The Dale Jr. Download - Cleetus McFarland’s Gift & Return to Rockingham

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns to the studio after Easter weekend for a new episode of Dirty Air. He is joined by co-host TJ Majors to recap their holidays and the exciting return to Rockingham:Dale and Cleetus McFarland’s Talladega AdventureThe Return of the RockWould Cup be good at Rockingham?Jesse Love’s disqualificationThe Xfinity race ending was roughSammy Smith has risen to the occasionChampionship back to HomesteadNASCAR Hall of Fame nomineesDuring the Ask Jr. segment of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding:Wreck retaliationThe upcoming NFL draftCars that Dale regrets getting rid ofWhat translates best from sim racing to actual racing? Dirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Dale Jr. Download merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff.And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia 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. 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.

Well, I don't know what we should send him. Says a thank you. But it's absolutely got to happen. And also, it has to be something that pleases the wife, as the swans have done. Because this was like a cool gift, but it ain't like a dude's gift. Yeah. It ain't like, oh, man, appreciate the shotgun or thanks for the fucking side-by-side. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media.

I'm still sour, man, that I wasn't your best man at your wedding. When will you start mentally, like, getting ready for the race? Can you not tell I'm mentally ready? Travis has some dumb ideas, but I agree with them on this one. It doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about. You haven't scratched the surface yet. I mean, what the fuck do you won't? I just think the last few laps, it was just like stop every time.

You're picky. This ain't walking in and have it your way, motherfucker. All right, this ain't Burger King. Travis is like, you're wrapped us up. They all have no fun around here. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode. of the Dale Jr. Download and looky what we have here.

PJ Majors. Yeah, glad to be back. Where you been? Recovering, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, it's getting right. From what? Did you fall?

Almost. Did you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so Darlington turned into a weekend that I didn't really want to, don't really want to go back to. So a good little ER trip visit on Saturday night. You had a little illness in Darlington.

yeah and you're on your way back you look fine yeah I'm fine yeah I'm fine all right so a couple more things to handle down the road with it but then I'll be done with it for good so but yeah and uh Florence South Carolina they took good care of me wasn't my favorite place to be in in the middle of the night but um took good care of me that when you were in the hospital that you asked your wife to come to Florence and bring your Xbox? So she actually sent it down with Paige on Sunday and Brad came and saw me Sunday night and brought it over to me.

So I had something to do. Yeah, of course. Yeah. So, yeah. So not, I didn't ask her to bring it. Yeah. But she made it happen. Well, I was getting some clothes and stuff because I had a day or so longer a stay than I

wanted to be there. So, yeah, why not play some Xbox? if you get a chance at it. What else you've been doing laying around? I've been watching these races. Oh, yeah. And it's really painful to watch them and not be there.

But, you know, I think had Brad's brother fill in for me. Did a good job with Carson and mad over the weekend. And he had, obviously, a Brad at Bristol. So had him fill in for me. But just staying tuned in watching these races. It's not my favorite way to watch a race.

I mean, you know, this is the thing about it. Sometimes you get suspended or you get hurt or whatever it is and you're going to miss some races. It sucks. You hate seeing some else drive your race car. You hate someone else having to do the job you want to be doing. But at the same time, man, I mean, you don't really got much of a choice. You might as well just relax and enjoy it. Yeah.

This is definitely the most relaxed that I have been. Kind of nice being at home on a weekend with your kids running around. Yeah. No, it was definitely, it was definitely nice being at home, not the circumstances that I wanted to be there, but... You don't have to say that part. Wow. It's already assumed. Wow, yes.

But just making sure. Yeah. You got to spend a couple weekends to house, man. It's a long season. It's very long. We literally just went through the weekend, the one and only off weekend of the whole year for the Cup series. Yeah, there's a long stretch coming up. That is bull.

That is bull. That is bull. I got a short number. schedule. It is ridiculously long. When you think about like the other sports, nobody's saying that. Nobody's saying that part.

Say it one more time. Just make sure. Man, it is bull's shit. That this is the only off weekend for the Cup series. God. I mean, it ain't like we're playing, hey,

there are other sports, right, to have a group more, more of a grueling season than we do. Is there? I don't know. Baseball sounds pretty grueling. Yeah,

but they like have off days in between and like, they do? But so do we. I mean, we don't race, but every seven days. Please. Hello? I think baseball would be pretty...

Baseball's pretty grueling. Basketball. 84 games season or so. 82 games. They're traveling. They're in an airplane or in a hotel every other day. Yeah. Hockey's probably similar.

Yeah. So, I mean, I'm not... I'm not going to complain too lowly. But this bulls-hitch! We just need the Olympics every year. I'm just kidding. We used to have a 28 race schedule back in the 80s and lots of off weekends. Lots of fun. days at the house with dad around the lake learning how to ski yeah yeah lake parties where the

teams would come over and other drivers even yeah that's not you imagine it's not a thing nowadays could you imagine no the fans would have lost it if they'd been known that wait no they would love it because we'd be capturing content around it but fans would hate if they knew that their driver was hanging out i don't think so yes you say hey live stream lake party i don't know if you want to watch it. Hey, you want to know that's something? A couple things before we jump into this, you know, this show. I've been, I did, I've been doing some work with Cletus McFarland, right?

He came on the show was a guest. And we just did something in Talladega the other day. It's my idea. I was like, hey, man, let's go to Talladega. And he went, so he went and raced at Daytona, had a good time, all that stuff, crashed out. and I liked that he was, I think it's great that he's, he's trying to do it and, you know, hey, you know, Dark Series, maybe that's kind of where you do this kind of thing. I don't know, but it, it, it, uh, he's going to Taldegan, it going to race.

And I was like, hey, maybe I ought to, maybe I ought to, maybe I ought to, maybe I ought to, maybe I'll, maybe I ought to go down there with me and let me take you around that place and not so much to, like, help him race better, but like at least help him understand, like, where he's racing, right? Like, what Talladega is. Nobody probably gave him a

Daytona 101 course. He probably has no idea in the history of Talladega either. And so if, I thought, you know, knowing a little bit more about the track and the history and all that stuff might make the whole thing even more enjoyable personally for him.

Now, he's probably not going to take this information and start. How far did you go back? Well, I was just like, not all this is going to make our show because it was a little bit of a boring history class. But talking about, I guess, trying to help them understand, like, first off, we kind of did, there's always been this rumor that Talladega was built on a Indian barrel ground or some story, right, with some sort of Indian land, right? Well, we kind of uncovered some. I've never heard, like, real facts about that before. I guess we didn't uncover it, but we just Googled.

Yeah. And so we didn't discover something new, but we, I learned something new. Where apparently this did belong to a certain nation or tribe, and they were, it was part of the, I forget the, the trail of tears, they basically were displaced, told to leave, and sent somewhere else,

and as they were being removed from their land, the, I guess the medicine man turned back and look back and cursed it. Who knows for sure if that's really how that all went down? But apparently, they built a military air base, this part I kind of forgot to tell him,

but they built this military, you can see it. When you land there, it's an old airport, right? And if you look way high above the racetrack, you can see the old landing strips that used to crisscross the boulevard, right? The hallibald is a landing strip from the military air base, right? So the track itself is right on top of the runways, the old runways from the old military airport. And all of the original buildings,

most of the original buildings, hangers and so forth, they're still there. So, you know, and I was telling him how, I guess, the town or the area, the location, the local government sold the track to Mr. France for a buck or something with the promise of building the racetrack and providing all that opportunity for the area. So there was kind of an interesting deal where it was like he got the land for literally nothing. And then, you know, they build the track and I've got this great article in a

stuck car magazine that I've been wanting to bring on to the show to read because it's probably the most in-depth play-by-play of the whole first race where the drivers boycotted. You know, then we had all these nasty, you know, the big one, the big crashes. The big crashes that we see just about every time we go to Talladega and Daytona had been happening at Talladega, at least, since the early 70s. Nasty wrecks. There was one at Talladega, I believe, in 73, where they crashed. The field drove around the track and back into the wreck again and more cars.

Like two miles later, they came back upon the crash scene and piled more cars into it. This was before the spotter tech. This is probably making you cringe, TJ, hearing about that as a spot. You don't want to be that guy. This is before the spotters were really doing. Long before spotters. I don't know that they even had spotters. do anything back then.

But some injuries, deaths, people have been killed on that racetrack and hurt. People have died into free camping. I mean, it's just a dangerous place. It's dangerous all the way around. You don't know how to keep it under control, right? All the track and off the track. I meant to bring this up because of something completely different. Anyways, I drove Cletus's Dale truck.

Everybody, we know it's a, it's, you know, Mike Skinner drove the Good Wrench truck. Everybody's aware of that. This is kind of a, this was decalced as the number three good wrench truck, which was probably more of a Mike Skinner tribute when he, when Cletus buys it. But Cletus buys it. And now Cletus to Cletus, it's the Dale truck, right? Yeah. And so he has taken this thing.

I remember. Does he even know who Mike Skinner is? Probably not. Well, let's not disrespect that man. No, I'm just saying. He puts some respect. that name. He probably doesn't.

Shout out. Shout out. I think Mike Steiner's awesome. There you go. I mean, I think of Mike Skinner when I look at that truck, but he probably doesn't. We don't want no disrespect to Mike Skinner.

He'll come, he'll bring his ass in here. Cowboy boots and all. His Toccovis. It'll whoop up on us. So, Mr. Skinner, he's awesome. He is awesome.

He's always so nice and friendly. Oh, here we go, DJ. Good job. He really is. I was racing at Myrtle Beach in 1998. Mike Skinner was in the field into late model stocks. He was like just starting to leave the late model short track stuff and become, you know,

racing trucks for Richard Chilers. But he was running one of his final, one of his last few, I don't think he knew it at the time, late model stock races. And we were parked in the infield in the sandy infield of Myrtle Beach with our plywood out and our... Everyone took wood there. Everybody took wood there so your jack stands didn't sink down the ground. And there he was, about 10 cars down.

