The Dale Jr. Download - 493 - Hold Up, Is Texas Back?

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Dale Earnhardt Jr. survived the hot Texas heat and returned to the Bojangles Studio for another episode of Dirty Air. He joins co-host Mike Davis to join in on this week’s discourse surrounding the Lonestar speedway and more: Isla was upset that Dale didn’t win Bristol What Cup driver milestones are really worth mentioning? Dale’s trip to the Big Apple Texas Motor Speedway is heading in the right direction There are storylines galore in the Cup Series this year During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions about: Cheating at Battleship The skeleton racing gloves Who was more competitive in racing, Kelley or Dale? Does Dale play golf? Free beer or free tacos? Favorite pizza toppings 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. What? Mr. Dalenhart Jr. Bye. That family picnic sometimes. Gives you more than just a great 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. What 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.

Hey, everybody's Dale Jr. Welcome back to another episode of the Dale Jr. Download in the Bojangles Studio with my co-host, Mike Davis. How's it going, Mike? Wonderful. How are you doing? I'm all right, man. Just, yeah, just checking in this week, coming off of Texas.

And great to get back to this table and see these Lionel late model stock die casts here. That was fun last year. For the rest of time. That's right. They're here. for the rest of time. Looking forward to getting the sun drop one when that happens.

I'm sorry, I'm never satisfied it. I am thankful and grateful for what we have. You sound like my daughter. I've been trying to tell her to be more grateful. So you've got the message too. Yeah. They do look sharp. Yeah.

So we had the Bristol Xfinity race. Not sure if we talked about this on the last show. But when the race was a with, they said, uh, Amy sent me a note because she went to take the girls to, to sleep, um, put them down and,

um, so the race ends and they're like, Hey man, when you see, Aila, you know, don't tell her about the fire and all these stuff, you know,

don't, tone it down, tap her down a little bit. I was like, yeah, no problem, man. Why? And they're like,

well, she got real upset. And so I saw Amy and I was like, was I, I'm really bothered by the, the fire or me, you know, or just me,

you know, me coming to a stop and getting out, all of that kind of hustle and bustle? Because the fire look, man, okay, it's a small little fire. But, you know, nonetheless, it wasn't a big deal. Could have been, but it didn't end up being that big of a deal. And Amy's like, no, not really.

She was just mad you didn't win. I was like, oh, I was like, all right. So I know what that is. So, you know how you had these things when you're a dad or your parent and they do something. exactly the same or something exactly like you did yeah i know exactly so yeah i was sitting on top of a a van they used to we used all the we didn't have buses the teams didn't have buses back in the 80s and we would all of the drivers drove around these um custom vans it was a 15 pasture van and it had like

this electric had like a chair, a bench in the back that would go down to a bed. These nice curtains. Had these like little removable tables kind of like on a pontoon boat in the middle.

Swivel chairs. Captain's chairs, you know. Oh man. These things were nice. Yeah. A lot of wood and all kinds. I mean just they called them the brand that made them was called

Comfort Coach. All the drivers had them. And so those were what was populating the all these racetracks back in the 80s. We were sitting on top of ours during the 1984 night race. Dad's in a tight battle with Terry Labani for the championship.

And Terry's like can't screw up. Car won't break. Nothing bad happened to Terry. He's running, he's winning a race here and there, but he's running third, fourth, fifth, every freaking week. And dad'll run good and then have a problem. Run good, have a problem. He's kind of hanging in there.

but I'm just now getting old enough to pay it, you know, figure this stuff out. I'm just now starting to get really invested in this, right? So Dad's leading the night race at Bristol. I believe he was leading at the time. And I'm sitting on this van and I can kind of, you know, can't see real good, but I can see cars going around the racetrack. I remember all that, just having a blast. I feel like it was past halfway, getting down.

crunch time. Anyways, I look over straightaway and I'm dad's spinning around. Just spinning around down, comes to a stop. And I'm like,

crap, he was running up front if not leading the race. And now there he is sitting sideways on the front straightaway. Nobody hits him, doesn't hit anything. I'm like, get going, get going. And he's stuck.

Got flat tires. Dang, leaders come by and lap him. He's stuck there. You know, team's freaking out trying to figure out how to get his car moving. He goes another lap down. And I'm like, golly. I start crying.

So I'm 10. I'm sitting there. Well, I'm not even 10 yet. Probably 9. And so, man, I just started crying, you know. I was just a 10-year-old kid or whatever and just thought, is just like watching my favorite team lose, right? I was just starting to really get invested in what was going on.

And so I told Iowa that story. But I thought, I felt awful that I'd brought it to the race, and she's loving it. She's first time she's really truly engaged and kind of sent, first time she really sort of got that I was in the car going around. She was watching. Before she couldn't put that together. She thought, you know, watching the race, and Amy's like, Dad's out there racing.

She's like, okay, he's going to come in here any minute, right? Like I couldn't put it together. That was an interesting moment as a parent. that Ila kind of had a similar experience almost you know what let's see I know I know

well let me react to that for a second I know that that's 40 years almost oh is it 40 years? 39 years yeah if you take away the fact that you don't want your daughter crying that is pretty cool that she actually is now bitten by the same bug that we've all been bitten by right

like when you get hooked and now like now you it's all coming together and it's for the first time. I mean, like, listen, she's been at your Hall of Fame ceremony. She's been not all these things. Richmond when you did Richmond, Darlington when you did Darlington, knowing good and well that it, none of this makes sense to her. This is the one where it starts to make sense. And she's starting to understand who you are. Listen, I, I think it's cool. We've all been there. The funny thing about it is that same emotion you would have experienced at nine or eight or whatever old you were. Man, then you go through this, these decades of reality

where these things you just know it's part of it, but then I don't know about you, but as I get older, now I'm starting to get back emotional again about things that I have no business being emotional about, right? 100%. Yeah. Yeah, I don't, you know,

there are no real way to button that story up. I just thought it was, and, well, I will say when I saw the post on social media, I really didn't love it because it was, I don't remember how it was positioned or whatever, but the way the posts,

the way the post was framed made me feel like it opened us up to some mockery. Oh, really? I don't know. You know, I cry. You're overthinking that. Yeah, I am. Yeah. You know, I don't want to.

You get careful about sharing things about your kids, right? And I feel like I put her in the cross series a little bit. Well, listen, I mean, that's the thing. When you go into those post-race press conferences and stuff, you just, you're an open book. We all know that. I know. I don't want to do anything that they're going to wish I hadn't done, but I thought that it was interesting.

That kind of struck me. I had a question for you, Mike. There's something that crops up every once in a while in this sport of ours that is interesting to me. The milestones, the starts. Guess who's got 100 starts this week? 200 starts I don't freaking know

200 200 300 right so how many starts did richard petty have somebody looked that up back there give me some

give me some of the greats right Richard Petty let's pick any Dale Jarrett just give me some of the top look at the list most starts in NASCAR

find that list give us some numbers even in the 10th 15th whatever I wonder how excited people are about that or whether they think it's a lot or not a lot or they think why why are you documenting that Bobby Allison 718 all right 17th all time 17th all time at 700 starts so

700's a good number Richard Petty 1,100 okay all right all right so that so we're so when you guys see somebody's sharing and I'm going to come back and bite me in the ass. I know. Well, you called it at least. These fun, little snarky social media guys that run these teams accounts, they're amazing. I love them all. There's some really, really good ones in our sport.

