The Dale Jr. Download - 424 - Calm Down, Phoenix Gonna Phoenix

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. joins co-host Mike Davis via Zoom from his family vacation for this week’s edition of Dirty Air. The NASCAR world has concluded their west coast swing and there was plenty to unpack: Denny Hamlin speaks candidly about his dust-up with Ross Chastain  JR Motorsports’ turbulent Xfinity race at Phoenix NASCAR confiscates louvers from Hendrick Motorsports and Kaulig Racing NASCAR’s new short track package gets its first test During the Ask Jr. segment, listeners sent in questions regarding: (36:30) Competing against IndyCar racers on iRacing The worst car Dale ever won with His March Madness bracket The weekend controversy at Hickory Motor Speedway Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What do you think? Did it get him? Am I hono? No, a little slightly. We don't know what we're doing. Are you kidding me, Mike? Hey, everybody's Dale Jr. Welcome back to another episode of the Dale Jr. download.

This is dirty air. And I am obviously not in the studio. Mike is in the Bojangles Studios, as you can see. What's up, man? I am out on vacation with my family, but excited to talk about everything going on this week. So we dialed in, we called in, Mike, and there is a lot happening in this sport. Anyways, since I'm on vacation, Mike, we got a great program that we want to share with our followers. my sister Kelly is going to be introducing a series that we're going to do,

and we're going to call this a business motorsports. Often, some of the best content that I see out in social media around motorsports is about the cost, the detailed cost, the decisions that need to be made, how that affects the business, and how to run a race team. I've seen great content created by grass research. racers. And it's fascinating, I think, even for me, that knows a lot about the business and how to run a team and how much it costs and all those things. It's still really fascinating to see how people do it and the decisions they make to go to the racetrack. So Kelly's going to be

creating a new series called Business Motorsports and her first guest is Steve Luleta and this man is the president of 2311. So not only I guess are we going to hear Kelly's insight on how our business model works in the Xenity series, which is really fascinating. But 2311, one of the newer teams, Danny Hamlin comes in and wants to create a business model or a race team that's a little bit different than how he's, you know, seeing race teams ran in his career. And Steve's got a unique background with Chip inassie and a few other programs, but also how they, you know, how they juggle all the challenges of coming into the sport and becoming

competitive on the cup level. how charters work and how they acquire charters and all these things. It's going to be really fascinating stuff, Mike. So pretty exciting. That's going to be a series. So it'll be reoccurring throughout the year. Am I right? That's right.

We'll do that. Start it tomorrow. But I've got to tell you, Dale, we miss you. You're gone. And we'll do this series, you know, start it off with Steve Laletta and Kelly while you're gone. But, man, you leave in the world sort of unravels around here. I mean, I'm going to tell you something. I don't know if we need our leader back or what.

But, you know, Denny's gone off and made admissions on his podcast. You know, Junior Motorsports found each other like magnets again over the weekend. I mean, what's going on here? Yeah, that was tough to see you on Saturday. And all my friends are asking me how do you manage that or what do you do about that? You know, I haven't had a chance to really sit down and talk to some of the drivers, so I wouldn't want to sit on here and this be the first thing to hear out of my mouth over, you know, over what happened Saturday.

But, you know, you definitely want your guys to race each other a little less aggressively than they might race everyone else. And obviously, our drivers, you know, often get into pretty tough battles with each other and we've seen it before. and sometimes, sometimes Mike, it's okay, and sometimes, you know, it's not.

So you just, it's a balance. You don't, there was a Charlotte race last year with Josh Barry and Justin Algarer, and they beat on each other and, and lean on each other. Josh wins a race, but Justin cut a tire down.

And, you know, you kind of want to see them run one, two, if they can. And, you know, but they were just,

you know, if they can get out and say, hey, man, I'm fine with that. I'm good with how you race me. It's kind of something they have to work out between themselves. As much as I'd like to step in there and say, hey, Sam, you know, don't run into Josh. Or, you know, hey, you know, hey, guys, you know, that's kind of, what are we doing here, right? I mean, you want to do that.

But at the same time, the drivers have a responsibility to talk to each other and communicate with each other how they want to be raised and how they don't want to be raised. There was some competition meetings this week as well at the shop where they go through it all. And they all took ownership of it. You know, Sam, Sam's like, hey, it was my bad. I don't know what's going on. I don't know why I did that. He owned it. Yeah.

And I feel like that Justin and Brandon Jones had an understanding about how their situation went down late in the race. But I'll be honestly, man, it was frustrating to see our cars not perform better, you know. And as a company, the new rules. rule change in the back of the cars, we had that figured out. NASCAR changed the left side trailing arm, and we used to run a shorter trailing arm on the left side. And NASCAR made everybody go to the same size, same link trailing arm that you have on the right side.

