The Dale Jr. Download - Marcus Smith on Why The ROVAL is Gone…For Now

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Kelley Earnhardt Miller is filling in for Dale Jr. and is joined by the President of Speedway Motorsports Inc., Marcus Smith, to discuss a number of changes to the NASCAR landscape for 2026:The Charlotte ROVAL is gone … for nowThe differences between preparing for a ROVAL race vs. the traditional Charlotte ovalNorth Wilkesboro gets its points race in 2026The All-Star race moves to DoverThe Heritage Invitational IROC eventWhat to anticipate from NASCAR’s return to the Chase points formatDuring the “Ask Kelley” portion of the episode, listeners wrote in questions regarding:Wyatt’s upcoming race schedule for 2026What Kelley’s experience is like watching her son raceThe emotions of JR Motorsports entering the Daytona 500 for the second yearPreparing for JRM’s 2026 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series seasonAnd 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. 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.

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. Did I want the best man at your wedding? Who was your best man, Dale? T.J.

You don't need a cool best for that race? What are you thinking? Get them, DJ. Hellway is starting a show. All right, then. All right, hey, everyone. It's Kelly Arn Hart Miller here, and welcome in to the RB Studio for another episode of the Dell Jr. download. Where is my big roast beef with horsy sauce?

Come on now. I didn't get your order. I'm sorry. All right. Obviously, I'm not Dale Jr. One look, I did try to borrow the sweatshirt and the hat, but I just wasn't digging the hats this morning. So, Dell had a last minute change in the schedule, so I'm filling in today and excited to be here. I won't be by myself, though.

in just a couple minutes, Marcus Smith, president of Speedway Motorsports, will be joining. And for a big announcement, although I'm sure a few of you could be guessing what that is. So enough about that, let's bring Marcus in. All right, good morning, Marcus. How's it going? Doing great. So, yeah, super excited to be here. Dale had to take off early this morning for an appearance that we have this afternoon.

So I'm thrown into the ranks here, and I'm excited. There's so much to talk about with Speedway. motorsports this year. So many changes. And I've got a lot of curious questions. All right. We're going to talk about the Roval. Sure.

Right? Oh, yeah. Big news. Big news. The Circle Track coming back into play, chase, all of those good things. We're going to talk about North Witspur having a points race. Did you see that coming, right?

You know, a few years ago. And then the All-Star race moving to Dover as well. So tons of stuff happening. So, you know, first things first. And I'm super curious about this from a team owner standpoint because when they announced or, you know, announcing the change with the roval, you know, that's a race that a lot of times will run our fifth car and we'll have a road course ringer, as they call them, right? Right, right. And a sponsorship or something that comes together because somebody says, I want to run a road course. Oh, okay.

And so with that news coming at this point in the year, what is that like? Like what brought that on? What's the time frame? How does that come together like that? That's a great question. So we, I don't know, I haven't been thinking about it. I was thinking about lots of other things in our business going into January and coming out of December. But the Charlotte team was having a strategic meeting.

They were just kind of talking about your planning. And Jessica Fickensure said... Smart lady. She's smart. She's smart. She said, what do you think about going back to the Oval in October? And, of course, it's not the first time I've heard that because Dale has said it many times. And, you know, but when Jessica said it and kind of in the context of the whole group, I said, well, what do you all think?

Is it, what do the fans think? And they, they said, you know, when you think about the, the point system, kind of going back to the chase and in that story of kind of going back to the way we were, the last time the chase was at Charlotte, it was, you know, the oval for the Coke 600 and the Oval for the Bank of America 400. So we, I said, if you guys think that fans will like this and it'll be the best thing. Certainly the racing is good. Dale will say, I told you so, and we'll all have fun. And so that was kind of how it happened. And so then we made a few phone calls to NASCAR and our TV partners and, of course, Bank of America's sponsor and everybody thought it was a good thing if the fans were into it. How much influence does the TV partner matter?

and the process with NASCAR, just being a decision that you can make within a month's time from a strategic meeting that you guys have in terms of all of your conversation and then the other people that you have to talk with. You know, what I think is neat is that all of those parties care about what the fans think. And I think just the timing was such that, you know, back when we introduced the Roval, it was at a time when road courses were having this amazing surge. fans were saying, boy, we love road courses. It kind of raced like a short track.