RFK is really good. Their social media is great. Ours is good. I mean, there's a lot of great teams out there. They're going to get me on this one. They're going to have fun. I thought this was going to a racing insight stat. At least Russell's safe today.

Good. When you guys see like 300 starts for X driver, now that you know, like, you know, 700 gets you barely in the top 20. You know, do you get excited about that? Share, you know, is that something that we... Because that just started, that really never... I mean, of course, social media didn't exist either, but nobody would, you know,

we didn't go to the racetrack back in the 90s and go, dude, it's freaking, uh, freaking Dale Jerry. It's 300 start. Yeah. You believe that? That's a lot.

It does nothing for me. No, right. It does nothing. I have a take on this. I do have a perspective on this. Okay. As someone, see,

before I worked for you, I was a publicist or a PR rep. for another driver and it was Jimmy Spencer. We had to work a lot harder to come up with storylines and headlines for Jimmy Spencer than I did when I was writing pre-race reports for you. And I will say that the notes packages for Jimmy Spencer had to sometimes get very creative. We didn't have a lot of wins. We didn't have any wins.

So you're looking for any nugget to put into a report and say, hey, everybody, this is news. Report about us. report you got to write the stories and man sometimes i just make stuff up for jimmy i would he drove last week's race without any power steering he's a hero and i would just make it up but the fact of the matter is is it yeah it was fake news that's pretty messed up right wait he was driving with his knees oh my god i don't think you guys are going to let him just get away with that are you i mean listen if i'm just going to i mean i brought it today so sit on that let's sit on that

Sit on that. I just can't trust anything you say. So my point is that if you come up on a milestone. Let's sit on that for a minute. Okay, if you'd like to. I'm happy to talk about it. I even, you know, how do we know when you're telling the truth? You don't.

Not back in 2003. What are you embellishing now? What am I embellion? No, I'm just nothing but a big old honest, bunch of honesty right here. Big old glab of honesty now. But I didn't have to work for it. Oh, dude. When I think about Dick Bergering, you know,

the PR reps, you know, you, during a race. You back Mike in a corner, man. You never know what's going to come out of his mouth. During a race, you're writing things on a note. And the chips are down on Mike. He gets a little shady. Shady? Yeah. Backs against the wall and lies start coming out. Shady is if I, shady is if I didn't admit it. Right? Well, this is 20 years later. Right. And these are statute of limitations on writing bullcrap notes. 20 years, yeah. Yeah, 20 years. I feel I'm good. Yeah. But back to the look, you come up. with anything that you possibly You got to do it

You know 36, 38 weeks a year 37 because we didn't really make the 36 because we didn't make the All-Star race for them. I feel like that announcing like that 100 start 200 start If and when they do get to 700

You know it's less It's like yeah You told us It was coming I mean we've heard all these years Every time he had It's been on your radar. Yeah.

It's just, I don't know. I mean, I had to ask you guys what the stat was for a lot of starts, right? So we now know like 700's a good chunk to get you in the top 20. And so it kind of takes, and maybe it takes some of the impressiveness out of having a lot of starts. Probably saturates it a bit. Saturates it. Yes, that's it. Probably.

That's a good word for it. Probably saturates it a bit. I think that there should be. it as for you. Don't hit Dale any milestone moments. I would say 600's when you start.

Really? How many people actually even hit 600, though? 500 feels better. Yeah, what's top 20? Okay, okay. So Tony Stewart's 32nd

with 618. All right, all right. James Hilton has 602. Let's go to 500. 500. We're going to 500. 500's when you can really got to, hey, everybody, guess what?

You know? Guess who has 500? starts. I don't even know how many starts you had, frankly. Do you know? Can look at it. Yeah, look it out. Over 600. 631. 631. There we got. So I would say 632 is when it starts. 632 is where it starts. 631. That's a lot. Ooh, Denny knocked you out the top 30 this year. Dagger. Did he? Yeah. I'm getting bump down the list, man. Getting used to that. I didn't see that note about Denny. That should have been played up bigger.

Where was Denny's social media? Man, they missed that opportunity. Purple Veska. I know, I really haven't, I don't think, I think I missed the 500 and the 600 start notifications from Denny. Right. Now, okay, what about podcast episodes? Are those milestone moments?

Guess what? We got one coming. What is it? 500. Okay. Well, right? Where are we? We're 493 right now.

I guess if that feels like a lot to you guys, It feels like we've done 5,000. It does. It definitely fits. Like, yeah, you say, it's episode 500 and we're like unimpressed. We're like, wait, it feels like way more, right? All right, let's just go around the room. Okay.

When are you posting on social media the number of starts you have in the Cups series? Might go first. I'm going to lower it from 500. I'm going to say 250. I'll split it. Really? Yeah. It's easy to get to, man.

Let me tell you why. Is it? Yes. We run so many races. I'm not basing it. I'm not basing it off of how difficult it is. I'm just saying that a milestone, just like an anniversary, you know, that at some point there's a nice round number. It's about seven years in the Cup Series.

Yeah. That's about seven years in the Cubs series. Right. That's not, I mean, that's a mid career. Seven years? That's like middle of the road. I think that there's more people. I may live to regret this comment,

but I think there's more people that will make in this current field that will be in the Hall of Fame than that makes 700. I guess what I've already, I've got it, or seven years of being a full-time comment. That's what I meant to say. They start younger too.

I've got it imprinted in my mind like the average cup years, 20 years. So you're saying less. That seems high to me. It ain't. It's not. I ran for 20 years. No, no.

You're on the extreme side. He just said, no, he just said guys are starting younger. I started mid-20s. You know, guys are getting in the cup series at 20, 21 years old, 22 years old. But I don't think they last as long. That's what everybody says. They all last because they all love that money. They ain't going nowhere.

I don't think it's their decision. No, of course, if they had to, if it was their call, they would say it. Guys can't make it beyond 38, 37 years old? I think that the way the competitiveness, you talk about it all the time, the field is as competitive as it ever is. And so if you go, hold up, if you go two or three seasons without being competitive, you're replaced.

By who? Michael McDowell was a great example. By the next year. He's been in the Cup Series for, I think, 10, 12 years. I don't know any drivers that are getting phased out at 35, 37 years old that have had, you know, at year 12, 14 years. I mean, that were reasonably decent, right? Yeah.

I mean, Jay J.G. He's been in the list of war for 20 years almost. These guys are hanging around. At the 240 at least. 43 is kind of the year. 43 is where it kind of either, it might go a couple more years, but where it's dead stop in terms of performance.

But so let's just say, all right, I was going to say 15 to 20 years is kind of the ballpark of a career, of a reasonable, you know, guy that's even going to be sharing this kind of stuff on social media. So you're saying less than half, you know, seven years is worth saying,

Hey, I've been around for... It's an uneducated guess. I don't have analytics to back it up. I'm just saying that the more competitive the field gets, I just don't know what the average lifespan, not you and not Jimmy Johnson and Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart, but the average competitor. And I'm trying to think of a good example in the current series.

Like right now, you can... The career... How many starts is Alex Bowman currently have? Like somebody like that. I'm going to say. Or like Ricky Stenhouse. You know, Alex Bowman's actually been doing it way longer than what I even feel like because he was doing those Tommy Baldwin's.

