The Dale Jr. Download - 593 - The Flag Bearer & The Champs Are Here

Episode Date: November 12, 2024

The NASCAR season has wrapped, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns from Phoenix with his now famous flag as a championship car owner in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. He is joined by special co-host TJ Majors to recap how the Championship battles played out, plus:The iRacing NASCAR game is in the works!Joey Logano has developed into a clutch, championship-caliber racerDoes the championship race need to leave Phoenix?Phoenix is going to PhoenixRyan Blaney’s impressive end-of-the-race driveTwo champions call in - Justin Allgaier & Joey LoganoDale gives the two champs valuable advice on how to respond to text messagesThe NASCAR world mourns the loss of Bobby AllisonDuring the Ask Jr. segment, listeners sent in questions regarding:Advice for the pace car driver to avoid crashing at PhoenixDale Jr.’s conversation with Martin Truex at Phoenix this past weekend 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's Dale Jr. We're back in the studio for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download, and it is post-Fenix reaction. We're going to be talking about, obviously, winning the championship here with Junior Motorsports and Justin Algar. Justin's calling in. TJ's here. Hey, TJ, how you doing? Hey, how's it going?

I'm really excited. I am too, man. It's really, really awesome. And we're going to have a lot of fun today. We've got a lot to cover. It's going to be a great show. Let's go. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media.

You're Dale and Jr. A complete moron if you undo your belt in a moving race car. Moron. Four, three. Rally. It disregards a bird. That was unnecessary. The Dell Jr.

Download starts now. Go, go, go. All right, so we're back in the studio, and I've been itching to get back in the studio to do this show. And as I said, we are doing dirty air here this Tuesday. we are going to have a lot going on. Justin Algar, our champion in the Xfinity series, is calling in. And is anybody else calling in today? Joe Ligano.

Joe Ligano. The champ. Holy shit. Cup champs calling. We'll get to talk to him. And I got a lot to talk about. So what do you guys think is trending right now on Twitter in sports? Football?

Monday night football. Molly Hatchet. Molly Hatchet. Why would Molly Hatchet be trending right now? I don't know, but I just got this note. I got a screenshot. Dead? From a friend of mine.

No, that's a good answer. Not a good answer. Did you just say that your own answer was a good answer? Well, if someone's trending, if someone's trending, I'm just trying to play on. I'm thinking maybe the guy's dead. Good answer. Good answer.

Good answer. Good answer, Syl. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean... He's dead. Is he dead? Exactly.

I was wondering where this is going because I was in a group text and I saw you bring that up and I'm like, wow. Yeah. I was like, where's this coming from? So, I-Racing is creating the new console game for NASCAR. That's right. 2025.

I'm a spotter for it. T.J.'s a spotter for it. Wow. He'll be in there. Humble brag. Hey, we're going to have a lot. We're having a blast putting this thing together. And obviously the developers

are creating an awesome piece of software, and it's going to be a fun, fun game, trying to incorporate everything we can into it. Obviously, over the course of the next several years, more and more additions that we want to pack into this game will be added. But one of the things that's really important, I think, is trying to create a soundtrack. And Steve Myers that works at Eye Racing,

great friend of mine, known him forever, it seems. He asked me to see if I could just kind of help out a little. that spurned some ideas. I reached out to a couple drivers. I won't name who just yet, but we got some ideas on some songs for some drivers. And we also pitched it out to folks last night on social media. I tweeted about it.

I said, hey, what songs are a must? And then I saw it, I saw those, I saw the NASCAR Reddit take that tweet over to Reddit. And, man, if you read the thread, Molly Hatchet, Molly Hatchet, Molly Hatchet, flirting with disaster. So when you think of console games for NASCAR over the years, there are a couple songs maybe three or four that were you know that were kind of iconic or memorable because of that specific game you might have had your favorite was maybe EA 2003 2004 dirted Daytona whatever it was they all had this one song right and I think most people connect the NASCAR console library to flirting with disaster Molly Hatchet and and there's a couple other ones too I

I think magic carpet ride. That would be mine. Stepping Wolfie. Yep. Yeah. So look, here is how this works. It's really interesting. The great thing about being asked to be involved in this is I get to kind of go on this ride

to learn about how you get the rights to these songs. What does that cost? How expensive is it? And so obviously we would love to just add any. Oh, are we going to include Molly Hatchet? We have every intention. Every intention. if it's not on there, it was because it was impossible to get it on there.

We're going to try our ass off. But it'll be fun to see really kind of what kind of budget we have, what kind of expense this will cost. I'm going to learn so much through this process. You have to, it's really neat. You have to get somebody to go out and reach out to each individual person that owns the license, and it might be multiple people that own the license to one song. And you have to pay each one of those individuals.

It's not a simple situation. But just kind of a fun thing I'm doing these days. People think, you know, what's Dale Jr. doing or, how's retirement? I worry about you sometimes. Those are things I'm working on. What am I doing in retirement? I'm doing a podcast later today, someone else's. I'm working with eye racing on the console game.

And so there's all these little projects. man always going on in the background the cars tour always something going on with the car's tour we're trying to do i mean a lag bearer yeah i do not have bees you had a bee in that that outlet it got you well yeah what's what you're talking about that one by your pool that you were running from remember the nest you found oh jesus that makes you a beekeeper so there's a wasp so i'm a beekeeper that's right um yeah so pretty cool great way to start the show guys um good energy here so far. Dirty Air is brought to you by

Tire Pros, whether you know a lot about cars who are little. The pros at Tire Pros, there you go to. Oil changes, engine repair, you know, they're called Tire Pros, but they do it all. So visit your local Tire Pros today. Joe Lugano is now a three-time NASCAR Cup Series champion.

He's a temp driver to win three or more championships in his career. Let's talk about Joey for a second. We're going to talk about everything else going on. and in that whole thing in the season and how all that played out but look first off what is Joe Gibbs thinking today what do you think Joe Gibbs is thinking I mean I ain't trying to give Joe Gibbs any shit I'm not yeah but I'm just thinking man who not and I know it probably wasn't Joe's idea I'm I'm just going to assume that other people in that company at that time

maybe they're not even there anymore we're like hey I think it's time to to move on from Joe Lugano. And honestly, when it happened, it wasn't. I don't think there was a lot of people in the industry that were going, oh, that's terrible. That's a dumb idea. And because he had struggled in that 20 car. And he was replacing Tony Stewart, huge shoes to fill.

Results just weren't there. But we also were going to the COT. What a piece of crap. Joey had all kinds of, you know, Joey had all kinds of, hurdles in front of it, right? And he had Mark Martin out there saying he's the greatest thing since sliced bread, so he had that sliced bread moniker. I'm not sure he really loved that.

Nobody deserves that, even though Mark's intentions were good. And you've got to have a guy like Mark Martin out there going, this guy's the guy you need to pay attention to. We need people saying that. That's great. That's great. But I think the media jumped on that and put a ton of pressure on the guy. And but God, Almighty man, he goes on and develops into the,

this champion caliber driver that can, he's clutch. He comes in when it's necessary and gets it done and wheels himself into position, pure determination. He has a great crew chief and Paul Wolf, great team around him. And Penske is a group, at least the 12 and the 22,

always rise to the occasion. And, oh, come on. You did. You did that. You did it. I laughed. You know, so, look, you got to give the guy all the credit in the world as a three-time champion. This is three, you don't, you know, and I know this one's got some circumstances.

So let's talk about that. We want to celebrate Joey's going to call in later. Gluck did a poll, did Phoenix live up to the moment? 41.6% said, yes. Am I right? Mm-hmm. Not great. look, Phoenix is going to Phoenix sometimes.

I'm not going to, you know, I think the general opinion is, I think the general opinion is there are more exciting racetracks. Look, you can build 50 racetracks. They're not all, you can try your hardest, you know, to build 50 racetracks of different types. And there's going to be a great one and there's going to be one that's not so good. And Phoenix kind of follows. right in the middle somewhere.

Sometimes you have some great events. We had a great event in the Xfinity series the night before. That's the thing. It has potential. The Xfinity series is put on some awesome races, and there's a lot of reasons why the car, I think, is just a more entertaining race car because of how difficult it is to drive.

The drivers are not perfect. In the Cup series, they're good. They don't mess up. I almost said the F word. They don't mess up. Never done that. Never done that before. In an Xfinity series, we're prone to mistakes.

That causes opportunities. Like, you know, guys are going to spend out. Guys in the back going to get themselves in trouble. That's going to create cautions, create three starts, create drama. We don't get all that in the Cup series. And so there's a bunch of reasons why. But again, in general, Phoenix is, look, the old track with the old track with the shoulder surface, I liked that better, but it raced about the same. You would still get a, it's not

the reconfiguration. If anything, the dog leg is foolish and silly as I thought it was when it came out, how they cut the course, which is just, you know, I don't know, you can love it or hate it. You don't like it? I never, I don't love when you build a track and the best way to run it is by cutting the course. I don't think when they built, I'll say this. Now, if they built it intentionally for the restarts to be that way, then I would go, all right, but I know damn well. The guy who engineered that thing never knew what those restarts. They thought they would be up.

The start finish line wasn't even there. Well, I'm just saying. When they had the dog leg installed. They thought that they would stay up on the track. And they never thought that they would go across the apron like that. And so the whole thing, when something doesn't work as designed or gets misused or there's, It's a shortcut. I like it.

I'm fine with that. I'm fine with that. I don't think they should blow it up. It's fine. I didn't love it when it came out. I don't think they will. Yeah. I didn't love it when it came out, but it does, hey, it seems like the drivers don't mind it.

You don't mind it. So I'll shut up. It's just like it seems like it's a passing opportunity. You can almost pull a slide job on somebody cutting the dog leg and in a place like Phoenix where you need passing opportunity. it's an option. Yeah, it is, but it's too rough. On the drivers.

Yeah, it's too rough on the drivers. I talk to a lot of drivers as they go across that apron. They hate to do it because it's so violent and it's hard on their head. Bit Ty Gibbs. Yeah. Well, I'm just saying physically long term over and over and over doing that lap after lap after lap all day long, you might as well be suiting up on the offense of the decency line of an NFL game.

You know what I'm going with that? Yeah. All right. And the more rigid they set up these cars, particularly with the next-J-N car, the more violent that action of going down there is. And so, you know, talking to some drivers, they're like, man, if I could, if I could choose, I wouldn't go there. But I have to go there.

And so, but we're getting into the weeds here. All I'm going to say is, I think, you know, Phoenix is going to be Phoenix. Sometimes we're going to get great races there, sometimes not so amazing. Look, last year at Phoenix, I thought was great. the one car holding off the 12 for the championship in the cup series. Well, that was entertaining to me. I was entertained. And so not so much this year, and that's okay.

Sometimes you're just going to have those. We can't, you know, I'd rather them, I'd rather them. I don't know who them is, but I'd rather everybody just keep their hands out of it. Let it play out. If it ends up being a snooze fest, oh well, we have them sometimes. should we race somewhere else for the final race of the year? We probably should move it around. I think that Phoenix has had a great run.

But I've got to give Phoenix a lot of credit. They have put a ton of money into that racetrack. It's not a bad facility to go and have a good experience. You can move around. There's a lot of room in all the garage areas. There's a fan. The media center is great. All of the interior of the racetrack and the exterior of the racetrack,

It's cool tons of camping. They have this thing. I didn't get to see it, but Justin went to it after the race outside called the barn or something. Yeah, it's brand new. Right? So they'll bring all the champions there, and it's like basically a big barn that is converted into like a bar. Yes. It's pretty awesome.

Right. So that alone, shoot, I don't care what the damn finish looks like. That, having a bar at a racetrack raises that son of a bitch up the list for me. because I'm telling you, I know, look, I don't understand. We got Talladega, right? One of the coolest party infields out there. It's legendary. Yes, they already, I mean, it's built in.

They have the boulevard and all that. But why in the hell, and I know they did that big build, whatever the hell that thing was in the garage area where the fans can go in there. That's kind of what I was hoping they would do. But in the interior of the racetrack, there's a ton of, of unused space during the races that the campers and stuff don't get right there in the center of the track. There's not a ton of camping there. They should have a physical brick and mortar building that is a gathering town hall of sorts for the fans. A bar. Yeah. And I know it could get

out of hand. I know that's extra staffing and bouncers for the rowdies and all that stuff. I mean, that's fan experience. I know it could be also problematic. You got, you know, a bunch of people in there drinking and they're, you know, been up all day. But I think if you can build it in such a, there should be something like that at Talladega in the infield and in other racetracks. Michigan, all these places should have sort of a gathering town hall place where fans can go and you can have your concerts and stuff in there, considering whether there's bad weather or what have you. But, yeah, I mean, I, so this thing that's, out, I didn't get to see it. I saw some pictures

when Justin went. Fans can go there. They're going to see the champion at the end of the day. They know that. So they all know to be there. They all know to go have a great experience there and you can hang out and drink and have fun. That is, that upset, that upset for me. Because we always, we can we can, we cannot manipulate or determine the outcome of the race or

whether the race is exciting or dull. we put the cars on the racetrack, we drop the green flag, and whatever happens, we all have to live with that, right? Unless we want to manipulate the races to make sure they're always exciting, which nobody does, right? You don't, we don't want to add more gimmicks and, you know, all of those things. Is it traction compound a gimmick? Sorry?

