The Dale Jr. Download - An All-Star Race In The Wet ... On Purpose?!

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

Racing is back this weekend! What better way to get fired up than with a round of the Dirty Thirty — 30 minutes, Dirty Mo Media's best, most hilarious, and eye-opening moments. Starting us off, Mark Martin came to our neck of the woods to sit down with Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the Arby's studio! He and Dale talked about the playoff committee last year and why Mark wanted to stick to his guns on getting the best format possible for the fans. For Dirty Air this week, Dale Jr. hosted a round table of industry members — including Marcus Smith, Jeff Burton and Matt Weaver. The conversation took us to discuss the All-Star Race, the sentiment surrounding it, and what could happen to it in the future. Door Bumper Clear may have been on vacation, but they brought you an extra episode to enjoy! In this segment, you'll hear a riveting Rowdy story from superfan Frankie Dodd, who was everything we expected a DBC fan to be. And last, but fighting for position, it's Todd Gilliland and Connor Zilisch, who guest-hosted Actions Detrimental where they answered questions about life in "The Dawg Pound" — and you'll want to listen to find out more. 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, I'm Dillon Hart Jr. And this is The Dirty 30. The best highlights from all of our podcast this week, 30 minutes every single Friday. The Dirty 30 coming in short. Let's get right to it. This episode of The Dirty 30 is presented by Arby's new Meat in Three Box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats.

I'm out another. You and I both ended up serving on a sort of informal committee for the place. playoffs, the NASCAR playoff system and changing that and what would be the future of that. And we were invited onto a call early last year to start those conversations. And you were the one that was the most vocal right out of the gate. I remember sitting in that first conversation. This might have been, I think this might have been the first or the second conversation, but we basically had like an initial get-together.

Here's what we want to do. We don't know what this means. We don't know if anything changes, but we just want to look at it. And then we got down to having some Zoom calls and conversations got more intense. But I remember early on, there was zero chance that we were ever going to go back

to the full point system. and there was not much of a chance that we would ever go back to a 10 race chase system there was this idea early on that was it wasn't really spoken it wasn't really completely verbalized but there was this idea that we got to hang on to the rounds we've got to hang on to elimination we can't give up when in your end there's all these things that just they were too they were they were not willing to release. And I remember on one of the first calls, it was either the very first one or the very

second one. I think me, maybe one or two other people on this call are biting our tongue, not really wanting to say what we want to say. Feels like it's a waste of my time to really kind of get on a soapbox and talk about something that I don't think 85% of people in this call are interested in. Right. And you did it. you said at the end of the call you said you went on this sort of five-minute rant that was like this is what we need this is the only way this is the way to do it by and at the end of that com at the end of your rant I think the the NASCAR executives on the call said all right well we know how everybody feels a little bit of a chuckle we're going to we're going to meet up again

down the road. We had a couple more meetings. You may remember this better than I do, but we had a couple more calls and Zoom calls and so forth, and you continued to pressure this idea. And I still didn't feel like it had much of a chance, but you wouldn't let it up. You wouldn't let go of the,

you just were, you had this, you've said this over and over and over. You're like, man, I'm just telling me, telling you all what the fans are telling me. I'm just telling you all what the fans are telling me. This is what they're telling me. And you just would not stop. You had this conviction of I'm just going to push this narrative.

I'm going to push for this change, whether it's realistic or not, whether it's even possible. This is what I believe in. And I really truly feel that all of your effort is the reason why the chase is back. we got the chase, which I didn't think was possible, and we got as close to a full year point system as one could have. And so, you know, now that we are in the back half of the first year of this new or old system, however you want to look at it, where is your satisfaction? Where's your pride?

How are you enjoying what you're seeing? what's been the experience i guess for you you know first of all i did it for the fans and it's hard for the people inside to do that it you know they all the worst thing they could do to me is take my hard card and i had i don't go for very many races anyway i love the sport but i love the fans even more because the life I live today are because the race fans. You know, they're more responsible than NASCAR is. Yes.