So now the car, and it takes away a lot of parts and pieces that can be manipulated to create skew in the car. And so the rumor is that we're at Pocono. last year and there's a corner shot at the term one, but the car is coming at you down the front straightaway. And I believe somebody up in the top of the tower at NASCAR down in Daytona did not like the way the cars were skewed coming down the straightaway and said, I want to get rid of that. The cars don't need to be going crooked down a straightaway. And it just looked funny, which I agree, but it was definitely going to take away some of our advantage from what we had last year.

and so the rule changes were made and now we've got to find some speed our cars are quick at times but it's certainly really leveled to play in field for us and made things a little more difficult but we just got to work hard I knew it was going to be tough to repeat what we did last year but the Denny Hamillian thing man

I was really surprised by that me and I mean everybody was surprised by that and I think that this is a this would be interesting. I think, you know, I'm not so much curious as to what happens on the racetrack or what kind of penalties might come down on Denny or whatever. I'm just curious to watch him navigate this new position as a content creator. And I know probably nobody else cares about that.

But when he goes back into his podcast next week, right, and going forward, he talks about, hey, as long as I got this microphone, I'm going to do this, I'm going to say this or until Ross gets a microphone, right? He can say whatever he wants, right, when he gets his own microphone. So I'm interested to see kind of how Denny ebbs and flows in his content and what he might say next week about whatever repercussions come from that admission.

And he might have, which I like Denny, I like Danny being honest on his show. And I know a lot of people like it and a lot of people don't like it, right? A lot of people, a lot of people have done different opinions about what they're seeing from Denny in his podcast. But I think it's great that he's pretty much transparent and probably too honest. But he might have just said, he might have could have just said, you know, I was out of control and I wasn't looking to save him. Because a lot of times when you're on the inside of somebody, and you get loose or you're out of control,

you're kind of, you know, you're sliding up the racetrack. You can spin yourself out, you know, and the guy on the outside just carries on. You can turn yourself around. I was at, so Denny had that option, right, to just spin himself and do everything. He could avoid hitting any car on the outside, which happened to be Ross.

But he said, you know what, since it's Ross, I'm all I'm old correct to the right I'm old door him when we're going into the fence and I think he could have maybe worded it that way I don't think that he went you know I don't think that he was like here's my chance to ruin his race I think that he thought I'm I'm sliding up the track I'm I'm gonna lose all these spots because I'm out of control yeah and then my car back up and I'm just going to use him as a way to keep me from wrecking you know. I was racing at Myrtle Beach in the 90s, and I used to try to pass the same guy. And two weeks in a row, I spun out underneath him.

We, I get underneath him got a straight away, and he was coming to the bottom, and he would cut you off. His name was Ray. And every time you got under, and this guy would act like you weren't there. And you knew it. And he told, and he'd tell you, look, I'm coming down. If you walk the spot, you're going to have to drive through me. It was the craziest thing. I never knew anybody in every race like that.

But you'd get underneath him and he'd just turn left into the corner like you weren't there. Two weeks in a row, I spun out underneath this guy because he'd come down and I'd turn the wheel and get on the, get all loose and out of control and spit out. And I'd come home and dad's like, hey, man, what happened this weekend? I said, man, I got in that guy again. And I spun out and he goes, next time you're underneath him and he comes down the track, just slam on the brakes. Plaint your front tires and lock your car into the track and hold the wheel straight. spin him out. I was like, you sure?

He's like, yeah. And so literally like the next race, that's what happened. Got underneath him. He came down the track. And so, I mean, that's kind of what Danny had to do. He had a choice of spinning himself out or ruining his, you know, further ruining his race, but doing it alone or trying to, you know, trying to correct into the car on the outside. You know, he knew he's going to lose spots anyways, but he's going to take somebody with him.

but that was fascinated. Yeah. That was fascinating that he would be, you know, kind of wonder sometimes what he's thinking. There's a bigger message or bigger. He did that. He didn't, he got on that podcast and admitted that because he's got some plan, right?

He's got some thing, and he's got some plan how this is going to work out to say it. I think so. Maybe he's going with all that. Yeah. I don't think, I don't think Denny gets careless with his comments, even though it may seem like that.

I think that he knows what he's doing. And so, like, none of this stuff, you know, a friend of ours text me this morning, he said it's almost like Denny was daring NASCAR to do something about it. And I'm like, that's interesting. I don't know that. I don't know.

I wouldn't go that far, but I do think he didn't, I don't think he misspoke. I think he definitely could have. I think Ross. What's that? I said, I don't know if he's there in NASCAR so much as he's there in Ross.

Well, listen, if you listen to the podcast, the story ends with them having a truce. It does. I wonder if Ross will feel like that. Well, they had a conversation after the race. They had a conversation after the race.

And Ross says to Denny, I guess I deserve that one, didn't I? And Denny says yes. So this is the thing. I think you're right. I think that Denny could have framed this up better. The way he framed it up was that I was going to have a bad day and I was, by God, bringing somebody with me. I wasn't going alone to my bad day.

I was going to bring Ross with me because, just because damn him. That's how he framed it up. What seemed to be the case, though, is that they were racing hard, and Denny goes back to feeling disrespected by Ross. And he says this. He says that it all goes back to a respect thing. He's trying to get. He says that he told Ross, I just don't know why you're disrespecting when you're driving.

You're just so disrespectful. And so they have this conversation, and they have a truce. It's what he says. He goes, we say, neither one of us want this to continue. let's race each other exactly how we want to race each other from this day forward. This is happening over the weekend, and this is what he also says in the podcast. This is the part that's not getting any airplay. The part where Ross says, I think I deserve that,

and the part where Danny and him reach a truce and say, let's race each other hard, but let's not race each other disrespectfully. I got a bunch of reactions here. First and foremost, I think we should probably just say the obvious, and that is that as we record this on a Tuesday morning, we don't know if there's going to be, you know, a penalty or fine. We just know that NASCAR has said that they listen to the podcast and that they may consider penalties.

