The Dale Jr. Download - 451 - Recapping The CARS Tour Race at North Wilkesboro

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is fresh out of the driver’s seat after competing in the CARS Tour late model stock car event at North Wilkesboro to join his co-host Mike Davis in the Bojangles Studio. Dale recounts his experience in the race and how an on-track traffic jam led to his car being damaged, altering the rest of his race execution. Dale and Mike also discuss the impressive talent in the CARS Tour ranks and preview the upcoming NASCAR All-Star weekend. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What do you think? Didn't get them? I mean, of all things to say. What? Family picnic sometimes. Are you kidding me, Mike? Are you kidding me, Mike? Oh, my God, that is hilarious.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. Back again for another episode of the Dell Jr. Download, and I'm in the Bojangles Studio. And I'm so glad to be back in here, Mike. I mean, I like going on the road and doing our show. somewhere else but nothing beats the table i did enjoy it though i did enjoy being on location at north wilkesboro it was pretty cool yeah it was fun yeah having josh berry i if you haven't listened to that podcast you can still listen to it you're gonna you know probably preview a race it's already happened

but now we get to recap it yep we do um so uh we didn't have our normal you know guest segment this week we were busy uh we were at north witsboro speedway practicing and qualifying and qualified and racing and hanging out with our sun drop Chevrolet and having a lot of fun. But it was a great experience. I mean, we

I don't even know where to start. I'll say one thing. It was hot. So they repaved the infield of this racetrack with asphalt. I told them, I said, man, you guys got to not repave it with asphalt. Don't do that. Let's put concrete down. Concrete does not radiate heat as much as asphalt, like a brand new coat of asphalt on an 80-degree day.

Round your knees and your waist, it's about 90 because the heat radiating off the brand-new asphalt. It was so hot down in that garage. All those haulers blocking any bit of wind that might be coming around. I was standing there at one point, and I was like, man, It's got to be 90 degrees. And somebody showed me their phone. It was 79. And I was like, God, it feels miserable down here.

It's so miserable. But that was, I'm complaining, right? Which I shouldn't be because everything about being there was amazing. But the constant heat and humidity, especially on Tuesday, was really difficult. And it reminded me of, in the cups. series how pampered we are. We have motor homes and big 018 wheeler trailers, tractor trailers to climb in with air conditioners and, man, we got cool suits when we're racing and everything's about it. Comfort. They even have the term driver comfort, right? How's driver comfort? Let's

fix the car, make it more comfortable for you. There's somebody whose role is driver comfort. Yeah. That's right. And I'm sitting there going, man, yeah, this is far removed from all that all of those things um but that's what's great about i think you know grassroots and late mile stock racing is it's a it's a throwback it's it's getting back to those basics of showing up unloading your car and racing and um that's what everybody was doing and that's what we were doing we had a great time we had good speed in practice happy with the car happy with the way the car handled real happy with qualifying to be honest with you qualified ninth um we qualified a little better in August, but the field that we had this weekend, or this week, I say

weekend, but the field that we had was way stronger. And in August, you know, we definitely, it's the Carr's Tour Series. It's the Cars Tour series at both events in August and this, this Wednesday, but things are a little bit different about the Car Series this year. We got more competitors. It's just a thicker field. and I was pretty happy. We had a bunch of cup guys show up.

We had our national champion Lane Riggs there. And so there was some heavy hitters. So to qualify ninth, I was pretty happy with that. Only really, I mean, there was a really blister and lap for the pole by Butterbean. But otherwise, compared to the rest of the competition, we were just a tenth maybe out of the top five. So we get the race started. And, you know, Butterbean's lap and qualifying was ridiculous.

how fast it was. He ran in the teens, I think two tents faster than second. I ran a 53 and was ninth. He ran in the teens, I believe. Oh, man.

It was fast. He was four tenths quicker than me. Yeah. On a short track, four tenths is bonkers. He's lapping you in 30 laps or 40 laps, whatever that math is. But yeah,

no, so just to give us an idea of the competition, it was legit. I want to mention that because this is the guy that wins the race. Absolutely. So we get the race

going and I moved up to about six place I guess in 30 laps yep really happy with the car driving it smart driving it straight off the corner at that racetrack I mean the tires are going to wear out really fast they're going to get beat up they're going to use up you got to be careful we talk about this with Josh in our when in our Wednesday show so I think I'm doing a really really smart job with the tires but I do recognize that we're we're all racing much harder than we were in August and And I'm assuming, hey, I know some guys in the back half of the field are taking it much easier than we are. If you qualify toward the back half of the field, you have that luxury of just kind of cruising around and waiting on things to play out.

You're not going to work really hard and abuse your car driving up through the field. That's going to do you no favors late in the race. But if you're starting in the front half of the field, you kind of have to work hard to keep that track position. You certainly don't want to give it up. It was racy. It was absolutely racy from the start. That's right. And that's what's great about, I think, late model stock raising and a track like North Willsboro where you have to manage the tires.

But you have so many people on varying strategies in terms of how they're driving their car. And so we're moving up. We're doing well. Cars driving great. I feel like I'm relatively competitive compared to the competition I'm around. And we had a – we had – they have what they call – controlled cautions. So we don't have live pit stops. We are not going to have live pit stops. We're not going to force our teams to bring in tire changers and stuff like that to have to

pay these crews to make these quick stops. So we have controlled cautions, which means when the caution comes out, you have the choice of coming down and either putting fuel in or changing tires. There's only two right side tires that you can put on the car during the race at any point, right? So that's your choice when you want to do that, but you only have two tires to put on. It's 125 lap race. So you cannot fuel and change tires at the same time. That's a safety protocol. You don't want, I mean, we don't have the traditional, you know, filler necks that you see on an Xfinity or a cup car.

