The Dale Jr. Download - 468 - Chicago was MASSIVE

Episode Date: July 5, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. called in from vacation to join co-host Mike Davis, and he brought his fellow vacationer TJ Majors along with him. After the historic NASCAR weekend in Chicago, everyone felt the need to unwind and process all of the monumental events: Dale’s Bluey “controversy”  Dale and TJ’s beach house excursion  The magnitude of the Chicago Street Race event Shane Van Gisbergen’s skill level and victory  During the Ask Jr. segment of the show, listeners sent in questions regarding: Kip Childress’ new position at the CARS Tour Dale and TJ fighting on the radio How many steps did the guys log during the Chicago weekend? Did Dale get a Chicago dog or any deep-dish pizza?  Using track walks to help scout new tracks Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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

Hey, everybody's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. And with me, as usual, is my co-host, Mike Davis. We are not in the same place, Mike. You're at the Dirty Mo Studios, the Bojangles Studios, and I am on vacation with my friend T.J. Majors, who is, we're in the same house, but in different rooms. But it's a, it's been a great week, and we're going to talk a little bit about Chicago, but we're also going to talk about our vacation move. It's good to see you, Mike. It's good to see you, too, and you guys look well. You look rested and relaxed. TJ looks like he's got ears coming out of his head,

but I think the lamp is making him look like an extraterrestrial some sort. But have you guys been having fun? I mean, like, give us just, you don't have to go through the whole week. Just what is some of the fun things y'all been doing? Well, obviously, it's July 4th holiday. So we saw some fireworks last night with our girls. I think Nicole, my youngest, saw fireworks for the first time. So that was pretty neat.

We took a lot of photos, spent a lot of time in the swimming pool, playing with our kids and sliding down slides and jumping in and going underwater. And, you know, mine are two and five. T.Js are a little older. So there are various stages of skill level in the swimming pool. And so it's a lot of fun. All right on. Well, T.J.'s behaving?

I mean, is he babysitting his kids or is he taking a break from that, too? TJ, what's the deal? Yeah, TJ's a good dad. I mean, Mike, I always babysitting, man. I'm always babysitting, man. You know, I know you like my lamps up here. I think you mentioned the word Shrek earlier, but I'm really sad that my, you know,

I feel lost without my donkey, Mike. So, you know, that's a... I think your don't think is Brett. Okay, that's a good point. Yeah, very. That's actually a really good idea. Do you feel a little lost without your donkey? No, no, now I'm perfectly fine without my donkey.

I saw other people on social media call him a donkey this past week. It's one trending donkey. All right. So you're taking vacation. You know, we haven't actually seen each other in a couple weeks, all of us. So it is good to see you guys. We should also mention that we did drop an episode yesterday. Matt Kenseth was a pre-taped interview, and that was a lot of fun.

So everybody that's listening to the download today, we're just a little out of order. This is Wednesday. Tuesday, we did our ally guest interview with Matt Kenseth. it so check that out yeah i was talking to matt this morning uh i watched the i watched the nineteen ninety nine race from nazareth which matt won and i run second and but there was a little rain delay and there was a little video of us walking through walking through the pits back slapping a little bit and i sent that to him and i was talking to him this morning but he was awesome as a guest i'm already starting to see some comments in my timeline about when he's

going to race in the car store. So I, yeah, we had a lot of fun talking to Matt. That was a great conversation. Well, I can't wait to talk to you guys. I mean, first of all, Dale, I don't know if you were planning on bringing this up, but you made some news this week, and it wasn't at the racetrack. It was, I saw you on Fox News about comments you made. I got myself into a little bit of a controversy a couple weeks ago during the Indianapolis

weekend. I was out there working. for NBC for the Indy 500 and did Jeff Gluck's 12 questions. It was a ton of fun. If you haven't read it, it's on the athletic. Jeff Gluck does 12 questions all the time. He's been doing it for years longer than I even realized. And I had a blast.

And I felt good about all my answers until I somehow angered the Bluey fans out there. We are big watchers of Bluey. and my kids love the cartoon, and it's an Australian, New Zealand. I'm not exactly sure exactly where it got created, but it came out of that part of the world. And as TJ knows, and maybe Mike Davis might know as well, I love a lot of things about Australia, and especially V8 supercars and all that, which is also a good segue to Chicago at some point. But anyhow, I got in trouble because I said,

you know, we're watching, we're watching Bluey in my house, and Ila sees the dad on Bluey doing all these amazing things with his kids. And every time the kids ask the dad to do something, to pretend, to play a game, obviously in this cartoon, he's going to do it, right? And I said, you know, half joking that it set an unrealistic expectation because my daughter wants me and to always be available to do all these things. I got some people that said they agreed and they understood it but there were certainly some Bly fans out there that did not like any Bly slander but I wanted to say the reason why I'm bringing this up it kind of died which is probably what I should have left it alone but T.J is the Bluey Dad.

He looks at. No, it doesn't look at it. Not in looks. I'm just saying, like, I've been around TJ ever since he became a dad. And every time I'm around him with his own kids and even my kids, TJ is exactly like the Bluey Dad and everything the kids want or want to, you know, want him to participate in. He's eager.

And even sometimes they don't even ask him, he jumps right in on what they're doing. I wanted to give him a little bit of an add-a-boy. I mean, we're great friends. we have a lot of fun together and don't get to see each other quite as much now because he's working with Brad and I'm doing what I'm doing with NBC. But yeah, I would guess to put a button on that whole bluey conversation, there are dads out there that are bluey dads and are like-minded. And TJ's one of them. I was always pretty impressed with his abilities as a father.

but also just with my own kids. I mean, he's great. But we had a, I don't know, T.J. is leaving today, but we've had a couple of days in the sun. We enjoyed the fourth. We ate and, you know, play with the kids in the pool and went to the beach. And so far it's been pretty smooth. I can't even think of anything. Before T.J. got here, though, I did have another rat situation, which we talked about on this show before.

we live my beach houses right near the woods or the mangroves or what I don't even want to call that. It's like the weeds between the beach and the housing development. I think there's a bunch of rats out there. And anytime you leave any food exposed, which typically can happen a lot during the holiday weekends, people come off the beach and they throw stuff in the trash cans and they really don't care because they don't have to deal with it. But sometimes they throw open containers and food and stuff in the beach.

there and the rats come from all over. And so we got to the house a couple. TJ wasn't here when this happened, but we got to the house a couple days ago. And there was a rat in the trap. And I was like, okay, I don't like this. Cleaning up dead rats, not fun. So I'm cleaning up this rat. And I'm going to put it in a bag, going to tie the bag up in a knot.

I'm going to take him out to the corner trash can on the street and throw it away. and I went to throw something away in my trash can that's down in my garage and there was a live rat in there. So when I went to put the trash in there, there's a rat in the bottom of the trash can, man, running around in there. That was quite, we did not expect to run into each other that day, me or him. So that was, but we got it all straightened out. and when T.J. came, we've been rat-free, so I hope T.J.'s enjoyed his stay here. But otherwise, I mean, the fourth was pretty simple, T.J. We watched a golf cart parade. We were going to participate in it, but we decided at the last minute not to,

and just sit on the sidelines and watch and grab the candy out of the street. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I think it's been a good trip. definitely watching the parade's far more beneficial for the kids by the amount of candy they get and you get to see a lot more of the sites so it's pretty cool we had a bucket

we brought a sand bucket with us might and so I'm thinking you know okay gonna bring this bucket kids are going to pull this candy out of the street we'll put it all in one bucket and then we'll split it up and then on the way home we make the bucket disappear. And so the bucket is right now hiding in the kitchen somewhere. And so far it's been about 24 hours.

And other kids have asked where the bucket of candy went. I think that Nicole was getting really close. She's starting to look around and she won't tell them what she's looking for. But I think it's the bucket of candy. But so far we've, so that's like a, you know, you ever do that, Mike, with your kids when you're, when you go, you ever tried to hide the candy? They hide it for me.

