The Dale Jr. Download - 450 - Welcome to North Wilkesboro w/ Josh Berry

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

Josh Berry joins Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mike Davis live from Dale's bus to talk about this week's upcoming CARS Tour race at North Wilkesboro Speedway with Dale Jr. behind the wheel of the No. 3 Sun Drop car. Dale, Josh, and Mike recap Tuesday's practice session, a flashback to last year's CARS Tour race where Crew Chief Josh helped Dale Jr. finish Top 3, and the challenges some Cup Series regulars might face in this race. 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.

Calling is a production of Dirty Mo Media. There he is. Come on in here, buddy. Have a seat. Hey, everybody. Glad you tuned in. It's time for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. Mike Davis, Dellenhart Jr.

The Bojangl Studio. Got a great guest today. Well, how you doing, Rhett? I'm doing fine right now. This is every week, okay, boy? buckle in. You died on that hill. Your career died on that hill and you were hardheaded.

You were a bigger idiot. I didn't even think about it. You thought about it and didn't ask it. That makes me the bigger idiot. I think so. Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Dell Jr. Download. We are on location today. We're not in the Bojangles studio.

See how I slid in that nice sponsor plug there? You did. Bojanger's Motorhome, maybe. I don't see any live. 9 L. Dicass is in front of me? No, but we can get some. Nope, we're not there. We're not at the studio, but we are on location at North Wilsonboro.

And the reason why we're here is because we were practicing for the car store race. And we're going to talk to you about that a little bit, talk about day one. And I brought along a cool guest with me, Josh Barry. He witnessed it all today. He worked on the car. He's the crew chief calling the shots from on top of the sun drop pit box. Now, Josh, listen, if you have something to say about your driver, you got to be able to come out and just say it, all right?

And I don't care that he's sitting right next to you. And I don't care that you're in his motor home right now. If the driver needs to get up on the wheel, you've got to say it. The truth comes out in the podcast room. That's right. It's hard not to be easy today. All right. I cannot wait.

Listen, I've been upset. Me and the Dirty Mobile Bois boys. We don't have the table of truth, but Mike's at the dinette of truth. Right, this dinette, party of one over here. This dinette. Dale's like, I'm going to eat by myself today. All right, but we've been up there and we were watching practice from the concourse. The place looks amazing.

Yes. I cannot wait. I just want to hear about the race car. Tell us what we got. Yeah, I mean, you know, we ran here really well in August, and I don't think me and Josh have been back here since. And we've been watching all the changes they've done to the track online. It's been amazing, you know, seeing all the photos. And Marcus Smith has been texting me and you, Mike, repeatedly about trying to get us out here to see everything.

and, you know, we just couldn't find the time. We was busy. I think everybody I've talked to this year says that this is the busiest they've ever been. Well, that's the same for us, and we just haven't had the time to get here. Place looks amazing. The car is, in our opinion, I think, is good or maybe even better. Josh slipped up and maybe said it was a little bit better than August. Uh-oh.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was hard to, it was so hard to tell in August, right? Because there was some rain. We didn't have a lot of practice. You know, there's a lot happened really quick. But, you know, I think, you know, today was really pretty solid. I think the biggest thing is he's pretty happy with it. So that makes me feel a little bit better.

And we like the lap times we ran. You know, we feel like we made some gains. You know, obviously, Brian, that whole group, they've been off to a phenomenal start this year. So, so really, they get all the credit for the car, honestly. I've been super busy cup racing and everything I've got going on. Yeah. So, you know, they really work. hard and put a lot of effort in getting that car ready. It looks beautiful. Car looks awesome.

And we were able to, you know, run through some changes today that they have picked up on with Carson Quaple over the course of the season. And we feel like we made some gains and pretty happy with the car. And like I said, we'll sleep on it and have a little bit more practice tomorrow. Well, that's, you know, we're, this is a traditional this is, I want to just straighten something out. This is a, this is not your traditional guest show, right? We do have a guest, but we're, we're And he is an ally. I feel like we're all equals here. There's not me and Mike interviewing.

There's three hosts, right? There's three hosts here. Yeah, I feel like there's three hosts. But we still want to give allies some love for giving us the opportunity to bring this awesome guest segment to you every week. And we will say Josh is our guest today. But for the most part, he's just going to be kind of discussing what our day was like. And I agree with Josh. The car was, I like the speed of the car.

I really came in here a lot more relaxed than I was in August. Obviously, I was so damn nervous in August, and I didn't know. I hadn't raced the late modeling forever. And we had a great experience. Now, I've went to Florida's and got my teeth kicked in over there a couple times. So that humbled me really good. And so I came in today with just a blank slate, you know, no intentions or expectations over anything, going to get in the car, we're going to drive, we're going to be smart, we're going to drive smart,

we're going to be calm, we're going to communicate with Joshua. well and we've got a whole other day tomorrow to continue to get better and this doesn't have to be the perfect day right it doesn't the car doesn't have to be perfect we don't have to fix every flaw but the car drove well turned well we put on some tires midway through through the day and it responded those new tires really well which is what you hope because the funny thing about racing late models and i have gained i've really come to respect josh and all the guys that are competing is they race a lot or practice a lot and try to to learn what they can on mostly old tires, and it's so damn hard.

You've got the tires that we came here with had two races on them, not races, but they had been used at two different race weekends as practice tires. Yeah. They were hot, cold, hot cold, hot cold, stuck in the barn, brought back out, back out and practice hot cold, hot cold, then stuck in the barn and brought back out here. I mean, they're as bad as tires can get. And so trying to figure out, like, what he, what to tell him about, I mean, you just be honest.

