The Dale Jr. Download - 471. Bubble Wrapping The Cup Series

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the studio with co-host Mike Davis to break down NASCAR’s weekend in New Hampshire. As always, Dale had a lot to share from the broadcasting booth, and the guys chat about: Why not race in the rain? Five racing grooves at New Hampshire The short track package test has been postponed The developing Playoff points bubble situation During the Ask Jr. segment of the show, listeners sent in questions regarding: Larry the Lobster Dale’s trophy collection  Martin Truex Jr.’s 2024 plans 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? Did it get them? I mean, of all things to say. What? Family picnic sometimes. You get you more than just to greet us out. Are you kidding me, Mike? Oh my God, that is hilarious.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. Welcome back to another episode of the Dell Jr. download. It is July the 18th. A beautiful Tuesday. Weather is good. Man, isn't that nice? Yeah, it's nice. So let's just get started this weekend.

We had everything's kind of messed up. This is, I don't know about everybody else, but we had a rain out. And so we didn't race on Sunday and we raced on Monday. And now Tuesday feels like Monday. We're all messed up. Yeah, it's all messed up. So, yeah. So this whole week is going to feel like I'm going to get to Friday and Friday is going to feel like Wednesday.

and then it's just all weird. It reminds me that office prank where Jim plays it on Dwight and convinces him it's another day. And that's what it feels like. It does. It does. Yeah, it feels like I'm all screwed up. It's weird.

But anyways, yeah, we were out in Loudoun. I love going there, man. There's a restaurant right next to the racetrack. It's actually the same restaurant that has the lobster that comes out to the racetrack. You know, we held the big lobster, Larry. And we had a great debate about that. Anyways, there's great restaurants, and the racing, I got a lot to say. I'm trying not to scramble, but the racing in this race this past Monday,

I'm going to screw up and say Sunday. The racing was amazing. I mean, holy shh. I mean, dude, three weeks in a row now. So, all right, I'm going to back up. Okay. I'm going to back up. I'm just going to hang on here.

Anyways, first off, but the other boys. you here is obviously my co-host Mike good to see you Mike good to see you too and we are in the Bojangles studio and I am hungry for one of their new chicken biscuits we just recently announced they have two new versions of their

famous chicken biscuit that they recently launched just a couple years ago they have it's like two different barbecue sauces and it's kind of the Carolina style barbecue sauce and then they have the other kind but they're very very good the chicken biscuit was

really good when it first came out, but now they've made it even better. Didn't even plan to say all that, but just wanted to tell you, I'm very hungry in my mouthwater. There we go. All right. Noted. Yeah. And so when we got to New Hampshire, there was a little bit of a thread of whether there was some worry about weather. But in my mind, I'm thinking, yeah, man, we've got the rain tires, man, we're going to run. We're just going to have a race on the rain tires. We did it at North Wiltsboro, a little damp. We haven't, you know, our Xfinity series has raced in the pouring rain. standing water at the Roval, terrible conditions. And they raced.

So, yeah, we're going to have a race. I don't care if it rains or let it rain. Everybody else, LaTart, all the rest of the team are like, yeah, we got, we got some weather coming. It could be difficult. I'm like, what's the problem? Why aren't we got, you know, we've been, we got every damn cars, got the windshield wipers. They got this shit hanging off the back of them, mud flaps for the spray.

They got brake lights and all kinds of. blinking so you can see each other. It might as well be a boat. Yeah. We got everything we need. What are we doing? It is the silliest thing ever. You got, it's like, okay, it's like the parents that put their kids in bubble wrap, right?

Figuratively or literally? No, figuratively. Okay, good. Like, you know, and they got all the bells and whistles preparing for the worst. Right. It's like, we're so prepared for the worst and not even willing to put. the damn car out on the racetrack when it's raining. You're saying we bubble wrap the sport and now we're not even taking advantage of it.

Right, right. And so I just find, I don't know, man, I find that funny that we have, the cars come to the racetrack with all this shit on it. It's not something that we bowled on right before the race when we're like, oh, it's raining. Let's get all the stuff out. Make these cars rain ready. come to the track with this stuff on it. I find it funny that you feel like it's one weather fits all

and that anything windshield wipers should be able to sustain it. I'm just saying to make sense of my argument and how humorous this is, every other series that races in the rain, when it's pouring in their standing water, they have a red flag. They throw a caution. They stop them, whatever. I'm completely sensible in that idea, right? I'm not saying NASCAR.

our boy, a monsoon, sent them out there. But if we retrofit all this stuff for racing in the rain and there is like, it's like we're gun shy. It's like we're,

it's like we're, yeah, we're ready, but damn, do we really do this? Maybe next week. Yeah. Maybe we roll it up. We're like the kid

climbs up on the high dive and gets to the end and turns around and walks back. Oh no. Perfect analogy. I ain't doing this since too high. That's, funny.

Yes. That is a good analogy. Now it makes sense to me. Okay. Because I've done that. I've been that kid. I've been that kid. Come on, NASCAR.

Yeah. Well, they're happy to let the trucks in Xfinity series roll those things out. But when it comes to Cup, there's a little bit. Oh, yeah. A little bit of, yeah. What is the problem? A little reluctant. What is it about Cup?

