The Dale Jr. Download - 518 - Atlanta: What More Could You Ask For? There Is ONE Thing...

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been singing the praises of the Atlanta Motor Speedway reconfiguration since last season, and the track delivered one of the best finishes in NASCAR history this past Sunday. There was much to cover from weekend two of the NASCAR schedule on this edition of Dirty Air: The critics have been quieted Reconfiguring tracks through iRacing technology Joey Logano’s gloves and new creativity Atlanta race winner Daniel Suárez calls in Rethinking how we film Atlanta’s races Fuel saving in the Xfinity race When the Download gang took to Youtube live for the Ask Jr. segment, listeners wrote in questions regarding: Being a youth sports coach Strangest place Dale has been recognized New house projects Story behind the Oreo/Ritz mash-up car Running a half marathon 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. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download here in the Bojangles studio. We've got a great show for you here this Tuesday. We're going to have a call-in from race winner, Daniel Suarez. We're going to talk about Atlanta, everything that happened there, truck series, Exfinity Cup, and everything else going on this week. Stay tuned. Let's get to it. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Check one, check one, two, three, four. Turn up the body. Do the race car.

Guitar solo. The Dale Jr. Download starts in five, four, three, two. All right, everybody, let's get right to it. I want to talk about the cup race. First, we're going to mix it up a little bit. This is Andrew's idea in case you don't like it. Andrew and Dalton are here. I'm going to stand behind this idea.

Yeah, you stand behind it. You better. The reason why we're doing this is actually a good one because our race winner, Daniel Swarres, is going to call in. So let's be talking about that cup race he won. Yeah, I'm going to pat myself on the back a little bit. I said that this would be the hottest ticket or is the hottest ticket. I think that showed up this weekend in the cup race.

I got to be in the booth last year and I had no idea what I was going to see or I had no idea how entertained I was going to be. and I think because of how great that race was that I saw in the booth, I felt like that was my best work as a broadcaster. And just an incredible night, walked out of there, feeling like I was on top of the world, and had just been, you know, entertained to the fullest. You know, I love short track racing

and feel like some of our best, you know, some of our best product over. the last decade or decade and a half has been at Martinsville in places like that where we have the fireworks and so forth. I've always said if we could bottle up some of the things that happened at some of the short track races. That's our, you know, if we could have that every week, we need more short tracks, more short tracks. But for the first time in a very, very long time, a track outside of that sort of short track world has entertained me in the biggest way. And I said, you know, this is the hottest ticket, and I really believe that.

And it proved out this past Sunday with a great race. The drivers complained about the reconfiguration and narrowing up the track. Hell, we had guys four wide for a few laps. Nobody loves a repave. You're never going to love a repave. I don't care what track it is. Every track's going to have to be repaved at some point, no matter what track it is. We've got through the first year or two.

to be able to allow this surface to age, it's starting to change color, starting to lose grip. They're starting to have to lift, getting into turn three. Handling is just as important as your car's ability to draft. It was a really great combination

that I believe will continue to get even better. If you're going to go to a race, I'm going to change the ticket I will tell you to buy. I used to tell people to go to Bristol Night or Daytona 500. one of those two were going to lock you in as a race fan if you had never seen it in person. Now I'm going to tell you to go to Atlanta. Big accusation there.

You know, Atlanta needs to make some changes and improvements to the facility. They will. You know, when you're not selling a lot of tickets, you can't invest in the concourse and things like that like you wish you could. but I know Marcus and as the fans start to show more interest in coming to his races he'll provide the amenities that you would expect and I hope that he

kind of goes the route that he went with Vegas where they do a lot of third-party vendors they come in, allows these food trucks and all these people to come in and just have these big spreads all types of different foods to eat. It's really, really cool. Could be something we see at Atlanta coming forward,

but I know that they'll have to ramp it up a little bit to give all these fans that I believe we'll be buying tickets to these races. A great experience. You know, another thing that I think we've got to remember is Atlanta, as we know it now, was developed through eye racing. We forget about that, right? Marcus was like, hey, Atlanta's dying. It was.

Lost the date. Nobody was coming. Empty grandstands. Drivers liked it, but the fans said the racing was boring. Marcus had two options. Dig it up and rebuild it or close it entirely. He invested millions of dollars in the reconfiguration. And 20 years ago, it would have been a massive gamble.

not knowing really whether it's going to work or not. He's going to spend millions of dollars moving a lot of dirt, putting down a lot of payment, hoping for the best. But with eye racing, he was able to go up, you know, go to Boston and say, hey man, can y'all put this in a virtual world? Can we try it out? Can we put these, you know, race cars out there on iRacing and allow these drivers, your sim racers, some of the best sim racers in the world,

to pick this apart. Tell us what they hate about it. What's not good? What we need to fix, what they do like. And that saved millions of dollars. It took all the guesswork and the gamble out that a reconfiguration can have. So I think Auto Club, Fontana's future success will depend on how much they have and

will lean on eye racing. Chicago, the street course, was vetted and improved through months of simulation on ira racing before becoming reality. anything that ever may happen to Texas, if it ever does, will be done through eye racing. I was going to ask about Texas. Yeah. Marcus now will go to eye racing anytime that he wants to consider doing something to his racetracks.

And say, hey, let's hammer and let's run this through the system, man. Let's beat this up. Let's poke a bunch of holes in this and figure out why we should or shouldn't do it. And so that's something that's pretty cool. Just a fantastic race. A lot of crashing. A lot of people complain about the wrecks and the cars, a lot of things getting torn up.

Rick Hendricks said, though, if the fans love it, we need to keep doing it. Drivers were getting out of the cars saying, I had fun, I had fun, I had fun. And even Larson, that doesn't really love that style of racing. Said, I had a great time, good stuff. you love to hear it

the drivers they're going to be honest they can't tell a lie and so you know they were worried about the reconfiguration now we've gotten to a point to where

they're warming up to it they don't want to do it every week I wouldn't either nobody wants this every week nobody's asking for it every week it's an anomaly it's unique it needs to stay that way

this needs to be something that we only see in Atlanta and it won't always be this way. I mean, quickly, this racetrack is going to lose grit. The style of racing we see there will change every time they go back there. This race that we saw this weekend is three-wide finish. That's probably only going to sustain for a couple more years before the track of

lose so much grip. Handling will be even more and more important. You'll start to see a little discrepancy between the drivers and the teams that do have their cars ready for that long run and getting cars three wide coming to the finish line will be more and more difficult as handling and the grip goes away. Daniel Suarez actually, if you remember that 550 package that NASCAR was trying at the mile and a half years ago, he said this was like the best hybrid version of what NASCAR was trying to achieve and the actual result they got on the track.

And he said they had less grip than that 550 package. so that's, you know, they were definitely struggling for grip out there. Yeah. You know, I like what I saw. Only thing that I really, if there's one thing that I would say, gosh, I wish this could be better, it's how bad the cars lose the front grip when they get behind each other. Like, it cannot get close to each other. I know fans don't even probably pick up on that

I know that NASCAR and everybody that saw this as this massive success myself included nobody why do we want to care about that it was great so let's go on like explain that I guess more detail like what's going on there I will okay so basically if you watch the race

you know Joe Legano goes up the racetrack and if that's a tight exit Turn 2 has kind of always been that way. But when he gets in the wake of the cars in front of him, he has to jump out of the gas, he gets rear, you know, ran into from the 17, and it's this big crash.

