The Dale Jr. Download - COTA: It’s Entertaining Until It’s You…

Episode Date: March 3, 2026

The first road course weekend of the NASCAR season is in the books, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back for a new episode of Dirty Air. He joins co-host TJ Majors to break down all of the action from COTA and St. Petersburg:   Dale is back into trading cards Tyler Reddick is looking like a championship favorite Contenders are already in points holes Carson Hocevar finally gets checked Corey Day is learning the hard way Teammates should be assets, not competition COTA race winner Tyler Reddick joins the show During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding: Living without beer or video games Does Dale bring his firesuit to races just in case? Has TJ’s cool shirt ever failed? Dale’s niece's recent victory lane dust-up in the CARS Tour Smashing Pumpkins or Pearl Jam? Ranking the forms of potatoes And for more content, check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia Real fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.👇 https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/ 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.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half. I don't know if we've ever argued. Did I piss you off over the weekend? I'm still sour. Did I want the best man at your wedding? Who was your best man, Dale? DJ.

DJ. You don't need a cool best for that race. What are you thinking? Did them, DJ. Hellway is starting to show. All right then. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again.

another episode of the Dale Jr. Download And there's a bunch to talk about. I'm excited to be here. I am. PJ, it's good to see you. Yeah, glad to be here. Before we get too much further, we have to tell you that this episode is presented by Arby's.

Arby's is a great new partner of ours. And Amy went to the Arby's. Did she get a meat in three box? She did not. She got a roast beef and Swiss or something. Yeah, I think she got some curly fries. Yep. But, yeah, don't forget about their new meat and three box.

You get more meal for your money at Arby's, especially with that meat and three box. We have the meats. We have our dynasty for college football Xbox PlayStation. Getting down to it again. We're in the semifinals for the playoffs. I have beaten, I've taken the UNC Tar Heels and beat. the Florida Gators.

That was Butterbean Queen. You're pretty happy about that one. I am. I am. I hadn't played Butterbean in this dynasty, but he's a very good player. Beat some people. Beat you.

First week of this year. Let's be honest. I beat myself, but yes, he won. First week of this season, he scored more points than you in that game. I don't know. T.J. won't say he lost,

but the guy he played scored more points. He did. He won the game. He will admit that fact. It's an interesting way to not lose. That's right. I didn't lose, but the other guy scored more. I threw five interceptions. You're going to lose. I didn't lose, but I threw five interceptions.

Not on me. I called the right place by players. He didn't win. I threw five interceptions. I mean, it's not like he did something. It's not like he did something crazy good. He did, he's won the game. He picked you all five times. You know why did TJ get along? Because we both think about it completely screwed up.

Like our perspective on life. I would agree with you, but then I would be wrong too. Yeah. Okay. Well, hey, I'm happy. Is Dale's roster now legal? Legal. As far as I know, yes.

There's no ingenuity this year. If he changed something, I wouldn't know it anyway. In this one, you can't. If I could, I would. It can pass tech. If I could, I would. Hey, I'm going to try. I'm going to do, I'm going to run my, I'm going to play video games the same way I try to race cars.

and that is cheating in every opportunity. Every opportunity. I don't condone cheating unless it's in a competition. Yeah. Then it's fair. Fair game. Well, I don't know. I mean, in high school and professional sports at college football,

not entirely comfortable with it. But in motorsports, I don't know why. It's good with me. Isn't that weird? No, it's because that's the sport that it grew up on. Like, everybody is understanding that you're doing that. So everyone's all, like, we're good with it. Yeah.

I don't know why. Cheating in motorsports doesn't bother me. But are you talking about, like, I don't. Like, to me, there's different levels of cheating. There's, like, the blatant, the blatant drilled holes and stuff. Or there is the guys that are trying to, like, get more out of, you know, like the truck arms. You know, like, like bolting other pieces on them and doing, you know, innovative, I guess.

Yeah. Is that? There's a, wow, this is a big, big, it's a bigger conversation than just the introduction to the show. But I would say that, you know, in terms of a friendly competition on our Xbox, if there's a way for me to skirt a few rules or do some things a little nefarious, you're looking at the guy that's going to try to do them. I played Texas a little bit dirty.

I called time out with one second to go and go. kicked a field goal to make it 60. Why? You couldn't stand it being a uneven number? First of all, he ran two kicksbacks for touchdowns, and I was pissed at that. Wait, I'm sorry, he tried to win

the game. That pissed you off. The fucking nerve of this guy. I mean, it was 57. How dare you score? It was 57 to 14. Yeah, sit down. Stop trying.

Stop trying. Exactly. I mean, I'm chewing clock, but then I also, I'm also terrible at kicking, so I was like, you know what? I'm going to get a little practice. This is what I mean about. TJ. He's kicking this guy's

the guy is I mean the you know the guy is having a well his worst day of playing video games of the year right? Video games is not supposed to be unfun. Yeah. But he's sitting there having literally his worst day on the console and TJ's like hey man lay down. How dare you try to score?

It's sick. Kind of yeah. It's 57 to 14. Stop trying. So instead of editing my players like you would. I just do that. Like, I'm more, yeah. That's right. That's why me, TJ, get along because we think we're, we have unrealistic expectations in life. We really do. So that's going on.

Another thing that's happened. And I don't know how to tell you all this. But I have, I have fallen into addiction. Hi, my name's Dale Jr. Yep. I am, I'm addicted to trading cards again. Oh, no. Yep.

It happened. I mean, in quick, a couple of days. I mean, it's been a week, baby. Yeah. I could tell when I hands you that deal. You're like, a 10. I'm like, yeah, a 10. He handed me a PSA 10 card and noticed by my reaction that I was.

You're like, this is a 10. I started shaking a little bit. I was a collector in the 80s and 90s of baseball cards. I have a lot of 87, 90, tops, Donnerous, Fleer. score upper deck. And I've had them stored away. I opened them the day that I bought them back in back around when they were brand new. And then put them in boxes and that's where they've been.

ate the gum, put them away. Yeah. And so, dude, I'm not quite sure how I got drug back into this, but I'll say this. I saw Cole Swindale and Butterbean. ripping packs and then they were sending me picture they were doing

something on social media and then five minutes later they sent me a picture of these cards that they had opened and they had a couple of my cards that they had opened

and I'm like man everybody's doing this now like yeah baseball card baseball card collecting was probably

more popular than any of the sport back in the 80s and has been for many many years but now basketball and even the NFL to an extent are basketball is crazy right now.

I'm not an expert, so forgive me all you card collecting experts out there. But in my understanding is the hobby faded and struggled and has struggled for a while. And right around five, six years ago, it had a rebirth. It has had a comeback. And I don't know why.

And I know you've been doing it for quite a couple years now. You got to, you've got to, You've got quite a collection. Yeah. Well, it seems like everywhere I turn, everyone's doing it. All my friends are sort of getting involved or have been involved in the last couple years. And so, yeah, I got drug back in, man, and it's fun. I went to a shop the other day for the first time in years.

I bought a couple cases or a couple boxes and ripped some cards, had some fun, got some pulled some good cards, got into my collection, started thumbing through all my car. I've got sleeves of cards that I'm going through, and I'm like, damn, this is a $30 to $40 card sitting right here. Freaking mint. And so fun to do that, fun to kind of rediscover and get my cards in a little bit better of a protected state, sleeving them up and putting them in top loaders and stuff like that.

And it has me think, I've got an idea. So we do cards with Panini. I get a sleeve every now and then once a month or so that I have to sign and send back to Panini and authorize. And I see these, you know, 10 of 10, 25, you know, 50 card sets that are limited edition that I sign and take, you know. And it has me. And now that I'm back into the collecting part and I'm seeing what's working and what's valuable, it has me thinking. and I've got a really cool idea. And I'll let you know more about it.

I'll let you know more about it if we're able to do it. But I've got an idea on a particular card that I want to create that I think would be in a really badass. I want to be part. You know, Panini's made cards and we've sent them ratio stuff and they make a card out of it, but I'm not really involved. they make the card and I get them, I sign them and I turn them back in

and then they go out into the wild, you know. But I want to be on, I want to make a card. I want to make it from start to finish. I want to physically help them make the card. I want to go to the plant. I want to be there when it's being made and pick out how the card looks. I want to be involved in the whole process,

film the whole thing, and see what the draw or demand is for said card. Right? That would be fun. That would be really. fun. Yeah. It's hard for me to like even think about, think about something else.

Hard for me to move on. Tyler Redick 3P. Let's just go ripbacks. Tyler Redick, three Pete. All right. So Tyler Redick, obviously,

you know, Tyler Redick has started the season, three wins in a row. No one's ever done that. Crazy. It is. I don't know what, yeah,

it's insane. And he beat the guy that has a lost road course. Yeah, but he was pretty good. at Cota. He's, you know, he's ran really good there in the past,

so it wasn't like a big shock. But to your point, TJ, he did beat the guy that's won all the road course races here lately. Where's the ceiling for this whole deal? I thought it was last week, but apparently it wasn't. So Denny said he's a lot for top three now

because of this performance. You think so. Do you think that? Huge. See, that's what I don't understand. That's what I don't know. I don't know yet.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, listen, barring, I think Denny could be right, barring any kind of like massive collapse, he should, he's got like, what, 70 point? What is his leave? Oh, no. We got the points somewhere.

Yeah, it's right here. Get them down points out. I told you all to have the points printed. And there are printing over Bob. I told you to print the points. He's 70 above first. And you printed the points. You did.

I don't have them out. My bad. 70 above Baba, who's in second. Say it again. He's 70 ahead of Bubba. So, no, you said a 70 above bubba. Say that. Say it again.

Thank you. It's funny how you said. I will say that my man Tyler Redick has a lock on being in the top three. He's 86 points above Ryan Blaney, who's in fourth, barring a collapse that should do it. Which is wild. And he's... I mean, top three, I mean, Who's to say he won't win another race or two, right,

to sort of help himself sustain that gap? But, I mean, there's also... We don't know, we don't know with this new system. He could also... But I'm saying... It could go the other way, but he's not going to fall far now. You start off hot, it's hard to lose it. Yeah, it ain't going the other way.

Look, this guy, he's got almost 100 points on Shane Van Gisbergh in fifth. He is not going to get out pointed by Shane. So you go back. to you look at Daniel Suarez is in seventh I wouldn't if I'm Tyler I'm not nervous about that guy overtaking me I'm probably not too nervous about Joe Legano overtaking me from 96 points back in sixth a j Amadinger McDowell hosovar look at this top 10 see that's the thing is the heavy hitters aren't they ain't there no so he so the people that he's actually probably going to be competing with as we surge through the freaking season and get a

on 20 some races in, he's way ahead of those guys. 110 above Byron, 1.13 above Larson. How about that? You come into the season when three straight and to Denny's point, you're literally

locking yourself in as a freaking championship contender. 126 above Denny. And where is the final race of the season? I mean, if he's in, if he's... I forgot about that. Right. If he's even... Say he's going to go in with a really good shot,

in the top floor. And if he can put together all the races, right, and roll into Homestead mathematically alive, that's the track that he has a lot of success at. I do think there is this, it's a little early because we see guys start off the season hot, and by the time the summer comes around, I know he's going to have some downtime.