Why are they so privileged? Oh, are they privileged? I think that's what you're saying. Right. Why are they so elite? Can't get out there in the weather. Seems to me you'd want to get them out there because then you have to stay another day. into the week, into the next week.

I'm giving NASCAR hard time. I'm sure that there are concerns that are warranted and reasons why they don't do this, but I just think the optics is hilarious. They come to the racetrack. I mean, how many races do we watch them go around in the freaking dry with these ridiculously large windshield wipers that are really large for only one reason

because it's an arrow advantage? I took a picture. All right, I want everybody to know. The windshield wipers that you see on the cup cars, there's these big bars. It's built that way because it's an arrow advantage, right, to have it on there. It's a big triplip, whatever, right? And where it is, like what angle it's at is an intentional angle, right? And so I thought that was so funny because I went into the Xfinity Garage and I went to one of the smaller teams and I took a picture of their windshield wiper.

It is the same damn thing that's on your car and my car. All right. Got it down at the Napa. yeah right hey man we're ready that's right but you go to the cup garage and these things hell it look batons on top they got like two by four it is it's really like a two by two piece of wood bolted to the damn thing ain't going to wipe nothing by god it's some down forcing that thing though it's hilarious the whole thing makes me laugh and so we've ran so many races with those big gigantic windshield wipers on the front of these cars in the perfect dry condition right

And so, but boy, one drop of rain. Stop! What are we going to do? Rain tires, I mean, a tractor trailer full of rain tires. All right, they're not rain tires. They're wet weather tires. They're not really rain tires. Let's stop calling them that.

They're wet weather tires. They're used on a damp, wet track in the effort to try to dry the track and actually have racing while that's happening. I get it. But we drove them things up here in a truck. A guy was hot. to bring them. For what?

You got to pay him. What the hell? Well, you know what? You actually have a point in the fact that they canceled it pretty early or they postponed it pretty early. There was no like real attempt. So I wasn't there. You were there.

Was it just biblical flooding or something? Yeah. Okay. All right. So it was the, yeah, the infield of the track was under probably standing water of about two inches or more in some areas. The tunnel had probably some standing water of about six. to 12 inches in it at one point.

But honestly, man, I took the trash out of the bus at about 3 o'clock in afternoon, and it was you could be racing. It was the perfect scenario in NASCAR's eyes of no rain, but a wet surface. This is what you have the guy to drive those tires up there for. This is when you put the wet weather tires on and get the race going. The Modified's raced, I think. No. Yes, no.

Did they? Yes. I think it was stopped by weather. And then started again. Yeah. Yeah. Was that Saturday? That was Saturday.

Are you sure? I might not be, but... Maybe that was after... We don't even know what day it is. Yeah, no. I'm lost, too. I think that actually happened. Friday?

It usually is. I don't know. Saturday. It usually is. I don't know. No, I think it did run Saturday, and then it was stopped by rain, and then it restarted again and finished.

After the Xfinity race. Yeah. That's when they usually run... After the Xfinity race. After the Xfinity race, I think it started raining, and then the modified race was stopped midway through.

Yeah. What the hell, I'm all screwed up. Screw all that. We're talking about Sunday, not even Saturday. What hell's wrong with me? See?

All right. More of this to come, everybody. Okay. I'm hoping you're confused, because if you're not, I'm surprised. Anyways, man, that rain tire stuff is hilarious.

Or the, you know, the pieces all over the cars and not running in the rain. I'll be on, you know, NASCAR, they called it. And I think that they called it because, out of respect for the fans, having to come out there, Dale Jarrett made a really good point.

So Dale Jarrett, we're doing our TV show. We did a countdown to Green. I don't know if anybody watched it. It was on USA. It was from 2 to 230 on Sunday. Yes. And, you know, we do a countdown to green, and the clock on the countdown said 22 hours. And so,

We're sitting there, and Dale Jarrett's like, yeah, them rain tires are where they belong in the truck. And he's like, he said, you know, one thing we don't even know is whether fans would even sit through that, right? You got all these fans here, but are they really willing to sit through, you know, rain and watch an event being rained on all day long? That's a question that I don't know the answer to. Fans are going to tell us. They're very vocal and passionate about it. So I think there's some, you know, there's obviously, physically could the cars have went out there and raced at 3 o'clock in afternoon? Yes.

Was that the right thing to do, considering how much rain we were getting in the morning for people to travel and do all the, I mean, that would have been a nightmare and dangerous, right, for people traveling to the race in such terrible weather. It had been in their best interest not to be out in those elements that morning trying to get to the racetrack. So I didn't mind that the race was postponed to Monday. I had nothing to do on Monday. I was going to come here and hang out with y'all all day. So we were glad that it actually got postponed on the Monday. You were happy. We actually had productivity.

Yeah. I was going to come here, come to the competition meeting for junior motorsports with our junior motorsports teams. We are trying to improve our performance across the board at junior motor sports in our Finity Series. We had really fast cars on Saturday when that race started. And with, I don't know, 50 or 80 to go, it unraveled for all of us. got all, you know, got all tore up and some restarts and, and none of us had the finish that

we probably deserved. But I leave that race after the Xfinity Series. You know, most of the team is beaten down because of how things have went for us compared to last year. Last year was one in a million, man. Those kind of years, I don't know if we'll ever have another season like that again. It's difficult to compare ourselves to that, but I love holding ourselves to a standard, and we do.