I just feel like this announcement is kind of like a Twilight announcement. It's not something you announce before, you know, only, you know, only 40% into your career. Well, like the one-liners, they can be announced or provided for people, but you don't have to take it. Right? You know, it's not for everyone. Bowman has 270 starts Wow see that's In how long has he been doing it

I mean he's been actually doing it for a while right I mean what 2016 270? 270 maybe 2015 you got to kick 10 years oh he did run for BK before that's my point he was actually even before junior motorsports he had already had Cups starts Yeah they were sporadic though

He didn't have full seasons here and there I think that's my point I mean like that all that all I'm starting your point Well my point is is that I don't think that you know once you make it to Cup you're guaranteed or you're just like okay well this is going to be a 10 year run of just consistent rides and all that thing i do think that you know it's harder than what you're making it

out to be to reach those numbers of races that's all i'm saying 500 starts is just under 14 years in the cup series if you if you're all the races that's a pretty i think that's a pretty good number that's damn sure we're celebrating yeah say it again Alex it's just under 14 years in the cup series when you that's fair yeah when you make that sort of announcement man you won't people to go, well done. Yeah. Well done. Good job.

Or, you know, some sort of reaction. 250. I'm going to go, okay, appreciate you, let me know. I really didn't need that information today. But now it's in my head. It would be interesting to know what the average race, like for all the time, and especially looking at, and I'm sure Russell, the professor has this, maybe, and he'd probably go look for it.

But, like, how, what the average number of races is a cup driver ends up doing in their career? It would be interesting to know that. Dalton, you got an opinion? As a driver, I think I would celebrate my 100 start, and then I wouldn't do anything else until 500. Oh, I like that. So, like, hey, I've finally arrived, or I feel like I've established. That's right.

That's what milestones is that, yeah, and not only I made it, but I hung around a while. By the way, we should probably say, I don't know if that picked up in the mic, but Dalton's idea was he would celebrate as a driver, 100 and then not again until 500. That's good. That's kind of neat. I like that. Yeah. Anyone else want to go?

It would be more like seasons for me. Like, oh, this is my 10th season. Got it. Right, right, right. You know, I think it's like right around like 360 starts. And then you start. You could put the starts in a parenthesis. So like, hey, you know, if you like the starts, you know, here they are. If you don't, do not look over here. Yeah.

But then you think so, what do you? kind of season. That's right. Yeah, I guess that would be true. What classifies as a season if you ran two races or you ran 14? Now we're getting into that.

Now we're getting deep. I might change my answer then. You can have any answer you want. That was easy to convince him off that. Right. I'm just thinking I'm going to be a full-time driver from day one. That's at least how my career would be.

And I plan to stay for 20 years. I'm going after petty. Yeah. Is petty the record? Yeah, he's by like over 200, 300, 300. Right. Ricky Rudd's the next one with like 900 something, I think. I think, yeah.

I do remember Ricky Rudd that being news because that was crazy, right? That was consecutive. Yeah, that's crazy. Consecutive starts. It seemed like once some of those announcements started happening and then people started piggybacking off of that going, well, it's such and such as 250th start, is this? This guy's 400. This guy's 300.

This guy's got 100. This guy's got 200. Now it's like throughout the season, they're sort of sprinkled into the social media conversation of NASCAR. We're going to have three or four of those guys, and you might be wowed by one. Right. Right. You know, as we're talking about Richard Petty, now that we've gone through the becoming Earnhardt, 1979 season, and now knowing how many times they got out and got back in,

I don't know if I was sitting here in front of the king, I'd say, I know you have that many starts, but I don't know. There's an asterisk behind that because you got out, took a lot of breaks. How many cars did he get in? How many cars did he get in, right? Yeah.

Got in a few cars. Let them have their milestones deal. Yeah. Poor guys. I mean, what else they? If you don't have wins, man, you got to go pull from some other stuff. Yeah.

According to NASCAR.com, Richard Petty only made 513 consecutive starts. Exactly. That's kind of crazy. He got hurt. He did. He did. He did. He had some injuries. Yeah.

That's crazy. How many did Dale Earnhardt have? How many starts at Dale Earnhardt have? Can we guess, Mike? Yes, let's see. I'm going to say 850. I'll say 950. It's actually 648.

648. Wow. I had just a couple, you know, 10 or so start shavdads. Wow, yeah. See, we're getting wowed by 600. That's consecutive. Man, these milestone moments. That was consecutive starts.

We're talking about a total. Yeah. Total. Dude. Alex. I just mentioned it. 676 is total. Oh, okay.

Just not that much more. Yeah. Moving on. I went to New York this past week. You did. We have another children's bookbuster gets back on track. It's out now and went to New York. The first thing I did, I'll say this too.

I will admit this. I do not like planning. I do not like learning that I am going to New York. And I do not want to go. All right. I've checked with the fact checkers and that is true. Yeah. So when there's a New York trip placed on my calendar, I'm grumpy about that.

I do not want to go. That is also true, the grumpy part. But go ahead. But I will say that, I get there and I have a great time. I really do. And every time. And there's a lot of things in life that I do that about, right?

You're like, man, I don't want to do that at all. Man, that's here. Oh, that's tomorrow. Gras, I don't want to do that. And then you go, you have a great time. Happens all the time. But went to New York, hit the ground, and went to where the Giants play,

to their practice facility. I did a podcast, well, I guess it's a video show podcast kind of slash thing with Eli Manning. Yeah. The Eli Manning show. He does this about eight or ten times a year. Funny dude. We've seen him plenty of times right over the years in commercials and all kinds of stuff, the Manning cast and all that, and he's hilarious.

I had a lot of fun. Rode with him over to a bookstore, walked around, had a little, you know, filmed some stuff in a bookstore with the Buster book, right? That was great. Went and did a couple morning shows the next day. Good morning, America. And the Today Show, I believe, did a couple other things and then came home. So anyways, had a good time.

Not looking forward to the next one. And there's not a next one at the moment, but you're already not looking forward to it. I'm already not looking forward to it. That's the pessimism I remember. man I don't like to leave the house Andrew I wonder how many New York trips What milestone he has if he's up on I wonder if he's had 20

I bet he's had 20 We need a graphic We need a social media graphic on that What goes around comes around And what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas For the first time ever Dirty Mo Media is taking its hit podcast To the streets

We'll be live and we'll be in front of real people Uncensored Unapologetically Authentic and totally unprepared, so it's business as usual. But here's the catch. We'll be talking about our real lives and racing like we never have before, stories that we never dreamed would be broadcast in front of a live audience. Until now.