Mike Skinner, man, truck racers. Yeah, yeah. He won a lot. He won a lot. But also, we're like not getting anywhere near what I'm trying to bring up. So, me, so I drove that truck totally tons of fun. Awesome. You can watch the video on Cletus's handles on his YouTube.

And I went 140-ish in an eighth mile. That was a lot of fun. And then Dirtymoe Media put out a video as well that we'd love all y'all to check out that where we kind of give Cletus the 101 on Talladega. We take him through the museum, which is fun. The museum's kind of gotten a little facelift. If you hadn't been to the museum in about three or four years, you might want to go through there,

and they're always changing stuff. And you can see a bunch of cool crashes in there, too. They got Harmon's wreck from Bristol, Michael Watcher's wreck from Bristol. They got a couple wrecks from Talladega. Yeah, it's a really cool museum. It actually really is. There was a wreck from that.

There was a wreck that I didn't see. I forgot. They moved. I don't know where it is, but Phil Parsons crash from like 84, flipped into term one. Yeah. That wreck wasn't in there.

I wonder where it went. But I need to find out. So I want that car. They're not messing with it. The other thing I wanted to tell you was I got a visit from Cletus yesterday. That's where this is going. So Cleetus come by. And I'm sure he's going to put it out on his, on his, he's got a little clip in his video, but he brought me a gift.

He brought me two swans. So Cletus got a present from some friends or somehow he got some swans. He's got a pond out of his house down where he lives in Florida. And somebody brought him two beautiful swans. They're exactly what you're picturing in your head. And I was watching that video and I was texting him and I was like, dang, man, that's pretty cool. and, you know, I'm asking him how the swans after a couple days, because I'm like, how are the swans?

Are they good pets to have? I don't know, right? And so he brings two swans over to the house yesterday, and we turn them loose in the pond. Do we have names? Cleo and George. That's the names that they had. And here you go, T.J.

So they're not going to leave? No, they can't fly. Nice. that pond, that ponds being in the waters where they're the safest, and no predators can get to them, like a coyote or anything, and they'll always, yeah, they'll always be together, about five feet apart at all times. Me and Ila, they're Ilas, Ila's and the coals,

and we got, we're going to feed them every day, and, oh man, it's awesome, swans. What do you feed swans? Feed them a little chicken feed. but there's enough algae and stuff in this pond apparently that they're pretty self-sufficient. The guy's like, look, there's nothing to do. You don't have to worry about nothing. He's like, they should be fine here.

There's nothing going to get them. They'll live here for 30 years. Dang, I didn't realize they would stay for that long. They'll live for around 30 years. These are five years old. They're really not aggressive, but they're kind of tough, hissing at you and stuff. They'll get better.

I think they'll get more accustomed to us seeing my truck. You know, we'll take the same vehicle over there. When we go down there, they'll see that vehicle, know that's a trusted vehicle. We'll go. A new area, too. Do they? Yeah. I'm sure.

It's a new area. Once they don't think you're a threat, you'll be fine. They'll get to know what's going on. But, so that was pretty neat. I didn't expect to get such a cool gift. Yeah, that's interesting. It's now the challenge is to send him a gift. Like, what do we give him?

him. What do I give him? Swan? What's like a swan? We need to think about that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to send him some Omaha steaks. Time to send him Buffalo. Yeah, I guess I could see if I could send him a Buffalo. Why not? I mean, but does he have the property? Buffalo farm that I know of is down in the same state as his. So I don't know. He has enough property for Buffalo.

Got to get at least two of them. They got to run together. So. Yeah. Well, I don't know what we should send him. It says a thank you, but it's absolutely got to happen. And also, it has to be something that pleases the wife, as the swans have done. Because this was like a cool gift, but it ain't like a dude's gift. Yeah. It ain't like, oh, man, appreciate the shotgun or thanks for the, you know, thanks for the,

thanks for the fucking side by side. This is like something that the kids love, the wife. wife loves, so you got to find the gift that kind of does that. And there was one other thing that I wanted to talk about. How's your Easter? Easter was good. My mom's in town, so that was good. And it was quiet.

Yeah. Pretty quiet, kind of. Okay. I went to Texas with Amy's family. It was awesome. we did Easter egg hunts. Did y'all do that? No, they, uh...

Dude, you got two little girls. What in the hell? They actually got back from, they were in Disney. Oh, okay. They got back. When did they get back? Uh, Saturday evening. Well, Fri-Easters on Sunday.

Yeah, but... You didn't have Easter egg hunt ready for them when they got home? No, no Easter egg hunt ready. Jesus, dude. I know, man, I mean... You got you sitting around on your ass doing nothing but playing Xbox. I don't have a good yard for an Easterer. Bulls!

Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? I'll, dude, we throw the eggs out, just lay them in the fucking grass. Like, you can put them by a post up in a tree limb or just on the ground in front of you. Well, let me tell you. They just want to run through the yard. You put them in the house.

They just want to run through the yard and pick them up. Madeline's 14. Do you think she wants to pick up Easter A game? Yes. Yes. No. Junior Motorsports had an Easter AC on out here. We were all excited.

Yeah. And were they not just thrown across the ground? Wasn't that just fine? Yes. Who all? I mean, you. Every person in this building did an Easter egg hunt last week. What a sorry ass this guy is.

I'm telling you, there is, 14-year-olds are not an Easter egg hunt. You're sorry. If the Easterner's not. There's no way. There's no way. There's no way. First of all, they don't want candy and they want money. Put some nerds clusters and some dollar bills.

Put a damn dollar in an egg. Yeah. God. You suck. Yeah. We went to Texas. We had a good time. Easter egg hunt.

We had an Easter egg hunt at the farm. We had another one at the church. Did you fill the eggs? No. No. What? The eggs already come pre-filled. You had a pre-made Easter egg hunt.

No. Yes. I had to put them out in the yard. Still do the hunt. You're not going to win. We took photos, lots of photos. Photos you'll never see. You know?

Isn't that how that goes? Like me and the other guys, we were sitting there at the farm talking about this. When you get together with your family and there's one or two people in the family that are running around like, got to get a photo. Let's get a photo. Hey, let's get a photo. Photo with your family. Photo with all the kids.

Photos with all the aunts. Photos with everybody born in October. Photos with, you know, it's photos on photos on photos, right? Let's get all the guys together. Let's get all the girls together. Let's get the sisters. Let's get the cousins. Here's the picture of cousins.

And you're standing there. We're like, we never see any of these. Like, these are... You could do, like, on Instagram, put a bunch on one post. Yeah, that's probably where they go. Like, Amy posted some of the girls in you guys. She did.

But all of them don't show up, though. There's some pictures you're just like... They're just living your phone. No. They don't get to my phone. They're living on that person. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, the person that takes them says,

oh, I'm going to send them to y'all. And then you never get them. Or they just... Don't... They don't send them. They don't post them. They just... Have them.

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everybody you want the latest Dale junior download apparel visit shop.dirtymomedia.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.dirtymodea.com. This weekend, the car store goes to Orange County. There is a high likelihood that Ryan Newman may make his first start in the cars tour. why is that funny because if it doesn't happen

are we going to know about the time I have to edit this thing oh hell if it don't happen I'm sorry disclaimer sorry if it don't happen so I was talking to a guy that owns a couple cars

and I was like you know he's like hey I got a little inventory if you if you you know just some dates where I got a couple cars that I need you know drivers for And I was like, well, I got a couple drivers that I need cars for. There's, you know, I'd love to get Newman and Kenseth, Clint Boyer, Casey Kane, Casey Mears.

There's a, there's a list of kind of semi-retired retired cup guys that I would love to come race in our series once, right? Just to say they did it to tell us what they thought, what, you know, what they think is good or bad about it. And Newman's been running the Modifieds, came off a win at Orange County. So I called him up and I said, hey, it's short notice, but I got this race car. It's good. And I can help, you know, I can help find the, you know, the things that we're going to need to get you in it and get you entered. And so, yeah, I'm going to try to go out there and help them on Saturday with the tour and just kind of watch and observe the competition booth and all that during the race and all that. But it'll be cool to see how Newman does.

you're going to practice your black flagging if I know if I need to I may hit a button put it out yeah I mean I need to see I'm gonna be watching and I want to see yeah you touched him yeah if there's one miss to the back you gotta get ready for your Martinsville

debut in in Xfinity or truck or car what am I doing Martinville you know you want to go to the booth but Danny and call oh yeah I can do that I do that no problem so car store aren't County this weekend on flow.

Tune in, Ryan Newman in the field. I think he took his seat over there either yesterday or today to put it in this race car. This is kind of one of them deals. It's last minute, toss it together. Go have some fun. Sounds fun. If he took his seat over there, he's looking forward to it.

He's been racing off and on quite a bit. Who else would you like to see in the cars tour? Comment below. I don't know if they can even comment below. Yeah, we post the video and they can comment. Below. Hey, comment below. what should we get Cletus as a thank you

within reason, y'all? That's a good one. Yeah. And also, who do you want to see in the cars tour within reason? I'll try to make some of that happen. So let's get talking about Rockingham. Did you watch all that? I did, yeah.

Me too. It looked like the racetrack was in really great shape. I'm sure there's some things about it that are need updating, and it's races like this that will allow them to gather the funding and so forth to really start really fixing all the bells and whistles. So give them grace. I'm giving them grace. The stands were packed. It didn't matter whether it was 20,000 or 80,000. It just looked great, right?

It didn't. Looked awesome. And I really don't give it if it's just 20, 30,000 people and it sold out. It looks great, right? I'm happy with that. And so I don't know how the track feels genuinely, whether it was a success all the way around. I don't know what their books look like after all of that. But from a optic standpoint, it was good.

It checked all the boxes. I loved how, you know, they tore down the old grandstands down the back straight away. Yeah, it looked like that. That looked weird kind of. They had some campers up there to sort of. You know, feel the void, if you will, which I thought was great. Kind of like Martinsville. Yeah, it's great.

