The Dale Jr. Download - 550 - Iowa: Reacting to Truex, Chatting with Blaney & Getting Choked Up on Repaves

Episode Date: June 18, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was curious as to how the repave at Iowa Speedway would perform when NASCAR came to town, and he is back for another edition of Dirty Air to report on what he saw unfold. Highlights of the episode include:Dale needs to start chewing his food moreLet’s prioritize getting new fans to the racetrackMartin Truex Jr.’s retirement announcementThe NASCAR Silly Season ramps upAre repaves the key to better NextGen short-track races?Race winner Ryan Blaney joins the showDuring the Ask Jr. segment of the show, fans sent in questions regarding:How much longer Dale plans on racingThe 2012 Michigan win in the Batman carUpdates on the Titanic Lego setFather’s Day activities  Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. It's Dirty Air on Tuesday, and we've got a lot to talk about a lot of things going on in my own life. I caught a shark. I about choked. And there was a race this weekend. Iowa. We've got to talk about that. Let's get started. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. You're Dale Jr. The Dell Jr. Download.

Del, Dell, Jr. Download. Go! Stop! Roll it. Damn, boy. Where are we going with this? Your download starts now. All right, so we're back in the Bojangles Studios. It's been a while since I've been in this room, been on vacation, and have enjoyed it.

But we're back in the Bojangles studio with Andrew and Dalton and everybody listening on Sirius XM this week for another episode of Dirty Air. Pretty full show, I think, to get to. First off, a couple of personal stories. I mean, obviously we could talk about it. We could feel this whole show with things been going on at the beach. But I want to see where you're going with this first bullet point. Well, yeah.

So I'm telling you, man, I've never, has anybody in this room choked on any food? to the point that they needed assistance? Not to the point of assistance. No. I gave someone the Heimelike once. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So, all right. I mean, that, that pretty much happened to me the other night. We were at dinner. Damn. Yeah.

Well, I mean, don't get it all in your head. It was this big scene. Man, I was, I eat fast, way too fast, and don't chew my food. And, you know,

I, We're at this restaurant, and they've, I love this restaurant that we're eating at. It's called the Longboard and a really good place in Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. And, you know, been wanting to go there for a couple weeks. They got this really great salad and a couple of the dishes I was excited to get, and they all come sit down at the table, and me and Amy are going to share a couple plates. And so I like take a bite of, I take one bite of three, different plates.

And, and dude, I went to drink and, yeah, it wasn't going down. Holy. It was like stuck right in the center of my chest. And I was like,

I can breathe, but I was freaking out a little bit, you know, you don't breathe because you don't think you can breathe. The food isn't stuck in your airway. It's kind of stuck. It's like stuck in your, yeah,

in your chest. Yeah. God dang, dude, I was freaking out. I grabbed, a buddy of mine was sitting next to me, and I grabbed him, and he's like, oh, you need to get up. And I was like, he was in a booth, me and Amy and a couple other people. And I was like, no. You know, I mean, I was hitting him, and I turned around.

Like when you said no, were you barely being, like, were you barely able to say no? I don't think I said anything. Oh, yeah, you just gave him the look. Uh-uh. I don't need to get up. And I turned around facing Amy, and he, he, smack me in the back of the chest or in the back of my back he hit me in my back like as hard as he could like three times in that knock I fixed it holy cow man dude I'm gonna tell you man I was it's scared

the shit out of me and um you know it uh I'd never had that happen before now I've had you know I've had some situations where I've recognized I gotta do a better job chewing my food man I am I I one of the basic fundamentals Yeah, like I am trying to, I'm not chewing my food and it's hard to get it to go down. I have to drink fluids to make it go down. And, you know, it's a, it's a, that was a crazy moment that it didn't create a problem in the restaurant. I couldn't tell because I was freaking out. I was kind of in my own little world for like 15 seconds.

And everybody at the table knew what was going on. and my little girls were sitting there, and they were kind of freaked out. But the rest of the restaurant, thankfully, wasn't... It's not everyone's like, hey, look at this guy choking over there. Yeah, there wasn't none of that going on. So I was thankful for that. But, man, I'm glad my buddy, you know,

I'm glad that worked and I didn't need... Like the Heimlich? Something else. Yeah, that would have definitely been, you know... Hey, everybody, go over here. Big problem. Because you know when someone's getting the Heimlich. Yeah.

That's not a subtle thing. I had to do it in a middle of a busy restaurant on a Friday night when I was serving tables. You know, oh, so you didn't know the person that came on? No, I was serving him. And this guy started, his wife gets up and is screaming like, oh, my gosh, he's choking. And so I run over there and, you know, put my arms around him and start pushing. He goes, you know, chokes it, pops it up. And then he ended up tipping me 20 bucks.

And I was like, I'll take that. That's the price for saving someone's life? More? $20 on top of, yeah. Oh, oh, oh. Okay. That's the going rate. That's the going rate.

You know, that's what I charged. I told him he signed. I was like, yeah. We went fishing yesterday before I came home. With, we have, we, this weekend we had 15 of us in the house. Amie's family. Wow. And yeah, it was a big, busy thing.

And we had a great time. Amy's family is lovely. We got on some, we had. two boats because it's so many people but we ended up putting a couple rods in the water and had one uh get a fish on and and and this fish is is big it's taking a lot of line out and the guy you know so i grabbed the pole and i'm holding on to it and i'm just letting it fish go and he's like uh yeah that's that's a pretty good size fish i don't know what that is but that's pretty good and it's going and going and it's taking line out.

And he's like, you know, don't, don't, don't try to pull it in, just let it go. I'm railing in like two foot here and it's pulling out two foot and I'm reeling in a couple feet and it's pulling two feet back. I'm reeling in four feet. It's pulling four feet back out. This goes on for 50 minutes. 50 minutes. Holy cow.

No, me holding the reel, like the base of the reel is just jammed into my thigh and I'm moving it all around because it's painful as hell because it's, you know, holding the, it's a 60 pound line, I think, on this rod. But I let my buddy Billy reel for a little while. Basically just holding the rod because fish is just doing what it wants.

Man, we finally got it close to the boat and it was a 10 foot lemon shark. That's badass. And kind of scary looking guy. So we're not going to bring him in the boat, but

the guy's like, you've got to touch it. You got to put your hand on and take a picture. Yeah. I was like, you know, I'm thinking. Lay it out here at the tail. I'm thinking like these things, you know, I must. What I don't know is that sharks are lethargic and he's just chilling. He's just, I'm at the boat.

You know, he's just hanging. And but I'm thinking, man, I put my hand down there and he's going to turn into a damn alligator. Quick. Some of them have like the reflex, you know, if you like touch near their mouth. like it just opens automatically. But anyways, I put my hand on top of his head. Yeah, hopefully, I don't think we got a picture. I don't know.

But we got a video. Amy's got one on her Instagram story. Probably gone by time this comes out. But anyhow, that was fun. Never done that before. We had some great conversations, and I wanted to, this is a short one. I want to kind of keep it short so we move on to the rest of the show.

But I was, you know, Amy's family's there, right? and I just want to make this point that I thought was really interesting and I wrote it down when we were talking about it the other day they aren't hardcore race fans didn't grow up race fans right they got into racing and watched it just because I did it a little bit right so they're pretty

very casual and they're younger probably 10 or 12 years younger than me the other husbands in the family and they were telling me they were like man you know they are all

They're very big fans of baseball and football and golf, you know, and they've been to all of those events and watched them. And one of the things that they said that I never even thought of that I thought it was so nice to hear from somebody that didn't grow up in it, right? I'm biased. I love it. I think it's the greatest thing in the world in terms of NASCAR and racing and stock cars. But they said seeing a race in person is there's not enough emphasis on getting people to the racetrack in person.

and we worry about TV ratings, right? Of course, and we should, right? We want great ratings, but there's not, maybe there is emphasis, but it doesn't feel like that that is prioritized to get people to the racetrack, right? And they, you know, so these guys didn't connect to the sport

until they saw it, watching on TV, didn't get them into it, right? They didn't turn it. They didn't tune it on. I turned on the NFL as a seven-year-old and was like, holy crap, I love this. I love this team. I'm a fan now forever, right? Yeah, right.

And that happens when you watch any, you know, most stick-and-ball or athletic sports, you connect to an individual or a team or a local team or whatever, right? And you don't have to be there or go to see it for this to happen. You can, this just comes across on television. Whereas they were telling me that they have watched races and just would look at it and go, eh, yeah, it's okay. But when they went and saw it in person, the speed, the sound, the smells, understanding the rules, they didn't, you know, watching it on TV, it's confusing,

and then they get there in person, they're like, oh, I see how it's playing out. It's right here in front of me. All those things were available to them in person and made watching it on TV easier, way easier in the future. And so they were telling me, they're like, man, this is something that NASCAR needs to really tap into and focus on is getting people to the racetrack to turn them into fans. And spending maybe an investment already on top of the current investment, I know that NASCAR puts a lot into this area. But they're like, man, once we went and saw it, that was more important. and that was more important for me becoming a fan of NASCAR than any other sport they'd ever observed or known of, right?

