The Dale Jr. Download - Maybe The Best Fix For The All-Star Race Is Killing It

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

Dale Jr. sits down with Marcus Smith, Jeff Burton, and Matt Weaver for a NASCAR roundtable that gets into some of the biggest conversations happening around the sport right now. From the future of the All-Star Race and what makes a true All-Star event to the ongoing fight surrounding the historic Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway, this episode takes a closer look at the challenges, changes, and opportunities shaping NASCAR’s future. The conversation covers everything from NASCAR’s evolving schedule and stage cautions to the future of short track racing, wet-weather racing possibilities, and the push to grow the sport internationally. The group also discusses the challenges facing Chicago’s street course, how NASCAR’s approach to cautions has changed over the years, and what fans can expect as the sport continues to evolve. Plus, Dale Jr. shares his picks for Iowa, and Matt Weaver’s 550,000-mile truck has an unexpected adventure before he even makes it to the studio. Whether you’re passionate about the NASCAR schedule, the All-Star Race debate, short track racing, or simply want an honest look at where the sport is headed, this roundtable delivers plenty of insight, opinions, and behind-the-scenes perspective from some of the most knowledgeable voices in racing.   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, T.J. Hellway is starting a show. All right then. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for a new. other episode of the Dale Ginger download. This is episode 732, and we've got a special

one for you today coming out of the off weekend and head into Iowa. I thought we'd have a little bit of a roundtable, and I invited some of my favorite friends and guests that I thought would really add to the conversation. Marcus Smith, Jeff Burton, Matt Weaver. Thanks for being here, guys. Good to be here. Yeah. The square table. The square table. I like it. I like it. The square table discussion. This episode is presented by Arby's. Don't forget about Arby's new meat and three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats and we're going to have a great show today. Basically, I appreciate everybody for participating a little bit on social media because it drummed up some

questions and things fans wanted to ask. I've got some notes here. I've got some more notes on my phone and I know everybody, I spoke to a couple of y'all about, you know, bring in your own ideas. So this is a, you know, everything on the table, conversation around whether it's grassroots racing, NASCAR, whatever it may be. And so just to kick it off, one of the cup drivers in the NASCAR series, Todd Gillen, had a great question. And I think this will be one that you guys can jump right into.

We'll have a get, get this conversation start. What do you think younger guys in the sport should do to grow it? I've gotten asked this question a lot through my career. I know you probably have two, Jeff, and you've probably had your own conversations with a lot of young guys being in the position you've been in. And Matt, you're in a unique position being part of the media, kind of watching it from a perspective that we don't know.

And as a promoter, racetrack owner, there's a lot of things you'd love for drivers to do to help your weekends get bigger and better. So, you know, where could we begin to help Todd and all these guys know what they need to be doing or could be doing to help the sport get better? I'll tell you right off. It's interaction with fans. I mean, I think that's the big thing. You've got to, from the short tracks, you know, from Legends Racing to the Cars Tour up to the Cup series, appreciate where you are.

You're doing something that's fun. people love to come out and watch. But before the race, after the race, those autograph sessions are so important. Signing autographs, getting selfies, interacting with fans. If you got a chance to go and have a burger or a beer with fans around the race, those are great times. And also have fun yourself. Don't take it too seriously. Try to win, be out there and be the best you can, but also realize that we're blessed to be able to do something that's amazing,

you know, that other people just love to be a part of. Yeah. To me, it's personality. You know, I hear so much. Drivers don't have personality today, and I spend a lot of time with drivers, and I'm like, that's a bunch of crap. Like, I think the drivers do have a lot of personality, but they are at times afraid to show it,

because, you know, when you're in the world of social media, you say something, you do something, and all of a sudden you're catching a lot of health for something you were just trying to have a good time with. And it's a different world than we grew up in. You know, when we were younger, we didn't have the pressures of social media. That's right.

We also didn't have the advantages of it, right? There's negatives and pluses. I think social media is a great opportunity to show your personality. Don't fake it. Don't make one up. Just be you, but don't be afraid to be you. And I think, and I'd be honest with you, I wish some of our, the sponsors would just take a breath and recognize that, you know, fans, race fans like personalities.

They want to see, they want to see, they want to see drivers. with personalities, just be themselves. And hey, if you're boring, be boring. You know, just don't make it up. Just be who you are. And I think through that, I think through that you'll gain more fans and more appreciation from the fans.

I think the key is connecting. Whatever you can do to connect with the audience. And I want to share a story because I'm a fan first and foremost. And I grew up in Mobile, Alabama. We have a half-mile track there, Mobile International Speedway. And we had this specialty event

where we had Jimmy Spencer, Kenny Schrader, Michael Waltrup come down. They were hosting the Inside Cup TV show at the time, and they were all going to drive late models. And the car that Spencer was going to drive broke. And so they were trying to figure out a way to still allow Jimmy to be a part of the show. They stuck him on the flag stand. And this race got drawn out, drug out, and they had them miced up. So he's talking to the fans as he's in the play. flag stand and he throws the caution and fans are saying what for what's going on and he throws the

flag onto the front stretch and he's like debris right there and that story has stuck with me my entire life because it was so relatable for a race to be boring we all want to caution and spencer recognized that he could do something to connect with the audience in that moment and he had a great Q&A they all had a great Q&A and just anything you can do like that to make you remember at 20 years later. That's the key. That's great. Yeah, I feel the same way.

I think that Todd and a couple drivers, Connor Zilich just hosted Denny's podcast this week. And I think that was, you know, Denny was probably off on vacation somewhere, asked a couple of guys if they would do it. And here you turn on, you know, social media and you see these little clips. and it's all these little moments of fun conversation that the two guys were having. And I learned more about Todd's personality in that two-minute clip than I've learned in the last six months.

Yeah. And so that's engagement. That's engaging with fans. And I would tell Todd or anybody, the more you can get out there and do every, article you can do, talk to every media member you can talk to, physically going to the racetrack and doing autograph sessions is great. That is stacking bricks or stacking pennies. That's very, very small. You're, you know, you're meeting one-on-one with fans. But when you can do a podcast that 60,000 people are going to listen to or do an article that, you know, several thousand people are going to read and hear or read or see one quote in there that makes them laugh.

or think, you know, they can connect to, you know, you're making a big impact. You're a lot of guys like Blaney, other people get bigger opportunities. They go do, you know, TV, sitcoms. Those are great things to be able to do. Anytime you can find a way for your partner sponsors to leverage getting you into big publications and magazines and stuff that NASCAR doesn't get into. Those are great, great opportunities. You know, you're talking about promoting.

Yeah. I mean, people talk about racetrack promoters, but you're talking about promoting and promoting yourself as a driver and whatever you're doing. That's a, it's a bit of a lost art. And it's not very common. But if you can kind of think about what you're saying and really engage and realize that I need to promote. And when you're a driver and you eat, you know, what you kill out there for racing, but also it's the sponsors, it's the fan engagement, and you've got to do that and work at it. You can't just let it happen organically. You really do have to work at it. Yeah, at every level, too. I mean, when, you know, the cars tour or any local race, fans coming to the race, if they have a, if they have a relationship in some form or fashion with the drivers on the racetrack, they are more in tune to what's

happening. And so it's not just at a national level. it's at a local level. How do you get to the fans at South Boston Speedway? How do you get to the fans anywhere around the country? You know, you go to Pensacola, which is a very unique situation. That fan base, they're very much in tune with who the race car drivers are on that racetrack. It's actually a really fun environment to go and witness. And they get a lot of people there.

You know, it's a good crowd and it's an engaged crowd. And it's not just watching cars go in circles. It's watching the drivers in the cars. And that is, it is paramount to the success of our sport at every level. There has to be a relationship. It's not, it's not the same thing. But like, when you were younger and you were on like the NASCAR racing servers, I Uber'd in here today.

And then the Uber driver told me, I don't know what this means, but you will, that he was on the Hawaii server. Yes, yeah. The original dial-up. And he's like, I became such a fan of Dale, because he doesn't know who I am. He said his name is Mike, but he's like,

I raced with Dale on NASCAR racing. And I think anything that you can do is so cool. But I think that anything you can do to make a fan feel like he knows a part of you is so important. And for as polarizing as Hosevar is, all the streams that he does, how active he is on social media,

every single time that he has an online or in-person interaction, he makes a fan walk away from that experience feeling like their friends. And that sort of interpersonal connection is so important to growing this entire sport holistically. Yeah. I feel like, you know, you talked about the grassroots stuff. Butterbean's a great example of a guy who showcased his personality, didn't apologize for it. You know, with social media these days.

I think we're all, I think the reason why maybe I or anyone else doesn't share more on social media is because no matter what you say, you're going to have half the people disagree with it, right? No matter what it is you say, you go out and say, man, I'm going to go take my dog for a walk and they'll tell you what the hell's wrong with that, you know. Why you didn't do it right? You didn't do it right. Why don't you have a cat? Yeah. So, I mean, and that makes drivers go, you know, it's not even worth the truck. but you know

and so they do kind of hold back a bit butter bean is a great example of somebody who just laid it all out there you know and man what a value he was for the cars tour because of that and we had us it was like the

it was kind of like the indie wrestling circuit where we had we had a big star that was going to eventually get up into the bigger the bigger organizations, which, you know, now he's at the truck series. But when you can, if you're a driver in the grassroots level and you just can't be forgetable, even in those spaces where you're really there to hone your racecraft, if you can stand out some way somehow and be unique to everyone else at the racetrack.

And Butterbean did that. And it brings more light to everybody around you too. It does, yeah. It's not just, I mean, it helped Butterbean, but everybody around them kind of benefited from that too. They did. You know, he would, whoever he would battle with became a star in that particular moment. And if he had a guy that he had a rivalry with, Connor Hall would be a guy that he had a rivalry with at Langley. And they kind of steal every now and then, it'll be on the racetrack.

And if they, if you're going to, they had the Hampton heat at Langley. And I tuned in hoping that we might see another butterbeam, Connor Hall battle for the win at a track where both of them sort of, you know, have challenged each other for years. And that's, you know, if you can carry, if you can create what I think, you know, those guys create at that level and carry that forward into, you know, whatever truck, O'Reilly, whatever your path is, all the way up to the cup series, you got a massive advantage over the other drivers in the field who aren't actively doing that.

