The Dale Jr. Download - 44 - Las Vegas: Running on Empty

Episode Date: March 11, 2014

A fuel gamble by Dale Earnhardt Jr. paid off, but not with a win. Junior weighs in from his airplane, and Mike Hoag drops by with surprising news of his own. 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 Moe Radio. Well, we have a first, a second, and a second. And now it's a fuel away from two wins. I'd say we're doing okay to start this deal off. The Dale Jr. download starts now. With Mike Davis, Amanda Troutman, and Mike Hogue. Oh, yes, sir.

I'm Taylor Zarser here, and this is the Dale Jr. download. Once again, we have exclusive audio from Dale Jr. after this incredible start to the season. as on the plane home. He shared his thoughts once again exclusively for Dirty Moe Radio. We'll hear those thoughts in just a minute. First, Mike Davis, I know you're a little under the weather, but I've got to give you a lot of credit here. Let's hear it.

First, a second, and a second. And we're trying to figure out, you know, pinpoint where all this success is coming from. I mean, everybody's fired up, points lead, and, you know, competing to win races every year. And I think it has everything to do with you hiring. Amanda Troutman. I mean, the Troutman era of Junior Motorsports, I mean, it's pretty stellar. She started off pretty hot. I'm telling you, she's doing well. I'm going to tell you, though, something, Taylor. I'm feeling good. I'm a little under the weather. I feel good,

nonetheless, because we have a great start to the season. Del Jr. finish his first, second, and second. But I feel even better because, Taylor, you don't know this, but Mike Hogue, this is his first day back in the office. And he walked in on a prank for Jared 360 this morning. He's fresh off of that. I'm not going to say what it is. You'll have to watch the video on Thursday. But Hogue, welcome back, my man. Thanks, man. You got to think being gone three weeks, I knew something was going to be done to my office. After seeing Mike even tweet pictures of it.

You don't go win a Daytona 500 and finish second in the ensuing two races and not get messed with. You're right here. You're right. I'm not complaining. I'm looking forward to seeing that later in the week. It has been an unbelievable few weeks. And Hogue, it's good to have you back, my friend. And, you know, I mean, we always say things like, oh, you're going to remember this 50 years from now. But truly, you're going to remember these last few weeks 50 years from now is some of the greatest of your life.

I mean, outside of, you know, personal satisfaction of having a kid, you know, et cetera, even though Mike Davis put that ahead of you. I knew you were going to bring that up. I know you are. Hoag, it's got to be right there for you, man. I can't imagine what these few weeks have been like for you. It is. You know what? It's funny because on Sunday night, we were 10 minutes from landing.

I was thinking, wow, it's three weeks. is over, but it was something that you look back at and you just want to remember as much as you can. So I told Mike Davis I want to actually, you know, write a little bit about it and write my experience down. It's from my perspective. And it's something I'll write. I always will remember it.

And I want to be able to share that. And it sucks. It's over now, to be honest with you. But it was a great ride. And I feel like we had great people around us. And the whole time was a blast. Well, it's not over yet. Yeah.

I mean, come on now. I mean, go to Bristol this weekend. You're right. You're right. You're right. Just because you're back in the office doesn't mean it's over. I mean, listen, man, it was funny because I packed for three days before Daytona. Three days.

I was like, you know what? I'm not going to jinx it. And I was washing clothes a couple times, you know, three, four times. This weekend you shouldn't even pack clothes. Yeah. I don't know if that's good for anybody. Mike Davis, my favorite part of this whole trip that Hogan Jr. Just took was when they're sitting in the bar in Bristol.

Yeah. You know, Junior just won the Daytona 500. No. Oh, yeah, Bristol, Connecticut. Right, right. Bristol, Connecticut, yeah, not Bristol, Tennessee. But he's sitting in the bar, and he's taken over doing this exclusive audio. We'll hear this week's clip in a minute.

And he's talking about it, and then he looks at Hogue and goes, Hogue, what was your, what were your thoughts? What was your perspective? And Hogue says, I mean, the first thing out of his mouth is, well, I was in the motorhome with your girlfriend. I'm like, come on, man. The first thing you said was way out of him. motor home with your girlfriend. It's caught the moment.

