The Dale Jr. Download - Dale Jr Download LIVE From San Diego with Carson Hocevar

Episode Date: June 21, 2026

After what felt like the longest O'Reilly Series race of all-time, DJD was able to go live from San Diego for a great post-race show presented by Arby's and America's Navy. Dale, TJ and Freddie are joined by The Hurricane himself, Carson Hocevar, for the entirety of the show to talk about prepping on iRacing, Spire's standout performance, qualifying on the front row, and the unknowns of tire wear on the abrasive San Diego circuit. It was a late night but the gang brought the energy, so sit back and enjoy.  THE PODCASTS YOU LOVE. THE MERCH YOU NEED. Get it all here: https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/ Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. I'm still sour, man, that I wasn't your best man at your wedding. When will you start mentally, like, getting ready for the race? Can you not tell I'm mentally ready? What kind of question is that? What do you mean? What kind of question is it? Am I mentally prepared? Probably go watch last year's race there or a recent race.

Oh. And just kind of see how they race and how they drive. That's just what I call preparing. Travis has some dumb ideas, but I agree with them on this one. This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half. Yes, this is more fun. Doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about. You haven't scratched the surface yet, there, boy.

I forgot what a wild menace I was. Well, I would agree with you, but then we would both be wrong. I mean, what the fuck do you won't? I just think the last few laps, it was just like stop every time. You're picky. This ain't walking in and have it your way, mother-b-b-bid. All right, this ain't Burger King. Travis is like, you're about this.

They don't have no fun around here. Finally. Man, this is, we've been waiting around to get this started with that O'Reilly race going so long. Thank you all for being patient. Thank you all for hanging out and still being here tonight. So this is another episode of the Dale Jenner download of special edition here in San Diego. And I want to thank Arby's and obviously the Navy. Arvies and the American Navy are partnering together to bring this show to you guys.

and I don't know if y'all have tried the new Arby's Angus cheese steak I tried one today Arby's has got an activation somewhere on the backside of the racetrack I've been over there a couple times and the cheese steak is pretty damn good and if you're interested in opportunities with the Navy visit navy.com to start that journey I've worked with the Navy for years they've sponsored race cars for junior motorsports years ago and so take that take that very seriously and it was great relationship that we have with them. I want to mention on stage with me is T.J. Majors, Freddie Kraft, and Carson Hosevar, the Hurricane. We're very, very thankful to have T.J. Freddie and Carson with us. Those guys all have full-time jobs, and they've volunteered their

time to be with us tonight. And we just had a pretty action-packed O'Reilly race. And we're at the new racetrack. I mean, there's a lot to talk about with that. Not sure exactly where to begin, but I think I'm a little bit concerned for tomorrow. I expect the cup guys to keep it a little cleaner for sure. They make way less mistakes. But I don't know judging off of the truck race and the O'Reilly race. I don't know that we anticipated how long these events are going to take to conclude. What do you guys expect for tomorrow? Yeah, I think the biggest thing, it's not so much that everybody's making mistakes. It's just the cleanup time.

You know, like every time somebody hits a wall, it's a 15, 20-minute process because we've got to put the wall back in place or put all the tire back, tire bundles back in place. So I think that's the biggest thing we're seeing is that's what's taking the time. Obviously, we knew coming in the lap time

is going to be long. But I think they're doing a great job with keeping it as tight as possible on getting pit road open quickly, doing the shoes as soon as we pit. They're doing a great job with that. It's just. Every caution is a quickie yellow.

So, and which I think it's interesting too because I was sitting on a pick box today and I realized how different that makes it for strategy and pick calls and crew cheese. Like, you know, we're trying to think about, man, we should come in here and get gas. You know, top it off. You don't get that choice to do that anymore because we're going to go around there and pick the choose and start the race. You know, we're going to go to a quick yellow as soon as we can. So, yeah, we had a pothole issue, man cover, whatever, you know, and it damaged the 17 car on the racetrack today. We didn't really have any big issues in the truck race in terms of that. But I'll be honest with you.

I'm not that surprised, not that too concerned about it. I think it's a brand new road course. I think I was expecting to have some sort of a manhole, man cover issue figuratively. That was on your list, manhole cover. Figuratively, like there was going. going to be a problem. Something. Something that didn't go exactly right.

I'm just glad it wasn't me. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. I mean, what you? I thought that was you that climbed the fence and got that autograph earlier. No, I'm not, I'm not that coordinated. I could barely walk. What was funny is that there's a guy that jumped a fence, a fan that jumped the fence into the

racetrack. Did y'all see that? Okay. So everyone, I was somebody's like, that's my cousin. I was wondering if the world saw that. So everybody saw it. And it was funny because they kept. the camera on the guy. And I think that was a way to kind of catch you.

Yeah. If I make sure he didn't get away. It was like the chopper, the police chase. He was trying to blend into the crowd for a minute. Then he went to a porter john for a while. And they followed him. And he's like, it's terrible. This is probably a bad place to hide. I'll get out of here. A little privacy, do you. I mean, if there was ever a racetrack for a fan to do that and get caught, this would not be the one I would want to do it at. He needed a spotter because all he had to do is take his shirt and hat off and nobody would have recognized him. I don't know what he was thinking. were all shouting to him into the television. Change your clothes.

That's what you were saying. How they handled the 17 getting his laps back? That's a great question. So it's pretty unprecedented where the damage happens to his car. It's because of an oversight or something that NASCAR was unable to predict, which is, I knew, again, I knew or expected there to be some issue that would be problematic. And I was going to be okay with that. This is such a project, such a heavy lift, such a, you know, it's just there's going to be unforeseen circumstances.

