The Dale Jr. Download - 532 - Texas' Big Comeback, Chase Elliott's BIG Win & Earnhardt Stories

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns to the Bojangles Studio after a chaotic NASCAR Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway for another edition of Dirty Air. Not only did NASCAR put on a weekend of excitement in the Longhorn State, but Dale Jr. was behind the wheel himself: Dale Jr. recaps his CARS Tour race at New River Texas is back! Just give it some time… Who was wrong, Chastain or Byron?  We’re talking ‘bout practice! NASCAR Cup drivers are elite, so do they need it? Race winner Chase Elliott calls in During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding: Sharing SMT data - is it good or bad? Beer: bottles or cans? What did Dale Sr. do to prepare for races? You won’t want to miss the two Intimidator stories involving a bulldozer and a chainsaw. 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 here in the Bojangles studio. And we're going to be talking Texas today. Is Texas good again? Chase Elliott, the winner's going to call in. I race to my late model. We'll talk about that. A lot to cover today. Let's get started. 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. Don't stop.

There are some boys. on the show that you're going to hear. Keep the camera roll. All right, so as I mentioned, we are back in the Bojangles studio for another episode. And now through May 5th, you can get your hands on two free bird dogs by using promo code Dale Jr. I've been seeing these bird dogs in the social media feed. Yes. People are excited about it.

They're like, hey, man, thanks. So two free bird dogs, I mean, these things look amazing. Yeah, that's a good deal. Yeah. promo code Dale Jr., D-A-L-E-J-R, when you place the order on the Bojangles app or on Bojangles.com at participating stores. So go get them while they're hot, they're free too.

I love free stuff. Also a sponsor of the Tuesday Dirty Air Show, Tire Pros. Quick shout out to them. There's a few people that love cars as much as I do, but these tire and service experts, they love the drive. Give your vehicle some TLC by heading to your local TirePros or go to TirePros.com to find a location near you. TirePros supports Junior Motorsports on the racetrack. They support DirtyMo Media, and they support us here at our Tuesday Dirty Air Show.

I mentioned I'd raced in my late model this past weekend, had a blast. We raced at Jacksonville, North Carolina, a little track called New River All-American Speedway, right near the coast. And this is the second trip for the camping world, Fifth Wheel that we bought. And selling my busses out the door, getting down into a fifth wheel. It's perfect for my family. We have bunks in the backs. The kids love it.

They're sleeping well. And just mounted a nice little, I think, a 27-inch TV in the bedroom. Wow. Put that in there yesterday. Nice. Oh, yeah. We was like, we don't need a bedroom TV. you know, we're not ever going to, we're just sleeping in here.

And we're laying in there this weekend, and Amy's like, yeah, we need TV. So we're loving the fifth wheel. It was great for this weekend. We parked right outside the racetrack. I got to drive the car, had a blast, fun racetrack to race on. We got banged up in the race. I can't qualify this car for whatever reason. I think the car is probably fine, but I'm just overdriving it.

And you can't overdrive these late model stock cars. They don't have a ton of power. So anytime you drive the car, car too hard. You're just going to run slower because it can't recover with the with the acceleration out of the next corner. So you have to really drive the car smart. I'm not doing that well. But once the race starts, I can just move forward. The car's plenty good to run into top 10 or even the top five. We were probably going to run top 10 for sure, but ran into a few things. And man, my neck was sore. I got it the next day. I'm like, what the hell is wrong? My neck.

because I forgot, man, anytime you're in a crash, especially like a head-on, you know, head-on crash that throws your head forward in a race car, you have a sore neck, guaranteed, right?

Any kind of like, even a 30-mile-hour hit or anything minimal, it's going to give you a little neck pain. I'd forgotten all about that. I hadn't had that in 10 years. I was like, man, what's wrong on my neck? I've been walking around all day, can't turn.

I had a good time, and the family was able to do a lot of fun things. Amy took the girl. to the aquarium one day and they just went out and about toward the you know because the track's 30 minutes from the coast the track staff over there at the racetrack were great anyways Landon Huffman said you wrecked him yeah so I think he was giving you a hard time he was he's we're good friends and he's a hard racer his family's been in racing for decades his dad was a successful late model stock in

dash series racer he's got the high rock Bill. He's earned that. He did that himself. I introduced him to some folks at High Rock, and he took it from there. I told High Rock, I said, don't sponsor this guy because you think that's what I'd want you to do. You only sponsor Landon if you want to. I said he's got great social media following. He works really hard

to create a lot of content. If you're wanting to get into sponsoring a grassroots guy, you know, take a look at him. They liked him, and they made that work, and he's made it work. And so that deal is completely separate from me. I have nothing to do with that sponsorship. I don't know what it is. I don't know how much it is. I don't know what their deal is.

That's their deal, right? And Landon's created that and handled that himself. But people think, just so, just so you know, like he's, he's responsible for all of that. And he went up there and drove to the front because his car wasn't very good. He said, man, my car's junk. I'm going to drive to the front, lead some laps, burn up my tires, and that's that. And that's what he did. And he's dropping back through the field.

later in the race, we'd have about 50 to go on a restart, and he is really struggling to get up off the corner. And I've got to go. I'm on the inside underneath him, behind him. And if I don't pass him, all these cars on the outside are going back by me. I needed that track position. I couldn't give that up. I'd already passed all these cars to put myself in front of them in a strategic move, right?

To try to find myself into the top 10 later in the race. So I had to go. It was three wide. That was my only choice. So I got to run a couple laps and couldn't really make it work. work. Finally, I got a great drive off of two and was able to get up to his left rear. And when we started going to the corner, I protected it. I backed up and tried not to shove it in there in case that he chopped me. I would be ready to not wreck either one of us. And the car on the

outside of him wasn't aware about the three wide. It's a, you know, it's a very tight little racetrack and I probably was expecting too much in terms of self-awareness and all that. And he and the guy on the outside got together and Landon spun in front of me and I just I had I couldn't go around him I think maybe I could have went low and missed him but I ended up bumping into him a little bit the car was fine it didn't even look that bad on on the pictures as far as that damage but then we had a late we had a big chain reaction getting into turn one a lot of check up and I pounded and ran right to the back of the person in front of me that's when I got the sore neck because that was a hard hit and really, really tore up the nose,

and it run real hot, probably the last 20 laps. It run about 2.35, which is really hot for those cars. But I had a blast, really fun racetrack. Would love to go back because the track itself is so fun. They do a good job keeping it looking nice. And we got, you know, we can take the fifth wheel and hook up.

What made the track fun? The surface is 25 years old. It's very slick and worn out. and you kind of drive the funky line, but you can enter high. A lot of people have to drive low on the track to try to protect the bottom and protect their position

because they don't want to get past. And so you can set them up by getting in the turn one really high and kind of crossing them over and driving up under them off the corner. And so you can pass there if your car is good. And yeah. And it's not really fast.

Like you're never at any point really going super fast on the track, which I like. I don't want to, you know, at my age, I don't need to be flying around these racetracks. And so I like the slow, you know, slow grinds. That's what I like. That's the kind of races I want to be in. It's a slow grind, right?

And the longer the race, the better. So, anyhow, it's a fun track. It reminded me of Myrtle Beach, East Carolina Motor Speedway. You drive it a little similar to Florence. So it felt pretty good. I got another race coming up at the end of July. We're going to announce that later. We've got a cool, I believe we've got a really cool announcement lined up for our late model car to run the Wednesday Carraway race.

Remember last year, Kyle Larson drove that car in that race, so we got another cool setup. I believe people are going to be excited about. And then obviously we announced it here on the show. Sammy Smith's going to drive the car at Wilkesboro in the Cherry Lehm and Sundrop. So a lot of cool things coming down the pipe. Carson Quappell is continuing to drive. our A car, our first car every week. He's going to miss a few shows if he keeps getting opportunities to race in the Xfinity series or the trucks or Arca,

and we're going to let him go do that. It is time for him to leave the nest. He is ready. So had a bit of a bummer yesterday. Man, this wiped me out. So this is my fault. I put my folks or my people in a business. bad situation. This is nobody's fault but mine. Where I keep the fifth wheel is in this shop and behind

the fifth wheel is two lifts where I park cars. And some of my, I got a modest, you know, car collection of about a dozen and some old race cars that I don't even count, right, because they're not street vehicles you can drive. But so there's my final race car. My final race car, that I ran for Rick on this lift, yeah, the Red 88. The Rangler number three that I won in the Daytona's on the lift, they're both on the top.

