The Dale Jr. Download - Josh Berry's Emotional Win & Dale's Practice Prediction

Episode Date: March 18, 2025

Dale Earnhardt Jr. rolls into the studio feeling extra prideful this week, as longtime JR Motorsports driver Josh Berry scored his first NASCAR Cup victory in Las Vegas. He and co-host TJ Majors sit down to unpack the exciting weekend in Sin City and more:A need for more practiceJosh Berry joins Dale in studio to talk about his first career Cup winLas Vegas is looking slickPitting outside the boxOver and underachievers so farChampionship winner Justin Allgaier races differentlyDuring the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions about:Wearing socks with sandalsInteresting thoughts behind the wheel of a race carIdeal house temperatureNew song recommendationsTampa Timms joins the guys in Dirty Mo Dough to chat about his big win last weekend and who he likes for next weekend. Dirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Dale Jr. Download merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff.And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaMust be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey everybody, it's Dale Jr. And we're back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download here in the Dirty Mo Media Studio with my friend, T.J. Majors. Travis is back there. We got everybody in the studio and we're getting ready to rock and roll. We're back at the house. I did that remote show, T.J. I thought we did a good job last week.

Yeah, it was really nice not having you in here. Shut up. Just shut up. Stop being so mean. Why you got to be such a... It was nice. Well, you were in a good spot. I was okay.

Yeah, you were... You missed me. It did. It was, I like it when you're back here because then you're less annoying. Oh, is that right? You got too much time. You ain't seen annoying yet. Oh, I have.

We got a, yeah, I got a little surprise for you. Surprise for me and you. Oh, yeah. Surprise for both of us. You ready? You ready to be surprised? Dale, Tim Alvin here with Charlotte football. I wanted to congratulate you on winning the national championship as a Niner.

Really appreciate the tweet last week. My phone started blowing up about Dale Jr. trying to get my job already. The coaching staff myself, I'd like to invite you, Amy and the girls up to a spring practice this spring. I'll show you around. I'll let you call a few plays. On behalf of the staff, we'd like to present you with this helmet. And this awesome 88 jersey right here. Love to have you come out to our upstate game this August.

Maybe make you an honorary captain. I look forward to shaking your hand one day. Again, thanks a lot. Go Niners. Oh, man. How about that, TJ? That's pretty cool. Got my own jersey.

I mean, it's the real deal. I can't even get this on, my bet. I don't, yeah. A helmet's pretty cool. Helmets, awesome. So the helmet, so a lot of people don't know this, man. A lot of people don't know this. I collect helmets.

You got a lot of them. Yeah. So it's been a while since I got, I was, it's been a while since I've got a lot of helmets. I was getting them pretty regularly. Yeah, they were coming home every week in the flying home and stuff. Yeah. And so it's been so long that I don't think I actually have one of these new ones, like that have all these little panels.

You don't have any like that. Yeah. All my stuff is like the old original hard shell, but this thing here has got all kinds of things going on. But it's legit. It's got the entire, I mean, some of them come and you know they're not to be used and never were used. But this is like legit. Got all the stuff inside it. Yeah.

That's pretty cool. It's beautiful, pretty. I am. So let's get down to the good part here. He said you could go to the game. Yeah. And maybe call play. No, practice.

You can call play. Oh, yeah. He said I could go to spring training and call a couple plays in practice. Bring your playbook and spreadsheet and show them what works. Yes. All right, man. We're going to do double undervert. Yeah.

Streak the tight end. Make sure he's, he's already streaked. They got a fast tight end there. There's no setup. There's no setup to these plays, Coach. We're not going to audible or hot rude and nothing, man. These things just work right out of the box stock. RPO's.

RPO's, yes. Oh, yeah, now you're... And some orbit plays. Get ready to a couple of orbits. We'll have about two or three orbits in the playbook. Man, I'm thankful. Thank you to the UNCC, the 49ers, the helmet, the jersey, the invitation. We're absolutely going to take y'all up on that.

And maybe we'll take the whole Dirtymo Media crew. Hey everybody you want the latest Dale Jr. download apparel. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.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.dirtymodea.com. What else we got to talk about, buddy, before we get into this race?

How was your West Coast trip? Are you ready to be dumb on that coast? You ready to be dumb on that shit? After two weeks of it, and this is less than what we used to do. What did y'all do during the middle of the week between Phoenix? and Vegas. Did you come home? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, and get back to the show. Yeah, nobody really... Listen, I was on the beach. I don't know where the s'clock is at. Yeah, not many stay. Because normally whenever you were running the schedule, we went three races out there.

Now we only have two. But, you know, most come home. But it still, it takes your whole day to get used to, a couple days of used to the time zone again. And then you go back, and then you got to do it again. And Vegas is Vegas. So, pretty awesome i mean it's like it's still Vegas you know so and i enjoy that i actually enjoy

the racetrack as a place that we go and run and track you know moves around the cars are all over the track restarts are wild i actually enjoy going there and running that racetrack well uh Vegas Vegas looks like it's really slick and it's starting to you know i know that it was already kind of lacking grip, but it really looks like it's starting to get more and more challenging, starting to wear tires a little bit, you know, comparable to other racetracks. I know that it's interesting to me, I think, for Vegas how different the grip is in three and four versus one and two. And I always thought it was because three and four sits in the sun longer and gets bleached out

and the billboards in turn one and two might protect it a little bit from the sand. Yeah, I was going to say the wind because it normally blows down the backstretch into three, and it was super windy this weekend there. Like, super windy. And so I know this sounds crazy, but the repeated year-long sandblasting,

for lack of a better term, that the surface takes. Yeah. Like it does it that is that right there is what that in the sun and bleaching out that surface That is what makes the track lose the grip Yeah, and so and I and the reason why I believe that is because When we would go to all of the tracks that were in the sun Sand belt or the sand region of like South Carolina like Rockingham

Myrtle Beach Darlington all those tracks where it's quite sandy and you kind of move away from like the red clay mud areas. Those tracks aggressively aged quicker. So like Daytona Beach, for example, right? Same thing. Like those tracks aged really quickly

comparable to other racetracks that would get resurfaced up north and so forth. So I think that the the terrain and to your point, the wind is really always pretty heavy out there in Vegas and the grit that gets blown around, basically just kind of sandblasting the surface annually throughout the day. But turn one and two has a little more grip than turn three and four. That's my belief. And especially when obviously the billboards cast the shadow across the racetrack,

the grip really improves comparable to turn three and four. But watching. Yeah, one and two does have some pretty, are they getting worse? Are they just about to? They're not getting better. They're just bad. They're bad, yeah.

They're pretty bad. Do you still drive under or above them? Yeah, I would say when you get to the corner and you get off the wall, like that's one of the things that going there, you think about what the drivers are going with you. When you point off the wall, you better be aimed where you want to go when you hit them bumps because that's where you're going to end up. Because if you're going straight, when you go in there and you hit

them bumps, you're going to go up the racetrack. I can't imagine what it must be like to go to Vegas. I remember when, you know, and deal with those bumps in one or two, I remember when we used to go there and test, like we'd go out to Vegas before the season and spend two days testing. We would go there, you know, and then you'd get there to practice and you'd practice on Friday all day, practice on Saturday all day, and you were still not happy with how the car got through the bumps. most times you would show up

and the car would be awful through the bumps. You'd be like, hair on fire, pure panic mode going back to your crew chiefs thinking, dude, this thing's awful through the bumps. Like, we are way off. Like, I hope you got to plan.

Everybody's saying the same thing, though. You're going to fix this shit because this ain't going to get it. And I can't imagine how it is for you guys now when you show up and you don't really get a lot of practice. and if it don't get through the bumps, what do you do? Like, you don't really have a lot of options, but to suffer through it. Yeah, I mean, you just, yeah, you got to suffer through it.

And honestly, you can't even really spend a ton of time working on it either. And I feel like that the conversation around practice, right, is one that hasn't gotten enough attention until probably the last 48 hours. We had the There was Catherine Legg at Phoenix stirred up a lot of conversation around the approval process for drivers in NASCAR

I don't think that there is a problem or a perfect solution for the approval process I'm sure there's things you could change I don't really give two shouts about it to be honest with you somebody's going to make a decision so my NASCAR is going to say yes or no

and that's that like it or not right what I believe the conversation is, what I believe better serves that conversation is talking about how practice might have helped her and the team improve the car. And so fast forward to this weekend,

and I would say that listening to the tear down after the race on Sunday, Jordan Bianchi and Jeff Gluck both agree. Like more practice is probably the core conversation and the true solution to giving a person like Catherine a better opportunity to not only have a better race but also not have mistakes. And then they came in here for door bumper clear and they had a similar conversation and all agreed that the teams aren't saving money

by not practicing. They have found they're going to take that. Let's just say the teams are spending. a million dollars less by not practicing comparable to what they were doing in 2019.

Well, they've taken that million. Put it over somewhere else. And they've spent it somewhere else. They didn't save it and put it in their pocket. That ain't what's going on. Now. They've hired two or three more people. And to the guys on Doorbubber Clear

to their point, they've hired more people and they've hired more tools to basically practice. during the week. It just gets reallocated somewhere else. Within SIM, engineering, and all these other things to try to continue to get better. So they aren't saving the teams money. The teams aren't saving themselves money?

But now if you add practice, though, aren't you now forcing them to spend money? You will find... No. Because, listen, every team has a certain amount of money to fund their program. All right? and I would say if you got $20 to spend

and somebody said all right man you're going to start practicing you're going to take you're going to reallocate money you're going to find

all right man where can we move some money away from something else to put it into the practice bucket junior motor sports is going to have a certain amount of money to race this year and if

they came to tomorrow and said, we're adding an hour of practice to every weekend. Wouldn't change a thing. There's some people in this building that would probably argue with me, but in the end, at the end of the year, it ain't going to make a shit. It ain't going to amount to nothing in terms.

It ain't going to ruin our business. It ain't going to. We'll find a way like we always have. Anytime anything's changed in this. sport that required an additional spend, we found a solution. That's what we do. And that's what all race teams do. And so we would go somewhere in our business model, and we'd find the money, and we'd

figure it out. And so, you know, I thought that that was pretty, I was frustrated that practice was never brought up in that whole conversation around Catherine. and Phoenix and the approval process and all of that. I was texting with my buddy Casey Mears who's going to run Martinsville. And he's like, hey, I just saw that clip about practice that you have with your show. He's like, I couldn't agree more. He's like, the more I think about it, the more I'm like, holy shit.

You know, I'm going to go with this team. They have no support, their own engines. Like he is, he's in as toughest situation as you could be in to try to go and qualify into this race, right? and go run well, right, and just have a good time, right? And if he had an hour of practice, they're going to show up with Carl's car. It's going to be okay, but it would absolutely improve if they had some time to, you know, work on the car a little bit and get a little more comfortable for the driver. And Casey would probably have a whole lot better of an experience driving that car around there,

not wrestling with a lot of the problems that he could figure out in practice. And so you have, but anyways, you know, I was frustrated that this conversation was not happening instantly after the Catherine Leg deal, but then it started to pick up a little bit of momentum. The guys at the tear down brought it up, which I thought was awesome, and then door bumper clear brought it up yesterday. And I really believe, like, you know, the fact that we don't practice still is shocking to me. the fact that we practice as little as we do, right, is just insane to me.

And I know some people have gotten used to it. It's normalized for a lot of teams, drivers. And some drivers, and I can't argue with them, some drivers will sit here and say, I don't want any more practice. It's not going to help me. We had Chase Elliott sit here and say that. And I can understand his point of view.

But there are teams that are, I bet if you ask, any of the teams that are in the back half of the field, they'd all go, yeah, I'd take a little bit of practice. Now, so Denny brought up last year, though, that if there's more practice, the bigger teams are going to be able to have more information and they're going to have advantage.

All of them will get more information. But do you think the teams that have... So the teams that are... I understand where you're going with this. Yes. I mean, a little bit. You get a four-car team. You're obviously going to gather more information.