Like adding PJ1 or resin? I'm just saying we don't, we want the racing to be pure. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Right? And sometimes you're going to have. have mediocre results on the racetrack in terms of excitement and all that stuff. But what they're doing, I guess how they can make up the difference if you're a racetrack

like Phoenix is by putting the barn out there, is by rebuilding the interior of the racetrack as they did. And they've turned that racetrack into a better fan experience. Like if you go there for the weekend and you've got Scott's deal, it's great. But I think it's ran its course. So while it's taking, you know, while it's taking. while it may not have delivered the type of on-track action we were hoping for, I'm not going to give it a whole lot of shit about it.

Just to counter your point real quick, I've been to the Phoenix Championship race, have also watched it on TV. I think both experiences are very different in terms of being there at the racetrack versus watching on TV. And I think it's one of the best facilities in NASCAR, and I think they've done a phenomenal job, and I love going there. Yep. But if I'm watching on TV, it doesn't do a whole lot for me that the facility's nicer. They've added the barn. I'm happy for the fans that are there.

Is there anything TV could do to make it better? So go to the race. Just go to the race then, Annie? No, no, no. Sure. Not everyone can do that, though. Well, let me ask you. There's going to be people on TV. My question, I guess, is if you were at the event, give me, is your experience from the green flag to the checker flag different versus watching on TV? forget all the amenities and all that. If I were sitting in the stands, it would probably feel about the same-ish.

But I think TV plays a big role into how we make our schedule and the format and what we do to decide a champion and where we go. So the problem is Miami has the racing. I'm always going to be a proponent for Miami, but they don't have the facility, which Phoenix has. so it's like and even Steve Phelps has mentioned this too he mentioned in the state of the sport that Miami they've thought about looking back they're going to see what attendance looks like in March and that's not going to be good it's not going to be good but he's like that's going to be really big for us to see if we can gain momentum

it makes me feel like it's almost like they're using it as an escape to be like well the attendance wasn't good that's why we can't go back to Miami but I agree with you he did say that they're looking at other venues like Darlington, Charlotte, he said, Vegas, those are the three other venues he named. Not terrible. Not terrible. Vegas has the racing and, you could argue, the venue, which I don't know. I think for NASCAR, they need to find that happy medium of facility and racing.

Unfortunately, Phoenix and Miami don't have both. Yeah. But you could, I mean, you could go to a homestead and very well have Tyler Reddick lead three-quarters of the laps and win by a straightaway there. You're right. Yeah, I mean. Is that a good thing? No, I'm saying you can get the same.

Not every race is going to be a game seven last drive. You know, and I thought Phoenix actually put on a fairly good race. So for Phoenix, I mean, what do you expect? What would you enjoy about it? I mean, I thought the racing was hard. The resarts were wild. I thought the, you know, the cream rose to the top at the end. We had a guy running another guy down.

Joey got a better restart than Blaney, and that separated him out a little bit. And that's not, you know, that's what it comes down to. Joey executed and got through traffic a little bit better. Ryan had to use his stuff up, but it was cool seeing Ryan run him down to get there. I think it, you know, the only thing that I would like to see a little bit is the guys, I don't know, like the tire that we had at Martinsville was really good. I think a tire that wore out even more to where, you know, these guys are sliding around and struggling a little bit.

Like maybe Joey went too hard in the beginning. But without a late race restarted, Green White Checker, that race is probably not going to score very well in that poll but i mean i thought it was a good race we had a late race restart we were all on the edge of our seats watching that one and uh you know that's that's just how phoenix i thought i thought it was a fairly good race for phoenix question for both of you then with blaney running joey down obviously he didn't get to him with this package with this car did he have a chance if he had more laps or more tire was there an opportunity to pass him or is it really difficult no i thought it could to pass to him. He had hurdles

in his way to get there at the end of the race, which were other cars. He had to pass to five not easy to do, and the 24 not easy to do as well. And like I said, if he nets out a little bit better on that restart and has to pass one or two less cars, that track's big enough and Ryan, Ryan's secret

to Phoenix is running the second lane through three and four. He's really good at that and he's really consistent at to when you finally slip up and he bates you to the bottom one time or something, then he gets that run. He's there. So, So I think that Ryan, Ryan's good enough there. And he's, he's just good, man.

And he would have found a way around. You can only block so long. So I do think he would have got him, but the circumstances didn't work out like that. That's okay. I think that no matter what generation of car we have, that would have been the same challenge in terms of trying to pass Joe deGano. Because of the racetrack itself. Because of the track. The way that track drives, how smooth it is, and how much, you know, last.

lateral grip that you need to be quick, you really just drive to the limit of the front tire. And so a great race car will allow you to drive, push those front tires a little further through the middle of the corner and roll through the center of the corner a little bit better. And the cars that don't do well there are very limited on how much you can push the front tires. And so you end up with chatter and the right front and stuff like that through the center. And that's where you get beat at Phoenix on both ends of the racetrack. and as soon as you take any, any air away from the front of the car, whether I don't, any generation of NASCAR or cup car, you get tighter.

You lose front grip. You lose, you trying to catch the guy in front of you, it becomes more and more difficult. And it looked like as we got toward the back end of that run, Blaney had used up quite a bit of his car, probably cooked the front tires a little bit, lost a little bit of turn, and when he got to Joey, he just didn't have what he needed. And so, and Joey was really smart and tidy, wrapping the bottom and being smart and doing what he needed to do. He's, Joey's one of the best, I wouldn't call it, yeah, I mean, when it's, when blocking is necessary, he's one of the best blockers.

Teardown said Coleman Presley was spotting it like a super speedway race at the end. And so, and Now he wasn't blocking there, but he's using the error. He's making it as difficult as possible. And he's one of the smarter guys about knowing kind of how to position his car. You could see as they would try to get down into turn three. Joey knew where he was going to go, right, to the bottom or the middle, right? He knew going down the back straightaway where he wanted to be at the middle of the corner, but he would always try to delay that choice as long as he could

to not give the 12 the opportunity to know where he's. he needed to go. And so, like, Joey would kind of, like, wait to the last second to turn down into three, right? Because then Brian, Brian doesn't know whether he needs to run the top or the bottom until Joey makes his choice. And the later Joey can sort of make that decision, the harder it is for Blaney to use the other lane as an advantage. And so it would throw Blaney off just a little bit on entry to where, you know, Blaney couldn't commit to opening up the entry to make the top of. work because he wasn't sure Joe was going to run that line. And so that was, you know, that's one of the things Joey's really good at. Is that where, like, his experience comes into play versus, like, Blaney? Because Blaney had, like, I think we all knew he pretty much had the fastest car on the track. Like, he was flying through the field. But Joey was able to kind of, like, almost outwit him, I guess. Like, is that, does that show that he's kind of still got that edge of, like, experience? No, he just had the advantage of being in front. Okay. And I think they're both equally

talented about that type of stuff and the gamesmanship and all that. Blaney's, you know, there's things that Blaney sees guys doing that I don't even see. Like, you know, Blaney will get frustrated over Larson, right? Yeah. And I'm like, I don't

see it. He did, you know. That was entertaining. Right. Same thing the year before with the one of Chastain. You know, Blaney's getting frustrated and mad so much so that he's getting almost physical. And I'm like, yeah, I don't really I'm not seeing what he's seeing.

And so Blaney sees a lot that we necessarily don't really understand. Because, man, when you're in that car, you know, you can almost see that guy looking in, you know, you can almost see that guy trying to drive defensively. Whereas when we're watching it from our perspective, we're not really picking up on tiny, tiny cues. So, but, so my point being is that I think Blaney's really clever, really smart about, you talk about baiting. Like, we really didn't worry about baiting drivers that much back in my time.

Bating, we kind of did sometimes at certain tracks, like mainly at the speedways, super speedways, you just trying to get a guy to, you wanted, if you wanted to get on his right rear quarter panel, you try to get him down the track and make him think you were going to try to dive low. get him protecting the bottom line, but any other racetrack, we didn't worry about it so much because trying to run in clean air

with the older cars, you know, we, we didn't, it wasn't, it wasn't necessary to always have to go run the other lane. If you're following a guy in this next-gen car,

you have to run offline from whatever he's doing everywhere, at every track. Yeah. And so that wasn't so much a deal with the older car. That's, that's a problem.

something I don't love about the next gen. It's like you can't follow the guy in front of you because the air doesn't get underneath the car to the back of the diffuser. And so baiting is really part of the game now trying to get that guy to run a different line so that you can run the line you want to run behind him, which is a lot of fun. When I was spotting for you, you couldn't really want a guy right on your bumper into the corner either because it took the air off your spoiler and then you'd walk up the track a little bit. So let me do Xfinity car still now. But, but, you didn't really want to But, you know, this baiting and, I mean, you're just manipulating the air behind you. All these races that are mile and a half have turned into, like, plate races.

Because, like, remember Kansas whenever Joey held off Kevin for, like, the last 50 laps of the race? Yes. Like, like, Kevin was, like, three-tenths faster a lap. But you're just literally manipulating the air behind you. You're literally looking in your mirror and just driving where he goes. And, you know, Joey's obviously one of the best at doing that. He is. And so what we, I guess, we can't wrap.

up Joey unless we all comment on how we feel about the way he went through winning this championship. Sure. Phelps will tell you all the guys in the series knew the format, right? But we've got what I think we've got to go back to specifically is the Roval, where the 48 gets penalized post-race and that, which, you know, Joey's out of the next round that kicked Joey back into the playoffs and we had that conversation right here at this table where we were sitting there going man what if he wins oh that was it for me like oh he's he made it through on this

like he's winning the championship i think we said it on the show like oh joey it's yes but i think we were saying it in jest but in that moment we weren't all that thrilled about that possibility would it be fair yeah and here it is a reality are we Are we just as disgruntled about it now? I'm not upset at Joey. Like, Joey deserves all the praise in the world. He's a deserving three-time champion. He didn't do anything wrong.

He is one of the best at playing the damn game. Yeah, yeah. But it's, and it's Gluck and Bianchi said this on the tear down. Did I expect the 15th place driver in the regular season to win the championship? I'm sorry I didn't see that coming. That's the problem, I think. If there is a problem or if there is a gripe, it's are we supposed to be all right with that type of performance throughout the regular season?

And that, I mean, you could argue, you know, some people say that we shouldn't compare ourselves to other sports. But, I mean, a wild card team in the NFL with a 9 and 6 record or whatever, has every possibility has the opportunity, has the pathway to the Super Bowl and could win it. Now it's unlikely, but it's not, nobody's going to go, bullshit, they need to change the playoffs.

This can't happen. And so, nobody's complaining about the wildcar teams being in there. And he was literally kind of a wildcard team in this format. Do we, do I love the format? No, I think there should be more than a one race run to the title. We all can talk in circles, in circles about that.

I want them to go back to the original system of no playoffs. Never going to happen. Winston. It's a waste of fucking conversation. It's a waste of time to send another minute. Steve O'Donnell answered that question for you. But here's what he did say and this is why I think the conversations opened is we'll absolutely look at

what form the playoffs take in the off season. And so does that mean what we could get kind of what we want is a three race final round or I think what they're doing there is just leaving themselves the opportunity to open that door if they feel like that they you know if this

if I guess if this were to continue or if there's a ton more if there is a ton of criticism a ton of pushback from the fans because let's face it man they whether they will admit it or not NASCAR absolutely ebbs and flows

due to the over you know due to whatever might be the loudest conversation on social media. And does that almost bite them in the butt? Because are we giving the playoff format such scrutiny because we know other ways to crown a champion? Is that because we've crowned a champion in too many different ways that it's just the doors open? Everyone has an opinion.

Everyone has an opinion. So I am, everyone has a different feeling about the way things should go. All right. I'm a traditionalist. I think, I think that the best way to determine. and your champion is the season long race of running all of the races the way we used to do it years ago and i feel like that's the purest way to know that this person did it all right you know but this current format gives us better moments gives us more drama way more i'm people are people

can argue but they're and no yeah you're going to tell me look at the attendance look at viewership all those things i don't give a shit this stuff right now, the way they have the elimination on it, it is, I can't look away. I can't look away. And it is here for a reason. There's a reason why they changed it, right? And so is it the right way? It isn't.

Is it perfect? No, it's not. And that's why it's always kind of changed. That's why the chase and the playoffs or whatever they want to call it, they're like, you know, we called it to chase. And then we, now we call it the, you know, it's all convoluted. There's been so many iterations of this, and they keep adding people to it, and they keep changing, and it'll continue to change, because they're trying to, they're in search of that perfection. They're in search of the perfect format.

I don't know if that exists. I won't be mad if they changed it. I won't be mad if they leave it alone. Do I think this is great? No. Is there a better way? Probably. But I don't, I don't pretend to know what that is.

I just think that, God, to crown the champion, we need a little bit more of a sample size than one event. But I'm not sure if we went to that. And the same racetrack too. Right. I'm not sure if we went to that, whether that would produce anything more compelling. Maybe, maybe not.

I don't think it would. Like, I don't, what we have right now is an entertaining product. Like, I will say that. Like, you know, you can't look away from it. But I do think entertainment kind of has two different sides. there's awe and being like in, you know, amazement at what you're seeing. And then there's like shock and seeing Joey Lugano make it into the play, you know, after Alex Bowman gets eliminated and then winning Vegas and you're almost like shocked.

You're like, is this really happening? It's really happening in front of my eyes. And so I think that there's a weight that and the reason why a lot of fans are frustrated is because it doesn't seem authentic. Like it doesn't seem like Joey Lugano won fair and square. He did. We all agree on. that. But if you give us a three race final or a 10 race final and you have 12 guys in it or whatever

it is, and then he goes out and performs, which he did. He won more races in the last half of the year than anybody else. Four wins total on the season. Right. Including the all-star race. And so all of this not including it. All of this energy gets deflected towards the one race, the track, the car, right? There's this giant payoff that we're waiting for that we're never going to get, especially at Phoenix. And so it's like, why don't you try to put it at a better track? Why don't you try to give us a different package. Why don't you try to make it different? And that's when fans get frustrated because it's like, you know the formula, you're just not giving it to us. They don't know the formula. They know, they know changes to make. I don't think. I don't think there is a perfect formula.

