The Dale Jr. Download - 48 - Texas: Mud Tires, Toilets, and a Last-Place Finish

Episode Date: April 8, 2014

A sloppy, rainy weekend at Texas got worse for Dale Earnhardt Jr on Monday. Our Texas correspondent "Dan The Junior Fan" provides insight from the infield. 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.

This is Dale Jr. And you're listening to Dirty Moe Radio. All right. Get low as you can. Come on low. Work in your way low. Work your way low. One more car.

Come on down. Come on down. Turn left. It's on fire. Get out. Well, pretty specific instructions there for T.J. Get out. Get out.

Go low. You're on fire. Get out. Yeah. Great. And that's basically the Dale Jr. Download recap here for this week on the Dale Jr. download with Mike Davis and Amanda Troutman.

I am Taylor Zarzer. Of course, Dale Earnard Jr. is proud to have innovative eyewear brand spy on board as a sponsor of the Dale Jr. download. Learn more at spy at spyoptic.com. Now, before Mike gives his thoughts, Amanda, and I give mine as well, let's hear what Dale Jr. had to say because that was a crazy thing to witness at Texas Motor Speedway yesterday as Dale Jr. goes into the grass, wet grass at that, car catches fire.

Yeah, lap 13, after running eight or nine caution, laps, so really only, what, three or four laps of Green Flag Racing, and it was all over, and Dale Jr. with his worst finish, the worst possible finish you can have. First time that's happened in seven years. Here's Dale Jr. courtesy of Fox Sports after the race with Jeff Hammond. A lot of damage to the car, Wild Ride, Dale, Jr. What happened? I just ran into the grass on the apron on the front straightaway there. I didn't, I was following a 43 and just didn't see the grass. Didn't know the grass was down there that close with the way

the A post is in these cars, you can't really see that good to that angle. So I really didn't have a good visual where the grass was and just got down in there pretty good. That's awful. Mud pretty heavy down, all that wetness. Is that really what kind of grabbed it? No, you can't run through there. The way we got these cars on the ground like that. And just a mistake on my part.

I just didn't know I was that close to the grass and just made a mistake. It's as simple as that, and he said the same thing to us on the Performance Racing Network yesterday as well. Took total accountability for it like he always does, class act about it. But as you can tell, Mike, I'm pretty embarrassed, too. I mean, who wouldn't be? Hey, you know what the problem is, don't you? What's that? So, dagon, mud tires a good year brings.

They're worth of crap. I don't think that's it. They're tire testing at Michigan today and tomorrow, so I hope they test them mud tires. because they ain't worth a crap, Taylor, I'm telling you. Honestly, I really want to, if I could get one person that actually believes me that there's mud tires on race cars and then they actually, you know, call into some radio station, it doesn't even have to be ours, and say that my day is made. The shocking thing is that people do believe things that you say.

Yeah, well, that's the big problem in. Yeah. But you know what? I'm glad that we, you know, we download after finishing butt-necked last, and that's what we do. Yeah. All right, if you thought that we weren't going to download after finishing butt-necked last, you're wrong. Now, it ain't fun. No.

First, like you said, first time in seven years. November 11, 2007 was the last time Dale Jr. finished 43rd. So can you believe, like, he had never finished 43rd. You were there for that one, weren't you? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Where was that? Phoenix? Phoenix, yeah, like a lap 150 or 180 or something like that.

So we'd actually, you know, made some pit stops and had got up to speed before that one. But, oh, well, you're going to have days like this. We carry on. I'm glad they're testing today. I'm glad that he's back in a race car. Yeah, move on, yeah. That's right. You know, you're not sitting around, you know, stewing over it because you know he's upset.

You know he's embarrassed by it. And that's okay. Nobody's going to fault him for that. He manned up. He took it. But you know what? He's back in a race car. He's back at the racetrack.