And the only way to hear these stories is by coming to Dirtymo Live, Dale Jr. and Friends at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort and Casino. It's Friday, October the 13th. Go to Dirtymomomedia.com slash live or Ticketmaster to join me and Mike. Davis from the Dale Jr. download and Brett Griffin, Freddie Kraft, and T.J. Majors from door bumper clear. And we're going to spill the tea on each other. When you have decades long careers in NASCAR, you have highlights, low lights, and more stories than you know what to do with. For example, the time me and Mike Davis got an argument during the race or the time that

T.J. Majors went completely radio silent on me while spotting for me during an event. Yeah, we're going to hear those stories and more. So come out to the way. Westgate Resort and Casino on Friday, October 13th, to see Dirtymo Live, Dale Jr. and Friends, get your tickets on Ticketmaster or visit Dirtymodea.com slash live. That's Dirtymodea.com slash live to get your tickets, or you can find them on Ticketmaster. Come join us on Friday, the 13th for Dirtymo Live, Dale Jr. and Friends. Things are bound to get crazy. Well, the race of Texas, man, this is a conversation we've talked about having Mike,

looking on Jeff Gluck's Good Race Pole, I think Texas got like 60-40. Texas has been in the news a little bit here the past 24 hours because they apparently are not on the IndyCar schedule going forward. That was upset a few people.

People are thinking that it might be because some issues with the Cup schedule and delays in that coming out. Montreal was rumored to be part of the Cup schedule now maybe at Aine and people are thinking that maybe we're going to Iowa for, you know, for a year instead,

and it's made everybody have to shuffle things around, and Texas inadvertently had to change some things about their plans for having IndyCar there. I don't really know where the truth is for all that. A lot of rumors, but you're right. But anyways, Texas. So the last couple of races at Texas for me have been good. I've enjoyed them, the Xfinity races and the Cup races. It wasn't long ago when none of us really were,

that excited about Texas, didn't know what to do with it. We were even talking about rebuilding it, turning it into a short track. There was a ton of, I think, real conversations. And Marcus Smith, I believe, was even considering, like, I need to do something. Something has to change. I'm going to do something. Don't know what that is.

And then we went there and we had a couple of good races. They quit treating the track. The cars are now starting to wear away whatever treatment is still remaining, which is great. Just let them keep on working that out of there and getting all that old PJ one off the track. Cars are moving up the race track using the second, third, fourth groove

and turns one and two and three and four. You know, still got some ways to go and some improvements to make, but the track is actually turning into what you want. It is. The good race pole was sort of split more 50-50 than I expected.

A lot of people didn't enjoy it. I enjoy it. I enjoyed it. I mean, I'm up in the booth as a broadcaster, so I'm watching it a little bit differently, and I'm a little bit preoccupied by some other things going on as opposed to what someone maybe sitting at home is doing and how they're taking the race in.

Mike, you watch the race? Yeah. Weren't that blown away by it? It's funny how you mentioned the New York trip, how you already are pessimistic about the next one. Yep. I think I find myself feeling the same way about Texas, just because of the, you know, the several years.

first of all, I used to love Texas. Yeah. But then after a while, when the races started, you know, declining in terms of, you know, competitiveness and all that kind of made it hard to pass. You know, start doing different things they wanted to. Like, there's a bit of a pessimism or skepticism that I approach Texas. To the point that you were making to me yesterday, the actual race actually had a lot of compelling moments in it. Yeah, it did.

And if you just approached it with a little bit more optimism, which, you know, I'm talking to myself, it'd probably be a little bit more evident that the race was actually pretty decent. You know, and that Texas did actually deliver some of the compelling moments that you look for in a race. I agree. So I put this in my notes when we were going to Texas. We're writing our notes as NBC broadcasters and what are some of the things that we need to be focused on and some of the things we need to pay attention to. And one of my notes was, we need to help people understand.

that Texas is turning in the right direction. We need to help people under, we need to point out the win and the why and the what of, you know, how this track is sort of evolving into a pretty decent race track. The mile and a half product for the next gen's been really good. It places like Charlotte and Kansas. Charlotte is awesome.

So awesome that the roval is going away. So they say. We could have two oval. races back at Charlotte again, which I love that. The thing with Texas is, is I believe the track is headed in the right direction, and I think that it's just going to continue to get better. In my mind, better is cars moving around, moving around, running multiple grooves, providing opportunities, you know, for passes throughout the field, and that's where we're going

with Texas, compared to where we were four years ago at Texas. It's a good difference. It's a good change. It's just going to continue that way. What's probably slowing that down a little bit is the PJ1, the old PJ1 that still sort of stuck to the racetrack. And as they continue to wear that away and it becomes less of an issue, the track's really going to be awesome. So I think now Marcus Smith and his team are putting a pause button on any changes to the racetrack, which I think is probably a smart thing to do.

This is a big risk financially. And I know there's probably been some simulations built and done by eye racing to try to help Marcus see opportunities and what could be, what they could do. I think that they're probably going to sit for a while and let this track sort of continue to evolve. I think that's the right thing to do. A lot of people will point to the fact that there was really no passes for the lead during the race. It just so happens that the five car was three-tenths faster in the field any time he wanted to be. So no matter where we were racing, he was so good that no one was going to pass him unless something happened.

And that's, that, you know, that wasn't, that was, that was not a Texas problem. That was just a damn fast number five, right? And so I just, I think that if we can, like you say, change, that, that was my point. point to writing that note to myself, really, and sharing it with my colleagues, I think we go into Texas dreading the worst. And even when we get something decent, we're not fulfilled. And I try to tell myself, look, man, this is actually going to be a pretty good show. And it measured up to my expectations. Hopefully, you know, I don't, this is important market. It's an important racetrack. It needs to be successful.

And I'm not trying, I don't, I don't have, I don't have any feeling inside of me that makes me think I'm, I'm blowing this out of proportion. Pumping sunshine. So, well, do you allow yourself, maybe the answer may be no, but do you allow yourself to think about how you would have viewed that race had you been at home and not broadcasting? Because when you're broadcasting, you're, it's just such a completely different advantage point. Well, I think I don't know what it, I have no clue what it was like for a viewer.

It's hard for me to imagine what that would be like, but I will say as a, you know, in my position up there, I got, I've got a bunch of monitors in front of me giving me lap times and give me so much data, right, and information. So it helps me, it points my eyes to where the battles are, where the races are, where races are developing, where, You can't really do that at home without investing a ton of focus, right? And when you're at home, you're like, you know, I just want to watch. I don't really want to work. That's right. Yeah. And so, like, when, you know, you watch, when you sit down and watch a football game, right, you get up, go walk out the garage, put something away, come back, you know, a couple plays that went by.

You sort of catch back up to speed and see what's going on. And then you're going to go into the kitchen and grab you something to eat and mess around. and your wife asked you to go upstairs and put one of the kids to bed. You know, you're just kind of plugging in and out. So maybe if you watched it that way or if that's the way I would have watched that race, I don't know what my feelings would have been. Right. I want to ask you another question since we're on the topic of updates, updates or upgrades

to the track facility. For the first time, it seems like some of the conversation and narrative coming out of Texas was not just about the track, but also there's been a couple people talking about The facilities themselves feels a little dilapidated. That's probably too harsh of a word, but needs renovations itself. I feel like up in the suites, they look fine to me. You know, they don't look, you know, it ain't like sealing tiles or sagan and they're stained or, you know, it don't look. The bathrooms are clean, at least in the, you know, we were using a suite, the booth, the second booth where me and Jeff were was a suite.

full on sweet in between other suite full of people seem fine right okay that's all you need to say on that then look now I mean you know when I when I pulled out it look I mean it's Texas it's it's dry and it's not it's not gonna be green and and you know there's not going to be like you know trees everywhere and just so

sort of beautiful oasis yeah it's not going to be like that but you know so when you pull out of the track I went to the dirt track the night before to watch white racing and, you know, you pull out, and it's just, you know, it's like a, it looks like storage for camping, you know, it looks like camper storage, you know, it's just campers everywhere and there's nothing else. All right, there we go. But, you know, I don't know. I mean, I saw somebody talking about Bristol, like they go to Bristol and they sort of had this, been there, done that feeling.

