The Dale Jr. Download - 542 - North Wilkesboro: "Cement The Tunnels"

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the Bojangles Studio to chat about all things North Wilkesboro on this edition of Dirty Air. There were multiple grooves of racing and punches flying as the All-Stars of NASCAR graced the famed short track in Wilkes County, so obviously there was a lot to unpack: Dale talks about his trip to New York City The North Wilkesboro repave was a big success Should NASCAR introduce multiple tire compounds for race weekends? Ricky Stenhouse Jr. vs. Kyle Busch Kyle Larson’s eventful Sunday During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding: The 2025 NASCAR In-Season Tournament  Worst weather delays Last time Dale has thrown a punch 2025 NASCAR Championship being back in Phoenix 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, and we got a big show for you today this Tuesday for Dirty Air. And, you know, obviously North Wiltsboro going on. A lot happening there to discuss. And a lot happening in our own lives. And we've got some great guests coming in this week. So big week for us. Let's get started.

The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. I'm tired of getting run over by everybody. But that's what everybody does. Everybody runs over. Everybody to pass everybody. Okay, everybody, as I said, back in the Bojangles Studio. And now through June 9th, you can get the new sausage-bo-berry biscuit for free. Sausage Bo-Berry Biscuit.

That sounds really good. And you can get that for free using the promo code Dale Jr., D-A-L-J-R. When you place an order on Bojangles.com or in their app, you know, download the app, Get it on your phone. I got several apps where I order food on my phone. I remember when that was not a thing. But now, you know, you don't even walk in and order anymore. You don't hardly even go through the drive-thru.

You just order on your phone. So much easier. And now you can do that at participating stores where you'll get your new sausage bowberry biscuit for free using the promo code Dale Jr., D-A-L-J-R. Bojangles. It's bo-time, man. A lot of personal stories going on.

man so close that almost made it in there throwing the trash into the can uh so i have on the table right here um a book and this book is um my daughter's first year book ila has graduated from kindergarten dang pretty awesome congrats ila it is awesome so um there are a lot of great milestone moments as a parent and let me tell you, when you open up the first yearbook and see your daughter's picture in there, right? She's posing for her class picture, which we all did, right? Many, many times. But when you look in one, I mean, I've got my old yearbooks, right, on a shelf in my library, and I'm sure you guys probably got your old yearbook stashed somewhere.

But man, when you open up a yearbook and see your child's picture in there, that's a pretty cool moment. We went to her graduation ceremony, a little 45-minute hour long little deal. Really emotional. I'm so, so proud of her. It's crazy how much, and they do a really good job of putting together this little pamphlet that documents kind of how she was at the very first of kindergarten at the very end, right? And you can see the change how well she can write her name, things like that, right? The progress that she's made as a student and as a person.

Really cool for me, exciting week. Nicole in preschool has finishing up her year too, so we're about to head off into the summer and have just an awesome time. And speaking of summer, nobody is more prepared for that than our own Dustin. Our very own Dustin. Dustin over here with a stash.

Summer stash. Looking a little bit like Dirk Diggler. I swear you look like you ought to be on a porn set from the 70s. Just saying, I don't know if we can, I mean, nobody can get this visual, right? So this is, he's got to put himself on camera. Probably not, probably not, probably not, great content for audio, but I wish everybody could see it. Just imagine it. Just paint the picture in your mind. The man went to, where'd you go? You went overseas? You went to Italy, and now has this inspired him to grow a mustache. Am I right? Inspired by Italy, yeah, and the

intimidator himself. Inspired by Italy and the intimidator, man. I saw him this morning. I was like, Damn. Looks way better than Andrews. Wow. I didn't have to go there. It's hilarious. Also, speaking of books, I'm going to tell you another thing you'll do. Last night, I read, me and Ila had the best time.

I read a book to her every night, right? And so last night she picks the book every night. Last night she picked out a book about unicorns. All right? and I read it in macho man's voice, Randy Sacky. So fun. Just giving you some notes. Can we get a taste of the macho man?

No, no. I am a unicorns, I don't know, man. I'm a unicorn's brother. I like to prance. It had fun. It was a magical time. That's what it was like, man. Just giving you some notes.

I like it. Because, dude, you're going to read this. I've been reading books to her for six years, right? Got to check you up and have some fun with it. Last week, you might have seen some social media content. Oh, I wanted to ask, too. Speaking about getting emotional during the kindergarten ceremony, I'm sitting there. Luckily, I'm on the back row.

And, dude, I mean, my eyes filling up with water, right? I'm getting close to, it's getting close to Cresting. I look over at Amy. Oh, she's lost it. They're already down her face. And I'm like, all right, you know, you'll, you'll, you'll kind of look up a little bit. Like, sun's really bright. Yeah, well, you'll look up a little bit, like give it, create a little more.

Yeah. Create a little bigger trough. Yeah, get a little bigger trough for that water. So you're trying everything you can not to let the tear. You cannot wipe your eyes. No. And you don't want the tear to actually come down. No.

Your face in front of everybody. right and you're looking around or any other men in here crying um was it outside no oh because i was going to say sunglasses don't always saving grace well i mean if your tears are running down in face you know that's sunglasses have failed you cannot let that happen so um yeah i was just thinking i was just wondering you know where we've all probably been in those situations man maybe maybe and maybe andrew right you take a girl out and take her to the theater and you're like this is a sad movie. I did not anticipate such sadness. And

you're trying to control your breathing and not cry and in front of your... Like, you're smiling too much. She's looking at you. Like, damn, he's smiling a lot. It's a sad movie. It's a weird reaction to this sad movie. Yeah. That's why I always carry

onions in my pocket. You've got to chalk it up to allergies. Oh, man. Oh, shoot. It's these onions in my pocket. That's even weirder. So I got, I did not, you know, I controlled the tear, you know, build up. Hoo, it was close, so, really close. Me and Ila, we got done reading the macho man unicorn book. And she goes, I said, you know, before I leave the room and let her go to sleep, I said,

I'll want to tell you, never been more prouder than I was today when I saw you at your ceremony. And she goes, did you cry? I was like, almost, almost. She goes, did Mama cry? It's like she needed to hear that somebody got emotional, right? And I was like, yeah, Mama cried. But, man, what a great day. Speaking of great days, went to New York last week.

Did we talk about this? We didn't talk about this. Yeah, you left. Starting to work for, starting to do some work, right, for Amazon and TNT. Now that we've got the news out that we're going to be working for them in 2025 during their 10 race block in the summer. We're going to kick off the Amazon portion of the 2025 five race program at the Coca-Cola 600. And then we're kicking off the T&T portion at Atlanta.

Two amazing races, man. The racing at Charlotte has been incredible over the last couple of oval races that we've had there. This next-gen car just really performing well at the mile and a halfs. And I think personally, you know, I don't do a lot of bragging on me, but if I had to say what I thought my best work was last year, I think Atlanta would be near, would be something I would put forth and say, hey, this is what I think I did. This is where I think I did the best.

Looking forward to both of those, but also we got together and watched, we as a team, me and some of the Amazon folks, got together and watched a bit of what's been going on this year with the broadcast. and watched some of the All-Star race as well to sort of talk about and just get some ideas about what we like about a broadcast, what we think the broadcast should have some of the bells and whistles. So, I mean, it's early, man, but we're already starting, and I love that. We're getting into some note-taking and brainstorm sessions about, you know,

what we think the broadcast should have. I will say though, I mean, there's a, I think that at least in my heart, it won't be a huge departure from what we know, right? It's not going to be this totally reinvented situation. So, but it might have a little different vibe to it. But for the most part, I mean, Fox and NBC and all the things that we've seen in the last several decades is how, that's the basis of a broadcast. I mean, they do it well.

And so I think we'll just take sort of the general idea and just have a few, you know, tweaks to it. And I'd say, when I say tweaks, I think, for example, like, if I were in charge, one, this is just one example, this isn't something at the top of my list. And I'm just giving you an idea of some of the things we might discuss in these meetings. I think that the starting grid has never been done better than it was for, I believe, CBS, Daytona 500, early 80s. Look at any of those Daytona broadcasts, Daytona 500 broadcasts from 1980, 1970, even, all the way up to like 84, 85.

Watch how they do the starting grid. it's usually one person and in this case back in the day Ken Squire did it they'd have a little music on the back end and it was usually something like the theme to night

writer imagine you know or Magnapia you know it had that kind of like you know good energy but very nostalgic and he would read these names pretty quickly but tag them with the hometown or just a little quick anecdote

of where this person's from or or an accomplishment of theirs. And and he made that start and everybody was covered right all the way to the very last of the grid right and it was a very energetic moment

as the cars are pacing coming to the green that sort of brought the energy level in the booth and the broadcast itself and for the viewer up to a certain level right and as you raise the energy you want to keep it there keep continuing to push that energy up as the broadcast goes.

And I really feel like that those starting grids, I mean, maybe it was just me, but I'd listen to that and get freaking pumped. Because it felt like, I know that this isn't the case today because pretty much every car that shows up is guaranteed a spot in the field. But it felt like back in the day,

they made it sound like making this field wasn't an accomplishment. And that starting grid and how it's read and the energy within how it's read adds to that, right? Even if we know that all the cars are going to be in the field, it should still be, it should still be apparent that it's hard to get there

and they're in and they're present, right? And so that's a very small thing I know, but I'm telling you, you add a lot of those up into the show, and it really gives it a vibe, right? And so that's what we're sitting down and having conversations around. But again, you know, what the basic model of the broadcast in terms of how you see it done by Fox and NBC and any of our partners in the past is what you'll, what you'll, what we're familiar with and what will probably continue to be with Amazon and Turner. There's some great opportunity, I think, for how we shape our pre-race and post-race show.

Specifically, I think with Amazon because they're not a network, right? they don't have to go on and off the air at a specific time. So that can be whatever it needs to be. And so I'm excited about that because I'll tell you one thing that I do see all the time. Ever since I started this job as a broadcaster, all the fans, the most common comment is post-race. I want more post-race. I need more post-race.

And so they love hearing from the winter, but they also want to get second, third. fourth, fifth, everything you can give them. And so, you know, there's times when we're on the big networks like Fox and NBC, there's programming already built in that has to begin at a certain time. So if the post race don't fit, it ain't happening. We've got to get off the air at this time. And so with Amazon at least, I think we'll learn with TNT really what their flexibility is.