You can just be honest, hey, this is what it's doing. and he knows he knows what them tires are worth or how to factor in how much the tires affecting the balance we stuck on some stickers and the car really ran well

good lap times one of the things that I thought was really interesting today since we did get to practice a lot the changes that we made to the car I really felt them I was surprised at how much

the changes affected the car I didn't anticipate that particularly at a really worn out track on 10 lap tire it's hard to really feel changes. You don't know whether you're making the car better or not. But he made some changes today that, man, I thought, wow, that's interesting. It was absolute different feel, better or worse.

It did feel different. And so that was fun to go through and just kind of brainstorm with him about those changes. So I really enjoy it, man. I know Josh is, Josh is probably, we talk about being busy. I don't know anybody busier. I do not. Like, I'm sitting here just amazed that Josh is even making. changes on a race car that are effective and you can feel them because the guy, I mean,

it's like he's driving the 48, he's got the Xfinity car, he's going to go out there and compete in that thing, and now he's up here at Wilkesboro doing the thing and making effective changes and you're happy. By the way, Josh, I did pin this all on you, man. I wasn't sure what we were going to get when Dale walked in here. If he was going to be, listen, usually he's pretty nervous about a race, but he's as calm as he's ever been before a race. So, I mean, I've got to be honest with you. There's always tomorrow. Well, listen, and by the way, for the listeners listening, obviously when Dale said, we're recording this on Tuesday,

you're listening to this probably on a Wednesday. Dale doesn't mean that he's going to be racing on Thursday. He means he's racing Wednesday night. So if you do not have tickets and you're in the area, please come out. But, yeah, we're taping this right after practice in the motorhome on Tuesday, and we'll be racing Wednesday night. So, Josh, what are these changes? I got to know.

I mean, what have you been doing to this car to make it, to make Dale so high? happy. Well, you know, for one, and I use our experience back in August kind of as a comparison. I think, you know, we dealt with some weather in the Prague. I think we only got maybe 20 or 30 minutes of practice. So the problem is you're running through trying to use a couple sets of tires, kind of rebased line. Obviously get him more acclimated back to the late model stock and the track. And really, we just didn't really even have time to work through some things that maybe we could have if we had a little bit more time. So for us, you know, the biggest thing, we, you know, the biggest thing, We, you know, obviously wanted to unload.

Like he said, we had some older tires that had been cycled out that Carson had used a couple times this year and kind of get a baseline on that. He was pretty happy with the car. The lap times were pretty solid. And then we just ran through some different sets of shocks and stuff. And really, I can't say that I can take a bunch of credit for them, right? Because these are shocks that Brian and these guys have worked on and figured out a little bit and made some gains.

And we were just able to kind of transfer that information from Carson's car on a Dale's car and let him feel it and at the same time, you know, give them information for Carson to see what direction they want to go as well. So, you know, I think Dale, obviously, getting a couple of races under his belt, I think it's going to make it easier, just acclimating to the car and the experience and having a little bit more time here today, having more of a normal schedule, I think will be a little bit more helpful. It's a challenge. It's a challenge practicing like that and having old tires like you mentioned, that's something I'm familiar with.

And, you know, the best way to explain it, especially on a track like North Wilkesboro, that wears the tires so fast is you just have to be patient with it, right? You can't, you just need to, you know, go make your run, come in, you know, make your change, make your plan, and kind of, you know, let the tires cool back down a little bit,

you know, go make another run. You can't just fire through it. You can really get down the wrong way if you really fire through it sometimes. And isn't that what Dale did so well back in August, the racetrack revival? Like, I just remember Dale, no, he's shaking and said no. I thought you saved your stuff better than anybody, and then there you were at the end. I think Josh made the car better than anybody at the end.

So we, you know, I wanted to talk about that a little bit. Go ahead. That was one of the things that I was concerned with. When we ran here in August, Josh had preached to me quite a bit about saving and what did to expect or do. We got into that race, and I was saving, and then there was a point to where we had some contact off the corner and it messed up the quarter panel. And Josh, you know, thinks that had a really bad effect on the car.

And I went from saving to running as hard as I could to keep up with the guys I was around. And I was mid-pack. And the car was getting looser and looser. And I told Josh at one point I said, man, I think I might be in trouble. I said, this thing is really getting loose. And I'm running as hard as I can. And you see how we're doing. and that's, I don't know what else to, I'm not, this isn't working like we had hoped.

We come down pit road, he fixes the quarter panel, and we got to get two new right side tires with 50 laps to go. And man, it was a rocket ship, you know, and he knows what to do when you get those opportunities to make adjustments on the car. That's what's great about having Josh. I feel like I've got, you know, not only one of the best drivers that ever drove a late mile stock car, but all the experience, the decade-long experience of racing week in and week out, He has so much knowledge to lean into. And, you know, so I think that's what I'm a bit worried about for me going into this race is, do I really know how to manage that tire?

Because we, I feel like we went, you know, I went to, Josh has been with me for every race I ran. So he was a witness to all this. I feel like that I was, I had nothing to gain and nothing to lose in August. So I started that race out just going, yeah, I'm going, almost safe. Yeah. One way or another, I'm going to be fast at the end. If I'm running 20th or first, I'll be fast because I'm going to have plenty of tire. The next couple of races, I haven't done a really good job, but I don't think of managing my tires.

And I find myself in situations in those two races at Florence, where I'm like, man, I'm running way too hard. What I just did on corner exit was absolutely useless or not productive to what I'm trying to do. And sure enough, at the end of those races, I didn't have as much as I needed. And I know, I wonder, like, so I guess my question to you, Josh, is when you learn how to manage this tire at an old racetrack like this, is, is it an ebb and flow of trying to, you're always having to remind yourself? Because I feel like that it's so easy to think you're saving and you're really not. the more I race, I feel like the worst I get really knowing how much I'm saving, I'm not saving. No, I think, you know, that's really a completely normal experience for it. I think, you know, we tell those at home, when we say we save, we used the word save, right?

