The Dale Jr. Download - 479 - Did Dale Sr. Come Back Too Early in '79?

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-host Mike Davis return once again to the Bojangles Studio to close out the Download week. The guys discuss the latest episode of Becoming Earnhardt which finds Dale Earnhardt watching the 1979 NASCAR Cup season from the sidelines after a major crash at Pocono. They discuss the psychology of the racer and what Dale may have been thinking at the moment, as well as the progression of driver injury rehabilitation protocol. Dale reacts to Noah Gragson’s recent release from Legacy Motor Club and offers up suggestions as to what he should do next in his career. Also, there is a preview of the new NASCAR Classics platform, a round of Immaculate Grid, and a bit from the Short Track Insider.DraftKings State-Specific Problem Gambling Information:In Massachusetts, call [phone] or visit gamblinghelplinema.org, In New York, call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369). In Tennessee and Kansas, Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. On behalf of Boot Hill Casino & Resort (KS). In West Virginia, Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit www.1800gambler.net. All games regulated by the West Virginia Lottery. Please play responsibly. In partnership with Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races. In Connecticut, Help is available for problem gambling call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org. 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 make? I am weird. You are weird. What? Mr. Dallan Hart Jr. That family technique sometimes gives you more than just a tomato 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's that me? No, we're not standing in that box together in our underwear. Are you kidding me, Mike? Oh my God, that is hilarious. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. It is Thursday, August of 17th, and we got a great show for you.

I'm going to react a little bit off of Becoming Earnhardt, Episode 6, here in the Bojangles studio with my co-host, Mike's been a pretty awesome week. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I just come off of a bike ride, man. Did you? Yeah, I did. Wow. Well, that's interesting.

I didn't see that one coming. Well, we'll talk about that a little bit. All right. But first off, I want to make everybody aware that Ally is our presenting sponsor for today's show. Ally has been a great partner for us here at Dirty Mo Media and at the Dale Jr. Download. And we're kind of shuffling them around a little bit in terms of how they're supporting us. And everything, I mean, honestly, everything at Dirty Moe Media and especially the Dale Jr. downloads getting kind of shuffled around because of the Becoming Earnhardt shows. That's right.

I really threw a wrench into the gears here. Well, listen, not to overstate it, but Ally is a great partner of ours, and they are versatile. They are versatile. And they want us doing the content that you want to be doing, and that's what makes them so special. So we do appreciate Ally and our other partners, Bojangles, Lionel, all of them that make this possible. Well, thank you, Ally. Let's get to the rest of the show. Man, I am fresh back from a 19-mile bike ride.

Shut up. This morning or yesterday? Just came from it. You're actually pretty well put together being that you just rode 19 miles. I would have thought a little bit more sweaty, a little bit more exhausted. I feel like a bad . Good. Well, you hold yourself well.

Hold up well? You fooled me. No, I feel good. Man, I used to ride a lot. In 2017, the last year of racing in the Cup Series, I rode 2400 miles. And I haven't rode, shoot, I bet I ain't rode none this year, maybe. less than a hundred, right? What made you want to get out there this morning?

Well, I got a couple buddies that I ride with when I do, and we stay in constant communication about going and riding, right, and trying to get on the bikes and get active. But it's just, we're coming up with more and more excuses. Well, you have some. Life, kids. Yeah.

But anyways, with Ila going to school, back in school, I take her to school pretty early. So that opens up the morning And you like to get out there before it gets too hot Absolutely And we go down and ride on a Brawley School Road Around the lake

And back on those lake roads Not many cars Probably didn't see many cars See more joggers than anything So it was pretty good You want to hear some statistics Yeah hit us with it Right

Hour and 14 minutes 19 miles average 15 Just over 15 miles an hour Maxim speed is 28.7 at one point He's getting after it average watts is 118 which is pretty low like when I was riding watts is power like how much you're pressing on the pedals okay right and so uh when I was riding um regularly I was averaging about 150 watts so I'm pretty low what is the watts on this one 18 okay um maximum

wattage was 471 like we were climbing up a hill pushing hard um anyways pretty good yeah a little slow man when we were i think my fastest ride i always look at the average miles an hour so it's the average of the whole ride and this one was 15 one i went with a jimmy and a group at phoenix and i think nineteen and a half was our average and that was my fastest ever at the very end of the 2017 season i was kind of in peak biking condition right and with jimmy i'd imagine with jimmy it's uh you're gonna you're gonna get after a little bit more man they push you they don't mess around my buddy that I ride with, I'm like, yeah, y'all climb at a hill, I'm gonna go my pace.

There you go. But when you're with Jimmy, you're like, you gotta keep up. Right. It's Jimmy. Right. You know. So are you, do you want to tell us who your buddies were?

Is it anybody in racing? I mean, because I could make a guess on some of them, but. It's my partner at Filter Time, Blake. All right. Awesome. And another buddy, Chris, Chris Adams's name. And he was the, him and his wife, Skyler, were the two actors in the Dangerous Summer music video that I helped put together for the song Ghost.

Okay. I think it's Ghost. But, yeah, Dangerous Summer, big fan of them. They're kind of a pop band. I don't know. Been around for about 10 years. And we shot a video, dang, man. It was four or five years ago here in Moorsville.

And I didn't know Chris and his wife hired him to do this. music shoot and we've been friends ever since. Just actors that are available for hire. Just local. Yep. And they do, you know, they've done had two kids. We've had two kids. Um, and they still work.

And, and still working at the same field like actor, acting and commercial shoots and stuff. Well, cool, man. Well, you've accomplished a lot more already than I have. No, this is fun. Okay. If you come in off a bike ride, we better hear about it. All right.

Well, it was, uh, God, it was miserable. I was sitting there. This is I would have expected. Yeah, I was sitting there thinking like, am I, I, I'm sitting low, what's going on here? Oh, yeah, these, I think it's time for some new seats. No, somebody's coming in here, sitting, farting around. No, I'm telling you, man. I'm telling you.

We shrink in the middle of these shows. They had a, they had a, dang, they had a load of, uh, they had a tour, shop tour, and some folks come in here and let them sit down in the chairs, and they, they're playing around with the die cast. Alex Tim's would never let anybody come to our studio. Alex apparently saw them coming and left the room. They were big. They were big guys. Left the room.

They were big guys? I could take maybe one for a little bit, but 36 of them. Come on. What gave you the impression you were going to have to fight these people? They were touching the diecast. I had to. Well, just say, hey, nobody touches the diecast. Nobody.

No, wait a second. They really were? What? Are you kidding? I don't know. You don't know. You weren't here. I left.

I didn't see anything. Right. It could have taken the die cast. It's like Lugs Harvey and Stroker Ace. Nobody touches a car. That's right. Apparently Alex doesn't feel so passionate about the studio to the table.

I try. They didn't hear me. Oh, well. So, episode six of Becoming Earnhardt is out. How's it doing, Mike? I don't know. Tiff, we always look at Tiff. Is it doing well?

Is it, is it crashing servers? I think it's doing well. Is it? I mean, we're, you've seen feedback. Listen, we're episode six, and y'all haven't told me anything. I mean, look, I can see the feedback.

I know there's a handful of people that love it. I think it's great. But does it, satisfy the staff here at Dirty Mo Media in terms of, you know, the engagement that we would typically get on our guest interviews. Okay. The answer that we'll give you is yes. The real answer is it's way too soon to know any of that, right? We're almost to the end of the first season.

No, no. It's way too soon on episode six. We just dropped it yesterday. I mean, yeah, but we've got six episodes of a sample size to go by. Oh, we're going to take the whole series? That's what you're asking? Dude, it's amazing. It's amazing.

Has one, two, three, four, five they've done well. Of course they've done well. I haven't heard, y'all. Listen, all the people listening to this right now, you and I are learning this together. We don't tell you because you go tell information, you blast it all across the world. We don't necessarily. I like to share good information. Yeah, but.

That's another thing. That's a whole different conversation. We got a rule. Why do people want to keep good information, good news to themselves? That's bullf-f-fitting. There's other reasons. Yes, but it's... You're on a need-to-know basis.

It's silly. You're on a need-to-know basis. basis in a world that needs lots of good news we feed you you should be like hey guess what things are going well for us over here we're not a buffet of information for you we feed you when you need to be said it wants to know we are we're getting a lot of great feedback and the numbers on becoming our heart are good all the viewers out there all listeners out there is good news don't want to share that well you get way too in the weeds on that and you then go take it and you take one piece of information that's just meant to be on surface level

and you'll go diagnose your entire next year based off of one little piece of information. In other words, some may go overreact. Some may call it overreact. I don't know weird. You're different. I just take weird. You're special. I'd rather just be called weird than different and special.