But as we record this right now, we don't know what that would be. Maybe it comes out later today. Maybe it doesn't. Who knows? But I saw that Elton Sawyer got on Sirius XM this morning and we've heard the podcast and they are considering, you know, fines. And listen, this wouldn't be the first time Denny's been penalized for something. but, uh, or, or, or fine for something, but it'd be interesting to see what he says.

And I mean, well, I just think that they need to call Denny and they need to talk to him about really what went down taking. I mean, I understand Denny went on his show and said what he said, but, um, and I'm sure NASCAR probably he's calling me and say, hey, man, this is some, you know, they might not call him and ask his side of events, right? They might just call him and tell him what they're going to do. But, um, as far as a penalty. But yeah, man, I mean, this, this happens. This happens. This happens. every race. Nobody gets out at Michigan. Me and Denny were racing at Phoenix, or Michigan one year. And the Toyotas were terrible. They didn't have any power.

And I was trying to pass Denny in turn three and four. And if I didn't clear him and get in line, if you remember how Michigan races go, if you got a guy on your outside off the four, they all get lined up and train you down to start straight away

and you lose a bunch of spots. Well, I was really fast and all the hinder cards were quick and uh denny was i'm going by denny i know it i'm going to pass and he's slow all their cards were terrible and uh he hangs on my right rear quarter panel off a turn of four and i was like no sir and i just came up the track and fenced him in uh off of four i was like not gonna hang on my right recorder panel and cost me four or five spots down the first straightway when you know i'm damn quicker than you we come off you know i finished top five and I think he finished fifth. I finished fourth or third.

We parked on pit road and everybody gets out and then he's like, dude, what the hell? And I was like, well, I didn't want you hanging on my quarterback on me and you were going to drag me down a straightaway

and side draft me and slow me down and it cost me a spot of two and I didn't, I wasn't going to let that happen. He said, yeah, but you just ran me into the fence like it wasn't there. And I said,

I figured that's what you'd have done if you was me. And he goes, you don't know me like that. I wouldn't, do that you're wrong and so i mean these kind of things happen every race where i mean how many times has everybody that drove a race car been drove into the fence off the corner because the guy just what just you know disrespected you just didn't want to didn't want to get race down the next straightaway wanted to spot yeah caught you in a moment or you didn't care and uh so you yeah i mean

we all have those moments and certainly they happen on the racetrack you're like not not today not today. So I think Danny was overstating it a little bit about I did this. I intentionally thought, you know, I'm going to wreck him. I think Denny was overstated a little bit. I think Denny thought, you know what, I'm going to lean on.

I'm going to hit him and say you know, and get my car straightened out. And it's going to cost us both. We're both going backwards. And I don't care because it's Ross. And I've had problems with him. So he probably would have took a little better care of somebody else. But since it was Ross, he's like, you know what, I'm using, I'm heading up

the racetrack and I'm going to use him up. That's right. Because we're out of control. I'll tell you this much. Last year, we spent a pretty good long episode debating Denny and whether he would wreck somebody intentionally or whether he wrecked Ross. And I would, I boldly stated that Denny's all talking. He's not going to back it up.

Well, I stand corrected. He's actually quite the opposite. He's talking. He's backing up his talk almost to a fault. The part, I think the part that was. The strangest to me was how he kept hitting down the back straightaway and through turn three and four coming to the finish. Right. Like he used him up, split him up to track, both up and lose a lot of spots.

Did Ross break check him off the floor? I don't know what was going on there. I think he did. Because I know Denny ran into him. Yeah. Denny throttled up. Right. But Ross did not throttle up down the straightaway, right?

I don't know exactly what was going on. But why Denny kept on running into him. more and more. You know, was he really wanting to spin him out? Was he hoping that he would turn him around? Yeah. He was getting aggressive there.

I'd caution everybody. You know, a lot of people are talking about this today, and there's one thing. Listen, I like the Ross versus Denny. I don't want them to make a, I don't want them to race respectfully.

As a fan, it's one of the few things I'm clinging on to when I watch these races every week. There's a rivalry on the racetrack that we can kind of, even if they're in, 9th and 10th or wherever they are on the track, if they're near each other, you notice. I don't know if anybody else like that on the track. And there's not even a close second, frankly.

So everybody can have their opinion about Denny and Ross and whether or not. But I appreciate the fact that he's using, you know, a platform to be honest. I also just, I would be careful to discourage these drivers from, you know, going back into a shell. you know, honesty and transparency is something. It's a gift. It's a privilege that we get to enjoy. You just don't want to make people feel like, you know, it's too problematic for them to be that way. And Denny certainly gives us, you know, an honest and transparent take every week.

In fact, he had a lot of things on this podcast unrelated to the Ross incident that I thought were very, very interesting. One is about, he went on a rant about this short track package. I don't know if I'd call it a rant. It wasn't like he was just, you know, really explaining. And Jared Allen asked some really good questions about the short track package. Denny had an interesting take about that. He also clarified some stuff about the Chase Elliott, you know, the injury. This is a conversation that goes on a couple weeks.

