The Dale Jr. Download - 460 - Cabo, Sonoma, Le Mans, & Nashville

Episode Date: June 13, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back from vacation to join co-host Mike Davis and chat about life, Sonoma, and endurance racing: Dale’s family vacation in Cabo Beach Yoga No stage breaks in Sonoma Would an endurance race work for NASCAR? During the Ask Jr. segment of the broadcast, listeners sent in questions regarding: Dale’s weekly preparation for NASCAR on NBC broadcasts What happens when drivers go to the infield care center Where to go when visiting Nashville for the first time Favorite piece of Dale Jr. merchandise 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? Sitting in a look. I am weird. You are weird. Bob. Whoa. Mr. Dalenhart Jr. Bye.

That family picnic sometimes. Gives you more than just a potato salad. That's the voice of my co-host. One of my best friends in the whole wide world. Mike Davis. We're screwed. Was that me? No, we're not standing in that box together in our underwear.

Are you kidding me, Mike? Oh, my God. That's hilarious. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. I'm your host, Dale Inhart Jr., and with me, as always, is my co-host, Mike Davis. Mike, how's it going? Great, man. You doing good?

I'm doing wonderful. We're hanging out in the Bojangles studio here, and things are off to a great start this week. We've had a very productive week so far. We've been working. Yeah, we have been working. We've been pretty busy, even though we've been vacationing as well. It's kind of weird. We've been weaving it all together somehow.

Was vacation nice? It was nice. Me and my family went to Cabo. I hadn't been to Cabo in about 20 years. And we stayed in a really nice resort. And we went fishing. We went out on a boat a couple days. It was great.

It really was. The weather was nice. Got pretty warm one day. Avoided any kind of serious sunburn issues that kind of happened on vacations like that for me. Good for you. A little windy at times around the resort. We were right on the beach. I'll get into the details if you want.

All right. I got questions because I got a picture from your vacation. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I know what you're talking about. I got the picture. Yeah, that's right.

Doing a little yoga there. Beach yoga. I know it. Got his ass all cocked up in the air and everything. Well, I mean, it's not, I don't know if it's beach yoga. It just happens to be at the beach because we're at a resort. Well, that's a big, that's a big qualifier. Okay, getting into it.

Yeah, so I don't know how to, I don't know, I mean, I've never tried yoga, right? my wife is always going to yoga class and maybe I'm wrong about this, but I've been thinking that, you know, I went to CORE with her, which is another workout deal she does, and went to cryotherapy. So, as you can see, I'm on this little, I'm on this little journey to discover whether doing those type of things that she does, that she likes, and joining her, being with her, does anything, right? Does it have any sort of a, is there any kind of a change or any kind of a result, in result? I don't know what that, I don't know what I'm even looking for, but Amy, I've, for all, I guess what it is, is like, for all of my, for all of our lives together, me and Amy, right?

for the most part, she did what I was doing. I was racing. I was traveling. I was doing this. I was doing that. None of which was fun for her. I disagree. She would say, she might say, I think she would sit here and say, a lot of it was tough.

I was places. I was where I wanted to be to be with you. But I don't know if I was exactly where I wanted to be in that moment. That's exactly. It was a lot of times when, you know, She's sitting in the bus bored of death, you know, and I understand that. You know, I don't want to speak for her. But I absolutely have a little guilt over that, like dragging her out of her routine,

out of what she was doing and saying, you know, for the next, you know, 10, 15 years, your life is doing what I say and we're going where I say we're going. And anyways. Figuratively, it's not you were going around saying that, but yeah, we understand what you mean. Thank you. So I guess, I mean, this is like not even the same thing. But going to, you know, I'm not saying that I'm equally, you know, doing what, you know. It's not as much of a sacrifice. It is not. She sacrificed a good part of her life. You are sacrificing an hour. Yeah. But anyways, I'm doing these things with her because sometimes I think

that believe it or not man i mean you know we i think us men we walk around in our worlds right in our relationships and we're totally for the most part content in how we feel about our our relationships our wives now there's times when i'm insecure right but you know for the for the most part i don't you know i don't i think with amy sometimes she'll say you know something you know something Sometimes I don't feel like I'm being heard or sometimes I don't feel like I'm being appreciated. And I'm like, how can that be? Right. And so, you know, I've thought maybe I could go with her to some of the things that she enjoys.

And she, and maybe while I'm there, I don't have to like it. I don't have to want to become like a, you know, big time yoga dude. I don't have to, you know, I'm not going to start signing up for my own core classes. Yeah. I'm not. I can promise you. I don't know. You looked into it in these pictures.

Experience was tough. I was giving it my best, man. But I'm thinking that maybe she gets more out of it than I do, right? I guarantee it. Yeah. And so I'm hoping that me being there is a plus for her, right? Not, you know, not old damn. You know, I wanted to go to yoga, but now he's coming and it's not going to be the same.

But I know that when she came on the show. Like the fact that you're willing to do these things is it says a lot. Yeah. It says a lot. Listen, I don't want to, I'm not looking for an award or a trophy or even a pat on the back. Going to one hour yoga on the beach at a resort was not hard to do. Yeah, well, I was up a little early, moving a little faster than I wanted to at 7 o'clock in the morning. Oh, it was early.

Yeah, it was like 7 or 8. I mean, that's, well, it was, you know, it's on the West Coast, so it ain't too bad, I guess. I guess. It's probably about 10 o'clock here or 11 o'clock here. But look, man, I'm just thinking, man, if I go and do these things with her, she might appreciate that effort and it might show her that I'm curious, I'm interested in what she's interested in. I'm interested in going and seeing it and doing it and experiencing it.

So when she comes home and talks about it, I'm not looking, you know, staring straight through her as she's trying to explain to me how her core class went, right? So has she asked you to do anything that you're saying absolutely not? Well, I'll be honest with you. I love you. But after the first core class, I didn't want to go back. But she signed us up to do another one and I wasn't going to say no. You know, I don't want to disappoint her. And so I thought, what the hell?

I can go do this. We went and we did it again. Oh, it sucked so bad. I mean, it's so hard. The, the moves and everything that they're doing and your gut is burning. Your abs are like going. crazy. And, but I mean, that's the point, right? That's what's supposed to happen. Yeah. But I feel, you know, when I go do those classes, you know, I feel like I should be, you know, I just,

I go in there to assuming, man, I should be able to do all this. Why can I, you know, why can't, why do I got to take a break halfway through this particular move? That's, that's, you know, what, you know, but I'm, you know, so I feel like I should be, I should be stronger, right? But dude, it's hard. Dude, I mean, everything. I mean, everything. you've described still, I'm convinced it's halfway to a hostage situation. I mean, like, I think they waterboarded you in there. I went, no, it's tough. I went to, but the yoga thing, I have, you know, I've wanted to try it once.

I want to know what the hell yoga is. You hear about it your whole life. Okay. Have you not, have you not heard about yoga your whole life? Yoga's been around forever. And so I'm thinking, and Amy goes to these hot yoga classes where it's like 105 degrees and they do this. And I was going to go. And I might still, I might do that.

Did you like this beach yoga thing? I didn't hate it. The moves are, I don't know, yoga's a little different than, you know, like a traditional, you know, class like you're going to, like a core class where you're just going in there to kill your abs. Yoga's got this sort of spiritual part to it to where there's some, you know, there's some chanting and and some meditating and some moments of peace and quiet and relaxation. and so, you know, I think there's a lot about yoga, obviously, that I don't understand. But there are some, there were some moves and poses and holds that, you know, get the muscles burning. And some of them are really easy. Yeah, that was tough.