No, no, no, no, no, to assume that there, like, no one, no one can assume that there is a better or a perfect format. That's fair. I mean, no one's told me one. I haven't heard one. I haven't heard one. Now, and even if you said, I believe this to be the way that we need to do it, I would need to see it happen. I would, I need to see it. But I don't want to, I mean, listen, to answer your question, Andrew, I believe O'Donnell said that because they absolutely want the freedom to make changes, right? And they're not going to stand up there and go, oh, we're never changing the format. This is it. And they, they, should they should maintain that that flexibility i don't think they'll over i don't think they'll react

to this particular year the way they might have reacted to kenseth winning you know the championship by winning one race and o three i believe but they may make some changes they may make some adjustments i think there's too many drivers in the playoffs i liked it when it was 10 um I liked a longer sample of that final round, whether that's 10 races or three races, I don't really care. Just give me a few, you know, more than one. Sure. Because that one race, like right now, right?

You said it, T.J. If we go to Homestead, it caters to particular drivers, you know, like Larson or Reddick. When we go to Phoenix right now, it seems to be a great place for Penske, right? Might not be the case next year or beyond, but for the last couple of years, it's been a great racetrack for them. Martin'sville, Phoenix in a row really caters to them. For sure. But it, you know, that's not, that's not, um, it's beat. I mean, it's not the end,

the game, but it could change, you know. I didn't like starting at Atlanta. I didn't like starting at Atlanta with 16 drivers because there was a lot of protecting of those guys in the very beginning. We didn't get the Atlanta that we should have. For sure. No. Atlanta is right now in my mind, the wildest, crazy. ticket on the circuit. If you've got all the guys out there, giving it everything they got,

the racing is the most entertaining, compelling that we have. It's tough. But when they went there for the first round, it took all of that almost out of it. And yeah, so it's sort of it's sort of knocked it knocked the air out of the

balloon a little bit. And that, you know, that there are, so there, there's some negatives to what some, there's some things that the playoffs do that we don't love. Where drivers do things a little differently because of the system, like at Martinsville. Yep. Right.

And so anyhow, you know, congratulations, Joey. We're going to talk to him in a bit. Three-time champ. He did what he had to do to win it. They provided they gave him the pathway and he achieved it. You got to celebrate him and we'll

all debate on whether, you know, whether the playoffs need to change or not over the next probably couple of decades, I'm sure. But still a great weekend for NASCAR, unlike, I guess, Martinsville, which was a bit of a challenging weekend for NASCAR. We had a relatively solid end to the season. Christopher Bell's Championship 4 comments. A lot of people have been talking about this. He called it, I guess, talking about Martinsville, he called it, quote, unquote.

race manipulation and race fixing. That's a little strong. Saying it's one of the hardest things I've had to go through as a race car driver. Again, I look back to, I will tell him he should probably go watch Martinsville from several years ago when the car he was driving was sort of doing the same thing for Denny at the end of the race. This isn't nothing new. And I get it. He's frustrated.

And he has every right to say whatever he wants to say. but I don't think there's anyone is entirely innocent of some manipulation. We raced hard. Yeah, we saw. And Steve Phelps in the state of the sport added to that. What I saw at Martinsville pissed me off, and it pissed everyone off at NASCAR because we all know better, and we know what happens.

And then he even went on to say, will we have a rule next year 1,000% So that'll be interesting They had a meeting with the OEMs and I guess some team members and this This is a

So let me I talked I talked last week about how I thought the best route Forward was How do you deter this right Was to suspend the drivers for a week even though the drivers really were just doing what they were told or doing what they knew they had to do, if either one of the Chevrolet drivers passed, Byron, I would hate to think what

punishment, inadvertent punishment might come down on those guys. That's so bad. That's so terrible. It is. It's the way it is. It's so bad. It is the way it is. You know, the drivers didn't have a choice. You know what I mean? And so while I don't love what they did,

they really didn't have a choice because if they had drove around Byron, I mean, if you're driving for another organization, what's Rick Hendrick going to do, right? If you passed his car, he'd be real pissed off. He'd probably call you, he'd probably tell you you're dumb for making that decision. But now the OEM or the manufacturer,

if you kick out their Chevy car, and you're driving a Chevy, they're going to be upset with you and your organization and your team. What that means, I don't really know tangibly. But I guess that's where it starts, right, up at the top. And even if there weren't any conversations from the organization, even if the manufacturers didn't give them direct orders, there's this perception that they know they need to do a certain thing on the racetrack, the drivers, right? They know, hey, man, my spotter's telling me he's one of the good.

That means I probably shouldn't pass him. And so how do we, now that we're going, now that we're at the end of the year, now that we have the all season, how do we unwind that ball of yarn and get to the root root of the issue? And so that we go back to Martinsville, which is likely the elimination race and we don't see that. And again, I will say it is not the first time that's been happening at Martinsville. It's not a new thing.

It's happened in the previous years, different occurrences. And so how do we... Like, I can understand one teammate protecting another, right? But it, you know, when it becomes like almost series wide where it's all of one manufacturer

sort of, you know, posturing for each other and helping each other. We've got to figure out where is, where do you fix this problem? Where in the latter? Right. It's not the drivers. Even though I think that would have been the deterrent

to penalize, to park them for a week, that might have been deterrent to the overall problem, which is the pressure from the top, which is the manufacturer. And so I think, I wonder if you get the manufacturer, manufacturers in the room and if NASCAR gets them in the room and says, guys, what are we doing? Y'all got to quit. We got to quit this? I wonder if that's going to be enough. Phelps did say they had a call with the OEMs and you mentioned that they had a meeting and they were

very clear in what our intentions are going forward and that I'm quoting Steve Phelps there. But you nailed it on the head with NASCAR's interpretation of the penalties from last week. Steve Phelps said we made the decision that the drivers are holding the wheel, but the drivers were essentially told what to do. We gave them the benefit of the doubt. Saturday's message from Elton and John to the drivers is that will be your warning. So there you go. So that makes sense. This has been Freddie. He was really all on him there. You know what I think about this is remember the Talladeghry us we lost to Joey? We got to restart the one where Kevin got loose and hit Trevor Bain or whatever. Like that was Jeff. I think Jeff was pushing.

Joey and Brad was pushing us and we actually got to lead but then we got towards closer turn one and he sidetracked he a little bit got back out from but that was like there was never any you know get off of him don't push him it was like go as hard as you could yeah and do everything you could possibly do to win that race yeah like and that like I miss that yeah well I do too bud and and you know I think I don't know if it I don't know if you can put the toothpaste back in the tube. It's kind of like how do you unlearn this? That'd be hard. You know, and

But we can't let it escalate either. Yeah, but... I don't know how you truly stop it. I'm afraid that there's not really I mean, if a driver wants to not push a guy on a late restart at Talladega because of some particular reason about the car he's

driving or the team he drives for, I mean, that's, you know, I don't, and that isn't as quite as egregious I guess is what we saw, you know, happened at Martinsville, but I don't know, man. I think it's, I think our sports evolve, our sport, you know, F1 has, I look at F1 and I go, well, it's, it's, it's been going on an F1 and it's almost normalized. I don't want to get there. Oh, that was terrible.

But I'm just saying it's normalized in F1. They don't look at it and go, oh, we're, our integrity, you know. It should. Well, I mean, it's not, all right? To be fair, they don't mind an F1 for any of, that to happen. And there's, there's, we see it. Like we're watching it here, us guys, us guys sitting in this room and watch it and go, wow, he just let him win. He pulled over. Like, it's crazy to us, but to, everyone fans, that is, that is perfectly normal and natural. Now, not, maybe not preferred,

but it's acceptable. They don't blow up and explode and say, they get, they get pretty mad still. Well, if you're a fan of the driver that pulls over. I suppose, yeah, but to be fair, I mean, they don't really, they're not trying to blow up the system. I don't know how we keep that from eventually becoming the norm in our, I know NASCAR wants to try, but I don't know what offenses they

have. Do you not think it like it needs to be something severe enough to where if there is a meeting about whatever, someone stands up and says, man, we shouldn't do that because this is going to happen. That guy might get ran out of the room. I don't know, you know, it's a risky take. It's just something where the, like, you know, teams

want to be, policed in terms of how much they spend. Like, please put limits on a spending. How do you do that even? I've never understood that. Sure, right. How on the hell? Do the manufacturers, do you think they want to be policed more?

Is that the only way? No, I take away wind tunnel time. I don't know. I mean, everybody wants wind tunnel time. Take that away. You know, I don't know. I don't think there is a perfect response to it. But I do think sitting the driver, the drivers,

knowing that if they do something, they might not race the next week, that's going to be in the back of their mind too. I thought that that might be enough. I think, I wasn't trying to get the driver's attention. I wasn't trying to get the owner's attention there with that idea of sitting the driver out for a week. It was what can really get the manufacturer to go,

whoa, we don't want that. And that might be the only thing, right? It sucks for the driver because he's just doing what he thinks he's supposed to do. But the manufacturer, hey, if you do this for us. But I don't think just asking the manufacturer to stop is... Well, and obviously, like, that's not going to be the only thing they do. They said there's going to be a rule or something like that.

I can't wait. To see what that rule is. So what if a driver lifts, like, you know, Daytona race or early in the year, we go to... And you got a driver that does something. We have a 100% rule. What if he gets suspended? That is literally impossible to prove... Is it a way off? Yeah.

Yeah. If he gets suspended for doing something, does he get a waiver? Because I don't make him not do anything. You know, if you do this stuff, you're done. you're you're you're you got to race all the races right yeah i don't know mn't know nascar doesn't want to you know pluck a driver out of the final four going into phoenix because of this they don't want that they don't want that media spotlight they want this to quit they want it to stop but i'll be interested to see what kind of rule

they make that's a true deterrent for you know is it the man you if it's the manufacturers that are sort of driving this narrative right um yeah it'll be interesting to see Hey, this is Ken Schrader. And Kenny Wallace, inviting you to listen to our podcast, Herman Schrader, every week on Dirtymo Media and Sirius XM. We'll chime in on what's going on in NASCAR today, rehash stories from our racing careers. And talk about things that have always been between us. Until now, we're always honest. And sometimes truthful, but we're warning you.

We're playing by nobody's rules. Listen on the SiriusXM app or Where? wherever you get your podcasts. Anyways, how about everybody's prediction? I mean, I got close on mine. You were real close. I think I had Larson, at least at the beginning of the playoffs. And then I think I picked Byron at the beginning of the year.

Yeah. I can't remember. I have no idea. I thought Blaney was going to win it. That's like his second best track to Martinsville. Going into the day, it feels like a Penske day. T.J. predicted before Martinsville, he's like, he's going to go into Martin'sville and win and then he's going to, so I got to tip my cap to you on that.

Yeah. For sure. I think I deserve that credit you're giving him, but I'll let it. I'll let it slide. You did have a longer run. Did you pick Blaney? Back in fucking January? Really?

Oh. I didn't know that. The season ends. You never mentioned it. I was waiting for the punch. The season ends how perfect for Ryan Blaney right now. So, I mean, you'd be dumb to not pick him like every year. Where are we going next?

year for the finals. Phoenix? Yeah. Pick him again. Might as well. Yeah, we're picking the champion already. I'm pretty sure it's the same. Give me Christopher Bell

redemption arc starts now. All right. Everyone said that last year too. I know. I know. And then Joey doesn't make the final four because it's an odd number of year. He'll be back in 26. Really? Okay. Yeah, I'll just go

with Ryan Blaney again. I think it'll be an injure here for some reason. I just have a feeling. Yeah. Larson maybe again. I don't know. No reason behind it. Well, he is running, he is running indie again. Oh, yeah, we'll see if he can make it to the 600. Good season overall, I guess.

Yeah, I got to say, I was thinking about picking Byron. Oh. Yeah. He's close. I know he is right on top of it. Yeah. That guy runs, like, so consistent. Yeah.

He just doesn't ever fall back. He's a little wild and stuff on social media and that, too, so I like it. He's got that edge, yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. Was it a good season? Yeah, man, that was all right. All right. Yeah, it's good. I think one to ten. We had a lot of good moments. I'd give it a 7.5. Not fair. C plus? Yeah. Yeah, I'd go 7.5 to 8. We've had some really good races. I thought places, you know, like Chicago performed well. Everything brought, the mile and a half has brought a lot of heat this year as well. Like, they were great races.

had, you know, I do think rain, rain messed a lot of stuff up. Especially in the beginning of the year. We had a lot of rain. And that just sucks. Like there's nothing anyone can do about that. There's too many road courses.

I agree with that. And I want short tracks to continue to try to improve. Yes. So I think they're getting somewhere with this tire. Oh, dude, Martin's was awesome. Yeah. Loved it. They need a little bit more from Martinsville.

Yeah. It was, dude, I loved it. This tire needs to run everywhere from a mile under. Or they need to try to see if they can get there where they can run that tire at any of the tracks that are one mile or smaller. Even Dover, if it'll live, might not live at Dover. But this year seems like a big building block here. Like we learned a lot of things on where to take this car, the schedule, and the future.

What was your most disappointing moment? Honestly, like, for me, Phoenix just didn't feel like that big finale that I was looking for. You know, there was so much hype and anticipation. I could have guessed this. Who? What? Phoenix? Phoenix. The championship. I was looking for a little bit more of that. Wow, this is... You want the green-white checker.