On the bottom is an old Bush car that Darrell Waltrip gave me that he raced, the Gator 888, and then my dad's 1980 championship car. And I was sitting there, yes, last week, looking at that situation when I parked the camper in this spot

to close the door on the shop, there's literally only about eight inches between that and that lift. And I said to myself, I need to, this situation's got to change because we're going to hit this. This is not good enough. I got to fix this. And I didn't. And they backed the camper into the lift.

They bent the ladder on the back of the camper. That's not even the worst part. The worst part is the bottom of the camper drug across the nose of the 1980 Dale Earnhardt, Monty Carlo, championship car. Oh, man. And it knocked, it chipped the paint pretty good. on the top of the nose. The car is here at Junior Motors getting fixed. It'll be fine.

But I felt like a complete idiot. I was so mad at myself that that happened. It's a good lesson though, man. When you see, like I saw it last week and I said, I need to change that. I came into the house and told Amy about it. She goes, you know what? I was looking at that last week

and I thought about saying something, but who am I to say, hey man, you need to move your race cars, you know? And so, man, I mean, that was tough to get get over um that happened yesterday it happened yesterday something else uh yesterday we put out that clip of uh the beer and cigarettes thing oh yeah it went wild did it oh yeah people all we had eric cosmer the melb guy was tweeting about it um a couple guys from pat maccphy show were like we want you know so i don't know there's there's a there's a motion happening on on social media

saying they want to be part of the old guard Yeah. No, man, that was just honesty. I mean, you know, I have a lot of regrets in my racing career. And, you know, some of my regrets in my racing career were that, yeah, I didn't apply myself. You know, it's the same thing in any job or college, you know, when you set out a path and a choice to get a degree or whatever it may be, right? you know what needs to happen for you to make, you know, the best possible outcome, right? And you know when you don't apply what needs to happen. And so there are times in my career, I didn't know it for the first half of my career. I thought I was doing all I needed to do.

I thought I was doing what I was supposed to do. I was the bug guy, you know, sponsored by the beer company. And so I thought I was doing it right. But I learned when I went to Hendrick. That was when I really learned, like, oh, wow, you know, champions. and guys that win all the time, they certainly approach it differently. And I tried that approach,

but I've learned, you know, I kind of liked the way I did. Yeah, the old guard, man. I had more fun. But anyways, yeah, that was a lot of fun. Nice to get that off your chest sometimes. NASCAR fans, Fandul, America's number one sports book is here,

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strolling plant guy, and bumper cars. Plus, Dalton, there is so much more. have micro professional wrestling, dirty deeds, the ACDC experience, the Amish Outlaws, Tim Dugger, the United States Naval Academy, Drum and Bugle Corps, Stilt Walker's professional sports mascots, and so much more. Axe throwing, that's pretty cool, 24. Well, April 26th through the 28th, get tickets now at Dover Motorspeedway.com. That's Dovermotorspeedway.com. Should we get into the cup or the Xfinity race first? What do you want to do?

You make the call, Andrew. Let's do cup race. Cup race. On my mind. Wow, all right. Is that the wrong answer? No. Jesus, man.

All right, so I told you yesterday the story for me around this sole race is, I mean, we're going to have Chase call in. Chase getting back to Victory Lane's a big deal. But the story for me is Texas Great again. Right? When the race was over with, I was a little bit careful to get too excited about, yeah, man, Texas has been beat up by me, by everybody, right? By fans.

Yeah, I had zero optimism going into the weekend. Texas has been going through a little rough patch, and that's an understatement. Texas is good again. I think it's good again, and it's just going to continue to get better. there's some bumps down in turn three and four that caused a lot of problems for some drivers but one of the things that i saw that made me very happy was how gray the surface was meaning that the surface is aged and slick abrasive um you could see it putting rubber down on

the racetrack albeit only the right side tire man where they're they're the left side tire runs, no rubber's going down. Just, you know, that's a problem. Something good to your needs to work on. I would love to see that left side tire putting rubber down just like the right is. That's really going to send them up the racetrack chasing grip, right? And so when they rubber that, you know, when the left, if you watch the race and watch the cars go through the corner, the track is rubbering in, but where the left's run, probably the bottom three foot or four foot of the racetrack is still clean.

No rubber being put down. The left side tire is too hard. So there's some things to learn there and improvements that can be made. If all four tires are doing, you know, rubbering that track in, they'll really get up off the bottom of the racetrack. So the track is looking like it's getting into that peak age, you know, that time frame where you're like, man, I won't, you know, every track would want to be this way. and so it's realistic and I would encourage people to go

all right man Texas is turning the corner and so you could see how they had applied the PJ1 and all that stuff on that track and just ruined it right IndyCar went there and they're like ah we can't even run in that stuff we have to run underneath it we're literally you know you've literally only given us a very small narrow space to play in we can't even race

in this stuff. The cup cars wouldn't run into it until it activated or until it got on into the race itself to be able to move up and get in it. But any running above that was not an option, right? Well, now that that is for the most part gone from the racetrack, I'm sure there's still some residual stuff down, but I mean, it's almost completely gone from the track. they really got up the racetrack. They really went high into what I would call the second and a half third groove. And that's a great sign for that racetrack. Man, I remember in 2006, 2010, we were in the fence in three and four.

In 2014, man, you'd haul ass. I remember one restarted in 2014 at one of the races. It was a night race. Green flag comes out. Me and Kyle Bush drove to the top of one and two. like only a car link from the wall, just gaining spots on the restart. Man, it was so fun.

You could use the whole racetrack. We're getting back to being able to do that at Texas. And I know Chase Elliott winning, that's a popular thing, and that might skew the Jeff Gluck poll, but when you look at the data of past wins for Chase Elliott, it would tell you that his wins don't affect the yes and no.

Yeah, on the Gluckpole. Right, they don't. If anything, they work against. Is it a good race? Uh-huh. Right? I saw someone posted about that last night. There was some statistics that somebody, I bookmarked it.

And so, I'm going to tell you right now without even diving into those statistics and boring you with that. We're going to wipe that off the map, right? Chase Elliott's victory is not the reason why we got 7% yes on Jeff Gluck's poll. I know Jeff Gluck's poll is not, scientific evidence, but it is what I go off of. It's a good gauge.

What I'm going off of. It's what I'm using. It's what I'm talking about. And so I'm going to follow that. I'm going to follow that poll. Texas is back and I think it'll continue to get better. And, you know, the bumps are one thing. But as they're going up the racetrack and trying to use higher grooves and getting runs

down the straightaway from the top, damn, that's going to make it more and more exciting every time I go back there. So I don't know if that's enough to sell the tickets that Marcus needs to sell. I don't know. It's a slow grind, man. It's a, it's going to take, it's, we're not, you know, Texas ain't going to flip overnight and be this, you know, be this great ticket. It's going to take some, take some races. It's going to take three or four more trips to really sell people on the product that they're going to see there when they go. 16 cautions. That's a lot.

Yeah. Listen. You know, we had a conversation about this car being very similar. Everybody runs the same lap times. They can't get to each other to run into each other and wreck each other. They can't get to each other to even make mistakes and take each other out. Martinsville, for example, you know, they couldn't even get to each other to move each other up the racetrack. And all the cars ran the same lap time all day long.

And you get no yellows, you get no real yellows, right? And that's when we start to see NASCAR feel pressured to get itchy on that, on that caution flag button. Right? When there's no cautions happening, they're ready. They're kind of like, hmm, we need a yellow. We need something to happen here. Yeah, right. Yeah, ashamed if someone hit the wall right now.

Yeah, we're spoo. Yeah. Oh, he got high. Yeah, exactly. He was in the marbles. He was in the marbles. We thought he broke a... We thought he had a break failure there.

Nope. He was just pitting. So 16 cautions, real yellows. That's what you need, man. Yeah. And a lot of those yellows came from the leaders as well. The guys up front. Yes.

You know, best cars all day. That's right. So anyways, we had five drivers leading more than 30 laps. Mm-hmm. Good race. That's a good race. Hey, that's good. to your point on tires, and this would be interesting to ask Chase Elliott, but he said after the race

that it was fun because there was actually a little bit of tire falloffs. Like tire sets meant a little bit more at this type of race, which is, again, that's what we want. Good Year is right there. Yeah. They're so close. But I'm telling you, man, when I look at that race track and I see that that right side tire doing such a great job putting rubber down and the left side actually keeping and that part of the track clean. Once that left side gets to where it's rubbering the track, just like the right side is, and that entire groove from the apron,

that entire bottom groove is covered in rubber, the balance of the groove on the bottom of the racetrack will get tighter and tighter, and the cars will have to slow down to make that bottom work. That's when they'll move up. So Goodyear makes, there are two different compounds, the rights and the lefts? Okay, I just wanted to clarify that.

