The Dale Jr. Download - 481 - Road Trip Recap From Martinsville

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

ROAD TRIP! Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mike Davis take the Dirty Mo Crew on the road for today's episode. Fresh off the track at Martinsville testing for NASCAR's MX5 support series, Dale Jr. describes how the cars drive, how similar they are to a stock car, and what the future may look like for the series at Martinsville Speedway. Plus Dale Jr. and Mike react to the release of Becoming Earnhardt Volume 7, Denny Hamlin's spicy comments about Sam Mayer from Watkins Glen, and so much more! Plus another short track update from Hannah Newhouse on Short Track Insider. 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. Yeah, you are weird. Bob. Whoa! Mr. Dalenhart Jr. Bye! That family techniques sometimes.

Gives you more than just a potato salad. That's the voice of my co-host and one of my best friends in the whole wide world. Mike Davis. We're screwed. Was that me? No, we're not standing in that box together in our underwear. Are you kidding me, Mike? Oh, my God.

It's hilarious. All right, so welcome to another episode of the Dale Jr. Download, and this one, we're coming from the inside of a Chevy Suburban on the way home from Martinsville Motor Speedway. I'm sitting here with Mike Davis, my co-host. How you doing, Mike? I'm doing well. Driving us.

Yeah, Alex is in the car. And, hey, Alex, come on. You can do better than that. We just got done driving some laps with the MX5 at Martinsville. We didn't get to drive all day, but we ran, I don't know, 20, 15, 20 laps. Yep. Had a blast. Got up to speed, I thought, pretty quickly.

I don't know what the fast time was, but I thought my laps were getting close to competitive. And then Bobby Labonte comes out on the track, got to run with him a little bit, and felt good about that. That was cool. Yep. He'd been here all morning running a little bit, so I felt pretty good about how I was against Bobby. His car wasn't handling as well as I think he'd like. He's very loose.

But anyhow, it was a blast. Yeah, now listen, before we go any further, I mean, if you missed Tuesday's episode where we took you on the road, we ought to just say exactly what we were doing here and why. All right, so over the weekend of Watkins Glen, NASCAR came to me, Mike Helton and a few people, and asked me if I'd be interested in coming up here to the test and driving the car for a little bit.

So we did everything we could to make that possible. We recorded our Tuesday show and a little bit early. We recorded it also on the way to the racetrack. And then, you know, we got a chance to drive the car, and then we had to turn around and head back home for some other responsibilities later to do. that don't have anything to do with the podcast. But I did, I do want to say we drove more in the car today on the way to the track and on the way home than we actually did spend time at the race track.

That's true. So we were there for a very short period of time. We ran one run in the car. And this is an effort by NASCAR to possibly see if the MX5 series can race it. Martinsville. If that goes really well, it opens it up to other possibilities. I think the series is very successful already. They have exciting races everywhere they go. They're a property of NASCAR under the EMSA umbrella, and it's doing really well. But NASCAR's just, you know, spitballing a little bit, trying some new things. I think it would be an incredible race. Having now driven the car,

the cars are a blast. They look it, dude. They look so much fun. The car is not easy, but you get up to speed relatively quickly. And from there, finding the next two-tenths and the next tenth is a real challenge. There's a couple things about the car that drive, or it does a few things differently than I've ever experienced in any other kind of car. It has a lot of power steering, and so the steering wheel is real light. but I didn't have a problem with that because I run the steering wheel very similar in eye racing

and so it felt comfortable to me right away the braking so this car feels like it's like push button braking oh a lot of brake when you touch the brake pedal just touch it like just touch it with your finger and it will stop the car on the dime oh wow that would have taken enough people to get used to right?

It's kind of yeah it's like it's like pushing a button brakes automatically And so you've got to be very careful not to overbreak. And you want to slow it down with a little bit of brake, but it's very, very light. And so trying to adapt to that was toughest. The down shifts, so we run second and third gear around the corner, around the track. The upshifts are easy.

You don't have to lift. You just pull it into gear. You don't have to lift off the gas, Mike. The down shifts, it auto blips for you. You can help it, which I'm used to blipping the gas a little bit, so I helped it a little bit. But if you shift too early, the car can step out a little bit. But it's not really a huge, it's not a massive challenge,

but there's these, like trying to go as fast as I was is not going to be good enough. You're going to have to find another 10th or 2. And I think finding that other 10th or 2 is going to be the biggest challenge. And it's in the brakes, it's in the downshifts, it's in trying to enter the corner and get back to the throttle as soon as possible. They don't have a lot of power. And so trying to get out of the corner is really important. If you overdrive the entry and hurt the exit, it's going to be a slow lap.

Now, when I went down in two turns, I think it was one and two, to watch you as you were doing these laps. I did see your hands saw in a little bit. I'm assuming this is in the middle of while you're downshifting. Is that right? Yeah. In the middle of the turns? A little bit of that, and the car is trying to spin out. So the car's really edgy.