They don't feel like they're getting anything new each time they go back for that experience at that certain track, right? And I'm like, wow, really Bristol to me is hustling and bustling. much there's when i when we drive around from the bus lot to the other side of the racetrack to go to the tv compound there's there's all kinds of vendors and the stuff right things to check out do buy whatever right um souvenir rigs everywhere and food vendors and um and so i don't know what what's missing okay i you know there's there's concerts there's entertainment um I don't know what's missing for the fan. Okay, so going back to the race, the one thing that Texas delivered,

one was the playoff drivers, the playoff race here in this particular round, I mean, there's all kinds of moving and shaking going on. It delivered strategy with Bubba Wallace doing exactly what I think that NASCAR would want when you create this stage point system where there's a decision to make. Either you're going for the race, when, or you're going to go for stage points. And he had that decision, and he went for the win because he had the car to do it. There was a fantastic debate on door bumper clear this week. I think we were actually going to do that for flying lap.

But, man, T.J. and Freddie went at it a little bit just about whether or not that was the right call for Bubba. So, like, Texas gave us all those moments. Martin Truex has another, you know, complete, you know, dumpster fire of a race. And he continues this backward spiral, which is unbelievable. That's our regular season champion. So when you think about all of that, you know, those things, some pretty gnarly wrecks. Yeah, Texas, you know, it looked hard to drive, frankly. And Kyle Larson, when he bust his butt out there with that dominant car, yeah, it looks

hard to drive. What do you ask for a racetrack? In other words, to challenge the drivers. So Texas delivered those things. We've got to be honest, right? I agree. I mean, Texas had all kinds of storylines, and definitely at the end of the race, we had a bunch of traumatic things happening that were pretty compelling. Kyle Larson, dominating the day and then having issues late. The Bubba Wallace, you know, in his situation, sort of a bit of an underdog in terms of how many, you know, his lack of stage points, his like a playoff points,

and his strategy throughout the race and whether that was going to pay off or not, whether they were doing the right thing or not to try to maximize their day and win the race even. He set himself up to have an opportunity to win the race late and he's about to go launch himself into the next round with a win, right? And William Byron, who does this often, you know, just churns out a good day, and then he's sitting there late with an opportunity to win the race and pulls it off, right? Just does it?

Yeah, just pulls it off. Here he comes out of nowhere. Just when you weren't sure whether William Byron was still a championship contender, I'll say this as a fan. I am not entertained by this. I'm not entertained by this sport unless I really invest in the storylines. And I used to struggle with that. I used to not really want to deal with the storylines or care about them, right?

I just want to see awesome race. I want to see a damn race and get up and go, heck yeah, I want to go next week. I can't wait to come back here next year. It was very singular. but now it's like you know I'm the the story of all there's all these stories that are compelling to me

that it used to not really get into you used to not think much about but like Ford's struggles this year they just weren't able to run with the other manufacturers and then RFK you know starts becoming the best Ford and

they continue to be the best Ford team and Penske is just kind of struggling they were just not great at Texas And it's like, sooner or later, you're like, Penning's going to get it together, right? They are, right? When's this is going to happen? We're kind of getting down to the end here.

And that's just one of the storylines. Yeah. Truex will dominate for like a string of three or four races or just seem to be the best team overall. And then he's struggled all through the first round. He really kind of struggled at Texas. He wasn't ever really one of the best cars at all. And it's like, what's happened to him?

Are they going to flip the switch again and come back to the top? Right. Because I really thought they were the best team. And then we go through round one, and Denny's car was just lightning fast in all the races in round one. And he was probably going to be that way again at Texas without the damage. So now you're like, okay, well, is Denny's the best? Maybe Denny's the best, right? What's going to happen to him?

He's probably peaking too soon. There's so much turnover. Yeah. You guys brought it up. Steve LaTartre had a great line about it. And that was the Legacy Motor Club, all of a sudden, the day that they lose the manufacturing support because they're switching manufacturers, all of a sudden they're competitive. They're running significantly better with a guy that didn't start off the year being their driver.

Well, they run their, they've been running their best with Eric. I know you're talking about Hosevar. Hosevar has done a good job, but you can see him still like making the typical mistakes that a guy that's running his third or fourth race in a cup car is going to make. Right. He's still showing the flashes that potentially. that it's going to be there one day. But how does that even happen, right?

Those guys, they sucked. They were so bad. And you're thinking, yeah, this year's a wash for them. They're not going to make nothing out of this. They're going to get to the end of the year, tear off all the Chevrolet bodies and regroup. If the five wasn't the best car than the 43 was, yeah. It's surprising. And again, like, just as easy as they went from a, as less,

Legacy Motor Club went from a 30th place car to a top five car. Like overnight they did that. It could happen for anybody. It could happen for Penske. It could happen for anybody. That's what's crazy about this. And all you've got to do is be that good at one race at Phoenix for the championship. Even if Denny is fast, fast, fast all through the playoffs, he might show up at Phoenix and only be the third.

third best car, which would be great any other day. Right. But it ain't going to be good enough that day. That's what's, that's what is, for lack of a better word, unfortunate. So Denny's been, to me, now, y'all can disagree, agree, it doesn't really matter. Nobody's right or wrong. Denny, to me, has been different this year, and this sort of, he's got this sort of confidence, like, it's our year.

Anybody's stopping me. Ain't anybody stopping us. We got this. it's different. In years past, he was like more of, if it's meant to be, it's meant to be kind of guy. And, well, yep, there it went. I knew that was going to happen. We lost another one.

But this year, he's different. He's like, you know, trash talk and the confidence is there. That maybe wasn't so much there in the past when he's had these decent opportunities to win a championship. When I heard that clip and I heard him dogging the current system, it made me feel like that there was, it sounded like, it's like, Danny, no, don't do that, man. You're already like, you're winning the middle battle. This is a step in the wrong direction.

Don't be thinking about that. That's what you're saying. Yeah. Right? If he's like, yeah, I don't want to see, why are you showing me this Winston Cup points? that don't matter. And the current system,

Mickey Mouse system anyways, it's like he's kind of like, you know, it's like the fox and the grapes. Like he can't reach the grapes. Okay. He's like, I don't want him anyways.

What's that story? I've never heard of. I've never heard of fox in the graves. Yeah. Or maybe it ain't the fox, but whatever it is, he comes up, he sees these grapes hanging from his trees.

Like, dang, I want them. They're awesome. And he can't reach them. And he decides, you know, they probably were not very good anyways. Okay.

And so that's kind of what I hear from Denny going, man, yeah, this system sucks. And so I'm like, wait a minute, man, don't do that. Well, he was probably just reacting to something that was put in front of him, right? I mean, like maybe. And then I think he's definitely got confidence, and I don't know that the points is, by the way, I mean, you know who else?