Yeah, I get it. Well, the drivers will tell you, the drivers will tell you, man, that this is why that really wasn't that big of a surprise to me, unfortunately. It's because the drivers will tell you, like, the hardest thing is just getting there. Oh, 100%. Of course. So, like, that's backwards. the hardest thing ought to be the last, you know,

the hardest thing ought to be the ultimate goal of running the title, right? But they'll tell you, like, the stress and anxiety and the work and struggle is all piled up into the, you know, the first three rounds and mostly the second to last round. And that's where I think we're, that's a flaw, right, that we need to try to consider flipping somehow. But for me, I think, you know, just there's too many road courses in general. We're just talking about, was it a good year?

Where's my state of the union? Where's NASCAR in my life? And how is it? How am I loving my NASCAR? It's just too many road courses. I'm not a big fan of road courses. Just not. I wish Charlotte Oval was twice.

Yeah, as we keep adding, road courses, we keep, as the road courses kind of keep going up, it takes a lot, it takes a little bit of enjoyment out for me. But hey, I'm wearing my NASCAR hoodie. I wanted to let y'all know how I got this. I was going to ask you. I was too. I was going to ask. Why didn't you ask?

Wow. You said I was late when I walked in right on time, so I didn't want. The good transition into the Xfinity series, we were sitting on top of the pit box midway through the Xfinity race. I just didn't put a ton of thought into what I needed to bring to the racetrack and didn't realize or think that it would get that chilly at night. It started to get a little cool. I had on a short-sleeved shirt, and there was a souvenir shop. right behind our pit box in the fan zone. And I said, I got on text message and I was like, hey, a couple people there, Morgan and Stefan. I was like, is anybody got a hoodie and maybe grab one from that thing?

I don't care, whatever. I'm sure. I thought they would have like Phoenix, you know, Raceway or something. Championship race. Yes. Just Phoenix. Yeah. They got some cool stuff from there, too.

So they went over there to, and this is the only hoodie that they sold in that souvenir stand. And she brought it over and said, this is all they had. And I was like, yeah, I'm not putting that on. Not in the middle of a race, right? The camera kept coming over there and looking up on the pit box. That's like Rob Lowe wearing the NFL hat. Same thing.

Right. What about it? That's probably, I just hope all the teams have fun. Could you imagine that? Go, Justin. Yeah. That's how you got that caution. Yeah.

I put this all in boom. And I'm asking. Conspiracy theories galore. There's a caution button right inside this pocket. And so I kept it. I kept the sweater and stuffed in my bag and I kept the sweater. Somebody went outside and got a junior motor sports hoodie off of the... I just wasn't going to wear one.

I just going to... Because, yeah, in the pictures, you were wearing a different hoodie. I know. So I didn't ask for that. Somebody brought it, said we got... I didn't know where it came from, whether somebody loaned it to me or whatever, but I found out they got that off the souvenir rig outside.

Wow. And so I put that on. But, yeah, I brought this home. And I was like, I'll wear this on the show. That'll be fun. people, all the, all the, all the fans out there that think we're just, you know, we're in NASCAR's pocket. Here you go.

Here's your proof. Yeah. You're wearing a NASCAR hoodie and then a team hat. Yeah. Or a champion. Champion. Yeah. Congratulations on that.

I mean, that sounded like it was hard to get. Champion hat. This is tough. This is hard to get. This is. That is hard. This is very special. The sweatshirt?

It is. This hat. It's a big deal. This hat. Yeah. not one of a kind but hey only one only only only that's straight from victory lane only one team got this right we did hell yeah we did who are the champions we're the champions all the music yeah play the play the i was i took had that flag i was running around the infield with it

and people were cheering and i was like there's only one champion here tonight it's us it's us it's us I just thought that was so fun. How much fun was it running around with that flag? It was awesome. It looked like a blast. It was. So, you know, we've been talking about that here at junior motorsports over the last, you know, 36 or 48 hours. And why this championship feels different.

There's a couple of reasons. And I'll name a few. And all the other championships that we won, while they were great and amazing, we won them with drivers that were we were a placeholder which is what we want to be right we will tell you all day long that this is a place where we want people to come

and hone their craft and eventually move on to the Cup series that's the win for us just like wins on the racetrack anytime anybody gets a cup job out of here sad to see them go can be hard to replace them but that's what they're here for this is what we're here for and so you know we've had drivers

like Byron Chase Reddick that Reddick was already announced that he was leaving us when he won the title. And so we were still accomplishing what we wanted to in that moment, but we knew those drivers had bigger plans, you know? And it's not like that with Justin. Now, Justin wants to drive a cup car. He will tell you that. He's like, man, I wish I was a full-time cup racer.

I would have loved to have been that all these years. But he hasn't. He's been here. And it was kind of, he's our guy. right he's he's our guy and so it was kind of like you know like if we were to build our own chassis and go you know win a race with it or if you know we we get a lot of resources from hendrick motorsports and that's why we're competitive that's why we get a lot of help on chassis set up engineering that's how we run so good is because of that connection but if you ever were

to do anything on your own or build something of your own and it succeed and do those things that you've done with all of those other resources it's it's it's an incredible feeling and that's kind of what we feel like with justin is like he's our guy and um he's always kind of taking a back seat to these young guys that are here today and gone tomorrow and he's had to you know it's not not a bad deal he's had a great life he's had a great job he's freaking had he's won races had blast, but he's always sort of had to know that, you know, we, we try our best to give all the cars an equal opportunity, but he knows that there's an emphasis on this particular driver because he's got, they've got, you know, someone beyond here has got plans for him.

And so, I don't know, that was one reason why it was so special. Obviously, we're sitting here looking at maybe the last handful of years for Justin to have an opportunity to win a title. He's in a great race car. Jim Polion makes that car fast as hell. But Justin himself, at his age, you just don't know how many more years you've got that you'll be willing to put it on the line. Take the risks, right? And I've always said, like 43 is that age.

Well, he's getting closer and closer to some point when the performance is just going to start to crest. And so we knew the time was running out on that. opportunity for him to win the title. We knew with the current format how difficult it was for him to win the title or anybody to win the title. And then we went there and crashed the primary four laps into practice. And they had built a brand new car. We sat here at this table last week talking to the four drivers from the final round and Justin's talking about this brand new car. So that car is wrecked. And the car that they get out, I didn't know at the time. I knew it was the Vegas car, run third at Vegas, good car.

But I didn't know it, but that's my car that I race to Bristol. They built that car for me. I was going to run that car every time I raced, and it was going to sit in the corner of the shop. But when I said, hey, I'm not going to race next year. They said, well, we're going to take your car and use it then. So they took it to Vegas. And they run third.

Good little race car. And so they got that car out. I called Jim, and I said, hey, man, all things considered, how you feel about you back up? He said, it's good. He said, does it have all of the bells and whistles? Does it, is it got everything that I've built into this brand new car? No.

He said, but it's going to be a good car. And I'm like, right, there's plenty of race. And we got, you know, we got a real good shot at this. And I got to the racetrack, walked around in the garage, sat with a team, listened to people talk, listen to Jim talk, listen to everybody, and looked at the car. And as I was doing all of those things throughout the day, my confidence just was like, man, we're fine.

you know, this is fine. And then the 16 had an issue, you had to go to the back with us. All right, no problem. I was skeptical about how good the 21 would be. I thought, all right, we got a shot to beat him. I don't feel like we've lost anything there. But the double zero was dominant there last year.

So it really came down to what kind of car Cole would have. And he had a great car, but not as good, I believe, as the year before. And so the race starts, and I'm going to talk. of the pit box and Kelly's up there with me and I'm like look at the lap times Kelly it's like we're driving through the field passing lap cars and we're still running the best laps in the field that doesn't happen in traffic that doesn't happen mid-pack I was like if he was matching them I'd be pretty happy with that but he's beating him and as the run went on and on I'm like god we're flying our car is fast it's better than the leaders and uh you know and then we

ran into some you know problems and Justin Riley Herpes well Well, yeah. The penalty. Yeah. So we come off a turn four and Justin tried to go underneath a car and Riley was on his left rear. They made contact. Kind of a racing deal. Was it a mistake?

Yes. But it's racing. Almost fun Riley out. I can understand his frustration. But then we come off a turn too and Riley turned right into the left rear tire, which is a really jerk move. all things considered, that's a jerk move, no matter, I don't care, I don't care who does it. Yeah. And so, especially knowing what Justin's racing for.

I don't think Riley thought about it. I mean, right or wrong, I don't think Riley gives shit. I don't think Riley was sitting there going, I better not do that because he's in the point. I think he's sitting there going, that fucking guy drove across my right front off on the, you know, half a lap ago. I'm mad. And so, you know, and that's just, that's what you're dealing with out there. That's okay. if it wasn't my car, I wouldn't get a shit.

I'd be like, ah, look at that shit. You know, that's hilarious. I'd like to see the championship guys get raced with some respect. Why? What do you mean why? You want them to be raced differently? So just the people should just pull over. But you don't know.

I'm not saying pull over. You can, did I say pull over? I'm just asking. There's a big difference between racing someone hard and then during them. Yeah. And that's where I think the line is. I was really, you know, hey, look, it happened. It was unfortunate.

It's easy to say now that, you know, I'm not that bothered by it in the moment. I was annoyed for sure, but it wasn't the end of the day. We come down pit road and threw some left side tires on. If that left rear is not cut, we can, you know, we can figure out how to get, you know, get that set of tires back on the car later. So it's going to be okay, which ended up being the case. So we come down pit road. That put us behind.

we got a couple penalties and we got a restart penalty which was bad Justin's like what did I do? I'm like dude I mean I'm not going to get on the radio and get chatty. Jim's in control.

This is his team. But I'm sitting there damn Justin how can you not know that you pulled left and we were talking about it yesterday at the shop and I'm like Justin he's like I didn't pass anybody I'm like but you were in the act of passing you can't fucking move

and it's just like I look at Kansas as the way they police Kansas. That's the way I expect them to police it. If I'm a driver, I'm going to go, all right, if this is how they do it at Kansas, I'm going to assume that's the way it is everywhere.

And so, you know, with the apron, what is what you're talking about? You're not able to pull that line before you get to the line. If you're on the inside line, for example, and you're following the guy in front of you, when the green flag comes out, you have to follow him across the start, finish line before you can make any kind of a passing action before you can move left, right, whatever.

So, when at Phoenix, it's a little different because they're in a different place on the racetrack in terms of they're not right against the apron or pinned against the apron, but it's the same for me. It's pretty straightforward. For Justin, his perspective is, it is not the same. And I'm like, Justin, I don't know how you see it the way you see it.

You pulled left. And I looked over at Kelly and I said, he might get penalized for what he just did on that restart and literally a lap later they caught in Rick Rose. Yeah. Is that something you need to remind drivers of at Phoenix specifically? They do. They hammer us on that all week.

Like we get reminders from NASCAR all you got to do. Telling Brad and everybody. Oh yeah. Every restart you tell them there because they're all, if you have a run, you just want to go and you got to pull the reins. You got a time right because it was getting carried away with guys really diving early and stuff and getting an advantage from it. and they've really cracked down on it. All you got to do is get up in the morning and say, hey, did you watch the truck race last night?

You might want to. And so, you know, that was frustrating as hell because I knew, I'm like, I put that on Justin. I'm like, damn it, Justin, you didn't need to do that. And so, you know, he's trying to get, that's how, that's Justin's style. He is always, always trying to get an advantage. And it bites him.

And so as much as that, and that's, you know, that's great. Look at it. Look at his restarts. Look at every single restart from that race. He is always trying to get an advantage. Never complacent. And so while that bites him in the ass here, it does prevail, helping prevail in other scenarios.

We want a race at Chicago, seems like 10 years ago. We were not going to win that race. We had a late restart. He's starting, I think, fourth. And he just smoked him on the restart. We were not the best car, but he kicked their ass on a restart, and we won a race at Chicago. But I've never forget that,

and ever since that moment, I've always kind of thought he was like the Ron Hornaday for us on restarts. When we need something, he gets in on the restart. And so anyways, going back to the race, we got in trouble speeding, so we had to come back down pit road. We were sitting there in front of the leaders, hoping for a caution, and now we're back on pit road,

and we come out on the racetrack, three quarters of a lap down. So as we pass the lucky dog, the leader's lapping another car and trapping us a lap down. A lap in three quarters down. Yeah, they're in a bad spot. We're three quarters of a lap down. So we're a lap down plus a three-go-old. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a lot of other cars between them. And to add to the speeding penalty here, I think Jim took responsibility for that, right? Because the lights were aggressive, but. they didn't calculate for him rolling through the last section. I just think he's just trying to, right? I think he's just trying not to be too hard on his driver. Speaking on pit road typically is not anyone else's fault, but the drivers, would I say, when am I right?

Yeah, I mean, 100%. Yeah. But Jim's like, well, we didn't call him off. We're supposed to call him off. I don't know. Jim said they were really aggressive on their lights. I don't know why you needed to be aggressive on your lights all night. Maybe, you know, for me, and hey, I ain't never one of a championship at the Cup Series, but I have one of them in the Xfinity Series.

But I'm sitting there thinking, we don't have to be aggressive till the end. And maybe there's a, you know, maybe there's a different set of lights that you run up, you know, on those first handful of yellows. Just so you don't, you know, end up speeding and put yourself behind. He passed everybody in the field and I could just feel it coming. I'm like, we're going to get busted for speed. He's really aggressive on his lights. We've passed the whole field, and here we are in a championship winning position, top 10, and somewhere in the second stage, or at the end of the second stage, we're going to have to go back to the back.