And when it happened, I was like, well, that sucks for him. But, you know, and darn, you know, I'm sure they thought they had all those band covers welded down. I walked to track. You've walked to track. I mean, we saw there's a lot of welding and extra things that were done to the street and the road and the surface of the road. They'll have to undo a lot of that once we're leaving here on Sunday tomorrow. So there was a lot of work that went in to make sure the track wouldn't, wouldn't, grew up. And when it happened, I was like, damn, that sucks for him. But I make, you know, let him fix it.

Fine. But then it comes, he, well, this is what was funny. So he gets his car fix. We're under red flag. And he pulls up to get ready to leave pit road and they held him like they would hold anybody under red flag. You're not allowed to go into the racetrack. Well, then he goes out there and they let him get his laps back. I'm like, what the hell do they hold him for? If they want to give him his last back, because under red, just let him go get him while we're sitting there on the backstretch, waiting on the track, get fixed, right? Or whatever, right? But I've never seen that in my life. Only time I've ever seen it is online. My question is, no, it's happened. It's happened one time I think. Yeah. When there, Charlotte. The cable fell. Kyle. Kyle Busch his car. I remember that and I thought about that today,

but I didn't know if they allowed him to get all his laps back and allowed him to get his spot back and all that. I don't think he lost the, I think the red came out quick and he didn't lose. He didn't lose a lap. He just fixed. He just had damage. And they didn't even, they couldn't even really repair the damage well enough, right, to not have it affect his night. That's crazy that I don't count that one. I don't count. My question is how many laps? Like, if he had to go to the garage and, like, was 22 laps down, would they have let

him get his house? I told, I told Tyler Maugh on the spotter, I said, once you get done making up all your four laps, it took us another three-lapse caution. I said, pull in the garage and tell him the thing's wrecked. We're not going to. It felt like an online race with your buddies. Yeah, just waving people by. Hey, yeah, clear my, clear my black.

Did I get away by? I'm four laps down, man. Hold the one to go. I texted Parker Kligerman because he was sitting there talking about it. I said keep the high side clear. Yeah. Yeah, that was interesting. You know, I don't know that it bothers me all that bad.

It didn't really affect the outcome of the event or outcome of the race. Hey, Carson. Hi, Carson. Where is he? He's waving back there. Oh, Izzy. I see him. There he is.

He's a good sport for everything that he went through today. I was heartbroken heartbroken to see what happened to Carson and I don't know that have ever been a bigger Austin Hill fan on those last two lapses. Yeah. I was very happy to see Austin Hill Big Country, very happy for Big Country.

Pull the win off. I didn't think I'd ever say that. Good job, Austin. Yeah. So, you know, it was getting back to the racetrack and all that and him getting his last back. I don't really think it bothers me that bad because it didn't alter the race or, you know, if he gets his lap back and now he's got some sort of unusual advantage to his car or whatever because of that, I don't know.

You've seen that happen before, but I don't, the only problem is, is like it sets a, it sets a precedent. You know, what qualifies? Where's the line? Because you remember Jeff Gordon with the damage at Martinsville, the concrete coming up? Yeah, that's what I was bringing up. Like, we've had pieces of the track come up and hurt cars. Jamie had concrete come up at Dover and knocked him into the wall.

Of course, he probably wouldn't have been able to continue anyways. I saw Danny mentioned when they all wrecked it, New Hampshire, when it was raining. That's happened multiple times. Well, that was Danny. That was okay. Yeah. I don't know. I think.

Watch for Travis. I feel like considering this event, how important it is, how big of a deal it is, how hard NASCAR is trying to make it work, I can understand why they made a decision they made. If this happened at a racetrack that we'd been running at for years. Yeah, it wouldn't happen. They wouldn't have let him, allowed him. to get his laps back. But let's move on to the end of the race. You know, it was a battle toward the end.

Carson's car was struggling a little bit on drive. And Taylor Gray's closing the gap and putting the pressure on, and they ran side by side for two or three corners. And you always know, as you're watching something like that happening, or if you've ever been in that situation, every corner that each driver doesn't sort of complete the pass, it's boiling over. And somebody's going to do something that they're, you know,

They're not normally going to do, and that happened to be Taylor in this moment. And not Carson out of the way. I was proud of Carson to get his car going so he could finish fourth. But, man, I was boiling mad there for a little while over that. Because Carson hasn't won a race yet, you know. And he was doing everything right, and he's worked hard to be in that position. So now you're sitting there telling the guy, well, we're going to go to Sonoma. You're going to have to race against SVG and Connor Zillich in your own cars,

so you might have to wait to Chicago or some other racetrack to have a shot at it. he's the guy that needs to win now. Yeah. I haven't seen it, so I just, on the way down, I'd listen to TJ bitch about it from here to that spotter stand over there. But, you know, the thing that caught me was I felt like Taylor was running him down for the last two laps before that, and it just seemed like the first opportunity he had that happened.

You know, I would like to see him maybe, you know, try to work a pass there for a little bit longer. Again, I haven't seen it, so I don't know how bad it was or wasn't. But, you know, it felt like as soon as he got there, that happened almost. Yeah, for me. me like you know as conservative as I am yeah you're mr. the where where I felt like that was coming from though is like the bias right and so when con or Carson got next to him and passed him he kind of like got right in front of him and you could see Taylor like you kind of jerk his hands and stuff and so when I was like man like

that was a little like you would think something I've already happened do you know what I mean I was like man I wonder if he thought it was dirtier than it was when he crossed him So that's the only thing I got out of it was I was like, man, like, there's probably that bias of like, this son of a, you know, just come slide across my nose, you know. Little history or something. They do have a little history. A little history, a little history. A little history, but. But it didn't seem like that.

Yeah. It was warranted. I, you know, Arby's is a new partner of ours at Dirty Mo Media and Junior Murder Fort. And we had a really, I thought, one of the best, if not, possibly the best paint schemes I've seen in a really long time on Sammy's car. Sammy was able to battle back. And, hey, you hear these fans, they've seen it. Sammy had a good day. Sammy had a good day.

