The Dale Jr. Download - Daytona’s About Haulin A**

Episode Date: February 10, 2026

It’s finally Daytona week and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is in the studio for a new episode Dirty Air before heading south. He joins co-host TJ Majors to discuss the storylines of the week:What to do about restrictor-plate fuel saving?The future of the ClashThe most anticipated NASCAR events of 2026Kaulig Racing kicks off their first year with Dodge RAMExpectations for Connor Zilisch’s rookie yearCarson Hocevar locking in with SpireDuring the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions about:Dale carrying the Olympic torch through CharlotteCloning yourself to complete daily tasksMemories of Brad Arnold from Three Doors DownAnd for more content, check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaReal fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.👇https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/ Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody. It's Dale Junior Download with T.J. Majors in the Arby's Studio. Arby's a new partner here at Dirty Mo Media. Arby's has got a new meat in three box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats, and we have a new show today. The Del Jr. Download coming at you. 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 that I wasn't 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? Did them, T.J. Hellway it's starting to show. All right then. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download with my co-host, T.J. Majors,

and we're kicking off episode 68, going to Daytona. It's the 10th of February. and I'm leaving today. When are you going? Today. All right. Everyone goes today.

Everybody goes today. We got cars on track tomorrow. Well, yeah. All right. So heading into Daytona, we have all of the Exfinity guys getting all their cars ready. We've got the 40 car on the cup side headed down there. Yes, we will have practice in the morning.

We'll kind of know a little bit about how things are going to go for junior motorsports on the qualifying. side of things because qualifies tomorrow night. With the open cars, I think there's eight or so open cars in the cup side, the top two fastest are locked in, and then the rest, maybe there's 10, I don't know, but the rest

are going to race for one spot in each duel. So the highest, it's pretty straightforward, and I kind of like this. Like I want it basic and simple for the open cars. Top two fastest block in, and then the others will race for a single spot,

in each dual best finishing car is going to get that spot right it's kind of how it's been forever though too right i just feel like they simplified it is it just me it's not always been just like that maybe not that split up yeah like that like are the cars split evenly between the two races um that's what i was wondering i've always kind of wondered how they decided that yeah i don't really know how that works but i feel like that they they either they clarified it or they simplified it and changed it a little bit, but... It's easy to follow the battle. It's easy to follow.

Last year, it felt maybe a little more confusing. I don't know if I was just... Yeah. So, anyhow. Are you nervous? I'm nervous about, you know, last year we went to Daytona. We didn't have the speed in practice. We were like, uh, maybe, you know, maybe it's this, maybe it's that, you know, we make a couple adjustments, put the car out on the line, go out and qualify.

didn't have the speed. So now that I know how all that went, I'm anxious for practice for us to get out there, see where we are, see how the motor is, see how the new body is, where do we stack up? Can we, you know, be one of the top two open cars in qualifying and lock ourselves in without having to worry about the duel? Make it easier. Listen, I know that that was exciting to go through the duel and go through the process. that we went through the hard way sort of to make our way into the Daytona 500 is fun, emotional.

But I'd certainly like to maybe have an easier go of it or an easier route to Sunday. We aren't even in the race yet. So, you know, you don't, and I'm a bit superstitious about that kind of stuff. Like, you know, making assumptions and doing all those things and making any plans before you really have the commitment to be able to go there Sunday and race. So we'll see how it goes tomorrow, qualifying in the, or practice in the morning, qualifying in the evening,

the top two open cars are locked in. In qualifying into the race. The rest will have to race through the duels on Thursday, or whenever the hell the duels are. Dules Friday? Thursday. Like normal, yeah. No change.

They changed some things, you know. Hard to keep up. I do miss the duels during the day a little bit. Dude. The duels in the day were fun. I know they get a better number on the network at night. Yeah. But they were fun during the day because the cars had a little more of a handling issue,

especially on old bumpy Daytona. Racing was probably slightly better a little bit with the challenging heat. It just depends on what you think is better about racing, which brings me to some comments made by Elton Sawyer. Oh. Yeah. Do you see that? So he was talking on Series X-Im or something,

and they asked him about the state of restrictive plate racing or racing at Daytona and Talladega. You don't see this at Atlanta for some reason, but at Daytona and Talladega, he says they've had discussions about stage links at those two races regarding the fuel saving. So they're trying to figure out, all right, A, do we have a problem? Is fuel saving truly an issue?

is the fact that the cars ride around half-throttle the entire race problematic or is that racing still, right? Because he says it's conflicting that they can hear the chatter about running half-throttle. But if he turns off the radio and just watches the race, he sees cars running four wide and fans standing and cheering. And so that lowers the discussion around fuel saving and modifying the racing at Dayton and Talladega in any way that lowers it down the priority list when considering things like bringing back to Chase and some other items on their on their to-do list.

And he says, in quote, what do we want to fix? He also noted that at the Indy 500, drivers are in fuel conservation mode as they take the green flag. And he's right about that. You know, he is. Listen, I was at Indy covering the race, and we were expecting everybody to, you know, immediately when the race starts, they sort of have a knob or an adjustment in the car to really basically turn the fuel usage to a certain degree up and down, right? And they're like, all right, we're going to run this way for half the day. We're going to run this way. And at the end, we're going to have, you know, we should have this much fuel.

And then we can. That's what we need. A knob. A knob. Well, listen, they, they, they do. start the race at the Indy 500, they start the race in a fuel-saving mode and they have a plan. But in 2019, Simon Pajino, super cool dude, he goes out there and he disregards their plan to save fuel and he runs as hard as he can.

And they're telling him, hey, bud, love that we're leading this race. But at this rate, we're going to have to pit one more time comparable to everyone else. or we're going to spend more time on pit road putting fuel in. But he didn't give a... He wanted to win that race so badly. He was chasing it like a rabbit. And the cautions fell in such a way that it became... It took away the disadvantage of the fuel.

The cautions fell in such a way that it... And that's the risk he took, right? He's like, I'm going to run like, hell, I'm not saving. I'm not riding in second or third or whatever. It's also the risks they took, too. I agree. I think that I want to get back to the words from Elton. I do believe that if they don't touch anything and don't change anything, teams will continue to shift their model in their plan, right? It's always evolving.

Yep. If you start the race, right, if we go back a few years and you start the Daytona 5, and a couple guys are saving, they're creating an advantage for themselves. It's no longer an advantage when the entire field does it, right? And so that's kind of where we've ebbed toward, we've kind of flowed toward this. All right, now everybody's doing it. Now you've got to be the guy that sets yourself apart.

You've got to be the guy that maybe doesn't save anymore. You've got to be Pajon. And some of those teams will now start to, it might happen this year, even. Some of those teams will say, you know what, I don't care. I'm going to, I'm going to run hard. I'm going to run hard. I'm going to hope the cautions fall in my favor. And we've seen these races just go to total chaos at the end. I mean, William Byron was running, what, eighth or ninth down the back straight away when he won?

Yeah, like 10th. Right. And so, you know, the track position is important. You're kind of out front. Being out front's nice. But it's not kind of the, you know, it's, I just feel like, like that if they don't change anything, engineer minds and strategy and crew chiefs, they'll continue to, this thing will continue to shift and, and flow into, and strategies will change and they'll go back the other way.

They will. But I got, like in our series, though, a little bit different from IndyCar stuff. Like, it's harder to get away. You know, as a leader, you could run 100% and the guy behind, the car is behind it because of the draft in our cars, it's much easier to stay connected. It's like, and that's a great point.

The problem, that I do want to go back to Elton's quote or comments, right? And I know Elton is just trying to, like, say to people like, really, what do we, are we, is it really that serious of a problem? Is it maybe not such a big problem that we don't have to really try to make a change just for the sake of making a change? Because I don't know that they know what to change, right? Yeah, same. They've talked about, you know, could they change the stage lengths? Would that make the teams run harder? Fuel cell size, I mean.

Yeah. You know, I don't, we went to smaller sales before. That was a pain in the ass. You just pitted more. You know, you just pitted more. You didn't. You're still going to try to eliminate a stop, but if you can. I know, but it was just annoying to have to pit more.

Drivers want to race. Drivers want to be on the track. Not fucking coming down pit road because your fuel sales 13. gallons. We did that. We didn't like it. I wouldn't want to go back to that. That wouldn't get me, I'm trying to make a change, TJ,

that's going to make me want to tune in. Making the fuel sales smaller on a car ain't exciting. All right? It's not sexy. So, you know, I don't have an answer, but I do believe, I do know one thing. I do not like that. they go out there and run half throttle and two seconds off the pace.

I don't like it. I don't like it. So Elton, we don't like it. And to say, well, if we don't talk about it, is it really a problem? If it's not, you know, if the casual fan doesn't realize what's going on, then we shouldn't consider it an issue, I don't know if I like that. I don't love that he said that. That's my problem is you're now basically telling you're hardcore fans, we're not thinking about you.

All he had to say is we're thinking about it, but we have to worry about the unintended consequences if we make a change. Listen, this is the, let me say this too, and this is my, this is a compliment to NASCAR. This is the only, only thing that rubbed me wrong when in all of the last couple of weeks, this is the only thing that was like, what the heck, man? That this is the only thing, all right? So we're on a freaking, we're on a good path. Things are going good. We've got great marketing. Seeing all the commercials.

See all a little clips, social media clips and everything that they're doing. The hell yeah, all that. A lot of momentum. It's great. It's good. They did a great job. You know, when they came out with that, you know, when we saw some like, when we saw, like, behind the curtain about that hell yeah stuff, everybody was clowning it.

What the hell are we doing? Blah, blah, blah. We even talk shit about it here. It's great. It turned out great. You know, and how do you keep? everything in secret. You know, they can't, you know, they can't be expected to, like, keep everything under wraps.

But it turned out great. O'Donnell's been doing great. Everybody's doing good. A lot of communication. There's been more communication behind the scenes than I've seen in a long time with NASCAR. NASCAR eagerly wants this to work. They badly want this to work. And they're not bull-h-ed-us.

That was the only thing that I was like, man, come on. What the fuck? You know, now, we're all smarter than that. So the fuel-saving era is not a, and it's not NASCAR's fault. It's just the teams have found a way to like a strategy to like, you know, give them an advantage late in the race and they've got to minimize. You know, when we went to this car and it fuels slower, like it, you know, the tires go on faster and the fuel takes longer to go in.