We fill our cars up with a funnel and a jug. And so to have a very safe and controlled environment for fueling, if you want to fuel, we have a controlled caution, which means when the caution comes out, they'll let you know it's a controlled yellow. You can come down and fuel the car or put the tires on, and you won't lose your position. Right.

So everybody that comes down pit road will leave pit road in the same order. Right. Right. So take your time, do everything right, no rush, be safe. That's kind of the way it goes. But to be clear, if anybody stays out, which they did, obviously they take the track position. They take that track position. That's right.

You don't restart where you came in at. Well, some guy, so the fuel was a question. whether we really needed it or not. Some guys opted to not do that, not come in for fuel. That actually was a really good strategy. But we came down, filled up on that first stop. We come back out and we're about 12th now. That's right.

We came in sixth now. We're 12th. And we have a choose rule. So I can start inside or outside, whatever we want to do. I think the inside was probably absolutely the preferred line. But if you, you know, if you're going to gain a couple rows, you might as well jump on the outside and give it a shot. But anyways, we restarted on the outside, up ahead of me.

The eight car, our teammate, Carson, had some contact with another car. And everybody checked up. You know, I got a little nose damage. I got hit from behind. This was a big wreck, though. Yeah, you had nose damage. Yeah, I had some nose damage, and then I got hit from behind. And then there was a massive wreck behind me.

That's right. Right. And it red flag, and a lot of good cars got taken out in that, unfortunately. a lot of cars got damage and we were one of them the center the splitter or the bumper cover or whatever you want to call it there was raised up off the ground relatively you know a few inches and it made the car really tight so long story short we you know we contemplated coming down pit road to repair it josh thought it was definitely going to be a problem but the you know once we got back to going uh we had another yellow that was quicky yellow we tried to

have these quicky yellows when there's not a controlled caution, which they wanted to throw a control caution in a 125 lap race every probably 30, 60, and 90. So you're going to have three controlled cautions. Every other caution is going to be a quickie yellow. Bam, bam. Cautions out. Let's get it fixed. Let's get, let's get everything cleaned up on the track, get back to green. So there's not a lot of time to come down pit road and repair damage. So we stayed out on the racetrack. We get going again. Now I recognize we've got a bad arrow issue. The car's really tight into throttle, can't roll the center very well. We're still maintaining decent around the cars we're competing with. We didn't really lose a ton of track position. We're not bleeding out dropping like a rock.

But that balance issue forced me to kind of drive the car differently, and it ended up burning the rear tires off of it, trying to make it turn. And racing way harder. With that arrow issue, I raced harder than the cars around me. Like everybody else is sort of still running about 90 or 80%, saving a little tire for the end of the race. I'm running 100% to maintain where I'm at. And I burnt the right rear and the left rear tire clean off. Around lap 90, we have our third controlled caution.

This is when we want to come down pit road and take our tires. Other teams have already done this. That's right. So some people chose to take their tires around. halfway when we had our second control caution around lap 65 that was a great strategy and so it you when we came to get our tires at lap 90 we you know we thought okay we're gonna get some right side tires we fix the nose we're we're happy about that we finally get the the damage repaired for the arrow issue but now

I've got a very very worn out left retire we swapped the right the left side tires put the worn out tire on the left front um we get back to racing we made some adjustments as well in the car a little bit but we get back to racing and we're just really tight couldn't really you know still the balance of the car is not very good i've probably beat the left side tires up a lot more than a lot of the guys and it and it you know that kind of showed in the result at the end of the day i got the race with a lot of people um which was fun got to beat and bang a little bit got some donuts on the right side Connor Jones in particular you Connor Jones had a had races with about everybody yeah that 44 um you and him like that's where

I was like oh man I'm thinking about you burning up tires uh for your conversation from Wednesday and you and him are just banging Connor is a you know a young kid that's been in our series a while and he's racing um supers as well you'll see maybe in some truck races um and so to you know Connor was really aggressively trying to he got put on the outside got moved up to racetrack by somebody he's on the outside line everybody it's like feast or famine

you know when you're when you see a car up on the outside line everybody's trying to get by that car and you're in a you know you try to get in a train or a Congo line right on the inside and say hey man I'm not letting you in front of me I'm going to pass you like the guy in front of me and the guy behind me is thinking the same thing So we get to Connor.

He's fading on the outside, trying to find a way to get low. He's pretty aggressively doing that and made a lot of contact with the cars in front of me. And so we get down into turn one. I've got the arrow tight issue. We get down into turn one. I'm on the inside of Connor. And I knew that the only way I could kind of get by him was to lean on him a little bit in the middle of corner. So I gassed it up pretty hard in the center, dored him a little bit.

But I wasn't going to fence him on exit. and we get off the corner and he just laid it into me man on the all the way down the back straight away he's just turning into the door my car and i i expected a little bit of that but it was a little bit a little bit more than i thought he was going to do but you know um he was frustrated i get the frustration in the moment um but it was a he was aggressive and and um well we raced around each other later i was you know he got he got to me late in the race and um and didn't run over us and you know he was uh he you know we're going to race him again one day right you got to yeah you got to kind of put those things in the in in the back of your mind and

uh try to you know we try to race everybody clean but in the late model stocks you can lean on each other a little bit you're that's kind that's to be expected somewhat um me and a couple other cars had some really aggressive good fun battles get out after the race and and shake hands and laugh about it. So, anyways. Yeah, go back. I interrupted you. Go back to the way of the end of the race.