So they, you know, they did a really good job. I watched the Arka race. I did not get to see a lot of the truck race, but I did watch all of the Xfinity race. Track really raced way better than I thought it would being a recent repave. obviously the bottom was dominant and if your car was handling you weren't going to get past on the outside but if you had to go up there you could

and it wasn't just awful in the second third groove and I think over time of course as the track ages which it wheeled quickly in that environment down there in the sand hills or that area is pretty sandy and rugged just get higher yeah I think the groove is just going to widen out

it's going to be so awesome So I hope, my hope is that the truck and Xfinity continue to go there. My thought is that this might not need to be a cup race. I'm sure people are clamoring to see Cup go back there, but the way the cup car races, isn't it funny? Like we're sitting here going, this is the first time I've ever experienced this. People are saying, man, I don't know if Cup needs to go there.

It might not race well. Like when, when have you ever heard that? Don't take the cup cars there. it might not be a good race. Like, have you ever heard such a thing? Not since, well,

since the next gen a few times, but yeah, it's not often. What does that say? Says the car sucks. So, oh, um,

that's problematic. We said that after another, that is problematic. We said that after the most recent track that got redone and, yeah, which one? Wilkesboro.

Yeah. Honestly, man, Wilkesboro, race pretty damn good. I think people need to go back and watch the last race we ran there. I know that there wasn't much of a battle for the win, but the repave provided multi-groves. They run right up against the wall in one and two.

And so I thought Wiltsboro looked pretty good considering. But I guess what, you know, it's not a track issue you know and I think that just just for that comment to be said T.J. Don't take that car there. It won't race good at that track. Well

You can't have that. You can't have that. You can't have that be reality. And that's what that is reality. Yeah. You just don't watch an exchange those guys were out of control at times. Like off a turn two like you used to be. Yeah.

Like, oh my gosh. Like, and moving around and, I mean, the handling issues were big. There's nowhere to go. At that racetrack, there's really nowhere to go to get clean air because you need, you know, the entrance into one is a bit narrow and odd. The exit of two is tight. Tight. Wall jumps out at you.

Yep. And so. You can't chase it there. Yeah, you really can't. So, you know, there's, in the next-gen car, you really can't run. behind another car. You can't. You can't be fast and running. You can't be fast and run behind another car.

They have so much grip. And so, yeah, the lead car's got a lot of grip, but also you need, so you need that air going underneath your car to get to a diffuser, and so you can't follow another car. And how are you going to do that and go around the racetrack at Rockingham? So to people's concerns about the next gen probably not racing well there are valid. Yeah, very valid. I don't think the next gym would be. I'm excited for the Xfinity and the trucks to go there again.

I'm not that eager to see a cup race there. The track, on the other hand, track ownership, they absolutely want a cup race. Hey, hell yeah. So, sitting here, poo-pooing on a cup race going there, it's probably not the best thing for me to be doing, but because the track wants it. and

but dang man I hope that they can I hope the car you think after the track weather some and like a few years from now and it moves up to the wall the cup cars

would be a better show yeah I mean the cup yeah I think if the track were a little bit worn it might be a little better I don't know that it actually improves a whole lot

honestly I think a driver like any or somebody sitting here would tell you it probably wouldn't be much of a different race just the way that track is the way the line is

around that track You do have the option, I think, if three and four gets weathered and you can run in there across the bottom or run across the top, there's enough separation there that that corner might be an okay corner with the next gen. But when you get back to term one and two, there's just not a lot of diverse lines that you can really kind of take around that corner, particularly. You're all going to end up in the same place pretty much entering the corner and definitely exiting too. and so that being able to run different lines and try to take advantage of some clean air is going to be all but impossible down at that end of the racetrack and so I don't know you know

I if the tires wear out a bunch I think it could be good they would have to be able to hurt the tire. They don't make a tire that wears out I'm just saying they would have to make a tire that you could hurt we ain't got that yet yeah that would be part of the factoring for me well it's a new surface so there's never not not yeah not in all the history that I know there's never been a track that had a

relatively new surface that had a tire that wore out no you know at a new track it builds so much heat and there's so much corner speed that they have to build the tire so durable yeah to keep it from blistering or whatever i was watching lap times those exfinding cars were flying at the end still of a run like digging yeah there's yeah so that's a tough spot for for good year to be in when you go to a brand new surface, is to build a tire that wears out, but also doesn't fail, that's a,

that's like a, you're such a tiny box, because so much heat's created by that corner speed and the grip that the new asphalt has, that good year, it's too, it's dangerous. It's dangerous.

Yeah. And so they have to build a tire that's safe. And they have to err on the side of safety more so than they would at a place that, got some age on it. That's understandable too, though. Yeah. They don't want to have anything catastrophic happening.

That's fair. But that track should age relatively quickly. Anyhow, it was a good weekend. Casey came return to drive for Richard Childress in the Xfinity series. Casey had really good speed. I felt like he was going to finish in the top 10. I thought that the moment he said he was going to do this,

I thought this guy can go there. He can be fast. It's a good car. He'll be smart. His race craft will be better than most of the people in the field. And he will, at worst, soldier to a seventh or eighth or ninth place finish. Look like it was going to be a little bit better than that. He had great speed in practice.

He ended up getting wiped out in the crash. And the race was won by, Jesse Love, but then he was disqualified for some stuff in the back of the car. Yeah. He had a fastest car all day. Oh, yeah. He drove a great race. I like Jesse Love.

Yeah, he did a good job. Yeah. I think he's going to surprise a lot of people, too, because he's got some personality. He just, that's it. He just got some person. He's got personality. He's on social media goofing around, and which, you know, a lot of guys don't do it. And it's a, it's a detriment to them.

He's making light of losing the DQ on Twitter's like... Yeah, I mean, it's a, that's a fine line to walk, I think, when you, you know, you want to be taken seriously. So, but at the same time, you're, you kind of want to show everybody, look, man, this ain't getting under my skin. It is what it is. But I think that it's good that he shows a lot of personality on social media. I think that'll help him going forward. I think he's a hell of a race car driver. and just going to get better.

And so, yeah, they ended up getting, I don't know, NASCAR saw something that they didn't like about how the rear end marries to the trailing arm on the back of the car. Everybody knows for years that we've, you know, with the trailing arm type of setup in the back of the car, we've been learning for decades now that skew is speed. And so skew, basically,

getting the car to go through the corner in y'all put side force on the side of the car and the more you can make the car do that without slipping the tire, the better. And it's more comfortable and faster for the driver. And so if you have all that stuff or some of that stuff in the back of the car loose,

you can make it work in a way where it moves into a position that skews the car. And usually just years ago, initially we the throttle itself would do that so you would keep all all the stuff on the left side loose and when you would mash the gas the actual force of the tire trying to turn inside the rear and housing would drive the housing forward and and and push the left rear forward skewing the housing in the car and then the car would then dog track the way you wanted to with the side force That's right.

And so then we started changing how the left side trailing arm mount worked in the center of the car where it mounts to the chassis. We had these rubber. Yeah, the bushings that we would drill and holes in to allow it to drive itself forward, but not return in the rearward position. And so that was a way to move the whole rear and housing without, you know, running all the in the back loose. You could basically, we had, we went away from the rubber bushing to a steel, kind of a slop, kind of a slop slider bushing in that front mount for the left side trailing arm. And when we really had the shined out, like really good, we had a rear sway bar on the car. And so with the bushing that we had in the left side trailing arm and a little bit of loose going on in the mounting point of the U-bolt at the rear-enhousin, we had a sway bar.

And as the car compressed, the sway bar arm would just drive. You had the sway bar arm chain to the rear-enhausen, and it would just pull the rear-enhousen forward. And so as the car was sitting at ride height on the racetrack, it was always tugging on that left rear. So now the car is skewed the entire lap and not just when you're mashing the gas. But it was an expensive, difficult time because we all knew where we had to work to get faster. And every team was improving the idea every handful of weeks or months. And you would, you couldn't really hide what you were doing in the garage because it was so confined in the garage area and everybody

could kind of see and look and go, well, he's got a rear sway bar on. Nobody's been running a rear sway bar for 10 years. That's on there for a reason. Look up that rear bar. It's not on there for the traditional sense of a rear sway bar. That's doing something, right? Now let me go home, put a rear sway bar on my car, climb underneath it and try

to look at it and see how that could help me achieve what I'm trying to do. And, you know, I can't imagine the number of iterative, of iterations or variations of the left front bushing that was in a trailing arm or, you know, all the different things they did with shims and so forth in the, at the rear and housing where it marries to the trailing arm. The rollbook was fairly open on for a lot of that too, yeah.

And we would, you know, we, the industry, we would make new parts. Homemade. Homemade parts. Homemade parts. And then NASCAR would take the parts. Put them on that table. And then we would make new parts, you know, different. NASCAR would make a rule

and we'd work around that rule NASCAR would make another rule It was like a trying to dam up a creek And we just kind of We were the water that would find a new pathway Around the dam And it was an amazing The engineers did come up with some of that stuff

But it wasn't fun when somebody had it It figured out better than you did No That was frustrating And Brad Kislauski Right he wins a championship During that era Hendrick, I think, had peaked in how we had it going and how we had it working right as the playoffs come around.

And then Penske and Brad and them took the mousetrap and made it better and went through the playoffs and had had more speed. You know, it just, it's a, it was a fascinating time, but listen, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's, what's tough about what happened with Jesse Love, and I've been in this situation, we had a car, I think we won the race at Darlington, with Gregson, I believe. And exact,

I would say pretty much the exact same description, where the rear and housing and the trailer arm married together, they didn't love something about how them parts didn't quite seat perfectly together. and we were able to get ours overturned somehow. I don't know. We got lucky with the people they put on the panel.

Usually that kind of thing doesn't get overturned because it's so complicated and complex of an issue. I think most people, you know, the people they have on these panels, there'll be like the appeals panels, they'll be like old drivers that don't really know a ton about what's going on with the cars today. Or some guy that owns a short track,

you know, that's been in the NASCAR industry for everybody, but he's just an old head guy from some short track. Sometimes they have some pretty up-to-date individuals. But sometimes, man, you know, you just got to bring your case and argue your point, and sometimes you can convince them. And it has to be a unanimous. I believe the last one we lost, we had two of the panelists that were on our side. like, yeah, we like your argument,

but the one other guy was like, nope, I don't buy it. And so we didn't win. And so it, I think they have a shot at overturning it. And it's, I know I own the car that runs second or is today the winner. But I think if I know everything about what, you know, what we went through with this and they'll try to take their best argument forward

and try to convince these. panelists that, you know, all this stuff was good to go. And we'll see. You know that feeling you get when you're watching drivers fight it out on the racetrack, giving it everything they've got for the checker flag? Well, you can capture that feeling forever with cars from Lionel Racing, the official diecast of NASCAR. The ultimate way to celebrate the biggest moments in racing.

