The Dale Jr. Download - 538 - Kansas: Buescher's Heartbreak & Dale's New TV Deal

Episode Date: May 7, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the Bojangles Studio to break down the closest finish in NASCAR Cup history. While the finish at Kansas between Kyle Larson and Chris Buescher had viewers on the edge of their seats, it sparked a debate on how photo finishes are governed and more: Which start/finish line is the real one? Transponders vs. the line vs. the camera Mile-and-a-half tracks have been great; do we need more on the schedule? Short tracks continue to be on the chopping block moving forward Dale's broadcasting plans for 2025 Kansas second-place finisher Chris Buescher calls in During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding: Dale seeing Kasey Kahne at dinner Dale’s silver Goodyear car from winning the NASCAR Busch Series Championship Multiple tire compounds for North Wilkesboro The secret to finding the best bathroom before a race NASCAR implementing a push-to-pass system like IndyCar 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 this Tuesday. We're going to cover the race of Kansas, an incredible race for the NASCAR Cup series. And also, Chris Bush is going to call in and tell us about his experience of almost winning. And we're just going to have a lot of fun. We're going to talk about the schedule changes that may be coming down the pipe for NASCAR and everything else going on in the sport. Let's get started. The following is a production of Dirty Moe Media.

Who's the new guy? In the studio for Dirty Air. And then Dale started singing. 99 bottles of beer. There are some voices on the show that you're going to hear. All right, so back in the Bojangles studio. And usually we have the winner call in. Larson is traveling today.

So, yeah, we got the other winner, Chris, Chris, Busher. I wouldn't call him a winner. Say again? I wouldn't necessarily call him a winner in this situation. I'd like you to say that to his face. Well, I mean, hey, I was rooting for Busher, but he didn't win the race. Let's try to be nice to, I guess. You're right.

Hey, I love Busher. I love Busher. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. I mean, hey, when for a second, we all thought the guy was a winner. I know.

Yeah. And you're lying if you say otherwise. Mm-hmm. The pylon said it, the transponder said it. I mean, there was a very short time where there was a universe, a reality where he was the winner. And then he wasn't. Yeah. Let's get into that.

I mean, let's talk about it right now. The conversation has already happened. You know, we're 72 hours or whatever beyond all of that. I think Jeff Gluck and his crew did a great job of sort of explaining timing lines, painted lines on a racetrack, start finish lines, NASCAR's camera, and all of the procedures that go into that. And, you know, we can talk to our guests tomorrow, Elton Sawyer, about their whole processes at the end of that race, right?

This was, I mean, my experience, I think, was really similar to pretty much everyone else's. I'll be surprised if anybody had a different experience than me, but they crossed the finish line. I thought I thought visually watching it live the 17 was the first car to the line. Kind of goes to show, man. It's good that you got to the camera

because what I saw isn't what happened, right? Larson got to the finish line first. I mean, there was kind of two finish lines. You know what I mean? There was the one that you know,

somebody painted a little extra finish line. and then there was the original finish line. Did y'all see that, right? They cut it a little fat. Like the apron didn't have the line painted. Yeah. But it was almost as if they painted that line

and somebody came by and added a little extra to the start finish line of the banking. That was like an addition. It's an abstract version of a finish line. You ever see one of those houses, nice house, and then it has this like shi addition on the side of it? It's not even the right. It's not even the same siding, you know?

It's obvious, like, add-on. and it looks terrible. So that's what that looked like. Anyhow, you know, I think the 17s won the race, and I'm like, dang, you know, I didn't think Bush was going to get it done this year. Remember? Yes. I was like, hey, guy surprising the hell out of me.

Here he is. Run good all day. And then messed around and won that race. Seconds later, you know, we're all sort of realizing that NASCAR's decided that the 17 has not, won the race and now I mean my mind goes into well how is that possible I literally just watched him get to the finish line first and I'm assuming I'm not there but I'm assuming timing and scoring said the 17-1 so are we not going by the damn transponders how are we not doing that right what is this evidence that NASCAR has that says that the five is a winner and then you know we go back and see the

photo finish and the five is actually ahead, they slow it down on television. You can see the five is just a little bit further ahead of the 17. So it's a, it's a crazy thing, man. What I saw in live TV, what I saw as it was happening, was not really what happened. Because as they slow it down and then we see the pictures, you're like, wow, okay, yeah, the five is ahead. and I saw Denny's comments on his actions detrimental. He said, hey man, you know, let's get these, you know, start finish lines fixed. What the hell? You know, will we ever come down to a finish like this again?

Maybe not, but if we do, let's make sure that the start finish line doesn't look like this, right? Because, yes, NASCAR is going to get it right. There's not going to be any debate about the winter, but the optics of the start-finish line being painted funky is not good, right? So shame on you, Kansas. Shame on you, Kansas, most freeway. Yeah, get it straight. Love your barbecue.

Get your start-finish line, I think you figure it out, right? And so otherwise, man, I was really happy with how NASCAR handled all that. And I thought that our media, Jeff Gluck and everyone else, did a really good job of sort of explaining what went down and not adding fuel to the fire in terms of like, oh, this is BS. You know, it was a great moment. Closest finish in history.

We ought to celebrate that. Does anybody feel differently about that? Not at all. I'm totally with you on that. I had no problem with the explanation of why Larson won and all of that, but I'm like, man, it should just be easier to understand, I guess, the win for the viewer.

Because, you know, I don't want to have to go search for that later on Twitter to see, oh, well, then, oh, I can understand why Larson. one now. No, paint the line straight. Get a camera that's clear enough to see, I don't know. I do, I am a little bit surprised that there is a difference between, I guess,

start finish line, timing lines and a camera. Right. Right. And where the line that the camera creates, right? So that camera is set up straight across from the start finish line, over on pit road, high up, over to the top of anything that could obscure the

view of the cars coming by. And that camera has a line that's the official line, right? And does it match perfectly with the start finish line? Probably not, considering the start finish line's irregular, right? And it's very irregular in this case. And so, you know, was it the first bit of paint? Is it that second part that the 17's racing to? it's all that part to me

didn't ever that part didn't know you the difference between scoring loops which are which are not right on top of the start finish line right they're either before or after the camera and the start all of those things not synced

was a bit of a surprise to me something that I guess I should have known about our sport I didn't matter to me it did not matter to none of us until we found ourselves in this position where we're basically having 0.001, you know, finish. Right.

So do we have to worry about this going forward? Probably not. But it's interesting that, you know, we've been watching races forever thinking, man, you know, when you're a kid and you're racing on foot, there's a finish line. There's a line in the sand, whatever, right? A line's a line.

That's what you race to. But we're not really racing to what, that visual painted line on the racetrack, right? Right. But there are moments during the race where we use that line, right? Right. For example, like under a pit cycle, if the caution comes out, are you ahead of the line when the leader crosses it?

There's a couple scenarios where the line is in play, right? And so it's interesting. I guess we could talk to Elton about that tomorrow a little bit. But pretty crazy finish. Great for the sport. I'm happy. You know, there were a lot of cars coming late with tires. A couple late cautions set up pretty interesting strategy there.

Watching the end car, if you get a chance, go on social media and watch Kyle Bush in the last several laps. His own board, pretty spectacular. That looks like a lot of fun. I thought the fuel mileage race that was, was playing out was pretty interesting. It was getting interesting. Yeah.

Without an overtime finish, it still would have been a good finish, I think. I think the booth did a good job of letting us know they were saving, and it was, it was, what I like to hear is that they're all saving, they all need to save, who's saving enough? And then there's guys that don't need to save, and they're coming, like true X. Right. Right. And so that was so helpful to raise my anxiety and anticipation, right?

That's what, you know, it brought a lot of good emotion into the race before we had the cautions that ultimately set up a different finish. It seemed like Chris Busher, man, was so disappointed by that finish. I would be, especially when you thought you won the race. Yeah. Like you have all that elation. Oh, it's over. They called it. And then, nope, it's not yours anymore.

Yeah. I wonder, you know, you'll have races in your career that you don't get over. You just don't. And I have a handful, right? 2000, I think 15 Talladega. Yeah. With Ligano there and all that. The other Talladega, we talked about it.

the other Talladega with Jeff Gordon, right? Same sort of scenario. Caution comes out while we're in the act of passing. And it's like, man, you know, I still ain't over those. You know?

