The Dale Jr. Download - 546 - Gateway Chaos, Dale "Still At The Table" In Charter Talks & Larson's Waiver News

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back behind the microphone to react to the chaotic NASCAR Cup race outcome at Gateway on this edition of Dirty Air. Blown engines and empty gas tanks disrupted Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney’s clear paths to victory, and Austin Cindric was in the right place at the right time. This episode covers:Missing phone calls from DaleWhat’s the future for Stewart-Haas Racing’s drivers?NASCAR silly season is ramping upWhere does Dale stand on owning a charter?The trademark of the “8” is up for grabsBreaking news on Kyle Larson’s waiver statusBell and Blaney’s woes lead to busted bracketsRace winner Austin Cindric calls inDuring the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions about:Who is the better iRacer, Dale Jr. or TJ Majors?Dale’s favorite beach activitiesAdvice for first-time parentsReactions to Elton Sawyer’s statement about Kyle Larson’s Playoffs waiver Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download here in the remote studio. Excited to get this show going. A lot happened this past weekend in the motorsports world and NASCAR in general. So we've got a fun show for you today. Let's get started. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. You're Dale Jr. Download. Del, Del, Del Jr. Download. Don't stop.

Roll. Damn, boy. Where are we going with this? The Dell Jr. Download starts now. All right, we're back in the Bojangles studio for another episode here. The Dale Jr. download, bringing it to you every single Tuesday for the dirty air segment. And now through June 9th, you can get the new sausage, Bowberry biscuit for free by using promo code Dale Jr., D-A-L-J-R, when you place an order on the Bojangles app or on Bojangles.com.

It's at participating stores. That's code D-A-L-E-J-R. One free sausage, Bowberry Biscuit with your online or Bojangles app. Order available for a limited time, so get them now. Always great to be able to help people get some free Bojangles. Today's Dirty Air segment is brought to you by Tire Pros. We love our cars and love to work on them, but these are the pros. If you need an oil change or an engine repair, it doesn't.

matter what it is. They're not just tires. Visit your local tire pros today. All right, so let's get right into this episode of Dirty Air, Episode 5, 46. We're going to talk about Gateway. But I want to talk about something that annoys the shit out of me. And Andrew is... Like how guilty you look. Unfortunately... I know where this is going. Unfortunately, this is just... Andrew just seems to be in the cross air as this. This is a, you know, This is an unlucky situation for Andrew because it's not really pointed at specifically him. It's anybody.

And I know I can see Andrew and I can see Dalton, Tampa Tim's back there in the booth. If he wants to chime in it, I feel like Tampa Tim's would agree with this. You're in a text conversation, right? You're texting somebody. You're talking back and forth. They're responding. They're asking questions, whatever, right? And then you're like, you know what?

This is getting, it's just easier for me to call. Let me just call. I have some specific information that I'd like to give, and I don't want it to get misunderstood in a text, and you call them immediately, and they don't answer. What in the hell is that? That is annoying. What is that?

And then, you know what? That's messed up. You know, it's even more annoying, is they'll call you back, like 45 seconds, like a minute later, 45 seconds later, they call you back. And it's like, what the hell are you doing? We're just sitting there talking. Literally, you had your phone in your hand, and I called you.

You don't answer. And then 45 seconds. What is that? I needed time to flush and wash my hands. What? Were you on the toilet when we were texting? Yeah, I don't want to answer the phone. Be like, you know, you hear like bathroom sounds in the background.

Is that actually what happened? That was that instance, yeah. All right. That's interesting. I guess there are some people that you might answer the phone if you were sitting on the toilet. I don't fall into that threshold, which is fine. I don't like that. All right. Yeah. So that used to, you're, you're waited till this moment to tell me that you were actually sitting on the toilet when this all happened. I don't know. I was kind of panicked when I,

when I saw you call and then I called back later, like I, you know, just wasn't ready for it. It scared the shit of you. Yeah, it scared the shit out of me. Jesus Christ. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, because I walk in a bathroom sometimes and you hear people, like they're talking on the phone, I just think that's a weird place like it makes me want to flush extra just so the people on the other line know that

they're talking to someone that's in the bathroom. That's weird. You know? Just to throw the other people under the bus? He's in there. Andrew's in their flushing extra. He's like, Andrew's like sending like SOS signals with his flushes.

Morse code. Morse code. If you're in the bathroom and you hear multiple flushes you know it's Andrew. If you're in the bathroom, if you're in the bathroom and you hear SOS and Morse code

via the flushes, you really, really got a problem. Call help for Andrew. Yeah, call help right away. I just, there's no real, this other thing that I wanted to get off my chest. I'm on a, I don't know. Does that make you feel better?

Did that explain? Did that justify it? That makes sense. But you did, when you call me back and I, I was like, what in the hell? I just called. You should have said, hey, I was in the toilet.

I don't know. He was embarrassed. Just send the poop emoji. Yeah. Or the toilet. Every time, every time. Yeah, you don't have to. Every time I feel like I don't answer a Dale phone call and just miss it, even if I'm not in the bathroom now, that's going to be the assumption.

I think from this. Honestly, moving forward. No, no, no. I think that every text that you send from the toilet should have two toilets, one on each end of the text. so you know like this is a text while I'm on the toilet so you know not to call.

We'll start doing that. Instead of in parentheses it'll be in between two toilets. This is another thing that I just have to say. All right, I've been holding on to this one. And I talk about how this shows

often like therapy and people ask me, you know, oh man, you're doing the podcast. We like it. And I'm like, yep, I enjoy it. And they're like, why do you like it? And I'm like, well, it's kind of like therapy. So, y'all don't have to, I don't need any help.

You can, you can. Safe space. Yeah, you can respond, but I'm not asking for a resolution here or anything like that. But I just got to get this off my chest. So I have this little bouncy house. It's $400. I bought it five years ago. one of the best things that we bought for the summer for our girls. It's very, it's

relatively small footprint, plug it in, turn on the button, it blows itself up and it's you know it's it's there but it is really hard to put away because you got to wait for the air to leave you got it's got this little water feature where it sprays water down the slide and you got to get the water out of this thing for you can put it away so it doesn't mildew and all that stuff. It's just real pain in the butt. But just pulling it back out. So I plug this thing in, blow it up, the kids play on it.

They're done. I fold it up and slide it off to the side to get it off of the grass so it don't kill the grass. And then it's laying there until they want to do it again. I'm telling you, man, they'll walk out there and see that thing. Dad, can you blow up the bouncy slide? I'm like, yeah. All right.

I go to work, you know, 10 minutes later, this thing's blowing itself up. And they don't even mess with it. It blows itself up and they're off already doing something else. And I'm like, hey, bouncy slide. I put all this work in for 10 minutes, getting this bouncy slide up. And nothing. Or they go over there and jump on it for about five minutes and then get distracted and they're gone. I'm like, hey, y'all done with the bouncy slide?

Yep, we're done. I like, played with it for less time than it took me to get it up. And, you know, you can't leave it up all day. It's hot and it's sunny and you're killing, you know, you'll kill the grass if it lays on that grass in the heat all day. So, golly, I just had to get that out of my chest. You know, I don't really need any help or anything or don't need a solution. It's just sometimes you got things bottled up. You've got to get it out, you know.

We're here for you. Yeah. T.J. has joined me down here as you might have, you know, if you watched door bumper clear this week, you'll see that he recorded from this remote studio as well. So he's down here. A lot of fun. He's getting a lot of rest, getting a lot of sleep. I haven't really seen much of T.J. We did get to listen for the majority of the afternoon about how his testily broke. So we've spent a lot of time talking Tesla And

And that's electric Looking at the closed door to his bedroom While he catches up on some much needed rest I guess St. Louis was a lot of work He said it was really hot Must have drained him of all his energy I've got to recharge Yeah I'm hoping today

And this is unfortunate I had to get up this morning and do the show We'll be working in here until about 12, 31 o'clock So hopefully we'll be working in here until about 12, 31 o'clock So hopefully we'll when I get out, he is up moving about. I can interest him in a bush light or a natural light or something like that. And we'll have some fun today.

My fear is this is the kind of guy T.J. is. So T.J. is planning on leaving Thursday. He's got a commercial flight to fly to Sonoma around 6 o'clock. Right? So he needs to get headed toward Charlotte for that. flight, I'd say around 3.34 o'clock, right? He's got plenty of time to leave here and get home plenty of time. It's only a couple hours drive. But I'm, I bet you, we're going to see how this works, but I'm going to bet you that, oh, my Tesla's broke. I got to go home and plug it in, or I got to go home and check it out, whatever. Oh, my Tesla. I'm going to bet you he leaves this

vacation a day early. Oh. Because I don't want to want to drive and then go to the airport and I don't want to do I want to drive home then go to the airport and have the commercial flight yeah so he I got a couple friends like that don't see things through you know what saying that can be draining to deal with dog yeah I might need a rest I might need a day of rest I might need to take a tj take a day off let's head on into the industry news um so listen man everybody knows Let's talk a little bit about SHR. Everybody knows that I'm a massive Josh Berry fan. We race with Josh for 10 years in the late model socks.

