The Dale Jr. Download - 530 - Martinsville: It's Beyond Panic Time

Episode Date: April 9, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the Bojangles Studio for another edition of Dirty Air. After another frustrating short track race for the NASCAR NextGen car, there was a lot to get into: Denny Hamlin/Marcus Smith Twitter beef Martinsville Cup winner William Byron calls in The sense of urgency to fix the short track package is FINALLY here Sammy Smith tries out Cherry Lemon SunDrop Dale’s advice for JRM driver Sam Mayer During the Ask Jr. portion of the show, listeners wanted to know about: Watching the solar eclipse What the typical lazy day is like Getting a shout-out from J Cole 21+ and present in NC. First online real money wager only. $10 Deposit req. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at fanduel.com/sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 877-718-5543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov. 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. It's Dirty Air on a Tuesday. We're going to talk about Martinsville and the Earnhardt Easter gathering. That's right. We keep on gathering for Easter. And also, William Byron, the winner of the race is going to call in. It's going to be a great show. Let's get to it. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Who's the new guy?

In the studio for Dirty Air. And then Dale started singing. 99 bottles of beer. 99 bottles of beer. It's human. There are some voices on the show that you're going to hear Andrew. Also, Dalton. I feel like I complain too much.

All right, man, here in the Bojangles Studio. Another episode of Dale Jr. download. And now through May 5th, you can get your hands on two free bird dogs by using promo code Dale Jr. When you place an order on Bojangles.com or in the app at participating stores. That's the code D-A-L-L-J-R for two free bird dogs. with your online or Bojangles app order. Get them while they're hot.

Bird dogs. I love saying that. It's fun. Yeah. I don't know if I have been dreading this or looking forward to it. I'm here with Dalton and Andrew and Alex back there. We are one day into a week of, you know, just a lot of complaining. A lot of complaining going on.

I, you know, the tear down, Jeff Gluck had his rant. He wakes up the next morning, comes on Twitter and apologizes. Feels bad that he might have went a little too strong in the paint. And I had a reply to that thinking that, you know, I've done that so many times on this show. Come in here, you're all pissed off.

Even after two, you know, you get a day to think about it on Monday. You still come in here and you're all pissed off. And you guys, y'all work me up. Y'all get me all spun around. It's our job. You come out, you leave the room, and you're like, damn it. You know, because sometimes, you know, we're talking about the race this past weekend at Martinsville and how frustrating it was in this current state of short track racing.

If you've, you know, if you've been on social media or listening to any of the journalism and media coming out of the, you know, around the sport in the last 24 to 36 hours, it's been pretty hard. And I was really pissed off yesterday and hesitant about coming in here and piling on today. Anyways, let's get into the show. So...

I can sense the frustration. Yeah, it's... And this is real, man. I mean, this is the way everybody feels this week. It sucks for NASCAR because there's a lot of great things going on in the sport, man. Yeah. But that's also a frustrating thing.

We're going to go to a mile and a half and everything's going to be great. sun will be shining 70 degrees outside you know you ain't got you know you got a long runway before we go back to a short track where they'll be probably disappointed again yeah you know before we get into all of that just wanted to tell you a couple things been going on in my life everybody we'll catch up on what's going on in each other's lives

earnhart's got together at the western town on my property sunday I love that man. Hey, I know Easter was a week ago, but we've got this new commitment in our family to get together, to be together. We do it on the best possible afternoon where everybody can do it. This happened, you know, if it's a week after the holiday,

it's a week after the holiday. We're still going to get together. Appreciate that commitment. My sister Kelly, a lot of the females in the family are responsible for that motivation and gathering efforts. but that was a lot of fun being together. The kids, you know, we hit Easter eggs

and the kids did all the things, hayride, all that stuff. Easter Bunny shows up. So that was good stuff. Also, one of our guests on the show this year, I think it was this year. Cody Rhodes. No, it was last year. Last year. At the end of the last year. Cody Rhodes won the World Championship Belt

on WrestleMania. That's pretty awesome. Big deal. I don't know. man, I felt like that, you know, we've had him in the studio. We all got to sit down and listen to this dude. He's freaking super normal, super cool, very humble. I watched a press conference after

WrestleMania. I haven't watched wrestling in years. I've been in and out, right? I've talked about it. I had these, you know, in the 80s, I was heavily committed Saturday morning, right after cartoons, Dusty Roads, Magnum T.A., Rick Flair, the Fourshman, all that. Then I disappeared for a while. I didn't care about it anymore.

Stone Cold comes in, bam, I'm back in. Stone Cold, but this dude's awesome. I can really, this guy looks like somebody lives in town here, right? He looks like a normal dude. I can get back in the rock and all that started happening. That was a great little run. And I was in, hardcore. And then when Stone Cold phased out, I phased out.

And so now, I think what I like about it, I can't speak for everybody that's in that arena at WrestleMania. but what I'm enjoying about it, why I watched, I know it's scripted. I know they all know going into the match what the outcome is. But I also know Cody's story, his real story, right? As the son of Dusty Roads, working his way into the business,

having sort of being miscast, right, in his first run with the WWE, having to leave, go create his own, image make that undeniable for the WWE they bring him back in and he get he he he he does he does so much self created this persona that he has to the point that they made the push for him to win the world championship wow yeah that's incredible yeah and so that's why I to see if they would actually let him win it.

Was it going to be, were they going to let him win this? Or were they going to continue this sort of narrative that the roads are always going to almost get there, right? Like his dad and him were always, because that's the cell. If you look back over time, right, Roman Raines has had the championship for three years. And Rick Flair had it forever. They were all heels.

The cell is the, the cell really is, that the hill's always the champion and the the hero is almost always chasing and almost getting there and that that's what keeps us watching is like will he win it tonight oh maybe tomorrow will he win it tonight oh maybe tomorrow well they finally let the hero win what how did they how how do they how do they and and there's been times when the baby face or the good guys been the champion. It's rare, though. How, what is, I'm curious just to see how they've written this script, right? What plays out? I, I admittedly don't watch it, but something you said there was

pretty interesting. Like, while it is scripted, Cody Rhodes can take this as a personal accomplishment. Yes. Right? Because of how he's carried himself, how he's, you know, It's just like when you enter into any business or any sort of role and you excel, right, and you go up the ladder and you're doing all these things that are getting you promotions and creating this, you know, creating a reputation as a hard worker, a good guy that's a go-getter, you're going to be given new opportunities. And he did that for himself outside of the WWE so much so that they thought, damn we were wrong we miscast you the first time the first run what you're doing now is amazing we

want that come on in here not only do we want that as part of our show where there's you know dozens and dozens of of of characters right we're gonna you're gonna win the ultimate prize be the face yes yeah so pretty impressive man anyways to i said all that to answer is to answer the of why do I watch or why did I watch why did I get why did I turn tune back in back in right because I kind of if you if you listen to our show with Cody you might also kind of get plugged in to right to watching it right so what also the rock right he's gonna he's he's he's gonna take off do a movie or something right then come back probably be interesting and what happens to Rowan Reyes now that was the

you know a champion for three three some years or whatever right what happened what they do with him. What's his deal? You'll have to watch. Yeah. Oh, did y'all see? I'm sure you did. Morgan Walling through the chair off the top of the chiefs. Yeah. That's my guy's bar. Right. He feels Eric, a new chair. Eric Church opens up a new bar. Like that weekend. Yeah, on Broadway. On Broadway in Nashville. And Morgan goes and gets wild and ends up throwing a chair. I wonder if Eric Church was like, calling him up and like, hey, hey, man, that's not helping. Yeah. Right.

And it happened at like 10.30. I didn't know it happened then. I know it happened on Sunday night, though. I'm going to tell you, man, I would throw parties back in the day, right? And you always had like that guy or that friend that was always going to probably maybe do like the party stopper thing at some point in the night. Right. And you just hope that it was like, you know, one, two in the morning, not at 10.30. Right.

You know, he's going to punch your buddy from high school or. You know, hit on somebody's girl. Exactly. And it's going to be, you know, party's over. Big fight. That's it. It can't be doing stuff at 1030. No.

You can't throw. Well, you can't be throwing chairs, period, I think. Off a six-story building. TJ was like, man, we used to go the boxing ring. That was a party stopper. Because, you know, we'd go, we'd raise hell and go to the boxing ring. That was where we're going to end up. Because we, you know, you're hanging out and partying this.

Like, well, who can beat up who? I think you can beat up this guy Bull crap That's how every party should end up But I told TJ I was like that was always two, three in a morning Never at 10.30 On a Sunday night too Jeff Gluck's rant

We talked about that Top of the show live I did oh you did Oh yeah I went back and listened to it You guys put a clip out If Jeff Gluck felt bad About going a little hard on

NASCAR and short track racing Good job on Dirty Mo Media for cutting a clip and putting it out for everybody to see. So, this is so funny. So I went downstairs to the social room. I'm like, did you guys see Jeff Gluck? He tweeted.