So, you know, these are the types of candor that we appreciate from our NASCAR, regardless of whether they have a podcast or not, regardless of whether or Dirty Moe media content creator for us, just this is kind of candor that not everybody's willing to do, and Denny's one of them. I appreciate that. And, you know, if he gets, if he gets fine for this or penalized in some way, I, I kind of regret that, frankly, because, you know, but if he, if he does get penalized, it's not because of a podcast. It's because of what he did on a racetrack and not a podcast.

If NASCAR ever tried to go penalize somebody for something they said on a podcast, well, that would be crossing a line, in my opinion. You know, that's, that's affecting people's ability to, you know, free speech or, you know, working in the media. But I don't think that's what's happening here. I think it's, there was a. precedent set, you know, with Bubba last year on wrecking someone intentionally. And, and then you've got a guy that's saying, you know, it's admitting it. Now, Dale, what is your

opinion on? Is it apples and apples with Bubba Wallace's situation from last year? I mean, that was, that was clearly a situation that happened on a track, whereas now you've got Denny just coming, you know, once they're back home admitting something. Is it the same? No, because there's some severity to what happened last year with Bubba, the hits. and the contact that cars made with each other you could look at it

like the intent to go crash somebody is the same no matter what the result is so it should be a similar penalty across the board if you're trying to do it

you're as guilty as the guy that succeeded but NASCAR often looks at the severity of the moment and reacts based on you know

how damning it was or how how much the repercussion was for everybody else involved. So they often, where I would be like, hey, man, let's make it clear one penalty for any kind of intention or intent to crash a car. It's one penalty for everybody, right? One side fits all. That's kind of how I'd do it because I like simple, simple five things.

But NASCAR often will change the monetary part of a fine or whatever race. that lower it depending upon how badly it might have affected the day or how big the moment was. One of the things that we're going to be watching in terms of penalties is a possible penalty coming down to Hendrick Motorsports. And I didn't hear that the colleague cars were involved in this as well. But the louvers on the hoods of all of those cars were confiscated. I don't, nobody really knows exactly what was going on, why NASCAR, what NASCAR saw. to make them want to take these and get a good look at them. But all 400 cars and the colleague cars had theirs confiscated.

Denny said on his show that he thinks this will be the biggest fine in the history of the sport in terms of finding an organization. Obviously, modifying any kind of part for this car is a massive no-no. But I am hesitant to assess. that that's what happened. And until we hear, you know, exactly what's going on and why NASCAR, what, you know, why NASCAR wanted to take a look at these, I'm not going to assume that there'll be a fine. But it's, it's interesting, you know, to see, I think, you know, with this car, NASCAR has to react

really stiffly when it comes to teams trying to manipulate any of parts because that's the whole basis around this car. It's like a kick car. Everybody has the same stuff. It's a level playing field. Whereas for 50 years, we took cars and tried to make them better and modify them and change and mold them in all sorts of ways. And we had tons of freedom to do that. And there's no longer freedom, you know, to make those adjustments or make things better, even if you see something the way you might be able to make it safer, right? You're not allowed to really manipulate any of this stuff that we have today. So, yeah, we'll just have to see what comes from this,

but I'm eager for some updates on what's going on and why they took those parts. You didn't see this, but as you were, as we were starting our show, I saw Greg Ives walking through the shop, and so we waved him in here. He actually came into the studio before we got started, and we were kidding with him.

We said, hey, sit down here and explain to us what's about to come. Hendrick Motorsports and what you did that, what your role in this was. Obviously, he said, no, I decline and he walked out. But the fact is that it was kind of funny and I don't know, a coincidence that Greg Ives was walking through here, which by the way, looking good, our old buddy, Greg Ives looking good, having fun, got a big responsibility over there at Hendrick. I wonder what everybody thinks about the new short track package this past weekend.

my opinion about that is that Phoenix the racetrack is going to always race like Phoenix and that it is not even really a short track in a sense so this I'm holding my I'm reserving my judgment of the short track package and the the changes that NASCAR is trying to make until we get to Martinsville and we see what kind of race we had there and we see what the drivers have to say about the way the car races at that racetrack. But for me, Phoenix is, you know, Phoenix has always kind of put on the same race, no matter what package the cars have had. I was never a massive fan of the reconfiguration of the dogleg. Now, at the same time, it's really kind of the most compelling racing

or compelling action we see on the restarts when things get kind of crazy coming through there. but the original Phoenix was a really, really great racetrack and a lot of fun. But what they're racing it, what the track is now is a, it's a bit different than what we used to race on years and years ago. So, but anyways,

you know, I don't know how you make the racing better there. I don't think there's a magical package that will improve on the product at that particular racetrack. I think it's just a, It's the way the track's shaped and the transitions and the style of asphalt. So it's a kind of tough deal. I'm with you.

I'm a reserving judgment until we get to an actual short track. But I've got to be honest. I'm going back to an old argument or my old position on this where, I don't know, I think you got frustrated with me a few years ago. But I'm back to this. I'm already sick of having to talk about rules, packages, arrow packages. I don't think that's what fans are. relate to. I don't think that we're sitting, you know, and the fact that we're already at this

conversation on a week by week basis on whether or not the race was good and why we can't pass and all this stuff. It's just an exhausting and old, it's an old argument that just never goes away. And I'm just, I'm ready for it to either, I'm just ready for us to be able to say this is what our racing is or, or they come up with a, you know, we're talking about resolutions now that's going to take a year, at least Denny is. Denny's saying on his podcast that, look, We know, you know, the manufacturers are, uh, have a role in this. They're, you know, the limiting the RPMs. And so we, you know, we all want parity, but then parity is going to present racing like this.

