The Dale Jr. Download - 569 - Michigan: "Flipping Is The Unpleasant Consequence of Going Fast"

Episode Date: August 20, 2024

The NASCAR Cup race may have been delayed until Monday, but Dale Earnhardt Jr. is right on schedule with this week’s edition of Dirty Air. After a late-race caution caused much debate among racing fans, Tyler Reddick held on in double overtime to win his second race of the season:Did Martin Truex Jr.’s crash warrant a yellow flag?Does NASCAR change its officiating throughout the race, case by case?How will NASCAR respond to Corey LaJoie’s flip?The great start-time debateNASCAR’s 2025 schedule is starting to get out The NASCAR Playoff bubble pictureRace winner Tyler Reddick calls into the show21+ and present in North Carolina. Full price of NFL Sunday Ticket will be automatically charged seasonally after free trial. No refunds. Terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply.  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 Dale Jr. download is Tuesday. Brought to you by Tire Pros, the Dirty Air segment. We're going to talk about Michigan and everything that went down there. We got our winner calling in today, Tyler Reddick. And a little bit more. We're going to have a little phone with Mike Davis. So, yeah, we'll see what happens. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media.

You're a Dale. You're a complete moron. If you under your belt and a memory. moving race cars. Moron. He tends to hide the weird stuff and I'll find it. Bringing Amy on was a bad idea. Oh, this is great.

The Dell Jr. Download starts now. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. And we are in the Dirty Moe Media Studio. It's Tuesday. And it's Dirty Air presented by Tire Pros. We talk about Tire Pros because they are a partner here. at Junior Motorsports, obviously sponsoring race cars, but they also sponsor us here in the studio

doing our podcast. And what's great about TirePos is they're owned by people in your community. So they're, you know, your neighbors. So you're wanting to support your community, support your neighbors. And they can do anything. They're not just tires. They do alignments. They fix brakes. they do everything. So go check it out. If you need something done to your car, take it there. I was a service mechanic.

I can appreciate that. So, appreciate you, tire pros, and we'll carry on. The race at Michigan, let's get right into the race at Michigan. Yeah. Okay.

So Mike Davis gives us a lot of shit talk. We talk a lot in this room on the show. Last week, we had a real, hilarious freaking you know thing we were doing we're giving Mike a hard time about his voice mail on his phone and then we went

on and on about other things in our lives and it all got cut from the show yeah there's stuff that you know we think's awesome that you guys just never hear um this might even get cut if we're up this is not making it we're up to Mike this ain't making it okay this will make it

um yeah Mike is like should be working for the NFL. No fun league. He's going to love this. Should we share? Should we share that fun moment from last week? Yeah, let's do it. I mean, I want to get into the race, but this shit was funny. Yes. Let's listen. Actually,

I have a clip so we can listen back to it. Just a second. Your call has been forwarded to voicemail. The person you're trying to react is not available. On your toll, please record your message. When you have finished recording, you may hang up. What in the hell? That is.

So what kind of accent is that? Riyot. Riyotch. The person you're trying to reich. I feel like Mike has turned his phone in. He's got him a damn flip phone. It's a jitterbug. Damn.

Mike said, I don't. He don't trust new technology anymore. Mike has got an old necktail, button matcher. With the chirp. Yeah. Riyotch. You cannot reich me. Oh my God.

I mean, that wasn't his voicemail at least a couple weeks ago. What in the hell has happened? I don't know. Mike, sir. Mike can't pay his bills. I think that Mike didn't pay his cell phone service, and I had dropped down to like a lower tier service. And that's sort of the,

you don't even get to put in your own voicemail. No custom voicemails here. You didn't pay for that. Sir, that's 30 cents a month. I think that's. 30 cents. Not doing it. I refuse, said Mike Davis.

That's funny. So we'll see. We were going to, that was at the top of show last week. Yeah. And we did. That was before the show. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh. God of my. That's funny. Riyotch. I don't, I mean, he is not here today. Hopefully this can get out to the folks to find folks that just kind of move quick. It listened to us. They deserve that.

They do. He's doing good things up in D.C. He's out of office. Talking about Dirtymoe Media and we're back here putting stuff together. There's no chance of re-otching him to go. He's out of re-oach. He's out of re-ach. It's never going to get old.

And now we're doing it every time in the office, just in general conversation. Anytime we can work that in. It came up like 10 times last week after this. It's a part of our regular vocabulary. If you see Mike Davis out in the wild, Try to work that Riyotch. That's how he pronounces the word reich. Or if anyone knows what like preset that is,

we all need to change ours to that. I know, we do. All right. Riyotch. Let's get to it, man. Michigan. The race had a lot going on. Reddick wins in overtime.

A late yellow Truex gets into the fence. there was debate around that caution whether it was necessary redick had a reaction inside the car cussing couldn't believe it god i do not miss that feeling you're sitting there you're busting your ass run all day long 500 laps or whatever 400 laps at dover just busting your ass sitting there with a you know a decent finish in your hands and some stupid yellow comes out with you know 10 laps to go or some dummy can't get to the finish, like a legit yellow comes out, or NASCAR throws something rather, you know, ridiculous.

And it's happened over the years. But this one with Truex was on the borderline for me. I know there was, if I was driving the car leading the race, hell yes, I had the same reaction as Reddick. And maybe even, you know, running in the top 10 or the top five, I might have the same reaction. Like, what the hell? but you know that one to me I'm not I'm not going to drag it out and debate it too much

Truex gets loose goes up and hits the wall I was looking at a lot of social media content and and other people in the industry's comments about it a lot of people will look back in the middle of the race where the two-car cinder gets exactly the same situation and they throw the they don't throw the yellow right I thought about this someone made a great point so we could sit here and we have in the past and go what the F. You know, you don't throw it for the two, and you do throw it for the 19, and it's because it's late, and you want that last restart,

and you want the drama, and you manufacture, and manipulating, you know, you could get all kinds of pissed off at NASCAR. But there's also the idea that maybe nobody was watching Cendrick's ass running back there wherever he was at, right? Where was he running? You know, even if he's running 12th, 15, 10, 20, I don't know where he's running, but maybe they ain't even looking over there. He's not the focus.

Yeah, and chances are there was maybe quite a few eyes on TrueX or around. There was a battle happening right there for a late, you know, with, you know, Kyle Bush trying to hold position and other cars trying to figure out how to move forward around. They were racing really hard there around that top five or the backside of the top five. So good chance that NASCAR and a lot of eyeballs are paying close attention to that, right? And so maybe that's why there's a difference between the reaction to those two incidents. Just saying, I wish they hadn't thrown the yellow because it wasn't probably that necessary. Kenny Wallace said they won't throw a yellow unless they see debris, but I, you know, I didn't see if the 19 dropped anything on the racetrack. It's unlikely, but it's possible.

He hit the wall hard enough, hard enough for a yellow. But in my eyes, the way I look at this thing is I'm trying to get the race. I'm trying to get to the checkered. If I'm the industry, right, if I'm, I don't want to say it. I don't want to say if I'm in the booth doing all that, right, making the choices. But literally, I guess that's what I'm saying. If I was in the booth, I would be like, oh, no, that ain't, you know, keep them going. Keep them going.

Don't throw the yellow. No, no, no. The races, you know, we're almost to the finish. That's, you know, if we can, if we can avoid the yellow, that's my mentality in my mind. I'm thinking, though, that for TV, they can deny it if they won't, but for TV, for the promoter, track owner, and possibly for NASCAR, they're thinking, oh, hell yeah. late race restart drama yeah this all yeah you know we're trying to our audience is building all the way through the race right so right at there in the last 10 laps you've got the largest audience you've got the most people paying attention to what you're doing and can you give them something exciting

while they're all at the at the ice cream truck can you give them the best flavor have them coming back next week so am i making sense yeah so i can see that being the case so i can see that being the And, but in my mind, and maybe if I got up there and drank the Kool-Aid, I would be like them. If I get up, you know, I'm in the, I'm in the broadcast, I'm in the network world. I ain't changed. I've been doing it seven, eight years. I ain't really, my mentality about it is still the same. If I'm in that booth, I'm like, I got my hands up in there to my team going, don't hit the button.

Don't hit it. Let's get, this is almost over. not I mean if you see anything nefarious you hit that button right am I making sense definitely yeah I mean it was just so quick too oh it's so fast it was just like he hit the wall

bam I know that's what makes is that what maybe startles you that enough to like oh shit like got to hit the button no no no no that to me sounds like I mean if the quickness of it is the only concerning part I think if

Tricks goes up there, slaps the wall. He did. He smacked the hell at that wall. And then kind of comes down. And then the yellow comes out. You're kind of like, okay, they must have seen something, trailing off the car, or there's something they're worried about that warrants this yellow. But it's so fast, it's almost like they're looking for someone to be out of control. They're looking for the, they need hardly, it's kind of like.