Obviously, you weren't able to be aggressive and take off positions. I used up my car. You know, I'd used up my tires and, you know, lost a few spots to some cars that were really fast and lost a few spots to some cars that I probably shouldn't have lost spots to. But, you know, as we're, you know, Carvick ended up doing really well. I was pretty happy about that. They showed up and they were struggling in practice

and they made a bunch of gains on their car and ended up with a reasonable finish. I think me and Harvick drank a few beers after the race and just good to see him enjoy his first run in a late model stock car with Rodney Childers who built the car for him. Brad had a reasonable finish after some contact in that big wreck.

Yeah. And I was happy about that. I liked the fact that our cup guys that came to join us left happy. I got a text from Brisco about how much fun he had. He did fantastic. He did. You know, he was not fast in practice. He looked, you know, you don't know what tires everybody's on.

You don't show up and just, you know, run stickers. Everybody can't just buy all the practice tires they won't. So sometimes you'll see guys, and they're on 150-lap tires out there trying to practice. And you can't really gauge on, you know, how well they're doing. but he didn't qualify well. He didn't practice well. But once they got their track position, they kept it. They stayed out.

They were one of the few cars that stayed out on that first controlled cost. They didn't come for fuel. They didn't come for fuel. I don't think he ever left the top five, really. That was really smart, good strategy, and he drove a great race. Suarez, I saw him out there and raced him hard a few times. And Chastain, I took a picture. He ran into the left for a quarter panel late in the race.

And we were, you know, texting all week about the cars and practice. And we saw each other in practice a little bit on the racetrack and talking about how our cars were driving. And after the race, I took a picture of my quarter panel and sent it to him. I said, I got chastained. I was like, man, you know, it's so funny because I'm like, you know, as a broadcaster and a fan or somebody that's excited about storylines and drama and good, you know, good things going on in our sport.

It's, it's, it's, it's, uh, I'm excited about Chastain and what might happen next, right? You know, but, uh, he's on your list. You get out on the racetrack with him. It's a different story, right? Yeah. You're like, oh, my goodness. He's, um, towards the end of the race, he was right behind you, by the way. I mean, he also really improved during the course of that race.

And there you guys are. And I'm trying to pay attention to that. Um, but you, you guys did have a great race, but that's funny that you, uh, texting that picture. That's a nice little story. Well, it wasn't the best result, but I kind of know why that happened, and still I really enjoy driving in those races. And whether you're battling for fifth or 15th, it's so much fun. And the competitors, you know, they don't get out and grumble or, you know, certainly there are, you know, certainly there's arguments and disagreements.

but every time I've raced all the competitors, every time I race them, for the most part, we get out and have a conversation and a beer or a few laughs. And, you know, I think, you know, when I raced late model stock cars in the 90s, I was young and worried and terrified that I wasn't going to make it and didn't enjoy that as much as I should have. It was an incredible time in my life that I miss.

And so it's so fun to be able to come back and touch on that a little bit. And that's what it was for me. The Cars Tour, you know, was on a grand stage. We are part of, you know, All-Star Weekend. It's a dream come true for a series like that. Butterbean goes out there and wins the race. And he's creating a great little following for himself. You know, during driver's introductions, he had a great, you know,

the great frame reaction when they announced him on the poll, and he goes out and wins the race, and he's great on social media, and Lee Pulliam, one of the best late-mott racers there ever was, is I called him on the way here to congratulate him and talk about how well they represent the series, and I don't have to tell him that.

He knows what he is and what he's done, but just wanted to thank them for doing, what they did, they came and qualified well and raced well. And I was standing in the garage looking at the top of that building where Victor Lane is, wanting to be there, wanting to be celebrating a win of our own, but also thinking at the same time, this is a career night for Brandon, their driver. This has got to be an incredible moment for Lee. And it's a great moment for the cars tour.

You know, we checked a lot of great boxes. It was a good safe event. We had no major issues. A lot of concern about the racetrack, you know, whether it would hold up. I think the racetrack did it really well. They put some sealer down on the racetrack in some areas, and that is always going to, you know, be a conversation of, oh, it's coming up here, it's coming up there. When you put that sealer down in those cracks, parts of it's going to come up.

And it never became a problem, you know. It's a, it's something to navigate. It's a challenge. It's a character, if you will, but it never was an issue. They had a little pothole down in Turn 1 that happened right away. Yep. And on Tuesday and practice, fixed it in eight minutes. They did.

It's amazing. Never, never was a problem after that. So that's good to know. I think for everybody going into this weekend, there could be some issues with the track surface. but they have a plan, and those issues will not be long-term problems. We're not going to be sitting there for two hours under red flag waiting on some fix, right? And the issue that they had on Tuesday with the pothole was connected to some work that they had to do to get the timing lines down in the racetrack.

So North Wilsonville doesn't have timing loops. So they had to come in and cut the grooves into the racetrack to lay those timing loops down in the surface of the track. And then they brought a jet dryer around the track and it blasted and where that cut was made for that particular loop

busted and blew apart. And so, you know, it wasn't like oh yeah, the track's old and it broke. It was a bit of a chain reaction of some work they had to do to get those time and loops in. They know now not to use a direct dryer on that track.

So they won't going forward. They have other, you know, old school style protocols to be able to drive the track if it's necessary throughout the weekend. They also have the wet weather package on these cars. So if there is a damp racetrack, we could probably see some opportunities to race on that as a side note. But, you know, I think the racetrack surface was a major concern for me. Would it hold up? It held up in August, but we haven't seen next-gen cars really pounding on that page. and putting load into it.