And they were like, it's not even close. And so I just thought that was interesting. And I know we have all, I've always felt separated from sticking ball, right? Athletic sports, high school, college, all that stuff's available to you as a child. Racing is not. You know, to go racing, you got to, you know, you got, you got, you got, you got, you got, to have a local track nearby you've got to have all these things fortunately accessible right you can't just go fire up the go cart in the backyard yeah not really yeah and so um i've always

felt like we had a we had a more difficult sale or a we had a difficult job or challenge to connect people to the sport and this was this is this is said they said it so well i was like yeah man i never even thought about that um and so So, but I just thought that was interesting coming from them. They were like, man, you know, going to the race and seeing it for the first time is how I fell, how I was able to go back home and then turn it on on Sunday and go, yeah, I want to watch this. Right. That's what hooked me into the sport.

100%. I would agree with that. Oh, yeah, I was the same exact, the story you were describing, my dad watched it on TV. I'm like, why are you, this is so boring. He took me on my first race, and that was it. Like, that was what hooked me. I mean, even like, I grew up going to Hickory Motor Speedway and even going there was like, it just captivates all five senses. You know, it's like you can smell it.

You can hear it. There's an energy in there. Whereas like with other sports, it's there in small doses, right? Like you get the crack of a bat or, you know, someone breaks off for an end zone run. But in NASCAR, man, in racing, it's just all full tilt all the time. It's captivating. Yeah. One thing I think that NASCAR is doing a good job.

Like one good example. at least last year was the street race because so many fans when I was there I asked and what brought you here and it was the fact of like well it was unavoidable I have to go check this out you know this is in the dead center of the city like I have to go see it and there's probably 70% ratio of new fans to original fans that were there so yeah I'd agree with that I don't know more things like that I think would be good yeah um do I wanted to touch on the Trix's retirement yeah let's go to the race let's go going to it.

Yeah, because, um, so, you know, it was, uh, I, uh, I sent Martin a text. I was like, hey, man, hope you, I'm about to watch this press conference man. Um, and, uh, I was really happy for him. Um, told him I'd see him at the deer camp, because that's the only time I see him. Um, I, uh, yeah, I mean, you know, good. It's, it's, uh, I don't even know where to start, actually. the first time I believe I met Martin was at Richmond at a tire test. I took the Gossamer car that we ended up winning the race with to test.

The Gossamer car, I think we ran at 0.2 or 3 sometime around then at Richmond during one of the night races in the Xfinity series, Orange Car. and it was a inch and a half drop Hutchinson Pagan chassis, which was really unique. No one else had one of those. Hutch had their chassis had kind of been normalized and not, they weren't, they weren't sexy, right? And drop snouts were kind of weird.

People weren't sure about those or, you know, it's a commitment to buy that car and it work. And you not want to throw it away. and waste all that money. Anyways, it was a really great race car. And we were testing, I didn't know the car was as good as it was, but we were testing getting ready to find out. And Martin was there, and he was driving his dad's car, his family car.

And I'm watching a little practice, and I see him go by a couple times. And Richard Gilmore came over to me and said, I want you to pay attention to True X. where you're talking to his dad about maybe getting him over here and running him a couple races. And so I watched him practice and I was like, Richie, we ought to just throw him in my car, let him run a little bit. And unfortunately, I think it started raining, but he came over there and we talked, you know, since we had some time with the rain going on at the test, we ended up talking quite a bit. And then, you know, he goes and he ran homestead later that year in his own stuff

and kept racing his own stuff for a while. But we ended up becoming really good friends. When we were going to run him full time and he's going to have to move here, he moved into my house and lived just down the hallway from me in the upstairs modular home that I had. and you know he started doing well making a little bit of money able to afford rent and i had you know probably 20 rental properties scattered around town and i had one another one right on the other end of my property and he goes and rents that house with another friend of ours and we

spent a ton of time ton of time drinking in the basement going to bars and the business and middle of the week hanging out on the back porches running around on the farm being idiots um you know we just had a lot of fun we went on a trip uh guys trip somewhere tropical we're on the beach hanging out and rented this house and he had started uh talking to sherry Pollocks. And so when we got home from that trip, he moved out. And they ended up getting a place,

or he went into her house, or I'm not quite sure what happened, but he left the compound. And he's been on his own ever since, right? And I'll say this about tricks. When I say, what I mean by that is Martin, will not is not a texter

he's not going to call you up he's not going to wish you happy birthday he's not going to say Merry Christmas nothing you might not hear from him for an entire year but if you walk if you you

drove over to his house and knocked on the door he'd be like hey man hey what's going on how's it going he's just like it doesn't matter to him He doesn't need. He's one of those unique person. Like, he's super severe about this.

I know there's a lot of people that people are listening on the other end of this line right here going, oh, I know all kinds of people like that. No, no, no. Truex is way out there. No contact. Will he text you back? Yes. Yeah, he will.

But it's usually like an okay or yes or an emoji. Right. The thumbs up emoji or something. Yeah. That's who he is. And so it doesn't mean anything by it. It's just how he communicates. And he's going to be on a boat fishing or in a deer stand.

I believe, you know, in that press conference, him talking about racing some more, I believe when I see it. I mean, I know he'll probably get bored. Really? You don't think once he gets on the boat, man. It's over. It'd be hard to get off. I mean, he said he wanted to do like 10 races or so.

I believe it when I see it. He's going to. I think that's got. That guy right there is going to find new projects and new things to invest his time in that will encompass his love for the outdoors, his love for fishing and hunting. I see him putting time in more time to those things that actually generate some type of revenue for him. His connection with Bass Pro and Johnny, I mean, he's the perfect spokesman for that brand because he lives that life.

But I just want people to know, man, that he is a good dude and never going to, never going to do anything to, you know, put you in a bad spot. I've always appreciated him. He's super quiet, super to himself. When we go hunting, you know, it's a... he's pretty chill not a big

conversationalist not a lot of not a lot of talk but we do have fun we cook we sit by the campfire and hang out and you know

catch you up a little bit but he's I mean outside of that race car I mean I don't I don't know many people that are as simple-minded and basic as him he's not

very complicated What advice would you give him for the rest of the season? Well, I think the one thing I would tell him is, you know, if you announce your retirement and you're a champion like he is in a Hall of Famer like he is, people are going to want to celebrate you. As you go to these races for the rest of the year, people are going to want to take a moment to acknowledge you. and genuinely the reaction for that from us and especially probably from Martin is no I'd rather not don't make it about me I don't want any in the spotlight just another race I just want to do this and finish it out but my advice would be to let it happen absorb it let people celebrate you you know and it matters to them right they're not doing it

just for you. Yeah. They want you to know that they are appreciative, that they are glad you were here, right? They were glad you were part of the sport. And so, and especially,

I mean, it's a lot of, you've got fans that want to have that same moment. See you acknowledged. And so, instead of sort of boxing, you know, closing it off or trying to, trying to tamper it, you know, just let it roll.

If you get called on the press center at some of these racetracks for some special, you know, moment where the track wants to do something unique, just go with it. You're going to get asked to do a lot of media. I've already reached out to try to get tricks on our show. I would encourage you him to do all of those things. Especially our show. Our show first.

I mean, literally like. Like, you know, it's a victory lap. It is. Go for it. Let, you know, have some fun with it. There'll be a day when all that's gone, you know, and as much as you may not be in love with all aspects of everything that happens outside of the car, you're going to find out that you actually liked a lot of it, you know, and that you actually, and, you know, you got so used to it being part of the routine when it doesn't exist. exist anymore. You know, it, you know, it doesn't, you don't get it back. You can't go, you can't go plug back in. And so just, you know, let it, let it all happen and, and soak it all

up. He said during his press conference that he consulted various drivers about what retirement would look like. Did he have any conversations with you about that over the past couple of years? No, not really. I mean, I would ask him about whether he was going to do it. or not and he didn't you know he he he in his in his way it's uh you know he's not i'd love to see them conversations i mean i can't imagine they were more than two minutes long but pretty quick okay yeah yeah um i'm sure he talked to a few drivers that that just recently retired maybe harvick um uh but um he's going to do it his way and and and that even that press conference right even walking going and having a press conference on a

friday at a racetrack when you're you know martin did it martin did it is you know it's very it seemed very subtle he did it as minimal as he could possibly do it was so minimal yeah come in there and do say it get out of there and leave you know it was perfectly martin yes right the way it should be and so um yeah we talked a lot about the um we talked a lot about the early days of getting Martin into the DEI fold with Richie Gilmore on our Dale Jr. download if you want to go back and tap into that show when we had Richie on. But yeah, I'm just a bit sad about it. I think the reason I'm sad is just because you're kind of come into this situation where

you got guys that you race with most of your career and their careers are now coming to an end. and it's just a reminder of getting old. It's a reminder of, you know, you're further along in this life than you realize or than maybe you want to be. You know, you wake up one day and you're like, you know, the 30s are gone, the 40s are gone. Truex is only 43, which, hey, I think I've said it on this show,

43, man. I don't, hey, that is the number. 43 is the age. For what? Halfway? Uh-uh. When I was, 43 is the year where you, if you're a stock car driver in NASCAR, 43 is the age where you are more than likely going to see a unique reduction in performance.

And so when I was retiring, with my head injuries and stuff were concerned for me, and so I was thinking I need to stop doing this every single week, take myself out of some of those events that I thought were more potentially dangerous for me. I knew I was retiring early, at least in my mind, and I still feel like I could, you know, I still feel sharp enough, young enough to jump in there and do it right now. at 50, right?