The excuse. They don't, yeah, it's like, man, don't give me an excuse. party, they don't need an excuse. They don't need much of an excuse. Yes. It's kind of got that vibe to it. I think that makes the point of the Cindric versus the Truex caution is it's like

in the middle, and earlier in the race, they're not hovering over the button, I don't think. They're just kind of letting the race play out. But in those last couple laps, the tension is so high, I think they're just hovering over the button. Yes. Yes. And that's human nature. Of course. I'm not going to get too hard

on them but dang i mean what would have what what would have been the harm in letting the finish happen letting it just go who wouldn't have been as fun right but what about when bowman made contact with the wall in the back stretch in that overtime that was pretty i mean it was pretty hard licked too and he was in front of the whole field they didn't call caution for that oh man so he did yeah i mean i don't i don't know that that's that different no it's i mean it's about the same dramatic reduction in speed right and he's in front of the entire field on the backstress, whereas Truex went up in the corner kind of by the cell. I mean, maybe, but it's

one or two. It's enough to get down if you really had a problem. Right. Yeah, these are all good points. Yeah, it's interesting, man. I don't remember, you know, if I could go, if I could sit here and say, yeah, man, this was happening in the 90s. This was happening in the 80s. And I know we're not, you know, I know there's a lot of people that like hate for you

to compare anything to the past. They're like, let it. go, get over it, get me out, the things are different, things are different. But, you know, I'm, I like the 80s, I like the 90s, I like what was happening, I like the way the sport was, I like the decision making, right? And I like the flow of an event from that time. I'm not just hardheaded as shit, nostalgic. I actually like the way the races flowed and how they were called and officiated. And so I prefer that. And I think that it's a little different these days. and it feels like it changes depending on the time of the race,

you know, the time in the race. To, you know, you could say, yeah, they don't throw the yellow for certain things, but then, man, if anything, anything gets out of line in those last five laps, it's like, oh man, they're, you know, high chance of a yellow. So that stirred all that back up. But again, tricks hit the wall hard enough. I wouldn't sit there and die on that hill, you know, that they shouldn't have thrown the yellow, not down on that hill, not in that instance.

But, you know, sometimes, yeah, we know there's been some instances where there was very little going on and the yellow come out. So that was a little bit of a storyline. Then Coral Lajoy's flip, a lot of conversation around this on social media. And I jumped in there. Kenny Wallace, a good friend of mine, was quick to, well, as he always is, quick to, give his opinion on, you know, why that car flipped. Obviously, he put some photos on on Twitter of the bottom of the seven car while it's in the air,

and everybody can make sense of this. It's not hard. That the car, you know, the cars these days have a flat pan and they get up in the air because of that, you know, that flat pan underneath. But we had an exfinity car flip as well on the back straight away. a little different circumstances, but also we had cars getting up in the air no matter what style of race car it was. A meteorologist or someone, Jeff Gluck was retweeting on social media, was talking about

the wind direction. It was high winds, 20-mile-hour, 15 to 20-mile-hour winds with gust of, you know, 25 to 30-mile an hour, very in the direction that it would definitely affect these cars going down the back straight away getting turned around in this instance. People talked about how, you know, giant airlines are, you know, full of fuel and, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of pounds getting up off the, you know, getting up off the ground at 130 miles an hour or whatever, you know, I know we land at 100,000, 19 miles an hour. and our takeoff speeds probably similar, a little faster.

And so you got a race car that gets turned around going 200 miles an hour, 180 miles an hour that's way lighter. I think the whole point of all of this is that, and what I said on social media was that cars have been flipping in NASCAR since the beginning, and it's an unpleasant consequence of going fast. and if we, and I had a fan react to that, which I liked his comments, see if I can find it. He said, basically, yeah, if we all complain about it,

NASCAR is going to make a decision that none of us is going to like. Hey, everybody, don't complain, or NASCAR will make changes you won't like it all. And so that's the thing. Be careful what you wish for. Denny Hamlin even says. said on his podcast or in, I'm sorry, in comments post race, he'd rather flip than hit the wall in this car, right? And which, that makes perfect sense to me.

I've flipped a race car. Yes, flips can get violent. Yes, people have been injured. Yes, people have been killed in cars that get airborne. But the potential for that violent, hard land, or that the violent impacts and G-forces that you tend to feel in wall contact, the potential is a little bit less, I think, in a flip. And so as disorienting and, again, unpleasant as getting airborne is,

it's scary and it should be, and it would be scary to anybody who's never been in a race car, to think about it, right, to imagine it. heading toward a wall, knowing you're going to hit it at 150 miles an hour, is more terrifying, and always going to be. And so, you know, I think that, you know, you look at the impact weatherman had in the Xfinity race with the right front tire blue. Nasty, nasty hit.

Now that's where we always, I think, need to be working. to improve. The car's crushability, the car's ability to absorb those kind of impacts. And when we worked on the next-gen-car, the next-gen-car was developed, we know now that that car lost a lot of its ability to absorb, a lot of its crushability, and NASCAR's work now to reverse that and get that car to absorb some of the impacts better. but Denny still says, and as he probably would and will for the rest of his life,

he would probably rather get airborne and do a little, you know, do some barrel rolls than hit the wall at any angle at, you know, over 130, 150 miles an hour. So anyways, I know people got, I know that I'll try to articulate this without putting myself in a bad spot, but when Priest flipped at Daytona. So, priest flips at Daytona. And yes, it was violent. Yes, it was eye-catching and very profound. But, I mean, I had seen that many, many times in my life. Rusty Wallace multiple times in his career, Ricky Rudd, in the 15 as a historic flip at Daytona. I've had one on the back straightaway in the Helmand's car, I think, down the back straightaway at Daytona.

You know, violent flips, Tony Stewart down the back straightaway at Daytona in the 2001 Daytona 500, I believe. There's just been a lot of those that have happened. And when Priest Rex, everybody, I was really kind of surprised at everybody else's reaction, as I am a bit to the seven car. flipping. They're like, whoa, wait a minute now. That ain't supposed to happen. And I'm like, when is that not supposed to happen? That's always happened. I don't care how many flaps and wings and whatever hell you got going on, hatches. I don't give it down. When those cars are going that fast and they get in the precarious scenario or situation, there's potential for it to flip and get airborne. It's going to happen no matter how, you know, how much engineering you try to put

into the car. And so I wasn't that shocked by what happened to Preece. It was those flips that priests experienced were very quick rotations. That's dangerous

for a driver mentally brain that's dangerous for the body. But I'd seen it before. And I'm and I and I wasn't I was you know you're always a bit wowed when you see a car flip because it's so, you know, it is so unusual, but it's not that, you know, it's, it's going to

happen. It's just what we're going to have happen from time to time. And I don't know that, you know, will it get a big reaction from NASCAR? Will they, like, feel like they've got to, you know, get back in the, you know, control room and get back to work and developing some way to figure out how to fix it? I don't know if they will. Will they just go, hey man, that's a product of our sport? I don't know if they'll do that. But yeah, I wasn't too distressed by it. I don't think NASCAR needs to overreact to this.

Like I didn't think Corey's flip was that egregious. I think Ryan Preeces was pretty damn agree. Like, you know, it was a big, big flip. There's not really good footage of this wreck, but Dick Brooks flips down the back straightaway at Talladega, I believe in 1976. And there's not really good footage of it, but there's, you know, it's old Ford Mercury or some type of Ford that he was driving. Junie Donnell leave his car. And there's, as the car is flipping, the mud and dirt is flying.

The parts and pieces, the things are coming off the car, being slung off the car into the air. reminiscent of Darrell Walter slipped down the back straightaway in the western auto car at Daytona, which was pretty violent. And there's the, I believe, one of the top three or top five

most iconic photos ever taken of our sport is Dick Brooks being helped out of the front windshield of that race car as it's sitting in the back straightaway dirt. It's amazing. This picture He is okay. He gets out of the car. The car doesn't, it doesn't look like looking at the car and thinking

about how archaic the safety measures were to the cars back then and looking at the roof crushed down on the left side. It doesn't look like it's something that he should have been able to get out of under his own power. But these guys, these just nondescript civilians are just helping him out of this car covered in dirt. And it's just what a, it's a very powerful photo and every time that I see one of our cars today with all of our safety measures get upside down, I think about that wreck. I don't know what I'm trying to say, but I just, I'm drawn to that wreck, and I'm thinking, I'm not worried when our guys get upside down because I know Dick Brooks survive this

without any of the things that we have in place today. and I'm more, again, when a guy like Weatherman, when the wreck like Weatherman happens, I am more worried about that. And I'm more likely to want to know how that driver is on Monday morning. And that's the one that I know can get you. And so, yeah, so, you know, I think. I think, you know, maybe I'm even making a little bit too much out of this thing. But it was, you know, and it's Michigan where we run, you know, we're used to seeing these type of wrecks at Daytona and Talladega, but they don't run as fast there.

We're running over 200 miles an hour, 209, I think at one point, was registered on a car or two. I remember when we were racing there when they repaved it in 2012. we were doing 218 into term one, averaging 204 a lap. Yeah. Flying. So, so, like, we're almost going faster at Michigan. We are.

Oh, yeah, we are. Not almost. Yeah. You are. And so now Michigan is one of, if not the fastest racetrack. And hopefully, they don't put plates on them.

They don't try to do things that are going to hurt, you know, the style of racing there, which I don't know. You know, they did that to the Xfinity series. It turned out to be an okay race either way. I know I'm biased to seven wins, whatever. We're very happy here at Juniper's Sports about that.