That's what created this, right? what is the one thing that keeps you on pit road putting fuel in the car so can you minimize that and spend less time on pit road and give yourself an advantage yes that's what that's how this happened um the single lug shortened up the tire side of the pit stop and now fueling is the outlier that that you need to eliminate the most as much as you can so they go out there and they save as much as they can and they have to put less in the car, spend less time on pit road,

and they're trying to put themselves in position late in the race with the track position to go out there and maybe have a shot of winning. And it's frustrating to watch them ride around. You know, but I feel like if they don't change anything,

people will have to set themselves apart. Everybody can't go out there and safe. The guy running 20th, saving with, you know, like the guy running up front is not at an advantage anymore because he doesn't he you know the guy up front saving fuel too you I mean the advantage is lost so you might see some teams say screw that we're going to run hard we're going to hope that the cautions fall in our favor and that's the risk we're going to take didn't we see the Toyotas in one of the super speedways last year try to push the pace on everyone

else it's a couple years ago I believe you need is like a group to get together and like let's try something yeah my my fear is what's worse. This or running hard, like at Talladega when everybody ran hard, it was two by two, nobody moved. Yeah. You know, that, what would you rather have? Well, that's, I mean, TJ, the, you mentioned it earlier.

This car, if you do, if you don't want to save and you go out there and hold a car full throttle, right? And you go out and try to take the lead. You can't drive away. You can't, you can't, the car has so much drag that if you run wide, you, you run wide. open, you're just sitting in front of the field running wide open. Helping. Helping the guys that are saving.

So the car has a ton of drag on it. That's a car problem. I don't know that there's many drivers, mechanics, and crew chiefs that would disagree. The car, the drag on the car and how the whole package, the power versus the drag, if I'm out there running half throttle and a full second slower than my car's capable of going I want you to be able to go full throttle

and literally drive away from me you know drive away put seconds between you and me and you can't do it with this car yeah definitely can't do it no and that's not that's not all right that ain't all right so if we could be able to get the cars away from each other

if you wanted to go run harder than that way If I'm wanting to run wide open, I should be able to drive away from you. There shouldn't be so much drag that I'm sitting there full throttled leading a pack that's running half throttle, able to hang on to me. What's the easiest fix to reduce drag? Spoiler can get shorter. Everything about, you know. What if they just took the spoiler off the back? I don't know if you could knock the spoiler off at Daytona.

I think you could. I mean, they would have to drive it. They'd have to test to be able to get in cars comfortable again. And I... What if they're not? Why don't they have to be super comfortable, though? No, no, no. I mean, if you get so they don't crash.

I think if you took a spoiler off a car right now, you would have to spend a little bit of time putting some grip back in the back. But, and that's realistically, listen. Could the teams find that? Yes. No question. Got it. And I will, you can't change my mind until...

You wouldn't be able to change my mind until you sent a car out on the racetrack and I saw it with my own eyes that it wouldn't work. In the 70s, they didn't have rear spoilers on the cars. Dave Marcus was driving the 71 K&K Dodge. They had a little plate that bolted on the rear of the car and they would raise it or lower it. And it was just a trip lip. And it might be, they might raise it up and it'd be like an eighth.

It would just. It would just stick up behind the rear deck. And if you were uncomfortable, you might raise it up a little more, but it was going to slow you down. And so in the qualifying, they would drop it all the way down. All the way. And go and haul ass. So literally no spoiler. And then in the, if you look at some of the driver photos from Daytona of the guys when they kneel by the car,

at the start, finish line. Yeah. In the, I'd say the late 80s, they were laying their spoilers back before there was a spoiler rule to 15. 10, 20 degrees. So there's not much there. Nothing. So I think there was a rule on the length of the spoiler. They might actually just take the spoiler off.

So we have ran a crap tonne less spoiler at Daytona in NASCAR in a couple different eras. I feel like those cars would be a, man, a handful of no spoiler. Well, man, I remember, and I know it was different asphalt, bumpy Daytona, but I remember like lifting into duels. You know, we'd be racing into duels on Thursday and plowing tight, going in the corner up to the top of the racetrack and all the way out, all the way out of the gas into the center of the quarter and then back full throttle. Well, that would create.

Running forth. That would create some racing. Yeah. Oh, dude. And we're sitting there running our ass off. And I'm like, man. I can't go anywhere. I'm a couple car links in front of me as a car.

Jeff Burton was behind me and he's running fifth and we're all tight, lifting out of the gas, up to the wall, back in the gas. Here comes Jamie Murray rolling right around the bottom, just passed us all because he's handling. Well, I'd take that. Oh, man. So that's what I was asking you at the start when you said good racing. What do you think is some different people look at things differently like Elton's tall?

Sawyer said. There are some fans and they use it in commercials and everything that'll see that three wide and go that's badass. It is badass. And then there's some people that'll see cars strung out and a guy out handling everybody and working his way through the field and go, that's

badass. You know, so it's a little bit different for everybody. But I don't, when we go to Daytona, this is where I land on all of it. We go to Daytona and Talladega, but more so for the 500. It's a two and a half mile track,

Daytona's synonymous with running wide open, holding the throttle down, running your ass off, hair on fire. Yeah. Kale Yarborough, 201 mile an hour, busting his ass in turn four

and flying up into the guardrail. You know, Buddy Baker and the gray ghost destroying the freaking field. Hall and ass is what Daytona and the Daytona 500 is about. And so when they crank them up and line them up

and they go three wide and everybody sort of goes, all right, y'all, let's run half throttle for the rest of the day. See you at the end. That is not, that goes against the, that goes against the identity of the race. Does it, does it give a little bit back? Because right now, I mean, there's, there's, anybody could, if you're in this race, you can win it.

Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, everybody got a shot at it. Yeah, but 20 years ago, it was like, okay, there's, there's a handful of cars. The top 20 probably have a really good shot. Then you know the other guys aren't handling that great, and they're going to fade a little bit. But does it, does having a handling issue

or having a handling race like that where you know the guy, like McMurray driving right by you, if he goes on and wins that race where you're like, damn, they earned that. You know what I mean? Or is that... You got to go back home and start working on your shit.

Yes. Like, does it create more, like, prestige to it, I guess? I think that the Daytona 500 is, in my mind I mean, you know, I'm, I'm, I feel like it's the most important race of this season and it's important no matter how you win it

or how it goes down. Always, yeah. You know, I don't know. I don't know. I'll be interested to see if we have the same sort of everybody running half throttle on Sunday. Will we see, you know, we saw Corey LaJoy in the, in the, 51 last year, drive to the front, or was he in the 15, whatever it was. We saw the Ware Kid lead some, drive up front, you know, disregarding sort of the fuel

saving and just saying, screw it, ma'am, we're going to go in front and get our car on TV. We're going to lead some laps. Maybe get the caution. Maybe get the caution. I hope we might see more people do that, you know, if the cars, if they can, right? sometimes you pull out a line with this car and mash the throttle full throttle and you don't go anywhere. Even next to, you know, even with cars around, you run in half throttle. It looks good.

And then you get out there and it's so draggy. Yeah. But anyhow, it's going to be interesting. There's a lot of great momentum, as I said, leading up to the Daytona 500. There's a ton of excitement around this season. The chase is back. and it looks like that everybody that, you know, I've talked to, is in a positive mindset, excited about the year to come.

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So head over to Lionel Racing.com. make sure to grab your favorite driver's latest diecast and start the 2026 season the right way. That's download 26 for free shipping only at Lionelracing.com. We're going to talk a little bit quickly. We got a new hood on the wall. We have a hood that we have the guests come in and sign, and we auction it off at the end of the year. We've had fun with it.

We've created some pretty neat stuff, some vintage stuff, and we've got another vintage design on the wall. We let TJ pick his favorite. driver. Easy. We let TJ pick this year. What hood would go on the wall? And you might have told me this years ago, but I must have forgot.

But your favorite driver growing up was Jeff Gordon. And so, TJ, on the wall, what do we have? Well, we have the retro, I guess, Jeff Gordon hood. I mean, it's an iconic hood to me. And when I was thinking about hoods, there was, there's, you know, probably a small handful of them that you can look at and know exactly what car it was. And this is one of them to me. So, um, can you pull that car up on the screen?

Take a look at it. The Jeff Gordon flamed DuPont car from back in the day. There it is. Jeff Gordon's going to be happy about this. Jeff Gordon's going to like it. We'll have to get Jeff in the studio. Sign it. Back on the show. It's a good looking hood. I do think the Dirty Mo Media logo looks good in it. It does. Yeah, this is one of more iconic, like even non-NASCAR fans know this one. Yeah. It looks good. Yeah. well um i'm excited that tj got to pick the hood i didn't have to do that um every year you got to come up with something cool and creative yeah i got to take a year off so thanks you're welcome um let's talk about the clash the clash was at bowman gray nascar did a hell the job with the weather and all the bulls industry wide everybody went in there they were uncomfortable uh but we put on a race it was pretty exciting i watched it thought it was entertaining yeah um a lot of chatter about whether it should be uh you know where it should be uh you know where it should go for from here.

I believe that NASCAR at Bowman Gray is a great combination. I don't know what that means. I liked it. In terms of, is it the clash? Is it the All-Star race? I don't know that it could be any more than an exhibition. There's no live stops.

Can't get on an off-pit road without, you know, NASCAR having to kind of, there's not a safe way for them to pit live stops there. So it can't really, I don't know that you would ever want to try to make it a points-paying event. Nobody's asking for that. I'm just wanting to say that. Can you imagine a million bucks there?

An all-star event there would be pretty exciting because the weather, time of year, it just has this, I mean, it is as throwback as throwback can get. Man. That would be pretty amazing, man.

I mean, it's as nostalgic or as vintage as you can go in NASCAR. And so, I love that we're there. I love that we're racing there. It does feel right racing there. Yep, it does. And so pretty cool a little event and unfortunate about the weather, but they did a good job.

I mean, that's the most snow that we've had here. I know. And how much you can do about that? No. Should it, should, what should happen to the clash? I always believe that it should stay at Daytona. It should be the poll sitters. You know, if it's eight, if it's 12, it's.