And you'll see a lot of guys have these massive runs down the front straightaway, and they want to dive, jump to the outside, and jump to the top of the racetrack. But if they do make that commitment and the car in front of them also goes up there, they're going to lose the nose and smack the wall. I mean, it's not, there's not a, there's not a area for them to, there's not a moment for them to recover. The car just has a big wake. And so, when you get behind another car and you're pushing them down the front straightaway,

to be able to turn into the corner and have any kind of reasonable corner without losing a lot of grip and losing the nose and having to lift, you have to back off and let the car in front of you get a little bit further. away so that when you drive into the corner you've got a little air on the nose. You can't follow them into the corner on their bumper. Man, when I was racing cars in 2004, I could drive into the corner right on

somebody's ass, pushing them, push them into the corner, push them through the corner. Not a chance of doing it with this car. Do you think that plays at all into the racing product though, that it is a little bit more of a degree of difficulty that you can't follow someone that close? So it is. It is a challenge when you're pushing

somebody down the front straightaway, you want to stay locked on their bumper, or you want to drive into the corner and push them up the racetrack and drive under them, drive by them. You can't. You got to lift and allow the air to get back on the nose of your car or back under your car

so that you can, therefore, go through the next corner. And so it's this, you're all, Truex talked about it. He's like, man, one corner, you're plowing, one corner you're sideways. You've got to know where your car is

compared to where everyone else is and how that's going to make your car handle. Yes, I love that challenge. I like the drivers sort of having to figure out the Rubik's cube every lap, right? It's tough mentally, so tough. But I do wish they could tone down a little bit about how this car does

lose a ton of grip when following another one very, very close. Because the idea, the act of one guy getting to another's bumper is something that I never want to impede in this sport. Ever, right? And it does. It's difficult for them to corner closely. They cannot drive through any corners right on each other's ass. They can't. This car can't do it.

And so I don't like that. All right. I shouldn't even be complaining. This was a freaking insane race. Thrilling finish, race of the year. And we're not overstating this. But anyways, hey, and speaking of thrilling race of the year, we've got the race winner. We've got the race winner. All right, everybody, we got Daniel Suarez. This week's race winner on the L. Jr. down low. Daniel, incredible, drive. I said on social media, man, the mental gymnastics and decision-making and processing,

mental processing that goes on not only in that last moment or that last few laps, but the entire race. Have you ever been more challenged mentally as a driver? It's a chess match every corner. Well, first of all, thank you for having me, man. I really appreciate you. But let me tell you, that race was, I don't know. why, but it was different.

You know, it's not the first time that we have raised in Atlanta with this package. It's been already, you know, a handful of races there. But this race, for some reason, the intensity, it was so different. As you know, you know, some of the rules changed a little bit with the geo of these cars in this package. And I think it created this kind of racing that it just gave us more confidence to push around a little bit more. And I'm not saying that we're very, you know, confident with the handling of a race car

because a lot of people was strongly including myself at one point. But the intensity of the race in every single stage was pretty high. Like, I'm only very surprised we didn't wreck more often because it was very, very intense racing from start to finish. Yeah, I was listening to some of the drivers and watching the race myself, you could tell that you had to be really careful how. the situations you put yourself in aerodynamically. You didn't know what the cars in front of you were going to do as far as what line they would

choose. You didn't know how that might affect your car. And also cars being around you on your door right behind you. How difficult is that? Because, you know, we watched the runs. We watched the passes, the side by side and the crashes and all that, and it looked amazing. But you really did have to be careful about. how you trailed the car in front of you most particularly so that you didn't lose the nose

or slide up into the car in the outside groove. How challenging was that? Yeah, it's definitely a challenge. These cars, they just react in ways similar to the cars that already you race with us in the Cup Series. But in some other instance, they also react very different. Like, for example, the move that so many drivers were doing, including myself, you know, to go three wide, top, and getting somebody's right rear, well, that's a very, very, very, very good move. But also, if you, if you get to a spot where you're not far ahead enough, the car, the car that is behind, the car that is making the move gets extremely free, extremely free and all that is error.

So just situations like that, already looking for error a little bit, the racetrack is fairly narrow. Like I just can't believe at one point we're four white. When I thought we were going to wreck, I actually started checking out a lot. I mean, I was just waiting for the wreck. And it didn't happen.

So, you know, only the, you know, big, big, big, big credit to every single driver just to keep the cars going straight, for that long because I know, you know, there were a lot of cars with contact, including myself. You know, I got a little bit of contact in the incident in the lap number two. But overall, I felt that for the kind of racing that we experienced, we didn't have a lot of accidents. That's my perspective. But yeah, the cars were easy to drive.

And I thought that for the kind of race intensity that we were having, I thought we're going to be wrecking every 20 laps. Yeah. So the drivers, you know, there was a lot of concern and probably well-deserved concern when they talked about reconfiguring Atlanta. Everybody loves that old surface that we used to have there. But we're two and a half years in or beyond two years. I heard a lot of drivers say they had fun. They had a lot of fun.

They don't want to do that every week, but they certainly did have more fun, I think, that they anticipated. Is that something you think that was pretty widespread? the industry, did every driver out there really have a good time? Honestly, I mean, I really enjoy it. I enjoy it because it's not a super speedway, but it's not a mile and a half. It's a truly hybrid. And the reason why I'm saying that is because, you know,

it drives a little bit like a super speedway, but the distance and the space that you have, it's not like the it's not like Talladega. So everything happens so quick. and the runs that you get, oh my God, I mean, the runs are huge. They are sometimes, they are way, way too big. And the reason of that is, I think, is just because everything is narrow. You know, I was explaining to a friend the other day, it's like comparing Dover and Bristol, you know,

and Dover being the Super Speedway and Bristol being the craziness. I think that's Atlanta. And in my opinion, you know, the old Atlanta was a lot of fun as a race car driver because it was a challenge. I mean, you experienced that one. It was a challenge. It was difficult. You were sideways.

You had to manage your tires. It was great, great feeling to drive the old Atlanta. But this one is so different. And it creates such a good racing product that I enjoy it. Honestly, I wouldn't mind to have a second Atlanta, honestly. Like, I mean, I know we have a second Atlanta, but another racetrack. This kind, because I felt that it's not a super speedway, but it's not a mile and a half. So this kind of hybrid, actually, I think that it produced amazing racing.

I mean, all I have seen, maybe I'm a little biased already because I ended up winning the race, but all I have seen from friends and social media and stuff is that people just love the racing, love intensity. And in reality, you know, we're going to go to Las Vegas and the racing is going to be amazing, but intensity won't be as high as it was a few days ago. That's a great point. That is a great point. I agree with you.

I could see Marcus considering, you know, moving Texas in this direction. There's been some considerations around Texas reconfiguring, but he's kind of been patient about that, waiting to see this current surface as it ages whether Texas will provide the type of racing we're looking for. But I want to move on and ask you, you made a crew chief change in the offseason. You know, I think that any time,

that I had a crew chief change. Those aren't easy to do. You had a great relationship with Travis, Matt, who was your crew chief for the last year or two. But there is always this idea that the new guy's going to come in, we're going to take what we have

and we're trying to make it better. I'm hoping to feel when I drive the car an improvement, a change, a difference, something. The communication is going to be different. You're hoping that this is going to work out. So you're a couple races in. I know it's only Dayton and Atlanta, but how do you feel about that change so far?

Yeah, listen, I, you know this because obviously you also have a great relationship with Travis. It was very difficult. It was very difficult because Travis was not just my teammate, but he was also my friend. And he is still my friend, you know, and I care about him. I care about his family. We're good friends. not just on the racetrack, but also outside the racetrack.

