The Dale Jr. Download - 559 - Pocono: I'm Going To Get Sh*t For This

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the studio for this week’s episode of Dirty Air to recap all of the action from Pocono. After a weekend full of action from the Tricky Triangle, there is plenty to discuss:Dale picks his NCAA Football '25 Dynasty TeamWas Corey LaJoie and Kyle Busch's on-track contact a racing deal?Should Bubba Wallace have been fined $50k for dooring Alex Bowman at Chicago?Ryan Blaney calls inDale recalls epic paintball battles between the 48 & 88 teams on the roadDuring the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners wanted to know Dale’s opinion on:Tire options for the Richmond raceSting Ray Robb's crash at IowaDale is back on track this weekend 21+ and present in North Carolina. Opt in req. Wager requirements apply. Bonuses awarded as nonwithdrawable bonus bets or profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply including bonus expiration. See terms and conditions at fanduel.com/sportsbook. Gambling problem? Call 877-718-5543 or visit morethanagame.nc.gov. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dell Jr. Download is Tuesday. It's dirty air. We've got a lot to talk about. We're going to cover Pocono first and personal stories. Let's get right to it. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. You're Dale Jr. Jr. Download. Del, Dell Jr. Download starts now. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of Del Jr. Download. We are in the Dirty Mo Media Studio, and this is Dirty Air, and we're going to have some fun today. So, hello to all the Sirius XM listeners out there. Thanks for tuning in to the show on Sirius XM. Andrew's here, Dalton's here, Alex is in the back room there, running the show, doing whatever he's doing.

He'll be out here for Dirty Mo Doe later. But let's get right to it. want to talk about Pocono, the race. Was it uneventful? Would you call it uneventful? The strategy was the biggest thing keeping me. So yes, you'd call it uneventful. I mean, strategy's cool.

I don't want to say strategy's not cool. I can get into strategy and how things, but you know, you've got to know if you're watching a race for the thrill of strategy, it's a long play. It's the long play. Definitely. Yeah, you're like, all right, I got to plug in, tune in, pay attention to who's on what strategy, and see how this nets out at the end, right?

It's the long play. There were some moments during the race. Obviously, you know, the Cobbush and Corley-Joy crash. That has been chewed up and spit out. So many people have given their opinion about that and will give ours. But I wanted to make note of what an incredible crowd. Polkano had. And they had some massive issues with traffic, right?

Listen, I mean, it's kind of an interesting thing, and I want to know if I'm the only one that feels this way. But when I saw some of the posts on social media, Noah Glaxen's posting, he's stuck in traffic and, you know, trying to get to the racetrack. So part of me is like, yeah, okay, traffic sucks. Nobody loves being in traffic. But isn't there, isn't there like a part of you that's like, damn right? Isn't there this part of you that's like, like, glad that there's a lot of people there?

Yeah, glad that there's so many people trying to get to this event. T.J. had this very similar take on DBC yesterday, and I think this is a type of issue where this is not something that you want to deal with. Like the traffic is like, yeah, I get there's a lot of people, but I think. it wasn't because there were a ton of people because the weather that came in. Okay. So, I feel like that

there's a couple things here. So what I'm trying to say is we forget that, man, just in the last decade, everybody's been saying, you know, numbers are down, viewership's down,

attendance is down. You know, Nobody's going, nobody's showing up, can't, you know, can't sell out. We did reduce a lot of seats at a lot of tracks to get to where, hey, you know, bringing demand up for the tickets and being able to sell out, you know, a $60,000 event is, or 60,000 seat event is easier than selling out an 80 or 100,000 seat event. I get that. But it makes me feel good or it makes it feel, it feels, it makes me feel some,

promise that we're having some traffic issues at some of these events. We're having, you know, we're having, we are selling out Pocono that I don't believe has reduced seats. And camping there, the infield, smack full, it looks and reminds me of the heyday of the 90s in the early 2000s when we were getting this type of a turnout to our events. We haven't seen that in the last 10 to 15 years. There hasn't been that much excitement and just people that really are willing to make that a part of their weekend, physically going to the event, right? And so maybe it's nothing, maybe it's something. I was, I don't love traffic. I'm not, I'm not, you know, if you had a bad experience sitting around in lines and on the road stuck in traffic,

I'm sorry, but as a fan or as someone who wants to see the sport have health and be of high demand, I thought that was too also a good sign. And I know that, you know, Pocono says, hey, this will never happen again. We're going to fix this. This will never happen again, we promise. I wonder to, and I believe them, Pocahono, they are rock stars. and they are the backbone to the NASCAR season. They're the dependable, the tried and true.

I've always had a lot of confidence in Poconos. So if they say they're going to fix these issues and it will alleviate some of the traffic difficulties we've had this past weekend, I believe it. I also wonder, with the shorter weekends, has a lot of our fans that actually go to the races, evolved into the one-day fan, whereas in the into 2000s and in the 90s, maybe a larger chunk of our fans were coming in for the weekend, right?

So they weren't traveling in on race day. A good chunk of people come on in on a Friday and going to spend the weekend there. Now, there's a, you know, camping to me looks as, as full as it's always been. There's not less campers, right? So I don't know. I don't know if there's a, a ratio of maybe we've shifted to where we have more race day show up, walk up Sunday morning fans that are trying to fit into that infrastructure that's getting them into the racetrack

than we've had in the past, right? And so maybe this shorter weekend where there's a lot less on-track activity has also shortened up the commitment that a fan would make time-wise and affordability too. Less hotels. There's no question. I'm more, I'm not so much, I'm not so much talking about that fan. I'm talking about the camping fan, the one that would come in with the camper, like the beginning of the week. Bring their family, come in on a Thursday, right. Coming on a Friday even and stay till Sunday. Are we having more people that are trying to do the hotel, trying to, trying to come to the racetrack from, from either a hotel or hours away,

on race day and trying to fit into what little infrastructure and avenues there are to get to Pocono or any racetrack. If you got 80,000 fans that are coming to the race in 2005 and 80,000 fans that are coming to the race today, what ratio of those 80,000 were weekenders or one-dayers, right? Is it changed a little bit because of how NASCAR whittled down on-track action? activity and what the you know what what reason is there to come on a Friday what reason is there right what is there are reasons are there are you know are they enough right to make it a weekend event for fans like I love the idea of coming in and camping and spending a couple nights and not having to get up in the morning and drive anywhere and just kind of do what I won't but I don't know if there's enough

happening at the racetracks to really drive a lot of the fans to do that like they might have years ago. I was wondering about that. It may be nothing. Another thing about Pocono that I loved and always have appreciated is there's you wouldn't, you know, you've, if you've heard about the area, then you know the Pocono Mountains are a popular sort of destination for people to take vacation and so forth. It's a really good, fun area. A lot of resorts and kind of some neat places to stay, even when it's not a race weekend, I remember going with that. The races were in the summer,

and so those were races that I could get to that weren't in the school year when I was young and going to school. And so I remember going to Pocono in 86, 87, and several years. And there's a restaurant near the racetrack, and gosh, I wish I can remember the name. I go there every time we're at Pocono,

I'll think of it in a second, actually. I'll probably just look it up. Louis Prime Steakhouse? Louis Prime Steakhouse. There's it. So Louis Prime Steakhouse. Dad, that place has been there as far as, as long as I can remember. And I remember Dad always, if he was, when we went to race at Pocono, dad made a point that that was going to eat dinner there one night.

And so we, we, me and the NBC guys, and even back when I was racing, if when we go to Pocono, that was going to be a dinner spot one night. And when I would, I would usually stay in the bus. but then when Amy and I started dating and then when we got married we would rent a cabin or a cottage or a or in a duplex or whatever right

we would rent a space we would have TJ and maybe Mike Davis or Tyler Overstreet but we would have our we'd get our little group together and we're going to stay in a home instead of a bus

or a hotel It was so nice. And that was really only at Pocono that we did this. And so, you know, you get into town, go to the racetrack to practice that morning. And Amy would go and get groceries at the grocery store. We'd all meet back at this apartment or whatever after the race afternoon activities. And we were going to cook and we're going to go eat at the steakhouse. And it was just Pocono was always sort of a break from the norm of the motor coach lot.

and in that confinement of the bus or, you know, whatever it might be. And another thing that I always enjoyed was the paintball. We started a tradition with the Hendrick Cruise to go and play paintball. And we were always looking for, I was always interested in the building camaraderie, getting to know people better and trying to find ways to make that happen. It's hard to, it's hard for me to walk through the race shop and lock in on a name with a face, lock in on what this person's about, their home life, what's going on in their personal lives. But I can do that if we're, if we're in an activity.

Fun environment. Fun environment. So we would always do paintball because there were good blocks of time. after qualifying or whatever on a Friday or Saturday to go do something. And the guys, the teams, they would get excited about it. We ended up getting Chackenhouse and the 48 team to come be a part of that. And Jimmy came once. Is Jimmy good at paintball?

Yeah, no. He stands not very good. Well, I don't want to say that. I mean, nobody, none of us were great at paintball. I had my own, you know, equipment. And so I played, I had a course at mine. Were you good at paintball? I had a course at my house.

Okay. And so I like to play. I don't know that I was good at it, but I was, I enjoyed, I enjoyed just getting together and playing and, you know, afterwards, all of you get together and talking about the moments that you experienced during the match or whatever. And we have these pictures of us at these, at these courses. We'd get a big group shot. I have one of. I feel like I remember seeing. that's float around on social media.

It's like 30 of us. Yeah, yeah, there were a ton of people. Yes. And so, you know, sometimes another driver or another guy from a different team would come along. I remember Eric Amarola was there with us one time playing. Really? Yeah, so, I mean, other people would show up and want to get in on it. But that was Pocono.

That only happened at Pocono. And so I got a lot of great memories there. Some tough memories as well. Dad broke his collarbones at Pocono in a crash leading the race. and the tunnel turned in 79 or 80, flipped in 82 with Tim Richmond down in term one and broke his leg. So Pocono was scary to me, and then I started racing at it. I respected it. We've seen the crashes.