There's going to be some downtime, but that's what that 100 point buffers for. But the momentum, you want to be build momentum. it's not possible for somebody to have a flaw. He can't win every race. Oh, for sure. His track record at Homestead six starts four top fives. Yeah.

It's definitely his best track. I just, you know, but we got to remember it ain't go to Homestead and the winners the champ. He's got to be mathematically alive after the nine races before Homestead, but this is a real possibility. Palloretic has, I don't know that he's shocked the world because we all knew that this is why Denny hired him.

Denny thought, hey man, I'm bringing this guy in. This guy's going to turn my organization into a winning organization. He's helped the whole team get better. So let's not discount the fact that they have two cars. Their two cars are first and second. Bubba Wallace sitting there second points over Chase Elliott and third. So heck of a deal, man.

So ironic, too, you know, that they sue the sport. and they settle, but you'd call it a win, and then they come out and win the first three races a year. I don't know what's next, but damn, Phoenix. I'm not a track that I think has been a great one for 2311. Maybe they kind of come back down to earth because you can think about it. The first two races, or the first three races are at what one might call unusual. racetrack.

Yeah. Now, there are a lot of road courses in the season, so I don't think road courses are as an anomaly like the plate tracks are. I still call them the plate tracks, but drafting tracks, Atlanta, Talladega, Daytona. But we kind of come, I'm not, we kind of come crashing down to Earth at Phoenix. And then we go to Vegas and all these other tracks,

Darlington, Martinsville, damn, bam, bam, bam. And we'll truly give it another four or five weeks. I would love, you know what I'd love to do. Congratulations, Tyler. Great start to the season. I would love for us to, starting this weekend, take the next, say, five weeks, and get a little screenshot or a snapshot of what the points looks like in those five weeks alone. I want to take these first three out.

Take the first three out. Let's see what, you know, what the snapshot looks like. after about four or five weeks. It'd be interesting because I think I could then, you know, you can still say, hey, man, Tyler Redick's a player in the final here, and how this thing's going to shake out in the playoffs or the chase. But I would love to take that little snapshot too and see who's performing in that little snippet and say, hey, man, okay, here's some, because we're going to go race those type of racetracks

in the chase. For a while. And in the chase. Yeah. Right. And so that'll also help us understand who might make a run. But man, it's a great start to the year. It is really compelling because someone that helped create this point system

or help polish and finalize this point system told me that in most cases, when they ran the models, the champion came out of the top three. So Kyle Larson in 15th, 113 back. You got Denny Hamlin in 23rd, 126 back. Christopher Bell, 127 back in 24th. Chase Briscoe, 140 back in 27. You know, mentioning those names,

those are the guys that you might say will be working toward the front trying to find their way into a good spot for the chase but who's going to be able to do it? The schedule has comers and goers. It's amazing. It is so fun. I've tried to, I didn't do it.

I was going to send out a tweet Sunday morning about how excited I was about the race and how I was looking forward to it. But I didn't think people would believe it because they would think it was hyperboil or me just kind of being a fanboy but I am glued to what's going on. This is so fun.

Is everybody having fun? Yeah, I mean, how can you not? I mean, is this not better? It is better. Oh, definitely. Godly. I mean, I'm not trying to sit here and talk about the old point system. But, God, this one's fun.

Now, you know, we see after three races, Tyler Reddick's put himself in this position. We're all intrigued by that. Then we look down through the list. We look at that top 10, Hosevar McDowell, Almondinger, Suarez, Shane, SVG. And we look at all of these people.

And we go, where are the players, man, they've got their work cut out for them. And this is what we, now we get to see who can surge forward, who can recover their year. I would say it's time,

yeah, it's a recovery at this point. You know, you got all these guys that are, Larsen, Bell, where are they? They're all 100, over 100 points.

They're over 100 points out. Now, it looks bad because Redick's 70 clear of second place above Wallace. So if you take Reddick out, you know, then Denny and those guys, they're only 50 points out. I mean, Alex Bowman. That's a race. Alex Bowman's 36 in the points. Yeah. That's crazy.

I mean, he's had a tough year. Redick has 45 bonus points, basically. That alone would put him in 28th place just on those. Yeah. I don't see bonus. points on here. Well, because each one is 15. I don't know.

Yep, we don't have that. We don't do bonus points anymore. The 15 that are included in the win, that's the points. Yeah, I know. Yeah. We don't call them bonus points. Don't be bringing that shit back.

I'll do what I want. Come on. You just get points competing. But anyways, pretty compelling. I'm definitely surprised by the people that are, you know, I mean, it's so hard to win. Up in the top 15 and some of the guys that aren't. Winning those first two races that are kind of like free-for-alls and like Daytona is kind of a, I mean, you don't know.

You don't have that dominant car. Like Tyler got the right push at the right time. That's right. At Atlanta. Bubba said, here's the bottom. You know what I mean? So, you know, crazy how it can earn. So pretty impressive.

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That's free domestic shipping when you use the promo code download 26. So head over to LionelRacing.com, grab your favorite diecast and make this NASCAR season. one to remember. Moving on from Reddick, we talked about last week on the show, Hosevar and paybacks. It looks like somebody has accomplished or made an attempt.

Probably. And it was Cole Custer. So late in the race, I think it was the last lap almost. Mike Joyce says, Oh, Hosevar's around. They're on the front straight away. And it looks, yeah,

it looks like, I don't know what happened earlier, but. I watched up. to it and I didn't see anything. It could have been way earlier in a race. Well, coming off the final corner, Cole Custer and him

make contact and Cole sort of just veers right. Just doesn't give him any room. And I don't know if there was contact that steered Cole's car to the right, but they come together. Cole's car who's on the inside and about a half a car length

ahead, veers to the right, sends Hosevar into the grass. Hosevar loses control spins out. right before the flag stand or right at the flag stand. So, and racing for 30. So don't mess with Cole Custer. You remember when Cole Custer chased after Nimichick at the truck race in most sport? Oh, he, like he flipped the switch.

Yeah. I mean, he just lives like, um, hey, he was standing on pit road, right? And he got mad. Yeah, and took off. And just took off. And chased after him in. Yeah, that was awesome. Don't mess with cold custer.

He is not one to be played with. Surprising that it came from Cole, though. Remember when I told you last week it might be Hosevar, or not Hosevar? It might be, uh, Noah. Yeah. I said that because I don't, I'm not singling Noah out. I'm only saying that if you're Hosevar, um, you got to watch those guys that got nothing to lose. And, uh, Noah or a Custer, they got shh, they got shh.

And Custer's a big boy. he's going to hold his own. Well, not to disparage what's going on in this moment in their careers, but they're miserable. The shit ain't going good. They're not running up front. Yeah, it doesn't take much. Those are the guys that you don't piss off, right?

Those are the guys that will absolutely hook your ass and say, I don't give a shit. That day you're coming by running fifth or six and they're not having a good day. Sorry. Yeah, you don't, I wouldn't, in this, you know. That's how it used to kind of self-police. I've learned my lesson. I ran into, I knocked Darrow Walter,

by the way, at Martinsville. He's a lap down run that 6-6 car, K-mark car, slow as hell. And he's in his final year. And I'm,

I'm a rookie, and I'm like, damn, you're slow, boop. I'm gonna knock this down DW out of the way. And he was like,

in his mind, he was like, you little shit head. I'm freaking miserable out here driving this damn tank. I've had enough of you I've had enough of this shit I've had enough of you next corner

around I go and I was like damn everybody just watched me get spun out by DW that was so I have a theory on Carson Hosevar with because whenever

so Jesse Lovinham got into it and like Carson just immediately reacts to everything and I wonder if him playing ir racing and racing online you see a lot of times when someone gets door that person just immediately responds and reacts to it.

Does that carrying over to real life for him? Yeah. I don't know if it's eye racing. I think you just, that's how you're brought up and respect to quitting. There'll be no irisand slander on my podcast. Okay, on video game racing. You don't mess up.

I'm not slater in the game. Yeah, sounds like you are. You're saying, giving him some bad habits. So my argument to that is I would absolutely encourage people to run online to get racecraft and decision-making and judgment calls. Specifically, especially for Super Speedway racing like Daytona, Taledega, and Roadcourse. It's extremely valuable as a tool to run road courses on eye racing at home when you can't be in the Sim. and also to race

to race drafting track races over and over and over. And so a lot of the same a lot of the same mentality that and they'll be

there's gonna, this is going to trigger some real cup racers. But I hate to say it man, but it's true. The mentality that's the mentality that is successful racing at Daytona, racing at Atlanta, racing at Talladega is a frame of mind.

It is a skill, but it's a mental. It's a mental approach. It's a frame of mind that a driver has to have. You're making decisions. Everything you're doing, you're doing with your mind, not the seat of the pants, not the feel of the car, not. In other racetracks, you're driving by feel and raw,

driving ability and talent. At Daytona, Talladega, Atlanta, it's a mind thing. It's a decision thing. It's a judgment thing. And it's instant and it's reactive. So what works and what's successful on eye racing tends to also that same approach, be successful in the real world.

Look at, so Anthony Alfredo, he's a pure sim racer. Now, he came up driving real race cars. He didn't, he's not born out of sim racing like some guys. But he is still at his core, a very hardcore Sam racer. And I know how he races online, been in races with him, and I watch him at Daytona, Talladega. And his approach, although annoying to me because he's not in my car, is productive.

He will find his way toward the front with moves and being aggressive at Daytona, Talladega, places like that. And so, you know, when the car is somewhat capable of doing it, I would say Raja, very similar. Watching Raja at Daytona, watching Raja at Atlanta, his mentality and his decision making and his approach very much matches

the same one he has on his sim and I think it's productive. I like it. I would encourage it. And so at those racetracks now, not at Phoenix, not at Darlington, not anywhere else. That's when the real, true racing craft has to prevail.

Your point, though, is valid, Travis. I think in the online racing world, there's no real repercussion to being reactive. I racing processes hundreds and hundreds of thousands of protests But it doesn't fix, it can't fix, it can't truly govern people's genuine ability in this day and time to be completely reactive. And I think, you know, there's a lot of things that aid that, that encourage that, social media, right? We can read a tweet, disagree with it, and immediately respond, right? And so everything about our world right now is that instant reaction.

And so, you know, I would say it's some, some of online racing that Hosevar has done. But I think it's more about, you know, everything else around us that allows us and encourages us to do that. And we just have to, I even today, like, I'm fucking 51 years old. And I have to sometimes tell myself, calm the fucking down. You need to take a minute. You need to fucking think about this. You don't need to say what you're thinking, right this minute. valid point.