But I left the Saturday race for the Xenity Series really happy because we qualified really good. And in the race, our cars at times had speed better than anyone else. And so that's all you can hope for when you go to the racetrack is that you're just not getting outrun all day long by the same car, which has been the case at times this year. I was working the pit box a little bit for NBC. They turned us loose after the second stage, and I went and put my headset on and climbed on top of the nine box, with Brandon Jones and listen to those guys for the end of the race. It was nice for me to have some, you know, be hands-on.

Yeah, you got to play a car owner for. I did. I enjoyed that. Very few and far between. Anyways, Monday's race was incredible. And the reason why I say the word incredible, I know Martin Truex led 254 of 301 laps. We saw his car in practice and knew he was going to be hard to beat. but that track had literally five grooves,

which is, I mean, there's only one or two left, and they're in the wall. Right. There's one left, actually. So out of six lanes of asphalt, I'm counting the apron might. Yeah, because people use it. Out of six lanes of asphalt,

on one side is grass and on the other is a wall, they used five. I could not believe it. That's interesting. You know, you were really concerned about that. In fact, there was this whole test session that was scheduled. You said that's more important in the race to test the short track package.

The racing was really good. It was so good. Yeah. And the... Oh, what was that? That was a text message from a friend of mine. So, I'll turn it to silence. Sorry, my bad. So we've been going there for a long time, and that racetrack actually was one groove for the most part, and then they started treating the racetrack with some

PJ1 and stuff like that, and then they had cars running a little bit down low and a couple cars running a little bit up high and there's kind of the middle groove was now, uh, no man's land. They haven't treated the track for the last several years because they have now proclaimed it a wet weather track. So we can't, you know, if it does rain, it would be one of the race tracks they're willing to race that. So there must be a list somewhere of tracks that they are not willing to race at on wet weather,

like Daytona, Talladega. Sure. And then there's a list where they, hey, if it does rain, we will try to race. This is one of those. So they don't want the treatment on there because the treatment will set, the water will sit on top of that and it'll be really ridiculously slick. There are three newer lanes of asphalt that were put down 15, 20 years ago. And it's very easy to see it because of the shade of it, the color of it.

That's the groove at the bottom. So you have the apron. Then you have a new layer of asphalt and then two more above it. And then there are two old layers of asphalt up high. that are really grayed out. But it has sealer on it that was put there 25, 20 years ago, sealer that's down on that racetrack. And the modified guys use it.

And when you run in that sealer, it's sort of like PJ1. It gets hot and tacky and grippy like Coke syrup. And so like walking across a sticky floor, right? And the cup cars would never go up there. It just was the long way around, right? but now with for whatever reason man not treating the racetrack and the grip from that treatment going away wearing away in those bottom grooves a couple cars in the very back of the field this was a really neat phenomenon to watch mike if you were there in person that was the only way you were going to see it right like five cars in the very very back of the field the last five positions started running way up in that fourth groove and i was watching that we started talking about it on air we're like man there's some guys running way up the racetrack.

No one up front is doing it yet. But apparently they're finding some speed there because they keep doing it. And then 20th to 25th started doing it. And then 15th to 20th started doing it. And this was like happening every 30 laps or so.

Okay. And finally, fifth place does it. And he runs down fourth. And fourth season. And fourth starts doing it. And he runs down third place. And third starts doing it. And he runs down second place.

And second place starts doing it. He runs down the leader, and then Truex is now doing it. It was such a fun thing to watch. These guys go, I'm not going to go up there until I have to. Somebody starts running me down, then I'm going to try it. Sure. And by the end of the race, the whole field's now running in this fourth groove in turn three and four particularly, way up the racetrack. And if you wanted to try the bottom, you could.

Some guys still did. even running on the apron at times off the turn two. So really, there were five lanes of asphalt getting used at this racetrack, and I never would have, I would have lost the bet. Yeah. If we had to make a guess on how many grooves or lanes of asphalt they'd be using in the corners. I mean, I can't tell you how cool that is for New Hampshire for that track. They've needed a boost, if you will, in terms of, you know,

maintaining their sort of, you know, role in the series and maintaining their place in the schedule. All these, now that the schedule is so malleable and that there's like, oh, man, you know, street races, oh, that was great, let's do more of those. You know, now that, you know, and everybody's probably calling NASCAR going, can you come here?

Can you come race here? The tracks like New Hampshire, man, they've got to be guarded. They got to be, you know, they got to be sure about their footing and their roots. this race this past weekend, man, makes me want to go back there next year. And I felt, I was happy to see that. That's three, I'm sure maybe more, but that's three solid weekends between Chicago, Atlanta, and here. And we've talked about it in recent weeks where tracks need to have an identity.

They need to have that one little special thing. And wow, it's so exciting to hear how excited you are about it. And I also would say is that I can watch a broadcast and I can tell how into it you are. Now, that doesn't mean to say that there's weeks where you just are evidently not into it. But when your octaves go into Burtons, then it's called the Burton zone there? You were in Burton's zone pretty much that whole time. Well, I'll be honest with you, man. Burton's dominant in New Hampshire.

