The Dale Jr. Download - 512 - The Clash Can't Go Away

Episode Date: February 6, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns to the Bojangles Studio after the off season to usher in a new era of the Dale Jr. Download. To kick things off, Dale introduces listeners to the new layout of the Download, which will feature him as a stand-alone host interacting with various producers in the studio. On the heels of the Clash at the Coliseum, there was plenty of racing action to discuss: What's the future of the Clash? A lot of driver beef for an exhibition race Missing Daytona Speedweeks? Way too early 2024 Cup predictions Clash winner Denny Hamlin calls in During the first Ask Jr. segment of the season, listeners joined the Download crew via Youtube Live and sent in questions regarding: Funko Pops Super Bowl predictions Favorite Toby Keith songs Where Dale wants to race this year 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.

Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. here on the Dale Jr. Download in the Bojangles Studio, and today we're going to be hitting some personal stories as we get back on track here in 2024, talking about NASCAR's eventful weekend at the Clash in LA. Race winner, Denny Hamlin calls in. We're going to debate the future of the clash. Where does it go next? We're going to react to the new TV deal, and I'm giving you my 2024 way too early season predictions. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download kicking off our season in 2024 here, February 6th. And you are going to realize very shortly that this is going to be a little bit of a new look to the show. We got a new studio here. No Mike Davis. Mike has retired. And we'll be kind of taken over managing control of the business as he's. He is a part owner in Dirtymo Media, and so we're growing so fast. It required more focus and responsibility for him. So as much as I'm going to miss him, he's excited about taking over what he's doing and he's going to miss being on the show, but we're going to keep on digging. And we kind of tossed around the idea of having some co-host here in the Bojangl studio. but we're going to go this route. There are some voices on the show that you're going to hear from time to time.

Andrew Curlin is in the studio and we'll be wrapping back and forth about things going on in sport, Andrew. Yes, sir. Also, Dalton is, he's been on the show before and you've probably seen him some other dirty-mo media stuff, dirty-moe live and things like that. So Dalton, Dalton, who you kind of manage mostly our social media. stuff. Yep, I'm the social guy here. Yeah, so you do an awesome job, and being that you kind of have your finger on the pulse of what people are saying about our stuff on social media, I think it's great to have you here. Alex Tim, still a part of the show as well back there in the booth.

Hey, hey, Alex will drop in from time to time. So those voices are the ones you're going to hear on the show this year, and I'm excited about it. So dirty air is obviously going to be our Tuesday show. our guest shows on on Wednesday and this week's guest starting off the season strong is Marty Smith so excited to have Marty coming to the studio but dirty air is brought to you by tire pros this year or at least this week's dirty air is brought to you by tire pros and speaking to to dirty air you might want to be checking out your car's air filter might be time to change that head over to tire pros for a new filter or go to tire pros.com to find a location nearest you I've been to some of the local tire pros,

and as they've become a sponsor here at Junior Mergersports, getting to know about that business. Pretty cool. Reminds me in my days as a mechanic at the dealership here in Newton, North Carolina. And so we're appreciative to their support. But let's get right to it, man. Usually we break open the show with some personal stories with the Daytona 500 right around the corner.

My wife, so look, I don't want to put, I don't want to give everybody the wrong impression. Amy's not shuffling the trophies out of the house, but if you walked into my house, I might not have a lot of trophies up in the foyer or you can have to look for them, right? There's a couple of trophies hanging around in the house, but they're not up front and center, right?

And so as we move further away from my racing, Yeah, the trophies become less of a priority, right, in the home with kids and all that other stuff. So she comes, you know, we're taking out all the Christmas stuff out of the house and we had this Christmas tree right in the foyer in the center on this table. So as soon as you walk in the front door, there's your table, stuff's on it, it's a Christmas tree for Christmas. Taking that off and we're going to put, I just assume we're putting other stuff back, you know, books or whatever else is on. a little plan or something right on this centerpiece. Well, she starts bringing in my, she starts bringing my Daytona 500 trophies.

She's going to clean them up. One of them from 2004 was really tarnished. And so she's working on that and made it look brand new, right? It had some, had some gatorade on it from that day. That's crazy. Still. Yeah, so if you look at the, there's this image of, on the cover of Sports Illustrated,

of me from that radio. and there's red Gatorade all over my uniform because that's what everybody was throwing at the time. And so something that gets on the trophy and it's still on there. She cleaned the trophy and polished it, but the Gatorade stayed. A lot of people are like, no, don't take the Gatorade off.

Don't worry. I agree. So, yeah. So, yeah, she wasn't going to work that hard. Because it took a lot of work. That would take it some elbow grease to get that in the corners and everything. Anyways, so she wants to put these on that centerpiece.

and I was like, there's some kind of joke because she never wants to put a trophy out front and center. But she's like, no, man, Daytona 500 coming around the corner. You got two trophies here. We'll put them on the centerpiece. She had this palm tree, that she's fake palm tree, that she bought that's on the table. And so it's got this sort of Daytona vibe, Daytona 500, one of my checkered flags from a duel that I won at some point in my career,

hanging over to top of some of that stuff. So pretty cool. Got me fired up every time I come into the house about the Daytona 500. And so, you know, with that right around the corner, I appreciate Amy doing that. Basically, I've talked about having something fun that I, speaking of the Daytona 500, I got in my bathroom, right? I don't know what you guys read when you go to the bathroom. My phone.

Twitter. Yeah. Okay. You need to fix that. So you need to get a basket, whatever you want to hold these books or magazines in. You need to have books and magazines, man. Okay. Don't take your phone into the bathroom.

And is that a rule you live by? Like you don't take your phone to the bathroom? You need to try your best when you can have an alternative to looking at your phone, right? Trust me, I agree with that. Yeah. Being on social media all the time. So what are you reading? All right, so I do the old racing programs.

Okay, yeah, yeah. Or maybe there's a, you know, I do something racing related. And I've got a never-ending collection, right, of all this stuff. So I just trying not to go in there and sit on my phone while I'm using the bathroom. That's just things, trying to find any reason to cut down on phone time, right? Screen time. Yes. So, which I want to talk about that in a second.

I get these programs and a fun thing that I do, which will require your phone, now that I mention it. You can't, there's no escaping. There is it. It can't be too far away. There is it. So I've got these, I've got, say, for example, I've got a Daytona 500 program from 61 or something like that, right? Old. Yeah. In this program, like probably 80% of the program is advertisements. local advertisements. And so I will look at the address of that local advertisement, local business, and see if it's still around. And so I found one that's still around. And I sent the photo to you, Andrew.

Yeah, and this is funny. Like a little, the backstory to this is, I think it's like 9 o'clock at night. He sends me a picture. He's like, look at the ads on the, race programs still around so here it is um hanzards i don't know how to pronounce that hanzards yeah um it's a service center you know air conditioning uh service center for your car yes family owned and operated since 1945 and so they had an ad in this 61 program from dayton

500 you can go to google street view and there's the business still in operation and i'm gonna tell you why that's profound is because literally i bet all only about 3% of those ads in that in that old program are still functioning businesses you're probably not wrong no kidding because a lot of the ads are like very i mean i don't know i don't know what it was like in 61 probably weren't a bunch of big chain things you know all the restaurants and and and grocery stores and everything were mom and pops so you know family on local owned and a lot of those got you know pushed out or hadn't made it you know through you know 50 years of business but or more 60 of business. So anyways, that's kind of fun to do. Do you think Osteen's pharmacy is still up and

running? Doubt it. So let's see, that's a great drug store to the track. Yeah, that's exactly right. So a lot of the pharmacies, family-owned pharmacies, right now they're been replaced by, you know, the big change. Speaking of phone time, man, I'm trying to new challenge. I want to challenge you guys to this, everybody in the room, actually. I picked two or three apps that I use a lot. Me and my wife got an argument over who was using Instagram the most or who was on their phone the most, right? And if you get married, you're going to have that conversation. You're on your phone more. No, you're on. You're on your phone more. And we actually did the math, and it turns out that we're really on there a similar amount of time too much. And so nobody really won or lost.