14, I don't give you, just pole sitters, 20 laps. And people are like, whoa, 20 laps, what the hell? Why even race? That's all you need. Well, look, man, the clash was never meant to be. I mean, you know, of course, things grow, things progress, things improve, things get more important, things prosper, whatever. But the clash was just a teaser. That's all it was.

And it was, and I'm fine if it's this little icebreaker that sets the table for speed weeks at Daytona. That's what it was. And it was somewhat unsurious, but a bit of a... Kind of serious? It was a bit of a... But you've won it? Yeah. I won it as it was starting to shift away from its true identity.

If you go back and look at the pre-race for the clash in the 80s, Chris Oconomackie walking down pit road, individually interviewing the 12, 14, 16 drivers that are in the field, they're all kind of using the clash as an opportunity to get a little information about how Daytona is going to be that year and how things are going to work, how they're new teams and cars and all those things are going to perform. And there's a casual sort of comfort in the driver's demeanor. They're going to go out there. They put on a show. It's going to be quick.

We're going to move on. And I liked that clash. Not everybody does. Not everybody. I get it. Not everybody is all about a, you know, a little half-hour teaser with a handful of drivers. I get it. I thought it was great.

Look, that's just me. I thought it was good also to kind of work the bugs out for the broadcast or the network that's coming in for the whole two weeks or the week and a half of Daytona Speed Weeks. And again, I mean, you know, it was a, it may, it was a thing, it was a race that you, hated to be left out of. And only, it's kind of like the chase, right? Only a few drivers get to make it. And man, when you're not one of those guys, it's a stain.

It sucks. You want to be there. Yeah, you feel like you don't, you feel. You got left out. You feel like you don't measure up. And so if you can't be fast enough to get the pole earlier, you know, the year before and lock your way into the race,

it sucks sitting there watching those guys that did, you know. And they all walked around like, you know, I'm one of the, faster guys here. You know, I've, you know, I've, it was a class. Yeah, it was. It's pretty neat. Even the ones that we ran, like, I don't remember ever being in the clash and not, and being, and being like, man, let's just take it easy or not.

Like, we were going to win. It was a fun race that you just, you know, you're going to bust your ass for about a half hour and work, work your guts out and whatever happened. It was still a good race. Yeah. It was. But I don't know, I don't think it'll ever, I don't know that it'll ever go back to that. They would have to, I think NASCAR would have to embrace speed weeks again, embrace, you know,

a long-form schedule of activity at Daytona. Is that bad? I don't know that they are eager to do that. I don't know. I don't know that that's interesting for the owners have a role or the owners have some leverage. Do they want to go down there and spend more money doing things? Or would they rather just go to Bow and Gray and do it?

I mean, they banged up. They tore up some shit, you know, Bowling Gray. I don't know that they're tearing up less in either track, right? I mean, people will say that, you know. Did the speed weeks like it was kind of set the tone for the Tona 500 to be like, it's speed weeks. So you kind of. It's a good buildup.

That's what I'm saying. Like you were down there, you had to clash, you had Daytona 500 qualifying. You took a break for a little bit. Go to the short tracks, watch a couple nights. Yeah. And then it started going into it. Yeah. And I felt like to that being there with NASCAR.

being over at the big track, it amplified the short track. I thought so too. You had a lot of people in the industry that would go over to those races and like you say, go check it out for a night or two or even participate. And so it's odd to not be there and to be home or wherever we go. And they're racing. And they're racing, right? And in Florida near Daytona.

Yeah. It is odd. But it was kind of. neat deal because we had, you know, if you had qualifying in the clash on Sunday, the week, the full week before the 500, you had people coming in camping and getting their set up. And those people would be in town, enjoying Daytona. They would go over to the dirt track or to the pay track, watch a little short track racing. And it was just buzzing.

The town was buzzing. It slowly built. Yeah, it did. It was pretty neat. Yeah, I agree. I don't know if the demand's there for that. I don't know if that's even realistic to ever have that come back and be like it was. I think it could.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. There was a lot of conversation about that over the clash, which was a successful event at Bowman Gray. And if it remains there, that's fine with me. But I think the weather's the issue. I mean, and it's cold. Even if we don't get the snow, it's just uncomfortable that time of year in Winston-Salem. And we'll see how this all-star at Dover.

experience goes, hopefully, you know, Wilkesboro's locked in as a points race for the foreseeable future and, you know, whatever happens to the All-Star race is, is anybody's guess. With all that said, Ben Kennedy did say recently that they're looking at some new venues, a couple, quote, a couple new venues for the 2007 schedule and beyond. So, yeah. And that brings me to a list that Jeff Gluck put together, the top 10 most anticipated races of the season. Right.

We've got a new venue at the top of his list. San Diego. He has San Diego first, homestead, second, Chicago land, third, and then the Daytona 500. Pretty good list. You got Southern 500 on there. Caledega, two, Charlotte, 2, Martinsville 2, Coke 600, Brickyard, two Charlotte races in the top 10.

And the brickyard 10th, way down the list, you know, it's a brickyard. You know, I don't see a big deal with this list, no problem. I would probably put the Daytona 500 ahead of Homestead, Chicago Land. Look, I don't got a problem with San Diego. I'm looking forward to it. It would make my list. First, it wouldn't be number of it.

No. No. No. So I'd say Daytona 500. And then I might have, you know, like Martinsville 2, Charlotte to Talladega 2, Homestead, all of those ahead of San Diego in Chicago. The 600 has been a great race the last couple of years and definitely be in my list. The brickyard would probably not make my list.

Top 10 anyways. Do you think now that we're not this win in-year-end playoffs, the importance and just of winning the 500 has made that a little better this year? Like we're not going to be like, oh, they're in the playoffs now. It's going to be more of celebrating winning the 500. I mean, yeah, that's a very subtle change, though. I mean, it's not like a big, it's not like a huge deal. I feel like that that change is us just going back to how it used to be

and how things should be naturally, right? Like you go out, you try to win every race. If you win, you feel lucky, you feel fortunate. And you celebrated what you did that day at that track. And you didn't look so far ahead, right? You didn't go, damn, you know, that helps us in the playoffs. You definitely looked further ahead. Yeah.

So now, you know, you can just celebrate the moment, live in the moment, and enjoy the race. Oh, we called you out. Who did? Jeff for his 11th pick. Cover your eyes, Dale Jr. North Wilkesboro's 11. Oh, I mean, it made the list. Well, yeah, he actually ranked all 30s.

Damn, he did. Yeah. Oh, I forget he did. Cover your eyes. Why am I cover my eyes? 11th. That's good. That is North Wiltsboro literally is on this list right behind the 600,

arguably the best race of the year over the past couple years, and Brickyard. Why is that bad? That's great. Wilkesboro's first points race and it's 11th on the list. I don't know. You can ask him about it. I think this is a good ranking. This ranking will likely be one that gets the most disagreement.

But I don't think it's that big of a hot take to put Wiltsboro this low. See, he thinks it's low. I think it's high. I don't think. I mean, I think it's in the right area. Well, I'm just saying it's a race that didn't exist for 20 years. It pops back on the schedule and it's 11th. That's pretty good.

Yeah. It's weird San Diego's first, though, to me. I get, I mean, the anticipation. I understand why he ranked the things. He ranked them the way he ranked them. And that's Jeff. You know, Jeff's got his own opinion. I just would have, I'm excited about San Diego, but I've seen, I've not seen a race

at San Diego. I've seen races at these other tracks. I know what I'm getting. I'm more excited for Chicago land. I think this, the, the San Diego is a boom or bust. The boom or bust risk. You know, when you, when you got fantasy football. players and you're like, who should I start?

And they're like, well, this guy could have a great game, but he could have an equally horrible game. He's going to blow his knee out. This guy's consistent. Maybe not as flashy. So I am nerd. That's why I wouldn't rank San Diego first because I don't know if it's going to be boom or busts.

Now, going there the first time, there'll be excitement no matter of what. It will be. The shots will be cool and some of those things. It will be. Race itself, who knows. Yeah. I, and the Daytona 500 just deserves. It's always one.

Respect. You know, Dayton 500 is the biggest race of the year. And there's no change in that. Something drastic would have to happen for them, for that to fall off. Coke 600, man, I'd bump it up a little bit. In y'all's opinion, is the Coke 600 not been the best race of the year? What's been the best race?

What was the race last year where you were like, damn, that was good? Do you remember? No, yeah, I think I hope. to agree with you. Yeah. The Coke 600 is good. Really good. So he's got Coke 600 ranked below the Charlotte, too.

That makes sense. It's going to be short. It's going to be in the final 10 for the chase. I know. I agree. Everything that I've been told about how the points work in the regular season, the playoffs or the chase is going to be great because, yes, we're going to be deciding. But a lot of things that happen in the regular season,

season are going to determine who's successful and who's not in the chase. Making the chase merely does not level the field and guarantee everybody a shot.

If you're, you know, I guess they ran a bunch of models and... Well, you're saying if you're not top four or five, you've got no chance. Right. Yeah. So while yes, the those races in the back half of the Chase will be anticipated for sure. Yes, they make my list.

Now that the points play out the way they are and we'll have a genuine champion that worked all year long, I see the way I look at the points, the way I look at how this all, the way a champion will build his portfolio of the year, right? The first, the Charlotte 600 is, in my opinion, almost as important as the second race. It's the most important race of the season, really, the 600.

Yeah. Because you've got more points there for you. Yeah. You're able to look at the extra stage? Yeah. True. Well, I hope that Charlotte delivers a lot of pressure. They went away from the Roval in the second race of the year,

which I'm glad because I didn't like the Roval. A lot of fans did like the Roval, and I'm sure it'll come back. You know, that's the great thing about it is Marcus, if he sees an opportunity and knows that fans are demanding it, He will make the change. Things move slower than we want them to. For example, I felt like they should have went to the Oval last year. Well, it takes a while for the to happen.

And here we are. And if the demand comes back for the Roval, for Roadcourse Racing, if that becomes this incredible thing, absolutely, he can flip a switch. And it's not that easy. I'm sure he'll laugh at that. But they can change it right back and go back to running the Roval. and make everybody happy. They made this change.

I believe it's the right change. I hope that it's a fantastic race in the back half of the year. I remember as a child going to Charlotte in October, it was always around my birthday, and that being a pretty special weekend for me and watching my dad race and excited that that race is back in the back half of the year. Yeah. So also we have the colleague RAM truck program.

