The Dale Jr. Download - Bonus - Live from Daytona

Episode Date: February 15, 2020

Dale Earnhardt Jr and co-host Mike Davis go live at the Team Chevy Experience at Daytona International Speedway in front of a studio audience with a big cast of characters. Seven-time NASCAR Champion Jimmie Johnson stops by as well as Daytona 500 pole-winner Ricky Stenhouse. Chevrolet's Jim Campbell sits in with the DJD and then with the crowd afterwards. President of Daytona Int'l Speedway, Chip Wile, joins the show to preview Dale waving the green flag on Sunday and we find out that Ricky Stenhouse's dog ate his Daytona 500 tickets. Tim Dugger, a good friend of Dale Jr.'s, pops in to talk about his latest song from his upcoming album and shares a laugh about Jr's direct style of criticism. 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.

This is a production of Dirty Mo Media. Imagine it's kind of be pretty exciting with your dad being a professional race car driver and then being a three-time champion. Is it fun? Well, yeah, lots of the times people ask me, you know, kids pick on me at school or whatever. And I just like, you know, it's really nothing special. It's just a job my dad does. He could be a plumber, you know.

He's pretty good at what he does. And it's no different from anything else. strong every single racetrack. Flat, bank, short, paid, probably would be one of them and they would run them on dirt. Running through every block, we cannot ever be stopped.

Put that on everything. You're going to remember the name, remember the day. All of these cars contesting for the lead. Earnhardt closed his ground. He's going to find the high side. Earnhardt going to turn three at 200 miles an hour, winds it up, fires it in there. And it's Earnhardt going in front.

I got to have it. This man, Dale Earnhardt. Hart is successful. Up and over, number three. And for the 19th line. Give it respect. They're taping the hook on. The roll cage has been sandpaper.

What a pile of grit. Earnhard is in the car. He's barking instructions to the crew. Give me respect. Hey, hey, hey. 20 years of trying, 20 years of frustration. Dale Earnhardt will come to the cushion. Here they come for the final time.

Up the Super Stretch. Who will win the Daytona? 500. Dale Earnhardt Jr. at the bottom of the racetrack. Not clear. Keep coming, bud. Throws the block topside. You're going to do it. You're going to win it. Throws the block downstairs. Check the flag. You're win. Dale Earnhardt Jr. has won the Daytona 500.

Oh, yeah. Woo! Hey, give me respect. Hey, hey, go on your neck. Give me respect. Yeah, man, we want it. I can't believe it. I can not believe it.

How's everybody doing? You clap at you all. Somebody's ready. Who is that? Yeah, we need to take you everywhere with us, right? Well, that was a nice intro there. Yeah, that was good. So this is sort of a Daytona preview of the Dale Jr.

Download presented by Chevrolet. This is a special edition that will go out tonight to all our listeners on DirtyMove Media. And you guys are basically, I think, the first live audience that we've ever recorded in front of in the last. two years. No pressure, but we have big hopes for you guys. Absolutely. So don't let us down. But we're here at the Chevrolet Experience Center.

It is. This used to be Victory Lane. So basically right out there where those corvettes are all sitting on that little piece of asphalt right there is kind of hallowed the ground. A lot of amazing things, celebrations happened right in that space right there. I was fortunately part of a few of them but even before my career just imagine all the Daytona 500 winners

coming through those pylines right there cruising in and parking their car where all the people that came out here for that race weekend wanted to be the celebration would commence right here and the fact that Chevrolet is you know

this has become the Chevrolet experience is sort of fits with Chevrolet's involvement in motorsports over all the decades that's been in this sport. But it's neat that it's sort of preserved this historic landmark. I love the history of NASCAR and I love the history of our sport and the personalities and all the great things that have happened in this sport. So it's cool that as this track gets renovated and this tracks across the country continue to modernize, some things are preserved, much like that.

much like the facade and the front of this building. If you walk out on the asphalt right there and you look back up in the second floor, I remember coming into this Victory Lane and sort of that, you know, that view of this building and being sort of surrounded, you know, even though there were hundreds of thousands of people here for the race, you felt like everybody was here in Victory Lane

when the race was over with and you celebrate with your team. But it was a lot of fun, so great to be here. They had like grandstand. stands sort of like built up and it was it they were steep and so you felt like you were in yeah you're looking at the photos right there yeah oh yeah there that's 2004 right this area used to look like so it's pretty cool and and we're it's kind of neat because we're doing a show about that we're doing a show about going back to some of these old racetracks and and so being here in this vicar lane sort of takes you back and and we got a lot of guests that are kind of come on the show

today that's right jimmy johnson's going to be on rickston house junior's going to be on the show we don't have our infamous table in front of us like we're using usually do because it would move everybody out because the table takes up about this entire you know our typical studio table so we couldn't get it down here but we hope to bring the same sort of phone conversational honest interview and and experience that we we typically give on the Dale junior download Jim Campbell's going to be coming on the show US Vice President performance of motorsports for Chevrolet I've known Jim a long time it'd be great to talk to him about some things Chip Wow is going to come on as well

who's the promoter at Dayton International Speedway. Wait, I mean, the president. I mean, you have a promoter. I would call him the promoter because that's his job. It's the sale tickets, and that's what promoters do. And he's done an amazing job. Chip's got a great story. We'll ask him about that.

He's got some great things, too, to tell us about this particular race and this race weekend. And our pollsterer, Rikistan House Jr., is going to come back. And we have a late add-on. We do. A friend of mine, Tim Dugger, a country music artist in Nashville, has got a new record out, and he's going to come on and tell us a little bit about that, right at the very back end of the show and we'll give us everybody a listen. I don't know if we can

actually play it in here, but for the folks listening on the podcast, I'll get a little tease of some of his music coming out. So it's going to be a good show. The other thing I want to say, and this is for you guys, you know, if you guys have a question and you want to ask, you know, this is going to be kind of a personal, this is an intimate type of thing here. So, you know, Leah Vaughn, right there's, wave Leah. She's going to have a microphone. Listen, we'll get to your question, and we'd love to have a conversation with you. And that's even if Jimmy's up here, you know, just feel free to do that. You don't have to, you know, but keep that in mind as we go along.

Leah, where did you get that shirt? That's part of the new Dirty Mo Media lineup of shirts. Yeah. That's awesome. I mean, I can't wait to the available for all of us. I'd have one. He doesn't have one yet. That is the coolest shirt ever.

I still got all the old Dirty Moe radio stuff back before you. Okay. So there's a lot that Dale Jr. doesn't know. about that we'll go ahead and tell him all we have a completely new website and in that website it has a new store and in that store it has a bunch of new dirty moh media shirts and everybody that's listening to this bonus podcast and i can go to dirtymomedia.com and you can check out all these new lines and just so you can get it before del junior even does that's right i love stuff like that's just basic plain right to the point that might have been uh you know considered when we

were designing them frankly because if we put dale junior on it anywhere he won't wear it I mean, now, it's kind of the catch-22 because they don't sell well. You remember the guys used to wear their belts with the name on it? No, who did that? That's kind of like you, I think. Didn't you remember that? I think you had a belt with Mike on it. I never had a belt with Mike on it.

Yes, you did? No, I did. Or was it on the buckle? Yes, because I'm a buckle wear. No, for real. No, you know who I would think does that? Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt? Did Dale, did your dad ever wear?

a belt with his name on it? No, I doubt it. All right. I think that we all did as little kids, though. Remember? I think we all had that little belt that had it stenciled in there. I don't know. I don't know. But listen, I think what we're saying is you did. But apparently that was one of your

phobias because you won't wear anything with your name on it now. Well, I think it's bad form. No, I got it. It is. It's weird, right? It is. Some people, some drivers, and I ain't going to name them, some have no problems with it. No. But you do. No, Gregson. I was just thinking of names on the top of my head that might wear their own Bubba Wallace.

Bubba Wallace? I mean, I think it depends on exactly what it is. If it's like a logo, like I wear a junior motorsports logo. Yeah, that doesn't count. No, but you won't wear it if it has your signature on it. Yeah. You know, that logo, that signature. So anyways, the Dirty Mo Media shirts.

I mean, look at this. Even Jason Shultz has a dirty. I don't have these either, by the way. So they got their dirty-moe stuff. You could go get it. He's got what is called, I think, the quarter-zip. So I didn't even know what a quarter-zip was. Where did you get it?

Laura. Lori. Lori. I didn't even know what a quarter-zip was until I got into broadcasting. Apparently, that's where the quarter-zips congregate is in broadcast. I got you. Yeah. All right.

A lot of quarters-zips out there in broadcast the world. But maybe there is. That's not where they started. but that's where they are implemented. I'm not a quarter-jip fan. You enjoy your quartership. So you are going to have to leave now. No.

I don't like V-Nex either. You like V-nex, Mike? No. I don't think I have one. But listen, I'm not knocking anybody that has one. I mean, look at the audience. What do you worry about everybody's feelings for? I don't know.

We're doing a little insulting if it could be. This is your, this is what doing a little show in front of a live audience is about. Yeah, you're right. We got to keep your honesty. You got to keep your honesty, be genuine. All right, so are we going to bring a guest on? Can we get to it? Yeah, who's here, Matthew?

We've got Jim. Jim Campbell. Let's bring Jim out here. Let's give him a round of applause because without him, we would not be here. This is an honor. Well, thanks for coming to the Chevrolet Experience Center. I heard you get talking about what a special place it is, and that's kind of why we wanted to be here.

It's so special. There's no doubt about it. So did you guys have, like, an intention of sort of maintaining that historic, you know, feel of this building, the landmark, the Victory Lane. Did you got, because y'all didn't really change a whole lot to what it looks like from the outside? Yeah, the basic structure we changed was more on the inside. It was just offices. It was a little bit kind of run down.

But we wanted to keep Victory Lane looking like it is, you know, kind of the monument that celebrates the different wins and make it feel like the old winter circle. And that's what we've done here, I think. And it's just great to have the fans, our customers, and the race fans come here and be part of it and also see some of our cool products. See some products out there. Some new Corvettes. Got the new Corvettes.

