The Dale Jr. Download - Dover: What If It Was Asphalt?

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the studio after a weather-filled weekend in Delaware. He joins co-host TJ Majors to break down all the NASCAR action from Dover: Dirty air and asphalt don’t mixDenny Hamlin continues to impressKyle Larson looks back in formChase Briscoe is looking promising in the 19Chase Elliott has to be happy with the speed he showed at DoverThe Playoff bubble picture is ever changingRace winner Denny Hamlin joins the showDuring the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners wanted to know about:Dale’s appearance in the new Luke Combs music videoDale bringing pickles and beer to victory lane at DoverJRM closing in on 100 winsSpotters talking about the drivers on channel twoDale getting connected with Steve Letarte  And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaDirty 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 stuffFanDuel: 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.Consumer Cellular: New customers get a $5 credit on first five monthly invoices. Visit https://savings.consumercellular.com/DJD for details.Arby’s: Arby’s Cheesesteak is Here! Use code DALE to redeem $0 Delivery on any order in the Arby’s app. 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 don't know if we were arguing before I got in the car or right after I got in the car. He said something smart-assie. Pissed me off. And so I just shut up and I ran the car out of gas. It was like happy hour. And I was like, I'm just going to run this. Something that runs out of gas. I ran like 44 laps or something.

It was a long way. Yeah. I'm like, I don't know what we're doing. I just keep giving a lap times. Yeah. And now I finally ran out of gas. 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. Ha ha ha ha. 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, I'm wrapping us up. They all have no fun around here. Hey, everybody.

It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. It's Tuesday. It's dirty air, and I'm here with my co-host, T.J. Majors. Travis is here as well. And we're finally off and running. It's been a great week already. Getting ready for Indianapolis. It's the last race of the TNT block,

the five-race block that TNT has is summer, and then it'll be the last race I'll be in the broadcast booth. until next year till next summer so um let's cover uh dover tj how was your experience uh dover was a tough weekend uh delaware's tough it's tough race track man like it's if you're either you're either really good there and it's hard to hide when you're not good so but the cup race was a trying race we stuck with it ended up with the top 10 so i'll take it out of the out of the gate here look i'll say this man dover has a always been this way.

You know, being a concrete racetrack, it rarely puts the drivers in a situation where they can do things differently to be able to give you a different style of a event or a different style of race than what we saw this past Sunday. Dover's always lacked grip and on the concrete, the tires are always kind of skating and chattering across that concrete and any time you dial the down force down just a notch you're not going to go anywhere and it's so pronounced it dover so that's already a problem going into that racetrack i wish i know they don't believe my ass but and they won't do it they won't do it but i think if they paved the racetrack we'd see a lot different race there but they don't they'll never do it now that

they got miles the monster and all that all that going on they're never going to change the, you know, the gimmick that Dover is. How do you think it would race if it was asphalt? Pavement to me handles dirty air better than concrete. Now, it's just a little, it's a bit better than concrete. Concrete is so slick and hard to get a hold of. And when you get a car in dirty air there, you have zero grip. And so pavement to me doesn't suffer quite as bad as concrete when we have dirty air.

we're always going to have dirty air. I mean, anytime a car follows another car, it's going to have a loss of downforce and grip. There's no way around that fact. The lead car creates some turbulence, and we're going to have that. The next-gen car is the worst car in terms of dirty air. I think it might be comparable to the COT.

The COT was big, giant box, huge greenhouse, really knocked a bad hole in the air and was bad for the following car. The next-gen car, you have to have that air going underneath, and when that gets shut off, you have zero grip and zero down force. We see it time and time again. It's pretty traumatic. The next-gen car is really good when you get offset now. When you get off to the right or to the left of the lead car,

you gain a bunch of the grip back. But I just feel like that at Dover, the chance of seeing a very compelling, selling 400 laps are tough at Dover because of the surface and how tough that is to get a hold of at a one mile concrete track and because of the next gen in dirty air. It's just a bad combination that I hate to have to bring this up or mention this but it is what it is. And so it produced what we saw. Now we got a pretty neat ending, I thought, with the with the weather, and I'm glad NASCAR allowed them to get going again and tried to get the race going again. So we saw, you know, kind of some theatrics at the end with the 20 spinning out underneath Denny.

Late race restarts. But, yeah, you know, and those save the day in these moments when we go to a race, and, man, it just wasn't a compelling, very compelling race. those can kind of come in and and save the day, so to speak. But I don't know, man. I'm not a fan of the concrete surfaces because I just don't feel like that our tire is going to do as good of the job to give the driver some different options and things he can do. That track does widen out. They do rubber up all the way to the top of the.

the racetrack, which does allow the drivers to get out from behind each other and create runs. And we saw that, and that was, that was really cool. And maybe, you know, maybe they could adjust the tire in some way. I wouldn't really know what to do, but maybe they could adjust the tire in some way that when you did get that run and you got underneath somebody, you had a little bit of grip to work with to be able to complete the pass. But man, if you wanted to, you could make it really, really impossible for somebody to get around you.

We saw Daniel Soria. off the leader there to try to stay on the lead lap. Didn't they have a new tire this weekend? Yeah. Yeah, they've been trying to, yeah, I mean, and I don't know that they brought that tire in an effort to gain something or change anything in terms of like improve. It wasn't like a change to improve the product,

but it was just something that they've been using for this year at a lot of different tracks that they like. You know, Goodyear's always working to try to make the tire better and they've worked really hard to go in a direction to try to improve the product on the racetrack. But I think they're fighting, you know, fighting against the surface and concrete and how difficult it is for the drivers to really get grip at that racetrack and how bad that grip nosedives when you get behind another car. It's really horrific on a concrete surface.

It's just worse than pavement. How much did the heat bother or make it even harder to? to pass and everything because of the tire rubbering in. I think that was probably a good thing. Yeah, I was definitely, I think it helped. Yeah, I mean, that was probably, it would have probably been much, much worse to pass had it been cooler. And tire wear would have been even worse of a problem

because we talked about it at the top of the race when the, with the heat, the track rubbered up really quickly and that slowed down the trend of the rubber leaving the tire. physically. So, you know, we, we've sort of, there's no scientific factual evidence, but you remember the problem we had at Bristol a couple years ago where tires kept wearing out? It's really chilly and everybody was like, that's weird, you know, it's cold, why is this happening? And then we went back and it didn't happen again, and we really didn't know why. And I believe that the way the tire, so they've changed the, they've changed the, they've changed

the ingredients in the tire and removed some chemicals and oils and things in an effort to get a safer, greener tire. Maybe these chemicals were bad for the environment. Maybe they were bad for humans. Who knows, right?

But they've changed the tires to sort of make the tire safer or greener. And when they removed those oils and ingredients, It certainly made the tire race differently and not in a good way. And so in the cold temperatures, the rubber leaves the tire, and it balls up into either little balls or dust or whatever and goes to the top of the racetrack and doesn't adhere to the surface. And so if you don't have rubber adhering to the surface,

you're just kind of continuing to wear the rubber off the tire. It's just a tease grade or corner after corner after corner. after corner. But if it's hot, it smears that rubber into the surface. You see the track get dark and black, and that slows down that cheese grater effect on the tire itself. So the tire doesn't wear out before, you know, you get to lap 30 or 40. And so it, you know, I think the heat was helpful.

But I don't know, man, the things that I think I would do at Dover, if I could just snap my finger, aren't realistic. They're not going to rep, they're not to pave it with asphalt. They've got this Miles the Monster sort of identity and a lot of branding behind that, and that's, you know, this concrete surface

and being unique. And, you know, they're never going to move away from that. And they're never going to believe or think for a minute that, oh, man, we might have a little better of a product on an asphalt surface. And look, I'm not saying it would get a whole lot better if you paved it. I just think it would be just a little bit better in dirty air just slightly. And then you could, then I think Goodyear could really hone the tire in on the asphalt,

probably better than the concrete. But there's just a small sample size of concrete, you know, knowledge and data for Goodyear to really work with, whereas on the asphalt side, they know how to get a little more aggressive and braver. on how they're setting you know how they're going with the tire but look um that's the way dover's always kind of been is what we saw sunday i know a lot of people thought the race wasn't all that great and the jeff cleck pole was kind of 50-50 so um either way let's get into it man i was uh impressed with denny's ability to to do what he needed to do on the restarts stave off cars with better tires and people can say

well you know that speaks to the next gen car and your inability to pass and how bad the dirty air is and I agree that that was something Denny could use and utilize late in the race to win but TJ you'll remember

Jimmy Johnson was unbeatable at Dover but we late in the race had a tire advantage on Jimmy a significant one and run second to him I think it's 2014 or so. But we couldn't get, I couldn't get to him. It was just the dirty air even in the, in that car around 2014.

I just couldn't, Denny, or Jimmy ran tidy, clean laps right around the bottom. And we couldn't, we couldn't get to him. That's a Dover thing. That's a concrete thing more so than anything. But Denny did a good job, and everybody was smart to think. tank, and you heard the drivers mention this in the break, the water and the rain is going to cool this surface down. It's going to clean it off. Clean it off. And it is the perfect time of the day where you're going to run your fastest slaps at any racetrack in the country. So all of those things

lined up to tell you, hey, no need to come down pit road, just fire off and haul ass on these tires, and you should be able to survive. And that's what Denny did. Denny didn't have the fastest car. I didn't think he had the best car. Chase Elliott, maybe one or two times. There was a couple others that had a little bit better race car than Denny. The 48 was great on the long run. But Denny was smart, and that's kind of where he's always been, is the calculative, clever driver that's always going to be mentally in the best place. He took it. He's won a lot of races just by being there. Yeah. And being clever. being the yeah he's smart smart and he manipulates a little bit you know he does he's he just

and he's got that in his own he's kind of got that ability and thought process and he's smart so it's one of his strengths it is you know at end of the race if it comes down to the end and he's involved in it he gets stronger even with a weaker car dude you got to be you got to always have your eye on him um if he's in the picture late how much also he being in one of the older knows about tire wear and not using those tires up early in these runs so that at the end his tires while used may not been used as much as like some other drivers would have have used up their tires. I think he's one of the smartest at doing that. Look at the Bristol race where the tires were falling apart there. He was one of the top three race for the win. But Denny, I think also knows

if I'm not going to win this race by speed, how can I build myself an advantage when I'm running third or whatever and save it for the end? I think he's good at that. I agree. I think he talks about studying Jimmy and even Truex and having a little bit of data off of Truex. Dover's one of them tracks where they'll tell you, hey, man, start saving some fuel, backing off early and doing things like that to sort of save some fuel. And you anticipate running a couple of tents slower, if not leaving more. And they'll say, man, you're running as quick as you were before. Can you slow it down?

