The Dale Jr. Download - 452 - Short Tracks, We Need to Fix This

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

After NASCAR’s triumphant return to North Wilkesboro Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis are back in the Bojangles Studio to recap the weekend. Why the weekend was very much a success, the NextGen car’s short track package problems once again were on display and provided much to discuss: The new format was designed to showcase the track Rain tire experiment during the heat races How do we fix the short-track package? The future of stock car racing at short tracks is in jeopardy During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding:  Dale’s most sought-after throwback t-shirt Weird Christmas gifts NASCAR having elimination qualifying like the Indianapolis 500 Will the return of North Wilkesboro spark other lost speedway revivals? 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 with my co-host, Mike Davis, here in the Bojangles studio. Mike, how's it going? Going well. How are you doing? How you do? I'm doing it right. How you do?

I'm not started yet. Yeah. Sometimes it takes a while to get going, get into the groove. I'm actually flown away that you're wearing that shirt. That was the one shirt. We have three new shirts on the Dirty Mo lineup, and I said, I don't think Dale will ever wear that, and it's the first one you've won. No, I like them all.

I've seen the new stuff. Got a bag, and I like it. I like it. It's kind of got this cool 80s vibe. Yeah, it's definitely 80s vibe. You know I'm into that. Anyhow, let's get started. The, I am slightly under the weather.

Are you? Just a little bit. I think that, so we were out there burning up all day, Tuesday and Wednesday. It was really hot. Phone said it was only 79 degrees, man, it felt like it was 95 down there in the infield of the North Northwestboro Speedway. But after our race ran, I was all sweaty, and then it got super cold. and I only had on a pair of shorts and one of those fishing shirts. And the wind goes right through it.

Yeah. And I think I got a cold that night, kind of still battling it. But anyways, here we are, and I'm fired up. If you can't tell in my voice, there is a hint or maybe more than that of disappointment. And, you know, I've tried to get over it. But I am so, so disappointed in how the race for the All-Star played out. You know, there has been this incredible build-up. Of course, I mean, when you get a hype train going like that,

they ain't no stopping it. People just pour and coal into it, and everybody's excited, and it's just grain in speed. And so we, you know, there was a ton of excitement and hype around that race. Now, if I encompass the entire week, it's a success. If you listen to people in the area that live around there that have been going to that racetrack or have wanted to race there,

it's a success because, I mean, there were so many people thankful, even after the All-Star race, thankful to have been there that racing's back. I had a great time for the Cars Tour event. I had a great time watching the Super's run and went to two concerts, which I never do at a race. I got to see Midland Play.

We spent some time with Dean Combs and his family. They live on the property pretty much, and they're kind of the gatekeepers, if you will, of Northwoodsboro Speedway, and their little shop or bar was right next to the stage. And so I spent a couple nights there. In the bar? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, you know, concerts over and still wanting to go a little bit. They were more than happy to have us. And went over to see Dugger play on race day and thought that the truck race was entertaining, thought the heat races were, yeah, probably need to work on that a little bit. Having just a, you know, half dozen, I mean, sorry, it was about a dozen. Having about a dozen race cars out there running around, I don't know that it was as good as it could be.

So I think you could rethink the heat race or what you do. It's made a little entertaining by the wet track. That is true. You've got to put some wet tires on it. There was some things going on with the wet tires that we're going to talk about later. But anyhow, you know, I thought the open was really entertaining. We saw some tippers and some frustrations play out, and it affected the end result of the race, and I'm sitting there going into the All-Star race with pretty good optimism.

Now, the R-Star race had a unique format that was a little more tamed down than what we've had in the past. I was excited about that format because I thought, you know, the racetrack is the star. The drivers are the stars. We don't need gimmicks. We don't need it to be confused. using are difficult or hard for fans to understand how they you know how the race works in the past there was some really really complex scenarios of how the how the all-star race plays out and and where you need to finish in each stage and how that would affect your starting position

for the next stage and it was just really confusing and I hated it and I thought man we're going to have a great race let's just line them up 200 laps will limit tires so they have to kind of pick and choose when they're going to put them on they don't just get to put tires on every time they come down pit road for a caution. We never got a caution. That was the problem. And I was, you know, I was able to influence a lot of what was going on throughout the week. And, yes, I was able to influence the format.

So if you didn't like it and you thought the race was boring, I would take a little responsibility or a lot of responsibility for that. I was hesitant to ask for one particular thing that I thought would make the race better. And I talked to Marcus about this. I was hesitant to add it because we use it in the Cars Tour. And I didn't. I was afraid that people might pick up on how much of our Cars Tour format that we run pretty much at every race was incorporated into the All-Star event, which is at the Cup elite level. You wouldn't think that, man, you know, we're going to, this cup event, which is an all-star race, a really important event during the race, you wouldn't, I just felt like people were going to go, you know, Dale's just trying to make this a Cars Tour race. He's just, he's not coming up with original ideas. These are just ideas that the Carstores Tour is using. But I wish now, in hindsight, that I had asked to incorporate one particular thing that we do. At the Carstor, there is a lap clock. It's not a time clock. It's a time clock.

It's basically a lap clock that's about 40 laps every week. And when if you reach 40 laps of green flag, the caution comes out. If you have a natural caution, it resets that 40 lap clock. That's what I think would have been one thing of the many great ideas out there floating around today that could have helped the race. We needed yellow. We needed two yellows would have been perfect for that second stage. we needed the teams to have to make some hard decisions on when to put tires on one yellow would have been a pretty defined decision we're putting tires on this is the

yellow so you need the potential for two yellows so in a hundred-lap sprint in the second half a 40-lap clock would have given you the opportunity to have two yellows at least you might have more yellows if you have natural cautions which I'm sure if you rack them up and have a restart in that second half, there's potential for some wrecks, some yellows, real yellows. I was apprehensive about that because on the other side of the coin, we're complaining nearly non-stop about stage breaks.

