The Dale Jr. Download - Darlington's Old School Feeling & A Hall-Of-Fame Debate

Episode Date: March 24, 2026

Dale Jr. and the crew celebrate 700 episodes with plenty of laughs and nostalgia, including some fun stories and a look at a signed Dale Sr. trading card. They preview a big CARS Tour weekend with limited spots and high stakes, share what made Dale’s Nashville test feel like stepping back in time, and dive into everything that made Darlington weekend stand out, from throwback energy to the opinions it always brings out across the garage. They break down the on-track action in Darlington, including Justin Allgaier’s strength on restarts in the O’Reilly series and a Cup race that had a little bit of everything with strategy, tire falloff, and late-race intensity. Tyler Reddick joins after a hard-fought performance to talk through the challenges he faced, and the crew weighs in on the Reddick vs. Buescher moment while also highlighting a few underrated runs across the field. 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 wait 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 for another. episode of the Dale Jr. Download. This is Post Darlington.

What episode is this? 700. Really? Why'd you quit putting it on here? I know. Because I don't care about the number. We do. We care about it. Too much work. 700 episodes. Geez. Feels like 7,000. Working with you, it does. Yeah, that's right. Well, this episode, number 700, is presented by Arby's.

Don't forget about Arby's new meat in three box. You get more. more meal for your money at Arby's. We had the meats. So let's get right into it, bud. We got a lot to talk about. On the table, I've got some props. I have a box of NFL pininis. I thought we could open those.

We should. I got a Dale Earnhardt. Nice. Card. This is 2000. Dad signed this. more than likely he signed this at DEI in his autograph room. The person sent it off and got a PSA authenticated to autograph.

It is certified. And a friend of mine that brings me the – he brings me stuff from Canada. He's in Canada. The high five guy? Five alive. Five alive. Five alive. He brings five alive and ketchup-flavored chips.

Potato chips. Yum. Which is hard to say for some reason. He gave me this This slabbed I love that word He gave me this slabbed Autographed

Dellenhart card For the studio And also We talked about this shirt Now I don't like promote And making other people money But you know We like to promote things that make

DirtyMo Media money But this shirt is the shirt Guess who ran into me today at the track. So this shirt, after the 1987 All-Star Race, the Winston, where Dad and Bill Elliott tangled, Jeff Bidine got in that little mix-up as well, it was maybe, in my opinion, I'm biased,

the most dramatic and exciting 10 laps in NASCAR history. Okay? The last 10 laps of the Winston in 1987. The next couple of weeks, she started going to the racetrack. and you start seeing these bootlegged t-shirts being sold all around the racetracks. And I bought one at Talladega. All right. Now, in 1987, I was 13 years old.

And I bought one of these t-shirts. Dad would give me a hundred bucks. And I'd run all over the property. No chaperone, no supervision. 13 years old, me and my buddies, they were 13, 14, 14, 12, whatever. We're running all over the footprint of Talladega Super Speedway property. We're over at the Hall of Fame by ourselves. We go over to the dirt track at night and watch the dirt trackers run.

No, f***ing parents. Nothing, man. I don't know what the hell. It's such a different world, right? It really is. You'd never do that now. Well, I bought one of these with some of the money dad gave me to spend. And I got a guy, so I see it, right?

And I'm like, yeah, it's got a lot of yellow and blue paint on it, meaning that this person that made this shirt must have been a Bill Elliott fan. And they're saying, look who ran into me, all the yellow and blue marks on it. Earnhardt ran into me. Well, I thought I would fix the shirt. And I got a guy to spray on a number three, like this is the door of Dad's car, and put a little bit of red and gold on there too. And I was like, hey, Dad,

see it and not think this is an anti-Earnhard shirt. He'll think it's a, I'm wearing, I'm like, hey, look who ran into me, Bill Elliott. You know what I'm saying? I changed the narrative. Well, no, dad did not think so. And he saw it. And he told me to take it off immediately. And he used a lot of curse words.

And so the shirt disappeared. But now I have another. I bought it on the internet. I think our old friend NASCAR man Has sort of a pop-up t-shirt Kind of Sell by print You know you print by you order it

It gets made I'm glad to have one of these And I'm gonna wear it And dad ain't here to tell me to take it the f-off right So That's creative I love it's very creative You go to a football game whatever

And there's the people selling bootleg illegal t-shirts outside the stadium You know You know, this ain't got nobody's name on it. There's no trademark violations. This, to me, kind of clears the books. Yeah. All right. Anywho.

So I brought some props today. I guess we could put this in here. I don't know. I kind of want to take it home. Could leave it here. I'd probably take it home. Okay, TJ made the call. Me and you, we'll open some cards here after a while.

All right. Went to, we got a big race. this weekend in the Cars Tour. I'm leading into something, so don't get nervous about me talking about the Cars Tour. But our producer Travis likes us to stay on the NASCAR content. That's not true.

He does. He is not excited about anything non-cup. Little Xfinity. Mostly Cupp. He likes a lot of cup. He likes a lot of cup in our show. A little bit of Xfinity. But I...

O'Reilly. I, Riley, sorry. I, yeah, this is... This is the way it's going to be for a while. It's going to be, that's the way it's going to be for a while. So there's a 175 lap race this weekend at Wake County. Wake County is a really tiny track. And usually all of our late model stock races are 125 laps.

We talk to the teams and we said, hey, let's add some laps to this one. So it's a hundred and seventy five laps at Wake County after the Xfinity race. The Xfinity race in Martinsville will run, and you can lead right into the broadcast on flow. For the cars tour, please tune in. There's also $10,000 up for grabs in the Floodium program between six drivers in this race. So not only can teams win the race and win that money,

but there's also another $10,000 up for grabs in the Floodium program. Thank you, Floodian racing. flow is awesome. So anyhow, we're going to run that race this weekend. We have like 33 cars going for 26 spots. There's going to be some good teams that more than likely going to not qualify

for this race in the cars tour. This is a very tiny racetrack. And when the caution comes out with 26 cars on the track, we are nose to tail all the way. Yeah. The freaking pace car is right up somebody's ass. So it's a tight.

little spot. But anyways, yeah, I'm excited about it this weekend. I say that because this past week I went to Nashville to test, went to the fairgrounds, and ran some laps, and in preparation for the Cars Tour race on April the 11th in Nashville. And so that was a ton of fun. We went out there. Nashville is interesting because of the the mufflers, you got to run mufflers, you got to have, your car can't be over like 100 decibels, so you have to run mufflers, and we were testing some mufflers,

and we got a little work to do there. You can't be on the track before 3 o'clock in the afternoon. You can only practice from 3 to 7 on Thursday and Tuesday. Same thing on Friday. Saturday, I think it's a bit different. But I'm excited to go out, there. It's very bumpy.

There's some patches, some issues, character, whatever you want to call it, with the racetrack, which is fine. Sounds fun. Big bump off a turn two, which is fine. That's where the tunnel is, right? Yep. One of the funny things is, is we got done testing around 7 o'clock, and they started putting these jersey barriers out on the racetrack.

And it is because the joy riders tend to show up if you don't do that, two and three in the morning. Some folks try to, you know, cut the lock and drive into the racetrack and cut a couple laps. Dang. Yeah. Hot item there. They, at around 6.30, 6 o'clock, they turned the lights on. Now, I haven't been there since 1999 to drive a race car.

I haven't run a lap on that racetrack since 1999, and it was not changed a bit, which is, in my opinion, a good thing. I mean, it needs a little fluff and buff. and Marcus Smith and Bristol Motor Speedway are trying to work with the local government. They have been for the past, I don't know, five years trying to work a deal. There is a deal in place. Everybody just needs to agree. And should that deal get done, they will fix the racetrack up, clean it up, repave it more than likely, put a new wall and safer barrier around it.

But also, most importantly, put a sound barrier around the racetrack. For all the folks that live in that area that are upset about sound and racing and noise, this man wants to spend, you know, thousands, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars to improve the situation with a sound barrier around the racetrack. But that doesn't get done if the deal doesn't get done. And I think racing is protected there as far as, you know, short track racing, the 12 or 15 events they have annually will continue with no sound barrier. So, anyhow, they turned the lights on around 6 o'clock, man, and I'm going to tell you what. That is probably as close as I've ever felt to going to time traveling back in time. When they turn the lights on, the lights are good enough, but they're imperfect, and they're vintage.

And I'll tell you, I've seen some, I've watched a lot of races like I've watched the 19-8. 84, one of the last races they had there in the Cup series. The races there at night, it was not well-lit. It was just, you know, very vintage, has a very vintage feel when you watch it on YouTube. And it looked exactly like that. It was so freaking cool. So I cannot wait to go back there with the Cars Tour. April 11th for Nashville Fairgrounds.

We will have a lot going on to make sure that event's a lot of fun. If you were out there for XRS, you've got an idea what you might get when you come back for the cars tour because I heard the XRS deal was really cool. So I'm excited to go to Nashville. One small note, Jerky Boys, which is Nashville made. They'll be out at the fairgrounds. I'll probably over sign an autograph at the Jerky Bois Booth trying to, you know, move some jerky. And so you sent Corey Himes some jerky.

We did. I didn't know anything about that. I guess our boys sent Corey some jerky and posted about it on social media. Thank you, Corey Hym. Maybe that's what got him the W. I like Corey Hym and I like him a lot more now. That little thing right there. He was like, hey, this is actually pretty good.

I believe I'll let everybody know. Thank you, Corey Hym. That's how social media works. Hey, everybody, it's Mike Davis here. I have a question for you. Now, be honest. How many drill bits have you snapped just trying to finish a single job? Listen, I've been there.

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when you use promo code download 26. That's free domestic shipping when you use the promo code, download 26. So head over to LinnellRacing.com, grab your favorite diecast and make this NASCAR season one to remember. All right, so let's talk about Darlington. So NASCAR had the alumni program come out to,

to Darlington and, you know, some teams did throwback paint schemes, which was great, and there were some really good ones, and I want to talk about them in a minute. But NASCAR has this new alumni program that they've developed where they're encouraging a lot of the drivers from NASCAR's past and a lot of historic names to come back out to the racetrack, and it's working really well. You saw a lot of those guys on social media this weekend. They incorporated them into the race weekend experience with green throwing. waving the green flag, Lake Speed saying the prayer,

and, you know, Dave Marcus handing the trophy over in Victor Lane, and you had a lot of guys in the media center and a lot of great quotes and comments from, you know, Mark Martin and Darrell Waltrop and Bobby Labani and all these different people, right? And I love it. The, you know, the alumni program is really cool. NASCAR sends you a box. He's got a hat and all this stuff in it.

We've been taking that stuff. and signing it and putting it on our foundation website for people to buy. But which I'm very thankful to be in the alumni program. I just feel like, you know, I'm not going to walk around with an alumni hat on, not that I'm not glad to be part of it, but it's just a little weird. It's just for some people, it works and some people don't. It's like, you know, it's kind of like the Jersey conversation. You know, how old do you, how old until you start wearing them or whatever?

