The Dale Jr. Download - Last Driver to 60 Wins?

Episode Date: October 14, 2025

The NASCAR Cup Series is onto the Round of 8, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back behind the mic to break down the action. He joins co-host TJ Majors on a new episode of Dirty Air to recap what went down in Las Vegas and more:The CARS Tour season finale is upon usConnor Zilisch continues to impressWhat JRM needs to do at TalladegaDenny Hamlin makes historyHow much more does Denny have left in the tank?Team Penske is on the ropesWhich other Cup driver would reach 60 wins?NASCAR changes will take years to come to fruitionDuring the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions about:Dale’s first driver and track selections for NASCAR ‘25Dale’s favorite piece of sheet metal he ownsTitanic Lego updates And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaReal fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.👇https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York.Consumer Cellular: New customers get a $5 credit on first five monthly invoices. Visit https://savings.consumercellular.com/DJD for details. 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.

If I was the driver of any of those cars, I would just tell everybody, like, I'm going to try to do what I can to be a good teammate when that's possible. I'm not going to do anything that I think is detrimental to me, even losing one position. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half. I don't know if we've ever argued. Did I piss you off over the weekend? I'm still sour that I went to the best man at your wedding. Who was your best man, Dale?

TJ. DJ. You don't need a cool vest for that race. What are you thinking? Get them, DJ. Hellway is starting a show. All right then. Hey, everybody.

It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. And I am remote today. Kids are on fall break. TJ is in the studio, Travis. We'll have a regular show here for you today. And this show is brought to you. buy Bass Pro Shops. Man.

They're North America's premier outdoor and conservation company. You can plan your next adventure by going to a Bass Pro shops near you in shopping, or you can go online at BassPro.com. So they've been a great partner riders for a long time and continue to be

today. And they support race cars on the racetrack. They support podcasts, dirty mode media, all types of things. Wyatt, his racing career. owes a lot to Johnny Morris and Bass Pro. So we love what they do. So anyhow, how's it going, TJ? Hey, it's going pretty good.

How about how's the break going? Well, I say this, man, my heart is broken. Seriously, my heart is broken. Why? Last night. Oh, I know. Washington fumbled the ball. I had about two minutes left in the game.

one yard away from a first down, which would have probably run the clock down, and fumbled the handoff. Yeah, those are tough to beat, not good. The bills didn't do much better, so... Yeah. Both our teams failed. The bills cost me a parley, so I'm mad with you, T.J.

Yeah, they probably cost a lot of people parleyes. Yeah, that one hurt last night, because that was against the Bears, who we had the hell marry against. And, you know, the bears are probably sitting there thinking, well, we should have beat you twice. You got lucky once. Yeah.

It was an ugly game. We played terrible. Low scoring, right? Yeah. Well, we had three fumbles, three or three giveaways, an interception, two fumbles. Oh, man. Yeah, those aren't fun.

You know, if you didn't give it, though, it wouldn't matter. you know, if it didn't matter, you didn't give it. That's the tough part about being a fan is the good, you know, the good times are good, but then you got to go through the crap when it ain't good. And, man, I felt like that we had paid our dues as Washington commanders.

I thought we'd paid our damn dues. Then we got a night like last night. Yeah, then this happens. As a fan base, I ain't saying nothing that you don't know, man. You're a Buffalo fan, and y'all has certainly paid your. dues but got a mighty it's not a fun it's not fun when you're getting when this happens it's just a gut check and the bills fed two weeks in a row of bad losses of games that i feel like

they should have won the patriots are always tough for them to play but like the falcons are just kind of averages here dude i don't know the falcons look pretty good i know the falcons everybody wants to say the falcons are average man but you win games like that against a great team like buffalo and i don't know if you can call yourself average anymore yeah I don't feel like Buffalo played that. But John Robinson is in, but John Robinson is like a one-man wrecking crew, dude. He's insane. He is good.

You can't stop him. No, he's really good. Yeah. What in the world? I feel like there was opportunities to have to get back in the game and possibly win the game. I quit watching it at one point, but I guess there was opportunities that plays just didn't get made at times. So got to make them plays. I know.

I hate going on and on about this stuff because I bet there's a ton of people listening to this show right now. I don't give a crap about Washington or Buffalo. Could be football fans. I bet a lot of our football fans. Well, I'm sure there's some, but, man, I got to get it off my chest. You know, I can't do the show without, I knew coming in, last night when I went to bed, I'm like, I'll be miserable all damn day tomorrow. Well, we said that this show is about making you feel better.

You start off bad, and by the end, you're feeling good. So, like, that's the mission statement of this show. That is it, absolutely it. This is my therapy session. Y'all should be charging money. A lot to cover on this show. Cup series is the Sunday race, and it's the last thing we're going to discuss in the dirty air segment.

First off, big weekend for the Cars Tour coming up. Multiple reasons why I want to talk about this. The final race of the season is at North Wiltsboro this Saturday. The final race of the Cars Tour season is Saturday at North Wiltsboro. If you can go, by all means, please go support. the tour, the track, and all the things that we should be thankful for. Good, you know, short track racing. Easy drive.

And Wilkes. Around this area. And Wilkesboro. Well, yeah. So, um, 45 minutes from my house. Yep. Go support it. Or you can tune in and watch it on Flo.

So I went to Flo's headquarters yesterday in Austin, Texas. Flow is our home, uh, for the Cars Tour. Flow is our partner that puts us, makes us available for fans to be able to watch. I say this, I talk about this all the time. I think, man, we are, we're not that far removed from, you know, you couldn't watch a short track race or local race on a stream somewhere. It just wasn't available.

So if you wanted to know what happened at Langley or what happened at Florence, you had to get on the internet and maybe follow somebody. Yeah, like Matt Weaver used to be my guy. guy. Matt Weaver, yeah, like you follow somebody. Lap by lap. You'd learn about what happened the next day. It sucked. So, you know, that's still available

and that's still helpful, but you could watch. And I remember when I heard about flow and I was like, all right, I'll get flow. It was really affordable. Of course, the subscription price has increased over time, but they've got, they're going to do 40,000

events next year. 40,000 events. That's ridiculous. That's unreal. They do high school sports, and they started with wrestling and, shoot, I forget what it was, track and field and wrestling. That's how they started, just like doing a couple events here and there. And they get the feed from the school or, and it's college as well. They have dozens and dozens, almost 80 to 100 college. football games any given weekend.

Really? Are they just local more to Texas area or all over? No, no, no. All over. That's just where their base is Texas. They have a ton of sports, right? And any given weekend. And one of their biggest properties is motor sports.

They have high limit, lots of dirt racing, and some pavement late model racing and so forth as well. So they have the cars tour. So it's about $140, I think, annually. and so to get everything that you get, I think it's incredible in terms of value. So anyways, I went up there, got a tour of the place, we sat down, we talked about the future of the Cars Tour.

They are all in. They believe in the tour. They believe in what they're doing. So I just hope people really appreciate them for what they provide us. Because the convenience of being able to sit down and watch either the Carst tour you can I don't know there's multiple short tracks that they

stream in any given weekend all kinds of dirt asphalt NASCAR regional all types of stuff and we have the you know we have that convenience it's you know it wasn't there 10 years ago didn't exist I agree with you on this it is it is unreal all the short track action that you can get and that you can follow weekly like local short like dirt

between dirt racing uh Bowman gray although there's a lot of local short tracks that it's just i mean it's unreal like you got to try it it really is but look the cars tour is arguably some of the best pavement racing going on in the country today it lives exclusively on flow the last raises of the season is at north wittsboro this saturday um we are we're going to be deciding our um our championship race uh for both classes uh for both classes I think that our late model stock, let me see here, late model stock drivers points, Landon Lewis and Conner Hall are kind of battling this out. They are well clear of Cade Brown and third, but it's a 12 point gap.

Landon Lewis leads Connor Hall. Landon Lewis dominated Wilkesboro earlier this year, so it's going to be tough for Connor Hall to go out there and mount the charge needed to win. Landon Lewis has four wins this season to Connor Halls, too. So it's, Landon's had a great year. In the pro-late model, let's see, Rick Rare Racing's got a chance to win the owner's points. But in the driver's points, Ben Mayer, I think all he has to do really is start the race. So he's 45 points ahead of Brandon Lopez.

Ben Mayer has drove an incredible season, six top fives, nine top tens, no wins yet. so he hasn't won a race and has the points literally locked up with a start. Consistency, huh? Yeah, you got to celebrate it. I mean, in the pros, we've had 86 cars race

in the pros throughout the year, but there are only let's see, four guys, five that have started all 12 events. So it's, you know, the pros, you kind of get a little bit of everybody as you move around the geographical sort of footprint that we're in, you get a little bit here and a little bit there.

But in the, let's see, in the late-mile stocks, we have, it's hard, probably not as easy to tell. We've got quite a few more that have run all the races, probably about 10 to 12. So anyways, yeah, the car store is wrapping up their season. And I am done racing this year. year for the late model stocks won't be at the 400 in South Carolina this year. We're going to have cars that go down there and race.