Four cars, four bits of information. But if you got a team out there right now, like, let's say, let's pick a... Noah Gregson, right? Good little driver, good little team. They get a lot out of what they have, but it's a new, it's all kind of a new thing, right? Are we helping them by limiting their practice?

Are we helping them because we're keeping Denny Ham from getting too good? Well, are they gaining? I mean, are they... What they're gaining is that more than what these other teams you're going to be able to gain off of... Yes, Denny's going to make his car a small percentage better, and Noah will take his car.

The gain that Noah's going to make is probably bigger. So that's a great point, TJ. So the reason why Denny and a chase or some of these guys don't really want practice is because their cars tend to show up relatively close and they're going to spend an hour working on the car and likely not really finding a lot.

if anything may be just a marginal game. They'll make it a little more comfortable for them. Yeah. They can do that. And so I understand why they're like, yeah, it's more practicing. They're going to change anything for me. Get some of them other cars, see how you think. Yeah.

For Noah, even you guys to an extent. You know, in a lot of these places, they might really improve their car quite a bit, you know, and give themselves a better. shot at a few more positions on Sunday. It's certainly a more comfortable car. They can take that information, continue to steamroll and snowball that information

week after week, growing and getting better and improving throughout the season. Yeah, I but it'll be, I you know what? I'm going to tell you I'm going to predict something right here. My prediction is in two years

we're practicing. Two? You think it'll happen quicker? I thought it for like two months. I mean... No. Well, I think practice is coming back. Yeah. NASCAR hasn't said a word about it.

They're probably... They have no intentions of bringing it back. But I think that logic will prevail. How much practice do you want? I think if the team's just got a solid hour, they could bust that up into 30 minutes. Would you keep the format that we do now and do like 20 minutes and then qualifying right into it or just...

I don't know. I don't think that would be bad. That way you at least can qualify. At least you know what you got for qualifying a little bit, and you got a little bit of an idea. I think the best case scenario would be for the cars to show up, maybe get 10 minutes or 20 minutes go right into qualifying. Yeah.

And then have like a... Which is what we do now, basically. And then they would have a post-qualifying practice that would be anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. So you get like a happy hour. Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing is if you don't want to practice,

Don't practice. They're going to practice. Yeah. There's no way some team is ever going to sit at. They're all going to practice. Yeah. But you could see them maybe roll out, do a few laps and not go as hard or as long, though, right? I mean, if the car is great, they probably will say, hey, it's good.

Yeah. But you know what they're going to do? They're going to make a long run. And they're going to see where their car goes in a long run, which is fine. I mean. Are they going to science out some things? Yeah. They're just testing.

You're always going to work on something. Yeah, you always are. But I predict. I predict that. Inside of two years, we have a form of practice return. Not this 20-minute, you know, group A, group B, bull-hs, we'll have a legitimate like, hey, man, everyone out there, give it, give it all you got for 45 minutes to an hour.

A Saturday practice. Yeah, I believe it. I think it has to come back. Before the Xfinity race, going to the Svaney race. Yeah, I mean. Yeah. I mean, or after it. I don't know.

Also, if you added practice, I think that might help with attendance. for the Xfinity races, too, if you know, hey, you're going to see the cup guys out there practicing beforehand a little bit. Imagine that. That's a great,

I mean, that's a good point. Well, there's storylines. Yeah. Fans are, fans are having to really, like, debate on, like, do I go camp? Because, damn,

only track activity I really get is the Saturday and the Sunday race. It's quick. And it's bam, bam. You know, it used to feel like the weekend was, long form you know all all types of things going on a lot of track activity um storylines building and so a question do you transfer do you carry this to the other two series as well yeah i think so

give me each an hour yeah because i think in those in the in the you know trucks and exfinity those drivers need that even more yeah just the time in the behind the wheel of the car oh man i mean Yeah. So I think it would be good to bring practice back. I know we have repeated ourselves and said that on this show a lot over the last several months and maybe even longer. But I believe it will come back. I just don't see this being. This to me isn't normal.

Even after all these years since COVID, this still doesn't feel normal to not practice or limit practice. Or try to, for that to be where they're going to try to save money of all the way. areas where they're just, you know, spending ludicrous amounts of... And NASCAR has done a good job of limiting areas. You could spend money and taking away things like wind tunnels and stuff like that. Like, you only, like, that was getting... Yeah. That was, there was a lot of that.

But, um, I really think practice is one thing that would help in all, a lot of areas. Yeah, for sure. Um, we'll see how that goes. Will my prediction come true? Do you think we'll come, we'll get practice back? You want to make a prediction there, bud? I mean, I do think we'll have practice again at some point. When the game tips off, the NBA action is just beginning on FanDuel, America's number one sports book,

because FanDuel is your home for NBA live betting. So even if you miss the first few minutes of the game or you want to bet on a fourth quarter comeback, you can make your picks from the first whistle until the final buzzer. Plus, you can even combine your live bets into a same game parlay for a shot at a bigger payout. However, you want to play. Now is the perfect time to join.

New Fanduil customers get started off with $150 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. Me and my friends have been having a lot of fun putting some parlays together and just betting a little bit to make the games a lot more fun to follow along. So just visit Fandul.com slash Dale Jr. to join today. That's Fandul.com slash Dale Jr. for your shot at $150 in bonus bets. Make every moment more with Fandul, official sports betting partner. of the NBA. All right, so let's talk about the winner. Josh Barry and the Wood Brothers.

Just a lot of good layers to this story. Josh is, you know, obviously, if you've been around, you know the deal. Josh worked at Junior Motorsports. Basically, I was racing online. Very similar to our friendship, TJ. I was racing with Josh. he was asking me if I would watch some of his races. He had some in-car footage from his Legends races.

Yes, he ran Legends cars. Yeah, in Nashville Fairgrounds. I said, yeah, I'll watch him. Got to looking at it. And I could see how as he's driving this Legends car, he would arc the entry to turn and get up underneath the car in front of him, and he was patient on the throttle, and he was doing a lot of things. that I was just like, wow, this guy's a nice little driver, right?

He's not barreling into the corner and driving the car into a push, knocking people out of the way, or missing the exit. I mean, he was just really tidy with his line, and I just could see some things in there. I was like, this guy's just got, he's got just basic general common sense about how to make a corner. Nothing crazy. We were in between drivers in our late model car.

kind of, you know, we had an opportunity to try some people out. And I said, hey, why don't you come and drive the car? I don't even remember the whole series of events, but whether he practiced the car, maybe ran, I think we did like one or two race, a trial, two race trial or something. And he ended up running relatively decent. And think he ran top 10 or something like that at a big field at Motor Mile.

He ends up moving here and moved in with my mom and Willie, her husband, and lived at their house for a couple months. We put him to work in the tear down at Junior Motorsports, cleaning parts and cleaning stuff coming off of used race cars at the end of the race weekend. And then eventually he did that for a while,

and then eventually he went over to the late model program to work on the car full time. Once he got enough like mechanics, knowledge, we needed him to be working on the late model. And there for a while, it was just him. And he was, you know, we got Brian Schaefer, Marty Lindley helped a lot over the course of Josh's, you know, decade-long stint with the late model stock stuff.

But he learned a ton himself about the front geometry, about the setup of the car, the typical maintenance. He worked on every inch of the car. And it was good for him. And we tried our ass off to get him opportunities, you know, and it took a while, and it finally stuck, and he gets into the Xfinity Series.

He has success. He wins races. All of that secured him an opportunity at Stuart Haas to drive the four car. I think that Harvick, Josh Jones, Rodney Chilters, all of those people saw something. They saw what we saw in Josh Sunday, you know, the potential for this guy to be a winner at the cup level.

The interesting thing I think with Josh, obviously, is his age. He's not 18, he's not 20, 22 years old coming in. He's a 34-year-old veteran. He's sort of the... You know, it's kind of like Dick Trickle. Dick Trickle was one of the most decorated short track racers up in the northeast. And he was a rookie at the cup level at like the age of 45 or 50 years old. But everybody knew he wasn't a rookie.

Everybody knew that he was one of the best drivers in the country in terms of, you know, racing on the short tracks at the least. But, you know, Josh comes in. in the middle of his racing career at the age of 30, 33 years old now, 34 years old now. And what I thought was great about that is when you hire him, you're getting that veteran, you're getting a guy that already has the racecraft, you're getting a guy that's not going to make a bunch of dumb mistakes,

he's not going to be uneducated, everything that's coming at him, he's going to know kind of what to how to handle it, and he's over you know he's he's he's not immature he's over the bull outside of the race car you know pitfalls and things that you can get yourself into he's got a family he's got responsibilities he's got a mortgage you know this guy has to get it done he has to go out there and make it happen and and so you get to cut a lot of corners we talked about the development that joey legano and byron and those guys had the you know the other

the two or three years where you're going, hmm, when's it going to finally start clicking? You didn't really have to worry about that with Josh. He was in a tough situation last year with Stewart Horse Racing. We saw some glimpses, a top three, I think, at Darlington, and things kind of tailed off and went sideways toward the back half of the year because, you know, the team was basically just kind of hemorrhaging people. That was a bad situation, too.

And so, but it gets in a deal with the Woodbrothers. And I remember during the off season, you know kind of being privy to a little bit of the conversation around where Josh could end up and I I think now you know it's easy to say this but it's like the Woodbrothers needed him as much as he needed them you know they're both good for each other yeah there's been a really great effort in offseason to retool the 21 car new crew chief there's some excitement from the drivers at Penske that would be, you know, they would have an interest, a rooting interest in who drives the 21 car

and how they're going to have to work with that driver, you know. He's fit right in. There was some excitement around Josh coming and being a part of that program and being a part of those meetings and conversations amongst the drivers. And so it's great to see this play out, you know, and you could tell there was something positive. Possibly there. They had some good speed at Atlanta.

For sure. Yep, ran up front. Got kind of screwed around there late on late where you start. In contention, I mean, in contention. Ran all, ran up front all day at Phoenix. Totally different type of track too. Yep. And I think the word that I think served this, served that weekend the best was undersold.

That's what Jordan Bianchi described how they as the industry presented, Josh's result at Phoenix. You know, everybody was hesitant to, like, take note of it or make light of it because it was like, all right, you know, this is just a one-off kind of thing. And then they go this weekend and, again, ran in the top 10, top five for a majority of the day and ended up, you know, putting it together and being there in the right time at the right place. Yep.

So really, really neat story. and trying to put it into words how proud of Josh I am, how thankful I think I am of all of the people that have given him opportunities along the way. Like we could help him here at Junior Motorsports to an extent. Yeah, it's a stepping stone if he uses it right. Yeah. And then when that reached its limit,

there was other people that had to come in. Well, that's the goal, right? Yeah. and, you know, again, Harvick, Josh Jones, and, you know, Childers and those folks kind of believing in him, Stuart Haas, has given him that opportunity

to get into the Cup Series. And also, Hendrick Motorsports, when Chase was hurt, when, you know, when they called on him to come drive that car, and again, when Alex Bowman gets hurt,

and they calling him to come drive that car, those are some tough things. to do, some good results, some tough results, but, you know, the things that I heard were how much they enjoyed working with Josh during the week at the meetings, how, you know, how plugged in he was, and he helped that team kind of, you know, continue to learn and progress for when the drivers that were injured once they become healthy and hopped back in, it was like they didn't miss a beat. So all of that experience has led to this.

