The Dale Jr. Download - Is Hocevar & Heim NASCAR's Next Great Rivalry?

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

In case you've been living under a rock this week, we've had ourselves a week here at Dirty Mo Media — so why don't we take the best 30 mins, package it into a highlight show, just like we do every week. Deal? Deal. We start off with Dirty Air, where Carson "The Hurricane" Hocevar plays host for Dale Jr. while he's out doing something or other in California in between San Diego & Sonoma. Carson dives into the incident between him and first-time winner Corey Heim, the celebration the fans missed out on, and... oh yeah, Cleetus calls in. Next up, Denny Hamlin discusses the final battle between his two drivers, Tyler Reddick & Corey Heim. Did Tyler do the right thing by letting Corey go? DH's answer might surprise you. On Business of Motorsports with Kelley Earnhardt Miller, CEO of Lionel Racing, Howard Hitchcock explains the process of getting diecasts into consumers' hands, and how it takes longer than you might think. Lastly, Ray Evernham was a guest on Door Bumper Clear, along with Bozi Tatarevic, and we asked Ray when he knew Jeff Gordon was a star. That's all for this week! See you next time on Dirty Thirty. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey everybody, I'm Dillon Hart Jr. and this is The Dirty 30. The best highlights from all of our podcast this week, 30 minutes every single Friday. The Dirty 30 coming in short. Let's get right to it. This episode of The Dirty 30 is presented by Arby's new Meat in Three Box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We had the meets. Is it time for the winner segment? Speaking of rivalries. Speaking of rivalries. That's a good transition. Hang on. Hang on. Let me ask you one thing. Okay. After the race, so leading into this, 67 restart, are we going to restart, right? Leading, 45 gets by us, driving the chicane, 67 rolls the center a lot quicker than you do, gets in the back of you and spins you out, right?

You drive back to 19th after spinning out. After the race, we're always on guard when stuff happens, right? Like I'm on channel two. Like Dan's our car chief, CJ, all the guys. Let me, hey, be at the car because I don't know what's going to happen. Or, hey, watch this guy because I'm not sure what's going to happen. I'm standing on the roof and I don't see you. And I don't see you.

And I don't see you. There goes to 67. So I'm like, okay. Well, he didn't go by the 67. What took you so long to get back to the pit road after the race? So I, you know, I crossed the line. I like kind of took my helmet. off, took my gloves off, and everything. And I just went really slow. And I just enjoyed the views.

Like, I was like, um, yeah, I was like throttle wapping at like fans and waving at them and everything. Because like a lot of them were cheering and like they were probably like, yeah, first lead left finish on road course. You know, congrats. Oh, I'm sure they do that. Yeah. Um, they, um, but no, I was just like, I was just going to come back here. Um, or good shot of them. Not. ever experience in this and I was I was just really happy with my performance and everything I felt like we did a really really good job on like car and direction and so like I was like really content with like and we like went back forward like we ran down the pack and then passed some more cars to get some more spots so I just went really slow and like got to like

just embrace it with the fans and you know I looked like a parade lap on a local night like I was wave and I was like, hey. They probably thought you won the race. No, seriously. I was like, yeah, I was joking. I was like, man, I was not robbed of victory. Yeah.

But the, you know, the fans were. Yeah. Yeah, they were going to see the greatest celebration of all time. Because I was, somebody asked me, and they're like, oh, you know, what happens if you win? What do you get to do when you win?

And I was like, number one, I was like, bro, course, I'm not winning. But I was like, dude, if I do win, I tell you exactly what I'm going to roll over to turn seven. And I know exactly where a gap is. I'm going to stop my car. I'm going to roll out. I'm going to run over towards the aircraft carrier, and I'm going to go jump in the water,

and I'm going to have a Navy guy come get me out. And then I'm just going to just try to go find the aircraft carrier or I'll go try and, I wanted to go drive. I knew exactly where a gap was. I was like, man, what if I went into the center of the military base? Pass the guys what they are. No, no, not past. say,

damn, yeah, no, on turn seven where you are, no, turn five, you'll,

like where the buildings were, and you could turn left. Where the bus was. No, you could turn left where the hangers were and stuff. Okay. I was just wanted to turn left and just go see what was around there,