And that's kind of what that is. So it's a manufacturer caution. That's right. And I didn't want gimmicks. That's right. And that's a gimmick. I was trying to figure out how I was going to ask you, how this is any different than the rules

that you're trying to, you know, eradicate. I hear you. Yeah. I hear you. But what else was going to save that race? That's right. What else was going to save it? I'm telling you, you might, you know, you might have repave the track.

Probably not going to change much. Probably not going to create yellow. It's not going to create yellows or probably won't change your racing. So, all right. You know, I am absolutely thrilled that racing is back at North Wiltsboro. I thought the place looked amazing. I thought the fans were so excited to be there. I thought everybody was, everybody that was on property, everyone, NASCAR industry, drivers, everybody was pro what was happening. They were excited. None of the drivers were complaining

about it. Everything was A-OK. But the race was disappointing. And as it was happening and playing out in front of me, I'm like, good Lord, this is the worst thing that could happen. Because now, you know, there's this apprehension, I guess, for Marcus on what to do next. And I think that he will go back there next year. And I think he'll have the All-Star race again. And I don't think that it will become, I don't think that next year will be a points race at Wilkesboro. The vibe I'm getting is that they're going to probably go back and try this all-star race again with a good handful of changes. We have had a comment.

One of the changes that you brought up just now, Mike, was tires. They did have a scenario accidentally where, you know, they threw on the rain tires during the heat races on Saturday. And, yeah, the tires were. out, they created some issues. The tires are rain tires and they're made for road courses. They do not

have stagger so that the car can turn left and right. If they built rain tires with some stagger in them, the cars would have handled better. They would have not burnt off the right front tires like Seabell did. We saw a shot on TV where

they had tires that came off of Seabell's car and then another car and the right fronts were completely different. Seabell's was worn to the corns. Well, if they put a little stagger in the tires and build them purposely for an oval, that would fix some of those issues. I heard that there's not a massive difference

in the compound of the rubber. It's the fact that there's just more rubber on the rain tire. It's thicker. And so that as it's thicker creates a lot of heat. And that creates the wear. That increases the speed rate of wear.

You know, if you look at a buy-spline tire from many, many years ago, or what we run on our late model stocks now, the Hoosier, it has a good amount of rubber on it. And there's a good thickness of rubber that wears away. A cup tire, the radial tire that they run on now, is very thin. The rubber is really thin, and it's intentionally thin, so that it does not create heat. that avoids blistering, chunking failures that we've seen in the past. Massive failures have been avoided by being able to really take the rubber away from the tires so that it's super, you know, super thin and doesn't create that heat.

But, you know, maybe the short tracks need a different approach. And I think that I will be, you know, NASCAR is, NASCAR doesn't make the tires. They don't, all right? So they're not the ones that are responsible for, you know, what's going on here. But I do know they have some influence. So I hope that they can, NASCAR, and especially Goodyear, cannot ignore what we all saw happen on Saturday. When they put the rain tire on, not only, I mean, the cars were closer together. They raced closer together.

So I've talked to two drivers. and they said the rain tire provided a lot of mechanical grip and when you have mechanical grip you can drive up closer to the car in front of you when you're relying more on arrow dynamics and the grip from arrow then the following car is at a massive disadvantage and so as they you know when they put the tires on

it gave those cars so much mechanical grip or more mechanical grip you saw them run closer to each other And within striking distance, we'd be able to reach out and make contact that we expect at the short tracks. So I hope that NASCAR and Goodyear, I know that they know that they know what they saw.

I know that they know why they saw it. I just hope that somehow this is a catalyst to encourage them to take some risks on what we're doing at the short tracks. It is not just the tire. The tire is a massive, massive component because it connects the car to the road. But it's also not just NASCAR's next-gen car. You know, there's a combination of things that I think really played a role in the type of race we saw at North Wiltsboro

and the type of race we have seen at the short tracks for the last two years. I'm terrified, Mike, that if we don't get this right, if we don't turn it around, change the direction or change the perception of everybody's opinion of this next-gen car going to short tracks. I'm afraid that we're going to continue to lose opportunities at short tracks. How many times can we go north-whiltsboro, got brought, back, it's right there in front of us, it's ready to rock, it's ready to be an asset to this industry. But if we can't get the racing right there, if we can't get the tires and the cars, right,

how long can that place hang on? How long can a Martinsville hang on? And so I know that NASCAR understands this. I know that they have tried some changes to improve. things on the short tracks, but it's getting a bit more concerning for me at least. The urgency for me is picking up

and the concern, you know, I'm just worried about it, you know, so I, you know, I hope that we get a lot more aggressive on what we what we do to the car itself. And we've been, on this show, on this very show, man, we have outlined some thoughts and ideas on things they could do to improve the short track

racing, right? We've talked about it. They've been pulling down force off the car. You know, get more aggressive. We don't, I mean, do we need an underbody for this short track racing? Do we need the transfuser and all that stuff underneath these cars for short track racing? I don't think we need that. We're not racing, it's not, you know, we're not racing sports cars around a half-mile bull ring.

Does the stuff have to be on there? What's the alternative if they could get rid of it? You know, we talked about trying to increase the braking zone and getting harder brake pads or taking braking material away from the rotor itself to be able to make these guys have to lift sooner. The car is not slow down as much, opening up a bit of a passing zone in the braking zone,

being able to charge into the corner and try to outbreak somebody. You saw the tires. is it less tread on the road? You saw the rain tire was a grooved tire just like you see on the street. Is that an idea? Is that something we can do? Is actually less tire on the road?