We have two coops and one convertible. You can sit in those and check it out. We have our new Silverado Heavy Duty pickup truck with the Durhamax Diesel Nelson Transmission, which I love. I work on trucks and the other part of my job. And, of course, we had Camaro Z-L-1 here, which will be racing Z-1-1-L-E this season. So it's fun for the fans to come and check out the Old Winter Circle

and also have a chance to see our products. And you know this place, Daytona 500, right? 2004 you celebrated right here and that's it very special so the mid-engine Corvette has the response been from the supporters you got I mean the Corvette fans

are a cult you know they they are you know there's people that buy a Corvette every year there's you know there's these they ride around they meet in clubs and so forth so they're very passionate about the car and so you made a major major shift

in in making the car mid-engine car And so what's the reception been? I was here for the 24 hours. It's really the first time that I got a really good look at the mid-engine car. And I thought it makes an amazing-looking race car. When you see it by itself, it's one thing. But out on the track against the rest of the competition and all the other manufacturers,

it was really stark and beautiful. But what's the response been from your seat? Yeah. Well, first of all, we were a little concerned. There are so much passion around a Corvette, as you said, and there's people that like the engine up front and they like that certain style of the Corvette. But I'm really excited to tell you that the Corvette owners and fans

have really gotten a chance to see the car, learn about it, and so many have actually put in orders for it. So I'm really excited about what's happening and the response has been unbelievable. And then there's people that have never owned a Corvette that have come to check it out. They can do it here obviously this weekend and here for the 24 hours of Daytona.

We had quite a crowd. There was probably four or five deep for almost the whole weekend. Really good response. One thing for over 65 years, the chief engineer, first chief engineer, was Orr Arka Stentoff. And he always had a vision to try to take this car to a mid-engine. So they created different concept vehicles to test out mid-engine. Serve one was one of them. We actually own that in our collection and others to really test out the dynamics of putting the engine, you know, a mid-engine configuration.

And so we're so excited that it's here and we're racing it. And we're going to be selling it here shortly in the showrooms. So there's a car sitting behind us. We've seen pictures of this car. Tell us, you wanted to talk about this. Now, I don't even know the story. I know a lot about the history of this sport, but I don't even know the history of this particular car.

So tell us about this. Yeah, well, this is a 55 Chevy. It was the 150 model, which was the lowest trim. It had the least amount of content in it. So it was the latest weight. And, of course, as racers, we want low mass and high horsepower. And under the hood was 1995. It was the first time we brought the Chevrolet Small Block

to market and we wanted to race it. So Smokey Unic, of course, his garage was here in Daytona and he was an amazing kind of self-taught engineer. He was an innovator. He knew how to make speed between the chassis and the engine and he did just that. And this car was driven by Herb Thomas and they took it to the Southern 500 in Darlington in Labor Day of 55, Labor Day Weekend and they won the race. So it was really the beginning of over 780-some wins for Chevrolet in NASCAR and all with a version of the small block V8. So this car is very, very special. Where does this car stay?

This is a replica, by the way. We created it as a tribute to that moment. And it stays in our heritage center in the Detroit area. Okay. And so we brought it down here and wanted to share it with the race fans and it's pretty special. The Heritage Center. So was that something that fans can go see?

You know, we open it up to kind of private tours. We open up to a lot of groups that are raising money for great causes and fundraisers. We do that. And then when we come for the Dream Cruise is one of the big events in the Detroit area. We get a lot of passionate, you know, car people that want to come by and check it out. So they can make an appointment and check out our collection. We have over 800 units of a very special Chevroletes and many of our other brands in that collection. And we display about 250 at one time.

Yeah. And I know we're talking about this car for the podcast listeners. We'll put it on our social media and our Internet, our website. So you can see because it's beautiful. You've got to look at it. Chevroletes building a new tech center in Charlotte. That's pretty exciting news. You know, from my perspective as a driver, owner, my involvement in NASCAR, this to me

signifies a step forward in commitment to motorsports and Chevrolet's future success in motorsports. Is that true? Can you tell us about the Tech Center and what it's going to mean to Chevrolet and to motorsports in general? Well, it's definitely something's very important to us. Performance and racing has been part of our history from the very beginning. Louis Chevrolet was the co-founder of the company.

The guy loved racing. Him and his brother's raced. That's what they did. And so here we are 100 years plus later, and we're still racing and have passion for it. So this is going to be in the Concord, North Carolina area, 75,000 square feet. And we'll just centralize all of our engineering

to support our racing platforms. NASCAR, obviously, it's the home of many of the race teams, so we'll be able to support them very closely. In addition to that, we'll support our IndyCar program. IMSA, we run with both Cadillac and the Corvette and sports car and our NHRA drag programs. We also support Holden over in Australia. So that's what we'll do there. It's going to be a great place. That's where we'll do it right out of this center here.

We'll have, you know, two driver in the loop simulators. We'll have our arrow group there. We'll set up plates. We're going to, we're just building it out beginning that process right now. So later this year we'll start to actually put people in there and start doing work there. That's impressive. You guys just announced this a couple weeks ago. So that's still relatively new news, right? It was. Yeah, we announced it. We bought the building in December and just announced it here about 30 days ago. So we're excited about it. But hey, Chevrolet and NASCAR, we go together.

We have an amazing history together. And this is a commitment that we want to be around for a long, long time. You just mentioned Holden. I remember going to Australia back around 2006 or 2008 for a visit. And I was a big fan of Viet supercar, because it's kind of the closest thing to stock car racing or NASCAR over in Australia. and I had no idea that even then that Holden was Holden's connection to Chevrolet. It's basically the Chevrolet over in Australia.

And I ended up, they had a car that was so similar what eventually I think became the SS here in NASCAR. And they had a car over there that became the Pontiac G8. And I bought a G8 and ordered all the stuff, I think legally from Australia, to change the car into a Holden. but, you know, so how does, do you know much about the history of Holden and the connection to Chevrolet? Because from, I guess, explain, I guess, so Ford has Ford's in Australia, but Chevy is Holden. So explain to me kind of how that works. Yeah. Well, I mean, our parent company is General Motors and that, and we have so many brands underneath of it, Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac here in North America.

and Holden's in Australia and we have other brands around the world and so at one point General Motors acquired the Holden brand and they were kind of in Australia so I don't know the exact date of it but they have always had a performance passion and they love

racing so it's very common to what we feel here at Chevrolet passion for racing, passion for performance and amazing support from the owner base and then the fan base at the race is incredible. I love the holding brand and when I went to Australia I was was so surprised that their passion for the automobile and how they perceive and do the automobile.

They do it really well. The one thing that I got my wife, a 66 El Camino for Christmas, but it was something that she'd wanted for a long time, and I was just trying to find the right sort of time to give it to her. And there's not been an El Camino in production for many, many years. They have a Ute, is what it's called, over in Australia, and I just saw a tweet. Ray Evanham is on a trip to Australia. I'd seen the Yute before, and they race them. It's basically kind of a pickup truck lower to the ground.

It's a bit of a quasi-El Camino version pickup truck. Got a nice motor underneath it. But it looks really, really cool. They race them in Australia, and I think Ray stumbled onto it for the first time. It was like, whoa, this thing's really cool. Any plans or has there ever been any talk about bringing the Yute stateside? You know, I would say about every six months, we talk about it. Oh, really? Are you serious? I knew it.

But I would say for our market here, we made the investment in the bed in our mid-sized pickup, which would be the Chevrolet, Colorado, and then we've got the off-road version, zero-two and zero-two buys. And so that's our play here. And actually, the market for that is probably bigger than it would be for kind of an El Camino, return of El Camino. But it is a cool vehicle. There's a lot of passion for it. It's interesting. We go to Seema every year, and there are fans, customers that get to Seema from Australia, and they're passionate about holding, and they love cars and modifying cars,

and I see them in a place like see them all the time, all the time. I love the Colorado. I drove one. I got a dealership in Tallahassee, and I got a Colorado for about six months. Man, I put the rack on the roof with a tire, and I had that thing decked out like I was going to run the Baja 1000. It reminds me. I used to say when I turned 16 years old, my first car was an S-10,

single cab S10 with a Tahoe package and I had Ray Everham and his guys who do a little bit of oddball work on the side restore an S-10 for me just like my little 1988 truck and the Colorado reminds me of S-10 it's sort of you know a small pickup truck easy to navigate easy to park great for a 16-year-old kid

who doesn't have a ton of experience out on the highway but I love that truck, man. I'd love to see the Ute come, though. I believe that I'm going to see it before too long. You guys are going to bring that Ute over here, and fans are going to love it. Him talking about these trucks that he takes ownership of. I mean, you bring him to an appearance in Texas.

And next thing I know, he's ordering himself a Silverado. Do you remember this? Well, I remember Dill was good enough to bring his S-10 that he talked about. He brought it. That's right. To Texas Motor Speedway. We had all of our best Chevrolet Silverado owners and truck owners from all of our brands there to just have a weekend together. Dale surprised them, brought his S-10 and had a chance that we talked trucks all weekend, talked racing.

We had some of our race car drivers give hot laps, and then we debuted the new 2019, all-new Silverado, and we debuted it with a truck called LT Trail Boss, which we did a two-inch lift from the factory. We've been watching this trend for a long time, and you know it well. Customers are buying the pickup trucks, and they're going out and lifting these trucks on their own. So we said, why don't we get in that game and really integrate it well? So we had a two-inch lift, and we adjusts the half shafts, and it's just a beautiful vehicle. And I think that's one you ended up wondering. I do.

I have a trail boss. So you did fly it in on a helicopter, so it's sort of, that would have sold it to anybody. But this, you know, I've owned a lot of pickup trucks in my time, but I hadn't seen. For me, this new Silverado, the character lines, that's what's important to me. That's why I love cars like the 76 Laguna, just the body character lines on those type of cars. This really reminded me a lot of that, and it has just a really good look to it. And I kind of, when I would buy pickup trucks from you guys, the last truck that I got, I still have it. I call it Big Red, because I did lift it up.

big tires on it. I used to take and strip all the, all the, um, um, emblems and stuff off of it and, and, and, and, uh, basically get the body as bare as I could. Uh, and that's basically what this trail boss looks like to me. It's very, the paint, it's just all red paint down the side, really beautiful, not a lot of trim and, and pieces added, uh, just a really good, clean, clean look, but when it was flying in on that helicopter, I was like, man, I got to have one of those. I haven't, you know, I've had this old 2004 pickup truck, full-sized truck forever, and hadn't bought a brand-new truck in so long, and I'm like, this is the one. It was just like, see, it was talking to me.

So I'm glad I love this. It's such a different truck from the previous version. It's so, so, so cool. So I'm glad you guys. Yeah, I'm glad you guys brought that out. I couldn't make up my mind there for a while. I think it was driving to Colorado. Then I was going to get the full-sized truck waiting on the year.

You guys, about everything you make, I want to buy. I think it's a good idea to get one of each. I think that's what we're trying to say here. Is it just go ahead and get one? Go ahead. I got a garage full. You get the purchase. He does.

But hey, that lifted truck, what you did early on, that's exactly the trend. We picked it up from guys like you. We watched it at Seema. We watched aftermarket. And we said, let's get in the game and do it from the factory. And so it's been pretty successful. There was some inspiration there. I do.