They're everything to me. Yeah. And I wouldn't have stood up for that for my. And I never do try to really push for what I want. If the fans really want something I don't want, I'll at least stay out of it, if not back them up. Because I think it's about the fans and you do too. But, you know, television and the broadcast stuff has taken over to the point that even if they don't say what they want, a lot of the people in the industry were backing it up because they believed that's what they wanted,

which mostly what they want is for it to succeed. That's right. That's really what they want. But if they don't know our sport like we know our sport, then that's the problem with a committee. You put the wrong people on the committee, you get the wrong answer. And that's all I'll say, you know. and there were way too many yes people and people that had to cover themselves and had to watch. Look, when I drove for Jack Rosh, I kept my mouth shut.

You know, I didn't run my mouth. I could not have survived if I spoke like Tony Stewart did. That's why I love Tony Stewart. He said everything I already thought, you know, but I didn't have, I don't, you know, he had the talent that they couldn't fire him or run him off. And that's kind of the same thing. If you're in this sport and your livelihood has to do with, in the end, the TV money, you know, then you're going to do what they want, even if it hurts the sport from a fan standpoint.

You know, I don't think, I just didn't feel like that anybody was in a position to tell it like it was. And I'm telling you, I was certain where the fans stood. It was not, it was an 80-20 issue. Oh, yeah. You know, it was only 20 won at playoffs. If you combine full season, which was stronger than the chase, but you combine the chase in full season, it's 80%. And in the end, if you remember on the last conversation we had, I said,

I will I will get behind a 10, because I knew we weren't getting full, it was positive. Yeah. But I will get behind 10 race chase.

Yes. But I won't anything less. You know, because I'm going to stand and squall like the fans, like the fans were. So I couldn't believe.

I was shocked when they came back and said they were going to do it. I was too. Yeah. Shock. And it's great. Moving on to the

All-Star Race. And the future of that, Marcus, you... Let's talk about some ideas. You kind of own the All-Star Race and the idea of the All-Star Race. I've heard some really good ideas. And, you know, Dover is involved in this. Wilkesboro is involved in this, I would assume. The best idea that I've heard is for the All-Star Race,

to go away entirely. Now, I don't love, I don't really love any of these ideas entirely, you know, fully. But what is your opinion about the All-Star race? Why does it need to exist? For you, what does the All-Star race mean? You know, it's so wild to me how we've gotten to this place where the All-Star race seems like a negative for so many people.

And for me, it was my favorite race. growing up. I mean, it was the race. There was a time when I felt the same way. It was the race that made me a, my own kind of decision that I'm a NASCAR fan now. Yeah. I mean, in 92, one hot night. I mean, that was the race. And every, every year I look forward to it. And and look at everything that's come out of the All-Star race. I mean, the simple things that we take for granted every single week on the schedule, side-by-side restarts. didn't have that. And the All-Star race did it. That's the challenge. Every race is now the All-Star race.

The stage racing came out of the All-Star race. Racing under lights. We can do it at any track with lights. Yeah. You used to just be Bristol. Yeah. Well, in Charlotte was the first, that it was the big speedway. Yeah. Yeah. And, I mean, yeah, Bristol was the first night race. Candle it. First and only night race. That's right. Yes. Like that, you know, that's, I think that's why the Bristol. That was the reason why Bristol became so popular. Yeah, the night race. Yeah. But I think the All-Star race, you know, has done so many great things for the sport and, you know, creating these, these opportunities to showcase bold ideas. And now it's every weekend. And somewhere, it became kind of a punching back. And people like to talk about, I mean, heck man, before, leading

into race week, people would be debating about how the format for the race that they hadn't seen yet needs to be different already. It was judged, you know, up front. So it's really frustrating a lot of ways to me and sad in a lot of ways because I just love that race over years and years. So would love to see it, you know, get the support that it should have. I know a lot of guys like to talk about the million dollars not being enough, but how many races pay a million to win on the circuit? It seems like real money to me. I mean, the purse isn't as big, but to pay a million to win, I think that's more than most races in the season. My favorite idea I've got, and this requires a lot of creativity, but we are in a very creative era of the NASCAR Cup series.