And now he is a winner at the cup level. It's got to be incredible, I think, for short track races around the country that know his story. This has changed the, this has changed the path to get to cup for a lot of people. And it's given hope back to the guys like, now you got Carson coming through the same way. won a lot of races. Now he's got a full-time exfinity deal this year. And he's quietly,

I know we haven't had the results yet, but he's been fast. He's been in contention a lot. And it gives hope for them kids and them guys coming up. And I mean, these guys, like you said,

I don't think gets mentioned enough is these guys learn really good. Like, they're real smart. Like Carson's one of the most intelligent guys that I've seen with Josh too. Like, uh,

their racecraft when they get here is ready. They're ready to find, tune it and polish it and now you know this is a stepping stone to their next step for them I honestly couldn't agree more with you about their race craft I think that two

minimum two three years in the cars tour is incredibly beneficial to a driver a driver can be fast right come in come into a series like the cars tour go out there win a race qualify well

that's awesome. Sure. But they're not always ready to move up at that moment. A lot of them go too fast. Yeah. They got in these races, these races are tricky, competitive, tough, the passing, the battles that they're going to face and the challenges and other competitors, the things that get thrown at them really develop incredible racecraft.

Because it takes some work to get that car across the finish line without doing some damage. Consistently. Yes. And so to your point, man, like, you know, if you can divert, you know, if you can devote three years or two, at least two years to the tour like the Cars Tour, any kind of, you know, full body late model racing where you're running competitively week to week against the same people, because that's what you're going to do when you get up to the Xfinity series or the truck

series. You're racing the same people. So you have to race them with a certain amount of respect. You've got to race them the next weekend, right? You should. Yeah. And so it's, I think that's served Josh well, served several people well that have moved out of the cars, tore up into the Xfinity and the trucks. So Josh is actually going to, we usually have our winner called in, T.J., but Josh is going to come into the studio today.

Perfect. Local guy. We talked to him into visiting us, so let's make some room. You know that feeling you get when you're watching drivers fight it out on the racetrack, giving it everything they've got for the checker flag? Well, you can capture. that feeling forever with cars from Lionel Racing, the official diecast of NASCAR. The ultimate way to celebrate the biggest moments in racing. These diecast aren't toys, they're authentic, high-quality replicas of your favorite rides

from the sport's biggest stars, including myself and the guys on my race team. Whether you're a longtime collector or a fan who's new to the sport, Lionel Racing Diacasts bring the heart of racing to your shelf or man cave with incredible detail. They're built with precision with all the. the exact decals, logos, and paint schemes you've seen on the actual cars. And trust me, these cars make you feel like you're right there in the middle of it. So head to linnellracing.com, your favorite racing team shop, or any authorized retailer. And start building your collection today.

And don't forget, you can find a wide selection of die cast at the Linnell stores in Concord Meals near Charlotte Murder Speedway and Opry Meals in Nashville. Damn! Man, I can't believe it still. Do you remember when we were here, you probably remember this, we were here for the, when we announced the four car thing and Mike was like, you got to come back when you're in a race. Yeah. Here we are. I know. It's pretty crazy, man.

I, man, I, first off, you know, describe to me, you know, you described to me, you described to me the feeling and I can imagine, I think about this while, watching it, I imagine like this feeling that you're having because I remember it. When you, you had to battle shit out of Daniel. Y'all race the shit out of each other. It was fascinating, awesome race. But once you finally get clear and you're starting to see the distance and your car, you know, like the fucking cars is good as it's been all day. I mean, all this nice clean air.

And you did what I know you could do, right? And you drove away. Like, talk to me and explain to people that feeling. that you're finally about to do something that you've, like, you know, I know you're too, you're also nervous. You're like, good, yeah, look at them out. What the fuck, you know.

Yeah. But there is this feeling of, holy shit, this is really about to happen. Yeah, I mean, even go back to the restart, like, I knew that the restart was going to be so important. You know, and I hope, you know, obviously I felt like, you know, in a way, honestly felt like whoever won the restart was probably going to win the race. I mean, it happens a lot. When Daniel was able to clear us on the restart and, you know,

then, you know, we were fending. There was a couple of them behind us that had caught up to, and it was looking like it was going to be, you know, a big battle there for a minute. And we kind of settled in, and then I was able to take the fight back to the 99 and ultimately get him around him. But the biggest surprise to me was like when I got around him, how big of a gap we pulled right away. And I kind of, you know, I'm like looking at him, we have a good gap and looking at the gap behind him and there's even a bigger gap. You know, those guys got stuck racing each other. What's happening over the radio? Not a whole lot at that point, really. You know, we just kind of.

settled in, you know, Jason's kind of started just counting the laps off. And then it's like each one, you just feel a little more, right? Like you just, when you get to five to go, you're like, oh, he ain't catching me now, right? Like, this is ours, as long as it stays green, right? And to me, I think the most, you really feel it the most when you take the white, because you're like, as long as this car stays rolling and the tires got air. The costume can come out now. Yeah, we want it. If the caution comes out now. So that's, when you get the white, that's when you're like, Yeah, and then the motion really starts to hit you. Yeah.

You hopped out of your car and sat down on the hood. You stood up for a second, but then you sat down on the hood and I could sense like, that was the moment I think where you were like, you were able, it was, you were like, all right, then I've climbed this mountain. You know, the one that you started climbing back in Nashville Fairgrounds, you finally, you're like, this is the view. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I know for sure.

I think, you know, I said this after the race. I don't know if you heard it or not, but it's interesting. You know, a lot of what I took from that was, so over the off season, I was watching, you know, we were playing around on the TV or whatever, and I was watched, I turned on that new, the new NASCAR channel that's on. And when I downloaded it and turn it on, the 2014 Daytona 500 was on. And we watched like the last 50 laps of the race. And a lot of what I did was from that your celebration that night, right?

Like I was like, man, that's what I want to do because to me it was obviously like I'm not a big, you know, smoky burnout, you know, blow the tires out off of it type guy. Even, you know, when I raced here, like, you know, I do a little bit of one, but it's, you know, never really like super intentional, right? And when you won that race that night, like watching you and it showed you, and it showed you, like, you were kind of just taking your stuff off slowly and you're acknowledging the fans. And it's just like felt like you were really soaking in the moment, right? like and you could tell that so to me that was what I wanted to do because like you can even hear it in my voice the emotion after like I don't talk right away like because I'm a little choked up and then you know I kind of say a couple words but they don't come out real clear you can see that motion in me right like so I wanted like I like I took that moment to just kind of collect my

thoughts and soak it in and you know that was a lot of what my thoughts were at that point was like okay I'm like you know because even I think back to the days of racing a hickory and stuff that's what we did a lot of times you swung around backwards got the checkered flag waved at the fans. You know, there's trackside parking and all these people and they're either cheering you or booing you or whatever when you're coming around. So to me, that was what it was about really, was just trying to just soak it up as much as I could. And however long it took, it took, I really didn't care and just enjoy it. I think you did a great job of taking in the moment. That's one thing I worried about was like, and there's no, like, there's no perfect way to

to celebrate a win. And it, my dad told me, you know, when I won my first one's like, you only win your first one once. You better celebrate it. And I'm like,

I don't know what that even means. You know, I'm, you know, and so like, of course, like on the front straightaway is incredible. Going to Victory Lane,

that whole, having that genuine victory lane experience. And I was thankful for the FaceTime call. That meant so much to me that you, you know, of all the people that you wanted to connect with in the moment, you get, you,

you reached out to me. I was certainly, sitting there in there, I was sitting there in my house, I text Amy. You were five laps to go and Amy texted me something about the kids and I just text her back, Josh. And she was like, Josh what? Josh what? And I'm like, he's about to, and she goes, is he about to win?

I said, white flag. I was like, I couldn't even talk, right? I couldn't even like think. I got up, I got up and went and took the trash out with five, laps ago. I couldn't watch. That's funny. Dude. I was talking to Tony Gibson and when Alan Quicki won the 92

day championship, he was a gas man. He's like, I didn't watch the last two laps. I just, I huddled down against the pit wall and hit, you know, it's like, man, when you get in those moments, like if you're not doing it like you, if you're not out in the car, you'll experience that probably someday where

you're like, I can't watch. Like, I can't watch. I just but it was I did I came back in the room it's funny you're gonna laugh I come back toward the room where the TV's on and I'm listening to Mike Joey's voice like I can't even look at the TV

and I'm getting close to the room and I'm listening to Mike's joy I'm trying to listen to whether there's still green flag or not and I get into the and I hear cars from like God the fuck in and I walk in

it's like one to go I'm like oh he's got it yeah I was just so you don't know man I mean it's like it was and I bet there's a lot of people just like me that are in your world right that were the same way that are just so over the moon for this to happen um and I'm sorry I don't want to make it about me but um man I was so proud of you I was so happy for you I want I want to ask you um yeah Wood brothers so You get an opportunity to stay in cup.

I remember you mentioned that in your interview, your post-race interview. Like, it's a privilege to be here, and I'm lucky that I'm lucky to be here. I'm thankful that this opportunity is the next one. Can you even, like, can you even articulate, like, how this thing has kind of come together so quickly? Y'all went to, you know, you take the job.

They kind of retool this team. you're embraced by the Penske drivers and I don't even know what that experience has been like for you but for as far as I know they've really embraced

your becoming part of the deal and then you go to Atlanta and run badass then you go to Phoenix and run really great and it's like like so walk me through that whole thing from the moment you

accept the offer you go up to Stewart, Virginia, to visit them and get this massively quick introduction and, you know, crash course in all things Wood Brothers. So help walk me through that whole thing. Yeah, I mean, it's just been an amazing experience. And even when I first met with them, you know, last summer, like it just felt like the right move, right? Like, you just sit down and you look at everything going on and it just felt like the right move. Obviously, the affiliation with Team Penske and the structure.

and, you know, being alongside the, you know, my Penske teammates, you know, through that affiliation and being able to lean on those guys and learn from those guys and, you know, use their success to help myself, right? Like, that was a big part of it. And then on the other side, you have like the grassroots, old school feel that you're, you know, it's, you kind of have the, you're driving for the Woodbrothers, which is, you know, their legacy is, you know, so long and storied in the sport. But, and they're such great people that it's just a unique balance between the two and you know really from the start you know we were you know clicking things off pretty quick getting done and then really like soon as the off season hit we were you know we were using the sim we're working on stuff meetings you know a lot of

a lot of work on the off season really i feel like i didn't have much off season too much you know we stayed after it pretty well and um yeah it's just you know even the clash was really cool you know We didn't qualify quite like we wanted, but, you know, it was an unknown going there for the first time. And Miles did a really good job with the car, made the car a lot better for Sunday. And we were able to transfer in the race and hold our own pretty well in the race, get a solid finish. And then, yeah, from then on, I mean, it's just, it's just been a really good experience. I think Miles has done a really good job in his situation, right? Like, he's, you know, been kind of behind the scenes of Team Penske, the last couple years, really involved in the next-gen program,

kind of from when the next gen come involved. So he's seen a lot of things from his view of all the teams, right? Like, and he's able to take that knowledge with his own and put it together. And it's just been, it just feels like, you know, Eddie, Eddie said in the media center, he's like it just feels like things are clicking. And that's how I feel about it, right? Like, we're just, you know, as a driver, I don't really feel like I'm doing anything too terribly different than what I did last year, but we're just the environment's good.

and I have good teammates to rely on with their information, obviously, on the driving side, but also the setup side, right? Like, that's something I've leaned into a lot already. You know, if we don't have quite the pace and practice, you know, leaning into what those guys are doing and, you know, whether that's, you know, making an adjustment or not making an adjustment at all, right? And just being more confident knowing that, you know, those guys are going to run good has been a big, big part of it. And yeah, it's just been a, it's just been a great experience, really, and getting to know the woods more and more. You know, they're just such awesome people and they're having a

lot of fun right now. Yeah. You're still kind of new in that relationship. John Wood has been put in a situation or position of authority and is really kind of taken, taking on a bigger role. And I've, I text him from time to time and he'll text me from time to time because he's, he's, He reached out to me to sort of pick my brain about who Josh Barry was and why I thought Josh Barry would, you know, be a great fit for the Wood Brothers. And so we've kind of maintained a bit of, you know, communication ever since. And I remember I worked with John, a race with John for years. But he's got quite a personality.