That's the problem. Yeah, that's the problem. Hey, can I just say, I want us to take a screen grab of this because T.J, right where he is, he's going to move as soon as I say it, but he looks like Shrek with those lamps coming out of his head. Look at it. Yeah, look at it. I love this.

It's a good look. Look at it. I'm distracted. Look at this. Yeah. I hear you good, Mike. I have had the candy situation. I have hidden it.

They have hidden it for me. Halloween is a bad time for the Davises. But I'm glad to see that you guys are showing some self-control and some good parenting, Bluey, notwithstanding. And I got to be honest, I don't want to go back. But I got to be honest, when you made news with your Bluey stuff, I didn't know what Bluey was, frankly. I had no idea.

I did not know. I guess we were past the Bluey thing. I don't know. But I did go back and look what Bluey was, and it made me want to go to Fox News and make a comment. I didn't because you don't really need your people going and stirring up stuff in the comment sections of places. But what kind of slow news day do you have to have for that to become,

a news item. Like, what in the hell to Fox News? Like, literally, what in the hell who took the time? I try to defend media. I'm all about free media and now I'm all about the rights to do all that. But my God, that was pathetic. I think it's a bigger news story that your kids can't find the candy, frankly. Yeah, man. Well, hopefully. Yeah, do something about it. I just tell Brett will do it. Are you happy or sad that you're not standing by Brett right now, T.J. I am very, very, very happy that I'm not sitting next to Brett. I don't know why.

Well, I mean, like, well, first of all, first of all, I saw me eat a piece of pizza with pickles on it, which I thought was completely disgusting during the show on Monday. And, you know, twice over the weekend, I heard Brett was trending. So that's usually probably, I don't know if I've ever known that to be a good thing. that was unfortunate several days for Brett. Well, if you're trending, you've either said something stupid or you're dead. And I'm not sure which one it was. I think Brett still alive. He's still alive.

I guess you're right. Anyways, I just wanted to see what Brett, what T.J. looks like without his wingman. Anyway. Yeah, I'm in better shape. Yeah, you look it. with the lamp ears and everything. He's not, he's going to want to stay on this show. Well, he was, he started out on this show.

This is actually a return. You know, TJ was back in the OG days. When, when me, Taylor Zarser were doing it, TJ was a regular on the download. So this is just him coming back to come. Oh, yeah. Taylor and his Dukes of Hazard sound. Remember that when he yelled at one time?

Well, let's talk about Chicago. I know that it's time to move on to Atlanta. I'm already starting to get all my information from our stats guys and getting prepared for what we're going to see there. But I'll be honest with you, man. When they announced this race, I wasn't sure about it, didn't know whether it was going to be successful or not. Most of the media that I would stumble across was not.

advocating for the race. There was a lot of mixed signals and messages about whether people wanted the race to happen or not. And then about a month before the race happened, the NBC sent me and some of my coworkers out to Chicago. The race track, obviously, there's no track. It's just the streets. But we got to meet Julie, who was head of, she's like track president, right? It's kind of weird having a track president of a track that doesn't exist every single day of the year. But she was the president of operations for everything Chicago Street Course.

And she took us around not only showing us physically where the track would be, but we also got to talk to her quite a bit about all the efforts that she had went through, the meetings that she had had with groups in Chicago. but just she met with every possible organization group, anybody that needed to be, you know, to have a conversation with her about this racetrack. And it helped me understand the effort and monumental undertaking that was happening to get this track put together.

not only physically, but like all of the agreements and legal work and red tape and paperwork and amendments and compromises. I think that it's a, it's a, it's a documentary in, you know, in the waiting. So I was just really amazed by it. It changed that day being out there and talking to her and spending the afternoon. thinking about the possibilities for that weekend changed my mind immediately. And from that moment forward, I had nothing but a positive mental attitude about what this weekend could be. And then when you get to Chicago, you know, and you set foot on the racetrack, we luckily had a hotel that was right at turn seven. So we could walk out of the hotel front door, take, you know, 30 steps and be on the racetrack.

And so having that proximity to the track was really convenient. And when you walked out there and you saw the walls, the barriers, of course, we're seeing this stuff on social media. But man, when you got your feet on the ground and you're there in the moment and you're looking down that front straightaway, I did a bunch of Instagram story stuff, just kind of take as I was sort of taking the whole thing in. It was incredible. Man, it felt amazing. And that was on, you know, Friday. That was on Thursday afternoon.

And so I could not wait. As soon as I got there and I standing there and looking at the barriers and the fence and the garages and all the infrastructure that had been brought in, looking at the haulers and everybody. meandering about and the industry just sort of, you know, coming in and taking over, I could not wait to hear a race car, right? Hull, you know, haul ass down a straightaway into a braking zone and downshift. I could not wait for that to happen. And so they put me in turn four, which is at the very other end of the racetrack from the start, finish line. So I'm very, I'm kind of moved physically and a bit mentally from the core nucleus of the track.

So I'm not near the garage. I'm not near start finish line where all the hustle and bustle is. I'm sort of way out here on an island. It's, you know, on my end of the track, it's quiet. There's some people meandering about, but I'm really on the fringes. And so there was this party bus that NASCAR set up next to my perch in turn, and there were a lot of people on that that I believe were at their first event ever. And so I'm standing there on my perch and finally for the first practice,

I can hear these race cars off in the distance going up through the gears, the sounds getting closer and closer and closer until this car comes into view and I believe the first car on the racetrack might have been Justin Algar. And it might have been him, I think it was. But it comes rolling through turn four and just seeing a stock car on the street course was, seeing that for the very first time was really cool. I'm a massive history buff. I love the details of our sport and the new.

nuances and stories. And this was a moment where I was living it. And so I look over to this perch or look over to this sort of party bus, double-decker thing going on. And all those people are perking up and running over to the fence, trying to get as close as they can. And that sort of that attitude or that excitement and that, you know, curiosity and thrill really was that the, you know, really was the sort of method of the weekend. I think all of us, even me, having been around this sport and seen and done everything, I walked around that whole place the entire time in amazement, curious, wondering what was around the next corner, because everything, we were all seeing it for the first time.

And so, I'm going to tell you, man, I was, um, I don't even, I'm not, the race itself, like the Xfinity race, obviously that was unfortunate. Nobody loves to see that happen the way it did. I don't know what, you know, NASCAR could have done a number of different things to try to, try to have a different outcome. But I don't know that it affected, you know, the race all that much. And there was too much on the line. There was, you know, the, everything that was at stake for NASCAR, the, the country. up series in the city, all the planning and efforts and everything that went into that.

Nothing was going to be, nothing was going to sacrifice that, right? Nothing was going to get in the way of that. And unfortunately, you know, unprecedented things had to happen in terms of what went on with the Xfinity race. Well, can we talk about that for a second? I want to slow down here. All right. Listen, first of all, the Xenity race ended before halfway.

The weather was an issue all weekend. So did you agree with ending it where it was? Or did you think that they should have gone a couple more laps? We all were, well, we were all debating that. If, you know, you're thinking, I'm sitting there thinking, do, you know, no way should they fire the cars up, have them circle around the track knowingly to pull them back into the garage and say, oh, well, we tried.