That's right. And so, you know, and there, I would think, you know, they don't want that left side to be soft because that makes the car fast, right? The right side can get, they can play with the right side being harder and softer because, man, it's just going to wear out and fall off and slow down. But when they make the less side softer and it's that side of the car doesn't take as much abuse and load as the right, putting a soft left side tire is just going to make the car go faster. And they really don't want that. drivers really don't want more corner speed. That makes the racing bad. But if they could make that tire wear, it'd only be fast for a moment, right?

It'll only be fast for a short period of time, 10 laps or so before it actually started to lose grip and slow down. But then you're rubbering that bottom three or four foot of the racetrack, making that slick, that balance change on that bottom groove more significant to where getting up into that second, third, and even fourth groove, the car's going to have more turn, more speed, more speed down the straightaway. that's when you're going to see the big runs, the blocking, the arguing that we want to see. And we saw some of it. It's almost there. We saw some blocking, some arguing on that last lap, William Byron. Who's in the wrong there, do you think?

I'm going to tell you, man, the versus Chastain. I know Chastain's mad. So I'll tell you to both sides of the argument, right? If you're Chastain, you're thinking, you ran into me. I mean, you ran into me. Plenty of a racetrack. you don't have to run through me. Plenty of racetrack.

You don't have to run. It's kind of like out on the highway. They used to say, I don't know what they do these days, but it didn't matter. If you're the lead car on the road, I've been in these accidents, so I know, if you're the lead car and you can slam on brakes, nothing happening, nothing in front of you.

If you just want to slam on brakes and make the person behind you plow into you, it's their fault. That mentality that I grew up with, that's what Chastain might say, man, you can avoid me, right? Even if I got loose and I'm slow off the corner, you ran through me, wrecked me. You didn't have to do that. So that's Chastain's argument, which is a fair one. But for William, if he lifts, he has to lift, right?

To make a move to go left or right or around the one, he's going to have to give up some momentum and he's going to lose he may pass the one but he might he's definitely going to lose a spot to the car behind him right he doesn't want that so he's in a situation where he's like sorry you screwed up the exit of turn two

that's on you and I'm not lifting and then there's there is the reputation that chastain may have with a lot of the drivers if you watch the race at Phoenix

with Blandy trying to win the championship, right? What was he complaining about all day? Couldn't pass him. So I'm in the booth watching Ross Chastain race, and I don't see Ross Chastain doing a lot of bad things in terms of blocking air blocking, right? Trying to take people, you know, he goes where the competition is going behind him

and taking their line away. I think all those people should do that. I think that's a great defense. Yeah. Right? I don't see anything wrong with it, but it pisses, he must do it a lot or better or whatever, and it really gets under these guys' skin.

And I think that that was part of also Williams, hey, F it. Right. You know, you're in a bad spot and I'm sorry, but I'm not lifting here. Well, they had that clip that, you know, they were like, who's the hardest guy to pass? Yeah. Everyone, including Ross himself, said Ross. And so I think, yeah, that could have just been,

I'm fed up with this. Yeah. And so I don't know what happened. I would be, you know, I don't know what happened, but Ross had an issue and did not get off of two. He was quite slow, right? And so he was in a vulnerable spot, you know. DBC thinks that he came down and like you said, blocked that 24. Everyone originally thought it was Byron's fault. Right. At least DBC started lean more towards that's more on Chastain. They believe that Chastain, knowing he was vulnerable, made a bit of a move to try to,

block that that's kind of like the thing that happens at the end of the back straightaway at Daytona late in these races you know a Joe Lugano or somebody will make a block that you know is like yeah you're gonna have to wreck me mm you know I'm putting you in this situation I know you're 10 mile an hour faster and rack me your lift right right and so what do they do every time wreck them wreck them yep you know I think it's racing I don't I'm not gonna I There's nothing egregious there that's like either ones that made your fault. It's racing. Last lap.

I hate it for chastain, but it's racing. He got off the corner bad, got loose. But I could be, if I'm him, if I'm on his team, I'm pissed. That's, I should, you could have let me survive. I could have run third, fourth, fifth. I've taken that. Versus finishing upside down. 30 second.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. That's the, that. That's the kicker. You run all day long, 500 miles, whatever, 400 miles. Yeah, you run all day long to get to a half a mile from the finish and get junked. That's not fun.

That's like somebody backing over your 1980 Monte Carlo. That hurts. Makes for a bad Monday. Yes. Jimmy Johnson back in the race, Jimmy struggled. Jimmy talked a little bit about that. I'm glad to hear it. Listen, you know, I, I,

I don't think I could do any better. This is a weird car, rack and pinion steering, low profile tire. It's an EMSA sports car on an oval, right? It doesn't fit, it doesn't match, doesn't seem like it, you know. I say that for what I've known as a stock car, the style of tire that we've used for 50 years, you know, the way our cars were built, the parts and pieces, this thing is so different than anything he's ever had to drive on an oval.

Well, I mean, I don't know how different it is from the IndyCar, but he's, I love hearing him say what he's struggling with, what he needs to improve on. And I'll be honest, I think his chances of getting it right go way up if he races more. He said he didn't get a whole lot of lap time at Charlotte, which is the most similar track to Texas. And he's like, I took away so much more after this race for the next couple. I think to your point. Trail, I think he needs to race more. Not, you know, it's just like racing in the late model stocks, man. I'm not going to get better qualifying that car and racing that car unless I do it every week.

And it's frustrating. I'll go race it again at the end of July and struggle with parts of it because I need to do it every week to build this wall, right? To build a brick by brick, right, and get better. and I think for Jimmy there's a real good chance that he'll have that one if he does five races that he'll have that one-off good day where we're like there it is but if he wants to run good

consistently he has to consistently race the car more and I don't know if he can or wants to he's certainly in good enough shape to do it but this car is so different And this, it's like, Cup is elite. Cup is the NFL, Major League Baseball.

They ain't no part-timers in there. They ain't no quarterback that's coming in to play four games, you know, a season. What the? And if he did, how would he play? Yeah, not great. No. No. And so you couldn't come in and, you know, and his team,

They're trying to get better. They're seeing some of the benefits from joining the Toyota ranks, and they're trying to get better, but they still have a lot to improve on. And he's the third car of an improving team, right? Which is, I'm a promise you, man. You can say it all day long, and we've got a four-car Xfinity team right on another side of this glass right here.

You can try your ass off to put, equal cars out there, but it's not possible. Every car, you know, there's an A and a B. Well, and you can tell by who's won this year. It's Hendrick and Gibbs, except for one race. Yeah. There are A and B cars out there for sure. But I mean, even within a team.

Within the team, right, there's the car that even the, everybody that walks into the building goes, that's our workhorse, right? That's our tried and true. Now, this is our project. this is our up-and-comer, but I know this car can, this car and this driver and this, this is where the, you know, and

even unconsciously or you'll put more effort and focus in it, not even trying, right? And you're worried, you know, when you're trying to lift up that fourth car that really, really needs to get better,

you're worried about putting too much effort into that because it may take away from the car that's working, the car that's successful. And now you got everybody struggling. It's a balance. That is a tough. It is. Yeah.

You know, you got it. You only got, the pie is only big enough, right? The resources, right? The resources and the effort and all of the people working, that pie is only this big, right? And so you got to split that pie up amongst all of your cars. And now you got one car that kicks ass. It's a great combination driver, crew chief, whatever it is. They're working.

They're doing well. If you want to focus on something that's not working, you have to take some of the pie and move it, right? You don't just add resources. And so it could, you know, it could affect the other teams and drag the whole thing down. But anytime, I mean,

I applaud Jimmy because I think he knows in his mind they're the third part-time car. And that's an adversity. That's a hurdle as opposed to a car that's out there every single week and a driver and a crew chief

and all the learning and processing you're doing week in and week out, he doesn't have that. Right? So I think if he wants to really succeed at this outside of the one-off, you know, pop run that he's probably going to have because he's Jimmy Johnson.

He's amazing. I think he needs to run more. But again, he's learning a lot. What does, like he said, I spent a lifetime running the car off the right rear. This car, you can't just do that. So what does that mean? So I think what he means is when the sidewall of the tire is really tall, the sidewall

deflex. So you go into the corner and you load a car, any car. You drive a street car around a turn. It doesn't matter. The patch on the ground, the contact patch of the tire will stay connected to the road and the car kind of, car deflects and the sidewall takes that deflection. And so when that sidewall is really tall, you can drive the car looser.

There's a bigger box of forgiveness from hanging the car out and then bust in your ass and hitting the wall, right? When you shorten that sidewall up, the shorter you get, the smaller that box gets, and the less information your mind's getting about where the limit is on that right rear tire, loose is fast, right?

