The Dale Jr. Download - 455 - The World 600, Best Race of the Year?

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. joins co-host Mike Davis after the greatest weekend in racing to recap all the action and speculate on what news may come out this week from NASCAR: Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin��s on-track incident  How will NASCAR govern this situation? Emotional win for Blaney Dale’s time with NBC for the Indianapolis 500 broadcast During the Ask Jr. segment of the episode, listeners wrote in questions regarding: Drivers celebrating in the grandstand Watching old races with friends Preparing for NBC’s return to NASCAR broadcasting Restoration project updates 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. It's more than just the greatest out. Are you kidding me, Mike? Oh, my God, that is hilarious.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. And welcome back to another episode of the Dale Jr. download with my co-host, Mike Davis. I'm pretty fired up, Mike. Are you? Yeah. What about? Well, first off, here we are in the Bojangles studio. We got some work to do in here.

We do. We do. We do things over here, guys. That's right. Fixed up. Yeah, new doors. We got new doors coming in. We're changing some of the stuff on the walls.

And we had that last week, right? The Butch Lindley. Yeah, Butch Lindley door. It's in here, man, I'm feeling the good energy off that thing. Is that right? Oh, yeah. Nice. Yes, sir.

That's going to make us better. That's going to make us better. It's going to make us better. make this whole experience at this table better going forward good good because i need to be better i'm looking for some energy to be better there's i got a lot of going on up in my head so i'm going to try not to ramble and bounce around because i'm bad have a bad habit of that but i don't even really know where to begin we got a lot to talk about with the uh we got a lot to talk about with the um the world 600 yeah arguably last year it was the best race of the year yeah last year again this year

fantastic fantastic drama lots going on i don't even think i don't even think i have to have one bone to pick with that race. No, I mean, listen, the race was fantastic. I just, it was so good that you hate that the weather didn't cooperate all weekend and that, you know, a full grandstand couldn't enjoy that thing. But anybody that watched it, oh, it was, I heard the crowd was really good. Yeah, no, it was good. I mean, it was just a testament to the whole situation and also to the fan base of NASCAR.

Amazing. Bravo to Charlotte Motor Speedway for allowing fans that had tickets to the Xfinity race or the World 600 to see both. Right. As far as I know, they let everybody in there. If you had a ticket, you got to see both races, right? Yeah, yeah. And that is a good thing.

And to be honest with you, there were people I saw on Twitter, there were people that went to Indy and also came to Charlotte, not drivers, not people on race teams, but fans pulling the double. That's amazing, right? Well, when you give them ample time, not ample time, when you give them the time to be able to make that trip, it sounds like a damn blast. That sounds a good time, do it?

Yeah, they jump right on top of it, man. So are you fired up today because of the, I'm curious. I mean, Chase Elliott, Denny Hamlin. What happened? They found each other. Oh, yeah? They found each other. And they also eliminated each other from the Denny Hamlin and Bracklett Challenge.

Oh, they did? I don't seem to remember that part of the race. When did this happen? I don't believe that. When did this happen? It was somewhere during the race, they found each other. As they've been known to do in the past. So you're telling me that Chase Elliott, my old, the guy that won an extended series championship here.

For Junior Motorsports, that's right. One of my teammates. Yeah. Has a fan or two. And drives for Hendonet Motorsports, which I just love. Yeah. And had a crash with Denny Hamlin who is part of Dirtymoe Media. Yeah, that Diddy Hamlin.

Not the other ones, but that one. Yeah. That's the one. Denny Hamlin, the guy that was in Victor Lane, 2004 to Aetton 500 with me, carried my trophy back to the bus. That one? Yeah, that's the same one. Shoot. Right, the fan boy from 2004.

Damn. Well, I know those guys really well. Do you? It doesn't sound like them. It's hard to believe you didn't see them collect each other. sound like the denny and chase that I know. Oh, really? What is the Denny and Chase you know?

Super nice guys. Well, they are nice guys, of course. I just don't think they're nice to each other. I think, you know, they've had a history. So I was watching this. The lap before that. So there was a restart and they're kind of, you know, it packed up. And Amarola gets in the fence.

That's right. You know, TV is like, hey, man, check this out. Amarola is in the wall. wall. Well, at the same moment, Denny is sliding up into chase. Basically the exact same thing that happened a lap or two later when the crash goes down. So, you know, I saw that and I'm like, oh, Denny, man, you're going to piss him off. Honestly, anybody that when you're watching these guys race and they slide up in each other, you're just waiting on the other guy to do something, right?

Like every time Somebody slides into you, man You just you lose it It happened a few times during the race With some other drivers And you're just like, oh What's that the guy going to do? Like for example, Rick's Denhouse

A couple instances where he didn't like a few things going on Around him with other drivers and boy He almost turned Kyle Bush Down the front straightaway Yeah, late in the race He was trying. Yeah, he was trying. So anyhow, that was contact right then

in that moment. TV picked it up I didn't know if they mentioned it or not. It's all happening real fast. Watching as a fan, you know, I'm not a broadcaster in that moment. I'm just like, oh, hell yeah, do that. Oh, yeah. I'm just a race fan.

And so they go back around a couple more laps, and then Denny slides up into Chase again. And, I mean, you know, it looks like Chase. Chase Turned him. It looks like it. It looks exactly like Chase turning. A lot of people were on, you know, saying, hey, man, you know, Brad hit Chase, all these other things,

factor, you know, how do you know, how do you know what happened? How do you know what went down because of this and that and the other? I looked at my wife and I said, she says, well, how do you know what happened? I said, hey, you know what's going to tell the tail is the SMT? And all the drivers have that access to the SMT. The SMT is the dad of the steering, steering, throttle,

all kinds of information about how a guy is driving his car, how he's turning the wheel, how much. then he can look at Chase's and vice versa. And so Chase gets out and he says what he has to say. He does his interview, right? And he's learned by what he's seen over the past couple of years. You damn sure ain't going to admit it. And you're going to say everything you can to lean far away from admission.

That's right. There was a couple things on the radio that I think Chase might have said. Like, it's twice now he's hit me. You know, something like that. So there was some frustration. naturally that NASCAR could look at. There was a motive. NASCAR could look at the audio, right?

That could factor into the decision NASCAR makes. And so my wife's like, hey, man, you know, what's SMT? And I'm telling her all about it. And I said, you know what? I think if I know Denny, he's going to screenshot it and post it on Twitter. Well, that's what he did. I text Denny. Oh.

I said, hey, man, you're looking at that SMT? It's like 30 minutes an hour after the wreck. It's within an hour. And he goes, it's loading right now. That's the Denny that we know and love. So I knew that as soon as he could get somewhere to look at it, he would. And sure enough, man, he posts it on Twitter, which, you know, he turned his comments off. It's probably smart in that scenario.