Yeah. You know, and that's kind of, I think that's the one thing that I would want out of our cup guys is just a, you're right about their personalities. All of them have personality. There's not one dud in the field, not one. And they're all, there's some that are super funny. There's some guys that they all play a different. role. They all have a different role they play like a cast, like being cast for a film. Everybody's

got their role. But if I would just, I would just implore them to to put it out there a little bit more. Yeah. That would be great. Yeah. I see, well, we're, we're lucky because we see a little bit of what they don't talk about or what, what, Connor Zilich, super funny kid, great kid, great personality. wise beyond his years. And I think it'd be positive for him to show more of that. He's had a tough year. He's probably not too excited to do media. He's probably trying to turn his season around and worry more about that

than doing anything that sort of promote himself. But there's a lot of guys out there that I think the more you can, the more media you can do, the more opportunity you give fans to hear about use, read about you, see you walk and talking outside of the race car, the better. It's one of the things that I like about rain delay broadcasts. I mean, I hate

rain at a race track, but when I'm watching, if there's rain, I will tune in because I want to see you guys interview the drivers that I don't hear from a lot through the television. And I think a lot of other people feel that way. I would say if you're sensitive to the negative comments, just turn the damn comments off.

You know what I mean? Like, you know, some people and, you know, just can't, don't want to or can't deal with the constant negative. So turn it off. Yeah. Just don't look at it. You know, literally turn it off and be yourself. And the same way you would be yourself if no one was watching, right? Just be yourself and turn your comments off and just go do, just go do you. And it's okay. That's okay. If that's what makes it easier for you. Hell, I did it. I mean, I got to the point where actually in this, room right here. I made a comment. And for like two weeks, I'm like, you know, I've said,

hell with that. I just turn it off. It's pretty easy. It gets easier once you get to a point in your career where you're established, because I think that, you know, you mentioned Connor, and it's not apples to apples, what he does and what I do. But much earlier in my career, I was so sensitive to saying the wrong thing, and I didn't want that to be something that was an impediment to my career. And now, in hindsight, I probably went too far of oversharing and being too bold and too bombastic. And then you have to rein that back in a little bit too and be a little bit more nuanced. And I think that it's probably the same for our drivers, our media members, our broadcasters. Everyone's trying to find the perfect balance between being authentically themselves,

but also trying to do the right things. And that's hard. That is challenging. And I do not envy anyone who operates under the public spotlight because it is such a constant reminder that you are always one corner away from doing the wrong thing and throwing it all away. Yeah. It's tough. Yeah, I think so. I understand what you mean. I think as in the work that I do today, our bosses would tell us that they want those moments.

They want that, they want that, that comment that's triggering. They want the humor or say, you know, they, they don't, you know, they don't really mind you to sort of get out there and be a bit aggressive in your, in your take or your criticism of another driver or just something you think is funny. But I do not know exactly where that line is, you know, and it's scary because you push, you kind of push, you get a little aggressive and you're like, man, am I getting close to it? That's the story of Dirty Mo. Yeah. Did I just make a mistake? You know? So, and you're, you're always kind of like feeling around in the dark.

You know, you're kind of like always trying to figure out how, how, wherever things is at and how aggressive you can be. Here's the thing. Like, for me, it's so hard because as a media member, you're expected to be like the straight news guy and the expression in our industry is Kronkite is dead. We don't live in that world anymore. people want their newsmakers to have a little bit of personality. And when I came up, that was always Gluck.

Luck was a great reporter, a great storyteller, but also he was super relatable. He became a fan, and he acted like a fan. And there's always that subset that will tell you, well, why can't you just be like Bob? You know, Bob just gives us the news in which I would say, we already have a Bob. Bob is great, but I can't be apocry because we already have one of those. And I think the analogy here is that if you're a, I don't know, if you're a Jesse Love getting ready to go cup racing, there's going to be pressure on him to be Hosevar. It's like, well, we already have a Hosevar. How can Jesse Love then be the best Jesse love, the most authentic Jesse love he can be?

Because you're always going to be urged to be compared to someone else. And you just got to be whoever you are just turned up. Yeah. I agree. Turned up. Jesse Love is a great example. I know a little bit about Jesse just in some interactions being around Connor, Zillich, but I don't know as much as I would like to know about Jesse Love.

And so I think that's every race fan at this moment, at this stage in the game in terms of his career, is that this guy is coming up. We know he won the championship last year. But even in that championship season, we didn't really hear or see a lot of who he truly is, right, or what he's doing outside of the race car, what his interests are. Those guys are so Uber-focused on just like racing and going to the racetrack and trying to be the best race car driver they can be and trying to, you know, explore the next best opportunity that comes along, that we don't really know who they are, right, and how they

tick and what's their hobbies, what's their interests, what do they like, what's their favorite movie. What do they do when they get a chance to get away from the racetrack? What's their... Right now, Jesse is defined by his friendship with Connor. Yeah. And that's a dangerous place to be in. Who are you that's not Connor's friend? Yeah. And so, you know, I think we're all eager over the next, you know, year as he goes into that rookie year. We're super eager to like learn, like, meet him, right? Be introduced to him. Not in a literal sense, but like, I, I would hope that he takes the opportunity. I know he'll have his hands full trying to learn the next-gen car

and trying to be competitive with the Wood Brothers. But, you know, hopefully he takes opportunity to do media, to share who he is and more about himself. Because I bet it's great. Yeah. Right? I bet it's, I bet he fits a role, the role that they all, you know, everybody, everybody plays a different role.

I bet he's got a great opportunity and a great. spot to exist in in the cup ecosystem i like what you said about it's be yourself turned up that's that's a great way to think about it not not michael waltrop turned he's a great example too of a guy he's already turned it up he filled a role he found a space and hell he made it work and we all know michael we love him we all love a great guy yeah yeah and so and because because he's he's gave you every opportunity if you never like i was lucky enough several y'all were lucky enough to like know him, know him. But if you didn't, if you'd never met the guy,

you'd have a pretty damn good idea based off of what you see. Absolutely. Out of social media. Right. That's who he is. That's who he is. That's a great example. Hey, everybody.

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These things look like they were pulled straight out of Victory Lane. And right now, Lionel Racing is offering free domestic shipping just for Dale Jr. Download listeners. You can use this promo code, download 26 at checkout. head over to linnell racing.com to lock in your favorite NASCAR moments into your collection today. Moving on, man. Let's talk a little bit about racetracks. There's a lot of news about racetracks going on.

Just yesterday saw on social media. A lot of the work you're doing, Matt, around Carraway, getting sold. Fortunately, got sold to racers. And hopefully, they want to continue to operate the racetrack. The Cars Tour and anyone, I think, who has affiliation with Careway will be meeting with those folks going in the next several weeks to sort of fill out the future. I would assume it would be status quo, like they're, you know, they're going to improve the facility, try to operate successfully. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't expect to see any jarring change. I know he is bringing the late model stocks back.

I did see that. So his commitment is, so a lot of these short tracks. in the area have sort of reverted to the limited car is the feature car. It's a little cheaper, smaller carburetor, a little cheaper tire situation, a little easier type of car to have in your garage and take to the racetrack. A late model stock car has ballooned a little bit into a car that's a little more difficult for your weekender to go compete at. And I don't know, probably about five years ago,

Landon Huffman did a really, really great YouTube video about the cost of racing at Hickory on the weekly level. If you run an 18, 22 races a year at Hickory, which I don't think they run that much anymore. But it was around $60,000, $65,000 for him to race weekly competitively at the same racetrack every single weekend or throughout the year. And so I'm sure that that number is roughly the same.

But yeah, they're going to take the limited car. I assume they're going to keep the limited class, but they're bringing back the late model stock as the feature class. He's insistent that the late model stock car is going to be their number one car. I think that's a big challenge because being a part of the car's tour, ownership group, we've, you know, guesstimate that there may be 200 and 250 late model stock cars out there.

Are you counting limiteds and chargers? Yeah, no. I mean, if 80 go to Martinsville, how many don't go to Martinsville? You know, there's probably another 80 that don't go. The Cars Tour has a couple of those teams. I mean, I would say anywhere from 200 to 250, there's 200 to 250 late model stock cars, ready to go to a racetrack and race somewhere right now.

And when you divide those, that 200 down to, you know, all the different racetracks, South Boston, Carraway, and then you got the cars tour. You know, there's just not a lot of cars. So I'll be interested to see how his late model stock numbers do. I wonder what would drive the numbers up. But pretty interesting that that track is sold. And hopefully it continues to be successful.

Did, and this is for Jeff too. And Marcus, if you've got insight, I welcome it as well. Did you guys take anything away from the IHRA business model? Because they took a lot of those late model stock cars that were sitting in shops and sheds. They had dust on them. and they ran a limited sportsman rules package. But is there something to be said about the cars that hadn't been ran in two years?

They pulled out of mothballs to go race that you can apply to Cars Tour, that you can apply to weekly racing with NASCAR? Well, we haven't had internal conversations as a group, but me personally, I am always thinking, like say, let's go back about two years ago, ago when we kind of just got into the ownership of the cars tour. I was wondering whether the pro was the best fit for our second series, right?

Our second class. Turns out it was because the pro class has grown, gotten more competitive. And on certain weekends, it's as, it rivals, if not out competes our late model stock class, depending on the racetrack. But I wondered at one point whether it was made. be more beneficial for us and advantageous for us for our late model stock class to have the limited be the support class should a you know we I didn't bring that up to the rest of the group waited it out see how the pros do the pros have been a great decision big growing class

for us but I feel like that the um you know the I like the limited class and I think it's a it has an opportunity to be popular. Because it does give that guy that has that late model stock in his garage that's been under a cover for two years, it does give him an opportunity to go take that car and race it somewhere. So I think that there's a way for the late model stock chassis to have two purposes. It can race in a, it can be your competing A class at a South Boston or you can race it on a tour or you can put a two-barrel carburetor on it and some used tires and go run in an

limited race on a budget. And so, and I think that all can coexist at the, you know, at every each and every racetrack, in my opinion. When Harrison started late model racing, we went pro and super late model racing for that reason. We could build pro chassis, take that engine out, drop a super late model engine, in the same car. So I looked at it and said financially, we can start him in this and then move it up and use the same equipment with the exception of the engine.

There were a couple other things too, but that was mostly it. The problem that we have in a limited or late model stock or any division is the barrier is cost. So what you guys were just talking about is, you know, how do we make it more affordable for a person to be competitive? and it is very hard in a late-mile stock as it is in a super late model. There's an old saying every time an organization saves a race team money, they just cost them money. And so the difficult part in I think in every series, whether it's Cup or rallies, cars tour, I don't care, limited late models,

is how can you, how can the rules be written in a way that actually makes it so it's the most affordable as possible? and still put on a quality race. And it's difficult to do. Like, there are a lot of things we could do to lower costs for a late-mile stock guys, but they're going to have to spend a lot of money to get there. So what are you doing? You know, so it is a massive challenge for every series in getting the car count right, legend cars.

