The Dale Jr. Download - 605 - JRM's Cup Future & Daytona's Better Days

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns to the Dirty Mo Media studio this week as a Daytona 500 top-10 finishing NASCAR Cup team owner. He joins co-host TJ Majors to unpack the Great American race and the emotions of the milestone achievement for JR Motorsports:Dale Jr. acquires another piece of Dale Sr.’s careerThe emotions of JRM making the Daytona 500 fieldWhat’s next for JRM’s Cup program?We need to do something about the superspeedway packagesPutting emphasis back into how the car handles at drafting tracksDuring the Ask Jr. segment of the episode, listeners wanted to know all about:Dale’s Osterlund Racing hatLocking your keys in your carFishing in DaytonaMust be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the DJD. The Dale Jr. downloaded my good friend. I was going to say my best buddy. I don't know, man. My best friend? Did I piss you off over the weekend? I'm still sour, man, that I wasn't your best man, the best man at your wedding. I know.

You had Brad Koslowski do that. What the hell? Who was your best man, Dale? T.J. T. Okay. All right, he's, I mean, he's my best friend. Okay.

All right. Hell, the way to start the show. All right then. So was Dale even in consideration? Nope. Yeah. No, I mean. What was going on?

What were we arguing? What were we fighting? I don't know if we've ever argued. We only argued one time. Why didn't you pick me? I'm the whole fucking reason you're down here. I don't know. I just, honest, I didn't think you wanted that responsibility.

Oh, you didn't even ask me. Well, I just didn't think you wanted that responsibility. Brad did a really good job except for his speech at the, Yeah, we don't know. Weird moment. Yeah, it was really, really bad moment. I was like, gosh. I'm going to get divorced right after this speech.

Yeah, that's another show there. All right, we're giving everybody who's listening to this show a lot to think about. Let's go ahead and bring it back. We got Daytona to talk about. There is a whole lot there, Junior Motorsports racing, and the race itself that talk about. So, yeah. Let's get to the show. It's going to be a good one.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. All right, so, man, where do we start? Tell me, DJ, where do we start? We've got a lot of stuff to talk about. What should I talk about first? What do you want to know? I mean, I think you should start with your own experience. Now, let's start with your gift this morning.

Oh, yeah. Okay, yeah, the gift. Not Daytona. See you. My brain. I'm telling you. The rest of the day off for you. Yep. Good job.

Yep. You can play Xbox. after we're done here for the rest of the day. We got to hook it up though because we know demo they can't. I can hook up the Xbox. I don't think so. You probably could, but the sound won't work. Internet won't work either.

Don't be able to connect it to the internet. I had a surprise today. There was a gentleman that owned a race car that was an RCR, Deller-Hart car from the 90s, like 1990, 1991. and he passed away and wield it to me. We've been going through this process, the legal part of that over the last several months,

and the car is here today for the very first time. So I'm very thankful for that. What an incredible surprise. And I think I'm already digging into the history of the car. So I'm sure people are probably shocked that someone wielded me a car of my dad's, but it was a really nice thing. Coincidentally, not too long ago, we had a lady that had passed. We'll donate a large sum of money to the foundation.

So there's been a couple incredible things that have happened. Some people's generosity has really, you know, been incredible over the last six months or so. But, and that doesn't usually happen, so I guess that's why I'm bringing it up because it was so unique. But, so yeah, this car, I just saw it, just five minutes ago for the very first time. I had no idea. I don't know anything else about it, right? I just been told it's one of Dad's old cars. And so I look into the interior, and on the dash, you can see some old decal residue, the sticky back side of the decal.

and you can make out these letters that whatever the decal was there previously had been stripped away but the glue was still there and it's Bobby Hill and Jr. Why would Bobby Hillen Jr.'s name be on the dash or why it had been on the dash at one point? So Brown in 1991 there was a team from Ireland, a guy that wanted to start a NASCAR team and he bought a car from Richard Childress and they ran probably about 14 or so. races over the course of two or three seasons and Bobby Hillen drove the car it was black number 31 and it they I don't know if they bought one two even three cars I know they did buy one strictly from rCR and this is that car so it was an rCR car still has the original orange interior

The dad raced it somewhere. I'll call RCR. I'll ask them about when they sold this car to this person. They should have the numbers on that car and the chassis and the information on what races that chassis ran for dad. They'll also know when they sold it to this gentleman in Ireland. And we can probably get a good idea of, you know, the pretty decent understanding of the history of this car.

What was your reaction when Kelly showed you the car? I'm at the point in my life where I'm kind of collecting this stuff and taking this stuff in when it comes and I'm also at the point in my life where I'm understanding that I don't know what I'm going to do with it or what to do with it other than to store it away and I'm not sure if my girls are going to be interested in this stuff

or not and I'm not sure whether they want the burden of dealing with it down the road and so but I'll take it I'm thankful for it I'm I can't wait to learn about the chassis my mind goes right to that like dig into the history what can I learn let me learn about this car where is it been what's what did dad do with it what did RCR do with it then where's it been since then so that'll be fun it's kind of like genealogy you know for a race car I enjoy that puzzle so I'm I'm three I'm three I'm three I'm thankful for that. We just videoed a little bit of seeing the car for the first time. I'm sure we'll

cut that into some social stuff for you folks to be able to see. And right now the car looks like a good wrench number three car. It's decaled and had been re-restored. I'll probably re-decal it because I think some of the decals size-wise and positioning is a little bit off, but I'll probably get some, once I learn where this car raced, I'll probably get a snapshot of the car at a specific race where I know that's the car and then decal it identical to that photo and and then just put it in my collection my stuff yeah so pretty neat we had bobby hillen on the show a last year a couple years ago and and we talked about this a little bit so but yeah i could probably call him up and and ask him a few questions we know the name of this race team we might be able to locate some of the

people that were involved in that for the team from Ireland. This car actually was physically in Ireland probably at one point, which is strange, right? That has traveled the world and came back. Another weird coincidence. My uncles, Robert G. And Robert G. Jr. and Jimmy worked on this car. When this team would race and damage their car, they took it to my uncles on my mother's side to repair it. And I have the original hood from this car when they bought the car, they took the original hood off.

And it still has the rubber and debris and everything underneath it and the Good Wrench logo on the hood. It's the way dad raced it the last time he drove it. And then they took the hood off of that car. It stayed in the rafters of my uncle's garage for, 40 years. And then my uncle was selling all his stuff. I went over there and got this hood. And now this car, a year later, comes into my life where this hood originally originated from.

Just weird, right? Random stuff of all the cars that RCR's built. Anyway, pretty neat story. Let's move on to the Daytona experience, man. Junior Motorsports ran its first cup. Did I say Xfinity? You started to. Yeah, I did.

Junior Motors ran its first cup race ever. The end result is great. And we're going to talk more down the road in this show about the racing at Daytona. But in the end,

if you were going to tell me, man, you're going to get a top ten, I would have been just thankful to be in the race, which I was. I told Justin, I said, man, we're in the race. I'm glad we're in the race. That's what I wanted.

My next want is that I see you at the end of the race on pit road, that we've crossed the finish line, that we ran all of the laps. I had no goals beyond that. And, you know, you can, you can, you know, you can look at it however you want as a fan. But I didn't, you know, I didn't want to set a bunch. I felt like, and this is the way I kind of live my life, I think this says more about my character or my values or whatever than anything right or wrong.

I didn't assume we'd make the race. I didn't. So we go there and we unload the car and we're practicing and, man, we're kind of a little disappointed about the speed of the car, but we're not sure how to read into that. Qualifying didn't go well. We ran slower than we practiced. We weren't sure why.

We couldn't figure that out. Justin talked about the car not being very good at accelerating and drafting in the duel. But he found a way, you know, laid in the duel to get ourselves into the show. At that moment, I was so satisfied. My bucket was full. I knew, hey, we're going to run some practice, and then we're going to push a car onto the grid and crank it up and pull off pit road and honestly when we took the green flag for the Daytona 500 that was it I was fine I was done um and I I I that when the green flag came out

for the race it's like that was like the the final bell ringing at the end of a prize fight that was the end for me and so so what was watching the the race like then for you i mean it was uh it was the strangest thing because there were moments where i was like you know gosh you know okay we get we made some good moves all right we're in a good line here we're moving forward there was some moments where i got competitive and i was like yeah all right this is cool good job justin you know and then the racing you know we we had decided uh to i told justin i told justin I said, you know, I'm not, I don't have any, I told Justin, I said, I don't have any

expectations. Don't, don't think about what I want or what I would expect you to do or what I want you to do in any moment. You drive the car, you use your knowledge and your experience of all your career to choose what you want to do in every moment. Don't worry about anybody else. And what you think anybody else is wanting, right? Because that's what you do when you drive a race car.

Sometimes you're like, man, I bet my, you know, I got to do this. this because I bet Rick's paying attention and my boss, right? Or I got to do this because I bet LaTart is watching me. And I need to do this because he expects me to do this. I didn't want him

worrying about all of, he had a ton of pressure. Justin did. And he was thinking about my expectations and my wants and wishes all the time throughout the whole process. And I was like in the race man, just lean on your own experience. Do. Don't

think, just do. And that's the way you've got to drive a car at Daytona Talley. You can't think about what you're doing or what you need to do or what you should do. You just got to choose. You're just constantly choosing and doing and deciding and aiming the car in all different directions and never really contemplating at all. You know, there was some moments where we would put ourselves in a really good position. And then I told him, I said, you know, if we're coming down to the end of the stages and they're three wide and you can't go anywhere, you know, hey, we're not. racing for stage points. Don't worry about it. If you feel like you want to get out of there and not risk getting in a crash for no reason, we want to see the end of this race. And there was

some times when he bailed out, and I had given him that right, you know, to do that. I wasn't disappointed in it. It's not how you love to race a race. But I think that's kind of the way we had to run it. You know, there was some other people with that same strategy as well that ended up with really good results. And so we weren't really the only one. And then at the end, you know, we just had a couple of bad, bad situations that got us a little bit of damage. And we had, you know, we were on pit road a lot to repair some of that.

And that put us in a really, that kind of set the tone for the, you know, just trying to survive at that moment. Big crash happens down the back straight away. And we came around and crossed the finish line, looked down at the timing and score and saw we were inside the top ten. And it was like, well, hell, how about that? You know, ain't that a damn bonus. And I was pretty happy already at that point.

I knew we were, you know, I knew we got through the wreck and we're going to cross this finish line. I didn't know where the end result was. But, yeah, I go back to telling you that when the green flag came out, that was the moment where it was like, all right, we had done it. we done it all whatever happened it's out of my control from this point forward healthy wreck

going down the back straight away and winds up the whole field and we don't make a lap I'm freaking okay you know and so and that's more of a product of the racing

there you know that didn't allow for me to have a different feeling and a gut feeling or even a vision for the process you know how the race might play out

and so which we can talk about that but um and you were on the radio with him though which you normally aren't right no and it's weird when we have four cars in the exfinity race i don't i don't i feel like there's this hurdle for me to talk that i can't get over i was very very hands on with this cup deal and i was over gregg's shoulder a lot of the process and involved in the design of the car and i was just really hands on and so when i got to the racetrack and It just felt natural for me to chime in, right? And me and Justin had this understanding that I was going to communicate with him, and Greg was good with it.