It's big. You know, how do you enjoy, you know, getting to know him? He's the, you know, his, he's taking on a little bit more of a leadership role in the, you know, it's kind of like the passing of the torch, if you will, this particular year where, you know, his dad, Lynn and Eddie, the brothers up there were kind of passing on that authority and that, you know, how to run and manage that program. So I kind of curious as to how, how that's working out for you. Yeah, no, it's been good. Obviously, he definitely has some personality, which is, which is a good thing. No, he's been really excited.

Him and Kevin both have been really excited about, you know, what we've been doing. And, you know, for him, I guess they're just, I think they're really trying to, you know, they're enjoying it, right? Because this is a big win. Yeah. And, you know, this win at Vegas was really big. But just, I don't know if I want to say that this is what they expect of their car, but, you know, they feel like they're like, okay, now we're doing the things that we should be doing. This is while we're racing. and it's not, you know, it's not really overcomplicating that, right?

Like just going out and just, you know, racing and running well. And, you know, I think for me, like, I didn't, you know, it was interesting to hear his, you know, stories over the, you know, the last six months or so of him, you know, how much attention that they paid to me, you know, especially when I was, you know, driving that HMS and had the fill and roll those races and, you know, how he kind of, you know, he mentioned the other day that he, never thought that, you know, that this opportunity would ever come together to where I would be in the position to come drive for them. So it's just been a great, great relationship. I mean, they're all, they've been so fun to work with and, and to hit the ground running like we had and had some good results. I mean, those guys, they truly, truly deserve it. Yeah, for sure. I was, you know, every time I've seen the Woodbrothers walking through the garage, man, it's like royalty. and Leonard and I have always been really close

and he back I don't know if he's still involved in it as much as he is as he used to be but he used to build these RC cars I'm sure you saw a few of the things that he's built but he builds everything but he built he used to build very competitive RC cars and used to race in competition and a gas powered and I,

A lot of hand-built pieces and parts and suspension and stuff like that. And so back when I was racing with Tony Jr. and stuff in the old days, we all had cars that he made. He built cars for us. And I've got two brand-new ones that he built for me probably 15 years ago that I just put on a shelf. And so, I mean, just a, I think the one thing that's so interesting and so very cool about this and improbable is the Wood Brothers, have been able to survive and be involved in the sport. They are a legendary team, a legendary name, and we are better when they are good.

We are better as an industry and as a sport when they're successful. I felt that way, you know, last year when Harrison took them to Victory Lane and they were able to, you know, get into the playoffs. And sure, the car wasn't running as well as they wanted every single week, but just to have them in the conversation was better for all of us. And, you know, so for this year, I thought, you know, man, y'all are going to have to work hard. Y'all are going to have, and you talked about the all-season work that you've put in. But I have to imagine that you guys are just over the moon with how the pace has been in this car every single week.

And I think that's to me is the one thing that I kind of have to pinch myself as a race fan, just as a general fan, not just a Josh Berry fan or Woodbrothers fan, Like for that car to show up every week and run the way they think it should run and the way that it used to run is, I don't know if it's, I don't know if you can put a value on that for the industry and the sport. So, and I think you can appreciate that knowing what you know about the Wood Brothers and you're, you know, knowing what you know about NASCAR. But it's just incredible. Yeah, no, it's, I mean, it's been super exciting. And I think you even go back to, you know, it's interesting, you know, when you think of it this way. But, you know, when I first got the opportunity, everyone was like the 100th win, the 100th win, the 100th win. That was the question every time, you know, are you going to be the guy to get to 100th win?

Well, you know, Daytona, July Daytona rolls around and I'm leading the race, get clipped, flip over. You know, we know that whole nine yards. and I'm sitting in the outside the infield care center and I'm watching you know I hear I'm racing the last lap and I'm watching and kind of I think I'm like getting interviewed by Bob or somebody and the 21 wins the car and Bob turns around and looks at it and comes back and he's like what you think about that you know and I'm like I don't know like I don't know what to think right now that was the hell of a wreck and but I feel like you know everything happens for a reason and I felt like you know Harrison really deserved that they

They, you know, all those guys loved Harrison. And it was so cool to watch him win that race and have that moment. And at the same time, it was almost a weight off my shoulders in a way that I didn't spend the whole offseason worrying about winning the 100th race. You know, we kind of got to turn the page and start fresh. We're starting at a new 100, right? Like, that 100's over with. Now, we're worried about the next 100, right?

And I don't know. It's interesting that things happen for a reason like that. And I know that that was a big moment for them, and they really enjoyed that moment with Harrison. But it gave us an opportunity to kind of start fresh, I think, coming into this offseason. And, you know, obviously some personnel changes and getting to know each other and learning. But like you said, I mean, it's definitely been, you know, our expectations were to run well. But you just never know how you're going to start, right? Like you hope that even if you start at the beginning of the year and it's a little bit of a struggle.

that you can just get better and better as the season goes along. But to start as well we have has been really impressive. And even for me personally, too, like Vegas and Phoenix were, you know, some of my toughest races last year, right?

Like, we're still going to, you know, Martinsville's and Richmond's and Darlington and a lot of these places where I had really good results last year, right? I mean, we found ourselves in the top five

several times last year in the forecar and having some opportunities. Yeah. You know, just the consistency wasn't there. You know, so to start out like we have and be running this well at some places that maybe I didn't have circled is, you know, just building our confidence when we go, you know, just better preparing us for when we go to these places that I feel like are going to be really a good opportunities. How was, I know that, you know, you didn't get to the end of last year, not knowing what your plans were for this season, but it still was a difficult second half. y'all came out and you know you and rodney had a couple of good runs top three at darlington looked like there was going to be a way to be productive right and just have a have a year of some

sort that you could be happy with even though you knew the ultimate outcome of the program entirely wasn't was it going to be great with the way they were shutting down a big part of the operation the second half of the season man y'all couldn't get nothing going so i guess talk talk me through how you manage that. What helped you, I guess, stay focused, stay positive. What helped you keep your head on straight? Because I mean, damn, dude, we all know it's easy to spiral. It's easy to make things worse. It's easy to get, you know, you talk yourself down into a hole if you're not careful. And how did you manage to kind of be able to get to the end of the year and master reset button and be ready? Yeah, it was definitely difficult to finish out the year. And I really

don't know why. You know, I don't really, you know, obviously there's a lot of the, you know, things are getting more and more difficult, I guess, the further you get into that. You know, more people are leaving or getting prepared to leave and finding their homes. And, you know, I don't know. I mean, I, I really don't have words for why we didn't finish a little bit better than we did. You know, we had some, you know, we had a really good, you know, a couple of pretty solid races that towards the end, Homestead was pretty good for us. But, you know, we just, didn't you know I can't really put a finger on why I felt like that it just wasn't wasn't working and really all of us you know all four of our cars were kind of fighting the

same issues at that point you know and and that's to me that's the hardest part about this is like I wanted so badly to for that to end better than it did right because I mean Rodney was so instrumental and getting me that opportunity and he's still I mean he's just as excited as anyone to watch me win that race Sunday and he was one of the first people to. He was. Victor Lane. Yeah, him and Cheddar and Tyler, who was another member of the four car, those guys were all. And they kept telling me last year, man, they were like, they're like, you know, it's going to be the worst part about this is, you know, you're going to, you're, it's, you have the potential. And when it clicks, you're going to win. And, you know, we just wish that,

you know, this was ending different, right? And, you know, so, you know, they were so good for me. And I learned so much throughout last year that, you know, I just wish the result. were a little bit better. But, I mean, it was a difficult situation for all of us to handle. And I think, you know, for me, approaching the off season, right? Like, you know, we hit, you know, like I said, right after Phoenix, we were in the Sim and we're having meetings and we're talking about stuff. And to me, there was just, it was the opportunity.

Like, there's not going to be a next opportunity in my eyes, right? Like, that's the way I approached the off season. And I was like, this is going to be the opportunity for me to stay racing at this level and to improve and have better results. And that's just the way we approached it over the offseason, right? It was just that we're just going to prepare as much as we can and get to know each other. And that was a big part of it is just spending time with each other,

understanding how we think. And, you know, Miles has been great. Like I said, Miles has been really good in that aspect because obviously I feel like he's really sharp on the performance side of the car. But I think he, and maybe it's because he isn't as experienced yet, that he seems to have allowed me to be me in how I approach racing and, you know, how I approach practice and out qualifying.

And I think you just trust my judgment and my instinct of driving a race car and what it needs to do. And, you know, there's been times this year when, like I said, in practice, we didn't really have the pace. But I'm telling him, like, the car drives good. Like, it's going to race good. I feel good. Like, I don't want to lead you down the wrong path just talking.

And he's bought into that and done a great job. So it's been a lot of fun. Yeah. I've watched you be, you know, watching the races this year, you look comfortable. And aside of that, to me, is how aggressive you're able to be on restarts. When a driver is firing it off down in the corner and the middle lane opens up and he puts it in there, that's a guy who feels like he knows his car has got the capable ability to make the pass or make the move work. and man, when your car won't do it, you won't try to do it, right? When you don't have a belief in the car, you won't try to make that move or you're just trying to survive the corner.

But this year, you've, you know, you feel like watching you race, there's a confidence and there's a belief in the ability of the car that's new and refreshing. How many text messages did you have? Probably about 300 and something. I've been slowly working through them. I think I've got it. I think I'm caught up now. Oh, it definitely took a while.

I finally finished up this morning a little bit. But yeah, it was a lot. It was really cool. What did you do when you got home? Not a lot, actually. So we,

you know, it was obviously at the racetrack for a while. That was a pretty cool experience because when in the cup races, like, Chase Briscoe texted me and he was like, man, winning a cup race is badass, is it?

And I'm like, it really, you know, we stay busy going through all, you know, the different interviews and doing all that stuff. You really get a lot of time to be in that moment, right,

leave and then um then yeah we you know went by us all the guys they were just finishing up in tech and then and then we headed off to the airport so there was I got back about we got back about 3 30 in the morning I think it was pretty late um and I turned the race on and had to watch like the last 75 laps or whatever it just just relive it I couldn't I couldn't go to sleep right away without watching it so I watched it for about an hour and then and then fell sleep and then yeah the next morning they had me had been having doing stuff at you know 930 10 o'clock the next morning so I've been I've been pretty busy Honestly. Yeah.

Back to the sim. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it had some media requests, media stuff going on Monday morning. When will you have your comp meeting? That was Monday. You had it already? How did that go? Everybody in there, high-fiving?

Yeah, everybody's, yeah. I mean, it's cool, right? I mean, I think they just, you know, there's just, I think everybody's just a lot of positive momentum going around, right? I think the cars have been up front. All four of the cars have been up front, leading laps, winning stages, super, super competitive. So, I mean, there's just a lot to be proud of from that organization. I think they're excited to, you know, to see the 21 back in Victory Lane, too. Yeah.

Did you have any concerns about tech? Always, like, anytime will you ever win, I get so nervous. I won't, I won't even tweet, like, excitement or celebration until, like, get the tech cleared. I mean, yeah, yeah, you do. You know, especially in this day and age. You never know, right? And this is funny, too, because, like, and I saw a couple comments about it, which I feel bad about now. But, you know, we were doing the interview, and then they were like, oh, Miles just got an interview.

he's got to get to inspection or whatever. And I think in the moment, now looking back on it, I think they were just kind of wrapping things up. Yeah. And I'm like, what does that mean? Why has he got to go to inspection? And then actually,

I feel bad now because some people made comments a couple of the last couple because I kind of started messing with my phone a little bit. And I'm like, is this thing official? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why is my, where's my,

somebody going to break some news? Yeah. Is there something going on here? So then I kind of, so then I kind of, I was a little anxious like the last 20 minutes of it. Because I'm like, why did he have to go?

Did they need him or was he actually done? He's like, oh, no, everything is all good. He's like, they were just trying to get me out of there so we could get wrapped up. Yeah, like, oh, okay, good. Jefferson Hodges takes me a picture of your car sitting in tech, and I was like, is it clear? Is that clear? It's like, this is funny.