And, or 49, soon to be 50. So I still feel like I felt 10 years ago or 15 years ago. I don't feel old. I don't think old, you know. But I knew I was retiring earlier than I wanted to or would most likely retire. And so to ease my mind a little bit, I went in and dove into maybe, you know, a dozen race car drivers that had retired recently,

Bobby Labani, Tony Stewart, and a handful of other guys. And I looked at how they performed beyond 43. And in most cases, their results and their success began to dwindle beyond that age. and, you know, maybe I'm making this shit up, but I felt like, you know, okay, you know, I was having a hard time getting results. We might have been able to find a combination that got me better success,

but the likelihood was that I was going to continue to have performance somewhat similar to 17, 2017. So, you know, that probably wouldn't have been all that great or all that fun to race a few more years just doing at that level of performance. So, I mean, we might have been able to fix it, but I don't think the odds would are in our favor. So looking at other people's careers

and how they had done beyond 43, there is a good sample of drivers that, whatever it is about that age. It's kind of the time when they either lose the competitive race car, right? They get relegated down into a lesser team or injuries mount up or whatever. I've always wondered what was it that causes a driver to lose pace and speed and performance. And you get older and you stop taking risks and you stop putting it in situations where those younger guys are willing to go.

You think you're just being smarter, but you're also giving up opportunity. on the racetrack but yeah i um you know like you know mark martin i wanted to ask him last week but like he is his eyes his eyesight was not that great as he got older i know he raced and was successful quite a quite a while um well beyond 43 but uh you know some guys just have different you know physical well you know things that limit their abilities yeah over time but 43 seems to be the number. It's the most popular number. Everyone's saying, because now now Truex is leaving,

Chase Briscoe seems to be like the top candidate. Everyone's saying his name is the one to replace him. Like, what's your instant reaction to Briscoe potentially filling in that 19 seat? Yeah, I saw the door bumper clear guys say that they think that announcement's coming soon. Yeah. You know, I think that the 19 car is a championship car, a top five car. Martin is a really, really good race car driver, so we'll see just how much of that he was doing to keep that car up front, right? When that car switches drivers and the performance changes for the better or worse, it's a, it's a, you know, it's an adjustment.

Well, I'm just saying it's a, it acknowledges Oh, the ability of the previous driver, right? Either for the best, for the better or worse. Yeah. In public opinion at least. So, you know, we'll find out how, just, we'll find out what I think, and that's that Martin was very good. And when I went, I forget what was happening over at Hendrick,

maybe Mark was leaving or Mark was going away, I was begging Rick to hire Martin Trix, Jr. To come there because I thought, man, Martin Trix Jr., me and him in the same building together would have been awesome, and I thought that Rick would have loved what Martin could do over there. But so that's how much I think of the guy's ability. I'm not sure. You know, Chase Briscoe, I think, is a really good race car driver,

and more often than not since Harvick's peak, Chase has kind of been the car that runs the best and has the best position in points. So he's the more consistent producer at Stuart Haas Racing. Highest in points right now, he's 19th in points, 44, short of the cut line right now. That's the Stewart-Hoss cars. So, I mean, I think, you know, I think that it's going to work out, but I think there's a level of risk as well for Joe Gibbs racing.

I think that one thing that definitely made a difference in this sign, and this is why this is happening and, you know, coming so quickly before any other, you know, before any other drivers like, you know, pre-use and Josh Barry and knowing those guys, The reason why I think this one's coming together so quickly is because Briscoe has a ton of financial support that he himself has created, right? Like he, I don't want to say like he's, you know, he, he, he, the partnerships that he's bringing, uh, the maybe multi-million dollar deals that he's bringing along, he has nurtured them, right? to his benefit. I'm complimenting

what he's been able to do outside of the race car. That is probably the one reason why Noah Gregson will be in cut next year again is because Noah too has created partnerships that love him.

And they want to go take their millions where Noah goes. And so, you know, I think Noah ends up in a pretty decent spot. I think that's a big reason why Chase Briscoe's getting this opportunity at Joe Gibbs, because I think Joe Gibbs Racing is in a couple, they've had a couple of tough things happen in terms of partnerships and sponsors over the last couple of years, and they're looking to, they're looking to stabilize, you know, financially. A driver like Briscoe, who's got great talent, but also has

great partners. That's an easy. It's a hard deal to turn down. Definitely. It's a hard deal to turn down. So I'm hearing Noah maybe to RCR's the rumor, even that 21 seat might be open, so. So, yeah. It'll be interesting to see where all these

drivers end up going. Yeah, the 21's open, I think, and Rick Ware Racing might be available. Haley's been rumored to maybe be moving around, talking. Front row. Front row's got, right, yeah. Front row's got...

Two open, right? Well, I think front row will only have one unique driver. I think... And is there a spot... An other spot at Spire, or is that, I guess, McDowell would be going and filling... Spire's full. Spire's full, track house is full. So, I mean, it's...

All of those cars, to me, are kind of lateral moves. They're all about the same. There's not like one that's really great and one that's really bad. I think if you're a great driver, very committed, very focused, you go to any of those, and if you do what you're supposed to do, you can make them better. And so even Rick Ware, right, even the second Rick Ware car, if Haley moves out, look at where that car is running right now. They've got a great relationship with Brad Keselowski's program over there, and so

that's, you know, Haley came in here and told us, man, this is going to work. There's proof that car can run well now. Yes. Finished 13th last week. I mean, the value of Haley goes somewhere else. Now Rick Ware's seat doesn't look as crazy as Justin Haley's move. It's not a bad seat anymore. Isn't that crazy?

In just like six months? It's like, oh, that's bad. Oh, right? Like, you can still like going to Rick Ware. He's like, okay, I understand that. You never go there before, right? I don't want to drive that car. That is, I mean, now.

Props to Haley, because I know we've been giving him props the last couple weeks. But also Rick Ware and all of the things that have. We're turning that... Turn that around? See it around. Crazy. I mean, we keep talking about it. Hell yeah.

Should we move on to the race? Iowa race? Yeah. Just, what was your, I guess, instant reaction to... Well, he tweeted. Solid race. Solid race. All right, so we saw the repave, the Frankenstein repave.

Me, Hamlin, everybody was a little bit questionable. We were maybe more than questioned. We were intrigued. That was the official word. We were trying not to be a... and say, what in the hell did y'all do? This is going to be awful. But we didn't know it would be awful.

We just knew we were going to tune in. We might not see what we want to see, or we're still going to be entertained. There were some issues with right front tires, right? Maybe I would say more in the Xfinity race than in the cup race. Now, there are some teams that have some problems, but, you know, the tire failures in the Xfinity race seemed to be catastrophic where it was, you know, blow a tire, smash the wall.

Yeah, I was talking to Adam Wall, just I ran into him this morning, and even Steve LaTart some yesterday, and seemed like the Xfinity race was way more heat-related, and so, like, the tires were blistering more. Plus, I think it was the same tire that they used back in 2019, and now there's more grip in the turn, so. So that's probably a good reason why running the race at night, maybe the cooler temperatures and stuff, help the cup race.

But also when their tires failed, you know, those cars didn't just go flam, bam, slam into the wall wide open. You know, some of those hits for the Xfinity Boys were brutal. And that was frustrating to watch because you knew somebody was going to be, I mean, if you're watching, if you're, You're watching that race and you see four or five guys blow right front tires and hit the wall at about 40, 50 Gs. Do you want to go climb in one of those cars and take the next tire run? Definitely.

Right? It could be you, right? And so that's not going to feel good. And so that was frustrating to watch, not just because one of our cars or a couple of our cars had issues, but just knowing what those guys go through physically and those cracks. crashes is, it's frustrating to watch. But the cup race ended up, and it was a good race. The Exfitting race outside of all of that was fine. I enjoyed it.

Yeah. They were using the second groove. There was more than one groove. I didn't think that was going to happen. I said, man, it'll be a single lane. Don't get outside of that lane. I was wrong. The cup race was more of the same.

Guys could pass. Passing wasn't too terribly difficult. And they had to use each other up, which was fun, right? So if you got on the inside, the guy on the outside could make it really difficult. And you had to lean on them a little bit or even drive them up to track some. And you could, that's awesome. That's short track racing. I mean, Iowa, I might have to bend my own rule a little bit on what a short track is.

I was going to ask you this. They certainly raced it like it was a short track. Being a little physical, a lot of contact. So I was really entertained. I enjoyed it, good race. I hope that Iowa gets another date. I think it was a good audition. It was a good tryout.

You know, we were talking about that last week. This is a big moment for Iowa. I feel like they passed the test in terms of it being entertaining. In Jeff Gluck's poll, it got a 91%. Holy cow. I think, you know, it's going to, NASCAR is in a tough spot. you know they've got they want to go to mexico and i know i don't think that's been announced yet it's kind of one of those it's one of those it's one of those where it's like

that's kept secret kind of thing yeah yeah do you say i'm hoping that it's not going to happen because i don't want to go to mexico i'd rather go to iowa after what i saw you know i don't love road courses right and now we have a good short track race and you know it's going to be fighting for a position on and then yeah you might have another road course instead and i'm with you on that There was some debate on the tear down, even some drivers after the race were giving their input on, what do you do here in terms of this Frankenstein repave? Do you finish the corners? Do you repave the rest of the track?