He's with his team. That's going to help us get past this. We're going to Darlington. It is pretty humid. You're right. And that is exactly what you have to do to move on from some. something like that. I will say he was dejected. I mean, he was humiliated. And who wouldn't be if something like that happened? But again, he took full accountability for it. I have to tell you,

I mean, that's a terrible feeling. But how about his buddy Brad Kislauski? I mean, he absolutely had a chance to win that race. Wow. Yes. And, you know, gets caught on pit road speeding. And he took full accountability for it afterwards. He said, you know, listen, NASCAR's got all their information. They're not going to dock me. They're not going to catch me unless I really was speeding. I mean, he took full accountability for it afterwards, but you talk about a horrible feeling. That might be worse than what happened with Dale Jr. when you have a chance to win the race after they throw a caution when Joey Lagano can see the flagman wave the white flag. Right, right. You know, and Kislauski is the only guy in the world that could have caught him.

You know, that that's a pretty terrible feeling too, Mike. Yeah. Oh, or the crew chief of Ligano when he saw that caution. Todd Gordon. That wasn't his fault. But did you have, what, what pit were you covering yesterday? Did you have Dale Jr.? I didn't have Dale. Well, I would have had Dale Jr. because my friend Wendy Venturini had just about every great car in the race, and let's just say mine weren't performing so well yesterday. Oh, so we find out the real reason behind this. Yeah, but so Junior was just like maybe two or three stalls above before Jimmy, who was the first pit that I had and all the way, you know, down near turn, now down near the start finish line.

And then if you back up near turn one, I went all the way down to Danica. So you had Jimmy? I did have Jimmy Johnson yesterday. You had your work cut out for you. I saw a whole lot of pit stops. And I saw, I heard a whole lot of language from Chad Canals that cannot be repeated even if the FCC isn't involved. Oh, about Dale Jr.'s situation? Not Chad wasn't mad at Dale.

He was just fired up at his crew because when I tell you every person that's ever had an association with Hendrick Motorsports was trying to fix the 48 yesterday because of Dale Jr. running in the grass, I mean every single person that had anything to do with Hendrick was on pit road in the 48 stall. I mean, if you could have seen the grass and debris that went into Jimmy's car because of Dale Jr.'s accident yesterday, it was crazy. Now, that's one thing. The grill was completely destroyed. They had to keep wiping all this dirt off of the front of the car. And, of course, they couldn't tape it up. And they put, I mean, when I tell you a whole front fender's worth of duct tape on that car, they did. But they couldn't put all the tape on there, Mike, until they got all the dirt off, obviously.

And that took seven pit stops during that one caution. Wow. In order to do that. And, oh, by the way, Dale Jr. was going so fast into the grass. that the grass flew up and destroyed Jimmy Johnson's windshield, cracked it wide open. I'm sure you saw that. Yeah, I saw the ink car. On television, yeah.

Right, right. I mean, it was crazy. And Jimmy had some funny comments. He said, so who are all those people, you know, that they call in and say that I'm always out to get junior? Hmm. Wonder what they have to say now. He was being, you know, Jimmy's always cool, calm, and collected about it. I tell you what they got to say now.

They still think he hates Junior. What if the rolls had been reversed? Can you imagine what reaction theater would have been like? Oh, my. Wow. Yes. I will say this, about 43rd place finishes. They ought to make for good reaction theaters if nothing else.

If that's all we get out of the race, then yeah, they ought to make for good reaction theaters. We'll see here in a few minutes. But yeah, what if Junior's car had received damage from Jimmy going into the grass like that? And let me make this clear, though. Jimmy Johnson never ever said one critical word about Dale Jr. yesterday, not one. You know, those guys are as close as you can be, and he never, ever was upset with him or anything like that. So just for the record. But, yeah, it was an interesting day at Texas Motor Speedway.

I say day. It was an interesting. It felt like a fortnight there for four days. I know that we have to talk about what happened yesterday with Dale Jr. finishing 43rd. But, Mike, this is the Dale Jr. download and part of the Dale Jr. download is the fact that Dale Jr.,

in part, owns four cars that race their ass off on Friday night. I'll finish in the top seven. And let me tell you, it was really, really cool to be there at Texas, Mike, for the greatest day in junior motorsports history. Oh, I mean, it's inarguable, right?