He has been part of our family. We worked personally. I invested personally for Josh to race in the Xfinity Series for a couple of years that got him to that cup level. It's my belief that of any driver that would become available for other teams to consider Josh is by far the most talented and turnkey-ready race-winning race-winning. driver. I know he's in his rookie year in cup, but I feel like that, you know, if you're looking for a driver who has the most talent and is turnkey ready, personally, emotionally,

mature-wise, he's the guy. And Rodney Childers, I think, is available as a crew chief for a packaged deal. And so, I was... I'm watching all of the SHR news and the silly season news even that all of this is affecting. And I'm really paying the most attention to what happens to Josh Berry and where he may end up. I absolutely think he belongs in Cup. And I think that all of the teams that are either having new opportunities with new charters and drivers to put in those cars should be considering Josh is the driver to, to hire. So, you know, we'll have to see how Josh's season goes.

I think that him and Rodney are motivated to try to get that win or a couple wins before the end of the season. And that's all Josh can do. Every week is a job interview, if you will. Like a trial. Yeah. And so that's weighing on me a little bit personally. And I think, honestly, there's not just the, the, the,

Stuart Hall's charters shaking things up that that is detrimental but also opportunity creating for a lot of these drivers like Josh Martin Tricks Jr. And his you know his decision to either stay another year or retire is a big domino and the the idea is that so if Martin Tricks Jr. does retire, you know, you got to think there's a there's a handful of drivers that would be considered for that for that car and I think one of those drivers that would be considered is Noah Gregson because of his connection to Bass Pro shop Bass Pro spends a lot of money on Martin's car at the 19 I think that they would

probably say to Joe Gibbs outpitching a little bit more if Noah can be considered I think the problem is is I'm not sure how favorable Joe and Ty Gibbs would be to having Noah as a team mate. Yeah. Oh, man. Right. So would they consider, you know, would they consider Josh? Ty Gibbs raced with Josh in the cars tour.

They know each other well. I think they have a great relationship. And Josh has worked with Bass Pro in the past. And so Johnny and Morris and those folks at Bass Pro know who Josh is. But, you know, that would depend on what Trix is going to do. but no matter what, if Truex does retire, someone goes into that 19, and that also would open up a ride elsewhere. And, you know, I've heard rumors that Noah could be going to the three. I don't believe those rumors.

That's really kind of far-fetched. Even though, you know, Austin retiring and setting into a, you know, a managing role at RCR is something I see. his future. I hope that Austin would one day be the president and running RCR, but I don't know that that time has come for him to make that choice. You know, they made a, you know, they're making some changes on his own team to try to get him better, and he had a great run this past week. So maybe he still believes that there's some, something left in the tank. And, you know, where do the where do these charters end up? We think that, you know, trackhouse ends up with one of the charters and maybe 2311 ends up with one of the charters. I think that front row has, keeps the

other two charters in some arrangement that, you know, that, because they're moving into, I guess, the Stuart Haas building is the talk of the town. And so, you know, I think that, you know, front row will probably operate for charters next year. And so, you know, where are all these drivers end up that are racing for Stuart Haas? And then it's not, you know, you don't have to, if you're worried about any of those drivers, right? If you're like me, I got Josh Barry that I'm paying attention to. And yeah, I'm pretty curious where Noah ends up because of our connection with him. There's also these other, this other layer of drivers that we often forget to talk about, like the Corey Hym.

There's these, you know, Zane Smith, there's this level of younger drivers also right underneath the Noah Gregsons that are in the trucks or Xfinity series that would even, you know, be considered. And, you know, SVG is going to probably take one of the track house. Right, yeah. You know, track house could end up already pretty much being settled with their current lineup plus SVG. So, and with NASCAR saying, hey, teams can only have three charters or this may be. baked into this new charter agreement you know teams can't have four cars right I guess I'm not sure how this works for front row or any other team I'm not I wonder if you I wonder how this will be written whereas if you're are they saying you can't own for

charters right so like front row or Bob Jenkins or track house with Justin. Maybe you can own three, but there's a fourth team operating underneath the same roof. I could see that as being possible as a way for, you know, if I wanted to own a charter, right? If I want to freak everybody out, we're not going to buy a charter. I'm not buying a charter. But if I wanted to own one, I could maybe send it and race it out of the same building as a team who has three charters, right?

I'm pretty sure that's probably possible. And that's what I think front row ends up doing. And so, you know, we're all just kind of still waiting to learn. I think we kind of feel like we know where the charters are going to go. It's who's going to get hired to drive for who. I think track house is pretty sorted. If 2311 gets this third charter, who goes into that car? What happens with Truex?

and then the front rows situation. There's a lot moving around. You mentioned you and the charters. Obviously, we know your stance on it, but why are you not getting into now these four SHR charters that are opening up? Huh? Why am I?

Yeah, you in the charter game. Yeah, they're just too expensive. You know, I don't doubt, listen, I don't doubt that I could, you know, if you took, you took, you know, $15 or $20 million and put it into one of these charters, I mean, if they're selling for $25, $30 million, I believe that charters will be worth $100, $150 million, possibly, maybe way more, right? I mean, we never, you know, you look at NFL franchises and how they sold for hundreds of millions of dollars

30 years ago, 20 years ago, and now they're selling for billions of dollars. And they continue to go up, right? And so, like, you know, and I remember when the Panthers were for sale and when Washington sold, you know, what the numbers were. And they're far more valuable today. And I think that happens to the NASCAR Charter on a much, much smaller scale. But especially when this new charter agreement gets announced. and it's now public knowledge that the business model looks more favorable, the charter value goes up. And so right now the business model looks terrible.

The teams will tell you it's terrible. And that's why they want a new agreement. And so when that all gets resolved, the value will then pop a little bit. And I think it just continues to grow annually as it naturally has, right? charters were selling for $2 million, $6 million, $12 million, $20 million, $30, $40 million, and now they've kind of ratcheted back down just a little bit. Because I felt like that that was probably more where if they're selling for $25, $30 million, I feel like that's probably a more realistic value of the charter.

I believe that that's, I believe they're going to be more valuable. Yes. But if I part that money in that charter, it's not so. it's not like a piece of stock that I can turn around and sell. If you're going into ownership, you're in it for life, and it would be something that you would probably pass on to your kids, right? Me personally, I would rather do something else with that money for the benefit of my girls. And so I can take that, I can, there's where, where I, there's a lot of investments and opportunities, right?

that buying land or whatever you, you know, wherever you want to park things and put them into trusts and things like that. And it's very complicated on how, you know, taxes and all those things work when you start putting things in trust for your children. I'm not buying a charter and putting millions of dollars away into something that I can't then recoup or sell for a profit. I'm not going to, I feel like that that would be. I feel like that that would be wrong of me because of our legacy and my last name to buy into the charter,

then turn around and sell it a couple years later and try to reap a profit. If you're going to get into this, you've got to get in with commitment, not for the money, not for the potential. You know, we've always raced to go win a race and compete, not, you know, not thinking about it as a way to profit. And so I can do that with other investments or whatever for my girls. And, yes, I mean, I don't know. I think that's, it's just, we, you know, me and Kelly have talked about getting into it,

and we've seen some opportunities to do that. They didn't work out. We've had a lot of conversations with everybody. And we're still talking to people. to be quite honest with you, we're still like at the table talking to different teams about maybe partnering or investing or getting, you know, we're always kind of, we're always like open to hearing what somebody thinks about what a partnership with us would look like. But none of them to this point have been like, oh man, that's a, that's a win for everybody. That's it. Yeah, we've got to get on that.

That's a perfect match, man. That's exactly what we're looking. for. Yeah. For the longest time, me and Kelly thought if we were going to race in the Cup Series, we wanted to own and operate. We want to race it out of our building. We wanted to be able to choose crew chiefs and mechanics and all of the,

we wanted to be the reason or be part of why the car was either successful or winning races or doing well on the track. And trying to part from that is tough because if we were doing something with a partner or something already existing, we're not going to be making any. decisions. I don't know if it's something that's interesting for Kelly or me, but it's just tough. And as the price goes up, it gets harder to make that commitment. That is a large amount of money to be sending off to really never see again, right? I mean, you're not going to spend that money and then turn around 10 years later and go, all right, guys, I had fun. Give me my money back.