But the race itself, when they dropped the green flag and they all jumped into top line, nose the tail and everybody was scared to go low because they were going to get trained, that sucked. And so I don't like that. But when the tire started to wear guys are sliding around, racing started to happen. But I would be worried if, I hope NASCAR doesn't think that they need to go look at the package and what are we going to do? We got to slow them down in Michigan. Last question I have about this Lejoy flip. You're explaining like the next gen car and the rocker

almost like assisting in that flip. Like could you just explain that? Yeah, I will. Explain that. Yeah. So Kenny Wiles and a lot of people noted the bottom of the car being flat. One of the one things that I noticed when the next gen car was unveiled was if you if you look at the rocker box on the next-gen car, which is at the bottom, at the bottom of the door, there's a radius to that. If you go all the way back to the mid-90s and look at the rocker panel or the doors of cup cars, they had a big giant roll to them, a big radius all the way to the frame rail. And it was round and air just went right under there.

When a car got sideways, air either. went right under the car or over it and literally that was creating a ton of lift and the cars would get upside down pretty easy and then when I start just coincidentally when I began racing in at least the the Bush series I'm not sure when the Cup series started doing this maybe the year before in 97 immediately rocker panels changed entirely they the doors of the cars were completely straight down to a 90 degree rocker that went right under the car to the frame rail and we started adding skirts

to get even closer to the ground. And that to an extent lessened the ability for air to climb under the car or be invited under the car. And rockers have been that way ever since until

the next gen car. So the next gen car comes out and they unveil it and I look at the rocker box because I noticed that they weren't painted. And NASCAR, manufacturers, not NASCAR, sorry. Manufacturers had cleaned the rocker panel as an identity mark, and no teams were allowed to paint them, which is so infuriating. And so you'll notice some of the teams that worry less about manufacturer support

paint the fuck out of the rocker boxes. Hell yeah. You know, we love those. Yes. And so that rocker box has a radius. It's tight. It's not as aggressive as what you might have seen on our cup cars in 1996 or 95. But it's not as hard of a 90 degree cut, right, or a break.

And so I wonder if that rocker box at the bottom having that small radius is inviting air underneath the car. Even when it's really close to the ground, is that allowing air, is that like, hey, come on air, come on under here? And so also I was noticing that as you get toward the rear tires, that rocker box kind of ramps upward

and away from the ground. And so, you know, there's just some little small characteristics like that that I noticed that may, if there's physical things that NASCAR would want to do, I hope that they don't change power and drag and downforce. Don't put giant ass spoilers on them. Don't choke the motor down.

Don't do that. But if there's a physical, technical part or piece on the body, instead of just turning the roof into a giant flap, you know, they could look at that rocker box radius and maybe there's nothing there. Maybe I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. But they could look at it and say, hey, man, you know,

maybe if that was a 90 degree hard, you know, break right there and a flat surface, it's less inviting for air to roll underneath it like a wing on an airplane, right? That was the only thing that I would have brought up that I would say, okay, if we want to go change something, where could we look and find some gains?

And maybe the rocker box that you race at Bristol isn't the same rocker box you race at Michigan. Right. Yeah, like, if you don't want the teams to have to spend all this money changing every single rocker box in the building, maybe you just add to the current rocker box. Maybe there's a piece that could be added there to make that a sharp edge.

and maybe it makes less lift when the car is sideways, and maybe it doesn't. But that was the one thing I saw. And when you put that, when you put that, I always forget the name of this thing because we haven't had this in the sport for the entire time it's existed. The diffuser.

Yeah. So when you put the diffuser underneath the car, and forget the hatch that opens upright. When the roof hatch opens, there's this hatch at the back of the car that pops open. But when you look at a diffuser and you think about a NASCAR cup car with a diffuser on it going 180 mile an hour backwards, does it not look like it should just fly into the freaking air? It's got all this arrow going the wrong way. It's opposite of, yeah.

how is that not going to make lift? Yeah, it looks like it will. Right? So I don't know. I mean, I don't think, I think that they would have to go to such drastic measures in other areas to fix this, to really truly, truly fix it,

and it will likely be a detriment to the product on the racetrack. But why are we, like, if cup drivers are coming out and saying, like, look, flips happen, but they're not that bad. Why are we that worried about it? You know, like, why? Well, we don't know what NASCAR's reaction is going to be to it. Right, so that's what I'm saying. We're anticipating something because we're nervous.

Flips happen. They happen in the 70s, 80s, the 90s now. It's like, why overreact to it? It happened. Well, maybe they won't. You know, I'm hoping that they don't. That's what I'm getting out with your point here. Is that like, let's just see it for what it is.

It's a wreck. Let's move on. Another big debate about this race track or this past weekend again is we had a little weather. The start time debate always fires up anytime there's any kind of a weather issue. And here's the, you know, fans, for the most part, I believe, understand all of the parameters that are involved here and why things are the way they are. But to break it down really quickly, it's not possible for me to do anything quickly. But for me to break it down, the start times are not chosen by NASCAR. Quit. Quit with the

This NASCAR, bunch of... Quit with that. Quit that. Look, I give NASCAR hard time when I feel like they deserve it, but they don't deserve the credit for this. The start times are predicted by and chosen by networks. They influence that mostly. And they know what the hell they're doing.

They want to put this race where they feel like it'll get the best number. That's as simple as it is. It's not a NASCAR choice. NASCAR and the networks pay enough money to have the right and authority over NASCAR when to put the race on. That's just the way it is. When the sport was so small that our TV deals were minimal, we put the races where we want. But the TV came in and said, we're going to give us a giant pile of money. But you got to let us put the races on when we want them.

and anyone who's listening right now would take that giant pile of money and say, you got it, buddy. Three o'clock. Love it. We'll be ready. And so that's kind of how this all works. And, you know, NASCAR has to, you know,

if there's a little weather coming, NASCAR has to really arm wrestle to get the race pushed up 10, 20 minutes. It ain't like this super easy thing. And people are like, well, they could have, You know, they knew it wasn't going to rain. They should have did this. And so, you know, they did move the All-Star race.

Or not the All-Star Race. They did move the Clash. But I think the clash was such a disaster anyways that nobody cared. It certainly didn't, I mean, it wasn't a big deal. But, you know, this is a, you know, this is kind of a situation where you can't put the, you can't put the tooth base back in the tube. Now that the TV deals are as large as they are, the networks are going to want to try to maximize their advertising dollars and get all of that money back and then some.

And so they need to put these races where they feel like they'll get the best number. And they would avoid competing against any show that's going to have a large audience. So they don't want to go up against the NFL at 1 o'clock. I understand that. I don't love it. I don't like it and I don't care. I think we ought to be like, you know, if it ain't, you know, I can't, if I were in control of NASCAR,

nothing would change because I don't have the authority to change this. The networks do. I'm of the idea that, yes, your numbers are better at 3 o'clock. All right. and there's short-term gain there. But I believe over the course of a decade or two decades, that it sours on people. We hear this conversation about the start times come up every time.

Now, is this group of people, myself included, that are complaining about the start times, big enough to matter? Is this, does TV even care? I don't know, but I don't think that's the question. I think is, are the people, myself included, that are making noise about this a large enough group or piece of the pie to really make any change or affect change, right? Maybe, you know, there's a lot of noise about it, but maybe it's not, maybe 10, 20,000 people that are complaining. about it? I don't know. I think it's more than that. You think it's more than that? Definitely. So if it's enough to make a difference, that's what I think is possible, right?

Short-term game, putting the race at 3 o'clock, good TV number, TV's happy. NASCAR looks at the TV number, we're happy. Then you go through a decade or two of the constant threat of rain and the complaining and the souring of the start times. And start times are becoming, the start time is becoming less and less popular, less and less liked, more and more frustration. And so the long term, I think, is bad, detrimental.

And so, and I also think, why not go up against the NFL? I mean, it ain't about us against the NFL. them. It's just like, why avoid, why are we avoiding the big guy? Because you lose viewers, don't you think? There's going to be some casual NASCAR fans who, oh, if I have to choose. We can't, we can't ever gain those viewers if we don't go battle. What if they can watch both, though?

Well, they can. I mean, they can this day and age. But I've always, I've always felt like, why are we running? Why are we running away from that? Why don't, I, I, I, I, I, NASCAR to me is number one. NASCAR to me is the best thing going. NASCAR to me can start at one freaking o'clock if it wants to. NASCAR don't have to settle for three because that's a better time slot. When we all know one o'clock is the best time slot. The NFL is sitting on one o'clock because it's great.

NFL ain't starting at three because it's better. They start at one because that's better. Right? And so... And they don't even prioritize one o'clock. It's the eight o'clock game. that's the big game of the week. So it's, you know, it's, I mean, and you've got a point with, like, people stream multiple

things now. Like, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm going to watch Dolphins games and NASCAR races at the same time. I just don't, I just don't like the idea that we're settling. I feel, it feels like we settle, or it feels like we're, we're having to maneuver because of the bigger, bigger thing in the room, right? or like we're not the, like, bigger name on the line, yeah, we'll take the next call. Like we're like the under card. We're on the way, yeah, we're the under, yes.

