe what, maybe what's going on.

Um, anyways. Well, you did. well. I love, I really long for the days when Valentine's Day was much simpler. We just run to a gas station and run in there and grab a bag of, bag of goodies and bring it out and hand it to each other in the car. Now, that was fun. I think that's probably a lot, what most people do. Yeah. Actually, listen, Steve LaTartre told us last week that he does not celebrate Valentine's Day in his house. Tricia doesn't, he doesn't. Our head of content, Tiff Power said she doesn't celebrate Valentine's Day in her house. Nobody does. It's just one of them throw away holidays. It's just to get our

money for the Hallmark cards. It's just a, it's a scam. And I kind of went along with it. I didn't get my wife anything for Valentine's Day. Well, and she's probably going to do something and you'll feel like I asked her last night. I'm like, did you get me something? Because I didn't get you anything. And so far that's not, so far she's kept her word on it. Damn. Well, am I bad for that? No, you're not. Okay. I would probably adhere to the same sort of idea about certain holidays like Valentine's Day. But my wife and her experience growing up is more, they celebrate everything. They celebrate everything big.

Like Christmas, all of the holidays, they go all out. And there is not anyone that doesn't have some, you know, something to walk away with. in terms of a physical presence or physical presence or, you know, everybody gets celebrated. Everybody that's in the room, they go hard, man, on all, Easter is crazy at their place. We go to their Easter holiday, and last year, the women of the family made these, you know, the moms and the ants and everybody, made these nests in the yard. there were bunny nests for each child to sit and there was just yeah so they sat down in their nest

and around surrounding them were so many knickknacks and candies and toys and all the silliness you know the just silly you know five dollar toys but a lot of this stuff you know and all the kids had their own little sort of you know bunny nest

that was there and they sat there and just played in the toys and the candy for hours in the yard. As one would if you had your own nest with knickknacks. I mean, I'd be playing in the nest. It was thorough. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah.

And so I'm much more similar to you, whereas I'd get up on Valentine's Day and be like, yeah, let's go grab dinner, honey, I love you, and let's go celebrate how lucky we are to be together. And that'd be that. but Amy's going to wake you up with gifts and make the girls heart-shaped waffles. And you know what I mean? She's going to live in the day all day long. Well, listen, she wins the award. Good for her. Man, and lucky for you.

That's awesome. Yeah, but it's a pressure. I mean, I feel bad because I can't measure up. Well. Should I not worry about that or? Just enjoy it. Enjoy it. And if you have to measure up, make it be the other Dallener Hart Jr.

who's having dinner on your behalf tonight at the best of the restaurant. that's yet to be named. We want to talk about Daytona, Dayton 500 week. Everybody's excited about that. I'm excited about that, but I wanted to recap Florence. Yes. Went to Florence Moor Speedway and raced, and I got my butt kicked. I knew this was going to happen, and I dreaded it because, you know, we're just not going to be as, like, I ran, this is my third late model race since the 90s.

And the first one I ran third at Wilkesboro. and the second one we should have ran into top three, but I screwed up a little bit. So two great runs, two fast cars, well, you know, very competitive. This time, it was absolutely not, none of that. And I knew I was going to lose. I knew I was going to be, you know, get used up a little bit or make mistakes. I'm making more mistakes than I thought that I would make.

But I think in the last two races I ran over a couple people accidentally. And so got to clean that up. Anyhow, we didn't run good. We were slow, car. I thought I was riding, saving tires, which is critical at that racetrack and critical in most late model stock races where you kind of kind of, it's tire management. That's one of the reason why I love that car. The tire's not perfect. You don't just qualify every lap.

You got to save a little bit for the end. And I was saving, like everyone else, I wasn't, you know, pushing too hard. I was kind of sitting around 11th place. I wanted to be about 7th or 6th. Where did you start? I started 15th. Okay. And so I would like to have been a little further forward,

and any time I really tried to do anything to move forward, the car wasn't really giving me or doing what I wanted it to do, so that was a little concerning, but sitting there riding in 11th, okay. And, you know, the race went by really fast. No cautions, and toward the end we had a couple yellows that I was a part of and probably created really both of them. Did you? Yeah.

That's what happened? Yeah, I'll tell you. So when it came time to go with about 40 laps to go, everybody started going and I had nothing in the tank. Like my rear tires were wore out. I tried to mash the gas off turn for, and it just spin the tires and swing the back around, and they're driving away.

There's nothing I could do. And which was really alarming because our cars are always really fast, always top five cars. If you do everything right with your car, Josh Barry will go win in our car every time. And, you know, to sit there and not be able to even drive into the top ten was demoralizing. Our other car that Carson Quapel drives struggled even worse, but it had other issues, not similar issues to mine, so that was a little confusing.

My car went really loose, and his car went really tight. So either way, we struggled near the end of the race. I'm just kind of trying to keep up, doing best just to really make a salvageable day out of it. And Jed Burton was in the race, which is cool. have Jeb out there and be able to compete with him. And he was doing really well. He had went back and saved his tires a little better than I did, probably a little smarter than me about that at the start of the race.

And he's starting to move forward into the top ten. And a guy that he was having a little trouble getting by, cut him off. They got together and turned sideways into turn three. The guy in front of me is kind of bouncing off of them a little bit, but slowing down, trying to check up. And I start wheel hopping. I'm loose. My rear tires are junk.

I start wheel hopping the back into the corner on the brakes. And I'm wrecking. And the guy in front of me saved me. I hit him, and it saved me from spinning out. But it wrecked him. So that was one yellow. And then on the next restart, I'm sitting there going, man, my hood's been up. I'm just going to try to get home.

Let's finish this out. I think they're going to crash in front of me. There's potential for that with a 14 laps to go. Somebody's going to get run over. But that didn't happen. But anyways, we go down in the corner, and I didn't really charge too hard on the restart. and there was enough room in front of me for the guy on the outside to get down, and he needed to. He wanted to. That was, you did not want to be on the outside groove. So he starts trending down as we're entering turn one, and I piled it into the corner, way to, you know, trying to make up the gap. We came together. I hit him and spun him out. So yeah, that's, that's pretty embarrassing in and in and of itself, but the way we ran, I mean, we ended up finishing 15th or 16th. Got to have to try to go back and do better. I don't know. You know, I, I, I, I knew we'd lose some races.

I knew I wouldn't be as good as Josh is in the car because of the inexperience and knowledge that I lack about the car, what it will do and what it's capable of. But I thought we could, you know, I thought on our bad day we'd still run into side to top 10. But it says a lot about how competitive the field is, how good the cars are. I know that's, you know, cliche, but it's true. The drivers are capable. The cars are absolutely capable. And we just got smoked. Your car looked good, by the way.