Anyways, the program is working really well. With having those guys at the racetrack, though, you know, they come with their opinions, you know, and they come to the race. Bobby Labani, Darrow-Waltrop, were asked about stage cautions, and there's some clips on social media about their opinions about it, and they don't like it. It's funny because DW, as he's in the booth,

and I know this very well, you know, as a broadcaster in the booth, you keep your damn opinions to yourself. in terms of state of the sport. And the only time I really ever weighed into any of that is when we're on this podcast. And I'm careful about kind of how far I want to go down some of these roads when we're talking about things in the sport. But now that DW is not working the booth, he's quite a bit more free, I suppose, or apt to give his opinion on things. And he said that he's not a big fan of the stage racing. Bob the Bonnie chimed in on social media to agree with that as well.

The tear down went on to debate number placement at Darlington specifically. Jeff Gluck said that he would be for them allowing the numbers to be moved back for some of the vintage scheme or some of the throwback schemes or whatever. And why would you say no? Why would anyone say, no, they shouldn't move the numbers back for Darlington? I mean, it's just why can't, what is this, why are the restrictions? Why are we shackling ourselves to tethering ourselves to some, you know, for brand consistency or what are we talking about? Oh. But I thought, I was like, man, if they move the freaking number back for one race and everybody sees how good it looks, just going to open up big can of worms.

Just saying. But anyhow, throwback weekend. lends itself to some throwback opinions. And I guess what I was wanting to say about that is NASCAR has made some really, really good changes to the sport, namely the point system. We had a lot of, you know, we had a lot of great conversations, a lot of kumbaya, everybody in the same room happy

and a lot of, you know, announcements and meetings and just a lot of positive comments. And this season has been great. We got off on a, we got off to. a great start and everything is everything is good um but i guess that doesn't mean that you know everything i guess that doesn't mean that you're not going to have somebody every now and then come up and go yeah i miss this or i think this is this should be different i mean i had some moments that were great what just anything that like it has its moments like well i'm just saying

like here's I guess the conversation I'm trying to have TJ is like listen NASCAR made some good changes this all season we're all very happy about it there are still some people that feel like you know number placement stage racing things like there's still some people that still aren't in love with a couple of those things it's always going to be that way and I feel like it's okay to still have those conversations 100% yeah I know but I'll say this like you know NASCAR in all the progress, you know, we'll call it progress, all the progress they made this all season to make good changes and really, really great change for the points format.

They would hope that everybody would just shut the hell up and be happy, right? Just, hey, be happy. What did you go? And I agree with that a little bit. But at the same time, when Darry Walter or Bob Lubney says, you know what, I love all the changes, but I also think they should not have stage racing. And I'm like, hmm, me too kind of. You know, but not that I'm going to go on social media and start a, you know, kind of a crusade to try to bend that back in the other direction.

But every sport has where people are critiquing at. Well, Darlington Week, I'm going to, I think what we're going to find is that Darlington Weekend is going to be the moment in every season when those nostalgic sort of comments. comments and conversations flare, the number placement, right? We don't really, I mean, there's a ton of us out there that absolutely despise the current number placement. We keep our mouth shut. It ain't changing. Nobody's talking about it changing.

No, nobody that matters. And so we're not thinking it's going to change, so there's no argument to have, right? Why complain if it's not going to do anything? But when Darlington comes around and the throwback schemes come around, oh, what are we talking about? We're talking about number placement, you know? And so I just find that interesting. It's like, you know, we did a lot of great things this all season,

and everything is good, and we are happy, and we're moving down the right direction. And Darlington is going to always be this weekend that stirs up some of these discussions and conversations about what used to be and how it used to be and how that was better. Yeah. And not the, there's not, I'm not saying there's a right or wrong.

I'm just, I always does that. Darlington's going to do it. So, and I think NASCAR, I guess, is just going to have to, you know, no, that's just how it's going to go, you know, every time we bring these old hats around. Like, for example, Kirk Shelmerdine, I love him, awesome guy, right? One of the things that I wish he hadn't had done, and he didn't have to do it, he gets up in his, he gets up during, in his speech for the Hall of Fame. He's getting inducted into the Hall of Fame.

He is on the stage in front of the entire industry. And he got so freaking mad about the next-gen car that he cussed it on stage during his speech. You know, he said something along the lines of, you know, whatever the f***est thing is y'all have now, you know, when talking about race cars. And I was like, Kurt, you didn't have to do that, you know. just, you know, just be happy about your career, you know,

and this is the Hall of Fame and not the time of the place. But when you bring those guys around, you know, they're going to tell you what they think. And they don't have, they're not, they don't have filters on them. Nope. And so I love the alumni program, you know, because you get the, you get Darrell Walchip telling you what he's really been thinking. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Just to have them personalities at the crack. Yeah. Like I saw a handful of him. I saw Bobby a little bit. You know, Bobby is the nicest guy ever. He is super cool. I was so surprised to see him chime in on the stage racing conversation on social media.

I even looked at the handle to make sure it was really him. I was like, this is bullshit. I was like, no, Bobby don't, Bobby don't never, you know, weighed into the, you know. Yeah, he just kind of lies in the shadows a little bit. I think Daryl said something and it floated around. and because there was some media at the alumni tent like kind of prodding these guys about, hey man, what do you think about stage racing?

You know? Yeah, they know they haven't been talking for some months, wind them up and let them go. Yeah. But I don't know. I only wanted to mention that because I found it interesting to me. And, yeah, Darlington's going to be the weekend where it kind of like picks it some of those old wounds.

sure um but the alumni program is great great job of nascar i love seeing all of the the historic names out there and um you know late having lake speed a guy they uh there was some opportunity for me to be there uh to do a couple things and i was like man there's guys that have won races at this racetrack that need to be doing these things you know having lake speed uh saying the prayer guy one is only Speedway race at Darlington. Always ran good at Darlington. Kirk Bush, all these great guys that are, you know, part of the story,

you know, Kurt part of that crazy finish with Craven. Yeah, the pitcher he took. I love the picture he took where he's standing on the front straightaway at start finish line. Kurt Bush is like, yeah, I missed it by that much. I mean, just it was a, that was a lot of fun and that added to a regular, normal, good, solid race weekend. It added some seasoning and some flavor to it.

And so I was very happy about that. Talking about throwbacks, not much of an argument here. I think a lot of people would say that Hosevar's group knocked it out of the park. Again, I'm biased that we talked about it on the show last week. That particular scheme from 1981, it's a lost year for dad because it was so bad for the most bad for the most. part. Not a good year for him, but that's my favorite design of Wrangler car that he ever raced for sure. And Hosevar and his team did a lot of great stuff on social media with content. They wrapped a Grand Prix. Where in the hell is that car been? And where is it going?

I mean, I think the Wrangler wrapped Grand Prix ought to be, who's, who's is that? Where is it? I want to see it going down the street. I might want to drive it. What's it look like on the inside? I never saw the inside. Host fire probably has it now. Who has it? We'll find out.

I need to know. I mean, that's a pretty badass looking car now. Yeah. You know, I don't know what it looked like before they wrapped it, but I kind of like it. So they bring, and they bring the Pontiac Grand Prix to the racetrack and take a picture of it as he's making a couple practice left. I mean, they really went all out. They went all out. They put some good effort into this.

You know what I mean? Yeah. I just don't see a lot of folks putting that kind of effort into certain campaigns, even non-throwback campaigns. Yeah. Hell of a job. It reminds me of one of the first throwback weekends we did when the pit crew started wearing one of the teams had them white uniform.

Might have been the Wood Brothers. The glory days of the throwback weekend. Yeah. There's a lot of throwback stuff. Well, it helps that he goes out there and has a great performance on the racetrack. You know, but it's a good-looking race car. Good looking job. Any other throwbacks stand out to you guys?

No. I thought the O'Reilly race, I thought Austin Green's car stood out a little bit. Slim Jim car, I think. The trucks and the O'Reilly guys always have done solid work. They have a lot more flexibility with partners to be able to do things that they want to do with the cars, whereas the cup guys, you know,

Nothing wrong with it, I suppose, but corporate America is not always that excited to change their logo or the colors of their car. You know, when I ran the nationwide car, the hood had to be blue. You know, you had to design the car around a blue hood all the time, you know, no matter what. So you couldn't talk them into any, you know, the Budweiser guys, they did not want to run anything but a red car. The exact same car every single week. when they would do a baseball car or something like that, it had to really be something that it was their idea, you know. Yeah.

I brought the idea one day of running a Bud Light car in the All-Star race to them, and you thought that I had pissed on their grave. I mean, it was, they were like, what the hell? You know, help them guys. They're already outselling us, you know? It was very competitive inside the building. Yeah, it hires a bush.

But, yeah, I would say that the throwback weekend was a success. The alumni weekend was a success. The Xfinity race was a lot of fun. O'Reilly, yeah. Did you guys watch the O'Reilly race? I did not. I did. Boy, you didn't watch it.

I was drinking. Now, that one was fun to do while you're drinking. Yeah. Yeah, I didn't. Okay. Do you watch? What would you watch? College basketball?

Mm-hmm. I had a lot going on with that, too. We'll talk about that later in the show. But the O'Reilly race was surprising to me. So Larson looked like he was definitely going to be tough to beat. And they had, you know, maybe not the best pit stop late in the race. Yeah. But one of the things that I, you know, was impressed with,

but not surprised by at all is just an all-goyal on restarts. You know, just twice he schooled. Brandon Jones. So, you know, earlier in the race, every time Larson was launching, dude, he was clear before term one, getting some really, really great launches on that inside line, not even challenged off into the corner.

But both times that Brandon and Justin were aligned in the out, you know, in the front row on those final couple of restarts, Jones just could not get launched and clear of the seven before term one. And, man, you give Justin any sort of a chance on a restart. that's why they call him the gator. I mean, he is tenacious. I will never forget a race at Chicago many, many years ago. Late restart, I think we're restarting fourth or somewhere along those lines,

and he just took it from those guys. I thought, man, we've been running good all day, top five here, it'll be great. Fired off on a restart, and he went and won the race in the final couple of laps, and I was just blown away. But that is him to a T. That is what makes him great. That's twice this year that I feel like he's done that Phoenix as well. Justin Algar is in the twilight of his career,

and there is still not many people as aggressive and successful. He's not aggressive reckless, but he's aggressive. He's a dog on the late race restarts. Yeah, he's so good. He just knows where to be. He almost knows what's going to happen. before it happens. Yeah.

And the confidence that he has that he, that the race ain't over, you know, that is rare in certain individuals where you're sitting, you've ran, so if you're sitting there racing all day long, right, and you're driving this car and you're running fifth,

fourth, third, fifth, you know, it, you, you're running as hard as you can, working as hard as you can, and it's,

and it's, it's sort of drilled into your mind. Yeah, this is where I'm at. This is me. This is what we got today. This is, all right,

I just need to protect this. I need to, take care of this and deliver this result, right? Not screw this up. Not him. Koshu comes out late in the race. He's like, the, we're going for a win, you know, and he does, he, you know, oftentimes will go steal the win away and take it from those guys who have had it all day long.

