The Dale Jr. Download - Cleetus's Advice From Drivers, Lee Pulliam's Emotional Embrace & Dale’s Fired Up

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

Only have 30 minutes? Well, this episode of Dirty Thirty packs a full-sized podcast punch into a half-hour runtime - and it's all the best parts from Dirty Mo Media's shows, including: Dale's Martinsville Rant, A Really Angry Fan Voicemail & Jeff Gluck's Interview with Cleetus McFarland. We start off with Dale Jr. giving us a rant for the ages, where he gives a fiery explanation about how he differs from drivers who get upset about door banging at Martinsville. Batting second in the proverbial DMM lineup is Actions Detrimental with Denny Hamlin and his explanation on why they run so many caution laps in between stages. Next up, we had to highlight the callers in Door Bumper Clear's Reaction Theatre segment who covered everything from makin' babies to not-so-nice Easter wishes. Plus, ahead of his race for Richard Childress Racing at Rockingham, Cleetus McFarland chatted with Jeff Gluck on the Gluckcast about advice he's gotten, how to grow a YouTube channel, and what he wants NASCAR fans to get out of him racing in the sport. And last, but certainly not least, break out the tissue boxes — Lee Pulliam recounts the emotional embrace he shared with his daughter before climbing the JR Motorsports No. 9 at Martinsville and how much she knew it meant to her dad. Thanks for listening! See you next week, right back here on the Dirty Thirty. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, I'm Dillon Hart Jr. And this is The Dirty 30. The best highlights from all of our podcast this week, 30 minutes every single Friday. The Dirty 30 coming in charge. Let's get right to it. This episode of The Dirty 30 is presented by Arby's new Meat in Three Box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats.

See, I went back and watched the race. Me and Carson went back and watched the whole race. Jesse was a little rough on some guys early too. Jesse doesn't realize there's, here's the thing. about Jesse. Jesse drives the way he doesn't like to get driven.

Exactly. And I, I mean, I love Jesse. He's great. I like Jesse too. And I don't want it to be, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to give him a wrong idea,

but yeah. Dude, and honestly, Jesse races hard and there's nothing wrong with it, but when it comes back around, he don't like it. And especially at Martinsville, like, damn, you're supposed to get running to.

I would go to Martinsville, and I want Jesse and everybody to hear this. I would go to Martin'sville. I would go to Martinsville looking forward to getting run into. We go to all these other racetracks. When I was driving, we had steel bodies, right? You go to Kansas and Chicago and road courses and all these tracks. You can't touch no body.

If you barely bend the quarter panel, you're f***. Yeah. You couldn't touch nothing. So I couldn't wait to go to Fitton, Martinsville. And I'm like, please, fuck, adore me. Somebody put some donuts on this motherfucker. Let's go. That explains a lot.

Yes. I mean, we'd get 100 laps in the race, and LaTart would come on the radio and go, dude, you got 400 laps to go. Can we save some race car? Because I'd have both sides lit up. Nothing like flooding the sheet metal market here. They feel alive.

I loved it. And when a guy got loose under me and when a guy got loose under me and hit me in the left side door, you know, it's what I went to Martinsville to fucking expect. At the time, it did not make. you happy. Yeah, but I mean, you want to...

No, I know, yeah. You're looking forward to grinding your teeth. You're fucking like... You're looking forward to being the guy. You're looking forward to dirty on the right side up, not the left side. Yeah, but I mean, you know... Are you looking forward? You want to get hit first so then it gives you the freedom to go back, Adam?

I just went to those races going, I'm ready to trade some sheet metal. I'm not going to knock... I'm not going to spin a guy out. I'm not going to, you know, ruin somebody's day. but if I run into the side of your car take it like a fucking man let's go

you know you want to give it back to me in the next corner fine but it's a you know it's eye for an eye don't be a fucking idiot and take me out I'm not going to take you out now I don't want it to escalate that's when it gets carried away it doesn't need to escalate but do I want to hit do I want to hit

do I want to trade bumpers do I want to get out of my car and see the story of the race written all over the sheet metal yes yes I do and I want it on both sides it was fun and now these guys get all bent out of shape when somebody gives them a little donut

off the corner back to this caution thing we got a normal stage break normal stage break caution what is like the procedure do you do two laps and then they open pit road and then you come down

like what is the it depends on the track right because two laps at Kansas is different than two laps at Martinsville but I just told you what it is you throw the caution they watch us gather up they go to commercial for a while

so commercial is dictating how many laps you're doing it's not we need one lap to clean off the track pit road open not not for stages for regular cautions i i think it's more a little more buttoned up they're not but it's still the same they're still not

i don't know that there's a huge sense of urgency on regular cautions too because again TV is banking on we listen they heard us when we talk when the fans complained about all these commercials during green flag they're like all right well we're going to do it during yellow

well the time the running time of the commercials has to remain whatever it is so they're just going to have to extend the yellows if you want them to tune in the green so what would you rather them have longer yellows or have some commercials during green Traff, what's your opinion of that?

