The Dale Jr. Download - 604 - Dale Jr. & The Teardown Live from Daytona with Helio, MTJ & Allgaier

Episode Date: February 13, 2025

Dirty Mo Media took over the Daytona Fan Zone for a LIVE Dale Jr. Download featuring Dale Jr., The Teardown’s Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi, plus a stacked lineup of guests. Hélio Castroneves, Justin Allgaier, Martin Truex Jr., Cole Pearn, and Denny Hamlin all stopped by to drop some stories, talk Daytona, and maybe stir the pot a little.  0:30 - Justin Allgaier15:00 - Hélio Castroneves37:02 - Fan Questions50:00 - Martin Truex Jr. & Cole Pearn 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.

The following is a production of Dirtymoe Media. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. Maybe I'm just one of the old guards, man. Drink and smoke some cigarettes. Who kick ass? My name is Jeff Gluck. I'm along with my coworker Jordan Bianchi. Yeah, you're never wrong.

I'm not saying never, but just doesn't have it off. All right, everybody. Dale and Jr., Dale and Jr., Dale, Dale, Dale, Jr. All right. How's it going? Well, I was going to introduce our guest, but he came on out here first. I just told me to find him. He jumped the gun.

He jumped the gun. I did. So everybody, thank y'all for coming out here. Thanks for coming. We've been telling you all about this, and I was wondering if anybody would show up. But I'm Dalyan Hart Jr., and we're here with DirtyMode Media for a live episode of the Dale Jr. download. and I have with me two great friends, Jordan Bianca and Jeff Gluck. They're from the tear down, as you know.

Hopefully you listen to that show. They're the only group that does their show immediately after the race, so their fresh opinions about what they just saw and what's going on in the sport is so valuable to us as an industry. And I'm so thankful. I've watched these guys work and write

and do what they do for so many years and have respected their job and the efforts they put into it. So I'm lucky to be able to sit up here on the stage and talk to him a little bit. Justin, driver the number 40, travelers, whiskey, Chevrolet. We got a big job tonight. Big job. Yeah. Yes.

You've already been texting me. I've sat down with my spotter Joy Meyer, which is also your pilot. Yeah. And Greg, I've been sending messages this morning. We've done a lot of research over last night. And I, it's hard because it's like 6100s is what would a difference of making it or not making it. So it's been pretty disappointing all night last night. But I want to get to that.

I want to, before we go any further, wanted to introduce Andrew Curlin here, redhead on the corner. Thank you. A couple ginger's up here. That's right. Amy says I'm a ginger. I do not buy into that. You don't? Not really.

I mean, you might have been, but now you're right. I'm not anymore, right? My beard is red, though. my hair is not. That, yeah, Amy said I was a ginger at one point, but, uh. So does that mean I'm going to graduate too? Listen, you get old enough, you get gray hair. It works out great.

It covers all the red. I mean, but you do sunburn easily, right? I do. So that's probably half of it right there. Yeah. I mean, speaking from experience. We're happy to have you. I'm on the edge, the fringe.

Just join us. Just join you. Yeah. I kind of like, you know, being just a little bit ginger. I don't, I don't think you can be halfway in. I don't know. He's full ginger over here. The struggle is really.

We need your full undivided support down. You got a toe in the ginger port. Come on. This is the shit goes on when we're in that studio. And we're forgetting right now that we're in front of a live audience. And live on Cynne. In live on Cynnex. In that studio, we get to do anything we won't.

I guess we could do that here today. But, Justin, let's get right to it, man. We wanted to qualify in last night. That would have been so nice. But, you know, like you say, it was, you know, just to tick off from being able to do that. But we've, we have to kind of like recalibrate our mind a little bit from being disappointed to thinking, wait, we still got a really nice, clean path forward. There's a couple different ways this works out.

And I'm glad I've got these couple of experts up here. Jeff and Jordan, they could tell me whether there's even more scenarios that I'm not thinking about. But basically, if Truex, who I've talked to, he's in the bus next door to me in the bus lot, he said, hey, we're going to race. If things get a little weird, we'll dive out and take our spot. But we're going to try to race hard in this duel. If he happens to finish the best out of all the open cars, we'll get in on time. If Jimmy were to do that in the second duel, that's another route for us to get in on time.

Obviously, the best route is for him to just go out there and beat them all, and that would get us in on time. That sounds like the easiest plan. No pressure. No pressure. Yeah. And so I mean, but they're in, then Helio, who will come up here later, he also has the provisional to fall back on. I talked to Justin Marks last night.

He said their intention is to go similar to Truex. They're going to start the race, draft, work, try to try to get a great result. Get as, because Helio needs that experience. Right. That's critical to Helio for his Daytona 500 run. But if things again, get real hairy at any point late in the race, they may just bail out. And so we're really in the best duel. I believe to be in because there are two drivers that could potentially at any moment

just say, you know what, I'm not going to run any hard. So now we're, there is a scenario where we're only racing two other cars. So, yeah, that's the way I'm looking at. And am I, am, is it glass half full? That's a realistic viewpoint. Is that realistic? Yeah. Let me ask you this.

Go ahead, John. How much does track house care about the money? Because if Elio gets, it needs the 41st spot, they don't get any money. I mean, they already have the sponsor. So are they going to go out, risk their car? I asked this question already, and I got a very good answer, I think, is that they don't get any points or anything. It's like they didn't even attempt to make the race.

So if they go to somewhere else in the course of the year with 191, they would then be effectively behind everybody else that has attempted to 8500. So it gets a little bit weird. I also don't know, like, I think there's a lot of question marks on this open provisional. If you take it, do you get another one? Like, is that car then eligible for another open version? Like, there's a lot of questions that I think everybody's looking for answers for

that I don't know that we have at the moment. Yeah, well, I think, so I did text you about 30 minutes ago. Yeah. And I asked you if you'd watch the duels from last year. Yeah. I started. Okay. I texted you back.

I said, I started. I haven't completed them. So Truex told me last night, he's like, you know, they tend to get stretched out, fend out once, if there's a green flag fuel cycle, you know, that breaks the pack up a little bit. And so, you know, I guess you have to be mindful from the very moment that that race starts that you can't just kind of be idle. Right. Right. Because at any moment, it could get split up in terms of there may be a lead pack and a second pack.