And it's halfway. it's official, so there you go, there's your race. I almost feel like that that would have been the, you know, I almost feel like that that would have been the wrong thing to do, even though that would have checked all of the boxes per protocol, you would have only been doing that, not in an effort to truly get the race going again. You would have only done that to be able to satisfy the requirements, right,

to get an official race. which would have, why do that? If your intention was to not really ever get that race finished, don't even fire them up and have them circle around and do all that for nothing, you know. I know that there's, you know, some teams and owners that would have, that have some great ideas on what could have been done differently, and I don't disagree with that. And maybe they should have, you know, not even been there, right?

they could have called the race the day before. But I think NASCAR wanted to see if the weather would turn and they could get that race done in the morning. That was, you know, they don't know what's going to happen the next day. And, you know, everybody was in a difficult position in terms of making sure, you know, if we had good clear weather on the back end of the afternoon for the cup race, and they had to get the track cup ready, which I don't know what all that, I don't know what that really means, but you would think that they could run a race,

flip it and start another one, but you've got to pull all the pits down, all the pit boxes got to come down, they got to move. Everybody's got to be able to get all of their stuff out of this street course. There's no tunnels. There's no, you know, the haulers and everything's outside of the racetrack. All that stuff has to sort of be interchanged and allowing the cup guys to bring in their equipment. I'm sure there was some good points and reasons why they needed, you know, a good block of time to be able to get this racetrack and this event ready to go for the Cup series. PJ, what was the conversation like on the radios?

Kind of up and down there for a while. We walked in and it was a monsoon on the way in. And they were still going to try to get the expanding cars out there to do something. And, you know, I was on the front side of the track right on the front stretch. So the amount of water that was standing on pit road, there was a lot of adjustments going on to the track. I'm trying to drain water. NASCAR was working super hard at, trying to make the racing surface

um you know raceable but at the end you know the time just ran out to get an actual anything going and it was it was definitely just still raining too hard to do anything with it but there was a ton of water standing on pit road and I think it was the I think they made the right call because to get all

they had all the community stuff out there they had to get all that off there and even work on that area to get it raceable and cup guys had to get all their stuff out there if we were going to try to go green. So I think they made the right call with the Xfinity stuff. And they did, I mean, they definitely, no one predicted a record amount of rainfall. Every forecast I saw never said anything about a record amount of rainfall going to happen that morning, you know. So I think it just, they were throwing a curveball and, you know, I think they did everything they could do to to make a race happened and it was wet. I think it was more than a curveball. They got, they got one of

those field necro knuckle balls that dance and Bob. I mean, listen, I'm going to say this. Anybody that wants to scrutinize NASCAR can just go take it somewhere else because frankly, they should be commended. Not just for, I had no problem with that, that call. Would I like to see it gone halfway? Of course. But with what they had all weekend, I was just very appreciative that they don't listen to the social media noise and even us, our opinions, we're always going to bark opinions. NASCAR did a fantastic job this weekend. They should be commended.

And that just, the fact that we got those races, even on the track, I was just like, you know what, to scrutinize any deeper, we could, we could go nitpick, but you know what, there's no reason to nitpick in this case. They got dealt the weather below. It was not just weather. It was biblical rain. and they were able to make it happen. Like, I wish you could have been,

I wish you could have been on the front stretch because I know where he was kind of down the other end there wasn't as much activity, but that front stretch, the vibe that was there was incredible. The people that were watching the race, like he said, when we went green, it was, I don't, I mean,

it was excitement from another level that I've witnessed in a long time. And it was just a first time fans, man. Those kids there jumping up on the railing. These cars are going by and man, they were amazed. So I don't know, like, and like he's like, you know how you walk into a football stadium for the first, like even if you haven't been there, right, you know how you walk out that tunnel and you see the field for the first time. It's just like, wow, man, this is really cool. That's what the place looked like, man. That's the feeling I got when I walked inside of that

track. And it was like, holy cow, this is really cool. And just the, the vibe was something that I really haven't felt at a racetrack like that in a long time. And just the music that was playing, the people were into it. And I mean, these people, it was pouring rain. I mean, it was raining harder than I've seen it rain in a long time. And these people were still there. And as soon as that rain quit, it was like a light switch, man. They were filing in and ready to go.

So, I mean, to me, it's a home run for everything that they did with this track and getting the people interested and the vat walk around the city, getting on elevators. people, hey, you here for the race? Yeah, we are too, man. This is awesome. Everybody super pumped about it. So, I mean, I had a blast. I was down at my perch for the Xfinity race and talked to some fans down there that were at their very first event. They said that they weren't NASCAR fans, but when they heard it was coming to their city, they wanted to go check it out. Their sports fans, they want to see what's going on in their city. And so they told me, they said, look, I would have never

watched a NASCAR race. I would never have never. come to an event, but you brought it to me. And I thought that was really fascinating. So, you know, we do build racetracks, right? We're not, it's not a new thing for us to build a racetrack somewhere. But for the longest time, it's been difficult for the sport to get in metropolitan or large cities because of, you know, property values and all this. So we build these racetracks, you know, 30, 45 minutes, an hour away.

for example Atlanta right is in Hampton it's you know what half hour 30 minutes from the city from downtown Atlanta that's sort of been acceptable and just the way things are because that's how it's always been done but these people are like man y'all brought the sport to my backyard and I didn't have a choice I had to come check this out and see what this was and now that I'm here it's it's fun it's incredible while I'm having a great time and I can truly see myself traveling to another venue and going to check out NASCAR somewhere else, right? Yeah. And so, man, I mean, and then, you know, to hear that and then see the TV numbers.

And that TV number, I think, was more than anybody even anticipated. We thought it'd be more. You got, you know, Gisbergen running up front and went in the race. so you certainly have more people on New Zealand and Australia and that part of the world tuning in. But the number that we got from television was, I think, pretty surprising, but also exciting. All of those things absolutely make me believe that if NASCAR could have more than one street course next year, they would. Like, this, this, this accomplishes the growth and the increase physically and through viewership that anybody's looking for, right?

Any sport, any, any, any. So, you know, I don't, I don't know whether we go back to Chicago. I think any street course anywhere is going to be just as challenging as Chicago was. now that NASCAR knows the lay of the land and the process of getting the race track put together and getting in there and they've got the relationship with the city. Maybe they go back and do this again, trying to get some great weather and really get that crowd they're looking for and really make the impact that they hope to make this year. I think it's worth another try. But I also think, I also am curious like, where else? What other cities?

where's the next one? Because street courses, whether we like it or whether we love it or whether we don't like it, you can't deny the viewership and that network TV number is going to drive NASCAR to do this more often

and at other places. Because, you know, the Chicago street course is, you know, the first time's always going to be different, right? Every time you do it after that, it's going to, you know, it's going to normalize and sort of mold itself into the fabric of the sport. So NASCAR is always going to be looking for the next brand new thing, right? Where is the next city or the next place that can be exciting to have a street course

that will give us that pop that first Chicago race did? And so I guess that's my curiosity. now is who will NASCAR start those conversations with, what city officials are next on the agenda in terms of where NASCAR would love to go. Yeah, I'm glad you brought up the TV number, Dale, because I saw you retweet that, and it's worth mentioning here for anybody that didn't catch it. This was 4.795, so 4.8 million people watched it. It's the most, NBC Sports most watched NASCAR race in six years.

that literally defies all thinking in the fact that it was rain delayed, it was problematic, and yet my question to you is, was it the excitement of a street course? Was it the prospect of a guy from Australia coming over and just the prospect of winning? Why 4.8 million people? Well, Shane being in the race certainly drew a lot of folks tuning in from his part of the world, from where he races and where he's famous. I mean, this guy is super famous over in Australia with V8 supercars and in New Zealand.

That certainly made a difference, but anytime NASCAR does anything brand new, the next-gen car, when the next-gen car ran its first race, there was a pretty substantial ratings pop that comes from this brand-new car. Everybody's going to tune in and go, oh, what's this brand-end?

new car going to race like. It's going to be completely different. And so I think I think everyone was just like I was for the most part. I'm going to watch this because it's brand new and it's never been done before. And I don't know whether I'm going to see something great or something not so great, but I'm tuning in to find out. And we ended up having a pretty spectacular sort of, you know, upset win. I don't know if that's the right. right word because Shane's a very talented and capable driver, more than capable, but it was Cinderella, whatever, you know, it was just a great story. And, you know, I think that you got to have those in sports, and it was, you know, that part alone was pretty, pretty magnificent. But,

you know, I think everybody was just tuned in to see exactly what, what was this going to be like and how is this going to, you know, how entertaining would it be? And I think everybody found it to be pretty, pretty entertaining, to be honest with you. I mean, and just watching the drivers do something they've never done before. I think that our sport is at its best when the drivers in the cars are challenged to the max, you know, putting them out there on wet tires for the first time, watching them deal with any kind of a new challenge that they rarely or never faced. That's when I'm most intrigued. That's when my eyeballs are glued to the racetrack or glued to the product.