But I think with at least Amazon, that can be whatever it needs to be, because that space is however big we want it or need it to be. Also, I got a chance during the up front when I went to New York to see Will Farrell. I saw that. That was really cool. He asked me, he said, hey, man, you're still around North Carolina at Lake Norman? I'm like, hey, we sure are. And one thing that I got to share with him, which I hope that he appreciated,

was I got to tell him that story about the first time I've seen the movie. at Skywalker Ranch with George Lucas. Why don't know why that escaped me. But I thought, I bet Will Ferrell doesn't know George Lucas watched this movie. And he said, I told him, I said, man, the first time I saw this movie was a Skywalker Ranch and Lucas was sitting behind me.

And he goes, did he laugh? I was like, he laughed, buddy. I heard him like. He really thought that was cool. So that was neat. I got my picture with Sarah Jessica Parker. And I also saw with Will Ferrell another actress. She's in, I think it's Sweet Home Alabama.

Oh, man, I remember. Witherspoon. Yes, Reese. So I saw Reese Witherspoon, right? And gosh, I mean, she's, She's pretty cool and iconic, and I'm not a person that's like, hey, can I get in my picture? I just don't do that. I can see them, everyone's talking to them, right?

Everybody's bothering them, I guess, you know, in the way I look at it. So I'm like, I'm not going to add to that. I'm just going to stand back, but I did want to go to say hey to Will and telling that story. But I saw, so I go to, you know, the TNT up front, and I see Sarah Jessica Parker, and I know Amy, watched Sex in the City forever back when we were dating and got married and all that stuff. And I was like, hmm, I bet if Amy knew me and her were in the same room, she would probably be mad that I didn't go up and say, hey, or get my picture made with her. So I did bend my own rule there.

But pretty cool. I saw Shaq, got to talk to him. I love the picture of you two sitting next to each other. It's amazing how big he is. I got to see Charles Barkley and talk to him quite a bit. Charles Barkley is the coolest. I'm going to tell you, man. I've known Charles for, shoot, I can't even remember when we met,

but it's been a long time, and Charles Barkley will text you out of the blue. How's the family? Hey man, just how's the kids? How's Amy? Just out of nowhere. Yeah. Right? And I see him maybe once a year when we did this, I guess when I was retiring,

we did some kind of a live stage roastish sort of event with Mike Davis and Dirtyma Media. And Mike invited him to come be a part of it and come on stage. He comes. And, of course, he loves to go to Vegas and gambling stuff like that. but he comes and sets on stage and hung out backstage with Dale Jarrett and everybody, and him and Dale Jared ended up hanging out and gambling a little bit that afternoon or that evening. But just a cool dude. Wayne Gretzky got to talk to him for a minute.

Super cool. Really nice guy. Got to meet his family and some of his sons were with him. That was really neat. Just a great experience in New York with the up front, had some great dinners. And the people at Amazon and the people at TNT, really easy really laid back this is going to be a comfortable couple places to work so I'm thankful for that

anyhow I guess moving forward into the cup race North Wales Burrell I know a lot happened you know the Kyle Bush Ricky Stenhouse Jr. fight we're going to get to that but North Wilkesboro the short track is maybe the best short track on the schedule It is a near perfect short track. Never, in any recent history that I can remember, have we ever had a repave that was multiple grooves,

especially to the fence. They were running the wall in one and two. And that will only improve race after race. That will get easier and easier and more. And people talked about, I know the fans, man, I was reading comments. I couldn't pass. Well, you know, I mean, you're asking for multiple grays. cruise.

And if you're going to run that top, you're running it as a defensive move, right? You can make it hard to pass at any multi-grove racetrack by running the top. And so, I mean, I could go through dozens of races where I ran the top to make it hard for people to pass me. And it should be hard to pass at a short track. And that's why, you know, you see guys eventually run out of patience and run into back or running to the side of other cars or trucks we saw during the truck race guys battling side beside having a hard time completing the pass and finally just having to use the guy

up a little bit that's what we want to see in short track racing it if it's easy to pass you're never going to see any contact never if it's easy to go by a guy you're not going to see anybody run out of patience you're not going to see anybody get mad not going to see all the things that we see a short track so anyways they repaved the racetrack i would have never guessed this was going to happen I thought for sure. I was worried to death we were going to have nothing, but running the bottom, single foul, absolutely no passing,

and no second groove, and a real snooze fest. And I was worried about Wilkesboro, long term. But dude, we got the exact opposite of that. We got the best case scenario, the absolute best possible outcome in terms of how that racetrack is going to race. That little nugget right there, man,

is lost in the shuffle of the news, right? The news cycle around the fight and everything else. This freaking racetrack is awesome. Badass. And so there was a, you know, there's some, you know, the tire played a little bit of a role in that, but not so much because, dude, the trucks had an old, old ass, regular old good year,

and they were running all over the place with it. So when, you know, when we were debating whether the option tire was this or, you know, whatever, right, The tire, to me, mattered very little about how well the racetrack race because the trucks went everywhere. And they're on old, old-ass good year, right? Nothing special. And so they used a little bit of a different aggregate, meaning if you were going to pave anything and you wanted it to last forever, you would pave it in a more modern, very dense, very dense.

ratio between, you know, all of the chemicals and tar and all the things that go into pavement, right? So, you know, 50 years ago, that, all of the things, the tar and everything that really is the glue that holds asphalt together, that's probably the most expensive part of the process. And what they would do is, no matter where you were geographically, if you're in a granite state or if you're out on the coast, you're getting, any kind of material that you can crush and mix into this aggregate,

and that is going to save you some money, right, by sort of diluting the mixture. And so, you know, you'd put a bunch of crushed rock into this mixture or crushed she shells or whatever it might be, where you are, whatever's easiest to obtain locally, you're going to pour that into the asphalt mixture to dilute it and then thus save you money when you're spreading this stuff all over. the road or the highway.

And for years, that's how they did it, and that's how they paved racetracks. Now, when race cars go around a racetrack, they would pull all of the tar and the asphalt mixture out in between the rocks and granite and crushed seashell, and that's what would make tracks abrasive, because now that rock and seashell and all those things are sticking up, and there's shards, right? You rub your hand across it and it's rough. But in time, those tracks would break apart and bust apart and seep and weep and have all kinds of issues and have to be, you know, cracks field and all kinds of things, all kinds of patches. And they learn, you know, as asphalt technology improved to take the aggregate out and have more tar mixture and that would, that bonding of the tar.

and everything would last much longer. And that's what they ended up paving Charlotte with many, many years ago. And it never aged. Charlotte never aged. And instead of like a crushed rock or seashell, they threw rubber polymers in there as the aggregate. And so it was a rubber-on-rubber situation. And so it was never going to not have tons of grip, right? And that's why we went away from the oval and brought the roval,

because the oval racing sucked so bad because of that surface. All right. So they've learned, because of Charlotte, they learned, we can't do that again. We've got to change what we're doing and we're going to go back to the old way. We're not going to pave these racetracks to last forever. We're not going to pave them to last, you know, 30 years. We're going to pave them and know that we might get 15, 20 years out of this, but we'll have a better racing product.

and so, you know, there's some other tracks that have suffered because of, I guess, Sufferns not the right word, but there's some other tracks that got paved with this ultra-great technology, and I guess Michigan would be another one, right? We paid Michigan in, I don't know, 2012 or something, and it's still, like, literally still one groove. What they did is say, hey, we'll go back to putting more aggregate, more, you know, granted or whatever it is they're bringing in locally. We'll get back to putting more of that in. And so they did that with Wilkesboro,

and when they went and tested the tire test, I was getting text messages from people saying, hey, man, the track's coming apart. And it wasn't. It was those little pieces of tar and bonding of the tar and asphalt mixture coming out of the racetrack in between those pieces of granite or crushed seashio or aggregate, right? And so that stuff was just kind of coming out.

little by little and creating these crevices and these little pits and imperfections that are going to wear the tire and age the surface. And so it was happening like it used to, right, in the 70s and 80s. And we just haven't seen it in such a long time. And we're like, oh, what's this? Tracks not holding together. That's not true. The track's actually supposed to kind of come apart a little bit. And that's why you see some of the little tar patches and you're going to see some, you know, constant sort of maintenance being done to that surface because it's made to the you know it's made to kind of come apart it's made to you know not fail but it's made to disintegrate and so man that's going to be an amazing racetrack and that and and the technology

and what they've learned and how to pave that track that's going that's going to be what they'll use going forward right if they go to richmond or some of these other places and have to do repaves imagine richmond getting that treatment. We talked about how to fix Richmond, and in my mind, it was seal it, or cover it from one end to the other in resin, whatever needed to be done to add more grip

and be able to chase middle and high lines. And if they repaved it, this is how they should do it. And I promise you, man, I feel pretty confident we're going to get a very similar-looking race to what we had at Wilkesboro in terms of cars on the bottom, middle, and top. Incredible. Great job.

I'm thrilled for that racetrack. And I guess I might want to jump into the conversation around the All-Star race and where do we go from here? Yeah, because it's coming back next year. It is. So Wilkesboro got it was announced that the All-Star race does come back. My initial reaction to that was a bit disappointed. Why would I be disappointed about that? because I want Wilkesboro to have a points race.

Wilkesboro for me is still on the comeback trail. I know that some people think that, well, it's back. It's here. It's in the schedule. It is not fully back until it's got a points race. For me, I still worry that it's on the fringes.

I still worry that it's not 100% back into our D&A, right? How do people in the NASCAR building feel about it? how does Marcus feel about it? Are they 100% like, you know, bought in on how this track can be a part of NASCAR's future long term? Are we going to dance around this, you know, race track with the All-Star race for a while

and then maybe it just kind of gets left off the schedule one year? So for me, it needs that points raise for me to feel like we're back. It's truly back. And honestly, I think that for that race track and what I saw this past weekend especially, a 400 lap points race, a big race weekend with cars tour

in the middle of the week, trucks are Xfinity on a Friday, and then the cup race on a Saturday, sprinkling some concerts with some A-list people, right? You've got to have a Saturday concert with somebody that's current, right? and you can have a concert after the cars tour race on a Wednesday or whatever

with a little bit more of a local flare, maybe some cover bands. That's always fun. I want to go race and party. Right? I want to party all week. Put that on a t-shirt. That's a quote. And so that's what Wilkesboro needs.