Yeah. So it's kind of loose, and it's really easy to make that happen in turn three. turn one, it's a little tighter. But if I tried to get more, entering three, I always swung the back in the middle of the corner and it hurt the whole lap. So I learned that to put together the best laps, it was all really about trying to get to the throttle sooner.

So giving up entry and getting to the gas and driving the car off the corner, especially when I was behind Bobby. He was driving in and swinging the back and the back's moving around a lot. And I was lifting early and getting to the gas. and driving back to him on corner exit and down the next straightaway. So I want to talk to you about that.

So you ran, I would say maybe 10 laps, maybe 5 to 10 laps before Bobby actually came out on the track. So you were on the track by yourself? Did you know he was coming out on the track? Were you ready for another car to be around you? Okay. And so you didn't know, but he comes out there. So when you guys went out there, like what was that like racing now? I mean, because again, you were just in the car for just a few minutes.

It's super brief. Oh, yeah. So for me, I was like, man, I don't know if that's enough time for me to get acclimated to a race car. Well, we went around. I went, you know, when Bobby come out, I slowed down to get behind him because he's been here all morning. I wanted to see what he had learned. And so I slowed down to stay behind him. He gets going.

I followed him a few laps, saw what he was doing, made some changes to what I was doing. And then I went by him and just started running laps alone. and he was struggling with his car is really loose. And so, you know, I, when I went to his inside, we were heading down the back straight away, and the car's loose into three, and you've got a downshift, braking, all those things kind of makes the back want to swing.

And so I was a little concerned just briefly, but he lifted and let me go before we got to the corner. So I wasn't going to race him down in there and back myself into the side of him. So, okay. Let me back up even more. And I know I'm going all kinds out of order here. But like, so you drove a car that Chad McCombie owns.

Yep. And Chad was there and he looked to be very helpful to you. You were going to him for a lot of insight. So you went and sat in the car for the first time. And by the way, if you think that they're tight fits in these NASCAR cup cars, boy, this is a tight fit, right? Like these things are small. So you climb in the car. Can you walk us through kind of the conversation like what he was showing you.

about the whole workings of the inner of the car right off the bat that looked unusual or something for you that you're just not used to. Yeah, I've never been in an MX5, so for people that race this, this is going to be a funny conversation. I sat down in the car, it's got the turn signals, it's got all the... Oh, it had a blinker. It's got all the stock lever. That's right, okay. When she'll wiper and everything comes on the same way. It's just like a stock car has all of those pieces.

It has, you know, it has... all the ignition switches and stuff up on the right side of the dash. The steering columns of clamp-on, you know, racing-style column. It's a sequential shifter, and you sort of pull up this little locking mechanism with your fingers to get it into neutral and reverse. But it's, you know, it's pretty simple to shift. But you are packed in there. Now, the seat, I looked at the seat, it could go back further.

The car is seats for a specific driver, and it's not even for Chad. So it's not fit for us. I think I could certainly move the seat back and down and get me out of the top of the... Like I'm sitting in the car, I'm like right at the cage, at the front of the cage. And so I'd like to get down and back a little bit, which I think it would easily do. I'm telling you, man, if this race happens and it's on a date where our oval drivers are free, you're going to have some people very interested in racing in the

in the MX5's first oval race in Martinsville. You know, guys like Kyle Bush and if they can be there, they're going to try to look into opportunities to make it. And NASCAR is going to seek out some of those names to see, hey, who can come race this? We'll provide you the car. We'll hook you up with the teams

to make it happen. And Chad told me they have multiple, several cars in their team, a couple, two or three cars. Yeah, that's right. And so it's certainly interesting. I think it would be a blast to race in that race. And they're really fast through the corner. They don't go super quick down the straightaway, but. They really don't.

But like, as you were saying on the Tuesday podcast, in those cases, you know, that sometimes means you can actually get to the corner a whole lot better. without as much break because you're not carrying as much speed into the turn. Well, that certainly was the thing I noticed right off the bat. These things, they're not going super fast down the straight. So the way you rolled them through the corner was definitely different. And I love seeing your hands. I mean, those skeleton gloves were just moving and you were getting used to it.

I could hear the downshifting. But then once Bobby got out there, you started looking like you were in a groove then. You started really kind of finding your own. So did you come in on your own or did they call you in? You were radio. Yeah, I just decided to come on in. I ran a lot of laps and got the tires pretty warmed up. Gotcha.

And so I couldn't get back to my fast time. That's kind of the only reason I would have stayed out there is if I was like, okay, I can better my lap, better my best lap. And so I'd gotten the tires kind of hot and slick, and the cars kind of lost a couple tents, and I decided, you know, if I can't beat my best time, I'm going to come in and think about it. Okay. I knew we didn't have all day to be messing around.