And, yeah, so I felt very comfortable. But the way that I operate with the Xfinity team is different. I don't get in the business of what the crew chiefs are doing and how they're operating. And we have four different teams all competing. under the same roof and I don't want to appear as a favoring one over the other and spending more focus or time with one over the other and so I kind of stay off and let them just operate right and don't I don't get in the middle of it and so when it comes to racing and we get to the racetrack and they're they're on the track and I don't feel like I have anything to add

honestly now what I have I would have loved to have gotten on the radio and talked to Connor Zillich and Carson during the race I thought Sammy

during the Xfinity race was making some good choices and I saw what he was trying to do and I'm not whether it was all working right or not it doesn't really matter I knew what he was trying to do and I saw him being on the offense and trying to be aggressive and side draft.

I was like, you know, anyone at Talladega, leave him alone, let him keep learning, right? That didn't, you know, let him sit out there on track and go, well, that didn't work. That worked. Okay, I learned something there. I learned, and he's moving, he's moving and trying, so he's learning, good and bad.

And so I didn't, I don't need to get in the middle of that. Let him keep processing that. Justin's Justin, he don't need any help. But I would have liked to have been able to talk to Connor and Carson at many points during the race. But, you know, you can't, it's hard to focus on one and not the other. It's just, I don't know. So I went to the Xfinity Series in 98. I wrecked and didn't know what the hell I was doing for a year and a half driving at Daytona.

Talladega with our affinity cars before. Even into the Cup series in 2000, I still was just really overwhelmed and in over my head at what plate racing was about and how to make it right and do, how to make it work

for you. Some people never figure that out and some people struggle with it for their whole careers and just never really embrace it or try to solve the riddle or the Rubik's cube. But it took me

a while and so I'm not you know I could sit there and tell cars like I can watch cars and run that race and I can go man do this get in that lane do this but he's not he don't know why he's doing it and he I mean he might do what I tell him to do but he doesn't he doesn't it's just such a thing you got to just go through the process he needs to run handful of races and I can I can I'll talk to him outside the car we talked before the race I've talked to him before Atlanta try to help him try to, you know, he wants to understand what I thought about his race. So, I mean, we can do that, we can have those conversations outside the car. With the vibe with our Exfinity crew chiefs is that they are, they got this, they're in control.

They're, they are communicating every day with their driver. They have them ready and programmed with instructions on what's coming up this weekend and what to do. TJ, the other spotters are on, you know, on zooms and on the phone and communicating with their, their drivers all week long, all I would do if I got in the middle of it would muddy, you know, create noise, right? They have a plan. TJ's very, TJ, you have a, you have a, you have a, I've already thought, me and Carson went over our race yesterday.

Right. We're going to go for Atlanta tomorrow. Yeah. And I, what, what, so what was it like, T.J. For you with a rookie at Daytona, was there anything different that you did or you tried to keep it the same? I mean, you always give rookies a little bit more info. you always tell them a little bit more and kind of maybe a why you're doing it at a certain point in time

because a lot of times panic can set in if they don't feel like they're in the right lane and they can swap lanes a lot. But a lot of times if you're just patient, it comes back to you. And you want the big thing for me with like Carson going to this place, you want to look like you've been there 10 times. So you don't want to be, you want people to be like, man, that guy's stable, that you want to work with him. You want to work with him. And I think Carson did a good job of setting how he's going to be as a teammate there and as a worker be, when he needs to be. But you're definitely given them guys a lot of info and why, you know, you do certain things.

We did a lot of work on, we did some work on the computer like we did for Talladega, and you put them in scenarios and you tell them, you know, areas you can get in trouble, and you talk through a lot of things, the dangerous spots on the track, the where handling comes into play, so you can plan ahead for that stuff. And Carson adapts really well. I don't know if it's because he just, he just, adapts really well and he listens really well and he understands when you tell him certain things and he told me some things that actually impressed me he said he tries some things in practice to make it

do something to see if it would and it did and he learned from that and um you know Carson's doing really well and rookies are I enjoy working with rookies a lot just because they they look forward to your knowledge and you know I'm 21 years into this now and have seen a lot and it's nice to have someone lean on you like you just look you know look forward to what you have to give them if If you're a diecast collector like me, then you're excited about the start of a new race season. That's because now is the time when race teams are unveiling their new paint schemes. There's a lot of new diecast on order, and it's also when new cars start to deliver from Lionel Racing, the official diecast of NASCAR. Whether you have Junior Motorsports First Cup Series diecast already on pre-order, or you're excited about Noah Gregson's move to front row motorsports or maybe Chase Ellison.

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So let's, you know, I had a great experience and, yeah, I guess the thing is, is everybody's wondering what's next for junior murder sports. I think that Traveler and those folks had a really great time. if they feel like it's worthwhile for them to put in another investment to go run another race with that car at another track, you know, Dayton or Talladega, maybe Dayton later this year, that's to be determined. If they want to do that, we would probably do it. We'd probably just, you know, rerun it, rack it up. You got the team already.

Yeah. And so that's a possibility. we'll see. The other side of it is otherwise, I don't know that we're going to run another race this year. They'd have to be another partner

sponsored to walk in the door and say, hey, we saw what you did. We want to be on your car for another race. Y'all going to run another race? We got this much money and we'd invest in this event and we'd like to run in this market. Can we do it, right?

And that's a long conversation. So, no plans to to go run another race. But did you enjoy the experience of your first cup race? Like, I know it's been talked about for years after years. It's every off-season thing. Everything, yeah, it was everything. It was awesome.

Daytona's amazing. It's a great racetrack. Historic facility. It feels special. And we had a good time. We did our live show on the fan stage, which was goofy. But we had fun doing it. And we could talk about that a little bit.

But, yeah, I mean, the whole process was good. Practice the car, getting the car in the race. I mean, you know, God, you're asking me to talk about something, and I've got a thousand words in this bucket. What do you want me to say, you know? I knew you were excited because we were texting it. It was late. We were texting.

And you were in the garage at 5 something in the morning. I'm like, I don't even know if you slept that night. Yes, I slept. Not for much. Yes, I did. I went to bed and slept. I, you know, I just wanted to be there when they unloaded it. That's great.

No, I think it's cool. I was there when they loaded it up to go home. I helped them push it back into the garage and we put the toe, the toe shocks on it. And, you know what? I have, you know what I have that is really cool that I didn't really realize would be as cool as it is. When we ran the duel the next day, our engine guy brings me the, the little block with the spark plugs. So all eight spark plugs in a spark plug case

from the car out of the car that ran the duels. And I'm going to bring it in here. I'll probably sit it on a shelf in here. And I'm going to get the eight spark plugs out of the race engine too. And that's like something outside. You know, we'll probably get some of the body parts and stuff and panels and put away. But outside of that, having the eight plugs that were in that car

because the spark plugs are kind of the, I don't know, they're not, they're so, they're very identifiable part, right, for any kind of a mechanic or anybody has any kind of automotive understanding. They're the one thing that if you pull it out of the car, you go, yep, know what that is. And so to have all eight that came out of the car from the duel and the eight that ran in the race, I think those would be cool to keep. It would be a little inscription on the little block that they sit in. So, you know, those are neat things to have. I know people want to know what's next, right? I'm moving on. It's time to move on. And so, you know, it was back to real, it was back to reality when we got back home from Daytona. Life, you know, comes at you. Kids are, you know, kids are sick or

trying to get up in the morning and go to school or whatever, right? And the trash needs taken out. dogs need to be fed so I was reading on social media people are a bit confused over how this process could work for the charter stuff right they don't know they I don't know if I've just given some mixed signals about where I am in terms of what I would invest or not invest

or what do I expect right and so here's how it here's how it would work all right so a charter let's just assume, and I may be naive, maybe it ain't this simple. Let's just say a charter. Give me a number.

What's the charter going? 40 million. 40 million. Damn, that's a lot. I was hoping that a charter would cost me 25. But you're going to tell me the one that's available today is 40 million. We're going to be hypothetical, right? What would need to happen is an investor, somebody who wants to partner,

I'm not going to give you $40 million for that charter. I'm not doing that. That's not something I'm interested in doing, and that's my prerogative. Now, I would invest five or ten in the right situation. Five, absolutely, maybe more of my own money, right? So there's, you know, 20% ownership. That's probably a very comfortable place for me to be in the turn.

I don't, I don't, when I look at an, NFL franchise. There are majority owners, but there's also a lot of minority people as well. I believe that owning around 20% of the charter would be satisfactory for me personally. I believe

that I'm also bringing to the table my sister Kelly and our history of owning and operating this race team junior motorsports, our success stories not only on the racetrack but in licensing, marketing, engagement,

activation I will promise you that any most every single partner that we've ever had that has ever left and went somewhere else has come right back and said y'all do it better

and so we're bringing all of that to the table so the rest of the money has to come from somewhere else and that has to come from somebody who wants to invest in the idea that that $40 million charter is going to be $100 or $150, $250, $250 million down the road.

Two years, 10 years, whatever it is, right? Which I believe that's true. I believe that's real. I believe that's a possible, I believe I wouldn't put $5 or $10 million into this if I didn't think it was going to turn into something more. And so now the person that comes in here can't just be anybody. you don't partner with just somebody because they've got the money. You've got to feel good about that person.

This is going to be a marriage, right? You need to make sure that that person is somebody you can absolutely compromise, make decisions, communicate with for a long 10, 20-year process. And not somebody you're going to be arguing and fighting with in two or three years over management decisions. and that's not an easy thing to to come to terms with or understand. And so, yeah, I mean, that's why,

that's why, you know, if it happens, it happens is kind of the way you've got to feel about it because, look, I don't know when that person might walk in the door. There have been people that have wanted to invest, that we have sat down and talked about the money and that had the money, but it just wasn't the right fit

for Kelly and myself. And we're not doing it. We're not going to do it with any risk involved. And I'm not talking about financial risk. I'm talking about like we have some, we have all of our employees out here, everything that we're in this building, and this is all working well.

We can't upset that. And again, we got to make sure that we're going into a partnership with somebody. We're bringing them into our deal that we can live with. and love and want to be with and want to work with. And, yeah, so I'm not wanting it for free.

Not at all. And I don't expect that. I don't expect NASCAR to, you know, I don't expect the charter ferry to walk in here one day and just drop one in my lap. That is not what I think should happen or what I think will happen. And I'm willing to invest real money into it. Absolutely, especially when I know that it's a win across the board. Did the 500 make you want to go cut more?