But the reality is that last year, we just did not perform the way that we were wanting to perform. And, you know, I'm not blaming on him, but we didn't have a solution. You know, we didn't have a plan. We didn't know how we're going to fix it. You know, we were heading into December, and the team was almost exactly same than than 2020. And that was concerning because over the entire team, you know, track house, everyone is pushing to trying to get more results

because on the other side, you know, Ross and the one team, they are doing a great job. And the 99, honestly, in the last two years, has learned so much from the one team because the one team is pretty solid. So, you know, I started getting pressure. Everyone started getting pressure. A, what's going on? Why you guys are not winning?

like the one is doing, and it really put us in a corner where we needed to do something. And, you know, Matt Sudearski, well-known as a squid, he came available, and I didn't know Squids. I have had maybe one conversation with him before December, and everyone had very, very high comments about him, how smart he is, how he was going to be able maybe to, to, to, to, to bring a change to the group. And so far, honestly, you know, like you mentioned, we have had a couple races in super speedway style, but he has brought a different dynamic to a team.

You know, he's a different guy. He only, he's different. He's very quiet. Travis was the opposite. He was very outspoken, which I love that. Squid is very, very quiet. He's very engineer driven. But he's very smart, extremely smart.

and also he's very, very well-prepared. I'm actually impressed how well-prepared he is heading into a race. How much knowledge he has getting to a race. He feeds me a lot of that information. And so far, honestly, things are going very, very well. And also, we put a lot of work in the off-season. In the off-season, we got busy working to try to build this chemistry because we didn't want to spend six months trying to build this communication.

And as you know, my English and my understanding is not normal. So I had to make sure that we're built in this relationship. You have spent the last couple of years as a driver who, you know, is grinding and working to make the playoffs. The whole year, the whole regular season is this massive effort to find your way into that group. You and a lot of teams are often, you know, sort of in that category, either in the top 16 or on the fringes of that working all year long. This year, you're two races in, you have a win, you're locked in, there won't be, you know, there won't be any way that you don't make the playoffs.

I think I could say that confidently. Have you had a minute to really consider how much pressure? maybe that takes off you I wonder now knowing you and thinking about you and how you approach your job whether you feel any less pressure because you're

still in this mode I think when I talk to you of I need to prove it I need to prove more I need to prove more I need to win next week I need to win the next one I need to win five I need to win 10 and maybe you don't feel less pressure being locked in but

just having to be able to go to each race from here on out in the regular season not worrying about playoffs will be nice. It's definitely nice. It's definitely nice to get the first win this early in the season. Without being said, honestly, I have not thought on playoffs in the last three days once. I haven't thought about it because the way I'm thinking on this is, and I mentioned this to squit my new cruise ship and I mentioned the entire team

and say, hey guys, I felt that I've been an okay driver, a good driver, we've been an okay team, you know, we have a spikes, we get a pole position, we win one race a year, things like that. And, you know, some people may be happy with that. I'm not, you know, I'm not here to be the guy that,

oh, he's winning one race, you know, when we win, we make a big party. that's not the goal. For me, that's not a goal. Because I know that to be able to contend for a championship, you have to win between three to five races. That's what you have to do. If you can win between three to five races,

you can actually have a real shot for the championship. You have points, you have confidence, you have a lot of things. And before we hire Matt, and I say, Matt, this is what I want to do. Is this what you want to do? Are you committed to do this with me? because I'm not okay being a good driver. I want to be a great driver. And I want to be in that next step of those group of drivers

like Willem Barron, Kyle Larson, all these guys that when they win, nobody's surprised. They're expecting it. That's my goal. That's my goal. And I've been working very hard on this, but it's not easy, man. It's not easy because, as you know, in the Cup series,

every single driver is talented. Every single driver is gifted. You have to build that group around you. You have to build that communication around you. And yeah, maybe the last two races that have been super speedways, but man, we got stage points in the duels. We got stage points in both stages in Daytona.

We were running in Daytona. We're running in Atlanta. The team is different. The team is different. I'm happy where we're at. and I think that we're making steps in the direction that we're expecting in the off season. Man, I appreciate your time today. I know that you all have a lot going on, a lot of meetings and preparation leading up to every race.

And we just thank you for giving us a little bit of your time this morning. Congratulations on the win. Congratulations on getting yourself locked into those playoffs. I know you're going to go out there and try to win some more races this year. And I got to tell you, man, your work ethic, your determination, your will, I've seen it ever since you've came up through the K&N and the Xfinity series. You have really, really been tenacious to achieve your goals and what you believe you're capable of doing. And it's impressive and fun to watch, bud. And that rubs off on everybody around you in the industry.

So we appreciate you. Thank you, Daniel. And good luck going forward, bud. Thank you so much, Amigo. Really, really appreciate all your kind of wars coming from you. You know how I appreciate that. And thank you for having me, man. Hopefully, you have to invite me more often with a few more good races.

You bet you, buddy. You win some more races. We'll get you back on here. Thank you, bud. We'll see you. Thank you, bye-bye. Daniel, such a great guy. I've actually gotten a chance to, you know, I'll say this.

So, you know, get all the drivers together. And you're, you know, some of these guys are hard to talk to. Yeah, they really are. Daniel's not that way. Every time I see him, he's always happy to see you. One of those kind of people, and I like those kind of people. They're happy, you know, happy to see you when you run into them. And just easy to talk to.

You know, he reminds me of in his, you know, where he is in his career and him talking about wanting to win more races. He reminds me of a young Joey Legano. I was going to say Joey Legano. I was going to guess the same thing. And I don't know, Daniel, Daniel's not young. But he reminds me of where kind of Joey was when he too was sort of like, we know now what he was capable of, but he was struggling to get those results.

And Daniel's determination and not give up attitude, and I know I can do this and I'm going to work hard as I have to work to get it, and I'm going to tell everybody around me that this is what I want to become, those kind of people make those things eventually happen. Yeah, I love his mindset. Yes. I loved his honesty there. He even said, you know, we were an okay team.

I was an okay driver. Like, this is not the standard that we want to set. Like, that surprised me, I feel like. He's a realist. Yeah. Yeah. I like that about people, man, when they're on it, you know, they get to give an honest assessment.

Congratulations to Dan. That's just a good story. Crazy finish. And Mike Joyce said it was the greatest finish he ever called or ever seen that didn't involve cars crashing across the finish line. Daniel Swores will forever be the winner of that moment, the big, you know, the guy that gets a trophy. It's kind of like when they say, you know,

once you win a Daytona 500, you're always a Daytona 500 champion. Or if you're, you know, a Winst the Cup champion, you always be in that group, Hall of Famer. Well, Daniel's tied to that race for the rest of his life. Yeah. I saw you tweet a lot about the broadcasts. What did you think of it? I thought it was great.

You know, I enjoyed the race. I thought the booth was great. Harvick's done a great job of sort of rounding out that booth. And in his analysis of the car, as he knows it, he drove it, is awesome. I'm really tuning in to what he's telling us to try to learn myself about some of the things that I don't know about the car. And so, you know, it's important to listen to Daniel there, tell us about what that's like to get on the outside of another car and how the car can change and balance. And why? And so, you know, those are some things that Harvick brings that I love.

And Harvick has tons of confidence. But as he's getting more comfortable in the booth, he'll be more comfortable with sharing his opinion, trusting to say what he has on his mind. And that's just going to be good for all of us. I had a lot of fun. Honestly, not that anybody said anything that made me feel like I needed to say this, but I didn't have a drop to drink, no beer or anything all day long. And I, which I'm kind of regret, but I was watching my kids this weekend. Amy was going to the beach, and so I was trying to be good.