Junior Motorsports will be represented in the 400. And also there may be a neat little junior motor sports entry with a very kind of surprising name behind the wheel for the Thanksgiving race in Southern National. The NASCAR playoffs are here and so is your chance to bring the intensity home. celebrate every pass, pit stop, and photo finish with a collectible car from Lionel Racing, the official diecast of NASCAR. Built for fans who live for the chase, Lionel Racing diecasts are the ultimate trophy. Each car is precision crafted featuring authentic paint schemes and hand-applied decals.

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That's promo code playoffs at lionelracing.com. Hey, everybody, you want the latest Dale Jr. download apparel? Visit shop.durtymomedia.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.durdymobedia.com. Let's jump into, let's see, shall we talk?

Xfinity? I will say the one thing that I took away from the Xfinity race, obviously the eight cars struggled terribly. I don't understand why that happened, but I was really surprised to see them not run better than that. The one car struggled. It was obviously disappointed with both of those results. Justin Algar had a pretty quick car.

Feel pretty good about where they are, momentum-wise, speed-wise, going into these next couple of races. And feel like if Justin can get to Phoenix, he's got a great shot at winning another championship. The 88 of Zillich, I don't, I'm telling you, man, the way the kid drove that car, the last 20 laps was epic. And, I mean, he just literally didn't have enough to be able to get there and get it done. And you could tell he was getting everything and more out of that race car. I think the fans that saw the last 20 laps that race were thoroughly impressed, thoroughly enjoyed.

the effort from Connor and yeah I mean we don't often see somebody just you know I don't want to say out of control but car that yawed out just really going for it and he has so much to risk in terms of the points maybe he doesn't even realize that maybe to him it's not he maybe he's not taking a risk maybe totally in control of everything going on they don't look in control sometimes but man is it fun to watch it's so fun to watch and you just got to get out of the way. Like, you know, if you were the owner, like, no one in the world feels this way, but probably me. But I'm the owner of the car. And so I'm sitting there watching the car and I'm like, you know, part of me's like, damn, he might get him.

Guy Lee, he looks like, oh, he's got a good run here. If he can just get him upset a little bit and get to the rear bumper and get him up off the bottom, maybe. And then he gets sideways and loses a ton of track position, you know, loses a lot of room, and you're like, ah, just settle in and bring it home. And then he makes another run, you know, cools it down. I don't know how he was doing that, because I'm sitting there looking at them tires, and it's like they've got to be boiling hot. I don't know how in the hell he's able to get that thing,

to ask that thing to have the grip to be able to actually mount another run and another charge to Eric. I don't think the exfany tire is quite as heat sensitive as the other tires, though, but you're right. Yeah, you're right, though, as far as how he can, you think he's done, and then here he comes back a little bit. It was impressive as hell. So I think, you know, we're just seeing this kid, you know,

show us that he really is the real deal. Yeah. So, what's, it's, you know, we got a Talladega and Martinsville coming up to, you know, two different tracks, completely different. and as we preview both of those in the Xfinity series, at Talladega band, you're just going to have to go race your ass off. I don't know that there's a strategy.

Now, the 88 and the 7 may be able to be more conservative and be conservative on the stages just to stay out of trouble to get the M result because you don't want to crash out of the first stage and get nothing all day. but the other two, I think they got to go race like hell. Yeah, the eight, just race like hell. The 88 is 82 points above the cut.

Algar is 44. Yeah, I would just chill. Right. So they could just chill, get a finish, get out of there. Not really what you want, not really kind of the racing you want to go do, but kind of what you have to go do, consider in the situation you're in with this points format. The other two guys, the one and the eight got to go, I just go race like hell. Try to win. race like hell.

But they don't have to win. I would say go yeah, lead every lap. Just have this attitude of putting it all out there, leaving it in God's hands, whatever you want to say, right? Just go like hell.

I agree. Yeah. I mean, you can't, you can't live with yourself when you get out of that car with, and you don't have the result needed, and you know at certain parts in the race you were settling.

that is so hard to reconcile with at the end of the day. If you get out of the car, you didn't get quite the result you needed, and you know at points of the race you were settling. That's hard to handle. So that's Talladega. And Martinsville, you know, I think last year, maybe this year, I was telling them they needed to get it off the damn schedule because of what a show it is.

And I won't expect this one to be any different. It's a shame, though, because that can be a really great racetrack, too. It comes down to the drivers, respecting each other. Martinsville is a great race track. But what are the stages? The stages are what, 40 laps? What are the stages?

I mean, I don't. Ridiculous. Yeah, I mean, it needs to be into a long run where to car separate. Yeah. They don't, you know, the cars don't have enough power to race there. it's like getting in the gas like stepping in a bucket of mud but these guys never really get to feel an 80 lap run

you know what I mean like how much it can fall and how much they can really do it like that's where they got to learn the craft is having long runes yeah I wish it was well they they don't have the I just yeah the stages are super short the car is not very fun to drive there

because of the lack of power it doesn't doesn't do anything really good which is okay, but I don't know. It's just a frustrating race to run. Yeah, if they did let you kind of, you know, go 80 to 100 laps or a little further on a run on a stage, man, it'd be really nice. I don't know why that race should be, that race should be 300 laps,

all 100 laps stages. Ownership championship, it just got a little more interesting for Xfinity 2. Yeah, you know, that's the thing. You know, Eric Almerola. I'll just say it. I mean, Eric's a great guy, but dude, he's annoying his shit to race against. He is, yeah.

Yeah. He's like a bulldog when he gets back in the McSvaney cars. I don't know if he's at. He's not bad, you know, he's pretty aggressive, but he's good, like he's really good. Yeah, he's aggressive. So far, I feel like he's taking it out on people that deserve it, but it's not like he's just running into everybody.

He's very selective. And I don't think he's just running into people that much. No, I don't think he's just, like, ruining his, race stuff. Well, I don't, you know, but you call him a little bit. Oh, he's a little rough with the guys, but he's, like, I would be too if I was, him going back in there. He should be. I think, yeah, I think he's just trying to have fun and get everything he can get. He's on the back end of this, you know, whatever this is. I love it. In his career and he's winning races, it's annoying for me. I love, it's fun to watch. I thought fun for me to watch. what team are you spotting for here? I'm just saying it's fun to watch. I mean, I enjoy seeing Eric come back and and be aggressive with these guys, and they can learn something from Eric. honestly, I mean, they can learn from him. Yeah, there's the friend, the person that I believe, I think me and Eric are friends, and I'm happy to see him go through this process and have these moments with his kids.

That's incredible for him. That's incredible for him. I bet when he was retiring from the cup car, he never imagined having these opportunities to make these memories that his son and his kids are going to remember forever. They're loving it. Those are great things. But now, now. he's going to go run the Martinsville and the Phoenix race they're going for the points

championship in the 19 car I understand that but I worry how that's going to mingle with the driver championship you know and so you know we'll see how that works out but hopefully Eric can do what he needs to do to try to give himself the best shot for them to win the owners points championship I want I want that for him he He's free to go do that, but I hope at the same time he doesn't affect the driver's championship in some negative way. That would be tough to take. Now, when you say that, do you mean like just have an incident with one of them guys?

Well, I'm hoping to have a couple guys in the four at Phoenix, and I hope he don't fuck that up for me. Now, he can go out there and try to win the owner's championship. Go race hard. We're going to be trying to beat him all that. But at the same time, there's a driver's championship totally unrelated to him. So what if he's racing, let's say, Zillich? He don't need to give up, give her.

He don't need to do anything. Just don't run into our car, you know. Don't make a mistake. Don't get loose underneath somebody and then, you know, take our guys up the track or cut a tire or whatever. I just hope that doesn't happen. He typically, he's typically not that kind of a racer. He's very smart. I think I could race Eric side by side and not worry about him ever making a mistake.

And I'm hoping that that holds true in Phoenix. But I got to, I mean, just, I'm expressing openly my, like, inner thoughts here, right? So I don't want it to be insulting to Eric in any way, but I'm just telling you here today that it was being transparent with what's going on in my brain. So that moves us to the cup race. Denny Hamlin and the Denny Bros. celebrated a big victory in Vegas. And Denny had an awesome run there at the end. Restarted six in the last start.

Got to third with 10 to go, past Larson and Briscoe. Larson was very impressed. And so he wins 60 races, which was very important to him. His dad hasn't been feeling well over the last a year or two, and I think that's been tough for Denny to manage. And certainly, you know, when you get to a certain age,

I'm going to tell you, for the majority of us, you don't have to face that hard reality of loss early in life, right? You know, your parents, your grandparents, if things go the traditional route, you won't really have to deal with what that feels like and what that, what that emotion feels like until you get into your late 30s and mostly in your 40s or 50s, right? And so, you know, that's where Denny is in his life, and he's having to deal with losing somebody or the possibility of losing somebody

that means the world to him, and that is very, maybe single-handedly responsible for the life that Denny's been able to have, and it's been a hell of a life. And so, you know, we don't really get to see Denny in a human, be humanized. Denny's got this sort of, you know, he's got this sort of shell of, you know, and he says he's misunderstood, and he's, you know, he's, he is who he is. He doesn't come out of it much.