Now, again, this weekend, he had some help with Larson having a little bit of a struggle late in the race and losing some track position on those restarts, but, on pit road. Yeah. The end of the race, you know, the end of the race. I think, I mean, Larson wasn't quite as good in traffic. No, but Justin, he had two really good pit stops near the end,

and his restart, like he was probably a fourth to sixth place car. I know, yeah. Speed-wise, but pit stops and restarts for Justin. I mean, same thing he did at Phoenix, man, just hung around, then he goes and takes it at the end. So that's, yeah, that's a couple wins for Justin and crew chief Andrew Overstreet.

Andrew was on Carson, Quapples car last year, and so they had a tough year together after really coming out of the box with a five-race schedule the year before. It looked like Carson was going to win at Dover and, man, Andrew, those guys had some momentum. But last year was a struggle. So it's good to see Andrew having success with Justin Allgaier this year. Right now, top of the points, 52 ahead of Jesse Love. Carson Quappell hanging around right there in third.

Carson had a great run this weekend with Rodney Childers and their team. Sheldon Creed, Austin Hill, Sammy Smith, Corey Day, Brandon Jones, Parker, Retzlap, doing an awesome job right there in 9th. And then Rajah Carruth in 10th in points, also doing an awesome job. Rajah back in the 88 this weekend, which he's excited about. He's splitting time between different cars and doing a great job there. Sam Mayer all the way back in 11th. Sam's had a tough couple of races and Taylor Gray.

And 12th. The, a rally series to me, man, I'm biased because of them. I got cars in it, but I really enjoy, you know, kind of the turnover in this series and the comers and goers and who can be smart, who can be without mistakes. Because these drivers are prone to make mistakes and get over their heads a little bit. And it sort of always keeps this point situation interesting. but Justin, the veteran that he is, is putting together a really great start of the year. And that bodes well for him moving forward

as we get closer and closer throughout the season into the summer going towards the playoffs. But anyhow, Austin Hill, man, come out of the gate strong, a couple of wins, well, one win, but a couple of great finishes. And now sits fifth in points, 96 out. He looked really, really strong out of the gate. Corey Day doing a really great job on very limited experience.

He's starting to, I think early in the year, people were bashed him and it's racing. I think he's now studying the waters. A couple of weeks of just getting in there and getting a job done. Darlington's one of those racetracks where you've got to mind your business and be smart. And yes, he's had some, you know, he's had a couple of good races to sort of start to build on some, you know. That might be the best race that I've seen Corey have yet. I agree. Corey's listened to everything. Everybody's tried to tell him about.

Where did he end up in that race? He ended up, like, up near the top five, didn't he? Like, decent. Sixth. Yeah, like, that's a great day for Corey. Top ten at Darlington is hard to do. A quiet sixth place finish is awesome. Yeah, yeah.

Parker Redslaff is doing an awesome job. I want to mention him a moment ago, but I had a hell of a race going all weekend. And I think that team's going to get better and better. He's going to be a problem for some folks if that team does improve throughout the season. Moving on to the cup race. There's a handful of things that I would love to talk about. Brad had an awesome run.

I know a couple of folks in the Dirtymo Media team were betting against Brad. I don't talk about that? Yeah. So that was a, I think it was a, what was, it was a matchup. Matchup, what was it? I had Brisco. There was two.

Anti-Gibbs. Yep, two matchups. You had Brisco over Brad and Ty Gibbs over Brad. Were you sweating it there? Well, Brad was driving up to the front. No, I wasn't sweating. Pretty early on I knew, I was like, these bets probably aren't going to cash unless something bad, like,

I mean, he had the second best car. Yeah. Yeah. Good job. bear spotter. Yeah, it was all me. No, it was, what did you think of the package? You know, I, I was, I was good with it.

I don't, I'm fine with it. I think they can move forward with this. It didn't do anything bad. It didn't produce anything extraordinary, but I think it's Darlington. And in my opinion, taking away downforce from underneath the car, Stripping away from the diffuser and all of that is a great direction. Our race cars are not sports cars. They should not have sports car parts and pieces.

We are NASCAR. We are not road racing. And so they should continue to go in that direction. I'm a believer in that. You know, Goodyear's done some great work on the tire. We had guys. I watched a lot of guys in the middle of the pack, you know, take off a little conservatively to be able to preserve the tire and come on later in the run and make up a lot of positions

late in the race. We had guys that were, you know, able to pass, able to make moves. And I feel like I watched a traditional Darlington race that, you know, I would tune in again next year to see and hope to see something similar. Yeah. It looked from the roof. It looked a little bit easier to make moves happen. Not a lot, but you could definitely...

I would say, TJ, that the changes that they made would probably produce something minimal on the product. You know, that place is slick already. It's already kind of treacherous. and if they take a lot away, it's probably just going to look like a little. To the trained eye or to the fan's eye even, you're going to see, whatever you're going to see is going to be subtle.

And we've heard. It wasn't a lot. It was a little. And that's okay. And I don't think I expected it. I know that we talked about, oh, four seconds of fall off. And I saw social media posts and comments about, hey, where was this wild crazy race that we were predicted to have? I don't know that anybody.

ever really said that the race was going to be something that you'd never seen before. Yeah. I mean, there was, I mean, anytime you have four seconds fall off right now. Well, I mean, where did we get to? Two and a half, three? Yeah, maybe just over two at most, I think. Like, I think when I was Texas, like, I saw it in practice a little bit. You'd fall off about two seconds and you kind of stayed in that area.

You didn't really keep going. So on the greener surface, the fall off is absolutely going to be more. But as they rubbered that track in and we had three series there, that rubber on the track helps the tire. So, yeah, I'm not surprised that the fall off was less than we predicted. If you have a tire that does wear a lot, it's putting that rubber down into the trace track into all the crevices and things, sort of making that surface a little better on the tire. And so I liked it.

I thought it was fine. I mean, listen, I would keep going in that direction. 100%. Yeah, I'd go even further. next time they go to Darlington. Why not? I would too. There doesn't have to be Darlington.

Yeah. It doesn't yet to be Darlington, does it? It could be, I mean, a mile and a half. Like, it could be any of them now. I agree, yeah, I agree, yeah. I feel like it's a good decision. You know, Reddick had an incredible car, obviously. Had a little trouble early in the race.

Harvick smartly told us not to sleep on him, kept telling us throughout the broadcast. say that 45 still fast, 45 still the best car, 45 still got a shot. He was right. They had a little bit you, you know, a little bit of a different, not a really, not uncommon, but a little bit different of a, of a strategy. With the speed, they were able to stay on the racetrack a little longer, you know, and, and, you know, five or so laps later than most people. And man, that would pay off late in the run. But it was because his car was so good. If your car's not fast, that's not a strategy to be able to employ. But, you know, he just was, he was better. His car was faster. They learned from the first

stage how far they could really go further than the others. How aggressive they could be with it. Because they lost the first stage going a little bit too far. Well, they had a bad pit stop. Yeah. That slowed them down, cost them a lot of time on pit road. That was another thing, too. I mean, we're, you know, we're seeing teams, even in the O'Reilly series, we're seeing teams, you know, not be perfect on pit road. It's creating storylines. It's creating things,

comers and goers and people having to overcome, you know, challenges on pit road, speeding penalties and so forth. That race had it all. Well, I mean, they had to replace a battery. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know,

and the other thing, too, is I was surprised that they put a better, they put another battery in there. I was told it was a better, larger battery, knowing that they had an issue that they may not be able to fix. They added a battery that would be able to maybe take them a little bit further.

How smart of them to be ready to do that, ready to tack that problem? And they were smart enough too also to know exactly what Tyler could run inside the car. They were like, well, you can have this fan, you can turn, if you do this, you have to have this. If you do this, you have to turn this off. They had him, you know, and he's like, all right, I got it. I got the back fan on, the head head of the fan barely on. I mean, they showed him draining the liquid, the fluid out of his cool suit while driving under caution. And then they asked, we can change the battery again, but we're going to lose your position.

He's like, no, I'll just tough it out. And, hey, he did a great job. That's just smart on their part. A lot of teams may not fully prepare for that challenge. and know exactly what their options are, right? So smart on them to kind of know, okay, man, well, this is how much battery life we're going to have. This is what we can use and do to keep the car competitive.

This is what the driver is going to have to do without. Yeah. And he was honest about it, and cool, gutsy performance. What do you make of him in Busher? I mean, I can see both sides of it. I can see a late pit. Tyler's patent a move all day was the dive into three because he could drive so far into three

and come up so late and make the exit of the corner still. The 17 didn't wave. The 45 says 17 didn't wave. Are we not waving anymore? I'm asking a serious question. Not as, it's becoming... Less and less. Even from the roof, guys don't tell you when they're pitting even more and more.

like they just don't because they don't want you know when they're pitting. Is it worth that, though? I mean, that's what I don't understand. It's like, all right, man. So the lap before Tyler runs the wall as well. And I think you just got to know, like, I have in my notes before, like, why I know what we can possibly do. And as the race goes on, you have a feel for pit stops.

So you know, like, I know just from if when you run this guy down, If this guy's, I don't care what car it is. If you run that guy down leading, your going, his only play to win the race is to pit then. Because if he waits, he's losing seconds a lap from this point on. So, and Chris, they're always an aggressive pit strategy people, right? He's won a lot of races doing that type of stuff. So you kind of have to be prepared for it.

I'm not saying. Was the 17 coming to pit road? Yeah. This is, Steve Lutartre will. probably agree with me here. This is where me, me and him and, and, and, and some other folks are, are annoyed by the, the code words and, you know, somebody comes down pit road and, and they, they have a mistake on pit road.

And it's because somebody said a code word and they misunderstood what the code word was supposed to do and whether that meant two or four and they pull out of the pit stall and have a loose wheel, whatever. and it's like what the fuck we're doing with these codes you know yeah they're cool and then you know you're you're it's very clever and and and you're trying to be sneaky and all that but you know in the end you know you have a little mistake here and there and it's similar to this like we're not waving anymore to guys that are behind us because we don't want to give away and maybe chris would sit here and say hey look i don't got but i got to keep my hands on the wheel

I'm, you know, some of a handful. I don't know. I don't know. You know, what Chris would say, but if a wave, so like, he lets Brad go. And if I'm coming to Pit Road, I don't know whether it's possible in this car, but I always sometimes would, if I'm going to come to Pit Road under Green, we come off a two. I sometimes would change lanes.

Yeah, I don't think he knew until end of the backstretch. He didn't even know he was coming to Pierrot. He didn't know he was pitting until at least halfway down the backst. But the only thing against you, Travis, like, is it worth this? You break for Pitt Road at the same spot you break to make the corner. Like if he's running the bottom, he's breaking at the same spot. So if Chris decides to run the bottom right there, just like Denny, and you said Denny admitted that he was at fault for that, what's the difference right here?