But I had a blast sitting there watching that race, eating peanuts and drinking a sundrop. but I think there's one thing I want to say about Atlanta is that I see a lot of people on Twitter say that they're tired of the quote unquote gimmicks right and we saw Bristol dirt we saw you know the the roval could be in that category right and I thought that Atlanta was going to be another gimmick track and so this weekend proved me wrong like I'm happy to know that this is a racetrack where real racing's going to happen it's not some fabricated thing that there's good product on that track every time we go there. I agree. I knew

when they reconfigure this racetrack. Everybody was going to bitch complain about it because, you know, they're making it too narrow and a new payment boo-boo-hoo. But after it wears, or after it ages, and it's going to age fast. It's in the sand, right? If you drive around that racetrack,

ain't no mud, ain't no red earth. It's freaking sandy. And so any time, You have a racetrack in that environment. When the wind blows, it's literally just sandblasting the surface year-round, right? In a very, very slow, slow process of it. But that, you know, the bleaching heat of the sun and all of that, you know, the elements just going and going and going year-round just kick the ass of that surface.

And it's going to be incredible and get better and better. And before you know it, man, it'll be old Atlanta again. It's now high banked and faster. Yeah, it'll be a faster old Atlanta. I raced there in 2000, and I remember in 2000, 2004, when I won, that's literally only 10 years after it had been repaved. It was repaved in 96. In 2000, 2001, it was worn out, or slick as hell, at least.

And that was like, you know, only four or five years after the repave then. Joe Legato, you know, the gloves. You know, we got to talk Everybody's talking about this. Oh yeah. I don't want to repeat everything else going on out there in the industry, but Joey has these webbed gloves

so he wore them in qualifying at Daytona, got the pole. And so, you know, he's got this glove. They filled the fingers with a web material, so when he sticks his hand out the window

in front of the window net, it's not going to air off the rear spoiler. The same, you know, they used to teams years ago came to Daytona with clear vinyl sewn behind the window net. Oh, man. And of course, first time somebody saw that, they like, get that out of here.

You can't run that. You can't run clear vinyl behind your, to block the air from going into the car, right? And have it going down the side of the car. So, you know, this is what happens when you, And when you build, when you have a race car and you control every inch of it and, you know, you have basically no creativity or flexibility, teams can't, you know, when teams have nowhere else to look for an advantage, they're going to find these quirky little spaces to work in, right?

Like gloves. Every smart person in this industry should be looking. at everything. And somebody looked at gloves and said, maybe it was Joey. You know, maybe Joey's like, you know, I've been sticking my hand out the window. I've been doing this for you guys for several years now.

What if we did something to the glove and made it even better, right? Maybe Joey had this idea. Who knows? I love the... Just watching that creativity work. Yeah, 1,000%. Cory Lerjoy had some cool gloves.

He's wearing a skull gloves. So I saw this clip. on Instagram about Corey with his truck at Daytona. Post race, Instagram reel about how much fun he had running in a truck race. And it showed him putting on the skull gloves. So I called him. I said, hey, man, you're wearing the skull gloves in the truck at Daytona. He goes, yeah.

I said, I'm happy about that. He goes, well, I don't want to mess anything up about your charitable thing. You do at Bristol every year with the gloves program. I'm like, I don't care. I stole the gloves from a, you know, from a motorcycle racer. An arena cross guy. Yeah, I don't know who it was. Saw a guy wearing him on TV.

I thought that's cool. Nobody's doing anything with gloves. I'm going to do something with gloves. So I took the skull gloves from somebody, and he said, man, I'll wear them every week if you don't care. And I'm like, I don't care. Somebody else needs to be doing it. Skull gloves are cool, right?

They are. Remember when you were a kid? Like, you had the skull outfit or the skull shirt? Yeah. You know, maybe you had some skull gloves. I don't know. And wasn't it because he needed a backup pair of gloves? That's why he ended up wearing him.

Yeah, they didn't have any gloves for his truck, so he found those. It was a backup pair for Bristol. But anyhow, maybe you'll see Corey continuing to wear the skull gloves. I called it, man, he's going to win a race this year. I was hoping it was Atlanta. That was where I thought it might happen. Maybe it's the second Atlanta.

Could be. They got to get their cars better. He wasn't even. He wasn't able to get up there. Do what he needed to do, damn it. We thought this was going to be the year. Let's go, Spire. Get him up there.

I called it. I need it to happen. Well, and speaking of the Lugano gloves, you put a tweet out on, what was it, Sunday morning, saying, wrong answers only. What kind of gloves did Joey Lugano use? And so. We were going to get our best ones.

We've got the best ones. We got, I think, almost 900 responses. Yep. That's crazy. Yeah. Pretty crazy. Here's the first one. Dalton's going to pull them up on the screen here,

and we'll read them. Preston, prostate exam gloves are for single use only. That's pretty good. I think that was my favorite. Yeah, that wasn't a fire, fire resistance. No, those are not SFI. Matt said he tried to be Colton Herda cool, and he's wearing the Thanos glove, you know,

with the Infinity Stones that've been in them. Yep. You kids. Just Jeff. And we got a lot of these responses. It's, uh, The power glove, yeah. Yes, yeah.

I saw that a lot, too. Yeah. We saw a ton of those. He was planning on using the turbo boost button. Something like that, yeah. Didn't work getting through all those crashes. He just came from swim class.

That's so great. That's awesome. A.K.A. he could have used those in Daytona. Damn, dude. All the rain delays. Is that not illegal in swim class? What the fuck? I used that this morning in swim class, man.

Use those? Well, there's a different, they're a different type of patterns. Okay, by the way, for the podcast listeners, they're the swimming paddles. Yeah, they're webbed gloves basically. It's like to, it's like a form thing. Why even swim? I mean, if you're going to cheat, why even swim? Michael Phelps doesn't use those.

I'm practicing. I'm not competing wearing these things. Do you ride an electric bike too when you're on Slava? Yeah. He just, no, I just turn my watch on and I get in the car. Okay. Everybody else Strava that follows Andrew ought to give me a lot of shit for cheating. Yeah. He's got a little electric fan just down there propelling him.

I use fins too if that helps. Oh, geez, geez, geez. Grumpy, I guess their name is grumpy. I heard the gloves outbid you on the Titanic Lego set. That's good. Oh, shton. Did you find a new Titanic set to bed on? Well, I'm waiting on the sun.

I want to cuss. Go for it. I do it. Let him fly. You buy something on eBay. All right, yesterday was Monday. Today's Tuesday. Shipped the damn thing already.

Let's go. I know. Where's my, where's my, look. God. Yeah. What are you going to just get to it whenever the freaky wall? Yeah, we got a ship to sink. Did you get a Titanic site?

When you spend $800 on something on eBay, you expect them to ship it. Right the freaking way. All right. All right, let's go. Let's keep going. Sorry to hear that. NASCAR guys and responded just with the

hamburger helper. Yeah, maybe there's a sponsor deal in the future for Joey with hamburger helper. I heard that Byron's got a Lego's deal coming. Does he really?

They read some rumor. Dang. That's awesome. Neil said they want to bring back Hot Lana in a picture of two oven mitts. Try driving. They should make them all drive

with those. Maybe that's what some of them were driving with. I would have to crash. Yeah, there you go. All right, last one. Joey actually has web fingers. That's from Christine.

So we shouldn't be discriminating against Joey because he actually has web fingers. He can't help it. Poor guy. He's got them all. Oh, that's good. Thanks for sending those in, everybody. Thanks.

Oh, man. That was great. Appreciate everybody. That was good stuff. Thanks everybody playing along, being a good sport. And if you thought yours was funny as shit it didn't get red. Don't keep trying.