What do you think is? I'd probably leave it alone. Leave it just completely as is. Yeah, unless they're with you. I would fix any kind of issues that were happening. Sometimes when you repave a track with new asphalt and where the sections are of the new and old joining, they can break and bust up. That old asphalt could chunk up and fly up.

You know, if there's any of that going on, fix it. There was some very bad bumps still getting into term one. Maybe they could improve some of that a little bit, doing a little bit of paving, a couple paving strips in the breaking zone to term one. But honestly, man, if the drivers enjoyed it, I wouldn't touch it. I think Denny had said that he was surprised that they were able to have two lanes. And if they paved the rest of the corner, then maybe there'd be a third and, you know, fourth lane could be an action there.

That idea just popped into my head. If anything, I would pave higher into turns. That's it. I would even leave it. I think it was fun. Like, that's a risk of, man, someone gets in that gray. Oh, that's, you can't run there. You saw some people get punted up there.

I think Noah Gregson in retaliation. John Renamechek sent him back up the track and he lost five spots. Right. I think that's a cool element. You don't see that at any other tracks. Yeah, they can send you up there intentionally knowing that you're going to lose tons of grip when you get there. It's even a wild card of like if the leader enters too high, all of a sudden they get caught up in the marbles and dang, that's a new element, a new challenge for the drivers. I find that interesting.

I would leave it alone because, I mean, he got a 91 on his own Jeff Glex pole. We watched it. We liked it. If it ain't broke. So a lot of people are saying that this is the best short track race in the next gen era. So I want to throw a couple of tracks at you and tell me if you think it was better or worse than races. All right, Martinsville. Way better.

North Wilkesboro. Maybe a little bit better in Wilkesboro. Phoenix. Wilkesboro needs 400 laps. Oh, yeah. To be in this conversation, Wilkesboro needs the full miles. Sorry, keep going. Phoenix.

Anything's better in Phoenix. Richmond. Richmond needs to be repaved. Bristol. I really love that. Bristol race. Yeah, that was... I don't know if we'll always get that.

They don't know why that happened and if we go back and that doesn't happen. So, I mean, it's like second or third. Yeah. You know, gosh, I would hate to see it go. What's second or third? Like, Iowa. I put it at the top. All the way.

Better than Bristol? Yes. Even, like, even this past Bristol race. I can't give Bristol the first place. Because I was a one-off random. Because I don't know if it was one-off. If it happens again in the fall. If we go back and have that same tireware issue and they have to save and calm

down and drive them smart and then you got other guys that don't know how to do that and they're idiots burning their tires up then bristles one and i would be two damn i respect that but i mean this is the short track package like i thought i was race was good i thought i was race was good it was but that that standard should be a c right we should like it should be better oh it could be way yeah I agree with you. We, I'm not, you know, that right there, what we saw this weekend should be what we expect every race. Not that's the best race. Right, like that's the bar.

That's the C. Right. That's the C grade. Right. And so we got some work to do. It's crazy how if you were to watch that race five years ago, would it have the same result on the Gluckpole or is it a 91 just because of, how bad the rest of them are. Exactly.

Yes, that's what I mean. So what we need to remember is Iowa's race was great, but it is basically that's what we should expect every race and that at times we should get something even more extraordinary. Right?

But that should always be the baseline in terms of what kind of what short track racing should be everywhere, right? You know what I mean? Am I making sense? No, yeah, great songs. So Alex Bowman, after the race, said it races like a mile and a half, though. What does that even mean?

I guess he means because of the new pavement and stuff and the grip they have that you have to be careful about where you put your car aerodynamically and that, you know, you need all that air coming underneath the splitter to get to the diffuser, and so you have to offset to the car in front of you all the time, much like you would always have to do at the mile and a halfs. Could that be why it's such a,

is a good race in the next gen car because they're good on mile and a halfs? Well, I think, Alex, what I think we might be learning, and I'm hesitant to say this because I don't, you know, it just sounds so backwards. Maybe the way to make short tracks

better at in the next gen era is newer pavement. We wouldn't, you know, We've had two races with relatively new payment, and I'd say Iowa will call that a repave because the pavement was in the corners. And it raced really good, and they can pass,

and Wilkesboro was wide and multi-grove. And honestly, man, I feel like, you know, Danny might have said it. I think people are thinking that might be the unlocking the key to a great Richmond, is to repave this racetrack, which I think that would be what I would do. was Richmond, I'd either seal it or repave it.

When you seal it, the drivers are going to bitch and complain for about a year because the sealer will be slick as crap. But once they get that taken care of and get the top edge of that sealer knocked off, it'll be just like a repave in terms of grip and go. But if you just want to go ahead and pave Richmond, pave it entirely. Or just the corners. That's what we learned for Iowa. Yeah.

If you want to be cheap. right or or oh we didn't have enough time just paved the corners right it worked though so yeah that's gonna be the new thing half repaves everywhere we go yeah people were talking about you know early i think it was the first run of the race larsen was kind of gap in second third place cliff daniels was saying oh they're saving their tires how do you save your especially in a race where the right front tire is not necessarily reliable. Like how do you, is that the same as fuel mileage racing? You just run easier, slower lap times, a smoother entry?

Like, how do you save your tires, especially in a race like this past weekend? Well, if you're trying to take care of the right front tire, you want to turn the wheel less. To turn the wheel less, you have to choose to go slower. And so, while you can probably charge the entry in. bury the car down in there and crank wheel and stand in the throttle and haul ass and cut a hell the lap what you'll do is you'll back off a car length earlier slow the car down don't throttle up quite as soon don't put too much wheel in it run maybe a higher line with a bigger arc so that you don't

steer the you know turn the right front tire because as you're if you turn the steering wheel right and you point that right front tire it's just creating more and more friction on that contact patch on the racetrack. And so that's kind of one way to do it. To Alex Bowman's point, if he was talking about Arrow and how the car may have been sensitive to Arrow, don't put yourself in situations where you're going to slide the right front tire. If you cross the wake of another car in front of you, you'll get tight.

You're going to send five, ten degrees instantly into that right front of sliding it just for one corner right it maybe more so you got to always try to avoid doing anything that's going to slide the right front tire like getting arrow tight or getting some bad air so I mean those are the things that you just constantly thinking about corner after corner after corner after corner to try to make sure hey I'm not doing I'm not I'm being nice to this right front tire I'm not you know I'm not using it up beating it up taking it easy and it'll hopefully pay off.

Interesting. Yeah, because I always like, I feel like that made sense to me because I, you know, I mean, that's absolutely what they're having to do. They had to do at Bristol, right? They had to slow down. Right, especially, yeah, Bristol. Slow down, keep temp out of the tire, not slide the tire across the racetrack, throttling up early off the corner and stuff and chasing the car.

Is it, is it something you feel or is it something you measure, like you said, like you'll back in. You'll feel it. Yeah. Okay. It's a feeling more than a visual. thing. Gotcha.

You know, you can feel the tire, whether it's sliding or not through the steering wheel or the seat of your pants in the seat. And so that's how you're kind of understanding how you're, if you're really getting the tire near the edge and whether you're starting to slide it a little bit. Did you see that right in the middle of the pit cycle and DBC talked about yesterday? Caution comes out. I think it was for Daniel Hemerick. Yeah.

And this is he hit the wall. Hit the wall. Kept going. but then Eric Jones earlier blows a tire, no yellow. Yeah. I mean, what are your, I mean, Adam Stevens, what did you say?

Some like, I'll be nice about my words, but basically that was a BS, the biggest BS call he's ever seen. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably, that's frustrating. And I mean, but it's nothing new, you know. Yeah, these types of calls. Golly.

I mean, it's every other week, you're, and it, and they'll, it's every other week. and it's dependent oddly on the point of the race. Does it being in the middle of a pit cycle influenced NASCAR winding to call a caution or not? I know they won't admit it, but they don't want to call. They don't want to call a caution during the cycle.

They don't. Right. And so, you know, because instead of, you know, one crew chief yelling at them, they've got 10 or 15 yelling at them. and you know then you got you you've you've NASCAR doesn't want to cause a caution or call a caution in the middle of the cycle because I imagine they just want the cycle to complete if it can to not throw a big monkey ranch into you know a lot of strategies and favor a team that's taken into it but I mean I don't look at I don't look at it that way I don't love that mentality of I don't I don't love the way that we look at yellows and why and when they should be thrown. I feel like that, you know, if it's lap 25 or 10 to go, a caution is a caution, right?