Yeah. I don't think that there's a fault. I think it's just racing and we have a tire. a ton of fall off. You got guys on tires that have more speed. We have seen this at Darlington so many times. I go back to, I think it was Andy Hillenberg, got destroyed by Jeff Gordon there one year.

And, I mean, there's been, you could go back through all of the Darlington races through the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. It happens. It happens. Where were we when? I think it was Newman and Clint Boyer in turn three and four, not five, six, eight years ago. Yeah, well.

They had a big freaking crash. So it, you know, it's a product of this worn-out track, very narrow racetrack. And if he doesn't know, you know that he doesn't even know he's pitting until turn three. I mean, it looked like he, you know, his lane change when riding on board with his car from the top of the back straightaway to the bottom of three was unique to me. looked looked it looked it looked it looked it looked like it almost looked like he was being called late like he just found out he definitely got called late yeah and so that must have been you know it's just a product of of the racing there we have the winner um tyler redick on the line again we've had title on this show over and over and over he just keeps winning um problem to have

that's a great problem that um so man thanks for calling in i appreciate you giving us some today as always. I know you got a lot going on. And so how does it feel, man, to, you know, we've talked about you. We've talked to you multiple times this year about your success, but you continue to win. You continue to find ways to win. Y'all continue to bring incredible race cars to the racetrack. You've got to be freaking fired up about how good that car was this past Sunday. Yeah, I mean, you nailed it. That's the key. It's really, It's really, really fast Toyota Camry's. And I think for us, you know, we were,

and I think everyone was uncertain of what the race and the speed and long run was going to look like going into the weekend. But yeah, like, you know, in practice, you know, running behind Brad, I could tell he was really strong. I felt like we were strong, you know, and, you know, I just remember Saturday after qualifying everything, kind of looking through it and being like, all right, the RFK cars are strong. All right, Blaney's strong. It's, you know, for the most part,

a lot of the guys that were strong, you know, the last couple of spring races were pretty strong again. I know there was some hit and miss, you know, amongst some of the bigger teams like HMS and JGR, but when I saw that, you know, it's like, okay, like, you know, it's, I mean, I have to figure out how to how to manage this race well. And before I can even really get the first lap complete, you know, It's like, it was like the Southern 500 last fall, but different. And it's something has happened on the first lap. And how do we manage it? How do we figure this out?

And I just, I kind of took the approach of just chill. And, you know, all right, let's settle in here. And let's see how long we can get this battery to last. And I was just proud of the guys for coming up with that game plan that they did. And being honest with me about, hey, you know, if you want to make this thing live, you know, we're going to have to cut some stuff off. And then obviously that last stage, Billy left it up to me.

Do you think you can make it without anything on that last stage? And I was like, sure. You know what I mean? Like, I've been wanting to win in Darlington so bad for pretty much my entire cup career. And so, yeah, I was going to have to be on fire to come down pit road and swap batteries or whatever. You know what I mean? What was the comfort level those last, you know, 50 laps?

You know, I don't really remember it. Like, I remember the racing part, but I just felt like I was, so locked in on what I had to do and what I needed to do that, yeah, I was hot. And, you know, I never like running with my visor up, especially, you know, wearing contacts and trying to keep stuff out of my eyes. But like, I had to run my visor up to get some amount of circulation, whether it's the air coming in through the window net or the knackaduck off the front windshield. But it was still really, really hot. But, you know, we got all the, all the fluid out. out of the shirt, which was huge.

Really? I remember at Cota. The shirt just never connected. Like we're on pit road in 2023. Cars rolling off grid, and we couldn't get the connection to go through. And at the time, we really didn't have a way, or it didn't want to give up the time to, like, cut the shirt or hand me a pair of scissors. So I had to, like, bake with that hot fluid in the shirt all day. And, yeah, getting all of the, getting the fluid out of the shirt so it just doesn't sit there and get hot was huge.

It wasn't, that part of it wasn't too bad. I expected to be a lot warmer core temp-wise. But yeah, I was just a lot of sweating. But I run a fluid logic system in the car. It allows me to drink, you know, without having to grab the bottle or whatever, it runs through the helmet hose and right on my microphone. So I was able to hydrate, which I think was a huge part in why I was okay. Without being able to hydrate, I definitely think the heat would have really started to get to me.

Is that button on the wheel? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Man, yeah. On the opposite side of where the mic button is. You know, I'd always thought that, you know, the electric fed or, you know, whatever you want to call the system, I always was like, oh, you know, that's a sports car thing and not necessary.

And I'll just use the old tube and tape it to my, tape it to my belt. But, man, it really came in handy this weekend being able to keep your hands on. Yeah, well, I mean, so the idea behind it, you know, I saw the, I saw it more in the, off-road, you know, Baja 1,000, like the trophy truck, off-road racing. Those guys used it a lot there. And, yeah, those vehicles get hot, but not as hot as ours as our vehicles do. So, yeah, there's a lot of trial and error trying to, like, over the years, whether I was at RCR or now here, just, like, making sure that we're not running the hose,

like, alongside, like, metal and things like that, because it will get really hot. But, yeah, I think it was 23. maybe. Yeah, I think it was 2023 when they did away with the stage breaks. There's just a big emphasis, you know, to make sure we had something like that in there. Because if we never truly got a caution, there's not time to like grab and swap a bottle. There's not time caution to hydrate. So that's when I was really dead set on making it work. And I've just kind of stuck with it ever since. Yeah. When you, you know, you come off a season like you had last year where, you know, you were trying to find a success you're looking for and weren't able to really get it going.

y'all fire off this year you look like a completely different organization i'm looking at the shop behind you what's what's the what's the attitude on the floor of the shop today comparable to the end of the last season yeah it felt like you know when we got to the end of last year obviously everyone was dis i mean some you know bubba won the annapolis the bric yard 400 so i mean we you know we still were able to at least win a big race. Obviously for like our side of things, you know, we didn't find Victory Lane. We fell out of the playoffs earlier than we really wanted to or should have. And so, yeah, for like us, you know, we were faced with a lot of disappointment. And, you know, certainly I feel like our guys were, you know, mentally where they needed to be to go in the

offseason to like figure this out. But yeah, at the same time, you know, I don't think anyone was shy about how disappointed they were. So we had those honest conversations, you know, in the off season and just, okay, how do we address this? Where do we start? You know, what do we look at? And I feel like a lot of good things were gone through, gone over. But, you know, for me, I just remember we had all these talks, right? And it's like, look, I get it. We've talked about it. And I like how this offseason has went, but we got to go out there and do it. And so, you know, these first six weeks when we've gone out there and done it, we've done a good job with it, you know, I'd say the things that added to our struggles in 2025 that kept us from winning races,

some of those things have still occurred this year. But I feel like just our mindset and not given up through those moments last year, even without getting the win, really set ourselves up to on the days like, like on Sunday with the alternator issues or Atlanta getting in the wreck or Daytona, the strategy not working out. But it just, we understood that we're not going to let, like, these bumps in the road, these low points in the race, just set us off onto a different path. We're just going to get the best finish possible on those days.

And on four of them, they've turned out to be wins, which is pretty remarkable. But it all goes back to the start, having really fast toy to Camry's. And we've done a really good job of that here to start the year. How does the current points format factor into the mindset of, you know, we got to, we got to, you know, even if we are throwing some adversity, we have to maximize today. We can't, we can't just wait, you know, we can't just punt and then try to go win next week. We have to make sure that we're getting every single opportunity to score the points every single week. I know you're sitting in a really, really good spot and, you know, you're able to put a little bit of a pad on your points lead.

but this new system, I think, has teams looking at these each weekend a little differently than in the past. I don't know. Truly, I feel like for me, and TJ can probably relate to our time together when I was in trucks, as crazy as it may sound coming from me, I felt like, you know, when I ran trucks my second year, and it was the full season points format, I feel like, aside for, from what I made, just couldn't get through the gears. Like, I felt like that approach, that style of racing, like, fits how I want to go and approach week in and week out.

Yes, I like to push my car hard and, like, when I was younger, take more risks than I probably should. And I feel like I've gotten better about managing that as I've gotten older. But, yeah, for me, I feel like whether it was 2024 and it worked in our favor or 2025 when we just struggled, you know what I mean? I feel like my mindset hasn't shifted much over the last couple of years. years, you know, we're talking about points and how do we run our races and how do we fight through things. So I feel like just for me, the points formats where it's at is just rewards how I like

to race the most. And I don't know, I say all that, but funny enough, like whether it was, I guess, I guess Atlanta more than anything, or even, I guess the decision late, you know, starting state tree at Darlington, you know, I say all these things. And then, you know, I went out there, you know, lap one with a rec card, Atlanta. And I'm pushing it. too hard, but I got away with it. And, you know, we take the gamble of not changing the battery in stage three. And I mean, I guess it wasn't a gamble at that point. We kind of knew what the drain was on the battery. But I guess it's risky in some sense, right? Like, I'm banking on myself that I'm able to stay in the race car and make good decisions for the rest of the race. And for the

most part, I did. Yeah. Coming up on Martinsville, that's a track that you admittedly have had some tough, tough moments out, right? Yeah. I'm, I, well,

I believe that you just haven't had the car that you need. When you get the car that does the things it's supposed to do, you fall in love with any racetrack,

right? You could go there this weekend and go, holy crap, now this is what I'm looking at. You know, this is awesome. But say you go there

and, you know, how do you, how do you manage the weekend if it tends to, you know, to be a, bit of a difficult one. Just find, just find the high moments, find your strengths, and look forward to those

moments. And I think, you know, for me, I remember, again, I'm going to go back to my truck days. I remember when the tires were a little softer, the runs would go longer before we, you know, before, I mean, there was a couple years there where we run no stage breaks, no caution clock, no nonsense. And we get, you know, 100 laps on tires. And it's like, oh, this all makes sense. Like everyone's burning stuff up, I'm going to march forward now.

Yeah. And so I feel like even with the old car, the Gen 6 car, I started to figure that out in the cup side of things and started to have like really good long run speed. And sometimes it would get us into the top 10. Sometimes, you know, we would have a caution late and kind of be kind of back to where we were before the long run. So I feel like for me, the more that you have to manage the car instead of just go, go, go, the entire race, especially at a place like Martinsville is more like how, again,

I'm the guy that looks like it likes to drive aggressively, right? But more times than not we get a long run at Martinsville, any car, anything I've raced there, I tend to go forward more so than backwards. So I feel like the more power and the downforce staying where it's at should just set me up for more success. Well, we hope so, man. Hopefully you get those long runs you're looking for on Sunday. Tyler, congratulations on all the success, man.