You know, you sit in this position. So it's basically like a lunge, a half lunge. Yeah, there's a name for this. Who knows what this is called real quick so we can tell our list. Warrior, yeah. The warrior? I'm looking at this picture of Bill Jr. in the warrior pose. The funniest part about this picture is that he's in this warrior pose, and you're doing well.

I mean, I've got to tell you, your form looks right, okay? T-shirt, stock car racing every Sunday night, throwback Speedway, where the stars are born. I'm like, yep, you can't, you can take the redneck out of North Carolina, but by God. I went and I didn't pack my yoga gear. Oh, man, if you had yoga gear, that is a picture I got to have. I don't have any yoga gear right. Yeah. But anyways, you're wanting this thing be a full, you want me to become a yoga guy.

Listen, I'm just going to tell you something. And I put you on the text, because Amy, and you, it was a group text, she just sent me these pictures. You talk about gifts. You talk about acts of love. Amy sending me these pictures of you was an act of love. I took it that way. That was such a nice thing to get. I got so much laughter out of it.

But to be honest with you, I'm impressed. Now, you bring up a good point about us men and that we're completely. fine with just day to day I mean I like I don't but then do you ever get this does Amy ever ask you my wife does this out of the blue I might be waking up I'm still not awake and she'll say do you love me Amy never does that it's what do you love about me and I'm just like I just want my eggs right now yeah I love to eat breakfast I love you for that no we don't do that no man well that's what I get really yeah um well um I know exactly what you're talking about, but that kind of stuff would happen early in our relationship, maybe, you know, when we're trying to feel each other out and understand whether who's in this, who's in it all the way and who's sort of all the fence.

We're about to celebrate our 20th anniversary. Y'all are pretty far in this. What do you love about me? I'm like, didn't we know this already by year 10? Well, I think, you know, I don't, I hate to make any assumptions, man, because it's dangerous, slippery slope there. But, you know, sometimes I think as women, so I see, I see Amy, and I look at her and I think, my, she is so beautiful. I mean, I see her in every day. There's a moment where I'm like, unreal. I can't believe I'm married to this woman. And so, but she'll, I tell her that, and she'll just roll her eyes and then give me five things she doesn't like. about her, right? And so I think what maybe is possibly going on is that we all age and we look in the

mirror and we go, gosh, that's happening. I don't like that. You know, boy, that changed. And now that's probably never changing back. And so we start to wonder, hey, you know, I know you found me attractive at one point. Tell me what you love about me now. Yeah. Because it can't be this or can't, you know, it can't be that. And so they need that reassurance that, you know, even though things are changing physically, that you're still all there, right? You're still in love, right? I think you're right.

Yeah. Look at you, Dr. Dale. Just come in here, bring all your relationship problems and your issues. Not that I have a relationship problem. I don't. I think we all have certain insecurities and stuff. I mean, look, I'm not 100% content and just so fulfilled every day. I don't ever have a feeling that I'm not appreciated in my marriage.

I do get my feelings hurt, right? Now, that happens a lot, right, where I get my feelings hurt, and I'm like, man, you hurt my feelings. That sucked, you know? And then now we're both mad at each other and not talking like damn kids. Yeah. You know, and that happens from time to time. but when Amy says, that made me feel unappreciated.

I don't feel like that I'm appreciated. I'm like, man, I really want to understand what that means, and I want to change that right now, but I can't relate. I'm never having that feeling myself, so I can't look within myself to figure out what's the solution to this. And I would love to really understand what she's really feeling. Like when she says I'm unappreciated, I don't feel appreciated.

I'm like, well, I'd love to fix this right now. Look at you, man. You come in here sometimes. I've just got to be careful, man, because it's slippery slopes. I don't want, you know. No, I think you're right. I know, but some things she may not want me talking about in terms of her own insecurity and so forth.

But, and I don't know if I, you know, I want you, you know. I think you're speaking broadly and I think you're right. I hope I'm speaking broadly. But by the way, do you get your feeling certain by your kids? You know, I kind of do. It's funny. You say that last. night. So here's one thing that happens with Ila, for example. Me and Amy trade off every other night

putting Ila to bed. Putting Ila to bed is going in there, reading a book, laying down, and she falls asleep in 15 seconds. And we trade off. Amy does it one night, I do it the next. But Ila never wants me to do it. I always want, she always wants Amy to do it. And Ila and I am, we're sitting on the couch last night. And we're, she's, we're, she's laughing about something. We're giggling and carrying on and having a great time, but it's, it's time for bed. And she's getting tired. And it's my, and she says, uh, Amy takes Nicole up to, to bed. And Ila sees that. And she goes, who's taking me to bed tonight? And I know what she's thinking.

And I say, you know, it's my night. Mama took you to bed last night. Ali, you know Mama took you to bed last night. So you know that it's my night. Oh, why can't Mama take me to bed? And I'm like, man, what is it about, what do I know? What's wrong with me? What am I not doing?

Am I not, you know, reading the book right? Am I not getting, am I not making a story? Is it better, you know, does Mama read a book better than me? Possibly, right? Probably. You know, I probably breeze through it. Mispronounce half of it. Probably do.

Mispronounce some of it. you read it in your language you know and and so Amy comes back downstairs and Ila gets up and walks over there and starts like talking under her breath oh like Mama can you can you take me to bed

and I'm sitting there going man this guy's a freaking idiot so yes yes my feelings got hurt and so you know and the worst part is is that when she convinces Amy to take her to bed they go walking past me and Ila looks over at me and I don't even and I don't know what that look is on her face but she she looks like she she I can't hide being heard about it I guess I don't

we can look at each other's eyes I my face can be emotionless right and she can look at my eyes and sense where I'm at mentally yeah and I'm like and pounce oh she's no she's just walking by and I'm trying not to look like I'm pouting and she's she's He's looking at me like, don't be disappointed. I'm getting, you know. Yeah, this is the way it is. This is the way it is. There's a lot more to where this came from.

I hear you, dude. And then Amy comes to bed, and I'm like, man, wonder why she doesn't want me to ever take her and take her to night night and tuck her in. I wonder why she always wants you to do it. There's like one night a month where she's like, I want Daddy to do it. But it's always mom. And she goes, she goes, don't let that hurt your feelings. She's like, I'm her mother. She wants her mother.

Of course. And that made sense to me, you know. Yeah. But holy crap. It's, yeah, I mean, little stuff, the silliest things shouldn't make it, shouldn't bother you at all. Dude. Yeah. That's what I'm learning, man.

You get you. Wait till they get 14 and 11. I don't even want to think about it. Well, you're going to have to because it's going to happen. It's going to be there tomorrow. I will worry about it when it happens. I'm not going to sit right here right now. I know, but that's what I live today.

I'm not going to give myself an ulcer. worrying about how they're going to hurt my feelings. Dude, I told you that story. We were walking down the street in Key West. Ila was five, six months old in a stroller. We're happy, skipping along. Beautiful morning. We're going to get breakfast.

Everything's amazing. Beautiful wife. Brand new child. And we walked by this leathered regular from Key West that, you know, you love seeing down there, little salty dogs. And he turns around and goes, she's going to break your heart in about 16 years. And I was like, Amy, is he telling the truth? I was like, holy shit.