and I was just going to go do a burnout there. I was just going to go do a burnout in a random spot on this race track that they wouldn't expect me to just go do a burnout. I was just could do it right in the military, like right in the middle of the racetrack, and do it, I mean, I probably got,

like, they would have not been thrilled about me. They probably wouldn't have been had cameras there, it. They would have been pumped. So that's where I was like, you know, that's why I just came around yourself. I was like, I was not robbed. Yeah. The industry was. But it was going to be, but no, I was just really happy with my performance, how fast we were, everything that I was just like, you know, I kind of like had the talk pre-restart two to myself of just like, I don't know, for whatever reason, like I wasn't like, I was just like, you know, this is all gravy.

This is all house money, you know, just, you know, whether, you know, late, last restart of the day, we're leading the race at a road course. Yeah. Not really on strategy. You know, a little bit on strategy, but we went, you know, the strategy got us from third to first. Yeah. All right. Well, I'll call it not strategy.

Yeah. Strategy plus a good car. Strategy plus good car, the whole deal. But no, I was, but that's why I was really slow is I, you know, had my helmet off and everything. Soaking it in. Do you think we were going to fight? Not necessarily. I mean, the way you didn't say anything on the radio after it happened, I knew you're okay.

No, I mean, I felt like that was, I felt like that was four years coming, ish. Yeah. And I was like, all right, fair. Yeah. Have you had a conversation with him at all? Yeah, Denny said you asked for his number. I did. He didn't know what happened.

I did. No, I was wondering that. Yeah, he said on his show that he thought you're just going to congratulate. Then he saw what happened. He's like, oh, I had no idea. No. I mean, obviously he is very good. And I'm looking forward to racing his ass off for, you know, 20 years.

But like, I don't know. I do enjoy racing him. Like on the truck side, like I remember Texas. I like look down pit road to look at the Tricon trucks. and like I looked over and I was like I wanted to see who was in the one this week and I was like oh it's not high I was like okay we'll win this week no problem um yeah I think we can beat him but like it's just like it's you know it's gonna be probably between me and him or yeah I think the tricons trucks are probably the best trucks but he's definitely by far the best of like taking advantage

on him yeah and everything for sure so but no I was um but also too like I probably would have been more like damn it you know other places but like road course I was like I was just happy

I was fast I was just happy I was enjoying it and everything and I was just in a good spot that week and everything but I was just pumped

that we were fast that was ultimately the goal yeah good weekend on the 77 it was great yeah I was happy about it you know we're fifth in practice got stage points whole spang

almost got SVG in qualifying I know. If I didn't miss the chicane, I overdrove the chican. Yeah. At least you both did it. So he did it too. So that's what made me feel at least somewhat better, too, is that he did it too. Like he wasn't thrilled with his lap. So I was like, okay, well, like, I'm not thrilled with my lap, but neither is he. Yeah. And you're still close. If he is his best lap, it would have been better than mine. So I'm like, I'd deserving second. Yeah, deserving second. But I mean, it was good.

So you were going to talk to him today, but he's out west. So unavailable. So will you reach out to him or? Well, I mean, I was excited to do the interview. I was excited. I was excited to do the winner segment here. But, you know, they must not have cell service in California. Can't call in? Time zones.

Time zones. Yeah. It's eight. It's nine o'clock there. It's early. I mean, I had a good few questions. Yeah. I was ready to go.

I was going to ask him when his next cup race was. I was excited. Go racing. What? Yeah. No, I just didn't know. I was like, I bet he's on, I wonder if he's on the entry list. He might be the truck race. He wasn't on the entry list. There is no truck race this week. No, Wilkesboro. Be the next one.

When is his next cup race? Chicago, two weeks. He's calling me now. Hold on. Hello? Brother, are you talking about right now? You're on the air right now because we're recording right now. Oh, well, that's even better. Yeah.

Or do I need to call envy the link? Oh, hit the link. They're saying hit the link so they can get, you know, they want to be able to put you in the thumbnail. All right. Stand by. I'm coming. All right. Pause.