It doesn't matter. Like, the more you change, the more it costs. Now, it might cost the new guy less money, but there's less new guys and there are existing guys. Yeah. And that is a major problem that we deal with because we want it to be affordable. Like there's there's zero benefit to anyone except for maybe part manufacturers to make these cars expensive. Tires, fuel, everything. We want it as low as it can be.

How do you make it lower without costing people money up front? And that's, that is a very, very difficult challenge. And coming up with the answer to that. I don't know how you do it. Yeah. Unless you start brand new, you know, start brand new, but five years, six years, seven years down the road, you're going to have the same problem. Well, it's like the testing ban.

And there's going to be some news later this week about the ASA tours, allowing testing within their window again. The idea was, is we don't want teams testing within a two-week radius of the race, because the thought process was we're trying to stop them from, you know, going to go test and spend more money. And as it turns out, the team said, well, if I don't get seat time, if I'm not going to have track time, I'm not going to go race. And so now they're reversing that policy. They're going to let you test within the two-week radius because they want you to go there now on a Wednesday, Thursday, because it saves you one extra trip you're making.

But the concept was good. We don't want you to come make two trips or stay for three, four, five days. But then the racer says they don't want that. What do you do? It's so hard. We went around and around on whether we needed a test ban or not. And I mean, there's going to be a negative to every decision you make. There's always not one decision is going to clean it all up.

But I think that there was a great, we went to the Sacramento 400 probably about three or four years ago. And the week before the week before the week before the. the 400 they have a big limited race and if you ran in the top three you were automatically locked in or if you won the limited you were automatically just to swap the damn carburetor and you could start

in the back of the 400 or you got to qualify for the 400 and so I mean that to me is a great and that's a great example of the two types the limited in the late model stock

complementing each other and the reason why, you know, not to get in the weeds, but, you know, the reason why I think one of the great things about bringing Marcus on board with the cars tour was because this guy's legends cars, he builds them. Every car, every legend's car that's sold all over the world, right? Marcus is the reason for that. So how do we bridge the gap between that,

racer, that young kid that's coming into Legends cars, how do we, how do we like have him look toward the cars tour as his route to get to the top? And so, you know, I feel like that the limited late model, the rules that IHRA put together as well, which is not quite the same, but still, I mean, they wanted to go after that affordable racer. They didn't want. us to show up. They wanted Jimmy from down the street that hadn't, you know, he didn't race last year because he didn't have nowhere to go or got too expensive. They wanted him to come out and race.

And so I think there's a, there's a place for all of those and they all need to connect. It needs to be this ladder, right, where each rung is a different level in the racing series. getting back on to the track conversation and speaking of our I-H-R-A. Trips me up too. It does. It's a mouthful.

It's a lot. The Rockingham Speedway, they purchased that property. You know, Marcus, I guess as a track owner, you know, when you see all of that going on, are, you know, what's your initial reaction? I think the big thing for all of us to know is that, you know, Running a racetrack is hard. And all the short tracks out there, you've got competition for the real estate. And I think that's the biggest threat to racing across the country is just the amount of real estate development, whether it's data centers or warehouse industrial parks or, you know, residential communities that need to be built.

Racetracks have a big piece of land. and the owners of those things, you know, one day somebody's going to knock on the door and say, hey, man, I want to buy your property and do something different with it. Yeah. And that's a big challenge for all of us. Why are racetracks so interesting for those type of developers? I think that, I mean, as opposed to the, you know, a thousand acre lot next door that's not got shit on it. Why do you want, why do those guys want to come by these racetracks?

Well, I think there are not a lot of thousand acre tracks. I mean, there are some, right? But you racetracks used to be far out of town because it was cheap land and somebody bought a farm like my dad, you know, in 1959. It was a farm and he built a racetrack on it. And now you look at the location of Charlotte Motor Speedway. And like a lot of other racetracks out there, it's way closer to town than it used to be. Yeah. And look at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. way. It's like in the middle of town. And so it's one of those things that we all have to realize that that's one of the big challenges. So for race fans out there, you know, go to the racetrack. If you want to keep it there, make sure you go, make sure you, you know, take your friends and have fun.

Yeah. What do you think happens with Rockingham? That's a good question. I, you know, I've heard that, I guess the guy that bought it is, is tied in somehow with, uh, with Tesla. and Elon Musk, and my first thought on it was that he's buying up racetracks to have it the big land connected with power and water and data center opportunity. There's a lot of that going on. There's a lot of pushback against data centers. But when somebody can buy one big piece of land and have control of it, and you already know you've got pretty good power because it's run a racetrack, you need pretty good power and electricity and water source. you know, that may be something, but I don't know. I don't know if that's what they're doing.

I've had some on-background conversations with a lot of those guys, and they're very adamant that their passion for racing is authentic. What they set out to do, there were no underlying things that they were trying to accomplish. They really wanted to create a place for racers at all these levels to go to, and he's owed a lot of money. I think some of those stories are starting to come out now and being published, and that it was no longer viable or sustainable to continue paying the purses they had in operating racetracks while they had that much money owed to them.

And, you know, Bob Sargent, he had a contract with NASCAR. He's full speed ahead to do Easter weekend next year, but he's like, as long as the track's ownership is in flux, and if we don't own it, track enterprise is Bob Sargent, then we can't go to NASCAR with a racing opportunity. And so where they go from there, I don't know because if that track isn't owned by anyone or the track is not operational,

having a promoter there, you don't have something to promote. You don't have a racetrack to promote with. Yeah. Nashville Fairgrounds. Is it still in the news? It is. It is in the news. There's a lot going on there. Matt, I'd be curious what you're hearing.

I'm hearing some crazy things. You know, it's been so tough, Dale, you and I were there. We met with the mayor. We're on our fourth mayor in Nashville. We've been trying to revive this racetrack. It's the, I think, second oldest racetrack in the country, 122 years old, older than Indianapolis. Nashville, you know, as we know it, is Nashville because they embrace their history, their culture of the birthplace of country music or music city i know uh actually bristol calls is a birth birthplace of country music but um but but but nashville you know they've they've embraced the the culture of who they are but this speedway is a huge part of that it's been around for generations 122 years old

and we're trying to you know preserve that and and bring it you know bring it to the next chapter of life and what i'm hearing is uh the the the neighbor to the racetrack that owns the soccer team John Ingram is trying to tear down the track and he's come in with these out of town political canvassers

to do a program that would essentially tear down the racetrack and giving them false information and it's really a crazy thing and I don't understand why it's going on

but it's been a big challenge and surprising. We've gotten so close so many times. We know that we've got huge support in town for renovating the racetrack, and we're ready to go. We just need to get before the Nashville Metro Council and get the vote and move forward. And keep in mind, and Marcus knows this. In 2011, the residents of the county voted to preserve racing on that property. And so it's not even really an open question, whether the locals want that racetrack to be an active part of their culture. They view it as part of their history. It was like a 60 to 40 vote. Is that number right? It was a big majority. Yeah, it was a

very large majority. They like having racing in their city because they view it as something that is inherent to their identity. The challenge that the pro-speedway people are facing right now is that the opposition is saying, well, the racetrack's going away anyway. There are videos out there of the canvassers who are trying to get it back on a ballot saying, well, they're tearing down the racetrack anyway, so we need to put up affordable housing, and this is what the signing is for. And that's just not accurate. It's not true. There is nothing that says the racetracks going away because it is currently preserved by that 2011 referendum. My question is, if it's true, which there's video evidence of the,

in the, there's video evidence of these folks seeking these signatures. Right. Stating false information or just incorrect information. Yeah. How can you, how can that not be taken to, how can that not, you know. Yeah, it's like false advertising. delegitimize the, you know, the 50,000, 60,000 signatures they need. How can that, how can the folks, where are they going to take this?

Yeah. Where are they going to take these signatures, right? What's the next step? Who do these, who do the signatures go in front of? So it goes in front of, well, they're trying to get something on the ballot in November to vote against the speedway. But if there's evidence that this was obtained. False pretences. Yeah.

Can that not be? What I'm told is it's apparently not illegal to lie on one of these things? Unless it's on a government letterhead. That is apparently the distinction they're exploring right now, is if they are using actual government letterhead to give this to the residents, that's the moment it becomes a legal matter. So I think one of the really, sad things about this is it's it's um that john ingram owns the nashville uh soccer team and he he lobbied the

community to get the community to pay for his soccer stadium so that he could bring a a football or a soccer team to to Nashville which is fine uh but in that lobbying he said i'm i'm going to preserve the speedway yeah it'd be a good neighbor yeah and he sponsored the 2019 all-american 400 Under that pretext. Yeah. And now he's funding these political operatives that are coming in from all out of the city to come in and basically trick people into signing this petition to get rid of the Speedway. Yeah. And it's as if...

It's wild. Yeah, it's as if once... You know, it's as if once you came in with a plan to renovate the Speedway, it became a competitor. Yeah. Because outside of racing, you know, you'll utilize this property. That'll be an amazing community asset where you can, you know, you can have Friday night food trucks. We can do, you know, family walks around the racetrack and have, you know, dog park and all kinds of good stuff out there.

That would be great for the community. You've done tons and tons of, like, extracurricular. You've attached a lot of things to the idea of renovating the Speedway in terms to appease concerns with the community. Sound retention walls and improving. Stuff in the local schools and all types of things. Oh, yeah. We're active with Speedway Children's Charities in the community. And we've been at this almost 10 years.

I know. And so it's amazing. I don't understand it. I've reached out to Ingram and his office. office many times, never had a call back. I wish that he would... Me too. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't understand it. I've never had anything like it. Well, I wish he would come to the table to have a conversation. Yeah. He doesn't have to come to the table. This table. To agree.

Yeah. Let's talk about it. I wish he would come. I would love to sit down with you and him in a closed room and just have a conversation. That'd be great. That'd be great. And figure out how the two can coexist. Because I just feel like that they both can be a compliment

to each other. I agree. And there's no reason why that the track can't, you know, can't, the track does need some, some improvements. And if racing is protected there,

you know, it seems like it'd be in the city's best interest to let somebody that wants to come in there and fix it, that knows how to fix race tracks. Yeah. It knows how to, how to keep things going.

You know, also, it's 122 years old. I mean, there was a time that's older than Indy. There was a time when, when the, Ryman Auditorium was being considered to be torn down in Nashville. I mean, can you imagine that history just going away to rebuild something new?