I didn't even think about that. And so, you know, hearing you say those things, it's like, no, I'm not worrying about that right now. Yes, it's going to happen. Yes, she's going to get her, you know, you're going to get her license and be out of the driveway and never want to hang out with us anymore. But you know what? I'm going to try in that moment to go, hey, Amy, let's go do some shit. Right.

Let's do some hot yoga. No. Let's go to core. No. Anyways. Finally. So vacation. What did we get off on a tangent?

We did. Vacation was nice. Do you feel relaxed? Do you feel rested? Do you feel like you're ready to get up? Because you better start working hard. I'm pumped. So anyways, I wanted to say, on vacation, I caught a Marlin.

Oh, did you? Yes. I'd never caught one. How big are those? Well, mine was probably 80 pounds. not the biggest. But I don't know. I mean, there's some really massive marlins out there.

We did not catch a giant. But the group that I was with, it was Amy's family, got us a boat, and we went out and started fishing. We went out at 7 o'clock in the morning. Actually, we was on the boat at 6.30 until 2. And trolling around, you know, just a nice, slow, steady pace and trying to catch Marlin all morning. And it was all right, you know. But we caught two. I reeled one in and Amy's brother-in-law, Kobe, he reeled one in as well.

So I can say that happened in my life, right? So, yeah, it was a couple, it was a vacation of first, yoga, Marlins, and then, oh, then we went and got on another boat the next day and went and swam in the ocean. And so, yeah, it's a good time. Anyways, it was an eventful, and... That's the way vacation's really... Yeah, it was good. It was good. Hey, Dale Jr. Downloaders, NASCAR is back in Nashville, June 23rd through 25th at Nashville Super Speedway.

And this year, it'll be guitars and fast cars under the lights. That's right. Enjoy the thrills of racing and watch the Ally 400 during its new start time, 6 p.m. Central. From your favorite drivers to your favorite country music stars, including award-winning artist Parker McCollum, Nashville's premier race weekend has it all. With live performances on the fan zone stage all weekend, driver appearances, premium, and camping spaces to bring your race weekend experience to the next level line dancing, even a mechanical bull. And so much more, there's something for the whole family during Nashville Super Speedways triple-header

race weekend. Also, grab your tickets for the Rackley Roofing 200, the Tennessee Lottery 250, the NASCAR Cup Series race, the Ally 400, before they are gone. Visit Nashville Super Speedway. Way.com now. I am back home. We got a week off the entire industry, right? No Exfinity race.

No cup race. I don't know what the truckers are doing this weekend. Well, they might be racing somewhere, but I don't think anybody's working, at least this weekend. I just walked through the junior motor sports shop and everybody is talking about what they got playing this weekend, right? Racing with their kids or whatever. And so I hope everybody's going to take a great opportunity, the only opportunity for

the rest of the year, to go have a weekend. but I am gearing up yeah we're we're gearing up to go to Nashville Super Speedway and start the NBC broadcast part of the year I'm looking forward to it I think I'm excited about it more this year than I was last year and the reason why I think that is is because last year I forgot how much fun it was and I walked into Nashville sort of neutral in a in a in a sense, like, here, yes, time to go do this. Okay, let's go. But I got in the booth and I went, damn, I forgot how fun this is.

And I should appreciate this more, right? And so now, I think going into this year, I'm a lot more eager and excited and looking forward to that job, that part of my world, man. It's so much fun. And so also, on top of that, man, we got a bunch of stuff happening in the sport. You know, last year was a great year, exciting, new car, guys having all kinds of problems with it, some drama with Chastain and this and that and the other, and that was good storylines. This year, there's just plenty of storylines, and they're a little different, right?

And it's the same story. It's a, you know, some of the racing is not that great, but some of it's amazing, right? The short track stuff, still a bit of a struggle. We're going to live that. I know it. We're not going to go to a short track. track just because NBC's in the booth and all of a sudden everything's going to be different. We're going to live some of the frustrations that we experienced in the first half this year,

but there's some really good racing and some other racetracks that I'm really looking forward to. I think right out of the gate, Nashville should be good. So we're going to Chicago Street course, a brand new who knows what's going to happen kind of deal. I'm open-minded and positive about that. Hey, real quick, before you move past Nashville, we also, it's important enough, because I don't think we've said anything about it publicly, and I haven't seen a ton of promotion, but you and I are going to be doing a live show Friday night in Nashville, same place we did it last year for Ally. On Broadway. On Broadway, old red. Old Red.

It's a great bar. Fantastic. Yeah, it is a great bar right in the middle of Broadway. And we're going to come in there and do a live. do a live Dale Jr. Download. That's right. On Thursday night, I believe. Friday night. Friday night. What time?

I think it starts at 8.30. I got a practice to do at the racetrack, I believe. You do? And so we're going to leave the racetrack and come right to you. Yep. And we're going to have a couple special guests. Yeah, we're not going to announce them. No, we're not. We're going to have a couple special guests.

We did the show last year. Darrell Walsh was part of the show with us. We had a blast. Darrell was just wide open. Yep. Everybody that was in there, Grant can have a good time. everybody was in a good mood. And so, yeah, I'm looking forward to doing that again.

I miss Nashville. I love that city. And I love us being there. Remember, it wasn't just a couple years ago. We weren't even there. You know, I remember when we just started taking our banquet there, it seems like, you know, our memory is so short. And we, I am so thankful that NASCAR has a presence in that city because it's a great fit for us.

Yeah. And so, yeah. forward to that. Speaking of racing, let's talk about Sonoma. All right. So there's no stage cautions at the road courses anymore. They made a change, and they took out the stage cautions. And this is, you know, I watched this race, and, you know, I know that the product on the

road courses has had similar struggles like we've seen on the short tracks, right? Yeah, the racing is not good. It's hard to pass. Yes. That's right. The cars, it's easy to pass. It is, I think. The problem is they all run the same lap time.

Every lap, the whole field's within a half a tenth or half a second of each other. Right. So if the top ten are literally matching lap times, if not just a little bit different, there is no passing, right? They don't even catch each other. So it's a little frustrating. I'm not going to dive into that. We've talked about the short track package and the road course package.

And, you know, if they want to make the racing better, NASCAR will work on it. Right. We'll figure it out. Right. We're not going to sit here. There's work to be done. They know it. We know it.

But, you know, one of the things that I was paying attention to was the lack of stage cautions. Now, we have stage points. The stage comes to an end. and it was so weird. It happened in the Xfinity race as well. I'm looking on TV, right? I'm looking at the television and it's counting the laps down to the end of the stage.

And I'm just so programmed of the idea of the yellow getting ready to come out and as that number gets counted down and the stage ends and the caution doesn't come out and these points go wherever they go and they keep racing and there's just this moment

of okay this is interesting, this is different, not sure I'm loving it, I don't know I don't know if I love it I'm not criticizing it I don't think damn it we got to change it back I'm not aborting on this this change but it was just a little it was a little anticlimactic

for the end of the stage right usually we have a stage in caution comes out yes it takes forever for the caution to get taking care of the stage to, you know, the cars to get back to Green Flag, the stage cautions are long. But there's another restart, and there's a little bit of action on that restart, particularly

in a race that needs a little action. It'd be good. But I guess, I guess what I'm saying, man, if the product on the track were better, I wouldn't care. But the product on the track at the road course was so dull that taking out that. stage caution and that moment of that sort of dull moment in the broadcast where there's you know okay we came to the end there goes the points to everybody and we're going to keep on racing it just was a weird deal and i don't know if anybody else felt it no yeah it lacked that energy boost that we're accustomed

to having i think it's just we're just used to it again i mean like we did not want these cautions right so i i get it i was i was a bit excited about hey okay we're going to get rid of the cautions at the road courses for the stage breaks. Yeah. This might be a good thing, right? But I don't know. Damn. I didn't think it made things better.

