The Dale Jr. Download - Do Road Courses Belong In NASCAR?

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

Dale Earnhardt Jr. made the epic journey home from Mexico City, and he’s back for a new edition of Dirty Air. He joins co-host TJ Majors to chat about his journey abroad for the NASCAR Cup race and more:Impressions of Mexico CityThe track challenges of Autodromo Hermanos RodriguezCup schedule change rumorsTravel logistics were difficultThe old NASCAR vs the newChampionship format suggestionsRace winner Shane Van Gisbergen stops by the show. Plus, during the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding:Favorite broadcast booth snacksGetting sick while racingOther driver documentariesSuperstitionsiRacing tipsFavorite video gamesDirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Dale Jr. Download merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff.And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaFanDuel disclaimer: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. 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 the Dale Jr. Download. It's Tuesday, Dirty Air. This one's presented by safety culture. We're going to talk a lot about the industry and a lot of things going on in it today, as well as Mexico City. Let's get started. The following is a production of Dirtymo Media. I'm still sour, man, that I wasn't your best man at your wet. When will you start mentally, like, getting ready for the race? Can you not tell I'm mentally ready?

Travis has some dumb ideas, but I agree with him on this one. You don't sound like you know what you're talking about. You haven't scratched the surface. I mean, what the fuck do you want? I just think the last few laps, it was just like stop every time. You're picky. This ain't walking in and have it your way, motherfucker.

All right, this ain't Burger King. Travis is like, wrapped us up. They all have no fun around you. Hey, everybody's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download is Tuesday. It's Dirty Air with T.J. Majors. This episode of the Dale Jr. download is brought to you by safety culture.

The Workplace Operations Tour. tool that's giving teams from the racetrack to the factory floor what they need to get the job done quicker and improve every day. That safety culture 88 car was looking pretty good. It did pretty good. Yeah, pretty good. Yeah, I saw all safety culture on the side of that car and I was like, man, I know those guys. How was your trip? Man, the trip was insane. Now, it wasn't all that crazy, honestly. Went to Mexico for the racist weekend. I was on one of the NASCAR charters and not really even sure what that meant, but I was going to fly out of Charlotte. Typically, I fly out of Statesville, a little regional airport there.

And I wasn't going to take my plane down to Mexico, just a little bit difficult. Taxi fees, fuel, all those things. Just going to be real expensive and silly. So I was going to fly on one of the NASCAR charters. maybe a day or two before the flight, it disappeared. Somehow that plane was locked up in Singapore with maintenance. So we started, me and my folks, our team started looking for alternatives. I was thinking about going with Denny,

and obviously he decided he didn't want to go. And so I ended up flying my plane to Texas and getting a commercial direct from Dallas. And so that was great. no big deal that's kind of the same way we came home so my travel ended up being relatively typical and or no problem flying into mexico city it's a massive massive city oh yeah so it's big uh there's 22 million people there and there's housing just galore and tons of color so when you're flying in we're coming in 1500 2,000 feet big jumbo jet and just kind of lumbering through the air real slow

and you're just kind of crossing over all the houses and stuff and you kind of get to peek down in there and see some of the detail and it's pretty nice. It was really pretty. I immediately started feeling like I wasn't going to work. I was on a vacation. And that's how the rest of the weekend felt. It felt like we were on a vacation.

Nice. There happened to be a race. Yeah. Uh, so go through customs, no problem. Get in a car, head to the airport or head to the hotel. Hotel. Did you Uber or have a rental? We had, uh, Amazon, Amazon had us all sorted.

Got you gotcha. Uh, we had, we had, um, you know, we had some, we had a little bit of security with us at all times, just a normal plane closed dude. And, um, but we get in this, uh, you know, you exit the airport. And there's giant screens and just a lot of color and modern beauty. Art. Yep. It's just nice.

It was nice. And so I don't know what I expected, but it's a modern city. So we get to the hotel. Hotel is beautiful. Just like any really, really top five-star hotel that you might find in the United States. The, you know, architecture for Mexico City is going to be unique to itself, and that was obvious to. Sure. Tons of cool shops and little convenience stores and just all kinds of bustly, busy, you know, people were walking around doing normal life.

Whatever, yeah. So hotel is great. Hotel was, you know, you get in hotel. You don't know where you are. You can be in any country. room was nice there was a it was kind of like a

restaurant slash bar half a block from the or maybe one block from the hotel which we would we'll get to later but I really didn't go out of the hotel

well yeah we did go to a steakhouse about two blocks down the street one night which was awesome amazing steak I saw Paul Wolf and his guys there but I don't want to spoil too much because Steve and Adam are going to be on here tomorrow. We're going to go through this, I'm sure.

But I had a great time. We go to the racetrack. Have you been there before? I've been there. Yeah, I've been there twice. All right. So you know all about the track. Well, they modernized it because when F1 went there in 14 or 15 or whatever,

they had to repay the whole track and knock off the curbs down. It was a little rundown when I got there. It wasn't bad. Well, the curbs through the Ss were way taller back in the day. It was just a little different. Same layout for the most part, except for we run. through the stadium this weekend. But they smoothed out all the curbs through the S's.

Yeah, for the F-1 cars. So that was a little different. But, yeah, the track was fun. Track was exciting. Had a lot of, you know, I'm looking at it from a broadcaster. Like, when I get there, I'm like, you know, I won't go down because I want, as a broadcaster, I want to be able to talk about some stuff. I don't want to be.

Action. Yeah. I don't want it to be a boring race. One example might be there was some conversation about should they move the restart zone because they've been moving the restart zones at some of these road courses to prevent the shit that goes on at Kota or term one at indie road course. You know, this silliness happens there. So they move some of the restart zones at some of those tracks to sort of break the field up a little bit

so they don't drive over the top of each other down into term one. Well, they worried about that for this particular race. Luckily, I was like, no, I don't want them to remove the... restart zone because I won't go down down. It went down. Them restarts were nuts. Right. Yeah. That makes it fun for me. So they didn't move it but and

for the most part you know it wasn't too. It wasn't comical or No, it wasn't like indie turned into or Kota. Yeah. Don't. It. The only one that I saw where I was like, holy shit guys, come on. Was when the 11 of Ryan

Truex kind of got just. Off of three or whatever. He got turned into. He got turned in two. by McDowell. I mean, they were four wide. It really wasn't McDowell's fault, but, you know, that's who was in his door. But that corner, or that restart there, was borderline like silliness.

So I will tell you, not that this really might not make a difference, but some of the angles like the spotters have, I don't think the drivers know their four-wide sometimes. Yeah, I mean, they might not care. But if they would have known, they might some of them might lift, because someone's getting clipped at four-wide.

Ain't nobody lifting. They all go down, they all went down into the corner on that restart, and they're like, if I don't be, if I don't be the bull, you're getting bold. You're going to be the China. Yeah. And so, yeah, and they all just go through there and go, fuck it. That was my, I was telling Travis earlier here, that was my problem with the race.

I enjoyed the race. But it got to the point where when guys were side by side, they were running, like someone, you'd knock a guy off on the left-hander from between two and three. Yeah, and then you just knock them off. he loses five, six spots and you go on and there's no penalty for knocking the guy off. Well, there ain't, but, you know. That turned into a technique to pass though. Well, yeah.

But, you know, and the guy that gets knocked off, he's fortunate because NASCAR is not going to penalize him. Yeah. And then maybe he can chase the guy down. Yeah, but sometimes, like, whenever it gets back to him. So we can talk about that on the broadcast because Ryan Blandy got used up by the. He did. Eric Jones, yeah. Eric Jones was like,

I saw that. I guess Blaney might have adored him or something. Eric didn't like it. So Eric just right, turned right, tried to drive me in the fence. I saw that. It was awesome, even though it was Blaney got back to him. And he didn't do anything.

I wanted him to, I wanted him to shoot him. The camera was all over it too. And I was like, oh, let's see. I said, guys, stay on that 12, or, you know, just kind of be mindful of the 12. If he gets to the 43, let's get that back on the screen. So whatever Blaney did to him, he probably didn't do anything because he felt like he knew he messed up.

That's the only way I could think that Blaney wouldn't respond. You know what I mean? Yeah, you're probably right. So whatever Blaney did was probably... He probably felt like, hey, I deserve it. Because Eric's not. Oh, Eric was on it. He's just not a dirty driver.