This 120-some-year-old racetrack is, it's not just a racetrack. It's the fairgrounds racetrack that's built up around a community area where people have been having fun and doing neat things together as friends and family for literally generations. And it's a great opportunity for the city to continue. to embrace their history. I would encourage those in Nashville that are against it to do a little, to take a little bit of time and go look at Richmond. That's right in the middle of a neighborhood.

Indianapolis right in the middle of a neighborhood. Look at what's gone on at Kansas. Since Kansas was built, like the neighborhoods built around that racetrack and the development built around that racetrack is unbelievable. That's growing, you know, Texas, what's going around on Texas. You just go look around like there's a way. for it all to coexist. And one thing that Nashville does a really good job of is they pretty restrictive of when

the racetrack is allowed to be on, testing, all those types of things. All that can continue. Yeah, yeah. And it would be an extremely good asset for the community, not only from a just morale and an excitement level, but financially. I mean, it would be really, really good for the community. And I understand Nashville's growing at an unbelievable rate. But people that live in.

the communities want things to do. And I get the sound concerns. I get the concerns. I mean, I understand it. But there is a way to coexist. And there's a way to have times in which the, you know, the race is there. And there's by far the majority of the time, it's not. And there are a lot of communities that it works really well. We're not talking about racing every week. Exactly. We're not talking about racing all the time. That's probably the least frequent thing that would happen at, at the facility. There's a lot of other things that happen at. racing yeah when in y'all's plan going forward racing wasn't even going to increase you were going to have to you were going to try to bring NASCAR to the racetrack but you would have to take something off

the table right so to you know because you were going to keep the same amount of time and dates in terms of what the what the city allows yeah and bringing it bringing a NASCAR event to the Nashville fairgrounds speedway just helps it to be financially viable for the future that's that's really what we're bringing. There's already a racetrack there. It needs to be restored and taken care of, and we can bring the operations and the events there that make it work for the next generation. When's the last time you went to Nashville to meet with the government? A couple weeks ago. Yeah. That's one of the things that I always find interesting when I talk to you is I won't hear anything about the fairgrounds for months, and I'll go, hey, Marcus, what you've been doing? What's

going on in Nashville? Well, I was just there last week. Yeah. I feel like you're a football team that is constantly getting to the red zone and then there's a turnover. And then you march right back to the red zone again. I keep saying that. We keep getting in the red zone. We're not scoring, yeah. I appreciate his stick-to-itiveness.

Oh, man. Well, I'm going to say, Jerry Caldwell, president of Bristol Motor Speedway, has been really carrying a lot of water on this. He's so fantastic. Just got inducted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame. Damn. Wow. Yeah, Jerry Caldwell, really proud of him. and appreciate all his hard work on this.

There's a strategy in which you just wear the other guy down. Yeah. And you know what I mean? And your persistence has allowed that not to happen. But that is a strategy that we've seen used in a lot of different applications. But yeah. Well, we're trying to do the right thing. You know, that's really, we're trying to do the right thing.

This is a generation's old place with memories and an amazing future. opportunities and it shouldn't be a parking lot you know it shouldn't be another mass development of apartments in a place that's had you know so much history kind of mowed over this is a chance to to build on history in a good way and preserve it and and we saw that with North Wilkesboro when when we went to Wilkesboro and it was covered over with cudzu and trees growing out of the racetrack and the grandstand and just about every window broken. I didn't think there was any way.

I can't believe you didn't think there was any way. You didn't think there was any way. Yeah, but I didn't own the racetrack. I didn't think there was any way. I couldn't believe it. But when we were there and had it and every seat was filled up for that first late model race, and I saw, I mean, grown men crying because they were back at this place that they had grown up around and made so many memories at, it was unbelievable. And it was really special.

And that's, it's important. It's important for people to get together and do things live and in person. It's part of a rich part of life. And that's the opportunity at the Nashville Fairgrounds. Another race track that's trying to claw its way back is Greenville Pickens. Matt, you probably know more than anyone at the table about the reality of that. I've gotten, I was going to bring it today, but I left it at a house, but I got a pamphlet with all of the information around this effort to bring the track back. and basically they're looking for funding. They want to,

they want to raise roughly $3 million, and they're offering naming rights to the grant stands, Victory Lane, the flag stand, all of the things. To be able to raise this money, they have a lot of, lots of local businesses that want to offer free work to be able to get this track back into a functional state. And so what's the, what's, have you followed up on that?

What is this? What's the, how realistic is that? I don't know anything about the developer out there that's trying to, that would rather this track not operate. How much of a fight is he putting up or are they putting up? I assume it's a he. and does the track have a chance? Does it really have a change? It's going to be so tough

because if you look at what that area is becoming, they sold everything but the racetrack. It is closed off by the warehouse development. Racetrack is there and they're super adamant that they're a promoter away, someone that has the funding, someone that has the know-how and the resources to be able to have racing there.

Still lots of questions about how do you get people in, egress and ingress and egress. because the parking lots are now the warehouses. There is properties around the racetrack that you could still use for that. It's going to take someone that is very motivated, very, very well-resourced, very creative to make Greenville Pickens work. But the way that the acquisition of that property was structured, they're not touching the racetrack yet. That is not part of any deal that's been done. but just to be totally blunt and honest.

I am not creative enough to know what that would start to look like. Hey, this is Dellenhart Jr. And for all the latest Dale Jr. download gear, including the I'm old drink some beer t-shirt that we've been talking about here around the office, head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch. Moving on to the All-Star Race. And the future of that, Marcus, you...

Let's talk about some ideas. You kind of own the All-Star race and the idea of the All-Star Race. I've heard some really good ideas. And, you know, Dover is involved in this. Wilkesboro is involved in this, I would assume. The best idea that I've heard is for the All-Star Race to go away entirely. Now, I don't love, I don't really love any of these ideas entire, you know, fully, but I don't like any of the tracks being an afterthought, right?

Or just something that's just on a, on the back burner. Right. And Dover, to me, deserves a points race. I don't know what, I don't even know what that's all about, why, you know, why I feel like tracks deserve points races or deserve anything, but, you know, it deserves to be on the schedule. to matter. Sure.

What is your opinion about the All-Star race? Why does it need to exist? For you, what does the All-Star race mean? You know, it's so wild to me how we've gotten to this place where the All-Star race seems like a negative for so many people. And for me, it was my favorite race growing up. I mean, it was the race. There was a time when I felt the same way. It was the race that made me my own kind of decision that I'm a NASCAR fan now.

Yeah. I mean, in 92, one hot nine. I mean, that was the race. And every year I look forward to it. And look at everything that's come out of the All-Star race. I mean, the simple things that we take for granted every single week on the schedule, side-by-side restarts. Didn't have that. And the All-Star race did it.

That's the challenge. races now the all-star race. The stage racing came out of the all-star race. Racing under lights, we can do it at any track with lights. Yeah. You used to just be Bristol. Yeah, well, in Charlotte was the first that it was the big speedway. Yeah. But I mean, yeah, Bristol was the first night race. Candle it. First and only night race. Yes. Like that, you know, that's, I think that's why the Bristol, that was the reason why Bristol became so popular. Yeah, the night race. Yeah. Yeah. But I think the All-Star race, you know, has done so many great things for the sport and, you know, creating these, these opportunities to showcase bold ideas. And now it's every weekend.

And somewhere, it became kind of a punching back. And people like to talk about, I mean, heck, man, before leading into race week, people would be debating about how the format for the race that they hadn't seen yet needs to be different already. It was it was judged, you know, up front. So it's it's really frustrating a lot of ways to me and sad in a lot of ways because I just love that race over years and years. So we'd love to see it, you know, get the support that it should have. I know a lot of guys like to talk about the million dollars not being enough, but how many races pay a million to win on the circuit? It seems like real money to me.

I mean, the purse isn't as big, but to pay a million to win, I think that's more than most races in the season. My favorite idea I've got, and this requires a lot of creativity, but we are in a very creative era of the NASCAR Cup series. Could you in NASCAR, with the clash moving back to Daytona, could you acquire the Bowman Gray date and have a million dollar to win race at Bowman Gray in exchange for, I don't know, the finale or something like that? Could that be a possibility? I don't know. I don't know. What do you mean? So basically, so you have the All-Star race. And the clash is being taken from Bowman Gray to Daytona. They've got contracts and obligations to Winston-Salem. Could they come to you and say, hey, we'll give you. the all-star race and you'll ask well what do I what if NASCAR then has yeah the all-star

race could you then say okay well I want the finale we can take it to Vegas or some sort of creative idea like that trading yeah trading dates temporarily or semi-permanently yeah open ideas for sure and we talked about a ton of ideas uh us and NASCAR and I think um you know like you guys said, I mean, there's no, there's no decision that you make that's without detractors. You got to, you got to just know that going in. But I think, rethinking the time, the place, the format of All-Star, what that looks like. I think it would be, we could come up with some, some cool ideas. And I think that if we all, you know, get behind it, it could be very successful and give it a chance. I think it's important for...

You think the All-Star Race is here to stay? Well, it could always change, you know? I mean, it could always change. But going into... Where do you want to have the All-Star Race next year? Let's see. Yeah, it would be... there's a lot of, I've got like four ideas that could be interesting.

But in talking to Harvick, if he was here, he'd say let's go out to his Speedway in California and run the all-star at the Kevin Harvick-Kern Speedway. I think, you know, all those options are out there and think about, you know, how it can play a role in innovation for, you know, for NASCAR. I mean, if we've innovated a lot with us with it thus far, we've done some tire ideas at All-Star, why not run on a wet track and run rain tires for a race and actually make the track wet. And so you know, I was so hoping that we'd get a passing shower for Wilkesboro the other day. Did you get that from Bernie Ecclestone? I heard Bernie say that, like 10

years ago. Oh, really? No. What do you say? So Bernie said he wanted to so desperately, but the team shot him down on this. He wanted to turn on all the sprinklers and have an F1 race that was run entirely in wet conditions on wet tires from start. Burnout. Bernie and I would get along. I like that idea. He is a promoter's promoter. So I want to jump in on this because I, you know, a long time ago, I publicly said, I think that Marcus should promote the also. star race at South Boston Speedway at Orange County Speedway at Hickory. And I got laughed out of the industry. You know, I had some of the biggest people in the industry say, there's no way we're going back to those racetracks. We don't belong there. What do you mean we don't belong there?

That's where we came from. I mean, that's where we came from. That's what we are. That's why we exist today is because we started at those racetracks. We now have the Charlotte Motor Speedways, and we now have the Daytona's and we have these magnificent facilities. but that's not where we started. So in this era, we are starting to clearly reach back into our past and say, okay, there's some magic in there. How do we embrace that? And so I still believe that if we, and we've done this, we've done this at Bowman Gray.