That's the vibe I get. But I mean, I get it. I sort of get it. I do too. I, so I think if you're going to act like and be the underdog, you'll always be the underdog. And people are going to see you as the underdog. In my mind, and listen, I don't, this is probably why I don't need to be running this is because I'd be so hard-headed and like, no, man, I ain't moving.

I ain't moving over. This is my space. And this is where I want to be. And I'm going to put my race on at this time. And I don't care what the numbers say. I don't care what the stats say. I don't care. I don't care.

And my viewership number would likely be less. But I feel like over the long gain, I would be better off. And I felt like when we started maneuvering, and playing the undercard, then we settle to be the undercard forever. I think you got to go, you know, where the best shot is for you. Yeah.

And it's unfortunate. But my question is, like, this whole conversation started because of rain, right? I think if it didn't rain, most people would be like, 30, 30, whatever. So let me ask you this. What do you think is a better TV rating?

1 p.m. on a Sunday or 11 o'clock on a Monday? I mean, Sunday. Right. So why not move the race up? I don't understand why you can't move it against the NFL. And also, you're going to get the NFL, whether you start at 3.30, 1 o'clock, 4 o'clock. There's NFL games on all day. So why not move it up and get the whole race in on Sunday instead of waiting?

Now you're putting up against the clock. You're waiting for rain. Well, if you really want to get into the weeds, then you're cutting into NBC also has Premier League coverage, which is what was on before. NASCAR. Talk about the undercars. Those are the free fights again. You have to pay for that.

Exactly. But it's like if NBC doesn't want to compete against itself, you can have both. I get that, but like you're you're sacrificing like I guarantee you a minimal margin of people watched the race yesterday because it was at 11 o'clock on a Monday versus

start it early. I know it's not ideal. I know there's logistics out the ass to try and get that to happen. But start it early. Started at 1 o'clock. you know there's a threat of rank. I'm of the camp and I saw this on Twitter. It might be a less popular take, but I'm just,

as long as the start times are consistent and I can just always bank on, like if I know it's going to be a two to three 30 window every weekend, I can plan my Sunday around it. Like there's not a whole lot of thinking. And I think that long term will keep your viewers because if you're routine, if you're conditioned to watching at the same time,

that's going to help. You're 100% career. correct, Andrew. The problem for me, though, is that how long have we had these, these, you know, three-ish o'clock starts? A long time. They've been around a while, right? And I still am not, I'm still ain't programmed.

I mean, if I'm not programmed, I'm plugged me into this shit. This is my life. And I'm not freaking programmed. Like, I'm not like, oh, yeah, man, I know when the race starts. I don't got a freaking clue. I've got to always go look on my phone or look on the NASCAR app to see what time the race is going to start

because I don't know. And so maybe this is not true, but I felt like that when I was growing up, 1 o'clock was when the race started. Because NFL, when they start 1 o'clock, MLB, where their day games start 1 o'clock on East Coast time. It can't be that bad of a damn time. I don't get why for NASCAR, 330's great,

but for NFL and MLB, 1 o'clock's great. Or NBA, I don't understand it. NHL, they all start at 1 o'clock or 7 o'clock. And I wonder if they flip to one, how much of the number would change? How many people are watching a cup race these days? $2.5 million? Yeah, that's about average, yeah.

And so would we go to 1.8? I mean, would we drop significantly, or would it drop two tents? But when the team, like, aren't they trying to get every, even if it is two tense? Yes, they are. They are. So, yeah, I don't, but I believe that the two tense that you gain today, we're getting so many people pissed off that they're almost like, F it. I'm, if I've got to look it up and I've got to learn when it is or where it is, yeah, I just, I'll just.

not do it. I don't, you know, they'll do something else with their time. They're getting, you know, a little annoyed, I guess, by the late start times in the, especially at racetracks without lights and, you know, there's no hope once there's a long delay of getting the race started because if they can't finish it, they can't start it. NASCAR's got that rule, right, where if they don't feel like they can get the race completed within the time, they have, they can't even begin the race. and so I don't know

but are you going to start this one and next week go back to three and then three three three three seven seven one one what the you know um it's just confusing as heck but this has been going on for a while I don't see a solution and I know why the networks do it I know why NASCAR doesn't get in the middle of it and I know why fans are frustrated but I feel like I can't prove it And so it won't matter.

But I feel like the short-term game won't overcome the long-term detriment and loss in loyal fans. I think if you like new starts, move to the West Coast. I'm talking about like the long-term being 10, 20 years. Hey, everybody, I want to talk to you a little bit about safety culture. You may know safety culture's logo from Shane Van Gisbergin's car, but safety culture is more than just a sponsor. It's also the workplace operations tool for the trackhouse racing team. And what does that actually mean? Well, the team uses safety cultures app to manage everything from pre-race inspections on the car to assembly checks,

and they even do some of their training on the app. Every race team has an incredible amount of individuals that maybe don't even travel to the racetrack, work back at the shop, that are a big part of the success of that race team, preparing cars, getting them ready to go to the racetrack and run these races and try to, to win checkered flags and ultimately championships. No matter what you're trying to achieve, no one has time to waste from construction sites to factory floors. Safety culture is designed to drive improvements not just in safety,

but broadly across quality and efficiency too. Are you ready to put your workplace in the pole position? Well, head to safetyculture.com slash SVG. Hey everyone, it's Andrew Curland. If you are going to be at Daytona this weekend, listen up because I want you to hear this. This Friday and Saturday, Dirty Mo Media will be at the Hellman's Midway display in between the Exalt to Entry Gate and the Toyota Entry Gate, where we will have entertainment prize giveaways and fan interviews.

That's right. I will be out there from 4 to 6 p.m. on Friday and 230 to 4.30 on Saturday conducting interviews for our series, Andrew Curlin went there. I'll be giving way a ton of prizes, hats, t-shirts, coosies, dikes, and even something so incredible. You have to come see me to find out. Also, Justin Allgaier, driver of the number 7 Helmand Chevrolet, will be answering your questions on Friday from 145 to 215 to 215. On Saturday, you can come ask questions to the guys of door bumper clear.

They've got a Q&A from 330 to 4. It's all happening at the Helman's display. Again, that's in between the Exalta entry gate and the Toyota entry gate right outside the Speedway. Just look for the racing simulator and listen for the DJ, entertaining fans, weekend. And don't forget if you are a Sam's Club member, race in to pick up your favorite Helmand's mayonnaise products. If you want to be extra fast, skip the checkout line by using the Scan and Go feature inside the Sam's Club app. Helmans, America's number one mayonnaise. I guess, you know, Ross Chastain had a reason to be good. If anybody should be angry about that

late yellow, it should be Ross, right? Because he got spun. You could say, yeah, that would, obviously would not have happened to the yellow not come out. But that's the, that's the, that's the that's more, I think that's more frustrating for me as a driver. And I'd love to hear this from other guys. If I'm Reddick, who's madder, right? Ross Chastain, who is going to finish where? He was having a good, decent run. Better than 12th or better, I think.

Yeah. And then he finishes a lap down 20-something, six or whatever. Who's matter? Him about the yellow or Tyler Reddick if he gets beat by the 24th? Uh, now, now, your Reddick, your ego and your pride is going to tell you to answer Reddick right now. That's because he's the, that's the win. That's the short term, though. The long term, I think Ross is more mad.

He's going to carry that into next week. I mean, yeah, long term, if you point to Michigan is the reason you didn't make the playoffs, then there's a chunk of points right there. Yeah. Reddick, while he would be ticked off that he did. didn't win the race. He's going into a competition meeting on Tuesday with his team going, man, we had a good day if that thing wouldn't. They're smiling. Ross is not going to his competition smiling. Yeah. He's not smiling for the rest of the week. Although a late race caution did end up saving him the week before with Richmond because Austin Dillon was going to

knock him out of the playoffs. But he's not going to remember that. Nope. It's pretty interesting between Ross and Bubba. There's one point for that final 16th position. Cobbush looked like he was in position to have a shot at winning the race, but the two-tires strategy just didn't provide enough speed in the number eight car, but they're running better. Two great runs for the past two weeks for RCR, have they found something? Have they found enough to be able to get them to Victory Lane? They have been really good at Daytona. And so I would watch out.

Do you think Daytona is as chaotic this year without it being the cutoff race? You noted it. Yep. So if they go to when they go to Daytona, if you're wanting to be entertained, keep your eye on the eight carve Kyle Busch. I mean, the dude's going to be hell-bent, risk at all. Maybe you won't see him do anything in the first two stages. Don't be alarmed. There's no reason for him to be racing for stage points.

He's 93 points from the cut line. It's not going to point his way in. they're probably going to be taking care of that car as well as they can. And then in stage three, you're going to see Kyle Busch doing everything he freaking possibly can. One of the best in the sport, one of the most talented drivers, and he'll be in a car that's going to be pushing the limits. You better believe that this eight car that they're prepping for Kyle Busch is going to have all the bells and whistles and then some.

They're not going to leave nothing on the table. So that'll be pretty interesting to see how that goes. Do we have to mentally prepare ourselves for that's a type of race we're going to get like stages one and two? Like, all right, might not be the most exciting thing in the world. People are going to all save their stuff for the end. I think there'll be people that need stage points and have to race for them. Bubba Wallace, I think in this scenario, is probably going to go out there and say, race hard.