I still don't feel like that played out the way it should have and that I feel like I got, you know, the shit into the stick. I wonder if he will feel like, I don't know how he can. I mean, he got, you know, got beat to the finish, right?

right, it was a legit deal. He didn't get, like, screwed over by some outside entity, right? But I wonder if that'll be a race that sticks in his gut for a long, long time. Not to mention it's the closest finish in history, so he's probably going to see a replay or two for the end of time as well. Great point. He won't get a choice in terms of getting that one or putting that one behind him. Yeah. I saw a stat somewhere that said that this is.

his first top five at a mile and a half ever. Dang. Like in the Cup Series? That's what I swear. I saw a statistic on it. I mean, so that's pretty, I mean, for him to think, man, I'm not really necessarily, quote, unquote, good at these tracks and I'm that far away from winning it. Like, something that I've struggled with. Gosh, that's got to be heartbreaking.

Plus another heartbreaker is it was inches away from Ford breaking their streak of winless races. I think this is now their worst start since 2008. in 10 where it took them 21 races to win their first race in August. So, yeah. Yeah, Matt Weaver said Chris Buescher does not have a single career top five finish on a mile and a half until Sunday. Wow, what a stat. You know, Kansas delivers once again, and we are reminded once again how great the next-gen

car is on the mile and a halfs. and fans are calling for more mile and a halfs. How do you feel about that? I'm good with it. I'm calling for more mile and a halfs if you're talking about the Roval going away and Charlotte Oval going back to two races a year. I was never a fan of the Roval.

Listen, me and Marcus are pals, but I've told him to, you know, in person to his, to his face. I'm like, hey, not going to love that one. Fans love it. You know, that's, if you love the roval, I'm sure maybe you guys may love the roval, I don't know, but that's great. I mean, I don't control what schedule is, but I won't miss it if it goes away. And I think that Marcus is smart. He'll shelve, if I know Marcus, he'll shelf the roval and take advantage of this popularity that this next-year car has on the mile and a halfs. I feel like that, you know, we got the roval because of how bad the product was at Charlotte.

It's terrible. And so, you know, he had to do something. And he comes up with this great idea. And the roval was good out of the gate in the same vein that racing at the Coliseum was cool the first time. But for me, after one or two, I'm done. And now we have a car that's so incredible in the mile and a halfs, I think he has to try to capitalize on the opportunity there for what it means to his racetrack financially to go back to two dates at Charlotte.

So I'd be surprised if he does to do that. But I haven't talked to Marcus about that. Have you guys heard any rumblins about Charlotte? I mean, the last I heard, I thought it was going to go away this year. Yeah. And then they brought it back. So maybe, I don't know, I feel like it's on the chopping block. I'm with you.

I'm not a huge fan of it. It's not the Roval's fault. It's just taking away from a track that would be so good, right? So it could maybe exist somewhere else, but I don't know. I don't know why, but I have a hard time with a lot of our historical tracks changing or losing dates to something new. And that's part of my personality, I think. I've always been a traditionalist and have a hard time with, you know, the new cars, you know, when the COT comes in or gen 6 and the next gen, I mean, you know, there was different, any kind of arrow change or wings and splitters and all those things, you know, race tracks changing, Charlotte going to the Roe Bowl.

you know, going to Chicago even. I mean, that was, I, I thought I was anxious and excited about a street course, but at, you know, having to, I guess when we lose something that's been a historical part of our sport for a real long time, in terms of like a facility racetrack, it's getting harder for me to be happy about that or be excited about that. and when we had a really tough race at Richmond a couple weeks ago I said hey man we're going to probably lose Richmond to a road course and now the rumor is we're probably going to Mexico and it's frustrating for me because

there ain't nothing there mean Richmond's nothing wrong with Richmond you know and we're going to go we're going to leave Richmond to go race in Mexico. We're going to leave all these traditional ovals to go race a road course. We went to Chicago and ran a street course. We're probably going to go to Mexico.

We'll have to see. NASCAR seems really excited about being able to go into either Mexico, Canada, Montreal, even overseas, right? Even if it's a and it's likely a road course every time.

There's not a lot of ovals outside of this country, right? And so they're excited about taking this product in front of a national or an international audience. I get that. That's amazing for our sport to be able to go into a different country and compete and show them. You know, the NFL does it. And obviously, F1 races all over the world. NASCAR wants to. achieve that. NASCAR wants to

to be big enough and successful enough for it and its race teams to be able to travel outside of this country and have amazing events. That's going to most likely be road course racing. And man, we have enough.

We have enough. If we didn't have many road courses, it wouldn't bother me that much. But we got a lot. And what's whittling away? One of my favorites things short track seems to be the because the mile and a half package is so great we're going to try to add a couple more of them somehow

you're going to try to shoehorn one or two more of those back into the schedule road courses are an opportunity to race outside of this country Mexico City Montreal wherever else they may want to go Brands hatch who knows and what so what's got

to sacrifice is our short tracks which the package is not good right now so it's easy for the industry to say, well, let's not go to there. If our package isn't good or our short track package isn't exciting, our fans are not enjoying it. It's the one that's going to sacrifice. I'm a short track guy, man. I love short tracks.

This isn't going to bother everybody. I get that. This isn't going to be a problem for a lot of people. I get that. But that's tough for me. We certainly can't. I mean, this is a time where. where like you said, we're focused so much on the mile and a half.

So I saw a tweet yesterday. Oh, just more mile and a half to get rid of the short tracks. Like we can't neglect the short tracks. Like we have to work on fixing the problem versus just solving it by throwing another mile and a half in schedule. And if you're a short track fan like me, we even if you're short, so if you're a short track fan like me, I think back, I don't know, five, eight years ago when the short tracks were the best thing going and there was not a lot of excitement about adding more you know and so even

when short tracks are good they sort of get get the short end of the stick in terms of of being a part of any kind of you know growth right they're not building new short tracks of course they're not building any new tracks but there was a moment where man we were racing we had a a couple big moments at Martinsville back to back year over year in the playoff race. And I'm thinking to myself, golly, man, if we could have this type of thing happening more often, our sport would be way better off, way more, there would be way more conversation and excitement around it. Because the mile and a halfs at that point, I'm talking five or eight years ago, weren't

very good. And so we'd have to wait for another short track race for. something to pop, you know, something crazy to happen and drivers to be mad at each other and there be drama. And I'm thinking, man, if we had that more often, more short tracks, creating more drama, maybe that drama would lead into creating some problems and exciting moments on the other racetracks that were the product of struggling. And so if you look back at the schedule from, let's just say, 1986, 87, there was a lot of short tracks on the schedule. We were going to more short tracks more often, there's a lot of rooting and gouging and beating and banging that would tend to feud

and simmer and stay hot throughout the year. Those those rivalries and frustrations bled into all the other events, no matter whether it was a mile and a half or whatever. And as we've, as the short tracks whittled down, a lot of that kind of went away. But whenever we would go back and the short track package was really good a couple years ago, we still had those moments that would remind you of what the short track package could be or what the short track racing to this series could be. I do believe that we will get it back in terms of a great product at the short tracks, but we'll be going to one or two less short track races per year by that point. And I doubt when that product does return to the short tracks, I doubt short tracks will be added back

to the schedule. So it's like this long, form sort of regression of short track racing as a part of the NASCAR Elite Cup series. And there's this growth of short tracks that's been sort of linear and steady. I mean, a growth of road courses that's been linear and steady into the schedule infused into the schedule year over year. I doubt that, you know, Talladega and Daytona are really going anywhere anytime soon. And the mile and a half seem to be secure for the moment, right? And so it's like short tracks are just kind of slowly just moving out, you know, just slowly moving away. I know that Wilkesboro came back.

I'm thankful for that. But right now, it's only an all-star race. There's no points races there. It's not been entirely embraced. It's still on its way back, right? It's not all the way back yet. all the way back is a points race, a 400-mileer. That's all the way back for Wilkesboro.

And with the way this short track package is, that's another frustration for me, or another fear, I guess, for me is what does that mean for, what does the current state of short track racing mean for Wilkesboro for five or ten years? What are your thoughts on? it was, you know, it came up on the broadcast this past weekend that Bowman Gray could be making a return, you know, if you're looking at like where could that fall, maybe the clash is the new spot for it.