But really, we watched that trend happen over four or five years. And we're like, we got to get in. So we did it. Before we let you go, because I know, because I know we're going to run out of time here, but we've got a little piece of hardware behind us. It's a trophy, and it's mighty shiny. And I'll tell you what, Chevrolet drivers have won that thing more than anybody else. So what do you got to tell us about?

Yeah, well, it's really special. And obviously, Dale, you've had a chance to hoist that trophy a couple times here in this winter circle, the old winter circle. Yep. In 2004, and he did it again in 2014 driving the Chevrolet SS. It was very special. And what's unique about our company in that trophy is our very first design chief was a guy named Harley J. Earl. Oh, yeah. And so he actually loved design, but he loved performance.

He loved racing. And he became friends with Bill France. And he actually became the second commissioner of NASCAR. He loved racing. And so at one point, Bill France created this Harley J. Earl trophy. There's a lot of mutual respect between those two guys. And on top is a vehicle that Harley J. Earle's design team created, called Firebird Concept.

And that is in our collection. They created it, and that is the inspiration of what's on top of this trophy. And so what Dale hoisted in both those winter circle is a connection back to our company and the Harley J. Earl is an original designer from GM. Yeah, so when I went to Detroit to the Heritage Center,

I stood next to that car. The Firebird 1? Yes. Firebird 1. That's right. We had Dale up along with other Chevrolet winners. Oh, there's a picture of it. There is right there.

Yeah. I did not know that I would ever. ever see that car in person. You know, I mean, you see it on top of the trophy all the time. You're like, you know, I don't even know where that car is and if it really truly exists, but to be able to actually be there and be next to it, I stood around that car for 15 minutes looking over it. That was pretty cool. That was great. We had Dale up for a Chevrolet Champions event, winners of marquee races like the Daytona 500 and all drivers champions. And that was pretty special to get that picture. Thanks for bringing that wind to Chevy and getting that picture.

That's pretty special. Absolutely. Well, thanks, Jim, for coming on, man. Appreciate you allowing us to use the Chevroletics Center here in Daytona International Speedway for our show today. And I hope you guys have a great weekend. Hopefully Chevrolet's going to cross the finish line first on Sunday. That is a goal. Thanks for having me guys here. Thank you, sir.

And here he comes. Light clockwork. Here he is. Jimmy Johnson, everybody. He's like me now that he's in retirement. He just comes on out whenever he feels like coming out. What are they going to do? What are we going to do, telling me he can't come out?

Exactly. What's that, buddy? Good to see it. How are you doing today? I'm good. I haven't had much sleep, so I'm looking forward to naping. You had been busy, busy. So you went on a bike ride, and it was like 45, 40 miles.

Yesterday, right? Yeah, a little bit of work this morning with Jeff. I did. I started at 7. I have a photographer that I have in town. You might remember some. You have a photographer everywhere you go. I love pictures, man.

How many photographer buddies do you have? A lot. A lot. I got this photography buddy. He wants to come over the house. Oh, yeah. I've got another one. I got this other photography buddy.

I got a photography buddy. About every two conversations I have with Jimmy. Well, my wife owning an art gallery and it's specialized in photography initially. Yes. That's how that happened? Yes, a lot of pictures. So you've been busy? And I like archiving everything.

Honestly, I've had probably 15 photographers over the last 10 years, random tracks, random times, and someday it will be a nice picture book. Yep. That's right. It will be. We had a lot of conversations about your career and when to call it an end. We had a lot of great conversations, but here you are. You started the process.

You're going through speed weeks, the beginning of the season, media day, all those things that you do every single year. What has it been like on this particular trip that's felt different? What is the emotion? What has the experience been like for you? As opposed to the years before that we're kind of just going through, you know, you're in the grind and here we are again, going to start the year. It's got to feel different. I'm excited.

And you're going to love this. I'm literally walking out of the production day in Charlotte, whose text comes in and says, hey, that's your last one right here. He knows what I'm going through and what I'm experiencing right now. And his timing's perfect. Because I'm walking out of the Charlotte Production Day. I know, because, you know, he can't hide his giddiness when he doesn't have to go through the monotony, right? So, like, what are we in year three or four of his retirement?

We come to speed weeks, and I ain't going to lie, there's a little level of satisfaction when other drivers are still having to go through, like, the media days. And I've got to be honest, I didn't know this until just now. There's even more satisfaction knowing that one of your obligations is us now. You know, that's fair. Even if it's the last time that you're going to be doing this as a full-time driver. But you've got to be kind of like, all right, this is the part you're going to enjoy it. You've got to soak it in, right? For sure.

The excitement is so high. And what's been really neat is to see the energy and optimism and purpose. My family, my core group of people on the race team, all of Hendrick Motorsports. I mean, we have always been unified. But there's just like a, I don't know, just something different about it. more meaning, it's more special, and that just raises the excitement. What's his, what's this year going to be like for him? Now that he's announced his retirement, like, is he going to go to Team Debrief and be like,

man, I just got a few more months of these and I'm out? No, no. It will be completely different. So, well, if it's anything like mine, Jimmy's such a unique guy, he may have a whole different experience, but if it's anything like mine, those are the moments you're going to start to pace yourself through and allow to run its course. We would go to the racetrack throughout my whole career, and I just, I kind of dreaded Friday morning practice. You know, I kind of dreaded going through happy hour. It was a necessary sort of thing that had to get done,

and it was work, and you wanted the car to get better, and you knew the potential to be frustrated about that. And it was, you know, it was just try, it was, it was all just part of the process. nothing that you enjoyed. You enjoyed the race. You enjoyed the result. You enjoyed celebrating and success. You really typically didn't experience any of that practice or qualifying. Those were just sort of hurdles throughout the weekend to get to the finish line.

The final year, I was sitting there in, I don't know, it was early in the year, like first couple races. And I was sitting there during a practice on Friday morning and watching the guys work on the car. And I was like, man, I'm not. will miss this. I couldn't believe it that I was feeling that way because I hadn't really liked it or ever. Thought to even enjoy it, you know? Sure.

I was sitting there going, I'm really going to miss us trying to make the car faster. The part, I thought it was going to be the drive and the race and the challenge trying to win a race. But it's really the other things that I'm going to miss. You know, it's the camaraderie and us trying to

fix a tight center. Things that annoyed the hell out of you. are the ones that are going to sort of stand out, you're going to, man, I'm not going to get to work with my guys in an hour practice anymore. And that bond that we have with our crew guys, I mean, we all see it in sticking ball sports. There's the locker room, and, you know, that's the place.

Like, we have that. I don't think, sadly, it's been shared broadly or widely enough that that really takes place. But I feel like just initially, and I'm only, you know, a couple weeks into this, like at the track thing, just looking around, you know, seeing my guys, knowing where their heart is, and how hard they want to try to help me have, you know, the best year ever this year. And those, that, that relationship.

I mean, I think there's a lot in that. That's that I'm going to miss. We started a, we got in a group chat program and started a group chat with every road guy and crew member from our 2017 team. And we were in, we were chatting in it today as a way to kind of continue that communication and prolong that connection that we all have with each other. And we don't do as much as we should together as far as going out to eat and so forth. but we still have that group chat to be able to talk to each other.

And it's funny because your picture with that group of guys is still in the 88 transporter, by the way. Really? It's still framed it on the wall. Yeah. What was that picture? What do you mean? You guys had a picture.

There's a car in it and the whole team is standing there. And we have our team debriefs in that transporter often. Shit. And it's still up there. Greg and the guys are like. What do you think Alex Bowman thinks about that? I hope he's all right with it. The one thing that's interesting,

and I'll sort of pre-warn you about is, in my mind or maybe in Jimmy's mind, when you think that you're retiring and this unit will just continue with someone else, they don't. Now, some of them do. But, I mean, even just in a few years, a few of those guys sort of peel away and they're going to go do something else or they're going to join a different team or maybe they're out of the sport entirely. And I think that that was the best, we didn't realize it at the time, but creating that

chat is was we there's no way we were going to be able to keep that you know unit together in communication because everybody just sort of splintered and and a lot of them are still on the team but a lot of a lot of guys have moved on to different things and it's interesting how much you don't realize how much is changing within your team while you're there sure right no guys come and go guys come and go but man when you when you finally leave the nest and then you run into those that group or that core group down the road and you realize some of the guys aren't there anymore, you know, or they're wearing another uniform or a different teams uniform.

There's a, it's going to be a good experience, though, this year. You're going to enjoy it. I know you guys are working hard trying to improve on what you did last year. You seem pretty excited about that. You got a new car. Yeah. I'm hearing so many good things about this car. Tell me why you guys are so positive on the new Camaro.

I think when we look at the bulk of the tracks that we race on the 550 package, as the year went on, we got to a point where, we would trim the car out something that you hear in IndyCar and maybe here at Daytona and Talladega, but there's not enough power to push that big old sled through the air. And we just found that last year, in order to get to the lower trim levels, it just came at such a big sacrifice for car balance. This new vehicle that we have, the new Camaro that's out, it's just better balance for those moments. We can trim it out and still keep the arrow percentages right in where we need them.

For a fan, though, and I'll clue myself, and this group, when I look at the car, it looks the same. Are there some nuances within the character lines or body of the car that are different? Yeah, I think largely, and you'll know this term, but the center of pressure has moved back, so there's more rear downforce in the car. And when you look at the, like, the rear quarter panels and the shelf that leads to the spoiler, that's a bit wider and has a bit more shaped to really direct the air and get it to attach to the spoiler.

Right. I mean, it sounds like that's something that's important to me. You were talking about him. So that's good, right, Jimmy? Is that what you're saying? That's all good. That's what we think. More down force.

More down force. That's right. Well, what's wild is we've always put downforce in cars at the expense of drag because we had eight, nine hundred horsepower engines that would pull it. Right. With the 550 package, it won't pull it. You know, and that's when we look at where we started the beginning of the year to even mid-season, the whole garage area was trying to figure out where to be.

And then where things netted out, we at Hendrick felt like the high downforce tracks where we'd run max side skirt height and have the rear end of the car up, we were very competitive to the competitors. But when you go to Michigan and those guys are dropping the back of the car, we didn't have the right arrow balance to really support that. So the word got out or some, you know, you've made it known that beyond this year you plan to continue to race. And you've spoken a little bit about running some IndyCar stuff. Are you in the middle of planning? any of those relationships and any of those, any of the racing that you want to do in the future, are you in the middle of really making concrete plans to do some of those things?