Sammy did. Ended up fifth. He was not having a good day for a while. He was not. But as things go in these racetracks, you know, these new racetracks or new things we try, they're chaotic. And if you kind of battle and battle all day long, you still might have an opportunity. And he pulled one out. But the race car, just brilliant.

You know, I'm in the designs. I've always loved to be a part of designing my own cars. And I've studied the designs of race cars for decades. and have my favorites and all that. And just when you think that everything's been done or everything's been tried or what new kind of approach somebody could take, our guy, Ryan Williams, designs a car.

We were at the naval base. He designs a car around vintage Navy tattoos, right? And so, like all of the, yeah, it's just the coolest shit. And so I was super pumped about it when the car came out. And I'm, you know, I get to see it first, before anyone else gets to see it. And I'm like, damn, this thing looks good.

I hope everybody appreciates it the way I do. I'm a little biased because it's coming out of my shop and it's my guys that are designing this stuff. But I don't know how we're ever going. I mean, just when you think you've seen everything. The fire suit. The fire suit is interesting. I didn't see the fire suit.

Well, it's all meat. Yeah. I think that came out of Atlanta. It's all Arby's roast beef. Oh, you've seen it. It was in Atlanta. Atlanta was the first race. Every driver that drives the Arby's car.

There's a roast beef fire suit. It's something. If Freddie were to race, that'd be the great. That'd be his sponsor. I thought my race suits were wild, and then I saw that one. I was like, all right. Well, I'm not. What to do?

There's an extreme there. They're taking it. Yeah. Different wild racuits are more common these days than they used to be. It used to be so predictable. And now, yeah, like Denny's from the other week. Yeah. Yeah.

When he wins, the minions. The minions. Yeah. But, again, guys. guys, there's an activation over here. It's badass. Obviously, if you just look around, you see all kinds of awesome activation at this racetrack and NASCAR and everybody's done an incredible job. But over on the other side of the racetrack, the Arby's activation is there all weekend. I went over there this morning and I mashed a button and opened up a big giant box and confetti came out and there was the

cheese steak. And so they were giving away free. Freddy's dream. They were giving away cheese steaks over there all weekend. So if you want to get over there and check it out, it's amazing. And it's also available at participating U.S. locations while supplies last. Prices may vary, get your new Arby's cheese steak delivered or at an Arby's near you. It's really freaking good. So Carson, I got a little bit of an announcement for you guys. Next week, Carson's going to be a special guest on one of our shows, or a special host, actually.

on one of our shows on Dirty Mo Media. We don't want to give it all away right here, but you might want to follow Dirtymoe Media's social handles to figure out what Carson is going to be doing for us next week. I'm super excited about it. The one thing I need to ask you, Carson, about prepping for this racetrack. No one's ever seen it before.

I think that makes prep incredibly important. I've asked a dozen people this question, how much time in the simulator or on Rye Racing did you spend trying to get ready for this track and knowing this place as well as possible. Yeah, for me, it was Monday at like, you know, like 7 o'clock, the track switchover per the week. And I think I've ran almost every truck race,

which I felt like was probably a little bit more accurate than the cup car on I racing. But I've spent a lot more hours than laps completed by far, you know, running into everything and every. But, you know, I was racing, and Shane was in like three in a row C-Fix. Yeah, SVG was in like three in a row. And so I texted him and everything, and all of a sudden he called me in the Discord and everything. And we started running Miata's and all these other cars running into each other and everything.

And we'd host races. And then we'd be like, we're in trouble. This kid that has like a 600 eye ratings faster than both of us. But it was fun. You know, luckily it worked out. I texted him right after. I was like, hey, thanks for the ira racing right after qualified. Yeah.

So you almost matched. Yeah, almost matched. So I was happy about that. Yeah. Shane runs some random stuff on iRacing. Like we were in the Coliseum and then Miados one time and it was ugly, but it was fun. Yeah, I mean, it's fun. It's weird what combos you could come up with.

But there was, like, it was funny. Like the Miata's, because I racing was like 12, 14 seconds too fast. But the miatas on cold tires was probably the most accurate that we had to like actually the cup car. So we were texting about that. I was like, hey, how's your car drive? He's like, not good. I was like, well, same. And he's like, yeah, it's like the cold tires we had.

And we wrecked a lot of virtual meados on that game. You talked about qualifying. You essentially screwed up the first turn in qualifying. How hard does you have to get your composure back and then go and lay that lap down to be on the front road? Yeah. Tell what happened there. So, you know, you get to come off pit road and you come off pit road and you see turn two. So you get to see every corner, but you go green before the last chican.

So you get to see everything but the last chican. And so I'm rolled through there. Well, they changed it all. like all the tire barriers and everything. They were all gray and stuff, and now they're orange. And so, like, I shift down, get to second gear, roll through it. And I see the tire bundle, and I'm like, I under drove this, like, a lot. So I roll off the brake pedal.

I didn't realize the tire barrier was the second tire barrier on the far side of the chican. So all of a sudden, like, I'm lined up to hit this first tire barrier. So I turn left, go too fast, miss it. So then I kind of hustle. I hustle through 16. I hustle through one. And then, like, I'm, like, wound up. and like I could feel my hands moving really fast.

And I was like, I just got to stop. Like, I got to relax. And so I was happy like that like I kind of did the self talk a little bit, relaxed, put together just a smooth lap and just focused on not overdriving. And then they were like, yeah, second. And I was like, happy about that. So I was, but ultimately it was going to be really easy for me to like overdrive and worry and feel like I got to go get everything back.

But we focused on just like. trying not to overstep because you'll hit the barrier too hard, but also, too, like, the more you overdrive here, the more it catches you off guard and your lap time's just going to be slow anyways. Yeah, I've been watching your season. We've got just, I think, 10 races to go before the chase begins, which is insane that we're already that far into it. But you and your teammate, Daniel Sorriers, are both in the top 10 in points.