He doesn't go and start something. He's not, but he's at that point. He's driving a car that's getting a little better, and he's also at that point in his career. He's got a fight. I'm not, yeah, I'm not putting up with it. Should NASCAR do something about, because you're losing the art of making passes

where you're just not hot and dudes out of the way though no nobody was really doing that it wasn't happening in like every single lap tj i i don't think you can do anything about it but i do think guys were just i think guys were missing the right though coming out of the left hand of there and just shooting guys off on purpose because it the guy behind would lose five spots and probably never see him again but you if you does see you again he's going to wreck your turn you too but i don't like how to me you remember two weeks do you see the max thing a couple weeks ago over staffing and and when he ran that guy. He ran George Russell and doortem. Well, they just drive into the corner and run each other off. And I feel like that's kind of what it turns into a little bit. And there's

nothing you can do about it. I mean, it's going to police itself eventually. Yeah, I think so. Well, I mean, if you're all about making things more boring, I guess you could penalize people for doing it and stop it and make it go away. Did I say I want that? Yeah. I don't know. You brought it up. Well, because TJ, if you brought it up, you want it. T.J. this morning before he came in was about this. So I wanted to see if you wanted something done about it or? For entertainment value, I like it. But if you're, if you're like, you think about the cars that are getting run off, if you're 10th place and you get run off and you're 17th after that,

you're not going to be very happy. Yeah. Well, I wouldn't advise being on the outside of somebody going through turn two unless you're willing to try to take that risk. So you can be in a, you'll be in a good spot. Three wide, you're getting, somebody's going to probably go off. But two wide, well, I noticed it happening with two wide stuff and guys were just not, they knew they could just door the guy there and get away with it.

If it was happening like every single time somebody tried to attempt to pass there, you could then go, all right. Yeah, I don't think it's anything that's getting out of hand. It's policed or like that. It'll police itself. Yeah. The track was pretty cool. Apparently, I didn't get to try them, but apparently the best tacos in the entire world were in the infield.

Everybody kept talking about them. Is that what they were? Massive line. Yeah, they were shaving, cutting the meat off and stuff. I wanted them, but I never could get it. I just couldn't. I was fucking. working and never really had a chance to like get those tacos but um that's the only thing i

think i missed out on you know i know everybody's experience may vary but mine was a good one would i go back absolutely um i'm hearing some rumors that it's probably it's a chance that it stays on the schedule but it might not be in the same part of the season they might move it to a different part of the part of the schedule i hear that um you know there's there's um there's a a lot of conversation, I'll just say, around you know, what happens. I guess we might not go back to Chicago Street course. There's a chance that Chicago

Land could come back, I'm hearing, but I'm not 100% sure about that. The San Diego ideas there's a chance to race in the streets, I guess, of San Diego or create some sort of course there. There's been rumor of that before. That's pretty realistic. Ben Kennedy said ideally, if they

return, you'd have like an off week after Mexico City. to make people a little better for travel. Yeah, well, yeah. Great. Good ad. I think that, you know, they learned a ton about the, they learned a ton about the,

the way they should have done this in the first place in terms of Mexico. Yeah. And to travel logistics and all this. I don't remember it being bad when I went. Well, I don't understand why, I guess I don't understand why we weren't better prepared and why it was so clunky.

Yeah. Right. When I went before, I don't remember having any travel issues. Yeah. I mean, it was 20 years ago almost, but I don't know what would be much different, right? Yeah. But for some reason, it felt like that even though we knew this was on the schedule. Yeah, logistics were hard.

It was almost like it got thrown in our laps in the last minute. some people that I know got themselves commercial flights early they were set they were the ones that were inconvenienced the people that were really relying on like NASCAR or the charters those type of things like a lot of the teams and so forth those were the people that were sort of you know it was almost like an like an afterthought yeah and the charters felt stressful not up to par yeah you know not up to standard I guess for what you know you would expect

um you know they they had some issue our plane was stuck in Singapore in maintenance worth of why is the plane that I'm gonna you know that we're I'm going to be on this plane with like 300 other people why is it in Singapore you know what where what is this charter company

that we're dealing with yeah um and then You had a plane have a mechanical issue that I heard was really fucking touch and go. Yeah. Like the plane that blew the engine was pulling the nose up to take off when that happened. And they barely got that thing stopped and, you know, safely got everybody off. But it was really close or really severe.

Even a few weeks ago, there was travel room, even before that, like a month ago, there was some things like, well, the travel, the airlines, there's some airline things going on. There was always some kind of stuff happening with. It was definitely touch and go, like you said. You can't cut corners with stuff like that. And I don't know, listen, I would not know where to start to try to put something like that together to get an entire industry going somewhere. I like the thought of everybody doing the same thing. I like us all. I do.

I like us all being together, everybody flying together. But we got to be willing to, like, invest in the, you know, I guess, I don't know what I'm trying to say. I don't want an ass car. I know they busted their ass to try to make this happen. I'm sure. It was a successful race weekend. We had an awesome experience on Saturday with Daniel winning. And then a great race on Sunday.

Everybody got home safe. Did they learn some lessons? Absolutely. Should they do it? Should they do it a little bit differently next time? Absolutely. Will they? I think so. They learned a lot. And I think, you know, to your point, Travis, Ben Kennedy was honest and transparent about that. That they, you know, they might have made some missteps and learned some hard lessons. But the idea of just going back is a good one, I think. Mexico City was great. Mexico, the track, the racetrack was great. The travels, you know, sucked.

But, hey, my wife, Amy, went to Kenny Chesney to the sphere in Vegas. And she had a really fucking trip home. Her flight got delayed. She was stuck at the airport for 12 hours. Ended up getting on a red eye. So I'm not complaining about my travel. to Mexico City because I had it pretty good compared to that. But anyhow, pretty cool.

Got my passport stamped. I always love filling that passport out, boy, don't you all? Yeah. I mean, you get a passport man and you kind of, it's fun. Kind of roll, kind of go through the pages, see all the places you've been. My passport is empty. There's no stamps on it. No stamps on it.

Man, you've got to get out, brother. Well, hey, I've got to say it must have been a pretty tough weekend for you, Travis. you know no no denny hamlin out there to cheer for what did you do with yourself i watched i watched the race and it was peaceful did you just shed tears the entire time yeah what did you do as you watched uh is you watched that number 11 out there he did more burnouts than denny did in michigan did uh did you go to did you'll be no there'll be no uh ryan trick slander on this show just want to say that up front well i already got that out of the way

I just watched Did you do? Did you help Denny? Did you help Denny mow his grass? Yeah. Well, I actually went, yeah, what did you do? Did you clip his hedges? No, I actually went home for a little bit and then came home back, watched the race. Went back to Ohio.

Oh, that home. Yeah. Watch the race. It was peaceful. How was Ohio? It was good. It was a quick one. Yep.

So. But yeah, no Denny bro this weekend. No Denny bros. I saw you on social media, typically, uh, doing your, traditional defense. You're like a first line of defense on Twitter for Denny. Any Denny slander, he's like always. What was a stupid tweet?

What happened? What was the tweet? Oh, how quick they were to give him the waiver, but it took them five days to give Kyle Arson a waiver. Well, it's in the freaking rulebook that you get a waiver for birth of a child. Yeah. He's been on Baby Watch for three weeks. NASCAR was ready to give it to him.

Yeah. I don't know, man. I would have probably, I'd have probably stayed home. Certain circumstance. Yeah, it's hard. I mean. But now, look. I mean, I think certain, it's all kind of like something you got to make that,

you got to make that call considering all the circumstances involved. And they have two kids that, you know, they have two girls in the house. You got a third. Mom's going to need a couple days. You got a brand new baby that, you know, Danny wanted to be home, being, I thought it was awesome. He would have had to leave before she's even out of the hospital most likely. Like, you can't do that.

He's at a point in his life where I think the right decision is to stay home. I agree. I thought it was a great decision. I think it's the right decision. Yeah. I don't, you know, I was, there's like, there's a lot of, so there's two different, there's two NASCARs, right? There's the old NASCAR where you drove with a broken neck.

Yeah. No matter what. You drove with concussions. You raced with concussions. Obvious concussions. You missed high school graduations of your kids. You missed all the milestones, all the moments. Everybody, right?

But that's the old NASCAR. And that's not how we do it anymore. We're in a new day and time where you got something you want to be home for. You got an opportunity to make that decision without it being such a detriment to, what you're you're you know what you're trying to accomplish that season and so um you know i think it's i i have to remind myself like hey man it's it's not like it used to be anymore and it wasn't like it the race was at darlington where it could have popped over there done stuff like that and come home then go for the race absolutely there you go i think if it was at darlington he would have ran the

race flew in flew in drove the fucking car went home i think i think think so too. Yeah. Whether you've got one shelf or a whole wall dedicated to NASCAR diecast, there's always room for more. And nobody brings the excitement to the track and to your collection like Lionel Racing, the official diecast of NASCAR. From the legendary rides like the number three Goodrich car to the paint schemes of today's hottest stars like Kyle Larson and Ross Chastain, Lionel Racing Diacast are built for true fans. Every car is authentically detailed and most are available in both 124 and 164 scales, whether you're after race wins, special finishes, autographed pieces, or the elite premier editions, Lionel has you covered.

