The Dale Jr. Download - Does Charlotte Deserve the Championship Race?

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns from the biggest day in motorsports for a new edition of Dirty Air. After making his season debut in the broadcasting booth as part of the Amazon Prime team, he joins special co-host Jordan Bianchi to recap the weekend’s events: The Prime broadcast debut was a big successPost-race shows are backPenske strugglesAJ Allmendinger elevates Kaulig RacingKyle Larson’s tough dayIs it time to move the ROVAL race back to the oval? During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners were curious about:The reaction to the new Earnhardt documentaryDrinking beer at the post-race showUsing A1 on good steaksBest driver winning celebrations in NASCARRevealing the new Bud 8 car at Fan Day Dirty 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.

I love a shrimp cocktail. It's like free calories, man. A shrimp don't even have calories. So you could literally eat, you could eat like, you know, 500 pounds of shrimp cocktail and not gain a pound. That plus beer and you are. That's the way my mind was. I could drink a six-pack and a pound of shrimp and not gain any weight. It's weird.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo 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. Doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about. You haven't scratched the surface yet, no boy. I mean, what the fuck do you won't?

I just think the last few laps, it was just like stop every time. You're picky. This ain't walking in and have it your way, motherfucker. All right? This ain't Burger King. Travis is like, you're wrapped us up. They all have no fun around you. Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download.

And it is Tuesday, so it's 30 air. And my usual co-host, T.J. Majors, is here this week. It'll be back in a week or two. And joining me today is Jordan Bianchi. Jordan. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me. A lot of fun. Had a good time last time. I can't believe you asked me back.

I'm glad you said yes, because we need somebody in here good that it helps do this show. And you were awesome last time. So I'm thankful that you're here. The Charlotte Race Weekend, the busiest day in motorsports, the greatest day in motorsports, F1, IndyCar. What's that like for a media member? For me, it's pretty straightforward. I mean, I pretty much focus exclusively on NASCAR,

so my focus is on the 600 and everything going on this world. My colleague Jeff Gluck is up in Indianapolis covering that, and then at the athletic, we have two other reporters covering Formula One. So me, pretty straightforward, but there's a lot going on over here. It's that time of year. Silly seasons ramping up, schedule is starting to come together for next year. There's a lot of things going on. So a lot of news and stuff, so busy, busy stretch.

Yeah, Charlotte was always tough because for the drivers Charlotte was tough and I don't know if it's the same it feels like it is all the race teams are here and the you know you're racing in your backyard there's a lot of

requests come in you'll see teams make announcements around extensions you'll have Marcus Smith's going to have events all throughout the week you know whether they're the charity events with Speedway Children

or whatever. There's all kinds of things happening all week long. A lot of requests piling up to be here and be there. And all of your partners are super excited to come in and activate. So a lot of meet and greets at the racetrack. Your race day morning is slam full all the way from the time you get to the racetrack through driver's meeting into the car. It was just really busy.

It happens again exactly the same way. later in the season around October, when we come back to Charlotte. There's two Charlotte race weekends spike in terms of, like, how busy the drivers are during the weekdays, the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. You know, and then it would settle back down in the summer and you get back into the typical routine,

come back towards Charlotte, get close to Charlotte, and the request and things you needed to do. Every team has a fan day. They get all the drivers out to the, the shops the fans come through get autographs there's just stuff for the drivers to do so as a driver it was a very hectic week but uh we had a lot of fun i had a lot of fun preparing for our broadcasts for uh prim this you guys were phenomenal i don't know what you've heard in terms of the i've heard it's been really really yeah you guys deserve all the parties you guys did a great job in the booth

the studio team the camera the production side i mean it was really incredible and i and i said this on the tear down and i'm going to say it here I thought you and Steve over the last 20, 30 laps handling the William Byron Ross-Sastain kind of showdown and how that all materialized from every perspective. You guys were so good and so on top of it. I appreciate that. I will say, I got a lot to say about it. The fan reaction was what you would hope, really good, positive reaction around the first race.

We got to keep our foot on the gas. We got to keep going to Nashville and beyond and keep that same energy. Now, I'm not aware of, I wasn't really that aware of what we had in store for our fans in terms of the buildup, the pre-race. I knew what a pre-race typically looked like. And our, you know, we had our table, Danielle and Corey and Carl. And that was what you would hope it would be. It was like almost like a college game day. We had some great energy with fans around the table.

our guys were pumping them up, our camera guys, and our producers and directors and so forth on the ground, we're like, all right, we're coming back, everybody, get excited. But I saw and talked to a lot of those people that were behind that table, the fans in the infield, and they were really that happy to be there. And they were feeling this like, man, this is neat, right? This is different. This feels like a real pre-race.

It feels like this is an important event about to happen here. And you could feel that building and the excitement in just those, just that little pocket of fans that was right down there by that stage in the 30 or 45 minutes leading up to the race. It felt like a college football environment. I went back and watched it yesterday and it really did feel. You had that energy and the vibe. And I think it helped too. This was a, this was a major, right? This is the, the World 600 and everything matters here.

And it just felt important. It gave it a gravitas. There wasn't this silliness or anything like that. It was like, no, this is an important professional sports event. We're going to treat it as such. Here you go. And rarely do NASCAR fans agree on anything. But I will tell you, I would say 99% of NASCAR fans really enjoyed the coverage.

Yeah, there's some things we can improve on always. You're never going to have a perfect broadcast. But I felt like the first one, we prepared really hard. When I was working with NBC over a 20-week period, we had a long runway of those. 20 weeks to sort of get better and better and better and better. And I didn't feel like I was really hitting on all cylinders till the last five or eight races. And then as you get to the final few races, you're like, man, we are really making great content, great TV.

This broadcast is on it. And then the season's over. And so I was worried going into this smaller sample size of five races with Prime and five with TNT that, you know, man, we're going to finish and still not quite feel like we've hit our potential. So I'm thankful, actually, that we hit the ground with such momentum. We had such a great show. So we're further ahead, I think, after the first show than I expected. And hopefully we can continue to improve week after week.

And they told me they wanted me to bring us on air, which I was like, oh, man, you know. pretty I didn't know how many people would be really watching in that moment it's an hour before the race so it's a little smaller audience than the actual race itself but that was a proud moment for me to be able to they so there's a lot forgive me because I'm going to talk about this broadcast more than I probably should no can we talk about Adam Alexander too because I want to make sure you get some praise we have a race to discuss that was really incredible but so I get up on top of the on top of the building on the frustrated way over the top of the suites we up on top of the suites is our TV booth and it's it's an old-fashioned booth been around for a long time which is fine um I love the nostalgia anyways but they said hey you got you and Adam are going to stand right against this rail we're going to back track behind you and I thought this is exactly like I saw kinsquire and david hobbs do all of the 81, 82, 83, 84 day,

on a 500s. Every time they came on air, I think it was CBS back in the day, that was the vantage point. They had the guys on top of the tower, on top of the suites, highest point they could get, and they'd have them outside and the track in the background. I thought, man, this is so old school. This is going to be so much fun. And I started watching clips. I started watching those opens that Ken Squire was doing and listening to what he was saying

and listening to what was, you know, what were the key thing, you know, where we are, who we are, while we're here. And trying to think about how I can concise, you know, it's a silly very, I got the card in my. I got the card right here. I think what you guys really stood out to me was you guys didn't try to reinvent the wheel, but you fine-tuned the wheel and elevated it. It's very basic and simple. There's no, it's not rocket science on what I said.

But welcome to NASCAR Prime is the greatest day in motorsports continues with flag of flag coverage of today's Coca-Cola 600 at Sharmaher Speedway. Flag-to-flag coverage was something they used to say always back in the day. So I wanted to have that in there. And true test of man and machine. That was something they would always say often in races back in the test of man-a-machine. Well, I heard drivers talk about that in the comments that, you know, some of the media members like yourself had pulled out of the drivers over the days before the race was,

this is a real test of ourselves mentally and the cars. This does, this does, this race does stress the equipment, which we really don't see races do. And so the stuff's just so tough these days. But so I really wanted to, you know, kind of hit on those two things. The, that was a very proud moment for me to be able to do that. Adam Alexander, I've never worked with him before. He has been, he's so much fun. He has a very similar sense of humor to me and Steve.

so we're already like mid-season form in terms of dad jokes and just picking with each other. You're dating yourself. Yeah. And so all of us are, I'll say this one thing that really got me to appreciate Adam. I knew Adam and had never really spent a lot of time trying to get to know him. But the, the Earnhardt documentary that Prime's doing has come out. And there's been a lot of talk about dad and a lot of conversations. conversation around dad in my life over the last several, several months. And Adam's son was,

had his prom. And very important night for, for someone, a senior in school. I didn't go, but to mine, but it's a big night for seniors, right? And what else, what are the important things that are, they want to do that night to sort of mark the account? occasion. Well, he took his buddies. This guy that's never seen my dad race, doesn't know everything about Earnhardt or dad, and he took him to the statue. They wanted a picture at the statue in Canapolis before they did anything else that night. Oh, wow. I was like, man, that's pretty cool. I don't know how far out of their way they went to do that, but Adam sends me this picture. He goes, look where my boy is before prom tonight. They're all dressed up in their suits.

It's like they wanted a picture with the man. And, um, And I was like, you know, that really made me appreciate Adam, I think, a lot. And getting to work with him, I'll say, again, he's got a great sense of humor. I was curious as to how much of the play-by-play he would want to share with me. I like to analyze and play-by-play at the same time. I do that because I grew up listening to Barney Hall. and Ken Squire and those guys, and I admired their work of play-by-play between the flags,

I don't, I will never be able to bring us on air or send us to commercial or bring us back or read a promo or read a card or promo football or or a hockey game or all those little nuggets that sponsor reads and stuff that get done. Adam's got the voice, he's got the delivery, that's the man that needs to be doing those things, and I don't want that. But when the race is happening and two cars are trying to figure out

how to get to the next corner before the other, I love talking about that, and I can tell you why they're doing what they're doing, but I also just want to say, you know, I also just want to call the play-by-play of the battle between two cars or what, you know, it's just fun for me to do because I admired Barney's delivery

and Kinsquire's ability to use adjectives and descriptions that were things that all of us could understand. And so that's fun for me. And, you know, that's kind of not really my job in the booth. It's not really what they hired me to do or want me to do. But I like to do it. And working with Rick Allen in the past, Rick was always fine if I wanted to join him. so to speak in the play-by-play at times during the race.