The paint skiing. Yeah, I know. I would have liked to run better with that particular design on the car. But we're going to run some more races this year. I think the next race is Wilkesboro. Okay. If there's one in between, I don't have it on the schedule right yet, but I could jump and go down to a weekly show somewhere.

I can't get to the Cars Tour races. I wasn't going to talk about that down the road a little bit. But getting out, we've invested in the Cars Tour. That's right. You're an owner. But getting to those races is still going to be a challenge for me. So my wife has planned a spring break vacation with our kids on the first race. Yeah.

So I'm not going to be there. Burton, although we'll be there representing the new ownership group. So I'm excited about his boots on the ground for that particular weekend. But anyways, I wanted to run Florence, which is March 25th. But that is Amy's birthday. Can't do that. Can't be racing on her birthday. So anyways, we had a...

You know, last week was, let's move on to Dale Jr. download last week. First three, you know, first time we really kind of split it up into three shows. A lot of people, you know, were a little concerned about how that might go. Wow, you know, it wanted all in one spot. But I'm telling you, man, after everybody ingested all of it, I think my experience was very positive in terms of how people felt about the shows and getting more content, you know. uh from us we all so i'm i'm very happy about that um so hopefully going forward everybody you know

this is the new norm in terms of our show uh actions detrimental did really well which i was happy to see did very well um denny seems to be enjoying it he's got two episodes now in the bank and um hopefully you know it's going to be a grind he's going to have weeks where you know he's going to be tired wore out but uh well i mean his first episode he was sick as a dog and still did it so like It only uphill from here. Yeah. Imagine that being, you know, week 10. Maybe it's something.

So, week one, he was able to power through. When it comes down to week 10, week 15, and he feels that way, that's when we'll find out really what he's got. Let's see what he's made of. See what's he going to do. Yeah. Dirty Mo Doe with Steve LaTart. A new show also that I was excited about.

Both of those were in the top 10 of Apple Sports Podcasts throughout the week in the weekend. And I'm looking forward to seeing, I'm really curious to see how Dirty Mo Doe does. I think I told Steve, I said it's a labor of love. You're going to have to put a lot in. You know, the returns will come due to the effort that you put into it. But I think there's a very good potential for something like that to be successful in our sport. I think that's content that people will find enjoyable.

Whether you're a gambler or not, I think it's an interesting show. Any additional comments on all of our stuff we got going on here at Durymo Media Mike? I would say that going back to the Dale Jr. Download, look at what our Thursday episode produced for us that we otherwise wouldn't have. You were able to call Sterling Marlin back up. We had Sterling Marlin on the show on the download twice last week. Once for the Wednesday edition and then Thursday for the stuff that we didn't ask on Wednesday. Exactly. And I thought that was an amazing opportunity and that right there made it a success. And this week as well provides us opportunities like every week will. Right. So for example, this week, the Daytona 5 hundred qualifying is on Wednesday. You have all types of things happening throughout the week that we will be able to highlight and talk about, right? Give our opinions about. We'll be able to handicap the field after seeing the qualifying results, have an understanding

of each duel and who might be the favorite to win those. We'll be able to have that as content in our Thursday show. We can't do that content if we're doing a Tuesday only podcast. So that's what I always missed about our show was the ability to kind of follow the news throughout the week and comment on it. And a lot of things that we might say on our show on Tuesday is then irrelevant on a Thursday. And we weren't able to come back and either clean it up or give a new opinion or have any kind of reaction.

And so that's really cool. There's a lot of great things going on in the industry. Obviously, we're going to get to the Daytona 500 conversation. But there's a new short track package. And I want to talk about that because, you know, the Daytona 500 is a, you know, the Daytona 500 is a restricted plate race and there's not you know there the next time that we run this package is a few weeks but we know that you know there was this sort of groundswell of support to bring more short tracks back into this into the series and we all want that Saturday night beating bang emotional

you know short track action that we were seeing at Martinsville the drama and issues that it would create being in the playoffs and so forth. The, you know, Denny and Chase, Turex and Ligano, all of those sort of moments, even Denny and Bowman. We wanted to see if we could, you know, get more of that into our series. But after racing the next-gen car at the short tracks and the road courses over the last year, we really recognized that that style of racing suffered greatly with the new car.

Why is that? So, you know, they got a lot of undercarriage downforce. You got the, you know, the diffuser on the back and all kinds of, you know, things that are channeling air under the splitter down the underneath of the car. There's all these little wings and sort of valleys that they have created to really move that air under the car to the diffuser so that it will maximize really a good potential to create downforce. This was a great idea because forever we've complained about aeropush and being tight behind. the lead car. Well, if you're creating down force underneath the car, that shouldn't be disturbed as

as much when you're following someone. You should still be able to create down force. You're going to lose that downforce on top of the car with the spoiler and all those things. So this was a great idea in theory. And it's produced some great racing at the mile and a halfs and so forth. But it's short tracks we really, really suffered. Bigger,

wider tire was one part of that. The braking performance, greatly improving, made the braking zones really, really short. So if you tried to charge into a corner and outbreak somebody, you couldn't do it. Everybody's breaking performance was so, you know, so exceptional. And so NASCAR is going to, they had some tests. They made some changes that they're going to implement going forward. They're going to run a shorter spoiler. I think it's a two-inch spoiler. So it's about, you know, going from a four, I think, to a two-inch spoiler. They're changing a lot of things underneath the car. And basically,

Basically, the diffuser will look a little bit different, and they're taking away a lot of the things that sort of direct that air to the diffuser, and all of this should change the car about 300 pounds of downforce underneath, which I think is a smart move. I would love for them to see what racing might be like without a spoiler. Right, because you've been asking for that spoiler to go for a while. I know. There are people that think, man, that's a bad idea,

and maybe not even necessary because of what kind of downforce is. generated underneath the car. But I mean, let's just take it out of the equation for once and see, right? But anyhow, that's another conversation for another day. All of this stuff that they're going to change for Martinsville, Short Tracks, Richmond, and other places, will take about 300 pounds of downforce away. That is a good change. That's a significant change. It's also going to take some drag off the car. So the car will feel like it has more horsepower. It will slightly have more acceleration down the straightaway. That also, that drag being off the car, will require the driver to use more brake to start braking sooner, right? If that drag is not

there, it's about 50 counts of drag. And so that should lengthen the braking zone slightly, right? Yeah, should. If they're going faster down the straightaway, they'll have to break in the, you know, in the braking zone's a little harder. Yeah. And the, and without the drag slowing the car down, you know, also increasing braking there. So, um, I think those are good things, good direction. I am not certain that it's enough. I think that, you know, is it a big enough swing? I don't know that it will be.