He's either stork or cocky, but he's never, like, emotional and, like, the way that he was. Yeah. And so, you know, we're seeing this, this human side of Denny, and I think that the fans can really appreciate it. I see a ton of comments from fans. Hey, I'm not a Denny fan. I'm not a Denny bro, but feel for the guy and what he's going through. And I'm glad to see him be able to get these milestones so that his dad can be a witness to it. His dad can see his son check these boxes after all the sacrifice.

Did he talk in length about the sacrifice that his family made, mortgaging the house multiple times, the arguments in the kitchen over how much, more they could they could possibly do or be willing to do to further denny's career um very uh transparent uh you know for denny to to kind of be that open and share he's he's mostly kind of private not many probably knew anything about his dad either you know so and they there's still no real there's still no real like hard evidence exactly what his dad may be dealing with what is what is you know what is the the physical issues that that that are you know, causing him difficulties, but it's not that important to know the details.

We just know that he's not well. Denny's upset about it, and we're wishing that Denny can do all the things that he wants to do and allow his dad to be a witness to it. And so pretty awesome. 60 wins. I remember when Denny got to 50, and that was a big deal. And now he's at 60. He said that he's going to run.

He said that he pretty much has an end date or the end of the runway in terms of his career. I guess that he's happy to win whatever races there are in that short period of time, but should he still be winning at the end of that off-ramp? I find it hard to believe that he's just going to hang it up and stop. And he said last night on the podcast that those last 10 laps on Sunday, day he's always worried about when the light's going to go off and he's like those last 10 laps almost like gave him energy so it almost seems like okay he knows the on the off ramps in two years but there's another off ramp that he can if he wants to skip that one he can go another year whatever

yeah so that's what i'm thinking i mean if if the guys still winning races how do you quit in that final year i don't think you did i don't think you can i think he keeps racing yeah i don't because there's other there's other targets out there right you look up there and my dad's up there team more wins and you know there if he could even if he can get close to sniffing that's a elite company how how would yeah how would you not want to tie that that guy but um because you could really say hell i won as many races as dale earnhardt i mean not many people can say that there's only a few above him right and then he's got a real chance i think if he raced another three or four years he could be he could be in that in that vicinity he could be close yeah because gibbs cars are

going to be good. They're going to, JGR cars are going to be really good. Yeah. And I, you know, I think we have to speak to the talent that Denny is. They talked about it. Dale Jarrett talked about it on the post race. He's like, man, he's at that age where things just start slowing down. And there's a lot of reasons why guys do slow down.

But it's undeniable. If you look at the history of all the. the drivers, take all of the drivers in the past 30 years, that average age of when the performance and the numbers, the statistics start dropping, the top tens, top fives, the wins is 43. That is the number. Some win beyond that, some succeed beyond that, but not many. Everybody pretty much starts to tail off around that 43 year age. And so Denny's an anomaly, and he's in such good mental.

shape that I believe that he could carry this on and be this successful another three or four years without question. How much further beyond that, I'm not sure. Could he race and win competitively at 50 years old? Possibly. Perry Gant, Bobby Allison, some others did it. So I think it's something about the sharpness of the mind, the mental sharpness. Kenny Wallace is is he one of the most mentally tough drivers that we know in the series. I'd say he's definitely one of those guys that doesn't get too worked up or bothered or distracted. So if you want to call that mentally tough, you can. He just doesn't seem to be the kind of guy that gets off the rails emotionally, mentally inside the car.

Just finishing, does staying with JGR for so long and being competitive cars, it's got to be a pretty big part of it too, though, right? To help him stay. Massive advantage. stay mentally sharp. Yeah. Like in that good mental state? Doesn't that keep him in a good mental state, though? I mean.

One of the reasons why guys start tailing off is they get out of good cars or they get put in bad cars. And I think Denny's earned the right to be in that car as long as he wants. I don't see Joe cutting him early because of performance. If Denny wanted to keep racing, even though he wasn't performing, I think they'd hang on to him for a couple more years beyond his abilities. But I don't really see him doing that. Yeah, I mean, I feel like

It's pretty impressive to see what he's done And with the Situation that the Pinsky is now in So Blaney blows his left front tire crashes out, he's way out He's got to win at Talladega He's got to win Martinsville

Martinsville, one of the two, right? I'd say, yeah I don't think he has to win I mean, I think he does Look at the cars You're not you're not going to point your way in against the guys you're racing against these these are the best eight teams in the series but couldn't we see a hendrick car get caught up in a wreck on sunday that's only one of

that's one of the one of the eight he's got to beat four yeah i i know but i'm just saying i think i don't think he's in a must win he's in a must win okay i mean what 40 something points i don't see how he's going to outpoint those guys by 40 i mean yes a wreck could happen but it could also happened to him. Why? He's a third one out. He doesn't have to point him by 40. He's 31 out, but I just, I think he's got to win.

Look, I mean, he could, he could, he could go have a good Talladega and come, come into Martinsville in the teens. But, I mean, it just, odds are really against him pointing his way in. I mean, I don't know what, I don't know many people that would feel like that that's, that's, that's realistic. So either way, I mean, who cares? Point your way in, when you weigh in, whatever. Lugano's minus 24.

Blaney's minus 31. They're both in a bad spot. They both may not get to Phoenix. And everybody feels like that if a Penske car goes to Phoenix, they are the favorite to win. And I would agree with that, right? I don't know how you can't agree with it. If a Penske car doesn't get to Phoenix,

is, I mean, this is Denny's year. Am I right? Here it is. It's teed up. It's setting it up for him perfect. Yeah, Danny was saying after New Hampshire, he's like, well, we're screwed, you know, the, you know, the Penske cars are so good. New Hampshire, very similar to Phoenix.

That was the telltale of, yep, they still got it. When we get to Phoenix, I expect them to be the, you know, be on top. and if there's not a Pinsky car in the final four, this thing is blown wide open. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. And how about this? Denny winning the championship while he's suing NASCAR?

Handing him the trophy. All right, so let's move on. Will we ever see another driver get to 60 wins? I think Kyle Larson could do it. Maybe Joey. What are they sitting at? Joe needs to run. Joey's at 37.

He needs to run better. Joey needs to run better during the regular season. Yeah, man, 60 wins. That's from 30-something's pretty tough, man. You're going to have to, I mean, Joey's a grinder. He knows how I get, like, finish some races, but it's like, what is it? Once or twice a year? I mean, that's not, you need, he needs five, four or five wins a year to get to 60, in my opinion.

Joey, yeah, Joey might get to... He might get to 50, 45, 50? Are you kidding me, he's 13 away from 50? He'll get to 50 easy. Yeah, I mean... I think Joey lands around 55 wins in his career. Brad Keselowski's at 36. I don't see Brad getting there.

Brad will be lucky to see 40. Kyle Larson, unless something massively changes it, Brad's situation. Their team just doesn't have the top speed yet. Kyle Larson at 32 wins. If he wants to race long enough, he could do it. See, that's where I think he's going to get it because, you know, remember he had one year where he got a bulk of his wins, but is he going to?

Yeah. But if he races long enough. I think Kyle Larson doesn't race long enough. I think Carl Arson. I do too. Yeah, you're probably right. Goes dirt racing. Yeah.

Chase Elliott's at 21. I think Chase Elliott will retire before that's possible. I don't think anyone's doing it. No, I think if Chase Elliott wanted to go win 60 races and stick around that long, he'd have a shot at it, but I think he gets out before. I think he's like, I, y'all, I'm going to go hide in the hills of Georgia. Never see him again. I can't believe you think Joey is going to get there. I mean, that...

I said Joey would get 55, dude. I mean, that's still to me. How many is he have this year? He's 13 from 40. Yeah, but how many to get this year? No, he's 13 from 50. I'm sorry, 13 from 50. So he's 13 from 50, T.J.

And he doesn't give a shit about nothing but racing. Joey's the guy that's going to race. I'm not. I'm not saying, Joey. I mean, I don't know, man. He's going to start focusing on his kids at some point. You know, he's got a lot of that going on. And I mean, I think he could get close.

But, I mean, I just don't see it. What do you mean focusing on his kids? He's not focused yet. What does that mean? He's not focused on. No, I mean, at some point, he's going to be like, you know what? I've done enough. I mean, he's already proved everything he needs to prove in racing already, didn't he?

That ain't the point. You know the kind of guy he is. He's going to race a ridiculously long period of time. Joe Hill will race till he's 45 at least. And he still be winning one race in here. I still think he's going to be very competitive. Yeah, but I mean, it's going to be tough sledding though. I mean, he's going to get one or two grinding.

I mean, it's going to be tough. I don't know why you're arguing. It's just going to be hard to get there. Not easy to get there. Not easy to do. Not many people do it. We also, Dale didn't say he was going to get there for the record. I mean, I said he's going to get to 55.

TJ's arguing like you said 60. I just think it's going to be tough. T.J's got a chip on the shoulder. No, I just think it's tough. 60's going to be tough to get to, man. You're still, you're still a jilted lover. No, I'm just saying it's tough to get to, man. Like, I don't, there's not enough wins a year.