And I used to be very good at that. But I've gotten worse at it, right? Because, you know, we're all, you know, I've got, I've got, I do more, I do more, I do more, I regret more, do more apologizing these days than I did 10 years ago. Because we've all become more reactive, right? Man, I'm starting. We definitely are reactive. Dude. It's ridiculous.

And I'm, and, and we're all, we're all guilty of. But, you know, I don't, again, you know, you know. still though, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't want him to change. I don't want Hosevar to change. I don't. Well, it makes it entertaining. God. Until it's you.

Till it's me. If you were out there driving and he was entering your race, you wouldn't like it. I know, but I. It's entertaining for sure. Do I want, you know, I want our cars, I want to win every race we enter. I do. I want J.R.M. to just win every damn race to enter. And I want all our guys.

to finish first, second, third, and fourth, and fifth. And six when we run a sixth car. But above all that, I want this sport to be bigger than any other sport. And I want it to be watched by tens of millions of people every week. And that's where we need Hosevar. We need people like Hosevore. We need people like Conner Zilich. We need people like

Ross Chastain. We need people like Denny Hamlin. We need all these very great, awesome, different personalities, right? And we need to be celebrating that. But, you know, on this show, and I tell, I have to text Carson all the time. I have to text host of R and I say, hey, you know, we're critical. We're going to be critical. We're going to talk about you. Your job is to buckle up and race and do your best. The noise is going to be noisy. where if we're you know it's when they're not talking about you is when you need to be worried if you're if you're invisible out there if nobody's worried about you concerned about you pulling for you caring about your performance then you're in trouble and there's drivers out there that fit that bill and that's i would you know i didn't ever want to be one of those guys so you know you there's even in the 80s and 90s you know you start races that races would begin and end and there'd be guys out there you didn't you know they made they brought nothing to the table you know and so does the noise eventually not need to like he's eventually going to have to start winning

or the noise is going to you know what i mean though like he's going to start finishing off some races here and going the other way with it you can't just be noisy the whole he will he will you know he's going to he's still maturing you know for sure i would say that he's you know look at this guy you know when you when you watch him on on twitch or you watch him on uh you know when he comes here on this podcast or whatever guy's a kid at heart he's still very much just having fun and enjoying life it's only 23 yeah he's still got a long way to go now come if he's if he's doing if he's not any different tj when he's 27 28 years old yeah for sure i'd say hey you know we got to make some games

I mean, a cup driver at 23, he was even, what's his second, third year, whatever, third? I mean, that's pretty incredible already. I don't think I got to cup until I was 26. That's what I'm saying. Like, these guys are getting a cup. We forget that how these dudes are coming in so young. Yeah. Yeah.

And you've learned a lot by the time you get there. Yeah. Like, you know, Ligano knows other guys. How long did the Ligano struggle? He almost failed. He almost didn't make it. He almost failed out. Yeah.

Yeah. Big Gibbs. And how long did we wait for Byron? You know, to finally. become the driver we knew he could be. Do you think Carson could have used a couple years in the O'Reilly cars before? Yes. But, you know, he could have, absolutely.

But that wasn't the path that was presented to him. People realized he had such a unique ability. The raw talent was so unique that they decided to bring him on up. And there was this argument, too, T.J. That the next-gen car was so unique that him driving at Svinity wouldn't have benefited any many. I agree with that. He needed to get in that cup car with independent rear suspension,

low profile tires and a diffuser. And learn it. And fucking learn it. And so. Because the other guys kind of had to forget what they knew. And now he doesn't have to do that because he doesn't know it. Yeah. But to your point,

like you still learn racecraft no matter what vehicle you're in. Expendity, you know, cars tour, whatever. Racecraft can be learned and drivers can improve. And I encourage, you know, Years in a late model, years in a truck, years in a bush car. I mean, a lot of these guys, though, they're coming in having to fund their career, whether it's through parents, whether it's through a friend or a business that they've got a connection to, they're funding that career, and that funding is eager for them to get to the cup level so they can shut that off, right?

If you're funding a guy, say, Travis, you're a rich guy, you've got millions of dollars, and you believe in this kid, and you're like, hey, man, I'm going to, to help you. Now, do you want to spend, you know, five million, four, five, six million dollars a year for three years and try to fast forward him to cup if they'll take him? Or do you want to do it for five or six years, right? You don't. Nope. You don't want to spend another $20 million if you don't have to. You want to get him to cup as fast as you can, so you can therefore turn off the faucet and say, hey, you're there, you know. And that's where these guys are, you know, some of them are speeding through a little quickly.

Speaking of it. Got her permit. Just finish her text. TJ's daughter has her permit. All the folks out there on the highway, beware. We're going cup race next year. That's her will approve her. She's got a permit.

We're going to try to get her in the truck race at Daytona next season. Yeah. Speaking of drivers causing drama. Yeah, what do you know about that? Corey Day. Yeah. What do we make a fan? Hey, let's talk about this.

Out of the way. Here comes. Corey Day. He's back at it again. That's a great slogan. Say, all right. So listen here. Listen here.

All right. This is a very, very, uh, this is a very tough situation to be in for me. Um, I met with Corey in Daytona. We talked about drafting. I spent about an hour talking to him. And he is a good dude.

Uh, talented. Very talented. Very. Very talented. But he, Connor Zillich was a little disappointed, I guess, in his demeanor post-race, right? And his, you know, Corey doesn't kind of know exactly what to do in those moments or doesn't seem to be interested in, you know, owning his mistake.

You know, it's always, well, you know, the splitter was this, the flat, the tire was flat, this and that other. That's annoying. well yeah and so and but you know i've i want to say that i talked to corey for quite a while at daytona he is a good guy and he is in he's not in over his head but dude's drinking from a fire ho he's got he's got a lot of race car that 17 car coming out of the hendrick shop um we share all of our notes with them, everything that we do well. They have. They know this information.

They're a fifth team of ours. They're crew chief. Adam. He used to work here as a crew chief. They're in our meetings. Corey Day was in our comp meeting yesterday. Was your engineer at one point? Yep.

They're all, they're a 15. They just happen to race out of the Hendrick building. And that's the way it has to work. That's the way Mr. Hendrick wants it to work. Jeff Gordon Everybody that You know We all want that that 17 car

Is a teammate To us And we all Everybody except for the drivers Seemed to get that idea And I say drivers Because I've got a little story But before I get to that

Corey Has a ton of talent As you mentioned he's got a lot of race car and he's got no experience. And he's run a handful of races last year. And now his car is even better. He's starting to run closer to the front. And he's just in over his skis in a bunch of moments.

Did he wreck, did he go through that S? He didn't go through the S's and go, man, I'm going to just clean this one car out. But he is in control of the car. and he has to realize that's my teammate. That is a teammate car. And Rick Hendrick owns the car I'm driving and Rick Hendrick owns the car that I'm going to spin out. And he has to drive his car and control it

so that it doesn't cause that accident, right? And that's what we're asking him to do. And so... It doesn't help it was two weeks in a row. That was the next thing I was going to say. it's two weeks in a row of kind of this it's two weeks in a row of the same thing and we all got together and we all sat down uh rick had a conversation with with fory and and we're all trying to help him understand look man we want you here we believe in you we believe you're a winner we want to see

you succeed um but we have to do this without being you know without it being detrimental to each other And so it's just a process. I know it looks ugly to fans who are watching it. It's hard for our teams. It's hard for all our employees to see our car get run over like that with very little regard. But it's part of the process of trying to, you know, trying to school up these guys to become the drivers that we think they're capable of becoming. and, you know, we just continue to press that if you're, you know, if you're making mistakes, there are consequences to those very severe consequences.

Corey will have to fix this, or there will be severe consequences. And I thought this was a great opportunity that the message be shared amongst all of our drivers. what Corey's doing is not new. We've had teammate issues in the past. We will have them in the future. When you bring all of these young kids into the same building, they are all on different paths. They are all eager to get that next opportunity.

They're all eager to get that call from Rick or track house or somebody. Any owner. And they aren't looking at their teammate in the car next to them as a long-term relationship. They aren't in a cup team where, you know, Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott have to figure it out and get along because they're going to be racing together for 10 years out of the same building. They're not in that situation. They're here thinking in their mind, well, if everything works out, I'm here for a year or two, then I'm gone. and this guy that's my teammate

I won't be teammates with him ever again and so they don't try the drivers themselves do not try to nurture or create relationships with their teammates they don't it's transactional they get in the race car they have no relationship to the car they don't know where the spindles came from

they don't know the history of the chassis they don't know where it race last they don't know where the motor came from how many races is on that much they don't know when we used to you know 20 years ago, we knew all that. Hell, we named our damn race cars. They had a pretty personality.

We had our favorites. They don't even think about it. And they go out there and they rip the sides off of them and run into things, all of them. And then they come back to the shop and all of our guys unload them out of the holler and it's a freaking, just depressing. And this is all happening with one of our freaking cars in Victory Lane. Yeah. Right? We got a car.

We got a guy that's one. We're happy. Got a crew chief. Happier and a . And then the three, four other cars, they're upside down, mad at each other, all over in the garage fussing. And so it's...

That's a wide variety. It is. And it's had before it happened to Chicago last year. I had to walk past Connor Zilich and say, hey, SVG shouldn't erase you like that in turn one. Then I had to go to Victor Lane and say, good job SVG, hell will win. What are you going to do?

Are you going to go up to Connor and say, I don't give a shit. He ran you into the wall. and then go up to SVG and say, man, what the fuck you do that for? You know, what are you supposed to do? Right? Yeah.

And then the same thing at Watkins Glen, Connor clips him, spins out SVG, and you got to go to SVG and say, damn, man, he cleaned you out. You know? And then, you know, Connor jumps and falls out of the car. But we didn't really have a conversation. But, um...

So do you feel like after yesterday, things will progress in a better, like... It is a... Yes, things are... With everything that we said and all the conversations that we had, I 100% expect a clean slate. I mean, a clean slate.

Our drivers should have no animosity towards Corey. Corey should look at this as an opportunity to start anew and start to build a rapport and a reputation that he wants to have. And he's just learning how to handle these things. I, I, too, think that, you know, he comes from a completely different discipline. And that, you know, that culture in the garage, the mindset of a racer in the world that he's lived in, it's completely different. Not better or worse, just different.

And so he's coming here and having to learn, like, wow, okay, I got four guys out there that I have to race uniquely comparable to the competition. you know and so he's got to have he's processing all this stuff for the first time in his life but I think that you know a lot of hard conversations were had this week I expect things to improve and that you know Corey Day isn't the only one on the racetrack in our group making bad decisions so you know we had a lot of conversations this week

about expectations, etiquette, respect, you know, what should happen going forward, what can never happen going forward.