And I would have a, in my mind, I've got an idea, you know, if a car, if a car brushes the wall like like Hammerick did or remember it Richmond with Ka Bush wasn't it? Very similar this week in that that ain't a yellow man not a yellow, never a yellow

and we ought to calm down and not throw it and in my mind if I'm if you know I've been in the I've been in this I've been watching racing in this sport since the early 80s the way they throw yellows has always changed,

you know, every probably 10 years or so. In the 70s and 80s, man, it took a lot to get a yellow flag. It took a lot. You know, it was a crash, you know, cars crashed on the track. Someone brushing the wall, no, never got a yellow. There would be multiple, you go to Bristol in the 80s. 1980s, 1987, 1994, there'd be multiple things happening

that would draw yellow today. Never drew yellows back then. And so the way we, you know, the mentality in the booth and the mentality with NASCAR and how they feel about yellows and what should and shouldn't be yellow has definitely changed and evolved

and they certainly probably got their reasons for that. But I don't, you know, I just don't think that, you know, we shouldn't, I would, I don't like the, idea that it's not this exact you know it had the same instance happen this happens during a pit cycle and we're not going to throw it but if it happens with 10 to go boy that's a yellow rack them up so you know is it not am i lying no you're exactly right oh there's a yellow is a yellow yes it's either it either is or it isn't that's the way i feel is like no matter when yeah yeah

It's pretty clear Like, you know, where the threshold is For throwing it yellow or not But that seems to move, you know, in the booth it moves Depending on what's happening on the racetrack What part of the race we're in? Definitely. That I don't love.

Because To, and only, the only reason I don't love it is because You don't know how to call the race as a as a because you're calling it off circumstances not just straight up black and white like you're saying

so to their to a crew chief's point it's very frustrating like you know you're hearing things about your spotter this is happening or you don't know

you know well and Freddie was saying yesterday on DBC he was relaying to his team right before the Daniel Hemrick hit the wall he's like oh Eric Jones just blew

tire they're not calling that so like don't expect any of those other type incidents to be a yellow and then a lesser thing happened and then they call the yellow. Yes.

You've got to believe that they are absolutely going to contradict themselves. Every time, I mean, they do that, they open themselves up to this by not throwing the yellow in an obvious moment of, well, that seems like a yellow, right?

What was going on? Remember when the guys, they spun at the entrance to pit road in Atlanta? So that was the instance I was going to bring up because that was freaking, it was entrance to pit road. Very dangerous. Very dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. But it was in the middle. It was in the middle of fuel run. Yeah. I'm throwing the yellow flag. Sorry. That's a yellow. That's it. That's a t-shirt. That's a yellow. I don't envy their position, but yeah, they're definitely seen. I'm sorry. But if you do the same thing, thing all the time. No one can come up there and raise hell. Yeah. No, you're right. Right? That's the thing. Be consistent. But I'll be honest. I mean, you know, we're having an argument.

We're giving NASCAR hard time. They do a good job. 99% of the time there's, you know, can't fall. Probably better than I can do. I don't want to be too hard on it. We've, they've had a good little run here. Yeah. Right. Hey, they gave us a good short track race. So. But I'll tell you, man, I have been inside that race car during some of those moments, and it is in furiating. I bet it is. If you're a crew chief in the thick of it, middle of the race, and that's going on, you cannot, you almost cannot control yourself. Oh, Adam Stevens, exploding, could not.

They played, I seen the clip on Twitter. He was pissed. Yeah. He was not happy about it. And I guess rightfully so. The Ally 400 NASCAR triple header weekend is. at Nashville Super Speedway, June 28th through June the 30th. It will be a weekend filled with fun for the whole family.

The party kicks off with the Rackley Roofing 200 on Friday night and continues on Saturday with the Tennessee Lottery 250. Then catch your favorite NASCAR Cup Series drivers on Sunday as they take on the 1.33 miles of concrete chaos in the Ally 400, Dalton. Before the engines roar and the race even begins, be sure to stop by the fans. zone for driver appearances, live music, and a one-of-a-kind experience at the Echo Park Automotive display featuring Kyle Petty on Sunday. Plus, kids' tickets are free Friday and Saturday and just $12 on Sunday. So grab the family and get ready for a weekend filled with guitars and fast cars.

Lock in your NASCAR tickets at Nashville Superspeedway.com and be sure to stop by the Echo Park Experience for Free Dalton. I'm going. I can't wait. Y'all have to check it out. Sounds like fun. So Kyle Busch has had some bad luck last couple of weeks And he's losing some points to the cut line And I see the media They're latching on to this They're They're going to try

I think I would They're going to They're going to try to push Kyle Bush's buttons Don't you think? The media? Yeah 100%. Turn up the heat. They are.

I want him to say something ridiculous. They're trying all right. Remember they asked him in the media center, would he go back to Hendrick? Hendrick Gibbs. He goes, Joe Gibbs. He goes, sure, if Hendrik called me to or whatever, I'll go there. Yeah, if they welcomed me back, I'd go back. But I'm happy here.

I'm happy here at RCR. They did he wrong right here. And he, but does he seem content at RCR right now? I mean, I would say he didn't. During the fight with Ricky Stenhouse where he said, we both some. I don't think he's content. I don't think he's happy how he's performing, but I don't think the guy is

trying to torpedo his partnership or relationship. I don't think he's trying to get himself fired. I agree with that. But, you know, the media is going to pick up and they're starting already picking up on, hey, man, nine races to go, who can he do it, eight races to go,

seven races to go, six races to go. And these things do not do not these things are not things that Kyle Bush loves to to be in the middle of and so every week you know they're probably going to be trying to ping him

in the media a little bit about you know how's how you feel in this week what do you think about this week how's it going this week and he is going to have a hard time you know keeping keeping his comments you know clean

so that nobody you know there's no collateral damage. I understand it has to be annoying to hear those same questions every week. But this is a vat, like this is a compelling storyline. It is. You know, him and Joey Lugano. Two champions.

Right now they're coming to the outside. I don't hear that many people banging the drum, what's going on, Joey? Right. They're going for Kyle because they know Kyle's short-tempered, short-fuse, you know, easily to, you know,

get a bit annoyed in those moments in the media centers and stuff. So I just hope Kyle can see through all that. If it works out and he makes the playoff, he makes the playoffs, it doesn't, doesn't. And they'll, you know, they'll have to, you know, hopefully they'll, you know, hopefully it doesn't turn into a real drama situation, right?

where there is some problems, right, with RCR and Kyle. But I don't think it will. But the media can make it feel that way. I'm hoping that there's not any problems, that they're in the background at RCR going, we're going to get it right. You know, Kyle's on board. Everything's good.

What a difference in years. I mean, three wins last year and then none this year. Go around win next week. Exactly. Yeah. The Xfinity race was awesome. Sam Mayer survives and wins. Honestly, fellas, I was watching that race.

I got to watch a lot of that race, but we had to get up and go to dinner with the big group of family. Before you went and choked. Yeah. So I had to sit there and watch the race on. That didn't happen that night. I didn't choke that night. I watched the race on the NASCAR app.

but um sam did a good job i saw all the replays all the comments herps and those guys um raced hard um herps doors him on the cool down lap not a big deal whatever i'm i'm not a i don't get upset about that them kids can can you know do all the just don't turn him head on in the wall right i don't want any of that going on but the doering and showing frustrations that's great that's good for the sport. You don't care. Don't care. He was not, I read his comments and saw his interview, and Herp said that it was more about how they raced early in the race,

which I did see all that. And Sam missed turn one drives up into the side of the 98, sends the 98 into the dirt. I knew, I was like, whole shit man, Sam, don't let him get back to you. Hopefully you can get about four or five corners to get him to cool down before he can get your ass right back. Because if he could have got to him in the next turn,

and he'd probably spun him out, meaning Hurt's spinning Sam. So that was a tough moment, and Hurps had every right to be really ticked off about that. Sam's very aggressive. They were aggressive on the final couple of laps and restarts and so forth with each other. But I think Hurt's comments were like, hey, that was fine. That was hard racing. It was what happened earlier in the race that I was still upset with and understand all that. The broadcast was saying that Marty Lindley was telling Sam, like, you can't be pushed around.

Like, you got to hold your ground. Is that one of the situations where he's racing aggressive just to show, hey, you can't push me around? Like, I'm going to race you hard. Herbst? Sam mayer. Oh, Sam's just always race this way. Yeah. Yeah.

Herps is the one, I think, trying to show people that he's no pushover. And he's not soft. And he had, he, he has. to do that because I think a lot of people thought Herbst didn't have any talent. I think a lot of people thought Herps was soft and wasn't much of a racer, wasn't tough. And he's spent probably the last year and a half trying to prove that he's the exact opposite, right? He's gotten himself into Victory Lane and you see him in these moments saying, hey, I'm not okay with that. And I think that's important for him.

Sam is just He's a 20-year-old kid That's pissed off he's not getting a cup ride Which he might get considered for one of these cup rides that's opened up But in his mind he's thinking Man look at all I've done Nobody's called me What in the hell? He's getting angry, right?

Mm-hmm Yeah, what's your reaction to that? Yeah, I mean, I I I you know he's 20 years old He needs to settle down. I don't know. I mean, you know, somebody should call him.

But don't make it, if you can use it to fuel yourself to succeed, right, go out and race like this every week and win races, use it. But don't let it become a problem, right? As a 20-year-old, typically, you know, you're going to get mad about something. Somebody's not calling you to offer you a cup ride and you could end up, you know, spiraling into a bad spot. That could be good motivation, though. It could.

But are 20-year-olds capable of doing that? I don't know. Feel like sometimes when I'm 22, but, you know, if I'm pissed off about something, that little. Well, I guess I'm looking inward and saying, yeah, at 20, I wasn't able to take something that pissed me off and make it motivate me to go succeed. And maybe I'm just not, you know, maybe I'm not like Sam or like you,

but usually when I got mad, I made things worse. Right. Right. And so, you know, Sam's just, you know, Sam believes that he belongs in the Cup Series or should be getting some offers or should be getting looked at by a couple of these teams that have openings. I would agree with him. He's got some things to clean up in his whole, you know, his bag of tricks.

