The Dale Jr. Download - Dale Jr. Doesn't Think Cleetus McFarland Is Ready for Talladega

Episode Date: April 7, 2026

The O’Reilly Auto Parts Series was the star of the show this past weekend at Rockingham, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the studio to break down the action. He joins co-host TJ Majors to discuss William Sawalich’s first win, Cleetus’ debut, and more: - Every driver could benefit from a couple of years in the O’Reilly Series - We have not seen enough from Cleetus McFarland yet - Breaking Doug Barnes CARS Tour penalty appeal process - Should Cup race at Rockingham? - Should NASCAR change its championship eligibility rules for lower series? - Crew chief Rodney Childers joins the show - Rockingham winner William Sawalich joins the show During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding: - Regretting purchases a day later - Would Dale take a rocket to the moon? - Does Dale believe in aliens? - Which human would you send to greet aliens if they landed on Earth - Die-cast cars Dale wishes he had - The Figgy Earnhardt debacle 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? Get them, DJ. Hellway is starting to show. All right then. Hey, everybody. Dale Jr. back again for another.

episode of the Dale Jr. Download with my co-host T.J. Majors. We're in the Arby's studio. This episode is presented to you by Arby's, and they have the new meat in three blocks. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We had the meats, and we've got a great show for you today. We've got a lot to talk about coming up. We're going to talk to Roddy Childers a little bit about his experience so far in the O'Reilly series. And also talk to race winner William Swalich from Rockingham, getting his first win. Big win. Awesome. William's a great young kid that struggled last year. There's a lot of hype coming in around him with his success in the late models and super late models.

And so, you know, he had a tough year last year trying to learn the ropes in a rally series, but uncovered that first win in Rockingham, and I think it's one of many more that will come down in the future. That's got to be tough because in racing you're going to lose a whole lot more than you're going to win, even if you're one of the greatest drivers ever. So doing it at a young age and failing a lot, it's got to be a lot to learn. Well, I think that, you know, when he comes in and struggles, there's a couple things that I think. You go, all right, you know, that's to be expected.

Will he get the time to develop? That's the biggest thing. That's the next thing. Yeah. And so, you know, we just, he's 19. He doesn't, I mean, he's raced a long time and got a lot of laps, but he doesn't have a lot of laps, right? He's still very young and, golly, man, I was nowhere.

I mean, this is the easiest thing for me to do is to look back at myself when I was 19. Was I ready for that? No. Would I have failed? Yes. Not at that age. I was not prepared for anything like that, and we're putting these guys in these situations and really forcing them to, like, mature at a rapid rate.

Even way younger than you were, right? Yeah, I mean, I really didn't get to going in the Xfinity series until I was 24, 25 years old. Yeah, which is way past what they are. Yeah, it feels like that anyways, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, 98, 99, I was 24, 25 years old. That's a big difference than 19. Right. That is way different.

You look at Brent Cruz out there. These kids are young. Yeah. Yeah, I was just starting to race cars. I had a year of driving anything under my belt, you know, pretty much around. 17, 18 years old. So it's pretty remarkable. I think we expect these guys to just go out there and do things and they're not even,

they're still living at home. You know what I mean? They're still, they're not even taking out their own trash yet. You know what I'm saying? They don't even have the responsibility of traditional, normal, everyday things that, you know, people, people handle responsibilities. I don't know. So do you think that's a bad thing, though?

I don't. I'm just saying. We expect them to go win races. I know, but do you think there is a more successful path with waiting before you push him into that position so young? I'll just say. I mean, it's a... Like you went in there and you pretty much won real early in your career. No. I was 24.

In the Exfany series, you won, or Riley, you won pretty early. Yeah, but I was 24 years old. I know, that's what I'm saying, though. It's kind of like, you know what? It's a lot like these athletes in college, you know, that are going through, you know, getting that. six, seventh year of eligibility. They're like 23, 24 years old playing quarterback. Super smart.

Yeah, they're just better mentally for the tough moments. And the, you know, man, I need to, if I can't get this, you know, it's a couple seconds left in the game and I need to, you know, I need to get the ball out of bounds. I need to throw it incomplete. If I can't find something quickly, so I have another, you know, you know, yeah, the game management type of stuff. and so you know you don't have that I didn't have that at 19 I was going to get in the car and wreck the hell out of the thing at 19 years old destroy it and I would have done that a lot

and I would probably have been canned before I was 23 years old but luckily you know my path happened the way it happened because I don't think I would have I don't think I would have netted out it'd be hard had I started at 19 the the tough part is is that these guys, you know, their opportunity, the funding and all the things that they need and that has to be there for them to get chances is there now, right? It might not be there if they wanted to wait for themselves to get better at the lower ranks or at the grassroots ranks.

Well, this money that can afford them this opportunity in their Raleigh series, it may not be there in three or four years when they're more mentally prepared for the moment. And so I just think about some, you know, there's a lot of drivers that are in a cup series now that, you know, that didn't actually come into the series and win races out of the gate. It took a while for them to start to click. And luckily there were people that were patient and waiting. And, you know, I feel like that that's kind of the case with a guy like William. I'm still 19 years old, 20 years old and getting ready to try to go win a second Xfinity or O'Rally race after this weekend. in and yeah but I don't know I if they can come in at 19 and win races awesome if they can't

I think we have to be patient and I'm I have to remind myself like man don't write don't write this dude off you never know he's 19 golly don't write him off right still might have it because you can give up we give up on them as an industry right but if maybe if we waited another year or two he's a future cup champion who knows do you think you think think Conor Zillich could have used another year of O'Reilly? Conner's every, the answer to that to everyone is yes. Everyone can stand to benefit for more time. If the opportunity is still there.

If you can afford to do it. Yeah. I've always been, I've always thought you got to run two full years of O'Reilly before you go to cup to be fully prepared. But you got guys, there's guys that, you know, when extended that opportunity, to race cup have to take it. Oh, for sure. Even when they're not ready.

That's the sucky part. You might never get another one. Yeah, you can't go. No, I'm not ready. I'll run O'Reilly one more year and then that year ends and there's no cup opportunity in front of you. Yeah, I've always been a two year or a full, two full years, but you're right, though, sometimes you have such a great first year, the opportunities come up.

Yeah. You've got to take them. Does that two year, does it matter as much now with the next-gen car where the O'Reilly car is not necessarily as the similar? So it's not that. It's not just the car similarities to me. It's just getting learning, the mental thing like we talk about. Yeah.

Racecraft decision-making judgment. Yes, like it's learning how to race around these, learning just the things you see every week. He's not even going to be able to tell you everything that he learned at Rockingham. He learned way more than what we'll ever know. You know what I mean? Speaking of Rockingham, we'll quickly touch on Cletus McFarland. So that's a great example.

So Cletus McFarland gets loose, getting down in the corner early in the race, gets a runoff of term four and goes three wide, right? That is something that he experiences and he learned in that moment, like, yep, don't need to do that again. You know, he's down at the bottom of the racetrack entering as shallow as possible into term one. It's a bad spot. It is. And that's like, that's the thing, Travis, the race craft.

You said, you know, well, does it matter? Should he just, the cars are so different? Should he just go on to cup? Well, he needs to learn not to do that. He needs to learn that in the Xfinity series and the truck series. And there's a thousand things like that, you know, like driving down underneath two guys into the term one at Rockham. There's a thousand other things like spinning out off a four in this weird

Arrow situation in Daytona that only happens in Daytona and or only happens in that moment, right? You got to go through those things and that's where you do it. You do it in the truck in the rally series and you go, okay, yeah, that's something I got to pay attention to next time. And I won't do that again. And that's, so yeah, every year, every race you can run in those series teaches you those things of what not to do and what to be careful with and what arrow situation. are bad and I know the cars are different yes but you're still learning precautions being

conservative being smart waiting being patient living to race the next corner those kind of things and you want to see guys go back through and look at the tools now that you know now there was SMT at rockingham this time so we can go back and look at moves people made like cleetus can now go back and look at his race on there and learn from that and Sunday night you know me and Carson already went through the entire race. He had an in-car camera, too, so we went through the entire SMT clip. And then we turned that off and went through the entire in-car camera, just what he was looking at.

Why did you do this? Why'd you do that? Yep. In this position next time, this is, you know, like, what's your mindset here? So he can learn from that. And there's, like you said, there's a thousand other things that you learn throughout that race or you try to improve on that carry over to the next race. And that's how you get better and better.

Well, the, I think the Cletus McFarland, experience was a good one. He had a really good Arka race. Like, yeah. I mean, solid Arca race. Top five. Yeah. And he, you know, he did spin out. He did have a couple of goofups in the O'Reilly race, but, yeah, everybody survived it.

Nobody, you know, he didn't crash anybody. I think that, you know, the things that he did won't be front, you know, the mistakes that he made won't be front page news. And that was the goal, is not to be the story. from everything else we know he was you know not in the way running his laps learning getting better what does he do next you know

that's the big question is where does he go from here and what does NASCAR do with this right there's been some speculation I think on you know what do you think what do we think NASCAR's next movie is because they have some of the puppet strings here in their hands They, they, they, he's, he was, if I know, if I think I know what I know about Cletus is he's like,

hmm, Daytona and Talladega are kind of the easiest. You hold it wide open. Handling's not really as big of a deal and, you know, there's not, you know, I don't have to worry about shape in the corner or worried about an apex, a lot of stuff. An apex or anything like that. You know, he just hold it on the mat and, and work the draft and Dodge Rex. and so he in his mind he's like man I just want to do Daytona I just want to do Taledega truck's whatever right but at some point NASCAR's got to kind of step in the way and go

nah man you know you can only go to this you can only go this far yeah before we we need you to do some other things and I think that's kind of the point we're at now which is right because a mistake of Talladega can yeah take out 30 cars yeah so I guess the question is is now that he's done Rockingham, will he then request the next race to be his next race, his next opportunity, where is that going to be? Is it going to, you know, are they going to take a stab at trying to go to Talladega or Daytona in the O'Reilly series? Will NASCAR approve that? Will they say no?

Did you see enough? I saw enough to not approve him for Daytona or Talladega in the O'Reilly series. To be quite honest with you, I only saw. I was not present and in person for any of this, but I watched the YouTube video from the truck test with Mice. I watched the YouTube video of his O'Reilly test with RCR, and then I watched the race. And in all three of those, he busted his ass.

Now, he didn't hit anything except for the truck. He did while the truck off of two. But in all three of those instances, he was, he was, you know, lost the control of the car or the truck. I would say, and I told him this after the race, like the Rockingham surface and tire is going to be one of the more trickier ones. It's a hard tire. It's a relatively repaved surface, so it's got a very small window

before you bust your ass, and it's easy to bust your ass. So, I mean, I actually expected him to wreck in their Rally series. I expected him to knock the damn tailgate, you know, the deck lit off the car. He didn't. So that was a, that was a, that was a, surprise, I guess. Not a surprise, but I just expected him to, but he got to. Yeah, he got to the end.