What was it called? Race for the seat. Race for the seat, yeah. Minnie Tyrell, one of our own from the Cars Tour, has won the seat. He'll have a one season deal in one of the five ram trucks. That's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. Many is a good driver. There was, in my opinion, not a bad driver in that group.

All of those guys that were in the show could race on Fridays in the trucks or Saturdays. All of them could go into the truck series, I think, and be competitive. And all of them, it wasn't a standout. But Minnie did everything he needed to do to be able to – secure this opportunity. So I'm excited for many, and it's great for the Cars Tour that a guy like that came through

our series and worked his way into opportunities like this. And, yeah, so it'll be interesting to see how Ram does this year with colleague. They're going to put a lot of money and effort and funding and support into that. Collegs basically shifted all of its focus

So, you know, from the Xfinity side where they were pretty competitive, had great programs, all the, you know, putting a bunch behind their truck deals. But it's a, they got five trucks. Tony Stewart will be racing in Daytona and one of those. You got Butterbean, who's also a Cars Tour alumni and champion. I think Cletus is racing. Cletus, yeah. So.

Travis Bistrana. Yeah. So it's going to be. The truck race is, he's got like Stenhouse in it, too? I'm pretty sure Stenhouse is in there. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah, there he is.

John Hunter? Carson Hosevar. Yeah. John Hunter? I mean. Yeah, the truck race is going to be worth watching for sure. Just to kind of see, not only with these names, but to see Dodge back. Justin Haley back there too with the Dodge deal.

Yeah. So it'll be, you know, but, you know, we'll go to Daytona. Everything that happens at Daytona's, you know, predicted by the draft and all of those things and trying to miss the chaos. We really won't get to see the pure identity of the Dodge program until we get a couple three, four, five weeks into the season. We'll start to see the identity of each of those individual teams that make up the Dodge program. I'm curious.

I'm interested to see how it goes and how the drivers fare on the racetrack, how many, you know, adapts to this type of race car with this type of tire. He's never really ran on a radio that much. The tires that we race in the cars tour or the standard bias pie tire that Hoosier builds and completely unique experience. Yeah, he's going to have his hands full trying to get adapted to that. Moving on, we got some new Dirty Mo Media merch that's out this year. The Green Flag Collection just dropped.

We got a Valentine's Day line also. if you're buying for somebody. Hoodies, T's flags, the whole deal. You can go to shop.dirtymoimedia.com. This is a cool one. I love the colors, and it does look like a shirt you would buy in Daytona off of a souvenir rig.

It does. Out front of the racetrack back in the 80s. But bring back speed weeks. Daytona. I didn't have anything to do with this, NASCAR. That wasn't my idea. But I'm sure that. I'm sure.

Sure. I'm sure NASCAR loves that shirt. But anyways, all in fun. The Conner Zillich leaves the Xfinity series, leaves Junior Motorsports, goes in the Cup Series next year. What's the expectation, T.J. for Connor Zilich. Man, it's tough being a rookie in the Cup series. I would say top 20.

Top 20? Yeah. Which. Yeah. I think that that's. That'd be disappointing if they didn't do that. He would be extremely disappointed if he'd run outside the top 20 in points. Yeah, I mean, it's...

Come on. But I'm just saying if he goes into Daytona. What is like a... What's overachieving, I guess? Let me ask you that. If he got... If he finished X, you'd go, damn, that's pretty solid. Playoffs.

I mean, I think he can make the playoffs because I think he's going to be very competitive at the road courses. Is that enough? I don't know. If you leave Daytona and Atlanta, and he gets caught up in two wrecks, is he going to climb back into the top 20? That's another thing.

That's tough. The loss is hurt now. I don't think that's going to be super tough for a rookie. When I raced in the chase era, your first four weeks was... The tone of the season. If you had a bad four weeks and you were somewhere outside the top 18 in points,

it seems like, man, you know, we can get that back. No. Everybody's racing in all. all these races. Like, you're not, you're not going out there and getting chunks of points when the rest of the field is sitting at home. No,

they're also getting points. The tiniest bit every week. Like, you'll have a good day, but you're all the, you look around you in the running order and it's like, well, all the guys I'm trying to chase down had good days.

Mm-hmm. You know? All your Mulligans are gone already. You, yeah. You don't have anymore. That's right. Yeah.

You use them up. If you have bad days in the first couple, two or three weeks, you don't have mulligans anymore and you can't, you can't, and everybody's going to have that, you know, kind of low stretch in the summer or right before the playoffs. Everybody's going to have a part of the season where they go, man, we got to get going.

We got to get, you know, our mojo back. And if you start off the season bad, you're out of it. Especially for a rookie. I'd love to see the stats on anybody in the Chase era that came back from, you know, for mid-20s finishes to finish, you know, to challenge, right? for the championship. It's, I'm like, I mean, we were 36 in points after two races two years ago. We did climb back to 7th, but we got really hot during the summer.

But it's so hard to do. Like, it's, I don't know, man. If you come out of Atlanta and you're in the high mid-30s in points. Bad trouble. Yeah. Well, Zillet. What kind of car will track house? I feel like at times last year, they just didn't have a fast car.

Like, they did. Sometimes and sometimes they didn't. SVG getting better can help him a lot because I think SVG got a lot better last year I think Connor is going to continue to push SVG at the ovals I think they're both good for each other SVG will challenge Connor at the road courses

and they're both very competitive at the road courses and they're probably coming into the Cup series going to find themselves actually racing around each other a lot on the ovals now will Connor spring forward as the season goes and get really, really, really improve at the Oval's? I'm not sure he could. But I think that's going to push SVG to continue to get better at Oval's

and they will both push each other at the road courses to succeed. And I think that's good for both drivers. It's interesting to see kind of how their relationship develops over the course the year because they seem to get along great but they've had some on track things where they you know we've raced with them at chicago and an SVG put connor in a wall wins the race and you kind of got to you know feel great for one bad for the other and uh walk in the glen yeah they raced each other hard at the glen so yeah it'll be interesting to see i know they they'll try to take better care of each other being teammates pure teammates on the cup side i don't necessarily know that i have a position for connor

for expectation-wise, I just want to see Connor improve as he goes back to these tracks for the second time. If he goes to, you know, Martinsville the second time, does he go from 20th to 15th? You know what I mean?

Like, we've all seen the improvement from SVG as he goes back to these places and learns. I think my, I just want to see Connor become more, more in the picture as the season goes on. Bob Parker reported

that there's going to be close to 20 drivers that are free-insed after the end of the year. Who are some drivers? is that like we need to see a step forward? I guess the question that I got for you is Carson Hosevar signed an extension at Spire. A lot of people were saying they didn't need to do that. Why would he do that?

He's a rising prospect and certainly could have landed an opportunity with a better race team. I think people are, this was right after the clash, and I'm sitting there going, man, that guy was driving a car for Spire and almost in position to win the race. Like Spire has changed how they're model.

They're not this starting park, mail it in. You know, we're going to nickel and dime our way into a decent, you know. The second half the year was a struggle, though. Well, that was mostly on him. I mean, I don't know. I mean, it might have been him. I didn't notice the cars being overly dominant like they were. It's kind of after Nashville, that time frame.

For sure. I would say, though, for him, it locks him up so that he's got some security. If he goes on a run, don't you think the big three can go in and buy him at? Like, at least he's got a little security now. Listen, I mean, it doesn't seem like contracts are what they used to be anymore. Could a team go in and buy him out or whatever, I'm sure? But I believe, again, I believe the model that we're, we're, I believe that the team that Spire is today isn't a team that we thought they were years ago.

I believe the money that's come in to support Spire is now, I don't know that it's that team that somebody could walk in and go, hey, I want you driver. You know, we do this and this for you. We're taking your driver, and I'm going to give you this guy. I don't think that's the case anymore. I just feel like that Spire is a great team. I think people are discounting how much they've grown and become

They become a team that can put competitive winning cars on the track And so if you were to tell me that Carson Oscar is going to win a race this year or possibly too I would not be super really surprised I would have thought he might have had that chance last year 100% I do also think if he like think about like what do you think about this is as a driver Does he fit the mold of some of these other places? Does that matter? Does he fit you know a mold of the big three at all. I'd say that might be a reason why it's a good idea for him to sign with Spire because they appreciate him. They appreciate him for who he is and they take him with all his flaws and imperfections. And of course he's not always going to have them.

He's also said, look, I'm not going to change how I race and what I do on the racetrack. Some of the things that he did on the racetrack last year probably did sour some of the big three owners, you know, Gibbs, Hendrick Penske. Pinsky. but I'm telling you know if you win races if he goes out wins a couple races everybody can look the other way and they'll have short-term memory right about all the times he ran into their race cars but I think it was a good idea for Carson to lock that in give himself security he knows where he's going to be he can continue to build they've got a lot of great momentum as an organization he seems to fit well there I yeah they they've you know I hope that he's he's you know I hope that he's is as loyal to them, I guess, as they've been to him,

because I think together they can do some great things over the course of that, course of that agreement. Another organization that'll be interesting to see if they can kind of step it up in the same way that Spire has, and we're looking right at them right there, it's a legacy. Eric Jones and John Hunter and Emichick have shown over the past couple of years that when given the right equipment and when things are going well for them, they can go out and get the results.

I know Jimmy personally has made a ton of investments and changes in the program, hires. They have done a lot of things to try to find a way to establish that program. I think it's a big year for them to go out and see if they can, you know, if the results can be improved. And it's really, you're only, I'm looking. looking at results on an average, right? You look at what they did last year, average finish, average running position, things like that over the course of the season. They want to see an improvement in all those metrics at the end of this year. I'll be interested to

see how Colleg does, having left the Chevrolet fold, they're losing a majority of all of the support they would get with SIM, Arrow, all the data and information that the teams share. all that falls away with this new RAM deal. And so can they field competitive cup cars with one arm tied behind their back? Yeah. AJ has some speed last year. You know, numerous times he was really fast. Yep.

I think it's a big year for, I mean, listen, every team has a ton of pressure on them. And there's not a team in the field that it's not feeling some type of pressure to improve. Front row would be another team where I feel like a couple of years ago, front row was starting to find some traction. You know, went to Winter Circle with Michael McDowell. They were overachieving, in my opinion, in some areas. With this current driver lineup with Gillen, Zane Smith, and Noah, they just haven't been able to really go out there and lock down the results.