Throwing it all away, it seems like. Yeah. It's the worst penalty you can get. It is. And so I'm like, gosh, man, why don't we just dial it all back one light? But they were aggressive, hard, hard, hard on pit road as far as pushing the lights and pushing the speed. and if they're going to do it that way, maybe they do need those protocols in place

to be calling the driver off, and they didn't do it. He sped through another section right before you get to the box. And then Kelly is like, man, what do we do? Do we go home? Because, I mean, yeah, where's your head at in this point?

Because that feels like the nail in the coffin. So for me, it's just like when I go to to watch the commanders play win or lose I ain't leaving till the end they can get blown out I'm not going to get up in the third quarter

and say well I'm going to head on home and so we flew all the way out there and I need to go at the end of the race when it's over and put my arm around and just in and go damn good effort win or lose right and you know I think

considering what was at stake, yeah, I definitely wanted to stick it out. But I wasn't, I wasn't sure that it was, I'm not going to sit here and say, oh man, I knew we were still in it. But I was sitting there just kind of wondering how it could play out.

When we got in that scenario, I'm thinking in my head, what do we need to happen here? How could we get back on a little lap? We ran long. Everybody starts cycling to pit road. and the caution come out and here we are on the lead lap

because we've stayed out. We got a fortunate break where somebody had some trouble on the racetrack and that was just you know, pure luck. Now we're back, yeah, now we're back in the race.

Got that sweat shirt. Yeah. And nice and warm now. One thing I think people forget we come down pit road, we put on brand new right side tires, we put the eight lap left side tires on that we took off that we thought

we had a flat left rear that has no lettering on it. so he's you know he's got a unique little situation there with it with they'll use less it's not perfect but he had to go out there and you know be aggressive on restarts we got really lucky the 21 got got you know up in the 21 kind of bottled them up there in the top of three and four and and was pinned pin the double zero up high and allowed Justin to go through and from there on had to kind of hustle it and get to the finish line. One of the things I think Justin was most disappointed about is not winning the race.

But I could tell with the way the 98 was racing that if we went down in the turn and pinned on his door, he was absolutely going to rough you up. Not even on purpose. I just think he's going into the corner and he said it, I think, himself, he was willing to move the seven if necessary to win. and so are you going to are you going to allow him are you going to trust him to move you

without wrecking you with everything that you know is just around the corner just let him go right and that's kind of what big picture yeah Eddie the hot Eddie the spotter said hey man don't we're not racing him we're not racing him I think the 98 makes the pass either way

and wins the race no matter what we choose to do but that was a pivotal moment I think going down into three where Justin was like he just like you know just was just like i got it i get it i get it um but we were able to come off the corner and get the checkered and come in second place been a lot easier if you had that um did that on pit road i got it here just yeah easy well pretty incredible moment it was what was your first emotion was it elation or relief oh uh pro man i mean it just uh finally you know just find like a big exhale You know, there's a, we as a company are good enough to win championships.

And so there's that sort of relief and, you know, all right, we did it. You know, we're the best organization today. And then, you know, immediately, I think it goes to Justin. I got pretty emotional, to be honest with you, standing right on the, I climbed right over pit wall and started getting pretty emotional. moment just thinking about Justin and how hard he's we have stood on that pit road multiple times in the last five years broken down you know just just hurt and not I don't know what to say to this guy to get him to what I need Justin to do is get over this and let's try again let's try to do it next year I know this hurts and you know you

Trying again, shit. But as an owner, you're like, all right, all right, man, I know this sucks. But I need you to come back and give it another hard effort. And it is not easy. So when these drivers, you can hear it in some of the comments that some of the cup guys make. When they know they're good enough, when they know their cars are good enough, when they know they're having the season long effort in performance that's good enough, and it doesn't work out.

It's breaking. The way the format is lined up, it is so detrimental mentally on some of the drivers when things don't go well, to be eliminated in some of the ways that they are eliminated by some of the circumstances. It is almost impossible for them to overcome. go back to Carl Edwards 16, 2016. If something else were to happen

all right, if Carl Edwards wins a championship or runs second, do you think he retires? Do you think he walks away in the sport? Maybe not. I think that, you know, certainly there may be other variables, but what happened that night

was so heartbreaking and almost impossible to regroup from or turn your back on or you know and so and the drivers will tell you man it's like it's tough to

accept some of the things that happened to you in this format when you're having a season long run to the championship and it just isn't in the cards and you've got weeks to realize man it's out of reach that's different but when you're sitting there thinking man we've got

the team to beat and smack you get smacked in the face in that last round and don't get to Phoenix it's tough to freaking think man I've got to go try this all over again because it's like a year away it's like climbing Everest again again to try to get to the top it is hard and you've got to have all these circumstances that you don't control that you don't control you got a guy that ran 16th in the regular season points that you never thought was going to be a threat to you that is now the champion. And so if you're Reddick or any of those guys, it felt like, man, I really felt pretty good about my chances.

You never saw that coming. And so that was the tough thing with Justin. And same with Elliot Sadler when he lost at Homestead. Oh, man, I saw him on pit road. And I thought, I'm never going to be able to get him back to where he needs to be to try to do this again. He said on this show how difficult that moment was. Yeah.

And so that's what I've been dealing with or worried about with Justin over the years. And so finally that, you know, I got emotional standing there thinking, God, this guy finally got it. This is, I did too. The greatest thing about sports is these kind of moments. And I know I'm biased. Absolutely, I accept it. But that was a happy, you know, that was a, happy, you know,

that was a storybook movie ending and I know he's going to run some more and he's going to try to win some more races and hey maybe he wins another championship before he's done but he doesn't need anything else he can finally sit there and go I don't really have anything else

that I haven't accomplished that I want and so now I think the guy just gets to go and have fun and finish this thing out on his terms is that almost more dangerous now? No of a Justin Allgaier no you don't think so no he's like going to try any less. No, I know, but now the pressure's off.

Like, you know, you saw a chase. It took forever for him to get his first win. No, no, no. The dominoes fall. No. Yeah, I don't think it's different. He goes to, this dude goes to every race for the rest of his life. The same.

Just sitting on his, in his head, he's kicked back on a beach thinking about nothing but getting a sun tan. I mean, they ain't nothing. This, you know, he got nothing to worry about. Which that, that's what I think. but, you know, people are different. Jimmy Johnson, seven-time champion. In those last couple of years, I was floored

with how perplexed and disgruntled and frustrated and Uber. He was like, I got to figure this out. I'm going to, er. He was so, his gears were grinding over the performance of his final few full-time years. And I'm like, you're a seven-time years. I'm champion, who gives a shit? Like, who fucking cares?

Like, just have fun. He's like, I think me and Chad I've split up. What are you thinking? I'm like, don't. You got this legacy together. Just finish it out. It might, you know, y'all might not be getting along all that great,

but just send it together. Why? You're going to go, you're chasing something for the last two years, and you're going to, you know, bust up this. Have fun. Yeah. Seven time champ, man.

You've done it. You've done it. You did it, dude. Pretty much every race you can win. He's won numerous times. I got a question for you. How nervous were you that Justin Allgaier was going to retire on the spot on the stage? You know, I will be...

Because Justin, I was talking to him yesterday, and he's like, yeah, I remember seeing Dale kind of move Marty Snyder out of the way to, like, see my face. That's not true. That's not true. I'll be completely honest, man. When he started talking about that, I was like, if he retires right now, it. Maybe that's all right. I'm fine with that.

I mean, of course, I want him to keep racing for us. But if this is his, if it's his choice. If he was ready to surprise me and the rest of the world with that news, maybe he'd talk to his wife and said, hey, I'm done. We went it tonight. And she's like, great. All right. I'm behind it.

Whatever. We don't know. I don't know if they'd had that conversation. So he started saying something about retiring. and I'm like, maybe he's going to retire right here. That'd be interesting. That'd be a moment. Yeah.

And I mean, I wouldn't have been, I wouldn't have been really shocked. Honestly, when he started saying it, I was like, I could totally see this. And, you know, glad he didn't, but me too. Yeah. I think it had been cool if he did for him because most of the most people. Yeah, I wasn't freaking out about it. The sport quits. The sport will quit you before.

before you were ready to quit the sport for most of these people. So that's what he chose to do. If that's what he chose to do, yeah. I mean, you can't. I mean, it'd be great for him if he did. Yeah. Well, he's chosen not to. He's got a couple more years or more.

He can run this however long he wants. But I think pretty cool. And you're giving that flag to Rick Brandt? I already gave it to Rick. So the flag's here right behind TJ. I had the flag all the way to the end of the night. I'm getting ready to leave. Saw Rick Brandt.

And he said, hey, man. we were talking and I said, do you want this? He goes, can I have it? I was like, why not? Absolutely. You need it. Rick Brandt has patiently funneled tons of support monetarily and personally into this company, Junior Motorsports, and behind Justin Allgaier throughout the majority of his career.

And he has witnessed all of the ups and all of the days. and all the missed opportunities in the final championship points race. But he's done it patiently without complaint. And he's never wavered on his support. So in terms of, you know, a partner and a sponsor, as good as they come. And I was like, hey, if you want this flag, take it. And so his daughter came over here yesterday for our beer toast.

It was actually a champagne toast. I said, why are we doing champagne? We drink beer. Champions. Kelly's like, it's before lunch. All right. Never stopped me before. I know.

I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And? Yeah. I'm not sure. I follow. But so she brought it.

She said, I'm going to bring it back and I can't take it home. I'm going on commercial flight. So it's going to sit. That would have been so awesome. Now it's still. It's back. It's so back. This flag.

is a mind of its own. Kelly emailed me yesterday. She's just like, where is the flag? I want to make sure it's in a safe place. I'm like, don't worry. Oh, man. This is a very important part of this championship is that flag. I will say the toughest part of the night.

All right? Even more nerve-wracking than when we got the two pit road or the two penalties back-to-back. Okay. Was when I lost my bag right at the end of the night. Your backpack? Oh, that's bad. So I had my backpack because it had my NASCAR hoodie in it. Oh, you gotta find that.

I had a back. I had my backpack. It had my iPad. It had a couple snacks in my NASCAR hoodie and some charging cables. Yeah, irreplaceable. And I was, it was on the pit box with me. Well, when we went in the race, I'm like for. You forget about all that.

Yeah. Yeah. So we go do everything we go do over to Victory Lane. I mean, this is a couple hours, right? We go to Media Center, we do all of that. Damn near broke the Media Center door with that flag. Yeah, I did it here too. And here too.

We go back over, I said, and Kelly and then we get done with the Media Center, and Kelly and them was like, all right, where are y'all ready to go? And I'm like, no, we got to get us a room in Scottsdale. Yeah. I knew they were and I were going to stay, but I was just, I kept needleing Kelly and LW. They're old, they weren't to hold me. If you were up to you, would have said. yeah I was like where are we going

where are we going to stay in Scottsdale we got to go to go to Paddies we got to go hang out local bar drink a bar yeah and uh I knew they were not going to do it I kept poking fun at them and uh they're like no we're got to go home let's go we should probably go is getting late I'm like we got to go over to the car they're tearing the car down

we got to go over to see the team they're tearing the car down we go over there and I'm looking at the car and all you know talking to everybody and everybody's high-fiving. And everybody's hanging out. And then I said, all right, y'all ready? We had another beer. And I said, okay, finally, let's go.

So we start walking in the real car. I'm like, freaking hey, where's my bag? I mean, it's like five hours now since I've left it. Your heart has to, like, your stomach has to drop in that moment. It's the worst. Yeah. It's the worst. Well, the pit box is already folded up into a nice little tiny box, like a train, like

a transformer. Right. And it's up in the front of an 18 wheeler trailer tied down, covered up. Oh, no. With about six other pit boxes in there behind it. We kind of, we kind of, you know, shimmied up in there and tried to peek in there with flashlights the best we could. And I'm pinging, I'm doing that find my phone thing. And you're like trying to make it. Yeah. And we can't hear it. It's not doing nothing. But I keep seeing that it's at the tunnel. It's like, it's like pinging at the tunnel on the inside of the racetrack. And so I walk over there and I'm standing there and there's a truck with a guy sitting in it.

But otherwise, nothing. Nothing around. And it's like, man, it's telling me it's right here. And we go over to the guy, you got a backpack. He's like, I don't know what you're on that. And so, okay, if he don't have a backpack, I kind of peaked in the bed of the truck, no backpack. And so you can take his word.

Yeah. Hell no. And so it says it's right here. Yeah. So you have it. Nice truck. I'm looking for this thing up in the heart. hauler, we're looking for it for about an hour.

Finally, this car pulls in, and it's some folks that were with Brandt. And they were like, we got your bag, Junior. I knew it was yours, had these stickers on it. My little late mall stocks. And I was like, all right. And I was so relieved that they had it. Was it on the track?

Like, was it not in the tunnel? Was it on the track? It was in their car. Oh. They were pulling into the tunnel. So if my iPhone was just wrong. No, it was right. Oh.

My phone was telling me that this was at the tunnel. Oh, the inside of race tracks were there. The Brant guys come. They were driving around looking for me, and I'm... It was a mess. They couldn't find you with the flag? But I was so relieved. We have the champion in the house.

All right, there is. Justin Allgaier, straight from the Sim. Like, the work never stops. And he's here. What's up, Justin? How you doing, ma'am? I'm good buddy, how are you today? Doing good. What are you simming? Rockingham. I actually go there tomorrow.