I mean, being weird is a badge of honor. Can I just say this, though? Yeah. It is a badge of honor, by the way. This most recent episode of Becoming Earnhardt, I think, is fascinating because this is where your dad, is having to sit on the sidelines after having an amazing year. Has them a win already. And now these drivers, I've always been fascinated with the psychology of race car drivers,

especially not just when they're taken out of their car, which you guys and your cars are just, you know, you're like a married couple. So when you take you away from your spouse, y'all don't know what to do with yourselves, you know? And it's always fascinating. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it's just fascinating. You guys are interesting case studies.

you've had to experience sitting out of a car missing races but you also I feel like sort of set a standard of taking care of your health first board before you started doing that concussion stuff I think a lot of race car drivers raced injured Ricky Craven said as much oh yeah and your dad I mean I did you did too that's right you did then no I was racing injured right right kind of so do you think your dad I was wondering if you thought your dad came back too soon from this injury in the 79th season. Yes, and because when, you know, he, when you listen to the episode, Becoming Earnhardt, episode six, he's in this press conference and he says, I'm, you know, I'm going to run all the laps. I'm healthy. I'm good. Doctors cleared me. Took the brace off Tuesday, no pain, blah,

but. So in his mind, he's sending a message out there that he's 100% gets in the car. And you got to know dad, right? This man was hardheaded, not going to let anybody see weakness, not going to let anybody know that he was tired. Now, he wasn't going to let anyone know that he was in pain ever, right? And so he's in so much discomfort that he's going to get out of the car that was in his rookie year right he's just now got a hold of this thing got a hold of this opportunity you saw him try to get out of the car at indy and turn it over to mike skinner when he had his had his sternum broke got emotional yeah yeah you know what i mean i will never forget that interview right and so

maybe he wasn't quite maybe he didn't have this sort of emotional reaction as a rookie, but he certainly damn sure didn't want to get out, right? Probably more then than he did when he got out at Indy for breaking the start. You know, he's established career behind him. Champion, all those things.

Getting out was probably he knew in his mind the smartest thing to do, even though it was an emotional thing, but as a rookie, it was probably opposite. In terms of less emotional and more, you know, more like, I can't give this up.

I got this finally. And so, anyhow, he gets out, so he's obviously very uncomfortable, and he gets out in two races, Richmond and Dover. Right. We haven't, you know, in episode seven, we'll talk about Dover and who his relief driver was and all those things, but we know as we get to the end of episode six that he had relief in two events. and so yeah he came back too soon

he did it only because he's still got a shot to win the rookie of the year title he did it also because he is fading out of the top 10 in points and that was all those things he talks about it in these articles that he wrote or helped write that that's on his mind sliding back through the points is bothering him watching you know

Milliken out there competing and getting points in the rookie battles bothering him And so with just, dang, half a, I don't know, seven, half a dozen races to go, he's like, I got to come back. This is getting out of hand. My opportunity is going to be gone in a couple weeks if I don't come back now. So I think he certainly rushed it. I think that he, I will say, you know, one of the fun things about doing this series is a lot of people,

there's some old-timers and some big-time hardcore fans on social media that'll post photos in the replies that correlate to the episode. There's a picture of Dad and Lenny Pond at Richmond. Lenny getting in the car, Dad getting out. And Dad is helping Lenny, you know, get in the car. So Dad's not in so much discomfort, you know, that he can't, you know, help Lenny climb in the car. You know, typically, typically, if,

the driver's in bad shape. They get out of the car and they go to the pit wall or go right to the pit, sit down and get some oxygen or cold towels or whatever. And the pit crew is ready with a plan to help Lenny getting in the car, right? But in this case, you can see in the picture that I saw on social media that dad's, dad's like helping Lenny. He's just gotten out. He's helping Lenny.

And then, you know, Lenny goes on and runs great and gets on a good finish. So they must have had a plan before the race That this was you know I know they didn't know Lenny was going to fall out and be available But anyhow To answer your question He absolutely came back too soon It's scary to think about what might have happened

If he'd gotten another crash and re-injured his collarbones I mean then things We were paranoid when you came back To be honest with you Even after your final year you know with your final year You announced you came back, you're healthy You know Boy the smallest little crash would have just

Nobody wanted to see that. Yeah, no. And I'm in, you know, so he's going through the, you know, he's running the laps in the next couple events, and you're like, you know, them little collarbones, they ain't like they used to be. Right. I assume you break it once.

It's not as durable, not as strong. God, you can also, I've never broken a collarbone. I don't know that I know many people that have, but boy, I can't imagine something more painful. That's another thing, too. Like, you see if people break collar bones, I'll use the NFL example. they kind of have a hard time getting up.

Right. And Kathy says that the person called her is like, yeah, he got out of the car. He's walking, right? Because that was the thing. Like when a guy crashed back then, well, did he get out? Right. Right. That's usually the, is he okay?

That's the check. That's right. If he got out, he's okay. Okay, he got out. So it's not, you know, whatever he's got, whatever's going on, not life-threatening. And so, yeah, he got out and he walked. He was walking. Okay.

I can rest easy. But damn, two broken. Two broke both collar bones. And got out, walked to wherever, right? That's superhero status. I don't know, man. You know, because I've heard some crazy delor-a- Y'all are going to laugh, man.

I'm sorry, Mike. Go ahead, no, go ahead. So your collar bones always, feel like that they have a role, right, in your posture and all those things, right? So when you break your collarbones, both of them together. How do you sit up? How does that not change something permanently in terms of your posture? Right. You have to assume that like maybe your spine is now taking on a load. It wasn't designed to take. Yeah. And your shoulders. Shouldered all of it, right. So I remember in this photo of me and him sitting on the couch, he had this thing, his brace that sort of

pride his shoulders back almost kind of like being kind of a fool Nelson if you will and he wore that for four or five weeks he says until he finally took it off yeah I don't know man

that you know that was the audio one of the things I'll tell you man when we were editing this and putting it together so I'd never heard the brace audio right and that guy that comes on.

So people always pick on me for being in a broadcast booth and talking about a car and the wall. Where to hell you think I get it from? I mean, it's, I grew up listening

to Barney Hall and MRN. Jackie Root. Yeah. Yeah. I grew up listening to all of the races on the radio. We might not have, we might not have,

even in the 80s, there weren't, you know, every race wasn't broadcasts, and we might not have. have the channel. I might not be in a place where we're watching it on TV. We didn't plop down in front of the TV to watch a race. That didn't start really happening until the 90s. That's how when a car crashes, when a car loses control, that's how you react. Yeah. That's the normal reaction to that. Even today, the MRN guys have that sound, that Dave

Moody, that Mike Bagley, when there's trouble, the octaves go up. Yeah. Yeah. That's the reaction you should have. Yeah. And so that, I'd never heard any of the audio from that race at Pocono when dad breaks his collarbones, but that guy comes on. And it's, it's eerily, it's frightening. We all know the outcome, but imagine not knowing the outcome and hearing that live in the moment.

His, his call on that crash has a very big tinge or a very, there's a lot of concern. Yeah. Right? When you hear him, when you hear that call, there's a lot of, like, fear almost in his voice about how it hard, how bad the impact was. Dad's leading the race. And so there's no footage that I know of. There might be a little footage of the crash, but it's very faint. I can't remember.

I don't think there is, actually. But there's no, there's no. camera, there's no photos on social media, you know, all of my 49 years. I've never seen the image of this car crashed or even after the crash. So you don't really have those things to use your imaginations to try to imagine how the crash looked and all those things. But that call is eerie, man. It's a bit, it's a bit, it's a bit sketchy, man.

If you were sitting there at home, I'm all sitting in her house in Canapolis and you're listening in the race and you're making a sandwich. and everything is going well. NAD's leading the race and they go to commercial and they come back and, you know, trouble. Yeah. You know what I mean? Then you got to sit on your ass and wait for information.

Right. That's right. And I think that's why Kathy, you know, we put out a video. It's on our YouTube page where Kathy and Kay, your aunts, your dad's sisters, who are so important in this series, right? Like they have these. They will tell you, we don't. remember about anything but then they remember moments that are the key moments and and you said

it just a little bit ago when kathy goes well he got out of the car he's going to be she remembers enough to know there was the moment of not knowing if he was okay you got that confirmation that he's out of the car you know he's tough as nails he's going to be fine how about randy and mammaud driving to polka no right and dad missing him by getting on a commercial flight and going home getting checked out, right? How in the hell do they not call dad at the hospital and say, hey, man, we're going to come up there and see you, all right? Not, I mean, who gets in a freaking car drives to Pennsylvania?

In Pennsylvania without letting the person that's in Pennsylvania know you're coming. That surprised me. They damn sure had phones back, man. There's definitely some questions that can be asked in that, but the story of him leaving the hospital before his family gets there It's still kind of badass. I mean, a little bit. Well, he just is in the hospital.

He don't know they're coming. I know he does. And they're like, all right, Mr. Earnhardt, you know, your stay is over. It's funny. You're free to leave. And he's like, okay. He probably called somebody at the team and they're like, we'll get you a commercial flight, get your ass on over to the airport.

And he's like, you got it. Kathy goes, you got to remember there were no cell phones back then. I'm like, yeah, but there were telephones. Yeah, there were rotary. There were dial them all up. it wasn't like you know smoke signals or anything we did pony express was that already out i know that's what's so weird about that and damn it's not one person it's not one individual that made this decision to get in a car drive it's a whole family no it's too it's man all in randy right

nobody thought nobody thought to check before they made the trip and no nobody that none of the rest of the family like k and kathy are going ah you know what maybe we got to call for Here's an idea. I'll even do it for you. I'll save you the hassle. I'll call up there. I don't know. They had an interesting dynamic, though.

It's like when I listen to stories. I'll tell you, you're right. From your aunts. It wasn't like the family dynamic of like everybody sitting around a dinner table and having conversation. Hey, how's your life going and all this stuff? They didn't talk like that. No.