He's like, he felt bad about it. And Colby's like, I just cut that clip. I know. He just, that's what he, I think that's what he were quoted. He quoted it on Twitter, the clip that you made. I wonder if Jeff is, if that's a new experience for Gluck. They've been doing the tear down forever. But would they then cut clips and put it on social media?

and would it be out of his control what clip would be cut? I mean, not that he can't come in here and say, hey, man, take the clip down. Right. But I wonder if since joining with us, now that we're, you know, chopping clips and sending out sound bites, he's like, oh, goodness. I said that. Wow, I didn't know it was going to get this, you know, I didn't know it was going to get put on the front page, right? Right. I didn't know it's going to get pushed out and promoted so much.

I'm curious, Jeff. But anyways, you know, I feel like a lot of looking at the comments in social media about Jeff's rant. I think he was speaking for, you know, I think he was saying a lot of things everybody agrees with. And I don't think that he got unprofessional at any point. That's what's different between, I think, me and Jeff. Jeff can get in there, get frustrated and say, man, I got to get this all my chance. chest. To his point, it's right after the race, and he fired in there, and he got to it and said what he needed to say, but he didn't get personal, right? And he didn't talk in circles.

Me, I get mad, I get personal, I'll talk in circles. I'll say something, just like Kenny Wallace, I'll say something and take eight minutes when it only needs about two. Yeah. Did you see that shit? Yeah. That was hilarious. He sped up the video too. He's like, people say I talk too long. And he's like going like double sweet. This is hilarious. So Kenny Wallace, one of our great friends, also a great content creator. He's on a run, dude.

He's doing some fun stuff on social media and YouTube. He goes on social media and does a lot on X. He tweets a ton. And so he said something about the argument on social media between Denny, And Marcus Smith. Oh, yeah. He made this eight-minute video about it. And somebody commented, right?

The first comment was like, you took eight minutes to do something that you could have said in two. And I knew immediately that he was going to do something about that. And so he made a eight-minute video and sped it up so fast that it would play in two minutes. That's funny. Talking at the speed of light. It was so funny. And it's so damn funny.

He's like, I finally figured it out. I finally figured it out. And he said this video, he's like this video. And he says stuff that nobody else is willing to say. Now. He says something like to the tune of, this is for you. He says, this is for you guys who make love to your wife in two minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I thought, what in the hell? Who says that? And then he goes on to describe how. he and his wife. Good for him. Good for you, Jenny. Oh, and it was, he is a mess. He is a mess. Oh, man.

But I'm thankful. That, you know, that's, that's something that can make us laugh on this Tuesday after the last several hours of frustration. You mentioned it. What's your two-minute take on? Danny and Marcus. Unfortunate.

Between them both. I went on Twitter and said they both need to have some app limits. Yeah. I've been using app limits. That would have been avoided with that. 30 minutes on my social media apps. Now I damn ignore the hell out of them. I do.

You hit the 50 more minutes. No. I hit the ignore for the rest of the day. What are the point? What's the point? But it's like, hey, I think it's good. So you know how long you've been on there? Yeah, because I'm hitting this app limit sometimes later in the day.

And I'm like, hey, good job, self. You haven't really been on social media much today. Good job. Pat yourself on the back. And then I'll hit it at 9 o'clock in the morning and be like, all right, dude. All right, now you've got to get control of this. Getting a little out of hand early in the day. I already hit the limit.

So that's what the limit's doing. They need the appellants. It was midnight when this was going on. Yeah. It could have been avoided unless they both hit 50 more minutes. Not a lot of great things will be tweeted after midnight. It's the 9-9-9 rule. Is that right?

Before 9 a.m., nothing after 9 p.m. Okay. Yep. Yep. Shoo. It was just, I mean, listen, this is the thing. Marcus, that was way out of character. and he was jabbing at Denny for not having a championship.

Just out of character. I would rather that not have happened, right? Denny. Yeah. So Denny, this is Denny. This is who Denny is. Unapologetic. When you go at him, he's coming.

He's going to get personal. That's what he said in the Netflix show. He was like, I don't give a crap. He don't. Yeah. And Denny, listen, I can be friends with Denny, but I know that he has that flaw, right? He has that ability to do something or say something

that just makes you want to. Exactly. And he can be hurtful, you know, and he can be mean. You know what I mean? And unnecessarily like, you know, if you like, I guess for a racing reference, if you put a donut on his car, he's going to give you two back, right? It's not eye for an eye. He's going to go harder and unnecessary.

And so the fun, the interesting thing, not the fun thing, I was going to say funny, the interesting thing about it is, is listening to everybody talk about how it's deeper conversation than just the, just the paving job going awry, right? There is this personal, and Denny talked about that. He didn't he talked about it on his show and admitted that this goes way back. Didn't him have tried to sit down and come to some mutual respect, I suppose, for each other's position as they're battling through this charter agreement.

And it was interesting to me, what I thought initially was just two guys being unnecessary there's history there's history and there's deep you know mistrust and and and frustration with each other denny sees Marcus as the the face of the track you know the the face of the track owner who's arguing for their their portion of the TV money and Marcus sees Denny as someone who's not educated even as an owner on how all of the entities in this sport work together. And so, well, Denny thinks he knows everything he needs to know to feel confident about his argument.

He knows, hey, I'm spending X, and I'm telling you I'm spending this. I know how much this costs me. I'm giving you my books. Here's everything. This is why we need help. Here's the answer. And the tracks are never going to do that. They're never going to open their books up.

To Denny's, you know, Denny's saying, well, it's because they made. make millions and millions of dollars. Well, yes. No company that's making that kind of money is going to make their information available. Yeah. Because then that information can then find its way

outside of this conversation that he's having with Denny. Right? That ain't good. No company, you know, outside of these race teams, is in the practice of sharing what their bottom dollar is and how their X's as a nose line up, right? financially. Nobody's... To ask, to expect

Marcus to come be transparent with his books? No. That's not a realistic expectation. And so, but it's just, it was unfortunate. I'm, it did nothing for the sport. It really, it made us all kind of look a little weird,

but, and, you know, I wish it hadn't happened. I think it shows that times are kind of tense with these negotiations, though. I mean, right? Like, yeah, times or tense. It still seems like we can't find that common ground.

It's kind of one of those things, though, man. It don't affect me. I don't give it. Yeah. I really don't have a dog in the fight. It don't affect me. Whatever they end up agreeing on is what they agree on. It doesn't change the way I watch a race.

It doesn't change how much I, you know, how much I'm spinning at the grocery store. I mean, it don't affect me. So honestly, I don't care. We'll debate, you know, the agreement as they go through that process. The one thing I do care about is that NASCAR is healthy, financially, and NASCAR is successful. I want the tracks to be successful, and I want to teams to be successful. But, I mean, I really could care less about the numbers and what percentage ends up where. and I mean, look, I want the charters, this is my own personal opinion and position because I wanted to be a car owner and now I see that as an impossible situation.

Like imagine that your, you know, your dream was to be involved in racing your entire life in some way, right? And we're doing that as Xfinity owners because we can. Right? If it was a $10 million charter buy to get into the Xfinity series, I wouldn't be in it. If I had to buy a charter to race in the truck or Xfinity series, I'd be out. I'm not doing that.

And so I grew up in a NASCAR where if you wanted to build a race car, go cup racing, you built one and you raced. And that's not the reality. anymore, you know. You got to have a charter. You got to spend millions of dollars just to be able to enter the contest, right? And so I guess, you know, for, you know, the 66 car, they, you know, car along and those guys, they came and showed up a race this weekend, but is that realistic to be an open team and come

compete and financially be able to at least break even. If I could race in the Cup Series and break even, that'd be great. I love, I love, we break even here. You know, if we make a little money, we make a little money. But it ain't about, like, I don't care about being financially successful in NASCAR. I just want to race. I just want to be in it. I just love it.

It's what I do. It's what we've done forever. But to now be an owner in the Cup series feels like it's, It's only for a certain club, right? Right. I'm not in that club. The money and the expense and the cost to be able to get those charters, that is out of my range, boys. And so to do it now, I'd need big partners, people that want to come in and financially back the actual investment.

And now I'm part of something. It's not yours. It ain't D.E.I. It ain't Rous. It ain't Hendrick, right? So do you want to do that or no, right? I don't know. We're getting into weeds.