When the season began, I mean, I know everybody's optimistic, but come on. I mean, we've watched Spire sort of make this incredible meteoric climb from the very, very depths of the series into a very comparable competitive team. But even with that said, I don't know that any of us would have ever had you in the top 10, much less two of the cars from the same organization in the top 10. I know you're thrilled about that,

but what was the outlook at the start of the season? Yeah, I mean, every year, you know, for three years, I've been in the off-season, you know, pre-pump-up meetings when you have the whole company right here and you have Jeff Dickerson on stage and he's just like, yeah, we're going to do it. You know, we hired, we hired two more people this week. We're excited. We're ready to go. Like, it's like, man, yeah, that's cool. But, like, you know, eventually you're like, damn, if you're not like actually doing it, you're just kind of selling it to, you know, the investors or the PR people or the employees.

But, yeah, ultimately it's like been this year. It's like, you know, like we're finally like, right. and like on the right track and everything. But really like it's it's been really cool for me because a lot of the tracks we've been running really good at and everything has been like three years of development for for my side of it. And so that's been really fun. In the seven car, a lot of these tracks have been really similar setups to like me. So it's like been fun for, I mean, it's not fun for me because, you know, sometimes that used to be a spot.

But like it's like it's fun to, you know, see both of us running good and ultimately not have distractions of like, man, I don't know why this car is slow or, man, we're going to fire this guy, or we got to go hire these people and everything. That, you know, just the whole company is in a unison. So it's really cool to see and everything. And, you know, Sparks was my crew chief for the first time I drove a cup car. And it was, he was probably the happiest when I won Talladega. So it was super cool to see him, you know, get his first win with Daniel and everything.

Yeah. It's pretty impressive to see you guys. It's happened a couple times. Like I grew up in a, I grew up in the sport, and you kind of knew who was going to be good, what teams were going to be good, and those same teams were the teams every year. And we rarely, if at all, ever saw a new organization come in and just develop speed and become one of the elite teams. I guess Joe Gibbs would be one of those. I was around to kind of see them jump in and work really, really hard to become a threat. but as we've gotten in probably the last 15 or 20 years, that's been tougher to do.

No one really comes in here and starts something from the ground up and becomes a champion or a winning team. And sometimes it exhausts the entire organization entirely to do that, like Furniture Row, for example. Front Row is a team that gets in a – has little spells, right? but you always kind of wonder, man, is this real or is this just kind of a couple of weeks where they're putting it together and is it going to stick? But it seems like for you guys, it's legitimate and it's real. And I as a broadcaster have to start trying to tell myself to expect it, right? And that's kind of the fun part. It's a fun story for the – it was the same way with Furniture Row.

Man, when they started running good, you're like – Every week. This team used to be a joke. You know, look at this thing. You remember that car that Kenny Wallace drove at Martinsville where the freaking two foot up in the air? Yeah, I remember that. They were laughing stuff.

And they were in Colorado. Yeah, and it was a goofy-looking car, the design of it and all that. I know I'm talking shit, but, you know, I'm trying to get some. I'm a point here. Yeah. They ended up becoming a championship team, and it was like, holy cow, how did this happen? Like, and I don't think that, and I try to tell everybody. I'm like, I don't think we really appreciate what Spires had to do

and what they've accomplished, right, to, to, to, to, kind of, they were a team that would go to the racetrack without any sponsorship. They'd sell the entire car for $12,000. They'd race Darlington for the 400, and they might put two, they might put new tires on half as much as the rest of the competition. They'd have to stay out there and run around on old tires, and they had a goal of, like, well, today we're going to the racetrack and we're going to run 28th. That's what we're going to do.

We're going to run 28th. Man, if we run 29th, no good. but if we run 27, boy, that's a bonus. And that was it. They had these, like, very modest, like, hey, we're racing these four teams. We've got to beat these four teams. And it's the four teams in the back of the field. And they were all back there racing.

They had their own little race going on. And that was fascinating because we got to talk to Dickerson when that was actually going on. He was on the show. We're like, what's your business model? Why are you doing it this way? What's your objectives every week? Well, now they're a team that shows up and their goal is to win. And it's a legitimate goal.

It's a realistic goal. It's just, and I think we have such short-term memory, right? This has happened in just the last couple of years. It's really fascinating to me. I don't think it's something that's easy to do. So, T.J. RFK has had a bit of a struggle over the last couple of weeks. I know Brad's, you know, trying to get things on the right track, and I know you're part of that.

You're involved in all the meetings, and you and Brad are, I think of Steve's. and you just re-signed Busher, which I thought was a great deal. I mean, there was conversations around the garage like, dang, this guy might actually go somewhere else. I mean, it was, he was a, he was a, he was a, you know, a prospect. Hot commodity, yeah. Valuable. You know, I was like, where could he go? I don't know.

But you guys lock him down. But there's this kind of concern, I guess, going into the all season about where does the third charter come from? I guess we'll all learn about this in real time. kind of what is the what is the mentality of rfk going through the rest of the year i mean we're still just trying to put races together i mean we were from eighth in the points to i think i think we're out one right now right yeah so

just need to put races together i need to quit letting brag get run into and driving into stuff and are you going to take some ownership or you take us from responsibility whatever i mean wrecks a wreck it depends on now that freddie's sitting here i just know i need to get away from freddie i need to get away from freddie i need to get away from freddie We had a fun debate over the past week about Pocono between you two. Top Hard. He didn't like Top Hard.

He said kept digging go high, but he didn't like Top Hard. Keep digging. Go High. Keep digging. It's different than Top Hard. When you say Top, like, you like Top Hard. It's all I had to do was. All I had to kick the ball down the hill is just going to roll for another 30 minutes. It could roll for a long. It could roll for a longer than that.