Chase Elliott. You know, I'm driving into work this morning. You see that checkered flag waving out front, you know, and we've had that flag waving a lot this year, whether it's our late models, That was our second nationwide series win this year. Regan won Daytona. What a cool night.

I mean, and what a great race. What a performance by that kid. It was incredible. First of all, Junior would have won the race if the last caution didn't come out. You know, he had a great car. He was stout, yeah. Harvick was phenomenal. He just didn't, he wasn't as good on long runs, obviously.

His car couldn't last as long as Elliot's or his juniors. And, I mean, poor Regan Smith. I won't get as much credit, but he did. He had a very competitive car. and obviously he's doing extremely well in the points right now, but Junior was beaming afterwards. I mean, he wanted to win the race, obviously, but when I was interviewing him for PRN after the race,

I mean, he made a point to turn around during the interview, and we ran over, and he went and high-fived Chase, and he was ecstatic. And, without any, I mean, how cool is that for junior motorsports? And let me tell you something. Chase Elliott is a wheelman, friends. That guy is 18 years old, and to be in Victory Lane afterwards, Mike,

with Awesome Bill who won 44 races and won a championship. And he said, Taylor, I'm telling you, this is better than anything I did to watch your son win a race like this against who he had to beat to win it. He got choked up in the best part at the very end. He said, I got one word for tonight. Awesome. That's awesome. That is. That's cool.

You know, that win was 16 years to the day that Dale Jr. won his first race, his first nationwide series race at the same. track. And you know what, as I was looking back, it honestly happened. It was very similar to Junior's race. Junior had to pass a cup driver, a, you know, test, a former champion. It was Joe Nemechek. He had to pass him in the closing laps to win. So he earned it. It wasn't no fluke. You know, just like Chase's, it wasn't a fluke. Chase had to pass Kevin Harvick, one of the all-time great nationwide series drivers, but one of the best drivers out there today. He had to pass him and then hold off Kyle Bush, which he ran away from. That's earning it.

It was completely earning it. And if this guy gets to the cup level, I think I'm going to talk to Dale Jr. about owning his car. It's time to move up to Cup and Junior Motorsports go to the Cup level. Because I don't want to let Chase Elliott go, man. Well, I think Rick Hendrick has something to say about that. I think he might. I think you're right. But point being is it's just so cool to see what Junior Motorsports is doing.

It was a wild weekend and Big D for sure. Well, that's cool. I wonder how our boy... Did you see Quasi Dato? Yes, I did. I was in Casey Cain's Pits because Casey was running, I think, 11th, which was the best competitor I had in the pitch yesterday. And he came up to me and said, what's up, Redneck?

And he had all his Kentucky garb on with all his buddies as well. They were fired up about the game. Probably not as fired up today. But, hey, let me ask you one last thing before we go to Reaction Theater. and actually you mentioned Dado. I know we're going to call him here in just a minute. Before we do that, let me ask you something. Do you think it's going to take two wins to get into the chase?

No. Or a better way to ask this. Do you think somebody with one win will be left out? No. No. I think the people that are winning right now, even though we've had seven different winners and seven races, I think the people that are winning are supposed to be winning.

And there's a few more that we've got to go, obviously. Yeah. You know, I do not think that they're going to have more than 16. different winners. I just don't. I mean, you've got to think, people think, oh, wow, you know, but you've got to look at the whole season, you know, you've got 36 races. Well, we're only talking about 26 races here. Yeah. These guys are going to eventually start repeating victories. I just, I don't think, that could be wrong. Yeah, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I don't think it's going to happen. I think it's going to be close. I think it's going to be close. But, you know, hold on a second

now, though. I don't think it's going to be close for Dale Jr. And I think that he'll securely be, even with the 43rd place finish, because of how many top tens and top fives that he gets. I think that if he were only to win one race, I think he would be securely in. But I do think that there's a chance somebody with one win might be left out. Like if I'm Kevin Harvick and I got back on that plane yesterday after engine failure in 42nd, I mean, look at his finishes in the last four or five races.