It needs a 400-lap points race, and that's where it needs to live in our ecosystem, right? So what does that mean for the All-Star race? The All-Star race, to me, need Charlotte. Like we had it. Yeah. The All-Star race needs Charlotte. And especially while the next gen is so amazing on the 1.5-mileers. You know, I think we would, I think we need to always like,

You know, there's things that happen in NASCAR that we want to take advantage of. One of the things going on right now is how great this next gen is on the 1.5 mile racetracks, and the All-Star Race needs Charlotte Murray Speedway to reach its true potential. We know how good the All-Star Race can be because we have seen it. And it was at Charlotte. And since we've moved it around, it just don't. have that same feel that Charlotte gives it. And so I would encourage, you know, that, you know, we're going to go race,

All-Star Race next year again at Wilkesboro. That'll be a fun week. But I would love to see Wilkesboro get its points race and the All-Star race to go back to Charlotte while this 1.5-mile next-gen phenomenon is so awesome. That's my question, I guess, to you is like back when we were talking about Richmond, I guess, a month ago, you're like, this track should not be losing a date, but we're on the brink of losing a date because it's a short track. Do you worry that Wilkesboro is in the same situation? Like, we can't commit to a points race with the short track package being the way that it's currently at? I mean, I saw.

Like, do you think there's hesitation to get to a points race? Like, why would we want to add more short tracks right now? You know? Yeah, I guess that's a little bit of the problem. But I honestly just feel like that Wilkesboro has just, Wilkesboro isn't the new shiny thing. Wilkesboro's not Chicago Street course, not Mexico City. Wilkesboro is Wilkesboro.

And it's going to, you know, it's going to have to work twice as hard to earn its stripes. It's going to have to be twice as good to get, you know, to get into the lineup. You know? And so, you know, we're eager to go to Mexico City and be in all these new markets and stuff, and that doesn't make space for Wilkesboro. And so that makes me worry about where it can be, right?

And how that makes me worry about where it might be in five or ten years. It's an amazing little short track. It put on in my mind, it races better than any short track we have. It races better than any short track we have. I can say that confidently. after this past weekend.

You heard drivers getting out of their cars going, it's a fun little place. Hell yeah, damn, this was pretty entertaining. I had a great time. What a great track. What a fun track. And so I think also we unlocked some of the keys to making the other short tracks better

by what we learned this past weekend. And so the one thing about Wilkesboro for me is I'll be able to like, I'll be able to, you know, I'm happy about what. what's happened to it. I'm happy about where it is. I'm thankful that it's back. I'm thankful that they're running an all-star race there,

but I will finally have some relief when that gets that points race. And it's like, yes, that's the ultimate goal for that track. Charlotte Murder Speedway is the big stage that the all-star race not only deserves, but it's what the all-star race needs to reach its full potential to get back. to where we used to be with that racetrack. And I love Wilkesboro, but the state is just not a big enough stage for what the All-Star Race deserves.

The All-Star Race should be, listen, Wilkesboro is amazing. So is Richmond, so is Bristol, so is Martinsville. But we have these, we have certain facilities like Daytona, like Charlotte, like Indy, that are, that's the main stage. right you go to a concert you got the side stage great bands good times but the main stage is where the headliner is going to be and that's where that's charlotte right that's daytona that's the big stage and that's where this all-star race belongs it doesn't belong on the side stage and um you know so

if you want to have you know exhibitions and things like that that's great do it add it in i i you know take you know so i i will um i'll stop there i think everybody knows how i feel about all that. Don't have to get into the clash conversation and everything else with that. I'll say this. With Wilkesboro compared to a handful of other races that have been this year, plus just general feeling of what does the grid feel like on race day, that felt like a big stage. Being there in person, I mean, it was a packed crowd. The energy was through the roof. I don't know if that translated necessarily on television. But man, when I was there, I'm like, this is a different, Yeah.

This is different than a normal cup week. You're right. I can agree that being there in person, it makes really good sense. Yeah. Right. But if you are 30 miles or more away from that place, it doesn't come across. It doesn't have the same feeling watching it on TV, right, as well. I remember, you know, watching the All-Star race that Charlotte had,

if that makes any sense. And look, I'm happy to be wrong here. This is just my opinion. This isn't, you know, I'm not saying this is what has to happen or has to go for it. This is just how I feel about it. Look, Wilkesboro is good. I'm thankful for it.

When you go there, you'll, if you go there, and put yourself on the facility, you'll see. It's special, and it's different. It's nostalgic, and you'll have a great time. But I just thinking for the All-Star race, because I'm worried about these things. Wilkesboro's long-term future. And for me to feel good about that,

it needs a points race. The All-Stars, long-term future. I watched the documentary where they were talking about how the all-star race in the early 90s and stuff, they were even considering whether it belonged, whether they would continue to have it. It had lost this sort of appeal, why I continued to do it. And there's been that debate in other sports, too. There's times when it just lulls, and you're like, what do we do with this? MBAs went through that, right?

How to make it matter, how to make it important, not just a walk-through. And so I worry about the long-term future of the All-Star race, and I think it needs to go back to Charlotte to sustain it, and get back to, you know, get back to make, you know, look, if the racing sucks at Charlotte, I wouldn't be saying this. But the racing at Charlotte and the last two ovals, been pretty freaking awesome. Pretty damn good.

You're right. So I'm looking, I mean, I'm thrilled about this weekend coming up. Talking about TV, right? talking about how things don't come across on TV well. I say one thing that did come across well on TV this weekend was practice. I watch practice on TV. I mean, we don't get it much anymore, right? And I don't know why, but I don't know what my point is on this,

but otherwise I watch practice. I guess this was probably. Friday. And I was pretty excited about the race, watch practice, probably ten times more excited at the end of practice. And that's why. The tires,

the... Just watching some practice? Just the energy around cars on track. Yeah. So a practice, a practice... And I... This is the debate, right, around, like, we had this conversation with Chase Elliott,

and he's like, ah, from my perspective as a driver, we don't need more practice. opinion is we do need more practice now we do we need a lot more probably not we just need some shoulder content for the race weekend not for the teams and to figure the race cars out but it's more for me as a fan at home if i'm watching practice on tv on a saturday or a friday i get more excited about the race the next day i'm more likely to watch it or practice might remind me that i need to watch the race. I'm just saying, I believe

that practice on television a good 45 minutes to an hour dedicated every single week for every series would benefit our viewership on race day. It would benefit fan engagement across

the board, whether it's in person or on TV or people tuning in. It's going to create tons of conversation and generate tons of discussion on social media and across all message boards, any race fan. It's going to be talking about all the thing,

whatever practice generates in storylines creates more conversation. I just don't see why we're, you know, I just don't see how it's not a good thing to add, you know, another 30 minutes or 45 minutes to what we're doing. This past weekend at Wilkesboro

was a, was a basic blueprint for how weekend should go. An hour of practice. Put it on TV. Let people see what's going on, see who's fast, see what the racetracks doing, all of those things. And then that practice plugged me in. That practice sold me on the rest of the weekend. And I know it was Wilkesboro and it was multi-grove and the tracks doing shit we didn't think it would do and there was tons of compelling things happening. And you're not going to have that every single week. I get it. And I

know that there's some practice shows where they'll show you. Nobody watched. Why do you want us to have more practice? Look, here's the viewership. 20,000 people. You know, I get that. But I just feel like that it's a, it's window shopping. The practice is a showcase.

You know, and it sells our sport. Creates storylines. Dude. Yeah. So I love that. We don't get that that much this day and age. and what a nice thing that was this past Friday

to tune in and watch some practice. What did you think of the option tires? I know that started to develop beginning of practice, but I think even during the race, people were figuring this out. Like I saw Cliff Daniels was walking up and down pit road seeing how different tires were wearing.

I'm tired of people calling it the option tire. That makes no freaking sense to me. The reds. The reds. The reds. The softer tire. Okay. The softer tire.

the hard tire and the soft tire that's what it is let's stop with the code names and shit okay all right I'm sick of this so let's play the sound

yeah this is this is an old man complaining this is an old man complaining alert um all right here's how I feel about it you know we had

we had uh we had Elton Sawyer in here and he explained it to us he's like you know we're going to do this and we're going to pay attention this tire, we're going to learn something. That's what they did. All right. Do I want

NASCAR to have two options for every race? Absolutely not. I don't. I don't need that. I'm not missing that. You just called in an option, by the way. I just want to point that out. An option between. You know what to f***. I know. I know. So, I understand that a lot of our fans,

particularly probably a lot of our younger fans, would love it. Man, yeah, why not? More strategy. But I guess I might like it a lot more if NASCAR was like, here's the tires, do what you want to do with them. And so, you know, I think there was a little bit of control.

NASCAR is like, you got to do this. Like start on the reds. Yeah, you've got to do it certain ways. And I'm like, all right, you're taking the fun out of it. Yeah. Right. Right. Don't give me the toy and tell me how to play with it.

Exactly. Right. Let me freaking do what I want here. And so same thing with the rain tire stuff. Like, I understand there's some issues on pit road and they're worried about people getting hurt and all those things. And, you know, if you're coming in to pits and our drivers, you know, they might slide into a person and get them injured.

So they have to have some sort of control over the changing of tires during those treacherous situations. but I wish, you know, they could just let the crew cheese decide. If I want to put on dryers or slicks, it's up to me. And they're not going to throw a yellow and go, okay, everybody, time to put on your tires, you know. That's where I kind of get a little frustrated with it. I really don't, I really hope that this weekend at Wilkesboro, they were just doing this tire situation to try to learn if the soft would work. Good deer needed to go there and say, all right, man, let's try this soft tire.

Let's make sure it doesn't just completely be a disaster. Blister, which Harvard kept saying they kept blister and tires, blister and tires, but I mean, I'm watching the race, and I'm not, I don't see anything going on. I don't see anybody having a problem with it, right? So, I mean, I guess the tires were fine. But Good Year, hopefully, just went there with both options, right? The hard and the soft.

Just in case the soft truly was a disaster. They could go, all right, well, we're not doing the soft, everybody. We're going to punt here and we've got the hard tire. That's what we're racing. And so I hope that it's not this sort of agenda to bring in this new era of having multiple compounds in every race or a lot of races we go to. I do not want to go to Bristol or Richmond, you know, watch 400, laps of, and here 400 laps of tire compound, tire compound, soft, hard, hard, soft, soft, hard.

I don't want, I don't need that. And so, you know, that's not what we've ever been about. And I know it's common in dirt racing and F1 and all these other disciplines, and that's fine. And I'm, again, I go back to look, man, I'm, you know, this is my opinion. I may be on an island here. I just ain't ready for it. So hopefully they brought that tire just to try to get a little more information on it.

What we walked away with was all the crew chiefs, Rodney Childers and everybody else saying, we just need to run that soft tire everywhere to short tracks. Don't even bring the hard one. Just put us on this tire everywhere we go. You know, Denny's saying we can even get more aggressive. Yeah. Other crew chiefs are saying. Gabe Hart, too.