A couple of things that I feel like are worth considering is, and I talked to LaTart and he brought this up, which is a great idea. NASCAR is trying to make changes without requiring the seams to buy new parts. That's right. That's a huge distinction. Yeah. Everything that they're going to do, they have to get approved. through the teams. The teams could obviously

NASCAR could put a package forward and the teams could go, no, we don't want to do that. That's going to cost money, not doing it. Go back to the drawing board. And defeat the purpose of the next gen car to begin with. NASCAR has come up with a package and a change that will require nothing but removing parts, right? So the teams are okay with that.

But going forward, I think it might be important to, if the breaking zone is 100 feet, it needs to be 300. They need to be, 300. they need to lengthen this braking zone and how do you do that?

You take away braking performance you take away tire or down force, right? So maybe some spec parts that greatly decrease the braking performance would serve NASCAR really well to multiply the length of the braking zone so that, you know, I can try in that 300 foot of braking

to drive the car further down in the corner. Right? And that gives me a bigger runway you know, to operate and try to outperform a guy or a girl into breaking zone. And so, you know, if that's 50 foot, that's happening. There it is. It's over. Breaking zone's done.

We're in the middle of the corner. I didn't really get much of it. You know, there's a very small runway to try to do something different. Now, when you, when you have to break way back there just past the start finish line, now we're talking. Now we're giving ourselves opportunities to try to charge the corner a little further or make mistakes. See what driver.

are willing to do. Yeah. And they're all different. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think, too, something that is more unlikely to happen is a narrower tire. Now, they're not going to go back to the small wheel or the older style tire and wheels. You know, that would require massive changes in the braking components and the brake disks

are so much bigger. We are, we are stuck with this wheel. The wheel's not changing. No. but they could make the tire more narrow. They would need new wheels that would be narrow as well to manage that probably. I don't know that, you know, if there's a 10-inch or a 12-inch contact patch, if we went down to like eight inches of contact patch,

a narrower tire would give you much less traction. You would have to slow down sooner for the corner so that you didn't blow through the middle of the corner or swing the back in the middle of the corner, do the lack of contact patch or lack of a literal tire on the corner. ground. So another idea, if they can't, you know, if they wouldn't be able to really go to a smaller wheel, smaller tire to get more, you know, get some tire off the ground, it's possible that you could do a treaded situation, a treaded tire. Wow. All right. If a treaded, you know, you have a similar, you have the same tire we have now, but treaded would remove rubber from the racetrack, remove contact

packs from the racetrack, but that would create new challenges as well with heat and so forth and chunking the tire. But it's worth looking at. Now, I've talked to. Now, I've talked to Ryan Priest about this and he's like man the the tire size is not a problem look at the modifies the modifies run a massive tire and it and they have great racing but what the modified has that we we don't have in the cup series is a lot of fall off they have a softer tire their tire wears out and so if NASCAR you know in Goodyear could find a way to make this tire degrade severely right we don't want it to fail we don't want it you know we don't want to put the drivers in any kind of danger, but what we do want them to do is slide around

and have, you know, after 40 laps, be on worn out tires just hanging on, not able to use the throttle off the corner, spin in the rears. Basically what I experienced at Florence this past weekend, right? And so a much, much softer degradable tire is going to be necessary to make that happen. We have begged for that from Goodyear forever. But Good Year, I don't know if they even could do that. And not knowing anything about that, I wonder why they can't do that. I don't either. Why is that so hard to make a compound that just falls off quicker?

Yeah. When they, you know, we would love to get a good year guy in here to talk to us about this, but a lot changed over the last decade, decade and a half with good year in terms of the chemicals that they use in the tires. They went to a greener tire. And when that tire went, they went to a bunch greener tire and took out some of those components, the tire wore differently, where it would, it was more of a gumball and kind of would ball up these little marbles. And it's now more dusty in terms of how it wears away.

But anyhow, you know, the tire, the tire is important. It's the most, it connects the car to the road. Does Goodyear want a tire that wears out? Is that going to help them sell tires in the, you know, to mainstream America on the highway, if their tires are literally just falling apart on the race cars, is that good? Maybe they look at that and go, no, we don't want to put a tire out there that wears out in 40 laps. That's a fair point.

I'm not going to be able to sell. Yeah, I'm not going to be able to sell Jim Bob a set of four good years over at the tire store. At tire pros, I'm not going to be able to sell Jimmy Bob. Tires when he sees them things wore to the cords in 40 laps at the race at Martinsville. Yeah. Maybe that's something. There's logic in that. There's also a counter argument you could also make is like, well, look at all the PR that

Goodyear gets every week about, why is this tired the way it is? I mean, like, you could argue that both ways. That's interesting, though. Now, so keep going, because you've got all these recommended changes. That's it. Well, listen. That's my case. I've stated it.

Then if I can play just devil's advocate, because I really just don't know. Like, it sounds to me, though, that your changes would require more expenses, right? Yeah, and these are changes. that I wouldn't say I would ask the teams to take on today. But these, if this does not produce anything worthwhile this year, we're going to have to spend some money. We're going to have to spend some money. I agree with that.

Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that they're doing something right now that is not just going and asking teams to spend money. Or, I mean, and this ain't just short tracks. This is road courses too. That's right. You could kiss these short tracks goodbye. If this, you know, if we don't find a way to make compelling,

racing happen with this next year in car at Martinsville at Richmond at Bristol. People will stop going. You're 100% right. And those race tracks will get replaced. And you know, and I was trying to think about that. Why is that so important to us? And I think I know why. Short tracks are personal for NASCAR and for stock car racing because that's what that's,

if we can't get short tracks right, this is our stuff. The stock cars belong on short tracks. Now, we'll go to intermediates. We'll go to Super Speedways and we'll try out road courses like we do. But short tracks belongs to us. Indy car doesn't do short tracks right. All those other racing series don't do short tracks right. That's go all the way to the grassroots, whether it's late models or whatever.

That's us. If we can't get that right, it says something. So it's almost like it's personal because you advocate for short tracks. Everybody advocates for short tracks, right? Why? Because it's like our family. It's deeply personal the short tracks are. You know what?