He's got some, he's got some things to clean up in his racecraft. But the guy's good. You know, when we were racing our late model stock car for a 10-year chunk, we had Christian Eckies, we had William Byron, Sam Mayer, we had a handful of these drivers that came through our program and were teammates with Josh. Now, Josh won all the time, win, win, win, win, right? And these other guys would come in and run a couple years and then leave, right?

to race a truck or whatever. And they would have good success at times, but Sam really was the one I thought that ran Josh the hardest. And for whatever reason, I feel like Sam's got a raw ability or raw talent that is really serving him well right now. Once he cleans up the rest of it, I mean, he's 20.

Once he, like, matures mentally, and cleans up some of the other things about his racecraft, you got a hell of a race car driver, really good, right? But these, you know, in the cup team that he ends up with, if he ever were to get a cup ride, would need to be a little patient, but they would end up with a really fast, talented driver. 100%.

Yeah. You know, I mentioned the broadcast. They were talking about Sam. Obviously, NBC was back this weekend. I know your buddies with Steve and Jeff and Rick. Was it weird? Kind of watching them broadcast. Yeah.

Really weird. They did a great job. Sean Owens, the whole TV compound, the truck and camera work, all that stuff. Just so good. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. Post-race coverage. Frican awesome, man. You know, NBC, they just do a great job, right, all across the board.

And yeah, it was weird listening to the booth and not being there. And I text them gave them a hard time. Told them they didn't have no energy. But it was fun. Today's Rick Allen's birthday. Oh, happy birthday, Rick Allen. Happy birthday, Rick Allen. So, yeah, I miss it, man.

No, yesterday was Rick Allen's birthday. Sorry. Happy belated birthday. Happy belated birthday. But it. it's cool man they're great guys and they were

there is zero frustrations or or anything like that I don't want anybody thinking that and I mean you know there's there's always there's another part of this is like

a lot of those people in that TV compound like Sean Owens and those folks I may likely work with them again in the future you know so there's some good chances that if I stay in broadcasting long term that we will all you know you'll see those people again there's a lot of the same names that pop around and that a lot of the same networks use a bunch of the you know the same group right year round I notice a lot of camera guys

I think are year round and so you know you got to got to be you got I'm excited about that you know when I when I get back in the booth next year who will I see that'll be a hey Yeah. You! Yeah. Yeah. So I'm sure we'll have a lot of familiar faces. Speaking of familiar faces, Ryan Blaney.

Just sent him. All right. What's happening, fellas? Hey, Ryan. How's it going, bud? Good. How are y'all doing? We're hanging in there, man.

Just talking about that race in Iowa that you ended up winning. So you've won a truck race, an Xfinity race, and a cup race there. Yeah. And that's, is that your, is that like you consider that your home track? Partly. Yeah. My mom's, you know, from up that way. Got a lot of family up there.

So, yeah, I do consider kind of a home track, even though I didn't, like, grow up there. We went up there a lot as kids. But, yeah, pretty cool to win there in three series. Like, that's awesome. That was a lot of people there that were, you know, I guess maybe family or sponsors. You had a big crowd in the grand. stands. All family.

Yeah. So did they come down to the pits? Yeah. Yeah. We got them across the race train. I don't know how we did it. Right. It was like about 30 people or something.

Yeah. So there was probably about 70 there altogether and then probably 30, 35 came to Victory Lane. Damn. That's awesome. So that must have been pretty fun. It was. You know, I mean, it was a lot of cousins, a lot of. of, you know, aunts and uncles and stuff like that.

And a lot of them I hadn't seen in a while, you know. And that was cool. And gosh, most of them there, you know, they were there in 2012 when I won that truck race. They were there in 15 when I won that Xfinney race. And then they were there this weekend. I had one aunt that the only three races she's ever been to, we won at. And he was in Iowa. So she's like a good luck charm.

But, yeah, that was a cool, man. So the racetrack, man, turned out to be pretty awesome. Awesome. Watching it at home, both Xfinity and the Cup race, the track raced really well. We were just sitting here talking about what does I able do? Do they leave it alone or do they try to finish the job? We almost feel like they shouldn't mess with it. But what would you do?

Man, yeah, I mean, honestly, it exceeded my expectations, the race, watching the Xfinity race, you know, how quickly they kind of moved up the racetrack. I was like, oh, man, that's good. like that's going to be great for us and um you know i thought it was a heck of a race like you had you had three lanes minimum two and a half lanes really um and you could be pretty versatile like the restarts were nuts um i thought it was good racing i rewashed the race on monday and i thought there was action everywhere um so i don't know i mean that's yeah that's been kind of the topic i've been listening to everybody on on you know podcasts and stuff of well what what

should we do? What should we do with the paving situation? And I'm kind of back and forth on it because I thought it was good, but maybe if you pave it up to the wall, it's just going to give you more lanes. If the rubber continues to get laid down and the asphalt continues to take the rubber to where you can do that stuff, that's great. Maybe you don't pave the whole thing. Maybe you just keep it in the corners like it was because a big challenge there was, like you saw a lot of people about bust their butts into turn one with all the bumps getting in there like that's a big characteristic of that place i think you should keep okay um i don't think if you just get a super smooth race track you know i think it takes some character away from it and challenges away from it so maybe you just continue doing it in the corners but but pave you know up to the wall yeah i kind of like the idea that um we were i thought that immediately too and then my buddy's here uh andrew and dalton said well it was fun watching the drivers run each other up into the dirt, which is as a driver, you don't love that at all.

But watching it on TV, you're like, hell, he's using him up, he's using him up. And once them right sides hit that old asphalt, the guy would go backwards. Yeah, maybe, well, maybe you just pay one more lane to where you still have that junk. Yeah, the junk. But you just get another lane of racing.

Yeah. So, you know, coming off of an incredible year last year and winning the championship and all of those things. This year's been tough at points. Y'all have had the speed and the pace. Where do you think the team's at? Yeah, honestly, I got to ask that question, Media Center, and today on Sirius.

And really, I look at it. I think our team is honestly in a better spot than where we were last year this time, just mentality-wise. like pace-wise, I think we're getting to where we need to be. You know, so, and I look at, you know, I just try to look at performance up to this point. I feel like we've performed better week in and week out. We might not have some of the finishes that show for it, you know, getting, getting wrecked it at Texas when I thought we had a top five car,

getting wrecked at Darlington when I thought we had a top five car, breaking at Charlotte, had the race won at Gateway and running out of gas. running 25th. I think we've had good speed and potential in our cars. It's just some of the finishes haven't really, you know, reflected that. So it was nice to finally get a race to where, all right, we did a really good job all night all weekend, finally got in Victory Lane. But no, I think our group's in a great spot, really. And hopefully we can have, you know, continue this momentum because we're finding some

stuff on the short tracks. Got to find a little bit more on the mile and a halfs. But, no, I think we're in a great spot and even better one than where we were this time last year. Yeah, do you think, you know, do we think, and when you mentioned the short tracks, and we've, you know, been a big conversation around the short tracks in the next-gen era, is Iowa a place where you can learn anything that might help the short-track package? Have we helped the short-track package?

Is the short-track package trending in a good direction? What do you think, the takeaway from this weekend, if there is any at all? Yeah, I mean, I think I don't know, I think the tire is like a big, always a big thing of conversation, right? How do you get the tire to continue to wear out? We saw a couple failures, you know, on the right fronts this weekend.

It's always that fine line of, well, you need a tire that's soft and that wears out, but you don't just want to keep blowing tires. Then everyone's like, well, just not use the tire as much. It's like, well, there's kind of a, there's like a fine line of, you know, is just coming apart and you don't think you're really abusing them to wear on a tire. So I don't know.

I mean, the tire fight is still something that we look at. The horsepower fight is a never-ending war of trying to get more. Never-ending war. It's never-ending, I don't know if it's a winnable war at this point, but we're going to keep fighting for more horsepower just because that's like, to me, that is easy help. Like, maybe it's not easy, right? You've got to kind of rebuild some motors,

but take some of the plates off of them. You're going to get a couple hundred more horsepower pretty easy. But I just think that's like what you need on short tracks. I think you need it everywhere, but I think on short tracks it. Then that helps your tire wear out as far as it gets worse. When you're spinning tires more on exit, it gets worse. So, like, that is something I feel like we're continuing to push. And hopefully we're making gains.

Obviously, you want everything to be better, quicker, you know, now, but it's a slow process, and I think we're creeping on it. Hopefully it continues to get in the right direction. Yeah. Well, I appreciate your time today, man. Thanks for calling us and giving us a little bit. Congratulations on the win. Good luck going forward. We'll see you soon. I appreciate it, fellas. Thank you. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. here for another episode of Ask Jr. on the Dale Jr. download in the Bojangl Studio. I want to thank Xfinity for supporting this segment of the show. You can get the speed you need on or off the track with Xfinity Mobile,

fastest mobile service with 5G and millions of hot spots, Wi-Fi hotspots all across the nation. With its nationwide coverage, you know you'll always have that service. It'll come through in a clutch. Make the switch today and save with Xfinity Mobile. They're a proud premier partner of NASCAR and a great supporter here at the Dale Jr. download and everything here at DirtyMov Media. so thank you, Exfinity.

