The Dale Jr. Download - 476 - Handicapping The Road Course Ringers at Indy

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns from a rainy weekend in Michigan to join co-host Mike Davis for another episode of Dirty Air. With a star-studded NASCAR Cup race set for this coming weekend at the Indianapolis Road Course, the guys handicap the top ringers in the field, being Kamui Kobayashi, Shane Van Gisbergen, and Brodie Kostecki. They also recap Chris Buescher’s big win at Michigan and what it means for Roush-Fenway-Keselowski Racing and the rest of the Ford manufacturing roster. During the Ask Jr. segment, listeners sent in questions regarding: What traits Dale looks for in young drivers Should all tracks have lights? Ideal songs for personal entrance music Favorite Washington Commanders moments witnessed in person What movie do you wish you could rewatch for the first time? Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What do you think? Sitting in a look. I am weird. Yeah, you are weird. What? Mr. Dallan Hart Jr. That family techniques at times. Gives you more than just a potato salad.

That's the voice of my co-host. One of my best friends in the whole wide world. Mike Davis. We're screwed. What was that me? No, we're not standing in that box together in our underwear. Are you kidding me, Mike? Oh, my God.

That is a little. It's Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download here in the Bojangles studio with my co-host, Mike Davis. And it's Tuesday, August the 8th, 2000, 23. We're going to do a little dirty air and some Ash Jr. today. So excited about that. Coming off of a great weekend, I'll call it a great weekend in Michigan. Had a lot of rain.

Extended weekend. Extended, yeah. And that's not unusual for there. I remember sitting in the bus one year. It rained all day Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and I think we race Wednesday. And, man, I was so ticked off because I knew, like everyone else, that it was going to rain for three days, right? But NASCAR didn't send anybody home. They were like, yep, we're going to stick around.

Could happen tomorrow. Stay tuned. It was just annoying as hell. but we have so much more technology and a better process now that I think in today's times they would probably just say, hey, we're going to send you home. Yeah. But anyways, that's neither here nor there. We are finally home.

I am late. I got here a little late. Mike, sorry about that. No, it's no problem. You kind of look like an accountant. You got all your folders with you. You came with binders and stuff. Is that for something else?

Are you doing business today? I just brought some stuff out just to be able to do some good work today. I love that hat, by the way, random thought. Thank you, man. It's a bunch to pack into this show because there has a lot to say. First off, I want to thank Lionel for their support of the Dell Jr. download. Obviously, you know, we're big fans of Lionel, big fans of DiCast. And so I did get some news about the late model stock tool.

My car, they're going to make a couple different cars. I think they're doing a race win of Carson Quaple from North Wilson. Burrell, the first race back at Wilkesboro. He wins it, right? We run third. They're doing a race version of my car from that event and a race-to-win version of his car. I think they're doing a Landon Huffman, which is a high rock vodka, which we sponsor it. He won this past weekend.

Congratulations, Landon over at Hickory. That car now, I guess, is going to be available sometime in the winter. December? December. Are they going to make them in December? Production starts in December. Yeah, we're looking at Tiff. Tiff powers.

I've had the answers before the show started. Now we're locking up. Yeah, I have them. Yeah. Okay, regular production end of the year. And, hey, don't ask me why this process is a long one. But I just want to say, this has been a grassroots effort to get Lionel to create the new tool. All this started because Lionel,

made a version of the Sundrop late model stock car using an old exfinity tool, right? Everybody's like, oh man, this again. And so, I don't know about everybody, but you did. You were not impressed and you wanted to have the actual thing. And so you should, by the way.

Well, I was only reacting to what I saw from other people. Okay, all right. I'm reacting to what I'm hearing on, on, you know, where we get our information. Okay. All right. And so. Social media.

Yeah. I'm reacting to, to the, that and you know it's real people in their opinions and and so I'm like yeah I agree I wish they would create a tool this car is so you know this car is so unique and and it should have its own own tool and there's a resurgence in short track racing super late mile racing think about all the possibilities so I want to say all this to say thank you to Lionel I mean they could have said not it's not in the budget hey let me tell you lineale is not going to make a bunch of profit off of making this tool and selling these these these late

mile stock cars it's a small market they're not gonna make a ton of profit I may be crazy but I believe in my mind they're only doing this because we want it right nothing they're not doing it because it's gonna really help their bottom line they're doing it because we asked for it yeah that's a good company I think you're right by the way yeah thank you Lionel I appreciate you for listening I can't Wait, I've seen pictures of the tool, and I'll stop talking about it. So, anyways, moving on. We got SVG coming in later.

He's doing Thursday, right? Yep, he'll be our Thursday show. So I can't wait to talk to him and ask him about what his plans are. Hopefully, by Thursday, you know, he hasn't announced anything. But anyways, he's here. No telling the news just might come pouring out. He's in the state. We'll ask him that.

Are you planning to do any news because we'll roll this thing out? Don't break news. Don't freaking break news on top of us here. You're going to break it, break it right here at the table. We're going to ask him, though, man. I'm going to pry into his business. Yeah. I know he's figured out what he's doing.

See if he'll tell us or slip up a little bit. Plus, I'm really captivated by, you know, what this means for the supercar series. You're a fan of that series. You've always been kind of an advocate for them. They are some insane racing. You know, when he won Chicago, he goes back. and had a bit of a tiff with his team in the very next week. Yeah, like, you know, they had a little bit of a run-in

and they had to sort some things out, but they also just won this past weekend. So, yeah. So what do you mean, what does this mean for other drivers in that series? That, what does it mean for the series? Like, if he, in fact, comes over here to NASCAR full-time, what does that mean for the supercar, I wonder? Well, this weekend at Indy, there's a couple other drivers that are going to run.

Yeah, that Brody Kostecki's running at RCO. So, listen, Brody, Brody. came over to the states. This guy, everybody needs to tune in to him a little bit. SVG is going to be awesome. We're excited he's coming back. He's going to be on our show Thursday. But I don't want that to overshadow

Brody because his story's really unique and I've been paying attention to it because he's also connected really closely to our friend Paul Morris. Right. He was an instructor and a student at Paul's driving school. Paul has a driving school. You can go

over there anyone can show up drives drive v8 supercars around his class his his his course um and it's in it's norwell is the is the name of the course let me make sure i'm saying all this correctly so uh look that up um norwell is the course in um in australia and it's a driving school they got a track and cars and everything and anybody can go over there and be a part of that and i took when i went to australia back in 2006 i took all of my buddies and we drove cars all day long and we race. You want to know who was fast, Mike? T.J. of course, he was decent.

He's a good little racer. Hovis. What? Yes. David Hovis. PR. Extraordinary. Pitsky racing. PR guy.

David was quick. Really quick. And so, you know, anyway, Brody, somehow, he was on this sort of path in Australia to get the supercar eventually. But he's basically, you know, in the grassroots level working his way up. he gets an opportunity to come stay over here and race late model stocks and maybe some k-and-in stuff i'm not 100% sure exactly everything he did but he was here for a brief period of time trying to

maybe break into stock car racing so this is not like his first trip here to race a stock car um that was sort of a thing that he wanted to try to accomplish years ago it didn't work out he went back home uh went back to work with paul and through his connections with paul and everything else going on, and his success on the track, he's now on the V8 supercars. And very successful there. Yeah. All the while, secretly, until recently this news comes out,

he's been helping RCR on their road course stuff. He's been driving Sim and several other things to help RCR on with the next gen car, because the next gen and the supercar are so close. There's some similarities. Very, very clever RCR. Yeah. Very clever. Yeah.