You could talk about Kansas. You can talk about Chicago. You can talk about those tracks if they don't produce good races. don't talk about my Martinsville, don't talk about my Bristol. And then, you know, let's get to the fairgrounds. Let's go try to create these other short tracks. That's when we start getting offended. But then if we can't do our own racing on it, if we can't put our own cars on it

and it race well, well, then that's a problem and something we've got to fix. That's right. You know, hopefully, like I say, I mean, there are, the changes they're making are significant. We're going to find out how much that, you know, will matter. And be with NASCAR, you know, they're ready to make more. more changes. They're not going to let this suffer. For all those reasons. They know. They know how important they are. By the way, if anybody wants to, you know, take this another layer and really kind of understand how the manufacturers, you know, built their bodies for this next-gen car

and why Toyota didn't really do well at short tracks, go listen to actions detrimental this week. Denny Hamlin gives a master's class on what happened with the Toyota on short track, specifically in how the changes. Like you said this last week where, you know, you try to address one change on the next gen car, but it has an effect somewhere else, right? And in trying to cool down the drivers and what they did to cool down the drivers and dissipate that heat, it affected the Toyota's short track package. And the way they built their body because it was all centered around the spoiler and now

you're cutting holes here and cutting holes there and all that stuff. And then he said that's why Toyota sucks so bad. at short tracks. Well, now they're all resetting the deck. They've resubmitted their, you know, their stuff. They're all looking at seeing if there can be in a box is how Denny said it. The downforce and the drag box, right? Like these things and trying to have parity. And after they made those changes last year, Toyota was out of the, they fell out of that box. Now he thinks they're back in the box. I sent him a text saying, hey, with this recent, you know, these, you know, new changes that they're suggesting, how does that affect Toyota anymore? He doesn't think that those changes are

big enough to where it'll really affect anything. But I just think it's very interesting if you really want to understand, you know, the effects of that stuff and how the manufacturers go about submitting it. Go listen to actions detrimental this week. Daytona 500 week. Let's talk about the schedule. You got qualifying on Wednesday 8.15 p.m. That's crazy.

Yep. Thursday, Arka Practice, truck practice. And then the Dules at 7 p.m. on Thursday evening. We'll have a Thursday show out just talking about qualifying and the lineup for the duels and giving you our picks for the winners of the duels and talking about the guys that are going to have to work their way into the race and how that might happen for Jimmy Johnson and so forth. And then on Friday, Archer qualifying at 1.30, truck qualifying at 3, Exfinity practice 435. Cup practice is at 535. The truck race goes off at 7.30 on Friday night.

Saturday Cup practice at 10.30 in the morning. The Exfendi cars will qualify at 1130. You'll have an Arka race at 1.30, and then the Xfinity race follows at 5 p.m. And then on Sunday, your Daytona 500 to 230 start time. It's not noon. It's not one, but 2.30. Not too bad. You'll take that.

I guess. You know, you want the thing to be hot, sunny, tough for them guys, slick around the racetrack, you know, that sun, just beating down on that surface And of course, you know, the Daytona 500 to me is the day race and the July race is the night race. And you shouldn't have either one of them starting at one point and ending in the other. But 2.30 is a good start time. I guess I'm going. So are you going?

You're going with me, right? So Thursday, we're heading down there. Yeah. I got a few things I'm doing. Yeah. Some Q&As at the track. And we're doing a live show, aren't we? That's why I'm going.

Yeah. What is that about? It's for Chevrolet. Chevrolet. We did this a few years ago, but we're going back to their sheriff. Has it been two years ago? It was in 2020. Oh, my.

Yeah, right before the pandemic. So we're doing a live show for Chevrolet that will come out on all our dirty mode media channels, right? That's right. It'll be a bonus episode of the download. There you go. We'll also put it on our YouTube channel. Okay. And who's our guests?

Can we say who our guest is? Why can't we? Why will we want to hold off? I think we will. Let's announce it right now. Jimmy Frickin Johnson and Chad Gnauss. Chad Gnauss Is it Gowne?

Is it Gnows? What I said? Chad Gnows. You added a G on that one. Yeah, you did. Is it Knauss? I couldn't be the first person to say it that way. I've never heard anybody else say it like that.

Everybody nails that pronunciation. Sorry, Mark. Sorry. Okay. I just, I had to point that out. All right. So Jimmy Johnson and Chad Gowne's are coming on the show. Okay.

There you go. I think maybe, you know, you want to say canals, but no. When you put those two words together, you're going to put a G in. You've never mispronounced anything in your life I've had. No. No, you've never butchered the English language.

Ever. Not a signal time. That's exactly right. Say ambulance. Ambulance. You put letters in words that don't even belong. Yep, all the time. So, all right, that'll be fun. You know, obviously going to be down there

trying to support our extended guys and junior sports cars. What do we think about Daytona 500 winners? who's going to win this race. You know, Denny had a great point on his show. You'll get lucky one time at Daytona, but you're not going to get lucky twice. That's right.

So, you know, tell me who you think can, who you, you know, he had a, he had like a top five or top ten. Yes, he did. He said, if Rex didn't factor in, here's who would be in the top five. There isn't a crash. It takes any of these contenders out.

Here's your top five. Right. I'm going to try to think here. He said himself. He's right. He said Brad Goslowski. He's right. He said, Ryan Blaney?

Yes. He said, William Byron? I don't look. What's that? And Joey Lagano. That's right. I like the Lagano. Byron, I'm not 100% on him.

I mean, Jenny's out there racing with the guy. Byron has done some good stuff at the plate tracks. But I don't know, man. There's some other guys that are interchangeable with Byron there. I tell you what, if I'm looking at the odds, you gave us the odds the other day. I'm taking Kevin Harvick. Those are big, long odds. And, I mean, Harvick, can't you just see him coming through here?

I'm going to say Kevin Harvick. It's kind of a dark horse. Yeah, so the odds have, you know, Denny Chase, Ryan Blaney, Joey, or Denny Chase and Ryan Blaney are at 12 to 1. They got Joey Larson and Bush at 14 to 1. I think Joey belongs in that first group. Yeah, he does. Larson does not belong on this page.

Like, no. He doesn't like plate racing. He claims to be, you know, not enthused about it, doesn't really understand it, doesn't... Doesn't fake it. He doesn't like it. Which I think taints his opinion of the Daytona 500 in general as the Great American Race or the biggest race of the year, right? Now, if he were to win it, he would absolutely be thrilled and more than happy to celebrate that.

But with his lack of confidence or love or passion for that style of racing, I don't feel great. great about his chances. Right. You're defeating yourself before you can get to the tunnel. Yeah. Kyle Bush, I think it's a good plate racer, but he's had tough luck. Yeah.

