The Dale Jr. Download - Never Had A Better Shot
Episode Date: November 4, 2025The NASCAR season has officially wrapped, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the studio to put a bow on the year with a new episode of Dirty Air. He joins co-host TJ Majors to discuss the excitement, h...ard racing and heartbreak that unfolded in Phoenix: Dale and JR Motorsports deal with the loss in the Xfinity ChampionshipConnor Zilisch has so many memories ahead of himJesse Love performed and earned his championshipThe world feels heartbroken for Denny HamlinThis is the send off for this Playoffs formatDo not blame Goodyear for what happened on SundayBrad Keselowski speaks on the Big Three domination in CupNASCAR loosening restrictions on Cup drivers competing in O’Reilly and Truck SeriesDuring the Ask Jr. segment of the episode, listeners wrote in questions regarding:What to place bets on now that the NASCAR season is overThe Commanders defeat on Sunday nightUsing virtual reality in iRacingGetting too mad while playing video gamesBest Thanksgiving side dishesFuture Jerky Boys flavorsAnd for more on Dale's Lionel collection and more check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaReal fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.👇https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/Consumer Cellular: New customers get a $5 credit on first five monthly invoices. Visit https://savings.consumercellular.com/DJD for details. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
We've had this format for a while.
It's done this before, too.
But I've never walked, I've never walked, it's done this before, but I've never walked out of there going,
dude.
That was, that was way, egregious.
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.
Do that piss you off over the weekend?
I'm still sour that I wasn't the best man at your wedding.
Who was your best man, Dale?
T.J.
You don't need a cool vest for that race?
What are you thinking?
Get them, DJ.
Hellway is starting a show.
All right then.
Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download.
Feels like it's taking forever, TJ, for us to get back in this studio.
It does feel like a long time.
Yeah, I mean, it's Tuesday, but I don't know why this week or the time between the last show has felt like a month.
Just a ton of stuff is going on
But let's dive right into it
This week's dirty air segment
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Where in the hell do we start?
Holy shit
Should we start with trucks and work our way up?
Man, my mind is twisted
So I knew that
It's been a, well, more so than normal.
This has been a tough couple of days.
We got, you know, we got our heartbroken, broken in Phoenix on Saturday night.
Then we had to watch the Sunday race, and that was hard to watch.
And then Sunday night, Sunday night football, Jaden Daniels,
This locates his elbow.
I mean, the hits just keep coming for me as a sports fan.
That was a tough, little 48-hour span.
Did you see it was like same team, same yard line, same draft?
Yeah, against Seattle, pretty much the same yard line.
I know.
We're talking about the RG3 injury.
Yeah, there's, you know, there's a weird, also, you know, Alex
Smith got injured and there was a weird.
There was, yeah, like numerical fricking funk about that and I think maybe the Joe Seisman injury
or something.
There was, yeah, it's weird.
But, yeah, I don't like to learn about shit like that because I like to think that there's
some sort of mysterious, you know, sort of puppeteer or Wizard of Oz behind the curtain
running all this whole show.
But anyways, listen, man, I'm telling you my head.
is spun out.
This weekend there was a lot of not expected.
Yeah, and first off, I think there's a million ways we could go here.
The Xfinity race happens, and I took Amy with me.
She wasn't going to go.
She was just going to get a commercial ticket and come to the banquet if we happened to win the championship.
And I brought it with me.
And I was like, come on, man, it would be fun.
We win the championship.
We stay out there a couple days.
We'll have some great dinners.
We'll check out Phoenix.
We don't never, you know, we're going to go hiking.
Dude, we pack some drinking hiking cheese and shit.
So this was, I was, she was there, race is over.
She was standing there like, holy shit.
You know, I can't believe, we're watching the last several laps on Raval in front of us.
And she's like, dang.
And I'm like, yeah, this is it.
I mean, race ends.
And I said, honey, we're going to, I'm going to walk.
Amy's feed or.
are blistered to shit at this point because I made her, we start the race.
The race is getting ready to start.
And I said, honey, I'm going to go sit on the eight box.
Let's go sit over there.
So we walked the entire length of pit road.
She's like, dude.
I was like, I know.
I'm sorry.
It's too far.
But I was like.
Sammy was back on the back stretch or something.
Yeah.