He's like, hey, man, here's the facts in my eye. Like, Denny's like, in my world, I have these facts, this evidence, right? I'm putting it out there. Um, he's angry. And, um, I don't think I would have posted it. I would have put that in my pocket. And I would have, you know, I would have sent that to Steve O'Donnell. I would have, you know, I would have said, or I would have, you know, I would have said,

look, man, I would have sent it to the people that mattered or the people that would be, you know, handling this situation and said, this is what I see in the data. Um, and, but Denny went this other route. Well, in fairness to Denny, he's already been. sort of scorned, you know, trying to do the, I mean, keeping the stuff evidence to himself. It didn't work out for him a few months ago. I can't even keep the timeline.

I don't even, I mean, the timeline of Denny in the middle of something is a long one. Yeah, yeah. And so, yes, he, he has all kinds of, he has all kinds of examples of, you know, what he should have done differently, how, you know, how he should have handled this and that, any other but I'm not I'm not criticizing him posting it I thought it was entertaining um so let me get okay because I got questions I know you do you get some beat patient right here man we got a long show we got a lot of fit a lot of time here we'll keep going all right okay so he posted the SMT data yeah and so um looking at the data and looking at what I saw on the racetrack it it looks

like chase turning I mean it just it does chase is going to have to now I think chase is it's kind of balling his court in terms of how's he going to argue this because he's going to have to NASCAR is going to look at it. I talked to Steve O'Donnell, and Steve's like, late night last night, NASCAR is going to handle this. If anything happens, it'll be in middle of the week. All the racing, exfiniting and everything gets done midnight on Monday. And so they're absolutely going to take a look at it. I think they actually posted that on social media that NASCAR was going to look into the issue.

And I don't think Denny would let NASCAR off the hook, right? I think Denny's going to push to have NASCAR take a look at this. I was wondering whether an admission of guilt or any kind of verbal, you know, admission or getting close to admission would factor into it, but I don't think so. I don't either. I think that, man, I mean, this is the problem. I don't envy the position NASCAR is in, right? They sort of set a precedent with Bubba Wallace, and Denny was quick to note on that in his interview at the media center. Yeah.

at the medical center. Denny put that narrative out in the universe like that. And he had an intention to do that, right? Hey, this is exactly like that. And I don't know how NASCAR doesn't react. I really don't see how this works in Chase's favor at all. Me neither. Yeah.

I don't even think this is controversial. I don't even think there's anything to discuss. Like, as soon as I saw this happen, I was like, oh, no, he's totally going to get one. He's going to get, he's good. I don't know what it'll be if it's full. suspension for a week or what, but there's no way that goes unrespected. I believe that Chase is, I'll be surprised if Chase is it parked for a week. This, as soon as the cautions, you know, the caution is out, they've wrecked.

You see Chase going behind the wall. I thought to myself, I was like, man, if Chase was still rolling, I wonder if NASCAR would have looked at that data in the moment, not waited, right? I wonder if we would ever be in a scenario where they'd look at the data in the moment and park chase during the race. That would have probably been preferable for Chase and NASCAR. NASCAR would rather say, hey man, put your ass in the garage, take your punishment, let that be the deal. We damn sure don't want to park chase at St. Louis connected to the ratings or not, whether you believe that or not. Chase, you know, the ratings were certainly different when Chase wasn't in the race.

And all of the Xfinity guys are in Portland. Logistically, that's a nightmare for anybody that they think needs to drive this car, right? Right. And so. That's interesting. I didn't even think about it. It puts everybody in a bit of a tough situation if Chase does have to sit out. Who would drive the car and all that?

But, you know, that's probably the least of their worries right now. But I think, you know, sometime Wednesday, we're all going to learn. what the decision is for NASCAR, and that's a tough one. So let me back up to the SMT data. The one thing when Denny posts that, and listen, I've been fortunate enough to look at SMT data before because of the other Denny Hamlin situations. But the thought occurred to me because the thought occurred to me that not anybody,

not most everybody doesn't know how to read that, okay? And so explain to us what you're seeing that makes, it look like Chase literally did that. So, Denny, there was a few reporters. One was Gluck. Gluck post, all of them were retweeting this post by Denny with the photo of the data, right? And so Gluck was probably the best one to say at the moment of contact. So when I first, you know, when I first pull up the tweet from Denny, I'm like, okay, now I got to do some, now I got to think.

I got to study. I got to figure out what I'm looking at. So I got to find the steering line. I got to go to the, I'm looking at this picture on the side, showing the cars. I'm like, all right, this, you know, I don't know if this tells me a whole lot. And so, but Jeff Gluck and his tweet, his retweet of it says, here is the steering input at the moment of contact, right?

So it's basically saying it's putting a timestamp on. This is when the 9 and the 11 are making contact, and the steering on the 9 is, is, to the left. If Denny says that graph going higher means to the left, that's what's going on. And so I'm not driven this car much at all, much less with any kind of a broken suspension part, right? You know, only the drivers, Denny Chase, NASCAR could tell us, all right, if it did indeed have a tow link broke on the right rear, this is the steering input that you would probably give into the car if it's broken a toe link or bent a tow link on the right front.

here's how you would steer the cart right if the car's trying to go in one direction you're trying to keep it from doing that this is the input you would have so i would believe that that would you know that would argue in denny's favor right yeah and i don't know in any case when you have broken right side suspension bent suspension that you would steer left i don't know i i would you know that's that's for nascar to sort through i felt like chase's own comments were the most incriminating evidence I know why he said what he said. You're going to diffuse and you're never going to do it. We've learned that. These drivers now know that, right? Yeah. But if I'm right, Chase said, you know, once you hit the wall, you knock the right side off these things, they're un-drivable.

You just can't drive these things anymore. But then you go back and watch the wreck, and that car was very much drivable. It came off the wall straight. It came off the wall straight. You now have to slow it down. Well, what he means is is that, so this is something unique about this car.

Okay. I hear what you're saying, Mike, but I remember the best example of this car becoming undrivable after contact for me is Ryan Blaney, Daytona 500, when Austin Cendrick and him get together and Austin Cendrick wins the race. They are going down the front straightaway, headed till the flag stand. They make contact, and Blaney is trying to drive his car toward the start finish line to finish second. and his car is doing everything but that.

And he has zero control over it at that point. Because, you know, this was before they reinforced the toe links. They were very brittle. That contact snapped the toe link on the 12, and now the car is driving like a forklift. All right? Sure. And so that is Chase's, that's Chase's story, and he's sticking to it.

No, no, and again, I understand why he is. I just don't think that's what his car was driving like. It didn't look like it. It didn't look like it at all. And we'll never know because after he, you know, after Denny comes off the wall, he destroys the right side of the nine car, which eliminates all the evidence, right? If the toe link wasn't been, it's bit now, you know. So that will be, that'll be a tough spot for NASCAR in terms of looking at,

they're really only going to be able to go and look at data. Look at that steering input. from the SMT, they will not be able to look at the right rear at least. I imagine the right front on Chase's car is also damaged beyond being able to say, you know, hey man, this is, I think after the contact and destroying the nine car, the ability for NASCAR to look at any of that and factor that end of the decision goes away. Well, I love what you're saying. I love the fact that you go look at the data.

This is what I wish they would have done all along. instead of making decisions based off of comments that drivers say, because we know drivers aren't going to always be truthful. We've known that for a long time. You don't penalize people because of what they say. You penalize them what the data shows and what you as a human watching a race, what it looks like to you. You make a judgment call.