Wait, who wrecked who? Yeah, it was a wreck. I don't know if you saw it. I saw the- 97 and whoever else. Yeah. Bubba commits top. The only way we're going to get through it is... So Bubba commits to the throttle, like full throttle.

Bubba commits to the top. And the only way we're going to get through it is to keep digging on the top because that was the only way? How'd that work? Well, I could have checked up and got wrecked like the guy behind me did, T.J., but I tried to go forward. The guy behind you was the three car and he followed us through. The guy behind me was the 88 who ended up wrecked. Three. Okay.

I mean, you want to pull up a good thing. I can. Yeah, I could. Go ahead. I've actually got it recorded. Anyway, so TJ gave me shit on the show because I said, top hard, then you cut the TJ's audio and he says, they're wrecking, keep

digging, go high. So I don't know, I guess, I don't know. Different drivers react differently to wrecks. And when Brad sees smoke or a wreck, Brad's... So, thank God he didn't listen to you. Probably so, I guess. Brad naturally,

Brad naturally starts hitting the break. And we, a lot of times it puts us in a bad worst spot, but... Which were I would have been in a worse spot if I hit the bridge. Well, you... Wasn't Brad in the middle? Yeah, we were fine. He was down the bottom.

But you said keep digging on the top? Go high. Well, when they were coming down, go high. Go high. They were coming down and I wanted to go around him, but he was already committed to the middle. Weird. Who would ever think that? Why would you want to go high?

I just, I don't like looking at your throttle trace and seeing wide open into a wreck. Because, TJ, the 22 hit us in the back bumper. That's the only way we were getting through that crash cleanly. So, of course, we had to move down a little bit to not run in the back of the 20, and that's what got us in the wreck. It worked well. The only way we were getting through that wreck. Obviously, it wasn't. Okay.

And the guy behind us got wrecked. We should have slowed down and let the 22 hit us harder. You're absolutely right. I apologize. You couldn't slow down the door to 22. I could have just, I could have just let him hit us in the nose instead of the tail. Go watch Austin Dillon.

Go pull up Austin Dillon's Mac's video. He drives right through the middle behind us. Are we still mad at Austin Dillon? He did it on purpose. I heard they have history, right? Yeah. Now, so listen to this at Michigan. Austin, correct your own purpose.

This was awesome. In Michigan, we're passing Joey, and Austin comes up behind us on the straightaway and shoves us by him, and I'm literally standing next to the three-spotter, and I was just looking at him, do we just become best friends? Like, it was like, and I text Austin afterwards, too, and we were laughing about it. But it's all fun. We'll race again next week. Yeah, Bushers' seventh in points.

To your point, your one out, Austin Cendrick is 16th, and you're 17th with Brad Kislauski. Some great tracks coming up, too, of course. All right. This one. Next. Next. Yeah.

Brad's not terrible on road course when he was driving the two cars. I was going to say what? Yeah. We've actually. When he was in the Miller two cars. We were top ten at Sonoma last year and something happened late. Probably got running by Freddy's car or something. I would guess probably.

So Freddie, your driver was pumping his fist after practice. I'm assuming because he didn't hit anything. Yeah. He was very excited after practice yesterday. And again, he said, he said, is that the end of practice? I said, yes. And he was, that was a celebration. And then qualifying, he was calling himself Bubba Hamilton.

So there's a good chance. Yeah, there's a good chance. We're going to be in the ocean at some point tomorrow. Carmen's coming. He's messing with you. Anytime he runs his mouth this much. Yeah, the universe. It happens.

He's pumped up, man. I mean, he did a great job. You know, and he, like the first half of the lab, I'm watching SMT up there. And I'm like, is he in there? Are we sure this is him? and then he kind of the second half of the lap he showed back up so he only got he was he was tracking like top six or five you know five or six and ended up 12 which is great for us and puts us in a position where we can race for stage points at the beginning and what's your confidence in road courses you got two in a row um you know listen he was when we were in the 43 car he was awful like run 30th to 35th and that was a good day um he blew like four motors of sonoma didn't yeah he's had some tough days but since you know 23 11 and

Reddick especially coming over there he's been a lot better you know much better I mean probably the most improved road course racer in the series I feel like and he's just you know it's I think it was a part he had a conversation with Scott Dixon before uh walkins glen a couple years ago and I think it clicked for him like this is actually hard for everybody like I think he just thought it was like everybody's out there cruising around and he's struggling and I think he when he realized like oh god everybody's on edge like I am like I think something clicked where okay no I'm not as bad as I think I am And he got a confidence.

And once you get confidence, you know, like, it's a little bit easier to make it happen. Yeah. Did your car drive good? No. You wait. You car didn't drive there. I mean, it's not easy to drive. I thought it was good and qualified.

But in practice, I was like, I'm in trouble. Like, the rears are gone instantly. Yeah. That's something that's fun to talk about. We showed up. And there's a lot of old, there's new asphalt, there's sealer, there's old. there's old asphalt, but there's some old concrete and some new concrete. And I think that's kind of the thing to play here.

I thought the new concrete was going to have a lot more grip. And I was really glad I watched the truck guys because like an iriscing like that last corner like 15 and 16 like it's like not even a corner. You just hold it wide open. You kind of roll through there. And then I was like, wait, where'd they wreck? And they're like 15, 16, you know, like 15, 14, whatever. And they're like, no, no, they like wrecked hard. And I was like, oh, that's not fun.

And so, like, I luckily, you know, they, I'm really glad Justin Marks drove the 707 because I think he wrecked that thing like five different times. So he must have got all the bad juju out of that thing. He wrecked one truck and then went back for more. Yeah, he wrecked his backup. Well, no, he wrecked his backup, knocked the spoiler off. They put it back and then he wrecked it again. The wear on the tire, the rear tires especially is a big concern. So we're watching practice and y'all run three or four laps.