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I was with my family in Texas and it was Easter. So we were in the gas. He's filling eggs. Yeah. I mean, I was actually, so I watched that race, right? Race ends, two wins. and everybody was like, oh man,

awesome race. And I was like, was it? Like, you know, cars running out of gas, the damn field getting destroyed on the front

straight away, cars wrecking off into turn one, and just, I was like, you know, the car, this happens in the cars tour on a week,

any given weekend, and we got, we got, we got to fix, right? We got to get better. We got to figure out, out our, you know, we had, we have guys that'll miss a shift or, or we had a guy run out of gas

and stumble and cause a crash on, on our last race. And when that happens, I get out and I go, man, we can do better than that. We don't need to be doing that, you know. Like, let's figure out how to shift, so we don't miss shifts and destroy cars. Let's not, you know, let's not put ourselves, let's not put our competitors tight on fuel. try to figure out how we can tighten our show up so our guys aren't even close to running out of gas. Good luck.

Yeah. Sfini race isn't going to change on that. That race, I mean, I thought Rockingham was great. I thought there was points where the race was entertaining, but how the race came down and ended it, and maybe I'm biased because some of my boys got destroyed. But I thought the end was ugly. Well, I think if you take that one wreck where it was a fuel pickup issue, if you don't have that,

then I think it's probably better. You also get four, your drivers all in the top ten most likely, so it's a better feeling, right? Yeah, I guess. I just felt like, yeah, like the car, like Eckys and those guys.

A couple of them are a long way off. Way off from making it, right? But then the guy that almost won. Yeah. I mean, they were... Eckies, though, didn't he pit 10 laps before? I believe so. He might have been...

The 39 was the one that was like, holy cow. This dude's way out of the window. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, that kind of stuff, look, things like that are going to happen in racing. But I still can sit here and say, yeah, I thought the end was a bit ugly. It was.

It was messy. Yeah, it's messy. Cars destroy it all across the front straight away, wrecking off into turn one and wrecking and missing each other and spinning. I could add everyone they wrecking the back for 20th for at the end. Didn't that happen? Coming off two? Yeah, there was a couple cars that wrecked. Oh, the 41 run out of gas,

and then they all junked each other off turn two. That was like... I get aggravated when you're back there. Yeah, what did that have to happen? I understand a guy going for the win and trying to make it, if he's close and he thinks he saved enough. But for 20th, I mean, why are you in that position? Yeah, so the 41 stumbled on a restart, right?

He did stumble, yeah. And they reckoned each other off a turn two in the back half of the field. Yeah, that was the one. Carson got in, I believe. Yes, he did. He got hit right the end of their own. He was missing it and they came and got him.

Yep. So there were two kind of ugly, you know, there were avoidable situations, I think. But, yeah. The racing was great otherwise. Yeah, I thought it was. The guys had their hands full.

I guess I'm just biased because I thought, because yeah, all my shit got tore up. Yeah, if you would have had your guys finish where they were, I think you would have been happy. I mean, I would have felt relieved. Happy? Four in the top ten, I think you'll...

I would have been like, shoo, that was ugly. Glad our guys are okay. Yeah. But now, I was just, it felt like it was just a little ugly, a little messy. I don't know, maybe. Is that just normal now? I think in Xfinity series, yeah, because you don't have... See, that's not the way I looked at it.

Like, I saw that shit, how that went down at Martinsville. That was... Yeah, that was bad. And now we're accepting a form of that here in Rockingham. Guys aren't intentionally wrecking each other. They ran out of fuel. I mean, I think running out of fuel and intentionally driving and hitting somebody at two different things. You think?

Yes. Of course they are ass-a-uh. Well, I mean, that's what happened at Rockingham. You don't have people shipping each other at Rockingham. I'm just saying what happened didn't need to happen. It was avoidable. Okay, so if you're leading the race and you're close on fuel, you're going to, like, are you going to pit? And you're lead?

I'm like that freaking short, I think so. Like 39 eventually did, but them other guys thought they could make it, obviously. So. Why didn't they run on the flat, keep it in the pickup? That I don't know. I saw some guys doing that. After the fact, after the thing. Yeah, well.

Yeah, well. Yeah, well. They all were like, ooh, let's get on a fucking apron. There was a lot of guys that ran the apron the entire time at the end. Like, I think Sammy was down there the whole time. But, yeah, I mean, you're never going to get guys to Pith to have a shot at winning. Man. Unless they're way short.

16 wasn't restarting first. Yeah, and then you get to, if you're the 16, the 39 was way shorter than him, and he's like leading the race and holding off challengers, like nobody can pass him. And you're third and you're better than him on fuel. You're not going to pit at least until he does, which happened. But, I mean, these guys aren't going to pit. Well, and what did we get? I mean, we got some wrecks because of it.

Oh, man, a lot of cars got destroyed. I mean, I just think it's how the first caution, kind of set that all up. If it runs green until the end, guys run out, get on the apron, there's no wrecks and stuff. But, you know, the caution's near the end, you know, cautions,

so as soon as one starts, you know, they're all, it's going to be ugly from there. There's not really a lot you can do about it. I don't think you can do anything to fix it. And I don't think most fans, they don't, you have a financial interest in these wrecks

where the fans watching it don't have that, so they're not as bothered by it. All right, I'll entertain this. So what I saw in my mind was, was not like a good, a good representation of the Xfinity series, the drivers. Like Kristen Eckies is a great driver. And he was put in a tough spot. And a lot of cars end up getting torn up.

and, you know, I just felt like that it was avoidable and it was a bad, it just didn't need to go down that way. And we're too cavalier over, you know, destroying a bunch of race cars. Like, like, that should be, that should bother you. You're not wrong, but a fan just wants to be entertained. I don't think you have to tear up race cars to be entertained. I think that race, if it would have played out, I would have been perfectly happy with the 39 and the two racing it out for the win.

We're going to leave Rockingham and go to another track. We're probably going to, you know, 80% chance coming home with a tail in the front knocked off of it. Yep, pretty much. And like I can maybe stomach, you know, the Daytona and Talladegas, but it doesn't need to happen on the other weekends. I don't think it'll happen every weekend. I think it's just how it played out.

And I agree with you. I don't like, I wasn't entertained by the wrecking part. I was entertained by the strategies and guys trying to do it, but not entertained by the, you know, 10 cars getting tore up in a rack. I didn't expect to see a big uproar. And I'm just judging by the feedback I read around on social media. I wasn't expecting like a bunch of, oh, man, that sucked. That was awful.

But I was surprised that it was not mentioned much. at all really that the finish was a bit muddy. Yeah, I just don't think you can prevent it. Man, I thought. When I caught home, you know, yeah. A narrow track. When I see that, I guess when it was, it was, you know, when the, when Christian doesn't go, he's had a gas, right?

The 41, same thing with Sam. I, we, I just came off of a weekend where we dealt with this at Cordill with mischiefs and fuel issues. as well. And I'm so mad that it happened there because I want our cars, I want our guys to race hard. I want people to say the cars tour is a great series. Love the racing.

And we had a couple incidents where I'm like, man, if we just change, if we just turn a couple of these knobs, metaphorically, we can avoid having those problems. Our drivers don't tear their shit up. Our teams leave with a car in one piece and they're happy, right, to come back to next race instead of driving. dragging their home tore up. And what I saw at Rockingham just felt the same.

It was like, oh, that didn't have to happen. All my sh**s tore up. Everybody else tore up. And nobody seems to think that that was avoidable or didn't have to go down that way. And I don't know what you, I don't know that there's a fix per se. Like, yeah, we're not going to shorten the race up so they don't have fuel issues. That's not going to fix it. There's no, there's nothing you can do about.

Eki's running short on gas and the field getting destroyed other than bringing Ekees to pit road and his team chose not to do that. That's their obligation. I'm not going to argue with that. But damn, you know, if there was a way for them to get out of the way

or, you know, I don't know. I don't know if the answer is. Like when he doesn't go. Oh, it's stacking up. Hell, man, it was bad. Yeah. Yeah. Just like a miss shift at the late mall race.

I mean. I know. I just hate it. I hate it happen and I didn't want to I would have rather it not happened and there was a lot of miss shifts in that late at my race. I was just a little surprised that I didn't see

much people think the same feel the same as me. But like the miss shift and I'm not I've never raced before but isn't that it's a human air that happens in all sports that you have human air but they're in NASCAR racing there's a wreck that happens because of it but like that's this was yeah I know

the running out of gas is not a mistake. It's just a you know a misjudgment or so. Yeah. But like the miss shift, it seems like you're mad about that, but like isn't that just? No,

no, no. Miss shifts shouldn't happen. Okay. Like they shouldn't, they will and I may miss a shift if I keep on racing. I mean, everything's,

anything is possible. And I'll make, yeah, if I'm going to race, I'm definitely going to make more mistakes. But so I'm not immune or sitting here on a high horse saying, you know, everybody needs to fix what they're,

what they're doing. wrong. I just, I guess I'm still carrying a bit of the frustration over the Cordill race that we had at Cars Tour. It was a great race, great racing, good event. It was good racing. I'm too consumed by trying to make it perfect and having a great, you know, having the Cars Tour kick ass. And I am too consumed by, like, I want, I want Carson Quaple to win a freaking race. now like the kids that good and I don't know why we're kind of not able to finish the job on Saturday but you know and all this goes down to where it just seems like every caution we get some of it and that was pissing me off the 88 Zillich is fast as

but we can't finish a fucking race that is pissing me off Justin you know is doing what Justin does running great and having good speed got caught up in some shit that, you know, we're just trying to get home and finish. He's having a great year. That pissed me off. And, you know, Sammy's the guy that was in such the other week

over the Martinsville deals, the saving grace of the weekend for us at Rockingham. And so there, maybe that's where all my frustration lies. I'm glad. This is therapy. You know, maybe those miss shifts those guys they have to have those

to have those to learn from yeah well the miss shifts it's more more of a car store thing and I'll tell those kids and I told the kid that missed the shift the other night I was like I even do this I'm like going down the back straightaway I move that shifter from third to fourth we restarting

third year in the cars tour in the lay mall stocks and as we're going down the back straightway we're coming to the green I go from third to fourth over and over just practicing that movement and then getting some muscle memory there because that throw from that old transmission is super long and something you'll never deal with in another car the rest of your life. They try to rush it.

