The Dale Jr. Download - 514 - Getting Nostalgic Ahead Of The 500

Episode Date: February 13, 2024

It’s time to gear up for Daytona, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. has a new edition of Dirty Air to get you ready for the high banks. After making his season debut in late model competition for the Icebreaker event at Florence Motor Speedway, there was a lot to chat about: Geoff Bodine’s new book Returning to roller skates Icebreaker recap Reliving the 2004 & 2014 Daytona 500 wins 10 years of Dale on Twitter Daytona 500 predictions During the Ask Jr. segment of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding: Sneezing during a race The Menards Super Bowl commercial Advice for first Valentine’s Day dates Favorite pre-race activity for the Daytona 500 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.

Cool kids are saying cool, it's like cake. It's cake. I don't even say, change, yeah. Man, that's cake. Remember when you said that? Oh, you're right, yeah. Now it's bad. Now it's badder.

Yeah, now it's just the batter. We're not even too cake yet. I'm going to start saying that. Man, dude, that's bad. That paint scheme, that's badder, man. That's something that's about to be cool. Andrew's trying to make it stick. Yeah, you got to let them cook first.

You got to let them cook. The following is. a production of Dirty Mo Media. The Daytona 500, NASCAR's Holy Grail. A win here will be remembered forever. If you survive the chaos,

they lose it. They might just call you. They might just call you. Daytona 500. champion got a good ring to it don't it hey everybody it's dale junior back again for another episode of the dale junior download in the bojangles studio and we got a big show for you today we got one show off the ground and um and and had a lot of fun last week with marty

smith is our guest on today's uh dirty air obviously we're going to talk about my race weekend at florence uh the great run run that we had um and jeff gordon's coming in tomorrow so so a great week obviously they on a 500s here. Can't even write my brain around the fact that the season's just getting ready to start. It is here. In the studio, Andrew, Dalton. Howdy.

How are you guys doing? What's going on? I got a little frog in my throat. I feel great just in the morning waking up with something going on up there in my head. But don't mind me. We're feeling good. But let's jump right into it, man. Got some personal stories I wanted to share.

I talked last week about Jeff Bodine's book. Yep. All of it. That's the name of it. All of it. He's telling all of it, I guess. So, Jeff Bodine has been on our show, and he wrote a book with Dominic Aragon, I believe, is the way you pronounce that. Yeah, Aragon.

I've flagged a lot of the pages in here. I'm just going to briefly go over some of the stories that Jeff tells in this book. You know, he's a unique guy. And he, this, just like when we have guests come on the show, it's like, you know, they're going to come in here and tell their truth, right? We don't have to believe it. We can think it's bullshit. But it's their truth. So you let them tell it, right?

And that's the same way I kind of viewed this book. So let's go through it, okay? Some things that I thought are probably truthful. Some things that I think maybe there's a different side to the story. One in particular, Rick Hendrick is not at the race when they win their first race at Martinsville. HMS wins its first race at Martinsville with. Jeff behind the wheel. Rick's not there. Rick's first reaction as a new

winning car owner in the Cup series is to go to Jeff's house and toilet paper his house. That happened. I don't know why I thought that was funny. Rick is a grown man, an owner of a dealership. Not the guy I would picture TP in a house. No, right? Does he say

where he was? I feel like that. He was at a church retreat for his wife. At page 8 in the story, Jeff will tell you that he's racing in his very first Daytona, 51979, and they have engine failure, and he gets out of the car, and the owner of the car blames him for the engine failure. This is sort of a reoccurring sort of thing from Jeff, is that this happened,

and that person blamed me for it. That's kind of a reoccurring thing going on in their book. The first chapter is about his childhood and his early days in racing. The Cup career begins in Chapter 2. He talks about how he brought power steering into the Cup series in 1982, which is interesting. A lot of times we hear that it was on Bobby Allison's car first. It's actually Jeff saying it's on his car.

There's a chapter on my dad called The Intimidator where he speaks really well of dad. He shares his version of events, but he doesn't take it too far in his criticism of dad. And he ends the chapter with comments about how dad impacted the sport in an incredible way. But the very last sentence of that chapter is, quote, and I found out after Dale's death that he actually hated me. that's the last sentence of the chapter. I'm like, where's the context? Who told you that?

Maybe I could, you know, argue that point. Do you believe that to be true? No, I don't believe that to be true. Did they, did dad have an opinion of Jeff? Yes. Yeah. Did he like everything he did on the racetrack? No.

But I mean, after 20 years of not racing each other, I'm sure that he didn't hate him. And Jeff shares some stories early in this. chapter about how they would come over to the lakehouse. Me and Kelly and Jeff's kids would play together and swim in the lake and all that. And dad and Jeff would hang out, have dinners. So, I mean, they started all friendly, as most driver versus, you know, driver-driver relationships do. Yeah.

But anyhow, after a winless season with Harry Hyde in 1985, Gary Nelson becomes a crew chief on his car in 1986 and they win Daytona. and then they kind of have some engine issues throughout the rest of the year. Don't have a lot of speed. Jeff says that Harry, now crew chief for Tim Richmond, was stealing their motors and taking the good motor every week. And he says that it happened a lot in 86. Jeff goes to Rick, and Rick's like, I don't believe you.

That can't be happening. But then Jeff says that Rick finally believed Jeff Bodine that, you know, Harry was doing this with the engines, well after Harry's death. So Rick, you know, Jeff says, you know, I went to Rick, told him this was happening in the moment. He didn't believe me. But years later, he came up to me and said,

I believe you now. Yeah. Another thing that I thought was interesting, he says of Levi Garrett, right? He had this tobacco sponsorship. Levi Garrett blamed their slip in product sales, partly because of the number five's team performance in 1989. Not the government new restrictions on tobacco advertisement.

No, it's Jeff Bodine behind the wheel doing that. They didn't run good enough. Jeff drove for Bud Moore. I think this is the one thing that sums Jeff up the best. Okay, Jeff wins a race, okay? And Bud has missed a few weeks, and they've had some good runs. So he says during his post-race interview, Bud, you need to stay home more.

We do better when you're not here. and he said after I said that I knew I was going to have to apologize to bud and I didn't mean to offend him but that statement really did and I made sure to apologize that's Jeff Bowdyne in a nutshell he says something that sounds like so ridiculous like he doesn't really intentionally mean to be a jack a but but he's just saying something that he thinks funny in the moment in front of a you know with a microphone in his face he says which I to believe this, he helped bring Hoosier into NASCAR.

This is where it gets pretty profound. He helped bring Hoosier into NASCAR in 1994. Darrowchip was the tester originally for Hoosier, but wasn't getting good results. So Jeff took over and turned things around, and he used to be called the Chuck Yeager test pilot because his ability to catch failing tires before they blew, avoiding crashing into the wall.

Jeff, he gets right around this time, he gets really, really honest about his divorce. He gets very honest about. his you know his his his his uh where he was mentally and emotionally it's really really dark stuff um he says that year he tested 34 times in 1994 for hoosier trying to get that tire off the ground hosiers coming into the sport right good year and hosier now battling again um those uh count those those those those couple chapters are pretty pretty impactful but one of the things that where the Hoosier deal ends.

Hoosier runs in 1994. They have great success with Jeff, and then they're out in the off season. Right? They don't come back in 1995. Goodyear is now the sole tire provider again. Jeff claims that Goodyear gave them bad tires on purpose

and torpedoed his 1995 season and beyond. And he took that theory all the way to Bill France. He said, Bill, I'm getting bad tires from Goodyear in, intentionally because I was the Hoosier guy last year. And he says that because he took that issue to Bill, Bill France then retaliated and intentionally gave him a small restrictor plate in July for Daytona so that he would fail to make the field.

Do you believe that? No. I will stop right there. I don't want to tell you all of the things. There are a couple more bombshells, I would say. Yeah. Bombshell might be a strong term. Jeff Bedin's book, all of it.