And so we brought out the Roval, and it provided another road course in the schedule, a road course in the playoffs, and made for something new and different. So it was one of the highest rated races in TV for a couple of years. Great growth and great excitement and some great highlights from the race. but I think the new car and the way NASCAR officiates, the racing hasn't been as exciting as it had been initially. So, you know, we want to deliver excitement. We want to deliver, you know, a great event that has fantastic competition

and those amazing highlight-worthy moments in racing. So all those people, whether it's NBC or NASCAR sponsors, Bank of America and others, I think we're all in it together to make great competition happen and see the fans happy. Well, yeah, you obviously wouldn't make a change unless you thought that good could come out of it, right? Dale, I can't talk from the perspective of running the roval or running, you know, the oval, roval and oval. I know that if he were in this seat, he definitely would have a lot of comments about, but have you had driver feedback, you know, as it relates to? But the best driver feedback I had was from Dale.

He said, if you start listening to me, you'd make this a decision two years ago. So, yeah, I did laugh about that too. That's funny. Well, most of the time, sometimes the only feedback that matters is Dale, right? So what's the process like for your team, you know, to not the physical process, because I would imagine that it's going to be a little lighter that you don't have to configure the road course, right? Right. So it's going to be lighter.

But what's the whole process like? Does it change things for you as it relates to, you know, sponsorship? The amount of people, I imagine there's more camping spots available since you can use everything and things like that. Probably the biggest thing is camping. I think, you know, that's going to be a big thing for fans to be able to camp again on that turn one and two side of the Oval. So it's, that's really the biggest thing.

And, of course, the work that goes into converting Charlotte Motor Speedway from Oval to Roval is tremendous. So our operations team just got, you know, a huge relief. Yeah. So it'll be kind of neat. And I think, you know, the racing in May for the 600 has been fantastic. Bringing that to the fall will be, you know, I think fantastic again. And it'll be neat to see how the teams react to that, you know, from the spring to the fall.

And, you know, certainly should be exciting. Super cool. to be exciting. You know, I do think with the points system, the way it is, you know, road courses present a challenge for a lot of the drivers, right? And lots can happen. There's a lot of beating and banging and moving around. So that strategy for teams and drivers should look a lot different, you know, going into that. You know, I think you mentioned as a team owner, kind of the factors that you all think about and should go in from season to season. From my perspective, as a promoter and as a fan of NASCAR, throwing a wrench in the system sometimes actually produces some excitement.

So if this creates a little bit more excitement, creates a challenge that needs to be solved for some of the teams, I think that generally works out pretty good for the fans and it makes some excitement happen for the teams. and it should be pretty interesting to see. Yeah, very exciting. What can we expect in terms of the stability of the oval versus the roval? Is that something you're going to look at year to year? You know, what? You know, I think after reviving North Wilkesboro Speedway, there's nothing that's not doable.

I thought you'd never get that speedway, you know, to actually operate again. So we've got a wonderful racetrack in the, the classic Oval at Charlotte Motor Speedway. We've got a fantastic world-class road course with the Roval, and we'll bring that back at different

times, but for now, we'll be running the Oval, and we'll see what happens. Well, you know, the cool thing is, I think the adaptability is great, right? Because you can react to what's going on in the market, what fans are asking for,

you know, what the entire lineup of the series looks like track to track and and you proved that already with the roble. So yeah. Well, it is. Here we go. That's right. I love driving the roble, you know, from a sports car perspective. It's super fun to drive and we've got a lot of customers that like to drive it.

So outside of NASCAR week, we'll still have plenty of opportunities for our different driving experiences and OEM customers to come out and enjoy the roval. Very cool. You know, we did the, um, the, Del Junior ride-alongs for a lot of years at the Speedway until the Roval came. And then that was, you know, that presented a bit of a challenge. Not that people wouldn't have liked the Roval, but as you know, what Del Jr.'s Temperature was on Road Courses.

And so we've pivoted. We've done it at North Walesboro. And so maybe we can get back to Charlotte. It was a fun weekend to provide for fans that did the ride-alongs with the Hall of Fame being here. We could just have a, you know, a weekend of all things taken in the race. at the Speedway and whatnot. All right, everybody. The 2026 NASCAR season is officially here.

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That's free shipping just for the fans of the Dell Jr. download. So head over to LionelRacing.com, grab your favorite driver's latest dockast, and start the 2026 season the right way. That's download 26 for free shipping only at LionelRacing.com. How's it going to change your plans for the October race Saturday? Yeah, you know, I mean, like I said, I think now that we have four full-time cars, you know, they've got to look at each race like its own, right? So, I mean, the Oval, obviously they have experience from other tracks, other mile and a halfs,

you know, and that kind of thing that they can prep for and prepare for. I think, you know, I would guess that my drivers are fine without having the road course. Yeah. Because there's a lot of unpredictability with the road course. And you're either, you know, you can, you really either have the skill set to do that or you don't, right? And you can work on it and fine tune. And I know that they've done a lot of things like that to do. But, yeah, it should, you know, I think it should probably make the load lighter in a lot of cases, right?