You know, it just doesn't work that way. And so, I don't know. I'll miss the day, and I guess you still can. I miss the days where you can just build a car in the shop and decide, hey, we're going to go enter this race. The cars are more expensive than they ever were. And it just feels really unrealistic. Whereas, I mean, I was, when I was younger,

you'd go buy. the chassis, take it over to this guy to hang the body, get this guy to drive it, and go race, go try to qualify, right? And now it's so expensive just to buy the parts and pieces and this car. There's not like, you know, you can't just go hire a crew chief that has 20 years of experience and think you're going to do well because this car is so new. There's only really a small pool of people that truly understand it and could take your brand new car and your brand new team and go be competitive. You know, you'd have to really work at it week in, week out. And so for a startup team that's not even having a charter, an open team to go compete,

it's really, really challenging right now. Now, as we get further down the road, I think, with this new car, it's not so new anymore. And there's a lot more people in the industry that know this car and how to make it work, it feels easier, feels better, more comfortable to take an open car and go compete. We've even had those conversations about going and running an open race with a car. Yeah, I mean, we thought about everything. We talked about everything. And there's not, and I'm not saying no to anything, but right now doesn't look favorable for

us to ever own a charter outright. And so something major would have to change in the sport. But it's still, you know, I'm on the sideline. I'm a fan. We still love being in the Xfinity Series. And I really say that with all honesty, that being in the Xfinity Series is a lot of fun. And we serve a great purpose there for the series and for the sport.

And we provide a lot of opportunity, not just for drivers, but like all of our employees and the people that come through our shop and all those crew chiefs that want to make it to the next level. level the cup level. I love the purpose we serve there. So I mean if we're we're kind of comfortable doing that, it's like all right, well, charter's not, if this charter deal doesn't look really like a great fit, we're pretty happy where we are, you know. I think that makes it easier to say, say no to some of the opportunities that you get presented on the cup side. Yeah, that should hopefully answer those questions. We're seeing a bunch of those.

Yeah, we see them all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Don't, do you like to party? I do like to party. Guess what? You're invited to the loudest party in northern California. NASCAR pours back into wine country for the Toyota Save Mart 350 at Sonoma. Heck yeah, man. That's a party right there.

Mark your calendars for June 7th through 9th, when the stars of NASCAR return for these three days of heart-pounding race excitement. The weekend kicks off with the Arkhamanard Series West Race on Friday for the General Tire 200, followed by historic Transam races and the Xfinity series in the Zip Buy Now Pay Later 250 on Saturday. Plus, NASCAR Cup Series practice and qualifying are back, saving the best for last Sunday features the Toyota Save Mart 350 and pre-race concert by DJ Umami. Experience the adrenaline rush of camping at the track, meet your favorite drivers at autograph sessions,

and groove to live music under the Californian sun as well as fan favorites. The Patriots jet team return to perform an electrifying 25-minute air show before the green flag drops. I've been to Sonoma. It is a party. Don't miss out on a weekend. You have to see to believe. Get your tickets today at sonoma raceway.com. I also wanted to talk about the trademark of the eight.

So there's been this conversation on social media online around the old DEI trademark for the number eight. And all the things you're reading about that for the most part are true. We have noticed that, at least as far as I know, Teresa hasn't re-upped for that trademark. And Kelly and I both were interested in acquiring ownership of that. And I just want to say that my feelings around this are very plain and basic. I either want Treesa to have it and if she were to

come in and re-up, I'd be totally comfortable and happy about that or I would like to have it. I would love it to stay either hers or mine and not end up somewhere else. And so there's one thing that I'll say

about Tresa is if in terms of owning a trademark and protecting things like that, protecting our legacy, and our family name, I have a lot of trust in her around those things. And so she's very smart, very savvy, always thinking she takes some emotion or takes emotion out of business decisions and says, this is what's fair, this is what's right.

And so in terms of this, I just want to, that's, I would be completely fine. if she reacquired the trademark. And so, but if she doesn't, I would hate for it to just wander out into the middle distance, right? So I'd want to make sure that Kelly or I were able to get it if she's not interested in having that any longer. So that's kind of where we are on that. I know a lot of people are talking about that. What would it mean to you if you did end up having it to have that kind of back, you know, in your possession? Yeah, we'll talk about that if we get it.

You know, I don't think that it's, I don't want to talk about it or assume or hypothetical, be hypothetical about it. I just, you know, I either want her to continue to own it or if not, if she's not interested in doing that anymore, then I would like to be able to get it up underneath our roof. And, you know, me and Kelly haven't even sat down and talked about what that would mean in terms of what happens, how we would use it, right? And so, you know, I would not be interested in spamming the NASCAR ecosystem with vintage retro eight gear. Right.

I know that there are fans that would like to have some things, some items, so maybe we would do like a small batch of select, you know, like one shirt, one hat, just sort of. sort of figure out something kind of nice and tasteful. But I would probably have interest in using the number in the cars tour races. If Kelly would be fine with this, we have other owners in the Junior Motorsports building that would have to sign off on ever using that number at the Xfinity level. But I would be wanting to activate it, right? I'd be wanting to get it out there and get it going.

So, but, you know, it depends on what Teresa wants to do. I think she gets first dibs. I'm totally happy if she keeps ownership of it because I trust that she will protect it as she always has. Larson's waiver update, are we still waiting, right? And I believe Jeff Gluck actually just tweeted an update. So this is as of about 10 o'clock this morning on Tuesday, but NASCAR is expected to announce this morning that Kyle Larson has received a waiver to remain eligible in the playoffs. And that's the story, obviously, with him and Jordan Bianchi on The Athletic.

So I think that's the most recent update as of not too long ago from Jeff Glock. All right, there you have it. So Larson's going to get that waiver. I know there was a lot of conversation around this, and we won't drag it out any further. I thought Jeff Gluck on their show, the Tear Down this week, was really smart in saying, hey, this isn't a thing where NASCAR is dragging this out to get clicks or create a conversation. There's real hesitation and real concern about what giving this waiver means going forward. And so for me, it would not have mattered either way if he got it or not, right?

Really? I honestly would not have thrown a fit. if he had not gotten it. I felt like he should get it. I think we talked about that last week. I think that he should go race for a championship and we should all forget about this whole mess. But if he did not get in the NASCAR chose this,

I would accept it and move forward. The one thing that I hope is, I guess, is that NASCAR makes it a little clearer what happens going forward. This is a new, precedent and what does this mean if this happens again? Is NASCAR going to say, all right, ma'am, we're giving him his waiver, but listen, everybody, these are literally for injuries and unusual circumstances and be, and they need to define

what that is, right? So, you know, I just, I hope that they don't just go, yep, here's his waiver. and walk out of the room without comment. You know what I mean? Some clarity on what the waiver means. And this is what we talked about last week, is how do you qualify for one? Because we've had, you know, Chase Elliott,

I mean, Chase Elliott got a waiver for two different reasons. Last year he got injured, and then he also got suspended by NASCAR and got a waiver both times. So it's like, well, you do something on the track that gets you suspended, but you get a waiver, but Larson maybe not won't get that you know that was a conversation this week obviously it's good I think in one but listen I think so if you if you're if you're racing out on

the track and you're lap down right and you're wanting to get the lucky dog and the luck the caution comes out but you were involved in it or you started it or created it and and and uh The cost comes out and you're in position for the Lucky Dog or the Waiverand, or the free pass, I'm sorry. NASCAR, per the rule, will not let you get that free pass because you were involved in the yellow. Right. And so I know this is a smaller scale, but I feel like if you get suspended, NASCAR, if they're, you know, NASCAR knows, like, if you get suspended, you might not should get a waiver right yeah I could agree with that I think if your suspension was more egregious than Larson agree for comparing the two yeah

Larson didn't do anything that warrants a suspension right he just he just had a bad bit of bad luck with the weather if you get suspended and have to miss a race then you that's part of the punishment and NASCAR needs to decide all right man we're going to suspend this guy if we suspend him a race he's going to miss the championship chase we're not going to suspend him a race and then give him the waiver to get him back in so maybe they don't suspend him a race for what he did all right maybe they docked him maybe instead of suspending chase the race and knocking him out of the chance to compete every week right that what would then where they're then having to give him a waiver to they should have probably

She should probably have suspended in points or something else or a monetary fine there. That's all debatable and fun to talk about, but we'll see what NASCAR says when they give this waiver to Larson, which I figured they would. Let's see what they say about if they clear up, you know, what we're going to do going forward, what they're going to do going forward. Let's hear why they said they give this waiver to Larson, listen to their words, try to understand exactly what. where they're coming from. I think there was real hesitation at the highest top position in this sport. Some of the real decision makers were thinking, hey, this sets a new precedent. They would have not done this 20 years ago, 10 years ago.