Hey, and, you know, if you haven't listened to Kathy on the Dale Jr. Download, the interview we did with her in the past, I think we did it about a year ago. Man, she came in here and sits down. Now, I've known her all my life, right, and been around her and seen her around Dad. And the family dynamic, there's a bond, there's love, there's trust, and all those things. But she came in here and straight up, dropped a bunch of truth bombs on us that I really were. wasn't even expecting, right? So just about Ralph and the relationship

and how, you know, how Ralph fathered those kids and Mamaw's approach and then their relationship with each other when they were younger and how it, you know, and you can see it in when they're sitting here talking about recalling that 1979 season with dad, Kay and Kathy have such a different temperature. That's right. They do.

On it, right? Kay's very reserved and just, you know, just glad it happened. So thankful. You know, she, and Kathy's more, well, I got had, well, I had a couple issues with this. And I, you know, or, well, you know, Kathy's more opinionated. Yes. About it. Right.

And, you know, she was the one that raced herself. She probably, she certainly has the rights to be. opinionated about it as she is because she in a way was kind of the the one that could totally the one of the she was one of the girls in the family that could really relate to what was going on and i think there's a lot of part there's a lot of kathy that wishes she could have had an opportunity right in racing interesting she did drive and drove well and raced a lot she didn't just tried a couple times and i mean there was a three or four years special and she ran about 12 races.

She was, I don't know, man. It would be, I'm assuming, I don't know for sure, but I would, knowing what, I mean, with the way the world is now, right? And, you know, opportunities that are, that are there for females in motorsports, right? imagine

Kathy given that sort of playing field to work in is got to be compelling or got to be interesting for her I wonder what her thoughts are on that well you and I have an idea and that is that when the series is run

we do one final episode where it's bringing some of the people in that we're part of the series and then kind of having this round table conversation she would be one that we would want maybe did something that we talked to her about yeah so yeah that's a Maybe we could ask her, and I'm going to assume again, in the 70s, right, when she's getting these opportunities to race against other females, it's a controlled environment, right? And it's not, she's not getting reps in a race car against dad's competitors and dad's peers, right?

But she goes out there and does really well, and she's like maybe thinking, what might this lead to? It leads to nothing. And then she grows up and watches everything happening in today's world where there are opportunities. There are avenues. There are places in ways that females can acquire, you know, chances to drive and race. And there's a pathway, right? It didn't exist. I wonder if that's, she might not even care.

But maybe I wonder how that makes her feel. Especially she watched Kelly get into a car and succeed. She's watched Carson, Kennedy. She's watched her family actually have bigger opportunities and do well enough. So you're right. That's a good question that we ought to ask her. I wonder, so I sense in her a bit of frustration. It's not like with Kay, it's sunshine and roses, man.

Sunny and 70. With Kathy, there's some resistance or, you know, there's some resistance. or some, there's some underlying frustrations or, and I wonder where that comes from. Do you feel that when you? I don't know. I mean, now that you meant, no, I don't feel it until you say it. Maybe she's definitely more opinion.

First of all, let's just be clear. Anybody that's listening to this that has met Kathy Watkins knows that she's like the sweetest person on the planet. So when we say that there's a tension or a frustration, she doesn't show it in a way that it doesn't manifest to how she behaves or acts around other people. It just may just be her demeanor where she was the one that held dad accountable. And she even does today, right?

She even still does today. She didn't let Dad off the hook for nothing. Don't let him, don't, didn't let Ralph off the hook for anything. If you listen to the interview that we had with her, she's really, okay, would never, you know, never open those cans, right? And I don't see her ever saying a bad word about anybody, right? Right. Or ever holding anybody, you know, accountable in the way that. maybe it's just that's just Kathy who she is she has a level of candor and transparency that honestly

I see a lot in you where you guys are just going to tell it how it is you don't know any other way and she's that way that's not to say she's trying to you know she's going to tell her how it is yeah yeah she's very opinionated I I also want to ask you something here and maybe we're jumping ahead if so just say it but you you said earlier in the show that your dad would have come back because of the rookie of the year and for myself and maybe for people listening to this this rookie of the year doesn't get the billing that it does. You know, what are the rookie of the year standings right now in 2023? Like, you know, who's...

High Gibbs. But rookie of the year, right. He's pretty much got it wrapped up. You're right. But like this rookie of the year battle in 79 meant something differently. And I know that it was something important to your dad. We've said that in this series. Yeah.

And let's, I think that the rookie of the year has its moments. it comes and goes and it really depends on how compelling the battle is and for example when me and Matt came into the Cup Series, the rookie of the year got a good bit of play, right?

Yep. Yep. And so you had two drivers, one being me that were getting a lot of attention and Matt was able to be the one that could, you know, I had

bested Matt in the Xfinity series and then we come into the Cup series, and Matt goes on and achieves winning the rookie of the year. And I thought that was probably very compelling for people to see Matt be the one to be able to do it, right? I came in with the sponsor, the Budweiser, the, you know, Dad's legacy and all those things. So there's a good storyline there. And I believe that, you know, if we had a compelling rookie back, battle again, whether it's next year or whenever, right, it will become a good storyline and

we'll talk about it. We'll celebrate it. It'll be part of our broadcast discussions where it's not today, right? Yeah. But if there was a battle that was tooth and nail such as this one in 1979, plus you had, you know, Harry Gant, Terry Libani, look, we got to remember and look at it through the lens of, don't look at it through the lens of Harry Gant and Terry Levinny that we know today. They're rookies. They're, you know, they're rookies and not many people know much about Terry. There's a lot of people that knew a lot about Harry because he'd been around for a while,

very successful in the, in this, in this sort of southeastern part of the United States where NASCAR was sort of focused at that time. You know, I think the, um, the rookie of the year battle was, was important. than probably a little more important than it is today it whole it it was more sought after and it seems like it only is that way when there's a good battle and there's multiple people that are good enough to challenge each other right and so or in good enough I don't want to say good enough I'm in good enough situations. Like this year, there was a good opportunity for a great rookie battle and some

conversation about it, but certain people like Noah and so forth weren't putting in good enough situations to be a part of it, right? To make the battle, to take the fight to each other. Same thing happened, you know, over the last couple of years, we had a, we had sort of a flood of, we had like two or three, what was it, Custer, when Custer moved up. Yeah, Custer, Bell, John Henry, Machet. They all moved up together. Frisco. Yeah. And that was like, oh, man, this is going to be a great rookie crop.

We're excited. That's true. And then the battle for the rookie of the year, I don't think, was all that compelling. And so, but had it went down to the last few races, and maybe they need to revamp it in a way that it makes it compelling, more compelling. I don't know. But the rookie of the year should matter in the same way that, you know, any other kind of year-long award and acknowledgement should matter.

The most popular driver award, right? It should matter, even if the same guy is winning it every year, you know? And, you know, you can't care less about it because it doesn't suit or fit, you know, your interest and then, you know, five, ten years down the road, you want to get all excited about it because now, you know, it's more compelling. I, but, you know, I remember one year we, had a rookie of the rookie was there was one rookie there was one year there was just like and there's several years where there's like just one real true rookie that's racing all the races not like six

or seven there's nobody in the battle right um so i mean it's tough right hey everybody racing season is well underway and it's time to go full throttle feel the excitement of every lap like never before with draft king's sports book right now new customers can bet just five dollars and get 150 in bonus bets instantly, no matter what goes down on the track. Now, I'm no betting expert. I know the Dirty Mo Doe crew loves to bet on head-to-head matchups, and Draft Kings offers a ton of them. Just check out Chopper's bet slip every week on our social channels.

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Eligibility, wagering, and deposit restrictions apply. Terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com slash auto racing terms. Listen, you mentioned Noah. We haven't talked about Noah Graxon a whole lot, and he made some more news this week because he's released. He asked for a release and he's granted. I'm curious if you have an opinion on what's next for Noah. Like how does that guy get his way, get back?

Yeah, I've been thinking a lot about this. And, you know, I think Noah can, I think Noah can get back. I think he could. He's good enough, you know. He won enough races in the Xfinity series and showed it, you know, know, that he can, you know, when he's got it all together in his head on his shoulders, he can be a pretty good value for a team. But honestly, man, I couldn't really tell whether, you know, Noah's going to probably sit

there and watch the 42. And in his, you know, anytime you're replaced or you're out injured or whatever, you kind of watch that car that you were driving and you go, man, I hope it doesn't run better than when I drove it. Right? You don't want somebody to go get in there and go, oh man, must have been the driver. Must have been.

So I think he's probably watching the car perform. I don't think it will run better. I think that the team is just in a bad spot right now with the transition from manufacturer to manufacturer. They're going from Chevy to Toyota in the offseason. So they're kind of a lame duck to Chevrolet. Not getting a ton of resources. It's been a bad year compared to.

to how the 43 ran in the past, right? They've just kind of struggled this year to get to speed. The second car on a tough team is always going to be a hard car to drive and to be competitive with. Think about, you know, Ty Dillon in the 77. You know, you've got to be tough mentally to drive that sort of B-car on a bad team or a team that just is running in the back half of the field. and I don't know if that was a good

situation for Noah to be in in the first place so I think in a way man maybe Noah's probably okay not to be driving the car anymore I don't know that he's having a ton of fun in the Cup series to begin with he's having a rough year yeah so you know where does it go from here

I think you know I think that he could actually go into either the truck or the Xfinity series I would not try to get in a cup car of any caliber. I mean, I don't know what opportunities would even be available. And I think that he, what would be good for him was to be able to go back and get in victory lane and sort of rebuild the, you know, rebuild his trust and all the, his own confidence.