I didn't, I'm not arguing. Yeah, we agree with you. Bales of 55. I said you get to, I say you get to 55. I think you need three to four a year to even get to that number. So what number does he get to? This is ludicrous. I think 50 is, I think 50 is a strong number.

I think Joe can get to 50. Okay, so I think he wins five more races than that. What's the big difference? Jesus, could be a season. I mean, it could be. Yeah, you never know. He could win on Sunday and then in two weeks. He could, yeah.

I mean, you never know with these teams nowadays. Byron's at 15, Blaney at 16. Don't know. I don't see it. I don't think Blaney races long enough. I don't either. Yeah. I just, yeah.

We all, you know, we keep. saying that. And I know what y'all mean, and I feel that too. Like the, the, like, so let's step back into the 80s, right? It was not, it was absolutely common to see guys race beyond 50. Yeah, a lot. You know, into their, yeah, late 40s, no problem. Yeah, it was normal.

And that, yeah, and that number is sort of creep down, creep down. And it really does feel like that these guys are going to keep her retiring earlier and earlier. Now, we don't really have any hard evidence that that's going to happen, but what is that? Why do we feel like Lars – I mean, I kind of know why we think Larson might go run dirt, just to say, you know, that was great, 20 years of cup. Awesome. I'm out.

You know, but Chase Elliott, Blaney, Byron, why do we feel like that they won't race until they're 45, 50 years old? I just think the demand of the seasons, how long they are. And it's just like you get to a point, and you're like – I'm good. Yeah, I mean, I think there's other priorities in life. Like, you see, like what I was saying with Joey, he's going to start, hey, man, I'm going to get my, I'm going to go watch my kids race every weekend or play soccer or football.

That's expensive. It is, but, you know, maybe. You're going to have to pay for that. Maybe they're playing, maybe they're playing football or soccer or something. You know what I mean? Yeah, sure. At some point, those are going to, those moments are going to take over. And when you look back and say, oh, okay, I've won three championships, a Daytona 500, you know, a lot of races.

Why do I want to miss that time? I believe that for most people, but I just don't see it with Joe. I know. You're right. I mean, it could be. He's kind of unique, I think, in that way. He might justify doing it longer than most. But yeah, I mean, you're right.

That definitely creeps in and you start wanting to be home more often. Hey, you know, you're missing key moments. And you miss a lot, right? And if you have kids, right? Joey's missing tons of moments now, right? And at some point he's going to go, all right, I'm not missing this stuff. Like, I've missed all of these years, and now the kids are older, and they're doing, to your point, doing things in school

and different things going on in their lives that he wants to be a witness to. Yeah. So it's, we'll see. Byron, reckoned Ty Dillon, reckon Intrytony Dillon. Boom. Yeah. Yeah, TJ, you're a spotter. So what the hell?

I mean, we rarely see this happen. And there's, I guess, let me ask you this question. They were saying, you know, Ty didn't wave. I didn't never really wave out the window because I didn't really expect them to see it. You know, with the way the car and the greenhouse and everything is, maybe they don't see the wave. For sure, yeah. What I did. When you say wave, you mean mirror out the window?

physically waving my hand in any place. All right. I typically would not do that because I didn't expect them to see that and I didn't want, the chance of them seeing the wave is really low. What I would do every single time is if I come, when I come off a turn two,

I weave down the back straightaway really low. And that's my signal. That would get their attention. and they'll go, oh, that's interesting. He just drove down to the, you know, four lanes down the bottom, you know, down the back straightaway. Watch out. He must be, he must be pitty.

Watch out. Yeah. So that would have been my wave. Outside of that, you definitely, if you got cars coming from behind, you definitely want to pin it to the apron. Oh, wouldn't you say? Absolutely.

Well, I mean, lefts on the paint, no higher. No higher. No higher. And Dylan was up to track. Absolutely. So as a spotter, you have intimate knowledge and understanding of what you expect drivers to do. And do we feel like that tie bears a little more responsibility here than he feels like, you know, from his post-race interviews and so forth? You feel like tie bears a little more responsibility to try to, you know, be a little more out of the way,

be a little more be a little more what's the word I'm looking for predictable not predictable yes predictable but be like let it known like he needs to be he needs like I'm not running

me lap here you're running you're in top three I'm just going to make sure I'm down out of the way here I don't want to be in the scene yeah like he could have faded down the back straight away that could have been his physical ways he needed to do something deliberate is the name I was I was looking forward.

More deliberate. Yes, he needed to be 100%. From the time he comes off a turn two, he needs to do something very deliberate to be a signal. And I guess none of that really happened. What's your take? You know, I guess the spotter, normally when you're near somebody, you just make eye contact or you're looking in their direction as a spotter.

Most time when you're pitting, you look at the other guy and you point down. It means you're coming in, you know. And at that point, I think the spotter have taken it as they were going to give him the bottom because Williams, I think Williams guy said the, you know, the 10's going to run second or third lane here when really he meant he was pitting. And I think there was a miscommunication there. But I think Ty, you know, you can't come off the bottom. And TV doesn't see this all the time. But there are a lot of near misses when Green Flag cycles are happening off term four when you're pitting from the racetrack. There was another one with SVG, almost almost, almost, almost, Claibbbered McDowell. I don't know if you saw that. McDowell was like in the third. He was almost in the same way in his tie. Maybe a tiny but higher. Maybe a tiny but higher, yes. Way higher. It's Ty's responsibility to be down on the way because sometimes drivers, if they feel

something in the middle of three and four, into three and they pit, they don't have time to tell a spotter or wave or anything like that. You just got to make yourself out of the way. You got to put yourself, I mean, just not be in the picture, you know, and that's on him, in my opinion. There's a lot of shitty feelings out on the racetrack, but that's one of them. When you're pitting under green flag and it's one of those racetracks kind of like, you know, Vegas where you're, you spend a lot of time slowing down on the banking in the groove. And you're like, God, dang, every time you're like, you're trying to get to pit road fast, but you're trying to also like not get run over.

Oh, yeah. It is like, it is very nerve-wracking. Do you remember the time at Loudoun, we got run over by McMur? I was just going to say. Yeah, I was just. They're getting ready to bring that up. The only time that I can remember ever being hit from behind coming to pit road was we were pitting under Green at New Hampshire, and you used to run the apron. Like you'd drive across the apron off a turn 4. We were all over that damn racetrack.

And I guess, you know, I didn't do enough. I wasn't delivered enough to Jamie to let him know what was going on. And he tore the right rear quarter panel off the car. And we destroyed both our cars. He more than tore the right rear off. He squirered you up. I don't, but that's the thing. Like, I remember that incident.

I remember somebody next to me looking over at me and saying, you did nothing wrong there because I was waving. Dude, we're on neighbor. Yeah, and I was waving like crazy. Like, and still just happens. It happens. It happens. It rarely happens.

But I think Todd Dillon could look back at it and go, man, what could I have done to be more deliberate? And I'll say this, too, on, on Byron's side of things. I didn't see Byron do anything wrong. The one thing that I did, I was surprised by, was how I was just surprised at how, I don't know how to say this. Did you think Byron saw it late? Like it surprised at him. Yeah. Like, I don't know.

When I'm watching the replays, I'm like, damn, he really didn't see that until the very last second. Yeah. Yeah, you could see him. closing. So another thing in Ty's defense. You got a guy, well, you got a guy in front of you and you're, you're, you're racing, but you're also, you're seeing that car. Yeah. And so Ty's pretty far up there. And he starts, you know, des, des, des, desail starts slowing down. Yeah. And William really doesn't react to it at all until, obviously, way too, was way too late. Yeah, I think the one thing in Ty's defense, what I was going to say is

the five had just passed Ty in one and two. and the five entered, Larson was running this line where you enter up in three a little bit, like a lane and a half up and then you turn down. He did. He drove down to the bottom and it took the air off Ty's nose, and that's what put Ty up the racetrack a little bit. Not saying it makes it right or wrong, but...

It does, it is something about this car we don't love. And that did, I think that's why Ty got up the racetrack a little bit, because he might not expect the DeFive to come down right there. He probably didn't, honestly, and took some air off the nose. There's not a race. There's not a race. in the next-gen area where we don't see somebody drive across the nose

of another next-gen car and that next-gen car. It was Denny this weekend. Remember, somebody, I think it was Larson, drove across his nose into one, and Denny shot up the track into the side of bail, almost took bail out. It's just pisses me off.

It's not a race that doesn't, there's not a race where I don't see that and grind my damn teeth. I just wish you would get loose when you did that because then you wouldn't do that. If it had, like if you cut down it from another car, and it was like, whoa, kick sideways on you. Oh, that would be awesome.

I just wish the lead car got loose. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, get that guy. We used to have that. Yeah. I mean, that's just an unfortunate situation. We could sit here and tell you, Ty Dealing could have done this, could have done that.