I don't know if it heard things at all, but I damn sure didn't think it made the racing or the race or my experience watching it any better. Maybe so. Did it not, though, introduce or bring back some strategic moves that some drivers were able to do that otherwise you wouldn't be able to do? Because wasn't that, like, I was heard. some drivers advocate for this type of thing, and that's because they want to be able to make some strategic calls. They were.

And it did change the strategy somewhat and opened it up a little bit. Some guys were actually, you know, if you're leading the race coming to the end of stage one, if you don't, you know, you might be giving up an opportunity to win the race, particularly with this car that were the top 10 or more all run the same speed. If you don't pit and everybody else cycles in front of you, you stay out to get the stage points, then you've basically thrown the race. You basically really limited your opportunities to win the race. And so that was the idea or the thought, but still, even though we're, even though we

stayed green, we had guys that were, you know, pitting before the end of the stage, foregoing stage points to put themselves in that better position late in the race. and some guys lost a little track position due to it. I don't know. There was a big discrepsy in old tires and new tires. There was a couple seconds in speed getting on the racetrack and trying to leapfrog. The Hendrick guys tried to do that early in the race.

Make up a lot of time on the top 10 by pitting early. I don't know, man. I don't know if I just didn't know if the race was that good. I wanted it to be good, and I loved, I love. you know, Sonoma, odd for me to say that. I hated it for so many. I've never heard you say that before. I hated it for so many years.

I was even a little jealous of the Xfinity guys. I was thinking, damn, that might have been a good race to run. I've got to run a couple. So I want to go somewhere and have a good time. And this might have been pretty fun. Who are you? I don't even know anymore. I know, right?

I don't know who I am. I'm curious, though, is the broad opinion of this race without stage breaks. What did it feel like versus what you're accustomed to? Um, Andrew, you got an opinion on this. You've been listening? Yeah. What do you think? I don't know.

I liked it the idea that it opened the door for strategy. And I feel like if we weren't going to get cautions, I almost wanted to see what a caution free race would look like to really be able to see strategy play out. But you're right. There are moments where it definitely got drawn out. And the late caution towards the end of the race, I think did make it interesting. But I don't know.

I don't think I hated it from just letting the, race, be itself, be natural race. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I'm,

I feel like that I would fall into that group of being a traditionalist or, or man, like pure racing, don't, don't manipulate anything. That certainly was what we got on Sunday. And sometimes races are just going to be that way. You're going to have guys that just drive away.

Or it's going to be pretty much, you know, uneventful, if you will, not about, no drama or, or any, you know,

any big problems. maybe yeah i don't know Alex oh go ahead Alex I kind of agree with Andrew a little bit I liked the strategy part of it because I kind of what was different about the strategy

for you as a viewer versus I mean there's strategy in the old way of doing it it was you know that you would have people coming down pit road before the caution to to sort of leapfrog some others that were going to stay out for the stage points which is strategy um it's a different type of strategy

but we still saw some of that. How did you feel like the strategy was so different? I just feel like it was because I'm used to seeing that strategy where they come in before the caution, like, okay. But then like the next stage it'll just flip because those guys know they have a caution. I didn't really know how it was going to play out because there is no caution.

Like these guys are fighting for a caution that you don't know is going to happen. So when it wasn't planned, I was like, oh, let's see if it works out for them. And it did for most of them at the end. So it was interesting. Yeah, well, I just, maybe it's more to do with the product and just trying to get that car to be a more dynamic sort of product to watch on the track. I'll tell you what it has to do with.

What is that? If you were broadcasting that race, you would have loved it. Why? Because you're plugged in so much that you're plugged into the race that the strategic thing is something you guys would do well. You would do well, LaTart. It's what he is the best at. And you guys would be involved in every driver. Whereas watching at home, in my case, like, I like the strategic thing.

I can appreciate that. But I wasn't plugged into the race because I had a lot of family in town and we're doing different things. And so what you're doing is you're kind of keeping one eye on it and you're just looking for any excitement. And there was none in that race with the exception of, you know, Denny crashing and, you know, there was a couple restarts here and there. But the fact of the matter is it did lack that if you weren't going to be completely following

everyone's strategic move and pick calls. If you're not going to follow that, it looked just like a race that got strung out. Yeah. So, but like if you're broadcasting it, I think you'd have loved it. I also want to say this. You know, you were really, and I think you were right in this. But remember after the Wilkesboro All-Star race, you were, you were somber about that race. And you're like, you know, God, this is just, you know, it's like, we've got to fix this and all this stuff.

I noticed that in our YouTube comments, I never really go look at YouTube comments, but a majority of the commenters were like, we like that race. like is you know we just appreciated it we appreciated that it was just one of these old traditional races where people kind of went out there and they ran and you get the winner just kind of just has his way with everybody Kyle Larson just goes in there and dominates and so I do think that there's an appreciation for that and you're certainly going to have your crowd this is like entertain me every lap I've got to see you know pyrotechnics yeah this wasn't that race it was another butt wopin and so I wish I would there would have been more excitement in it, but the fact of the matter is is that I also had,

you know, three other things I'm doing at the same time. And so, you know, what am I going to do? I guess. I mean, you know, I know I, I know we're not always going to get this, but, you know, the race, not having the stage cautions and the race lacking natural cautions. Um, the car is pretty, pretty durable. Um, you know, in terms of, you know, it's, it's, you got to really screw up to spin out or or get the car off track or do anything that's going to cause a yellow right and the guys are they were they're aggressive this year but they weren't wrecking each other taking each other out so i mean you know um we used to see a lot more contact with the old car it was harder to to it was easier to screw up right uh it just appears that you know this this car it's purpose built for road courses

independent rear suspension and all that, right? So it gets around that track better. All those things, I think, kind of play a big role. The tire barrier is down in turn 11, easily pushed around. You know, I saw the comments or watching the race. That's always been there. Oh, has it? Yeah, that's always been part of it.

You know, those damn tires were always moving. Okay. And it changed the line in turn 11. You'd be coming through turn 11 and you're like, oh, man, my car ain't handling worth of shit. somebody had hit a tire and move it and you're like, oh, yeah, that was perfect. That helped me.

That makes my car hurt. We'll get through here way better. That's hilarious. But they may have beefed up these tires to where now when they hit them, like it's a lot more detrimental to the car because we saw it in Xfinity and in the cup race where, you know, any contact with those was a little concerning, right?

But I, you know, I thought that was, you know, The Tirebury is moving around for me. He's always kind of been part of Sonoma. They're always going to end up somewhere, you know, somewhere different by the end of the race. Interesting. I wouldn't have thought that, but you would know. Yeah. But it just, yeah.

Truex dominates again on a road course, not a big surprise there. That's his fourth win there. Isn't that something? He's so good at road courses. You know, it's funny. You know, I remember, I was thinking about that where they keep showing these, these graphics of all these guys that are winning road course races. and it's Truex and Chase Elliott and Kyle Bush.