And again, not a new conversation we've been here before. Is it easier as a driver from the past? Is it easier for, you get crashed by a guy, makes a mistake,

you've been wrecked, Kyle Bush, Richmond, makes a mistake. Is it easier to handle if you get out and hear his interview and just be like, yeah, I just got in there, you know, I just got in there deep and got loose and I,

I didn't mean to do it, you know, just racing hard. Is it easier to hear that than it is the, well, a bad place for a tire to go. Well, I was bought a, you know, the pan was dragging and I hit in him. Like, is it easier just to hear a guy say, man, I just messed up? So, yes, 100%. If you get wrecked or you get used up or, you know,

if a guy squeezes you in the wall, off the term four. You want the guy, you, so I'll say this. You and the other guy on the racetrack, you know, you both know exactly what happened. And so I will go back to Indianapolis, with Amarola and,

Austin Hill. They both know more. know more they both know more than anyone in the world exactly what really went on on that racetrack they know the truth

we all speculate we all have opinion but them two guys know between themselves what happened and so when you get to the pits or you get to the garage you want to look over at that guy and you want him to tell you the truth because you know he knows

and you know he knows you know, you know, there's no hiding. And so you want the guy to go, all right, man, I f*** up. Or, I might, I did that on purpose. Piss me off, man. I regret it. I f*** up.

You know, so. It's much easier to. That is the way forward. That's the way to keep things from festering. And, and it's hard to do it. I, you know, this is the, This is some of the best advice. I read somewhere, somebody gave it to me.

When you're faced with a path, right, a choice, do I walk up to this guy to apologize and tell him I screwed up? Or do I just not do it? Do I just go get on the plane, go home, hope he forgets about it? I don't know. Maybe I'll text him. I don't know. The harder path is usually the right choice. the more difficult, uncomfortable, challenging decision is usually the one you should choose.

And so... It sucks to begin with, but it's better long term. Yeah. If you're picking the convenient route, it's usually not going to be the better decision in that in most cases. And so... You're kind of avoiding the real problem. Yeah. That's sometimes how I convince myself to do the right thing.

I go, all right, which one's the harder thing to do here? All right, then that must mean that I need to do that one because that's the uncomfortable one. That's the one I'd rather not do, but that's probably what they deserve, you know? And like you were saying, like, these drivers think, oh, I'm not going to be long-term teammates with these guys, and that might be true.

But if you want to get to where you're going to be, ultimately you're going to be racing against these guys or the cup drivers are already watching this anyways and they're going to operate off of this is how you are. So, like, yeah, they're not your teammates, but I think you need to operate as, if you have a future. Listen, one thing that I find

so strange about teammates at this level and it's probably similar at the cup level too. And we see this a ton in F1. I've been in a lot of situations

where my teammates were friends. Like me and Truex, we were freaking pals. Me and Mikey were pals. Me and and Jimmy, Jeff, Casey Mears, Casey Kane, you know, I was always, I always got along with my teammates, and I never looked across the garage and was envious or jealous. They pushed me and they, they, but they, you know, I just always got along with my teammates.

The thing that's perplexing to me and so surprising, honestly, is that our team, mates often in these scenarios look at each other as hurdles or obstacles or competition, which I don't truly understand. And you're starting to see that kind of more in NASCAR, whereas, you know, I don't know. I find that really interesting as to why our guys, particularly guys here at Junior Emeritus Sports, why they don't gravitate toward each other. You know, we're all here trying to figure this out. They're trying to win.

They're all trying to win. Why don't, why doesn't that magnetize them together? Is it because there's only limited seats available each year? And you're like, Well, they're, they're not fighting each other for those seats. They're not. They're not competing. They're not competing against each other to stay here or be here next year.

Their own independent. But they're competing for cup. seats potentially. Not against each other. Not really. Let's say there's two seats available. Yeah, nobody, they're not. I mean, he's kind of, he is a little, I mean, you do want to out,

you do want to be the higher prospect than your team. That's a very general way of looking at it. If a cup team wants you, they're going to call your ass. All right. And if you're, if you're trying to get that call, you need to be winning races and not dicking around with your teammates, not running into the, you know, each other on the race. track.

And so, you know, when you, when you're bouncing off your own damn teammate, no cup owner is going to look at that and go, yeah, I need that in my organization. Yeah, but that's not how it look at it sometimes when you're in the seat, though. Well, that's how freaking owners look at it or you worry. No, I'm not saying owners don't look at one minute. You're worried about what the owner's thinking and the next you're not. Yeah. Pick your side.

I agree. You know, we got, uh... It didn't sound like TJ was agreeing with you, Dale. He does. We were trying to figure out Tyler. Redick joining the Dale Junior download here. Congratulations, three in a row. Yeah.

Thank you. We were sitting here having a conversation around why it might, why do teammates at the, and you were in this, you worked here at Junior Motorsports, you worked at RCR, why is it that at that level, the teammates don't create the rapport that you see at the cup level. Like you and Bubba Wallace are each other's biggest fan, right? If you can't do it, he wants to, you know, you want to see him doing vice versa. and y'all strive, y'all push each other. You see it in other organizations

where the teammates somewhat, you know, gravitate together and work together to get better. And at the Xfinity level, we have a hard time getting our guys to look at each other as teammates, as assets. They look at each other as competitors and actually race each other harder than they race the rest of the competition.

You live that in this very building. What is the deal? I'm trying to figure out, We talking about a situation that happened here at Kota? No, no, no. We're just talking about teammates in general. Yeah, well, okay. Well, it could be, yes.

Corey Day, you know, Corey Day got into Conner Zilich and wrecked him at the end of the race. And then Raja and Quappell had a little issue that cost both of them 10, 15 spots. And so, and it's been a constant sort of challenge at this level and in our building at times to have our teammates. not race each other hard, right? And try to, you know, try to create some rapport on the racetrack. And I know that you, you had a lot of experience in the Xfinity series. And I thought you were a great teammate, but you probably had some guys that maybe didn't actually practice being a teammate very well or weren't it, you know, weren't great examples of good teammates. So, you know, what is, what is the mentality at this, at this level that makes you so,

sort of, you know, hard-headed? Well, I think naturally to be a race car driver, you got to be a little bit hard-headed. But, yeah, you know, I'm trying to think of the things that play into that, you know. Are you worried about the cup level, getting that call, getting that opportunity? Are you so, like, the blinders are on and you're like, I don't need, I don't worry about team. I don't need a teammate right now. I need just focus on me. Man, again, it's, maybe it's a law unfair, but maybe it's.

my opinion, I think a part of it. Maybe it's just maturity, honestly. I don't know. I feel like I was always a little, I don't know, I do feel like I was a little bit different than most when it comes to this. I've, if I've ever been on a side of the fence when it comes to racing teammates, I've always been on the side of, you know, how do I put this? I go even in

even in situations where I probably shouldn't or it's cost me, I've always been on the side of give too much, give too much room. You know, if someone's running me down that's a teammate of mine, I mean,

I completely get out of the way sometimes to the point where it cost me a couple spots. I feel like I've always been on that side of it. Yes, there's been moments where I've had to race my teammates for something. There was a situation, I can't remember the exact year

where I've been on the other side of this where we, I mean, we didn't have contact, but it was, it was a, it was a hard one for me because it was my last year at BKR. Hemrick was in the, in the playoffs. I missed the playoffs my second full-time year. TJ, you remember that. And it was Vegas. And I don't think we'd want to race all year, right? And it was at the tail end of the year. We're up front. We're, you know, we're racing for the win with my teammate Daniel Hemrick. And he's in the playoffs. And I'm like, this is tough but I really need this win you know what I mean so I've I've occasionally been on that other side of it um but yeah I don't know sometimes I feel like and it's crazy you look at other sports I feel like teammates this teammate thing the rivalries amongst teammates is more common than it is in NASCAR yeah um but yeah certainly I feel like you do see that um more times than not out of teammates if you will in like the truck series or or as you mentioned the rally auto parts series or or

I don't know. I feel like it's kind of case by case, but certainly you're right. I feel like it does the heads do tend to butt more. You know, you think of the things that happen between Sheldon, Creed, and Austin Hill, or even, you know, Jesse Love and Austin Buttonheads at times, Austin Hill button heads. As you mentioned, your situation's over there. I wish I could put my finger on it.

Um, my best speculation is that they feel like it may be as simple as when I think about this, it might just be as simple as when the cars are that good or you're, and you're all competing for wins. If it, it may just be a situation where as the driver, you feel like, if I'm going to win today, I'm going to have to beat my teammate, you know, heads up. And yeah, these situations have happened not in the lead, right? But maybe that's the mentality that, that the drivers have is like, I have to, I have to withhold or I have to race my teammates extra hard because when we get down the end of the season as we get ready for the chase, that's who I'm going to be fighting for, you know, these one or two points week and a week out could be 10 or 15 when it resets for the chase. That's, I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think that's what's going on. I mean, me and me and Baba, since we've been here, we've always been really good about working together.

You know, Riley's done a great job with that as well since he's come. I don't know. I've always tried to really go out of my way to be a really good teammate. Even, you know, when I was at RCR with Austin, Dylan, I would try and go above and beyond to be the best teammate possible. I don't know. I've always just tried to stay on that side of it. And I know I'm known for racing hard on the racetrack, but I always try to be super respectful to, even to people that aren't my teammates. And I don't know. I haven't been in that situation much. but when it has happened, I've just tried to put it to bed,

if you will, as fast as possible because I don't want something lingering and growing into something. It really shouldn't even be. For sure. Even in the trucks, you were like that. Like going up through the trucks, that's how you race,

and that's how we raced with teammates, even from the very beginning when you first came in. One thing I wanted to ask you about is we had a segment earlier in the show is we talked about just flipping a switch in the car. Like, what makes you so mad that you just want to run somebody? You know, we were talking about, about a hosovar and custer getting into it and like some of the guys seemed like you can touch

them a little bit and soon as they get beside you they just they ram me off the road like i know earlier in your career you had a you had a couple instances like that maybe were yeah like what makes you you know it's a soft benching out of it yeah yeah yeah yeah it's a good way to put it but like what makes you flip that switch real quick is it just the the young you know do you think it's just maturity um i feel like for me i mean it's still happens, but yes, the frequency of that has gone down. Like, you never said anything on the radio. And it just happened.

I'm like, oh, what did you do here? I did after the fact. That's why I got in trouble. The caution comes out. And then I said, man, I hope that wasn't too obvious. I literally word for word said that. And I think I don't even know what you said, but like it was in the tone of your voice that you're like, oh, we're in big trouble. Yeah, we're talking Pocono.

Yeah. Yeah. I think like for me, that Pocono situation years ago or like me, when I've lost it like that, it's been a situation where I feel like I've, you know, when the driver flips that switch, in my experiences, it feels like you're out there. You've ran a clean race. You've done everything right. You've raced respectfully. And then you just get ran out of the way or put up in the law. wall or just run over for absolutely no reason. I feel like that's when the flip just goes.