And I can't recall what's kind of back to back around there and everything. But there's a whole different ballgame and getting ready for the road course races and the cars and so on and so forth. Right. Right. So probably a little easier lift for the people back of the shop as well. Yeah, I would think so. Yeah, I would think so for sure. Well, you brought up Northwilt Spur and, you know, the revive is just incredible there. I got to attend the cars tour race there.

obviously I came to the first race when we had the Cars Tour race but I got to go to the Cars Tour race there last fall with just kind of a stand-alone event which was really cool for me because I really felt that old North Wolfspar vibe of me running around the infield which is the same anymore but you know just man it feels good when you go there and you have that history of passing it so long on the interstate and like, man, that was just such, I'm just looking up there at it now, turns one and two,

thinking, could it just come back and you brought it back? It's amazing. I know. How do you, I mean, that has to be like a huge feather in your cap. Well, I love it. It's a huge team effort, you know, and I just love, like you said, when you... Start it again by Dale. Yeah, that's right.

You got to put him on your strategic team. I made him chairman of the board of the speakway. So, yeah, he's on the strategic team. Yeah, we have a strategic retreat now for the last few years out in South Dakota to talk about things like that. Oh, that's right. That's right. But, you know, it's just amazing. To me, it actually kind of feels like a missions trip, you know, where you hear about people that go and help rebuild a church or rebuild a place for people to live. This is rebuilding a special place in a community that brings the community together that creates great economic impact. for that community. And it gives, you know, so many of us NASCAR fans a place to go and watch racing,

watch the cars tour, watch the now a points race coming up. And it's really special. And one of those places that I think, you know, you will enjoy a trip to North Wilkesboro Speedway. You'll enjoy going on Main Street and enjoying the town and just the people. It's really fantastic. You've gotten a lot of very awesome compliments from the community. there for sure. It's really been a revitalization for

that community, you know, because so many, you know, so many small town royal communities have struggled and fought their way to prosperity, you know. And so it's awesome to see between, you know, lows moving out of that area and the track closure, this revitalization has been, you can see it, and you can feel it. And it feels good. So the points race there. What, you know, the decision to to move the All-Star race from North Witspur and have a points race, moving that to Dover, how did that all come about and work out? And what was the strategy there? You know, it was one of those things that we thought, what can we do to make a significant impact in the NASCAR season that would make people happy?

So number one thing I thought is certainly a points race at North Wilkesboro. And then with the All-Star Race at Dover, this is the first time that Dover will see the All-Star Race. People that in the Northeast can come down and enjoy the All-Star Race. It's a great date for Dover to. May is a fantastic time in that area. So we've had rain for the last few years at Dover. this should be a much better weather window for us and for all the fans. So I think it's a bonus for the Dover fans and North Wilkesboro.

You know, to see a longer race at Wilkesboro should be pretty cool for the competition. We haven't had a points race there in, is it, 30 years maybe? I don't know, but a long time. And that should be fun. I'm excited to see that. See both of them. Yeah. That response, I think, has been positive.

I think that change obviously comes with its critics on social media, my goodness. And, you know, Dover doesn't feel like a likely spot for an All-Star Race. But to your point about the Northeast fans, which are, you know, number one when it comes, if you look at the states as far as your fan base and what you got going on, you know, the northeastern fans are there. And so that's a great point for them to see. And Dover is exciting. I mean, Dover's a great racetrack.

It is. The flow of that roar, the high banks, you know, a lot of action there. So what can we expect that weekend, you know, as far as fun? Because, you know, you're thinking of the all-star race from Charlotte and then North Wiltsburgh, you know, what can we expect? Well, you know, we're working on the format finalizing that. It's, I think you can always expect some fireworks out of the All-Star race. We've done some amazing things with a format out of, out of the All-Star.

If you think about side-by-side restarts, that didn't exist before the All-Star race. We used to, you know, restart nose to tail. Single file, yeah. With the Choose Cone started out of first Legends Racing on the quarter mile at Charlotte Motor Speedway, then we implemented it for the All-Star race, whether it's, you know, lights and all these great kind of ideas segments are part of what came out of the All-Star race. I think, you know, those are things that we've worked with NASCAR on to help create new and special and different things that have found their way into every weekend.