Like, what do you think about that? I think that that is what they should have done. Oh, instead of L.A.? Instead of L.A. Don't let that be the sound bite. All right, because, listen, what I need to say is this, right? Much like, you know, much, and I think I just did, much like the Roval was good. great the first time. So was the

Coliseum. Sure. Yeah. That was cool, right? And I know they have a contract and there's legalities and reasons why we kept going back. You can't just say, oh, okay, I think one was enough. Let's be done. They've already signed agreements and so forth for that to do more than just

one event. But in a perfect world, if you just could do anything you wanted, you would have went to the Coliseum and said, you know what, we're not going to top that. That was cool. We're not going to top that, but let's go somewhere else. And Bowman Gray would have been the next logical place to take it. I mean, there are the great ideas, other places to go with the clash.

The clash needs to stick around. I mean, at this point, it's never going to be what I want it to be, and that's a 20-lap race at Daytona. That's what it ought to be. That's what it always, that's what it was intended to be. it's probably never going to ever get back to that original form, right? That was so perfect. But if it's going to continue, yeah, let's go to Bowman Gray.

And let's, you know, maybe it's got another, maybe it's got it one or two year run there. And we end up taking it somewhere else. Selfishly, I like Bowman, that Bowman-Gray idea because that's one that I can go to, you know, being local here. But that means California. Loses a date, which is, you know, tough for all those fans out there. That's one thing that's like, and you touched on it, too.

Wait a minute. I mean, did you see the stands at the last clash? I mean, it wasn't as good as the other ones, for sure. I think the only people in the grandstands were the spotters and the crew chiefs, all the mechanics that traveled out to do really a whole lot of nothing. listen, I know there's a lot of fans out there. They don't, I don't think, I don't think that the, I mean, if you were to give race fans in Southern California or the West Coast a race, you think they're wanting that?

I think they're wanting Fontaine. Right. Right. Yeah. They're wanting something, something a little bit bigger. And that's, I feel like that they let us know. like hey man the clash was great enjoyed that one that one big you know first year but after that i mean it's it kind of ran its course i that's just my gut feeling i'm not saying i'm right i'm just

thinking in my mind i was look when they were talking about doing the clash out there i was thinking in my head i'm like baling gray is the way to go take it there why not go to bolman gray if you're going to do this but you know i'm that's not the best business to see you financially that is not even close to what they're going to be able to accomplish out there at the Coliseum so they go to the Coliseum it's it does great that first year that first year and NASCAR succeeds I'm sure it was expensive to some entities in the sport you know NASCAR spends a lot of its own money to invest in itself and they probably did there but they're talking about Bowman Gray's coming

back, I don't see any other way it comes back other than the clash. And they're not going to have a points race there. It's just not going to happen. Right. So it's the clash or nothing for Bowman Gray. And it may be, we may be talk, this may be all about nothing. Ben Kennedy might be sitting here going, we're not even thought about that. We're not doing that.

But who knows? I mean, there's a lot of conversation about what might come back and what, you know, what might end up happening is, you know, what's going on with, Chicago is that a you know how long can we race in the streets of Chicago is that a sustainable thing can you do that year over year for

a long time I don't feel like that's realistic you know I think that it's so expensive to do that eventually you know the crowd the crowd's going to level off right after the first couple of years

you're going to lose some of the crowd right you've got to expect that if you're if you're running this whole deal. The crowd is not going to keep getting, I mean, that first year you're going to have the biggest, most interest and most intrigued. The rain's not going to help either.

Well, I'm just saying, like, once you start to, what's the numbers change financially for that race? Where do you go from there? Is Chicago land still available even, right? What's happening there? They dug that place up? Is it gone?

What? You know? Mm-hmm. You don't know? No. Oh, I don't. Well, I see it here on your notes. I didn't know if you knew something I did.

Well, it was, you know, people have been throwing Chicagoland out. You know, the return of Kentucky is possible. Chicago land may be in a situation where they probably, Chicago land, who knows what it looks like, what state it's in. The surface of that racetrack is it raceable, right? There's a nasty bump down in the middle of three and four. and without maintenance and and and year-round you know taking care of is the surface even raceable without some patchwork and improvements i don't know the location was not ideal for chicago land

that doesn't help necessarily why was that not a good location oh it's just i mean joliette is not it's not chicago we just raced at kansas it's not kansas city kansas literally the same distance from Chicago But the argument for Kansas is there's more to do around the track and you know it's a little bit more fan friendly. Joliette is a little ways out.

So that What is there to do around the track at Kansas? Oh there's like the big shopping mall and like there's like a bunch of restaurants and stuff places to go. Okay. Yeah. All right. That's the stadiums. The other stadiums are over there.

I think it certainly. Yeah. If you're comparing Kansas to Chicago, it certainly gives Kansas the upper leg. What about, I mean, you look at Homestead. That's not in Miami. It's not even close, you know, but that's one of our most, so it's like. Right, but it's not, my argument was Chicago, Chicago land's location wasn't doing it any favor. What about Kentucky? People want Kentucky back? People do want Kentucky back. Really? Yeah. Overreaction. Yeah, such a weird track. Yeah, I think they're just grasping at anything. Is it like, oh, any mile and a half will do? Yes. Yeah, it is. Kentucky was not, Kentucky was not, Kentucky didn't race good. driving on Kentucky was not fun.

Turn three, that flat as hell entry is just weird. Yeah. There's a reason why we don't go there anymore. Yeah. It's not just because the car. When we tested there back in the 2000s, you kind of felt like, you man, you know, really, there's no track like this.

I'm not, I mean, you know, you can look at it. You can take it, you can look at it from Google images. You can watch races on TV. You can go there physically and watch a race and think, well, it's a mile and a half. Look, it's similar to this track. similar to that track. They all have characteristics,

and one of the characteristics of Kentucky is entering turn three is super flat. And it's just, you wash down into the bottom of that corner. And I can't think of another mile and a half that has an entry anywhere close to that. And so, and then you gained banking,

exiting four up a hill, and there was a nasty ass bump at the start finish line there too. Boy, you couldn't even run on the apron now. down there you knock your name eyes out fucking eyes will fly out of your head and so y'all remember um jimmy johnson went down there and hit and hit the ground so hard and and bounced up the racetrack in the brack his last it was a big wreck or something somebody bottomed out down there i don't remember i'm wrong but there's a lot of drivers that have hit that bump on the apron and regretted the

hill out of it yeah um there was another nasty bump low off of four you'd never run down there but if you had to, you were in for a rude awakening. Turn 1 and 2 was kind of fun, but they had to get funky with it to get them up off the bottom, right? They started, there was one time, I remember I'm rambling here, but there was one time I think we went there and they had painted, they had painted the line for the apron, a groove up the racetrack, thinking, well, they won't run below this line. If we tell them this is the apron,

they won't run on it. Y'all remember that? This is the people who painted the Kansas start finishing on. Yeah, I do. What is with these people? Get the freaking lines right. I think it was. I think it was they were thinking,

how do we get them up off the bottom of the racetrack? That is a crazy solution. We'll just move the line up and tell them that's the apron. They won't never run on it. I think that happened at turn right. Who needs PJ1? Let's just give me a can of pain Yeah

Let me solve this right now I don't know man I'm gonna get my ass chewed on that one Because I'm probably wrong But anyhow Where the hell are we? We're getting the way out there You've got some big news

Today Oh I do Yeah is it the worst secret Does anybody Where is Josh Barry Went to Stuart Haas racing last year That was pretty well known Okay

I'm just saying Does everybody pretty much know this already I would say All right. Yeah. Okay. Do you want to say what it is? Yeah.

All right, moving on. I'll be working for Amazon and Turner next year. I, um, yeah, we've been talking and ready to, ready to get this out there. And I've got to go to New York City in a couple weeks to do some work for both of them. and so we knew that that would reveal, you know, what was going on. And so we go ahead and have to put, you know, put the announcement out, which, you know, I think everybody was aware. I had a great, great run at NBC. And I'm very, very, very thankful for what they did to help me grow and improve.