If I was another cup team, I'd be like, hey, let me scour the V8 supercar garage for a driver that can help us with Sim and find out what we can do to make our cars better here in the United States because the cars are so similar. Brodies get through Brody's hard work and efforts and the impression he's left at RCR. Now he's got this opportunity to come race at Indy this weekend. Is Norrell the correct? Yeah, Norwell Motorplex. All right. So if you're in Australia and you want to go have some fun, Norrell Motorplex. Go see Paul Morris and our friends there.

They will hook you up. You'll have the best day ever. If you want fun, just go find Paul Morris wherever he is. You can get him. If you get him at the Norwell Motorplex. If you just go to lunch with Paul's a great time. Yeah, it'll be a memory. And then Kobayashi, right?

What's his name? Kobayashi, the, uh, yeah. He's racing. Who is he racing for? 2311 and that's 67. Yeah. Oh, that's right. That's right.

I'm going to butcher's name, but it's kind of. Kymu Kmu. Kmu. K-A-M-A-M-U-I. K-A-M-U-I. K-A-M-U-I. K-A-N-U-I. Yeah, it's Kobaychi. I was right. Yeah, yeah. So, Jesus. High probability we butchered that thing all the way through. I just love just how on it these guys are back there in that book. They got so much shit in front of them screens and Google search and just every tool in the book, man, and they just crack it out.

Well, I had forgotten about that, but 2311 didn't make that announcement. They did. You're right. Every time I lean on y'all, man, I'm fucking nervous. I'm going to tell you. Hey, I'm glad you all are the punching back today. I love it. Two shows in a row. Yeah, let's do this.

You were asking for his first name, right? No, just any help. Oh. I didn't know if I was talking about the fiends, the hot dogs or what. Joey Chestnut's driving for somebody this weekend, too, isn't he? Kovashi has, we've seen him be just ridiculous in Emsa at 24 hours of Daytona.

And every car that he drives in is like, he lights out faster and everybody else. And it's, yes, it's a bit talked about, but it's also, I've been on those broadcasts. And there's sort of this unspoken, like, okay, yeah, this guy's way better than everyone else. We don't really die, you know, you aren't going to dive into that during the broadcast

because you don't want to put the rest. Yeah, put the rest of the guys down. But he's just so damn quick every time he gets in a car. And he was bad. Every time he was racing for Wayne Taylor, he was like, okay, he's going to be a second faster and everybody on the track. And so apparently I'm hearing rumors that the testing that they did with him, he was insane.

Insane. So, Kobayashi, SVG, Brody, I how do we let's handicap these guys let's do it all right so or should we wait with SVG now let's do it now why we can't do that in front of him let's hey again you're number three all right well I'd be honest with you we had this conversation last week and we were trying to figure out what expectations you have with SVG you said if he doesn't come out of this thing with the top five it's a disappointment what about Brody well let's do that let's let's cat let's let's handicap on the three yeah so I'm going to put Kobayashi at the top.

Wow. Yeah. Wow. I heard his test was insane. Okay. At the top, are you saying he'll contend for the win? Of course. And do you think he will win?

He could. So you're top, let's just say top five for him. I don't see how this is like such a crazy statement. No, I'm just confirming. I'm just making sure I'm clear on exactly what you're saying. I want to talk about the three drivers. Yep. Top fives, not wins.

Who out of the three? That's what we're doing. Yeah. I think Kobayashi's at the top. SVG and then Brody. Okay. And I'm saying that not just on talent, I'm talking about maybe car and speed.

Honestly, I think that, you know, the Toyota's in 2311 and their connection, if you just line the cars up and put the same driver in all three, right, RCR, which is Brody, 2311, which is Kobayashi, and then trackhouse, which is SVG. I think 2311 is going to have a little bit quicker

car than trackhouse. Trackhouse will be just a little quicker than the third RCR car. And so that's how I would categorize the cars. Then you throw the drivers in there, and I think Kobayashi, with his speed and talent. Now, SVG has the experience of Chicago and will probably be less mistake prone, like I'm talking about sliding a tire into a barrier or making a mistake, you know, breaking the transmission or whatever. he's ran the car long enough to have muscle memory and everything and understand the grip of the tires and all that. But when it comes down to it at the end of the race, I think Khabiyoshi will have enough information by that point to make some great laps.

Indy's a technical kind of track, weird corners, a lot of little bottlenecks and places where road course talent and road course ability. can excel. You know, like at Watkins Glen, I could run good there. Yeah, you did. Yeah, but I wasn't a road course guy, but it's like, it's like, turn straight away, turn straight away, turn straight away, at the Glenn, you're like, yeah, I can put one corner together, piece of cake. But if you put like five, a series of five corners, right, where if you mess up one of those, all of them are bad. That's the way Sonoma was. Like, if you mess up in turn one, it screws up three, four, five, you know, and so that's where the road course experts shine because they don't make mistakes. Yeah.

And so. There's less forgiveness around the track. The track is less forgiving, so you mess up. I just really think people ought to be paying attention to Kobayashi. I can't wait to see him in the laps that he can make. I think it would be, I expect him to be great. SVG is going to be awesome. Brody could surprise us, but I'll be,

I don't know if he'll have the paces that the other two have. He'll be right there. It'd be interesting. Can they finish in the top 10 easily, all of them? Can they all finish in the top five? Brody's right on that fence for me. Brody's right. Brody's not cool.

I don't know. That's took me tough. I can't ever remember a time when we were so excited to see how the ringers were going to do. I mean, like we've had ringers forever, right? Like they come in and come out. You know, some were better than others, but, like, you know, SVG sort of recalibrated the game, and now we got these other guys. I mean, there's excitement about it.

Yeah, you're right, Mike. 20 years ago, we'd have somebody come in, even Boris said, would get in a back marker and run top five. Yep. So, you know, Ron Fellows would drive an average car into the top five or battle for the win, Marcus Ambrose, even. But now, I mean, you know, You know, we have way more road courses on Xfinities, and all the drivers that are coming up through are getting much more experience on road courses.

There's more road courses on the cup schedule now. All of these people in all of our drivers are, you know, over at GoPro running laps all week long, just doing everything they can to get better at road courses. It's starting to show. And so when the ringers would come, they were normal. They were average. They were marginalized, right, when they would come race with us. They weren't ringers anymore. And up until SVG dominated Chicago, no one felt like there was a big threat from the outside, right, when somebody would come.

We'd seen Project 91 put, you know, put F1 drivers and all kinds of, you know, we've had these drivers come race with us already just last year. And they, nothing, you know, it wasn't, they were in a threat, right? But that was at Watkins Glen, that was at race tracks that all of our guys have raced at. Right. You know, so now we're going to Indy. I think our drivers will put up a better fight than they did at Chicago. Chicago, everybody was sort of with the weather and the weirdness of the surface of the track. And it was all unpredictable and the drivers raced timidly where SVG had nothing to lose.