Yeah, I mean, it was nice. Look, I'm not going to kid myself. What we did, there's still a lot more to it. You know, for what we did this weekend versus what, let's say, you know, RFK or another established team did and we'll continue to do every single. There's a lot, a lot more to it. right and so we leaned on a lot of resources from our partners HMS and you know there was we we bought the car and I own that car but you know we lease an engine and we patchwork some people we you know they aren't full-time employees we'd have to hire we'd have to you know we we got a you know we cut a few corners lots of corners to get this deal done and make it work economically economically and you if you're going full time you just you can't cut the corners anymore. And so I'm not going to sit here and pretend that what we did this weekend was the exact

same thing that the teams in the other garages at that racetrack were doing. Those are full-on 100% purpose-built operations where ours was we cut a ton of corners just to get in and run one race. But it did make me, it did give me a sense of what being in that. garage is like and it's it's cool it ain't no joke man it's cool it's badass to be at that level i like the xfinity cars i think the racing's better in the xfinity series i think the way the cars race and drive is are better than the next-gen cars but that does that that that still that cup garage that's the top it's the show yeah it's the show it's it yeah listen you know i was listening to

Denny's show and he had a lot of great comments and me and him were texting a little bit last night about, you know, his thoughts. And watching the entire weekend from ARCA to trucks to Xfinity to cup, right? I mean, there's a lot to unpack there, but I don't know that it is, I don't know that it's kind of, you know, the sky is falling. I don't, I don't, I think I'm going to, I'm going to I'm going to be measured on my reaction. With the ARCA series, I feel like with the ARCA series, I think the same approach

and trying to find the same solution that would make the Trucks Xfinity and Cup racing better would also fix a lot of the problems in the ARCA series. The ARCA series has a lot of, has a lot of very inexperienced racers. There's not a lot of places you can go to get that kind of experience that you're going to need to race at Daytona and Talladega. But the Arca series will have and has had for its existence,

lots of inexperienced racers, and that's okay. But with the way that the cars operate and engage with each other on the track, with the drag and the limited horsepower and the restricted plates and all of the things. It's that common, the common thread for me is we've added a ton of drag to every class.

Arka Truck Xfinity Cup. We choke the motors down. And the delta or the gap between what a car will run or truck by itself versus what it runs in the draft has grown.

And that's the problem. To me, when I look at it, the issue that I have with the current product at Daytona and Talladega and Atlanta is that all of the series, no matter

what series, Archa Trucks, Exfinity or Cup, they all suffer from this. We have choked everything down and put so much drag on the bodies that they can't get away from each other. A good car can't drive away from a bad car. An experienced driver can't distance himself from a guy or a girl who doesn't have the experience. And there's not, so years ago, you'd bring a car down and pick any class.

I'm going to call them classes. pick any type of racing. You bring a car down there, and if you were fast, you drove away from the slow guys. You know, you break the draft, and, you know, they're inexperienced, and their car's inability to perform would separate the field, and we don't have that anymore. And so now the cars are so draggy, and the engines are so stifled that everybody's all over the top of each other.

And that just leads to some of the silliest, silliest crashes that are just so unnecessary, so unnecessary. And so, and it, this has been going on for a long time, over a decade. And I, I was mad about it 10, 15 years ago. You know, the things that I hear Denny saying today, those were my post-race comment. after Talladega, after Daytona, back in 2012, 13, 14, 15. So Denny said that the Arca should not race at Daytona. What do you guys think? I disagree.

I just believe that let's not, that's a bit, that's probably unnecessary to go to that length. I believe that all of the classes, they got to, we need to reimagine the entire way we approach Restrictor plate racing. I call it Restrictor plate racing even though we don't run Restrictor plates anymore. But I just can't say the word draft track or what the fuck ever

people are referring to this stupid stupid shit. So it doesn't noise of shit. I mean, that's a whole other argument. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. Yeah.

But Atlanta will soon not, you know, Atlanta will soon be out of this conversation because it's getting there. It's getting there. The surface is aging. But we got, What we need to do, what we need to do, it's really simple, and it's not hard. We don't need to blow it up.

We don't have to blow it up. It's fine, okay? We just need to get in a room and reimagine the drag-to-power ratio, how the cars react to each other and around each other. and we do, you know, need to need to figure out a way to allow the car. We got to change the drag-to-power ratio to where the delta between what a car can do by itself on the racetrack

versus in the pack isn't such a big range. What are the cars race when they go out and qualify? By themselves, right? They run several miles per hour slower. Real slow. As opposed to when they're in the draft. what happens is is now so when you take that car and you do put it in the draft you're you can't you can't get out of line unless you know you've got a lot of help because

the car has so much drags just going to fall on its face and so that is a that is that is that is the core of the problem that is the core of the issue with i that i have with with with the way the cars race at Daytona and talladega We have slowed them down to try to keep them from flipping up into the air. And they have a ton of drag with spoilers and the way the bodies are. And the motors don't have enough power. And basically the motors probably, you know, they want to run the same engine everywhere. They don't want to run a special motor for Talladega Daytona.

They want to, cost-wise, they want to take, you know, have this sort of same blanket package. across the entire series and so now the cars have an enormous amount of drag on them and they don't run very fast by themselves and so and they can't get away from each other with all of that drag

that they create I believe we need to reimagine the way that we're doing this all the series suffer from this and listen it may mean that we'll see less three wide racing, it may mean that we'll see less

two by two by two by two by two by two by two all the way through the field. But I think it might end up taking away the fuel issue that we have, which we have to fix that. We have to get away from fuel saving. Oh, dang. Well, TJ, I mean, you mentioned, I think you put a note, we're running three wide, but what percent throttle was Brad at when it was three wide? Zero to 60?

Yeah, we were way, we were less than the leaders. Leaders were 65-ish. we were probably 10 less than that. The lead cars are out front running 60% throttle. The rest of the field, everybody further on back, less and less throttle. That's crazy, man. It's like fooling the new fans that are tuning in for Daytona. I don't like to, I don't want to say that while the race is happening because I don't want to ruin that fans' experience.

You don't want them to know too much. But on a Monday or Tuesday, we can sit here and tell you, the field spent, 450 miles of that race riding at half throttle on purpose to save fuel there was not one you know

there was very minimal hey man I'm going to drive up through here and try to get the lead you know and it was almost impossible to do yeah once they're three wide there's nowhere you can go you don't want to be the a little one out there

driving up through the middle of the pack making it four wide we have to fix this we cannot smile and go, hey man, everything's fine. We got to fix it. But the good news is, I don't believe it's a very big problem to fix. Now, in ARCA, for example, there's probably a great disparity between speeds from the good cars to the cars that are in the back of the pack.

So getting those cars to where they could separate from each other, and a guy with a good car that's a good driver can get away from this crazy. person back here that doesn't have a lot of experience he can do that right as we get as we get into the trucks and further up it's harder right to create that disparity because literally all of the cup cars are identical and the only thing really different between each car is a couple of horsepower really and so you know it'll be a tougher challenge I think think to try to figure out how to get the cup cars to change the way that they they run these races. But I think it's there. I think it's achievable. I don't think that it would take a ton

of real hard work. I don't think you've got to totally reinvent the car. I think whatever approach we take is a math problem between drag and power. And I think that you can apply once you kind of understand what you're trying to do and what needs to happen, you can apply that same idea to each class and get a similar result. So, for, this is not a, man, it was better back in the old days. This is just a statement. I believe from at least the 60s all the way up until the restrictor plate came into play in the mid-90s, right?

or the early 90s. I think the plate came in 89.90. From that, from the early, early days, all the way up until the plate came, that's a broad 40 years of racing, different motors, different cars, different drag, different arrow, different downforce, all throughout that 40 years.

But the cars always kind of reacted the same. They would be able to separate. Two or three, four cars were smart and drafted really hard. They could break away. from the pack. If somebody, you know, if the pack got smart and got in line, they could chase them back down. And then there was the slingshot move.

That existed in multiple different variations and generations of the cup vehicle. Cars would be able to get these runs down the back straightaway and one by themselves even, slingshot pass the leader. And when you have the ability to know if I back up in one and two, and get that run off of two and go down the back straightaway, and I'm going to pass the leader at any moment. If you knew you could do that, don't you, you would drive and race this car completely different.

But now you can't because if you pull out, you're going to fall on your face because your car is 20 mile an hour slower by itself. So if it gets out of line, it's just going to tank unless three or four, five other people go with you. And so we need to understand. why the cars were able to do that for 40 years, and when we changed the restrictor plate, it started to evolve in this new direction that we, you know, we are where we are.

We need to untie some of that. I think it's possible. I do think it's achievable. And that would take some on track testing, but also a lot of, you know, smart engineer minds in a room, you know, with maybe some arrow models and stuff like that. it would take some effort and some money but I think we have to get away from what we're doing

I think that NASCAR should take some action on this I think they need to take it seriously and try to find some some try to find some new direction reimagined kind of what this looks like and it needs to be a blanket like it needs to try to be achievable

in trucks Xfinity Cup even the ARCA we've got to allow these people to get away from each other and for the good cars and fast cars to separate themselves. We'd allow to see the drivers use their skills too, right, TJ?

Like they could do, but the good drivers could do more? I know I posted in our group there, but that's the thing that I saw the most. The only time, well, the only thing in the time I saw it was at the end of the stage that got ended by a yellow was, you know, Joey was leading, Brad was second, Blaney was served, and these guys, there was actually movement you know there was actually

head games going on there was what who's going to make what move first and and things like that but other you know other than that I mean like from what I'm used to back in the day you don't see you don't see any of that anymore and these and it's it's I don't

I miss it because we could see the guys with the craft that could do it and seeing their moves they make and it was an art man it was like you wanted to people want to learn how to do it now it's now it's just a free for all. I could get a run from 15th and maybe have a shot

at winning the last lap. And it just shouldn't be like that. It is kind of frustrating and it's been a process that's been brewing over the last probably 15 to 20 years and I think it's as extreme as it's been in terms of how frustrating

it is to watch these cars go around the track. And you know the trucks the trucks were okay. I I just, I wish that, I wish you just weren't right on somebody's, you know, I think the reason why, I mean, obviously, the reason why there's so many crashes is because they're pushing all the time, right?

Everybody's pushing all the time. Every series, all of them just push out of each other. You used to not be able to do that. You used to have to create runs. A push was getting just there and letting go. You used to be able to, you used to have to create the run and catch that guy by surprise and you know but the run would be so significant that you can make it go you know uh go for a half a lap or a lap and a half or whatever and man now the cars are so draggy and and so slow by

themselves that you just you're right on everybody's bumper and somebody's on your bumper and as soon as you get clear you got to protect right away and to go anywhere you got to push somebody somewhere and that's creating a lot of crashes. And we just got to totally look at this a totally different way and try to figure out how to get some of that drag

out of the cars to where they run differently by themselves and then they'll react and work differently with each other. And handling too. Handling has to be important. There's so much dragging down for us. The cars barely have real balanced

problems. Yeah. The end of that run I was talking about. That was the only run of the race that I saw handling issues out of four. And, man, in Daytona, in 2004 or five, we were lifting in the duel. Yeah, I remember. Because the cars were so tight. Man, we would go down into turn one up to the wall.