So you were talking to those guys. I was talking to some folks, do you have a sense on what the verdict is on whether these cars can actually race to the elbow? Like, are they feeling like, yes, the test was successful enough to where this will for sure happen? Yeah, they thought that yesterday. First handful of, you know, I think by lunchtime, Chad McCombie and those guys were feeling like that this was going to be a good thing and absolutely doable, no questions. The only thing that I was talking to chat about was if you're going to do something, you're going to take something out of its natural. right and bring it somewhere unusual you got to check off the safety stuff like brakes whether brakes gonna hold up or is anything about the tire gonna be a problem is it going to

blister is it too soft you know those type of thing it's i don't think this is an oval tire it shouldn't matter uh but you just got to make sure that nothing would happen during the race that would make it you know make give it a black eye or make it a failure And I think they answered that stuff yesterday early, and they already had confidence in breaks and all those things. But just taking something out of its natural environment into a different situation, you just got to make sure you check all those boxes first. And they did, and I think you move forward. I think you move forward. Where do you put it on a schedule?

How does it fit? Is it a companion to something that's already happening? I think it could be its own event. I don't think it needs to be a support series. Its first race at Martinsville, it could be the headliner, and enough people would be excited about it. I think there's enough interest in it, right? If you're a track owner,

maybe you want to have this as your headliner. Well, the track president was out there in the car himself. He was out there having fun, Clay Campbell. If you have something that people want to see, you don't put it with something people are already there for, right? So, like, maybe it doesn't need to be companions with NASCAR or anything like that? I don't know, it would be interesting to see. I mean, it's a companion race already.

Selfishly, I would like to take, selfishly, I think you should have the MX5 race like a midweek before NASCAR or midweek a close around that Martinsville race or when NASCAR is local, racing at Charlotte or racing somewhere around here so that it's easy for the drivers

to justify racing in it. So if you wanted to Kyle Busch or somebody to go race in it, he's not on the other side of the country. Right? He's not in Texas on Sunday and then racing in Phoenix or, you know what I mean the next week, he's in the area.

And so it doesn't have to be nestled up against It's the Martinsville Cup Race weekend, but if it's just somewhere like they're racing at Bristol, right? Yeah. You could have like a MX-5 race on a Wednesday or something, and I personally would love to figure out how to get our pro-cars tour series, our pro-cars, our late-mile pros,

to Martinsville. Like we, our late-model stock marquee events at the Wilkesville track, and we love that, and that's what we want going forward is to, you know, Daytona 500 of the Cars Late Model Stock Series B, the Wilkes World Race. But our pros need their own event. So, you know, that's totally outside of the conversation, I know. You probably don't give crap about that. No, actually, you brought it up earlier.

I mean, that was one of the things that was interesting to you. So, yeah. I just, yeah, I mean, I think our pros need a big event, and that would be cool to put them with the MX5 and have like a bam, bam. You know, our pros run the day before, the MX5 race happens. The next five race is going to create a lot of excitement, interest. There'll be a ton of interest around it. That would be good for us to be part of it.

Yeah. I don't suppose you planted that seat with play or anybody else. I've been talking it and talking. Oh, have you? When we met with them, when they came out to me and asked me to come to the test and drive the car, I told them right then. I said, if you all ever run a race there, I'd love to talk to you about getting the cars tour to be a part of it. And the late mall stock cars

Tours can't go to Martinsville. They already have the 300. They're not going to, we don't want to, you know, that's already, they've already established the La Moll Stocks at Martinsville, and it's got its own race. But, and then I talked about it again today, so we'll see.

Put that bug out there. It would be fun. Yeah. It'd be a nice companion to a little event, a little day for people to come out there and watch some racing. Sure. So I think, I mean, listen, you brought it up earlier. We spent more time on the highway than we did on the racetrack,

but I think it was well worth it. I thought it was fun. And, yeah, we've done crazier things. We've gone further distances for something that might not have made the full of sense. But the fact of the matter is, is that you went out there to turn 20 laps or so. That was worth it. It was a fun day. Thanks.

I appreciate it. I'm glad everybody came along. We got a car full in a suburban. We do. appreciate everybody coming. It was a lot of driving for a very small amount of content, but I was going to probably end up coming up here anyways, and so I'm glad we somewhat documented the experience, man.

Those who makes five cars are a blast. I don't want to say they're easy to drive, but they're not. They're blast. They're technical. To be good was fun. but to be great would take some work. Sure, like anything. Yep.

And so I hope that they get something going. By the way, this won't be the last of the DelGener Download road trips that we'll be taking because you and I got a trip. Do we want to talk about that or are we saving that? So to set this up, basically I invited Larson to racing the cars tour and he said yes, he's excited about it, and he came and raced at Caraway for us, and we had a great night, and he drove my sun drop car, and we re-de-cowled it and all that.

But he had fun, I think, and got to see kind of what we're doing at least. And I said, hey, for doing that, I'll go to a high-limit event and with his winged sprint cars. And so I think we agreed to go to Lernaville. I signed up the whole Dirtymoe media team to go. We're basically going to do the same thing we did today. I've really never experienced a winged outlaw race. I've not been to too many dirt races in my time.

And so we're going to go have some fun, eat some track food, meet some fans, maybe sign some autographs or anything else Kyle wants me to do. But we're just going to celebrate his series and what they're doing and learn what we can, right? Yeah, yeah. This is one of those weird situations. I've been to more sprint car races than you have apparently. So. So we have that on the schedule.

