The Dale Jr. Download - 43 - Phoenix: Playing with house money.

Episode Date: March 3, 2014

Dale Jr. gambles at Phoenix, and it pays off with a second-place. Is this aggressive strategy a sign of things to come for the 88 team? We can only hope! Spotter Jeff Dickerson joins us, and Dale Jr. weighs in with post-Phoenix reactions. 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.

This is Dale Jr., and you're listening to Dirty Mo Radio. We are running hard on the green, okay? Yes, sir. And it runs out, then that's what we're here to do. We're here to try to win. The Dale Jr. download starts now. With Mike Davis, Amanda Troutman and Jeff Dickerson, I'm Taylor Zarzer. This is the Dale Jr. download on Dirty Mo Radio.

I say all those names. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is also part of this podcast. He has an exclusive message again for Dirty Mo Radio. radio listeners, so we're looking forward to that. Mike, I got to start by saying, I was a little concerned when I was listening live to the race chatter of Stevie on Sunday when he said, if it runs out, well, that's what we're here to do. I was like, wait a minute.

He quickly said, no, we're here to win. I was a little confused there for just a moment, but clearly it's all about gambling the rest of the year. We're gamblers, Taylor. Let's just be honest. We're gamblers. I think that Steve, if I were Stevie, I'd bring a stack of poker chips to the pit box every week now and just do those little table tricks that poker players do, you know, just to

bite, like when they're right about to go all in, when they're deep in thought, just for show. I'd have a masseuse on the back of the pit box as he's sitting there contemplating pit calls should I take two or four, has somebody just giving him a deep neck rub down. Should he turn his hat around, do you think? Wear the glasses that have the eyeballs on the front of it because that's what we are now. We've got to just own it. Jeff Dickerson's thinking, man, I got off a plane to hang out like that. These guys, yeah, we'll get Jeff your thoughts here in just a second.

First and foremost, a first place victory in the Daytona 500. You validate that, back it up with a second place finish at Phoenix when you do all these media things and you're all over the country literally day by day by day. I mean, Mike Davis, you've been around this team and this man for a long time. I mean, this is one hell of a stretch right now. Oh, yeah, man. you what? I got to ask you a question. Speaking of this stretch, when is it become uncool to quit talking about Daytona 500? I got to know that because I haven't stopped yet. But I don't know,

like as far as this stretch goes, I'm still on my Daytona 500 high, as was junior this whole past week, you know, if you saw him on every show on television or whatever. He's on a Daytona 500 high. And you know, I thought maybe it would go away after Phoenix, but it hasn't gone away. And I think this is actually this momentum and this whole glow that you see out of junior in the entire 88 team i think that it's going to carry over for these next few weeks at least right i mean i mean it certainly it certainly seems that way and uh jeff i mean you can speak to that you were out there and with them in phoenix did you just see these guys oozing with confidence well to mike's first question i don't think it ever gets it's it's never not cool to talk about winning the detona 500

no you know i was lucky to be with these guys last year at atlanta and richmond and you know it was kind of a tense, tense time. I got to tell you, this is a totally different group of guys. You know, I mean, Stevie's always positive, as you guys know. I mean, like, Uber positive all the time. It's legit. I mean, a lot of people say there's no such thing as momentum. Don't tell that to that 88 group. I mean, that is a really pumped up team. And Mike's right. They're going to, I mean, why not gamble? You know, seriously, with how the season started for the 88, heck, I'd ride this as long as it goes. Absolutely. And Mike, you know, typically the Daytona 500 winner, I don't want to say does something fluky,

but you typically, Mike, have to be in the right place at the right time. We've seen with the different kinds of racing styles that we've seen, many different kinds, by the way, whether it's a two-car tango or four-wide pack racing and your 35th with five laps to go and you're racing for the win with one lap to go. You know, we've seen a lot of different styles. we'll go back to what we said about Dale Jr. and his win, the Daytona 500. The more it sinks in, the more impressive it is, because that guy basically had to lead for the last 80 laps of the race. I mean, I love that style of racing, and he totally earned that victory.