It's fun to watch. I have one question for Tyler. Tyler, what's the shoey taste like? Oh, it tastes amazing. You know, I feel like at some point I did one before. I don't know when it was, but yeah, I mean, I was soaked in champagne, sweat, beer. And I mean, my shoes were already destroyed. So I'm like, might as well.

My dad found someone that had some cigars. And so I had a cigar in Victory Lane with a lot of smoking a cigar. The cigar is probably worse than the shoe. Yeah, dude, I never got some. smoke cigar in Victory Lane before. And I mean, I love smoking them, you know, when I'm having to drink a bourbon or whatever at the house or just, you know, watching a race, watching sports. So to have that moment with my dad was cool.

And then I don't know, I was just, maybe I was delirious from the heat. I was like, might as well, if we have one beer left, I might as well do a shooey because I'm already soaked, like I said. So that was one of the best tasting beers I've ever had. That's for sure. Your dad, cigar. I know. My dad, like, well, I swear how it went is, I think, I think I started smoking cigars.

And my dad found out, you know, I had like, I don't know, like 20 or 30 in a humidor. And then he just went like all in. He got the big fancy humidor. He's got all the gadgets. And for a while there was like an arms race where I was trying to keep up with what dad had and vice versa. I think the next time you do an interview you should bring your dad with you and we'll do have both you at the same time. Yeah, we are a lot of like. If I shave my beard and left my mustache, there wouldn't be a lot of differences.

Y'all really are the same. They are. Yeah. I saw your dad in the garage. or Sunday he's always a good conversation yeah well thank you guys appreciate you yeah man congrats again have fun this weekend oh yeah it's Tyler Redick on the Dale junior download that was a lot of fun talking to him and give him uh give him a hard time for for winning all the time and coming on the show but we we love it when the winners stopped by um

and I was I forgot about the shoey yeah good good catch on you that's what I'm here for yeah well um Yeah, what should we do now? Do you want to get into any other notable for performances or anything? Let's see. Austin Cendrick had a great race. I think we ought to shout out. Austin Cendrick.

Host Cedric. Austin Cendric is a good sport. We give him a lot of... I give him a hard time, told him he looked like... Bluie? Blimpy. Blimpy. Blimpy.

And he actually... So he actually takes a picture with him at the intros in Vegas. even had the orange glasses on. So what a good sport. Yeah. Goes out there, has him a great run this past weekend at Darlington, one of the toughest tracks. Probably one of the most underappreciated drivers out there. He's actually funny.

He's very funny, but I mean, you know, he does have his good runs from time to time. What a quiet top five he had. Every run, every good run he has is very quiet. He wasn't that way in the O'Reilly series. I mean, he won Gateway. He won Gateway and was strong that weekend. That was a Blaney ran out of gas, but Austin won that race. No one remembers.

I mean, he's very unassuming. It goes about his work. Eric Jones was able to climb back into a good result. It didn't look like things were going that good for Eric in the first stage or so of the race, but he was able to, hey. I fear boy, Denny wrecked him. Danny kind of screwed his dad. Well, I mean, he wasn't even, he's kind of struggling back there, but he got the track position and continued to perform and move forward throughout the final stage. Way to go, Danny.

Ty Gibbs another. Yep, Ty Gibbs was a good one. Four consecutive top tens. Yeah, yeah. Nobody's talking about Ty Gibbs. It's the right people. Yeah, at least not on the racetrack. They're not talking about him.

But I think, you know, obviously be talking about RFK and how great they were. Did you see the font? I thought the BIF font on all the cars was cool looking. Especially when it was like one, three, and four there up there at the front. I know. I thought of all the cars, my favorite of the Biffle font was Chris Bisher. 17. I don't know. It's just kind of tilted. It's kind of cool. I don't like the number four, but it looked okay on that car. Yeah, it was good to honor him. Yeah. The, uh, Larson's late issues. Did he, he gets in the wall? What happened? He had a right front tire go down.

Is that he kind of being too aggressive at the end? No, he didn't have a right front go down. The back hit first. Okay. Into one. So he busted his ass? He must have, because I went back and watched his end car, and he goes into one and maybe just gets a little bit too high and the back hits and it swings the front. so he hit but he had the right front tire flat did he he come to pit road late because of a flat tire no i don't i don't think he came to pit road i think he rode around the road around slow no he did go to pit road then he come back off oh they did then he came back out and rode around and he had a bit toe link what else

um it's gonna be a quiet yes warres and um swore's been running pretty good SVG solid i thought was pretty good um and a quiet solid Solid day. I know he turned Riley earlier, but for Zillich. Yeah. I think he was like 17th.

Yeah. Which is a pretty solid day. Right behind me, Josh Barry. Yeah, Josh. Much better than spring race last year. Yep. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun to watch. Great race for NASCAR and for the series.

Did you guys, CJ, go ahead. This is your story. Oh, I'd just say I saw on social that Ben Kennedy came as a race fan. Yeah. Legit. So I talked to. Ben this morning, I said, I heard you did a little bit of an undercover boss kind of deal where you go to the racetrack and just enjoy the experience. And he got his team together, his group of folks that work in the organization with him.

And they all, this is what they did. So they all went a different route on how to buy tickets. Some went online, some called up the call center. They all did it differently. And then they, you know, where they locate their parking lots and all that stuff. And they go to the pre-race. They go into the fan zone. They did everything.

They experienced everything. All while taking a lot of mental notes. And then after the race, they had a two-hour meeting to debrief about all of this stuff. And all of the things they experienced and what they didn't like, what was difficult, what was hard to do, what was fun, what was good. and, you know, he said to me, he's like, you know, there's a lot we can do to make it easier to buy a ticket. There's a lot we can do to make it easier to find where you're supposed to park. All of those things he thinks need to be improved. And I think it's amazing, it's really, really cool that he himself tasked him, you know,

him and his team to go through this experience in this process. They sit in the grandstands and watched the race. And probably listen to radios. Yeah. They rented radios. They did all those things. Just like you would do. They basically, you know, got a, you know, got kind of a, you know, a spreadsheet of what fans traditionally do and tasked each and every one of them to sort of go about it a little differently.

But all of them experienced the same thing. And he said there's a lot of little things from after you buy the ticket and get part. which he said they could absolutely focus on and prove that quite a bit. He said from that moment on, it was a lot of little things along the way that he was just thinking needed or could be different or better and even some good things that they like that they could take to other racetracks. But I told him, I said, man, this is the kind of stuff that makes me proud as a race fan. This is the kind of stuff that I think his family was very, very good. at um bill junior bill senior um you know think you know going through you know doing something like this this is not rocket science this is not hero the dude you know but it's just

cool that he cares it cared enough fans see this he cared enough to do this this wasn't a this ain't a this ain't a front saint bull's how about that seat and turn four yeah yeah that's a good pretty good. But, I mean, he genuinely wanted to go through this process, and I believe Ben Kennedy truly has a heart for what's going on here. And he's a good dude. I've talked to him a lot over the years. And, yeah, so this is the kind of stuff that you love to see, you know,

if you're a fan and a proud fan of the sport. So that was pretty cool. Yeah. So one of the things that happened over the past week was, So the Hall of Fame is starting to vote. They're putting together the ballot for the 2027 nominees. The modern era ballot is a great list of folks. One person that used to be on there that isn't on it currently

that I think we should consider voting to get back to the ballot, right, to have the opportunity to be nominated, is Ray Elder. Ray also Butch Lindley, two names there. Ray and Butch. Butch is very synonymous with short track racing. Won like 500 races in the late 70s racing around the Sportsman Series and so forth. That's a lot of races.

Tons of race, dude. He was so good. And so Butch Lindley was one name that I, that I brought up in conversation with the committee. Another one was Ray Elder. Ray Elder raced on the West Coast in the Winston West in the 70s. He's a six-time champion. So, I mean, we, you know, if you have a six-time champion of anything, I mean, that's

Hall of Fame. Is he, does he, like, I don't know a lot about Ray Elder? Does he similar to, like, a Mike Stefaniac of the East Coast? So, I don't think so. I would say that, so, in the late 70s and even, on into the early 80s, the West Coast Cup series

was very much like a sister series somewhere in between the O'Reilly and the Cup. It ranked... It ranked high. Yeah. Today, today they have

placed it under the umbrella of the K&N or the ARCA, right? And it's now relegated almost to something less significant. Definitely less. Years ago, it was very much a copy, a Western copy of the Cup series.

They ran the same cars, and when the Cup cars went to Riverside to race or Ontario to race, the West Coast guys would run in that race. They would qualify and race in. Ray Elder beat the Cup regulars at Riverside twice. It wasn't a fluke. Nope. I believe in 71 and 17. 72, he won the literal cup race at Riverside.

Dang. He'd beat all the, they all, you know, they go out there to run. It's the first race of the year. He was the guy to beat. Well, he just, he wasn't just some, you know, the West Coast guys, when they would race against the cup guys, weren't going to beat them. They would run maybe in the backside of the top 10 if their cars didn't break. But for the most part, your Richard Petty's, David Pearson's, Kell Yarbrils,

were going to be faster, the Woodbrother. They were just not, the rest coast guys just didn't have the speed. Ray Elder. beat him a couple times. Ray Elder came out to Daytona and ran in the top five. And so he was... He was... And he's a...

It's a NASCAR West Coast series that he is a multi-time champion of. And so, like, that's an automatic in my mind for a Hall of Fame. He said it's six time, right? He's five or six. It's still a lot. But it's a lot.

And so I always get it confused between the two. But in my mind, like, I know that people are going to say, well, you know, the West Coast NASCAR didn't have the competition. They didn't. They didn't have all the cars. They weren't as fast.

They weren't as technology savvy. They weren't, you know, they just, you know, when the cup guys would ever compete against them, they didn't hold up. Ray did, but the rest of them didn't. And so the series doesn't get as much, I think, appreciation for what it really was in the 70s. Yeah.

We don't, I believe that, you know, It made being successful nationwide for NASCAR Cup series. It made being successful nationwide easier because of what the work that Ray and those guys were doing on the West Coast. You know, going out to the West Coast and racing Riverside once or twice a year, Ontario until it failed. Yeah, everything west of the Mississippi was a bit of a stretch or a bit of a struggle, bit of a tough lift for NASCAR. But it was not as tough because of what Ray and those guys were doing out there. They were a stock car cup NASCAR series running up and down the west coast

and all these little short tracks and shit, sort of, you know, teasing folks for what would come down the road into the 2000s and so forth as the sport, you know, started becoming more of a nationwide sport. Dude in the in the 70s, NASCAR was considered a very, southeastern mid-atlantic race. We didn't have many races west of the Mississippi. And I think not only was Ray a champion and a consistent winner, but he was also doing a lot of work laying the foundation for our sport to become nationwide.

And so I made a big push for him. I want to discuss, though, more so the Pioneer ballot. So there's a lot of names that are up for grabs. I believe if you're going to make the pioneer ballot, you have, you, you're, there's a, there's a year like 1966 or something like that where the bulk of your career happened before that year, right? And so the modern day guys are all on the ballot from 1960, oh, it's a 60 year. All right, significant impacts over 60 years ago, right?