I was going to get something, going to get a drink. Shut up to you. Well, no, of course, of course, Amy and Amy's been a huge part of this too. And I know that that's something else that's been really fun is to share this with Amy and the rest of the crew as well. And just to see the joy that Junior and Amy and everybody's had. Yeah, is Amy and the Hendrick employee Laura Scott, our friend. Yeah. We all, I mean, it was just such a.

great group to be around. Honestly, it was everybody asked you, how was it? How was it? Honestly, the people made the trip. There was never any down moments. We always had fun, lots of behind-the-scenes stories. It's, again, something that none of us will ever forget. And we just had a good time with it. And we just embraced it and we're positive the whole time. And I think that's shown really over the past couple weeks from Phoenix to over to Vegas and just keep the momentum going. Mike, let's talk about this race on Sunday. And, man, I don't know about you, but Certainly, I mean, I was disappointed. I'm on the edge of my seat.

My wife and children, we're all watching. We're all going crazy. And it's so your heart is racing. But I tell you, there was another thought that entered my mind just as much of the emotion of coming that close. It was so different than say, you know, what happened in Charlotte a few years ago, because you already have that win. And there was a part of me that was just saying, man, I love this. I love going for broke now.

Well, you don't have to worry about running out of gas and points not mattering. This is, man, I've been waiting for this kind of format forever. I don't know if you thought that way. Oh, this is the most fun that I've ever had experiencing NASCAR and watching races that I've ever had. This is it. You know, a lot of that has to do with the new formats. A lot of it has to do with qualifying. I love this stuff.

I know they've got some issues to iron out. But, you know, I'm involved from Friday through Saturday through Sunday. and I can't get enough of it. Certainly a lot of it has to do with the way all our teams are performing, not just junior on the cup side, but our junior motorsports teams. This is the most fun I've ever had watching NASCAR, and I want to make no to that because it seems like most people always want to complain when something's bad, but when it's good, you really don't hear anything.

Well, I'm telling you right now it is good, and I want to make sure that I say that because it is fun to watch. We want to piggyback off my even at the track, the fan, the fans that are there, like, the fans that are there, like, they were a ton of fans. in the seats. I mean, the buzz are on the track just from, like you said, Friday to someday. It's incredible the difference. I see it there. You see it at home. I mean, I think it's a

great thing for the sport. That's awesome to hear. And, Hogue, I've got to imagine people are going nuts when you hear LaTart on the radio say, we're going for it. This is our chance to win a race. I mean, I'm going crazy in my house. I can't imagine what the pits are like. Well, those last five laps of that race,

the fans, you can hear them, you can see them, they're all on their feet, and then that last lap, talk about the drama. They were yelling, screaming, and then the backstretch when he ran out. It was like the air got sucked out of that place. Everybody just kind of went back down to their seats. But, man, it was a wild ride. I hope I wish we had, like Mike said, we were about eight ounces of fuel short.

I'll tell you one other thing, Taylor. When the caution came out with 47 laps to go, and they were three laps short, according to Steve Lattard. Is that correct? Is that how you understood it? Yes. Yeah. So they were three laps short and they still chose to gamble.

Now, had they made it, had they won this race after being three laps short with just 47 to go, I swear, Taylor, I was going to look for a DeLorean and a sports almanac because all I could think about was Biff Tannen and back to the future too. Three laps short with 47 to go. It's an incredible job by Dale Jr. to save what he saved in that short amount of time. Yeah, that's a good point. And when he went out there and led some laps before he pitted, and he went obviously longer than everybody else, DW is sitting there saying,

I'm not real sure what Junior's doing. Maybe he just wants to get some confidence here. And Larry McReynolds, in the most polite way possible, some of you could tell, just kind of looked at him at the booth and said, he's trying to win this thing, man. You know, and I don't think there's any question that that was what was happening. But here's Dale Jr. on the plane, finally headed home on Sunday. He shared his thoughts exclusively to Dirty Moe Radio.

here we go. Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. Just took off on the plane, headed home from Las Vegas after a second place run today. A little bit disappointing, but happy at the same time. It's a weird emotion. But, you know, run out of gas on the back straightaway. We knew we were a lap short, maybe a half lap. And that was the honest, you know, that's the truth of the situation.

We can do about it. As much as we wanted to make it to the end, we didn't have the gas to do it. We knew it. So we were making a gamble load. We might get another caution or something like that to give us a chance. And we didn't get that got another caution, but still were able to come in second. So it was a good call. Gutsy, and I'm proud of Steve for making it.

He's just him and all the engineers, everybody on top of the pit box, they're just doing a hell of the job this year. The team's done a good job all, every weekend, everything's just rolling in the right direction. Great motors. So we're just trying to ride the wave. Hopefully we'll, you know, get a little bit more luck and maybe win some races here in the near future. But so far, so good. And we're going to Bristol this weekend.