The trucks are going to race on Saturday, and that'll be a test as well for the surface. But so far, so good. And if there is an issue, I feel really confident that it will be a very temporary, short-term problem that will get fixed really quickly. So that was good. I mean, as soon as that pothole opened up,

social media went, oh, I knew it. Yep, it's going to be a problem. What a shit show. they fixed it in eight minutes and everybody was texting me track's coming up what's going on track's coming up I'm like it's not there's no problem

you know it's it was so funny because everybody we've you know not to get out in the weeds but the whole for a year right or more everybody's been so positive and excited about North Wiltsboro

coming back and now that it's here everybody's there's still that major large group of people that are thrilled for the moment but then there's this other little small group that's like well what's going to happen what's going to what's going to go wrong right yeah it's predictable and by the way they're going to complain about traffic this weekend and i'm going to hear to tell you we already know it's going to have a traffic situation yeah everything's going to it's not going to be perfect we're taking the punchline to your jokes already out of your hand we don't want to hear it that's right so i i i'll say this.

When we left the racetrack after the race or I came in one way and I left the only other way. Right. There's a two lane road that goes by the racetrack and there's one way to go in and there's another way to go in. That's it. That's it. There's only two options to get to that racetrack. And so yes, like it's going to be a difficult challenge.

but not unlike the way it was in 1996. 100%. I mean, it's not like it's worse than it always was. It might actually be better because there's been a year-long campaign to say, carpool, get there early, enjoy your day. So I talked to Marcus, and he's like, man, we've rented all kinds of local land from the neighbors. And we have over, you know, they have over, you know, you know, 50 or, you know, giant buses to be able to haul people from, from lots to lot.

So there's, those things weren't there in the 90s, right? So yes, to your point, Mike, traffic will be a problem, but there are, you know, they have done a lot of things to try to mitigate it becoming something that would deter you from being there. Right. The next time. Right. You know, you might suffer through some of these inconveniences. is the first trip.

But they want you to come back. So they're going to do everything they can to make it manageable. They want you to come back in the next year, right? And I know there's a, so one thing that I found interesting is there's a, there's some kind of like barcode or something you can scan at the racetrack that's already selling tickets for the next event. They don't know what the next event is where there's an all-star race or a 400-lap points race, but they're already getting.

giving you the opportunity to get in line for the tickets, right, for the next event. So for people saying, you know, for people wondering, myself included, what the future is for Northwoodsboro Speedway, what is the future? Well, there's a race. They don't know what it is. They don't know what it is. A win. Hey, that's good in my mind.

Yeah. And the Cars Tour will likely be part of that conversation. I hope so, man. Oh, yeah. Marcus is all about the Cars Tour. He's all about supporting what we're trying to do. He wants, you know, he wants Wilkesboro to be our Daytona 500, and that's what we're sort of aiming for. And, you know, this particular race, I'm going all over the map here.

You are. And I got questions, so I'm going to let you get all this out. This particular race, we limited the people that could come in terms of competitors. Okay. All right. And so next year, when we have our race at North Wiltsboro, it will be open to anyone who wants to compete. That'll be unique to what we've been doing at North Northwestville

the last two years. The last two years, it was like an invitation. We were going to take care of our cars tour regulars and we're going to invite as many cup guys as we could get to come. And we had a tire shortage in all season that we were concerned about that we didn't know whether it would be remedied by this point in the year. But next year, we're still going to take care of our cars tour guys. There'll still be some people locked into the race due to their participation in the cars tour.

Yeah, we're going to open it up so that pretty much anybody that wants to try to come compete can. Yeah, listen, last August I left this, that race just being completely overwhelmed and appreciative of the fact that we were racing at North Wilkesboro and blown away at how many people were in the stands and the green sun drop shirts and the beautiful late model car, the number three that you're driving. This one, though, Dale, I come out so impressed and wanting to celebrate the cars tour because Dale, Listen, I'm not saying this because now you're part owner of this thing. Those drivers are freaking legit. And I'm not just talking about Butterbean. I was impressed with a bunch of them. And they're legit drivers.

They hold their own. And there's some personalities in there that we really need to pay attention to. Because I think that, like, if you just take Butterbean, Brennan, his stock went up a lot last night. That was the Daytona 500. His celebration in Victory Lane, a 10 out of 10. Yeah. Okay.

His interview, I'm going to Waffle House! Yeah. Because that's his thing. And I'm like, oh, this brand has potential here. He's a legit driver. Genuine. And he is a fun guy to really just watch and root for. And his car is cool.

Everything about it. I like that. But like I was impressed with Scott Riggs boy, the Honeycutt boy. Like, there's some freaking legit. drivers in this cars tour. And to be honest with you, if people watched last night for the first time, if they got on flow or whatever, I think you guys won some fans last night.

And I think that it's worth celebrating on shows like this and moving forward. I look forward to when Kenny Wallace goes in races. Yeah. Kenny's in our next event. We're going to Tri County on, we're going to Tri County on Memorial Day weekend, Saturday night. And Tri County is just a few more miles up Interstate 40 past Hickory. and yeah we have a great race car for Kenny to compete in and he will be the only he will be the only like special guest if you will for that particular race and he's locked in

the show so I mean there will be some cars that might miss it due to you know qualify but he will be a promoter's option if he doesn't have a great qualifying run so you will see him race I guess is my point and I'm excited for that and that's what we're trying to do with the car store I appreciate you saying that and you're right Connor Hall, all those guys you mentioned, there's some great, great personalities, and they're all a little different, and they're all hungry. And they're all using this opportunity that the Cars Tour presents to them to showcase themselves, hoping that the right person's paying attention to give them that opportunity. I think, you know, the Josh Barry, and there's a few other guys that are using the Car Store to get to the Truck Series, to the Xfinity Series. There's some people that are having some good limited success in going through the cars tour to get there, right?