So she's got blisters all over her feet by the time the race is over with.
And I was like, hey, we're going to walk down pit road.
And we just got to go to each driver, you know, talk to them, kind of, you know.
Do your thing, yeah.
Yeah, we can't leave, we can't just go to the plane and leave.
We've got a couple things we've got to do to finish up.
No problem.
Go do that and then kind of getting ready to get out of there and got interviewed on Pit Road.
And the feeling that I had after that race, and this is, it was heartbreaking.
You know, Connor was crying.
Justin seemed like he was emotionally upset as well.
which I was a bit surprised.
I walked up to Justin and I said, man, ain't you glad we won the championship last year?
I mean, you're thinking, my reaction in moments like that is to try to find some silver lining,
try to find some positives, right?
Try to think about, I can't, I don't want to cry.
I don't want to drown in my sorrows.
I don't, I don't, I want that good, I want that to go away.
I don't, the feeling that I had of being heartbroken, hung on, and it still.
bothering me today and I want it to go away.
So I'm thinking about like, all right, well, I want, what can make me feel better?
Well, going back, going to the shop, being at the shop on Monday, start preparing for the next season.
That'll make me feel better.
When the race ends, you go up and you tell these guys like, hey, you know, I told Justin, I said,
aren't you glad you won it last year?
We're not sitting here, you know, we're not sitting here crying over the fact that we've not won one ever.
we're just crying because we lost one that we might have we had a shot at but we still got that
trophy at home you're still a champion and you go over to connor and you go man and i and i always
i'm sorry i'm rambling but i always go listen i had the worst day that you could imagine at a
racetrack losing my dad and i hate to you i hate to hate to bring that up as as as as an example but
I tell people, no matter what happens at the racetrack, and for Connor, too, that what he experienced that Saturday night is not going to be the worst day he's had at a racetrack.
There will be other, I've experienced some bad days, and there'll be other things that happen in his career.
There'll be successes and failures, and this stings and this hurts, and this feels like the worst day that you've had at a racetrack, but it won't be.
and you know you'll be you'll be able to at some point
kind of come to terms with it you won't love it
it won't never you won't never be bothered
you won't never not be bothered by it
there's races that I still pop up in my mind today
where I go and I'll I'll spend 15 minutes daydreaming
about what I should have done to fix it or do do a better job
and have you know to have won so I mean he's going to do that
he's going to you know this might pop up in his mind 10 years down the road
and he'll freaking have a moment and get all upset about it
and wonder what he could have done or should have done or whatever.
But it ain't as bad as it felt.
It's not the worst day.
And he'll, you know, we go, we get the race next year together.
It's a, there's also, you know, I think about it like that.
I don't know if that's right or wrong, and maybe that's extreme,
but I just try to, you know, I just try to think, I say it to myself,
you know, hey, this ain't the worst thing this ever happened at the racetrack and it won't be.
And for him, like, he's going to have, he's got this whole career in front of him of, you know,
disappointment, successes.
Moments, just moments and everything.
Yes, I mean, this is, this is going to, this will fall into a shuffled deck of cards full of good and bad moments.
if he has this, you know, long career.
I've been sitting here for the last couple of days thinking about this show
and thinking about, like, this is where I'm going to sit down and have these.
I've not had any conversations with anybody about that.
And so, you know, my mind's going a million mile an hour.
And I've got all this stuff kind of pent up.
But, man, it was heartbreaking.
With all of that said, I paused to say anything.
that's damaging to the legitimacy of the championship
or doing anything that might take away,
or I wouldn't want to say anything on this show
that would rub Jesse Love the wrong way,
RCR the wrong way,
Danny Lawrence the wrong way,
all these people that are part of that program,
there's people that are at RCR,
they're like family to me.
that when we see each other, we tell each other we love each other.
You know, there's people over there that I really have very close relationships with that, you know, even though we, we grind each other's gears during the season, boy, I want to beat them.
They want to beat us.
And even though we're Chevrolet and we share information, we do.
We share information through Chevrolet.
We still are very competitive with each other.
as frustrating as it is to lose having three teams against one, they won.
And the race played out naturally.
And the two was fast from the moment they unloaded.
And they had a, you know, the car was a little bit off on the first stage, but they dialed it in.
And they had amazing pit stops.
Ridiculous.