We've seen the cars go down into term one, losing brakes and all that stuff and plowing into that wall for forever. For as long as that track's been around, the massive, hard crashes that people have had there. So you've got to respect that racetrack, but I had great runs there. I really, really had a lot of good runs there. Right out of the gate had that great battle with Bobby Labani, almost won a race there early in my career, was able to finally get some wins there later in my career, but had a lot of second third place runs and fast cars.

I enjoyed as much as I will contradict myself about how we've always talked about how we hate shifting at the ovals, this new Knicks. next-gen car, shifting at the Oval's, oh, we hate that. That was the one track where you'd go and you'd shift, and it was okay. We never complained. We never thought, oh, this is stupid. Because you'd be down in three, right? We'd get down into term one and shift into third gear.

Yeah. You'd drop back into fourth coming out of term one toward the tunnel turn. And then eventually we started where we could shift into tunnel some and down in turn three as well. but the you know the shifting didn't feel we didn't hate shifting like we do now it's weird right

because you just did it there yeah right it was so big the speed differences are so dramatic and the noise that those gen 4 cars made at the end of the straightaway you're riding inside that car and it's your your shift

you shift into fourth gear screaming and you're like you're watching the tag and you're getting down the straightaway and you're like, how in the hell is this thing going to hold together? How is it not going to, how is it not breaking the valve springs just into pieces? I remember one year, and this is on YouTube as well,

Ryan Newman and Penske were doing some really innovative stuff with their engines, and Ryan, they're riding in the car with him, and I believe, I don't know, they were turning like a thousand, a lot more RPMs than anyone else. And he was either not shifting in the fourth on the front straightaway or maybe he was shifting and it was just turning more. But even Benny Parsons and those guys on the broadcast making, they're like, whoa, listen to this.

This is crazy. Like he's turning way more RPMs. His car sounds even different than anyone else. How is it going to live all day long, right? And boy, Brian Newman just confidently is just like hammering this motor all the way around the racetrack. But, you know, and I always felt even though that track had a lot of danger and my dad had some serious crashes there, I never really, once I got out there and started racing on it, I never really got to the end of the front straightaway at term one and felt scared. even though I knew we're going over, you know, I don't know, 190 miles an hour easily, heading into, you know, heading head on into the turn,

what would be a head on shot into the wall. It never crossed my mind, you know, just, I don't know. It was a, the tunnel turn is probably one of the toughest corners to do correctly in the whole season. And now as the bumps get worse over the tunnels, it gets more and more challenging. It's just a, you head off down that straightaway. I remember every single lap that I ever ran at Pocono. Every single lap that I ever ran there,

I'd come off of turn one and go, you know, here we go. Gonna go through this tunnel again. And you never went through there and went, damn right, that was a perfect corner. You went through there and went, Jesus just merely made it. Hucker factor was all the way up.

Because you'd get to the end where you're going to lift and when you turn into the tunnel, nothing about that feels comfortable. The back's light. You just have to believe that the car can do it. Yeah, and you're going to go across the bumps. What is that going to do? You don't know whether you're going to lose a nose or the back.

Something's going to move. and then you've got to hammer the gas and commit to the gas and hope the back doesn't swing like the five spun in practice right larston spins in practice off the time you you're like you've got to hammer the gas and you're like it's just commitment you're committing without knowing right and so you jump in the gas and you're like okay we're going to make it this time and you just never know what you know what you're going to get going in that corner it's like you know it's kind of like the fear factor where they're blindfolded and feeling around in those cases and they don't know what they're touching and what's in that case, right? They got to stick their hand in there and there

might be tarantulas or snakes or whatever. You just have to do it. You're doing that every time you go into the tunnel turn. You have no clue how this is going to go. And I've never went through there and went, boy, nobody did it better. That was perfect. Yeah. Now turn three was a blast. long, long sweeper and you could overdrive it and you could underdrive it, you could move around your throttle points in turn three and have a lot of fun with that, trying to basically make

this front straightaway as long as possible. But just a really fun track. I mean, I do feel a little bit of envy watching them compete there this weekend. Summer is finally here and when I'm thinking of summer plans, it's hanging out by the pool, barbecuing on the grill and best of all sports. From NASCAR races to baseball games,

there's nothing like kicking back and catching a game with some buddies or the family. Fan duel helps me keep up with the latest action in sports, and all I have to do is open the app and make up any of the bets I'm in the mood for. This weekend, NASCAR returns to Indianapolis for the Brickyard 400. Tune in to Dirty Mo Doe as they evaluate

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Wage of requirements apply. Bonuses awarded as non-withdrawable bonus bets or profit boost tokens. restrictions apply including bonus expiration see terms and conditions at fanduil.com slash sportsbook gambling problem call 877 718 5543 or visit more than a game.nc.gov is turned to at Pocono the scariest corner to go through in NASCAR you know it's from I don't know that's a that is a really good question and I think that should be a question that you take to to the racetrack Andrew what is the one turn that has your respect. Right. Right. And you could reference the tunnel turn and say like, hey, I'm going to lead you a little bit. An example might be the tunnel turn. Another corner that

equally similar, eerily similar almost, is turn one at Indy. I was thinking that. Yeah. So, because it's kind of the same angles. So fast. Like you're coming up. not like a fast front straightaway into a 90-degree turn. You never go through there and go, yep, nailed it. The car just does, I mean, I don't know how the next gym will do there. I can't wait to watch that race it in. I'm excited about them going back to the Oval, and I think we all should be looking forward to that.

I think we should be, you know, apprehensive or not apprehensive, but maybe, you know, temper our expectations in terms of what race we're going to see because it is the Indy Oval. know it's one groove. It's not like we're going to see them going around there four or five wide through the corners. There's one way through it. But still, that's such a historic oval.

We should be racing on that oval. But you would go down the frustration straightaway, wide open, fly underneath the flagstand. And just past the flagstand, you're going to start thinking about lifting and where you're going to lift. You would lift off the – I always pushed there. I always was tight in turn one and two. You'd lift off the galley. the car starts to tighten up a little bit and it's like okay I'm going to commit to the gas and if I committed too soon I'm going to get tight on exit and lose speed they're going to run

over me going into turn two I'm going to it's going to cost me all the way down the back straight away so if you messed up term one you weren't able to be recovered until you got to turn three and so you you couldn't mess it up because it was half a lap before you would actually net that kills even out, right? Kills your lap. Yeah, guys just

kills your lap either in qualifying or lap in practice. It's so frustrating. It's a hard corner. It's not as scary because it doesn't have tunnel bumps

and things like that that are going to throw you one way or another. But it is a hard corner. The weird thing about Indy is when you look at that track from the air,

you would think that what you experience in term one would be identical to what you would experience in turn three. It don't even feel like the same circumference. The corner, turn one, and I don't know whether it's because of the grandstands and there's just no wind on the car getting into turn one, or maybe it's the traditional direction of the wind

and how it goes across this racetrack. But I always fought tight and as you got to turn two, the car turned a little better, a little better in three, and loose in four. Every lap I ever ran there, 99% of the time, bizarre. That's the balance of the car. It was always going to be freer in each corner. And that made me feel like the circumference was tighter in one.

And it was a little less tight, like actual the bend of the corner. If you look at it from Google, they look identical. Turn 1 and turn 3, turn 2 and turn 4, they mimic each other perfectly. But as you're driving them, you know, the balance of the car was completely different in turn 1 versus turn 3. Turn 3 was a much easier and a better handling corner. The car just turned better, more front grip. You felt like you were going to make, you felt like you were making more time running through there faster. You had to use a lot more break in turn one to keep the car from pushing

that you didn't never use in turn three. You could look at it on the telemetry and see that you drove the car differently in those two corners that look identical. But anyhow, Pocono, a lot of fun. I was envious. I can't wait. I think I'm going back there next year. I guess we should, you know, we talked about the race.

Blaney just kind of, you know, I want to race there. They showed this actually during the broadcast how Steve Littart was trying, you know, I guess they were using this as a way to explain how you huge strategy in pit early and pit late and things like that and cycle in front of people.

As you're going green flag racing and everybody has to come to pit road, you can find a way to either be adding less fuel on the later stop to be able to leapfrog some people which Denny talked about it. He was racing for the state. points the 12 of Blaney was racing for the win and so the way their

strategy worked out Blaney ends up netting out and being in front of the 11 when it all came down to the end and that you know that track position has always been important I mean if you've got two relatively equal cars one won't be able to pass the other at the end of that race no matter who's in second and no matter who's driving it when Brackzalowski got the

he's going to win the race he's got debris on his grill he has to go up behind Danica Patrick to get that debris off or his car's going to blow a motor I go by and now I'm in the lead and he can't pass me

because even though his car's just a tick better it's just not good enough to overcome the arrow deficiency of running second at a place like Pocono which is very similar to Andy single five it's relatively a single groove

I mean there's some you know they do run the middle of one and two the middle of turn three, but for the most part, there's really kind of one way around. You can dirty up there pretty good for the guy behind you. This was kind of the case at the end of this race where whoever ends up, you know, being out front late is going to win this race. And that's what happens with Blaney.

Good job by that team to use that strategy and put themselves in that position. Denny and them said they were racing for the stage points. And that was the strategy that, you know, Chris Gaybart committed to. Yes. and so, you know, would you, how many bonus points do you get for winning the race? It's five versus the one that Denny got. But, and I think the broadcast mentioned this,

it was a good point. Denny's also racing for the regular season championship. Well, we'll see how it all nets out. I think, you know, it's not a mistake by Denny and those guys. I mean, they were in second. They could have done, they could have, you know, things could have worked out to where they had, they got the stage points they were trying to commit to,

and win the race. I don't think it's a one or the other. Is that immediate, like, oh, the stage wins right in front of us. We're going to take it because it's there. It's really tempting. Yeah. And they should, right? Because what if you give up that and then somehow or another, you know, still lose

you have a little mistake on a pit stop or something late in the race and you lose one or two spots, you run second or third in the race, and you don't get nothing. So it's not a bad choice by those guys. just didn't work out. The biggest, well, there were a couple stories. Bubba Wallace, as we know, was fine $50,000 for putting Alex Bowman into the wall on a cool-down lap at Chicago.

He says the penalty was probably the best thing that's happened to him. What do you think that means? Interesting. Yeah, and he went on to say, I've been miserable for years, walking around with a persona that I'm not proud of. I need to apologize to a lot of people, especially, that are close to me. What? Man.