Or are these just sort of casual conversation at this point? Right now it's only been casual, and there's been a great reception, an IndyCar space and sports car racing here in MSA and even worldwide. So, you know, as the year goes on, I'll develop more of a plan and hopefully get a chance. chance to try some cars and see what I even think. You know, some of these cars I've never even driven in. So I want to try that first before I commit to something. So you want to go drive the car, test the car before you actually say, yeah.

Yeah, I think I should. That's not a bad idea. That's probably not a bad idea. Go on a first date, you know, hang out, get to know each other a little bit. See if there's going to be a second date. We've asked you on the show. You were on the show last year and you gave us a good answer. But what's in that list?

We heard road courses in Indy. Why road courses in Indy? You know, when I, you're a seven-time champion, one everywhere, but I didn't never look at you and think of you as a guy who just loved road course racing. But, you know, you do, you have ran the 24 hours. You've ran, you've ran road courses before outside of NASCAR. But I didn't think of you as a guy that would seek more of that. Sure.

You can't imagine anybody wanting to seek a road course anyway. Yeah. Well, two answers. One is funny. Do you know how fast those any cars going on Oval? Yeah, that's one. So no thanks. Perfect the answer.

The other part was when I drove that Formula One car two November's ago, I just couldn't believe what I was experiencing. So I don't know how competitive I would be in sports car racing or Indy car. I love a good challenge. So I'm willing to lay it on the line and put myself out there in a sense, kind of be vulnerable and say, hey, I want to try this no matter how I perform. but just the kid in me that likes driving a race car, that was cool. I mean, I literally hit the brakes and my vision went out, I blocked out.

To look at a corner and your eyes know what a NASCAR vehicle can shoot through a turn at. And they're like, oh, no, don't lift. Actually, grab two more gears and run that 40, 50 miles an hour faster than you think you can. And that was just fun. Wow. It was so much fun. What about off-road trucks, going back to your roots? I would, without a doubt.

I think, you know, I'm a planner in some respects, but I'm a lot. but I would say indie cars probably a shorter window of opportunity, sports cars is wider. I think my off-road experiences and options, I've got a lot of time to still look at that. So, desert, short course, I would look at both, and I would love to get back in those trucks. I want to drag you out there and get you off the ground, man. It is so fun to just send it and everything's okay. Yeah. As long as I'm driving.

Hey, as long as I'm driving, that's good because I got, I made a mistake of. getting in a truck with Robbie Gordon. We were at Phoenix for the race, and we qualifying was at lunch, and we had the whole... Why would you do that? We had the whole rest of the day to do nothing. And he's like, hey man, you want to ride with me? And I got this Baja truck. The one that he would run. What's that race overseas? Oh, the Paris de car trucks, which are thinking of. Oh, okay. He had that thing

out there, and he's like, I'm going to go ride a little bit. You want to go? And I'm like, man, if I say no, this is... He's going to think, I'm a wist, so I have to say yes. You know, drivers are. Yeah. And so I was like, sure, I'll ride with you, man, and terrified. So you get nauseous? No.

But we're flying. So we go drive off the road and just we're flying flat-footed. Feels like probably 120, 150 mile an hour across this flat, you know, gravel forever. And I'm like, he doesn't know what's next. He doesn't know there might be a ditch. There might be a hole. there might be, we can't see, like it's flat. Like, how do you know when there's a ditch?

And if we hit one, we're done, we're done. You know, and I could not wait until we pulled back on the highway and started heading back to the track. And I was like, whew, I was great, man. Appreciate it. I'm never doing this again. Never again. Never doing this again.

Yeah, I don't blame you. So if I was driving, I'd probably enjoy it. Way better situation. Yeah. Well, or you just don't go ride with Robbie Gordon. I know. There's two parts of that deal that are highly risky, riding and Robbie. I always thought, you know, and I know you do too, I always thought a lot of Robbie. I know I hated racing him on the racetrack.

I thought he was a complete idiot out there. But as a person and a friend and a dude to hang out with, tons of fun. He's a wheelman. Yeah. He can go. Yeah. He was just questionable in a stock car. I will say that.

Sure. Sure. You did. This is all coming back. You and Robbie had a couple of run-ins, didn't you? Yeah, we did. And you caught him a couple names in those interviews. We did.

But we would run. running into each other at the bar and sit down and drink beer and just talk. And when we go back to name calling what you called Todd Bodine, I still today hear that. Go ahead and tell us. Cube all-headed fools. That is so amazing. Cube all-headed fool.

Did you have that stored away somewhere or that just naturally came out? So the... Was it Phoenix? It was... It was... Colorado Springs track. Was that what it was? Pike's Peak's what I'm trying to...

Dad and Jeff Bodine were, you know, hated each other's guts in the mid-80s and wrecked each other. over and over. Dad would wreck Jeff Bodine. So this is dad, right? And you and him are similar in the fact that you go out and try to win every single race. You're trying to win championships, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, whatever takes. He bailed on that one day and wrecked Jeff Bodine knowing that they were going to penalize him. I'd never seen my dad do that. Get out of character in a sense. Totally bailed on like the goal. Gotcha. And was like, because I'm sitting there, it was at Sharmer Sweetway and I was in the suite

and I'm like, go, I want to go to Victor Lane, win, dad, be the best. And he decides that he's not going to do that. He's going to spend Jeff Budine out because he's mad at Jeff and they penalizing five laps and that was it. And so from that

period on anybody with the last name Bowdine was bad. Gotcha. And so Todd was guilty by association. Sure. And so I had that one ready to deliver. But what happened at Pike's What did he do to get... We had a top two car.

It was pretty much me and Matt Kenseth pretty much every weekend at the racetracks back then. But this particular race, there was about six of us. And I've watched this race again, probably about eight to ten months ago. Times one and two, if I remember, right? It was a lake yellow, and we all got to racing real hard,

and it was so fun back then. All the cars were pretty equal, and you could race really hard around each other and get real close to each other, but there was a pack of six of us, and I kind of got shuffled back a few spots, and that annoyed me because I felt like I should have been good enough to finish first or second. So I'm sitting there about a fifth with just a few laughs to go,

and I barreled off in the turn one with Todd on the inside of me, trying to clear him to get back to my progress and make up what I lost, and he got loose and doored me and spun me out. You had that thing in your back pocket, ready to go. I was so ready. This reminds me, when we first started talking about doing a podcast, Dale Jr. had the best idea for a segment, and that was where we call up drivers that he calls up drivers that had direct him back in 98 and see if they were ready to apologize to him yet.

That would be amazing. That would be amazing. And so it just not even give him a heads up or a warning. Like, you know, call him cold turkey. Yeah, that would be incredible. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you felt bad about that at all.

I'd have to, in turn, make calls. myself on behalf of the guys that I had wrecked, you know. That would be great content. It was. We ended up talking, we ended up doing a lot of segments. We did have some drivers on that we needed to squash some beasts with. That's right. We did talk about all the guys that I had wrecked, Kyle.

Yep. I wrecked Stanton Barrett once. One of the nicest guys out there. That's what makes him feel so bad about it. Staten Barrett's one of the nicest guys, and he took him out. A lot of bad things happened there. Yeah. Pikes feet.

Altitude, man. It gets everybody. Nobody's acting normal. I'm going to blame it on the altitude. Before we let you go, man, I want to talk about the race this weekend. You ran in the duels last night. You guys raced a little bit more than I expected. I know.

Was that kind of the – to be clear, I know all the teams set in the debrief, everybody sets and sort of makes this plan. This is what we're going to do. The manufacturers all want to work together. Teammates want to work together. but it really seemed like there was not as many concrete restrictions on what you could do, and you guys just could go out there and race. Rather than really take care of your car to get it into the, onto the grid for the 500,

you went out to go win. Everybody seemed to be racing more than I thought. I guess is that what you thought from behind the wheel. I did too, and I was trying to wonder if I missed a meeting or something, because I was in the second race, and I'm watching the first race. Those guys are having fun. Did I miss a meeting? Like, are we allowed to go do this now?

But I feel like there's a couple pieces to it. One, I think when you have stage points on the line, we all know how important those are. So there was a reason to race. And then most of the cars can really push hard. And you can see the other two manufacturers really pushing hard and creating that energy. And then I was really proud of Stenhouse trying to learn how much he could push and what he could do with his car. So I think they kind of set the tone. And then in race two, we're like, sweet, let's do this.

Where is it? Stand right now as far. So the front of the forward's pretty flat. Looks like they're pretty comfortable lining up, pushing about any car they want to. How do you feel about the nose on the new Chevy? Is it where you want it? Do you guys, can you improve it if you need to? How comfortable are you pushing people?

I think we can get up there and hit someone, but to sit on someone and push them for a long period of time, I'm not comfortable with that yet. So I feel like we're missing a little pushing. What I was bummed about in the clash is that I couldn't receive a push very well. My car was super loose. So with what we're allowed to change leading into the race last night after qualifying, we made some good progress on our car receiving a push. I think we still have a little bit more to go.

But if I can get up there and slam someone, I still feel like I can have that offensive opportunity, but we've got to get the rear a little bit more secure. I think those other manufacturers just have a little bit more time because last year in all the races we're at, they were getting in there pushing more often and they might be a couple steps ahead of us on set up absolutely man well we're wishing you the best of luck on sunday hope the rest your weekend goes well don't get don't don't don't let them that's the thing man that's the best piece of advice i can give you about this year and beyond is you don't have to say yes to everything you're going to feel like you're supposed to but you don't you can take a little time

of yourself where were you before this week started sorry or out this isn't the part where you have to worry about it's when you get to eddie gossage and then and then all that oh yeah all that that that's yeah be ready for those weird oddball gifts that you really don't have anything, any kind of comeback for. That's going to happen probably just at Texas. Just at Texas. But bring your photographer. Just in case. That's a place to bring one. And a horse trailer. You might be good. You might be good. Livestock. You just never know. Never know. That's right. I appreciate you. Thank you. Yeah, buddy. Thanks, sir. Thank you, buddy. Have a good weekend, buddy. All right, man. Is Ricky here? We've gotten our next guest.