Yeah.
I mean, they were doing four lugs, maybe three on the lefts.
But, hey, as long as they got all the lugs on the car at the end of the race, I mean, it's, it's, it's,
They call it fair.
They took advantage of every single corner and anywhere they could cut and gain an advantage they did.
And, hey, I can't take anything away from them.
It wasn't a fluke.
They ran great all night.
They passed us.
Yeah, I was going to say, it made a pass.
Drove by and won the race.
Had the faster car at the end when it counted.
And so under the current format that we ran, this.
year they did it I don't know what more you could ask for they did it and and so
Jesse Love they'll celebrate tonight he's he's the champion he was sitting at
this table and I said man you might win it and if you do you'll represent the
series well and we'll all you know regardless of the great season that Connor had
we're all going to embrace whatever the outcome is I told myself I would and so
yeah I mean I could be bitter about it but that's not going to
change it change much what I can do is again like what we can do as a team as an organization
is coming to this shop there were people here Sunday we race Saturday night there were people
at this shop on Sunday getting ready for next year I was here Monday there were people here
Monday business as usual in meetings talking about what we needed to do what we saw over the
weekend what we need you know just thinking talking it through getting better Adam wall was
here from the 17 car upstairs in a conference room in a meeting with all other crew chiefs and that to
me is how you how you put it behind you how do you put it behind you get back get your ass back in
the grind grinder and go again and so you know been doing this stuff a long time and the best
recipe or remedy or medicine to getting your ass kicked is getting back in the ring and that's
what we're going to do i'm excited to
about next year.
We've got a lot of things that we're going to kind of move the furniture around in the
room and change some of the pieces on the chess board, so to speak, to try to be in a
better spot and get everybody happy.
And we, you know, through some things that we're going to do, we're going to have four
drivers, hopefully, racing for a championship at the end of the year next year.
Three drivers in the final four is pretty solid.
I'm just, I'm excited that we're going to have.
have four drivers going for an opportunity to race for a championship.
We'll have to see what the format is.
I had an opportunity just by chance to exit the racetrack Saturday night
with O'Donnell walking through the cup garage as the two team were celebrating their championship.
And I said, hey, you know, Steve, I was like, you know, a lot of people talking about the cup stuff.
We know that's probably coming in terms of a change to the format.
But nobody ever says anything about the Xfinity or truck.
And I guess we're all just assuming that whatever happens to CUP, something similar will happen.
And he's like, yeah, something very similar will happen.
I never thought about that.
But, yeah, they never confirmed.
I know.
And I think we're, because we're all so Uber focused on the CUP that we just, we don't even, we just assume Xfinity or truck follows suit.
And it will.
that's a good assumption.
So whatever the format is, you know, we'll hopefully have four drivers in the mix are going for it.
I'm excited about that.
But man, you know, hey, we packed our shit.
We packed a tux.
We packed extra clothes.
We got sent to f*** home.
I don't, you know.
And it's happened before.
And, you know, it's.
I don't want to make any excuses.
You know, we, we, we, we, there is no, there's no detriment to having three cars versus one.
If, you know, if you, you think if you got three cars, you got a better shot, right?
You know, but, you know, and we got to do a better, I think if there's one thing, we as a team can do a better job, if ever, given that opportunity to have, have multiple cars in the mix.
late in the season, we as a team can do a better job of working together and allowing ourselves
and all of us to have a better opportunity.
We got beat by the two car, but we could do a better job in this building,
giving ourselves a better chance.
And so there's some things that I think, you know, we didn't lose this because, I don't want to take away from Jesse Love,
but we didn't lose this because of something that, you know, happened out of our control.
It was in our control.
The ball was in our hands.
We were at the fucking goal line.
Right?
So it's on us.
And we're starting right now on how to make sure in the next season we punch it through for the touchdown.
And so that's all I mean, what else?
What else we got about the Xfinity race?
Is there anything I didn't cover?
No.
I don't want to leave anything on the table, man.
I'm happy to talk about anything.
But I mean, because there's so much shit that's happened.
over the last couple of days.
I almost, I've lost sort of,
I've lost sort of my train of thought
in terms of how that all went down.
Hey, we can talk about Corey Heim, the favorite there.
Hey, I'm glad Corey Heim got his title.
Yeah.