Can you save us some fuel? and you're like, man, I am lifting. I'm doing it. I'm saving fuel. And they're like, well, your lap times haven't changed. And so, again, I mean, it speaks to the lack of grip on this concrete surface. You can run 85% or 90% and you can run 100, you can run 110%. And all of those will probably produce the same lap time.

and so Denny knows, all right, if I go down in the corner and I ease off the gas and don't stress the tire on entry, get into the center, stay tidy against the apron. There's a little extra grip down there for the left front tire. The left side tires don't rubber the track in. If you look at the racetrack when it gets dark, the very bottom, about three foot from the apron, is still not rubbered in. So it's literally still clean track. And so Denny tries to keep the left front down there and that, keep a car turning,

rotate around the middle and get up off the bottom. And he can run the lap time he needs to keep the track position he needs in the first 10 or 20 laps of the run. And then middle part of the run, he's got a little more in reserve to your point, Travis. I was talking about it like a savings, account like you're just kind of putting a little bit more little bit of tire at a time in that

savings account for the end of the run and then say it lap say you got 30 laps to go before everybody's going to pit you've got a lot more saved up a little bit more tire on the you know on the wheel than a lot of other guys that have been running 100 hundred 10 percent and they're they're sliding around for dear life and you just kind of keeping that same pace and then eventually you know at the end of the run you can go like hell and burn up everything you got left. But Denny's really been smart about, he will say I'm not the best race car driver, so I have to work twice as hard at it to be as good as some of these other guys. And I think he's comparing himself to like a Jimmy Johnson or somebody like that.

He's like, I didn't think I was as good, talented as Denny or Jimmy. and so I had to work harder to be at his level. And I think he's just really perfected that at this point in his life at 44 years old. He's just, he's maximizing all the intangibles, you know, all the, all the, all the things, man, and it's pretty impressive. Kyle Larson this past weekend looked like he was kind of on his way back to the, standard that I believe he sets for himself. It's been a rough summer, and they've had some things that have kind of knocked him out of decent results, and then when they do finish a race, they just kind of don't look like

themselves. And this weekend, I thought it was a great time for Larson to kind of get back to doing what he does best. Looked like for a while. I mean, he struggled like everybody else with dirty air trying to work his way through the field, but eventually the car had pretty decent speed. his NASCAR insights has these has these averages that we look at and it's passing there's there's a couple parameters passing defense speed restarts pit crew and we get these insights spit out to us

after every race and it's you'll get a season average after that race or you'll also get the insights for that specific event. But for passing, Larson's season average, he was in the top five, and it is dropped down to 12th overall. And I think in the summer, that's kind of when this has happened.

At Dover, he was number one. And I feel like that that's a sign to me that they are regrouping and getting back to the basics, and indie might be the race where he goes out there and jams the flag in the logo in the middle of the field and says, hey, I'm back and I'm ready to win this championship. Is this summer really a good look at that, though,

with the last month and a half of races? Because it's been kind of a weird summer, the stretch of races that we go through this year are a little odd to me. Yeah. You know, like with as many road courses we had and stuff, and you can get in trouble with a road course with restarts and stuff now pretty quickly. I feel like trying to do the double this year

and the struggle that he had with that and the logistics and travel and all of the interviews, photo shoots, all the off-track responsibilities required by sponsors and extra partners that are involved in that. All of those things didn't go as well or as easy or as smooth as he had hoped. And I think that that kind of knocked him off his perch

and to your point, TJ, the schedule wouldn't allow him to find some consistency to be able to gain the confidence and get the team back to where it needs to be, everybody feeling good about everything. So over the last handful of weeks, I'm sure that they've all kind of been questioning, are we doing everything we need to do, what should we do, should we change this? Should we flip this over? Should we, what can I do? Everybody's looking inward and talking to the team.

and kind of understand their mindset, they've decided not to panic, get back to the basics, get back to running, you know, get into part of the schedule where they might confine some peace of mind or some, you know, like Dover's pretty straightforward. Indy will be too.

I mean, back to the ovals. Let's get back to where we know we can be more in control of our destiny. And I think if the summer was full of ovals, they would have probably regained their form quicker. But to your point, it's clunky, weird, schedules bad, you know. It's different. Are we blaming the Indy 5?

Like, he did this last year, though. He raced at Indy and then racing the summer and didn't have this slump. But it didn't go as smooth. Indy went horrible this year. He wrecked two cars. lost a little you know probably lost a little bit of confidence got a little

got a little mud on his face but the other thing too is he's had some success in the dirt car especially recently winning the big race he won over the last week and those things right there too when he starts doing good in that it's like everything starts getting better

like his cup stuff starts getting better as well He needs to be behind the wheel of a race car, and he needs to be winning for him to, like, get up on playing, right, and be where he wants to be mentally. And he's no different than anybody else in terms of when you don't have the results and things just are harder to, you know, the results are harder to come by. He's just as human as the rest of us, and he's going to have some self-doubt or what am I doing differently?

What should I maybe do differently or new? You know, they're going to have those internal conversations as a team. And, you know, so I, but I feel like that that's all in the review mirror now. I think this weekend was a great sort of baseline to, you know, to establish moving forward. They had speed. You know, it, you know, you can't really look at the end result, but. It was a weird finish. Yeah.

But, I mean, all day they had good speed methodically. Oh, yeah. up toward the front, yeah. And so he was a decent race car by the end of it. But that was a, you know, I say that because I feel like that had he not ran the way he did it over, everybody was watching going, all right, now damn it, you know, this weekend we need to kind of see that old Larson. Because if not, we're going to say, okay, maybe it's not the clunky schedule that's creating some issues here. and they've really truly got some things to figure out,

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Hey Dale, I know Tuesdays are busy for you with the Dale Jr. download. You also got your production meeting, so I took delivery to order you some lunch. I hope you're okay with that. You bought me lunch? Well, yeah, of course. And ever since you got us Arby's the other day,

I've been craving it, so I went and ordered it again for us. Well, I was thinking about the Arby's Angus Cheesesteak all weekend, so I hope that's what's in the back. Bingo, it's exactly what I got you. side of curly fries too. There we go. You were serious.

Yeah, I got you some curly fries. And this is the ultimate meat and cheese combination for steak lovers like you and me. Thank you, man. I appreciate it. It's the perfect balance of Angus steak, all American cheese melted, fire roasted peppers and onions. Thank you, buddy. I appreciate it.

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Another driver that I think we're all impressed with is Briscoe. another great result he benefited from a lot of things that happened late in the race to be able to gain a little bit of track position but he did have a great car running a top 10 top 5 throughout the day and I think you know six cents I guess you know sometime around the 600 he's been qualifying really good and he seems to have figured out how to take advantage of the tools that this 19

car has and the other thing that I like about briscoe is he's always seems to come on late and especially in the playoffs he overachieves and so I'm not sure that anyone else is really ready to make this claim but I'm feeling like briscoe to me might be the be pretty he's pretty dangerous in terms of you know there's we always kind of you know we used to have the big three and there's always going to be like these drivers as we get closer to the playoffs that we pinpoint as the guys that are the favorites and this comes this championship comes down to to these couple of drivers and we never we're not always right you know joe

legano sneaks in and wins a championship nobody thought that was going to happen but if if one guy if a new guy pops into that equation it usually shoves somebody out right and i think briscoe's the kind of guy that could get in there and cause some cause some headaches for some of the drivers that we feel like will be the contenders in this playoff system. Yeah, he's definitely, that car's got speed, and it's always been fast at Dover, and for him to put together the race shows that he's making, things are clicking. Yeah, for sure. In my opinion with that team.

Another car that I thought was, you know, amazing, maybe the best car in the whole race was the nine of Chase Elliott, and Chase was in a spot to win the race late, sitting in front of Denny, and had, I think, a little bit better tire than Denny had, possibly. But either way, he was sitting in a position that had he stayed out, they might have been able to do what Denny did and win the race. I know that everybody's going to raise hell at Allen for bringing him to Pit Road. But I think that Chase has told us in the past that him and Allen are tied at the hip. They win together, they lose together.

And they'll probably leave this race not that bothered by that decision late in the day and more happy with how that car performed. They had an issue on pit road with the jack, lost about five spots on pit road, quickly gained all that track position back and was back in the lead of the race, back in control of the race when it mattered late. So we've seen a very consistent, you know,

hey, I'll finish in the top 20 every week, get you that top 10, kind of Chase Elliott all year long. Why aren't they leaving bother? though. They're not leaving bothered because they're,

they're the best car there, which they haven't been the best car anywhere. They've just been a fifth to tenth place car every week.

So wouldn't that make you bothered? Nope. Not with an ending, not with an ending where there's a yellow and there's a, there's some late calls

because you're one, you're one guy in front and you're not going on a restart from ruining that call. Does Alan wish he would have chose differently? Absolutely.