And you don't want an open car to be in that pack and you be in their own pack, right? So, I mean, you've got to kind of be, I don't want to say aggressive is the right word, but you've got to be on the offense all the time. Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting when I look at the list of drivers. 14 Chevroletes in duel number one. So that obviously is great. Have you talked to all of those guys? I've been politic and I feel like a politician. I've been politic and hey, I need drafting partners.

You know, it is difficult because everybody's got a different agenda, right? We're all trying to fight for something different in this duel. You know, no different than practice yesterday. You know, half the field went out and just went straight on the racetrack. They started drafting and do whatever they needed to do. We, on the other hand, were like clean, qualifying lap, go make the single car run. and I don't know that it helped us any, to be honest with you, but, you know, I think that the duels have this, like,

different allure to them than maybe what they did in the past where, you know, starting position meant so much. Yeah. You know, so I don't know what to expect there, but I have been politic and put on the other side of it, you have so many different strategies now. You know, with the ability to understand the fuel savings and how much people are saving and doing in different ways,

there's different packs, you know, different groups are going to pit at different times. So I don't know, I don't really know what to expect. You know, when you look at the, those groups, you could be in the wrong group or the right group and not really have a choice, right? You're just pitting where you're in line. Yeah, I was thinking about that. The idea or the truth that we can all see what everyone's doing.

Not here. Yeah. Well, I mean, all of the crew chiefs can watch everybody's throttle, and they all have a great idea of who's in a really good position fuel-wise. and it sort of drove the product and the racing into this unique style

of riding around trying to save fuel, right? Trying to put yourself in the best position fuel-wise. And that even matters or will even rear its head in the duel. We got an email from Greg Ives

talking about, all right, if we get this mileage, this is our plan, if we get this mileage, and it's like tenths, two, you know, a tenth or two of fuel or a gallon of fuel per lap.

And so it's crazy how like science-stout they have the strategies in this race, and we'll watch it play out on Sunday where these drivers are trying to do everything they can to be on pit road the least amount on that last stop, right, taking the least amount of fuel. But what's the temptation like, Justin, okay, you're going to be a situation where you could, because everybody's going to be fuel saving, you could be like, I'm going up to the front. Yes. And then you step on it, you blow past everybody because they're all run half throttle or something. but then you know that you're going to pay a penalty for it on the last pit stop, maybe. That's not guaranteed. So we were on the Dale Jr. Download dirty air with Chase Elliott, and he said that. He said, you know, some people are starting to shift that way toward just thralling up and going and saying, you know what, I'm going up front and hope that the cautions may fall in such a way that I will be fine, right?

I won't be at a disadvantage on the fuel. Well, he said in that same interview that he saved fuel all day and was stuck. And when Alan told him to go, he's like, where do you want me to go? They're three wide in front of me and there's nowhere to go. It's really true. Yeah. So there was an Indy 500 probably about three or four years ago. And Penske, I think it was Penske that won in the Penzole car.

Who was that? Would have been McLaughlin? No. No. New Garden? No. No. No.

Castro Nevo? Casano. It might be Cassano. We got all of them. No, no, no. It wasn't Castronobos. It was... Simon Paginoe?

Yes, Pajino. So they were... We named all of them. We're going to get there eventually. So in the Indy 500, if I never knew this until I started going for NBC, in the Indy 500, all of them are dialing their cars for fuel, right? All race long, they're like, all we got to, you can do this mapping and you can do this with your car.

And they're all watching this and trying to make sure that they're going to be on pit road at the right time. That whole race. They were telling Pajino, dude, you're going too fast. Got a doubt back. He's leading, right? And he's like, I ain't lifting.

I ain't lifting. You know, and they were like, you got to lift. You're going to be short on gas. He's like, I don't care. I'm not giving up the lead. And the caution fell perfectly at the end and allowed him to win the race, right?

And so this new stylist of plate racing, it was really beneficial toward the individuals who began racing this way, right? And it was an advantage to the few that started doing it. But when the entire field is doing it, the advantage is lost. And now the shift happens where, to your point, some guys will go, you know what, I'm going to get on the other side of this. I'm going to be one of the few guys that's smashing the gas leading and taking that track position and hoping to get the right yellows

at the end. I struggle with this. You give up like two seconds a lot. Yeah. Right? Second and a half, two seconds left to save a second, two seconds, three seconds on pit road. So if I'm giving up 50 seconds over a run, what is an extra couple of seconds on pit road? That's my theory. I don't know if y'all agree with you on that one. So you're going. You're going to front. I don't know about that. If we get, if we get this car into this race tonight, I am lobbying for the rest of the weekend with Greg Ives to let him mash the gas on Sunday. We're going to the front. If we lose the Daytona of 500. It'll be because of fuel mileage. And because the cost of-

I think we would both be okay with that. I would rather lose the race because the cautions didn't fall perfectly than because I was sitting in 20th and it was time to go and I couldn't go. Yeah. You're right. So anyhow, what do you think? So I feel like if that's the case, you fans need to lobby to all the other drivers then

to help us get in tonight. We'll go for it on Sunday if that's the case. Well, I don't really, I, you know, as an observer and a fan, broadcaster, I hate, I don't know, he's the wrong way. I don't love the manufacturer groups getting together and, you know, having a plan and, and, and, and, but today, I'm, I'm down. So, I've never been on this side of it. So now I get it. All right. Well, but I think this is different, right? Like, this is, this is a different scenario. Because at the end of the day, a Daytona, Tleda, God, you cannot do this alone. Yeah. Right. Like, this is the one style of racing where we,

you couldn't, if you could just go out there and make labs by yourself, it'd be a really, You need teammates here. You need teammates. And I think that we're in a unique scenario where we don't have any teammates. Not physically, right? And so you have to try to make friends. And to be honest, I've made enough friends over the years in this sport that if there's another manufacturer of cars, I feel like we have friends in other cars that will help us tonight, you know, even though it doesn't benefit them. I told Justin that, you know, I think that out of everybody in the garage, you're probably the most well-liked guy when it comes to the other competitors.