And NASCAR has drivers in their ranks. Right. This isn't, you know, this isn't, someone making the decision, I imagine, would probably, someone like at the very top, O'Donnell. or whoever this is, right? This isn't going to say, all right, everybody, we've came together, we've made a choice to penalize, not to penalize. That person at the very top probably hasn't drove in the next-gen car,

much less the thought car in their whole life. But they had drivers in their ranks that can look at that data that were at that race, saw what happened, that will more than likely influence the decision one way or another and to be determined, to be continued. The large majority of people believe that, it was an intentional act. Would that be fair?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's fair. That's fair. And that's no knock on chase. I mean, again, just going about what you watched. And it's funny you say that because drivers, their opinions are the ones that matter most. And you have a driver in the booth.

The moment it happened, Clint Boyer goes, that was intentional. And Mike Joy goes, well, I don't know. Maybe Brad Keslowski got him. Maybe this. And Clint's like, nope, that was intentional. that's a driver watching what drivers doing on the track and also looking at the, you know, the tailpipe and the flame, you know, knowing that Denny's car gets loose. I mean, I like to listen to the drivers in that matter, and that was an interesting

scenario. There was an interesting take for Clint. I think that that was tough to do. I want to give credit to Clint for making a decision on which way he thought that went and being quick to it. Not easy. It ain't easy because, man, you never want to be wrong. You want to be right more often.

when you're a broadcaster and an analyst especially. You never want to have to go back and go, man, I was wrong about that. Thanks for tuning in. Yeah. But he jumped on, he jumped on his decision in his direction, and that's tough to do.

That is tough to do, especially in the moment. And you have, you have everything, you have every reason and every excuse to drag your feet. Sure. You know, you do.

You can stand up there and go, you know, well, we don't know, we don't know, we'll have to look at the data. The data will tell you can he-haw around it, right? And I've, you know, I've been in that situation before, and sometimes, man, you want to make a decision, you want to call it, but you don't want to be wrong.

You don't want to piss off the drivers. I haven't been a driver. I know this, man, you get pissed off those guys in the booth. You're done with them. You don't ever want to talk to, you know, if you get on, if Darrell or somebody up in the booth says something you don't like, you're done with that guy, right? See them in the garage?

I ain't talking that guy. Yeah. I don't respect him. And so you, as a broadcaster, you don't want to sever or burn that bridge, right? But, man, sometimes these drivers put the broadcasters in such a difficult situation. They have to understand. I've had to come in here and tell my guys, the Junior Merse Works guys, I had to call it. I had to call it against you, man.

That was a mistake. And you got to understand what had I have on when I'm in that booth. Clint did a great job. I also want to say that I thought the broadcast was great. I was just peddling around on social media and I said hey there was contact a couple laps before when Amarola hit the wall and I wasn't sure if TV mentioned it or not

because I was just sitting there as a fan casually watching the race and my kids and my wife and everything else going in the house so I don't know if they said it or not and a lot of people thought I was taking a jab at the Fox coverage man I thought the race was great I thought Fox did a good job there was a couple times and this ain't a Fox thing This is a network thing.

Our, you know, NBC does this. They get a new toy, a drone, whatever. Boy, they love to use it. There was a drone for the front straightaway for the Fox race this weekend. And when they would go to it, I couldn't. I'm like, I don't know what hell I'm looking at. There's, you know, it's a drone. The cars are going down the front straightaway.

And I know Rick's Denhouse about to wreck the hell out of eight, but well, I guess we'll get back to that in a minute. You know, and so, you know, this happens in all broadcasts, right, especially when you know when you know there's a battle going on and the camera's not on it. You know, and that's not a knock on the broadcast. We're all sitting there going, I'd rather be looking at this and we're looking at that. It doesn't mean that what we're looking at isn't interesting or somebody else doesn't want to watch that. There's a hundred different opinions on that.

There's five things to be watching. Of course. There's five things going on out on the racetrack to be looking at. And I just happened to be thinking I want to see something else. But man, I'm telling you, at the end there when Stenhouse was trying to go after the eight, he was and they were like kind of going back to it and then going away from it i'm like no no stay there stay there if i mean if ricky catches him it'll be entertaining and they luckily happened to be on you know on the 47 when he hooked uh kyle on the frustrated way i hope that satisfies everybody

out there listening we're all going to wait uh this you'll be you'll be catching this probably tuesday night maybe wednesday we're all going to learn wednesday what goes down i won't be surprised i will be surprised if chase isn't penalized i'll be pretty surprised hypothetically, let's just think if he's not. Yeah. If he's not penalized, what do you think the response would be? I will say this. If he is not penalized, NASCAR would do themselves a massive favor by being absolutely transparent

with every bit of information that drew that conclusion. They need to be able to explain thoroughly why they came to that conclusion. because like I said, I believe that the majority of people looking at it go, hey man, yeah, that looked intentional. The casual fan, the hardcore fan, most people believe what they saw. And if it turns out that it's not that, then there needs to be plenty of evidence shared willingly, right? So that NASCAR doesn't, I don't want to see NASCAR get blasted

for something that they don't need to be. be blasted for. If they find out that, you know, it wasn't intentional. However they do, they need to share that. You're 100% right. And the reason why is because there are some people, like, as soon as that happened, there is that narrative out there in the court of public opinion, like, oh, they will never do anything to their golden boy. They'll never do anything because it was Denny versus Chase. They like Chase. They hate Denny. They'll never do something. I'm thinking, no, I'm thinking they'll do something. But if they don't, they're going to have to explain that. Well, I think that, you know, there is, there is a odd narrative and there's tension in the room between NASCAR and Hendrick, right?

The penalty situation, right? That whole thing, the appeal getting turned over. I really don't know where that stands. I don't know where everyone is in terms of NASCAR, the industry, Hendrick and all the, you know, Jeff Gordon and all employees never. I don't know where they all are in terms of, are they good, aren't the little bit of, bit awkward. So that, you know, we don't know. We don't know that NASCAR is like, you know, trying to protect Chase and we do know that,

you know, Denny certainly gets under their skin a little bit. I don't know that that is going to factor into it. And I don't believe that. I do not believe that NASCAR plays favorites. I don't. I think that NASCAR has more information than any of us. True. And makes a decision based off a way.

they're looking at. I truly believe that. I know that we sit here and raise hell about the decisions that they make sometimes and the short track package and all, I mean we railed on them earlier in the season over a few things. And I do disagree with a lot

of things that, you know, I'm a traditionalist, but honestly, when I get in the same room with NASCAR and I say, show me why this is the way it is. They have good information. that will convince you.

All right, I see why you made that decision, NASCAR. I see how you came to that conclusion. It's not like, oh, we like this guy more, so we're going to go easy. They can't run an organization like that. They can't. Right. You're forming that opinion, though, and I think that's well-formed opinion, but it's based off of your private availability to things that public opinions,

public people aren't privy to. Exactly. And that gets back to your point. You've got to go. There's a public narrative. that says they would never do anything to chase. If they don't, the only way for them would have to be complete transparency. Absolutely.