Are they willing to build a smaller wheel, smaller tire? Probably not. That's probably very expensive to go re-engineer and design a more narrow tire. So could they just groove the slicks? Is that possible without blistering, chunking, and massive failures? If you have less rubber surface meeting the road, there certainly has to be less grip, more off throttle, more potential for tires to fall away, cars to slow down. They've talked about adding horsepower.

Everybody's begging for that. Not sure that you could even put down the power they had this past week at a place is worn out as North Wiltsboro, so I'm not sure that horsepower would have made much of a difference to what we saw, but still worth a conversation. You know, there's a lot of things that could be aggressively pursued on the next-ean car, but Denny mentioned it on his podcast. If you haven't listened to Action is detrimental this week. He talks in depth about the tire.

I implore you to go listen to what Denny's opinions about the tire are. He's a driver. He was out on the track. He experienced it. And he is not the only one that I've heard this information from. He's not the only one with this point of view that raced in that race this past Sunday. And stop real quick. Is he not saying basically this absolutely can be done?

He zeroed in on the tire. He said the tire is – there may be multiple things to blame, but the tire right there, there's a lot that we can do right now. And did Goodyear not come out recently saying that – Nope. Denny's right. Denny's actually got a good assertion here that the tire can be softer. Am I dreaming that up or did that happen?

I don't know about a good year response, but I do know that Denny has a great opinion about the tire. Yeah. And this is not a new opinion, but I think what we saw on Saturday with the rain tires versus the original slicks helped everyone that witnessed that, casual fan, myself, it gave us all a clearer picture of

the approach that Goodyear could possibly take. Or it gave Goodyear an opportunity to really learn and maybe take an alternative approach to what they've been doing to provide tires to the industry. You know, it's,

I hope that, you know, I hope that there's a lot of conversation around how to get better, not just for Wiltsboro's sake. For short track racing, it is in our DNA. It is, you know, when we were going to Martinsville with the old car, the car that we ran before the next gen, every time we left that racetrack, I was thinking to myself, if this is what NASCAR could deliver every single week,

we wouldn't be able to be able to be. print enough tickets. You had Lugano pushing Truex around. You had Denny pushing Chase around. You had Bowman pushing Denny around. Every time we went to that racetrack, we had drama, we had frustration, we had sound bites, we had all kinds of, you know, frustrations that, you know, we don't want, you couldn't, you couldn't sustain that every single week, but it certainly wouldn't, would be

nice to have that popping off every other week or every other week or two or three weeks in the season once or twice a month. But our short tracks are dwindling away. And now we're, now we're, you know, we're calling tracks that aren't even short tracks, short tracks, just so to say, we still got a few. Oh, Phoenix. Phoenix. North Wales, or New Hampshire, man, we got a couple short tracks left. Yeah. We got plenty of short tracks, man. Charlotte Motor Street, I mean, sorry, not Charlotte. Charlotte's not a short track. Not quite.

Not yet. Hey, it's not Daytona in Talladega, so it is potential down the road for it to be called a short track at the rate we're going. We'll say some road courses have short tracks in parts of it. Turn three and four is a short track. Short track turn. Yeah. I mean, you know.

Go to turn one. What are we doing? What are we doing? Short, you know, it's just really frustrating. I'm with you. Listen, we've had a conversation about this several weeks ago. actually it's probably several months ago where short tracks are the identity of NASCAR of stock car racing right stock car and that's what you're alluding to it's they are it's we're not we're not trying to preach

armageddon here we're just trying to say look there's a bit of an identity tied up into the short tracks you lose them and we don't race well on them then that you slip into a bit of identity identity crisis there is that there's that concern but yeah if we don't race well on them what's the future for the short track I mean, it's just concerning. So, you know, the truck race had 12 cautions. There's a lot more inexperience in that truck race, and there's things, there's guys taking more risks. And they're worse drivers.

I wouldn't say that. Is that not true? No. It's not? They're worse drivers. Than the cup guys? I mean, you could probably choose your words differently. I just assume.

I just as soon say what's true. They are, they're not as good as the. Cup drivers. I think that's, I mean, God dang, I'm a driver, Mike. I find that a bit harsh. But I get your point. So they don't have as much experience. They take risks that they probably aren't going to see guys taking the Cup series.

And, you know, so, yeah, there's a reason why there might be more cautions, but 12 to 1, 12 to 1 versus a truck in an all-star race. I think that you can't take away anything from Kyle Larson he did drive through the field in the 60 laps or 40 laps that that happened in stage one that was pretty fantastic but as soon as he got the lead and drove away race over yeah the race was over there were some battles back in the pack but you know he gets such a big lead the rest of the field's kind of like hey there's no reason to be too aggressive here.

We're battling, you know, we're fighting against somebody who has a half a track lead. I'm not, you know, I'm not, I'm not, you know, the cup guys know how to measure risk assessment. And as Larson starts to dominate, the necessary, you know, the risk taking goes out the window. There's no reason to take a risk when you're, you know, you're just going to push somebody out of the way for, for second place.

and then you're still 15 seconds behind the leader. They're not going to tick each other off for that. You know, anyways. Hey, can I ask you a question? You're taking this pretty hard. I am, man. It was a, it was, it was, it bothered the shit out of me. You're taking this hard, and I want to go back to the beginning

because I'm not sure even I understand. So I don't know if the listener does, but you're taking responsibility for it because why? Did you meet with NASCAR? How much influence did you have on the format of this? All of it. And so how does that work? They came to you and asked that or you went to them?

