The Dale Jr. Download - Dale's Back Behind The Wheel For The CARS Tour & So Are Two BIG Names

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

The drivers of the NASCAR Cup Series had their hands full at Daytona this past weekend, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the studio to react with a new edition of Dirty Air. He joins co-host TJ Majors to chat about the big weekend in Daytona Beach and look ahead to the beginning of the Chase at Darlington: Dale is set to run a pro late model at Florence The new superspeedway package was a step in the right direction Race winner Ryan Preece joins the show NASCAR should add a point for leading a lap to incentivize drivers Ryan brought back “win and you’re in” JR Motorsports needs to take better care of each other in drafting races Major CARS Tour announcement During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding: What NASCAR trading card would Dale Jr. like to have Where did the bell ring for wins tradition come from? The new Days of Thunder Ryan Sieg getting his first win 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? T.J.

You don't need a cool best for that race? What are you thinking? Get them, T.J. Hellway is starting to show. All right then. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again. another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. We're in the Arby's studio. This episode is presented

by Arby's. Don't forget about their new meat in three bucks. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats and we've got my co-host here, T.J. Majors. Yeah. Thanks. I got Arby's right behind me. Yep. You got a new Arby's sign in the studio. Sometimes at some certain camera angles it may appear TJ's wearing the Arby's hat. Maybe I really am. Last night, we played Little Hell Let Loose. We did, yeah. We did the new Vietnam's out. Were you going to be able to play or did I help or hurt your situation?

I was probably going to bail, but you're, he texts Amy and said, Can Dale play? So that helps. I actually sent like a, I made a graphic. I had AI make a graphic. He had chat. Yeah, chat. Create a graphic. For a hall pass.

It said, Dear Amy, can Del please have a hall pass? pass for a couple hours. To play with his nerd game. Yeah, I can play some computer nerd games. Yeah, I probably wasn't going to play.

I was probably just going to lay on the couch. I was super tired. I went to Florence to test a pro late model. Tony Jr. has been picking at me a little bit

about driving one of his cars. He works over at GMS, uh, building chassis, pro late models and supers and all kinds of other stuff. And, uh,

so I went over there and I said, hey, man, let's go run Florence. So we went to test yesterday, and I'm sore all over. Yeah, just from not being in the car. I don't know. Maybe not using all them muscles. You don't use all those muscles ripping packs. Yeah.

Well, I've been working out a little bit. I've been doing some lifting, but I don't know. You know, you use these certain muscles when driving a race car that you don't. don't really use. Were you driving harder than normal? Nope. Well, I did go test at Newport a couple days before that. Your body's been through it then.

I'm telling you. When we tested at Newport, we must have ran 200 laps. We tested for 12 hours. It was probably 10 in the morning until 10 at night. And Newport's like high banked and fast, right? It's super fast. Yeah. 13 second lap.

But we worked our guts out at Newport. and then I went to Florence yesterday and was running, and it was 95 degrees. And I drank a ton of water, but I got home, man, and I was locking up because I guess I needed some electric lights. Yeah. So I started chugging some pickle juice.

That'll help. Yeah, a little bit. Should have mustard. Mustard, huh? Yeah. Really? Yep, mustard helps. A little spoonful of mustard?

Yeah. I knew a football player on the sideline, he kept mustard just... Interesting. Squeeze them in. Well, I've been drinking electrolytes since last night because my feet, everything was cramping up, my toes, my damn, everything. Yeah. I'm old.

You better start a couple days before with the electrolytes. I got a real bad, no, this is no bullshit, man. I got this really, really bad pain right on the outside edge of my elbow. I don't know what the hell that is. You got tennis elbow? Maybe. Yeah. Wow.

I think it's like tendonitis, right? Yeah. Yeah. It is. It hurts. And so like if I drive in that car, it makes it mad. And it hurts a couple days. Lifting weights, makes it mad.

And then that. I had that and I went and saw Ryan. He adjusted, he's like, oh, yeah, your wrist is out of alignment. And that's why it was hurting back air. Man. Well, it's right on the outside of that bone right there. Yeah. And it just hurts to touch it.

But it don't touch it. But it don't hurt anywhere around it. No, it's pulling it off the bone. It does hurt all down through my forearm. Yeah, it's. pulling it off the bone back there because wrist, I mean, that's what he says. Okay. Well, I don't know.

One will go. Good to check out. I just assume it'd go away. That's probably not going to do that. That's how I am. That's the motto. It'll eventually go away. Yeah.

I'll drink enough water. It'll go away. Something else will start to hurt. So that's the announcement. I'm going to race the pro in the cars tour. this weekend, we'll be back at the racetrack Thursday to practice and then race on Friday night. Well, it looks pretty good. And Tony Jr.'s been, you know, working.

Tony Jr. was at Fury. Now he's at GMS and they're building these great cars and they got this new chassis and they've been, they've been racing them all over the country out west and the cars tour. He designs these too, right? That's right. So we've been in touch, you know, over the years. And I was sitting with Amy the other day. And I was like, you know, I only got one race left this year.

And I just don't feel like I've raced that much. And kind of now that I'm out of the broadcast booth, I can start thinking about other things. And I wouldn't even care about driving a race car when I'm working to broadcast. I just want to broadcast and not do anything extra. But now when I got done with that, I was like, man, I kind of want to race now. Like, I don't want to wait for Newport.

Newport's in October. And she was like, we go. I was like, all right, I text Tony Jr. said, let's go race somewhere. He's going to go, where are you thinking? I'm like, Florence is coming up. I know that place pretty well. Go try out your pro there.

Probably be maybe 20 cars. Field there is kind of small over the last couple of years. And so he put a, car together and we're going to go. I think Tony Senior's going to come out, two beer. So kind of like a family reunion. That would be fun. Yeah, look forward to it.

I told him, I was like, he's like, what you want it to look like? I said, don't care. Leave it just like it is. Don't even put my name on it. I'm just going to show up and drive it. Love it. It's black with a 23. Oh, yeah.

I like it. A throwback to Spencer Gallagher because it's GMS. Get it. Yep. Also, should we go ahead and break the rest of the news? Let's hold that off till later. All right, well, there's a reason behind it. Listen to the rest of the show.

Yeah. Breaking news. Yeah. I broke, was I breaking that part too early? No, no, that's fine. That's fine. No, that's good. All right, let's get into Dirty Air.

This week's Dirty Air segment is brought to you by Bass Pro Shops, North America, Premier Outdoor and Conservation Company, playing your next adventure at Bass Pro Shops near you or online at BassPro.com. It's about time to get into Deerstand. I have my first hunt planned. I'm excited. Bow?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I like the bow. I got a new bow from Bass Pro Shops. They had a sale that went through August, and I took advantage of that. But new bow, new release. everything.

So let's get into Daytona. First off, a couple of things. I wrote a lot of notes in my phone, and I'm just going to go through those. The Hosevar Racing Aggressively Dirty Mo Media, Social Media Post. I love it. So anytime Hosevar gets in,

gets going or doing something, I don't know, takes the lead, Darren passed for the lead, buses his ass, trying to pass for the lead, whatever, right? Does something cool, does something not so cool? That's probably going to be the tweet. And fans are like a little divided.

Yeah, they are. I don't get it. It's a freaking tweet. It's hilarious. I think the hosts of our fans are getting a little defensive because I feel like it's just like a relentless attack on him. They see that tweet of, Hosevar racing aggressively

and they assume immediately that it's a knock. I don't get it. Calm down. We're all, we've all noted, documented host of our fans. And we're all good with it.

I mean, maybe not you. Travis. I have no problem with it. Yeah, right? Okay, see? All right. We're all down with Hosevar.

We want him to do well. But he's a lightning rod for, you know, he's always, he's always doing something. Yeah. Which is great. And so when he does do something, which he's always going to be doing something, we're going to be talking about it.

Whether it was him or somebody else. I mean, he's still. That post from Dirtymo Media is the post. You'll see a lot of... Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I like it. It's just trying to have fun. Hosevar, racing, and aggressive.

I mean, it's just like perfect. Whether it's him doing something amazing, passing for the lead, or busting his ass, passing for the lead. And taking some other cars out that... well when someone does bust their ass tj there is collateral damage there is you signed up for that when you entered the race you did you did that does happen yeah you don't have to like it you don't but that's yeah i deal with that in the car store man guys get their ass wrecked and man they get so mad like how i you know they kick doors they do everything well yeah let's not i don't want to

single anyone out i'm just saying you know you get yeah i've been wrecked and i've been mad about it Oh, yeah. It happens, and it'll happen in every race going forward. I wouldn't try to be mad about it. Yeah, I know, but, I mean, it's just, it is going to happen. One of the things about that particular accident was, so we'll talk about the package and all of that stuff later, but with the way that cars, with the way the guys were racing all night long,

I, Josevar pulled a mood. that hadn't been really pulled a lot over the last couple of years. They haven't been racing this way with this car. No, this was new. I mean, it's hard to tell you how new it is, but it's definitely not normal. Right. So moves throughout the night were more aggressive.

Different than the past. Yes. And they're doing it with less rear spoiler. They're making these moves Based off of the knowledge they have Internally from how the car is driven at that track before But now you're going out there With less rear spoiler, less downforce

Less side force Because he was on somebody too I think when he started making the move He was a little close But he doesn't know any other cars either right From a car All I'm saying TJ is He made a move that he thought was a stick

was a stick and move. And he's like, man, I've seen this. I'm doing this. I feel comfortable with this. No problem. And how the car busted, how the car came around, I think, was a shock to him and everyone else. All of us. Yeah, I was surprised.

Yeah. Pretty wild. Yeah, different for sure. Yeah. That was one thing that was interesting about the package is handling. Handling was important. maybe drivers weren't you know maybe you thought you had grip until you didn't kind of like hosovar where other guys throughout the first couple of stages were saying i can't be offensive

i can't be aggressive i'm not comfortable fix it i'm too loose i don't have trust in it which is good yes we need more of that's exactly what we need i think denny mentioned that on his show talking about how handling played a role we need to that was the right direction if i'm hearing drivers complain about their cars and needing their cars to drive better, we're definitely moving in the right direction with something that we changed. This is my overarching sort of opinion about the whole thing. Teams are going to morph back into their past habits of aggressive fuel saving if the package is left alone.

this was a good move in the right direction, but if you stop at this particular point and sit here for too long, the teams will roll back toward saving aggressively. William Byron had some comments post-race about this. If we go back with this combination of rules, my guess is that fuel savings will increase in February or at the next restrictor-plated or drafting choice. track race that we run.