We've done this in a way by going to a short track at the stadium out in California. but the opportunity to go to South Boston Speedway, to go to Hickory Motor Speedway and have an all-star race. Like if you didn't win a race or championship, your ass ain't in it. You know, it's an all-star race. And I know that's hard for sponsors, and I know that's a difficult situation. But there is an opportunity to get a couple people in, race their way in, keep the number down to the all-stars. And move it around. do a three or four-year deal where you go to historic racetracks.

And you're talking about helping short tracks. You're talking about helping short track racing. You're talking about helping grassroots. That connects all of that. And you talk, you know, look, I'm from South Boston, so it's a bad example. I shouldn't be using that. But let's say Hickory. You take, you go to Hickory Motor Speedway and our stars are there.

That's a big damn deal for anything. and but create an all-star vent it's not you know 30 cars or whatever it's a limited number and you had to be special to be in it the smaller track makes it really easy to do that exactly because if you can't put 12 cars on charlotte motor speedway it's boring as hell i don't care what anybody says the old it just is you have to have more cars so look and it's easy it's really easy for me to say because i don't own racetracks i don't you know it's really easy to sit around a table and say with you just do this. You don't really understand the repercussions of it. But there has to be some excitement brought back to the All-Star race because you're right. There is some sort of luster

that's gotten away. So now we're like, well, let's just get rid of it. Well, let's just do this. Well, why don't we reinvent it? Why don't we reimagine it? And what does that mean? I don't know. But I do believe a connection to our past is a good thing. We can't do everything because that's how we used to do it, because that's a recipe for failure. But there are some things that we can do how we used to do it. And the All-Star Race, to your point, presents an opportunity that we aren't presented in a point-paying race. Well, what about – How can we do that?

I like the idea going back to a lot of classic tracks. but the All-Star race also like the idea that you can try new things with the Cup series. And we're willing to do new things. The things that now are normal, like stage racing, like side by side, like running on lights on big overtime. But maybe there's some other things we haven't tried yet, like racing in the wet. and I'd love to see, let's take the whole field to in the All-Star race, and it could be at any track, could be at Wilkesboro, it could be Dover, it could be New Hampshire, and have a full field race in the wet, and let's see what it's like.

So I would kind of, I know it's called All-Star Race, but I also think about it is the innovation race, a place where we can really innovate and try some things that, you know, testing only goes so far. You've got to have a trophy and a purse to really see what's going to happen. And I think this is an innovation race now, probably even more than just an All-Star race. I resent so much that NASCAR and the teams were not able to come to the table and figure out how to do the run-what-you-brong-ish kind of rules. package because there was so much we could have learned in this era where we're not testing as much as we used to, where we're not going to the racetrack and tearing stuff off. And there's only one way you can actually learn things, and it's not by testing.

You've got to drop the rag and go. Yeah. Yeah, the problem with the run, you know, run what you've run kind of scenario is what do you learn? That car is faster than that one? You have to learn. If it's faster, hopefully it can pass the car that's in front of them. But that's not necessarily true. So run with your bung.

If you're going to learn something, you have to have somewhat of a controlled environment. If you're really going to learn somewhat of a controlled environment. My pitch on it was take everything in the shop and you can't, we're not talking about new alloy creation or some crazy hyper, you know, illegal thing. Same parts and pieces. Same parts and pieces. Do what you want to with them. Adjust, take away, add. I don't know what it might be, but there's some really smart people in these race shops that have some ideas and let them do their thing, see what happens.

And what are we going to find out? I don't know. But we're going to learn some stuff. That's the big deal. What's all's expectation for Daytona that made some changes to the rules package, no practice going there, fire them off, go qualify, go race. I think there's a lot of hopeful optimism. at the same time, you just never know to get out there and they run. Unfortunately, we've done this a long time.

And, you know, I've never run a race at Daytona, Talladega that didn't have some sort of restriction, right? And so I've been in packages that you could pass like hell and re-wrecked like hell. I've been in packages where you just sat there right, right? I feel like I've seen it all. and it's a hard fix. It's a hard, it's hard to come up with something that completely makes sense to everything. And, you know, there's a disadvantage and advantage to everything. The pack racing was a silliest looking thing in the world,

but we didn't have as many multi-car wrecks, you know, with 20 cars being wrecked. Because we were all separated, right? And it looked stupid. But everything you do, there's almost nothing you can do that it doesn't have a negative and a positive. I think that a package that tries to, that rewards people for being aggressive is the kind of package that makes the best racing at Daytona and Talladego. Yes. Not being afraid to make a run. When you get a run, take it.

Yeah. And this gives that opportunity. but I have seen it, we have seen it cross over and be too much and just be out of control. Those wickers on the spoiler to wickers on the roof, I mean, you know, that was, that was a bit much. Well, that was way too much. And, but it was, I'm sure it was fun as hell to watch, you know, but it, in the car, it was, it was more than, more than what should have been asked of us to do. When it comes to Daytona, though, we're all anticipating, you mean, you said, what do you expect. I think we're expecting something cool and fun to watch. And going into Daytona is always a time

when you're kind of up on the edge of your seat as a race fan. It's way different. We talked about this. For you guys, now you don't watch a race through the windshield. You watch it, you know, from the other side of the fence like I always have. And it's a different perspective. For racers, you're in the garage, you're in the driver's seat. That's. You know, That's a totally different way of kind of taking in the race. But I'm always ready to see what's going to happen in Daytona. I tell you what I like about it a lot is that the change came from discussion. Yeah.

In the industry. I love that. Driver input. Drivers, crew chiefs, engineers, teams involved. Yeah. You know. I just can't imagine. Like, I just can't imagine.

imagine the anxiety that a Steve O'Donnell is going to have as they're coming around turn four and the pace cars getting ready to drop onto the pit road to start that race. It takes a lot of courage. It takes a lot of courage to say, let's do this. And then, and, you know, have you ever raised something either of you guys where you drop the rag and you have no idea what it's going to handle like? what the suck up is going to be. Have you ever been in that kind of situation scenario?

No, not really. I don't believe. This generation has become used to it. I remember there was a K&N race at Dover, and there was no practice, and they dropped a green flag, and I was like, what in the hell are they doing? You can't drop the green flag on a bunch of damn crazy-ass kids at Dover, and it just raced.

I mean, it was just a race, you know, and I was like, I thought the world would come doing it. So this generation, God, man, they're pretty used to it. It's pretty wild. Yeah, we used to go to Daytona and have eight hours of practice for the 500. And people would watch for hours. They want to watch your practice. We practice like hell. We ran the shit out of them cars. The key to everything that we're talking about right here is just what you said. And drivers, where this whole conversation started, it all circles back.

around in my eyes is fans have to have we can talk about cars and we can talk about points and we can talk about all the things at the end of the day it's the fan driver relationship you have to want to go to the racetrack or turn the television on because you have someone you're pulling for i i play golf all the time i don't watch golf because i don't have a guy that i pull for yeah and so you know that's my that's my look at it is I, if I'm going to watch a race, indie car racing, it's not a bad race, but I don't, I'm not connected to a driver. Formula One race is, you know, not a bad race, but I'm not connected to the driver. So I don't really pay that much attention to it.

And I don't know how I'm different than the regular guy. And so whatever, whatever rules, whatever points, whatever format at the end of the day, the man or woman or child sitting in those seats has to look down and say, I want that guy to win, and I want that guy to lose. And if there's not that connection, connection. I don't care what the rules are. I don't care what the track is.

That is the single most thing that's important to our sport. All right, before we start, Ask Junior, remember this is brought to you by Xfinity. They're waving the red flag on internet price hikes. They're raising the green flag for savings. You get the speed, reliable Wi-Fi that you need, locked in at one price for five years.

One price for five years. That's pretty damn good. No surprises, no late yellows, straight to victory lane. Just like we like it. you've got a winner in Xfinity. Imagine that. Speaking of Daytona, NASCAR just announced officially the Clash is returning to Daytona set Saturday, February 13th.

I think it's a great idea. I wish they had to ran a different night because we were going to take the cars tour to New Smyrna and run on Saturday night. But we're not going to do that now. Now I see why Kip was so shifty when I asked him about that. Because I started dart in which direction I started talking about New Smyrna. He's like, oh, yeah, be a good idea. Man, I was looking forward to it.

I was going to drive. I think Harvick was going to run the pro, and I was going to run late model stop. Damn it, NASCAR. But, no, this is a good move, man. I'm excited. I just feel like that in a lot of ways, we went out in search of something better

or some, you know, trying to find a way to, you know, sometimes. So if you have the clash at Daytona for 30 years, you're going to have some that are, some that are forgetable. You're going to get that no matter what track you go to and no matter what kind of gimmicks or tricks or style of racing format you try to race.

Just some races just aren't going to be as good as others. I'd also say, I mean, a huge thanks to NASCAR for trying some things. Yeah. I love the Coliseum. Yeah. Going to Bowman Gray. Just trying things.

I thought Bowman Gray was cool. I didn't love the Coliseum. I liked them both. I mean, we, but it was a big try. I didn't like to call SEM because it wasn't a racetrack. Well, I liked it because it was cool and different and they took a risk. Corners were weird.

It just wasn't a racetrack. It just wasn't a race track. You know that it just wasn't a race track. You can't be afraid. You can't be afraid to fail, you know. Well, I knew that wasn't going to work. You know Soldier Field used to be a race car. But in person, in person, it was actually, like I went to those races in person.

It wasn't. It was pretty good. I mean, honestly, I imagined it was way better than watch it. It was a good show. And when you walk up to the Coliseum, especially that first year, the vibe and the anticipation and the number of people who are like, hey, I've never done this before. What do I need to know? That was a win for NASCAR any time that you can take this product in some shape or form to people who don't know nothing about it. Yeah.

Year one was really good. Second year, I think not as good. Then we had the weather. The rain. The rain. Yeah. Yeah. But now going back to Daytona, I think, is also a great move.

And that takes courage to make big decisions to do something different. Yeah. So I appreciate that. And we're going to learn, you know, off of this next race at Daytona, hopefully to continue to steer into a better direction for racing at those type of racetracks. Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited about it. I think that it brings speed weeks back.

So, you know. Absolutely. that was a I always felt like you know between the 24 hour race the roar and all of the things that happened that

inadvertently whether together or not those different types of motor sports all that was a big buildup everything happening over at New Smyrna all of that was this crescendo to the Daytona 500 right oh yeah And when we, and I remember as a driver, you know, we'd fly in.