So this is how it works. Marcus puts the race on. Marcus gets to choose the format. And, you know, of course, NASCAR is going to say, yeah, that works for us. They're not going to, you know what? I mean, NASCAR would prefer that the track and the, and I don't know this to be true. I haven't talked to NASCAR. They haven't told me this, but as the process is going, this is my impression.

They would prefer that the track owner and his team come up with all of those things, because that takes them out of the criticism for it, right? And I think we've known that over the last two decades, Marcus and his group have had a huge influence on the format. They are the ones that come up with them. Marcus and network television, right? Network television is like, hey man, you know, that last format was good. Let's do that and add a little this and that another.

Let's change it up to keep it new. Oh, man, that last format wasn't good. Let's completely wipe the slate clean and let's do something completely different in a whole other set of, you know, of gimmicks. And so the network influences it a lot. But, you know, Marcus asking me my thoughts. I said, I hate the gimmicks. I don't want no more.

I don't want to raise full of gimmicks. And I don't want anything to cheese up what Wilkesboro could be. And I thought, you know, we're going to do something very basic. I hope that the tires, you know, being limited would create some strategy and some comers and goers. It did do that in the first stage. Guys came down pit road at that first yellow, put tires on, and one of them drove through the field and ended up dominating the race. we didn't get a yellow that we needed in the second half of the race. That was the problem.

We needed a yellow, and it never came. And had that yellow come out, it would have really probably changed some people's strategy. Some people would have thrown Hail Mary's. Maybe everybody comes and get tires. I don't know. But, yeah, anyways, I told Marcus what I thought the format should be, and it was like 95% what I told him I thought the format should be. and so yeah i mean you know if i if i got if i'm being honest here i feel like that if you hated the

format or thought the race was boring and you felt like the format was responsible i had everything to do with that um you know again don't i don't want to take any way anything away from kyle he went out there and did what he had to do if you're gonna you know if you're a race car driver and your car's that dominant you're damn sure you're going to drive away and try to win a million bucks you're not going to try to you know put on a show um you know i i just I woke up Monday and I was happy about a lot of it, but I was still having a hard time dealing with how the race didn't deliver. The night ended on a dud,

and I hate that for everybody, because everybody that came out there was hoping to see something different. That's fair. That is 100% fair. I'm trying to find ways to be more positive about it. But to be honest with you, I think everybody that feels, I don't know if I would call it a dud, I would definitely say the letdown though. And maybe that's the same thing.

There was definitely some wind that came out of the sales in the way that race. And I want to say that I am not, I want, I'm not saying that this is Goodyear's fault. This is NASCAR's fault. What I would like to say is instead, Goodyear and NASCAR could in turn play the hero on what happens next. If things are going to improve at Wilkesboro the next time we go back or at any other short track, those two entities will be the reason why. And I am hoping and praying that they get it right.

And so I also think now, you know, there is some conversation out there about the surface of the racetrack at Wilkesboro. Denny thinks they might as well just go ahead and repave it. I can take it or leave it. I mean, if they want to try another race on the worn-out surface, I do think that they need to try to improve the outside groove a little bit. The inside groove in turn 3 and 4 has a little sealer down there that has a ton of grip. And so if you're outside of that,

and nobody could run around the outside of 3 and 4 and not lose two or three spots every time. Right. If they got moved off the bottom, they lost several spots. I think that they could either apply some sealer to some of the cracked areas up in the top groove to allow that outside groove to gain a little grip or repave the whole track. It doesn't matter to me. I'm not as steadfast about the surfaces as I was coming into the first race. Either way, it's a year from now till then, there'll be a lot of ideas thrown at the wall to see what happened.

see what works and what doesn't work. And that's it. I mean, I don't know what else to say about it. I had one of the best times I've ever had at a racetrack in terms of being entertained, but none of it had anything to do with the actual race. Or the main event, I guess, I should say. The late model race, I had a blast. Didn't run worth the damn.

I mean, we started out the race really good. I was expecting the car to be fast. I don't run with the cars toward it once a year, and we qualify in the top 10. I was happy with that. And there's times when I think I'm getting the most out of the car, and then there's some times when the car can do more things that I don't realize because I don't drive it enough.

I thought I was saving my tires and doing everything right, and then moving forward. We gotten a little bang up on a restart, and it knocked the nose off the car and the arrow went bad and it pushed off the corner and I burnt the rear tires up trying to make it turn and then our night just kept spiraling downward and it was just a battle for you know trying to try not to bleed out too much from that point on but and both of our cars struggled you know the Carson and eight had won three cars tour races in a row and I passed him he's going backwards bleeding out at one point as well um so it's

just, you know, it's odd. Sometimes you'll, you know, most times our cars are really fast, the junior motor sports cars. And then there's those races where nothing makes sense. And we just get our ass kicked. And that's, you know, that's kind of what happened. Butterbean did a good job, ended up winning that race. And he's excited about hearing we might have him on here, Mike.

He was, he was texting me going, hey, man, I'm happy to come on anytime. He's available. Yeah, I know you talked about that, having some of the cars tour guys. come on the podcast. So we'll see as the season goes, maybe as we get closer down to the points battle and bring in some guys and give us some good sound bites. Yeah.

Because they're competitive. They're competitive. There was good competitive racing. It was awesome. It was awesome to see Josh Barry win the open. That was an interesting race. McDowell getting pissed off at Gibbs. Gibbs shubs him out of the way.

Ends up getting McDow kind of sandwiched in a three-wide deal that sends him into the wall off of four. And then later in the race, McDowell is a lap down and they're coming up to lap him and he made things incredibly difficult for Gibbs. It was entertaining. I was, for lack of a better word, thankful for it. Even though I didn't want, you know, it's nothing against Gibbs. And it wasn't because Josh won.