Yep. They're not used to the throw being that long and you having to be that deliberate. And I've f***ed it up. I missed a shift at my very first race back in the late mall stock car at Wilkesboro. I missed a shift on the last restart. Yeah. I was lucky enough to get it in there and realize what I did before I destroyed the field. And so it's, I know.

And that made me go, man, I better practice it. at every restart going down the back straightway. I don't want to be that guy. Well, maybe that's, you know, like you said, maybe this is a cue for you to talk to them. And I really think the kids just aren't, you know, the kids that I was talking to just aren't thinking, man, you know, I could probably just do this a couple times down the back

and make sure I got that right and cruise on around three and four and fire off and have a good restart. But the, the end of that, Rockingham Race was frustrating. And maybe it all stems from the ownership side, because all our guys kind of got junked except for Sammy. So let's talk about Sammy. I was really, listen, do you want to win races this way? Of course not.

You want to win races the way Jesse Love won the race. You want to pass everybody in cross-finish line first. That's the way you want to win races. But sometimes, you know, races are cut short with rain. There's disqualifications, which are rare. I was even surprised, you know, they decued him. I was surprised that they took the win away. You know, that's a bit, that's a bit different than what we've seen years past.

But either way, what are you going to do? Refuse it and hand it over to the third place guy. Is he going to refuse it, keep on passing it downline until it gets all the way back to Jesse Love? Now, we're going to say, all right, that's the way it is. We'll take the win. We'll take the statistic and how that's going to benefit us going forward. We'll see how this appeal goes. But either way, there was one moment in that race where I was very proud of the job Sammy did.

And so Sammy is, we talked about it on this show. Sammy's under a ton of pressure. Everybody thinks that, you know, he doesn't have the right attitude or doesn't make the best choices on the racetrack. Stemming, all this stemming from Martinsville, right? Don't want to drag, don't want to drag him back. One corner. Yep. Don't want to drag him back through all that, but he put himself in a tough spot for criticism,

and it was justified, and boy, did everybody unload. And he weathered the storm, right? You know what he did during the week that was the most, one of the more impressive things, is he called other race car drivers like Mark Martin, and he had conversations with these people about, how to be better, how to move forward, how to handle situations like that going forward. So listen, all I'm trying to say is that Sammy took everything seriously. He didn't brush it off.

He didn't think that the criticism was unwarranted. He didn't try to just, you know, be a snot and drive, you know, and, you know, work, you know, force his way through it. He took it serious. and did a little bit of homework. Did a lot of homework on himself. I was really happy with that. I mean, how old is, Sammy? I don't know.

He's like, think about the mistakes we made this kid, like, but he's just held to a different standard because he's, you know, driving. But the people judging him and the media and stuff would have done the same stupid things at that age. Well, I know that's the thing that I say, I think all the time is like, man, we put, I was mad at Sammy for what happened at Martinsville,

and then I'm thinking, God dang, though, man, like what did I, what did I demand of myself at that age, right? What was I capable of at that age?

Not, I don't know, right? And so I certainly wasn't in the, I wasn't racing in the Xfinity series at that age. And I probably shouldn't have been. And we're putting these, we're,

we're, We're putting these kids in these cars at such a young age. You know, these kids are going out to Millbridge and racing at five years old. And, you know, we're putting, we're putting them on the main stage, racing the trucks in Xfinity and NASCAR in front of the world

and expecting them to race like veterans. And they're not going to. Not always. And so while that was a f***ed up deal at Martinsville, you got to give. give the kid a little grace because he's a kid. And for him to survive it takes grace, not taking him out to the city square

and stoning him to death. You know, you've got to be a teaching moment. Since then, he's been head down, working, focusing, gonna figure this out, gonna, he couldn't wait to go to the racetrack and have a good day, right? and watching him knowing what I know about what he's been dealing with and doing and trying over the last couple of weeks since Martinsville,

I watched him run that race. And he raced every corner, every position, every restart, with determination and intention. And there was one moment. there was one moment, I think. So we all kind of knew that the top was a bit as the top was okay, but it was a bit of a disadvantage to the bottom. He restarts, I believe, second Jesse loves on the inside,

and they fire off. And I think Carson Quapples in the third position. And he hustled the car on the outside around Carson to take. second spot. And I don't remember the lap. I don't remember the restart. It was probably like 30, you know, 20 to go, 18 to go, something like that. But I saw that, you know, I saw the, I saw determination and I saw commitment that I hadn't seen from Sammy in, in a while at least.

and he was just, you know, that was a moment where I was like, oh, hell yeah. You know, I know, look, it's a teammate. I know it's Carson. But, I mean, this is up there in the front for the win. You got to race the hell out of, you know, for every spot. And it turned out to be a moment where had he not succeeded and been able to take the position, had he not committed and, and, and, and hung that car out there on the outside line,

maybe he probably doesn't win the race because he loses the track position that he would need to be in second place eventually to win by DQ. So, and I told him that after the race, I said, man, there was one specific corner, one restart where I was like, yes, hell of the job. And, you know, no one will remember it.

No one will, he might not even remember it. But I watched it and I saw, I saw what I want to. I see out of my drivers in that moment. And I was really happy with that. And so, you know, I think that he's got a little chip on his shoulder. And I think hopefully you can take that and use it to benefit you like he did this past weekend. And he ran hard and ran second, had a great weekend.

That's what he needs to do every single week is go have good weekends. That's what we really need out of all our drivers. is like look man we're going to give you like we did at rockingham we're going to give all of you top five cars get me a top freaking five you know and so a little frustrating how it ended up for the other boys and um you know we'll have to go to taladega and see what happens there not really sure what to expect at talladega you never know i mean the the two and the 21 will be fast as hell and this is a jessie this is a mold for jesse to have some redemption.

I'd be saying he might be a pretty good bet as we move on into the dirty modo here later in the show. If you can get in that little infinity action, I wouldn't hesitate to put some on the two. All right, according to Jordan Bianchi, the championship race for the 2020s season is moving to Homestead. Saw a lot of conversation around this on social media.

everybody was very excited because everybody thinks homestead needs to be the championship race it was a lot of fun when it was if you were there in person it felt like a great way to end a very long tough season great weather you know the florida breeze a good little race track puts on a pretty solid race and so that's where we'll be going to crown our champion 2006. Another track, though, will be selected for 2007, beginning a rotation in which a different venue is chosen each year. And Phoenix isn't expected to be included in this rotation. And I wonder what

that list looks like. Or is it a list? Is it even a list? But I guess the argument now is like the whole conversation is going to be where, after Homestead, where are they going? Where should they go? For the championship. What about Vegas as another option? Vegas would be great.

I think that racetracks pretty good. And I think you could almost have the race and the banquet in the same week. Knock it out. Yeah? Yeah. Fun. Party time. You could do that for Homestead too, right?

You can find a good place down there. Yeah, I guess you could. You could. Yeah. I don't know if there's a venue around there that would, I guess, Miami, somewhere. There's probably something badass in Miami. You could have it. We did it in 18.

Miami was fun to go after the race. And then easy to vacation right after that. That's the thing. Well, that's why I liked it being the championship race, because we would leave there and go straight to Key West. and straight to vacation mode immediate. Don't call me. It was awesome.

I think a lot of guys in the industry, a lot of crew guys, everything would do that now, even no matter what, just as a break. Yeah. But do you like the idea that they're going to bounce around

and it's going to be the rotation and not the same place? I like it better, yeah, than what we're doing. Yeah. I mean, look, Phoenix is a great facility. It's awesome.

But I, man, I mean, over and over and over It's like, change the record. Change the station. Let's move to a different genre. So that, you know, and this will, listen, Homestead will be good. I'm okay with it going back there.

I'm not as excited probably as most people, because we've done it before. It is a, for me, it's better than Phoenix. But yeah, I think now we can start up the conversation about where it should go. Vegas would be good. I honestly don't know about the weather, but Charlotte, I wouldn't hate because, man, the oval race at Charlotte

has been one of the best in the last couple of years. And it's right here in our home hub, if you will. It wouldn't be much different than October. Yeah, I mean, yeah. And you could, again, like, have the race and the championship at the Hall of Fame within several days of each other to keep the sort of energy. Yeah.

that the championship race carry that energy on into the banquet itself. And there's so much here as well with the Hall of Fame, like you said, and so much to do here as well. Average weather's, lows, 40s, highs, mid-60s. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I'm just trying to think about what tracks are putting on the best races today.

And it's a lot of a mile and a halfs are going to dominate that list. Yeah, it's Kansas, Charlotte. Vegas is pretty good. Problem is you can't do Kansas in November. No. That'd be cool. Yeah. So, yeah, maybe it's not as easy of a...

Maybe the list is short. I think it's a very short list. NASCAR Hall of Fame revealed the 15 nominees for its class of 2026 on Monday. They added former champion, Kurt Bush, and Randy Lejoy, to the ballot for the first time. The modern era ballot, two of these drivers will get in, is Greg Biffle, Neil Bonnet, Tim Brewer, Jeff Burton, Kurt and Kurt Busch, Randy Dorton, Harry Gant, Harry Hyde, Randy LaJoy, Jack Sprague. The Pioneer ballot, or the Pioneer era, only one gets in.