And we're acting like Indy Roadcourse is this track we've been going to for years, but it's still relatively new if you really think about it. Yeah, but I think there's enough experience there. their guys won't, they'll go in there with more confidence than they did at Chicago. Here's what I wonder, though, do they like it? Do they like running the Indy Road course? And the reason I ask that is because it's a whole other conversation. It is another conversation, but the thing is that I remember you in road courses and you were just such a, you were so defeated before you even got there because you hated him. And so it made me realize that it's such a mental game.

Like the mental game is really important on these road courses, and you have to embrace it. And I wonder if they embrace it. You got these guys that come in like these three from, you know, overseas, and they're going to come in there. They're going to love it. And I wonder how generally our drivers, you know, approach the Indy Roadcourse. Last year, it was a cluster. And they all, everybody had nothing but bad things to say, right?

Well, yeah. I mean, the indie road course is a really fun track except for term one. But that's the same problem they have at Austin. and that's another degree, but not as much. I got you. The turn isn't as sharp, but they certainly run off the course there too.

Yeah. I mean, that's just a whole other conversation. And honestly, listening to Denny Hamlin and others, we may be going back to the Oval anyway. So this is. I think we are. Yeah.

Well, I can't wait. I'm so excited about Indy Roadport this weekend. It'd be fun. And IRP Friday night. You know, SBG, going to run IRP. In the trucks. In the trucks. That's right.

Yeah. Good point. I mean, that's a bullring. That is a place where I don't envy any young rookie or inexperienced rookie. I don't envy anybody. No. Because, I mean, that place, yeah, that's a long conversation. It'll chew you up and spit you out.

Yeah. So it's a lot of beating and banging and weird lines and tough to pass. Just a hard little track. But anyways, let's move on. Michigan this weekend we had a lot of rain and unfortunately man we had a really really big crowd on Sunday that did not get to see

what we did on Monday a lot of people had to leave but uncharacteristically we had a lot of cautions before we got done on Sunday we had two or three potential winners that crashed out of the race Chase Elliott blows a tire and makes you know puts himself in a more difficult

situation points-wise and um josh berry wrecked out uh driving the 42 i just keep my eye on josh and thought he was doing pretty good they sacked they stayed out um on on that restart they stayed out and didn't pit and a lot of people come in and pit it put him up mid-pack and so he was kind of i was sitting there thinking man i don't i would have pit with everyone else i would have played this really conservative with Josh. But anyways, as drivers were trying to come up through there on new tires, he got some bad air and spun out. But anyways, so that was kind of disappointing.

Anyways, it was not the typical Michigan race. That's all I'd say about it. We had a lot of crashes, a lot of cautions. People just busting their ass. Yeah. Good racing. And came down to a pretty interesting little battle at the end. Truex trying to get by the 17.

had a much faster car. Trix was lights out all day long. But Chris Busher and his team pulled a great strategy to get them the track position. Reddick was going to win the race. He cycles in front of the 17 under the Green Flag pit stops at the end.

Had the wheel come off. So literally, you know, he was really angry and he should be. I mean, they would have won the race. I believe they would have won the race. Had that not happened. So just it was fun. It shook up the points a little bit

for the bubble battle and Gibbs is now you know minus three to McDow it's plus three or sorry

Gibbs is plus three this is all confusing as hell so Gibbs is now in the Gibbs is now in I thought he was Gibbs is in the 16th position ahead of McDowell

sores made some big gains this past weekend I didn't think he would run that good but they they did a good job he did a good job and close the gap

and now he's minus five to the bubble. Bubble Wallace put a little bit more points on the cushion that he has in 15th place, now plus 58. McDowell's still right there at the top of the bubble at minus three. Almonddinger's kind of hovering,

no change for him pretty much. Not a lot of change for Bowman. Cendrick and Elliot are pretty much got to win. So that's been a lot of fun to watch. and Gibbs has clawed his way into this thing over the last several weeks with really fast race cars. He's not making mistakes, not crashing out.

And I think Ty Gibbs and Bubba Wallace are probably the ones that are going to make their way into the playoffs unless somehow Chase Elliott can win. AJ Almadinger, you know, pretty good at the road courses, but I just don't think that that team in the cars that AJ's driving and have the speed

so we'll see and you got bowman i mean you got detona so i mean yeah anything can happen there 48 or the two he won at Daytona that's true so i mean anything can it'll be so fun it'll be fun i mean these three races left two road courses in detona good god this thing could just flip upside down anyway anytime right yeah we're we're obviously um chris busher went in two races in a row for for um rfk RFK now has at least seated themselves as one of the top Ford teams. I'm really enjoying this, you know, this sort of battle among the Ford teams, right? There's been this sort of churned up sediment about, you know, Ford trying to get better, trying to get more wins, trying to run up front, but that was always expected to be a Penske car.

You know, when Ford was going to turn it around, it was going to be a Penske car that was going to be up front doing that. Not anymore. And so I am enjoying this sort of battle competitive, sort of friendly rivalry to claim the top spot in the Ford ranks. Absolutely. And I think RFK has Penske on their heels. They work together.

They have to, Ford, all the manufacturers have to work together, the teams do support each other, but one absolutely wants to be the darling. There's always the darling. Every manufacturer has one. Yes. We all know it. Because, you know, inadvertently or even on paper, that team can expect and will get more support, whether it's financially, engineering, resources, whatever.

When you're in the back pocket of that manufacturer, and you're their favorite child, you definitely do get treated a little bit differently. And it trickles down. Now, you can ask the smaller teams, how their support compares, and they'll tell you, it's not as much. And so, you know, there's a real,

you know, there's a real hustle going on between, I think, Penske and RFK to establish one over the other. Which is insane because we're not even a year removed from Lugano winning the freaking championship. I know. And yet, RFK has just come out of the ceiling tiles. And they're literally, I think they're the best four team. They're also the most consistent. You know, you may have Penske.

Ligano here will, you know, Harvick over there at Stuart Haas. But Brad and Christopher Boucher are both running well. Boucher. Yeah. I agree with you. In the last four weeks, they are the best forward team. you might take statistics and show me that they've been there for longer than that. I'm going off of my gut and what I feel in the industry.

I think that, you know, Roger Penske is always going to be Roger Penske. Nothing's going to change that. They're always going to have this sort of, you know, this elite status in their relationship with any manufacturer they work with. but you know our Fords you know RFK is making Ford putting forward on notice and saying hey man

we're a great team if you you know and you're helping us this amount if you increase that support think about what we can accomplish right and Ford's got to go that's exciting yes we can give you those resources those resources have to come from somewhere and so that's

pretty interesting and I think that you know going forward you know can the thing The thing for me is can RFK keep it up? And it looks like they've been running good on any kind of race track. It's not just a specific type of track.

So we'll see. It's going to be interesting. We'll keep an eye on them. Chris Busher, he's no slouch to road courses either. No. He's had some good runs. No. And some of the road courses.

Right, right. And in the Super Speedway. Right. Hand and Brad, both. You know, it's interesting. A lot of people are trying to recalibrate what they're thinking about Bush's chances in the playoffs. Like, you know, before you probably don't even have him coming out of the round of 16.