Because if you ran wide up and you knocked a damn wall down, and everybody was plowing. And here comes Jamie McMur. around the bottom past all of us just turning turning real good and nice his car is just turning better and everybody else's and he drove past us and nothing we could do about it I'm sitting there running third or fourth like like I'm tight and

you're like you get out of the car and you're like Tony Jr., we got to work on the freaking rear springs we got to do something to get the same turn so you know what that meant I was going to practice my ass off tomorrow because we're going to change the rear springs we're going to try to put a rubber in the right rear and we've got to get out there and get 30 laps on these tires and get in a pack and try this out in practice. So you saw people practicing because they had to work on their cars.

Yeah. That was another thing that I wrote in here, and I know a lot of people will probably disagree with this. If you bring handling back and you make the cars handle, there ain't no way you're pushing nobody around the racetrack because you know they're going to bust their ass or you're going to bust your ass. So if we can figure out how to, when you take the drag away and take some of the grip that the arrow creates, you're going to have some handling issues. It's not a tire thing. We had some rock hard tires down there when we ran that pink car. Remember that pink car that I broke the draft with in the Xfinity race?

Oh, drove away. Hard-ass race tire. Sideways. Car was freaking sideways. All of the rest of the field was plowing tight. And they had to lift. And I was sideways running the wall in one and two, wide-ass open. And that's how we drove away.

And so I know that I'm not trying to recreate that kind of a race, but I'm just saying handling can be problematic even with a very hard tire, like you're going to run at Dayton and Talladega. So it ain't a tire issue. But if they can figure out a way to get the handling to be an issue or a problem, you're absolutely going to see the field disperse and separate somewhat but between good handling cars and bad handling cars over the course of a 15-20-lap run.

And then guys ain't going to be saving gas anymore. They're going to be trying to keep up. And the driver comes into play a lot more. Yeah. I mean, I'm all for the driver coming into play a lot more. So with that, I think more, you're going to have to have a little bit more practice. Guys are going to want more practice to be working on the balance of their cars. We have quite a bit of practice right now.

None of them want it. None of them want it. They'll want that shit when their cars don't drive good. When they go out there, the reason why they don't want practice right now is because their cars aren't hard to drive. They're very easy to drive. And so it's boring for them to practice. And you can't make many changes.

I don't think that in practice is bad. They can't make the cars better. So you're right. Yeah, why do I want to do this? You're dragging my ass out here to stand in this garage for nothing. But if I was worried about my car and how it drove, my ass would be there trying to practice. And so I'd be asking for practice.

I can fix what the drivers are saying by making their cars drive bad. They'll be begging for practice. We definitely need to take this seriously, I think, as an industry and try to reimagine. We don't need to be like, oh, let's just shorten a spoiler. That'll do it.

Or none of this little tiny shit. Let's look at this from a whole new angle. Don't change anything. Let's move forward how we are. But let's go into a room and try to reimagine. how we could do this an entirely new way in terms of let's take let's turn the drag upside down let's completely reimagine the way the drag is on the cars and find other ways to get the

overall speed in the pack where they want it because there's a number that they want and they don't want to exceed because of dangers and insurance and so forth so let's figure out another way to get to that number but also close that delta between how the cars run by them selves and I bet you we'll have a whole different a whole different race the way the teams approach it and everything else if we stay with where we're at and how the past few Daytona 500s run do you think it's losing some of its mystique I'm not going to worry about that because I think we can fix it

if we take this issue seriously and really go after trying to make it different and improve it let's not at a stage or do anything trying let's not shorten it make put a few smaller fuel cell in there those are those are those are those are band-aids yeah it's Those are band-aids. Let's not add gimmicks. Let's not do. That is not a long-term solution.

That is not a long-term solution. Those are things that will get somebody back tomorrow, but they won't stay. We've got to reimagine how to do this from the very basics and see if we can't have an entirely different product. And that may take a while. That may take a year. What do you think the fan base would do if we had a race where it got strung out a little bit and guys had a hard time getting runs? You know what I mean? Like had to fight their cars because when you fight your cars, you don't have that three wide as much.

But you do have a lot of times it does create passing though and it creates like you said you got to the good, the cream rises to the top at that point. I don't think that you're ever going to be able to eliminate, you know, cars locked in a draft. If I go back and watch races at Daytona, for as long as I can remember, at least as long as I've been alive, when you put the top 15 cars in the Daytona 500 on new tires on a restart, they all stayed in a pretty tight draft and swapped the lead multiple times over the next course of the next several laps. I mean, you're not looking to eliminate any of that. but you do need to they are they

the way we have it now they are just way way too choked down and all freaking over the top of each other it's not even fun to watch I don't enjoy it is frustrating for me

to sit there on that pit box and watch that Daytona 500 go watch them go around three wide here they come again yep here they come again and there's just nothing happening and I don't know what I'm waiting for it, right?

I know there's going to be a damn wreck at the end. Will we get through it? There ain't going to be nothing that we do uniquely to ourselves that... And the wrecks happening because everyone's so close and so close together and pushing because they can't get away from each other. Yeah. So I knew when they got pushed out off a two, when Denny pushed, I think he pushed the two out,

I was telling Brad, I'm like, and we weren't even in that, but I was telling Brad that, like, hey, they're way out here. Like, this is getting the bend of the backstron. This is going to happen. Like, it's not, it's not stopable. You know, I know this is a lot of bitching and whining. I, and listen, I think, I think I'm very positive on NASCAR and I love this sport, and I'm thankful that we had the experience that we did in Daytona.

But, I mean, this isn't a new opinion about the way the cars race at Daytona, Talladega for me. I mean, like I said, I've been, I've been a bit critical around how, drafting and plate racing has been going since probably around 15 or 14 kind of, yeah, back around then. 14 I thought was pretty good still because you had a bubble, you could control things

like the 500 and 14, we were able to control kind of what we needed to control. Sometimes runs happened, you couldn't stop, but it took two, three guys working really hard together. Yeah. But at the end of the race, when you're leading, it's almost, we wanted to be leading because they started racing so hard behind you.

Oddly, man, when I got out of it, it has changed since. then to something that's unrecognizable to me. Yeah. And so, I mean, hell, I could get out there and right around 20% throttle in the back of that pack. Yeah. Hey, I'm in the Daytona 500.

So the stat we had before the 500. I'm 50 years old. Cody Ware's average finish for the last handful of plays was 10.5. Yeah. Because he's smart. Well, I like, I mean, that's a great approach. He knows that he's playing the game. Yeah.

You know, and that's what we did. We just, we're like, hey, there's no reason for us to race right up everybody's for, you know, 450 miles for no reason. There's no reason. It's a perfect strategy. You know, 30% of these people are going to wreck. If we can dodge most of that. Yeah.

But that's not how I want to go race. No. That's how you have to go race. It'd be, I mean, I wish it was. That's not how I want to go. I wish it was, let's get the car driving good and drive through the field naturally. That was the other thing, too, man. Now we're going to Atlanta, which this track can't change fast.

enough because basically we're going to go to Atlanta and are we doing the same thing all over again. Are you going to Atlanta and are you saving fuel and doing all those things kind of the same way? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't see how you don't. Yeah. I don't know, man. You tell me. Well, I mean, if you're going to, you got to minimize the stop time and the only way do that, save fuel. So I imagine there's going to be some team cars that get up front, control the pace. Atlanta's a little bit more of a handling track. There's going to be a little bit more of it. Every time we've gone back, it's reared its head a little more each time. And I'm looking forward to that because I want to see guys go down the corner and the three

and be like, I got a lift here, man. I hope he does too. You know what I mean? Like, that creates opportunity. If I was Atlanta and NASCAR and whoever makes the decisions on competition, man, I would be looking for the very first opportunity to distance the package that we run there from what we run at Daytona and Talladega. and I know we kind of do some, I'm sure,

but I guess what I mean is not so much the package or the specific parts and pieces, but the style of racing, like I would, we kind of, you know, when went to Atlanta, we had to kind of govern and drag the cars and keep the speeds down. But man, at the first sign of being able to open these things up, man, I would start to doing it

because I would start to pull the rear spoiler off the cars little by little as this thing ages. As the track surface starts to lose grip, I would start to take some of that drag out of the car. They're going to have their hands full. Yeah. I mean, dude, this thing is going to be amazing once it gets the age on it. And you got them, they're driving off in there and they're backing in the corner.

Holy moly. We haven't seen a cup car back it in. Oh, man. In a long time. And I do think, anytime the drivers, the more the drivers kind of complain about the handling of the car, usually the better the race. I mean, because they're driving it. If this race is going to be the second race coming right off of what we see at Daytona, I don't want to do two weeks of this.

Let's talk about the end of the race, I guess. I mean, I don't, what do you want to, what can we say? But what do you make of Cole Custer there? Because it looked like he could have made it three wide and had a push from Byron instead does what he did. Yeah. I mean, you could line these things up and do it all again, and they're all going to make different decisions. Yeah. I can tell you that right now.

I've watched so much restart. and tried to figure out what guys are going to do. And we had a wreck in the beginning of the, or near the beginning of Daytona 500 with the outside lane at stacked. At the end of the race, the outside lane rolled. So which lane, you know what I mean? We chose the bottom. Yeah.

And the outside lane. We chose the top at stacks. I mean, you just never know. No. But I don't think Cendrick and Denny are going to really make anything different. It would be cold, right? To me in the backstretch, I question when Briscoe is pushing. Briscoe is pushing him, right?

He was getting ready to push Denny, and that's when Cole. But Briscoe left to the 41 to go get Danny. Correct. And I'm not sure understood that because he left momentum to go with no momentum, in my opinion. Well, he's – And I get it. I get it. And teammate, direct team.

But if that's me and I'm pushing you and we got momentum, I'm trying to get you clear and me clear so I can make a move. My big – if you say, what's your biggest regret at Daytona? I'm sure I've got many, but there's one specific one. We had a late restart, and I think this was 16 or so. Might have been 15, I'm not sure, but Jimmy's leading, and I'm running second. And I had a restart, and I had enough momentum to get beside Jimmy or do something with the speed I had. And I chose to push him, and 22 jumped on my right rear quarter panel.

and I was like, what the hell am I doing? Yeah. And so, you know, I think that what I say that, because the manufacturer loyalty and the teammate loyalty is, it's tough, man. And it has taken, it is, look, if I'm a car owner, gosh, I want my teammates to work together. I do. Oh, for sure.

Yeah. And if I owned Chevrolet, I would be like, yeah, I expect all the Chevrolet guys to help each other. Why wouldn't they? You know? But as a fan, I'm like, golly, man. I remember when these guys didn't give a shit, what car they were driving. Or who you're pushing. Who you're pushing. And, dude, they just worked together. Like me and Stewart weren't teammates. And I worked with him there for about two or three years more than anybody. And we were great with it. Nobody complained. no manufacturer didn't complain. I don't know. He might have even been in a damn Pontiac at that time. I think he was driving a Chevy, but it didn't matter.

That didn't matter. Yeah. And that's the way I look at it. So if I'm pushing you off of two, I'm trying to put myself in the best position we can still. I would, so me and maybe Denny and some other people, like we could come off that corner and push whoever the hell we want. And when the race is over, we can look at our owner and go, look, man, I made the decision I needed to make. And I'm, you know, we're going to have to, we're going to figure out a way to live with this.