So just a wake-up call? He was brutally honest in his media availability. You know, what do you think of that? Well, so Bubba has shared with us here in this room and everyone else his challenges with his emotions, right, and his mental state of mind, right? And I appreciate him being open about that, you know. we all have those we all

probably have more mental challenges and battles going on than we like to admit but he's been open about that and I think that's probably it seems like it seems like

Bubba definitely does dwell on certain instances like this and you know maybe maybe makes it a bit larger in his own mind than it is to the rest of us, right? And I can relate to that.

My wife and I talk about that a lot, and I have, I have that same potential. And so like something happens, we get into an argument, and I think the worst case scenario, right? And she's like, hey, that, that was just an argument. That's all that was. and I will carry it around thinking that, man, we're in trouble. Yeah.

We're in big trouble. And days go by where I feel like that I'm, you know, we're at odds. And she's like, yeah, that's, I'm not feeling that. I'm not thinking that. You need to not get so, you know, spun out, spiral out of, you know, spiral down this, you know, hole. And so I think Bubba is similar. Whereas, you know, he feels like all eyes are on him. for better or worse, when he succeeds or fails,

he feels like he's under a microscope, and then when he gets this fine, and as everybody's going to do, they're going to cover it, the media is going to cover it, he feels the way to that, and he goes home and he analyzes himself and does a lot of reflecting, and I think a lot of times your default is to,

I'll just take all the blame. I'll just take it on me. I'll change. I'll adjust. It's my fault. I can do, I can do, I can do, I could have done this differently. I could have done this better. And there's some guilt.

There's all kinds of emotions going on in there. And so, you know, I, I would say, I would, I might say to Bubba, man, it wasn't that big of a deal. Even Bowman said it wasn't that big of a deal. Yeah, I would just say to Bubba, hey, I can understand the emotion. You ran into him. A lot of us didn't think it should have been a fine. It was a massive, I mean, I thought 50 gram was excessive.

It's a lot for that. Excessive. I don't know. I mean, NASCAR has their reasons. I don't know what they were. But that, I was surprised by that. That was a large fine. But, hey, put it in a rearview mirror.

Don't think of it. Yeah, make the personal adjustments, but don't have another thought about it, right? Maybe in the situation next time he does it differently, great. But otherwise, you know, I think it's not that big of an issue. But that was interesting to hear. I didn't expect that out of him to come. come in there and say that is the best thing that's probably happened to him. It was definitely, I think it took all the media by surprise too.

I can, I wonder, you know, I kind of, I guess is he saying that it was a wake-up call? I think so. That he needed, it's kind of like a, hey, a little kick in the rear. Yeah. And I think we can all appreciate when we have those moments where we get a bit of a reality check. You get a, you know, something happens in your relationship or something happens in your professional life where you're, you know, you can kind of see that things more clearly and, I don't know.

Does any of that, you know, is any of this kind of perspective of his, I know he's about to become a dad, does that change anything a little bit of like how you kind of perceive yourself? Just makes you more emotional. Gotcha. I think. being a dad makes you

more your emotions more volatile maybe so do you think he's trying to rein that in like he's feeling these things I just think this has always been Bubba the Bubba's always been sort of worn his heart on his sleeve

yeah Bubba's always he's always been he's always been emotional he's always been you know always kind of been this way I know that he's also in a very challenging position in the points right now

that doesn't help things At least he didn't take a points hit from this Yeah yeah But I mean What this you know That is a very He is living his racing career On that bubble

Hasn't he been in this position pretty much every year Seems like he's always that 16th 17th 18th He's one of the two two or three guys that are sitting there going, I won't know my fate until we get to this final points race. There's no relief from that stress. That is a very,

Kenny Wallace, Mark Martin, all those guys talked about this week. They got in a conversation on social media about how it is harder to run 25th than it was to run top 10. All of that is the same conversation in my eyes. So Bubba Wallace now, I admit he runs better than that, but still he's living that hard, stressful, professional life as a very volatile, you know, peaks and valleys, emotional kind of guy. Yeah, he's having a kid.

A lot going on. A lot of things to be excited about. But those things too, also, those things that you're also excited about also can stress you, you worry about their success, you know, your personal and your professional. and so a lot going on and you know I think that's where this is all coming from

let's talk about Corey LaJoy and Kyle Busch you know lots been made about Cobbush's miserable season I think I saw a stat where he's wrecked you know in the last seven races it's not been a good stretch

been a bad stretch he seems his interview he just seems so over it I'd have never worked with Kyle I don't know what he is physically like and how, but I have heard that the guy is hands-on. He's not, Kyle Bush, I don't believe, is at fault because he's not plugged in,

not available, not accountable. We know he's talented, we know he can drive. Also believe that he's likely doing all of the things off the track, right, that a driver's responsible for, and maybe even more trying to figure out how they can get some momentum. He's full of opinions. I think if I could imagine what it might be like to be his teammate, I believe that he would be very vocal about things that he thinks they can do to get better.

A lot of times, I say that because a lot of times when a driver gets in this situation, they disappear, they go off and they hide or they go to a comfortable place. they feel they distance themselves and it creates a bigger problem right and so man it is when you run like

it is freaking hard to go into that shop you're embarrassed you're ashamed you don't know whether the team is believing in you or they've lost belief you don't know you don't know the next time you walk into that shop whether the shop's going to still be believing in you or have they finally quit believing in you, right?

And so that's hard to go into the shop after all this struggle, and I believe that he's very confident in himself, and he's still engaged, he's still plugged in. So I feel it's unfortunate, but I feel that the pressure is on RCR. And I will say this, man, I don't know. they are in welcome North Carolina. It's literally just another hour up the road. It is not that far,

but it might as well be on Mars. Because it's like, you know, when you get an opportunity to hire somebody that has a lot of talent, one of the tougher selling points is that travel every day up the road. If you got people that live in Moorsville, live on the lake, live in Cornelius,

live in Davidson. They're established. They've got kids going to school here. Their wives love the area. They got friends in the neighborhood. And then you're going to ask them to try to drive to welcome every day, every day of the week and go to, and the traveling on the race weekends.

It's going to be hard. Which is, you know, hey, Furniture Road did it, but I mean, they were in Denver. Yeah, it's completely. It's a little different. Like, that's like lifestyle, you know, You're moving out of the state, which is impressive. But that's always been the challenge in my eyes for RCR.

It wasn't really about, I think the challenge for RCR really is about getting people to come to welcome and make that commitment to drive that drive or physically move there. some do they got employees they got great employees but they're they're you know if you're missing a couple you know key cogs in the wheel you're just always going to be just that little bit off and that's where they are they're that little bit off they're not they're not crap they're just missing that extra little bit that they need and that i don't know if they can find it in the bucket they have, right? They have to get some more people in this bucket and getting them up there. I don't know, man. I'm, I am making assumptions. This is just my opinion. I haven't talked to anybody over there. I'm sure that they think they, I'm sure that they would hear this and go,

we know what our problem is. We know what we need to do. We've got a plan and we're going to fix it. And so, you know, we'll just have to see. Can, you know, can Kyle keep his composure? keep his patience, weather the storm, you know, he's got a lot of season left. He's frustrated. So far,

he's been able to keep it composed during these post-race interviews and some of the tougher challenging moments are those post-race interviews because you want to fire off. You want to let them have it. You want to let somebody have it.

You want to just raise help, you know, you're pissed. So we'll see, you know, if he can kind of keep it together. And, you know, I think at this, he's going to have a better chance at this age and at this point in his life and career. He also has a lot of the things going on in his life to keep him positive. You know, he's enjoying Brexton and all the things happening with the racing there and his new

sort of love for racing dirt and micros. and all that stuff. Those are good things for him, sort of at least find some enjoyment. How do you view, you know, tying back to Pocono, the crash? The crash. Yeah.

You know, I saw some people comparing it to me and Vickers on the back straightaway at Daytona. If there was a double white line that Corey was refusing to go below, I would agree. but Corey had a little more racetrack down there and he just said I'm not I'm not going to go there after some reflection Corey has

dialed back his feelings about the crash feeling a little more remorseful I think he was definitely remorseful about tearing up all his race cars on Sunday in his post-race interview but since then I feel like that he's kind of felt like he bears the responsibility of turning Kyle Kyle

Hammers the rev chip and you know that's the second shot that the seven gives him and so if Kyle doesn't get into the rev chip maybe that doesn't

maybe none of that happens but that's not you know Kyle's fault so is it just a racing deal then everyone's pointing the finger at Corey and Joy no I think it's Corey's fault still Corey's fault yeah so

okay this is a I was driving down the road in my pickup truck okay and so 16 years old my friends behind me now I'm gonna

I'm gonna tell y'all that was a thing I did I reached down pulled the parking brake handle right so that the parking brake would release and then I slammed

on the parking brake and locked up the rear tires on my truck and slid my truck and then off the parking brake and it rolls on, right? My buddy ran in the back of me in his little hatchback and tore his hood up.

We pull over. I'm like, dude, I'm sorry. That was an asshole thing of me to do. You know, I didn't think he's going to run into me, but he wasn't, you know, he obviously doesn't think somebody's going to slam on brakes in front of me.

I have, pull over, here comes police. I'm, you know, whatever, happens happens right we tell them what goes down the guy says hey it's not your fault it's a car following behind you and so i mean it's cori's the one in control here cori's the one that can control whether this happens or it doesn't happen and cori let it happen he could have done some he could have not done that i have to put it on corey um you know i you know it just I don't look, I don't, I look at it a little differently than what I did to Vickers, man.

Vickers was blocking me below the line to, and we're racing for the lucky dog, and he knew it. And he thought, if I just pull over, it can't go around me because it's this yellow line right here. And he'll just have to lift and back up. I was like, the hell I am. I'm not doing that. You're, you're really, you're the, you're the, you're the, you're the, you're the, this scenario. And so, you know, people still, people still want to say that's my fault. I shouldn't, you know, yeah, I could have not.

turned him in front of the field and wrecked all the, wrecked all the, basically all the field. I could have not done that, but then every time I want to go around, Vickers, he's just going to block me to the, to the, to the L.A. knowing I'm going to lift.