Check it out. You need to read it. Listen, I know you could think that I'm clowning him just a little bit here, but it's a great book. It's a great read. And I don't know that I believe everything in there, but it's Jeff's story, right? It's how he, and I'm going to tell you, man, where he got honest about his divorce and how that affected him is really, really heavy.

and it makes me kind of question maybe some of these other wild stories may be there may be some truth to some of these accusations or whatever you want to call him he's so damn honest about his own personal thing right he details the bobsleds and all the other things that he got himself into but anyhow i hope that he appreciates us sharing his book ray evernham also has a book coming out. Ray's going to be on the show here soon. We're going to talk about that. We should, now that the book is out, I'd be curious to hear what fans have to say. This could almost be like the first DJD book club book. You know what I mean? I'm not sure I love reading that much. But anyhow, if you was watching social media, following it Amy or maybe me a little

bit. Had a daddy daughter dance. Ila in kindergarten, we, you know, being a dad's amazing. These are the moments that make it amazing. It was a 50s themed. So we had to, you know, we, we, I wore my chucks and my leather jacket. Most of the dads all played along. And it was really funny. There's a picture right there. So we go into the school. I'm, like, you know, I just want to be there for Ila. I don't know what Ila wants me to do, what she thinks is going to happen. She probably doesn't care. She's going to see her friends, boom, go play

with the pals. What does that? That's what happened. We ate a ton of junk. Candy. Candy and candy and candy and marshmallows and candy and ice cream and just junk, right? We end up going into the dance room and the girl,

all the kids are on the dance floor and they're just dancing like crazy and they're doing the train, you know, the Congo line, And, you know, the dads are all standing around in a big circle, semi-circle thing. And eventually, you know, the kids, Ila, I thought, okay, I'm just going to stand here on the sidelines all night long and watch her, which is fine. I was entertained. But there's no real dance part, right? We're never not going to have a dance.

And all of a sudden, man, she comes looking around. She's like, oh, oh, the teacher said, teachers on the microphone. She's like, Ila's dad. Ila's dad. She is looking for you. I'm like standing 10 feet away. I was like, hey, right here. I was like, I didn't see you.

I was like, well, I'm right here. I'm told you. I wasn't going to move from this spot. I'm never going to move from this spot right here. If you need me, I will be right here. And she said, come out, come on to the dance floor or dance. So I went out there and danced and we're dancing. Mid-song, sees a friend.

So I got back on off the dance floor. And that was like how the night happened repeatedly, like over and over. Yes. Were you the only dad that was paged? Yes. I was. But I'll be honest, I wasn't even the slightest bit embarrassed because when I was, in the first 10 minutes I was there, I was thinking, I'm absolutely useless. She doesn't even need me here.

I'm serving no purpose. And then immediately it was like, wrong. She does need you. You do, sir. You know, she does want you to be here. She does want you to be a part of what's happening. And so it was like, you know, she would go play with their friends and run around, and then she'd come back to me and grab my hands and want to dance and do the twist and all that fun stuff.

And then she'd be bouncing off with their friends again. So that was great. It went really good. We got out of there a few minutes early, so we could get back to the house. So Daddy Daughter Dance, big success. Last week we talked about, I want to talk about the app limits. Okay. You got an update.

I put the challenge out there. So I put a 30-minute limit on two apps that I use all the time, Twitter and Instagram. It's been going good. 30 minutes is very short. It's not a lot of time. I'm out of time. Apps are locked down after, you know, before lunch, right?

We're locked down. I'm really shocked if I get on there in afternoon. I still got a little time left. And another thing, too, sometimes I accidentally lay my phone down and leave it open on the app and it locks it out. Rookie move, man. I know. But on Sunday, we forego the app limits.

Just every Sunday that's going to be your rule? Nope. No, no, you just failed. I'm just taking this one day at a time. Okay. So it was a Super Bowl Sunday, and I was like, no, we're going to stay. We're going to forget about that. You've got to be careful with that mindset.

I know. We're learning. So, yeah, Sunday went all to hell. But we had some fun. We had some fun tweets Sunday. First off, I want to ask you guys, did y'all try App Limits? I did. You did.

And so I was at the Waste Management Phoenix Open over the weekend, and I tried to make a point. I actually physically turned my phone off. Is that an expo for waste management? No, it's a golf tournament. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, but it's sponsored by the garbage company. It's very interesting. Yeah.

But I turned my phone off and I noticed like halfway through the day, I wasn't even reaching for it. Like there was no urge to actually want to use it. Because you knew you were locked out. Because I knew like I would have to power my phone on and then I would fail at the task at hand. So that, but like if it was on, I know I would check it. So I had to physically power it off. But it was actually very nice. It was living in the moment.

All right. Yeah. I do want to talk about. the skating rink so this was this blew my mind um skate land USA in canapolis north Carolina when I lived with my mother when she was divorced from dad I was five and six years old I remember her taking us to the skate land USA and I remember skating a lot and um I'd never been back to the skating rink since any skating rink uh and so 44 years years later, somebody we know, their child is having a birthday party and our kids were invited,

so we're going to take them. I didn't know skate land still existed. I didn't know the building and the business was still there operating. We drive into the parking lot, and I'm like, I've got an idea and an imagination of what it looked like or where it might have been, and I was a little bit off, but it's, you know, it's a couple blocks away from where I thought it was. But we pull up, and literally this building hadn't changed. I took some photos, put it on my social media story.

The sign's the same. The building's the same. It looks, it's 50 years old. Yeah. It looks it, okay? But there's a line outside to get in. You go up there and, man, you walk into the place and it's the same place that I hadn't said. I'm 44 years.

Yeah, it's like going back in time. 44 years. There's orange shag carpet on the walls. That's so awesome. Original. Yeah. This reminds me of like the places that are still around in the race program. Like this is one of those places.

The coin games, the arcade, a little arcade in the corner, the coin games, all original. Skiball and all that stuff. The tables, the brick wall that separates the seating area from the skating rink. All that's still original. The rink, I think the floor itself, majority of it, is probably original. But both of my girls, it was so much fun. Both of my girls skated, and they had these little walker-type things to go skate with. So I'm out there with them, took them both around, mini-laps.

So much fun. And just blew my mind that last time I was there, I was five, maybe six. I'm there now 44 years later for the first time with my five-year-old girl skating on that skating rink. and in places just identical. It was very, you know, I'm super nostalgic, right? That was triggering me. And largely 80% like great happy thoughts, but also some sadness, right? Some, like, you know, mom's gone.

Right. All the, you know, just. Times are different. Yeah. Times are different. Things are different. But here's this place that's lost, you know, stood, it's standing there locked in time, right? It felt like I had ported back into, you know, 1979.

But it was crazy. Do you still got the skills? You skate? I'm as good. It took me about five minutes and I was as good the other day as I was when I was five. Right. Which is about like not good. Okay.

Yeah. But not, it was good. I got to figure out. Take any spells? No. All right. Hey, you and us, you're both roller skated on Sunday. Yeah.

Yeah. That's one of the things, man. So I'm having this sort of weird, you know, experience going back to the skating rink. And then watching the Super Bowl halftime, they're all skating like hell. I'm like, is the universe trying to tell me something? Like, do I need to open a skating rink? I need to show back. Hell yeah.

Do I need to partner with skate land in Canapolis and refurbish this place a little bit or what's going on? Hell yeah. What's the universe trying to tell me? I was sitting in there, man. I'm gonna tell you, I was surprised at the amount of people. Skated, it's still... It's the only one in the area.

I mean, there's another one up in, like, Hickory, but that's about it. All, like, you know, five to... Five to 20 was the majority of the age group, right? But, yeah. You know, and it was, it's open from, like, two to five. Yeah. That's it.

Yeah. You know, so it's like this little blip of, you know, everybody got to get in there and skate, man. It's only open for three hours. It's a good time. I enjoy it. I did like free skate over the winter holidays for the first time in years and like, oh man, this is fun.

That's right. You used to play hockey. Yeah. He's skilled. Well, man, I enjoyed it. They play great music. You just get out there and cruise around with your friends. Yeah, I think it's going to make a comeback.

I get this weird. I'm here for it. I get this weird. Yeah. I know. You used to think skating was kind of weird. Yeah. It was fun when I was a kid.

and then I thought it was kind of strange and not cool, and now it's going to be cool again, I think. I was a blader, though. Roller skating is badder, man. Yeah. It's badder. That was Andrew's word before the show. All them kids.

Look at that. It's not quite cake. It's not cooked yet. It's badder. It's making a comeback. We talked about the icebreaker. I went this past weekend and raced my late model. Last couple of times that I've been behind the wheel in my late model car.

it's not been great results. I've been frustrated a little bit, but I went to Florence where I loved a race in South Carolina and tested. We worked hard to try to find some speed. I wasn't sure if we had, but we were going to go back and race the Icebreaker, which we've done the last two years.

And so we qualified 13th, I think, which I was happy with. There were 32 cars. I think a top 15 qualifying effort is kind of what you're looking for. Of course, you want to be as far forward as you can. But inside the top 15 is going to give you a great opportunity at winning the race. We started the race off and just started, you know, just kind of moved forward. One car at a time, every 10 or 15 laps, we'd pass somebody.

I wasn't sure if I was using my car up and my tires. You got to, you know, it's very abrasive racetrack. You got to take care of your tires. And I was worried that maybe I was trying too hard was everybody that I was passing. taking better care of their tires. Were they smarter than me? Time would tell. We got down toward the end of the race.