You know, if everybody's equal, everybody's equal when you can't go, you certainly got one, one organization that goes and tries to do their own thing. And then they're going to get their hands slap big time for doing that. And so it's like, what, what exactly do we want? I'm ready for us not to make the rules package the, the conversation every single week. I don't care about it. I know you guys do, and I know the drivers love it. I get it. I get it.

I just don't think the casual race fan can relate to it. And so it's, but we're being forced to have to become a student of, you know, the effects of taking off two inches of a spoiler and what it does and drag. And none of us know what that feels like because we're not in the race car. And so what we see is on the racetrack or what we see on TV. And it's just, I don't know. I'm just frustrated again about that. I know what you mean.

But listen, I was at Vegas. I mean, like, I saw it. Right. Okay, the racing's not great now. We're back to the same old thing. And it's frustrating because Vegas is a mile and a half. That's the one track you thought that they would race well. Well, I know.

And you can't have a resolution or make the changes necessary to create a better product without talking about the details. So, I mean, you have to suffer, Mike. Sorry, buddy. Going to have to suffer. But this is three, four, five years in the running now. So I'm used to it. But like, it's not. It's not.

Mike, Mike, this is 40 years in the running. We've been changing spoilers and valence heights and all wings and all kinds of crazy for years. The package and how the cars race and the draft and all the things. This conversation has been going on for a really long time. I don't see it as this new, annoying thing like you do. I see it as this long form, you know, low home. It's always part of every season.

So it doesn't bother me because it's just always kind of been there. It's always been part of the discussion. And as a former driver, I feel like it's an important conversation because you're pushing, like Benny says, like he says, man, the manufacturers have a responsibility. I think the tire company needs to own up and try harder or whatever, right? We all have our opinions on where more help could, you know, more help to come from to make the racing better.

softer tires that wore out more or whatever not repaving race tracks right things like that yeah that's another one yeah that's another one the track repaves i've never maybe it has been a conversation for 40 years dale but listen i got to be honest i don't remember the conversation always like in seeking a resolution like it's seeking a something to be fixed that i don't know that's been going on for 40 years maybe we're always you know as you get cars and cars evolve and manufacturers are always looking at technology and all that stuff. Yes, you're always tinkering with rules packages and you're always doing that. I get it. That's always been there. But this constant conversation of us looking for something to fix because the racing is bad,

maybe the racing has always been this way. Or maybe the racing is not nearly as bad as we make it on a week-to-week basis because it's not the racing that's changed. It's the people that have changed. Maybe that's it. Maybe we just don't have this, you know, the attention span. But either way, I don't remember us having to talk about rules packages. It's like, this is something that we need to do to fix this problem. This is a problem. We've got to fix it. That's that's exactly what I'm saying. Well, I mean, I remember years ago Dodge coming in and being really fast. Could you imagine, Mike, going out on the racetrack and a Chevrolet having a taller spoiler than a Ford and a Pontiac having a bigger spoiler than anybody else?

Yeah, upheaval. But that was the reality of the situation back in the 90s, in the late 90s, which is crazy to think, right? Because you'd never want to go on a racetrack where a guy had more spoiler than you and had more, you know, what you would imagine. It would be a better era. But, I mean, the argument about all, you know, what fixing this or what's right has been there for a long time, in my opinion, we've argued over the restrictive plate package for 20 years plus about what really is the best restrict plate package to have.

then why does it have to keep it changing. But, you know, I think the hope is that we're going to go to Martinsville and we're going to all realize that, man, the better package, the changes they made to help the cars race to short tracks and put on a better show are good. And Phoenix is just going to Phoenix. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Well, you might have changed me a little bit. You talked me off the ledge a little bit.

I think you make some good points on that. And I'm all four manufacturers duking it out and out of each other and thinking that they're all being treated unfair. I'm all for that. Yeah. Hey, Dale, one thing, you know, I wanted to ask you is that, you know, what about Josh? You know, Josh got the top 10, you know, in the car. You know, I know you were super proud that he got named in the car and got that ride longer

than just one week, but dude's already kind of impressing people, isn't he? Well, I mean, I think that's the kind of run that you would hope that he had last week at Phoenix, or Vegas. I think, you know, whatever the problem was with the car that was making things a little challenging for him at Vegas, you know, I was, you know, talked about it last week. I was hoping that he'd get another shot to run the car again. Luckily, he did, and they went to Phoenix, and while they didn't have a pace that I think that they wanted to have in the race, I think his averaging running position was around 18th, most of the time. this is a day. But I kept telling myself, you know, I'm like, what's a good day here for him? I think anywhere in the top 20 would be satisfactory and anything in the top 15 would be good. And I think that he knows the car is a top 10 car and he's just got to get there as a driver