I don't know how you'll feel about this, but I thought this was so awesome. So we got done, and I went to the car and it's got confetti and stuff all over it, and they're cleaning it. And I'm like, what are y'all doing? They're like, well, we got to clean this thing before we put it in the shop. We don't want all this stuff all over the shop. And I'm like, That's pretty badass.

That's when you got this winning thing figured out because it reminded me so much of when we were cars to racing all the time. You know, they'd always give you a bottle of champagne. And I was like, I told the guys, I was like, look, spray the hell out of me. But do not spray that car because I got to clean that thing Monday morning. And it's going to be all on the roll bars and underneath the seat and then the steering wheel. I mean, it gets everywhere. So it reminded me a lot of that.

It was funny. Well, man, I'm telling you, I, you know, you know, we have all of us here at junior murder sports have you know watch you work your ass off and grind for a long long time hoping to get that opportunity and i and i read about it all on social media sunday night and all day monday about everybody everybody sort of being reintroduced to your story all the fans and the people in the industry sort of being reminded about like how how hard this was right to for you to finally find some ground and get some traction. But it's been so much fun. I think you're in a great spot. It's going to be awesome to see now that there's a little bit of pressure relieved with the win, how focused y'all can remain on trying to prepare for the rest of the year

and how much more progress you can make and how much more success there may be out there in front of you with this team. We'll be pulling for you, and thanks for dropping in today. Yeah, thank you, man. We're going to be selecting our Lionel Ultimate Racing Collector of the Month of March next week right here on the podcast, TJ. Make sure you're following us on Twitter and on Facebook and respond to those posts with pictures or videos of your racing collection to win.

If you submit something last month, don't worry. you can try again. It's been a lot of fun seeing these big massive collections that folks have. Yeah, especially you. Yeah, my collection is all right. But, I mean, the winner last month

had above the TV mantle, cars. We saw people with replica racetracks and the finishing order. So, I mean, send us in whatever you got. It doesn't have to be all die-cast, but that's what we really like. I like the people that recreate the tracks

with the cars on them. Yeah, me too. Well, Lionel has put this program together the Ultimate Racing Collection collector. Send in all your stuff. We'll be checking it out on Twitter and Facebook and I can't wait to see

what you got. Going into the Cup Series, man, there was a lot going on on Sunday. There was. And first off, I got to admit defeat. I thought that I was actually watching on X the

tear down Sunday after the race. Great show. And a lot of folks tuned in. I think there were 15,000 or 12,000, 13,000. people watching on next Sunday with Gluck and Bianchi. And they have this little thing where they guess what the good race poll will be. Me and Jordan were like 73, 74%. Jeff Gluck said 91.

I think it landed somewhere in the 80s, mid-80s, 83, 84. 87. Yeah, it was high. Wow. Yeah. That's high. Yeah. I would agree with you.

You know, I just felt, I just didn't, I mean, I thought it was a good race. but I thought there wasn't yeah it was still kind of like the caution's kind of ruined anything like strategy playing out or stuff well depends on who you look at yeah I mean the cautions also made the race like costions ruin it for some of your buddies but like we didn't see if the fuel was going to like lagano with the fuel strategy like we didn't get to see any of that though apparently the 21 was a couple laps short how hard is it for him to say two laps Tj and maintain your track position right there where you're running is going to be pretty tough I mean you can do it but depends if the cars are coming from behind you that went and got fuel that's the thing we were on the other side of it we pitted to go hard yeah we pitted on the last field just so we could run hard not have to deal with it but yeah it was uh the cautions created because every caution man somebody sped somebody lost a wheel somebody stood through the box boxes it Vegas are super slick so there's

There's lots that go on there. Penalties, like Joey slides through his box on the last deal. That kind of hands over the front row, right? I mean, changes the whole outcome of the race again. I mean, you're taking a guy that was leading the race, and now you're putting him 20th, and now you've got someone else up there. Yep.

So Cawson has also made the race, you know, exciting at the end, too. Yeah. There's this conversation around Christopher Bell. Pulled out of his pit box with a loose wheel. Goes down pit road, pulls into the 19 pit box to get it tightened, and he served a penalty for pitting outside his box. Smart play. Yeah.

Is it? Yeah, it's a smart play. Well, he saved the left for a tire from coming off, which would have been a bigger penalty. Yes, and it saved himself two laps as well. Should you be allowed to have another pit crew service your car? I don't think it's a big deal. Yeah, absolutely. I don't think it's a big deal with it.

It's better than a tire coming off at any point. I agree. So I don't see an issue with it. Yeah. I thought it was absolutely smart, quick reaction by Adam Stevens. Very genius decision to do that. And if safety is what NASCAR cares about. Yeah.

Yes. I don't have a problem. No. I mean, you're already getting a penalty, so you're going to the back. Yeah. So we don't need a tire out there at any point going around on the racetrack. So if it's any question and a safety concern. And the argument that people are saying that, well, what about the small

teams will most likely they lease out their pit crews from a bigger team. We're going to give the smaller teams more practice. That's going to help him. I mean, the smaller, most everyone has an alliance or some sort of. There's a few that don't, but I mean, it's still a good overall idea. Yeah. Why do you think there's so many issues on pit road there? As far as.

I know you talk about the pit box is being slick, but there's quite a few speeding penalties, it seems. there's some tricky zones there too like there's some hot spots on pit road that are common um we also saw a lot of collisions though and just why yeah that's that's just well there's a

so there's a lot of caution so there's a lot of cars on the lead lab there's a lot of cars pitting at one time so you don't normally as a race goes on you have some long runs pit road thins out yeah and you don't have as much of that whenever you know when there's a long run so when you have a lot of

cautions and everybody's on the same schedule you got a lot of cars coming down pit road. And with the way it was last week with the qualifying, like we went out early. We knew we were going to not be very good in qualifying because cars that went early were not going to run fast. And it just got better as it went on. So you've got cars that are qualifying that are good cars

that just don't have a good qualifying draw. Like, you know, and they're going to be coming from the back. They're not going to get a good pit stall pick, so they're going to be positioned around a car that's going to, you're going to have a lot of crossovers. Yeah. on pit road because you can't pick a good pit so you're going to have a lot of crossing over with cars that are good

and that creates drama. Are there some drivers that should be worried about how their season's starting? I mean, there's always a group when you look down through the lineup, the points, I guess. There's quite a few drivers that are way down. I mean, the one that stands out to me, You got Noah Gregson in 33rd, I'm sure no is disappointed in that,

and I think he's a better car than that. Cole Custer in 35th. I don't know what we expected out of that team this year. They're not a new team, but they're kind of doing things a new way with a lot less support. That's one way to put it, yeah. Yep. Y'all, Brad, I mean, Brad, you, T.J., 30th. But you chalked that up to just bad circumstances with the crash?

Well, we've had, yeah. Where do you rank yourself as average, running position? Right now? Yeah. I don't rank myself very, I don't rank us very high yet. I mean, where do you think

should be in points? Right now, I feel like like we should be top 15. All right, there you go. Roughly. I mean, I feel like we finish these races. I feel like if we finish Daytona, we should come out of there strong.

All right. Here's a couple of people that I think are overperforming. Michael McDow, John Hunter, Nemichick, Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., all in the top 16 in points. These are driver points, not playoff points.

And the Spirestores. stuff, it's easy to say that because we all see it, but they're outperforming themselves. Hosevar and 22nd points. AJ Almendinger, 23rd in points. It's a little bit better than I thought that team would be. Ty Dillon has just, you know, quietly not made a bunch of big mistakes and is sitting 26th in points. Other than Cota. Yeah, well, he's ahead.

He got wrecked there. He's ahead of a lot of cars that he should not be in front of. That's a good start for Ty. I think the one car that we can't ignore is Ty Gibbs. Oh, I know. Yeah. What do you think's going on there? I don't know.

And he had a wicked wreck in that sprint car. Did you see that? Yes. That was. That was pretty bad. I mean, do you know, I don't know. I'll say this. When you're in a rut that he's in, it's hard to get out of it.

Yeah, and you can't. The more you hide, the worse it gets, too. So I don't know. I feel like Ty has got, I think he's got good enough teammates and is it a good enough place where he just needs to start chipping away. You just need to have a top 15. And then you turn that into a decent,

better qualifying race, get your better pit stall. Then you run a better in that race. You finish top 10. And then you do this, you keep repeating the cycle. Somehow they regressed. They have.

They have. Kind of on the fringe of being a playoff contender, or a playoff team. I wouldn't say a contender. But he was immediately came into the sport. sport right there on the fringe of that sort of final. I wasn't going to be surprised if you won. Right.

Yeah. He had the potential or the look of a guy that could pop off a win. I mean, two years ago, it was him and Bubba racing for the final spot in the playoffs. Yeah. That's the theme they were for the whole time he's been in the series. But, and I know it's just a, you know, it is an odd start to the year. You got Daytona, Atlanta, Cota. And then, you know, I won't say real racetracks because I believe Daytona.

Tona and Atlanta are amazing. But the style of racing there, those two tracks back to back and Kota. Yeah. It's hard to get a baseline on how the season's really going to go from those three. Yeah, if you have any kind of poor look and you're not much of a road course guy. We've been there. It doesn't look like Ty is all that concerned, at least when you look at his, you know, his demeanor and so forth in his interviews.

Well, I mean, why would he be concerned, though? I mean, you're not running good. You don't like it. Yeah, but... Go ahead. He's not going to lose a seat. Still, man, you don't want to suck. Yeah, but...

I think it's... Let me tell you this. You want to feel like being a situation where you do have that much job security and you're not running good enough that you think you deserve it. Yeah. Like, being a situation where, I mean, I was kind of in that situation at Hendrick, where I was running bad enough where... other people like me running that bad had been let go.

And you're sitting there going, hey, you know, Rick's telling you, I'm not going to give up on this. I'm not giving up on you. And you're sitting there going, you know, I could see how you could. And I'm thankful you're not. And that's probably worse, I think. That's a terrible feeling, right? because you know that you're kind of the one hang-up, right, to the whole thing. And so it doesn't feel good to be running as,

it doesn't feel good to be performing or finishing as bad as Ty is and have that job security, right? It's a tough balance because then you're sitting there going, man, anyone else might be let go at this point or there might be some changes being made. I'm in a situation where I've got that security that I don't feel like I deserve at this point. And so he's got to battle with all of that. On top of trying to figure out how to go to the racetrack and truly get the result, he knows he can get.

I don't envy the situation he's in. I will say when you get into these kind of ruts, damn, sometimes they last long time. Sometimes you just can't do anything right. You just can't figure it out. But it's a bit surprising. I think that, you know, they've had such poor luck and they're sitting in 34th in points. And they've got a lot of work to do to be able to...

That's hard to climb out of. Yeah, they got a lot of work to do to bring themselves back into the conversation of trying to battle for a final playoff spot. It goes wins a race now. That changes everything, but... Yeah, for sure. But I mean, and he, like I said, man, he's got a teammate this one... What, Chris Rebell's got what, three wins? I mean, so the things, the cars are going to be fast.

He just needs to, I'm telling you, it's just, it's a, he's not going to come out and dominate a race, I don't think, and get a win like that. He just needs to chip away at it. Yeah. Get you a top 15. Get you a top 10. I want to be patient because, you know, we got, we, I look at Lugano and Byron. Yeah. And I say, hey, man, there's two great examples of why you need to be patient.

Yep. With drivers. but man he came he came through the Xfinity series and almost won every race he started it seemed like right remember that yep I mean I definitely in the cup I thought he would win in his second year yeah like I like I would have bet on that yeah somehow they've regressed where he's not comfortable and he doesn't you know it's it's like he it's like something it's like the team isn't in a position to where he can continue to improve himself yeah and until the team gets to where they The cars are happier, right?

And he can continue. He can get back on track with improving as a driver and becoming a better race car driver. That's tough to do. It is. I don't envy the spot. That is a definitely tough scenario. Getting into the Vegas race,

Justin Algar won on Saturday. I have, there's really one thing that stands out to me about that race. that's really neat. And I told Justin this, and I don't know how this is going to sound, but, like, Justin's a tryhard.