What a guy. Well, so he calls me on every podcast that he like does and everything. And guest appearances. So he called me, well, he does his podcast at like 7 a.m. So like Dale does his like 8. 8.30. Maybe it's a dad. Cleetus does it at like seven and whatever. And so legitimately, the Monday after Taday, he calls me. And he's like, I don't know why you didn't answer. Like, bro, I'm in, like, I'm in bed. So then the next week. Because they're not active drivers. That's

why. Well, I know. But like, so the next week, he calls me. And like, it wakes me up. But like, I was, I look over and he's like, you know, I was like, Cleas McFarland calling. And I was like, I didn't answer last week. I got to answer. So I swipe. And I go. I go, man, he's just like, what are you doing? I was like, I'm up, man. He's like, you up? I'm up. What are you doing?

And I, like, do this with my eyes. Like, as I'm waking up, I look around and I'm like, what am I doing? I don't know. I'm just up. And I died laughing going back, but like I 100% just woke up. I had no idea. I had no idea that, like, I was in a day's. Clint's.

Do you hear us? Yeah, I got you. You got me? Yeah, I got you. Well, so you call me all the time on the podcast, and I'm here. I got Tyler Green. He's filling in for T.J. Majors. I'm Dale, Dale Jr. this week.

I just figured I would call you. Did you watch San Diego? Absolutely. What do you think of the street courses? Would you be able to put... Would you be better at drifting around the street courses or driving a NASCAR around it? brother, I think I'd do good at a street course, you know? It's a little more my style.

All these guys have perfected turning left, so I think I'd have a little bit more even. So I, weirdly enough, feel like I'm way better at the street courses than I am the regular road courses, because I have defined limitations of where I got to go. Yeah. You can only go to the outside wall and the inside wall. Uh-huh. I don't know. I mean, I kind of see that.

Plus chaos. Let's drive in chaos. Yeah, I mean, well, you're just a, you're a natural winner, you know, your Carson Freaking Hosta Bar. So obviously, you know, that makes a lot of sense. But I do agree. And, you know, I started out in road course racing versus, you know, this turning left in an oval situation turns out way more complicated than it looks.

So I like the idea of just. here's where you got to go. And I can hit an apex, you know. I can't necessarily run the groove in the perfect spot. I tell you what, there's less pit stops in road course racing. Less green flag entries for you. That could be very helpful in my case. You know what I'm saying?

That's so good. That's pretty much all I had for you, brother. I think next race. I think next year we'll find out. What's the next race? Talladega, you know, our track, our spot. I'll be a Dega in the Nice truck. Oh, yeah.

There you go. Nees truck. They almost had a shot to win that. I know. I was pumped. I was pumped too. It's looking good. All right, brother.

Well, thanks for jumping on real quick. That's all I had for. Absolutely, brother. You have a great. Keep up the great work. Thank you. Keep being a winner. I'm going to try.

I'm going to keep it up. I have a question, Dave. Are you okay with Reddick just giving back the spot? I think it is a very Tyler Redick move. I think that's his character in a nutshell. If I have to give you my honest opinion, 99% of the field would just say, I'll apologize later. But that's, I mean, that's who Tyler Redick is and he wants to race fair. and, you know, I think he, when Quarry was behind him and Corey chose not to touch him,

he felt the need to pay that back. And I think what he felt as though, and again, I'm trying to play psychologist here, but you know what, if I'm good enough to win, I'll just pass him back. You know, you got a rookie here that's, only got a few races. Surely if I can just put pressure on him, maybe he'll make a mistake, and I'm just going to get him back eventually. So I won't give it up. He was ahead of me before I did him dirty. So I'm going to put him back where he was, where he belonged. And, you know, it's interesting. Things like that happened throughout the field all the time. The people don't know it.

And the TV doesn't tell the entire picture. Like Michael McDowell came over to me after the race. He's like, God, man, I hate to put you in that bad spot in turn five. He's like, I hope you saw that, you know, two corners later gave me the spot right back. You know what I mean? So like, which impeded his progress that he was making at the time, but he was like, eh, I just, he's like, I just didn't feel good about it. And he gave me the spot back. So that's, that's the right way to race. And this too, this was very much a race between Tyler and Corey at this time.