But there's also unknown that when the cars get toward that final lap that you let Adam do Adam's job. And have the call, if you will, yeah. He's got to have that call. And this was an interesting experience because I'd never worked with Adam before. I didn't know what he was going to be comfortable with, what he wanted. He was like, it's we all, we're in the booth and we know we have specific roles. and we all are aggressive doing our job.

When Steve sees something that needs to be said about the strategy or he says it. He's a talker. He puts his hand up. He's like, I'm coming in, guys. And Adam's the same way. And that's the way you have to be. But we were coming down to those last few laps. And I was going to find out just to how much play-bill play I was going to

really get to do in that moment because that's kind of the most important moment of the race. Of course, we had a great battle going on. There were some things that I needed to tell you about the air and what each driver was trying to accomplish and what each driver was trying to think about while they were driving where they were on the track and so forth. And we got inside a five laps to go. And Adam was kind of really stepped back a bit. I noticed that.

And that was the thing for me. And this speaks to Adam being a total pro and one, lack of ego. go. And you talk to so many drivers who have worked with him, Kevin Harvick, Brad Kastlowski, they really point to him as someone who really helped them get better. He doesn't want the credit. He lets the other people be the stars. And I noticed that over the final 10, 15 laps, he just, like, there was times. I'm like, is that him even in the booth? And I don't mean that in a negative way. Like, you guys were just doing your thing and doing it so well. And he recognized just like, I'm going to let these guys cook here. These guys are on fire. And he would chime in, you know,

hey, there's X number of laps to go or whatever. But he, he, he, he, just stood back. And that is very unlike a lot of play-by-play guys, because that's kind of, quote, unquote, their moment. And he was just like, you guys handle this. You guys know what you're doing. And it made such for an authentic broadcast. And you spoke earlier about how you kind of, you know, five to seven races towards the end. It takes you while to get kind of ramped up. I will tell you this. There was no notice there in the booth. It felt like you guys had chemistry from the drop. It felt like you guys have been doing this for a while. And if you didn't know any better, you wouldn't have known that this was your first race. Well, it was, it went where it went, it went,

so well. I'm thankful that it did. I wanted it to be a big success. I wanted people to be happy with it. I was, I was, I was a little surprised, I guess, that Adam did sort of, you know, let that happen there at the end of the race. I was kind of like, come on, Adam. I'm running out of wind. And then, you know, there, you know, I understand that, and we'll do the hand signal sometimes. And we'll do the hand signal sometimes. but like as we're coming toward that you know say the cars are going down the back straight away coming to the white i'm ready to like for him to start firing off right and he's got a plan in his head of he's already thinking about that probably he's probably thought about it for days about how he wants to call the final lap and then as he's seeing who the players are he's probably shaping molding that that call in his mind um as those laps are are unraveling in the final final

you know, 20 or 15 laps. And so I'm ready, I'm expecting him to start picking up steam and start getting momentum as a call as a broadcaster. And he called them across the start finish line to get the white off into term one. And then he, he paused off a two. And he was, it was like, hey, man, come on in here. I was like, okay. So I said something.

I don't know what it was. But like he wanted me to join him in that final lap, which was a, I was fine if he didn't. If he wanted to just, if he had a mouthful to say and just call the whole final lap, that's fine. But there was, he paused and was like, yeah, one of the other boys getting here. It's pretty fun. He has no ego. No. He wants everyone in the booth to be the star, and he wants to elevate them. And it's really great to see. One of the other things I thought that was really fun was we got to mention every driver in the starting lineup. So if you, I think it's, as I was watching all of those show opens from the early 80s that I'm fond of, I also caught

I think it's the 86 Daytona 500 on YouTube. I think it fires off right away with the driver lineup, the starting lineup. And Ken Squire would read the starting lineup with this urgency. And he made it sound like each one of these drivers barely made it into this field, right? Like, this guy, it's incredible he's in this race. This guy, it's also incredible that he's in this race, you know, and he's just going driver by driver and he would he had these great nuggets for each one he would either this driver from this town this driver the 2020 winner of this race this driver last year's champion he had one single

nugget that would tell that would give you something to like okay I know this yeah it wouldn't just be a name and you're like okay this person an identifiable characteristic and I remember I watch a lot old races myself because I have nothing but time of my hands apparently and you know I was noticed that though. A lot of the old coverage, you would get to hometown and it always worked down. You're like, okay, so-and-so driver, or so-and-so is a champion from this series. It was great. And I loved how you guys did it because, again,

it felt like an old-school broadcast in a new form. We each rehearsed it. And then when we did the real thing, me and Steve, so Adam reads his five rows and then tosses it down to pit road for a word on a driver down

there. And Adam does a great job because we knew he would. And then I did mine and I was real happy. And I high-five Steve. And Steve does his. And he does a real good job. We fist bump. And then Adam reads the final five pros or final rows. And Adam's like, I don't get any high-fives or nothing. Where's the love? I know. I'm like, dude, you're like the pro. We're, we, we, we're lucky to be here. And it was just a fun moment. And, and I really, I was, I was so anxious to hear it back to see how it sounded because it felt pretty, pretty good. I know, that that's such a small, tiny thing in the whole day.

But literally, we, you know, I don't know how the other, I'm sure, like Corey and Carl and everyone else that's kind of a competitor or has a competitor spirit, like I look at every little thing that we're going to do and I want to crush it, right? And I'm not going to, but I want to crush everything that we're going to do, everything I'm going to be a part of. You know, calling up C. Bell on the radio. I want to ask the best question I could possibly ask. What is the best question in that moment?

And I don't want to flub a word or step on a, you know, or stumble or anything. But it was a lot of fun. The other thing I want to note, there's a couple more things quickly before we get to the actual action of the race. Danielle and Carl and Corey. Danielle is awesome. I'd never work with her before. Total pro. Yep.

She was, she is, she's doing, she did an awesome job. She's phenomenal. Yep. She had a unique challenge with Corey and Carl being so green. And so she had to quarterback a little more than maybe a typical host in that situation. But Corey was great. Carl was great. They're so unique, different. And they're going to be, you know, they're going to contrast a bit in ideas and thoughts and opinions and so forth, which is awesome. It's what you have to have. Even debate at times will be nice.

And, you know, so the pre-race was great. The post-race was even better. I got a lot of comments on the post-race. So good. People are so thankful just to have a post-race race. That was the big thing. You know, fans have been craving for a post-race show. A pre-race show, too, to some degree.

And but the post-race show, to bring William Byron over fresh off the stomach punch of finishing second and having them sit there. And I thought, Carl Edwards' interaction with him was really good because Edwards doesn't really know William that well. He didn't really cross past too much. And it was like Carl was learning this in real time. You could see that. And William handled it really well. And to actually have that and to pull that out of William was really a huge win for the sport.

I had a high standard for our pre-race show because I always thought the one Marty did when I worked with NBC was awesome. Marty has such great. Marty Snyder has such great energy and knowledge of the sport. that I was like, man, that's a great pre-race show. He always got me amped up. And, but I was really happy with our pre-race and our post-race was really awesome. And the great thing about the post-race, there's a couple things. There's something that we call, there's something that happens before, I tweeted about this.

Before we come on air with the pre-race show, they basically just turn the cameras on and turn the stream on. and just capture ambient sounds and video. And so that may, I don't know when that starts, it might be 10, 15, 30 minutes before the actual show is going to begin, but the stream is up and you can click, you can go on Amazon Prime and you can click the thumbnail

and it puts you in the racetrack. It puts you wherever, and they're showing you the garage. They got cameras roaming around and they're just showing you what's going on. Right? And it's just, you're just about, you know, seeing everything's happening. That's cool.

Yeah. And I love that because there's no like dedicated time like, all right, man, the pre-race is going to start at 1030s. So I'm going to sit down at 1025 and then click the thumbnail and wait. Like you can turn it on and you'll have the ambient sound and noises and video of the track and walk away, go to your kitchen, get your stuff. and you'll hear when the pre-race begins. You'll hear, you know, it's just a, I think it's a real fun, comfortable way to launch the day. And that's the luxury, I think, of streaming.

The other luxury of streaming is our post-race is fluid. Yeah. It might, if we feel like we've got everything done and everything that we could possibly share in 30 minutes, that's how long, that's when it'll end. if it needs to go longer, it'll go longer. We don't have an out. And if there was just so much going on that we need to be on there for an hour and a half, they will.

That's the great thing about the post race. You got beer too on the post race show. We did. We did. That was fun. Of course, the beer guy won. Ross with the Bush light. So that was fun.

And there was a F-bomb or two that dropped during the race. They apologized for it. They apologized for it. No, this is streaming. Let that go, man. We need like an alternative. I didn't hear that apology. I thought there was.

I thought I heard that somewhere. Yeah. And it was great. It didn't happen. We didn't apologize in the booth. I was standing there. I was wondering if Adam was going to do it because they'll, if there's something that the great, the producer might just talk to one person and I won't hear it.

They might give Adam a cue or an instruction and it doesn't come to me. So I was sitting there waiting for Adam and no apology. Okay. We're right. We like that. And I said hell one time. That's a hell of a pass or a hell of a job. I almost said,

my complete, I almost said son of a at the top of the show. So we were our very first on camera. And I was, I was, it was, I was talking about how difficult the race is mentally. And I was about to say,

and the son of a bitch that wins it. But I, if you want to watch it back, I might have been son of a gun but it probably would have likely been a son of a That's what we need that. Fans would love that. I mean, that would not have been good.

Top of the show, first show. Sets the tone? No, no, that's probably a little strong. But the, I'll say, like, I do this podcast and we cussed like sailors on here. And my cussing has ramped up since I was a broadcaster a year and a half ago. And so I need to chill because I'm going to walk into something

I'm a little step on something. I'm a little step on my. You know what in that booth if I ain't careful. But just a lot of great, great effort. Can't say enough about how great a team it is. And again, a lot of familiar faces, but some new ones as well that are a pleasure to work with and everybody's getting along really good. Hey, it's Dale Jr.