We've said that forever. That's sort of the term. just a cliche term, but it's true. When the car is turning, it's going to be better than a car that's tight and doesn't work and doesn't turn very well. It's the front sliding, you're going slow. So Jimmy's drove cars off the right rear with that right rear tire tire deflecting and that tall sidewall, and he's drove cars where he can yaw it out and hang it out and drive it loose. And this car can't, you can't do it.

The box is too small and you'll bust your ass. And he busted his ass. And so I know the bumps were affecting his car there in turn three and four like a lot of others, but this car, you have to drive it tight. You have to have very good security in the back of the car. And that's what they're, you know, and so you drive the car down in the corner a little straighter maybe, and you're driving through the right front tire. It really reminds me a lot of how I always felt the,

the COT used to race. We drove the COT car, and it drove me freaking crazy because we were all on the splitter, and everybody got their splitter right on top of the racetrack, and you just race the car as fast as you could until the front slid. The backs would never slide.

You drove the car until the front slid, and if your front slid before the guy in front of you, he was going to drive away from you. Or if your front slid before the guy behind you, he was going to catch you. And that was it. You drove the car until the front tires slid in the middle of the corner, and that's how fast you went all day.

And it was very, very frustrating. Hated it. And so it feels like that the drivers are sort of up in that situation, too. You can't drive this car loose and be comfortable and consistent and fast. And it feels like that Jimmy's having to learn how to be a good race car driver driving a car that won't do what he really wants it and prefers it to do. And so anyway, the one thing, too, that I'm glad he said is the practices are not long enough to make a meaningful change on the car.

Yeah. I thought that was interesting. Yeah. We've got to have practice. I think that, you know, that's probably the thing I'm going to complain about today. This is it. Play the sound. It's time.

This is an old man complaining alert. That's right. Practice. So, Jimmy, again, if Jimmy's not going to race every week and he's going to run five races, Jimmy needs practice, right? A rookie like Carson Quappell coming in and running five races in an Xfinity car. He needs practice. Shane Van Gisburgen coming in and racing.

and never been on ovals. He needs practice. There's all these great stories, whether it's that veteran Seventh Time Cup champion coming back to compete with us, or these young drivers or these Europeans or foreigners that are coming in and trying to compete and be successful.

There's all these great stories that are being stifled by the lack of practice and the ability to go out and learn and process and understand what needs to happen. In 2019, we're practicing. in two to three, four hours per series per weekend,

if you said to any owner, anybody in the industry, anybody in a suit, anybody up in the tower, NASCAR, if you said it to anyone, a fan, drivers, hey man, we're going to do away with practice. They would all told you you were crazy and it was never going to happen, ever. They wouldn't want it. They wouldn't prefer it. and then, you know, we go through the pandemic,

and it forced us into these situations. And we were like, I remember calling races from Charlotte Murray Speedway for NBC because we couldn't travel. And our story, every race was, they ain't had a lap. They're going to drop the green flag. That's the first time they're going to see the track,

see the turn, go into the corner. It was unimaginable. we couldn't believe that this is really what they were about to do. They're going to start a race without a lap on the car. How? How in the hell? And they did it. And we were amazed and impressed, right?

But it still was not preferable. It was what we had to do. It was not what we wanted to do. It wasn't what we usually did. And when we came out the other end of the pandemic and everything is sort of back to normal, we didn't go back because we learned that it could be done, right? But it's not preferable. It's still not the way we should do it in my mind.

And the argument is that it costs a lot of money, right? That's the argument to not practice. I will tell you the whole discussion around trying to save money and trying to save teams money is teams might have saved money, money on not practicing, but they spent that money somewhere else. If a team has a dollar to race on, they're going to spend that dollar, all of it. If you save them some money here and save them some money there, they're still going to find a way to spend that dollar.

They can't help themselves. So if you put practice back in, there may be a few rumbles and a few complainers, but they'll find a way to make it work. They'll find a way to save elsewhere to afford that practice expense. They will. They might tell you they can't. They might bitch and complain, but they always find a way. Denny talked about something interesting on actions detrimental yesterday.

He said in 2022 at the end of the year, Joe Gibbs Racing had, I want to say he said, over a million dollars and tires left over that they never used and couldn't get anything back for. And so he was like, you want to save us money. Why not? Let us recycle the tires or let us use them or sell them for different races or whatever it is. But there's areas where money can be saved and I just don't know that we're doing it in the right spots. I mean, to say that we're, you know, to say that practice is only, to say that we're not practicing to save money is not true. I know that an executive could sit down in front of, sit down with me and say, here it is, right here in numbers.

We are saving money. But I know what he's not telling me is that if I turned practice on, if it was a switch, and I turned it back on, he'd find a way to find that damn money to go practice, and he would save money somewhere else. He would cut something to do it. You know, I'm an owner in a series. I complain about costs. I know costs suck.

I know it's expensive. But if you, you know, if I've got, I feel like that if things got tighter, we would find a way to make it work. The sponsorship money is whittled down. It's not grown. Have we survived that? Yeah.

We survive it. We figure it out. We make it work. Look at, I mean, there's other teams in every series that race with less. They show up. They fire their motor. They drive off pit road and race just like the rest of us. And they make it work.

Jimmy said not enough practice to make it meaningful. So like at Texas, for example, they had practice. I'm looking at the results. Each team ran approximately 30-ish laps. So like what would be the right amount of practice do you think that the Cup Series needs? Well, apparently, I think you practice to improve the car, make changes. but you also practice to learn a track, a driver that's like, you know, like I mentioned, some of the rookies that are just needing some time.

But I feel like that to be able to bring the car into the garage and make significant changes if necessary wholesale and be able to go back out and try that. And maybe even a 30-minute break or an hour break to allow a team to disassemble however much. the car they want and rescale it and then send it back out for a second practice maybe 45 minutes and then another 30 minutes something like that an hour and a half total roughly it ain't got to be much and i mean you know what they're giving them is nice because they can go out there make sure it's not

falling off and leaking right right i mean it's nice to be able to just run some laps but it's not really enough to it you're practicing but are you really able to take that practice and make it and make it help you, not really. I think they limit a lot of what they can change either way, right? They're not allowed to do a ton of things to the cars. Either way, right?

Maybe open that box up a little bit more on how much teams can change. Get them back in the garage. Get them back in that garage pulling out of those stalls like I used to do. And people worried about it making the racing different, it ain't going to make the race any different. I mean, the racing is the racing. You're going to affect it. All right, so we got Chase Elliott this weekend's

winter at Texas Motor Speedway calling in. Chase, thank you for giving us a little bit of time today. I know you got a lot going on. Me, we're just talking about practice and how much is enough practice. Jimmy Johnson, who's trying to run a few races this year, says that practice is not long enough to make meaningful changes on the car.

You've got a lot of young drivers coming up through trucks, Exfinity, even into the Cup series, that are trying to do this in a new world where we really don't get a lot of practice time. How much practice time would you prefer? I think we have enough practice. I certainly can understand their perspective on guys either running a part-time schedule or people that are running maybe full-time in Xfinity like Shane is and then running a few cup races here and there.

But when I look at just the whole argument, as a as a as a as a as a whole i look at short tracks across the country and there's dirt track races that happen every friday and saturday night that they get literally five laps of hot laps and then they run the race so i'm like okay we're we're supposed to be professionals you know and we're supposed to be at the top of our class um why should we get an hour and a half when people that are trying to come up through the ranks only get five laps before before the race Yeah, hey, I like it. You're convincing me to change my opinion.

I was really impressed with this weekend, man. I went to see Rick yesterday, and we talked about how awesome you were on restarts and how aggressive you were. And just talk us through the late race restarts and what's necessary for you to be able to succeed. I can't imagine firing off knowing that the guy behind you shoving you down that front straightaway off in the turn one, and you just got to do your best to hang on. Yeah, it's such a different environment. You know, used to in my first couple years in Cup, right, I mean, it was all about the launch. And as long as you got a good launch, it was kind of all in your hands to not spend the tires

and just to make sure you got going in the restart zone well. And typically, if you did a good job accelerating, because we had to, so much power. You could clear the guy or not, you know, and if you didn't, and obviously you were in trouble, but the launch was everything, whereas now, especially at the mile and a half, a lot of us, the push. So it's a double-edged sword because you, you know, three things go on, in my opinion, one, you almost don't want to get too good of a launch because you need the guys push

behind you to help you get going. So that means you're kind of relying on his push to, help clear the outside lane but the problem with that is if you have a good push from him you are susceptible to you know to him pulling out of line on you as you get closer to the corner so it's uh it's a lot to manage you know just just because you do need that push to get going but um ultimately it's it's you know it's what we have to work with and everybody's super aggressive you know i i i wish the leader had more of of the situation in his hands just because it gives a lot of advantage to the people in the second row, in my opinion, especially at tracks that have wider grooves.