SVG comes over the radio and says my rear tires are cooked and I'm like if his rear tires are cooked holy cow because he's really good at saving tires and making his tires really last but um and I don't think that the tire wear has improved a ton uh the tire itself is it putting it down put down a lot of rubber to allow that to improve um what's the prediction for tomorrow well for for our cars like it doesn't put down any rubber like at the end of practice it looked like an f1 track where like the rubber, like, is on both sides of the groove. Like, it's almost like a cheat sheet. I was happy about it because it looked like a driving line.

And I was like, perfect. I can figure this out pretty easily. But that's the thing that I don't think the tires are going to be any better because we're not putting down any rubber. They just shave and just kind of disintegrate into powder. Yeah. I know we have, like, every week we get a thing from our crew chiefs. And it's like a delta of where they think fall off.

You know, what's your fast lap is going to be, you know, approximate fall off. And the delta this week, the 20 lap delta of fall off. we were there at like lap three or four, I think. And it was like, okay, this is going to be a problem. Well, NASCAR decided to give the teams another set of tires tomorrow, and I think that'll make, you know, strategy and things a little bit more interesting. Do you know, I know we haven't ran enough practice probably to understand this, but can you put on a set of tires and make that work for you or in three, four laps,

are you just as bad as everybody else? Yeah, I don't know. I think you can. I think you're going to be, if you're the first car to the buffer cars, you're going to be able to get some ground. But it's just going to be, you don't want to be the buffer. Like, you know how that is. Like, you don't just want to be in that area. To me, it seems like it doesn't, like, fall off.

It's just the cliff. So if people are in that cliff, you're going to be way faster than them until you hit the cliff with them. So, like, you're going to have, like, a window to take advantage of it. And then you'll hit the cliff with them. And then your tires are just kind of just as cooked almost. Right. Yeah, I didn't. Nobody really did a long run, right?

I mean, I think ours were like six or seven lap two. or three, six, or seven lap runs. Is it a heat thing, you think? I don't know. I just think that just you run out of rubber. Like, eventually enough rubber is just on the, is just not even on the tire anymore. Was there something that you learned watching SBG's laps today or yesterday that in terms of what gear to be in?

Did you change things about how you, where you were in terms of what gear for what corner? Not, not anything he was doing. Like, Tyler was like, hey, they're doing this here and there. but realistically, I only watch my own in-car laps. I feel like it's just way better for me. I don't watch anybody else's in cars because a lot of times I'm like more so just worried about, like, you know, their car might not be able to,

you know, might be able to do something different than I can and everything. So I just try and like rewatch my own laps and then, you know, most of the time I'm like, oh, that corner look terrible and this and that. And I can kind of formulate my own kind of thoughts of my own car. That's kind of why I stick to a little bit.

or I just look at everybody else's in car and go, man, I don't know why I could do this, or why did they not do this? And then I start just having too much information. Like, as little information for me is the better. I know when we go to some road courses, you'll go out there and you have an understanding through the STEM on what gear you want to be in and what corner,

and then you go out there and you run some laps in the car, but there'll be a guy that's much faster, and you'll learn maybe he's running a different gear down this part of the racetrack, and I wasn't sure of some of the teams. I know SVG feels like he can't share, he doesn't want to share anything, you don't want nobody knowing anything, you don't want nobody following him around the racetrack or anything.

He's trying his hardest to, like, hold on to this advantage that he thinks he has. And he believes that our guys can truly learn all the things that he does, but the qualifying broadcast was funny. Did you notice, like, everybody was positioned behind him, just waiting for him to take off so they can try and follow him. Freaking Alex Bowman. The SVG pulls off pit road, and Alex Bowman's like, knifing through cars to get to his back bumper.

He's like, I'm saying with you all the way to this freaking green flag. I felt bad for the people that were like, they were like, I'm just going to go because of the time. And I realized they had like SVG behind them. I was like, oh, their laps destroyed. They got to decide if they want to race him or have to let him go. I was like, and like it was a full-bone mess. I was pumped.

I was like, man, Jimmy Johnson on the pole for a group A, 129. Yeah. It was sketchy looking. Coleman, C, Coleman, Presley said, Joey left pit road and he's like, all right where I want to be. I'm behind SVG and it was Connor. It was the other Red Bull car.

He's like, oh. Wrong car. Yeah. So we're at the Navy, at the Navy airport here and we're, yeah. We're at the Naval base. Naval base, yeah, sorry. I'm a little blame for it there.

The American Navy, every role matters. Every one of the partners on this show with us. Every role matters in the Navy in the mission to keeping America. America safe. There's over 150 jobs to choose from. You can be a part of the team that's making a difference every single day. We've been to meet so many of the members of the Navy that are working here or on the ship or on the on the carrier over there all over the all throughout the weekend. It's incredible to talk to them and ask them what their jobs are and what their

roles are and find out how important all their all their all their all the jobs are to the to the mission and to just getting things done every day. We were up. up in the aircraft carrier in the aircraft carrier in the steerage and they were worked they were actively trying to fix an issue with the controls they put a brand it's our steering wheel just like in a race car they put a brand new steering wheel on this boat this giant ship and

they're like yeah we put this wheel on here and it doesn't work we have we have redundancy there's multiple areas where you can actually control the ship and and we don't have redundancy It just works right here, but we've got to figure out why that. And so there were some servos and stuff that were messed up, and they were working on it for two days. And I was more interested in that than actually call in practice.