So I think last year was Ray Hendrick, a modified standout, who definitely had been on the ballot for many, many years. So it says right here, there's legends like Banjo Matthews, Jake Elder, other nominees include Larry Phillips, Bob Welburn, and Ralph Moody. So Ray Hendrick got the vote last year. the pioneer ballot again is celebrating individuals who were part of the sport beyond 60 years ago and so my grandfather Ralph Earnhardt's on this list I voted I voted him onto the ballot I felt like he's sitting there I'm like I can't not cast the vote for Ralph Earnhardt

I don't know that many folks will will cast a you know there's other names that are mentioned before Ralph but I had to do it I voted Welburn, Harry Hyde. I love Harry Hyde. Harry was successful as a crew chief. Are there other crew chiefs on this list that are maybe possibly more successful? Yes.

But I loved what he did. He was so interesting as a character, successful, a winning crew chief. But he's also someone that they actually wrote a character for in the movie Days of Thunder. Harry Hogg. And so, you know, in my mind, I don't know. I like putting Harry Hyde on that list. Herb Nab, who was another successful crew chief, and then Larry Phillips, was the five guys that I put on my ballot.

Man, there's some, it's hard to pick. It is hard to pick. You know, every time that I've been part of this conversation and part of the committee, one of the first things anybody says is, let's just put them all in there. Because if you make the ballot, you're, you are a Hall of Famer in my mind. I mean, there are a couple,

there's a couple rare instances where someone has made the actual ballot and you're like, man, they're not a Hall of Famer. There is this really big conversation around the name A.J. Foyt. And I think it'd be a good conversation to have in this room. Is A.J. Foyt a NASCAR Hall of Famer? I mean,

you would need to, you would, first off, bring up his stats. First off, you would need to know what he's done in the sport. Statistically. I need to know all his stats here. NASCAR stats. This conversation has come up a couple of times in the past several years. I mean.

And there's some people that believe that AJ Foyt belongs in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. But this is just because of his name? There's some folks that believe that he doesn't. Is A.J. Foyt one of the greatest race car drivers ever? Yes, absolutely. I think most people would absolutely. agree. I don't know how you cannot agree with that.

I'm not sure that he's a NASCAR Hall of Famer. That's the thing is, this isn't the Racing Hall of Fame. It's the NASCAR Hall of Fame. That's true. And that's a common comment. AJ ran 100, it says here, 128 starts, seven wins, nine poles, Daytona 500 winner with the Wood Brothers.

He won the Firecracker 400 in 1964. All right, so let me ask you this. Is William Byron a Hall of Famer right now? No. Because he's more accomplished than this. The thing is, is like, AJ Foy, I think that a lot of people, you know, just say, hey, he's one of the greatest drivers ever. It's A. And he raced with us.

He's automatic. He's automatic. And I'm not sure I agree with that. I don't think he's in. In my opinion. Man, there's some people that believe he belongs in there. To T.J.'s point, then there's a lot of drivers that, I mean, William Byron's got two day telling

I don't go with the comparison. Tyler Reddx got four wins this year. I'll say this. Like, AJ came and had success in one, but there are also times when he came and he was cantankerous and difficult. You know, and problematic. You know, and I don't know.

I don't think that should impact how you are as a if you're difficult shouldn't well I mean if he I think that it would matter if he say he has 128 starts seven wins but he was a champion not literally but he championed our sport

he he he lifted it up he he raised you know he he never cared about that he was just there to try to win he was a racer he ran four five races a year and he came showed up and he raced and tried to win races He had some badass freaking race cars like that. His little Oldsmobile, 1981, 82, beautiful car.

The cutlass he brought? Yes. No. But you have to put the line somewhere. So I do weigh that. I do weigh whether, look, it's not, I don't weigh, it doesn't weigh a ton into my decision, but I do weigh, were they problematic? Did they create issues?

Were they in trouble? Were they, you know, did they bring us, did they tear us down? Did they lift us up? Did they go around talking about how much freaking, how bad ass it is to race NASCAR? Did they go, you know, were they, were they a person that promoted, talked, you know, talked positively about it?

Were they a person that, you know, again, got themselves in trouble and did that? That's going to be a little bit of a factor of my vote. I'm more of a stats guy because it's not the Hall of Good. It's the Hall of Fame. Like you need to go out there and win and being legendary. The statistics were,

the stats were a big part, but not all of my vote. Here's a question for you. Is Justin Algar, Hall of Famer? Oh, so I... No. Not yet.

What if he wins another championship? I mean... I have a controversial take, though, with this one. Well, you got, you know, there's guys in the conversation like Samard, Jack Ingram, Larry Phillips, for example. I mean, there's some guy, Larry Phillips,

albeit didn't run in the Bush or Xfinity O'Reilly series, but there are guys that are very successful outside of the Cup series that get considered. There's truck series champions that are considered for the Hall of Fame, make the ballot for the Hall of Fame. I think he should make the ballot. I have a conference take that I don't think. Oh, you don't want to tell it here?

Xfinity O'Reilly, Bush nationwide should count. That should be... Are you fucking serious? Yeah. Why would it not? It's the NASCAR Hall of Fame. It's under the NASCAR banner. It's not the NASCAR Cup Hall of Fame.

I mean, if you look at some of the economists, it's not all over a cup. That is a pretty shit. That is really a shit take. That's actually... A lot of nodding in here, too. A lot of other people agree. It's pretty bad. That's kind of dumb.

To me, Xfinities like AAA. And do we go look at AAA stats for a baseball player? Yeah, but not everything works out perfect for everybody to get to the Cup series. And there's still some great race car drivers that didn't get great cup rides to show what they could really do. And I don't disagree with that. So you're thinking like this, this pioneer. Yeah, I'm like looking at half these guys on here.

Do you think, yeah, Ray Hendrick, those guys that got voted in as modified champions, shouldn't get in there. Yeah. Well, I don't know the history of... Wait. If you want to be honest about it, that's another rung or two... That's another rung or two down the ladder. If it was before, like, the NASCAR was created,

then we can have the discussion. But if NASCAR Cup Series was there, then I think that's when it should start. But it doesn't say NASCAR Cup Series Hall of Fame. This is NASCAR Hall of Fame. Yeah, it is literally not the Cup Series. Hall of Fame. But Major League Baseball.

This isn't baseball. Includes everything. I know. Well, that's Major League Baseball. They are literally saying this is Major League Baseball, MLB, the top. So the NASCAR Hall of Fame is Cup and more. I don't know. There's a lot of guys that have really great a consummists that just didn't time out right.

It's the Hall of Fame. Not the Hall of Really good. Yeah, but it's not Cup only. They're not, no one ever came in and said, hey, y'all, this is just a cup only. And you're saying that. Yeah. Well, it's not. It's not the Hall of Cup.

But you're, you're changing it. I know, you're changing literally what the Hall of Fame is. It's not. Yeah. You're asking me if I would vote someone in, I'm saying no, I wouldn't. All right. Bam, I hope you're never on the committee. I don't think I will be.

Yeah, I don't think we have to worry about that. It's scary what people think, isn't it, T.J. I don't, I think there's, more people that will agree with me than you realize. I disagree with you. I think you're going to be on an island here, man. I'm not saying I'm a majority, but I don't think I'm alone. Tim's.

We got to ask you question. Alex Tims just showed up. We got on a conversation around the Hall of Fame and how the voting and all that. I'm just going to go live. Works. Go ahead. Just click it. Yeah, get your, let's get our YouTubers on there. All right.

And we are live. Hey, everybody. You're live for another episode of Ask Junior here. Me and T.J. the Dale Jr. download here in the Arby Studio. Thank you, Xfinity, for waving the red flag on internet price hikes and raising the green flag on savings. You get more speed and reliable Wi-Fi, and you're locked in for one price for five years. That's pretty darn good.

No surprises, no late yellows, just a straight shot to Victory Lane, and just like that, we've got a winner, folks. Xfinity, imagine that. We're sitting here having a debate, everybody, as you're all rolling into this show. We've talked about the cup race and all that fun stuff. We had our buddy Tyler Redick on here. Again. Again. And again.

It's in the Exfinity car this weekend. We talked about the cars tour upcoming race this weekend at Wake County and testing at Nashville. Fairgrounds. We had a lot of conversation. But right now, we're in the middle of a debate around the Hall of Fame. The committee has gotten together to get the ballot ready for the modern and the pioneers. I told everybody who I voted for for the pioneer ballot, and I was told by the committee that I could share my vote, and I have. And we got into a debate around A.J. Foyt. Should A.J. Foyt be nominated or voted in to the Hall of Fame.

That's a... The NASCAR Hall of Fame. Yeah, the NASCAR Hall of Fame. Should A.J. Foyt be nominated. in the NASCAR Hall of Fame. I'd be curious to see a poll on this because there is a pretty split opinion on it. And that furthered the conversation to a hot take that our guy Travis has.

Hot take. And so Travis says that he doesn't believe anyone that competed in anything outside a cup should be in the NASCAR Hall. of Fame. Like, no Xfinity, because I asked the next question, okay, if A.J. Foyt is a good conversation. What about Justin Algar? Justin's got a little career left.

I don't know. Several more wins, possibly, possibly, maybe adding another championship. Is he a Hall of Famer? And that spurned, you know, the comment from you, Travis, that you don't believe your hot take is that you don't think that pure truckers, pure Xfinity guys or guys from modified, the Larry Phillips, all those. you don't think any of those guys should be elected into the NASCAR Hall of Fame. You think it should be specifically off of Cup performance.

Since NASCAR was officially, yeah, since NASCAR was created, anybody that didn't race Cup, I don't think it. And our argument, I think, is that it's not the NASCAR Cup Hall of Fame. It's the NASCAR Hall of Fame. And we are recognizing anyone who's had real success in not only on the racetrack, but obviously, you know, anybody who's been an asset to. the industry. You have, you know, crew chiefs

and all types of people nominated from time to time. Yeah, so that's interesting. I'm surprised by that take because we have said over and over at this table that it's not the NASCAR Cup Hall of Fame. It's the NASCAR Hall of Fame. It embodies all NASCAR.

But you refuse to budge off of your take. And you think there's a lot of people that would share your opinion. I think I'm in the minority, but I don't think I'm like... Tim, you sat down. in this conversation just now. Tim's walked into this. What do you think

about that opinion? I agree with Travis. Are you serious? You're a liar. Oh my. It doesn't get the same command of coverage. Hey, don't get offended when I call you a liar. T.J. doesn't like that. He texts me after every show when I call him that and he's like, stop calling me a liar. That was after just one problem there. So

isolated incident. It was an isolated. I don't believe you. I think he's pinching you under the table or something. I do. I totally agree. I mean, I agree with both sides. I'll say that. Because the Hall of Fame is a museum. We celebrate the sport, but we celebrate the cup guys way more than the other guys. We do. So that should take higher precedent when you're elected to the Hall of Fame class.