And right now, for a limited time, fans of the Dale Jr. download can get free U.S. shipping on their next order at Lionel Racing.com. Just use the promo code DJD25. That's promo code DJD25 at Lionel Racing.com. We were just mentioning how they may race at San Diego. We may go to, you know, who knows what happens to Chicago. I don't know that we keep going back there. I think, well, you know, it was great.

It was nice. Nothing wrong with it. But they want to keep kind of moving this around. We may go back to Mexico. And so a lot of road course talk. And Richard Petty said, road course racing, he said, hey, it's all fine. But road course racing isn't NASCAR. Did you see that?

I didn't see that either. I know what he's trying to say. So there's a lot of road course racing. And it's exactly like that same conversation around like Denny getting the waiver, this being a different NASCAR than where we were. When I came into, Richard, I agree with Richard. Road course racing is at NASCAR. People are going to go, well, what about Riverside?

What about all these, there's been racing, road course racing in NASCAR since the 50s. so when I came in there was only Riverside and then we had Watkins Glen added well Watkins Glen was added in the 80s but I'm saying when I was young paying attention to sport going to the racetrack being a road course racer wasn't important you would even up until I was even when I was racing the bud car like guys like Sterling Marlin you were spotting for Sterling back in the day. Oh yeah. Road course racing was not important. No. They would go and be like, all, this is a fucking weekend. I really, you know, I'm going to go. I'm going to try, but I don't really give it all ends up. I'm not, I'm not that great at this. I don't care to be.

My car, I'm not sure how good it is. I don't give it shit. I'm going to go out there and run. If I get fortunate and have a reasonable day, don't have any problems and everybody f***s up. Majority of the field was like that. Yeah, it was. You're right. So, you know, you went into those racism just like hey man everybody kind of looking at your team you're like all right y'all know you know i'm not yeah i'm not no i'm not a you know i'm not a you know i don't profess to be uh an expert at this and there were ringers then too and you were you knew it was like that one of those guys is going to win they were going to kick your ass yeah the one-offs yeah and so we and but you know it was in the middle of the year you tried to just get out of there with the least amount of damage as possible in terms

of points and things like that, right? That was it. That was it. Then you were done. You were like, all right. 15th, heck yeah, I'm leaving. Put that road course car in the back of the shop. All right. So that's the way it was. So that's what Richard Petty, I think that's where Richard's coming from when he says,

you know, road course racing, is it really NASCAR? Because anyone that ever wanted, if you wanted to be a racer in NASCAR, if you wanted to get to NASCAR, you raced a short track somewhere locally, you went, you know, you ran stock cars, you ran late model stock, you ran the Bush series or the sportsman cars back in the 80s, you, you raced full-bodied cars around ovals. Yeah. Ovals, right? It was a very known, understood. That was the route.

Well, that was yesterday's NASCAR, and that's Richard Petty's talking about. But we're in a different time. Today's NASCAR is all encompassing. It is road courses, short tracks. Do you think we have too many? I mean, for my taste, like, I don't, I don't. Like, would you put Chicago land back on a schedule and take one away? Yeah.

I think we're, I think, I think we have a good amount of road courses. I could, you know, I'm not, I'm not a favorite. I don't like the road courses the most. I like, and I don't really, honestly, man, I don't really love, Right now, like I would say my favorite thing about our sport is probably the Charlottes and the Kansases. Yeah, Charlotte's awesome now. That's what I really, that's what I'm enjoying right now the most. I wish that the short tracks were better because that's where my core is, is like I love good short track beating and banging.

We saw some of the things that I love about short track racing at Mexico. It was a physical. Oh, we did. Yeah, it was beating bang. Yeah, it was physical. So I can also love the road courses at times. Is part of the problem that they're all close together, a lot of the road course races?

No, not really. I used to not love road course races. I used to not want them added to the schedule. But I'm sort of understanding at this point in my life, I don't really, I can't sit here and just be like, I don't want more road course racing. They're going to do what they're going to do. I just need to embrace whatever they put on the plate, right?

and so we're all going to sit down at this big, you know, table and the table of NASCAR, we're going to eat the meal. And you just got to, you don't get to choose, really, how it's cooked or what's served. And so if you want to be part of the shit, you just kind of got to embrace whatever it is. And, you know, I certainly can complain here and there, but for the most part, I'm kind of dialing that back because it ain't like that complaint is going to make a bit of difference. And so do I want nine, 10 road courses? No.

Is this number too much? Not really, give or take one or two. I wouldn't want them adding more and taking more ovals off. I agree with Richard Petty. NASCAR, stock car racing is predominantly an oval-based series. Always has been. Yeah. We have removed some ovals.

We have removed some tracks, added some road. road courses, I'm fine with that because I do like the idea that we're, you know, our drivers need to be all, all, great at all things, right? If you're going to be a champion, you now have to be as good at a road course as you are at an oval. Back when I started driving, you didn't. You could fucking suck at the road course. As long as you were good everywhere else, you were going to be fine. You still win a championship. If you run a smart race, you're going to finish 15th, 20th, it worse and it wasn't terrible day. So, you know, I'm okay with it sort of being more balanced,

but I definitely don't think that Richard is wrong. Yeah, for sure. You know, about what he was trying to say there. And I tend to agree with him. If I was in control, I would be taking away some road courses. This could lead to a great conversation. I kind of want to avoid a lot of conversation around the race

because we're going to dive into that probably tomorrow a little bit too, so I don't want to talk specifically. But this also could lead to, so you talked about the road courses being sort of packed in this little portion of the race. We have 10 races left in the regular season. In the last 11, counting Mexico City, there's five road courses, right?

That's a lot. Pretty saturated. Could you spread it out? Yes. Does, you know, do you add another road course to the playoffs, possibly, let's talk about what, there's some conversation around the playoff

and how we crown our champions. Let's all talk about what's the best way to do that. Have we had that conversation? There's a committee sort of in conversation right now around what, if anything, should be done to the playoffs and how we crown our champion, right? Okay, and so, you know, Mark Martin's kind of been a little vocal in the last couple of days about his involvement in that and his frustrations over what, what's happening and the conversations that are happening. Mark Martin wants a 36, a full season, traditional 2000 era.

Two road horses, roughly. No, he just wants a full season run all the way to the end, crown the champion with the most points. Oh, I got you. He wants the old traditional system. He thinks, and he, I like that too, right? He's a purest. Yeah, I like it. And there's other, there's other great organizations in motorsports that have that

same thing that are working just fine. They don't need a playoff. They hadn't, hadn't added a playoff. So, but if we, if we have to, my guess is that the, the networks have the most influence. They spend the most money that rightfully so, I would say, they're given. NASCAR hundreds of millions of dollars they have influence right on what this looks like. NASCAR

is also a big player at the table. There's a lot of other people in this conversation that are just offering suggestions but without real voting power, right? And so I would say I'm one of those people. I'm in the conversation and I can

offer ideas but I don't really have a influence on a final. You're slightly above. I know, but I'm not going to really I'm not going to really yeah I understand like the decision is really going to come down

between a conversation between NASCAR themselves and the TV folks to say hey is everybody good they will be the ones that go finally do we like this is this something we can we can all be happy with but the what I've proposed and what I think would be cool

is basically somewhat of a hybrid between what we used to do and what we do now, run the entire regular season, and then have one single round between a group of drivers, kind of like the original format where you had 10 drivers, 10 races. I think that might be a little too much. You could actually make that a little smaller and have, if it's three drivers, it's three

races, four drivers, four races, five drivers, five races. You could even do six drivers over a course of. six races, right? But that's, you'll have, you'll race the entire regular season to determine who those drivers are. And how you determine that really is kind of for debate, but I would traditionally want the best performing six or five or four drivers to be those guys, right? No, no fluke, wild card, no gimmicky sort of, oh, this guy he did X, Y, Z, and now he's in. It would be literally the four, five, six best people. Everybody would. have the consensus would be that's that's the ones that deserve to go for this and then they

just race it out one thing you could do is get if you were you know everybody would start flat in that final round but you could possibly give a point for every win still making wins matter right so if you won six races you start with a six point advantage over someone who nothing on nothing huge no like we have a small small token to be able to carry into that into that because you should reward when still matter yeah now there's a lot of different other things that we could talk about well do you do this do that what about this what about that but I think it's a kind of a it's a bit of a hybrid between where we are today in our original old

original formats that we used way back in the 70s and 80s and 90s so what I was trying to encourage is that we look at this regular season as the same way we kind of look at the rounds that lead up to the final round in the playoffs. You know, that regular season is really the race to determine whether you end up in that group, whether you end up in that basket at the end of the season. And so what, where we are right now is drivers make the final round. at Phoenix, and they will tell you they are more proud of making the final round than whatever may happen that day in that championship race, because getting to that point is hard, right?