He finished the race. The race was fairly clean overall, but yes. But I think he definitely, I would say, now, I need one, two, maybe three more events somewhere else before you're going to get this opportunity in the Raleigh series to go to Daytona or Talladega. Now, by all means, Arka, Arca, Arca, run all you can. Like if I were him and if I were NASCAR, I'd be trying to get him in more Arca races every single opportunity

to run all these little bull rings and short tracks. If he keeps going to running four, top five in Arca, he's going to look like he belongs. Well, he needs to not only look like it, but he needs to actually belong. Yeah. You know what I mean? And you're kind of buttoned up against,

I think, the threshold of, all right, man, you don't, you know, you can play in this pool, but you got to do a little bit more of this before you can get over into the deep end. And so I think, you know, we'll see what happens to be interesting. I'd be curious, I guess, what the conversation is like in the NASCAR building around,

around Cletus and where they kind of think they... And I think you lose some of that. When you're not racing weekend and week out and he's just coming in, you're kind of... You have to reset and you're just not having that muscle memory. Look, I'm going to tell you, to do what he did this weekend, and I know he busted his ass a couple times, but to do what he did was really, really phenomenal

for a guy that has no racing background, didn't grow up in a racing family, didn't grow up around racetracks all his life. He understand, you know, I figured that this would be the, I figured that this would be the situation. So Jimmy Johnson raced motorbite motorcycles and stadium trucks.

before Jimmy Johnson, the same time champion that we all know that when we think about Jimmy Johnson, we think about stock cars, we think about NASCAR, we think about – Jimmy Johnson came from outdoor stadium truck, West Coast, California, drive the shit out of it, jumping jumps and being a maniac, and then decided, you know, to get into a stock car in the O'Reilly series. And Jimmy was able to be successful because I think that, you know, all the things that he was doing in those stadium trucks and motorcycles, like you're doing a lot of things in that type of vehicle off of feel and precision, even though it looks chaotic and wild and crazy,

you're, you know, you're out of control, you're in control. you're driving, you're in a slide at 90% of the lap. There's a lot of variables. There's just a lot of car control. There's a ton of car control that you develop that can absolutely be automatically applied to anything with four wheels. And I think, you know, Cletus has done a lot of funny stunts and a lot of wild things. but at the same time

he has learned the limits of something with anything with four tires on it like he can get into pretty much any vehicle and take it out

on the racetrack and put it to the limits of its capabilities and really you know and he's done those things so many times in his videos and so forth and I think he can apply the same sort of, it's understood physics, right, that is mind and his body, he can look at a car, look at it, drive it a little bit and go, hmm, I think I kind of understand

where the window is here, where I can play with that and still be in control, right? And so, he can get in the rally car and go out and test for four hours and pretty much get it up against the limit of the tire and the slip angle of the tire and get within a decent lap time quicker than most because of how much that he's driven to the limit of control and gone out of control multiple times. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's just like he's taking all of that information and everything he's ever done

and sort of it's, he just applies for lack of a better way to describe it. He just takes the physics and everything that he's understood about inertia and momentum and grip and tire and rubber and pavement and contact patches and all the things that he didn't even know he was really cataloging and and and and computing and processing into this little hard drive in his brain. He's got all that information and he's just applying that to this, right? Because he doesn't know anybody. He doesn't have anything else. And so he goes out on the racetrack and he goes, I know how to drive something with four tires on it fast and out of control and to the limit. and he finds he can kind of understand over the course of a couple hours where the limit is to this vehicle right and then he takes all that and then the information that he gets from rCR and all the help that he gets from them and all the advice he gets from anybody that he calls i know he calls me or texts me after he practices tests race whatever i don't know who else he's reaching out to but i'm sure several people and he's probably taking he's listening if you tell him dude go out there and look he's used to going anywhere in being the story. He's used to going everywhere and making

noise and gaining attention, like getting clicks, getting views. Like, that's his job. But we told him, in this moment, don't be the story. Do everything you can to be out of the story. Right? That's a complete working against everything he knows. And he did it. He listened. He took that to heart. The amount of the amount of cleats shirts that I saw last weekend. was incredible. Yeah.

So the fans are grasping on to them. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, we knew that would happen. Yeah. That's why NASCAR loves this. Yeah. So that's why NASCAR is trying to...

That's a difficult spot in NASCAR. It is. It is right. Right. So how do they kind of... Can't... Will they, can they properly, you know, like nurture this? They want them to succeed.

Oh, they do. Who does it? So they... But they've got to do it the right way. If they throw his ass into their rally series at Talladega, I don't know, you know. That is definitely not the next step for him. His next step is another race somewhere else, right?

Yeah. He should be racing Bristol. He should be racing Arca, Arca, Arca, Arca, Arca, and more truck races and everything from a mile and under, you know, go race. But I know, it costs money. So we got Bristol and Kansas coming up. Arca, Kansas race? Sure.

I'd definitely be running out if I were him. You know, all those things take money, though. Every time he jumps in that Arka car, I imagine somebody's spending $20,000, $25,000 at a minimum. Oh, at a minimum. Right? I'm sure. Every time he goes and jumps in a truck, I'm sure that's costing somebody, $75,000. More more.

More than that. Anytime he goes and races in a rally car at minimum, that's costing somebody $125,000, $150,000. Somebody. Now, I don't think that, you know, I don't think that, you know, I don't think that, uh, Cletus is on the hook for all of that, and I don't think that his partners are funding that entirely, but somebody is, right? And at some point,

it might be a little bit of NASCAR's money going into this stuff. You know, so it just needs to be a plan. They need to be a plan. And the other thing that's interesting is, and we talked about it on the show with him, is he's got to come to a decision at some point of how much of this he wants to do and how much of his other life,

because it's an entirely other thing going on over here. And he's pausing that to do this. Yeah, his social media, which makes him millions of dollars, his YouTube page and all that and his merchandise and everything that he does with that, that's a thing that has to kind of keep going.

That machine's got to keep going, right? Can they merge together? Yeah, that machine made this possible. Yeah. I'm just, you know, he said, like, if I do this more, I have to do less of that. Like, he sees it as one or the other. And I don't, he ain't going to

over he's not going to come over to NASCAR and make the kind of money he's making on the YouTube side. Like his YouTube brand is already a functioning well-oiled. Yeah, it's great. Profitable for the business.

And he is not going to come over here and make that kind of money. And probably doesn't have the stress. You're getting in these cars and I just know. He's just not going to come over here and make that kind of money. So even if things went well, I think that's a more lucrative thing and he's got to decide like, all right.

And he's got a family, he's got kids, and he's got all those things, too, to juggle. Tough situation, but a good situation. Yeah. Hey, everybody. The 2026 NASCAR season is underway, and it's already shaping up to be another year of hard racing, great storylines, winning moments that remind us why we love this amazing sport. And when it comes to capturing all of that on-track action in collectible form, nobody does it better than Lionel Racing, the official diecast of NASCAR.

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download 26. So head over to linnellracing.com, grab your favorite diecast and make this NASCAR season one to remember. All right, so we got Rodney Childers at the desk and thought, you know, we didn't have a couple races past weekend, be a good opportunity to highlight a little bit of the Raleigh series

and one of the great additions to junior motorsports this year has been Rodney. And I know I've been, you know, seeing some of the, you know, media out in the past, probably, I don't know, a couple of months have been quizzing you a little bit about your experience so far. So, yeah, just hard to do at this table with me and TJ sitting here. But can you give us an honest assessment? You know, what did you think this was going to be like?

You know, what's been some surprises? what's been some good things? What are some things about our operation, I suppose, that are different from what you're used to? Yeah, I mean, for me, you know, I was probably one of the odd ones that never Bush raced or Xfinity raced, you know, before I went cup racing. So, you know, my whole experience has just been cup racing the whole time.

And so really I didn't know what it would be like to go run the O'Reilly series and what the schedules are like and, you know, what's your work? weak flow look like and all those things and honestly it's been great um and my experience here has been great too um yeah i really love the atmosphere here and a lot of the things for the last 25 years that you wish would happen you know at a race team and have some luncheons and have ice cream truck come by and have a beer toast when you win races i mean we we went through a spell there where we won like 12 cup races in one year and we had one luncheon the whole the whole year, you know, and it's like, you know, you always think about those things and

the employees and stuff like that. And, you know, that's the biggest thing that has stood out to me is just the family atmosphere and the way that the week flows and all those things. And really, it's just been perfect timing for me, you know, to be able to come home and be home on Sundays. And my mom's went through a few things and she's in a little nursing home type thing now. So I get to spend Sundays with her. and my dad. So just everything's worked out really good. What about the racing or the garage, the culture in the O'Reilly series?

How that's, I've always thought that the cup garage and the O'Reilly garage were completely different. And, you know, the cup garage is very, very competitive and cutthroat just from one individual to the next. In the O'Reilly garage, it's very casual, more. laid back. At least that's what it was like when I was there as a driver and competing. But, you know, what's the difference in the two series? A lot of what you just said, honestly, you know, a lot more smiles on faces walking around the garage, that's for sure. And, you know, the cup garage has changed a lot over the last 10 years, you know, the way that you go through tech and you don't have, you know, a big practice. You're not in the garages beside each other, you know,

kidding with each other and doing different things throughout the weekend. So that's changed that side of it. But, you know, that part's been a lot of fun for me, just getting to know everybody. And a lot of them are old cup officials anyway. So I've had good relationships with all of them for a long time. And, you know, in this series, it's still way competitive. You know, it's hard as crap to win races. And, you know, we've definitely figured that out. We've had past cars, but we need to get in Victory Lane. And I think once we knock one off the checklist, we'll knock a lot more off. One of the things this new for you is working with, you know, young drivers and trying to help, you know, younger drivers,

less experienced drivers, establish, you know, kind of some racecraft and all that and turning them into, you know, champions and winners. You know, of course, you did work with Josh Barry when he was new to the Cup Series, but most of your career, you've been with veterans, you've been with guys who you really didn't have to kind of check up on and hold their hand a little bit, so to speak. So this has been a bit of a different experience for you, or is it, you know, how has that worked out?

You kind of have maybe a different driver in the car every now and then. You don't have, you know, the same guy every single week. What are the challenges with that? or what is some of the things you enjoy about that? It's actually been a lot of fun. And, you know, me and T.J. kind of have the same task of, you know, letting Carson learn certain things every week, but also standing by his side and pointing things out that he could do better. And, you know, he spends a lot of time here at the shop.

And, I mean, yesterday he was here from the beginning to the end of the day. Like, he spent all day here. and, you know, some of those things remind me a lot of that year of working with Josh. You know, you have, you know, just certain things that, you know, ways to communicate, ways to talk about the car. That's probably the things that we talk about the most is just trying to, you know, narrow down what you're saying, you know, try to pick out the one thing that's going to make you go faster instead of just, you know, 11 different things that are going on around the racetrack that

confuse the crap out of everybody, you know, do we need to tighten it up or do we need to free it up? There's only a lot, you know, there's only certain things you can do during the race. And sometimes unhooking the back is the only way to make it turn. That's not the fun part for a driver. But just learning those things and other things just having confidence, right? Like I feel like Carson's had just a ton of confidence this year and he goes out there and he qualifies well. We've had fast cars in practice, fast cars and qualifying. We've been able to race really well and lead laps at Phoenix and had a dominant car there.