Now you certainly think he's a favorite. Could he make your top eight? Could he even go top four? I'm sitting there going, hey, don't go shake off Brad. Brad with the experience. He's a champion. They're running just as well. He could have also won these races.

You know, they had the pit stop problem at Richmond. Led the most laps. But Brad, man, it's kind of like, listen, not to compare this to the Denny Hamlin Brackett challenge, but Brad kind of just quietly just kind of eases up on through their next thing, you know, he's sitting there in the final. finals. Brad, I'm telling you, man, you've got to start thinking about what he could do in this playoff. Yeah. I'm also, there's two things there. So I'm thankful that Brad saw what he saw in Chris to keep him, right? And I don't know that Chris, Chris's role at the organization

was ever in doubt. But look, man, you know, Brad's coming in. He's like, hey, we're going to change the culture we're painting it we're cleaning this place up we're going to paint the floors we're going to get rid of all this used crap that we're never going to use again he really went in there and made some big moves and you know just like a just like a new head coach or a new GM for a team they come in they get rid of all the people they want their people right and brad bald brad could have you know he had a he did he had an influence on all things even chris Busher, right? Luckily for Chris and

smart for Brad, Brad saw something that he thought was worth hanging on to. And that has really paid off. He's got a teammate that is quality that is performing and instead of Brad jumping in the cars and Brad

taking the team to the top, they've rose together equally. I mean, literally, they've had, outside of the two wins for Chris, they've had kind of the mirror seasons between the two cars. That's what amazing. When you talk about what can Chris Busher do in the playoffs, I think it will be somewhat similar

to what I experienced this weekend in qualifying. He goes out there and puts down a top 10 lap and goes into the next round. Everybody's watching Chris Busher after the win in Richmond. Are they going to relegate themselves back to a 10th place team, eighth place team, where

they're going to do here. This is where horsepower, handling, everything comes into play. Every part has to be working. And so this show you, Michigan shows you what teams have it all, right? And he goes out there and puts down a hell of a lap and qualifying. I'm thinking, I think this is basically going to be how it goes in the playoffs. He's going to, he might not make it to the final four.

He could, but he's going to surprise us, I think, with how far they go. Yeah. Him and Brad. Yeah, I agree. I agree completely. They have, you know, think about the teams that are in front of them in terms of the regular season points and the playoff structure. those teams that are from fifth to tenth got to be nervous.

Yeah. That they could legitimately take their spot going forward. Anyways, that's a lot of fun. Martin Trex Jr. is going to return to the Cup Series. I felt pretty confident that he wasn't going to retire at the end of the year. And I felt also that him returning, not only does he want to keep racing, I mean, guys having fun, he's got fast cars. course he doesn't want to stop doing that.

Making great money, all those things. But his brother, right, wins an Xfinity race at Dover, racing for Joe Gibbs, and I think Martin, in a way, was able to leverage helping his brother get more opportunities, deservedly so,

in the Xfinity series with Joe Gibbs. So we'll see how all that pans out. I've not heard any definitive information about that, but, you know, anyways. But that's a good point because there's John Hunter Nemechek sitting there in the Xfinity series. You have to assume that they're going to try to get him in Cup. Truex staying takes off one potential ride there that he would have brought him up. I know that there's rumors that, you know, Noah's on the hot seat over there because they're going to go,

legacy's going to Toyota. Does John Hunter come into that seat? You know, there's a lot of things there. And, you know, you just introduce another one with Ryan Truex. What do you, you know, do you get him the opportunities in that Xfinity car? I just say, you know, if Ryan, you know, just got a handful of races this year, I think, you know, he'll just get, he'll get another handful next year, maybe more, right? 10, 12 races. Could, who knows, right?

I don't really, I think that if Martin, if I know Martin, that he's, he's like, hey, yeah, I'd love to come back. Cars are good, everything's good. Hey, can, can my brother run a few more extended races? He won your race. I think he, you know, I think his brother's at a point in his life and his, he's maturing and, you know, he's sort of peaking in his real true ability as a race car driver. He's not getting a lot of, you know, laps on the racetrack for his career to continue. He's got to get out there, right?

Yeah. And I think Martin's like, on my way out, right? I'm going to do, I'm going to do this. It's a very true X thing to do in it. Yes. It's very Martinish. Yeah. Some of our listeners might not know this, but our friends at Lionel Racing, the official diecast of NASCAR,

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is to follow Lionel Racing on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You'll find out everything you need to know there, and be sure to also visit lionelauthentics.com. Start that collection now or add to the one you already got. So the Hall of Fame has announced their inductees for the new class. Jimmy Johnson, Chackenhouse, Donnie Allison. We're excited for Donnie. Donnie was, you know, I'm going to be honest with you, man.

I didn't think Donnie was going to win. Did you? No, I didn't. Right. But I wondered if we made a compelling case on this. the show. Listen, there's an argument, and you're not, I know, you're not, you're going to say, give me a break. I got it. That's what you play that role. You're a humble Harry here, okay? But Kirk Shelmerdine didn't have a chance and then he came on the show and I think we got him in.

No way. Listen, I'm not the only one. Listen, Donnie Allison presented a compelling case when he was on our show and I do think that that helped him. Maybe he was already going in, but you didn't think he was going in and this, and certainly in this class. You thought Donnie was going in? No, I didn't either. I didn't either. But I thought he made a compelling case and it made people want to vote him in. Listen, I will promise you that what happens on this show does not influence the panel.

You're wrong. They don't give any crap that panel. I'm sorry, I think you're wrong. I think that they, I think that all the people on that panel probably saw that. I think, listen, if anything else it puts him in their mind, It gets him a little bit higher running order in their brain. Okay. You know, because a lot of that stuff is out of sight out of mind.

You know, you get this big old list of candidates. What is it? 20, 25 people. But Donnie was sort of in the forefront of everyone's mind. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So anyways, Donnie makes it.

That's awesome. Congratulations to Donnie. I was thrilled that we had him on the show and now even more happy because of his Hall of Fame induction. And Jimmy Johnson, Chackenhouse going in together. I thought that was great. A lot of people were, you know, saying beforehand that they maybe shouldn't go in together because one over, you know, then Chad's going to get overshadowed by Jimmy and this and

the other. And everybody's worried about that. I'm like, they've been together their whole careers. That's the way to do it. They're really over, they don't worry about being overshadowed by one or the other. I think it more overshadows one if they don't go in over the other. I mean, like, come on. Just put them in at the same time.

Jimmy was not unanimous. a lot of people bothered by that. I was too at first, and then I thought, man, 93% or whatever his vote percent was was really awesome. You take it. Hell, yeah, everybody in the world should be happy about that. Getting that many votes, right?

And then when I found out that it's not been unanimous ever for any driver, David Pearson, Jeff Gordon, then I was less outraged. Well, then you'd also, if it's ever, you'd have to also say your dad and Richard Petty. I mean, God, who would not vote them? I'm going to tell you something. You win seven championships. You better get every dang vote.

Everybody better vote for you. I'm sorry. I don't care. 93%. Great approval rating. I like it. All right. We would take it.

But Jimmy Johnson. Dude, I can make this argument. All right, make it. The reason why De Lerlernhard wasn't unanimous? Why? How? David. Carl Yarborough.