Super hard. While that needs to remain difficult, winning the championship should be harder, right? And that, if you had a four, if you had a four, three is a little bit low, but if you had a four or five race battle in that final round, that's challenging. And that's legitimate. And that would legitimize the champion. This guy, he did it over, those five races against these three or four people, the best. That would bring legitimacy back to that championship accomplishment.

And that's another thing that's missing. Right. So the drivers win, the drivers that go to Phoenix, we've heard them say. You know, it doesn't feel like it's, it doesn't feel as valuable or as cherished or as the old way of winning it over the course of the entire season, right? And I totally, you can't argue against that. You can't. Is winning a championship still the greatest thing that those guys can do in their career? It still remains that.

It still is that. You'll see their enjoyment and excitement when they win the championship. Joeligano, Larson, Chase Elliott, Blaney, all the guys that have won it, they're thrilled, right? Still thrilled. But would it matter more? Would it feel comparable to the Jeff Gordon's, the Jimmy Johnson's, or I'm sorry, not Jimmy,

but Jeff Gordon's and Kell Yarbrils and Richard Payne, would it feel comparable to the 40 years that we raced under the original system? If you had like a three, four, five race final round, I think it would be back to that. It'd feel earned. It'd feel earned, right. Instead of more happenstance, luck, fortune, right?

It would feel earned. And so that is what we got to, that's what we got to attain. That's what we have to deliver, if there are some changes to the playoff structure. We have to get back to making it feel earned. And, you know, So when we see the champion crowned, we all can say that guy, that guy did it better than anybody else.

He wasn't just fortunate. He wasn't just, you know, he wasn't just good on one single day, right? So would you get rid of, so with this format then there wouldn't be the win in your end kind of deal? I mean, probably not. Which I think is, a lot of people I think would celebrate right now. I would, yeah. It makes some, it makes guys do things they normally wouldn't do at times, but it also. I don't think, yeah, you would not have that.

You wouldn't have eliminations. Yeah, you don't need them. You get rid of the round, you get rid of the round, you get rid of round one, two, three. You eliminate yourself. You get rid all that. I do think 16 is a lot right now. 16 people are too many. You know, that's just, it's just too many.

You would basically treat the regular season as the, the, the, the, the, the, the, semi-final round of the playoffs. Yeah, so like 31, 32-degree race. of or whatever of just a season. Honestly, I don't think you could come up with a better idea. I'm fine with it. You're consistent. You're running good.

You're making smart decisions. Yeah. I'm fine with it. Yeah. And I, you know, I think that, yeah, you take the guy. You earn it. You take the four or five that have done the best, earn the most points throughout the year,

and they're the ones that get in there. How can you say that none of them guys have earned the chance to be race for a champion? You can't argue with it. So, you know, we'll see what they do. I don't think that that's probably, I don't think that my idea is going to be what ends up happening. I think what if I had to guess where we land, it's going to be very similar to where we are today.

They'll just probably expand that final round to about three races. In racing, we say good enough just doesn't cut it. And it's the same in business. Time isn't just money. It's your edge. If your team's constantly reacting to problems instead of staying ahead of them, you're losing ground. under green there's no time to think twice teams have to decide whether to pit early or stay out one wrong move and your driver could be buried in traffic or out of gas every second counts the best teams act fast with confidence and that's why a team like trackhouse racing uses safety culture it helps them stay on top of what's working fix what's not and keep improving day to day when you catch issues early and share updates quickly you're not wasting time you're making progress

It's not just for race teams. Whether you're in freight, construction, or anything where time matters, safety culture helps your crew stay sharp and focused on what really moves the needle. So if you're tired of chasing problems and want to start making real progress, head over to safetyculture.com slash SVG and check it out. All right, we got SVG, the winner for Mexico City on the Dale Jr. Download. And, man, we're thankful for this. I hadn't had you on here this year,

but you've checked the wind box, and so we're lucky to be able to get you on. I know it's been a pretty wild weekend, so we'll get right to it. Get outside of the race. All right, first off, give us your assessment. I had a great trip. I enjoyed my travel.

I enjoyed my hotel. I enjoyed everything about it. I would recommend. would go back. How was your Mexico City trip? It was okay. Like it started really bad. Yep. With the travel issues, you know, the plane, the motor blew up on the takeoff, which sucked. And that was one of the scariest things I've probably been a part of. And then, yeah, it was all panic and trying to get the logistics sorted. And we ended up leaving Charlotte at 5 a.m. on Friday. So, yeah, I was pretty wrecked by the time practice come around on Friday. But we only had

a plane that was good for, I think, 14 or 15 people. So we only had a skeleton crew there on Friday for all three cars. Yeah. Yeah, it was a pretty wild weekend from that side of things. But, yeah, I tried to, when I go away racing, I treated it as work, you know, like I was just literally airport, track, hotel track. Like, I didn't do anything, you know, I was just there to go racing. And, yeah, I was careful, still got crook as anything.

That sucked, but yeah, I enjoyed my time. I thought the track, the atmosphere was really cool, and that I wasn't at the track Saturday. I went back to the hotel not feeling well, but that race on Saturday watching Daniel, that was one of the coolest race. Like, I had goosebumps watching that. Like, I went at home before when Viet Supercars went to New Zealand,

and, you know, but us, us Kiwis are a little bit more reserved than Mexicans, I guess. And, man, that crowd response was unbelievable. It was really, really special to see Daniel win, too. Yeah, absolutely. That was a great weekend. A great day for not only Daniel, but JRM. I wasn't really even, you know, when Daniel had the issue in practice or qualifying, I was like, well, all right.

You know, we're going to give him a backup car. It's going to be maybe not quite as good as the primary, and he's got to come from the back. I didn't see that playing out the way it did. I want to ask you, do you think you know? How you got sick? The only thing I can put it down to is having juice on the breakfast, you know, at the driver's room upstairs. It's the only thing I probably slipped up on.

Everything else was, you know, it was all bottled water or, you know, canned red bull or soda. And, yeah, like everything else was so careful, and that's probably the only thing. Yeah. Yeah. Well, um. Feel good on Sunday. Yeah. So you started feeling bad Saturday before, uh, you.

Yeah, so you had, and yeah, damn, movie. So you had about 24 hours, 36 hours of not feeling so hot. Yeah, it was pretty much right after qualifying, you know, and then went back to the hotel and, yeah, I just kept sleeping, kept trying to eat and drink. It would just go straight through me. So I was pretty dehydrated by the time the race come around and I just couldn't keep fluids in me.

So, yeah, I was a bit worried how I'd go on the race, but it wasn't too bad. Yeah, I was worried, too, man. We had a little update or we had some. some news from Marty about your condition right at the beginning of the race. And, man, I had tabbed you, and a lot of people had also tabbed you as kind of the favorite to win. And I was wondering how that was going to be because I know some guys that have gotten sick inside of race cars.

And, yeah, it's hard to run the lap time when you're throwing up all over yourself. Yeah, it was, like, I was right after the driver intros, you know, we got on the float and I was like, okay, I'm not too bad. And then they wanted to do the group photo on the grid. And I'm like, man, I just, I need these 20 minutes before we get. get in the car or whatever to just have some time by myself. Like I was, yeah, not in a good way, but you know what it is when you do that chin strap up, you know, the adrenaline just starts to take over and yeah, your mind focuses elsewhere.

You can kind of just push through it and then, but yeah, pretty much straight after the race when the adrenaline wore down and that tequila you give me sunk in, I wasn't, I was back to pretty average. The race really played out really well for you. you only had, from what I could tell, only one threat, and that was Ty Gibbs. Ty Gibbs was fast all weekend. Really good in the first half of the race. You kind of sat there behind him on that one stint, and I felt like that, you know, watching him and you,

it seemed like he was pushing really hard. Wouldn't sure how he could continue to do that the entire race, and eventually he ended up using the car up, you know, when he lost in track position. How hard, you know, I guess how much more did you have? they're running second to him. Could you have taken the lead if you needed to or wanted to, or was it difficult in traffic? Yeah, it was pretty difficult. Like, the air is so thin.

That's my first time really racing at such high altitude. And, yeah, as soon as you got behind them for a couple of laps, you can feel the tire pressures really come up and the brakes would get super hot. So just the lack of air really made a difference. So I really felt like in stage two I was faster, but every time I got close, like my tires would just get hot. I'd drop back a bit and then my grip would come back

I'd be able to drive to him again. So into stage two, we really got to him. Yeah, he was certainly the fastest car. I think he was slightly better than the 20. Maybe the 20 was the third best.

But yeah, it would have been really interesting to see how the strategies played out if that yellow didn't come out or we were on the same strategy. I think, you know, it would have been a good race.

But yeah, if I had track position, he would have struggled to pass. You know, it was just, you had to have a real. speed advantage, I think, to pass someone. And yeah, but yeah, he was really quick. There was a couple restarts late in the race when you were up against the 20, and he had pretty good launches.