I believe what he did in the past, same situation for Bubba in the past. I believe his approach was I'm going to go race hard and get stage points and put the other car like Ross Chain put the pressure on Ross Chastain What did I say? Ross Chastain. Yeah.

New nickname. That is. Ross Chain Chastain. I believe Bubble will go try to put the pressure on him and say, hey, I'm going to race. The only way I know how to race here and let's try to go to the front and get stage points. And if he can, you know, think about it,

If he gets 12 or so or fifth, you know, if he gets a good little cushion on stage points, the pressure's on Ross at the end of that race. Chris Busher, I don't know what he does. Plus 16. Yeah. Can he afford to sit in the back allowing Ross or Bubba to gain a half dozen points or a dozen points on him? That's a tough spot because, like, you cannot wreck your car. You can't wreck, because then you're really done.

Can't fall behind either. Yeah, he's in a tough spot. You'd think being 16 to the good would, you'd be happy. I would think you almost race as desperate as Chastain and Bubba, right? If I'm Chris Busher, I might be even more nervous than Ross and Bubba.

Because you, I mean, you've almost have more to lose? Yes, they have nothing to lose. Yeah. I'll tell you what, though. He won Daytona last year, and he probably should have won Darlington earlier in the year. I love going, yeah. I'm confident in him. You're confident. All right. Tim's. Ty Gibbs is plus 39, so he's fine.

He can crash. out, I think still be fine. He ran good at Darlington, too, so the 54th. There's a moment yesterday where I thought it was. They're going to Daytona. No, I know. I'm just saying, I'm looking ahead. Oh, wow. Oh, you're got, you guys. You know, to your point, Dale. You're looking at him. He's already considering Daytona

a crapshoot. Gotcha. Yeah. All right. And also, we have to remember the thread of anybody, you know, you have everyone below the cut line that's in the same boat as Kyle Bush, right? That they can go out there and steal a win and leap into the playoffs. Bowman Gray, the clash was announced that it'll be going there. And so there's been some schedule leaks that we've been seeing as well on the line.

We won't talk about that a little bit. But Bowman Gray, are you guys excited about that? One of the things, so I think I'm going to forgive NASCAR for taking the Bowman Gray clash out to the West Coast for a couple years. The Bowman Gray Clash. We loaned it out there. We did. We did.

When they were talking about doing a race inside the L.A. Coliseum, I'm like, what? I mean, a lot of people like myself were like, well, you got it here. Do it here. You already got the built-in. It's cheaper. Cheaper. You've already got every ticket sold. Yeah.

You could make this insane, right? And it's right here in our backyard. We love racing in our backyard. Easy for the teams and families. and so they you know but it's okay it finally got here and I'm excited about it I see some fans chirping you know especially after NASCAR dumps the penalty on Dylan midweek the week yeah same week I know fans are like oh you're gonna be fine you're gonna find find this guy penalize this guy but you're you're basically taking the race to this racetrack where all of that's going to

happen you know you're setting yourself up for failure NASCAR because you're going to have to, you know, dull out your penalties for the clash, but maybe you will, maybe you won't. Exhibition race, though, who cares? You know what's going to happen? You know what's going to happen? And this has also been a little bit annoying, but amusing at the same time. Someone will get dumped at the clash at Balman Gray. Someone will get moved and possibly spun out and the winner will not get penalized for it. What are they going to do? Take their playoff away? Like, you don't even get qualified for playoffs there. I know. But they're going to do. They don't even get qualified for playoffs there. I know, but they won't even blink at penalizing somebody.

I'm going to tell you, if you want to spend one car out, that's perfectly fine. And that's never been, that's never been a problem. It's fine. I think it's when you do two. I think it's when you go, when you go for the twofer. Yeah, it was the combo. The bogo deals. It was the combo punch that took them out.

You can't wreck two. You can wreck one. Yeah. There's no by one there. You can't throw the left and the right. If third place jives down into the grass at Bowman Gray and wipes out first and second, that guy might not get the trophy. Only if you wipe out first or second.

But just you won't win. And, but you're okay if you just wreck one car. Right, that's what I'm saying. First or second. Everybody should be clear on that, right? Yes, okay. We're all clear on that, right? Definitely clear.

You can spin one car. You cannot wreck two cars. It's like a little punch card. You get one car. I think that's what I've learned. At a time, though. I think that's what I've learned. And I'm okay.

with that. I feel like I felt that was my own values. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's aligned with NASCAR. I'm comfortable spinning one car. Did we just, do we just find the line? Is the line? We're not so clear now? We might have just found a line. We were trying

to find the line last week. We put a line down. And there it is. Yes, that's the rule. I'm glad we cleared that up for everyone. We're going to reference that as our own rule, even though it's not NASCAR's rules. Does Dillon's appeal get turned over? I don't think there's a chance. So, Denny, said on actions

detrimental that there's a chance that whatever Dylan says that they might take the win away from him too like it could go to the opposite It's I That's, I mean Denny didn't think it was likely

But he's like Anything can happen Anything could happen But anything could happen I don't think We hear your point We're taking your win again I think everything's

I think everything stays the way it is Fowling this appeal is a mistake You're no longer the winner Right Yeah I don't think that happens that's funny from Denny. Which, by the way, on that show, he explains the appeal process in even more detail

from a year ago, and it's a great listen. So go listen to that. Well, I just, I think, I was talking to some friends about this, I think that Austin and his team will put forth a great argument. I do. I don't think that they're wasting their time. I don't think that I don't think that what they're going to bring to the table

and show to the board is silly I honestly feel like that they believe what they're going to tell them like Austin and his team they believe they're not sitting here with these stats going yeah look at this man this is fine you know they're not lying they're not they're not trying to mean nefarious or anything like that

they truly believe that they didn't do this and they're they got they believe that they've got the data to show. And so that's why I'm okay with them appealing, and I just don't believe that they'll win it. You know, the one thing about this is it's such a judgment call of a ball. It's such a judgment call, whereas, like, in most appeals, it's a technical part, an inspection process,

a flaw somewhere that a team has stumbled upon intentionally or unintentionally in the processes of technical inspection pre or post race. And so if you can come make an argument and junior motorsports has won some appeals, that maybe they were illegal, but the processes of the sport were flawed. And so if in those cases, the appeal board can be super effective because they can look at from a completely non-biased point of view and go, yeah, y'all definitely got one through on NASCAR, but they got to fix this hole in the rule book. So NASCAR go write a new rule

and give the team back their position. This is not that. This is basically trying to determine like a judgment call, and I just don't know how you get a panel to sit there and go, I don't know what they can, I don't really know how they can look at this and reverse it because I don't think that there's any, tangible true evidence to, to, it's kind of like, this feels a lot like when the NFL has a replay

review, they need like this really great evidence to overturn it. It's sometimes such a, you know, such a difficult decision. It's like definitive proof. It's got to be definitive proof. And I don't believe that there is any definitive proof in this. Yeah. It's just, it's just this person said this and this person said that and who do you believe right there's no factual thing that i think that dylan could put in front of them and go oh come on y'all it's obvious i didn't you know deserve to get penalized i think that's how this is going to fall how would how in the world would they be able to have definitive proof that he didn't intentionally do that and backing up what you had to say there the section in the rule book that they referenced i'm just trying to find different ways to say it

I love it. Is 12.321B, which I will read out what it says, and it says race finishes must be unencumbered by violations of the NASCAR rules or other actions detrimental to stock car auto racing or NASCAR as determined in the sole discretion of NASCAR. So it's like, you can't point to the rulebook and be like, yeah, we didn't violate it. I mean, it's like a discretionary. Kind of like NASCAR is like, and we can choose what we want and want to penalize.

In the end, we are going to make. the final decision. Yeah. So that's kind of way I feel about that. We'll see how it goes. Speaking of leak schedules, there's been a couple different outlets where a NASCAR 2025 schedule has inadvertently popped up and then quickly been deleted. One of the kind of unknowns was the race in Mexico City.

there was a chance that if the Mexico City didn't work out for whatever reason, NASCAR couldn't get the deal done. They would go to Canada. Well, it looks like Mexico City is going to happen. Iowa is still there, which is a surprise to me. I was going to make it another year. It's amazing that you could read this being that it's in Spanish. Yeah.

You know what Daytona and Spanish is? Daytona. Daytona. Yeah. This, I like it. You know, Miami, again, Homesteads going to be in the first. third of the year. The idea or the rumor there is that they got moved to this particular part of the year, probably an unperferable spot for them. But there's a, I think that it's going to

end up, I'm just going to guess that it's going to end up as the finale again. Hopefully. One step back, two steps forward. Yeah. And so maybe we'll see where, we'll see what happens. Richmond loses a date. Yeah, that's an unfortunate thing for Richmond, but we kind of saw the writing on the wall with the short track package being as crappy as it's been over the last handful of years since the next gen car come on i'm not going to go easy on that it's been terrible atrocious and so it if we you know you can say what you want about richmond the racetracked facility um how they've how they've how they've performed in terms of modernizing comparable to other facilities uh and and what kind of draw it might be but the the the

the lousy, you know, way that the short track package has been going for a while is the number one reason why that race track doesn't have two dates. Yeah. I mean, the mile and a half star is kind of handcuffed. Where our bread and butter is right now, which leads us to the playoffs. Yeah. So we'll... See what I did there? Yeah. Good job. Wilkesboro's still an all-star race. Can't wait to hopefully see a points race there. I'm ready for the all-star race to move somewhere else. and for Wilkesboro to get a 400 lap or something like that. Easter break, officially off Easter for the Cup Series. That's good.