And so when he gets in the same situation that he was in last Saturday, he goes 110% and sometimes that gets him in a little bit of trouble. And if you look at his, this dude has won more stages in the Xfinity series than anyone. Like, it's ridiculous numbers.

Like 90 stages he's won. Or maybe it's even more than that. It's in a hundreds or something. But he's won a crap ton of stages. He will go win a stage one and in stage two. Now, you know, sometimes things happen in that stage three. He doesn't always close out the deal.

But watching him run those last few laps, he had to be perfect. the Gibbs car with Eric Amarola was a little quicker but if Justin was just clean and sharp Yeah, she was. Yep. Eric wasn't going to be able to get by him

because Eric was struggling with the arrow and I'm sitting there watching it and I'm like, hey Justin, you really going to have to be perfect because if you slip up and miss the bottom of three and four, even a foot, the 19s drive it right to your left or a quarter panel and moving you up to track you know, arrow dynamically that's going to be advantage for Eric.

And all Eric needed was to just get clear of the seven and it was going to be over. Yeah. And I'm sitting there watching that and I'm like, God, like, it's a lot of laps. It felt like like 15, 10 laps or so that he's going to have to hit the line just right. And pre-championship Justin Algar probably wins that race four out of 10. Yeah, he would make a slight mistake. and then but having that championship

has sort of checked this big gigantic void off and I just could I'm watching him run I'm like man he's doing it he's doing it he's perfect

he's perfect and it was it's like it's funny how like when you win that championship and you finally get that pressure off and you get that pressure off and you get put in that situation that he was put in on Saturday,

you win that race eight out of ten times. Because Justin isn't a tryhard anymore. He knew he's like, I just need to slow down, I just need to be smart. I'm going to probably even underdrive this thing just a little bit, just to make sure I don't miss the bottom. And that'll be enough. And it was.

And our crew chief on the seven car made a good point during our beer toast the other day. and you'll appreciate this, T.J. That was also a moment in a race that that legitimized the spotter's importance in winning races and why it matters to be a great spotter or to have a great spotter. Let me guess. Is it when he was behind Zillich and chilled out? I was just thinking about it's possible, you know, I mean, you could probably expand on that particular moment. But when he's leading that race and the Gibbs car is quicker.

Yeah. And he, the spotter being able to tell the driver everything he needs to hear about, you know, wrap this corner, just wrap this corner and you got it. Because Justin can see the car back there, but he doesn't really know how much better. the Gibbs car he is, right? Yeah, he sees him getting closer. And he's got to be feeling, if you don't say, if a driver doesn't hear anything, if the spotter doesn't talk at all, the driver's left to assume, right, anything, right? And he's probably going to assume the worst or the assume things are,

he's not in a good spot. The spotter can come in and say, I'm watching this. From my perspective, you just need to run the clean line and he will not pass you. and you can see that from your vantage point where a driver really doesn't know that. Yeah, you can see it big time. So that is a really classic moment where a spotter can simply come in with a little bit of good information and calmness. Yep. And give the driver an immeasurable amount of confidence and calmness to be able to not be a try hard, not try to do everything, not try to overdo it, not miss.

the bottom. So that was a great moment where not only Justin, the post-championship, Justin, goes out there and does it and gets it done, but also a good reminder, I think, for all of us, of why spotters play such an important role in the team's success.

For sure. And, you know, my, that was a very impressive run by Justin at the end there, but the most impressive run to me was probably not that run. It was the run. It was the when Zillich got the lead and Justin was behind him and instead of running up there and just forcing the issue

and trying to pass him right away which is what I think Justin would have probably done because how many times has Justin had the best car all day and at the very end brushes the wall does just something little that happens and in most of them it's self-inflicted this time when he was behind Connor

I'm like oh Justin's fast but he feels like he needs to be up there leading he just rode and then 15 laps later he drives by him and goes on and leaves the race. That was probably the first difference that I saw in Justin where he was like, you know what?

It's going to ride. And, I mean, that was, it's impressive. It's going to be interesting to see how many more times he can do that because I feel like, shoot, man, Justin's given a lot of races away. And I feel like now he's to the point where he can probably start capitalizing on these things and just letting it come to him instead of trying to go up. there and take it. He definitely felt motivated after how Phoenix ended and that kind of, you know, he takes some responsibility for not doing what he thinks he should have done or could have done

on that final restart at Phoenix. So that was part of the motivation. But yeah, I want to give me a lot of credit, man. That was, that was a real hard thing to do for a driver to be able to make sure you run the line just right, put a foot, put your, put everything where you need to put it every corner. And you can't miss the line there either. Not by 16, you know, not by 16. You know, not by six inches. If you miss the bottom in three and four, if the left front doesn't connect to the apron, you're two-tenths. Well, yeah, and the whole straightaway, the whole straightaway, the guy behind he was catching you, and he's going to be able to make it in this wide so he can go wherever he wants. Yeah. Well, good job by him. Fun to watch. And I agree, like, there's a, there's a calmness

and a confidence and a patience around Justin this year that if he continues with that, I think he's more dangerous to his competitors in terms of winning the championship this year than he was last year or any year before that because yeah and and I think it's you know once you win that first championship uh yeah you kind of calm down slow down you're you're a bit more of a you know logical prodding sort of race car driver instead of just to try hard 110 percent giving it everything you got all the time um and I think that'll be benefit him at this point in his career. Welcome, everybody.

Let me see. Here we are. Oh, no, that's not. There we are. I'm trying to find it. There we are. Yeah, I am. Are you pulling the YouTube chat up?

You got to be more on top of it. It's slow. It's like a delay. Yeah. Yeah. So we're here at Ask Junior, presented by Xfinity Mobile with my good friend, T.J. Majors,

NASCAR fans, now you can get the speed you need on or off the track with Xfinity Mobile. Customers now get exclusive access to Wi-Fi hotspots all across the country up to a gig in millions of locations nationwide. And it's the nationwide coverage that you know you'll always have that'll come through in clutch moments.

Take NASCAR on the go with Xfinity Mobile, a proud premier partner of NASCAR. Good morning to everybody out there. I'm looking at everybody on our chat here on YouTube, and it's good to see everybody joining in. Andrew is back there with our questions. We had a week where we stepped out of the studio and we're gone on a little bit of a spring break for the kids,

but we're back and excited to be here. Yeah. We are so back. I see our YouTube chat is... I took the kids to the Yorktown, and we talked about that on Bless Your Heart this past Thursday. But fun trip. Girls enjoyed it.

Got swimming in a pool a little bit. Weather just warm enough to do a little swimming. Oh yeah, we heat that pool. Your pool is definitely warm. That's an intentional moment. That's too hot. It's not. I don't care if it's intentional or not.

It's not necessarily, for the temperature, I'm sure, it is now that seems like it would be, you'd want the water a little warmer. It's not like it's 90 degrees outside where it's refreshing to get in, you know? You keep that at that all year? When it's hot during the spring and summer, it stays that warm, if not. warmer so I don't have I don't heat it then okay you don't get in his pool to cool off

that makes sense I don't I don't backwards yeah does but it's actually I want to get in be comfortable look I don't want to be chilling oh God I actually agree I want to get I want to get I want to get in and sit under the umbrella and be like this is good getting out of the pool to cool off I just no I'll make me a cocktail and get out of the hard hard hard hard cocktail or get a cold get a cold beer yeah but your body's still sweating in the pool I'm not sweating

god no no I mean the best thing is sitting under the umbrella in the warm water you have no idea I don't know if you guys know how to relax I mean yeah I am you don't know what you're talking about asking no you don't

you don't have enough I do of experience we have we are freaking he doesn't have no idea yeah and I'm a no I'm a pro too my school

That sounds like you know what you're talking about. There is. No. You haven't scratched the surface yet there, boy. He has no idea. That's all ridiculous. Someone wants to know if Andrew's wearing lipstick right now. Multiple people in the chat want to know if I'm wearing lipstick.

Wow. I'm not. Okay. Maybe it's your sweatshirt that brings it out. Maybe it is. Yeah, I don't know. So to answer multiple people's questions, I'm not wearing lipstick. But let's get to some more questions.

I bet. I predict that the lighting and the camera angle will be different in that studio next week. I want it to stay the same. Andrew will not. He won't wear that anymore. I'll just, yeah, I'll put some actual lips. I mean, looking to the camera, your lips look red. Do they really?

They look redder than maybe they should. This is weird. This is probably the shirt. Kiss the camera. Is that fine? Yeah. Is that? I don't know. Tell me YouTube chat.

I mean, I feel like I'm. It's okay if you wear a lipstick. Okay. All right. Next question. AJ wants to know, Dale, your opinion on socks and sandals. Oh, no. Oh, no. No? No. I've seen a photo of you wearing socks and sandals. The hell you have. I'm pretty sure. I don't own a pair of freaking sandals for one. It was like during COVID and Amy took a picture you get an ice cream and you wear in Commander's socks. I didn't have shoes on at all. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hello?

You're right. Sorry, I'm still flustered by the lipstick comment. You are. I don't own a pair of sandals. You don't? What about slides? They call them. When I was young, they used to call sandals Jerusalem. Jerusalem cruisers.

I thought that was a cool nickname for them. So no. You're not pro. What are sandals to you? Sandals. Yes, right. That's the question. Because I don't, I feel like you have sandals.

I've seen them. There's sandals and there's flip flops. Flip flops. Okay, what's the different? They're not. Flip flops have the little piece in between the... Then the thing that doesn't separate the toe, you know what I mean? Sandals have straps and all kinds of things.

I mean, they're just like a shoe without the... Jesus sandals are different than... Jerusalem cruises. Than regular sandals versus flip flops. All right, then flip flops, socks and flip flops. Because I think it's okay. Hell, I've gone to the grocery store wearing that before. Socks with flops?

Socks and flops. Yeah. When I'm super, that's a super lazy roll, but it's all right. He also wears lipstick. Yeah. It's got to obviously be the like the Adidas slip-ons. That's the only ones. You can't wear socks with the flop with the thing between the toe.

No, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying. You're not doing that on you. No, I'm not. Sox and crocs, I mean. Yeah, I think that's okay. What does the YouTube chat think? Sox and slides is okay.

Okay, so that would really be my question. Sox and slides. Okay. I think that's all right. This next question is coming from Reed. as a race car driver, like, what do you, this might be a weird question, but like, what are you looking at

when you're behind the wheel? Do you ever, and do you ever get caught up in like other driver's sponsors? Serious. Like, do you ever read the back bumper? Yeah. And like, okay. I mean, and think about what that type of brand is.

Like, I don't know, the random thoughts that you have behind the wheel. There was a couple that stood out. The one, like, for example, Golden Corral, Kids Eat Free, whatever that said on, it was on the back of Blaney's car. And you think about that for a few laps, I'm sure. I thought you were going to talk about

the Kevin Conway, Rookie of the Year. Oh, the extends. No. I don't even remember that car, but TJ remembers. T.J. does. Rookie of the Year. How do you not remember rookie the year guy?

He was the only rookie. And he was out there battling himself. himself. I got it today. Those are sometimes the hardest battles. Yeah. Yeah, the Viagra car? Someone just commented. Yeah, that reminded me.

Tyler. Oh, Sterling Marlin, I wasn't racing then, but back in the late 80s, maybe early 90s, Sterling Marlin had legs or panty hose, whatever. as a sponsor. Yeah. Huh.

That was one of his associate sponsors, lower quarter panel of the Piedmont. Oh, my gosh. Can you imagine him doing ad reads for them if he had to? He's the one guy. Personal experiences. He's like the one guy in the whole garage that could have that as an associate sponsor and it not, like, it not be problematic. Oh, yeah, no problem.

Keep going. Don't even think twice. It's like, oh, okay. Like Sterling could make it cool. Covering them legs up, girl. Oh, my God. I guess this... Get you summoned him free pantyose.