Noah has some moments here and there. So does Zane. They both Todd. They all show these little brief spots of, well, they kind of, they do belong in the series, but what's the direction of the organization, right? What can we see in terms of results on the racetrack where you're like, oh, okay, they're finally figuring something out,

or they're turning the corner. TJ, they're a Ford team. You guys, you probably know that team better than I do being in the Ford camp with Brad. What's holding back front row, in your opinion? Well, last year I thought they brought in a lot of new faces and I think with Noah coming over there and you kind of lost, the leader there was McDowell forever.

And I kind of felt like everything kind of went through him and he was an established guy and he could, they were making their way. They were pretty competitive. First Daytona, Atlanta, they were on the front row, um, racing for wins. And, um, I don't know, I feel like bringing in that group of,

they've got really young drivers, man, like young, young drivers with, you think that, you know, there was this word of, there was this sort of, you know, idea that McDowell had a big impact on other things outside of the driver's seat. in terms of hiring good people. He was a,

he really studied who they could hire. Who they can hire is a very narrow, small. Allotment of people. A lotment of people because, you know, they, they don't have the funding to really just go get the best guy and overpay, right? So they've got to be smart, selective.

And he, I heard, was really a big part of that. All right, man, I've studied this guy. He can help us. We can get him at this number, and I think he'll make us better in this space. And he was part of that in multiple moments,

and that's why I thought you saw the performance on the racetrack improve and give them that opportunity to get better. And now that he's not there, do you think that's kind of what they're missing? I do. Michael's very detailed, and he's very involved with that type of stuff, like you said. And I've talked to Michael many times, you know,

just BSing with him. and he is definitely detailed like that and understands he's been around it a while. So he knows people. He knows the areas that he wants to get better. He's really good at, like you said, he's really good at picking the area to improve at. And it showed at times. Like it wasn't, you weren't the top guy every week, but there were places during the season when they really shined. And I thought he brought a lot of that to the table.

Yeah. I can sit here with you and talk all day about teams and organizations and, you know, RCR, Ty Gibbs. There's a bunch of question marks. on how these teams might go into the season. There's been changes with Jim Pulliam going over to Kyle Bush. They'll need, you know, like I said earlier, you're going to need four or five weeks to kind of get a vibe on how these teams are doing and what might be a little bit different

if they've kind of improved and whatnot. Brad is Lasky coming back from an injury in the offseason. I saw Brad in the drop-off line this morning. He looks ready to go. A lot of good momentum over at RFK. Tisha, how much do you want to just get back out there? Last year, the start of the season wasn't a great one. Yeah, that was terrible.

That made the whole rest of the season really hard. The first four weeks getting caught up in crashes, basically Atlanta, Daytona, Phoenix, just made it a huge struggle. And you don't have a lot of, you don't have like, you got to go for the win, so you throw the hell Mary's a lot more. Instead of being consistent,

I feel like we can be consistent. and we had a lot of great races last year, which just didn't capitalize on them with, I mean, Bristol leading the race, get caught up with, with the 41 coming out in front of us in Bubba, Atlanta lined up and get,

you know, pass instead of push with Chase and Alex, but that's how it worked out. Iowa, I feel like we had the best car. And, you know, we had, like,

Byron makes it 200 laps further than he should have on fuel. But I feel like we were in position to win three, four races last year and just missed, it by that little bit and if you know that's all it takes so to do it but i'm i'm optimistic about this year we can come out of daytona and Atlanta with some good runs and and uh start building do we expect i know brad's cleared to race but like do you expect it to like how hard is it to get back in the car with that kind of injury honestly i don't i feel like when you get to daytona it's going to be easier to get back in the car i don't think it's going to be a question i think you've been around him

has the mobility how's he moving uh i think he's been great Like as far as moving ahead of schedule and he's been PT all day, every day, just rehabbing the heck out of it and doing everything he can do. Body-wise and stuff. Yeah, I don't see him, Brad, having any issue at all. And I do think as, you know, as the weeks of Closier-Atona, the new fire suits come out, it ramps up. You get more excited, more excited.

And I think that pushes guys to get motivated to do it as well. So I don't anticipate any issues at all. And I feel like when we go out there to practice and we roll off for the race, we're going to have our game plan dialed in and hopefully be a huge factor. Well, let's do some Ash Jr. Hey, NASCAR fans, thank y'all for tuning in for another episode of Ask Jr. We are in the studio, me and T.J. cranking out another Dale Jr. download, episode 688.

And listen up, fans. Xfinity is waving the red flag. on internet price hikes. They're raising the green flag for savings. Now you get the speed and reliability in the Wi-Fi you need. Locked in at one price for five years. No surprises, no late yellows.

Just a straight shot in Victory Lane. We've got a winner, folks, and it's Xfinity. Exfinity, imagine that. I've used the service, and it's good, and they've never raised the price on me as long as I've been a customer and my speeds actually increased over the couple, over a couple years.

But yeah, good service, good reliable service. And we have a, our, the location where I have the service, T.J. Is like way out on the end of the line. Oh, you're at the end. Oh, yep. And if you look at the power line and stuff, it's kind of rough. And you're kind of wondering how the service is so reliable. But anytime we have an outage in our area, it's quick to fix.

So, and it's rare that that happens, but they're quick. The service is good. And, yeah, so I'm pretty happy as a customer. But let's get to some questions. I guess everybody's kind of rolling in. Yep. First question coming from Tony. We got the Olympics going on right now.

He said, I saw a photo of you carrying the Olympic torch. One is this real? How far did you run with it and where you wore out afterwards? I forget what year was. Maybe it was 01. The torch came through Charlotte. a couple of different drivers got to carry it. 2001, yeah.

This is how it works. At least this is how it worked that day. So growing up, right, you've seen this torch get carried across the country and you're like, man, you know, wonder how long somebody runs with this thing. And you're thinking it's like, you know, these just these regular everyday average people that are somewhat athletic, right, are running this thing from city to city for miles. and maybe that's part of what kind of happens, but once it arrived to Charlotte,

there was a planned route that the torch would go and then it would get to a place where it would be lit, you know, the flame would be lit, and I suppose they light that flame in that city, and the next day they'll take that flame, re-light the torch, and now the torch is back on its root. to the next town.

They had, I remember this. I'm like, okay, man, there's, I knew there was like, I knew about three or four people before me who was carrying the torch, and I think there was a couple of drivers, Dale Jarrett,

a few other people. And then I knew the people after me, the next couple of people that were going to be carrying a torch. And our route was not a direct route to the flame, right? To where we're going to light the flame. We like ran around blocks that we probably didn't have to run around.

They lengthen the route to be able to add all these individuals into it. And I think I, you know, you just jog, you know, and there's people on the side of the road, kind of like a parade, you know, cheering your own, waving. Y'all, everybody gets this outfit they're going to wear. You get that a couple days ahead of time. I remember that. And the torch that I carried is mine. And so, like, I'm running to somebody, and they've,

got their own torch and I like theirs and the flame is what gets past more so than the torch itself and so but they had us running like almost like literally running in circles and so like I ran around these blocks and I'm like well I just could have went down that street and not had to do all that and they're like all right man you're going to meet this person and then you're like and that was the only nervous part right is like don't let the flame go out right it it there was no worry or threat of it going out while you're jogging. Like when you pass it to the next person or whatever, I don't know, you just didn't

want it to go out. They never told you anything about that. They never said, you know, be careful this, don't do that. So I get to the next person, I don't even remember who it was. Might have been Dale Jarrett. Teresa. I don't know who it was. Teresa did a leg. Yeah, it was. In fact, I feel like she was the one that actually got to light the big

deal at the end. Because your bib was, you got a little sticker 166. 167. And so when it's all over with, they give you your torch. I've got it. I still got that. I still got the outfit.

You should wear it sometime. No. But it's fun. I was honored. It's kind of, yeah, it's one of the things where you're like, wow, I want to, I've heard about this,

all this, all my life, all through my childhood. And now I'm going to be able to do it. Yeah. Pretty neat. Yeah, pretty neat. So, do you guys, Have you guys watched any of the Olympics?

I've just seen a couple highlights. I'm saying the past Winter Olympics is going on right now. I've seen a couple highlights. Yeah, I have it. Anything that you think you could do? Curling, I feel like it's always the... I've only seen a lot of, like...

I saw the downhill deal, which was terrible. Oh, with Lindsey Vaughn? Yeah. Yeah, that didn't look too good. No. The speed skating where there's multiple people on the track. Yeah, I love when there's like 30 of them out there.

It's chaos. Yeah. So I went to South Korea for the Winter Olympics. The bobsleds badass. Really anything going down that course. I don't care what it is, luge, all those things. Did you see the Americans the other day? Oh, they, yeah, it wasn't good.

Only one guy got in the bobsled. Yeah, they all humbled. Oh, they didn't get down. There was a video. It was like when I put a parlay together and only one leg hits. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the bobsled's cool because to me that's kind of close. to racing a car.

And, yeah, we're not traditionally that great at it. You know, there's other countries that are just faster. I've never, I don't know the intricacies or the, you know, why does these guys always win? What is it about them, their sled, whatever? I do know that when Jeff and I got involved into Bob Sled, they worked really hard and we did improve. But that's not quite enough.

So going to that's really cool, but also, yeah, when they get on the bigger track, there's like a big speed. You know, they have the small track where there's like four of them out there running around wide-ass open. But then they have this real big track where there's about 20 or 25 of them out there. And it's pretty fun to watch. And they, yeah, they kind of pace themselves right to save their energy and all of a sudden somebody takes off. And you're like, up's too soon. You're going to get run down. maybe not.

Next question, person was asking, he's seen you wear the sweatsh, your filter time sweatshirt. I was wondering how that's going and what exactly is it. Whoa. Filter time is going great. Filter time's been going on for about five years.