Q speeds were surprisingly low. I think only one mile an hour faster than in February. I'm not sure what they expected, but I'm sure that was not what they expected. I'm sure they expected it to go quicker. Denny made a comment immediately after qualifying how surprised he was at how slow the speeds were. So quite a bit of changes needed to get the single car speeds up to

closer to the draft speeds. and I actually think it's worth considering allowing the teams to adjust for Q a different spoiler. So hear me out. Consider providing the teams a different part for qualifying and a different part for the race. Decades ago, teams would lay the spoilers down for qualifying, raise them up for comfort, the race, instead of going that route and allowing the teams to change a part on the car throughout the weekend, just have part A, part B. I think that's a simple solution to consider, not one that I'm saying they need to do,

but one to consider is like, hey, I've seen them adjust these spoilers and I don't think that they're too challenging. If they're going to go and have, you know, qualifying days ahead of the Daytona 500, you have time to put on your qualifying spoiler. And I don't think to me as a purist it really bothers me that they're qualifying with this part and racing with this part because, as I said, decades ago, they would lay the spoiler down to 10 degrees, 5 degrees, and then go out and race a 20 or 25 degree spoiler.

And so I see that is very similar. But I think, too, they could do things with overall drag numbers and the way they're restricting the engine to improve speed as well in single car runs. I thought the pack speeds would be high. also you know and I know those guys it's hard to gauge that because a lot of guys are running some guys are saving fuel some guys are not it's hard to tell yeah you never really got a true feel for yeah you I don't know that I don't know what lap where I saw the pack and they were all out you know maybe the last couple of laps near the end yeah more but even at the end you get guys

that are like having to save yeah I'm just thinking I think they could go faster you know I don't think we're there's more there's more there there's more there So, you know, if they do open up the cars a little bit and allow them to qualify quicker, that's going to increase, naturally should increase the speed in the pack. Which is also good because if you're fighting handling, it's going to be harder for cars. Handling becomes more prominent. Yep. I think a high premium on handling could be placed on the teams.

Moving in that direction continues to challenge the teams and drivers to manage the balance the car. We heard drivers asking for help from the crew. Crew chiefs to make balance changes, make the cars better for them. So as a driver, though, and when the balance isn't, like, what's it like not having an ill-handling car at like Daytona?

You know what I mean? Well, I mean, I've driven cars that were mostly, I've only once been loose at Daytona, and that was in that pink... The bush car? Yeah. We drove away from the field in.

Everyone was plowing that night, and for whatever reason, He's almost wrecked it running the wall a couple times. But every time that I've ever had a balance issue at Daytona, it's always been too tight. Yeah. You're always dealing with the front and the push. And so, you know, we would, we're running in the 125s on Thursday,

and I'm running sixth or fifth. Jeff Burton's behind me, and he's in this yellow and red 99 when he's running for Rauch. And, man, we're lifting. because we're going to hit the wall going into one. We're like out of the gas, plowing up to the fence. And then get to the fence and back to the throttle. It was that tight. But you're not running much, you weren't running like 220 mile an hour either.

You're just like, yeah, but still fighting handling. Probably very similar speeds to what the guys are running. And fighting handling that big. But we're running during the day on a much more worn out surface back then. This is before the repave. Sure. But the track's heading in that direction. We just need that conversation around balance and handling to get louder.

I think it was definitely a concern for a lot of drivers, and some may sit here right now and say, no, I don't want it to get louder. I have my hands full. It's more fun to watch. Yeah, we need the whole field to be having some handling challenges. It creates passing. It creates all sorts of things.

But Denny, Chase Elliott Bubba, among many other drivers, had some great comments about the package, the racing, the runs they were able to get. Chase was one of a handful of drivers who took runs that they had and made moves to take the lead when they could. Some drivers had runs develop and chose to do nothing with them. That's disappointing to watch as a viewer. But it's a decision that's up to the driver

and not a true reflection on the package and the rules in place. I appreciate drivers who make moves and I shrug my shoulders at the ones that don't. a point for leading a lap and one for leading the most would likely encourage more drivers to use those runs for their benefit. The Air and our family is always trusted Bass Pro Shops

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Sitting down at the table is the big winner from Daytona, Ryan Priest. How's it going? It's going good. Sorry, my voice is still gone. Why is your voice still going? From screaming after the race? Probably for... Or screaming during the race?

Probably a little bit during. Probably a lot after. But then a lot on Sunday. Yeah. It was a heck of a, you know, did you throw it down Sunday. Yeah, we did. That's what I heard.

We threw it down. What's it looked like? What's a win party, hell raising Sunday look like for Ryan Priest? Well, different than it would have been probably 10 years ago. Yeah. Because I got kids. But it was my neighborhood.

It just happens to be a lot of people in racing. So my entire neighborhood came down. The 60 group, some friends and, you know, some friends. And, uh, yeah. We all just, I filled up an entire garbage can full of beer and ice, and I mean a full garbage can. We started at three and the party ended at 930 because we ran out of beer. Well, man.

Well, that's pretty good. It's okay. But see, I'm 35. I knew the next morning. I didn't really, I wanted to wake up and be able to function on Monday. So I was happy about it. I'm pretty proud of it. It was a good one.

That's important. I feel like we ran hard at 35 still. We were still going pretty good. You could go until the wee hours of the morning still. Oh, no. That's a, all. He did it all day or that's good. Yeah, all day or on Sundays are tough too.

Yeah. Give him a little credit. Hey, I wore a shirt for you. What is it saying? Short track America. Yeah. That's it. Every time I see him, most 99% of the time I see him, I just say short track racing.

And it's just the thing that me and him have because we're both big fans of it. Yeah, I love that text message you sent me. Yeah. Yeah, just right at the end you had to throw in the short track racing. It's awesome. I love it. Did you keep your neighbor up across the street? Bummy?

Oh, yeah. Josh Berry did too. Really? Josh Barry had him going. Oh, yeah. Do you know Bummy lived across the street from him? Uh-uh. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Bummy, it just, uh, it kept, probably around like 5.30, 6 o'clock. He was, uh, he kept trying, all right, one more beer. And Josh and I just kept going on over to the trash can and giving him one. We'd get one. Yeah. Yeah, it was a good time. Bumie's a great guy.

I had missed all that. I know. I'll send you an invite next time. I'm sorry, I mean, I could have slipped over there. Yeah. What was I doing on Sunday? I guess I was laying on the couch? Nothing.

Nothing. Because I text you and you're like, I'm like, what are you doing? You're like, not doing. I was it? So we're talking about the race and, you know, I think, you know, the eye test, right? I think it passed the eye test. I don't know if you've went back and watched it yet. We heard a lot of drivers talk positively about the changes.

heard a lot of drivers say it wasn't no big deal, it wasn't any different. But again, the eye test, one of the things that I was just commenting on before you sat down was a couple of very key moments. Chase Elliott gets up to second place. He gets a run and makes a move and goes around and clears, right? And then, like a few laps later, he gets the same identical run, makes a move, doesn't quite clear. But it's like, all right, man, these guys are feeling confident in it. enough in this situation to take a few runs, right?

And not just sit there and, you know, follow the guy and from them. Yeah. I really thought that that was quite different. It was, right? It was, I mean, in the other pack races, we've usually seen double file. Yeah. Locked in. Couldn't go anywhere.

Yeah. Where this race, it's, first off, it's night time, right? And everybody migrated to the top. And the top was dominant. it. But to your point, if you were in the first, you know, if you were the guy leading, if you were second or third, at any point, if you accumulated a run, you could go up there and try to clear. The tough part about it is if you didn't clear them, you were probably getting freight train, but that's why you had to be pretty methodical about it. I just, you know,

for me, when we go to Super Speedways, if you're going to try and replicate Atlanta in what we do there. Atlanta's a lot smaller. The corners are tighter. Unless we're going to go 230 miles an hour, you're probably not going to get that. So yeah, I was a, you know, I'm a little biased on it because it went my way. Yeah. But I liked it. It reminded me of, you know, Loudoun, you typically don't want to be the guy leading. You want to be the guy in second or third coming to the white flag because you can just build such a run. Like Loudman and the Modifieds. Correct. Yeah, you're not talking about. I'm not talking about the cuff cars. No, I'm talking about the modifies, yeah.

I was really pleased with it. The other thing, though, that I wonder is, so we made all these changes. What stopped everyone from just fuel saving in the same manner that they did in February? Some did, you know, the 41, several guys sat in the back of the field. Yeah. And took advantage of it and ended up some turning. that into a 10th or a top top 10, top 15 place finish. But the rest, the majority of the field ran harder.

Didn't quite save as much. We saw all the graphs all day, Sunday, all day Monday on social media. There's factual evidence that the teams and the drivers didn't save as much. Why? Well, the way everything played out, we didn't use as much fuel with this package, I think, with the 500 horsepower and the lower drag, right? So you could go kind of, I mean, stage two and stage three, you only had to save a little bit in stage two.

Stage three was a little bit more difficult, but stage three got interesting because there was a cross point of where, you know, the four or five Chevys pitted, took four, what was it, four seconds of fuel, and then just went hard. Now, I haven't looked back to see what their pace was when they did that, but, you know. They were catching, they were catching the pack a little bit.

Yeah, the idea was... From what I understand, it was quite a bit faster. Yeah, they were catching them. Where, you know, if you look back three, you know, three or so years ago, the Daytona 500, when the 60, David Reagan was in it, and I was in the 41, we went an entire length of a stage saving and thought it was going to work out until about four laps before the end of the stage, and the whole pack went by us. So there's a gamble, and it's kind of like, this was that first time.

People didn't know, you know, how they wanted to play their hands, and I know we were committed to saving fuel. and to your point, it's a game of chess. You and I have actually had conversations of, you know, where before I would ride around in the back and play this, you know, be around at the end game.

And now, you know, that I'm in a different situation. It's like I'd much rather be racing like I did on Saturday night. So, way more. Yeah, for sure. And, but yeah, no, I mean, there's a lot going through our heads during that race. So you said something that piqued my interest.

We're using less fuel with this. package. Yeah. Is that directionally the right way to go to eliminate fuel savings as much as possible? I don't, I feel pretty confident that you'll never entirely eliminate it. Every race has the potential to be a fuel mileage race. Every race does. Every race does.

Yeah. But, yeah. You said something that was pretty interesting there. If you're using, if you found a, you know, if this package just uses less fuel, then, again, you're not as reliant on trying to minimize your time on pit road. You're not using as much fuel. So, you know, directionally, maybe that's a good way to go. Yeah, and I, you know, the way I look at this,

that part of Super Speedway kind of makes it fun right now. And it makes it interesting because you see cars going forward, risking, not getting as good fuel mileage. And you see other guys that are just getting up to the top and they keep getting freight train back. and when it's time to go, while everybody's trying to go. And then passing, you know,

track position becomes a lot harder. And the way I look at it is, it's no different than going to Richmond or Martinsville where you're trying to save your tires. Am I going 110% at lap two? I'm not. I'm taking care of my tires because I want it to... You better not.