Complete transparency. That's right. So we're going to move off from that. That was something I'm sure we'll cover later this week on Thursday. We're reaction to whatever the decision is. We'll be back in here for a few minutes on Thursday to discuss. Blaney, good for him, right? Yeah.

I mean, happy for him. Yeah. Finally put it together. That's right. Do we want to share? Any more about Blaney? Sure, let's share. Okay, let's share it.

All right, so we had, I really want to be completely transparent. We just talked about that, right? We're going to be completely transparent here. This is a good transition. Is this putting our money where our mouth is, right? So, all right, we had Ross Chastain booked as the guest this week. Ross, unfortunately, had to cancel on us, and he had something going on. He gave me a call, and we talked about it.

Totally cool. Nothing serious. He's fine. But he can't make it. So I called Blaney, and I'm like, hey, man, what are you doing this week? This guy just come off a win. It's middle of a week. He's going to be busy.

And he had every right to say, man, I just can't do it. And I told him, I said, come in here and give me an hour. I'll take any time of day. And so Blaine's going to come see us. He's like, man, I'm happy to do it. Thanks for asking me. Awesome. What a damn cool dude.

Ally. That's an ally right there. For our Wednesday show, the winner. If, yeah, if there ever was a moment where the ally dirty moor media campaign and messaging was perfectly molded, this would be a moment. This is it. You call a guy up and you're like, dude, I'm in a bind. you're literally the hottest thing right now coming off at World 600 win can you can you come in here and he's like how's how's one o'clock right hell yeah it's awesome thank you buddy listen i was so

happy did you detect the the emotion in blaney and that post-res you not yeah man it was right it reminds me and it kind of threw me back to when you were going through a bit of a drought right and and the pressure that you guys put on yourselves we forget about it uh we look at you guys as being a little emotionless and just kind of like living in your own worlds and completely oblivious to all of the stuff going around you and yet you actually are feeling it more than any of us could ever imagine right and I know that I lived it with your drought but Blaney's gone through what was it 59 races and you could feel the relief coming off of him as he was doing that interview and I appreciated that I will say this man this I was at indie and I want to talk about

that a little bit here in a bit but I went to Nd 500 and the emotion out of after the emotion all day from anything that happened. The drivers were expressing that emotion, how glad they were to be there, how, you know, Tonekanon before the race, how emotional that was for him. So good, yeah. Obviously, the emotion from New Garden after the win,

and I'm sitting there, I'm like, this is what makes me a fan. This makes me order that ticket for next year. This makes me want to be here again and not miss what goes down in, because this matters. And I know it matters because of the way that guy reacted. And so that was a bit of a shot over the bow a little bit toward every other form of motorsport, right?

And not any type of racing in particular, but, man, please, if you win a freaking race, I don't care of what size or what level, man, let that emotion out. Act like it mattered. Well, you don't have to, and you don't have to manufacture that emotion. Like, just be yourself in that moment. Right. Don't act like you're too damn cool. Right.

Or it's just another race or damn, I've won a lot of these. You know, and what Ryan did was exactly what you want to see. He was so beaten down and, you know, disappointed about how things had been going. He had, believe it or not, you know, even at that level, at the top level of sport, these guys doubt themselves, these guys get down on themselves, these guys lose faith in the future and where things are going. And he let it all out. He told us in that moment, you know, had he bought, had he not done that and we had gotten,

you know, the same conversation you might get from Ryan if you made him on the street, that would have been a bit of a letdown. But damn it, Ryan said, you know what? I'm going to. I might tear up a little bit. I'm going to tell, yeah, I might tear up a little bit. I'm going to let it all out. And we get to talk to him about that this week.

That's going to be fun. I don't want to go too far on Blaney, but, yeah, we're going to get a chance to go through all that with him. And how, you know, how did he get down on himself? What were the conversations like? I want to applaud all the fans who stuck around this week. I want to applaud all the fans who tuned in for the race, everybody. I mean, rain delays, especially that kind of rain delay where it's like prolonged, it's on and off, you never know what's going to happen, the Xfinity race, all that stuff getting bounced around and

push around. We still had a really good crowd at the track physically, and, you know, as far as I could tell, everybody was tuned in on Monday, and that was good to see. Typically, there's this threat that when a race is rain delayed, to a Monday, it's an afterthought. It's like just another part of Monday, right? When the race is happening, it's just, it just loses all of its momentum and excitement, but the World 600 didn't do that.

And the Xfinity race was pretty entertaining. Of course, I was happy that just an Allgaier won. I could not believe they made it to the end. I watched every bit of it. Explain what you mean by that, by the way, because, like, I know just from what I woke up to this morning. This is a little bit of a personal story mixed in with some racing. I'm at the Indy 500. I'm going to miss all of the NASCAR stuff.

But then the rain and the weather meant that I would be in town for yesterday's racing. But my wife had scheduled Ila's first sleepover, a friend at school. And for people who aren't parents, this isn't going to mount to nothing, right? This isn't going to matter to all to you. But if you are a parent. I'm going to tell you, man, when Amy said, hey, I was got a friend coming over from school, that was another really big moment where you're like, how in the hell did I get here? Somebody's trusting their kid with us?

Do they know what they're doing? Okay. So. Who is this kid? You want to know everything. You want to know. Yeah. Right.

No, I know who the kid is. I'm going to school. Well, I go to school, you know, and I pick Al up and I drop her off. So I know I know the moms and I know the other kids and everything. And I know who Ala's best friends are. She talks about them all the time on the car ride home. You know, we had her birthday, had all kinds of her friends over with their parents. So, I mean, there's, it's, it wasn't.

It was, I knew what I needed to know. But I'm going to tell you, man, I was like, oh. All right, so I'm a, I need to be home for that. I need to be, I need to, you know, I don't need to make any plans. That'll be, you know, Amy's going to need some help with Nicole. We're going to, you know, we're going to have Aileen and her friend. They're going to be so excited, you know, on high energy all day long. Amy's going to be war out.

So I didn't plan on going to the racetrack. And so, you know, the Xfinity race was supposed to happen at 11 o'clock in the morning. And Nicole has a fever, low-grade fever, but she's, you know, it's like every other week this kid is dealing with some snoddiness. And so she's, I'm holding Nicole all day, like throughout the whole Xfinity race. The start of the Xfinity race, the rain delay, the start of the cup race. Amy took the girls to the movies for a little bit. and so I was home babysitting a sick two-year-old.

But I was in the plane with LaTart. And I was like, hey, man, we're coming home from Indy. I was like, there's going to be another kid in my house when I get there, Steve. I was having a first sleepover. And he goes, oh, man, be ready. And I was like, okay, give me some advice. He's like, well, he's like, you better, you know, if they wake up in the middle of night scared, you know, you say to this kid, you're like, hey,

I will call your mom and dad. It's totally fine. Don't be upset. We'll call them right now. I can take you home. We'll get them on the phone. Everything's going to be fine. You've got to be ready at 2 a.m.

to get out of bed, get in the car, and go somewhere. Right. And so am I right, Mike? Do you feel like this is? No, you're not. No, I'm agreeing with that. I mean, in your head, you're thinking, shut up and go back to bed.