But, you know, yeah, as you get older, I think you just try to understand or put things in perspective. Like the most recent, the most recent for me that this happened is we're at Martinsville. We're out of the, you know, the playoffs last year. And I've been just dying to get a top 10 in Martinsville so bad. We've, we've had speed at times. We just haven't put the whole race together. And this Martinsville, it looked like it was finally going to happen.

we're going to run 10th and we get to the last three or four laps we're in 10th and i just i mean the last three laps i had terrible corners i mean i missed my marks everything and josh barry's just breathing down my neck and you know i go into turn one and two and he's probably like car off and i miss i miss the bottom in one and two and i go into three and he's like he's not like there he's a car with he's a car length back and he just i mean i get it i get it now but in the moment i was so mad he from one car length back just drives in there, uses me up, he got 10th, I didn't.

You know, we take the checkered flag, and I damn near wrecked his car. I thankfully stopped myself, but it was almost very similar to like, I think the mayor, uh, seat deal on the O'Reilly Auto Part side. Yeah.

Sam wrecked him after the checkered. So I've got Josh retired off the ground after the checker flag is out. And I'm like, I'm going to send him. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, like, stop. Like, this was for 10th. Like, and it wasn't for a race win, but this is for 10th.

Like, a 10th meant a lot to me at this time, this point in time of the year. I know it means a lot for Josh. So it's like, all right, calm down, like, move on. And funny enough. Exactly. Correct. And that's, that's like for me, what it came back to. Why?

How did I even let him get to my bumper, right? And same thing like it, it's along the same lines, but it was for a lot more. at the Bristol Dirt Race in 20. I don't know what year, but like, but for me as a dirt racer, it was the same thing. Like, you know, it was my job to drive away from Briscoe and not even give him the opportunity to make that move. And, you know, he just ran better laps to me in the closing laps. And he, he was there.

Like, yes, he, you know, he ran into me. We both spin out. But, like, that doesn't happen if I just keep the gap and end the race. So, yeah. I've always tried to be on that side of it. Yes, I've had my moments where I've almost lost it. But again, it's like you got to remember what you're racing for, right? Do you want to be put out of the car for a week?

Do you want, I mean, just all those things, right? Like at some point you've got to defend yourself, but there's like a way to go about it. I've just the once, the couple times that I've retaliated, right, throughout my career, it's like I've gotten out of the car afterwards and been like, well, that wasn't very smart. So I've just gotten away from it. looking at the points man after three races three wins 70 over your teammate bubble wallace you can take a couple off here if you want you know what we were actually i don't know if you've allowed yourself to really study it much but we are looking at the top 10 and you do have blaney elli leon legano in there and nothing against the other competitors but some of the guys that we would have expected to be competing for the championship are much much further down the line and some over the over the other competitors but some of the guys that we would have expected to be competing for the championship um are much much further down the line and some over 100 points behind you talking about Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell,

and Kyle Larson, Kyle Larson's in 15th, 113 points out. So I, you know, I'm sure you guys are having conversations about the position you're in, how fortunate you are, and what you're, you know, what your path forward needs to look like. and I've said this to I've said this so many times that I believe people are tired of hearing it but I feel like that if you're in the top three going in to the chase you got a damn nice shot at a championship and anybody outside the top five has a really really really slim chance of getting anything done so you're you know even though the field size in the chase is large you're really if you're a top three guy only racing everyone in that top five if everything

goes smoothly. So you're, you're one of those guys. Denny said it on his podcast that he thinks you're almost a lock for top three. I would agree. I would agree. So, you know, is it foot on the grass? Continue to kick some ass. Continue to win races. You got to feel pretty nice, I suppose, about where you sit in this new point system. What is the conversation like in the shop? Yeah, you know, I think we're going to continue to have more of them. You know, we've kind of just talked about what's what's happened up until this point um i think for us you know and won't necessarily happen or wait what is today no we'll yeah we will i think we will talk about a little bit more today at the end of the day um looking ahead to phoenix um but yeah i think just i guess my opinion

because i haven't necessarily talked about feint i mean we've been working on phoenix for a while and in Vegas but we haven't like gone over the plan for for phoenix yet but i would imagine it's you know kind of like, as you mentioned, as how Denny put it, you know, we're in the spot where, you know, if you get a caution with three or four laps to go, literally his words were, you know, you get that caution with three or four to go on the stage. A lot of those guys around you are probably thinking we need these stage points. We're going to be in that spot to where it's like, hey, you know, we can give up four or five spots or four or five points here.

It's okay. You know what I mean? Yeah. We can give them those four or five points. Hit pit road now and then cycle to the front. And oh, man, look at that. 45's up front again, you know? So, yeah, we're in that kind of a spot where we can, we're afforded that.

You know what I mean? And I always have driven in a way where I don't leave anything on the table on the racetrack. That's a fact. Yes. And whether it's been T.J. or whoever it's been over the years, like, just pull back a little bit, right? It's that much easier for me to just pull back a little bit in those moments, whether, you know, if I get slide into second and I'm running, it's like, man, you know, I'll let it, I'll let it come to me. maybe I'll get the leader. You were definitely one that you had to slow down a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Still probably to this day. But, you know, we get slotted in 10th. I'm just running 10th.

It's like, all right. I mean, I'd like to get 7th or 8th, but like I'll let the race come to me. And so we're kind of in that spot where, you know, we can kind of let things play out naturally. Maybe, you know, take advantage of people racing a little bit more desperately trying to close that gap. I don't know if they will or if they'll take a smooth approach. But we're kind of in this really good spot where, you know, we can kind of just take a second, look at what. ahead of us and kind of have just calm, clear thinking when we make these decisions at these races coming up. You know, it's not like we got to, man, we got to get one more spot right here on this run, you know. We want to get that spot, but we're kind of in this spot where I think we can race smart. And, you know, last, in 2024, when we kind of got it rolling there, that was something that I really enjoyed. You know, I, again, I love taking the wrists and running really,

really hard, but we're in that spot where I can just pull it back a little bit and maybe save something for later. You know, I like being able to race like that. In the car, it's just a lot more calm, too. So we're kind of in this good spot as it looks right now to kind of be able to take advantage of that. And I think truly, I truly think it's just going to help us run even better, honestly, as this gets going.

Yeah. Are we starting to understand where the value is, so, that as a broadcaster, the conversations that I have with with the booth that I work with, Lattart and Adam, as we're going through these races, we are trying to understand, all right, how much, how valuable are the stage points comparable to last year's system? How, how that, obviously the wins are incredibly valuable looking at your, you know, your point spread to Bubba after three races. How can you articulate what the difference is this?

year with stage points versus last year and how important it is to get them? Not to the T yet, but I mean, I believe I saw it in yesterday, sorry, in Sunday's race. You know, stage one, there was a lot more takers for those stage points than I thought there was going to be. I think as a group, we thought less people would take the stage points there. So I think for now that kind of answers the question. We'll see how it continues to go. throughout the year. But like at the road courses, certainly, there's a great opportunity if you're a 10th place car to be able to grab stage points.

Yes, you're going to bear yourself a little bit. But, you know, Ty Gibbs, there was a couple others. I mean, Ty Gibbs comes to top mine. I think there was others that did a similar thing. They're able to, you know, stay out through the stages, get stage points. I think Bubba even did it. And then still claw back, claw their way back to like a good finish. So it definitely seems like the field just three races in is prioritizing the stage points a little bit more.

But from my side of it, honestly, it is truly crazy, right? Like, I mean, 45 of the points that I have at my total are the bonus points, if you will, from winning the race. And, you know, we talk, you know, there's, I'm sure every team's talked about it. We've certainly talked about it. Like, okay, how's it going to look where you need to be, right? Talking, it's going to be super important to be top three. as the chase starts to have a decent shot at this. But it's like, man, if someone gets hot and pops off a bunch of wins,

I mean, it's just been three races. We all started from zero at Daytona, and it's just been three races and look at the points lead that we have. That's a part that it's like going into this season, I mean, you never know who's going to do what, but like we've won three races. The only three. I know, but like,

but in the course of three races, look at how many points someone can accumulate. over the field. That's right. And I know we get to like, you know, our, our mile and a halfs or short tracks, like some of these, some of these,

you know, big spreads of points won't necessarily happen. You know, it is super speedway racing that we have. But still, people are going to have bad days. People are going to have good days. And I definitely thought the field on the point side

was going to stay a lot closer throughout the, the season, if you will. But yeah, when someone gets hot, they're going to get a lot of points. Yeah, I was curious starting at Phoenix, taking a snapshot of the next three to five weeks and kind of seeing where everybody is and what that looks like comparable to these three races.

It's interesting to see. Man, it's been a privilege having you on the show over the last couple of weeks. Congratulations on the record three in a row to start a season. No one's ever done that. I love little nuanced records like that. It's crazy. It is. I mean, it's fun to accumulate those kind of little records.

throughout your career and you're on your way to doing that and many more. Awesome start the year. Thanks for your time today. I know you got a lot of things to do. Hey, we're trying to enjoy this new point deal. Can you not ruin it? We are enjoying it. Any more?

Can you get a week off? No, we love it. It's working. I mean, it's crazy. I've already kind of seen it start. We were celebrating on the front stretch. And there was a William Byron fan in the stands there. I mean, absolutely losing his mind, flipping us off, crotch shopping us.

Oh. He threw his hat. He thought he was going to throw his hat about 100 feet. He threw it about 30 feet, hit the ground. He was so mad. And I don't know. I don't listen on the radio that much, but when I scroll through X, there's a lot of people not happy. Hey.

I'm not used to there. Enjoy it. This is a great reason for them not to be happy for you. They were already, there were already people. So in the, I will tell you this, you didn't know that there were critics. and they were always there, right? But when you start winning, that's when they start to make noise.

And I'll say this too, if they're not talking about you, that's when you got a problem. That's a real deal. Like if you're invisible out there and nobody cares what you're doing, that's a real issue. Like Denny?

Well, who's Denny? I mean. Hey, what do you call? I didn't say that, Denny. What do you call them? Hey, 23, because I see, Hey, 23. Maybe that's because he's 23rd in points.

Oh, the 11th is 23rd. There will be zero shots. 2311. That's perfect. Oh, man. I have a feeling he's going to claw his way out of that. He will be fine. It's going to be fun to watch.

It's so fun to watch. It is. All right, buddy. Thank you, man. All right, before we get there, next topic, I want to tell you guys about a new show here at Dirtymo Media. It's called Sons and Daughters hosted by Shannon Spake. Shannon is going to be interviewing notable athletes,

singer, celebrities. anyone else that is at the top of whatever they do. Everyone has an origin. Before I was a broadcaster, I was a daughter, and that part of my story never changed. So in this series, I'm going to talk with people whose achievements you know, but whose beginnings you don't.