But they're doing it today. I did not believe the words that Denny Hamlin was saying on his show this week about how, you know, long time ago, they used to say Bill France and Bill France Jr. would say, look, man, the sport's bigger than the drivers, the sports bigger than you as an individual, and we will, you know, you can come in here and play, be successful, but this sport will be here long after you're gone. And Denny's saying on his show that he feels a little bit different about that in this day and time, that the drivers carry a lot more value than that statement would incur.

So I feel that it's still the way it's always been. Nobody's that big. Nobody is going to carry the sport in a way. It will, you know, the sport will continue and the sport will succeed and survive well beyond all of us. but this does set a new precedent as I stated. So we'll just have to see how it goes. I'm glad they did give him the waiver because, you know, you were talking about the precedent of if he didn't get it,

I think that discourages anyone from doing the double again. You know, obviously Larson tried to make both of them work. And of course, like if we're comparing, you know, like you said, oh, if you're the cause of the caution, shouldn't get your lap back. Chase's suspension, he gets a waiver, but Larson doesn't, and Larson didn't do anything wrong but the weather. So I'm glad NASCAR's making this decision in terms of giving Larson a waiver. Yeah. I agree. I think they should have, I think they should give it to him, but I would have not, it would have not. Yeah, so if it went the other way,

it would have not floored me. I would have not been, would you have been like throwing, I would have been very surprised. I would be throwing stuff because we got a ticker that's very fragile in there. Well, I mean, what would your reaction have been? How mad would you do? I would be, I would be, I would be, Larson, what does Larson do now? I mean, like, he's racing for an owner's championship, which by the way, if he goes and wins that owner's championship and then another driver wins the driver's championship, oh my God, is that the biggest asterisk in the sports history I feel like in terms of... Happens in the Xfinity series all the time.

That's... I don't know. I feel like that's different. This is the highest level. You kids and y'all... Now you sound like people on Twitter. Well, I'm not... I'm just saying, man.

I've just been around so long that none of this shit flips me upside down like it does you young kids. It doesn't... I mean, look, I don't want Larson not to get the waiver, but if he doesn't get it, NASCAR has a reason. And I'd probably sit down... If you had a chance,

for them to come in the room and tell you, this is the reason we made this decision or any decision they make. You'll be surprised, man. They really do put a lot of thought into this shit, and you might not always agree with them, which I don't always agree. But I'm not, you know...

I don't doubt NASCAR's ability to think through a situation. I know they're certainly talking about it, but this is, I mean, you look at drivers, this is a double precedent, right? Racing the double. If they didn't give Larson this waiver, man, a tradition, something we celebrate of drivers doing the double, man. When was the last time a driver did the double?

I want to say it was Kurt Bush was the last time, right? 10 years ago? Yeah. Something like that. I look it up. It's not like 2014. Yeah, it's not like this shit happening every year. But I think that's what makes it cool.

it's what makes it special, you know? Oh, when's the next driver going to do the double? We get excited because Larson had a real chance of maybe winning both if things went his way. I care less about the implications on the double. I care more about like the, like don't run it. Like you're a NASCAR driver. I mean, I love seeing it happen, but I care more about implications on playoff, TV ratings. I mean, we saw a dip with Chase Elliott last year when he was out and then he wasn't in the playoffs.

And now you're taking out Kyle Larson, who's arguably the most recognizable race car driver in the world. And so that's why I think he needed to get the waiver. I think it's a common sense decision for NASCAR to make. I don't, I know that the rules are rules, but sometimes you just got to use your head. I don't know. Yeah, that's my take on it. I think, I mean, Denny put it well, and this is the Coca-Cola 600, it is a crown jewel in NASCAR. It's a very special race. But on that day, the Indianapolis 500 is the bigger event, right? And Denny even says it on his show. Like, we, NASCAR crushes him. 95% of the other time, but the Indy 500, that is the race of the day.

And for Larson, I mean, we call him the modern day Mario Andretti. Well, Mario race the Indianapolis 500. You had a big career in open wheel racing. I want to see Larson be able to do that while also still be able to race in NASCAR. Well, he should have checked the weather. I don't question his decision of staying. Huh? He should have fixed the weather.

They should have. They should have looked at the weather on Monday. Yeah. I don't question his decision to stay either. I think he should have stayed. But then you have his domino. those that fall. Yeah, but it's kind of like, it's kind of like, hey, it's like you and your buddy's got tickets to this concert, but your mom said you've got to be home at 8 o'clock to do your homework, and

you're like, well, the concert's running late. I didn't, I didn't have, you know, the open, the headliner is an hour late to the stage. What do I do, right? You get your ass home, you break curfew. And I expect the teacher to give me a free pass. That's what he did. Yeah, and so, you know, I think it was good for, I think NASCAR took the time that they needed. They tried to make a decision that was fair and it seems like they're going to. And I don't know. It's, it's, everything played out the way it should have in my opinion. I, I worry that, um, I wonder too, like if they don't give him the waiver, if they did not, if they chose not to, how that would have maybe ruffled the feathers of, um, of, of, of, of the two organizations, right?

Would Indy be a little pissed, right? Would indie fans think it was a knock on indie? Have a little rivalry going? Yeah, we don't need that. I see down at the bottom of the screen, our race winner from St. Louis has entered. Entered the chat. Well, I appreciate you calling in today,

the winner from St. Louis. So it's been a bit of a tough run since you came on into the series, went in the Daytona 500. You've kind of struggled. And there's been, look, man, I mean, I'm not putting it on you. The whole organization, there's been some, you know, some times when Penske just hasn't looked like themselves over the last couple of years, man.

But you finally get yourself back to Victory Lane. I guess my first question to you is how have you managed the emotions of racing in the Cup series versus your experience? from Xfinity or anything in the past. The Cup series can be brutal, and you've went through it in terms of trying to keep your own personal morale up, much less the team. How do you manage that to be able to capitalize on opportunities like this past Sunday?

Yeah, no, Dale, it's definitely some days are better than others from that perspective, but, you know, it's interesting because you watch, you know, whether if it's watching the Cup Series from afar as a younger driver or even watching other professional sports, watching college players move up into the NFL and so on, it's definitely a different ballgame when you move up into the Cup Series from the X-FINe Series. And you're a much different leader because of how big everything is,

how challenged everything is, the level in which the competition is. but as far as, you know, how I keep morale up or how I keep my spirits up or how I motivate myself, I'm just a really internally motivated person. I'm extremely competitive. It might not, like, if I'm out, like, I'm not like that intense about it, but it's, it's like really all I care about is racing and what I do, and I've centered my life around that, and there's really nothing else, and I feel like in some ways I'm not very well-rounded because I've kind of gone to that extreme, but it's really all I care about.

And, you know, some days are easier than others. You know, you have flashes of brilliance every once in a while, but, you know, last year was the first year since 2011 that I hadn't won a race in anything. And that's quite a long time for me is that gap. but yeah I think it's what it takes though is to be is to be able to you know have a process in place have people surround you that not just believe in you or believe in the process but have a process that is ready to go to win to be the absolute best or at least be at a high level when when the opportunity presents itself and what we were able to do this past weekend in my opinion was

just that and I feel like a lot of validation not not necessarily. from like the result, but a lot of validation that, hey, if we're, if we bring that to the racetrack, we can, we can run with these guys, we can race for wins. And it's about having that level of performance every week. And being able to, to look at that as a, as a case study for our team to spend the next three months to get ready for the opportunity that we have to be in the NASCAR Cup series playoffs. What is the, what is the one attribute or one sense that is the most challenging with the next-gen car for you that you feel like is kind of common in the garage. You're like, you know, we, and what I'm kind of looking for is, you know, when I was struggling,

I could always kind of pinpoint to where every week I had the same issue. There was a lot of other things that were creating problems in pace, but either we weren't turning in the middle or didn't have the right, you know, the front grip that I needed everywhere we went. what is the one thing, the one sensation that you get from this car that you find makes it difficult, I guess, for you to have days like you had Sunday? Yeah, I would say for every member on the team, whether if that's crew chiefs, engineers, drivers, mechanics, it's the conversation of, well, everybody's got the same stuff. You have the same thing he has, whether if that's with your teammates coming with the same setup

or guys we're racing against that are running well. aren't you know that that conversation makes it very difficult to find you think it make it easier to find the problem but it makes it harder to solve the problem yeah because with the previous generation cars like you had a problem you're just gonna go forget everything else we're just gonna come up with the best idea to fix it and that's gonna make us better you know and that's it's much easier to just go yep we're gonna look at ourselves we're gonna make this solution we're gonna go see how good it is and and it's not it's not that easy to just

go yep we're going to look at ourselves and we're going to make a decision and this is going to make us better because we've done the research on why it's it's a lot harder to like kind of point the finger of where those things are because like if I could drive deeper into the corner I would if I could get on the gas sooner I would like that's those are the types of things but but also what is correct what is right what is why things are things are the way they are why is fast fast and from a driver's perspective or data perspective of trying to understand those things. We have all the resources from a driver's standpoint

as you possibly could hope for in forms of motorsports. I talked to IndyCar drivers, MSA drivers, guys in the Formula One industry, the fact that I have, you know, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Larson's driver data, and like that sounds like gold when you tell it to these guys.