And as much as I'm, you know, like to get concerned about the race and get concerned about the car and how we ran last time. all the things you think about going into a race, I'm really can't stop thinking about qualifying and what that's going to be like. Doing the qualifying style that we do this year at Bristol is going to be quite interesting. So I think everybody ought to tune in, so I'm crazy. It's bound to happen. Anyhow, I'm going to listen some tunes on my iPad and Let this bird take me east.

See you later. That's awesome. I love that. Good stuff. Hope, thank you first and foremost for persuading him to do that. I just, man, I just think that is so awesome to have that exclusive audio here on the Dale Jr. download. Hey, two things for you guys before we move on with the podcast. One is, what do you think they finished?

Seventh, sixth, something like that if they don't gamble on gas, Mike Davis? Well, Dale made a comment right after the race. We were looking at the score and pile on it. He's like, where Jimmy finished? Jimmy's like six. He goes, yep, that's where we would have finished if we didn't make that gamble. See, I thought we were a little better than Jimmy.

He meant like, you know, in that range. I think we'd have finished fifth, fourth. I think we were a little better. Yeah, still the point is, Mike Davis, that it's going to be, like you said, it's going to be so exciting to see this on, it's so many times throughout the season. If you've got, I mean, reality is

you're going to have weeks where you have a ninth place car. And listen, what's the point of finish in night? Right. So Steve LaTart is going to have smoke coming out of his ears with 150 laps to go. And he's going to start doing the math and say, all right, this is what we're going to do. And I cannot wait to see that. Yeah, I've got an actual real question. And I don't, it's probably more for LaTard or any other crew chief.

But with so many of these races coming down to fuel mileage, and especially since we're in this gambling mode now, like, why would it not just be commonplace for drivers and especially us just to be saving under caution? From the beginning, I mean, I wonder that, and I don't know the answer, but you know, you would think like, hey, if we're going to be trying to stretch stuff and we know that we're in position to do so, just save under caution, junior, you know, even if it's the first caution, even as lap 10 to start saving. Maybe we can eliminate one or two pit stops. You know, who knows? I don't know.

I think it's a great point. I think you're going to see it. I don't think there's any question that you're going to keep seeing it as the season goes along. but you made the best point so far, and that is the style of racing is so good for the sport, as much criticism as Brian France has received and some of it deserved in the past. He deserves tremendous credit and everyone associated with him that had something to do with this new format because it is pumped so much life into the sport. All right, I know that we want to hear these people chime in.

I also want to let you know that we got Fastlane family with Kelly Earnhardt Miller. That's had gotten off to a great start as well. I can't wait to see this JRM 360 on, of course, a video later in the week with what's going on in Hogue's office, but also J.R.M. 360, the podcast, as we know that Mike tried to learn Spanish and German from Martin Friedrich. So that'll be fun. And Amanda's doing a great job, of course, with those Monday morning recaps. Now it's time to hear from you on Reaction Theater. What do we have, Amanda? I just got finished watching that race. Steve LaTartre can have my firstborn. I'm willing to get that up. We went, what, 169 laps on our right-side tires?

That was incredible. Up two seconds was like 30 to go. I was flipping my shit. An amazing race. It was. Awesome. I don't know. I mean, listen, I love junior.

I think he's great, but I'm not giving up Katie. I'm just going to go ahead to say that right now, Mike Davis. I'm not giving up my first ball. No, I'm not giving up my firstborn. Let's just enjoy it all. Let's enjoy our firstborns and the success. That's what I'm going ahead. All right.

What we got next? Hey, that was very exciting, but I'd really like to know if Mike Hope was watching the race with Dale's girlfriend. Man, this is going out of control. Really? Out of control. I was actually watching it with his girlfriend because she was at the pit box. Yes.

Did you go up on the pit box? No, I did not go up there. Come on. But it's a matter of time. If there's ever a camera shot of our pit box, Taylor, I'm making it. And Mike Hogue is on our pit box, you know, we'll shut down everything we're doing. I'll be in Texas. I'll take pictures if that happens.

Every J.R. and 360 from here for the rest of time will be about that. You can count on you. I hate you guys. Oh, man. Let's get to the next one. Woo-hoo. And I tell you what, we would have loved the win, but I'm loving. and the all-in strategy that the 88

team has this year. Keep it up, Dale. See you at the championship holding up that trophy at the end of the year. Great job, bud. No doubt about it. It is a long season, there's no question, but man alive, there's so much reason to feel like that right now.