And side drafting was a bit of a key to get down to term one. He actually lost the lead there once. You know, I guess that was probably the only concern was something crazy and silly happening down in term one and two on those restarts. They were really, really nasty and messy. the middle of pack. How was that experience for you? Yeah, being third was messy. I would have hated being in the middle of the pack. Yeah, it was crazy. You know, you're at top of fifth gear almost, and then you got a break to a

first year 90-degree corner. So it was tough. There was a big sort of concertina effect and cars just using each other up and, you know, I was glad that last one was clean, but yeah, I spent the last 30 laps really just hoping for no yellow, so I didn't have to go through it again. because the way the resorts are here, anything can happen, you know. And these guys here are pretty crafty. They know how to put their cars on the right spots, how to move the air, and, you know, drag you back with the side draft and stuff. So I'm getting better at it, but, yeah, it's very different here.

Yeah, you've made some, you're talking about getting better. You've made some big gains on the Oval stuff. I will say, too, that I think trackhouse has also made some big gains in the last couple of months to their program across the board. but that's starting to benefit you and you're starting to see that 88 car climbing up through the field where do you feel like

you're still you're still learning on the ovals what is what is what is you know some of the things that when you look at your teammates data or you look at your own data what are some of the things you're still trying to work on yeah good question yeah I think you're right I think as a team we've really made some leaps forward

but I you know I just directly compared to my teammates you know They got the same stuff and I've got to get as close as I can to them, right? So, yeah, probably my biggest thing is fire off speed and practice especially. You know, I'm going to a lot of these places for the first time in a cup car. They can go out and be within a tenth or two of the peak lap time and, you know, on their first lap, you know, where I'm sort of get out on track. I'm exploring the place.

So, you know, I get up to speed on lap 10 of practice and by then the tire's gone. You know, the tires are second a lap slower and, you know, the tires are second a lap slower and, I get to what lap times they're doing, but I've missed that peak. And then qualifying comes around, and, you know, I've got to go and find a second and a half, and they've only got to find half a second. That's the big leaps that I'm not doing yet. So I really feel like we've made pretty big gains in qualifying recently, you know, just forcing myself to just go for it, you know, because normally in circuit racing or everything else I've ever done,

you get practice, you get three sets of ties, you get plenty of time, you can just, you can just, build up, whereas in NASCAR with these short practices, it's very, very difficult. So I think, you know, like Wilkesburg was really good for me. That was my best qualifying. Obviously, there was a pit stop, but, you know, long practices really help me to get what I want out of the car and get a feel for it. So, yeah, these tracks with 10 minutes of practice, man, it's so difficult. So that's my, that's my Achilles heel, I guess, at the moment. The, uh, 10, races that we have to the regular season, there's four road courses, and I asked you on stage after the race what you were looking forward to, and you said you're looking forward to all the

right-handers. But out of those road courses, do you have a favorite? Is there, you know, do you love them all equally, or is there one that you seem to think that you have a better advantage at? I guess, obviously, Chicago we're going to be really good at, but I'd love to go to Sonoma. I, I raced obviously Expendity there last year, and I did a wheel force test. in the cup car and man it's just epic track you know how flowing it is and when you get in a rhythm there it's it's really cool so i'm looking forward to sonoma probably just to get to race there and yeah see how that goes yeah for sure all right man well um congratulations on a hell the job uh and that was a lot of fun hey it's a fun race uh to watch and just impressive to see uh you know see how you put it on them

man, it was a big, big deal. Winning that race by such a large margin. It was really cool. How many more times they can tell you to slow down? Yeah, right? Yeah, that got annoying. Oh, yeah, can tell. That's a good thing when they're telling you to slow down, by the way.

That means you're leading by, like, the lead just kept growing. Even when you slowed down, it was like, still jiving away. Slow down to go faster. Yeah. When it kept telling me to slow down, my mind just kept wandering and thinking weird stuff, you know? So, I just need the same rhythm. Yeah, for sure. Well, good luck, man. We'll see you at the racetrack. Thanks for giving us a little time today. Yeah, congrats.

Have you guys. Have a good day. Hey, TJ, I like that phone. Is it new? Yeah, I got this awesome new phone. I've recently joined the consumer cellular family, and they hooked me up with a great phone and a great service. You're telling me that your phone actually works at the racetracks? Yeah, my phone has been excellent at the racetracks. And honestly, you can't beat the consumer cellular service and the offers they have going right now. I mean, that's cool, but I'm assuming that it's. It's probably kind of expensive, right? Yeah, that's funny.

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And we are live for another episode or another segment of Ask Junior, presented by Xfinity. NASCAR fans, you know booming speeds when you see them. an Xfinity Wi-Fi connection. Well, it's booming. It is booming. It really is.

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That's right. They don't just raise the bar. They stream in overdrive. Overdrive. They are a proud premier partner of NASCAR. Xfinity Wi-Fi. Pretty cool. Yeah.

Pretty good stuff. So everybody out there is starting to pile in and let me open up my app. Yeah, they're still piling in. We're actually early this week. Oh, really? Yeah. All right. Well, sorry.

Just got a text from a friend of mine who tried our jerky boys' beef jerky for the first time, said he loved it. David Chang, yeah. So he works with Amazon, and he happened to be out there as a guest. And we were sitting at dinner one night. And there was like 20 people at this table eating dinner with Amazon. And Trevor Rane goes, hey, Dale's got a jerky company. And I was like, damn. awesome serve there Trevor

and David Chane goes I like to try it I said well I got a bag actually I brought from home I'll give it to you tomorrow so he'd come to the booth and tried it and we filmed it

and we put it on social media so one of the you know celebrity chef giving you a bit of a taste test on your new jerky company and he liked it he said it was awesome which I already knew that

but now you got like a the jerky boys jerky is the best jerky in the universe It's better than even alien jerky. Have you had alien jerky before? No, but nothing could compare to this. It is the best. Gotcha.

It's because it's so good that you know there's nothing that could even be close. Like when you eat it, you're like, yeah, nothing's going to beat this. And it's good. It is good. Be careful because we're like, we're a small company. And so we get a little, you know, you have to be a little patient on your order. Because we're getting a lot of orders. Makes sense.

Yeah. But it's great. It's good stuff. Anyhow, let's get to the questions. Let's have some fun. All right. So first question comes from Tony, and I'm going to add a little caveat to it

because what's your go-to drinking snack? Beef jerky cannot be answered here. Why? Because. I'm taking that out. Can't plug yourself. Yeah. All right.

If I can't have Jerky Boys Beef Jerky, which we sell it right here in the gift shop at your Merseport. too if you just want to come. So it would be weird you couldn't have it. Yeah, if you're living nearby and you don't want to order

and wait for it to come from Nashville where we make it, you can buy it here. I'm actually moving the company to a building right here next to Juvenorgesports. We can make it right here. So really, you're going to have all the jerk you need. Yes.

It's so good. I mean, I think probably just peanuts. You know? Just regular? Yeah. Regular salted peanuts, probably. Easy. Pretzels.

Dry roasted. Some pretzels. I don't care whether dry roasted or whatever. I just want a little salt on it. Kettle chips. Nope. No. Don't like kettle chips.

They're too hard. Kettle chips are like unnecessarily difficult to eat. Oh, love them. Why are, you know what? A good potato chip, nothing beats salt and vinegar flavor. They make kettle chip salt and vinegar. They do, but I like a regular lays. The regular white, that white and blue bag, I see that

sitting on the shelf. I'm like, that's mine, that's mine right there. I think it's hard to be. A regular lace potato chip, just in general. Classics. Doritos are good. Yeah. Classic. Cool ranch. All. Yeah. You remember when Jay Leno was a spokesman for Doritos and he's like, crunch all you won't, we'll make more. I don't remember that. I was like, man, that was pretty convincing. I think I will have some more. Some more. Yeah. I don't know why they stopped working with him. He had me, he was a good

spokesman for Doritos. Probably got too expensive. That means Doritos. They freaking got the money. But a good salt and vinegar chip is what's up. No dip? No dip. No, don't want to mess with that flavor.

Travis was like a dip person. Yeah. Not for chips. Yeah, I don't dip chips. Just get the chip with the flavor on it. Yeah. Yeah, but you can't get like the onion or whatever dip, like a French onion dip or whatever.

They don't make like. That sounds. terrible. Frickshund. You know what dip is good, but this is maybe more for a, like a tortilla chip, right, is buffalo chicken. Oh, yeah. Doing a little buffalo chicken dip.

Oh, for sure. The one dip that I didn't, never had had until I moved down here, Pimento cheese, as the dip. Yeah. Puemezzo cheese is good, just all around. Yeah. Like a sandwich. Put on a burger.

You can do whatever. Yeah, you can put it on a burger. It's good idea. You don't like it? That's disgusting now. I do agree with the buffalo. The buffalo, yeah, the buffalo dips probably fine. You could put that on a sandwich too and eat it if you wanted to.