And the fact that I have that and can't beat them every week makes me, you know, Talking of that makes me feel like I just, I'm just not good enough. So it's, it's, it's a wild thing that we have, um, access to, you know, in comparison. And it makes it, you know, that much, it can be that much more draining, honestly, when you have all that information, you're still not able to produce. Yeah. But, but then when you have weekends like this weekend, if I'm being 100% Osdale, this is the easiest race I've run all year. Honestly, there are cars that existed in that race that I never.

saw. Like, and I usually see the entire field. Like, it's either in front or being behind me. I'm passing it. It's passing me. Like, you know, it's crazy in the middle of the field in the cup series. And it's, it's so hard and it's, you work that hard because it is this glorious utopia in the top three, the top five that you're hoping to find because, you know, it makes, what my spotter's telling me, makes the information the guys at the shop are looking at, that much simpler to be able to go out there and absolutely nail it. And I feel like that's what our team was able to do and I'm proud of that we were prepared to do that on really any given weekend, but especially this weekend. Yeah. I was, I was, I remember when we talked, every time we hear

about listening to, you know, drivers inputs and all the SMT data, it reminds me of, I think it was around 2014 or 15, 14 probably, where we had a partnership with Stewart-Hoss Racing and we could see everything that Harvick was doing with Rodney Childers. They came onto the scene. They were hauling ass everywhere. And Harvick ran part throttle through the turns at Charlotte and other places where you would never, you know, you'd lift all the way out of the gas, back in the gas. Well, he never came all the way off throttle.

We could not figure out what he was doing, how he. They were like, just do that, drive it that way. And I'm like, yeah, my car will plow into the fence if I don't lift all the way out of gas and I'd lock the locker. And I was like, there's something else going on that we don't have that they are doing. And so I couldn't imagine being a driver today. I've thought about this for you guys. And I don't envy having your crew having all the, your crew chief, engineers saying,

here's your teammates' inputs. Do that. That's faster, his car is faster, you have the same car, go do what he's doing. And I'd be like, it's not that simple. So I'm surprised you guys are able to keep your composure because I imagine maybe sometimes in the holler, you know, behind closed doors gets a little heated when you're trying to debate, you know, what your teammates are doing and what you're trying to do with the car. Another thing I wanted to ask you is, so I've talked to a couple drivers about this.

And with NASCAR basically building and supplying you the chassis, and you having a smaller batch of chassis than you would have had years ago, you know, you had 15 race cars in the past. Now you have a small select group of cars that pull from. There are bad cars. There are cars that no matter what you do, every time you take them to the track, they just don't run well.

They don't do everything right. We would build cars back in the day 10, 20 years ago. You'd have some that were great, but you'd have this one car that just never, you could never get it to turn. And it'd sit in the corner and you'd never run it. I hear that that's sometimes still the case with the next gen. Do you have cars in the shop where you're like, every time we take that car to the racetrack, I love it. Every time we take this car to the track, I struggle. Do you still experience that?

Yeah, the thing is funny you bring that up because my first, I mean, my first full-time, time racing stock cars was in the truck series and and at BKR our trucks had names they didn't have chassis numbers they had names whether if it was Murdoch or you know fireball or wrong way or something they're all names and they're all very personal and I feel like that's definitely in my mind that was like the old school NASCAR approach of things and I mean they're handmaid you know they're pieces of art in a lot of ways and obviously with the next chain car obviously it's much different you know we're not making them as race teams and I'll be honest, and I haven't really even brought this up to crew chiefs and stuff,

but like in the scope of trying to figure out how to be better, trying to figure out what to do to better myself, better my race team, the thought definitely crossed my mind of on every debrief sheet, write down my chassis number. Just make some data points because I make a lot of notes. I provide all the notes to the teams. I'm like, you know what, I should start doing this. And I'm like, you know what? That's a bad idea.

Ignorance is bliss. And on top of that, I really do feel like, you know, Team Penske does probably a better job than any other organization of quality control. And I feel like that's from top to bottom, whether if that's in our NASCAR programs, MSA programs, Indy car programs, I mean, is on display at Indy with the front row lockout. I mean, if our cars are fast, it's hard to think that we're not all going to be that good if we're that good. So this weekend at Gateway was a great example of that as well. So obviously it doesn't work out that great every time, but, you know, Super Speedway qualifying is that as well. So I think for us as a team, you know, I have a lot of confidence in an organization from that standpoint, not trying to say that we're better than anybody else, but we do a really good job of that kind of stuff.

so I didn't want to let that get in my head as far as another reason or have some sort of an excuse, an unexplainable excuse to not performing. Well, man, I know you've got a busy week. I appreciate all of the information and conversation today, and thanks for giving us a little bit of time to talk to you. Congratulations on getting a W. And have a lot of fun the rest of the week, man. We'll be pulling for you and go get you a championship.

Appreciate it, guys. So always great to talk to Austin and all the winners. I love to be able to, I love what we're doing this year, being able to talk to the winner and get their information about whatever we want to ask them. So I appreciate Austin calling in today. And, you know, he was in position when things go wrong for a couple of the drivers. He's in position to capitalize and you've got to run good. to be in that position, so he's got to feel good about this win.

Christopher Bell, though, best car on the racetrack for the majority of the race. And showing, you know, showing what they're capable of doing, people will say that, you know, if you're going to say, hey, what's similar to Phoenix, I'd say St. Louis has a lot of characteristics that are very, very similar to Phoenix. So if Christopher Bell might be disappointed in the overall outcome of the day, he might could look forward and say, well, if we can take any of this to Phoenix, we're in a really good position if we get an opportunity to race for a championship. I'd also say that this may be good for Christopher Bell at places like Loudon or New Hampshire, other tracks that are similar to St. Louis. Yeah, I mean, it was, I watched some of the race.

I watched the majority of the race and thought it was really fun to watch a lot of different grooves. I know the tire really wasn't wearing out that much, but, you know, it did put a lot of rotor down on the racetrack and the teams. The drivers were able to move around on the racetrack and create opportunities to get runs on each other. And so from my perspective, it was pretty entertaining. One thing I wanted to ask Austin before we had to let him go there was the vibe at St. Louis. What is, how does St. Louis not only just as a racetrack, is it fun, is it cool to race on? It looks fun. It looks multi-grove.

But the atmosphere seems to be really good there. A lot of fans interested, a lot of fans there at the track, supporting the event. The track itself seems to go above. and beyond to, you know, with the pyro and all kinds of things, trying to make, make it feel like a cup race, right? And so while they were off the schedule and never, you know, had been, you know, never really been considered for a cup race for so long, it seems like they're meeting all the criteria, checking all the boxes about, you know, as far as, because the, I talk about that because it

feels like now the cup schedule is so fluid and there's a lot of places that NASCAR wants to go and that means the schedule could be always in a bit of change you know and so how are tracks like st. Louis faring how are they doing to ensure their success in long-term future but it seems like to me that it's doing a really good job yeah that Midwest crowd is a little bit underrated, I feel like, in NASCAR. Like, people showed up for Chicago. You know, Iowa has had a great track record on the IndyCar side. I'm curious to see how that works in a few weeks.

I'm a little bit worried about Iowa, as we saw with the, you know, the photos and images from the tire test, they paved parts of the racetrack. And unfortunately, you're never, ever going to want to get out of that newer pavement. So wherever they put new pavement is where the cars are going to go. And I know this track was extremely rough, and it was the very reason why I never went there in the Xfinity series was because of listening to my drivers talk about how bad the bumps were, especially getting down into turn one. and so they probably had to fix the track but why they didn't pave the whole track is interesting

so I'm not sure what kind of race if it would be a good one or not when we actually go there for real is that to make it more multi-grove like is that to make the outside more prominent or is that just they paved the bottom buddy I thought they paved the middle groove not much of it

Well, they paved, in three and four, they're, they paved the middle, but I mean, that's where you're going to run. It's going to be so much better that you won't want to not run there. And nobody would go outside of that groove for any reason. It's going to tear your tires up, be more abrasive on the tire. So if you want to run, you're going to have a faster car, more grip, and better tire life to stay in the new asphalt. when we paved a grip strip at around the top of Pocono, you had to run up there. After several years, you might could make that bottom work to try to make a pass, but the grip strip is what it was called at Pocono.