Exactly. So the Super Speedway world and just what we've, what we're dealing with, it's no different. You just got to be smarter than the other guy and understand the situation. and play your cards right. And one of the things that, so I was really happy to see guys, like I mentioned Chase,

I'm sure you, multiple people, not just Chase, but his instance was one that stood out to me, taking runs and taking the lead with them, going into the league, not sitting there going, man, stage two, I'm second, I'm just going to push first. And not attached the entire time too. Like, you could get a big run and carry it and clear, cars and come up. So I was really happy to see that. If you brought back giving away, if you brought back awarding a point for leading a

lap and awarding a point for leading the most laps, don't you think you'd see everybody trying to get up there and at some point passing for the lead? Yeah. Yeah, without a doubt. There's something on the line there for sure, right? So that's, definitely what I do. Yeah, right now our eyes are set on where do I want to be with two to go or one to go. right it's not man i want this one point or man i that that extra you know leading the most laps

could be worth something so yeah when you dangle that carrot in front of yeah yeah i think taking that out of the sport probably didn't affect most most races probably didn't really move the needle except at deton and talladega um you know it it i think it would encourage guys like chase elliots in second place has this hell of a rundown or not chase but uh uh Larson, he's running down the back straightaway. He has a really good run. I don't think that it wasn't at HMS car in first. It might have been a Chevrolet.

But he has this great run. And I'm like, and he just pushed the guy. And I was like, damn. You know, you had this perfect run. You dive off into three. You run, you wrap the bottom a little bit and you clear him. You got the lead. Does he pass?

And I'm thinking, man, we need to bring back, given that point away, because he passes in that moment. That's another pass that I get to. see as a fan, you know, and now I got Larson. If I'm a Larson guy, he's leading. That's my guy leading the race. So what's going through in my head in that moment is I don't have a ton of friends. So if I do that and I don't get up, you know what I mean?

You're going to lose that track position. So like, I'm not. You know when the run's good enough. Yeah. Don't you? Yeah. Yeah. But not every run, but, you know, that was a good run that he had and he pushed

the guy. And I was like, damn, man, I wish you would have went. Yeah. You know, took the lead there. You guys topped off a lot at the end of cautions and stages and stuff. You topped off and sacrificed track position. Yeah. And so before you couldn't really do that a lot because the field was gridlocked.

Yeah. And you couldn't make it through. Yeah. What makes that doable now? I don't know. That's a great question. To be honest with you, I think it has some part of fuel savings. There's always a little bit, but it's not.

We weren't saving as much as before. But so, but it looked, it looked like I'm not. saying it was easy, but it looked like when Blaney wanted to drop the hammer and drive everybody at bottom, he just drove to the front. Yeah. You know, I think the Daytona that we saw on Saturday night is definitely going to be different from the Daytona 500.

And I say this because it was nighttime. At the end of stage three, guys were starting to fight the wandering up coming off of four. Now you add in track temp, you know, a little bit hotter. It's going to be worse. There's going to be lifting moments. There's going to be some of that separation. So I think, you know, like I said, I'm probably biased because I won.

And I was on the good side of everything. So my perspective on it is phenomenal. What do you feel should be the path forward to Daga and most maybe importantly, the 500? Do you continue to adjust? Do you stick with this? what would you like to see happen? Man, I don't know. Honestly, I have nothing on the top of my head right now.

Do you go to Talladega first and just see what it does there because Talladega is a different animal. Yeah, it's turned the day too. Yeah, I mean, I enjoyed what you were talking about. If you were the guy second and third and kind of navigated your way up, you could get a run, you can clear and get to the front. What I don't want to see is the leader has this big bubble and just constantly goes left and right. Like, that's what we don't want. We want the slingshot. We want to see guys back off, get a run, get by him, and get up,

and do everybody, whenever we, I'm from New England. So I like to bring up the modifies. But that's what makes that race so great is the guy off front is sitting duck. The guy in second gets a massive run, slingshots by. And then they keep on, you just keep on, you know, train the lead and doing those things. I haven't been in a cup situation yet where we've been able to do that other than this past weekend. You know, I'm sure there's other people with other opinions, but I liked it. Yeah. Well, let me ask you about pushing real quick. What was the pushes, how were the pushes different than before?

So I, there was less tandem, more slam. There's definitely, more bump drafting. And pushing away like it would hit. I saw that early. Yeah. Early on, I kept trying to just lock with Chris or lock with whoever and it took too long to get through that bubble. Yeah. And by the time you got to that bubble or through the bumple to their rear. bumper, the whole pack stacked up behind you. So what I noticed is, you know, when you started slamming people, as long as you were centered, it just moved him forward. So, I mean, the cars could take a push, a bigger push than I would have initially thought. Yeah. What do you mean by that? Well, you would have thought by taking rear spoiler away, the car would be a lot more unstable, but what I think it did is it balanced the car mechanically with your front to rear percentage. Now, so it was okay still. I thought it was. Now, what I will say is when you went from dirty, to clean air, like we saw Carson do and got big loose.

I had big loose moments by myself, yes. There was about three or four moments when I was following Chris and kind of go with him and he'd peeked down or the leader would peeked down so he'd follow and I wasn't expecting it and that right front would catch the air. It would just pull the front. And I love it. I'm okay with it. Yeah.

Just drive it. That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we heard drivers on the radio talking more about needing help with balance. And I thought that, you know, if we can make that conversation get louder, that's good for everybody. I know the drivers don't love being uncomfortable, but when the whole

field's kind of challenged with the balance of the car a little bit and always kind of working on it, I think it, you know, to your point, I like to see guys, you know, I like to see some guys having, having a hard time with it. Yeah. You know, out of the gas. That's how it should be. Chasing it up the track and trying to figure it out. Some guy wrapping the bottom and kicking ass, you know. That's right. Well, I think that I wouldn't expect NASCAR to make a big change to your point, T.J. Talladega is quite different. Not really going to go to Talladega and give you a package that makes the car handle bad. The track's just wide and it's just a completely, it's interesting how much different it is than Daytona.

Daytona handles where Talladega is just kind of wide open. But hopefully, you know, when we get there several weeks from now, the cars, that sort of slingshot pass opportunity that started to present itself. Yeah, it's forming a little bit. This weekend is still there because that was really, really cool. So we wanted to congratulate you for bringing back when and you're in. Everybody thought that was gone. Yeah, way to go. Oh, man, there was some upset people.

Why were they upset, though? I don't know. You did everything. Like we have, we set the points up. Everybody knew the rules. Everybody went throughout the entire season knowing the rules. Yep. And like, you know, you did this incredible thing.

Yeah, that was fun. You know, you not only won this race at Daytona, that's special. Yeah. You're winning in NASCAR, living your dream. You got out. You explained that to us. Yeah. But he scored 67 points at Daytona, like you're up front all night.

You made this point system and the change that we all went through, you made it legitimate. You added credibility to this is what we wanted. This is, you earned it. Thank you. You didn't come from 30th in points, right, to take this position. You did it in the most legitimate way possible. nerve-wracking way for you probably as well. No, I live for those moments.

I live for it, but you think about it. There's defining moments in everybody's careers. Mine happened to be like the Iowa one. No one knew. I didn't tell anybody. I remember GGR, Steve D'Souza asked me, he's like, man, you had to borrow money. I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to tell you that.

But it's just high-pressure situations. Everything about my career has been high-pressure situations because, you know, there is no tomorrow if it doesn't work out. And I'm not saying that wasn't the case for this past weekend, but there was a lot on the line, you know, and what we wanted to do. So, yeah, I'm really, really proud of it. I was happy that my family was there, my wife, my kids, my dad. That was a big deal for me.

And, yeah, like, you take out May and June. May and June were catastrophic for Brad and myself. We just, every weekend, it was something, you know, and we kind of got back on the horse at San Diego, and then Sonoma, we had a good run. SVG tried to knock you off that horse at one point. He did, he didn't. And you want to know what? Shane in that race, like, I don't know, I've gone back and watched Super Speedway races, and I was like, when you look at Shane and I's average at Super Speedways, they were both terrible, right? But we both said, we had that attitude of we can't ride.

because if I ride he was digging he was and he did everything right in stage one and then from there it was you know I had to do what we had to do

to try and check him off it started off it started off really good for him in state didn't he did he win the stage yeah he won the stage as Busher and I were flying

through the infield might have been off his bumper to the five too maybe I don't know but oh I don't know but yeah that was wild man you know I I will never

it's as we've gotten further and further away from Saturday, it just keeps like, I've gone back and I've rewatched a lot of different points in that race and I think to myself, like, sometimes it's meant to be, man. And all you can do is just attack. And that's all.

The end of these play races are like that. You just got to be in the right area and eventually you'll get it. There is not a perfect strategy at race in Daytona. There is not a perfect strategy. There's a 60 to 80% chance that you're going to crash in any race you enter there. And so, and that's just, that's it. That's just the way it is.

But there's no perfect strategy, but I think the one that prevails more often is that one. The one that your attack, attack, attack, take every run, not literally take every round, but the mentality of I'm going to work forward. I'm going to try to stay toward the front. I'm going to try to lead when I can lead. I'm going to, you know, because I think that's the safest place. place to be. Absolutely. And I just feel like if you're on the offense, man, when you start being conservative or you start playing defense, man, you get yourself in trouble. Yeah.

So easy. Yeah. You snowball. It's a snowball. One one poor judgment move or, you know, like not taking that hole or second guessing that run, it's too late. Yeah. And then it just snowballs from there because it leads up to whatever else happens next. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough, man. Super Speedway racing, especially when it comes to, you know, the, we all have to try and play nice to a certain extent on the OEM side and all of that. It can be challenging, which is what was nice about that final restart because I knew the allegiance of where the other forwards were. And I said, okay, well, I know what I have to do. And I got to do what's best for me right now. So is there even within your own manufacturer, there's some people you can count on and some that you really

can't because, you know, they have other responsibilities? To be honest with you, I have a really good relationship with a lot of the Ford drivers. So it's, there isn't a time where, you know, I feel like this one won't go with me. I just knew in the situation, like, I'm aware of everything enough to know. the two was probably going to be close if I won. You know, could the 97 potentially bump him? So, yeah, front row has a, has a, you know, an alliance with Penske. So he's got to go with them or they have to push him to make sure that I don't win. So it was just, it was nice to be aware of that.

But yeah, I mean, the nice part about when we sit in our meetings, they aren't telling you like, don't push, you know, another OEM. It's, you know, just try not to hurt each other along. along the whole process. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah. Hell yeah. He's got a lot of... I got a lot of that going on.

Oh, that's right. Sorry, tough Tuesday. Yeah, no, we're going to talk about that later in the show. Ryan, what was your thought process when you spun out? Did you... Were you worried about... Did you think it was over for you? Like, what was going through your mind there?

When I was sliding through the grass, I was thinking... It was... It was... I mean, I was hoping I wasn't just going to overcorrect. and go into the field. That's what I was worried about. I was too. When I saw it, I was like, they're going to come up.