But nonetheless, that's what we got. So it's kind of game on and you've got to get aggressive. So we talked about Texas. It's been a track that hasn't been a fan favorite for many years. I kind of struggled with the repave and the racing there and the product. It seems like people were very happy with what they saw this past Sunday. The track, to me, looked a lot racier, a lot wider. Now that, for the most part, it looks like the PJ1's gone.

I'm sure there's still some residual stuff up there, but visually it looks way better, and the groove was much wider. What's your take? Yeah, I have personally felt like the groove has gotten that wide there in the past. To me, the difference in the race this weekend was there was actually some tire fall off, and it happened in a hurry. And I think it caught everyone by surprise. Like I remember, you know, we ran that first cycle at Green Flag Stops long.

And I actually had just run my fastest laps of the race as those guys started to pit. So as we started to get some clean track, we had run some of our best laps or our best laps of the race, you know, like 40 or 50 laps in the run. What really took me by surprise was when those guys came off of pit road, the first corner you know i remember denny came out right next to me uh as he finished his his stop and i expected him to kind of slip and slide for the first couple corners and he gripped up and ripped up and rip right through three and four and i thought oh wow there's actually some you know potentially some tire fall off here and and and those guys are already making pace you know i thought it would take them a little longer to do that so uh from my position i just thought the tire

the tire fell off some and tires were meaningful and having four tires on the car actually made a difference and that to me was where things seemed to be slightly improved from races there in the past. But the track, still the track. I'm not a fan of the way it races and the surface and whatnot. I think it just puts you in a really vulnerable spot to crash.

You know, it's just right on the edge and it's really sketchy and you can do everything right and hit that bump in three and four. And next thing you know, you're wrecked. And you didn't do anything wrong. And we saw it, you know, a lot. But it's a combination of the track and the rear stops and just the world we have to live in. Yeah.

One of the great things that I heard in your post race was mentioning Alickwicki and Hooters and how important it was for you to get that car to Victory Lane. I know, you know, I like you, see that Hooters on the side of the car. And I love that they're still in the sport. and I do recognize the historical significance of the sponsor. I loved hearing that from you. Talk about that and what's the feedback, I guess, been from Hooters and all of their franchisees. How excited are they?

Yeah, it's been awesome. And they've been a great partner and just kind of held in their steady. You know, obviously it's taken a long time to get them a win. And that's been, you know, anytime you have a new partner come in, it's like, man, you want to win with them. and you want to give them that opportunity and that spotlight because especially for them, they only have a handful of races.

So it's like you got three or four shots, you know, at the very most in a season to try to get it done. We've come so close with them in the past. I can think of a couple opportunities that I felt like slipped away from us. But nonetheless, I was glad to get it done. And, you know, the respect to Allen has been on my mind. for a long time, really ever since the partnership began. And it was just, it was an honor for me to, you know, be able to do that.

I want to do a Polish victory lap and, you know, just pay my respect to him because I've always heard nothing but great things about Alan and the way that he'd, you know, wanted about his business. And, you know, I thought it was always kind of, when I look back at the photos, of his championship there at Atlanta. I think it was in 92 or 93. He beat Dad by a very small margin. And the photos of Dad and him always struck me as being a little different

because Dad had this very genuine smile on his face in Victory Lane as he was congratulating him. And he just lost the championship. There was like no sadness or frustration. He was just seemingly very excited for him. And that, to me, has always told me a lot about Alan just in one single photo. And beyond that, I've always heard good things and thought it would be really cool to do that. Pretty awesome, man. I'm glad to hear you talk about that right out of the car because I think that straightaway interviews sometimes.

It's really hard to get your thoughts together, right? and really have a profound, yeah, have any kind of profound stuff. You did, though, man. You got out and you were, like, giving us this awesome information about your appreciation for Allen and that relationship. I thought that was so cool. You got to be thrilled, man, to be back in Victory Lane. We're excited to see it.

We appreciate you coming in earlier this year and being a part of the show. Congratulations on the win. Thanks for giving us a little bit of time today, man, and good luck the rest of the year. I appreciate it, yeah. Thanks for having me, and hope you guys have a good rest of the week. All right, you too, bud. Thank you.

Interesting. He had those comments about Alan Quicki. Alan Quicki's crew chief, Paul Andrews, was my crew chief this weekend at the Lake Model Stock Race. Yeah. That is full circle right there. Yeah, pretty coincidental. Yeah, we've actually asked Paul to help us a little bit. I only run a couple races, so we just need somebody to come in and just kind of oversee what's going on.

And I was thinking when he's talking on the radio, I'm like, golly, man. This guy has been through so much. much and has and was you know a key witness to everything allan quickie ever did and winning his championship as a driver and all that and we actually booked paul to come onto the show i don't know if you knew that but yes paul's going to found out about that he's going to be a guest and i'm excited about that i love that um so he can come tell us all about his career um so a great conversation there with Chase, what did you guys pull from that? I mean, from what we were talking about right before he jumped on, he's good with the amount

of practice. Did he change your mind? It didn't seem like it took a lot of convincing to change your mind there. Well, I mean, listen, he's a driver, just won the race this past weekend. Of course he's not going to want more practice. I'm going to, no, but I'm saying if he tells me that this, you know, this is, you know, if he tells me that this is the way it is and this is good, I'm going to. going to probably take his word for it because he's the one out there doing it.

He's the one, this past weekend, he was the best at doing it. You know, I'm sitting at home watching from a distance, and like I say all the time, we got a lot of opinions on here, and we sometimes get it right and sometimes get it wrong. Maybe I'm wrong about this one. Maybe I'm wrong about practice. I just know that I'd love to see Jimmy run better, and if he thinks practice would help, I think that would I would love to give him more practice because I want to see Jimmy Johnson be competitive. right now because I know he can be

given the right and I feel like you know he's racing with one arm tied behind his back and I feel that way for Shane I don't want Shane to come here from you know he gave up everything he had back in New Zealand and Australia

a successful career to come out here and he wants this to work and I don't want there to be any excuses why it didn't and it's in those are two examples the more important more importantly is my personal connection with Josh Barry with Carson

Quappell any of the drivers that come through here some of the Sammy Smith right now I mean hell even you yourself me freaking A right so there you go those are the reasons why yes more practice I would love more practice was you know when I went to Bristol last year. Was it enough? Yes, but it was your, it was barely enough, right? Right at the end of that

practice, I started to feel like I was sort of gaining on it, right? Right. And it's, everything happens so fast. Practice, practice 20 minutes, qualify. And you're like, you're just spun out. There's no time to download and think and process and change, you know, what you're doing to make adjustments and improve. But anyhow, Chase thinks it's fine. We had a crazy finish in the Xfinity race. I feel like everybody knows about this, right? Nobody's not heard about this Xfinity race.

Am I right? Yeah. Why does it feel that way? It's an exciting finish. There's a much smaller audience, right, watching the Xfinity race. I mean, anytime you can get those cars finish that close, it's going to draw some eyeballs on it. So our driver, Sam Mare, gets the win,

spectacular fashion, when they crossed the finish line and I'm watching on TV, I swore it looked like the Me Seag won. Justin Algar had a great day, strong run, looked like he might be in position to win. Riley Herps had some great speed late

that was putting the pressure on Justin when Justin got together with Honeyman and that cost him the race, I think. I'm going to tell you what one of the things that I think happened is Ryan Sieg's team, I believe gave him a little bit of air pressure on a short run to the finish

I believe that they gave him a little extra air pressure so that he could fire off and which when the restart happened he drives right by everybody right jumps out there into the lead and the longer they ran the tighter he got and they ran him down and I'm looking at that and I'm going

look like they pumped his tires up which is a very smart move I mean it nearly won him the race I don't know if that's what happened, but it's like, look like, you know, if there's a short run or a short, you know, 15, 20 lap run to the green on a mile and a half like that, even, I guess, anywhere, really, pumping up the tires is a great call because it allows the car to take off and run fast laps right away.

Now there's some, you're going to lose time on the back end of the run, but hopefully it's so short that that doesn't happen. And so Sieg fires off, just almost with it. ease drives into the lead. And I'm thinking, man, you know, I want our guys to win. We badly need a win. A win at Phoenix with Justin

would have changed our season. It would be a completely different, you know, emotion in this shop. Had that win happened for us at Phoenix, right? It didn't. It's a heartbreaker. And the morale and the look on everybody's face in that shop is a bit

frustrated, right, and a bit disappointed. A win changes the shop, changes the morale and the team, and we need one. But here's Sieg out front. And I was like, damn, I'm torn because I kind of want this guy to get a win. I do want him to get a win. At our expense, I'm not sure. But, man, they came down to the finish.