But I set some app limits, right? You can go into the screen time, set these app limits. And I'm giving it a shot. So I give myself, I use Instagram and Twitter. the most. And so I put myself on a 30 minute limit on both apps. A day? Yeah. Man. Dang, man. You got to scroll quick. Yeah. Yeah. I'm telling you, man, give it a shot. I don't know. I think that would affect my job performance if I did that. But I could try. Yeah, we could do 30 minutes. Maybe your personal usage. When you run out of... You need a work phone and... Yeah, exactly. Just separate everything. When you run out of screen time, just go on Twitter online. Yeah, I'll just go on my computer. Bring my computer into the bathroom.

I'm going to give it a shot. So far it's working really good. Like I'm doing it. I'm messing with a lot less. Yeah. What do you find yourself doing in the time that you're not on social now? Do you like reading and stuff like that? Having to talk to people.

That's the worst. Talking to people. Nah, joking. You know, just being a little more aware and in the moment with my kids, stuff like that, because that's kind of where this stem from is we'll get up,

I'll get up in the morning, get right on my phone. We'll go, you know, if we're in a living room kids are playing and doing stuff, I'm on my phone. Yeah. and I shouldn't be.

And so there's nothing. I'm not missing anything, right? It's this thought you are missing something, right? Man, what's going on? What are they talking about in the industry? What are fans talking about? And so, you know, you spend all day trying to make sure you're not missing something, but you really aren't.

You know, there's nothing going on. It's easy to do, man. Just pick up that phone and go. Yeah. Trust me. I think it's, did you see that video of, I can't remember where it was, but it was New Year's Eve and everyone was filming the, it wasn't New York, but it was everyone was filming the ball dropping it.

instead of actually like watching the moment. Yeah, like looking at it. There's something that makes me sad about that. It was like that ad that was at the Masters where Tiger was playing and everyone had a phone except for one guy and he was holding a beer. And then that beer company ended up sponsoring him. Yeah. That's cool.

Yeah. So let's get on to the clash. Had to, you know, the Clash to Coliseum this past weekend. A lot to talk about there. And I know that we'll cover it well on all our other shows with Ders. door bumper clear and Denny and everything else. But out of the gate, my personal opinion about them moving the clash to be able to get it in, I think you had to do that.

It's unfortunate as far as what it might have taken away from the ceremony of the event, right, the pre-race, all the build-up fans and the stands and all that energy. We voided all that, right, when we made the move to run the race earlier. but it did get the race in. It was still a television event that I think we all tuned into. And it's in the books. So I don't have a problem with it. And I think that NASCAR made the right call to do that.

I really don't have, I wouldn't have done anything different. I know the drivers really appreciated it. They get to get out of there and get back home and they're not sitting around waiting on an opportunity to run that race. So I remember, you know, a particular weekend in Michigan where we waited until, you know, we sat around Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, all the way through Wednesday, waiting on the rain to go away. And, you know, for NASCAR to make a decision just to go ahead and do something instead of sitting around was good. Do you think if this was like Daytona in a few weeks where Saturday looks great, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, the situation looks similar to L.A. is the precedent set now that NASCAR can move a race up a whole day?

I don't know about a full event. I don't know, man. I mean, there's some legalities. I think they have to work through. There's some, you know, there's, I don't know how they can, can they do that without having some sort of lawsuit brought about. Right. You know, they promote a specific time, a specific day.

And so that would have to, they would have to have probably, if they don't, don't already have some new language in their in their terms and agreements with fans that are buying tickets there's a lot of those things to work through and that's probably the first like so you know people NASCAR fans me all of us we can see the obvious and the common sense thing to do in everything right but there are these hurdles and legalities to work through that a lot of us don't consider right that NASCAR would absolutely have to consider and so sometimes when they don't make the obvious choice. It's because of some of those hurdles that they can't get over.

Anyways, let's get to the competition, right? Yeah. One of the things that I saw that jumped off the page was Justin Haley. Justin Haley was competitive all night, racing for Rick Ware. You know, he came on the show last year and talked about how excited he was. My opinion, I'm thinking, you know, if this guy not been watching Ware, Rick, where's been racing, you know, where they've been running. But, you know, is he trying, you know, is he trying to sell himself on this idea that

they can be competitive? Well, they go to the clash, and they were. Guy ran great all night long, right in the middle of all of those high buck teams. And so, yeah, I'm going to be paying a little bit more of attention, I think, to Justin going forward. Listen, we're not going to take away a lot from the clash in terms of, you know, what does this mean for the rest of the year? Can you take away anything from anybody's performance and say,

man, they're set up to have a great season? I don't think so. It's such a weird little one-of-a-kind race track that you're not going to expect the performance somebody has to bleed over into the other events. But I was really surprised just the car had pace and speed for Justin. So we'll be paying attention to that. Joe Gibbs Racing, they were great. They had good speed.

Well, Chris or a bell missed the show. Well, yeah. But I won't put a lot of, I won't put a lot of, you know, consideration into that either. I mean, the way the whole event went down and having to qualify and the rounds and, you know, what, five or six cars per round and the track changing. And, I mean, I know that's, there's really no excuse for missing that race, but it was unorthodox, you know, it was just an oddity.

he scuffed his tires, which I don't think any of those guys really did well. I think Blaney also scuffed and needed a provisional to get in. So just to, I don't know why they scuffed or what they were thinking about when they made that decision. But obviously that worked against them in qualifying, and he wasn't able to get the provisional. He would have been, I imagine next in line had Blaney got in, you know, Christopher would have got to provisional probably on points.

Yeah. But just, you know, I don't, otherwise, I mean, you know, Denny, when, the race, Ty Gibbs was fast, so fast. So anyways, there was some, you know, Joe Gibbs, I say you don't take a lot from the performance at the clash, but when you see an organization have all of their cars run relatively competitive, that's what you're looking for when you're an analyst is to say, okay, what organization seems to be most prepared when the season starts or with. the most pace and so Joe Gibbs racing out of the gate is is above everybody else at this you know after one event so yeah a lot of people were beating and banging a lot of emotions and you had Legano and Ty Gibbs which was interesting because watching the Netflix show yeah right you go back to I forget what race it was near the end of the year

Martinsville, where Joey turned the 54 around. So, you know, I don't think, I don't know that we picked up on that in the moment at the clash when those two were going at it, but they've got a little history and it goes back to just at the end of last year. Something to keep an eye on between those two because I believe Joey and Ty are going to be racing around each other a lot this year. I expect Ty Gibbs to step it up a little bit and have a bit better season. and, you know, if you're looking at the pace that he had on the field during some of the clash, I mean, that's a great example of what I think he's capable of. And he almost, you know, he battled right on the bubble there trying to get into the playoffs. I think he gets in, you know, a little more comfortably this year.

But anyhow, those two guys are kind of oil and water in terms of personality and how they race on the racetrack. So, you know, if you listen, if you, going back to the next Netflix show, who's most, who's the most, you know, when you're listening to the radio and the complaints on the radio from drivers, who are they complaining about the most? Joey, right? So a lot of the, man, this guy's an ass guy, drives like a jerk. It's insane that Joey. And that, you know, I think that you could say that the same comments might have been made about Ty when he was racing in the Xfinity series, very aggressive, moving people out of the way, and he wasn't picky about who that was, right? Even his own teammates, he race pretty rough. He hasn't done that so much

in the Cup series, but I think once he finds the competitive edge and starts to race for wins, then that style and that little part of his personality is going to be back. And I think that that is a perfect little storm for a guy like Ligano and him, right, to be in the same place that the same time. I think there'll be more fireworks and sparks than not. So that's worth keeping an eye on going out through the year. Chastain was in a little dust up with Reddick. That was a really interesting one to watch.

So, you know, there was just carnage at the end. At the end of that race last couple of laps, you cannot check up. If you see somebody getting pushed around, you've got to gas it, you might door them, you might drive through them. That's just the way that last couple of laps going to be at that little track. and chastain was on the bad end of that reddick drove through him and then chastain doors redick into the fence after the checkered um i don't think they're you know knowing chastain and reddick they do not carry this on i don't think either one of them i think they're both fine one you know they both kind of got

the best of each other um so i don't see that continuing but chastain is always in something man he always is in something i hope he's in a lot this year i want to see that old chastain come back i think the old chastain never left it's kind of like the gibbs deal when chastain isn't competitive uh you know he doesn't take those he doesn't really go go uh he doesn't push it too far right now when he's in those moments where he's got a shot at it and he sees he sees the carrot in front of him man he will do whatever it takes to catch it um so i think he's kind of, when he gets mid-pack and he's just not having a great day, he's not as,

he's a little more measured, I think. Do you think it was a performance thing for Trackhouse last year in terms of like Chastain falling off the map? Because remember Justin Marks had that conversation and then it almost seemed like the next week was the time we didn't. Really?