I was just like, all right, here's what we're, this is the entertainment we're here for. Yeah. This is what the All-Star race is about. You had no idea how thankful you'd be for that after later tonight. You got a grudge. Settle it right now. You know what I mean? Hell with this, you know, waiting around until it, till the steam wears away and until, you know, until you're over it.

This is TV Dale coming out. And you're back slapping in the bus slot. Yeah. You know, you get ticked off at somebody. I want you to handle it the next lap. That's what the All-Star race is about. But anyways, it was cool to see Josh win, and he goes into the All-Star race. He's a sub-racing in the All-Star race for the first time, and I know he probably wasn't, didn't love the result that he got in the,

that. I think he finished 15th, but still, man, just to even be out there with the way his career has been over the last three or four years is pretty phenomenal. Bubba Wallace had, he finished his second. He's proud of it. Of course, everybody didn't like getting their butt kicked by Kyle Larson, and Bubba flips the bird to the TV screen during his interview, I suppose. I didn't see it, but I saw it on social media. Apparently, some fans had gotten on his radio at the end of the race. Yeah, I heard this. Yeah, and we're raising hell and saying some pretty bad shit. Yeah.

And so I thought, you know, I thought that was bad. And I remember back in the day, people we used to get on our radios and say some pretty stupid things. But I've always felt like that this isn't going to be popular among our fans because they love the access. But when I started driving race cars, our radio. frequency was a it was a private conversation

there weren't scanners fans in the stands there might have been a few fans that understood that technology enough to be able to have a scanner in their hand but there were so few the conversation on the radio was between you and the team you said anything you wanted

and you could you know you didn't have to be secret about your decisions open communication everything was you know you talked about of whatever was going on. And I was in, I was around the sport long enough to where it completely developed from that, which I know that's probably hard for people to even rat their brain around.

Surely, surely not. Surely there was all kinds of access. There's always been access. No. When I was a rookie, when I was racing in the Xfinity series, not many people were listening to your radio. And then, you know, scanners become more popular. then you could rent a scanner,

and then now they're basically just handing out scanners, and now they're emailing you every driver's radio frequency. You could program your own damn scanner, and it's basically just a free-for-all. That's what it's kind of transitioned to. And I never loved that. I never loved it because I, you know, accust a lot. I had embarrassing moments on the radio,

fighting with Tony Jr., that now were public fodder and even going on broadcast during the races, right? They were in marketing campaigns. Right. Your stuff. Yeah. And so I wasn't, you know, I had to change. I had to start minimizing what I wanted to say, what I thought about.

I had to start controlling what I would say and think about knowing that it would be used against me in some way. and then there were those times when we were at Daytona during the July race one night. Some fans on the radio, clear. You're all clear. And we're like three wide, and they're like jokingly spotting us into a crash, trying to some way get us to make a mistake. There was another race. They were hollering, park it.

You need to park it. You need to get off the track, you know. This happened quite a bit at Daytona. Daytona, somebody out there for years. Yeah. Could have been the same guy. I think it was. But yeah, I was disappointed.

I will tell you, man, Bubba Wallace puts up with more... B. Than anybody deserves. And I wanted to make one particular experience known. I was at Darlington, right? A couple weeks ago. A couple weeks ago. We're at Darlington.

We're on this stage. And it's the 75 greatest drivers all lined up. And outside of me, I mean, these are the greatest drivers that have been involved in a sport, all distinguished of varying ages. Everybody's there to have this great experience. And the drivers are being introduced and walking by us and shaking our hand one after the other. And it's this moment where, like, you know, everybody, you would think that, you know, people would, it would be a moment where you'd behave.

It's a positive vibe, you think, yeah. And there's this one guy at the rail, the rail of the fans that are down on the front straightaway, there's one guy at the rail, and everybody for the most part is just cheering, and, you know, there's a couple, you know, a couple people hard time, Denny and all that, just some, you know, just smothering of booze and nothing crazy, right? But Bubba gets introduced and he walks across the stage, and there's this guy, right in front of me and Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth and everyone else there screaming at the top of his lungs, go home, go home, go home, over and over, as loud as he

could. And it was like so obnoxious. I was, I really wanted to jump down there and go, hey, could you stop? Is this really how you, what you want to do right in this moment? Is this, is this how you want to behave right now in front of all of these incredible, you know, people, that are standing in front of, you're rich or petty and all of these legends, you're going to be acting this way? And I thought, man,

and that's one day in Bubba's life. You know, and I was thinking, I know that there's people out there that have hated Cobbush and hated other drivers and they probably have said some nasty things, but it just made me really disappointed.

Anyways, and I've been hesitant to talk to Bubba about it because I thought that otherwise outside of that moment Sunday at North Wiltsboro, Bubble was smiling. I had, you know, I feel good about our run. We got our butt kicked by Kyle. I'm glad that we're running well and I'm looking forward to the next race. And I didn't want to text him the next day and bring him back down and go, man, I hate what I saw you go through at Darlington.

That really, that really was an eye opener for me. and I hope you don't let all of those things bother you too badly. But it was disappointing. And I hate that fans go to those links to jump on his radio. And, I mean, that took some effort to get the access to be able to do that. I saw a video clip interview of Bubba this past weekend, and a reporter actually asked him the questions that you were wanting to ask him. And it's like, you know, does it bother you?

Bubba's answer was, would it bother you? And the guy said, yeah, it'd bother me. He goes, all right. And Bubba also said, this is every week. Yeah. Because it's every week. So that's an interesting story that you told. That's, it made me uncomfortable, and I wasn't even there.

It makes me uncomfortable. Just knowing that, yeah, Richard Petty, like the legends here, sitting there, and that's how. This guy was, yeah. I mean, the guy was young. He was like, you know, mid-20s and just, and the whole, every other driver came through there. And he reacted just like everyone else. But when Bubba walked up there, it was like this.