Darlington's moved up. Chicago's still there, and Sonoma's moved into a different part of the year, which I think I'll be doing that. So Amy will be happy. Oh, yeah. Not much else. I mean, the playoffs slipped. Yeah, the playoffs are a wild.

St. Louis, New Hampshire. How in the hell did St. Louis end up in the playoffs? that's a great question like what I would love to know I don't I'm not saying it's such a bizarre I'm not it is bizarre it's fine you know I mean there's no there's no like sort of oh you don't deserve this

kind of vibe it's just like I wonder how that even happened I didn't think it'd have a chance at getting in the playoffs ever no not ever but I didn't think it just sort of it just still feels like it just got here in terms of the cup series and now it's in the playoffs and so I'm wondering where the what the reasoning was what the reasons why and I want to say the tear down I think mentioned this way back when we were talking about

it but St. Louis is not NASCAR owned and so NASCAR took one of their own tracks out of the playoffs so does that mean they're looking to purchase St. Louis like that's what oh boy at least you know Bianchi and Gluck I think they've got their eyes on and I know the Indy car is racing at St. Louis right in June I believe so it's like they had to find another place for it, but I don't see why that couldn't have been Miami. Yeah. The Charlotte Roval is still around, unfortunately. Things hanging on.

Taledaga. There's a lot of people that love the Roval. I know that I'm in the smaller. I'm in the smaller group of folks that wish it was an Oval race. It's a cool fan experience if you're there. You know what's a cool fan experience? The Fall Race at Charlotte, the Oval. Like, I've been so many times that was my favorite.

favorite. I don't disagree. I don't disagree with you, but being the infield at the roval is a unique experience. People are freaked out about Talladega being in that second, you know, the semifinals. I mean, that qualifies you for the championship? Like, what's wrong? Is Talladega some sort of a fricking fluky race? It's a wild card. That's no doubt. It's a wild card race. Why? What do you mean why? Like, we're talking about Daytona. You might get a surprise winner. Anything can happen. Like, but is that the qualifier? A surprise winner all matter at Talladega. You're acting like Talladega just got built, and that the Super Speedway racing and drafting is like this new thing that just came on to the, that shouldn't be valued or ranked in the disciplines of short track racing and mile and a halves and all that stuff. You know, Talladega's been around since 69.

The racing there has been different from time to time, but for the most part, it's still all the kind of same, the same. the same skill of drafting and maneuvering and doing what you can. I know that it's an 80% chance you're going to crash, and I know that there's a lot of fluke winners or the potential chance for a long shot winner. But I don't think that that should, again, I don't think that that should scare the industry away from it. being thrown right, you know, throw the drivers right into those difficult scenarios.

Throw them into those moments where we want to see them panic. Do you want to, you know, I don't want to make, I know what you're saying about it. It's more about integrity. I love the drama of it. Yeah. I don't disagree there, but you're worried about is it, is it integral, right?

Right. Is it like, does it make it sort of gimmicky? That's, that's exactly what would make you feel better if it was the first race in that leg? I just like does it change at all? It seems like a round of 12 was a perfect home for it. Yeah. I mean,

I like the idea of having one of our like hallow grounds. Is the round of 16 a bad place for it? Because I think that's fine too. I think anywhere. Well, so. Shut up, Tim's. So this, if you put it,

the thing about it going, the thing about it going into the round of 16 is is that now you're in, you're at more, if you're a, okay, so if it's about in, integrity and you've had one of the best seasons of anyone right all year you go into the round of 16 you've got to beat 15 drivers in this round and you've got a race that's such a you know you don't have to beat 15 you got to be 12 well you got to be 12 sorry um that's so if you're going into the

the round of 16 you got to beat 12 in the round of eight you got to beat four right or yeah isn't the margin a lot smaller in the later round. That's what I'm saying. It's like, so if I would be scared, I'd be more nervous if Talladega was in the first round because there's a chance that 12 of those guys will outpoint the shit out of me if something bad happens to me at Talladega. And I'm in a worse spot.

Now, in the round of eight, then you get into the integrity thing, right? Then you get into the gimmicky. But how so? That's what, my argument I think is round of 12 was perfect for it then. Yeah. I think it was fine. I don't have any problem with it.

It doesn't bother me at all. Now, listen, when we get to Talladega next year in 2025, round of eight, it's going to be exciting. There's no doubt about it. I don't feel like I will even know the difference than it being 12 or 8, round to 12, round of 8. It's not going to feel different to me. When someone locks into the championship four after Talladega.

But who? It's going to be the top of the top if they lock in. It's not, you know, like not to knock on Justin Haley, but he's not in the playoffs right now. Justin Haley isn't going to win in the round of eight and get in if he's not in the playoffs. It's going to be one of the top eight. Like I don't see,

like you have more of a chance with the 16 having like, you know, like if Austin Dillon was in there to win and then make it to the next round then you do, you know, Denny Hamlin or Kyle Arson or whoever is probably going to be around in that eight. I don't like any Tal'Dagena.

I don't like any Talladega slander. Yeah, watch your mouth, Andrew. I'm not hating on Talladega. I just like. don't think it deserves to be in the round of eight? I'm slowly getting there now. I'm warming up to it. Put that race in the regular season.

How dare them put it in the playoffs. How do you put it back to it? Sounds like a good. You messing up my NASCAR. I just like that one of our most like howled grounds is a deciding factor in our playoffs. And I think that that's the way it should be for all of the tracks in the playoffs. Like I think Bristol is obviously in there.

Hey, sorry, no, you're good. That was rude. No, I just had a thought. Share it. Just go out of my mouth. So, I will give you this, Andrew, about Talladega. The current package at that track is not good. They run, because Denny and I talk about this.

He's like, it's hard to pass. He's like, you ought to come back and run Daytona. I'm like, I don't want to do it. He's like, you don't want to sit in line and ride 400 miles? Save gas. What a convincing. argument. It's like driving down to Daytona. Because if you get out of line, you don't

go anywhere with this car. And so, I watch it, and I'm like, aggravated watching it. I do not... Now, I love broadcasting it because I can tell you what's happening, but if I'm sending it home my couch, I'm so frustrated watching it.

Because I know that they would love to race and they can't race. This package that they have at Talladega and to an extent Daytona doesn't allow them to do anything that they want to do and would choose to do. We had the, you know, we had cars in the 2000s and the 2010s, man, you could put things together, make things happen in this car, just, you get out of line with it, it's just a big

goal, it's just a roadblock. And so, I would say if they could fix the package at Talladega, you and I would be more excited about that. That's all I want. It's for both of you guys to be on the same page. And we, I'm sorry to complain more about the car or the package or how the car races, but I'm just stating, I'm just stating what the hell of the truth is. That's a good point.

I mean, looking at the playoffs overall, do you wish there were more mile and a halfs? No. I wish there were more short tracks. But with the, but what you just said, I don't get excited about the short tracks right now, given our current package. I know. Fix the package. Okay.

Fix the package at Talladega, fix the short track package. They're working on... They're working on a short track package. If Denny Hamlin said, hey, let's just run this red tire everywhere. I think Denny is right. Secrets in Goodyear. Oh, yeah. The tire for the short track stuff is where the answer is

or the biggest gains will be made. Yeah. I like Denny's idea about running the soft tire everywhere. But I almost want to see them try the soft tire as the... Let me get try. See if I get this right. Primary. The yellows.

The reds become the yellows. I don't know. I want to try to learn this freaking new lingo we got. The option and prime. I'm going to confuse the F out of everybody listening. The prime car,

the prime tire should be the red tire. Yeah. Are y'all following along? I'm sure you are. We're still clear. I'm sure you are. Different tire or just changed the color?

I want it to be blue. So the soft tire should be the main tire, and they should try to even go to another giant step softer. Oh, as your secondary, as your, that's the new red. Yeah, but it'd probably wear out in 10 laps. Yellow is the new red. And not be worth of shit. Just to Denny's point, let's just run that red tire everywhere. I'd be down with that.

Phoenix. Oh, dude. That would be unbelievable. That would get me. excited about Phoenix. All right. As we mentioned in the Xfinity race, Justin Allgaard wins. Junior Motorsports, we entered five cars. We crashed three. Just a tough day on that side of it.

Yeah, what's that roller? That's got to be a weird feeling. All right. So the race is over and I want to go on Twitter or X and comment. I don't want to, you know, when our car wins, I don't want people to go, damn, Junior didn't say. Right. So I'm going to go on there. Now, I'm going on there, and I want to go, damn right, Justin Algar. Hell of a job, buddy. Woo, Junipertststsch, all our employees.