If they had to run one hour of commercials, every race, I'm throwing it, I have no idea what the number is. Would you rather it be for extended yellows, would you rather be extended yellows or take away a little green flag?

Can we do the extended yellows but freeze the lap count? Oh, God, no, the races would be six hours. I think I would, still I think I would rather take the yellow. Longer yellow. Yeah. The hard thing is like yesterday would have been great to go during some green ones,

but it's like you can't decide it. It's tough. I think you take a little green away. Maybe just. You know why? Because we're just, I feel like we're in a world of you got to, we got to get that dopamine hit every couple of minutes.

and I'm telling you, a 15 minute caution can really drag down your feeling. And next thing you know, now I've switched over to basketball and now it's a close game, I'm like, I don't want to change.

This is great. I don't want to change from this. I flip back real quick, still under yellow. Let me go back to the game. And then I just find myself getting caught in the game. I will say, though, that like showing the pit stops,

I do think helps build the race up. I agree with you. That's why I... Maybe a happy medium. If there was an easy fix, then NASCAR would have done it all. There is no easy fix. We're trying, again, we're trying to make it all work and feed all the mouths that are NASCAR.

So it's a tough, tough thing, but TV's got to get their commercials in. It's the only way that the series gets the money that it does, that supports this whole thing. But it feels long in the car. I'm telling you, we were running lots of cars. Yo, Cotty G. You got to bring that fickle car back, dude.

Those pickles are fire. I love that. What pickles is pickles? Yeah, the gorilla's car, dude, everyone loves them. Dude, when we put out that cooler behind the hauler of pickles, they go very, very fast.

They have the hot ones too, right? Oh, yeah. They'll be back soon. So I'm excited with that. I can't wait. I love him. Freddy, you better shave your eyebrows off after this break. No shit.

The haircut doesn't work. You got to clean your beard up, man. What do you mean? That's a mess. This is as clean as it gets, buddy. Oh, Lord. So I am driving home from my boy's birthday party, turned seven a day. And he is named after Chase Elliott.

So happy birthday to my son, Chase. He gets the win today. Love that. So now I'm going to have to see. since I'm a chase sexual if my wife wants to get together and make another baby and we'll call him Clyde. Come on.

Awesome. I was expecting some chase sexual calls today. Old Shane Van Gingerberger pretty much ran top ten all day. I'm not saying we're f*** or anything, but me and Jeff Burton better figure out how to say this guy's name right. Tommy, what is it about,

qualified in the top five. No, he didn't know. Top five, top ten, I think. No, I think he was fifth, or maybe six. He was right there, though. He's close. What is it about Martinsville? Because AJ was kind of the same way.

What is it about Martinsville that kind of lends itself to these road course guys? It's just a breaking? Yeah, just breaking and timing. Montoya was the same way when he got to Martinsville. It took a little bit for Shane to do it, but he's figured it. I mean, look, Shane's figuring out all the ovals now, right? He's getting, you know, they were a little off last week as a group, but he's getting, better. I mean, you're racing, you know, around them more now than you did last year, right?

Yeah, no, absolutely. It would, uh, beginning of last year, we went to, you know, Vegas and Texas, all these places. He was, you know, he was a car that we expected to beat, um, you know, and now he's very, very fast. Uh, I think, yeah, it's very impressive. I, you know, I don't think anyone's ever necessarily a massive fan, right? When someone comes in and, and just beats, you know, all the guys that, you know, I think are the greatest in the world, um, it, uh, it, uh, it's, uh, It hurts a little bit, but yeah, to see what he's done is just incredible. And, yeah, massive respect for sure. We said he was going to be the most approved guy this year, and he's living up to it.