He couldn't be loud enough. He could not say it as any, you know, he couldn't be more obnoxious. I'm of the mind that you drivers. And you will tell me probably that I'm wrong. But I think all of you drivers, you hear the one boo, even if it's one boo or two booes, I think you hear them. And I think it bothers you all. Oh, yeah.

I know that most of them go, eh, don't bother me. Hey, they're doing something. Denny said it this past week. Denny's mom was on last week's podcast, and it bothered her that not at driver intros, but in the 75 top driver intros, he got booed. Yeah, the answer. Like you think you'd save it for the, at least recognize the honor that that is. And yet she was like, you know, hearing them boo, bothered her.

Of course it does. You're human, right? Yeah. And that's her son. But the fact of the matter is that I think it does actually take a psychological toll. and most people just don't admit it. I think that Denny can rest in the... I think Denny and his mother could take a little comfort in knowing

that once he does retire, and especially when he goes into Hall of Fame, the people that are booing will no longer boo. Even the people that... This is an interesting thing I was telling somebody about this weekend. when a driver retires or goes in or and goes into the Hall of Fame like a cowboyish, a Denny myself, the people that booed you didn't like you will say, hey man, I wasn't a fan of yours, but I really appreciate what you, you know, did for the sport.

They, they, when you're a competitor on the track, they're, they're transparent, right? Yeah. I hate you and I like you. This is my guy. and I really don't like this guy, and I'm going to, I'm wearing Adam a sleeve. But when that guy that they don't like hangs up that helmet, their reaction and engagement with that person at a racetrack or whenever they might run into them is completely different.

They don't boo retired, they don't, you know, they don't boo any of the retired guys. They don't boo any of them. They haven't been drinking all day at the racetrack. The people that were booing, the. The people that were booing the active drivers like Denny were not booing any of the retired drivers that were on that same stage. I got you. I know what your point is. Yeah.

Even the ones they didn't like. Well, does it come with the territory? Well, the booing and, yeah. I mean, if you, I think what. A lot of people would say you're making a good life. You got, you know, your drivers, you know, you don't have rights to complain. People can boo you. You'll be fine.

Is that a fair argument or no? I'm not trying to justify what happened to Bubba, by the way. That's crossing the line. I feel awful about that myself. But I'm just saying, is it, I think it affects you guys, but I also think that you guys know that it comes with the territory. You're a professional athlete in a very public setting. Right.

I guess now we're talking about something a little different than what Bubba deals with. Right. I think I'm surprised by the way they booed Denny. I am because the guy is creating a podcast, which is content, which is an effort to engage with fans, an effort to give fans more than just, you know, being a character on the racetrack. So I'm a bit surprised by it.

And, you know, and Denny, Denny just smiles and says, you know, darn, you know, this is my life the way it is the way it is right now. and it, you know, so the way he reacts to the booze, I think, is good and would change the booze, make the booze go away. Like Kyle Bush. Now, I felt like, and I'm in a different place with all of that because I was involved in some of it, but I felt some of the things, some of the criticism that he got and the booze that he got from the fans were justified.

you know he kind of brought it on yeah yeah like he did things that were like oh right yeah yeah yeah you know wrecking hornaday and right you know flipping off NASCAR on pit road and you know he just did he did a series of things that I felt like

you know didn't steer fans toward cheering they steered more fans toward you know being aggravated with him and frustrated with him and criticizing and Now, though, it's funny you ask because I forgot to mention this.

Now, though, to Kyle Bush's credit, he has made a big effort to turn that around. I think that him and I think that him and his very, very close inner circle, have been making a great effort to show that he's charming, he's funny, He doesn't take himself too seriously on social media. Him and his family make all these, you know, Instagram posts and stories and stuff, just goofing around, having a good time. He's a great dad going to race with his son.

He's exposing that part of his life saying, hey, man, you know, I'm not this ass-h-h-h-villain all day, every day. You just get these little clips at the racetrack. So he's working really hard, I think, and I've got to give him some credit. Also, he goes to RCR, a team that everyone. Everybody wants to cheer for. Everybody, oh, man, you know, that's RCR. Good history there.

They've been, you know, people have been wanting RCR to have a driver worth, you know, that they expect to be up front, you know. Austin's been struggling to kind of be that guy. So everybody had these high hopes with Kyle Busch going to RCR. All the RCR fans are energized, and he's over in a Chevrolet. very apple pie sort of brand. So we're sitting there on the stage in Darlington, and Kyle Busch walks across,

we're shaking hands, and the fans were cheering. And Carl Edwards looked at me and goes, what in the hell is that all about? It's not how he remembered it. No, I said Carl, I said, Kyle went to drive for RCR and Chevroling. All is forgiven.

He thinks he's asleep. He thinks he's dreaming something. He goes, what the hell? This ain't adding up. I told him. I said he went to RCR and drove a Chevrolet and all was forgiven, buddy. And so he was taking aback by that. And then he was like, I think he might have been a little surprised by it.