I'd be a little concerned if I were him. I think that they're concerned more for the fact that they just can't finish these races rather than the points. I mean, I need to look at this. admittedly, I don't know, but I remember back in Dale Jr.'s rookie year, he was the first repeat winner. And that, I mean, this is his rookie year. He'd won at Texas.

And then when he won at Richmond, which was like 11 or 12 races, you know, into the season, he was the first repeat winner. I really meant to look at that and see how many different winners there were that year because I still don't think that there was more than 16. And of course, this is well before there was ever a chase, and certainly well before this new rule change. I'm just saying I remember that season getting off to just a ridiculous start where there was a new winner every single week. But these were the guys that are supposed to be winning.

Amanda, we're going to have to move on. Mike's given stats backing up all of his opinions. And mud tires. With level-headed perspective, yeah. We started with him talking about mud tires, and now he's given rational level-headed perspective. I don't know what to think of that. No, I think the best point I made today is the mud tires. That was the funniest.

Well, I think that needs to be looked at, mud tires. We encourage people to go online and check out Spy's products. We really appreciate them for their sponsorship of the Dale Jr. download. Their new Happy Lens is sure to enhance your race experience. To learn more about the Happy Lens and shop Dale Jr.'s signature Spy 88 Collection, go to Spyoptic.com. Let's Speed Dial. Okay, well, Mike Davis, I think this is the number one fan.

in Junior Nation. He used to be just Dan the junior fan. Now he's Dan the number one junior fan, quasi-dato, as he likes to call himself as well. Big Texas man, always see him at Texas Motor Speedway. He was fun hanging out with him in the pitch yesterday. But Mike Davis, I'm going to let the two of you wrap here for a few minutes. Good.

I need to talk to the owner of Floppy Yellow, so that's why we're going to have him on today. So what's up, Dan? How's it going? Just trying to recover, brother. long five days in the infield, thanks to an extra rain day. Yeah. You've been to two races this year, Bristol and Texas. Do I need to bring up the fact that both were delayed by rain?

You're the last person that brought it up. Everybody else has mentioned it immediately upon seeing me that I'm the cause of the bad weather at every race I go to. But in my defense, I've been to 50 or 60 NASCAR races. It's only rained three times. Well, but to your credit, and I said this earlier, to your credit, you stayed. You didn't even think about leaving. You didn't even consider leaving.

You sat in those grandstands at Bristol to the wee hours of the night. And then you didn't, of course, you had your school bus. You had everything going. You had your spot in the campground at Texas like you usually do. But there was no thought of you leaving. No, no, I have a question. And Bristol was rough. I mean, it was cold.

You know, I had to walk a heck of a long way up and down those mountains and get to any shelter and a car. I mean, you're going to take the motor speedway. Until race stay, I don't care if it rains or not. It could rain the entire time. We're still going to have a ball. But, yeah, we're lifers. We don't go there just to leave before the action happens. You know, you have fast become one of the most notable fans of Junior Nation.

We love you. You are a star on reaction theater. You are a star on Twitter. Whether people know it or not, you are a star. You're an up-and-coming star, Dan. But you also have a campaign going to be Dale Jr.'s crew chief starting in 2015. If you'd follow Dan, his Twitter handles at Quasi Dato. And he has a hashtag that he has started, Dado 215.

So I know that you actually had Lart out at your bus, sloppy yellow, which we can talk about that in a second, the origins of sloppy yellow. But Latar came out to your bus. You guys shared food. You had a good conversation. Did you give him pointers on this race? Because seeing as how we finished 43rd, I'm thinking you might have had something to do with that.

Look, I'd like to clear the air right here. I had nothing to do with that. I told Stevie when he needed me to give me a call. And he told me he was going to put me on speed down. I didn't see him do it, so I can't verify that he's got my number in his phone. But I told him to holler when he needed help. And when Junior went to the garage, I had my phone in my hand. I was waiting, but he never did call me.