Did you know that we've got brand new merch from our Star Stripes and Beers Collection available now? We've got tanks, teas, beach towels, and more. just in time for summer. Check it all out at shop. Dot dirtymodea.com. The race itself. 600 miles.

A lot happened. I was kind of going into the event, my notes, you know, there's certain drivers that you're paying attention to for sure, but the thing that I was probably, the thing that I've noticed

with the next-gen car, it's something that I believe is developing into a storyline. And it's because of this car and how similar it is for everyone. It's the organizational performance. Now, you know, we've talked about organizations for decades, and that's not new. But we kind of had like the big three in driver form. And now we have it in organizational form. Absolutely.

I would say big three or four, depending on how you feel about 2311. Right. Well, I don't feel that awesome. about them now right this minute but um to yeah you could i think there if there's a big three and there's a like a a fourth it's either 2311 or track it's somebody different every week yeah but basically pinsky hendrick and uh jogi is racing i i am seeing sort of this the storyline develop of all right which one's the one with the strength and that that why do that why do that why do i care about that well that's i'm trying to learn

during this entire process as anyone should who's going to win this championship and so we're looking for any kind of a clue right and that's there's a clue in that um and so going into this race last year uh the Penske car struggled um the best forwards i thought were uh rfk forwards in in last year's race and maybe even the last two years at Charlotte. And man, and the 12 car of Blaney actually tested the tire. They had a new left side tire for Charlotte, and he was one of the three cars that tested. I was floored at how they all struggled. They didn't have speed.

Yeah. And I throw Josh Barry in there, too, depending on the field. I throw Josh Barry in the Penske. Before Penske Ford did not have much speed. And I thought Steve Littart had a really interesting point in the booth. And I don't know how much credence there is to this. And I have to check into this. But he said,

what was going on with Indy with the Penske cars. And there was an organizational meeting and everything that maybe Penske on the cup side dialed it back a little bit. Just because, hey, we just... We can't. Yeah, we just can't be toned the line this week. You can't even have a failure by mistake. You know, it is so common to have cars fail once or twice as they go through that tech. And we, we don't even bat an eye at it, really, because we know the teams are trying to push the limits on everything.

and they just teams are going to, you know, go beyond those limits. There's nothing like grossly. Yeah, nothing egregious. Yes. And man, they could, they knew that they couldn't even have that happen. And remember, Lugano's already been popped once this year. Yeah. Well, I just, you know, the, they, they had to get in and out of there with zero noise.

So there's some of, I agree that there's some of that. but I'm talking to some of the drivers, you know, they took what they learned from the test when the 12 car was there working on the tire, which is, you know, they're there trying to fix the good year tire and not really testing for themselves,

but the data that they gained, they got aggressive in terms of travel and different things. And when they got to the racetrack and loaded and went out in practice, they weren't where they thought they would be in travel. And they hit the racetrack, and now they're scrambling to get their cars to where they'll just get off the track

and try to fix the balance a little bit. So when they went into qualifying, they were still scrambling a bit in terms of, do we got the platform right? Do we got the car, you know, heights exactly how they need to be, how's the balance, they're still working. And as the race starts, they were still behind and adjusting. Now, Blaney had worked his way kind of mid-pack. He was kind of coming out from the bottom.

As the race evolved, kind of went from day to night. He seemed like he was getting better. Right as he got crashed out, you know, I thought he was making a run to maybe find him away, find himself into the top 15 by the end of the day. Josh Barry, who was horrid at the start of the race, ends up getting a top 15 finish, grinding it out. And they got his car where he was reasonable at the end. But I was really, really surprised again.

And it's not like this, I don't think. think it's like a season or summer long thing. It's just Charlotte. For some reason, Penske and Charlotte, they just haven't been able to get it the last couple of trips. No, I mean, you look at this year in mile and a half racetracks, Penske's been so good. Blaney's been fast everywhere. Josh Berry won at Vegas.

Lagano won at Kansas. Ryan Blaney won at Charlotte two, three years ago at the 600. But other than that, this has not been their best track. Yeah, RFK was much faster, much more consistent throughout the night. All of their cars were good. I thought when the race, before the race started, I thought Kozalowski had a really good shot at a great run. He made that as difficult as he possibly could throughout the night.

That's been the story of his year. Yep. But at the end of the day, he ends up with the result he's looking for, particularly because just a few races to go before we decide the 32 drivers that will be in the in-season bracket. And they may downplay that. I wouldn't let, and you're talking to the drivers all the time, I would not let them get away with it.

No. They're full of shit if they don't think that they want to accidentally win a million dollars. They're thinking about it. Because a lot of the drivers have already said, oh, no, really, it's not changing our phone. Well, it won't change. It might not change exactly how they strategize to win races or approach the races. But they are thinking about it. It's going to change how they race people, though.

I know Denny is. He asked if when they start doing the seating because he was worried about his bad performances lately if that was going to affect his seating. Right. So the drivers are thinking about it. They are lying if they're saying otherwise because every one of them would love to pocket that money. And it's like the easiest $1 million to win of anything else in the season. It won't be easy to accomplish it. But honestly, man, you could just really get lucky on the seating.

You could have some guys just really have some really nice rounds to find their way into those final few races. is to, and somebody has a failure or a mistake or just a terrible race, you might have a really kind of a, for a black of a better word, a fluke winner of this whole thing. That would be fantastic. So Nashville doesn't count. And then the next three races is what they use to seat it, right? Correct.

But he needs to be in the top 32 in points. He came in, Brad Kislauski, he came into Charlotte 33rd. So, I mean, there's some real risk that he might not make it. But if he performs like he did this past weekend, he should be in good shape. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. too because if you look at the term it tracks you've got starts at alanna drafting track yeah for chicago in that mix like it's a lot of yeah like it's it's not going to be easy not easy you talk about upsets and i don't think i think i think i don't want to say this as an upset but a j elmendinger is a guy we don't

talk about a lot he could make some noise in this thing and be a guy who wins this thing and for a driver and team yeah like that a million dollars goes a long way that's a great way uh to segue to colleague because they were um awful last year they made a massive gain in terms of speed. It's actually maybe one, if not the most impressive story in terms of a team improving over last year. They, AJ was up front all night, strong all night, really good in practice. You see those practice times for AJ and he was in, he was second in 5, 10 and 15 lap averages.

And you're like, is that real? you know, is that, will he run goodness race? Because sometimes you'll have people that'll do those things in practice. And you're like, that's a fast car. I mean, it's right there. Second and all those second and 15 lap averages, I'd be pretty damn happy if I was that driver. But the race starts and they just dropped to the back over the course of the race.

But he stayed up in the top 10 and raced even in the top five at times and had a really, really solid night. To your point, if he comes out of, you know, in that bracket, if he survives Atlanta, he's got a great shot there at Sonoma to keep alive, and the speed they're having at these other racetracks, you know. They're really good a mile and a half race tracks. AJ particular. People kind of have this preconceived notion about AJ's road course ringer, you know, he's good at certain number track. AJ's an all-around driver. People don't realize how good of a driver he is in Cup because I don't think he's been with a big team in a long time. But on the cup side, he elevates colleague to a higher level.

He did it two years ago. He had him on the cusp of the playoffs. He's doing it again this year. It's consistency. It's professionalism. They'd made some behind the scene changes and they found some speed. AJ is a driver who will get the most out of his car. And the thing you have to keep with AJ is you have to keep him focused.

And not sure that, you know, it gets too excited or it gets really down on himself really easily. You have to keep him up. And if you can do that, he's going to deliver a result. And that's what he's doing this year. It's currently 13 points out of the playoffs. It's incredible. That's for that team and organization, that is incredible. Yeah, that's very doable too, to climb there.

I know 13 points is actually a lot. Coming into Charlotte, no driver had ever overcome more than a 20 point deficit to point their way into the playoffs, right? So I would have never thought that was a big deal. 20 points, only twice had drivers climb their way back into the playoffs, 20 points out, going into Charlotte. That's wild because it feels like there's a ton of racing left. Yeah. Right. But that's how competitive, even racing around that bubble is.

Just real quick on AJ real quick. And I think it's important to know it as we talk about his playoff chances. There's four road courses left in the regular season. He is going to have an opportunity not to just get points, but he is going to have a chance to get a win. And that's the big thing. Yeah. Some other drivers had really good nights throughout the race. Noah Gragson ran up front with front road motorsports.

and John Hunter Nimichick was pretty impressive. He's had a good year. He's another driver too. I would throw Ricky Stenhouse Jr. in this mix. Of guys, we don't talk about regularly, but they're just grinding out good finishes. John Hunter and Emichick's issues last year was qualifying. They did not qualify well.

They're qualifying much better this year, and they're putting themselves in position on race day where they don't have to dig out of a hole. Yeah, I would compare, I would say similar to colleague, legacy motor club has made a massive gain. And I think that gain has happened throughout this season, not so much over the off season. Jimmy Johnson, now the majority owner of that team,

we saw a ton of interesting hires over there. Over the last six months, Jimmy's retooling that whole organization. And, you know, you don't know whether some of those hires were retreads, people that had been in other organizations. and, you know, had success, but, you know, if they're not at this other organization anymore, why would you want to put them here? But he's made it work.

And it's really impressive because Jimmy is spread thin as a human, right? He's globetrotting the world, apparently. Yeah, he is. He's all over the place. But he's plugged in enough to understand to put the right people in the right places to be able to succeed and get each department going in the right direction and it's starting to show up on the racetrack. It's fascinating.

Incredible job. I would have bet against it. I would have. And, you know, it's for them to go and run as well as they did this past weekend, Jimmy had a great qualifying effort struggling in the race. He finds himself in bad situations because he doesn't really understand, you know, doesn't drive the car enough. He just doesn't.

It's a life experience. Yep. I know. It's crazy to say that. But this next gen car and the way the air works and how it goes under the car and how You know, you can't be. Drivers knows they're going through the corner. All right, I got to do this or that another to avoid the bad air situation.