Looked at the old Winston Cup points? I mean, you would have been a champion in that case. I don't think so. I think so. Not from the old Winston Cup point system. I think it was like Not to get confused But I think one year they changed the system

And if they had left it alone We would have won That's what I mean But it wasn't an old Winston Cup system It was one of the playoff systems It was 2004 It was 2004 Nope

In 2004 we had the old system Or it was We didn't We weren't going to win the championship that year I think you were Maybe I remember it wrong But this is the year we had six wins and you were leading, but then you got the penalty because you cussed and all that stuff.

I think it was 2014 or something. They changed the system if they left it alone, we'd have won. Oh, I see what you said. We had the, I'm sorry, we had the chase, but not the current system. Yeah. Yeah, that's what you're saying. Got it. Back to my point.

So, like, I don't, I'm, like, worried that Denny's already trying to, like, find his mental outs. right to like well this is just so because when you put that when that video posted the comments to the video were yeah I don't know it's hard to say if these championships

these days are that legitimate to the old system you know it gets that conversation going and it's like don't let that come into your mind you know you got the middle game going so good right now maybe I'm reading too much into it Probably. Probably. Because again, I don't know what the context behind that. It sounds to me like he was saying, don't put that in front of me.

And if that's the case. No, I think we should watch the clip. All right. Because you sent me the fucking Winston Cup points that doesn't matter for. Like, that's right. That's right. About that. All it says is that basically over the course of the year so far, it's literally a conversation that's had at this time every year.

Not like a serious conversation. Well, you know why? But you always point it out. It's a perennial conversation. They know it's Mickey Mouse. This system is Mickey Mouse. That's why. That's why we have this conversation every single year.

I feel like that's Denny actually taking the approach of keep it out. I don't need this in my head. I'm on a roll. I agree with that. And to be honest with you, I don't know that I even agree with this being a perennial debate or argument. I don't, if it is, maybe it's much like the milestone people that put out those tidbits that is pointless really in the grand scheme of things.

It's just fun for fodder. That's what they said. I mean, that's what his co-host said is like, hey, it's not a serious conversation. It's not a serious thing. People just love to do it. But I wasn't sure Denny's comments at the end going, it's Mickey Mouse system.

I was like, right. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I didn't know if he's talking about the old system or the new system. And he's got the middle game one going forward, and he needs, I was worried that he was thinking, you know, taking some jabs at what he's trying to go achieve, right? I will tell you this about Denny, at least an observation that I've had, and I don't know, I don't know enough about whether it's new. Like you said that this year, now he's got this new thing, it's different.

You're saying it's different. I don't know that it's different. I know that we have access to his thoughts a lot more, usually every week on Mondays. The thing I will say, though, is that even before he won the race, his first race this year, they were going through a bit of a, I don't know if it was a slump, but to start the season, they didn't start off hot. And he was very consistent on talking like, we're going to get white hot anytime. We're getting white hot.

So he had a confidence even before they started running the way they're running right now. And I don't know if that's new. I just know that it was something I noticed. And I thought it was good. I think that's the way you got. I've always said this deal. you are always at your best when you knew that you were the best

driver on the track. You were convinced that you were the best driver on the track. When you started losing that confidence, that's when things started to not go as well. And I think that you drivers have to play this mental psych yourself out game where it's like I'm the best one out there. I'm going to do this. I got to

do this. Whether or not you really believe it deep down, who knows. But the fact is is that you've got to tell yourself out there to keep a competitive edge. All right. Let's listen to Yeah, let's listen. Go bumper clear. We thought we had a car capable of winning. We did.

And to the point of, you know, we should have just took the 10 stage points. Well, look at the guy that took the... I would have easily taken the 10 stage points at that point. That's guaranteed 10 points. From there on out, you're not giving anything. Look at the guy that won the 10 stage points. Did you ever see him again after the last year? I don't know who was.

Who was it? Tyler Reddick. He got 10 points in that stage. You got 22 on the day. We got 37 points. But he was never in contention all day. He led the fucking race for half of the time. He was in the top five.

stayed out. Did you ever see Redick all day and be like, oh man, that guy's going to win? He was running in the top five before that. I never looked at him and thought he was going to win. I looked at your car and thought, okay, that guy's got a shot away. You never looked at him because he was going to think he was buried in traffic the rest of the day. I'm just saying, it's hard to pass up points, man. You're right. But at this situation, was it the right call or wrong call? Because look at the guy that won the 10 points and look at us. I don't agree with TJ on this one. Okay. Okay. T.J. made me his idiot that a week because I needed somebody to run a belt up to the booth before the Kansas race. He did that a few weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. And which is like, okay, that's the biggest idiot.

Right. Of all the idiot things out there, of all the idiots, you're going to make that an idiot. Yeah. Okay. So when we do the walk and talk action and adventure, I don't wear a belt because we have a belt. You know, we mic and all that stuff, that belts, the belt you wear. and so that's just how we do things. So I was like, what the hell? You know, that's, you're putting in like a minimum freaking effort here. Felt lazy. Very. Lazy tape.

That's what I told him. And then this week, his idiot of the week is Landon Huffman who ran second in the 300 in the 300 race at Martinsville, Le Mans Stock Race. Massive finish, awesome, great, exciting run. Incredible, like, milestone for the guy that. wins and landing they beat bang but nobody took anybody out and drove stupid and that was again his idiot the week so are you saying that you disagree with tj on bubble wallace's strategy just based off of that well i can't trust his judgment this is this is what this is what i'm here

this is it it's hard to trust his judgment on stuff now right so i love this so t j's uh i wonder how long he's in the hot take dog house like when can we start to trust t j's judgment again what do you have to do to win his way back be very correct on something like i mean he'll have to have to have a point that will be so obvious and correct everybody will be like excited to rally behind and that will break that will bring him back well we may never get there no we may never get there landon got after him on twitter i saw that which landin's landin's uh you know, Landon's,

Lennon has that habit sort of, you know, come overreacting just a bit. Landon, you know, his, not to get into that,

but his, he, he, he runs all his own social media and does this YouTube stuff and he's grown his YouTube from like, I don't know,

5,000 to 20,000 or something crazy. He's done some really good work with that. And, but he's super into, like, engaging on social media and calling thing,

you know, calling it like it is. And so if T.J. goes after, him, he better be ready to, he better be getting his replies ready because there'd be a full on conversation. It's not going to miss Landon and he's not going to miss the opportunity. I, by the way, I

appreciated, even though it didn't work out, I appreciated that that team, the 23 team, went after a win. I liked it. I liked it. I liked the 23 team going after a win. So I thought Bubba. Yeah, I thought Freddie was correct in that. But again, again, it's a fun debate. And by the way, speaking of Idiot's of the Week and also speaking to Martinville, did you see the fight in the garage?

Yes. Good Lord. No. A terrible look. Wow, was that a fight? It's such a terrible look. I mean, I, everybody can understand the frustration and passion and anger and a guy,

you know, if you think a guy literally just took you out of the race, turned right, hooked you, whatever happens on the racetrack. It was, whatever happens on the racetrack as bad as it was, or no matter how bad that was, that going on in the garage and getting filmed and getting glamorized and posted on social media by, you know, people that could have made, I don't know, it just frustrates me a little bit that we had this incredible moment for Lake Model Stock Racing, an awesome finish, right? But more people were really wanting to see this, you know, what happened here?