The fun thing for our booth is we all have sort of a specialty or an expertise, I guess. And so at certain tracks, man, one of us is going to play a bigger role. And this past weekend was kind of Burton's track, right? That was his track. And you kind of lay back and listen to him and let him tell you about why he was so good there and what the drivers are dealing with. And I know what he's thinking and saying, but coming from him, it carries a lot of weight due to his success there. And so he did a really, really good job of explaining what's challenging about New Hampshire.

at the tracks where strategy is a big factor, particularly road courses and so forth. Steve, we lean into Steve and let him have the floor, let him speak, have a little more room to move. You could probably see some of that for me happening at Atlanta a couple weeks ago. We talked about that short track test. So what is that? We mentioned it last week on the show,

and I joked a little bit about how the future short track racing is on the shoulders of these testers. the drivers that are going to be doing this test. The test was supposed to be to Monday and today, but with the weather, they decided to change it to Richmond, and it would be rescheduled. I forget what day it is, but now I went and called,

I got with Jeff Burton's advice, I called each one of these drivers and said, hey, man, you're still going to do this test? Most of them, yes, one or two, no. And I told them, I was like, hey, y'all, you know, I'm confident in you. I believe in you. I think this is going to be a great opportunity for NASCAR. You've been picked and chosen for a reason.

And understand, you know, it is, it is, it carries a lot of responsibility. You're going to a test with a totally unique agenda. You're not going there for yourself. This isn't about you. This isn't about your team. This isn't about getting your car to turn in the middle. This is about trying to get NASCAR short track package to the next level, right? We love it at the mile and a half.

We loved it this past weekend. But when we go to Martinsville, we don't love it. All right. When we go to Richmond, we're not in love with it. And we want to be excited about it being able to, you want to have confidence that you could take that car to any short. track and it put on a hell of a show. And we don't have that right now. And so I told these guys,

I was like, man, you guys really are in control of the future in terms of what this car can do at a short track. So always be thinking about that. You know, and also it'd be good for all of those guys to get together and communicate with each other before they go. They have a test plan. They know the test plan.

NASCAR is sharing that with them. NASCAR is also showing them the pieces and parts that they plan to use and try at the test. understand what NASCAR is going to try to, you know, what that part and piece is going to try to achieve. And when that part and piece gets bolted on your car, understand what you're trying to feel from it, what you're trying to learn from it, what NASCAR wants to know from you. And it don't get competitive. Don't get out there and start looking at lap times.

Don't worry about your car not doing so good or not getting off the corner well. Just try to gather the data. You know, and always be thinking about what, this means to short track racing and the next gen. And so... Were you satisfied with their response? Oh, yeah. Good.

All of them are in the perfect frame of mind. They totally understand the mission. And there'll be some new names probably dropped into this test as a couple people can't make it for certain, for a reason, you know, for good reason. But yeah, it's a really important day. Now, the only problem that I'm concerned about is some of the changes that may be favorable, some of the parts and pieces that NASCAR has that end up doing what they hoped, right, might not be exactly what a manufacturer wants for their specific car.

If they feel like, hey, man, we really are in a, we feel like we got an advantage, and this part and piece takes that away, that's when it gets a little bit political, right? And the drivers need to try their hardest to not listen to that noise. and I know their manufacturers are going to be in their ear going, hey man, you know, we really don't want to have to change this or that about our car. So we don't love the idea of having this piece changed if that's something that they end up liking. It's so interesting to me all of the, it's a damn, it's a soap opera. It's a drama show.

Sure. That's why you test also. That's why you test. Do you think that the crew chiefs will be on board with this, you know, importance and priority. Like, drivers, I can see you guys getting together. Crewsies are the ones that get competitive. Oh, yeah.

Drivers get competitive to. I'm not saying they don't, but I'm saying is that... I know. That's going to be what makes or breaks the test, right? Is that everybody goes there with the right attitude and agenda, trying to just fix the short track package. Not trying to find speed, trying to fix their cars. NASCAR is always really good, too, when they go to these tests.

They may say, and they've done this before, we know y'all want to try some things on your own here is a two-hour window where you guys can you know mingle about and play you know just to get it out of your damn system right you've brought this xyz shock for whatever front-end package you want to try go ahead and then come back to us in an hour or two we're going to start working on our stuff and get back on the agenda and the test plans so man i know that um you know that's interesting me, I hope it goes well. I can't wait to hear the feedback from it and what the drivers liked and didn't like. One of the things that they're, one of the parts that I'm hearing about

that's really interesting is a new splitter that creates lift. And so basically it's going to, it's going to create lift for the lead car taking away down force and taking away grit. What may happen or should happen in theory is that it, as if you're, if you're, following a car with that splitter, the lift issue goes away. Right. Right. And so it's almost... It only implies to the lead car.

Yeah, it's almost... You've disadvantaged the lead car. That's the idea. And if you're following, it should not affect your cars badly, giving you the opportunity to, you know, hassle that car in front and pass. Very interesting. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see how it works.