We're going to make laps for the good your tire test tomorrow. So, you know, 2024 was kind of short-lived, winning a championship. We got Monday to celebrate and back to work today and obviously going in to get back on the racetrack tomorrow. So, you know, Rocky Ham's obviously iconic racetrack. Cool to get it back on the NASCAR schedule. And now I've just got to go out and figure out what this new asphalt is going to be like and what we need to do for tires with good year and go have some fun what did sim feel like uh well sim is

still the old surface right so it's the you know the scan for many many years ago where the track still has a lot of character a lot of bumps um you know they're there there we will not get to um to be able to scan it for a little bit here you know kind of moving forward so you know we're kind of guessing a little bit in in some ways you know unfortunately but all of the manufacturers all the teams all kind of have the same, we're all hand-tied kind of the same. We all have the same models to deal with. So, you know, I think at this point, you know, for us now, we just have to kind of go out and figure out what the track's going to be like. You've tire tested. You've tested by yourself a lot. When you were out there with two or three or, you know, if there's less than 10 cars, you know,

depending on if there's trucks or ARCA or whoever's there, you're still kind of guessing because over the course of the day, the track's going to change significantly. And here in North Carolina, it's not warm by any stretch. So, you know, when you add a cold racetrack to a freshly paved racetrack, it's going to have a lot of grip. So, you know, we're guessing a little bit, but at the same time, you know, these engineers and obviously the teams and Goodyear have done this so many times, it just becomes like, you know, old hat and they know what to do,

and it will be great by the time we go back there and race next spring. You're going to dial it back a little bit for me, just kind of run about 80%. That is the plan to start with. Don't go out there trying to set no records. Yeah, listen, I've done, I tried that at Phoenix, you know, twice during the race, and it penalized me. So we'll leave that to the other guys that are going to be there, and we're going to go out and try to get the best day to we can. So you've had a couple days to let the championship sink in.

I was with you Saturday night, and I know how. emotional that was and when did you when did you kind of finally catch your breath i bet i mean because as soon as you get out of the car you're just swarmed by all the people that want to congratulate you that doesn't let up until later that night when did you finally kind of get to catch your breath and really just personally take a moment to yourself and think about what you'd accomplished honestly i don't know that i ever really did um you know it was such a whirlwind of emotions right And for me, I didn't expect to be as emotional post-race. I mean, I'm an emotional person, but at the same time, like, I didn't expect to be as emotional post-race.

The one that really got me, though, was seeing Harper and she was crying, and to see my mom and dad and their faces. You know, that was, it was a unique, surreal experience. And, you know, we went through the Victor Lane celebration, and then we went out to the barn. and man, they were partying. I missed it. I wanted to see the barn. It was incredible. It was wide open.

It was one of the coolest experiences post race you've ever seen. So then we come back. We do some more photos. Then we went to the media center. And then we left the media center and went straight to the back straightaway and took all of our photos, you know, with the trophy and with my wife and kids and my parents. And that was a really special moment. and then like we got back to the hotel room at maybe 1.30, 2 a.m.

And then we were on a 7 a.m. flight. So I got back up at 4 and, you know, of course I can't go to sleep, right? I lay down in bed and I can't go to sleep. And I think when I went to bed, I was at like 400 and something text messages that I was like trying to figure out what to do with. I can't text somebody back at 2 o'clock in the morning, right? So I'm trying to like read through, you know, as much as I, can in my mind and I'm looking at social media and then I finally went to bed about 2.45, 3 o'clock,

got back up at 4, we went to the airport, got on the plane. Kids, I mean, Dale, you've traveled with kids. I don't know how my kids did it. I'll be honest with you, I don't know how they survived, but they rocked it and then got home and really just, you know, we went back to dad mode. You got kids got school the next day and you got homework. to do and and I'm at 600 and I don't know 680 text messages at the moment and to be honest with you I'm overwhelmed and I don't even know how to start responding back to people and I haven't started yet I know that that's not ideal but if anybody that's listening has text me or called me it's not for lack of effort to get back to you I'm just overwhelmed with even where to where to

even start all right this is how you that's how you do it so you say you say you you text the first person back and say, thanks a lot, buddy. It was incredible. Write something really eloquent. And then you copy and you paste that 600 times. But make sure. I think you know me well enough to know that that's not my style. That is totally, totally acceptable in this circumstance.

You need to respond to everybody. It's just asking too much for you to make craft a unique response to each individual person. The only other advice I would say, so absolutely okay to text and copy and paste it, totally okay. No one is going to go compare notes. Hey, what did he text you? He text you saying, what an ass-a-hast. So nobody's going to do that. Only thing I would say is don't call your mom buddy. If you get a text from any females in your family, ants or what had you.

Nobody. You got to write a, that will require. unique individual response. That is actually very, very sound advice. I do really like that. Well, I'll tell you, man, I won the Daytona 500 in 2014 and 2003, and I never got that many text messages. You deserve it.

I'll be honest with you. I had Daytona like text messages on my phone from you winning the championship, somewhere in the 300 range. So 600 is a new record. I have a question. I have a question for you. and I've really thought about this long and hard, and I know what you said,

the media said, and I know you said yesterday's shot, but you know, you were very adamant that you didn't care about winning the owner's championship, that you wanted to see me win the driver's championship, and I'm very appreciative of that. But now that you've had time to think about it, does it make it any better,

does it make it any more special for you that we won the owners? Yeah, so we were on the racetrack after your burnout, out, hugging you, waving the flag, high-fiving the team, doing all of that stuff right there. And then you got in the car and we made sure that everything was good with the girls and you were going to drive around the track. We started walking over toward the pit wall to go to Victory Lane. And somebody said, y'all got the owner's championship. And I was like, no shit. And they were like, yeah. And I said, I didn't know if we, is it, I didn't even know we, so we finished ahead of the 20. Is that all we needed to do? Like, I didn't even, is the

owner's championship just like the drivers where I know you got four drivers and the one that finishes the best wins the championship? Is that the way the owners works too in that last race? Yeah, same way. And so the double zero, the double zero wasn't in on owners because the 20 brought him out. So you just had to, so you had a whole different group of teams to beat. And I don't even know that. That tells you how much it matters to me. So I was thankful that we did win that because Kelly, it matters to her. It matters to you. But for me, I like, I like that we can add that to, you know, to the accolades for the evening. But really, it doesn't matter. Nobody in the fans, nobody in the grandstand. I mean, look, what I mean is,

it doesn't, it does not relate or compare to the driver in whose car. that driver was driving. In my mind as a fan, and I assume that a lot of people in the grandstands think the same way, when you win the race in a junior mergersports car, we're fucking happy. Right. We're not going to go, that's great, but we're not owners, champions. I mean, it's just a neat accolade. It's cool.

It's kind of a foregone conclusion in the Cup series that the owner and the champion are kind of tied together, right? in the Xfinity series it's different because we have cars like the 20 that has a lot of all-stars in it and so forth. So that's kind of a unique thing to the Xfinity series. But I never even, like you, I guess you helped us win our first owner's championship. Yeah. People keep saying that. I didn't even know if that was true.

I'm the owner. I don't even know if we won the owner's championship. I didn't know it until they told me. So when we made it into the owner's championship, you know, I won, I won. to get in and that was part of my deal in Martinsville. We win the race and I win the owners and the drivers and then they told me the media center that was the first owners that you guys had ever won and I just assumed that especially with Chase I just assumed that you guys had won the owners as well. I had too. Yeah I didn't know so that was a that was a big moment for me

to be honest with you. I really enjoyed that so and but I will say though I will say uh the boys over at DBC did burn me down yesterday for not trying to race the 98 harder and win the race. So I'm getting my cahoon is busted a little bit for not winning the race. The 98, he has said, he's come out in the media and said that he was willing and ready to move you if necessary. I don't think you have to worry about the guy that said it, Justin.

He was the only one. I would have made the same decision you did so. Listen, when DeHont started hollering, we're not racing him, we're not racing him. I was like, and I saw how things played out, I was like, oh, thank God. I was like, because Justin, you, if it was all you by yourself, you would have drove down in the three right on his fucking door doing everything you could to win the actual race,

because that's your, that's your MO. That was my intention. Yes, sir. I know you. And I'm like, all right, I'm okay with them not doing it in this case. Because honestly, the 98 is going to send it in there. He's cut. You remember, you know what it would have been?

It would have been the exact same thing with the 88 and the double zero. that happened in front of you down in that corner. 98's going to get down in there. He's going to lose the back. He's coming up. And whether you get wrecked or not is not something I'm willing to risk. Right. You know, so, hey.

I agree with that. I'm happy for them and happy for us. But what's the... The whole world worked out. It did. It did. So post Rockingham test, what's the rest of the season look like? I got shoulder surgery on Thursday. Thursday morning, I go get my shoulder fixed.

And I don't really know what the recovery is going to be like from that. You know, I've heard anywhere from, you know, feeling really crappy for a couple of days and then obviously going through rehab and all that's pretty painful. But then other people are like, oh, man, you're going to be out for the, you know, the majority of the off season. And I hope that's not the case. I don't know.

I guess I'll find out. But then, you know, we got the banquet next week. and get to celebrate and, you know, that's going to be a lot of fun. I haven't been to the banquet since 2017-ish, whatever the last year, Junior Motorsports won a championship was the last time I went to the banquet. And it's weird. I feel a little bit, I'm a little bit sad. You know, they took the banquet to Vegas and they celebrated in Vegas for a couple of years,

and then we moved it to Nashville and celebrated Nashville, all these really cool destination places, and then this year they moved back to Charlotte. So I guess it's only fitting that we'd come home and get to go downtown Charlotte like we can't every Friday or Saturday night if we want to during the off season. But still, though, honestly, to be able to go to the banquet, to celebrate with the other two champions and the teams and all the industry folks, you know, that's a moment that I think for me that's a moment that I've kind of waited my entire career for. I've been lucky enough to be at all these banquets and give speeches for second or third or fourth or sixth or whatever. You know, I remember I finished third in points to Carl and Brad one year. And right before, you know, like we do the banquet, we do all speeches, we do all this stuff.

Right before we go back to the next season, they're like, all right, we're going to make the rule that cup drivers can't race for an Xfinity Series championship anymore. I'm like, can we retrograde this like one season right here? Can we go back like six months ago so I can just win a championship? Because that would be great. But that's just not how it used to be. And, you know, so I've sat through these and we've been so close so many times. They just haven't been able to do it.

And I have all these things that I want to say at the championship award ceremony. But at the same time, I don't think they're going to let me have a microphone long enough. Y'all know me well enough to know that I can talk. So that's not an issue. I just don't know how to say thank you enough to everybody that's, that's given me the opportunity and help me get to this point in my career. Because it, listen, it's, it's taken way longer than it should have to get here. But I'm not going to let that to, you know, spoil how much I enjoy it

and how much, how much it means to me and my family. If anything, it makes it more meaningful because it, you know, it's like Dale Earnhardt is one of the best restrict plate racers in the sport, but it took him 20 years to win the Daytona 500. And it really was a special day when that happened because of how hard. it was to get there. And on the banquet, ending up in Charlotte, while Vegas is a blast and Nashville was an absolute great match for us, I am 100% on board with us embracing Charlotte is our hub.

It's where the Hall of Fame is. I have no problem with us celebrating the biggest night of the series or even our Cup champion in that city. because of the history and the uniqueness and location of our sport and kind of how close we are tied to it. So it makes good sense to me. But yeah, my Amy and maybe all the wives and some of the people, other people in the industry, are going to miss Vegas and going to miss Nashville. But I'm sure, hey, at some point down the road, we'll end up back there eventually.

But it'll be cool to celebrate it in Charlotte where we all. I'm going to tell you, the Hall of Fame doesn't get the credit that it deserves. I know you're a history of the sport type of person. I am too. And, you know, for me, I think that what, so they came and got my gloves, you know, so my gloves are going into the Hall of Fame as kind of a permanent display, right? Like, they get to keep those. And then they put kind of all my drivers gear in for the next year, right?

And I got to thinking about that. And I told them when they were up there on stage and we took our photo together, how much I appreciated, you know, the curation of the history of the sport, right? And to be able to celebrate with all of that is going to be a really, really cool experience for me. And I've been to the Hall of Fame hundreds of times, right? But to be able to go there and take my kids there and have a piece of history in that building is going to be really special. So I agree with you. It is weird thinking about driving to the banquet and being a 30-minute trip to get to the banquet,

but at the same time it's going to be really special. Absolutely. Well, thanks for calling in today. I know you've been busy. I know you've got a long week and have some fun at Rockingham. Hopefully maybe some people can get out there and climb up into stands and watch some laps. I think I'll be two or three of you out there practicing Wednesday tomorrow for the upcoming race later this year or next year. I'm sorry.

But I'll see you soon, bud. Sounds good. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. See you, man. Congrats. See, DJ. Thank you, buddy. 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 Culture's 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 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. He's a good dude. Awesome to have him called in and give us a little bit of time. I think people will be excited about that, the fact that they're going to test.

Already. Yeah. I mean, that feels old school to me. It does. Right. Win a championship, right back to work. So pretty cool He's a good dude

He is a good dude He's a great guy That long has he been here How long has just I've been here I don't know Long time Yeah

For sure Anyhow Maybe it was 7 or 8 10 Something like it We want to make an acknowledgement I think before we wrap up

The Dirty Air segment On the passing of Bobby Allison 86 years old 1983 Cup champion 85 race wins They just gave him that win at Greenville Pickens for many, many years ago.