It was kind of like everything that Kyle used to get now then he gets. And anyhow, I thought that was so funny. And I forgot to tell you about that. That's good. Hey, Dirty Mo listeners. This is Dillon Hart Jr. It's May, and you know what that means. The Indianapolis Five.

is just around the corner. 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. All right, well, this weekend,

we transitioned from North Wiltsboro and the All-Star Race to Charlotte and the 600. Charlotte has been putting on Now Charlotte the Oval has been putting on some good races thankfully you know there was a long stretch where there was a lot of frustration over the style of racing at Charlotte

and the lack of you know passing and so forth and well the next-gen car what it lacks at the short tracks it certainly does not lack at the mile and a halfs and I expect to see an awesome race the Xfinity race at Charlotte equally is entertaining

last year They ran that during the afternoon last year And I think running during the day at Charlotte's always a positive Anyways Hopefully that's a great weekend I'm going to go to Indy I've got to work for NBC So I'll be at the Indy 500

And will not be at Charlotte And one of these days I can't wait to go back to the 600 And just kind of go and be a fan But until then Let's get to some Asch Jr. Asch Jr. is brought to you back Xfinity. They've been a proud premier partner

of NASCAR for a long time and a great partner here at the Dirty Mo Studios and supporting the Dale Jr. download. So we're thankful for them. We're thankful for what they bring to the sport and to our show here. And you've been putting your questions in on their Twitter handle with the hashtag Ask Junior at Xfinity Racing. And we are going to go through them. Let's get it going. Our first question is, of all your throwback T-shirts, do you have one that you've been trying to get

hands on but can't or is there a specific driver you wish you had a throwback t-shirt from uh yeah actually um there is this one particular shirt and there's a shirt with buddy baker's gray ghost on it and it's from 1979 or 1980 it is not a reproduced shirt it is from 1980 or nineteen seventy nine it's got buddy baker and then the gray ghost olsmobile amy loved that shirt and it was like a small and she wore it a lot and apparently unfortunately it was in our luggage

when we crashed the plane and it burnt you know we lost the shirt so we lost a lot of things that day but I've always been looking for that shirt to replace it because I love all types of throwbacks stuff but she was very particular

I would give Amy like hey man here's 10 shirts and she's like yeah I like that one I'll wear this one you know who's this guy And so that was one that I wish I could find. Maybe, yeah, I'm sure one's out there somewhere. I just got to keep looking. Yeah.

Do you have a favorite one that you have on right now that is that you're like, that's the go to? That's the number one. No, not really. So, you know, the throwback stuff for me is where it wants and put it away. Yeah. You know, I don't know, wearing it multiple times. It's not a garment like you, like a normal shirt in your closet.

You're just going, oh, okay, that goes with my pants. I'm going to wear that. It's a one and done type of thing, but sometimes I might wear them. I kind of just got them to wear it on the show, this show. But I have a lot. I have a whole bunch, and I have even more packaged away that don't fit. Like I buy them, and you're like, okay, yeah,

large in 1980 is not a large today. So I got a bunch stored away, and some still on a rack, and just going through them. Our next one is from Chad. You mentioned last week that you got a lot of weird Christmas gifts growing up, like a leaf blower. Do you have any others that you thought were strange? Yeah, Dad and Teresa went to race at... Dad and Teresa went to race in Japan?

When was that? When was the first Japan race? Maybe 98? No. Before then. Before then. Oh, it was before then. You're right.

It's like 94 or something. That's right. Something like that. We got chopsticks in her as a stocking stuffer. What the... Dude, I'm telling you. Just regular old chopsticks? Yeah.

It was that and a few other nitt-knacks from the gift shop in their hotel, I suppose. What in the heck are they thinking about chopsticks in a stocking? I don't have any context. I'm sorry. That is. No, no, they don't have any context. No, I'm sure there's no context. It is what it is.

That's the context. Chopsticks. All right. our next question. So I don't know if you saw the Indy 500, they have special qualifying rules. It's a weird transition, I know. So Graham, Ray Hall,

I've never missed the race. Do you think NASCAR should adopt that nobody is safe qualifying for their big races, like the Daytona 500? I think whatever you do, you do it every week. Yeah. And that's, and I think, you know, the charter system has its positives,

but it also has basically created the F1 style race grid where everybody that is in the series shows up in races. We used to have 43 cars start races. You had two provisionals and a champions provisional. It was very qualifying was sort of compelling because of how you had to work to get into the field. You'd always send maybe one or two guys home. And now with the charters, you get 36 cars, 36 cars, 36 cars, 36 cars.

It's the 36 cars. Every once in a while in some of the bigger races, you get a couple, like Daytona 500, you had one guy that wasn't going to make it. So it's, I don't think you'll let, it's not even worth debating because it's never going to happen. never will they go to a scenario where one of the charter teams would ever be in a threat to be knocked out or not race or not compete on that weekend. That's the whole purpose of having a charter is to be guaranteed that you will race so you can then go to a partner or sponsor and say, hey, I'm guaranteed to be in all the events. I will say that we are such a far cry from the 1979 Daytona 500, which I've been researching a lot here lately. they sent home

37 entries went home from the Daytona 500 by not either qualifying or racing their way in through the duels 37 different entries 37 they went to yeah they went to Richmond

two races later and started only 30 cars so it's it's a different time but yeah I think with the charter system it's changed all that yeah for our last batch of questions we have a crew dirty mo media crew going to indy so they're in the car right now and they sent in a bunch of

questions so we can wrap like rapid fire these off is that fair is the one they get access they've leaked frog the fan access we they should no it's not fair but too i'm kind of curious on what they're they're interesting it's why they make the cut they should feel very very lucky uh from dustin is how do you like your eggs cooked could have i'm lazy so I'm like scrambled. I just, I just went and got breakfast with my family yesterday and I'm, that

very question is like, how do I want my eggs? They're like, what do you? I want two eggs. How you want them? I'm like, I guess scrambled. Yeah. I'm just pretty lazy about it. Yeah, I get that. I'm the same way. I'm not, I'm not even love eating eggs. Yeah. No watery sometimes.