Do we have any questions? Did anybody want to ask while we're waiting? he's got one awesome way to go buddy I like him already here we go hey there bud what's your name uh jojo how old are you

11 11 what's your question for dale um who do you think's gonna win the 500 you know man that's a tough one that's you know and the uh usually there's like a standout Joey looks really really good Joey's a Joey Lugano

he's a great plate racer willing to do whatever it takes throw the blocks anything he can do to keep the lead, maintain his lead. He also has the best spotter. And the spotter is real, real important at Daytona and Talladega. They're important everywhere, but they really earned their money at Dayton and Talladega trying to help Joey and any other driver understand what lines got the momentum,

what line can give them the push, what's happening around them to be able to make the choices they need to make to stay up front. Joey's got the best spotter, by far, the best spotter. So there's some other great. Tell us who it is. T.J. Major. Yeah. You know, I don't think T.

needs to know he's the best. That's right. I'm with you on that. T.J. incidentally, was my spotter as well, so I just know how good he is and how he helped me win some races out at Daytona and Talladega. So I like Joey. I think I can't say that there is a favorite. I put Joey's odds very good at winning this race. And, you know, there's several. Denny Hamlin, I think probably might be the best plate racer in the field. If he doesn't win, he'll be in the, picture with the winner that crosses the finish line. So he's always up front when it counts at the end of these races. This gentleman that's asking the question, I just saw a picture.

You've met Dale before. Tell us where you met Dale. It was when my dad did Hotel Silverado and then we came back from the concert and he was in here with a bunch of other people and they surprised us. Last year, right? Joey Miller. That's you. So Joey Miller is your dad? Yeah. All right. And so that's awesome to have you guys back. Where do y'all live? We're here. Oh, we're local.

We're locals, yeah. Good. All right. Well, you didn't have to go too far. Nice. All right. I'll ask a question. Dale, you did something pretty cool yesterday.

You want to talk about that? Down in Fort La? Oh, yeah, yeah. We were just trying to think. I did too. I was with you. Every day is really good. I opened up a new Whiskey River.

Yeah, so we have a, you know, we have a restaurant in downtown Charlotte called Whiskey River, and we, also have locations in the Charlotte Douglas Airport and in the Raleigh-Durham Airport, and we just opened one now in the Fort Lauderdale Airport. So very proud of that, very excited that the folks coming and going through that airport location will have someplace great to hang out and get some great food, drinks, charge up their, you know, tablets and phones and whatnot, and make those layovers a little more toleration. So excited about that. We're having great success with our location in Charlotte and in Raleigh and even the downtown location that's been around them more than a decade now is doing just just great. So I think it'll have a good success. We got a partner that we work with in all of those locations in the airports called HMS host and they're over 60% of the airports in the country

and so they're a great part. They know that they know the space. They know the customer and know how to give them a great experience. So real fear thrilled to be partnered with them on that. Has anybody in here been to a whiskey river? Just out a couple. All right. Oh, about everybody. All right. Oh. We had another question back here. Tell us about retiring from your driving career going up to the broadcast booth and how you're enjoying that. Broadcasting has been a, you know, really great way to stay connected to the sport. That's basically, you know, I love driving and I was a huge fan of NASCAR and still am today. And even as a driver, I was a fan of what I was watching and seeing around me.

And wanting to be around it, wanting to be part of it so much, knowing that I wasn't always going to be a driver, I just didn't know how I would remain connected. What would be the role that I could keep or do or what would allow me to stay a part of the sport. So the broadcasting has stepped in and filled that role for me really well. So it's thrilled to be able to have a purpose, to be, you know, have a reason to be at the races, have a purpose. Even a small, small role of the direction of the sport, the success and growth of our sport is real important to me. And I feel like I really can make a difference as a broadcaster. I grew up idolizing

Barney Hall Benny Parsons Ken Squireman was just incredible in the booth David Hobbs just really idolizing a lot of these guys I think more than normal more than most drivers

probably even think about broadcasters most drivers I assume maybe just think about what they're doing in the car and how to get to the checker flag and win races and their family and so but I always felt like that the broadcast plays this really significant role in how we look at the sport and how we perceive it. If I played you a race without any, if I played you any race without any audio from the broadcast booth and just allowed you to watch cars going around in a circle, all right, and let you determine yourself whether that race is good or bad. when you add the broadcast element, they can improve

or have a negative impact on your perception of that event. And so that's a major responsibility. And so if I can show you a race and make you feel like it was better than it actually was perceived, I mean, that's a great thing. And I feel like that that's the responsibility of the broadcast booth is to to really help you guys understand the action, make you help you enjoy the action, know exactly what you're looking at.

And I feel like, you know, there's some guys that really did a great job at that. If you look at, you know, John Madden, how much fun was he as a broadcaster in the booth for Monday night football? Just his excitement, energy. He really enjoyed and loved what he was watching, and he really enjoyed telling people about it.

And, you know, I really, you know, idolize a lot of people like that and want to, and I feel like that he made that, he made that game better, funer, more enjoyable to watch because of his commentary. And I feel like that I should hold that same sort of standard and responsibility on myself. And I'm so glad that I get a chance to do it. So just feel lucky. Yes, sir. What's your name? Rex.

Yes, sir. So out of all the cars that you've driven, out of all the race cars that you've, you've driven in any series. What's your favorite? Man, that's tough. Honestly, the Corvette in 2001 with my dad and Andy Pilgrim, Kelly Collins, Kelly Collins, sorry. That car did a lot of things really well.

Obviously, there's been so much progress in the last 20 years with the MSA program and the Corvette program that the car is even more incredible today, but I drove nothing at stock cars on a biisply and a radial tire, and they don't stop very well, they don't have a ton of grip, not a lot of down force. And when I got in that Corvette,

and I could literally feel the air pushing the car down into the ground. I could feel as I would accelerate around the banking of Daytona, the car get lower and lower as it accumulated more and more down force and dragged from the speed.

and the ability for that car, the ability that had to stop and turn, and then I got to race on rain tires in that car during the race itself. I'd never race in the rain. So to try to run offline and do all the things that you need to do to be productive while racing in the rain was a lot of fun. That was just a really great experience. We went to SeaBring to test for the first time. I destroyed the car and thought that I had to be.

I had backed the car into a bridge abutment. There's a bridge, I think it's a pedestrian bridge, in the first sort of series of corners at Sea Bring. I spun the car out and backed into that bridge, and I thought that I had destroyed this, this, you know, $500,000 car. I don't know how much it cost, but it looked amazing. And it would drive and run,

so they brought it back around to the truck, and I'm sitting there, my dad's there. he hasn't even had a chance to get in the car yet. And I just felt tiny. And I knew that I was going to get an earful from dad. And they bring these big giant pieces of bags, big giant black sort of rubber bags out of this hauler. It's huge. And they started zipping these bags, and it's big, huge pieces of the car.

And they bolt the car back together in 15 minutes. They clipped it all back together. So I hadn't done any real damage to the suspension or anything real critical, and they put the body back on the car basically in literally 15 minutes. And the guys that are the mechanics and owners for that team looked at me and said, you ready? Get back in? I was like, I can't believe, number one, you want me to get back in right away,

but much less the rest of the day, like you want to have to try it a little bit. What if I go destroy it again? They were like, here it is. go you know you figure it out and uh keep on we got more parts so uh what did your dad say well i go out there and i ran and ran and i came off the track and the guy come the guys are standing there and he's like you ran fast enough to qualify third for this race last year man it's a really good laps i'm proud i'm happy i'm excited and uh dad's dad goes out there and runs and he's slower Well, I mean, if he was, he was.

If I don't answer the question. That's right. Be honest. They're going to ask it. He gets out and I'm like, man, I did a good lap. He's like, that ain't important. We're here to learn tests. It's not, nobody, you know, this doesn't pay anything.

I was like, well, all right. He's like, you need to calm down before you crash again. I was like, I'm pretty comfortable with the speeds I'm running. You need to go faster. And he goes, they put, he's, he's like, so if, if you know, if you know, anything about motor sports, if you're going to race their driver test from 8 to 5 o'clock, the best time in the day for the car is about 5 o'clock in afternoon. That's like peak grip, peak speed.

And so dad waits to the end of the day and puts on a brand new stead of sticker tires, and he's going to go out there and beat my lap, and he wrecked the car. He did? He wrecked it? He drove it in nose first in the final corner. Wow. So I never got my butt chewing because he had. ended up doing the same thing I did you did you do not you just said I just told him I said

man if you need to know how to get around that corner I can help you well Ricky I'd have been on time I'd I'd have caught the whole story yeah yeah Rick Stenhouse is here Ricky Stenhouse has joined us everybody give him a round of applause coming by here poll set our poll sitter in a Chevrolet that's right yeah that sounds good man that got me the invite to the show that's right yeah you got it so what is it like driving a Chevrolet so far so good The guys brought a really fast car down here. They worked all off-season on it. Obviously, a few of us that switched over there have a little chip on her shoulder,

something to prove, and I feel like they've done that so far. And it drove really good in the draft. It was good. We only had a few of us Chevy cars out there, and I felt like Chase and I worked really well together. I talked to him a little bit after he still says he feels like he needs to get his driving a little bit better. I felt like mine drove good. I was a little nervous with how much speed we hadn't qualified

that, you know, going into the race, like, how's this thing going to drive? Because it did feel a little bit looser of a race car than what I was used to on the speedways. But I felt like last night I could, you know, kind of maneuver wherever I needed to. You raced last night, too. I mean, nobody did what you were going to do,

but, man, you stuck it in there. Yeah, I like to race. It's so hard to, you know, you want to go do well for, you know, your new partners, your new team. You want to show what you got, run up front, and I felt like we showed kind of everybody in the field that, you know, we have a car that's capable of doing what we need to do. We can lead lines. We can push.

I can get push. And I felt comfortable in all those situations. That's so smart, man, because if you go out there and set on the pole, you had this concern about your car and whether it was going to be comfortable in the pack. Everyone else in the field has that same concern or assumption about your car unless you go out there and prove otherwise. I always felt like that it was so important to be aggressive and improve. practice in the qualifying races because I wanted everybody to know like this is a great car. Yeah. And if he pulls out of line, I might want to get behind it.

And by the way, the whole time I race with Junior, if he was behind you and he pulled out, they always went with him. You know what? Just so you know. Everybody says that. And I was because of all the hard work I put in in practice. Okay. Makes sense.

Is that why Ricky? Is that why? Yeah. He's the hardest worker. Everybody knew that, right? I was actually late because I was going over the race. We were watching SMT, me and Ryan Priest. Just, you know, this is, he's still fairly new to the Cupside on drafting and, you know, making moves.

And we were kind of looking at everything. And I think the 11 hung him out. And I was like, yeah, back in the day when Junior was buying it, you had to watch that every time. He'd hang you out? Well, yeah, he wanted to get to the front. I got to go. Hey, hey, you know what? This all reminds me now.

Now, I wasn't in a Chevrolet when he hung me out. But that's okay, because let me tell you something. You know who complained most about him hanging out? was his teammates. Jeff Gordon, get Jeff Gordon going on Del Jr. Well, they would have the highest expectations as anyone out there, so of course they're going to complain the most. Some of the most entertaining radio chatter ever is Talladega.