And the 2011 Hall of Fame class inductee, I talked about this in the media a little bit. I'll share it here when my dad, as we did research, and I kind of already knew this, but it helped me understand it even more, as we did research for the Becoming Earnhardt series for 1979, and as I started to research a little bit from 1980, there was a couple of people that my dad credited many times in articles with being helpful to him throughout those two years of his first career or first cup career seasons was donnie alison bobby alison those two names kept coming up over and over and there's a lot of pictures of dad and bobby communicating talking hanging out as i got older and i started paying more attention dad and bobby

always sort of had a kinship or a relationship closeness and dad became great friends with Neil Bonnet part of the Alabama gang but they all you know kind of you know had a lot of respect for each other and were relatively close friends when Bobby was injured

tragically at Pocono that was a I remember dad talking a lot about that and how, you know, how upsetting that was for dad is his friend. And I just remember that, you know, as a kid when you're young, whatever your dad labels important or labels as valuable, you in turn sort of established that same appreciation or respect for it. And so that instilled that for me in Bobby Allison.

as I got older and certainly in the last 20 years, anytime you run into this guy, incredibly nice. I'm thinking, you know, at his age, what else does he have to, you know, give to this sport? What else does he, what else could he want to, how in what way would he want to participate? And, you know, sometimes when drivers retire, or you never see them again.

They don't know how to continue to be an asset. They just don't feel like they belong or have a role or a job at the racetrack anymore, and so it's tough to be there. I don't think it's so much that they don't want to be there. It's just they don't know how to be when they're no longer the driver that they've been all those years. And I was in the, I was at Dover, one of the, you know,

one of the, you know, less common, unique racetrack, less celebrated racetracks on the circuit. Just a regular weekend and the grind of the season at Dover. And I was, my first year as a broadcaster in 2018, I was getting on, like, elevator to go up to the booth to get ready for a practice session or qualifying or something. And Bobby Allison climbed on the elevator. And I thought, hey, you know, what are you doing? doing here. I mean, of all the places you could be, and he's there doing some work or helping a sponsor or a partner or something for NASCAR. And I just really found that, I've really appreciated that about him all these years, well beyond his driving career, him and several of the

old guard continue to keep us connected to our roots and our past and just them being, but just by them being visible at the racetrack. Not only keeps them. history alive, but it keeps us connected to the roots of the sport and the history of the sport and what happened on the racetrack all those years ago. And so I've always really appreciated that about Bobby. And, I mean, what an incredible life, certainly filled with some tragedy. And how him and his family were able to get through some of those moments. I'll never know.

I don't know a family that has given more to the sport of NASCAR than the Allison's have, but he will be celebrated and we should all be thankful for what he was able to do in the marquee left. This week's segment was brought to you by tire pros. There are a few people who love the cars as much as I do, but these tire and service experts, they equally love the drive. The Dirty Air segment has been sponsored by tire pros throughout the year. They've been a great partner here at Junior Motorsports, and they're not just going to change your tires. They do it all. All changes, alignments to brakes. Tire Pro's gives your vehicle a TLC it deserves.

Unique to Tire Pros is that they are owned by the men and women in your community. They have the added support of resources of over 600 locations nationwide, so the next time you need to take your car in, show your neighbors some love, your neighbors at your local tire pros. All right, we're live here at the Dirty Mo Media Studio, and I'm Dale Jr. and with me is TJ Majors for the Ask Junior segment of the show. brought to you by Xfinity Mobile. How you doing, T.J. I'm great. How are you? I'm pretty good. It's been a fun show so far.

We've had a lot to talk about, and the one thing I do want to say is we want to thank Xfinity Mobile for everything they've done for us here at Junior Mergers. At the Dale Junior Download, DirtyMode Media. They've been a great partner, and we've been talking about their Xfinity Mobile service. It's thousands and thousands of Wi-Fi hotspots all across the country, giving you all of the access.

and coming in clutch anytime you need that service to be able to watch NASCAR, whatever it is on your phone, on the go. Exfinity Mobile is always going to be there. They're a proud Premier Partner of NASCAR, and we want to thank them for everything they do for us here. And obviously for taking care of the Xfinity series, we need those title sponsors. They really keep the thing moving, keep the whole machine moving.

So any of the title sponsors that have been a part of the sport over the years, we all should be very thankful for, and Xfinity has been a great one. we got some questions lined up and we've had a great show so far I just want to say that Joe Lugano is going to call in here in a bit just an Algaier's been on this part of Asch Jr. will not be on Thursday's show it's going to live on the Tuesday episode coming out today but let's get to the questions yes this first question coming from Ben this is a big moment that happened in the cup race on Sunday any advice for the pace car driver to not crash crash the

next time we go to Phoenix well um Listen, so I saw that. And when the Pace Car is leading the field and he's going to go to Pit Road, one of the coolest things that you might, you know, one of the great things that I loved about a broadcast, especially with Ken Squire, was they would say the Pace Car dives on the pit road. Right. Right.

The Pace car doesn't just gradually ease to. List into pit road. Yeah. It dives on the pit road. Right? Oh, it dove. Well, listen, I appreciate the effort. And that, that... Just didn't stick the landing.

It needs to be a deliberate move, right? Yes. It has to be a deliberate move. But you also need to know how to drive a car. Right? It also is important to understand the laws of gravity. physics. Yeah.

I mean, look, I busted my ass plenty of time. I'm no, you know, I'm not perfect. But it needs to be a deliberate move. It needs to be, you know, to your point, it can't be a meandering sort of. Pace current can't meander to pair of. No, not to be a deliberate move. But you also, he maybe needs to take a course, right?

Go out, you know. Driving course. Driving course with cones out on the same. Yeah. Take that specific car, though, so you can learn really... Just do a bunch of reps. Yeah, so you can really understand the lateral grip and the limits that this car has. The limits?

Tire test. Brains rocking hands. Look, it was like, you know, it's like you, you know, the guy's no stranger to driving cars. Yeah. But it was like he's driving that one for the first time. You know, it was like he was just taken aback by, he expected more. And the car just didn't deliver. So it's a setup thing, maybe.

Yeah, I think you take that car. They got all kinds of weight in the back, all that batteries and stuff for those lights and everything. There's a bunch in that car that it's not going to drive exactly like a stock car. And so, seriously, man, you've got to take that thing out and drive a little bit so that will happen again. You think NASCAR takes it? Warm the tires up and tears it down to see what the issue was.

Put it on the DVP. So this is like in the Red Bull soapbox races. Oh, yeah. The people build those things, right? And the first time they drive it is down that. Yeah. Sometime, I think the first time they drive it and the first time it really goes through the rigors of,

this can't be the way we are with the pace going. You've got to get in there and drive it. I don't, is he need to go and do some donuts in the parking lot just to kind of understand where the level of grips is. Get his confidence back a little bit. Yeah, right? I mean, so, you know, there's a little racetrack out next to Vegas. When they go to Vegas, go out there and just try to,

try to spin it out out there try to bust your ass few times we've got rid of practice I think we need to bring practice back that's what it is it's more practice time yes TJ we saw all this we had more practice time there

yes we did did you see all this go down I saw it go down I gotta say though all things considered that is a tricky corner yeah I was running what race was it I busted my ass

in front of the field there one time just just nick the apron and just brought me right around and uh so maybe that transition is a little funky probably that's probably it yeah I think when you did it it was the old layout more though

and it was a little tricker because there was a bump over there and four but yeah interesting moment how do you did Brad see it or did you like yeah a lot of the drivers saw and they were like the radio chatter was pretty funny

the pace Curtis right that I'm like I see that he's gonna catch hell he's gonna catch hell we don't need to pile on but I'm serious man I'm serious look if if they come up to you and go hey man you're gonna throw the pitch out

at the game. You're going to the you're going to the, you're going to the, you're going to the, uh, you're going to the, uh, you're warming up. You're getting ready. You're not going to walk up there and just the fur, you hold shoulders, just chuck it down. Now, I don't think this was like a grand, like a grand marshal or someone new driving the pace car. No. I think it was just a quick moment. Oh crap. Wait, we're going off. We're diving off. It's a really late. I agree. I agree with his. It has to be deliberate. Check your marks. The deliberate move has to be made, but there is so weird because it's, you have a whole other

straightaway and half of a corner to run before you even get there. And maybe that really that big of a deal there. Maybe that pit road entrance is hard because if you want to make your mark and really dive off, you're kind of already going straight, you know? Maybe that was it. We made, I made that, I talked about this earlier in the show. So if you want to know, if you want to reference, you can go there. But I made an iraising post about how we're trying to curate a playlist or a soundtrack

for the upcoming console game for NASCAR through eye racing. And Steve O'Donnell text me and said, we should have Inter Sandman in honor of the pace car driver. That's great as we can. That is great. Good one, Steve. That is pretty funny. That's good.

That's good. You talked to Turex on Saturday, I think it was. What did you say to him? Obviously, he was his final full-time race in the 19. I just told him that. So I sent him a text message. I tweeted or put a post on Instagram, and I saw him in person. And I think my overriding opinion is, you know, that, you know, I have been a fan of his.

I have cheered him on his entire career. And, you know, and he's never made me question my allegiance or loyalty. And I've always appreciated the friend he's been. Now he's shi at communication. He is terrible at text messages. And if you don't, you know, you might not hear from him for damn months. He's that kind of friend, right? But you'll see him, you know, at the Hunt Lodge and like, like, you know, like it's all good.

but that's just who he is. That's who he is. And I've talked to his brother about it. He's no different to anybody else. He just is not a great communicator. And, yeah, I don't know. But I don't want to harp on that. I just was like, yeah, man, have some fun.

He doesn't seem like it's an emotional thing for him. And I do know he's going to race some more. So he knows he's going to be right back in the car before the, you know, when the season, he's running a Daytona 500 for somebody. So I, you know, I don't think it's as emotional of a, it's not like a hard stop. And so, and he's getting, he's, you could tell over the last three or four years, he's been kind of debating, contemplating this.

And he's kind of at this point in his life where he's like, there's a lot of shit that I love to do. And racing's, it was racing alone. And now there's other things in that bag. And he's like, man, kind of. I mean, he loves to hunt. He loves to fish. He would rather, he may not say this because he doesn't want to upset anybody,

but he would rather be on that boat fishing than anything else, even racing. And so now he gets to go do that. And he keeps to keep racing if he wants. So I'm happy for him, great dude, and look forward to all the opportunities. It'll be cool because he won't have the stresses of, Racing, you know, right or wrong, racing makes made me a miserable person 90% of the time. Him too. I mean, look, you know, anybody, ask Kyle Busch, ask anybody, like, unless you're winning, you're not happy at all.

And, yeah, you're okay with a good run, but not, you know, for the most part, all the effort it takes just to run good is it, it doesn't weigh out. and it'll be nice maybe to see how he is. He'll be a completely different person now that he doesn't have that grind either in the middle of that grind or that grind ahead in the coming season. Now he doesn't have to worry about that anymore. And he can plan what he wants to do, be fishing in Florida or up north depending on the weather and the time of year. He can go and do whatever he wants, where he wants. He has other businesses going on in the background that continue to allow him to have that flexibility. so it would be cool to see

because I'm around him during the hunting season and it's always in the back of the year and it's always in that stressful part and so when I'm spending most of my time with him it's in the tougher part of the year when he's really kind of as miserable as he's going to be and so it'll be fun to see him kind of loosen up.

You mentioned Joey Lugano's calling in I do not want to keep our newly crowned three-time champion waiting so this is a good place in Nash Jr. I appreciate everybody sending in the questions this year. We're going to do some more shows this year. This is, you know, usually this is the last show of the year in our lineup in years past. But this year we're going to keep creating content, keep doing shows throughout the offseason. So stay tuned.

Amy's going to be a big part of what we're going to do throughout the winter. We'll have some last junior. So just kind of follow all of our social handles, Dirtymo, Media, or mine, to kind of stay abreast of when our shows will be coming out throughout the wintertime. but we're going to keep having some fun here at the table up until Christmas and appreciate everybody and hope you having a good week. And speaking of Joe Lugano, he's here. Joe, what's up?

Cleaned up. Where are you? New York City, the Big Apple. Damn, man. Well, a good weather at least. It is. It's beautiful. So, hey, I know you're busy as hell.

Thanks for tuning in or giving us a call and giving some of your time today. this is a great opportunity to ask you winning the Cup Series Championship and immediately you're swept off into a media frenzy what's the schedule? Where are you going? Do you even know where you're going to be going over the next several days? You know, I don't know. I learn I have a lot of bosses, you know. I don't run anything in my life at all.

I got a crew chief that tells me what to do on the track and a spot I got people away from the racetrack that tell me what to do. And I got a wife that tells me what the two days. I'm just alone for the ride here, guys. I've enjoyed every second of it, though. What's the plan today? I haven't been home yet. No, you haven't.

No, we went straight from Phoenix. We came here last night into New York City, and we've done the Today Show. That was cool. Yeah. Now, I honestly don't know where I'm going right now. But I'm going. All right. How long will you be in New York City?

When do you leave there later today? day or tomorrow. Another great question. We leave tonight, though. At some point the night. All right. I think I'm home around seven or eight, I think. Over the three times that you've won the championship, which time did you get the most text messages and how many did you get? I think probably this one, probably the most. You tend to know more people as you get older.

Probably more this time. I don't know how many it was because I'm kind of awful opening text messages sometimes, so there's a lot of them from over the years that are still there. Oh, my God. I know. It's really a lot of people when they see like 800 on red text, so. That's like my wife. She has 4,000 emails. I'm like, come on. I get it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not proud of it, okay? Yep. You'll never answer them. No, I won't. I told Justin. I do answer a lot of them. I go through. I answer most of them. I told Justin just to say, hey, thank you. buddy it was a great night and just copy and paste yeah

but you want to make it a little bit personal right like I think the time to send yourselves do you want to add something to it I know but I think in this case it's totally unacceptable to copy and paste when it's over 150 I think copy and paste is acceptable copy it's okay but do not copy

hey buddy it was a great night to your mom or any other females in here you got to change buddy you got to be careful too because you don't want to keep sending the same text message and then two people are sitting right next to each other. He said, oh, he said the same thing to me.