But I was like, man, I really kind of want to help you all figure this out. It's like some IT work. How big was the wheel? Just like a 14-inch steering wheel. Oh, like an MPI or something. Yeah. That's what Max needs to do next. What did you think it was like the big one where they just like sling it around?

with one. Stuff has all the knobs and stuff on slinging around. Well, whether you're flying aircraft, whether you're flying fighter jets or driving aircraft carriers, you do drive them. It's a steering wheel. Or you're embarking on classified special operation missions. Or you're just one of the mechanics who make things happen. Every job makes an impact in our nation.

If you want to learn more about that or the opportunity, what job might be right for you, visit navy.com today to start your journey. America's Navy Forged by the Sea That's their slogan As I said in the past With junior regressports We got to work with the Navy

For many many years I landed on a carrier one time Which was a lot of fun I don't know if you guys ever had the chance to do that Yeah me and Freddie turn it out all the time don't we TJ won the fly is why we were in this Rather large plane There was about 22 people on it

And I don't some of us might even been facing backwards But you can't see out of this particular plane. And so you don't know you're actually getting ready to land. You just kind of know you're descending a little bit. You're like, I don't really know what's coming next. And all of a sudden, it hooks that cord and comes to a complete stop and literally just a few feet. And it's, it's quite a ride. And they've got to be, I know this, that they have to kind of be wide open on the throttle when they hit that cable because if they actually miss it, they need to be able to take off. And so there's just a lot happening in that whole process.

I did the eye racing event the other night with the cover reveal and one of the volunteers on the on the on the shit the midway over there was telling the story about the first time they tried the land one on there and he said it was thank God it was successful because the guy's wife the pilot's wife was on the deck waiting to have lunch with him I was like that would have really ruined somebody's day if that didn't go well we tried to fly remember that time you bought a remote control airplane a few times we went we went to the hobby store and you're like here you fly at first

you can run and I drove it straight to the ground I think I knew that I was going to do that. I was going to let you do it. Yeah, I did it. But, yeah, it's been a lot of fun kind of reconnecting with the Navy here this weekend. And I think today at the O'Reilly race, all the people that were here were either families or relatives or whatnot from members of the Navy base. So it was, and we had a ton of people. I mean, we got a sold-out crowd tomorrow.

I felt like it was a sold-out crowd today as many people as I saw here. Yeah. 88 car looked awesome, by the way. Yeah. The Rogers car. Yeah. It did look good. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's pretty cool. I have been surprised at how difficult it is to get in the ship, like into the carrier. So the carrier, not like. Try being 6'4. Well, yeah. Like, I'm lucky. I'm like a normal height. So I have not, to this point, hit my head on anything.

But, yeah, if you walk through there trying to climb up. We did that. We went on, I think it was. maybe that one, but like during the Navy NASCAR movie. And I was like, you know, we're all like lined up so we don't get lost, like kind of like holding each other so we don't get lost through this whole deal and the map and everything. And I lost the guy in front of me. I held the whole lineup because I was like trying to duck and everything. I was like, I'm slow. I'm sorry. You can go by if you want. But I was holding everybody up trying not to knock my head off.

So you go in this, you go in, there's a big set of stairs and then a ramp and you're in the hangar bay and it's insane how big this hangar bay is and and you're on top of two nuclear reactors so that's cool and you walk into the ship to go up in the tower and there's I don't know man I mean no joke there's 10 minimum flight of stairs to go up and one of the things that I learned well you can easily get lost in this thing because it's like you could be standing in this ship and look around and there's like three or four sets of stairs, and you're like, I forget which one it was.

And luckily our production teams like taped, you know, you know, foolproof. Yeah, stuff on the walls to like, go up to the set this way. But we still get lost. And there was a guy in there with me,

one of the sailors, and I was like, man, I keep screwing this up. I'm supposed to turn this corner and go left and then go up. And he's like, if you're trying to get to the bridge, just go on the staircase with the wooden handrails.

And I was like, that's so much easier. So I haven't gotten lost since. But like to get to the bridge, it's wooden handrails. And any other, if it don't have wooden handrails, it's not going to the bridge. So that was kind of, and there's a bathroom up there, and it's freaking badass.

I bet. Yeah. Like, because I was, well, we got up there and I was like, hmm, we're way up here and we're here all day. What if I got to pee? You know, what if I got to use a bathroom? And I was kind of warm. wondering like what the situation was.

Did it have to go back down out of the tower? But no, up there, they got a nice bathroom for the captain and everybody. Yeah. It's really nice. We don't have that over in turn 15. Turn 15 doesn't have a bathroom. There's a sign that says this is a really nice bathroom. And then you go around to the other side and there's some, there's some, there's a keypad to the, to the very, to the really, really nice bathroom.

And I don't know. You get the code to that one? code but i want to know what it looks like in there but you're not a ship guy fredi yeah carson hits his head i hit my elbows i would imagine getting through some of the doors okay we got we got build submarines on our car maybe you'd be better in us up maybe i stick to the top though those go to the too low right top hard it's true uh there's absolutely only the ones you bring oh you do they have coolers no but there's so many corners here you can't really expect it here you're comfortable do you have one of the ones you're wondering you're wondering

She's wondering if you've got your cool suit and all your stuff upstairs. It's weird here. You get hot in the sun. Then as soon as the sun, you get in the shade a little bit, you're like, I need a jacket. But it's nice. Everybody says the weather in San Diego is badass. And it really is. It is great weather.

I was looking on my phone. And it was like, high, have 80, low of 70. High 80, low of 70. Every day is the same. Every day is the same. Every day is the same. And I was like, bam. But it's, the sun is super sneaky.

it is so like yeah it's like well no it's like it's like it's like it smoked right now you're like that it's like 75 degrees this is awesome but if you don't put any sunscreen on it's like you were in a hundred degree day your face is blistered the first day I went back to the hotel and I looked in the mirror I was like damn my face is red as hell I was like I was like googling home remedies to take the redness out of my face there was a bunch of guys on the roof yesterday I look at them I'm like you need to put a hat on or something because you're in trouble.