Jake Elder, Ray Hendrick, Banjo Matthews, Larry Phillips, Bob Welburn. So looking at this list as it is Who would you vote in? Man, it's tough. I don't like that it's only two. Yeah. Out of that list, the modern era. When you go to the banquet,

you like that it's just two. I feel like Neil Bonnet would be one that I would want in there. But man, there's a there's a lot of guys on here that have won a lot of races and like man i used to go to daytona think randah the jeweler was going to win that that bush race there sin he race for every year it seemed like he won that thing for a while didn't it he had a couple yeah um i don't know i would probably go randy uh is interesting because of not only what he's done behind the wheel but what he's done with safety safety and seats and so forth yeah he stands out to me but then i i see

They all have things you can argue for. I would put Harry Gant. Yeah, Harry was my next one. He's the bandit. He had some great success on the short track ranks racing sportsmen and modified and all kinds of things back in the 70s. So you almost got to remember or you've got to remind yourself. There's more to Harry than just the cup stats.

and he was one of the first drivers, or not one of the first, but he was one of the earlier drivers to really have a persona. You know, Harry again, handsome Harry, the bandit, all of those things. He was one of the guys that established a reputation

that sort of exceeded the boundaries of our sport to an extent. and had that relationship with his car owner Hal Needham, who would end up creating the movie Stroker Ace, which would kind of, you know, with, you have to, you can't understate. Bert Reynolds was one of the biggest stars back then

with the success of smoking the bandit. And, you know, they do this movie, and Harry was featured in that quite a bit. And so there was a lot of great energy and stuff going on around Harry back in the early 80s and then he goes on to have this really, really cool, well-respected career in the Cup series and in the Xfinity series, won a lot of races driving for Ed Whitaker in the, in the Bush series, Xfinity series.

There's other drivers that won more races and had, you know, had championship careers. But I think... He stood out. Yeah. And that's the thing that I fight with when I look at the lists and look at, and think about the Hall of Fame is like there are drivers that pop on and that's going to happen a lot here in the future that have champ like I feel like if you win a championship you're a lock like Kurt Bush is going to go in the Hall of Fame he's a champion cup driver that should be enough

to automatically put you right in um there's no like fluke champions and and uncelebrated undecorated champions in her sport they're going to go into the Hall of Fame the thing is we're about to have in the next probably 15 years, a lot of champions that are going to retire. And so they're going to be the people that you'll have to say, well, does he get in or does this Neil Bond and Harry again get in, right? Yeah, it's a tough call. That's why I want more than two. No. So what you've got to do in my mind is say, listen, Kurt Busch, you're young in terms of the grand scheme of things. you're going to get your opportunity you might not get in this year

because this Harry Gant thing or this Neil Bonnet thing or this, you know, Greg Biffle or Jeff Burton. You shouldn't have to wait. If you're a Hall of Fame, if you are up for it and you are a Hall of Famer, you should get in.

I know, but it's not his fault. There's like people that are deserving of it. If he's the most deserving, it shouldn't be, well, Kurt, you're young. I can buy, I see what he says. saying. I definitely can buy your argument and there'll be people like you on the panel. That's why I say.

There'll be people like you on the panel that'll vote. So short and how much the banquet time stuff is and get the people in that should be in the Hall of Fame. I don't, we're not doing that. That's not going to happen. That's a totally different argument. So what we have to do is look at the parameters we have today and say who are the ones we're going to choose.

And so I feel like, Harry Gantt would be one of the guys that I would pick. And I would probably go with, boy, that's a tough one after that. I mean, I think Jeff Burton, Kurt Busch, Greg Biffle, would be, I would be thinking about one of those three. In the pioneer era, you have Jake Elder, Ray Hendrick, Banjo Matthews, Larry Phillips, and Bob Welburn.

Listen, I think Banjo Matthews, he built a lot of amazing race cars. He was an owner, but also a chassis builder and just what he did. I don't know that we can all understand in terms of how he made the sport better from that perspective. Ray Hendrick won every race. in every race below the cup level, like all the short track, modified sportsman stuff, won a lot. He was dominant.

Same with Larry Phillips. Larry Phillips was like the greatest, like he's Josh Barry times 10. Dang. Yeah, Larry Phillips just crazy short tracker that just, you know, everywhere he went he won. That's good he's getting recognized here. Yeah.

I think it's between Ray Hendrick and Larry Phillips for me, And I think you could go to guys like Mark Martin and so forth and some of these other people to tell you why that Larry Phillips would be the call, right? Or why Ray Hendrick would be the call. Some of these people that are even older than you and I that would truly understand no more. How much of an impact they had on a sport. I think that one of the guys I was disappointed not to see on the pioneer era was Ray Elder. So Ray raced in the West series. He was in the NASCAR West series.

And he was a seven-time champion of that series. And so this guy raced from, you know, the 60s into the 70s. Now, listen, I know the NASCAR West was nothing, nowhere, near as competitive as even NASCAR on the East Coast. I mean, I know there's this, you know, this, well, was, what was the West? Was it really that? Had some heavy hitters, though. Was it really that serious?

Yeah, I mean, there's going to, but Ray, I'm sorry, Ray won six NASCAR Series championships, not seven. Oh, that ain't nothing. Easy to do. He was a six-time champion, 69, 70, 71, 72, 74, and, and maybe. Oh, 73, you got away from him, huh? Yeah, 75 as well. But the reason why I think Ray Elder is somebody that I think, and I hear that his name comes up in conversation during the nomination for the

or the voting for these nominees. So he's definitely in the conversation. He's a West Coast guy that raced in the NASCAR West, right? And forgive me for not being able to articulate this better, but the idea was that when we would go, if they ever came to the East Coast and race with us, they couldn't compete. They weren't competitive and they weren't strong.

And the two times a year that I think that NASCAR went out to Riverside, they combined the east and the west in the same race, and they would not compete for wins there. They could survive and sold your own and get a top ten. multiple laps down, but they weren't going to go race door to door with Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, David Pearson, and all the greats of the NASCAR world, or the NASCAR East world, Ray Elder could do that. So twice in 71 and 72, when NASCAR went to Riverside, he won the race,

beat Richard Petty, beat Bobby Allison, beat Bobby Isaac, or, you know, Buddy Baker. Cal Yarborough. They were all in the field, and he beat them twice. And then he went to, he went to Daytona and ran in the top five in his qualifying race and ended up in the top 10 in Daytona 500. So he had it. He had it. Yeah. And so six-time champion of the West Coast, two-time winner at Riverside against the big boys, and when he would come to Daytona, he was he was competitive, strong. And so,

that's a great racing career. Yeah, I mean, I feel like definitely a pioneer. All right, it's time to send us picks and videos of your ultimate racing collection. We love our Lionel die cast, but it doesn't have to be just die cast. Send us whatever you got,

your whole collection. It doesn't have to be Earnhardt stuff. That's not part of the deal. If you've got a big collection, we want to see it. We'll be posting on Twitter and Facebook about the Lionel Ultimate Racing Collector. Respond to those posts from Dirtymo Media with your picks and or videos. If you submitted last month but you didn't get picked as the winner, you can resubmit.

You can keep trying. We've said some good stuff. Yeah. Like fan caves or whatever you got. I love when people have like an old school cooler or something like that. Yep. That's one of one. You bet.

all right it's time for ass junior we want to get this ass junior kicked off with a thank you to Xfinity mobile you know that the speeds these days are booming with Xfinity Wi-Fi as fast as a V8 engine

and as reliable as an elite pit crew a lot of racing puns booming yeah Xfinity Wi-Fi gives you the power and speed of NASCAR in your home. Choose the right plan for you and you're off to the races

with the best streaming experience for NASCAR and all your favorite sports or video games or anything else. Music, man, I've got this Xfinity internet at my house and it's working pretty awesome. Booming. Yeah, booming.

I've had all kinds of, I've talked about this every time, man, but I've got to just do it because it's my own personal experience. Well, that's good. Yeah. I've got my ring can. and the cams for the girls' bed, bedrooms, or baby cams,

we still use those, which I'm kind of in the, I'm debating on like a wee time, time to take them out. Might be. Nicole's sneaky. I don't know if I think hers out yet. I like keep Nichols in it. But we have like probably, I don't know, 30 pieces, 30 different connections to the Wi-Fi between TVs and all the different stuff.

Yeah. And not only is it strong enough to handle all of the bandwidth, but it never drops. It never goes down. And I mean, we are in the, we're at the end of the line. So you're saying it's very reliable. Yeah, it's very reliable. Xfinity Wi-Fi.

Don't just raise the bar. Their streaming service is in overdrive. Xfinity, they're a proud premier partner of NASCAR. First question. You mentioned going after Kurt Bush at Rockingham last week. Was there ever a time you've wrecked someone knew they were coming for you? No.

Not that I can remember. Let me think about that Yeah Well I was a bit surprised by this one I think the only one I can remember This probably never happened In my Xfinity career or my Cup career

But I was racing late models And there was a guy named Jerry Williams That won the Mid-Atlantic Championship one year So he was a good racer and had had some good years and won a lot of races around the, you know, South Carolina area. Anyways, we was running about 100, 150 lapar at Myrtle Beach one night, and I'm pretty green still. Only got about a maybe a year, late model racing under my belt. It's actually my first year, honestly.

We get down in the corner, down into Turn 1, and I just got in there a little too deep. and hit him into left rear and spun us both out. It bent my drag link, so that's how hard I hit him. So I'm out of the race, and I don't know what happened to him. Maybe he's out as well. But he was mad. I didn't really realize how mad he was. Went down there a couple weeks later,

and I am a half a lap ahead of second place. I've got 10 laps to go. I'm going to win this feature. It's a 100-lap feature at the beach. And I catch him going down the back straightaway, and he pulls to the inside. We go down into turn three, and I see him, like not making the corner. And I see him in the – I drove all the way up to the wall to get away from him,

and he still ran into me and spun me out. And I ended up running fourth, I think, in that race. But I was going to win that feature that night, and Jerry turned me in turn three and four. And so, remember those – the Calvin piss on stuff stickers? Oh, yeah, yeah, like pissing on a shit, you know, forward emblem or whatever. So I got – there's pictures of this. this out there. The last race of the year

was the next race in November. All-American 400 used to happen down at the beach, South Carolina 400, that they call it today. And we would go down there and the late model stocks ran a 200-lapper, maybe. And then the All-Pro's also ran a 200-lap race. And so it was a big event. A lot of late-mile stocks would show up.