Yeah, his own confidence, his trust and image and all those things, right? Got to get, go back. Don't, you don't have to really start. from scratch. Just go back to the truck series and get your chances of,

you know, where can you win? All right, you got to have a good vehicle. There's probably more opportunities to get in winning stuff the further down you go, right?

Sure. I wouldn't drive a B Xfinity car. I wouldn't drive a, you know, a 10th place Xfinity car if you could go and drive a winning truck.

I would just go where you can win. Let's, you know, let's take a year and go and be great somewhere and sort of, you know, try to try to reinvent ourselves, if you will. And so that's probably what I think would be best for him. Also think, man, you know, get back to your roots a little bit. Go drive some super late model stuff back home on the West Coast or at the Snowball Derby or, or, you know, in the ASA series, or, I mean, you know, even in late model stocks, I think he could just get back to his roots, go back where he had the most fun, and sort of, you know, fall back in love with the sport all over again, right?

Yeah. And I think getting a second chance, you'll have that appreciation for really, you know, you'll come back having a much better appreciation for how hard it is to make. make it work and how hard it is to be successful at every level. And he'd be better off for it in the end. But, yeah, I think, you know, the Cup Series, man, if you're not in a good car, I've been there when you're running in the back, not running well, it's the most miserable thing ever.

Nothing's good about it. It annihilates your confidence. I tell people, I remember when we were racing at DEI, and you would go around saying I'm the best race car driver out there, not to be arrogant, but because you would almost say that to yourself. You had to think it. And I remember when that stopped happening. Yeah.

And, yeah, you were losing confidence in the team around you, but you also lost confidence in yourself. And, man, it was going to take something special to get it back, and you got it back, but it wasn't without help. Yeah, it was unique circumstances, and it took a lot of years, and I don't think it happens for everybody, and it barely happened for me. That's why I wonder about Noah.

The thing when he drove for us at Junior Motorsports, we always talked about his maturity, and how he needed a lot more of it, but he was always confident and he always knew he could wheel it, right? And I'm curious to see, and I hope he still has that not cockiness, not arrogance, but just that confidence in his own abilities to be able to go back and get it done. Yeah, I haven't talked to him. I just hope he doesn't give it up. Right. You know, I hope he doesn't give it up.

And I hope there's an opportunity for him to come back in the, in either the truck or the Xfinity series and sort of, you know, and reinvent himself. That'd be the best case scenario, I think. Yeah, I'm with you. What else we got here? We got Watkins Glenn coming up.

Yeah. We've got... We talked about it. We talked a little last... I snuck into the recording of Dirty Mo Doe for about 15 minutes. Oh, really? And I feel pretty good about my chase. Elliot pick because Chopper says he's going to win.

So I listened to a little bit of Dirty Modeo getting made, getting created and feel pretty good about my pick for Chase Elliott to win. I also wanted to say, man, I just got off the phone this morning with Tim Clark at NASCAR. He kind of runs all things digital at NASCAR and several other things going on over there. You could probably describe it better than me, Mike. But NASCAR has done something. I know. I'm glad you're bringing this up. This is awesome. So listen, we, I have to say, man, I almost feel like the weight of the world's been lifted off my shoulders.

Because you've been pirating and doing all these, you know. So I'm telling you, man, this is like, I ain't going to overhype this, but this is the greatest thing that's happening in the sport. The floor is yours. Floor is yours. Go overstated all you want. So NASCAR has released NASCAR classics. It's a website that's full of race broadcasts. Over 1,000 Cup Series races are available now, and there's more in the tank that will be released. This isn't the all-end-all, right?

There's no ads, and I think the best part about it, Mike, is it's free for everybody. And so, you know, you can, there's a custom timeline in all the races. You can jump to key moments. You can sort by track, by year, by decade. So it's, this is incredible. I have a server where I've collected all of these races,

thanks to a lot of people that have helped me grow my collection. There's like all these Facebook groups and all kinds of guys that are collecting all of these races. events. Our old buddy Jay Coker in Atlanta, he always would come to the track with the bags full of old races. He gave me 95% of my collection. Jay Coker needs a shout out.

He was definitely instrumental in that. So now I've still got a lot of races that NASCAR doesn't. And some races, they probably can't release because of copyrights and so forth. But listen, man, what if one thing that's sort of not been done well over the last 10 years is celebrating and embracing. the great things that have happened in the history of NASCAR and the nostalgia of the old cars, the shape, the colors,

the drivers, the drivers, the personalities. The motors. Yeah, the way the cars interacted with each other on a racetrack, how they drafted and raced together. And the mannerisms and sounds of the broadcasts and what was a good broadcast and what was what was you know and so this is incredible man I am so thankful for NASCAR to not only do they had to do so much freaking work to be able to weed through all of these and handle all of the licensing and agreements and the ability all of these races come

from so many different networks and they have so much stuff in there that they had to vet out and and be able to put all this together was monumental. And thank you. Thank you to all of Tim Clark and his whole team. Everybody or anybody that ever had anything to do with this, I got to thank y'all so much. People now can absorb all of these great moments. I know it's out there.

I know there's a lot of races on YouTube. This is not like a new idea. But it's NASCAR now. NASCAR itself. NASCAR is really embracing its history in the races and the moments. and sharing it with the world. I think that that's such a great thing. I'm so thankful and proud of them for doing this.

And so instead of allowing it to be this sort of Wild West free-for-all on YouTube and everywhere else and like, you know, having to have a guy like Jay walk up to me and give me, you know, here's a 1987 season all on disc. You know, now it's available to people. I want this to all be available, right? My collection that I have, I wish I could post it all. on the internet and say, here, watch any race you want. And NASCAR's doing that. And it's free.

They didn't try to take a dime. Isn't that amazing? They didn't try to put it behind a paywall. Right. How damn good is that? Because you and many like you would have damn sure paid anything. Yeah, you would have done it. Everything is behind a paywall.

Right. Everything. Right. In today's world, man, everybody wants something for something, right? And so, thank you. No ads. so they haven't selling advertising, at least not now, not yet. I mean, hey, if they put ads on it, that's fine.

They got to pay the bills. It's understandable. Dude, they got to pay the bills. I remember when, you know, alternative music was sort of booming back in the mid-90s, right? And a station just come out of nowhere.

I think it was 106.9. I can't, God, dang. I can't remember it. But the edge, right, it's on terrestrial radio. I think it's called Terrestrial Radio. Is that right? Yeah.

So FM radio, right? I'm sitting there working on my late mile stock car over at the Deerhead Shop. All right. And I turned to this station. A buddy of mine says, hey, man, you need to listen to this station. It's all all-turned music, all the stuff we love. There's no DJs, no commercials. It's just song after song after song.

I was like, what the hell? Turned it on. And there was ad-free, no DJs, and it's like Stolen Temple Pilots and Smas Your Pumpkins and all the brand new music that's happening today, I'm listening to this station. I'm like, I can't believe this. This is the greatest thing ever.

And maybe about three months later, here come a DJ, here come a commercial, here come this. You know, it turned into what you would typically expect when you would turn on the radio, right? And so, look, if this happens and they need some ads, by all means, we're good with that. Understand. No worries.

We get it. No problems. And there's, like I say, I mean, there's a lot of races still yet to be released or added to this library. And that's exciting as well. But bravo, man. Good job NASCAR. It's classics.nascar.com. We should just say the URL, so in case anybody wants to know.

But, boy, even the way it's presented is pretty cool, man. They have a, I think there's a YouTube page. There's a website that Mike just mentioned to be able to access these. And I'm watching people on my timeline that I follow and they're diving in. Oh, yeah. Oh, man. This is where you'll find me for the next week. Yes.

Right. People are loving it. So thank you, thank you. Thank you. You're such a great, great thing that NASCAR did there. And also, I heard, I thought this was bullshit man when I saw this. In Sports Illustrated, still around. Motor sports is being considered for the

2018 Olympics in Los Angeles Oh man I don't know man Sounds hard to believe Hard to believe but man if it was happening If it actually happened wouldn't you love it So here's some other sports that are being considered Flag football cricket

Baseball slash softball Lacrosse break dancing Wait a second Baseball slash softball They're already in the Olympics They get them out Softball went away Baseball

It's on this sheet No, no, I'm not questioning the legitimacy of what you're reading. I'm just saying it's on the article. It's in the article. I'm saying, yeah, I'm saying is that let's give another sport a try here. Oh, wait. Is baseball softball in the Olympics? Well, it has been for a long time.

Now, if it came out, it went away. It went away. Baseball as well? Yeah. Interesting. Okay. How did baseball not survive the Olympics? Not a global sport enough, I guess.

I don't know. Maybe because Travis Rock holds it here. Is it maybe because of the World Baseball Classic. Right. And then, oh, kickboxing. So, Corey LaJoy, he's got a shot. He's a kickboxing team. He's a kickboxing?