Next. We got Rob, because we don't burn the motorhome down out here in the infield thinking that Dale was going to win, but he didn't, and we ain't got no damn way getting home. pick us up, you know, it says our reaction. And hey, what I always say is go bigger, go home.

There you go. Oh, man, he needs a ride. My man needs a ride. Hogue will give him a ride. Hogan gets a ride down the infield. Somebody come and pick us up. Yeah, Hoke can give him a ride, but he's too busy stealing Junior's girlfriend. Jeez.

Really? I'm so glad you're back, Hoke. Oh, I love it. You set himself up for it. I mean, Junior starts interviewing Hogue. That's the first thing he says. What do you think about my dad? Daytona 500 victory.

Well, I was sitting there watching with the girls. Oh, man. What else are you? I have to embrace it. Yeah. Good, Rudy Stale. Sorry, I just got done crying, like, literally. That was one hell of a run.

And I think you would have had it if you hadn't run out of gas. You definitely would have had it. Well, yeah, he definitely would have it if he didn't run out of gas. You know what I wish we had? No question about that. I do. I wish, you know how after the 500 we had been? of people, you know, their emotion after that race, that win,

seeing Dale across the finish line. I wish we had video of people that last lap. Yeah, I mean, probably... Yeah, well, if you want to inflict pain on yourself, you can YouTube what happened in Charlotte a few years ago, and that was... There's got to be some out there. I'm sure we could find it.

Oh, there were plenty on YouTube a few years ago when he ran out of gas in Charlotte. Again, I mean, it was definitely heart-stopping, and it was disappointing. Right, but... But in the set, like you said, in the same respect, it's awesome with the way things are going. All right. What else we got? You got to know when to hold them.

Nice. No when to fold them. No when to walk away. Know when to run. You never count your point when you're sitting on the pit box. It'll be time to count the trophies when the season's done. Oh, nice. Thank you.

Nice. Our first singing reaction to theater caller. I love it. Kenny Rogers, man. I mean, that's pretty good on reaction theater. I wonder what our boy Marty would have said to that. Oh, he would have loved. No, Marty.

Marty, we might need to send Marty the one where the dudes burning down his motorhome. Yeah, he'll love that. Marty would love that one. Definitely wanted you to tune into our buddies Marty and McGee on their ESPN podcast as well. What else we have? Man, that's a tough one. Oh, God, we did. Rad Kislauski did not win that race.

Junior just ran out of gas. I mean, geez, when that car was out front, it was so fast, even when he was stade in fuel. But it's all good. Mike Davis, can we claim this one, too? I mean, because every race so far, somebody's had something to do with, you know, junior motorsports. I mean, Brad Kislauski's a junior motorsports alum. Yeah. Well, let me tell you this, Taylor.

If Paul Menard would have won that race, I would have gone and found some reason why we could have taken credit for it. I don't know what it would have been. But I guarantee I'd have found something. Yeah. Dale Jr. who used to run for Earnhardt, you know. Yeah. Right. And then Paul Menard, yeah, some way.

This guy, you know, obviously, yeah, Brad did get one just off of our misfortune. But Brad has been running solid this year. His finishes are 3, 3, and 1, which would be phenomenal and definitely like the best ever if Junior wasn't on this ridiculous run of finishes of 1-2-2. What is Kosowski? One point back? Yeah. One point back.

He's not finished worse than third this year. Did you hear my stat yesterday in the Monday recap that the only other driver other than Dale to start a season like this was Richard Petty. And he was okay. That's pretty amazing. He was pretty good. He was decent. Yeah, he was fair. Yeah, seven championships, 200 wins.

Next. Oh, man. So close. But that's what I like to see, man. Throw caution to the win. Go for the win. You got nothing to lose. Go for the jugular.

Dale, yeah. Yeah, great Ron, boys, great Ron. Absolutely. Hell yeah. We need, yeah, we need shirts still, by the way. Working on. Shirts. Next.

Brad freaking Kes laugh. He lets you stay in his guest house, and this is how you were paying. You son of a bitch. I mean, they are neighbors. Yeah. Just for the record, Brad does own his house. It's not like Dale's guest. It happens to be on the property, but Brad owns it.