And unfortunately, for Sieg, Sam beats him by one of the smallest of margins. But it's the same. That's the weird thing about being an owner, man, is like you're a fan. and an owner and the fan and he's like, Underdog, wow, this Cinderella story is so awesome. Right. Who doesn't like that? The guy has been grinding it out, right, for years.

And Cig gets out, thanks Stuart Haas Racing. So there's some sort of an alliance there that's helping them gain this performance. That's not cheap. I'm sure that Ryan and his team, they're stressed to the max, right? financially. They're doing everything they can to try to get themselves to Victor Lane. And just so close.

So close. But he has those moments throughout the year where he's like, he'll show up and he's top five all day long. And you've got to hope that that win eventually comes. I love how he gets out and admits it, man. He's like, I tried to run him in the wall. Did you hear him in his post-race interview?

I didn't hear that. I actually didn't hear that part. Dude, you missed it. Yes. He's like, yeah, I try to run in the wall, try to win the race. And I'm like, you know, I'm okay with that. Do you think he did everything he could to do? DBC said he was not aggressive enough. He could have been more aggressive.

He fenced their car. I mean, put Sam in the wall. Whatever, DBC. What the hell? They also said that the race was entertaining, but it wasn't a good race. What the hell does that even mean? They were talking about the cup race there. I know it.

It was entertaining, but it wasn't good. That's an oxymoron, right? Which makes sense, because they're a bunch of morons. Seig wasn't aggressive enough as they're grinding against the fence into the flagstand. Finish wasn't close enough. Finish wasn't close enough. Smoke. Fire, tires torn up, cars torn up.

Could have been better. Could have been more aggressive. This week's segment was brought you by tire pros. There are a few people who love cars as much as I do, but these tire and service experts equally love the drive. they offer a huge selection of brand name tires and full service repairs from oil changes to alignments to brakes. Tire Pros is giving your vehicle to TLC it deserves. Tire Pros is unique because each location is owned by men and women in your community,

but with the added support and resources of over 600 locations nationwide, next time you need to take your car in, show your neighbors some love, and take it to Tire Pros, tell them I sent you. All right, it's time for Ask Junior. Let's get right to it. You sent your questions in to social media. Andrew's going to go through them. Let's get started. Shout out to everyone on Twitter.

There were a lot of good ones this week. This first one, I was thinking about this morning, and so I definitely want to ask it. This is coming from Mike. What are your thoughts on the sharing of SMT data? Yeah, I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't, it doesn't bother me bad, like watching another driver's,

you know, dad, I guess the problem or the frustration is, is that, you know, oh, well, we can all see each other's drive and how they, how they're steering, gassing, breaking, all those things. And I can just copy that and I can go out there and we're all just going to run the same. I think that there's probably some truth to that. The drivers, you know, if the drivers don't like it and they don't want that much information being shared, then fine take it away but I'll say this we could get information on Kevin Harvick's straddles his braking his steering back when they were kicking butt right and they were a Chevrolet team getting assistance from HMS and it didn't matter you couldn't you couldn't replicate it you know and you know when I would go somewhere to run the wall and be really good

you know, Jimmy and Jeff Gordon, those guys would look at the stuff and they couldn't rep, they wouldn't, you know, they would look at it and go, yeah, okay, I see what you're doing. I'm not going to go do that. I'm going to drive my car the way I want to drive. And so, I mean, we've been able to look at this information for a long, long time. Now, it's much easier now. I mean, literally, it's in your hands during qualifying, during practice live. We're watching it.

You're getting it at speed. Whereas in the past, we would have to kind of download it. and downloaded it and looked at it between practices and so forth. But I don't know. I don't think so. Doesn't matter as much to you. There's other things that need to be concerned. There's other concerns, I guess, that are more serious.

One thing I thought was interesting with the SMT data. Larson was testing at Indy last week, and he's like, man, I wish I had these IndyCar driver's SMT data. Yeah. So I could learn, I guess, like, for new people it might. be helpful information. I found that was interesting from the IndyCar side.

I guess that, you know, the way the S&T data is delivered is really easy, right? And so it's so you can watch and really apply it. You know, whereas in the past, the pie data and the stuff that we used,

it was basically a graph line, right? And you're like, okay, he's in the throttle here, he's off here, but the SMT data is more virtual to where you can, literally see, okay, I know I can take what I'm seeing and go right to the track right now on this next run and go do this. Go try it.

And they can get it while in the car, right? So it's probably a little too easy, right? S&T data. Maybe it would be you couldn't stop them from being able to go home Sunday after the race and look at it during the week, right? Or go over it and that was always going on. before. But now it's like in your hands and in the moment in the middle of the practice or qualifying and being able to go out there and try to do something. Somebody just did on the racetrack is pretty

pretty convenient. Um, this next question, very simple from Rob, uh, when you're drinking beer, bottles or cans? What's your preference? Cold? I don't have a preference. No. No. Do you? I, I always like the bottles. Wow. Glass bottles a little more. I'm a can guy. I don't know. For some reason I think it tastes better. Yeah. Really? Yeah. I just think there's something about hot day with a can.

You know, the bottle to me, I'm like, I don't want to worry about it. I drop this and then I got, you know, no, give me a can. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever's cold? Yeah, I don't care. Cans are more convenient. Cans are crushable, right?

If you got to, you know, if you're going to drink quite a few, I got one of those little hand. Oh, the crush. Crushers? Yes. Yeah. I mean, bottles fill up the trash can. Yeah.

They're loud. Loud. You got to take it out. Dang, bang, bang, bang. Exactly. Crush cans, man. How many crushed cans can fit in a traditional, you know, thousands of scoffy.

Five-gallon trash can. My college roommate had one of those crushers, and he would put them in these big bags and then bring them to the recycling plants and get money back just to buy more beer. I think if you're a beer drinker on the regular, you've got to have a crusher. on the wall. I'm going to have to get one then. Yeah.

I got one in here. My right foot's typically my crusher. Just like that. We got time for one more question. This one's coming from Facebook, from Scott. You know, you're talking about, hey, sometimes just need to drink some beer, smoke some cigarettes. That's the best way I prepared for a race. Do you know of anything that your dad did to prepare for, like, racing?

No. No. No? No, he just got in the car, got in the car and went. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't think I drank beer and smoked cigarettes to prepare for racing. But it's like a way to unwind, you know? That's different.

Yeah, that's after the race. I'll rephrase my question. I think, yeah. Prepare for the race. I think what dad did instead of drinking, well, dad did drink beer, but he wasn't a smoker. He never smoked. What dad did was just, he drank beer with his. buddies and then he um he rode a bulldozer so like he would go um spend Monday Tuesday

Wednesday you know moving dirt and shaping his land he had property and he he loved to build a dam or clear a field or you know he always was there was always a job and a thing to do that you know he wasn't like this property wasn't making him money but it was a project of his something to pit a width. Interesting. Yeah. So he was always clearing land,

pushing trees over, and we're going to make this look a certain way, and I'm going to, you know, we're going to eventually, I'm going to build a house over here, so I've got to clean this up

and this and that and the other. Yeah. He had this log house down on the back side. So if you drive by DEI, in between the buildings, there's a driveway that goes down in the woods, and that's where he lived. He built this log cabin down in there.

and even though that I think I believe that even though that was an amazing house for whatever reason he had 100 acres down the street about a half a mile from DEI that they were also planning to eventually build there and so when he passed away I asked Teresa I said I want to you know I want to buy land will you sell me this 100 acres that's sitting down on the side of the road and she He wouldn't sell that to me if you wanted to keep it, which is fine. And so I ended up buying on the other side of town. But, yeah, Dad loved land, loved owning land, and he had a, he had like a vision of how he wanted that land to look and literally would move tons of dirt to shape it how he wanted. That's pretty cool.

Yeah. It's very cool. Yeah. That was the way he kind of cooled down after race. Yeah. Do you know the story about him flipping? the bulldozer? No.

No? Really? No? Let's hear it. So a long time ago, this dad was still alive. I was writing columns. And I've read a column or two on this show. I used to write columns for the Grand National scene, Winston Cup scene, whatever it was.

And I wrote about a dozen of them. I wrote one about him. And I was going to publish it. I don't know where it ended up going. I think it ended up going in the book. with Jade Gers, my rookie year, driver number eight. But I wrote this thing as column about that. And I'm going to tell you, man, if you've never read it or written,

if you never read it, you need to read it. I sat down and wrote that in less than a half hour by myself. It talks about how great dad is. and so in that article I was in my little L.S10 pickup truck about 16 years old and I was driving down to this log cabin as he's building it.