Just turn it on to Jeff Gordon's channel when Dale Jr.'s out there and just let it ride. He would complain about at least something I did every single life. Yeah. But if he'd let you lead, then it would be fun. Yeah, that's right. I like to lead. I know. I feel like if I always, people come to me, younger drivers come to me,

and asked me about drafting. And I always tell them, like, the mentality that worked for me, and I didn't use it every time, was trying to lead every lap. You can't realistically lead every lap. But if you're always trying to lead every lap, then I think you're safer on the offense than you are if you're on the defense. Any time I ever tried to be defensive, careful, protect, I always ended up getting crashed.

Oh, yeah. I agree 100%. I think, you know, people are like, oh, are you aggressive? I'm like, I'm aggressive because I want to keep my track position because I want to stay in the front. Even though, like, lately, the crashes have started like second and third road. Normally, you know, it used to back in the day, it would start right in the middle of the pact. And now it's, you know, we're blocking, we're doing this, we're doing that. And it seems like, you know, the chaos happens, you know, two or three roads back from the leader.

But if you're leading, you're way safer. Yeah. You didn't change teams, but you're able to stay with your crew chief, Brian Patty. You talked about some other guys even coming over from the team as well. Not uncommon for a crew chief to change from one team to another and hire some of those guys or bring some of those guys that he trusts. That's got to help you, I think, in this big change, it's a huge change for you as a driver to move organizations.

But it's got to give you some comfort seeing some familiar faces when you pull into the garage. Yeah, to me, the biggest thing was just this off-season. You know, I was out dirt racing. You know, I was in the shop when I wasn't dirt racing. I mean, anytime I was home, I'd go the shop. hang out with the guys and just get to know all the new people but it was really nice like you know us drivers i can walk around the shop and i'm that looks nice i mean it looks like we got really good craftsmanship i like the interior of these cars they look nice

seems like they got all the parts and pieces but to have that reassurance from brian patty who's working in the the shop every single day and's like man we got the we got the parts we got the resources we got the people we can run well here and do good things and looking at the jump that JTG Dordy Racing made from, you know, 2018 to 2019, they built their own chassis, built their own bodies. I think that was a step in the right direction. And now knowing that Brian Patty feels like, hey, we got the stuff that we need to run well, you know, brings a lot of confidence with me. I got to ask you.

And so I had never. I know, I've heard the name Stenhouse in racing, but I'd never really, you, you for me, came out of thin air, popped on the map and became a Xfinity Series champion driving for Roush. What was your career, how did you get there? What was your career like? Well, I mean, so my dad raised sprint cars. He worked for a company called Racing Head Service back in the day, and that's kind of how he got into racing. He didn't start racing until he was like 22. Oh.

And then, I mean, I was born, and my mom took me to a racetrack. I was six weeks old. And so I'd been going to the racetrack ever since. And race BMX, road dirt bikes with my dad, and then ended up racing go-carts when I was six years old. And so I did that until I was 15. My dad was still racing sprint cars. He was building engines.

And we had a test day at a racetrack when I was 15. I went and made 10 laps. And then dad said, I'm done. He hadn't got back in a race car since. Wow. And so I ran the next week. And then I ran, that was 2003, 2006. We had a really good year running sprint cars throughout like Ohio through the Midwest. In 2007, February, you know, dad kind of told me, hey, this is going to be like your college. I'm going to give you like three, four years to race. I'm going to help race. You know, build engines. We had great people that, you know, family friends that helped us as well.

And he said, I'm going to give you four years, and that'll be your college, and then we'll figure out what to do after that. I thought of course colleges. Yeah, so 2007, beginning of that year, dad's like, I'm not sure how much we're going to race. And I was running the Silver Crown car. I was working at a shop in Memphis. Carl Edwards had a little bit to do with this Silver Crown team, and they were going to Manzanita Speedway. We were going to race the copper on dirt, and USAC had midgets, sprint cars, Silver Crown there. Well, I talked my dad into letting me take the sprint car. I'd only ran

non-wing one other time in sprint cars. And we go out there, won the sprint car race, won the Silver Crown race. Tony had his cars there. Casey had his cars there. And a month later, one of Tony's drivers got hurt, and they called me, hey, do you want to come drive for Tony? I was like, heck yeah. So that's when I started driving for Tony. That was kind of my first stint with Chevrolet. That weekend, though, was your big weekend. That weekend was it. That was all the big dogs for there. I can't remember the exact date, but it was in, it was 2007 in February. I ran that next season with Tony in October of that year. I signed with Jack and raced here at Daytona in February of 2008 running Arka.

It was like, it was like just one thing happened after another. So that explains why you did. There was no chance for an introduction until he got here. That's right. It was that quick. It was crazy. We tested Lakeland, Florida. We tested somewhere else.

And then we went to Kentucky, my third test in a stock car. I was like, dang, this is crazy. Lakeland, Florida is tough. Yeah. And then I, but I was comfortable because I'd ran a Silver Crown race there before. So I was like, all right, I know this track. And that year that I ran for Tony in 2007, it was really a first time I started racing asphalt, too. And so that was kind of a big adjustment.

What about Lakeland, Florida? I've never heard of that track. Well, it's gone now, but just wore out slick. Yeah. It's a small place for a stock car. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's what happened.

And then we ran ARCA 2008, only ran seven nationwide races in 2009, and then full-time 2010, 11, and 12. And when we were on, we won rookie of the year in 2010. We were at the banquet, and we were sitting in the crowd. And Mike Kelly was my crew chief, who is now at JTG, Dordy were with me. We were down there and we're like, we're going to sit up there on the stage next year. Like, that was our goal. And we knew that we were going to the new style cars.

and all the new style races, we ran three or four. You won here at Daytona in the new style car. I think we ran third. And like we were always fast with that style of car in those four races that we ran that year. And so we felt like we had a good chance to win the championship, and we did. So we hear about Christopher Bell

and Kyle Arson running dirt. You still race dirt. You have your own team. Talk to me about that. Tell me, pretend like I know. nothing about it tell me about your team where your team runs when you drive why do you drive give me all the background all the background well so up and through 2012 I ran probably 25 30 sprint car races a year you know between midget and sprint cars and then 2013

jack was like hey you're running cup let's not do any of that so I didn't run it for 13 14 15 and 16 I was like jack those few years are up I'm going to race for cars. So I started dabbling back into sprint cars. I still ran midgets in the offseason and starting to try and get my schedule built up a little bit more to run to run more races. But our team's based out of Brownsburg, Indiana, kind of more centrally located. You know, our guys, we race 90 races a year is on the schedule. Sprint car guys do schedules. You'll never complain about your life. Yeah. I mean, they're up and down the road. And I really like the shop to be based in Charlotte

so I could go to it, work on the cars, hang out with the guys. But realistically, it doesn't make sense. They're gone. Sometimes I think Casey's guys are gone two or three months at a time. And if I got the shop in Brownsburg, they're able to kind of get through there. But, you know, the sprint cars, I grew up racing them. I felt like that's kind of what helped me learn how to how to race and, you know, maneuver a car around, change lines. You know, the track's always changing. And they're just really fun to watch. And so they weigh 1,400 pounds with the driver, have close to 900 horsepower. And it's just a, it, sometimes you feel like you're holding up. on.

Oh, wow, yeah. I mean, that's what it looks like. I got great partners with Noss Energy Drink that have tied into the cup side, tied into my career, and then also help me on the dirt side. And they do a lot in dirt racing across all series. And it's just a fun thing to do. It gives me something to do on the weekends at night.

I mean, Larson and I'll get together and watch our sprint car teams race across the country every night online and it gives us something to do. How many races will you run a year? I think this year, I ran six races this off season. Throughout the season, I'll probably run 10 to 12. First off weekend, I got a double-header, USAC midget race back at my home track, so I'm going to go do that. Nice. You know, that's the thing about these guys.

I've learned. Because how many years did you go without running sprint cars? Three. So it's like these sprint cars guys. If you take sprint car racing out of a sprint car guy's schedule, it's like you've amputated them. Yeah. You know?

Yeah, it felt like that. The next time they have a contract negotiation, you better bet they are going to make sure that's in it, right? Yeah, so like Jack was always good at letting me just kind of do what I wanted. But then, you know, he wanted to focus on Cup. And so I did that for a year. And then Tony got hurt. Leffler, you know, had his crash.

My buddy Brian had his crash. and then it just kind of delayed everything a little bit longer for me. But all in all, I mean, you can't take sprint car racing away from somebody that's a sprint car race. I mean, we love it. It's who we are. It's kind of what got us here. And we want to give back. I mean, Sheldon Haudenshild that runs our car.

He's 24 years old. His dad raced. It was a legend in World of Outlaw sprint car racing. And it's cool to be able to give an opportunity back to somebody else. Yeah, that's definitely a recognizable last name. All right, buddy. we appreciate you coming out here giving some of your time. I know that you've got a

busy week and we really, really thank you for being here. Everybody, give him around on my pool. Thank you, Ricky. Our poll sitter. He'll be the show on Sunday. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. We're going to put on a show. That's right. Hold on. Throw a mic back on. This sounds like something we're going to want to hear.

Oh, Jesus. A dog ate your tickets? Yeah, yeah. We've got to hear this. Yeah, so So I got some tickets for a friend of mine. He's got a bachelor party. They're coming down here. And I sent, I got back from our safety debrief this morning and walked into the bus and paper is everywhere. And I look and it's my Daytona 500 tickets for my friends.

So I sent Chip a text. I was like, what do I do now? And so he's fixing it for all. Well, that's no better time to bring in Chip Wilde president of Daytona International. man you give me them tickets my dog ate them I do not believe that story but it's true

I want to hear how Like the dog ate my homework So Chip Chip Chipp Wow's here Can you hear us all right? Yeah you sound great When you get a text like that I mean as Speedweek's approaches

I can imagine that you get All kinds of requests and crazy people And I can't even promise that we aren't part of that No you're good But when you get a text and said, hey, those tickets you gave me, a dog ate them. What do you think? You typically don't answer. They can't be trusted with it.

That's right. No, we try to fix it. You guys are our guests. When we come to our racetrack, we want to make sure that we treat you the right way. He's got buddies that are in town, so we'll take care of him. I heard yesterday or last night you went up to the spotter stand and fed all the spotters dinner. Yeah. Oh, gosh.

My God. You really have to do that? Those guys got it pretty good. They do have it very good. But me and Phelps are talking about things we could do to make it feel different. And so him and I got dinner delivered up there and had ice cream. We just sent them like the sandwiches. Some both jangles or what?