You know, but there's some drivers that aren't in that position. They're not able to, they're not able to have that kind of leverage. And they got them jobs and they're, you know, they're fearing for their job security, right? and so they're trying to do the decision that they think they need to do to keep that job. You know how the difference you can hear it in Joey's and Ricky's interviews. Yeah. Because they're not worried about that. One of them said I saw an opportunity to put myself in a better position to win,

and that's what they did. Yeah. And that's how you've got to race these races. And that's what I would tell every driver regardless of your situation with your owner or whatever. is look, man, you've got to be selfish. And, like, you can go around helping everybody and being this great guy and being a good teammate and all that. But you're not going to be standing in Victory Lane as often as your teammates.

Yeah. And, you know, nobody's going to remember all them favors you freaking did. And there's a time to help your teammates, for sure. There's times for that. But if you want to stand in Victory Lane, you some point you. What is the true reward for that, though? I mean, being a good teammate in those scenarios, like, I think being a great teammate is,

is hey man I heard you say something in the competition meeting about your car I did this to my car or I changed this about my driving style or the next-gen car I had to do this differently that's being a good teammate

I want to let you respond here TJ all of the things that anybody's ever done for me on the racetrack they were great I appreciate them but there's no there's no reward for that down the road

no I think good teammate is during the race, points like that, you help each other when you can, you help at that point. At the end of the race, you're right, there's no reward. You just sit there and think about the rest of your life. I know. Should I have done that differently?

Yeah, two, three, four, five, ten years down the road, are you getting any kind of benefit from that fucking decision you made on the racetrack being a good teammate? Yeah. At the end of the race for a win. No, but I mean, you get anything in the mail from that manufacturer that you were good to? Two years down the road is Joe Gibbs going to say,

we're going to renew your contract because on your first race, you helped Danny get away. You've always been such a great teammate on the restrictor players. I do think that being good teammates and helping each other on the track does make those meetings more productive as far as you want to work with each other more on that. Because if you don't work with each other on the track well and your enemies, you're not going to work in the meetings together very well. I don't know, man.

Some of that also can be motivating and you can drive each other to perform. I've seen teams that, you know, teammates don't have to be best friends. And they can still be successful. Look at, like Joey and Brad weren't, didn't always see eye to eye when they were at Penske together, but they, they competed hard because they wanted to be the A guy. It definitely pushed both of them harder. I struggle with that. I talked to my, I told my guys, listen now, I know that JRM, we've got a, you know,

we've got a good track record at Daytona, but we also got some bad days, man, we wrecked out each other. This is the way I feel about that. If I was a cup teammate, I probably, a cup owner, I'd, I'd say the same thing. My approach to it is this. Take care of each other when you can. But at the end of the day, you're a driver, you've got a crew chief and a team,

you've got partners, sponsors, your car's got logos all over it, all those people want to win this race. So I want you at some point to decide, I'm in this for me. I expect you to race selfishly. I don't, you know, you don't wreck your teammates.

and race to win. You know, for the majority of that race, you're going to try to be smart and you're going to try to help your teammates when it works out for you. And I told them too, I said, never help your teammate if you know it's going to be bad for you.

It is such a tough balance. But if you have, you know, if you have multiple cars and they're all good, they're all going to race against each other and around each other. and sometimes they're going to run into each other. It's inevitable.

And it ain't always going to go perfectly. But I kind of like to let the guys try to. I said, look, man, can you go out there on that track and be selfish and try to win this race, but then also walk into this shop on Monday and stare at it, look everybody in the eye and feel good about what you chose to do? If you can, then that's all good. We'll talk about it. Hey, and if you don't make the right choice, we'll talk about how to make it.

that right choice the next race the next time we go to Dayton or Talladega. But it's my belief for a driver to be successful at Daytona and Talladega, they have to be mostly selfish and very egotistical. And so that's what I think I tell my... And that's how Austin Hill. Yeah. He likes to lead every lap. Yeah, he does.

And he wins a lot. Yeah. And he not, this ain't a knock. This ain't a knock. And he's not always looking to be helping people. He's like, hey, man, I'm going to use you. I'm not helping you. I'm using your ass because I'm going to use your car and your draft to do this

and then make this move and bam, bam, bam, I'm leading the race. And his, listen, Austin Hill, the way he's got a really, really good race car, but the way he races so for himself is, that's the code. He's figured it out. He has. That's the code. Watched how decisive he is, and he's like, hey, man, sorry, I got a great run. I'm going by.

There was a couple moments there. He was running third in that race this weekend. Yeah, it's just thinking about it. And he pulled out, got the draft off of the guy in the outside lane, pushed that guy to lead, and then dove under him. And then he's leading. To take the lead. And it's like, sorry. And he's controlling the race.

And he's doing things up front in that race, too, to keep everybody behind him racing and jumbled up. So he doesn't have to really. He's not blocking. No, he's just manipulating things behind him purposely, though. That was the other thing, too, man, is I told my guys, and this is some of our problem. I think it's a problem across the board in our sport is the blocking. So I go to where I was mentally in Talladega, I think in 2007 or six. six or so when we got wrecked by Vickers down the back straightaway with Jimmy.

So I'm leading the race and I think we're, you know, we get the white flag. We go off into turn one and two and we've been running the top of the racetrack. And I've been pretty happy with the speed and the distance and the bubble and everything that I got to the... But I see them. They're putting a run together. I know it's coming. So we come off to turn two. I'm leading the race and I know that the run is coming.

I feel like that the code and the etiquette for me as the lead car to defend this run, I get to move one lane. It is against code to block the entire racetrack. I'm going to move down or up whichever way I feel like I want to go to block you, but I'm going to go one lane, you know, give or take a few feet, but I'm not coming all the way down to track. trying to drive you into the grass. If I block you and you still get, you know, you still carry that momentum,

I'm going to give you some racetrack and I still got a mile and a half to go to try to figure out how to get my ass saved or get some help or side draft the second place car and figure out a way to get another run on the leader. So what we got now is guys when that big run comes off of two, they blocked a whole damn track. They drive down right in front of the car that's coming six, eight, nine, ten mile an hour faster than them. And they don't give that guy, that guy's

got to keep going. He's got a whole damn slew of cars behind him. There's a train. They're driving through you. They are. And so, I think, you know, my mind and I tell my drivers this when we were racing Sunday, I was like,

if you're leaving that race late and you're going to be blocking, you get one lane. Don't Drive them people into the wall or down into the apron and get yourself turned around. Learn to live through the rest of the lap and give yourself a chance off turn forward, coming to the finish line to try to win it. Perfect example of this would be Denny Hamlin, the wreck with Newman, where...

Yeah, he let him go. Denny's leading off of two. There's a little clip on social media about this where LaTart described. drives everything. It's really well. Denny's leading the race for the Daytona 500 coming off of Turn 2, White Flag Lap. The 6th and the 12 got a big run. Denny knows it.

Denny probably moved down a half a car, maybe a lane, maybe nothing. But he knows they're coming, and there's nothing he can do about it. And his decision wasn't to try to block them and have them wrecked the shit out of each other and maybe he gets lucky and doesn't crash. His decision was

to let them go by and he gets in behind the 12 and locks on to the 12 into turn 3 and then pushes the 12 into a run on the 6. And when the 6, you know, tries to throw that block that he throws late in the race, him and the 12 get together and Denny wins the race. So that's the way you've got to run these deals. Two of his 500s were similar to that.

Yeah. And so Diddy made the decision on the back straightaway that gives him the chance to win that. race and so that's kind of the mentality that we need to have on these final few laps is like look man I'm I can't throw this block right here this is gonna kill us this is gonna crash us all and so let me let I can be somewhat aggressive with my move I could try to put myself in front of somebody and force them to push me but if that guy's coming six eight nine ten mile hour faster than you you got to let

that go you're you're lost you have lost in that moment, you've got to recognize that that is a bad decision and that you need to let that line have the track. And so, because you don't know what might happen in the next mile before the finish line that could help you, you know, regroup and fight back. You've got to give yourself a chance to do that. And that's what Denny did. Perfect example.

Every diehard sports fan has a collection of memorabilia. are reflecting their fandom. This season on the Dale Jr. download, we are on the search for the Ultimate Racing Collector, presented by Lionel Racing, the official diecast of NASCAR. We're looking for the most legendary NASCAR collectors and collections, so whether it's diecasts, sheet metal, trophies, shirts,

or a mix of everything, we want to see it. Each month, collectors will have the opportunity to submit photos and videos through Dirtymo Media, social post, for a chance to be selected and recognized during an episode of the Dale Jr. download. I was a little bit nervous about getting Justin's die cast before the 500 until he made it into the race, and once he got in, it was a must have for me. The first post goes out Wednesday on February 19th, so get your photos and videos in. Follow Dirtymo Media on Facebook and X so that you don't miss your chance to be named the Ultimate Racing Collector.

All right, we're on the Dale Jr. Download, and we've got William Byron on the line. William, how are you doing, buddy? I'm good, man. Where are you? I'm in New York, just cruising around, doing a few things. Oh, my gosh. What's the plan today? Well, we started a morning show, Kelly and Mark, and then we're just doing, we did the Empire State Building.

I think now we're going to where are we going next? New York Post. All right, New York Post. We're cruising around. When do you, when are you done? What? I got home. I get done around five.

And you're going home? Yeah, I'm going home tonight. What did you do last night? Last night, we went to Monday Night Rawl. That was pretty fun. Where was that? That was in Charlotte. So we kind of came back for a couple, really just like five hours and did that.

And that was fun. What happened? What happened on Monday Night Raw? I missed it. I couldn't tell you, man. I think it was, there was a lot of fighting going on. You drove the car into the parking deck or the load and dock.

I did. You and a wrestler jumped out. You had the belt. Yeah, that was awesome. Me and AJ. Yeah, me and AJ. He was a cool guy. He ended up winning his fight, so that was fun.

Well, it was cool to see you, man. Already, you know, it's really cool that NASCAR, you know, takes the Daytona 500 winner and puts them in these sort of positions to be able to showcase that it's an important thing. And I'm thankful you're out there representing a sport the way you are over the last 24 or 48 hours. But I text you, congratulations, and you said and text back to me, I wasn't sure how to feel about that for a minute, and then it finally started to sink in. Expand on that for me. Yeah, I mean, that was me and Rudy both.

Like we put ourselves in that position, but just the way that it unfolded and coming out the other side was crazy. I mean, I haven't had a race win like that before. So I think that in the moment, it was hard to process. But a win is a win, and you never apologize for winning a race. So I think that, you know, that to me is what sunk in after the fact was like, you know, this is awesome. You know, I'm going to celebrate this with my guys and really think about all the hard work. that they put in and they, you know, they just, they want to win. And so, yeah, it was awesome after the fact.