Me and a friend started this business where basically it's home air filters. If you, you know, your HVAC needs clean filters, you can get a subscription from filter time and we'll mail them to you. And I'm a customer. customer or my own business, right, to kind of see what the experience is like. And I've adjusted my frequency of how often I get the filters because I got them every three months,

which I thought that was kind of the normal. But then I would, you know, they would be really clean. Maybe I don't need them, but every six months. And so you can make that adjustment and you can cancel any time. There's no like contract or anything like that. The number one reason why your HVAC fails is because the filter's dirty. It's working overtime, right, trying to push crap, you know, air through a dirty filter. And, yeah, well, it's hard to remember of all the things we got going on in our lives to change that. And I'll mail you the filters.

And when they show up on your doorstep, that's your reminder. Change them. Put the dirty ones in the box. You're done. And so it's a, it's worked out really good. I wasn't sure that this was going to be a success, but it's so convenient. And it's, and our prices are on par with all the other brands. And, you know, so it's.

I mean, it's easier than going to. the store because then you got to track down all the two or three different sizes and he goes the store right if i go to those for filters i'm going to spend three hundred dollars on another shit you know and so uh yeah and leave without the filters yeah you're gonna forget yeah you're just not nobody and you don't need to stock you know stockpiling filters in your house is so so annoying because you're big you don't remember to change them and you look and you found them and you're like you go buy new ones because you couldn't find the old one when was the last time i changed them And, you know, you just don't worry about it.

So what I like about it is I take the old filters and I put them in the box, the new filters came in and throw the whole box out together. That's right. And then it's easy. Yeah, just let us help you. You know, go on filterdime.com, get your plan. We'll mail them to you. If you don't like it, you cancel.

Give it a shot. Next question. What do you think of Ryan Blaney's mustache? It's getting paid. Yeah. I mean. It's the real deal. I mean, Ryan's the guy that, you know, grows the beard and the mustache buys, I guess he bought a llama.

It's red somewhere where he got a llama. Yeah, because it protects some other animals apparently. I don't know. I don't know. I'm asking about that. But do you think he needs to just keep letting it grow, cut it? I mean, it's past that point. I mean.

Who are we to tell Ryan Blaney about his grooming habits? Agreed. I don't know. I'm just going to let him do what he wants to do. I think it's fine. Showing a little personality. Yeah, who cares? It reminds me of that guy in the gangs of New York.

Never seen a movie? You never seen a movie? I'm sorry. Who's seen the movie in here? All right, you know what I'm talking about. T.J. Have you? No. Daniel Day Lewis is his name?

Yeah. Yeah. The butcher. He looks like the butcher. I like it. Keep it going. Yeah. I feel like he looks like the guy. Remember that cartoon movie with the Lorax?

You know what I'm talking? about Micah does. Look it up, you'll see. Very nice. That's what it looks like. The Lorax. Our next question, if you could clone yourself to remove

one task that you do daily, what would it be? That's a great question. If you could clone yourself to do one task? Mine would be laundry. I don't want to fold it, don't want to put it away. You do that daily? Or weekly. Like something that you do,

a good amount. Man, I'm realizing that I got it pretty good. Carpet. Yeah. What about a pickup line sitting in that? I like that. I don't want to do anything that involves my kids. I want to clone myself to do that.

There's some tedious work. For me, it would be like taking my radios out, plugging them in, handling all that stuff, putting it back in, packing it up, because that's tedious. Making your videos and stuff. Driver tools. There's definitely some tedious. video work that can that could cut out some hours yeah yeah it would be badass to have a clone

that you could be like do this go do this job you know yeah go go over here and clean this up or go hey amy's mad go cheer up you you go sleep in bed and nut i want the couch just to work just to clean shit up fix it straight and organize something go to the store my garage right is uh In my house, I've got my little man garage with my toolbox and all my stuff, and I've let it get very really unorganized, a lot of crap land everywhere, counter just covered in things. I hate that. I know.

And I'm not normally like that. We've been going and going and going so busy this off season. And that's driving me crazy. It's a bit like that. I would be like organizing, keeping stuff organized. That would be mine. Yeah, I just go to my closet. Like I do the purge once a year or so.

Go in my closet, get rid of all the T-shirts I'm not wearing. And because I am in the, with the position that I have, I'm not a willing participant, but I'm a T-shirt collector. Like people are always giving me shirts. Shirts are always coming through here. New Junior Motorsports shirts, new sponsor shirts, this shirt, that shirt, this shirt, my closet in a court, in a period of a year, just gets bursting at the seams with, like, all the new apparel that we get

and the partnerships and stuff that we acquire. And so I have to, like, our junior motorsports logo changed, right? And so it just says junior motorsports. It did say junior motor sports. And so they, you know, all the old stuff, I got, you know, go in there and get it out, stuff like that. That's what I'd ask them to do. I don't like that.

This next question. Oh, I got another idea. Let's hear it. I, for a long time, have wanted to start a store on eBay. And I would clone myself and have myself running a store, an eBay store, where I could sell sheet metal, use sheet metal things that I want to sell. I've got, listen, I'm saying this publicly because I've got to get to get it on my chest. I have been collecting and collecting and collecting for years,

collecting so much crap. models, like models from the 70s still in the wrapper, just racing souvenirs, old vintage racing souvenirs, tons and tons of sheet metal, not even all my own sheet metal. And I'm sort of getting to the point to where I'm like, I need to get rid of some of this stuff. And I want an eBay store where I can sell and bargain and haggle

because it's fun. You know, but if I did that, people would be like, why is he selling stuff? So you kind of want to do it yourself? So you don't want to. I do want to, I enjoy like. Because David said, dude, that's called an intern. Well, I enjoy, I enjoy like listing something and seeing what the demand is, seeing what the value that might be, seeing someone else get it and enjoy it.

I, when I, people would, people would be surprised when I got into road biking, Jimmy convinced me that I needed to do that, and I was trying to get in better shape. And so I went and bought all this gear that I didn't need to buy. Crap. I bought junk because I thought every piece of equipment for road biking was the same. And so I went on Amazon and got this cheap shoe and this cheap pair of pants and whatever, right? Well, none of it, I ended up hating it because it was not comfortable and wasn't the good stuff.

And I needed, you know, that was important. I learned. So I had all this stuff and I sold it on eBay, you know. and I mean, just for 20 bucks here and there, but it's like fun to, if there's a, I don't know, there's a feeling of like, well, rush. Yeah, I don't want to throw it out.

I'm not throwing it in the corner. It's not junk. I'm not doing it in the trash can. I'm not keeping it in my closet because I'm never going to use it. I want to, you know, I want to sell it. Yeah. Yeah. I thought about quitting everything that I'm doing.

Don't quit podcast, please. Including this show. to just sell shit on eBay. Be the other side of the picker. You know, the American pickers would go to these dudes' houses. I'll be the dude. And I'm just going to, you know, I got shit laying everywhere. What are you going to do with you're out of stuff?

I will be happy. Yeah, but then what are you going to do? So you should probably keep the podcast. I go back to work. We don't, trying to put people out of jobs? No, I'm just saying that I'm never going to. I know. Truly quit.

I've really wanted to do this. So let's do it. Yeah, just do it. I need to find somebody to help me. I can't run the store. I don't have time. Don't have the bandwidth. We'll have an annex of Dirty Mail Media.

I need a person that can do this store for me. And we'll just list some things here and there. I'll share in the value, you know, I'll share in the monetary success, whatever that may be. All right. We're going to get on that. That's going to be next. I'm curious is what people think about that.

Can I start a store? Because I know there'll be some pushback. People will be like, what's this jerk off? What's he need to sell stuff for it? You know, why is he not just giving it to people? Yeah. You know what I mean? But I want to do, I want to enjoy the process.

I think people would enjoy, especially some of the stuff that you'd be selling and stuff that, like, I think fans would truly enjoy having. And you're just sitting there. Luke Colt got on the TV or got on the social media the last couple days because he found he has discovered that sports cards collecting has boomed.

Sports cards collecting has boomed in the last six years. I used to collect baseball cards back in the 90s during the junk wax era. And so I got some stuff that's kind of okay, nothing real crazy. But he kind of got excited about it, and he's asking people online, like, hey, man, how, what's, what's the best way to do this, right? You can go to the, you know, collectors on eBay or physically go to wherever the expos are and buy the singles that you want, your favorite players, the autographs, the big ticket item that you want, or you can rip packs and try to hope to land something.

And there's an art sort of a theory behind the best way to sort of land something through packs. And he had to go on there after having a bit of a conversation about like, he's trying to learn, right, through social media. help me guys what do I need to do what do I need to know he had to go in there in a few moments and confirmed I'm not doing this to make money you know I'm not trying to go get you know I'm not trying to like hustle here I just want to enjoy the process of ripping a packing having and landing that car right that feeling that's what best yeah that's what selling and low you know

that's what selling on eBay is also like it's like man I'm gonna put this thing on there maybe maybe nobody wants it, maybe somebody does, and it takes off and you're like, oh, somebody did want it. Lots of people wanted it. That rush when you're bidding on something, and it's like, you know, to you and one other person and they're watching the clock is,

it's unreal. And you might have four or five items listed and you get to kind of check on them, see how they're doing. Oh, man, nobody wants this. Yeah, if you don't sell, it don't sell. But when something does, you're like, oh, crap, now I got to let, now I got to make a label.

I got to find a box. I got to. And then you ship it to them, and you're like hope they don't complain about it. Hope it is what they thought it was. You know? Yeah. Yeah.

We got one person that said, Dirty Mo QVC. Let's just get up like a... I just have a lot of stuff and I need to trim down because it's really giving me anxiety. So we have one more question. We're going to add.

I can't find where it's at, but someone was asking, what do you remember of the lead singer of three doors down? Oh, man. I'm so glad he asked that. Yeah. Brad Arnold passed away yesterday.

or two days ago. And so a long time ago, there was a place where bands would come play called the Tremont Music Hall, single floor, rough as hell. But it was where all the bands came before they were big enough to play at the amphitheater. And we always went there

because we felt like we were seeing the bands before they got big. and it was intimate, you know, you could get right up to the stage and it's really cool. So we'd pull in, we'd get a limo, we'd go raise hell. It was a Budweiser days. We were partying, raising hell. So it was like a Tuesday or Wednesday night. And they're playing, we get there and we pulled up beside this, their bus.