And a lot of people that would watch racing wouldn't say, man, we want to see them out there running everything that he's got, right? But the reality of it is, is that tracks like this just create such opportunity with the surface age, right? I learned to love these type of races because what I enjoyed from them is for me as a driver, if I, let's say that my car wasn't, if I felt like my car wasn't the best car, the winning car, right? It gave me just a little bit of ammunition as a driver to say, all right, well, if I back my pace off a little bit more than maybe at the end of these guys, you know, I can make up the difference for the lack of, you know, my car just not handling like I'd like, right? So you learn, you kind of learn to, you know, you learn how to manage that through these races, the more you do it. And, you know, go back to the saving part.

You're really, the way I look at it is you're more of like at an 80%, 75% or 80% the whole time. And if you do it right, your 80% kind of becomes 85%, 90%, you know, 95%. And then at the end, you still feel like you're kind of given the same effort, but you're, you're just, if you try harder, you're just going to go slower. Yeah. And, I mean, look, I lived it Sunday, right? You, this is so funny. It's a funny dynamic, right?

Because he says, well, you've got to be on. We talk about saving tires and now. And look, I mean, I ran a cup race at Darlington. And Dale calls me afterwards. He's like, man, just relax, you know? And I'm like out there trying to learn the car, find the limits, racing too hard. I nick the wall, toe link.

You know, we're in the pit stall changing it, right? And I'm just sitting there with my head looking down the steering wall and saying, damn it. You're knocking yourself. So it's a real similar experience like that. But yeah, like in August, I think he did a really good job of managing that. We did get some right rear damage. And TJ mentioned that.

And we've worked on our communication now. Me and TJ can talk a little bit better now. We've got our radio's working out. He spots for Josh. Yeah, me and he's been spotting for me. And I got my radio set up where me and him. He likes to talk a lot on Channel 2. I've realized, so we worked on a radio situation

that where me and him can communicate a little bit better during the race. But, yeah, he said we had right rear damage. Obviously, he couldn't really tell how bad it was. And when we come down pit road and I saw it, I thought, holy cow, that's going to be way bigger than I expected. And we, uh, Ryan, you know, myself and Ryan, we literally just, that was all we worked on, the whole break was trying to beat that quarter panel back out. And we got it taped together and, and it made a, you know,

made a world of difference, you know, towards the end. and we adjusted the car a little bit, put the tires on it, fixed the quarter panel, and, you know, you were, it was a night that I'll never forget after that, man, watching you drop through the field and see the crowd's reaction, man. It was something special. I felt like Josh for a minute. It was special.

Hey, so Josh, that's a great point. You know, I wanted to jump on something you said there about saving. I would, you know, you're right. If you start the race at 80% by the end of it, 80 is about all you can do. Like 80 is now 100 because the grip of the car is gone. You might not even be able to run 70%, you know, because there's just a car cannot do it.

And so I think what to help people, you know, understand, like if you went out there in this car in a 125 lap race and went as hard as you could, you're going two laps down or maybe three by the end of it, wouldn't you say, Josh? Yeah, no, I mean, it actually happened last year to a couple guys. And that's what makes this kind of race and so interesting, what you really understand it, because, you know, every now and then you have the guy leading and he looks so dominant, and then you realize towards the end that, you know, he's going 95, 100 percent, and at the end, he's hanging on.

Well, you know, then again, every now and then, I mean, there's been plenty of races even that I've won that I led the majority of the race, right? And you sit there and say, oh, that guy's going to fall off, and then he doesn't. You know, and I think that's what makes it, you know, so unique, this style of racing and, you know, for us, you know, it's what we've grown up doing. So we love it. When I talked about getting back into the late-mile stock car, these are the races I want to run. I don't have any interest in going to a racetrack that has a lot of grip that's qualifying laps every lap of the race. The tires don't wear or don't fall off.

I know that's fun and I'm impressed by it. I indeed the guys that are good at it. But like you say, I'm old. I don't do this every week. I'm at a disadvantage. When I walk in here to these guys that run every single week, I'm disadvantaged over the experience that they have over me. And so that's what I lean into.

That's where I gained my confidence. Like, man, you know, I can probably do a better job of driving off the corner straighter. They might not think they're saving, but they might actually be running harder and shaping the corner a little incorrectly. And I've learned and listened to Josh enough to know what this car needs to do well.

And it's David Pearson, even Darrow, Walser been a big speed, band of his career. All those guys were going to sit back and watch everybody else beat their stuff up. I mean, that's how David Pearson won so many Southern 500s. He'd sit back there in fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, they've placed running 80% all day long because you just got to get through 400 miles where you can ever start racing, right? Especially back then when everything was breaking and falling off the cars, motors would blow.

I mean, they'd have so much attrition in the late 70s and 80s. And David Pearson, you know, made a career out of out foxing people. And that's how he did it, you know, and whether it was saving his tires, saving his car, what have you. And I wanted to, we talked about Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian, Brian. Yeah, tell us who that is. Brian Schaefer is his name. And he's been, Josh can speak to Brian better than I can over the last decade.

But Brian's been with us for a really long time. He runs our late model stock program. He is the, he's the one that really makes all the decisions, and he's the one that's responsible for Carson Quoppel's success this year and last year. in the Car Store Championship. One thing that's cool about Brian is he's been around a long time. He worked on Dick Trickles' Exfinity car back in the 90s when I was racing in the Xfinity series.

Wow. He knows a lot. He's been around a lot. He's seen a lot. And a great thing about him is that you can walk up to him with an idea. He's already heard it. He's already tried it. And he probably knows how it's going to work or not, right?