Why did this happen? Oh, show me that video. Show me this angle. you know, that was taking, that took away from one of the biggest days for late model stock racing in the year. Yeah, I agree with that. That's fair. It felt like a Jerry Springer episode, which. 100% sucks the validity out of the, you know, that's a huge race, right?

Doing everything we can to really raise the profile of that car, right? Get more people buying that car. Get more people racing that car. Instead of, you know, 85, 90 cars coming to Martinsville, we want 120, 150. 50 cars coming to Martinsville for that race. We want a lot of people that own, you know, owning and racing that car. And, you know, it's... But, you know, look, I can understand a little pushing and shoving a couple of guys going at it,

but that was full on what... There was over a dozen people. Around cars that were about to race, one of which... They just race, Mike. They had just raced. But I know that they had just raced, but then their fight ended up in the line of the next heat. Yes. In one of those cars, they ended up on top of the hood.

I know, busted it. Yeah. That's just morons, right? Just uncalled for it. It can't happen. Right. Yeah. What else we've got to talk about?

Anything about the race or Texas? I don't know. Where do you want to go? Well, I think we should do some Mass Jr. Andrew's here. He's going to help us get those going. So let's get started. We've got a lot of people tuning in on the YouTube chat already.

And I think my dad's watching, too. It's his birthday. All right. Happy birthday. Yeah. This first question, actually, is a follow-up from last week's Ash Jr. Someone said you never actually answered

whether you cheated at Battleship or not. So did you cheat at the game? I probably did. I probably did. I mean... Probably? Yeah, I probably did. I mean, I would say you know, I took advantage of any opportunity

anytime I'm playing, you know, in a competitive manner. If there's a window of opportunity to, you know, bend the rules a little bit it's happening there you go plus this was probably at about five or six o'clock in the morning and that's when dale's in his prime certainly back then yeah whereas i'm hanging on i'm i'm i got no gas i'm just trying to get to the finish and and i'm he took advantage of my vulnerable state you don't remember this i'm the one that brought it up did i not last week i brought it up that like that game was totally fair it's fine oh no it was it was a cheat fest man probably won i mean

It doesn't even... Okay. Anyways, sorry to bring it back up. It was one of the YouTube comments. I'm like, all right, I got to follow up on this. This next question coming from Katie, she's had some pretty good questions on Twitter last couple of weeks. What's the story behind the skeleton gloves? Where did that originate?

Really? Man, I thought I felt like I talked about this. Having so many conversations about all these things here lately because we had the gloves program come up. and I can't remember where we had these conversations, but I saw a guy, I think it was motocross probably, I don't know, 15 years ago, and I'm sitting there watching it, and one of the riders, so they're up at the gate, right?

You can see all the tires, everybody's tires side by side, and you see everybody getting their hands and their gloves up on the handlebars, and one guy had on these skull gloves, and it just really stood out. and as a race car driver or I'll just say this watching a NASCAR race right

the the drivers that would always have white gloves you could see their hands moving from the watching the race from the cameras of the TV or from the grandstands or whatever you know I could always see their hands when they wore a light colored glove and I thought man I bet those you know I bet those would be cool to wear

be different everybody was doing helmets painting helmets and I just don't care about my helmet. I really don't. And, you know, I'll let, if somebody wants to do a design, put a skull on the back or whatever, that's fine. But I'm never going to be the kind of guy that's like, ooh, don't touch this helmet, man, put it right here. Okay. Because when you, you know, you get these things painted up and they're amazing, no doubt. But when it, coming in and out of the car, it's banging around, paint's getting chipped. And, and I was at a race one time and some, some, a fan accidentally knocked somebody's helmet off pit wall.

And the conversation between the driver and the fan that happened afterwards, I was like, man, I'm never going to get my hair. I'm never going to feel that way by my helmet. And so, because I just was not, I was just, I'm, I don't have time to be, like, super careful with this, this paint scheme on this helmet. This thing is getting banged around and getting tossed places and getting hung in the car and thrown over in the pasture seed and all this stuff. and I'm not worrying about, you know, it's a cool paint scheme.

So anyways, I saw that guy wearing those gloves at the motocross, and I thought, I'm going to start doing that. That'll be different. That'll be, you know, nobody's really doing anything with gloves. It's kind of fun. I like skulls. I always had skulls on the back of my helmet. And so I was kind of into that.

And so I just started doing it. I just started wearing them. And that was that. I mean, it ended up, now we have, you know, it ended up providing us an opportunity now to do the gloves program. I think we raised almost $75,000 or something like that for this year's gloves program. Had over 60 drivers wearing the skull gloves at Bristol and auctioning all of them off. And so it was good.

Yeah, I saw from the Dreaming to Give event, it seemed like it was a big success. This next question is coming from Mason. You know, it's well documented. The household you grew up in, you know, was a racing family between you and you and Kelly. growing up who would you say was more competitive um i don't know i mean i think um probably me um you know kelly was i was me and my buddies are racing everything we race matchbox cars skateboards bikes um we we raced it we raced whatever we could figure out how to race something you know and um Kelly was, you know, into her friends and, you know, makeup and teen magazines and all that stuff, you know.

She really didn't, she kind of got the racing bug really late. It was, she was sort of going, getting out of high school and going to college. And she was going to school in Wilmington and had no. interest or had shared no interest in driving a race car and dad was missing her terribly and to persuade her to transfer from willing to to unc charlotte and finish her school there and be closer to home so he could see her he told her he would get her race car to race and that's how her racing career began and so um in terms of motorsports and racing i'm certainly was more competitive throughout my childhood than Kelly was, but she did play, we both played some sports, but,

yeah, you know, but we, I think our hate, our disdain for losing was the same, and we took it, you know, we took all that. I saw her, had some great runs, but I saw her in some vulnerable moments when she didn't do well, and we were very similar. You know, you've talked about hobbies a lot on the show, and a few people this week, We're asking, do you play golf and how good are you at golf? I don't play golf. I do have a set of clubs, and I've got a simulator at home, and I swing on that every once and a while, not often,

but I still get out there and swing away on the simulator a little bit. I had a lot of fun with that when we first got it years ago. It's been in my house for quite a while, but I've been tempted, though, man. I've been talking to LaTart and Rick Allen, those guys, about going with them but I'm just trying to find the time I don't want to go to where it's busy a lot of people yeah when I didn't so if you're not good at it and you go to a golf course and you're getting ready to tee off on the first green and there's like everybody else is there waiting yeah yeah it's like I don't want to do this man I don't know I want to do this in front of nobody

yeah so when we go it's like you're going to start on the back nine right so you kind of dive in between a couple of foursums or whatever to so there's not a lot of people around when you get going because if you show up in the morning and go on that first tea and everybody else is there to get their round going and it's just a you're like oh here it goes let's just get it off the ground I'm the same way I don't like that I'm terrible and it's hard to watch hard to watch me play golf yeah I don't want anybody watching me play golf have you gotten to the pickleball craze I will I will probably not do that no yeah why not I don't know I'm not into it yeah yeah

All right. We'll have to get you on the court. I don't know, man. I think you're going to do it. I'm not going to do that. Hey, I got a question. Yeah. Dale, did you happen to see a video from this past weekend at the Eric Church concert

where Eric Church walks off the stage to hand a fan his guitar pick? No. Guess who the fan was? Andrew Curlin. Oh, really? Yes. Yeah. And I have not asked you about this.