Man, in the 80s, you knew who was good at a road course. It was Rusty Wallace, Ricky Rudd. Terry Lewani was pretty good. There was like two or three guys that were just better than all of the other guys out there. Like, you know, Dad was kind of in that second tier, right? There were about five, maybe five really good road course racers in the Cup competition in the 80s and early 90s. as we got into these cars or even back when I was racing toward the end of my career

I wasn't sure that I could pick a guy out of a lineup right that's the road course guy in our group but apparently yeah I got to give true X credit I got to give Chase Elliott credit those those wins that they racked up wasn't just because they hit on a little secret that nobody else had I think truly the guys with the most wins like Chase and Truex just have that natural ability

to figure out how to get around those places that some guys just don't possess. It's interesting too because I don't know that Truex is honing that craft throughout the year. He just shows up and does it. Natural. A lot of people like Reddick, he's been going to Trans-Am races

and driving all, you know, doing everything he can to sort of improve as a road course racer. Even Bragg Haslowski and TJ, they go out to the GoPro once a week and run around that road course just to try to figure out how to become better at

turning left and right. Truex, to me, goes fishing. And when Sonoma rolls around, he walks in with his damn helmet bag, climbs in and kicks everybody's ass. It's the most fascinating thing, I think, going on right now in terms of road course racing.

Because I don't believe that Chase really does a lot of extra work to try to get better at road course racing. It's just like a natural ability, right? Yeah. Probably same for Kyle Bush. He's busy dirt racing and doing all kinds of crazy things

with his son Brexton and having a great time. I don't, he might be doing a little Trans Am work with, you know, with Austin Dillon. I think I saw him doing a little bit of that in offseason, but I don't think he's doing a bunch of sim and stuff to try to be a better road course racer. He's not going to bond or rot in all these places to road course schools. They're just immensely talented.

You would agree also that some people, not all of them, but some people probably tend to overthink it. And I think back to when you and Steve LaTarck decided to forget testing, forget all this extra work or we're just going to show up as whatever. And that's when you ended up getting top five and having your best finish at Sonoma. Yeah. I think we worked too hard. And we over, you know, we did go to all these tests and just beat our heads against the ground

and trying to figure out how to get faster and be better and understand what's going on. And I think for me it was more, it confused things even more. When we said, you know what, this year, we're going to work ourselves to death for nothing to go out there and crash into a tire barrier and finish 15th. We're going to show up, have a good time, go to dinner, enjoy the area, and practice and race. The closest you can get to not giving a damn without not taking your job seriously. but they went there not giving the damn. And what happened when I got in the car for the first practice, Mike, I was so freaking eager and fired up to drive

and go out there and figure it out as opposed to having tested our guts out, you know, study, study, studies show up and you're like, I'm freaking a little bit burned out on this shit, and I'm not even run a practice lap yet. Right. You know, and then the car's, you know, you're nitpicking every little thing the car's doing

and you just frustrating your weekend more. Yeah, I think that's a unique approach for sure. And I wouldn't be opposed to it if I was even working with my guys here at junior motorsports. I don't know, sometimes preparation is important, sometimes sim work and all that stuff is important. Other times I almost think that you're working yourself to death for no reason. Eric I Marolla goes out there and beats Kyle Larson and A.J. Amandinger in the Xfinity race. I think that was the biggest surprise of the weekend. I mean, Eric was fast all weekend, qualified well, ran well in the race.

He, you know, his team got him in a good position to where he could, you know, he could take advantage of what was happening on the racetrack around him. And when he did get the lead, he was fast. Larson was a little bit quicker, but banged his car up a little bit. There was some contact with who the hell was it? AJ. That bent the splitter. And I'm going to tell you, man, his car was never the same.

after that. And so you wouldn't think something like that could, as fast as his car was, as good as he was, you didn't think something like that could really make that big of a difference, but he lost a lot of speed. And I think also just being in a little bit of that dirty air behind Eric's car. And Eric's car just got so good right there at the end. Good job by Eric, man. He needs that.

Another guy that just showed up to have fun in that race. Like, you know, again. I've been seeing him, man. He's been getting a lot of hard. He's been getting a lot of flack. He's been getting some criticism for how they perform on the Sunday. Yep. But if you, I mean, outside of Harvick,

SHR is struggling right now. Yep. As a group, they are having a hard time figuring this thing out. And so, you know, he's not running any worse than any of his other teammates outside of Harvick. You know, Harvick and Rodney Childers, they're an anomaly. They're going to always be one as long as they're together. But when you look at the rest of that group at SHR, I think, you know, Eric's is not benefiting from, you know, know, whatever, you know, whatever's ailing that organization is making it difficult for all of those drivers.

And so Eric gets out of the car, I love it, man. He gets out of the car and stands on Victor, and he goes, I know it's just an Xfinity race. I was like, man, I know exactly the way he, you know, you know, when somebody gets out and just talks genuinely and he, and he was so happy to be there. Yeah. So happy to have something to be happy about. And his kids, right, I was watching his kids run up to the car and I'm like, damn right. I'm like, getting to win a race and for your kids, they go to every, almost every race, right? His kids are there watching that Sunday performance weekend and week out.

And they believe in their dad. They love him. They think that he's the greatest race car driver out there. And they watch that frustration and that struggle. And they watch him bring it home and deal with it the best he can. and they finally got to have their day. Even if it's just an Xfinity race, like Eric said, it's still a moment of celebration and elation

that those kids are going to remember forever. I really, really love that moment, especially for Eric having had a little bit of a connection with him here at Junior Murder Sports. Garage 56 went to LaMaz. I'll be honest with you. I didn't see a ton of the coverage. Did you guys pay much attention to that?

No, I just checked. a little bit in on Twitter. I saw some stuff on social media, man, but I really was not able to really pay, you know, really tune in. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't watch much. Man, but I saw the social media coverage.

Yeah, there's a lot of people. Yeah, there's some good stuff from that. It was a success. Can we all agree on that? It seems like they showed up and they ran well, right? They had a good day. 39th, I think, overall. None of us watched.

Listen, I have a better excuse than you guys do. It was my kid's birthday. I slept inside it. Okay, there you go. Or Sunday, whenever it was. I was it. I don't know. I think it was in,

I think it was on a boat or something. Yeah, probably. Kitchen Marlins. I will say the memes of the size of the car compared to the other cars was pretty funny. I know. I thought some of those pictures were doctored up. I thought so too.

It was real. It was real. Yeah. I wonder what the future is of that. Like, what is next? I don't know. Right. It seemed like it got a lot of like positive reviews from like the Europeans over there.

Yeah. Oh, I'm sure they thought it was neat and cool. Yeah. But I you know This goes back to my conversation That I've always kind of brought up every time we go to the 24 hours of Daytona Could there ever be an endurance race for NASCAR? Could NASCAR?

You know, NASCAR has a 600-mile and that's our that's our longest race But with this car right I mean this damn thing is bulletproof Motors don't blow up like they used to gosh man We're researching 1979 and they'd be six, seven, eight, ten engines blow up every week. Yeah. Remember we had Kyle Petty on the show, and he had a motor, like that first year for him.

Yeah. You know, he had like 17 races and 16 expired motors. Yeah. When dad drove a Ford, it blew up every other race. Right. All that time, man. So. That's right.