So I don't want to take anything away from that. But typically you go to Phoenix and you go to Las Vegas, you go to some of these other tracks, and you really see what these guys are made of. Clearly, Dale and Art Jr., in this 88 team, Mike, are made of something special right now. Because, I mean, listen, Kevin Harvick was in his own stratosphere. You know, Junior Motorsports, by the way, people associated with him need to pinch theirself right now because, of course, he raced for Junior Motorsports on Saturday and made his debut, but he was in another stratosphere.

But Dale Jr. had something for him there in those last few laps of the race. And off of all those restarts, he's battling Lugano and Kislauski and to some degree Jimmy Johnson. And eventually, he's passed all of them. And it just goes to show right now. This guy has no fear about him when he's out there on the track. No, this is Dale Jr. from 2004. This is that confidence.

And I was telling somebody yesterday, it's not only that he has confidence, but this is different from 2004 and that there's confidence, but it's actually a functional family rather than the dysfunctional element that we had going on back in those days. Here's what was revealing to me, Taylor. Jeff, you speak to this as well. For the second week in a row, I saw that. the 48 unable to pass the 88. And these are two different tracks.

Now, I don't want to make too much of this. I don't want to start stripping Jimmy of championships here and just giving them to junior. Let's not go overboard. All I'm saying is, for the second week in a row, the 88 bunch brought the best car from the Hendricks table. I thought, maybe I'm not objective. But I saw the 48 throw everything he could. I saw the Penske guys throwing everything they could.

They couldn't get by the 88. The best car won the race. Well, I think we were the best in class. It was a four-car race, right? And, you know, there were guys that made cameos, the 31, got lucky on the pit sequence. You know, the 48 showed up for a little bit, and then the two in the 22, obviously, they were late. But we were second-best car, and definitely best in the family, at least out of the campus. Hey, when Lugano got into Junior's Quarter Panel on that, was it the second to last restart,

Yeah, second last restart, I think. Rattle his cage a little bit. Were you surprised that Junior still held his position? I was not surprised that he held his position. I was more, not surprised. He didn't say anything about it. He didn't, I know. We were just racing.

I mean, I was cussing Lugano. I'm going stuff. Yeah. I thought it was interesting that Stevie had to tell him. Yeah, by the way, Lugano. Yeah, that's right. Bumped you a little. I don't know if you noticed or not.

Yeah, he said he felt it. Yeah, I felt it. He didn't care. It didn't care. You know, when you get on a run like that, you're, you know, you feel like you're bulletproof anyway, right? You know, and so it was just another laugh there. I am just so pumped. I think all of us are.

You can hear it in Mike's voice especially, just about the rest of this season and the style of racing that we get to see each week because you already have a win under your belt. Very confident and happy Dale and Art Jr. was also part of the podcast this week, and he had something to say here exclusively for Dirty Mo Radio listeners. Hey, everybody. Fresh off of second place run at Phoenix today, kind of winding down with a cold beer.

Just thinking about how well we ran, real happy about, you know, running second to what I think was probably the best car there all weekend. Harvick and his team were about two-tenths quicker than everybody in practice. and just had really impressive speed. We were able to learn a lot from what we saw in the garage all weekend. A lot of things, you know, ideas and things flying around in the garage this weekend,

being the first race really at a track where handling matters the most. Steve and the engineers did a good job spotting some ideas and spotting some things on some of the cars that we tried to implement and try to learn from. And I think as the weekend went on, we actually improved our car quite a bit. We started out the weekend, maybe a 12th place car. And as the practices went on and we got through the race, we kept getting better and better. And I think by the end of the race, we might have been even just a tick faster than Harvick, but just ran out of time.

We didn't have anything for him most of the day up until that last restart. Once we got clear of traffic and got a little cushion on the pin. ski cars behind me, we seem to run some faster laps than Kevin. But it was a good day, good effort on the team's part. Steve did a good job calling the proper strategy. We were a little bit short on fuel, but we were able to save enough under those several cautions at the end to make it work. So we'll just take second to points lead and go to Vegas.