He's like, this was a great step in the right direction. We can go harder. We can go further. We can go further. We can go further. Softer, softer, softer. So hopefully that's what we're learning. And we're not going to go try to have multiple compounds and confuse the shit out of everybody. Because honestly... You don't think that would be interesting? I don't. I have no interest in it.

I think that would be fun to watch. If you can get the tire different enough? You're not. If I got it, if you're, all right, I'm going to put softs on, drive by your ass. You're coming to get your softs. What if you, okay, so Gabehart suggested this, you only get one set of softs the entire race. Everybody will-you-go-you-go-you-pick when you use them. Everybody will use them at the same time.

Nobody's going to use up their softs early in the race. They're going to save them for the last run. Everybody, look, man, you can see some various strategy. If you, everybody, no, you're not. What if there's a guy late, like, mid-pack, be like, we're going to gain some track position here. We're going to put the softs on. We're going to short-pit everybody with the softs. We're going to jump on the soft tires now.

Yeah. You're at the end of the race to do that. But it's, I don't know. So nobody's doing that. I don't think you can confidently say that, can you? I can confidently say it. Everybody will, just like set up, just like anything else in this sport, everybody finds the best place to live.

Everything finds its right place. And so they will all understand the best strategy and utilize it that way. Nobody, if you give them one set, You're absolutely going to get everybody using the set at the same time because they're all going to know they need to save them. Nobody's going to want to be out there on hard tires getting their ass kicked at the end of the race. So they're all going to save them to the end. They're just going to try to survive and put themselves in position

and put their sauce on at the end. Everybody will be on softs. You know, I mean, it happened in the damn All-Star race. Did everybody not find the sauce at the end of the day? Well, I mean, Ligano never switched off the softs because they gave them enough. you know so what's your freaking point everybody did everybody saw what he was doing and everybody went there i know so i'm saying like limit limit the softs so everybody would have put them on at the end i know yeah but maybe i don't know or in that case you would have had nascar telling you to

start on them and that would have been the end of the softs after 50 laps or 100 laps well that would be that would be i'm going off of what gave gave a really good interview to matt weaver after the race of you know here's some ways we could fix it and he's you know here's some ways we could fix it He seemed to think that that would put it in the crew chief's hands a little bit more of if you only have one set of softs or limited it, there would be some more varying strategy. Nope. I mean, I'm not, look, I'm not a coup chief. I'm not arguing with him. I'm just telling you, if you said to, if you said to 95% of the crew chiefs, him included, you know, I think you would, you would have them all holding on to those sauce for the last run or the last 100 laps.

they would not, if the race is 200 laps, they would have put the sauce on in the second half, not the first. Right. I just, you know, this is an argument, it's a good argument, but I just feel like that we can introduce, we can introduce multiple compounds,

it'll disrupt things, just like the next gen did. It'll stir it up for a little while, but eventually they'll all find the best, solution and the best route to take every single week on the strategy, and it'll be pretty much straightforward what you would do with these soft tires. Now, it might take a little time, but it would all sort of work itself out to where everybody really had pretty much the same strategy.

Now, some funky thing happened, fluky caution or whatever, it might throw things around a little bit where somebody might come get their tires earlier. You know, if you've got to race at New Hampshire, right? we always had this. People would come in and get tires with 100 laps to go, and man, if they had the track position, they weren't coming back. If you're 15th, you know, you might come back to Pit Road with,

you know, if you get a yellow with 50 to go, you might come to pit road and get some tires and try to drive yourself into the top 10. But a lot of people were like, oh, man, I can't give up a top three position. I'm going to stay out here with these 50-lap tires. You know, in those kind of situations, you might have some fun with the sauce. but where you get people to come get them earlier.

And some people might hang on to them and say, I'm going to hope for a late yellow to put these on. But I just, I don't need that in my NASCAR, man. If it comes, it comes. It'll be entertaining. As a broadcaster, we'll cover it with all the excitement I've had. I can muster. But until it gets here, I don't care for it.

Yeah, I just don't know why we keep. trying to be like other motorsports, you know, like we're not other motorsports. And I mean, I don't even really see this ever play out in F1. Like it kind of happens every once in a while. But like you said, they all go to the same tire at the same time. Right. In F1, do they not? Exactly. It's every, almost every single time. For the most part, they all pretty much know how they're going to play this before the race starts. And if the race goes as, as expected, which in most case it does, they all do end up on the same tires at the same time. Right. The theory of it is a good one,

but I don't know that the execution of it would match up. I agree with that. Thank you, Dolden. Ducked on you, man. Dunked on you. I'm just kidding. Damn, son. I'm just kidding, man.

Listen, I will promise you that there's probably more people that have your opinion, Andrew, than they have mine. I promise you that. And I'm okay with that. And if it comes and they, if they bring all these, you know, bring, you know, different compounds into the sport, we start running on different racetracks, then I'll embrace it. But I would probably assume that most people feel the way you feel about it, if that makes you

feel any better. I mean, I don't disagree with you that, like, if you were to give the teams one set at Wilkesburg, I mean, I even said it to somebody on Pitt Road, like, oh, they're all going to, everyone's, we're going to see where everyone's on the same page. I agree there. But I'm saying it could cause some very things. strategy that I think could be interesting at some of these races. But what's the question?

I think it distracts us from trying to achieve the ultimate goal, and that's to get the right tire for the short tracks. I think that's a fair statement. I think it disrupts us and derails us from trying to get to where we want to go to get the short track package and possibly even the road course package short up to where it ranks and kicks ass just like the mile and a half stuff. I can agree with you there. The tires feel like the somewhat band-aid to fix it being hard to pass.

I don't disagree there. But I still don't think that wouldn't make an option tire, sorry, a hard or soft tire interesting to watch at any sort of racetrack. We'll see what happens. We'll see whether NASCAR was using this weekend. as an opportunity to learn more about trying to get their tires softer for the short tracks or if there is some sort of conversation going on in the office in the boardrooms around multiple compounds in the future for NASCAR.

I wanted to make a phone call this week and kind of dig into that, but maybe I should. See if I can learn something. Anyhow, let's go on into the race itself. the winner Lugano jumps out of the car and says, man, I worked my ass off at the test here, 800 laps. Yeah. I was listening. Did the boys the door bumper cleared discussed testing,

tire testing, and whether that was an advantage. Did any of y'all listen to that? What do you think that their opinion was? I know what T.J's was, I believe. Yeah, he said that it, he didn't think it was. Didn't matter. And Freddie was like, I mean, he got out of the car and said it was. Yeah.

So. Imagine if we did not get that friday's, Friday practice, how big of an ass kicking that Joe Ligano and Ty Gibbs would have put on in those two races. They were lucky. Those other boys were lucky to be able to get a little taste of that racetrack on Friday. Good Lord. So you're telling me that there were three people that tire tested, right? Ty Gibbs, Joe Lugano, and William Byron.

William hits the wall, wrecks out. But the other two dominated both races. And that don't matter. Testing. T.J. says testing. Nah. Didn't really help. They were going to go kick ass anyways.

And they- Like, Godotos run like shit all year. Then he just shows up and destroys everybody. I mean, and well, Jordan Bianchi mentioned, too, like, he was there for a tire test, but they had 800 laps to specifically just dial in their race card.

Yeah. So when... That has to be an advantage. Yeah. So when you go to a tire test, there is this sort of break-in period where the good year will say, and I haven't done one in years, but back in when I was racing, they'd say, all right, man, we're going to give you till,

maybe it's a one day or a two-day test. We're going to give you till lunch before we start running tires. So run your ass off, work on your car, get your car, get a balance that you're happy with, and then you're going to have to stop working. We're going to throw tires on this son of a gun over and over and now you're done. You're just like can't make you more adjustments because they have to run the same, you want to leave the car alone while you're testing tire after tire after tire.

And so, you know, apparently, you know, Joey, apparently that's still how they do it. And Joey took damn good advantage of it. And you know what? This probably is going to help him beyond this race. Yeah, I mean, he said they could help him for way more. Because than just Wilkesboro, like other short tracks, they learn things. Or, I mean, really, the way this car works balance-wise and arrow-wise, what they learned might help them and all the racetracks.

So good for them. But to say that the testing and the 800 laps made little difference over the outcome of the race is ridiculous. Yeah. I saw Joey, and he's going to call in here in a bit. I saw him and got to congratulate him the morning after. Let's talk about the fight. Cobbush, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got into it. First off, I was in that.

you were in the fight. You were not in the fight. You were there for the fight. I got shoved. I got... Did you shove? Somebody bumped into your shoulder and you were like, oh, Jesus Christ, I'm in it!

I'm in it, guys! Take me to the care center. Yep, we're in it. We're in it, guys. We're in it, guys. We're in it. We're destroyed. We're in it.

Where, I mean, all right, so I think, you know, it's been talked. This has been discussed more than anything in a long time, right, around our sport in the last couple of days. I watched Denny's comments about what he thought went down. I think that there's an arrow issue where, and we've seen it and the guys talk about it and Harvicks talked about it this year on the broadcast, where when somebody gets

on your left side, it makes you tight. and now, you know, I think that Denny, Denny's correct in that Stenhouse didn't touch him, but Stenhouse gave Kyle a choice, lift or hit the wall, right? And Kyle, you know, didn't lift. Kyle hits the wall and says, well, that wouldn't have happened if he wouldn't have, you know, run three wide. Why are we going three wide on the, you know, second lap of the race? Stenhouse says

it's a all-star race every restart got to take advantage of it he's right I mean if that looked like Kyle Busch driving at 47 car

through the middle did it not have we not seen Kyle Busch do the exact same thing do the exact same thing try as best to do everything

you can on restarts to take advantage and Stenhouse is right short race not a lot of opportunity to you know passes are difficult he saw that

and felt that in practice, he probably knew. Got to get everything you can on restarts. Teams preached that all week long. Restarts, get everything you can, try your hardest. He just was doing that. Could Kyle have done some things? Maybe not hit the wall? I think so.