The third place is 10 seconds back. So by Tyler letting him go, he's not affecting his, his, you know, positioning, falling a third, whatever it may be. Yep. It's just those two guys one-on-one. Some other drivers in the field, we thought this was going to be an SVG day through and through, but he ends this one in the garage. You know, this is kind of like, this is the, what the field needs to beat him is, he's, he's, He's just going to have, and let me just say this. If it's based off a speed and all that stuff, he's, he would win every time.

But in NASCAR, sometimes you get unlucky, and he got unlucky today. And I've been frankly very surprised. He's not been caught up in something in other races. But I think he's just been so damn fast at the other races. He's in control of it. He'll flip a stage and still be so fast that he makes it back into the top 10, field pits, he cycles back to the lead. So this is like the only way to beat him.

You know, and it's not intentional. You know, Austin Hill overcooked, he overcooked turn one. You know, I kind of watched it. It's all where he drove into, got on the brakes hard, got, you know, chivalry. just up the racetrack into Connor. Talk about a nightmare year, by the way. Fricking Connor, right? Sucks for him.

I'm a big Connor fan, but it's, he has just had just some luck and some learning curve year. It's just not been good all around. But, you know, an SVG was just wrong place, wrong time and just, you know, got bitten by the unlucky

wrong place, wrong time, NASCAR bug. So, you know, take me from beginning to end in terms of either someone brings you a program that's going to happen or a car, the host of a win, and the process and steps that that needs to happen in that time frame. Okay. They are a little different. So a win we're reacting truly to what's happened right then. And then a car, it can be very, very planned out.

So touch on the race win very briefly. So essentially we have a photographer that travels to every single race. as a company that takes photos for others as well. Their job is once that car goes through Victory Lane, they take rotations of that car art and they send it to us. By Sunday night typically, unless there's some uniqueness to the win, which we've had with a monster,

we have some restrictions of what we can produce. So that's a little bit different. But generally speaking, by Sunday night, that car is out and available for sale. We create item numbers depending on what happens, what track, what sponsor, what driver.

We put that out to our customers. So when I say our customers, the NASCAR.coms of the world or the teams of the world, you know, the NASCAR Hall of Fame, anybody who sells diecast. And then we also put it up on our site. And we immediately begin accumulating orders. I'll pause there. On a normal car, what will happen is we will get car art from the team. The timing of that depends on what we've kind of touched on.

Does the sponsor want to hold it back? Are they willing to work kind of in the background? When can we release the sales sheet? But essentially what happens is we get this, we get a piece of car art. We then have to transfer that car art onto our template. Our template then wraps onto the wireframe, which allows us to create a 3D, which is what you see on sales sheets or what you see online. We establish item numbers for it. It goes through a approval process.

So to make any car, we've got multiple licenses involved. We've got the team, which usually. represents the driver team sponsor, although in historics and stuff like that, there could be multiple players in that space. We have a license with Goodyear that's an automatic. We have a license with NASCAR who has to approve it, and we have a license with whichever the OEM is.

And so the OEMs typically have given us pre-approval rights based on, because they're really approving the marks on the car and the body of the car. NASCAR goes through and approves it and makes sure everything while their marks are in place, and then the team is obviously checking for the driver team and the sponsor side. So once the artwork is put on to our template and is put into that 3D rotated, that view, that gets sent off, gets approved. Once we get approval, that gets uploaded to the factory. The factory then transfers it to essentially a decal supplier.

So if you've ever done modeling, which we now have a whole category of models, there are the water slide decals, the kind of slimy little water slide decals. Yeah. That's essentially how we decorate the majority of these cars. And so a 24 scale will have roughly 18 different parts and pieces. So there's like the headlight area, there's the hood area, there's the roof flap. And somebody like the roof when it gets put down is an tire decal that somebody takes an Xacto knife and traces the flaps.

On every single car. On every single car. So what part of these are automated or hand? touched and done. The deco is completely, I mean, it uses machines like it for, so for the marks on the windshields, that's a process we call tampo printing. It basically, each station has a different color. So now they have multiple machines that do multiple colors. So like you can hit like the black bar and then the white of the name on one machine. Gotcha. But somebody is taking that windshield, putting it onto a piece, it slides down, hits multiple times and then puts it into the finish tray.