So hopefully that comes. I think it's the other way around. I think it's this guy over here. Well, I'm not driving the car. I'm not in the car, so we're going to lean on you. Hopefully you're still buddies with all these guys. Start cashing in some. Most of them I haven't raced with long enough to have issues with.

And Ross and I have, somehow, weirdly enough, like everything we've done over the last six months, like anything NASCAR related or whatever, we've ended up being paired together. And now he's a junior motor sports coming into driving in the nine. So we've become buddies. Yeah, we've become buddies. And we used to hate each other. So, you know, it works out good. And he's a Chevy.

And he's a Chevy. And speaking of friends, we do have, you're talking about having some friends in the duel. Elio Castro Nevis is here. So, Justin, you got to go. You got a race prepared for. He is my enemy tonight. Oh, gosh. Yeah, because we're like, we're all over the same spot.

Justin, can you depart this side of the stage? Helio's coming. Hang on, I will say this, though. He does have the provisional, so maybe we're not as big of enemies. I'm going to try to spend the next 15 minutes convincing him to you. Please do. All right. On that note, I will leave, thank you.

Please get him. Appreciate you. All right. All right. Let's bring him on out here. Any 500 champion? Great all-around guy. I mean, when you get to know this guy, he is so much fun.

We're so thankful that he's here. Oh. Hylio, Castro Nevins. What do you got there, man? We made our quest yesterday. What do we got here? First of all, yes. I will tell you why it's this.

Oh, man. Oh, gosh. All right. I had to take mine. Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. For those listening.

He brought Wendy's guys. Oh my gosh. He wants us to dip the fries in the frosties. I might pass on that one. You got some. Oh, there's fries too. Look at this. I will drop fried food and sugar for my New Year's resolution.

So there's a story behind these. I just learned yesterday. Actually, the frosty with the fry, I had no clue. Is that a thing here? Yeah. Yeah. You guys dip the fry on the frosty. Is that correct?

We have to. We have to. It's a special occasion. Some do. Some do. Some do? Because I'm black and white, man. Sweet is one thing.

Salty is another thing. When you put it together, it doesn't go well. You can't do the sweet and savory together. Sometimes when you combine them, you make bad decisions and good things happen. Is that what it is? Fakes them. So, okay, so is that what you do? Are you going to give it a shot?

Here we go. All right, let's go, guys. Let's see if the Brazilian guy here would take this. Oh, my goodness. What do we think? No. No. He's saying no.

No. He can't do it. He's like, no. Oh, man. This is horrible. What are you talking about? Come on. I'm sorry, everyone, but this is not.

I like this only. Here we go. Now I'm talking about, mm. Mm. Much better. But thank you, Wendy, for this amazing product, which, by the way, is really, really good. And so what's up? What's up, man?

What's going on here? So, Helio, I want to know, man. So yesterday, when you got out there for practice, that was not your first time driving a stock car, obviously. How much of that experience from your past can you lean on to give you any idea what you're getting yourself into? Well, you know that I had a little bit of a half a day in Talladega. We talk about in half an hour. By the way, he gave me great tips, which is really good. I'm glad I had that conversation with you.

And I'm glad I had at least half a day in Talladega because, man, I was cold brown before the practice starts, to be honest. How this is going to happen, you know? But went out there and, yes, it felt. really comfortable. The car felt really good. And I didn't realize, you know, this is the first time I ran with all the cars around, because up to that point, it was just myself. And I, my goodness, the difference in the speed behind some people, it really threw me off a little bit. In fact, qualifying, I was so upset. I was like, man, I didn't think the time's going to be that bad. But it was great. So far, everything has been great. You know, the Project 9-1 and Track House,

they've done this before. So it's really good to help me, have the tools, to acclimate. mate and make sure everything goes smooth so far. What has the conversation has been like today around your race tonight? I think talking to your car owner, crew chief, they're going to let you race. They're going to, I know that you had the provisional in your pocket. Right. But you also badly, badly need to get as much experience in the draft as you can, right? You're going to take advantage of that tonight.

Yeah, so we didn't talk much yet because the meeting is going to be, I think, the garage opened 4 o'clock, so I haven't talked to much of the folks. I did speak with... Actually, I'm going to be... Look at this guy here. How much? How much? We'll talk about that.

We'll talk about that later. I love that guy. By the way, I met him so long. We used to be teammates at Penske organization. Oh, yeah. You know, he would... X-Finity or back then, whatever... Nationwide.

Nationwide, that's right. And we had a great time together, flying together from Charlotte to other races. So, but... Coming back to the conversation yet, four o'clock or five o'clock, they're going to be open. I'm going to be doing the archa practice, more experience to understand the whole drafting thing.

So you guys understand, you know, in IndyCar is a little bit different. So when you behind someone, the car in front of you, basically you dictate your own destiny, right? The car in front of you, basically the draft is so huge that sucks you that you can make the move whatever you want. Right? here, as you know more than me, of course, you need someone behind to dictate your faith, correct?

Yes. So you kind of like need to, whatever, be nice to everyone, don't have great teammates or something like that to happen. So it's very different for me to understand this. And that's why I'm doing ARCA so that I learn a little bit more about this process, which is a process, by the way. So I'm going to take a little time, but I'm glad I'm doing that. Has anybody told you about ARCA breaks?

I felt it. What brakes? Did they have brakes? Some are, even if they do, they don't use them. Yeah, some of the cars are equipped with brakes and some are not. It's tough. Spotter's optional. I know, I know.

We did a practice here a month ago, and first time when I came to the pits, I really, that was a cold brown big time. I was like, oh my God, this is going to be a problem. But I get used to. So that's why it's important for me to be out there. As much as behind the wheel, you know, doesn't matter what car it is, it's always good to learn and understand. How about the cup car and, you know, you drove race cars all your life in an open cockpit for the most part? In the cup car, you're surrounded by not only the headrests and the seat, the roll bars, the winch, the roof, it's very limiting in terms of how much you can physically see and you're relying a lot on the mirrors and spotters. How has that been to get used to?

No, that doesn't be, I've been racing sports car, so at least that gave me a little bit of understanding what I need to do, and it hasn't been that difficult, especially with the camera. I'm glad you guys went to the cup cars. You like that. Oh, that's beautiful, man. I can see that. I understand what's going on, and instead of keep looking up, you know, so far as being, it's been good.