He's on a bulldozer in front of the log cabin clearing some land and he pushed this tree over the giant freaking tree and the roots of that tree come out of the earth and flip that when the tree goes down

this big tree falls down the roots come out of the ground flipped over a giant bulldozer I don't do its side. I just pulled down and stopped getting home from school, and I'm sitting there watching him do his work for like five, ten minutes. And as soon as he recognizes me or sees me,

maybe he shuts it down, climbs down, we BS a little bit. But he's sitting there running this bulldozer, and all of a sudden it flips over. I jump out and I run over there, and he comes out from under it. And he's like, hurry, get in your truck. let's drive, you know, we're going to run, we've got to go back to the farm. I've got to flip this thing back over.

It's, you know, gas and all this stuff, you know, leaking out of this tractor. So he jumped, I thought, you know, great, he's not hurt. He jumps in the truck and we drive on the back of the farm and he gets another tractor, another bulldozer. And he drives this bulldozer wide open, probably about quarter mile, maybe longer, to this spot and flips the other one over,

jumps on it, crankes. it up and back to work. Wow. I'm like, man, flip at a bulldozer is hard to do. Yeah. And he flipped it, got out, flipped it back over, and just started back to work.

Dang. Yeah. One time in the same article, I was probably six or seven years old. I just moved in with him, 1981, 1989, long, long time ago. There was a guy that was going to build a on the back of his lake house and dad told the guy he would come over there and saw this tree down

that was in the way of this deck that the guy was going to build on the back of his house so dad on a Wednesday between races goes over to this guy's house and he's like I don't know why he took me but he's like you want to come along I'm like sure and so um I get out of the I get out of the truck and he gets his saw chainsaw I'm standing on the I'm standing on the in the back looking up in this tree and he climbs up this tree with a chainsaw and he's up there and he's sawing the limbs off right he's going and going 15 20 minutes and he saws the largest part he solves a tree in parts right as he's coming down right he's been up there 25 30 minutes finally comes down and he comes down and his glove he's got these tan leather old school gloves you remember

remember the original like sort of outdoor yep and I don't even know if they make them like that anymore but his glove was ripped across from from knuckle to knuckle across the back of his hand was ripped and he pulled his glove off

and his hand was wide open serrated from knuckle to knuckle bad and I was like my eyes were like gigantic. Like I'm a kid, right? And he's like, he's just looking at it.

I was like, I thought that that had just happened, right? That the chainsaw laid on his hand and he would come down because of that. And I was like, when did that happen? And he's like, soon as I got up there. It's crazy. He was something else. I was like, holy snows. I mean, you know, that would happen to me.

I'd panic. I'm out of running. the hell out of there. I'm like, who's driving me to the hospital? You know? But he's like, oh, oops, zir. Keep going, you know. Wow.

He's like, he's like, I'm not even going to look at it. Just going to keep on doing what I'm doing. Gosh. But it was like, it was just built different. It was just like wide open. Wide open. But it was jagged. Like it was not nice and, it wasn't like a nice and clean.

It looked. You know how a chainsaw might do you, right? It looked exactly like a chainsaw. Yes. Did he like go? the hospital after that or? I don't remember. Just what he did.

I'm sure. I don't. Oh my God. You know, and then he, you know, he broke, broke his hand on that guy's face when the guy shot the deer on his property. So I wrote, I've heard that. Yeah. Yeah.

This little thing. So I write this one pager, right? And it's just like, you know, how amazing he is, right? And I read, I went to his office and I read it to him. And I said, dad. I got to read you something because I'm going to publish this. And I don't want you to go, hey, I wish you wouldn't have done that. Because it's a little personal.

And I read it to him and I said, hey, if you're okay with it, man, I'm going to publish it in the grand national scene. He goes, you need to save that for a book. He's like, that's too good. I was like, all right. And so I think we put it in drive rate. So we're going to talk dirty mode. This comes out every Thursday. Steve LaTart, Alex Thames,

Tampa Tims. Which one, man? Which one? I don't care. Either one. You're good. Tampa Tims is the gambling one, so. Well, there's been a lot of gambling going on over the last several days with the Masters, and I know that we all were high. How do you pronounce this guy's name? Ludwig Oberg.

Oberg. Okay. This dude played great. He finished second. We all were high on him to win which that was your call. It was. Early in the week. We had the right long shot. You did.

But Scotty Schaeffler is amazing. Yeah. I think he had a lot of people put money on Scotty and are feeling pretty good about that. And it was an impressive four days on the course. So did you come out of there on top? We lost a couple bucks. We basically just broke even.

Oh, yeah? Yeah. The Oberg finishing second. While it was a great story, he didn't cash me any money. So it kind of disappointed the weekend there. You know, one of the things that I really enjoyed looking at how you could bet, top five, top 10, top 20s, being able to live bet a four-day event, you know, on day two, day three. And seeing like, man, and a lot of the people that I was assuming would be top 10, top 20,

it all pretty much netted out. Yeah. There's not a ton of movement at a master's tournament, right? No, yeah, not a lot. Not in the final couple days. It's also cool because you can see how you can wake up and see how the course is if it's really windy, and you can kind of adjust off that too because you can bet right up, you can live bet and you can bet right up to the guy's tea time.

You never really can stop betting that tournament. Yeah. NASCAR bets, you bet Bubba Reddick Chastain to win. Reddick looked like the guy that was going to probably get it done for you. All three came close. but was a chaotic finish. You hit Keselowski in the top 10. How bad were you feeling about that in the first 50 laps of the race

as he's dropping back to the fucking rear of the field? I was trying to cash out $1 and just save my $9. You hung in there. But I hung in there. All right. It wasn't worth it. Briscoe top 10. Yeah.

I would have never guessed. When he crashed, I thought it was over. Yeah. So, I mean, that's how chaotic that race was. He came right back, finished sixth. So, I don't know. It's one of those races. You just bury the tape.

You don't even watch it again. Byron versus Larson head to head? Yes. This is a huge conversation in betting because Byron is always such a big underdog to Larson. But Byron has beat Larson in the next gen car, head-to-head matchups now, and is way more profitable. So if you bet Byron blindly every time you make a ton of money, so that's kind of my new strategy now.

So let me ask you this. You bet on all types of sports. It feels like to me that the strategy, strategy to betting and racing does not compare to any other sport. Totally different, right? Totally different. And I think wouldn't you say that, now I'm really green at all this, and I don't understand most of it,

but looking at like baseball versus tennis and hockey and all these other types of sports, even football, there's a risk versus reward. It changes the level of risk. It changes per sport. You bet each sport just a little bit. bit differently. And, but racing seems this outlier.

It really is. Right? It really is. What are some of the biggest challenges? Well, say baseball, for example, it's just two teams. You're picking one side of the other. In racing, there's 40 cars out there that can affect the race. I mean, Larson might be the clear-cut favorite, but he has a wheel fall off.

So now he's back in 36, 12, two laps down. 39 other guys that could win that, right? So it's very hard to pick the winner, but you can still make money on the battle between 26. 27. What are some of the, all right, so what are some of the safer, more conservative bets? I would say the heads-to-head matchups are probably safer. You're only got to worry about two guys. The only downside to that is that's also the most, I would say, juiced, which is the odds are worse. Worse. In that category, but you're only facing two guys. Do you get props that are heavily favored? I mean, it seems like that most of the props, even the two, head-to-heads are

going to be very, you know, it's going to be Larson versus Byron, right? Yeah. And so there's, you know, in a lot of other sports, especially in tournaments, you're going to get that one seed, 15th seed, heavy favorite, right? Yes. In NASCAR, there doesn't seem to be opportunities like that. No. I think that's the greatest thing about betting on NASCAR is there's a lot of opportunities to make some money because everything is kind of an underdog pick. Really? Really a favorite pick, you know?

Because you're all, you put $10 down. The lowest audit for even a race winner is plus 400, so you're going to win $40 if they win. So that's the unique as part about betting NASCAR. When NFL, the Super Bowl, the Chiefs, you can put $10 down for them to win. You're only going to win like $7 or $8 because they're the favorite. So that's why I love it. All right.