All right. But LaTarck came out Sunday night to your spot. Is that right? Yes. Dan, what did Steve LaTart think about your school bus? Your school bus you have called Sloppy Yellow, which I'm proud to say is a name that derived from right here at Junior Motorsports. When you were here at Junior Motorsports last year in conversation while we were walking around the shop, sloppy yellow came up in some conversation.

You probably remember it a lot better than I do. But that is now what you have called your new school bus that you knew. I said new, right? It's not new. But you bought it for $600. It's new to you. What did Latar think of it? All right.

Well, at J.R.M last year, when I heard your fab guy say the term sloppy yellow, I immediately looked at my brother-in-law, started a band, and decided that I needed to buy a damn school bus. has no shit. It happened right there at J.R.M. Fab Shop. My band is terrible, just like my bus. So I'm walking through here. Picture this. I got Steve LaTart, okay?

Best damn crew chief in the garage. I got Steve Addington. All kind of wins under his belt. Two of the most respected crew chiefs in the history of NASCAR. And I'm showing these two guys, my craftsmanship on my terrible, sloppy yellow $600 bus. Nothing wrong with that. I showed them all this stuff. And they're going, wow, that's really cool.

this is pretty neat. It's badass. And I say, but this is the crown jewel guys. And I show them my toilet in my, in my, in my, in my bus. Steve LaTartre goes, that's bad ass. And I, I just felt like, you know, like, like my dad was talking to when I was a little boy, he said, good job, son. I thought, like, like, hearts were dancing around my head. I was like, Steve LaTardt loves my.

This is the, yeah, this is when you grew up to. This is the greatest day of my life. Yeah, you grew up to be a man. here with the urinal. I like how you box this thing is. Now, here's a funny part. Here's the funny part. My toilet, okay, it sits pretty tall. And when I sat on it

for the first time, I'm up just just to try it out. I wouldn't, you know, I had my jeans on and everything. My feet were like three inches off the ground. I'm six foot one. So I had to build this little platform right in front of the seat. And he goes, that is absolutely a genius move. And I said,

Steve, if you doubt that I can drop a car on a block and fix it out. You are sadly mistaken, son. It was just one of those special moments where we just bonded and I think we became best friends right then and there. Anyways, Dad, we appreciate

you joining us, especially. I know you're working this morning, and it just doesn't feel right to have a Texas race and not talk to you on the podcast the very next day. Dan, we also appreciate everything that you do for Dirty Moe Radio. You call into reaction theater all the time. You leave the

longest messages, which makes Amanda have to edit it down, like edit down a four-minute message or four-minute rant, but that's okay. You the man. We appreciate you. Yeah. Thanks, guys. I appreciate you having me on.

Take it easy, buddy. All right. See you. Good stuff from Dad, oh, appreciate him, man. As good a junior fan as there is. And in all seriousness, I know he's hilarious, but he's a cool representative for Junior Nation. I'm proud to have him. All right.

It's time now for Reaction Theater. After watching these events unfold, I'm convinced that Blaine can only lie in one place, and that's with T.J. majors. While the rest of the spotters were informing their drivers that the front straightway at Texas wasn't actually straight, TJ is more concerned with what the hood of the two cars doing, how the jet driver affected that. Come on, T.J, get your head in the game. Everybody knows that rain makes grass grow, and a real spotter would have been down there this morning with a pushmower trying to get rid of that. They were used to pass to keep their driver from running the line they want to run. Anyway, what was T.J. doing? I speculate he was probably in the back.

You know, I was going to be gravely disappointed if somebody didn't call up blaming T.K. Yeah. Well, a couple things. I'm not surprised. Somebody said something about the bathroom after what Junior said last week. That's hilarious. Like, if Junior would have come – TJ, what happened?

Man, I don't know. I'm in the bathroom. But, you know, it's funny. You were talking about Dato and getting together with LaTart when we were talking to him. You know, we could blame this on the fact that T. That T. He went to the final four on Saturday night, but he behaved himself. He completely behaved himself.

Did he? I don't know. Yeah. No, I was there. I can. Okay. I sat with Hogue and T.J. for a few minutes in junior's phenomenal seats, by the way. Yeah.