And I had that Calvin pissing on J.W. His initials on the seapost of my car for that race. I was such a shit. That's a good one. Drafts coming up this week. Washington had a good season. Are you excited for the draft?

You can do anything? Or is there like a player that you'd hope they get? The commanders are like picking 29th or something like that, 28th, something way back. A lot of position for you. That's what happens when you're decent. So, yeah. So I don't really, I'm not going to put a lot of, I'm not going to get all excited. about it like when you got a first, you know, top 15.

It's not like you're getting the first round. You get a top 15 pick or a top 10 pick. You're like, all right, we got to nail this one. This got, we can't miss, we can't miss here. But I don't know. We may trade back and get some more picks because we don't have many picks. I think we've only got five picks this year. So, TJ, what about the bells?

You know, I don't know. They've drafted really well over the last handful of years with Brandon Bean. And they've got like 10 picks, I think. Damn. They've got a lot of picks and a lot. like two seconds, two thirds, and they got a lot of doubles of the mid-round picks. So I don't know if they'll trade. I think they'll start filling holes here on the defense and maybe look for some more weapons if something falls in their lap later and, you know, late in the first. Or sometimes you

can get some teams that want to trade into the first round and you can get quite a good, you know, repay repay payment for it. So you trade back. But I like what they do. I'm always kind of surprised what they do, they never really do what I think they're going to do. So I'm excited to watch and see. Yeah. JBC says the commanders need a defensive end. We do. We need an edge rusher. We need an edge rusher and

defense is, yeah, we need some defense. I think the Eagles showed why the defensive line and head rushers are so important in the Super Bowl getting after my homes as much as they did. And how about A.J. Brown's car getting so on. Yeah. Did he get it back? I mean, he basically told the guy, he's like, hey, if I find you, it is what it is. I was like, it's got to be hard to move like a really nice car.

I know, but I bet that thing was already in pieces. Cut to pieces. When he sent that tweet. Yeah, I don't. I don't know if you get that back. I don't think he's going to get that back. I don't think so either. Not a good way to wake up.

I will tell you, I had a car stolen once. And I got this hunting land. And out in the Midwest. And next to the hunting land was this home for troubled boys, right? And it's just like a, it's a place for, you know, for them to try to get their lives back on track. And I think the story is that one of the counselors there had, had decided that he needed, he wanted to go home. not one of the boys that was staying there, but one of the counselors, I believe.

And he decided that he wanted to go home. And so he went over to where our farm was and took my truck. So I got a little Chevrolet Farm truck, 200,000 miles on it, just an old beat-up truck that we drive around, drove it to, drove it three states away, and left it in an Advent Sauto Parks parking lot. And then what happened,

was, is I bought it back from the auction. So it went into, it went to a car auction, like a dealer, where a dealer would go and buy used cars. And so we, we learned about where the truck was, but we had, I believe, already and collected our insurance. And so the insurance company is going to send it to auction. And so we tracked it to that auction and ended up buying it back. Did you make money off of the deal?

I think statute of limitations are up. Maybe. Speaking of cars, I think you said on Bustin with the Boys that you only keep like 12 now, and if you're going to get one, you have to get rid of? Is there a car that you regret getting rid of?

No, not really. I don't like cars sitting around and not driving them because the tires get square. Yeah, a lot of things. Yeah, you jump in there. I got in a car. one time to drive it to Martinsville. And man, I got out on, I was fine.

And then I got to the interstate. When I got up to like 70 miles an hour, that thing started shaking and bouncing the steering wheel. And I'm so mad. And, you know, not at nobody, but myself. And I'm like, I got, I can't, if it can't drive good and I'm not driving it enough, I need to get rid of it. And so that's why I kind of keep it to a limit of a certain amount of cars.

I just have stuff laying around. round that you don't use kind of gives me anxiety. And, um, but I, I think the one car that I, the one car that I want that I hope to get one day is probably a Buick Grand National, um, or maybe a Monte Carlo SS, like the 87, AeroCoop. Hmm. Good looking car. people are putting in what they'd want

68 barracuda 56 Chevy Bel Air all good all some good ones what's one thing that translates from sim racing to actual racing the best yeah a lot well what's one that like is like

the most I would say what I love what I think sim racing can do for a young driver is develop racecraft and when I say racecraft, that can mean a lot of things. But what I think, like, I'm going to put you in,

I'm going to put you in any race at Daytona, Talladega on the simulator, and just turn you lose, and let you just make all kinds of bad decisions, right, about getting in this line, pushing this person, getting this run, using this run, whatever. And we can sit there and kind of, I can sit there and let you run, because that race, race, racing, online on the sim will put you in all of the same situations that you're going to face in the real car and you're going to have to make these decisions and choices of what to do all the way throughout the entire lap and i think that the sim can help you cipher through like choices that you shouldn't make and things you shouldn't do so that you don't take those to the racetrack

and actually do them in a real race and so it'll teach you patience on your choices it'll teach you to relax and not have to, you know, not have to feel like you need to be doing, doing, doing all the time, creating opportunity for yourself. Sometimes, man, at those racetracks like Daytona Taladega, the opportunities present themselves, right? If you just sit there and be patient, the opportunities that's like obvious, like right in front of you. Yeah, it just shows up. Yeah, and so that's what happens to in Sim racing.

And so I think that the Sim racing and racing online with I racing can have. help you develop some of the early stages and the very cornerstone basics of what great racecraft is. And specifically at Daytona and Talladega, now when you go to race another race at a bigger track like Charlotte or even some of the smaller tracks, there's a patience required to be fast in eye racing and it's more related to the tire and temperature and how to how to make a quick lap while also taking the best care of the tire you possibly can so you have longevity and speed.

And so there's there's a lot of basic patience and judgment and smarts that are developed in the sim on the sim. And so, and I feel confident. Like 20 years ago, I would never think I can take this kid that's really fast and put him in a race car and in a couple of days have a pretty decent little, you know, have a pretty decent, have a kid doing some pretty decent laps, right? I would never think that in the past, because I just didn't think that the Sim was creating the opportunity for the racecraft to be learned. But today, it is because I think the kids that are on the Sim are paying such close

attention to the real thing. They try to emulate it, right? And then they also see, they see a lot of mistakes get made on the sim and in the real world and they try to emulate and they know more they just they're more savvy and so it's uh and it's impressive man i will i could get on i could get on the sim 10 years ago and drive right to the front at talladega and Daytona and and get on there and have fun and do well it's tough and competitive in any field these things days when you get on the sim when you get on the rig it is man you hop in a race at tall dengue daytona you better be ready and uh it's not as easy as it used to be it's because everybody just gotten smarter you know yep but yeah i think the the sim is really good at developing

good judgment and choices and trying to get to the finish trying to trying to avoid all the mistakes and bad choices to get to see the finish line. TJ what's something like you work with Carson? I mean there's other kids that I've worked with a couple kids in the cars tour that have ran there and you just work on passing and how to set up passes and you don't have to run over a guy in the middle of the corner to pass them you don't have you know you don't have to drive in there and be all over them you can roll in there and start your pass on the exit and things like that it's like patience like you don't have to win in the race every single corner. It's so funny, man.

I will, now I will watch, there are some kids that, I say kids, there are some guys that have raced online. That's not like how they, you know, learn to race cars, but they spend a ton of time racing online, and they don't seem to become better at choices and judgment. So there's like, you can learn your racecraft, but there's also people that it's just an innate, They just have an innate personality.

You have to apply it. Right. And like I'll see, I see some guys that'll get on the Sim. They're regulars in either the truck or the Xfinity series, right? And they'll get on the Sim and they drive a little carelessly. And then when they get in the real car, they drive the same way. And they don't seem to like, it hadn't like clicked in there. Yeah.

You know what I mean? I agree with it. you there's a couple real fast kids yeah we say kids but they're not kids really but yeah they're fast but like the they didn't the it's not fine it's not it's not yeah tuned all the way up it's hard to explain it really is but then there's people that learn to be smooth and and really um sharp on the rig and then that that's also the way they are on the real race track and i don't I don't know if they learn that on the rig and take it to the real racetrack, or it's just sometimes it's just a personality trait.

Some people just drive a certain way, and that's just who they are inside, and there's nothing you can do about that. You can't change it. And they think there's nothing wrong with it. They think that that's just how they're supposed to do it. Yeah. For a guy like Carson, he's very young.

He's really fast on ira racing. He knows where to be. And so the only thing you really do on there is try to create this scenarios that he might see in real life, you know, put cars around him in areas. So when he's in that scenario, he already has an idea on what it's like. So they don't get a lot of practice time nowadays. So you try to put him in situations that might come up. So when that situation happens, he makes the best decision. You already know, you already have a notebook for it instead of having to learn it right then. So but Carson's really fast on there and he's super smooth too. The road courses

are perfect. So if you're, I mean, that makes perfect sense to me. So I don't know if I'm telling you something that's completely obvious, but it might not be obvious to you. If you've never been to Road America or Road Atlanta or the Chicago Street course

or, you know, if you're going to go run these racetracks, that time on the, on your sim at home in eye racing is insanely valuable. Yeah. Insane. And so I can. I've told this story before, but we were, back when I was teammates with Jimmy, we were testing at Road, Atlanta, and doing some road course stuff.

And I'd never race there. And Jimmy had to do something on the second day, and Chad called me and asked me if I would test their car. And I was like, hell, yes. And then I was like, oh, man, I'm going to jump in Jimmy's car, you know. And I need, I've never run this track. I need to get up to speed. don't want to waste half, you know, usually when you go test, you waste the first half of the day,

just learning the track. And so I ran on the simulator for hours and hours the day before. And when I got there, I was within, you know, three or four tents right off the track, right off the trailer with Jimmy. And so by noon, we were running identical time. They were like, you've never been here. You can't. They couldn't believe that I'd never ran there.