Anyways, we talked about the bubble. last week. The bubble is still as tight as ever. I noticed you had to walk back something you were quite confident about. I know, yeah. So Chase Elliott, I was a firm believer that he could point his way in. But this past weekend, he didn't do anything to help himself gain on, he actually gained nothing. He was even. He left the race. He came in minus 60, left, minus 60. But with one race fewer, so there's six races left. Dude, it's now 10. He now needs just more than just over 10 points of race.

Right. That's tall order. Tall order. And so to consistently gain that average in six races, he'll, he's, I just don't see the performance. I know that they can, I know they're good. I know he's a champion. But I think even he has to feel like it's, it's, it's win or it's all or nothing, right?

Sure. So yeah, I have, I was a believer in Chase pointing his way in. I was the only maybe one, it was me and, and, uh, Marty Snyder. and the rest of the crew Burton, Lartin, all of them, they were all, man, he's got to win, he's got to win. They've been saying this for weeks. Well, they're now grinning and happy

because they've won out. When we look at the bubble battle, though, it's pretty interesting. Everybody from 14th on-up is pretty clear and healthy. Chris Busher, Brad Kislowski, Kevin Harvick. 15th bubble wallace is at plus two. Michael McDowell is. is at plus one. Daniel Swarres is at minus one. Then you got AJ Armadinger at minus 20. He lost seven

points to the bubble. Ty Gibbs at minus 41, lost 15. He's been struggling to gain on that bubble line. I thought he'd do a little bit better the last couple weeks. He's had some good speed. Bowman gained two, but he's at minus 42. I honestly feel like I, so now, yeah, Chase doesn't make it on points. That was one of my picks. I thought Bubba would do it. I thought Chase would do it. So now I got to regroup. I still put Bubba in at 15th, and I believe, I mean, in theory, Daniel Sauras should beat Michael McDowell. But I'm telling you, man, Michael had a pretty damn good performance this past weekend. Not only has a pretty good performance this past weekend, finished 13th, but also what a story, the fact that he's even in this race.

I mean, I am now not just going to throw the McDowell card and just throw it and say, oh, he won't make it at the end. Maybe he doesn't. But the fact of the matter is is that you can't discount that. And I think that now we're having to pay attention, really pay attention to him. And when we do, we see that, dude, this isn't really flukish. He's really overperforming in this car. No one had him as the 16th best team in the series. Nope.

But he is running well enough to do that. And you've got to give him a lot of credit. I still feel like if you put Michael, I always, I simple it down as easy as much as I can. For me, if I put Michael. McDowell and Daniel Suarez on a track in a one-on-one, I feel like Daniel beats him in most cases. Me too. The trouble is, is when you put another 38 cars on the racetrack or 35 cars on the racetrack, that's when it seems like it almost levels the playing field for Michael.

He can take care of a car. And his style of hard-headedness. He drives, you know, his driving style suits him. It's good for him, but it can't annoy. others which had annoyed Ryan Priest this past weekend. And we've seen it. Remember, Daniel and Michael were in a shoving match on Pitt Road at Phoenix a couple years back. So anyways, going to be interesting now that Chase is pretty much in a must-win.

It's going to be interesting watching that bubble battle. I love it. I think it's fascinating. No, these guys probably aren't going to win a championship this year. They're not going to factor into the final four, I don't believe. but the bubble battle still is just something fun to talk about it's important to them right it matters to them when you do not make the playoffs it is freaking embarrassing yes and especially when you don't and a teammate does even worse and there is no way that your team owner just mashes the reset

button in the off season and lets y'all go again he's changing something because there's no you know If you don't make a change, you're assuming that you're okay with it. So, yeah, if you miss the playoffs, you can expect things to be different about your program next season in some way or another. So crew cheese don't love that. Engineers don't love that. People, you know, people get a little bit nervous and apprehensive and anxious when they're watching this bubble battle. So anyways, we're going into polka this weekend. It's a great racetrack.

I'm going to be working on Friday at the Xfinity Series, practice and qualifying. I can't wait to see us get down there and see what we can do. So before we get into Ask Junior, before we get into Ask Junior, I wanted to, there's something that I saw last week, and I just was wondering if it's just me, does anyone else see this? All right. So I was looking at a yearbook of mine. Okay. Right.

And this was a couple months ago. And then just recently I saw somebody in my families, you know, got a senior or a freshman in high school and was looking at their yearbook. And I noticed this, I noticed this even way back when I was in military school and I was visiting the military school walking around and getting ready to go there. I was learning about the property, right? Wherever, what buildings were, what? And on the wall, they had the seniors from years ago, from like, you know, they had, in every, in every senior class in the military school, there's like this one dude that's like the highest rank, right? He's the biggest, he's the highest officer.

It's a student. So intimidating. And, but back in the 50s and 60s, man, these people looked like 35-year-old. Adults. Oh, yeah. Back in the day? Yes. Yeah.

And so when I, and you know, when I was in school, when I was a senior, I thought we looked like seniors should look, right? And now, when I look at seniors in of this, say, for example, seniors of 2020, they look like eighth graders. Yeah. What is going on? We're trending in this side where it's a linear trend, Mike, where a senior, a high school senior from 1950 looks like a 35-year-old today. Yes. Or a 30-year-old.

I agree with that. I'm maybe stretching it by five years. Guess what's changed? What has happened? You changed. Oh. You got older. What's going on?