I don't know. Corey, on this, on this situation, Corey's got a corner he's entering that he's got to make. He's on the, he's, his entry to the corner is so shallow. I don't think

they're going to make, any gains down here in this turn entering as shallow as he is. So I just think he's in a no-win situation. He's just got to say, hey, I got to get behind Kyle here and I guess got to follow him through this corner. Or he could try to go lower

and maybe, I don't know, but I think again, his shallow entry to term one, he's not going to have any momentum coming off of term one. It's a lose-lose for him. But it was funny because in my eyes I saw,

I saw the, one thing that I did say that was similar to me and Vickers was a switch flipped. Like he, you know, when Kyle blocked the first time,

he bumped him, and then he's like, I'm gonna do it. Yeah, do it again, I dare you, almost, you know. And I didn't even see Kyle

do a second block. Kyle just checked up on the red, and the seven popped him, and just hit him in the corner. But it was like, I don't know that Corey drove into him

or steered into him or was like I'm wrecking you but it was like I don't care if I'm wrecking you and I was that might have been the only similar thing

with me and Vickers because when I was coming back up the track I knew I was going to hit Vickers and I didn't care but I was getting back above the line that they said we couldn't race below

and if Vickers had put me down there and so if he suffered the consequences as I moved up, it was his own fault for being in that spot. And so I had that saying, maybe Corey, maybe Corey, he's had a tough year, a lot of criticism going his way about, you know, he's getting a lot of pressure because Josevar's performance is pretty good, right?

He's now got a teammate that's pushing him, challenging him. There are some rumblings in social media about Corey, right? there's this new crew chief coming in with Rodney Childers there's a bright you know there's a light at the end of the tunnel Michael McDowell next year yeah you know more competition within in-house so it's just I don't know those are stuff going that way those could be bad things if you listen to the media but if you you know if you

recall the joy you've got to look at those things those are positive things I'm going to get better because of Rodney I'm going to get better because of McDowell the 77 and Connor or Hosevar they're pushing me I'm being pushed that's good I had needed something to push me

and so anyhow he's under a lot of pressure and I think we might have we might see that was a moment where we're kind of seeing him feel that pressure yeah I saw a lot of people on social media giving him a really hard time

oh yeah I've been seeing it for a couple weeks I wanted to and you know some of that is deserved right like it's you know and I'm not a race car driver but I think that the results haven't been there like you said. He's had a tough year, right? But I want to give him a little bit of a benefit of the doubt on this. And I think that's going to go against the grain. But we've seen a couple of the top drivers make some mistakes this year.

I mean, Kyle Arson plows into one, takes Ross Chastain out up the track. Christopher Bell spins out on his own, takes himself out of a race. These cars are obviously hard to drive, right? The best in the field are having difficulties with them. This is a little bit of a different situation. But I think that there's a little bit more of a target on Corey right now because the results. aren't there. So hopefully next year, Rodney coming in,

even before the end of this year, getting some things figured out. Well, I think that we gave Corey a pass, and rightfully so, because we never really knew what the equipment was like that he was driving. And fair enough, you know, he's drove for teams that just

didn't perform. But now with Hosevar, it's bringing the heat, because Hosevar's going out there and running well and showing, all right, you know, maybe host of our doesn't always get the result but he gets the car where it's capable of finishing right he'll get it up there in the top 20 top 15 and you're like well that car can do that and so corey's car should and can be able to do that and so now you're like all right Corey uh trying to put up or

shut up and and so there's some pressure there and it's not it's not a it's not a comfortable comfortable thing but you know Corey can turn that into a positive believe it or not I mean if you're core of joy you have to have to believe that you have to feel like that you're going to figure this out. And yes, you could wait until Rodney gets here, but you need to start showing some glimpses like what we're seeing out of Hosevar, right? Hosevar is giving us those glimpses of like, man, when that team, you know, starts hitting on all cylinders,

they're going to get the results that we think they're capable of getting. But Corey, I mean, there might be some. something else I'm not seeing but when I watch the race I just don't see Corey even mid race right getting getting the car moving the car forward right it's just all he's always kind of mired in that 20 to 30th position and there's no you know that I don't and that's not an all Corey thing I think it might you know I think Rodney's going to help and can can the can the public be patient and see how that nets out when Rodney gets on the box there's definitely I mean, I don't think we're expecting instant results,

but DBC was saying that Corey with Rodney should be rivaling a playoff spot next year. You think? That's, I mean... That's too much, man. You think that's too much on a first year? Spire! We're talking about Spire, y'all.

Spire is a... So what's realistic for them? Dude, I want to give Spire all the credit in the world. They are doing some great, great things. But damn, I am so amazed at how short our freaking memories are. This team was, you know, racing on, I mean, just a couple years ago running on old tires and not, you know, having to, you know, Corey's driving the car and having to race runs on scuffs and old tires and finish races, you know, not just, you know, they're budgeting for 28th, like a, average finish of 28th every year,

just enough to stay in that, you know, keep that charter they got. And boy, they were, they were bartering and trading and, you know, fiddling and whittling with deals to make, you know, charters exist and be able to go to the racetrack. To say, look, I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm not saying a Spirecar can't get a playoff spot. You said Corey would make the playoffs this year.

I did? I thought he's going to get a win. I thought he was going to have some fortune and get a win like in Atlanta somewhere like that. But man, it's just he's not performed as well as I think he has in years past. You remember when I'm almost winning Atlanta when he's blocking Chase Elliott and all that? Yeah. You know, their performance just kind of tailed off a little bit on the seven.

But yeah, I don't know. I think we're asking too much to think that they can, you know, Rodney's going to jump in there. Oh, man, they're going to be 14th, 15th, 16th, and the points next year, battling right around that bubble like, you know, Bobba Wallace and the rest of those guys. I don't think that they'll be quite there yet. Now, I think 20th in points is the goal. 20th. And best spire car, would you say?

Yes. Best spire car. But they're both going to be neck and nick. But I think that they, you know, with Rodney, they'll be a, this is the tough part. Like, Corey can look at the way Hosevar's running and go, oh man, this sucks. So much pressure.

Or he could look at it and go, they're pushing us. That's good. I need that kick in the ass. Same thing with Rob. I know he's excited, but with Rodney. It's going to be a challenge. I know he's excited, right? It's like, oh man, I hope my cars drive better.

I hope they do things better. But damn, what if they don't? Does he have a little bit of that in his mind, in the back of his mind going, what if we don't run any different? Like you definitely have to run better with Rodney, right? If you don't run any different with Rodney, anybody going to be looking at Rodney?

I've been in that position. You know, Steve LaTartre was kind of my last result. This might be a similar situation with Corey. And, you know, if it doesn't work out with Rodney, you know, where do you go from there? But you can't look at it like that, Corey. You can't. If you're Corey, you can't. You got to go, these things are good for me.

These things are what I need. I'm, you know, I'm going to use them to my advantage. Not going to make things harder and worse for me. So I saw Freddie. I love Freddie. On door door clear, he said, you know, they penalized the rigs kid. Right, yeah. I think it was a two-lap in race penalty or something like that.

In race, yeah, that's the difference, I think. Was that a cup race? No. No. Was that a cup race. Yeah. Yeah. Do they run the same booth in the cup and the truck race?

Are they the same people, same race director? Do you think it comes down to that? Like, it's the race director making those calls? Or do you think it's a truck series, those drivers? don't have as much experience. If you're, there's a, that's some good, that's some good points. If you're, if you're, if you, if there's a different group of people upstairs in the booth, those, those knee jerk reactions, those quick response reactions, like an in-race penalty for rough

driving, right, a judgment penalty, it ain't, this ain't a pit road mistake that's obvious that you got a camera and you see it. this is hey was that rough driving do we need to step in if you got an entirely different group of people they're going to look at it and choose differently we got to stop that i am we we got to quit comparing how they officiate a truck race versus exfinity or cup let's just look at the let's just stop that okay look at you you only you only could compare truck to truck Let's look at the Cup series, and what have they done there in the past? What would we be able to compare this to say, okay, here's the precedent.

Because we can't look at in the truck series and what they did with Riggs. That's a different series, a different group of people managing that series. To your point, Andrew, younger kids that need some lessons, need some hard lessons, some tough love. This Cup series is the veterans. that are, you know, no better. And they aren't, and we're not worried about Cory Lejoy not getting the message and going and doing this next week. It's not what he's going to do. Right?

But you got to send that message to them young kids because you don't know. Right. So I don't want to, I don't think we should compare truck to Xfinity or a cup and try to make sense of it. what have they done in the or the Cup series that's a similar situation I don't think there's a precedent of them penalizing drivers

for something like this under green at least under green I think the tough part about these that's another problem that I have is what?

That it just since it got more attention that's what I feel like this Bubba Wallace situation at Chicago because there's the leaders on TV it was this got more of a this got more attention than chase and yes chase's deal was not as egregious um but like you know everybody's saying and i'm gonna catch so much this but damn it's what i chose don't and clip this

that's what i chose so all right let me ask you question they're saying you know Bubba hits Alex and Alex hits the wall. Okay. You know, we are at a road, we ought to a street course. You know, there's freaking walls everywhere. That ought to, that ought to kind of be in consideration here.

But he had his winning it down, his belts off or his belts loose. Wait a minute. I'm driving around a racetrack with my belts off? This is a cool down lap. No, shit. But like... Do you f***ing under your belts when you're cooling down when you're driving?

Do you do you pull in the driveway and just pop that belt and just cruise on up to the garage? I mean, I... Are you... Once you turn onto your road, getting ready to get close to... Hey, I'm close to the house, man. Home free... This is the exact same argument that Brett had on DBC. I'm sorry.

I don't want to be like Brett, but let me tell you something. That ain't freak Bubba's responsibility. That ain't. all right and so you can't slap you know can't smack bubba's hand for bowman having his belts loose now you could go to you could go to bubby and say hey man you know next time he might have his belts loose let's not do that but i'd go to bowman and go what the hell do you have your belts loose for if if that's even true that's hearsay i'm not even sure i mean hearing people say that he has winning it down his belts loose or his belts off.