I'm sitting there running fourth with 20 laps to go. Running down the leaders thinking I got a great shot to finish third, maybe second. And I was probably going to use up every bit of the good I had left on my tires getting around one or two cars in front of me. I doubt I'd had enough to catch the leader and win the race. But man, I'm sitting there with 20 to go thinking, nope, I haven't used up too much of my stuff. Nope, those guys aren't saving because they're not coming.

They would be, you know, the 20 to go, everybody would be trying to move forward if they had anything. So everything has worked out well. Caution comes out. My car didn't fire off really strong. Took me about 10 laps to get going. So ended up settling for a fourth place and had a blast. I was so thrilled. Carson Quappell, our driver, in our late model junior sports, wins the race.

Johnny Morris is there. our sponsor for BassPro, right? On our late models, we got Bass Pro shops and Sun Drop. Well, Johnny flies from Missouri to be there. Did you know this was happening? Yes. But I thought, you know, when I heard Johnny was coming, I'm like, man, all the way to Florence. And our little tiny Florence racetrack, you know, that's just, you know, trying to do all it can do.

I thought for sure something was going to come up, right? A scheduling conflict. We can't make it. We're running late. We're just going to go on to Florida. he was on his way to Florida. And so he shows up, comes walking in. And man, I give him the whole story of Florence

and why we were there in like 15 minutes. I was like, this is grassroots racing. The sport, all the truck, Xfinity and Cup level, they're standing on the shoulders of places like this, right? This is what the sport's all about. And we want to be here because we love being here. And look around. right? What's better than this?

And all those people are his customers, right? So he's like, he gets it. I did not anticipate him staying the entire race. They got there, they had about two hours to kill. People were coming up to him, wanting pictures and autographs and just talking. And he talked to everybody and anybody. And then he'd bring him over and introduce him to me. Meet this guy.

He's from Such-Such. Meet this gal. She's from here and there. They traveled from Such-and-Such to be here. He loved it. we win the race and I run forth, I come get out of the car, he comes walking up. This is crazy.

I can't believe this, he says, right? And I'm like, man, I can't believe you're still here. Johnny, your car won, let's take you to Victory Lane. We go over to Victor Lane. They hand us the trophy. I walked over to Carson. I said, Carson, I'm giving this trophy to Johnny. All right.

Carson didn't have no problem with it. Every time they win a race, which Carson wins quite a few, and the trophies end up on the shelf over to shop. I'll go over there and there's the trophy. I'm like, nobody takes this home? Carson, you don't take this home and put it somewhere in your house? He's like, no. I'm like, I'm going to give this trophy to Johnny, and I handed it to Johnny.

I said, Johnny, here, you can have this trophy. He was pumped. They had a checkered flag and a big giant check with Carson's name on it. Johnny had two other guys with him. I gave one the checkered flag and won the giant check. So everybody got to go home with something. They went on to Florida and watched Dwight race his dirt car. We drank a few beers and hung out at the track while everybody left,

and then eventually got in the duly and drove home. We stopped at a gas station, had a sandwich shop on the side and got us a bite to eat on the way home. It was just like old times, you know, eating dinner at 9.30 at night. Not speeding through McBeed. No. We talked all the way home, just talking and having fun. Were you nervous before the race?

I always get nervous. you know, I hadn't run as good as I expect in our late model car last couple of trips. Okay, but not competing for top fives and wins. So that was good. I mean, we've still got a ways to go to catch Carson those guys. They qualified better. I think if I could have qualified as well as they did in the top five, I wouldn't have had to work so hard to get up to that point.

But we made some progress, man, so I was pumped about that. When you found out Johnny was coming, did that add any extra pressure? to you and or Carson. Yes. If we struggled with me and Carson, I think last year, both of us struggled bad in the icebreaker, finishing outside of top 15, both cars.

So if that happened, I'd been disappointed. But anyways, it was a great day. Johnny went on down and watched Wyatt race, and Johnny said that was an awesome, awesome day with him and his buddies. I'm going to race, I guess I'll just say it, man. So the All-Star Week North Wilkesboro.

Yeah, the All-Star Week with North Wiltsboro, there is a Cars Tour race that I've ran the last two years. Unfortunately, this year, I have a scheduling conflict, so it takes precedent over the late model race. I cannot run it. Our Sunrop Car plans to compete but with a to-be-determined driver. When I get back from New York City,

I will be, my bus will be at the racetrack, so I'm going to go to Wilkesboro, I'm going to enjoy the concerts and all the things that we did last year, hopefully drank a beer with Dylan Wilson and his family over at their garage, all the things that we just had a blast with last year. I hope we'd do it again and watching a great race on a newly paid race track. Yeah, I forgot about that. So that would have been probably my next race,

but I'm not going to get to do that. So right now, unless I do something spur of the moment, The next late model race I run will be the Cars Tour race at Florence on Darlington weekend, the second Darlington week, probably in August or so. And, but I could have an opportunity pop up at the last minute, and we'll keep you posted if that happens in the spring. And I have heard, and I'm not going to tell, I'm not going to let the details out, but I do know that everything has been decided on where I'm going to run my one

Xfinity race this year. Hopefully that news will be coming out shortly. But I'm very happy about it. Also this weekend, Daytona 500, I'm going to Daytona. I know the weather doesn't look all that great guys, but if the weather looks like we might race Saturday, I'm flying up Saturday morning. I'm going to go on Marty and McGee around 9 a.m. 9.30. And so, you know, that literally just happened over the conversation last week.

Yeah, with Marty. In that fun. On the show. You know, in this day and age where you've got to check with this person or sign this agreement or get my people will get with your people, it's fun when you can just say, hey, how about I come over and let's do the thing? I love doing business that way. So, yeah, Marty McGee, Saturday morning from 9, 930 to 10. they'll be Daytona from doing their show, I think, from 7 to 10 or 8 to 10. And that's going to be a lot of fun.

Hopefully we get to see Junior Motorsports get the win. Then I'm coming home to watch the Daytona 500 from my couch. One of the great things about this particular year is that it's the 10th and the 20th anniversary of my two Daytona 500 wins from 2014 and 2004. Been doing a few articles, did one with Jordan Bianchi, but doing a few things. with the media around those races, reliving them, talking about them. Just maybe a year ago or so, I uploaded all the in-car. I had an in-car video from that race that I uploaded. I'm sure I'm not the only one that's uploaded that in-car footage from that race on to YouTube.

But the reason why I did that is because that showcases my favorite memory from that 2004 race. In the in-car from that race, they have some very basic telemetry, throttle, and you get to kind of see, and it's a percentage. It's a bar of throttle graph, but it's also got a percentage to it. But you get to see, like, as we're driving around the old Daytona that's worn out, slick, you can see us using the gas. And now we're lifting and coming off the throttle because of the car is sliding, right, and sliding the back or the nose,

but I'm also trying to time runs. And so, and this is a lesson that I share with any driver that I talk to about restrictive plate racing. And I believe that it still applies today with the current car. If you're driving around the Daytona International Speedway, the most vulnerable moment for the car is exiting the turn, right? You flew down the straightaway, holding the wheel straight, and the car is building up speed,

and then you go into the corner and you turn the wheel. Turning the wheel is going to scrub speed off and loading the car into the banking also sort of knocks speed out of the car. And as it goes around this corner, it's continuing to bring the speed down just ever so slightly. And coming up off the corner, that's when the car is literally scrubbing the most speed or has scrubbed the most speed and you're starting just before, it's just before you're about to unwind the wheel for the straightaway. So that's where the car is the most vulnerable to a pass, to side drafting.

And so I wanted to time my run so that I caught Tony Stewart, who's leading the race, on the corner exit. And I really didn't know, as good as I think I am at plate racing, I really didn't know when to start that run. All right, I need to back up to get the run. but how far do I back up and when do I start charging back toward him so that when we exit a corner I'm right on him.

And so I kept doing this and you can watch the throttle from the end car of me trying to time it and I try and try and try and fail and fail I'm running up on him at the wrong place. I'm catching him at the end of the straightaway. I'm catching him in the trial. I'm catching him in the wrong places

or I created no run at all, right? And so eventually one works. I'm starting to lose a little bit of confidence, but I'm going to keep trying 20 laps to go. What else I got to do? It's me, Tony Stewart, and Kurt Bush. Now, Kurt's not helping me.

We've talked about this a million times, but Kurt's mad because I bumped into him in the middle part of the racing, flattened his left of a tire. He lost a lap, and he's a lap down and stayed a lap down the entire day. And he comes on the radio, or Tony Jr. tells me on the radio, the 97's not going to help you. All right, so you're going to figure this out on your own.

but finally I timed it where I run up on Tony exiting turn 4 so I'm going 5 or 10 mile an hour faster as I approach his car and he's bogged down off term 4 and the camera switches from one view to the next right as we have this sort of duel this dodge like I went left and he blocked and I went right Well, the camera doesn't really catch all of that. And the next time you see us, I'm too as outside.