They're going to come up. Well, I knew once that right rear was going to catch on the asphalt, that was going to catch. So I just tried to straighten as much as I could. And I actually went back and watched that clip over because Larson, like, hit the grass, hit the asphalt, just kept digging. I'm like, I hit the asphalt and I'm just swatting the thing trying to get it going straight. But, yeah, I mean, in that moment, I was pissed because I thought we were at least going to get four to five stage points, right? Yeah, probably. It was worst case scenario.

for us. It was, Shane just got all 10. At first I had heard that we didn't get any. So I was like, well, and then they put you back up. It's like, whoa. Okay. That was a little bit of a surprise. So, yeah, thank God for photos. And yeah, I would end up there. But yeah, I mean, in that moment, I don't know. I don't get down, man. I'm like, I don't, I'm very, very passionate. If anybody's listened to my radio, I don't know if it's a Ryan thing, like Blaney, but, you know, I'm from a very passionate part of the country where we give it everything we got. And so for me in that moment, like, when I feel not, when I feel like there's a big mountain to climb, like I'll just start climbing, you know, climb it until you can't

climb it anymore. So, yeah. Is that where you say, I'm just going to drive the car, you guys tell me what's going to do it. That's my new way of not sweat or trying. not to swear and trying, you know, sometimes it comes out. I hate, I hate it, but it's just, yeah, I'm very, very passionate. You said, I'm just going to drive the car, you guys. You guys tell me, yeah, you guys tell me the situation, the strategy, I'm just going to drive. That's just like, see, but Brandon, like my spot, Brandon B. Wilkes, he knows and he's known long enough. Like, that's my way of letting this, you know, whatever out and then just focusing ahead. Yeah, because you definitely let some.

demons out earlier in the year. That's probably... Yeah. So in Victory Lane, we saw Brad Gisalowski and how proud he was of the result and recognizing what you'd accomplished and how you'd put yourself into the chase. What is the relationship like with Brad, the owner? What does he bring to the team to make things better? Well, I don't know if you guys, you probably have, but his press conference afterwards says a lot.

You know, there's a really challenging part when you get down here is you can feel attacked at times. You know, with all the different data we have in SMT, it can be used two ways, a productive way and then a nonproductive way. So you almost feel attacked at times, which I'm, which I feel, you know, at RFK, I don't feel that way. And Brad went in there, you know, where he talks about meetings that he has. and the first thing he says in those meetings and these are his words is I don't want to hear about the drivers we you know I want to hear about the cars

how do we make the cars faster or what do we want to do this and that's that is you know us drivers you know we are always if we can go to the lead we're going to go to the lead we're not going to ride around

and take it easy on the day and you know it's just you know it's collaborating with your team your engineers your crew chief and getting on the same wavelength when it comes to communication. And Brad, as a team owner, as a driver, and a teammate, like, that says a lot. Because he also, he sacrifices things for himself to see Chris and I succeed.

You know, and I can't go into specifics, but it's like, I appreciate that because he's given me a huge opportunity to live out my dream, you know? And he doesn't get as much credit as he probably deserves. and yeah I've I've really enjoyed racing working with him and being there what was it like coming from you know where you were to a to teammates like Chris and Brad because I feel like they were with open arms you know what I mean you were you had like not that you didn't have real teammates before but you had like real teammates to help on track because I feel like before you're kind of competing for for right you know what I mean you guys were all yeah knew what was going on so what was the difference

um well yeah I mean, I feel like whenever we're around each other. Brad and Chris are great teammates. That's right. And we all get around each other. And like when Chris is going to make a move, I'm ready to go with him or Brad or the same thing, vice versa. So we all, you know, I was just watching Darlington over from the spring. And Brad got under Chris and Chris isn't going to race him into the corner.

He's going to let him go and both of them roll on up. And, you know, in the past, if you're racing for the win with, you know, 20, 30 to go, it's completely different. Oh, for sure. But, you know, stage one, stage two, you don't want to hurt each other, hurt your organization. And I feel like that's, that's something that we have, you know, where we can work with each other and keep making our cars better, keep helping our track position. And yeah, it's, it's been great. But, you know, what I will say is the personalities. All our personalities kind of get along really well. Oh, for sure. What I've learned is, you know, Texas with Chris is very, very even keeled. He doesn't get excited. Well, he got excited at Darlington one time. Yeah, he did. But I was joke with him when I go, you know, into the gym. And I'm a big pre-workout guy and caffeine guy.

And I was joked that I'm going to put some pre-work out and, you know, get him fired up. And then there's Brad. He's a Michigan guy, which is very similar to like the Northeast just without the, I like to say passion, like the big passion moments. You know what I mean? He's very even keeled. But he's still got. that um that northeast style in him at least what i think anyways and then there's it's similar you're right from your on the east coast more they are a little yeah yeah Tommy baldwin if i get fired

up come out yeah Tommy's a good example yeah and then there's me i'm on the 9000 chip all the time like bouncing off it so is this like the first i know you the clash we were we were getting ready to go on a Disney cruise and we're watching the clash from from a hotel room right yeah yeah And you got the win there. Yep. Is this, like, what's the difference? Is this like, you know, I don't, like, this is Daytona cutoff race. Obviously, there's way more on the line here.

Is this like your first cup win? No, bumming gray was pretty bad. Pretty cool. I know, but that's a cool place too. But like, this is. This is, it's a completely different feeling where Daytona has absolutely beaten me, man. We've talked about. There's a 60, 80%.

chance you're going to wreck every time you go there. I joke with you and I don't need my any of my belts changed but man when you wreck at Daytona, your crotch like, you know, right there feels it. And there's no other way around it. Like you're wrecking at 200 miles an hour. It's going to happen. But man, just I think it was really the hurdle, you know, everything that we had to overcome that day. And, you know, the point situation, everything had to. go right and you couldn't. I'm very aggressive in in the way that I explain it, but it's like having your, you know, your, your finger on the pressure point and not letting up and just, just going with that. So for me, it was like, yeah, I did the burnout, which I wish I would have done it a little

different. I tried to go from, I tried to go from first to second and it kind of got tight so I couldn't get it in right away. So I'd probably roll up a little different and put it right in second and then do the burnout, but that's about the only thing I would do different. And then the crowd, I mean, yeah, I mean, you got to get out at Daytona. You got to get out of the car, stand there, and look at everyone in the crowd at Daytona. So I guess what I'm trying to explain is Bowman Gray was special to me because short track racing, like I grew up, like a, you know, a quarter mile guy, like Riverhead in Long Island, you know, I would, it was just, that's my bread and butter. You know, that's what I come from and modified the nerve bars, the bumpers, and the hard nose racing.

So for me, that was special doing that. But then, yeah, Daytona, like just the whole season, the winning you're in, the not having to read, he's never won a points paying race, and now the next one's going to be, he's never won a non-super Speedway race or whatnot. It's, to me, it's just like, as a race car driver, when we end our careers. We want to be proud of what we did. When I left the Northeast, I left giving up chasing championships, chasing track championships, trying to be a Ted Christopher or a Mike Stefano. But you were well on the way. I mean, as many modified wins as you were getting at the time.

But I stopped. You know, I had a fierce rivalry going with Doug Kobe and, you know, Justin Monsignor and Keith Rocco and a lot of the guys up there. And I chased after this dream. The dream was to win and succeed at the cup level. and somebody reminded me. I've won in the NASCAR Wheel Modified Tour, the K&N series, the trucks, Exfinity, and Cup.

And I did all of, all of them except for the modified tour in the Cup series, part-time. Like K&N, I didn't run full-time. I ran, I was in their races. Trucks, I was part-time. I only ran, however many races. And Xfinity, when I won those races,

it wasn't full time. Yeah, you get a short schedule too. So, yeah, I mean, I'm pretty proud of that. It's cool. People talked about it got to be top six, got to be this for the chase. What's your mindset going in? Anything's possible, but I think we learned that with Tony Stewart in 2011.

Now, that's a big, big mountain to climb. But do I feel like I'm standing on Mount Everest right now? I do. And, you know, when you look at, look at these races, we got momentum on our side. I got a crew chief that is just ready to conquer the world right now. I was going to ask you how Derek was. Did Derek come over on Sunday?

Oh, yeah. How was Derek? Derek is good. He doesn't drink a whole lot. But that guy is just so cool and even keeled and passionate. I'm proud. Off the ball a little bit here and there. Well, yeah, but that's what makes us all.

It's nice to have that. and have those perspectives. People think I'm a little weird too. And it's just, everybody is. And we all have different ways of looking at things. And that's what brings value, you know,

if you have that at your company, right? So, but for me, I didn't realize that was Derek's first win as a crew chief in the cup series. He's been around. He's been around a long time.

And a lot of guys on our team. I want to say there's probably only two guys on our entire team that have won a cup race before. Probably. everyone else is new. And that's special. Because seeing the pureness, like it's hard to explain to people

why we all fall in love with racing, especially when you get to this level, it can be so challenging to keep perspective. And the ones that, you know, we're friends of me, I told them when I did that New England 900 race last year with Cletus. It reminded me why I love racing so much

because it's easy to fall in. into the trap of, I got to make my, you know, just hyper focusing on your race car, hyper focusing on winning and doing all those things that you lose sight of why we love it. And, you know, seeing everybody on Sunday and how happy everybody was, like, it was pure. So it was cool. Man, I've worked with Derek a little bit back in the day. But where'd you work with him? He worked at, yeah.

He did work at D. He's on a Bud deal for a while. Yeah. Oh, he was like a couple of years. Yeah. He was one of the first engineers in the sport, I think, back in the day. Yeah. He was about it.

Talk about a guy who was maybe not quite as welcomed in as most engineers weren't popular. No, not that. Especially around, dare I say, the Uri's, they weren't like, oh, yeah, give me more engineers. You know, they're just like, huh, engineer? Yeah. Yeah, I could see what. Yeah. But Derek fit in really well.

Yeah. He's a good dude. He's funny, man. He's just got his personality is just so unique compared to others. But maybe that's why it works with me. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

It is good to see him after all the years that he's been around the sport. It is good to see him, you know, find something consistent. Find somewhere that he's making it work. And it's good to see you and him believing in each other. Yep. Well, good luck going into Darlington, going into the chase. I always like to compare the, you know, the opportunity to make the chase and the effort that goes into that is like being part of a fraternity.

It's a, when you're not in it, it sucks. Yep. And when you're in it, man, it is cool as hell. Because you feel like you're definitely, you know, you feel like you're one of the best race car drivers out there. that is adding credibility to that idea that you belong. And so good work there, man, and have fun over the next 10. It's going to be a grind. Hopefully you go out there and you can make it happen.

Appreciate it. Thanks guys. You bet you, buddy. Ryan Preece on the Dale Jr. Download. Hey, this is Dellenhart 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.durtymomedia.com for all the latest merch.

Cool for Ryan to come through. Yeah. Let's get right into the O'Reilly race. I know a lot of folks watched the end of that, and that was pretty disappointing. Junior Motorsports had the race under control, four, five, six laps to go. Carson Hozaar, or Carson Quaple leading the race.

Rajah was second, and Justin was third. and the way I saw it was with about five or six to go, Rajah started backing off and backing up and trying to sort of test what he could try to do to put a run together to pass Carson. And while he's doing that, Carson's trying to protect his lead and instead of just holding it wide open

and driving away from Raja and letting Raja get this huge run on him. Carson's also lifting. So they're both lifting. First and second place are running, you know, a part or a portion of their laps, not full throttle. And that's backing up the two cars on top of the nose of the seven and then pushing the seven back into the pack. And it just wasn't good.