Yes, there is some restrictions, you know, find out. I haven't run yet with people around me, to be honest. So today, actually, probably going to be the first. time with the ARCA and of course in the race it will be another scenario so every step of the way it's being new new literally like a new discovery so it will be interesting it's like french fries and frosty it's like this i hope i'll hope it'll be a different experience than this yeah goes together a little bit i mean how do you get people to trust you because so much of drafting feels like hey i know that guy he can take me to the front you know i'll follow him they're gonna look at

your car and be like, I don't know. I think that's going to happen a lot. When people look at me, it's like, no, I'm not going to be around this guy, you know, so which, understand, if it would be in the car situation, I would say the same thing. But I feel that I got to earn the trust, you know, I got to be there, four hours of racing, of course. Tonight will be, how long? It's about an hour and a half? Yeah, probably so. Yeah, so probably going to have to earn a little bit on that as well. So, yeah, I know my limits. I know what I need to. to prove and yeah there was a lot to do so hopefully with putting all the experience that I have in racing and again coming back and learning I feel this is going to be a great mix

I wanted to ask you why was this important to put on your resume like what was what is it about Daytona 500 I mean you're talking about the one of the the biggest race in the world you know and only two guys were able to win this race which for me is the gods of racing right which is AJ FOI and Mario Andretti and they are the only ones that were able They are the only ones in the planet that won Indy 500 and Daytona 500. So I don't think there are many opportunities for someone, you know, to do that unless you guys are going to go through Indy 500 and try something like that. So why not try something the opposite?

Yeah, it might be a long shot, but in the end of the day, I feel that I have an opportunity and let's go and get it. You said you know what you have to prove, so what is that? Well, in terms of the trust with the other guys? Yeah, or tonight in the Daytona 500? I think I need to just for them to understand that, yes, just because it's a different car for me, just because I don't have the experience,

but I understand the game. And if I are able to prove to everyone out there, so when you come on Sunday, they said, okay, you know what, this guy have a good car or you understand what's the game, so we can play together. That's the way I see. Can you give us a description of what the garage,

what the culture in the garage is like comparable to IndyCar versus NASCAR? You know, it's been nice. I haven't been much. I've been in my truck over there. It's been nice. Everybody's been really cool, showing me a lot of the different scenarios.

People don't realize, but racing in general right now with the technology that we have today, it's pretty similar, pretty good. I've been just mesmerized with the cars, the noise, and the whole thing. how difficult is for me to get in the car without the hands device. I'm like, whoa, man, this is tight.

Even that I'm a small guy. So, but it's being, it's been an incredible experience so far. Do you put your helmet on after you get in here before? I always put before. Me too. Right? I don't know. I think it's easier.

It's easier. I can't do, I can't attach to Hans in the car. Man, I had many times trying to, I mean, my hands couldn't fit and the mechanic wasn't able to get it. I was like, let me get out there. So it's being a very funny situation. So please, please, when I'm getting in the car, don't take pictures, okay? It's not good.

It's not good. How do you look younger than, I mean, no offense. Speak for yourself. Okay. How do you, okay, I won't throw you under the bus. I'll throw myself under the bus. I mean, I feel like you just look ageless. I don't get it.

How is this possible? I'm 22. What are you talking about? What's your secret? Well, definitely not eating. with Frosty. Don't tell when he's that. They have good sounds, though.

I'll get the frosty. I'll get the frosty. They got good sounds. Here we go. The way I see, it's, I think the passion with sports, when you do it's something like this, some people call work, but I don't. Or it's not work when you have fun, right? And you make a lot of friends. You surround by great people.

So when you do that, I think you have a long life. I think I want to hear your pitch to him about. Oh, yeah. You were telling us, you're going to spend this whole time. He's got a car. He needs to qualify. I got a car. Nobody's going to listen.

No worries. Just you know. Yeah, yeah. Everyone turn around and plug your ear. So the way we see it with the 40 car. Well, first of all, I didn't know you had the car, by the way. So when I saw you around the car and Justin, I was like, oh, no kidding. That's good.

So, okay. So you're in our race, our duel. Uh-huh. And you're going to go out there and try to gain all that experience. Yep. What point? What needs to be going on for you to go? You know what? I'm going to just take the provisional and that leaves us with only just two guys to race. I don't know. You tell me when do you think that's the point? Left one? Yeah. Left one. Yeah. I'll wait for the team. Where is your pit sign? I need to find that.

I'm all the way in the beginning, man. Get down your road. No, but in the end of the day. I'm going to be following, obviously, what the guy's going to tell me. And again, what is your radio frequency? I don't know, man. Three, I guess. No. But in the end of the day, I understand the situation.

But, yes, I'm going to try to race as hard as I can, as strong as I can, learn as much as I can. But, yeah, I'm sure Justin, he has a lot more experience in these cars. Probably he's going to be so far ahead. There won't be a problem. I got to ask you one last question. And I know that you're probably not thinking beyond the Daytona 500. But, you know, what would be a dream scenario or what would be your wish?

If things go well, you know, you have a great experience, right? You really enjoy it. You're going to want to come back. You're going to want to race more, right? Yep. Is that something that you want to try to pursue? Absolutely. And I would love to do a road course.

You know, that would be. super cool to understand, especially with the sequential gearbox now. For me, it fits right in the way I used to do, and the car is actually breaking really good. So, yeah, I would love to do more experience, and in the road course, I think it would be great. How about Bristol? I don't know. I think we're pushing the next. You're like, what about Bristol? They say Martinville drives like a road course. Man, I still learning how to get out of the garage here. I'm going to know know how to. I don't think they have a pit lane there, a pit box there, right? So it would be a problem

for me to get out of there. So, no, right now, I feel we've got to be realistic. I'm obviously going to focus as much as I can, but it would be great to have another opportunity to do the road course. It would be awesome. Well, we're thankful you're here. You've brought a lot of eyes to the sport

by entering this race and a lot of good cross-promotion between any car fans coming over to see what you're doing here, and we're thankful for that. Regardless of us competing on the track. I wish you the best, man. I want you to have a great time. I want you to want you to want you to leave and go back to all your friends and say, man, that is a great sport. Those are great people. And so we're hoping for the best for this weekend for you, bud. I appreciate that there. Thank you so

thank you so much. Give it up one. Thank you. And thanks for the food. There we go. Take it easy on the fries, all right? All right. So we want to hear from you guys, the fans. So I, hey, thank you so much. Elio Castornevus one more time. We want to hear from you guys, the fans. I'm going to go get a portable microphone and think of some good questions, all right, for these guys up here. While I go do that, I'm sure we would love to. We can just shoot a little bit? Yeah, why not? Can you say that on serious? You can say whatever you want. Okay. All right, so what's the big story? I mean, listen, when we've talked about doing this deal, they're like, who do you want to be on stage with? and this was who I asked to spend this hour with.