So it's getting harder to think about, you know, what can we do next? but we've tried tires in the past with, you know, stickier tires, alternating tires, option tires, that sort of thing. So we always want to push the envelope. I always want to, you know, try to do something that might work, but it also might not work. And that's the double-edged sword. That's just a risk, right? Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah. And if you're not taking risk as you're, if you're not taking risk, then you're not trying enough to move your business. forward for sure. And we're risk takers. That's part of what we do. You definitely are. Being a promoter, you have to have a little bit of that in your blood for sure. I think so.

Yeah, I think so too. Well, that's going to be super exciting. You know, that you just, it really amazes me the innovation that you guys think about and changes to bring forth to the series and use of the different tracks and so on and so forth. So it's going to be exciting. It's going to be exciting year between seeing all these new things and how they work out. Absolutely.

Yeah. So you talked about road course racing for your sports car enthusiast. You've got another fun thing coming. So you did 10-10th. That's right. The new venue and sports road course. What do we call on that? What do we call that?

So the 10-tenths motor club is right. It's right. It's right. It's right. I've got to get my language. No, it's a new road course. I've been there. It's beautiful.

I just haven't done the, I haven't done the car experiences yet, but I need to get you and Mr. H. Have me over there and have some fun. It is fun. It is fun. Well, this is a great opportunity. We're going to host an I rock race in April around this really special event we call the Heritage Invitational.

Mr. Hendrick and I, we've got a partnership on the 10-10s club. and we've got a beautiful track, two miles. It's an amazing car show and part of the car show working with Ray Everingham, who's our executive director of the event, Ray and Rob have put together the IROC series to kind of bring it back, but it's the classic IROC cars. So we're going to be racing the classic IROC cars and drivers are going to come back and enjoy some racing at the 10-tenths circuit. it's a lot of fun.

I want to race. I think Dale should race. It's going to be a lot of fun. Now, is this an event made, is it TV? Is it fans? Can fans come? It's all about fans. It's all about car nuts like me.

It's about, you know, celebrating history in Iraq and this historic racing. It's also, you know, a big car show. It's a fun event to go to. Even if you don't like cars, it's a really pretty place. and early April it'll be a nice beautiful weather and we've got a great clubhouse there where you can enjoy

some great food and beverage and just kind of hang out time Yeah the patio area is immense and expansive and you can see over the track and just a beautiful place to be So have you announced drivers for the Aurok portion? I think we have. You got to check out the Heritage Invitational Instagram

And can we see a variety of drivers from different series? Yes. Different times and different types of IROC cars. We've got some of the older ones, some of the latest generation. It's, yeah, it's going to be fun. That'll be super fun. So we mentioned the impact that the Roval Oval could have on the Chase playoff format. Were you, as a track owner and promoter, are you involved in those discussions when it comes to what a Chase series looks like in a playoff?

series and how do you feel about the new playoffs? So I went to the initial meeting I think it was called a playoff committee meeting last February week of Daytona Dale was on Zoom we had a room full of people drivers a couple of media

members some team owners presidents and media I mean a little bit of everything was there and It was an interesting discussion. I think, you know, the context was should we do something different? There's always a lot of discussion. You know, every, at the end of every year, there's like, what do we think about the point system?

What do we think about the rules of the game? And I'm frankly, you know, one of those people who thinks, like, just give me the rules and let's go play and then see what happens. See, I'm the same way. I say that every year, like when it comes to, I love the committees. You know, I love being able, I like to be able to give feedback from the people that are in the line of fire. And you probably find that too in your business. You need to go talk to the people that are actually doing the job, doing the work, making the decisions because there's minute details that are very important that can, you know, get upset very quickly. but at the same time, too many opinions to try to do something can get very hairy.

So I'm just like, tell me the rules and tell me how to get there. That's right. That's right. So I think I don't know how the consternation and kind of controversy was created, but there was a meeting in February in Daytona last year. and that's when the discussion started, you know, and then, of course, that all played out through the ecosystem in the sport over the year. Yeah.

And there's a few other discussions and that sort of thing. I mean, I have opinions. So the first thing I kind of thought of was, well, what if this year is a great year? What if it comes down to, you know, a fantastic championship? and what are we going to say then? And we've taken it away. Yeah. So I think it, things kind of unraveled, not not unraveled.

They kind of came together as the season does. And like you said, every team shows up on race day to win. And you also keep in mind the points. And everybody wanted to be, you know, in victory lane and have the championship at the end of the season. So there's some heartbreakers. I love, you know, the old wild world of sports guys said, you know, it's the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat. You can't really have one without the other. You've got to have thrill of victory and agony of defeat.

Second place shouldn't be all that great, I think. But it is important in NASCAR, different than, say, a basketball game. You know, a basketball game, you have a winner and a loser. or in NASCAR, if you run top 10, that's pretty good. Yeah. If you run top five and whatnot. But there are some teams who think we can win every race. And when we don't win, you know, we're not achieving our optimal best.