I was raw, had no experience, wasn't a journalist, wasn't a radio guy, hadn't done any broadcasting in my life. And then, I mean, a couple moments here and there, but nothing like real work. And so I've learned a tremendous amount over the past several years, thanks to the people that I've worked with at NBC. And so I'm going to move on and team up. with with with with Amazon which is exciting because they're kind of new coming at this with a lot of fresh ideas but I think they know like they they need to stay in that sort of comfortable

box that we live in they'll they'll come with a lot of cool ideas I think that might make things better or different in a good way but there is this sort of understanding that we do need you know to keep it somewhat recognizable in terms of what what what fans experience expect in a NASCAR broadcast. So that should be fun to see how that all works out and what we actually end up putting out on television. The racing is going to be amazing, so that's going to take care of itself. And then Turner, you know, they've been in a sport before.

They seem very comfortable coming right back in, like putting on a familiar pair of shoes. And so I'm looking forward to seeing their approach. well. And it's 10 races, so it's not as much as I was doing in the past. I mean, I think a half a season was perfect. I don't want to work a whole year. But I'm thankful, I guess, for me selfishly, that we have multiple partners in NASCAR to be

able to work parts of the season, right, and not work an entire year. And so I'm a... Yeah, I feel very lucky because, yeah, I get to stay in the broadcast booth. I get to continue doing that job that I enjoy. And I look at it like, you know, it's a little bit of overlap in May and maybe a little overlap in August. But I look at it as, you know, June, July. Amazon's June, Turner's July. And we're going to have a lot of fun.

I'll, Amy and the girls are going to be missing me during the summer, but, you know, we'll make up for the rest of the year. What's cool is, I love that Bleacher Report is in the game now as well. I know you're going to be doing some exciting stuff with them too. Yeah, that's one of the things that came to the table with Turner. And I think Amazon as well,

but they're going to want to create content that they can use. Some of the content we're already creating, that they may want to access. And so we'll see. I've, you know, I've had the Bleacher Report app on my phone for quite some time now, never thinking that I would ever have any involvement. But so that'll be fun, sort of seeing how they do things and learning their processes and approach to create content.

And always an opportunity for me to learn and use that and what I do as well here at DirtyMode Media. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It's going to, there'll be a, and, you know, getting to meet their talent, getting to meet all the other people that work in their sort of circle for other sports and so forth. It's just going to be a cool opportunity. And I can't wait to continue to learn and reveal more details around what the broadcast looks like, what the booth looks like, who's in the booth, what the rest of the talent will be, around, you know, the host for the pre-race, what our post-race looks like.

And we're starting to have conversations with Amazon and Turner about, you know, how we'd love this to look and how we'd love, what we'd love to create. And I'm hoping that we're checking all the boxes that the fans have, right? What do they want out of a broadcast? They want, they want, you know, pre-race is cool, but they love post-race. They want all the interviews. They want to hear from everybody. And so, you know, trying to, I'm seriously like looking on Reddit and social media and reading the comments about fans and their opinions of broadcast and what they love, what they don't love, and trying to see how we can put together best overall, you know, package there.

You're trying to, you know, you can't do everything and, you know, we'll have to see what we're limited to. But I'm looking forward to it. I think that, you know, Amazon, for example, being on, you know, Prime, and they have a lot of, you know, not being cable, they have different restrictions or less restrictions in some areas. So it really opens it up to be quite different than what you might expect when you're watching a cable network. So who knows?

It's a lot for me to learn. I don't know everything just yet, but these are, they're fun people Amazon and Turner I've enjoyed getting to know them and they're confident they're confident that they can do a great job and

I'm feeling good about it their Thursday night football product is really good so like you know coming they already know how to do live sports it's not going to be forward to them I'm really excited to see what they have going yeah so we'll have more again we'll have more information

over the next several months about what all that looks like and man we're going to be working our tail off i can promise you this we're going to work hard um to make sure that you know we're doing our job or i'm doing my job we'll put a lot effort into it and and um and hopefully it comes across it's going to be funny because we've been doing 20 races for mbc right and we'll start off in the middle of the year uh and it takes probably for me personally I have pretty high standard of where I think we should be as a broadcast. I feel like that we really weren't getting to our best work until like five races to go.

So like took us, in my opinion, maybe just me, took me like 10, 15 races for I was like, all right, man, we're hitting on all cylinders here. This is awesome, you know. And all the broadcasts are great, but you would just have these moments where you're like, man, I just, I got to get better at that. I got to get better here. I got to figure this out. I didn't, you know, I didn't put enough effort here and I missed that, right?

But by the end of, by middle of the playoffs, I felt like we really were covering it all really well. With Amazon and Turner, we're going to have five, two five race stretches, two different teams, right? So you're going to literally have five races to get it right. You can't fool around. We've got to hit the ground, prepared, running. We've got to be ready. And I think we're going to over-prepare to make sure that, you know, we don't end that last race and go, man, we're not even in our groove yet.

Right. I know you said there's going to be more details that will come, you know, in the future. But this is public knowledge as of today. like you're going to be doing interviews, ride-alongs with different people each race driving for TNT with them riding the passenger seat. Are you excited to like kind of show people, you know, your perspective of what it's like to be in a race car? Yeah, I think that's always fun to see. Jeff Burton did that quite a bit with when I was with NBC and I think you always get a great reaction because

I always used to say So I give ride arounds for our foundation every year And that's probably my favorite thing Is to put somebody in a race car Or take them out in a car on a racetrack And really Introduce them to what that's like They've never experienced anything like it right

And so they have a genuine You can't fake it You're going to have a genuine reaction to it every time And I think that the old opinion of all they're just driving around in circles, how hard is it, is faded, right? But there's still that, that, there's still that sort of purpose that I think we have as people in the industry to prove how cool this is, right, to people that are just kind of

being introduced to it. So I look forward to that every time. The stars shine at North Wilkesboro Speedway NASCAR returns to its roots. for a week-long celebration at one of racing's most historic tracks, the iconic North Wilkesboro Speedway, Dalton. The thundering roar of NASCAR descends on North Wilkesboro Sunday, May 19th. The race day action kicks off with the slam-bang All-Star Open, where the top two finishers race race the 40th running of one of NASCAR's biggest events,

the NASCAR All-Star Race. Get your single-day tickets now and see stars like Larson, Elliot, Blaney, Hamlin, and Bush engage in no-holds-barred battle for $1 million. But don't miss the music. Catch Neil McCoy's concert on Friday night before country music. Phenom, Warren Ziders, rocks the pre-race stage on Sunday. Both concerts are free with your race ticket. It's all happening at North Wilkesboro Speedway.

The NASCAR All-Star Race. Get your single-day tickets today at northwilksboro Speedway.com. All right, everybody, calling in to Dirty Air today. is second place finish here at Kansas, Chris Busher. And just want to thank you for giving us some time today, Chris, wondering where are you right now? Well, I'm in the office at the shop. We've been building for probably well over a,

well over two years at this point. So it's getting close to being done at this time, but I'm sitting on my Mac tools, roll around stool for the shop. This is your own personal shop. Yeah, this is at the house here. When you get this shop done, are you ever going to have a race car in there? I'm going to have race cars in here.

I don't know if they're going to be race cars that I can go run on the weekend, but I have some of my old race cars that have a little bit of meaning to me through the years. I've got my first bandelero sitting back there up on a lift. I've got, actually when we went to this next-gen car, I got two of the cup cars, my Pocono win car, and just one of the random cars that I ended up liking through the years. So I've got a couple to go in here already. Nice. If you could ever race outside of the Cup series, what would you go race today? Just for fun?

I've talked about trying to run Baja a lot. I mentioned it to Brennan gone. I know that he's got a lot more experienced desert racing to me. I'd love to go give that a shot. Something completely out there, way different. I've dabbled in dirt racing here or there and had an absolute blast in weight models and modified. But I would love to go try and run Baja, give that a go.

Man. All right. Well, let's talk about Kansas. you went into that race. We were just talking about it here on the show. You were 60 to 1 to win, which are pretty good odds for someone making that bet. Came so close.

Honestly, I think you've probably had a million people tell you this already. I thought when I watched it live, the 17 car had crossed the finish line first, and I was sure that you had won the race. Now, you know, as we all watch it back and NASCAR explains everything, and we go through that whole process literally lasts at an hour or two

after the race, all the social media conversation and everything. We learned, you know, what the true outcome is. And we also saw your reaction immediately after the race, man.

You were so, you know, so bummed out. So, you know, I think a lot of people really think a lot of you as a competitor. It's kind of tough to see. taking a loss that way?