I told you I wasn't going to do that today. All right, so let's bring William Bairn in this week's winner. Hey, William, it's Jr. What are you doing, buddy? Hey, man. How are you? I'm doing good. Where are you at?

You at work? I'm at the shop. Yeah, I see the building in the background. Look familiar. Yeah, yeah, back here behind the gate. But just doing some of our Texas prep. Okay, so where you're going in for Texas prep? Is that, what happens today?

Comp meeting, was comp meeting yesterday? Yeah, comp meetings are yesterday. So basically what we've been doing is just kind of, we meet for about an hour about the next track on Tuesday, my team, and then we go some weeks, we go to the simulator, which this week we're going to a simulator after that. And then other weeks we just, we don't go to Sim, but we just talk a little bit more.

Yeah. Well, congratulations on this past weekend, man. you had an awesome race car. Thank you. Yeah. Hey, what does that feel like to go back there and run that well? Having had the experience you did at the end of last year, man. I mean, I don't think I've ever seen your ass kick like that the way it was at the end of that Martinsville race,

trying to stay alive in the playoffs. And you got out of the car. I mean, literally your race at the end of the last year at Martinsville came down to the last handful of laps in the last few positions. and you just were gas, right? And y'all weren't fast. You know, what the car was a struggle. So to go back there and be that great, man, I mean, how in the hell does that happen?

Yeah. Yeah, man, I think that last, that fall race was just a little bit of a nightmare in real time. You know, it was just, it just from how hot it was, you know, basically as soon as we took the green, like how hot I was inside the car, and then how bad the car was handling, obviously. all that stuff, you know, doesn't help. And then, you know, just realizing that, man, I got a lot of work to do to get in shape. And then just, just different things.

But our car this time around was, yeah, I mean, so good. Like, you can tell, I mean, you've driven, you know, like, you can tell in the first 10, 15 laps whether you have a really good car. And so I felt like as soon as we took off in the race, I'm like, man, this thing, you know, it's doing everything I want it to do. I can turn, get under people, exit off the corner and get beside them. And that was tough to do with this package, obviously, as we saw. So it just, it was just cool to be able to pass people that early in the race and know that we had something to work with. Yeah, it was awesome to see, man. Not many people were able to pass.

And I thought about this for the past 24 hours. There's been a lot of conversation around the short track package, a lot of complaining, rightfully so. but there is a hell of a story that happened Sunday, and that is Hendrick Motorsports going back to Martinsville on the anniversary of the very first win 40 years ago. And not only did Rick Hendrick and Hendrick Motorsports get the win, but literally nearly dominated the race. I know Bowman finished a couple spots back,

but all of you were in the top 10 all day long. it's really impressive when a team when there's something unique and special on the line isn't it interesting how we find a way to gain a little more or be a little bit better than normal when there's you see it in the championship race when the four title contenders go and race at Phoenix at the end of the year they all run great

right it's almost a gift sort of felt the same way yesterday like Hendrick wasn't going to be denied all the cars were the best cars in the field. Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, it kind of, it bums me out sometimes. People think it's like a conspiracy. And it's just, to your point, it's, it is that it's every little effort. It's every detail that people put in that is a little bit above and beyond what you would normally do. And when you stack hundreds and thousands of those things into the effort that weekend, that that's the result.

So it just, I mean, I feel like. as a driver, my only piece of that puzzle is, like, when I got to the racetrack on Saturday, like, I knew I had prepared as well as I could. I knew I had slept as well as I could. And then when I got in the race car, I wanted to make sure that I was, you know, doing every little thing, right. So, you know, we do that all, all the every week. But to your point, like, that only happens a few times a year, like in the championship race, if you're fortunate enough to be in it, if you're the Daytona 500, there's certain ones that you're like, man, I want to make sure I put my best effort, you know, into this. And, and, um, that's how it felt. Like,

when we got out there, that's why I qualified, I was so pissed off. I mean, I, I got to the media center and, like, I didn't want to talk because I'm like, I just, like, I feel like we just screwed up our whole weekend. It's so hard to pass. And, um, so I think getting through that hurdle as a team and being able to, to go out there on Sunday and have a great car was, was great. But, uh, yeah, you just put a little more emphasis in it. Man, I'm telling you another thing. I want to ask you one more question before we let you go. There's a lot of conversation going around about how you have won more races than any other driver in the next gen era.

I think that obviously it says a lot about how you've adapted to this car and how you are training and preparing and putting you're sort of like the best example of how to adapt to this new car. I also think it says a lot about you. as your driving career, you are sort of shaping into one of the, you're a star now, but you're like, you've got this real potential to have some career longevity and win multiple races a year for a very

long time, which would then put you into this category like, you know, Junior Johnson, Denny Hamlin and all the guys that are 50 and more in wins. I see you going that way. We've talked about that. And I see you changing as a man. I see you. you I see you maturing, getting more confident to share your opinion, to speak out about, you know, just being more animated, I guess, in how your career is going or how your day win or whatever, right? You're just a bit more competent to speak. And I just, you know, I just got to ask you, man, you've got to feel great about where you are professionally and personally in your life, you know, and how sustainable is this? You've been racing for a very short period

of time, to be honest with you. You know, a lot of these guys start really, really young. You've got to feel pretty good about your position and you're kind of nearly at the top, right? You're on the cusp of winning that championship and that's got to feel pretty good. You've got to be able to see it right there at the tip of your fingers. I do. I mean, I think it's just, yeah, I appreciate that. I think the next-gen era kind of coincided with me just starting to get comfortable in my racing career and not, you know, for the longest time, I felt like an outsider because I started so different than everyone else.

And in a lot of ways, that was true. I was really green. My racecraft and just some of the, some of my understanding was really fresh and green. And so my confidence has come from just being around and being able to kind of grow into the sport and I feel I feel like what I have going for me that is maybe a little different is like I'm not burned

out and I wouldn't say I don't know if anyone is but I just I know that I'm still I still have such a passion and interest for racing and it's just continuing to grow and so I love what I do and I feel like that's going to continue and

as long as that continues I feel like I can have success because I know when I get up in the morning I love what I do and um you know in my and my life is really balanced right now I think I've had more balance in my life and that's allowing me to kind of enjoy the time away from the track a little more and not be so anxious and uptight because when I got in the cup series I could barely handle the anxiety and the nerves that came with with trying to compete because I just didn't feel good enough and so um I think that that confidence is kind of grown and I'm still getting

out of my show it's still hard for me to talk publicly because like I am a bit, I just feel a bit uncomfortable with it all. Like it's all kind of a dream. So it's, so yeah, I'm getting more comfortable. I love doing it and I just want to keep, you know, working with my team and try to, like, that's what I want to go to the racetrack to do is try to, try to win more races. Yeah. I think you, you hit it perfectly there. We can see you getting more comfortable and seeing, seeing you trust, you know, trust the media and trust you know the fans and sharing your your your personal life and and your your your your likes and dislikes and all those things so um we're thankful for that man and

it's it's fun to watch uh keep doing what you're doing man you're kicking ass uh we appreciate you giving us some time today we know you're busy and i hope it's a great week for you and uh good luck this weekend yeah man i appreciate it i'll have a good one yes sir pretty cool man to see him be so honest there at that last question, you know, how he was so a bit uncomfortable when he came in. That's what I've been seeing. I really couldn't articulate it as good as he did.

You know, he came, he seemed, yeah, he was young. He was green. He was raw. He was shy. And which was perfectly fine. And we love William. We've, we've, he's a great dude.

We've known him for a long time, right? As he's raised here for junior emergency sports. but in the last, I guess, you know, year, where he's turning into a man, right? He's filling out, right? And he's personality-wise and so forth. He's starting to sort of claim a little, you know, a little property. He's claiming a little bit of the, you know, his place in the sport.

And, I mean, you can't deny it when you look at the stats and see how many wins he has compared to everybody else in the next-gen car. You can't deny it when you learn about his preparation and effort and how much he really has no distractions. It's, he, you know, there's a lot of racers like that, and credit to them. He focuses on racing and he has other hobbies that are not very consuming, right? And so that, you know, when he needs to pick up that thought about racing or get back into that prep mode on any given day of the week, he's ready. and he talked about not being burned out, finding that balance.

That's so smart. That is so damn smart, man, because you can easily, easily get burned out with the schedule that these drivers have, the teams have, and the week day-to-day stuff during the week, it's 10 times more than I ever had to do,

and hell, I had to be worried about getting burned out. How would you manage that? Because I'm sure there were moments where she's like, God, I've got to go back to the racetrack again, like I was just at another racetrack. Right. I mean, I, I, this is, this was, this is not advice. This is bad advice.