Yeah, I just don't even, I mean, it's not a very fun. Put a little bit more thought, Alex, into how they're cooked and then you would not have watery eggs. Maybe. Yeah. James would like to know. You know, I will say, hey, the one thing. So I saw, this is so silly and simple, and probably not worth live YouTube,

but I went to this hunting camp, and I was watching this lady cook eggs in the morning, and she cracks the egg and puts it in the frying pan, so it's sunny side up, right? And she's putting the salt and pepper on before it's cooked. And I thought, that's perfect. It's like built in. Salt and pepper

Billion, you know, just sinks down into the... Fused into the eggs. I was like, man, that thing's going to be awesome and it was one of the best eggs I ever ate. So, the answer is, sunny side up, but you got to put the salt and a pepper in before the eggs cooked.

Interesting. I'll have to try that. Yeah. Chains would like to know if you'd rather be able to fly or invisible. Fue, invisible. Invisible? Yeah. I mean, there we got...

There's ways to fly without, you know, having superpowers. Yeah, that's a good answer. The next one is, what song are you singing at the karaoke bar? The very first song I ever karaokeed was Good Thing by Fine Young Cannibals. And I like that one. It's probably my go-to. Mike, what about you?

Free bird all day long. Free bird. Not the tequila song? That'd be my go-to. I liked how Connor Daly said on speech. how the Denny asked a question or DBC asked a question about what the what bars should they go to Indy and it made Connor tell a Denny Hamlin story about when Denny was an indie karaoke and to the thong song can't you just see Denny Hamlin karaoke in the thong song

trying to as a picture of it yeah oh all right and then the last one from Andrew Kerlin big crowd here we got big response thank you our usual asked you and your host is would you rather fight a small bear or wrestle an alligator? Is this coming from our car? Is this coming from our people? Yeah. They're about to interview Mario Andretti.

They got other things to worry about and think about. I'm telling you that not only have they leapt over the fan engagement on our YouTube lab, but their questions are much worse. I mean, the best questions that actually come from the fans. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Are there any fan questions left? Yes, yes, there is. there is one from Kyle. Now that North Wilkesboro has shown surrounding states that racetrack revival is what the fans want, will this help jumpstart the Nashville Fairgrounds or other lost speedways? I think that this is a good...

I think everything that happened at North Walesboro, even with the dud of a race we had, I think it's a good thing for a track like Nashville Fairgrounds. I think it is a good... I think it's a good thing for even a track like Rockingham. Rockingham was talked about more this weekend

because of what people came and saw at Wilkesboro. I don't know. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I was asked about Rockingham while I was at Wilkesboro this weekend. And even other drivers, right? I saw Chase Elliott talking about it, being asked about it. So it is a good thing for all of those possibilities out there. And while I am three,

thrilled to have been a part of what we what happened at Wilkesboro. I don't know if I got the energy for another one. I'll be honest with you. There's so many variables involved in all of that becoming a success, and even after all of the work we did to even have like a small 5 or 10% complain or, of course, the race wasn't good. I'm not even talking about that But, you know, there was people

I was seeing some stuff in my timeline After the heat races With people going, oh, this is a waste No wonder they abandoned the old North Woodsboro And I'm thinking, how could you be that way? How could you even have that? How could you not sit out, you know, keep your opinion to yourself, I guess,

when everybody's so excited and positive. It just takes a lot of wind out of your sales. but I hope that, you know, that NASCAR goes back to the fairground someday. I think it's a good possibility. It's, and I feel better, I feel better about Rockingham than I did going into the weekend. I just felt like, you know, man, there's no, NASCAR's not going to want to race more in North Carolina. you know they moved out of the southeast to get bigger and gutting out you know and they're wanting to go beyond our borders to race internationally right um why would they want to come back and and saturate a market that they left but i that's the way i felt

before we went to wilkesboro but now i feel like you know somebody's something could happen at rockingham If it's not cut, maybe it's Xfinity or Truck that goes back there and becomes more of a regular show there. So I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. That's all I got. All right, everybody.

I appreciate the questions. I hope everybody tunes in later tonight. We had a great show earlier, and we've got a great guest this week. Slubberlabby is going to be on tomorrow. So I hope you'll tune in for that. And I'm headed to Indy. Make sure you tune in for the 500.

I know you'll be watching the 600 at Charlotte. I'm sure everybody's going to try to catch both shows. I'll be working a little bit for NBC there in Indy. And it ain't long until we're back in the booth at the cup races at the end of June. And so just a lot going on, very, very busy time of year. And I hope everybody's doing well out there. All right, everybody is a great show. Thanks for Xfinity and their 10G network and supporting us here for the Asgeun.

segment. Mike, great conversation about Wilkesboro and I guess we'll just be in limbo to figure out what the future is for Wilkesboro and racing at that racetrack. I feel pretty positive about Marcus wanting to go back there again and have a, you know, have another good, have a good show, right? I don't think they're going to give up on on what can happen at that racetrack. Make sure you're paying attention this weekend with the Indy 500 going on. The Indy 500 is, The race I've been going to for the past few years, got the chance to work the broadcast with NBC, and I really enjoyed it. I'm going to do it again.

I think they're pairing me with Lattard a little bit in the pre-race, so that should be a lot of fun to hang out with him. Catch that on NBC and Peacock, 11 a.m. And the 600. I hope everything goes well there. It will. We're going to end with a positive vibe, and it's going to be an awesome race. We're going to be talking about it for ages. Yeah, Exfinity and the Cup race that you.

Charlotte should be awesome, awesome races to watch, and I expect those to go well. So anyways, make sure tomorrow you tune in. Slugger Labby's coming on here. Slugger, he has done a lot in this sport over the last several years, three plus decades, obviously working at DEI, and I can't wait to talk to him about that, but it's got a pretty cool story. So we'll see what he's been up to lately. And until then, we'll see you. Check out Dirty Mode Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.

Thank you.