But it didn't need to happen, but sometimes those kind of things do. And the same thing for William. William could have rid in a second lane, you know, with dirty air and a slower car up there as well. And it costs most likely less than a win. maybe you never know though yeah i mean no but no yeah because another college could have gone out but larcen was the dominant yeah driver at that point yeah yeah that car looked good too by the way yo tj see you've been uh walking around with the new phone um where'd you get that new phone yeah man

i love this phone i recently joined a consumer cellier family and they hooked me up man i got a great new phone and the service is awesome that's great but like how's it iowa richmond some of the other tracks because it's great when you're at home but like when i'm on the road my phone is crap you know i travel a lot with the rfk 16 and i have had nothing but success with this phone i've actually it has bailed me out numerous times now i was able to flip the hot spot on and use some internet on it text calls everything man i'm i'm i could not be happier with this phone all right so but how do i go about to get this because i don't have time i'm not trying to go sit staying in line at a store wait grab a number wait 30 minutes like i just don't have time for that that's the easiest part man just call

their 100% U.S.-based customer service representatives, and in about 20 minutes, you'll be good to go. I chose the two-for-60 plan. It's not a prepaid option. They helped me decide which one was best for me, and I know exactly what I'm paying each month. Everything is easy to understand with no long-term contract. Switch to consumer cellular now and get 25 hours off with the code DJD-25. That's DJD-25 for 25 hours off when you switch to consumer cellular. Go to consumer cellular.com slash DJD and use promo code DJD. We're going to Talladega. There's an opportunity for Denny to be a good teammate.

You know, Denny can be calculative on what he wants to do, who he wants to help, who he doesn't want to help, right? I think that's a pretty neat spot to be in if you're Denny Hamlin. I don't know. He needs 61 now, man. Well, yeah, but there's that comment. He could just go in there and kind of, you know, does he help Briscoe? Does he want to help, you know, see Bell? You know, he's got opportunities to kind of be a good teammate and just kind of hang out.

Other team, other drivers in the final are still kind of racing to get in, right? you have you have you have Byron you got I mean we know kind of Blaney in those guys what they have to do but you got you know Byron at minus 15

Larson's at plus 35 he's a pretty good he's in a pretty good situation he just doesn't need to crash out but Byron and Chase Elliott at minus 15 minus 23 um you know what's

what's the what's what's going to be the protocol with teammates because we know in the past there's been a lot of manufacturer orders there's been a lot of you know teammate orders we've seen that fade away a little bit it was it's not quite as big of a part of super speedway racing as it used to be now now it's more about you know fuel mileage and so forth but kind of what's the what's the attitude if you're a teammate to another driver in the chase going into this race I mean, I think this is a whole different

This is a scenario that we really haven't seen in a while As far as heavy hitters Needing to make up some ground like Joey and And Blaney here Normally they're in the plus at this point Or you know, have been in the plus and they're in a good spot Now you've got two A's that need to be that need to win this race And now that changes

To me it changes the whole thing thing, you know, like how these guys now have to race each other. You've got five championships below the cut line right now. Yeah, that's a whole different scenario, in my opinion. Yeah. I'm interested in how they work with each other now. Well, if I was the, if I was the driver of any of those cars, I would just tell, I would just tell everybody, like, I'm, you know, I'm going to try to do what I can to be a good

teammate when that's possible, but I can't, I'm not going to do anything that I think is detrimental to me, even losing one position. So I'll race and be a good teammate, but I will not do a thing that's going to cost me a spot. I always want to be moving forward and trying to be at the front of the field and leading every lap. And so there'll be things that I do out on the racetrack that you'll be like, damn it, that wasn't good, that wasn't a good teammate move. But it's something I had to do for myself that I felt like put me in the position to try to win this race. You'll be curious to see how long Blaney and Lugano worked together early on the play

work. And then at what point do you go, all right, we're not teammates? Yeah, well, you've got to beat this guy. They're racing each over for the last spot too. At what point does that drop off? Like, is it 10 to go? I don't know, man. No, no, no, no.

It drops off coming off of turf. I don't know. No, no, not earlier. Listen, if Blaney and Joey are running first and second with 20 to go, it don't matter who's... I agree. They're not going to shuffle one or the other out early. They're going to need that teammate to be able to stay in those positions all the way to the finish. They're going to try to work together for the benefit of both of them all the way to the finish.

And then I think, you know, coming to the white, that's when it gets a little blurry. And you may see a teammate with a run he has to take. And he's going to have to, you know, he's going to make that choice. He's going to do that thing that's, you know, he's going to do that thing for himself in that moment. It may come with two to go. But I'd say, you know, you take a risk. The one thing that you don't want to do is go back to, if we're talking about Penske, for example. You don't want to go back to Roger Penske and have to look him in the face.

and say the move I made costs us both a win. Whatever move you make, it better be the one that wins you the race. If you're going to take a win from your teammate, you better be able to know for sure that that move is the one that will win you the race so that, you know, you can't cost both of you the race. So let me ask you this. If you're, you know, if you're Ryan and Joey, you're running top three to five the first stage, do you take stage points?

You know what I mean? Like, are you stage pointing this thing in the beginning? or are you setting yourself up for the win? Because to me, I mean... I'm just racing like hell. But, I mean, I know that, but you're going to have to pick one side or the other because at some point...

No, you don't. You can race for stage points and the win. I mean, I guess. Why not? What the f***? It's race. Go race. I mean, I feel like at this point,

you just got to go out there and put it all... I don't know how you can... I mean, the only thing that, TJ, the only thing that I think could actually truly affect that as their fuel mileage. What's their objective, right, to be in the best position late in the race to assure themselves the track position. And if they have to say, look, you know, I got to do this thing that's going to cost us

track position now and likely stage points, but it's going to benefit us later, then I see them doing that. But I'm thinking of it from just purely the driver's standpoint, my mentality would be, go to the front, be at the front, take the lead, lead, lead, lead, right? Yeah, for sure. And I think they will. I think they'll have a good shot at doing that. I think they'll be in control of some of that.

But at some point, what I was saying is the decision is going to have to be made. We take first and second in this stage or we sacrifice a little bit here. You can do both, though. Like Kyle Larson earlier this year, first in stage one, second stage two, second for the race. So, like, you're right. You can have your cake and eat it too. Yeah, you can. And it's so hard at Talladega, though, because of the wrecks and stuff.

I mean, you know how hard it is. We're talking about them being to get a into the race. That's a hard point to get to get to. TJ, the wrecks or the wrecks. They are. I mean, you, when you, I mean, when you go to Talladega or Daytona, you can't strategize for crashes.

No, you can't. I agree with that. You just race. You just got to race. I agree with you 100%. I go and race. Drop. If you race hard every lap and see where you end up.

And the plug qualified. At front, I feel like your chances of crashing in Talladega are 80%. Right. Let's just roughly say. Yeah. And that's Russell. You got an 80% chance of crashing.

All right. Now, that might drop down to like 70 if you race hard all day. If you're in protect mode and defense mode and just, you know, if you're in like conservative mode, you might actually raise that percentage. And I just feel like that if you're racing hard all the time, then there's a better chance of you being in front of the crash when it happens. at least that's what my experience was and anytime i tried to be conservative or chill or lay back or settle in any point in the race i'm like i'm actually in the danger zone right here

this ain't good at all you know i'm actually i'm actually going to drive into the wreck when it starts to happen you know so it it's uh i think it's it's a good practice to be of the mindset that i want to lead every lap it's not realistic that you're leading every lap but if you're in the mindset of I'm going to be doing everything I can all the time to try to be in the lead, then I think that you're putting yourself in a better, in a safer spot. You are. I think when you get two, three rows back, you're in your stock right there. You're just kind of like, you know it could get you.

Yeah. If it happens, it's right where you're at, you know? Yeah. Well, we'll see how it goes. The other thing I wanted to talk about real quick is I've been seeing some. comments on social media around whatever happens with the points system next year and other changes, right? And I just wanted to say this out loud because it surprises me that this is the conversation going on. So Mike Ford was on BBC.

Mike was great, had a lot of comments, but he stirred up some conversations amongst fans online as well as we all have we've all kind of been stirring up conversation online around the points or whatever changes and maybe come with the car the horse power this and that another right so there's uh there's a lot of emotion around the changes that may be coming for next year and um and we're we're all we've been moving through various stages of emotion through this you know this process excitement uh debate uh anticipation um apprehensive feelings around it. And now we're sort of in this emotion, at least I see a lot of fans going,

well, what if they make these changes and nothing happens? What if they make these changes and the sport doesn't rebound immediately? And so I'm surprised that people think that that's really a possibility. I'm surprised that people think that there is any kind of a change that can be that will rebound the sport instantly. And I think I just, I don't, I didn't need, I didn't know I needed to say this, but I feel like I need to say it.

There is nothing, it's unlikely that there's anything that changes next year that delivers results. And if they, and if results don't immediately come, that doesn't mean that it didn't work. NASCAR peak. was a process of 40 years, 50 years of development, change, of evolution, and they must have done a lot of things right. Was everything right?

I don't know. Probably not. It's probably unlikely, but they did a lot of good things to get us to a peak. Now, we've made some decisions, choices, changes that apparently have not worked. We're going the wrong way. And whatever change they make to try to correct, will be a process to turn this thing around, if you want to call it that. You're not going to see those results out of the gate.