He's saying no one outside of the cup should ever be elected. We do. Cup success absolutely weighs more into your opportunity to make the ballot. You'll look at the ballot every year in the names that are discussed by the committee and see predominantly cup guys, you know, dominating the list. Which is right. Which is fair. That's fine. He's saying that a guy like Justin Algar

shouldn't even be considered. It's a conversation, but if, so not just an Algar, but if someone has failed at the cup level and went back and they were more successful in the lower series. Which has happened. I know, but I don't feel like that should count. I mean, if they've never gotten to a certain level, like a short track rank.

Why shouldn't count though? Maybe they didn't work out right and get into a, getting into a grade A cup car at the time. That's another great conversation. What if Pinsky, you know, had hung in there a little bit with Justin? Sorry about it. In every sport, like, what if the dude's offensive lineman would have blocked better for him? I know, but Justin didn't fail. Doesn't mean he's a worst driver. Doesn't mean Justin didn't, like. That's why if he didn't get the opportunity. He never did. He raised Xfinity for Pinsky.

He's a good argument. But if there's other drivers that fail at the top level. He did actually get to cut, but he never. really got that kind of a solid opportunity. He'd never got into a top, like top 10 cup car. No. I'm just saying, you know, Justin, I believe, I'm hoping that Justin tacks on a few more things to create the conversation around him being a nominee one day. But I wonder how folks in the... I wonder how folks in the comments feel that if you didn't race cup, you don't get a chance

to even make the conversation. I think most are disagreeing with me, though. One person says AJ Foich should not be in. He's IndyCar. Matt Crafton is a name coming up that didn't get a lot of cup starts that three-time truck champion. Matt will probably be on the ballot because of what he's done in the trucks. But in Travis's eyes, again, I'm just reminding folks online,

he wouldn't even get a chance to be in the discussion. But like Mike Stefanik, that guy. See, that's where I disagree with Travis. He never got to that level. Maybe he didn't want to go to that level. That's true.

But I'm saying he should be in the hall of fame. He's saying he would vote Stefanik M, but not a truck racer. Yes, basically. I know I lost some of an hour. You're weird. What is your basis? Because like, the grassroots

guy that does all such a badass gets your vote. But the guy that wins three truck series championships does not. Show me. Show me this. That's, Stephanics. What does he want?

Show me a dash. Show me a championships. Oh, dude. That's, that's, you can't top that. That's incredible. Why is he? He deserves to be in. He's saying, he's saying it deserved to be in there.

How can you say that? It's flawed. I know, but that's how the brain works. Oh, my gosh. Nine. Just nine championships. 74 modified wins. Deserving.

But at what level? Do you think those were easy to win? Easier than a cup. Are you, I mean. I don't know that you can. say that. I know. I mean, I don't know you can say that either. Yeah, I mean, some of those were harder to win than a cup race. Nine championships. I would, I would absolutely guess that some of the races that he won, ran on a modified, were tougher to win than a cup race.

If he was in a Hendrick car during these years, could he have won a championship in the Cup series? Oh, I mean, now what are we doing? Yeah. I'm just saying, like, wait, so then are we going to create some drivers on a scale? they had this many wins, but it was in a lesser car, so we're going to boost it? I don't care what car you win. What did you do when you were in the Cup series? I don't think that's a fair assessment. We don't look at like a quarterback. We're like, oh, he was good.

If he only had a better team, you know, his stats would have been better. Like, so let's put him in the Hall of Fame. I mean, look at Sam Darnold. Everyone wrote him off after going to the Jets. Now he's a Super Bowl champion. But he's not a Hall of Famer. I'm not saying he is, but it matters. Like what you get in your timing of it.

No, I agree. It matters. But what I'm saying, though, is when it comes. comes time of your career is over, you don't get bonus points for you were in a bad car. Sorry, I'm just saying timing works out. Y'all are now having an entirely different conversation. No, I'm not. I'm just saying that.

I want to let y'all talk, but y'all always do this. We end up going way over here. Nobody even wants to have this conversation. We started off way over here with this conversation. I'm just saying, like, you don't get bonus points because you were in a lesser car. Okay. Yeah, I mean. No one's arguing that.

Yeah, I'm not really arguing that. So, all right. Never mind. It's known to the world that you're... Wrong. Wrong. You're out there. You're out there on an island.

Oh, I know I am. I'm with you. I'm on that island. Okay. I was hesitant to even say it to begin with. I'm glad he said it. Brave of you to share such a crazy idea. One person says,

Travis and Alex just need to stop talking. They sound stupid. I love comments like that. Oh, man. This reminded me that we, did we do this on the Bless Your Heart? Remember we were talking about Shones? The Shons need to get together and decide how they're going to spell their name. Oh, man.

And we never, oh, I got so, so many freaking hilarious comments on my timeline from that. And they were from Shones, all arguing for their name, their spelling. right of the actual name so it's pretty fun of it out god dang social media can be really good some days can be entertaining so good so um all right we're at we're doing ask junior let's get some questions going um let's go to first question oh let's let's go with a layup here if you can make one change to NCAA 27 what would it be one change it needs a companion app oh my gosh you have no idea. I mean, seriously, if EA and anybody's listening,

the game needs a companion app so we can do some recruiting, all that fun stuff. I don't even know it was recruiting. On our iPads. I'm just saying, so we can do some on our iPads, change our debt chart, whatever we want to do. All right? That'd be really nice. It needs an app. I'll pay.

Money. I'll give you $1.99. I would. I don't want no in-app purchases and no subscription, though. Let me recruit. With somebody recruit. I'm just kidding. TJ?

That would be very beneficial as a person. That's Dale's what's yours? Oh. Sorry? I'm making him pick one. So, I mean, that probably would have been mine to start with from the commissioner side of things because you can just control so many more things, not having to be at the Xbox a lot.

You can just do a lot more like that. But I think there's a lot of little things that Madden has that they'll eventually put in there like play call limits for certain, for offense and defense separate. not just overall in the game. Why do you care about that? Because I think defenses are a lot more common than regular cheat plays.

But there's just a lot of little things, but the companion app would probably be mine as well. Next question was, how hard was it to run two different cars when the COT came in to the scene? You're just trying to get me to talk about COT, I think. It's not hard to do. Someone literally sent this question.

then. Huh. Well, um, at the time that the, you know, around the time the COT came, we were still running the Gen 4.

You know, the kind of Gen 4ish version of the, of the Xfinity car, which was a great race car, the Gen 4 cup car and that, you know, that style of Xfinity car was great. So you know, it was, you'd go,

you'd drive the Xfinity car and go, Damn, it's badass. A lot of, you know, left front down, nose pinned. Rotates. Rotate, turn. As in the air, hauling, you know, getting after it. And the COT, honestly, you know, was just so bad from the start. I'll harp a little.

We went to COT's getting built. NASCAR's got one built and Brett Bedin's driving it at tracks and we heard we heard about it and now in my life at this point I had never heard of NASCAR building a car and taking it to the track themselves and I was pretty naive and I thought damn NASCAR is going to the racetrack with a COT and they've been they've built this car they've designed it they're going to the racetrack and they're driving it and running it man I bet they're I bet they've got that thing going, right? We built our first

COT and we take it to Rockingham, me and Tony Jr., Tony Sr. And we unload it, and I'm thinking, man, I hope I can run as fast as NASCAR with their COT. They've ran, you know, they've been testing this thing for months, and they've got to have

it dialed in. We're going to run a car with a splitter for the first time in our lives, and it's some big old stupid shoe box, you know, with a wing on the back. And ugly car and it drove as bad as it looked and I'm thinking I'm climbing

in this thing and I'm hoping it's okay you know and we're going to be way off and it's going to take us all day to figure this thing out and learn we're going to learn a ton but it's going to be a handful I'm going to promise you we were over one and a half seconds faster than NASCAR COT

right out of the gate and I was they were on the other end of the racetrack really we go out there and run And I come in and I was like, all right, how do we compare, you know, I'll ask Tony Jr. how we compare to NASCAR COT. And he's like, they're struggling.

He's like, we're not too bad, I guess. I don't know. You know, we didn't know how fast it were. I don't think anybody else was there. Brett wouldn't have got approved. We ran and ran and ran trying to make that thing better. And they were way off over there with their car, just running laps. I'm sure.

I mean, maybe they had a reason or whatever they were trying and testing. but I was like, man, how could they be so slow? This is NASCAR. This is their car. They made this car. And, you know, then we go out there and ran it in a race. And I'll be honest, you know, it was, I had some times when I was, I had some fun races in the COT. Really?

I had a couple fun races driving Tony Jr. C.O.T. You know, and me and Tony Jr. would figure out some things that we kind of liked. then I had some moments. The clash and the duel. I'm just saying. We ran in the bud car for a couple races and also with HMS. But, you know, it was just the problem with the COT and every other car after that was the splitter. And, I mean, I've talked about it at length on this show.

When you put a splitter on a car and there's a rule, where it has to be, like it has to absolutely be exactly in the same spot on every single race car. And everybody knows that getting that car to go fast means putting the splitter right against the ground. You literally have every car

going around the racetrack exactly the same way. Set up the same way, air platform and everything identical. When we didn't have a splitter, we had these valences on the car and you could travel the car differently than the guy beside you.

And you might find a way to get it to stay lower down the straightaway and travel more in the corner. And you traveled it until the right front tire or the left front tire rub the fender, right? And then you beat the fender up. Then you traveled it more. And then you beat the fender up and traveled it more. Yeah. You can't do that a lot. Yeah.

And then you, you know, now you're bottoming out. Now you're trying to cut the bottom of the car to get it to travel more. And everybody didn't look. live in the same place. Everybody didn't go down in the corner and land and end up in the exact same travel. So you had guys that were better entering the corner, guys that couldn't enter as hard, guys that got through the middle better, guys that got off the corner better, guys that were lower off the corner, guys that cars were carrying the nose off the corner. Everybody's car traveled and ran differently. And so, you know, you had guys that were faster early, slower,

late, guys that were just junk, guys that were super good. You had all kinds of. You had all kinds of kinds of things happening in the field in terms of speed. When everybody got the splitter and had to race with a splitter, we all ran the splitter on the ground, and we all ran the same. And that really sucked. And if you tried to drive a car deeper into the corner, say you're out there running, and you're like, all right, we've got a good lap time, we've got a good handling car. I'm going to go in there, car link deeper.