I think it was totally coincidental. Chastain in my mind never isn't, Chastain's not the kind of guy to make a massive adjustment to his style and what he's going to do on the racetrack. Just don't. He said it. If you listen to his comments,

whether it's to the media in the Netflix show, whatever, he ain't, he is who he is. He's not going to, you know, he's going to race and he don't care how you feel about it or what you think about his choices on the track. I think he's the same as he's always been. But I think when he's not running great, he's not going to do a bunch of dumb shit,

running 30th or running 15th. You know what I'm saying? That's fair. I think when he only will take those, risks or put you know or take advantage of somebody or be selfish more selfish when he has those you know when he's racing in the top five with a shot to win and i think tie's the same way um we also had some uh dustups between sthenhouse of macdow uh and ricky and john hunter nimichick man um if you look back at his career he has a history of sort of you know again i don't i don't think he's similar to chastain

or Ty Gibbs, I don't think any of these guys are the same. But they, you have drivers that are, you know, kind of constantly physical, right? Or I wouldn't even say John Hunter and Mitch takes that physical, but he does get himself into disagreements, right? Quite a bit. I think you're going to see, he was real quiet that first year in the Cup series. I think that was a performance thing. Not going to be a jerk, not going to be selfish when you're running 28th.

but if he starts to have some good runs, expect to see him also maybe rub some people the wrong way or getting some disagreements about decisions. Things happen on the racetrack. I see John Hunter is that kind of guy because man, when he's got a shot, when he's got an opportunity,

when he sees a chance for a great performance or even a win, he lays it out there. Yeah, I think he's got a lot to prove too because he was in cup and then he went down. A chip on the shoulder. Yeah, he's got a chip on his shoulder for sure. Yeah, so, you know, I think, too, we always see it, Chastain, and we'll probably see it with John Herr and Emancheck. When these guys come into this series, it's like, you know, the Ricky Stenhouses, the Denny Hamlins, man, they got to, they see them do stuff, and they're like, oh, no, you need to do that differently. I need to, you know, I need to teach you a lesson or you got to understand that's not how it goes here. Denny was always like that. Brad Caslowski comes in and, you know, Denny's going to teach him how to race. right then he's going to teach Brackislauski

this is the way you do it in the cup series so that was a little bit of that from from Ricky Stenhouse to John Hunter I think and Bubba and Larson Larson turned him around remember I think that that's you know they've got a little history yeah but that was kind of

another situation where you get aggressive with me I'm gonna get back aggressive with you and it's a little bull ring and there's no points and hey I'm gonna dump you and if you finish 20th 30th, whatever it is, it's not, it's an exhibition. I don't know if all of this aggression is, you know, is happening quite as easily if it's a, you know,

if there's more on the line for these guys. But how emotional can you get at a race like this where, I mean, obviously the track is designed for drivers to get into each other, right? So it's like, how much stock can you actually take into it? Well, the track's going to create a, lot of the issues because it's kind of only way around somebody is through them and these cars and so you got kind of a hard tire because it's a relatively new asphalt I don't know the tire was super grippy or I don't you know Denny said it took like 10 laps for the tires to actually

get going yeah so all of that you know lends itself to to being more aggressive and hard to pass and having to move people around and be aggressive with it. And you're charging the corners. They all had, you know, they were taking, they changed some of the gearing or something to be able to try to get the shifting out of there. Even some guys were still trying to shift and trying to make that work and qualifying and so forth. But, and so now they're not having the engine braking,

helping slow the car down with the downshift. So they're locking up the front tires because they're using, they're only using the brake now to slow the car down. So getting in the corner and getting in there too hot and running in the back of somebody was more. commonplace and I you know I would be really pissed off if I got dumped at that race but I will also know that you know it's probably not something that's going to happen in another racetrack there's not you know not that that's a tiny little place and that's what kind of racing goes on at those small little

bull rings like that you're not going to go to you know Greenville pickings and expect to say you know have have clean racing all night long it's just not not what happens there it's kind of the code You just know it's coming and you just try not to be on the wrong end of it. Denny Hamlin wins the race. I really thought Ty Gibbs was going to win. Some of those restarts, they got beat around, pushed around, shuffled out. And Denny was able to be the one that didn't do that. So I don't know.

I don't know where the clash goes from here. I thought the race was entertaining. Did it live up to the standards of the clash? Maybe not, but I think that was more to do with having to move the race early, and it took a little bit of the tradition and celebration and took all the, you know, the pre-race, you know, ceremonies and stuff out of it, so the buildup was not there. It was like tuning into, it was like tuning into a local race that flow, you know, on a streaming platform and just kind of watching the Saturday night feature, which was totally fine. but there's a lot of conversation about where it goes from here and I got a little opinion on that I think I miss Daytona Speed Weeks

and I we're going to do something on this show that I know that hopefully we can do every week but that's have the winter call in from the previous race and this is kind of something that Denny has talked about on his podcast this week and I would like to talk to him about it more today, but, you know, I miss Daytona Speed Weeks. I miss how the clash and all the other events helped build up

and set the tone for the Daytona 500, right? You would, you know, you'd come in there and run the clash, and that was sort of the appetizer of the whole meal. And, you know, those who, all right, for first off, one of the things that really, really ticks me off, is to hear people say that the clash just needs to go away, right? Just get rid of it. The people that say that never won that race, right?

When you, the clash has a history, a very important history, going back to its original format of poll winners, it was a very short, brief sort of tease for the Daytona 500. and it fit in that space perfectly. It does not need to be more than that. And I am of the opinion that it doesn't need to be going around to all these other racetracks. It doesn't need to go to Mexico. It doesn't need to go to Canada.

It doesn't need to go back to the Coliseum. It doesn't need to go to your local short track or South Boston or anywhere. It needs to go back to Daytona. It needs to be that. tease, it needs to be poll winners. If it's 12, 14 cars, I do not care. If it's a 20-lap race and it lasts 15 minutes, I do not give a shit. All right? That's all it needs to be. And so every race has a role. Every race in the season has a role. Every race needs to stay in its lane. And that's what the clash needs to do. Denny will talk about the economics of that, right?

going down there taking the car and the crew and all that stuff and the expense and running that race potentially crashing a car that he didn't want to crash but that's what you sign up for when you when you're an owner in a cup series that's what you sign up for everything that we've done i about everything that we've done to strip away time at the track the practices um everything that we've done to try to condense things the weekend. You know, I, I just can't buy into. And I want, I totally understand the reason why we need to try to make this more economical for the teams. And I mean, we're showing up and barely having just a blip of practice and in qualifying race. We're going to go to Daytona, the most

important race of the year, the Daytona 500, and put the cars right into qualifying and then run a duel. Um, no practice. No, not a, not any, anything to, to sort of understand where everybody's at. The practices build storylines. The clash, uh, builds a storyline, whoever runs good or does something great. It allows us to build a narrative around, okay, man, this guy won the clash. Is this team, is this the team to beat? Is this the driver to beat? It may give us an incredible story of some rookie that comes out. in the clash and stomps the veterans leading into the Daytona 500 but we don't have that and so you know I kind of miss speed weeks and the buildup I do remember when I was racing in the

cup series that we would get into town we'd do a lot of media then we'd have the clash and then we all would qualify on Sunday and then go home and we'd come back to Daytona on Wednesday before the duels for practice I do remember wanting to go home looking forward to that Monday and Tuesday back at the house. But, you know, and we had eight hours of practice, literally. There was eight full hours of Daytona 500 practice. That's surely unnecessary. But, you know, giving us an hour or two, at least before the duel, right?