It is currently 6.12 a.m. I'm just crossing into the great state of Michigan again after a 12-hour drive home from Martinsville. I haven't slept in probably 30 hours, and I still think Kyle Bush had a longer day than I did. Kyle Busch had to race with me all day So I don't think he had much Kyle you can see in Kyle's interview He's just about had enough I don't know what that means for the future

But I would be surprised to see him back in that car next year His interviews he's gotten to the point where he's given the one word Answer interviews And I don't know like they're they mean as a whole They struggled yesterday obviously But like this guy is still One of the best race car drivers on the planet Like he didn't forget how to do this.

He just doesn't like this car. He doesn't like the fuel. I mean, he just doesn't. Do you think practice, the lack of practice has anything to do with that? I mean, obviously, he doesn't need practice, but I feel like he does need it, like to get comfortable. I think if we're allowed to do more things in practice, it would help that. But, you know, I don't know, man. He just doesn't like it.

But I guarantee you if you get it right for him, you know where he's going to be. Yeah. Right? But you know the deal, man. Todd, these cars are so finicky. One round in the left rear, in or out could mess you up. Yeah, no, they're the most sensitive car I've ever driven. But, yeah, I think, like Tommy said, if you put Kyle Busch in the fastest car,

he's going to be at the front. So I think he liked the car a lot more in that situation than what he's at. I'm hoping for the Kyle Busch fans, he figures it out at some point, because we're going on two years now. Yeah, I'm pretty upset. I just found out that Brady's been lying to us for years because Denny is not great

that was some go 12. Go 12. I knew that was God. Again, I didn't see it. Tommy informed me last night that it was pretty egregious and I'm going to take Tommy's word for it. He's never lied to me before. Is that what you guys do on the show? You just

say you didn't see it? Well, I was using with Denny he does. Yeah, yeah. It did his contract. The guy signs my check so I can't say anything bad about him. Like last week, he screwed up last week for sure because it ended up wrecking us. But that was his fault last week. This week, I didn't see it. Sorry.

Last one. You know what? I'm ecstatic that Chase Elliott won this race. You know why? It takes zero in town to fend somebody. Fuck you, Denny. Fuck you, Denny, bros. Fuck all y'all, you.

I hope you guys have a horrible Easter. I hope Easter money give you shit instead of a. chocolate for eggs. That guy's a northerner for sure. No, that was like a... That was like a Midwester guy. That's not like a guy from... Where's Blaney from Ohio?

That's where it was. That was not a northerner. Yeah, that was Blaney. That was actually Ryan. Thanks for calling it, Ryan. He said he was calling in one of these times. Damn. We cannot confirm.

Yeah. That was a little aggressive. That was a little aggressive. All right. I hope you were in your East. That was, I mean, that's bad. That's bad. You know, I was asking some of the cup drivers this week what they thought would be reasonable expectations for you at Rockingham.

And, you know, the general consensus, like, just run all the lap, stay out of trouble and stuff. And I imagine that your confidence in being able to do that is like exponentially higher than it would have been before you did that test day. I'm assuming you gained a lot from that test. Way higher. You know, in that day, I developed more as a driver than I ever have in one day. day and that that's the biggest difference from me going you know having this opportunity with rCR is i'm not just getting in a car and hoping to figure it out in the first 50 laps you know they have i've never been given so much data so much communication for any thing in my

life i mean i probably i got less data when i became a pilot you know like these guys are giving me so much data. I've been spending hundreds of laps on the simulator every day, hosting races on eye racing. You know, I was just watching data from RCR this morning. I'm going to the simulator this afternoon with Jesse Love. You know, I just am, that's the best part of this RCR deal is just so much help for my actual driving abilities.

Well, so you mentioned, obviously, you've done a lot of crazy stuff, a lot of fun stuff, stuff that takes balls, stuff that takes adrenaline. I mean, the Talladega video you just did with the RFK drivers was insane. So I imagine that you're used to, whatever nerves and adrenaline come with that, you're used to channeling that already. Does the feeling of getting ready to compete in this race,

is it the same kind of feeling or is it something different? I think there's a lot more pressure. external pressure on this type of racing versus what I, the other stuff I do. You know, specifically because of like how badly I did at Daytona in the truck, you know, there's a lot of scrutiny going on. And this sport has a ton of scrutiny. Everyone's at each other's throats. Like you make one mistake and it's pretty chaotic.

I've obviously not, I don't have the driver's skills. to back up, you know, and prove these people wrong. So at this point, it's like, I got nothing to prove. I got to get out there and do what a lot of these cup drivers are suggesting. And like, you know, Dale Jr. And these guys are saying, just get out there, stay out of the way and learn. And that's my hopes. I mean, that's the plan.