And I think that's the part of excellence that every race team, every driver is chasing. So the new point system, I think if we all just say, you know, we're in 100%. I would really love it if we didn't debate the rules of the, of the sport throughout the season. I think, you know, once we have the rules, let's go race and let's run a championship and see what happens. Yeah. So it'll be neat to see what happens. I do think that there was some benefit in the cutoff races.

We don't have those now. And that's okay. Yeah, it builds excitement, you know, and that's one of the things that, um, You know, my husband and I've talked about is just like what. And, of course, I lived through the years of the regular playoff series with my dad and, you know, when it was he and Mark Martin or he and Rusty Wallace and all those kinds of things. And I remember that being exciting, you know, the excitement of, like you said, the thrill of victory and agony of defeat if someone has a not-so-great race, you know, and it pulls them down or takes them out of contention for the top spot or whatever. And then what do they do to get back in it?

I will not miss going to the last race of this season with three cars in the playoffs for junior motorsports perspective and not coming home with the championship. I will not miss that. The one race thing for me was tough because I felt like it just sort of, no matter how you looked at it, it spoiled everything you did for the year. Because you were on the top of your game for the year and you made it there. And then, you know, you lost to another team that, yes, made it there too, but maybe they were eighth in points, you know?

Right. Right. And so I will not miss that part. I, as I was hearing about the playoff system and everything, I was kind of thinking, you know, I like the cutoff races. I was thinking of, you know, how you could take that same group of 12 or 16 drivers, depending on which series you're in, and accumulating the points throughout there and then having it come down to maybe the last three races that, you know, there was a point situation and it wasn't a just your win and you're the champion kind of thing or

whatever because, you know, that that has created, I think, of a lot of excitement. But, and you're, you know, there's not one great answer, right? Sure. People loved what we had. People like what they anticipate this year is going to look like. And so, and we'll see how it works. But, you know, I do, it will change the focus week to week instead of the win and you're in. Right.

You know, and everything you do. And all the things like, you know, back in the day with the point system before 2011, we had, you know, you could take your cars back in the garage and work on them. Right. Now we, I think that they've, have they been talking about that. I don't know if they've made any changes to that or not. Yeah, I'm not sure either. But, you know, that's an important concept of what, you know, getting into a wreck and not being able to fix your car and not being able to bring things back out to help yourself in that format. So, you know, I don't really.

know, we won't know how it's all going to go till it's went. Yeah. And we'll see. And we'll see what drama, consistency, all those different things have played out for it. Yeah. You know, one interesting thing I thought is the first year of the point system with stage points, the first year, not every team was really focused on stage points. But they turned out to be really important.

So after that, next season, they were like, like, hey, we need to win some stages. Yeah, so they'll figure out some things this year that are going to matter. I was reading, Del and I were talking about this on a trip last week and the point system and everything. We were talking about drivers who either have experienced the system or haven't. You know, and I read a thing from Kyle Larson, he's never raced in anything but the playoffs, the cutoffs and everything.

And so as a driver from his perspective, he has no clue. And I bet there's, honestly, I bet when you look at the field of drivers since 2011, I think is when it changed, that there's probably, I'd guess if it wasn't 80% of them out there that haven't raised under the old point system. Wow. You know, if you think about it. And I, you know. It's the only one they've known. Yeah. It's all they've known.

So it's going to be a super interesting year, super great year. Lots of cool things happening. I mean, you guys have a lot of great things happening. Anything else for any of the other tracks that we can expect? Well, you know, falling up on the driver thing, 80% of the drivers haven't raced in anything besides. I bet they haven't. You know, I haven't looked at the stat.

So I bet it might be similar with our fans. We have new fans coming in all the time, and they haven't seen the old style of points racing before. So this is kind of a back-to-the-future moment, you know, for the sports. So it'll be interesting to see how it plays out. I know every, you know, crew chief and engineer, and that all the smart people on every team are focusing on how do we win that championship? How do we win those races?

And that's the thing that I'm excited about for all the fans out there as we watch this season unfold. There's something a little bit different. There's a challenge. A lot of those crew chiefs haven't raced under the system either. So for them, it's a new thing. I know there's a lot of math involved. But it's safe to say that if you win a lot of races, your chances are good. win the championship. I want to see the spreadsheet that NASCAR ran to come up with, you know,

how the points ended up, right? I read that they just modeled out anything and everything. Yes. I told our, one of the guys in PR upstairs, he's, he's kind of that historian, mathematician person that always brings up the stats, you know, that that we can pay attention to. And I said, you know, who if we ran the last, since 2011, ran the scenarios, who would have ended up the champions. Yeah. And I think they said Connor would have ended up the champion last year in Xfinity. Yeah.