Did Ricky Stenhouse physically run him in the fence? No. Was, did Kyle Busch, did he deserve to get wrecked? Did Stenhouse deserve to get crashed? No. Does Stenhouse go home if he can leave the track? Yes. cement those

So yeah So cement Or concrete Whatever you want to use But I was around Before I was around When you couldn't get out

Of a lot of these racetracks Right When I was younger You know dad would crash There's a picture right here In this building Or in this room right here This picture of me and dad

Standing beside his wrecked race cars At Bristol He wrecked on pit road one of his very first races with Richard Childress in 1981, we couldn't get out. So there we are, watching the rest of the race. That definitely played a role in him sitting there stewing. And he's going, I'm damn sure I'm going to tell you,

I am going to do this. I bet he was like, you know, got out mad, thinking, man, you know, I said what I said, but I'm going to calm down. I was thinking that. Yep. And then he stood there a while and stood there a while, And he went, I'm going to do it.

Maybe I have to do it. Maybe I have to do it because I said I was going to do it. He said that on a, he went on stacking pennies. And he said, oh, I kind of felt like I had to hold, hold to what I said earlier in the day. And Kyle Larson was asked who would win the fight between the two. And Kyle said Stenhouse, for sure, didn't even hesitate. He said Stenhouse would get beat up, but he wouldn't quit until he won. And so, uh,

I want to do, you know, all that's been discussed. You know, I don't, you know, the racing's the racing, racing, racing, wrecks and running each other high and going three wide and somebody getting mad about being put in a bad situation happens all the time. But it looked like Ricky telegraphed his punch. Ricky sort of has this really brief moment where he changes his expression. and then he like, then he like

gets in fighting pose. Right? And then he swings. And it's like all of these things allowed Kyle to know, okay, he's about to fucking hit me. And so Kyle, Kyle kind of moves away from the punch. Yeah.

And so, you know, I think that, you know, unfortunately, you know, I think for Ricky, if he's trying to hit Kyle in this moment, he telegraphed it and Kyle was able to dodge most of it, if not all of it. I think he got Kyle like on the maybe side of the jaw.

But I mean, Kyle was also moving away. Yeah, he was definitely already moving away. Kyle shot on Ricky's dad? I saw some angles of that. I think he got his face. And I thought that looked like a decent, decent shot actually. But I showed Amy and Amy was unimpressed. Did you see the entire back of Ricky's shirt was ripped up?

Yeah. Amy was unimpressed how? She just didn't think it was a hard shot. Oh. There's this angle of Kyle punching Ricky's dad and you're at the back of Ricky's dad, right? And you can see Ricky's dad's head twist from the contact of Kyle's right hand. And I'm showing Amy, I'm like, that looks like a pretty good punch. because all the other things that happened in this were not clean shots

and there was a, you know, there's a lot of falling down and shouting, carrying old. And, oh, all the poor journalists that were, that was a massacre. Davey Siegel was on the ground. They were all over their ass with their cameras.

I mean, they're all up over, you know, they're over the top of their, you know, shoulders and over their shoulders with their cameras and microphones. When s' it went down, they got to be ready for it. I was ready. You were ready?

I was ready. Did you fall? I did not fall. Kept your feet? Yes, I was able to stay to my feet. I was a little bit worried because the lift gate was a little bit off the ground. And, you know, you saw the crew, the one, I think he was the gas man of the A car, was just shoving people off the lift gate.

Yeah, I think it was a defensive tackle in college or something. Yeah, it had to be. That would make sense. He's getting phone calls right now from the NFL execs. That was the sketchiest part. It's like, oh, man, if you trip over this or wrong, way. Yeah.

It's not a good situation. You were breathing heavy like you were in the fight. I was. Yeah. You go watch the video. He was in it, Alex. He said he was in it. I was in it, Tim's.

Can I have this? Yeah. I, uh, yeah, I, I think, um, the other thing, too, is I was in a, I got, uh, the, I've got to become friends with this guy named Arturo Gotti. Hmm. Was a boxer. He was a champion in like the 147, 150, 157, 157. some sort of, you know, riding around in that range,

and came to my 30th birthday party, and we went down to my boxing ring at about three in the morning and threw some punches. And he showed me, like, you know, he's like, here, throw some punches. You know, throw a combination, left, right, left. And so I throw it, and it takes me like five seconds, right? They're like winded afterwards. I'm like, mm-hmm.

He's like, all right. And then, so then he showed me, literally showed me, how to throw the same punches in a third of the time. How do you do it? Well, you don't, he's like, you don't, you don't, the first punch, you don't sort of recoil to throw it. You just bring it, right?

It's got to come from wherever it's at, wherever your hands at, the punch just goes. And he's like, before, he's like, when, when you've got the first punch out there and extended, you're already starting the second. and so yeah I think Ricky could go maybe get some training

so that he could in that moment have gotten a combination in right and not telegraph the first punch obviously but I mean that's the only thing

that I mean that when I watched that I was it was entertaining I know that you know that Ricky went around and did

some interviews and he's out there talking about it. I don't know where Kyle is personally about it. Probably more annoyed than anything. Does it continue? Ricky said he's going to wreck it in Charlotte. Is Ricky going to go home and go, eh, I'm going to calm down. He took that back. He took that back.

He said, no, I'm not going to do that. Okay. But, I mean, he could just be saying that, you know. Does Kyle race Ricky differently? What happens when they go down into the corner together, side of side? You know they're going to qualify next to each other and be on the same trust.

It's going to ride in the back of it. They're going to ride in the truck. In the truck. To go to the trucks. That's how it works. Have you ever been in a situation that's been awkward like that? Yeah. Yeah?

There's, I mean... I know I'm throwing you on the spot. No, no, no. That's kind of the joke in the, in among the drivers. It always happens that way. You'll run into somebody or wreck somebody or getting an argument with somebody, and then the next week you qualify side by side and you have to ride in the truck together at intros.

It just the universe works that way. So, what are the odds? Stenhouse. What are the odds, Tim? Hey. Can I put money on that, Tim. Hey, Stenhouse and him qualify side of the side and riding the truck together to intros. Bush sucks just as bad as Stenhouse does, so they're probably going to qualify close to each other.

So that comment at the end of that situation there, Kyle Bush says, bring it, I don't give a f***. I suck just as bad as you. Let's go. Yeah. Was it, let's fight? I think he was responding to, I think that was responding to Ricky be like, I'm going to get you a Charlotte. Oh, okay. He's like, oh, okay, bring it on.

Let's fucking wreck. Yeah. I'm running as, I suck too. Yeah. I saw Andy Petrie. Andy Petrie standing there. How do you think Andrew felt about that? I suck you as bad as you.

Probably not great. I don't think he'd be proud of that. Yeah. I think he did the moments also. You've got to count for that as well. Sure. My favorite part of the whole transcript is Ricky swings at Kyle on the strangest line. Like Kyle didn't say anything that would be like,

I'm going to swing at you now. So it goes, Kyle says, I don't believe it. But if that's what happened, dot, dot, dot. And like he basically said, like, go watch the replay. Ricky's like, go watch the replay. And then he just punched it. The hell I will. Don't tell me to watch the replay.

That's fight words. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty good. Like, Kyle Bush. Like, the only way he was going to not throw that punch is if Kyle apologized. Yeah. Yeah.

I was never going to apologize. Right. And it almost looks like Kyle was about. to apologize and Ricky's like, uh-oh, he's about to take this all back. If he would have come up and just said sorry, he would have been like, we would have been cool. Yeah. But apparently Kyle Bush has this infamous smirk where he like, when he's talking to you, it kind of comes out of the corner of his mouth. And Ricky said when he saw that, he was like, ding ding.

Yeah. Yeah. Kyle does have that. I don't know if he knows he does it. But like when you're mad at him and he and you're trying to have a reasonable conversation with him, he looks at you like, I really don't give a shit you're saying. So what? Yeah. I do not care.

That would make me want to punch somebody. You smile a lot. Oh, shit. Only when I'm holding back tears. Jesus. All right. I think we covered that pretty good. I guess it probably ain't going to continue,

but it will be interesting to see them if they get side of a side in the race. And I hope that Fox takes us there, if the camera can get there, if they ever are around each other, if they don't do anything, that's still a story. Kyle Larson had his first double of the weekend where he qualifies at Indianapolis, qualifies fifth, incredible, great job.

And then he flies to Wilkesboro to run in the All-Star Race. And, you know, big deal, a lot of people making a big deal out of this. Somebody I posted on social media, though, to remind us all that in 1973, Bobby Allison qualified into the Indy 500, where 22 cars went home from that race. Wow. Flew himself to Nashville to run fourth in the cup race, 420 laps. Flew himself in his piper, right, in some old airplane. Yeah.

Back in 1973. Funny because Larson also finished fourth in this race. Yeah. So, you know, it's awesome. Not only is Kyle doing some amazing things out there in the motorsports world and putting not only Indy car, but NASCAR as well right on the front page. It's good to be able to relive some of the other doubles that have happened in the past,

and we know some of them by heart, right? You know, John Andreddy and Tony Stewart and so forth, Kurt Bush, but interesting to hear about Bobby Allison and some of the more historical or older references to the doubles and drivers in NASCAR running at Indy. How do you think Larson does in the Indianapolis 500? Well, I hope he goes and wins. Do you think he can?

Oh yeah. I mean qualified fifth, so got a pretty good car at it. You think he's... I think he can win both. I think he's... This might be the best attempt at the double we've seen. Tony Stewart came close to winning both. Kurt Busch ran well, didn't he?

Sixth, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Did really good. So we'll be watching and wishing the best for Kyle Larson as he goes through that. Oh, I heard, right, so Trump's going to come to the 600, apparently. Yeah. Right.

Maybe is the last word, I think. Right. I think if that happens, I heard that that could create some problems for Larson. Because they made ground flights. I don't believe that they're closing airspace for that. Talking to some of my friends, I don't believe they're going to close the airspace. I've got some pretty reliable sources that have told me I knew about

I'd heard that Trump might be coming to the 600 about five days ago and I've also heard that they won't close the airspace so if that's the only concern from Larson trying to get you know back then I don't think that's going to be an issue I wanted to ask you this in regards to Larson Kevin Harvick obviously filled in for him

for practice qualifying and he made a comment said I mean, I heard from the owner twice in two weeks, so that's different. I was wondering which one he's talking about, Tony Stewart or Haas. Yeah. I don't know. That's all you can wonder. Right.

And until you know that, you can't go any further with your, you know, with, I mean, it's a hell of a statement to make. And Harvard, man, gosh, he ain't afraid to make them. We were talking about that yesterday. He is so calculated. like that, that were, it came out. It was, there was intent behind that, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

He's, what's the, he's like in fencing. He's like, you know, fencing. Mm-hmm. The sport. Yeah. Yeah. He's calculative. Yeah.

It's very sharp. Yeah. Like a chess player. Sure. Like chess. Fencing like a chess player. I, yeah, I mean, until I could tell you who he was talking about, it's just, it's just a profound statement.