And so I think this weekend was all about, you know, seeing the drivers try to climb them out and they've never seen before. Yeah. Did you hear what Chase Elliott said after the race about he's going to go back. to Australia and tell us friends how bad we are. How much truth do you think is in that statement? I haven't known a lot of guys in V8 Supercars for years. That, you know, V8 Supercars is the closest thing in any form of motorsport that, to NASCAR.

So their car, especially with the NextGen. And Steve O'Donnell said, look, the next gen was kind of based off of the V8 supercar. And when you look at the chassis and components and all that, it's all very, very, very similar. They run on a different tire, of course. You know, there's a couple things that are unique, but honestly, if you're coming out, you know, what is the most similar to NASCAR? I'd say it's via supercar. And so it's not surprising for any of those guys to get in our cars and adapt really quickly. But we also saw Marcus Ambrose come over here and adapt right away and be competitive right

away, even on the ovals. And so I know just how good the VH Supercar racers are. They are so competitive with each other. They push each other to these unrealistic extremes. If you get a chance to catch some of the battles they have, they have in that series, you'll be impressed by not only the gentleman's ship and how. how clean they race each other, but also at the same time, it's very aggressive and they just really push each other to, you know, raise the, you know, they raise the bar. And then take a

look at Bathurst, the racetrack where they run the Bathurst 1000. This is the most terrifying, intimidating race course in the world. There's no question about it. Me and T.J. drove around in a rental car. But, you know, that to them, though is what they want. They want that, they want to be challenged to this sort of insane extreme. And there's a unique sort of mentality of Australians and New Zealand's to push themselves into these very uncomfortable, dangerous scenarios, right? In motorsports, they just, you know, they're, they're very brave people, very proud people.

and so that mentality sort of works perfectly in racing and in motorsports. And so I think Shane commented that anybody in the top 10 and V8 supercar could come over here and do what he did. I agree with that. I think you could put any of the top 10, the best top 10 V8 supercar drivers in that 91 car, in that street course race and have the same result. because in that street course race, that was probably as level as the playing field would ever be for anybody coming into NASCAR.

Because our drivers had never ran on street course. No team had ever ran a lap on this track. They had no data. And so that was as level as it will ever be. And so I don't know that Shane goes to Watkins Glen and has it that easy. I don't know that he goes to Sonoma and can outrun our board.

like he did at the Chicago Streetcourse race. I'd love to see what would happen if we would take him and put him at one of the tracks that we go to every year where our guys had experience and data. That'd be a little bit more difficult and more challenging, I believe. But, you know, I don't mind them basking in the light a little bit and enjoying the success and enjoying the win and being proud of where they're from and proud of their discipline,

proud of V8 supercars. and Paul Morris is a great advocate for, you know, being, you know, Paul has always sort of, you know, made, you know, made a lot of great points and debated some of the decision-making and so forth in their own industry over the past. I've seen, you know, him debate some of the technical changes and advances in the sport in terms of paddle shifting and so forth. and I, you know, and I don't disagree with what he's saying about the license and the protocols in place that would make it difficult for a NASCAR driver to come run a race with them. You know, it was irony and sarcasm in his comments and how easy it was for Shane to come race with us and how maybe challenging it might be for a cup guy to go over there.

And the unique thing is is that the schedules actually work out, right? because they race when our season's off. They're in the middle of their season. And so the schedule actually works in favor for us to have a lot of cross over. But, yeah, I'm also got to tip the cap to Justin Marks. I don't know how he does it, but this guy has brought a lot of new innovation and thinking entire sport. He continues to, you know, they said they want to come in and disrupt things,

but he does that in a positive way. He shakes things up and he's changing sort of the culture and the mentality and the approach to being an owner and what an owner is and what an owner can do. And that Project 91 deal has paid off. You know, that Project 91 program that he developed that everybody thought, yeah, that's a cool idea. That's neat. We're going to see some, you know, we're going to see some unusual names in that car,

come to the racetrack and compete with us. Well, it finally paid off. and accomplish his intentions by disrupting, you know, one of the biggest moments in our year. You know, this was a massive moment for NASCAR, and his progress, you know, his car goes out there with an international driver and wins the race. So, yeah.

You mentioned, listen, you mentioned how the equal playing field and how it was set up perfect for a VA supercar driver to come in because of the equal playing field and the first time that they've ever been on a road course, I would go so far as to say, nobody's taking advantage of the parody of the sport and those moments of parity than Justin Marks and trackhouse. You think about when he was on our show and he was saying, oh, when I saw that they were going to go to a new car, I said, I know this car. This is a car I know and nobody else is going to know it like I do. and so this is the time for Trackhouse to go in there, get their charter and go racing because of the parody.

And they took advantage of the parody. Same thing happened this past weekend in Chicago. The parody, the equal, the unfamiliarity, whatever you want to call it in the sport, out of the ceiling tiles drops Trackhouse, who goes in and steals the show. It was the perfect metaphor of the overall big success story that Track House has had so far.

Yeah, I agree. I think that, you know, I've just, you know, been so impressed by trackhouse and what Justin's been able to do in a short period of time. I mean, that teams typically take years to develop and gel and improve and get to a certain level where they can compete, but they came in. I mean, I know that they bought Gannasi and it's technically that very team that's been in this sport for over, you know, for decades. but the transition to the next gen and all the things that he's done to sort of evolve that team into his own vision has been pretty remarkable. I think that, you know, to go back to Chicago, for me, I enjoyed the race, I enjoyed working the race. radio-style broadcasting for me is it really what I think I'm the best at.

But, you know, if that's what they need me to do, that's what I'll do. But I kind of prefer being in the booth myself. But overall, like, you know, there were some things that were, there were some things that you had to embrace that were unique to that particular event and TJ will understand this like you know at a race you know at most of our facilities right we hop on a golf cart and zip wherever we need to go um but at this particular track you didn't have that convenience so I think all of us probably walked anywhere from six to ten miles throughout the weekend to get where we needed to go and um you know so there were some unique things

about it. I didn't really, if you know that you're, you know, that's going to be different going into the weekend, you can embrace it and actually enjoy, you know, just kind of walking around sightseeing and being curious. But, you know, we've walked the racetrack a couple days in a row with the drivers. We've never done that before. That was so much fun. So the drivers would go out in the morning at 7, 8 o'clock in the morning and start walking the

racetrack with their crew chief and a couple of their crewmen. and I walked the opposite direction so that I could run into everybody and be able to ask question. I'd run into a driver and turn around and walk with him for 100 yards and then take off back in the opposite direction and run into another driver and talk to them a little bit. That was a lot of fun. That was probably one of my favorite parts of the weekend was just being out there kind of walking around. Jeff Burton took us for a pace car ride and scared the hell out of us. It had me in the pasture seat, Jeff Burton in the back, or Ward Burton in the back seat. Ward in the back. Wow, that's fun. Ward was in the back seat. I hopped in the car,

and I looked back there, and there he was. It was a, we had never been, nobody had ever been on the track. We pull out on the racetrack, and we're taking the first fast laps of anyone. and Jeff's driving like a crazy man and it's wet, you know, and so that was that was a little scary, but he's laughing over there and giggling because he's got me and Ward in that car and we can't get out.