We don't have a good motor to blow anymore. I guess. The hell. That's what we're missing. Does this get us back to that conversation of should NASCAR, cart, what I think would be the coolest freaking thing. Oh man, this would be so awesome. Daytona Road course

and you could convince me any other track, right? It doesn't have to be Daytona Road course, but let's just say Daytona Road Course for the sake of the 24 hours of Daytona and the experience that people know that can be, right? A 12 hour, let's just start,

let's not go 24, let's go 12. 12 hours all of the cup teams out there and even even the Xfinity teams or you could have you know if it's not Xfinity it's a truck so you know

definitely you can visually see the difference between the two cars or the two vehicles so you would have I don't know 70 cars on the track roughly 80 cars on the track for a 12 hour race I don't know if trucks could do it

put them out there let's throw them in the deep end what are we doing here If we're going to go at it, let's just do the 24 hours. And let's do it to the Chicago Street course because they're all pissed off for us going there for a couple hours. Let's just give them all day to think about that traffic. If we did a six-hour race, that would only be two more hours than what we currently do at some of these race tracks. And that's not even a joke.

I know. Some of the races that we run near four hours. And so I think it's definitely not out of question to take the current next-gen car and run a 12-hour race with it. Doug Yates will tell you that it's not out of the question from a motor standpoint. And I've asked him about it a couple times. And so I think that, you know, if you could accompany it with one, the Xfinity or the truck, if that's even possible for that series, man, how cool would that be? You brought up the work we're doing on the 1979 season.

One of the things that stuck out to me is that they used, and I didn't know this, they used to, you could change a motor during the race. Yes. And there was a particular race I don't remember what it was But they changed a motor in like 25 minutes Or something like that Quicker net

Is that right? Faster net So imagine that Like if okay maybe the motor does expire But if you give them an opportunity To go put a new one in And just cut it back this Is that not right?

I think if you blow up you're out Oh man I kind of thought it was cool It is cool but damn it I mean nobody will find For one race if it's an endurance race Let's just get the race I guess the endurance

I guess the point of an endurance race Is that you're trying to put the test to the machine If these things don't fall apart enough. Now we're trying to fix every problem so they can continue to race. No, the the fear and the potential of that dramatic moment and disastrous moment when something breaks and you're done is what makes one of the things that makes racing compelling. So I think it also could be compelling though if you're like, does Rick Hendrick put the fifth motor in the car today or are they going

Are they going to call it quits and finally go home? No. How many motors are you willing to put in a car that can't seem to go without blown up? Well, I don't know. I wonder if it will, you know, kind of fire that conversation back up of whether NASCAR could include an endurance event into its schedule. Can I just say what's not an exhibition? Like, let's go points racing, man. Let's freaking do this.

You're surprising me. I thought you were going to show up gloating. because you picked the winner of this bracket. Like, if you want to talk about Sonoma, you know, do you realize you picked the winner of the bracket? I do. Oh, you did? Yeah.

This is not like you. I mean. Not like me to win? Pick the winner? Well, that's true. Not like you to win. And then two, not likely to rub it into everybody. You were so confident.

Well, we hadn't gotten to that part of the show yet. Oh, you were planning on it. Oh, sorry. I just, all right. Well, then I'll let you save your glory for another time then. now. I mean, what do I win? You and nothing. I win nothing. That's the only one you got right.

It can't be if I got Byron all the way to the thing. Your point total wasn't up there. So I don't even know where that made me finish in the bracket. That would be my only concern. Was I in the top 100 or top 300? Dalton Greco over there was about to come up with it. Okay, okay, okay. I saw on social media somebody put,

I showed up in my tag, my timeline that they had actually won. They were, and it was, wasn't like this, it was kind of like, hey, I think I won this. It was a very, at least I read, you can't read. There's a clear winner. You can't read, you can't read tone in text message, but I'm reading his tweet and he's like, man, I think I did, I think I won this thing. Yeah, me. And I was like, I think you did attempt to read tone because I bet that's not exactly how he wrote that.

Yeah. Well, I think he was. just like, all right, going about my life. I am. Now, if there was a big prize, like 150 tumblers or something. Dude, the winner's going to get some tumblers. Yeah. Oh, I'm not.

Back up the U-Haul truck. That's right. Well, that pretty much does it for me, man. Me too. I'm excited to get back to work and, you know, we got a few more. We got a whole other weekend, Father's Day. What'd you do for Father's Day? Anything special?

Dude. I don't think so. I don't know. I've already got my father's day gift. I did too. What did you get? I got a painting. Really?

Yeah. There's a guy in Europe, his name's Sean, and he does some racing stuff, and I posted some of his stuff on my social media that I bought a couple paintings from him that he did of dad. And he did this one of my 88 National Guard car that I won the 2014 Daytona 500 with. He just recently did that one, and I saw it on his social media, and I was like, dang, that's cool. I almost reach out to ask him for it, you know, buy it. And little did I know, Amy and the girls bought it. How about that? Yeah, and they gave it to me.

It's really cool. That is cool. Yeah. So they didn't want me to, you know, they were like, here, you know, it came in the mail. Here it is. But I kind of botched up Mother's Day a little bit, screwed up a little bit, didn't do everything I was supposed to do. um amy asked for a specific thing for breakfast she wanted to live her mush i forgot to bring it uh and we were supposed to do a co oh um i was supposed to get mimosas and didn't do that

and then uh we we went out on the beach and we're sitting there and i cracked a beer and she turned and looked at me and went where's my drink and i was like ugh You like beer? And boy. Yeah. So, okay, look, I screwed up. That sounds to me like you forgot Mother's Day all together. I tried not to, man.

I had notes in my phone about all of this stuff. And I didn't, we did go to dinner. Oh, man. Look, I screwed up big time. I am owning it. I own it. This year's Mother's Day, terrible performance by yours truly. year we're going to kick ass so my expectations for father's day for me are zero i i deserve nothing

but i'm sure amy will have something incredible planned because she's an awesome wife yeah there you go and she doesn't hold a grudge i hope not for your sake you screwed that up i did man it's it's it was a tough day you're terrible i hate to admit these things but i got to be honest well i'm glad you're being honest that's the only thing you did right yeah anyhow um i hope everybody else out there has a great Father's Day. This is a great weekend. And luckily the sport has a few off weekends sprinkled out through the season so we can take a little breather. I think it's time for a breather. Not for us. Not for us. I'm saying for the industry. For the industry.

Take a break, Dale. You deserve it. Jesus. For sure the industry needs it. They need more than one. Dude, I said that. Remember that? We were in here doing the show like two weeks ago and I was like, like, y'all, I'm free. I finally got, you know, I finally going to get a little time off. Man, that was not a very popular comment by me. Oh, wow. No, people were not like, hey, I don't want to.

People where? I saw some comments on our social media handles about people that were like, yeah, man, you live a pretty good life. You got a good? Yeah. I don't think that, you know, we don't want to, we don't need to hear about your, you know, your excitement over having a couple days off. Okay. I'm here, I'm working my ass off. They're going to love the beach yoga story.

that we're going to bring him today. Yeah. And the Marlin. I think as long as you're self-deprecating that's okay. Listen, I would, I will take this of you just bringing your life to the, and putting it all out on the table rather than you worrying about what people are going to critique. That's going to always happen anyways.

Yeah. Well, we are almost an hour into the show, and we've got a little ass junior to do. So, Andrew, you want to fire that up? Let's do it. All right. Let's do some Ash Jr., presented by Xfinity. It's going to be a lot of fun. I felt like we haven't done this forever.