It was amazing. Just in the moment in those, you know, 30 seconds after I took the flag, I didn't really, I was having a hard time processing it. Yeah, I bet. So once this all settles in, what's the, you know, I, that was a 10-year gap between my two wins. So I had a long time of, like, wanting to win another one. And man, it was amazing.

feeling to finally get back there and you didn't know if you were ever going to but you're doing it back to back not many people have done that what is that feeling like yeah it's amazing i mean i think it um it sets in the fact that you've got to really take in this moment and if i knew i told myself after last year if i ever had a chance to win it again i would really i would really make sure that i was present and everything i was doing so um that's just what i've been trying to do and um really get a chance to be in the garage after the race with the team, see the car. All that stuff was really special. And then obviously these last 24 hours have been amazing.

So yeah, to your point, I think that you've got to make sure you enjoy it because we'd love to be back here next year. And hopefully we are, but it's special. One last thing I want to ask you for, I let you go, man, is I'm seeing a bit of a change in you. I mean, it's nothing unusual. I think you're just growing up. But there seem, you know, you each, over the past probably two or three years, you have evolved, I think, and matured as a driver. And I wonder if you feel that and if you feel like you're really starting to kind of,

I guess, peak in terms of not only being where you want to be on the track, but off the track as well, mentally and personally. Yeah, I do. It's taken a lot of work. And I feel like just getting comfortable. with myself at the racetrack and who I want to be. And also, you can't stop working on yourself off the track, even though you are a race car driver.

That's not the only thing you are. So just trying to always work on that process. This offseason was a big one for me, just in being able to travel a bunch and see a lot of different things and really unplugged. So, yeah, it's a never-ending process, but I feel really comfortable at the racetrack now. So that's a great thing.

Right on, man. Well, I think it's going to turn. into a good year for you. You've had a couple over the last couple of years, but I think you're wanting to get closer and closer to trying to secure that championship that you're seeking. And I feel like you're doing all the right work to get there. And hopefully the cars and Rudy and the team will have everything

where it needs to be to allow you to go out there and do what you need to do, man. Thanks for giving us some time today. Know you're busy. Have fun in New York, and we'll see you when you get back. Yeah, man. I appreciate it. So that's pretty cool to talk to William. There was some notes in our.

our team here at Durnum Media wanted us to ask William what he thought about the racing at Daytona and what we thought about changes should be made and if people thought, you know, what he thought about his win, people saying it was lucky. Did you want to ask him that? I didn't.

I would not want to ask him that, though. I don't want to rain on his parade. I wanted to ask him. Nudes in damn New York celebrating the Daytona 500 win. I want him to say, no, I'm not. I don't know if he, I don't. I don't. I, of course, I, of course.

course want him to say that, but I'm not going to be the guy that asks him that. I'm his buddy. Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day. And I don't care what anybody thinks about that. I mean, I wouldn't want somebody to ask me that if I just won the 500. Yeah. Hey, man, I'm dealing our... So should I change it to do you want to respond to people and give him the platform? No, I wouldn't even... I'd just celebrate it, man.

All right? No, no, no. I'm just saying like... I get why you don't want to. Yeah. Yeah, we're a friend to everybody, unless we're not. Now, we can ask those people questions. So we're going to find out who's Dale friends with, depending week by week, if he asked the winner a hard-hitting question. If I'm really, if I don't like you, then I might ask you that question.

Like, hey, man, everybody says your win was lucky. What's your take? Yeah. But no, man, we're you doing that to William? No, William's a good, good dude, man. I've always respected him. Yeah, I thought that was funny. All right, man.

Good chat with him. Yeah. Good win. He's in the record books. I found, I'm glad that they still do that. Like to New York? Yeah, like everything else is, everything else is like stripped away and changed,

less practice, let's this, let's that. Did you hate it in the moment though? Oh, man, yeah. I didn't want to, I mean, I wanted Daytona 500. You wanted to go home. I wanted to go celebrate. I didn't want to be in New York City doing media. But now your thing is still cool.

But now I like it. I'm like, that's why I thank. That's so that's why I thank him. for doing it because I know that it's necessary now and I know that he probably would rather be home playing Legos but I'm like thank you for being there man thank you for doing this you're doing he is out there doing making noise for the sport you could be building

the Millennium Falcon but you're talking to you went to you you could be building the Statue of Liberty but you went to it it's a good problem for him to have yeah that's a good problem I got to go to New York why you're going there because I want the Daytona 500 Oh, okay. Maybe they got cooler Lego stuff in New York, too, so there's a bonus if he goes to the Lego store and finds something that he can't find in North Carolina.

Speaking of Legos, real quick, I found an app, I know you're surprised, that you can take a picture, you can lay all your Legos out, take a picture of the Legos, and I'll tell you what you can build and how to build it. Oh, I like that. I think I'd rather have a gigantic tub of Legos

and show, and... Step on them? No. and say, hey, man, I'd take a picture of a real car. Like, I'd take a picture that car out there, and then it would tell me the lake, how to build it. That'd be cool, too. That's what, we need to reverse engineering.

Maybe it can, I don't know. The app that you have. Yeah, it's pretty neat. I bet William has that app. He's the only one that has it. If he don't, he's going to now. William created it. William Byron Incorporated.

T.J., so, we ran we ran the duel and we got ourselves locked in go and do media and all kinds of crazy stuff we're having a great time and the second duel is running and that's me huh i'm in the second one yeah and i'm walking through the bus lot and somebody goes hey eric jones won and i sent jimmy johnson a text congratulations and i mean literally they're probably just still coming around the cool down lap. So I know that Jimmy's not got his phone. And then

they were like, oh, nope. Austin Sindrick is the winner. And I was like, shoot, I grabbed my phone and I went to that text and I held it down. I said, unsend. And it goes, poof. So Jimmy saw that I have an unsent text message to him, but he has no idea what it was.

So does he respond to it yet? Well, now you can text him. I mean, finish Thursday. Now you've got a reason to text him again. Yeah, that's funny. I was like, thanks for this feature. This is nice. It should take it completely out of their list. Oh, you know, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean?

You know what I mean? You have a notification that you have an unscent message. Yeah, like it should be gone because... I think it depends on when you, how fast you remove it. I don't know. Here, do you want me to send you a text and then... No. I think it's going to show up as an unsent message still. It says unsent. Yeah, no matter what. Which is sketchy. You unsent the message at 10.10 p.m. Thursday.

Did you have the YouTube chat open? Oh, I don't. Oh, yeah. You had one job. You know what's terrifying about the unsent. Yes, we are live. What's terrifying about the unsent text messages, if they haven't updated, like, say, their computer, it still will go through.

So there's a chance you still congratulate with Jimmy on one of his other devices. Yeah, that's probably two. Good to know, Andrew. Well, thanks, Andrew. You definitely haven't been any sketchy situations. It sounds like Andrew had an incident recently. where he sent a message. All right, so I got the chat open.

Hey, everybody. Looks like we got about 350 in here now. So let's get to it. Andrew, you got some questions about the week or whatever, I guess, everybody wants to know. Yeah, about everything. The top question, there's a very clear number one question from a bunch of people. I saw Brandon and Dan specifically on X asked this, but they wanted to know where to get that Osterlin hat that you were wearing all weekend.

can't get it. I'm pretty sure you made it, right? Yeah. The Australin hat that I wore, that was intentional. I was waiting for somebody in our camp, maybe Kelly or somebody to go, hey, all right, you've worn it. Let's, sorry, I think I got a little audio. Let's put something else on.

But so the Austerlian was dad's team that he raced with in 79 for his first Daytona 500. Rod Austerlund gave dad a chance to race in the full-time Cup series, and I think without that, none of this is possible. And so I wanted to wear that hat, just as a reminder to me, really,

every time I put it on or saw it to enjoy this week. Right. Just may, man, remember how dad must have felt when he came down here and how that whole experience must have been for him and just try to make sure that, you know, you don't get too wrapped up in the machine, the industry, all the things happening. you can kind of lose, if you're in the muck of that Daytona 500 weekend,

in the garage, in the grind, you kind of lose, like, focus of, like, where you are, like, what's going on and what you're trying to do and how cool this is. Because you're racing at that, you get down in that garage, you get competitive, and you get to racing in your mind. And so that hat was just kind of a help for myself to keep the, you know, keep the priorities or perspective. That's cool. Someone, I was talking to someone over the weekend.

They're like, did Dale only pack like one hat? Like, did he just forget to like bring his other hats? It was simple. It was a cool story. It was easy. It was easy. It was easy. Just getting up every day and just looking for one hat.

Yeah, that's all you were. I had some other hats. Did you? Did you pack to be there through Sunday or was? Yeah. Okay. I had a filter time hat and I had a Bass Pro shop hat. And I had a car.

Tour Z-Max Cars Tour hat. Nothing. Didn't wear those. We need to get you the DJD skeleton hat from our shops online. All right. Look, I'm at the point in my life. I'm not chasing down that stuff. If y'all want me to wear special hats, your ass better.

Just give it to me. I'm not going to get up on Sunday and go, hey, anybody got a junior motor sports hat? It's race day. Nope. Them years, those days are gone. I'm going put on whatever I want. That's too bad.

If I'm supposed to be wearing something else, you better re-handed it to me. You told a good kite story. You remember that one? Yes. I used to have... Please explain this because you put it on the note sheet. I had no idea what it was.

Oh, really? So, when I lived with Dad on Urban Road in Moorsville, there's a big development there now, but it used to be a giant farm field. Who was it that we were sitting there talking about? You're telling this to Keller. No. but there was somebody that was telling me about that field and how they would, oh, they were.

Well, because you were trying to avoid an asswhip in that field, right? That's right. You told that story on this show, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. So I, I, uh, somebody was talking about that field with me and how they were, dad was out in that field one day, sighting a gun. And how they were with my dad that day. They're just sharing a story, you know, one of them, one of the time, you know, somebody comes up and goes, man, I got to tell you the story about you and me and your dad.

So I was listening to that. It got me thinking about that field. But I used to have this kite. And it was probably as wide as this table, really big for its size, but shaped like every, you know, shaped like a normal kite, right? And, but it was pretty tough. And I would fly that thing out in that field. This is probably when I was, you know, 12, 10, 11, 12 years old.

I'd take it out on that field. And, man, I let all the string out all the way to the very end. And then I'm like, I need more string. So I kept adding string to this thing over and over and over. And I bet you, it's, I bet you the string, it was probably three-eighths of a mile. You said half a mile. Yeah, I'm thinking about it now. And it was probably a bit.

Still a lot of string. Yes. So I would stand, the field went the entire length of the road. And the road was probably about a quarter mile at minimum. and I would stand on one end of the field and fly that kite all the way down parallel with our road over the top of this tree line. And I knew it was over the tree line because a couple times it could get down in there and get in the trees and I'd have to go get it out. So I would literally wind, let out about a quarter mile or three-eighths of a mile of rope or string and then have to, you know, when I was done, I was sitting there and wind that all back in. It took forever.

But eventually it got to be that the string, the weight of the string made it difficult for the kite to keep up. Pulling it down. Yeah, the weight of the string. That was when I was like, I can't add anymore because I get to a certain, whereas 9, 10, 12-mile-hour winds wouldn't even keep the kite in the air. But that was just a story we were telling the other night. It was pretty fun.