And we've got a full day, Thursday to work on some ideas. is in practice with some telemetry on the car. That's very valuable. And hopefully, you know, I really like this racetrack, really enjoy the different lines. You can run in the corners and the speed and the banking. So I expect to run well. I'll be surprised if we struggle, but you never know. It's a very competitive sport.

So we'll just see how it goes. Hope we can get us a good run, if not a win. It'd be awesome to win at Vegas, one of the biggest racetracks. on circuit. Thanks for tuning in. 30-moe radio. All right, Dale Jr. there. I'm a punk, man, hearing how confident he is going to Vegas. Before we get to reaction theater, I have one question for Mike Davis and also one question for Jeff. And the question for you, Mike, is about Dale Jr. and Twitter. I mean, this guy is totally addicted now to Twitter. Did you ever think you would see the day where Dale Jr., like the first thing he's doing,

like when the day starts and the last thing he's doing when the day ends is he's on Twitter. Yeah, let me, full disclosure here. I'm about to be very transparent for you, Taylor. This is exciting. It's entertaining. It's even been informative, even for some of us that have been working for Dale Jr. for 100 years here, you know, and then he'll tweet something and we're like, I didn't know that.

But it is also comical in an ironic kind of way because there's a few of us that took some beat downs during junior's anti-Twitter early years about, you know, this is going get you fired, I can already tell. You know, and, you know, this is just, this is something that's going to phase out, whatever. This was a couple years ago. It's just ironic, and I'm just sitting here sitting back and enjoying it going, oh, check it out, because he's addicted. He's totally.

I don't know if you've noticed, but I think he's giving Kuzlowski a little run for his money when it comes to Twitter addiction now. It's crazy. I mean, even Amy's all over Twitter now. I mean, both of them. But he's tweeting gold, man. I'm telling you, it's not just like, hey, here's a picture of my dinner. It's like, it's actual good content here.

I got real nervous there for a second, Amanda Troutman. Yeah. But no, he's right. A little Brett fire, bro. Oh, you got it. Why do y'all have to take it there? But you're right. No, it has been Twitter gold so far.

and he's done an excellent job with it, but it is funny because he did the same. I mean, look, I don't know him anywhere close to the way you guys do, but I think it was in Kentucky last year, and he said, and I was waiting to do an interview with him, you know, for PRN, and I think we were like third in line and Brett McMillan and Brad Gilley and these guys were ahead of me, you know, interviewing some other people, and he said, what are you doing? I said, I'm tweeting.

And he said the same thing. He goes, man, I don't know why you do that crap. And here he is. I just keep thinking about that conversation, and here we are now. And I'm sending out one or two tweets a week, and he's tweeting hundreds of times a day, it seems like. And you don't want to throw it back in his face because you don't want him to stop what he's doing. It's too good. So I don't want to discourage that.

I'm just sitting back and it's in my mind. And now out there for all of Dirtymo Radio to hear. Hey, final thing before we get to reaction theater, and Jeff, I think you are perfect to have on the podcast this week to help at least me and maybe some others understand. understand. From what I can gather, the first 26 races of the year, it's basically wins are all that really matters. Okay, you're typically going to have 13, 14 or 15 different winners in a seat in the first 26 races of the year. So I guess that there are two or three guys that are fighting for points really to finish 15th or 16th to get into the chase. In fact, Dale Jr. would have been one of those guys last year. But it really seems like wins are all that truly matter.

I can't really figure out why finishing fourth is really that important. Then you get to the chase and races 10 through two of the chase as we count them down look like old school point style racing that we've had really for the last number of years where points really are going to matter and where you finish each and every week, whether certainly winning is very important. But if you finish second, third, fourth, fifth, that is of significant, value and then obviously the final race is you know best out of these four guys the racing is going to win the championship is that basically how it goes down is there really any value in where you

finish outside of winning in these first 26 races i mean for years and you guys have seen this i mean a lot of you've heard a lot of cliches everybody has you know it's like we're here to win that hasn't always been you know the case the first 26 right it's been like hey let's let's build our team let's get some momentum right the good points day You know, we talked about us gambling, right, at Phoenix. So was the four, right? So was the two. So was the 22.