Just some ham sandwiches. Damn, man, you're going to go through all that and just give them a hands sandwich? Now I'm kind of disappointed. We had ice cream for them. I brought a freezer full of ice cream. I think that's what they were the most excited about. You're talking about the single most entitled group of people at this speedway you're feeding them yeah I mean they had to stand up on the roof it was it was

cold yes you're right oh it's too hot it's too old it's always something never perfect it's never something it's a never right so tell us about the Daytona 500 you got some great news a lot of lot of great things to tell us about that yeah so sold out yesterday I didn't know if you could tell I didn't know when you were going to give that news out you when you decide all right you know it's sold out when you decide to tell people it's really when we sell all the tickets well that's not I know but It seems like in the past, okay, so to clarify, you've told me in the past, hey, it's sold out, but don't tell anybody.

Why don't you tell everybody? Well, no, I say, Dale, it's sold out. Do you mind telling everybody? No, you know, listen, we've actually seen a renewed interest this year. So we have sold out the last five years. Typically, it happens on Friday night or Saturday. But we were turning this week. We actually stopped selling tickets on Thursday morning.

Wow. So that's great news for us. that means that people are paying attention. Do you think you're the president or a promoter? Now, your title says president. Yeah. But do you look at yourself as a promoter? Because we were talking about this.

You're looking away and discussed. No, no. I was looking. Why, David? Well, because we were introducing who was going to be coming on. And he goes, and we're going to have promoter Chip Wild. And I'm like, or actually, this is what he did. He goes, promoter Chip Wild.

What does that mean? Exactly. Well, you're really the president. You're really interesting. Or they call it. president. We're all promoters, right? I mean, everybody's a promoter. That's our job. We got to promote, we got to promote the events. We got to sell tickets. So we had Humpy Wheeler on the show for the first show this year, and he talked about how they sold in the 70s. They would sell most of the

tickets for the World 600 like the weekend of the race. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah, like he was the week, the last week, he better make some massive announcement like Janet Guthrie's going to race or the A.J. Ford or Indy 500 or somebody's going to come through and run the double or whatever. He had to have some significant set of circumstances to sell the majority of the tickets.

So give us an idea, I guess, of when you're selling most of your tickets. Is it right after the finish of the Daytona 500 this year? You're going to sell that next year's tickets? When will those tickets mostly be sold? It really depends on the event. So for the Daytona 500,

we renew about half of the tickets. So that happens in, you know, March, April, May. And then from really middle of June is when we go on public on sale, from there through, I would call it middle of November, you know, you sell about another 15 to 20 percent, and then you sell the last 30 percent in the last 60 days, 50 to 60 days. Yeah, that's pretty nerve-wracking. Yeah, it is.

You don't sleep at all. I haven't slept since November 15th. They only feel, do I look like that? All right, not only do you have that going on for just this event. How many events does this racetrack hold? Not only, because we don't just have races here. No, so really since the middle of December, we've had a professional triathlon. We've had the W.

Yeah, pretty crazy. They swim in the Lake Lloyd. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. And then we had the World Carting Association. They had a national event here. We had about 15 to 20,000 people from December 26th through the 30th. They rolled out on the 3rd.

30th on the 31st, the MSA rolled in. We had the roar before the Rolex 24 with every race car driver that's racing in that event. They were there the first weekend in January. Then we flipped the property and had cars on track the next weekend for a rental. And then the next weekend they were back racing for the Rolex. We then had 11 days to flip the property before Speedweek started. Hey, how big is the staff? We have 123 full-time people.

Yeah, that's a lot of people. And then on Sunday night, when we're handing out the Harley J.R.R. Trophy. That's actually the real trophy. That's the real one. That is. That's awesome. Are there like replicas all over the place? So when Joey Chitwood got here, we stopped making replicas. We only make two a year. So two trophies. And it's an, it's an art. Driver and owner. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. So on Sunday, when we're handing out that trophy, my team will be out on the ball field pulling up all the sprinkler heads because Monday morning we clear the ball field and start bringing.

and then dirt to build the Supercross track. That sounds fun. Supercross is fun. The race in the event itself is fun, but is it kind of weird to start destroying your infield? That grass costs so much money to maintain for three months. And then within 20 minutes, a bulldozer kills it. We have a guy on our team, his name is Jason Griffith. We got him from the Boston Red Sox.

He's our groundskeeper, and that is his baby. And the other night or last night when Daniel Suarez dug up half the, half the, But the end field? Y'all can't come in there and just kind of swipe it off and sell it for sod or? Oh, no. Oh, no. He doesn't sell it. You're just going to come plow that right up.

Plow it up. Well, it's, it's ryegrass, so it dies. So, I mean, all that's, it's not painted. It's two different colors of ryegrass. Really? And he hands seeds all of it. That's so weird. So November 15th, he actually lays it all out and he hands seeds the entire field.

But that's a good idea. You could cut the sod up and sell it. It's right. It's going to die. It seems like there's some money. You think to be saved or made. Yeah, I know. We've been real thrifty in retirement.

I know. He's looking for his next business. I'll sell it to you right now. I don't want to buy. I'm trying to help you save a little money. Thank you. You're always. I got to ask.

Of all your anxiety that comes through speed weeks, are you a little concerned about the flag wave or no? You're good on that. That is my biggest point of anxiety. Is there like some way that it's tethered to me? I'm thinking that like if we have a glove

that like we stick it in and then you hold it? Can I just have duct tape that I can wrap around? You're formed. It looks like you've been working them out. No. No, I mean like you've been waving practice. It's all natural. Don't let it.

No, I'm excited you're going to do this. I can't wait to like see your reaction when those cars come by the first. Have you ever been up on a flexing? I was wondering. So they're going to be coming by not at full speed the first time, obviously, is they're accelerating to get the green. But I was wondering if I was able to stay there for the next. You can say as long as you want.

Really? Yes. You mean that. As long as you want to stay. I don't think he's, I don't think that's true. I know he would know before I would, but I'm saying is at some point you wear out your welcome with the actual NASCAR officials. That's how good. Not if I'm dressed like them.

Oh. Yes. Like. What if I'm wearing a helmet too? How do they know who's who? There's like two of them up there. I could be impersonating the other guy and be like, when's this guy going to leave? And it's a first guy.

race the season they don't know it's the new guy it's the new guy all right you wave the green flag we'll see no no yeah you need to step because you don't realize that flag stand actually is it's pretty far over the racetrack and and it's banked so when you're looking at it you're like that's not that bad you get up there and you're like oh oh oh i'm gonna i don't like it's banked it is it leans down it is uncomfortable oh wow you'll be fine nothing could go wrong nothing could go wrong yeah but i do think he has in mind I mean, because you just can't do. Let's not build it up. No, no, we're building it.

It's not building it. Let's not build it up. It's a big role. So we got to figure out what you're doing next year. I already got your job. What is it? I was feeling like this could be the end of the line. I got to sell you on this a little bit, but this is not the end of the line.

Next year, you're just going to be the president. Of the track. Like for like 60 days. No. Wait, wait, wait, wait. That's a great. It feels like you're not telling us something. Yeah.

So when you need the last 30% of the tickets sold, that's when you won't get you up in there. And when Ricky texts you that his dog ate the tickets. I got to handle that. Yeah, and parking passes. Everybody wants a parking pass. It's all things. You'll learn. It's great.

No, this is not the end of the road. We got some other things for you to do. Can you give us an idea? No, we got to think about it. Like, we got to talk about it. Okay. You really big. I know what this is like.

It's like, I got this idea, but Dale, No way is he going to agree to it in the way I've got it teed up in my head, so I've got to work on it. I thought the president was a good one. I could be there for a couple days. Yeah, like the whole week. Like, it would be so fun. My wife is not going to like that idea. What if we got a nice beach house for y'all to stay in?

Then she would like that idea. There you go. He's a good idea. He could be president. Nah, man, sounds like a lot of fun. I got to ask you, you know, what? I guess the last thing. I want to know is when the race begins, all right?

What is your role from that moment on? I mean, obviously, I'm up in race control with NASCAR, or we have a group up there that, you know, in the event that they need fence repair, they need stuff like that. You're still like on the button. You're ready to rock. Yes, sir. Yeah. So you don't get to actually sit back and.

Yeah, I wish, man. That would be awesome. I'm thinking this president. Yeah, yeah. Well, you could. Like, if you were, you could do whatever you want. You're the president. You make new rules.

I'm going to be like, I get to watch the race. I'm going to the suite with a beer. No, so Clay Campbell is, he comes down and helps in race control. But like last night with the rain, Steve O'Donnell called today, come up. We just need to make some decisions. We run around. I go try to spend a lot of time in the stands talking to fans, just trying to understand what they're doing. and what they want.

I call about between 10 and 15 race fans every week. So we get our customers. You know what you're missing? You know what the hell you need to do with all this? This is reality TV. Like you need to build a TV show around your last 60 days before the Daytona 500. It would have to be like, it would be like NC17 because there's a lot of customers. Yeah, yeah.

All the things. It would be... The dog ate the tickets. That's an episode. That's an entire episode right there. I'm telling you that there's a hundred stories like that. Right. Exactly.

Yeah. For no other reason that if he's actually talking to 10 or 15 fans a week, can you imagine what they say to him? I mean, if there's an opportunity to talk to the president. I know. eight six number if you're my own tickets you don't want it to be a sales call so when i call and say my name's chip while i work at the racetrack uh i just want to thank you for the business they think it's a joke they're like what and they don't some of them don't know how to react and like listen you're the reason we have the opportunity to work here yeah is because of you and so we want to make sure that we're doing our job and listening to you is there anything that we can do and we learn a lot of stuff sometimes it's a five-minute call sometimes they don't tell you stories for 30 minutes and that's fine

i love that what's the pre-race show this week so we got darius rucker doing the pre yeah yeah he and you know he's good buddies with uh jimmy everybody he's he's really good buddies with everybody is he good buddies is he good dude i think pretty much most of people in the garage are power but he's yeah yeah i so darius is playing that's a pretty big deal yeah so and it made literally he answered the question in two days it's hard it's hard to get talent because this time of year as you know everybody's taking a little bit of time yeah and we sent the offer and it was signed in two days so he's excited about being here he's a big nascar fan Yes.

And then, you know, we'll have a bunch of celebrities here. I guess Seamus, he's a, he's a wrestler. He's driving the pace car. He's no Dale Jr. You know what you need? What's that? You need a guy that jumps a school bus into a pile of old cars. You remember Jimmy the Flying Greek?