Oh, well, I... No? Am I the only one there? Well, I... Okay, got it. At the very, maybe at the, maybe at the fifth or tenth or 15th sleepover, but go back to your very first one, Mike, where you first sleepover you had where they brought a friend to the house.

And so I'm like, all right, I'm going to be ready. If something, you know, if we were woken up in the middle of the night, I will, I will be available to drive. And so, you know, I really overthought this whole thing. Possibly. Yeah, and they slept through the night, no problems. Good. Had a great time.

The only thing was when I got home, it was 9 o'clock, when I got home from Sunday, 9 o'clock, and I went in there, they're in the bed, and Amy's trying to read a book to them. That's kind of the last thing. Read a book, and then they go to sleep. And they were bouncing off the walls, man. And so I walk in the room, and Ila looks at me, and says, says, hey, my friends over here for a sleepover. Like, set it that fast. And I was like, Amy, have they been drinking coffee?

What in the hell? Like, I've never seen Ila. I've seen Ila. This is like, you know, sugar plus food coloring, plus like all of the things that would make them, make her wide open. Wide open. Yeah. And I was like, they ain't no damn way they're going to sleep. Right.

All right. So we turn the lights out. We got the little cam, the baby cam, so we can watch them. all right y'all go to bed get in bed all you say we go back me me and amy go back into the in our bedroom and we're laying there in the bed uh and i turn on the little monitor and they have gotten out of bed and now they're doing flips into the bed off of the furniture and i'm i mean it's one after the other they're just going it's like gymnastics they're happening right in the dark you'll have to be laughing at this right we're laughing yeah i've got it all i recorded it Good. I got it all on my phone. I love flips in the headboard, smash your nose. Now we're crying.

Oh, wow. Got to go in there. It's a big change in the story. You okay? You okay? Abrupt. You're okay? Yeah, yeah.

All right, you calm her down. All right, y'all, that's what happens. You know, get back in bed now. Let's try to go to sleep. Get out. I mean, we ain't walked out of the door of the bedroom. Just got out going down to hospital. hall and they are back out of the bed again.

And now I can talk on that thing. I'm like, y'all get to bed now. I mean, it took forever for them to not, like, not want to get out of the bed and play. And goodness gracious. Well, okay, so was Justin Algar, Ila's friend that came over and slept? Because this was a racing story that you were tying back to the Xfinity series. Oh, that's right. So I guess what I'm trying to say is I had to watch all of the racing at home.

I wanted to go to the racetrack. I wanted to be there because the last time I was in Victory Lane at Charlotte, I believe, might have been 2001. And so, you know, we never won there as J.R.M. until last year with Josh. And I was in Indy. And now we won again, and I'm at home. And so it feels weird, you know, 30 minutes across town, your guys are in Victor Lane and you're laying into bed. But I watched every lap. I didn't think that they were going to make it to the end.

And everybody's pitting. And I'm like, well, how in the hell are we that confident that we can get to the finish of the race? Everyone, but the top two or three are pitting for fuel. Right. And he not only was able to finish the race, but had enough gas to do a really long burnout and all kinds of donuts. Yeah. So anyhow. That's impressive conservation of fuel right there.

Adam Alexander is a really great broadcaster, and I love the guy. And he's very supportive of me. he sends me text messages all the time about how much he thinks about my work. But I am so glad that he can no longer mention that Junior Motorsports hasn't won this year. Oh, man. It was out there, right? He kept saying it. Him and Jamie Murray kept going on and on and on and out.

I'm like, they're running into the top five. Yeah. Anyhow, where are we? We're 40-some minutes into this. So I got a couple of other things going on. that's all we're going to do as far as racing. I worked the Indy 500 again, and I'm holding this book in my hand,

which is I want to talk about this book. Okay. I can't wait to see what you're holding on. I want to talk about Indy, too. We can say this for Thursday. It's up to you. I read a book and I like it. Can I see the cover?

Nope. Oh, all right. I am curious about your Indy 500 experience. I have a lot of things. Why don't we save it to Thursday? I'm going to save the book to Thursday. All right. And then we'll talk about,

Indy 500. The environment and atmosphere that you feel being in indie at the racetrack is unlike anything else. It doesn't, it is a race, but it doesn't, it doesn't feel like other indie races. It doesn't feel like any NASCAR race. It's a special event. It's like, you know, the derby is unique to horse racing. No other horse race, and even the preakness or any other race feels like the derby. and I mean when you're there in person, watching it on TV sort of strips away so many layers of the history, tradition, the sheer size of the event, TV numbs a lot of that.

It's just the way it is. TV's that's just way it is. No way around it. If you can go to the Indy 500, please go. I mean, I'm so thankful that I've gotten to go and do that and experience that. once. And so it's just an incredible thing to see and be a part

of. I have some really wild access as working with NBC. And you know, I can walk up into any garage I want, talk to any driver I want, which is a great thing. I needed to talk to

Farucci. I text him. I said Santino, need to talk to you for the race. I just want a couple minutes. No problem. Come on up into the garage. I'll be there at 10 o'clock before Carb Day practice at 11. I walk in there, he's got his suit on, he's going to practice in one hour, and we stood there

and talked for 25 minutes. I talked to Larry Foyke, who runs the team for A.J. and had a great conversation. And so it turns out Santinio Ferruci had some Dale and Hart Jr. wallpaper on his bedroom wall when he was a kid. Wow.

Yeah. Didn't know that. I didn't either. Yeah. And boy, did he have a hell of a race, man. He did. And I was, I was I know he was sad about not being able to win for AJ. There was, you know, he had heard. He's hearing that all weekend. Best AJ's teams run in forever. Could you imagine AJ winning the $8,500?

And there he was with a perfect opportunity and a couple moves go this way or that. He does it. But, you know, he is, he's entertaining. Now, just his hair. I have not, I have not forgotten that, you know, we've bounced off of him and he bounced off of us a few times in the Xfinity series. True. But even while that was going on,

I was impressed by his speed and how quickly he adapted to the Xfinity series, to NASCAR, to the tires, all of that. He is a natural. He's fast. He's good. And I think he'd be competitive

in just about any situation. So, you know, I wasn't going to go on a Frucci tear, but he's, I like him. He's fun to watch. He's fun to pull four. He pisses him other guys off.

Like that. Including Connor Daly. Connor doesn't like him. Rossi don't like him. You know, there's a lot of people, and you can tell who. Really? But the majority of the, I think the majority of the drivers in that garage don't know how to take him, right? Or don't like him or not sure.

You know, he's really, I don't know. He's brash, he's something. I don't know if it's arrogant. They all have stories. They all have a precedent. Like we do at Junior Motorsports. I'll be honest with you, man. I mean, when he was a rookie in 2019, I went to the Ndie 500 and they were like,

I was reading about him trying to study. And he had all these issues in other, you know, in the racing that he had done. He'd gotten in trouble. He had wrecked his teammate or something. He's riding around with his cell phone videoing while he's racing while he's driving the car. Just really brash, immature. And I believe, I believe that he has improved a ton from those moments.