I can find myself in on exit. They know that because they've done that enough and he's not, you know. And so he'll find himself in some situations and he set it flat out. He's like, yep, I put myself in a bad spot. He ended up busting his ass. Not that anybody else didn't bust their ass all night long. There was some cars just really out of shape and getting into the wall. But anyhow, Nimichick's run was solid.

they didn't finish the night like they wanted to, but Travis Mack has John Hunter and those guys hauling ass. Even Eric Jones had a pretty competitive night as his teammate. I mentioned Gregson. Hosevar. Hosevar, I don't know if he had enough to win the race, maybe. He was getting stronger as the night was going, as was Chastain and Denny as well.

I always felt like he got to lose. a few before you win one. That's where I'm at with this team. They've had a lot of speed. They have performance, but they do not have as results. They have a hard time putting a race together from Green Flag to Checker Flight. Go back to Bristol this year. Hosevar was really fast. I think they had an issue in Pitt Road, lost track position.

It was a struggle to come up. I would even extend this to like Michael McDowell, for example. They've been at, that Spire Motorsports has had fast race cars this year. They just have not been able to lock in and put together a whole race. It's coming. And Hosevar specifically, yeah, he's lost a few, but it feels like he's going to,

he could pop off a win here and I don't think anybody would be shocked. No, not at all. He has something special. There's good race car drivers. There's great race car drivers. Then there's drivers who have some supernatural knack for just being fast. There's some guys out there that have this raw speed that most can't compete with. He has to get the rest of it kind of tied together.

His attitude, personality is a bit. is energetic. It's kind of all over the place. And once he hones that in, right, the field better look out because his ability to really just be quick and run fast is very rare. There's not many people in the sport.

There's honestly feel like that he could really, really shine over the next several years when he puts it all together. Hey, TJ, I've been having issues with my current cell phone. Do you know any good providers that I could look into?

You know, recently, Travis, I have joined the consumer sale of family, and I could not be happier. You know, they set me up with a great phone, great people there, and great service. That's awesome, man. But how's the phone at the track? Because I know a lot of times fans are going to the racetrack, and they really don't have great service. You know, obviously, I go to the racetrack every week and with the number six RFK team. And the consumer network has been awesome. I am really surprised. It's been awesome.

No complaints, man. I'm really glad I made the switch. It just could not have been easier. Super happy I made that switch. So I have one simple question. How can I get this? Yeah, well, so if you want to switch to consumer cellular, it's super easy, man. It's 100% U.S.-based customer service and it only took about 20 minutes.

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Indy was tough. Yeah. I just, I talked about this a little bit on social media and on the post-race show, too. I do not. I mean, we would all probably be, you know, impressed if we got, if we got a, you know, physical shot of his calendar of May. If you could put his calendar on a sheet of paper or on a tablet in front of you and look at it, I bet you wouldn't believe this kid had to do.

And the responsibilities traveling back and forth, meet and greets, photo shoots, more photo shoots, media requests. Practice, qualified. I mean, there's so many practice sessions. He actually was back up in Indianapolis yesterday because they had the awards ceremony. I know. It wasn't like it ended Sunday night. I can't believe you went.

Yeah. Like I would have been like, man, I'm tired. I'm tired. Can I zoom in? Yeah. I'm going to bed. I'm done. I'm done.

Y'all have it. But he went up there and got on stage and spoke in front of all those people. I felt all the way up until the start of the Indy 500, there was a positive vibe around it. Like, man, all right. It's going to be cool. Doing the double. We got a guy to watch that's going to do the double. double. And he goes out there and he struggled and had a bad run in indie and there was some pop

shots, you know, in terms of public opinion about it. Even McLaughlin or, did you see his social media post? You didn't. Oh, you're talking about the best driver. Yeah. Yeah. Like there's some, you know, it's a banter back and forth, even amongst drivers, right? And so, and then he comes to, you know, Larson comes to Charlotte and hit the wall and they spiraled from there. And so there's this interesting sort of conversation in social media around like, you know, damn, you know, there's people that want to see him do it again. Obviously, there's people that are big Larson fans that, hey, you have bad days. Then there's the other side that are like, well, I guess he's not as.

He's not Max Verstappen. Not as good as you say. Well, Max Verstappen doesn't also put himself in situations in unfamiliar situations that would make him uncomfortable. And that's the difference between those two drivers. Yeah. I will say this. I admire Larson's ability.

I admire Larson and anyone who's willing to be humbled. And it takes more balls to be humbled than it does to get in something comfortable and fast. Like it doesn't impress me for a guy to get in something that he's, familiar with and go out and kick everybody's ass, that doesn't impress me as much as seeing someone getting something they don't know well, and even if they fail. So think about like Chase Elliott or the multiple drivers that have went and ran the chili bowl that have never ran much dirt at all in their lives. They're going to one of the toughest races of the calendar year, and they know they're going to get their ass kicked. And they go do it anyways. Even another, you know, William Byron

or Chase Elliott, maybe not William, because he kicks ass every time he does it, but like when those guys step down into a super late model and go race to snowball, right? They're racing against the best in the country, and they know that it's going to be a tough task to be competitive. And sometimes, most times they're not, right? And so I'm more impressed by that than anything else. I'm still impressed by the guy that kicks ass and something he's good at. but to know like

and it all it's just we I think we expected Larson to do better at Indy but you could see the signs that it was a struggle this year and I mean a lot of people struggled out there too like the best in the world It's a weird week

Andy owned it he didn't shy away from the media afterwards like yeah it's a hard race I mean he almost made it too easy last year he made it look too easy think about Kurt Bush too many years ago what 12 years ago goes up there and runs 6th

I don't think we really appreciated. No. Just at what Kurt had done, where like it was just, he made it look too easy. Yeah. You know?

And now we all think, well, yeah, our cup guys should jump in those cars and run top five, right? Yeah. It ain't that easy.

It ain't that easy. No, it requires a lot. And people don't realize what Kyle Larson's program behind the scenes was. It was testing. I mean,

he went to Texas. You know, he's, I think it was Phoenix was on that list. There's a lot of SIM. It's not just hopping in the race car and going.

And to your point, The one thing I think needs to be said about Kyle Larson again and again is he's not afraid to fail. Yeah. Like he is not afraid to hop in something and look bad. Yeah. And there's a lot of... That's my favorite thing about it right there is that. Yeah.

I love somebody who's not afraid to fail. And that... I'm my underdog lover because underdogs aren't afraid to fail, right? And the tradition... The expectation almost is that they're... will fail, right? And when they succeed, we're enamored with that. And so rarely do we get to see someone that we know is great, put themselves in that situation, right? It's a vulnerability. Yes. And he is okay with that. You know, he goes to Indy, Threx three times, goes to the 600 and has a...

I don't want him to do it again, though, do you? I don't see the point. Yeah. I guess at this point, like, it can be done. We know the double can be done. We've seen the double. Like, to me, the novelty is is gone. And if you look at, I'm a big... Why is the novelty gone? I don't think the novelty's gone. I just think logistically.

It is if he does it again next year. He's done it twice. I think you need a little break. No, no, no. He hasn't done it. Well, he attempted it. He attempted it. He didn't do it.

Like, to me, and I'm sure he feels exactly the same way, he hasn't done the double. Sure. He hasn't, he's not going to be satisfied until he can get to the finish line with great results in both. races.

And I'm sure that he feels like that he didn't even get close to accomplishing. You know, he fell far short. And so there's there's probably something in there. His competitiveness is probably saying, I'm not satisfied. I'm going to do it again. But the, the pure logistics of it, it has gotten to, to physically do it. They said like 45 minute buffer is what he had. Yeah.

Like, but that, that, that's not. That's just one part of the logistical nightmare. It's hard. The whole month is a pain in the ass between both, Indy and NASCAR. He's still racing in other cup races during that first part of the month. He still got his real job to do. And he has to answer to the questions, which is more important. What matters more?

What happens if this? What happens of that? And it's like, man, it's just not worth it. and the cool factor of the double is there for me. I still think it's a fucking cool thing that if you want to give it a shot, give it a shot. But he, in my mind, I don't, in my mind, from a fan standpoint, I won't be that excited about an announcement for him to do it again. I'll be more as a fan like, come on, man, just let's go win the 600.

Does he win the 600 if he don't with that Indy 500? No, I don't think what... I think he does. You think what happened in Indianapolis carried over to Charlotte? I don't see it that one. I'm curious why. I felt like dude got there and was smoked. Mentally.

Yeah, listen, his average finish in the four mile and a halfs leading into Charlotte was 3.75. The next best driver's at 10. And that's Ligano at 10. He's so far clear of the field at the mile and a halfs. This is the home track two miles away for Hendrick. He was absolutely flying in that car. And I think the, you know, if he's not at Indy, right, he busted his ass at top of three and four over the bumps. If he's not at Indy, I think he's more plugged in, tuned in, more sharp and self-aware of all of the things he needs to be careful of and avoid to be able to win a 600-mile race at Charlotte.

I look at this is one of the great things about Kyle Larson. What makes him so good is he's able to forget about things. He can be in an accident in a cup car one day. And the next day, it doesn't matter. To me personally, I don't think what happened at Indianapolis had any effect because he is good at moving past that. And you look at the 600. I don't think that the record indie was what bothered him.

I just think that the month of work and travel and the grind. Yeah, like he came into Charlotte. He came into Charlotte with that mental hangover. And to me, okay, I saw a race in the 600 from the 5th team or from Kyle Larson that I've seen before. I saw it at Homestead last year. I've seen it in another race. I saw it at Iowa last year or Michigan. He is a driver who runs that lines, runs the toes.

Every now and then he's going to bust his ass. Every now and that maybe a little bit, you know, and that's just who he is. That's what makes him so great. And I think in that moment, you know, he just, he overstepped. And we have seen that before. Looking at the stats of what he's done this year at the mile and a halfs, I felt like that if he had no distractions, no Indy 500 stuff going on, he walks into 600 and smokes the field. And I feel like that he didn't give himself that chance. He'll probably tell me, I'm full of shit, that I was, you know, it had no effect, much to your point, Jordan.