Yeah. And I don't know, you know. A lot of interesting things about SHR these days. I heard even recently that there's even more uncertainty. Like we could be getting news potentially soon. Eminent. Yeah, it's what Adam Stern says about the future of that team. I heard that the range was 20 to 30 million.

For charter? Yep. So it's, you know, the last, I guess one of the last ones that sold was $40 million. And so now they're, you know, they're sort of, they're kind of going maybe through a little bit of reset. I mean, honestly, dude, I know that one sold for $40 million, but from everything that I've learned and all the things that we've, you know, dug up over the last three or four years. Yeah, the value was, the true value is not near $40 million. So, yeah, 20 to 25 sounds a little more in the ballpark of what I think they should be going. one for.

The question is, is will Stuart Haas sell all four of them? Does Tony Stewart and Haas get out entirely? Holy shit. You know? It would be weird. And that would be weird. But I mean, I don't, you know, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of, I don't know, man, I don't want to speculate.

I don't. But I hope that Tony Stewart doesn't leave NASCAR entirely. Yeah. That would suck. His presence is important. Yeah, I just think he's an icon, man. He's a motorsports icon. He's done it all.

And even though he physically wants to spend a lot of his time with his drag racing and he's a, you know, he is a performer and drives, and he's still out there actively racing, I still love the idea of him having ownership in anything in our sport because of his legacy, right, and who, you know, he's an icon. He's like AJ Foote. So I hope that that's not what happens. I hope that they don't entirely move, you know, remove themselves from the sport.

And we'll see how that goes, man. That's pretty crazy. Want to shout out Butterbean, Brandon Queen from the Cars Tour ran forth in his initial first-ever truck start. Pretty cool to see him doing such a great job. and he did a good job. I want to commend him, and I want all our other cars tour drivers to hear this,

he did a good job promoting the cars tour and how it presented these opportunities for him. The cars tour, if you're like, hey, man, I want to get in the truck series. What's the best path? You know, the car store should be one of your stops. I want to get an Xfinity series. I want to get the NASCAR or the Cup series one day.

The car store should be absolutely somewhere where you want to spend some time. All right, and that's helping us out. Thank you, Butterbean. All right, we got our All-Star race winner, Joey Lugano, who's called in on Zoom today. Joey, thank you for giving us a little bit of time. I know you got a lot going on. I'm glad to be here.

Thanks for having me out here. What's up? Yeah, how busy is Coke 600 weekend? I ask that question because the busyness of the season for me when I was a racer just sort of ebbed and flowed. And it was never more busier than it was around the Charlotte race. God Almighty, where the Charlotte race is just insane. And everyone says, oh, we get to sleep in your own bed at night. Isn't it great to be home and race?

No. I can't wait to go back on the road to get some sleep. Well, everyone's got so many events, right? Ryan Blaney's got his event tonight for his charity. We got our country music concert, Coyote Joe's, Thursday night. Coyote Jones. I ain't heard that in a while.

Yeah, it's a good time. It is. Come on down. We've got Walker Hayes, Jason Lawrence. The front men are there. So we were having a good time there and raise some foster kids in our area. So that's going to be fun.

But you put all these events together. And then I'm taking a, trying to do a piece that you do sometimes. I got the Fox broadcast for the Xfinity race. I'm the Adam Alexander. I'm the Adam Alexander this week. You're going to be play-by-play. Oh, no. Oh, no is right.

There's so much preparation for that. Damn, dude. There's no prep so far. I just got off a call actually to talk about it. But yeah, it's to bringing it back to commercial and the people talking in your ear. And that distraction, that's a real thing. It's a lot easier just to talk about racing,

but it'll be a little tougher. I did the play and play a couple times, and that's the most terrifying thing. Trying not to screw that up in front of the whole world. You feel like the whole world's watching. Yeah. So the good thing is the expectations probably really low. No, no, you're the drivers. They think it's amazing. You're going to be amazing. Expectations are really high, just so you know.

Oh, man. Thanks for that. I'm looking forward to it, man. Unfortunately, I'm going to be there in person, but I don't think I'll get to see the show. But I hope it's a good one for you. I know you've been getting into booth a little bit and doing some of the broadcast over the last several years. And it's something that I never really did anything like that when I was. driving, but I got to imagine that that has really helped you see that perspective of what the network's trying to achieve and also give you a bit of a better appreciation for the press and the job they're trying to do.

100%. The perspective you have, right, as a driver, you get quite a bit of different perspectives throughout just being involved with so many different parts of the sport, rather it's with NASCAR and their leadership or from the race team or from the drivers, right? Everyone has different agendas at times. but the TV one in the media, you know, you don't only see one side of it. You talk to them, but you never really see the challenges that they have. But being on TV definitely helps that part of it for sure.

I enjoy it too. And for me, it also gives an avenue for race fans to see me as a person, not just the guy that's driving the race car. There's not many opportunities to do that outside of, you know, you get the ticked off interview at the end of a race or, you know, you're just fired up, right? That's all people see. Yeah, you are.

You are two different people. One, there's a Joey inside the car and the Joey outside of the car, which we like. We like it like that as a broadcast. I like it that way anyways. But I want to talk, you know, obviously talk about Wilkesboro. First off, your impressions of the new repave in the racetrack itself. What is the next thing you want to happen at Wilkesboro? I'd say they did a great job repaving the racetrack.

I am not in my career. have seen a racetrack that has been a repave that had multiple grooves. Every time they repaved the track that I've been around, it's been one group, you're stuck on the bottom, but racing is not that good. Now, fire fall off, you're not going to have that at a new race track. I don't know if it's even possible. We didn't have that with the old car with 900 horsepower.

We didn't have fall off at repaves. But the track was so wide. There was a lot of options. I did the tire test there. We ran all the laps on the bottom. If you came off the bottom, it was so dirty and greasy that you would wreck. I did not think in a million years that the preferred line would be the top. The fastest lanes up there.

I didn't see that coming at all. So they did a great job, I think, as far as repays go, they nailed it. If anything, I'd have them fix the bump on the bottom to try to make the bottom lane a little bit more raceable. That bump off a floor was so big that it really made it hard to complete the passes on the bottom. them. But shoot, I thought the bump was actually going to help racing when I was there at the test because it would knock people up the track. But go figure.

Yeah. So do we keep running an all-star race there or you eventually hope they might have a 400 lap points race there? I think, I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it's definitely has its special feel up there in Wilkesboro, right? The historic, it's kind of like Darlington in a way where you had that throwback vibe. the way they restored the racetrack,

they kept a lot of that, that vibe there. So I think whether it's the all-star race or points race, it still has that same special feel when you go there. I'm not sure it matters. Yeah, put some points on it.

I wish there was points on it. No kidding. So you talked about, when you got out of the car, you talked about the testing. I'm only asking this question because I'm in a bit of an argument with T.J. Majors

that the testing, helped, right? So imagine, right, you and you and Ty Gibbs, you run the test at the tire test, and then imagine we came back and there was no practice, right? What an advantage that would have been for you guys? You got out of the car and actually mentioned it. I got the tire test. We run 800 laps. They worked you like crazy. How much, you know, that had to been a bit of an advantage for you. and if it was, does that advantage only help you at short tracks or with this particular car and how small the box is, does it possibly help you going forward everywhere? Well, yeah, because we never get to practice.

But, I mean, here's the deal. I'm not the only one doing tire tests, right? Like the tire test, you know how it is. It gets shared around through the manufacturers, you know, and then when it gets to Team Penske, we got to share it between three cars. I get one. That's the one I got. Really? We capitalized. We capitalized on it and made it worth it.

Right. I mean, that's, to me, I'm proud of that for our team that we went to a test and we learned what we needed to. Those tests are more valuable than ever because of the lack of practice that we have now. 15 minutes and not being able to change anything on your car besides right height, switch, sway our arms. That's just, it's really hard to learn, right? even after the race you go back and you say oh i would do this this and this different you'd go back a year later and are you any better i don't know it's a year later you can even remember and so many other things changing that amount of time so the tests have become more valuable than ever but a tire test you've been to plenty of them you they give you what two to three hours to to work on your car

and then they start slinging tires at you and say okay make at first 20 laps on this set 20 on that set and then they like them. The next day they say go run 50 on this set and 50 on that set and you do those runs over and over and over again. And it's Goodyear's test, right? Like we're lucky to get to go, but we're at the mercy of what Goodyear wants us to try. The funniest part about all this is we tried all these different sets of tires. We ran on the bottom the whole time and we never even tried the set of tires that we ran the whole race on, right? We put the softs on the whole time the reds the option tire. They weren't at the...

We didn't even run the tire that we tried the whole time at the test. Damn. So that's pretty cool, man. I want to ask you one question. So you had roughly like an hour of practice on Friday. Keep it like it is or give you an hour of practice every week. Which one would you take? Oh, man, you're asking somebody that's really close to the fire.

It depends on how we're running. I might have an alternative motive behind all that, right? To the point of it's hard to make up when you're behind because you don't know how to adjust or what to do, right? Because you don't have enough time and practice. If you have an advantage of it in a field, you don't want any practice. If you're behind, you're begging for practice.

If I take myself out of the driver's seat for a minute and I think about the sport and what makes good racing, less practice is going to make the racing better. All right. Because the field gets all running the same speed, and it's probably not good. There you go. We asked Chase the same thing.

He said pretty much the same thing as you. He's like, I think we got enough as it is. It's plenty. And I wouldn't add more to it. Did you get a chance to watch any footage of the scuffle between Stenhouse and Cobbush? I mean, you can't open up your phone and not see it. I'm still not sure who won the race.

That's funny as hell. Well, yeah, I can imagine that probably was interesting how overshattering that was. But I, you know, Stenhouse has said that he doesn't think he's going to carry on any problems going forward. When, you know, when you get in a, you've been in a few physical altercations, you've been in some shoving matches and so forth in those, those deals, how realistic is it for you to go back to the next race this weekend and drive that other driver without any animosity or making things difficult? Yeah, that's not going to be the case at all. Yeah.

I mean, I don't know, driver's whole grudges, man. It is. Our sport is such an eye-for-eye type of situation. It's self-policing for those reasons. and I hate being in those altercations. I mean, just it sucks. It happens. It's part of the nature of a sport,

part of being, if you're going to be an aggressive racer, you're going to be in those scenarios. And your emotions sometimes will get the best of you. And in that moment, it's all fine. The part that sucks the most is that it just stays with it with you forever. Yes. Forever. Like the next 10 times we go to North Wales,

Spurl, they are showing the highlights of that. Not the guy that won the race, not anything else to fight. That's what they're going to talk about. When they go to the racetrack this weekend in Charlotte, and they have to go to the media center before practice starts or after practice either way, what do you think the question is going to be like, where do you think all the reporters are going to be? They're going to be over there talking to those two drivers.