It's early. It's sneaky. It's sneaky here because it don't feel hot. Like yesterday, I didn't know it. It was yesterday? Yeah, yesterday with the first race. Like, I'm like, I got a little sun. Yeah.

Getting a shower when you get back. And it's like, oh, wow, I got a lot more sun than I thought I did. It's scorching hot in here. Well, we got 15 minutes left. And something that's coming up in the next five weeks when we get started against Sonoma is the bracket challenge. And so I know last, so this bracket challenge, I think, is really close. cool. Denny Hamlin came up with this idea. We actually did this through Dirty Mo Media.

And then NASCAR stole our idea. And they gave a dude a million bucks last year. And they're going to do that again this year. And so we have filled out our brackets. And we're going to try to do this to where it's not too painful for the audience. So the first race is in Loma. Then you have Chicago, Atlanta, North Woodsboro, Indie. Let's advance. Let's not go through everyone. But let's say starting at Atlanta, okay? Going into Atlanta, I have, we're going to, I'm going to tell y'all who I have. So your final four essentially? Yeah, basic.

Well, that would be, that would be, whox. Grade eight. Yeah, you're talking about it. Yeah, let's go to Atlanta. Let's fast forward the first round. I have Redick going to Atlanta against Carson Hosevard. No. me and hos of our agree on me

i figured it was lame if i put myself so i'd not myself to knock out round one but other than that uh i have reddick and uh zane smith reddick and zane i also have reddick and zane i got reddick and swarice listen zanes a lot of speed zanes got a lot of speed last lately some that's wrecking he's blown a tire because maybe he's a little low on air pressure but i will drop down to the next bracket and i have going into uh chicago or going, I guess, going into Atlanta. Gibbs and Chase Elliott.

Yes, Ty Gibbs, Chase Elliott. We're probably all the same. Yeah, we're probably all the same on that one. All right, let's move over to the other side. I have Denny Hamlin and Busher. I have Ty Dillon and Busher. You think Ty Dillon takes Aaron and out? Knocks him out.

I think Ty Dillon gets beat this time. That was Cinderella last year, wasn't it? Man, you and I, our brackets couldn't be more different. I agree with you. I have Danny and Busher. I've got Denny and Busher. I've got Denny and Bell. Denny and Bell.

Yeah. You think, so Bell with the wrist tomorrow. No, but you've got to think Brent Cruz is driving. That's right. And I know, but if he doesn't drive tomorrow, if he gets out, and then does he do Sonoma? Does he do, he maybe doesn't get out of the car, but does he? I don't think there was any way he races tomorrow. Yeah.

I mean, he's going to take the green. I don't think I can't imagine. I mean, he was eight seconds off in qualifying. I think that. I think that tells you. I think that tells you his plan. I think and Chastain's no pushover at Sonoma. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. So you had. Yeah, Bell. Okay. All right.

TJ's got Christopher Bill. So, and then in the final bracket, I've got Larson going up against Blaney. Yep. Same. Yeah, same here. Oh, wow. I got Byron against Blaney. The bottom half, we're all the same pretty much.

Yeah. All right. So let's move on. I guess we're now going to. to North Wiltsboro. Yeah, final four. Yeah, for the final four. I have Hosevar taking on Chase Elliott.

So I think Hosevar gets through in Atlanta against Redick. So I still have Hosevar alive. This isn't, I'm not playing favorites here. I could tell. Hey, he's not going to win the next round, but I got Hosevar and Chase Elliott. You ruined it now. Oh, good Lord. Sorry.

I have Zane versus Chase Elliott. Chase Elliott. I've got Tyler Redick versus Chase Elliott at Wilkesburg. I have Zane versus Chase. Okay. Over on the next side, I have Denny Hamlin, still alive, going against Blaney. I have Ty Dane against Blaney. Ty Dillon against Blaney.

Ty Dillon. It's another Cinderella story. The top half Cinderella is Ty Dillon versus Zane Smith. I got Busher versus Blaney. I've got Denny versus Blaney. I know none of us has really been paying attention, but I just don't feel like Ty has a speed he had last year. Ty Dylan. Did he have speed last year from being on it?

Yeah, I mean, he can make chicken salad out of chickens. Hey, he doesn't have to. No, you just give a shot at Sonoma. Well, I'm just saying. You think he's just going to wake up for the bracket? No, no, I'm saying is, you know, there's a good shot. The guy he's up against might get wrecked out. Hey, it happened last year.

He's who he punted somebody at Sonoma. He didn't he, like, Ty Gibbs? Oh, he did, yeah. He punted Ty Gibbs. No, Ty Gibbs won. Oh, you're right. You're right, though. He did.

He punted somebody. somebody in 11th. For the spot. For the bracket. So he'll do what it takes. He does it for the bracket. He shows up. This is his Super Bowl here, man.

He comes to life during the bracket, but I haven't seen his ability to make something good out of something bad. He is. Man. So, all right, we got to wrap really quick. Going in, my final two is Chase Elliott and Denny Hamlin, and I got Denny winning it all.

I have Ty Dillon versus Chase Elliott, but I have Chase. winning at all i figured tie wasn't going to go all the way i've got uh chase elli and blaney and i have blaney winning at all i've got uh i've got 45 versus 11 and i've got danny winning at all that hurts to say did Travis feel yours out for you oh my gosh huge thanks hey thanks everybody for coming out thanks everybody for listening i hope you enjoyed it i'm gonna throw it we're gonna be having a lot of fun tomorrow in the cup race thank you arbues thank you to the navy for sponsoring this show all right uh appreciate you guys coming and hanging out

out. Thanks, a host of R. You stayed the whole show. You're only supposed to be about a five-minute interview, buddy. So thank you for sticking around. I got nothing better to do. I'll be here. All right. We'll see y'all later. Thank you. Thank you, guys.