But I mean, if I'm a Larson fan, which part. of me is I'm sitting there going damn it man we should have walked in there and won that shit easy sure right and my guy's car was good enough he's out front he's he's kicking ass but hey he wasn't the only one who's uh snake bit by that corner turned three and four was so we drove a pace car around the racetrack early in friday morning and turns three and four has always been Buffy the rumor is is that that part of the racetracks over a landfill and there's at you know when they

there used to be a giant hole in the infield because they dug out all the dirt uh to make the banks especially in three and four and they just left that hole there in the infield and they didn't really fill that in until the mid-70s they filled it in with a contract uh there's there's two different stories. They called a company that was teaching people how to move heavy machinery or work heavy machinery and they allowed them to come in there and play. And they said, all you got to do to train your workers on how to drive all this heavy machinery, you can do it for free.

We just need this place to be flat when you're done. The other rumor is is that it became used as part of the landfill. So there's a giant heel on the back of turn. three, and that's several billions of metric cubic tons of trash from the surrounding counties, right? And they've been putting it there for years. I had no idea. Really?

No. All of that big, that big mountain behind turn three? That's not a hill. That's just not a natural hill. That's garbage? Yes. It's a landfill. No way.

Yeah. Been there, been in a landfill forever. I didn't know there's landfill back there. Yeah. And so there's, I believe that part of the infield in Charlotte is a landfill. and that's why that land might have been a little bit. I could three and one and two is really smooth. It rarely gets over the course of like three or four decades.

It rarely gets rough and bumpy. Three and four is a complete, is a complete opposite. You know, they'll pave the track. It's smooth. And then over the next 20 to 30 years, it gets incredibly bumpy because the ground under it is settling.

I don't know. it's because of the rot of the landfill in the car in that corner at that end of the track maybe there is no landfill there I know that that's possible or there's natural springs or something underneath there because there is some

creeks in the area right around the racetrack but for whatever reason that corner is constantly settling huh right and creating bad bad bumps down in turn three and four so we're driving around in the pace car and all tracks have bumps right and so usually the bumps

form over tunnels, which there is one going into turn three. But down in the bottom of the corner, there's a few bumps. And you would always, at these tracks that had those, would move up and the track would be smooth because there's no bumps at the top of the racetrack. But it's Charlotte. It's actually worse. So off into turn three, right against the wall, there's a lot of bumps. And it's like running over a series of train tracks.

It's like da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And the car chatters and bounces the rear tires. or the fronts out from under the car. And then you get through the center of the corner, and there's a couple swells that are pretty big, and then there's big, sharp hammer bumps in the middle of, or the exit of turn 3 and 4 at the top of the racetrack, where Larson got loose.

And a couple of the cars busted their ass over there as well. So I was blown away, and I hope that Marcus and his team, you know, I don't see any reason why they would need to work on the racetrack at all. I don't, I've not heard they are. I'm not saying they are. I'm not saying somebody. It's perfect. It is absolutely perfect. No one has mentioned it. But I would try. So this racetrack, it's

so weird. It looks dark. Usually it's the last time it was paved, I think it was 08 or 12 or some shit. It was a long time ago. But it's, it's not changed in color. Usually tracks fade and bleach out over time.

And the asphalt turns to gray and lighter and lighter with each year. Well, this asphalt was actually made with rubber polymers, so there's actual recycled rubber in the mix. And that's why it had, that's why it raced like

for so long. That's why we moved to the roval is because the oval had so much grip. It was rubber on rubber. And they ran right around the bottom, and we did everything we could to figure out how to make them run somewhere else, but they pinned themselves on the bottom of the racetrack

and it sucked. The oval race there was awful. But now the Oval is arguably the best oval race. It's the best. It's the best. In the season. All right. So there's been some, there's been some

calls for them to move the Roval race back to the Oval. Absolutely. Now, one would argue that what we've learned in the last, probably last decade or so is that tracks

don't need two dates. There's a lot of, you know, a lot of racetracks that have scaled back to a single date. And they found success there. They've, they're selling more tickets. And so, you know, Charlotte may have fear that, well, if we go back to the Oval at that, you know, in that back half of the year, one, one or both will suffer a bit in ticket sales because people won't go to both races. They'll pick one.

And well, they'll pick the most important one. but I still feel like that the, much like Daytona with the Daytona 500, the 600 being the 600 will always be a draw no matter what they're doing in the back half of the year.

So I believe they could go to this oval temporarily even. You need to try it. Yeah. I mean, let's just be honest. The roval has kind of, the novelty is gone on that. I'm over it.

Everybody's over. And I agree with your point. You have to be worried about diluting the attendance for the 600, which by the way, was a sellout again. And they've done a great job with that. But the racing is too good to ignore.

And at the end of the day, you have to have it more than anything else, more than ticket sales, is the on-track product. You have to have an entertaining on-track product. And the product is much better on the Oval than the Roval. That is indisputable. And you look at the fact a playoff race at Charlotte on the Oval? Give me that. This would be the cutoff race too in the playoffs. Let's also extend this too really quick.

Could also potentially be a championship race? Because we got the rotation coming. And Charlotte should be in the conversation for that. A championship race at Charlotte on this oval, which race is better than Kansas right now? Yes. Inject that into my veins. I'm with you. So I would be, I think that that conversation is going to get louder.

I don't know that Marcus can make the move in the calendar year to switch it mid-season. Why not? Well, I know NASCAR would probably tell him that they don't want to remove a road course from the playoffs. I don't want to speak on behalf of NASCAR here. I'm just thinking of the things that could pop up. If I'm Steve Phelps or Steve O'Donnell and I'm getting a call for Marcus, hey, you know, I'm thinking about... I don't think Marcus is going to do that.

I don't think Marcus would either. I think it would have to say, I think what would... NASCAR is going to have to lean on Marcus to make it happen. Marcus is going to sit idle on the Roble because he loves it. He's put a lot into the Roble. He's built this thing out. He's like, man, no, the Roeval's great, you know. You've got to convince me otherwise.

he knows that the 600 was amazing and knows the oval's great. In his mind, he's got two great things. Right? So you need to get NASCAR on a phone call and then call Marcus. So he needs to listen to podcasts and someone else from NASCAR needs to lean on him a little bit. So it was the right people start talking to him. He goes, oh, okay. To quote my favorite movie of all time, they need to make him an offer he can't refuse.

That's right. And so whatever that is. Marcus, you want a championship race? Let's oval. That's not a bad idea. So you think that his, to further supplant that idea in the minds that matter, Marcus's route to becoming a championship race might be getting rid of the roval to show people what a playoff oval Charlotte race looks like.

Hypothetically, and to Travis's point, this is a cutoff race this year. If that was an oval and we go there in the fall of her cutoff race, We've got all of this drama and this energy. What is the conversation leaving there going to be? Oh my God. This is amazing. Imagine if this was a championship. Put it in the group.

Yeah, done. And that's so, yeah, if I'm Marcus and I'm trying to get a championship race, that's the truth. I'm going to wave that carrot out there and be like, hey, imagine championship race here. And imagine all of the people in the industry going to be here for this. We're going to create an energy and excitement. Yeah. That's what I'm doing if I'm Marcus.

You're not going to have that kind of feeling and emotion around the roval. No, no. The novelty's gone. Yeah. Running a business without visibility, that's like racing without a spotter. You might think everything's fine until it's not. That's why safety culture exists to help teams see what's really going on in real time. Safety culture gives team members on the ground an easy way to call attention to things, fix issues fast, and make sure nothing is missed.

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surprises. That's how you stay ahead, not just in racing, but in every business. You want to run your business like a NASCAR team? Head to SafetyCulture.com slash SVG and check it out. Do we mention the winner? Yeah, Ross Chastain.

Sure. I mean, we've talked about, but we haven't talked about I mean, for most of the year track house has kind of been an afterthought, right? They have. And his performance, I think, was solid. Well, Chastain all year, his performance has been solid. And he hasn't got enough credit for this. And if you look at the stats, What he does on restarts, you look at his average starting position, it's incredible.

I mean, his average starting position is 25.0. It is seventh worst among full-time drivers this year. Seventh worst. His finished position is fifth best. In an era where we hear so much about track position and how hard it is to pass, every single week, Chastain is figuring it out. He is on top of his game. And I kid you not.

And I know people are going to get on me for this. If you had to make a list of the most valuable driver this year, the driver who did the most, Chastain deserves consideration, if not the award. I think the guy is a great race car driver, and when you give him the car, he goes out there and he makes, you know, he makes some noise. What they did this weekend was phenomenal, taking a backup car from the back of the pack, and winning from last. Doesn't happen. It hasn't happened in decades. And his excitement and pure emotion around any success he has is fun.

And infectious. It's what you want to see out of your winters when they get out of the car. And so all of those things are great. I think the one thing is, is like, I guess if there is one thing about his situation or him or what, I just need to see it a little more frequently. And that's not a Ross thing as much as I think it might be a trackhouse thing. It's fast. This car is so fascinating because typically in all of the years that I've watched the Cup series, when a team struggles, they struggle.

They don't show up on weekend and win and then go back to struggling. But with this race car, you don't know. We might get one weekend where, you know, the idea of Hosevar winning a race is real. You know, the idea of even John Hunter Nemichick. finding his way to Victor Lane and somehow become real. AJ Almondinger. And I didn't think that that would be

possible for any of those teams this year. And then the track house is the best example of that. They'll go, in my mind, you know, they'll go half a dozen races where they're just not in the conversation.

They're just another, you know, team out there grinding it out in the middle of pack and then show up and be the best car and win. And then idly go back to where they were for the next six weeks.

And that to me is more a next-gen thing. It's a bit of an organizational thing. And it's a detriment, I think, to Ross a bit because I feel like that he is an all-around full-package type of driver that, you know. He can win anyway. He's won on a road course. He's one on a short oval.

He's one on an intermediate track. He's one on a super speedway. He's a good drive. He's a great driver everywhere. And Trackhouse just has not had a lot of speed in their race cars this year. That is a fact. You look at Daniel Swaros, 30th in the standings. That tells you organizationally kind of where they're at to some degree.

Trackhouse, if they can give Ross good, consistent equipment, he's going to go and do Ross things. And I think it needs to be said, too, is he is not making mistakes on the racetrack. For so long, the conversation about Ross was he crashes too much, he runs well, he's too impatient, those kind of thing. We're not saying that anymore. Now this is the guy who gets better at the end of races. Yeah, he certainly has improved on his racecraft, but I still love his style, man. And we need him, like, it's good when he runs good because he pushes things around. He ruffles some feathers.