You can't get away from it, is my point. You turn on your phone. What's the first thing you see? The fight. It's like, it's so. consuming and it sucks, but it's part of the sport and it is good

for a sport. When's the last time that we're on Fox News and we're on Sports Center and all that because of the fight. So fight on is what I say. Keep on that's right. It is, from my perspective and your perspective too is a broadcaster, it definitely does help

help sell the sport and create some storylines. Man, thank you so much for your time today. Congratulations on an awesome job this past weekend, dominating, and winning that $1 million. Should be an incredible weekend of racing at Charlotte. That place has been putting on some shows over the last couple of trips to the Oval. I'm looking forward to that, and I hope to see you out there and hope you have a good day, man. All right, man. Thanks. Talk to you soon. We're so lucky to have Joey call in, man.

He's a professional. And now that he's in the TV side of it and doing all the things he's doing there, he's certainly, you know, understanding a lot more about the sport and some of the things that, you know, podcasts like ours are trying to do. And he's right, man, you turn on your phone and that's all you see is that fight on every handle. I mean, there must have been 650 different angles of this thing going on. I mean, there must have been 150 cell phones out when this thing was happening because you've seen it from everywhere. His comment of, I don't even know who won the race.

That was great. So we're thankful for that. And yeah, let's get going. Let's get to Ash Jr. Let's get started with the Ash Jr. portion of the show. Let's get going, man. Let's get going. This first question from Charles, it is announced that next season we will be doing an official in-season tournament with a $1 million prize.

I feel like they got the idea from Denny Hamlin's Brackett Challenge, which is back again. But what are your thoughts on that? That's going to be right in the heat of the Amazon TNT duo. Basically, this is really similar to like the Noble 5 million dollar deal. And it is exactly a spinoff of Denny's bracket challenge, which we're still doing that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we're still going to do the bracket challenge where you can fill out your brackets while this in-season tournament is going on.

but this year is not the tournament. Just, we're doing our bracket challenge. Just us. And more details will be coming down to pipe, follow Dirtymoe media on social media, and we'll let you know everything you need to do about being able to fill out your own bracket for the Denny Hamlin bracket challenge. But this is a great thing, and it absolutely is a spinoff, whether NASCAR will admit that or not.

I know that, you know, Denny Hamlin came up with this idea, and it really was well received. and I think fans will really appreciate it year over year. It will become something more and more enjoyable for fans to be engaging in this. This is something for fans to have involvement in and enjoy. Just like March Madness creates a lot of conversation around filling out brackets and so forth. And there's, you know, obviously, you know, personal wagers and things that people are making on that. So, I mean, this is limitless, the opportunities that this could create.

I'm personally excited about it because it gives a new, twist in what I will be doing as a broadcaster, right? There'll be a new storyline to follow as we go through those races with TNT. The Amazon portion of the broadcast season in 2025, basically most of June, or all of June, the last three races will be the seed races. So how you finish in those three events will help seed you into the bracket, which I think is kind of nice because instead of just using a obvious point system

or looking at where drivers are in the points and just seating them automatically that way, this really does give you some chances for some pretty odd pairings. You know, a three race seating process could get you some pretty, you know, could find you some pretty heavy hitters going out up against each other in the very first week of the tournament. We'll see how that plays out.

the T&T broadcast portion of the season, the five races that they have, will be the tournament. And so at the end, in the final race, it'll be between two drivers, and one will walk away with a million dollars, and second and everyone else gets nothing.

I love this idea, and I think it's great, and I understand why NASCAR is going to slow roll it. And when I say that, I mean, you know, I would love for this tournament to, come along with an automatic bid into the playoffs or if that drive, I'm just going to say the driver that wins the tournament most likely is going to be in the playoffs without help from the tournament

itself, right? What if we were allowed this tournament winner to gain a first round buy? Right. What if we said, hey man, you won the tournament so you're already in round two? That is certainly interesting. of the playoffs. It's not too far off from kind of the regular season championship boost that you get now. Right, right. And so I honestly feel like that. Like the regular season champion, the winner of the all-star race, the winner of this in-season tournament,

they should get big incentives. Big incentives that help them in the playoffs. First round buys, man. You're already in. That's intriguing. It's kind of like, that kind of reminds me of how the baseball, you know, the All-Star game, used to determine home field advantage for the World Series. And there's, in other, in other sports, you know, we have, I look at, you know, like 12th through

16th in our, in our playoffs as the wild card teams, right? They're the wild card teams, right? And in the NFL, for example, like, the teams that have great seasons get that by, right? They don't play in the wildcar weekend. So I think we should sort of form some incentives. And I think this is to make, and if we're really trying to make this end-season tournament thing to be important,

you know, what's a million dollars to Denny Hamlin? Well, the dude's 150 races. It's different. It means a lot different than it might to Harrison Burton, right? Definitely. A million dollars is a lot of damn money to Harrison Burton. He damn sure would be thrilled to get that check. Right?

So it doesn't mean the same. for all the drivers, whereas a buy-in to the playoffs holds the same value for anyone in the series. I feel like we're somewhere beyond this sort of realm of being able to get not only drivers, but our fans excited about monetary prize. Sure, right? It just doesn't have the same, it doesn't excite us anymore the way it might have 30 years ago. And so, yeah, I think that's why the tournament, you know, certainly would, it would hold more way to be more entertaining and more crucial and more closely watched and scrutinized and covered if it really impacted the season. Yeah.

Next question. We're going to talk about this one, the whole ass junior segment. Yes, yes. This next question is coming from Mary the Saturday. race was just completely rained out. People were saying that was like the worst weather they've ever seen. What's the worst rain delay or weather delay that you've had to sit there? That was it. That one. Oh, you were there. Oh, dang. Oh, I didn't know that. I wasn't sure if we were in a tornado. I mean, the rain was sideways, tents and everything that was not held down was flying around and

getting destroyed. The cover on that 77 truck blew off almost entirely. And they, and they were up in the pit box and I was watching them I'm like where were you at I was across in the grand stands okay and so I was watching them like their covers blowing off the truck they're going to come down and do it I mean even if it is driving rain yeah right you can't let the electronics in the air cleaner and everything get full of water and I mean it's a ton of freaking water coming in and so yeah track did a good job that they had all that water down there in term one there there's so I was there a long time ago, probably a couple years ago, when they realized that that drain pipe

in turn one down there in the pits was broke under the racetrack. I believe, now I argue with Marcus Smith about this, the steel underneath the grandstands. He truly believes that there was something going on there because he said it was too perfect. And there was footings and there was all kinds of things in there that made him say, hey, somebody would get under here

and somebody was storing stuff here. and the way they would access it is through that drain pipe. That drain pipe goes down in the pits, turns underneath the racetrack, and goes out under the grandstands, and it's giant. You can crawl in it.

And it was busted. That's crazy. It was busted. It was busted right underneath the grandstands. And he said, that's how they could access that. That still that we saw. Right. But I believe,

now he thinks, you know, they crawl in the drain, busts the pipe and then they you know they they they create the steel somehow right I believe that the pipe busted collapsed crushed fell apart whatever

and the constant rain and water and everything eroded that dirt underneath the grandstands and it was basically a sinkhole that was created there but um one no either way or no matter what I mean they fix this pipe they put in this nice new drain I mean, I watched them dig this giant hole And put in this whole elaborate, nice new drain

And there was so much rain And in a short period of time that even that drain couldn't keep up And all kinds of stuff, dirt and debris and trash went to that drain, right? And it clogs and then the whole infill flooded. It was amazing. But, I mean, they got all that water out of there And off they went. Yeah, I mean, showing up.

yesterday. I was going to go on Saturday and I saw the radar. I'm like, nah, I ain't doing that. I didn't even look at the radar. I didn't look at the radar. But I was so excited. I was, so I said to Amy, I was like, this is that, this is dad's shit. So I said to Amy, I said, I was like, I want to, I want to take my girls in the track, right? I know Amy's like, you know, I'm over it, been going to the track all my life with you. I'm done. I'm done with that. And I'm not going to, you know, drag her to something she doesn't really want to do. And so, but I want my girls to go and I know that they're probably not really into going or wanting to go but I'm like you know hey Amy can I take Ila with me up to the racetrack and she's like we'll all go and I'm like really

she's like yeah we'll all go like day okay and I'm like I didn't even look at the radar I drug them all up there boom huge pouring rain and we're sitting there like twiddling thumbs then they call everything at 5 o'clock and we're like well okay we'll go home So you didn't see any on track. A little bit of the truck race. A little bit of it. Yeah, before it got called. Dang.

That sucks. This next question, for those in the YouTube chat, this is from the YouTube chat, but we talked about the fight earlier in the podcast, so you're going to have to go back and listen to it. But this is fight related. This one's from Vegas. The last time you threw a punch. Golly.

We used to have a boxing ring. and so does that count? I think that could count. I mean, I haven't been in a physical fight. Gosh, I can't remember the last time. It's been a really, really long time. And for good reason. We used to, I loved boxing growing up.

Big fan of it, right? Lived all the Mike Tyson career. And, you know, I remember watching Sugar Ray Leonard in his last few fights. and just really became a big fan of it. And I got a ring. I bought a ring. I don't know how I did this online.

I don't know if we went online back then. But I got a boxing ring and I put it up in my shop. And me and my buddies would get in there. And we made a few rudimentary rules about, you know, how we were going to fight. But I got a bell, a timer. Uh-huh. You know, you started it. And I'm like, hey, 12 rounds.

We're going to go 12 rounds. Dude, we'd do it, man. Just drag your arms. Oh, my gosh. It's all it. Dude. Yeah. I mean, this was 1998, 99.

You know what I mean? We're kids. Yeah. And we had the head gear. We made our own mouthpieces in the kitchen, you know, steaming them in the pot. And we had the whole thing, right? And, uh, we had the whole thing, right?

me and my buddy Josh Schneider and we'd get in there and go, right? And I'm like, hey, Josh, I'm, you know, don't kick my ass. He's bigger than me. I was like, don't kick my ass here. Just let's have some fun and work our ass to death and get tired. And so it was a good workout because everybody was trying to find what they, I didn't want to run on a treadmill and do all that boring stuff. And that was really fun.