So our cars were the best cars there. I think that the junior motor sports cars were... A lot of raw speed. The best. Yeah. I mean, there might have been some of the cars just as good, but we had plenty of speed. And if you're running the top, which we were,

and if you're in a line, which we were, and the leader's wide open, second place can run wide open without ever having to lift and never get within a car length of the leader. third place would also be able to run wide open without ever getting within a half a car length or a car length of the second place. He would never have to lift.

The fourth car may get a couple of runs randomly, very rarely where he would maybe lift a little bit or get to the back bumper of the third place car. But my point is, is like when you run the top like that, you all can run wide open without having to lift and never really need to worry about anybody getting a significant run that you'll need to defend.

It just doesn't happen. We see it over and over and over. This has been going on since 10, 15 years ago when you get to train to the top. It really takes a lot of the runs and the accordion effect that creates runs out of the pack. And so that's what we had. We had that opportunity. But with about five or six to go, Rajah started lifting, backing up to the seven, trying to figure out how he could create some runs.

That's what Raja thought he needed to do in the moment. And at Junior Murder Sports, there has never been a meeting that I can recall or one that I've been a part of or a discussion with drivers that I've been a part of where I have told them, here's the rules of engagement for Junior Motorsports with five laps to go, 10 laps to go, 15 laps.

laps to go. I've never handcuffed our drivers. And I felt like that that was a good thing. I felt like that it was good to say to them, look, I'm going to lean on y'all to be creative, smart, try to win the race

without ruining the race for the company or without crashing yourselves or your teammates. And in the past, we have destroyed ourselves multiple times at Daytona. We have destroyed ourselves. but I've always tried to say,

hey, I'm leaving it in the driver's hands. I'm not going to tell y'all what to do. But I think it's time to change. I've seen, I'll say this. Like, we've watched over the last 20 years, I can name multiple teams, Joe Gibbs Racing, Penske, colleague, Hendrick Motorsports. There's tons of teams, almost every one of them,

who have sort of this understanding in the back end of these races that there is some responsibility to take care of your teammates and work with them. And I've never, I always expect our drivers to try to take care of each other, to try to help each other, to try to work together. But I've never told them or wanted to say to them, man, you know, with 10 to go and you're in second, you're not allowed to pass your teammates. You're not allowed to try to create runs on your teammates.

I've never said that to them. And it might be time to clamp down and actually have a little bit of a better understanding of an individual's responsibility. And the reason why I've never felt good about that because I was selfish. I was going to make the moves I wanted to make for me. But I'll also say this.

If I had raced all race long, driving Rick Hendricks car, if I had raced all race long and tried my hardest to put myself in the position to be leading the race with 20 to go. And I didn't do that. I was actually now second to Jimmy, second to Jeff Gordon, second to a teammate. There was no way I was going to do something that would cost us both the race. because I knew that that would be awful for my reputation within the company would suffer so heavily. Yeah, big time. If I pull out a line with five to go, or if I'm backing up and getting runs and the field goes by both of us,

or if I do anything late in the race that cost me and my teammate the win, that was going to hurt my reputation in the company. I couldn't afford that, didn't want that. No one and no other driver really wanted... You definitely didn't want that. No. No other driver. And so there, there was this sort of unspoken culture that controlled us and kept us...

From doing that. From doing it. And kept us making the right decisions. And so, you know, it's being a good teammates part of it, but it's also like you knew the expectation from above, from Rick and everybody above you. So we don't... have that here. Yeah. And it's time for us to get it.

It's time for us to go in that direction. Because, and it probably will, it's probably a little bit late. It probably should have happened many, many years ago. But I was thinking, man, given the drivers, their creative liberties and allowing them to kind of just race their race, I wanted them to, I thought, you know, man, I'm going to let them be selfish like me. And it hasn't been a big, big benefit to us. and I mean it's not you're not really doing a lot different you're just I know I'm I I I I

what makes this okay with me today is that I can say look man you have all of stage one all of stage two and a majority of stage three to be to put yourself in the lead position if if you're you know and you you'll have all of that time in the race to do your best to put yourself in the position where you're you're in control of the race. If you haven't done that for whatever reason, then you're now, your responsibilities have changed. You know, look, and this only really comes into play when we have the numbers up front. Yeah, three or four. One, two, three, you know, one, two, three, four, whatever. This really, really has to come into play in those moments.

Any one and two, you could have two up there and still try to make a word. That's right. Yeah. I mean, yeah, when you're only two, when there's only two of you up there, you need to be more aligned. Oh, absolutely. Right. But when it's one, two, three, when it's one, two, three, four, that's when it gets

harder to actually get these guys to fall in and do. And know your role. And, and it's, and it's, it's harder to let, let it's, leave it to them and them do the right thing, right? And so, you know, I think going forward we'll probably have some conversations and say, look, man, you know, you get the whole race to kind of put yourself in the best position to try to be in control of the race at the end. If you have done that, great, you're going to have confidence in your teammates to support you.

If you haven't done that and your teammate two, teammate three, and we have the numbers, we're controlling the field at the front, there's new responsibilities. There's new expectations upon teammate two, teammate three to do things. a little more, you know, company-oriented instead of, you know, self-motivated. So I think it's just going to be the way it's going to have to be. Not every race falls. Not every race, you know, we're not expecting to go to Talladego in February, Daytona, and all these plate races and end up, you know, one, two, three at the front of the field every time.

It's so hard to do that. It's not always going to be that way. but when it is, we should absolutely have a different outcome than what we had this past weekend. And so I was mad. I went up to Carson and I was mad at him for lifting. And he's like, well, I'm just trying to protect my position. I'm like, I don't ever lift my. You know.

I know. I know. Come on the radio and told me, which was hard because. I know. I know. And I'm, you know, I'm telling Josh spotting for Raj. I'm like, don't lift. Don't be backing up.

Don't lift. You know, and it's just we don't need to be having those conversations in the race with 7, 6, 5 to go. They already ought to know that this is what it's expected well before we drop the green flag. I'll take responsibility for not tooling everybody up. But it'll be quite understood going into Talladega. That's for sure. still a great night for Raja got the points he needed to be able to get himself into the chase

which I thought was incredible considering how he bounced around from car to car throughout the season and of course it doesn't happen without the bad luck for the Joe Gibbs racing drivers that was just out of their control but it was fortunate for us

so Raja gets to race for the championship ship and Justin and Carson and Sammy are in really, really good spot. And look, Sammy's moving on and won't be at junior motorsports. That has been, obviously, you know, a relationship that I wish would have better results. We worked really hard. Sammy worked really hard when, you know, if you go back to Martinsville where he, you know, he tries to take out the gray kid.

That was a low point. For sure. And I'm going to tell you, man, we asked him to do the work. We asked him to get better. We asked him to make better decisions. And he did. He's had a – Sammy's done a lot this year, I think.

He might ruffle some feathers with competition on the racetrack, those type of things, which is fine. He's a race car driver. I'm saying in the meeting room at the – at a driver's appearance. a meet and greet. He's buttoned up professional and he's getting better and better at all, you know, just being a race car driver in and out of the car every day. So I'm anxious to see kind of how he does going forward, but he's still young too. He's very young. We worked really hard and he worked really hard and, and I wish it could have went better. And there's still

some racing to do before the end of the year. He could pop off a win or something. so to finish this off on a good note. But I will say that I enjoyed having Sammy in the building. Announcement time? Yeah, I think it's announcement time. We got another announcement for the Cars Tour this weekend. A pretty awesome. You like this one.

We're sitting here drinking a couple Red Bulls. We got two Red Bull athletes that are going to compete in the late model stock race at Florence this weekend. SVG and Connor Zillich will be behind the wheel of, of two very competitive cars. It's going to be a pretty big field. They're going to have their hands full just trying to qualify well, let alone the 125 laps Friday night. So they'll both be in Red Bull-sponsored, identical late models.

Carson is going to be driving, or I'm sorry, Conor Zillich is going to be so many drivers with C's, Connors, Carson's. Conner Zilich is going to be driving. the number eight late model stock car actually my car that i race we're going to wrap that thing and send him up to or down the road with with brian and the guys and svg is going to be racing with headinger and um who put a very competitive car out on the racetrack as well um that group called me many weeks ago wondering if um you know i had any ideas on a driver that could could get in the car and so I reached out to both of these guys, and they both said yes.

So I had to find another car. That's awesome. That's a good problem to have. And I was sitting in a meeting with Red Bull the other day, and I said, hey, by the way, I got both these guys, both are your athletes. They're racing at Florence. Why don't we make them Red Bull cars? They're like, no problem.

Just like that. I don't get lying out to make these a die cast thing. Well, they'll go out there and run well. There's no question there'll be a diecast. I appreciate that guys jumping in there and doing this. SVG is going to be number 51. Nice. Both the cars are identical aside from the numbers.

And it's just going to be pretty cool. I mean, obviously, I'm going to run the pro race, which is a 100-lap feature before the late model stocks. The late model stocks then run 125 laps. All this happens on flow. On Friday night, if you're in the area at Darlington, come on out to Florence. It's only about 10 miles away from the Darlington Motor Speedway.

it's a bull ring it's a throwback it's authentic very classic I've run a lot of races there and had a lot of fun there it's going to be warm but it'll be doable so excited about that

looking forward to I know Connor has raced in the cars tour before he's aware of what he's gotten himself into SVG on the other hand he's becoming quite the short track racer at the cup level. But I'm curious as to what he says

once he finishes the weekend or the Friday night gets out of the car. I can't wait to see what he says about it. I'm going to close out dirty air here and move on through the next several segments Ask Jr. and Dirty Mo Doe, but before we do,

we want to tell you, the Earnhardt family's always relied on Bass Pro Shops for our outdoor adventures. And that tradition continues with me today. I grew up shopping at Bass Pro Shops and now it's a place where I love to share with my own family

gearing up together to go out on weekend getaways, maybe fishing in the pond over by the house. Whatever it is, we're really incredibly grateful for the support that Johnny Morris and the entire Bass Pro Shop team has shown across all of our

business ventures, whether it's the race team, Dirty Mo Media, my late model stock car. They believe in what we're building. They've stood behind us every step of the way. they're not just great partners but great friends and great people. Be sure to check out all they have to offer. Whether you're going fishing, camping, hunting, you can find everything you need at the nearest Bass Pro shop store,

or you can shop with them online at BassPro.com. All right, we're live. Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. For another episode or segment of Ask Jr. here at the Dale Jr. download. We've had a really good show this morning. Ryan Priest came into the studio. at the desk and talk to us. We had two big announcements for the Cars Tour

that you'll hear about later today when this episode comes out. We're not going to talk about it. Xfinity is waving the red flag on Internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings. You get the Wi-Fi. And the speed and reliability that you need locked in at one price for five years.