We'd practice a little bit. We'd qualify. There'd be the class you might race in. Then there's the Arka race. And then, man, you might hang out for a couple days or you'd go back home. You didn't practice till Wednesday, or you did Media Day Wednesday, then there was some more practice. So there was a little bit of a break in the first part of the week of the 500. But it was, it felt like a big deal.

It was a big deal. Yeah. Yeah. Parking lots are full and promotions. everywhere. Yeah, the town was kind of a buzz. Absolutely. One thing I'm nervous about, and Jeff, you and I have spent so many nights at New Smyrna on top of that trailer overlooking Turn 4, and I think about that. I'm very fond memories. Everything at the big track now is at night. There is nothing that is not a night race now.

And so we talk about that entire two, three week long experience of going to New Smyrna, going to Valuja, spending your days, mornings, afternoons at the big track and going to a short track at night. They're in competition now, and I'm curious, what is Volusia and New Smyrna going to do to coexist with practically six out of seven days that week or seven out of nine, having content at the big track and running opposed to what the schedule typically is for New Smyrna? Run during the day. I'm cool with it. I'd shift it up. You'd have to do something different. Because it is fun over there. I mean, it's fun at Volusia. I've, you know, I've done both a lot. And I, um, you're going to have to change, you're going to have to change the way you look at it and having,

you know, you need to connect. Somehow I wish the big track and those tracks could connect and ticket packages could connect and something that says, let's do both. Like, let's do them, you know, and it's got to be some way that they could become more connected and create some unique ticket opportunities. Man, absolutely. I think that could be better done across the country. Oh yeah. Like, When we go, our Darlington race weekend, I've tried to connect Darlington in Florence for the last four or five years. And it's just exhausting because the big track and the little track don't seem, they can't seem to figure out a way to help each other, support each other. But you would think, like at Darlington, you know, you got all those people sitting around there. And for a good chunk of the weekend, they've got nothing to do.

you know and wouldn't you think you'd want to send them over 10 miles to this little racetrack to watch some short track racing to get them kind of fired up and you know foaming at the mouth for what they're going to see you on Sunday you need to what so what happens is there's there's probably you and I don't know how much goes on to entertain the fans when we think there's nothing going on but he probably has a staff of people that are trying to find ways to entertain them so we like help it's nice to have all that that's the point so what is it what is it the thing that we could do. And can you run? Why don't we run shuttles? Why don't we like find a way created a ticket package? If you do this, you get a sweet pass for this night. I don't know.

Just something, something unique and different. But there has to be a, it has to be a motivation to do it. Right. And I think that's, that's the key is what do we have to do to motivate the big track and a little track to work together? Why, we, we know the advantage in a little track. What's the advantage to the big track? For sure. Do you all think fans like day races or night or the afternoon Races better. Fans like being comfortable, I think. And fans have said in the majority of fans do not know or care really if a race puts on a better show at noon or 8 o'clock at night. If it's 95 degrees at noon, they don't want to sit there in hopes that maybe the racing might be better.

Right. If it's not, you know, it's 85 or 80 degrees, it's at 8 p.m., they'd rather run it then. But so, I mean, they want to be comfortable, I think, in my opinion. Yeah. And they don't want to be in the threat of a rain shower. So if you're in, you know, if you're in Daytona, they don't want to race at 6 o'clock at night because that's when the thunderstorm's going to come through. Yeah, that's a good point.

You know, so they let us know, like, man, what the hell did y'all run it at this hour for? You know that's when it rains every day. Yeah. Yeah. It is a hard schedule. That's why we need to run rain tires. I'm with you. There has to, there's no way, I do not see a way in our future.

We're not running rain tires at every racetrack. I just, that's music in my ears. I would love it. I just don't see how. Just slow down. Ten years from now. Remember it, remember when we did the, we did the O'Reilly series race at Charlotte. And it was a damn month.

Yes. It was a deluge. They went in turns one and two, Oval one and two. And I'm like, awesome. It was fantastic. Oh, my God. I mean, there were rooster tails flying. And I'm thinking, there's no way in hell that are going to make it.

And they did. And they were safer. They were safer on the banking than they were in the flat areas of the racetrack. The occasional puddle. They'd come off, yeah, they'd come off a turn four and there'd be a pond sitting there in their little king. I always wanted a water feature on the racetrack. Yeah. That was tremendous television.

It was. I enjoyed the show. But to Dale's point, do fans also want to sit in a deluge to watch a race? Well, I would say, imagine if we could race with a wet track, okay? Even if you didn't race in the deluge. The thing about that, though, Markets, is I think there's two points. If I've sold you a ticket and it's a possibility it might rain, you still know you get to see a race. That's right.

Right. So that would be, I am sorry it's raining, but you're going to get your race. don't have to go home, miss it entirely. Panchos are cheap. I don't want it to rain, but it happens to rain. We're still going to race. You keep saying, man, if we could race on a damp track or wet track. Yeah.

That isn't what is compelling about racing in the rain. Racing in the rain is compelling when the track is in a state of getting wetter or getting drier. It's a good point. Right? And so your race at Wilkesboro, when you had them wetter. tires on at the All-Star race a couple years ago, that was interesting because they had to chase where the water was.

Right. And they'd wear their tires out, right? Yeah. And so if you're just constantly throwing water on this racetrack, you're not really, you're not really giving the guy who wants to see the rain tire and the wet track and the damp track. You're not really giving me what he's looking for

because you've got to stop watering the track. You've got to allow the track to change. Then you can, you know, What would be good is if you turned on your sprinklers and then you turned them off. And then a half hour later, you turn the damn sucker back on again. That's perfect. So we used to have go-kart races at my house. And if it got too boring, I'd go out there and throw beer on the racetrack in turn four.

Because they, you know, throwing beer on top of that, on top of that, you know, packed in hard dirt racetrack, man. they'd have to drive around it. It wasn't, it was, it was a big disadvantage to drive through it. How many cans of beer did it take? One beer. Just one. One beer took the lane, took that groove off. One beer.

Yeah. That's good. That's good to know. I am, I'm struggling not to, like, just be in hysterics right now, because I've got the mental visual in my head. We've got the, you know, the Bristol night race with the logo, and then you've got the Bristol wet race. You've got the logo, and it's blue, and it's like a drizzle, logo.

Yeah. Could be. But yeah, if you could turn on the, if you turn on your sprinklers, you've got to turn them off, allow the track, the drivers to chase the racetrack. And then when you're, when you're tired of seeing what you're seeing, you turn the sprinklers back on. That's a good idea. We're going to have Brad Moran and Elton Sawyer on the radio every week,

justifying when they go on and off. Well, what you do is you put Jimmy Spencer in a flagstand and let him do it. That's right. Oh, yeah. There you go. That race for the roval, the first roval, in the, Exfinity cars at the time. I mean, that was phenomenal to watch. I thought it was a great test

of the rain tires. Next question, this has nothing to do with racing. Matt, how many miles are on your truck and are we basing at the point where it's not going to go up anymore? Well, fun story. On the way here, it was up to

200 and 550,000 miles. Oh my cow. Yeah. Second transmission I dropped an engine in it. After the snowball derby in 2020, I grenaded an engine and dropped a $500 LS in it. On the way here today, it starts to rumble.

And I'm like, what is going on here? And I pull over and the tires are still on it. I thought I had a flat. There's a little bit of smoke, but the engine's still on. And so I drive it to the next exit. And I've got people pointing at me like, hey, I don't know what they're talking about. Like, yeah, we got a problem.

I know. And I pull over at this harbor freight, and I smoke in big time now. And the entire drive train is on fire. Oh, my gosh. I tweeted pictures of it. Go look on my Twitter. The entire drive train is on fire. I take my coffee, and I throw my coffee under the truck.

And it is sitting right now at a harbor freight parking lot. I have no idea what's going to happen to it. I've driven this truck from Alabama to North Carolina to Kansas to Kansas to Kansas. to Canada to Kansas, to the Florida Keys and Homestead. I have slept in it for over 200 nights early in my career when I was a freelancer trying to make it. I would drive to the racetrack, sleep in my truck. This truck has been so important to so many of my stories over the years, and it probably

ended on this drive to the Dale Jr. download. Don't get rid of it. Like, you got to keep it. Yeah. You got to take down to the fish camp. No, it's got to go to the graveyard. That's going to be his graveyard.

So I've known Matt for a long time, and I remember several nights. I'm like, what's up, Matt? He's, I had slept in. He, like, got to the racetrack at four or five in the morning because he was covering a race somewhere else, and he slept in his truck. And up there covering the next race. Do you love that truck? I love it dearly.

Wow. I love what's left of it. Yes, man. So you put the fire out with the coffee. I did. How many miles is on the truck? It's over 500. It's like 550.

There was a, I saw an, I saw an ad somewhere probably about three or four years ago where a manufacturer had acknowledged a customer that had 300 or 500,000 miles on their vehicle. And I was thinking and I was telling man, I'm like, man, and I'll say it again here. This is like the greatest opportunity for Chevrolet to say, hey, look at what kind of product we have created. Absolutely. This man has this many miles. Sounds like another opportunity to sell a vehicle, too. I know somebody that's got a Chevy dealership if you need their number. Yeah.

Is that truck insured? It could go through your down payment. It is. I don't know what it's worth. Its value is, but it's priceless. Priceless. Yeah. Well, Matt, congratulations on a half a million miles.

Congratulations. And I'm sorry. I mean, that's a cool story. I just feel like it's a damn hell of an opportunity for Chevrolet to jump all over this. Absolutely. I could do some really cool activations with it. It's a racetracks all around the country. That's a great idea.

Cars tour races, some NASCAR races. Basically, they could give you another truck, and you know, you're going to probably put 500 miles on that one. Drive my Chevrolet across the USA? I like it. One of the questions, I was looking on social media, and one of the questions, a ton of fans were asking about was the stage cautions. And that's been a big conversation, right, in our sport.

and what are our thoughts, I guess, about how we can reduce the time, especially during the stage cautions. One of the, you know, the stage cautions themselves take quite a while. Now, if you're unfortunate and get a caution with just a few laps to go, you not only have to run the stage out under yellow, but then you have to have, you know, the traditional stage caution. I'm sure you guys have talked about this, thought about this. What is the path forward?