Finish the race. You, you know, you could really tell that you've gained. such a firsthand appreciation for NASCAR and the limited stuff that you've done so far. What's been like the single biggest thing that has surprised you about the NASCAR world compared to what you thought it was like before you got yourself in it? Are you talking like on the social side or like the competition side or what? However you want to take it, whatever, whatever jumped out of you and you were like, man, I was like this.

The single largest thing, I mean, the machine of NASCAR is. massive, right? I mean, I've just totally not in this world at all when I'm doing the drag race and YouTube stuff. It's pretty fun to jump over here. It's such a massive world and community and be a part of something this big. So I don't know. That's probably the biggest thing that surprised me is just how extreme of a machine it is. Like, you know, it elevated me as a creator more than I thought it would. Normally I bring eyes to a sport. This sport brought eyes to me.

And on the competition side, I would say the biggest thing for me has been how hard the cars are to, you know, correct when you screw up. They're kind of like, once you mess up a little bit, it goes really wrong, really fast. And I, you know, I'm sure you've seen clips

where I can drift cars at 100, plus mile an hour dead sideways and have full control. But the asymmetric, you know, wedge in these cars, like the way that they drive is so new to me. It's way harder to recover from an incident. There's obviously 35 to 38 other cars on track. It's chaos. I can't believe how many stars have to align to actually win a race.

That's also shocking. Yeah. You have to be so close. competitive and then so much other stuff has to go your way. So when you see somebody win, like you think, oh, that's great, but it's a way bigger deal than that. Wow. It's a lot. You know, you're, I was watching one of the reaction videos that like Mark Martin did.

And when he was talking about your approval and all those stuff. And he was talking about how he had watched your videos. And he was like, look, Cletus can drive. Okay. And it's like, you know, this is a NASCAR Hall of Famer saying this. Then, you know, Keselowski in the video you did at Talladega, you know, he's obviously, like, very impressed seeing you drive firsthand the way you pushed him and all that stuff. I mean, you know that you have car control and you know you have these skills,

but when you catch the attention of these NASCAR Hall of Fame type guys and impress them with your talent, I mean, does that mean anything to you? Does that resonate with you? Well, I love Mark Martin, by the way. That guy has been so gracious to me. honestly him and Kenny Wallace have kind of been like some of the few guys who've had my back. So I love those guys. I definitely feel like I am not a bad driver, you know, and especially in like a car that has symmetrical grip.

I feel like I'm very confident. And it feels good to have their, you know, have their opinions sway that way. but I also know that I have a lot to learn, you know, to hopefully make those guys proud. So I just can't believe how far these guys drive these things in the corner. I mean, they are so damn good at turning left. It's ridiculous. So I just have so, I have such a gap to, you know, get to where I can be competitive,

but learning as fast as I can. I know you get asked for advice all the time from people, you know how do i do this with my youtube channel and stuff like that how do i make good content like you my channel currently has 11 000 subscribers so i have 4.66 million fewer subscribers than you have what would what advice would you give to someone like me on how to grow my content and be a better creator well jeff i see your stuff all over when i'm in the nascar world like your stuff is all over you know, your specifically is like your funnel is like this, right? You're just only applying to this specific community. And my funnel's like this, right? You know, of how many people my videos can

apply to. So I would say for you, you have good content. You know, you may want to interpret what could open your funnel up and you know what next time you make a title for a video think all right who's going to understand this is it this many people or will everybody understand it you know the and the title and the thumbnail are the most crucial part of that of getting people in the door that's fascinating advice thank you for that you can't get them in the door they don't even care what i mean what doesn't even matter what's on the other side so right right well for the people that haven't watched your videos the NASCAR fans who are you know have only heard about you because you've come into this world um what do you want them to

know about you as you take some steps into this sport um i think that you know if you don't know what cleese macfarlane is or who i am i would say go to the channel and just watch maybe like the best of 2025 video and that will give you a little bit of a small, short example of almost everything we did throughout the year. And just know that I am not trying to wedge my way into this sport and, you know, show the world that anyone can do it. I'm simply here to enjoy the sport and go turn left with a bunch of other, you know, people who love turning left.

And that's it. I'm here to learn. I'm here to have a blast. got this crazy opportunity to run in O'Reilly's with RCR and Tommy's Express Car Wash. And I think a lot of people are viewing that as like, I'm trying to wedge my way to the top. You know, they called me. And who the hell would I be to say no to Richard Childers Racing saying, come get in my car? There's a 0% chance I'm turning that down.