And we're coming into the trouble. Or I'm too his inside, I'm sorry. And so you don't really see this sort of dodginess that we had happening. But I had the run and I couldn't lift and I've timed it perfect and I've got to get to his side left or right. I get to the inside and now we do a little side drafting, but either way, I don't clear him. I don't have enough momentum to go by him, but I've gotten beside him.

And so now I've got to start a new plan, right? Okay, we've achieved the goal of getting here and up beside Tony because, man, it was impossible to drive by him or up beside him without creating that run. You couldn't do it. The cars were too equal. he could have just sit there about two carlings in front of me the entire rest of the race and not had any problem holding me off but finally i'm beside him and i'm like okay now what now what do we don't now what do we need to do to finish this pass i'm not going to get help

from the 97 and he's actually going behind tony and i'm getting worried because if he gets really close he'll push tony right back by me and then maybe he even gets beside me and now i'm stuck beside him he might wedge himself between me and tony and the race is over But anyhow, we're going down the front straightaway into turn one. And Tony's up the racetrack and I'm around the bottom. And I'm trying to drop back to his quarter panel to start a side draft. And as soon as I get back to his quarter panel, I'm going to go up there and side draft him and try to slingshot past him.

That's all I could do. luckily when we come off a turn two Tony has me cleared he's got me cleared by about two inches if he pulled down in front of me we wouldn't have hit he would have been shoved back out in the lead and probably won the race but I got right to his quarter panel

and again I'm only I'm two quarter two inches probably two inches behind him but I'm still offset to the left trying to sniff a side draft and I don't know if it's going to work because I'm not close enough forward, right, to actually be anywhere beside his car. But it was a tiny, tiny hen of side draft happening.

And it starts pulling me up by him. And I'm getting close, I'm getting further, further up beside him. And so the side draft work, the air coming off of Tony's car is like the wake of a boat. He's cutting the air with the nose of his car and it comes off, it's shaped like a V. It doesn't wrap around and go down the sides tight against his car.

It's the wake of a boat. But it's at the front of Tony's car, not at the back, okay? So there's this big V. And so inside that V, kind of tucked up beside Tony's left side door, is a pocket where the air is less dense. And that's how the side draft works. I'm driving my car up into this gap where there's really no resistance, no air. And so the closer I get to Tony, and you'll see this today, how they get really, really tight.

The tighter you can get to that car, the more profound the side draft will be. And we actually bump. And we have a little touch. It knocked a little bit of speed at his car, which is helpful. It might have settled him down a half a mile an hour, something like that. But it allowed my, the side draft was just perfect. And I sprung away from him because you've got to kind of jump that way, like if you were going to ski behind a boat,

you've got to jump the wake so that I can get away from Tony and his side draft, right? Because if I just stayed beside him and went forward, he would then begin side drafting me and he goes right back by and we just could sit there and do that over and over. But I get away from him

once I know that I think I got all the momentum I can create with the side draft, I get away, and I'll never know why. But he could have chased me down the track and tried to side draft. my quarter panel, but he didn't. I don't know why. He just watched me go by. And I clear off into three, and I'm like, wow, I'm in the lead. I'm like, blown away. And so

I love watching that sequence of probably 20 to 40 laps there where I'm messing with the throttle and trying to figure out how to make a run out of nothing, right, without another car helping me or anything. And I didn't think it was even possible for my car to do that, Me and Tony had the two strongest cars. Mine was a little bit better, and as soon as I got the lead, I knew that he was never going to have a shot. You could hold it.

Put a run on us. Yeah. Four or five laps to go, I'm listening to our car and all these little sounds and things and freaking out thinking their yellow is going to come out. Somebody's going to wreck. Somebody's going to get impatient and stupid, you know, trying to go for a spot late in the race, and we're going to have a yellow and have to race it out.

But it didn't work that way. We ended up crossing the finish line, went in the race. I stopped on the front straightaway. The reason why is because if you go straight to Victory Lane, you know, you could do some donuts like Dad did, all that stuff. But if you go to Victory Lane, man, they

kind of have you in their control. Victory Lane is a process. It's a script. The hat dance, take this picture, get out, do the interview, all those things, right? You don't get out of the car and just do what you want to do. Right. I mean, you can, but they're going to grab you by the caller and say,

come over here and do this interview, all right? It's a lot of television. I pulled on the front straight away because I'm like, I need to do my thing for a minute. I got all this elation, and it's like a cork. Yeah. And it's like a champagne bottle about to explode, and I got to relieve this elation. And so that was great.

I was looking at the pictures. of that yesterday. And so just coming out of the car and all the guys running out there, Jay Gannery and all the team from the Bud Days, and then, you know, you have, you finally get, you know,

have to have that moment to yourself and then you go to Victory Lane, right? Then you do that. And you do it all, and Victor Lane's still a celebration. I mean, it is fun. Of course it is. But it's nice to do this little thing

with your team on your own that's not on the script. Yeah. 2014, we've told that story a million times, but the big rain delay. That was my first day on the job was that race. And I remember that rain delay was like, what, eight hours or something like that? Yeah, six, I think. But the weird thing is that every time you get in a race car, you have a different attitude, a different mentality.

I rarely got in the car feeling exactly the same as last week. your motivation, your expectations, it's a move and target. It's very dynamic, all over the place. I got in the car for the start of that race, not in the correct mindset to win it. I don't know what happened in that break, but without the break, I don't think we win that race.

We had the break, and something like during that break was like, mentally mentally we're gonna man I'm ready to get this thing going let's get out there let's get it going and let's get it going

and so if you look at the race and watch it I race both of those two parts differently yeah and in the first half of the race I couldn't figure out

how to move forward and I was getting very frustrated and very and I was losing like confidence in me or the car and us together me and the car

it was not good but then we had this long break and you just kind of, it's long enough that you forget about all of the things that have knocked your confidence down. You forget about the struggle the car was having or you were having with the car. And it's a new race.

It's a new moment. And the tracks change. It's been cleaned off. It's night. Now it's late. And now all the other drivers' mentality is different. I always felt like when we ran night races or had delays or anything, it was an advantage for me.

mentally. Because I knew how easy it was to check out. At a racetrack. Especially the races that get pushed to Monday. Yeah. Dude, if you go down on the grid for the pre-race and the driver's announcements and stuff on a typical Sunday and then compare that to a rain-out Monday race, the energy is not the same.

And it's the drivers. And you can tell some of them are like, I'm ready to go home. Right. Hell with this. and you can see that some of them just aren't there to kick ass you know and I always thought here's my advantage I'm gonna try to stay in kick ass mode and man maybe that's gonna give me even a better opportunity right today

whether that was real or not I don't know but you know I think when we had that break a lot of people checked out and you know I thought man I'm will I'm gonna stay plugged in the key moment of that race for me there's a little segment with like 40 to 60 laps to go where Greg Biffle and me are racing side by side and we had a hell of a battle for the lead

and I might have lost it and ended up having to try to get it back but I had to squeeze him against the wall and going through the... When I think about the 2014 race I'd go right to that moment. Wasn't that around the time where you guys weren't sure if rain was going to cut this thing short too? I don't remember that. You don't remember racing for the rain? I don't. But I remember

I remember driving like a complete jerk and selfishly, right? Not like hitting and bumping and cutting and blocking. Not that way. I'm saying like, you know what? Typically, if you got five guys on the outside of me and y'all are organized, I'm not going to argue and side draft you. And I'm not, you know, you're going by, okay? And I'll get back to fifth or I'll try to stay in third or fourth.

And then a few laps later, maybe get my run and try to get back to the lead. I didn't do it that way. in the second half of that 2014 Daytona 500. Man, when the 16th, Biffle got to my outside trying to take the leave from me, I squeezed him up against the wall. And it really knocked the, it really, so I could hold him in position. Even with Jimmy or somebody behind him or somebody trying to push him by, I could, you know, if I squeezed him up against the wall,

something about the air, our cars fighting for the same cow air, I don't know what it was, but I just knew. If I gave him a car length or half a car length, he could get pushed right through. But if I squeezed him and he had like a couple inches between him and the wall, and another couple inches between me and him, it held him in position. It would stop his car. And even the guy pushing him was nervous to push him because he's like, shit, they could hit, they could crash, I could hit.

He could hit me in the right rear quarter pound, right? So that kind of bottles him up and knocks him off his game. And they eventually gets pushed back by me, but it was allowing me to like kind of at least maintain some track position and not get shuffled back too far. And then I was able to get right back by. But I just remember, like, racing very selfishly, and that's, you know, it's not my character. I don't think. I wouldn't categorize myself as somebody who's constantly selfish.