But this is what I did. Okay. You know, I was, I was going to get with my buddies and party. I, I, I, dude, I felt like I didn't run as good, a race is good. If I didn't blow off some steam on a Tuesday or Wednesday night. And, you know, when I started racing for Hendrick, you know, I tried to clean it up a little bit. You know, they were, they were, you know, some of the people in the, in, in, you know, in, you know, the building we're like you know you're not as you know jimmy's in great shape look at what he does

you should be doing these things and i'm like jimmy's jimmy right but okay you know i'm gonna work i'll do better i'm a i'm a'll lose some weight i'm gonna work out i'm gonna i'm gonna do these new things to try to be in better physical shape right and better mental shape and you know i would sustain from drinking or something for a couple weeks man and i the results didn't change for me and then I'd go part of my buddies or something or have friends over on a Tuesday night and we'd damn kick ass on the race weekend. And I just was like, maybe I'm just one of the old guards, man.

You know, like, you know, I need to, you know, I need to drink and smoke some cigarettes. Go kick ass, right? Hey, Babe Ruth did it, man. Yeah, so I don't know. But that's, I would, that would be, that would absolutely not be the advice I would give to any driver, any young guy.

you know i pride um you know a carschen quaple a kid who's just you know sort of turning into that you know that 20 21 year old where they're in that vulnerable stage of oh man now i can go buy a beer or uh you know and and i can go out with my buddies that's a very tricky time for somebody who's trying to break in uh to a NASCAR career as a driver right it's a very tricky time and so you don't listen you don't have to be a square you can go have some fun but if i hear you're you know saeed's on a tuesday and wednesday every freaking week that's not the guy i'm gonna think it's gonna make it no all right i don't even though i was that guy you know and i i you know that's a that's another long story we're we're getting in the weeds again but i think i'm pretty

clear. I did it my way. Wasn't the best way. Definitely not the optimum way to do it. William is a great example of the perfect way to be successful in this sport. Where Jimmy Johnson was that example in the past, I would say William and others are a great example of how you should approach it. Doorbubber Clear probably hammered this home yesterday about short track racing. Everybody has their opinion. Drivers you know, we're talking horsepower. Jeff Gluck had his rant. Everybody is, everybody, Bob Prochrist, everybody's out there in the NASCAR ecosystem

giving their thoughts, right? I'm quite, I'm beyond burned out on complaining about this short track package, right? And I don't know what the episode numbers are, but there's plenty of opportunities to go back and listen to other shows. I literally had a note in my phone that I kept up until just, shoot, several weeks ago, that was answer, my opinion about answers of how to fix the short track package.

I don't feel like going over all of the things I would do to the car. It's not good. I am glad to see other people feel the way I feel. If you go back a year ago and listen, even recently, hey man, I'm worried about Wilkesboro. We finally got this track back, but the short track package is no good.

We may, you know, how can we, how can Wilkesboro succeed if we don't put a good product on that racetrack? We argued about it last week. We didn't argue about it. We talked about it last week. We left Richmond. And Jordan Bianchi and those guys,

are convinced, oh, we don't need a second date there. You see that damn race? We go to Martinsville.

We have a similar night. And now we've got the urgency. We got to fix this, man. That's the urgency that I've been

waiting on. Where are y'all been? Where's everybody been? Everybody wanted to take a date away from Richmond last week. Silly as shit

ever heard of my life. But You know, now we're finally urgent about getting the short track package right. Right? I'm about to get pissed off. So, you know, it really made me angry that we walked out of Richmond and said, man, that track don't need a second date. We need to go somewhere else.

No, that's not true. And then we, you know, we have the race we have at Martinsville, and now everybody says, oh, my God. Hit the panic button. Dude, I was hitting that freaking button a year ago. It's beyond panic time. All right? We're already, it's panic time last week when you're talking about taking a date away from a racetrack.

Man? So, anyhow. I mean, what are they going to do? Take a date away from Martinsville? We're just going to not go to these tracks. We're just going to quit going to them. feels like the cheap what, like we're giving up on ourselves versus trying to find a way to fix.

I think the problem is, like, we know Martinsville can be better. Oh yeah. You know? Look, I will promise you that, I will promise you that NASCAR wants nothing more than a fantastic short track experience. Package racing, they want it. They're not sitting here letting this die on purpose.

That's not really what people. Nobody would do that. That is not what they're doing. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's going the other way into bonkers. All right. Nobody's going to intentionally let this play out so that we just,

the short track. you know, the short track element in the NASCAR schedule just evaporates. That is not what's going to happen, and that's not what NASCAR wants. They want to fix it, but man, there's this weird, very difficult dynamic that has been created when, so 20 years ago or even more than that, I guess you could go back 30 years ago, right? Bill France, Sr. was the final boss. He was the rock. Bill France Sr. would walk in and say, here's what's happening today.

Everybody get on the train. If you ain't getting on, you're getting left at the station. There was no bullshit. There was no collab. There was no RTA. There was no driver council. Drivers tried to form a PDA, but they

couldn't. Bill France Senior was like, this is my rodeo and this is what's going on, man. I said this in this very room years ago. I missed that. Now we all got to have some input and we all hold each, now we're all,

we're all legally written in contracts, how we have to allow everyone to come to a conclusion, right, on anything. And so to change horsepower, do whatever they want, to, there are, look, if NASCAR could snap its finger,

they might put horsepower in the cars. They might put a smaller tire or smaller brakes on the car. If they could just snap their fingers and get rid of shifting on the ovals, they might just do it. But it is, you know,

it is going to cost money. Some of those, listen, putting horsepower in the cars, putting 80 horsepower back in them, not expensive. Yates has said that. Even a guy that builds freaking motors says that they can put a horsepower in them. So fine, put a horsepower in them. Who cares? I don't think it matters. I don't think it's really going to change the way to race and looks if you added 100 horsepower.

I just don't. Drivers, there's a lot of drivers that think that's what would happen. And if they believe it, let them have it. I don't think it's going to do it might do something but it might do nothing I don't know but I don't if they want it let them have it fine that's fine I'm not arguing against horsepower I just don't know that that's the right switch to pull for me

I mean we saw at Bristol the tire and what that tire did and how that changed that right that was a hell of Denny talked about how he couldn't run into the back of a lap car this past Sunday because he couldn't get to him so he just had to ride around him So he just had to run right behind him. Cendrick, that's the frustration that the drivers feel didn't have that problem at Bristol. They run right in the back of each other because they could get to each other.

Arrow didn't matter. None of that mattered. The answer is right there. In our face. We're all debating on what it needs to happen. Yes. Are the brakes too good? Is the braking zone too short?

Yes. Do you have to change the brakes? No. Is the tire too wide? Yeah. Is there too much rubber on the ground, giving them too much grip, making the corner speeds too fast? Absolutely.

Do you have to change that? No. I don't think that's what you have to do. If it's going to cost you a million bucks to build smaller wheels and to buy them, do you want to do that? If you want to get smaller brakes on the cars to make the braking zone longer to allow the driver's step passing opportunity on the entrance to the corners at Martinsville, it's going to cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars.

if not a million bucks to buy all the brake components. But we saw at Bristol what didn't really cost anybody nothing. Make a huge difference. That's what pissed me off about anybody that complained about that tire running 40 laps. You don't complain about that. It's a good thing. Not after what we had Sunday. Do not complain about that fucking 40 lap tire at Bristol.

Yes, 40 laps is too little. We know. But that is the answer. Now, that's a tricky thing. I don't think it's like a, you know, I don't think it's just a simple thing is, okay, build that tire good year, problem solved. We already know that like tire temp,

or track temp, and all of those things are going to play a role in how much the tire will wear. You could take that tire to Bristol once a month, and it might run 40 laps one month, 60 laps the next and 30 laps the next month. You just never know depending on how the temperature and the dynamic track surface is going to be, right? So it's not like a real easy, easy thing, but we know there is your answer right there. You know, will horsepower beat up the tire a little bit more?

Just a little bit, but the tire's tough. Yeah. That tire they had this weekend, horsepower wasn't going to do shit. There is no way Joey Lugano should have been. been able to go that damn long on those tires. We all agree with the, I think we all do agree with the conversation going on this week around the short track package. I am thankful of urgency I'm seeing from others. I'm thankful of that. I think they'll figure it out. I have to be positive. I got to see something. I cannot live and I can't, I can't go forward thinking, oh, we're doomed.

We're, right, I can't. We're going to figure it out. I'm telling you, man, I'm hopeful that at some point when they do get it figured out, we're all going to look back to that Bristol race and go, man, I'm thankful that that mistake happened. It was an eye-opener. I'm thankful that that mistake happened because that, right there's part of the, that's the main ingredient. If you're making the soup that's going to fix short track racing, there's the main ingredient right there. All right, let's bring Sammy Smith in here.