Because something should, I guess NASCAR is actively looking at what opportunities and options they have to try to fix this issue because fans are becoming very vocal. I've watched a lot of races from the grandstands. I go to a lot of cup races and O'Reilly races and, you know, I sit in the grandstands a fair amount, especially for the cup races. and watch them. And I will say this. I see a lot of fans staging their beer runs and their restroom runs around those stage breaks. I watch it every week, not every week, a lot of weekends. I watch it. So I have a different perspective sitting in the grandstands in the booth and at home. I have three different perspectives. That's a good point. And so it's not all horrible, you know, because I watch it live. I watch fans. They're like, they're looking.

and they're like, let's go, you know, and like I do it a football game. I wait, you know, well, I actually don't go during the quarters because I don't want to wait in line. But I see fans at track taking advantage of those stage breaks for going to get going to concessions. At home, I'm like, good Lord, can we get this thing going? Yeah. And, you know, there's got to, we got to find a middle ground. There's got to be a way to do it quicker for sure. But not just stage breaks, every caution. Oh, yeah.

There's only two stage breaks a race. every caution needs to be quick sped up. So the easiest one is the control caution, but getting the tracks cleaned up faster, rolling stuff quicker, all of that stuff, the cautions last just in a really, really long time.

Yeah. It's really important that we, I'll put it this way, our best commercial is the actual race broadcast, and there are just too many times where we have a caution before the stage break, and then we re-rack them, and there's another caution.

And before you know, we've lost 50 minutes of TV time in which we're telling people, go do something else, change the channel, watch the football game, watch the baseball game. And I appreciate giving people at the racetrack a time to go, use the bathroom, but we cannot tell people to go do something else. And I don't know what the answer is. To your point, Jeff, we've got to figure out a way to clean up all the caution times. And I don't know if those are more quicky cautions. There's a lot going on.

And I recognize that Tim Berman has a lot of things going on upstairs, and it's not as simple as waving the magic wand and say, make this a quickie caution. But I just do not want to hold our fans hostage. You know, look, you also have to remember how we got here. You know, having less cars on pit road extends it, right? That's a lap. And you say that, you know, at Daytona, at roadcourses at Charlotte,

adding a lap to separate the cars so you don't have so many on pit road. I mean, that on top of collecting the cars, it starts to add up. But you also have to remember that some of the length of the cautions is out of necessity, you know, trying to keep not as many cars on pit road. And then I've been in the tower watching those guys roll safety cars. And it's, it is a complicated thing. The actual cleaning up of the mess, whatever that is, the oil getting the car off the racetrack, that has to be looked at and how to do it quicker. There's no, there's no question. How they roll the vehicles and all that.

I mean, I don't know how they could do that any different because it's, it is a, it is an orchestrated thing. You got to get the car slowed down. You can't send rescue guys out there until all that's collected. Some of it is just it is what it is. But different technology and clean up, different technology and picking cars up. I think all that has to be looked at. how do you expedite the stage cautions, make that happen quicker?

I think it all has to be looked at, but just shortening up stage cautions isn't going to fix the problem. That's the, because stage cautions are controversial, that's what everybody focuses on. But you can't fix those two cautions unless it's the connection of a caution and then a stage caution. You can't fix just the stage cautions and think you're going to have an impact on what you're really trying to fix. It has to be bigger than that.

I think also that, you know, NASCAR has a lot on their plate. You know, one of the big factors in this, the old saying of perfection is the enemy of progress. And there is very little tolerance for imperfection, right, in the sport overall. And I think that NASCAR tries to get the track perfect because the competitors want the track perfect into something. Yeah, used to not.

Yeah. In the 80s, you'd go back to green with speedy dry everywhere. Sure. Yeah. And let the cars go to get the speedy dry off the track, right? Trust me, it's not slippery. And, but I think we need to pull back a little bit on the perfection demand and focus on racing. Yeah.

So that, you know, the, I think that can happen. I think there's two levers that they could probably consider pulling. And one of them would be that if a caution company. comes out prior to the end of the stage, that's the end of the stage. I know that there's some reason why they haven't done that. But I think that that's a logical thing that they need to, they're probably already looking at. The other one is the racing, talking about lead lap cars, lap down cars, that has evolved quite a bit in the last 10 to 15 years.

We don't have a lot of attrition. We don't have a lot of cars a lap down. Is it time to reconsider whether we just don't split the field or if you're a lap down, you're pitting one to go? You know, you're, and you could do that. You wouldn't do that at Wilkesboro, but at a large majority of our tracks with these, you know, very, very fast pit stops that we have with these cars now, you know, your 10 or 12 lap down cars are pitting on the one to go and getting back out on the racetrack, getting called up,

back in order. Yeah. And that's one lap. That's great point. that you'd remove from all yellows. The other thing that's interesting in this conversation is NASCAR throws less cautions now than it used to. They do. I'm not saying the number, but there's events that happen on the racetrack now that they used to throw a caution and they don't, they don't throw it.

And so what if they... And we need to bring that back. Well, on the road courses, it definitely needs it. But the, you know, what if NASCAR threw the cautions like they used to? I mean, they don't, I mean, then the races would be even that much longer. I mean, they have, it is wild watching some of the rate that, you know, but they've been, as long as they're consistent with it, I don't care. And they, for the most part, have been pretty consistent with it.

And, you know, that helps with the, that helps with the pace of the race as well. And if you're the guy that wants that caution thrown, it isn't good for you. But, you know, you have to factor that in. Well, caution laps aren't fun to watch, right? But restarts are fun to watch. Yeah. And I think if we can shorten up the amount of laps under caution, then you're a little more free to throw the,

caution flag when you see a on a road course a spin out that could that could stand a caution flag. One small thing I think they could do immediately is when I went to Hampton or Langley for the Hampton Heat 200, there was a competition caution scheduled for lap 100. Caution came out on lap 97. Danny Willard, the race director, made the executive decision to make lap 97 the halfway break. and then they just started the second segment at lap 97. So maybe if there's a caution within five to seven laps of the stage break, you just make that the stage break and then you roll right into the second stage. Yeah, for sure.

The next thing I wanted to ask is Steve O'Donnell talked about growing NASCAR internationally. What do you guys think that that means? What's realistic? Where can NASCAR go race? Not an exhibition. Where can NASCAR go? You know, we've been to Mexico. Canada, Mexico, have been done.

Hawaii would be fun. I think there's a racetrack in Maui. I don't know, man. That'd be cool. It's probably like a half mile. A little half mile. Indycar was going to do the million dollar pre in the 90s at some point. I forget what the downfalls of that were.

That was well before my time. They wanted to do a downtown street race somewhere in Hawaii that I I can't even imagine would be practical in today's Hawaii, but you never know. Canada, Canada to me is the, that's the easy one. Yeah. You know, because there are a ton of race fans in Canada. Oh, yeah. We've been there and done it, and it was very successful.

I think, I think for me, that's the entry point is to go to Canada. I don't, I'll be honest with you. I'm not as worldly enough to really understand, like, what is the, what would be the fascination to go to somewhere to run a, you know, to go to spa or somewhere and run a cup race. I just don't know. I just don't know. Canada, not Canada, Japan. We went to Japan. I didn't go to the road courses. I think you and I ran the oval. And it wasn't that many people there. I mean, it wasn't that big of a deal. It'd be cool to try it again, though. It would. I think it would. Again, you can't be afraid to fail. And we shouldn't be afraid to try things.

There is so much synergy right now between NASCAR and supercars, and I think these fan bases are starting to kind of coalesce a little bit. And I know that ODs went there when developing the next-gen car. Tons of racetracks, tons of racing culture. Maybe that's the next frontier. Australia, New Zealand. That'd be fun. I think it'd be cool to have an ice race somewhere.

It would be. You're not serious. I am serious. You can be amazing. I may have going to spray water in his race. race jack you know ice is in the sprint cars the sprint cars on ice is a series and it's in michigan and wisconsin and december in january they run four 10 marrard would make a return amazing for 10 sprint cars on ice on the lakes oh wow pa paul rannard ran some ice racing

didn't he i think so yeah i mean maybe that's an exhibition you could do in January you know i don't want an exhibition well i'm just talking about some fun stuff let's go run the real deal You want to go to Japan? I've been dying to go back to Japan. How did you get all the cars over there? Was it a big jumbo jet load all the cars in? Loaded them up in crates. Crates and shipped them.

Yeah, just like the F1 guys do. That'd be so cool. I think we actually put them on ships. Oh, on ships. Yeah, yeah. But when was that race? It was the end of the year. We filled the boxes up in...

Six months ahead of time. Yeah, June or something. We filled the boxes up. Like December. Yeah. Yeah, the race is in the wintertime. So it was an exhibition. It was, for sure.

Yeah. The NASCAR Canada series has a race in Newfoundland. And so they actually have to drive their cars. Their teams are based out of either Toronto, Ontario, or Quebec. And they drive the cars to the lake in, I guess it would be eastern Canada. And they put them in this big old boat. And all the teams are in the suites. And they take them across the bay to Newfoundland.

Pretty cool. Cool. Well, I wonder what they're thinking about where they could go. And I wonder how ambitious they would be. It would be quite a undertaking. I mean, flying, shipping, all that good stuff. It would be quite a bit. It's easier now, though, because, you know, you need less backup cars. You need, hell, we went to Japan. We didn't have backup cars. No. I know that because I drove in turn three first lap out and I almost ended our week. Wow. We had, you know, but it was an exhibition race.

But with today's car, you know, you would need as many, you know, take a few backup cars and decal them there. And it could be a, you could have a real point race, actually. Do you think that, I mean, real point race, but is it possible to do this in the season or does it have to be, you know, in December? January. We had a good partner, FedEx or somebody, and we could load cargo planes up. That's the interesting thing I think about Australia is that their summer is in our winter. And so, you know, if you went and race there and at the end of November or in January, whether it would be fantastic. Or in August when it's going to rain on the afternoon show here, maybe you go over there if you got a two-week break, but I don't know.

Fantastic. I went to Australia in 06 and went to Phillip Island for the supercar race. It was really good. Great culture. Really, really. Racing culture there is freaking awesome. Oh, yeah. That was a cool thing about Japan is the culture in Japan.

You said you wanted to go back. That is amazing experience. Yeah. Yeah, very cool. I wanted to go back because I didn't enjoy or I didn't know what I was, I didn't know to enjoy that trip in 99. That was too stupid and young. I agree.

I just want to get the hell out of there. Let's get this done and go home. I didn't want to go. Mike Hilton told me I didn't have a choice. But yeah, it was, you're exactly right. You get just so focused on your stuff. But later in life, you realize it's been pretty cool to take a little more time and enjoy that. My dad always said youth is wasted on the young.