Just give up. Just give up. Dang, man. I'm sorry. Only if you're, if only those nine people can respond again. Yeah, that's moving forward.

Yep. The truck race. Let's talk about the truck race. Okay. Fuel mileage, single file, high line, and a roof flew off a truck. The one thing that I would say is

for the truck and the Xfinity race, we just need to change the stage links. That's it. We don't need to... I know that, you know, NASCAR's going to try to look at everything. And they may change spoilers and splitters and stuff on Xfinity.

Maybe not. I don't know. I haven't heard anything. But I think if we just change the number of laps to just take them out of the fuel range, right? Either go shorter or go longer, whatever. We still can't control where cautions fall, so we still may fall into a fuel mileage race. But let that be fate, right? Let's not determine that by the length of the stage.

Let's not start a stage where they're like, oh, we're two laps short, so we're going to have safe fuel. Yeah. With that said, two things about, one thing about the truck race, the roof on the truck, right? They set a piece of debris hit it, and that's why it deflected. They're deformed. We've seen teams do that intentionally to gain down force. I don't care whether they were trying to do that. or not.

I think that going forward, when a car has that happening, it has to get black flagged. Black flag the car, truck, whatever, and it has to come down pit road and get that fixed. That roof coming off is, and I'm not telling NASCAR anything they don't know. It's dangerous, right? Okay, that thing going up into the stands, oh my gosh, I don't even want to think about it. But so, you know, I think going forward, we saw it. Everybody saw it. We talked about it on Twitter. It was a thing is going on for laps and laps and laps, right?

Right. Black flag. Yeah. Hey, come to pit road. Right? Should have been. Don't they do that when equipment other types of, like other pieces of the car flapping around are loose?

Like I feel like I always see that Daytona with like bumpers flying around. I don't know. I remember Chase Elliott at the Roval when he got spun out by Harvick and he had that big old piece of his sheet metal hanging off the back and he didn't get black flag for ever so i don't know hey speaking of twitter what did you think of uh naskar and fox's camera work oh that that did i get it right that one yeah no that one did get me shoot man man i can't keep it i couldn't keep it i couldn't keep bottled up anymore um and i you know since right now i'm not working for any specific network i felt like that allowed

me to be a little more sharing. I'm not picking on Fox. I'm not saying they do things differently than NBC did things. I am always of the opinion that getting more cars on the screen is a good thing. Especially when all of those cars are doing some things, racing, battling, right? The more cars you can put on the screen, the more I, as a broadcaster, can talk about. Look at that. Look at that.

And if they're not on the screen, I can't say hell of a battle right there when you can't even see it at home. Right. So there's a couple things. I've talked a little hard about this. He believes that it's, now fans will say, look, it's a week to week issue. And I get that. But Atlanta, it's a very unique situation because we now have a mile and a half racetrack

that races like a Daytona Talladega where they're packed up but we have a mile and a half camera locations and we're shooting it like we're shooting it like a mile and a half right right that's actually I did not think of that yeah and so I think that now that we know what Atlanta is

we need to rethink about camera locations and how we want to shoot that race right so that we can give a little bit wider. We need to back up a little bit. Some of those cameras can't get wider.

They're so close to the action. They can't back. They can't back the shot up. And so, you know, you'll see it, man. They'll be on these cars and the cars will come down the first tradeaway. And as the cars are coming toward the camera, when they get the closest to the camera, they feel the whole screen up and then they go back away.

You can tell that the guy running the camera, can't zoom out any further. So, I mean, there's something to rethink there about Atlanta, but I'm always of the opinion, like, put as much on the screen as you can. I don't want to be in helicopter all-race. I don't want to be, you know, looking from the blimp the entire day. But especially on restarts, we've got the whole field jumped up. We're going to have all kinds of shame reaction things happening.

Something that happens up front is going to affect the guy in 20th. I want to see it on the screen so I can talk about it. Right. Show me every car you can possibly show. show me on a restart for at least a lap and a half before I'll feel I feel good enough that they've sorted it out and then we can start to focus more on a specific group of cars and so we've always talked about that I when I first got the job at NBC you know that was one of the first things that Burton the Tart and Rick told me hey we're going to hear us say we need to

get wider, we need to get wider, we need to get wider when we're talking to our team in the TV compound, this is what we're talking about, this is why you need to join us in that conversation, right? And I'm like, yeah, I hear you, I got it. So there were some moments during the race where we'll come off a turn two and we got a shot that got, that has the top 12 in it. And as they're coming toward us, um, the shot morphs into basically just three cars toward the, toward the, front of the pack and I'm like damn and I really wanted to continue to watch that battle for eighth ninth and tenth but also I would love to still see the front lead car right and that's what I'm looking for is like you know give me give me that pack coming down to frustrated way into

three through turn four the whole time right so I can see because then you know they're coming down the back straight away right coming off a two 12 cars on the screen battles for position throughout the top 12. They're coming toward us. When they got in front of us in turn three, it was three cars on the screen, the first three in the pack. We followed them through three and four,

and then we cut to the 10th place car wrecking. He's already wrecked. And I'm like, damn it, I knew. I didn't. But in my mind, I'm like, I knew that shit was going to happen. Damn it now, how did it happen? If they'd have been on a screen with everybody else,

I would have seen it. play out live. Yeah. And so, you know, whether they're truly capable at all times of giving me as a fan and a viewer of that, I'm not entirely sure. My bitching and moaning is probably for nothing a lot of the times. But I know that sometimes, you know, they can get a little wider, right? And I'm just asking for it.

But I've never felt comfortable saying that publicly until now. You mentioned, like, when you first stepped in the booth, they're like, you got to watch the monitor here and, like, we're hoping to get the camera to be wider. I think it was Harvick, who I think even admitted himself, oh, sorry, I was watching the racetrack. I wasn't actually watching the monitor on the broadcast. And he reacted to something that TV actually didn't capture. Yeah. So, yeah. Well, I'll, you know, I'll say you're, I like to look, I will always. If I continue to broadcast in NASCAR, I want to be at the racetrack.

If they ever, I'm never going to work a job where they're like, man, you know, we're going to have you here in Charlotte and call the race from this remote location. I need to see the track. I need to see the energy. I need to feel the fans. All that really makes me better. I'm a fan. I want to be at the race watching it. and I want to look out that

that window and see the race because yeah I'm watching this I'm watching program I'm watching what you're seeing at home but I need to look and say hey man is the seventh is the seventh place car catching the sixth place car is that where we need to take the cameras and then I can get in the you know talk to the proofs

say I think there's a great battle happening or about to happen so let's try to get there in the next lap or two because it's the best helping. We want to put every battle on the screen. You know, there's races. You know, we're not going to have that problem in Atlanta, but we'll go to Vegas this weekend, right? And maybe there's a long ring flag run. They get very spread out. Dude, you're looking for battles. You know, you're trying to tell the camera guys what battles are about to happen. So they can put that battle on the screen because we need to show cars racing, side of side, passing.

Definitely. Right. And if there's a pass for position in the top 10 and the TV If you were at home, didn't get to see it, that's bull crap, right? We don't want that to happen, right? And so, you know, that's, you know, that's something you're doing in the booth all the time is actually trying to look out into Harvich's credit. I mean, you get, you get out, you see something happening and it, you know, you react to it a lot of times. Not knowing what's on the screen, but sometimes that's okay. You know, when I was a kid growing up, you know, they always told me,

You know, don't react to anything that's not on the screen. The viewer can't see it at home. That's wrong. Don't do that. I don't believe in that. I think that's BS. I'm going to react if I see something happening that's not on the screen. I don't think that's a rule that I'm going to abide by.