Is this a loss, I guess, it might stick in your gut for quite a while because of the way it went down? Yes. I told everybody I thought I was going to throw up on the way the airport afterwards. You know, to be, I guess when I look back at it, if we had gone across the line and from the get-go thought we finished second, you would have been upset about it. You'd have been heard about it, but it would have been okay.

But to be in that, like you said, that hour of time, or really it was that first minute that everything was very confusing. We're trying to figure out how in the world we're getting this answer off of it. You know, transponders and time and score and everything are in our favor. you know obviously the painted line which you know doesn't really matter but it's comical right now to talk about but to uh to see it all play out the way it did it just uh it hurts um and you know knowing the result now and understanding it like y'all said uh it's not going to make it any easier you know you understand it now at least but it's not going to make it easier this one this one's going to

hurt for a really really long time um some of our guys that just Just don't let it hurt any more than six days. Let's just go to Tarlington, win there, and we can put it behind us. So we'll try and figure out how to make that one work. But this one, this one hurts. We finished a second at Phoenix, and the Christopher Bell, and it wasn't even close, right? I mean, he just walked away from the field. And, you know, at that race, second felt good because we knew we needed a lot of work to win.

This one to be that close and not be able to get it. It's going to stick with us for a long time. Yeah, and I think the unfortunate part is now it is taken over the top spot in the closest race ever, right, the closest finish ever. We have seen that clip of Kurt Bush and Ricky Craven colliding all the way down the front stretch at Darlington, which is still probably going to be widely played beyond this point because of how incredible that moment was. but you'll be seeing, you know, images and videos of this, especially when we go back to Kansas, promoting this race, right, and promoting how great the racing was.

So you don't deserve that, but somehow you'll have to, I think it'll be interesting for you, I guess, somehow have to come to terms with it, right? Have to be able to figure out a way to live with it. I've got races in my own career that we talked about earlier in the show. I didn't get over and I won't get over. Even today, I just feel like that I got the short end of the stick and deserved the win. But you do come out of that race with incredible speed.

You ran great all day. You were aggressive behind the stairwell with your race car, incredible, you know, five wide action down the front straightaway, which was awesome. And you end up almost winning the race. So do you, you know, you have to come away thinking, man, you know, that's nice to see our team moving in the right direction, at least at the mile and a halfs. Y'all had a lot of speed at short tracks and some other racetracks. Where do you feel like you guys are right now? I really wasn't sure exactly what kind of a season to expect from you this year, whether you could repeat what you had done in the past or even improve on that because of how challenging and tough it is for operation like you guys have.

So where do you feel like you are as a team? Yeah, this is supposed to be hard. You know, we don't want to go do anything in competition that's easy. You want to challenge. And certainly that's what we're trying to figure out how to better last year. We wanted to fire off this season with what we were able to do in the second half of last year, let that be our baseline. And we've definitely had a moment.

that have shown us a lot of light at the end of the tunnel. And we've had some that haven't been where we wanted to be, but we certainly fired off this season pretty good. We've been in the hunt for a couple of these things. I think for RFK, I think that's four runner-up finishes now. In the first, was it 12 races, 11 or 12 races? I mean, that's close. Ultimately, it's not a stat to write home about.

out because it's you know the winds are what matters but we are in the hunt for a lot of these things and I think that's what we're internally trying to use to measure um Kansas 99 and a half percent of that race uh there is nothing but great things for us to to pick up on and study and figure how to apply forward and even the last bit the last lap there's plenty to learn from I promise I wouldn't do it the same again than tomorrow um but with that that was our best mile and a half start to finish. I would argue probably actually a better day for us than our Michigan win last year. And for me, that's something I look forward to as we head into Darlington even.

But outside of Darlington getting back to some of these other mile and a halfs, where the first two on the year we didn't feel like we hit it exactly where we needed to. And we're kind of struggling with whatever it is, whether it's the new Mustang and trying to find a balance there. If it's some of the lull through the off season, some of the smaller rules changes or tightening up of rules, whatever that may be, we haven't been where we needed to be on these mile and a halfs. And this one certainly was.

If we can bring what we just brought to Kansas, we will win some of these mile and a half races. you know and the competition will step up and get better and we will too but it was a huge momentum weekend for us it's just we're going to see the the highway of the part that we don't want to see the most but there's a lot of really good stuff for us for both of our race cars to take forward that you know make us think that we're going to we're going to have another trophy a lot a lot sooner than later I got to ask you one last question and you get to work right alongside a good friend of mine and a great competitor, Brad Hislowski.

He has done, you know, and I think I've talked to you about this before, but I know that Brad being an owner in this team is a dream come true for him and something that he envisioned for himself many, many years ago, something he would want for himself. And here he is, right? and he's enjoying the effort of that and your own success has been able to validate his efforts to become an owner, but he is also wanting to go to Victory Lane

and win a race as an owner, right? Rent a race in this scenario. And he's getting closer. We're starting to see where that team's starting to really shine in some moments. Is that, is the effort or the intensity of trying to get Brad into Victory Lane a parent inside the walls of that shop? Is it sort of this sort of elephant in the room, so to speak, not a bad thing, but is it a bit of a motivator, I guess, for RFK and for even yourself as a teammate to Brad to try to figure out, you know, he's going to get it done?

It just feels like it's inevitable at any moment. but is the anxiety intensity about that ramping up? Probably, right? You know, you can see the drive, the passion that he's got for the ownership side. And what he's been able to do with RFK through these couple of years is incredible. You know, I've been under the Roush banner since I was just before I turned 16 years. So half of my living lifetime, I have been under this banner, and I've seen it in the last couple of years come to a better place than I believe it's ever been in. You know, with that, that's a good start when you talk about culture and opportunity and potential in a lot of ways, but our sport is measured by trophies.

And, you know, obviously last year was really strong for us. and the Daytona win. I'm sure that there were a lot of hard decisions that ran through Brad's head in that moment in figuring out how to win, but also make sure that both of our cars made it back to the finish line, right? To be fair, I fully expected to be side by side with tire marks up and down both of our four Mustings there. And, you know, it just didn't materialize quite that way at the end. but it's definitely something that you can see his drive trying to figure out how to get to victory.

Wayne, and they've been very close to you, right? Like, like you said, we've had two runner-ups from each of our teams this year. So we're knocking on the door, but you know it's important to him. I see what I always put in to try and have this dual role, you know, on top of being. and a dad and having a family too, but watching them try and juggle all this is absolutely incredible. It has assured me that I have zero interest in owning a race team going forward.

I cannot, I cannot fathom the time. I don't have that kind of ability to process time like he does. So I give him an absolute ton of credit in that sense. I don't want it. I don't want it to have to feel I got to work that hard. But with all that, the results are coming in, and they're very close.

And it's just a matter of time. Like you said, that we will get wins with both our race cars this year. But we're going to have to talk about it leading up to that point. And we're going to have to talk about what it feels like to be that close and miss first. Yeah. Well, man, we appreciate your time today. I know you've got a busy week and get ready for the next one. You're an easy guy to root for.

Always a professional. We appreciate you here at Dirtymo Media and the Dale Jr. downloads. Thank you, Chris. Yeah, I appreciate it very much, y'all. Have a good one. All right, you too. Can't wait to see what the odds are for Chris Busher when he goes into Darlington.

It won't be 60 to 1, I bet. No, I think it's 22 to 1 to start off. Oh, really? Yeah, that's the opening line. All right, man. It's a lot of fun to talk to him and glad to have him call in. We're live on Ash Jr.

This is very entertaining. This is good TV. All right. Hey, everybody. This is one of those things we're like... Welcome to, As, Jr. Dale's going to be answering our questions today. Oh, sorry, go ahead. I was texting with a high-ranking official in NASCAR.

Oh, wow. Hey, everybody. Appreciate you being patient. Welcome back to Asst Jr. And... Yeah, let's get started. See what your guys are up to today. This first question coming from Marcus,

they saw you tweeted that you saw Casey Kane at dinner last week. They were wondering how long has it been since you two have spoken. It's funny. man, Casey's shop's right next to ours here at Junior Murder Sports, and I see every once in while his social media activity, and he will, he might like a tweet of mine or something, and I'll be like, oh, man, there is. Isn't that way, though? I mean, with all your friends, you know, you got friends, right, that you don't see you all

the time or talk to, but you'll see them like do something on social media. It's almost like passing them on the highway. Right. Hey, buddy. Yeah. Casey, I always love to call my old teammates, my teammates. They're my teammates, right? It's life for life.