And just all those things have been a lot of fun. And then the other side of it with Connor, you know, my first race with him is taking him to Cota. And he's just incredible on those road courses and sit on the pole and, you know, leading the race. And then we broke a brake rotor and had to kind of ride around the whole second stage until we could replace that. But to watch him drive from 30th back to fourth, you know, before the end of it was crazy. So I haven't got to do a lot with Connor yet. You know, so hopefully we'll have some fun this weekend at Bristol and learn a little bit more about each other. And we have a lot of races coming up together over the next little bit.

So hopefully we can kick that off this weekend on the right start. Yeah, it's quite a challenge, I think, for you just as an individual crew chief to, you know, if things go as planned, you're going to try to race for a championship with Carson in the playoffs. And trying to figure out how to be successful with Connor, have Carson prepped and ready when the playoffs began. So it's as if y'all have been together the entire season. That's going to be a challenge that I think is going to be interesting to see how that plays out. You as an individual last question. You as a crew chief, you is a mechanical mind coming into this series, working on these cars.

None of this stuff is foreign to you, but you're learning the series. You're learning, you know, what makes these cars tick. You know, if you're, if you were filling up a bucket, right? Trying to figure out, you know, trying to find your groove. How full is that bucket? How much more you think you get to pour into there before you feel like you've got your master of, you know, trying to make the car work,

trying to bring in all the years of experience that you have to preping your car and going to the racetrack and having all the bells and whistles ready to go so the car is really fast out of the gate? Yeah, you know, so far I've been really fortunate, like a lot of the SIM tools and the things that I used to look at to, you know, whether it's geometry or shocks or breaks or this or that. Like, all of it has worked very similar to everything that I was used to.

And the things that I thought were good in the past have been good still. And so that's been good for me is, you know, just to do what you think is right. You know, and like there's been a few times I've went to Bami and said, you know, what do you think about this or that. And he's like, you just need to do what you think is right. And for me, that's perfect. right because if you ever go to the racetrack and I've been in situations where you go to the racetrack and right off the get go you're unloading the car with something that you don't even believe in

you know your whole weekend's messed up your mind doesn't work right you don't make good decisions and um so so far I've been super fortunate that the things that I thought would work have worked and um it keeps my mind going and um you know I keep you know thinking about things the right way and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, we're going to have good weekends and bad weekends. Sometimes we're going to do something. It's not going to work, right? But, you know, so far it has.

And, you know, we're going to continue that. But the rest of it just comes down to just little details, you know, over time, you know, making the cars a little bit better, a little bit lighter, trying to do all those little things, you know, that push you to be better. So, you know, it's different. racing in the, you know, in the O'Reilly series. I went for years with SHR with no budget, right?

And like we had every gadget and more wind tunnel time than everybody. And that's, you know, one of the things on this side. We have hardly no wind tunnel time. So you're just kind of going off your gut on some things. But I'm still learning every week. I'm super fortunate. I've got a great race team. And, you know, I think this group can go a long way together.

Awesome, ma'am. Well, thanks for giving us some time this morning. I know you're off to the Sim to get better and looking forward to the race this weekend. Thank you. Appreciate it. So, I got to, we're going to talk Cars Tour later. The Cars Tour suspended Doug Barnes for a race for rough driving and intentional crashing.

We had an appeal. I guess we'd go ahead and go to that now. We're going to jump around a little bit. We set up an appeals panel because Doug was able to appeal this penalty and decided to do so. Now, I want to explain to everybody how. this works so they know. We've only had one previous appeal, and that was a year or two ago at Northwestboro. It was a technical penalty that came post-race for the winter.

It's a really tough spot for all of us to be in. So we don't often deal with appeals, you know, at grassroots racing or at the cars tour level. We don't really want to be doing appeals that often, and we try to, you know, officiating our races in such a way that they're you know we're not going to have to have an appeal every week because what happens when they when when when when a driver says hey i can't appeal this and i want to appeal this they have to write a check um to file the appeal that it's a payment they make to the series to to make the appeal they have to be willing to do that for one dang yeah you make them

pay for that yeah i'm right i think it's every level i mean no i'm just kidding so be what the If you write me that check, TJ, and want me to, I got to go outside of the series and put together the panel. And so, nobody better than David Hoots, who ran the NASCAR booth, race control for many, many years. Nobody better than him to orchestrate the appeal. He's not going to have voting power. He's just going to officiate the actual appeal, right? So we get him. And then what you do is you kind of look out over the landscape metaphorically of the of the motorsports industry.

And you try to find people that you think have strong character and that really have no favorite in the game, right? But understand it. Yeah, but they understand it. So we got Bonsas who works in the late model ranks with pros and supers and has been around the garage and industry for a long time. Freddie Quarry, who was running tech and had a role with ASA and has been a driver for years. Very accomplished. Raced forever. And has been around short track racing and cars for a long, long time.

And Jefferson Hodges has actually worked here at Junior Motorsports before, but he's now with Penske Racing as a GM over there. But he comes from short track racing. He drove, you know, he worked on cars for us and for Rick Townsend. and just a well-respected individual throughout the industry. So those are the three people that we asked if they would, and we had a list and we asked them. They were the first three we asked.

They said, yes. And so I'm like, man, I called Doug, and I said, Doug, I'm glad you're getting to file this appeal. I think we put together a panel that you're going to really like. And, you know, by all means, like put your case together and come forward with all the evidence that you think you got. And we'll see what they decide. And this is an interesting situation to begin.

So when I watched the race, going back to the actual penalty, in my mind, I thought, and I still think that Doug intentionally crashed another driver, okay? And so the precedent from the past has always been a one-race suspension. Mini Tirel was equally aggressive, but he didn't intentionally crash Doug. So I couldn't suspend many a full race. Maybe we could have, but what should have happened in the moment, Doug should have, Doug and Minnie, obviously, I think, should have been parked in the middle of the race. Like, after the incident, guys go to the garage, don't come back.

Yeah. That's what should have happened. It didn't. We didn't do a good job there. That's where the series itself made a misstep. Post race, we decided, okay, this guy intentionally crashed. somebody what have we done in the past every time in the past we have suspended the guy for a race we're losing a little bit of our races they're getting wilder they're getting rougher we're trying to cramp down on that clamp down on that we're trying to get the attention to the drivers

that's not going to be something that fixes itself overnight so we felt like we had to react here what had happened in the past guys have been suspended a race so that's what we did we made the announcement that we're doing it got a lot of pushback people don't understand it but they're not running a series. They don't understand the integrity that we're trying to maintain and all those things. So Doug's upset, really mad,

because he feels like he got the $1.00 into the deal. His car's destroyed, and he's the one getting suspended for a race while he thinks many was just as guilty. Understood. So Doug wants to appeal. By all means, Doug, file your appeal. We're going to put together a panel.

I trust this panel. Whatever they decide is good with me. And so, Doug goes to the appeal. They heard his point for about an hour, and then Kip goes in first for the series to explain the series' his point of view. Then the driver or the team comes in,

and then they may ask somebody to come back in. But eventually they deliberated for a couple hours and decided to change the penalty. Doug will not be allowed to go to the open practice on Thursday. he will not be allowed to practice on Friday, but he can show up Saturday. There's two 20-minute practices that morning. He can show up Saturday,

practice and qualify and race at Nashville. So that was the change to the penalty that the appeals panel decided. And that's what they do, man. What do you think, you know, how to Doug, what do you think? Doug seemed to, you know, I talked to Doug after the appeal. I said, hey, I said, I'm glad he got hurt.

heard. I feel good about the panel's decision. I already did, but I didn't even know what their decision would be, but I knew we put the right people in there. This is what they came back with. And I asked Doug, I said, hey, is there anything we can do better? Did you like the process? We've only done a couple of appeals in our series. Is there something that was good, not good? And he's like, man, it was really professional. I enjoyed it. It was good deal. Did they say why they? They did not want to. That's what I was wondering.

So this is what I've been told through multiple people. I've not spoke directly to the appeals panel or any of the individuals. I did text them all and thank them for their time because they volunteered their time to do it. And they got to do. But I was like, hey, thank y'all for doing this. I really appreciate it. And what I was told from Kip after he was done and heard everything that he heard, they wanted the penalty to still have some teeth because they don't want the drivers driving that rough.

but they didn't want to take away Doug's opportunity to run a marquee event like Nashville and Doug is in the middle of a season long points battle Doug wants to be a part of the car's tour Doug wants to be a good representative of the tour and he has been. Yeah. And so they did challenge Doug at the end of the day

to be the veteran in the room, to be the guy that's setting a better example for the younger drivers, not a guy that's diving in to the same shenanigans that we're seeing out of some of the other drivers in the field. And so I thought that was great, good for Doug. I'm sure he learned a lot from this. We certainly do.

Every opportunity we get as a series, we learn a lot. And Wake was a big, you know, Wake was, as frustrating as Wake was as a series, you know, we got to come out of there better. We got to look back and reflect and come out of there better, and I feel like we have. Nashville will be a good week. him. We're going in there Thursday and Friday to practice, and then we'll have a little bit of

practice on Saturday. And honestly, I told Doug this too, he's got enough connections in the series that I think that even though he's not going to get to practice on Thursday and Friday, there'll be some information that he can benefit from that guys are going to learn to be able to hit the ground on Saturday and be in the ballpark and still have a productive weekend, even though he's not going to get to practice Friday and Thursday. So, yeah, that's kind of how that went down. We live and learn and we move on. Do you, as an owner, Want to know, though, why they change the appeal so that you can adjudicate things better going forward? Well, I'll say this.

If the same, if I think a guy intentionally wrecks another car, I'm going to give him a one-race suspension tomorrow. I'm not, I mean, my precedent for that type of deal is the one-race suspension. mention. And I feel like that with the way our guys are racing and how we're knocking the rocker panels and the noses and the tails off of these cars all through the field. At Wake, if we had 30 cars on the racetrack, all 30 of them suffered some damage of some kind. And that's unacceptable.

So I think, yeah, we need to be tougher. We need to be tighter. We need to start drawing some attention to some of the rough driving and try to steer our series back in a better direction. And so, if I think a guy intentionally crashes somebody, I'm going to give him a one race suspension. Do you park them that race if you see it? If it happens in the middle of the race, yes.

The ones that have, sometimes it happens after the race, right? Sometimes, like Carson Quaple was doored for third spot or second spot at Tri-County and turned three and four in the last lap and crossed the finish line and wrecked kid in term one. And he got a one race suspension. We didn't even think about appealing it. Jack called me, who owned a series at the time and said, hey, man, I got to put you guy out for a week.

I hate doing it, but I got to. I'm like, you got it, man, no problem. And so we got, we, we set out. Josh Perry wrecked Bobby McCarty at Ace in the middle of the race. Bobby wrecked Josh in turn three, and Josh waited and turned us, turned him around on the front straightway. And Josh pulled in and parked and said, all right, I'm done.