All right, we got Sammy Smith in the studio. And Sammy, we got some great news to announce today. I am very excited about this. As everybody knows, we're big fans of Sundrop here. This is the home team. Sundrop, bottled and sold in North Carolina and other parts of the country, but we feel like this is our home brew. And luckily for me, I've been able to reconnect with Sundrop.

My dad had a deal with them and promoted the brand for many, of years back in the 90s and maybe in the 80s a little bit. Lucky for me, I had a relationship with them in 94, racing late model stock. So we've rekindled that relationship, Sammy, and had some fun with it over the last couple of years. I actually take the sun drop car and race a late model for the very first time in like 30 years

or 20-some years at Wilkesboro a couple years back, right? That green car. Due to some unique scheduling circumstances, I'm going to need your help, all right? Yeah. Coming up during All-Star weekend, the Cars Tour goes back to Wilkesboro. And unfortunately, for me, as bad as I would love to be in that race, I cannot be there. I can't even be in the state.

I'm going to be gone. But I need somebody to make sure that the Sundrop car is there and out on the racetrack, and that somebody is you, buddy. Yeah, I appreciate it. I appreciate you, JRM, Sundrop for giving me this opportunity to be able to go get back to late-mile stock race, and I was able to do a little bit racing, kind of a couple of years ago and then stopped to run

more expensively races and just obviously time consuming. So to be able to go back and do that on an off weekend is very fortunate to be able to do that for you. And you drove this car before, so we went and tested at Florence this year, trying to get ready for the icebreaker, and you helped us a little bit there.

And so, you know, I'm excited about that. The new pavement at Wilkesboro's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be really fast. And there's a lot of fun. There's going to be a little twist to this whole project. And I think this is really cool. I didn't come up with this. But instead of the sun drop green, a lot of people, man, they're big fans of Cherry Lemon

Sundrop, right? And so for this particular race, this car is going to be sponsored by a Cherry Lemon Sunrop. Pretty fantastic looking race car. What do you think? Yeah, I think it looks cool with kind of going off the regular sundrop and doing the Cherry Lemon Sundrop looks very good and excited to get out there. So have you ever, before you came to our neck of the woods,

you've ever had Drake Sun Drop before? I've had Sun Drop, not the Cherry Lemon Sun Drop before. You got one right there in front of you. I do. Take a drink. Let's try it. Dang, listen to that. It was like we timed, it was like we meant to do that.

It's pretty good. It's very good. Yeah, that's very good. Yeah. I've never had this kind before, but very, very cool-looking car and very good tasting soda. I know, man. I'm looking forward to it. It's a good-looking race car.

It's a great race weekend, a big weekend for the Cars Tour. You're going to run the truck as well? Yeah, yeah. Going to be able to run the truck with Pot Flying J on the truck as well. So fortunate to get some track time before that and try to just go have some fun. I'm looking forward to it. Well, if everything goes well and you look really, really fast, that's going to encourage me to maybe go drive the same car at the end of the year at Wilkesboro

for the final race of the Cars Tour. So I hope it goes well. I think you're going to have a lot of fun. but man we're thankful you've been a lot of fun to get to know this year of enjoyed having you as part of the family here at junior murder sports it's been great seeing you trying to grind away and get those results on the racetrack and the eight car in the Xfinity series and we get to do fun stuff like this where you know we kind of get out of the box a little bit and do some neat things so I'm

thankful for that so good luck but yeah thank you and thanks to J.R.M. and your whole team for giving me this opportunity and yeah continue to grind away at the 50 season. I'm looking forward to continue to try to get in Victory Lane. Right on. Sammy Smith on the Dale Jr. Download. It's going to be taking the sun drop, the Cherry Lemon Sun Drop, to Victory Lane at Wilkesboro this year during our all-star race festivities. The Cars Tour, I think runs over there on Wednesday. A little bit of practice on Tuesday.

I'll be coming, I'm out of town during the middle of the week, but I'm coming in for the weekend to see everything that's going to be going down at the newly repaved racetrack. Man, last year was a blast. They had concerts outside the racetrack. I know Andrew was there doing his, what do you call that? Man on the street. Man on street, yep.

And so, but I had such, that was the most fun I've had at a racetrack. You know, obviously I love driving, but when you just go as a fan, I had a great, great time. But, so it should be another great weekend when the All-Star Race Weekend rolls around. NASCAR fans'

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Restrictions apply. See full terms at fanduel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem, call 877717-185543 or visit more than a game.nc.gov. Let's talk about the exfinity rates a little bit. This past weekend, we had good speed. Junior motor sports cars qualified pretty good. Race is good in the race. Gipp's cars had a little more speed at times, but man, coming down to the end, Sam Mayer looks like he's going to pass for the lead and win the race.

Coming about six or five to go, drove right up the back bumper of Eric Amarola and he's going to go going around him. I thought Eric would probably get a little physical with him, but felt for the most part that we had, you know, Sam had fast enough race car to get the job done. Kosh comes out, reset the field, and Creed. Sheldon Creed goes down in there like an idiot three wide. Golly. I mean, you know, that's what the series is about. Kids doing those type of things, making those decisions, right, and learning from them. We see it in a Cup Series 2, and rarely does that ever work out

for anybody. Sheldon made the choice. What he learned from it? I don't know. But it hurts Sam on that final. I'll restart and Eric Almerola goes on and wins the race. Pretty great cool deal for Eric and his family. Considering the story, right, about him getting credited for a win years ago in Milwaukee

for Gibbs that he didn't really earn, right? He started the race, qualified the car on the pole, then he gets in and races to the win. So he's kind of always, you know, to finish the story, if you will, like Cody Rhodes. he comes back and wins him a race for Joe Gibbs. Carson Quaple, our late model driver who's been doing an amazing job for us, got an opportunity to race in his first Xfinity race. And, you know, he did a fantastic job. Just really smart, smooth race, didn't ruffle any feathers,

didn't cause any problems, made no mistakes. And at times when they would get into a rhythm, he was the best car on the track. And so good job by our team here at Junior Motorsports to put a fifth car on the track that's competitive. It's hard enough putting four of them out there. But Andrew Overstreet and all our team did an amazing job. Andrew's an up-and-comer.

And Carson benefited from that and was able to go out there and show what he can do. Hopefully we can get more races for Carson. We've had a good Bam-Bam back-to-back. You know, Bubba Pollard, Carson Quaple, You know, grassroots short track racers, getting opportunities. We've had two great weeks of that. We've got Conner's Dilloch coming down the pipe soon to be able to run some races here for us.

And he's having a lot of success winning this past weekend at the Cars Tour at Hickory and more. So we've got a lot going on. It's stressing this office or this building to do five cars. But, man, I told after Carson's race, I told everyone. everybody here. I said, if we get these opportunities, we've got to do them. If Carson, if somebody calls and says, hey, we want to do more racist with Paul or want to do more races with

Carson Cople, we got to do them. We got to do everything we can to give these people. It's changing their lives, right? What happened for Carson this past weekend and what may happen going forward is life changing for that man. We got to take the risks here as a company because

of what that could do for them. He seems hungry for more. I mean, he finished P4, which is amazing on your first start and I talked to him after the race is like I wish that went green I could have gotten top three finish I'm like dang like I would be but that's just the way he's wired I would be so happy with fourth but he's already thinking about what he could have done better and fourth is pretty good yeah I guess when I mean I got a little I got a little distracted when that

caution came out on the last lap and I really you know where I was I couldn't really see what I wasn't watching the monitor but I was in the pits the whole race and I really couldn't see how things netted netted out for Sam in turn one and two. I know that they went three wide into turn one, but I couldn't tell exactly how all that shook out. And the crash happens, and I didn't even know that Carson was underneath third place, right?

He feels confident had they gotten a chance to race back to the green. He wins that position. He was mad. He gets out of the car. I'm like, yeah, good job, buddy. He's like, almost had third. Right. I'm like, come on.

Fourth is awesome. Sam Mayer looked dejected after that. Like he felt like he gave up an opportunity to win. I know you walked over and talked to him. What did you tell him? So Sam is, this is, this is typical Sam. I go up to him and he's, he's, he's very, very sad. And he said, man, I just feel like I let everybody down.

I'm like, you kidding me? You had a nerve to say that? I was like, when you run the car into the fence on the first lap, like you've done a couple times in the last year or two, that's letting us down, bud. That is like really letting us down. Not this. And I said,

tonight you got what you got, right? If you can't win, bring it home. That's what he's got to learn, right? All right, it's not my day. I'm going to get this third, all right? I'm not going to wreck and get 15th. I'm going to get this third, this fifth, especially when we dug a hole at the start of the year.

and he goes out, you know, he'll win a race and then go out the next week and hit the fence on lap two. And you're like, all right, Sam, we're going to learn from this, buddy. And so I told him that. And that, I told him that. And he goes on to the media and he says, yeah, Dale told me that this was not a big let down. I feel like I let everybody down, but Dale said it's not a let down. He said it was a let down when I was wrecking all those cars five years ago. I was like, no, I didn't say that.