Which we, you know, to be expected, you know, this organization won 17 times. He won 10 times. Yeah. You would think that you would come out with the championship in a case like that. But I think my dad, if I'm not mistaken, there was a year where he ran, he won a lot of races and came up short. So, yeah. That's interesting.

It's going to be fun. And didn't Jimmy Johnson went under three different point systems, I think? It's possible. It changed a few times. Yeah. I'm sure he did, yeah, because he was in the 2000s and then it changed in 2011 and so on and so forth. So I'm sure he did. We've talked a lot about working alongside NASCAR, the TV partners, your sponsors like Bank of America that are important to your organization.

Have you, you know, we started this trend of working. together many years ago in terms of the teams, the sanctioning body, the tracks, and having the mentality that, you know, we can all lift our sport together. Have you seen that working? What do you expect in the future? Now more than ever since we had the lawsuit and all the ugliness that came out during that, now more than ever, it feels that NASCAR is reacting to fans. to different things that, you know, maybe they could have reacted to before. How do you see that moving for you guys as a track owner and moving forward? I think it's really great that we get to start this season without a lawsuit.

Me too. Without the tension of, you know, conflict between teams and tracks and NASCAR. Last year, last few years, there's been a lot of, you know, conflict and we would talk about working together, but there wasn't enough of that. And I am totally confident that if NASCAR and teams and promoters and our media partners and OEM support, I mean, you've got this huge ecosystem that by working together, we can do really great things. We can create these amazing competitions that, I mean, we're really blessed to be able to do something that we like that's really fun. And we get to work with people that we like.

And none of this is essential in life, you know, but we get to do something that's really fun. And millions and millions of people like to watch it and like to engage in it. So going into this season, I hope that, you know, all of us in the NASCAR and racing ecosystem really consider kind of ourselves as underdogs, you know, to have the underdog mentality. Because that's really when we're at our best and to be able to, you know, work hard to, you know, go the extra mile for our fans, for each other. and not have that conflicting mindset that has really existed for the last few years. So that's, I think, is just a huge opportunity for us, and it'll be more fun too. That's a super cool perspective of the underdog. I think that just made me think that probably being in the Xfinity series for us,

you know, and having the success that we've had over 20 years and wins and so on, We kind of do that every year because we have new drivers. You know, we have got Raja this year, and you want to see him succeed and perform. And so, like you said, you throw everything you have at it. You dig deeper. You think harder and, you know, all of those things. So that's a super cool perspective. Well, Marcus, it's going to be a great year.

We're getting started here in the next week or so with Daytona. And we'll go from there, hit Atlanta and hit a few more of your. great tracks and looking forward to the year. Thank you. It's great talking with you too. Thank you. All right. Thanks again to Marcus for taking time out of his busy day to come in and talk about a lot of the changes that Speedway Motorsports has made for the year and while they're making those. Now it's time for Ask Kelly. Never thought I would be in this position. Hey everybody, it's Kelly Earnhardt Miller and we're live on YouTube. If you were expecting

Dale, sorry he had a last minute change in his plans and couldn't make it, but we still wanted to go live with you today. So it's Ask Kelly, presented by Xfinity. Xfinity is waving the red flag on your internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings. Now, you can get speed and reliable Wi-Fi you need, locked in at one price for five years. No surprises, no late yellows, just a straight shot to Victory Lane. And just like that, folks, we've got a winner.

Xfinity, imagine that. Travis is still here with us today. Thank you, Travis, for being here. I'm enjoying today with you, Kelly. I think it's a nice little change of pace. Hey, everybody needs a little change of pace these days, right? Yeah. Not that this snow weather hasn't been enough for us, right?

How has, what was your snow weekend like? Do you have a fun weekend or relaxing? You know what? I was home by myself. Oh, perfect. My boys were off doing a seat fitting. And so I played in the snow a little bit with my dog Zeus, but he wasn't having much of it.

And so I just watched and had a glass of wine and watched, I watched like three series on Netflix and got all kinds of TV in, which is something I never, ever do, ever. I was going to say, especially with the season right around the corner, you'd get some relaxation. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, I didn't go out in the snow once, and I'm perfectly fine with that. I stayed inside all Saturday and Sunday. I didn't have to cook. I could just eat what I wanted, when I wanted, how I wanted.