I mean, you had four cars gambling in the second race of the year, right? We were gambling because we were playing with house money, I presume, right? Those got, Harvick had the best car he was still gambling, right? The two and the 22 were gambling. Nobody did that. I don't remember anybody ever doing that, right? Because you would, you'd be digging yourself a hole going into Vegas, right? and the rest of the swing.

It is going to be interesting to see the mindset where you're essentially on kill for 26 races, right, for some of those guys as they try to win a race, then go dial it back just a tick, you know. But isn't there something where a win automatically transfers you through in the chase? It basically does. It's still going to come down to, you know, no mistakes.

points, I don't know that you gamble as hard as you are going to do in those first 26 because, you know, it's just, you're just not going to. But then to just ramp it back up, the good teams will still be there, right? I don't know that there's going to be a big difference in that, but it won't be these guys riding around. Great points day, cliche interviews. I mean, I think you're going to see some, especially those last five or six before the chase, I think you're going to see craziness. Craziness. And they're just going to just lean on each other,

take each other out, and not come out and just say sorry. I mean, there might be some hurt feelings. And Bristol might be Bristol again. This is Yeah. It is going to be, Mike, is that, is my explanation basically how you understand it or did I get some part of that wrong? I don't know. We won the Daytona 500.

That's really all I care about. I don't even know what the rules are anymore. We won the stinking race and I'm like, it's all I care about. We're in. I guess I'll I'll read up on it when we get to the chase. Okay, fair enough. I mean, I just, there's so many times in the last few years where you hear people say, man, we had, you know, we were riding around 15th, but somehow we got the seventh.

We're so pumped. I just think that's gone. I mean, you know, I don't see any reason why that's necessary these days with this new points system. But awesome explanation there from, uh, any time. Hey, we won the Daytona 500, Taylor. That's all that matters. Got it.

Okay. All right. And with that, it is time now for reaction theater. our favorite time of the podcast each and every week. Let her up, Amanda. Dale Jr., great run today, man. Hey, one thing, don't shave the beard. I ain't saying let it grow out long like crazy. Just saying, you race better with a beard.

I don't know if there's statistical information on that. I think we need to actually go to NASCAR and find out if he actually races better with a beard. I'm not sure that he does. Was that like their loop data? I'm sure somebody could figure that out. Is that in loop? Yeah, is that loop data statistics? We got to find out.

You know who we need. Hey, Mike, you know what? I know he's in your phone. Call Bob Pockris. I'm sure. He'll be buried under a mountain of paperwork on his desk, but it'll be in there somewhere. Hey, is somebody that hadn't shaved my face in six weeks, I have no problem with him keeping the beard. Let it go.

Do you feel like you perform better on the radio with a beard? Without any question. Okay, there you go. It sort of gets into my face a little bit, as you can hear, but other than that, you know. I'm all right. Sun tan for LaTart. Let's hear this one. I love seeing the first and second place start the season.

Love it that they're relaxed in hell in a couple weeks. I don't see the tart sitting on top of his pit box in a lawn chair, kicking back, working on his tan for that TV gig. Drink cold once out of one of those with tart cookies. Hell, even the pit crew is going to be down in the kitty pool. Dale, yeah. I've named after the Lartarton. Yeah. You got the kids in the kiddie pool of the picture.

That's awesome. I mean, seriously, how awesome would it be to Mike Davis's point? If Latar's got the hat backwards, you've got the sunglasses on, maybe he starts just grilling some steaks. Orders a pizza? He's got kids in the kiddie pool. Oh, man. This is going to be good.