Jeez. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah, I mean, it was a good weekend. Hey, quick, question though. Going back, you were talking about the radio style broadcasts, were you, just be honest, were you losing your mind with that audio issue at the start of the race?

I mean, because your mic wasn't working. Something was going on. And I just did, I was curious if you were pissed or if you were just like, they'll figure it out when they figured out. Yeah. So like TJ said, the rain was torrential rain. And it was, even if you covered stuff up, it got wet. and so it was incredible just so much hard rain so on my perch i've got a tv monitor i got a button box

basically that puts me on air it takes me off air so i got when i'm going to talk i got to hit this button to hit to open my mic up and then i shut the mic off when i'm done so that you know the tv's not picking up all these audible sounds that's going on around me and so um or anything i might be you know just accidentally say or ask somebody next to me and so um Anyways, that box went out. That box got wet and somehow it was working, right? But like I said, the box that they were going to replace it with was a mile away. And somebody had to bring it on foot.

And so, yeah, and so, you know, the race, I can kind of hear audio a little bit. So I knew the race was starting without me. and, you know, the box will get here when it gets here and they'll fix it. And, I mean, nothing I did. So I don't have any guilt or any issue. You know, I would like to be, you know, I wish it was working, but it's not. And so when they get here and they fix it, I just stay out of the way. The people that are trying to fix this stuff are, you know, they work for NBC and the production team.

And they have the hardest job as it is, you know, much less when stuff breaks. and they got to run around, scramble it to try to fix. So you just get out of their way, let them handle it, let them fix it, try to help when you can. Eventually they get the box back and get a new box in there and it fired right up. And I'm sitting there, everything's working and I'm ready to go, but they're going to wait until we go to break and then bring me in on the next segment, right, and say, hey, stuff's fixed.

He's now part of the show. and so that's what you do. But, yeah, I mean, it was, you know, Burton had issues. When we first got in our purchase for practice, you know, stuff wasn't quite working right. Cameras weren't working. Things just don't work. You know, you set it up and you hope for the best, but that was all new, I mean, running the cables and wires to get all that stuff out there, miles and miles of cables. and sometimes that stuff just doesn't work like it's supposed to.

Well, it's no better time to come in to the whole broadcast team, the production. For sure. Again, what an amazing job because the broadcast actually was quite entertaining and enjoyable. Not without its hiccups, but it didn't detract from the overall experience of watching that race. And that's kudos to you guys at NBC. Yeah, I was wondering, like, I kept seeing comments about, like, how none of us were pronouncing Shane Van Gisbergen's name right. And I'm like, well, that's got to be impossible because I think we're all doing it differently.

So certainly someone's getting it right. And I thought that was so funny. People are so particular, you know, about those little details. And I don't know. You know, I thought I was doing the best. But. Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. You tell me. Yeah. I don't know. Well, we know it wasn't Jeff. Jeff, Jeff, like, short it out. You know, at one point. He got water in his mic. Burton, like, stumbled and just locked up, right?

And just quit talking altogether. But the funny thing is, is that we sound so alike to a lot of people that people thought it was me. And so to Jeff's credit or for his sake, he's only going to get half the blame for that one because I'll get the other half. Anytime either one of us screws up, we kind of get off the hook because they think it was the other one, you know. Yeah. But SVG seemed like the way to go if I had been up there. I was going to call him by the initials. I thought that was the lazy way to do it.

Yeah. Well, he introduced it in the pre-race, so I was going to go with what he said. He has it on his uniform. I know, but Steve even couldn't get that right, talking about SVJ. I'm like, goodness, gracious. But, you know, when you're human, you're flawed and you're imperfect, and you're going to make those mistakes, right? And you're just got to own it.

And, man, when I first started broadcasting, stuff like that would make me feel like a failure. And I'd take it so personal and I'd feel so terrible about the job. I did. But, you know, it is what it is. If they don't want me to come back next week, they'll let me know. I would not, I almost, I think others agree with me. I would rather hear you mispronounce the name. I really would.

I would rather you mispronounce it. That is, and I don't think anybody were giving y'all crap, like, from a literal standpoint, like, how could you? I think everybody was just having fun with it. But that name right there was born. from mispronunciations. All right there. That last name right there has not been pronounced right yet.

So I got to go over with. I got to tell you too, while the race is happening, while it's going on, Paul Morris is texting me and he's watching it at home in Australia. And he's, he's telling. So Paul's texting me during practice, we started showing some event, Gisbergin's healing toe method, right, with the, with the, brake pedals. And so Paul is texting me about it. And I'm like, yeah, man, you know, so Paul made this YouTube video a couple years ago talking about how they use the clutch pedal to change the balance of the

car and, you know, get the car loose and all that stuff and, uh, turn, help the car turn. You know, they, they used the clutch for more than just shifting gears. It's really, really incredible. And so, knowing that he was the only guy out there doing it, it's like having a sixth sense where it's an advantage, you know, and he's the only one with that advantage. And when Kyle Larson heard that's what he was doing, Kyle Larson said, man, if that's what you've got to do to drive a V8 supercar fast,

I'll never go, I'll never be driving one because I don't know how to do that, right? And so Paul's texting me going, yeah, he's doing it because of this. And I'm like, Paul, I remember you making that video. it also affects the balance of the car, right? And I'm getting all this information.

And then I would just use it on air right then. I just hit the button and go, hey, here's what's happening. That's why he's doing it. And during the race, Paul was like, hey, man, call him the Giz. That's his name. This is sort of a nickname. And I'm like, oh, boy, I hope that's right, you know. And so, I mean, you know, I used that after the race.

They asked, you know, they came to us on camera and said, you know, to get our final thoughts and I'll use that nickname right so throughout the race paul's giving me these little buttons to to say these little things and and comments uh like you you know him winning the bathers 1000 three times that's their premier event that's like the biggest most respected admired and you know revered race in australian uh motorsports and so you know being able to drop in these like factoids and and comments and notes about Shane while he's out there doing his thing was really fun for me and I had that going on live from I'm standing on my purse with my phone out and just getting text after text from Paul and you know I just wanted to do

a good job to share how much pride they had for him and how much you know how how much was on the how much was at stake right for Shane. home in his own country. How many people were tuning in, Paul's texting me going, every motorsports fan in this country is watching this race right now. I can promise you that.

And so, you know, that stuff that you got, if you don't know it or don't hear that or don't get that text, you don't think about it. You're just like, man, I'm living in this NASCAR bubble right here in the middle of Chicago.

But you had to think about it. Like, there's a whole world out there, especially in New Zealand and Australia, that are glued to everything going on right now and pulling for one guy, right? And so it's, you know, it's pretty cool. But that was fun. I mean, I enjoyed the broadcast, and Justin Marks, of course, he won the races. He's happy.

He liked the call that I had on the crossover move on the back, the racetrack over there. You know, Shane takes the lead from Justin on that little series of corners that I was calling the race. And so that was cool to get a text from him about that. It was sick. Justin Haley made that crossover move. That was kind of sick, to be honest with you. And the fact that they didn't touch is amazing. They believe he did all that clean.