In the top of turn three, you had to be on it to have any chance at a lap. It was like half a second faster. So, you know, I hate to use the word trouble, but I'm concerned. about that. Also in the race, Larson and Kyle Busch had a little accident that just a race and deal. Larson thought that Kyle Busch crowded him a little bit. Kyle Busch's quotes, he said he thought it, you know, I'm sure it was my fault, hate it for my guys.

I don't know whether he was, you know, being a little sarcastic or not, but I think he was being a little sarcastic. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's interesting because we usually don't see cars get loose underneath each other because the side force isn't quite as important for the inside car anymore with this new next gen. They can race side by side without the inside car losing a ton of grip like we used to have or like the trucks or Xfinity cars can do. So I was surprised that that even happened.

But I think it's just too hard-headed, tough, fast, race car drivers had a racing accident and there's nothing more than that but i guess you know there's some concern about kyle bush because of where he is in the points yeah so that yeah uh dbc and in action's detrimental we're both talking about that and and the rest of kyle's quote was i'm sure it's my fault hate for the guys we can't afford days like this he is 18th in the playoff standings you know with austin cindrick winning this past weekend like Is it time to panic? Is it beyond panic time for Kyle Busch?

No, you don't panic. I mean, for Kyle Busch and everything that he's experienced in this series, he's a champion, multi-time champion, and plenty of, you know, won all the races that anybody could want to win. So he's never going to hit the panic button. Whatever happens happens. He'll work to try to get himself into the playoffs, and if that doesn't happen, they'll, you know,

I mean, he won't be happy about it, but I don't think you ever going to see Kyle Bush panic or hit the panic button. But I can see him getting frustrated. Like how the question for me, I think what I'll pay attention to is, how will Kyle keep his team headed in the right direction, even in failure, right?

So if they don't make the playoffs, how does Kyle get this group turned around to where they come back stronger? So that's kind of what you have to. I think that's what you have to watch for. And I think Kyle's older and wiser and will handle this much better than Kyle Bush from 10, 15 years ago. And so, you know, he's – but I – you know, I think, we all knew when he went to RCR that this wasn't what we expected out of Kyle Bush and the three, I mean, the eight, but we knew there was a potential for these type of these type of seasons.

I mean, I don't know how you guys felt about it when he went there, but I mean, RCR ebbs and flows, they'll find something that keeps them relevant. in position to win, especially with a driver like Kyle Busch, and then they'll have these moments where they're just, they just don't have it, right? They just don't have it right now. And even Kyle Busch is not able to find the pace in these cars. So I don't think that they stay there all year. I think that eventually they get something going,

and he's in position to win a few races. I just don't see Kyle Busch being a 15th place driver the rest of the year. By the way, news breaking, as of right now, it has been made official Larson granted the waiver. Elton Sawyer is going to speak momentarily about the decision. So maybe we'll get his answer as to why they granted him the waiver here just in a little bit. We're live reacting on this show. Yeah, it doesn't happen often. No, it doesn't.

I wanted to ask you about, you know, the crazy finish. What did you think of, you know, the front two guys, both Christopher Bell, and Ryan Blaney are left heartbroken for different reasons at the end of the race. What did you think of that and then Cinder coming and winning the race? I thought you were transitioning to the cars tour when you're talking about crazy finishes. We can't talk about that in a little bit. Yeah, we will. You know, I was surprised that Blaney ran out.

I think they were too. I don't think he knew he was going to run out of gas. He was. They weren't, yeah, they weren't, they weren't, you know, I wonder how that happens, where the miscalculation comes. These teams are trying to limit how much time they spend on pit road and are trying, you know, they're only putting enough gas in the car to make sure that it gets to the finish line. And when you push it and do those type of things, you can have some miscalculations or miscommunication. And that's, it puts you in a very tight window to finish the race and they stepped over that line.

But, you know, just bad luck for Christopher Bell. mistake on Blaney's team's part to not have the car, you know, enough fuel in the car. Or there was something with this car that didn't pick up the fuel that was in the tank. So, you know, it's an opportunity for a guy like Cendrick that comes out and wins the race. You know, he's sitting there when those other two guys have trouble. I couldn't believe my eyes when it was happening, though. I was so excited to see Bell and Blaney battle it out because they, I mean, Bell just had a rocket ship.

We've said it. And I was, you know, with the arrow blocking and all we've talked about, I'm like, if there's a car that can make a pass, I think it's going to be this one. And then all of a sudden he's like, I'm blowing up. It's over. And my heart just sank because I wanted it for him. And then Blaney coming to the checker just out of gas. Coming to the white.

Oh, coming to the white. Yeah, out of gas. Like, gosh, it was like drawn yarn from one storyline to the other. The whole race was incredible. Yeah. You have to wonder why the car had an engine failure. We rarely have part failures with these cars anymore, but they do do a lot of shifting at.

That's what they said. Gateway, right. And so what you can down, you're, you know, when you're downshifting, maybe, you know, sometimes a lot of the guys will downshift in the middle of corner. But maybe, you know, looking at Christopher Bell, I wonder if his down shifts. He was using a little bit of engine braking on entry to the corner to try to make some speed. But who knows?

I hate shifting at the ovals. But in this case, it's possible that the shifting actually was the reason why we pushed parts and pieces beyond their limit. Which I love the idea that we can, we're racing cars that can be broken if you don't drive them correctly, right? It feels like that in this day and time, the idea of somebody suffering engine failure is just so rare when it used to be very common. So that's pretty interesting, I think, for me as a traditionalist in terms of a fan who loves how things used to be. But I think the one takeaway from this race for me, probably the biggest thing that jumps off the page is Justin Haley. Yeah, he's finished top 10. P9 for Justin Haley.

That's pretty impressive. Yeah. You know, he's done, I think he's got two top tens in the last three races or in the last two races. Man, I'm telling you, when he came into our studio and told us that he was going to race for Rick Ware, I just wasn't sure how to feel about that. and I don't think I could honestly look at him in the face and go, man, I'm excited for you. He was sitting there telling us, I believe in this choice.

I think I'm doing the right thing. I've been over to the shop. I met everybody there. This is going to work. And I would have lost any money I put on that bet. But here he is. Legitimately running well, a lot of races they've ran better than I've ever seen them run.

And I just, you know, I think everybody's paying attention, but I think as he does this, we will watch more and more about Justin Haley and what Rick Ware. What are they truly capable of? Just a hell of the thing, man. I don't, you know, I don't know what other options he might have had. Maybe this was the only one. But it's been a long time since I've seen something this remarkable happen in our sport.

We have moments where amazing things happen. We see amazing things. But I don't know. You know, when's the last time you've seen a driver and a team that had performed so poorly get these type of results? It's, I'd love to see some comparisons who people think this measures up to. What have you seen in the sport that you would say this is just like this? I'm having a hard time. I mean, I guess I go back to Furniture Road.

That's my thought too. Yeah, how shitty they were for so many years. I just assumed that 78 car was going to be, you know, back in the 30s for the duration of its existence. and they turned it into a winner in a cup champion. And this feels very similar. Props to Justin Haley, I remember questioning him on this show. I don't know, we did a pre-season thing, and I didn't believe in his abilities.

And I'm here to say that I was wrong. He proved me wrong. I think that the colleague car that he drove in the Xfinity series and in the Cup series wasn't a good indicator of Justin Haley's true talent. And, you know, if you want to think that's a knock on colleague, I'm not really trying to knock on them. But, I mean, I've got cars in my own building,

and I've had drivers drive them, and I've still look at it and go, I can't really tell how good the driver is, right? I kind of know where my cars are. but I really don't know how great this driver is, right? What is he truly capable of? So, I mean, I could say that about my own stuff at times. And I feel like that Haley, kind of similar to maybe like Harvick, right,

drove for RCR all these years, and we thought we knew who Kevin Harvick was, right, in terms of just ability. But he drives, it gets in the four car, and we learn, I think that there was more to Kevin Harvey. And just, again, maybe like... Look at Ross Chastain. Ross Chastain's a great example. You know, everyone's saying, oh, he's out driving his stuff,

but no one knew his true potential until he got in a really good car, which was, you know, the Gannasi cars at the time, now Trachhouse. Yeah, and Truex. Truex driving for Michael all those years. And I knew Truex. He drove DEI cars for years.

I thought he was great. I really did, but you really didn't learn that or see it until he got in the furniture row car. Speaking of Truex, or sorry, go ahead. What were you going to say? I was going to transition to the bracket challenge where Truex let me down in a big way. Yeah, he did.