And then takes the next one. And so, you know, But the body of the car is decorated by hand through these water slide decals, primarily. There are exceptions. Certain colors are better to be done through tampo printing. The metallics have to be done as a separate decal. So if we have a metallic number of car, which I think we've had over there. Yep. So that has to be done through a separate decal.

But basically, after we've put the sales sheet out, we've tabulated the orders, we've placed the POs. the cars then get scheduled. So from PO to time the rate of ship is eight to ten weeks, it then goes in its package, which there's a whole other workflow for the package. Yeah, for approvals of all that. That has to come together at the time we have finished goods. Gets on a container ship. I'm tired already.

Gets loaded here. Yeah. And then we ship it out. So it is a very exhaustive process. And so minimal, what can you do minimally in amount of time to make something happen? Four months? For real production? Like if you just had everyone's cooperation along the way and...

Yeah, I mean, you got at least... Of course, you got an air freight or something. Yeah, air freight would be in. So you're at... I mean, you're four... Yeah, four months, yeah. And in most cases, it's probably a six or eight month process. Closer to six.

Yeah. There are windows. You know, the other thing we contend with is, and people have heard us talk about this, Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is a holiday that moves around. Yes. Because it's the lunar new year. And so it has about a three to four week impact on the factories.

Workers start leaving early. They're gone for the holiday. Then they trickle back. So, you know, that affects things. And it falls right around our Super Bowl, which is Daytona. Right? So it always makes it really challenging. Very challenging.

Yeah. You know, some years, it's early. Some years it's late. This year, actually, it was like almost right on Daytona, which was nice because you've got all that time to work up to the big race. So yeah, there's there's all these factors that are kind of happening. Capacity peak season. We're at a toy factory, right? So we're now entering peak season, which means there's a higher demand for workers.

So we might have had a slightly better schedule going into this time of year. And now it's going to elongate by a week or two weeks for these things. All right. Don't forget about stopping by the online merch store. We have some new stuff dropping called the Zero to Freedom Line. Good. Clean on the front and on the back. You got the American flag with a bunch of the, looks like some GN5 race cars.

Check it out at shop.dirtymodea.com. A couple of those new shirts will be on there for you guys to enjoy. Ray, when did you kind of know that Jeff Gordon was going to be somebody or be a star early on? First time ever saw him drive, right? So the first time ever saw him drive live, I used to watch him on Thursday Night Thunder. I was like, this kid is. Before you were born. He was like, yeah.

I was looking to something. I'm actually going to drive a midget indie tomorrow. Really? For the BC39 advertisement thing. But I got the fire suit out and I was saying, my fire suit's older than you. Wait, it better be approved. It's going to have those. My old I rock fire suit.

I think it's like 10 years or something, right? That's allowed. Yeah, this is from 1980. Well, if it's older than me, it's at least 25 years old. This is 1887. So Andy Petrie was doing a program at that time with Leo Jackson's son-in-law, and they said, hey, and Phil and Steve Barkdall. And they said, will you come down and help us with this kid because I had left Iraq? And I was trying to run all my own stuff.

I was building cars and trying to race and all that. And we came down to Charlotte. So that would have been 90, 1990. And we had one car, right? And it was Buck Baker School Car. a Pontiac with a Chevrolet V6 in it. We didn't even have the Buick powerful motor. Eight tires and wheels had borrowed everything.