Yeah, that's what Paul kept telling me. He's like, watch him. He's going to drive through the field and he won't touch anybody. And then in the races over, Paul goes, look, he passed them all, ran through the field and didn't put a bumper on anybody. So they pride themselves, like on not only kicking your ass, but doing it. doing it clean and like almost demoralizing you but without having to be you know physical in any way right and so uh while super you know while supercar racing it there is pushing shoving and they do

get you know they do beat and bang a little bit which is why i really like it because you know the parts come flying off the cars and they just keep on digging but you know he he did he did it the right way and i think that that was the only way he was willing to do it which i would then say that going back to Chase Elliott's comment, I don't think the feedback is how bad we are. I think the general message is how good they are. They are good. Everything you said about the clutch,

everything you're saying about Bathurst, everything you're saying about how they can do that clean, that's how good they are. I'm impressed. Yeah, it's incredible. I would encourage people to, like, you know, check out V8 supercars. And I think once you watch that,

you'll see, you know, what makes Shane so good. right and and it's pretty incredible racing and uh probably my obviously i think it's my second favorite form outside of stock car racing what you know what i grew up doing grew up around but um so i think we all agree right street racing is good we want to see you some more um if it's chicago that's great um but we're we're we're all curious as to where that might happen where we might go next. Yeah. Like I saw I saw something on a on a social media deal from a Chicago native that said once something is brought to Chicago or if it's born there, the people kind of adopt it and it becomes theirs and they push for it and pull for it. So I don't know if that's going to happen with

Chicago, but that's something that I read from a person that said they lived in Chicago is like once we get something here, we start something, we don't want to lose it. So I don't. I don't I don't know if that's going to happen with there, but from the reaction of what I saw from people there, I could see that happening. I could see people wanting it to go back, especially with great weather. Yeah, that's an interesting point. I'm glad you said that, T.J., because, you know, if you think about, you know, Cubs fans, White Sox fans, Bears fans, they're in, they're there, they're livers now. You know, they're in, they're going to bleed with the team. They're going to do whatever.

They're never going to bail. So there is a passion, which are, it's not exclusive just to Chicago. I mean, I think Boston's the same way. You know, that's a good point. I think you're right. I think that's a good observation. I think the, we actually went out to dinner one night. It was pretty awesome driving through town

and seeing everybody out on the sidewalks, eating. And I think it was, I don't think it was the night before the race. I think it was Friday night. And there was a NASCAR NBC dinner at a stickhouse. And it was about probably about 10. 15 blocks away from the hotel and driving through the city and just seeing everybody out on a Friday night at 6, 7 o'clock and it's pretty incredible. The city was thriving and excited.

It just felt, you know, it felt big. It felt like it was, I'm sure it wasn't all NASCAR, but it just felt cool to be so close. It felt so, it felt really cool and very, very unique for our product to be. right in the middle of the city, right there while, you know, not 30 miles outside the city, right there. A couple things I saw on social media, and I know this is probably a small group of people, but I wanted to kind of clear something up.

And look, I haven't talked to any people in Daytona officials or anything, but this is just stuff that I've heard in rumor and conversation. But a lot of people, every time we come to the July 4th weekend, there's a lot of people that get nostalgic toward the July race we used to have in Daytona, right? I loved it. It was fun. It was a great tradition to go down there for the July 4th race and running Daytona. And they started the race at 10 o'clock in the morning on July 4th, no matter what day of the week that was years and years ago.

And I've had a lot of fun and success there on the beach as a kid, on the track, as a driver. But what I've been told is, you know, people are like, you know, we should, this is, you know, July 4th, we ought to be in Daytona. It's not raining in Daytona today. Daytona is where we should be racing. And you have to think about it like this. So obviously, I'm sure Daytona and there, you know, the officials there in the city loved having the race there. But now, since the race has been moved off of this big holiday, do you think that anybody in Daytona, that they now have. have two events on the calendar want to weld them back together.

And they don't need NASCAR there in July on the 4th to fill up hotel rooms. The holiday, the July 4th holiday alone does that. And now they have another, you know, weekend later in the year that didn't exist before when NASCAR comes to town to fill their hotel rooms up again. And so, you know, I just don't, I know that we all have that nostalgia. toward Daytona and being, you know, being that July 4th weekend, I just don't never, I just don't ever see that coming back, you know, because. Well, you're saying they don't even want it is what your point is.

You know, I don't, I don't think they do. I don't think that that would be, that's probably not in their best interest to bring the race back to that particular weekend because, man, they've got the best of both worlds now. They have NASCAR over here, and then they have July 4th over here, two great weekends that bring in a lot of money for the city. and so to put all that back in the same bowl probably doesn't make good sense for them. For them. I mean, I'm sure, listen, I'm sure that the people that have that opinion,

and I might even be one of them, aren't really thinking about the commerce aspects to it and all that stuff. I think they just like the nostalgia, which is what you said, by the way. You're agreeing with that. So like, I liked it too, dude, I liked it. I missed it. We used to have an off weekend that was kind of like the moment where, It was like, okay, it felt like NASCAR was saying, all right, everybody, we're at the halfway point. We're going to give you an off weekend, and then we're going to Daytona to start the rest of the year.

And it was awesome because we'd go into Daytona early. We'd spend the whole weekend, you know, that off weekend in Daytona having fun. But, you know, we were so far removed from it, and I think the city kind of likes that thing apart. Oh, I thought you meant we're so far removed from going in a week early and party. I think we're far removed from that those days, too, the three of us. We really haven't had the term ringer in our sport for a while. Does the street races bring back the term ringer? You know what I mean?

Because normally you would go to some of these racetracks and have the Boress, them guys, and they could be very competitive. And now we just have our guys have gotten so good at these tracks. Does the street course bring back the ringers? I don't know, it might. I think the street courses certainly would or could. Are there enough Project 91s to be, you know, to where a guy can get in a competitive car? You know, there was other international and, you know, non-NAS car drivers in the field that were in other cars that didn't run as well.

You know, so I don't know that I think that that was like the perfect scenario where Shane got in a great race car that was capable of winning and not all cars are capable of winning. And so, you know, I think if you're going to, if I'm an owner in a Cup Series and I've got an extra car just sitting there and I'm, I got enough, you know, I can take it to the racetrack. Any road course. I don't care if it's a street course. but Glenn, I'm calling one of them Australians or one of the New Zealand's. I'm calling one of the guys that, yeah, I'm going to call one of those guys that's got to be a supercar experience because that's basically an next-gen car in a sense.

It's very similar. I think Jensen Button ran with pretty well. I mean, he qualified well and was actually running pretty decent as well. But you're right. I mean, if you have another car, you call that Cam Water, Scott McLaughlin, those guys, I think, could jump in there and compete for wins. Hey, who struggled the most? TJ, from your vantage point,

Amdales, like, I mean, I think of several candidates for this award. Noah, Truex, Founcing tires. Noah had a tough day. Truex was fast until later in the race, but, you know, I thought Trix kind of, Trex kept getting a little bit offline and, you know,

he'd dip his tire into wet and slip real bit. I couldn't figure that out. He wasn't quite as, like, buttoned up on trying to stay in the dry when it was a little treacherous out there before it dried out completely. But, I mean, Turex was fast, you know. He was just pushing his car with the part. But, I mean, there's just guys that go to those races that just struggle. And, you know, that's the way it's been forever.

You know, when we were, when I was racing, and we'd go to Watkins Glen and Sterling Marlin and Schrader and those guys would get in their car for practice. And they would say they'd go run a lap and they'd come in and go, well, I don't think second gear's right. Let's change the transmission. And so they'd take transmission and change it. And it'd be 45 minutes.

They'd go back out there and run a couple laps. Okay, I'm good to go. We're practice is over. Okay, we're ready. And all they were doing. I work with Sterling. Most time we don't have any gears. up in the first lap.

All they were doing was really just trying to do something, to get the crew to do something where they didn't have to go out there and run laps. They came in, they would go into those weekends just like, hey, I'm just going to, you know, I'm not good enough to win.

My car is probably not good. I don't even know what to do with this thing to get it to Victory Lane. I'm just going to go out there and try not to hit anything or crash and go home. You know, back, back in the 2000s and even, before that. I mean, you know, teams didn't even have dedicated road course cars sometimes.

You know, they were bringing oval cars with, you know, moving battery boxes and cutting, you know, fuel filler neck holes in the right quarter panel just to get to the racetrack, get through the weekend, get some points and go home. It wasn't, you know, I guess my point is, is like there's some guys that go to those racetracks and they're just, they just know it's going to be a struggle. I was one of them for many years, you know, particularly, you know, it's weird. I could run good at the Glen, but I couldn't do it at Sonoma for, you know, to save my life. And so you'd go into those races just going, you know, how bad it's going to be, how Russ is it get.