Apparently there are no perfect brackets after round one. None. There are 10 people who are 15 of 16, just 10. Yeah, which is crazy. That's insane. Yeah. Yeah, there were some crazy upsets. I think it was more the, you know, the Blaney running out of gas,

Christopher Bell blowing up. You know, there was those. I missed five. And so like Blaney, Truex, C Bell. I actually had Josh Barry beaten out, I think Cobbush. so I mean there's four well advanced he did because he was helped by true x being pushed out of those straightaways

who I had to I have to pull it up I had five that missed and most of them were like yep well if that guy had a head if that driver had the average that that that was one that I missed yeah he beat him by obviously I missed John Hunter Nemechek beat Alex Bowman by one spot to advance they finished 27th and 28th yeah

Cobbush beat Josh Perry by one spot. Well, yeah, that was the craziest matchup, I think, was the double DNF and having Kyle Busch just DNF ahead of Josh Perry. Yeah. Well, who did you pick to win, Dale? Outright? Yeah. Denny. Danny. Nice. Yeah. Man, I didn't want to pick Denny. His bracket challenge. Yeah, you're like, yeah. But I just didn't, I mean, when you're doing the bracket challenge, you want to feel like, and oh, Denny's going to hate this, but when you're doing the bracket challenge,

in my mind, I'm going, all right, I think the driver at the end of this should be the best driver in the field. I kind of felt the same way last year about Byron. I picked Byron to win, and he was the man when we did this last year, right? At the time. Right, at the time. And so, again, yeah, I would feel better

if I had, you know, there's one or two drivers that I would say I could, I could argue are a little bit better than Denny at this moment. I don't really know who they are, but I'm just saying like when I got to the end and I was like, damn it, Denny or this guy, it's definitely Denny. I think it's Denny and Brad Casalski. How would pick Denny? Finals. I've got Christopher Bell going all the way. I have Martin Turek Jr. going the whole way. Got that one, right?

Nailed that. I had Denny Beating C. B. At one point, I think. I just, you know, he ended up being the guy. I had to pick what my gut was telling me was the right way to go. That's why I love this, man. It's like, you got to go with your gut, and you might not love your overall guy.

You might not love. But it's a solid pick. Yeah, it's a pick you made. These are the round two matchups. Now, the updated bracket. Denny's great. Denny's great. I don't like Denny's great. Of course, being Denny are great. But I just was surprised when I got down to the end of those two drivers. I'm like, okay, these are the two. This is it. Yeah. This is how I feel like this is going to go. I don't know. Round two matchups. It is Hamlin versus Lugano, Kislauski, Nemecheck, Elliott, Cedric, Gregson, Byron, Dylan, Bisher, Chastain Gibbs, which I think could be the tightest matchup.

Marston Bush and Bell Reddick for Sonoma. Yeah. I mean, I had five incorrect loss. I had five losses, but I'm still able to clean all of that up in this next round. I didn't lose somebody that I had going deep. So if everything goes... If everything goes well, it can all get sorted for me this week. I can start rocketing up the...

The charts. What's your username? What's your username for the bracket challenge? R-D-E-2. R-D-E-2. Okay, because we were trying to find you. You know, because you can list you can list. Some other, uh, I'm the second Ralph Dale Earnhardt.

Wow. It's like, uh, it's like playing, uh, what's that game? What was that video game? Were you saw the same person? Uh, hell at loose. Hell at loose. Oh, yeah. Some other notable, uh, scores, our very own Abigail, uh, is,

leading the Dirty Mo pool with 130 points. She got 13 at a 16 right. Alex Tim's got 12 right. He's in the second grouping there. There you go Tampa. Then there's some of us who got 11 and 10. Some of our friends of Dirty Mo Media, Ryan McGee got 12 right.

Kenny Wallace got 12 right and Rick Allen also got 12 right. So thanks to them for playing along. If I had chose Bush over Barry instead of went with my heart instead of my brain there. Sometimes you got it too. I went with Barry as well. There were a lot of people who missed one, and it was perfect until the final lap when Blaney ran out of gas, which is insane to think about. Oh, man, they could have gotten it perfect. I had McDowell going pretty far in mine, and so for him not to be Ross, I'm hurt. Because I thought he would do well at Sonoma.

I thought so, too. Yeah, that's tough. I have a bold prediction for this week. What did you got? I think Bush upsets Larson, and I think Bell upsets. Well, I guess he doesn't upset, but I think Bell takes a, yeah, Redick, out. This week's segment was brought to you by Tire Pros. There are a few people who love cars as much as I do, but these tire and service experts, they equally love the drive. They offer a huge selection of brand name tires and full service repairs from all changes to alignments to brakes.

Tire Pros is giving your vehicle the TLC it deserves. They're unique because each location is owned by men and women in your own community, but they have the added support and resources of over 600 locations nationwide. So next time your car needs a little help, take it to your local tire pros. Tell them Dale Jr. sent you. We're live. Hey, everybody. Thanks for tuning in to the Ash Jr. part of the show.

And we've had a lot of fun talking about, you know, this past weekend. We're not done. We still have the cars tour to cover here later in the show, but they had a fantastic race at Langley. NASCAR just announced the news that Kyle Larson is going to get his waiver. And so we might have some comments or questions about that from fans in the chat, but let's get started. Yeah, this first one is from Nick. Who has a better eye racing rating, you or T.J. Because I know you guys are both on vacation right now.

I think I have the better one. So this is what I did with that. me and him started at the same time around 2008 and I around 2012 I took a break so I wanted to I used to smoke cigarettes and I wanted to quit smoking I did so badly and I had to stop doing anything that I connected to that habit and so I I put I didn't Sim race for a little while When I came back to Sim Racing, after that break, I started a new account because I was so bad, I had lost all of my speed. I was so bad that I wanted to go from the ground up again and learn the whole service all over again. And so I went back down to the rookies.

I retired my original account, which I think has more of an eye rating than T.J. And I started a new one. Now my new account probably has less than T.J. I'm around 4,400, and he'll probably always, he's probably the better eye racer right now. But if I buckled down for about a month, you can get him back. I can get it back.

I can get it back, yeah. You got a sim rig right there. We ought to put it to the test. Got to start, you know, putting some more laps in. This next question is coming from Twitter from Brian. When you're at the beach, do you boogie board, do you surf, stand-up paddle board, you know,

do you do any of the fun, you know, wave activities? No. No? They're so fun. They are, but I have two little girls

and you got to keep them, got to keep their head above water as much as possible. We're building sand castles. We're wiping sand out of people's eyes. We're putting on sunscreen. We're trying to get a snack in there every once in a while,

so they're eating because they'll go all day and not eat if you let them. We're using the bathroom. Sounds like a blast. Yeah, we're doing all kinds of challenging activities to keep the girls happy. And I take, you know, I take the cooler out there and sit down under the umbrella

and listen to the radio. I listen to regular radio. That's the vintage way to do the beach, I feel like. That's right. Something feels right. I need, I like, you know, I'll sit around and listen to Spotify and playlists and Apple Music and all that. But everyone's what's an around man, you got to turn on just a regular radio station, get all your local commercials. And let that thing just take you where it goes.

Yeah. What's the station, the genre that you're playing down there? The station you'll listen to is Chuck FM. We play everything. That's their slogan. We play everything. Love it. Yeah, it's good.

It's mostly like hits from the 80s, early 90s, all that recognizable pop, you know, pop modern, popular music. With that FM, you know, static twang to it. That's the best part. This next question coming from the YouTube chat, you know, you're just talking about, you know, being a parent at the beach. This is from Brock. Biggest piece of advice for a first-time parent. I think Brock is about to be a parent for the first time. Well, the diaper genie.

you're going to go through a lot of diapers, and so they have this little trash can, and it has these, you know, you get, you need to get a diaper genie for each station, changing station. So if you've got a changing station in the kids room, and then another one in another space in the house, or maybe you just have one changing station, that's fine,

but get a diaper genie. Your diapers only go in there, and it's easy to keep the smell down. You can get like probably 30, 40 diapers in one bag before you need to take it and empty it. And I don't know, that was just really convenient instead of throwing them into the trash can and then having to constantly take out a trash can full of dirty diapers.

The diaper genie allows you to get a lot in there and it's easy to change the bags out. So we are out of the diaper genie because we're out of diapers. And I took the diaper genie and I've set it out on the corner of the street. Nobody's taking it. That's not a way to meet me. Dude, I set a smoker out there one time, an old smoker that I had and it was gone in seconds. Damn, but not diaper genie.