Yeah, you could. A little chicken in there and stuff. Yeah. All right, next question. So SVG said he was leaking out of both holes. What's the sickest you have ever been while racing? I've fortunately not ever been sick while racing. I probably had like a head cold or some stuff like that,

but I've never had like a bad experience. I've never thrown up in the car. Did you ever have to take a modium? Huh? No. Before race?

Yeah. Yeah. No, I didn't take no drugs before race. Are you crazy? Asking if you took an modium? I know.

That's like, Pett de Bismol. I don't know. What's the risk? I don't know what a modium is. What does it do? What? It's like PEP.

It's like, it makes you feel better. I don't get sick. It makes it so that if you're, if it's coming out, it can stop it. Oh, really? Yeah.

Yeah, it's supposed to stop you from doing that. Really? Yeah, from down there. I think I just rather let nature take its course. In your fire suit? No, I've never been sick before a race, so I've never had to worry about this. But if you were, would you take a modem? I probably would at the suggestion of someone.

I probably would. Yeah. I'd probably try to make sure I got through the race. When you have a head cold, because you're so focused on the race, does it kind of... It's no problem. You don't even think about it, right? So when a driver's sick... When you hear that a driver is not feeling well and they're, oh man, you know, it's a little bit of a story.

Wow, this guy, you know, this guy's sick all morning. He's not feeling good. It's not a big deal to me because I know as soon as the race starts, they kind of forget about it. You're distracted by how much you got to focus on what you're doing. I mean, I'm sure there are some, you know, illnesses that are so severe that it would affect your performance. but like a flu or even like food sickness and stuff like that typically you're still going to be able to go out there and compete at a high level and if anything for those few hours you'll be distracted and almost you know forget that you had this going on um i remember back in like 87 or something Kyle petty was you know had the flu at Bristol really sick pretty bad and he's out there leading the race.

You know, and they're like, oh, man, Kyle Petty, got the flu, look at him go. And I'm like, all right. I was like, apparently you can still drive the shit out of a race car no matter how sick you are. And, yeah, so I've never had to really experience that. I do know one time we at Mark McFarlane. I know. I spotting that race. Yeah, Mark McFarlane was driving our Xfinity car at Phoenix.

We're running like eighth. Pretty good for us. our cars were 8th to 15th. And so Mark's doing a good job, good little racer. And all of a sudden he kind of goes high up in turns, three and four, and loses like four spots. And we're like, man, damn, what was that? He disappeared on the radio too.

Yeah, he's real quiet. We kind of finished 14th or something. Damn, I went to the car. And look. look in there and it was all over him. Oh, no. Like he had gotten sick over what they cooked. So whoever I cook was that day,

or hauler, hauler driver, whatever, did some chicken that didn't quite work for Mark. Yeah. And it was all over his suit. And I was like, oh man, sorry. I was getting ready to go, what the f. Yeah. How did you, what did you lose all this spot for?

I want a top ten, man. At some point he changed his radio to Channel 2 as well. And then someone's like, oh, he's on Channel 2. and I'm like, oh, okay, because we couldn't hear him for a while. Oh, geez. Yeah, well. So. Yeah, I was kind of like, oh, crap.

That was the old Phoenix, too. So if you're puking, like literally throwing up, it might affect your lap time. Just a little. I would say that's probably going to matter. Yeah. That's brutal. Yeah. He had proof of it, though.

Yeah. It's all down his suit. If you're going to lose spot, you better throw up. You can't just, like, have a little in your mouth and swallow it. Like, you better. I was really, I was always really careful. So I was like real careful not to eat anything that could be at risk, right? Like I wasn't going to eat off the truck.

The truck food is fine. But if there was a 10% risk. Cross-contamination or whatever. I wasn't going to do it. And so, you know, I have like on race days, I would eat deli meat sandwich, like a ham or something, turkey bread, mustard, basic. just to put something in there. And, yeah, the day before, you know, I had a really very, I had a routine.

Not like a super healthy thing. Just I had a routine. I ate the same meals every weekend for lunch, dinner on Friday, on Saturday. Basic. And just didn't change anything. I didn't go out. I didn't go to restaurants. Only when Amy really, you know, demanded it.

She's like, I got to get out of this bus. Yeah. You know, we'd go somewhere. The only time we go to Hard 8 in Texas, and that was kind of it. There's a place in Pocono. We're going to Pocono this weekend. Louis. Louis.

I remember my dad when he raced before I started racing, going to Pocono as a kid, going to Luey's. And that was like a – there's certain racetracks where there's like a restaurant that you all – your dad went to and you're like, hey, I got to go. That was his routine. I wanted that to be my routine. So we'll do a Louie's one night this weekend. What will you get there? They have a, I mean, their food's awesome.

Probably steak. Yeah. They have a French onion soup and stuff like that. I'll probably just have something like that. Speaking of your dad, we saw obviously the Earnhardt documentary on Prime. Who's another driver that you'd like to see a documentary made on? I think it might be cool to, to, I mean, there's so many, but I think Wendell Scott would be cool. So there was a movie called Grease Lightning.

Yeah. Richard Pryor starred in it about Windale. It's a good movie. Yeah, it is a good movie. So I think it would be cool to dive into that story pretty deep with a group like Imagine could really make that amazing. Junior Johnson. That would be a good one. So there's a movie.

So if you haven't seen Grease Lightning, I would see Grease Lightning with that. It's dated. It's an old movie, but Richard Pryor in a, you know, it's not a comedy. right? Richard Pryor playing someone in a more dramatic role was pretty unique in itself. They also had a movie about Junior Johnson called Last American Hero. Jeff Bridges was the star. And before Jeff Bridges was a star, this was made in 73.

But it's brought, I would say Last American Hero is my favorite racing movie. And they just didn't know any better than to make it. authentic as it could be, right? It was before really Hollywood would Hollywood up something, right? And so it's just really kind of a very raw, low budget, but good racing film. And so those would be two characters, I think, that would be pretty incredible. Like, Junior and his family, like his dad made shine in the mountains, and his dad goes to jail, and his dad was so junior to support the family

is also making moonshine and gets busted and his dad's pissed that he did that. And so I'd love to know more about that part. Not I don't, I think an imagine would tell you like the guts of a person's story, not so much like, oh, he won this race and he got, he succeeded and did, you know, the stats and the numbers.

It'd be more about that, you know, the, you know, the steel and in the woods and, you know, running from the law and doing all the things that they were doing trying to make it work so he could get enough money to afford to race. So if it's anything like the Jeff Bridges movie, I think it's a cool story to tell. Next question. Were you superstitious at all? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

What superstitions did you have? Well, I mean, any of the tradition. ones. Yeah, but I'm like walking under ladders, breaking glass, things like that. $50 bill. Yeah, $50 bills. Dad, so I just did everything dad did, right? And if dad believed something, I believe something.

And dad thought $50 bills were suspicious. If he didn't want one in his pocket, if you tried to give him one, he wouldn't take it. And so I have that as well, as silly as it sounds. My grandfather Ralph Earnhardt was very serious about peanuts being around his race car. That's an old racers. I don't know where the origin of that comes from, but apparently, like if you came around, so a handful of peanuts or peanuts in a brown bag where that was a common racetrack snack. or, you know, before we, I mean, before we had all the shit we have today,

snacking in the 50s was relatively basic. A bag of peanuts was pretty common as an item at a racetrack. And it's a convenient, or what am I talking about when you go buy the food? The convenience store? No, not the convenience store. Citation? The food stand? Yeah, the concession.

Concession. Thanks, James. So the, but apparently if, you walk by his car and spent too much time with that bag of peanuts he would tell you to leave or he didn't want you around the car with those um that did not carry to this to my generation i didn't give peanuts but the color green was apparently superstitious obviously we have all gotten over that um we don't continue to i mean i've had drove green race cars um we asked I used to say, man, how could they say green was bad luck when we all love money?

Money's green. The green flag waves. What the hell are we doing here? We're racing for money, you know, at the end of the day. So I never understood that superstition with racing. But mine were always pretty traditional. I didn't have like a weird one. Like I got to wear this pair of underwear every race day or I got to do this.

Everybody used to ask me like in the, you know, what is the thing? in the morning that has to happen. It wasn't really so much of a superstition, but the prayer, so we have an MRO person that walks pit road, and there's maybe, if the cup races, there may be a couple, and they go to every driver.