And I think that there's just guys that, you know, I don't know, you just, you know, they're just, you either got it or you don't. You know, you can't acquire some skill at road courses and you can work. hard to try to improve, but sometimes it's just like a, it's a skill that's just difficult to develop. All right, so I think it's time for us to move on to Ask Junior, one of my favorite parts of the show. We're going to get some questions. Andrew Curlin's got them all together. You've been sending these questions into Xfinity Racing on Twitter, and we are thankful to have Expedity supporting us more than ever because I think we are using every bit of the 10G Internet speed

that they provide doing this particular Dale Jr. download. So, Andrew, you've got the questions ready to go. You got some for me and T.J. Hurt. Yes, yes. We actually had fans just coincidentally submit questions for you and T.J. A few weeks ago, I'm like, all right, this is going to be perfect to bring up this week. But this first question is from Jake. Some news broke earlier this week.

Kip Childress is moving to the executive director position of the Cars Tour. What does it mean to have him on the team? Well, Kip's been a part of NASCAR for so many years and driving the pace car, but many other duties as well. He's worked in a lot of different roles at various levels of the sport, and he knows the grassroots short-track late model stock world and has been in that arena many times throughout his career. So, you know, we're looking to try to strengthen our staff,

and our approach and our protocols and our ability to go and put on great events and bringing in somebody like Kip is a it's a massive score for us at the Kars tour and while Kipp's you know leaving his long held post at NASCAR the Kars tour is moving closer toward NASCAR in terms of being an asset to them you know so you know, kept still going to be communicating and working with certain people in the NASCAR bubble to make sure that the cars tour is being a good asset and a good ally to NASCAR as a whole. And obviously, we, you know, we race a late model stock car that, for the most part, is governed by NASCAR. Car store has its own set of rules, but a lot of those align with NASCAR in a way. we certainly want to be tied together at the hip on safety and all kinds of other things.

So Kipp's going to be a great connector in that way to help us bridge that line of communication with NASCAR so that when people race in the cars tour and then they go race at another racetrack that's NASCAR sanctioned, it's a very seamless transition for them and there's not a lot of trouble and challenges. That's definitely going to be a big win for you guys. You know, as mentioned, TJ is in the room, I guess in the other room, but, you know, in our little virtual room here. This next question is from Danny F. from a few weeks ago. Did you guys ever fight on the radio with each other? All time.

Yeah. So a little while ago, I think he mentioned, you know, oh, you know, everybody's human and stuff like that. I was going to wonder where that guy was about 15 years ago on the radio. because there's a lot of clips out there on YouTube and stuff where I'm not sure he had that same thought process back then. Now, when I was Rayford. Yeah, there was a 10th time. Yeah, when I was a pretty big ego. And I think that's what, like you get a, they give you a uniform, some driving shoes and gloves, a helmet, and a big ego to go with it.

And there were times when I would say something to TJ and he would just quit spotting. and so I mean he's like hey if you're going to be an asshole I can just not do this job you need my help so don't be mean because I'm out here trying to help you and save your tail and so yeah there were some times when I don't know it was I was always weird about lap times I'd go to the racetrack though and and I don't know what a fast lap time is you know I've got I'd have to look at a sheet and go okay okay this is what the fastest car ran today. Otherwise, I don't know what the hell the fastest lap in practice is. I'm not paying attention to it. I'm just wondering how to get my car to turn or how to get it to push out of it. And he'll be like, man, you're at a 30-70. And I'm like, I have no clue what that even means. I don't even know what the, is that fast? Is that really slow? Am I the best? Am I the worst? And it's like, PJ assumed that I knew that was either a good or bad lap and I'd get so annoyed and I'd be like well that was that was Richmond but I will say though from he didn't from the

time he had quit till when that probably happened things were evolving in the sport more more as well and I think that was Richmond too and we would like you know a few years after I was on work with him I would I would go into a Richmond and I would be trained a certain way like okay look we're racing a lap time here we're not racing the leader right now we're we know Richmond's a big tire fall off track so I want to race lap time right now so if you give me the lap time that's what I'm gonna try to be around every single every single lap so I'm programmed to do those type of things at that point when he's coming in from you know from before what the run you know what's want to match the leader and stuff but you know it's just

different um you know things change a little bit and you adapt and and stuff like that There were a lot of times, though, that, you know, TJ, we had one situation where we were racing, and there's a second channel that the crew chief and the spotter communicate on without the driver. And the crew chief would go over to that channel to talk to TJ and go, what the hell's he doing out there? What the hell is he doing? And TJ, you know, always had my back, you know. he would come tell me, he'd be like, man, you don't want to hear what's going on on Channel 2. Well, it was a rough day.

Now, there was one time that I remember the crew chief saying we had stayed out on tires and we got, this is many, many, many years ago. And we stayed out on tires and got our doors blown off because we were on 10-lap tires at a high falloff track and the crew chief come on the other radio and said, well, why don't you just tell them to let everybody go by? I'm like, dude, we're out here, like, struggling. Why don't you key up and tell them yourself? And I didn't get a response back from that.

Do you remember who the crew chief was? Man, we will not. We will not. You'll not. Yeah, oh, yeah, I do. We will name names. Fair enough. Fair enough.

Sounds like on certain days, both of you guys got your payday working with each other. But this next question coming from Ryan, you know, know Chicago was a big footprint. There weren't a whole lot of golf carts available. Do you know how many steps you guys logged over the course of the weekend here in Chicago? Yeah, that was so funny. I got to tell this story, TJ. So everybody knows those commercials.

It's an insurance company that I won't name. But they're where the people are becoming their parents. And the guy, you know, there's this sort of counselor that's sort of helping them understand, hey, you're becoming your parents. You don't have to tell, you know, when you arrive somewhere, you don't have to tell everybody how you got there. Well, you know, I took this road. I took that road.

I turned on this road. And there's, you know, how my, Amy likes to hang these signs in the house that have sayings on them. And I'm like, yeah, I think you're becoming your mother hanging up all these signs in the house that all these, like, sassy sayings on, right? And so, anyways, these commercials are the funniest commercials. and so we're walking around in we're walking around in the paddock you know with letart and burton and we're just kind of you know it's a Friday morning or something and we're we're hanging out around the track and walking around track and in like a 15 minute span I think Steve LaTart he's keeping track of his steps he just started walking he just started doing like three three and a half mile walks a day and he's keeping track of his steps right and so he's keeping track of his steps right and so. So in like a 15 minutes span, he told probably six individuals how many steps he took in the day before. And I was like, hey, Steve, you don't have to tell every single person you meet how many steps you took yesterday. I don't even know how you're weaving that into every conversation you're having.

But it's probably unnecessary. And so we kept messing with him because literally he didn't listen. to me and he didn't let up. He didn't, he kept telling, I mean, every person that he walked up to, he's like, oh, man, 21,000 steps yesterday. I'm like, hey, Steve, you're becoming your parents. Stop telling everybody how many steps you took. They don't care about the steps you took yesterday.

And it was just so funny. I wonder if, like, as soon as you brought it up, that's when he starts, like, doing it more because he knows that, you know, you're thinking about it. but I would say I mean the track's 2.2 miles or 2.1 mile racetrack something like that yeah I bet you I bet you me and t.J probably did about anywhere from I don't know six to eight miles

yeah uh yeah probably in that probably in that vicinity I mean it was a lot of walking but it was okay it's fine I mean I was sitting there thinking yeah I need to walk I need some walking now yeah no the park area was cool I know I think I did 13 miles on Saturday. I was feeling it afterwards.