The family, the identity, the moments that shaped them because every extraordinary person starts as someone's child. I'm Shannon Spake. This is Sons and Daughters, and new episodes drop every Wednesday. You can watch on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcast. All right, we can't wait for that to come out.

The first episode drops March the 4th. It's Marty Smith. And after that, it's Coach K. Going to be a lot of great guests coming down the line. Please check it out. Subscribe so you don't miss anything. Hey, there's a couple quick announcements. I Racing Arcade is out today.

Yeah. I Racing Arcade is out today. So check that out. You got a code on PC. I think it's coming out for consoles later, but I Racing Arcade is available. It's a very fun sort of, yeah, arcade version. Yeah, just an arcade. Yeah, a lot of fun.

And also, we're going to announce that I'm racing at Nashville Fairgrounds, April 11th, and I'm driving the Bass Pro Shop's car. I'm going to do the tire test here in a couple of days. So I'll have a better idea of how fast. How fast it is. Speaking of fast, you know what's going to be fast? I'm Indy cars at Phoenix this week. Oh.

They run Saturday before they were out of racing. Yeah. Do they? I know, I think it's a very positive thing for IndyCar and NASCAR to be at the same racetrack on the same weekend. And I don't really think it should matter who feels like who headlines. This Ash Jr. segment is brought to you by Xfinity. Xfinity is waving the red flag on Internet price heights. All right.

Xfinity is not going to raise the price of their internet. All right. And you can get the speed and reliability that you need in the Wi-Fi, your home. You'll be locked in at the same price for five years. So like what, you know, that's a hell of a deal because everything gets more expensive. But you're going to pay the same for five years. They don't tell me this. They're not, this ain't in the copy.

but I'm going to bet you during that five years while you're paying the same price they're going to give you more speed because that's just what happens. Infrastructure gets better they do, they run some new lines on your street

whatever. I mean, this happened to me. They don't know where, they don't know I got this damn house and my internet keeps getting faster. They keep giving me notices and emails. You're getting more speed. Don't freak out. You're not paying more. So they don't, that's not in the copy.

That's what I add. No surprises, no late yellows, just a straight shot to Victory Lane. And just like that, folks, we've got a winner. Xfinity, imagine that. The copy is very, you know, cheeky and a lot of race puns. But Xfinity, Wi-Fi, is straight badass. And I've had it at my house for years, and I don't ever have any outages. And I'm way out on the end of the street.

And I look up at the power lines, and I'm like, that shit don't look too good. But I don't ever have no outages. All the power lines out there that have ran on this road have been there forever. And there's tons of, you know, it's kind of in a beach area, and there's a lot of storms and stuff. It's always up. I'm very thankful.

They don't, they have sped up my internet, but I'm just a normal ass customer on the street to them. And they are, you know, they're telling me, hey, man, don't be alarmed. You're not getting charged more. Your internet's getting faster. Just what's happening. five years same price

I think that's a hell of the thing so all right I think I've sold it you did a good job surely somebody's gonna get some Xfinity Wi-Fi surely after that so his first question comes from

Dallas done in the chat would you rather live the rest of your life without beer or video games oh video games tough one though I've got to drink beer eventually though

I imagine there's going to be a day at some point where video games would be the one I would prefer. I don't know, you know, it's tough because I'm probably going to drink beer until I'm 70 at the least. And I'm probably not going to be a gamer at 70. I mean, I didn't even play video games for a while until NCAA came back out. Right, yeah, video games. I could do without video game. Yeah. Keep the beer.

I need. Yeah. But tough, though. I mean, I love video games. It is tough. TJ is going to say. beer. I don't know, man.

It's tough. I do think it for different stages you could. TJ, you could just go back to drinking your, you know, your little wine coolers and stuff. Oh, God. Yeah. Early days. You could do a little Seagram wine coolers. Listen, I mean, I'm not going to lie.

You get some boons. For like the first two weekends, I moved in North Carolina. I went to the, me and DeNeil had a refrigerator. And it didn't have anything in it that I would drink. And we went to the, to the grocery store. And I'm like, I'm going to eat a six pack of them. I'm smearing off ice. Give me a Zima.

Zima. Yeah. And that lasted about, that lasted about maybe two weeks. And I'm like, I can't do this anymore. And it was, it's been, it was beer from there on out. TJ, when's the last time you had four beers in one day? Oh, I don't have a problem drinking. I mean, you, uh, he, I've got a picture of him and Mr. Z's in Key West at three o'clock in the morning.

Oh, yeah. And it is hilarious. Even like we were ordering drinks. Like, I was drinking two to the, like, I was drinking them fast. Yeah, man. Like he has his days. He'll get, he'll get on the throttle.

What's TJ like drunk? I'm usually happy. He is a happy drunk. Yeah, I'm a happy drunk. He's fun. I need to experience TJ drunk. Yeah, I'm, yeah.

All right, so our next question, we need to do a podcast. Oh, no. Oh, I would love to. You know when they had drunk history? Yes. I was like, man, I kind of would like to do that show. Drunk history was freaking awesome.

That'd be awesome. Wasn't it? And, I mean, those people were legit drunk. All right, let's do one later. That wasn't a... You know, you're watching it, and you're like, I'm waiting for somebody to sort of trip up here and give up the ghost, right?

They ain't really as drunk as they're playing to be, but they were. Can we tape... Drunk history was a good show. Let's tape an episode a little later in the day just once, and we'll see how it goes. Sorry? We'll tape an episode later in the day once, and we can have some drinks, see how it goes.

We'll do a pilot. Yeah. A pilot for our drunk podcast? Yeah. next one next question comes from our good friends at I think Exfini to actually send this one in

Dale do you bring your fire suit with you to race is just in case somebody needs to get you in the car no dude I'm gonna tell you how close this I came really close to a Mayette Snyder episode we were at

Atlanta and I am in the booth we're gonna be live in 15 minutes and Michael Annette says that he can't race I think this was around when Michael had the broken leg

and he was just like man I can't do it I don't feel good and it was last minute when he decided this and LW and Kelly called me and they're like hey can you drive the car and I'm like oh I don't have a helmet I don't have a suit or anything

I'm up in the booth with my tie on mic headset going live in 10, 15 minutes. I'm like, what am I got to, I got to, what are my boss going to say? Are they going to be okay with me just totally prioritizing that and not being available for the job they're paying me to do? Inc car reporter. That ain't going to be enough. You know, that ain't that. Anyways, I was like, hey, get B.J. McLeod.

They couldn't find B.J. And they found Austin Dillon and he jumped in the car last minute, like literally. right as they're getting ready to start the race, Austin Dillon jumped in the car and raced it. And I regret not doing it. But I don't know if I'd have had to wear someone else's helmet. I didn't have my helmet. I don't want to wear another person's helmet.

It's all nasty and smelly. It's not going to fit right. Well, I don't know how other people are, but I wore the same helmet all year. Yeah. Interesting. And I would not have, you know, if, and I don't want you wearing my helmet. No way.

Yeah. And the fire suit, like it's... Connor Hall, we went testing my late mall somewhere, and Connor Hall threw one of my spare helmet zone, and I got there, and he was like, yeah, man, you used your spare helmet. And I'm like, it's yours now, pal. You can give it.

I don't want it back. But I, you know, that's just how I am. That's like I was at a wedding, and buddy, he's like, I don't have socks. I forgot him. I'm like, here. He's like, do you want them back? I'm like, no.

Like, those are yours. Burn them, whatever you want. That's why we go raise them go cards. I always bring a helmet. Yeah. Like you go to go out for fun. You got to bring a one. No, I ain't wearing a spare helmet.

Somebody else's helmet. Well, yeah. Not even names. Those are community helmets. So I don't know. I wished I would have done it. I should have done. I should have raised it.

I can't imagine like, I mean, they saw Snyder like texting, getting information on like the track. Because it's a road course too. Like it's not just like, oh, you know, super speed race or something. Hey, listen. Bravo to my it for.

Doing it. What is he going to say? No. Of course he's going to say yes. But bravo for him, for getting in there, doing the job, getting it back home. Next question. T.J. Has your cool shirt ever failed?

No. No. I've only had to use it. I've only used it like three times. DJ has a cool shirt that he wears on the booth or on the roof. Yeah. It's hot up there. Only 90 and above you bring it and use it.

So how effective are they? Because it feels like these fail. Oh, they're amazing. I don't, yeah, it's ridiculous. They're amazing. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I saw Sage Karam or somebody on social media said, man, I didn't notice a big difference when I used one. Such a risk to use one, because if it breaks, it's really bad.

It's like wearing long johns, right, in a race car, sweat your ass off. But his must have not worked very well because the chillouts are wildly effective. I am so I race forever with like a little shell fan in my helmet we didn't have any cool vests yeah just blowers and it was you were not comfortable but it was what it was and then we got little cool boxes that blew cool air into the helmet and that was just a little better not a lot but you know this this box in the car and it's doing all it can just to make the air instead of 120 degrees it's making the air maybe 95 or 90 degrees. And then we got these cool vests.

I would say the cool vest is about a 40 degree difference in your core temperature body. So the cool vest basically is all in your torso. All right. So it's not your sleeves. Yeah, it's just a shirt. It's basically from your chest down to your belly and in your back. And as soon as you turn it on. It is...

You can feel it. It's cold. It is cool. And when it's working as designed, it's a massive difference. And if I raced in the Xfinity or Cup level, I would not run with that one unless it was maybe 60 degrees outside. You know?

Really cool day. Maybe I wouldn't run one. I mean, in our instance, if you go to the beach and sit, stand on the beach, it's hot. Like, you don't ever go there and stand on the beach. in just a sun you put an umbrella or that shade right you go in our spot and you stand up there for you're up there an hour and a half before the race so you're up there for four plus hours easily

pure sun no shade no shade and phoenix is the only spot or sand that has shade it's the only one that has one of those temporary things up but you're up there just baking and when we wear them there's there's two or three of us to have them you don't get at night you don't you're not just drain completely like you just feel like, it's hard to describe the same. Like you just feel like you're not just running to the ground. Like you retain your fluids throughout the day more and stuff. And I looked over at Nashville a couple years ago. And Tim Fido, I remember looking over at Timmy, and he had his head hung over the railing

and like a towel hanging on his neck. And the kosher would come out and everyone would run back to the cooler, dip their towels. Everyone was dipping in the same corner. And I'm like, oh, like, and they're all like ringing them out, putting them back on their heads and stuff. And I'm over there just flipping the switch. and I'm like, oh, this is nice. I mean, you know what it feels like when you turn on. The first time I did it, I was like, holy cow, this is amazing.

Yeah, very cool. Next question comes from Go Gator. Smashing pumpkins are Pearl Jam. Oh, yeah. That's a close one. I played a lot of drums when I was young to Smashing Pumpkins. Man, they're both really good, though. Yeah, so good.