Casey was one of my – Casey was a great dude, one of my favorite teammates. I mean, I didn't really have any bad teammates, but I always like Casey, and we had some fun together off the track, goofing off, having beers and so forth. he picked up the bud deal you know after after i left the e i and so we kind of connected on that and uh yeah i always you know always enjoyed him easy guy to be around told him at uh dinner he needs to come racing the cars tour and he said he's down yeah he says he wants to come by the shop because he says he hasn't seen he hasn't seen a stock car in a long time so um i thought that was but I would love to get him in our cars tour race, which we should be able to make that happen.

We'll just have to see. That'd be super cool. That was the three things I saw on social media. When you post that picture, it was get them in a cars tour ride, get them in the 88, and have them on the download. I tweeted yesterday, thanks to everybody for watching the cars tour race at ACE this past weekend.

We had a lot of viewers, which was great to see. And so thanks again. The Cars Tour is a lot of fun. It's doing well. It's putting on some great races, and people are tuned in on flow to see it. That is awesome. We've got a bunch of people tuning in from West Virginia, Pittsburgh, Nashville, so the YouTube chat is moving pretty good.

This one's from the YouTube chat. Rob wants to know, what's the bronze car that's sitting right next to you right there? This was a – so they give the gold – Goodyear gives the gold car to the Cup Series championship, and back in the day, they gave this car, I guess it's made out of silver, I don't know, they gave this to the Bush Series champion, and this is the 1999 Good Year Championship Trophy.

That's cool. Yeah. I never did win a Cup championship, but I grew up in a house with about seven of those gold cars, and I would go to the banquet with dad when he'd win a championship and looking at that gold car because you're a kid, right? you're like, it's a toy. It's a toy, man.

But it's made of gold. And you're looking at it, and they're like, the detail in this thing. And how much did that cost, right, or whatever? It's just that gold car that they still give away, right? Blaney has one. It's, I think, for the cup champion and growing up around Dad and him winning his, I mean, it's one of the cooler trophies. It's right up there with the grandfather clock from.

Martinsville. It's one of the cooler trophies that you can win in this sport is the Goodyear trophy for the Cup Series championship, that gold car. Yeah. I think it always looks pretty cool. And like you said, the detail on that, it's pretty, pretty impressive. Let's see, this next question coming from Kyle. And, you know, we didn't talk about it last week, but NASCAR said they're going to use multiple tire compounds for the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro. What are your thoughts on that? I hope that goes well, you know. I hope that it does provide some strategy, comers and goers, all that stuff.

I don't, I wonder how, I wonder, like when, so, all right, if I give you a hard tire, right, and which I'm probably going to have to do because it's a brand new brand new asphalt I got to make sure my tire doesn't blow out on you right I don't want you running around there and lap 50 blow right front tire hit the fence so I'm going to give you a pretty good durable tire and then I'm going to give you a soft tire that's going to haul button for a while but it might eventually wear out and slow down and so you can't run it you're going to run that

win, right? When are you going to run that? You're going to put it on probably at the end when it matters, right? If it's hard to pass, though, which we usually hate, but if it is hard to pass, you might actually put that tire on and try to get track position somewhere in the middle of the race and hope that you can keep it with your hard tire when it's back on the car at the end. So, you know, we'll just have to see how it plays out.

typically everybody does the same thing like they all figure out what works best yeah and so we'll have a race where they're all on the hard tire and then they're all on the soft tire and when they're on soft tire they'll all just go a little faster right hopefully it doesn't happen that way hopefully somebody goes I'm taking a chance

and I'm putting the soft tire on early or before everybody else and we'll see We'll see if that works. I'm all for... I don't think you can keep the tire and hope that you have it at the end

when the rest of the teams don't. Because I don't think you can... I don't think it'll be so awesome, so good that you can just drive through the field with 20 or 10 laps to go because you hung on to your soft tires. I think it'll... You'll pass some cars, but not

not a lot, not enough to matter. And so I think it might come down to whether you use the soft tire early and you try to figure out a way to get track position that you may hang on to like, you know, if you're fortunate enough, the rest of the race. This is like unrelated, but aren't lap times like way, way faster with the new pavement? Two seconds. Two and a half seconds.

That's pretty significant. Yeah. And they took a big risk when they paved this racetrack. They so aggregate the race. ratio of asphalt tar and all that versus crushed rock or granite or if you're

down by the east or if you're down by the coast you might get crushed seashell wherever you are geographically whatever the most common stuff you're pulling out of local granite or the local quarry that's what they're crushing up and they're putting that into

the asphalt and it's just kind of filler. It's filler for asphalt, right? Because you're not going to, it's cheaper, right, than just poor and pure asphalt. That's going to last forever. They used an aggregate or a ratio that had more filler, more crushed concrete and particles, right?

And so as they're testing out there, that stuff comes out of the track. You want it to. and it makes the track have pits and divvits and it makes it abrasive. And so this track should age at a very rapid pace, which is interesting because y'all remember when the mile and a half package wasn't good and they made Charlotte the Roval. Well, they made Charlotte the Roval because the races there were boring.

And everybody ran right around the bottom. And the reason why that track wasn't good then is because they had just recently, repaved it and the pavement was lasting forever it wasn't changing color and the reason why it was a change of color because the aggregate was rubber they had actually used like rubber rubber recycled rubber and stuff in place of like crushed rock or crushed she shells and so you're racing rubber on rubber and the track just had tons of grip all the time right and so the fastest way was always on the bottom and and I they were they were like hey

hey man, this is like this is like the latest technology in asphalt. We repaved this track. It's going to last forever. And we're like, great. And then after about five or eight years, we're like, hey, this isn't so great. And so, you know, now we're kind of, we've learned all this, right? And now they're all like, okay, we're going to, we're going to,

we're going to spend money to repave the track and intentionally pave it in a way to where it'll wear out and age. we won't get a surface that last 30 years. It'll last 15 or 20. So we're costing ourselves money on the back end, but they know that the product on the racetrack is that important. So hopefully this works out for Wilkesboro, and hopefully it's around for 15 or 20 years.

Yeah, I agree. This next question coming from Debbie, what's the secret to finding the best pre-race bathroom? I know I've seen this thing happen. The National Anthem happens. and all the drivers make a bolt for the porta-potties or whatever bathroom is. Like, what's the secret when you were a cup driver?

To using the bathroom? Like, to, like, before the race, you know? Have you, were you ever part of that, like, mad dash, like, try and get to the bathroom before the race? No. I mean, why would you want to wait until the last second? Well, because, well, you would want to wait to the last second, so you wouldn't have to go during the race.

Do you make this question up? No. You sure. Yes. Okay. Um, listen, I mean, It's a thing. I don't think it's a thing. It is. Never heard of this.

Yes. There's a mad rush of drivers. Hustling to the bathroom. Yes. Moments before. Absolutely. I've seen it. They're not five-year-olds.

I know, but like sometimes it's hard to find. Go use the potty. I've talked to PR. A long race now. I've talked to PR. Come on, Kyle. We've got to go. Go use a potty so you don't pee yourself.

You got to go potty before we start? Do you go now? Go now. We're not stopping. You better come now. We can't start the race to you body. Are you lying? You better tell me. I love it. I've talked to PR reps and some of them have said they've scouted out bathrooms for their drivers and like so. Okay.

I mean, I'm trying to make sure that's all taking care of. Yeah. Well, before the race starts. I um yeah I mean if and the worst thing this is the worst thing to put yourself through is you're you know it's about

say it's like Wednesday or Thursday and you're going to go to the racetrack and they're like oh man it's gonna be a hot one this weekend what how hot 90s and you're like crap that's no fun because that's the listen NASCAR

racing racing cars is great. The worst part about it and it's bad is the heat. I mean, this is 125 on a good day. We saw, remember, California, or Chicago, Chicago, my first, I think it was my first year broadcast. Oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah. We had it was like my first or second year. No, it was the first. The Bush. Second race. Was it? Yeah. The, the Infinity. The Xfinity guys got out and all of them were falling over. is 150 degrees inside the cars. Awful. That was like the worst I've ever seen it.