Just Saturday. Just Saturday. Ma'am, maybe I walked more than I thought I did. If you did 13 just wondering around, what were you doing? Yeah, well, we were walking all over the fan zone, and so we were kind of walking aimlessly for 13 miles, but, yeah, no, yeah, it was a cool setup, though. This next question. Wait, wait, wait, Andrew, how many steps is 13th?

Yeah, how many steps? Letart is going to want to know how many steps did you take? I probably have Lutart beat on Saturday. 24,000. Wow, okay. So he did 21 on Thursday or Friday. We needed you to stop his, stop him. All right.

We'll move on. This next question comes from Higie. He wants to know if you ever got your Chicago-style hot dog or pizza over the weekend. I did. I did not get a hot dog, but we got some deep dish pizza on the plane for the ride home. So, yeah, I definitely got a slice of that. But, you know, I really want to go and get that experience and have that in one of those, you know, one of the more famous restaurants that serves some of the best deep dish pizza.

I like thin crust. Like thin crust is my favorite, but when in Rome, right? So when, you know, if you're going to do it, do it their way. And so I'd like to, I still feel like I need to have that experience. T.J., do you eating? I did not. I watched you have your deep dish pizza. And I will say that he tried to eat a, he did eat a salad before he dove into the pizza.

I was just getting a salad. Like, well, he did have some self-restraint. It was good. Got to have some. Yeah, yeah, definitely. We were asking fans, like, about, you know, the Chicago style. hot dog. I think I would, I think mustard would keep me away from doing that. I don't know how you guys feel about, uh, about like the toppings on Chicago style dog. I'm not a mustard guy. I just never been.

Yeah, but ketchup's a big no-no, you know, with the Chicago style dog. So as long as you don't have ketchup on your hot dog, you're, uh, you're good to go. Um, this next one's from Adidia and this, this can go both for you Dale and TJ. How much can you learn from a track walk? You know, you mentioned walking the track with the drivers this week. What are you guys looking for in terms of scouting out the track before a race, especially a new track like Chicago? I think you can learn a tremendous amount because the pace of walking around the track allows you the time to really see some detail,

cracks in the racetrack, change in surface, you know, where these little knots on the wall might be that stick out that could catch the car that we saw a couple guys had trouble with in practice and in the race. So, I mean, yeah, I mean, if you go out there in a pace car or even your own race car, you're going to not see some of those imperfections up close. You're not going to take the minute to really appreciate some of the challenges where a track walk can give you a chance. Plus, I think, you know, you're walking with other people that are also seeing other things and seeing it differently. So it's an opportunity to listen to.

and see what other people are thinking about, a certain particular corner or whatever. And so when we saw the, a great example of this is when we saw the aerials and everything, and they're like, hey, we're going to put you in turn four. I'm thinking, man, long straight away, they're going to be coming through turn three wide open and then have to hammer the brakes and slow down

and go into this really, really tiny tight. It goes from five lanes to two and a half lanes into turn four. This is going to be chaos. they're going to be crashing. They're going to be all wedging in there trying to put too many cars into this space, and they're going to wear out the brakes, and they're going to lock them up, they're going to spin, they're going to hit the tire barrier, just all kinds of chaos down here.

But when I got on the racetrack and got looking at it, I'm like, nope, this is a fast corner. This is not a slow corner. They're back. And when I was standing on my perch looking down, they're going right behind me. They're back to the throttle right at the apex. So, like, they're like, you know, they're in the, the break some slowing down for that turn four, but really it was a fluid motion of going through four, five, and out the exit down the other straightaway. It was never the sort of stop go that I was

expecting. And so a track walk is where you learn those type of things. It's like, you know, this is not a 90 degree corner, it's an elbow. And so we can kind of cruise through here. it actually turned five was a slower corner of the whole sequence right where they would downshift the first gear sometimes so pretty you wouldn't you wouldn't you know looking at a aerial you're not going to pick those things up yeah i agree with them you can gain a lot walking the track as well um especially if you go out there you walk with the driver you i do a lot of sim stuff so correlating that stuff of what we see in the sim and like he said you know i i knew the nine i knew four wasn't going to be a 90 degree corner because you know how many laps I've turned there and seen the sim, and it's very fluid. Like, it's a tough breaking zone. It was rough. You had to judge your speed, getting to the wall on the left.

There was a lot of things that are drivers. It's a very challenging corner of the track, too, but walking it and actually seeing it and putting it in perspective definitely gives you a much better visual and understanding of what each corner really is. I find that so interesting that your perception can change just by going down and seeing it for yourself in person. Like you said, your perception of turn four completely was different after seeing it. We got time for one more question here coming from Paul.

What's the craziest thing both of you guys have caught fishing? A gar. I caught a gar fish one time. I actually made the Statesville paper. So I lassoed this fish. I didn't actually catch it. Um, me and I was, I was, yeah, I'm like, I'll tell you about it. So I'm in this boat and I'm fishing with, uh, with a buddy of mine that was a highway

state patrolman. And so we're, we're on the boat fishing. And he's like, look, man, there's a garfish swimming right along the side of the boat. And we're fishing for crappy. And so I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I, this garfish is just hanging out right next to the boat. We're just trolling around in this cove. And so I changed a bunch of lures on my rod, and the garfish wasn't interested in none of it. And so I put a big hook on the line, and I dropped the hook next to the fish, and then I really quickly stuck the end of the fishing rod in the water under the fish to wrap the line around the fish, right?

And then I yanked up on the fishing line, and it basically shoved that. hook into the side of the fish yanked him up in the boat it's probably about a foot and a half long maybe two foot long this gar I mean the the the the the garfish has like six to eight inches of a big long beak and it's all teeth it's sharp sharp teeth and so we got him in the boat and put him in the live well and I had him mounted and I still have that somewhere some storage build and But the patrolman went to the newspaper and had them write a story about it. I was like 15 years old when this happened.

So that was, I guess, you know, I don't think you, nobody fishes for garfish. I never even heard of one, and I haven't seen one since. But they're pretty unique looking. They look like they're pretty scary looking, to be honest with you. But they don't, they won't bother you. I don't think. I think the craziest thing that I caught was actually you were on the boat with me. We went out in Key West and first thing I'd ever caught out of the ocean, I'm reeling this thing up and I pull it up out of the water and it's an eel.

So that was probably the scariest thing that I've ever caught as well. And I mean, you can't just grab on them and take them off the hook either. So it was, I wasn't touching it. Yeah, that was a fun trip. It's always fun going out there fishing down in the Keys, man. QS is the best. I don't even know you could lasso fish. It is.

That was a new thing. Dude, I was going to try. This thing was just sitting there letting me think and plan and, you know, and I was like, here, this is how we're going to do it. Let's see if this will work. But it was interesting. I'm not big on fishing. I don't like, like, Truex would fish every day if he could.

And I just kind of like going every once in a while. So I probably, that's probably, I probably won't catch anything like that ever again. I don't fish enough. Yeah, you might as well, like, yeah, you got the best story. Like, there's probably not a whole lot that tops it, you know? Yeah. Awesome. Well, that's, we had a good ass junior this week.

T.J., thanks for joining us. I appreciate it, man. Thanks. Appreciate you coming on, T.J. Good job, Andrew. Appreciate everybody sending in those questions to Xfinity Racing on Twitter. And thank you to Xfinity for everything you do, supporting the Dale Jr. download and giving us the Internet

to be able to do all these amazing things on our platform. So appreciate it everybody tuning in. It's a great show. It was a lot of fun. TJ and vacation time with TJ is coming to and in. TJ's going home today. and then I'm going to get ready and go to Atlanta for the race weekend. I'll see you there, TJ.

We'll have a lot of fun watching them duke it out around that big old racetrack. It's pretty spectacular with the reconfigure. I hope everybody enjoyed all of our podcasts this week. Go Rupert Clear, Dell Jr. Download, Dirty Mo Doe. It's been a fun week. We're ready to get back to the racetrack. It has. I am too.

All right. We'll see you all there. Take it easy.