We didn't know it was their bus, but of course there's buses, so you assume it's, it's a musical act. And somebody opened the door and said, we were just sitting there finishing a beer or something getting ready to go inside we weren't in a big rush somebody said hey you want to meet the lead singer of the band and it was brad and he come and sat down in the he sat down in the limo and me and him sit there and talk for 20 minutes and they had just come out with kryptonite had been out a couple months maybe and he was immediately i recognized that he was he had no idea what was coming. He had no reference for the noise they were making

and the attention they were attracting with their music. And he was from Mississippi down around that area, around the Gulf, and just really humble, kind, nice, and in no way, like, not even a tiny bit, like, affected by this little, you know, bubble they were creating. And I was taught, and I recognized that. And I don't, I mean, I wasn't anybody to give any advice at the time. But I was like, man, I'm going to tell you right now. I was like, you better, you better hang on to your roots.

You better hang on to home. and the people you trust, like you're going to, you're going into the stratosphere, and you're going to, you know, rocket to fame if you guys keep this up. And, you know, you could easily lose track of who you are. We were having that conversation.

And I didn't know if I'd ever see the guy again. Well, turns out they do have tons of fame, success. Coincidentally, we get linked. together through the bud deal we do some race cars we did the deal with tony stewart we had a we had three doors down on the car several times that brought us back together we had a lot of um opportunities where we hung out together during some promotional stuff and he came to my 30th birthday party uh we a bunch of us got in the boxing ring in the middle of the night and beat shit out of each other and he was one of those guys i'm sitting there watching the lead singer of three doors down

with a bloody mouth and standing there going, I'm ready for more. And so, you know, we spent a lot of time together, and he moved, he got him a little spot out in the farmlands of Nashville. I went over to the Speedway to test before we got back to Nashville Super Speedway. We went over to the Speedway to test with the National Guard car back in 2011 or something. and he come over. He's like, man, I'll leave five minutes away from there.

I'll come see you. So he come over, hung out. I had a table at the banquet in Nashville for the awards about five years ago, three or four years ago. And I invited him and his wife to come sit with us at our table because he lived nearby. He came to the banquet, set at our table, got up and we're done.

Good to see you. Nice to talk to you. We're going home. Okay. and I was thankful to see them. They did this tour with Creed over the last year and a half, two years, and they had a ton of success with that. And I was glad for him and the band.

And so I say all that to say that I knew him well, I felt like. I appreciated his friendship. It meant a lot to me. He set a great example for me and others because of his, humbleness and his kindness. All through all of that, right? They played the inauguration. There was a lot of success.

There was a lot of tough moments. There was a lot of years where there wasn't much going on to come back and have the success with the tour of the past couple years. I mean, through all of those things, this guy, never changed who he was and never seemed affected at all by the fame or success and the doors that that would have opened up for him. He was as normal and humble. The last day I saw him as he was the first day I met him.

And he wanted it that way. He liked it. He liked being regular and normal. and having his little piece of land to fool around with and his normal life. But he could get on that stage and turn into the lead singer of that band and put on a hell of a show. And he just wanted, he's just such a good soul, man. It's tough news to hear about him passing away. I knew he was sick.

I'd been communicating with him a little bit through that. and wasn't quite sure, you know, how that was going. And, but, you know, I've talked to, you know, he's got good people around him. His wife, Jen, my heart goes out to all of his friends and his family. And he left a hell of an impact. I mean, he is, you know, he was a good friend, a good dude, super good dude. I think, I mean, everybody that met him, you see all the, you know, I'm looking on social media and reading all the comments from people that got to meet him.

Even the best ones are the ones where I don't know this guy, but I met him once, and this was the experience. Every one of them are like, man, he was just so kind, so nice, so generous. And so that's pretty neat to read those things and see that reaction. Yeah. I think that's a good place to end us, Jr. Thanks for asking that question. Thank you.

It's a vigilant somebody on here had the vigilant guardian. Thank you. Glad I had the opportunity to share because he was a good special dude. Deserves to be celebrated. All right, NASCAR fans, that's it for the ASJ juniors part of the show. Thanks for tuning in, supporting us.

We're going to Daytona today. And I'm going to go down there and see some practice in the morning. Speed week is firing up, and we're all excited about that. Our teams are starting to pull haulers out of the parking lot and head on down to Daytona and down to Florida. Xfinity is waving the red flag, though, on Internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings.

Now you can get the speed and reliable Wi-Fi you need, locked in one price, five years, no surprises, no late yellows, no debris cautions. Just a straight shot to Victory Lane, just like you like it. We've got a winner in Xfinity. Imagine that. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, everybody, this is the segment. Dirtymoe-Dow, brought to you by Fanduel.

We're going to have something cool inside the Fandul app this week. If you're trying to place bets in the Daytona 500, make sure you're following along to Dirtymo Media Socials to check it out. We're going to talk to Russell, the professor. He's with us. Good to see you, Russell. Thanks for having me back, Dale. You bet you man.

Tim's in the house. Hey, what's up? Thanks for coming through Tims. Of course. TJ. What's up? Travis, everybody's here. Thames, you weren't in the room.

I had a winning Super Bowl bet. Oh, what we got? I took the Seahawks. I took an over total of 39 and a half. Very nice. And both quarterbacks to throw for 175 yards plus. Nice. That must have been a sweat after the first half.

I mean, it's not going to pay many dollars if you're not sweating. That's true. I took a gamble. You know, most of them, I've got a couple other bets going on right now with some college basketball today that you guys hate. like the, you know, the minus 400s. Which lost last week. Yeah, the one last week lost. It's just.

Sometimes they lose. Going into Daytona, here are the odds for the drivers. Joe Ligano at plus 1,000. Blaney, 1,100, Hamlin, 1,200, Biron, 1,300. Larson and Elliott, 1,400. You know, it's Daytona, it's the 500. We all know that anything can happen

in those final couple of, a couple of laps and no telling how many, you know, green, white checkers we may get. You just don't know what's going to go on. But you do got to go in here with an attitude that you feel like there's some guys that just can do it better than most. Honestly, I'm surprised Lugano's at the front of this field. I know Lugano does have a great track record at Daytona and Talladega and in this style of racing. I just feel like that Blaney has surpassed him in the Penske camp as the best. plate racer or drafting track racer, as Russell loves to say.

Drathing. Yes. So, you know, Hamlin's always going to be a threat always. And the other thing that we don't know, Russell, is how much power has any of these manufacturers found and Chevrolet has a new car? Is the new car going to be better or going to be worse? They claim it's got more down for us, but it has less drag. Less drag at Daytona is incredibly good. If that all plays out, as we've been told, it's hard to really handicap or it's hard to

really give odds to the Chevrolet teams because they could come in here and perform much similar to what the Ford's been doing at these type of racetracks. What's your take? I like William Byron and Kyle Larson this weekend. That's who I'm going with. Byron's three in a row. I know it's crazy, but he's been really good on these drafting track races lately. You're right, you're right.

Snake bitten in the 500, but I think he's really learned some stuff in this next-gen car. Byron's going for three in a row. Nobody's ever won three-fhundredths in a row. And he's really good at TJ likes to say, accident avoidance. He's my guy. It's really good at lifting pushing somebody to the line, too. Well, that's... What does that mean, T.J.?

What do you mean by that, T. Could you explain yourself? I do think Larson has gotten better at these plate races. He definitely, he definitely was probably his weakest tracks for the, for a longest time. But he seems to be up there more and more now. Yeah, I agree. Larson seems to have gotten over his sort of frustration with the, you know, the things that are out of your control in, in these type of events.

And he's sort of maybe, you know, got a little bit of a determined focus towards, trying to get the best result, you know, and I think that's interesting to watch play out, and he has been able to get in these races and run toward the front. You mentioned Hamlin, but... Easy, Travis. No, hold on. Here we go. Here we go.

Hold on, though tens, I feel like go fade theny early. Yeah, well, with that shoulder injury that we've heard of. I'm not worried about that. You're not at all. Last time he had it, he did not perform. I'm more worried about the 20 bucks he cost me at the casino last week. The Buffle. Oh, yeah.

You not worried about a slow start, though? In this car on drafting tracks. Like, he's a huge decline for Hamlin on drafting tracks in this car. Even though, you know, in our minds, in my mind, you know, he's been one of the best. You feel like that for some reason he's just not been able to put it together. Is it a Toyota thing? is Toyota showing a pattern of struggling at this type of racetrack? Well, they've just struggled to get together on things.

Like a lot of times their strategies, you know, they have a speeding penalty on pit road when they're all pitting together for fuel, stuff like that. They've just not been able to get together. Yeah. I think Bell's your best bet if you're going to go with a Toyota would be what I would. Does this car not, to me, this card takes away from guys like Danny. being able to control things in the race more because this is way more of a free-for-all than it's ever been.

Like, you know, Blaney wins Daytona, the last race of Daytona, but he was in back and he just stayed in the outside lane and cars kept moving down out of his way. What did, you know, that wasn't his plan. It just worked out for him, you know, in my opinion, but I don't see the guys like Denny. It's so much harder nowadays for the guys that were good in the old cars like Brad and Denny to control to control things. It's really hard to do now. And to me, man, like William Byron went from where was he, 10th down the backstretch last year, you know, and like Blaney opened it up, Justin Haley and Cole Custer racing for the wind down the backstretch and they leave the outside for Blaney open. He just drives by. You know, what did, I don't know, it's just so much

more of a free fall. Timing has to work out more. I mean, it's kind of luck. A lot more luck now than it was 15 years ago. I don't know. Blaney seems to be up front in a lot of these races and that's not luck. I mean, that's just, it,

what we know about, what we know about, what I do know about Daytona and the style of racing we see there, no matter, even you can change the car, you can change the speed of the power of the motor,

you can change all of these things. And it, the way the driver the way the driver succeeds is all mentality. It's all attitude. It's all what you're willing to do, how aggressive you're willing to be.

But you see the same guys tend to find their way to the front. And there's a reason. It's because of their personality and the way they make decisions, their conviction, their process, power, all of those things allow them to excel in those moments late in these races.

And that's why I always used to say, you know, I don't know where Denny's going to be when they cross the finish line, but he'll be in the picture. I used to say that, and that was my way of saying, like, this guy just knows how to run well at these racetracks. Now, it seems that I think it's more of a Toyota thing, because when you look at the odds on the manufacturers, Ford's at plus 125 to win, Chevrolet's at plus 150, and Toyota's it plus 300. It may be a performance issue with the Ford.