It was literally six months ago, one year ago. It was inside the last 12 months that you were hitting the wall in lap one. He's like, he's already pushed that five years back. I don't know how he did that. These kids. That's how he blows off steam. That's how he gets rid of the burnout. Just make everything seem like so much further.

You remember hitting the wall in Atlanta last year on the last lap? Man, that feels like five years ago. Okay, Sam. Anyway, I laughed. I laughed. I gave him a hard time. But he's got it. He's got it.

Dude, I'm sitting there, you know, there's days when you're watching Sam and you're like, is that part of his racecraft going to ever correct? Right? Because listen, all of us in here can't be race car drivers, right? And there's some parts of our mental makeup that are, just going to be problematic and never be really curable in some applications such as driving a race car. And so, you know, when you get a guy like Sam that's got a lot of speed, the race craft

got to get better. All drivers have this sort of process of improving as a driver, right, and being able to put a race together. And Sam will do stuff on the racetrack in your like, man, I wonder if that's ever going to get corrected. And then I watch him Saturday night in Martinsville, and he looked so much better. And there were moments in that race where we had these long green frac runs, and he's running the leader down, running the leader down. And he gets, you know, he's trying to pass 30. He's trying to pass second.

He's got a fast enough car to win this race. And he drove smart. And he drove like he had, you know, good. sense. And you're like, all right, you know, that's, that's, I like that. More that. More that. All right. You know, but he's young. He's 20. God, me. I know. I'm sitting here

talking like, dude's 25 years old, right? Yeah. Then you think back, okay, yeah, he's 20. When I was 20, I wasn't doing that. I didn't have what it, you know, I wasn't there. Wasn't there yet. We're live. All right. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode. of Asch Jr.

I started that just like I started the podcast. Yeah, I mean, it's like automatic. I don't know how it's to do it. Back in the Bojangles Studio. And back in the Bojangles Studio for another episode. We are, we're doing Xfinity today. Asr Jr. presented to you by Xfinity. And you need to check out their Xfinity Mobile.

It's the fastest mobile service with 5G and millions of Wi-Fi hotspots. We're all driving around town and those will pop up. Hey, you want to join? this Xfinity hot spot. Nationwide coverage. And it's always going to come through at a clutch. So you can make the switch today and save with Xfinity Mobile. They are a proud premier partner of NASCAR.

And they do a lot of great things for us here at Dirty Mo Media. So we're very thankful. Let's get right to it. Ask Junior. I'm sure we got a lot of great questions. We've had a pretty good show. We've been, it's been a balance between frustrated. and having a lot of fun and laughing.

So you'll have to tune in to see what all we got into today. We had a couple guests, one called in and one showed up. And yeah, so let's get started. This first question is coming from Mary. Did you get a chance to see the eclipse yesterday? Yeah, I did. I went to pick Isla up from school right as it's happening. I think peak eclipse was 3-11.

Yeah. or something like that. And so we got home around 314, 315, and hop out of the car, put on our glasses. Girls are up there looking and staring. I remember doing this. I mean, I was joking one of my buddies. They were all getting fired up about the eclipse

and talking about locations and times and getting the glasses and all this stuff. And I'm like, I was excited about this in like third grade when we had it happened that year and we all walk outside and look up. And you're like, all right, there it is. There's an eclipse. But I guess this one was more unique,

than most. More coverage than years past. Amy's family, this was funny. She'll get pissed it. I said this, but we're driving down the road, me and Amy in the car. She's like,

hey man, the eclipse, she's got family in Texas. And they're like, hey, man, she's like, hey, they just text me in the eclipse is starting in Texas. Look up and see where the moon is. And I'm like, well, if it started in Texas is probably about to start here. I'm not looking up in the sky without no glasses on.

We didn't, she's, we didn't have our glasses. We're just driving down the road and she's like, hey, look up. Is it close? I'm like, no. Who stares in the sun? She's like, oh, you stared at the sun before. I'm like, no. I mean, I did once and then I'm never again, right?

You know, you learn. You do it once and you don't do it anymore, right? I mean, that's what we learned years ago, right? When we were little kids, she's like, look and see how close I'm like, no, not going to do that. So you got mad at me. But anyhow, we looked at it. Yeah.

It's funny. This happens with any kind of national media story or news story or any kind of, you go on Twitter X, whatever you call it. You go on there and people are posting pictures. And then there's the people that are posting the pictures and then the people complaining about the pictures and then the people mocking the people posting the picture

you know it's just such a right it's such a damn joke but that was uh I participated in the you did in the which part were you who were you what side were you on were you saying in the the funny like

videos of like there was Kip Childers with that was hilarious yeah right his head he videoed himself with his head passing in front of the sign I took a video at like 745 last night and I'm like look at how dark it is only a few hours after the eclipse incredible made me laugh yeah that's it so that's what amy i do think it's cool though yeah amy does that too i'll i'll tell a joke laugh and she says you're one of those people laugh at their own jokes

oh yeah absolutely that's you i'm my best audience i think if andrew typically only laughs at his own jokes yeah none of us none of the rest of us are All right. Okay. This one's coming from Mark. What is, because you know, you've got a lot of busy days. You're always running around. Like, what does a lazy day look like for?

Oh, man. That's a great question, man. I actually had that in the Dirty Moe Media in the notes here for our show. Doing nothing for a day is out of fashion. So I don't know how I got on that rant, but I was, oh. So this year, I'm not doing any broadcasting and I've got a little, I feel like I will, you know, when I heard that that was going to be the case, right? I'm like, okay, well, I'll have some more time to do some things that I want to do or nothing. And literally, man, as if I just look at my calendar and just sit here and stare at it, like little things just get added to it.

like tomorrow and the next day and a week from now. And I'm telling Amy, I was like, I was like, man, there's just never a day where there's nothing to do. I remember, not too long ago, I would wake up in the morning and go, I don't have nothing happening today. Not a thing. I'm not even going to get out of my bedroom, you know, my pajamas. I'm going to wear sweatpants and play video games all day. and that is no longer happening. But when the opportunity for that day off where you can literally do nothing comes,

my wife and everyone else I know goes, well, what are we going to do? Yeah. We can't not do something. Yeah. And I'm like, why not? Like, don't we always talk about how we wish we had a day where we did nothing? Well, here it is. Oh, we can't not do nothing.

What about the kids? What about them? Send them upstairs, play. Throw some air tags on them. Whatever. Let them. Go outside. Go outside.

That fun. There's like this sort of feeling of obligation, right, to be responsible to something or somebody or a job or, you know, nobody's selfish anymore. Nobody, nobody's like, you know what? I've got a free day. I'm not going to put anything on the calendar. I'm not going to do nothing day. Not going to be beholding to anything. We've gotten into,

and I think this happens as parents too. You get into this, you feel guilty when you take time for yourself. Dude, I can't even, like when we go away and take a day, when we take a vacation or something, I feel like an asshole. Like I can't,

I feel like I'm leaving work at home and leaving responsibilities here, dirty-moe media, or whatever it is, right? And not, I'm not doing, I'm not accountable, right? It's a, it's tough.

To go, whether you're going to have a day off and sit at home on your couch and do nothing, it's tough to do that without feeling like you're, you know. Right. I get that way. Like I want to, if I have a day to do nothing, I'm always like working around the house or like working on something, you know.

That's okay, I think. I think if you're, You know, if I'm sitting around with nothing to do and I'm like, you know what, I'm going to walk around the house, so what lights need to be replaced or whatever, because, or I'm going to get some laundry done or, you know, I'm going to go clean the fifth wheel, which is a new thing.

That's okay, like to do a project or do something for yourself, the better in a situation, something needs to be done. Want to feel accomplished at the end of the day. Yeah, that is true. Anyhow, where the hell did we, what was the question?

It was lazy day. What do you do? Lazy day. Nothing. They're out of fashion. My lazy day, if, like, this is me. If Amy leaves and takes the girls, my mind immediately says, I'm playing video games all day. Yep.