And I love how you guys always had the scoop, even before I hear the scoop. And so, like, what's the big story going on in the garage, at least in the last 24, 48 hours? Boy. Well, I mean, there's a federal lawsuit, and NASCAR, you know, had a brief they filed yesterday, and that's getting a little more stickier.

Yeah. What do you think is the outcome, the overall outcome of that? I mean, ultimately, there's going to be some settlement of some sort. There's too much of this pie that can't be divided in some way where cooler heads prevail. It doesn't make any sense to go to the mattresses on this and go to war and tear this down. This board is going forward. It's making money. Let's figure this out.

I mean, to me, you know, right now the trial's scheduled for December 1st. So this judge has been pretty strict. like we're going to keep this thing moving. It's under appeal, the preliminary injunction. NASCAR right now wants the teams, they have this preliminary injunction to race as chartered teams. They want to take that away. They wanted to say, no, you guys are going back to open teams. You shouldn't have gotten this.

And then you'll have to also pay us back all the money. Obviously, the teams want to be as chartered teams until they work something out, right? But how does this really end? Because they're getting toward the process where the discovery happens. And the discovery for those you don't know is like, turn over your text messages and your emails. And, you know, you're a lot. expensive. Do you believe that there's really some dirt? I don't know. We don't know. It depends on who you talk to because, I mean, this is a private company and they have kept their books strictly behind

closed doors for 76 years. So maybe there is something in there that they don't want to see. They are a business. They are a private business and their job is to make money. So if anything, there's probably going to be teams like, well, they're making way too much money. Is there like some dirty secret? I can't say. Well, even if there's not, do you want somebody to read your text? Oh, God, no. I mean, you know what I'm saying. Oh, God, no. So you get to the point where you're like, all right, do we want to keep going with this?

Or can we figure something out? When we're strictly talking about in the garage area competition, what's the top story? What's the one thing I guess you're most excited about? So for me, okay, I look at this very much as like the status quo season, right? This is the first year of the next gym where somebody hasn't had a new car. There hasn't been some big rules package change. They're not trying to do something different with the short tracks. You know, they got the option tires.

the softer tire and stuff, but that's not going to be a huge change, right? So, like, is it going to be the same faces? And if not, who could disrupt that? I look at two things, right? I look at Chase Briscoe jumping in the 19, because if that meshes well, then all of a sudden you have somebody that could win three, four races. It's a new guy up front every week, a new face. People are, you know, I think people, you guys know Chase Briscoe, but we, the general, the broader public hasn't really heard from him that much yet. They haven't really gotten super familiar with him because, you know, he pops up, He wins here, you know, maybe another year he wins here. He's somewhat relevant, but he's not out there all the time.

He's one of the most down-to-earth people. I mean, people say he reminds them of you, like just a normal person. You know what I mean? Like, he stops and talks everybody. His PR person is telling me, I got to keep chase moving because he's always stopping and talking to every fan, having a whole conversation. So, you know, if you got a guy like that winning all the time, that could change, you know, the dynamic of how people look at the sport.

Also, Spire Motorsports is the other one, right? They've made a ton of investments. They got three drivers who could win their way into the playoffs. Yeah. I don't even know who to pick out of those three. I mean, I picked McDowell to make the playoffs, but Hosevar is lightning fast. You got Justin Haley paired with Rodney Childers. That could be a great combination.

So if you're looking for some disruptors out there, maybe one of those pop up. And then all of a sudden you're like, okay, like now it's a little bit mixed up, even though the rules didn't change. Sure. Let me see what happens with Joe Gibbs racing. We talked a lot about them last year. They won a lot of races, but those were early in the year. after the end of June, they haven't won since. Now, Christopher Bell let a lot of laughs,

Denny Hamlin let a lot of laughs, but the reality is they did not win races. Two of their four drivers last year did not win races. But that's not necessarily a Toyota thing, because we saw what Tyler Reddick did. There's a lot of questions right now about Joe Gibbs racing. We got Martin Trix Jr. retired. Chase Briscoe's coming in.

Danny Hamlin's future. How long is Denny going to be there for? He doesn't have a big sponsor this year. They've had some sponsorship issues the last few years with Kyle Bush and Eminem's leaving. It just seems like right now there's just a lot. lot circling about this team that isn't necessarily good, that's hard to reverse that. It's hard to reverse course and gain positivity.

Listen, Chris Rebell is an all-world driver. He's going to win a lot of races, and I think he's going to contend for the championship this year. But the rest of that team has some serious questions. Yeah, for sure. I do like the Chase Briscoe conversation. I do think that he's a really, really good person. And we all, you know, I don't want to get into the details, but he lives some very

tragic and tough moments in his personal life publicly in front of us, right? And I remember that post-race interview on the front straightway at Darlington after winning that Xfinity race and how, you know, how he was able to handle that and go out there and perform his job and drive so spiritedly was, it was insanely impressive. And it was a lot of fun to kind of see him continue to mature. And he's won races at Stuart Haas when no one else was winning races with that stuff, right? So there is a idea of Chase Briscoe being way better than any of us I had an idea or a clue about, right? And I think that this is here to go out there, and if that is true, to prove that. And he is stepping into a team that is incredibly hungry to

prove it themselves. This is no disrespect to Martin Truex Jr. But James Small and the rest of that team want to show they're more than just Truex. They want to show that. They want to show that that if you put a driver in this car, we can go win races. And I'm trying to say this delicately, but Chase Briscoe is a little bit more of a new school driver in terms of the technologies that he uses to do that. And he's already starting to implement that a little bit. This team is just so eager for that.