This is good. All right. Next. Hell yeah. 2014. You're of Dale F and June. Here, got a little race today, Dale, Jr. Enjoy, Ligano, you pimple-faced little bitch, you better get your water bottle

ready. Yeah, it was hard racing today, but you keep that shit up, and something's going to kick your ass. Ooh. That was Tony. Was that Tony? Yeah, smoke. You know that commercial NASCAR's put in NASCAR. That is hysterical, where they do that slow motion of the fight last year.

Ligano looks like he's tickling smoke. Yeah. He really looks like, like there's no fight in Ligano at all. Somebody hold me back. He's got the face and everything, but he's. He's not, he's got no punch. That is, that is really good stuff there. Next.

I couldn't be any prouder of the way junior and that 88 team's done kicked off this season, man. They coming out strong, they coming out and they're saying, we're going to be a force this year. We're going to win some races. Let's go, boys. Get it done. Bill yeah. Very good. Let's see what Dickerson thinks about this next one.

Dickerson is a good spotter, but I have to say I cannot wait until we get TJ back. I think he is by far the best spotter out there, and I enjoy listening to him on the scanner every weekend. I mean, I don't know what you guys heard, but that sounds like TJ with a woman's voice. Oh, my goodness. Or could have been your wife. Yeah. No, no, my wife is not excited. about me doing something.

Amanda, can you confirm that when you were downloading these reaction theater voicemails, that that came from the Majors' house? Check the caller ID. I'll have to do that. Hey, that's seriously. Look, TJ's taking a lot of grief up there through the years. And, you know, I think everybody, it was a popular win on the spotter stand, you know, for some, you know, as much as it was, you know, for junior and, you know, and all that.

But, you know, there's no quarterback controversy here. You know what I mean? I'm just trying not to wreck them. Hey, TJ, speaking of a controversy, T.J. became part of the actual race this weekend. Did you know this, Jeff? He's tweeting during the race, and so the fans were going at him going, you're not allowed to tweet from the spotter stand. Seriously?

And it actually was a pit road report from Matt Yocum during the race as it was closing down. They were talking about how T.J. Majors isn't there that you were spotting in his place, but he's catching grief on Twitter. Are you allowed to rip other spotters on reaction theater? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Next.

God, that's fucking suck. In second place, what is that? Bullshit. All right. I'm just shing with you guys. That was awesome, Ron. Hardrick was freaky fast, like Regano said. Not much you're going to do with him.

We were damn fast, but just couldn't get it done. What a way to start the season? That was a multi-personality disorder right there. Amanda, you got your workout for that, for that one, didn't you? Censors. Yeah. No kidding. All right. What we got next?

That's what I'm talking about, Mike. Keep him focused. Keep the foot down on the panel and go for nothing but broke. Keep it done. Get it done, Dale, Jr. I like this. This is all about you, Mike. Keep him focused.

You hadn't seen him in two weeks, but keep him focused. He hasn't been back home. You know, I was talking with Kelly about that yesterday. Since Junior has won a Daytona 500 and has now become a Twitter star, none of us have actually seen him. He's not been back home yet. Yeah, that'll happen next week. Big party next week, I understand.

All right. This next one, Dickerson, might like to. TJ, if you were there, we p.1 would have got P1. I yell and scream at you, and sometimes I think you don't care. But if you were there this weekend, I'm pretty sure we'd be sitting P1. Get back to the track, buddy. Get well. Wow.

Dickerson, what did you do to make us finish second? Yeah. I thought you did good. Mr. Hendricks said something to me after the race. He goes, what, that's all you had? I go, sir, that was a 10th place car I just ran second. What's your problem? That's great.

It's always fun to end with Dan, the junior fan here. What we have? When Stevie LaTartre said to Dale Jr., save under yellow, race hard under green, if it runs out, fine. We're here to win. Son, let me tell you something. Dad will high-fived himself and ran around the house like a baboon. June. Jail Jr. said we was going for the juggler?