Yeah. I like to fly kites, man, because it's like the simplest thing in the world. and now I haven't flown a kite in forever. But now that I got these girls, we'll go out on the beach. Got a good wind there. What is the fun about flying a kite? Yeah. Oh.

I don't know. I don't know. I feel like go fly a kite's like telling someone to get off like go away. Like, yeah, kite's got a bad rap when that phrase came out. It does. Like what's fun about flying a kite? Answer this. Yeah, it's like flying up anything.

I don't know. It's just an activity. Like when you go out onto the beach, you know, you, take snacks and toys and buckets and you build a sandcastle and the water washes it away and I mean, that's not... I think it's just physics for a kid showing them how it works.

It's just an activity to do when you're... It feels soothing. It feels like it'd be relaxing. I wouldn't say I would describe it as soothing. I've never... Well, I've never flown a kite, so... If you have kids I get it. So you choose soothing. It seems like it'd be relaxing, you know? You just watch the air,

watch the wind. It's right. Maybe that's how you prepare for Super Speedway race. You learn where the air goes. They do. You take it out there. You take it out there and you hand it to them and they're like, whoa. You get up there and you hand it to them and they're like, Nicole's like, let's go of the strings.

I'm like, no, you got to. I'm chasing after it. You got to hold it. You know, you can't let go of it. It's going to go away. But, and then they're burnt out in seconds. Like, you know, two minutes, they're like on to the next thing and you're like, well, damn. You'd think kite would get about 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

Oh. No. It's boring. Cites are fun. you got to bring it back in. That's the bad part. No, that's why you just... I'm done with this.

No, you'll probably end up doing this some point, but if you put the string on a stick, they can go on the end of a DeWalt drill, and you just... Oh! This does belong to me kites. You should fly a kite. Go fly a kite.

Wait, TJ, that's actually brilliant. Why would you not do that? I think that's... Yeah. Put it on a screw... Then you're bringing a drill to the beach. Get a screwdriver. Stick it in there.

and wind that way when you're ready to bring in. I brought a drill to the beach. To put a hole for the umbrella. He takes a whole cart to the piece of stuff. The drill has a bit that drives the bit down in the ground, you know, drives a bit to be able to stick the sand, stick the umbrella post. And what I'm doing is wrong.

Yeah. When you could just turn it by hand. Why would you want to turn it by hand? Why would you want to wheel a kite in? I'm okay with you using the drill. I did get out there and I'm like, eh, I can't believe I got a drill out here. This is, I mean, it's just not a place for a drill.

What is he working on? If I looked over and I saw a guy with a drill, putting his umbrella in the ground, I'd be like, hey, get a little of this guy. Yeah, but then you just... That was me that day. I think you're the guy that would just go help the next guy do it because, hey, man, I got this for you for it.

You know what I mean? Yeah. So you're like the helpful neighbor on the beach. I'll do like, hey, let me drill your... Well, I'm saying you would do that. if you saw somebody struggling with it. I do. I do help people on the beach.

But if you help your neighbors, then when you're playing music louder, they're like, oh, well, the guy's nice, so I'm not going to complain about the music or anything. Yeah. It's weird, man, when you're on the beach. You can't hear other people's music. It does, like, the ambient.

Yeah, the wind and the waves. Like, it washes it out pretty good. The wind blows the sound. Yeah, it's suit the way. And they have those, what do you call those things that it's just, like, makes the you? I think we all just would rather be at the beach right now, while we're still talking about this. Yeah, yeah.

Can we go to the next question? It's 38 degrees here in Morgeville, North Carolina. We don't want to be here. Teaching, we're about to talk about the tents or the new... Just those things, you know what they are. What? What do they call those? Oh, yeah, the blue ones?

Yeah, it's easy. Everybody, the little tents, it's got the arch post down in the ground. Yeah. And it's the blue kind of white wind. The shimby shade? Shimbi shade. Yeah. Those are nice.

Shibumi. Shibumi. Shibumi is what James is saying. Really? Yeah, that's what it is. He was very confident. When you go out onto the beach, that's like, those are nine out of ten. Nine out of ten tents are going to be that shade.

The person who ever invented that is no longer working. No. It's so awesome. The only thing is like, let's get some other colors. I know. Let's get some orange, some neon. Like, let's change it up. It's all blue, white, whatever it is.

But we have one of those, and they're really easy. They do make a little bit of noise. That's what I was saying with the noise. You hear a lot of that stuff. Yeah. Yeah, but I like to see other people struggling putting those up. I'll go help them. It's just two things in the ground.

Especially if it's like the moms are out there with their kid, and they're trying to put it out there, and I'm like, got it. Let me help you. Look at me. Strong man. You got to get the shovel and put a little sand in the bag, and there's a process.

You know what they could do is put some RGB lights in them, too. RGB lights? Yeah. And you have to get the stick. down in there pretty far. You do. That takes a lot of force. And when the sun moves.

Because that thing's coming out. The sun moves. It's easy to move one side of it too. It's actually really adjustable. You do have to move it like a sandial. You do. I'll end this with this just one quick comment because I want to get to more questions. There's nothing better than a beach nap.

The last time there is nothing better in a beach nap. I don't think. I'm worried about the shade out there. I'm worried about the shade moving because the sun moves in the sky. in the shade moving and waking up for my nap with a bad sunburn. I ain't trying to do that. You genders have to be careful.

I will not be going to sleep on the beach. James wants to know, have you ever locked your keys in your car? Oh yeah. Yeah. That's not fun. Yeah. I mean, who has it?

Me? Bulls. I don't think I have either. Really? Yeah. Well, you're young. You got time. You got time.

It's actually harder to lock your keys in your car. No. I suppose it is. Like I have the last time I did it It was my 48 pickup truck And so it's kind of tricky How to get into it It's every nothing

None of the door handles work like they're supposed to So you can accidentally lock it really easy That's why I never got locked out As my Buick century that I first had Yeah You could turn it without like another key And it would open so yeah It was good to go

I just got locked in my I got locked out of my truck It was probably a year or two ago Yeah What truck do you drive in today, Dale? By 48. I did lock my keys in my car. It's been 20 years ago, though.

But I bought a Pete Wright had a kit to like a Slim Jim, whatever, and I used it to get in there, and then I bought one off the tool truck the next time, but I've never needed a sense. Wait, what kit was it? So it was like a kit that you had. It's just a kit. He's so young, he doesn't know what Slim Jim is.

It's a bunch of things that can slide down between the windows and grab bar, like, how car. used to lock. Oh. And that helps you get yourself out of a jam. Yeah. Oh yeah, it did. That's cool.

Yeah, it did. It was nice. Howard in the YouTube chat wants to know, have you ever gone fishing in Lake Lloyd? I believe so. In Daytona? Oh, no. That's Lake Lloyd, right?

Yes, it is. It is. I think I've fished in there once, but I mean, not successfully. Me and the kids were supposed to go, but we went to Bass Pro Shop and got a rod and reel and everything, which I ended up bringing home. but um this you're supposed to go this trip well we went to we went to bass pro shop

yeah and bought all the stuff yes i saw that i took the rod and everything over to over to trix because he's parked next to me i'm like put put this shit together so and um uh we were all ready to go but then the girls went to disney oh you didn't go i had to stay for the race were you happy that you had to stay i think i missed i missed i mean they i saw the videos of them and roller coaster stuff. I wish I'd have been there. Okay, I was sure if you're one of those ones at, like, so Denny's family's at.

I wish I would have been there. He doesn't want to be there. He despises Disney. Y'all, y'all, never heard that song? Hmm? I wish I would have been there for that. Touched song, never mind. All right.

Does anybody in the chat know I'm talking about? Who sings it? I forget the guy's name. Sing the Seminole win. Oh, Anderson. Yeah. It's different when kids go, though. Especially when they're that young.

That's a great song. Now I'm a one will want to hear it. Kids are fun to watch. watch there when they're that young. So especially like, they rode the roller coasters and, you know, yeah, I got a video of Nicole on a roller coaster. It's freaking awesome.

Really? So she's like into that. The little kitty roller coaster. Right, yeah, but like they're not afraid of. No, she wrote one that was pretty aggressive for a kid. Which one? I think she ran it like the mine train or something, the seven doors. Oh, okay.

Sure. That's pretty aggressive for her and she liked it. So. All right. Are you guys good? Are you guys good with the big roller coasters or are you? I'm good with. I don't ride any of the big ones.

Really? They go upside down, I don't ride them. What? What? Never have. Never heard that. I've never been on an upside-down roller coaster. Goats and roller coasters.

Yep. I'll tell you if there's a... Things I've learned about TJ in the last couple of weeks. There's ever a goat coaster. I'm done. Wait, so only if you're upside down? The goat coaster? Yeah, I've never ridden an upside-down roller coaster. I just never have.

Well, you won't? I don't want to. Why? I just, I don't know. Never done it. Is that just... Like, have you been presented the opportunity? Well, yeah, I've been right.

And like, everyone else would go and you're like, no. Yeah, I'm not doing it. Sit out. They're the best. Yeah, I mean, even like my mom and kids rode at the aerosmith one at Disney, I'm like, yeah, I go, guys, go ahead. Wait, so you let your kids go and you're like, I'm staying back. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, TJ, just, if this makes you feel better too, I'm seeing in the YouTube chat that there are some other people who have not been on upside down roller coasters.

I didn't figure I was alone. I didn't figure I was alone. They're all seven-year-olds, but... Yeah. Real funny, Travis. Real good. Same height. Hey.

Hey. Speaking of Cars Tour, though, congrats to Butterbean. Yeah. Butterbean, our car tour champion, went and won at Daytona. He was on the show yesterday. Yeah.

Yeah. It was awesome. Now we can buy an Xbox to play college football. Good. Finally, Butterbean. I want to know why he... Have you been trying to get him in the league? Yeah.

Did you ask him... I know you didn't, but did they ask him yesterday why he was wearing a cool vest for the freaking Arca race at Daytona? No. Good Lord. What's wrong with that? You don't need a cool vest for that race?

Why? I mean, not. It's not hot. But what if he was hot? He's hot. They're in the car for a long time in that Archer race. All right, with all the red flags and all the caution laps. I'm with you, Butterbean.

It's ambient temperature. What does it bother you? If he's hot, we're cool. I think if you're running under. 300 miles, you don't need one. You don't really. You don't even really need them for those night races at Bristol and stuff. I mean, we used to never wear them and they're not a necessity. Shoes under a necessity, but we wear them.

It's like a luxury. But if it gives you that much more of a competitive advantage. It didn't. You don't think so? He won. It's drawing. It's drawing. It's taking power. He didn't, yeah, but he, he had more power himself. His alternate.

He can't turn his alternator off and get a little extra speed. He was so focused. I mean, to their point, though, he did win with the less amps as everyone else, though. Ranmore amps. He used the race. Right. Yeah, he used, yeah. He still won the race, though.