That's the one thing I like about Brian. But you've worked with him for a long, long time. And you spoke to me many, many times about how important he is. Yeah, no, he's been, you know, super awesome for our program, right? And he came to us, like you said, he worked at some different teams in the Bush series, and obviously with Trickle and a couple of different other ones after that. It kind of transitioned into, you know, messing around with some late model stock stuff. And we got paired with me.

He got paired with me, I think, in 2014, and we kind of started to reshape the program into what it's now, what it's, what it is now. And, you know, Brian and I worked very closely together. found, you know, a great balance of, you know, Brian's experience and knowledge and then my eagerness and hunger to work on the cars and get better. And basically what he gave me besides, you know, making our race cars better, he just made me really a lot smarter about how my approach and kind of shaped me into who I became throughout those years by just, you know, at times, pushing me when I needed it and at times raining me in when I was getting too far out,

getting too crazy, you know, with what we did. So yeah, and I mean, we obviously, we worked really closely together and through my, you know, through 2018, 19, 20, when we really went on like a spectacular run and won all those big races in the late model car before my Xfinity series, you know, me and him, we worked really closely together and, you know, really got a really good package going for these cars and and in Carson Carson coming in right like he was in a great situation coming in but you know he kind of took the ball and as ran with it and tried to pick up

and try to I don't want to say become like I was but you know in a way he's trying to try to pick up that and being hands on with the program and learning the cars learning how to build the cars learn how to manage Brian and talk to Brian and communicate with him I love watching those guys race and win it's been really cool I do too and and we've talked about cars Carson a lot together, me and Josh, and that was one of the, we knew that Carson was really talented. We knew that as young as he was, he could develop into a dominant force, whether it's in the late-mile stock car or he goes into the trucks or Xfinity series.

He will be talented, he'll be a winner. But what we wondered was how he is outside the car. Yeah. That, while Brian is critical, he's the nucleus to the team. what Josh talked about that Josh did while he was part of the program was as important to the success. Having a driver that is plugged in mentally and going to school. It's an education. It'd be what I would compare to be going to get an automotive degree, a two-year automotive degree or something like that,

to be a technician in the automotive world. You have to pay attention and know what the hell is going on. And to be able to go out there and work on these cars for all these people. And so I think, you know, that was Josh's education. And if Carson, it was open to that and willing to put himself to work, he would have as much success as Josh. And so right now it's really working in that way. He's at the shop every day. You don't have to go looking for him.

He doesn't have a whole lot of outside interests that would be distractions. To my knowledge, he doesn't stumble outside of the car with decisions and where he's, and where he's, is and where he spends his time. He's focused on racing and he wants to be a, he wants to do everything he can to be a great race car driver. I think that he knows he's in a great situation and he knows he doesn't want to make any missteps. And when we have had to tell him, hey, this is something you need to work on. He works on it. And he takes, you know, he's really quiet too, which is kind of actually good. We kind of pick on him a little bit because he's very mellow. There's not a lot to get him excited. That will be a massive, you know, help to his career going forward, managing frustration

and anger on the track and off the track, right? Now we've seen him snap and do some things. He wrecked the guy after the checker flag at Tri County last year and they parked him for a race and a Josh got parked for a race, you know, so it's not unprecedented. It doesn't mean that there's a massive problem or a big flaw. All drivers probably go through something like that at some point. So he just does still have a I'll have to learn, man, they are on a tear. They've won three in a row. They finished second in the first race in the opener. So they've, you know, they've just, I don't know how you could complain about that.

And went in the championship last year, and they're on their, you know, on the way to try to do it again. So let's start with him because I was going to ask you about the field that you guys are going to be competing against. And one would think if you've been watching the cars tour and then also the fact that Carson won here last year, you have to think he's the favorite. He's tough to beat for sure. He will be a favorite. Connor will be really tough. Connor's been great this year, and he's aggressive. He's hungry.

Mason Diaz will surprise you. He's had a bit of a tough year trying to get his legs with a new team, but I like him as a driver. I think he's got some really good talent when the car does what it needs to do. But, I mean, we could keep going down the list. There's not many slouches in the cars tour. And you're forgetting, we've got almost a half a dozen Cup Series regular, some with championship trophies in their house on the mantle that are competing too. And you don't know where those guys are. They're learning these cars really fast today.

They're making massive gains on how to drive the car, what it needs, what it likes, how to use the brakes and so forth. That was a challenge for me. Josh has helped me work through how the car likes to be loaded onto the stops and how I drove the car like I thought it should be drove. and he's like, you might want to change this and that and the other as far as how you apply the brakes and use them. So things like that, those guys are picking up as they go. But it's pretty fun to have how these celebrities here competing with us. Yeah, let's list out who was here.

We were watching Harvard go around the track. I was curious if you've run into any of them or had any conversations. I haven't seen anybody on the racetrack that I kind of was looking, but I didn't really see anybody that I recognized. I did get behind Briscoe for a minute. He was kind of up ahead of me a little ways, but saw him run a couple corners. Chastain texting. Yeah, he's here.

He said, man, you look really loose. That was in the first practice. And I was like, yeah, we should be loose the way the tires are. We're fine. But he must have been behind me at one point. Yeah, I think we were trying to decide who, or which car of Trasstein was in. And is he in that pink car? Yeah, that's right.

Oh, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. The first practice, he eased up on you. And the second practice, he got, when you had the tires on, he went around a couple cars to follow you and then he drove away. He got the experience on the tires. He's right. He's loose now.

Yeah, I told him. I said, I said, I said, I said, I'm not surprised by the way it was loose. And I think we're going to put tires on. That should fix it. And they will do that. They will drive that way. I'm like, it's, there's, you can have the car. You could, whatever that, you know, magical best in the world setup is,

you could put that under this car and it's still going to drive sideways off the corner at lap 75. There's no way around that. So when you guys are talking about saving tires, I think Ross Chastain out on the track trying to save tires, I just don't see those two things going together, but we'll see. We'll have to see. I mean, yeah, I mean, I don't know, really.