And so because growing up in the 80s, you know, you didn't get every race on TV. Radio. You listen to radio. Right? And radio is telling us a story about the battle for the lead or whatever's happening. You know, they're telling a story about a car or driver or something happening. And a guy on the other side of the racetrack snaps into the picture with a, oh! Oh, we got a crash!

Right. That was magic. As a kid, that was insane. You couldn't wait to hear what come next. Who was it? Who was in it? How bad was it? You know?

And that was, those are the moments that were incredible as a listener playing with your Max Xbox cars on the floor in the living room. And that's what I think is fair game and fun to recreate in the booth. It's actually fine if we're watching the battle and I holler, we got a car on the wall. It's not on your screen, but we're going to get there. but I want you to know right now there's a freaking wreck happening.

Yeah. Right? And I'm not going to wait for it to come onto the screen and go and then react to a crash that's already halfway developed. Right. So, I don't know. You break that rule a lot.

I don't care. That's the way I'm going to do it. And, you know, and if it, I want to do it that way. That's the way I want to do it. And that's the way I like to do the job. And I don't know that I would want to do job otherwise.

So, um, good stuff. Yeah, anyhow. The Xfinity race, uh, we talked about that truck race being a fuel mileage event. So was the Xfinity race. Um, and, and it didn't work out for junior sports. We had a terrible series of events late in the race. The nine car of Brandon Jones did come to pit road to get fuel, which was the right call, uh, and was going to restart on that inside line with a great shot at it, but got a flat

tire. So the 48 ran out of gas. We went to the, you know, we went to go around him and, and, and, and, you know, we went to go around him and make contact and cut a tire so that hurt Brandon's opportunity just at a good you know decent finish and but the other guys they ran their cars out of gas it was frustrating and I text a buddy of mine while Tim Dugger we were talking during the race and I said the 21's going to win this is just you know you got you get this feeling and he's going to right drive through all the muck and it's and win the race and he does um the debate I think that we should have on

the show is this all right and This is for the viewer, just for listeners, viewers, whatever, right? Hindsight is easy to make this call now. But if you, say you got four race cars in the field. You're running 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th all day long, right? And you're about a lap and a half short or two laps short on fuel to get to the end. Do you tell your drivers to try to save the fuel to try to make it? the distance? Or do you tell them

run your ass off? If you can go the front, drive to the front. Burn all the fuel. We run out of gas, we run out of gas. That's sort of the debate. And I think that now you've got to be willing if you make the decision to go

and run hard, you've got to be willing to be the fool when you run out of gas and no one else does. Right? But I would rather who were they talking about at the end of that race? Jesse Love

Austin Hill won the race Yeah and they're talking about Jesse Love Yeah Especially on social media Right So Jesse Love run hard, led on laps And he had a fantastic race car Credit to RCR

The two car was the best car in the field We think The 21 might have been as good But he was saving fuel And riding part throttle and so forth But the two drove to the front every chance he got led every lap

that he could and we're all talking about him right and so that's what I would rather be the case you know look maybe we get lucky and the yellow comes out and we get the fuel and we you know now we got the track position and the fuel

to go out there and not look like idiots because we ran hard but I would rather I would rather try to be running try to be moving forward try to be trying to get to the front and if we're running out of gas, we're out of gas.

This is where I think I disagree with you. Okay. I look at that race and see Austin Hill like, dang, he ran a smart race. I look at Jesse Love running like hell, leading laps, and running out of gas is like, well, rookie mistake. And at the end of the day, Austin Hill is sitting there with the trophy. I don't think that's a rookie mistake. I think you go out there and you run your ass off as long as you're,

you can. I think he misspoke. To your point, now, look. But like you used the word like, run like hell, you may look like a fool. Like conventional wisdom

says save the fuel. Right. Right. Yes. Like common sense says save the fuel. But damn it, that's boring.

But boring wins you the race, man. Yeah, but it didn't win us. We did it and it didn't win us the race. we were invisible. So you're taking also the chance. Look, if you don't, one guy wins the race. Right. The entire field besides the two was saving fuel.

Right. So it didn't work out for everybody. A large majority of the people that chose this strategy remained invisible the entire day. Yeah. And got nothing to show for it. That's my argument. It's like, do you, do you, are you okay with,

basically being anonymous anonymous the entire day? Are you okay with being anonymous making no waves your partners your team sitting on pit road going hope this works out this is not exciting

you know all the there's no buzz you create no buzz none of your drivers are building confidence they're just out there just holding position in formation

It does For me I think the I think the gamble for me That we may run out Is worth it because Man if my guys go up front and be like Hey we had control of it

We were here We ran fast, we ran good Man I felt great I felt awesome about my car The way I drove You at least get some of that Out of the day, right? So you can move forward long term

I think that's good So you know, that's the debate, I think, internally that I'm having with no engineer, no crew chief, I'm not, I didn't, I sit on the couch, right? I didn't go to the racetrack. Yeah. This is easy for me to sit here and say, oh, I would have done this. Right.

No crew chief, no engineer, no those people that are at the race are going to be reckless with the strategy. They're all going to do the smart, common sense thing. That's, of course. but I'm just thinking I believe that it will evolve to the other way right to the reckless way

really? Yeah I don't think so all right listen we all if we're all doing the same thing we all can't succeed and so

some of the industry will fan off into these alternate strategies, and then make it work, and more people will move in that direction. And it'll cycle. Everything cycles. The whole, everything in the ecosystem is a cycle, right? So I think that this strategy of common sense, playing it conservative, being smart, is the norm today, but maybe like drivers in their etiquette.

So, you know, Suarez tells us the drivers were driving very intense, out of character. Is it not in the last, so think about Mark Martin the way he used to drive, and he taught everybody to drive the same way. We all molded into that Mark Martin, let them go. You're faster. I'll let you pass. I'll pass you later. Everybody take care of each other.

Don't get too close. Don't race too hard. Everything, everybody went in that direction. And now they're all starting to ebb and flow into the other direction. of intense, run through you, push you out of the way, I don't care. I'm going to do it. Look at the trucks, Xfinity. They're crazy. Sure.

Madness. Well, the cup guys also have lost some respect. There's less respect. There's less taking care of each other. There's more. I'm out for me. This is for me. I'm doing this for me.

Hell with you. And so while that's what I mean in the change of culture, the change of thoughts, decisions, judgment values, all those things. I think, I'm hoping, man, that, like, fuel mileage racing and sitting there and, oh, man, we're five short. We need to ride 20% throttle in 10th place. Who wants to do that?

Where did a race? But if you have to do it to win the race. No one said you had to do it. So what would be this situation where... You're five short. Run your ass off. Hope for a caution. I mean, that's what we did. That's a strategy.

That's what they did in the 70s and 80s. Nobody was out there going, Bair, 20% throttle. There's always going to be that team that's going to save fuel and it's going to benefit them one way or another. I remember, I remember when the first, I remember when the first time we started shutting the cars off under caution. I think we got smarter.

Yes, we got smarter. Okay. And we moved into this direction real heavy, safe, save, save, conserve, conservative served. And I think it'll go back in the other direction of, well, if everybody's going to do that, I'm going to do the exact opposite. I'm driving my ass on. Simon Pachino, Indy 500. They told him,

Simon, you're short on gas. You're running too hard. He's like, I don't give a shit. And he wins to them Indy 500. Yeah. That's what you want, right? That's what you want from your driver. Listen, I'm not arguing against. You go out on top. Guess you went out on top this weekend.