Listen, this is true. I agree with you. Is that when you look back, like, you know, you look back at people back in the days, like in the 80s, man. Like when I think about people in the 80s when they were graduating high school, I'm like, my God, they were grown-ass men. They're like 25-year-olds. They had the mustaches and the beards and everything.

It's like, wow, God. It looked like they were going to be, you know, taking their family down to the picnic in their van or something. And they're in high school. Now they don't because we've gotten older. It's almost like, you know how when you look back at something, like a picture or something from the 90s, now it's starting to look a little older, right? Like you can't in the moment see the difference in technology and the crispness of the photos. But now when you look back and you're like, holy, was that in the 70s?

No, that was in 97 or something. I'm like, holy crap. But when we look at old racing photos from like 2003, they're starting to look a little classic. Yes, they're looking classic. Yeah. We're changing. I get that, man, but I'm telling you,

that specific phenomenon of looking at the, trying to age a high school senior out of a yearbook, I'm curious about it because it's curious to me because, like I say, You know, you would, if you pick a senior yearbook from any, go online, look for senior yearbook anywhere in the country, right, from the 50s. Those seniors are going to look like 30-year-old people. And when you look at anyone from like the 70s or 80s, they look like 25-year-olds, my age, I feel like looked or like they should look, right? Like 18. Your class was the only one that's normal.

Well, I think this is probably the case for anyone. So if you were, you know, if you were a senior in 1975, you probably would look at pictures and go, yeah, I feel like we look like 18-year-olds in these pictures. Yeah. So this is probably synonymous, this is probably consistent with anyone, no matter your grade, right? No matter your age, you feel like your class looked normal. Yeah, yeah. Where everybody else looks like Uncle Rico and even through the yearbook.

As we move forward, the seniors today, or even in recent years, look. younger than seniors. 100%. Like 10th graders or 8th graders. Go to a college campus like on a game day or something and you're like, wait a second, these are college students? Yes, yes, yes, yes. These are college

students? They look like they're in middle school. Yeah. I hate to say that because they're going to be pissed. Well, but you know, what is the phenomenon? Like Andrew Carlin is a good example. I was going to say that. I wasn't going to say that. I was thinking that. I wasn't going to

say it. Andrew, how old are you? I'm 21. You look 14. Come on, Mike. He does look about three or four years younger than 21. Easily. I still get like a...

Do you get carded? Oh, yeah. I was actually just at Luke Holmes this past weekend, and I swear she probably stared at my ID for 20 seconds. There's certainly something wrong here. This cannot be true. Kids are getting younger these days. Yeah.

Why is that, Andrew? What are y'all doing? Huh? What are y'all doing? What am I doing? No, what, yeah, speak on behalf of your generation. Oh, geez. Yeah, I don't know.

What is it? Healthier? Heltier. Not out of the side. I don't know, man. More like preservatives in the food and stuff. Yeah, it seems like it's less healthy today than it would have been 50 years ago. Like 50 years ago, man.

People are like eating real food. Now it's just all that. Now it's just like all these processed stuff. Yeah. Yeah. hey man i mean i'm not knocking it i'm eating the shit out of it too but i'm just saying like we shouldn't be looking younger we should be looking more haggard right some of us are oh yeah true oh all right well Andrew congratulations all you're deserving your youth keep that up bud oh man I wonder

if anyone else feels like this man I'll be curious to see what the feedback is anyhow let's get into smash junior they may look young but they don't know how to to click a link. Hey, we, uh, we click the button. Oh, yeah, we're live. We're live. All right. All right.

Hey, everybody. Um, you're tuning in on the, uh, the Dale Jr. Uh, you're tuning in on the dirty mo media YouTube page. Appreciate it. Uh, Andrew and the guys back there finally found the button to hit, hit and get us live. And, uh, we got some ass junior on deck. Andrew's been gathering all of your questions that you've been sending to at Xfinity racing on Twitter.

Uh, thank you, Xfinity for everything you do for us, but, uh, we got some good ones on deck. They've been great. They've been great this year. I don't know whether it's Andrew or what. And you guys obviously have to ask the questions. So let's get started. Yeah, and I'm glad we clicked the right button because Travis almost closed the entire YouTube browser out. But this first question coming from Michael, how much fun did you have running around with Larry or, aka Loudoun, the Lobster this weekend?

That was fun. You know, I never won a race at New Hampshire. Had some good races. Apparently, with Truex winning, it puts me back. into the lead of the person that's led the most laps without a win. I'm not sure if that statistic's real. But if you're not a winner-winner, like if you haven't won a race there, it's not a bad statistic.

It just says you ran up front quite a bit. I remember leading some laps there running pretty good. Let's go rewrite the bio, please. Repost that on. Yeah. We've got a new accolade. I know. Be proud about it.

I'd take anything I can get. Anyways, Larry, that's a great conversation. man, listen to this. I ain't falling for this. So this lobster, right? There's this weird equation for figuring out the age of a lobster. And it's like they're a weight times four plus three years somewhere. So this lobster is either anywhere between 60 and 70 years old, all right?