Could you in NASCAR, with the clash moving back to Daytona, could you acquire the Bowman Gray date and have a million dollar to win race at Bowman Gray in exchange for, I don't know, the finale or something like that? Could that be a possibility? I don't know. What do you mean? So basically, so you have the All-Star race. Right. And the clash is being taken from Bowman Gray to Daytona.

Right. They've got contracts and obligations to win. in Salem, could they come to you and say, hey, we'll give you the All-Star race? And you'll ask, well, if NASCAR then has the All-Star race, could you then say, okay, well, I want the finale, we can take it to Vegas or some sort of creative idea like that. Trading. Yeah, trading dates, temporarily or semi-permanently. Yeah, open ideas for sure. And we've talked about a ton of ideas, us and NASCAR and I think you know like you guys said I mean there's no there's no decision that you make that's without detractors you got to you got to just know that going in

yeah but I think rethinking the the time the place the the format of All-Star what that looks like I I think it would be, we could come up with some cool ideas. And I think that if we all, you know, get behind it, it could be very successful and give it a chance. I think it's important for. You think the All-Star Race is here to stay? Well, it could always change, you know. I mean, it could always change. But going into.

Where do you want to have the All-Star Race next year? let's see yeah it would be uh there's there's there's a lot of i've got i got like four ideas that that could be interesting but yeah in talking to harvick if he was here he'd say let's go out to uh his speedway in california and current the all-star the kevin harvick kern speedway yeah um i think you know all those options are out there and think about you know, how it can play a role in innovation for NASCAR. I mean, if we've innovated a lot with us with it thus far, we've done some tire ideas at All-Star,

why not run on a wet track and run rain tires for a race and actually make the track wet? And so you know, I was so hoping that we'd get a passing shot, for Wilkesboro the other day. Did you get that from Bernie Ecclestone? I heard Bernie say that like 10 years ago. Oh really? No. What'd he say? So Bernie said he wanted to so desperately, but the team shot him down on this. He wanted to turn on all the sprinklers and have an F1 race that was run entirely in wet conditions on wet tires. Bernie and I would get along. I like that idea. He is a promoter's promoter. So I want to jump in on this because I, you know, you're,

A long time ago, I publicly said, I think that Marcus should promote the All-Star Race at South Boston Speedway, at Orange County Speedway, at Hickory. And I got laughed out of the industry. You know, I had some of the biggest people in the industry say, there's no way we're going back to those racetracks. We don't belong there. What do you mean we don't belong there? That's where we came from.

I mean, that's where we came from. That's what we are. That's why we exist today is because we started at those. racetracks. We now have the Charlotte Motor Speedways and we now have the Daytona's and we have these magnificent facilities but that's not where we started. So in this era we are starting to clearly reach back into our past and say okay there's some magic in there. How do we how do we embrace that? And so I still believe that if we if and we've done this we've done this in at Bowman Gray, we've done this in a way by going to a short track at the stadium out in California.

But the opportunity to go to South Boston Speedway, to go to Hickory Motor Speedway and have an all-star race. Like if you didn't win a race or championship, your ass ain't in it. You know, it's an all-star race. And I know that's hard for sponsors, and I know that's a difficult situation. But there is an opportunity to have to get a couple people in, race their way in. keep the number down to the all-stars, and move it around. Do a three- or four-year deal

where you go to historic racetracks. And you're talking about helping short tracks. You're talking about helping short-track racing. You're talking about helping grassroots. That connects all of that. And you talk, you know, look, I'm from South Boston, so it's a bad example. I shouldn't be using that.

But let's say Hickory. You go to Hickory Motor Speedway, and our stars are there. That's a big damn deal for anything. But create an all-star VIN. It's not, you know, 30 cars or whatever. It's a limited number and you had to be special to be in it. The smaller track makes it really easy to do that.

Exactly. Because you can't put 12 cars on Charlotte Motor Speedway. It's boring as hell. I don't care what anybody says. It just is. You have to have more cars. So look, and it's easy, it's really easy for me to say because I don't own racetracks. I don't, you know, it's really easy to sit around a table and say, well, I should do this.