I will take that risk. He's thinking ahead. You're taking the risk. I'll take the risk. All right. So, you know, Justin Algar won the Infinity Series championship and he's already at Sim and going testing at Rockingham Wednesday.

When do you think the next time you'll be back in a race car? I don't know. To be honest, for you, it's just so hard for us to go testing. We want to. I would go drive a race car tomorrow if I could because we don't get to drive as much as we used to. So the tests are so valuable. I mean, I look at North Wilkesboro test being the one that turned their season around.

So, yeah, if there is one, I would do it. But I don't see anything coming up in the near future where I'll be in anything outside of full wheelers and go cards. Yeah. One last question, man, before we let you go, winning three titles puts you in a, it puts you at a different level. It really does. I mean, two titles is pretty special, but when you start really racking them up into the three, four, five territory, you're getting toward the peak of the mountain when you're compared to some of the other greats in the sport. I guess have you had a chance to reflect on that? what winning three championships may mean to you? A little bit. Some of it, I mean, yeah, it's amazing to see your name up there with the greats of the sport. You're like, wow, that's incredible. But at the same time, I guess like leading into the weekend, I knew that was a possibility,

but it's not what the driver was. It's not the motivator behind it all. And I guess as, and you probably understand this with the championship, you guys just won this this weekend as well. Like, it means more to me to see the people that you care about celebrate the victory with you. Right. Like to see the team celebrating that seeing their families, seeing my family, like, that to me matters more than any of it. Because I just, I think as you get older, you do this longer, your selfish motives change and your, your motivator becomes one.

others to celebrate with you, right, and have that feeling as well. So it just seems to, it's changed from the first championship to this one, where the first one, it's just, I wanted it for me. But I think once you understand what that is, you want others to feel that too. Well, man, I think that, you know, your name is up there with the greats, but you now become one of them as, you know, as a guy who really appreciates the history of the sport and thinks about statistics and how we sort of compare drivers. I put you right up there along with Bobby Allison and Pearson and all of those guys. I know you'd like to win a few more championships and you've got the runway to go out there

and try to accomplish it, but I got to say not only congratulations on the success on the racetrack, but also over this course of this year and in the past, as a personality in the media, I've really gotten to appreciate the access that you give to the media and how you're always available and you're always doing that with a smile on your face. You know, we ask a lot of our drivers. Some of them are very, you know, conservative, but some of them are very giving of their time,

but you always have represented the sport well. I really appreciate that. We thank you for giving us some time today on a busy day in New York City, and we hope you have a great trip, bud. Well, thank you. It's worth being a lot. We have a really amazing opportunity to keep growing our sport, right, and for generations to come.

Because of the drivers before us, the legends before us, they've built this incredible platform for us, and it's our job to continue it. So thank you for doing what you do as well. You don't have to do what you do, that's for sure. I know. I appreciate that, and I'm sure our kids will appreciate it. All right, bud.

Have fun, and we'll talk to you. All right, it's time to do Dirty Mode. with Tampa Tim's taking all the information they can throughout the week to give you the best bets that you can make for the upcoming NASCAR races and we do other sports as well. Before we get to what went on this past weekend at Phoenix, we have no race to look forward to, but we do got a Thursday night football group parlay.

815 on Prime Thursday night, Thursday night football group parlay. All right, the commanders are playing the Eagles. This is a tough one for me. So I've done some homework. I've got a pretty good prop that I want to include, but we're going to go around the room, starting with T.J. I'm taking Jaden Daniels 226.5 yards. I'm going to under on that.

I just think he struggles tonight. All right. They'll win, but he's going to struggle. I hope he wins. I mean, 226. Looking at Jaden's overall passing yardage, that's probably a pretty solid bet to make T.J. Of course, I want the commanders to win.

I want them to have a great game on ballout. But last week was a little bit of a struggle for the team. trying to get yardage in a passing game. So they're going up against, I think, an even better defense than the Eagles. So not a bad prop there, T.J. All right. I will go with Jalen Hertz over 250 passing plus rushing yards.

All right. Hertz, when I was looking at his passing yardage, kind of similar to Daniels as far as overall yardage, but I really didn't look at his rushing attempts and his yardage on the ground. Yeah, he can scramble pretty well. He's close to 50, 60. think a game. Well, wow. Yeah, his line, I think, is actually 40, but he goes over that a lot.

There you go. Yeah, so I think he can absolutely accomplish that. Do you know what the odds are on that? That is minus 200 on those. Minus 200. All right, so that's about it right in line with pretty much everything we got here. All right, Don, what you got? I'm going to take Scary Terry to get four plus reception yards. Terry McLaurin. I like that. Or it's had Timps. I'm sorry. Yeah, four catches. Four or more catches. He's done that eight out of the last 10 games. So that's a solid prop. We'll get to the money line at the end here with Andrew, but I'm going to go with Scary Terry as well. I'm going to do plus 40 yards receiving. That's at minus 290 the last time I checked. But he's hit over 59 yards in the last four games

against Philly, and he's also hit this eight of the last nine games. So if this thing, if things are just normal for this team this weekend. I think that's a relatively easy mark for Terry to achieve. If he gets those four receptions, he's getting the 40 yards, in my opinion. So let's go to the money line with Andrew. Yeah, I think I'm going to go with the team that, you know, is the lovable team, the team that we're all going to want to root for this upcoming Thursday. Give me the Eagles toward the game. That'd be fun, right? To root for him? No. So in this particular game, I'm not going to bet the money line prop. That's a shame.

Why would you do that? Listen, they are favored to win the game, and I think that it's a smart play for you, Andrew, to pick the favorite when we're combining so many unique props into one. I think going with the favorite on the line of smart play. But in honor of my commanders, I just cannot make the bet against them.

You're a good fan. And so I will sit that one out. I think this is a good moment to say to, everyone who's listening, listen, I think all of us, when we're making this prop, we're betting really, really low units. This is just for fun.

This is just for all of us to kind of have something to talk about. Maybe we get together and watch the game this weekend, or this Thursday, I'm sorry, and it make it even more fun having just a couple bucks on the line. And if you don't believe in any of these props, pull them out.

If you don't feel good about something, any of us, it's no shame to pull one of them out. We've seen people on social media responding to these bets, say, man, I couldn't get behind that one particularly. I don't know what you're talking about. We exploded in terrible fashion just past Thursday, but we worked a little harder on this one. We are not, I'm not an expert, but I feel pretty good about this one, so we'll see how it goes.

All right, so we're going to talk about what Tampa Tim's and the guys did this past weekend at Phoenix. going into the final race of the year, what is unique or different about the betting opportunities for the final race? Well, the fourth championship drivers are heavily favored. You know, they expect them to run one through four. Christopher Bell had pretty high odds. I think they were expecting a revenge tour for him.

I had a terrible week. I went like, you know, 0 for 7 and then all the bets didn't get, didn't hit one off. Blaney was my big bet there to win the race and the championship. It came so close. That's stung, yeah. But I saw a lot of people who were, hanging on to their championship bets from, you know, past weeks, and that was kind of their only

action, which I think was a smart way to go into the weekend. Right on. Is that pretty much the only play for the championship weekend is just playing with those four four favorites? I had some long shot top tens like Hosevar, Cindrick, Briscoe. But I mean, it's so tough to judge that race because Brisco's a great pick for a top 10 there considering his past success, but just had a terrible day. Terrible day. Osovar was up there, but then he got a bad pit stop, got set back to like 18th. Cendrick was up there for a little bit. Then he kind of fell apart. So, you know, they just didn't work out. It's one of those weeks. Wow.

We don't have a race to preview for next week, but hey, we do got Monday or we do got Thursday night football, group parlays still coming up throughout the offseason and leading into next year. Dirtymoe dough will be a big part of what we do here at Dirtymo Media. So thank you, Tappetim, and thank you, Steve's Tart and the whole team, the professor, everybody that put all the work in this year, helping us try to make a little bit of money, have a little bit of fun all during the NASCAR season. Awesome. Thank you.

It's time for the white flag here on the Dale Jr. Download. And dropping after the race, as usual, what a great year for the teardown. Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi. Jeff Ligano. Joe Ligano stopped by after winning the Cup Championship Sunday evening. And I just want to thank Jeff, Gluck, and Jordan Bianchi for an incredible year on the tear down. What an awesome, awesome asset here at DirtyMode Media. It's awesome that we've been able to partner with those guys and showcase what they're doing every week.

dropping yesterday door bumper clear with Joel Edmonds. TJ, were you on that show? I was. You were? I was, yes. How was it? Good show? Yeah, it was good.

All right. Dropping today, not Monday. This is a little unique. Dropping today, action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin. I wonder how that's going to go. We usually know, right? We usually kind of know we got those sound bites. Denny, he's always firing off some rounds and getting pretty aggressive sometimes.

A little. A few days removed. Let's see what kind of day we got. be a little different. All right, dropping tomorrow, Speed Street with Connor Daly and Chase Holden. The guest on our allied guest segment for the Dale Jr. download is Mike Kerb. So Mike Kerb used to sponsor Dad's car back in 1980, sponsored many cars throughout his life and been involved in motorsports. I think it was a governor at one point of California or somewhere. What was it? I think that's right. Yeah. That wasn't becoming a round one. Yeah. So look, also, yeah, he's in the

music business had an incredible impact on on on on music so just I can't wait to talk to Mike I've never really spent much time with the guy that I've had a fascinating life it's going be a cool way to end the season in terms of our guest segments absolutely um also dropping Thursday DJD reloaded it's a little bit different this week it's the first episode of Herm and Schrader yeah really yeah all right how pumped are you to have so jayd reloaded will be basically just the first episode of Herman Schrader. Yeah, I can't wait to listen to this first episode. Oh, I know that.

People are going to listen. No question. It's going to be awesome. I mean, it's Kenny Schrader and Kenny Wallace. What's not to like? Exactly. I agree. What do you think?

I think it's going to be exciting. Shraders and Kenny, they're both characters. You agree with me and Andrew? Both, yeah. We got the question of the week from Kyle Bush. This ought to be good. All right, Dale. Do you still play with your little toy RC cars, or has that gone to the wayside?

I haven't played with those things in a while. Way back, probably around 2002, 2003, I built two RC tracks on my property. They're still there. We had a garage full of quarter-scale and tenth-scale cars, gas-powered. we were getting cars from Leonard Wood he builds a hell of an RC car Tony Jr, Tony Senior all of the guys on the Bud team had cars

we raced against each other we'd travel if we went to test at Greenville Pickens there was a track just down the street we'd run at we were always finding these hobby shops there was one in Bristol near the racetrack with a track so that was a big part of probably the early thousands

and man And we had fun with it, but eventually kind of ran. TJ was a big part of that too. Yeah, the quarter scales were amazing. They were. They were kind of slower and lumbery, so you could kind of really drive them and work on the balance and get it to turn or get it to free up.

And you change springs and stuff and drive it. And it wasn't so fast, like a tent scale is so damn fast as out of control. I don't even know why that. That doesn't even look fun. When they get to a certain speed, it's just not even that fun. But the quarter scales are kind of cool because they were kind of slower. They were like real race cars. You drove them.

And they were, when they door bang, they'd leave real tire marks. I love that part. But they were expensive too when they'd tear one up. But yeah, I sold all that stuff. I actually got a friend to come over to my house and list it all on eBay and just try our hardest just to get rid of it. And so it's gone. I do have two brand new, completely. meant cars that Leonard built me.

Oh, yeah, you've talked about this. I will never ever run them. They're brand new and I consider Leonard just an innovator and even at his age just an incredibly impressive mind and his, you know, the Wood brothers and their history and notoriety and fame. I just thought, man, he gave me, when he gave me those, he gave him to me probably around 2014 or 15. I was like, I can't use these.

I was wanting some new stuff because I was going to run. But he brought them in, I was like, God, I can't run this. They're too nice. They're too nice. They're so nice. Yeah. But, yeah. So, Dalton, you've got this week's social media standout.

I do. This one comes from Curtis Bailey on Twitter, and he said, in honor of Herman Trader, he said this is going to be his first time ever listening to a dirty moe media show. What a shrator. I know. What a jerk. And he's not going to hear his shout out on this show. Nope.

Where the hell have you been? You know, I felt that way too. I was like, okay. Don't say his name again. I was about to ask you who this guy's name was. Don't say it. Don't shame him. Don't shame him.

Don't bring shame upon him. I was like, we put out some pretty good stuff. But if Herman Trader brings you to the family, all right. We'll be happy about it. Hope he likes it. Where have you been? We need a report on digital. No, hey.

Sleep it out. Okay. Bleep it out Yeah pal whatever you are Yeah Buddy Yeah

Welcome to the family Yeah You're gonna love it here Yeah I've already giving you a hard time All right It's great show Thanks DJ for coming in

And tomorrow Remember Mike Kerb comes on the show Gonna be a great way to end the season I think it'll be a compelling compelling show Remember when we were talking to Buddy Parrott

I believe And he was telling us How that whole Daytona That's where I remember When Mike Kerb was involved woven into that. Ronald Reagan was there. Let's check

that out. Yeah, we're going to ask some questions to see what we get to. Yes. It's going to be fun. All right. We'll see y'all. Check out Dirtymo Media on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram.