The Dale Jr. Download - Choose Your Own Adventure

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

As NASCAR closes in on naming its four championship contenders, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the studio for a new episode of Dirty Air. He joins co-host TJ Majors to unpack a wild weekend in Talladega and more:Comparing the old and new points systemsThe CARS Tour season comes to a closeJim Pohlman gets the call-up to the big leagueCoaching JRM to a good finish at TalladegaBrad Keselowski’s role in Penske losing control of the raceRace winner Chase Briscoe calls into the showDuring the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners inquired about:Hunting seasonDale’s famed Mountain Dew commercialAustin Hill flipping off the fans at TalladegaPlus, in Dirty Mo Dough, Russell and Tampa Timms join the guys to help handicap the race at Martinsville.And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaReal fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.👇https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York.Consumer Cellular: New customers get a $5 credit on first five monthly invoices. Visit https://savings.consumercellular.com/DJD for details. 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.

Denny has opened doors to show, hey, this is how you engage with fans. This is how you can give it back to them. And I think this is perfectly, it's unique, it's unusual. I don't want to see every driver out there flipping birds. If he had driven down the front straightaway with his arm out the window, doing it to everybody, it had been one thing. But it wasn't that. It was once, it was a response to some individuals in grandstands.

They've cleared it up. And I think it's fair game. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half. I don't know if we've ever argued. Did I piss you off over the weekend? I'm still sour that I went to the best man at your wed. Who was your best man, Dale?

T.J. You don't need a cool best for that race? What are you thinking? Get them, T.J. Hellway is starting a show. All right then. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download.

We're winding the season down. It's Tuesday. It's dirty air. T.J. Majors is in the house. Travis is here. We're going to be doing some dirty mowedo. We're going to have a call in from this past week's winter, I assume. Yep.

Chase Briska. Excuse me? Chase Briska. I don't think that's. Risky brisky. They'll also, are we, do we have the ultimate collector segment? That's coming up too. There'll be a tiny boyer sighting.

Well, they'll something extra, too. You don't know. what Tanya Boyer is, but you're about to learn. Tiny Boyer. Coming to the show later. A lot to talk about in this show. Lots to do this over. Lots to talk about.

I'm going to ramble just a little bit, and it's only because I saw this just a second ago on my social media. Uh-oh. A lot of talk about the playoffs, the points, how we may decide the champion next year. Somebody said, well, oh, there's a, so. There's the guy, there's a couple, maybe there's one guy, but there's a couple different people on social media that'll give you the old school points. Every week.

And they're doing it for the trucks, and they're like, yep, all they got to do in the truck series and in the Xfinity series with the old school format is start the next race or they've got it locked up a race or two ahead of time, Corey Hime and Zilich. and all these people and there's some people in the comments that are like,

and this is what y'all want. Yes, that's okay. And everybody's like, yeah, this is what it won't. See, even if you believe that, man, I wouldn't be on Twitter doing that right now because the fans are out with pitchforks. If you defend the current system, you're getting attacked. And everybody's like,

and so everybody's, this is where I'm going with this. So I saw a little post where it was like, hey, NASCAR man or somebody was celebrating Benny Parsons' championship from 1973, where Benny and his team had to weld the roll cage back in the car after a wreck at Rockingham to secure the championship. And a lot of people go back to that championship. Even Jeff Burton on Doorpumper Clear said, hey, be careful what you wish for because

Benny Parsons won the championship and never finished on the lead lap except for once all year. He never finished on the lead lap all year except for the race. won. That's crazy. And he won the championship. But what they failed to tell you is if there were 28 races in that season, 12 times, only 12 times in that year did the second place or anyone else, for that matter, finish on the same lap as the winner. So more than half the races, the winner won the race over a lap ahead of second place. That's incredible. That's just, You know, so it ain't like old, you know, the point system, suck.

Benny did this. Everybody was a lap down that year, not just Benny. Yeah, wasn't just one. Yeah. Only 12 times, I believe, did someone else finish on the same lap as the winner in 28 events. That crazy? And the majority of the winning was done by probably three or four guys. Yeah, okay.

Probably the Wood brothers who didn't run the full schedule. That's why they didn't win the championship. Showed up. Yeah. Wood brothers would run. like 18 races and win 12. Yeah. I just thought that was fun.

That's crazy. I just was something I was reading in the bathroom this past week. I just thought I'd bring it to the show for you guys. I appreciate it. Yeah. Good little nugget right there. We need to. Probably take that part out.

Bathroom nugget. Did you close the door? Yeah. All right. Yeah. You sure? Yeah. I close the door.

If I'm going to read... We're closing the door. If there's no reading involved, we're in and out quick. We don't close the door. Anybody indifferent? I don't. James. Do you shut, in your own house, do you shut the bathroom door every time you go in to use the bathroom?

Pretty much never. But do you live alone? Okay, Dalton, you're married. Dalton, do you close the door? Every time, Dalton? Every single time. Even when you're doing a pee? No, pee, I'll leave it open.

What the hell? You said every time. Oh, I thought we were referring to him. I mean, you're not reading when you're peeing. No, every time. So when you pee, you leave it open. Yeah. Yep.

If you're sitting down, taking a... Yeah, if I've got to sit... If I've got to sit down, I'm not spreading that with the house. You're shutting the door. There you go. That's the way I am too. Of course, the ladies, they shut the door all the time. I think it's really a...

You know, matters hat. Where are you standing? or sitting, I suppose. Or the time, the duration, the quickness, in and out. I don't think it's that hard to close it, though. Like, if, either way. It isn't. It's pure laziness.

If you have kids, I'd say. No, no, no, it's pure laziness. I'm absolutely lazy in multiple areas of life. And that'd be one. If there's anyone else in the house, I'm closing it. That's a great point, James. James. James comes in. Finally, James comes in, expert carpenter, comes in and says

something we're all thinking. And I think we all can agree with if there's someone else in the house you're shutting the door no matter what. Question is, if you were dating someone, how long till you decide that I'm leaving the door open to go number one? How long, like, because early on, you're going to be closing the door every time.

That's probably, I got an answer for that. But I don't know if we can say it on the show. I think once they've... then it's all right don't you do that once they say it's kind of like all right we're peeing with the door open

at this point don't you think that's fair probably a little separate little longer no no no once they're very intimate at that point I think it's a gradual thing

like get up in the middle of the night or you're in the bathroom at the same time it just kind of happens and it's like okay and then you do it again and then it's okay yeah like early on

you're also holding in your fart so you're not wanting to oh yeah you're holding fart. That's so terrible. It's the worst. Holding farts are... Holding a fart because you know that it could be make or break the relationship.

God, I'm mighty. That's a terrible feeling. She's like, hey, do you want any grapes to snack on? You're like, no, no, no grapes. No grapes tonight. And you're like, you know, if I get up, I got to make this look like something. You know, I can't just get up and come, walk around and then come sit back down. I got to make this look like I'm, like, what am I getting up for?

A drink of water. You're thirsty. I know. Oh, you got to drink from the garage? I remember those moments when you had all those nervous things you were doing. You know, you're in a relationship. It's new. You're nervous.

You want it to work. And you're like, God dang, I got a fart. But I can't fart in front of her. Or you're riding down the road in the car and you got a fart. Oh, shit. You're turn the music up and hope you can get a quiet one out. What? What about the smell?

Oh, you're dead in the water. You know, you know what? I don't want the windows out right now. Oh, that's so embarrassing. I am so thankful that I'm out of that shit. I can just fart. Sorry. Amy's thrilled.

Yep. Why is every show that we do in this room come to farts? I think that's more about the host. It's inevitable that me and Amy are going to talk about Farts Thursday at some point. It's definitely probably going to happen. It wasn't really getting into this show, but here it is. It's infiltrated. the Dale Jr. download.

I say we move on. All right, the Cars Tour had their season finale this past weekend at North Wiltsboro Speedway. I want to give you a quick, quick update. I got everything for you. You do. I got it all right here. It's the most prepared you've ever been. Starting with the pro late models,

the race itself, T.J. Was won by Keelan Harvick. Yeah, great battle. Yeah. A little battle late in the race. A little Robin. A little Robin, huh? Yeah.

Well, Kevin Harvick had a mechanical issue, an engine issue, about 27 laps into the race. He was out there racing. We had a few accidents, several drivers, probably seven or eight drivers, not finishing the race there. But had a really good race. Keelan doesn't run all the races,

and he's going to run a few next year. Kevin can shed more light on that, I'm sure about Keelan's plans next year, but that kid's racing everything. And so we decided our champion, and it's Ben Mayer. Ben raced all season long with us, and in the number 6M. I got a little number and a letter. But Ben had seven top five finishes and ten top tens. He came so close to some wins and just couldn't get it done.

But in our season-long points format, consistency pays off. And he was more consistent than any other driver with more top fives, more top tens. And he accumulated 46 more points than Brandon Lopez, who finished in second. We had several drivers compete with us. Let's take a look here. 91 drivers were in our points for the pros. So your champ didn't win a race.

Our champ didn't win. Geez. Not my champ. Oh. Well, it is mine. Hey, he had more top fives. Only two drivers had six. He had seven.

Yep. More top tens than anybody. He had two more top ten finishes. He's very consistent. Very consistent. And that pays at the pay window in the cars tour. And then the late model stocks had their final race as well at Wilkesboro this weekend. And Caden Cople.

Carson's brother. A little bit of rubbing again. He's going to be driving full-time for junior murder sports next year. His dad, Travis, is going to be his crew chief, which is a little bit of a shift in our program. Brian Schaefer is going to ease on over to helping Wyatt Miller, who's going to run some more races in our limited car. We're going to, you know, Brian loves the personal connection and personal story, and that's going to fit right in his wheelhouse. I'm going to run a race or two, and Brian and I work together on that. But anyways, Caden Quaple, who will be our full-time driver next year,

is ending the season on a high note with a victory being able to ride the elevator. Yep. Up to the top there. Great offseason ahead for him. And he beat Landon Huffman. That's Shane's son. S. Hoffman. Yep.

Landon S. Huffman. There's two Landon Huffman's in our series. But this is Shane Huffman's son. Shane Huffman drove here at Junior Motorsport. He did. And Landon is a great little race car driver. He's been fast lately. He has.

And he's young. He's got a lot to learn and a long way to go. So like the upside for this little kid is pretty awesome. His dad was a great, great, great, great short track driver. Great short track driver. So he's in good hands, good cars, good equipment, good tutor. Landon S. Huffman is a name to keep an eye on going forward. Almost getting the win.

Caden was quite a bit faster and dogged him there for the last 30 laps or so and finally was able to get by him. They got a little physical, but I felt like it was kind of the right amount of aggression. Yeah, one more, I mean, it wasn't bad enough. If there was one more corner, Landon was going to be able to get back to him. So it wasn't like I'm done with you by. It was a little bit just enough to get around them.

It's a great race. I think some higher-up series can maybe take a note of how they race last weekend for this cup coming weekend, maybe. They're going to be fine. That's what we hope we see. They're going to show you this weekend. That's what we hope. That's what I'm saying, though. They need to watch what they did and like...

All right. We could get into that. I'm sure we will, but... Anyways, so I wanted to say, I'm sorry, stepping back to the pros real quick, our pro series owner champion. Rick Ware? The pro series owner points had a different team than Ben Mayer.

Ben Mayer, I think drives for Setzer. So like Dennis Setzer, those guys. Brandon Setser They have a race team I see Dennis at the racetrack all the time It's pretty awesome Having Dennis around But Rick Ware

Actually won the owner's series championship He gave a great interview post race Awesome to have Rick so excited And passionate about being a part of our series And having cars that race at our level Pretty awesome He had Luke Baldwin and several different drivers His own sons

Luce came in and done a really fine job Luke did a good job He's done a really good job But he's had multiple drivers in that car That's why they didn't have a shot for the drivers, but they did win the owner's championship with the performance in the number 51 Rick Ware Racing Pro Late Model. Back to the Cars Tour, Late Model Stocks. Landon Lewis ended up becoming the champion driving for Kevin Harvick.

Landon is a great kid, really professional, great out of the car, great behind the wheel. Hard worker. Going places. You're going to see him in the truck series, I'm sure, moving up. I'm not sure what he's going to up doing next year. He won four races out of the 15. late model stock races we run this year. Connor Hall, our driver, was second and points.

Kate Brown was third. You had Landon Huffman Mini Tireel rounding out the top five in the Cars Tour points. Pretty successful season, I'd say, for the tour. And we had, let's see, in the Cars Tour, how many cars do we have run our races? It looks like 11? No. 100. Oh, so it's a race.

109. 109. 1009 different teams showed up and tried to compete. It's a lot. It is. It's awesome. I mean, there can't be 250, 300 late model stocks in the country because it's a very regional car.

It is very regional. Anyways, a great season for the Cars Tour, the Z-Max Cars Tour. Thank you, Z-Max. Thank you Sound Gear and all of our partners for helping us put this season together. We learned a lot. see some areas where we can keep gaining and improving. And looking forward to next year, we got a schedule to announce here soon for the Cars Tour,

some pretty cool venues on that schedule. And yeah, that's going to wrap that up for the Cars Tour. Let's move on in to the NASCAR. Oh, I saw this too this morning. Another thought I had in my head when I was looking around on the Internet before we got this show started. TJ NASCAR

Regional right yeah they do they do a top 10 and they'll post it on on social media

so let me see if I can find it I love this NASCAR Regional there it is so

NASCAR Regional is like the modifides, the weekly racing, the advanced auto parts weekly racing. And they do a top 10 power rankings. Is that it? Yeah. And so I love this because,

honestly, man, I'm watching as much racing as I can, but I look at this list. And I know that this is just somebody sitting there having a little fun, swapping names around, putting this list, online. It's not official. It's not official. But it does. I see that list and I look at those names. You know, and I try to remember, all right, where's these guys race? Austin Beers runs modified.

He plays in our NCAA football league on Xbox and PlayStation. Trevor Huddleston, he races out west. Max Reeves, Ron Silk. I just have one little bug with this. Like, when did ARCA become part of the regional racing? I think it's because they have a, they have a West and an East, so it's your different regions of the country. But it's not. I don't consider ARCA or a regional deal. So regional, listen, it's a little bug that I have with this.

It's not a big deal, but it's bugging the shit out of me. Arka, to me, I've got a book at my house of all the ARCA history, right? And ARCA has been kind of like a very similar series to the Xfinity series in my mind. It's a national touring series, and to me. To me it is too.

I would say that ARCA was even at a point above trucks or at a level of the Xfinity series or even today, it's around the level of the truck series. I don't look at ARCA as a local, regional me neither.

Series. And I really think it's a disservice to ARCA and the brand and the equity built in that brand over decades and decades of racing. It's higher than this. It's higher than this. And the drivers in the ARCA series shouldn't be in the rankings of the regional rankings because then that's a disservice to the Austin Beers, to the, you know. Those drivers that are really running in the regional series that are running at their local short tracks and running. I think mods as a touring series is still regional because they run all these little tracks.

And I know that the Arc Series schedule is dotted with local race tracks as well. It is. But I don't know. I really think that trying to plug the ARCA series into the regional conversation is a disservice to ARCA and also a disservice to the guys that are actually regional racers. All the regional guys want to get to the ARCA. that that was bugging a shit out of me. ARCA's the next step for all the regional guys.

Yeah, it's not regional. It's above the regional. It's the next step. You go to Talladega, you go to Phoenix, you go to Bristol, you go to Daytona. That's not, that's national to me. I think you're right. And it's above regional. And I think that's just my feelings about that.

When you're a race car driver, any lower level and you're coming up, ARCA is how you're, like, if you're regional, you're like, how can I get to ARCA? And to me, that's the step up. I mean, it's really been to, you know, I love the Cars Tour. We are, we're all a spot. The Cars Tour, Arka, Modified, all these areas are places that drivers can go and try to hone their craft. You got, you know, like Jamie McMurray, his son runs Modifies. I wish he ran late models.

He doesn't. He runs Modified. That's what he does. That's his route, okay? Wyatt Miller, right? He ran dirt stuff forever. I'm like, why are we running dirt cars? Why are we running trucks jumping, you know, running trucks jumping jumps in California?

Why ain't we running a limited, full-body, late model stock car somewhere? You know, everybody's got their opinion about how you get going and how you get, you know, experience. And there's all kinds of little sandboxes to be in. And, but I would, I want to say, you know, I believe ARCA doesn't belong in this. Arca is my opinion and my understanding of ARCA's history and what they are, They're not regional. Yeah, I agree. They're bigger.

Agreed. Yo, TJ, I see you've been walking around with the new phone. Where did you get that new phone? Yeah, man, I love this phone. I recently joined a consumer cellar family, and they hooked me up, man. I got a great new phone, and the service is awesome. That's great, but, like, how's it, Iowa or Richmond and some of these other tracks? Because it's great when you're at home, but, like, when I'm on the road, my phone is crap.

You know, I travel a lot with the RFK-6 team, and I have had nothing but success with this phone. I've actually, it has bailed me out numerous times now. I was able to flip the hot spot on and use some internet on it. Text calls, everything, man. I'm, I'm, I could not be happier with this phone. All right, so, but how do I go about to get this? Because I don't have time. I'm not trying to go stay in line at a store. Wait, grab a number. Wait 30 minutes. Like, I just don't have time for that. That's the easiest part, man. Just call their 100% U.S.-based customer service representatives. And in about 20 minutes, you'll be good to go. I chose the two-for-60 plan. It's not a prepaid option. They helped me decide which one was best for me, and I know exactly what I'm paying each month.

Everything is easy to understand with no long-term contract. Switch to consumers cellular now and get 25 hours off with the code DJD-25. That's DJD25 for 25 hours off when you switch to consumer cellular. Go to consumer cellular.com slash DJD and use promo code DJD25. Hey everybody, you want the latest Dale Jr. download apparel? Visit shop.org.org.com. We're always adding new stuff all the time, especially like when we say something silly on this show.

We'll put it on a T-shirt. Again, check it out at shop.dirtymobedia.com. Jim Pullman going to RCR, crew chief and Kyle Bush next year. Big news. Huge news. So, look, it is hard to replace a guy like Jim. I told Jim I wanted him to stay,

but I knew that he had this opportunity and that it was great for him to go and hear it out, right? And, you know, we've had a lot of conversations with Jim over the last, you know, a couple of months around what, you know, the plan was and what, you know, Justin has a couple years left. He's sort of in that Denny Hamlin phase where he's not quite sure, but he knows the runway is out there.

He knows the end. He's landing the plane, right? And Jim knows that. what does that mean for Jim? So here's an opportunity provided to him to go cup racing. He's worked at RCR before, so he knows that environment. He would know himself whether that's a comfortable environment for him. And, you know, he made the choice to go.

And I love it. I think it's, you know, it's tough to replace him. Are we better with him? Yes, we're a much better race team with Jim in the building. But that's what this team is. about you know and we don't always have to graduate people right up into the Hendrick fold which is basically we're the satellite farm team for Hendrick but we also work with other teams right we worked with track house with Zilich try to groom him and get him ready for his

next opportunity at the cup level so it's uh and you know we've had a lot of different drivers and crew cheese and stuff go off to different organizations this is what this company company's about. It's what the company does. I was going to say it's great. He's earned it. Yeah, 100%. He gave us a championship, maybe two, depending on how things go here in Phoenix. It's also enticing for future crew chiefs and stuff to see, okay, I go to Junior Motorsports and then the cup is, you know, it's right there for me.

Yeah, that's right. So, and, you know, you're going to get noticed and recognized. Your work here, your success here is going to get noticed and recognized throughout the entire industry and Kyle Bush even commented on, you know, his, you know, Jim's leadership and what he saw Jim accomplish here at this business as something that he was, he was excited about for next year. So I'm, I'm ready for them to get to the racetrack. I can't wait to see how Jim and Kyle do next year. And, and I'm hoping, you know, I thought RCR handled it really well, how they reached out to us to ask if they could discuss this with Jim.

they did it all right instead of kind of going behind your back, you know, you want them to call you and say, hey, we really would like to talk to Jim. Is it okay if we talk to Jim? Even if I'd have said no, they probably would have still reached out to him. That's a classy move.

They probably still would have kind of made a go at it, but that was a classy move by all those guys over there. Exciting for Jim, though, man. Yeah. Like, I didn't know a lot about Jim until he got here and he's been nothing but great to work with, and great guy and he's earned this. It's always fun to see a crew chief like Jim get this opportunity with Kyle Busch.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Get the ship right. You know, I still think Kyle can win races. Jim is, I think Jim can do it, man. He's detailed. He does all. He works his tail off and he is in the details.

And that's what it's going to take, especially with that car, the kick car that the, the cup guys are racing. every thousandth of a fraction of a freaking inch and every little piece and part is what you've got to work for to gain an advantage. You've got to add it all up. And he's into that. And he is into it. Yeah, I'm happy for him.

Yeah, so I think he'll have some success there. Justin Haley is out at Spire. Jordan Bianchi has reported that the seat will be filled by Daniel Sauras. be interesting to see where Justin Haley lands and yeah so we'll we'll move on in anything else before we move on into the restart or the final start of the

the infinity race you want to cover Xfinity at all? Yeah that's what we're talking about okay yeah Finity race was a good race yeah no I thought it was I was on the pit box for the one and I was on the radio quite a bit for this race

I went and we had a great conversation with the drivers beforehand. I tell them this has always been a real challenge for me. We go to these races at Daytona and Talladega and man, all four of our guys wreck and block and crash each other. And we had a couple of really embarrassing moments as a company at Daytona or Talladega. And I'm thinking, what in the hell do I got to do to get these guys to understand how, how to get to the finish line of these races without working against each other, right?

And make, you know, like, and so, basically the, you know, when you go to Dayton and Talladega, the 21 car is going to be a car to beat. And I, you know, and I tell them, I'm like, you know, if you're helping the 21, you have to understand that you're taking, you're lessening your chances of winning. If you push him into the lead or draft with him into the lead, going into, you know, if you're like, oh, I'm going to get second.

By putting Austin into the lead, you know, you've hurt yourself and your opportunity to win. Austin Hill is a great restrictive plate racer. And he's got the statistics, but he's also got a really badass race car. He knows what to do with it. And so, you know, I told the guys, look, you know, if you push him into the lead or if you help him at any point, you know, I don't want you to do that, but if you do that, you're going to have to understand that that's going to be difficult for you to try to win the race. But without all that said, we sat down before the race.

And what I tell the drivers basically is, I want you to be a good teammate. But I also want all the teammates to understand that at some point in the race, they can't do everything for you. and they need this is all, you get all four guys in the room

and you say, all right, be good teammates when you can be good teammates. But if you see a teammate doing something, even though you know you can go help him

but it's going to be bad for you or you don't believe in the move he's making, you don't have to do it. And the teammate that doesn't get the help needs to understand that the,

you know, they decided, look man, I don't believe in what you're trying. here. I'm not going to do it because I think it's going to hurt us both or hurt me. And you can't get upset about that. What bugs a shit out of me is when our teammates come on the radio in the middle of the race and go, what the fuck my teammate left me out or man, that wasn't

a great teammate right there. I didn't like what my teammate did. And then we spend the rest of the race trying to get at each other or like, oh, well, next time he's in that situation and needs help, I'm not going to help him. And they do that. They sit there and they boil over that. And so what is good for them to hear, I think before the race is all together, guys, help each other when you can.

But if you can't, don't, and everybody gets to fuck over it. Like, and, you know, okay, your teammate didn't help you and he went by you. He decided to help someone else and passed you. That, he thought that was, the move for him and you've got to understand that that's just the way it is. And also, like, us trying to work together to get to the front ain't the route.

Everybody, find your way to the front. It's basically like choose your own adventure. The race is going to start and we're all going to meet at the front of the field. How you get there is your responsibility. And in the perfect world, if you do get there together, that's when you have a team. But don't worry about me. You do what you got to do. If you got to leave me, if you got to do something else,

don't worry about me, I'm fine, I'll find my way up there. You may get there before me. I make it there first. I agree with that. But the goal is for all of us to individually meet at the front of the field. That's where the teammate comes in. That's when we're going to get there and try to control the race working together. We've messed that up before, though, too.

Well, look, I mean, that's the messaging. Yeah, no, I agree. That's kind of the messaging before the race, and it seems to kind of be working, right? We're not winning races every time we go to Dayton and Tallega. It's going to be tough to do that with the 21 car in the field. But we are finishing races better. We are looking a little more organized and a little more productive.

You know, I saw a lot of people commenting at the end of that race about, you know, how'd you let Austin win again? Yeah, y'all don't do nothing to help yourselves. Like, I don't know what our guys are supposed to do. If that race is another lap longer, Austin Hill's not going to win that race. I don't know that, but I'm just saying, what the move were we supposed to make?

Yeah, I don't, I don't know. Justin's pushing the one car as hard as he can. I mean, you're not going to push him right. They think you can just push right by the guy. Yeah. The 21 is so fast. And when he gets a lead, he knows how to move and get in front

and get the energy off of the cars behind him. He is so good at it. And I don't know what people think supposed to happen. Like you're supposed to just pull around him. He also knows that they're going to race really hard behind him. Well, I mean, the fans are, some fans are saying that we, we're, we're, we're racing each other instead of trying to work together and beat him, but I didn't see that. I mean, no, I didn't see it. Like, could you line up and run all four cars together the whole

time? Yeah, but that's not going to be, it's going to be hard to do. Like, it's not guaranteed Well, you know, everybody's sitting there, I think what they're really referring to is the 30 or 20 laps we ran at the top of the racetrack with him leading the race. You're looking at that lineup. You got Justin Algar in the seven running second, and then behind him is the two. I mean, if Justin pulls out a line, the two is not going with him. Yeah, you're gone. And then you had, you know, all these guys like Josh Williams and all these different people that are like, like, Like, I ain't getting out of line.

I'm running fifth. 100%. They're not moving. Yeah. There's three of them up there that weren't supposed to. 70, the 45 and the 90s. The 70 didn't have a left front fender. He's bitching and complaining because nobody would work with him.

I'm not drafting with you. When you see the 70 or the 45, this is no disrespect to these guys. But when you look at how their cars, looking at the speed of their cars, you're not going to push them into the lead. If they pulled down to go make a run, you're not going to go with them because you're trying to tell me that I'm going to shove the 70. I'm going to create a line with the 70, the 45 or any of them cars that's going to go up there and pass a 21. Yeah, you're going to pass 21. I'm going to pass a 21, 7 and 2.

Those guys aren't leaving that line, first of all, anyway. They're not leaving. And he ain't fast enough to go up there either. And so you're sitting there as a driver in that line going, what's the risk, what's the reward? There's a lot of risk, very little reward. and if you looked at that, I told you we were on the radio. I'm like,

looking at the top 10, I don't see anyone making a move for a really long time. I can look at all those guys and tell you a bunch of reasons why none of them are pulling out of line. And they didn't.

They were all staggered just right too. Like there was a car, a fast car, a slow car, there was a gap. But every one of them was sitting there going, I ain't giving up this spot. No.

And so that's kind of why people, I don't know what people think supposed to happen. If all four of our cars got down in the bottom and even all four of them lined up on the bottom, we're not driving by them.

And credit to those guys for putting them cars and then positions, like that's tough to do as well. I agree, yeah. You know, like Josh and Honeyman. I'm not trying to disrespect. No, I know. I'm just saying, yeah, for sure. Not at all. But I'm just saying like they, they, you, it makes it hard to make, it makes it hard to

plan to make a move. Yeah. I mean, if the 70 or the 45 were to go qualify on the front row, then I might, if I'm driving in the race, I might go, holy shit, you know, they got a fast car this weekend. And if he pulls out of line, I might go with him because what the hell, right? But, you know, I thought we ended up all right. The eight car had an opportunity to some more points than they kind of missed out on some points there late in the race when they had some fuel issues. We had a lot of fun on the radio, though.

Huge pit call near the end to come down and take fuel. Big pit call. So that was good. What do you mean you had fun on the radio? Well, me and T.J. He was an armchair quarterback the whole time. down there. I would tell Carson some stuff to do,

but most of the time I'd sit on two and talk to TJ. Be like, damn, what the hell? Why did you do that? Hey, tell them to do this. We're three wide, and he's over there trying to have a conversation with me and stuff. Oh, I'm on the radio.

When they wrecked, the 19 wrecked off of two, I was on the radio with TJ while they're wrecking. And I'm going, hey, TJ, I think it's time to start mashing the gas. I'm like, wide open from here on. And they're wrecking, like, right at the same time. We got to go. And I'm like, wrecking everybody. He's like, we're, well, TJ's a good enough spotter.

So he's hearing. I was listening to it. He's hearing too, but he's also talking. I'm not on top of Carson. Carson can't hear me. And so. He can't talk when I'm talking anyway, so Carson can't. So, but I'm listening as he's telling me, we need to go and I'm seeing him sideways.

Yeah. Reck and I'm like, oh, gosh. It was at that moment, I was like, well, so I'm sitting there watching and I'm like, I don't know for sure if Carson's, you know, maybe having some moments where he's, like checking up or like there's a moment in those races where you're like all right unless something like crazy wild in front of me happens like the 19 reckon from this moment on I'm going to stand in the gas and never lift yeah right and I'm gonna just take the runs and hopefully drive myself up a few spots we were lifting at that point a lot quite a bit I think I know so and I was thinking all right time to stop lifting time to it's from this it's two laps

to go tell him to put the gas down on the mat and see where he is See where you end up. And just as I said that, the 19 gets turned and they wrecked like hell. So we won't be seen Dale be a spotters anytime soon. No, it was great. Oh, I would. No, it's good. I was on two, damn it.

I wasn't talking on top of the driver. I know. And so you would... I just wonder how you would be at plate race spotting for like an Xfinity car. Wonder how you would be. We want to give it a shot? We can try. Yeah.

I'm sure they'll let me do it. He'd probably like, come on. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people would be like, hell yeah, get your ass up there. I just wonder if you can see it. If you can see what you, if you can, because if you can take your knowledge that you have and it looks different. Like I remember one time you came to the roof and you're like, man, everything looks like a slow motion up here. Like in Michigan one time you came up there and said that. The only thing I think I'd have a problem with is the pure visual.

The depth perceptions are different. Just being able to actually look out there in confidence. You know, as the car's going down the back straight, who confidently tell him. Like, it's, I liked the role that I had this weekend where, like, you're spotting, but I'm like, hey, he needs to clean up this. He needs to clean up that. Hey, he needs to be better at this.

He needs to be better at that. And you would give him that information. You agreed. You were helping him. You were trying to tell him the same things I was thinking. And I think as the race went on, he became better. Oh, I think he got way better. Yeah.

He's gotten better every plate race that we've ran. And we told him, like, there was one time where. Carson jumped to the top, went three wide and drove his way up to the front. Yeah, he did the first time to the front. He did it again four or five laps later or later on in that stage and it was too late. Yeah. Everybody was moving down to the bottom of the racetrack and he didn't have the numbers up there. And so like explaining that to him and letting him know like, hey, that one move was awesome.

Yeah. Way to be. And then later in the stage, you've got to understand it cycles to the bottom and comes off the top of the racetrack. Got to have the numbers. You got to be ready. Yeah. Understand, all right, we're moving. It's kind of like, you know, in the middle of the stages,

you got to be starting to understand when everybody's starting to bell on the bottom and if it's going to be that single line around the top, you got to start to, you got, it's like duck, duck, goose, you got to kind of be ready. You got to have a feel for the race. Yeah. You got to have that feel when things move. You've got to be ready.

And then near the end of the stage, they come off the bottom, the top, and they go to the bottom. The race, the stage ends on the bottom of the wrist. Fastest way around. And you got to know. when they're starting to bail out and you want to be in that group, right? So you don't get sent to the back.

It's a pretty fun part of it. But I had a lot of fun up there, man. I was standing around that pit box when that caution came out from the 19. And I asked them about fuel. And they were like, oh, yeah, we think we might be ready. But we're hearing some guys are worried.

We're good enough for two more laps. And I'm like, man, we might get another, we might get another yellow, another green white checker. We might get more, you know, we're going to run more laps than that. The big possibility we do. Let's not run it out of gas and be mad at ourselves. Like, you know.

Yeah, no sense in that. No sense in that. So come on. So we come down pit road and we were, 10th. And there were 10th place. There were 10 cars behind us. We come down pit road thinking we're going to come out around 14, 16th.

By the time that everything's cycling. So the two had to come. He was sputtering. The eight ran out. All these different people were starting. Seven? Yep, seven. They saw us come down.

A couple got nervous. Other people ran out. More got nervous. When we restarted, we're 12th. So we pitted it from 10th and restarted 12th. And all those cars from the green flag can go hard at that point, too. Oh, yeah. He don't have to worry about fuel.

They were all right behind us, too. So it was like, heck, yeah. And, yeah, Carson made some good moves at the end to get up to second place. Good results for everybody. but yeah, I don't know. You know, Jesse loves in a good spot, points-wise, to be able to get into the final round. We're going to need something crazy to happen

to have four out of four Junior Motorsports cars in this final round, but Martinsville, there's going to be something crazy. I don't know what it's going to be, but it's going to be crazy. Martinsville has been a, let's just face it, it's been a shit show. Yeah, all it has been.

Martinsville has been a pure show in these cars. I hope it. I hope it doesn't turn it. I don't want that. I don't want it either. I want a pure straight-up race. Some aggression, some rubbing and bumping, but knocking the radiators out of them

and destroying cars and smoking heaps sliding across the finish line is not really what I want to see, but it's probably what we're going to see. Yeah. I don't want somebody to put NASCAR in a position to make a decision on something. I don't, I mean, that could happen too, but I just wish the drivers wouldn't destroy each other

at the end of the race at Martinsville. And look, I mean, that's our guys too. Our guys do. We've been in the middle of that at times. All right. Let's head on into the Cupset. All right. So what's this here?

Penske, not happy with Keselowski. Yeah, what the hell, TJ? Restart with 17 to go. Brad Kozlowski didn't give Blaney and Legano the push they wanted. Ligano says the car behind me was saving gas. That kills the whole bottom lane. That's false. So what happened?

They had cars on the outside cycling forward and pulling down in front of them. And so Blaney and. And Lugano, who were leading the inside line in just a handful of laps are now sitting there six, seven, eighth on that inside line cycling back and losing control of the race. Yeah, this is, this to me isn't, this to me is exactly what I hope gets this freaking fuel mileage gas, half-throddle bullshit out of the racing at Daytona and Talladega. Well, that's not what was happening.

Well, I don't care what was happening, but if that's what they think, You know, if they're sitting there going, man, nobody could push. Everybody's sitting there riding half throttle, same fuel. We were, you know, everybody's a little nervous about having enough gas to go and can't run hard enough and all that bull. I mean, this is what they get for fuel mileage racing at Daytona and Talladega. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can tell you, from the restart, we chose the bottom behind those two cars because we worked good together.

Nobody could pass us in the second lane. Well, what do you think they're talking about when they say? say the car behind me saving gas. Because when you're, this didn't start. Who's saving? Nobody was saving. So everybody was full throttle. Well, when you're fourth, fifth in line, you were just riding, you can't go anywhere. Like, what happened on the restart was?

But they were like talking, were they not saying that there was a gap between. There was a gap. You know, between second and third. I mean, we would run up there. We would get the Joey's bumper, push them a little bit, but you're not going to shove the 22 through the 12 at that point. No, I know, I know. But this didn't start until you became the fourth car line.

When you're the fourth car in line, you're not really the factor anymore. The biggest mistake here is them letting the 34 get clear on the outside. But how he got clear on the outside because the inside line wasn't creating enough momentum. Yeah, but that was, it was two by two. And the five and the 30. Pushed him, pat. Pushed him clear.

We've, from the time we took off, there was no lifting. Bragg gets to Joey. He doesn't lift. You can go look at it. Yeah. The only time that we start having to manage it is when we're fourth in line on the bottom. And I don't know, I don't know why. I mean, I'm guessing the 5 and 34 pulled them apart on the bottom.

It's harder to stay connected. But the also, the reason why the inside lane was fading once the 34 got there is because the 34 had not been up front all day. He could not manage the gaps as good as Blaney and Joey could. As Joey Blaney and Brad that one time, he didn't know he's not as refined at backing up and getting the push at the right spots. The reason the 5 cleared him is because he got 4 carlings clear off of turn 4 and had to back up to Blaney.

That's never going to work. The guy on the outside's always going to have enough momentum with a guy pushing him to do it. That's not the fourth car in line's fault. That's the first two cars working together. Yeah. And the third car is there to kind of bail the second guy out. We're fourth car in line.

I don't care what that car is doing. That car is not a factor. Listen, I get it. I mean, I'm not, I don't believe that, you know. I don't, this, there was no saving fuel. I'm just surprised. I guess they were surprised that there wasn't better speed on the inside line. But we were too.

And yeah, so do you think that they get out and go back and do they learn See look how Brad, look at the distance there. But it's two by two right here. What are you doing? He gets up to his bumper. Okay, so we're full throttle right here.

Right there we lift a little bit because we have to. Yeah. That's not on us. Watch this. Here comes a 34 down. Yeah, but if we could go a little further back. I mean, that's just the restart. That's to the green right there.

We just took the green. Really? Yeah. Right there, the fourth place car is not effective. Why is the outside line tight and the inside line's not tight? Because they pull you apart. And then the 34 just keeps gaping them big. He doesn't come back quick enough.

When Ryan and Joey were leading the inside lane, we were right on their tail off of turn four. When this is happening, we're never even close because the third car is never close because the 34 isn't doing a very good job of managing it. See how far he is out right here? They need to be connected right here already. That's connected way too late on the bottom lane right there. I can tell you already.

That's way too late. The gap to the 22, the gap to the 6. But it's the front 2 that are doing. I understand. I just wish that there was... See how far he is out? I wish the 22 was closer. I wish the 6 was closer.

Like right here. That gap up front should never happen like that. That's way too much. Like look at the 6 right there. He's fading off the... Maybe you... I don't know. Everyone's a car length of part

on the inside lane. Yeah, but I'm looking at the six. I'm like, where's his push? And Priest was behind you, right? Yeah, but I don't think he was ever pushing Brad up. Like, there was a space the entire time. Yeah.

The top, the most important cars are the first three cars. I get it today. The front two stay together. I understand how this works. I'm just trying to figure out why would they say what they said. I just, I have no clue.

We're not saving fuel, but the fourth car is not the reason the 34 car pass. around the outside. I know, but I think what they're saying is, is how come the inside line wasn't more organized, wasn't tighter? There was bigger gaps, more gaps between cars.

It's always like that. The outside line is much more organized. It's always like that because guys can pull quarter panels on the outside. When you're on the inside lane, you're at the mercy of the guy. You're just blind the line. I mean, it wasn't no different in the Xfinity race. That inside line was a death sentence. You were going to the back.

It's the same. Yeah. It's awful. When we could control the line with Ryan and Joey and Brad, when we're the first three cars, nobody could pass some guys in the second lane. They couldn't do it. Because the 12 knew exactly when to come back,

knew exactly when to pick the 22 up, and Brad would get, there was a rhythm. There was a flow that was consistent every single lap, and those guys can do it. When you put somebody new up there, I mean, there was never a gap like that

with Joe and Ryan up front. Never a gap. Yeah. Well, Briscoe, with his win, he's able to put it together in his final couple of laps. I mean, where was he all race? Dang, show up at the end.

He's going to come on here soon enough. With his win, he locks himself into the final four. A pretty big deal for Briscoe, and that team's developed over the course of the year and put themselves into the position. Since Pocono, since his win at Pocono, they've just really been one of the better teams in the series. I feel like they started the year off, learning each other and growing. It was a struggle. He had to run the car.

Well, it was a struggle. But him and Hamlin are locked in. Christopher Bell is plus 37. Larson plus 36. Huge gap. back to Byron at minus 37 and 5th. So Byron,

Ligano, Blaney, Elliot, all those guys are must wins. Four guys with a must win situation. Four guys in really good shape that just need to go run and not blow up a break or crash. Be interesting to see what their,

what strategies are. I mean, I don't think there's any strategy for them guys unless something happens to, you know, Bell or Larson. Yeah. I think maybe then you can start

I mean they'd have to get in Rex earlier something Yeah but Bell and Larson have to race each other They do Who does who does I don't know if Briscoe will tell us the truth But who I wonder who they They don't want to see in the final He I mean

Briscoe said Penske Yeah that or I mean of the Bell or large Yeah you definitely don't want Penskees I don't think you want Blaney I don't think you want Blaney out there Or Ligano honestly Yeah So so off

Yeah, so Hamlin, Briscoe, Bell, Larson, are they, is there, maybe their priority of the day to try to make sure that Penske doesn't get there? Yes, but also, I don't think Briscoe or Denny would say this. Do you want Christopher Bell? He would be the next one that I don't want there. I'd rather have like Chase and Byron. Yeah, I mean, but I don't, I think Bell's,

it's definitely, Legano or Blaney are definitely both of them you don't want. No. It's going to be tough this weekend because Blaney's really good at Martinsville. He's by far the best driver probably right now at Martinsville. Like 500 laps, six inches off the curb the entire time. That's how he runs it. And he's gotten really, really, really good at it. All right, so we got Chase Briscoe, the caller for today from last week's Talladega win.

Pretty awesome to see you go to Victory Lane at Talladega. that's a special place, hard to win at those racetracks. Kind of, you know, had to have a lot of things go your way, and that's what happened there at the end of that race. Chase, first off, congratulations. You're locked into the final four going into Phoenix. You don't have to worry about what's going on this weekend at Martinsville, which everybody would love to have that convenience.

But talk about how you put it together at the end of that race, the decision to not push Bubba to go to the bottom and how that all opened up for you. Yeah, it was honestly crazy how much, you know, my mind, just my mindset, I guess, was changing literally by the second throughout that green-white checkered. You know, originally I started six. It was Bubba in front of me, and he was pushing Larson. Then I think it was William and Hosevar and I think fell inside of me.

And my whole mindset was just how can I push Bubba to push Larson to the win? Because for me, playoff-wise, that was going to be. best case scenario. If a playoff got won, I wanted Denny or Larson to win. And then we, you know, we were able to push Larson clear. And surprisingly, he went to the bottom. So at that point, I was, I was feeling like I was in a pretty good spot just playoff wise, as long as I could finish, because if Larson didn't win, more than likely Bubba was going to win, which was even better for me. But so then I was just trying to push Bubba to the win as hard as I could. And then Larson and had his issue off a turn two and was able to kind of get clear.

And it was pushing Bubba still. And I heard my spotter tell me that, hey, you're clear. Now the 54 is clear. And as soon as I heard the 54 was clear, I just decided to turn left. And it really honestly wasn't even to win the race at that time. It was more just to hedge my bet of now I'm at least going to be leading the bottom lane. And, you know, William will not be leading the bottom lane. It's going to be at least a Toyota car, you know, or myself or Bubba that more than

likely is going to win the race. And then Ty just did an incredible job of pushing me and staying connected and was able to clear Bubba kind of right as we entered the trial. And at that point, I felt like as long as nothing crazy happened, I was going to win the race. But yeah, my full intention, truthfully, when I made the move into three, was kind of just to hedge my bet against William leading the bottom of Liam because I did not want him to win the race. And then when Ty went with me instantly, I felt like I was going to be in a pretty good position, potentially even win.

I have had an opportunity to do a little bit of drafting at Daytona in the next gen in way, way back when the next gen was just coming out. It was absolutely the most uncomfortable car to be pushed with or to push someone with. How has that changed over the years? How comfortable is it to be, you know, to be pushing each other in the cars now? Have y'all been able to really improve drivability and comfort in those situations? Yeah, I think it's definitely better than when it started. You know, when it started, it was out of control. I mean, yeah, just absolute chaos when somebody was pushing you.

It's still like that to a certain extent, but it is better. And, you know, even sometimes I feel like it's better just to absolutely blast the guy in front of you or the guy behind you just have them hammer you instead of, you know, kind of gradually getting there. And that was something that, you know, when Bush are actually wrecked, for whatever reason when I was pushing Bubba, he was just all over the place. And I talked to him yesterday about it. And he even kind of said the same thing. Like I was better off if you had like a 10 mile an hour difference in speed just hit me as hard as you can instead of trying to like ease into it.

So it is kind of weird how this next-gen car just reacts differently. You know, based on the position when you get connected and just, yeah, there's a lot of variables that go into kind of getting pushed and being pushed in this car. But I would say over the course in the last, yeah, two, three years, we've definitely. made them better, but they're still not easy. I mean, we still wreck all the time, so they can't be too easy. You go into Martinsville without any real stress. What is your role this weekend? What are you going to try to accomplish?

I mean, for us, I think it's trying to just go there and win again, truthfully. I mean, all of us want a grandfather clock, right? And, you know, I feel like that's a place where I've always ran really, really good. I just haven't been able to win all the way. And, yeah, I mean, keeping the momentum up, confidence high. And truthfully, even as a company, you know, if me or Denny can go win a race, it essentially locks Bell in no matter what. So, yeah, our focus is trying to go there and win. You know, even tomorrow, I'm still going to go run Sim for Martinsville, just trying to be as best we can this weekend.

So, yeah, for us, it's no different than any other week. You know, the stress is off in a sense of the playoffs. But, you know, you don't want to go to Martinsville and run terrible and run 28th and then carry that into Phoenix. You want to go there and have a good run and kind of carry that momentum. Yeah, that's true. Phoenix has been a good track for you. You've had great success there. Do you still, do you feel that way?

I mean, I don't know how you felt about the last couple of trips, but do you still go to that racetrack feeling like it? You know, you know what you need. You know what the car needs to do, and you understand the track really well? Phoenix is a weird one for me because it was always one of my three worst tracks and truth of my least favorite tracks to go to. And then, yeah, in 2022, I guess it was or whatever.

You know, I went there and won the cup race and got my first cup win there. And kind of from that moment on, I started to like it, obviously. And just felt like I got better around there. You know, I'd put a lot of work in there because I was so bad there. It kind of forced me to really look at myself in the mirror and try to figure out what can I be doing better here. And I don't know.

Some of it, I think, helped that we used to be able to run up by the wall and one and two there. You know, that's kind of went away a little bit. But certainly when the track started to wide now is when I got better there. But yeah, I feel really good about it. the JGR cars in general are going to be really good at Phoenix. You know, I know James is super excited that we're going there. Yeah, I feel really good about it.

You know, just where we're at as a race team right now, I mean, there's really not been a single type of racetrack we've been to where we've not been fast. And, you know, I know that we're going to be fast again when we go there next week. It's just a matter, you know, executing and putting it all together. For this weekend, you know, it probably will be downplayed a little bit by you and some of the other drivers. but after

North, after New Hampshire, Denny Hamlin, several others commented that, you know, it's still very obvious that Penske is very, very good at these type of racetracks, and we still have a ways to go to catch what we think they'll be able to do and how they'll perform at Phoenix. So with where they are in the points, basically, you know, either Ligano or Blaney needing a must win this weekend at Martin's not that you'll do anything, race them differently or, you know, do anything detrimental to their races,

but will that be top of mind as you're out there competing? Will you be wondering at times, you know, where they are, how their day is going, whether they have shots to win because of what that means for you when you get to Phoenix? I mean, yeah, I think it's no secret that, you know, the last three years they went to Phoenix and it's dominated. Nobody could even run with them. So, I mean, yeah, from a personal standpoint, I do not want a Pinsky car to go there. Just, you know, statistics would say if they get there, they're going to be the car to be eaten. You know, as a playoff field, we have them in a really good spot right now, right, where they have to go to Martin'sville and win.

The problem is they're really, really fast there too. So, yeah, that's part of going back to what I was just saying earlier. Like, the best thing that can happen for really JGR as a whole is me going or Denny going or, you know, Christopher obviously going there. winning the race because that would mean that a Penske car does not move on. So yeah, I definitely think that the whole playoff field, not just Denny myself, but even Larson, whoever makes the, you know, the final four, none of us want to see a Penske card probably just because we know what it means or it has meant the last three years there. So yeah, I think the whole field will be, you know, paying attention to that, you know, the playoff guys at least. And yeah, I think all of us

selfishly would hope that a Penske card doesn't win just because that'll make your job, you at least if you go by the statistics, it'll make your job easier the next week. Yeah, I love that storyline, and it's going to be making this weekend a must-see race in the schedule to see how this plays out. Regardless, you're going to Phoenix. You're going to race for a championship. I'm happy for you, man. Love your story. Appreciate how you shared that with us even this past weekend after your win, showing your emotion.

And we're wishing you the best when you get to Phoenix. We'll see you out there. So have fun this weekend and good luck in Phoenix. Yeah, buddy, I appreciate it. I was going to tell you, it was pretty cool. So Johnny Morris was in Victory Lane this past weekend at Talladega. That was the first time I'd been able to win with Johnny there, and he was Jack. But he was so excited that we won at Talladega just because what Talladega obviously means to him.

He said he had not been in Victory, Atlanta, since 99 with your dad. And it was pretty cool. It was our third one of the year. So we threw up some three-for-Dales in Victory Lane. and yeah, I thought that was pretty neat. We did a phone call with him the other day with the company, and he had the trophy from 1999 and had all kinds of pictures with you and her dad and everything.

It was pretty cool, I thought. That is very cool. That's great. Thanks for sharing that. We'll see you, buddy. Thanks for being a good friend of the show. Yeah, thank you guys. Appreciate it.

All right, it's time again for this month's selection of our Ultimate Racing Collector presented by Lionel, the official racing die cast of NASCAR. Linaw Racing, they're your go-to source for all your racing diecast needs. We have die cast on this table every week. We ought to be, let's see, getting close to throwing some of these off the table. We're about to get to finish. You're going to check out your latest pre-orders at Linawracing.com and also today to announce this month's selection of the Ultimate Racing Collector.

We have with us Howard Hitchcock, the CEO of Linaill Racing. now. Thanks for doing in us today. Yeah, thanks for having me, Dale. It's great to be here again. Really looking forward to the segment with the Ultimate Racer. And then we'll see what kind of fun things we can do. What's this here? Well, this is actually a special gift for you. So this is the car that we produce for Goodyear that goes on the Goodyear trophies. And there's only four of them. Yeah. And so two of them are mounted to a base. Justin has one of those and Goodyear keeps one for each year. And then back in Daytona,

we took this exact same setup and presented it to Rick Brand. And we had this one made for you. That's amazing. Something for your private collection. No, man, I love it. I appreciate it.

I know the car that Goodyear has made for the champions every year. Such a cool deal. They've done this. Even back in 98-99 when we won our championship as a driver, they had a car that Goodyear would present to you. So that's a pretty awesome trophy.

Thank you for making this for me. I appreciate that. It's pretty cool display. I might put a couple cars up on there. Yeah, it's got room for a few of them. Yeah, some racing. Some action on that. That does.

So let's take a look at this month's winner. Ready? Oh, you guys are going to love this name. All right. He goes by the name of Tiny Boyer. I'm trying to think I love that Saturday Night Live skit of Tiny Elvis

Nicholas Cage does it where he's riding around on a dash of a car pretty funny skit if you want to check it out this makes me think about a little tiny boyer sitting on the dash

in my car driving around could you see a little miniature Clint Boyer I could and it would be funny that would be funny everybody's got that in their head now yep all right

we're moving on this dude has everything Let's take a look at this video. It's like his entire home is decorated with sheet metal. Nothing tiny about his collection. Not at all. He has some of our bud stuff. But this appears to be not a man cave.

This is literally this guy's whole house. This is a man house. Yeah. I want to know if he's married. Hmm. Tiny Boyer. I wonder who Mrs. Tiny Boyer is. Well, he's got a lot of stuff and it's all scattered out through the house.

Again, he's. He's got, these are photos, but he put it in a video form, so good job. We like the videos. They kind of make it easier to kind of understand how big the collection is. He's got some sheet metal from your final season, Dale. Let's see here. He's got a little display for... Jimmy.

Jimmy. He's got little displays for different drivers. Lots of different drivers. Big variety. Kind of a... Look at there. There's a... That looks like...

a Chase Elliott quarter panel from the Darlington throwback man he does has some pretty cool stuff look at that uniform

nice with a mannequin yeah got to have the mannequin goshberry's darlington rookie yeah some more Joshberry Barry stuff

lots of diecasts all of your collectors all your collectors out there you know to win this you don't have to have just diecasts but obviously

a big diecast collection is going to help you but man there is Oh, some new stuff, Zillich, Wachens-Glen. Ooh. More Zillich stuff. That stuff's going to go up in value if he continues to have success. Pretty awesome job.

He put together a really great video there. So congratulations to Tiny Boyer. I want to say it like it's a little boyer guy. Like it's a little Clint Boyer. Tiny Boyer. Tiny Boyer. You know there's a little Elvis on your shoulder in the video shot when you're talking. Oh, yeah?

Kind of like, I need a little, there he is. It's tiny E. We need a little tiny boyer back here. Pretty cool though, Howard. We've had a great year kind of presenting, you know, having this contest. And just, I'm a collector of die cast myself. And my, you know, my collecting of die cast has kind of ramped up over the last two or three years. I've really, really gotten into it.

We got back into the towers. to display cases that we used to have years and years ago. Those have kind of come back. So there's been this bit of a resurgence, and it's been fun to see other collectors with the same enthusiasm. I know that folks like this border guy have been collecting for years, obviously, but it's awesome to see people how they display all this different stuff that they've collected over the years.

Yeah, I mean, one of the things that's been so cool in all the time that I've been doing this is connected to the RCCA, you know, which actually next year will be celebrating its 35th anniversary. We have met some people that have absolutely incredible collections. Rooms on their house. This guy's whole house appears to be, you know, fully racing or raced out. But people have added on rooms. People have dedicated bedrooms or parts of their home to this. I've seen some videos of guys that the entire basement is set up in terms of racing things.

And it's just cool to see the passion, you know. And we keep trying to push the envelope on what we can do with the diecast and make it as authentic as we possibly can. can. Obviously, it's a little bit smaller version than the real car. But, you know, technology has gotten better for us and being able to make it. If you take a look at these cars versus cars that were made 20 years ago, I mean, there's a, there's a massive difference. We actually pull the CAD data, you know, from NASCAR tech and from, from the OEMs to actually produce these things. But, you know, with the ultimate racer piece, Dale, I really, really love what you've done throughout the course of this season, right? And,

You know, what about the idea of what if we picked one winner, one ultimate, ultimate racer? So throwing all of the winners from this year together in the hat. And sort of deciding, and then maybe we give them some special prize. Sure. Let's do it. I've got a list to use my hat here. Yeah, sure. I'll bring it out to Howard.

All right, that's cool. And then we can draw one. All right. That'll be pretty fun. See who our ultimate ultimate winner is. Oh, you got it all right. That was quick. All right. So Howard's going to draw.

Go ahead, Howard. You draw it out of it. You sure? Yes, sir. All right. All right. It's going to be Matt Frederick. Matt Frederick is the winner. He's the ultimate ultimate. Yeah, he is the ultimate ultimate winner.

Dale, what do you think we take a quick break? Let me try to get a hold of him and then we'll bring him on and surprise him. Yeah. All right. Let's do that. That would be really. Hey, Matt, you hear me. Yeah, I got you.

How are you? Hey, man. I guess you're probably wondering what's going on. It's me. I'm with the CEO of Lionel and Howard here. We are going to, we're calling you today because basically we decided you being one of the winners of the ultimate racing collector this year. We're going to throw everybody's name in a hat and have sort of an ultimate ultimate winner of the racing collector by Lionel. And you, my friend, have won the prize. So congratulations.

Thank you, man. It seems just too good to be true for me. This is incredible. We have a little bit of a prize for you. Obviously, pretty cool to win one of the months in selecting the ultimate racing collector, but also being the ultimate racing collector, you're going to get two tickets to Lionel Suite this weekend at Martinsville. Access to the Truck Series, Xfinity Series, and the Cup Series race through that. No way. That's right. And you'll, that's pretty good because the weather's starting to turn and that sweet will be nice and comfortable.

Oh, that's so awesome. Get a little chilly out there. Hey, you're going to get die cast prototype giveaways at each caution flag. What does that even mean? So basically there's a caution, right? Yeah. And we hand out these tickets. And so, and Martinsville's loaded with caution.

So there's lots of tickets that are called. And basically, when you're called, we'll have a selection of a prototype diecast that the winner can choose from. That sounds pretty cool. Holy moly, I'll be my first one. Five personalities from Dirty Mo Media will be visiting before the cup race on Sunday to talk to you at the suite. That'll be a lot of fun. And also some great swag and a special raffle prize from Dirty Mo Media.

What's the raffle prize, guys? It's pretty awesome, actually. It's a little bit of everything. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't give it all the way. How about some jerky boys beef jerky? If you want to add that. I love that.

I got two. I got two bags right here. I'll give you. So anyways, congratulations, Matt. Thank you for being such a loyal fan to NASCAR. Thank you for supporting the sport and showing your enthusiasm for collecting. We see the collection behind you there. It's pretty amazing.

Talk a little bit about how many cars you got in your collection. Oh, gosh. I did keep count for a little while. Then I just started putting them in a case. You don't even know the number. I don't. Do you have any more wall space is the question? We're about to put up some more walls.

Oh, that's good. We're going to have to put more walls up. Why wouldn't we? We're out of wall space. We're adding walls at this point. Some of the sheet metal will have to go out to the garage. And then we'll fill that space with more cases, more cars. And so I have two kids.

One's 11, one's 14. They each have, you know, their drivers. And we got to keep filling these cases, you know. Are they starting their own mini collections, following your footsteps? there. They have cars in their rooms already. They each have a case hanging, you know, and it's, I always tell people, every one of these cars tells a story, everyone. That's a great way of putting it, man. I've, like I said, this past couple years, I've always collected different die casts for multiple reasons. But in the last couple of years, I just, I don't know why, but I just,

I've had a more of a, you know, I don't know, I've had more, I've been more driven to do it. I've been more driven to seek out specific cars. And now I've got these four towers that I'm sort of curating myself. And so it's been fun to pick it back up, you know, get back into it. And I've really enjoyed seeing everybody's collections this year, seeing folks like you with the same passion for collecting die cast. I don't know, the die cast car is unique to our sport, right? It's our jersey, really. It is our jersey.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. And so we're thankful for you. Love your collection, man. Enjoy this weekend at Martinsville. Oh, this is going to be a blast. I'm looking forward to it. Thank you, guys. All right, buddy.

Thank you, Max. Congratulations. That's a lot of fun, Howard. Thanks for coming by. Thanks for the gift. Absolutely. I hope you guys have enjoyed this year. We've enjoyed Lionel being a part of our show

and being able to have these die casts here just on the table to showcase to fans. What's available? What's out there? All the drivers signing these die casts, the guys that made the playoffs this year. It's really, really been fun to integrate your product, your brand into our show and look forward to doing more work with you in the future. Yeah, I know we've had a great season doing this. I'm really excited to have been partners with you guys. I think it, you know, as we kind of said, right, it's the jersey of the sport.

And I think by having you sort of have this on the table and speak to it in a way that I think from a driver's perspective, you were always so passionate about. the individual details of the die-cast cars. And so I think that really brings it to life and is very, very meaningful for the fans of the sport. And so we're really proud to be partners with you on that. Awesome. Well, we'll continue our work to seek out the ultimate racing collector. And again, you know, keep your ears peeled, your eyes on everything we're doing on our social media with dirty mode media to see when the next racing collector, the ultimate racing collector monthly selection is. and it could be you.

Keep sending in your videos, photos, and we'll keep celebrating all the people out there doing all the great collecting that we've seen this year. We are live. We're live right now. We are live right now. Did you hit it? Hit the button.

I hit the button. You said you're ready. That's perfect time to tell you about jerky boys beef jerky. Jerky boys, I got the hat and the greatest jerky ever invented, ever, ever made. What do I have to do to get a hat? be a big fan of jerky boys I'm a super fan nope

I don't you're not quite there yet jerky boys it's the best it's just I've got an idea for you Dale I'm not I've not give it to anybody that hasn't agreed

it is good I haven't given it to one person that said nope this is second nope this is third worst stuff I've ever had I've got an idea for you Dale if you reach a certain amount of bags bought you get a you get a

I like jerky boys hat. Ooh. I like jerky. And this is literally the best jerky I've ever ate in my life. And I bought into the company because I liked it. It's incredible. Available on Amazon, too, isn't it? It is available on Amazon.

There you go. You can go to jerkyboys.com and subscribe there as well. I subscribe directly there. Man. And we got it here at Junior Merge Sports. There was a guy posting on the internet this morning He had a sun drop and a bag of jerkeys And he said, just went to Junior Mergersports

Gifts Shop That's pretty much my corner store these days To get me some jerky boys and a sundrop Yeah, we got cold drinks in there What a diet Yep Another good piece of news I just got my Ohio

Wildlife license To be able to go hunting I'm going to go hunting soon I'd get to hunt once a year. Busy schedule. But I wedge it in there. Weasle it into this little tight spot and I go. If you don't catch something,

it would be disappointing. You just like to be able to relax. I don't care. I just like to sit in a tree stand, in the woods, and it's just nice. Normally they chain like a 12-pointer to a tree and let him climb up in the stand and just shoot it. This would be one of the T.Jsms.

I've talked to you guys about... That's not an ism. I think an off season like best of TJ. Every show, TJ has the one-liners just like that one. They're gyms. They're gems. I want us to take just one show.

And like so you listen to the podcast, right? Whatever it is, an hour, hour and a half. And then at the end of the podcast, you get all of TJ's one-liners from that show in a little like two-minute clip. No context at all, just him just saying all these things. I love stuff out of context. I think that would be a big win. Jerky boys.

That'd be a big win. You can't try, though. People would love it. I'm not trying. People would love it. You can't try. Right. Just a highlight reel of TJ's one-liners. I'm in.

So I like to sit in the stand. Deer hunting is so fun. In Ohio, there's a zone. only bow hunting. They do have a muzzleloader, but I don't mess with that. I like the bow hunt. It's hard. I'm not good at it.

I'm not going to shoot at anything beyond 30 yards because I just, I'm not reliable. And nothing worse than wounding the animal and it, you know, it having to deal with that. And they're refining it or something. Yeah. So, and I am, I've, we've had this property, me and Truex and my, my brother-in-law, LW, we've had this property for eight years. and I've probably only taken about three deer off of it. My standards are really high.

Like we have a lot of shooters, like good 150s, 160s, but I'm not going to be interested in anything under a 160. It's got to be a big monster. And there's just not that many of those guys walking around out there. So my odds of going and actually getting a deer are really low because I'm going to let a lot of good deer walk. But I love that part. I love sitting in the tree stand and a 150 or a 155, 160 coming out, and I'm going, I just love sitting there watching them.

How do you know how big it is? I could. I could. Is there a way to. You kind of guess. Like if you see enough deer, you kind of guess. And we have a lot of deer on our cameras and we can sit in the, in our little building. And, you know, yeah, LW and Truex, they're really good at it.

And they'll be like, yep, he's a 150. And he's at this stand and he's usually going to be there every day. They frequent a lot of the same spot. So that's why you pick the stand you're going to go to because you're kind of hunting a specific deer that you hope is going to come back that day. What time will you get up and go out? Yeah, I don't get up. We don't do morning hunts. I almost sit, sleep.

I'm going to sit there and sleep in and watch TV and. When do you go out after launch? Yeah. We get up in the morning. Trix will go hunting the morning. And I've actually had, I went hunting in the morning and had some luck. You can have luck. But hunting in the morning is, I don't know, it's just not as fun.

You got to get up at 5 o'clock in the morning, a hour and a half, four starts to come up. It's chilly. And you got to walk into a stand. You're not real familiar with where the stand is. What we do is take these little reflective tics. you know, and we pin them into trees. So you have this little, like, path to follow.

You follow the tacks on the trees. You can't see. You're just a flashlight. Yeah. You just got a little flashlight. You kind of keep the flashlight down, so you're not shining it through the woods. But you're trying just to shine enough to highlight these tacks

as you're walking toward the tree. And that's not really a pleasant feeling, walking through the middle of Ohio in the middle of the woods. No clue. Yeah. Yeah, I might get. get lost. Who goes?

I had to sit here at the bottom of a tree just waiting for the sun to come out so I can see where I'm at. And so I don't know. I don't really love. And then you're climbing into an unfamiliar tree stand without a lot of light, you know, and it's just uncomfortable. But then you get up in there and, you know, the sun comes up and it's actually kind of nice. Yeah, that'd be nice. Yeah. And then things start moving around.

It's funny. It's pitch black and it's quiet. But as soon as the sun starts to come up and over the, starts to crest, everything starts moving. I love that. All the squirrels start running around. It's like, it's kind of just kind of comes up. The world wakes up. Yeah.

It's so cool. Yeah, it is. It really is. So that is a pro. You don't take, I don't give a crap about that today, tomorrow. I don't, I don't see this. I don't pay attention to it in my everyday life. but when you go and you force yourself to sit out there and watch it happen,

it's really kind of nice. And so by time, by about 10 o'clock, I'm coming out of the deer stand in the morning if we hunt, they're moving like at dark as they're moving right as the sun's about to come up. Now, you can shoot some deer at 9 o'clock, but I'm just saying right around 10 o'clock, they're done moving. They've gotten to where they're going to go. And then And then

For the evening So basically I don't do the morning hunts I just don't I might After all that set up I don't blame you I don't want to get up her I don't want to get up her

I don't because we've stayed up We sat around the campfire We're drinking beer We're laughing We're hanging out And he's seen TREX in a year So I mean we're You know

I don't know if he's going to be there This trip I think he's coming in late but I got him taking another buddy with me. And so we're going to hang out and shoot shit. And so anyways, you know, you get up, you run to town, you get some corn, you go around the farm, you're getting things ready and all that stuff. We can feed on, we can hunt corn piles legally there. And so we get corn and stuff and go through that out.

But probably around 2 o'clock we start getting ready to go to the stand for the afternoon hunt. And so you get into the deer stand, deer's not going to move until right before dark. So you get in a stand about an hour or two, two hours before that. You want to be in the stand and comfortable before that by about two hours. So you're sitting there for quite a while waiting on this moment. Wow.

Wow. So the anticipation, excitement's got to be. Yeah. Or you're on your phone. Oh, whatever. Texting, passing time.

Farring off some bets. Yeah, you're firing off some bets, whatever. Hopefully you're in a stand. that has some service. Some of our deer stands don't have very good service.

So you can barely text. Are you trying to say quiet? You don't move. You don't want to scare. You don't even move. Quiet. Of course you're quiet. But you don't even move.

Bambi, come out. Like, there ain't no moving arms or nothing. Sitting motionless. Like, if you're messing with your phone and stuff, you just kind of have it down and you're just kind of looking out of the bottom of your eyes. Minimal movement whatsoever. Because, I mean, that deer could be, you know, 100 yards away in the tree line, and you don't see it yet.

And they'll stand there for freaking 10 minutes, like, before they walk out in the field going, is there anything out here? And their hearing is good. And their visuals, too. They'll see things that don't look normal. Don't look right. They've been in that field every day for the last three months, right? So they can tell when something's a little bit off. I don't hunt, so this is all fascinating here.

So, yeah, we'll get in the deer stand and sit there and, man, I love it. Sitting there in the middle of afternoon, just chilling, nothing to do. And you got to worry about no problems, nothing going on in whatever, whatever's going on, right? You're just totally disconnected. Is that hard leaving? Hopefully, right before dark, the deer start coming into wherever you're at, right? And usually in the evenings you hunt open field and in the morning as you hunt the woods. the mornings you're trying to catch them coming out of the fields to go to bed. So you're in the

bedding area. In the afternoons, you're in the fields trying to catch them coming out of bed. They're getting up and moving to go eat. They're going to eat all night and then they're going to sleep all day. And so you're sitting there and hopefully right before dark, the deer start moving in the field. And then you're good. Like, just as long as you got something to watch. I don't care what it is, a little dough, whatever. You just want something to look at. And so you're sitting there watching whatever deer, maybe more and more deer. And usually, you know, you're going to see a couple bucks, some good-looking bucks that come out. And then you've got to try to get out of the stand.

I was going to say, is it hard leaving? Yeah, it's hard leaving. So it gets dark. You sit in there until you literally can't see anymore. Like you sit in the stand for the evening hunts until you can't see nothing. and it's illegal to shoot a deer beyond a certain point of Yeah, sunset or something

Yeah, when it gets dark, you can't Like you can take, there's like little night vision And stuff like that you can take out there And you can like still see what's going on But you're not allowed to shoot at that point And so And with the bow, it would be impossible. But basically you sit in the stand

And you got to wait on the truck So you can't get out of the stand because you'll bust the deer. You can't let the deer know that you're there at all, ever. And so if you were to climb out of the stand, the deer are going to bust. They're going to see you. They're going to scream, you're going to scream, blow.

They're going to run in all different directions, and they ain't never coming back. Like, they're done with this field because that's going to spook them for days. And so you've got to wait on the truck. I'll get to it, Travis. You've got to wait on the truck to drive all the way into the underneath the stand. and they, for some reason, aren't worried about that truck. They see them all the time, right?

They see vehicles and they don't think anything of it. And so you come out of the stand right into the truck and then you drive out. That's the only problem. That's the part I don't really like because you're sitting there and the truck might be going to pick up multiple hunters. And you're like, well, I'm ready to go, but the truck ain't here. You know, so sometimes you're sitting in there longer than you won't. All right, man, as usual, this segment of Ask Junior is brought to you by

Xfinity, 11 years, they've been the Xfinity series. It's grown into something special. They've backed young drivers. They've backed teams and crew chiefs and told everybody's story over the 11 years. Done a really good job of shepherding that series into the next chapter. It'll be called something else in the future. No Riley series, right? And the series name may be changing, but Xfinity, they're going to be around.

They're not going nowhere. And we appreciate everything they do for us here at Dirtymo Media. But yeah, sorry. Sorry to go on and on about hunting. I'm excited to go. I like that. One person said that they had like their school like breaks were around. They had won like deer hunting season.

Dude, let me tell you, when deer hunting season started, you didn't see dad anymore. I mean, it felt like, I mean, if it wasn't at a race, Racetrack, he's at a camp. And he'd be in Alabama, South Carolina, Texas. He'd be gone. I mean, days and days and days. And so that was normal to me.

Three months out of the year, you know, you might see him if it was 30, I mean, sorry, if it was 90 days, you were going to see, you're going to see dad about maybe two weeks out of those 90 days. And so, I mean, he's just gone. that was the way it was my uncle Robert my uncle Robert jr jr jrmy on my mom's side same thing

Robert has worked in his shop as a fabricator back when he's doing steel bodies still here today doing a lot of fabricating with carbon fiber and stuff and when hunting season starts he leaves he'll be gone for weeks that's just that's just the deal we made and um and so being gone for is not unusual. I don't get to do it much. I don't really love it as much as my dad did. I do enjoy it. My dad was hardcore about it.

I guess I could be, I guess, and maybe I will down in the future. But I don't know. I got all kinds of other stuff to do. I feel bad because I'm going, I'm going to go this weekend, and we got the Xfinity deal at Martin'sville is pretty big deal, pretty important.

But it's kind of like you got to weigh, like, where are the priorities? You'll be in Phoenix, right? Yeah, I'm definitely making Phoenix. Yeah, so you'll be there. Yeah. I mean, I feel like this obligation to keep hunting as part of my life because I do love it and it's part of my dad's life. It's important to you.

It's important to me. Yeah. And it's really, I can't go after this. After this weekend, I can't go. Yeah. And it's just better to go in a specific time of year around the rut and all that. Sure, of course. But I don't care if we get anything.

I just, I like, you know, grill and stuff. and hanging out, talking, BSing, talking about what, you know, get back and talking about what you saw and taking a friend that doesn't do it much. My buddy, Sean, he doesn't hunt at all. He only goes when I take him. I gave him my old bow. And so, it's fun just to hang out and see what their experiences are like and how much

they enjoy it. Yeah, 100%. There have been a lot of people talking in the YouTube chat about hunting and sports addict. We saw this one. They said, do you remember the... Dale call when they wanted to know if you still had one

you used it at all let me tell y'all something I've told this story here before but I had the flu that day we filmed that oh really um

dang so I didn't know that yeah so we're I don't remember exactly what time of year this was but I'm telling you like I was

bad sick and I called um I called Jake backer who's working the he's working the Pepsi deal the Mountain Dew Pepsi deal for Hendrick at the time and I call him and I'm supposed to go downtown Charlotte into a studio and get in this car and have it spun around in circles as we're doing that you know the donuts right and there's a lot of other stuff too that I needed they wanted me to film for that commercial

I'm pumped to do it because it's a great commercial I think that thing aired in the Super Bowl or something shit. So, I mean, it's like, it's like, got to do it. This is really important. Everybody, there's lots of money been spent for this production and they're all down there in Charlotte waiting on me to get up that morning and go down there. Well, I wake up and I call him, I'm like, Jake, I am sick. I can't come. I am bad sick. And he's like, oh man, give me five minutes. He calls me back. He's like, dude, we got to do this. We can't not shoot this today. You've got to figure this out. Can you come down here? We have whittled it down to literally nothing. You'll be here 30 minutes. And I'm like, all right. And I mean, it was, I was miserable. But I drove down there,

walk in, they put me in, I get climbing this car, get my suit, get makeup and all that stuff, climb in, sit in this car. They spun me around. I did whatever they asked me to do and drinking the mountain doing all that stuff. And they had me out of there less than an hour. And I was so sick wow but I was so thankful it still turned out fine we didn't do everything they didn't I didn't do everything

they had in the the skit you know but yeah we got it done and it ended up being fun I didn't know that we were actually ever going to make those we weren't planning on making the Del Call toy we weren't

but it was such a it was like an opportunity like well damn I kind of wanted one who wouldn't want one of those, right? Yeah, I did. Yeah. And so they made them. They came up with a company in a way to make that thing. They weren't even thinking to make it. It's fun how stuff like that it does so well and you're like, well, we'll make it. Yeah, it's brilliant. I'm still signing some of those things here and there. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Wow. Do you have one yourself?

I do have one. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's cool. Wow. I had no idea. I never knew that story of And like that's like one of the more memorable NASCAR commercials, I feel like. So to watch you know what commercials that I, you know what commercials that I thought were really good that don't get talked about that much? We're the AMP commercials. We did an AMP commercial with a gorilla and a camel and we did all these commercials. I flew out to L.A. and it's right at the front of the Hendrit deal. So there's a lot of excitement.

We've got National Guard, Amp Energy, and I mean, there's a bunch of excitement around us racing for Rick. And they are spending a ton of money. They send me out to L.A. and I'm in this gigantic studio where they had filmed, you know, like Warner Brothers. It's a Warner Brothers. There's a lot.

Like we drove onto the Warner Brothers Lot. We go in this building and it's like, oh, all these different movies were made in here. And I can't remember them, but they were recognizable movies. And they had these sets. They had these big sets that I was going to be doing all these commercials and stuff in. And we did this,

we did one with the, with the camel, like I'm in a camel race. And I'm on a camel racing against other guys. And out in the, out in the Sahara Desert. or somewhere right out there. And my camel gets tired.

And so I drink some amp energy and throw the camel on my back and I run to the finish line and win. And the commercial is made. It's out there. You watch it. One thing that I came up with that I thought would be so hilarious

was in victory lane of the camel race. I had them make a giant check. You know how we hold up the big checks when we win stuff in NASCAR? And I had them have a check and on that check was all of that

crazy writing from like crazy writing. The font Yes. Yeah. And so I don't know what it said. Like $100 million or

million dollars or whatever. But don't go to the video because it's not in there. So I'm like, hey, in NASCAR when we win, you know, you get these big checks. But it'd be cool if it had all of that that font or language.

That language. Yeah. And I could hold it up and be like, yeah, you know, with the camel. And we filmed it. We filmed that shot. And it didn't make the final. Damn it. I was disappointed. I wanted it to.

So bad. And then we had this, we did in the same day, we shot, or the same week, we shot at a commercial, I'm sitting in a diner, and I'd open up an amp and take a drink. and an ape comes busting through the window. And it's like, I don't know, like the energy of the drink, right, was going to make crazy things happen around you. And it's, I don't remember exactly the context or how that all.

But there's a guy in his suit. Oh, there's a dude? Yeah, it's a dude. And it's what he does for a living. He's a stunt man. He's a stump man. And he bust through windows all the time. And so I got, I was like, you know,

I've never been in a scene where somebody bust through a window. And we got to do that over and over and over And I was like, man, this is really fun And he was great I thought you're going to say his job was like He pretended to be like the ape Like you're like oh he's a stunt man Oh, okay I thought like he just he owned the suit

Like he did know like well I mean he was I don't know if he owned a suit Yeah yeah yeah yeah what are you I mean I'm He's in the costume Right busting through the window Yeah No, it's awesome.

That one, those don't get talked about. That was so much money went into producing those. And I thought they were really fun. I love the creative ones. But they, yeah, and there was, I forget there was another one where I was in a, I'd have to go back and watch those. Well, let's ask the YouTube chat. What's your favorite NASCAR commercial?

We'll bring some up here. The Bud ones are going to always be popular responses in that question. The lipstick, wow, so much fun. Give us some deep cuts that on YouTube chat. getting chased by the guys like what was that mean? Oh yeah like the Mad Max yeah that was so much fun

so I'm out we're literally out in the middle of nowhere right out west filming this and all those people are dressed up like that and I was literally seriously kind of intimidated and you're actually scared and you walk up to them and they start talking like normal

people and it's like Bob from accounting and Jim you know and you're like And they're like, they start talking like normal people. It was, it twisted your mind up like a pretzel. Oh, man. Just because I got bud on the car. Doesn't mean I got bud in the car.

Right, right, right. Oh, man. That's so good. Well, as we see the YouTube comments roll in, we'll circle back to it. But just some racing related stuff this week. Chase asks, what was your reaction to Austin Hill, the picture of him that came out, flipping off the fans. I'm glad you asked that.

So I screenshoted this. So apparently there's a guy on Twitter that is the one who... Instigated it. Yeah, instigated it and posted the photo on Twitter that's gotten all this attention. That's a little bit different. That's not the same. So that guy isn't the one that posted it. But there's a guy that posted it.

I think I saw the tweet you're referring. And he's now responded and said to clarify some context to the picture. Yes, he flipped us off. Yes, we did it first. Yes, we thought it was hilarious. Yeah. So he shouldn't be punished. I respect the gesture and it adds to the needed personality of the field needs.

I may hate him, but I love to hate him because that's sports. And I like that response. I do too. Great response. Now, let's be clear. Austin Hill did not drive. This is Austin Hill driving by the grandstands, driver's side toward the grandstand.

He did not drive down the front straightaway with his middle finger in the air the whole way. He's flipping a guy off and he's looking directly at the camera and he's responding to some fans who probably two or three dudes in the grandstands are probably sitting there double burdened him. Probably. And he's just giving it back. And I agree.

We need. to embrace this to an extent. Why not? We'll call it out for what it is. They love to hate him if, you know. If you love to hate him, this is for you. Yeah. And so I'm good with it.

I agree with this post here about letting it slide because it does add some color. And, you know, there's not a lot of, of people out there are willing to be the villain, could be the bad guy, to be the guy that's, you know, not a lot of guys willing to do that. And honestly, man, you know, Austin Hill, I think Denny's, I want to give Denny a little credit, Denny's shown you how to do that and survive it, right?

A lot of people are worried about being the bad guy because they think it could affect negatively affect your career, right? Opportunity, things like that. So I think a lot of people are like, and sponsors, you know, a sponsor gets upset and their driver's a bad guy. You know, Kyle Bush probably worried years ago, right, that, man, is Eminem's bothered by this perception? And I need to correct, course, correct this, right? Because Eminem's probably doesn't want the least popular driver to be in their car. Yeah, so, you know, things are much different for Kyle. these days, but in terms of popularity.

But at one point in his career, I mean, it might have been a concern with the sponsor. So Denny has opened doors to show, hey, this is how you engage with fans. This is how you can give it back to them. And I think this is perfectly, it's unique, it's unusual. I don't want to see every driver out there flipping birds. Right. Yeah. It's actually fun.

It's actually kind of fun. If he had driven down the front straight away with his arm out the window, doing it to everybody, it had been one thing. But it wasn't that. It was a response to some individuals in grandstands. They've cleared it up, and I think it's fair game. I think they're looking forward to next year's race. Yeah, hoping they get a chance to do it again.

They want this again. You know what I mean? I think R.C. kind of liked it too, probably. You think about the team that he races for. Okay. I think they all probably thought it was fine. Yeah. Yeah, I don't.

It's fine. Yeah. It's fun. No way NASCAR should penalize this. Jimmy Spencer said yes. I saw Jimmy Spencer say that. He was, I think Jimmy was, you know, feeling himself a little bit, you know, having a good time with the DBC boys and excited to be on the show. And I don't entirely agree with that.

I think you got to, there's, it's, it can't be so black and white. Look at the context here. Understand. Now, had he done it all the way down to front of the. straightaway is a bird to everybody. That's different. I'd say that's something

we need to get him in the room and go, listen, pal, you know, that can't happen. But this kind of stuff right here is just, it's like no different than, you know, Kevin Durant going on Twitter and going back at trolls. I saw him, you know, he's like,

hey man, it's like my morning coffee. They're like, why do you give, yeah, why do you waste your time with this? He's like, you ought to try it. It's fun, you know. I think this is awesome that it even lined up like this to like the odds of this like it's great it's like yeah yeah yeah i'm fine with that's that's fair opinion um we're gonna have to wrap this junior it's been good but i do want

to follow up on some people's favorite commercials uh i saw a lot of pancakes comments oh yeah water cooler dale water cooler dale's fun that was fun gnomes are magic yeah noms is good yeah so water cooler dale was great i was filmed at junior motor sports it was yeah because i recognize like the break room. Oh, dang, I've worn my hood. Water Coolerdale was awesome for me because it actually opened up this sort of reoccurring meme of me in all these various roles, right? And so that actually was kind of fun because that kind of started something that continued.

And so, yeah. Yeah Does everybody else feel like that He cuts us short on this Every time We've gone 30 minutes On Just Asked Jr. Yeah

Okay It feels like 10 30 minutes is the goal time Hunting was a lot in the beginning It feels like it was a lot in the Hey I do want to give a shout out to Blue Grass Boy in the YouTube comments He just randomly gave us

$20 donation so I appreciate that If I knew where he was If he was standing right here I'd give him this bag All right hey, you know what else is good in the world, best in the world? Xfinity. Xfinity Wi-Fi, Xfinity Mobile, all the things Xfinity does.

As a serious team owner, I rely on things that perform under pressure. We can't have our Wi-Fi dropping. That's why we go with Xfinity. Fast-dependable internet, with one price locked in for five years, no contracts, no slowdowns, no nonsense. Like, if you don't like it, you can get out. No contract. I mean, why not try something?