So, you know, these guys can get their cars off the ground and get a reasonable, you know, effort in qualifying, you know, especially with more open teams coming, trying to get into the field. it just really seems underserved to put those guys right onto the racetrack without a lap for qualifying. And so, you know,

I favor bringing the clash back to Daytona. I believe that that's probably very unlikely that that happens. Why do you say that? Well, the idea of a, if you're a promoter, right, or if you're, if you're involved in any type of event,

you want it to be as big as it can be. You want to take it where it's most wanted. If you've got somebody over here that's going to give you more money to bring it to their neck of the woods, then you're going to choose that, right? If you take it back to Daytona and it's pole winters and it's a 20-lap race, it's going to be very lucrative in terms of a business, right?

It's not going to make you a lot of money. unlikely anyways but there's other there's better opportunities financially i think that's why it goes to the coliseum right that's why it probably ends up somewhere else next year is because of the local community and the governments and so forth buying in physically like you know investing into the race and where that and getting getting our sport in front of a different audience right and so i understand the importance of that i'm not going to you know know, I'm not going to get bent out of shape no matter where it goes. But I just feel like that, you know, it was very helpful as a race at Daytona to sort of tee off speed weeks.

But without practices and all of the things that are happening around the track throughout the week, you know, it doesn't make a lot of sense to have it there. You have to bring it all back, right? You have to kind of bring back the old, the series and the series. in the industry needs to go to Daytona and build up, right? The moment that is the Daytona 500. And so the clash was really good at being the sort of introduction to that. People are asking like genuinely where do they think is it going to go next year? Jeff Blockardy thinks it's not going back to L.A.

No, where do you think it's going? No. I mean, you could see the writing on the wall while that race was going on. You could feel like, you know, you could feel like NASCAR is like, all right, man, this was a great run. We enjoyed it. We're out, you know. Just the whole, I don't know, the whole, there was really way less sort of ceremony

around it than the first one or two. and it's like, you know, they're getting there at the end of the contract, this three-year deal, and we're going to take the, you know, we're already probably, they already probably are having conversations with where it's going next. You're here in Mexico, right? You're hearing it might go down there. You're hearing Canada's in a conversation. I don't know where they might take it up there, but who knows.

I don't know where it's going to end up, but if they're going to go off the wall, right, if they're going to get out of their, you know, box, so to speak, and go take this thing somewhere crazy. There's a race Brands Hatch over in Europe. They have this little short course called the Indy Course. And it's, I mean, if there is, I've said this before, but if there's a short track in the road course world, it's those style of tracks like the Indy Course at Brands Hatch.

And so it's, you know, I, I love ovals. I want to see our cars racing on ovals. I'm not a massive road course fan, right? I'm not a massive road course left and right kind of guy, but I think our, I think, you know, those shorter courses, now that's interesting to me, right? Because that's going to potentially create more lap traffic,

you know, the shorter the course, when it's like a three-quarter mile, or a mile, mile and a quarter road course, you know, you're going to get opportunity to catch the back of the field quicker. And that's what our cars need, right, is traffic and challenges and to keep the racing, you know, interesting. When we're on those, you know, mile and three-quarter or two-mile road courses, you know, things kind of get strung out, right? Anyhow, so that would be my hope is that we'd go to a short bullring of a road course, wherever that, you know, wherever they may. take it if they can't take it to an oval or back to Daytona.

You know, we're going to do some championship predictions later in the show. I've got some notes here about new faces and new places. We want to cover all that stuff. But first I'll talk about the TV deal. You know, this year you're going to have Fox and NBC just as we always have. and going into 2025, two new players come on to the scene, Amazon, and Turner. They're going to be basically the way I look at it is you're going to have Fox, and then in July, or in June, in June, you're going to have Amazon, then in July.

You'll have Turner, and then NBC will finish the season. Now, the Amazon deal may start in the back end of May, but basically it's like a June, July, and that's the kind of way I'm looking at it. My contract with NBC is up. It was up at the end of last year. I'm currently working through what that looks like for me. I definitely love being in the broadcast booth and want to continue doing that. We've had some great conversations with all of NASCAR TV partners.

My home and my love is at NBC, and I'd love to be back with them. so we'll see where it goes. But right now, man, I have really don't have a job in terms of broadcast. So, but you've got some information about, so what does that mean, obviously, for the DIL Junior Download? Right. So, you know, obviously while you're working through this, people, we got a bunch of questions asking, like, where is the show going to go? Obviously, you know, Peacock won't be in the play at the beginning of this season until you figure out what you're contract looks like.

But we have some good news with that. Download is going full episodes on YouTube. It's going to be awesome. So yeah. We've been asking for that. So the Dale Jr. Download, people have been asking for the full episodes forever. Forever.

Yeah. Right. And we've had a lot of reasons why we weren't doing that. So I'm excited. It's easy for people to find. Everybody uses YouTube. So yeah, you'll be able to watch this. show and everyone else, every show after that for the rest of the year on YouTube.

And we have, yeah, we got a lot to be excited about that. So, you know, as I learn more about my broadcasting future, certainly keep everybody up to date on that. I'm anxious to get that sorted out because certainly have had a lot of fun working with NBC over the years doing that broadcasting in the booth with Lattart and those guys. So anyways, shall we? jump into our predictions

I think we should yeah well one of the things I want to talk about first is new faces with new new places okay you got

Josh Barry in the four car missed the show at the clash that was a gut punch I'm sure yeah I believe

I've just got short comments on all of these I believe Barry will perform well enough to earn more time in the four car

take that however you want I think that he's going to have a hard time. That car was up and down last year. SHR wasn't very good at all. I think SHR gets better, a little better. They take a few steps forward and an improvement like maybe kind of similar to Roush. And so I don't think they get the wins that Brad and those guys got last year in the 6th and 17.

I think Brad gets a win this year, but anyways, I was going to get to that in a minute. But I think that SHR moves up. So, Gregson, he's back, right? I think he has a better performance than he had in the 42 car when he was in the Cup Series last year. And I think hopefully he's gotten it together, right, and can stick around, stay out of trouble. But I'm interested to watch Josh and Gregson because they worked here at Junior Murder Sports, and they seem to get along pretty well as teammates, and that'll be interesting to see how they can kind of challenge each other at SHR.

But I think they both don't have these, like, performances that they want to have. At the end of the year, they're both going to say, man, I wish we would have done better than we did. But I think they'll do well enough to satisfy the critics, right, to keep the heat off and allow them to continue to try to improve. so I don't think that anybody's going to be calling for their jobs at the end of the year Daniel Hemrick and colleague I believe they're going to struggle I just I don't know the colleague thing changed quite a bit in their drivers in terms of

Xfinity and the Cupside so not I'm not actually sure what to expect but I just got a feeling that Daniel's going to have a very similar existence that he had when he was with RCR in the Cup series. That's what I think we're going to see in terms of performance for him. Nimichick, I think that he's going to have flashes of potential. And we're going to see kind of like we did when he was in a truck series with Kyle, he's going to have these days where you're like, you know, okay, this guy can get there. This guy can do it. He can be one of the top ten drivers in the series. But I think there'll be the other weekends where they struggle. just as an organization as a team.

But I think he's a big, he has a lot of upside. Hayley, I talked about that at the top of the show. I think he overchees in the 51. And I think Spire improves performance on all their cars, probably the average of five positions this year. And I think the seven wins.

So I believe that, yeah. That's kind of bold. Yeah. I think, yeah, so we can go to our bold predictions. That's one of them. I think that Corey Lejoy takes Spire to Victory Lane. I believe that puts Cori LaJoy in the top 16 in my 16. Oh, wow.

Yeah. So I had to take somebody out. Who's out? Busher. Okay. Really? Listen, I think that Brad ends up winning a race this year. I think that the performance in terms of statistically flips between the 6th and the 17.

I think it's Brad's year. He might win the Daytona 500. So, but I believe that I think Busher runs one. well, but somebody, when you put a LaJoy into the playoffs, somebody has to leave, right? You can't have 17, you can't have 18, somebody has to leave. So I think Ty Gibbs makes the round of 12.

I don't think he's racing on the bubble trying to get in playoffs this year. I think he's, I think he gets a win, maybe two. And Brad Gislauski, I think, wins a couple races. Chase Elliott rebounds, that's, you know, I think he has a competitive season, a couple of wins. I got Chase going to the round of eight. S.H.R, they make some gains.