It's just a car that's built to succeed at other racetracks and not necessarily at a drafting track. Maybe there's too much drag. There's just too much downforce on this car for them to perform as well as they'd like to. They also don't have the numbers to be able to get the help when needed, the necessary things that happen during the moments of these races. But I still feel like Denny, when he's on his game, can be as good as anybody at Daytona. He almost won last year.

but I think Blaney would be my favorite to go out there and get it done. I could see Ryan went in a Daytona 500 at some point in his career, and why not this year? I agree with the – you seem to find the same five-to-seven drivers or near the front. Racing at Talladega – or let's just say that – Racing at Bristol, racing at road courses, racing at Charlotte, racing at all these different racetracks takes a unique skill.

you know, SVG has that skill at the road courses. Other drivers have different skills that allow them to be great at certain racetracks. And at Daytona and Talladega, right now, it's not about driving by the seat of your pants. It's not about feeling the car as it rolls across the racetrack and where the grip level is and all that. It's about processing power in your mind, decision making, aggression, it's a mental game. And that's why we see the same drivers sort of work their way toward the front because they do that mental part of this, you know, this tile racing better than most.

And some guys, I'm not, I don't, I wouldn't even be able to really name names, but the guys that don't do well at this are the apprehensive ones, the timid ones, the unsure ones. Some, they didn't make the move quick enough and somebody made it for them. Right? Because you've got to make moves and you've got to be the first one there, the first one to think of it. Right. And so if you don't make a, if you're sitting there hesitating, is this the right move? Should I shift lanes?

Should I follow this guy? Someone's going to do it. Yeah. The good guys have a feel for the flow of the race. They didn't. And they know when they position themselves and when to do it. Exactly. And it's really mental, more mental than what we would all consider real raw driving ability.

Yeah. It's a talent. It is a talent that I admire. I felt like I was really good at it. And I think that there's guys dependent, you know, as the car changes, what you need to be willing to do and how you process decisions changes, right? Yeah, I do think there's a difference between. I don't feel like Denny's had the car.

I just don't think the race plays out. I agree with you there too. I don't, I think this, you know, the fuel mileage, the saving, you know, all those things. And how you use this car, it's not. not the same, it's not, it doesn't work. No. In the same way. Denny was good when he could be a lone soldier by himself too. He was a really good, you know what I mean? Like there wasn't as much alliance before as there is now either because I feel like Denny could control the race and they could do what they wanted behind him and

he was good at manipulating everything in his mirror. I'm leaning with Blaney, man. I lean with Blaney as well. He's going to win one eventually. I can't go against him. Yeah. Is there, let's help let's let's like vet this out really quickly though i mean of the guys on the list in front of me elliot larsson all that i got a i got to go with blaney but who is not on this page that has the odds that could really bring us a lot of reward chris busher priest i like busher busher busher he's been he's been top ten and in five of the last six at Daytona. I know that's like

there's, so here's the problem with, here's my problem with that. There is a mindset that really develops those type of results, but that mindset doesn't

mesh with the one that wins the races. And so while I applaud Busher for being consistent and being able to be the right make the right decisions and choices to keep himself clean and get that result. He's not doing enough to give himself the odds to win the race. So he won the summer race in 23.

Yeah. All right. I mean, what's his odds? $2,500. I'm not saying he's the best bet, but he's one that's not on your list there. Yeah. Well, all right. We ask for it.

What are Priests? Priest is 2000. That's another guy that I just feel like when it comes down to it, he's going to have done everything he could have to correctly and rightly place himself in that 9th, 8th, 7th, 6th place late in the race. But it's not the position he needs to be in to win. It'll be the position he needs to be in to help somebody win. But he'll be pushing somebody across the finish line,

but he won't be the guy getting pushed. Now, there's always the chance that everybody wrecks and anybody could win in the top 10, like Byron did last year. That could happen on the back straight away, and priests or Busher could be the beneficiary for that. But there's a mindset that when you start those races, if you stick to a mindset of, man, I'm going to try to be around at the end and I'm going to be clean and I'm not going to do anything crazy,

and I'm going to be riding somewhere in the top 10. that mindset works and it gets you the top 10. But it's not the same mindset that puts you in those positions to win. I got a question for you then. So I think the last race of Daytona, Priese is leading the outside lane. Late in the race, like going to have a shot at winning,

gets Larson and a teammate, I think, behind him, and they split him because he can't hold him off. How does he do anything different? I know. I don't know. There's nothing you can do there. I mean, but to me, that's not really, that's bad timing. It's not his fault. Yeah, I agree.

I get it. I've seen all these races play out. This car is this almost impossible to predict. It just makes it really difficult. Well, yeah, I mean, we had Justin Haley and Cole Custer leading off at two last race there, and Blaney wins. Yeah. I just think you have to go with Byron or Blaney.

Like, they've won five of the last 11 races there. Yeah, let's not everything. We're going with Blaney. That's going to be our pick. Who'd you pick last year, Russ? I'm sure it was William Byron. I don't remember. Well, William won, so it had to be William Byron.

Yeah, I think so. You can also bet on finishing positions. Connor Zillich over, under, 17 and a half. Under. You think he's going to prove. I think he's going to have a good day. Good debut. I don't think so.

It's tough, man. It is, but it seems like one of those, you know. Listen. Headline. Bill Jr. doubts Connor. No, let me just tell you this. All right. So he's never ran this car in this type of racing

in this type of pack with this type of strategy. He is going to go in at such a disadvantage experience-wise. He doesn't know where the corners of this race car really are yet. Like he's been driving a completely different car for the last couple of years. Now, I know he's got some time in the next-gen car. But the speed in which you need to make decisions, they're going to expose him. They're going to know he's at a disadvantage.

and they're going to take advantage of that. They're going to do everything they can to sort of ship him to the back, right, and make things difficult on him. The only way that I think he beats that 17 and a half is if there's a ton of attrition. Now, then he can, because he's going to probably most likely be riding in the back of the field, not due to, not willingly, just because of his inexperience. And so, you know, hey, I'm down for being wrong. I just know when you go to that race to Daytona for the first time

and they see that, you know, they see your car out there and they know who's in it and know you're a rookie and know you don't know nothing, they know exactly how to exploit you. And if they want to get you out of there and get you to the back, they will. They do, don't they do, yeah. It is the, I don't, we talk about it at times, but these guys are so good in these cars and tight windows and where they can manipulate air and how they do it, a rookie.

And the decisions you need to make in that race, quick. Super quick. And he's not going to, it'll come with time, but I don't think he's going to be able to do it. I would bed just for the attrition. Yeah.

If I was Connor, I would hang out in the back all day and just take the top 15 if I could. That's it. That's what I would do. Tyler Reddick, under 15 and a half, I don't mind it.

It's a good line. Yeah. I see it both ways. Yeah. I know. It's a really good line. you know he he's only finished better than 27th um once in the last seven starts of Daytona I think yeah no it was last year so yeah Eric Jones under 15 and a half

I don't love the I don't love the under there it seems like it's a back half of the teens but I mean this is a fresh slate now is he coming out you know what I mean like now the Toyota the toy like we talked about earlier Toyota is there something something something with them. They get, they're like an AAU team. They never play together. Like, Chevy and Ford are like a high school team that knows how to work together. But I think Eric's just, he's got a knack for a plate race track. He's got a knack for these, you know, whatever you want to call them. He's just got a knack for finding the front. That would have won three of the last four years. Oh. Oh. Okay. What's that? That would have won three of the last four

at Daytona. The under. I like it. I mean, I think that's a good number for Eric. I think he's falling behind i think he's falling into the weeds a little bit and i like the under on tyler and eric jones um it is a crapshoot it's dayton it's a daytona 500 anything can happen but i think i like the mentality of both of those drivers to go out there and try to achieve that result and i think they could do it um i just think connor's another year or so away from being able to really do all the things that needed to be done in the timely manner processing power and speed that he's going to have to have i'm willing to be wrong manufacturer Ford at 125,

Chevy 150, Toyota 300. I know he picked Blaney to win the race, but I like Chevy's odds. When you look at manufacturers, it's so weird. Looking at drivers, you'll pick a Ford

and looking at the manufacturers, you'll feel better about a Chevrolet. It's a lot more Chevy's out there. Yeah, I know. I mean, the odds to see one of them cross the finish line first just feels better. It's kind of like hedging your bet. Yep.

If you have a big wreck, it takes out a handful of cars, there's a lot more Chevys to feel in them spots. Yep. So it makes it even more challenging for another manufacturer. Yeah.

Yep. Well, we got to do our top manufacturer parley. So we're going with Blaney on the forward side. On the Chevrolet side, I like your Byron Larson. I think we'll take Byron.

I think he's in the picture. Maybe he doesn't get three in a row, but he's going to be probably the top Chevrolet. Top Toyota, let's go with Hamlet. I go with Denny. Yeah. I feel like he bounces back. He overachieves, as Russell might say.

Russ, are we forgetting about, like... I would have went with Bell, but that's just me. What about Briscoe? I mean, I was more thinking about, what about Ross Chessane and Austin Syner? Well, they don't drive a Toyota. No, and I'm just saying, like, overall, like, we're forgetting about these guys? No, not really. Like, Ross hasn't been great there in the 500.

Who else did you say? I said Briscoe. Like we saw in the back half of last year, he really figured out the Toyota car. Yeah, I don't mind Briscoe. You know, he was super faster last year, won the pole, finished fourth. Wasn't Ross racing for the lead two years ago in the 500 near the end of the race? Yeah, that was two years ago, man. Oh, so that don't count.

That was two Daytona 500. Yeah. But you talk about Williams last two, okay. Well, he won those. He won them. Well, that's two years ago. It doesn't matter. He still won it.

From 10th. Ross finished 21st. With no wreck, does Byron win? We don't know. Okay. Okay. All right. Well, look, that's my manufacturer parlay.

I'm going to go with Blaney, Hamlin, and then Byron. All right, Dirty Mode segment has brought to you by Fanduel, the premier gaming destination in the United States. Thank you, Russell. Thank you, Tim, for coming through. Thank you, everybody for joining us here at the Arby's studio. Don't forget about Arby's new Meat and Three Box. more meal for your money at Arby's.

We have the meats. That's enough for me and TJ and the rest of the crew. We'll see you next week. Check out Dirtymo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.