And fighting, right? You've got to get some anger out and some frustrations. So that was kind of nice. and then I kept the ring and everywhere I moved or wherever I'd go the ring would come with me I'd put it in this shot

put it over here put it over here and it turned into not it turned into less working out and somewhere we'd end up at three in the morning right yeah right yeah and it's like you know we'd be drinking

at the saloon like 2 o'clock in the morning and and either two guys would start arguing or a couple buddies start arm wrestling. And it's like, hey, you know, we got a ring, go settle this, you know, got the headgear. And, you know, you're just trying your best to talk them into it. Right. Like, oh, it's fine.

You're fine. And to get them up there. TJ's been in there by fighting people. Little TJ? Yeah, little TJ. Yeah. Your nickname just dropped. Oh, my gosh.

I got in there with Sunny a couple times. I got in there with several of my buddies, but, you know, we all would get in there and just a round or two. You know, when you're a little inebriated, you don't need to be going too hard. Yeah, it was fun.

But we had a lot of fun with that. That's probably the last time I've thrown a punch was in that boxing ring. Yeah, you don't still have that? No. I donated it to a local church or a high school or something.

A local church. I donated it. Church needs boxing ring. I mean, I'm not going to throw it away, so it ended up going away. But new meaning to Bible thumping. Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. This next question coming from Ricky. Phoenix is back with the championship race in 2025. Your reaction to that. Is this a trick question? Huh? Is this a trick question? Did you hear that Homesteads,

like their local government's making a real push? You try to get it? I thought Homestead was going to be 2025. Oh, yeah? Yeah. I was convinced like, oh, it's coming back next year. something you know Homestead the racetrack

is at the very I mean it's I mean I've been to I got a house in Key West so I know it's not the southernmost point but it is down there right of mainland Florida it is out in the boondocks man I mean it's not in a very busy metropolitan it's not in NASCAR

country right it's not in the it's not it's just out on the fringes geographically and so it's really interesting to me in a good way that people are so enamored

with it returning as the championship race. And I'll be honest, when I was there, it had that vibe, man. Yeah. When I would be there and we'd be there in the trucks and Exfinity and the cup would have

you know, they would have their night when they were going to crown their championship. and I don't know what it was about that place, man, but it just fit perfectly. And I'm sure some other racetracks could match that energy and match that vibe, but man, Homestead just felt like where we were supposed to be. And so, you know, I never really, you know,

the champion celebration on the front straightaway, It just always, it hit. Yeah. Did it ever fall short? Did it ever land flat? And then after the race, you know, your champions going around, taking pictures all night long and doing interviews with different, you know, networks. I did an interview with Kyle Bush on apron of turn three at like 2 o'clock in the morning. Right.

Yeah. You know, it just had a vibe. And when you were done, your ass could take a left and go down to Key West if you wanted to. Oh, yeah. and have a couple days at the end of the year. It's tempting. When you're done with Phoenix, you're like, the only place I'm going was is the freaking airport.

Get my ass back to Charlotte or wherever you're from, right? Look, Phoenix says, they have done a ton to that racetrack to bring it up, modernize it, make it more enjoyable for fans. They've created this incredible little infield area for fans down in one or two. They've done a ton to make that racetrack as good as it can be. I got to commend them. They do a really, really good job. And it is a great facility.

It's a great place, a great town. I've enjoyed my race weekends there as a broadcaster. But it, I don't know, man. It just doesn't, I haven't felt the way I used to feel at Homestead there. when I'm at Phoenix, I have it. Something's missing. I don't know what it is. I go to that race and I'm like, man, it feels like another weekend.

Maybe it's because we go there twice a year. Maybe. Yeah, maybe. Maybe that's it. Because Homestead, oh, we're here at Homestead. There's no other reason we'd be here than the championship race. You nailed it. I think you're right.

I really do. I can't put my finger on it, but I believe you might be on to something there. So, you know, I'm Phoenix has done a lot of work. I just really don't want to tear them apart because they have worked so hard to try to make this championship weekend a success and make it make people love it,

make people want to embrace it. But people want what they want. And it sounds like to me, a lot of our fans want to see it go back to Homestead, and I would be okay with that. All right, it's time for, Dirty Modo segment of the week and Tampa Tim's is at the table to bring us the best bets

from this past weekend at North Wiltsboro, the All-Star Race, and predictions, early predictions for the Coke 600. Lots of PGA bets as well this week, big tournament going on. A lot of, let's see, WNBA kicked into gear. A lot of people paying attention to that. that and the NBA finals still going on, NHL final still going on. So, I mean, there's a lot of opportunity out there. A lot of chance to make money.

Yes, sir. What happened this past weekend? Well, I pulled off the perfect weekend here. Holy shit. Yeah, and I was no pressure, just kind of wasn't sure if I was going to bet it. Woke up Sunday, and I bet Ty Gibbs to win the open. Boom. Felt good.

Yep. I bet Denny Hamwin pre-race. He had the fastest car, I thought, so why not? but he was running second cashed him out for a little profit, and then I bet Joey Lugano and he won. Damn, dude, you did it. I swept it, yeah. Way to go.

Did you have anybody telling you? No, I just kind of watched the race and said this is what's going to happen. Once Joey couldn't pass Bubba, I thought, well, okay, that's a sign that you're not to be able to pass if everyone gets close to him. And then whoever led that last restart, I just bet him. Yeah, damn, dude. You know what I'm seeing? So, you know what I see a lot on social media is.

There's these great accounts that'll give you like a couple of bets a day, right? And they'll give you analysts and all that stuff on it. Is that something that would interest you as a piece of talent? You're a part of the show, man. You're a piece of talent on this show, right? Yeah. You're one of the dudes. You got this cool name, Tampa Tim.

So like, you know, Dirty-Bodeau. They ought to have a Twitter handle. Their fans can see what bets you're making. In the moment. Yeah, like a locks account. Yeah. I try to update people who follow me as I go along. If I'm not like too sure, I'm just kind of betting it for fun.

If I'm trying to learn something, I probably won't do it. And then I'll just teach them, tell them what I've learned. You're only going to share with them. Yeah. The whole fun of tweeting it out is having people ride with you, tell me, and like we win or lose as a group. So it is fun. Yeah. But then there's times when it doesn't pay out.

Yeah. But, you know, people have been too mean so far to me. They have it. But they will be. Yeah. If it continues. Man, you should do that. Let people know, man.

because I'm sure they'd be excited, especially when you have a weekend like this, where you pull off pretty much the perfect weekend. Do you make any PGA bets? I did, yeah, PGA Championship. The big payout was Bryce and DeCambeau, to be the top live player, which is a fun little prop. So that was big. It was a plus 650 hit.

Our Dirty Modell United Nations parlay of our top Spaniard, Swedishman and Japanese fella did not hit. Nope. The Swedish man did not make the cut, so that hurt. But we were close, two out of three. All right. What's going on for the Coke 600? Honestly, I'm more interested to see when the lines come out what Ford is at.

Ford's been pretty hot recently, a couple weeks, three weeks in a row. They were pretty good at Kansas, see if they can continue that. I'm looking for that. Yeah, right on. Which Ford? RFK, most likely. Really? Yeah.

They're just red hot right now. I mean, Lugano winning the All-Star race is like a little bit of a positive sign, but I don't know. He really has sucked most of the year. So had the lines called up to RFK? Last week, I don't know if the All-Star race is different. You can't really judge it. But Darlington, Busher, I think, was like he was 60 to 1 at Kansas, and he was 20-to-1 at Darlington.

So they caught up. Yeah, wonder what they'll be this weekend. Can't wait to see. When do those lines come out? Usually like around Wednesday. So you guys will be able to pump that on the show Thursday. Dirty Mo Do drops every Thursday here at Dirtymo Media. Thank you, Tampa Tims, man.

Congratulations on your awesome weekend. Thank you. All right, time for the white flag for this Tuesday show, dropping Sunday night, tear down with Jeff Gluck and Jordan. Bianchi. Those guys discuss everything going on at the All-Star race. And then Monday, action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin. He also had his take on the All-Star Race weekend and Doorbubber Clear, given their insane opinions about everything, stuff that we didn't even ask them for. Dropping tomorrow's Speed Street with Connor Daly and Chase Holden

give you everything going on at Indie for the Indie 500 this weekend. Big week. Big week. Big week. Bussing with the boys interview will come out as well tomorrow. I can't wait to talk to Taylor and Will about everything they have going on. Those guys created their own podcast at the tail end of their NFL playing careers. We'll talk about the careers a little bit, but also, you know, how they created this podcast, and then they joined Barstool. They've turned into something quite successful.

So kind of a great opportunity to pick their brains a little bit. There's a lot of people out there that want to start podcast or are beginning to start podcasts. and it might be a great show to listen to. Also, Thursday, we mentioned it. Dirty Mo Doe drops with Steve LaTart and Tampa Tims. Also, Junior Motorsports Fan Day, presented by Lionel. Fan Day starts at 9 a.m. And there will be autograph sessions, live music.

There's three live Dirty Mo Media shows happening as well. Throughout the entire day. That's right. 10 o'clock, the Dirtymo Game Show, will be hosted by Andrew and Jordan, Bianchi. And then DBC's live bonus episode is at 1115, and at 145, a DJD reloaded with Carlin, Mike Davis, and T.J. Majors exploring the early days of the Dell Junior download. What in the world? I'll probably be popping up on the stage from time to time. I'll be here signing autographs. All of our drivers will be here Thursday for Junior Motorsports Fan Day.

Friday I go over to Hendrick Motorsports around lunchtime to do some autographs. Yeah, for their fan day. I saw they got Kyle Busch for their fan day, which is cool. They're bringing back all the drivers. As we mentioned also, the Denny Hamlin Bracket Challenge is back for year two. Like last year, the Bracket Challenge will feature the top 32 NASCAR Series Cup drivers and points. Following the Coke 600, the five races in June will make up the head-to-head tournament. The Bracket Challenge will open on May 28th and close at 3 p.m. on June the 2nd, just before the race at Gateway.

Can't wait to see how all that works out. That's going to be fun to watch. Yeah, and Dirty Modeau actually drops on Friday this week. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, a day later. Dirty Modeau dropping on Friday, all of your information about the best bets to make for the Coke 600 this weekend Friday.

It's been a great show. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Tune in tomorrow for the boys from Bussing with the Boys. The Bussing with the Boys podcast. The Boys from Busse with the Boys. The Boys with the Boys. The Boys, Boys, Boys. All right.

All right. Boys, boys, boys, boys, bussing boys. See you. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.