And he didn't need to be wearing that. Yeah. I mean, whatever makes him comfortable. I like that. I would, if he was driving my car, I'd have been like, yeah, you're not getting the cool vest this week. I do think, the archa. You can get one in May, June, definitely in July and August. It's got to be 90-ish to really probably put that in there, in my opinion.

Seeing a lot of congratulations in the chat. BW from NJ in the YouTube chat says you can never be cool enough. I'm going to tell you, it makes a difference. On the roof, it makes a difference when it's 90 degrees plus. I'm sure. Yeah. Well, that is a good place. All right.

This segment on DirtyModeau is brought to you by Fandool. All of us have Fandual accounts, and we enjoy the product. it is a blast trying to, you know, learn the app and go through that process and having those bonus bets to do it with. Pretty cool deal. So, and there's lots of promos. Like every day. Always.

There's like a 30% profit boost here. All kinds of cool stuff to do. So you're always kind of checking in on the app, finding ways to make the most out of that experience. And I'm really enjoying it. But, uh, uh, Tim's, man. Tim's. My USA let me down last night What are you thinking?

USA? Yeah I didn't know they were going to rest all their players Wait, what did he do? All right He made a bet That just was like A high

Risk They were a bet A minus 190 favorite That is not That's like even That's not It's like almost two ones It's like even

USA already clinched their spot They'd already clenched I made the bet like a day and a half at advance. So, I mean, it was a little bit more of a risk. So Dale was right on that. It was a huge risk. I bailed.

I bet U.S., and then I had a lot of legs on Canada's game. Yeah. Canada came through. I had like five different legs. And it was two to one coming to the end of the second period. And I still had a cash out at like. That's good. Was it positive?

Yes. Yes. I was like, damn, I'll take it. I should have bet the USA Canada game that's Thursday. That's the guy I should have bet. Dude, I had a good win last night. I wanted to tell you about it. Dude.

Was it your college basketball? Good Lord. Dude, it's a dumb bet. Why is it dumb? Tell me why it's dumb. How many legs was it? Eight. And what was your odds?

Plus 110? That's a lot. But it hit, but I'll tell you what. What's the problem? I'll tell you what. I used to think. Thank God that's a dumb one. But I'll tell you what, Dale,

there's nothing like hitting eight-leg parlay. I don't care what the odds are. I'm not putting eight legs up at, you know, 150 plus 150 each. That's never going to win. Yeah, no. The heavy, heavy favorites is what you're taking. Yeah.

But those, in college sports, those hit more. They're all, it's like easy money. It's not like NFL where the heavy favorites could lose at any given Sunday. It's, it does hit. I mean, the, uh, like, trying to get in my freaking phone here. so I can figure the shit up. Yeah, yeah, you're verified.

Oh, here it is. So you had McNeese State. I'm like, oh, he's, he did some. He's deep in the car, dear. I'm telling you right now, I'm looking at my balance, and I'm pretty happy about it. I don't care what you say, Travis. You know how long you got to scroll over on ESPN Plus

to find McNeese State? Howard, Alabama State, McNeese, South Carolina State, Nichol State, Newarkle State, Newark, Northwick State, A&M Corpus Christi. A&M, Corpus, Christy was tight. That came down to the wire. Where were you watching it?

Like ESPN 13? I was watching it on the app. Just the game cast. Just the, like, this 2D ball is going back and forth. Hey, I... The entire time Dale's like, I hope Amy doesn't ask me what I'm doing right now. It's just dead quiet. It's not even sound.

It's just watching the ball go back and forth. It paid three to one. That, yeah. I mean, it hit. Hey. A win's a win. Yeah. So let's talk about racing.

Apparently, Tampa Tams wasn't mad about Denny Hamlin being wrecked. Why not? Because I had his over-finishing position. I think it was at 13. Wow. Yeah. That's the strategy on these tracks. Travis is not happy with you right now.

I know. I didn't sign off on this bet. Well, I'll tell you what, the wrecks. I also had Lugano, Kislowski, and Bubba, and they all kind of got taken out. You're the reason. Yeah. Okay. So now, TJ and I both mad at Tons.

Let me ask you question. So it's not me. Not you. So let's talk about that. So there's a lot of fun bets to make in a lot of different sports that are quick hitters. One of the fun bets during Major League Baseball is no score in the first inning stuff, little things like that. You can get in and out before the game is even over with. And this is kind of reminding me a little bit of that.

you found a way, like, you know, kind of betting the winner and betting the standard bets can become somewhat tedious and even in the restrictor plate or the drafting that they do at Dayton and Talladega. It's almost a crap shoot. Yep, 50-50. Right? But you've found some bet. You've found a bet that feels a little more predictable.

100%. Right? Yeah. You've never told us about this. I've asked you, we've came to this table and talked about, Talladega, Daytona, what do we do? Tell us what to do. How do we bet? And you never said anything about over on the finishing position. These are very, I never heard it. You didn't let us know you were doing this.

Last year they were not offered every week. It was very, it was a lot of drivers in the back of the pack. Not a lot of great bets. Do you think the sports books are sort of learning and having more offerings because they're starting to understand the sport now? Because NASCAR is still new in the betting space, right? I think this year, I've seen fastest. lap because of that new rule. There's fastest lap bets.

We almost got it too. Almost. There's a lot. There's season win totals are up still. I thought they were going to go away after the first race. Nope. They can go all year long now, it looks like. Finishing position, there was like 13 drivers, never seen that many.

So they are applying more prop bets and it's going to be real fun this year. Well, now we have, you know, because we always go into Daytona and Talladega, and maybe Atlanta to some extent, with not a ton of direction. because it's just too unpredictable and it's too much of a guess. But that bet as far as the over-on-finishing position when provided is not a bad place to go. No, especially on the drafting tracks.

It really is one crash and these will all go over. Right. I wouldn't even risk an under. And that's what happened. I was 4-4-4 because of that. Damn. Awesome job. You also cashed in on William Byron to win.

I did. So the other strategy for me was picking a live winner betting live on the winner. When did you bet that? That was before the final restart. I bet him and Chase Briscoe. Brisco was plus 2,000 odds, Byron plus 2,500.

They were the best odds of guys that could... Again, if the Cs parted, those guys were in good position, they have strong cars, and the Cs parted, and Byron was the winner, so I got lucky on that one. Headed into Atlanta next weekend.

Another track, it's hard to bet. What's your approach? I'll probably look into more those finishing position props, if available. I'll probably look at, you know, some longer shot top tens, top manufacturers, stuff that won't be really available during the race live.

But I'll do the same thing. I'll probably look to live bet the winner later on in the race. Who is the, um, you got a dark horse? I do. I have a couple, actually. Uh, I'm very high on AJ Almondanger.

He finishes well when he finishes. I know his engine broke like lap 30 or something, but, uh, very good average finish here. And this one might surprise you because the history won't say it, but Carson Hosevar. Damn.

He's plus 10,000 to win. And Spy, I mean, Corey of the Joy has brought Spire's name they're at Atlanta a lot. And, you know, Hosevar, I think, is the best driver at Spire now. So I wouldn't be surprised that they bring some hot rods and pretty good odds. That's interesting. No, what about Mike, you know, you like Spire, Michael McDowell's decent at Daytona, Talladega.

Maybe that transfers over to Atlanta. He's in a different car now. Yeah, I mean, McDowell, Haley, they both have, you know, there's so long shots to win too. But, I mean, Hosevar is like up there with, you know, B.J. McLeodd and John Hartnichekobod. So I think you're just getting a lot more value with Hosevar. but if you go to McDowell or Haley, I wouldn't say no. All right. Well, hey, thank you, Fandu.

Thank you, Tampa Tims. Thank you. We'll see what you come up with this weekend. Follow Tampa Tams on social media. You do a lot of commenting and sharing with people, kind of your thoughts and what you're doing in the moment, which I think is great. So people, you know, take some of your advice that they get from this show. They can continue to follow you throughout the weekend and see what you're up to.

Because you do make some of those on the spotlight. I bets and share that with us, right? Yep, yep. I'll try to do better and tweet them out as I do it. But, yeah, I usually interact with everybody who reaches out. So, yeah, follow me on Twitter. Just don't take us hockey advice. Yeah, no hockey advice. All right.

This 30-most segment was brought to you by Fanduel, the premier gaming destination in the United States. White Flag. All right, it's time for the White Flag. Here at the Dale Jr. download, we're closing in on the finish line of this episode today. I want to tell you, we sell T-shirts. That's right, folks. If you didn't hear us last week, Dirty Mo Media has a new e-commerce store where you'll find the newest apparel from all of our shows.

We got a whole new line out. Go check it out. ShopDirtyModemot.com. Shop dot dirtymote. Go to shop. Dot dirtymodea.com. That's freaking confusing, I know. But listen, shop-s-h-O-P dot dirtymohmedia.com.

We make it as hard as we can. All right. We had a great time in Daytona with Sirius XM for the live show with Jeff Gluck, Jordan Bianchi, and Andrew. As a matter of fact, it's time to announce the winner of the Dale Jr. download Trucker Hat. Congratulations to at Crystal B underscore 88 from Buffalo, New York. Yeah.

They finally got a victory. Enjoy that. Enjoy that hat. And thank you to everyone who helped promote our show. Also, we have the tear down live on YouTube immediately following the Daytona 500. Their reaction to everything that happened, if you hadn't checked that out, you need to. And Dorp Upper Clear was on Monday morning. And joining them this week was Bubba Wallace to talk about his weekend

and what it was like now that he is a father. Me and Bubba were neighbors at Daytona, as we have been over the years. actions detrimental also dropped on Monday Denny clearly upset after the race and gave us his immediate reaction he was so close to winning his fourth Daytona 500 and let me know do you agree with Denny's take

on his opinions there pretty pretty open about the way he feels I listen to a lot of it, and I think I can agree with some of it. But, yeah, tomorrow my interview with Cletus McFarland will drop, and you won't want to miss that. Everybody's been requesting Cletus McFarland to come on the show, and he's probably got an interesting story, so looking forward to that. And then Herman Schrader and Speed Street also drop on Wednesday.

You won't want to miss those two shows. And then Thursday, Bless Your Heart is back with Amy, and myself. We took a week off. We were in Dayton and and Amy took the kids to Disney, so we weren't able to do that.

Looking forward to back in the studio and having fun with that. That's the show. I had fun. Tomorrow, Cletus, and then, yeah, we're going to Atlanta.

Are you ready? I'm ready to go to Atlanta. I'm so excited. All right. You better prepare them, boys. Get them ready. We need some wins, T. Listen, I'm here for the wins.

T.J. is a full. time spotter and Xfinity series for junior motorsports on that one carcarsion quaple yeah I want some victory toast this year Tj I wasn't impressed I wasn't impressed this weekend with who with you

you and Carson I'm sorry yeah sorry about your only top of the top of the five that you had I don't know what you guys are talking about but you know yeah it looked like you guys had a big plan well the plan he had a little damage early

lost to well yeah that was wasn't in the plan to start with, but no, he did a good job, man. He did. I give you hard time. All right. Last is the show. We'll see you tomorrow. Take it easy.