But in those moments, to win the Daytona 500 or win at Talladega, the more selfish you can be, the better. Yeah. Yes. So we got two lessons in today's In today's class Right All right Being super selfish

Yeah You being super selfish is one And then trying to time the run So that you catch them in the most vulnerable position Is another one Coming off of that 2014 Daytona 500 win We ended up joining Twitter

I told everybody if I went to Daytona 5th I didn't want to join Twitter Didn't want to And I knew the odds of me went into Daytona 500, they weren't very high. Nobody had great odds. It's a tough race to win. So I said, you know what?

If I win the Daytona 500, I will join Twitter. Didn't think I was going to have to follow through. There's that picture. Yeah. And so that's probably my most liked and retweeted tweet from 2014. And then, so we send that tweet out, and then we get it. in a plane and we fly out to the west coast to do all this media. And so on the

way to the west coast, I got a crash course from Laura, our PR girl, at the time on all of the ends and outs of Twitter. You know, what things were there's a, there's a language, right? Everything,

there's these, you know, descriptions of how things function. And so yeah, that was interesting. We did a cute, we did a, you know, And we did a Q&A on the plane on the way out there, which was a lot of fun. And it really opened up a whole new world. It's been a lot of fun.

So we were going to revisit some past tweets. I have some past tweets for you. Let's get after it. And we'll pull them up on the screen here. So Dalton, if you're ready to cue them up. Obviously the infamous first one, right? But the next one is a personal favorite of mine. Oh, yeah.

So Gus is fertilizing the lawn at Charlotte Mercer's Spree. Speedway and it's a picture of him in the infield at Charlotte Emergency Speedway. This is right next to the start, finish line, and Gus is taking a dump. And so the contrast of Gus pooping and where Gus is at, I thought, was really profound. That's a great picture. Otherwise, tweeting a fit picture of your dog taking a shit would be really bad. Yeah, right? That would be so strange.

But I thought, you know, where you, it may be, I think, It's borderline strange today, maybe 10 years from now, even stranger. It's one of those tweets that maybe you're like, you know, we don't pull it up 10 years from now, right? Look at what we're doing. At the 20th anniversary, this one we skip over. But it was just the contrast of where we were and what was happening. I believe, I'm not 100% sure, but I don't know if we were out at the racetrack for a specific function or what. It doesn't look like it's post-race or anything like.

that. I thought it might have been after the truck race that, do you remember when it was? No, I was going to say was, don't take a picture of your dog taking a dump. Was that not in the original crash course on the plane? Yeah. No. I mean, that's just not your fault. No, but that's just common sense. That's character flaw if you're posting those type of pictures on the regular. But I like to take pictures and I don't know. That was an interesting. You would say you like taking that picture? I did because so I know Marcus Smith, right,

that owns a racetrack. And this is obviously grass, not the turf that we have there now. And so I was trying to also at the same time needle him a little bit because he's you know, Gus is pooping on his grass.

Yeah, that's right. You're not, you know, you need to fix that. You don't want your, you don't want the neighbor's dog pooping on your lawn. No. No. Turf is better. But I'm just saying, that was kind of fun to give him a hard time. Yeah.

Hey, Marcus, check us out. Oh, man. We've got the next one. Let's see, what do we got? I don't know how much more I can expound on the Gus Poopin. So this guy tweets, Dale Jr., would you trade a toe for a championship? And you said, no, I would not trade a toe for a championship, Dustin. I know.

I think this was, this is 2014. So this is pretty early in your Twitter run. You wouldn't, man? No. Still not? Are you freaking kidding me? No, a toe? No shot.

Yeah, come on. No, no shot. traded toe for championship. Absolutely. No, you wouldn't. No, you wouldn't. You're a runner, a tress. You don't need the pinky toe.

Like, get rid of the least important appendage. If it means a championship, dude. You don't know how important that thing is, so you don't have it. I don't know. I feel like that pinky toe just gets, like, crumpled as it is, just in your shoe. No? I don't know. I feel like we're talking about feet too much.

Yes. A little bit, yeah. I totally would. I got to draw the line at body parts, man. I'm not going to give up a kidney or a toe. He's not asking for a kidney, though. I'm just saying other examples of parts of me that I'm just, I'm not. So you wouldn't give up anything.

No. Look. All right. I've lived without a championship for a while. It's not that bad. It's not that bad. I don't need to give a toe up. If I did give a toe up right now and then magically have a championship,

nothing has changed except I have a weird. I do have a weird foot. Only four toes on one foot. Now. No one would know that. Now I'm some kind of weird oddity. Yeah. Freak.

I'm a freak over here. With the championship. No thanks. Hey, that guy, that Jimmy Johnson guy at the hot tub, he could give you a little less trouble about the championships and maybe more trouble about the feet. Is Jimmy going around with only three toes? Oh, God.

Yeah. That's something we need to investigate. See if he's only got three toes down there. Anybody seen Jimmy and flip-flops? Never. Man, there's a reason for that. I'm going to see him in Daytona, so I will ask. I will ask how many toes he has.

That sounds like some deal with the devil, man. I don't want to do that. Yeah, no, no, no. I can't do that either. Okay. All right. Next one. Yes, this is such bullshit.

4.0 Uber rating. Have you improved it? Oh, yeah. Let's take a look at my Uber rating now. Did you make a new account? No, I did not. I joined Uber right as they were changed. So for the longest time, you weren't allowed to tip.

Right? I remember that, yeah. Originally, you weren't allowed to tip. I'm a 4.8. Oh, dang. Way up. 0.8 improvement. Yes.

So right when I joined, everybody's like, yeah, you're not allowed to tip. because I'm like, hey, I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing. What's the etiquette? Well, literally, that freaking week, the tipping begins. You can now tip. And I'm not tipping, so I'm getting bad ratings. I get out of the car. I'm like, hey, man, see you, thanks.

And he drives around and no tip happens. You know, I guess they drive around, and they're kind of like, waiting on that tip. Yeah, such a driver hadn't tip me yet. I wonder what that's all about. Well, all right, F him, and I'm going to give him bad rating. And so, yeah, and I thought four was good, man. Four out of five, hey, that's pretty good for a hotel, right?

Yeah, four star. 80%. Okay. We look at the world differently, Andrew. A little bit. We're a little too far removed from school over here. I mean, I'm, yeah. I was a C student, though.

Oh, so you're batting above your average there. I know, right? If I was getting in the high 70s, I was happy. Of course, back, when I was in school, a 70 was, you know, 69 was Bailey. Yep. So 70 is sort of the... Now it's lower, right?

Yeah, there's more room. Weird, huh? Yeah. Like, I don't get that. I mean, making a 70 was not that hard. Why'd they have to drop that? I don't know. That's weird.

Felt bad for people. So, anyways. Yeah, so I've been trying to build that back up, trying to do some good tip and things like that. And man, I got to consider who's with me. I'm always happy to be the one to call the Uber. To just get that rating out. Yeah, it gives me that opportunity.

There you go. There you go. So we're doing good. All right. So what was that? 2017. So dang, in how many years? Almost 10 years to get it to a formal, 4-1-8.

My gosh. All right. What do we got the next one here? Ah, yes. Making my favorite sandwich, I swear it's delicious. And it's the banana and mayo sandwich. Broke the internet with this one. I got so much hell over this sweet.

So, all right. So when I was a little boy, We made banana and mayonnaise sandwiches, tomato and mayonnaise, mayonnaise, sandwiches, tomato and mayonnaise, very basic stuff. That is a good sandwich. And we may just have to have everybody in this room tried if you hadn't tried it. I don't think I've tried it. Yeah, okay.

So who has tried it? Micah has. Mike has tried it? Micah, good? Good. Okay. Listen, the trick. Now, Halman's, if you look at that picture,

there's a lot of mayonnaise there. Yeah. And Hellman's is going to advertise, hey, you know, we've got to see the mayonnaise, right? Right. Me, I like spread it on thin. And when I do a mayo banana sandwich, it's about putting little mayonnaise on both pieces of bread, but thin, right? Like butter.

Right. And so, you know, that's a little bit more mayonnaise than I would probably use, but it's a good sandwich. I like it. I'm out on it. Anyways, I'm a little skeptical. Listen, if you ain't tried it, you're going to eat one. I've signed up for this. We're bringing this back.

If y'all are going to do this to me, you're eating a sandwich. Because this tweet is both good and bad. Oh. Yeah, for me, a good and bad memory. Oh, because all the hell you caught. Yes, I caught a shit ton of hell. People, I had no idea that there would be so many food critics out there on Twitter. but a lot of people were like

this ain't it man what the hell are you doing that should have been part of the crash course is that there are some food critics out there for sure yes they didn't tell me that yeah I call hell for this tweet caught hellmins maybe deserving of God that was so stupid

sorry all right that was good though we ended up we ended up having a lot of fun with it but it was good caught helmets I know all right one more I literally that wasn't even that wasn't even that wasn't even a promotional ad tweet.