That's a road trip we're going to take. And that's like a Monday or Tuesday road trip one day. Yeah, it's a Tuesday. Yep. So that's coming up. So, yeah, Dale Jr. download road trips is a thing, Alex. We'll just start taking these field trips every night again, and we'll just tell James, Micah, everybody.

Come on. You're in. Amen. We're actually going to fly to that one, boys. Not driving to that one. Big time it. Yeah. So it should be fun.

So episode seven of Becoming Earnhardt came out yesterday. And we actually initially wrote episode seven and eight as one entire episode. But it was so many races and so many things happening that we split in half. So now we have episode seven. We're closing in on the end of the season. Dad's back at the wheel of his race car after the injuries and folks. and he's just trying to get some results. He's kind of struggling with his endurance, which is interesting.

And there's a couple, you know, we talk about how Bill Elliott was asked to go to Dover. I called Bill. I said, hey, Bill. I said, man, I can't really find a bunch of information anywhere. But you were, and it's pretty cool when you get Bill Elliott on the phone. I mean, it sounds cool. When Bill Elliott answers the phone, it's really badass. and call a Hall of Fame or champion like that.

And he answers, it's a good feeling. So I was like, man, I don't know how you were there because you weren't entered in the race. He was racing for himself and Roger Hamby a little bit, so maybe he was there helping Roger, I don't know. But how did he get in the car? because you're not really supposed to, I don't know what the rules were back then, but if you hadn't qualified or turned any practice laps,

I don't know that you could drive, you could just climb in the car in the middle of the race. You had to have some sort of lap at some point during the weekend. But he didn't remember a whole lot about it, but what he did tell me was that Jake Elder called him earlier in the week and was like, hey, man, we might need you. And so he went, and he just hung out. And they did. And they stuck him in there, and then Dad gets back in.

I always remember, so that was the cool thing to find out and be able to actually call Bill and ask him about it instead of digging through an article and finding somewhere. It's kind of fun sometimes just talking to the people. Yeah, people. Call the source. Yeah. But the other thing, too, is I've known,

we've sort of been talking a lot about relief drivers and how common that was. And one thing we missed was David Pearson got relief at Bristol. from Liddy Pond. That's right. And so I had that picture in my phone, and I just missed on it, not including that little tidbit in there, but I never knew that drivers got back in. I didn't either.

It blows my mind to hear him even talk about. The driver got out during the race, came back, got back in, which is what your dad did. And Richard Petty does this a few times. Yes, he does. It's like they get out for 100 miles and feel better. Take a break. We're going to get back in there. Right.

And it's likely because, you know, the driver in there is doing the relief, but he's not entirely comfortable. The lap times aren't as good as they need to be. Whatever, right. But it's interesting that Bill drives the car and then Dad gets in and finishes the race. But I, you know, having a lot of fun with this series. I thought it was a great episode. We've only got a few races left in the season to be able to wrap it up for episode eight.

We're going to have a ninth episode, and that's one I'm really excited about because we're still in the process of putting the ninth episode together. The season will have been over and we're going to do basically a where are they now what happened to, you know, Joe Milliken, what happened to all of these different. We obviously have some people that we know what happened to them,

Dad, Terry the Bonnie, Harry again, but we're going to try to tell those briefly, but really get into the, you know, know, the history of some of these other characters that were talked about a lot during the series. So that'll be fun. And, yeah, I think we're gearing ourselves up for possibly doing 1980. That's right. Yeah.

So that'll be fun. I think 1980 is another year, not to get ahead of ourselves, but 1980. I want to do 1980 because there's a very public. falling out, if you will, the team almost implodes on itself mid-season in 1980 for Dad. The Osprey team. Yeah. And then, you know, obviously everybody knows he goes and wins the championship.

So there's some cool, there's got to be, I know a lot of stories, but there's got to be some stuff we can learn. I mean, you remember Tommy Russell telling us about how they went to Vegas and all that after they won a championship? Yeah. Yeah, as a matter of fact, I was just thinking about that Tommy Russell conversation the other day. Because you talk about one of the funniest and best moments I think we've ever had on the download is Tommy Russell trying to be cryptic and not really wanting to give out the fact that, well, we had to have a bottle. And you're like, what?

Daddy Red and Nitris? Tommy Russell was a great conversation. But yeah, I was thinking about that the other day. But yeah. So the other thing is that, you know, eventually suitcase Jake's going to suitcase Jake, ain't he? Yes, he will. Let's not give away too much. Okay.

But yeah. All right. We know what he's got, he's capable of. Yeah. We, you know, in the 79 series, there was a lot of moments where Jake is like showing his frustrations with trying to wrangle dad in, you know. And I hope that people got the gist of that a little bit when they were dealing with the, you know, when they were taking the series in and listening to it. Even this most recent episode, he's telling, Jake's telling him to get out of the car. In fact, I think your dad wrote that in a column where he was talking about,

I didn't want to get out, but Jake said I needed a break. So, like, you could just kind of get the dynamics of that. More like a father's son, and this is the way it's going to be. Jake would do things just to show the, just to prove the control. Who's boss? Yep, right? And even if it didn't make all the sense in the world, he just, that's my decision. And then when I make it, that's what we're doing.