That's right. We've got to learn from that. So just quickly on this last little subject, NASCAR, Chicago, Chicago, Land, Street Course, all that goodness. Probably about three or four months ago, even leading into Chicago Land, there was conversation that the street course may come back. I had always felt like there was no way they could coexist, no way you could have both Chicago Land and the street course in the same schedule.

but NASCAR said absolutely it could happen. But then recently, I guess in the last week or so, they've hit a snag with local officials in terms of funding and so forth to be able to put the street course back on. What are your thoughts? It could definitely happen. Huge market. You know, people drive a few hours and you could do both for sure.

I don't know what the status is. I'm so, no, I've heard a little bit that there's some financial, back and forth that needs to be sorted out. I'll just speak to the desire to. I love street course racing. I remember I would make a point to in previous years. I would go to the NASCAR Canada series races at Montreal and in Toronto, because I thought that racing in front of that downtown environment was the coolest thing in the world.

And as much as I love that, I love the racing product. I also don't want to stray too far away from who is. are from our identity standpoint. I don't want to lose Chicagoland to go to downtown Chicago. I don't want to lose Auto Club to try to go race in Long Beach, which was kind of the idea. I like having one or two of these a year, but I do not want to lose Kentucky. I don't want to lose Joliet. And so it's very important to me, just as a racing enthusiast, that we're still fundamentally

NASCAR. And that doesn't mean going the IndyCar route where. the fastest sport on earth largely goes 35 miles per hour at a different parking lot every week. Yeah. The advantage, the massive advantage of the street course that gives us a chance to be places we otherwise wouldn't be. Yeah. The cost to build a racetrack is immense. And if you can go to a place where we otherwise wouldn't be, I think that's a good thing.

But I agree with you. I think that's a limited basis. We have to have a core. We have to be who we are. You have to have a foundation in order to have a foundation in order to have to have a good thing. these other things, you know, happening. I view, I view Chicago land speedway and the street course in Chicago, much the way I, the way I view the Roval and the Oval, is that you have them, if you have them both there, you take advantage of them at the appropriate time. And so, like,

the Roeville to me was a great opportunity to try something new. It created some excitement. And then the Oval became such a great race. You're like, hell, let's go do that again, right? So, but you still have that flexibility to do both, depending on what the environment is. So I think you could look at Chicago the same way, as long as you have a local government that's willing to play. And, you know, the city wants us there. You could, you could do both, but not necessarily on the same year. I think that creates opportunity.

I like the idea of the street course moving into a brand new market. Right. And when, you know, you can't do a one-year deal, the city, NASCAR, car, they're all going to want two, three-year deals. So we understand that. If we go somewhere, we're going to be there a couple of years in a row. So that's understandable. But I don't know, I don't, I would rather not go back to Chicago Street out and forego the opportunity to be somewhere brand new, right? I would say, I mean, just from a, like San Diego was freaking amazing. Yeah. Right. And that's a great example.

But Harvick had a great point on his podcast where he's like, it was amazing because we'd never seen it before. We do it the second and a third time. It's going to continue, just like the Coliseum, it's going to continue. And I think we're beyond that point with Chicago Street course. Now, would people turn out? Would people come see it? There's a ton of shit to do inside the racetrack. There's all kinds of third-party vendors at Chicago Street. It's pretty awesome property during the race weekend to meander about. But I hate the idea that we where else could we be and why can't we go be there? Well, the nice thing about a street course is it's all temporary.

And the terrible thing about a street course is that it's all temporary is it is very expensive to put on a street race. Most all of them are big time money losers. And so it's a huge investment by NASCAR to go into a market like San Diego or Chicago and have a street course. So the infrastructure kind of part of it really doesn't, you don't have to go back three years in a row because you don't have, you don't have anything you built. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you could go to various cities, a new street course potentially every season if that was logistically, you know, plausible with planning and everything else. That would be fun. Well, I mean, it may be something that NASCAR could work on, but, you know, racetracks are, you know, viable places where you can race that year after year because you put a lot of money in up front and you work on the infrastructure over time.

But those street courses, we wouldn't want a ton of them like you were saying, Matt, because before you know it, you don't have a place to race. If somebody decides, I don't want to keep losing money on this event. It creates opportunity. I went to Tampa, St. Pete, this spring, and I was blown away at that event that the fans, like it hasn't lost, it hasn't lost its luster for being there for several years. It's still full of energy and excitement. So, yeah, I think, I think, I'm with you. I actually think we do too many road course races now.

I think, you know, I just think we have too many of them. but ultimately if we can go, I've said this for, I think, my whole life, I don't think we need to run as many races as possible. I think we need to be as many places as possible. Because I think the more people know our drivers and the more people know our crew chiefs and more people watch our racing,

the more fans will have. Like we, their best commercial is the event. And the more events we can put on and the more people we can put in front of, I think the better we are. To your point, I want us to go to the Pacific Northwest, Western Canada, Colorado, wherever there's not a racetrack or a racing market to serve those fans and create new ones.

I think that's the best version of a rotating street course race is to be able to take our show to places where the people want it or people don't even realize they want it yet. Yeah. Xfinity's waving the red flag. on internet price hikes and raising the green flag on savings. You get the speed and the reliable Wi-Fi you need locked in in one price for five years, no surprises, no late yellows,

straight to Victory Lane. Just like that, folks, we've got a winner. Finney, imagine that. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, it's time for Dirtymodeau. The segment is brought to you by Fanduel. Me and Travis are going to cover all of the favorites

going into this weekend's race at Iowa. we've had an off week and surprise surprise going into Iowa Denny Hamlin is still the favorite he's followed by Christopher Bell Blaney Larson Byron and another Larson oh Ligano typo yeah all right well I was going to tell you I like the Ligano pick because he's finished in the top 10 in the last three races including his North Walesboro win he's finished in the top 10 and last seven short track races the longest streak. Iowa isn't a short track. It's close. It's not quite a short track. Short tracks are a half mile. Right? Yeah. So it's not, unfortunately. And, you know, if you want to call it a short track,

that's up to you, but I won't believe much else you say. Yeah, I feel like this could be a big weekend for Penske. Yeah. You know, Blaney's right on Redick's heels. Yeah. Lugano's all of a sudden up to 13th and another big weekend can move up more. Ligano is finished in the top 10 in both Iowa races. Obviously Blaney's hot as well. One Iowa in 24 finished fourth last year.

His worst finished in the last 14 short track races is 11th. He's only one finish worse than 11th in the last 12 races of 2026. Larson. What do you make of him? It's cold. All right. Obviously, everybody's making a lot of the 46 race winless streak. I'm going to tell you right now, all the amazing great drivers have a winless streak.

I know that I didn't really, if you go back and listen to the 10 races that we did, that I was working with the networks, I don't think I mentioned his winless streak once. All the greats are going to have a winless streak. And there's a lot of factors that play into that. you know, when a team gets cold, organization gets a little cold, maybe there's a change in engineer or, you know, which is critical these days.

You wouldn't think engineer would be a big factor 20 years ago, but if you ain't got a good engineer on your team, not that their engineer is probably fine. I'm just saying. There's a lot of factors. That five team did have a lot of change with their engineers in the off season, though. But looking at, you know, he's finished off the lead lap in the last four races. There's been some issues and reasons for that,

and he has a 31st place average finish at Iowa. His best finish was 28th last year. I don't know. You know what I mean? He could go in there and run okay. I just, when it comes to putting money on him, I don't think I would. I wouldn't put money on a Hendrick driver right now.

Like, they're just, I don't know. One driver not listed in our favorites was Tyler Redick. He has a 21st place average finish at Iowa with no top tens. He's only one top 10 finish in the last. He has only one top 10 finish in the last. He has only one top 10 finish in the last 11 short track races. One top 10 finish in the last 11. And we don't run, but two short tracks a year.

So, I mean, for a, you know, there's probably one more in there. He's not had a good run on a short track in quite a while. Like, this is a long stretch. He has only three top 10 finishes in the last eight races. They're just struggling as a team. A lot of weird stuff going on. Yeah, stuff that is out of his control. So Reddick, we didn't mention him, and that's the reason.

I'm told the 45 team believes there's just some bad juju going around ever since they burnt a shirt out in the parking lot the other day, a Denny Hamlin shirt that their car chief had to wear. Man, well, all right, to reiterate the favorites Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell, Blaney Larson, Byron, Ligano. I'd take Larson, slide him. down that list. That's a lot of

Byron down that list as well. I like Blaney. I like Legano. I like C. Bell and Denny Hamlin. A couple of sleepers, Brad Casalowski finished in the top ten in the last two races of 2026. He's finished in the top 10 in both Iowa races. He's finished in the top 10 in four

of the last seven short track races. Minus 120 for top 10. Yeah. And I know that I said Iowa's not a short track, but this the way this car works, arrow-wide, you know, the larger the track, the more competitive manufacturers tend to be. If you get a mile and a half out there, you got the Toyota's advantage grows.

Now, you know, and then you have the Chevroletes and then the Ford's maybe. We go to Wilkesboro, one of the smaller racetracks, and the Ford's ran fine, you know, because Arrow's not quite as critical. It's still important. Not quite as critical. So we're going to, you know, I don't know, this is a fifth, five-eighths or a three-quarter-mile race track. So we're closer to that short track sort of configuration where you could see a Blaney or Ligano getting the win. Another sleeper is Josevar.

He has an average finish of 11th at Iowa with his best finish of eighth last year. They're a better team this year than they were last year. His five top fives in 2026 there is most in a season, while his nine top tens are tied for his most in a season. That stat is pretty useless for this, for this particular day. But I just think, Hosevar is a short tracker,

you know, still races at Berlin and all kinds of places. And I just feel like they'll go out there and they'll be competitive. I agree. And you get plus money for Hosefar our top 10, I bet that. I'd do that too.

We always love to do the top 10 bet. and Hosevar and Brad would be an interesting combo if you wanted to put two drivers together. Yeah. It'd be a big risk. Just not sure Brad can get in the top ten. It's going to be eighth. It's going to be ninth if he does it, right?

Or very easily 12th or 13. Yeah, yeah, just enough to piss you off. So, but yeah, Brad and Hosevar would be sleepers for me to get a top ten, possibly a, you know, six, seventh, fifth place finish. That'd be a big day for Brad Kislauski. He's just had a tough year. Yep. All right, that's the Dirty Mo Doe segments brought to you by Fandul,

the premier gaming destination in the United States. All right, everybody, that's the show. We'll see you tomorrow for our guest segment. Thanks for joining us here in the Arby's studio. And don't forget about Arby's new meat in three box. You get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meets. We'll see you.

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