Yeah, we ought to give them grief next time when they're here because Dale Jr. gets seats, decides not to go. And then, you know, the noble thing might have been, hey, guys, to the people that, you know, we had a sponsor provide those tickets. Hey, here are these tickets back. Dale Jr.'s not going to go. But what did they do? Yeah. They took them. They went.

T.J. completely behaved himself, so I can't blame it on that. But he should say inside, grass on your inside. Inside, grass on your inside. I mean, really. He probably will from now on. What's next? Man, Dale Jr. went plow on three infields a day. I guess Mike Davis would call that tractor in.

Holy cow, I can't believe there's not safe with barriers on the inside and outside of every trap. That shit could have got serious real quick. NASCAR? You're a billion. dollar industry. Wait the fuck up. Put safer bearings in and outside of every damn track because that shit was not cool. Dale, yeah.

You know, that is some funny stuff. I mean, I just can't tell you, you know, they have the biggest screen in the world out there at Texas Motor Speedway. I'm getting a note from some people in Jimmy's Pit. I turn around, I'll look at the big TV screen, and Junior's entire car is on fire. And I'm just like, what in the world? just happened here. Yeah. It's crazy,

I don't like fire, but I don't like the fact that he hit a piece of the wall that didn't have a safer barrier just as much. I mean, the fire was contained. Yeah. The safer barrier thing

continues to be an issue. And I don't know what tracks, I know California and Pocono have added more safer barrier, but they had to have incidents that caused them to do that. So why don't we have to continue having drivers test this stuff?

You know, that's exactly it. That's what I was going to say. That's the biggest. problem I have is that we wait to resolve this until after something terrible happens. You know, let's resolve it before that happens. You're right. We need safer barrier around this entire, around every track, so that we don't have serious injuries. And good stuff from Ryan McGee on that yesterday. What we have next? You know, it's always been a lifelong dreamer man to be able to take one of those ride-alongs

with Dale Jr. around the track. Yeah, not anymore. You better keep it on the asphalt there, buddy. I get to say that's pretty funny. That's funny. I think he'd laughed at that too. What we have next? Damn it.

I guess there's no happy shit today. Dale Jr., way to step up and be a man, but we all know it was TJ's fault. Stupid shit was in the bathroom again. We'll get them next week, brother. Dale, yeah. Here's some advice to TJ. Next time he goes to the bathroom, just don't say it on the radio.

He's like a cold word. You know? Right, right, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, that's, well, or he could do what Junior does, but that's, he might look pretty funny. Bigger problems there. Next. You have got to be fucking kidding me.

Son of a bitch I was going, God dang it. I don't know what to say. Damn, that sucks. Oh, well, darling's the next weekend. They'll get them, boys. I think he said it well. I think that's exactly how everybody said it. When you don't know how to put a thought together or a sentence together without just cussing,

that's when you know you're upset. That's the only way to get it out. It was a frustrating deal. I mean, you know, Junior Nation is everywhere. I mean, it feels like a home game every time this guy's out of the track mic. I mean, all the expressions of people in the stands, you know, it was just, there was a lot of disappointment, you know, because they love him so much. Did people leave? Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Probably they did. Full disclosure, I quit watching after 13 laps. I had work to do. You couldn't. I couldn't quit watching. Watching Brian Vickers ride around anyway.

Next. I know we're awesome country bumpkins, but somebody has got to keep Dale Jr. from watching Dukes of Hazard for the race. That boy trying to jump over cars and drift through the grass, man. Off to Dawnington, let's get her done. Yes, sir. Somebody in the pits had made a funny comment saying they thought that Junior was trying to do the duck call thing. It looked a lot like that.

If you look at the commercial, the way the car shot out of the grass, it sort of looked like that. No ducks came flying out. Right. Dirt, but not Dux. It was the Ducs. It was the Durt Call. Yes, it was. It was the Ducs Commander 500, and the whole Robertson family was there.

Junior was just trying to be authentic. Yeah, he was. Next. Not going to waste much time on the cluster that was Monday, but I will waste a lot of time on what happened Friday. Congratulations to Chase Elliott on his first nationwide win. Definitely a superstar in the making. And I hope you guys enjoy that beer toast, courtesy of the minor.