Sounds like a lot of crew chiefs, right? Well, I don't know. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, easy. Don't go indict the crew chiefs. No. But no, that's one of the things that came out in that series. All right, well, good. Good episode.

We're working on episode eight for next week, and, yeah, I hope everybody enjoys it. One thing I wanted to cover before we close out, been kind of fun over the last month or two, kind of doing a little back and forth with Denny on his podcast. They'll say something or will say something, and there's some, you know, there's some comments back and forth. There's one thing in particular, I think, that I heard on his podcast this week. Let's listen to it. I think then he got goaded by his team.

And I just think that that is not good at all. I think the team, I understand it. But, no, I don't. I don't understand it. Let the drivers handle it. They don't need to be getting involved, especially with a young guy. You don't need... I remember Chad Canals yelling at William Byron.

Under caution, in Cup Series, for not taking care of somebody. And then William destroyed the front of his car and I think it ended his race or something like that. It was bad. It was bad. It just, you know, if you want to sit Sam down after the race and say, hey, man, he kind of used you up here. You need to just hold your ground next time. like saying hey when you get back to him you do it that's just a bad example because the way he did it was was wrong he didn't even attempt to make the corner um if there was nobody in front of

sam mayor he would have went off into the into the distance because he he overdrove the corner to get too tired he did not wheel hop and cause him to get into the corner too deep he drove in too deep because he wanted to hit Ty. So, you know, I think my opinion about Denny is everything on the back end of that he said was pretty much correct. I mean, we said it Tuesday. I believe that Sam wanted to move Ty Gibbs. He was going into that corner with the intention to make some contact and try to move him out of the way. I think that he got in there harder than he wanted to

and you will hop and you get loose because you're trying to slow down, right? You're trying to get the car to stop and it jumps out of money. So I think that he, I think we kind of agree there that Sam, Sam's definitely going in there to get to 54, or the 19, I should say, to move him. But I think Sam over did it and wheel hopped and then hit the 19 way harder than he wanted to.

But still, it didn't matter. Sam's like, you know, with all our history, I don't have any regrets, no remorse at all. So I think we kind of agree about that, but I don't agree with the front end. I don't agree with the front end of Denny's comments. The team goading him into making that move, I don't think they did. Yeah, I think he's got that right. He just interpreted that all wrong. Yeah.

But isn't it funny how we hear this audio and then we just all have different interpretations? If that's not racing, I don't know what it is. But the fact is that he had a lot of things wrong. One, that wasn't his crew chief. Two, Kevin Hamlin was actually talking him off the ledge. That's what I thought was funny. It's like either Denny didn't hear it and somebody told him this stuff secondhand. Ah, yeah, maybe.

Or Denny took it the same way Sam took it. When he heard the comments from the spot or Denny took it. Oh, yeah. You know, Denny took it as go get him. Right? It's possible. where everybody, at least everybody that I've talked to, took it as, hey, man, you would have raced him the same way

on that last restart, regrouped, and buckle down. And he's like, I can't remember exactly what his words were, but he may say, do what you've got to do, but the fact of the matter is you're just trying to pump up your driver, you've got a green-white-checkered restart here. Get your head back in the game, go try to win the race. But he was certainly not saying go take him out. There was none of that.

No. But you're right. Sam goes 10-4. And we're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, no, no, no, no, no. Not 10, four. Not 10, four. Just a copy that would have been fine.

All right. Well, Denny, you're wrong. Isn't that what we're trying to say? You went, dude, you went so hard on Needy. Good job. I'm so proud of you. You didn't think I had it in me. Yeah, I didn't think you had it.

Yeah, Denny ain't going to do that again. Not after that butt chewing. All right, it's time for Samass Jr. presented by Xfinity. Thank you, Xfinity for everything you do. We've got some great questions today. Alice is going to tee those up. Who's going to do those questions?

That will be me. All right, Alex, let's get started. All right. Well, first question. On Sunday, you had posted a lot of Instagram stories of view on the track. Yeah. Pre-race. What was the story behind the break marker not 100 that you posted?

Basically, it didn't look like it was 100 feet or whatever to the corner. Look a little closer than that. Yeah. Right? Like when you're driving is what to do this is that? When you're driving, you're not, you're like, yeah, you're just looking at numbers and counting down. And it's like a reference, no matter, you're not, whether it's 100 yards or 100 feet, whether it's exact, it doesn't matter. You're just kind of going until you're going to the limit of the car.

And then if the limit, if that limit happens to be next to the 200, then you can go to your crew chief. You say, hey, man, I'm breaking it to 200. Where's my teammate breaking? And they're just markers, references. and they mean nothing. But when I was walking out there and looking at it was like, damn, it's like 100 inches to the corner.

It's saying 100 feet or 100 yards. But it just looked very close to the corner. Yeah, anything else cool you found out there? The billboards, those go bowling things that they drive through are held in place by bags of water, little donut bags of water. Just interesting.