I'm like a snacker, so if the boys are gone, I just like snack on stuff. What's the go-to-snack? Tilemok snack cheese and green grapes. Oh, so Delano have that in common, green grapes. That's where he gets it from. He's a grape snacker. Well, we got it from somewhere. I'm more of a kettle chip. I did have some ranch dip because last weekend, when I went to the store for the ice storm,

I was craving. I wanted to have like ranch. I have to have ranch sour cream with the dip that you mix up, right? That's like the only kind of dipping veggie dips kind of stuff. So I had that last weekend, but I ate it all. Yes, I ate an entire, was that? I think it was 16 ounces of sour cream and ranch dip. Yes, I did.

In one week. I know that's bad. So I wanted it again. But can you believe when I went to the store on Friday that there was zero sour cream. Everybody talks about milk and bread. It was sour cream. There was no sour cream whatsoever.

People buy the weirdest things like when like the storm's coming. So I had to get a different style of ranch in a container dip, which it was okay, but it wasn't as good and creamy as I like it. Yeah. Anyway. So you mentioned seat fitting. So a lot, this is a question that we get a lot is about why it's racing. So what's he up to lately? Like, how's things going with him?

So they just went to Texas to seat fit because Wyatt is going to be racing a sprint car, 360s this year, which is making Mom nervous, but we'll get through it, just like we have everything else. So we've got a full slate, probably over 50, 60 events. We're going to run the Champ Off Road series again. He got the championship last year. That's a really fun series to run in the trucks, off-road trucks. we're going to venture out in the junior late model this year.

So we've ran limited late models. He's had some good success in that. And so we're going to be bumping up the late model asphalt racing. So we've got a lot on the plate. We'll still do some micros here and there. We'll still do the outlaw carts here and there. But it's going to be a fun year, new year of learning for Wyatt. What is that like putting the mom hat on and watching and doing that?

The sprint car stuff is, is, is, interesting and somewhat scary. You know, the trucks are built like army tanks, and they do lose a lot of their sheet metal, and he's been upside down because you can bike and get over, but they're built so strong that I don't have any issue there. Don't really have any issue in the late models. It's what I've grew up on and all,

but I'll tell you, the wind and the sprint cars and the non-wing stuff is stressful. And a lot of the tracks that they talk about going to are some bigger tracks. they're going really fast. And so it makes me nervous. But at the same time, this is what we know. We're a racing family.

This is what we do. You can't talk them out of it. He's got it from both sides from his dad and I. And so we roll with it. That's the one thing you don't see in other sports is like he could be racing up against a 55-year-old. At times you're racing against grown men, grown women. It's all encompassing. Yeah, we were just watching Volusia last night.

Speaking of that in the 360. sprint cars were there and in the top 20 starters there were probably be about there were about 10 or 12 you know high limit or world of outlaw racers um you had your um Brian Browns you had your Brady Bacon's um you had a lot of top names and Wyatt will be racing against some of those folks in just a few short weeks at central Arizona and when you think about it like that it is mind-boggling you know you're You've got just, you know, feature winner after feature winner going up against my 14-year-old son will be racing up against. So it's, it is pretty crazy. Brian wants to know, does White ask about your racing career?

Do you guys, have you guys ever talked about that? Well, yes, we do. And Wyatt just needed to be there to experience my career because Wyatt judges my career based off of stats. And because I didn't have a win, anytime it's brought up, he says, well, Mom, you never won. You never won. So he doesn't have much to say about my racing career. And it aggravates me at times, but, you know, we just move on. And then you realize he's a teenage boy.

Yeah. And then I'm like, you just don't know. You just don't know. So do you ever watch him race and do you ever, like, see yourself in him with things that he does or Dale or your father? Yeah. You know, I know it feels and sounds kind of cliche, but I do see just the tenacity that he has when he gets in the race car and the determination he has reminds me a lot of my dad. He, you know, he just has it. And I don't know if it's from which side of the family it is or whatever.

And you can sit here and say, oh, well, that reminds me of, you know, dad or that reminds me of this or that. but, you know, he's definitely got something that's innate. And, yeah, just very cool. At the same time, he's just a kid when it comes to it. In fact, this weekend, the car owner sent me a pitcher, and he was in a box, and he jumps out of the box, and he's like, hey, is this one-way performance? And meanwhile, they're over fitting his seat.

So he's in a kid with the box, give him a box, they can do, have all kinds of fun and having fun. you know, driving a heavy old sprint car at the same time. Pretty crazy. Yeah. So upcoming this week in Daytona 500, what's your emotions with Junior Motorsports trying to qualify in the 500 again this year?