He might, you know, he's tough to pass. And he doesn't give it to him. He doesn't. It's good. And he's got a personality. And it's great to see a driver win the 600 and recognize, like, how it's a major. And sometimes I don't, I feel like that sometimes gets lost a little bit. he was like the first thing over the radio was like we won the 600 he's sitting there screaming

kept saying world 600 world 600 I love that I told him that I was like man I wish they would go back to calling it that like the Coca-Cola the Coca-Cola world 600 I think you had a good yeah how you could phrase it to get both in there I know I've tried to tell Marcus I don't know why they won't just do it because a world 600 makes it feel like it the world 600 sounds like it felt yeah right we kept the southern 500 I mean they have a sponsors and stuff for the southern 500 there's a way to keep these names that mean something in the title. Brickyard 400 is another one. Yeah.

Coca-Cola presents. Absolutely. They did call it. Somebody reminded me on social media. They did call it the Coca-Cola World 600 there for a little chunk of time. That's fine. Just get the world back in there. Because that's important.

Simple request from Dale. Want to move on to the Xfinity race? It's up. Yeah. So a little bit. disappointing. The leaders in a tough spot at the end of the race, that's what Justin Algar said, as he decided not to come to pit road and take tires at the end of the race on the late

yellow. And he stayed out and a lot of guys came down pit road and got tires and that's what ended up winning the race. You know, Justin, I think, as a veteran and a champion now, has earned that opportunity to make those type of decisions. You don't, you know, every decision you make is always not going to be the right one or the correct one. He took a gamble. I'm fine with him doing that. If we don't get, you know, a couple of those yellows late, maybe he pulls it off.

But William Byron was able to take the tire advantage and a fast race car and get to, you know, get the win. I was just thankful that our guys crossed the finish line and didn't, you know, didn't self-destruct on those last couple of corners because of, you know, how difficult it was to see somebody go by. Did you ever call an audible with your crew chief? No, I don't think so. See, that's what I'm kind of shocked by is that, you know, Denny said he doesn't remember. Like it feels like this is something that doesn't happen. It doesn't happen often.

And I'm sure Jim will, maybe Jim will tell him, don't ever do it again. I don't know, you know. This is your one and done. Yeah. Yeah, next time, you know, from here on out, let me handle it. Yeah. You know, I think, again, like Justin's earned the right to, to, Justin's earned the right to do that, but yeah, there might need to be a, there will be a conversation.

I don't even have to guess that him and Jim will talk about, all right, you know, what do we do going forward? Sammy Smith's car was disqualified that failed to meet the minimum weight requirement. And he had a solid run. Carson Cople was running, headed toward the top five, busted his ass, and cost himself a ton of points there. So that was unfortunate. But, and Zillich with the broke back. Yeah. Come back and ran good.

Yeah, ran good, really in the mix there at the end. And good race for him. And this is what you want to see from him on the Ovales is we've seen spurts this year where he's not so much his fault, but he just has good runs and then gets caught up in something outside of his own doing. This was a race, though, where he was in the mix at the end, battling for the lead. And that's what you want to see out of him as he continues to progress. Yeah. I always want to go into Charlotte and try to get the win. Man, we came close.

But, yeah, going to Nashville. Nashville's been a great track for junior murder sports, especially Justin. Maybe they can rebound and get a win. Also be interested to see going back to Trackhouse how they do, because that's kind of their home track. They've had some good runs there in the past. Ross has won there before?

He has. Well, and if they found speed this past week, and at least Ross has similar track, and he replicate the performance. They've got to qualify better. They have to qualify. That was the thing with the crash for him, was it looked like they had speed off the truck,

which is not something they had. If they can go there and qualify and he doesn't have to do yeoman's work in the race, that will help a lot. Yeah. All right, it's time for this month's selection of our ultimate racing collector presented by Lionel Racing,

the official die cast of NASCAR. Man, we've had some fun with this over the last couple of months. I've got some pictures here, no video. But Sean Cotton sent in some great pictures. He has, it looks like, his basement of his house is built out nice flooring there he's got a ton of sheet metal on the wall i

see a nose off of a jimmy means owned exfinity car and um a lot of scoring pylon too yeah the scoring pylon around the post in the middle and you know you knew exactly yeah 1995 brickyard 400 because your dad is atop the pylon rusty wallace is second and that was the finishing order for that race So pretty cool He's got a suit over there with a mannequin And a couple of video games Got it all, man Pretty impressive

Looks like he's got a projector Dang Up's uh yeah He's got TVs, projectors all kinds He's got a bumper pull down there Golden T-machine machine too Some foosball

He's got you need a new best friend Because I would totally be friends with this guy So anyway Shont He's sun drop Uh hang in there too I see that The Struck race poster

On the wall That's nice tough got his die cast collection hanging around. So Sean Cotton, man, you're deserving winner of this month's ultimate racing collector. Thank you, Lionel Racing.

They are your go-to source for all your racing diecast needs. Check out their latest pre-orders at linelracing.com. I already have the new Bud baseball car for the late model stock. I have the

I have the sample of that one, yeah. So they make, the dikeess collectors will know what I'm talking about, but the prototypes, they'll make one or two prototypes, and they have a sticker on them on a windshield that's kind of the signifier of the prototype, and those are pretty valuable. Because those come to us or to the race teams for approval. And so they've been here in the shop,

And if you've got a prototype out there, that's been in the hands of the team owner or the crew chief or driver and all the people in the shop going through there to approve it. It's pretty neat. That's pretty cool. Yeah. So, all right, let's move on to Xfinity As Jr. I know a lot of y'all are talking about the Earnhardt documentary and appreciate all the kind of words about that. And I'm glad you're enjoying it. The next two, our final two episodes come out Thursday.

and buckle up for that one. They're going to be, they're pretty strong. We obviously know what might be the context of those two episodes, and they're pretty tough to watch. But I'm glad everybody's enjoyed the first two, and I feel like that I'm feeling pretty comfortable and happy about the response to it. And certainly want to tell Dad's story,

but don't, but to continue to, celebrate who he was and his impact on the sport and I think this does a good job anyhow we got asked junior presented by Xfinity NASCAR fans you know booming speeds when you see it and Xfinity Wi-Fi well it's booming as well it's like the roar of a NASCAR engine on race day fast is a V8 engine reliable as an elite pit crew it gives you the power and speed of NASCAR right in your home choose the right plan for you and you're off to the races,

it's the best streaming experience. For NASCAR and all your favorite sports, Xfinity Wi-Fi is booming, and they'll raise the bar, and the stream goes into overdrive. Xfinity is a proud premier partner of NASCAR. They've been a great partner here for us at the Dell Jr. Download. They do some good things in this sport,

and we're very thankful for them that they want to spend their marketing dollars with NASCAR, and we should all support that. And it's a good product. Anyhow, we're up to almost 500 people in here. Heck yeah. Yep. Andrew's with us. Andrew, you got some questions for us today.

There are a bunch of different directions we can take this one. I want to go in the good one. Okay, this is from Lisa. What the hell, Dale, why didn't you cheers everyone on the Amazon Prime set after the race? Why didn't cheers? I did. Cheers, everyone. I did.

Did you not see the video. I did. I cheers. Oh. Everybody. I'm not doing that. What? There's beer to drink.

What? It's a group thing. It's a group effort. Did you just not see it or you purposely are like, screw it? I'm just drinking. I cheers the winner. He gave me the beer. I don't know.

I mean, you know, it's all right. The one the race got cheered. I respect the fact that you were the only guy on there who really seemed interested maybe besides Ross in drinking the beer. Yeah. I don't know. I, uh, I was, it was fun drinking a beer on the post-race show.

Maybe this should be a thing. Every post-race show, you have a beer toast with the winner. We do it here at Junior Motorsports. That's what we incorporated into the broadcast. Yeah, I mean, it's part of what we've done for years. So it's not that foreign or unique to me because we've been doing it here at Junior Motorsports after every win. And we win a lot of races. You're welcome, Prime for the idea.

Jordan. To your point there. Infinity Racing actually sent us a tweet and said, can we get you to drink a margarita post Mexico? Yes. All right. I mean, I'm going to have one off camera. If you want to just, all you're going to have to do is like, turn the camera. I'll be drinking one. I promise here. I don't think we get to leave till Monday. I'm going to have a damn couple of margaritas after that one. You know what? I'm not even the post show. That's Corey. That's Carl. That's Danielle. And I just happened to be pulling.

plugged in. I felt like I was a guest as much as the winner of the race was in that moment. So it wasn't a big deal for me because I wasn't on. Like they were, that's their, that's their house. You weren't working. That's their house. Right. Because we're sitting there between segments and the guy, the director's like, he's in his, he's listening, he's got his headphones on. He's like, is Dale part of the next segment? Steve's not. Okay, Steve, you're out. Dale, is Dale? Dale, you're in. You're in. Stay there, Dale. but Dale Scoot over, Scoot over. Justin, Justin's coming.

Justin's here. Winter here. Next segment. Dale, Dale, Dale, you're out. You're out. I mean, that's how it goes. You're just like, all right, man. See you all later.

I'm done. Just do what you're told. No, no, no, Dale, you're still in. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. We're still here. This next question is from John Nevels on Twitter.

And he wants to know, do you agree or disagree that A1 steak sauce is for people who can't grill a proper steak. We have talked about this. I feel like you're asking this question. Like we've never had this conversation on this show. Oh, well, he, well, Jordan, what do you think? No, no, no, no.

I'm a steak out. Okay. I've known this question and I haven't even on this show last year. Andrew. All right. Did you not do your job this week? Huh? Did you not do your job this week?

What do you mean? You're supposed to come up with good questions and apparently you're just recycling. Dang, George. or fan questions. Yeah. How dare you? He's just trying to stir this. No, no, no, we're not moving on.

I love A1 sauce a whole lot. And I put it on every steak. Good ones, bad ones, you know, middle of road steaks. Even if you brought me the best steak in town, I'm going to want to put A1 on it. And if that makes me a psycho, I'm a psycho.