And all those guys are hungry to get noticed. Carson Cropel, he finishes eighth, but he shouldn't have, frankly. I mean, this was not his night. You know, I know he came in and went in three in a row, but this was a night where he didn't have it. He got damage, and they were never the same. And yet, the fact that he even got back to eighth was also impressive. I mean, like, he is a ridiculous talent that guy. Carson's great.

We're excited about him and trying to create opportunities for him as well. And you're right. I was a little surprised at one point in the race. He's backing up to me and he's loose and I'm trying to pass him and he's trying to stop me. And that's when I recognize. I was like, oh, he's having trouble. He had trouble, yeah. He got really loose at one point.

But then they cycled past us on pit road. We come down and got our tires later than they did and we just never could get back to him. But I was a little envious of his result, even though he probably didn't care about it because he's used to winning races. I was like, you know, I'd love to have finished up there in the top 10. Yeah, listen, I enjoyed that race so much in the personalities. And I even think that it would be fun to have a couple of them on this show sometime in the future. You know, get them in here and let's, they just went up against the best, right?

They had Ross out there. And they did well, too. It's not like that anybody got exposed or anything. Everybody actually did really well and raced that clean. I also want to ask you about the ASC, they race after. Did you watch that? We stood at the back of our hauler and around a beer cooler

with Harvick and our team. There was a screen over in turn three and four so we could kind of watch the action. But for the most part, Bubba Pollard apparently just dominated. Yeah, but he also beat William Byron and Chase Elliott. Now, just to be clear, these aren't cup guys

that are coming down racing a late model or you know, in these grassroots series for the first time. William Byron and Chase Elliott, a couple of the best to ever do it, right? Like, they were really good. Hall of famers. Hall of famers.

And, you know, listen, William Byron won a ton of races for us. So I thought it was cool that Bubba Pollard won that race. Oh, yeah. I mean, no surprise. Bubba's amazing. But, yeah, you don't, I don't, I particularly like to see the regular beat the pro, right?

You know, when we, it's that, you know, we usually see the TV shows, like pros versus average Joe's or whatever, right? You want to see the average Joe's beat the pros. Sure. And not that our cars tour or super late mile racers are average Joe's, but, you know, the legend comes into the home stadium, right? You want to see your home team whoop up on them and compete. And so that's the way it should be.

It ended the way it should have. Now, I think that, you know, it would have been great to have a cup guy win our cars tour event, but it's even better for the young guys that are trying to make their way up. Yep. It was perfect. It does more for our series and Brendan's career for him to win that race than for him to run second to Brad Kislauski, right? Yep.

Or any of the cup guys, right? Agree, 100%. That was the perfect way for that to go. And, yeah, I want to know more about Butterbean now. I think that he just got so much experience. He would love to come on here and tell you all about it. Well, I met him last year, and I really liked him a lot. But, man, dude, I was, I thought it was awesome.

I just, I did. I want to say, man, you know, I've, I've been a subscriber to Flow for, I don't know, a couple years now. And they are, you know, gobbling up the rights to all types of racing series and, you know, getting the opportunity to be able to provide so many different platforms and style of, you know, Dirt Vision is another great component. If you, you know, people already, you know, I know the dirt crowd's like, yeah, of course Dirt Vision has been around. It's amazing. But for people that are just sort of getting into streaming, streaming is still relatively

new for a lot of people. A lot of people are still sort of moving away from cable and satellite television or whatever, you know, or have moved away from TV entirely, right? But I'm going to tell you, man, I am, I am taken aback. and I sometimes it just dawns on me how insanely incredible it is

that I can get on my TV or my tablet or my phone and log into flow and watch a regular show at Langley, Hickory, Florence, South Carolina on any weekend. Right.

You would have, I mean, five or ten years ago or before that, you weren't going to watch any local racing anywhere. No one was video, no, there wasn't a camera anywhere

streaming or providing a feed to watch any of these local events, much less these bigger events, right? Like last night at North Westboro. We're so spoiled to be able to go and watch any race we want pretty much for the most part.

A lot of local tracks are jumping on board now. They were all scared, right? That, you know, oh man, if I streamed, nobody's going to come. My walk-in or walk-up crowd for the night will be less, right? And, you know, I need a little bit of cut out of that streaming, you know, money that whatever this, whatever money or monetary thing this is generating for the flow racing or racing Americas. So, you know, the tracks had a right to be concerned, but I really think that, you know, the streaming platform is actually putting these tracks back on the map. Yes.

I think, you know, take Florence or Hickory, Hickory's doing so well this year. They have a great crowd every week. I think that streaming shines a light on it, right, and reminds people that the tracks are there, they're operating. Go see it, right? Otherwise, it's like, you know, out of sight, out of mind. We built the whole show. We did two seasons of Lost Speedways. If streaming's around back in the 50s, 60, 70s, there's not lost speedways because it does give relevancy.

It gives the microscope and all those things that tracks need to survive. I don't even know what is a flow subscription. It's like 150 bucks or something. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Let's figure that out. It is. It's $150.

So, and you, and I mean, how many different racetracks do they have, I mean, they have a lot of license with different race. tracks so you can watch your local show at all types of tracks and then they have all of these big events that are that are part of the subscription when we get when we sit down with flow to talk to them in the off season about the cars tour we told them we're like hey we want the car store to be part of the subscription if you are a subscriber then you get the cars tour we're not we don't want you to have to pay another fee to access that and so and that's what I love about flow I don't like the services where it's like, hey, man, we got a big event. Give me $45 and you can unlock the rights to watch this.