I was standing that's for the love of the gamer. I was standing there twiddling thumbs at the production shoot and they were, they had this sitting out right? Because I told they were going to make, they were going to have me make the sandwich during

the production shoot. And so I got there, I'm standing around, waiting on my turn to start waiting on my time to begin work. And I saw that. And I went take the picture, put it on Twitter. Whoops. That was. That was That did not go.

They had a banana and mayo sandwich waiting for you? Or sandwich ingredients? Right. That was sitting there. I didn't put that together. So is that someone else's meal? No, I met a photo shoot and it was a prop. Okay, I got it.

I'm all caught up. Come on, man. I was at a photo shoot and there's a prop and I walk up and I'm like, oh, I like this sandwich. I eat these. Take a picture. So innocent. Yeah. And then it was like, I got run over by a truck.

right after that. Oh man, brutal. All right, we got one more. One more. So this is, you tweeted, I was playing video games last night and met a random player using my name as his tag.

I was also using my name as a tag. I introduced myself saying, hey, Dale Jr., it's me or you. I'm Dale Jr. But he didn't believe me. No, so I love this opportunity to talk about hell let loose. So, you know, I still play video games, really enjoy it.

I'm waiting on the college football game to come back. Everybody's been talking about, if that ever will. I'll get back on the console. But ir racing is my thing. I racing is on PC. They got a console game coming out for NASCAR soon in 2025, but that's all I've ever done, except one game. For the last three years, I've been playing hell let loose,

and it's a World War II shooter. and so you'll get into the games and there's a lot of conversation, a lot of talking, you can talk to people that are in your proximity and everybody's got their name over their head, right? They're running around, right, trying to get in the best spots.

And so I hop in this server and there's a Dale Jr. And I'm like, hey, Dale Jr. Hey, Dale Jr. And I run over to him, he's like, what? And I'm like, I'm Dale Jr. I'm you, you. I'm Dale Jr.

He's like nice impression guy. And he's like, and he just turned, ran away. And I was like, damn, man, you just have no idea what's, how cool this could be. I know. Shame, man.

It's a shame. But I love it because sometimes people are like, they're like dollage. They don't know that, they see the name and they're, it's all Dale Jr. together and they don't know how to pronounce it. They don't know what, they don't, they're not race fans.

Right. They're like some guy in Milwaukee and he. Like, dollage or, I don't know, man. Hey, he's trying to tell me to go over there and grab that grenade launcher, right? Or whatever, right. But then there's the other people that are like, hey, Dan Jr. And I'll start talking to them and they'll go, whoa, it's really? It really is you.

That's awesome. And then we'll stand there in this, you know, World War II scene having a conversation. What a wild time. And then, like, the games last for like an hour. a half and so you see the same people often and they're like hey there he is they've got they've now gotten their buddies yeah right now they're all you got to see this here he is here he is guys come on over here and I'm like y'all we got to stop the enemy yeah they're like no day damn talking to my buddy yeah it's so funny that's awesome I love it hell let loose I mean it's a great game I got I got

I try my best to get all my friends into it we play quite a bit man that's awesome on Steam. All right. Well, it's been a congratulations on 10 years on Twitter. Can't wait to see what it was 10 years. It's been fun, man. We had a lot of tweets Sunday. I don't know if there were any worth revisiting, but man, it was.

Keep them coming. I get on there and some days I have a good time and some days I just, you know, I just read. I just watch. I watch. Should we talk about the Daytona 500 and Who's Never Won It? Yeah. There's a lot of big names. Yeah, there's a long list.

Kyle Bush, Truex, Larson, Elliot, Blaney, Bubba, Kiselowski, Byron. LaJoy is on there. That's just to name a few. Yeah. And so let's bring up the LaJoy clip. So apparently, so I said, you know, that LaJoy is going to win this year. In my 16, that bumps Bisher out. But hey, Busher, don't be too upset.

You've got your diecaster. Yeah, he's got your race-win diecast on the table. I put that on there because I felt bad. So maybe that's okay. It was not on there. Maybe Crystal's think. That's okay. So anyways, Corey heard about our prediction. Let's hear what he had to say.

Well, I know Dale will be a lot of things, but a profit would, that's a new addition to his left. But I like it. I feel like he's kind of seen the progression of what ownership and what we've done as a team. Everybody's sitting here, as you know, and as everybody in NASCAR knows, everybody's sitting here a week before the 500 thinks that it's going to be theirs, the Harley Gerald's going on with them, but I'm more confident. I'm a realist, but I do have more confidence in the strength of it with the approach and preparation that I've ever had. Yeah, I think, you know, I don't know if Corey wins at a Daytona 500.

He certainly has a great shot at it, but I certainly think he wins somewhere, maybe Atlanta. He's had a couple close calls in Atlanta. Here's the thing that I realize during the DJD Reloaded show is, if you think it's Atlanta, he only is one opportunity to do that during the regular season. Yeah. So that's a lot riding on one race, I think. But I think about that too. Say somebody, you know, like a Stenhouse wins Daytona and Corey wins Atlanta,

and now there's two guys in the playoffs that weren't in their, you know, maybe there's two guys in the playoffs that are stealing positions from top 10, top 12 teams. Yeah. Right. So, you know, that's when we have the way the race. Races are structured out of the gate gives us an opportunity to have some unique winners. And so anyways, back to our list about drivers who we think that could win the Daytona 500 that have not won the Daytona 500. Hard to believe Brad Kozalowski is still on this list.

That's my pick. My pick to win the Daytona 500 this year is Brad Kizalowski. He finished third in 2014. He's got, you know, as many wins at Talladega, I believe, as I do, maybe one more than I do. But so in my eyes, next to Denny Hamlin, he might be the next best restrictive plate racer. Now, you know, he's had some down moments. But so did I in my career, where there's a string of years where you just don't have the car. The car and you have to work together like one thing.

You know, it's funny you said that RFK overachieved last year with Chris Busher, but then you're picking Brad Kay to win your 500. So is that just because of driver and track? Well, I said last week that I think the stats for RFK flip, where Brad has the year that Chris Busher had last year. That's right. And so maybe it starts with the Daytona 500. Brad gets a win out of the gate.

It allows them to be a little more aggressive with their play calls the rest of the year, producing more opportunities to win. That's what happened to me in 2014. I don't know that we win either of the Pocono races had we not. already had a victory and locked ourselves into the playoffs. The strategy calls for the Pocono wins. Obviously, Brad had to get out of the way for one of them because he had some debris on his grill, but the strategy calls is what put us in those positions.

And so they were aggressive. You know, I think it's a strong list. All these guys are great race car drivers, Byron, Bubba, Blaney, Elliot, Larson, Truex, Bush. There's some other names that aren't on our list. But I just feel like Brad's do. An interesting stat from Dirty Mo Doe, and we were just talking about him, Corey Lejoy. His last four Daytona 500s, he has an average finish of 11.75, which is the second best average finish in the last four, only to Blaney.

Yeah, that's Corey Lejoy. And Blaney's got the best. Yeah. And Blaney has two runner-up finishes, 2017 and 2020. Blaney's looking good. Yeah. You know, and speaking of that Dirty Moe-Dow stat that I just mentioned of Corey Lejoy, qualifying, is coming up first.

And Steve and the guys were talking about qualifying and some of the prop bets for Wednesday. And we've got a clip here. I think I have your hammer here. Josh Berry plus 100. Alex Bowman minus 130. I'm not hammering that. Rodney Childers just went winless with Kevin Harvick.

SHR is rebuilding, rebranding, remodeling. You see them on social media. They are kind of put the swagger out there. If there was ever a time for a company to deliver their new man, Josh Barry, Sunny D, to the poll at the Daytona 500, this would be the time. How do you like it, Professor? You see where I'm going with this?

You got a point there. So while the numbers would say it's a hammer, all I'm saying is... But hold on, Bowman's sat on the front row in the last six races there. Yeah, I know. I predict a Ford Polksitter. I predict at least one car on the front row from... SHR. You like that? Yeah, I love it. Actually, I do. I'm glad they mentioned Bowman because, yes, he's going to be on the front row, but I do think it's a very good chance of a big surprise,

and I like that angle of a SHR car. Is this the first year in a long time that Hendr doesn't win the pole, or is it a front row, or does a Hendrick car win the pole? Somebody slips in there and steals it. All right. Interesting. Is it straight up? Is it fair? Is it legal? Maybe not. Hey, new cars. New Ford, new Toyota. Yeah. The only thing is, is like the new Ford knows was, the new Ford body was an attempt to try to help them, which tends to hurt you at Daytona and Talladega.