I talked about that. That's probably not a bold prediction. They don't win. I don't think they win. They may luck out and get a win somewhere and boot somebody out of the playoffs. But I had a little group called B. Is that okay? Sure.

Sure. All right. I mentioned all these guys. Chastain, he's kind of captain of sters. She's the captain of the team. He sure is. Right. On the team with Ross is Nimichick,

Gibbs, when he runs really good. Gregson, if he can also have some good runs. And then probably the all-star of the shitter team is maybe Hosevar. Oh, yeah. There's going to be some big moments. I love that lineup. Yeah. That's like a basketball team from the 90s that plays dirty.

They're just all in their. What is that movie that? The bad news bears? No, no, no, no. They're kind of like the bad news bears, but then the movie with Will Ferrell, the basketball. Oh, semi-pro. Yeah, they're the, that's who these guys are, man.

The Flint, Michigan Tropics. Yes, yes, they're the Flint, Michigan Tropics. Wait, so hold on, the shitsters. Yes. How many of them make the playoffs, son? Okay, so in my, in my, in my, on the shit. Huh? Give me your, or.

You want all of my 16? Yeah, I want your 16. Okay. Lajoy Bubba Wallace Kyle Busch Brack Hazelowski Christopher Bell

Chastain Bowman Gibbs Chase Elliott Reddick Truax Byron Legano Larson Hamlin Blaney I don't know

whether you want me to tell you my final four first or my finals so I got them in rounds If you got them in rounds

I want to hear him is LaJoy Bubba Cobbush and Brad Out In however you want to look at In or out

Yeah I mean I don't want This isn't Hey we're going to you know, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, we're going to, this is, hey, you made the playoffs.

Yeah, congrats. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't think you're going into round of 12. We don't have to really harp on that. Said the out. Yeah, yeah. That's the one thing that's annoying. People are like, tell me your, your, your playoff picks. And all people want to harp on is like, oh, you don't have him moving forward.

Yeah. Oh, you don't have them going in the round of, oh, they're not in the round of four. So, going into the round of 12, my four in the back side of the round of 12 Christopher Bell, chastain, Bowman, Gibbs. I think Gibbs gets in,

maybe he goes farther than that, but I'm not, I'm not going to give him that. I'm not going to give him that until he proves it. Christopher Bell, this is such a hard one. I watched that Netflix and he's so,

yeah, he takes, I mean, I would too. I would take it so personal if I'm achieving well, right, getting far into the playoffs and people are totally forgetting that I exist. They asked if he was an underdog and he's like, no, I'm not.

I made the round of four two years in a row. I, listen, this is it. Christopher Bell doesn't make the round of eight or he wins the championship. It's literally 50-50. I think that's fair. It's literally 50-50. He's going to get knocked out some,

you know, it's going to just have some bad luck. It's not going to be performance driven. He'll just have some bad luck, not make the round of eight. Or he's going to win it all. All right. So the round of eight, Chase Elliott. I said he's going to have a rebound this year. I think he gets into the round eight.

Reddick, Truex, and Byron. Biron slips a little. It kind of barely made it in, you know, at Martinsville, knocked Denny out. I think that, and some of the races that he won, like he won the rain short and race at Atlanta, you know, kind of fell into that win. He's going to be so pissed off. I said that. He got fortunate at Darlington, right?

when they crashed out in front of him, the one and the five. You know, without those moments, I think that's what gets him to slip out of the four. And so my four is Legano, Larson, Hamlin, and Blaney, and I got Blaney repeating. Now, I know the odds of that happening are very, not good at all, right? It's never happened. It's never happened, but this is a short sample of, you know,

what we're pulling from to say, oh, this has never happened. We're not talking about 75 years of history here. just a few. But I think that, man, they ran so good at the end of the year, right? They got a new car. Is that new car going to help them at some of these other racetracks? It's going to help them in some scenarios aerodynamically and so forth that they find themselves in where they were, you know, a bit challenged.

I know the Toyota also has a new car too, so could be interesting to see how those. That matters. The little changes in the front end, especially I think, you know, where we're mainly going to is at Daytona and Talladega where the pushing happens. They made the Toyota a lot better in terms of being able to push another car, I think. The Ford was already great at that. But I think the Ford's going back the other way in terms of trying to get, you know, what they give up in aerodynamic advantages to be able to have that flat nose to push at Daytona and Talladega,

hurts them everywhere else. And so they've kind of dialed that back a little bit to gain some, you know, gain some benefit. Well, another thing to think about is there's two more Toyotas in the field this year. So at Daytona and Talladega, you're going to have a little bit more help on that third line. that bubble was trying to make out. That's a really, really good point because when we do get into the meat of the race, it does come down to the numbers. And a lot of times, Toyota guys are always short.

There's a lot of Fords, a lot of Chevroletes. They're always working together when they can. And the Toyotas, especially when they lose a car or two throughout the race, then it really starts to show that they don't have the numbers. Right. But anyhow, I think that it's a toss-up in terms of the championship between Christopher Vell and Blaney. but if Blaney wins it, Bell is going to finish outside the top eight points.

Sorry. I think that's fair. I really do. I mean, it's so hard to be consistent in the playoffs. So, I mean, just stuff got to happen like that. Why is it that people keep not considering Bell as a true threat? I mean, I feel like we're doing it again. This year it's like, well, he can either have one of two outcomes.

Is it just that he's a quiet driver in terms of just he gets the results and quietly goes about his? season? Like, what is it about Bell? Yeah, I think that the thing about Christopher is his demeanor. I do, I don't have, I don't think that he, I think his personality is fine. And I think that he, um, is easy to like, easy to be around. But he, you know, I don't know. I don't know how, I don't know really how to, I don't know how to describe it for you because I do not want to insult the guy because he doesn't deserve it. He's a hell of a driver.

Larson will tell you he's amazing. He is. Great driver. But there's this little, he's very neutral, right? Sort of similar to Jimmy Johnson in terms of personality. I know Jimmy Johnson is one kick-ass dude. Lots of fun to be around.

Wasn't going to put that out there in front of the cameras or when he was, when he's working. He switched on, you know, and he wasn't going to be Jimmy Jam and his little alter ego. Yeah. Right. Christopher Bell probably has an alter ego, Christopher Badass. I don't know what it is. We'll have to put a poll out on Twitter and see what they would make his nickname.

Yeah. But he doesn't share that, right? He's just, when he comes to the track, he's buckled down super, uber focused on his job, and you don't hear, you know, jokes. Ain't no clowning around. He's not a guy that's going to pick and razz as a competition or mess with his buddies, you know, or pick or play. He just is focused on winning.

And I mean, you got to admire that, but at the same time, it makes it hard to know him, right? I want to ask. If you watch, sorry, Andrew. I've been watching the Netflix thing over and over, right? And so there's a great moment where Christopher lets us come into the bus after he gets knocked out at Phoenix. We get to see. That was one of the biggest surprises.

I know we'll talk Netflix. We were surprised he allowed it. Yeah. Right? So that tells you a little bit about how we all think about him. Right. He lets us in. We get to see a little bit about who he is in one of his toughest moments, right?

which is he needs to do that more, right? That'll help us sort of get engaged. He needs to engage, right? That'll help us not overlook him. Yeah. Right. I want to ask, I want to go back to the, I think the only thing I'm still hung up on on your 16 is counting Bush or

out. I actually have him going into like my round of eight. I felt like they overachieve last year. And, you know, Roush, look. Let's not forget where Roush was. And so, you know, let's not forget where they were before this year. They were bad. For years.

Bad, bad, bad, right? Brad comes in, and I'm going to give him all the credit. I don't really know who all deserves the credit. It's probably a big pie, slices, a lot of different people. But Brad comes in and turns things. around and gets the culture and the whole thing going. I think it's time for him to reap some of the benefit of that and win some races this year, and I think it happens.

He's getting close last year. I think Busher overachieved. I think that's, I think Busher is that talented, but I think the team overachieved in terms of their resources. I really expected them to run just like Brad, right? But they didn't. They run better. I don't know if they can do that again, but we'll see.