I like the one-time pay, one-time buy, get it all, watch it all. And that's what flow provides. I really think they do a great job. I have to remind myself how spoiled I am to have so much access to be able to literally watch every, you know, all these tracks that I competed on and would love to go to and love to be at. and so I think they do a really good job. I'm going to give one more out of board of 12. I just wanted to give them a tip of the cap.

I'm going to give them one more tip of the cap. Our old buddy, Matthew Dillner, did a beautiful, he narrated a piece to start the show, to start the race. There was a kind of an editorial on the resurgence of Wilkesboro. And Matthew Voiced had a lot of footage that we provided, Dirty Mo Media based off of our, you know, our return to Wilkesboro footage.

and video that we did with weed eaters. And Matthew did a fantastic job, as we know he will all the time. Like this is Matthew's sweet spot right here is to be able to bask in these return to these racetracks. So another beautiful piece by them, and it was a perfect start to what was a fantastic race. Hey, Dirty Moe listeners, this is Dillonhart Jr. It's May, and you know what that means?

The Indianapolis 500 is just around the corner. Thankfully, we have Speed Street with IndyCarine, car racer Conner Daly and comedian Joey Mollanero. 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. You know, now that the cars tour is in the rearview mirror, the cars tour race at Wilkesboro we're coming up on

the more important part of the weekend or part of the All-Star Week. We have Friday the pit crew challenge, which I'm excited about. I'm not sure that Marcus has announced it, but there is going to be a very cool, there's going to be a very cool award given to the team that wins this.

Okay. And not just a trophy. Okay. So this will, the pit crew challenge is a, it's a throwback to the Unicale pick crew. challenge. In my mind, it is more akin to the Unicau Pitcru Challenge we used to have back in the 70s and 80s.

It is not a tip of the cap or a nod to the thing we used to do in the Charlotte Coliseum, where they'd have the pick crews come and push the cars and do all these sort of... It looks like a circus. Yeah, it was a bit of a relay type of. Yeah, like a relay race. That's exactly what it was. This is not that. That was... The teams loved it.

I didn't think it was that great. I didn't love it. It didn't do anything for me. Pushing cars. Yeah. Yeah. Because then they had, you know, they would take the cars and pull the motors and fuel and make the cars weigh like, you know, 2,500 pounds. You know, they had special cars for the, you know, push them down the thing faster.

But anyways. This is not that. Yeah, this is not. Basically, what I believe is going to happen is the cars are going to come around the racetrack and they'll literally, literally trip or line just to stall away from the pit stall, come, you know, so the clock begins about, you know, a stall or two away, coming to the box, do a pit stop and pull out and trip another line. That's it.

It's going to be bam, bam, over. Simple. Every car, even the cars that are in the open, will compete in this. And so everyone has this opportunity to become the pit crew champions. They will win a physical trophy that will go home with them. And then when we have this again next year, I believe that whoever wins it will take that trophy away and take that home. So this trophy is a traveling trophy. That's kind of cool.

The other part about that pit crew challenge that's happening Friday night is the pit crew time, the time that they receive for their stop will determine the starting order for the heat races in the All-Star Race and the All-Star Open. And the reason why I think, you know, the reason why that happened is because we're going to have two 60-lap heat races for the All-Star race. How do you make those matter? There's no elimination. Nobody goes home. If you have qualifying, you basically put the fast cars at the front and slow cars at the rear. So 60 laps with a dozen cars is going to be a very, you know, monotone, boring race. With the pit stop determining where you'll start.

there's a really good chance that you're going to have some good cars shuffled throughout the field. And that will make those heat races matter because the good cars will now have to work and improve that track position so that they start the actual All-Star race better. And so, you know, that's a great way to, I think, to kind of mix the field up and have some comers and golers throughout those heat races. I heard that the guys that tested at Wilkesboro for the trucks and the cup cars could not run full third. throttle after about five or ten laps. So the tires wore out so badly that they could not reach full throttle anymore on the straightaways. Awesome. Right. So they're got, you know, what you're going to be watching is people manage throttle, wheel spin. It's going to be so challenging, so difficult. And the driver that is very smart and technical will do well. And so I think when you're

watching this race, pay attention to that. And so the guys that are straight and smart with their cars will be the ones to pay attention to and should have a better race. I can't wait for the weekend. Can't wait to go there. I'll be there Saturday for the truck race. I'm going to try to get out there and see that. I don't know if I'll get there Friday tomorrow.

We got some things going on. And then, of course, Sunday. The big deal, man. I'm definitely not missing that one. Yeah, dude, I can't wait. Listen, thank you for recapping the race for us. It was fun watching you. You know, wheel that thing again.

I can't wait already for the next one. So just go ahead and be thinking about when you're going to hop back in. Well, we talk. I'm going to look at the schedule. We've got a couple of Xfinity races to run this year, and we'll start focusing on that. But there's a lot of the great things going on outside of the cars tour and everything that happened at Northwiltzboro. There's short track and grassroots racing happen all across the country. So let's hear from Henan Newhouse with Short Track Insider.

Welcome back to Short Track Insider. hard to believe. I mean, we're already halfway through the month of May, definitely getting ready to peek into the summer months. But man, this week was one of the most highly anticipated weeks in short track racing as North Wilkesboro was buzzing with super late models, pro late models, and late model stocks. And it's still not over. They, of course, host the NASCAR All-Star race later this weekend. But a lot of eyes, a lot of short track eyes on North Wilkesboro this week. The original schedule had the ASA star super late models racing on Tuesday night, but The weather had other plans.