I don't believe. He's 14 to 1? Yeah. Yeah, he has tough luck at Daytona. I got William at 16 to 1 and Ross Chastain at 16 to 1. Ross is an interesting. I think that's an interesting one. Interesting one.

Can't you see Ross potentially get there? I could see Ross win in this race. Yeah, and if he does, he'll definitely wreck Denny on the way up to the front. I don't think so. Please, they have a magnet. No, they're a magnet. This is absolutely how the Daytona 500 goes. A guy like Ross is, you know how you get that,

you get that feel good story on the pole and you get that, you know, that feel good, you know, last year, Cendrick wins it, right? Rookie coming in, a two car, a lot of pressure. Guys, you know, if he don't win the Daytona 500, he disappeared. Yeah. Right? The rest of the season. And so that kind of safe.

his year, but also, you know, that's kind of a great way to start your cup career. It was a big story. The two car is an iconic car in the series and had a new driver that, you know, not a lot of people knew much about or what to expect. Chastain could come in and absolutely, you know, find his way to victory lane. I'm not going to say he'd luck into it because he's won at Talladega. I think his mentality and attitude absolutely set him up for success at a place like that. Racing at a plate race like Daytona and Talladega is as much about your attitude in general to life, your approach to any challenge or challenges, that is as important as the car or anything else that's going to happen that day. All right. If you are the kind of person,

that is a risk taker, gambler, you know, don't give a damn, go for it, try it, put it out there, let's see what happens kind of guy, right? That's a pretty solid approach to restrictive plate racing. If you're measured, conservative, timid, careful. That is not a great approach. That is a good approach at other racetracks, at most racetracks, at road courses. being sharp, measured and careful and cautious and protective and getting to the finish. All of these things, you know, work really well at most racetracks.

But a lot of times, man, the guy that's sort of the mover, the shaker, the person that's ready to kind of, you know, not allow things to settle, right? Somebody that's always kind of mixing up the solution out on the racetrack, like Denny. So everybody goes to the top of the race. racetrack, right? We've seen it time and time again. Who's the one, when we watch the top 20 or top 30 cars, line up with the top. Oh, we're going to, everybody's okay to ride around. We're all going to ride around. I'm good. I'm in 15th. I'm going to ride. You're in 14th. You're going to ride. The guy on 20th, he's good. All right, we're all up here. Let's knock out some laps. Let's get

100 miles in the books here, guys. Who's going to pull out a line and go to the bottom? I would have said Joey, but you're saying Denny. Denny. Jenny in the Xfinity it was Noah There's those guys that just will not settle And sit there and go I don't this boring I ain't doing this shit all day I'm gonna pull out a line I don't care if I lose 20 spots

I'm gonna do it Because I'm not gonna sit here and ride This is not what I came here to do today And I'm gonna I'd rather lose Then be bored That's the kind of guy that's gonna find himself Toward the front or could you know, could upset the traditional odds.

Okay. So also don't you, okay, so you're saying attitude is the number one factor. Yeah. Wouldn't you agree that support and teammates or not teammates, but drafting partners or whatever it is, people to go with you is also somewhere up there towards the top? That is, but that's circumstantial. That's coincidence.

Yeah, you don't really have control of that. You have no idea. If the winning car, the winning car at the end of the race, the guy that wins the race. right, the car that comes across the finish line. Do you think with 10 to go, he has a freaking clue who's going to be giving him that push? I would say if you're Penske and the teammates and you've been working together along. How many times have they wrecked each other?

On the last lap is different. But I'm saying is that I think that that's what makes the Penske cars for sure so good, is that they work together so well. Oh, I mean, during the 400 of the 500 miles, teammates are absolutely going to be working together and helping each other from time to time. Okay. But, I mean, at the end of the race, That last lap, you are taking that push wherever it comes.

Wherever it comes. From whoever. And also, are you willing to block? Everybody's willing to block. Not everybody. I mean, Denny talked about, that's where Denny says he and Joey are completely different. Like, he thinks Joey's aggressive. He doesn't think he is.

Denny. Denny doesn't think Denny is, not Joey. Denny, anybody, you're coming off turn two, you got a two-car-length lead white flag. The two-car lengths is too big. By the time you get to the end of the back straightaway, the car or cars are coming from behind are going to be there. Denny is moving in front of one of those lines. He actually gave an example of where he didn't and lost the race.

Well, a block to Denny is probably something very aggressive that we would commonly see from Lugano. I call, I mean, Denny is going to impede a line. He's not going to just pull. He's not just going to sit there and say, all right, everybody go by. he's going to pull down in front of somebody and I think Denny's a one-moved guy in terms of when he chooses which way he's going to go,

that's his choice. He's not going to move back and forth. Now, Legato, he might make six or seven blocks down the back straight away, all right? I'm on the team of you get one block, you get one move. You choose once and that's your choice, right? Because you're going to lose momentum?

Because you're going to, you know, there's going to be consequences? I think it just becomes dangerous. Or, yeah, you're just not going to get away with it. It's terribly freaking dangerous to try to pull down. Oh, damn, I pulled down to block the bottom, but the top's the one I should have pulled up. I'm going to pull up front of them. That's when the wrecks happen.

Yeah. All right. But that's what Joey's willing to do. Joey's willing to be wrecked if it means that he might, you know, I'm going to block the lane I should block. Yeah. Denny and me or other drivers, there's, it's different theories, but that's not, nothing, I mean, you know, Joey's going to do what Joey wants to do. He's done to tell us.

So I'm not going to follow him. He owns it. But Denny and me, and I think Denny and I am pretty similar, you come out the corner and you get one choice, right? Which is going to be? We're going to block this guy. I'm going to block that guy. You pick one, and that's the one you picked.

And once you've chosen that, that's what you stick with, all the way down the back straightaway off into three. and you hope that even if you might have chosen incorrectly initially, that by time you come through three and four and off of the turn to take the checker that somehow you've recovered or the line that you chose is now moving forward. I mean, I always, I'm like, man, I'm going to make the move that I think I need to make on the back straightaway or wherever to block. I'm going to make it once, and I'm going to hope that that's the choice that I needed to make.

If not, I'm not willing to destroy myself. That's exactly how I think you would say, like, yeah, if at some point you're just going to get wrecked. If you just are moving chican all over the place on the last lap, right? Yeah. So who's your pick? Who do you think is going to win? Or do you want to wait until Thursday when you see how they qualify?

Well, I mean, we can change our minds. Of course I can. But I think right out of the gate, dude, I'm telling you, Chastain's, that's speaking to me a little bit. And I can see Daytona just has that potential to be that sort of storybook. And man, the trackhouse story has been incredible. It's been electric. And it would be an amazing way to kick off a season with a win from that team and Chastain, right?