I'm sorry. I was thinking kickball. Wouldn't that be something? For his philanthropic efforts, he's going to kickbox the hell out of you. I was thinking about kick ball, Mike. Yeah. Damn it. Why kickboxing?

They should have kickball. They should. That would be fun. Kick ball, right. So what kind of shot do you think motor sports has? Let's just be honest. What kind of shot does sports have to make it? Is it a global sport?

Yeah. I mean, can you imagine, like, you know, an F1 driver representing his country, you know, a couple of NASCAR. Yeah, yeah, it's a global sport. Okay. And I'm not saying it's global like soccer. So what is the race of champions that they used to have? Remember they had the race of champions?

Nyrock. No, no, no. It was in these stadium kind of that. You know, they'd have two lanes and the drivers racing. Oh, I think I know what you're talking about. What was that? Michael Schumacher and I think Carl Edwards. Carl Edwards had a race and Carl beat him. That was like the greatest thing ever.

Carl Edwards beat Michael Schumacher. I thought it was called Race of Champions. It is called Race of Champions. Yeah, race of champions. So it used to happen and it was still going like a couple years ago. They did it on ice somewhere recently. In Norway, I think. Yeah.

Anyways, Jimmy Johnson has been doing. it for a while, but it's kind of lost its its stature as sort of the race of champion. The international competition. The global competition. Yes, it's lost its in my opinion, it sort of fizzled out. It got pretty big

there at one point, but I'll tell you this, man, the skeptical part of any kind of international competition in motorsports is is the playing field level and that means what kind of track is it

and what kind of cars are we talking about and they could try to make it where it's multiple vehicles, multiple style of tracks. They could. I mean, they're going to try to make it as level as possible, but it'll never be perfectly level. And so they'll be all,

they'll always be, no matter what you do, and I think back to the IROC series. Man, when they ran predominantly ovals, it was a stock car, they had, the stock car boys had the advantage. when, you know, when IndyCar drivers and all these other dudes were jumping in these IROC cars at Daytona, and you just didn't think they could do it because they didn't know the draft, they couldn't pull the tricks at the end.

And so you felt like that it favored a certain driver, and in that case the Stock Car guys, then when we would take the IROC series to a road course, damn, the freaking IndyCar guys would just kick our butts, kick NASCAR guys' butts. And so that's my problem. That's where my mind goes immediately in terms of like if they try to make it an Olympic sport, how to hell do you level the playing field? I've got the fix. So you really find out who's good.

I know the answer. In the Olympics, you have the decathlon or you have those things that have, you know, a decathlon athlete doesn't, they're better in some events than others, right? You're just trying to take the overall, you know, you just get by and the ones you suck at and all that stuff. So it's a bit of a decathlon, maybe not 10 different races, but maybe you have four. Yeah. A road course, an oval, a dirt. So this will be 2008 in Los Angeles.

And maybe you do different cars. Like you do an indie car on a road course and a stock car. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. The logistics of laying out the track. Yeah, but if anybody can do that, see Olympics. I like it. Los Angeles. Oh, boy.

Well, that's a bit of a hiccup. See? Yeah. No, no. The location makes this really a challenge. That's right. They'd have to redo the Coliseum track. Again, though, the Coliseum is more likely going to have all kinds of Olympic things happening.

Hold up. Yeah. It's not going to be available. I've rectified it. It's, again, when you have Olympics. Mike is rectified. I'm trying to make it work. Listen, when you have an Olympic location, let's say Paris, their venues are all over France.

Let's be honest. When it's in Australia, it's all over the country. You're right. That's true. So you can have racing events. You've got the whole state of California as a footprint, right? And then you could probably even go into some other states. It would be fine.

Nobody would go, wait a second, doesn't feel like an Olympic. They're not in L.A. No, no. You'd have to get away from L.A. But they already do this with soccer games in the Olympics. When you and I went to the Winter Olympics, we were all over South Korea, frankly. So yeah, I just fixed it. There you go.

Well, good job. We made some, we made some predictions. on the bubble for the championship for the playoffs okay i said uh it was going to be bubble wallace chase elli didn't i i believe so yeah yeah you've made so many predictions i honestly can't remember what you said well i predict i mean i made i made many predictions on different things not on just yes not multiple things on the so i i think i said uh bubble wallace and chase but hey things have changed and uh with michael mcdow's win Now Brad Keselowski is in 15th of the 16 available spots.

He's 143 points up. I think he's great. He's fine. Bubba Wallace is 28 points above the cut line in 16th, and he's vulnerable. He lost almost half of his cushion at Indy. That was not good. And now we're going to another road course, and he's going to have to try to figure out how to get out of there

with as many points as he can to the cushion. Daniel Suarez, Ty Gibbs, 28 and 49 back, and then Chase Elliott at 80 back. Chase has to win, and I think he wins. I think he wins this race this weekend. So if Chase wins, he will be pushing Brad Caslowski to the bubble. And then all of those drivers, Bubba Wallace, Suarez, Gibbs, anyone else, they'll have to win to break in. They'll be so far behind Brad in points. You're right.

Well, listen. Did you say that you were changing your predictions? I need to know your predictions now. You're saying Chase Elliott's going to win. So I think Chase wins and he gets himself in. I think that the other drivers don't secure the win they need to get in. So Brackislavski will finish 16th in points and make itself take the last playoff spot. That's what I think.

The one thing I remember is that you've said this from the beginning and you're hanging on to it is Blaney's in your final four. Have you adjusted your final four yet? No. No, I mean, sticking with it. No, I mean, I hadn't picked Blaney to win the championship. Oh, that's what it was, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's staying on it.

Sheesh. He better get going. All the other, well, the other Fords are going. You know, BKR, no, it ain't BKR anymore. That's Brackazlowski. RK. RFK. RFK, yeah.

RFK. Hell, none of us can get it right. So that's true. I mean, the BKR, Brad Caslowski Racing Truck Series team has my mind screwed up when I'm trying to think about the name of Brad's Cup team, which is Rouse Friendway Kislauski. So, R-F-K. Boy, you have to think about that.

So they're doing great, doing great. And now you have front row running well. They've been a top 15 or a top 18 team all year. Then they go out and win a race. And so Penske, like, where's your answer, Penske? Penske, answer the bell. Right? Get up off the map.

Damn it, I need to look like I know what I'm talking about. It's a Blaining Winness Championship. All right. Well, we sort of got all that figured out. It's been a fun show. It has been fun. We got more. We got some games to play.

We got some other things. All right. So we got an immaculate grid coming up. This is a good one. And these are getting fun now that we're using other people's grids. Now that you're not making them out. They're actually really enjoying. There's no holes in them now.

There's no way to. break the rules when the rules are already made. I think the rules are still kind of fly by the seat of your pants, make them up as you go. When Alex was doing them, it's like we were buying a board game without the rules. Without the instructions. You're basically looking at the box trying to figure out how they're playing it on the box. Here's all the pieces. Figure it out.

Right, right. Very true. I'm just messing. All right, but before we get to the Immaculate Grid, let's get some short track insider from Hannah Newhouse. Hey everyone and welcome back to Short Track Insider after, you know, a few weeks off. I feel like just the other day we were talking about how we couldn't believe that summer had officially started. And for many of you, you're sending kids off to school this week, which is absolutely crazy to think about. But we're going to go ahead and start things off here with a little recap, which will be mainly dirt racing if we're being honest

because it has been a busy few weeks with some of the biggest dirt races across all disciplines taking place. So we're going to start it off with the busiest two weeks of the season over at Knoxville Raceway in Knoxville, Iowa. because it was Knoxville Nationals time, drawing in the best of the best in sprint car racing as a whole. The first weekend consisted of 360 sprint cars where Brian Brown bested the field, claiming the championship with the 360s. Well, him and a few other drivers, they decided to try both racing for both 360 and then 4-10s, which were the next week as part of Knoxville Nationals. And they tried to go for the double with the 4-10 and the 360s.

So it starts off with two nights of preliminary action, a final night on that Friday called Hard Knock. Knox Night getting another opportunity to lock yourself in and then of course Alphabet Soup on Saturday to try and race your way all the way in to the A feature which set the stage then for the 60 second Knoxville Nationals where it was all Kyle Larson not only to lead the field to green but dominated the race winning his second Nationals title over a hard charging David Gravel and then Donny Schottes rounding out your podium there. I'm sure everyone involved in Knoxville National you deserve a very long nap needless to say. that event was absolutely crazy and I would for sure recommend anyone go visit that race track and especially that event because it is top-notch, needless to say. Also some big races in the dirt lake model scene as well with races like the Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury Speedway out in Fairbury, Illinois took place a couple weeks ago where Ricky Thornton Jr. took home a $50,000 paycheck in an incredible race. The following weekend was then USA Nationals at Cedar Lake Speedway in a near New Richmond, Wisconsin

area where Bobby Pierce, after finishing runner-up at the Prairie Dirt Classic, bested the field at a photo finish with Hudson O'Neill collecting his $50,000. I feel like this is a game of monopoly, but with very big paychecks. But then he then carried that momentum into the North South shootout down at Florence Speedway and Kentucky, cashing in on an additional $75,000. And that's not even including some of the smaller paying races. He's won just in the last two, three weeks. I mean, it's easy to say, if you're the betting type right now, Bobby Pierce is a great

person to put money down in the dirt late model scene because it has been a stellar year for him and we caught up with him here on short track insider and here's what he had to say about it yeah we're very fortunate to win a lot of big races this year it's been a it's been a dream season so far i got to pinch myself ever now and then to make sure i'm you know awake and not dreaming but uh you know team chemistry is huge and you got to have that especially when you race as much as we do we've raced about 73 races this year so far and uh it goes hand in hand you know the more you race the better you get it's just experience you know the more you do something it'll become second nature and it's a lot easier but uh we've definitely had the team team chemistry going on with zach my dad um you know my mom

slinging shirts uh support of my girlfriend just everybody uh sponsors it just takes a very very big team effort to do it as much as we do you know this is a very hard humbling sport and you can get knocked down pretty easily and uh you just got to get back up and get going but lately we uh we uh We have won a lot of big races, and, you know, we're not necessarily doing anything different than we have in all the years past. We just, we got things clicking right now. We got a good setup on the car. You know, this Longhorn, Bilstein shocks, Vic Hill Race Engines, 32. It's been super fast, and it's awesome.