And they called us that week and said, hey, you got to sit out a race. So Josh stopped his car after he wrecked Bobby and pulled him, you know, parked his car. And then still got suspended a race. And we didn't appeal to that. We're like, yep, understood. We know what we did. And we're going to pay the fine.

So that's the precedent for me is if that happens tomorrow, I'm penalizing the guy a race. If they want to appeal it, by all means they can appeal it. We've got to figure out how to get our series to race a little cleaner. And I'm not going to, yeah, I think that's the way to do it, is to keep the penalties harsh and trying to keep drawing attention to. This is what happens if you get in the middle of this stuff. I agree.

So going back to Rockingham, there's a you know after a great successful weekend a lot of questions around should the cup series go to that race track um you know i don't know i think it would be a good race i'd love to see the cup series back at rockingham yeah i don't think any of us knew in 2004 that we were running our last cup race there i think you're packing the place if cup goes there by i mean it's i think you're going to pack it yeah like no doubt and i do think think one thing I like about Rockingham that is the entry of the corners is really tight. Like when you're side by side with somebody, it makes racing you're going into a funnel kind of. And I mean, there's going to be contact at times, especially when we got, like, that's what it's close racing.

You got guys that are going to be really good on the bottom. And you're going to have, you're going to have guys that are good up top. And I don't see how a cup car doesn't move around there with the right, you know, Goodyear's been doing a great job, bringing tires. so I don't see, I think the race would be pretty good. Yeah. I think it would be pretty fun. Yeah. You know, you can go some places in the atmosphere just feels right.

It tracks like you just, it feels like that there. Okay. Like it's just, you feel like you're supposed to be there. Supposed to be there. Well. I know that's weird, but. No, it isn't. It isn't.

You know, I just feel like there's still part of me that's kind of annoyed that we left in the first place. You know, but I'm trying to, you know, get. over that shit. You know, just like, it's kind of like, this falls into the bucket with like full season points and all that. And I'm just so exhausted with. Yeah, why will we ever leave there to begin with?

I know. I don't want to kind of beat this dead horse or rehash all of the hurt feelings over all that, you know. But, yeah, I mean, I would love for us to go back there. But there seems to be a battle, I think, NASCAR is kind of having within itself as, you know, at the top, the executive level of, man, you know, we got this core fan base that loves Rockingham, loves full season points, loves all these things that are very traditional and connected to the history of the sport. but we also have doors opening to us that weren't open before. Like racing in San Diego is a great example.

The Chicago Street Course. Like those were not doors that were open 15 years ago. Oh my gosh. But now there's all types of opportunities and cities that are like, hey, come on over here, come do this. What can we, how can we have a NASCAR race? Where should we? You know, and so nobody's building any new race tracks, you know, and so they're like, well,

let's figure this out. It's racing a stadium. Let's race on the streets. Let's race here. Let's race there. And so NASCAR has all these shiny new things and all these people that want to, want to have conversations. And they look over here and go, yeah, rocking ham, that's cool.

but you know we did that so they're in a tough spot you know of deciding because there's not enough dates there's not enough days in the year there's not enough there ain't enough calendar for all of it and so something has to something has to go yeah you know I mean it's kind of a I mean that's kind of a good problem to have at some point you got a lot of places to go right well it's good problem unless you're the places that gets left out. And you got these contracts where these tracks already have probably have agreements for, so it's like how do you remove? Yeah.

Well, I think that the agreements have shortened up to where they're one to three years. I don't know that they're that adhered to like they were in the past. The schedule is much more malleable and changeable than it has ever been. And so, and NASCAR wants that. They want the opportunity to act fast, you know, if something, if an opportunity pops up, they want to be able to make that change and fit it in and shoehorn that in. You know, I think it's a simple solution that actually might take some time, though, is to dial back some of the double dates.

You know, that's what's kind of happened in the sport already is a lot of tracks that had two races has been dialed back to one. We've seen that be a success for a lot of race tracks. And so, you know, maybe there is another venue or, two on the schedule that goes from two to one races a year to be able to add on, you know, tack on this new opportunity or this old Rockingham. NASCAR looks at the geographical footprint a lot, I'm sure, and says, where are we racing? Do we need to race another event in the state of North Carolina instead of going over here

where we are nowhere, you know, where we have no race, right? Not no races within a state or two. They're going to go for that new opportunity every time. But, you know, there's some racetracks that, you know, the O'Reilly series goes to that I'm like, why, you know, I don't want to single anybody out, but there's a couple of racetracks that we go to. I'm like, what are we doing here?

Why are we at this, you know, Cups never going to come here? why are we here? But it's way out of way. There's a couple of them. Yes. And, you know, I think it's, I think having the Xfinity series, or I'm sorry, the rally series and the truck series at Rockingham is a really great compromise. If we can't be there with Cup, maybe we can get there one day, you know.

And maybe it's an all-star event, just like North Wiltsboro. Maybe it's the, maybe our way back is through that kind of an avenue of having an exhibition there. of some sort. Where would you, if you could pull a second race from somewhere and put it at Rocking? I'd have to look at the schedule. I mean, you got Phoenix, Vegas, Talladega, Bristol. I would pull a Phoenix. Yeah, I'd pull a Phoenix.

Do we need to go to Phoenix twice? No. I mean, yeah. But NASCAR's going to go, whoa. We can't take one out of the market of the West Coast. What? We already lost an auto club and. Yeah.

And do we do that sling. You kind of do the West Coast. Coast Sweting together when you go to Vegas, but... Yeah. But... I don't know. I mean, I'm not... I think Phoenix is evolving, but...

I'm not a big... Phoenix was really great. Then they... Then they changed this configuration. I'm not a big fan of, you know, how they drive across the apron. It was a really, really awesome, badass racetrack that didn't need to be changed.

But we've seen that. Not only at Phoenix, at other places as well. Yeah, I don't know. I don't want to do the what-ifs or where, you know, I don't want to on any old racetracks. I know. I got, I like all of them.

Yeah. But. Well, I don't know how they're going to get it into the schedule, but maybe it's the same route that Wilkesboro took. And I think fans would be perfectly fine with that. Corey Heim is leading the truck series points. but he is not eligible for the playoffs. So he's got three starts in this series.

The rest of the field, all the other regulars have five. He's got two wins, three top fives and three top tens. Caden Honeycutt is second points with three top fives, three top tens. Corey Heim is, he's actually tied. with Caden in total points at $1.90 a piece. But he has a tiebreaker due to the wins. What's the problem? He's ineligible for the truck to chase.

So the question I think is, should there be an eligibility restriction? Now that we have the point system that we have, should we open it back up and be like, hey man, you know, you don't have to, you don't have, right now drivers have to declare for a series. And maybe we don't do that anymore. Maybe we just say, yeah, you don't have to declare.

Just let them run if they want to run? Yeah, if you have enough starts, you get enough points and you make the playoffs, you make playoffs. If you're good enough to race, let's say half the races, but have more points. I don't care, yeah, fine. What do you think, though, should it be limited where, like, non-cup guys, It's like if a cup driver drops down and dominates, though. Do you have an issue with that? I do.

So I think it should be non-cup drivers that are eligible for O'Reilly and trucks. I agree with you. I think that the... That doesn't have much. Sorry? That doesn't happen much when you say that to Travis. Yeah. Me agreeing with him.

Did you hear that Twitter? Well, I think that you're... This is definitely something that NASCAR could probably just do away with and nobody really care. And I don't know why it's really, I don't know why it's in place right now, but I don't mind the intermingling between the truck and O'Reilly series at all.

But I do love how we have divided the Cup Series driver from these two series. Like they can take part, they can come play, but that's the extent of it. That is healthy. That restriction is healthy. is healthy for our team. That restriction is healthy for all full-time O'Reilly teams.

We do love when the cup racers come run in the O'Reilly series because more people watch. But we do not love when a cup guy can win the championship in the O'Reilly series because then he comes down and wins 12 races. 12 races that I need to win, that other teams that race, running the series full-time need to win. That eats in our budget and changes our business model. So I'll be flat out honest.

When NASCAR restricted the cup drivers and the Brad Kislauskys and Carl Edwards and all those drivers that were trying to win championships now in the O'Reilly series, when they couldn't do that anymore, our business model improved significantly. Now our teams are winning more races. We're finishing higher on an average weekend because we're not finishing behind cup drivers. And so at the end of the day, our bottom line is better.

And we're a more profitable operation. And so I would love for that to not change. But I think that the O'Reilly and the trucks is a different beast altogether. Like I don't mind a truck guy running with us every week. He can run double duty. He can try to win the championship. in both, fine.

Hell, we'll employ a guy. Drive one of our damn cars if it works out, right? You know, because I think that both, I think that drivers are in the O'Reilly and the truck series for the same reasons. They're trying to get experience. They're trying to get racecraft and do the same thing. So I don't see them vastly different.

Whereas at the cup level, yeah, I don't want to, I don't want a major league. dropping down to the minors every night to pitch and try to help this minor league team win a title right when he's overqualified and needs to stay in the major leagues right yeah yeah like if connor went and raced a full like it's yeah lebron ain't playing in the g league you know on his off nights yeah but yeah i i think they need to let kory hyme what did he declare for is he for truck i thought he declared yeah but he still not eligible.

The other argument, there's another difference of opinion. There are some people out there that feel like that the O'Reilly series and the truck series are not feeder series. They're not minor league. Yes, there are. So that's a whole other debate. So the trucks. What do you think, Travis?

Here's the story. Here's what I believe the truth is on that. The truck series was developed for two. The truck series was developed for one single reason to sell trucks, right? For the truck manufacturers in the world would have an outlet to race their product and sell it. It's perfect when it started, too. That was the reason. There's not another reason.

It wasn't set up. It wasn't a series established for veterans, like, you know, guys that had kind of on the tail end of their cup careers or whatever. Now, that's who came in to race these trucks. But there was also a guy named Mike Skinner, right, or Jay Thawter, a couple of the guys that were trying to get up to the top ranking. The truck series was developed to market and sell trucks. And so that a Chevy or a Ford could go, yeah, our truck's the best truck. Look at that truck race. It also presented opportunities for guys like Skinner, like Hornaday, to race, right?

To finally get opportunity in the NASCAR ranks to race. We also saw a lot of veterans like Musgrave come down and have success in the series. A lot of drivers, Todd Bodine. Yeah, we saw a lot of veterans come down and racing the race in the series. the truck series, but that was not the reason the truck series was created. It wasn't created as a playground for veterans. It happened to be a great place where veterans did find an opportunity to make a living outside of the Cup Series because there was not any more Cup opportunities,

but they found opportunity to make a living, racing, full time. if the truck series didn't exist, if the O'Reilly series didn't exist, and you were a cup racer that had lost his opportunity, you were f***ed. Because you've got this house, you've got land, you've got this family,

you've got all these things, and now you've got a downsize because your quality of your life and your lifestyle has tremendously been altered. But you were allowed to go down into the Raleigh or the truck series and continue to make a living, to continue, you know, the lifestyle that you had. And so that was great.