But I did have three cars crashed, and they're not that damn happy about that. And so, you know, you don't know how to respond because you don't want to alienate these three drivers that were swept up in these wrecks that didn't need to happen, right? The Rex, they weren't really the ones that caused them. You know, Parker Clingerman shoving the 45, Rex is 88 late in the race, and at least that's what I thought I saw. And so, you know, you kind of, it's weird. You don't know how to feel. So you go on there, and that's all I know to say is I don't know how to feel.

I am happy, I'm mad, I'm sad, I'm... You want me to read your tweet? No, I just said, I just said it. It's pretty much the same thing I just did. We don't have to read it. but hey, we came here yesterday and we had a beer toast to be able to tell the employees how thankful we were and how we need to gear up for the playoffs.

Justin's won a ton of stages this year but hasn't been able to put the races together and finally we're able to do it. We pass all them Joe Gibbs cars. Hell yeah. Whipped up on them Joe Gibbs cars. They're the best. Their cars are so fast.

They got great little drivers in there. Little drivers. And all they do. Got great little drivers. But it's so rewarding when you beat teams like that because you know they're great. You want to beat the best? I don't mean, I want to,

I'm trying my best to give them the compliment here. That has been the standard in the Xfinity series for a long time. The Joe Gibbs cars. I mean, especially back when Kyle was running a lot of races, my gosh. And so, you know, Ty Gibbs was difficult to beat. They find, you know, they find, you know, speed that a lot of teams don't find, and it's tough to beat them. So it's very rewarding to have such a great day. This week's segment of Dirty Air was brought to you by Tire Pros.

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in a game.nc.gov. All right, we got the winner of yesterday's race, Tyler Reddick calling in, and Tyler, where are you calling from? I just stumbled my way into airspeed. But yeah, it was, we got to celebrate, man, a good bit at the house. Maybe I've got to give my house a fancy name, too. You know, we got, we got airspeed. I'm not to come up with that.

Maybe the next time we'll chat. I'll have a name for you for my house. What's a race win party look like? A lot of people. We just moved and, you know, I needed to do some stuff to my previous house. And there was this house that my wife had been looking at for months and months and months. And it was still on the market and I finally caved and went and looked at it. And that was my mistake.

I fell in love with this. So we just moved. We just got married. We just won a race. We had a lot going on. But it was a, the new house is a great spot to have a gathering. I don't think my neighbors understood what was probably going on.

Last night, there was a bunch of cars filling up the, filling up the neighborhoods. They were probably all pissed off about that. But hopefully, hopefully someone get used to it. But it was so nice being able to, you know, start the race at 11 o'clock like we did and get home.

I can't remember the last time I landed, gotten off the airplane, and the sun was still up. So it gave us plenty of time to have a good gathering. And I think I still went to bed a decent hour. I don't know. I couldn't find my phone. I finally found it out the door. And now I'm talking to you guys.

So, yeah, it was a great time. You know, a lot of the folks with beasts brought a bunch of Beast unleashed, nasty beast. Have you had a chance to see the True X contact with the wall and has your opinion calmed down a little bit over NASCAR's trigger, happy caution button, finger, whatever? I think I've only seen like the clips where they like pan to it real quick. He'd already hit the wall. I was trying to watch it and kind of catch up on the way.

I'm probably not supposed to say that on the way to shop. I was listening to it. I guess I can say that. I was listening to it. I wasn't watching it. So I was trying to catch up, catch up, but yeah, I didn't see Martin's car post

race, you know, but I would imagine it was pretty significant contact. It kind of looked like it from the little pieces of it. There's nothing more frustrating. Yeah, there is. No. No, there is. I was mad. I just needed to calm

down and focus ahead on you know, the restarts that we're coming. So that'll get better as I get older. I'll continue to improve on that. I realize it's not over. You know, we got a shot. Yeah. Now, I thought your reaction was fine.

That annoys a shit out of me. Anytime you're sitting there cruising with a win in your hand and a college flag comes out, you know you just need to get to the white flag. But so you're in this really great position for the playoffs. And I know you want to try to continue to put yourself in any of the way. even better position, but you basically got this weekend coming up and you got a teammate and you know what situation Bubba's in right there at the bubble. I know y'all haven't probably had a competition meeting to be able to really dive down into the nuts and bolts of a strategy, but

what will be your approach? I imagine Bubba's probably just going to race hard, try to get stage points, try to do everything you can to put the pressure on chastain. But what do you do? What can you do as a teammate? I think we pretty much are going to do be on the same strategy as him. You know, the speedway racing man is just something else right now. If we weren't saving fuel like we do, the racing would be awful. It would be terrible. That's the funniest thing in all this.

If we weren't saving fuel before we hit pit road for that stage or whatever, we'd just be two by two the entire race wide open and just no one would go anywhere because I think a lot of these guys have gotten smart and understood that if you're controlling the bottom or the top you really don't allow yourself as crazy as sound right I don't think you allow yourself to generate a run big enough to clear to the bottom or clear to the top because that just opens up the inside or outside lane for the car that's behind you and that's when you can kind of see that you know cycle occur you know I think in the beginning we saw that a lot whereas the bottom or the top you know they'd cycle up or cycle down and the next car up

would take control of the inside or outside lane and then they'd kind of be the car controlling it all so yeah if it wasn't for the fuel saving that that goes on um i don't think you really even see see the racing that we kind of do so yeah i'd rather be racing wide open but it is it is a very complex battle on the racetrack that you're facing you know you're trying to um save fuel you're trying not to be the last car on the lead lap or last car in the pack while you you know you do save less fuel at the very very back to you're the last car in the pack it affects the numbers there but yeah it's just a complex situation every single stage and I think just because of that I don't think you can really risk throwing away the stage points all those things I think you kind of just

have to stay up there and stay in the mix and just hope that you aren't a part of of the wreck if it happens I think 23's got to do the same thing. We're just going to do what we can to save fuel and try to, you know, cycle ourselves in front at the end of the stages. Monday races. I've always thought that when we have a rain delay and the race gets moved to the next day, that some guys don't stay up for the race the next day. When they get back in the car on Monday, they've lost a little bit of give a shit. And so, at least in my mind, I always tried to take advantage of that.

And this was a chance for me to take advantage of people that aren't motivated or have lost some motivation overnight. Do you think that that's the thing? I think it happens sometimes for sure. It's just situational. It would have been very easy for that to happen to us, I feel like. I remember every time it rained, I normally just go to the box and hang out with Billy. but I kind of communicated with him, you know,

each time what I was kind of feeling before even got out of the car. And I personally went back to the bus and I was playing some Xbox. I was kind of checked out. I was kind of doing what you're talking about. When they finally called it, me and my kid were sitting there. We were playing Bluey and having a good time. You know, just time was just kind of blowing by. I knew we had some work to do, but we kind of talked about it.

We talked pretty quick. We're like, all right, I think we tighten up a little bit. We'll be all right. And we kind of just left it that. And, you know, I think there's a balance between not caring enough. And then there's also the other side of it where you can overthink yourself into this, into this polarity you don't need to be. So there's a balance. I was a little bit on the side of probably not thinking too much about it.

But, you know, we had a plan going into Monday, the first time we hit pit road. And it really seemed like that was the adjustment we needed. It's a tough thing, especially a place like Michigan. You know, you're trying to understand. I'm too tight, my two loose, am I loose because of where I just ran that lap? Am I loose because of the air I got put in? And so it's just, it's hard to really understand what you're going to need to go a little bit faster. And for us, you know, I was probably playing it a little bit safe by saying, let's tighten up.

You know, I don't want to have a moment spin out all by myself. But in reality, I mean, it woke our camera up and we were much better. Well, we appreciate it, man. Awesome win. Great race to see you get up there and make it happen. And good luck going forward. I know you get Daytona behind you and be able to focus on the playoffs. It's going to be interesting to see how far you guys can go

and capitalize on this momentum you have. So thanks for your time today. I know you had a long night last night and you got a lot going on this week. But we appreciate you giving us some time here. Absolutely. Yeah, it was fun. Short week, but that's okay. It's Daytona.

We don't need. I mean, they got put the car together. You know, I just, you know, I do my lap on Friday and just try to stay out of it on Saturday and score some points. Spielway's been good for us this year. So hopefully we get another win there too. All right, now it's time for Dirty Modeau with Tampa Tim's making all the best bets here in the past weekend at Michigan and looking forward to Daytona. Dirty Modeau out every Thursday, they handicap the field for you if you want to get involved in trying to make a little bit of money. they might be the guys to listen to.

So we got Tampa here. Hosevar top 10 finish, and he finished 10th. He did. Yeah, he did. And Hosevar over Dylan. Yes. Cash that bet. Both big bets.

Eric Jones finishing over 18.5 didn't cash. 16th he finished. Tough break. Damn. I'd play it again every 10 times out of 10. Yeah. That was a good play. And all your live bets didn't work out.

Nope, nope. I had Truex. He was Monday Martin, so just did that for fun. And then Chase, I thought Chase was on the a good strategy once you passed Byron. And then I thought Kyle Bush, he was 12 to 1 live odds. So that was good odds. And he was on that other strategy, I thought.

So none of them worked out. Yeah. But it's okay. All right. Well, you're coming up on a pretty unpredictable race. All right. So going into Daytona, we talked about this last time, I think, with Talladega. Keep the bet simple.