How did that happen? So I've done it a few times where, like, basically, I'll hold up a guitar pick and, like, ask to, like, trade it with him. So it happened once in Tampa and then... Same concert. Different concerts. Yeah. Who was it? Or no, he was also with Eric Church.

Yeah, Eric Church. I mean, damn, dude, how many Eric Church? Let somebody else. You don't want to go down that hole. I'm just saying, like, let somebody, you get your pick, gets your pick for life. Like, let somebody else get the... This is the second pick I've gotten. What a greedy, greedy, greedy Eric Church fan.

If you look, Eric Church, it felt like he saw you and singled you out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was like the set, like he, earlier in the show. I think you've been planted in these shows. Huh? I think you've been planted in the show as an actor. Yeah, you're like, they're like, hey man, we just need you to smile, act like your biggest fan ever. We're going to hand you this pick.

I think, I mean, that'd be awesome. but yeah that wasn't the case how much did you get paid to be a super fan how much did you get paid to be real uh real fan not paid actor not sure man but sing a song for us sing a song yep uh please don't yeah okay i was gonna you're really gonna do it i mean if i had to prove my yes your fandom church fandom all right i could give you a song maybe another time i don't i didn't see you as an eric church fan. Really? Yeah.

I don't know. Huge Eric Church. Okay. Huge Eric Church fan. And by the way, I had a few friends at that concert. I think Michael Walter was there. Okay. You know, Sean Brawley, he was there.

Was he? All trying to get a guitar pick. But boy, somebody just swept in and took it for the second time. Andrew Curlin. Yeah. I had to push kids out of the way. Like, you know. Well, I'm glad somebody on social media said the question or asked the question that everybody's thinking.

It's like if you're going to be this, you know, have this connection with Eric church, you do host a show called Next Level, and that would be an obvious choice. So when can we expect Eric Church on Next Level? I don't know. This is the formal invite right here. This is it? Yeah. I'm sure I'll see it.

This is it. He's watching right now. He is. He's tuned into the YouTube chat. Oh, well. Anyways, we got another question. This is from Randall. I thought this was kind of funny.

This kind of ties back to one of the conversations we had earlier this year, which is better, free beer or free? tacos. Someone handed you right now, came in either with free beer or free tacos. Beer, no-brainer. Yeah. It's a no-brainer? I think beer. All right. Yeah. Yeah. A free beer does taste pretty good. Yeah. There's been, me and Mike's been having some conversations about beer here lately. There's been some interest from some beer brands to become partners on our show. Oh. Yeah. So we'll see how that goes. Yeah. That'd be cool. It's a race. Who wants to win bells over it. I don't know how deep we want to get into it, but it's

It's pretty interesting that this question's being asked because... It is. My man, I don't know when the last time he paid for a beer or for a case of beer. I think he's set for life. Do we want to get too deep into that? We'll just say that I'm on a deal with Anheuser-Bush that we still get a certain allotment of beer. Which is not that of normal when he said that. I know Ken Schrader.

Yeah, he still gets... Still is on the deal. For the rest of time, Ken Schrader will always get that case of budwatching. I told Mike, if we get a beer sponsor for the podcast, then they do know what they're going to have to do. I like a man with his priorities, right? That's priorities. They're not just going to come on in here and just become a beer sponsor. Right, right.

They better be willing to back up that old truck at Moresville. Every month. Every month. That's facts. Fats. You think we're going to have enough for just a month? I feel like it's going to have to be more frequent. Well, he didn't say it was for you.

Yeah, for him. They'll be plenty. If they want to do that kind of a deal, they'll be enough for everybody. Oh, man. Got time for one more quick one. This is from Vince. When you order pizza,

what's the go-to pizza topping that you have? Man, I'm so hungry. I bet you some pre-tacos would be pretty good right now. Perfect question for that. Yes. So, all right. So this is great. There's a local place in Mooresville called Pie in the Sky.

If you followed my social over the last couple of years, they were in this one building operating since I was in high school. And they were moved out because of renovations that were happening to the building, the new owner. So they had to move. They've been in a gas station, a really good, really good gas station. in between Davidson and Mooresville. It's a really cool place.

But they've been operating out of there for the past year and a half, two years, maybe more. And so they are just about finished renovating this building that they're moving back into, which is back in downtown Mooresville. And they're just literally right on the verge of being able to open doors and start making pie.

And I cannot wait. And it is the best. I really think, in my opinion, if you're in Mooresville, Pine the Sky, is great pizza. And so when I go there, I like to get a little extra sauce. I don't know what that means. I don't know if that's twice as much or just a little more. But just tell them just to make sure I like a little extra sauce on mine

because the sauce is like a family recipe that they've had. That's really kind of what they're known for when you read the articles about the store. And so I get a little extra sauce on my pizza when I can. pepperoni and banana peppers. Banana peppers is a great call. It's so good. I just started adding banana peppers and it's the move. I agree.

I don't like sausage or any other meat on the pizza. I just like pepperoni and banana peppers for sure. That probably would be my exact order. Good stuff. Yeah. All right. That was fun today on X-June. Yeah, I enjoy it, man.

If you ever in town, check out Pined. the sky. There should be in their new location really soon, but hopefully maybe by time people are here for the Roval. If you're in town, you can go get some pizzas really freaking good. So they'll be glad that you come by. All right, it's time for White Flag.

We're going to wrap this show up today. Tuesday, September 26th. Here we go. Junior Motorsports has announced that Sammy Smith will be joining the lineup for next year. Sammy's a great young man.

And we're excited for him to come be a part of our program. He'd be driving the number eight car next year. Obviously, he brings along his partner's pilot Flying J. And they've had some experience working with us in the past, obviously. So we're excited to continue that partnership. And with Sammy driving the car, a young guy. And I've seen some good opportunity where he has shown his potential this year. so we'll continue to help him develop as driver

and we'll get started on that next year looking forward to it. The Dale Jr. Foundation, as I mentioned earlier in the show, thanks to all the 63 Cup and Xfinity drivers who wore and supported the Dell Jr. Foundation driven to give Glove program. They supported the auction as well on their social media handles

and the program raised over $76,000 for nationwide children's hospital. That's the most that this program has raised in its history. I think we've done this for 10 or so years. But thank you to all those drivers. I know it's not always convenient wearing new gloves. You love to break those things in and get those comfortable,

and especially at a place like Bristol. So appreciate everybody doing that for us, and hopefully we'll get that program going again next year. Listen to door bumper clear and action is detrimental. It's out now for this week. A new episode of Speed Street was going to drop tomorrow, and our conversation with Kyle. Larson and Brad Sweet.

Live from Lernerville will be out tomorrow as well. So a lot happening this week with Dirty Mo Media. Make sure to get your tickets for our live show. That'll be at Westgate, Las Vegas Resort and Casino. It's Friday, October the 13th. You want to go to DirtyMod Media.com slash live, or you can go to Ticketmaster to get your tickets. We'd love to see you come out there and check out the live show.

It's kind of going to be a Dirty Mo Media showcase, Doorbubber clear guys will be with us as well. Should be a lot of laughs. A little bit of arguing. That's it. We're going to hope you guys have a great Tuesday, and we'll see you here tomorrow. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.