Yes. Yes. You've got to bring back some stunts. Well, I know you had. What about my grass, man? Jumping motors. I know if you had the motorcycle guys, my synergy, whatever's. You can't care about your grass if you bring in Jimmy to fly.

that that's it right yeah we well it's going to be tore up anyways you might well have jimmy start the process yeah just go ahead and get going to be the flying Greek if not the real one right did you see Bubba Wallace jumped out of an airplane yesterday why didn't you do that they wanted me to do it why oh we could have it you can introduce him in the driver's introductions that and then he just land remember there's like you should have the all the drivers jumping out of planes next year when you're parachuting in yes bubble wall is starting 18

it's easy for you to say that now that you don't have to do that me just take that he doesn't know this but we actually did have a sponsor that one time had that idea they were the title sponsor the race but they were also a PSA partner of ours and they thought that him skydiving was a good idea to

deliver himself to the car I do that every day right right right now it's his idea yeah well like I said it's a lot easier The challenge is we'll have like 30,000 people out there. So if he misses it, he's going to run into it. It's not a good way. We've seen that, by the way.

I mean, I remember that Rockingham that year. Yes, we were talking about that last week. Y'all remember the, a couple years ago, the guy got hung up on the fence. In Richmond. Yes. The bitch is standing there and holding around. I mean, y'all were laughing. It was something funny event, right?

It was funny when it's not your race. He was, once we realized that he was unhurted. I got you. Then we laughed. Yeah. Are you okay? Okay. All right.

Let's laugh. All right, man. I appreciate you coming on, Chip. You're one of the best promoters. Well, you are. Thanks for calling me, promoters. I appreciate you coming on, man. You're going to like this.

It's a great weekend. It's an old Bill Davis racing guy. Yeah. On the download in the next month, we've got both Mike Skinner and Ward Burton coming on to our Dale Jr. Download. So you get ready for that. Oh, my. Oh, my God.

He used to be the PR guy for all these guys. Exactly. All right. Well, no, in fairness, we'll be calling you for questions. Oh, I have so many, I have so many things to talk to you guys about. We need them to leave and turn that off. All right. Enjoy your week.

Thank you. We will. See, pal. All right. There's Tim. There we come. So we got one more special treat here on this bonus episode of the Delgian Download. We've got Tim Dugger.

Tim Dugger, everybody. Tim Dugger. Tim is a, Tim's cut. Music artist from Nashville, great friend of mine. Tim's got a new album out. Tell us the name of the record. It's called Signs of Good Time. We have been releasing a single over the past two months.

We just had one come out last night, kind of building up for the release in April. Pretty excited about it. I haven't had music out in five years. I've kind of taken the last five years to play a lot of races and write a lot of songs and kind of figure out what I wanted to say and grow up a little bit, drink a little bit more. figure things out. We have been drinking. So you talk about it.

You've been playing the racetracks, and I see you quite often throughout the race schedule. Could you even name all the racetracks that you've played over the last several years? I bet you I've played 100 races in the past couple years. Yeah. From sprint car races to, you know, more NASCAR than anything. But it's funny, I started playing so many NASCAR races, and then the dirt guys kind of started.

started calling so I've gotten to do the Knoxville National was the last two years and I actually got my introduced to the owner of my record label by playing the fans on here in Daytona in 2011 yeah so it's uh that's how you met your the owner of your record label I did in the infield of a NASCAR race track there was a truck race going on and I'd played the fan zone and Mike Dillon called me he's like there's a there's a Curb records down here. You need to get down here. I took off running from the bus and made it down here and shook hands, gave him a CD. And probably two months later, I was in Nashville having a meeting. Signed to Curb Records.

So you got a new record coming out. And we're as friends of yours, we're all super excited about it. We know you've been working really hard on this. What does that process mean for you going forward? you just release a second single off of the record today called Circles, and you played that song for me a while back, and it's funny because he plays a song, and he's like, for you listen to this,

I just want you to know, I wrote this, just kind of goofing off, right? He thinks every song is supposed to be super serious and it's supposed to hit you right in the heart. But this was just kind of a fun song to have a good time with, drink beer with. It ends up being one of my favorite songs that he ever wrote, and you've had the,

this song or set on this song for over a year. Yeah, it's probably been longer than that, really. When I wrote it, I was afraid to let anybody hear it. I was like, I don't know, this might be the end. I was like, I just wrote a song. I just wrote a song about a shape. So, yeah, it's, but the guy I wrote it with Jim Beaver's, wrote Red Solo Cup, wrote a lot of, 5-1-5-0,

a lot of kind of funny songs. and I grew up a big, like, the only way I could learn something in school was putting it in a song. So, I mean, I still know all the schoolhouse rock and all that, you know, little songs that goes along with that. And so I want to make an adult version of that that I didn't want anybody to ever hear. But Dale, like, was all the time when you were going to release that song. I don't think ever. And today, here it is. I just want you to hear something here.

And I don't typically do this. But Dale and I are texting today, okay? Listen to this. We're texting about, you know, the show. And, you know, we're doing it. We want to do good for Chevrolet, you know, get a little pressure and all the stuff. And it's like, I'm trying to meet with him. And he goes, we'll meet at noon or whatever.

And I said, sounds great. He goes, you know what sounds great? Tim's new song, circles. Take a listen. And then I'm like, yeah, is that the song with Earnhardt in it? I love that song. He's like, it's not. It's a new song.

song, damn it, hence the word, new in my first text. It's just released today, Mike. And I said, this is a great time to talk about this. And then he adds, friends don't text friends, old songs, and pass them off as new ones. This was right before we got here. That's awesome. But that's how much Dale likes this new song, Circles. And it is new.

And I tell you, now, Dale has, I've sent stuff that I was really excited about, Dale's like kind of into all kind of music and I like his bluntness but sometimes I don't like it when I'm like man this and this is going to make you cry and he's like I don't like it I don't get it and I was like and then I'm like I'll write one I'm I don't even want to send this to him because I don't need the negativity in my life and yeah when he he likes one especially you know when you I grew up a race fan and still still a big race fan and when you get you know a thund song like the first song that came out you know I still miss her and heart and all these things that I'm into and I like and I care about and to get you know Dale liking it and you

were able to be there in Nashville when we played it for the label and had a little event it's really cool and I appreciate it yeah I can't I can't be anything but honest when it comes to music it's been a big part of my life and I've had a lot of friends that I've met that are musicians and some of them we're not friends anymore because they don't like my honesty. But I mean, I don't want to be that friend that's like, everything's good. I love everything you do, man. You know, I want to, if you're sending it to me, you're sending it to me for real honesty. And I'm not a musician, and you know how to read between the, you know, the criticism. We'll go back and forth on songs. We will. Sometimes I'll be like,

no, man, it's sounds like something that would have been played in Hollister back in high school. I know. I'll send him some music and he'll be like, I don't like that. That's terrible. Every down then, though, I'm like, I can get on that. I'm kind of in my little country box, but I get out outside of it every now now. Man, this new record has so much great content on it. I know you're excited about getting the entire record out there to the public. What is part of that process? I know you're active on social media.

You have a plan. Your record label has a plan on how this is released in a timely manner, and eventually the entire record will be available. But what will you do? boots on the ground over the next year, two years to get this record out there to the public. Well, you know, it's a long process. I get tweeted or, you know, messaged online, like, when are you releasing music over the last couple of years?

And I actually don't have that say so. But I also knew I didn't want to, you know, this music's kind of the first stuff I've ever had that I'm like, I'll own this. This is me. This is, I feel, you know, I had kind of more hands on. When I first got signed, I was kind of threw in there and hey, this songs you're going to do and this is who you're going to work with. And over the last couple of years, I'm like, I'm going to write. I'm going to work with who I want to work with.

And at least at the end of the day, I can go, well, this music's me. And that's kind of what you want. But I got a lot of great things going on right now. Just some announcements over the next couple weeks working with an agency. I've never worked with. I actually book myself 99% of the time, me. And sometimes when somebody calls, I will give them another email and I'll change my voice or something.

I'm like, yeah, this is Tim Dugger's agent. Yeah. So, yeah, I've been really, really having to hustle over the last couple of years because when you don't have, I mean, a singer needs a song. And when you haven't had music out and you're trying to go out and play shows. And, you know, that's why the race. has helped me so much because it's been a really cool cool way how it's developed and how many racetracks I get to play and you know we got Bristol coming up here in a couple

weeks a couple months and I got a couple more NASCAR shows that's going to be announced soon but as for the record we're really you know kind of building it slowly not trying to go guns ablaze and just you know get people a lot of people doesn't don't know my music because it's, you know, I haven't had any music out and really kind of want to get them to know who I am. So we got a lot of content coming out. And I want to be honest with my music. That's why, you know, I'm not that serious sometimes.

So that's why circles kind of made sense to, you know, after the real serious, look at me, I love mama. Here's a song about a shape. Which probably was the one that made him cry. Man, I'm telling you, when you talk about rectangles, I really felt that. That's hitting it right here in the fields. Well, man, I'm real excited for you.

Thanks for coming on the show to talk about your music. And I know this record is going to be great for you and great for a lot of music fans over the next several years. And at least in the next several months, we're getting a lot of great music coming out from you. And it's exciting times. I'm a little nervous because it's probably going to mean you're going to get busy. We're going to be hanging out less.

But I'm proud of you and excited for your year, man. Thanks for the support. I watch y'all. I record it. We text about your, you know, the podcast and everything. So glad to finally be on here. Absolutely. I enjoyed it.

Thank you. All right, buddy. Thank you. And thank you, everybody. We're going to wrap that. Listen, we're going to end with Tim Dugger and appreciate Chevrolet for hosting us again. I know we're going to say this a bunch, but Jim Campbell and the whole team has been just been fantastic. And you guys that came and joined us, listen, we're not real good and we're not polished,

but this is what we do every week on the Dell Jr. or download. So check us out. If you haven't already, Dirty Mo Media. We're on social media, so you can find that. Dale, what do you got for a last word? I feel like we're pretty good. I think we're good. Is that what you and Matthew were just looking? We're like, wait a

second. Did he just say we kind of suck? You know, this is a lot of fun. We usually hardly ever do any extra content outside of the weekly podcast. So this is a great way for us to put together something fun and unique. Thanks to Chevrolet for allowing us to do that here in Daytona.

I know our listeners are going to love it. Yeah, just make sure to be able to see clips of this, visual video clips of this, to subscribe to Dirty Moe Media on our YouTube channel. And it's going to be a lot of fun. All right. Thank you, everybody. Take care. Have a good weekend.

And here... We just pass it. And to close us out, here is the song from Tim Dugger Circles. I'm going to slow in my beer. Probably when I... fishing off the pier I could quarter in the jukebox dropped at the waffle house

everywhere I look around I see circles circles like the wheels This bit of bad assery was made by Dirty Mo Media Dirty Mo! Media Dirty Mo!