with more laps. And I, you know, I think he hustled at the end, had some great restarts, which is interesting to me because getting aggressive and being great at restart is kind of one of the last pieces of the puzzle. When you put a guy in a race car for a new race car, new style of race car, typically the first thing you're going to notice if they're a great driver is the long run speed will be there. That'll be the first thing that shows up. They'll get better on the short run speed. They'll get better at firing off and pull on the track on do tires and run that first lap really fast. that'll come later, right? And then aggressiveness on restarts and pushing yourself

in really uncomfortable situations like that easily is one of the last things that it comes into the equation. But he has some really, really good restarts, and that's what got him that top 10 at the end, a couple of late cautions, and he took advantage of it. And he says working with T.J. majors, he's been doing great. T.J. has brought a lot of new information,

and they do a ton of prep during the week, I will say that this has really made Josh's week, a very big full week of studying Sim work. He's in the Sim for the Cup car. He's looking at watching, rewatching. He's got to rewatching last year's race on both Xfinity and Cup. They go over that, and they have the competition meetings for both organizations. I mean, so he's got a lot on his plate.

And so I'm glad that he was able to. to get a result that he could be happy with. I think overall, though, that he would have liked to have been faster in the race itself running maybe, you know, inside the top, you know, 15 for most of the day. If he was racing

around 8th to 12th, I think that would be what I would expect him to be able to do. Now he's going to go to a racetrack in Atlanta that's a bit of a, you know, it's a bit of a oddball of a racetrack, you know, you kind of just hammer down and

hope for the best. And I'll be, it'll be hard to, I guess it'd be hard to, to score him, right? Whatever the result is in this one, I don't know how you score that. I guess he just hopes, you know, you just hopes he gets in there and has another decent result. But it's such an odd racetrack and the way they race around there is, it's kind of, you know, like a restrictive plate race, but it ain't. Anyways, yeah, so hopefully gets a few more tries at it, but eventually everybody wants Chase to get back in the car. And hopefully, I told Josh the best thing that he could do is that when Chase comes back, the car and the team are ready to rock. Chase hops in there and can go win a race right out of the gate.

And that would make Chase feel like that Josh took care of things and helped that team continue to progress so that they have a shot at winning a championship this year. That's kind of the role of the relief guy, you know, is to make sure you don't bring the team down. You don't disrupt their progress. You don't disrupt their ability to find speed in the car. And so while Josh is trying to carve out a role for him in his own career, he's also got that responsibility to maintain throughout this process. Yeah, man, I'm with you. All right, let's do some Asch Jr.

All right, Ash Jr. for this week, Dale, we miss you. mentioned before. We've got you on Zoom. And this actually, this first question kind of reminds me of when we were podcasting during COVID. And it comes from our friends at IndyCar on NBC. They said you got to run with the IndyCar drivers virtually a few years ago. What was that experience like? Oh, well, I mean, it was the funniest part about racing with the IndyCar guys during the, during the virtual events, was listening to them give each other a hard time. So they were all really chatty, chatty on Discord. And so they would call each other out for making a stupid move, or

they would get angry and frustrated with each other as if they were out on a real racetrack in real conditions. And so that was the most fascinating part. And they, I don't know, you know, when I race with the cup guys, none of them talked at each other. It's quiet. They would hardly, they would hardly say anything. They were, you know, everybody was really quiet. and not really coming out of their shell and just, I don't know, the cup guys are so different.

And I'm like, I'm on there, mashing the button. I'm going to talk to everybody. Hey, how's it going on? Hey, man, move out of the way, you know, whatever. Say whatever you want to say about what's happening. But the cup guys are real quiet. The Indycar guys, on the other hand, man, they're just, they're jir or jude having each other all day,

all race long about this and that and the other. But it was really funny. Well, Power, man, he just lets them have it, call them all names and cusses at all of them. But anybody that he thinks deserves it, they don't get it. But that was interesting. Well, that day, he thought they all deserved it because he was not sparing anyone. It was bad, yeah.

Sounds like we need an open chat for the NASCAR Cup guys on Sundays. That would be amazing. That would be. They need some, they need some, if you're going to have that, you're going to have to get them to talk. That's a problem. Like, they, you know. Listen, I've always thought, you know, And when they go, hey, they'd say to their spotter, hey, you go tell the 24, he ain't getting away with that one next time.

And I'm like, just tell them yourself. So click on the 24 and go, hey, you got one coming. Yeah. And now you know. This second question coming from Davis Warren, what's the worst race car to your memory that you've won a race with in terms of maybe set up on how the race was going? That's probably, that's hard to say, man. I mean, every car that you went to race with is pretty much a good race car. Maybe like a lucky situation.

Oh, we shouldn't have won that race type of deal. Definitely, probably the Expinity race at Michigan where Carl Doored me off of Pit Road and came into Victory Lane, Matt. Robbie Gordon was driving a junior sports car. Carl was leading. We had a late restart. They're side-to-side in front of me coming off of turn two. We were all racing our guts out. But I wasn't thinking that I had enough race car to win,

and I was kind of hoping that Robbie would win. But we come off a two, and Carl's car was a little loose in front of me, and I just got in the back of him to push him forward and standing him out. Almost took out Robbie, but we ended up winning a race. So we probably, I didn't think we was going, you know, that's one of the ones I didn't think, you know, we were going to win, and we ended up going to victory lane. It's always a nice feeling.