I don't, I'm just saying, look, I had him in my top 16. I had him going to the playoffs until Corey LaJoy pulls off some freak win. He's been so close a couple times at Atlanta. Man, it's like every time you've got to keep an eye on that seven. There's that, it's like the, you know, look, I'm sorry to Bush or anybody else who thinks that's stupid. It's like in the, you know, it's like in the college basketball, uh, March Madness, you've got those Cinderella teams that do enough to get in

and some traditional team that, you know, some college that's always been has to miss the whole thing, right? If you got to, if you're going to be one of those people that go, yeah, man, this is the year. Coy the Joy gets it done. Well, you're going to have to take off, you're going to have to take one of your tried and true competitors off that top 16 list.

Somebody has to leave. Yeah. Well, Harvicks are tiring. I think McDowell won't make it. I still think there's room for, I don't know, that's right. There's only 16 spots. You can't, just because Harvard retired doesn't mean there's more spots. Well, and you had the, I see what you're saying. Right. But, I don't, like, if something's got to give, I don't necessarily think. Does Corey win? You don't think so. I don't know. Yeah, see,

that's where I don't know if he does. Yeah, if he doesn't win, then your Bisher's in. I think Denny Hamlin's here. All right, everybody calling in this week's winner, the clash, Denny Hamlin. Denny, congratulations on a win. Did you have fun? I did. Usually the winner is the only one that has fun at that place. So, yeah, we did. Certainly, you know, I don't know how much it correlates, but certainly it's just a good, you know, momentum boost for the team. I got a few new engineers, you know, road guys that are on the road with us this year. So break them in the right way. That, you know, that was kind of the benefit of it. Did you lose your number one engineer or these backup dudes?

Yeah, yeah, the number one guy, I've been Sam McCauley. He's been with me for, I mean, it's got to be over 10 years now. He's moved on. He's now Sheldon Creed's crew chief at JGRN Xfinity. So he'd reached the point where he was ready to move up the ladder. So, you know, I hated losing him, but it's, you know, he's got to look out for the best interest of his long-term crew. career. That is a position that I think a lot of fans probably don't realize how how critical the lead engineer is, especially these days with these cars. So that could have a negative or positive effect for a team when they make the change in that particular position. So let's go on, man. You know, you talked about this on your podcast a little bit. Actions detrimental. Where does the clash go from here? I got my opinions about it. I listened to some.

of your comments about the financials of going to Daytona. And so my opinion is that, well, I miss speed weeks. I miss being there, even though when I was racing, when I was like you, I was ready to go home on Monday and Tuesday between the clash and the duels. But I miss the practices and just sort of the lead up. You talked about how it was kind of a nice way to figure out who was good. It was a storyline. It created storylines.

sort of was the appetizer and the teaser for the Daytona 500 and built the momentum up to that race that we're sort of lacking. But you also noted the financials to running there and as an owner taking cars that, you know, 50 to 80 percent, they're of a chance of wrecking those cars in that race. So what, and you said you didn't have the answer. I'm hearing they might go to Mexico. Canada's in the conversation. I guess everything's on the table.

What do you think happens to the clash? Well, it needs to be on an oval. I'm pretty firm in that belief that it needs to be on an oval. If we go somewhere, okay, it can't pay 25% of what a normal race pays, though. What is the normal race pays? Well, if you look at Bob Popper's post what the purse is for each and every race every week, and it's right around, what, $8 million bucks somewhere in that range,

and this week was 2.2. So it's 25%. So it's economically, this race is a loss, you know, no matter what you do to it, but now if you are going to tell me that we're going to go,

you know, to another country, like this, it gets to a point where this is not an investment for the teams anymore. I mean, I don't know that it was an investment anyway. If you asked all of us,

we probably had the, if we had the option, all teams probably, would opt out in participating in the clash because it's such a bad, has a bad negative impact on us. So, you know, I just believe that I think there's merit to what you're saying in the buildup of speed weeks. Certainly we should not be going to Daytona and just qualifying, lap one. Like, you know, not only that, but we had teams, you know, had some mechanical issues in qualifying. I think it was a year or two ago. Two cars couldn't even get off people.

road. Connor Daly's car was bouncing all over the place. Yeah. Yeah, it's just, you know, this is the biggest race. And if you don't have build-up to it, I mean, there's going to be a price to pay. And it could be through ratings. So I think that there is merit to running there. But certainly if you told me we're going to go back to the Daytona Oval, you know, again, now you're saying, you know, for the quarter of the purse, now we're more likely to tear up equipment.

I don't know what the net chain, what the net different. of that versus going all the way to LA, right? I mean, the travel there, that's pretty heavy on the team. So I'm not really sure. I don't know the right answer. You know, there's only so many warm weather tracks. I mean... Do you think the clash goes away entirely?

Are you one of those? No, no. It's a revenue maker for the leagues. They're not going to get rid of it. Plus, you know, you've won some of those races. And now, like, if that race just disappears, your successes are diminished. It doesn't matter.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's, I just want whatever is going to be best for the sport and all the stakeholders, but equally for all stakeholders. So if we're going to go international, that's fine. Make sure you take care of your teams that have to put the effort in to do it. If we go back to Daytona, make the thing pay like it's supposed to.

I'm not really sure, right? I mean, could you do this on a Thursday before Daytona? You know, you got your Daytona 500 on Friday, you know, practice your qualifying. Like, it needs, Daytona, we need to be down there a little bit longer. So I don't know the right answer. I mean, there's pencil cola down there. Yeah. Five Flats.

Whatever, right? I mean, we've got to find a warm weather. Dude, that's a great. That didn't even think about that. So, like, they have the speed weeks, the short track World Series down there. Maybe it could be like a component of that in a way. You get, you know, 18, 22 cars out on the racetrack down there with the late models. That could be cool.

Yeah, I've heard you say as well that like you believe that the clash should be poll winners only, right? I mean, that's what it was. Yeah, that'd be 12, 16 cars. So, I mean, you know, we just got into a point, though, that every team had such big sponsors. Yep. About 8, 10 years ago that some were getting left out. and enough team owners started griping that, hey, you know, I can't be leaving out, you know, Budweiser or whoever it was at the time out of the clash. You know, you got to invite us in.

So then they started getting creative with the rules to allow these guys to get in. But now I think we can go back to it being a little bit more prestigious. Exclusive. Exclusive. That's better work. Yeah. I like that too, man. I think that it needs to have a, you know, the All-Star race, you mentioned it.

It's about all-stars. It should be just all-stars. The best in the sport. It should be a very select group of people. The clash was about poll winners. It needs to stay in its lane. That's all it needs to be. We need to quit trying to make it more.

It's just that. It's a little teaser for the Daytona 500, 20 laps, 12, 15, 14 cars out on the racetrack, just racing for, you know, and you could take, you probably could take 12 to 16 cars, and you might could have a pretty good purse with $2.5 million. dollars. Sure. Yeah. So anyhow, man, hey, what are you looking forward to about the Daytona 500?

I mean, you're arguably one of the best on the plate tracks in terms of understanding a draft and knowing how to get yourself to the front. What's different about this trip? Well, we have a new Camry. That's going to be one difference, right? I mean, I think there's going to be a lot of anticipation from the Ford and the Toyota camp of what do we have? You know, because it really, if you look at the qualifying results on super speedways over the last

three years, really since next gen started, it pretty much was in line with downforce and drag numbers, right? I mean, we all kind of understand where all the manufacturers are on that. And then the qualifying really solidifies that. So I think that you're going to, you know, if there's one manufacturer and it could be Chevrolet that is strong, you know, because if, if, if. other manufacturers feel like they made a gain down force, more likely that came at the cost of drag. So now is the Chevrolet is going to take over the domination of qualifying on super speedways?

Or does the Ford or Toyota have an advantage on the drag at those tracks? So that's what I'm most looking forward to is seeing kind of where we stack up, you know, because when we're all peddled to the metal in qualifying, I mean, pretty much, that's pretty much a, you're seeing what the bodies can do. and that's going to be something I'll be looking out. Yeah, man, we're also going to be watching seeing how you guys can push. I know that having that nose changed a little bit

will affect that for the better. So it should be making the racing a lot more intense, knowing that you guys can get a little more aggressive, hopefully, with the shoves. Appreciate you calling in. I know you've got a busy week trying to prepare for everything going on in your season. Congratulations again.