You won't see them next year. You won't see them the year after that. If you're trying to get this sport back to where it was in its peak or anywhere close, that's going to take your ass a decade or two. All right, so buckle up. do I believe going to a 36 race format is better? Absolutely. Is it going to really change anything in terms of viewership

or is it going to be like, is it going to be an, if they did change it to 36th or whatever they go to, if it's a four race, six race final round, some middle ground, which I would appreciate as well, whatever they change it to. Next year, the numbers, the viewership, if anything, it'll be just a bunch of,

month better. It'll be, you know, five, ten percent better. This, this, this, this getting back to, like, where we want to go is a way out there sort of proposition. It's a, it's a long game. Long way. You don't build something that big and that great in a 12-month period. We have, we, you know, whatever, whatever you want to point to, whatever you want. want to look at in the last 10 or 15 years, there's multiple things I guess you could point at to the decline of our viewership and all of those things, right, the popularity of the sport. But all of that stuff can, you can destroy this thing quickly, but to build it back is going to take a long period of time. And so, whether you believe, whatever you like in terms of

the points format, or whatever you, you know, whatever you want to say, I think staying the same, it's going to produce the same results. If we don't change it, if we don't, go away from what we're doing today. We're going to continue on this route that we're owned that none of us like. So whatever changes come, you have to buckle in and own it for a while because it's not going

to start to produce results immediately. It's going to take a while to build it back. You've got to, it's kind of like you've got to start from scratch, if you will, in terms of building back the reputation and popularity of the sport. But some people are literally out there saying,

you know, they're going to change all this and it's not going to do anything next year and then everybody's going to think it was a mistake or it was a flop or, you know, they're changing things that's not going to make a difference. And I don't agree with that entirely. Yeah, I mean, I do think you're right. It's going to take time to build and get

and head back in that right direction a little bit at a time. That's how it got there in the first place, like you said. It didn't just happen overnight. It was years and years and years of it building to that. And, I mean, that's just going to have to do that again. I agree with that. Yeah.

Well, it's interesting, you know, kind of seeing people's takes on social media and online. You know, I know that they say the drivers will tell you the horsepower isn't going to be, you know, a light switch. And they're right. They're right. Going up on horsepower to 750 is not going to, we're not going to see it when we watch. We're not going to go, whoa, there it is, you know. What do you think it will do in a place like? Martinsville. You know, what's it going to do to the race there?

I, it may, it may create a little more driveability, you know, some challenges for drivers on the end of the run. It's going to be minimal, but it'll all be good. Yeah, I agree. It'll, it'll, it'll do some minimal things to, to, that the drivers are wanting. It will not do anything bad. But what we need to realize is, okay, yes, we're not getting all of the horsepower we want, but we are moving the ship in that direction, right? It's as a massive, heavy, slow-ass boat. And we're finally seeing it leave the dock and go in the direction we want it to go. So be excited about that, because if it's 750 today, it could be 900 tomorrow, right? It might take us another three years to get there, but we may see ourselves finally get back to building

these 900 horsepower engines that everybody seems to think is going to be the way to go. The door's open for change to keep working on the product. The door is open to keep fine-tuning this car to try to give it the best product we can. Yeah, I agree.

I'm positive, I'm positive, happy about, you know, seeing some of these, even the subtle changes. Yeah, for sure. Like, you know, the horsepower, going to be a more subtle change than I think we were hoped for, but it's still the move in the right direction. And this is a, again, the boat is heavy and slow,

and it ain't all NASCAR at the steering wheel, all right? It's its owners and all of that stuff, the RTA. Everybody has some influence, and there's a lot of conversations around, you know, all the changes that happen. They all have to agree, and everybody has to get on the same page. So that's why it takes forever for something to happen here. But anyways,

I think, you know, that's, I think we've covered everything. The Earnhardt family has always relied on Bass Pro Shops for our outdoor adventures, and that tradition continues with me today. I've been shopping there all my life. I love sharing those experiences with my old family. It's great to get to the Bass Pro Shops and just walk around, huge place, got everything you need. And we're very thankful to Johnny Morris and everything they do for us at DirtyMoh Media. helping Wyatt with his racing career,

sponsoring our Xfinity cars at Junior Murder Sports. They believe in all of the things that we're doing and they want to be a part of it because we're all friends and family, and we're thankful to have them behind us. Go check out everything they have to offer to local Bass Pro shops near you, or you can shop online at BassPro.com.

All right, it's time for you to send us your picks and videos for our ultimate racing collector presented by Lionel. We know that y'all love your line-l die cast. We love ours. But it doesn't have to be just die-cast. Whatever your collection is, send us pictures, videos. Videos are better.

I'm challenging everyone. Last month, our winner had a really awesome basement. And if you can post all of this stuff on Twitter and Facebook, you just respond to our posts. We'll be posting on Twitter and Facebook from Dirtymo Media about the ultimate racing. collector presented by Lionel respond to those with your videos your pictures and even if you've submitted before submit again you've always got a shot people that lose and then a couple months

later they win so we really have yeah we really have um i'm telling you send videos those are yeah i don't want to say that you're not going to win with your picks but the videos really sell it videos are way better yeah they do all right good look all right everybody is still junior here for another segment of Ask Junior on the Dale Jr. download, and we want to let you know over the past 11 years, the Xfinity series has grown into something really special. Xfinity has backed young drivers, crew members, crew chiefs, all those people in the industry,

helping tell their stories and giving them a shot to make it to the next level in the Cup series. And, you know, they brought to you the fans along for the ride. great content, giveaways, access that you don't get anywhere else. All of that came from Xfinity. The series name may be changing, but

Xfinity, they're not going anywhere. It's been an awesome ride with them as the title sponsor to the series, and we can't wait to see what the next lap for them looks like. Let's get to the questions. Yeah, this first one is from Doug. Who was the first driver

and track you raced on it in NASCAR 25? What? If you've played NASCAR 25, who was like the first driver and track you went to? Or who will be if you haven't yet got to it? Yeah, I haven't done it yet. I don't know. I'm going to go into the career mode,

so I guess it'll be driving my little Arka car at Rockingham, trying to get into the top team. I thought you might take the number 40 junior motorsports. Yeah, if I was going to race online, that's definitely the car I'd be in. I was just an all guy at Chicago. that yeah that that was pretty fun how's everybody's experience being i i am tearing it up in arca right now yeah it's it's i will genuinely say it is a very fun game um i did tj i did have to fire you you did oh yeah how about i just i'd fire you yeah so i was gonna talk about it at some point i thought

but i get like grilled by this guy from australia or something did you see that guy that was live streaming and he's driving from the bonnet he says which is the hood i guess and he's he's hitting the wall every time he exits the corner of bristol and people were like passing him and a i me is telling him cars there and he's like pit guy be quiet and like i mean how about driver stop hitting the wall first of all like it was every corner see it's this type of attitude is why i had to let you go off of my team yeah oh you're one of them guys you hit the wall too every time okay i'm a i'm a work in progress i'm not good right now what a work in progress

yeah we're you know working on it trying to get better but it's fun that's that's how I am like I'm not someone that does the irasing and I'm enjoying NASCAR 25 the music also Dale

well done hey I mean I'm thoroughly impressed with like it's not just one genre and it's just how it flows it works nice

man I love here now I like the It's always fun too. Jeff. Jeff Gluck gave me some props on the music. Oh, that's big. That's big. If he's giving you props?

He's a good. Yeah. Yeah. I had influenced about 80% of the music. Oh, dang. Whose idea was the Time Bomb Whiskey Myers? That's the best song, I think, on there. NASCAR.

Oh, okay. NASCAR insisted that was not, that was not a lot of. Well done, NASCAR. Hey. Insisted that be on there. Hey, it's a great song. Got me fired up. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I wrecked somebody after that. It was pretty good. But it looks like the YouTube chat is enjoying NASCAR 25 as well. We want to know what's the first track and driver that you are going to be racing on, and we'll share some of the answers. But this next question is from Charles. What is your favorite piece of sheet metal that you own? I'd say it's probably that door next to TJ, that white door from the baseball car.

Yeah. Yeah. the 2001 July Daytona car yeah yeah I have some sheet metal that I've been thinking about bringing over to the junior murder sports shop to sell oh yeah I've been worried about the

reaction would people be upset that I was selling my sheet metal I probably wouldn't sell anything that that belonged to me that I raced but I have a bunch of sheet metal from other cars other teams and not new stuff like I got a I got an old Folgers side Kenny Schrader I've got an old Rob Moroso, Bush, Red, number 25 door.

And so I've got a lot of that stuff that, yeah, I don't know. I just, well, I want someone else to have it. I don't know if it's, I don't, I don't showcase it. I don't have it sitting out and I don't want my girls to have to mess with it down the road. So think about bringing a piece in every now and then to sit in the shop for sale and see what happens. What's one that a piece of sheet metal that you don't own that you like, man, I'd love to have? All the, I mean, the stuff that I love is going to be something of dads or something of mine that has, that you have, that you know is from a specific race, right? So, although I guess if there's any Wrangler sheet metal out there, that'd be pretty rare.