Here's a, here's a, I do have one that, as far as worst handling car. All right. The, the, the, the, the Bush race that we won the Bush race at Daytona with that pink Menards car. And now, it was loose. It was out of control loose sideways. That's why we won. So, I mean, the fact that it handled so bad. Sadly, it was so hard to drive.

It's kind of the reason why we won because everybody else, on the other hand, was pushing real bad. They had to lift a lot. And so we'd just break the draft and drive away from them. I thought at one point we had like a 20-second lead or something like that, or 10 or 15-second lead or second place. I remember that. I was running second. Carl was running by himself.

He had a break between him and third. Damn, it was the craziest race ever that I'd been a part of at Daytona. But the cars getting spread out like that and the ability to be able to drive away from everybody. but the car was sideways, sideways loose. Almost slapped the wall in turn one a couple times, but the back just bouncing around, sliding around really bad. But I know it's crazy to me to talk about a winning car that won a race and handling bad and not being great.

But the way it handled was while we won, but it was a handful. It wasn't easy to drive as it looked on TV. It looked weird. Did it? Well, imagine the packet Daytona. You've got a packet Daytona. And then you've got the leader out by like 25 car lanes.

Who's running faster than every, the pack. That's what it looked like. It looks suspicious. He's still one with the damn thing. Yeah, I'd say he did. I mean, it was amazing. Most anybody that ever, I mean, the car was loose and it was fun, but it was a handful. So if you just sit down and said, hey, man, how you want your car to drive,

you wouldn't want it to drive that way. You'd want it to be easier. Right. And gripped, you know, but I'd rather it be loose and tight because it's just, you you are tight that night you aren't going anywhere. How about that? Hey, it's the month of March, and the tournament's about to get started.

March Madness, people are wanting to know. Have you filled out a bracket yet? Yeah, I did. I just filled one out yesterday. I think I'm going to be wrong, but I mean, when I do a bracket, when I do a bracket, I just kind of start one game at a time. Who do I think is going to win between these two teams?

And I don't have them, I don't know how other people feel out their brackets, but I don't have my overall winner chosen until I get to that match. And I've got those two teams sitting there in front of me. And I go, okay, these are the two that have made it, which one's going to win? So I think Memphis and Gonzaga are going to be in the final, and I got Memphis winning. All right. I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I probably be way off. I filled out the bracket, and that's where I ended up. Hey, as an Arizona State alum, it was good to see you gave him a few victories there too. I did. How many did you give Alabama? Yeah. Oh, I'm actually looking at it now. Alabama makes it to, I think you're elite eight, I think, if I'm looking at it correctly.

Oh, you've seen it's bright. You see it? I've got it now. Someone just handed it to me. Yeah, go ahead and tell us. You want to tell us our elite eight in our final four? Yeah, we can go elite eight. So, lead eight is Alabama, Baylor, Memphis, Kentucky.

Kent State, Xavier, Yukon, Gonzaga, is your elite eight. Final four, Kent State, Gonzaga, Baylor, Memphis. And then it's Memphis, Gonzaga, your championship game. There you go. It's pretty good. Kent State.

Yeah. I don't know what that is. Crazy. I mean, how can you got, every year there's that one team that goes way farther than they should. And I have, I feel this, like, obligation to pick one of those teams,

like, which one's going to be the one, right? And so, yeah, you push a couple of teams a lot further than you think they can go, but that's what's fun about the bracket. That's what's fun about the tournament. It's always one team you don't even know where it is. You couldn't even guess. Yeah. It's sitting there.

There's a school called Drake. I didn't know that. Yeah. Penn State's beating them, though, according to Dale. Oh, yeah, yeah. I got to ask Dale something. I want to ask you. Do you got another question?

Go for it. Listen, Dale, you're gone. I'm always, you know, I'm always careful to bring, I don't know, office politics and stuff into your life, but I'm going to need you to set. I'm going to need you to make a rule in here, okay? This is on the topic of travel etiquette, employee travel etiquette. Now, this is the question. I'm going to try to give it to you as subjective, I mean, as objective as I possibly can. Is it okay for an employee to go on a three-day trip and they go to the airport and they don't park in long term. They don't even park in daily. They park in hourly, the hourly deck for a

three-day trip. Wow. That's expensive. That is expensive. Have you ever heard of anybody doing that for a three-day trip? I might have done it. I don't even think you would have done that. What's that? Who did it? I'm not saying. I don't want to call them out. How can you? Because that would be unfair. I don't want to call them out. Did you y'all agree? I teed this up fairly. I teed it up fairly. Yeah, you didn't, you didn't give any details. And I'm just saying, I thought it was an extraordinary move. I thought it was extraordinary. Hourly parking for a three-day trip, not a day trip, not even a two-day trip, a three-day trip. What a jerk move. Thank you. What a jerk. That's all I'm saying. Listen, I wonder what if, you know, if people are going to see this on

asked Jr. if there is a situation in which that would have been okay. We are not letting this one, we're not making, we're not normalizing this. Don't even go, don't even try to, don't even try to normalize it. It's a terrible move. It's a terrible move.

It's a d. There's no excuse. There's no excuse. And by the way, then have the nerve to turn in the receipt to the company. I needed Dale to tell me if I was wrong in this. I just needed to know. How much did it cost?