One price for five years. That's pretty good. No surprises, no late yellows, just straight shots to Victory Lane, just like that, folks. We have a winner. It is Xfinity. Imagine that.

I opened up a pack of wheels. We got a lot of card boxes over here. People are sending us in card boxes, NASCAR stuff from the 90s because it's pretty much worth pennies. But it's still fun to open up. I got a Todd Bedine, Ernie Irving,

kissing his wife in Victory Lane. Brett Bedine, Brett Bedine, back to back. two brets, one gold, one silver, watch out. Ed Whitaker, I drove a race for Ed Whitaker, two races for Ed Whitaker, one at Bristol, one at Fontana in the Bush series. Speaking of NASCAR cards, T. Crawford in the chat wants to know,

is there a NASCAR card that you would like to have? Billy Stobola. I, a buddy of mine who is a very, a buddy of mine who is a singer, that y'all you all know i don't want to drop his name it feels weird he has a gym he has a 10 PSA 10 downtown of mine oh 2021 i think downtown pretty cool yeah yeah um i was going through my dad's cards and do they have dale earnhardt senior downtowns i want to dale senior downtown do they have that really

let's look it up i don't know chat did they have downtowns uh Type it in, Travis. I know they've got downtowns for me, but, man, Dale Earnhardt downtown? That'd be kind of cool. Pretty cool. Yeah. I don't know if I've even seen one.

Maybe I have. One day, we'll pull one. Well, you did one. No, would you get, would you pull that one time? I got a King, Refugee Jr. down to. Trout says no. Wow, they don't? Well, that's a miss.

Well, I mean, it's possible they don't. Yeah. Anyhow, we, uh, yeah, I kind of, I don't want to tell them what the announcement is, but they're going to have to wait. Yeah, I'm not going to tell them. Two big announcements for the Cars Tour. I will end the stream. And, yeah, Priest came in here.

We talked about Daytona. We talk a lot. Listen, the Dirty Modo segment, even if you don't gamble, is really funny this weekend. Or this week, we... Russ up his game a little bit. We changed how we kind of did the dirty Modo segment. And big thanks to Russell for some of the content that he brought. super funny but who you got over there quickly tj man i got three mark martins um a rusty and a glover

jim bow look at the hair on here nice all right so let's get to some more questions uh first question came from facebook they want to know where did the ring the bell for a wind come from well rick hendrick and in their group they have a bell that they take around to all of the departments um it's on a cart and it's a big bell and you just you know just they push the cart around to all the employees you literally literally bring it right up to your station you ring the bell yeah it's actually pretty cool tradition yeah so we just hung a bell in the middle of the shop and you run over you know we'll have a beer toast you start winning too much we're we're beer drinkers you know and um we're easy so uh we have a beer toast right around four o'clock um after wins and everybody gets in line you

ring the bell. It's great because you get at the end, you get at the bell, and you get their fist bump, shake hands with all the employees that come through. They're all coming through to ring the bell. So they're right there and the crew chief, the driver, everybody gets to say thank you to each individual. It's perfect. It's a good atmosphere.

It is. No, it's pretty cool. Yep. Not a question, but speaking of fans, sending some stuff in, we have snacks and also, TJ, there, I believe, are some cards in there for you. You better be real careful with the bottom of that box. is holy smokes. I got a friend of mine

that comes down here from Canada and I they have things up there that we don't have ketchup flavored potato chips that's one here right there is it wonder if we got the pickle ones to make the

so yeah we've talked about this they got ketchup flavored Doritos yeah We got a Nashville hot Picante style Nashville Oh, that sounds good And then there's a lot of French words

Mr. Maple That sound, dude, maple syrup, y'all I don't know Where's the bag? There's a little bag with some Yeah, hey me then That's for T.J. There you go, T.J.

Thank you. There's LICO. Catchup flavored Chitos. Canada loves their ketchup. They do. I'll be honest. I mean, there's a lot more in there.

I don't think y'all want to see everything. But this, my friend, so, what's you got there? Oh, Josh Allen. I collect Josh Allen. He's a big, in case anybody didn't know. All right, so I'm a big,

I used to watch much music. You know, MTV, you had MTV, MTV 2, and VH1, all of that. And then much music was like the Canadian MTV. And you'd hear bands, you know, that you didn't really get to hear all the time. But so I used to, you used to, and then we would go up to Canada every now and then

and race or shoot commercials. It was, we shot, y'all remember the old, the outlaw fuel additive? I did this commercial where I'm in this Camaro doing a donut inside this, like, industrial plant, shot that in Ontario. Just went all the way up there to shoot that commercial.

It was cold and miserable. It's like an hour from my house where I lived up there. Really? Yeah, thanks. So, anyhow, my buddy that lives up there, he comes down here, man, I mean, he comes down here a lot. But he brings me five alive. That's what it started with. There's two cases of five alive.

Can you somebody hand me some of that so I can just see people can see it? And this is important because my dad, just it's the best I don't think I've ever tried it so these are in the juice boxes like can we have T.J. try one right now? So you have this five alive and this is the French

side on the back but my dad used to buy five alive in the jug big jug this big this guy sends it in the juice boxes which is kind of nice because you just use them individually to mix with

vodka. My dad either drank beer or he drank Five Alive and vodka back in the day. And so this guy heard me talking about that and he said, hey, they don't make Five Alive in the States anymore. I don't know

why. They just don't make it. But they still make it up in Canada. So he started bringing just Five Alive down. And then he's like, hey man, try out these ketchup. Tava' chips. And I'm like, damn, this is good. So now he's like, just keeps bringing more and more and more stuff. but they also collect sports cards and every now and they'll bring some of those down but very thankful.

Speaking of Canadian food, Matt Forbes wants to know Have you ever tried Poutine? No. Oh. That doesn't sound like. What's that? No, it's good. It's like gravy and cheese curds.

I want to say, correct me if I'm wrong, Matt, but it's like you get French fries and you get like gravy and cheese curds melted on top. Yeah. Really good. Okay. This other person said Buffalo fans are practically Canadian. Hashtag T.J. sucks.

Buffalo is also. Buffalo everything. What's the next question? Next question. I saw people want to know your reaction to Days of Thunder. Oh, yeah. Dude, I met with the guy who's sort of developing the story for Days of Thunder 2. back at Phoenix at the end of last year.

And a lot of people, he came to Phoenix, and a lot of us met with him and I met with him. And so this has been going for a while, this fella that I gave my number two. We've been in contact and communication. He's come out to the western town, and we've sat down in my western town just talking racing. Great guy, super nice.

And so he's like, man, I need to talk to you about racing. I got questions. And I'm like, anything you need, call me, come down to Charlotte or come to the western town, whatever. So he comes to western town. We sat down there in the western town for an hour or two, probably longer. And him just, what's this about? What does this mean?

What does this do? Tell me about this. What if a driver did this? What if I wrote a guy into the story that was like this? What would he do? What would he say? you know so it's been super super fun to feel like you're helping these folks understand they want to get it right yeah and so but i've had some great meetings and conversations with

them around the movie and have known that it's been coming together for quite some time uh i've met tom cruise twice um that i that i remember the first time was when he came to my dad's shop before they shot the first days of thunderback in the 80s. Him and dad went into the office and sat down and talked for an hour or more. And I was there. We were all excited that he was coming. This is just right after risky business, I assume. He's just now kind of hitting the...

Dang, huge. Yeah. And so I remember dad and Teresa saying Tom Cruise is going to come over. Y'all are all going to, you know, we're all going to be there to greet him. You know, not like, Shoe go away. Tom Cruise is coming over. Like, no, we're all going to be standing here

when he walks through the door, which is super cool. And he was great. And then the next time I remember meeting him was at Fontana in 2008. Or, yeah, I think it was 08. Me and Tony Jr. are just now starting this season with Hendrick. Things have been going pretty well with Dayton and so forth.

and we go to Fontana and we didn't even get to run a lap. They had the weepers and everything, and they were trying to fire the race off, and it was wet, and Casey Mears got loose in the water and clipped us, and it ruined our day, but we're in the garage working on the car trying to get it ready to go back out, and Tom was there for that race. And so he came down in the garage while we're working on it

and talked to him a little bit there. But we think, that car. Yeah, we did. He's, they're like, hey, man, I was going to go to the O'Reilly race. I flew out to the Freedom Factory the morning of the O'Reilly race, and you can watch that video with Cletus on his, on, I think, Dirty Moe Media and Cletus collaborated on that, but Cleetus didn't have to do that, so thank you, Cletus. But you can see the video. We did some drifting and all kinds of stuff. He took Amy for a lap around the racetrack. A lot of fun to see what all he's got going on there. we went to the O'Reilly race.

Well, NASCAR was like, hey, man, Tom Olst to meet you. You got to spend the night and get up in the morning and Tom owes to meet you. So we went probably 930, 945 in the morning on race day for the cup guys. We go out to the NASCAR hangar. Tom flies his own plane. Tom comes, lands his plane to Daytona. That's a little shocking thing. He taxis right up to the hangar.

We walked out to the plane. and he gets off and we sit there and talk for probably 20 minutes. He and I and Amy and got to meet his family and folks that were with him. He had his sister and a couple of folks with him and all these people that he was coming out to, you know, talk at the driver's meeting and, you know, kind of do more with that announcement around the Days of Thunder too. I'm excited about it. I am thrilled that they're wanting to do this. And so there'll be some things that they can't.

lean into with the old movie, but there'll be some things that they can, and I told him, I'm like, man, you've got to lean on that original film as much as possible. People are going to want to see Easter eggs and like kind of these hidden stories. Yeah, you want to remember it. Yeah, it just needs to kind of tie into the original

as well as possible, and it should. And I mean, with what I've heard about it, man, it's going to be a lot of fun. So I can't wait. to see it come together because they filmed the barn, right? When they were filming Days of Thunder, the old barn scenes, that barn was at the end of the road that I lived on. It was six miles from my house.

Or no, it was probably three miles from my house. So I could get on my, I was 16 years old. I had my black and silver 88 S-10 pickup truck and I could drive my truck up into this big giant field that was across the street from the barn I'd park my truck, throw to a tailgate down and sit on my tailgate and watch them. And I'd be like two football fields away

and sit there and just kind of watch them. You know, people, I'm watching a movie set. You know, and I don't know what they're, I'm not actually watching Tom or anybody. I never saw Tom. But I'm like, I know they're working down there. I know they're filming. I know they got it all lit up.

It's 10 o'clock at night, and they got it lit up like crazy. And they're filming on this barn, and I'm just sitting in my truck watching them. That's cool. So you get to the scene where they're making the car, you get to see some of that. I had no idea what I was watching. You do now, though. Right. You know, but that's how close it was to home.

That's cool. And that was a big deal. I think that barn's still there. The barn's still there. The barn has to make an, appearance, yeah. It has to. Somehow.

Yeah. And so even, you know, the, the, back when they were filming Days of Thunder, that barn was surrounded by farmland. And I know this is a joke me and Amy say all the time is everywhere I drive around, more as I go, it used to be farmland. It used to be farmland. Well, now the barn is surrounded by an advance auto parts of Buffalo Wild Wings, the best buy. All this.