It's miserable. And so, you know, you'll hear that and you're like, oh, man, I got to make sure I'm hydrated. Because I've dried out in a race and you start getting delirious. You start, like, getting dizzy and you start seeing things. Freaking out, right, yeah. You're going to pass out. You really are. And so you don't want that to happen.

And you'll drink a lot of water thinking, man, you know, going to drink and drink and drink and drink and there's nothing you can do you can go to the bathroom right before right standing next of the car and you're going to have to pee again in the next 30 minutes or 45 minutes and you're going to be in the car at that point you'll be racing and so that's the worst part is like you know it's going to be hot you know you've got to hydrate and you hydrate and you know you're going to have to pee in the car and that's not avoidable and so you know I think I don't know I peed in the race car probably I can count on one hand hand in my career.

Because you time the bathroom out right. But it happens. Those are the worst. Usually it's not an issue. Usually it's not so, I'm not worried about the heat and I'm not drinking in a large amount of water the morning of the race putting myself in a position where I've got

to pee a lot. Great question. Thank you so much. Really proud of that one. It's a good question. Well, I guess follow. Do you remember specifically when and what lap that you had used? Yeah. All right, we got time for one more.

Good. Let's not end on that note. I've been seeing it in the YouTube chat. I think it's from Joey. Thoughts on NASCAR every using like a push-to-pass type system that IndyCar uses. No. No? What?

Get rid of it. I agree. I saw a mask it a few times. Yeah. Not a fan. Oh, man. No. That would be sacrilegious, in my opinion.

If you can't pass them, sorry. I'm not going to give you an assist. Yeah. We're going to put a booster pad on the track. How about, yeah. If they're going to give a push to pass, just might as well give them steering assist. Here, let me just drive.

Let the car just go through the corner. You just don't even have to do anything. Just hold it straight on the straightway. Wow. Right? Yeah. It's like an oil slick button that shoots oil out the back of the car. What else do?

What else do? Aides, driver aides, do you want to give them? I think we need more mirrors. Hey, you know what? Let's get rid of the shifters. Automatic transmission. Nice. No more shift.

I think that's a good idea. I'm all for that. That's right. So Joey, no. No push to pass. What about, this is all in video games back in the day. What about automatic brakes? Man, don't even have to match a break.

I remember that. Remember that? Yeah. We should fall flying into a corner. We're going to keep you from hitting the wall. Don't worry. Just hold it wide open. Everything's going to be fun. Drivers should get that little LED of where the racing line is.

At one point, the driver's not even necessary. Let's just have them sitting on the pit box. AI NASCAR League. Run around. Push your pass. To hail. Stupid. Well, that answers that question.

That's a good place to end ashtonier today. Maybe not a good place, but that's where we would happen. We're ending here. No driver aids. Wait, no, no. That was a... This is like an extension to the conversation we were talking about last week with the camera. Yeah, right?

Boy, that got some people riled up. Remember that? Yeah. Talking about the arrow blocking, right? And their new in-car camera, this digital. It's so clear. You can see perfectly. All of my life, we've raced with cars with the mirror up here.

And you're like, you can never see good out of this. thing. You can't see the corners of the car. You can literally just kind of make out like a, you know, basically kind of a rough idea of what's going on back there. And now they have these little cuts, even in the bus cars, or exfendi cars, they have these little cuts in the, in the rear glass. And that really screws up the view out of the back, right? And so, hell, that's the way we race forever. And that was good enough. And now we have these digital mirrors and all the blocking that happens at some of the racetracks. is more aggressive and easier to do

because guys are like, if we've even Kyle Busch and all these guys even say it, hey, I can just look in the mirror and just go where they go. Oh, he's going high, I'll just go high. Why do we want that? Man.

This is like, this is such a dumb analogy, but it's like how I feel parallel parking with the rearview camera. I'm like, I feel like I'm cheating. Because I used to have to do the mirrors and I'm like, it's so easy now with the rearview camera. I feel like I'm cheating.

And when you turn the wheel, it's got the, it shows me. And you're like, you can't miss. If you can't parallel park now. You cannot miss. So that's how I feel. I'm like, man, it's got to be easy just to go up the track, go down the track.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. But man, we said, we were like, hey, we should maybe talk about, have a conversation about whether we should, you know, take the digital mirror out. Yeah. Stay away from that one now. Some people got mad.

We should have digital mirrors because our cars have them. I guess. Technology. We need it in the way of technology. Put AC in there. Apple Carplay. Yeah, we need some radio. Yeah. Yeah. You can see your text messages while you're racing. Cup holder. Yeah, exactly. Yes.

And how not brakes? Why not? Someone said in YouTube chat, when they open the video game, the first thing they do is put the automatic brakes on. Yeah. And the driving line. That's what I said. Yeah. You said that. Yeah. So you could, we could, a driver could hit a button and here's the line. Just race this line. This is the perfect line.

I've been playing a lot of NASCAR 15 lately, and there's a redo button, too. I would like a reverse button. Sorry for wrecking you at Bristol yesterday. There should be a button in the car where the drivers all vote to do the restart over. It's like that one. Oh, we've got 28 votes. Denny jumped it. Poop.

Yeah, caution, restarting. Do it over. Yeah. We can go on and on. Yeah, we can get ridiculous with it. I would really. I think, you know, the push to pass, they had, they had things in F1

where you could lower the change of your spoiler or stuff like that. DRS. I couldn't, I could not. I'm with you on that opinion, by the way. I was just asking the question. But, yeah, the less resources you have, the better, I think. Big win for Lando, by the way. I'll be honest, though.

I mean, remember the adjustable track bar? Yeah, you could change. in the car. Yeah. Oh yeah. Was that something? Good? Did you like that? I liked it. I liked it, but Denny and a bunch of guys argued that it made passing harder because a guy could just change his car. And if, you know, if you were catching him and you're like, man, I'm going to pass this guy. He's handling terrible. He could fix that, right? And then you're like, yep, I'm passing him. He fixed his car. And so I understand that argument. But I kind of enjoyed being able to, there was

weight jackers, you know, that people, you know, they're in certain cars. There's always been sort of adjustments You can do break bias and stuff like that. And so I thought the track bar was sort of in the same vein for me. So I didn't mind it as much. I probably didn't need to be messing with it. But, you know, it was kind of nice while it was there. All right, it's time for Dirty Modo. Let's talk about all the bets that the team made this week.

Alex Thames joins us at the table. And let's see how it went, man. How'd it go? Dichter was five for ten, so average week there. But he got Kyle Larson for the winner, so that was good. Personally, we saw a lot of people follow the cash out a long shot strategy and bet a favorite live, and a lot of people hit on Larson, so they liked that strategy. Nice.

So did you pull that? I was about to pull the trigger on a chastain because he had a, I could double my money in the first stage. Dang. but I waited because I was like, well, this is going to be higher in the second stage. He fell off and that thing dropped like a rock. So I missed my chance. But it was nice to see it could get as early as the first stage

you can cash out for a nice profit. Yeah, Chastain lost his track position. They were able to get it back. What about Ford's value? The value is big there. Busher 60 to 1 to win. Yeah, rightfully sell. I mean, they've struggled all year,

but I mean, Busher being 60 to 1 and was literally right there for the win was crazy and it'll be interesting coming into Darlington seeing how their value will change. But, I mean, the books are not adjusting to Ford success right now, the minus success they had last week. So that could be a spot to target this week. What are the predictions for Donington? Well, it's so hard to just not go against the favorites, right? I mean, it's another Hendrick or Hendrick one last week. They'll be strong again. But Darlington is more of a driver's track, I feel. Not a lot of, you know, if you're a good driver and, you know, you can just manage

the track. I think you can have a good run. So I might target some of those guys and Ford. I mean that the value's there right now. All right. Well, man, we hope it goes well. I think it'd be hard not to put a little bit of money on Chase Elliott. He's got an awesome looking race car. Yeah. And I heard he's going to be wearing some skeleton gloves. Oh, yeah.