I believe even from 2019 that he has matured. Now, yeah, he's still young. He's still going to be foolish and immature at times, but I believe that he's not the same little shit that everybody thinks he is from 2019. He's not. I talk to him, and I can see in the way he talks and the way he engaged with me, I was like, yeah, this guy's, this guy's maturing. I hope that he ends up in a situation where he can be competitive long-term for IndyCar.

I think that would be good for IndyCar. He's a great personality. He's entertaining. He's interesting. He does do things on the racetrack that make you scratch your head. You need those guys out there. Feels a little bit like our Noah Gregson, right? He's a bit like Noah.

A little bit. For sure. There's some very big similarities there in terms of their path and maturity and so forth. How about the fact that, Wasn't it Ferruci that had the monetary fine handed to him during the race for the tire that went across the pit? Like, how crazy was that? That was crazy. I didn't think it was that crazy.

You didn't think it was crazy that they, maybe it's not crazy. Maybe it's what I wish NASCAR would do is hand out in race penalties rather than draw it out all week like we were talking about with Chase. It's going to happen. But the fact is that he has that tire go across, go out of the pit box and they go, yeah, we're not going to make him lose his. position here, but we are going to go scrapping with a cash fine to be determined later. I thought that was an interesting thing. I hadn't seen it. It was. I hear you, Mike. I'm glad they didn't go send him to the back because you're, again, this is. Hinch was like, oh, that's a big penalty going on. Oh, they were arguing. I know it. Yeah.

I thought that was interesting, actually. Well, it's like, so it's, I don't know how, I don't know how much to reveal here, but, yeah. So, all of it. I believe that Hinch is in the, group with the other drivers that aren't you know don't approve of a lot of things that he does right and so hitch is just recently out of the seat true and so hint is still like yeah ferruci he don't know about this guy right the he passes rossi on carb day coming off pit road on the access lane apparently you know hitch is like that's a that's a ridiculous move it's a it's ridiculous and and uh he was very upset about it and um towns and bell knows that Hinch is not a big fan of Frucci.

And so Townsend intentionally praises Fruci. I love it. Even though Townsend probably doesn't love Fruci that much, he goes overboard in his praise because he knows it makes Hinch squirm right next to him in the booth. It is hilarious. That is interesting because now with that context, they weren't arguing necessarily that I could tell over for Rootie, they were arguing whether the tire, the wheel, went over the line. It clearly did. Hinch was correct in that. But knowing what you're saying, where Townsend Bell may just take a

position just to... Just to be opposite. He's like, I don't know if it went over. And Hinch is like, what do you mean you don't... Look at the tape. It went over the line. Well, it's debatable. I'm like dying, laughing about this. That's so funny. I really, Hinch is really sharp, does a great job. Towns and Bell, is a, knowing Townsend's personality, he is a great listen, man. The whole package was amazing. It was such a good broadcast. So I agree with all that, man.

I was, I had a great time. I do not, I do not know at 48 years old how much longer I can call the snake pit. I understand what you mean by that. Honestly, you know, my personal opinion is that they probably, you know, moving forward, I think that, you know, a younger, more, you know, connected personality would do a better job in that environment. And NBC has a long list of, like, Carson Daly would be perfect for that. Would that not feel like a spring break MTV moment if Carson Daly was calling, you know. Well, maybe 20 years ago.

I got a lot. I got. He also is probably not. He nods at everything, but he's not in it. Dalton's nodding at that one? All right, well, then it must be true. I just, in my mind, I'm like, man, you know, is this the, am I the perfect? No, I don't feel like I'm the perfect peg for that, for that hole.

You or Steve, frankly, because yeah. I enjoyed it. And I thought, hey, wait, I enjoyed it and I thought we did a great job. But I just feel like that, you know, I could, I would love to put somebody else in that position because I think it would be. a little better received and a little better conveyed as to what, you know, the snake pit's all up all about. I love the history of it.

The history of the snake pit is fascinating. That's what we got to share, which I was, I was, I'm happy to do. I enjoy telling everybody about the history. And we, we had to tame the, tame the stories down. I mean, the history of the snake pit is colorful. Yeah. So there's a medical tent right there for people to get, you know, to get help. and when I walked up there to do the 11 o'clock hit at the top of the show,

a guy that was there at the party said they've already brought 20 out. Oh, I guarantee it. Yeah. Unconscious. Unconscious. Oh, hell. And so it's a little sketchy. It's a little scary.

I mean, you know, when you first get there at 8.30 in the morning, there's 15,000 people there by the peak of, The day, there's probably 30,000. It looked packed. Yeah. And they're at 8.30 in the morning, they are going as hard as they can go. The ones that are there, they ain't just hanging around, especially the people up on the rail and stuff close to the stage.

They're going hard. They're head banging, just jumping around and just exerting all kinds of energy. Did you catch the comment, and I don't know who made it, but the comment where one of you guys said, you know, not a whole lot of families in here. And then somebody else said... That was Townsend Bell's comment. Who said, well, there's probably some of the beginning of the families in there.

Townsend said both. He said both. I don't know. I remember... He probably said there's a start to a family in there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was a quick comment and I go,

did I just hear that right? Did I just hear that? Yeah. I totally did hear that. So the snake pit makes me a little nervous. and, you know, so, but we had a good time. We got our hits done and we got out of there. Our opportunity to talk to Larson was great.

Larson was awesome. I was so surprised that he was even there. The logistics of him going back and forth to come out there and be there and be present and just be there to check things out and sort of go through a checklist of here's how my day is going to be next year. Super smart. This guy's really putting everything into this to try to do as good a job as you can. I was really surprised by him being there and plus how well of an interview we got from Larson.

And so the race was great. The work on the peacock pit box was fun. Danica was fun on the box. We were talking throughout the whole race about what we were seeing. She was helping me understand a few things about IndyCar. Of course, I don't know everything going on out there and what the drivers are dealing with. Mike's fun to work with.

We got done and headed home. New Gardens win was exciting. His celebration was amazing. Well, I've got to ask, though, what was the feeling from Danica? Did you guys talk about this when that last caution or last red flag? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The decision to red flag the race. Man, I'll be honest.

I have never, I don't know that I've ever seen any race where they roll off pit road and take the green. I've never seen it either. Anywhere. Yeah. I'm trying, I mean, I might be wrong, but I can't think of one right now. and I feel like for the Indy 500, that wouldn't be something you'd do. I agree.

They are notorious. They're strictly, we're just all about the race, and we're not going to go, I don't know, manufacture big finishes the way maybe NASCAR is known to manufacture, and I'm not sure that that's what they did,

although Marcus Erickson would disagree. He thinks that that was not the right call. Of course. Of course he does. And I think he's got an argument. I do too. I feel like that. it risks the integrity of the event.

It risks the integrity of not only that specific Indy 500, but all of Indy, right? And luckily, the end result was a finish with integrity. Luckily, the end result was everybody got back to the finish line in one piece. Luckily, the end result was popular and well received. No problem, right? And so everybody in that moment was okay with it. We were on Peacock.