I just can't even believe that he would have that on a cool down lap. He's still in the car moving. I feel like a lot of drivers do that though. No, they don't. Nobody unbuckles before they come to a complete stop in the pits to get the hell out. You're a complete

moron if you undo your belts in a moving race car at any point. A complete idiot. That is, you've got to stop it. You've got to fucking admit that. You're a dumb ass if you f*** under your belts in a moving car. 100%.

Yeah, I think it's not a good idea. But I don't even think he completely took his belts off. He just loosened him. Is that, I mean, that's a difference, right? It's dangerous. It's dangerous. If Bubba's move was enough, seatbelt or not, harness or not, enough to get a penalty, then NASCAR made that decision.

We all sat here, I sat here and said, 15, 20, 25 grand, maybe. And so this all comes from Tim's chiming in and saying they're going to take a look at it because it's got some attention. That's a quote, too. What does that even mean? Direct quote. That's what Denny said about Bubba's thing. He said,

if it wasn't plaster all over social media, it doesn't get a penalty. That ain't okay, man. We can't govern... What do you even call that? That's got... There's got to be a good... Social justice almost, kind of... It's reactionary, not actionary. we can't make we can't decide oh man this has gotten some traction this went viral that's a reason for us to take a deeper dive it's a weird way to officiate yeah thank you you're welcome yeah and it just seems like what are they willing to listen to there does it just this or when people complain about the short track package

oh but we're just going to keep doing error you know like it's what are you willing to listen to then if if you're going off of social media being a litmus test for what you're making decisions on. Where do you draw the line? Yeah, that's a bigger issue. This says more about how uneventful the race was more than anything. I mean, this was the only real thing that we can talk about as media this week is that incident. Because really, outside of that, there was nothing that even came close to measuring up, right? So I'm sorry, Corey.

that this race was a long strategy race and not that exciting. And now you've done something that's the only thing in the spotlight. And I just feel like that if you didn't do it in the moment, but we talked about this with a penalty recently, is like, hey, you either do it then or you don't do it at all. There was something, I think it was Hosevo. It was Hosevar. I was like, you got to get him in that moment.

because he got penalized Wednesday a couple points, right? And the biggest thing is just looking at, and I know you were talking about, well, then I hate SMT, but that's a big, they have so much data to look at. They want to make sure it's the right call,

even if it's delayed. But it looks like we have Ryan Blaney. Congratulations on your win this past weekend at Pocono. It's funny, I was talking about this a couple weeks ago, how no matter, you know, You'll be a, you know, Xfinity driver, truck driver, cup driver, whatever it is. Wherever you get lucky enough to get that first win, it's really not a, it's not a, it's not your choice. It just kind of happens, right?

You happen to win at Pocono for the Wood Brothers. And now, for the rest of your career, like it or not, you're just always going to be good at Pocono. Like I won at Texas, and every time I went there, it just felt like, I'm going to be good here. I don't care what happens. And you'll see drivers that win at certain tracks, when their first race is there, they just always seem to do well. Do you feel like Pocono is that place for you? Do you go there and be like, I know how to get around here.

I know this place. I know what I need. Yeah, it's a weird mindset shift. You know, like where you have special tracks to you that you get your first win at and whether it's, you know, like I got my first truck win at Iowa, so Iowa's always special. I got my first X-Finity win at Kentucky, so that place was always special when we ran there, and then Pocono with the Cup car,

that place has always been really special to me. So, yeah, I feel like it's just like a mindset shift. Like, man, I've won here, has a lot of cool memories. Let's try to relive those and do it again, and you just feel comfortable with that racetrack. And, yeah, I feel like Pocono is just kind of one of those tracks for me that I do really feel comfortable at, and you feel like you have a decent idea of how to get around it.

where are you i'm in my house what's that over your left shoulder oh i got uh i got some old programs that's awesome i love that all right is that is that are you is that the door to the pooper is that your pooper no that's the pantry okay i'm like because that's what that's the kind of stuff i got in my bathroom man you're going to my bathroom you're going to read some old racing programs i got i got some It's that way. There's a lot of old racing programs in there. But yeah, this is 1994 issue of the Talladega Super Speedway race. Yeah, every time I open them things up, man, I learn something new.

Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, it's cool. So what else is going on in your personal life? I know you went to the Espies. You enjoy that? Yeah, yeah. You know, last week was probably one of the more busier weeks I've had in a while. You know, went to New York, did the Today Show.

which was neat. I was just there, you know, in January, and those folks are great. And then Gianna and I went out to L.A. to go to the Espe's, and I presented an award. And I was nominated for an award that I did not win. But it was cool. You know, like, I feel like athletes, no matter what sport you're in, like you appreciate other athletes, because you know how hard it is to be good at what you do at a sporting level. So there's a lot of athletes and coaches out there that I really enjoyed.

you know, kind of following and watching and been a fan of for a while or new fans of, you know, athletes that are younger. So that was, that was really, really neat. And then we did a little kind of panel talk the next morning, kind of about the Netflix show and a lot of other neat things in NASCAR. And then I flew to Philadelphia and got in the racetrack about 1 a.m. on Saturday morning. So it was a long week, but it was all worth it, that's for sure. Yeah, you're one of those guys. We talked about it.

You're one of those guys that's, you know, always active and actively out, you know, representing yourself well, but also the sport and a NASCAR, you're, you know, when you get opportunities to do any kind of work in sitcom or, you know, go do the Today Show to take a trip to New York. Those are big commitments and take an entire day. to fly up there and do 30 minutes on or 20 minutes on the Today Show is a full day. And so I don't, I think, you know, a lot of people probably don't appreciate that commitment and what you're doing in time you're taking away out of your own life.

You've got, you know, just a limited amount of free days to be able to choose to do what you want to do with your own time and adult. And you're getting, you know, getting ready to be a husband and travel. down that road wherever that goes, which has got to be exciting. I'm excited for you. What has that been like? I want to ask you like, hey, you know, put you on the spot and ask you what's the biggest surprise about that change in your personal life, but I don't even know if you have an answer for that one. The wedding planning? Yeah. I think the biggest surprise to me is... How much stuff costs? This is my... Yeah, that's a big part of it.

It's my first time doing all that. So it's like, you know, it surprised me of just how much goes into it. It's almost like I feel like what a race team goes through of like preparing for the van, preparing for a race. There's so much that goes into it. And you're just thrust into it. But John and I have tried to like really not get too spun out about anything, just like taking it as it comes and enjoying picking out little things that you want. And the cost side to me, right?

It's like there's a number there. All right, here's what you want to spend. You're going to spend more than that. It's just how it goes. But like, don't worry about it. Just do what you guys want to do, do what we want to do, and make it memorable for the two of us, make it memorable for the family that's there.

And just have fun with it. And so it's been great work with her. We have a great wedding planner that's really helped us out a lot, like with the load. So that part's been nice. and so yeah, it's been fun. We're excited. The days are closing in very rapidly to that time, but it'll be fun.

It's been a fun process, and I'm excited to when it's finally, like, arrived and here, and we can just enjoy the experience. Yeah, that's going to be something else, man. Do you know what you're going to do for, you don't have to share, but do you know what you're going to do for your honeymoon? I do.

Yeah, we've talked about it. We kicked around a lot of ideas. You know, we want to do a trip, that is going to be a trip that like we wouldn't be able to do when you start having kids and stuff like that, you know. When you have young ones, you can't maybe travel halfway around the world to go visit these places that you've always wanted to visit, you know, when you were younger. So I think we got a good spot picked out of like, man, this is going to be a cool trip. I've always always wanted to go to this place. And it's like the perfect time to do it before we start, you know, having kids and pumping them out.

And, you know, so that's been fun. been fun to do and do some research on these places too has been neat. Yeah, man. You, you, that's another reason, I'm going back to it, man. That's another reason why you need to start that race team, in case you have little ones, you want to have, you want to have a, you want to have the team developed and everything kicking ass by time they're ready to get behind the wheel. Yeah, yeah, you know, people ask me like, oh, you know, if you have, you know, kids, you want to push them to race and want them to race and I'm like well you know obviously if they want to like I like to hope you know I'm still racing by the time they're kind of old enough to understand

what it's about and you know what what their dad does and if they want to race that's great I'll give them every opportunity to do what I did do what my dad and family did for a long time but if they don't want to do it I'm not going to push them to do something that maybe they're not interested in I'll fully support them and whatever else they want to do so I think that's just like, and then my dad did the same thing to me. You know, he always asked me at every opportunity he could, like before the next step. Like, are you sure you want to do this? You sure you want to commit to this recent thing?

And my answer was just always yes. You know, I just loved it. And I just want to do the same. I'd never push my kids to do something that they don't want to do because then you don't have, like, the full commitment, right? Yeah. They're kind of second guessing. So we'll see. Hope so.

But yeah, like you said, your, your, your, uh, pitch for the, the race team is becoming a little bit more realistic to me now. You're doing some good work. Hell yeah, buddy. Ray, it's fun, man. I mean, you get to, you kind of, it's fun because you get to cheer and get excited about a car competing without actually being behind the wheel. And I don't know, it's fun too to groom people and give people opportunities and try to

figure out how to make it win. You know, like you did with Josh Barry. Yeah. Right? Like you watched him grow. You watched him grow. him develop, do a great job on the late model scene, and now, you know, look at them. And like, that's got to be a really cool, fulfilling feeling for like an owner, like you,

right, of giving someone an opportunity and then watching it progress through their career and getting them to a level that they've always wanted to achieve. So, yeah, that's got to be pretty nice. You'd absolutely enjoy that. And I think our, you know, people like you, our world of stock car racing needs people like you and myself fielding these grassroots cars, right? There's not a ton of people out there that can really, it gets less affordable and challenging. And I think, you know, there's plenty of people that want to put a cup car, an extended car,

a truck car out on the racetrack. And I enjoy that as well. But we need people like you that are out there putting the grassroots programs together to give those, you know, the next Josh Barry and an opportunity. And I'm sure we'll be excited if you ever choose to do that. man, I don't want to keep you too much more. I appreciate you giving us some time today. I know you're busy.

Thank you for calling in. Great conversation, great catching up, and I hope to see you soon. Awesome. Thanks for having me, guys. Hi, man. Talk to you. Always fun to talk to Ryan. Great dude. Hopefully he didn't hang up.