Sure. Has Alan said to Chase, hey, I wish I would have chose differently. Probably. Yeah. Are they going to leave their pissed off? No. They're going to, now, you know, look, Alan internally is going to handle this however he does. He's probably pissed off at himself. But this has happened before, I'm sure. I mean, this is just how racing goes sometimes. You don't always make the best choice. This choice, though, is this isn't like a hindsight.

I feel like everybody Nannisly was like, what are they doing? Yeah, I was pretty surprised that they chose to pit, you know. But I wasn't, you know, I wasn't 100% sure how much tires mattered. So was Chase going to win the race without pitting? Was he going to win the race? he would have been where Denny was yeah he would have been ahead of Denny

he would have been Denny he would have been leading yeah he gave up the lead to pit out of race where track position is king I mean that's definitely they dropped the ball

yeah but I mean still what if they were they thought pitting was going to be the best position and they probably were planning out more cars pitting too and you never know what happens

like yeah I mean look it wasn't the right choice obviously in hindsight it's easy to say that but I'm just telling you, man, Chase Elliott has not, Chase Elliott to me has not been the chase that I think he could be since the leg injury when he was snowboarding. And then, and so he had the injury.

They come back, he missed some time. You know, anytime a driver misses a lot of time, there's this chance the team sort of has a hard time like getting the traction back and getting going again. And then came the next gen. And now he's had some moments where there's been success. But, you know, he wins that championship early and he wants to contend for championships every single year.

And he wants to contend for more wins, right? And they just have had a hard time really getting the next gen to where he wants it or feels comfortable driving it. Kaabush talked about that, how the next gym was difficult for him to really wrap his mind around because of how you have to drive it and how you need to drive it and what he loves and what he's used to. And so I think for Chase it was somewhat similar. And for him to go out there and take the lead and be the best car, I think they got to leave there thinking, man, let's not get too caught up in this choice to pit and how that might have altered our opportunity.

to win. Let's not get, let's not get derailed. Let's think about how great this car was and how awesome, you know, we ran all day long, carry that forward, carry that thought process forward into Indy, go win Indy, right? And so, you know, that's- This is a much better problem to leave with. I can promise you that. I'd much really leave with a, we made a bad pit call and have a fast car all day. Then, man, how do we get our car fast? I mean, they've been going to every race leaving there going, how come we keep running eighth? How come we keep running seventh. How come we keep running 10th? This is a much better problem. What are we missing?

Yeah, for sure. So that had to feel pretty good to be able to be, you know, that good for all day long. I have a question, though. So Alan Guffston was asking Chase before, like, what your thoughts are on pitting? How much input did you want or did you have when you were driving? Or is it basically crew chief makes those calls and I ride with whatever your call is? I think it's the crew chief's job to make the choice, make the decision. Driver can give feedback. Chase gives some feedback in this instance. I'm good either way.

I feel like the track's tightened up with ticks, something to think about if we do pit. Maybe we can free the car up, whatever. He's trying to give that information. Seven laps, front row. Track's going to be clean for a little bit. He's trying to give Allen information from what he's thinking. But I think he's wanting Allen to choose. and that's what the crew chief, that's what the crew chief is for is because he's sitting,

he's sitting in front of all of this information and he sees the race from a different point of view. You're a driver, you're in this car, you're in this, you're down in this hole, and you can't see the whole grand scheme. And so while you think you might have, if you had to make the decision on your own, you could, but the crew chief's there with all this data, all this ability to see and know, and there's war rooms back in Charlotte with a lot of information coming from there to the crew chief, the driver can't worry about or deal with or process. And so that's the decision that I'm 100% confident leaving with my crew chief to make.

And so, you know, if he makes the wrong decision, it just, it's what happened that day. He's a great crew chief. He gave me a car that ran in first place all day long. I hope he'll do that. You had an opportunity to win. I hope he'll do that again next week. He's my guy. I'm going to,

I'm going to Indy with him, you know. If those yellows don't come out, that Denny, those tires might, might come up there and get him. So you can't plan on having yellows either. So I don't know, you know, that definitely adds into it as well. I agree.

Moving, you know, moving on to Bowman, I talked about the 48 car being pretty good. He was awesome on the long run. They missed a little speed on a short run, and that might have been intentional. Alex might have just been, you know, kind of baby in the tires for the first 10 or 20 laps.

But man, that 48 was fast. From the midway on in a run, it was pretty incredible. And Alex has always been really good at Dover. He is, yes. What I'm looking at with Alex and why that matters is, so right now the cut line is plus 16 with Bubba Wallace over Ryan Preece. Kyle Bush is minus 39, and it's fun. to talk about Kyle Bush being in the mix because he's a fighter and a fiery kind of guy.

He is. He's going to be gouging. Kind of like to see him back in a corner like this and what he might do. But that cut line every year has moved. Every single year, someone below the line has won their way in, and that's going to move the cut line above Bubba Wallace, which is right now Christopher Busher. So Chris Busher is at plus 44

and he is let's say he's 19 points I believe behind Alex Bowman who is at plus 63. So if there is a new winner in the next couple of weeks from below the cut line, that sets Chris Busher on the cut line

and then Alex Bowman has to really truly understand you know what his role is every single week. So he goes into you know, so what I guess I'm looking at and looked at this past weekend and we'll look at it, Indy, is how does Bowman separate himself from Busher? Because if I'm Bowman, I'm expecting a new winner, maybe two, possibly. You always could have that threat. I think maybe last year we had three guys that were above the cut line

at this point that did not make the playoffs. Three. So, you know, you're never safe. The races you have left her indie Iowa Wachens Glen, Richmond, and Daytona. Yeah. And so, I mean, there's true. That's tough. Watkins Glen makes me nervous. And Daytona certainly makes me nervous. There's two races where you absolutely could have someone below the cut line.

And you just know, you just never know. You go to Richmond. Does RCR have that same speed at Richmond they had last year? You know, does Kyle Busch go there and sneak out a win? you just don't know, man. It's going to be a hell of a little run to the end of the regular season, and I would be paying attention less

to what Bubba Wallace and priests are doing. And I know that Kyle Busch conversation is fun, and I've been pointing it out here a little bit, but honestly, I'm looking more now at Busher, Bowman, Reddick, I feel's pretty safe at 156 above the cut line. I still, I think that, you know, I think it's aggressive to think we'd get two new winners. We'd probably get one for sure. I think two is possible, though.

We are one. Two's possible, but two's possible, but I feel like that's aggressive. If SVG doesn't have a great Watkins Glen, you know, and someone like, you know, say, Busher does. Busher beat him there before, you know. It's just when Daytona there as well, I mean, you're going to have guys be very aggressive at places like Daytona, you're going to have people that are locked in

maybe not be quite as aggressive as them guys and it's set up to be really exciting and I definitely, I think two's really possible. I do think we get to, I think we get two. I'd say that'd be the most I would expect with how I, just looking at how everybody's running. I mean, you know, you can go, you can think about Watkins Glen and say,

well, you know, Ty Gibbs, he could be somebody that could, to go to Watkins Glen and be really, really fast. He's been great at the road courses. McDowell has been good, but I don't know if it's stuff's as good as what he was in before. I felt like that they were able to get the front row car in a better situation at places like the road courses than the Spire car for whatever reason. Now, Michael McDowell will take that car and run top 10, but I don't know if he's got winning speed on the road courses this year. Does Indy, like, let me ask you this, does Indy give,

there's Indian opportunity for somebody to catch a caution at the right time and get track position and hold them off? Yeah, I mean, Paul Menard won on fuel mileage there. That's what I was thinking. That's possible at any race, honestly. Well, I mean, especially ones where you could pit and not get lapped. Yeah, you run Indy like a road course for sure because of that. Lastly, before we move on, SVG.

So we were coming out of the road courses where there was a top. ton of SVG talk. We've now got back to the ovals where SVG, he told us last week, he's looking forward to going to Dover. He goes out there flat right front tire right away, ruined any opportunity for him to really truly gauge himself against the competition at the ovals and try to carry forward that learning curve. But looking at his speed metric in the NASCAR Insights, he was 31st overall on speed.

I don't think you can look at passing and defense, restart, stuff like that, because he had lost all those laps and those metrics are highly skewed. But I believe the speed is a pretty fair metric. 31st on speed, you know, I think he's going to have to, you know, I don't know. I feel like that he's probably wishing or hoping that that might have been a little bit of a better weekend in terms of just overall pace. We saw at Charlotte. He was a maybe 20th place car.

Teammates struggled there. Ross was okay. Ross was 16th on speed. Yeah. 99 was no way higher. Ross is very good at Dover and was not good, right? Ross runs really good. And so to take that car and make it 16th on speed,

to your point, TJ, I think that the trackhouse stuff just wasn't very good this weekend. They're going to have to improve their cars a lot to give SVG the chance because I think for SVG he's always, even at the end of the year, or say what I'm worried about SVG is this. How loud is the noise going to be if he goes in and misses and gets eliminated in the first round with 17 or more playoff points? That would be pretty unprecedented, I believe,

to be eliminated in the very first round with that bit of an advantage in the playoff points. And so I would be frantically trying to put myself in a position at least trying to have a fighting chance of moving beyond the first round. And if he's, I think even by the end of this year, he's still not going to be one of the best oval racers in the series, right? So if that's the case,

trackhouse has to have very, very good race cars to help him. He can't wheel a 15th place car into a 10th place finish. It's hard for anybody to do that, honestly. If you give him a 15th place car on an oval, he'll be damn good to run 20th with it. Yeah, I was going to say, give him a fifth place car and hope he runs top 15. And how often has he been getting a top 15 car this year? Well, at best they gave him a 20th place car this weekend.

because Ross is 15th on speed and he's one of the best at Dover. He's one of the best. And so, you know, I think Trackhouse has to work a little bit to try to help SVG over these next couple of weeks. Kind of dial it in a little bit.