If you haven't listened to actions, detrimental, it's out. Denny's been getting that thing out pretty quick. And he's made a claim that he's going to try even harder this year to get it out to the fans. And it's been a great hit for us here at Dirtymo Media. So thank you, Danny. Have a good week. All right.

Thanks. Thanks, guys. This week's segment of Dirty Air was brought to you by Tire Pros. There's few people who love cars as much as I do, but these tire and service experts equally love the drive. They offer a huge selection of brand name tires and full service repairs from all changes to alignments to brakes. Tire Pros is giving your vehicle the TLC it deserves. Tire Pros is unique because each location is owned by men and women in our community, but with the added support and resources of over 600 locations nationwide.

Next time, you need to take your car in, show your neighbors some love, and take it to your local tire pros. Tell them I sent you. Ask Jr. Man, I'm looking forward to that. It's been a while since we've been able to talk to the fans, so let's get it started. And we are live. All right, live for Asked Jr.

The first Asked Jr. of the 2024 year. And, man, it has been a long time since we have been able to reach out and engage with everybody. We did put out a post on DirtyMo Media's handles this week, and a lot of y'all replied to that. And there's a couple questions in there that I'm eager to get to that I actually saw in the feed on my phone. So let's get to it. Yeah, this first question is from Spitfire 445. six, and this is actually, when I saw it, it was so funny, I have to ask it. Do you have your own Funko Pops is what they want to know? Are you serious? Yeah. Yeah, it was a question. Because I know

we were talking about... Was I talking about this with you? Yeah. Yeah. So, man, you know, I've been seeing them things everywhere. Yeah. And maybe some people don't know what we're talking about, but we probably don't have one in here, but there are these little, they come in these little, there's these little dolls, right? And they're in these little boxes. clear, clear, they're always asking me to sign on the front of these boxes on the clear Lexan thing or whatever.

And I was like, I started seeing these things out of nowhere. And now, you know, people will be bringing me four, five, six at a time to sign. And I'm, I don't know where this, what this is. Like, it's, I thought, you know, what is it? Right.

I know what, it's a toy. It's like, where did they come from? Where did they come from? Is there a damn TV show? What these things, what spawned this like new collectible that people are like really hardcore about it? Yes. They'll have rooms full of them like die casts.

Yeah. So, you know, diecast originate from a real race car that races on the racetrack, right? Where did these, what is this? What is this thing? Yeah. I don't know if anybody knows. We don't know. Anyways, I do not have any.

but I sign them all the time and I don't know where they came from. So I'm on their Wikipedia page. Do you want to guess the year that it was founded? Founded. I'm going to go way back to like, I'm going to say 1997. Oh, you're one year off, 98. All right, yeah.

Feels about right. But it originally like, you know, started getting popular around like the teens. So, all right. So, all right. So if you start anything, man, you got to wait a while. You got to be patient. Yeah. for it to take off.

Don't get discouraged if your fuck-o-pop idea is in a big hit in the first 10 years. It might take a while. You walk away from that. Look what you're missing now. Yeah. Because if damn things are everywhere. All right.

What's next? This next question is from John. Do you have a Super Bowl prediction for this weekend? Ah. Man, I think the, I think that... I think the San Francisco 49ers win. Okay. Yeah.

I think... They think they, they think... like to me that they're the better defense and I think the offenses are somewhat equal in terms of productivity like and I know you know I'm not a freaking expert so get off my ass if you don't like my prediction but I I just feel like that for whatever reason man they got they just they're just going to do a better job of being able to control the game and and it's not going to be this massive blowout or anything like that I bet you it'll be seven to ten points but I just feel like that the edge is in the defense.

Do you do like those props where it's like heads or tails or... How long the national anthem is? Yeah, like the color Gatorade. Not really. I do like the player props. I'm all about the over under on like rushing yards and stuff like that. I kind of get into that. But otherwise, no, I don't like the silly...

I don't like those silly props, like how long this is going to be and who's going to... you know, what team will score first? Right. That kind of, I ain't figuring that out. Yeah. That's a, it's a gamble. Yeah.

There's nothing like losing money. It's literally a coin for it. There's nothing like losing money on the coin toss. There's nothing like starting. Let's do one right now. Hey, Tails is 53%. It hits. How does that happen?

Tails never fails. It's not 50-50. I wonder if there's just a tick more weight on one side of the coin. It's just tails never fails. It rhymes. Something that sort of gives it an edge. People are probably, scienceing this out.

Usher's the halftime show. Okay. How do we feel about that? Are we excited about that? Any thoughts about that? Yeah. I don't think I have any thoughts on it. I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed that it's not Taylor Swift.

You don't know. I don't know. You never know. She could bust out and be part of one of the song. She could do a duet. Be pretty cool. She's not doing. So is Usher all of the halftime show?

They haven't released anything? They do some. I feel like he's got to bring out like Lil John and you know what I mean? Yes. It has to. Yeah. I gotta do. But there's going to be something.

We'll see. There'll be some accompanying pieces. I feel like that's what the Super Bowl used to be. The halftime show would be like, okay, this guy's headlining, but he's going to bring 20 different artists with them. But we'll see. Yeah, that in the commercials, man. Greatest Super Bowl commercial.

Oh, gosh. For me, it was the Bud Bowl. The Bud Bowl. And when they, I remember I was young enough when the Bud Bowl came around, I was like, I could watch this. Like, if they wanted to do like a third. or an hour, like a 30-minute bud bowl, you know, sort of a series.

Is the Bud Light was up? Was that a Super Bowl commercial? Yeah, that's a good one. All the Budweiser ones were good for you. Gosh, yeah. Lizard and the Clydesdale with the puppy and everything. That one always got me. I didn't care for that one that much.

That was too predictable. Yeah, a little bit. We got a question from the YouTube chat. Travis wants to know. Do you have a favorite Toby Keith song? Obviously, he passed away. Last night. Yeah, last night.

No, not really. Yeah. I mean, he had a lot of great music. Yeah. Yeah, he did. I was surprised because he recently just played in Vegas. Right. Yeah, it wasn't too long ago.

It was like a month ago, maybe. So, and maybe he knew what, you know, he, maybe he knew where his situation was and just wanted to get up there one last time and kind of feel that energy and that adrenaline that you get from probably playing a show. I can't imagine, but how emotional that must have been. I was blasted him on the way to work this morning. Oh, look at this. We found one.

The Funko Pop. Check that out. It's not in its box, man. This is weird. I know. Yeah, this is wrong. This is weird. It's wrong.

Little guys. We need to collect some stuff over here. Just don't feel right. It's not in his box. We can find his box. He's missing his home. He needs to go home to his cage. All right.

Is that going to be a permanent? I feel like it's got to stay now. Or we can put it back there on the... No. All right. I don't want it on the set. Yeah. Oh, by the way, I'm realizing this is the first reveal of the new studio.

Yeah. It technically is. It is. Yeah, we talk about it at the top of the show, but we got a new studio. And so the guests will obviously sit in this chair here. If I have a friend or Amy might come next week or something like that, we'll set them right there. And we got a little screen. We can put up anything we want on there that's always been in the studio, but not in the shot.

We moved a few things around, got a new design on this wall, which I love. We modeled it after your truck a little bit. Yeah. And so, you know, there you see Dalton and Andrew on their table. They're right here in front of me so I can get them a hard time about anything they say. And so we're going to have, this going to be fun. Boy, we went around and around and around with design of this studio and how it was going to be. Here we are.

Everybody pretty happy with this. I love it. I think it's great. Yeah. Yeah, me too. This next question also come from the YouTube chat. Tony wants to know about the, he heard you went to a Red Clay Strays concert over the weekend. Red Clay Strays is a band. Maybe you've heard of them, but I would say that it's kind of like Elvis

and Leonard Skinnerd was the band, right? So, yeah, their sound is really nostalgic and they got a new record they're working on. They're great guys, Mobile Alabama, been together for seven years, playing the guts out trying to make it, and it seems like they're getting some real, real good traction now. And so, yeah, I can get into a digget. It's good music. It looked like fun. It was.