We had left NBC and we're on Peacock doing some more work. And I said to Rico and Danica, I said, I thought the finish was a little crude. And Danica and Mike went, no, that's the beauty of sports. What happened, what happened them rolling off pit road and taking the green and the race ending the way it did is what's great about sports. and I honestly, I honestly feel like I wasn't, I mean, I don't feel bad about, I don't feel like my comment was incorrect. I thought it was a crude comparable to other Indy 500s. It was a bit crude, right?

We're coming off pit road, we're going to get the green. I've never seen it before. You know, and so I didn't think my own comment was a reach. But, you know, Danica and Mike thought it, you know, that was, you know an incredible ending yeah i i enjoyed the ending i just i just i guess you know i would have said you know i would say to indycar i'd be like well why don't we just say you know we're not going to count cautions or something inside of 10 laps to go right so if you do come off pit road you can get them guys to go around a couple laps and when the green comes out we're going to

have we're going to start counting laps you know there's races where you know dirt races or or whatever short track races where cautions aren't counted. So not counting yellows wouldn't be a new idea. But I think in that scenario, they don't have, I do not want to see them do a green white checkered. I don't want to see them do this. We're going to end under green no matter what.

But I think if they, you know, it's kind of the same thing, not counting yellows inside of five to go or inside of 10 to go. It's kind of the same thing. But it would allow drivers to accept it better, Erickson, right, he could say, hey, okay, this is the rule. We're going to go out here. We're going to get our tires warmed up.

The green flag's coming out with the white at the same time. But we're not going to pull off the road and go green. So, you know, I... It's interesting. I'm with you on this. I'm glad they did it. I just, I thought it was a bit inconsistent being that I've never seen it before that way, but I'm hesitant.

I'm glad they did it. It gave us a moment that we'll never... I guess I gave my opinion. Yeah. But I was really. hesitated to even say anything about it because I'm not an IndyCar guy. But, I mean, I'm sitting there, and that's what it felt like. It felt crude, but still, you know, a popular win.

New Garden did an amazing job. Yeah. The leader, man, he's a sitting duck on them restarts. There's nothing they can do. There's nothing they can do to keep the lead without, you know, just violently blocking or creating some kind of dangerous scenario. Yeah. So after Andy, I've got a couple weeks off, and then we're going back to, we're going to

Nashville at the end of June for the start of our broadcasting with NBC. I'm excited about that. I guess this would be a good time to go to Samash Jr. We're going to do Samas Jr.? So I saw Andrew a lot at Indy this week. I know he was down there working. What was he doing? Andrew was doing a lot, actually.

We went down there. The Dirty Mo crew went up there to do, have three days with Mario Andretti. That's what I'm talking about. We'll be putting that stuff out this week. That's what I want you to tell me. Yeah. What's going on? Man, Mario Andretti gave you, Andrew, are you on, can you hear you?

Can you hear me now? Yeah. Just give us a teacher. How good was it? How good was your conversation with Mario? So I don't know if Mario Andretti is a better, was a better race car driver or a better storyteller? Like it is neck and neck how good that was.

All right. Yeah. We got about two and a half hours with him. Holy-h-half hours with anybody of that status is impressive. I mean, you're carrying some cloud around there, buddy. Yeah, and I would bring something up. He would lean a little bit closer in the church. chair and he'd be like have i got a good story for you and that happened like 10 different times so

yeah it'll be on dirty good one's youtube channel this week uh starting this week right yep um and uh looking forward to that you also did some man on the street stuff and you uh talked to all the indy car racers uh at media day and that was some good stuff that we saw on the social media as well so nice job i appreciate that let's uh let's get to samas junior shower all right let's do it all right we're live dale was that did you make that shot i did you didn't i had two last week you had two last week you it too. Oh, and I wasn't there to see it. I wasn't there to see it. We're live here on Ash Jr., presented by Xfinity 10G. They're at 10 G's. That's pretty impressive. Let's see. I tried to bank. Sounded like it hit the backboard there. It sounded like I tried to bank it in there. It's not open

today. Yeah. Well, we've got some good questions sent in from the fans, and we'll get right to it. This first question is from Harold. You know, New Garden, Blaney, Allgaier. all celebrated in the stands after winning this weekend. First, what did you think of that? And then do you just have a favorite victory celebration that you've seen? Yeah, I thought it was good. New Garden had, you know, it's just to be able to see genuine emotion. And when somebody wins a race, we talked about this earlier in the show,

but when somebody wins a race, you want them to, you want them to be happy. You want them to show that. You don't want them to suppress it. because their joy, their emotion about that win is a signifier and confirms the importance of the race, right? The reason you bought a ticket to come. And so when you see somebody jump out and get so excited about and happy about something, the guys that won a Kentucky Derby, their reaction to winning that race shows you why that race is so important. right and so

you know that's all you want to see after somebody wins so it was great to see everybody's reaction throughout the weekend I know that the race was you know the cup race was rain delayed so that kind of mutes it a little bit but they were still

you know still the World 600 is a long one it's tough it's one of a kind it was exciting it was it was entertaining and Blaney deserved it I mean he was strong all night and had a little lost some track position there late and got some restarts and things went his way and he worked hard to get that track position back. I'll say New Garden, I don't know if I would have done what he did. I feel like that takes

some guts to go into the stands. Is that something you would have done? Yeah. I mean, it's not that, it's not that. Like it just seems like overwhelming. It's not dangerous. No. I mean, so the reason why you stop on the front straightaway, and get out is because you want to feel that energy coming from the stands. Yeah. How can you feel that energy even better, right? It's to go right in there. That's true.

It's like jumping in the mosh pit. You jump in there because it's where you want to be. You jump in there because that's where all the energy's at. And he will, he's winning his first Indy 500, and he wanted to, he wanted to drink from a fire hose in terms of soaking it all up, taking it all in. He wanted to experience the extreme of energy and emotion. I mean, let's dive right into the crowd. Go right where they are, right? Celebrate with them.

That was really cool and great moment in motorsports. Absolutely. That was well said. This next question coming from Kenny, if you could sit down and watch any past race with anybody, who would you want to watch it with? where would you want to watch it from? Pass to race with anybody.

I don't know if this answer is that question, but I've been thinking about that. So, you know, they got the Manning cast. Oh, yeah. Yeah, right? And so I know that, you know, there's people that prefer to watch the actual broadcast of the game, but some people do enjoy the many cast

where Peyton and Eli are talking about the game, and they're joking and giving each other hard time. They interview a guest on there as well. But I think doing something like that for NASCAR would be fun. We don't work all year long. I don't work all year long, but I have, me and Jeff Burton have done some, we've done some rain delay feel where they show like, for example, the 2001 Daytona July race, and me and Burton kind of narrate over the top of it.

And we've done a couple races like that, and it got really well received. I would love to do that, sit down with Burton or LaTart, going over some races that we won together, or races that another driver won, sit down and watch a race that I was in, but maybe even another driver won it, right? And we're sitting there together. That's fun for me to do. If it's fun for people to watch, that even better. But I wonder how long till there is a Manningcast NASCAR style.