I've seen some pieces that are out there. And so that kind of stuff's pretty neat. I know, like, Matt Yocum has a door from David Pearson, one of David Pearson's cars from the 70s. Like a Richard Petty door from a charger, holy crap. You know, stuff like that. Just none of that stuff exists anymore. But there's one or two of those out there, right?

Yeah. Brace used. That'd be pretty cool. I'm seeing a YouTube comment, and I know you're at your beach house, and so they want a Titanic update. How is it coming along? Oh, it's the same. It's the same.

He didn't touched it? Yeah, wait. Give it some love, man. He's going to go get it. All right. And now there's an empty seat. Oh, there it is. It's kind of like how the Titanic ended.

No, the only thing that's different is it. It went from over by the printer to that. That shell is the only difference. That's the only difference. Yeah, the final resting place is shit. Dale, when's the last time you put a piece of Lego on the Titanic? Just give us one piece, man.

I worked on it last time I was here. It's one-third of the way done. So it's two-thirds, it's not done. Very good math. Jeez, oh, man. Andrew, you know there's still water in the pool? Listen, it stays, guys, it stays here, and I'm not hardly ever here.

And so it doesn't get worked on because I'm not here. It's not like I'm at home. All right. So can you at least put one brick, one Lego piece on while you're here this week? I recently finished the Jalls Lego set. I recently finished the Jaws Lego set and I'm starting the DeLorean. Next question is from Danny.

And again, this is a grab bag. So just buckle up. Beans or no beans in your chili? I don't care. Either way. I'm not a very particular food guy. I mean, with chili, it's kind of like,

hey, man, make it however you want to make it. I mean, I'll eat it if it's in there, but I prefer it no beans. Really? Yeah. I don't see what it difference really makes. No? Yeah. I think it's a texture thing. Yeah. What do you want your chili if the beans are? That's what I was going to ask. Just go beans.

But what else is in your chili? hamburger meat with sauce some peppers sounds in there corn bread corn bread on top you don't dip throw it in there

all right now yeah all right some jalpinos no you're getting off your chili is weird TJ what do you do yeah what's in yours I think I mean I would say

hamburger meat some beans probably I mean onion maybe some real small onion pieces but I don't know about peppers and all that Are you good at making chili? Probably not great at it. Are you good cook in general?

Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably. Probably. I am, I think. What does that mean? I think I can cook fine, yeah. I am a good cook, I think. Oh.

Are you? I, no, no. What? I wouldn't. I wouldn't. Only time I'm coming to TJ's house to eat, so when we're ordering out. Oh, please. I'm not eating your, I'm not eating your cooking.

Wait, why? Maybe unless, I mean, you. Steaks down there, fine. Grilling a steak is not cooking. Oh, yes, it is. No, it ain't. You're putting meat on a grill. That's not very difficult.

Oh, so all them times you put that stuff in the smoker, I'm saying, that's just nothing, man. No, that's not cooking, though. That's not cooking. I still think... Making chili on a stove is cooking. I still think preparing a good steak or, like, when you would put them briskets on, like, that's cooking still.

You've got to, there's an art to it. No, it doesn't really... I think I'm on your side here. Yeah, it's not. You're preparing food. Yeah. Making food. You're cooking it.

All right. You're being, yeah. All right. Fine. I think there's a lot of people that probably see it. Yeah. I doubt. You're grilling.

You're barbecue. You're not cooking. What do you think? Yeah, James said it's literally cooking. I'm with the hell on this one. Putting a much stuff in a pot, turning the flame. I'm not cooking. Grilling a steak is, you know, there are people that can make great steaks and people that aren't good at it.

I get that. But I'm just saying like, that's if I'm coming over to your house and you're making steaks, that's probably safe. But if you're making something on a stove with multiple ingredients, I'm going to be very apprehensive about what this is going to taste like. If you make hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill, you don't say I cooked hamburgers and hot dogs.

No, that's pretty easy. I take steak. But that's what I'm saying is that's not cooking. I take steak seriously, so. Not serious enough for Dale. Apparently not. I mean, damn. You know that brisket you made like 10 years ago?

It sucked, dude. I haven't trusted you since. You have not trusted you since you burnt that one. I saw a question on Facebook. It's actually for T.J. And they wanted to know it's from Norma. Do spotters have assigned spots when they go up to the spotter stand or is it first come first serve? No, it's usually you just go back to the same spot you've been going to.

to like we go to all these tracks. I think I'm in my 21st year of spoting, and I've pretty much been in the same spot at these tracks. You just go to them, and then, you know, if there's a team, or a spotter change on a car, and there's a new guy, he kind of fills into where the gap would be. And it's, I mean, it's kind of a seniority thing, probably, but also, like, where you've been for the last handful of years,

you just kind of, you're used to it anyway. You don't want to change as a spotter because you're used to your sight lines and you're used to the debt perceptions, and you get really comfortable with where you're at. So you don't really want to move. Are you talking about, like, where you've been in terms of, like, every weekend you're standing next to the same guys? No, huh. Or is it, like, track by track?

It's track by track. It's definitely track by track. Interesting. So you don't stick with, like, the RFK guys or the Fords? Sometimes, yeah, I mean, in plate races and places like that, we're all, the Talladega Builder New Spotter stand a handful years ago. And from that time, since it was becoming such a, you know, a deal where we all stuck together, it's kind of, you've got the, all the Fords are towards turns three and four. and then you got a lot of Toyota's in the middle. Then on the very right side there's all the Chevys and stuff.

So you kind of know you're kind of in that ballpark. Well, I'm glad it was a good day. And I think that'll be a good place to wrap Ash Jr. this week. All right, everybody. I appreciate y'all tuning in and plugging in today. Thank you, Xfinity, for everything you do here at Dale Jr. Download, bringing the Asht Junior segment to us every single week. Thank you to Xfinity for everything they've done for the series that we've been a part of for a long time.

And yeah, that's it. We'll appreciate it. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, it's time for Bird and Modo, and we are here again with Tampa Tims, who took a vacation last week. Tampa Tims, how's it going? Hey, guys, how's it going? Welcome back to me.

Pretty good. How was your vacation? It was phenomenal. It was great. That's right. All right. Make it some progress in your relationship with this. Yes, I think so.

Where'd you go? I was in the Poconos. Amy's going to want to know about this on bless your heart. All right, we can talk about it. You went to the Poconos, huh? Yes. Kind of where she's from. Oh, really?

Yeah. All right. Well, that explains a lot. All right. So Russell is here as well. Thank you, Russell, for coming in. This segment of Dirty-Durdy-Bodeau is brought you by Fand-Duel. I'm a customer.

Do you guys have Fand-Dil accounts? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. Everybody here. Was live bet. Last week, I've been losing my ass. I saved you on Saturday.

I bet you though. I didn't get to where I needed to be in time. I was traveling all day yesterday to Texas and back. And I didn't get on the ground in time to make some bets on Monday night football. And I had prepared on the plane some bets to make. And when I got on the ground, I'd missed the check. chance to do it. And I bet those would have cashed. But that's been my luck here lately. This is, it's also been my luck with the, uh, with the parlay, the manufacturer parlay. We had

Blaney Larson Bell and only Larson was the one that could pull it out. Blaney crashed out and and Bell just wasn't the best Toyota. The ditty bros brought home the victory as the best Toyota. So let's, should we move on? Did you guys have, did you know, y'all feel like you got the parlay right? we all kind of went with this, right? I abstain from one of them, but yeah, we agreed the others. All right. Well, going into this weekend, I mean, it's Talladega. And there are some bets that are fun, so we'll get to that in a minute.

But the favorites for Talladega are Byron, Blaney, Ligano, Syndrick. They're all at plus 1,000. Elliott at 1100, Larson at 1,200. Larson, 1,200. Man, that's pretty impressive, having a distaste for, for plate racing. You know, how do you handicap this race where pretty much anything can happen and the chance of, you know, not so much a fluke, but an unusual winner is very possible and real at Talladega.

There's been 10 different winners in the last 10 races there, so I think it's hard to pick a winner. But I definitely think that like guys are good there. Like we definitely have like those guys you mentioned are all really good there. But then there's other people that I would just totally avoid. You know, like Denny, I'd stay away from him this week. Yeah. There's, I think that's safe. Aren't good at it.

So. Well, you know, I don't even begin to know where to, to, I don't even want to do a damn manufacturing parlay. Yeah, this is hard here. Like, I think this is the week that we don't then. Yeah, let's not do it. I mean, what, so. there are some fun bets to make. And I know Tim's has kind of been dancing and messing around

in this kind of pool for a while. So Tim's, what are some of the fun things that you might do when Daytona or Talladega rolls around? I like, if you can find a matchup bet that's plus money towards a driver,

I just take it. Like, for example, Chase Briscoll is plus 125 over Lagano at minus 170. Yep. It's a 50-50 race. Take it. And then you're facing one driver.

That's it. instead of the whole field. It's also a race where you can find some value on guys like Briscoe, who I think he's like 20 plus 2,200 that you're never going to get on another week. He wins. He makes the final four. He's probably going to be aggressive. That's a guy probably back.