It says all good. All right, all right. So you got your download. Always fun talking to him, man. I just thank so much of him. Somebody, one of the, one of the girls that we walked with at Truex's Catwalk for a Calls text me the other day and asked me she was going to Indy and she said, I'm going to Indy, who should I pull for?

And I said, without hesitation, Blaney. I was like, you know, I always try to, you know, I try not to be too biased, man, but the guy, he's just a good dude. And I think he's, like I said, he's out there sort of representing our sport, going to these events, taking our sport to the SB's and making sure we have representation in some of these spaces and areas. And he's done sitcoms and all kinds of things. You know, he's on the Today Show talking about his foundation and his charitable

efforts with that. So always out there promoting and working, not just holding a steering wheel and driving the race car. We need, you know, he's a good example for a lot of the younger drivers too. coming in as to the legwork that's necessary and the legwork you're responsible for outside of just your driver responsibilities. You know, got to have guys that are eager to represent the sport and help grow the sport and introduce it to a new audience and new people, new fans.

He does a good job. We didn't talk much about the race. Hey, that's okay. I didn't really, I mean, you know, race was on a biffle outside the 7 and the 8 crash, right? ever right? Yeah, yeah, basically. I was good with what we talked about. Did you guys enjoy that?

Yeah. All right, so appreciate Blaney calling in. Let's touch on the Xfinity race quickly and, you know, pretty decent race for junior motorsports. Some, you know, we're still trying to work on, you know, getting some better results, but, you know, we've had worse races. Cole Custer gets a win. There was an interesting moment on pit road.

Chandler Smith goes down to San Marry. car gets in his window. And I'm like, hey, what the hell happened? You know, Sam, he can create some problems, right, for some people. He can upset some guys. And I'm thinking, damn, man, what the hell? Surely they're going to show a replay and Sam's going to be bumping into him or something. But apparently he just was on his door through the tunnel.

Meaning, basically, especially in the Xfinity car in the trucks, if you're on the outside and you're trying to make it really hard for the car on the inside to pass you. You get very, very close to them, and it takes all of their side force away, and they just can't get a hold of the racetrack. Their car gets loose, and they can't get in the throttle, and you can drive off the corner and drive back by them and reclaim the spot. And apparently, Chandler, you know,

was getting annoyed by Sam doing this over and over, going through the tunnel. At least that's what I remember him mentioning, that specific turn. And so, but I will say, man, you know, the tunnel turn is very narrow. And it wasn't until in the last 10 years that we even raced into that turn side by side. You know, for, for, you know, a lot of my career, when you were approaching the tunnel turn and someone was on your inside, they were going into that turn first.

Y'all were going to, you were going to lift, get in line. You didn't go through the tunnel turn on the outside groove. There was nothing there. It was dirt, debris, no grip. So it was foolish to try to drive in there on the outside of somebody because you would end up missing the corner and losing more spots on the next straightaway. But now they race through their side by side

because there's more grip, there's rubber, there's been some track treatment over the course of the last several years, different things that have added some grip and allowing them to now challenge each other side by side into the tunnel. But it's still narrow. and whether Sam wants to or is even trying to be on Chandler's door, he really don't have a choice. So I was a little, you know, I think Chandler overreacted a little bit there.

I think, you know, going up to his window and going, ah, you're running on my door in a tunnel turn. What the hell? I mean, it's a narrow corner. It's really not a corner that you go through side by side. So if a guy does go through there on your side, he's got to be tight to you. There's no second group.

to be honest with you. And so, I don't know. I think Chandler just, you know, chalk it up to a good hard racing. Next time you're on the outside of Sam in the tunnel turn, run on his door. You know? Or next time you're anywhere, run on Sam's door and give it back to him. But going up to him at the end of the race and complaining about that is unusual. Chandler said that this was like he's always had good running switch Sam.

up until this first one today or today. That's why it made me feel like it was a bit of an overreaction because it wasn't like here. They were always race clean like history. It wasn't like, oh, this has been happening for weeks. Damn it and I'm tired of it. I finally had enough. It was like, yeah, we race great. But today, a couple times through the tunnel to tone on my door,

I'm going to go up to him after the race and complain. I don't know. That's just racing, man. I mean, it's just racing. I will tell you when Sam screws up. I mean, he ran over the 37, he owned it. And Sam has made some mistakes. He's 21 years old, just figuring it out.

But I don't know. Big story in the, I don't know how big a story this is to some people. Be interesting. But I feel like it's dominating my timeline and everything that's happening in text messages that are coming my way. And that's NCAA football. Oh, yeah. Is back out, back again.

It's been, I don't know, 12 years, feels like it's been a long time, since NCAA football was available on Xbox or PlayStation, and it just came out, I think, a day or two ago. And, yeah, so I'm probably going to get it. Probably going to, I have an Xbox X. I haven't played it in a year. I haven't touched it. So I'm probably going to get back on a console for the first time in a while.

Who's your dynasty team? Who are you going to start one with? That's a great question. So since the last NCAA edition was out, you know, back then I was South Carolina or the Tar Heels. I'm not as big of a Gamecox fan these days. But now they have the 49ers, so local team, Charlotte. Oh, really? they're in the game? Yes. Holy care. Very cool. Yeah. That is cool. And so, yeah, I mean,

they're a college team. Why would they not be in the game, Andrew? I don't know. Andrew, you're like the American conference, right? I didn't know they were included. Okay. Andrew obviously is, it's very, uh, uh, on the fringes. Of you. It's very, yeah, you're on the fringes, man. If you don't, hey, I admittedly don't follow college football. There you go. Hanging on. That's, that's, that's there. That's what I'm trying to say. You don't know what the hell's going on. Okay. I know what's going on. See what in my face.

I will probably do a franchise with the 49ers. I hadn't thought about that. T.J. Majors, who was on the show here helping us last week, he will start a franchise of human owners and invite all his buddies. And so I'll pick a team and I'll probably be the 49ers. Yep. I think that's a good pick. Yeah.

It'll be fun. And I'll be in a conference. where I might not end up playing a lot of other human players. I don't like the, and this is getting in the weeds, and I'm sorry if you don't give a crap about this, that's fine. But we do. We do. I don't like playing other people on console video games.

Like only CPU. I don't like playing the, I don't love the idea, or I've never been comfortable with the idea of logging online and just randomly playing another stranger. Why? I don't like it. It's just like doesn't feel right to you. It feels weird.

I feel like if I play the computer, it's kind of too easy. I agree. You know, when we had our Madden League, we were on All Madden, so if you had to play the computer, it's relatively tough. If you didn't play properly, right? You could lose the momentum, which was a real thing in that game and probably is in NCAA football too. but anyways

I don't know man it's weird to me to play a complete stranger and that per I can hear them talking they're talking to me like I'm like I don't know man

because sometimes you turn like calms off like can't you could or is that just like a yeah and that helps I don't mind it in eye racing I mean everybody's a stranger in I racing

and I don't mind it as much but for some reason and I don't mind it in like red Hell let loose. Yeah, I don't mind it in Battlefield and all of those games either, but in a sports game one-on-one,

like a Madden, I've never liked playing a complete stranger. Isn't that weird? It's an inoffensive experience because they just pass the whole time. You can't have a balance offensive attack, I feel like. And then, you know, if you get your ass kicked,

then it feels even worse. Then you're like, who's this fucking loser beating up on, who is this guy? Yeah. You know? What's he done with his life? Even worse.

A loser. Even worse at the end. They're like, good game. And it's a 12-year-old kid. And you're like, oh, gosh. Yeah. Yeah, that's the realistic, you know, outcome is you just got beat by like a 12-year-old. And then if you're winning, you know, and you're doing well.

And then they're complaining telling you, well, you're only doing, you're only winning because you do this all the time. Or you're only winning because you run this same, you know, this play or, you know, it just is never, nobody. walk, I will say this. Win or lose. Win or lose. Nobody walks away going, no time ever to both people get up and go, oh man, I had a blast. Nobody. There was, when we were in the Madden League with T.J., again, every team had a human

owner. Brad Caslowski broke so many remotes. Oh, my God. Oh, he's one of those. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, man. He would be, he would be like third.

quarter, games out of reach, and all of a sudden, you know, he stops picking a play, or it's like he's like he's walked out of the room. It's because his controller's now busted, and he can't pick a play. I wouldn't have gotten to him. And Brad will be like, you're going to finish this one out, or, let me get another controller. How many controllers is he? I've shattered this one into a million pieces. My point of that is, and I can totally relate to Brad's emotion.

Oh, the rage. I have never, and I honestly feel like this is a legit statement. I'm not overstating this. I've never, to my knowledge, to my recollection, been more angry in my life than after a game of madden. And it might have been with a friend, someone I knew. Like the... Yeah. That too is the reason why I don't like playing Madden and playing another human

is because the anger that it can trigger inside of me is uncontrollable. I don't... It's scary. How do you... There's no calming... Yeah. I'm like, hey, I don't like who I'm becoming here. And so...

There's no way of calming down from it either. Like, it just sits. Yeah. Now, I have to say, I had a stretch where I won the Super Bowl three years in a row. Oh. I had this running back that I developed.

Great guy. Nick Hubbard was his name. A fantasy player, right? A made-up guy. That sounds like a great fantasy player. Nick Hubbard. Yeah, I was really, really good at building the team. So, you know, I was going to do,

if I was going to run the ball, I would install pre, before the snap, I would have the, The package is set up to where I had the right tight ends to get in there and do the best blocking, not the pass-catching tight-in. That's the number one guy on the depth chart. He's not in there. I got a guy that's off free agency that does nothing but block. He is not really even a tight-in.

He doesn't even belong on the team, but he blocks like a mug. So I'm coming up to the line of scrimmage, and I got like two tight-ins on the right side of the line, and one's a 78 overall and the other's an 81 overall probably, you know, wouldn't be on any other roster, but, you know, hike the ball and they knock the damn, you know, they knock the damn cornerbacks and the safety's on their ass. Damn straight.