Your dad's... Darrell Walter, Bobby Allison. Your dad's more than that, though. To me and you? Listen, buddy. The statistics say so. No? Yes.

Look, where is he on the wins list? Where's he on the championships list? You know where he is on the wins list? I think he's like eighth. Championships, man. All right. Hey, he won seven championships. I give it to you, man.

I'm just saying it's like... Jeff Gordon wasn't available or wasn't able to be able to be voted for back then. He was still racing. But I guess when you walk out of this building, Mike, we got to realize that there's some people that think David Pearson was the greatest NASCAR driver ever.

There's some people that think Cali Yarborough was the greatest ever. There's some people... Cali Yarborough won three in a row. Before Jimmy won his five in a row, that three in a row was pretty damn amazing. Yeah. I don't discount that. And so Richard Petty's going to get some votes. you've got to think about Bill France, senior, junior.

There's just so many names for that first class that I absolutely can understand Dad not making it on a couple ballots. Yeah, I can't. But all right. I mean, come on, man. That doesn't bother me. I think, man, I know, but 93%.

If you're going to make those things public, then it's open for us. Yes. 100%. We can debate it and we can agree with it or we don't disagree with it. If that's a problem to have an opinion about it, don't make it public.

Yeah, I guess that's a good point. I was outraged, man. I was right there with you for about four hours and I got over it. Four hours? I'm still trying to get over it. Jimmy Johnson needs to them all. Jimmy's fine. But I am beyond ecstatic about Donnie.

Donnie Allison. I love that. I love it. In fact, I would even say becoming Earnhardt might have had a little influence in that. So there was one thing that. got to thinking about this weekend this is look I'm going to throw this idea out there and before we go into ask junior crazy idea so there's a new TV contract coming there's a new agreement with the RTA over the charters with NASCAR there's a bunch of stuff churning up and there's you know

there's 36 charters right there's literally that's means there's basically 36 maybe 37 cars at the racetrack. And so, you know, we used to have 40, 43. We used to have fields of 43 cars. There were two, you know, a couple of provisionals and a champions provisional. And if you, you know, if we, you know, lap traffic and all of those things create passing opportunities, create drama, all of the lap traffic at the end of the race that Michigan was exactly the result of the racing that we saw between TrueX and the 17 of

Busher. If Busher doesn't have lap traffic, TrueX probably never gets close enough. The lap traffic that hindered Bushers, what created opportunities for TrueX. So we throw four, if we threw four more cars out on the racetrack, right? I see where you're going. I see where you're going on. I think it would almost bring the average cautions per race up from anywhere from point five, a half of caution to a full caution.

So you're adding more yellows and restarts and all kinds of things. So it got me thinking, all right. As hard as it is for a team like ours to get out of the Xfinity series into the Cups series, I would challenge like NASCAR, Denny Hamlin, other people in the industry that understand the charter system and really what they are trying to achieve, what the RTA wants, what an owner like Denny Hamlin wants,

what NASCAR really wants, everybody wants something a little different out of this agreement, right? What I think would be really cool is to find a way to be able to relegate and delegate, you know, teams up and down. So you could, you know,

if you're an X, Fennity team and you achieve X, Y, and Z, you have an opportunity to race in the Cup series. You will not own, you will not automatically be gifted. at a charter. Right? I'm not saying, hey man, hand junior motorsports a charter.

That's not what's happening here. What I'm trying to say is, is there a way for there to be the ability to move up or be sent, you know, or, you know, be sent back down? The 36 teams that currently own charters would never be relegated to the extent. They're not going to do that. Their business model is made for cup and they own, they own a charter and they're, They're locked in. But there would be maybe two charters that NASCAR possessed,

NASCAR controlled, that were opportunities for an extended team that succeeded. They would then be able to utilize one of those NASCAR owned or controlled charters and be able to race in the Cup Series if they put a deal together. outside of the teams that are already in the Xfinity series, think about how interesting this may be for 2311 or track house to be able to, instead of having to go out and spend $30 million to obtain a third charter, they could fund an Xfinity program and go out

and probably for a little bit, you know, quite a bit less, acquire the opportunity to run a chartered car, a third chartered car in the Cup Series, by competing in the Xfinity Series. And the distinction would be to be able to take in and make the money, take in the earnings that a charter team brings. Because otherwise, without that, the opportunity sort of already exists, doesn't it? I mean, anybody can go field a cup car,

enter it, qualify the car, make the race. You're saying, though, you don't own the charter, but there's these, we'll call them quote-unquote provisional charters. maybe two, where a successful Xfinity team can go up there and honestly, like, you know, eat at the buffet table with the other charter teams. Or think about it like this. Maybe the team that acquires this provisional charter has no interest in going cup racing. That's their business model.

Yeah, they just want to go up there and play. That team then can lease this charter they've earned. to a 2311, to a track house, then, and it could be a fixed number. Say, hey, man, all right, say you've got an Xfinity team, Mike. You go out there and you run well enough to check all the boxes to get one of these provisional charters, right? You're like, hey, man, I've been wanting to race in the cup for so long. The reason why I haven't done it is because I wouldn't be making, I don't have a charter.

I wouldn't be making the funds. You can't make business sense of it. Can't make businesses of it. Now you can. So you call up your partners. You got your driver. You get an alliance with a team for some cars and engines, and you're on your way.

You're racing in the Cup Series. All right. Or you think, you know what? I don't want to move into the Cup Series. I'm not ready or things aren't aligned or doesn't make good business sense for me to move up to the Cup Series. But you still have. have the rights to to lease or sell or transfer that charter that that charter that's yours for a year right

you have the opportunity to to to lease that to a team that wants it for a fixed for a price it's already determined so either way you're going to get some money right i don't know that's the part you lost me because if you don't own that charter you can't lease it NASCAR owns the charter i know but but you're saying there's some sort of transfer of, you know, it's almost kind of, yeah, keep going. I'm just saying, so if you don't choose to take advantage of it, do you not want a monetary, you know, somebody else is going to use it? Do you not want a couple million bucks for that?

Of course, I just think that that was a cool idea up until the part, I think that we would go screw that up. People would start making the political thing. You know, the big team owners would start finding loopholes. into that system, but if you back up just one second, it sounds sort of like, you know how LaMah had that garage 56 entry? It was this kind of like special entry where you had to qualify, you had to get approved for it.

But there is a list of qualifications or checklist, if you will, that you could go take that one. And if you get that one, you get to race at LaMah, you're not going to get the trophy. You're not, I don't know that you even get to sit on the, maybe you do. I can't remember if you can sit on the podium, you finish well enough.

But the fact is, is that you get to take in all that comes with the Lamar race with this one provisional spot, right? Similar to that or no? I think it's kind of like soccer where teams kind of move up and down. What I'm trying to find a way to do, right, is make the Xfinity series have more substance and meaning. And the future of the Xfinity series would have a long. term objective.