I mean, he's 29th on speed for the year. Yeah, I know, but I mean, I would rather know. I think that's an important note. I'd rather know what his metric is in the last four oval races versus the very, the first four oval races, right? And you would probably see that metric be like from, he was probably 35th, let's just say, 35th on speed, the first four oval races.

I bet now he's like 27th, 26th at best. I'll text wrestle and see if we can have it by a dough for you. Okay. But that, you know, he's, we got to watch, you know, we got to measure these little rungs on the ladder as he's trying to, you know, get himself into, into peak form as best, you know, the best possible form he could have. Do you think he gets knocked out in the first round? If he doesn't get better, he's going to get knocked out. Yeah, I just don't see. With the way they ran this weekend, a guy, a guy who's still, you know, learning the ovals and a really,

mediocre race car. I think they're going to have to... It's going to be tough. He's got to improve, but the car's got to get better too, man. He needs to be top 20 to survive that first round. He needs to be inside the top 20 consistently to me.

Yeah, to have a chance. Yes. And he's got to count on some other guys having some really tough look. Yeah, it's still going to be hard, but yes. In racing, good enough is never good enough. You can always improve, and our team's here at Junior Motor

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consumer cellular.com slash DJD and use promo code DJD25. All right, it's time for you guys out there to send us your picks and videos of your Ultimate Racing Collection. We love our Lionel diecast and it doesn't have to be just diecast though.

If you've got a great die cast collection, awesome. But if it's everything else, you know, uniforms, sheet metal, I don't care what it is. You got an awesome man cave with some NASCAR stuff in it. Send it to us. We'll be posting on Twitter and Facebook, respond to those posts with your picks, your videos. And if you've already submitted in the past months and didn't win, don't matter,

try again, keep sending us all this great stuff. It's fun to see. I'm a collector. I love seeing other people have that same passion, and there's some people out there that are hardcore and really go after it. And it's good to see. It makes us feel great about our sport. So make sure you follow.

all the dirty Mo Media social handles to see those posts about the Lionel Ultimate Racing Collector. All right, Denny Hamlin, the winner at Dover is here, and we're excited to talk to you. I got to tell you, man, I'm pretty impressed with your ability to look as good as you've ever looked on the racetrack at 44 years old. not a lot of drivers in our history have been able to maintain the consistent week-in and week-out performance. Now, there's drivers that still won races at this age, but the consistent week-to-week performance was hard to come by. But you have talked about how, you know, you are the details guy. You do all the little things and you have to work extra hard to be the total package. So how do you still want to do that at 44 years old?

I mean, you've been doing this 20 years. I'm just goal-driven. I know it's such a cliche answer, right? But I'm just a goals-driven person, right? I'm setting out, you know, I said I want to win 60 races. Well, if I get to 60, then I'm going to tell you I want to get to 70. Like, I just want to. Damn, you're going to jump 10?

I'll just go to 65. You might want to pull it back a little bit. Yeah, 44 years. old, you might want to just dial that back to number 65. I mean, for a year for the next, you know, a couple of years, you know, finish this year off a couple more. I don't know. Who knows?

I don't know. I mean, if you don't have goals, if they're, you know, if they're just so easily attainable, is it really a goal? It's more like a, you know, a want at that point. I don't know. Just feel like, you know, I want to win as many races as I possibly. possibly can. I got to, I really want to finish my career in the top 10 of winners list. I got to plan on a few guys coming up that that will beat that one day, right? And so you got to,

can't just be 10th. You're going to end up being 11th or 13th when this thing's all said and done. So I got to get myself well inside that top 10. And certainly I think today it's, it's harder to win than ever. I think that the wins get spread out more. I agree. The wins get spread out more than other years past. So I don't know. As long as I can keep winning and keep guys like Kyle Larson from winning, it'll keep them from passing me in a quicker fashion. When you go to the brickyard, a race that you've yet to win, we moved away from it

onto the road course there for a couple years, so it kind of didn't allow you the opportunity to win on the Oval, which is a pretty special place. I want to know what tracks that you look at to determine, you know, where you think you need to be, what you need to work on, maybe Pocono falls in that category. And I'm asking this question because I asked Steve LaTart, or Steve LaTart puts Michigan in this group of tracks. So comparable race tracks to Indy.

What are those tracks for you? Gosh, it's so hard to say. I mean, Pocono is the one that, to me, and it's been that way for decades. People always draw conclusions, and you used to just kind of book it. Whoever won Pocono, they're going to show up to Indy and be the top guys, right? I know it was Bill Elliott towards the end of his career and Rusty Wallace and whatnot. It's a little different nowadays, you know, with passing just being so difficult, with all the cars being so close in speed.

But it's just, it is a common. of everything at that track, right? You've got to have the driver, obviously to execute, but you have to have the car, you have to have the engine, you have to have the arrow, you have the right strategy. All those things are factors in who wins that race. And so I certainly think that it's kind of a, it's a good display of our series best. And putting us on the oval, no doubt, added, you know, put the major back on the map for us. and feel like, you know, it's certainly more prestigious than running around the parking lot in the infield. Yeah, I agree.

One last thing I wanted to ask you before we let you go. I feel like that Chase Briscoe is going to be in a lot of conversation that we have as a broadcast team and as the sport talks about, you know, what's going on throughout the playoffs. I feel like Briscoe is like slowly sort of creating this opportunity for himself. We've always seen him do really good things in the playoffs and overachieve. But now he's in a team and with a car that can do that anyways. And so he's certainly sort of found his stride since May with qualifying and with race performance. How is that, you know, you're seeing all of this from behind closed doors, you know, behind the curtain.

And what do you think about Chase so far and what kind of teammate is he? I think at the beginning it was a struggle. I think he struggled with understanding how differently our cars drove. Now, you know, that direction got sent, you know, the way our cars drive got sent through meetings that we had, competition meetings that we had where, you know, us drivers are sending our engineers down a path of this is what we want out of our cars. This is what we need out of our cars. This is how we need them, how to feel, to make speed. And it was different than what he had had over at Stuart Haas and the other places that he was.

And so I think he struggled with, holy crap, man, these things are loose in, and they're, you know, there are all kinds of things. This is not what I'm used to. And I think he's finally understanding now kind of how to drive our cars. And I think he's also understanding the feedback that he needs to give the. team and to make his cars better and drive better for him. I think that just took a little bit of time and now we're starting to see it. Yeah, pretty impressive, man.

And I think he's going to, if he continues this trend, he'll be a handful for a lot of guys in the playoffs. Man, looking forward to. Yeah, I got a quick question for you. I want to know the difference. Oh, TJ's guy. I want to know a difference between Danny now, what it's like after a win compared to Danny 15 years ago. I don't have a headache the next day. I mean, we all know when you used to win. We knew that

your neighbor. I was fun. I get it. I used to be fun. But I can tell you, the kids, and certainly the baby, don't give two sheds whether you're hung over or not. And when you're feeling horrible and all you want is damn a powder and a grilled cheese sandwich. Like it's just, they don't care. And so I just, I don't do much. I usually try to wait till midweek. And then me and the boys will go,

had dinner and then we'll go to like Syed's or something. Like that's kind of our win parties nowadays. Not bad. Still good. Sounds about right. He is 45. I know. That's what I was wanting.

I mean, we're all getting older. We're moving slower and it's harder for sure. I've got a question for you. I forgot to bring this. up. In your post-race press conference, you said you're really competitive and there might be someone more competitive on this earth, but you don't know them. I don't. So you're saying Michael Jordan's not as competitive as you? Not in today's world. No. The differences is when you saw Michael's competitiveness during that documentary, he was in the middle of his game. He was actively

competing. I think Michael Jordan at 60 years old or 50, I don't, I don't hate to mess this up. But at whatever age he is, it's different. He doesn't have to compete each and every week. So when you're in season or you're in your job of being a professional sports athlete, your mentality absolutely is different than what it is after you retire. So, no, I never had known Michael Jordan during that most intense time of his career. I know him as retired Michael. I know him as family Michael.

I know him as my golf and buddy Michael. So it's a little bit different. Yeah, he still trash talks quite a bit when we go play golf, but so do I. So, like, it's, you know, we're very, very similar in that stance. But I never, unfortunately, never got to see that intense, intense side of him because I think he is a little different now that he's, you know, got a bunch of kids and married and just life. different. All right, buddy. We appreciate your time today. We'll see you in Indy and have a good weekend.

Appreciate it. Thank you all. Hey, everybody. You want the latest Dale Jr. download apparel? Visit shop.dirtymohmedia.com. We're always adding new stuff all the time, especially like when we say something silly on this show. We'll put it on a t-shirt. Again, check it out at shop.dirtymowmedia.com. We're alive here for Xfinity Asr Jr. at Dirtymo Media with my good friend, DJ majors, Andrew's here as well. Appreciate all y'all tuning in.