You don't really understand the repercussions of it. But there has to be some excitement brought back to the All-Star race because you're right. There is some sort of luster that's gotten away. So now we're like, well, let's just get rid of it. Well, let's just do this. Well, why don't we reinvent it? Why don't we reimagine it? and what does that mean?

I don't know. But I do believe a connection to our past is a good thing. We can't do everything because that's how we used to do it, because that's a recipe for failure. But there are some things that we can do how we used to do it. And the All-Star race, to your point, presents an opportunity that we aren't presented in a point-paying race. Well, what about...

How can we do that? I like the idea going back to a lot of classes. tracks. But the All-Star race, I also like the idea that you can try new things with the Cup series. And we're willing to do new things. The things that now are normal, like stage racing, like side by side, like running on lights on big overtime.

But maybe there's some other things. We haven't tried yet, like racing in the wet. And I'd love to see, let's take the whole field to in the All-Star race. And it could be at any track, could be at Wilkesboro, it could be Dover, it could be New Hampshire, and have a full field race in the wet. And let's see what it's like. So I would kind of, I know it's called All-Star Race, but I also think about it as the innovation race, a place where we can really innovate and try some things that,

You know, testing only goes so far. You got to have a trophy and a purse to really see what's going to happen. And I think this is an innovation race now probably even more than just an All-Star race. I resent so much that NASCAR and the teams were not able to come to the table and figure out how to do the run-what-you-brong-ish kind of rules package. Because there was so much we could have learned in this era where we're not testing as much as, we used to where we're not going to the racetrack and tearing stuff off. And there's only one way you can actually learn things. And it's not my testing.

You've got to drop the rag and go. Yeah. Yeah. The problem with the run, you know, run what you brung kind of scenario is what do you learn? That car is faster than that one. You have to learn. If it's faster, hopefully it can pass the car that's in front of them.

But that's not necessarily true. So run what you're wrong. If you're going to learn something, you have to have somewhat of a controlled environment. if you're really going to learn somewhat. So my pitch on it was was take everything in the shop and you can't, we're not talking about new alloy creation or, you know, some crazy hyper, you know, illegal thing. Same parts and pieces. Same parts and pieces.

Do what you want to with them. Adjust, take away, add. I don't know what it might be, but there's some really smart people in these race shops that have some ideas and let them do their thing, see what happens. And what are we going to find out? I don't know. But we're going to learn some stuff. That's the big deal. Hey, this is Dela Hart Jr. And for all the latest Dale Jr. download gear, including the I'm old drink some beer t-shirt we've been talking about here around the office. Head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch.

I know you said he related to Kyle, but like, give me your best Kyle Bush story. He's related to Kyle? He relates to Kyle as a as. Oh, uh-oh. Yeah, relates to him. Well, so my wife, so I don't miss a race. I like every son, like my wife gets mad. Like, no matter what, if they're at birthday party, I got it on. So, and so, you know, I got, so she's during a, we're in the hospital because she had, what is it, pre-campsia?

So they had to go to the hospital early. So we're in there and I'm like, man, we're going to have the baby during a race. And she's like, no, we're not. And then, like, Doc says, yeah, like, we're here. like we're having a baby. So I set up the iPad. I was already ready. I had the iPad the phone.

So I got the iPad of the race set up. I got listen to Derek on the radio. So during the rate, like I'm holding, I can't look because I'll pass out. That's one freak from you know. So I'm holding her hand like push, babe. I'm watching a radio. I'm yelling at Derek and Rayno on the radio.

And then the next thing you know, the baby comes out fine. And then I look over and then we have our first daughter. And I'm like, you got to let me name her after Cal Bush's daughter Lennox. And she was like, yes. And I was like, she's like, I got to spell the way I want to spell it. But then I was just like, you know, thankful that. She let me do that. That's how much Cowbush has meant to.

That's awesome. That's awesome. How did you end up? I'm just curious how she ended up spelling Linux. Ah, you're getting me in trouble. Okay, never mind. We got Rogano in trouble a couple weeks ago, and now we're going to get frank to try. We'll pretend like I didn't ask that.