It's just like filter time. When I try something, if you can just, then it's not for me. I tried it. No contract. I like that. I'm willing to give things a go that aren't going to lock me into something. Yeah, don't lock me in.

Well, with Exfinity Wi-Fi, you won't be locked in. You won't be locked into nothing but reliable, strong internet. Did you like that? That was a good segue, right? Exfinity is a proud premier partner of NASCAR. Thank you all for tuning in. fun this morning. We've got a great show for you. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

Place your bets. This segment of Dirty Modeau is brought to you by a fan duel. Dirty Modeau with Tampa Tims and Russell. No surprise. Vegas has the playoff drivers as the top eight. Good job, Vegas.

Boring. Blaney is the favorite at plus 400 going into Martinsville. Larson Hamlin plus 500. Bell's in there, Elliot. Byron Legano

plus 850. Briscoe at plus 1,600. Wow. Last week's winner. Briscoe should be offended. Yeah, but I think that's fair right here.

He's got a win. He's just trying to... He should take that. And use it as fuel. Use it as fuel. Win the race. Screw you, books. Yeah.

Yeah. Russ, does your model agree with Las Vegas? I'm close, but my model is not emotional, and I think Vegas is more emotional. So, like, I don't have Blaney at the top because of that. Dang, really? Well, the numbers say, like, Denny, Larson, Chase Elliott, then Ryan Blaney.

Chase Elliott. They're exactly the same. Did Blaney have a bad, did Blaney have a bad? Did he have a bad hot dog or something? What's going on? No, no, it's just that's... He's been good. Like, he's up and down recently.

He won two races. Give me the statistics. He won this race the last two years, so that's where Vegas... Wait. But he's been up and down. Where's the down? Where's the down part? That's more than the most of them.

He's down because of the way he's run this year. He's not as consistent as he has... Oh, since he didn't have a good race at Michigan, Oh. He's not got a chance at Martinsville. I see. Oh, he cut that tire. He cut a tire at Kansas.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Wow, bad. Bad deal. You have a problem with him being tied for third behind Hamlin and Larson? Sorry? Yes. You do? Has he won this race the last two years?

Yes, but Denny's won here six times. Denny's race for 35 years. He's run of 10,000 races. I mean, Denny won here in the spring. Denny won here before, like, since Blaney won here. I mean, yeah. So I would take the guy that is one more recently. So you think there's that much separation between them, though?

You're wrong. Vegas has got it right. You're doing the emotional part. Yeah, you're emotional here. I've watched the how driver and Denny's great at Martinsville. Don't get me wrong. But nobody runs Martinsville like Ryan Blaney nowadays. I mean, I've watched Tows of the less.

TJ's up there watching. Every corner. He's emotional. I'm not emotional. I watch it with my eyes. The eye test, man. Yeah, the eye test. Yeah.

You know the eye test? that's not emotional. I don't have the eye test. I have number. That's obvious. What makes him so good at this track, T.J.? I mean, they've just, they've been good here set up-wise, even since Brad got really good at Martinsville and the two-car before.

Damn, I knew Brad because Lasky was going to have to drug into this conversation. That started, Penske started then getting really good. You know, I don't bring it up every. I'm just telling you they've been good since there. Like, this has been one of Penske's tracks. Okay, okay. It's been, Joey's one here in 18. We were going to win this argument.

We still are going to win it. You have to bring a Brad Keselowski tie into everything. I'm just saying Penske has, and it's in the show sheet, the season ends with Penske's strong tracks. This is a strong track for Penske. This is a strong track for Ryan Blaney. And watching, this is where the, like I'm telling you, watching Ryan run this track, he does not waver on his line. He doesn't search. He is six inches off the curb, the entire race on both ends.

He has the lowest exit of term four. he has the most smoothest one and two that you can run and he's just good here like he's really good they are going to you're they are going to Martinsville in a race they must win a race they won the last two times we've been there

they not only is he good there and the setup they have is somewhat successful there but they will be pushing the limits the car they're going to take to Martinsville might be more aggressive than what they'll eventually take to Phoenix. This is like an all-in hell Mary. It is.

You've got to have it. And Denny is going there, the guy that the model has ahead of Blaney. Denny's going there locked in. Like he's got, he doesn't have the same pressure. He doesn't have, his team doesn't have to have the same aggression. They're going to save that ability to really push the boundaries in the Techline next week in Phoenix. They're not going to go get their ass in trouble

and draw the scrutiny of NASCAR, draw the spotlight, when it doesn't matter. And so I feel like, you know, the car, but just unloading the cars, Blaney's going to be the favorite.

And then when you factor in what everybody's up against and how, you know, Denny's safe. He is safe. I don't know that. Brisco safe. They don't listen. And I know you're going to say this too.

And I agree. They don't want a Phoenix, they don't want a Penske car to win. They don't want a Penske car to be racing them at Phoenix. They also don't want to go to Phoenix. Blaney's going to have the speed. He'll be the fastest car of these eight. You don't want to go to Phoenix also with on guys' lists that are going to race the heck out of you either. You don't want to make somebody's Martinsville bad and then go to Phoenix and have to face that guy that's not in the championship.

What do you think about that, Russell? Yeah. I agree. I agree. It's emotional. I know. It's emotional. I'm just here for the numbers.

I can't be as emotional as you. Your numbers are really weird sometimes. I think sometimes your numbers are entered into the computer emotionally. The numbers never lie, DJ. Well, Tim's question for you. Does a non-playoff driver have a shot? No, zero. Zero shot.

Who wins? Who wins? Where's your favorite? I like Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott. Chase Elliott was really fast. I'm really surprised. I don't have... Chase, I'm... This is purely emotion. I haven't got that confidence

that you guys have in Chase. I don't see, I just think it's... Blaney's really good there. Chase was really good there last year. I think one of those guys can win their way in and the battles between Bell and Larson from 8th and 9th further to get in. Really?

Yeah, I don't think they'll win. I don't think Briscoe or Hammond will win. Where's Bell's been great at this race track? Is he not got it this year, guys? I just don't believe. leaving him. He's been hit or missed lately. Yeah. And Chase has been really giving you guys a lot of

confidence lately. Chase has been top four the last three. He's averaging 100 laps lead here in the last 10 races. What about the focus at Hendrick, though? The focus is going to be on the 5 and 24, right? Don't you think that would add a little bit to it? No. What do you mean? Why wouldn't? I mean... I'm going to focus on the 9

2. I don't know. I mean, I just think the Henry... Chase sit this one out. We're not... Yeah, you're right. You're not. I don't know. I don't know. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I Your car nothing about it. You and Bowman go sit over there. I just don't have the confidence in Chase. You're right. Chase can show up and be dominant at times,

and he could very well do that here. He could do it. I love what you guys are saying about Chase. I'm being educated here. He's obviously, you know, with what you're telling me, I feel like Chase is my Chevrolet driver for this weekend. Yes, 100%. I like Byron.

I mean, sorry, I like Blaney and Chase. Now, when we think about the Toyota camp, you know, is it Bell? Do we see Hamlin even trying to influence Bell's success this weekend? Man, I think they're just counting their ducks till Phoenix, honestly. I think Denny would be good. I think Denny can go outrun Bell this weekend. So, like, who is our Toyota guy? I like Bubba.

Yeah. Sorry? Bubba. I don't think 2311 has anything to lose. At Martin'sville? Yeah. He's run pretty well here last couple of years.

Give me some statistics to back that. Russ, get the statistics out. Hope him out, Russ. Five and two of the last three here. There you go. Really? I don't know if that's good enough for me to feel confident he can beat. He's just the best non-playoff driver.

You're going to, what are you going to? All right. And you're getting good odds on that? Yeah, you would get good odds. Right. I mean, is that influencing your choice here? Oh, yeah, that's 100%. I think he runs better than Briscoe.

I think he runs better than Bell, and you're just beating out Denny. And I don't know how much Denny's going to go up there and rough up with those guys. But if Denny's car is good, he's going to... That's the thing is Denny's going to want to win. He's the guy to be... He's the guy... He's definitely going to want to win. Everybody wants to win.

I just... You got to factor in all of the... The prep, the things going into it. I agree. When you're talking Toyota, Denny is the most feared guy if you're picking Bubba. I agree. Would you take Bubba at top 10 for plus 1-10? Yes, 100%.

I think he's a top 10 guarantee. So if he's in the top 10, you're probably beating. He's probably first through third of Toyota's. Let's talk some matchups real quick. Bell Larson. I think Bell beats him head to head. I do right now, yeah. Russell.

I like Larson. Bail. All right, the inconsistency from Bell is reared its head. Larson seems to be back on track. Don't you think, Russell? I agree. All right. Legano, Blaney.

I'm going to go with Blaney here. Lugano was right there on his heels, though. That guy ain't no fool. He's no slouch at Martinsville, but I just feel like Blaney's success there. I don't know. Why would you pick Logano over him? Yeah. Russell, any.

Yeah, I agree. Now, Lugano's finished top 10 in the last 12 races there, but like. Yeah. But Blaney still beat him in most of those. Yeah. Byron, Chase Elliott, I think we're all saying Chase Elliott. Yeah, Chase Elliott. Hamlin, Briscoe, I think we're all going Hamlin.

Yeah. Those last two I feel pretty confident about. The others, I'm not quite as sure. Talk about some other drivers. Okay, so you talked about Bubba for a top ten. Who's some other drivers? Do you think steal a top ten? Man.

I think Ryan Preece has a chance. He's been top ten and two of the last three there. I love it. Plus 300. Yeah, I throw in Reddick, but I'm not confident in it. I just, I don't like most of the non-playoff guys besides Bubba. I really don't. Bubba Priests, about the only two worth.

Yeah, maybe Bowman, but I doubt it because he's the fourth car. They're not going to focus on him. Chastain would be the other one that I would. He's actually going to, they're actually loading up a truck for him. He's going to race a truck in this race. He's not even going to have an extra. He's not going, probably. Ginger's like, yeah, no more.

They don't even show up. You're racing a truck. Yeah. I honestly kind of forgot Chase was still like eligible because you've got so far back I'm just saying like He goes to every race, guy

No, I know, but being Being 62 back Maybe if you told Brad to push the Penskees And focus on your job Does he say he's a sissy? No, I said 62 points back Oh, sorry. Gee.

She said being a sissy too. Oh, whatever. Whatever. You said Chase being a sissy too. That's what you said. That right blue Napa card. I didn't. exist.

Yeah, that's not there. That's not out there. But DJ, everyone below the cut line basically has to win. Oh, 100%. This is kind of... It doesn't matter if you're 36 back or 62 back. Yeah, I said in the beginning of the show, and even like two of these guys are going to have to wreck early

to even have a shot at pointing the way in, like Larson and Bell or whatever. That's right. Well, the last thing we have to do, guys, before we wrap up this segment of Dirty Modo is determine our Toyota car. Hamlin, who is it? Hamlin or Bell? Or Bubba? Man, I've honestly got to go with Denny. I think Denny goes to Martin's worth a little bit of an edge already because... DJ's a Denny bro. So our parlay this week's going to be Denny, Blaney, Chase Elliott.

Sprinkle a little bit on Bubba on the side. All right. Well, we've had a lot of fun. Thanks for coming, Russell. Good to see you, Tampa Tim's. This 30-modo segment was brought to you by fan duel the premier gaming destination in the United States. White flag. All right, it's time for the white flag. The teardown was live on YouTube and Twitter following the race. If you haven't already, head over to Dirtymo Media's YouTube page. Subscribe, turn on notifications.

You won't miss anything. Door bumper clear dropped on Monday. Jimmy Spencer was the guest. You got to check that out. Action is detrimental also dropped, and he had a great breakdown of the final laps in the battle between Chase Briscoe and Bubba Wallace in Sunday's race. My guest interview tomorrow with Rajah Kruhe is out Wednesday.

And then Herman Strader and Speed Street, they'll be dropping Wednesday as well. Thursday, another episode of Bless Your Heart. And then finally, the Dirty 30 on Friday. We'll see you.