I'm the one that gets to drive it. You know, we work super hard in the shop. I think that's where you win races, and everyone kind of has their role. You know, I do my stuff. Like I work on the body a lot. And my dad, me and him kind of talk about what we're going to do with set up, whether there's shocks or tires or this and that. And, you know, Zach, he's been a very, very solid crew guy,

maintenance in the car and doing everything he does, you know, to win races, you must first finish. So that's the first rule there. And, you know, everyone's been clicking really well, so I can't thank them all enough. And we'll see if we can keep this hot street going with these wins. And we'll ride this wave as long as we can. Coming up this weekend is the much anticipated reschedule of the old North State Nationals at Tri-County Motor Speedway in Hudson, North Carolina, with the Cars Tour.

Of course, the original date was earlier in the year. Unfortunately, it was in that string where it seemed like everything was getting rained out. But fortunately, they were able to postpone it, grab it this weekend, and the weather looks great here around the Carolina's this upcoming weekend. So $30,000 on the line for one late model stock driver, $5,000 of the pro-late models, I believe. And they'll be there as well. now there are 37 cars currently on the entry list for the late model stock cars and cars and carson quaple is leading the points by 24 over brendan queen conor hall only 78 points out so still anyone's game as we're starting to near the end of the cars tour season as always though

you can catch all cars tour racing action on flow racing more pavement racing action though with southern super series down at crisp motorsports park or otherwise known as watermelon capital speedway Cordial, you name it, but needless to say, you go off the racetrack there, you're literally going to end up in a watermelon patch. It is no joke. Hence, you know, all of the watermelon aspects of the racetrack. But that racetrack, again, located in Cordial, Georgia. If you're able to make it, please definitely got to support them.

If not, you can watch all Southern Super Series races on Racing America. And a little shout out this weekend to my home track. Meridian Speedway hosting the Idaho 208, where the event is co-sanctioned and put on also by Northwest Super Late Model series. I think it's on their schedule. So think Bowman Gray of the Northwest with way less chaos and some seriously good racing.

The fan base out there is absolutely incredible and that race, always a great race. So I believe most of those Northwest Super Lay Model races can be watched on Racing America. I know weekly races are also streamed at Meridian Speedway. I'm not sure who's going to have it this weekend. So definitely do some research. Check that out, though, because it is going to be a great race.

Switching back over to the dirt side, the Noss Energy Drink World of Outlaw Sprint Cars are at Jackson Motorplex in Jackson, Minnesota, for the Jackson Nationals. Try and say that five times fast. It's not as easy as you think it would be. Anyways, that race though Thursday through Saturday. A pretty hefty paycheck once again on the line for sprint car drivers. And you can watch all things World of Outlaws each week on Dirt Vision. And lastly, the Topless 100 with the Lucas Oil Late Model series takes place at Batesville Motor Speedway in Batesville, Arkansas, this upcoming weekend. I believe it's a three-day ordeal, and all Lucas Racing, as always, can be watched on Flow Racing.

That's usually a pretty good race as well. So definitely check that out if you're looking for some dirt late model racing to watch this weekend. Hopefully we can get back into a rhythm here on Short Track Insider, especially as we get into some championship chases with seasons slowly starting to wind down. It's crazy that it's midway through August. A lot of people wrapping up their seasons,

I mean, mid to early September, depending on where you are located. over here in the south, we're crazy, and apparently we just try to race all season long. So still plenty to talk about and hope everyone had a great summer. You're able to visit some of your local short tracks. Still time to do so, of course.

We will see you guys next week here on Shortpack Inviter. All right, thank you, Hannah. That was great to hear everything going on in the world, a short track racing all across the country. I appreciate everything Hannah does for us and highlighting all of that stuff. Grassroots racing, that's important. So Mike, right now, man, we're going into this Immaculate Grid.

We talked about it. We've had a lot of fun with it. And you, Alex, you got another one from, who's the guy? His name is Jack Fellers on Reddit. On Reddit? Yeah, Nogaprosk is his name. All right, so Jack's come. This is the same guy that did the one we did just recently.

Yes. And, all right, so this is the way this one's going to work. Across the top of the sheet is Cobblish Motor Motorsports, Brad Kisalowski, racing, and Thor Sport, and trucks only. Down the left side is RCR colleague in junior motorsports and Xfinity only. So we connect a driver, for example, in the top left box that race KBM trucks and RCR Xfinity. This will be a tough one, man.

So be ready to edit out a lot of silence. I will. I will. But let's get started. So whoever picks one and guesses correctly, is can go. We just go. I'll go.

You ready? Yeah. Off the bat. Junior Motorsports, Kyle Busch. Yes. William Byron. Correct. Yes.

Bottom left. Gragson would also be an answer for that way. Gragson, Martin Truex Jr. Oh, wow. Brandon Jones. Yeah. Okay. All right.

Um. And you can repeat answers. I don't put that out there for you. Okay. Now, I'm waiting, I'm letting him go now. Now you can let him go. Yeah, yeah, I'm not going to go speak up. All right.

Brackzalowski Racing, Junior Motorsports, Brackzlasky? Yes, correct. That is the bottom middle. Yes. Thorisport racing, Junior Motorsports, I have no freaking clue about anybody that's ever driven Thorisport racing. Is that it? Is that correct? No? Okay. Do you know anybody at Thorisport racing?

I know I'll just start naming truck I know I know a driver at Thor Sport racing What's his name That's the key? No no no no it's the dude

It's the dude Danny LaSoccas No no no no it's He drives the 90 90 He drives the 98 or the 99 They won the championship a couple years ago Yeah it did

I'm drawing a blank on his name Matt Crafton No Todd Bodine. Stop it, Mike. Ted Musgrave. Stop, Mike. Dude.

He's on the right path. I can't think of the way. I'm on the right path? He's going to be... I'm never going to do this. You're just naming drivers, so you're always on the right path. Right. If you do that.

TJ spotted for him, man, goodness gracious. Time of Jeski. Nope. The other one. Remember he got drunk and in his post-race championship at the finish. He was so hilarious. Oh, oh, oh, oh, he drove for us. Yes, he drove for us.

Hold up. Ben Rhodes. Ben Rhodes. That is great. There you go, Mike. Ben Rhodes. I couldn't remember. Ben Rhodes. Jeb Burton and Lennon Castle also answers for that one.

I think my and Mike should split that one. I'm happy to split with you. Okay. You're right. Look, I'm not taking credit for Thor's sports stuff. I don't have no idea. We'll both. We'll both take credit there.

Half a point. So, Junior Moversports, bottom row is officially gone. At least we got that one. If we'd have struggled there, that would have been a problem. All right. Okay.

Exfinity, look, Collie, racing, Exfinity and KBM should be Jeb Burton, right? The KBM Calig Racing one? Incorrect.

Oh, God, I just got that confused with the other guy. Can I say it again? Can you get another guess, yeah. Is Todd Gilliland? No, incorrect.

Dang, you didn't wrong? Kyle Cobbush. Colleg racing. Yep, correct. Of course, there's that. That's the middle left square. KB, BKR and colleague is Chastain. We've absolutely gone off that.

You guessed like 17 times. I know, but we were both, that was the one we halved. I thought we were still going in order. So we're not now, Alex, Mr. Change the Rules in the Middle of the game. Is that what we're doing? Is that what you say? Tastain.

All right. Yes, BKR. Yes, correct. I got to throw a wild card every now and then. Keep you guys on your toes. Throw a rule changing. I mean, I thought we were just going because it's in the interest of time.

Yeah, just go. Seems like the RCR one would be simple with a lot of these, right? You guys are doing better than I thought you would on these. I'm not going to lie. Your expertise is clearly Xfinity series and truck series. Oh, RCR and M.

BKR is Reddick. Yes, that's correct. That's the middle, top middle. You just won. Not really. I mean, it's just... Oh, yeah. Are we not playing...

You're right. We're not playing TikTok. That's right. But Dale does have one, two, three, four and a half squares. Four and a half. To Mike's one and a half. Well, I've got to get the rest of them just a tie. And Mike has made more guesses.

Right. So you have the top left, which is RCRKBM. top right. RCR and Thorisport is Johnny Sauter. Correct. Seven possible answers for that one, too. Wow, really? Yeah. Matt Crafton. Oh, yeah.