Yeah. He's a polarizing individual. He doesn't always want to be. But he's a hard charger and, you know, rubs from fenders on the racetrack, which we all like. so we all want him in the mix. We all want him in the mix of the season, right? We want him. That win at Daytona would lock him into the playoffs.

We know we're going to get Chastain all year long, right? Tastain's going to be a contender all year with a win at Daytona. So I'm going to go, Ross Chastain is the winner of the Daytona 500. All right. I'm going to Kevin Harvick is a dark horse, but a winner. I'm going to ride with that for a while. You are. Until I changed my mind.

Yeah, we're definitely coming Thursday with some different opinions, I'm sure. That's right. All right, man. Well, we want to move on to Ask Junior now? Yeah. All right, let's do it. And we are live, Dale. All right, we're here with Ask Junior on the Dale Jr. download.

Thanks for tuning in on our YouTube page and supporting us. Andrew Curlin is going to be pulling all our questions together that you have sent in for us. And so, Andrew, you ready? I'm ready. Let's get fired up. Go. Let's do it. This first one is from Michael, and we were just talking about the Daytona 500.

How is it different winning the Daytona 500 in 2004? versus 2014. Well, obviously two different races. The 2004 win is one of my favorites, man, because I'm going to brag a little bit, but we are, if you, I've posted this on Twitter from time to time, but I love to go back and look and ride on the in-car camera, and in, they had the throttle.

And you can see, Tony's leading, I'm running second, and Kurt Bush is a lap car that's behind us, and Kurt was mad at me because we had bumped earlier in the race and he got a flat tire and he'd put him a lap down, and he was trapped a lap down the entire race, and he was basically, you know, he was basically not going to do anything that was going to help us.

He's not going to push me by Tony. And I kind of, even if he wasn't mad at us, I have no problem with that because he's a lap car and I probably would feel the same way if I was in his shoes. I'm like, I'm not going to help somebody. I'm not going to influence what happens here. But so I was on my own. And you can see as I'm running those last 20 laps or so,

trying to find a way around Tony, how I'm lifting off the gas and backing up and then get back on the gas and trying to figure out where I needed to time the run so that as I'm accelerating back up toward Tony, where did I need to be on the racetrack? What was it off of two? Was it into three off of four?

Where did I need to be when I was catching him? When I was getting right to him, right? And so I was trying to test that out for multiple laps. I had nothing else to do, right? I had nothing else going for me. That was all. And so, you know, Tony wasn't just going to lay over. And so as you're watching this in car, you can see me sort of going part throttle, three-quarter throttle,

and getting further and further back, and then mashing the gas and running up toward him and seeing, okay, didn't time it right. That didn't help. That didn't develop anything. But there's one particular time where, for whatever reason, we got the run timed perfectly as he's exiting four and he's sort of bogged down on corner exit a little bit. and we're accelerating just at the right point where he's probably his weakest

and I think you know I don't know if I faked high or not but I get underneath him through the front straightaway and we ran side by side for a lot you know almost half a lap or so down the front straightaway off into turn one and two and we're running around the bottom of one and two

and Tony's up on the top of the racetrack against the wall. Kurt's up there, a couple carlinks behind him, and we come off a turn two and Tony clears me by an inch. I mean, he's clear by just an inch or so.

And I'm really tucked right into his left rear bumper, trying to create some side draft, and I'm almost losing it. I'm like, the side draft's almost broken, like it's not, I'm not close enough up to his left rear to get it to work, but it's just barely there and it starts gaining more it starts happening right the side draft starts happening happening

and uh as i start to ease up his quarter panel the side draft is getting stronger and stronger and i'm the effect that it's having on my car pulling me forward and pulling him back and then we bumped i got i'm trying to side draft him so tightly that we we can you know i touched his door with my tire and and as soon as i touched him it it's it knocked like a mile an hour out of his car like kind stopped, you know, it did something where we kind of stopped him. And so that was unintentional, but it still played a role. And I sidetracked him and jerked, you know, jerked the car to the left, pull away from him so that now, as I'm moving past him, he can't side draft me. But he could have turned down the racetrack and tried to.

He didn't. I was so surprised that, man, he didn't try to sidest me and keep himself beside me. me. I think he would have eventually won the battle. Kurt would have probably ended up, you know, assist him somewhat to be able to reclaim the lead. But he just set up there against the wall as we kind of moved on by. And I'll never forget that. As long as I live, I love to go back and kind of watch that and relive that. The 2014 race was just, you know, the long rain delay was kind of miserable, but I remember just being completely two different people. The first half of the race and then the second half of the race. I felt like when we, so in the first half of the race,

I didn't feel like we had anything going for us. I didn't feel good about what I was doing. I didn't feel in rhythm with the car or the race. I didn't think any of the moves, the choices I was making were doing anything. And if the race hadn't arraigned out, we would have probably steadily been that way the whole day and, you know, maybe got lucky and finished into top five, but probably not won the race. During the break, I always felt like when we would have the rain delay brakes that as a driver, you could fall asleep mentally. Like you would disconnect from the moment, right? Absolutely. And so I always thought, man, that's an advantage for me. If these guys sort of disconnect from the moment, lose the energy, right? Lose the passion for what we're doing that day.

Some people do, right? They sign out. They check out. out. And maybe they don't even know they're checking out. But they're like, damn, I'm tired. I'm just ready to get his O with. That's when you know they're done. They're checking out. When somebody's, you know, when somebody was walking up to their car after a long rain to land, they're like, damn, I hope we can get this in. I'm ready to go home. That guy going to win the race. And so, especially not a technical mental race like a plate race. So I'm sitting there thinking, man, this, I might have, I might, you know, improve my chance. as this brain delay gets longer and longer. And so when we got out there to finish the race, then I just drove like a jerk. Anytime anybody got up beside me, like there was a long time when it was me and Biffle up front. And Biffle got on my outside,

and I'm like squeezing him against the wall. And so he's like a couple inches off the wall. I'm a couple inches off of him. And I could stall him out. Our cars would start fighting over the cow pressure. And I was like, you ain't going anywhere, buddy. I didn't have any help behind me. You ain't going anywhere.

You checked out mentally. during the rain break. Well, he was the one, he's one of the guys that didn't check out. Like, me and him, like, stayed in the moment. And by time we buckled back in, it was either me or Biffel going to win that race. And so, but I didn't have any drafting help on the bottom. And I remember, like, piling him into the wall down the back straightaway, just stalling his car out. And everybody behind him is, like, stacked up behind him, and they're afraid to push him because we're so close.