Now, the O'Reilly series, let's talk about that. The O'Reilly series is born out of the sportsman car series that raced in the late 70s. They finally formed into a true series in 1982 with a championship schedule and a championship fund. And since then, it has been called multiple names, the Bush series, the nationwide series, the Xfinity series, but that series was basically, I guess, what the Cars Tour is today. So in the 70s and early 80s, it's basically like taking the Cars Tour as it is today and developing it further into a national series that would race on larger tracks, be at more companion events with the NASCAR Big Brother. and so they took it from the South Boston's, the Kingsports, the Carraways, they took that series, those sportsmen series that it was, they took it, it only ran

at Daytona and Charlotte on big tracks, maybe Rockingham, but mostly they raced at all the local short tracks in the southeast. Well, it developed into a series that would race more companion events and become what it is today as we recognize it. Now, it was full of local, now in the 70s when the series was developed, it was full of Sam Ards, Jack Ingrams, and these were seasoned, weathered, short track, dominant aces. These were guys that could race at any of your local short tracks and come in and kick your ass, and they'd been doing it for years.

but as it started to become more of a companion race for the cup guys on the weekends you started seeing some of the younger guys come in that were trying to get recognized and notice for that cup opportunity and so the original identity of both the trucks and the O'Reilly series are far different

from what we know today but what what they've transformed into is absolutely your minor league, your AAA, your AA, your AA, single A. It is, that is what those series, that is what they serve at this point in time. You can go down there as Justin Allgaier, you can race in the O'Reilly series as a guy like that and make a living. And that's awesome, and I love that.

And we need veterans at every level. We got veterans in the cars tour that are career cars tour guys. there's guys that race South Boston on a weekly schedule that are veterans and been there forever and you're going to have them and need them at every point, every level. But the truck series and the O'Reilly series are absolutely where our young guys are going to put the final polishes on that race craft

before they finally get up to the cup level. And it needs to serve that purpose. It needs to be serving that purpose. It's healthy for the series to be looked at as a place where you've got to drop in. You've got to drop in and serve a couple years. I support all that. Matthew Dillner, our great friend, is not a believer. Yeah, he feels like that the truck series and the, I'm not singling out, Matt.

He is a person like many. that feel like that the O'Reilly series is its own thing. Yeah. It's not less than. It is over here, cups over here, and trucks over here. It's not below. It's not this ladder. Yeah.

Weird. I get his point. And it's a point that many people share. But I don't know. I feel like that over the course of mul, I mean, we're talking about all this, you know, the trucks that you started in the mid-90s, a rally series kind of started officially.

in 82. That's a lot of years of a lot of evolution and changing and molding and shifting, pivoting. You know, the identity has absolutely changed of those series from what they originally were. And so, but I love that, man, they've got Rockingham and Cup doesn't. So, you know, they've got a couple racetracks that they go to where they're the headliner. Yeah. I would like to see them put IRP back on there or ORP. Freaking A right.

That'd be awesome. I would love to see O'Reilly go to South Boston. Oh, yeah. Dude, in South Boston is primed and ready for an O'Reilly race. Are you kidding me? It would be great. It is a badass, racy little racetrack, and they're doing some great things over there with their, you know, regional racing.

and that track has always had a solid, solid foundation. They've got a lot of great people over there right now that are getting the best out of it, as we all hope. And it's kind of this standard setter for what regional racing should be, can be, around the southeast at least for a lot of our tracks that are still operating in this sort of Mid-Atlantic region. And so, you know, I think you'd see a pretty awesome race there if you took the O'Reilly series there.

Maybe the trucks. I don't know. I'd rather see the O'Reilly series there myself. I think you'd take them together. Yeah. I agree. Yeah, sure. Why not?

Do you have live pit stops? You don't have to. I mean, I would be fine sacrificing something as trivial as pit stops for them to be there, actually racing there. Let these guys show who's truly the best driver. But they have a long pit road to you. They do. Oh, yeah. They have, really, they have two sides.

Honestly, there's a front and a back. Yeah, they have enough stalls. Yeah. But it would probably be best to do no lifestyle. I mean, you could do 150 and 150, couldn't you? Mm-hmm. That's what the trucks used to do all the time. Yeah, line them up, go.

And then you'll find out who the true best driver is and not losing spots on pit road, and they're the best driver out there that day. 150 laps is a decent long run there. Yes, sir. I think that'd be great. There's a lot of laps. That'd be fun. It would be.

Wait a minute now. You're talking about get rid of the stages? No. It just did. Yeah. It's just get rid of some stages. And actually, you know, make sense. You could get rid of the stage.

I mean, you don't have to get rid of the stage. I love it. I love, TJ, say it with the chest. You could, you could pay the stage points. Just keep on racing. Yeah. Have a halfway break at 150. Yeah.

You give you stage points. I don't know. Give the stage those at $100 and $200 and $300. I don't know. I don't throw yellow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine with that.

What an idea. Let's go. Start this weekend. Yeah. So me and T.J. are, we're card collectors. I would put myself in the novice casual. Oh, definitely. Both of this.

Right. Okay. I was collecting cards years ago. Didn't know shit about what I was doing. But I ended up keeping all my stuff and I got it all back out and now I'm deep into this again. and I don't know about it and it is quite

it has changed oh it's a big way different they got a language they got like they got a whole glossary that you need to learn in the next couple of weeks

I want to get a car guy here to interview and see if we can you know learn some of the things that we need to know about doing this well but what I wanted to talk about I had this whole list of questions

we're going to try to get somebody in here today we're going to do it next week I suppose about you know just some unwritten rules about card collecting and when do you get your cards graded and all that bull's shit. But one of the things I wanted to ask the guy is this. And you got some explaining to do. Me?

Yeah. So I, and look, I don't know the real answer here. So maybe there's something I learned and you're, you know, about this. But I said, I'm going to bring a box of cards in here and open them up. And I sat down on the table and I opened up this box of cards and I gave you eight packs and I kept eight we opened them and you took your eight packs home and I took my eightbacks home all right I went over to your house you're like come on over let's open some cards I go over to your house and we opened up a box of football cards and I had the cards in front of me and I said hey man

you want me to see what these are worth and you go I'm gonna check the values on them later oh you could have taken them and looked at you why didn't you say I wouldn't take them and looked at them like when I haven't looked at them again yet the but what is the code. Like if you're going to rip packs with your buddies and you toss your buddy a pack and he rips it. Do you take the cards back? Well, I mean. Was it because there was a good Drake May in there? It's like if you buy a scratch off or someone at Christmas and that hits, they get, they, if they want to share the wealth winning, but they, it's theirs to keep. So if you, if you give one to T.J. It's his vice for, you know. I gave a scratch off to a very good friend of

mine this weekend and he won 350 bucks. So he keeps it. Yeah. I mean, I would say, I would probably give you right a refusal if you want. Or first of all, when you got your cars, that box also, didn't they give you that box? Does it matter where the box came from? It doesn't matter how he procured it. No. If a company sends me 10 boxes for free and I give him five, they're his. In my opinion, they're his.

That's not his problem. I got one box. Well, I would give it, if I had 10 boxes. boxes of cards, I would share and probably give you half and whatever you get. Where's this 10 number come from? I'm just saying it could be five. If I give you two boxes? It was one box. Well, now we're making it 10 boxes? I had one box.

Well, I'm just saying whatever, if someone gives you something and you're like, here you go, man, you can have half or whatever. I would give you half and whatever you get, you get. Yeah. All right. I wanted to ask this guy. I was like, what's the code? Because people sit down and they rip boxes together. Yeah. And

I go over, you know, I went over and get my hair at the barbershop the other day, and a guy was in there with a case of cards, and he was showing me what he had, and he just was like, here, here, you can have this Cal Ripkin. I'm like, really? Just have it?

He's like, yeah. I'm like, I feel like I don't have any. I didn't bring any. I know, yeah. What do you give back? Yeah, what do you do? I'm learning. Like, I don't really know.

I don't really know what the etiquette is. I mean, there's a lot of, like, like, hey, you said, so I said, what do you live? looking for. You're like, I ain't Bill's players. And you know I'm a commander's guy, right? And so I pull, I open all these baseball cards and I pull like eight or so bills players and set them off to the side. Amy's like, what are you doing with them? I'm like, I'm going to give them to TJ when I see and I come over here. Here's your bills phrase. Yeah. Well, I mean, well, that started, I gave, I mean,

I gave you that Jane, I didn't even think about it. I'm like, I'm going to give you that Jane Daniels rookie because I'm not Jaden Daniels, a guy. You are and I wanted you to have it. Which I thought was a pretty nice. That was very nice. Like gift, already graded and everything too. Already graded. I forgot about that. Yeah, wow.

You're welcome. All right. So what we need to learn from our card guy that we're going to get on here next week is, like when you're ripping packs with friends, is it, what's the packs they ripped is theirs to keep? Are they ripping packs for you?

I mean, I really don't know. I got a lot of questions. We'll find out. Hey, this is Dale Hart Jr. And for all the latest Dale Jr. download gear, including the I'm old drink some beer t-shirt that we've been talking about here around the office head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch. All right, we got this race weekend's winner in the O'Reilly Series at Rockingham, William Swalich.

William, how's it going, man? Hey, man, I'm doing good. How are you? Yeah, well, we're excited to talk to you because, you know, you've won this past weekend, a big deal winning your first race in the O'Reilly series. You've been working at this a long time, racing in super late models and pros and all types of stuff over the years. And I've had the opportunity to watch you kind of progress through the ranks. Had a tough year last year.

You know, I guess the first question out of the gate, you know, as you're going through this past season, you know, how you've always been used to running well, getting in everything and going to the front and running up front. How did last year teach you to be prepared, I guess, for the future and how to move forward? Yeah, it was definitely a bit of a change, obviously, moving up to the O'Reilly series last year. The field is a lot denser, you know. There's a lot more opportunities for things to go wrong. And we just, I honestly couldn't get the little things right last year. So I think I learned that for this year and everything, every little thing adds up in a race.

and I would usually, you know, take a bad race with me to the next weekend, so I learned to, you know, forget that and just focus on this week and the positives. And it was really just a mindset thing, I think, and not that Rockingham was really any different heading in. We just had a good car in practice, and that just boosted the confidence, and I knew we had a race-winning car, so we had to capitalize. Well, you certainly did. You know, is that race is, or that, well, the weekends playing out. You talked about how you, you know, you felt about the car.

You know, is that race is playing out, you know, where, where's your headspace? I know when I was younger and even later in my career, you know, we get in those situations where you feel like you've got the race-winning car and you're kind of wondering what's going to happen to take that out of your hands or what's going to change in the race out of your control that's going to, you know, you're going to lose control of the race. Where was your mindset, you know, as you're running out those laps toward the finish? Yeah, so we led those last 60 laps to the finish.