I watched him a little bit, watched Harvick a little bit. What do you think about them? You know, from what you saw from the cup guys or the guys that are trying this for the first time, what you think? You know, I think it's going to be a challenge. Yeah. You know, I really do. For them or going against them?

No, I think it's going to be a challenge. for them. Got it. Yeah, I think this is going to be a good bit different than what they're used to. But you just never know. And it's like I said, sometimes it's hard to tell because you don't know who has tires on, who doesn't have tires on. Sometimes, you know, obviously we'll know.

You really don't know when to qualify and comes around. But, you know, you try to pick up on things. And like I said, I think it's going to be a challenge. I mean, everybody, you know, I didn't see a whole lot of them run, but it's going to be an adjustment. I mean, Harvicks, this is his first outing ever. Not only for him, but also for his car, right? So that's something even, to Dale's credit, right?

Like, we're relying on everything through the first few races with Carson to accept. So some of these guys are in new situations and learning. So it's going to be eye-opening experience. I hope that, and I feel like the competitors in them, hopefully they don't get too discouraged if it doesn't go right. Yeah, I don't think so. I think that I wanted to say, like you, you know, you were mentioning Harvick, Rodney Childers, built their car. They bring it here for the first race. They've tested it.

And they thought the test went really well. They had a little struggle today, but they're on some weird tires. You never know. I told them, I said, man, you might bowl on tires tomorrow that are more like what you're going to race. And that thing, everything's cured. You know, so the other guys, like, so Rodney and Roddy and Harvick put this car together. They worked on it for two years. And it's here.

Now, if they were to struggle, it's because it's a brand new car. You're working the bugs out. You don't know, you know, trying to learn how to make this thing handle. that's a daunting task the other guys all of them are in cars with team owners and people that have

participated in this series so those cars should come relatively somewhat in the ballpark right that you would think they're renting from very reputable series teams who can afford or who have that much inventory to be able to put that many cars on the racetrack

I'll be honestly man I'm sitting in that car and we go out there and we run them laps and how good that's driving. I was thinking, man, I wish Harvick could drive this, right? Or I wish I could get out of this car and have a line of cup guys just hop in and run a couple laps just so they could feel like what a great race car feels like and what a great late model stock car feels like, right?

Because we want more of them to come try this and do this with us. We've got other races that I think work on their schedule. We got a Wednesday caraway event coming up that I think Harvick's going to run again. And so we got Kenny Wallace coming to Tri-County. That's right. Is it Memorial Day yet? Memorial Day weekend. He's coming in town.

So Tri-County on Saturday night will be 30,000 to win race where we'll have Kenny Wallace showing up in a filter time car. That's going to be fun. Dude, the car's tour right now, man, is so hot, right? It's so exciting stuff. And just Kevin racing in this race, knowing that he's part of the ownership group is so fun. I've talked to Burton. Now, he's going to – it was a while ago.

But I did talk to Jeff Burton, and I said, man, you're going to drive in a race in one of these cars. So my intention, what he said he would be okay with was to maybe go to a Florence Motor Speedway on a regular weekend when they're running, you know, a twin 40s or whatever. And he would just slide in unannounced and race one of our, the Sunrop car, you know, run one of our cars. I think that would be the only way he would ever race. I don't think he'd ever want to come and do this, but he'd show up somewhere because he says he's so worried about being beat. and I was like, man, that was my problem. That's why it took me 15, 20 years to come back.

It's because I was like, I'm just going to ask kicked. I don't want to do that. That doesn't sound fun. I mean, I want to try it. I want to do it. Once you get through that and over that, because you know who helped me with that? Didn't even know he was helping me with it was Chase Elliott.

Chase Elliott went to the Chili Bowl, and he's doing all these other things. And I'm like, he don't care if he gets his ass kicked. He's just there to try it. He wants to try it. Like, that's the attitude right there. I got the wrong damn attitude. And so that was interesting to see those guys going and being willing to get your ass kicked. I mean, you know, when you race for 20 years in a cup series and you get a damn big ass ego,

and you ain't wanting to go to run some local short track and get your ass handed to you by the local boys. Because this crowd will damn tell you about it. They will. If you have to let them down or you didn't win or something or you didn't put somebody in the walk. We were up there in the concourse, and I'm telling you, if we're hearing it from the fans, they'll let you know exactly what they think. thinks. After you've been a cup racing for a while, you're like, oh, man, I can't go get my ass kicked. Right. But it's okay now. Dude, listen, all right. So what is the format that we can expect on Wednesday night, the format?

You said 125 laps. Well, it's basically the Cars Tour event is, it's 125 laps, and if they have 40 green flag laps straight, they'll throw a yellow. So there's competition yellows, but only when there's 40 straight green flag laps. if there's a natural caution that resets that clock. And I think at some point we get to the end of the race and the clock just goes away completely. Yeah, under 25 to go. So under 25 to go, that competition yellow doesn't happen.

So that's, you know, I don't mind that. You know, I think that we talk about, it's a bit like a stage break, but you kind of don't know when it's going to come or when it might happen. And you don't, and it, so it doesn't really make the strategy of the race that rigid. There's a little fluid, you know, a little bit of fluidness to it.

It's somewhat predictable, but not as much as like, you know, here, we're going to stop at lap 50. We're going to stop at lap 100. That's it. You know, plan your race. Put your tires on when you won't. Everybody's going to do it at the same time. And they probably will tomorrow with the cars tour. But I kind of like that.