An intense storm swept through Wilkes County, forcing the hand of officials to cancel qualifying and push the feature into Wednesday's event schedule. And man, they set that lineup based off of practice times, which left a lot of big names loading up or missing the cut, but nonetheless, the race is still an exciting one. So with that pushing of the race into Wednesday's schedule, Wednesday was easily one of the most packed short track racing days with all three classes running at the historic short track. Starting with the car's pro late model race, Mayhem started the race with a big crash at the beginning,

but it was all Augie Grill who won the pro late model class over Corey Heim, Connor Zillish, Trista McKee, and Katie Hedinger, rounding out your top five. A notable of Jordan Taylor, aka Rodney Sandstorm, came home 20th in his circle track late model debut. I think he's maybe got the stock car racing bug, of course, comes from the MSA world, comes from sports car racing, just announced that he's going to run a,

Xfinity car for a colleague out at Portland coming up here in a few weeks. So, hey, we might be converting them here over some short track racing. But next on the docket after the pro late models was the car's late model stock race, and many eyes were on that race touting a powerful roster of NASCAR drivers. And while Ryan Millington led a majority of the remaining laps, it was Butterbean Brendan Queen, who was there at the end, Millington coming up one spot short. Jared Fryer rounded out your podium with notables of Chase Briscoe coming home 10th, Kevin Harvick 11th, Brad Keselowski 12th, Daniel Suarez, 15th, and Daler and Hart

Jr. coming home in 16th. And finally, they were able to roll off that ASA Starr's race roughly around 10 p.m., so definitely a late night for the whole flow broadcast team, as well of all the fans who packed the place to watch some short track racing. In that race, it was all Bubba Pollard's race. The Georgia native led a majority of the laps, including the remaining 50 laps to score his 31st total track victory. So he's now won at 31 different tracks in his career. Absolutely impressive. I mean, he's got an impressive resume as that,

but to have won at 31 different tracks is incredible. His teammates, William Byron and Chase Elliott, came home second and third. And it's crazy to think, you know, as we record this, and I'm recording this on a Thursday morning, there have already been over a handful of races this week. and it's only Thursday. That just tells you the race season is officially underway.

It's peaked. We're getting ready to go. So to recap some of those other races, the Castro Flow Night in America was on Tuesday, Marshalltown. And man, it was a thriller of a race. I highly suggest going back and watching that race or looking at the highlights.

Hudson O'Neill was able to come out on top of that. And then they went to Davenport Speedway on Wednesday where Dennis Herb Jr. cash day $23,0.23 check. Also in action midweek was the, High Limit Series at Wayne County on Tuesday evening as well. Over 50 sprint cars made the call to that race where Kyle Larson brought home the big money. Now shifting gears though and looking forward to this weekend and I mean really the upcoming week we'll preview you all the way into next Thursday where the next short track insider will come out and man there is so much racing going on easily one of the

busiest months with month of May getting everyone's racing juices flowing. So kicking it off with the World of Outlaw, Case Late Models, they will start a nine-night six-race tour up north, starting at Marion Center in Marion Center, PA on Friday, Port Royal in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania on Saturday, then head to state line Speedway up in New York on Tuesday before three full days at Sharon Speedway in Hartford, Ohio, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The Noss Energy Sprint cars will run at Attica, Ohio on Friday, and then they'll be at Sharon as well this upcoming Saturday. So Attica on Friday, Sharon on Saturday.

And then for the midget fans, the extreme midgets presented by Toyota, come down south as they will run two nights at Millbridge Speedway just right outside of Mooresville, North Carolina, and not far from where I live. So definitely bummed to be out of town for that one. But they will be there on Tuesday and Wednesday. All things extreme and World of Outlaws you can watch each week on Dirt Vision. The All-Stars are at Outlaw Speedway on Friday, Fonda on Saturday, and Weed Sport on Sunday. as well as the USAC midgets are at Belleville for three nights starting on Friday, and then the USAC sprint cars, I believe, join them on Saturday, and then they'll run the Tony Holman Classic at Tara Hote on Monday,

all things USAC, and of course all stars you can watch on Flow Racing. And the Lucas Oil late models are at 300 raceway in Farley, Ohio on Friday, 34 raceway in West Burlington, Iowa on Saturday, and then all things, of course, Lucas Oil Lake models are on Flores. racing as well. But if you're looking for a pavement fix, the Pro All-Star Series, Pass Series, is at White Mountain Motorsports

Park up in North Woodstock, New Hampshire on Saturday. And then out west, you've got the Northwest Super Late Model series at State Line Speedway in the northernmost point of Idaho. And the SRL Southwest Tour is undoubtedly one of my favorite tracks, Irwindale Speedway, and they will be there on