Let's get to these questions. Yeah, this first question is coming from Gabe. And I think you said something similar. I think I saw this week. I'm Bob Pockris. He tweeted out. But how many more years do you want to continue racing? Me?

Yeah. I honestly feel like that this, honestly feel like that this might be the last Xfinity race. Oh. Yeah. And you just never know. There's no reason for, me to say that.

And there may be an opportunity that comes up and you're like, yeah, I want to do that. So you get back in, you know, so I don't want to make too much of it. But I'm getting to the, I'm getting toward the finish of all of it. Now, my late model stock car, I love doing that. And those races are really fun. They're hard. and it's a bit of a commitment to go out there every weekend. I don't know how those guys do it with the traveling and everything that involves.

You have to want to do that. But I'm enjoying running my late mott car, so I'll probably keep doing that for quite some time. I just don't know how long. I mean, I want to be able to feel like I can go win and shoot it be 50 in October so maybe five more years, maybe 10. Yeah. I don't know.

Hey, you lit some laps at Bristol last year. Yeah, and the Xfinity. I know, but that's a work. Go on and doing that Xfinity race. There's so much more to it than just showing up in what you saw at Bristol, right? There's Simwork and sponsor photoshoots. And just to do one race, there's a lot that you, a lot of commitments throughout the year. that have to be settled.

Where you can just go hop in a late model kind of. Yeah, run a late model, I just go do it. Right. Where almost it's a drop of a hat. Right. Yeah. This, you know, speaking of wins and winning, this next question coming from Callie, and she wants to know, I think it was, I think it was,

yesterday was the anniversary of the Batman win at Michigan. What do you remember about that day? I know I saw some people on Twitter saying that I was a freaking fast rocket ship of a car. So Steve and the guys, they had figured out this trick. We were learning that skew in the cars was really good, right, and skewing the rear-in-house. And so y'all remember when they outlawed the 77 car, Charlotte, the Penske car, what's his face was driving it?

Hornish. Hornish. Mary that thing going around there, crooked. So that's like max, you know, extreme skew, right? So they've got the rear end in the car locked in that position. Well, NASCAR made some rule changes that would eliminate the ability to lock the rear end or just set the car up with the rear end in it crooked. You could shim it and bolt it tight and it would be there and just drive the car and it run cooking.

The arc cars do it. So we had to figure out how to get that skew back. When everybody learned that that skew was faster and they took it, way right well now we got to find out a way to get it back because they're going to they're going to try to get back and they're going to try to get it back so we've got to go to work so we found a way I think we were able to we were able to put a bushing in the left or the right trailing arm that would that was like rubber or some polymer or something that could flex right and we had some that would move a lot,

but you were worried that, you know, it moving all, not all day during the race, it would tear it apart because they did fail because they were moving so much in and out of the throttle, right, would move it. So we, you know, we figured out that, you know, if we softened up that left side bushing on the trailing arm, when you got in a throttle, it would skew,

but when you were off throttle, it would straighten out. So how do we get it to stay? Like I got the bush into where it can move and skew the rear-enhausen, but I need a way to hold it there. And so we could run rear sway bars. And we mounted our rear sway bar in a way that when the car traveled, the sway bar pulled the left side of the rear-en-housen forward. And so, man, a car goes around through tech in the garage,

you know, probably inches high, at least a couple, right? Because we still had height rules, I believe, back then. When you, as soon as you go out on the racetrack and that car gets in the air, it sinks and seals to the ground, right? And so that would then, that track bar would pry that rear and house

and end of skew and hold it. And so we figured that out. Jimmy had it going on that same day. and I think what happened was we ended up we ended up really kicking some ass there for a while NASCAR figured out what we were doing outlawed a part or a piece

like something with the sway bar to where we couldn't do it that way anymore and Brad and his team figured out a new way to do it and they win the championship holy cow yeah he comes so fascinating he ends up he ends up becoming a really strong in the last 14 or 12 races yeah that's when he that's when he came alive right year yeah and now they figured it out we've lost our part that we lost the pieces that we that made you that we knew

that we're working for us and they they got a they figured out a way to do it another way somehow i don't even know how they did it but yeah i find that stuff so Fascinating. When Steve took me under the car and showed me how that track bar was working, I was like, damn, that's so simple. Like, of course, right? I mean, the sway bar. And you wouldn't never run a sway bar in the back, but it was still, you could still do it.

And so once they saw us doing that, they're doing something with that sway bar that that's not supposed to be happening because people don't run sway bars anymore. Why would they have it under theirs doing something that it's not being a sway bar? It's being something else. They figured it out, took it. Damn. Yeah. That's pretty wild.

I see a lot of these comments, including a few, I think, in the YouTube chat every week. You've gone silent on the updates regarding the Titanic. Hadn't touched it. Haven't touched it yet. That's what the people wanted. Me and Amy, you're going to be able to. together and I think we'll probably start in the next, we'll probably get it done over the next three weeks. Instruction begins. Yeah. We've had a lot of, we've been on vacation. We had a bunch of

family cycling through the house and friends and so we just haven't had night and nights alone, right, to be able, what are we going to do tonight? Right. And so, you know, we'll, we're going to have a, I'm going back on vacation for a couple more weeks and should just be just us and the kids. You know, with that thing, built him. Legos. It's the unbreakable ship. That's what they call it. Got it. Well, I was thinking about as we built, as we made the progress, I could sit it on that counter behind me at the remote studio so you could see.

Oh, that would be sick. Oh, like see it as it builds up. Getting further. That would be cool. And it would hold me accountable to actually want to try to add to it as we going here. Yeah, yeah. Damn, like three pieces between week, one week and two weeks. Yeah, what the hell. Yeah. That's what people want to know. I'll take the printer since I'm not using it. Yeah, no, we've gone paperless. It's a big upgrade.

Cool, that's a good place too. Oh, come on. Well, you want one more? Dalton has a good follow-up from a last week conversation. I have one that I'm going to do later, so you'll have to listen to the rest of the show. But I want to ask you, what did you do for Father's Day? Oh. Well, if you saw Amy's, we, uh,

We got up, we actually had, we kind of did the ceremonial stuff the day before. And we got up, got in a shower and cleaned up, and the girls all had gifts for the dads. There were, myself included four dads in the house. And so all of us got a pair of pink swim trunks that we had to wear the next day on the fishing trip. Bad ass. So you'll see the shark video. I got the pink swim trunks on. So all the husbands had pink swim trunks on it.

They were cool. They were good looking. Yeah, they were fine. And I got to two pair of flip-flops. And they got this NASCAR game. Amy got me? So have you ever seen the, there's these little horse racing cards.

It's a bit of a betting game if you want to make it that. but basically you get dealt some cards and those are your horses and there's a horse track that you set it on the table and you roll dice and the horse the dice determine which horse you know if you roll the six the six horse goes forward if you roll the four the four horse and they all have to go they go forward till they cross the finish line and your card is your horse and and so you know if you if your card wins you you win the pot but they have that as a NASCAR game now, and Amy got me that,

so that should be pretty fun, playing with that. Yeah, it's very simple. We hung out on the beach a little bit, but fun day. Sounds like a good day. Easy. It's kind of day dads want, right? Like quiet day.

Amy made it. This was kind of a new structure that Amy says this is what she prefers. going forward. So I had to like, this is like, she's like, here's your father's day. This is what's going to happen. And when Mother's Day comes, I want this too. And it was basically like, all right, if there's a gift or anything like that in the

moment with the kids or the parents, we're going to do that the day before. We're going to do a lunch or anything like that the day before. So we're going to do all of the ceremonial stuff that day. And then the actual Mother's Day or Father's Day, you know, here's the key of the car. go take off, do whatever you want. I got you a spa. If you want to do that, you know, do whatever. Find your girlfriends and have a brunch.

Whatever, right? So me and the dads got up, ate breakfast, and left the house around 11 o'clock and went bar hopping until about six or seven. Damn right. We had a good time. That sounds like a good time. Yeah, it was good.

Speaking of a good time, that's a good time to rack up. everybody. I appreciate the great questions today. Hope everybody's doing well this summer. And it's nice to be back in the studio. We're going to hit the road again and get back in the remote studio for another week or two and then we'll be back for the rest of the year. But I've enjoyed it. And I hope you have to. Thank you, Exfinity. Thank you, Exfinity Mobile for everything y'all do to support us here at the Asch Junior portion of the show. Xfinity Mobile is a proud premier partner of NASCAR and a great supporter here at Durymo Media.

So y'all, you'll have a great week. All right, it's time for Notre Dame Mirdou, and always at the table for this segment of the show is Tampa Tim's, Alex Thames, how's it going? What's up? How's he going? Things are good, man. Let's get right into it, five units on Ryan Blaney to win. That was your live bet.

That was my big live bet. When did you make it? Oh, man, probably like 60 to go maybe. Yeah. Yeah. He was lights out all day. Yeah. So I missed them pre-race,

so I had to get him live. Yeah, that worked out pretty good. Chase Elliott, so what, Chase Elliott was on fire. Flago. Bowman back in the top 10. All those bets you made? Yeah, so Bowman and Elliot there,

Chase is like so consistent. NASCAR brought that staty hasn't finished outside the top 20. He's been top five when he's finished in top 10, so we bet him top five, and Bowman has been the top 10 machine this year, so we got him too. All right, man, this is a good bets. before the race.