Myatt Snyder, Paul Minard, Jeborton, Dakota Armstrong, and Kerry Earnhardt. Thor Sport and colleague is Jeff Burton. We both. We both did it. Another half. I was just listening to what he said. I'm like, son of the one of these is going to fill out. I know.

I'm taking a half point with that one. You guys have a half on that one. All right. So the only one left is the top left, RCR and KVM. And it's not. Howbush? No. Is Xfinity only and truck only?

Yeah, that's good point. Can you have two drivers for the same box? Yes. Is Reddick the name? No. That's incorrect. Is Gila laying that one? Nope.

It seems like everybody's driven that truck. Five possible answers. I think they're... I have possible answers. Probably the toughest one on the board. Yeah. is Jack Wood Nope

And he's one of their drivers He's one of them now, yeah KBM Is Brandon Jones Yes that's great Dang that's right Who were the other ones

Myatt Snyder Joey Colter Matt Tift And Brian Scott Brian Scott That's right All right So Dale got one

You just You just front rode my ass Six seven to two Hell yeah Yeah, kicked the ass. I kind of like not having to wait on Mike. Yeah, just blur it out. Or Mike having to wait on me.

Didn't mean that sound that way. It's how it sounded. It's how it sounded. Well, man, that was fun, Immaculate Grid. That was one of my better ones. That was. Are you guys shocking? No Cup series.

You guys really did. You did? I know. That was tough. I did not. I was way off. All right, so that's a lot of fun. We got an ass junior coming up,

and we'll be wrapping up after that. So let's get started. Andrew is going to get your questions. He's got them. He's got him. He's got your questions ready. And we're going to start answering them here now. So go ahead, Andrew.

You mentioned radio style. You're in the same spot that you always are for Watkins-Gland? Yeah. Nice. In the carousel. Okay. Right out of the bus stop. That'll be a good spot.

This first question is from Zach. In terms of fantasy football, starting back up, what is your fantasy football team name? He's on like three different teams. No, just on one. Okay. Oh, that's nice. Like, do you have a good creative?

Yeah, hold on, hold on, hold on. All right, I'll let you pull it up. Sorry. I mean, I don't know why I've drawn a blank on that. I think I know what it is, but I don't want to be wrong. Schlits happens. Okay. The bear schlitz.

Yeah. It's kind of like, yeah. Yeah, we got that. Yeah, okay. Some people might not be so sure. Yeah, I've had, that's been my, I've had, I was in three leagues and I was kind of, drawn a blank there because I just got out of a couple. Wasn't sure what team I'd shut down.

And Slits happened stayed. And forever I was the Unicow 76ers. Okay. Because Unicow 76ers. That's a good name. Yeah. Unicow 76ers was always kind of fun. Does your league have like a punishment for the person who comes and last?

Basically we got a, there's dues you pay every year. And so last place will pay the championship. do's. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, dang. So you're double up.

You'd play double. Got you in the league. Yeah. Our league, we had a, and our person never did it. They had to dye their hair black. Damn. And they never followed through. Of course they're not.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because it's probably a tough punishment. That's what I'd be, I'd be afraid to have some sort of a thing like that because people not doing it discredits the league. Makes everybody look bad. Yeah.

You have to kick them out. All right. Did you kick them out? No, we didn't. You probably should. I'm probably going to have to do that. Was it you? It wasn't me.

No, no, I actually won our league. I have to eliminate them out of the league, man. Yeah. I'm sorry. All right. Well, I'll tell him you said that. What does everybody else think? Everyone else wanted him to die.

Oh. Everybody paying attention. Do you kick them? Do you kick them out? Yeah. Without a doubt. All right. They don't get invited back.

Are you the commissioner? I'm not the commissioner. I'll talk to the commissioner. I don't even, I wouldn't even worry about it. Yeah? Yep. All right. You don't want to know that smoke.

Okay. I'll sneak it into the commission. You're going to get yourself in trouble with this person. You're going to think that you're wanting them out, right? Yeah. Get rid of this guy. Well, at least I'm not saying that I want him out on a live stream or anything like that. You should at least threaten to leave the league yourself because you can't be in a discredited league the way that it.

This league sucks. You got to go somewhere else. You got to take your talent somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm going to have to find another one soon here. If I'm going to leave, I already signed up in everything. but

anyways Robert has the next question he says how are drivers and teams chosen for test sessions and did you ever

have like an option to know to certain ones I know this damn it that's a good question there's some sort of a rhyme and reason to why

to how they choose but there's got to be a manufacturer I guess from each or there's got to be a car from each manufacturer And they'll try not to put, you know, playoff contenders and bubble battlers and all those people in these situations to be able to influence anything late in the year. But I don't know.

I mean, what was the second half of the question? Like, did you ever get a chance to, like, go to certain ones or, like, be able to get out of certain tests? I'm sure you tried to get out of a lot of tests. The chance to go to a test is not the way I would characterize the build. junior question. I hated this. Definitely tried to get out of some, though. Were you able to get out of any?

Basically, like, sir, if you're a college student, right? And you were, your job, right, is to get good grades. Right.

But you have to study, right? Yeah. And I hated to study. Yeah. That's good. So I tried to get great grades without studying. Basically,

that was my career in a nutshell. Now, I, I, you know, I, there were some, there were some tests that were okay. I like testing at Daytona and Talladega because there was always this beginning of your test that everybody got to go to. Right, yeah. And you actively worked.

Like you put, you know, you were putting puffs all over the body, like changing the body and changing cows. And you were out there and try, they would, they would, you'd go out and run and they'd say, hey, man, what did you think about that? You know, that was fun. testing at Martinsville, Bristol short tracks is fun

but testing at a what I learned about testing over time was you would show up at the race track it's completely green we never got to test on a Monday Tuesday after the race where the track is totally raced in

so if you're the testing we would do you'd show up at a track and it's three months or six months before the race completely different weather green track, tons of grip, nothing like it's going to be in the race. You test your ass off. Everything works.

Everything feels good. Laptimes look great because it's got more grip. And then you get there for the race. It's got half the grip. Nothing's working. Everything you tried is like you're junking all of that. You're like, put all the shit we had in it last year because this sucks. And you're like, why did we test?

I came up here for two days and bang my head against the wall for nothing. you know and uh you'd get frustrated basically i ran we tested our butts off for road courses every year every year we would be testing it you know v i r all over the place trying to do everything we could to learn what we could learn never got you know i ran some good races at the glen but i think for sonoma my best finish up until late in my my career was was 11th. Yeah. And finally with La Tart, he said,

hey man, we're not testing road courses. We're not. We're not doing nothing. And I'm like, that's kind of productive, but I'm good with it. You know, I don't, you know,

we haven't, it hadn't helped us. And he says, well, we're not going to go work ourselves death for nothing. We went up there and had our best run, my best career finish. Huh.

And the car was great. We were fast. Everything about the weekend was good. testing or practice was fast qualifying was decent race went well best race and I'm like you know what do you do

it's testing can be and tire testing so when you go to tire test like they're you know they're doing basically what amounts to a tire test at Indy today and yesterday there's a Goodyear has a plan you don't go up there and work on your car

you show up they say all right go run a few laps make sure it drives good just get it driving good, and then you got to stop. So you go out and you run, you might, if it's driving good, you know, that's it. If it's not driving good, you do a few things. Once it's driving good, then you start Good Year's plan. And they'll have this set of tires, this set of tires, this set of tires, and this set of tires, and they want, you know, 10 laps on this one or 20 or 20, 20, 20.

You know, you got a whole day's worth of running on tires and doing nothing else. And you'll, so you'll go out there and run 20 laps, come down, pit, road. Good Year's going to take all your tents and then they're going to sit at the window and say, all right, tell us everything you can about that set of tires. Everything you can. Go back to the garage, change tires, go back out and do it again. And when you're at a NASCAR test with like spoilers and splitters and things like that, you're just doing what NASCAR, you know, you're bolting those things on, going out and running and debriefing. Get out, have a big conversation. And so those aren't as fun because you're not.

making your stuff better, right? You're working on your stuff. You and your crew chief aren't trying to find an advantage and an edge on the competition. Yeah. It's an interesting balance. What you said about that Sonoma story, though, basically what you're saying is you don't need to study

to get good grades. In that particular situation, that's a particular instance. That worked out, man. Yeah. Yeah. I like that analogy, though. I mean, every, you know, I'll say, I never ran good at Martinsville until we tested.

Right. Okay. Interesting. We tested at Martinsville. string of top fives in a row, right? Ran great every time we went. Once we kind of found where we needed to be. But then there's other racetracks you'll go test

and it leads you down the wrong road because you're getting all these false information. Like there's a lot of grip and it's cool and it's comfortable and the track's great and you're thinking, man, we're good. Oh, what you just did there was great. Oh, that was good too. And then you come back for the race

and you're like, you don't have that speed. You know, you're not, you're slow on the charts, and you're like, well, what do we do now? You know? And so that's when it gets really frustrating. You're like, God, all that testing, and I could have been doing X, Y, and Z, something else. Exactly. This next question coming from Maria, what's the most beautiful vacation spot you've ever gone to? Most beautiful.