They've done it before where we were sitting in a trailer, watching the Xfinity race and you watched us watched the Xfinity race on a TV. That's not what I'm talking about. Not that. Basically, you know, have you ever seen Mystery Science Theater

where they're in... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they're in the theater and the host and the cast of the show are kind of down at this bottom corner of your screen and it's just their silhouettes. You're like sitting in behind them

watching the show on your screen as if you're in the theater with them. That's kind of an idea that I've always had in my head is like a mystery science theater where we're either watching the current live race on TV or an older race, you know, and it's like a 30-hour-long show. But I'd love to do like the Daytona 500. I would love to do like a Manning cast with the Daytona 500.

Oh, yeah. Right? I think that would be fun just to sit at home and just be like, you know, his is what I'm seeing, what you're seeing. That's crazy. You believe he did that? You believe,

oh, I don't know about that move. Oh, I was wrong. That was a good move. You know, whatever. Yeah. Like more of a casual approach to watching a race. People say that, you know, when we first started doing the NBC booth, the comments that I would see back in 2018, 19, was that me, Steve, Jeff, and Rick,

it's kind of like buddies at a bar, right? Drink a beer watching a race. And, I mean, that's really, that's as fun as it gets when it feels that. way and comes across that way and I think that that would even lean more into that. So you sit me down with a case of beer and somebody else and watch, you know, we watch the race together with you. The race is on your screen, but you hear us, right? Yeah.

That would be fun. I think so. Well, maybe the wheels get turning on this one. I put it into the universe. That's what we're doing right here. That's it. That's what this whole show's about. Law of attraction.

We're going to track that into our lives. I like it. This next question coming from Kevin, and you kind of mentioned. it right at the end of the dirty air segment. You know, June 25th, NBC is coming back. What are you doing this month to kind of prepare for the return of your side of broadcasting in NASCAR? I mean, I'm watching every single lap and trying to stay on top of the storylines

as far as who's mad at who and what each driver has went through. I've got a, I've got in my notes just sitting right next to me. here. Everything that every driver, every team went through in the offseason, switches, changes, choice, you know, new crew chief, whatever. And then, you know, you kind of keep a long documentation of, you know, controversies, penalties, contact, frustrations. Obviously, the stats and success are easy to, easy to find.

But literally just sitting at home watching the races as a fan helps a ton. you know just trying to sit there Amy gives me that freedom to be able to I tell her I'm like man I got to watch the race I'm gonna sit down I'm gonna watch every lap and she is she understands that that's important and that's pretty much it I mean I'm ready to go

I'm ready to start getting in the booth I've been I've been in indie at the derby and all that's kind of teasing how much fun it is to be back in the NASCAR booth and it's been fun to listen to Clinton them all first half a year and I'm I'm ready to get going Yeah, second half is going to be a fun one.

It always is. This next question, a bunch of people have been asking, but Chris asks, how have the restoration projects gone? They haven't seen a whole lot of you posting them as of late. Any new projects that you're working on? Well, we're working on some house restoration. I've got this, we had this sort of, we had this deck that was off of the,

kitchen that we never used and I never sat out there and so we're closing that in but um so literal home renovations are going on and I've been in this house since 08 so it's um we're finding some rot and other kinds of things and the walls that's not good um I've got a in this we're in the you know obviously in the studio right here in the bo jungle studio and on the other side of this wall in the fab shop is my 66 nova wagon we've been working on and it's it's coming very slowly. We just started putting in all of the sound deadening or soundproofing, you know, that you put in the tub of the car, putting in the aftermarket air conditioner and stuff like that, fuse boxes and things like that steering column. It's got the motor in it. So it's coming along. That's my,

that's the current project, right? 69 Nova, 66 Nova wagon. That's going to be the family car. Is it hard to find parts for that? No. No? No. Really? No, not really. Huh.

Yeah. And whatever they don't. I mean, it's not necessarily a car where I've got to, I'm not, when I started this project, I was like, man, I'm just going to make it up as I go along. It's not going to be this beautiful, polished, perfect car. It's going to, you know, it's going to have a lot of fabrication, a lot of homemade, you know, elbow grease in there. And we're just going to make it function.

make it trustworthy, make it crank, never fall apart, never stop, never park you on the side of the road, but also look reasonably good. Yeah, old reliable, right? Yeah. We got time for one more question. This one's coming from Ryan. What sports did you play growing up? Do you remember what numbers you wore? I don't. I got a picture of me playing soccer when I was a little kid, but I can't tell what numbers on my jersey. I played soccer in like the second grade, and then I quit, went to a bunch of different schools. I went to a different school almost every year all the way up until I was a freshman in high school.

And then I played soccer again as a freshman. And we went to state and lost. I wasn't a starter. I didn't play a ton, but I enjoyed it. And I got a letter jacket. Nice. Still have it. Still have it.

Can't get Amy to put it on. It's perfect for her. It's her size. And I was a freshman in high school. I was like five foot three. It was very short. and that was it I didn't play any other sports I wanted to play football so again as I said I was 5-3 yeah as a freshman I'm getting driven around by like you know the the principal or whatever

somebody at Mooresville senior high is driving me and Teresa and Kelly around the property showing us the school it's like a week before school starts and you know you're nervous you're getting ready to go to this new school and they're showing you around and I saw the football team out on the field practicing and I said hey I want to play football you know and he was like let me take you to soccer field and introduce you to soccer coach and I was like okay all right maybe I mean some countries that is football you know soccer maybe there was some sort of language I didn't I probably it's probably for the best but man I've loved football and I so badly wanted to play organized football I mean

I mean, I had at home when I was 12, I had pads for everybody on my road, all the other kids, right? Not only if I had the whole suit, pads, pants for me and every other kids. So that when we went and played in the yard, everybody was suited up. Yeah. Right. Full contact, slamming pads. We'd take our helmets and bang them on the concrete and try to scruff the fronts up like the old lineman's helmets looked. Oh, man.

We had a lot of fun. Man, I'm sorry you couldn't do that. Yeah. Yeah. That's all the time we've got for Ash Jr. That was fun. Yeah, it was great. Appreciate everybody.

We have Ryan Blaney coming in tomorrow, race winner. Ross was going to be our guest. He called me and said he had something come up and he couldn't make it. So I called Ryan literally just before we got down to the table. And Ryan said, tell me when to be there and I'll be there. So what a great guy. Busy all week coming off big. biggest win probably of his career and just like that said it tell me when so tomorrow ryan blaney

will be on the show we'll talk about his 600 win all the emotion um thanks for tuning in we had a great show today mike we did yeah we talked everybody watching by the way uh the youtube thing we talk at length about chase and denny yeah we don't of course of course we cover everything we covered everything and then don't forget about our thursday show i've got a cool story about a book i want to tell you all about it. It's like, freaking book. I don't want to hear a story about a book. And also, I got bit by tick.

Oh. Yeah. I'll tell you about that Thursday. Hey, they'll tune in. That's a hell of a cliffhanger right there. That's what you like, gain it, Mike. That's it. Yeah.

That's what I like. So, yeah, going to be a fun week. Make sure you tune in tonight. This one will be out. Dirty Air will be out tonight. Blaney tomorrow Thursday Tickmite. We'll see you later. Check out Dirtymo Media.

on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.