T.J. tweet it, Brad, saying, hey, Brad, don't worry me and Dale Jr. won't toilet paper your house. Do you see that Sunday night? Well, I still going to it. Listen, I still got a bone. I'm still not over the Kansas race from a couple years ago where that should have run out of gas

and didn't. Junior's sitting in second, you know, with all the gas in the world. And I thought for sure Junior was going to win that and Brad somehow nursed at home. So I thought this one is going to, this was going to even us out, but now we owe him two times. That's right.

All right. What else we got? Man, the negative of all this is Steve LaTart. Your math needs to not be so spot on next time. The positive, though, that tells you how much that this team is kicking ass that they lose gas and run out of gas coming off of two and end up finishing second. That's how well you got to do. There's no question about that.

Man, it is fun times right now in Dirty Mo. There's no doubt about it. Reaction Theater is open 24-7. All you have to do is call toll-free. like it's 1983, 1-855-740-1902. Again, that's 1-855-740-1902. And leave us your voicemail message, and we'll play the best each week right here on Dirty Mo Radio.

Put Amanda to work. 855-740-1902. All right, Mike Davis, you know, you don't have the best pipes today. Should we make Hogue read the white flag again? Oh, I forgot about this. Why not? Come on. Hogue, there you go. Dale Jr. is back.

Dirty Moe Acres, but there is no rest for the weary. He has a dentist appointment today. Well, wish him luck with that. He also has competition meetings this afternoon as the 88 team puts the finishing touches on Las Vegas and prepares for Bristol. Nice. This afternoon, we're doing some production work

with Jimmy Johnson for Valvillin. On Thursday, Dale Jr. will be in studio production work for Unilever Brains, which is Ragu, Breyer's ice cream, Hellman's, you know, all those things in your kitchen that you love and enjoy. Aside from, from kicking ass, there's really nothing else on Junior's Bristol schedule.

I hope you have your frosty mugs ready because here's what's on tap for this weekend. For Saturday's nationwide series race, Kevin Harvick will be in the number five Armour Chevrolet. Are those the little mini sausages? Yeah, well, there's a lot of brands. Miles loves those things. Regan Smith and the number seven. Taxlayer.com Chevy and Chase Elliott and the number nine Napa Auto Part Chevrolet, which I will be helping out on Saturday. Yes, you will.

Thank you for that. You're welcome. That race is Saturday at 2 p.m. Eastern on ESPN 2. Want more of what's on tap? Easy, partner, you're drinking too fast. But here it goes. Sunday's Food City 500 will be at 1 p.m. Eastern on Box. Dale Jr. will be in the number 88 National Guard Chevrolet.

That's it, Phyllis. And I do have one more thing to add, which I haven't told you. Go ahead. Guess what we're doing next Thursday? What? Dale Jr. is going to be on the Ellen show. Are you serious? I'm dead serious.

What? Yeah. That was news. Breaking news here in Derdeme. radio. Wow. We're going to be on Ellen. Ellen. We don't have airtime yet, but we're recording it at 4 p.m. So Junior's going to have to dance? You're going to Ellen? Yeah, is he going to dance? We've got a production

here in Mooresville in the morning. We're flying right out to L.A. to jump on the Ellen show. Are you kidding me? That is big. I think he needs to bring Ellen a gift. Like, that's one of her big thing. Is he? Ellen needs to come here. That's what I think. All right, well, let's play this one at a time here. Can we bring Ellen a gift here? Like,

what do you think? We've got to do something big. Maybe a dirty-mail radio decal? There you go. Dale Yosher. I hope the episodes, because you know how she had that selfie that around the world and Dale had his. I'm hoping maybe they're listening that it would be an episode about selfies. And then her and Dale Jr. will take a selfie together. Yeah.

Oh, man. Listen, I love my buddy Jake Peavy, and I appreciate you guys helping get Dale Jr. to sign a hood for him. What if Dale Jr. brings a hood out on the set to Ellen? That might be pretty cool. Yeah. Oh, can you get that in the airplane? Can you make that happen? It depends on me.

We've got a plane full. I'm telling what. I'm so excited about this. I had no idea. Sorry, I want to surprise you. No, you did. This is awesome. Ellen's show.

All right. There you go. We'll talk more about that coming up next week. It's good to have you back, Hobb, but it's not over. You've got to go to Bristol. Enjoy watching that race in the motorhome with Amy. And also, we look forward to seeing you again soon. Mike Davis, hope you feel better.

Thank you, Droughtman. Thank you for everything as well for all that you do. I'm Taylor Zarser. all of you for listening here to the Dale Jr. Download. Thanks for listening to Dirty Moe Radio.