And what ends up happening is, I'll have that, I mean, I could literally start as soon as I get up in the morning and just play all day. I will procrastinate and sit on the couch and flip through the channels and look at my phone and dude i don't end up getting into the video games till like five in the evening right and you're like well that's what i got now i get up from uh like amy goes i'm rambling here amy goes to bed about 930 every night dude i can't do it i should i should go to bed but i sit downstairs on the couch staring into the middle distance or looking at my phone or maybe watching some stupid show on TV, man, and I just sit there and then finally around midnight,

I'm like, I guess I should go to bed. Yeah. I get that way. I hate that. Yeah. I wish I could just snap my fingers and be like, all right, time to sleep. Yeah.

I can't do it. Me neither. All right, we got one more question. This one is coming from Jake, and it's referencing the tear down, and I guess Jordan Bianchi had never heard of Jake Cole. They wanted to know what was it like here in your shower, out in a Jay Cole song. I think he was in 2014, I want to say. You guys did a magazine cover together.

Yeah. Yeah, that was cool, man. I was great to be able to, that magazine shoot, I think it was for ESPN. That was great because he came to my place and we had the basketball court and they were shooting basketball and hanging out and he was really comfortable and we had a conversation. He has a brother that was a race fan and and and it was a cut they ended up coming to Daytona and got to meet his brother but uh and it was just nice because i felt like that i got to to talk to him out of this out of the out of the spotlight of celebrity and and and fame right i guess got to talk to this guy just two guys talking we're hanging out and and that's the man we're you get a chance to be around somebody with some notoriety.

And in those moments, it's so rare, right? Because typically we, you know, if I'm going to, I got to kind of do the same thing with Shaq when he came and we did Shaq versus. He came to the house, right? And we did this in my space. And he got to calm down and relax. And so, but a lot of times when we meet people, it's at events. It's in the middle of, you know, driver's intros or whatever.

They're in their, you know, they're in that element of celebrity. And so you don't get to have a real conversation. So that was kind of nice, but really cool. And I'll be honest, man, the shout-out thing, I was, I was, I opened up Twitter. and my phone, my timeline was filled with people talking about that. And I was like, oh, I need to go listen, right? And so you go and listen to the little shout-out, and it's just him, he's just, you know,

he's just rambling, not really saying nothing crazy. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know what he'd said, you know? And so I went and listened to it, and I was like, oh, all right, that's what everybody was making a big deal out of. who was he saying I was in the elevator with? It was, I think I remember he said he'd met you and then the next person he said was Jonah Hill.

Yeah. From like Super Bad and Wolf Wall Street. Yeah, he said he was in the elevator. Right. We all were having a conversation. Yeah. It was Jonah Hill. Yeah.

John Hill came to Pocono one year. Oh, yeah. Yeah, when he was doing that movie with Chanon Tate. The 21 Jump Street? Yeah, 21 Jump Street. Channing Tatum? Yeah. Why do I remember that shit?

What the fuck? Why is that piece of information still in there? The weird things you remember. Yeah. I think the same day that I met those two guys for that movie they were filming at Pocono, Vanilla Ice, I got to meet him. He was at the same driver's meeting at Pocono. That's pretty neat. Maybe he might have been in, he might have had a small piece in.

that movie? Or maybe that was a different Pocono? Ice tea or no, ice cube? Vanilla ice? No, no, no. In that movie in 21 Jump Street, it was Ice Cube. Ice Cube. Yeah. Well, Vanilla Ice came to Pocono one year. It might have been the same race. It might not have been the same race. But I know

Vanilla Ice was there and but he was also, I think he was there because he was in a role for a movie that was being promoted around that event and it might have been a different race, a different Pocono event. Vanilla Ice was cool, man. We swapped numbers. That's cool.

That's got to be a cool one in your phone. Yeah. His whole thing about, you know, his home renovations and his show and how he's like, he's doing, he's doing amazing. He's got a car collection and he's got this car in there that has some connections to dad a little bit. It was Pocono. Pocono 2012. He was pacing the field. There you go.

There you go. Vinyl ice. Yeah. Pretty cool. Nice. All right. A place to end it. That is.

All right, so that was asked Junior, some good questions today. Thank you, Xfinity for everything you do. Xfinity Mobile, fastest 5G coverage, Wi-Fi spots everywhere. Wi-Fi spots raining down from the heavens. Giving us the glorious coverage. It's amazing. It is. Xfinity, proud premier partner of NASCAR.

We're thankful. P. Zander Shofala outright. Shafla, yeah. When is that? When is that? When is that? When did you place that? Today. What time? During the show. Right. Okay. Because I'll be, I was, I mean, I'm getting, I'm getting alert. Dalton's making bets at three in the morning. I'm like, no way. Dalton's betting on some, some sketchy stuff. That's some, some off-the-market stuff. Don't, Dalton was betting on Jerusalem women's basketball. Yes. Yes. Yeah. And he lost. And 21-year-old, what? Under 21 soccer Under 21 soccer

You got a guy? Who's going to take it all in Jerusalem women's basketball? Who's going to take it all this year? I don't know, man. I'm just throwing stuff out there. Literally. We know.

Seeing what hits. We get the notifications. I'm throwing a buck or two here and there and see if I can make it happen. Dalton bets the underdog in every bet. That's how you make money. No.

Hey, listen. I got a... I couldn't made any money on Yukon last night? I made even. That's all it matters. All right. We live to fight another day. I love that, but I just find everybody's practices or habits fun to pick on.

Tennis is my weakness. Yeah. Like tennis. Really? You like tennis? For betting. Couldn't watch it if you paid me. But betting.

But it's paying on? Not a damn clue. Not a damn clue. But why do you feel like it's your weakness? Because it's a bit, because it's really like a more cut and dried win and lose? Just instant. It's instant. Yeah, it's like stuff just happens quickly.

I don't know. You can parlay. Like, I feel like the favorites typically always pretty much wet. You don't get that Jerusalem. Yeah. Not Jerusalem basketball. Slow pace game. Were you, uh, were you sitting on your phone watching the Jerusalem women's basketball match played out?

They didn't, I didn't have that channel. You couldn't find that. No, I tried my best. Did you look up on the internet and maybe find a website? Not one that I trusted. Yeah. Yeah. To keep up with the score.

Gamecast. He's just watching the live screen. He's just watching the app. He's just watching the app. His band didn't have it on the game cast. No, no, they didn't. No, that or the under 21. I took Brighton over Everton and they didn't pay it out for me either.

This is like, so we used to play Street for Cash on ESPN and you could, that was what you were betting on, like these random, you know, you were just betting as anything as fast as you could, right? That's how you, that's how we played Street for Cash, but they reminded me of that because I was like, I had like these, you know, European soccer matches on the TV downstairs one day during, you know, on a Sunday or something. And Amy's like, why are you watching this? I'm like, streak per cash. I got to win.

Anyhow. All right. So Alex Tim's at the table. Alex, we're going to talk about how things went this week. It says here you had 60 units. Oh, six. I wish 60. It says 60.

60. It's six. 60 is an outrageous. Really? What's a unit? A unit is just what your typical bet is. So, like, for me, it's like 10 bucks. Like, they'll put 10 bucks on it.

That's a full unit for me. So you did, you made six units. Yes. So why don't you just say what you made money-wise? Because it's all just like, it's just a scale for everybody to, because everybody bets like $1. So you had six victories. Six victories. Oh, I had seven winners, five losses, so it equals out to six units.

because more weighed more than others because of the odds. That sounds like two units. If you have one, seven, and lost five. Well, they're all not. How do y'all do the math? Well, so some you put more on, so I put like two units on one. That hits, it balances out the others. Why are y'all making this shit so complicated?

I don't know. I don't know. It's to make money. Four, let's see. So you did not cash the winner, so your bets on the winner lost. Yep. But you had four or six in the top ten? Yep. Yep.

Bowman, Bubba, Briscoe, and then I parlayed Bowman and Bubba together, so double down on that. Damn, nice. You won every match. You won every matchup bet? Yep, only plays two, but I think I had Byron over Blaney and chase over Ty Gibbs. That's interesting. So the Byron and Blaney, what were the odds on that? Byron was the underdog.

He was plus 125, which that was the reason I placed it, because, you know, Hendrick was going to be strong. Even after, I guess where did the 12 qualify? He was like top five, which is why Byron was qualified 18th. He was the underdog. So there's a lot of value on Byron. You bet it after the qualifying? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Got to see if they're good or not. Yeah. But the odds are better before qualifying. If it works out for you that way, yeah. If it's pre-race favorites, it wouldn't be. You got Chevy winning the manufacturer? That was the hammer of the week.

Really? Bet that on Thursday during the show, Dirty Modell. So that a Chevy would win the race? race. What was the history there? So they were just like, so I went off this this year. It's been Chevy or Toyota. Ford hasn't won, but Ford was, you know, right. Heavily favored? They weren't heavily favored, but they were right behind Toyota. And Chevy was way down there. And I got them at plus 270 and I never saw that number again. It kept creeping down. I thought it was a mistake. So I was like, yeah, this is camera this and gave it out on Thursday.