They're trying to get a little bit more arrow advantage at every other racetrack. That typically does not mean. Right. It's going to be more drag, more downforce, so that will slow you down at Daytona and Talladega. But we'll have to see. now the Toyotas they went in the other direction

they went I think away from having you know they went toward being able to push better have a flatter nose so they may actually have improved their cars for Talladega and Daytona so maybe it's not a Ford and it's Toyota on the front row could be we'll just have to see

do you think that hurts their chances at like miles mile and a halfs don't know yeah just have to see have to see We're live, Dale, on Ash Jr. All right. Well, welcome everybody for joining us today.

We've had a pretty good show. I just got the alert that we are live on our social media handles. So good job, Dalton. Yes, sir. We've had a great show today for Dirty Air, and I hope everybody will tune in. And don't forget that all of our episodes are on YouTube in full this year. So they won't need to go anywhere else,

but to our YouTube Dirtymo Media handles to be able to watch the full episodes of all of our shows. That's new, something we wanted to bring to you. I told you we would, and we finally made it. But we got some questions from all of y'all from social media, so let's get started. Yes, this first one, it actually made me laugh when I read it this morning. It's from Bill.

Have you ever sneezed during a race? Oh, yeah. And what's that like? I feel like that would be problematic with the helmet on. Yeah. I mean, just the fact that you got your eyes closed for a mere second is bothersome. Yeah. That's really the only thing that I'm bothered by. It's not so much. I mean, so the sneezing and thinking about snot going everywhere, that doesn't worry about you. Really? No. Because, listen, when we get in that car, anything's liable to happen. Okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. You might pee on yourself. Tony Stewart pooped on himself

Is that really? A sneeze is You know what Big deal Yeah There's a lot worse Yeah There's a lot worse

You're sweating You're gonna get dirty So you're not so much worried about And I've never It's not like you know It's gonna get all over the inside Of the helmet That never really

Was a concern It's just you know You gotta close your eyes Because Right Our eyes will pop out of our head If we sneeze with our eyes open That's what we believe anyways, right?

Is that really? Well, why do you shut your eyes? I feel like it's just natural. Like, I don't try and keep it open when I should try. I think our eyes would fly across the room. I'm going to try it. Don't. I just, I want to prove your theory right or wrong.

Do it while you're driving so you can really test it. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, you. That was pretty good. I believe that. is even dispersed split seconds, you're focused on driving. That's a little bit of a dis, you know, a little bit of a nerving for a second. Was the Tony Stewart stuff public knowledge?

Yeah, he raced. He won the race. Really? Yeah, he gets out of his car and Victor Lane runs to the hauler, changes his suit, wipes his tail, and comes back for his celebration. He alluded to it. All right, that's news to me. Man, I'm telling you, I have never had that happen.

but that is one of my biggest fears is that I'm going to be this is probably my biggest fear no it's not biggest fear is probably a strong word but one of my biggest worries is like being somewhere when I need to use the bathroom and not being able to true I hate that that's me a lot of Tuesdays here yeah yeah yeah yeah halfway through the show man that medium break driving a race and you're like, you've got the bubble guts. Yeah. And it's coming. There's like nothing you can do about it.

And you're like trying to focus and got a shot at winning. So got to get all this distraction off your mind. Got to let it happen. I feel like there was a driver recently that won who after the race said they really had to pee. Back here I remember who was. When I was a rookie, we were at, we won Richmond, right? past dad and went our second race in our rookie year pull into victory lane this is in that book that jay gerr's driver number eight pull into victory lane and i just got out and walked past

everybody like when i hop out everybody goes yeah yeah and i just like stone face walk all the way out of victory lane past fans they're like and i walked over to there was a good year gas pump station building right next to Victor Lane and I walked right in there somebody was standing in there and I said,

where's the bathroom? I had to go pee so bad and maybe I didn't have to do number two. I don't know, but I had to do something and I go in there and I'm sitting there and so you sit down

right to use the bathroom and the first thing on your mind is they're all standing and they're waiting and I'm doing this this is going to take however long it takes and they're waiting and they know they know by now there's no hiding there's no hiding this yep you're contemplating that while you're sitting in there you get up you get out and you walk back to between and you go like okay yeah you walk back

to victory lane probably in so much of a better movie oh man big relief big relief everything fits better yep oh man yes we need to hit the next question um michael uh michael uh He saw you tweet that you had a Super Bowl commercial. I don't know. I don't think you knew that that was a thing. Menards ran. So, what was that? I got a question about this.

So Menards apparently runs a Super Bowl ad, but I don't know. I think there was some local ads, right? So this was maybe just in the Midwest. But I told Amy about it yesterday and she said, well, how many people saw it? I'm thinking maybe one fifth of the country. Maybe? That's still quite a bit. I had no clue.

That's cool. Yeah, we went to film this at Menards out in the Midwest somewhere. So we go out there. We filmed Minard's commercials last year. And if you've ever seen a Menard's commercial, they have a vibe to them, right? And so we filmed our commercial last year, and I'm like, you know, man, I'm going to get more integrated into the process this year. I want this to have, I want this to even better. We're going to have this great commercial.

and we go out there and we film it and everything went great right and we get done and all the creative came together to approve this final piece that we had created no clue that this was for a Super Bowl I'm just thinking man this will run during the arc of races I don't know right um and so they were like yeah we like it we would love this and that no so we we decide to film more at my shop at my house so that part of us in the shop next to the car is in my shop and that was like you know kind of hustled together to to really you know make the commercial that we all wanted and uh yeah that was literally like two weeks ago or a week ago i mean it's recent what a turn around and i'm still thinking as we're shooting this i'm like man i hope this is hope this makes everybody happy

and we make a great commercial and this will run during the arca races and then i was on social media like I told you during the game and somebody says, hey Dale, I saw this Menards commercial was that for everybody or just, you know, is it local?

And I'm like, it has to be local, right? Because I didn't see it. I'm watching the game. It didn't come on my TV right in North Carolina. But, uh...

I think we got a Bojangles commercial. Man, we did. And it was like a blurp. Yep, it was real quick. Yeah. And it was right at the same time. So,

anyhow, dude, I think, you know, a Super Bowl commercial is as prime real estate as you can get for an advertiser. I, anytime I've ever been in a, even a whiff of an opportunity to do a Super Bowl commercial, it's like it's massive, massive honor.

And so, humbling to have been in a Super Bowl commercial, even if only part of the country saw it. And to think we were, if I don't know we were shooting at, I'd have been 10 times more nervous. Oh. Had I known we were shooting a Super Bowl commercial. So it seems like the YouTube chat has seen it. And a lot more, I think, of the country saw it.

People in Florida said they saw it in New York City. My gosh. Yeah, got some good coverage. Okay. I underestimated all of this. That's pretty awesome. Thanks for all that input, everybody that's watching. Man, we had no idea.

And what a thing? Like, who does not know they're going to be in a super? Yeah. That's probably not ever happened, right? Oh damn, we were filming that for the Super Bowl. You find out in the moment while it's running on national TV. You know how crazy that would have been if it came on North Carolina? You were just sitting there like, what the hell?

Right. I would have my pants. If that played on my TV, holy moly. Talking about. Yeah, exactly. Pants. Yes. That literally might have happened.

This next question is from Danny. And, you know, we love the advice questions. And Danny apparently is going on his first. Valentine's Day date. Yeah. It seems like according to this that they were together for like five months is what he said. So any advice for him? Five months.

I mean, you guys would, you guys with your short relationships would probably be helpful. Because, I mean, it's been, it's, I say that, not as a dig. When I was y'all's age, you know, three months was a long relationship. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? And so, you know, it's a balance. I think at that point you're doing the traditional things, you know, a dozen flowers, box of candy.

Nice restaurant. Nice restaurant. Yeah. That's it. You know, don't pour it on any stronger than that. Right. Well, in five months, it's the first Valentine's Day. Right, exactly.

You got to do it big for the first one. No, not big. No? You keep it low-key? Yeah, yeah. Maybe do something sentimental? Well, every year has to get better. Oh, so you got to start the far pretty well.

Big son. You can't drop it down. You can't drop it down. I didn't think about it like that. You can't bring it back down and go, hey, man, last year was the first. What'd you expect? So maybe half a dozen roses this year. One of the best lessons, all right, that my dad gave me.

He gave me some lessons, right? And I'll share one with you. There's not many. There's never, you know, people want to know some of the things that Dale and Hart shared and he didn't share very much. Here's one, okay? This was really important. You can apply this to everything.