Yeah. Right. And so this would also maybe create more teams in the Cup series getting back down involved in the Xfinity series to be able to go after these provisional charters. I think you're right. And if the provisional charters could not be traded or exchanged for something, then I don't know that that would make a lot of sense. So look, there's 99 reasons why this shouldn't be done.

there's one reason that makes sense. Yeah, you're not saying it's perfect. You're not saying it doesn't have issues that work through. But in theory, that is a hell of an idea. You're trying to add value to the Xfinity Series and give people a reason to go put. You're honestly giving it business revenue purpose in the Xfinity series

and also opportunity for the Cup series to be able to go grow new talent and grow race teams in the Xfinity. I think it's actually pretty interesting. It's a compelling idea. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I would, I told, I told a friend of mine that works in the industry, I said, listen, I said, I want you to try to, I'm going to hand you this challenge, right?

Make this work, right? Figure out a way to, I don't want you to come back to me and say, can't, can't do it. There's no way you can do it. This would never work. Don't do that. I want, and this is for Denny because he's going to shoot a million holes in it. Denny. The challenge for you is to not tell me why it can't happen.

The challenge is for you to put a system together just similar to this that would work. Right. We can tell you why it wouldn't work, but we don't need you to do that. We need you to tell us how it could work. But that's a good point. Listen, Denny will make the argument. He did at this table last year where he said, you know, it would be in everyone's best interest to have Dale Earnhardt Jr.

having a team in the Cup series. But then he's also a charter member, you know, holds several charters, and they don't want to dilute the value of their own charter. A provisional charter system, it's even compelling for people like Hendrick Motorsports that have reached their cap of teams. So they've got four teams. You can't have five cup teams. But what if you could have an affiliation with the Junior Motorsports or something

where Junior Motorsports wins a, let's say if it goes to the Xfinity Series champion? Yeah. I don't know. I think that it would have to be done to Denny's point and everybody else that owns a charter. It has to be done to where it absolutely does not affect the value of those. And so these charters would have to be controlled either by the RTA, which I'd be fine with. The RTA, in general, the RTA themselves control the charter or NASCAR controls it, whatever. It belongs to an entity.

and they would always sort of live in this sort of provisional land, right? Like, I like that word. I don't know. And it ain't a way, look, I want, you know, for junior motor sports, for us to get in the Cup Series, I want us to be able to own charters, control them, all those things. I don't even know if this, you know, I don't even know if we want to go Cup racing. You know, that's not what this is about. I'm just trying, we're in a situation where basically if the deal that NASCAR gives the teams

allows the teams to succeed on less sponsorship dollars, their sponsorship dollars are probably, you know, 70 to 80% of what allows them to go compete, right? If NASCAR can move that percentage down to where what the team's, needs to bring in is only about you know 50 or 60% of their operating cost does that make sense to you Mike it makes sense to me keep going

all right so if what no no keep going so if NASCAR says hey we're going to give you more of the TV deal teams are teams are less you know there's less importance or not not importance but they don't have to go out and find

$22 million right they don't have to go out and find you know 15 million dollars to compete. They, you know, that makes things a little more, that makes the, the, the business model for the Xfinity series a little more challenging, right? And so I think the Xfinity, as the model for the Cup series gets better, and that improves, the model for the Xfinity series and the truck series needs focus as well and also has to continue to, to improve.

And so I'm just trying to think of ways and avenues to go down that would be beneficial for the Xfinity series and make the Xfinity series more worthwhile. Make the Xfinity series a better value. Make the Xfinity series, you know, a destination. Man, I wish I'd have known this because I would actually put a lot more thought to it. My wheels are spinning. We can talk about it next week, too many. Yeah, let's do that. By that time, we maybe have Denny's response, right? I think Denny's first gut reaction would probably be the obvious one, and that is, look, what you're asking for

is a charter that reaps the benefits financially of other charter members, but then therein lies the problem. You've got to also pay for it. That money's got to come from somewhere, right? So who's paying for that? Is it, are these two charity spots? that every team's chipping in, they're not going to do that. Is NASCAR paying for it? They're not going to do that because if you're trying to mitigate costs, which is what you're saying. And of course, that's what the next gen car.

Everything has always been supposedly about trying to mitigate costs for race teams. And yet I don't know that that's actually happened. So if you're trying to make an affordable entry, who is actually paying for that cost to be mitigated? It's almost like the, you know, the whole argument, I don't want to get too deep into this because it's political. but like, you know, college tuition being paid for. Well, somebody pays for college tuition.

If it's not the students to, you know, relieve them from their debt, somebody's got to pay for it. It's taxpayers, right? So it's the same thing. Who ends up paying for these two things? And so you would have to find some reason for the current charter members like Denny to want to help, you know, add value to the Xfinity series, which they don't really have any interest in right now.

This might be a conversation where we need Denny at the table. It would be fascinating, actually. I know, yeah. Anyways, yeah, I just wrote that down. I was sitting there in the booth this weekend and just jotted down some notes about that. Those rain delays pay off for us on the dirty air. Good grief. I'm now addicted to, there's this houseboat brand.

There's a company that used to make houseboats. I don't think they do anymore. Called Gibson. Okay. Yeah, I've been down this rabbit hole. looking at Gibbs used Gibson houseboats. Oh, you're looking at boats? I miss my houseboat, man.

I see it still a little leg, you know. Really? All the time. Loose change? Yeah, loose change is over there in the... I know it's at the marina. Yeah. But I don't know what's...

You see it out and about? I see it out and about. Yes, I do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I see it tied up at the... At the marina. Yeah, I never see it leave.

No, no. I see it tied up at the sandbars and... Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I don't miss that boat, per se, but I miss. but I miss the function of a houseboat, especially with two kids. I think it'd be a little fun. I have some sleepovers out there.

I don't even know if it's legal to spend a night on the lake. I think it's not, but it's okay. People don't really say anything. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. I wonder what the law is. I don't know. I've already broken it if it's...

Oh, hell. You spent the night on your pontoon? Oh, yeah. Well, you can go camp up there at Lake Northern State Park. Yeah, but like, do you go off the pontoon into a tent? I didn't that time. You spent the night. on the pontoon?

Yeah. How do you, do you just lay out in the stars? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Under sleep,

Matt, you don't get due on you? I mean, listen, if you're going to camping or anything like that, you're not going to come out of that spotless clean.

So, you know, the same would probably apply to the... It's a question, Mike. Yeah. No, I'm saying it's, do you get due on you. Did you wake up?

I don't remember going, I'm very, very dewy today. Well, I mean, what the hell? I would think if I go camping, I'd just like a little shelter. No, man.

No, I mean, you could, no, sleep under the sky. As long as it's not going to be bad weather. I don't want to get rained on. But I reserved the right to go take it in the dock and end up in my own bed if it gets bad. Okay. You know. All right.

Dude, I told you this week, man, I'm ready for you to get your boat back out there. Well, there's a recall on my gas tank. I know, but still. Did yours not have a recall? Maybe it did. It's the same boat. I know, but I'm having too much fun. You're not giving a shit.

Okay. Okay. Living dangerously. all right hey everybody thanks for tuning in when we go live is like everybody

already in the room or they're just kind of popping in oh yeah they're already in the room already in the room okay great well I just never knew thanks for thanks for hanging out

thanks for being here today this is gonna be a lot of fun we're gonna do some ass junior presented by Xfinity and everybody knows Xfinity's been a big supporter of NASCAR and we're thankful for their support here

at Dirty Mo Media and at the Dale Jr. download, you've been sending your questions into Xfinity Racing on Twitter. And we're ready to go. So we've had a great conversation earlier today. I think this is going to be a great show for everybody to listen to.