And almost every time I've led an archery race, there's always been a late race caution. So I was just praying for that to not happen. But once you take the white, it's just a sigh of relief and you know you got it. But honestly, it was pretty calm out front for me. I'm comfortable leading races, and I'm able to get in a better rhythm. And we were so good on the short run that I could build. such a big gap that all I had to do was match lap times with Brandon or Brent behind me, my teammates. So my guys definitely brought me a car good enough to, you know, make it easy on me.

So all I had to do is really not mess up too bad and we had it. Yeah. The, you know, the process of becoming a race car driver is not something that happens overnight. And I, you're very young still. you know, 19 years old. And I think we get so, we've kind of normalized having somebody your age in the O'Reilly series, and we expect results right out of the gate. I think that, you know, there's been multiple examples of really great race car drivers

that needed their time. Joe Ligano, William Byron are two examples that stand out to me. And I feel like that, you know, we put a ton of pressure on guys like you when you get these opportunities to start delivering results. You know, kind of, I'm sure you've had a lot of people in your ears, helpful, you know, helpful support, supportive conversations around being patient and allowing your racecraft to come to you and allowing yourself to develop. Who have been the people, I guess, who's been in your corner,

teaching you patience, waiting on, you know, waiting on your, you know, your, style and your racecraft in the Raleigh series to develop. Yeah, for sure. I mean, obviously all my sponsors and everybody here at JGR coach, my team, obviously, my crew chief, Jeff Menring, everyone was just super supportive last year on just being patient and letting me learn. And it's just, it's tough as a young driver being compared to, you know, other drivers that find success really early.

you know I just kept reminding myself that I need time and I need to learn the hard way and when you don't find success early it's definitely easy to get down on yourself and then you know winning last weekend and rocking him it's like okay I can do this and I knew I could do this the whole time so it's just a good little reminder of I guess why I'm here yeah for sure I think there's a lot of excitement around you there was you know coming into the Riley series, a lot of attention on you. And with this win, it sort of reignited everybody's, you know, expectations and hope for your future.

What are you doing on the side in terms of physical fitness and things like that to try to develop, you know, you're driving longer races as you want to progress into the Cup Series, I'm sure, one day trying to find, you know, how was that, I guess, out of the gate getting into these races, running longer races? I know you've ran some different, you know, super late model races and, and, you know, so forth that are 300, 400 laps throughout the year. But how have you physically had to change or improve to get to where you can race today? Yeah.

So the longest race I've ran, I think, before an O'Reilly series race is the Winchester 400, the All-American 400, Red Bud. So those are super late model races. And when I was that young, I had no muscle, no fat. So I would just burn right through everything and then sweat it out. But now I've put on a lot more muscle. I've been weight training. You know, I run sometimes, but honestly, I just do like high rep weight training.

And that honestly suits me really well. And I've got to put a weight of vest on. I put sweats on to simulate some of the heat. But once it starts to get like really hot out in the summer, you know, I'll do workouts outside. Yeah. So what is, is that something that you're, is that direction you're getting and help you're getting through, through Joe Gibbs Racing?

Who's, who's sort of, you know, who's responsible, I suppose, for making sure you're in the gym every day besides yourself? Yeah, well, definitely myself. I feel like physical preparation for me is something I focus on, like, heavily. I feel like it's super important. And Kevin Harvick, he's always told me, you know, if you're very, physically prepared, then you don't have to really worry about anything else. Like, if your neck goes out in the car and that starts getting tired, then that's all you're thinking about. But I've got a trainer, his name's Chris, and, you know, we just go to the gym. You know, I tell them how I felt the past weekend

in the car, and then if anything, if I'm, if I was a little tired in some areas, then, you know, we'll go to work on it. Being a younger guy, how much, how much sim work do you rely on? How, how connected to the sim you are? Every driver is a little bit different in terms of their opinion of the sim and how much they use it. How would you describe that as a tool for you? Yeah, so we do about five hours a week, two sessions, two and a half hours each. And I started off really liking the sim. I still really like the sim, but it's a little finicky at sometimes. You know, if we don't tune their tire correctly and then you go into the weekend and it's completely off, then it kind of screws everything up. But we've been working really hard on

tuning the tire correctly and getting that dialed in for the next race. We did a good job to tuning the tires for last year, so every race this year has been really close. I think that's why we've had some more speed out of the gate is because it's more similar when we roll off in practice. But it's as close as you can get. I really wish we had testing, but obviously the sim is all we've gotten. We just have to rely on it. Talk about your teammates at JGR. A lot of young guys, but you got Jones the veteran in there.

How do you lean on them? Who do you get along with? How helpful are they throughout this process? Yeah, I mean, I can get along with anybody. I don't really have a lot of friends in the sport. Like, I don't, you know, go around, and I'm not searching for friends that I compete against, because I don't really think there's a point. you're going to get into it with them at some time.

But Brandon, I definitely rely on. He's a good veteran. Obviously a great guy. You know, if I'm struggling with something in practice, I'll go talk to him. He usually is able to explain stuff to me better than the others. And my crew chief, Jeff Menring, has worked with Brandon for many years in the O'Reilly series. So we can always, you know, have a good connection through that. Awesome, ma'am.

Well, hey, we appreciate your time this morning. Congratulations on the win. I'm sure one of many, many more as you go through this process. Look forward to racing against you and with you throughout the season. I've enjoyed getting to know you over the years. And I kind of pull for you success, man, even though you're running under the Toyota banner with JGR and we're trying to win a championship and battle against you.

I love seeing you do well out there, man. All right. Thank you so much. Best of luck to you guys, too. You bet, buddy. Congrats. Hey, everybody. Dale Jr.

And we are here for the Asch Jr. segment of the show. And with me, as always, is my co-host, TJ Majors. How are you doing, TJ? Hey, how's it going? Yeah, out of breath there. I know. I just run outside to sign some autographs. Somebody brought a show car over here that I told them that I'd take care of.

And so... Did you sign the wing? Sign the dash. But we want everybody to know. Thank you for tuning in, for one. and we also want you to know about Xfinity. They're waving the red flag on internet price hikes and the green flag for savings. And you can get speed and the Wi-Fi that you need all locked in one price for five years.

No surprises, no late yellows. Just a straight shot of victory lane, just like we like it. We've got a winner in Xfinity. Imagine that. They are a great partner here. I've actually got the chat pulled up. for the first time in a long time. So I'm kind of following along with everybody.

So we'll, yeah, we'll get right to it. So we've had a good show. We've got Rodney Childers to come in and give us his rundown on how the season's going as part of Junior Mertis Sports. We talked to William Swallets, who won his first O'Reilly race this weekend. We talk a little Cleodagh at McFarland. We talk about Cup going to Rockingham,

Corey Hine being eligible as the leader in the points in the truck series ineligible for the playoffs. Yeah, so we had a lot of great conversation. I hope you'll tune in when the show is released later today, but let's get right to your questions. So we were talking about trading cards a little bit ago, and somebody wanted to know,

what is something you purchased and a day later you said that was dumb? Have you had any purchases? We were like, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, the, I'm sure that there's been dumber things that I've done for sure. But one of my regrets was an automobile. I bought a Calloway Corvette.

Calloway is a great brand that built, they'd take corvettes, and they would build a new Corvette every year, and it would have ground effects, and just kind of they changed the whole body and style of the car. And I bought a used Calloway Corvette, and man I I didn't drive it a lot and a buddy of mine laid his motorcycle on it he was he had a like a Suzuki or something like a nice motorcycle and he parked it in front of the car and laid it on accidentally laid it on the nose of the Calvo Corvette

it is he was he was also a body repair man, so he fixed it. But not that that really mattered. But I just remember that being part of the story of the car. Eventually, I just was like, I don't love this car, don't like it, I don't want it, don't need it. This was dumb. I shouldn't have bought it. And I got nowhere near the money out of it that I put into it.

And so, lesson learned. And I'll be quite honest. There's not a lot of things that I buy. that they're going to always appreciate, but I've gotten, let me be a little more selective, I think. So, you know, there's always going to be, we were talking about cards earlier,

and I think in the card game, like you want to be smart if you're buying singles, you want to buy the card at a reasonable price for sure. But again, I think what an expert, if we ask the question, right, hey, what should we pay for a card? Like, what is the, like, is it 20% over, 20, you know, 10% below value?

What do we pay comparable to the value of the card? And they're probably always going to say, how bad do you want it? You know, is it a favorite player? Is it a favorite team? Is it a favorite moment? And that's really, yeah, that's kind of the answer. If you, like I like specific players, right? So I'm going to learn about a specific card that that player has that's really a great, you know,

salt after card. And I'm going to want it, right? and now what am I willing to pay to get it? And that's the value of the card. Because what I have learned is, and I think this is probably true to anything, the value of it is what the last person paid for it. So if you look at the card apps, they're just basically pulling purchases off of eBay.

So the car has been sold six times in the last year on eBay, and here's all the things, and they've averaged that. That's it. It's pretty good, though. Yeah, but the value is what you're willing to pay for. That's what happens with the land, too. So, like, you know, you got an acre of property down the road from you that's available. And you think it, you know, you think price range, you know, the price range average of an acre of land around your area is 12.5 or, you know, 30,000, whatever, right?

Well, if somebody pays 45,000 now, that's what that's worth. That's a $45,000 piece of land. And so it raises. a little bit of the value of everything around you because somebody paid this much for that something very comparable down the road. So, TJ, you got any dumb purchases? Yeah, all the time. Not really bad, though.

I've probably overpaid for a couple of Josh Allen cars, but like you said, how bad do you want them? You got a couple for free, though. I did get a couple commons probably. But yeah, now they're... Got a common. I gave him some Josh Allen cars. Allen's just common.

Just boring old common cards. He's just unthankful. You were talking about last week the rocket launch. This person wants to know if you had the opportunity, would you get in a rocket to go to the moon? So, oh, man. We were watching last night, them going around the backside of the moon. Yeah.

And I was trying to tell somebody they were, I was like, man, this is the ultimate daredevil stunt. you know like you you see people do stunts and you're like you know man i don't have the guts to do that um but like this is the biggest just is the biggest jump right yeah so oh man i probably have to really consider it in your my to be quite transparent about this right the first thing you're going to think about and you might not understand this Travis but the first thing you think you think about is like am I willing, you know, I'm leaving my family

I'm leaving behind everything I know and if this doesn't go well you know, it just change everything but so you got to weigh the risk but I think it's you have to do it. That's what I think. You have to do it. Just to be in that up there like this.

You know one of the other things that I thought about this was you have to do it but I wonder what so all of in this room. And I'm pretty confident to say this. Every single one of us in this room

at some point in that trip are going to have a nervous freaking breakdown. Probably early. Right? At some point you're going to go yeah, okay, I'm ready for this ride to end. Get me out of here. And it's it doesn't end until it ends, right?