And I'm really curious to see what they can do. It does feel like they're going to win and they're going to win early, and that ball is just going to keep rolling. I agree. Well, and I want to know what the impact of that would be because I think NASCAR has a big star power problem right now. Huge.

The drivers are not as relatable as they used to be in your era. I mean, so many of you out here are Dale Jr. fans, right? And part of Dale Jr.'s appeal is he was relatable, right? Like, you could feel like, all right, like, this is something I would say if I was in this position. Like, you were such a down-to-earth person for a superstar. And right now, I don't think a lot of these personalities out there are super relatable to the fans. Where Chase Briscoe, I mean, like this guy literally, he said, you know what, I'm going to try to make it.

He drives down in North Carolina. He sleeps on couches. He sweeps shop floors of an architect. team. He begs his way into an architect. You know, parlays over and over and over. One door just barely unlocks the next one. He has the backstory. He is a down-to-earth person. I just want to know what is the impact of that. If he's able to actually win, because there's drivers in the series who have personality, but they're not necessarily the ones winning all the races all the time. And I think we're, you know, NASCAR hasn't seen lately the combination of somebody that's

winning a lot and somebody that has the personality. And that's what makes a star. And that's what I think fans have been looking for. Well, let's take some questions from our fans. We've got a couple microphones out in the audience. Right here, Andrews. Right here to Andrew. Yes, I like how they pick the shortest person to go out into the crowd. But, yes, our first question here from Brendan.

I'm Brendan from Nantucket, Massachusetts. And my question is, is there a benchmark of success for this weekend? And would that parlay into more cup starts this year? For the 40 car for junior motorsports. So I'll be honest, man. the there has this is the this is the race this is this is all there is there is no uh there's no you know there's no extra there's no other component beyond the daytona 500 there's not been one word of conversation around anything past this race um it could happen it might happen if

if we don't make the race for whatever reason tonight it's absolutely going to motivate kelly and myself that that's not the end of the story you know We're damn sure going to try harder to come back here and at least finish the job, right? And so, but can it turn into more cup races? It could, but it's, you know, it's got, we're going to have to get some phone calls, some very lucky breaks to help us fund what that looks like, because it's not, and it's not easy to go race full-time or even part-time in the Cup series. And I'm very, you know, I admire the Carl Longs and some of these other teams,

B.J. McLeod that'll come and race sporadically because it's such an undertaking. And we want to be, you know, we want to get here. We want to get into this series and get into the Cup Series, and we'd love to be there full time. And that's, you know, none of that's ever changed. Certainly coming here and experiencing this weekend makes us want it even more. But, yeah, there's, you know, we're not thinking past Sunday. There's not, there's not a plan beyond that, but there's not to say it couldn't materialize. I mean, Dale, there's also this open exemption provisional now if you ever want to use it here. Yeah, come on back.

I joked on, I text Jeff Gordon and Rick. I said, hey, we ought to go ahead and apply for next year. But I think, you know, that I, and as much of a joke that is, I think that literally some creative things could possibly happen. Maybe not with me, but other people, to be able to take advantage of that. We got one more question out here, it looks like. Yes, we do. It's with Michael, who is wearing, by the way, an original Dale Earnhardt,

Weedy shirt. So that already gets bonus points. Michael, what's your question? Yeah, I'm Michael from Bill Ricka, Massachusetts. My question, Dale, is obviously you've had a lot of success for as a driver-winning two Daytona 500s. As a first-time owner, what is the biggest change in mindset between being a racer and now a new owner in the series? Having to remind myself that I'm not the one driving the car. You know, I get up in the morning, I get up in the morning and look at the schedule and I get nervous all over again, just like I would as a driver. Oh, man, you know, I got practice. I got to go talk crew chief. I got to do, we've got to think about this, think about that,

and prepare and prepare and prepare. And I don't, I have to remind myself, like, to back off, you know, and I don't have to get that worked up. Justin's the one that's going to handle that role. And I can relax, you know, and I can, I'm going to do everything I can to help us prepare, which is very minimal. But it's out of my hands, right? Whereas when I'm driving the car, it's all in my hands.

I feel like it all on my shoulders, right? but so it's i forget as an owner that it's not on my shoulders and and i walk around feeling that anxiety probably unnecessarily i was so nervous last night standing on pit road and man it was a kick in the gut when you know we didn't run the lap we wanted but um you got to you got to kind of regroup that and change that mindset right and say all right we got another shot you know tomorrow's another day and um but again wake up in the morning and it's not in my hands i don't have have control over the strategy or the car or the decisions we're going to make tonight. I'm going to sit there and hope it goes well, and that's all you can do.

I mean, one difference between driver and owner, at least famously before the LaTart era, you would sleep as long as you could until practice and then come rolling. Now you're at 6 a.m. What time was your alarm set for yesterday? I think that drives home the fact that this is, we know in our hearts that this could be the only race that Junior Motor Sports ever enters in the Cup Series. It's absolutely not what I want, but it could be. So, yes, I'm not going to miss the car getting unloaded. I'm going to be there as soon as it comes out of the truck.

I want to be there when it goes through tech inspection, which I was. I want to help push, you know, I want to be there and watch it get pushed out onto the grid for qualifying, which I did. And so, yeah, I just want to experience all these things because if I don't ever get to do it again, I don't want to have missed anything. And also, the team that we put together, they're, kind of like a bunch of volunteers. We went to a lot of different places to get all these individuals that we thought would really be the people we needed for this trip. The car chief on the car is B. Hoover.

B. Hoover worked on my Xfinity car, the A.C. Delco car back in 9899, he was a mechanic on the bud car back when we ran in the bud car through the early 2000s. So, I mean, all these individuals I have unique connections with, and they're all going to be here on Wednesday at 6th of the morning. And I was like, I think it might be important. And if I'm there, too so they see me and go hey he's with us he's he's he's serious about this I'm going to be serious about this let's get this weekend started off on the right foot and that's what I thought would be the best thing to do will you be giving a motivational pep talk before the duel tonight I got Xfinity drivers to talk to I'm gonna be talking to just I've been talking to Justin all week

you got to fire him up yeah yeah yeah I mean I'm just gonna you know I absolutely will have have a conversation with him and and Greg and the whole group and You know, we have all the, it'll be something along the lines of, look, all the resources are here. Good car, good driver. We got everything. Let's go out there and just do what we know we can do. And, you know, I believe that if you, you know, wheel it into existence, it can, it's possible. If you go in thinking we don't have a shot or the odds are against us, I mean, you're setting yourself up for failure.