All this. It's a four-lane road. which used to be a two. It's incredible that it's still sitting there because literally every piece of property around it within about a three mile radius has been developed into commercial property. Oh, that road has grown up so much in there.

Yeah. And so that barn is still sitting there. Not only is it cool because of its connection to the movie, but the fact that it actually just hasn't been taken down due to development is wild. And when you see the barn, you can tell, if you know the movie, you can look at the barn and know that. it right away. Yes, you know that's it.

To the chat, I see you talking about Cletus and Amy. We're going to hit that on, Bless Your Heart, so that's why we're not really diving that in now. Yeah, yeah. We'll talk about that trip to Cletus's Thursday with Amy. Final question. I know the race thing. Oh, one more

thing we're going to talk about with Amy. Guess what she did Saturday. Well, I know, because I can see the... TJ. She started a whatnot account Oh yeah

She She's giving me nothing but a hard time About buying these cards Getting back into the sports cards And she says I'm gonna look at over there And like, what are you doing? She's like, I'm trying to start a whatnot account

I'm like Why? She's like, well, there's this girl selling this purse on there And I want it Oh And I'm like Encourage her Welcome to the team.

I was like, just use mine. And she goes, but won't you get suggested a lot of things that I'm looking at? I'm like, yeah, start your own. I don't want to be suggested all of those things. But I'm like, oh, man, you know, messed up. You hooked. You're messed up. That's kind of crazy that, I mean, that somebody is.

Chase Briscoe. Yeah, your fault. Chase Briscoe, you need to hear this, man. My wife is on, got a whatnot account. He will not know what to think about that. Did she get the purse? Oh, I don't know. I don't know.

I'll find out on Thursday. We decided in that moment we were never going to judge each other again about our purchases on whatnot. I've narrowed my, I got to sell it, two people on there that do with, you know, auctions and stuff in their mind. Those are the ones I look at now. Really? Yeah, I've narrowed it down. There's too many. I just go for the vintage cards.

I go, if you're selling vintage cards, I'm going to check it out. Yeah. There's one guy from Rochester, I think. Right guy and another guy is like Presti. I don't want the current class. You don't know what they're going to be. My last couple of cards that I bought, I've been buying some mantles.

Yes, sir. Trying to get some mantles. Final question. I know the race didn't go your way, but Ryan Segan's first win. Just thoughts on. Oh, yeah. Oh, man.

You know what? That was a really cool deal. You know, he'd been racing in the series forever, and they had been doing it on a tight budget for a long time. Now, their program has improved. For sure. They have gotten themselves, and they came so close at Texas with Sam Mayer that one race. Obviously, we were fortunate enough to win.

But he has been overdue. They work hard. He's a hell of a race car driver. Hard racer, clean racer, you know. He's going to tell you when you piss him off, but he's also a guy that you can race door to door with without problems. Been in a series a long time. Just, you know, very deserving. Yeah.

You know, if you were going to lose it, that's kind of, that's a guy you don't mind winning. There's a few guys in the field you don't really mind losing to. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be one of them scenarios. Well, that's it for today. We've got an awesome roundtable show coming up next that we have to record. Yeah.

Yeah. Tomorrow we have a big roundtable conversation kind of leading into the chase and just kind of a state of the sport. And got a lot of great voices coming to the table to get that going. So it's going to be a good week here on Dirtymo Media. Is Finity is waving the red flag on. internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings, you get the speed and reliable Wi-Fi that you need locked in at one price for five years. No surprises.

No late yellows. Just straight to Victory Lane. And we've got a winner, folks. It's Xfinity. Thank you, Xfinity for everything you do. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, y'all.

It's time for Dirty Mo Doe, brought to you by Fanjul. Coming out of Daytona. Do you all remember, did we do good Daytona? we don't remember hit her mess we need a chalkboard in here I don't think it was bad yeah

I went to dry I think we had priests yeah and some bets we talked about Stenhouse yeah yeah

Hosevar did we have Hosevar or something or we'll stay away that I think we did have Hosefovar we put them in something yeah

I can't remember that ended a ball of flames was it with Bowman how about Josh Barry oh yeah Bowman top 10 Josh Josh yeah

five top 10 top 10s in a row. Thankfully that was on the last lap because that would have hurt. He wouldn't have finished after that. Yeah. Because he had bad damage. Yeah, a little contact. Yeah.

But he's had five top fives in a row for the Woodbrothers. Only two drivers. I guess the last time that was done was 94 with Mortgage Shepherd and Kyle Petty did it in 87. Really? Yeah. That long? Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. Pretty cool, huh? Yeah. Let's move on to Darlington. Who's our hot drivers and sleepers? Yeah. There's a lot of information here. Just so much information.

Yeah, I hear you're great at creating categories. Yeah. So we got our hot drivers, Denny Hamlin, Chase Briscoe, Tyler Reddick. Denny's won five times at Darlington. Chase Briscoe has won the last two Southern 500s. Would you believe that? No. I wouldn't either.

But he's done it. Yeah, it just clicks with him, man. Something about Darlington and Chase. Yeah, Redick won. at Darlington in the spring, scoring a total of 70 points. Redick was, I don't know if I've seen a car that strong. I like all three of those guys. That's strong.

Who do you like the most out of those three? I think Chase Briscoe for me. For real. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. You don't think Denny gets back on his hot street? He can, but he struggled there the last two. I wouldn't say struggled, but it was undenny-like the last two races there for me.

I don't even see Denny in Daytona. Was he out there? No. Well, he had no camera. He was just chilling the back. I saw him. Take that camera out of there, boy. We need to get that camera out of all their cars.

That would be amazing. Well, I'll be curious. I think that's probably the number one thing I'm curious about for this particular race is what does Danny Hamlin look like? We've seen NASCAR has made changes since Wilkesboro to the front structure of the race cars, but we haven't really kind of seen them. on a lot of mile and a halfs or on some of the tracks

where the advantage from the Toyota's earlier in the year is really shown. I don't know that Darlington is... Okay, I think Darlington is a place where that advantage would continue. I would think so. Yeah, so it'll be interesting to see, A, are the Toyota still, you know,

going to go up there and be the top three or top five? Will they litter out through the top ten of the field and out run most of the other manufacturers? And will Denny Hamlin be the best? Yes, Toyota, which is what he's been all year. So that's kind of a big question. Let's look at some cold drivers. We've got Joey Legato and Chase Elliott, really cold.

Joey, the last top five at Darlington was in 2022, eight races ago. Only one top ten finish in the last five races for Chase. But I always think Chase runs up front at Darlington. Maybe just crashes out or has some bad luck. I don't know. I don't know if I see that as much. Do you? Do you, Russ?

I don't. I think he's thinking back in like the like four or five years ago. The old car, yeah. Oh, who's in the background? Four five years ago is not that far. Who's in the background? But it's pre-next-gen.

What's in the background? What's the house? Yeah, look down there. Look over your right shoulder. Who's that? What? Look at him. Penny.

Penny? Penny made an appearance. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about our sleepers. Eric Jones, obviously, a two-time Darlington winter. Every time you go to Darlington, You got to have Eric Jones as a possible guy that could just slip up in there and have a great night. Weren't both those cars fast there?

Yeah, they were. Wasn't John Hunter? Yeah, I think John Hennichick run third or something. Yeah. Yeah, he was up there. Austin Cendrick, you got him as a sleeper. His worst start and finish in the last four races at Darlington is 13th. Yeah.

That's surprising, isn't it? It is. What about Bubba? But I mean, Austin's a workman-like guy. Kind of goes about it. You never even know he was there until the very end. And you're like, oh, damn, there he is. There he is.

I like Bubba. I think Bubba could have a really good weekend. Wait a minute now. Damn it, you're dropping a head. Oh, sorry. We haven't gotten to feast and famine yet. One last sleeper, William Byron, six top tens in the last eight Darlington races.

Now, he's a sleeper because he just hasn't been anywhere this year. Yeah. Like we're just not talking about him. Yeah. It's just been an odd year for him. All right, we're going to go to category, ain't as good as he once was, as good as he ever was.

That's Brad Kislaaski. How are we going to run, Russ? His last career win was at Darlington in 2024. His last runner at finish came at Darlington in the spring. Yeah, spring race. Darlington's a great track for Brad. Last time he won stages was there.

Yeah. Last race there. I'm throwing Brad Kislaski into the top 10 bucket. Something about Brad just mixes well with Darlington. Yeah. What is it about Brad and Darleney? Arlington. Just the way you got to race the racetrack and it's not just all.

Okay. I'm... I mean, you can get in trouble there? Can we get back on track here? I'm asking a question. That's not a question I care about. Well, I'm the host. Hey, I'm trying to sit here and fill up my top 10 bucket so I can figure out who I'm put my parlay, damn it. Yeah, but fans want to know why this driver is good. That's what this segment is about. So Brad has last seen is going into my top 10 bucket. I may put him in a parlay. by the end of this. Let's get to the Needs Darlington

group of folks, group of drivers here. That's Chris Busher. He's finished top ten in six of the last seven races. I know, I'm going to tell you that. T.J., he's been good. Well, here it is. Here's the real information.

Finished top ten in six of the last seven races at Darlington, including the last four. That's the longest streak, active streak. He's tied with somebody. Redick. Reddick. But he's only had one top ten finish in the last nine races this season. So, yeah, Donington.

He needs Starlington. He needs it. Do we throw Busher in our top ten bucket? He's good at Darlington, T.J. said. I'd put Chris in the top ten there. He's just been there. He's just been in the top. That means he's been steady there.

I like him there. I can't risk a parlay with two RFK drive. in the top 10. Who do we pick Brad or Chris? Chris. I mean, I don't know why you wouldn't put both of them there because they both have been up in the front there. Like you're not going out on a limb.

Yeah, okay. You're looking for high odds, right? You won me over, T.J. All right, see, that's what I'm here for. All right, now we're going on to our drivers who are blah. That's Christopher Bell. Only four top tens and 14 Darlington starts. Wow.

You would think Christopher Bell would be dominant at Darlington. That seems like quite, just to kind of raise. racetrack they'd just really be good at. Six position, his six position average finish advantage in the spring compared to the fall. So he's better in the spring compared to the fall. And he's only led 59 laps there. I mean, is that pretty low comparable to most of his other? Yeah, it's pretty low for him. Yeah. Okay. Well. And his top 10 percentages, that's like a speedway top 10 percentage for him. I wish Christopher Bell all the best. we're just going to steer clear, considering that he's blah.

He's a category. Wish him the best. Blah. Blah, is it? Yeah, that should be the next week's category. Wish him the best. All right. Now we're going to move on to Can't Take the Southern 500 Heat.

And that driver is Ty Gibbs. Oh, man. Top 10 finishes in the last three spring Darlington races, but it's best finish of 15th in the Southern 500 in 2020. Best finish in the Southern 500 driving for Jay, are is 20th. Jeez. Yeah.