You just, you know, that could maybe change in the future as far as 40, 50, whatever it needs to be. But we could play with that a little bit. But I like that part of the tour. That's something unique. All right, Josh. So basically, this is all in your hands now. You are the crew chief. You are, you know, we thought you had more time in your days to dedicate your life and get your priority straight.

So here's one more thing. So you're going to give Dale Jr. His last bit of advice before y'all go, are you still got another practice? Yeah, we practice again tomorrow. All right. Well, maybe save the speech. You don't give him big motivation speech. You would tell him, save his tires.

You just give him one right before he cranks it up? Yeah, I'm not a big motivational speaker. Not going to do that. Yeah, he knows what he needs to do. Josh will ride at the, not as I'm pulling away to get onto the racetrack, but in the five minutes before I climb into the car, he tells me the most important thing I need in that moment. That's one thing I've always working with Josh.

There's one thing he's going to tell you before you get in the car, and it's the important thing. That's the one thing that you need to pay attention to. Whatever it is. Yeah. He's pretty easy to work with today. It's simple as pie. You know, you just sit back, give him good information.

Stay calm. He's going to work. He's going to get in there in that hot wheel well on top of that hot rotor, change a shock. He's going to grind it out. And, you know, the guy that's racing in the Xfinity and Cup level is underneath the car working like the rest of them. them and and so you got to appreciate that you know and you got to you got to realize how lucky

and fortunate you are to have somebody with so much knowledge willing to be here everybody in this garage would love to have Josh standing there just giving it just an advisory role yeah to get them through the weekend Josh everybody's wondering this and I guess I was to last August and we were just thinking why is Josh not wanting to drive this thing we talked about that today yeah and I just and I got to ask again I mean you were you were last year not last August August, you were like, no, I want to be Dale's crew chief. You were adamant about that. Again, you got some guys that you're racing every weekend out here.

And so, like, is there a little part of you, wishes you in a race car? No, definitely. You know, I would love to be out there. And, but, you know, at the same time, it's kind of, it's the same answer as was it, as what it was before. Obviously, coming here last year in North Wilkesboro, that was such an experience. And we, it was really important to us as, as. you know, at our late model program to make sure that we did a really good job for him.

Because he's done so much in supporting us and supporting our late model program and throughout the years that, you know, we wanted to make sure that we had everything. And really for us, it's operating the same way that it did when I raced, right? Like I'd work on the car and drive the car. You know, it's my buddies, you know, same kind of cast that always helped us race. And so, you know, to me, I just, I get just as much enjoyment out of coming. in doing this as I would driving. You know, what I love to be getting the experience at Wilkesboro, you know, I mean,

it's no secret. There's a good chance I'm going to run the All-Star race this weekend. You know, would I like to be running the car for that, maybe? But, you know, I've had just as much fun helping him last year and being a part of that. And we, you know, like I said, for me, he's done so much for me over the years that it's no problem at all for me to come out here and go racing with him three or four times a year. He tested, you know, with us before August last year. We came out here and ran a little bit.

So he ran some laps on the racetrack. So I keep forgetting that because even today we were standing in the holler and I said, man, I'm having a great time. I'm loving what we're doing. But I so badly want him to racing a car tour race here or a late mile stock race at this racetrack. And I've laughed to myself because I thought, well, you know, you might be racing this weekend with the 48. you're more than likely going to be back here at some point in the future. And now I just realize, again, I remember him driving the car in the test when we came here before August. So, I mean, he knows he's gotten an education about Wilkesboro, you know, that's been pretty fun to see him go through.

And I think that, you know, the opportunity for him to drive at this racetrack, it'll be plenty of those. But I certainly, I told him today, I said, man, I really want you to eventually one-time race in a late-mile-stall. car here because I think I was talking to somebody else in the garage today. I don't know a better marriage between late model stock and track than North Willisboro. Now when they repave this place, which they will one day, that could change a little bit. But this place was built, you know, for cars like this. This is absolutely what they ran in the 80s and even the early 90s. I mean, a manual box and the same sort of chassis and similar tires probably, more than likely,

closer in softness and size to what you race today in the Cuff Series. And power even. I mean, these cars don't have a lot of power in the late-mile stock series, but there wasn't a lot of power back in them in the early 80s when they were grinding around this racetrack. So I think he'd really enjoy it. It's just such a fun time just making laps here. I love just today just going out and just making a lap.

It's so fun here because it's a little technical. it's not too damn hard, but you can screw it up if you're not careful. You can make it better if you hit it right. It's just a really good track. It looks amazing. I just remembered a question I did want to ask you. This might be a dumb question. However, there is a bunch of changes since we were here last in August.

One of them is the addition of the safer barrier. And I was curious, especially because we did actually get a little bit of a tour by Marcus Smith today. Alex and I went up into one of the suites, and it's right over turn four, right? Right? And I can know the safer barrier, and it looks like that's a, I mean, what is that? Like a couple feet at least. And on this track, a short track, that seems like that would affect something for a driver. Does it? When the safer barrier came around back in the, you know, whenever, middle of my career, it pissed me off it when they put it at Bristol and Darlington and three and four. Man, Darlington is good now, right? You know that little shot of gas you get through the middle of three and four? Man, when that safer barrier wasn't there, There was like a little trough the tire sat in. And if you hit it right, man, you freaking flew around that wall. And we lost a little bit of that when the Sabrebarra came. Well, they worked it kind of back in in a weird way.

But it squeezed Bristol tight. It took away some of the character to how you drive the track and what made driving track fun. It made some of the tracks a little weird. But I got over that. And here it didn't really do anything bad. I don't really notice it. I'll be honest with you.