You ain't getting off. How long are they gone? Ten days. But they're now at deck four and a half. halfway through. So that would be the thing that I would probably be most worried about. And I wonder how, I mean, this is probably a dumb question, but I wonder how they prepare them and how they mentally train, right, to stay top of mind, to stay plugged in, to stay, you know,

almost robotic about the whole process. because now listening to them describe what they're seeing you can hear you can see they're like taken aback they're like man I'm the guy last night he's like we're on the back side of the moon he's like I wish I could really find the words to tell y'all what this is like but I don't have them that's pretty cool though he's like I do not have the ability he's like we are not equipped with the ability to describe to you what we are feeling and seeing which was really compelling to hear And so it makes me badly wish that I too could see that, right, or experience that. But do I have the, would I lose my shit at some point?

You know, right? Would we, wouldn't we? Might we all? Probably. What do you do? What do they do? I mean, they got tasks. I think they're working.

Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, what can you possibly work on all day? They're doing, I don't know, dude. They're just doing stuff. Yeah, I don't think they're up there just like. There was one moment where they were like, they changed the pressure inside the cabin just, you know, there's a test. They were like, they like, you know, did a few things just to be able to, you know,

be able to control the atmosphere inside the cabin and make sure all those things work the way they're supposed to work because that's something that's going to have to happen as they go down into the atmosphere of the moon or whatever, right? You know, you know, they have to have ability to change the pressure in the cabin and all that. I imagine. Yeah. So think about that, right?

That's probably what they're doing. they're doing all of these things that they know are going to have to work perfectly on the next flight. And they're doing some things that aren't necessary today or necessary for this particular flight, but they know they're going to be needed and used when they take the next flight, right? So they're testing all of this capabilities of this capsule. And so I think that would, you know, that would keep you busy. But the other thing, too, is the reentry right in the atmosphere, all of those things. things, right, there's a lot of very challenging moments still ahead. How do they compartmentalize,

right, and not worry or think forward. How, you know, I don't know, man. I would, I'm a very emotional kind of person with that kind of stuff. So like, you know, I'm in racing and so forth. It's heavy. It's, you know, it's, it's, you know, the pre race, the post race, all those things are, are really big moments, big emotional moments. And so, I don't know, I wouldn't, I would, I would, I would, I would need tons of training, right, to be in just this robotic state of just doing my work, not getting caught up in the... I wonder if it would be hard to quit watching out the window. That would be, like, yeah, they're telling them, they're like, all right, y'all, don't forget to change.

Don't forget to, like, let someone else get, you know, don't forget to change windows. And then, you know, some folks come away from the windows and they go to work and the other swap out, right? it's the way they're describing it so yeah like you would if you're seeing something that you can't even describe right you can't even like put words to it you wouldn't want to take your eyes off of it they say they're um seeing impacts on the moon like they're watching that's wild stuff hit it yeah really yeah they're sitting there like hey we're watching them flash impacts of things that are landing on the surface of the moon and i'm sure they've seen things like what was that out there.

I mean, who knows? They did. They did. The guy, they were like, you know, there's this burning red sort of orb, and they're like, well, that's probably Mars, and maybe you're seeing this and seeing that. And so, I don't know, man, they, it's, I love it. It's fascinating. And it's exciting.

I can't wait to continue to follow their trip back. Yeah. And through. Get their thoughts, too, when they come back. Yeah. entry into the atmosphere and all that stuff, how challenging that is for the spacecraft. This thing, one of the things that I didn't get an answer for that I was, so there's this, there's a camera that's on the outside of the capsule and it's showing the capsule, right?

And there's all these things flying by. And it looks like moths, right? It looks like what moths might look like when they're flying around the light. But they're coming by this thing and you're like, what the hell is that? You know, is that like debris space stuff? what is it stuff? Just what is that? It's flying by.

And how is that not, you know, what is that stuff and what is it doing? I don't know. There's a bunch of stuff flying by the capsule in this one clip of one particular shot. Yeah. It's weird. Do you believe in aliens?

That's a big question. I feel like that if, look, if space is infinite, And we are here. Sure there's others. Surely. There is absolutely there.

I would say if, you know, if I was a betting man, I would bet 1,000% that I put all the money on the fact that there's definitely other life forms out there, what they look like, what shape they take, all that. I don't know, you know. I mean, but there has, there is got to be more. multiple instances of scenarios where life could exist, right, in terms of temperature, water, and all the things that need to be in that sort of equation. And there might be a hundred more Earths that we don't even know about. Yeah, thousands. If the alien delegation sent someone here to Earth,

who would you nominate from the human race to meet and be that person to start? Probably you. Oh, my gosh. Probably Travis. Who would I Yeah, pick one Nominate to Oh man

That's in like Matthew McConaughey Really? Matthew McConae? Yeah Yeah Can you imagine? Yeah But I mean There's a potential

That could go wrong Oh yeah That's what I was thinking You don't want to lose Somebody That's why we're not sending you You don't want to lose Your first string

You're a guy So you kind of got to send Somebody that's capable But at the same time If they were just to disappear instantly. Someone in the chat said, Ward Burton. Honestly, Ward would probably be on the council.

Because he's a man of the, he knows what's up with the, you know. Snake catcher. Aliens like, come again? What'd you say? Yeah. Ward would definitely be on my council ahead of agriculture. All right. Next question comes from the chat.

What's underrated, when underrated or overlooked paint scheme, you'd like to see a die cast of. Mine would be Schrader's Red Baron car. A car that needs to be a diecast. Or one that you don't have that you want. Yeah, I've got a little list. There's some, I will say this, man. There's some cars that are diecast that could have been better.

There's the mold. Oh, yeah. The Monte Carlo SS mold, dad, you know, there's a lot of customs and there's a bunch of cars that they made for dad on the Monte Carlo SS, so like 86, 87. That mold is kind of strange to me. The nose turns down past the, you know, over the top of the front tires, the nose bends over. I don't know.

They've gotten so good these days, like scanning cars and making the actual car, like the ones that sit here on this desk, they look, to me, like everything's in the right place. Yeah, they're pretty accurate. Yeah. They're not out of proportion or disproportioned or something's funky. But it's a lot of the older stuff. Like a lot of the Buick, like the 81 Buick stuff, they got a Mark Martin, a Richard Petty. Those things were really high.

Like these cars here, they're kind of all sitting pretty close to race heights, right? Yeah, the rear is a little high. They're a little high, but like some of the stuff they made in the past just, like I literally, I've got, I had to Mark Martin, 1981 Buick. Mark Martin car, and then I had the people, I had a couple of the 1981-ish Buicks. I had a Richard Petty and a Mark Martin, and then the number two, Stacy car, and I take the damn front, I take the front springs out of the front. I take them apart, a couple screws, and I take the damn springs out, so they'll sit lower.

So they're a little closer to the right height. I can't stand to look at them when they're like that. But there's stuff like that that I'm just kind of particular about. Will you get a host of ours throwback from this year? if they make it? Yeah, I would take that. You know, I'm biased, so I'm going to tell you a couple that people are going to go, yeah, that doesn't move the needle for me, but Dad's Buick from the 1979 Daytona 500.

Somebody had to make that in a custom because they don't actually have a mold for that actual car. Yeah. I would love a set of Donnie Allison Kell Yarborough crashed versions from the 79. Daytona 500. That'd be neat. The two Osomobiles. Like, why don't they make that set and sell it? Of the two cars post-race.

AJ Foyt's 19, I think 84, Oldsmobile Cutlass. I don't know why. That was a beautiful car. All orange. Kind of orange. Poppy Red. Number 14.

I don't know, man. I like those. I got a long list. There's a lot of dad cars that I don't have that I wish they made. Mostly the Wrangler stuff. Like the Pontiac. So the car that Hosevar threw it back to, the 81 Pontiac Grand Prix,

like the cars that are available or were produced in the past of that specific model, it's not a good rendition of the car. Ride height's way too high, and it's just a funky looking, it doesn't look like a cup car. It looks like an actual street version, like they scanned the actual street car and put that body on there. All right, well, we have to wrap. Do you... Damn it.

Yeah, really? Why? What happened? Well, we got Russ here waiting. Yeah, he can wait another five minutes. Do you want to address the chat? About what? There's one thing they keep asking about.

What is it? Figgie. Figgie. Who's Figgie? I don't get it and I think it's dumb. You do. Yeah. What, damn?

Elijah does not. Yeah. He loves it. Yeah, so explain to everybody what's happened. I don't know how these things I don't get it I come out of nowhere I don't understand

Like it literally From what I could tell It literally came from a single tweet Or some Reddit post Post on Reddit There's the This mythical

Um Son Of dad Yeah That name Figgy That that exists I mean the internet Just having fun I guess

I don't know It's being goofy The internet's good internet Like I asked Tim I'm like, am I old? Am I missing something here? Look, I don't want to ruin this thing for them, because, I mean, they're having a lot of good,

they're having a good time with it. I don't think you can ruin it, can you? Well, if I just said it didn't exist and if I said, like Travis, this is dumb, it's done it. They'd be like, man, it doesn't. What an ass-ass. Did I get it, yeah. It doesn't exist.

Are you sure? No. I mean, I'm assuming. Well. Are you saying it does? No. I've done to genealogy. I know the answer.

Is he a Hall of Famer? He never raced, right? I'd say no. Yeah. It's interesting how those things kind of pop up. Pop up and, yeah, the Internet's undefeated. It's something. You want all, you want like things, the things that you want to take off like this, don't.

And then. Yeah, this does. This does. Yeah. We need more off weeks. No. No. Race on Easter.

Yeah, that was one take that you had. Take next week. Race on Easter, so you take next week off? Yeah. I think Easter, it's right. What's the, uh... It's ripe for sports. TV ratings.

Yeah, sports you play on holidays. People are hanging out. I'm not against drivers. I'll say, I was hanging out. I was at my fifth wheel in Texas with my family, Amy's family. And we took our fifth wheel up there and was sitting outside on Sunday. And I'm like, I feel like I'm supposed to be watching a race. Yeah.

What am I supposed to do? Even Saturday you were sitting around. around there hanging out. Well, we got to watch the race. Yeah, I know. And there was some basketball. Cornets are doing good. I wanted you to make sure you fell out there.

Hey, that was something that was on the notes that didn't make the show. Next segment. What segment? All right. You're talking about con? Yeah. Con for rookie to year. We have a betting segment.

Con for a rookie of the year. What is going on? Flag comes in and has a couple of good games. scores 51, 40, whatever. Scores like 85 points and two nights. And now they're like, yep, Rook of the Year. There it is. There's the guy flag. He's back.

And Kahn was like, Cooper Kahn. Cooper Kahn. I mean, Knoopal. Sorry. Khan Knoopal was the, like, 80% chance of winning the Rookie of the Year just a week ago or two weeks ago. And that was kind of the opinion for the most, the past couple of months, and Cooper Flagg comes in and has a couple of solid games.

I know he's done more than that this year, but he had these two monster games, and everybody's like, now there it is. Now he's like 75% chance of winning the rookie year. Man, they don't let Charlotte have nothing. They don't. They don't. Charlotte's going to make the playoffs this year. They might surprise somebody in that first round.

You don't want to have to play them. Hopefully they do. Yeah. They don't let us have nothing. I don't think that's accurate. You ain't even a Charlotte fan. He don't even care. I know he don't.