It's been a couple weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing the questions people have. I try not to really dig in my timeline too much, so there'll be surprises. But get us going live on our YouTube. Are we live? We're live. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. here live in the Bojangles studio with my co-host, Mike Davis,

and this is the Ask Junior portion of this show presented by Xfinity. Xfinity with their 10G network. It's the fastest stuff out there and the most reliable. and they tell me to say that, but it is true. I've been accustomed for a while, and it stuff kicks ass. So anyways, hadn't been on here in a while. I want to say to everybody out there. I hope you're doing well.

Hope you enjoyed the Fox portion of the NASCAR season. We're getting ready to fire up the NBC side here after an off week for Father's Day. Happy Father's Day to all the fathers out there. Andrew is here in studio after going around and talking to all sorts of celebrities for the next-level podcast. He's graced us with his presence and he has the questions ready. Let's go, Andrew. Yeah, you're welcome, Dale.

No. This first question, you know, we talked a little bit in dirty air about the return to NBC. Cole Street asks, what does your week-by-week preparation look like in terms of getting ready for a broadcast? That's a good question. So we have a group of statisticians

racing insights that email us all types of information. We should never complain about not having some stat or some information because it's all there. And if you dig in, I would print it all out and start looking through all of this information. And it's stuff like, hey, man, this driver has this average finish at this race track in the last five races. He's a guy to look at this person struggling here for this particular reason. These are some statistics that back up. This is not a good track for this driver.

and so I highlight I throw away the sheets that I don't like and I highlight the stuff that I do like I might even do a one page or two page note of all of the really good stats that I love to try to work those into my shows but I also

watch the last race either the full race or some of the abbreviated races on YouTube to understand how the strategy played out what to be ready for because man if you don't don't know there's a you know if you don't know that there's potential for a strategy in a race and you're standing there and it starts happening and Steve starts talking it can get your

head spinning fast so trying to understand okay this race could have these type of strategies play out be ready for that it's way easier when the broadcast is is live and in the moment there's a lot of the things to do I mean you know if if you get a chance to get into a booth for practice that's really, really helpful because you knock out a lot of bugs and get over some of the nervous nervousness that you have for live television. And also being able to watch the practices and really plugging into them helps you understand who's good, who isn't good, who might be worth watching when the race comes

around. And you've got to, I don't know, I feel like I start every race and I want to have an idea of what I think will happen. and I want to have some ideas on what I think I'm curious about. Like, what do I not know? What driver, what team is the question mark for me? And I'm going to watch them to find out whether they do this or that. And so I just try to figure out what's interesting.

What do I find interesting, compelling? And lean into that a little bit. But it's fun, man. Planning for a broadcast is a good time. Now when you're the play-by-play guy, which I do it maybe once a year, that's terrifying. And you feel like you need to be working every minute of every day that week, like getting ready. And I'll write out all kinds of things that I plan on saying, like to the T of exactly what I want to say when I'm going from the command or from the anthem to the command or going to commercial before the green flag.

even though I might not use all of that, I'll write it down and write it out. It's so nerve-wracking, but it's adrenaline rush when you're in there doing it. When you're doing play-by-play like Mike Joy and Rick Allen, it is a rush because you could screw it up and it could go well. But when it goes well, nobody cares. It's supposed to go well, right? Exactly. It's pretty interesting. It's like it's all on you.

There's nobody else. Yeah. And if it goes well, then that's what you're supposed to go. Right? You don't get many. Nobody ever goes, that's a hell of a job. Whoa, man, good job on that play-by-play. You know, it just, you know, you just, when you screw it up, though, that's, it's hard to hide from that. Do you know when you're going to be doing play-by-play this year? I haven't heard anything. I don't really, if I get to do it, I get to do it. I'm, I've done it enough that I feel like I've got a good idea of how I can be a better asset to Rick or in the booth.

and that's helped me understand his job and appreciate his job better and know what his role really truly is because I came into this man knowing nothing about broadcasting. Like I didn't know nothing about it. And so I've enjoyed getting to do it. If I don't get to do any more, that's fine. But if I do, I'll see how we do. Yeah, it's definitely cool watching you in those different roles besides just, you know, the analyst on TV. This next question comes from our YouTube chat from Kent.

What happens in the infield care center? You know, they see the driver getting the ambulance and then they see them get released. But what happens in between that time? Well, when you go into the infield care center, they're all a little different as far as the layout. But there'll be, there's usually like a horseshoe desk in the middle, and there'll be a bunch of people in there doing different roles and responsibilities. And I'm not sure exactly what their roles are, but they'll be a lead like neurosurgeon and possibly a lead doctor. So there'll be a guy in there to be able to check you out for a concussion in the room, but they'll also be a physician to manage any kind of breaks or any kind of severe,

you know, wound or whatever you might have, right? And so if you've got pain anywhere that may be a break or a bruise, that's two different people, right, working on top of you. And so off to the side, there's gurney. and they're divided by the curtains, right? So this is one room with about three gurneys for however many drivers are in there at the same time. And you're all divided by a curtain.

You don't go to a, you know, you don't have a room. And the times that I've actually been in there where there's a multi-car crash, and it's interesting because every driver's in a different state of mine. Right. You know, a guy might be in there madder in hell. somebody might be in there not in too bad of a mood

but it's really it's a really surreal moment when you're all sitting in there and everybody's kind of getting checked out they you know check your pulse and give you a good kind of physical exam and ask you some a lot of questions and they're watching you

listening to you answer questions listening to how you're responding paying attention they've seen the wreck maybe on television and a monitor in the room, they weren't in the car with you. They weren't out there watching it live. So they're very inquisitive,

and it's sometimes been, sometimes can be annoying because you're mad, right? You're out of the race. You're upset about that. But they're asking these questions for a reason, trying to truly understand how they might need to examine you and what they might want to pay the most attention to. It's a, but eventually, man, you get,

they're like, hey, you're good to go. You get up. and you walk toward the exit and they'll be maybe a PR person or somebody with your team or somebody in your own family or your own group that's with you holding on to all your their shit. They got your helmet and your earplugs and your gloves. And they're like, hey, you're feeling okay? And you're like, yeah, doing all right.

Then I'll be honest with you. In that moment right there, the heartbreak sets in of the actual fact that you crashed and you're out of the race, right? The result is going to suck. You have to wait all week to go back to the racetrack to redeem yourself. It's like this right as you're walking out of that medical center, you're like, oh, yeah. The reality of all of this is that I'm at a terrible day, a terrible result. And so then you end up walking into a media scrum or something like that, trying to explain what's going on.

That's interesting. You don't really think about it until you're just walking out. Nope. Yeah. What's the ambulance ride? because you don't mention like multi-car accidents, sometimes you'll ride with other drivers. Is there much discussion usually,

or is everyone pretty quiet? I've only rode into ambulance with other drivers maybe on less than a half a dozen occasions. It's a lot of bravado. You're like, you know, you kind of get in there and you're like, man, man, those hits were hard. Oh, man. You believe that guy who did that?

you're sort of, you know, you're deflecting a lot, right? Of, you know, how your true emotions are, are disappointment, you know, regret about the situation, regret about the situation you're in, and you deflect a lot, you deflect a lot. It's kind of like this sort of macho reaction. And, you know, it's, you know, then you get out. But the ambulance rides are quick and, you know, they don't strap you down or lay you down in there. You just hop in and sit, there's a bench, you sit down,

and they just kind of start asking your questions, hey man, you're doing okay, you're feeling all right, you got any pain, you hurt anywhere, and you'll go answer the same questions in the medical center to the rest of the staff. Right. Yeah. This next question coming from Christopher,

I'm going to Nashville for the first time next week, and, you know, we were talking again about NASCAR being back at Nashville the last couple of years. What are the places he should check out? What are the things he should do in Nashville? Old Red. That's right. Broadway, man.