And Chuck Bound was there, and he was a reigning champion at that time. And we got out at Charlotte, you know, they got to observe Jeff to, you know, say he's approved for the race. And I said, Chuck, we just check this car out. And so he goes out and drives around. He goes, no, that's okay, good for the kid, you know, talk to him a little bit. And so Jeff gets in the car. and I don't think anything of it I climb up on top of the hauler

the radio's on he's sitting there he's like just sitting there and I'm like and his hand comes out the window and he goes he motions you know come down I go down the ladder I was like

what's up he goes how do you start this? So you know we go whatever whatever but he went out I guess what I'm saying is he went out and then

I think it was less than five laps. Maybe it was more than five laps. I don't know, but regardless, he was running about a tenth of a second, faster than what Chuck Bound had run with the car. And he got in the bumps. Remember the bumps used to be low at Charlotte? Got in the bumps, gets completely sideways, just straightens the thing out, it keeps going. I said, hey man, come on here, let's talk. And he comes in, I go, you all right? He goes, yeah, I'm all right. Are you all right? You know, I said, you can't keep doing that. You know, or you won't be all right, you know. And he just was so good all day long. But his, you know, talking about

Corey Haim, Jeff's maturity inside the car was like a different person. Outside the car, he's breakdancing playing with a game boy. He, I mean, he didn't, but inside the car. Yeah, a game boy. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I almost bought a game boy Lego set yesterday to make a lot. All this stuff from the 90s is popular. Yeah. But it's coming back. I'm not bringing back low-rise jeans though. Well, I'll tell you, sir. He used to tuck his shirt in those long jeans too, so I still bust him about that. But his ability, you know, through my years at Iraq, the one thing that I learned, the great champions have an ability to take describing the car to another level.

And you've worked with people, you know what I'm talking about, right? And they go another level in description of what they're feeling or what the car's doing, and you're like, whoa, this kid is. I knew he was his ability to drive the car. and then describe what it was doing, like things like, hey, when I go in the corner, I feel like the weight rolls over to here, and then it's in the right front. And then as I'm getting to the gas, I feel honestly like the left rear is driving. Is this thing got a locker in it?

You know, stuff like that. You know, and I'm like, he's never run Charlotte before. And going probably faster than he's gone, you know, in that midget and stuff. And boom, boom, boom. Yeah. Tony Stewart was the same way when he first drove with me. It's just... You're like, there's...

It's just a different level. They've got a different dimension in what they feel. I watched the clip on Tony last night. I don't know what show it was on, but he described some things. It's like, I wish all these kids would listen to this. I got to go find it and post it, but it's a... Post it on what?

I don't know. I can tell him I got to post it. But yeah, it's, again, And the select few that know all these things that can pick these cars apart and do the things that need to be doing. I mean, Kyle Larson's ones that fit in there. You know, it's – Well, again, going back to that slowing the game down, like a second to you and me is one thing. A second to them is much different.

Yeah. Much different. You know, like, I mean, I drove – I don't know if you drove much. No, I never drove. But, you know, the point is I'm driving around there, and all I care about is not wrecking, right? You know, like. Mostly because it was your car and you couldn't afford to put it back together in the beginning. But the ability to do that and think and describe isn't that difference.

And Roger Penske has a good saying about, hey, they look out of a bigger windshield. And that's really what it's about. You know, like Jeff used to be able to think about positioning on the racetrack and getting ready to pit and saving fuel and do all those things at the same time leading those races. I call it higher mental bandwidth. In sports car, I've gotten to work with some gentlemen drivers and a lot of very high-level pros. And within the first five minutes on the radio, I can tell you who's who, even if you haven't told anything about it, just because they're so good at describing every little piece.

And it goes back to your process discussion, too. As a mechanic on pit lane, if I'm listening to a driver describing this, this and this, I start thinking in my head already, all right, we're probably going to have to move the bar. We might have to get these springs or do this or that. Yeah, it kind of almost makes everybody better because you kind of already You know what's coming. Yep. And makes your car faster.

Yeah. You got to have those top level people to do that. Yeah. That's such a, like, I'm just thinking about where we started with that and then where it ended in just the whole breakdown of how far into this. You're ready to go back racing. No, I'm not. I'm saying like I'm genuinely interested in the breakdown of it all.

Am I done racing? You're done? I guess. I'm like Tom Brady retired is what I call it. You are not Tom Brady retired. I'm semi-retired. You want to go run a midget tomorrow? Yeah.

I'll call Doug Bowles and say, hey. Tell them all do it. Yeah. My fire suits, SFI, approved, too. I was probably at this rate. I just brought that out because I know if a spark hits, it'll just go pooh-shed. Oh, yeah, it'll disappear. All right, that was another episode of the Dirty30,

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