I remember when Smashing Pumpkins first CD came out. and how much I listen to that, golly. Like 1979 winner. No, Shrub Rush, was it? Maybe. What? Cherub Ross. Say that again, James.

Sherrop. Cherub. Yeah. Gotcha. I wasn't sure how to pronounce it. But that was like their sound, his sound, the sound of his voice, the sound of their guitar, their music was so unique to anything else. And grunge and all that stuff was.

was on, it was like the peak. Yeah, it was. And then I remember going, I was thinking about this, like literally a couple days ago. I remember going to the mall. I was working as a, I was working as an oil change mechanic at dealership.

And I remember going to the mall in Hickory, because dad's dealerships was in Newton and buying verses when it came out. And walking back to my truck and putting it in and immediately starting to play it. you don't know how fun that was when an album or a record or CD tape, whatever was,

I think I was listening to cassettes in my truck. They were always hard to open the plastic on them. Yeah, sure. But you knew when the cassette was going to release. When it did, you took your lunch break and went to the mall, went into the mall, went into the record store, went and bought it. You walked over there.

You'd pick that thing. out of the rack and it had this little plastic thing on it so you couldn't walk out of the store with it. You'd take it over and they'd have to like key it out of this plastic and you'd walk out of the store, rip that thing apart, rip it open

and stick it in your cassette players turn on your truck and your entire life was different. Like from that moment forward that that you know that you know that Pearl Jam record or whatever it might be would change your whole disposition

and now you're rocked, you know, you run up down the road playing that thing from forward to back. Over and over again. Front to back. Yeah. Front to back. What was your first CD?

I remember the first time I heard Black from Pearl Jam. I was a, I thought I knew like all of the hits. I was a big Nirvana fan, love Pearl Jam, but I hadn't listened to the whole 10 album for whatever reason. And I remember riding.

I remember being in a pickup truck, Hank Parker Jr., was driving when he played black for the first time he's like hey man you heard this one and i was like damn this is good i mean i've got this record i've got this out i got this cassette and i remember uh the first time i heard release release is the last song on the 10 album for pearl jam release is one of my favorite songs of all time and um just an incredible song sorry and so i was I was going to school at Mitchell Community College taking automotives.

And I had a, my best friend Tommy was in the class and there was this other kid and he was in a band. And we went to a strip mall in Statesville to hear his band play. And they played release. And it was, and I hadn't heard release and they played it. And it was so good. And I went up to him and I was like,

what was that song y'all played? It was amazing. It was release. It's the last song on the 10 album. I was like, really? I went and listened to it. You never got to it. I went and listened to it.

I know. I'm like, what in the world? I pride myself on, like, being on the front end of that. But I remember the very minute I first heard Smells Like Teen Spirit, I was standing in a buddy's living room, and I went to his house to pick him up. We were running an errand somewhere, probably going to the mall, do something goofy.

And we were getting ready to walk out the door, and he goes, hey, stop. If you heard this song, MTV was on the TV. And they were getting ready to start the video. I remember when that came out. And I was like, no, I hadn't heard this. He's like, you got to hear it. And we stood at the door looking at his TV for three and a half minutes to listen to that video.

And it was awesome. My life changed completely in that moment. Do you remember your first three CDs that you bought or first CDs? I had, I had records. Yeah, I know. I'm saying like when it went, like I had some tapes. I didn't have records. But I might have a record.

I had a Beach Boys record. I remember my very first record. It was hold me by Fleetwood. Mac. Mine was Beach Boys. Greatest. It was a 45 single. My first Beach Boys, but my first three CDs, I remember I got my first CD player,

and it was Rex and FX, Stone Temple Pilots, and UB40. Damn. My first three CDs. Yeah. I love that, man. I mean, music, I know this, I know I'm not unique in this way. Music obviously in my life plays a massive role. Like I listen to music every moment I can feel.

fit it into the day. If I'm in my pickup truck driving the kids of school, we got the radio on, we're listening to music. We're curating the soundtrack for the next NASCAR console game right now. And I love being involved in stuff like that. So it's, yeah, I have a lot of memories of like,

I remember when I heard this song, this song, this song. I remember where I was, what I was doing. This next question comes from our friends at Lionel Racing. and we're going to do a rank it in three. How would you rank the many forms of a potato? So like French fries,

French fries, mashed potatoes, agroix, and... French fries. French fries is one. Do you have a favorite kind of French fry? Style, I should say. I mean, the curly fries at R.B. are pretty good. So I like... No, not really. I mean, you know, I put a little bit of salt on there. Yep.

Every place has their own. mix and they kind of separate each other. Fries. French fries. Number one. Number two is baked potato with butter. It's hard to beat that. Yep. A good old baked potato. No other

toppings? No. Like some bacon, some cheese. I like baked potato with butter. And a steak with A1. Those two things together. I mean, that is a solid meal. Sometimes A1 his potato is a little bit and it's so good. It is good.

Not complaining. Number three is potato chip. Ketchup flavored. Only in Canada. Yeah. I don't know with the ketchup flavor. You have no idea what you're missing out. So in Canada, they have shit we don't have, just like we have, you know, we have

they don't have. They have ketchup flavored potato chips. They have those in America. Do they? Yeah. Yeah, but I don't think it's like, I haven't seen this. The ones we had at Hickory. Yeah.

We're good. Yeah. Like real good. A buddy of mine that lives in Canada brings me down the five alive and all the other good things. Those are so good. Well, he brings the ketchup flavored chips. And so in my mind, it's a Canada thing. Okay.

That's fair. Yeah. So it's just like eating a french fry with ketchup. It is exactly the same taste. It's good. It's got the flavor. You know, and I'll send you a bag and I'll try one. It's really good.

Listen, I usually just put ketchup on my plate and then put some. stuff on it. Like, I'm a ketchup guy, so. Are you put ketchup on your eggs? Oh, yeah. That's disgusting. Easily. You've gone to, but that's like a common thing. I don't really love eggs. I put some salt on them and I'll eat them, but I, eggs, I'm our, me and eggs are just kind of eh. I could have eggs every day. Yeah, eggs are good. Because you get, there's so many ways to cook. Yeah. You can mix it up. I agree there's ways to cook them, but. And ketchup goes on all of them. I wish I love. I

loved eggs more than I do. I don't love eggs as much as I wish I. Are you a breakfast person, though? I'm not. Now, yeah, if I could eat what I wanted, but I can't, I can't eat what I want. I can't eat French toast every day. I love French toast. That's, it is the premier. That's like the first thing I learned how to cook.

I was so proud of myself. Like, me and Amy started dating. Dipping it in there. I'm like, you know, you, you wait until I cook you some French toast. I thought I was going to just. That was your Michelin star chef over here. French toast was the, man, wait until breakfast. My life hack for French toast.

Once I cooked her the French toast, she was in. That's what I thought. I got her. Because I knew how to do it. So I get the Pepperidge Farm French toast flavored bread. So then all you have to do is dip in the eggwash, throw it on the skill. You don't have to do anything else. Do you know that you, have you ever tried instead of using eggwash?

Have you ever tried vanilla ice cream? No, but... You need to. You got my attention. If you want to make French toast, that'll blow your socks off. Knock your socks off. I mean, I can see that.

Use ice cream. Vanilla ice cream. I will report back. I mean, it's all... Vanilla ice cream's got all the same in the beans, right? But it kind of caramelizes as well in the pan with all the sugar. Yeah. Yeah. Next question.

Well, that's it for... Oh, that's all. Yeah. Well, we'll talk to you again about Xfinity. They're waving the red flag on price heights. Red flag. Red flag is out. Green flag is back out for savings.

Xfinity Wi-Fi, they'll give you this, you know, they'll lock you in at the same price for five years. The hell of a deal. It's great Wi-Fi service. Yeah. Straight to Victory Lane. And just like that, folks, we have a winner. Imagine that.

Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. Hey, everybody. It's another segment of Dirty Modeau here. We got Russell here. Russell, what's it? How's it going? It's going pretty good.

Tim's here. Hey, what's up? Travis, he's still here. I've got my Fanjul app open because this segment of DirtyMod Do is brought you by Fanjewel. And I've got a little parlay right here for you. A little saucy parley. It's March.

Yes, it's March. It's time. for some basketball. It's time to win some money. It's time to grind it out. And we're going to come from behind. We're going to get our balance back. Had a good one last night. I got a parlay for you.

St. John's, Virginia, Florida, Virginia Tech, Louisville, Illinois. Hell yeah. What's the minus 263. Minus 26 for the level. Jeez. Ha ha ha! Ha! Ha! We're going to win. So I've got one that is three legs that is plus money.

And it's going to lose. I win. You'll lose. lose. Tomorrow I'll have more money. Tomorrow you'll have less. Give me a team you guys bet on that I need to bet on. They always win. I have Tennessee Texas Tech, Kansas. Texas Tech sounds like the winner.

Plus 105. Wow. Huge, massive difference. My gosh. What am I doing? What am I thinking? We'll see who's wins. Listen, yours might win, but at minus... Oh, mine might win.

I'm just letting the folks know that we don't I'm going to win a nice little bump. We're going to get a little bump here. If you say so. I'm going to win 30 cents on a dollar. That's pretty good. 36 cents on the dollar. 38 cents on the dollar is what I'm going to win.

We cannot. We do not condone this, folks. What the hell? We just need to let people know that like, that's not good betting advice. You don't get to determine that. Tim's. I wouldn't bet it, but.

All right. Hey, wins or win. I like taking risks. Yeah, wins are wins. Wait, you like taking risks? I like taking risks. I think every time you put money on the line, it's a risk. That is true, but I like more of a return when I take my risks.

But you lose a lot. That's very true as well. I don't say I need to lose. I want to win. But I try to win. If you lose a minus 2.30, it's things a lot more than it's a plus 105. It doesn't happen that often because the odds will tell you that. The odds would tell you that.

All right. We'll see. Only one I'm really worried about is probably Virginia Tech. They play Boston College. Boston College could come in hot. No nothing about them. No nothing about them. Same.

All right. Who's Tennessee play? Doesn't even know. Doesn't even know. He just likes the game. I just like the game. No better. I like Orange.

South Carolina. Oh, my gosh. Well, you better watch him gamecocks, man. They get up for Tennessee. That's an SEC tournament game. It's just a regular season game right now. I mean, but it's a conference. Yeah, but it's not a conference tournament game.

Everything's on the line. Travis. You know, I'm going to bet both of these because I need to dip my toe back in. I haven't bet a college basketball game. Don't bet a guy. You're not allowed. Why? Because you just talk about it.

I didn't talk about it. If it wins, I won't talk about it. Don't bet it. Don't get on there. I'm not telling you about it anymore. I'm just going to look at the app. All right. We mentioned last week that there were two bad.

bets that cashed, and that was Reddick over Byron, Gibbs over Brisco. If you listened to us and bet Reddick before Sunday, you had a cash out option even before the race started. Oh, it was beautiful. Wow. On that note, Tim's, when do you bet the pre, when do you bet pre-practice and qualifying? It depends. If I'm drinking, probably won't make it because I'm not paying attention.