And we've got a lot of things happening this week. Don't forget to stay up to date on your Becoming Earnhardt content. We've got episode four. Five. Episode five coming out. Goodness. Losing track.

That series. was scheduled to be eight episodes. It could balloon up to maybe one more. We don't know yet. But there's a lot happening with becoming Earnhardt, so make sure you're checking that out. Had a lot of fun building that series and putting it together,

and we're nearly halfway through the 1979 year with it. Anyways, Andrew, is Andrew still here? Andrew's not here. Alex. Alex is going to be doing Andrew's job today. Andrew was here, but he left. He was. DBC is recording today.

All right. So anyways, yeah, DBC, that's right. With the rain out and everything, it gets shaken up a little bit. So let's get started. All right, well, our first question is from Steve Thompson. And as an owner, what traits do you look for in young drivers? What traits do I look for in young drivers? I think the first trait is that they don't tear up a bunch of stuff.

All right. So, don't tear up stuff. Let's write that down. You know, you have, everybody out there, you're an owner of a race team, all right? Let's put you in that mindset.

You're an owner of a race team. You know already before the season starts how much money you have, okay? And you have this big pie of money. and you already know where all of that money is going to go. It's spent before the season begins, all right? You do not write a, you don't write into your budget like this sort of, you know, crash damage clause or, you know, hey, we're going to set aside, you know,

$500,000 for damage. You're going to spend that $500,000 before the season begins to be faster, to get faster. You're never going to be able to hang on to that money, park it over somewhere in the back, so that you'll be able to handle all kinds of crash damage. That money's going to be sitting there, burning a hole in your pocket. You're going to find something

in the middle of the year or during the year that that money is going to be spent on to try to get better. So, you know, you're going to have this big pie and it's important that the driver gets the finish that you need. And you know, as an owner,

hey, I got a 10th place car. All right? I don't have a, a first place car, I have a 10th place car. And so you need your driver to go out there and drive like he's got a 10th place race car, right? You don't need to crash trying to finish fifth, all right? And he doesn't need to run around banging into things and run 20th with a beat-up car. And so you want the driver to be able to run where the car should run, and you also want a driver

to be able to finish the race where the car should finish. and so that was one of the things that I loved about Bragg's Alaska when we hired him at Junior Murder Sports. Honestly, man, I had a 10th to 15th place race car. That's what kind of cars we were building in our shop, as as as we were going to be. He went out there and drove that car and finished in 10th to 15th. Now, when there was a Trition, when the other drivers made mistakes, we might finish eighth. We might finish better. And he was available and around and accountable in those moments.

that was perfect and so he didn't bring home a torup race car we could then make that race car better and then we started building fifth to tenth place cars and then we started building first to fifth place cars and so as we built better cars he was also progressing and getting better as a driver and that happened right here and that's what you want i mean you know you obviously want a driver that's marketable all of those things you want some you want somebody you can trust and on in and out of the car. That's going to be focused. It's going to do the homework during the week.

It's going to embrace the training simulator, staying in shape. But man, when they get on the track, they got to not tear stuff up. That's probably at the top of list for me. You know, when you get the cup level and you're spending, you know, millions of dollars, you certainly don't want to crash a lot. But the more successful you become, the more acceptable crashing is. Right, because the team knows, hey, man, next week, that's probably not going to be the problem. You're probably going to finish where you belong.

We talked about that this week on the broadcasts. Like, you know, young drivers that don't have wins that don't have a, you know, that don't have a career of success, you know, can't build a reputation on crashing. Yeah, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. comes to mind when he wrecked in being his career. now he's two-time. He's a many champion. They're a five hundred champions, so. Yeah, dude, he did.

And he got set out. Remember, they set him out because of him and they're like, hey, man, you cannot crash so much. Yeah. And that's a, you know, that's part of a driver learning how to rein it in, right? Yeah. Not take risks. Yeah. Next one's pretty interesting.

Brighton wants to know, should all tracks have lights? Currently, Michigan and Talladega, two that don't, But do you think it should be a requirement? No. No. It's too much of an expense to make, that'd be such a financial burden to force that on the racetracks, and nobody would want to build a racetrack if that was like a requirement.

But, you know, yeah, I don't think it's necessary. No. All right. Now we'll go to the next one. This one is a fun one. Jesse wants to know, if music played every time you walked into a room, what song or songs would you have played? Eminence front would be my song.

That's a, Tate. I heard it. Yeah, the intro to Eminence Front is like the intro of all intros. So the Who, Pete was in that band. They had a ton of the great songs that were great intros, right? Walkout songs, right? If you're going to, like, for example, at Bristol, you're going to have the drivers walk out to a song, like a Who,

there's a couple Who songs that would be great for walking out to. And Eminence Front was my favorite. I think that's just the coolest song. Would you get tired of it? Every room you walked in. You would absolutely get tired of it. It's kind of like that. Every time I plug my iPhone in and my truck

and I don't tell it what to do, it starts playing the very first song at the very first, you know, the very first song, the song starts with A. And I literally, after a couple years, have to delete that song. I'm like, we've got to get another song playing.

Or I'll wait for the manufacturer just to fix that so it doesn't automatically start playing because that is annoying. Yes. It's a little bit of a pet peeve now that you mentioned it. Well, what song would be your song that you walked into every room and it played? Thunderstruck. Thunderstruck, really? How quickly would you get tired of that?

Very quickly. Mine would be the John Cena walkout song. I don't know what it is, but I think that that's awesome. I think part of that's the W.W.E. Yeah, the Stone Coldham would be great. That too. Yeah. Every time you walked into a room.

You know, like, yeah. It would be. You know, my little daughter, my 10-year-olds, all of a sudden, out of random, she just started going, hey, Dad, can we watch some pro wrestling? And so we went on to Peacock and started watching, like, old school wrestlingas, like going back to one, two, three, and like Hulk Hogan's Walk-in song, that, you know, that America song.

I mean, like, you could see the evolution of walkout songs and how they really did evolve and become a thing, part of the identity, which is awesome. Yeah, very hype moment as well. Yeah, very much. This next one's from Hunter. Football season is around the corner. Do you have a favorite commander's moment that you've seen in person? Yeah.

I can't remember the date or the, you were with me, Mike. I think they were playing Dallas. They were. Monday night. DeAngelo Hall got an interception for a pick six. Yep. That put us in the lead. and then Dallas went down Tony Romo's quarterback.

They got down to like the 10-yard line, last play of the game, an incomplete pass into the end zone, and we win. And the place went bonkers. I mean, the atmosphere at that moment, Monday night against Dallas with a win like that, it was insane. Yeah.

It was insane. It was pretty electric. It was. Yeah. That was fun. All right. Our last question here is, what movie do you wish you could watch again for the first time?

For the first time. Yeah. Probably, probably, um, tough question. Yeah, it is. If you think of one might, go ahead. I think, um, Forrest Gump. I was just thinking Forrest Gump.