I mean, you know, he... He could make anything. He can make anything cool. Like Martin, Martin somehow made the Vagra sponsorship. He did. He did. Sponsorship. Just fine. You know, there was a few funny, you know, funny puns and things like that.

But for the most part, it... Yeah. It was... He kind of normalized the partnership. People are saying... we need that car back. It's like Alfredo and the dude wipes. Right. It does a good job with that.

Yeah. This next question coming from Rob, what's the ideal house temperature? Why don't you tell us what yours is first so we can get this out of the way? Yeah. 70? Hold on. That's right in the middle there. Are we talking winter or summer?

I think 70's a good across-the-board temperature. Yeah. I'm not going to your house. I think 70-71's pretty standard for... Most. I'm different with rooms. So like the bedrooms cold, 68 degrees. Okay.

The rest of the house can be 6970. If you have a house that has multiple floors, I like to keep the lower floor one degree cooler because he rises. Sure. I do the same thing. That's smart. Yeah, because you'll, basically, if you have them the same or for whatever reason, so if you're a psychopath, you had the lower floor heating more, a degree more.

All that's rising and just making that top floor work harder. So I keep the first floor of one degree cooler. Do you flip it in the other season? No, I don't. I do. I flip it when it. It doesn't never really get that cold. Like a lot of times, yeah, a lot of times, man, when it gets cold, like it shifts to like going below, you know, 60 degrees or so.

like it'll take me in a couple days to like register in my mind. It's like, what's a little chilly in here? And go over and you're like, your thermostat is like 62. You're like, I got to crank this up. Should I turn the heat on? I don't know. I had a warm up when the sun comes up. Yeah.

Yes. Pretty much, yeah. All right. Well, that's good. I'm seeing a lot of 72s in the chat. No. That's too high. The highest I saw was 76.

Oh, my God. That is like sweating. I don't know how you do that. That's terrible. Yeah. We'll just have a cold beer and you'll be fine. If I go in my basement and drink cold drinks, beer, high rock vodka, whatever it is, right?

Anything is cold. I do need it a little warmer than 72 because I get cold. Because a cold drink evening you out? Only in the basement, though. It's cold down there. It's out of the ground. Yeah. And so, but if I drink the same.

drink on the next floor it's not cold I don't know it's weird I never noticed a difference yeah but you don't do that you don't drink so there all right never had a beer in the basement never had a beer down there you've had a couple yeah TJD it cold I've honestly never noticed the difference most time I feel like the doors are open hello from Malaysia whoa yeah wow dang that's pretty cool yeah I feel like your doors are pushed open most the time when you're down there though too. Yeah. Say again.

I feel like your doors are pushed open them most of the time. During the summer? Yeah. Yeah, summer for sure. Winter you don't open them. I do like it cold as hell in the bedroom. Like, I mean, I don't even, 68 is only what I put it at

because I just, I'm too cheap to let it run harder than that. But if it would cool to freaking 60 degrees in the bedroom, because I'm like, hey, just put a bunch of blankets. Right. Godly, man, that's comfortable. The only problem is, is it hard to get up out of bed. The more comfortable you make the bed, the more it is to get out of it.

God, dang. And then when you get out of it, and the room is just super cold, it's even more of a rude awakening. Yeah, it's weird. You ever do windows open? No. I crack my window open at night.

And, like, now is a good temperature because it gets, like, 40, 50 degrees. You'll do that when you're young. Is that a thing? I'm going to learn with age That's not a good idea. That's the second person that does that. You'll be like, how come?

What is that? You'll get older and you'll be like, that's messing with my sinuses. Yeah. It does do that. I got a sore throat this morning. I can't leave the window. He's not wrong.

It getting a little scratchy throat. You know who else used to do it in the townhouse? Matthew Good. Really? He used to leave it open all the time. Yeah. He's from Vancouver. So Vancouver.

He was probably hot. All right. This next question coming from the YouTube chat. Rusty Elliott wants to know how is the houseboat project coming along. I know boating season's almost here. Rusty Elliott. Rusty Elliott is his name. That sounds like a nickname. It does. Yeah. Sounds like a describer. Elliot, he's a little rusty. Yeah. Yeah. One more. Um, this one is coming from Mason. I know you... Hello from Sweden. Whoa. Oh yeah. I'm seeing Ellen from Sweden. that's always really neat

to see where people are tuning in from Mason wants to know since you're always kind of on the hunt the look for the new artist's new song any new song recommendations any songs that you've recently added yeah all right

I know that Bon and Verre's got a Bon Iver however you pronounce it's got a new record coming out it's been a while since they had anything they were really cool probably 10, 15 years ago this is guy named Cameron Whitcomb come out with a song called Options that I like right now. He's sitting at about 3.7 million listens.

Your guy Stephen Wilson Jr. has a new song out with Dirk's Bentley. Yes. Yeah. Not bad. It's a good song. Cold beer can. Yeah. I recently dove completely into his.

Stephen Wilson Jr.? Yes. It blew me away. If you hadn't listened to Stephen Wilson Jr., you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, you'll, want to check that out. T.J., what do you listen to? I listen to everything. Yeah, I listen a little bit of everything, too.

Like, I like a lot of classic rock. But, I mean, I'm a wide variety. Thanks, T.J. Yeah. I'm waiting for Dugger or Drew to come out with a new song. Oh, I will say this. I've been working on the soundtrack for the new NASCAR console game with I-R-R-R-R-S.

Oh, yeah, yeah. I think we've got, like, 27 songs. Holy cow. Yeah. Like final? Or that's what you're winning? Really?

Yeah. Wow. And there's some on there that are pretty big. I'm pretty excited about. Wow. Yeah. I can't wait. I mean, yeah, I'm looking forward to people.

Yeah. I mean, it's going to be a great game, but we put some effort into the soundtrack in all areas of this game. Yeah. I'm excited for it just for the story mode. and the, you know, things like that. So that'll be fun. Once we get a little closer, we might start leaking some of the songs

that are going to be on that. On the soundtrack for the NASCAR console. Do you know what, like the loading screen? Yes, I do. You know that one. I know the song that's going to... I know what the song is that you'll hear as soon as you turn it on.

Okay. Don't leak that one. I won't. Okay. And I will, but I will say, I had to personally write an email to the band. Really? for them to understand why I thought this would be a great idea.

Because they weren't very responsive to the people that were trying to clear the music and get the rights to it. It's a lot of hoops you have to go through. So finally, yeah. So finally, like I sent an email to the publicists or the people that are in charge of the band. They got the band to go, oh, this makes sense. Okay. Because I had to explain like, hey, you're going to hear this song. as soon as the game starts every time.

And this song has the perfect amount of energy. It's really going to be awesome. You did that through an email? Yeah. You write some, was that AI? I'm a hell of a writer, TJ. AI or? I'm a good writer.

Are you? Yeah. I've wrote some good stuff. I used to write a column for, uh... I remember. Winston Cup scene, Grand National scene. Oh, really? Yep.

Back in the day. I wrote about 11 or 12. I got them. I got the columns. I still got them. I should read them. You should. Yeah.

I wrote one. Yeah. I wrote one about dad. So, oh, I wrote a couple books. Yeah. You actually wrote the books, or did you tell somebody? I helped write the books. Okay, now we're.

I kind of did write the books. I helped write. I don't think you actually wrote the book. You gave info to help somebody write the book. Driver number eight with Jade Gers. Yeah, you wrote none of that. You gave him the info. Racing to the finish.

I was there when Jay, Jade would write that stuff on his, laptop there and like he was working on it all the time but he took notes every weekend it would come back and write document that weekend i remember that yeah yeah i'm a good writer yeah i'm i can write-up i can write-up on your national championship well you didn't do a write-up that's light work no right-up for the national answering emails is light work what's your signature thanks regards no no no no i'm hoping this well sent from my iphone yeah yeah no no no I'll tell you what my scene Mine is always thanks

with an exclamation point That's it Want to bring the energy All right I'm gonna say Energetic Hold on Try to find one

One there Just go find one of his emails Through the bottom of it Yeah the scent folder Yeah I'm the going I'm right here All right it says The signature is

Dale Hart Jr. Junior Motorsports 349 Couged Drive Moresville North Carolina 28117 Okay because we were wondering where you were at Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the telecation,

knocked it out right there. The telephone number to the shop. Filtertime.com, high rock vodka.com, dirtymo, media. com, cars tour racing.com, iRacing.com.

It's like the end credits to a movie. Well, those are all the things that are part of my life. It's true. Yeah. Yeah. And that I have equity and... I was working with.

I mean... In a galaxy far, far away. The Star Wars deal. What are the chances that you might get a new filter time customer just by the signature in your email? Are you going to randomly email people? No, but I'm just saying I might email somebody that's known me their whole life and they might go, yeah, I'm known Del Jr. forever. And I'm not a customer filter time. I might sign up today.

Get my air filter. I wasn't going to treat today, but I will today. Yeah, I might support my friend. From this email. Yeah. Because I'm a writer. Well, there you go. Excellent job today on Ash Jr.

Thanks again to our friends, Xfinity. All right, everybody. I appreciate y'all tuning in. It's a lot of fun seeing everybody on the chat, and we're up to 878. But, yeah, I enjoyed it. TJ, thanks for coming around today. Yeah, thanks for being here.

We're going to wrap it up. Thank you, Xfinity, Xfinity Mobile. Customers get exclusive access to the most powerful Wi-Fi network on the go. with speeds up to a gig for NASCAR fans. That means faster downloads, turn-by-turn action, smooth, live-streaming,

with fewer pit stops. I wasn't going to say no pit stops. A strong connection from the parking lot to the grandstands. For more laps and less lags, stay connected with Xfinity Mobile. Thank y'all. We'll see you next week.

Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right. It's time for Dirty-Mo-Dough here with Tampa Tims. and Tampa Tams is in the studio. Good to hear from you, but. Brought you by Fandle. Jesus.

Can he give me a second? Can he give me a chance? I thought you're going to miss it. Can he give me a chance? Do my job here. Stepping all over my toes. Well, you weren't doing your job. Damn.

Proceed. Yep. All right. So this segment is brought to you by Fan Duel. Thank you, Fan Duel, for supporting us here at Dirty Mode Do. Fan Duel. they're awesome. Fan Duel's really cool.

Yeah, we do. Fan Duel! I'm all about it. I have my own account, and I got me a couple parlayes. Let me take a look. So while I'm looking at my own personal parlay that I've got on Fanduel,

we've got a couple of basketball games coming up over the next few days. On Fandul. So I am trying to take advantage of the opportunity to win a little bit. I've been out of the state. I've been in one of them states that ain't got that gambling. That ain't all that much fun.

But I'm back and, yeah, let's take a look here. Oh, I got one. 15-leg parlay. Dale's back. Oh, my God. Hell yeah, bro. I got this 28-leg parlay, guys. Check it out.

15 legs. Man, we're going to win. What you're talking about? Go win. Tampa 10. how did I imagine things went pretty well in Vegas

they were pretty well because I know I think we talked about you putting a little bit of money on Josh Barry yes sir plus 10,000 did you bet him to win

yes oh my gosh so that was good payout no kid look at him he can't stand it can't stand it it was awesome

where you gonna go vacation no idea I mean I mean that's more than I've never he might quit yeah

dude you buy dinner this weekend you go TJ at I called some of this. Hold on right here. I think Blaney does really good at Vegas. He's been fast there. And if he tends to migrate towards how Blaney is, if he's his similar driving style, similar setup,

he could very well go to Vegas and be very successful. So I would not be afraid to take a gamble on Josh Berry. Damn, TJ. Yeah, there's some finders fee there before you, TJ. Yeah, I mean, there should be some there. Yeah. TJ with the good take. Yeah.

in our dirty moat segment his first should we celebrate it i think so should we celebrate because hey all right tj thank you job buddy thank you you're welcome tims thank you thank you all right home stead coming up and just jumping right off the page man this this racetrack it feels like we have a pretty good understanding of who we think will be able to go there and run well this isn't a, this isn't one that seems that damn difficult. So tell me, who's the bet? Man, it's chalky up on top. Yeah, it is really, I mean, the sports books have, what's see, one, two, three, four, five, six, six drivers under 10 to one odds.