Hell yeah, still. We're still behind the 88. Yeah, what's going to happen with that, Mike? We have a beer toast. It already happened? Yeah. Oh, really? Okay.

See, Chase doesn't live here, so it wasn't a problem. He wasn't even here. We just used to have an excuse to have a beer Right, listen. Right, right. It doesn't take much to us to drink beer at work. I mean, that just happens. We'll find a reason to happen.

Yeah, beer toast and don't even tell the dude that won the race about it. No, he knew about it, but he just, he had school. He had school. You can't drink beer when you got school, and you can't drink beer unless you're of age. That's a little bit of a problem, yeah. Can't make it today. I'm in class. But we can.

Well, there you go. Reaction Theater's open 24-7. All you have to do is call, I can say it, I promise. Call toll-free 1-855-740-1902, and leave us your voicemail message, and we'll play the best each week right here on Dirty Mo Radio. Of course, we've got Kelly Earnhardt Miller, Fastlane Family, coming up tomorrow here on Dirty Mo Radio. Her special guest this week is Regan Smith's wife, Megan.

and then Friday you have JRM 360 the podcast. Tune in if you need a good laugh going into the weekend. And on Mondays, we recap the full weekend for the Junior Motorsports Nationwide and Late Model Teams and Dale's Sprint Cup series run as well. All right, let's throw the white flag. Well, I wish Mike Hogue was here to read this, but he's not. He's testing with Dale Jr. I wonder how important he is to a test session.

What do you think, Taylor? Nah, not very. Well, I will read in Place of Hogue this week. It's a busy week. Dale Jr. and the 88 team are testing in Michigan. Like I just said, it's part of the good year tire test as they prepare for the June 15th race weekend. Goodies was supposed to have a production time with Junior yesterday, but Rain in Dallas and in Fort Worth, all that I messed that up.

So that's going to happen on Thursday now. Also on Thursday, guys, listen to this. Dale Jr. will be doing some work with AMP Energy. He's launching a new flavor of AMP Energy. You might want to try it. Stay tuned. I can't reveal anything, but stay tuned to your favorite Twitter handles at Dell Jr. At Amp Energy at 711.

That's the number 7 with 11 spelled out on Thursday for details. It's going to be kind of fun, so just pay attention to that. Here's what's coming up in Darlington this weekend. The nationwide series race is Friday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on ESPN 2. We failed to mention this, Taylor, but Chase Elliott is actually the new points leader in the nationwide series. Not rookie leader. He is the new points leader. Junior Motorsports has the first place and second place in points.

That's awesome. He's two points ahead of Regan Smith. Chase will be in the number nine at Napa Auto Part Chevrolet, Regan and the number seven, Taxpayer.com, Chevrolete. You got a week, guys. If you haven't done your taxes, you got a week, Taxpayer.com makes it fast and easy, just like qualifying lap at Daytona.

And Kevin Harvick is in the number five Armour Chevrolet. So that's what we got on Friday night at Darlington. Then the big one on Saturday night, the Southern 500. Definitely one of my favorite races of the year. Yes, sir. It's scheduled for 6.30 p.m. Eastern on Fox. Dale Jr. will be driving the National Guard Colors this weekend. Last thing, Taylor.

This is a little bit ad lib here. But what I saw in the store this morning as we came in to tape this podcast is a rack full of, you ready for this? Dirty Mo Radio, Dale Yeah, T-shirts are in this store. How much are they, Amanda? 1388. $18. $18.

A bargain. A bargain. Dale-yea dirty-modeo Radio shirts are here created by reaction theater callers. That is absolutely. correct. That's awesome. It's pretty cool stuff right there. We've got a lot of good stuff happening. We'll forget about what happened in Texas. That's right. Go race with the lady in black. Can't wait for that on Saturday night. Excellent work as always. Appreciate Datto calling in. Thanks to Amanda Troutman. For Mike Davis, I'm Taylor-Zarzer. You've been listening to the Dale Jr.

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