Good job there, man. All right. So what of the, one of the predictions? for Texas. I know it's early. Texas, right now, I'm targeting guys that maybe struggled in the past couple weeks of the short tracks to kind of rebound. Tyler Reddick, Ross Chastain, come to mind. They're pretty good here in a mile and a halfs. I think there'll be some value there. And we'll see it when the lines come out. We'll see who, if I'm right about that. But I think a lot of people are excited to get back to these intermediate tracks after the short track struggles. We talked about March Madness. The Masters is coming up. And so there's some

I looked at the odds on some of the guys and like Justin Johnson. And I mean, there's some very, very good odds if you're willing to take a flyer on some of these guys. Is there a dark horse in the field? Yeah, the interesting part is the live guys versus the PGA guys. But I'm going with the guy who's been pretty hot recently. His name's Ludwig Aberg. He's 35 to 1. I don't even know where he's from, what his background is.

But every last couple tournaments he's been top 10 right up. there fighting for the win so i think that's have you made that bet i have not made that bet yet let's make it i we can do it right now let's do it let's do it all right appreciate it alice dirty mode do drops every thursday friday this week really oh yeah well it says here every thursday oh yeah it's so interesting okay what happened to thursday steve's out okay well friday you guys i have to wait for all the uh predictions from steve and the guys uh on on texas and and the masters i know that still Steve heavy into the golf world and loves to play every day. So it'll be interesting to see his take on Dirty Mode.

So this Friday, usually every Thursday, but this week, Friday, so you won't want to miss it. All right, we've got another update coming from the Cars Tour. They just raced this past weekend at Hickory. So let's get that update. The ZMAX Cars Tour, presented by Sound Gear, was back in action this weekend, making a return to the venue that has hosted more Cars Tour events. than any other racetrack. For the 20th time, the late-model stock cars were set to attack the Hickory Motor Speedway for the tough shed 250. The biggest story coming into the weekend was the absence of two-time and defending series champion Carson Quaple,

who was instead making his Xfinity Series debut for Junior Motorsports at Martinsville. With the lone winner on the season so far and defending winner of this race competing elsewhere, it was up to the rest of the field to decide who would make the most of the opportunity to step into the sports. spotlight. Newcomer Landon Lewis, and his car's tour debut for Kevin Harvick Incorporated, captured the Thunder Road Harley-Davidson Poll Award by just two-thousand-a-second over the Southern National Pollsitter in Chad McCombie. McCombie would face an early fight from Connor Jones, who flex some muscle early, hedging out McCombie to lead several laps before nestling into second. Unfortunately, for Jones, he would suffer a very hard crash

off turn four after contact with Jacob Hefner, ending his night prematurely. Paul would also race his way up to the top spot around a third of the way through the race, but McCombie would get the lead back following a restart shortly thereafter. McCombie would go on to lead the most laps on the night, all the while Connor Zillish and his pinnacle racing group Chevrolet had been working his way to the front. A restart with 41 laps to go would pin the two together for the first time all night, and it would lead to an epic duel between the two for the lead. Zillish has been personal, he's been able to go a little bit higher,

He's been able to make his car work on the bottom. McCombie has been smooth, calm, and collected just as we would expect. The Wesley veteran here is a little bit of contact made. McCombie slides up the racetrack, new race leader again in Hickory. This time, it is the young hot shoe and Connor Zillish, who may look to clear off a two, and now Brendan Queen wants a part of the party. Once in command, Zillish was able to walk away from the competition and become the 14th different driver to win a cars tour late model stock race,

Ted Hickory. Yeah, no, this one means a lot for sure. You know, this cars tour, late model stock division is so competitive. And, you know, it means so much for every person who gets the chance to win. And, you know, I got to soak this in while I can because, you know, every time we go to the racetrack in these races, there's 10, 15 cars that are capable of winning. So you got to take everyone for granted. And, you know, this is exciting for me.

You know, I've been chasing this one for a long time. So this one feels really good. Behind Zillish, it was Brendan Butterbee and Queen who drove up to second. Chad McCombie, who capped off a great night in third. Connor Hall, fourth, and quite the comeback drive for Minnie Tyrell who rounded out the top five. The pro-late models also had some track time at Hickory for their second race of 2024. After netting his first career win at Southern National, Kyle Campbell kept the momentum rolling into America's most famous short track as he earned his first career Malay Pole Award.

After a hard-fought race with good friend and defending champion, Caden Quaple, and staying clear of some of the chaos that ensued behind him, Campbell was able to match what Mike Hopkins did last season and start the year off with back-to-back victories. Yeah, I think everyone obviously, when I won in Southern National, that was pretty big of a surprise, I feel. I think people underrace, they made it just because of how I ran last year. It wasn't the best car in the world, so it doesn't look good, but no one else really knows that. It definitely added a lot of confidence. I didn't feel like I had a great car in practice, and then just like Southern National, when it came to qualifying time, it clicked.

We ended up with a pole and the wind, so this one feels pretty good. Davis had one of the fastest cars towards the end of the night but ran out of laps and had to settle for second. Nick Loden would come home third, Connor Jones, fourth, and Katie Hedinger, complete your top five for the pros. The late model stock cars will now head to Jacksonville, North Carolina for the newly rescheduled event with the late model stock cars at New River All-American Speedway this coming Saturday, April 13th. If you can't be with us at the racetrack, be sure to catch all the action, either live or on demand, on flow racing all season long. For the ZMAX Cars Tour, I'm Eric Brennan.

All right, it's time for the White Flag. Dropped already this week to tear down with Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi. If you want to hear a couple guys, old guys screaming to clouds, listen to the tear down. Action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin. I can say that, right? Because I am one. Yeah. All right.

Action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin. A lot of great commentary there from Denny this week coming off of the Martinsville race. And the doorbook are clear. All these spotters just shouting at each other and disagreeing and agreeing and disagreeing and agreeing. So much fun. All of that came out Monday, dropping tomorrow, Speed Street with Connor Daley and Chase Holden. And then, not Thursday. Friday.

This Friday. Dirty Modo with Steve LaTard, Alex Tens and the crew. And then DJD Reload will be out this Thursday again this past week. Carla and my sister Kelly talked to a stacked driver lineup. Mark Martin called in. I was a little disappointed. Mark did reloaded before he. He did the actual Dale Jr. Download guest interview.

Yeah. What in the world? Well, we'll have to get him in for the full story. Yes. All right. We only had him for about 10 minutes. We got Michael Waltrip as well. And Austin Cendrick.

Thank you for calling in Austin. We give him a hard time. But hey, he did us a solid. He's a good sport. He's a good guy. He's a good sport. I listened to him on there. He sounded great.

They offered a lot of information about their first starts. And NASCAR had to be pretty interesting. The conversation and the difference in dynamic between their careers, right? modern and historic. Yeah. All right, so also this past weekend, Andrew, you were at the racetrack man on the street. How to go? It was great, and I was excited to tell you about it on Pit Road on Saturday. I wanted to save it for the show, so we've got a clip here for you. All right. Are you proud to be part of the scooter gang? Yeah, I've just happened to fall into that space. So yeah, absolutely. No, it's an efficient way to,

instead of creasing both shoes on a track walk, you're maybe only creasing, you know, the right foot or the left foot, depending on which one you pedal with. So, yeah, it's a good way to keep some miles off of one half of my pair of shoes. Crew starts, man. Congratulations. You're making another one this weekend. 154. How does it feel? It feels amazing. It feels even better to be on my speed on your 154th start.

Yeah, and so do you. Yes. So is there anything because we're going to show this to Dale. Anything you want to tell him about scooters? Maybe we can change his mind on this? I think I got some good, I think I got some good, good ideas for him. TBD?

TBD? Yeah, maybe. Oh, okay. Cryptic. I guess. Andrew, your, your hana bars look a little low. Yeah, it was a kid's scooter. Oh, they're not all kids scooters?

No, yeah, no. They were all 12 and under. I had to fight a family over it at Target. There was one left. They were looking at it. Mine lights up, though. It was very exciting. You probably grabbed that and took off running from someone in the Martinsville parking lot.

Yeah, that kid will never have a worse. There was an official who told me real quick, do not be riding this thing in the infield. They check yours for a motor? Yes. I passed. I passed. All right. Well, that's the white flag.

Let's get out of here. Tomorrow we have a guest. Well, we have two guests. Both Kyle and Richard Petty come on to the show for the Dale Jr. Download ally guest segment tomorrow. You won't want to miss this. that we'll see you check out dirty moe media on twitter facebook tick tock and instagram