How much did it cost? It was like 100 bucks. It was 100 bucks. I mean, so like I parked in daily because it was $27. Okay. Well, you've made a ruling. That's what I needed to know. All right.

Andrew, you got any more. Hey, Jenner. Yeah, I got time for one more. This is actually for both of you guys because I saw this. I saw you quote tweeted it, Dale, on social, I think the other day. A fan recreated the Dirty Mo studio at their house. Oh, I saw that. I wanted to get your guys.

thoughts on that. That's pretty cool. It's badass. Yeah. That's the biggest compliment I think we've gotten on our, on our business, on our podcast and on Dirtymoe Media. That's the biggest compliment we've gotten so far. I agree with that. I also read the post, the Reddit post, the gentleman who built that. It is, but they did an amazing job. Like it literally looks like this studio, right, in their house. The wood grain with the black, it looks really good. The table looks good. But I also read the post and it said that it was something that like I think his son who is 10 or 11 has had a rough

year and I don't know why he didn't elaborate on that but it's you know it's been a rough year for his son and so if this was something to you know to do that that would even be a bigger compliment for us and I and I wish them well and I certainly hope for the son whatever would have been you know causing a rough year for him I hope that rectifies itself and certainly appreciate the gesture that they did. A fan wanted to know if you saw what happened at Hickory Motor Speedway on Saturday night, and what were your thoughts on that? Yeah, at Hickrary Motor Speedway, there was some controversy with Landon, Huffman, and a few other drivers.

Doug Barnes. Doug is, I think, the points leader because he won both races last week, and Landon is last year's champion, track champion. and they both were in twin 40s, twin 40 lap features. In the first 40 lap feature, they wrecked on lap two or three, and they had to spend the rest of the evening repairing their cars to try to race in the second feature. But there is a rule apparently at Hickory, and it's a good rule that if you only have laps on your tires, you're not allowed to race in the second feature.

You have such an unfair advantage on tires over everybody who race the first feature that you would easily win the race. But there are some ways to help the driver race, right? There's ways for, there's a junk pile of tires that the guys can go pick from so that they can race. But I don't know why all of those avenues weren't salt and why, everything wasn't done to be able to try to get Doug and Huffman into the second feature. I think they were given the option to start the second feature and take last place points. But why they weren't eager to try to come up with a solution that allowed all the cars to race,

it was interesting to me. But it would be interesting to see how. they move forward. I think that apparently this rule isn't in a rule book and it isn't often mentioned in the driver's meetings, but the track feels like it's the driver's responsibility to know all of the unwritten rules and unspoken rules. And that it's been discussed in years past at this racetrack that if you don't complete a certain amount of laps in the first feature, you're not allowed to race in the second. And again, That's a good rule.

I understand the spirit of the rule. And maybe going forward, it'll be in the rulebook. It'll be written, talked about in the driver's meetings every week for all the competitors at Hickory. Hickory had a record crowd for an opening night, the best crowd they've had in probably 20 years. So the track has a lot of great momentum in this story this week is a bit of a stain. a bit of a black eye for that group but I'm hoping that they can

find some resolution with their competitors because Doug Barnes going there in racing that's a new that's a car that wasn't competing there often last year

that's now going to their race track that you want to retain you don't want to lose your track champion Huffman to going to you know I want to push you to go to the other racetracks and race so it'll be important for Hickory to come

to some resolution with the drivers and the teams. But the grassroots stuff's thriving. Yeah. They'll start to this season with the Cars Tour and the ASA series and, you know, all the things that have been going on. It looks like car counts are up this year across the board. At the Cars Tour race, we had over 25 pro-lake models.

That was a big, big field for us. And we had a really smooth first, first weekend with, flow. Our broadcast, I felt, was really good and can all get better. They race in two weeks at Florence, South Carolina, on the 25th, which is my wife's birthday. So anyways, dude, I hear the car counts are up. Things are thriving. And, you know, we'll have more with Hannah Newhouse in the short track insider segment on Thursday, which you'll be back in studio. We're looking forward to having you back. But yeah, to your point, the short track scene, I mean, I even noticed Bubba Pollard getting into it with somebody at Five Flags over the weekend,

and that was a fun video to watch. So, yeah, I always, now I'm like really looking forward for Hannah to give us the next layer of information in these things that we notice on social media over the weekend. Yeah, there's a lot happening out there in short track racing, and it's a lot of fun to pay attention to. Yeah. That's going to be a show. Appreciate everybody tuning in. Mike, thanks for letting me zoom in today and be with my family on vacation.

We still wanted to reach out and talk to everybody this week tomorrow. A new series, Business and Motorsports, with my sister as the host. She has the president of 2311. Steve Laletta is coming in to talk to Kelly about, you know, about how they run their program. And it would be fascinating to listen to those to discuss how to run a race team. That's right. And then we'll be back in the studio on Thursday, like you mentioned.

I can't wait to get home. Vacation has been fun, but nothing beats being in the Bojangles studio sitting there with you guys. So I'll see you Thursday. See you Thursday. Those kids sound wide open in the background, so you need to go play with them. Yeah, I hear on my hair on their last day. We're going to make the most of it. Everybody, have a great week.

We'll see you Thursday. See it. and Instagram.