And so Nick Hubbard, he's just chugging on down the field. Nick Hubbard was like an overall 68. Nobody, I mean, he's buried in the freaking free agency chart, right? But he had like 92 or 94 speed and pretty good burst. And so I got him and developed him to 98, 99 speed, 98, 99 burst, and then started developing his stiff arm and all these other things. And in about a two-year span, this guys are winning the Super Bowl. Rockstar!

Wow. MVP of the league. Unstoppable. A name I'll never forget. Nick Hubbard. We ought to get you a jersey. Yes, I do. A Hubbard jersey.

I need a Hubbard jersey. Wait, what team wasn't? I don't remember playing for that team. Washington. Washington, yeah. When did he play? Burgundy and gone. He never did. He never played for the thing, just on my Xbox. While TJ in the rest of the league was running the tight-in streak with a wide receiver in tight-in position,

which is unstoppable. Nick Hubbard was running up down the field, destroying fools. NCAA football is out. I'm excited about that. They ain't many things that would draw me back to a console. I'm a PC guy. I was on the game. I was on a PC last night playing some eye racing, and getting ready for a charitable event that we have this Wednesday for the MS Society that iRacing's doing. And so I'm on there all the time. If I got any time to play video games or simulation or whatever, I'm going to probably invest that time in iRacing. But I think this NCAA football is going to bring me back to the console for a little bit.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. And we're live here on the Dale Jr. download for the Ashtonior portion of the show, presented by Xfinity. Exfinity Mobile 5G coverage everywhere. Hot spots everywhere. Hey, you want to connect to that Xfinity hotspots? Say yeah.

We will sometimes find ourselves in a crunch trying to watch the game or whatever and you're never going to have any problems with Xfinity Mobile.

That's for sure. Hope that's clear. We've got some questions today. Andrew's here. Doughton's here. Everybody's here. Alex T.M. is here. He's back there.

And I hear these questions are amazing. These questions are fantastic. You told me we've got some amazing questions today. So here we go. This first one coming from Carl, you're running the Hampton Heat this weekend. Are you excited? Are you ready to go for that?

I'm worried about just how hot this Hampton heat race is going to be. Looking at the weather, it looks like we've got a little, you know, some rain in the forecast, nothing too crazy. I mean, it is near the coast, so you're going to kind of get those afternoon thunderstorms and so forth. but instead of like 95 and 98, which has been sort of the norm around here, I think we're going to get a little brief break into the 80s for this weekend. So I'm thankful for that.

Being in that car at 90 degrees, no matter how much fun driving a late model stocky is, it is not fun at 90 degrees. So anything above 90. So I wasn't looking forward to that part, but I'm excited 200 laps. I love the tire saving. I love the war out tracks.

It's got all of those markers. So I'm looking forward to it. And you're going Thursday, right? You're going early? I'm going to drive up there. Yeah, I'm driving. I'm going to drive my fifth wheel. That's a far drive, isn't it?

Six hours. Damn. Well, got to get there. Yeah. Yeah. Can't. That's a long road trip for me. I don't know what she wants me to do.

Sprout rings or float. Do you drive an hour, fly an hour. I don't know what you think I'm going to do. I'm going to drive up there so I can camp my camper. And I'm looking forward to it. And I'm, you know, it is a tough, it's like 37, 38 cars. It's going to be a very, very competitive field. I've never raced there before.

I expect to get my ass kicked in qualifying because I've just not figured out how to qualify this car and what it needs. But so probably going to, you know, probably temper my expectations. and qualifying, but when the race starts, it's up to me. And I'll have all the tools in the necessary car to get the job done. I just got to figure out how to drive it to the front. Tire management sounds like it would be fun. That gives me a break.

So I'm not a good qualifier. I never really was. I'm struggled in this car every, just about every time we've tried to run it or I've tried to race it. I've struggled to get time in the car and qualify well. And so at the tracks where you do got to, to be smart about your tires, I feel like it kind of gives me a break to be able to work around and through the field. And so when we go to a racetrack that is a lot of grip, not a lot of fall

off, man, you don't qualify good. You kind of have a hard time getting out of that whole entire day or the entire night. So this will be a track where there'll be a lot of patience and off throttle and taking care of your tires and being smart. And hopefully I can do a good job there. where I was going you know you got to be smart with tires you also have to be smart at tires at Richmond which is where this next question is come from Jerry

I think it was announced officially today NASCAR will try multiple tire compounds for a points paying race next month at Richmond what is your reaction to that? All right so we'll see how it goes it was really a non-factor in the Wilkesboro race

and we'll see how it goes at Richmond I'm not I'm not going to get all that excited about it. It's not what I was hoping, and be honest with you, when, you know, when Richmond, the last race we had at Richmond, we came into this room and we went hard about what the guy, you know, we better get this figured out or we're going to lose Richmond or a couple, at least a Richmond race, right? So I don't want to forget, I don't want to lose that energy of concern that we had because it was, very serious. I'm glad they're going to try something. Will this be a deal? Will this,

will this be a big deal? I mean, it wasn't really a big deal at Wilkesboro, and that's okay. Not going to hit it perfectly right out of the gate. Maybe they've made some adjustments and made a little bit broader gap between the hard tire and a soft tire to where it's a bigger difference in time or speed and where and so forth. And so we'll just see how. We'll just see how. how it goes. You know, I'm hoping that there's, you know, something that can improve the racing at Richmond and get it to where we, you know, it's the Richmond that we know and love. Do you think this is opening Pandora's box a little bit at all? Like, once you do this, you can't go back to just one tire. I don't know. I don't think so. I'm not too worried about that.

I hear what you're saying. Right. Maybe so. I don't think I'm not too worried about that. I mean, It's worth a shot. It's worth a try. Wilkesboro probably wasn't a great place to do that because it's a repave, you know, where we go to Richmond, it's very low grip, right? So maybe there'll be a bigger discrepancy between the soft and the hard tire that it'll actually bring it to a compelling point. So I'm hopeful for that.

But honestly, man, I mean, I know I've said it a million times, but I think that they somehow sealed or treated the track top to bottom and give it about a three or four year run without any more treatment. Just treat it once and just let it go. I think you'd probably see some things you liked. Something pretty cool on this YouTube chat. We have people tuning in from Poland and Brazil. That's pretty far away.

That's crazy, man. Yeah. So I will see sometimes on my Instagram, you know, some Brazil, some support from Brazil. Oh, and I'm like, yeah. Okay. There's a little bit of a NASCAR following there. Really? Daniel Suarez is going to race down there. There's a stock car class down there, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. Yep. He's going to go get, Daniel Suarez is going to get married in Brazil, and then I think race also the same weaker time or whatever it is. Yeah. Yeah.

Kind of interesting. Not many people can pull that off. No. Hey, honey, we're going to race. Right after we're getting married. Yeah, something like that. We're getting married and racing. It is in Brazil, so maybe that helps a little bit.

Daniel. Easier to sell. You're not living in reality, but we're. We got time for one more quick question. This one's coming from Richard. Did you see the Indy car wreck over this weekend in Iowa? It is. Just like, what was your reaction to that?

Didn't Rossi run out of fuel? Yeah, I think so. Yep. And people were saying that Stingray was avoidable. I mean, I don't know. There was a lot of criticism on his part, like how do you not avoid this? This was right after the race? I feel like, yeah, it was after the race.

I think they were coming. It was a cool down lap. I'm glad he wore his seatbelt. I think it was after the race, wasn't it? Or the last lap or something? Oh, it was last. Okay, okay, got you. Something like that.

Did you guys watch this? I watched all replays of it. I actually watched the whole race. I'm all on, I'm on an island over here. I'll save the day. Here, let me tell you this. You guys just go to sleep.

We just asked the YouTube chat, did anyone watch the IndyCar race this past weekend? So hopefully they can help with this. Okay. Yeah. Let point the mic toward the laptop. Okay. You know, I don't know.

Rossi runs out of gas. You know, he's sitting. It's, so, look, I know the Indy car goes flying in there and flips. It looks traumatic, right? It looks crazy. But y'all remember when, in NASCAR terms, this is basically just Stenhouse blowing up and Carl Edwards plowing through him and start finish line. I mean, nobody was going after Carl because he couldn't miss Stenhouse. Right, right.

Same thing. You know, I mean, Stingray has a funny name, so he's easy target here. but I don't know that I was like when I saw it my initial reaction wasn't like damn how did he run into him you know right I'm like well you hear on board it sounds like the car stars for fuel you know knows it's over

and of course Rossi did a good job didn't change didn't start driving around on the racetrack or go up or down and make himself even harder to miss but you know it gets run over A Florida man in the YouTube chat. I'm just, yeah, they watched it. Stephen Mann was there. What he's saying?

He's saying that it's an extremely fast track. Not a lot of things are avoidable at that. Yeah, I agree with that. I wouldn't give anybody a hard time. It's just an unfortunate situation that, you know, nobody's really to blame there. It was nice to see him give the thumbs up as he was getting voted in the ambulance. That was the one thing

that I was worried about so I see the wreck happen and I'm like, all right, that sucks that happened but I'm not like, oh, what a, you know, this guy's a dummy and this guy's, this guy's, you know, this guy's in the, I wasn't, I didn't have like an, you know, initial that's how I kind of decide whether, you know, if I have an initial reaction to it

and I didn't. But what I did think was, I don't think that the restraint, right, and the head restraint and all of that, the halo and all that. The halo and all that. Well, no, just, okay, so the driver is in there, his helmet is, there's a sort of foam-padded, you know, U-shaped thing that kind of goes down around their heads. But I don't know whether, I know that it's all probably scienceed out for, you know,

right-siding the thing at Indy and stuff like that, but is it, what kind of protection does he have in these, these type of hits, right, that are these, you know, very, very, uncommon hard landings, right? And that was what I was kind of worried about is like, you know, what kind of injuries might he get from, from this type of a flip where this car's hitting the ground in a very unnatural way in a really hard way as well. So I was a bit concerned about that. But so it's so good. I guess, you know, he's doing well. Yeah, I think they flew him to a hospital for precaution. It was just so far away. They had to do that. I think I saw that he walked out under his own power. They just wanted to be sure that he was okay.