Wow. This lobster is anywhere from 60 and 70 years old. And I talked to the people that own the, restaurant where he is kept. And they have to find him. They have to go actively find this lobster. Right? They spend months looking for the one of size

that they can get and then go get him, bring him up to their tank. He lives in their tank till the race. He comes out. He rides around in a cooler. He comes out for the, for, you know, we had him in the TV booth. He goes to Victory Lane.

And then they cook him. Yeah. Then he gets cooked. The inevitable end of the lobster. What a good life, though. And so apparently one year, Kurt Bush won, and I think his first wife, insisted that it be released back into the sea, which apparently kills it immediately. So, or it doesn't last very long, right, in the sea after it's being raised in this habitat. But that it's right.

However, the guy is just telling me, he's like, man, she insisted. We were like, hey, it's not going to last a couple days. And they're like, anyways. So, and I heard that this giant lobster tastes the same as the little regular lobster, right? So on TV for Countdown to Green Sunday, we had the big guy in there and a regular lobster. And they're like, hey, man, it tastes the same. You'd think it might be different texture or whatever? You're like deer, the bigger the deer, the tougher the meat.

Okay. Yeah. I was happy to hear that it tastes the same. And so, anyways, my. My problem with all of this is that they insist on calling this lobster Loudon. Of all the problems you would have, that's the one? Well, it's horses. Okay, tell us why.

Because he's 60 years old. So he shouldn't be called Loudon? He was not name. I mean, was he... You want to call him by his original name? Yeah. What is that? I don't know.

I don't know, but he damn sure wasn't Loudon. Sixty years ago? Yeah. I mean, he's getting this loud. It's disrespectful. He's getting this Loudon. He's getting this Loudon name, what, in the last six months? Apparently the last 48 hours.

No, no. They went and found him. They're like, hey, man, guess what? We're taking it to New Hampshire. New name, bud. You've got a new name, man. It's Loudon, and it's not a good thing. Unfortunately, unfortunately for you, your end is near.

It's like renaming Grandpa at the wake. Like, you know. Yeah. You know what, Abe is not his name anymore. We're calling him Loudoun. If anybody ever tries to name you Louden, man, turn or run. Right. Go ahead and give your last right.

The end is near. So we're sitting up there and I'm like, they're like, yeah, man, we're getting ready to go on there. And they're like, his name's Loudon. I'm like, I ain't calling him Loudon. I'm like, his name's Larry or something. That's what I'm calling him. I make my own damn decisions. So you renamed him.

Yes. But probably not his original name. Didn't matter. Hypocrat. No. I wasn't going there. I wasn't going with the flow. What else?

This is when you know there was a rain delay, by the way. I'm going to tell you. It felt good not to call him loud on there. I felt good about yourself. I wasn't going with that. Anyways, did we answer the question? That was, it was fun. Dude, the thing, listen,

Brad Casaslasky says they're the bugs of the sea. I mean, I can see it when you get that up close to it. He's held one, so he should know. But, you know, usually you order lobster. You get to tell. It's already cooked. You don't have to look at the thing, right? And so I'm holding him, and they move so slow and deliberate, you know,

and it's this weird, weird thing. And down in his, like, you're holding him, right? And you're looking down in his face and all kinds of little things are moving around and carrying on. And you're like, this is a strange. just beast. Yeah. But anyhow, and I'm like, hey, we didn't plan this.

This wasn't like plan plan. We decided it on the spot. Burton and I were like, hey, man, they're coming to us at the very last segment. We did a half hour countdown to green at 2 o'clock on Sunday, even though there wasn't a race. We were doing a countdown to green anyways. In the last segment of the show, the last five minutes, they're going to come back to me and Burton. We're going to give a final thoughts about something, right?

And so I said, hey, Burton, I'm going to dip. I'm going to get the lobster and I'm going into their booth. So when they come to us, it'll be just you and you toss it back to them as I walk in. And I'm going to bring it in there, right? And see if any of them freak out. They don't freak out. But Latar is standing there and he's from Maine. He ate lobster all his life.

We won't eat it now because he's had so much when he was younger. He's holding his sick mite. And I'm like, I walk it in there. I'm like, hey, yeah, here. and the tart's like, yeah, I've got a sick mic. I'm not going to hold. I'm like, put the damn mic down.

I walked in here. We're on live television. Hold the freaking lobster. You're not getting away with this. And he's like, oh, yeah, puts the sick mic down. It's kind of funny. But it was fun.

And it's a really, really big animal. 22 pounds. And so, yeah. Somebody had it. There was a lot of, lobster rolls to be had, I guess, for Truex and his crew. There you go. Well, you damn sure answered the question and then something.

That was great. You know, the lobster being kind of an interesting marquee trophy for New Hampshire, this next question, is asking kind of about the trophies that you have. Obviously, you've got a lot of them. How many do you have in your house? And what are the ones that you have displayed? There's a couple one or two in here, and there's a lot upstairs at Junior Murder Sports all of my most popular driver awards are in this building on different pedestals around.

And I have a shop on my property that's full of trophies. Some are Ralph Earnhardt's trophies are in there as well. And in the house, the clock from Martinsville, the trophy from Bristol from 2004, both of my Xfinity Series championship trophies, Both of my Daytona 500 trophies. Chicago win is there. Michigan win is there. Atlanta win is there. And there's a few more.