I heard about that. So that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So it'd be neat if he could take that car to Victor Lane, our throwback from 2014, Daytona 500 victory. Dirty Modo drops every Thursday all on our Dirty Mo Doe. media platforms. You don't want to miss it. Steve LaTart. Alex Tims and the professor

of those guys are going to tell you everything you need to know about the upcoming race each week. What are some good bets to make where there's a good value? And so far, so good, man. All right. Thank you, Tim's. Sweet. Thanks. See you. All right, now it's time to talk about the Cars Tour. Blake McAllis is going to recap everything that happened this past weekend at Ace Speedway, a fantastic race. I wonder if Blake will tell us about having to sing the national Anthem. They were short an anthem singer, Blake volunteers. That's amazing. I don't think I have the guts for that. You wouldn't do that? No, I wouldn't. Apparently they put out in a release the next day that they were looking for a National Anthem singer full time. And he's like, man, maybe I just didn't do a good enough

job. I think in, in a sense. I was like, hey, I was like, you're a serviceable backup quarterback, came into the game, kept the lead, won the game for them. You're not going to start next week. Team's never going to let you start, but you were there when it mattered. Exactly. He can always say, I sang the national anthem at a sporting event. Yes, that's pretty cool, I think. I think... I will never say that. I think offered, I would, I would do it. It's great. I think offered, I would throw up and just crawl to a hole. Nope. All right, Blake, take it away. After a day-long test at North Woltzboro Speedway a week prior, the Z-Max Cars Tour, presented by Sound Gear, headed off to Alamance County's A Speedway

on a rare Friday night occasion as both the late model stocks and pro-late models look to dazzle in front of a sellout crowd at the famous 410th mile. To start off, the action on a hot and sunny Friday afternoon were 25 of the late-model stock car competitors looking to pencil in their starting spots at a racetrack notorious for rewarding stellar track position. At the end of the session, and with Statesville, North Carolina is Ryan Millington, the top honors, notching his third career Thunder Road Harley-Davidson Pull Award, all of which have been earned in Altamaha.

Brendan Queen, Chad McCombie, Jacob Hefner, and Cade Brown completed the top five starters. There was plenty of drama to start off tonight with a handful of competitors experiencing some early problems. As, oh, trouble, turn one, that is Andrew Grady. Engine issues, it would appear for the number one out of Youngsville, North Carolina. Again, Butterbean hanging tough on the outside, but he'll try to get down in front of McCombie. Dylan Bassett. That was big.

That was a big, big saving moment. Big check up there. Heavy damage for Connor Hall, your championship points leader, move on his part as he was going to get squeezed three wide. He recognized it. Lifted out of the gas. Oh, and more trouble. Dylan Harville once again, sparks flying underneath that race car to the inside of Butterbean. Right here in front straightaway.

Connor Hall turned around backwards. In a precarious spot there just past the start finish line, and your championship points leader having more issues. After a dominant opening half of the race, Millington continued to set the pace before eventual damage to the track bar of his number 15 Leisure Time Reynolds machine made it a three-car brawl for the lead to the end. Quaple thought of making it three-wide, but does it for now. 30 laps to go. They will look three-wide on the front straightaway at A's. Quaple down to the bottom. He thinks better of it.

Millington still holding on. That 15 car is good. With that much damage, Alan, it's still holding on to the lead. Carson Quaple, not going anywhere. Trying to come off forward, get the better angle as he turns deep and nearly collides with Queen. As they battle, we'll see if Millington can get out a little bit ahead of this. That's the two in second and third place battle.

The Quaple, end of the race. Look who shows up. The driver of that A car now solidly in second position. He's going after the lead. It is no way. Quaple is too good. With the damage that the 15 car has, he is now sunk. Not the perfect restart, but he's able to get under Millington and 3 and 4.

What a drive that car has. That car, that 15 car would not hold the bottom with the damage. The damage is what has cost Ryan this race, I do believe, but he is still hanging tight on the outside. What a move Carson Quaple officially to the lead. It was a lead he would not relinquish as Carson Quaple went on to capture the checker flag for his second win in the Cars Tour season and third straight at Ace Speedway. Yeah, I mean, it's just hard racing the whole time.

I mean, these guys are so good. All the cars and the cars tour, it's just crazy how close everybody is. So to have a little bit more there at the end was a huge help. Just can't thank Junior Motorsports, Bass Pro Shop, Chevrolet, Kelly LW, Dale, everyone at the big shop for all their help, and just was a really good night for us. Brendan Queen brought a home in second with Ryan Millington and third, Bobby McCarty and Chad McCombie completed your top five,

while Ronnie Bassett Jr., Trayton Lapsovich, Isabella Robusto, Minnie Tyrell, and Jacob Hefner rounded out your top 10. The pro-late models also took to the track for their fourth race of the 2024 season as younger brother to Carson, Caden Quaple, captured his first Malay Pul Award of the season after being the final card to go out and qualifying. Luke Baldwin joined him on the front row with Nick Loden, and Jake Bolman and Kyle Campbell setting the fastest five times. Despite a pair of cautions in the opening laps,

the race proceeded along without much issue until a restart with just 32 laps to go. As they enter the Death Wish Coffee restart zone, 32 laps to settle in here and out to Mahal. Quomple with a great jump on the inside, but same can be set for Spencer Davis is loaded. On top of the side of the 24 as they hit the outside wall. Dylan Garter gets collected as well

and caution flag is out as two of your top contenders have issues When all was said and done, it was Cady and Quaple who was able to go to Victory Lane after leading all 100 laps We had a dominant car here tonight When we started on pole I knew we were going to be pretty good And that's exactly what it was The car really never fell off at all throughout the whole race And I was able to manage a good gap from me to second place

And had to get good restarts And we were able to do that and get through at least one lap clear and then start to drive away. So we had a really good car. Spencer Davis, Caden Honeycutt, William Sawalich, and Connor Jones completed your top five in the pro late models. After a weekend off, the ZMAX cars tour will be back in action with a pair of midweek race dates as the pro late model division tackles the freshly paved North Wilkesboro Speedway on Tuesday, May 14th, while the late model stocks will do the same on Wednesday the 15th as a part of All-Star Week at North Wilkesboro Speedway.

You can join us at the track or catch live, flag-to-flag coverage of the ZMAX Cars Tour presented by Sound Gear on Flow Racing all season long. Until next time, I'm Blake McCandless, and this has been your Cars Tour recap. Time for the White Flag? All right. Dropping Sunday night was the tear-down with Jeff Gluck and Jordan Miyaki

and those guys covered all the action from Kansas. And probably if you're still looking for a detailed understanding of NASCAR's processes, that'd be a good place to live. look at the tear down with Jeff Gluck and Jordan Mianke. Monday Action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin.

Denny talks about the race, the car, how it's a great fit for Kansas. All the things he liked about that and how he ended up seeing the finish of that race play out in front of him. Doorbopper Clear with Joe Edmonds. Those guys

had a great conversation around how awesome, again, the race at Kansas was. And how it different. from another race that wasn't so great at Atlanta. Those guys are so hard-headed. Plus with Joel, God, that shows all over the place. It was fantastic.

There's no telling what happened there. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, they are hard-headed. Dropping tomorrow, Speed Street with Connor Daly and Chase Holden, I'm on that show as their guest. We talk a little bit about what my experience with the Indy 500 has been and

a lot of other things. Fun conversation with those guys. So coming out tomorrow and then Thursday, Dirty Modo with Steve LaTartre. Going to be previewing the upcoming race this weekend telling you all the great bets and good values. DJD Reloaded will be out on Thursday as well. Carl and the team

will have a lot to talk about. I imagine they may pull from our episode of Dirty Air. I'm sure there's something we said today. Yeah, who could they call? I don't know. And tomorrow, as I mentioned, Elton Sawyers, I guess. Now, Elton Sawyer, I want to tell you, you know, everybody's going to be wanting me to ask Elton about, you know, the current state of NASCAR and a lot of things going on in the sport.

I've got, you know, short track package. What are we doing to get that better? I've got some questions like that on my mind. But this guy grew up racing late model stock cars. So at Langley, which I was going to as a kid. My mom lived up in that area. and he raced against a couple of people that I watched or knew about. So I want to talk about his career.

Also, him going into Xfinity Series and eventually the Cup Series marrying Patty Moise as well and how that was like having to race Patty for so many years. So there's a lot of good things to discuss with Elton and hopefully we'll get the bottom of the direction we're going to go to fix this short track racing, which we all want, right? All right, it's going to be a good show tomorrow. Y'all tune in. We'll see you then.

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