Well, I believe it now, son. That's the way you go after it. Hey, Taylor, speaking of Dan, do you know that since we played his, you know, big pep talk after Chicago at the end of the year? Towards the end of the year, you know, he gave us this big motivation speech, and we played it on Dirty Mo Radio. Like, I don't, like our average since then is 4.8. Yeah, I mean, the last 11 races have been ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, listen. I'm not kidding. I'm not kidding. No joking around.

It was a damn good pep talk. It really was. So maybe there's something to it. Reaction theaters open 24-7. All you have to do is call toll-free like it's 1983, 1855-740-1902, and leave us your voicemail message and we'll play the best each week right here on Dirty Mo Radio. Dickerson, thanks again for showing up.

Since you did show up, it's time for you to read the white flag. Not a terribly busy week for Dale Jr., especially if compared to last week. Junior and most of the 88 team went straight to Vegas from Phoenix. So it's a quiet, it's sort of quiet around here this week. This is great. You're doing great. The team will be testing on Thursday in preparation for the Las Vegas race weekend. I'm going to go get a beer.

You keep going. Yeah. Take your time on this, Jeff. No golfing on Saturday for all of Junior Nation, as don't forget, Junior will be in the nationwide race this Saturday. I like this. Driving the 88 tax slayer.com Chevrolet and the Boyd Gaming 300. Regan Smith and Chase Elliott will be driving similar looking cars. Regan in the number seven Napa synthetic motor oil Chevrolet and Chase in the number nine

Napa Auto Parts Chevrolet. That race will start at 415. It's 115 Vegas time televised on ESPN2. Sunday's Cobalt 400 from Las Vegas Motor Speedway will start at 3 p.m. Eastern. That's noon Pacific time where we're at. I'm getting a good idea while we finish second now and not first. Dale Jr. will drive the Diet Mountain Dew Coers for the first time this year. Finally.

Oh, good. Finally. Well, we have another bullet point after this. Kelly's podcast tomorrow is already starting. Finally, thanks to you, the last. listeners of Dirty Mo Radio for making our first official week of 2014 a huge success. All four podcasts were in the top 50 in the iTunes sports category. That's true, Jeff. Don't forget to rate and review each of these shows.

I'm glad you mentioned that. Top 50. I'm good, Mike wrote it out and they validated it by saying, that's true, Jeff. I brought that one with me on a posted note. And really, finally this time, Fastlane family with Kelly Earnhardt will come at you tomorrow. And you will love who she has joining her. Who, Jeff? I mean, if you're going to say we love it, you should tell us who she has.

It's a surprise. Okay. Okay. Mike, what's a what's the Harvick Spotter's name? What is Harvick-T-Ewa? Is it really? Oh, really? Timmy Fidoa.

Yeah. Former Dr. That was what was cool. By the way, I think Fidoa would have, he would have read that a little quicker. But hey, you know. Oh. Well, they told me to slow down and be clearer with Junior. Save, save, save.

Just kind of, you know. No, that was a good one for Feedwood, too. You know what I mean? That was first time over there. All right. Cool, man. We're good. Did you sell a bullet point?

I feel like he's wanted to talk still. Yeah, I do. Actually, I do. I mean, if it's all the same to you guys, I think we should just remind everybody. On Friday, it's the J.R.M. 36 of the podcast. All here on Dirty Moe radio. Thank you. us out.

They did a great job on that. And make sure we also say about Amanda Troutman's new podcast. She has the recap of the full weekend, the JR Motorsports, nationwide teams, and Dale's Sprint Cup series run on Mondays with the Monday morning recap. So make sure to tune into that. Awesome stuff, Jeff. Appreciate your time, my friend. If you go to Vegas, go get a win for us.

If not, just be ready and sit by the phone because chances are we'll need you again for the podcast. From Whitefly. Yeah, I can do the Whitefly. Yeah, we'll call you for white flag. All right, no problem. Thank you very much, you guys. We thank Dale Jr. We thank Amanda Troutman.

Mike Davis, you're hilarious. I'm Taylor-Zarser. This has been the Dale Jr. download. Thanks for listening to Dirty Moe Radio.