I'm like, I remember thinking like, wow, what a clever movie. What clever writing that is. Yeah, I was just thinking that's where to God. Yeah. I was thinking to stepbrother. something Will Ferrell-wise, but that first laugh you get when you watch those movies, there's nothing like it. Forrest Gump, to me, was such an incredible movie because it felt like six movies in one.

Because Forrest Gump's life had all these different chapters in it. And so you're like, man, I'm getting a lot out of this, right? I'm looking a lot for my time here. Yeah. All the rest would be racing movies. Like The Last American Hero made around 1972, 73. Jeff Bridges, I believe, is the main character, and he's playing Junior Jackson,

which is like a loose story on Junior Johnson. And watching that for the first time, I've watched a bunch of racing movies, like Six-pack, Stroker Race, Driven, Days of Thunder, all of them, right? I've watched them all. And they all have this sort of, you know, this Hollywood,

twist to them that sort of distances itself from reality, right? It's like, yeah, that's a great I love that they made a movie about racing, but it's not really authentic. And there's been some good ones that are very close and authentic, like Lamont was

great, but the last American hero to me was authentic to NASCAR at the time. I don't know why, but the movie feels like it's not trying to pretend or, or, or, uh, it's an old movie and it was, they didn't have a ton of money and, and they, uh, but they, you know, I don't know, it's not, it doesn't have that sort of Hollywood touch to it or that, that, that, you know, it's not sensational. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it's on pizzazz. That's the way. It's just straightforward. It's like, hey, just here's the story. It's kind of loosely. based on Junior Johnson, and then you watch it, and it's got some great actors in there.

Yeah. I don't think I've ever seen it, actually. I think you should watch it. Last American Hero. Jeff Bridges is amazing. Yeah. But it's like one of, he's young, and it's pretty good.

Yeah, I have to watch it. And a lot of it is shot, maybe this is why I like it so much. A lot of it shot at like Hickory. Oh, yeah. This is one cool part about Last American Hero They go to Concord

And film A lot of You know Junior Jackson racing a dirt car And they've got some Incar footage And while you're watching this in-car footage You can see several cars

Sort of jockey in for position in front One of them is Ralph Earnhardt And he's in his Camaro He had a dirt car and around 71 or whatever that was a 69-ish Camaro.

And you can see him driving that thing. Wow. There's not any video of Ralph Earnhardt racing his dirt car. There's only video of Ralph Earnhardt racing

was this race he ran at Sharpton River Speedway. And it's kind of like it's limited to that, you know, it's like a bush race, right, if you will. And Leroyer Barbera wins. Ralph runs second

LeBroy gets disqualified because of his wheels or something and they interview Ralph and so while they're interviewing Ralph like that's the only video I have of Ralph talking the sound of his voice there's no other video no home video

nothing so that video of Ralph driving and then in the movie Last American Hero there's the video of him out on the racetrack and you're viewing it from the cockpit of another car. It's really cool.

That's incredible. It is. Yeah. Yeah. I'm definitely watching now. Dude, I've told this story on here, but I'll tell it again since we're on YouTube. Probably around 1996 or seven. I'm 20-some years old, maybe 22 years old or whatever.

I walk into Dad's office at the farm and he's like sitting at his desk and he's got this tape. And he's like, come here. And he's got this little thing beside his desk and It's like a 13-inch television with a VCR underneath it. And he's like, we're going to watch this tape. Watch his tape with me.

He's just gotten this, right? He's like, oh, man, I've never, you know. So I don't know what's on it. We pop it in. It's that race from Charlotte, right? And Ralph's, they're talking, Ralph Bernard and the number. He's driving Marion Cox's cars, white and red, number 50.

And he's running around, and I'm like, oh, cool. And, but I didn't know they were going to interview Ralph. So when I've never seen Ralph talk, he died before I was born. I don't know the sound of his voice. I don't know his mannerisms, the way he moves his head when he talks or nothing, right? And thought I never would because there's no, we don't have any home video or nothing. And they go to interviewing and it's like Chris Oconomackie's like, I'm down here with Ralph Earnhardt. That's a good economy. And I was like, I mean, I never forget that moment.

There he was on the screen talking to me, talking, hearing his voice for the first time. And I looked over at dad, and he's like, you know, jaw on the floor. He hasn't heard Ralph since Ralph passed away, his own father, right? So he's hearing Ralph for the first time in 20 years. And, man, I'll never forget that moment. Wow. And so that was so clear. it still is the only video that I know of Ralph Earnhardt speaking that exists today.

And so, yeah, that was, that's pretty cool. So that's another reason why I like last, we kind of got in the woods here. But Last American Heroes, great. Junior Johnson, it's a great story. Yeah, yeah. Jeff Bridges. What can you not like?

It's got everything. Yeah, it sounds like. There's a funny line in there about its guy wants to go to Lake Lure. and Jeff Bridges grabs his top lip like grabbing him like that and tells him a thing or two it's a pretty cool, pretty cool movie.

I'm watching it tonight. That's, I guess, a good place to stop. All right, so this is a good show. I enjoyed it. Dirty Air, Asch Jr. A lot of fun. I want to wrap this show up. Mike, you've got a couple

bulletin points. Yeah. Bulletin board items. Yeah, just there's only a few seats left at the ultimate experience. And that's not just a cliche and a thing that we say. Like literally,

I think there are six seats as I say this right now. And who knows if they're still there by the time the podcast comes out. But if you're still thinking about going to the ultimate experience at Bristol Motor Speedway, September 16th,

you need to do it right now. Also, I just, you know, our own Connor Daly is going to be in the Xfinity Series race this weekend. He's going to be running, what is it, Alpha Prime? The race team is that? They get that right?

Yes. So good luck to Connor Daly. You've mentioned Becoming Earnhardt Episode 5 coming out tomorrow. We're excited about that. And then also I just want to say that I know that our podcast with Shane Van Gisenberg, you're better at this and I've never thought I'd say this, but you pronounce it better. But that's going to be Thursday. Peacock will have that airing.

And then also I know Jeff Binky's working on getting that on USA Network this weekend. So that would be something to look forward to as well. I hope so. Speaking of Becoming Earnhardt, before we wrap up today, I want to read a few Apple reviews. Awesome. Let's do that. All right. Becoming Arnheart, episode four, tugged at my heartstrings when Dale Jr. talked about his dad crying while in his shop missing his father. I could feel his pain in Dale Jr.'s voice.

Thank you so much for sharing your family with us. That was from Tennessee Tina Volfan. All right. Thank you for doing the Becoming Earnhardt podcast. So interesting. And I remember a lot of the drivers. It's nice to hear voice clips. Thank you.

Sue B-229. Thank you for doing that, and the five stars. Great show every week. Could listen to you guys all day. Well, you're the man, Joe Broom, 88. Joe Broom, that's a name. Hey, I'm going to tell you right now, I read all of the comments on social media about becoming Earnhardt.

I really appreciate them. It's motivating. The series is a ton of work and effort, and the feedback's really what keeps us trying to turn out great episodes every week. We're about halfway through the series for this year at least for 1979. Hope you're enjoying it. Keep the feedback and reviews coming. We may read yours on the show next week.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We haven't done that in a while. We'll see everybody next week. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.