You're making it harder than it has to be. Davey's got a question there. Andrew's got a question in the crowd. Yeah, right here with Chris, who's, by the way, rocking your national guard hat from the last time you won the Dayton 500 here in 2014. Chris, what's your question? Hi. So I'm my question for Dale. I'm Chris from Los Angeles. So I know you've been pretty passionate over the last couple years or, yeah, last couple years with teams not wrapping or painting the side skirts. And I saw that this year that they're painting them or wrapping them. So my question is, what's been your favorite

paint scheme that you've personally designed, help or run? That's a great question. So the side skirt, rocker box or whatever you want to call that thing on the next gen. When the next gen came out, the manufacturers, they assume that there needs to be some branding on these cars that represents them. And they stake claim to parts of the car to do that, right? The headlights and all that stuff or decals that we used to run back in the day. Well, on the next gen, it's the rocker box. And there was this kind of decal that would wrap around the roof.

bumper and so forth. And everybody had to run that. If you wanted the manufacturer support and you were any kind of a partner with one of the manufacturers, you had to insist on running it. And they, you know, it looked awful. It doesn't look good. And, you know, the cars look better when they're wrapped to the floor, right? And so I think they kind of loosened up on those rules this year. Not, you know, some of the manufacturers or all of them maybe have told the teams that it's not necessary to leave that space for the manufacturer. And some of them are able to now wrap the box, which I think is cool. Cars look better.

My favorite car, my favorite car that I ever drove is also my favorite car that's ever existed in NASCAR, and that's the Grey Ghost. Buddy Baker, yeah. Buddy Baker drove that car. Others did as well. Bobby Allison raced it. But Buddy Baker ran and won the 80 Daytona 500 with that car. and I mean a car you know I love things that get their nicknames naturally and not you know I don't like

nicknames that are like self-imposed or and but so that car developed this reputation and people call it the gray ghost and it's got us it's got a lure in a in a real story like when I name that I mentioned that car several people know what I'm talking about and um I love cars to have names. I mean, that's cool in itself. But beautiful car, silver and black, pinstriping, awesome. And so I was lucky enough to be able to talk our sponsors into letting me do that a couple times in my career.

And so that's probably my favorite. We ran that in the car tomorrow at Charlotte, I believe. And man, that car looks so good. For a car tomorrow, that's hard to do. Hard to make that thing look good. But we did. And that was a lot of fun when we could do things like that. We got one more question out there, Andrew?

We got time for one more quick, quick question because Martin Turing Jr. and Colprin are here, so, Wayne, what's your question? I'm Wayne from Bojur City, Louisiana. Dale, all your fans love seeing you, whether it's behind the wheel, broadcasting at the Indy 500. What's your plans this season for broadcasting? Thanks.

At which track? Thanks for asking. So I'll be doing all of the Amazon and TNT races. So basically all of June and July. There's a 10 race stretch starting with Amazon at the World 600, and I'll be going for 10 races with Lattard and Adam Adam Alexander in the booth. I haven't worked with Adam, but everybody tells me that I'm going to love it.

He's going to be awesome. So we're already talking and getting together, having lunches and starting to form our plan for our shows. And I'm looking forward to getting back in the booth. I miss it. It's fun. I'd do it for free. It's pretty cool. I'm going to watch the races anyways.

I miss the racetrack when I'm not at it, so it gets me to the track and gets me around what I love. And so I enjoy doing it. I'm glad that whoever out there enjoys me being in the booth, you're keeping me there. So thank you. As long as you guys like it, the networks will keep me employed, and I'll get to keep coming to the track and enjoying what I do.

Well, as I said, Martin Church Jr. and Colparn are here, so why don't we bring them up on the stage? Yeah. What's up, man? All right, man. This is going to be a lot of fun. I know my buddy Truex and what he's been in up to, but Cole has been MIA,

ran off to run some kind of a resort on the other side of the country. A different country. Yeah. Where are? I might be in the same country soon. Who knows? Where is it? All right, so you, at the peak of your career,

Thank you all both for being here. Yeah. I know you guys are busy, but thank you for being here. At the peak of your career, you decided I've done what I wanted to do. How hard was that to do? How easy was it to do? Yeah, it's hard and easy at the same time. I think hard from the standpoint, all the relationships you have and that side of things,

you feel like you're letting a lot of people down. But, you know, I got another team at home that is really important, and that makes it really easy, you know, spend more time with them. And as your kids get older, it just gets hard, you know. To be away from them. Yeah, and being a crew chief, and then trying to be a crew chief at a high level is a 24-7 job. And there's not much place for much else in your life. Where's the resort?

So, yeah, it's not, it's a resort, but it's like backcountry skiing. So there's four, we have four lodges that you helicopter into, and then you're kind of there for a week. True, have you been? No. I can go now, though. Yeah, he's got time anymore. Yeah. I'm not racing, so I could do it.

And that's going well. That's going great. Yeah. No, everything's going really well. Private, I wouldn't say privately is the right word, but you've been still advising, like staying plugged in into what Joe Gibbs Racing is doing. You're not, you know, you have it completely disconnected. Yeah, it's been great.

I work in the Arrow Department and do, you know, all the arrow mapping. So when we go to the Wind Tunnel, we gather all that info, and then that info kind of needs to get collected into some type of form that the simulation can use. And that's what I handle. and it works out great. I get to work with people that I know really well, and I think that's what enables it to make it work.

Trix, I called you and asked you if you were going to run the Daytona 500, and you kept giving me bullshit answers. How long did you know you're going to do this? Officially no? Yes. A while. Why didn't you tell me, man? Well, it was when we were talking about it,

it was a different situation because I knew I couldn't drive your car. Yeah. Right? and but it wasn't, I guess, a little bit longer after that. Did you know that Cole was going to help you? When did we even start talking about this? I feel like it was maybe end of August last year. Yeah, it was pretty early.