First Valentine's Days, whatever. We race in 1998 and win the championship. I've never in my life had to decide about who to give a bonus to and how much until that year, right? I'd never had a team around me, right? And so here we are, end of the season, and I've won the championship. My whole life is just blown up, and it's like all this amazing things are happening to me. I'm finally like having all of these, my dreams are coming true. And dad sits down and says, okay, we're going to give bonuses away this year.

You've got to take some of your salary and put it into our bonus plan. And you can decide how much each person gets individually. I'm like, you got to give Tony Sr. this much and Tony Jr. this much and this person this much. He goes, one thing I need to let you know is every year after this, the bonuses need to increase. All right. So maybe dial it down a little bit. I'm getting a little bit excited. And so, you know, I wanted to give them everything.

They deserve it. I'm only doing this and winning and a champion because of them, right? So just let them have it. And he was like, that's a good idea. But next year, it's got to be more than that. And then if you're in on, you know, the runway's 10, 20 years of racing in the Cup Series and all of that with these guys, you know, it's got a ramp. Yeah.

Same thing with Valentine's, man. I got you. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think you start off nice and traditional, and then you plateau, right, with something very similar for multiple years. And then when you hit that five, you go big. Then you hit the 10, you might go big, you know.

I got you. I'm not saying I'm right. I just my way of doing it. I'm with you. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Babe, if you're listening, we're keeping it low-key this year.

Oh, man. All right, we got time for one more question. Dalton does not have a... Dalton's not in a relationship, everybody. He does not have a fiancé or anything. Yeah, definitely not engaged. That was funny. Not anymore.

That would be funny. Yes. Meanwhile, I am looking for Valentine's Day, so anyone in the YouTube chat. We got time for one more question. This is from, let's see, who's this from? I apologize. I missed your name here, but... Wait a minute.

The dating scene out on the Iron Man Trail is not... It's... He's got to catch up. Yeah, it's a work in progress, man. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.

We'll see where it goes. When's your last date? Last date was December. Not bad. Yeah. How did you meet her? Through the dating app. Through the dating app.

It's interesting. The dating app. What is it called? It's called Hinge. Yeah. Wow. Man, they were not dating apps. Truth be told.

I hate them. But it's like everyone's using them these days. So people that are single, that everyone I talk to, that's how they go on dates is these dating apps. I remember like 10 years ago, it was like a crazy, cringy thing, right, to take somebody out through a dating app. But now it's like the traditional, totally traditional, totally normal. Yeah. And it didn't even exist at one point. Golly.

It's crazy. I just fascinating. I'm not a fan of it, but everyone's on it. It's just like, all right, well, I don't know. Got to be, got to be on it. That is wild. Yeah. So, question.

All right, yeah, sure. Do you, on the dating app, do you ask somebody out and they go, nah, no, I'm good? No, they can just not respond. Just ghost you, right? Yeah, that's where that comes. That's where that whole phrase comes from. Yeah. But you can, yeah, you can ask them out and then,

and then they give you their number. So, like, all the chatting is done in the app. Right. And is there like, okay, you're not a psycho? Give me some information to prove that you're not a crazy person. Yeah. Like, hey, man, this is what I do for a living. This is where I work.

It's probably less of that than you think. Less of that. No, it actually has that on your bio. Like, it has your age where you live. So is there in con, so there's, is there? So they just kind of look at the bio and go, okay. Yeah. It allows you to have prompts too.

So like you can respond to someone's prompt and it starts a conversation. Like, uh, it'll be like what's your favorite childhood memory? Yeah, like two truths and a lie about me, you know, or this is my hot tape. So that's the conversation started. Right. Yeah, exactly. Instead of just the awkward, hey.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, like to go out. Yeah. Yeah. So it makes it for a little bit more. So that way you kind of like just respond to a prompt. if they don't, if they're not interested, no harm or foul.

Exactly. Everybody moves on. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Man, that's something else, man. It is. It is interesting.

Okay, sorry. No, okay. Out of all the pre-race festivities you've done in the Daytona 500, I know you've given the command, wave the flag, I think maybe a few other things, which one has been the coolest over the years? Man, waving the flag was so much fun because I just felt like, um, Wave the flag. There's a technique, right, to waving the flag and getting it right.

And I was the little kid that, you know, had the flags when they were 8, 10 years old, you know, and had them in the house and waving the flag in the living room and going to the racetrack. And you got those kids that are in the grandstands with the whole set, right? They're just mimicking the flag man the whole night, right? I love that kid. when I see that kid at the racetrack. I'm like, that kid there is going to be a real flagman one day. Yeah.

He's going to find some purpose in this industry. He's into it, you know. And so, you know, I think just, and there's a way to do it the right way. You know, you'll see all these, you know, celebrities and other people that get invited to come do it. And, you know, they, you can tell some that have maybe tried to, you know, practice a little bit. And some that have not held this flag until the moment. they're getting ready to wave it for the green flag.

And then you'll see some people that are in our own industry that you're like, you're a driver or a mechanic, crew chief, whatever, and your Hall of Famer, and you, that's your wave? Yeah. Like, you've seen this done a million times. And then they're like, oh, my God, man, come on, you can do better. But me and my friends, man, we used to, like, you know, have competitions. Like, who could do it, you know, who can wave?

Like, there's a proper technique. Oh, yeah, there's a skill, for sure. And so I knew I wanted to nail that. And so I got to wave the flag for the Daytona 500 and feel like that. I waved it as well as you could have. The professionals, the experts. Heck yeah. Yeah.

I remember you had some good form. You can tell that. You practiced. You studied some film. Because right after that, it started raining, like literally. And I did it? Yeah. What year was that?

I don't remember 20, 2020? All right, yeah. 2019, 2016? I can't remember. No, it wasn't 2016. Racing. So 2018, maybe, my first year out? No, I did the command.

So 2019. Okay, that makes sense. Who the hell cares? But it rained, and the race, like, literally with green flag, two laps. 2020. Two laps, rain. And then I'm, like, standing there still in the flag stand,

and I'm like, do I give the green flag again? Like for this, you know, lap five restart. It's like, they're like, nah, you do not. I'm like, hey, I'll stay up here, flag. You know, I'll find the remainder of the race. Be the guy that's like telling people when you got one to go to, you know. Yeah. And oh, that brings me back to what happened this past year at Pocono.

We were up in the flag stand with a fan during the broadcast. Oh, that's right. was a blast. Yeah. Yeah. So that was, I mean, that flag stand, maybe not at every race, but pretty much almost all races,

if you ever get a chance to just even be in the flag stand, when the green flag is thrown, take it. It is awesome. Yeah. The wind off the cars and just the sound, and then stay there, wait for them to return for that first lap at full speed.

That is what's up. Really cool. Yeah. Awesome. Well, that's a good place to, end past junior today. That was a quick one. A tight schedule, man.

Okay. White flag. All right, everybody. It's time for White Flag. Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi are in Daytona this week. To recap all of the action on track, they will be live right after the duels on Thursday night. So you'll want to tune in for the tear down Thursday night right after the duels. Denny Hamlin's podcast dropped yesterday, so go check that out.

He shared his bold predictions ahead of the 2024 season. and what his expectations are for himself this year. I hear he's all in. I saw that whole bit. The back of the t-shirt was funny. Another episode of Speed Street drops tomorrow. Always fun checking in with Connor and those guys. And Dirty Modeau with Steve LaTart is already in full swing.

He handicaps the field. And they will be back on Friday to give you a full preview of the Daytona 500. So a lot going on. You'll want to tune in to Dirty Modeau. Even if you're not a gambler, I think it's the best way to really understand how to handicap the field. Steve literally tells you who he thinks is going to win and who he thinks will not and who he thinks will struggle. So again, Jeff Gordon on the show tomorrow is our guest.

He is going to be awesome. And finally, we have a new Dell Jr. Download spinoff podcast, and it's called DJD Reloaded. I caught some of this this past week. I loved it. I think fans are going to love. It's a nice change of pace from the Dell Jr. Download, Tuesday. and Wednesday shows. I'm not hosting the show,

but I loved hearing what Corey LaJoy had to say after I predicted that he would make the playoffs with a win. And you guys came up with some great new alter egos for Christopher Bell. We actually talked about doing that. We're going to fire it up again this Thursday, and we're going to hear from the fans. It's a show where the fans can engage. So bring your best reactions, your best opinions,

for our shows this week. I'll be tuning in again to check out. and see how that goes. Looking forward to it. The new number to voice your opinions is 704-584-9703. Give us a call at 704-584-9703. Lay it on the line, because you just might get to hear yourself on DJD reloaded on Thursdays. All right, that's it.

Another Dale Jr. download in The Books kicking off the season in 2012-24 Strong with another episode of Dirty Air in the Books. Thank you all tomorrow. Jeff Gordon, look forward to it. We'll see you then. Check out Dirtymo Media. on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.