You wouldn't think that, you know, you would, you wouldn't think that drivers would be any better in one season than the other. And I'm talking about spring versus fall. So there's so many guys that are like that, that have a way bigger difference, average finish-wise,

in the spring versus the fall. That's so interesting. What that is? What is it? What do you think it is? Oh, you hadn't thought about it. I don't know. I'm just the numbers guy.

I'm telling you what the numbers are. Okay, all right. I wonder what that is. I think it's just circumstantial. I think it is too. We probably just use it. But we're moving on to Better in the Spring. There we go.

This is Ryan Blaney. Finished top five in the last two Darlington Spring races. His only top five in 19 starts at Darlington. His average finish of 14th in the spring at Darlington versus 20th in the Southern 500. which is this weekend. Maybe he knows. Should we ask?

I mean, that sounds kind of like can't take the Southern 500 heat. Yeah. Maybe that's... Brian Blaney and Ty Gibbs share some similar habits at Darlington. Oh, man.

I can't answer that riddle. I don't know why they would run good one, you know, early in the year, Darlington and not good in the back half of the year. Is it the longer race? Just a happenstance that there's more that could go wrong. Maybe so. Now we're moving on to used to be good at Dawkins.

That's Kyle Arsons. Boy, people aren't going to like that. Average finish in his first eight races at Darlington was 5.5. Incredible. You're going to make some enemies off this now, Russ. Geez. Russ, how many categories we got here? His average finish in the last 9, 21.7.

What? Not good. that's not good at all he's only finished on the lead lap in two of the last five races at darlington used to be good he used to be good that is he used to be good what's been biting him i don't know i really don't know well the numbers don't like us and we're moving on to feast and famine finally bubble wallace finished in the top ten and five of the last eight races at darlington pretty incredible especially when you hear the statistics from guys like Larson, Blaney, Bell, and so forth. But 16th or worst in the other three, including a 34th in the spring.

But he had issues with the car, right? He's still finished there. Well, I mean, it's not like... This is another situation where it's kind of like, you know, as the race goes longer, it gets harder or more difficult. where Bubba has finished better in stage one than is stage two or race finish in the last four events. So he's firing off good, probably qualifying really well,

running up front, but something along the way derails the day. I'm taking them. I'm putting them in my top 10. All right. In the last 15 races this season, five finishes of 6th or better and 9 finishes of 20 or worse. So staying in line with the feast,

Mr. Famine description that he was given. So you asked for it, Dale. I gave you more categories. Can we get this every week? This is really entertaining. I think this is our best dirty-mo dough yet. All right, so after all that, who are you going to bet? All right.

I think for top tens, I would do a parlay with Keselowski and Busher together just for fun. pulling for RFK as a whole to win the bet would be pretty interesting on race day. I just find it hard to believe that Larson and C. Bell are going to continue this trend. And even Blaney or Bubba. I mean, you could pair up any of these guys. I would have to go, I guess, and look at the odds of Christopher Bell. Larson Blaney, Bubba Wallace,

Byron, find the guy who has the worst odds for a top 10 and pair them up. Put them in there, yeah. Because I think they're due. I feel like Bubba's probably

would have, their odds aren't out right now, but I feel like Bubba will have a good number. I think the cars will be fast too, I think. Yeah. Well,

what about Josh Barry? What's he going to do this weekend? Man, another top 10. Oh, that's on that streak. Everybody cool. He's on a streak.

Yeah. Priests off a big wind. Does he carry momentum? what do you think russ Josh Barry run third here at Stuart Haas yeah and I know his results are pretty pretty dismal over the last couple of trips

yeah but he's his running position is probably uh probably pretty decent I think yeah Josh something about I mean he had a shot of winning that race at a few of the races I recall his running position was decent yeah wrecked out yeah and the 24 southern 500

he was running top 10 all race and wrecked out. Yeah. He should have a fairly good qualifying like number this week. Why would you think? Oh, just his draw or whatever you call it. Yeah, where he goes out.

Now it's going to help his pit stall and things like that. So all that matters. We'll see. We'll see. If they could roll in another top 10, man. I mean, this guy's on a heater. Yeah. I think Josh Barry, you know, is cup level.

I know a lot of people are like, gosh, put him in your car, put him in junior emergency sports. I think the goal for Josh is to stay at the Cup series. He's completed here. Yeah. But there are some other opportunities out there, I think, if he continues to run as well as he has. But I think he's kind of in the last five weeks

reminded people of his potential. So that's been pretty awesome. All right, man. Well, I think I'm going to pick to win the race, Denny Hamlin. I do think it'll be tight. Chase Briscoe, all those guys, absolutely. Could get up there and make it happen,

but I think Denny goes out there and wins. And I'm going to do a Keselowski-Busher top-10 parlay, and then I'm going to do a Ryan Blaney, Kyle Larson, and then maybe a Bell Bubba Wallace, three different parlias for top tens. So you like Bell, huh? That's an interesting thing. I just, I don't, I love the Toyotas,

and I just feel like it's He's due to pop He's not he's a great race car driver This is a this is a slick worn out race track It just feels like It should be something that he could You know he could produce on We'll see

But apparently But apparently he is blah No more Top 10, Christopher Bell Yeah I don't think Larson and Bell are going to be too happy with your categories, Russ. Well, I mean, he's got four top tens and 14 starts. Yeah.

I mean, you could argue that's 30%. Yeah. So it's not terrible. Not that great either, though. Not that great either, but I'm trying to win some money. Yeah. Fake money because you can't gamble. Everybody knows that.

Well, look, I mean, if they want my freaking, if they want access to, they can act, the law can come access my apps anytime they won't. I mean, they wouldn't even have to. I think Fanduil would just hand over the information. Yeah, I'm just reminding folks. Do you have a championship favorite other than Denny? Well, that's a great question. I mean, I think everybody, look, Denny was

clear, the clear, clear favorite. And then we went to New, then we went to North Willsboro, and ever since then, it's not been as clear. But those also a stretch of, oddball racetracks that aren't really consistent with what we're going to see here in the chase. So, again, I feel like I can't wait to watch this race this weekend to really see where the speed is across the board for the field. And I think Denny's going to have some challengers. Denny's going to have some people that are going to push him.

But, you know, I don't know. if I've ever seen a season go so hot and cold with drivers so quickly. Yeah. Like it looked like Tyler Reddick was running away with everything. And then, like I said earlier, Denny runs him down. Then it looks like Denny can't be beaten. Then Joey Legano gets hot for a little bit. And then it's like, I don't know if I remember it ever being this wide open.

Does that make sense? Yeah, I agree. I think that can, you know, there's, if Blaney can get out of the gate with a deep, decent couple of races. He could be really... And get through that little mile and a half stretch. Yeah. Yeah. It could be a problem.

The rest of the races really line up well for him, right? Yeah, he was... The problem he had was this year he was averaging like 19 points less than Denny on the intermediates. I know it. That's what I'm saying. If he can go to those mile and a halfs and have a couple of good days, there's races in the back half of the chase that are so good for him.

Yeah. That gives Blaney the shot. Chase Briscoe back in fifth Chase could make a run Yeah he might He's a little bit of a sleeper Yep You know C Bell

I honestly look at it man And I think Denny I take Denny over most of these guys I really do Yeah But I see I think it's tough It's more of a guess Of who's going to be the toughest competition

more so than who could actually outright go win the championship. I think Blaney, Briscoe, Bell's got a little percentage there. Tie Gibbs could sneak around and still be alive, right? Still be numerically alive laid in the chase. Do we see experience, like we talked about consistency, like now is when you need it, right? You can't afford that big mistake. if these guys start spinning out by themselves

and taking themselves out of races, this is like with the time, I mean, I really feel like it's, Denny's got to be the favorite because he doesn't make a lot of them mistakes. I think what, I think what the mistake that drivers are going to make won't be visual. You won't see it.

It won't be, you know, Ty Gibbs or Joe Ligano spinning out. It'll be a mental breakdown in the race. This happens to guys, and a lot of times we don't even know it's going on. It's rare, honestly, that the TV picks it up, puts it on the broadcast, and we get to live through it in real time. But if one of these guys, multiple drivers in this group,

multiple drivers in this 16, will have a moment in one of these races, when they, inside themselves, realize they have lost the championship, or they are losing the championship. Or, man, if this race doesn't turn around, I'm out of it. Whether that's real or not, they're going to have that sort of emotion at some point in the chase. And for some guys, it could happen in race number one at Darlington. They could just be having the worst night. It could be the worst car they've ever drove.

they could just, and they will smoke themselves emotionally and mentally, and they'll be done. So you're saying when they're faced with some, what the, they're going to come up with some adversity at some point. Yeah. And it's how they manage that. Can they, when it's all, when you, you know, say you're midway through the chase and you go to, go to a Kansas or a Charlotte or something, and your shit sucks and you're just slow. And you're running 25th all night.

Yeah. Are you going to implode? Yeah. Can you grind out that 12th? Can you grind it out and maybe pop off a 15th? Yeah, exactly. Just save the night. Just still give yourself a shot at it.

Or will they implode? Are you with the spotter? Are you with the crew chief? Speed on pit road. Yep. Start making mistakes getting in the pit box, getting on the pit road, start doing things like, you know, and just unravel. And a lot of times this is happening and we're not really even picking up on it.

as this sort of implosion. But it happens, and I think, you know, that's going to be the fate of some of these guys. Mentally, you have to be strong here and realize if you have a 15th-place car that day, try to run 15th. You're going to end up 10th. That's one guy I don't worry about that. One guy that that will not happen to is Chase Briscoe. Chase Briscoe is never out of it in his mind.

And I mean, there may be a couple other guys in there that are as, that are the same mentality as him. But I've seen it all year. We'll be racing. There was a race somewhere. I don't remember where it was. I can't remember what it was, but he's running 20th all day. Bam, there he is.

There was all kinds of, you know, every third stage, there's all kinds of stuff that starts happening. And then there's a handful of, there's a few more cautions, a few more restarts, a few more chances to line up in the right line and fire off and grab a couple spots on that restart.

And the next thing, I know this guy's running 11th. The problem is with that is sometimes when you take that opportunity, the hole closes up, something happens, you know, there's a lot more risk when you take them moves. But, you know, Denny's more likely to, okay, I'm going to get through one and two and then I'm going to make the pass. Brisco's like, oh, there's a hole, I'm going to go for it. When there's a 40 to 6% chance that he gets caught up in something, but, you know,

but that's what we do it. It's why it's going to be entertaining and fun. Yeah, for sure. We got a great roundtable tomorrow for the guest show. So for more Chase talk, man, got to tune in to see that. All right. Thanks. We appreciate you, man.

Thanks everybody for tuning in to another segment of Dirty Mo Doe, brought to you by Fandul, the premier gaming destination in the United States. That's the show for today. TJ, thanks for coming through. Sure. Thanks for joining us, everyone in the Arby's studio. Don't forget about Arby's new Meat and Three Box.

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