The only thing that I see and notice about my line around the track is the safer barrier ends middle way down the back straightaway where the crossover gate is. And it's for some reason I don't, I didn't get a really good look at it. But when I go by it in the car, it's sticking out middle way down the back straightaway and then it then it's gone. Right. And then I think it reapplys itself as you go into turn three. And so there's this weird thing that a driver, when a driver goes to that. to that spot on the racetrack where the wall goes away and you've got more racetrack out here,

you steer the car out there to try to get you a better entry, which is probably not what you want to do on these tires. You don't want to move the race car around on the racetrack more than you have to, right? You're not driving across lanes on a straightaway. But you get this weird sort of whip into the corner that's probably really bad on the rear tires. Josh is probably grinding his teeth just hearing me talk about this. He's like, oh, don't do that tomorrow.

But it does give you, it's just weird. odd visual that is instinctual makes you sort of arch the corner or get further over before you get down into three. They extended pit wall into term one. And they extended it toward the groove. So as pit wall is now extended and you're heading down into term one, you really come real close to it as you get to the end of it. Right at the end, you could hit that if you're not careful. and I'm worried more about like guys getting squeezed into that, right,

and somebody giving them no choice. Because if they get sandwiched into that wall, it would be catastrophic for everybody. And I think if you're not paying attention, you know, racing behind cars, it's a little hard to see behind the late-mile stock and the super's new bodies this year in the last several years that got real hippie.

They're kind of wide in the back. And so, you know, you might be kind of peeking out going into the one and clip that thing. I just see that as being a potential. problem at some point. Somebody's going to hit it. But I think being fast is right next to it. You know, you got to get, I was working my, I was nervous trying to work down to it. And, you know, in that second practice, we put them tires on. I'm like, I know there's speed there because there's a patch and there's some new, new, there's some grippy patch stuff down there.

And I'm like, if I can get on that, I think I'll turn into the corner better. But it's freaking little nerve wracking trying to drive that close to that wall. And it just, abruptly ends and you're off into the corner, but somebody's going to hit it. Somebody's going to clip it with the left front, and it'll be pretty tough. And especially with those cars, those supers with the racks,

it's going to break a thumb. Our old manual box on our, that's why I love Lake Mollstock, man. Old manual box, you can run that damn thing and anything and the wheel won't move in your hands. It just bends all the shit up front. Yeah, it reminds me, how they did the wall reminds me of Pensacola.

Okay. It was like that, Snowball Derby. And one of the, like, you know, high up, experience that I've had was a snowball derby qualifying because you have this shape and you turn right down and you run right towards that inside wall and there's all the photographers and people are like it's like flash bulbs as you know they're standing right there at the wall and you come down at it like I'm sure that's how hot you'll have a little bit of that yeah tomorrow and qualifying everybody watching it but yeah it's uh man I tell you the track looks amazing I mean so significant I mean amazing improvements the pits pits are so nice they did a good job yeah I mean everything's it's not not overkill. It's plenty, you know, it's just a huge improvement and just makes for

such a very, very, very nice short training for around here. They literally threw all brand new paving all across the infield. It's just a big blacktop on the infield. Now it's hot. Like on a day like the day, five foot off the ground's about 10 degrees hotter than the air everywhere else, right?

Just in the infield, it's warm. But there's so many cars here, it's covered that asphalt up and keeps some of the temperature out of the garage. There's a little you know, it's hard getting in and out of the garage, but that's a great problem to have. You've got so many people wanting to be here, wanting to race here. We're racing with the ASA Super Series. They're racing on Tuesday night.

And then, so there's all those cars in here and our pro and cars, late mall stocks. So, I mean, it's a bunch of cars in the infield and everybody seemed to get through the day. I was telling somebody earlier, I said, we're going to have to, you know, all the fans gave us so much grace in August. Now we are the ones that are going to have to give a little grace because all the fan amenities are going to be great. And it's going to be hard for us down in the pits, you know, trying to manage. the grind of the weekend and everybody going in different directions and things just not going as smoothly as you hoped but um it'll be fun and yeah i think they you know they put a lot of patches uh if people have seen the racetrack online if you're looking at the racetrack watching the the

show on flow over the week um all of those little black patches and and and that's all a sealer there is not a piece of new asphalt laid down on the racetrack anywhere but what you see is sealer that's painted or spread across that old asphalt. We were really worried this morning about some of that coming up. It felt like the supers and our cars might in the heat of the day pull some of that

stuff up. And I believe some of it might have came out of the smaller cracks. We didn't have big chunks. We didn't have a lot of big, we didn't have a problem. That's a good thing. The track held together. We got through the day. They did fix a little pothole down in term one. That's to be expected. They have quick fixes ready to go. That pothole

was fixed in eight or ten minutes. So I they know they're going to have some issues and they're ready to combat those. I'm worried about more or not our race. We'll drive around any problems in the racetrack. We ran at plenty of tough little bull rings. But for the cup guys, they need a nice, durable, dependable experience, right? So hopefully everything goes well for this weekend when those cars get out on the track. Hey, Dirty Mo listeners.

This is Dillon Hart Jr. It's May, and you know what that means. The Indianapolis 500 is just around the corner. We're going to, thankfully we have Speed Street with IndyCar racer, Conner Dayley, and comedian Joey Mullenero. They're going to get us ready to go. Follow Speed Street so you never miss an episode and get ready for the greatest spectacle in racing, the Indianapolis 500. So, guys, I'll tell you, we were up on the concourse and fans were coming up. Where? Up in the concourse, in the grandstands.

Okay. And a couple, we met some, me and the Dirty Mo guys, but I brought, you know, Alex is here, Andrew, Dalton Greco, and they came from Washington State, Connecticut, Wisconsin. And one of them, Dale said, he goes, does it not occur to you and Dale that we're not here unless Dale does, says what he says? And I said, I don't think Dale's way too humble to ever say that, right? I said, but I will tell you this, it is hard to believe we were wheat eating this place just a few years ago. Because that place, there was no future for this except in iraicing. I think it was 2019.