I was like, no, man. But I was like, I ran on the simulator. And it's like deja vu. As soon as you pull out on the track, you're like, yep, I've been. been here before and all the shift points were within 50 feet of each other. So I kind of knew where I needed to be with the shifter and the gears to be in for every corner. And so it was easy to get right up to it. And so I, that if you're going to go race at a road course, which, you know, I think, you know, if you're looking at the totality of the world, like 85 or 90% of the tracks of road courses.

So I mean, it's very applicable for all types of motorsports and drivers that are racing in, in, motorsports in the world to utilize irasin to get themselves more familiar with those type of tracks but for ovals there's not much learning the track it's just the track's pretty straightforward so I think the racecraft is where you can improve better judgment better choices

so you don't go out there and just do a bunch of bad things all right well we'll wrap that up for Xfinity or As Junior that's it yeah thank y'all for tuning in Shelby out later today thank you Xfinity Mobile and Xfinity

Wi-Fi. Customers will get exclusive access with Xfinity Mobile up to with the most powerful Wi-Fi network on the go. Speeds up to a gig. Fast downloads for turn-by-turn action, smooth live-streaming

for fewer pit stops and a strong connection from the parking lot to the grandstand. So for more laps and less lag, stay connected with Xfinity Mobile. Thank you, Xfinity. All right, it's time for Dirty Mode. This segment is brought to you by Fanduel. Man, I was in Texas.

Not a lot of gambling in Texas. Tim's, we have to... I mean, I was just talking about this with Travis earlier. What do you think the odds will be on Jesse Love? Jesse Love, Austin Hill, I put them in the same category. They'll probably be like plus 300, plus 400 to win. Yeah. Which I would bet.

I heard what you guys were talking about and I think if he's anything plus money I'd take either one of those guys because unless somebody stops him and beats him they're so good there and it's years yeah it's years and years that they've been doing this yeah I have a feeling if he doesn't if they do

take if they do keep the win from at Rockingham I don't think we'll learn about that till next week wow okay the appeal process won't be expedited TJ okay then we won't know but can you be like so you're going to try to say that he'd be more motivated. That's what I'm saying.

I feel like he's going to be. But this is like can you, if you're extra motivated, is there anything more that you're going to do? Yes. What? Yeah, I mean,

you're going to make moves. You're just going to have it in your head that it's yours to win. It's a weird thing. I know probably something you wouldn't understand. Well, that's why I'm asking, like, it's probably something you wouldn't understand to be able to comprehend confidence.

I've got confidence, but I'm not a race. But to me, like, it's not like you can like, confidence is half of the battle. You'll see it when he's controlling the race. He's going to show that I'm going to control this race and you're going to see that and his driving.

I'm not letting you buy. I'm not letting you get the run. So the only challenge I see in front of the two cars is teammate. Yeah, 100%. That's the only thing in the way of them going in and winning this race. And the thing about Jesse Love, he'll probably be he'll have better odds than Austin Hill will.

Yeah. So you'll get more value on him and Hill, so I would definitely place that bet. Let's move on into the Cup series. I'm looking at some of your favorites here. Blaney, Kislauski, and Ligano all sit at plus 1,000, and the fords are awesome. The Penske fords are probably the best forwards when we go to Talldega in Daytona. What do you, TJ, I know you might want to argue that. But I like, I mean, Blaney Kislowski.

Joey to a point. I mean, Joey's, I'm not as high on Joey, I guess, for some reason. I would agree. It's really just the aggression, right? We talk about after every, you know, plate race. It's who gets the bad push that causes the big wreck. And Blaney, I like Blaney because he never is the guy that causes it. He's just a victim.

Blaney's always the guy riding second, third, or fourth. That's like, like you said, them guys that are there. And he's like, oh, you guys are all jammed up. Here's my goal. Here's my window. And I'm going to go in. Yeah. So he's really good at doing that.

Yeah. Yeah, I think the forwards are, you've got to go in thinking the fords had the upper hand. Yeah. William Byron actually has the best average finish of active guys, and he's only finished in the next gen era once outside the top 10. Is that at Talladega only? At Talladega only, yes. Yeah, it's so circumstantial to big wrecks and stuff too.

Of course. It is, yeah. But you have to make a bet, T.J. I mean, to me, I look for a guy. You don't have to for the record. I mean, my underdog right now would be Ryan Preece. We can debate the unpredictability of it all day long, but this is a betting portion of the show.

This is where we make bets. I think this is where you go for Ryan Preece. Ryan Preece. Oh, my goodness. Interesting. He's been good at plate races. He has. And now he's with a, to me, he's got better teammates, better group.

And he's in a Ford. If he finishes with all four wheels on the ground, he's definitely up front. I like Eric Jones, actually. He's got like the tie for the third best average finish. Dude. And you don't think so? No. It's all stats, statistical.

Yeah, I've got a, I will top 10? Top 10, yes, that's a definite bet But he's 48 to win. Outright wins. I'd still place a little bit. Why not? I would bet only... He almost won a race, what, last year, and the Reddick won it?

It might have been two years ago, but... I think he's very smart. I don't think he has enough car to win, but I think that he's very smart and can get you that top 10. Yeah. Some of that. Yeah.

Top 10's here. What about this parlay? Priese, Byron. No. I wouldn't parlay anything at Tal'Dagena No no no

Prece This is way This is no This is no It's why you got to do it Oh you're doing Not at Talladega I'm not doing this

Talladega Preas Barryron All top tens Or top 15s They probably don't They don't have No

Top 10s I thought maybe top 20 Those three You're gonna finish In the top 10 I like Byron But I don't know

I don't know I think I'm usually The conservative one here. I wouldn't place a top a parlay in this race because it's too unpredictable. I guess since I can't bet it's easy for me to be aggressive. Yeah, exactly.

Priests you're going to get plus money for a top ten anyways, right? Yeah, you will. So why, you don't need to parlay that? I want to. I want to win a lot of money with my one five, with my little five bucks. And you can't sleep on Bush or either. You can't know. He's a good one

to throw in there. It's so hard to pick an outright winner at tracks like this. I actually have a couple prop bets that I've found that I really like. Drivers to finish on the lead lap. It's over 25 and a half. That's the number. It has hit in four of the last six races.

So I'm betting that over. It's risky. If there's a big rack, obviously, this is it. Dude, with the way they're riding around saving fuel, you got a great shot at it. Exactly. And the other one is average running position of the winner.

It's over 13. That has hit three last six races, but by like a position or two. It's tough to figure that out too. like that bet. It's cool little prop-up. With the new damage deal, I think you've got an opportunity for more guys to be on the lead lap as well because you can fix more stuff. That's a brilliant. Great point.

PJ. Dude. Better put a ton of money on there. I like that. 10 units. 25 cars. 10 units. This was like 28, 30.

I mean, the last couple of races. That's the bet. Yeah, this is. That's your bet. That's the best bet. What's the odds? It's minus 120, but it's, that's a really good bet. Four of the last six races that played track, that's pretty good.

I love it. Yeah, well, we're going to see them four wide, half throttle. But on TV, it's going to look for the mouthful. Oh, yeah, the Europeans are going to love it. Yeah, Europeans. All right, that's pretty cool, man. We got some good stuff out there. Yeah, that's pretty good.

Jesse Love and Blaney are Mount, right, winners. I'd probably put a little money on Keselowski, too. And I told you my parlay for top tens. I would bet that. I'll say what, if you want to put you a parlay, parlay Jesse Love to win on Saturday. Ryan Blaine to win on Sunday. Boom.

Ooh, might be a little fun. I do like that. All right. The Dirty Mode Doe segment is brought to you by Fandul, the premier gaming destination in the United States. Before we move on to the white flag of this show, I just want to take a moment to recognize the passing of Dr. Jerry Petty. Dr. Jerry Petty has, for decades,

worked in the NASCAR industry, helping a lot of drivers as a neurosurgeon, and offering tons of advice and support for injured drivers in all sorts of situations. I know that he certainly helped my dad through a lot of different injuries in his life, and he also assisted me in some of the situations that I found myself in, specifically in 2012 with the concussion and also again later in 2016. He was very critical in being able to get me in front of the right people to be able to get the care that I needed. But he was an incredibly, incredibly kind man, well, well respected in his industry and appreciated and loved by a lot of people.

and I've known him for so many years, and I'm sadden to hear that he has passed, but, man, he has done so many great things, and his friends and family should certainly be proud and celebrate what an incredible life he lived. Thank you, Dr. Jerry Petty, and we're going to miss you. All right, it's time for the white flag. There was no cup race.

so don't worry though actions detrimental doorbubber clear and the tear down will all be back next week reacting to Talladega so again no actions detrimental no door bumper clear and no tear down

but you get me a T.J and also you're going to get Rick Allen Rick Allen is going to be our guest for tomorrow on the Dale Junior download you don't want to miss that we're going to talk about all our experiences together working in the NASCAR NBC booth and yeah what ricks up to today right where where has he been and what what was that transition like

I guess to go from working the booth to whatever it is he's doing he's going to come on here and tell us Herman strater and Speed Street both have episodes dropping Wednesday then amy and i will be back taping bless your heart on Thursday we had a great Easter weekend should be some great stories from our Texas trip to talk about be sure to check out dirty mo's YouTube I was in Talladega last week with Cletus. That was a lot of fun. We got a great video up there on Dirty Mo's YouTube page. All about that.

Don't forget to head over to shop.dirtymodea.com to check out all our new merch. T.J. is wearing one of the Dale Junior download sweaters, and I've got one of the Dirty Moe Media sweaters on. There's a lot of great merch. We'll keep updating that site as well. So check it out. For all the new stuff, it's going to be popping up on there. And the Dale Jr. Foundation's annual when Del Junior's ride

raffle is underway. Head over to the Dale Jr.Foundation.org. You can purchase a raffle ticket. It's a Chevy Tahoe, high country, four-wheel drive. We also are going to, me and Amy added a bunch of extras

to this raffle. And I'm going to cut a video about that really soon. And I think that's really what you're going to be wanting to win. All right? So you want to check that out. All right. Enjoy the Joe. Thank you, T.J. Glad to have you back. Yeah, appreciate it. Glad to be back.

We'll see y'all tomorrow with Rick Allen.