What happened when you drove in deeper with the splitter is it tapped the ground with the splitter and pushed up the racetrack. Well, that's... All right, I can't go in further. I'm going to go back to where I was on throttle, and that's all I can do. And you ran exactly that. I mean, that's how you raced. With the car that had the valence, like, if you wanted to drive it in a little further,

you were going to drag a little valence off, but you could do it. You'd drive in there a little further, and maybe it pushed, maybe it turned, whatever, right? But you could change a lot of how you drove the car a lot with the car with the valence on it. And so that was the heart And I could not get over that I hated that COT because I knew when I got to the When I got

When I figured out how fast I could go with the car That was that I couldn't do anything as a driver To change the car much And how I drove the lap Because if I did anything more It was just going to get on the ground And push

And so Every race track you went to You knew that that was something You were going to have to, you know, struggle with, I suppose, every single weekend. And, yeah. Awesome. The old splitter. We got one more question before we have to run.

Rank these three. Pool, ocean lake. Pool. Ocean Lake. Yeah. Pool ocean lake. I would say ocean pool lake. Really?

Put the ocean first. Yeah. Because ocean... means beach. Yeah. And beach, there's usually some pretty fun spots to eat. It's all kinds of great things. Well, yeah.

If I'm near the ocean, then I think I'm probably on a vacation. Yeah. You're happier. Yeah, a little happier. If I'm by the pool, I could be at home. Yeah. Sometimes the beach is just a lot of work. I don't mind.

You don't like toting shit out there and setting it up and taking it back down? No, I mean, most time we do that. We just go out there and set up about three other. people's waving oh we help all kinds of folks yeah we're helping people next to us that's usually what we do yeah well you're trying to be a good good samaritan yeah um um I'm looking forward to the beach I'm with you yeah all right everybody thank y'all for tuning in on this segment of ass junior it was a it was a it was a one for the record books all right uh thank you exfinity also for waving the the red flag on

internet price hikes and raising the green flag on savings. You get Wibble, you get Wi-Fi that you need, reliable service, reliable speed, locked in, one price, five years. Yeah, it's hard to believe. No surprises, no late yellows, just straight shot to Victory Lane,

just like that, folks, we've got a winner. And I've got some baseball cards. I want to open these, but I won't do it right now. 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.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch.

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Place your bets. Get your bets now, ladies and gentlemen. Get your bets. Russ, is A.J. Floyd a Hall of Famer. Russ, is he a hall of famer? Yes or no. NASCAR Hall of Famer. Is AJ Floyd a NASCAR Hall of Fame?

No. Is Justin Algeyer, NASCAR Hall of Fame? No. Do you think Justin ever makes a ballot? No. Man. What if Justin wins one more championship? Does he ever make a ballot? No. Welcome to the team. Do you believe that if you, do you believe that the NASCAR Hall of Fame ballot should be cup only? I don't think it should be cup only, but I think it should have a cup only.

major focus. So along those lines, so you're saying, if you're an Algeyer, yes, Hall of Fame with two championships, what about Ricky Sinhaaus Jr? Two championships, Daytona 500 wins, you know, solid point. I think there's a legitimate conversation, depending, I mean, depending on where I would say, okay, we get down the road 15 years. I mean, there's a lot of guys that are competing in the Cup series right now that I think are Hall of Famers. And I don't think that, Ricky will ever get the opportunity to be in the conversation because there's just too many people that are better. We've had a lot of fun with that conversation.

Time for Dirty Mo Doe. Let's bring up the bet sheet here. This segment brought to you by Fanjul. Got to get on Fanjul, start making some bets. Now that the... I'm out of the game with the college of basketball tournament. Well, the bets are harder to make for me at this point because it's tighter. And so I'm not as I've done what I needed to do.

Round one was my round. I had good success. Yeah. The heavy favorites are gone. Yeah, the heavy favorites are gone. I don't know. I might make a few more bets. Also, when Dale gives out his bets, if he says moneyline people, he's saying,

and he's just taking the team to win. He's not betting the spread. We had a couple people that were tailing your bets, but took the spread. So just want to remind people. The bet that I brought to you guys this past week paid out. So I made some good headway there. Speaking of headway, we're going to Martinsville.

The favorites according to the Vegas are Ryan Blaney, Denny Hamlin at plus 500, Larson at plus 550, Byron 700, Christopher Bell, 800. Russ, what does the model say? I think you missed Chase Elliott. Yeah. There we go. Chase needs to be in that conversation.

Really? For the last four at Martinsville. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. You worried about the Chevroletes after this past weekend or no? I think this is the place. If they don't do well here, then I think we can start really having that conversation. Yeah.

This is a Hendrick track as well. So I think this is Chase Elliott's weekend for me. All right. Chase Elliott would be at what? Plus 900. Yeah. He's just off the list here. You bet that, Tim's? Yes, yes, yes.

I'll take the risk, which is selling Chevy. It's a concern, but short track, I think it could be different. Reddick? Where's Reddick on the board? He's right. I think he's plus 1,400. Yeah. What's the predictor say for Reddick? He's in a void for me this week.

He's actually out of the top 10 in the predictor. Never finished top five at Martinsville. Only two top 10s there. He only finished on the lead lap, I think, only seven. of his last 12 Martin Vizal starts. Fascinating. Let only once there. Yeah.

So I pass on him. Yep. I like Ty Gibbs here again. I like Briscoe here. I like Ryan Preece. Priest is a sleeper for me here too. Yeah. Yeah.

And I give T.J. credit. That RFK stuff's been very consistent this year. There's five guys. That's what we've been looking for. Yeah, you don't have to give me much credit for that. Well, that's what we've been looking for from RFK and Chris Busher. Showing up every week.

I love it. I mean, maybe, what about Zane Smith? I know Austin Cendrick, could he shine a little bit this weekend? Maybe Josh Barry? Cendrick surprised me last week. He did. He said he was fast. He was fast in practice, and I totally didn't believe it.

But Zane hasn't. He wasn't bad at Vegas either. He just got caught on Pit Road. Barry led a lot of laps here last year, but had some sort of an issue. I can't go in on Zane until I see practice. Yeah. Zane's been quietly strong this year, I think, though. Don't you think?

Yeah, he has. He has for sure. I like Barry. He's led a bunch of laps in this race last year and then finished 10th in the fall. Barry, I know a lot of people are not paying much attention to him because he's had a really, really difficult start of the season. Obviously, me being connected to him. in his career, I watched him this past weekend at Darlington and liked what I saw.

I know he didn't finish. It just finished just inside the top 20, but it was a bit of a grinder day. And kind of a finish that team needs to be able to go into a Martinsville race and genuinely have an attitude that they can go up there and try to compete in the top 10. I would say, you know, Josh Berry would be a fun bet for top 10, you know, parlay a couple of these guys together and see what kind of fun you can have. What's Ty Gibbs' odds? Ty Gibbs is $2,200 to win plus $110 for top 10.

I feel like he can be a factor. I like the top 10. Yeah, top 10, I like that, too. I feel like he's gaining confidence again now. Yeah, I do, but is Ty Gibbs a person that until he wins, you're not going to bet him to win? I wouldn't say that. I don't think his previous stats at Martinsville

make me want to bet him this week. But I definitely think one of these upcoming races, I will definitely have Mame win card. What about, you know, a Ross or even a host of our here? You know, what's his kind of track record does he have here? Ross is good here, but I just, I don't know if I trust them this year, like, lately. I know, yeah. Host of R.

And the last three here. Suarez has been hot lately. Sure has. This is the kind of track where I think Suarez can continue that run. I Soros to me is an interesting guy and I've always kind of watched where he runs good at

and those tracks seem to have a pattern and I feel like this fits right into his sort of yeah I do too plus 450 for top 10 hmm for yeah the last top 10 here was 2019

plus 450 hmm I wish that was higher you would think it would be higher this guy you're not thinking about for top 10 too he's got three top tens here. Todd Gilliland. I just saw his name on here.

Yeah, he's actually really good here. Plus 450 as well. Wasn't a colleague car really strong here last year? Wasn't A.J. Fast or something? Those lines are terrible. They should be like 1,100 or something. For top tens of those guys. Closer to race day, you can.

Yeah. They'll be that. I'd wait then. Yeah. Plus 450's not a lot. See, I like to see how those guys, see how they practice. Yeah. Kyle Busch, factor at all?

Ooh. I don't know. They haven't had a top 10 all the year. Austin Dillon? He's been... If you were doing a head-to-head, Austin Dillon, Kyle Bush, who you're picking? Austin Dillon. Tim said that?

Yep, yeah. Austin Dillon. No way. He's ran better than him this year. He has. He seems to... Oh. If Kyle...

He has his moments. If Kyle could get through the first, like, half of the race and still be, like, in the top of run the top 10 he always he makes up a lot of ground on the second half of the race but something always happens in the beginning or first half of the race where he has to overcome like a first pit stop his car just wasn't that i watched his i watched his car this weekend is they were struggling on the long run of the race yeah all night all day yeah were you surprised that some of the guys like the eight you know struggle in the 22 was pretty far off um i was surprised at the 22 the 22 is the that surprised me the most. Do you think that they tried something out out there in left field

just took a gamble? They had to because Blaney and Cindrick were both really good. Yeah. I feel like it's been that way quite a bit this year so far. It seems like the 12 has been the consistent car. The two kind of, the two has not been bad. Honestly, he's been, is he a second best car there now? This year? He is, well, kind of. Close, right? Or right. They're right. there. Yeah. But like the gap's not what it used to be. Yeah. But, but we can say Blaney's like, could be, if Redick wasn't on this tear, it would be Blaney we'd be talking about. Lagano's only 30 points better than Cendrick right now. Yeah, which is surprising to me. Yeah. It's best finished since the 500's 15th. What about Toyota? Plus 155. They've won

five of six. I mean, Danny, you know, Danny, Danny's got a good shot. he's on. You got Bell. Bell's been. Yeah, Bell's been. Yeah. Man, it's just so hard. Visually watching these guys for 500 laps or Brian Blaney drives his track.

Like, he's just the best guy at this track right now, in my opinion. He doesn't miss, like, the curb. You watch him, and he's so consistent and so precise with how he runs his track, and he's gotten so good at it. So, I mean, he's by far stands out more than anyone else to meet in Martin's right now. To your point. T.J. for top four, Blaney's even money. Lagano's plus 3.40 at the next

best. Yeah, the thing you have to worry about with Blaney is that pit crew. His pit crew is, I have them ranked like outside the top 25 as a pit crew. Three wheels in the last three weeks. Yeah, it's hard. It's hard to overcome

that. They've lost 75 positions on pit road. Damn. I mean, that's a problem. Yeah, wow. Yeah. Is that including like getting caught on pit road under green. Does that include that stuff?

No, that's... Okay, that wasn't sure. Stakes and all that. Yeah, I gotcha. Well, they'll have to clean that up to have a shot on Sunday. All right, bud. I appreciate you tuning in.

Thanks for coming through, Russell. Thanks for having. You bet you, man. Y'all be smart when you're making your bets on Fandul. Fandul, the premier gaming destination of the United States, bringing you to another segment. of the dirty-mo dough.

Thank you, Tim. Thank you. Thanks for joining us in the Arby's studio. Don't forget about Arby's new meat and three box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We had the meats. That's the Dale Jr. download with T.J. Majors. Thanks for tuning in.

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