I was flying to Vegas with Marcus when I talked about, hey, man, could we have the property to scan it? And he goes, oh, yeah, yeah, you can go in there. I was like, I didn't know if he would want to share it with the world. You know, it was a bit of a sore topic around here, how everything went down in 1996 and the track was sold away. and so I didn't know if he would want eye racing to scan it and customers to buy it right it would be I was worried in my mind I'm thinking man I bet it would just stir up all these questions about

oh why don't you bring it back the wound maybe yeah salt in the wound but also oh you know why don't you bring it back you know right they cleaned it up he doesn't need to hear all that right deal with all that but which he probably deals with it anyways but yeah that's when that started 2019 headed to Vegas the last the second Vegas race of the season and basically when Marcus told me we could do it,

we could scan it. I went on Twitter, and I gave, I backed eye racing into a corner. And I was like, hey, fans, I'm with Marcus, he says we could scan Wilksboro for irasin.

What do you say, irasing? And they're like, you son of a gun. And I was like, so we came up with a great plan, got the cars, got dad's car scan.

We had to call Richard. I called Richard. I called Richard, that car you got in the Hall of Fame, that old Monte Carlo, I need to scan it. And I need the paint scheme too, man, I need you to approve it all.

And he's like, yeah, whatever. And then we had to do the same thing with Bill Elliott's car, and it's down in Dawsonville. They had to go down there and scan it and get the approval to use its marks and likeness. It was a bunch of work. And, you know, we did it for nothing. You know, we did it because we just wanted to race on it on simulator,

on the eye racing. That was all we did it for. We never, I never thought this track was coming back. No. And if there was any thoughts of that when we came here and looked at it, Then, to me, that was the nail in the coffin. I'm like, oh, yeah, this place, it's way too gone for this thing to ever be a real actual functioning facility. Walking around here back then, you're just seeing millions of dollars that it would fix this, this, this, this, this.

It's like, no, there's no way to confess that and get to get the return on it. Yeah. Right? So, but when we, I remember when we were standing on the racetrack in August for our race, I knew when I saw Marcus, he was like, holy smokes like I can't believe this and I was like I can believe it I was like people have been asking for this track for years everybody's wanted to come back here

and I don't think you could have you know I don't think we could have brought a better program right with the cars tour and all that to come here and do it for the first time since you know since they did that stuff in 2010 and 11 but Mark I could see it on his face he was like holy smokes yeah there's something here you know you could tell first place he took us today was in a speakeasy for the fans

I saw that. Yeah, and for the fans. And it's freaking amazing. Is it that little cabin down in the? No, not in the end. It's outside. It's outside. It's up on the concourse.

Yes. Yes. It's. Do you have some moonshine or what? Yes. They can drink moonshine in there. Did you? Yeah.

No. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. You didn't have to drive a car today. Listen, no, I do you got to get home. Oh, okay. All right.

Y'all rode separate. I'm sorry. I'm just saying there's, there's some cool little amenities here that I didn't. didn't even, would have never even occurred to me. And Marcus is like, no, come here and check this out. You can drink moonshine in here. And they're there. It's like a moonshine bar.

Alex, he doesn't have a mic on, but Alex, was it awesome? He said it was awesome. Air conditioned, nice. There's a, there's a sort of a shack in the infield in the garage area for the cup cars. The cup garage is down in one and two, and there's a shack that's been there forever. Apparently it's one of the first buildings on the property back when it was a racetrack. back in the 50s and 60s. I don't know how old it is.

But Rick Allen, our Rick Allen, came up here and re-skinned it and re-and-did the interior. And he's hidden compartments inside it with moonshine in there. Yeah. Yeah, I know where they are. It's amazing. Of course you do. I would hope you would, actually. I'd hope you would.

He sent me a video of all the little hidden compartments. It's pretty smart. Well, so I think we covered pretty much everything today that we got ourselves into. We're thrilled to be back at Wilkesboro. We're going to come back again tomorrow and run our race. We're going to do a little practice. Hopefully everything goes smooth again, qualifying. However we qualify is how we qualify.

I've been up and down. I don't know where we're going to end up, but if the driver does everything right, the car should be perfect. And Josh will be back tomorrow. He's got a little work in the morning, but we'll see him when he gets here. I told him, I was like, are you coming? He's like, well, yeah. I was like, well, you know, you are racing cup cars. and Xfinity cars and doing everything else in the world.

And I was like, I know there's obligations. But he's going to get here tomorrow. And so I'm thankful for that. And it should be a great day. And if anybody wants to come out and watch this race, Wednesday night, it's northwilksboro speedway.com. Northwilksboro Speedway.com. You can still buy tickets.

Yeah. And I think it'll be an amazing, amazing race. Also, a way to take in North Wilkesboro and not mess with the chaos that might come this weekend. This is a perfect. way to do this race in this speedway. I agree. In August, I don't think I've ever had an experience at a racetrack like that,

and I think it'll be similar tomorrow night, so you won't want to miss it. I think everything's sold out for the weekend for the All-Star Race, and maybe there's tickets available for the truck race, I'm not sure, but we'll have a great time tomorrow, so you don't want to miss it. Josh, thank you, man. Yeah, thank you guys. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for coming on the podcast. Thank you for giving him a piece that makes him happy, and good luck tomorrow night. That's right. Thank you. Man, I'm really excited to have Ally help us bring the guest segment every week. It's one of my favorite parts of the download. We get to talk to so many different people in racing, outside of racing.

But everybody that comes in here, I want them to have had a good time. I want them to want to come back. I want them to feel like an ally to Dirty Mo Media. Thank you, Ally, for your continued support of the download and the entire Dirty Mo Media team. Check out Dirty Mo Media. Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.