And thank you, Xfinity. We know booming speeds when we see it, and Xfinity Wi-Fi is booming, like the roar of a NASCAR engine. It's the power and speed of NASCAR in your home. Choose the right plan for you, and you're off to the races with the best streaming experience for all your favorite sports,

because Xfinity Wi-Fi is truly booming. They don't just raise the bar they stream in overdrive and they're a proud premier partner of NASCAR and a great partner here of ours at Dirty Mo Media. So let's get right to the questions. Yeah, absolutely. This is the, I think, most popular question of the week. You, Dale, certainly start up a lot of interest, curiosity with the picture from Luke Combs' new music video. So what was it like? What can you tell us from that? Well, basically, Luke text me and said, hey man, I'm going to do this music video for the song. He sent me the song. He said, would you want to be in it? I said,

yes, absolutely. And so we started talking about the, you know, what we would do, where we would do it. They thought, man, you know, let's get a next gen car and go to Charlotte, Marr Speedway. And so we looked around and there weren't really any next gen cars available for us to use. And so I said to, I said to Luke, I was like, why don't we, you know, the, The song's about getting back in the saddle and getting, you know, kind of a little bit of a comeback story or, you know, kind of like a veteran going back to his roots even. And so I thought, man, let's go to a short track and let's take one of the late model stock cars. This will be great to shine a light on grassroots racing to shine a light on late models. and so we went to Tri-County Motor Speedway,

which is about an hour and 15 minutes from the house. We wrapped two of our late mall cars identically, so we'd have one car with all the windows out of it and a bunch of cameras mounted all over it, and then another car that looked clean and you could film the car from a distance. Luke gets up in the grandstands and walks around the track and they filmed us in the tunnel

and doing all kinds of other stuff, and then he's up in the flag stand and I'm making laps and I'm racing at Tri-County later this year. So I thought I want to go somewhere where I can get some laps. And yeah, so we, so I ran, you know, we ran and I followed a camera car around the track a little bit. We got some shots that way. And then I ran some relatively hard laps in the car with the cameras mounted all over it. and then

then I put on you know I got my I got my car ready and set up put on a set of tires and went out there and ran probably 25 really hard laps so that and then they filmed Luke up in the stands and Richard Petty's in this as well

he kind of comes in at the end and he's like hey my turn I'm on to run I want to drive and so pretty neat man I was I was honored to be asked to do it and I'm thankful that they, you know, that Luke and his team thought of me and Richard

and included us in this project. So pretty cool, pretty awesome opportunity. I think it's out Friday. I look forward to what people's reaction is to it. And, yeah. It's not your first music video, though. You've been in a few more, right? Yeah, but it feels like it's been a while since I've been involved in one.

You said originally they wanted an next-gen car. you're going to Charlotte. So, like, how much creative freedom? Was it like you and Luke kind of playing in this music video? Or there was, like, did he have a director? Like, no, this is how I want to do it? Like, how much creative freedom did you guys have? It's pretty much whatever he and I wanted to do, it felt like.

Wow. That's cool. You know, Luke, Luke's like, hey, whatever Dale wants is great. I'm glad he's doing it. And so, you know, I've never driven a next gen, gen, and I never will be racing in a next-gen car in my life. And so having me in the next gen running around a racetrack at Charlotte talking about back in the saddle, people are going to go, well, that's bullshit. They're going to go, man, this is bull's.

You want to run the rolloval, don't you? You do. What is? Is this an announcement? You want to run the rolloval. I knew it. Yeah. They're going to go, oh, is he really, is this bullshit?

You know, they're going to be disappointed more than anything. And so I thought, well, let's do something realistic because I do run four or five. of late model races. I like the rumors of you going to cup racing better. Those are more fun. Not for me. I enjoy it. Yeah.

Well, it doesn't seem to make people happy when they find out it's not true. The ride's fun. Yeah. T.J. likes to make people miserable, I guess. Just you sometimes. It makes it, I mean, it's equal. I mean, you do your fair share, so. Yeah.

You're right. Title of today's podcast is going to be Dale's back in the saddle. Already. All right. Yeah, yeah. Big announcement. Yeah.

So that, anyways, I'm excited for people to see it. It's out Friday. Someone saw on Twitter, Dale, after Conner's win, the rain short and win, you already had beer and pickles in your hand. And they wanted to know, is this going to be the new standard for Victory Lane? Are you going to be double fisting with a beer and pickles? So there's a, there's an orchard about two hours for. from Dover that I get pickles from.

They do not ship, so it's hard to get them. You have to either know somebody who's passing through, or you got to go get them yourself. A race fan knows that I like these, and they brought them to the racetrack, and she was behind our pit during the race. I was on top of the one box during the race, listening to Carson Quappel and his team.

And she's like, hey, she's tweeted at me. I brought pickles to the track. I was like, well, I love to meet you. And so she'd come to the pits, and she's like, hey, pickle guy, pickle lady here. So I got the pickles, and I just hung on to them. And, you know, we won the race. I'm the one box and the eight box are side by side on pit road. And in between them is Victory Lane.

Oh. And so. Easy. Yeah, I'm standing down on pit road with Marty Lindley, the crew chief of the 88 for Conner Zillich. We're talking about what we're going to do if we go back to green. Do we pit for tires? Do we wait and save our tires? Well, they called the race, and so I just walked right into Victor Lane because that's where everybody's going.

Well, the guys, they had all this bush light stacked up perfectly in these pyramids, right? so it would be a nice backdrop for the driver getting out of the car. There's these guys in there, and they're unstacking all this beer and putting it in these big beer coolers. And I'm like, all right, they're moving Victory Lane to another location, which would be the cup garage. And they're putting all this beer in these coolers and wheel them over there. But I just grabbed a beer.

I was like, I'm going to just take one now. And so I grab a beer, and I'm walking down pit road to get to the, the cup garage to Victory Lane where they're going to have it. And I had the pickles and the beer. And so that's how that happened. Speaking of Conner's win, you guys at J.R.M. are closing in on 100 company wins. What would mean to get to that big 100 milestone?

Well, I hope we could do it at Indy, but I just read yesterday that Larson's driving the 17s. So that just that job got a little tougher. I thought you guys wanted another shot at him. We do, but I just, I will admit that he is a very good race car driver and a good race car. The, you know, the next handful of races, there's a couple obligations that I've got that aren't, that would make it tough to get there. So, like, let me see.

So you're going to San Elmo's over the Xfinney race. I got you. No, no, no. I'm saying I'll be at Indy. Oh, the toast, I got you. Or the race. Which one you're talking about? The toast or the race?

The race? I'm talking about the race. To be there, to be in Victor Lane, to enjoy this moment. And I've got to figure out what to do about this. But we have a family trip planned on one particular weekend in the coming future. that is not just my family, but it's multiple families together. So I've got the Budweiser Cars Tour race coming up.

There's a Bass Pro Shop Cars Tour race coming up. Yeah, so I don't know. Yeah, you're nursing it. No, I hope that I don't. Wow. We're winning this. Carson Cople's going to win this weekend, damn it. I hope somebody wins this weekend.

Just because I'm there. We can do it. And Indy. You know, indie, holy shit. It would be big. I don't know if they let us,

I don't know if they let us kiss the bricks in the Xfinity series. They do. Is anybody going to stop you? Yeah. I think I remember one year when Justin won and they, they weren't, they didn't allow us to do it. I thought,

at least the indie Xfinity races I've been to, they've kissed it. I think, I think it's, Well, no, I think it might be something that happens with just the driver after all the BD is O with and everything else, but it's not like a, you know, get the team out there like the Cup deal. It should be, though.

It should be. Hell yeah, it should be. Especially if it's a company's 100th win. We'll see. Well, maybe you can make an exception. I don't know. I can't just do what I want. You know a guy.

Okay. What would this win mean for you and Kelly, though? the family and the organization. Well, you never thought you would be, you never thought you'd win 100 races. You just wanted to win one. And so it's pretty, pretty emotional, honestly, to think about not only the number wins,

but the names on that list, the drivers that were part of that list, a pretty epic list of drivers to have driven our cars and won races in them over the years. That's a problem. The numbers awesome. I love the names on that list because there's some badasses on there. This next question is for T.J.,

but Dale, I am curious to hear your opinion on this. It's from Danny. TJ, how much do you talk about the driver on Channel 2? Oh, nowadays or back in the day. Yeah, right, exactly. That's what I want to know. You talk about them. There's no proof of that.

There is no proof of them digitals back in the day. Did you talk? about Dale on Channel 2 back in the way? Not bad. Just not really, not as bad as like what he would do on Channel 1, but I'd just, I'd just be like, I'm done talking to him. Like, I'd just be like, you know, this, I was pretty nice about it. I said a lot of stuff, but I didn't use any channel.

I would just not push the button and say what I wanted to say. Yeah, you got to, you got to get it out at some point. But I never really use Channel 2, you know, not like, what an idiot? He missed that corner. You know what I mean? Like there was just like, I mean, it was just more mostly when he get done yelling, I just be like, I'm done talking to him. Like, he's yours now.

You can talk to him. I'm done. Dale, now the question for you is how much talking do you think happened on Channel 2 when you were driver? Well, once I learned that it was going on a little bit with a particular crew chief, it made me very concerned, you know, that it was consistently, how long has. this been going on, right? And then now, like, I'm like, oh, I don't know,

it's just really, once you learn, I'll say this, as a driver, when you learn that there's even one negative word said about you on the other channel, that's the end of the relationship. You know, it's just, if you hear, if you hear, and T.J. as a spotter, has to be careful, and the crew chief, also has to be careful when they communicate to the driver outside of the car.

Because they can't give that, you know, you can't slip up and give that impression that somebody's talking, you know, on the other channel. Yeah, for sure. Man, because it really frays that relationship and trust. So if I think, man, you know, when things aren't going well, my crew chiefs talking about me or complaining about me or like, why is he doing that? Why do he do that? Why is he running there?

tell him this oh yeah there's there was a lot i had i actually had his back one time that we had stayed out and we we were on old tires and everybody blew by us at fontana and and i mean it was one lap we went from the outside front row to 20th and the crew chief was like why don't you tell them let everybody go by and i'm like really i mean we're just trying not to get wrecked right here so i'm i just told him like why don't you keep up tell them yourself and i never heard anything after that but i mean we're out there like trying literally not to get wrecked And I did not. It didn't sit well with me.