Like, a push could, you know, could crash us all out. And so, but I was my only way to stall him and stop him and hold him there and wait for help to push me back toward the lead into the lead. So I just remember those things happening and I'll watch the races back to remember those specific moments. It's pretty fun. That 2014 race was my first Daytona 500 and I was in the stands and I remember you had that victory lap, the end of the Polish victory lap at the end of the race. I always loved turning and looking at the fans. Yeah. We would win anytime we won at Daytona, you wanted to.

the crowd reaction man really sort of is it's part of the experience and so the best way to get that right is a turnaround and go the wrong way my first Daytona 500 was my first Daytona 500 in the behind the wheel of a car you would think right all my life I would have seen a Daytona 500 in person before that but I'd never been to the Daytona 500 even when I was racing in an infinity series in 9899 I went home after I race And yeah. So the very first Daytona 500 I ever witnessed was the 2000 as a rookie. How cool is that? That is cool. I did not know that. This next question, we saw a bunch of these on social media. What did you think of the Super Bowl? Did you have a favorite commercial? Well, I didn't really think that any of them stood out this year. For some reason, you know, the game.

With you, man. Yeah. And I was okay with this. The game was so good, right? that it didn't matter that there wasn't any of those impact you know them them commercials that sort of make an impression on you I will say you know there's been some good ones over the over the decades that we've been watching the game one thing that I miss is the Bud Bowl I almost tweeted that because I thought that there was a there was a notable lack of Budweiser anything bud bud but like I mean I saw the Mick Ultra things I didn't

I wasn't that impressed I thought Anheuser Bush used to own the Super Bowl and now there was nothing and I'm like God bring back the Bud Bowl man something yeah man I don't know

the Bud Bowl as a as a I don't know I mean I don't even know how old I was when that bud bowl was happening but I was pretty young

right I mean it was fun I mean you were like hey I can't wait till the next installment of the butt bowl comes on whenever that is and tell us what the update the score is right

I want to get an update on this game then bottles are getting hostile out there right yeah and so I don't know I guess it wouldn't be as good now because, you know, it's a commercial.

You know, it's an ad, right? But back then, it didn't feel like an ad. It felt like a totally different game that was going on that you really wanted some, you really wanted Bud Light to win, right? They were never going to let Bud Light win, though. You know that, right? Well, it's the Bud Bowl. It's not the Bud Light Bowl.

But they had multiple Bud Bowls, right? I mean, like it was one, two, three. They had the Roman numerals, just like the Super Bowl. Little bottles with the helmets on them. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. But, like, you know, I'm with you, man. Nothing stood out.

I think the creative agencies are just trying too hard to have this, you know, they're going to get these stars and I don't know, man. It just, their creativity is just not hidden for me. Yeah, it was a flat, a little flat, but it's okay. I think it's okay because, I mean, there are so, The years where I walk away from the Super Bowl and go, man, there was two great commercials. I mean, that's the problem.

I don't want to walk away and go, you play that game? Yeah. What hell the game that was? You know? Yeah, a couple of cool commercials. But the game. And that was a good game.

Now, I know a lot of people were upset about that one call that, you know, the, the, the, the, I read about that on social media. I really didn't think it was a big deal till I saw. some reactions from some of the insiders and so forth in the NFL. You did? Yeah. I mean, I didn't. I mean, I'm just, I've gotten so numb to the officiating.

You expect it. Yeah, especially after being a commander's fan this year, last couple of games we had, there was some terrible calls. Was that their problem? Is it, I'm sorry. Who's your team, buddy? You don't even have a team. I don't have a team.

Yeah. What kind of person doesn't have a team? In the NFL? You can't like just literally lightly choose a team and sort of somewhat claim somebody. Yeah, if I don't have a reason, wouldn't that just kind of make me a fair weather? Isn't that the worst type of fan? Nope. Yeah, it is.

No, it ain't. You know what, I appreciate all you Fairweather Earnhardt fans out there. Don't listen to Mike. We like our own heart. True Earnhardt fans hate Fairweather fans. We like the die hards, but we also like the ones that are Fairweather or Neal. No, you have to say that. Well, I do.

But all the true fans know better than that. You know, but I like some fair weather fan. Mike, you're just not jumping on any bandwagons. Exactly. That's my point. I don't need to jump on a bandwag. That's not a fan. A fan doesn't jump on bandwagons.

Well, pick a bad team. They don't have a bandwagon. Yeah, they need fans. There's some teams out there that do need that. Come on, Mike. Let's start a campaign. You want to pick a team for me? Let's start a campaign to find Mike a team.

You're a free agent fan. That's what you are. I could be wooed. I could be wooed, but I've got to have a reason. I mean, listen. Listen, so far, this isn't enough reason to declare a fan, you know, like buy gear and everything. But like, you know, a lot of the, I'm a college football fan and I'm an Alabama fan.

And there's just, there's no, there's nothing that going even come close to that. Okay. But if Washington goes and, you know, signs all these Alabama players like they do, I do take notice. All right. Fan of the players, I do actually have a shirt that Dale gave me, a Washington shirt that he gave me for the, when we went up to Lambo. Yeah. Remember that? Okay.

He doesn't remember. We'll move on in the next. This next one's coming from Twitter from Alonzo Lemons. He said, do you have any good stories of drivers trying to gain weight before the first weigh-in of the year, which I think is Wednesday tomorrow. Oh, yeah. Jimmy Spencer, you should do that. I heard, oh, yeah, I heard Casey Mears got caught with a bunch of washers and stuff in his pockets.

He did? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Casey Mears. Oh, Rebel. Yeah, I think when I first, I think Tony Jr. had me put some stuff in my shoes once.

Man, listen, so when you go, let me explain how this works. Okay. This is really simple. So, no tell. I don't know if it's the same today as it was 20 years ago or 15 years ago, but

if you weigh 170 to 180, your race car can weigh X. If you weigh 180 to 190, your waist car has to weigh, you know, five pounds less or more. So every 10 pounds is a weight break, if you will. So we would want to weigh more to be able to take weight out of the car. And I was hovering around 178, and Tony Jr. is like, man, we need to assure that you're going to go over 180 on that scale.