Yeah, I think Kaz Grawler went through one. Yeah. You did? I was bored. You were bored. Walking around out there until my on camera. I did like the close-ups of the rumble strips of how much tire marks they were. Oh, yeah.

That was cool. Yeah, and then I peeled the paint off. You see, I mean, layers of paint? Oh, yeah. That's what I was trying to show you. Yeah, yeah. There's like 12 layers of, like thick layers of paint. I ain't taking that stuff.

Painted over and over it. Yeah. Painting over it. I worry about that. This next question is from Sadie. A couple weeks ago, you tweeted. asking for help with recommendations for your record collections. I don't know if you remember that.

How's it going and have you picked out some of the records? I'm done. Got them all. Yeah? Yeah, I went on social media. So I got this little room that I'm going to put a record player in and it's going to be basically the best 100 records, you know, that you could have in a collection, right? And now that's, you know, everybody's going to be interpreting the best 100 differently, right? but I just wanted to get some feedback on social media,

which social media is great for that. And so I put out a tweet and got tons of great ideas. And now I think we're going to have about a 200 record collection. So yeah, we're going to have more records than we originally planned. But all of the feedback that I got was really helpful. I literally was just looking at it the other day and buying the final few records. We're done. We got all we need.

We don't need anymore. Feel good about the collection. That's cool. It's mostly Yacht Rock. Yeah. Mostly. Probably 60% Yacht Rock. What's Yot Rock?

Huh? What's Yot Rock? It's the trend. Christopher Cross. Dan Fogelberg. The Doobie Brothers. Okay. Yeah.

I know them. Chicago. Yacht Rock even has its own channel on Sirius X-M now. You don't really? I'm not a rock guy, no. You don't, you don't not a rock guy. rock guy at all? Like any type of rock?

Just the classics that you would hear anywhere. You would love yacht rock. You would? What I? What I? It's late 70s, early 80s. Okay. I'll have to give it a chart.

But it's sort of the more mellow, um, chill. Yeah, easy listening. More like, you know, hanging around the house,

but Bronfire or stuff like that. You would like it. Yeah, yeah, you would. You'd vibe that. I'll give it a listen. Dude, if you don't know what the hell yacht rock is,

I don't. I do not try to pretend I'm a music guy. Everybody has the right to clown you for a little bit. They can. They can. That's definitely worth it. I'm very innocent when it comes to the music.

Okay. Well, you're in the right place, man. We're going to enlighten you. Yeah. Speaking of concerts, music, Sarah wants to know, what's the last concert you attended? And is there something,

someone you really want to see, perform and haven't gotten the chance to see yet? I think the last concert, I can't remember. I think the last concert I went to was Pine Grove in Charlotte. There is a great concert. I like,

I like I like emo pop punk music which is Danger Summer is one of my favorite bands All of us, we've talked about that. Anytime I can see them play is awesome.

Tiny moving parts is a band I'd like to see live. I've tried a couple times but just haven't been able to get to a show. But, I mean, you know, I would like to see, honestly, I'd like to see Christopher Cross, speaking of Yacht Rock. You know, he sings that song Sailing, right? Yeah. So that's kind of like the poster song for Yacht Rock.

And I was looking online when I was making this record collection, I was like, damn, does he even still play? Yeah, he's out there still digging. So, I don't know. I think seeing, I've been kind of interested in going to one of those, like, festivals. where it's like a specific genre. So I know like Everclear and all these 90s alternative bands sort of tour together. And there's like, you know, there'll be like eight or ten bands on this sort of one day, you know, festival. I'd like to get to one of those, man, and just get full nostalgia.

They're pretty cool. Yeah. Because I went to all those. When I was young and mid-90s, late 90s, they had the weenie roast out in, that's what they called it. The 106.5 radio station, local station here, played all alternative of music. And they had a concert every year called the Wini Roast out in the outdoor amphitheater in Charlotte.

And it would be like two or three days, and it was everyone. Lance Moore set, live, Stone Tbilts, it was all the bands. And, man, it was amazing. And I went to that two or three years in a row. And so to do something like that now with the same bands would be cool to go see a nine or ten band show

from the 90s alternative stuff. Yeah. Do you remember your first concert you ever went to? My first concert was Moody Blues in Chicago. That's been on Asht Jr. Not too long ago. Yeah, I was about 15.

I think Andrew was doing that. And he didn't know what Chicago was. He thought he was talking about the location. Yeah. I think we got time for one more. It's pretty simple. What is your predictions for Daytona? Do you think Bubba gets in or not?

Shoo-wee. So I think Bubba's pretty confident because he does really well at Daytona and he knows he knows how to stay out of trouble you know into plate tracks so I feel like his chances are the best but um something's giving me this weird vibe man that whatever whoever wins at Daytona is going to be a non-winner yeah and it you know so then therefore

it's got to be Bubba if he's going to get in yeah right yeah he's the only one that's not locked in so right yeah so I got this weird feeling man and it's going to be this sort of, you know, it's going to be this weird non-winner, like Harrison Burton, somebody like that. Yeah, I got it. It's weird feeling like it ain't going to be any of the current winners or anybody that, I think it's going to be a wild, nasty,

it's going to be crazy race, and we're going to have, you know, it's going to be, they'll be, you know, in the top five crossing the finish line, at the end is going to be like a Rick Ware car and inspire motorsports. You know, it's going to be one of them races. Yeah. Oh, so you're looking for chaos here. I think it'll be chaos. Yeah.