How long did you go, Dale, before you found out about Channel 2? How long was that? I think I went about, I think it probably may have been almost a half a year. He would make comments during the race when something would go, he'd do something or it was not great. And he'd be like, I bet you're talking about that on Channel 2. Yeah. How did you find out about it? I don't even remember.

I mean, I think TJ told me eventually. I might have. We would talk about it and on the rides home and stuff and things like that. One more question, TJ. You said when Dale would really piss you off, you would just go quiet. Is that what you would do? Oh, yeah. You asked him how to quiet I got one time.

Well, what was it? You just quit spotting. Yeah, I quit. I was so pit. I was so mad. He couldn't make his mind up and I'm trying to adjust to what he would like at the time. And he's like, don't clear me. as soon as you say, you know, I'm coming up.

And so we were passing a car. And he didn't clear him, so I didn't say anything. And he's like, we're not going to tell me he's there. I'm like, you just told me not to tell you, you know, if he was still there or not. And so I got, I got so mad. I quit talking. And he passed another car. And I didn't say anything.

He's like, oh, I see how it's going to be now. And I'm like, you damn right. You're going to be clearing yourself for a while. And I got Tony Jr. down there texting me. Are you still up there? I'm like, yeah, I'm here, but I'm not talking. And that was probably the time I got the most mad. What race was that?

Do you guys remember? C-O-T car, I think, at Michigan, whenever. I mean, I don't feel like we were running that bad. He just had his hands full, and he was like, he kept changing his mind, and I got pissed. How many laps you think it lasted for? Half a run. I finally cooled off.

It was a little while. Well, same type of run where he went out, and he was so mad in practice that he, would you run a full fuel run? Yeah, me and Tony. Junior. Oh, man, me and me and that was it Tony Jr.? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And me and Tony Jr., I don't know if we were arguing before I got in the car or right after I got in the car. But he, uh, he said something smart assy, pissed me off. And so I just shut up and I ran the car out of gas, ran like we were, it was like happy hour.

It was like an hour long practice or something like that. Oh, yeah. And I was like, I'm just going to run this some bitch to the sum which runs out again. I ran like 44 laps or something. It was a long way. Yeah. I'm like, I don't know what we're doing. I just keep giving a lap times. Yeah.

And I finally ran out of gas. That might have been the same weekend. That might have been the same weekend that I quit. Yeah, it might have been the same ones. You're just in a bad mood. Driving a COT, but put your ass in a bad mood. I'll tell you that. It would.

He was so angry in the COT. What a piece of junk. He was so mad. A piece of junk race car. We're leading Atlanta. People complain about the next gen every now and then. Holy, holy. That's the O.T.

was a piece of crap everywhere. We were leading Atlanta, and he's, like, screaming on the radio. And I'm like, we're leading the race. What's so bad? Like, he was still mad. I think it was junk. Wow. Yeah.

I love these stories. Let's see. This next question coming from Michael, they want to know how did you initially get connected with Steve LaTartre? and they heard there was a team swap that was pitched to you to swap teams with Mark Martin? Yeah.

Is that true? Yeah. So Mark, yeah. So Mark, Mark had one year left. Mark was doing great. Him and Allen were together. And Mark was doing great. I thought the world of Mark Martin.

I'd known Mark Martin since I was a little six, five-year-old boy. And Mark was a great teammate and very supportive. And so I'd had some tough, tough years and we were trying to figure it out and I was thankful right that Rick was going to keep trying to figure it out and not not fire me and so I mean I'd ran bad enough to be fired for sure no question but I had a lot of support financially through partnerships and sponsors and popularity and all those things that was kind of keeping me hanging on right and I felt like that you know in the right situation, I should be able to win,

but we just couldn't figure out what that person was, the person I needed on the pit box. And so he was like, well, Mark's got one more year with us, and then we're going to do bringing in Casey Kane. He's like, I'm going to swap you and Mark. And I was like, man, I don't think I want to go a whole year looking across the shop at Mark in the same building

driving his race cars while he's driving mine. And I didn't like the situation I was in and I didn't think it was fair to take Mark out of something that he was very happy with and put him with something that he saw wasn't really working that well. I just felt like that that was going to be bad all around

and not that I didn't want to work with Alan, I did, but I very much wanted to work with Alan, honestly, because I'd seen him do what he did with Mark right there in the shop I was in. So I didn't, so I was like, you know, I told Rick, I said, man, I really don't feel comfortable about this opportunity, this change. And so what happened was Jeff Gordon heard about, what Rick wanted to do, and I think Rick went to Jeff and said, what do you think?

Jeff was like, I'll go drive for Allen. So Rick came back, Rick come back to me just a couple days later, and he goes, hey, Jeff was going to go drive for Allen. I'm going to put you in the 4824 shop with LaTart. And I was like, now you're talking. I was like, you know, I think, in my mom, in my, In my mind, you know, getting out of that shop and into that environment with Chad Knauss, Jimmy Johnson, they're winning races.

Like, get me close to that. Put me right up next to that. I want to see what they're doing. Look at what they're doing. Learn, you know, lean on what they're doing. The two shops, you know, the 48 and the 24 shop, they operated so different. than where I was with the 88 and the 5. They just weren't the same culture.

And I was like, well, this team's winning. I want to be in that shop with that team, and maybe that will help me. And I'm not feeling the guilt of putting Mark in a bad spot. And so that's what ended up happening. And I felt like it took the – it took the responsibility off of me and it was like, hey, this is Jeff Gordon's decision to come over here to Allen, and then that's going to put me there, and, you know, Mark's going to shift over.

That made more sense. And I was still nervous about LaTart because him and Jeff had struggled, but I quickly learned immediately, LaTart said, I'm coming to your house. He called me. He goes, hey, I learned that me and you working together. I'm coming to your house. We didn't know each other hardly. I mean, I knew who he was, but we didn't talk.

We weren't friends. Even like you said in the shops, it was such a difference between the two. He didn't cross past a ton. Yeah, I barely knew the chart. He'd come to my house. And he's like, I mean, this is like all within a couple days, all this happening. He come to my house and he's like, he's like, you're on your last opportunity. If this doesn't work, I think that that'll be the end of your opportunity.

at Hendrick Motorsports, which I agreed with. He said, nobody believes in me either. He goes, Jeff Gordon moved from me to Allen because he doesn't think that this is working. So I feel also like this might be my last chance to get something right. So me and you both are in the same boat. And he's like, we're going to bust our ass.

I'm going to ask you to do all kinds of shit, and you're going to do it. And so, you know, it was awesome. I think it changed LaTart. as a person and as a crew chief to have that big change happen. And he was one of the first crew chiefs ever after a race to tell me he needed to give me a better car. I mean, I had never heard that before. Tony Sr. and Tony Jr. built me some bad-ass race cars.

But they took every car to the track thinking that that car is a winning car. They did. And I love that about them. But LaTartre would say, hey, you know, I saw you out there today. I got to make the car better to give you what you need. And I love that because it didn't, everything wasn't hanging on my shoulders. And anyhow, I could talk about it for days, man. It was awesome.

He told, he said, hey, you're going to, you know, this is your last shot, man. I'm going to give you all this shit you're going to have to do and you're going to do it. And I said, all right, it's my last shot. I'm going to do everything you tell me to do. I don't care what you tell me to do. I'm going to do it. And he was all in, and we took off from there. We ended up taking our car from, like, being a – we were like, hey, we're going to run this first year,

and our goals to run top 15 because we were that bad. We had been running 20th every week. So we got our cars to where we were finishing the top 10, top 15, you know, 12th. Yeah. We led the points for the first. half of the year. I was going to get there. Sorry. Then he says, he says, not the first year together. Then he says, all right, man, we're a top 15 car. We're now top 10s are our goal. So we did

that for a while, eight or 10 races. We're running top 10 every week. All right, man, we're a top 10 car. Top 5 is our goal. So we turned our car in like a year and a half. We became a top 5 team. We showed up to the track and ran in the top 5 and finished in the top five and to TJ's point we're leading the damn regular season points i remember that one year we're neck and neck with greg biffle and so all the way through the summer um you know so it was really cool because letart was like we got this we're going to have a methodical approach and we're going to just shoot for this and then we nail that we're going to nail shoot for this and nail that and we kept setting these goals and reaching them and it worked and

And I was like, all right, it was awesome. So, but that was, if we hadn't have made that change, man, I don't think I would have ever won another race. I just, you know, it was going to be an ugly grind to the very end. Was Lattart the first person to tell you that this is your last shot? Or was that the first time you've heard it from somebody else? I think, man, I think he was the only one that ever said that to me. And I think he was.

What was it like when you heard it? Well, he said it. He didn't say it. you think. I mean, he said it in such a way of like, hey, look, I think both of us are kind of on our last opportunity here, or both of us got to make this work. It could be our last chance at, you know,

being a driver and a crew chief for this company. You know, and I think he made, he said it in such a way. It wasn't like, oh, you know, the world's, the sky's falling. It was more like, look, I'm, I'm, he's basically saying to me, I'm in the same situation you're in. and I'm willing to do everything to make this work with you. And I'm going to believe in your ass like I think you're the best driver out there on the track.

And he did, and he was a cheerleader, incredible. That team was also really, the team that he built was pretty special too. To TJ's point, he put all the right people. And he was talking about this this past weekend. I know we're kind of running along, but he was talking about this this past weekend. People would come up to him and say, what's your right rear spring rate on the raider? And he would look at them and go, I don't know.

That's a question for Kevin, my engineer. I don't know. And people would be like, but you're the crew chief. Just tell me. And he's like, I would, but I don't have that answer. Kevin has that answer. And so, like, Steve was a true modern crew chief that the setup was left to Kevin Meandron, the engineer who was incredible,

and Kevin set the car up. I talked to Kevin about the balance. I talked to Kevin about what changes I agreed with or what I, what, me and Kevin discussed the details around the race car. Steve built the team. Steve improved positions that need to be improved. Yeah. Strategy.