But while you're standing outside of your car, with your team, your wife, whatever it may be, they'll come up and go, hey, can I pray with you? And if you want to pray, you pray, right? and I'm I'm religious so I'm all about that so I felt like I needed I was going to say a prayer to myself right I'm sitting in a car get all buckled in I'll close my eyes say a little prayer God keep me safe I want to you know I don't pray for a win but I'm like hey man I just like to leave here with a smile on my face that's not too much to ask and so but I always felt like that that if that didn't happen and sometimes there would be these odd occurrences where things would get so busy that maybe they got tied up and they didn't get to everyone because sometimes you'd already be in the car buckled up and the in the MRO pastor would come by and just grab your hand and I always felt like when I didn't get that prayer that I was less safe

that I was like not protected in some weird way I can get superstitious with uh just watching my team's play yeah sometimes just change your clothes at half time oh wow because that matters change the spot where you sit on the couch yeah oh I will say this like I have this feeling that

my team does better when I don't watch if I'm if I'm busy or something occupied and I can't see the game it's like because or if they're playing well then I turn it on and they start playing bad you're like I'm like it's me I've turned it on and now they're going to start

playing bad. I don't get to see the touchdown pass live, right? I miss all the good shit and then when I turn it on, they fumbled a ball or go three and out and get scored on. I'm like, shit. But I don't know what that is. Is that really superstitious? Yeah, I think so. TJ, are you as a fan or anything? I'm definitely superstitious

with some things watching football games and stuff too. Like, I do like to sit in a certain spot and not move. so I don't change clothes at half time you are strange one more question Bob wanted to know any racing tips he's struggling at Pocono and I racing

can help him out save fuel you'll go faster lift early what remember that time I'm irising I mean you're driving in too deep we're talking about ir racing same thing you can still overdrive the corner okay

I'm ready to get back on eye racing. I've been in a bit of a dry spell. I've been too busy. The summer's a bit of a grind, so I haven't really had a chance to get on there too much. I haven't even tried out the new Gen 4 cars. They have the new Gen 4 car get released.

Playing too much NCAA? I've been watching a lot of clips on Reddit or conversations people are having around the new updates and all this I'm missing. Where do you want to race? Apparently the new Gen 4 cars draft is too powerful and they need to cut it back a little bit.

Where do you want to take that Gen 4 car? What track would you like to race? first at uh yeah i don't know charlotte they got to they got the super speedway bodies too for like caledagena they told them the old big noses um so that i don't know i'd like to go i just miss being on i race and i haven't had a chance to really do a ton this summer it's just so busy you'll enjoy the mile and the broadcasting and stuff i hear it's a little bit too strong in draft and it's kind of pack racing it like charlotte i mean i haven't run in charlotte but i ran at vegas and you got to really save the tires a lot and you can like you'll lift in the trial

or the dog leg on the front stretch of Vegas because you're still free. Well, that doesn't feel. 35 laps in, you're like, oh, I'm going to wreck. That doesn't sound realistic. Loose in the... Well, you burnt the tires off. The car never has a balance issue there.

I heard it was a handful through the dog leg at Charlotte. I'm sure it is. That's not... It shouldn't be. Oh, actually, we'll have one more. Aaron wants to know how was your margarita in Mexico on the set. I didn't drink it.

I got a beer. You got a beer? Yeah. they told us to be careful with the water oh because ice and all that I was like hey I got to this point I'm not I know yeah I'm not taking a risk so I said hey y'all got them margs out

they had me a marg and I was like can I saw somebody had a medillo or something down there I was like give me one of them beers instead that's a smart thing yeah it's probably good to save you all right well that uh wraps it up for us really yeah all right

surely we got time for one more uh all right we'll go back to I forget who asked this. This is what I love to do, man. I swear. He's so prepared. I got one written down here. Oh, he's got his name.

We'll go back to this one. Let me look back. What was one of your favorite video games that you played growing up? Oh, yeah. There's a lot of them. High now. I mean.

So when I got theory, so when I lived with dad, I moved into Dad's house in 81. And he had an Atari downstairs. So I played all the, all the Atari games. Is it like pitfall and stuff? No, man.

This is like a Pong. Yeah. The basic original. OG. Yeah. So I played those. Got the original Nintendo, Mario Brothers Zelda,

Excite bike, double dribble, blades of steel, all of those. And eventually Bill Atlas NASCAR Challenge and that was a good one.

Indy car. Days of Thunder. But I would say my favorite video game, outside of eye racing, I mean, I-racing is... I feel like it's on category. Yeah, it is. But on console, Dirted Daytona was pretty solid.

That was a lot of fun. Yep. And then Madden and college football. I actually like college football a little bit better than Madden. Madden, the game play to me, Madden's a little better, but just to play the players move and stuff.

It always seems like it's just a little bit newer or something. The off season and midweek grind in Madden is just a little too I don't want to deal with a salary cap and do math and... It's too detailed. I remember, did you ever play Golden Eye?

Oh, GoldenEye was a lot of fun. I never messed with that. Oh, that was so much fun. Split screen. Yeah, that was when you play against somebody, split the screen. That was a good one. And then Ken Griffey Jr. Major League Baseball and the 64 was a fun one for me.

There was a time where we played a lot of Tom Clancy games. Yeah, we did do tons of Rainbow Six. Right when it first came out. Yeah, that was so much fun. Did you ever do Socom? No. We did Rainbow Six, and they had this map called Bunkers, no cross. So you couldn't get to the other side.

Well, that was a gentleman's agreement. It was like literally, you know, they had made mod maps where you couldn't literally cross. And it basically was just you peek. out behind the same buildings. Waiting for a guy's head to pop up. Yeah. And you're just hoping to be the one peek out there.

It's the right time. Nobody's looking. And then you're the thing. There's a couple little huts you can get in. That's so fun. Little bunkers. It's so silly. We had a, I had forever in my house.

So going as back as far as I can remember. I had an octagon. I got, so I got four desks that were corner desks, right? Just a cheap one. You go by and you scrimed. grew it together and I built I put them in an octagon so there were four stations like a cubicle and I got four identical alienware computers and T.J. me and two other buddies D. Neal and a couple other people would play each other. Yeah it was like three of us in one spare computer.

And we'd sit there and we'd play online but sometimes we just do Buckers, no cross and just us. and we raced online we'd spend when true X lived with me and T.J. come over. T.J. lived just up the driveway. Man we'd sit there till four or five in the morning racing forever.

After hour after hour, race after race after race after race. And just... You look up and you're like 6 a.m. Yeah. Just all night long. There was a couple times where we would take a router to the racetrack and we took two laptops and we'd play like what we play like the age of empire.

pirate or something. Yeah, something like that. We'd do something like that. All right. Yeah, that was a good last question. Good ad. Just for you. Saved yourself.

Good idea. Saved yourself right there. Thanks to Xfinity for bringing us today's Ask Junior's segment. Be sure to check out Exfinity Wi-Fi and experience the booming speeds for yourself. Their service is fast. And as NASCAR fans, we know what fast is all about. Choose the right plan for you and you're off to the races with the best streaming experience

with NASCAR or all. your favorite sports because Xfinity Wi-Fi is booming. They don't just raise the bar. They stream in Overdrive. They're a proud premier partner of NASCAR and a great partner here at Dirty Mo Media. Thank you all. We'll see you all later. Hey everybody. Just remember we also have this month's Lionel Racing Collector to be announced. Follow Dirty Mo Media on Facebook, all social media handles. We will make a post. Respond to that post with pictures and images of your collection or a video. video even of all of your collection. It doesn't have to be just die-casts.

Could be anything. Show us what you got. Hey, it's Dale Jr. Did you know that we've got brand new merch from our Star Stripes and Bears Collection available now? We've got tanks, teas, beach towels, and more just in time for summer. Check it all out at shop.dirtymomedia.com. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

Place your bets. All right, it's time for some dirty-modeau. on this awesome Tuesday. Dirty Modeo is brought to you by FanDuel. Fan duel. Man, I was missing my fan duel. Wow, it was Mexico City. Couldn't do shit.

It's brutal when you go to a state that doesn't have it. Oh, man. We're a country. Yeah. But hey, we're back so we can get back on FanDuel, and we can have all of the great times and great fun that we have together on FanDuel. Came close to hitting your bet, Dale? What bet?

Very close. Your manufacturer parlay. What was it? I forgot. SVG, Bell, and Busher. It's close. Cole Custer ruined it. Cole Custer.

And Busher was all over him for a little while, too. Damn it. I wonder how many people are as disappointed as I am that that didn't work out. Probably a lot. Yeah. We don't ever hear from anybody that actually that wins or does bad. Tails our parlay.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if anybody's actually. If you tail us people tweet at Dale and during that. I think that nobody's tailing it. They're just saying, yep, that's a great advice. I'm not doing that. Yeah, that's what they're doing.

That sounds good, but I'm not doing it. Dumbass of Dale with another bed, I ain't following it. That's right. That's a T-shirt. Tim's, did you have any luck this weekend? I did have SVG to win. That was pretty obvious. AJ got knocked out by the Kyle Busch bowling ball.