We'll cut that one. No, no. No, no. My reading and writing is not good. It spreads what the hell. He spreads what a hell. I can barely remember their birthdays. Man, some of these questions are mean, Travis.

Yeah, some of them are. Oh, no. Just hit us with the deep cutting questions. You want the deep cut? Is it, is it, let me see, I'm sure I know who it is. Everyone knows who it is. Now that I look at it, I don't even really want to give this satisfaction. Is it the guy Denny had beef with?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I read the question, I did not, I was not looking at who sent it first. I like the Denny Delivers guy on Twitter. Yeah. He's always in my mentions and stuff. Do you ever have the urge to just turn right? The urge to just turn right? Yeah, man.

every race. Man, the next corner's got to be right. I've been going left for so long. It's like a, it's like a, it's actually a specialty. It's turning right. I know, I know. And left. I feel like I've been turning a right, right a lot lately on the ovals, though. Turned right when Noah hit you. I did have to turn right a lot when Noah hit me. If NASCAR ever went back to the tandem package like Daga, who would your tandem partner be? Dude, I would actually love that. That might be an unpopular opinion. Unpopular opinion, but I think the tandem racing would be sick to bring back.

I mean, it can't be any harder to pass them what we got. I feel like me and Shane would be some good tandem partners. Dude, also we need to bring back the radio with the big dial of like everyone's car numbers. Just tune in. Oh, yeah. Oh, Connor, you want to work with me? No, man, already got Shane. That would be cool.

If we could do that at practice for the 500. With the choose cone now, too, that would work perfect. Well, also think about yes a couple weeks ago with host of Arnheim. Forget the middle finger, you could just dial up and... Yeah, it's true. Oh, yeah. We don't need Hosefar to have that, dude.

He'd be rage baiting everyone. He would be rage baiting everyone. What do you think about the new package for Daytona coming up? Do you think it's going to make a difference? We're told to temporary expectations. That's what Denny says? Dude, Denny's on the board of the thing. He said it'll be...

What do you say, Travis? I said, what should fans expect? And he said 20% better is of fair expectations. for fans. You know what? Small gains. You're such a positive guy. What do you think the solution is?

I have no idea, dude. That is way above my pay grade. That is. What do you think? That must be a lot then, because... I mean, if you ask any of the drivers, I think there's a common answer. What is that?

Less drag? Well, I think a different car, but I don't think that's possible right now. So, yeah, I mean, I think obviously the biggest thing is drag and they're taking a lot of drag out but you know i think that will help i mean the thing is with the xfinity cars like you you can't run 40% throttle in 25th when the leaders are wide open whereas in a cup car you can so i think the hole that the cars are punching is too big um dude another thing this the short track package all these guys at the front are saying their cars drive

too good we need less grip more horsepower and then i'm back there in the back Who is asking for this? I'm struggling with what we had before. Now, I have less grip, already have them down on grip, and more horsepower, dude. I'm like... It is blue collar.

Do you know what we call the battle from like 25th to 32nd? No. It's the dog pound. The dog pound? Because we're all these dogs back there, dude. We had a class photo last week because now they put us by where we line up,

where we qualify. It's just the back row of the drive. Who's in the dog pound? Common, the common suspects. Yeah. Yeah. Who has a residence card? Ricky's,

Ricky's probably like the front of it. Ten year. You know, he's been there for a while. All the frat row guys. Zane's Loki been finding his way out every now and then. But Zane's, Zane's in there. Noah, Todd, me. Austin Hill.

Austin Hill. Austin Hill. Austin Dylan. Austin Dylan. Sometimes. SVG is like an honorable member because sometimes he'll, you know, just probably to go out and dominate. But I think he's last.

that though yeah that's actually fair i guess it was more like first year yeah he graduated but this sounds like a tight group though like why do you guys have beef with each other we don't have beef man we're we're we just trying to get to the end of the race just business back there we're just racing hard man all right that was another episode of the dirty 30 presented by arby's new meat in three box get more meal for your money at arby's we have the meet