Here's the question. Austin Hill. He can save fuel. He fell into that. What? Come on. Is Jesse Love's sponsor upset at all? No.

I don't think so either. I don't think that, but I think that the person in 20th riding around a half throttle might be. I don't know. Like if I was a sponsor, I'd be like, get your ass up there. I don't know.

If that's the way you want to look at it, sure, but can you make everyone happy in terms of like, did Austin Hill make his sponsors happy for most of that race up until the end? I'm sure he did, but he has the benefit of winning. But the guy in second place.

And again, there's only one winner. And there were a lot of people on Austin Hill's strategy that did not win the race. But ultimately... Everyone. Everyone was on that strategy. It wasn't a lot of people. Jesse Love, man. One guy.

Okay. But you're saying you would like to have your guys run more like Jesse Love. Jesse? Yeah. I'm just, no. Nope. I'm not saying that. I'm not going to get into debate over what the crew chiefs should just shouldn't do.

Okay. I'm just saying, you know, I, I want us to debate. I want fans to debate whether if they own the team, would they say, man, we're going for broke, every lap, running your ass off, I don't care what the fuel mileage is. Or are you going to be, no, we're going to try to save fuel. We're going to try to get to the end.

Who would you be? You? I think we know where we stand. Yeah. You would save and I'd run flat out. I'll tell you right now, man, if I was at the track on that pit box and a crew chief turned around and said, we're one short, I would be like, yeah, okay, safe.

Okay. But sitting at home and then watching it all play out, I'm like, eh, that sucks. Well, we should just run hard, you know? I mean, you know, of course. Yeah, yeah, armchair quarterback here. Exactly. Yeah.

I mentioned that Amy was out of town. She was hesitant to go, leaving the girls with me for the entire weekend. and she left Thursday, came back Sunday. I think it was my first full weekend with both the girls. I took them down to South Park Mall to American Dolls store. That was a great hit. Denny Hamlin was a little bit honest, too honest, maybe, this week on his podcast about a bathroom situation.

He let it all go. Well, I didn't have anything like that going on. But as I'm driving to South Park, It's a freaking 50 minute drive or something like that. I'm like, man, I'm going to have to use the bathroom. And I've got a situation here. A dad with two girls, a three and a five-year-old, going to the mall.

What do you do? I don't know. Oh, yeah. You don't know? What would you do? I have not been in that situation. I mean, my mom has brought me into the women's room. I would look for like a family restroom.

probably. They don't have those. Those don't exist. They don't exist at malls. Family restrooms? Yeah. Come on. No one here. I mean, there's the big, you know, ones. I like ran into one. I ran into one like the other day. Where? It was at, it was at like some sort of restaurant. There was like a men's room, a women's room, and like the family restaurant. What is the, uh, yeah, the Truman show? Was this a Truman show? Family room. Yeah. Family restaurant. There's a couch in there. Yeah, that's fun. It's enjoyable.

Well, the only thing I could do is to take them with me. So all three of us in the men's stall in the Macy's. You pick the Macy's. Well, I thought where, I wanted a men's bathroom

that was empty. And I figured there wouldn't be many guys shopping the Macy store at three in the afternoon. So we're sitting in there, each of us using the bathroom, and then some men started coming into the bathroom.

And they're getting. giggling. The men? No, the girls. The girls are giggling. And I'm like, and then they start shush-s-shin each other. They're like, shush, you shush,

you shush. And I'm like, holy smokes. This is more than I can take. But it was funny. I just had to laugh. We get out of there, walk right to the American doll store, and they picked out dolls. Everybody's fine, no

tears. We go home. played some eye races, some hell out loose, crashed a lot on eye races, sorry to everybody who was part of that. But, and then, right, so I had a long list of things that we were going to do, we were going to have a blast, and we did, we had fun, we got ice cream, we did all the things.

But right around Saturday afternoon late, I got burnt out. And I'm like, you know, and I'm looking around and I'm in sweatpants. They're in PJs. It's all to hell. Nothing productive, right? Right.

It's happening. And it just cartoons everywhere, every TV. And so, but luckily, man, we, I thought, I was like, man, you know, right? Amy gets on the plane, she's going to fly home and she's going to be home at lunch on Sunday. And so, like an hour before lunch, man, I got a bath. I took girls upstairs, brushed their hair. we looked like we was ready to go to Sunday school she walked in the house

were they like over dressed for being at home not too bad but it was like yeah we're ready where are we going going to the girl store where you want to go? Did Amy suspect anything was she's like hey this is she ain't said a word until we release this clip

I thought you know she'll come in and she'll see something I don't see right what a mess that's messy Clean, why don't you clean this up? Because man, you're in it. You're in the house there for the whole weekend. You stop seeing the messes.

Right? Nothing's messy. Oh, yes, it is. You know, once you pointed out. But no, we were good. March 1st through the 3rd, NASCAR heads west to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Penzoil 400, presented by Jiffy Lubb Race Weekend. The NASCAR weekend starts when the Haller Parade makes its way down the iconic Las Vegas

strip on Thursday evening. That is pretty awesome. The racing action starts on Friday with truck racing under lights, followed by the Xfinity race on Saturday, which will feature Vegas local Riley Herps. On Sunday, March 3rd, before the roar of the engines, we'll kick it off with a great pre-race concert by country duo Maddie and Tay, followed by driver introductions. The green flag waves for the first non-restricted engine race of the season. Check out local favorites, Kyle Bush and Noah Gregson as they race the rest of the NASCAR's biggest stars to see who captures the record flag. Man, I've been to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. That track is awesome. It is. Glitz, glamour, and gasoline all wrapped up in the NASCAR race weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

I cannot wait for this. Let's get it. We're live, Dale. All right, everybody. Hey, thanks for tuning in to Ask Junior today. I'm excited for everybody to hear today's show. We've had fun clowning around and being idiots and talk about Atlanta. We had our winner, Daniel Suarez, call in, so it's been a fun morning. This Wednesday's guest is Waddell Wilson, famed Hall of Fame Engine Builder.

But we're doing some Ashtuner right now. I want to say, hey to all the NASCAR fans out there, now you can get the speed that you need on and off the track with Xfinity Mobile. It's the fastest mobile service with 5G and millions of Wi-Fi hotspots. and with its nationwide coverage, you'll know that it's always going to come through in a clutch. Make the switch today, and you can save with Xfinity Mobile.

Xfinity is a proud premier partner of NASCAR. I just read that they may be working on an extension to continue their partnership in the Xfinity series, which would be extremely nice. It would. They've been great to us here at Dirtymo Media and the Dell Jr. download. We're thankful for that.

So anyways, Andrew, you've got some great questions. today. We've got some good ones today. Yes. This first question comes from Corey, and it's kind of a follow-up from last week. Someone asked, do the girls play any sports? Would you be a good, you know, youth sports coach? I think so. Yeah? Soccer. You'd be good soccer coach? I went, I went with, I've been around a buddy of mine. He's got a couple girls, and he'll go to the games with his girls. And so I went with him a time or two, and that looks like a lot of fun. And I, I And I think going with my friend has helped me understand that, okay, you got to put a five or six-year-old out on the field, right?

When you put them in the yard and you're like, I kick the ball this way and that way, they do a great job, right? Kick it in the net, great. Okay, we've got it. We figured it out. Then you put them in the game, and it ends up being like just this pack of girls. And they're all just kind of kicking, kicking, kicking.

and the ball is like the ball's like just jiggling around like a pinball in a machine and the mob just kind of moves around on this big field right and eventually it gets closer to one of the goals and maybe it goes in or maybe it doesn't yeah and it might move around it's just kind of jiggling around this old mob of girls and it's just kick kick kick the pack follows the ball everybody's legs are just just going um trying to make contact with the ball but and that's the game So how would you coach that? You don't. You don't.