I don't think he's going to have to look hard for it. It'll be chaos. Yeah. I got a question for him before you close it down. Go ahead. One of the funny tweets, I don't know if you saw this, somebody over the weekend said, Tell Jr. to give Neil Armstrong his headset back because you're, and I

got it because I noticed when I was watching the broadcast. The cans is huge. Because are amazing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Am I crazy or are those new? Because I don't recall seeing these big old earphones like that. They've always been massive. They call them cans.

So this is funny, man. You'll, this is hilarious. So, well, when we, so there's two options. They call it, there's cans and blue steel. So the blue, I don't know why they call blue steel, but the blue steel is the earplugs, right? And so that's what we used out on the track. But you can't use that for whatever. during the broadcast.

And so I guess the mic and everything's important. You know, they got to have all that going on. And so they put you on cans. And they're literally like freaking giant cans. Yeah, it looks silly. Yeah, I can't help it. I don't get to choose. Well, I bet there ain't an ounce of a noise coming through those babies.

I'll tell you this, man. Got them all sealed off. They look comfy. Listen, I'll be honest. I felt like that my, this is like shouldn't matter to anybody. but I felt like my performance Sunday was trash. And if that had been the case in year one or two, I would be a basket case today.

But for whatever reason, at this point, I don't love that I don't think I did a good job. I wish I would have done a better job than I did. I didn't think I did a really good job in my part of the show or where I was at. It was a tough race to call because it really wasn't a whole lot to do. And, but, but like, I don't, it doesn't bother me as bad. Good.

I tried and it didn't work and it didn't feel like it was, it didn't feel good. And if I look like, if I look hilarious. Yeah, so be it, whatever, right? I'm glad you feel that way. I still, listen, it's my opinion they're playing you out of position. I don't know how they could expect you to go out there and, you know, win an Emmy for your performance when you're not a turn announcer. where you belong in the booth. That's where you belong. I'm sorry, I'll die on that hill. I didn't want to get into all that. I know. I know you don't. That's me.

Especially on our Ask Junior. But yeah, sometimes, man, you get out of the booth or you get done and you're just like, I didn't have it today. I didn't do it a good job. I just, what I had to say, I didn't say it well. I didn't articulate it well. I think the first couple of times, I stumbled on McDowell, like on my second hit, lap two, just had a couple bad hits early and never really got a chance

to redeem myself with any really awesome action coming through my end of the racetrack and but those

you'll have days like that it was a rough outing for me but anyways that's the end of Asr

Jr. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for supporting everything we do here. Thanks to Xfinity

and enjoy the rest of the show. All right well I Appreciate everybody tuning in this Thursday. It's been a lot of fun. Thanks for being patient, waiting on our reaction to the test at Martinsville.

Everything was great about that. Hope you're enjoying becoming Earnhardt and everything else for putting out a dirty mode media. Action is detrimental. Dole bumper clear. And follow us on our social media handles. We've got a lot of things going on. A lot of live shows and all kinds of different things

for y'all to be a part of. As we close out this show on Thursday, we're going to toss it to Hannah Newhouse for some Short Track Insider. Is anyone else very much ready for sweatshirts, fall weather, and championship weekends? Yeah, me too. But welcome back to Short Track Insider, where I am so not ready to melt into a puddle every single weekend at the racetrack. But don't worry, fall is just around the corner. It's been teasing us. We've got a couple hot weekends still coming up.

And then it is sweatshirt weather at the racetrack. And I simply cannot wait. So let's get into it. Let's start with the cars tour at Tri-County this past weekend for the old North State Nationals. The event originally was scheduled for earlier in the year, but was again postponed, and man, all of the drivers were just simply ready to get after it at that tricky track, ready to race for $30,000 with the late model stocks. Most people had their eyes on drivers going into the weekend that have been at the forefront. Your drivers like Carson Quappell, Brendan Queen, or honestly even a Mason Diaz. But it was Landon Huffman, who was a late entry to the 2023 Cars Tour season. who bested them all and was able to collect his first cars to relay model stock win.

And of course, the bonus with that being a pretty good little payout at 30K. Now let's jump over to the West Coast for a racetrack tucked right outside of Seattle, Washington, is Evergreen Speedway in Monroe, Washington, which is a very unique facility. It's a fairground facility hosting a paved 5 eighth mile and a 3 eighth mile on the inside of that. And then a fifth mile paved oval. and it sees the likes of stock cars, you name it. They have drifting there. There's even a motocross track there as well where they host, you know, forms of

motocross and, of course, the fair. So it's just a great facility. It's a cool place. If you ever get the chance to go check it out, they have NASCAR Weekly there as well. But this past weekend, it hosted the ARCA West series for the Napa Auto Parts 150, where Sean Hingarini took over the win over Tyler Rife. Cole Raz rounded out your podium. But I think one of my favorite stories coming out of that weekend,

is up-and-coming late-model racer of Haley Constance, breaking through and finally getting her first pro-late model win. If you're around that area, the Constance family has such a long-standing history and is always one of my favorite families to see at the racetrack when you're up in the northwest in the racing area. And to me, it's wild that Haley's even behind the wheel of a pro-late model because I feel like she's just still so little, but she's grown up. She's worked her way through the ranks.