We've got to. And so you'd carry around five pounds of washing. or something in your shoes or some teams might even make a shoe with a lead sole in it. You know, you would put on a special pair of driver's shoes that might have a lead sole in the bottom of it, you know, or a lead heel. And so, you know, you just needed five pounds. You weren't going to walk around with, you know, 40 pounds of weight. You're just trying to get, make sure that you're in that next bracket. Now, if you were 178, you weren't going to try to get into the one 90 bracket because NASCAR would say

it's obvious that you're not 190, 190, 195, it's obvious. And I think that's what Casey Mears did. 2.15, Casey Mears. Casey Mears tried to step up two weight classes instead of just going five pounds. Casey Mears, he's like those fishermen

that were hitting there at the scales, hold up their fish. I'm sure. I'm sure there were, you know, some lead-filled flip phones back in the day. and all kinds of things that, you know, people were trying to pull off. Did you get caught? Never.

No. But it was, you know, I, it was easier for me just to weigh 1801, 183. So like Tony Jr's like, hey, we got away in the 180s. You can't be 178. What are you? And I'm like, I'm probably going to be under. And so he's like, okay, put this in your shoe, put this in your pocket, blah, bro. And so the next year I came knowing I was going to be over 180 and I didn't need any

weight. Eat a big meal right before. Never mind. He's walking up to the scales like he has stilts. You know, like those clowns at the circus that are walking with stilts. Dragging your feet across the boy. Like you're walking on the bottom of the ocean. Right. Like he's got scuba gear on. What's the scuba helmet for? Nothing. It's my new helmet. These things are heavy. Yeah. I find that fascine. There's nothing that gets unlooked. these days. No. Yeah. I mean, that's a great point. You know, when you, I was talking about this with somebody else, talking about the Darlington

Museum. At Darlington Motor Speedway, there was a Hall of Fame museum. And in that museum's was a case, I don't know if it's still there, of old, cheated up parts from the 60s and 70s and 50s even. And they're obvious, right? When you look at those parts, it's like, dang, that's like so obvious. I'm looking right at it. I know exactly what they're trying to do. But nowadays, everything's so. not only is it so measured and scrutinized and the rulebook's so thick, the creativity and where guys can find some advantages is almost invisible. It's hard to see from the naked eye, and you don't know what you're looking at unless you're the one who created the idea.

Yeah. I got a question. Hold up on the scales. Remember when Daytona redid their whole fan zone and then all of a sudden the scales were part, they were very visible for fans? Did you ever find that to be embarrassing or because I remember that it's almost like a way in for a UFC fight where people then could comment on they flash a big number for all the fans to see and you would hear like not necessarily you but you would hear about like damn eat a salad or something like that because it's like you're weighing in your way you're weighing in front of an audience now I don't care what the weight was I think I would if I was a fan at the fence I would holler that at everybody that's right eat a salad that's what would happen though oh man look at him

Eat a salad. Fat ass. All right, I think we have time for one more quick one. This one's coming from Daniel. What's your reaction to hearing the Earnhardt name in music and song references? That is a good question. Kirkland, it's good questions this year. Carlin didn't ask it? No, but you got to pick him?

Yeah. All right, go ahead. You're raising the standard here. I think it's awesome. Anytime I hear the Earnhardt name in music, anytime that Dad's ever referenced in a song, I've never heard anybody say anything negative, so luckily it's always been something positive.

But it's awesome. I mean, especially after all these years, you know, back when he was successful, you know, people were writing songs about him when he was alive. That was cool. But 20 years later, after his death, they even have somebody reference him today, it's just cool.

because that was the one of, I've said it a million times, and I hate to repeat myself over and over, but that's the one thing you worry about is that as we get further and further removed from his death and his career and all those things is that people just won't know the impact. And I know that is going to happen. It is inevitable. We already see that. I see that when we go to the Hall of Fame and look at the guys that we think ought to be in there. And, man, people just don't know this guy's career.

He raced in the 50s or the 60s, and we just can't feel the impact that he had on the sport because it was so long ago and none of us lived to see it. And that's going to be the case for all of us one day. And so luckily Dad's impact was so significant that it still resonates with some people today. This question came in yesterday. So Travis and I looked up how many specific Earnhardt references came up. How many would you guess are out there? In music.

In music. Ooh. A dozen? Oh. More than that. You got to go way more. Yeah. Two dozen.

139. Oh my God, really? Isn't that crazy? Yeah. And that's just the Earnhardt name, but then he also brought up how, you know, even like there's a new Luke Combs song that came out, Chase Rice,

they referenced the number three as well. So there's even more than that. So I'm like on that was interesting. What's the greatest? What's the greatest song that has Earnhardt in it? What do you like, Dale, that comes to mind? Well, what's the Southern Voice? Okay.

Oh, that's a good way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Number three drove it. Yeah. I just, you know, that's a, that's one of them songs where it's a number, you know, number three.

And instead of, you know, dad's, you know, mentioned the name Earnhardt. And it's just, it's just, it, me, Matt, that is as cool to me as him saying the name, you know, and just to include dad and all the other things mentioned in such a cool song, right? For dad to be, you know, thought of in such a way is really cool. All right. I think that is cool. I think that's a good place to, to Add Ash Jr. Man, that's great. Good job there, everybody, for sending in some great questions. Those were fun. All right, Mike. So before we wrap up and close this one out, what's the update on the Dirty Moe experience?

We have a few seats remaining. We're almost there. Where is this for? This is Las Vegas, March 5th. You can go to DirtyMow Media.com right now and get one of the last few remaining seats. It's going to be a blast. You've got unprecedented access. Brett Griffin got us on the roof. We got it could go in the roof. got to be in the neon garage, going to be on pit road, going to be off. And then obviously the VIP suite, all you can eat, all you can drink. And when I say all you can drink, there will be much drinking to be done there. So it's going to be a blast.

What a race we had last year. And I'm looking forward to it again, man. All right. So this wrapping up Monday's show, Dirty Air and Ash Jr. Tomorrow we have a really great guest coming on. Steve Meal's going to be in the show in the studio. And I'm excited to talk to Steve. I've heard some other interviews he's done.

He's a great storyteller. And that should be a lot of fun. I know we're going to talk about DEI and everything else. But his starred in racing and coming up with winning a championship with Terry Labon, he worked for the Petty's. Mark Martin, this guy has seen and done a lot of things. It was part of my career as well. So it's going to be fun to talk to him.

I hadn't seen him in a long time. So Steve Mill will be on the Wednesday episode of the Dell Jr. download. and don't forget also our Thursday episode we'll be talking about the jewels. We'll have information about Daytona qualifying and who we think, you know, have we changed our picks for the 500? Maybe.

Should be a lot of fun for the Thursday show. So anyways, we'll see you guys tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in. And we appreciate you. See it to racetrack. Check out Dirty Mo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.