I saw you posted like you're at some bar afterwards. Yeah, that was in Sullivan's Island, South Carolina at Dunlevees Pub. That's cool. Yeah, if you go to Sullivan's Island, they got Pose and a couple other famous spots, but Dunlevees is probably the one that I were going to the most. It's, coming from Key West, like I was always in Key West. And that Dunlevees is probably the closest thing, gives me that Key West. feeling yeah so I'm sort of weaning myself off of that Key West vibe

gotcha so we uh yeah but we're enjoying the South Carolina Coast yeah that's awesome uh this next question I'm missing a name so I apologize but where do you want to race this year that's a great question man we um we talk about the TV deal and my situation my current situation with networks early in the show you want to tune in for that when it comes out but I, you know, I want, I am going to run some races. I'm actually racing Saturday if the weather holds off at Florence, the Icebreaker.

They have the icebreaker every February at Florence, South Carolina, and I've ran it's the last year or two. So I'll run my late model car probably three or four times this year, and it does not look like I'm going to be able to race at the Wilkesboro race, the All-Star Week. So the Cars Tour is going to Wilkesboro on that Tuesday and Wednesday. and I have some business in New York City that I cannot get out of. So I'm not going to be able to compete this year in that race. But we're racing Wilkesboro at the end of the year,

and I might be available to be able to compete in that race at Wilkesboro. But I'm going to run my late model a couple times, probably at Florence, three times. They'll have a race before Darlington and the second half of the year that I'll probably run, if you're at Darlington, come out and see us, and then the Sacramento 400 at the end of the year I might run. Probably going to slide a race somewhere in the middle there, in the cars tour. And then for the Xfinity race, I want to go back to Bristol.

We haven't made an announcement. That's not something that Helmans has agreed to. That's not something that Junior Motorsports has agreed to. It's just what you want. It's what I want. And so we have to get everybody to come together and feel good about whatever we decide. There's other racetracks that I would run and could go run to,

but we had such a great time last year and ran great, led some laps. Yeah, you're on fire. We were. We were on fire literally. But I'd love to go back and run Bristol. It's fun, fun. Bristol's always, that night race at Bristol has just always been one of the more special weekends of the year. And so it's cool.

So we'll see how that works out. We asked the chat where they would want to see your race. We saw a lot of Charlotte. A ton of people want you to go to Iowa. A few Martinsville's. Yeah, Martinsville was fun, but I really didn't enjoy the Xenity car there because I was a little bit tight. The car doesn't have a lot of power, so you can't get,

you can't spin the tires and drive. Cars around you rarely slipped and slid, and so you weren't really able to drive up underneath people off the corner like you could with the cup car that I was running there forever. And so, you know, you would be a little better than somebody, but you just could not get around them. You had to push them, beat them out of the way. And the stages, they're like 40 laps.

They're really, really short. In the Martinsville car, in the Martinsville races that always ran, I needed that 80 or 100-lap run in the middle of that race. We'd get them long green flag runs where you could really do some work, take care of your car, get your car to last, get the tires to do good work for you late in the run. None of that happens really in the Xfinity race. The stages are just too short for that to really play in.

and then the craziness that happens at the end of that. I haven't ran good enough at Martinsville in the Xfinity car to be in that top 10 to get kicked out of me. But if I were, I would not enjoy that, right? The chaos that goes on. It's fun to watch. Fun to watch, fun to talk about. I love standing there and seeing it happen.

But I don't want to be in that chaos. Car is coming across the finish line on fire and all that mess. Yeah, absolutely. All right, well, I think if anything we got out of this, Ash Jr., is we found the Funko Pop. So that's some great news. I thought we had a great time, man. I enjoyed the Asch Jr. segment of the show.

It's great to be back. Come visit us every week here for this particular segment. Anyways, that's it. We're going to do White Flag and wrap it up today. We talked about the Cars Tour races that I'm going to run or that I want to run this year. We also got some updates to the Cars Tour itself. and the Cars Tour has a new primary sponsor, Z-Max. We're excited about that.

And also the West Series announcement. The Cars Tour is going west. We got a pro-late model Western series that's going to be sort of managed by Harvick and some of his folks out there, some of his friends and relationships that he's had over the years. Very excited. Kevin brought that idea to us. And so the Cars Tour expands just a little bit with a leg in the on the West Coast.

We also have a couple of other new partners coming in the Cars tour this year. We're excited about Sound Gear, shitty coolers, and Death Wish Coffee. Shitty Coolers, man. That's a cool name. That's funny, man. I love it. S-H-I-T-I. It's like a play on Yetty, right?

And I've got one, man. They're kind of cool. They got this really cool vintage retro vibe to them. And Hendrick Cars.com is on board this year. Going to be helping us out. All of these partners, man, make the series go. and we've got a lot of new announcements to keep you up to speed

throughout the year with the car store. New shows on Dirty Mo Media this year, The Tear Down, one of the coolest shows in all of NASCAR, instant reaction from Jordan, Bianchi, and Jeff Gluck after the races. They've done this teardown for a long time. It's very popular with race fans,

and we're going to be able to provide that to you and in a great sort of cooperation or cooperative effort with the athletic that Jeff and Jordan both work with. So they're very cool guys, and I've always appreciated them both, and that'll be great to be able to have the tear down on our feeds. Door bumper clears back in full swing. With their first episode this year, Speed Street's going to drop tomorrow with a new co-host, Chase Holden. So check that out, get to know Chase. Dirty Modeau is back with Steve Lattart on Thursdays to preview all the bets that you can make before the Super Bowl.

And this is a really, really big year for that show and gambling in general for North Carolina as the laws in the state are changing this year. And so, you know, if you want to kind of know some of the smarter bets, but even if you're not into gambling, I'm going to tell you, man, that show Dirty Modeau is a great way to have. handicap the field. And in a weird way, I kind of get more information about Steve's opinion of who's going to be great to be able to even just set my fantasy lineup on Dirty Mo Doe. So a very entertaining show. And so also we got a, you know, Denny Hamlet's actions detrimental that's been a big hit for us.

And Denny now, the megastar that he is from the Netflix series, that show is going to continue, you know, to get bigger and bigger for us. and he's done a great job with it. So something that all of our listeners have been asking for, where can I watch these episodes? Where can I see them in full? Well, now you can on each individual shows YouTube page. That's very important because we've now split it up

to be able to get that content. You need to go to Doorbumpur Clears YouTube page and Action Detrimendals YouTube page. Subscribe. Make sure you like and do the same for the Dale Jr. download if you have it. you'll be able to catch full episodes and be able to see everything we're doing for the Dirty Mo Media crew this year.

And then the Dale Jr. Download reloaded. That's a new Thursday episode of the Dale Junior Download that's going to come out. And basically, I'm not going to host that Thursday show, but we are going to be bringing you... I have a sheet here somewhere. Where is it? It's right in front of you.

You're looking at it. Where? The white, no. Oh, yeah, this last set. That very bottom. Sorry, yeah. So, I thought it was on its own base. So we want to, so for the Dell Jr.

Download reloaded, it's a spinoff to the Dale Jr. download that we have on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and this is for the fans. It's your chance to offer opinions, observations about anything you've heard this week on the download or any of our shows or anything else going on. in the sport. I'm not going to host it. We'll have some different hosts of that show in the coming weeks, but we want to hear what you have to say. This may create some great opportunities for us

to then come back the next week and have our opinions of your opinions. So you can catch it live on YouTube every Thursday. It's going to be live on YouTube. Right here on the download feed as well. So looking forward to that and seeing what that show can turn into. We've been fiddling with that Thursday show for a while and feel like we made some good adjustments. We listened to the criticism, feedback, the advice and ideas from our fans, and continue to try to make this better every year. So again, we've got their new studio, and then Marty Smith's coming on tomorrow's our guest. That's going to be great to talk to Marty.

Marty was very instrumental in helping make that Netflix show the best it could be. He has worked in the industry of NASCAR for many years, and now he's. He's sort of this global sports icon, covering just about anything. Him and Marty McGee do some great work together over at ESPN. So anyhow, it's going to be great to get him in here. I bet you I don't get three words in during this interview tomorrow. But I'm excited to talk to Marty.

We're going to wrap it up. We'll see you tomorrow. I'm Dale Jr. Download. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.