And now here I am going to race in a level, yeah, I may not be, does. deserve to be at, but it's up to me now. You know, I put myself here. So, you know, if you want to come along for the ride, we'd love to have you. My favorite, and I hate to take you here emotionally, but, because I know you're... I know where you're going. Listen, dude, I'm telling you, this was really cool. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, um, I'm a girl dad. I got a little five and seven year old, your daughter's around the same age but she seems absolutely aware of what you know what she's what's happening that day

what y'all were doing she was she was I was watching her and trying to compare her to my child and she my girls go to the race and they're still not sure what racing is right they're not sure what we're doing there and why I'm in that car you know daddy's out there in that car he's out there where is he at you know why is it he not in the camper? Where is he? And so my girls are still sort of a bit oblivious to some of the things.

And we'll get there one day with them. But yeah. And I'm sure your daughter is a child at heart. But I'm telling you, man. It was a special moment. It was. We raced all day. We led laps.

We had fun. You got to do all these great things. And you got to experience the lows and the highs. You did it all. But the best moment of the day for me happened before the race ever started. Yeah. So I'm standing over the right front. She comes up to you, your wife and her are close by.

They had been within, you know, within arm's reach for the last several minutes, kind of hanging around, waiting and, you know, allowing photos and other things to happen. And you waved her over or she comes over to you, right? Yeah. And y'all had a moment where you knelt down and gave her a hug. And she got emotional and you got emotional. Now, I understand why you got emotional. Yeah. Right.

But it was really profound for me to see your daughter recognize in that moment how important this was for you. What a, what a cool, I think what that's got to feel so good as a dad, right? Forget the race. Forget how important this is in your life to be able to experience this one thing. You got to feel so good as a dad to have a daughter that recognizes. how important that was for you and how happy she was to see you get to do it. That's what I saw. I saw her emotional and thankful and knowing my dad's getting ready to do something he's dreamed about.

I have to imagine that you, y'all must have had some conversations leading up to this. You must have shared with her. She knew how special it was. Yeah. And then you made it, you made it aware. you made it, you know, you made her aware of it, and she was able to go there, and you know how much that mattered to her now that she knows and understands all this? And your wife sat on the pit box behind me the whole race, and I knew the whole time she knew exactly how important. Every single

lap was, we watched you come off turn four time over time, time after time after time, just soaking it in, just realizing how big a grin you had on your face, you know, but I thought that was, of all things that happened that day, that embraced with her and how connected to the moment she was, was impressive to me. Yeah, she's, um, that's been really special because she's at an age where she understands how much it meant to me. She saw dad working. She saw dad running up back and forth, running miles on the driveway and the farm.

She saw, she saw me being like that 18-year-old kid, but. But I was her dad. You know, she saw that fire in me. And she, man, she's been like my biggest supporter and just when we had the post race meeting Monday morning. Here? Yeah. The team meeting?

Yep. I'll tell you how where she is. When I left, she said, Daddy, you're not going to get in trouble, are you? and I said, I said, I said, I don't know, baby. I said, I think they were really impressed with my racing. I said, I'm probably going to be critiqued on my restarts. And I said, but that's okay. I said, that's part of life.

I said, I critique you on things. And I said, dad knows he needed to be better there. And I said, I'm going to be fine. I said, there's a lot of people there to support me and have reached. out to me and told me, hey, I've done it before I've had this issue. I said, so I'm going to be fine, but that's all she could think about that morning. She didn't want to add to me in trouble at this meeting. So she is so aware of the everything and she knows that I wanted to be perfect. Yeah. She knows that how much it meant to me and she knows that disappointment, like the

disappointment I felt of making that mistake. She knew she could feel that. knew that how much that had weighed on me that weekend. Like she knew that I had a great time and a great experience. But that morning, like she's just so aware of so many things. And, three or four years ago,

she wouldn't have been. So she's nine now. And it's just kind of amazing to be at that point in life. But yeah, when I gave her a hug, I just told her this is why I never give up on your dreams. And I said, whatever you dream of,

you fight for and you just never give up. And so, yeah, that was definitely a special time for me, for sure. And something I'll never forget. Hey, this is Dellenhart Jr. And for all the latest Dale Jr. download gear, including the I'm will drink some beer t-shirt that we've been talking about here around the office, head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch. All right, that was another episode of the Dirty30, presented by RB's new Meat and Three

box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We had the meat.