Steve did strategy. when we were going to pit, how we're going to do tires, how we're going to do fuel. And Steve was responsible for the team morale and all those things. And it was perfect. Yeah, it was the perfect build of a race team. Anybody, in my opinion, could have gotten in that situation and succeeded. And I was lucky to finally found the package that I needed to be good.

Yeah. There's a long answer there for that. No, but it was great. It was fantastic because I knew you and Steve worked well together, but I didn't know what it was specifically. So I really do. We still have a 2014 group chat. Remember?

I mean, every once in a small, T-Mack or somebody chimes in. He got a text in it again. But that was awesome. Great stories today on Ash Jr., and that's where we're going to wrap it up. All right. Well, I appreciate it, everybody. Thanks for all the great questions.

Thank you, T.J. and Andrew. And thank you, Exfinity, for bringing us today's Ask Junior segment. in racing and in life speed is critical. We all know how important speed is. And we always rely on Xfinity Wi-Fi for the best speeds and dependable Internet and prices locked in for five years. No contracts, no slowdowns. No nonsense.

Xfinity is a proud premier partner of NASCAR. Thank you, guys. Thank you, Xfinity. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, it's time for Dirty Modeau with Tampa Tims and Russell and T.J. This segment of Dirty Modeau is brought to you by Fanduil. We like Fandual.

I've got an account. Who else has an account here? Raise your hand. I do. I do. All righty. All righty. Everybody's got one.

We lost another manufacturer parlay this weekend, but we got so close. We did. Yep. So we went without emotion. and just went by the pure statistics. And we got damn close, fellas. So let's stay on this path, all right? Let's not give up.

Well, hold on a second. Didn't Tim's kind of? Me and Russ did say Bowman, but it's okay. Well, look, that's the great thing about this. If you don't believe in all three, only bet the two that you like, or you can change any of these around to the driver that you believe will win the parlay for you.

or you can only bet one singular, you know, manufacturer and leg and not even do a parlay. But you guys, if you thought it was Bowman, you should have been a little bit louder, spoke up, been a little more forceful. You know, I know that I'm a dominant personality and tough, tough to sway me. But you guys can do it.

You have the ability. I would have probably bet Chase more than Bowman. I wouldn't be too. All right. There's no way Russell's coming out and saying Bowman. He's like that aggressive. There's not. But I was on the Bowman train last week for sure.

You were, but we didn't trust you because you've not been a Bowman guy all year. So we're like, you know, okay, he's back in the Bowman on the Bowman train. Is this like 10% back? That should say something, though. If he's back in Bowman, like that's... Is it 10%? Is it 40%, 90%, we couldn't tell?

It was pretty high. It was pretty high. That's his best. Well, we didn't get that reading. That's good to know now, asshole. What? I'm serious. Like, God dang, y'all.

Hey, all right. So I think, I think this week looking at the odds, so Hamlin's 450, Larson, 550, Byron, 800, Blaney Elliott, Elliott, 800. Blaney Elliott at 850. I'm going Blaney and Denny for sure. You guys feel good about that as far as Toyota Ford? Absolutely. I do feel good about Blaney. I think the Chevy one's the hard one.

That's right. So I was going to hold off on that. We're good. We're confident. Denny Blaney. Hold on. I think TJ was only confident in one of those. Yeah, but I mean, it's still hard to go against Denny right now.

He's got speed and momentum, so he's going to start well. Yeah. Well, okay. So the shabby one is the tough one. Lars and Chase, Byron, I think, are the three that we got to debate. Do you throw anybody else in there? I don't think right now. I don't think he can do that, but I think

Byron's really on the struggle bus, so I would kind of eliminate him. I agree. Let's eliminate Byron. Byron's going to be hearing this shit, and he's going to be ready to make us regret them words. That's kind of the way. I feel like he's ready to pounce any time now.

Yeah. So I like Byron. And honestly, though, looking at a little chart here, his pit crew not quite as strong as that five team. And, yeah, Chase and Kyle both look better. It's a really cool algorithm or whatever you may call that. And I've been trying to, so we see those in video games, and that's kind of like technology that you, when you're looking at like prospects or players in sports, you can kind of use those style of graphs,

and I really like those, and I thought we might be able to, me and Russell, been working on trying to figure out how to make that understandable and easy for a fan to look at and go, oh, that's cool, I like that, and it tells me something. So, look, Larson's passing, like I say, his average, season average drop to 12 throughout the summary.

Now he was number one this weekend. And I think that bodes well for his indie, because you're going to need to be great at passing cars. If you can't pass cars in this, it's a one-lane racetrack, dirty air, impossible to get around anybody. Well, that's exactly what he did last year. He passed a lot of cars to get back to the front. He had tires, but he did the same thing.

I feel like I love what I saw out of Chase Elliott this weekend, but I'm just not ready to, to, put money on that, you know. Where was Larson on the speed chart last week? Was he very good over, like, raw speed? Larson was, let's see, at Dover, Larson was six on speed. Where was Chase?

Chase on speed was first. I was just saying if Larson starts top five, does he run with Chase all day? You know what I mean? Like, does that help his, does he, Did he have the car to run with Chase if he was there with him to begin with? Yeah. I don't think he did.

Larson's third on speed overall for the season, Chase is seventh. I'm not ready to jump on the nine train. I just think, listen, they are going to be neck and freaking neck. It's not easy. I think the nine runs good. Yeah, I do too. I think they go, I think the nine, I think, listen, we're talking about Byron. being in the argument, I literally think them some bitches could be sitting there running in the top

five, all three of them at some point in the race. But I just feel like Larson's going to be the one that'll be in front of them. The team's going to make some sort of mistake or something, like a bad call and push them back to like six or seven. It seems like to happen every time it has a good car. So I think Larson is a safer bet. I've got to roll with Larson. What do you think, Russell? I can't go against Larson. It's like what you said last week. miss that Larson train when it gets back. All right, Larson, Denny Blaney. Let's talk about some head-to-heads.

Obviously, we have the bracket challenge, the two ties going at it. Everything in the world would tell you that Ty Gibbs should win the bracket challenge and the $1 million will go to Joe, unfortunately, for Ty. As you'll learn later in the show, we all learn. I feel like that, you know, again, Ty Dillon has been able to take this car and get the results that this car can get.

You know, he finished 20th this past weekend, and that result is really his season in a nutshell. Grind it out, grind it out, grind it out, and get, you know, get an 18th, 16th, 20th, 20th, 22nd place finish. and he's tenacious. I'm talking about Ty Dillon. He's going to fight, fight, fight, and he's going to, you know, if he gets lapped or for whatever reason, probably won't get lapped at this particular race

because of the size of the track, but he fights and finds his way back on the lead lap like he did it Dover this past weekend. But I just think that Ty Gibbs is in a very good position. They've made some changes on the pit box. they've sort of gotten him refocused, you know, back on track mentally and emotionally. And I think he'll be, you know, he'll run a good race and do what he needs to do to win this matchup. He's got the edge for sure, just speed-wise.

If he just get singled out in line, he should run anywhere from seventh to 12th, pretty legit straight up. I'll be curious as to how much the – $1 million bracket challenge matters to these two teams and what Ty Dillon or Ty Gibbs, if anything, would be willing to do to make sure they win that. I think Ty Dillon, Ty Dillon would be definitely willing to probably do more. I know. Ty Dillon,

I guess my question is, is Ty Gips watching Ty Dillon at all? I would argue he might not give a shit. Maybe not yet, but if it comes down on the race and he has a bad stop or some sort of, you know, adversity and he ends up near Ty Dillon. He will probably know where he's at at that point. Ty Dillon or know where he's at, that's for sure. Ty Dillon's going to know where Gibbs is.

Absolutely. He's a fucking plain. He's going to know where his ass is. Stay in what room is in. What room is in? You know what I mean? But Ty Gives probably won't. Let's look at some other head-to-heads, I believe we'll see this weekend from NASCAR. Hamlin versus Larson. If Hamlin's the underdog, I would take Hamlin, but this is very, very close. I like Hamlin for sure.

Hamlin is all green when you look at them head to head. Yeah, I agree. Especially at Indy, Pocono, Michigan-style racetracks, Denny looks better on restarts, on defense, on every metric. The only area where Larson has a bit of an age is the pit crew, oddly enough because you always think about the Gibbs guys as being the best that's a tough one i probably would skip that one bell versus reddick i think christopher bell's back on his game yeah i don't we don't i haven't seen reddick's just kind of been there you don't really seen

them a lot lately and you know we went to a lot of road courses where you thought maybe he'd be more competitive than what he was as well uh from the last couple years of his road course stuff and just haven't really seen a lot of Tyler. Yeah, I agree. I like Reddick on this style of track, though, over Bell. Like in the next-gen car, like Redick's six to three better finishes than them on this style of track.

He's better on speed. He's better on long runs. Much better on passing, Reddick is. His defense is way better. 2311 was so good at Indy last year. Like Reddick won the poll. They let a bunch of laps. Yeah.

Reddick was last year, though, like to TJ's point, they haven't been the same this year. It doesn't seem like. I don't feel like they have been. You wouldn't think, I mean, you wouldn't think that what's going on with them

in the lawsuit and the open team and all this, that, and the other would be any kind of a distraction. Once you get to the track, you think you can put all that behind you. But it just feels like they can't get, they can't get over this hump there's a barrier in front of them in terms of performance.