You just let it. So I can do that. I can go stand on the sideline with the parents. With a coach on my back of my shirt. No, I think I think I could do that. I could coach a little league soccer or I don't know what they call it. Yeah, something like that. Youth soccer.

Youth soccer. Yes. Youth soccer, right? Yeah. Would you do a lot of conditioning? A lot of running drills? I mean, you know, we would be, we would do something, but I mean, I wouldn't put too much behind it. Teams got to be in shape, though, man.

They're in shape. I mean, we were all in shape at five years old. Come on. This next question, coming from the YouTube chat from Timothy, and I know you've been busy working around the house. Any house projects that have been going on, at least there was an unexpected one last week. some water we had a water I came home and there's water dripping out of the ceiling in an outdoor kitchen so luckily the water was outside right not dripping down in the inside the house but it's like outside down by my outdoor kitchen it's pouring out of the ceiling and so a line busted that was going to the kitchen sink and so my house was built in 2000 And we all the elbows and T's in the water are made of copper by this. And it's a, and the material deteriorated quickly over six or eight years.

And so they're all breaking, right? We went through the whole house, we went through the whole house, tried to replace everyone we could and found 95% of them. But there's a couple still left. These were in a long, these were just coupling. that put a line together. It wasn't a T or an elbow. And they were hidden in foam insulation

because it was outdoor line that needed to be insulated. And so we had never seen them to be able to know they were there to replace them. But there's water coming out of this foam insulation. And I'm like, well, the the pipes busted somewhere in that. So I had to get up, climb up in there

with a straight razor and cut the foam off of that line for about 10 feet. the hot and the cold and replaced both of them. The plumber came to replace them. But I found the spot where it was leaking so that we could get that done quickly. You sprung into action. I'm hands-on, man.

No fear. No fear. You've got to just jump right in. If you make it worse, somebody can fix it. Yeah. Right? Don't be scared to screw it up. Has there been a moment where you've made it worse?

Oh, yeah. I can fix. I'll tell Amy, like, look, I can fix. at all the things that break let me try to fix it 80% of the time I will 20% of the time I'll make it worse and we'll get the right person in to fix it's a good ratio

but I think that's a good ratio do you remember the last thing you're like this is we need to call the guy now I mean it's happened I don't remember the bad points I don't remember the things that don't work out you don't dwell the negatives this next question is coming from Mark and that's actually funny

we had this conversation in the preseason and they're asking about the Oreo car that has kind of like the Exalta paint scheme colors, like the red and yellow Oreo car. And I was wondering if there's any interesting story and I know I think there is. Did we not tell that?

We didn't tell it on the show. Yeah. So, yeah, these are silly. When I was a little kid, I had a bunch of Maxbox cars and one of my favorites had that yellow to red fade. And I'd never, you know, if you're someone who loves the design of a race car, you'll remember some of your favorite ones over time and over, over history.

And that little die cast car, I was like, man, that's cool. When they started giving me more freedom on designing my own cars and stuff, I saw it. And there it is right there. Yeah. I thought, I'm going to run that design on a car. I'm going to get it in there somewhere, right? And they came to me and I said, so the Ritz. box is sort of similar

to that. Those are the Ritz box colors, right? And so yeah, I threw this idea at them. We mocked it up and I never expected them to approve it. The Oreo and Ritz people. But they did. They're like, oh, great.

And I'm like, damn. I can't believe I pulled that off. Yeah, and so we took it the racetrack and yeah, I think we won. That was one of our three in a row, 2000, maybe two, two, 2003. And so I ended up running that again in Exalta car. Right, yeah. In 2017, maybe. I think that, yeah, around that time. 2016. Yeah. But, yeah. So I was able to get it back out there. And like when we were talking about this before the season, just looking at this car, like nothing about that screams Oreo. No. I know it. Nope. I couldn't believe. I ran that. I couldn't believe they were like, yes, we like it.

I'm like, damn. Really? Who doesn't love it? love a good fade. Yeah. I love those colors and I loved it on the 2017 car you ran. It's very cool. Makes me a nice. Right. This is a fun one. I think I know your answer. We got time for one more. Bart in the YouTube chat wants to know if you would ever run a half marathon. No. No. No. Not a chance. Not even if it was with Andrew. I can't run two miles. I got to stop a walk a little bit. Well, you can do it in two mile increments then. You can do it. Put your mind Is it really a half marathon if you're running it in two mile chunks? It's about the completion, man.

Yeah. Yeah. People walk half marathons. You can do it. All right. Well, then I have ran a half marathon. Hey, that's it. It took me about four years.

But I did run one actually. I ran a full marathon. In 2017, I ran multiple. Just with a lot of breaks in between. In 2017, I'm pretty sure I ran several marathons. Now that we're. Well, congratulations. That truck race at Daytona was like a marathon

And they only ran it two miles at a time I Hey I'm not in peak physical condition these days I rode I rode my bike a bunch Especially that last year of racing in the Cup series I rode my bike 2,400 miles In 2017

And then the next year Less and less and less Until now like I might get on it twice this year I want to ride it more But I'm lazy, you know. Well, we'll get you back. Yeah.

But I never loved running, hated running. Yeah. And I have, like, I get sore all over running. But riding the bike, I don't have that problem. And I feel like I'm, but I do need to get back on the bike. We'll get you back. Get on that Zwift. I do.

Yeah. I'm set up. I got my work. I got my Zwift on, nobody cares about this. But, yeah. Yeah. I mean, if we, if some. If somebody said, hey, man, we're going to jump up and run a mile.

I could do it. Okay. Fast as hell. What are you doing right now? But I'd be, I'd nearly die at the end of it. Yeah. But you'd get it done. But my determination, dogged determination and willpower would prevail.

Nice. And I would blister the mile, but I would almost nearly die. Yes. All right. Well, you know what, folks, tune in next week. Dale's going to run that mile live here on Ash Jr. And we're going to ask you questions during it. Brought to you by Xfinity.

He's going to do it as fast as Xfinity 5G. Yeah, yeah. As fast as Xfinity 5G. There you go. All right. That's a good place, Rash Jr. this week. Appreciate it, y'all. Thanks to Xfinity for turning us on to some great service.

I'm a customer and have been a customer now for about four and a half years. It's been great. But we're promoting the Xfinity Mobile. So check that out. 5G service, millions of Wi-Fi hotspots everywhere. Thank you, Xfinity. Prout premier partner of NASCAR. All right, everybody.

It's time for the white flag. Jeff Gluck, Jordan Bianchi, recap the action from Atlanta on Sunday night. Jeff Gluck's good race pole was doing incredible numbers the last time I looked at it. I think it's a new record. Fourth? Oh my God. Fourth? Yeah.

It's behind three Bristol races. Wow. But it's the first non-Bristole. Man, imagine if they put asphalt on Bristol. Denny Hamlin returned from Atlanta and reveals he did something for the first time ever in a race car. You'll have to tune in to see what I'm talking about. but the story, I don't know if incredible is the word. I should have written that.

Door bumper clear had their hands full on the roof this weekend and returned to tell us all about it from their perspective. Another episode of Speed Street drops tomorrow, looking forward to seeing what Connor and Chase have in store for us. And Dirty Mo Doe with Steve LaTart returns this Thursday, proving everything ahead of Las Vegas. So it's going to be a full week here on Dirty Mo Media as usual. And tomorrow again, Wydell Wilson is on the show.

Have a good one. We'll see you. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.