I just wonder why nobody won't set diaper genie. That's not a way to meet your new neighbors. That's a load of crap, man. Yeah, that's a lot of crap. It's empty. I didn't leave the diapers. That's why. They're opening it up.

Oh, God. I'm texting TJ right now, and he says you have the higher eye racing rating. On the one account that I retired, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I just needed to double-chip. Don't bother him while he's sleeping. He's texting me.

He wanted to come in with pots and pans. and just, you know, completely interrupt the show. I didn't bother him yesterday when he was recording. You helped him out. You helped him out. Yeah, I said all this stuff up for him. This guy's just out here sleeping. Ridiculous.

He better get his rest because as soon as I'm done with the show, we're going to start pounding beers. All right, it's time for Dirty Modo with Tampa Tim's. Tampa's at the table. We're going to talk a little bit about this past week. So what is this bet that you made if, if, uh, if Dylan, if Austin Dylan beat Truex. Yeah.

I open my big mouth on the show and, uh, I basically bet with the professor. If Austin Dylan beat Truex, because that was the matchup in the Denny Hamlet Brackett challenge, I'd wear an Austin Dylan fire suit on the show this week. So, fire suit. Yeah. How are you going to get one? Uh, it's in the works. We're trying.

If not a fire suit, we'll get some Austin Dylan gear. We'll get some gaudy gear and we'll, we'll figure it out. But, uh, we've got some options. But yeah, I'm thrilled, as you can see. to do this. So you did a, all right, and so this is an interesting thing that you, you did during the race, which I don't think a lot of people are, you know, certainly people that are gambling in NASCAR, but even on regular sports is, it's, it's an afterthought or something that actually doesn't even pop into your mind, but you made a live bet on Cendrick to win on the final restart? Yes, yes, we've

been doing this. What gave you, what gave you that, what gave you the idea to do that? Honestly, it was between, I already had a bet on Blaney, and it was Blaney Bell or, Cynrick, I felt like. When you made the live bet, what was the odds? Plus 400. And he was the second best. Like, Bell was like minus 160, and I was never going to bet that. So I figured, I'll take a little small thing on Cindric.

And it worked out, but Blaney was a little bit better of a payout if he won. So, you know, kind of just made up for that, really. Not a good week for the predictor, though, four out of ten. No, no. Professor only had four out of ten. Truex was a big, big loss. Didn't have Cindric in the top ten, so that was big. Blaney falling out.

So there's a couple bad breaks there, but yeah, the streak is over. What's the predictions for Sonoma? We always have a pretty decent idea on who's going to go to the road courses and be strong. Yeah, I think Sonoma in particular. I think it's a race track of, like, Chris Bush or Michael McDowell, Ross Chastain, maybe some drivers that don't have a win. I think they're going to maybe get the job done here. So I'm going to look for them to see what their value is when the lines come out.

All right. You guys will learn all about that on Thursday when Dirty Mo Doe drops on all of our Dirtymo Media platforms. you Tampa Tims. Thank you. All right, so it's time for the car store segment. I hope you'll listen to this because honestly, I think the cars tour may have just had the most exciting race of the series history. I know there's a lot of history there, but I'm going to tell you, this race was insane.

Three wide across the finish line for the finish at Langley. The Carstor segment. Let's tee it up. As you may have heard earlier in the show, the Z-Max Cars Tour, presented by Sound Gear, was back in action this past Saturday night. After the events at Tri-County Speedway, the late model stocks traveled up north to Hampton, Virginia, to Larry King Law's Laneley Speedway on what ended up being an all-time classic night for the series. Two Langley Speedway natives in Brendan Queen and Connor Hall went in with the championship points lead,

and them, amongst many others, settled it out for 125 laps and the visithampton.com 125 and put on a show that the race fans at Langley and Live on Flow Racing will not soon forget. The race was dominated early on by H.I's Brent Cruz looking for his second win of the year, but all chaos broke out when Connor Hall, Brendan Queen, Carson Quaple, Trayton Lapsovich, and a couple of others went tangling for the win inside 20 laps to go. And look at how wrinkled up, the 03 Lee Pullian performance. car is a queen, has now haul gets sideways off of four. The front valence of that car pointed way up skyward right in the center.

Perhaps it impacting the handling of that vehicle as Cruz makes it a three-car race at the front. Cruz was two tints faster than your top two. Is Queen slides? And Queen is going to try to run and hide now that he got clear of the carnage behind him. How did Connor Hall save that race car? Is it Queen? Is it Hall or is it somebody else that gets the checkered flag here at Lange? The crowd stands up. We're ready to settle it.

Side by side, off a turn two. Hall with a great drive off the corner. He may have what he needs down into turn three. Connor Hall pulls ahead. Queen trying to fight on the bottom. Hall up to the lead as he gets by Brendan Queen. It took until 15 laps to go, but Connor Hall made the top side work. A little bit of body work, dragging on the back side of the O3 right now as he runs in second. That may be some of the run. rear nerve bars and bumpers underneath that bumper cover.

And right now, Queen is hoping that thing makes it to the finish and does not draw the iron officials. Oh, no! Queen goes around off of turn two. Caution is out. And Eric, at least from what we caught there, I don't think there was any help in that. He just spun off the corner. The championship points leader.

What happened to Brendan Butterbean Queen with Brent Cruz behind him and the bumper dragon off the backside of that car? After Connor Hall was able to escape on the ensuing restart, it looked like he was well on his way to an easy victory when a caution on the last lap involving Brandon Pearson, Katie Hettinger, set up a green-white checker dash to the finish. Is it Hall or is it Quaple? We'll find out as they work their way into the Death Wish Coffee restart zone. Hall gets back on the binders, but Quomple, a better launch on the side, down into one for first and for third. They lean on each other out in turn number two. Right now it's Hall still on the bottom.

Not enough room for Quompa to slide under. Here they go into three as Hall runs wide to the white flag. It's Hall to the race lead. Rockville may try to cross over with the white flag out. One more left to go here at Langley. They get side by side for second. Kwopold behind Hall. What does he do down into three?

There'll be three wide down into turn three. Out. Three drivers slide up the racetrack. A drag race down to the line. just by the skin of a nose. Visit hampton.com 125 by 7.1,000th of a second, and he does it in the top lane,

and he didn't need the blue car to do that. My, oh, my, oh, my, what a race did we just have at Langley. Hall climbed out of his Nelson Motorsports Toyota victorious to a torn crowd, but there's no doubt about it. They were making some noise. What a wild finish, three wide, out the line. Yeah, that finish got pretty interesting, but it got pretty rough there. But I mean, after it getting taken away from me nearly twice, I kind of had my mind up I wasn't going to lose this one.

So I would like to say that all my supporters out here, it takes a lot more skill to do what I do than what you do booing. So here we are, baby Victory Lane. Take us through that last laugh, that last corner. You had the lead coming to the white flag. What was going through your mind there at the finish of this race? Did you know you won? So my spotter was just like staying in it, stay in it, staying and it. so I just put it wide open.

I knew I was either going to meet the concrete or not, and I looked and saw the 29, it was super close. So it was a really good finish. I mean, I'm sure the fan, you know, it was a great race for the fans, but, you know, your track favorite can't always win every week now, can they? Connor Hall not only left Langley with the win, but with the championship points lead

as Brent Cruz finished in second, Carson Quappell, third. Matt Waltz, a hometown hero impressed with a fourth place effort. Trayton Lapsovich rounded out your top five with Ryan Millington, McCombie, Bobby McCarty, Deke McCaskill, and Bryce Applegate making up your top 10. The next stop for the ZMAX Cars Tour presented by Sound Gear is just with the late model stocks. June 15th at Dominion Raceway as the season continues to roll on.

I'm Lake McCallis, and this has been your Cars Tour recap. All right, it's time for the white flag. As I mentioned, the tear-down dropping Sunday night with Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi. reacting to everything they saw this past weekend. Some great conversation around everything going on in the sport. And action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin. Dropped on Monday. He had some very opinionated thoughts about NASCAR and the race this past weekend as well.

Doorbubber clear, those guys got rowdy this past Monday as well. You can listen to that. Dropping tomorrow's Speed Street with Connor Daly and Chase Holden. And my Martin interview on the Dale Jr. download. will drop as well on tomorrow's run. And Thursday, DJD Reloaded comes back, and we mentioned it, Dirty Mo Doe as well. Also, round two of the Denny Hamelin Brackett Challenge

heads to Sonoma. A lot of great prizes for not only a grand prize winner, but 11 other fans, there'll be 11 other additional winners this year. Some pretty cool stuff to be able to give it out. Go to Dirtymo Media.com slash Bracket challenge. challenge to follow along. And that's the show. Hope you guys will tune in tomorrow for Mark Martin.

We'll see you then. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.