My bet Khan to win rookie of the year? Khan should be the rookie of the year. Ain't but like three games left. Nothing against Cooper Flagg, but, you know, Khan should be rookie year. I don't know. Any other way to say it. But we got a real shot at, like, upsetting somebody in the first round of the playoffs,

knocking off a high seed. When did they vote for their rookie of the year before the playoffs? My wife asked me that question, and I didn't even know. I don't know. I mean, imagine, I don't know. But it's frustrating because, like, Flag is finally healthy. He's playing amazing. He's doing everything that they all thought he would.

Yes, he's an amazing player. And he's the number one option on their team, where Con is kind of like in the middle of the, you know, Charlotte's got, you know, a different guy stepping up every night. Mm-hmm. And Conn's not had an incredible string of games of late. His last five games, I think, have just kind of been so-so. But he's, you know, they're playing games in such a way to win

to position themselves better in the playoffs and not just lighten up the scoreboard for him, you know. Yeah. So I don't know, man. Look, I'm not a fucking expert. NBA or basketball, but I've been following this this year, and damn, felt like Con had rookie the year wrapped up, and now it's the conversation or a debate,

and they're going to take it away from us. It was ours. We're trying to get Connoeple on the podcast. He said he had gladly to come on after the season's over there. So hopefully further down. Yeah. That'd be cool. Yeah.

Anyways, everybody, appreciate y'all tuning in. Glad we could address the Figgie. Earnhardt speculation and what a time to be alive when something like that can come out of nowhere and be a dominating discussion in our in our Ask Junior segment. But hopefully you'll check out the rest of the show. We've got a lot of great stuff for you. And thank you, Xfinity, for waving the red flag on the internet price hikes. You'll get great savings now.

You'll get the speed, reliable Wi-Fi that you need all at one price for five years. No yellows, no surprises. Straight to victory lane. Xfinity. Imagine that. We'll see you. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. Get your bets now, ladies and gentlemen. Get your bets. All right, everybody. It's time for the Dirty Mo Doze segment.

Presented to you by Fanduel. Fan Duel is a premier gaming destination in the United States and also here in the studio. With our group, we got Tim's on board today as well as Russ and we had an off week in the cup series everybody got a time to place bets elsewhere did anybody put any money on michigan to beat ukong last night i did but i got the spread so i got it was six and a half and he won by six yeah i was a sweater there and then uh was it a day mar or whatever the big dude for michigan i just needed two more points out of him and it was going to be a great night he almost had him at the

like he missed that little layup. It's an overinflated ball. I'm dead serious. Ask any of the teams they talked about the one time he dribbled and went above his head like the teams were talking about the basketballs in the tournament were overinflated.

It is sketchy that one way. They were just trying to avoid deflategate. Yeah. That one way they only made like one or two threes, both teams. It was really weird. Yeah. I think that's probably why

Kahn has been shooting so poorly here lately. Overinflated. the overinflated balls. They're being giving flag the deflated basketballs. Yeah, much better. And Kahn is getting the overinflated basketballs. I think I'm going to make a Kahn plus 170 rookie the year bet. I did.

He's plus 170 now. It's so, it's ridiculous. I agree with you. It's so ridiculous. It is stupid. So he was. And the voting for that is after the regular season, not playoffs. Okay.

Okay. So it's coming up. Yes. Yes. End of the regular season. So, So look, did you guys bet Corey Hime? Did not?

I don't bet on NASCAR. Same. I'm not allowed. I was talking to Tims. I'm not, no, I'm not allowed. Oh, of course I've been on Corey Hymes. The one bet I made all weekend. It's frustrating.

I mean, I know I shouldn't be allowed to bet, but you guys get to talk about it and actually make the bets. It's fun. Thanks. It's a great time. Please, tell me more. Yeah. I'll tell you what, though.

It wasn't fun when Honeycutt was right. running them down and you had a Corey Heim bet. I'm like, what a race at the end. Yeah. I was sitting there and I'm like, man, there's something going on. You have a flat or something? You had his right front tire going down? I don't know.

He had an issue. He definitely had some sort of issue. Yeah, it was crazy. I was like, oh, God, this is how it ends. It's always when you have the surefire bet that's going to happen. But he hung on. Well, not with me. Every time I make a shorefire bet, it wins.

It's ridiculous. Yes. Well, we got the Cup Series back. after a week off and they're going to Bristol. Vegas has Kyle Larson as the favorite at plus 400. Denny at plus 550. Man, that's interesting. I would take Denny over everybody at Bristol.

I mean, Denny has won there time and time again. Ryan Blaney at plus 650, Christopher Bell, 700, and William Byron at 1,000. What's the predictor saying, Russ? We're very close. Larson, Hamlin, Bell, And I have Blaney and Ty Gibbs. Ty Gibbs is really good there.

Yeah. So he'd be your sleeper pick here. What's he at for odds? He's plus 900 to win. Not the best. It sucks. I know. Yeah.

Well, it's better than Byron. Who's plus 1,000. Yeah, I would pick Gibbs over Byron. Yeah, me too. Tims, do you think it's, do you take Denny over Larson here? I do. I'm not sure if it really matters, but I'm kind of nervous. about Hendricks performance so far this year.

I know Chase just won Martinsville, but I think that I think Denny and Gibbs are just running better. So I'll take Denny. Plus he's not the overall favorite, so I like that a little bit better. Yeah. And he dominates here. What do you think, TJ? Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to go against Denny

at Bristol and I think Larson's really fast as well. And to me, if Denny can get his car working around the bottom more, he seems to find more success, I think, when he can do that. um, Larson is a groove move up

slinging around the high side that's he's really hard to beat when it turns into that but I definitely think I don't know Bell's been really good here recently as well I think

but I mean all these guys to me are the top four Larson, Denny Blaney and Bell would be I think they're all about even to me yeah I um you know I think that Bristol

adds some challenges for drivers, just a very, very difficult racetrack, tight, anything can happen, a lot of opportunities for things out of their control to take them out of the race, much less out of the lead. So, yeah, I mean, I feel like that in those type of situations, I trust Denny Hamlin, race manager he's good at just kind of not making the little mistakes

one of the best it just sort of letting the race sort of come into his lap and it's very consistent yeah I mean he's just it's just gonna I just feel like Larson is going to be

I would give Larson the opportunity to be faster and to go out and actually outperformed Denny in parts of the races but so they're gonna I don't know I think They're probably going to spray the track, too.

So that... Well, they... Is that unique? I mean, they do that every year. Yeah, but I mean, I think it makes the track goes through an evolution. You know, the grips on the bottom, grips up top. The bottom one and two, top three and four. Yeah, yeah.

One, the sleeper to me would be, like, I know it's been rough this year, but Stenhouse usually finds his way to be pretty decent here. Just an awesome top ten bet. Yeah. Every time you go to this racetrack. 100%. He's racing the truck race. It's going to have a little...

idea of what track's doing, how it's changing. I know they might continue to treat it throughout the weekend, but what's Stenhouse top 10? I think it's like plus 550. So that's that's that's that's that's a one that's automatic just yeah put a little bit on it because he's it's one of its best track probably. Yeah, he just knows how to stay in it here. What about hosavar top 10 bet?

I don't know man. I feel like that is a very 50-50 proposition man. He's it's a chaotic. sort of racetrack and sometimes that's perfect for him and sometimes that he falls into the chaos. He's been 11th way to put it. In the last five there. Yeah. You know,

I don't. I don't love him on a short track. He's a short track guy. I know, but I feel like it's an easy opportunity for guys to rough him up. No, no. I'm not worried about. I'm not worried about that.

That's what I think about. If he's 10th and the guy wants to move him for a 10th, he's moving him. my bet loses. I mean, I see what are Russell saying? What do you say three of the top, three top tens in the last five races? He's been 11th or better in three of the last five there. 11th are better.

Why would you have the last? Better than Stenhouse. Like Stenhouse has like one top ten there in the last six. Let me see what it is. But in the other ones where, the other ones are probably really low. Stenhouse in the next gen at Bristol isn't as good as Stenhouse in the Gen 6.

Correct. But if you look at betting odds, though, Stenhouse being plus 550 versus Hosevar being plus 135, it's probably worth it more to do Stenhouse and play the wrist than Hosef R get 11th. Yeah. I would roll it. I just feel like Stenhouse knows how to grind it out here and just stay in it all night. So. Yeah.

Who else is a, you know, that we haven't mentioned who's a sleeper? Oh, you guys going to love mine. I like Brad and I like Barry. Oh. Barry, I can see hanging around in the top 15. Top 10, he's plus 280, which I think is very, very undervalued from him. Brad, I like for sure. Brad for Brad for sure.

Brad's plus 120 for a top 10. That's good. I'd take that. Yeah. I'd take Brad and Hosevar and leave Stenhouse off. Okay. I talked them into it. T.J. don't screw us up if we bet Brad.

No promises. If you don't get a top 10, don't come back. Well, what about the Masters this weekend? It's getting ready to start up on Thursday. Oh, man. Lots of bets. Really? What are so, like, I rarely bet golf.

I don't even know. I do like, yeah, well, I had a little fun last year, I think, in a tournament of two, betting top 20s, but, you know, what are you guys? What are you bets? What are some of the bets you like to make? You got to do the top countries. You can do top regions. Top regions.

Top Nordic. Top Spaniard. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. It's the best. There's like three. Some of the countries have like three people in it. It's super easy.

Oh. I don't even know where to start with that. Easy's definitely a loose term. But it's fun. Yeah. I love to make or miss the cut to get like three or four golfers that you think are going to make it obviously. But Fandle has like a bet.

reset so like on the if you do a first round bet and he doesn't the bet doesn't hit it it'll reset for you kind of like a no sweat hmm that's nice yeah not bad um and i love i love the uh just the matchups like in a once they put the pairings out i got you so once the pairings come out you can this guy versus that guy yeah yeah kind of like what we used would do we'd have some pairing sometimes you just pick the guy yeah um but yeah i'm with tim so like so Tim's, Russ, Letartney will put together what we call

the United Nations Parlay. Each of us will pick a top region player and put it together for a big parlay and hope it hits. Russ, what's your thoughts? I go Hideki,

top Asian every every year. That's mine. You can't take it. He's good here too. Yeah, it's great. But like, Ludwig Oberg is going to be

one guy that I think is going to, I could have a good week. He's plus $1,700 to win. I like Ludwig as well. I don't know if I'm going to do to win, just because the odds of me guessing the correct person. He's just kind of like a machine. And I feel like that's kind of what you need to be at Augusta. Like just stay focused, not too high, not too low.

And he's kind of one of those guys. But I'm worried that he hasn't played there enough. And so it's like you need to really learn that course and know when to go for it. When we're to, you know, avoid the mistakes. Yeah. Well, the Dirty Mo Doe segment was brought to you by FanDuel. Thank you, Russ. Thank you, Tams, for coming through.

FanDuel, the premier gaming destination of the United States. All right, thank y'all for joining us in the Arby's studio, TJ. Great job today. Don't forget about Arby's new meat in three box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. Arbys, we have the meats. Check out Dirtymo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.