Bowling ball, yeah. So that sucked. And then I had Bell over Priest, which hit. Happy about that. Yeah. Well, Russell, any news from any news or surprises or anything out of the predictor from this past weekend? No, we had SVG as second to Larson who was also taken out on that. So other than that, we were pretty good, though.

Yeah. So I'm talking about the Bowman thing or not? I mean. Yeah. Yeah, you want to talk about that Bowman deal? I mean, I brought it up and you shook your head last time. He didn't win. He didn't win.

I was a little nervous there for a while. You're going to have to recognize him here pretty soon. No, I refuse. I refuse. He buys me dinner. He cost me dinner last year. I'm holding out. Where did you have Bowman on the model, though?

Oh, it was way bad. Not even, like, low tier. Let me check. Because the model isn't Russell. Correct. The model doesn't know my emotions about. Well, it might have, It might have developed emotions.

Your model needs AI. Maybe the AI can sense your emotions or something. Maybe that's... He was 15th. Oh, thanks. That sounds like emotion was in there. Yeah. That sounds like emotion.

There's a joke somewhere here with Christopher Buescher and emotions and AI. I can't quite figure it out. Well, let's move to Poconos. Is everybody ready to move on to Pocono? Travis may not be. Are you ready? No, I'm ready. ready. Denny's going to be racing. We're good.

Oh, is Denny one of Denny's best tracks? Of course. Denny Bros. Denny Bros. They love Pocono. They love Pocono. That's his place. Hated it in 14, though. That was before my time. Denny bro struck out in 2014. He did.

Took all the brooms home with us. The favorites, according to Vegas, are Denny. Obviously, at plus 450. Larson at plus 550. William Byron and Blaney are plus 800 and Christopher Bell is at 850 What's the predictor say, Russ? Very close.

I have Hamlin, Larson, Byron, Reddick, Elliot Bell. Why does the predictor love Reddick? Well, he's been struggling this year. He's been runner up in two of the last three at Pocono. He's finished top 10 in the last four there. Does the predictor not watch 2,025 races? It does do the last 10.

Where's Bowman? Where's Bowman? I mean, he beat He beat Larson there. I think we have found a flaw in the programming of the predictor. The predictor is, the predictor's nostalgic. Bowman won there. That was the Rick Allen moment right there when Bowman won.

Still won. The Rick Allen moment. I mean, I never heard it called that before. When Larson had the flat? Yeah. Rick was looking, Rick was sitting there reading out of his. book. Not watching the screen.

Not watching that tire. Rick. Come on. Bowman's moving up, though. He's 12th this week. I'm recognizing him. Yeah. But you don't want to.

I don't want to, but I am. Man, you just are on Bowman. He is, man. It's just because he cost me money last year. I don't know. He's not going to buy you dinner, brother. So I think you're just going to have to get over it. Well, is there any, like, you know, so, okay, let's do our parlay first.

Let's do our manufacturer parlay. And if you follow or tell this parlay, let us know. Send us a tweet at Dirty Mo Doe. Hashtag Dermodeau or just tweet Dirty Mo Media. We see them all. Let's go with Hamlin and Toyota. All right. Denny bros are happy.

Good Lord. He's well-rested and stuff, so. Let's go. Chevrolet. I mean, we can do Larson. It's either Larson or Byron. Yeah, I feel like I like Byron. Larson's on this little tread where he's kind of going.

It's feast or famine. I don't know if that's feast right now. I think he comes back. He could. I mean, he could, but I don't think so. Byron's. I feel like he's do. We're going to Byron.

Byron on the Chevrolet front. And then for the Ford. Do you go with Blaney? I think this is Blaney. I think this is really good there. The racetrack where you get your first win, you always go there and run good. You look forward to it.

Yeah. So he's going there last year too. All right, Blaney it is. Blaney, Byron, Hamlin. That's our parley. So Tim's, what if you did another one and replaced Larson with Byron? Would that still work?

It would work, yeah. It'd be very juicy in the sense of like the odds would be great. But yeah, it would work. There would probably be all the favorites. So that's kind of what would determine me. But you're still probably getting around like plus 450 plus 500. All right. Tim's, what do you like for winning drivers this week?

I'm with, I'm with Ross. I kind of like Redick. I think because he's struggled, the price is pretty good. It's plus $1,200 right now. Yeah, okay. So it's more of a value. It's a value. And you really don't believe he's going to win.

They're just going for the value. Yeah. But if they turn it on, he's right there. He can always, he's, it doesn't take him four or five races to get going. It does take just one race. This feels like the weekend that Alex Bowman's going to win that one race. He is one of my long shots. Does Bowman have a, I mean, Bowman doesn't have a true win, right?

There's always something that happens that helps him get the win. Easy. There'll be no. There'll be no. Bowman's Slash. Hey, there's only three corners

here. It's one less corner elapsed for mistake. We know Alex Boleman's slander on

this podcast. Yeah. Let me give you some long shot top 10 guys. What do you think about these guys? Eric Jones.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. I don't like that one. I'd go with Hosevar over those two. Hosevar or Michael McDowell, one of the Spire guys

was my third. There's only one spire guy. It's Hosevar. Really? MacDow's like on a top 10 it.

I just don't, you know, that, he almost won Texas, whatever, that it was like a strategy play that it didn't work out. I haven't seen him drive into the top five and be a winning car. I may have missed it if he did, but I got more confidence that Hosevar's got the speed to actually go out and out why win a race. Yeah. I kind of didn't love McDowell's comments either.

Like, he kind of threw himself out on the ovals. Like, I know he doesn't, never really has the speed, but he's like, no, it's a road course or bus for me. And I thought that was kind of loser mentality, to be honest. Yeah. Big slam. Are we okay to bash him? Yeah.

Okay. Lose mentality. Well, I wouldn't have a lot of confidence in that. That'd be just burning money. Do you say Eric Jones is a good long shot top 10? I don't like that. You don't?

Top 10? Top 10. Not to win. Not to win. No, he ran. Eric Jones ran good there last year. I thought you were still talking about your winners. I'm on top tens, though.

Top 10s? He's long shot in it now. Top tens, yes. I would do a McDowell. I wouldn't do McDowell. I would do McDowell because he can eight, night, 10th place it this weekend, no doubt. So I would do McDowell and Eric Jones.

Yeah, I'd do that for who and who else. I had said Stenhouse, but I don't like that one else. I think he's going to be focused on Osvar to be honest with you. I think the, well, the, the points lost for Stenhouse and his team and how they're, where they are, and they're just kicked in the gut. I feel like, does that make them more aggressive for a win? You know what I mean? They're defeated.

Yeah, I could see that. I just don't feel confident that they're going to go in there with their head on straight and come out with a fortunate finish. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's good advice. What about a Ty Gibbs? He's been fast there too.

Yeah. Yeah, feeling like they found some mojo. Yeah. I feel like, yeah, they definitely, he definitely feels like he's driving with a little extra motivation. Tims, do you get nervous with any driver that is at that point where they have to win to get the playoffs with how they race to bet them top 10 knowing that they might be forced in the issue?

I think more on fuel mileage tracks. Would you say Poconos a fuel mileage type of track? Yeah. Then I would get nervous about this race. The Michigan came to mind. I didn't want to bet a guy like Ty Gibbs who's going to go for the win, even though we finished with third. Yeah, that does scare me a little bit.

They can be very aggressive, I feel like, what they would normally do. This race, one untimely caution or one rain shower in the tunnel turn can flip the whole thing. Yeah, sure. Easily. Yeah. All right. Well, this Dirty Modo segment was brought to you by Fanduel, the premier gaming destination in the United States. Appreciate you, Russell.

Thanks, Tim. We'll see you all next week. All right, everybody's time for the white flag. Thank you to safety culture for bringing us this episode of the Dale Jr. Download. Remember, from the racetrack to the factory floor, safety culture is the workplace operations tool that gives companies what they need

to get the job done quicker and improve every day. The tear down was live from Mexico City following the cup race on Sunday. Door bumper clear will be coming out later today. Herman Strader will drop on Wednesday along with Speed Street. Connor Daily, dude. He had a hell to run. You did.

I was pulling for him. I was too. Can't wait to hear about that. The guest episode of the download is with my boothmates, Adam Alexander, Stee LaTartre, and that'll be out tomorrow as well. Thursday, bless your heart. It'll be back this week, back here in the booth or in the studio. Big thanks to Tim Dugger for filling in for me last week as I was on my way to Mexico City.

The first two episodes of Becoming Earnhardt dropped on Sunday. The third installment will be dropping this coming Sunday during the Pocono race. that will detail the 1980 season. We did Becoming Our Heart in 1979. Now we have 1980 coming out for you guys. So I hope you'll check that out as well, something that I really enjoy being a part of and creating for everybody.

So, all right, it's been a fun Tuesday. Been a great show. Thank you, T.J. Yeah, appreciate it. All right, we'll see you all.