You don't see any cars go up and there and then land hard like that, like clack, clack, clack, blam, blam. And I was a little worried about that part. But, yeah. All right, it's time for Dirty Mo Doe with Tim's here. Coming out of the Pocono race, I heard somebody today compliment you guys on your show. Apparently the last several weeks been quite entertaining. Yeah, it's some fun.

Yep. listeners are starting to pay attention, starting to get some numbers, man. Yeah. Dirty Mo Doe every Thursday is available on the Dirtymo Media feed, and it is a show about some of the best bets to make, but it also is really just a preview of who will run well. There'll be some statistics about who we think is going to get what result and who won't. and there's some, you know, there's some data behind this information, which the professor brings, and then there's just some gut feelings, like where, you know, Steve and you guys come in

and so it's always fun to see who nets out in the end, so how did things go at Pocono? Pretty good for everybody, I think. The predictor went seven for ten. Damn. Travis went three and one on his bets. Yeah. My big ones were the track house over RCR, Bubba Top 10, and Byron Top 5. Yeah. So, it was a good weekend.

All right, well, so who's going to be good this weekend? You know, it's weird. We're back at the Oval at Indy, so I haven't run there since, what, 2020? I mean, I think you've got to go with guys that were pretty good at Pocono. There's that one turn that's kind of identical. Pocono, Indy, Phoenix. Phoenix, yeah, Phoenix is a good comparison. Maybe a...

How good do you think Christopher Bell could have finished had he gotten through the day? You know, it was weird because he was just a back half of the top ten kind of guy. The other three cars before Gibbs blew up were really good, so I don't know. That's tough then, because he's good at, he ran wheel at North Wilsonboro, and he runs good at Phoenix. And to me, that's very similar, flat. Yeah. One guy I missed, it's also kind of fits that bill, is the guy who won Ryan Blaney. Yeah.

You wouldn't think he would be good at Pocono, but he's good at Phoenix. He won Pocono twice now. Going to Andy where his boss plays a big, has a big presence. Yeah, he could be a guy to watch for sure. Go back to back. All of Penske will be tuned up. Oh, yeah. You know all three of those.

Legano and. Well, so give me three drivers. I'll go Blaney. I'll go Denny. Denny. That even wants to win that race bad. I think that's just pure will. And I'll go, there's usually, like, you know,

a surprise guy up there. I'll go Ty Gibbs. He's starting to turn the corner. All right. First win, maybe, brickyard. Yeah. It's possible. Possible.

Oh. Well, see, that's a stretch. I wouldn't put my money on it. No, you don't like to see this. Like his first cup race at E&D. What a day for Ty gives. Yeah, maybe. Drinking the milk.

Yeah. Of course, he probably has milk every morning. Chocolate. Probably. Yeah, so he'd be like, oh, this again? Yeah. Well, Chocamo came out of his exhaust pipes. Yeah.

How do you blow up the damn engine these days? Good grief. I know. Things are indestructible. I didn't even know that happened. I'd never seen a camera angle like that, though. The oil and water mixed, that was pretty sweet. Yeah.

I didn't even know these motors could blow up. Joe Gibbs has blown up a couple, though, recently. What are they doing? Trying some things, probably. Mm-hmm. All right. Well, this has been fun. Thank you for tuning in.

Thank you for coming and being part of this show, Tims. Of course. Back to your booth. All right, I will. That's my hole. Get the hell out of here. All right, it's time for the white flag. So a couple days ago.

Sunday night, the tear down dropped with Jeff Gluck and Jordan Mionke. They covered everything from the race at Pocono. And Denny Hamlin came home and did actions detrimental, giving us his point of view as he watched Ryan Blaney streak to the wind, out his windshield. And he also gave some, his opinion and his points about the Corley-Loy-Lewy Cobbush wreck. And then door bumper clear. came in and gave their opinions about everything in the sport.

That all dropped Monday. Tomorrow's Speed Street with Connor Daly and Chase Holden. Connor raced as a last-minute sub for Jack Harvey at Iowa. Yeah. And he's racing this weekend too. In an Infinity car, right? And trucks. And truck.

I mean, how does this dude land these rides? Not that he doesn't deserve to race, but his rides are so obscure. It's a grind day. He's in Nitro Cross and. all that. He does everything, man. Is he just on the phone all day? I honestly think so. Is he just like cold calling teams? Hey, you need a driver?

And they do. Yeah. And Conner's a great guy to go out there and do it. Hey. What's crazy is he's racing at IRP in the trucks and then Xfinity at the big oval. And I think a lot of those practice times like he's just spamming cold calls. Damn right. Yeah. He just got them all on like one button. He's got a big board at his house And he just pushes a button in it calls the team

That'd be sick You got any openings I'll call you next week Yeah See if anything's changed Anyhow Tomorrow we have Winston Kelly As our guest for the Allied guest segment

Winston Kelly Was a lead pit reporter MRN for over a decade and then he is now the executive director at the Hall of Fame. And we try to get him in here for a while to come tell us some stories, and he's coming. So I'm looking forward to that. It's a great dude, great friend of mine. And Thursday, DJD Reloaded is back.

We had a little pause in DJD Reloaded because we had two segments of the Gary Nelson interview. And so Reload is back. And Dirty Modo is coming out Thursday. They were preview the race, tell you who they think is going to run good, will run bad in betting terms. So if you like betting, you'll learn something. If you don't like betting, you'll still learn something. Dalton has our weekly social media standout. Yeah, I've got a good one this week. Your WASP video went pretty viral. Did it? And I was a lot of people that said, I'm winning an award? Yeah, I think so. Social media standout. We're going to give you a buzz

award. Congratulations. Weekly. Can we have like a couple of, do like employee the month, but it's weekly standout. Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Just be you. We'll just all do it, get some headshots made and get some really cheesy, you know, frames. Yeah, with the whole poe, you know, the 80s poses. What does the winner get? Nothing. Your ass on the wall, yeah. You get your face on the wall.

That's what you get. Cool. That sounds really awesome. And then we won't put his, we won't put Andrew's face on the wall all year. No. Everybody else will get up there. I missed it by that much. It's just so close.

He'll win most improved every year. Wow. I feel like I'm getting enjoyed right now. Oh my gosh. That's funny. But we had a lot of comments. Someone's like, it's a theme with wasp nest and deer stands. I don't know.

I guess that's a big problem. But this one stuck out to me from Doolittle Lamar on Instagram. He said, I tried to knock a nest off a seat on a deer stand once. They tore my ace up, as he said. Damn. One side of my head all down my neck. The guy that I was with. swears to this day that I turned away from the tree and ran down the ladder facing outwards

with no hands walking out of the woods that side of my head felt like it was throbbing and vibrating all at the same time. This guy's got like redneck superpowers after running down. I mean, that's why he's going on the wall. Looks like a cartoon running down the ladder without using his hands. I don't know. I just, I don't know if I believe that story. I do. You think you run like that or run like hell from the mosque? Yeah, I do. The mosque will make you do things. Yeah. I wonder what other, like... It's like the old lady can lift a car. I played the video for Amy.

Great job by you guys. I don't know who came up with some of the ideas to put the wasp head on. It was Dustin. We need more of that. We need more of the funny videos, the funny voices. I'll keep being an idiot and telling my idiot stories. That's easy.

You guys just, like, you guys just take advantage. Take advantage of it. Just really take advantage of it. That was good stuff. You're going to squeeze it for all we got. But, yeah, that was our standout. All right, question of the week is coming from Noah Graggson. Tim's got the recording of this.

I just got the Lego Titanic. Can we have a Titanic off? And see, you can build it first? Yeah, Titanic build off. And then I got the Empire State, or not, I got the Statue of Liberty. We've done the Empire State building. But I also have the Eiffel Tower. Nice.

It's just like 10,000 pieces. But that's the one I want to do last because I'm not looking forward to that one. But the Titanic, I'll start, I know he's got a head start, but I feel like I'm a master builder for sure, so I'm all broke up. So, Noah Gregson, he texted me and asked me if I would do a build-off. The trouble is that the Titanic is in South Carolina in my beach house. Yeah, you left it there?

I left it there. So if he would like to, what he ought to do is, we ought to do a different set. Since I've started early, he could get a different set. You should do the Eiffel Tower. No. So I looked at the Eiffel Tower. I ain't buying that one, and he just said it himself.

He's not looking forward to it. The Eiffel Tower is so redundant from top to bottom. the build of it would just be so redundant. All the pieces are quite similar all the way to, through the process, it would just be really like stacking pennies, right? Just very redundant. Yeah, yeah, very redundant.

Yeah. So, it's just our two cents. Yeah, so. Anyway, never, I, I think that we should get, so what's the, what's that, Star Wars. Millennium Falcon? Yes.

I have it. He could get the Millennium Falcon. I'm like a, you know, I'm like a casual Star Wars fan. I'm no hardcore dude like Blaney. And maybe I don't think, you know, I'm not, never heard Gregson really talking much about Star Wars. So he's probably on my level in terms of fandom. So we both could get that kit, build it. It's a tough kit.

It's one of their very. bigger ones. The other one I think we could do is the I mean, you know, if we got to, that one would take, you know, a long time. Now, I would agree to do it. I'd agree to have this build off with Noah.

But I'm just going to tell you, Noah's going to win. Because Noah's going to stay up and do this thing over all night long. And you see, I win over night. Hey, eight o'clock in the morning. I'm finished. And I'm going to be like, yeah, my ass had to go to bed at two because I got to get up and get the girls ready and then take Gailover to dance camp

and I can't, my ass can't be building a damn Lego set at 7 o'clock in the morning and expect to not have some pissed off people in my house. You know what I'm saying? I don't have that life that you have, Noah. So I can't expect to win this. But I'll do it if he wants to do it.

I like it. Just because I think I would have, I would do it in knowing and having the same. satisfaction that when I was ready to get up from the table and go to bed, I did, and he sat there all night and built this thing. It's a win in your book. It's a win in my book. Yeah. He's been, he did an all-nighter with a 10,000-piece Lego set. College, you know. Yeah. It was crazy. Crazy stuff. Pulled all-nighters building Legos. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's the show. Hey, tune in tomorrow for Winston Kelly, uh, during

in the Allied guest segment. And thank y'all for tuning in for Dirty Air today. We appreciate you. Take it easy. Check out Dirty Mo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.