Hold on just a second. This is live, I know. I'm in the middle of being a mom at the moment. So one second. My kids got them school issues. Oh, Dale's always. on his phone anyway, so I think the fans are used to a little side-check

every once in a while. You know, Mom-Mow doesn't turn off. Well, I'm seeing like I got 13 texts, and it's Wyatt and his teacher trying to get into the teams I set up for him. So, yeah. So anyway, all right, so go ahead. Daytona 500, second-year Junior Motorsports, going to try to make it. What's the, are you able to be calm or are you like an anxious person? No, I'm not an anxious person whatsoever.

I am super calm. You know, I feel like, especially when you're going to do something for the second time, I feel more prepared, more ready. I know what to expect. You know, I know how hard it was last year against the other competitors to make that race and all. And so, you know, now I have a little bit of understanding about what we're going to go through and what could happen or might not happen. I still have high expectations, obviously, to do well and to make. the race but um yeah i'm pretty i'm kind of uh it is what it is kind of person i don't get too hyped up on i have a little saying on my social that says don't worry about what you can't control

it's a good way to live i don't know how like you and other owners sit on the pit box because i would i'd be a nervous wreck and i'd probably making you know the crew chief and stuff even more nervous i'd have they'd probably like please get off the pit box no i'm good like that you know and i don't think Dale's super anxious or nervous like that, but he has a lot more commentary that he wants to tell them just because he's raised and, you know, he thinks, you know, he can think about that aspect of it a lot more than I can. And so he's in their ear. So maybe they want him to get off the pit box for that reason. But yeah. Yeah. I don't think any of us are too, like, crazy nervous or anything like that. It probably also helps that, you know, you also have, you know,

junior motor sports is race on Saturday. So, like, there's so much going on. There's not really a a whole lot of time to actually like think about it. There's not a lot of downtime. Right. Yeah. True. To sit around and go, okay, what's going to happen. Are you excited to get the new, new, uh, of Riley season started for you guys? That's going to get to take some getting used to. I'd say I bumble it there. But I am. You know, it's been fun seeing the graphics and, and all the different things for the cars coming along. And, you know, we did a driver's photo shoot and everything last week and having them all in here, having Rajah, part of our team's been super fun and cool to get to know him.

better and yeah I'm looking forward to it it's going to be you know obviously different with the championship and everything the way it's going to play out and we're going to have to look at each race a little differently and look at the year a little differently and so but I'm excited we've got you know a lot of a lot of changes that we've made in terms of cruechy pairings and drivers and all of that but the core and the foundation of the business is is still the same and I feel like 17 wins obviously is a lot to try to shoot for but you know I think you'll see us in the victory circle quite often and that's a good you know you want to have that bar like you always want to be challenging you don't want to you know settle yeah you got to have the bar set high so you mentioned the change

and that's you know the playoff format now the chase obviously we saw how the season into last year three cars and not getting the win are you excited to for the chase to come back I am you know I'm excited that the one race opportunity is out you know The, yeah, the championship points series should be good. I think we'll miss aspects of the playoffs, you know, in terms of the cutoff races and things like that. But, you know, overall, I think we'll be crowning champions that have put in, you know, consistent hard work, winning, etc.

all year long. And I think that's what should be rewarded at the end of the day. Yeah, that's one thing that I kind of wanted was the cutoff races because you get that like game seven moment. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think rewarding the drivers for winning, I think will be a good thing. And so I'm excited to see what it does.

Yeah, I think, you know, if we, if it could have looked a little different, I would have liked to keep some of that kind of cutoff race aspect. But that last series of races be, you know, three races or something that kind of lined up the best four and then kind of worked it out from there, you know. But again, everybody. is going to talk well such and such isn't good on this type of track and you're not good and this is the kind of tracks that were in that series and da da da da da da there's just always going to be something always going to be somebody that's critical something right that's right that's right all right well

I think uh that's it for today I'm going to keep it a little short here all right everybody was expecting Dale they they left us they didn't uh come on for my segment no I think a lot of people here we had one fan said need more Kelly and Dale love the sibling back and forth I think people uh were happy to see you jump on. I'm just kidding. It's fun. All right.

Well, we're going to close it up. NASCAR fans, listen up. Xfinity is waving the red flag on internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings. Now you can get the speed and reliable Wi-Fi that you need locked into one price for five years. No surprises, no late yellows. Just a straight shot to Victory Lane. And just like that, folks, we've got a winner. Xfinity, imagine that.

All right, everybody. Thanks again for tuning in. This has been really fun filling in for Dale and the R.B. Don't worry. He's going to be back tomorrow for this guest segment. And also, Del and Amy will be together for Bless Your Heart, which comes out on Thursday this week. Meanwhile, have a great week. Check out Dirtymo Media on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.