It wasn't very much talking. It was like, hey, do you want to do the 500? And I said yes. Yeah. That was about it. Not sure if he's really sure about the decision yet, but yesterday went well. Yeah. I actually had more fun yesterday than I thought it would, so it was good.

How'd you like getting here at 6 a.m.? Oh, that was all right. Yeah. I don't know. It's a good way to just get a full slap in the face of it. You don't want to use a way in it. And he got sunburn, too, right? Yeah, I know. My skin has not seen the sun like it was yesterday. So are you literally, you know, you're like in a lodge, like people are skiing outside. And then you're like on your laptop, like doing arrow stuff for JGR and sending it back. You're like, all right, back to the slopes. Not quite, but I could do that. Yeah. I mean, I definitely have. I mean, we have internet up there. So it works, you know, with Starlink, that's the beautiful thing. You can kind of have internet anywhere. So it works. works pretty well. Is this like in the middle of nowhere? Um, well, I mean, yeah, I mean, you,

I mean, you say you have to helicopter in. Yeah, you have to helicopter there and like each lodge only has 16 people. Do you helicopter there? What's that? Do you helicopter there? Um, me fly? No, I just ride. How do you get in? Oh, yeah, helicopter, yeah. Anytime you got to go there for anything, right? That's the only way. Yeah. So if you got to, if you got to fix something, you can't just run to the hardware store to go get it. You know what I mean? That's the, that's the, that's the crazy thing. I guess you probably have a hell of a tool, tool closet. Yeah, and you just have to have really detailed list because it's like, you know, you just can't, it's just really expensive if you forget some little thing that you need. Hey, I want to bring one guy up here on stage. Denny Hamlin got

here a little bit early, so let's say we bring him here. We're going to make a mic. We're going to need a mic. You got a mic. Oh, you're going to give up your spot, Andrew? That's kind of nice. Get out of here. All right. Danny has going. Hi. So Danny gets here a little bit early, so we're going to drag you out here. That's nothing. Who are you? Yeah, right? How miserable is Cole right now? I mean, we just left the meeting, and I heard him mummling and grumbling and throwing F-bombs from 20 feet back. Like, what the fuck am I doing here? I did pretty good.

I lost my cool a little bit. Wait, you've already lost your cool? I just did. 15 minutes ago. His patience level ran out. You know what? You forgot all the stuff that you hated when you said yes to this. You were like, yeah, it'd be great.

And you get back here, and you're like, Oh, damn, I forgot about this part. Well, it piss anybody off. You've been in a meeting, the same meeting three times, and we're going through it again. And eventually, you're just like, I can't take this anymore. That piss anybody off. So you're racing into duel tonight.

I talked to you, Truex. You're all going to run as hard as you can until it gets a little weird. What needs to happen for you to say, hey, man, I'm going to back out of this. I'm not sure. I mean, I think early on it's usually pretty chill. Hopefully we can get up there. If we can get up towards the front in a decent spot, it usually gets pretty calm. So try to get up to a good spot before that first pit stop and then see, you know, kind of how it's playing out.

If we get a couple cautions and some restarts at the end or something, it could get wild. So we'll just try to use Denny's strategy of if they just start getting wild, you can kind of see it. Try to back out. I usually don't back out at that point in time, and I'm in the crash. So hopefully, yeah, fingers crossed will be safe. I think there's 11 Toyota's in the race. I don't know if that's a record, but it's got to be close. It is the most we've had.

That's why we've got to have so many meetings now. Hopefully it helps. But yeah, surely, I mean, you know, in the past it's like, man, we got to, we have to have everybody avoid the wreck to be, you know, linked up at the end. Now, I mean, you can lose a few and still be in decent shape, teammate-wise, it feels like. So, I mean, is that going to be, play a factor in this race? I mean, potentially it could. It just depends on how the race plays out. If there's seven or eight of us left at the end, then, yeah.

Yeah, it's going to be great, but you just never know how it's going to play out. You are retired now, effectively. You're not racing anymore this year. Do you give a damn about hurt feelings or anything? Because you're just here to win. No. If you piss somebody off, I don't care about feelings, don't care about points. I saw some of your interviews.

You were talking about the provisional. Yeah. And I was like, we get retired Truex now. So I like when he comes around because we actually really get to hear what he's. He used to never give an answer. He'd just say, I don't care, whatever. Now he's like, tell him. us what he really thinks. Usually, Denny knows this. Usually this happens right before you retire,

but it's like it took you retiring for you to start really telling us. I don't know. I think that one maybe I would have said the same thing last year. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. He said it was a slap in the face. Yeah. Yeah. I mean a little bit, I think. Yeah. For sure. It ended up being a non-issue, I guess. No, no, not for us, but it will be for someone else, I guess, you know, at some point. So Denny, what is the plan tonight? You're locked in. You got a charter. We're going to do they tell us to do, right, Cole? Right. Which meeting

told you what to do? Which are the three meetings? That was the same thing every time. Oh, I see. Yeah, that was the problem. So, Dale, I got a lot of flack because I said you wouldn't be as successful in this era of next gen super stupid.

You should have chose your words wisely there. No, no. Hey, I blame Mike Davis and then boys back there on the headline. How can you make a blanket statement like that? Because me and dad wouldn't be successful. That's wrong. That's not what I said. You did.

That's not what I said. That's what I said. No, that's what the headline they chose to put up there. The rest of your. I said you would hate it. I do hate it. Yes. I said, I said you being told who you can draft with and who you can't and when you got a pit and all.

You would hate it. Well, why don't you just not do what they tell you? Because then you're being a bad teammate. For one day. For one day. What are they going to do? What are they going to do to you? My point is you were great and your dad was great

because you didn't give a shit who you used. You used anybody on the track to succeed. Right? And that matters. And the ones that I won, he was probably mad at me at some point or cold. In fairness, though, I was sitting in that meeting today. In 2016, we started this.

Yes. We're to blame. I know. I'm like, we're a victim of her own creation. I know. I want to keep this going on. We're going to end this show, though. The Dale Jr. download is going off the air.

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