Anyways, probably about a third of my cup wins and both of my Xfinity Series championship trophies are at the house. And so, yeah, that's it. That's a good lineup. Yeah, for sure. We got time for one more And this question's coming from Lane

You know, Truex is still He even said yesterday that he's not sure about returning in 2024 I text him last night I heard that he was gonna buy a fishing boat Yeah And somehow that's factoring into the decision Well he brought it in Oh yeah

So he said he He's been putting off buying this fishing boat for like five six years And he's like not good at making big decisions and so he finally, I think, is going to buy the fishing boat. But I guess the question was, what do you think he'll do, and what do you hope happens in 2024? I hope he races. Me and Trex, I consider us to be close pals.

And, man, I begged Rick Hendrick to hire him when he was between drivers. I can't remember if it was Mark Levin or Casey Levin. but there was a time when I had a hard time convincing Rick to change the route he was going down and also to understand just what kind of a driver Martin was. And that would have been pretty cool to see him go there, but he ends up going down this other route. And honestly, man, I think there's so much to be appreciated because Martin ends up, you know, Martin ends up in a bad situation with how the Michael Watcher thing falls apart.

He has to basically relegate down to a car and help that program that was in a bit of a rebuild, right? Kurt Bush had been a part of improving Furniture Row, and it was on the upswing when Martin got there. And Martin continued to take it to the next level. They went a championship with their association with Gibbs. Cole Pern has a massive role in the success in that team, which I wish Cole was still part of what was going on in our sport because he was not only incredible as a crew chief, but witty and fun, just a great personality,

who had a really unique perspective on the sport. But Truex, you know, kind of helped, I got to give him a lot of credit, man. He was in a crossroads where he could have mentally and emotionally torpedoed his career or turned the corner and went the right way and he goes the right way. It takes a lot of guts and mental toughness to do what he did to climb

out of that hole and become a champion. And now he's won 30-some races. Imagine if he had been in this type of situation his entire career. He's literally only done most of all this in the back half.

He's as good as he ever was. I hate to see him stop but at the same time man i mean if he's if he quits and goes and fishes every day uh off the in the gulf coast i that's a hell of a thing right yeah go out on top um i text him last night i said what boat because i've read about the boat and uh he sent me a picture of it and um it's beautiful you know it's just you know people would look at it and go yep that's a that's a fishing boat center console fishing boat. This ain't no yacht.

It ain't no cabin cruiser or nothing like that. It's just a center console, and he just wants to go fish. He loves it, and he's a sportsman, he's an outdoorsman. Massive in hunting and fishing loves to be in the outdoors every day. He fits a very, you know, he fits a very popular mold for NASCAR drivers, right? I think he's more of an outdoorsman than dad ever was. I think he's, you know, even though he's from New Jersey, he just sort of, he reminds me a lot of the old guard, you know, in the way they live there. They live their lives away from the racetrack.

He certainly isn't like married to his job every single day. He goes and does what he wants, fishes and carries on and travels. I don't know, I'm getting into the weeds here, but if we lost Martin, we'd be living. losing a really cool personality and a very unique person that's fun to pull for. I know that he's ruffled some feathers with some comments in the past about, you know, especially with Joe Ligano, he won the battle, but he won't win the war, and then they go to homestead and he loses the war to Joey. I know all that did some, you know, changed people's minds about Martin at some points,

and I could read that and social media and so forth. but dang man I mean man a few words when he speaks he genuinely has something to say that he that matters to him and he's a hell of a race car driver and so but if he wants to go fish go fish he's definitely earned it

and I don't know how much more he could do you know does he stick around and grind out a couple more years for a few more wins and even if he wins a championship this year I don't know if that keeps him around It'll be interesting to see what he does. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, it will.

We're all waiting, so we'll see. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. That's a good place to mark this ass junior. All right, so that's the show, man. It's a lot of fun coming in here. Thanks to Lionel for all these awesome die casts on the table. Thanks to Bojangles.

Mike, one last thing before we let everybody go. The ultimate experience is back this year. Tell us what we need to know. Oh, man. Listen, tickets are on sale right now at DirtymoMedia.com. The race is September 16th, Bristol Night Race. I don't know if there's a better race on the scale. schedule. It's fantastic. We pack a lot of value into this event and a lot of things for people to do.

We've got a lot of return customers already coming back. So tickets are on dirtymo Media.com. Go buy and join us. It's going to be fun. You know, who's coming up into the booth? Who's coming into the booth? Who's going to visit? You know what? I don't know yet. Do you want to invite? I will always entertain an invite. Well, I will send you an official invite right now. You got it. Invited. Okay. Invited. Yes. All right. So you got you got. You got. You got. You Got to buy a ticket to see if Dale Jr. takes us up on his invite. Yeah, I might come up and see you.

No, it would be fun. I will. You would be impressed by this crowd. This is a good group of people that love dirty moe media. Where's your suite? I don't know. We're still, still, it's in the track. Good.

They're all the way around. Yeah. Let me know where you are. I'll come see you. And don't forget, we got another episode of Becoming Earnhardt coming out this week as well as guest, Donnie Allison. It's going to come on and talk about not only that 19th, season, but a whole lot more.

We're excited to have Donnie in the studio this week. We'll see you. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.