But honestly, if it's like a race winner, if it's the expert. if they're don't drink and gamble gamble the drink gamble then drink if it's like if the race winner is like plus like a thousand plus 1200 like and I think they're going to do really well and qualify well I'll bet them because once they

qualify up in the top five you've lost that number and it's kind of unbettable all right well we head to Phoenix Russell what's the model tell you well first off we need to talk about the model last week top three three. Not in the exact same order, but the top three are top three. So I have to brag on that

a little bit. But this week, this week we're going to go Larson by a minor, minor edge over Bell, Blaney, Lugano, and Hamlin. But I would put my money on Bell and Blaney here. Like this is a long run track. These are my two long run guys. We're going to bring back our NASCAR insights, too. and the long run at Phoenix has been all over Blaney and Bell. Very good, very good. Tim's what do you think about these? I like Blaney too. He would be my pick.

Anybody else? You guys your home? I have a little bit long shot, Ross Chastain. I kind of like the speed of those track house cars. He's good here. He's one here. He's plus 2,200, I think. What do you think about that there, Ross?

I don't mind that, but I would go like a little longer shot in Barry. He was really good. I was going to ask you about Barry. Yep. Yep, won the race. He was good enough to actually win, take home the trophy. Yeah. About as good as you can be on a race weekend.

Yeah, and he shows up in all the metrics. Passing, speed, long run, restarts, he was actually the best last year. I bet that his odds are very juicy because he's been struggling. What about a briscoe? That 19 car is usually pretty fast at Phoenix. Yeah, I like him. He's not had great results here, but he shows up again on all the metrics. Last year, November, Briscoe wasn't even in the picture with the champ four.

Does that concern you, though? No. Not really because that race, I mean, the championship races is usually like top four guys are always the... Russ, what's the, I just remember, what's the tire situation for this race? He was one that had major tire problems last year in the fall. Yeah. And it's the same tire as last year. No option.

This is the same tire they used here last fall. That's an interesting question you have. So they used a different tire in the fall than they did in the first race last year. They had option tires. Yes. Right. Yeah. So they had the same tire just at option tires well?

Yeah. No, in the spring, yeah. In the fall we went back. the option tire, right? Correct. That's the primary only. Yes. Gotcha.

All right. Well, what about Almondanger? What do you think about them? I feel, well, before we move on, I was just saying, like, you got to think about the tire. So you've had two, you got two races last year. You had two tires. You had a different tire at one race versus the other, although, you know, you, that would make me want to dive deeper, I guess, into the statistics.

around Barry, he wins the spring race. Where was he in the fall when they made a, you know, when they narrowed down the tire, so to speak, was that the tire, was he still, you know, because tires, drivers will run well on specific tires. Yeah. They have tracks they like, but if you look at the real trail, the real trail of information and data. Drivers lock on to

particular tires and always perform well when that tire shows up. Am I right? Yeah, but he qualified seventh, finished seventh, ran

average running position in the top 10 all day, so I wouldn't be afraid of him. Yeah, got you. I wonder what his top 10 would be, because that's about all

I'd probably put on Josh. Yeah. I mean, I hope he goes and wins. I'm a massive Josh Berry fan, but when you're talking about putting money down. I think he would, I wonder what his top 10 odds would be. They are, because that would be

plus 135. That's pretty good. Yeah. All right. Well, we've seen the fours do really well in the past year. You can bet Lagana at 145 heads up against Hamlin. What do you guys think about that? I don't, I like Hamelin than that. Yeah, I feel, I mean, Denny was really the car to beat there last year. Yeah. In my opinion. Joey's a slow starter, too, in my opinion. Russ, you have a head-to-head tool. Yeah, but this is a no-brainer for Hamlin. No-brainer for Hamlin.

What about Reddick versus Larson? You got Reddick coming in hot, all three wins? I would just, I had avoid this one. Yeah, it's a toss-up. And then Blaney versus Bell. That's another dead heat, dead heat. Yep, Chastain over Bisher. Which one?

This is actually, Busher has been better here. This has been... And he's plus money on this. Yeah, he's been like top 10 in like four of the last five or something like that. Yeah, he finds his way up there. So this would be Tim's a bet, if you like, do it now because Busher, if he performs as well, those numbers will change. It'll buy a flop, yeah.

Well, as I predicted, he was struggling over the course of the season, but I feel pretty confident Busher can come in and just... Yeah, you pissed him off last week. Good. I need to piece it on. He needs to get out there and get it done. Told you he was close, too. I know.

We almost drove back over here. Well, okay. I feel like that he probably would whoop your ass. Yeah. He needs to focus on his competition meetings and such. Try to figure out how to get the, get this bed over chastain one this week.

Yeah. He can do it. He can do it. Yeah. I like, I like it. This is going to be an interesting race to see where this is the

with the new bodies and stuff too are like for a Chevy this is kind of going to be a it's kind of being a little bit of a test. See where they're at kind of thing? Yeah. Sure. Do you think we're going to see some cars, some drivers maybe press into like this is the first race where you're not super speedway

road course and they feel like they're in a hole and they got to go do something? I don't feel like they're going to try any harder than they are going to normally. Like they're going to go there and try to win. Like I'll say this. There's nobody I'll say drivers race as hard as they can all the time. Yeah.

They don't press harder because it's a certain track. Yeah. Now there's drivers that quit. There's drivers that give up. But there aren't drivers that are out there going, man, you know, I've been running at, you know, 80% the last couple weeks. I need to pick it up. I'm going to go run 90, 95 this weekend.

They're just always pushing as hard as they can until they're not. Until they lose until they've lost. Then they quit before the race is over there. But most of them show up at 10 tenths. All right. Well, one bet that is real simple to make, and that's the top manufacturer. What is that?

One bet that is real simple to bet. Yeah, just letting the folks know. One simple bet is top manufacturer. Who do you think is what manufacturer is going to win? All right. How is it simpler? Because you're just picking one of three. You're just picking a manufacturer, one of three.

Yeah, it's just not many options. Well, I mean, we just went through some head-to-heads. How's it simpler than picking one guy over the other? Wow, because you've got to go dig in deep and see which one's better. I mean, like Russ said he's staying away from two of them, so that'd be a pretty hard decision there. Russ, is it a clear? Is there a clear? No.

Yes, I do, too. There's no clear cut. It is. It is the most lottery, risky bet on the board. Yep. Wouldn't you agree? Yeah. Yep.

This is the hardest. This is the biggest. Hey, I'm sorry. We should let the experts continue to talk. He's saying it's an easy bet to make, I think. Yeah, it's an easy bet to make. I'm not saying like the decision or anything. The decision is too hard.

You can't make that decision. How is choosing between three things. easier than choosing between two things because we just went over the head to head. I agree with that. What I have to say. I didn't say it's more simple. I said it's one bet that is simple. You make it sound like I'm saying it's more simple than the head to head.

I didn't say that. I think I'm the only one that's having fun. I'm going to stop. I just like to give you a hard time. Yeah, I don't. I'm good. Because I'm right. Chevrolete plus 140.

Toyota plus 160 Ford it plus 240 I think that's an easy one then That's crazy That is a simple How is Ford so high? Oh

When we're talking about Blaney Being the favorite Simple Plus 240 I still don't feel like It's as easy as a heads up When the lines like this

It's pretty simple Man those head Two of those heads up though Are like It's not I mean those are great odds Great odds Yeah you don't get those odds

very often. If it's not Blaney, I don't know if another Ford wins. That's the that's why. It's plainier bust. Josh Barry won this race last year. No, he didn't. No, he definitely didn't. He finished. Josh Barry won Vegas, buddy. I'm sorry. I was going to bring that up earlier, but I was just going to

let you ride that wave. I've been thinking about Vegas this whole time. All this gambling talk. I'm already done to Vegas. Experts. So who went to the experts? He ran well. He did run well here. He did. He was fourth. In the spring, seventh in the fall.

Yeah. Yeah. No, he did run good. Yeah. Okay. But he didn't win. Well, all right. Good job, expert.

Yep. Now I see why the Ford has those odds. Makes sense now. It does. It checks out. Yeah. But I think Plainty should be the favorite to win them. I had you thinking you screwed up.

I was like, Josh didn't win that race. Yeah. I'm like, I remember watching. Joshua in Vegas, but he'd do something I forgot about? I know. I don't remember him running good at Phoenix. He was just quietly good. Oh, the first one I kind of think I do remember that. But the second one.

Well, there's no focus on him at all at that point. It's all the championship guys. Not anymore. Not anymore. Not anymore. No. Yeah. All right.

Well, let me look up. I mean, we blew that race last year, Russ. We screwed it up. Yeah. Everyone probably forgot about that. Oh, my gosh. We should have won that race. Oh, my gosh.

I was a spotter bra. I mean, there was driving in deep. Yeah. How do y'all think their, you know, how do you all think the final race of the year? How do you all, how much do you all take away from how the playoffs affect the performance of the cars in that race versus,

you know, because when we go to the playoff races, the playoff guys. Domit. Magically run one, two, three, four. weird how that happens but you know when we go back to these same racetracks a year later it's anybody's race it's a little more of a mixed bag so how does the predictor i suppose vet that out

the predictor doesn't care about that but the i still think there's going to be pressure like even if somebody has to finish 15th that's we've seen that they're going to run they're going to run 10th through 20th all day. Yeah. So I still think it's going to be pressure-packed, and the guys are going to run well or going to have to run well, or will run well. Yeah.

Well, all right. The Dirty Modo segment is brought to you by Fanduel, the premier gaming destination in the United States. That's all your information for Phoenix. And hope y'all are having some fun during the month of March as we're going to start betting. talking about a lot of our bets that we're making in college basketball. Had a lot of fun last year with that.

Russell, you got any predictions on who wins the tournament? Two. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, they're going to have Tar Heels to answer to. When does the tournament kick off? Yeah.

Tar Heels beat a few weeks. A couple weeks. Hard Hills pretty good. We can show up. Especially, we get a little better when March. Who's this we? Uncc target. You French?

All right. Act like we didn't beat them. Name a player. The dude who got hurt. He got hurt and missed the game against Miami. Vince Carter. We lost. Michael Jordan.

Yeah. Brad Doherty. Oh, conveniently. Russell's connections start to get bad. Yeah. Man, interesting. Russell. All right, Russell, we'll see you.

Yeah, good seeing you, Russ. All right, that's going to do it for us, man. It's a great show, TJ. Great show. Thanks to Arby's for supporting our podcast here in the Arby's studio. Don't forget about the Arby's new meat and three box. Big box of meat. Yeah, get more meal for your money at Arby's.

We have the meats. That's the show. We'll see you tomorrow. Check out Dirty Mobile. media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.