Saturday, which of course can be watched on their own streaming platform of Spears Racing TV. Guys, it is getting busy here now halfway through the month of May, June. I have a full color-coded schedule sitting in front of me and there are multiple Fridays and Saturdays where I've had to add sticky notes of races. So it is a great time to be a race fan. Get out there. Support your local races. Support your local tracks, drivers. And if you can't do that, of course, many different ways to support by watching them on streaming platforms. So plenty to recap and preview, but we'll

have it all for you next week on Short Track Insiders. All right, Manhattan, does a great job with that, Mike. And I love that we highlight what's going on around the country. And one other thing we want to, we had a lot of fun out at Wilkesboro. The Dirty Mo crew was all around the racetrack and loved seeing y'all out there taking it all in. One of our rock stars in the group, Andrew Curlin, was doing some man-on-the-street interviews. I cannot wait to hear this. can't either. I've purposely stayed away from it. I want to hear it with the listeners,

but he did. He went out into the mass at North Wilkesboro and had conversations with the people that matter. It's right up his alley. He is. He is an easy person to talk to. Yeah. So let's, let's see what Andrew got himself into with man on the street. We love racing and drink a beer. Yeah. What's up everybody? Andrew Curlin here at North Wilkesboro. We're going man on the street to see what people at the racetrack have to say. We've got some trivia. We've got some trivia. We've got some hypothetical questions. It's going to be chaos. It's going to be great. Let's do what people have to say. Pat from Michigan. Pat from Michigan. You drive here? Yep, about 12 hours. Yeah. Yeah. How'd he pass the time? Sleep a lot. Sleep? You're not driving, right? You're sleeping behind the wheel?

All right. Who has the most wins here at North Wilkesboro? Uh, I'm just going to guess. Go for it. William. No, it wasn't William. I don't think he was born yet. What was the top song in 1996. And I wasn't even born. Me neither. Was it the Backstreet Boys? Was that still kind of too early for that? Could be.

I don't even know a Backstreet Boy song. Okay. You guys know Back Street Boys? All right. What's your name? Where are you from? My name is Ralph Dillon Hart Jr., and I am from Mooresville, North Carolina.

Top song from 1996. I'm going to say something from Pearl Jam's 10 album. I'm not real sure. Or maybe from the Versus album. I'm going to say Pearl Jam. Kind of close. There's the Macquarie. Oh, geez.

What was on the pop deal, the rock chart? That's a good question. I wasn't prepared for that follow-up, so I'm going to have to... My name is Clint Boyer. I am from Emporia, Kansas. We are from Moxville, North Carolina. It was 90s country all the way. Mark Chessna?

Yeah. I mean, you can't go wrong with that, right? Yeah. I've seen my parents dancing awkwardly to the Macarena. You know the Macarena? Yeah, everybody knows that. Everybody. And no, I'm not dancing.

Damn, that was going to be money. Do you guys know how to do the macarena? No. No. No. And don't ask me. How much would someone have to pay you to get a bowl cut? I would have to meet Harvick.

You would have to, and would Harvick have to give you the bowl cut? He can do whatever. That'd be fine with that. Let me see if he's around. I'd do it for you right now. Okay. We need to find some scissors. I guess she was going to pull it while I was asleep.

That's kind of dangerous, scissors while someone's sleeping. You just never know about Married Live. Over a million dollars. Over a million for a bull cut. Yeah. We had a fan say 25 and we were looking, $25. Oh, geez. And I mean, I would probably have to carry that money around with me the entire time.

Just to remind myself why I'm doing me. The only thing more embarrassing getting punched on national television is getting punched on national television with a haircut like that. You can't pay me enough now. Now that I can see that, you know, what can't happen. Yeah. There's no chance. Like, you can't set yourself up for that. Do you think your odds are getting punched in the face go up?

When you get a haircut like that? Probably. What's your name? Where are you from? Noah Gregson from Las Vegas, Nevada. I got the, it was a $100 bet. It was $100. Yeah.

I mean, if it was a $1 bet, you know, money's money. Yeah. So especially. You still got it, right? No, I cut it. Oh! We ran horrible with it. Little kids were asking their moms.

Hey, I want that cut that Noah's got and a few grown men, too. So make sure you like, comment, swipe right, subscribe. Dirty Mo Media. on YouTube, Facebook, Tinder, Twitter, Snapchat, and Only fans. Oh, man, that was good. I enjoyed that.

I love it. You guys, man, y'all did some work. Andrew Dalton and Tiff did the work. They went out there and, boy, I didn't even realize they were getting drivers. You even, you did it. It's good stuff. I kind of knew I was going to be.

I didn't know. I didn't know if I'd end up on the cutting room floor. But Andrew, man, I appreciate him doing that. Thank you, Dirtymoe Media, for all the efforts at Wilkesboro getting out to the racetrack. You know, I knew I was going to be there racing, but I love seeing y'all come out and be a part of what's happening at Wilkesboro. So good job, everybody at Dirtymo Media. Appreciate everybody that listened this week.

Next week, we got a guest. Do you know who it is, Mike? I know we have a guest. I can't remember who it is. Stefan told me sluggers coming. That will be interesting. He does not hold back. No, I've got to ask Slugger about breaking his toolbox.

You broke his toolbox. I can't wait. I don't know how you break a toolbox, but I did. Well, you managed. I'm going to ask him if he remembers that. So, anyhow, next week, Slugger Labby, that's going to be fun. Slugger, I remember when Slugger came to work at DEI. Dad still had the Bush team going on.

We didn't quite have our cup programs at the time. He came and worked with Tony Senior and them on the old Bush car. That's when I broke his toolbox. So we'll ask him about that if you're members. I'm sure he's going to have some great things to tell us that we don't even know. He was also very much involved in that whole switchover, controversial stuff, you know, DEI that you were involved in. He's going to have some opinions that maybe we have. Yeah.

Yeah. It's going to be fun. If it's even possible that there's something about DEI that we don't know or haven't heard at this table, I think Slugger's going to bring it. Anyways, everybody, thank you for this week. Appreciate everybody supporting everything we're doing here. at Dirtymo Media. Thank you to all our partners. I hope y'all enjoyed it.

And yeah, we'll see you this weekend at the All-Star Race. Check out Dirtymo Media. On Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.