And then probably later in the week, they'll have some long shot top tens, like a Cody Ware. I love placing that because he's just going to stick around to the end. He's not going to really be up front. Yeah, he actually has a pretty good average finish at a plate race, doesn't he? Yeah, he does. Russ probably knows. is probably right around 10th to 12th, right?

Stand by. So he's 24th. 24th. Is that just Talladega or overall? No, that's drafting tracks. Talladega, he's 27th. Gotcha. Okay, that sucks, but...

Yeah. He's better to 12-10 here. The big wreck happens. The big wreck happens. I mean, there he is. Yeah, that's what you're betting on. He's betting on a wreck, and he survives. it.

Russ, do you have anything on wrecks or any stats that you have this for this week? Oh, he's got stats on that. I'm staying away from the one that I really like, which is accident avoidance. But we say there's like a 52% chance in this next gen era of getting in a wreck at Daytona or Talladega.

And this race last year was 80%. Like, see, 80. 80's the number. You called that earlier. Yeah. I think that number is always 80. What positions, Russ? I mean, I know you probably know.

Like, isn't it like position like, oh, it's like two rows. Like it all's like, like it all happened in that second row. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to avoid them positions? I think we've looked at it in,

inside row four is the best at avoiding it. Because it's so weird. That's crazy. There and that guy can get around before everybody gets caught up. He turns the guy and that's what... That's the thing is you want to be the guy that causes the wreck and you're probably able to avoid the rank.

That's usually how it works. That's why I like a guy going against Joey because I feel like Joey's always in those rows. Yeah. I mean, it could go either way. It could go any in which direction. Yeah. It's a plate race.

Yeah. Well, we got a couple featured matchups. You mentioned Briscoe, Ligano. If Briscoe's Plus Money, you take Briscoe. Blaney Chase to Elliott. Kind of a toss-up, but I'd go with Blaney, especially dependent upon how Blaney, I think, has to race to win. Larson and Bell, you know,

you wouldn't never really consider Larson grade at Dayton and Talladega, but I assume that that trend is heading in the right direction here, Russell. I love Larson here now. Top five, the last two here. It's all green for Larson here against Bell. All right, so everybody would, I just don't, I'm surprised to see his odds look the way they look, but I still think, I wish his odds were better.

I'd take him to beat Bell for sure, but I wish that the books weren't so up on him. So up on him, yeah. Chastain versus Bubba. I think you've got to go. with Bubba here. Yeah. Definitely.

Bubba. Yeah. I agree. But if Chastain's plus, it would Chastain possibly plus money? He's minus 110 what I've got right now. So it's kind of a toss-up, so I would take Bubba here.

Yeah. All right. Well, the fun bets are going to be, you know, that random guy who somehow, you know, puts Cody Ware in his top five

and a couple other backmarker. you know, and lands a pretty good ticket that way. So we'll see if anybody can make that happen. Maybe some people could tell us some of the big hellmeries that they threw over the weekend. It actually worked out. We'll see when we come back around next week to preview Martinsville. Do we think a non-playoff driver is going to win or do we think it's one of us?

I think that's possible, man. I do. Like what about, like, Priests look pretty good at plate races here recently. Has any of Russ? yeah he was dequeued here i think he was second or third here in the spring yeah but so that that sways his um his numbers how many drivers how many players are there hey there's eight all right and there's how many drivers that start to race 40 40 i mean 40 so you got 32 guys 32 versus eight they got a pretty good shot at it yeah Travis

What? I was just using some numbers to make a clear point. I feel pretty good about a non-playoff guy winning because there's 32 versus 8. I don't think it's the amount. I mean, the amount obviously helps, but I think it's because of the Super Speedway. Like, if not, why don't we see more non-playoff drivers winning other playoff races? It's been pretty dominant. Well, at Talladega, the draft is a big neutralizer, Travis. That's what I'm saying.

But you look at the numbers, the drivers, the drivers, the top, a lot of them are playoff drivers, so you might be able to get better odds on these non-playoff drivers. Oh, yeah. Well, I would probably, yeah. I mean, I don't know who out of that 32, though. I mean, you know, it's like who out of that 32 is going to be the one. It could be anything.

That's the tough thing to pick. Could be. I hate saying this because it really kind of minimizes, like, being good at these racetracks, just saying, like, yep, anybody in this field could win this thing. I don't know who you bet on. I don't know who I would tell you to bet on. You know, I think Blaney's a great plate racer, and I think he's got a, he's in a position

where he's kind of going to be forced to have to be aggressive as well as the Gano. So there, I think I feel better about them going out and doing this and better about putting money on them than I traditionally would in this race. And so, you know, I kind of feel that way. I don't know. I think I like all the guys. below the cut line.

I think the guys above the cut line are going to be conservative, and the guys below the cut line are going to go try to get it done. And so I got more confidence than I traditionally would at this racetrack due to the dynamics of the playoffs for some of those guys below the cut line having to go make it happen. And then there's two, the non-playoff drivers, when presented the opportunity to win, if it like just the C's part, right?

And it's like, oh, yes, I'm going to go win this race. But a lot of times, too, in those last few laps, they're very aware of who's in what spot in terms of the playoffs. And they don't want to be that one guy, right? If you're driving a Fibin Ford, you're not going to hang fucking Blaney out with three to go, right?

You're going to get your ass chewed. And so there's a little bit of that still involved late in the day. So, you know, all of those, you got to think about all those kind of, you know, dynamics going on mentally for the drivers late in the race. I was thinking about guys like Cindrick, like Cendrick and Bubba. Like, do they, like those guys are worker bees, in my opinion, these races. You know what I mean? Like, if the opportunity shows up at the end, they have.

It's going to be tough to take. Yeah, like they're part of the. They have, they have one freaking job. And that's to push the 22 or the 20. But, man, Cinder doesn't want to be not... Same thing with Josh Barry. Josh Barry, yes. That's the same thing Josh Barry has to do. Josh Barry is going

in that race, and he's got to push the 22 and the 12 whenever that opportunity presents itself. To his own detriment. And so nothing wrong with that, I suppose, if that's your job, and that's what you've been told to do. But Josh ain't going to... You wouldn't bet money on Josh because he's not going to win the race. He's going to be

pushing the 12 to 22. Yeah. Same with Cendrick. Cendrick, who is a... great plate racer can win this race won't win it because he's got a job and he's going to do that job right yeah that's what i was saying i think some of these guys hands are tied a little bit yeah you can kind of almost go down the line and pick like what guy maybe doesn't have a responsibility chastain chastain yes sthen house right sthen house is like oh sthen house big Times, Denhouse, 100%.

So you highlight those guys, pluck those guys sort of out of the group of the non-playoffs. And there's the ones maybe you could sprinkle a little bit of money on, I suppose. Yeah. I think those are two good ones. Spire legacy. They had nothing. Those are the teams you've got. Yeah, but I think it's Denhouse.

Yeah. Spire absolutely better be pushing a hindered car. Oh, yeah. Yes, sir. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Carson, O's if he's doing that.

Well, let me tell you, there'll be a conversation on Monday if he doesn't. If he had a chance to, he chooses not to do it, there'll be a conversation. I don't think you'll wait until Monday. It'll be Sunday. Yeah, my favorite. Well, no. What about you, T.J.? I like Kislaus.

What about me? I like all three of our cars working. I mean, if we can be an air you try at the end, I like all three of them, honestly. So do you have a Ford responsibility this weekend? I mean, you always want to help when you can, but I think you also want to win the race, too. like winning the race is big and you know if you're not like yes we are a for i think brad's a i think brad's a great example of a guy like sthenhouse or a chastain that's going to you know see see in the opportunity presenting itself he's going to go for it he's going to yeah i mean yeah

and i think tj's absolutely going to spot him to win not spot him to help wouldn't you say tj i mean i would say yeah i'm going to try to win the race 100% i mean if we got a run coming behind us and I can put Brad in front of it to get us the lead and win the race. I'm going to probably try to do that. So here we go. We could put a little sprinkle of money on Brad, a little bit on Chastain, a little bit over here on Stenhouse. Yeah, that's a good one.

Feeling pretty good. Yeah, that's good. All right. Well, this has been fun. We got somewhere. That's the segment today, brought to you by Fandul. Thank you, Russell. Thank you, Tim.

Good to see you all back. Fandul is the premier gaming destination in the United States. All right, it's time for the white flag. The tear down was live on YouTube and Twitter following the race. If you haven't already done this, go to Dirty Mo Media's YouTube page. Open up the app, click on Dirty Mo Media, and hit subscribe, turn on your notifications so that you don't miss a thing. Doorbup are clear dropped on Monday. They were joined by NASCAR's Mike Ford, who had a captivating conversation with the guys.

Always great to have NASCAR folks come by and have a conversation. We always have a lot of great questions for them. Actions detrimental dropped on Monday night. Didn't he punched his ticket to Phoenix? and he was joining elite company in his 60-win column, basically vaulting himself clearly into the top 10 in most wins in NASCAR history, and he's going to keep climbing that list if I haven't had my guess. My guest interview with my friend, Two Beer, Kevin Pinell drops tomorrow.

Herman Schrader and Speed Street also drop on Wednesday and Thursday another episode of Bless Your Heart.