Do you think that it's bad? Do you think that that's common after they have a race where a guy that's, you know, such long odds takes a win? They start to, they start to tighten it up a little bit. I not really because I would have assumed that like like Larson and Byron were fast. Yeah, they might have dominated last weekend. But like I don't think Josh Barry sees those odds again. No, Josh Barry will never see that.

Oh, yeah. Barry swore as priest with the top three and those guys were long, long shots. I would have thought it would be more spread out honestly this week. TJ predicted that Barry's odds have changed since his win. Yeah, he is. This guy is on a tear today. He's on fire. Yeah.

Unfortunately, if you didn't get him, you're not getting that. TJ is. TJ with his takes. He's on fire. Two weeks in a row because I called him for Phoenix to you and it's close. Two awesome takes. T.J., who do you like this week then?

Yeah, who you like, T.J.? This week, I really like I really like Tyler Redick. That's going to be the obvious one. Looking through the field, I, something's telling me, Host Farr is going to have a good run.

Really? I just feel like, I don't know, I feel like he's going to have a good run. That's going to be important to be able to do that. I believe he's going to, I think he can. Yeah.

Like top 10 good? Or what do you think? Yeah, I think so. That's my long shot. Yeah, probably get some good odds there. My best bet is A.J. Almonding are top 10. So, AJ has figured out how to not run the top there and still be fast. And A.J. had really good speed of Vegas.

So I would not be afraid to put A.J. in that category. But A.J. is a smart race car driver. He knows how to put a race together most time. So he'll get that solid finish. I think Hose of ours kind of live by the sword, die by the sword type. So I think he's kind of a lot of speed. I think if he can figure out how to put a race together, he can finish good.

Yeah. I feel like Redick is, you know, I know we're talking about bets, but this seems like the kind of race that if Reddick's really going to, like, thrust himself into the true conversation of a contender for the title, I know points-wise he's doing a great job, just accumulating points, but this is a race where he has to contend for the win. You know, this is his type of track. this if he's if they're where they need to be as a team

I just I think it's another you know second third fourth you know it's a it's a race where he's going to lead a little he's going to run second third fourth but in the end unlikely close the deal so I don't know what the odds are for Redica you know to a top five but I'd be I don't know

I think you know Denny's this is another track too where I think Denny's got to run well this is the track where I would watch and say, okay, this is, this gives me a good understanding of where I think Denny is with his program, new crew chief, changes that they've had throughout the organization. And it's been almost a year since he's last one, too, so you know he's pitching to get back. For sure. From a betting standpoint, when I see all these, you know, big names, like you just said,

Redick, Hamlin, Larson, they're all kind of unbettable at the top. This is where I look for top tens, top fives, like you said, because you're going to get some good plus money odds on a Redick top five or Hamlin top five. And then guys like Bowman, Josh Barry, they're going to be plus money for a top 10, most likely, because they're kind of in that second tier. So you can find some value with those guys. And correct me from wrong terms with like a Denny, a lot of times, if he's going to be a top 10, he's going to be a top 5 anyway. So you might as well bet it with the plus odds, right? That was the trend last year.

He was very, if he was running up front, it was top 5, not just top 10. Right on. Well, all right, the NCAA tournament technically starts tonight. Oh, yeah. I have... I've got 15 winners. I've got 15 winners sitting right here. It's all in one parlay.

But tell me some of the bets that you're confidently making. So, TJ, tonight's just the first four, so it's kind of like the play in to get to the tournament. But technically still the tournament. I got a little money-line parlay. Only two legs, though, just for tonight and tomorrow, actually. Xavier, which is tomorrow's night's game. I like them money-line in Alabama State, which is tonight.

I like them as well. That's plus 156. I've got a North Carolina parlay. Money line taking them, and then RJ Davis, 12 points, and then Van Allen Lubin 8 rebound. Jesus goodness gracious.

Plus 136, but you've got a no sweat bet with it too. North Carolina is a lot of controversy. They should even be in a tournament. That's why I think, I think the locker room's got this like us against the world mentality. Ship on the shoulder, yeah. So they're going to go out there and say,

you don't think we belong, watch us. Yeah. So Alabama State. Alabama State. They're playing St. Francis tonight to be the 16 seed. Oh. And you're taking them money line. Them money line and Xavier, which plays Texas tomorrow night.

I like Xavier a lot. I'm going to do three-game parlay with Alabama State, North Carolina, and Xavier. It's going to be a lot of fun over the next couple of days with the NCAA tournament. Let's all try to keep a little bit of money in our balance. and not go completely belly up. Hopefully everybody has some success out there. Thank you, Tim, for bringing us some of the best ideas on how to handle some of these NASCAR events each weekend

and a big win for everybody out there who put a little on Josh Barry to have a successful weekend in Vegas. We'll see you next week. The Dirty Modeo segment was brought to you by FanDuel, the premier gaming destination in the United States. All right, it's time for the white flag. As I mentioned, listening to the tear down this past Sunday was a lot of fun.

Great coverage from Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi talking about the race. But they do this live on YouTube following the race. They also were on X, I think, for one of the first times. Yeah. Really? And they had over 10,000 people watching. The logo has a little bar or something around it and you click it and the video pulled up. Yeah, it was great.

That's how I watched. And so a lot of. of fun. Keep following the tear down. I mean, that's instant reaction from folks in the industry that are really entrenched and everything going on. All they're there. Everything. You get one, usually one person's there and the other one's not. So you're getting the reporter that's there, but then the other, you know, watching it and getting the perspective. Yeah. So it's really good. Action's detrimental was out on Monday. Denny was very candid about what happened in his race. That's nice because that's why we do the show. Good job. He said that one of the reasons is misinformation that he was,

because what he was wanting from the car and different things. And so went into his setup. Denny, being very candid, fighting misinformation, this guy's a warrior. And a winner in Vegas, since he apparently hit the jackpot a couple times. I want to know how much money he put into the machine. He talked about how much money he was.

So you'd have to listen to this show. Yeah, it's there. So I know there were two photos, two different wins, two jackpots. One was $300 a spend. The other was $500 a spend. He goes, he don't mess around. I can, I'm going to tell you right now.

Ain't no fucking great. There's no way. No way. I'm going to put $500 on one spin in a slot. I'm sorry. I'm also not going to win $150,000. To when big money you got him spent? Oh, my God.

Would you do it at roulette? Yes. I know you. I've seen him do it. I would. But I, the roulette thing is different. I don't walk up and start at 500. I start at 100 and I win 500.

And then at roulette, I get in this sort of deal where I'm like, all right, red and black, red and black, I know what's going to hit next. And I'm just going to keep doubling my money. And sometimes I've had a lot of good luck at the roulette wheel. But to walk up to a slot machine and have to do at least five to 20 rolls at 300 to 500 apiece to try to win real money.

because I know Denny didn't just walk up and hit the button and do like two or three rolls. And you know the answer to this, Travis. You got to listen to the past. Just fucking tell us how many rolls did it. Word on the street was he was down 40. No, he was never down 40. His initial that he was willing to bet with was 11,000

and never got below 8. And then he started hitting. Wow. The slot machine got primed, though. He had a friend with him that was betting smaller and not winning a whole lot. So I think he, I mean, it was like the perfect timing. Yeah. Yeah.

I would throw up. Those big giant new style slot machine or, yeah, I guess they're electronic ones kind of. Yeah, but they're the big screen with all the stuff. I'm like, I've sat down at those, like the Buffalo one that he's playing. And I'm like, I don't know what I need to see to win, right? I don't know what I'm looking for, right? You need sounds to happen. Right.

I mean, at least on like, some. Some of them I'm like, okay, I get it. I got to get this and this and this. But when you sit down to those, it's like, yep, I'm going to hit a button and I don't know if I want or not until it tells me. I know. It's going to tell me if I won. Yeah, until it says there's some money. Oh, extra money. But I'm looking at the screen going, it says I won, but I don't know how or what.

Yeah. This bar went over, then up. What? Why did they make them so damn? Why'd they make the game? I agree with you. Less fun. They're trying to say, oh, you can win in so many different ways now.

I just want to get... I'm giving my hard time. I mean, I agree with you, though. They are... You don't even know if you win. I don't need to take a class. I don't need to sit down at this slot machine and go, well, I didn't get a course on this particular one. So I'm just going to shoot in the dark here.

That's why I play Wheel of Fortune slot. That's simple shit. Yeah, sevens are the... The sevens or the spin. The damn wheel spins on the number. That's your number. You won that. Yep.

I love... playing slot machines. Yeah. I like Willa portion. They've gotten so complicated, you know. They have something more fun. Yeah. I want to know how to sit down at the Buffalo one and know what I want to see on the screen.

Well, that's Danny. I don't think he knows. I don't think he knows either. I'm pretty sure he does know. Well, he might know now. But you can't tell me he recognizes all the different ways you can win right away. There's no way somebody can do that with these machines now. Well, you just said he does.

Yeah, now. No, there's still no way. Well, Denny, fighting misinformation all along the way and being so candid on his actions detrimental show. It's the greatest. It is. Doorbubber Clear also posted on Monday. They were joined by Slugger Labby, and they talked about how teams need more practice. Good job.

My interview with Tony Gibson will drop tomorrow. Herman Schrader and Speed Street will also be. be out on Wednesday. And then Thursday, another episode of Bless Your Heart with my wife, Amy. We're back in the studio. And I'll have a new chair. Will you? Yeah, it's supposed to be here. Where is it? Wait, is it the one that's out in the lobby? Yeah.

That's your chair? Don, will you bring my chair in here? Yeah. That's my new chair. I was wondering what I was doing the lobby. Amy bought that for me. Amy ordered that off Amazon. Is it going to sit high enough? It's fine. It's perfect. And it doesn't make any noise. Look at there.

Okay, that's a high enough. Oh, that's it. I love that chair. I love those chairs. There it is. It's fine T-Jer. Good looking chair. Thank you, Amy.

So we'll be back in the studio for Bless Your Heart on Thursday, recapping, whatever, just talking about whatever. Amy comes to me about two days before the show, and she's so nervous. What are we going to talk about? I'm like, ah, whatever. So I don't think about it. I just sit down and we just start. It's different for her.

She wants to come in with a plan. Yeah. But I think she needs practice. No, this past week was an incredible example of how you podcast for a show like that at least. Now for some shows certainly got a plan. Like for our interview with Tony Gibson this week, we plan. But bless your heart. the other day

we talked about the Backstreet Boys sponsoring a car to our favorite Backstreet Boys song to whether we sing that in the car by ourselves to karaoke to our favorite karaoke songs

to Brittany and what's her face Christina Aguilera to nose rings to nose rings catching booger to belly button rings

to belly buttons that go haywire after pregnancy. That was the story arc of Bless Your Heart. You can't plan that. One particular episode or one particular clip of Bless Your Heart. That's how you podcast. That's it. That's podcast.

That's podcast. Right? That's good. Yeah. You can't plan that. That's when it's good. You can't plan that for sure. All right.

Don't forget to go head over to show. Shop.Dardimomedia.com. That's a website. Shop. Shop. Shop. Dot dirtymodea.com. Shop.

Dot dirtymomedia. com. Get all your sweatshirts, t-shirts, hats, drinkwear. Yeah. Drinkware. Who uses that word?

You've never seen that on a website before? Not in the continental U.S. Drinkware. Have I seen drinkwear? Pint glasses, pills are glasses. There you go. Okay.

Glasses. Rocks glasses. Glasses? Is that one word or two? Well, we have a new merch line for Dirtymode Media, all of our podcast. Even some bless your heart gear. Amy's starting to get involved in the designs of that. Shop.

Dot dirtymodemedia.com. We got all kinds of drinkware. We'll see you next week.