Keep it minimal. Don't get creative. Don't get smart. But what is your approach? Exactly that. And have fun. You know, if you want to bet that long shot, bet the long shot. You know, I think stay away from the favorites is a good way to go about it.

That's unpredictable. So maybe your win bets, I'd keep to, you know, one or two long shots. Maybe you throw in if you're a fan of Ryan Blaney or Denny Hamlin, they'll probably be up there. Yeah, sure, why not? Just have fun. Don't go too crazy. Keep it small units and have fun. With the way this race is positioned in the part of the season that it's in,

you have a lot of unmotivated drivers that are good. You know, think about a Ryan Blaney or even a Denny Hamlin, right? They're in a good position playoff-wise. They've got other things, teammates and other people out there that they would probably want to see win this race above them. They won't openly admit that. But you know Denny is going to be trying to help Bubba all he can. Yeah.

So, I mean, in this, if you push, you know, if you go back to Talladega, They're racing for themselves, right? They're trying to win races, trying to get stage points, trying to do everything they can to help themselves in the playoffs. Well, they're there now. They've already accomplished everything. So to your point, the mentality of a lot of drivers

might not be exactly what you think going into Daytona. Yeah, to your point. I mean, this is probably the one drafting track, restrict to play track that you, it's probably the most unpredictable one, but predictable as well, because I would, like you said, I would probably place Bubba before I'd place a Denny win bet

because I would assume Denny's going to try to push bubble to the win. And I think that's a higher percentage chance. You'll probably get better odds. So it's a great point. Yeah. All right, man. Well, everybody, good luck this weekend. And, again, tune in to Dirty Modo this Thursday to get even more information

and more opinions from the Tart and the rest of the gang about this upcoming race of Daytona. All right, we got a car store update, had an awesome race this past weekend at Ace. Just incredible. If you haven't seen the highlights on YouTube from Flow, you ought to go watch it. It's worth the seven or nine minutes of your time. I just, it was unreal racing. Eric Brennan's got a recap. After Tropical Storm Debbie rolled through the area last week,

Ace Bway and the leadership group behind the ZMAX cars tour presented by Soundgear collectively agreed the best thing to do for the sake of drivers, teams, and race fans would be to push the race back an additional week for the safety of all involved. As it would turn out, the accelerated GFX 285 would end up being well worth the weight. The 12th late model stock race of the season would be the second of the year at Ace and the 10th visit to Altamaha, North Carolina in series history. For the fourth time in his career, Bobby McCarty captured a Thunder Road Harley-Davidson poll award at the famous 4-10 mile and was hoping to parlay the effort into what would be his second win at the Speedway as well. Former winner at Ace and the driver who led 100 laps here in May before finishing third, Ryan Millington, which joined McCarty.

on the front row. Inclement weather was looming in the area all night long, which was another added element into what was already set to be an exciting race. From the jump, McCarty would lead most of the opening 25 laps, but Millington would assert himself at the head of the field fell up through the halfway point. However, he wasn't alone. The driver's second in points trying to make up ground on championship points leader Connor Hall, Brendan Butterbean Queen would begin to challenge Millington for the top spot. Over the span of 34 laps, the two would swap the lead a total of 11 times. The Routin and Gowgium would allow some newcomers to get into the mix.

As we approached 10 laps to go, it all came to a head. Here's Blake McAnliss with the call. I think Queen's starting to be smart. You can see him back up his exit off the two to not allow the crossover, but Millington is still going to be able to make it happen. He looks low. Queen goes to block. Millington is there down into turn one.

This is simply unbelievable as Queen with Millington leaning into him saves it all. Another shove, and he's seed. Hall was waiting, waiting and waiting for that moment. Without Connor Jones up the inside on the points leader off two. Milly Tim looking to the high side three wide. Where on earth did Connor Jones come from? Off the corner, another new race leader, Jones, 1 and 2. As it turns out, this was only the beginning of the bumper tag

that we would start to see in the final few laps. Points leader Connor Hall would get turned around by Trayton Lapsovich, and Connor Jones got tagged by Chad McCombie for the race lead after Dylan Harville had a hard crash off turn two. The spins and resulting penalties created a unique cycling effort at the front of the pack, with new leader Brent Cruz in command and Minnie Tyrell chasing him in the final couple of laps. Two laps to settle it here, Tyrell tried to get to the back of Brent Cruz off the turn two, but not able to do so. They'll head down to turn three this time. They're side by side behind him for third.

Cruz gets a shot from Tyrell who has to get out of the gas. One lap left to settle it here and out to Mahal. Brent Cruz, can he hang on for his third win of the season? Many Tyrell hasn't won in three years in the three and four for the final time. Checker flag in hand and Brent Cruz is going to win a wild, accelerated GFX.com 285. Third career win in his rookie cars tour campaign for the Kevin Harvick Incorporated Driver Cruise with Tyrell, the runner-up. Caden Kloppo filling in for his brother Carson and his late model stock date,

debut with the tour was third, while championship contenders, Brendan Queen and Connor Hall got back up into the top five. The pro-late model race saw Caden Quoppel rebound from an early break issue to grab his second win of the season and third at Ace and a pro. Caden Honeycutt and a new ride that materialized in just a week prior to the event finished second, tightening up the championship race. The rest of the top five saw Jake Bowman, Spencer Davis, and Jimmy Renfrew, Jr. The pro-late models get one week off before Florence, August 30th, but the late model stocks will now shift to the tight bow ring known as the Wake County Speedway. Be sure to come on out to the racetrack this Saturday, August 24th, or catch all the action live on Flow Racing.

For the ZMAX cars tour, I'm Eric Brennan. All right, it's time for the white flag. The Tuesday show is coming to a close. But don't forget, Monday, we drop the tear down with Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi as they covered everything at Michigan. And then also, Monday and today, action detrimental with Denny Hamlin and Doorbopper Clear is available. Thankful for everybody rushing home after the delay in Michigan to get all that done and get that available to us.

And you. Dropping tomorrow's Speed Street with Connor Daily and Chase Holden. Connor is back full-time racing in the IndyCar series. Well, thankful for that. And we're excited. It's awesome. Yes. And so now Connor, able to give us a little bit more feedback on what he's experiencing behind the wheel of the car.

And we have Derek Cope in the studio for the interview portion of the Dale Jr. download this week. I'm excited about that. I'm going to talk about Derek's career as a driver, Daytona 500 winner, and a horrible crash he had at Richmond in the Xfinity series, and then a team owner. How did that all work out? And what's he doing today? Thursday, we talked about it, DJD Reloaded. And then Dirty Mo Doe comes out as well. Don't forget the summer games are here. Dirty Mo Summer Games. All eight episodes are available now on the Next Level with Andrew Curlin YouTube page. That's Next Level with Andrew Curlin YouTube page.

And the professor's bus race dropped over the weekend. Who's the professor? Professor on Dirty Mode Doe, of course. His bus race? Yeah. Well, we nicknamed all the events after. You know, it's Russell, racing insights. He had all the insights on the buses. I got you. Yeah. Andrew took on the big win and the trophy is still here. Very proud of it. Hopefully not for much longer. Yeah. And Andrew will be at Daytona with our friends at Helmonds in the fan zone interviewing you the fans. Yeah. So look out for Andrew in Daytona this weekend.

Big prizes and giveaways. Yes. Yeah, there's one in particular prize. You have to be there that I'm really excited to give away. But yeah, it is in the fan zone. We're in between the Toyota and the Exaltagate Gate. I want to say I'll be there on 4 to 6 on Friday, 23, 4.30 on Saturday. DBC's doing a Q&A on Saturday.

Justin Allgaier's doing a Q&A on Friday. So there's a lot going on at the Helmonds display. Right on, man. We're thankful for Helmonds. And that's enough about you, Andrew. Dalton has our weekly social media standout. Yes. Last week we talked about school and military school and homeschool.

And Brian Clifton commented in our YouTube and said, just wanted to let you know homeschooled prom sucks. Damn. He's the only one there, dressed up and is living around. All right. And we got the question. of the week. Tim's has a question of the week from Brad Gislaaski. Yeah, at one time he said he was going to run a race in the truck series. It never did.

Is that still on? Well, I'm not retired yet. But I can't find where I would want to race in the truck series. Well, I was thinking Martinsville, but when you watch the truck race at Martinsville, they're just running through each other, every corner. And so I don't quite know where should I race a truck? IRP. possibly yeah RIP would be cool RIP would be cool yeah maybe

first one I came to mine man I actually do like that racetrack Tim's just signed you up yeah yeah if you just sign this right here we'll get it going I hate that idea actually

all right so thanks for asking that Brad keeping the pressure on man I want to dedicate this episode of the Dale Jenner download to Scott Blumquist and the family of Scott just a tragedy

for a legend like that to pass away. Scott was on the show recently. We uploaded the entire YouTube version of Scott's interview for everybody to see. Very entertaining guy. And I wish that I would have been able to have gotten to know him over the decades that he's been in the sport. And I know that, you know, the Scott Blumclus that we know are new today,

that it was probably different 10 years ago, probably different 20 years ago. And I would love to have known him as a person as he evolved and changed and grew up and went through life. But lucky enough to be able to have a chance to sit down and talk to him in this studio and we're all very sad that he's gone. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.