Are we clear? Enjoy your steak however you want. Are we clear on that? There you go. I will eat a steak without it, but it's like every time I'll be in the, I don't go to the steakhouses that often. But sometimes you go to, there's some kind of famous ones like when you go to Indianapolis, what's the one? St. Elmo's, right? So you go to Indy, you got to go to St. Elmo's, right?

Everybody goes. You've got to get the shrimp cocktail, which I do. I love it. I love a shrimp cocktail. It's like free calories, man. A shrimp don't even have calories. So you could literally eat. Oh, here we go.

You could eat like 500 pounds of shrimp cocktail and not gain a pound. That plus beer and you are. That's the way of my mind ways. I could drink a six-pack and a pound of shrimp and not gain any weight. It's weird. It's a great diet. Dale's dad plan I know that's not true

but that's what I believe the but you know I'll go to those places where you have these amazing you know supposed to be this the best steak

they got you know and I'm like it's got me good I don't even want that house I don't even want that house sauce I don't even want that house sauce I ain't eat A1 don't even bring it

I'm just going to eat it plain you ain't got A1 I don't even want the house sauce I'm smart enough to know that if I'm at the best steakhouse in town or they think they're the best steakhouse in town, you don't ask them for A1. But like if you go to like the

Western Steer or the Quincy's or you're like, hey man, bring out A1 out. I know you got it back here. I know you have it back there. Dude, I get the big jar. You know, they have you know, they have the different sizes. Boy, I get the big guy. You're going to go through all of it. We're spending where you save. I do a lot of probably not

probably not entirely good but um an a1 sauce buffalo sauce and soy sauce dude I learned a I learned a little hack on so I eat I eat I get these meals sent to me and so there's this

so the meals traditionally will have often they'll have green beans in them and I mean green beans are you put a little salt on them they're okay but they're kind of like a bland side right dude you put a little soy sauce on green beans? Oh. That's like a... Never, I never would have thought of that. I know.

Cook them in soy sauce. That's the way to do it. With a little bit of seasoning, a little bit of pepper, red pepper. That's the way to do it. So I like your idea, but I also put a little soy on them on the plate and it's like now I'm eating these things. Now I'm lacking them. Wow. I know. All right. I'm going to have to go try that. Jordan, are you a good cook? I'm a great cook. Oh, really? I will cook. I cook the best Italian food and C. to it around. There he goes. Dang. He just, he didn't even. Italians.

Hey, speaking of food. Look at here. What I got. Jerky boys. It's jerky. No, man. It is good. It is so good. Well, honestly, I'm holding a bag of the best beef jerky made in the entire world, likely in the universe. and we don't really have knowledge of that, but it's possible. I would put it up against any alien jerky.

It is the best. So y'all know, I got to say this real quick, so y'all know that I've partnered with Blake Cook about filter time, right? Our subscription error filter business for your home, and we've got a lot of customers probably in this chat that are filter time subscribers. And I met Blake's brother, Blake's brother's been making this jerky for about two years, and it's small batch, and he's a very small company,

and he lives in Nashville and makes it in Nashville. And it's their grandfather's recipe, and I've been trying it, and it's the best jerky I've ever had. It really is. And so we started selling it in the gift shop here at Junior Motorsports right over here, and just trying to help him get his business going. And it's so good.

And me and I was like, Blake, I kind of want to invest like we did with filter time together, And so me and Blake came together and offered to buy a big chunk of the business to be partners with Blake's brother Christian. So, jerky boys, I am a investor in this business. I love it. I eat it. I got six bags here down beside my six. Six bags I'm going to take home. Holy moly.

And I get them out of our store right here almost a couple times a week. but I'll open this bag. It's 60 calories per serving. There's three servings per bag, so 180 calories in a bag. And, man, dude, I'll open this thing up and have it for lunch sometimes. Check it out, man. I think we're going to do some, I think we're going to kick some ass with this. I really do, because I think it's that good.

And so that's why I bought in. Hell yeah. Yeah. Let's see. You got time for a few more questions. This is coming from Troy. You know, Rosh Hessein has the watermelon smash. Stewart has like the fence climb, Edwards has the backflip.

What's, in your opinion, the best celebration out there in NASCAR? Well, I mean, the straightaway long burnouts are cool. Oh, yeah. I do appreciate a no burnout. I like a good burnout. Also like a no burnout. You know, I can, I like the, I like the variety. What was the pressure like to do a burnout and make, it's a good one when you won?

None. None. You're happy. You don't give a shit. You're like, I'm, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, doing the burnout like, oh, I'm going to get judged on this one. You're doing the burnout like, you know how when you get pissed off? You've got to go outside and scream or yell.

That's the burnout. Okay. The burnout is you, you know, letting all this happiness out. And so now there's some guys that get creative with it, steering wheeled out. I know they're trying to, they're posturing. They're trying to, you know, do something cool and fun. And I like that. I like a variety.

I like when they get out through the roof hood instead of out the window. No? No. Because that makes me, that gets me in my conspiracy theories where I think that they got some kind of cheat that they're trying to. Like, hey, man. Like when they stand on the roof of the car? Nope. He said when they open the hatch and come out the hatch.

That's what we're talking about. How are they cheating there? Well, the hatch could be rigged in a certain way to... Aerodynamics. Erodynamically. and if he opens it, then their, that's car can't take it because it's been opened and... It's not sealed. It's not sealed anymore in its original position.

It's why drivers, there was a time, and you know this, there was a time when drivers were not allowed to stand on the roof of their cars. Yeah, so anytime a driver opens the hatch, I'm going to consider you were cheating. I'm sorry. I mean... Every time. Not any. There's no exceptions in my book. I'm assuming every car that wins is cheating.

Every car that wins is cheating. Every car that wins is illegal. That is true. But if you open the hatch, that's where it was. That's where the cheat was. Sorry. I mean, maybe I might be wrong in many cases, but I'm just going to assume. Okay.

Jordan, what do you think is the best victory celebration out there? When Kyle Bush does something aggressive on the track to win a race, and he does the bow, it's kind of like a, yeah, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. But the watermelon smash is pretty cool because the fans get into it. It's unique. I want to see drivers start mocking each other's celebrations.

Oh, man. Could you imagine like if someone raced Kyle Busch real hard and then went out? Chase Elliott did it. Remember? Chase Elliott in 2020. They had the kerfuffle at Darlington and Kyle crashed Chase and then Chase won a truck race. And then he did the bow. Oh, yeah.

That's what I like. Who are the drivers that get out of the car and have the most emotion? Like Ross? Ross. I asked that question because he got out and we saw like how much that meant to him. C. Bell. Yeah. I mean, I love drivers that get out and are like, I could not be happier in this moment.

And I, you can sense it. It drives me crazy when guys get out and they act so nonchalant about it like it. Yeah. I agree. Awesome. Briscoe at Darlington last year. Yeah. Because it meant something.

Like it was one of the Southern 500 and it was a surprise and everything else that carried with it. Yeah. I feel like Reddick's pretty good about celebrating. Reddick's good. Blaney's good. Blaney and Martin'sville last year was really good. True.

Yeah. I agree. Denny's are pretty good because he's like a... He's playing the crowd. He's happy one, but he also plays at the crowd, which is good. I just drives me crazy when they get out and they don't... I agree. They just don't have anything to deliver.

Even if it's a... It doesn't have to be... be a crown jewel like the southern 500 like it could be just any race I want to see some of right exactly yeah yeah I agree we got time for one more question let's do it um coming from

I said Gregson Gregson's a good one yet oh yeah throwing up well I don't think that some people were saying almondinger what is he he says he screams he screams no he screams the same thing over and over and over

let's go it's like Over and over. Like from the minute he crosses, listen, from the minute, AJ crosses the finish line, he glitches.

And he just says, he just screams every time. Like, like, he's in his mind. He's like, I want to say something else. And he opens his mouth and let's go.

Comes out. So, like, in his head, he's like, all right, guys, good job.

But let's go. Keeps coming out. Over and over again because he's like he's he's he's glitched to reboot yeah somebody needs to hit control off delete control off delete um bring up the task manager in that service um yeah it's a hard yeah shut down let's shut down let's go restart it um the thing with a j though and i think with some of these drivers though is when you don't do it all the time and when you have the struggles i know that's why he's he's only got one one he's got one he's got one

default thing and it's let's go and he just keeps saying it until he gets finally to home I guess he finally drives into his driveway and gets out of his car and it just ends he just stops saying it I'm in my head he's screaming it all the way home all right would you yeah even what'd you think of this he finally gets in the house and can can mash that button oh gosh finally finally what just happened the last three hours doesn't remember it Okay, last question from Troy. He was at Fan Day. He saw the Bud 8 car, the baseball car.

I was very excited. How did it feel to finally reveal that to the fans? Oh, man, feel good. Yeah. Pretty impressive looking car. Pretty. A pretty car. I heard Ryan, who designed the car, came in the studio and counted every single stitch to match the

to match it. I could see him doing that. I love the detail on this. I believe that. Yeah, now it's sometimes, man, when you'll put, you'll put a throwback or a, you know, throwback on some, a different body or a different chassis. It looks kind of funky. So, but this one looks really, I'm happy because it looks real good on that body style,

but the late model stock's just a sexy, sexy race car. You know, everything's going to look good on it. But, yeah, we're going to Anderson, South Carolina in August to race the cars tour with that. So I'm looking forward to, to, to, getting back behind the wheel having some fun never been Anderson before and um it's a tough little racetrack it looks like watched the race on flow uh this past Saturday and uh kade brown won a late my all stock race up there but um yeah looking forward to uh racing some more i miss it well we appreciate it everybody um it's always fun talking to everybody on on here and and we're

thankful we got a thousand folks that um hopefully are going to go check out jerkyboys.com, but also check out Xfinity Wi-Fi. Thank you, Xfinity, for bringing us the Asjr Junior segment. Be sure to check out our Xfinity Wi-Fi and experience the booming speeds for yourself. It's fast, and as NASCAR fans, we know fast when we see it. Xfinity Wi-Fi isn't just fast, it's booming. Choose the right plan for you. You're off to the races, the best streaming experience for NASCAR and all your favorite sports,

Xfinity Wi-Fi. just raised the bar. They put streaming and overdrive, and they're a proud premier partner of NASCAR and a great friend here with us at Dirty Mo Media. So thank you, Xfinity, and we'll see you all later. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, it's time for the Dirty Mo Doe segment brought to you by Fan Duel. We do have the odds for the race this weekend in Nashville. And we have Russell on the phone. We also have Tim's in the booth joining us today. So, all right, let's just go ahead and get after the 600 here.