I think I'm going with Christopher Bell there because I think we all have question marks with Reddick. But Russell will remind us if we're wrong. Bubba versus Blaney, this seems, I can't, is this matchup, are they really having this matchup? Because I feel like Blaney, I know the Ford's kind of struggle this past weekend, but I feel like Blaney would be the heavy favorite there. Yeah. I feel like Penske at India, not going to let that thing be a dud. He was fast last year. Blaney was there, so I don't see why he wouldn't.

Blaney, he just correlates well to some of these tracks, and I feel like this is one he does. Yeah. This is Blaney all the way for me. I agree. Is there anything, I mean, the odds would, you know, to make money on this, the odds would be in your favorite a bet. Bubba, is there anything about Bubba going into this race? I mean, when I look at the charts, Bubba's pick crew is, far more superior.

And Bubba matches the passing, but that's, you know, he matches at passing, maybe on long run speed. He's about the, yeah. Yeah, the last five at this style of track, it's been four to one for Blaney. So, yeah. Just. All right. Well, I'd say Bubba's got an advantage on restarts, but Blaney's restart met him. Patrick looks pretty good too.

So, Bubba's always kind of been one of the better restarts this past weekend. He was jumping at the top and gaining a bunch of spots when he could on the high side of Dover.

But yeah, I think Blaney is the pick here too. So Blaney, Bell, I'm not going to bet on the Larson Hamlin. I don't think I could pick one if I had to. Sims, who are some top 10 bets that you might have your eyes on?

Bubba, because he's just consistent. I don't think he's going to dover when he finished seventh last week. So I think they're just trying to points their way to this to the playoffs as much as they can. I like him and Eric Jones. I don't know.

He's kind of stated out to me because he's good to Pocono. So maybe this will be a good track for him. But he has struggled because of this road course month we've had. So it's tough. I feel like you guys have told me wrong. I feel like this is a very much like

straight up race kind of like last week too. Like if you're, if you're qualified up front, you're, this is probably where you're. But the only thing they could flip this race is a timely caution in the middle of a pit cycle or something somebody could get it right somebody could pit and the caution come out and well that'd flip it around this will be a very frustrating event because um the the lack of a second groove and to y'all's point wherever you qualify man you can hang on to that track position all day long as long as you don't make any mistakes on

pit road or like tj says have an untimely caution flip the field upside down so we were talking about VG and his oval speed, last four races versus first of the season. Russ, do you happen to have those numbers for us? Yeah, I don't think that there's not a huge improvement over those last, like the last four versus the first four, but like his long run speed is where it's really improved. Like not the overall speed, but his long run speed went from 35th to 28th. You know, it's not like it's a huge jump. That's about what I was expected.

Yeah. And that, like Charlotte, Nashville. Michigan, he was like 24th, 26, 28th, and then he did struggle at Pocono and Dover. You know, Dover, obviously, he had that issue early. So let me ask you this on the NASCAR Insights metrics, right? So he has the flat tire, and I would assume that that flat tire and how that put him behind several laps would skew the passing defense restarts. I would just ignore them because of the issue that he had early in the day, right?

starts for sure. The speed you can take into account. The speed you can still take into account. And the pit crew you can still take into account. The defense in passing, I would say that the numbers are still going to be used, but I don't think he

races the same way. So I don't think it's fair to use. That's a good point. I didn't think about it. Racing differently because of the situation you're in. He's seven laps down. So like... Yeah. Well, He had, we talked about 31st place speed at Dover,

and Ty Dillon run 20th with 28th, 28th place speed. So, I mean, that, you know, you, Ty Dillon doesn't have a fast car. He just is a bulldog, don't give up, keep on nagging, keep on nagging and keep on nagging and keep on nipping kind of guy. I think that's what, you know, for Shane to have any kind of opportunity to make it out of round one, he's going to have to take on a pretty selfish, selfish personality. But he's also got to gain, continue to gain on overall speed, not just the long run speed, but overall speed.

He's got to hit the ground running. Got a couple weeks to figure it out, just to get a little bit better, he gets knocked out around one. with 17 or more playoff points, Russell. Yeah. Yeah. But that's 17 positions he's got. Like, you know what I mean?

On some guys. That's going to be 17 positions he's got on some guys. What's the tracks in the first round? Darlington. There's half of them. Gateway and Bristol. Yeah, okay. Jesus.

It can be made up. He better bank some more Watkins Glen. Well, you say that, but it's like, somebody can lose a bunch at Bristol that he's up against, you know? Yeah, for sure. There could be a wreck, but I mean, Bristol's been pretty clean. I'll say this.

So when we watched A.J. Almondinger and a couple other guys, even Scott Speed and just these guys that would come out of all these different disciplines and come into NASCAR and race, they did seem to pick up the Martinsville, the Bristol, the small short-track stuff quicker. SVG, what ovals has he sort of popped? I remember North Wiltsboro, Bowman Gray. So, I mean, if you're looking for some silver line or a little glimmer of hope,

you could say that he might could go to Bristol and somewhat maintain. Where did he run in the spring? I don't know. Probably not great. Let's not talk about that one. He had a suspension issue. But like at Darlington,

he finished 20th in the spring. There we go. He's going to need to average a 20th place finish to even have a shot, right? So he's got to 17th or more playoff points. And so he's got to go into, he's got to get a 20th out of Darlington. Got to.

And then he might. How many do you think he gets at the glen, Russell? Um, six. You think he wins? Oh, yeah. And he wins stage. Okay. One or two.

One and two. One of them. He wins one of them. Yeah. So we're looking at a 23, 24 point buffer, maybe, maybe 22, 22 or 24 point buffer. So, man, still tough tracks, man. Yeah, I know it. It's really tough tracks.

It's be fun. I'm going to be entertained seeing if he can do it, seeing if he can make it into round two. And then what tracks are in round two? Roval's in round two. All right? Say he goes and wins the roble.

Now he's in the third round. Kansas and New Hampshire as well. Yeah, but if he wins the roval, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And then he gets the round three. Then he's in round three, SBG. And he got Taladega round three, right? No, yeah.

Yeah, Talada Vegas and Martin. but he's got I mean that's banking on him winning the roval he's the only way he can advance is a roble win at that point are you betting against him on a road course right now tj uh no not right now i mean how can you right yeah that's what i'm saying

like if he gets to the round two he's winning roval yeah all right this 30 bodeau segment was brought to you by fan duel the premier gaming destination in the united states thanks russell thanks thames all right it's time for the white flag

the Teardown was live on YouTube and Twitter following the Dover Race. And actions detrimental dropped on Monday. Denny had a great breakdown of those final few laps and letting us know how he kind of held off everybody to win. Ty Dillon was the guest on Door Bumper Clear this week. The Cinderella run continues for Ties. He goes into Indy to try to win the ultimate bracket challenge and a million dollars. And apparently, as I've read on social media, that one million bucks goes right to the driver. So, no.

Bob said the driver yesterday. I believe when the end-season tournament was first announced, the understanding of many in the garage was the one million would go to the driver directly, but NASCAR says it will be paid to the owner just like the purse. Holy shit, man. Well, you know, let me tell you this. That's probably why the drivers have downplayed it and don't understand it and don't know much about it. I guess when we started the bracket challenge, you know, drivers were like,

eh, I don't know nothing about it or what a surprise, blah, blah, blah. Well, you know, I'm an owner, and I've dealt with owners in my cup career. And if you send them to check, they're going to take their cut. And I'll be surprised if Ty Dillon gets all $1 million bucks if he were to win it. No wonder I saw after Ty made it through the next round, no wonder Chris Rice was so damn happy. Oh, that's, no kidding. Yeah. I would think that they should make this.

So there was this debate, I guess. I heard about all this because I was reading social media and some tweets from Bob about the lawsuit and how maybe the teams feel, the team side feels like this incentives program for appearances and so forth like Joey Lagano is doing, is making things difficult for them and their partners and sponsors. And it's because there's a million bucks that goes to the driver

who does it the best, and Joey O'Gano is going to get that million bucks, right? So that's the way they should have done this bracket challenge is, look, owners, you know, they've all, everything, without the bracket challenge, nothing changes, right? Everybody gets what they're getting there. You're getting your share, you're getting your share. everybody's getting their share that they're they're contracted to get then NASCAR comes out with the bracket challenge they should have had a briefcase with one million bucks sitting there and said whoever wins this gets this box with all this money in it that'd be interesting then then the drivers would have absolutely gave you yeah you think

god if they would have had a briefcase of money at the track oh my gosh great marketing why didn't they do it That would have been awesome. You could have a briefcase with $5,000, $1 bills in it and told me it was a million bucks. It didn't have to be a million. But, you know, you could just have the optics, right, of here's the money. It's in this box. The driver, and they could do it this weekend. The driver that wins the bracket is getting this handed to them on pit road when they stop their car and get out.

And it is theirs, right? It doesn't go to the owner. And so, you know, it. If you're, I could tell you, if I'm a driver and they said, yeah, that one of million bucks is going to the owner first and he'll give you what he wants, I'd be like, well, I don't care about the bracket anymore. You know, it doesn't matter. I mean, I don't, I care about it way less, you know, but I'm sure there's some legal reasons why it had to happen this way. But damn it, you know, it had been fun if they were just like, here's your million bucks, tie. Anyways, moving on.

I got a guest interview tomorrow, and it's Boo Weekly. He's an old friend of mine. He won some big-time golf tournaments, played in the PGA, and he's out there still kicking it, playing golf these days, and I can't wait to catch up with Boo.

He's a big, big NASCAR fan, came to several races back in the day, even in the bud days. And so we got a lot of catching up to do. I hadn't seen him in a long time, funny-ass guy. So it should be, talking to him. Herman Schrader and Speed Street will also drop Wednesday and then on Thursday

another episode of Bless Your Heart with my wife Amy. Looking forward to seeing what we've been up to. We've got a lot of things to talk about there too. So it should be a lot of fun.