Hmm. Hmm. Put them on the spot there. Yeah, that's tough. Mike, I can see you're thinking about, think about it, too. I'm just trying to think of his vacations. I mean, he didn't go to places that suck. I can promise for that.

So, like, I mean, didn't you go on your honeymoon to Hawaii? Hawaii was good. Hawaii was beautiful. Yeah, and then the plate you go to. Germany was amazing. Yeah. I mean, everywhere, right? I'll be honest.

I don't know that there's one place that stands out for me. I'll probably, this is probably going to jump in my head about an hour from now. But you and the NBC crew go to, don't you all go to, don't y'all go to, Down the Bahamas. Bahamas, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's got to look all right. I hear the Bahamas are all right this time of year.

I don't, I mean, I, you know what place keeps popping up in my algorithm is Switzerland. Oh. For whatever reason, I keep seeing these like posts about Switzerland on my Instagram, and it is like insane, like how beautiful it is. Yeah. And so. And you've never been. Nope.

Never been. But, you know, so I think I would love to go to, I'd love to go to Italy. Never been there. I'll say this. Okay. Yeah. All right. We went to the south of France this past year.

Cool. And that was probably the most beautiful place. Yeah. Yeah. that the the town that we were near we were in these small little you know we were in these small little towns with uh you know with the with the with the bay and the the the the the what am i'm trying to say the marina right and it's like the town has it changed in a hundred years yep right all the all the architecture and the buildings and everything and the way of life, right? That was really cool. And talk about being on the other side of the world

and feeling completely disconnected from all the things that are, you know, on your back every day, all the things about work and life and just, you know, things, right? That was pretty incredible. I imagine going to Italy and seeing the historic, all the historic things there. I'm into that, you know. Yeah.

You know, not to compare, but like lost speedways, abandoned things, historic, you know, locations, physical locations you can see. I think Italy would be at the top of the mountain there or one of the coolest places to go. Yeah. If you like Italy, sorry, I didn't mean to cover you off there. I was just there over the summer and seeing how well-preserved that history is, like you said, it's unbelievable to like just get a straight window into their society. But yeah, all of Europe seems to be like that. Yeah, I want to go to Europe more. I've just been to, you know, a couple trips.

I've never been to England. I want to go to England because that's where my mother's surname, the G name is from an area in England. And I'm definitely wanting to go there and check that out. So those would be cool trips. Definitely. Some cool places on the bucket list there. We got time for one more.

This is from Jeremy. And kind of similar, you kind of mentioned the algorithm you got. he asked if you could give up all but one form of social media, which would it be? All but one. Probably Instagram. I like Instagram. All the others are just kind of necessities at this point. And so it's just, you know, for now, right now for me, you know, like Twitter or X or whatever we're calling it,

is just a way to be like, hey, this is what's going on. Hey, it's something I'm interested in. check this out. It's a great way to talk about, share the podcast, share, you know, when the race is coming on TV, the cars tour, it's just like, hey,

this is what I have happening in my life, just in case anybody gives a shit about any of this stuff. But Instagram's kind of still a place to experience what your friends are up to, what's going on in people's lives that are close to you,

that you spend a lot of time with. And so it's still serving this very good purpose for me. And it's a place where I feel really comfortable sharing, you know, about, I like the image of it, imagery of it, right? Where on Twitter we're just reading, right? Content. But Instagram's a different experience altogether.

And so I think that's probably right now my favorite. Yeah. That's a good answer. What's your thoughts? I would probably, I would. would probably go Twitter. I would stick with Twitter. That'd be me.

Yeah. Because I feel like I get all my information from there. Yeah. It's like you still get the image part, you know, that you get from Twitter. Yeah. Or, I mean, from Instagram. That'd be what I. I use that probably the most.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like, yeah, I'm having a hard time articulating why I want, why I enjoy Instagram more. My engagement on Twitter is bigger. Like, if I'm trying to, like, engage and react. act and talk with more people, it's much larger of an audience

on Twitter, but yeah. Loyal to Instagram. It's interesting. Not loyal, just it's interesting. It's interesting. It just doesn't feel as toxic. Yeah, that's true. That's absolutely part of it. Twitter seems to have

like no filter these days. Yeah, it's exhausting. Yeah. How toxic it could be. Yeah. I definitely feel that. Hey, is YouTube consider social or no. Is it YouTube? Yeah.

That was out of, it's a form. Is it? Because then that would be mine. That'd be yours? Yeah. Yeah. Man, I look at YouTube.

Like, I look at it differently. I look at it differently. So I would look at, I used to maybe look at YouTube as a social platform. You do because you use it in such a way and Dirty Mo Media does too. So I get what you're saying. But like I, when I watch YouTube, I think of, I'm going to sit down and watch this two and a half hour in 1978 Daytona 500.

I'm gonna watch a long long form video and I don't associate social media to me is like pop pop, pop, bam, bam, bam, bam. Just hop in, hop out. Yeah, yeah. It could be like a streaming platform,

search engine slash social media depending on how you watch it. YouTube has basically replaced traditional television for me where I, dude, I get, when I'm wanting to if I'm going to sit on the couch and watch a video of any kind,

it's on YouTube most times right I'm the same way yeah me too I mean I really am I never thought that that would be the way I never thought I'd be that way about YouTube a buddy mine subscribes to YouTube TV and I'm like what is what is what even is that right what is YouTube TV but um I YouTube is sort of shifted it's been interesting too how it's kind of shifted away from like a social platform to more of a content platform very akin to like satellite and cable and in traditional television. And so I find myself like using that more and more. They have the NFL package now this year.

Really? Yeah. That's massive. Yeah, that's huge. Well, well, shout out to all the people watching on YouTube right now. This feels like a big ad, doesn't it? Anyways, that's a good place to end this week on Ash Jr. All right, everybody.

Appreciate you all tuning in. I hope y'all enjoyed it. That was fun. Good to have Andrew here. Thanks for supporting us. Thanks for supporting everything we do here at Dirtymo Media. All right, so that's our Thursday show. Hope you enjoyed it.

Tomorrow going to the Glen. Radio style up in the bus stop. Have fun with that. Yeah, it's always great. We talked on Ask Junior about some of the most beautiful trips I ever been to. the the Wachens Glen area very beautiful

it is yeah it is when I get up in that scaffold up in that perch man the view is incredible yeah so that's one of my favorite stops because of just

I think that's the only place we ought to do radio style to be honest with you I kind of feel like it works there for whatever reason I don't really feel comfortable doing it at the other tracks that we've done it at but at the glen it just seems natural

I'm assuming Bagley will be joining you guys. Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. Love it. One more thing that I wanted to talk about. Yeah, I saw this. You see this man? I saw this.

Yeah. Tell us what it is. Look, I know this brand, I know we're not supposed to do this, Mike, because you only like to advertise paying. People to pay. People to pay. All right, but you're about to do. Yeah, or paid advertising. This is, I want, you like jerky?

Yeah, love jerky. Could you try a bite? Sure. This just got open this morning. Illa took some of the school was a treat. So I like beef jerky man. I've been eating it all my life. Not a big deal.

The tagline on it says so good you won't share. You've already broken the rule. But thank you. The tagline may be not the best. But Blake, my partner at filtertime.com, where you can get your air filters for your house, his brother's starting this company making beet jerking. It's called jerky boys.

And as far as I know, they got one flavor. and this is it. And it's basically just, it's a regular beef jerky flavor. It's not like terioccur or spice or anything like that. It's just jerky, right? And I have to say, man, I've been eating a lot of jerky for all of my adult life.

And I believe this might be the best jerky that I've ever ate. And I know that you're going to be impartial because you make your own jerky might. That's right. And so, but I'm telling you, dude, and I hate to actually, I'll be honest, I was hesitant about talking about this because they're very small.

They just started. Jerky Boys, let's see. Let's see if we can get a website. Jerky Boys. Yeah. Isn't that the prank callers? Well, there was, yeah. Okay, yeah, jerkyboys.com.

You go to jerkyboys.com, and that's the website. Listen, man, they just started, y'all. So be careful because I don't know if they'll be able to handle the, a bunch of, you know, a bunch of, you're about to crash that site right now, aren't you? Well, I don't know. It's not, I don't want to assume anything, but look, I'm telling you, if you like jerky, again, they ain't paying us a dime to say this, but it is Blake's brother. And Blake's been a great partner for me at Filter Time.

I want to promote this business because I, I like it. It's good stuff. So before we leave, we want to read an Apple review. We're going to have one of these every week. Yeah, we're going to try. So this is the Apple review of the week. It's from Biked Brewer. Becoming Iron Heart is perfect.

What a treasure it has been. I lost my father when I was 12, and something I wish I could get back is the sound of his voice. The Ralph interview and Jr. describing the moment with Dale Sr. And hearing Ralph's voice for the first time in years got me in the fields. Oh, that's nice. I'm glad because that was the whole point. Thank you for sending in that review.

We really appreciate them. We might read yours on next week's show. And I hope everybody continues to listen to Becoming Earnhardt. We're getting ready. We're grinding down to the last couple of episodes. Maybe the people are waiting for all of it to come out so they can just binge it. That would definitely be the way to watch to listen to Becoming Earnhardt. But that would be how many hours?

It would be like 12 hours, 11 hours, 10 hours of content? Probably, yeah. All right. We'll see you in Watkins Glen. Y'all have a good weekend. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.