I don't know, man. I'm the opposite. Like, I like easy money, even if it's... Heavy favorites. Yeah, that's me. Right, nickel and down. Chipping away at it. There's a nice science to find in that long.

shot where you feel really good about it. All right. So what are the way too early predictions for Talladega? This one to me is, I know from fantasy this was the most frustrating weekend. Yes. Because really, you know, even though you know, okay, this Bubba Wallace or Blaney, they're good

and they tend to do well at these racetracks, you know it's a long shot. Do you put a McDowell in your five, you know, five car lineup for fantasy, do you put, you know, Stenhouse? These are those great weekends where you might use these drivers you're not otherwise going to be using to save, you know, save somebody for later in the season. But how do you approach it in the gambling in the betting world? Low volume, meaning not a lot of bets like I would normally have on a given week. You kind of look for your long shot guys you want to root for because it'd be fun to win that guy, you know?

Like Swar is winning in Atlanta. That was fun if you had him. You might bet one favorite like a Blaney or a Ligano because if they win you don't, you feel kind of stupid because they're really good there. But it's really just have fun pick guys you want to win and kind of keep it low. Is it probably better for Talladega to not try to pick, I mean, I'm sure you want to put $5 down on some, you know, long shot.

Yeah. But is it maybe better to, is it better to do top five's top tens there? Not really. No. You know, it's such, I mean, if you're picking a parlay. If you're doing a really long shot, yeah, top 10. Like, Corey LaJoy's a good top 10 bet there because he's really good these tracks.

He's going for a top 10, you know, that's not a bad bet. But if you're talking anybody that's not, it really depends on the line. If it's plus 200 or more, yeah, go for it. Anything less, I wouldn't even touch it. It's not worth it. All right. Dirty Mode Doe drops every Thursday on our dirty mode media platforms. You don't want to miss it, especially, I mean, now that North Carolina is open, you know,

We're all learning about gambling and gambling responsibly. Tim's is here to share his knowledge every single week, him and LaTart. We've got another update coming from the Cars Tour. They just raced this past weekend, so let's get that update. Well, as you may have heard earlier on in this episode, the ZMAX Cars Tour presented by Sound Gear was back in action this past Saturday night at Jacksonville, North Carolina's New River All-American Speedway, contesting the third race of the 2004 season,

in the late model stock card division after an initial postponement of this event three weeks ago for implement weather. It ended up being well worth the wait, however, as a gorgeous day on the North Carolina coast provided a remarkable setting for the over 15,000 race fans in attendance who took in a night full of Bandolero, street stock, legend car, and Grand National Super Series action. After a full day of practice on Friday, Saturday afternoon began much like it did in the series' previous visit to this racetrack is a familiar face at the front of the field captured his first Thunder Road Harley-Davidson Poll Award of the season and second consecutive at New River All-American in Brendan Queen. It ain't getting easier, buddy, but we're going to enjoy this, and our work's not done.

Obviously, we want to win. We give up the pole to win, but we take both if we can get it. The National Dodge Chrysler Jeep Graham 250 began with plenty of chaos at the front of the field as a number of different drivers swapped the lead in the opening stages, all employing their own unique strength. strategy at this exceptionally abrasive racetrack. This thing starts to jam up a little bit from the bottom as McCarty now gets a fender inside a cruise for the top spot and one. So third lead change, Tyrell almost looked for second. One hundred twelve laps to go, new leader at the front of the field.

It is the sixth of Bobby McCarty. While many Tyrell, Kate Brown, and Bobby McCarty all jostled for the top spot, Landon Huffman, who started the raise back in the 24th position, decided to implement the most aggressive strategy of the night, taking the lead with 90 laps to go and not relinquishing it for the following 34 laps. After Minnie Tyrell resumed the top spot, Huffman's aggressive track position strategy began to backfire before leading up to the first incident of the night. The top 10 here today, fresh off of his cars toward Dave due last week, we got a crash turn four, one car got spun, and Dail Earnhardt Jr. had to stop to avoid, and there is some

damage to the front end of Dail Earnhardt Jr.'s three car. The High Rock Baca Chevrolet. This is in turn three. You can see him enter the right-hand portion of your frame. Three wide. I believe that's with Bryce Applegate. A little bit of contact. Huffman gets sideways.

Although damage, Earnhardt Jr. would keep his bass pro shop Chevrolet out on the racetrack before eventually rallying for a 14th place finish. Up front though, the intensity began to pick up in a fierce battle between Queen and Mini Tyrell that eventually led to some contact. And Tyrell, I tell you what, he is not fading at all. He is applying all the pressure he can to Brendan Queen down the front straightaway, who shuts the door all the way down to the grass with 39 to go. You talk about protecting the bottom.

That was protected the bottom by that of Butterbeam. As now Tyrell lunges to the bottom. They touch Tyrell sideways. Both of them save it as McCarty tries to move up to second. While Minnie Tyrell was able to continue on through the contact, Queen's left rear tire eventually flat bringing out the final caution flag of the night. Through that skirmish, though, emerged three-time series champion Bobby McCarty, who held off Minnie Tyrell in the closing laps to net his first one of the season

and his 12th in Z-Max Cars Tour competition. This whole group, man, like, I've been struggling and I've been questioning, you know, and Dominion, that was just kind of a being smarter deal versus faster. and to have the car and finally to play off, man, I just don't know what to say. Fellow R&S chassis customer, Minnie Tyrell finished just behind in second. Connor Hall retained his points lead with his third place effort. Trayton Latsovich again impressed in fourth, and Carson Quappell returned following his Exfinity debut at Martinsville with the fifth place finish.

Chad McCombie, Ryan Millington, landed Lewis, Andrew Grady, and Isabella Robusto completed the top 10. This Saturday, April 20th, both the pro-late models and late model stocks will be back in action at Orange County Speedway as the 2020-24 season continues to march on. Be sure to catch live, flag-to-flag coverage of the ZMAX Cars Tour all season long on Flow Racing. I'm Late McCandless, and this has been your Cars Tour recap. All right, it's time for the white flag. Dropping, or already dropped this week to tear down with Jeff Gluck. Jordan Bianchi. I didn't get to tear down this week. What was they, what was Bozos talking about? They were, I mean, Jordan, he was pretty high on Texas, wasn't he? Yes. Yes. Yeah, and they were,

they were still debating. Does Texas still need a repave after this? You know, we're talking about the Gluck poll. That was, that was a question. Do not repave this race track. That was the question Jeff Gluck posed to Jordan. Okay. So that was one thing that they were debating. But I mean, the Gluck poll, it's doing well. Yeah. Oh, my. my God, if they reconfigure it, they've got to repave it, and then we're going back to waiting it out again. Seven, eight years of frustration. Right.

Yeah. Uh-uh. I think the only way I would accept a repave reconfiguration is if they were just trying to mimic Bristol and going to give me an asphalt Bristol finally. Praise the Lord. Action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin is out as well. What did he talk about? He talked about a lot of things.

He talked about going for it. Yep. Right? Risking it all. Door bumper clear has dropped already this week. I know they were talking some nonsense. It was an entertaining show, but it wasn't a good show. Yeah.

Entertaining show, but not good job, Andrew. I like that. Dirty Mo Doe, as we mentioned, with Steve LaTart drops Thursday. DJD reloaded. Last week, Carla and Jordan Bianchi heard from independent team owners, Carl Long and B.J. McLeod about their unique perspectives on the NASCAR charter deal and racing as Carl Long proposes to do this year as an open car. How can you make that work financially?

NASCAR has tried to create a system that would make that maybe very challenging, right? To be able to get rid of starting parks and people that are out there just kind of riding around for the cash. So Carl Long's information was really cool. Plus he's riding in his 18-wheeler headed to the race, right? Headed to Texas or somewhere, right? and Carla has done a great job. DJD Reloaded. I really love what it's become this year,

and Carla is a big reason behind that. She's taking ownership of it, and it's really, really doing well. Dropping tomorrow's Speed Street with Connor Daly and Chase Holden, those guys do a great job, but we've got a really cool guest. I mean, they have great guests on this show all the time, but Kyle Larson is going to come on and talk about the upcoming Indy 500 that he's going to try to run.

So Connor, hope those guys are ready to take it. team up on some hard questions, no softballs. Tomorrow on the guest segment presented by Ally, we have Marlon Yoder coming on the show, and most of you probably have never heard that name before. Some in the industry would recognize it. Marlon came from Missouri and left the very strict Amish community to become part of NASCAR, a crewman,

and he's also a driver in grassroots streetstock racing. and I'm so curious about his story and his, you know, his choices, right, and how difficult this must have been. We got to hear, we get to hear about that tomorrow. So I'm looking forward to learning about, you know, how challenging that must have been and what are the challenges today and just got a lot of questions. So we're going to get into that with Marlon tomorrow. I'm excited.

I met him at Florence earlier this year, learned about his story. He's done a few podcasts. over the last four or five years. And he is a champion, mechanic and crewman in the NASCAR level. Right? So we're going to learn about that.

And look forward to it. We'll see you tomorrow. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.