Yes. And smart stuff. Other bets you made U.S. Open. Yeah, I was a blind tail this weekend. I'm not going to lie. I think I hit like four out of six round matchups. And then my big one was Scotty Sheffler to shoot over 70, I think, in round four, because he hadn't gone under par yet.

So that hit. Yeah. It was a good weekend. Nice. What are your way too early predictions from New Hampshire? Well, the guy that's in the news this week because he's retiring, Truex, always good here. Christopher Bell's good here.

and then we're going to keep riding the Chase Selleate and Alex Bowman train, I think. Yeah. So are we going to make an end show bet? We talked about doing that. We can. We can. I got one for tonight. You got one.

I got one. What is it? Stanley Cup finals. Game five. I think the Florida Panthers close it out. All right. Oh. So just Florida Money Line.

It's minus 140, so it's a little bit juicy, but I think this series is going to match what the NBA finals did. And they're going to close it out tonight. All right. to put one unit on that. One unit minus 140 on Fandle. So we're going to follow that. Follow that.

Yep. Tim's, we're going to follow up with you next week about that. That's fine. Better not let me down. That's fine. So last night or when did you send us the text? Probably like afternoon yesterday. Yesterday afternoon, he sends us a parlay for last night's final game of NBA playoffs.

And I put a unit on that. And I think, did you? I did not. You did not. Oh, man, you missed out. I think Dalton did too, so we know Dalton did. But it was a one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven player parlay. It was ridiculous.

And it was pretty locked in up until the very end. We just needed one rebound, which we eventually got. And so we all won. And so good job, Tim. Thank you. Man, you have, you're doing pretty well. I'm on a run right now. You are.

You are. Just blindly follow me. I want to run. Yep, you can follow Tampa Timms and all his advice on Dirtymo Doe dropping every Thursday on our dirtymo media platforms. It's a great show. You don't want to miss it. All right, now it's time for a new Cars Tour update with Blake and Eric.

The guys were racing over at Dominion Speedway this past weekend. Had a great event. I watched that one on flow Saturday night. Great time. Great racetrack puts on a hell of the show. Let's get the recap. Fresh off the closest Cars Tour late model stock finish in history at Langley. It's only fitting that the ZMAX Cars Tour presented by Sound Gear heads to the venue that previously held that honor following a breathtaking race in 2023.

Beautiful Dominion Raceway would not only be the scene for the eighth race of the 2024 season, but also a showcase of collaboration amongst the series, drivers, race fans, and more. Cars Tour competitor Minnie Tyrell and his mission to burn rubber to help another program. in conjunction with several other charitable organizations gathered several families and children in need for an all expenses paid and carefree weekend at the Speedway, with the Minnie's mission 125 serving as the grand finale. For the third time this season and ninth time in his career, Brendan Butterbean Queen captured the Thunder Road Harley Davidson Poll Award, setting a new Cars Tour track record in the process. Two-time national champion and former champion at Dominion Raceway, Peyton Sellers, made his Cars Tour return and would join Queen up on the front row for the start.

Meanwhile, championship points leader Connor Hall would qualify right in the middle of a 30-car field, leaving the door open for what could be another run-up through the pack by that Nelson Motorsports 22. With 125 laps ahead on a very fast 4-tenths of a mile oval, it became clear quite early that this race could end up being about survival. Brittany Queen will bring the field into the Death Wish Coffee start zone. Sit back and enjoy this one from Dominion.

and a stack up. Deke McCaskill hard into the wall as a couple of cars had trouble getting through the gears. Kate Brown is involved and caution is out as another car comes to rest. The crash on the start wouldn't be the only early mishap. As local favorite, Peyton Sellers found early trouble as well to what was a two-part sequence of events. Challenging Bobby McCarty for that fourth spot, McCarty thought about it. Looking three wide there on Robusto and Sellers. Oh, Sellers. He's part of the outside wall is Robusto makes contact with him.

He saves it and keeps on going, but Robusto may have a problem. McCarty said, I'm getting out of here, and he muscled his way past Robusto, who's now trying to keep that car steady on the tough side, as everybody accordions together double wide, about five rows deep on the front stretch. Tyrell, Connor Hall, you really get a sense here, Eric, of how difficult sometimes it can be to pass. Oh, Trouble Sellers, into the wall in turn four. Looks like he may have cut a tire. The race would eventually deliver a green flag run, where we started to see some of the cars show consistent pace.

While Queen was the early dominator, Bobby McCarty, Ryan Millington, Mini Tirel, and Trayton Lapsovich, all appeared poised to contend for a spot within the top five. Equally, Connor Hall and Connor Jones continued to work their way through the field to get up into that fight as well. While McCarty would fall by the wayside due to a mechanical problem, the rest of the contenders would continue to keep the fight brewing all. the way to the checkers. Hall worked his way up to second, trying to chase down Butterbeam, while Trayton Lapsovich and Connor Jones raged war in the battle for third. Jones doing everything he can to make that outside lane work for him, while Trayton continues

to try to move him up just a little bit. Now Jones to the bottom, into the back of Lapsovich in turn three, and they're still locked together in the middle of the corner. Now Latsovich sliding up the racetrack, Jones going to peek down to the inside, and they'll stay side by side. Six laps to go here at Dominion. Lapsovich looking for his career best finishing the cars tour. Connor Jones looking for a spot on the podium and to talk to us as he leans once again on Latsovich who slides way up the racetrack and they'll stay heated in this battle.

Minnie Tyrell, Ryan Millington, got a front row seat to it all with five to go. This, the battle for third. Queen has broken out in front. Jones again throws the car into the inside of Lapsovich. And up the racetrack, Lapsovich is going to be able to hang on for now. But Jones drives down to the bottom again. side by side his Lapsovich willingly went up to the top side, but he may have found a little bit of speed up there.

Four laps to go. Jones once again on the bottom, great, great racing here at Dominion. It would be the second time in 2024 that Brendan Queen and his lead pulling in performance team were able to celebrate and cookout victory lane at a perfect night in Dominion. All settled for second, Lapsovich third, Connor Jones, fourth, and Minnie Tyrell on one of the biggest nights of his year personally celebrated a popular top five effort. The cherry on top for Butterbean was that his special guest, Landon, got to join the team in the celebration after the win. The two met at Dominion last year as part of Minnie's mission in 2023 and kept in touch throughout Landon's journey. This two days prior to the race, Landon rang the bell at Walter Reed celebrating the conclusion of his treatments in his battle. The trip to cook out Victory Lane was certainly a storybook ending to what was a magical weekend in Dominion.

The series now shifts focus to the upcoming midweek show at Carraway Speedway, on Wednesday, July 3rd, with a doubleheader with the late model stock cars and the pros. Her perfect lead-in to the 4th of July holiday. If you can't join us at the track, be sure to catch all the racing action live on Flow Racing. For the ZMAX Cars Tour, I'm Eric Brennan. All right, it's time for the white flag. Dropping Sunday night was the tear-down with Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi, covering everything that they saw happen during the race on Sunday in Iowa.

and then Monday action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin and doorbup are clear with tons of rumors. Some good, some shit. Dropping tomorrow, Speed Street with Connor Daly and Chase Holden. And Paul Andrews comes into the studio. Paul Andrews, crew chiefs, been around for a long time. Crew Chiefs Allen Quicki, and he's actually been working on some of our late model stuff here lately. It's been a lot of fun getting to know Paul better.

So we'll be interviewing him this week. that drops tomorrow. And then Thursday, DJD reloaded and Dirty Mo Doe. And don't forget, Wendell Jr's ride has relaunched. It relaunched I think today. Today?

Yeah. All right, this is the 14th year of the program. This year, we're back to giving away Corvettes. So a brand new 2021 Chevy Corvette Stingray. Raffle tickets are $25 and the program runs until September 30th

or until our tickets will sell out. So thanks to Chevrolet for allowing to support this, and the Dell General Foundation will be covering the taxes, and so that alleviates that concern. Junior Motorsports announced on Monday that William Byron will pilot the number 24 Hendrick Cars.com late model stock entry in the Cars Tour event at Carraway Speedway. On Wednesday, July the 3rd, excited about that.

Looking forward to seeing William back behind the wheel of a junior murder sports late model. And if I'm not mistaken, I think Paul Andrews might be there. Helping William. Ask him about it. Yeah, helping William with that. We had a great Apple review. Yeah, I put an Apple review.

Yeah, you did. We're going to try and start, you know, reviewing. Yeah, so any five-star review, we'll try and pick one a week that will hit in White Flag. S-U-E-B-22-9 says that, phenomenal interview with Mario Andretti. For my dad's 50th birthday, I gave him a charge. trip to the indie race at Pocono. It was wonderful to watch my dad meet Mario. Mario has no idea what that meant to my dad and I. Also, round four of the Denny Hamlin Bracket Challenge heads to New Hampshire. Follow your bracket at dirtymobedia.com slash bracket challenge. Have a good week,

everybody. We'll see you tomorrow with Paul Andrews. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.