Did anybody have a good night? I had a solid night. I wouldn't say great. Did you make any money? I made some money. That's a good night. I had Byron and win. That's a good night.

Or it would have been really, really good. That's a good night, buddy. I know. Fade Larson. That was my goal. Is that right? Yep. I played some baseball bets yesterday,

and I came out ahead when it's all. hadn't done. Yeah. But it was stressful. Turn a profit. Yeah, it was very stressful. Fun was not had. Even winning a little money.

I just was very stressful. Yeah. You started asking yourself, why am I doing this? Yeah, I did. I did something we're not supposed to do. Oh, no. I chased the loss. Oh, no.

But I won it back. Yes. I hate that. That is stressful. I hate to admit it. Yeah, I went down and I placed another bet, one back my losses and then some and said, I'm going to leave it alone.

But, all right, back to racing, back to the 600. What did you, what bets did you cash? I cashed a matchup bet Christopher Bell over Kyle Larson. Nice price, plus 145. Yeah. Yeah, so that was really happy about that. Man, I was not taking that gamble, but you did. Yeah, I just, I didn't like Larson's after crash in an indie.

I was like, I think he's going to have a tough night. Somebody might say that that wouldn't affect him. but apparently it might have I think so you just had a hunch you know I think he was so the emotions were so high

I mean at Indy why why not oh man no way excuse me for thinking that he forgets everything he's Jimmy Spencer no Jimmy Spencer never forget

he's the opposite of Jimmy Spencer yeah come on he got to Charlotte hit the reset button he was good as new. That's what I thought. There was no hangover.

He thought he was hungover. Yeah. I wouldn't be that used to run that race after that. No way. Dude. I was wrong. I don't know. You could still be right.

I'll ask Kyle this week. Well, he's not going to admit it. He's never going to admit it. No athlete is going to admit that. I was mentally drained, tired, and busted my ass. That was my fault. Well, that was the only bet you cashed? I didn't bet that much.

I bet Byron to win in that one. So, yeah. Damn, boy, you lost that bet. Yeah, that was very disappointing. He lost in fantastic fashion. Yeah. Damn it, Denny. I wouldn't say, I would try to use a different adjective,

but that's the one that came to my mind immediately. It's tough when you leave, what, 280 laps and you don't win? Win all three stages? Yeah, yeah. Dominant. You were just like six, six, six. to go, that money just flew away. Well, you thought, man, maybe he'll rally, didn't you?

Because everybody else did. When anyone lost the lead, they didn't drive away. And you're probably sitting there thinking, oh, come on, he still got a shot. Oh, Prime. You guys were pissing me off with the overhead camera because I could just see Ross catching him. And I'm like, I don't want to see this. And there's too many laps to go. And I'm like, oh, my God.

Yeah, that was painful to watch. So Ross caught Byron at one point, but then fell back. Did you think then? Okay, I'm going to think. You know what makes me feel good? about when I lose to text a buddy that little

the money emoji with the wings did you text somebody that emoji after that? No, I was at the bar so I might have felt better I was at the bar just got myself a drink

and I'm like, we're doing this. Next time you lose or have a bad beat text me that emoji. Okay, I will. I bet you'll feel better. I might. You'll be like,

it's just money flying away. It's just an emoji. Nothing. I'll do that. This is how my night's going. Yep. Russell, did everything that you thought would happen at the 600 happen? Did your predictor, is all your software still in good standing with the community?

We had a lot of upsets, I feel like, in the 600. Did the predictor predict the upsets? No, not really. But I would say overall, like, we had Ross Chastain a little higher than I thought he should have been. Yeah. Or like that, we had Byron was going to be. seconds. Even after, oh yeah. What is the, so. Had Larson. It doesn't know that Larson, what, that Larson crashed.

It doesn't know that he was mentally hung over. Yeah. So, so the computer can't, can't do that. Man. I have to stick up for T.J. He wasn't there, but you haven't even mentioned his name. You, you bash Brad Kislauski last week, Russ. Well, I didn't know T.J. wasn't going to be the spotter. He didn't do that. Oh. Top five. I said Brad was going to do it. I know. And Russ I had Brad in the top 10 finish. Well, you would have paid. What was the other top tens I had? Josh Barry.

Yeah. He runs 12. You missed. A couple were right outside. Jeez. On the rear. No, Stenhouse we had.

Yeah, Stenhouse. 11th. Yeah. Damn it. Well, hey, we got a new thing that we're going to do this week.

All right. So we think we're going to be parlaying best manufacturer, best finishing Ford, Chevrolet, Toyota. So let's think about that. We're going in Nashville. We can talk favorites.

We got the odds now. So what are the odds on? Give us the top five or so. Top five. Kyle Larson plus 500. Hamlin plus 550. Bell plus 600. Byron plus 650.

Where's Chastain? Blaney plus 850. Chastain is 7th at plus 1,200. What do you think? Where's the value? Ah, man. I would put money back on Ross. Well, he is one of my favorites this week that I like.

Plus 1,200's nice, but I think he, because he won. Because he won what? It jumps up. Nashville's their place. I know, but it jumps up. He was probably going to be plus 2,200. You wait on him to qualify? Yes. Okay.

Russ, what's the model say? It's very, very similar. Larson, Hamlin, Bell, Chase Elliott, Byron, then I have Ross, and then Blaney's seventh. Gotcha. All right. So let's try to. think about best finishing Ford. I'll give you Ryan Priest.

Whoa. Yeah. I like Ryan Priest too. He's fourth there last year. He's one truck's there twice. Career a year for him. All right. It could be a good price on that too.

Yes. Best finishing Chevy. Oh, this one's tough. To me, Larson. Bounceback week. All right. That hangover's gone. Yep.

I could see Larson, Byron or Chastain. All right. Best finishing Toyota. Denny Hamlin. Denny Hamlin. Agree. No C-Bell?

I don't think so. What's the number say? Well, it's not that he's not good there, but Denny's just been so good there. He's let at least 70 last. All right. Should have won last year. We'll parlay those three together. Preist, Larson, Denny, best finishing.

in that manufacturer for Ford, Chevy, and the Toyota. That ought to be a pretty solid. It will be. Payout. Yeah. But Priest in there, that thing shoots up. Godly, I like Priest a lot. I've been messing with him every time I see him.

And he doesn't know what the hell to think. So I saw him at Wilkesboro. And when I was walking towards, so he's a modified guy, short track guy, right? And so I'm walking up toward him. And I'm like, I like start shaking my feet. fists and like getting all excited like I can hardly contain myself and he's like what's going on? I was like short track racing man. Like this is it gets me pumped.

I bet it does you too right. You're pumped too right. And he's like, uh, you're acting weird. And um, didn't know what to do with you. So we've been texting each other back and forth. Short track racing. Exclamation points. Russ is there a driver that is low that you think should be high or vice versa?

Well, I still am off the Kislauski train, too. He's never finished top 10 there. Bowman's another one that I don't like. He has perhaps a personal vendetta against him, I think. Yeah. But he's never finished better than 14th there. So, and, yeah, I'd say that's, those are your big ones that stick out to me. Yeah.

Where do you think of Ross Chastain? have been placed had he not won this how much does a win effect the next week or something like that well so he's been really good at nashville so i think he would have been high anyway so like he was top three top fives there and then the other one was last year where it was a disaster in overtime he was second and overtime they got wrecked yeah any dark horses i like hosevar as our dark dark dark war just got a truck race win there. He's been really fast lately. He was, how much do you relate concrete here, Dale? So he's good at Bristol earlier this year. Yeah, I do a lot. So like, yeah, there are drivers that just

love the, so concrete, drivers are sensation driven. You run, you run good on a specific tire versus another one. You run good on specific surfaces. And so, you know, he may be a guy that, It's just like I don't know why, but I'm just always going to run good on concrete because of the ability that he has feeling the car and driving the car to that limit. He understands what he's feeling that the concrete gives him where other drivers don't like concrete. They don't like the sensation that it gives them and they prefer a different type of surface. So he may be a guy that's just always going to, you know, succeed or have good runs on those type of racetracks. So yeah, I can buy into that. Yeah.

And I also like Almondinger again, too. I like Almondinger too. Yeah. Let's go. That was mine. All right, man. Well, hey, these are some good information. I like that parlay.

Thank you, Russ, for giving us some time today. The Dirty Modo segment brought to you by a fan duel. They're the premier gaming destination in the United States. All right, it's time for the white flag to tear down with our friend Jordan here. And Jeff Gluck dropped on Monday. A great show. Jordan was at the 600. Jeff was at the Indy 500 and they had a lot to talk about both seeing each race from a different perspective.

Always a great show. Action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin dropped on Monday as well. Great to hear Denny's take from behind the wheel. He was part of that race battling for the lead throughout the entire night. So great information on his experience and their struggle there to get the car full of fuel late in the race. Door bumper clear will drop later today. They are joined by Larry McReynolds. So it should be a great episode to check out.

Speed Street comes out Wednesday. We can't wait to hear what Connor Daily has to say about his race. Awesome to see him leading and again close to grabbing the win at Indy. And Herman Schrader is also going to drop on Wednesday. Our guest segment will be out tomorrow as well here at the Dale Jr. Download. And Thursday, another episode of Bless Your Heart. Amy and I have a lot of fun doing this show. So looking forward to another episode on Thursday.

And this Sunday, this is a special announcement. We're going to do a live show at 1.30 Central from the fan zone in Nashville. It'll be a half-hour show presented by Helmand's mayonnaise. I'll be joined by my boothmate, Steve LaTart and Adam Alexander. Again, in the fan zone Sunday at the racetrack, 1.30 central time. A live 30-minute episode of our dirty-mo media content, just previewing the race coming up that day. So it should be a lot of fun. Thanks for tuning in.

Jordan, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. A lot of fun. Yes, sir. Awesome, man. We'll see everybody tomorrow.