And so it was awesome to see all of her hard work pay off and her to get that win, of course, in front of a big crowd and have her family there. So we got up with Haley this week, and here's what she had to say about that win. Yeah, being able to get that first pro late model win was a really great feeling. And being able to celebrate with my crew was awesome because we've worked so hard all season and have gotten close to that number one spot plenty of times. And we finally were able to get it done. It was also pretty cool that the ARCA West crowd was there to watch

because I would love to race ARCA one day. and if somebody was watching me and saw my talent, then that would be pretty cool. All right, still a busy weekend, this upcoming weekend, and well, this weekend is what I like to call a hidden gem in the world of pavement short track racing. And honestly, I really wish it wasn't so hidden because the event itself is just simply incredible. The track is unique, the racing is awesome, and, well, it's Oxford 250 week is basically what it is. Up in Maine at Oxford Plains Speedway, such a cool and unique event. altogether late model racers primarily kind of in the northeast region have all been fine-tuning their

programs for this weekend and we'll all try their hand at becoming an oxford 250 champion and man mayn this time of year is absolutely gorgeous uh it's again just such a cool racetrack and i feel like needs to be highlighted because if you are around the area or honestly add this one to your bucket list for next year make a trip make a full week out of it get up to oxford and go hang out for the weekend you know at this racetrack and this event and i mean fun fact a little sentimental value for me. I actually made my on-camera TV debut there when MAV TV covered this race in 2017. So while to think, of course, maybe that's maybe I'm more the bias to this event.

But this weekend, you can catch all the action all weekend long on Racing America. Also this weekend, it is a triple header for the extreme outlaw midgets and the world of outlaw case construction late models as they both take on Davenport, Davenport Speedway, starting on Thursday evening. of course that track located in Davenport, Iowa. It's three nights of racing at Davenport for the short track. And at the end of every single night, they have what is called a semi-truck light show. And I'm going to need someone to report back to me on what that exactly consists of because I am so intrigued. I will be on assignment with IMSA at VIR, Virginia International Raceway this weekend.

So unfortunately, will not be there. So someone, let me know what that consists of because I'm so curious. Also, this weekend, the World of Outlaw and Noss Energy drink, sprint cars are headed north as they take on the tricky bull rings of river cities in Grand Forks, North Dakota on Friday, and then they head over to Red River Valley Speedway in Fargo, North Dakota on Saturday. All things, of course, extreme and world about law-related can be watched on Dirt Vision all weekend long. The Lucas Oil Late Model series coming off of a busy weekend being at Batesville for the Topless 100. They're headed over to Port Royal Speedway for two nights on the docket up in Pennsylvania for Friday and Saturday,

while the All-Star Circuit of Champion sprint cars can be found at Tri-City Motor Speedway in Auburn. Auburn, Michigan. Not to be confused with the many other Tri-City Raceways, Speedways, et cetera, et cetera. This one, specifically located in Auburn, Michigan. And then they head over to Butler Speedway in Quincy, Michigan on Saturday. You can watch both Lucas Oil late models and All-Stars on Flow Racing. And to cap you off with some more pavement racing, the NASCAR Will & Modified Tour heads to Langley Speedway this weekend for a Saturday night of racing in Hampton, Virginia, which you can, of course, watch all of the NASCAR Will and Modified Tour stuff on flow racing but i also want to take this moment to uh send out some thoughts and prayers to a

long time member of of course the racing community the modified family of tommy baldwin junior he announced his recent battle with cancer and if you've had the honor of meeting him you know that he is someone that cancer should be afraid of and he is going to absolutely kick its tail to sending all of you know our best thoughts and prayers over to the baldwin family as he uh you know takes on this new challenge so sending sending love over there if you're at the racetrack this weekend i'm sure, you know, you can't keep them away from a racetrack. So lastly, the Cars Tour back-to-back weekends. Of course, we talked about them, uh, racing for $30,000 last weekend. Well, they're headed to Wake County for their second visit of the season this upcoming weekend.

Last time we were there, we saw a breakthrough winner, a driver get his first win. We had a new winner last weekend with Land and Huffman. Will we see another new winner added to the 2023 Cars Tour schedule? You'll have to tune into Flow Racing this weekend to find out. Well, if you're headed to a racetrack this weekend, send me a tweet. You can tag me on Twitter at Hannah Newhouse. Use the hashtag hashtag Shorttrack Insider. Let me know where you are or what you're watching. And, hey, maybe we can talk about it on next week episode of Short Track Insider.

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