You know, there's a lot of history in that town. It's hard to beat going to Broadway on a Friday or Saturday night. Of course, we're going to be down at Old Red on Friday night doing a Dale Jr. Download podcast live, probably around 8.30. So come out and see us if you're in town. We had a great time there last year with Darrell Waltrip, and we'll be there talking for an hour more. And for what it's worth, that thing was packed to the rim and they locked the doors a couple hours before that show even started. Just, F-Y. I don't know if it'll be that way this

year, but just playing ahead. There are so many bars on Broadway, and they are all uniquely different. So as you go in each and everyone, there's newer ones, older ones, more historic ones, and they have so many nooks and crannies and like some bars have multiple bars, right? You'll walk in one room and there's a bar here and you'll walk around and upstairs is another bar. It's pretty cool. I mean, if you like that sort of stuff, which I do, I enjoy kind of bar hopping and doing that sort of thing every once in a while. So that's a good time for me. And I like the historic older dive bar-ish type places that have been around for a long time.

time and finding a stool and posting up for a couple hours. But there's anything, there's every type of bar you can imagine. It's like, it's a lot of fun. Oh, we got time for one more quick one. Coming from the YouTube chat, this is from Racer Kid. What's your favorite piece of merchandise that has ever been made like for you? Like, you know, most unique thing. Oh, well.

I know we just did that business of motorsports podcast. that is really fascinating. If you haven't listened to it yet, my sister and Mike talked to Joe Mattis, who has been in the souvenir business for decades, and y'all went really deep into some of the information that y'all presented to fans, and y'all talked a lot about all the unique souvenirs that got made.

You know, I thought it was always interesting to see your face on like a snowboard or, anything like that. I always thought it was interesting to see it on stuff that I didn't even do, right? Like snowboarding, I never snowboarding in my life, right? And so there's a snowboard. I've got a couple. I know I've got a storage building and it has at least one, if not two or three,

of everything that was ever made. Wow. ever and I can take you to the snowboards right this second I know exactly where they're at and um you know so some of that stuff was like man I can't believe there's a me and the bud car on a snowboard right who's got who's gonna use this right and I'd love to meet that person right but uh what was your least favorite because Joe Kelly and I had a lot of fun talking about those you used to get so mad at some of them Like what?

The cabbage patch kids? Yeah, I didn't love the cabbage patch kids. There's the dolls and stuff like that. I remember the calendars was always a thing. You didn't like, nobody uses calendars anymore. It ain't nobody do that. But like they come up with, they would come up with some white things now. Like, you know, the toothbrushes, the Kelly brought that up.

But apparently Joe said that the cabbage patch thing, he still has a little PTSD from that blood chewing. But they're also probably one of the more collectible things with value. these days. I guess, yeah. Yeah, there's some things that I don't understand. There are, I guess that is one of the, that's one of the things that's always struck me as a little odd is that there are, like, so there are things like the cabbage patch doll that is universally connected, right? Cabbage Patch, Barbie, there's all of these things that are, and it's typically the dolls, right?

what's that one thing with the big head like the pez pez the bollheads no no no it's like a they're in these square boxes everybody's got you signing them these days and they had these round

heads funko funko yeah funko right is that or like that yeah I know what you're talking about all right I'm seeing them things everywhere and I'm like where

what is this where did it come from why do people want this and so that to me was we're racers and we've raced we sell die casts we sell t-shirts with race cars on them and hats and flags and whatever you know we sell things that are i've always like that makes sense that makes sense that's connected to racing that makes sense but then there'll be these um these sort of collectibles that are universal

that have nothing to do with racing that we end up getting ourselves involved in and i'm like people really want this and they do. It's crazy. Yeah. I signed more of those dolls. I've signed more of those little little doll things in the last year. I've signed more of those than any other item. Wow.

I'll go out front after this podcast and I promise you I'll sign four or five of them. Wow. And they're like, I want it in a specific pen. It's got to mash the box. And so there's like this group of people in every sort of, you know, There's like this core group of people that collect that specific item no matter who it's about. They just collect that doll no matter how many variations of it are made, right? And so, yeah, I mean, if there's some universal popular item happening, NASCAR goes, oh, what's that?

What's going on over there? Can we put our drivers on those? That sounds that. Let's get into that business. Those things are going like hot kicks. and the next thing you know I got one in my hand with somebody wanting an autograph on

and I'm like, hey, they make this? I don't even see this stuff any I don't even see this stuff get approved, right? And those were the moments and we talked about it on the podcast. But like when Dale Jr. used to do these live QVCs and people on this YouTube probably there's somebody that remembers them.

But Dale's live on QVC channel and then they would, you know, you got the same host we know them and they were like, all right, next up is Del Jr. Toilet seat cushion. Dale Jr. toilet seat cushion. Go ahead, everybody, start buying. They're flying off the shelves. Dale Jr., what do you think about this? And Dale would be like, trying to fake excitement about it, but then you could see in his eyes, he is about to rip into somebody's butt when he comes off of the stage. Oh, gosh. Oh, and it was, oh, man, looking back, it was always

kind of funny that, I mean, and of course I could understand that. Of course I could understand that because he's not, is impossible for him to approve all that stuff. Right. Madness is out there getting stuff on everything that makes money. That's his job. But man, did he have some doozies? Like, they got creative. Well, you know, I'll say, y'all should listen. And they also listen to that podcast on Dirtymoad Media.

Business and motorsports. Business and motorsports. That's right. This is last week. Two episodes, Joe Mattis. Listen to that one. It is, I have had more people text me about that. I had a guy, buddy of mine, text me on the drive-in going, I could not freaking believe

those stories from Joe about. He talks about the boom of the souvenir business when dad was really at his peak. And dad was a big player in trying to get all of the drivers on the same page. Hey, we can all do this together. And then, you know, when we had our thing going in 2004 through 2008, he tells some stories there that were, I didn't even know. I didn't even know some of that information. I was like, whoa, shit. Right.

So pretty incredible stuff. I'm looking at the YouTube chat. They're commenting their own Dale Jr. your apparel and they're saying, hey, I'm typing with my Dale Jr. Mouset, and I've got Budweiser mirror. So, yeah. I've had several Dale Junior mouse pads in my time.

And I usually, you know, I guess, you know, lately I've gotten into DiCast more than I ever was, right? I mean, diecast, way back, were a massive thing. Everybody was buying diecast. They had every color. They had chrome, silver, bronze,

they would do a car they would do a diecast in any form that they thought it would sell and you know of the same very same car would have 14 different variations and different levels of detail yeah it's just it was insane it's wild um but here lately i've gotten into diecast i think more than i ever was and um it's you know i've enjoyed doing that i've actually got two towers in my house two spinning towers like anyone could buy full to the brim of my favorite diecasts.

Damn. Not mine. There's only a couple of me in there. Most of them are dad and some other drivers. That's neat. That's a great place to end it this week on Asch Jr.

All right, everybody. Great show. Thanks for all the great questions. Andrew. Ask Jr. was a lot of fun. Mike. We'll see you tomorrow for Richard Gilmore. Can't wait, man.

It's going to be a great show. Everybody. Have a great week. Until tomorrow, yeah, y'all, y'all take it easy. We'll see you then. Check out Dirtymo Media. Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.