You know what?
It's funny because is there, is there,
I was talking to some people,
is there an idea that Corey Heim's,
is there a,
difference between
Corey's season and Connors?
Because a lot of people were saying, man,
you know, Connor lost his.
But boy, if Corey had a loss,
when that would have been something,
I almost felt like they were the same.
You know, Corey had 11, 12 wins, whatever.
Very similar seasons.
Connor had a very similar season.
I thought, I just heard some people say
that maybe if Haim had lost,
it would have been more egregious
or the most, the biggest,
upset or i mean i think that's fair but i don't think it's that much different i thought they were
very similar yeah yeah yeah i thought it's very similar corey dominated the trucks and and connor
you know obviously dominate a lot of infinity yeah yeah um we didn't mention cars and quaple much in
in all of this uh i stood in his pit for the last stage um they just struggled all night trying to
find how to, he had a good run in the first stage.
TJ, you were spotting.
First state was great, yeah.
Made changes we made or the track went away or we just didn't keep up with it.
I don't know, but the car got worse and worse as the night went on.
I'm just looking forward.
Overstreet is a crew chief on that car.
I believe in Overstreet, and he'll be crew chiefing a car here out of this shop next season.
I think he can do it.
I don't think that him and Carson are the right combination.
but I believe both of them can succeed at what they want to do.
Carson is going to be paired with Rodney Childers next year.
I can't wait to see Rodney Childers at the racetrack,
crew chiefing a junior motorsports car.
I don't care who's driving it.
That's exciting.
So I'm looking forward to that.
We'll see what Magic Rodney's got.
I'm sure with all the resources we have and all of our current crew chiefs,
and the knowledge they have.
He's going to be able to truly pick and pull from all these different various parts and pieces
and knowledge to go to the racetrack and have something relatively competitive for the drivers
that get behind the wheel of his cars.
One thing that's sort of been kind of talked about, Carson, Quaple, full-time.
We made that announcement that he would be driving in every race next year.
And yes, he'll be driving junior motorsports.
cars.
And we do have a fifth entry here.
A lot of people are like, wow, he's going to be driving junior
motorsports cars.
They're going to, what, build cars and send them to other,
you know, other teams and all that.
You know, people forget, we've got a fifth car here.
Like, there's ways to kind of move parts and pieces around
and people around and drivers around and get everything we need done,
done.
And a lot of people are going to ask, well, why doesn't, you know,
if you're going to do that, why wouldn't you just put Carson in one full time?
and then just move Connor to the fifth car.
But we have contracts and agreements, and we can't.
We just can't.
And so, you know, it's still going to work out.
We're still going to have a great year.
We're going to have a lot of fun.
And we're going to get to do everything we want.
And kind of have our cake and eat it too kind of thing.
Yo, T.J.
See you've been walking around with a new phone.
Where did you get that new phone?
Yeah, man, I love this phone.
I recently joined a consumer seller family.
and they hooked me up, man.
I got a great new phone, and the service is awesome.
That's great, but, like, how's it at Iowa or Richmond and some of these other tracks?
Because it's great when you're at home, but, like, when I'm on the road, my phone is crap.
You know, I travel a lot with the RFK-6 team, and I have had nothing but success with this phone.
I've actually, it has bailed me out numerous times now.
I was able to flip the hotspot on and use some internet on it, text calls, everything, man.
I could not be happier with this phone.
All right, so, but how do I go about to get this?
Because I don't have time.
I'm not trying to go stay in line at a store.
Wait, grab a number, wait 30 minutes.
Like, I just don't have time for that.
That's the easiest part, man.
Just call their 100% U.S.-based customer service representatives,
and in about 20 minutes, you'll be good to go.
I chose the $2 for $60 plan.
It's not a prepaid option.
They helped me decide which one was best for me,
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dot dirtymodea.com. We're always adding new stuff all the time, especially like when we say something
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We're going to move on to the cup race. I wear a ton of half.
hats in this whole thing.
I wear a broadcaster hat when I'm a broadcaster.
But when I'm not broadcasting, I don't, I don't openly, I don't really outwardly
and openly, especially on this show, like talk about who I'm pulling for, talk about what
I want to happen or who I'm, who my favorite is.
You know, we'll do some things when we're doing Dirty Mo Doe and stuff like that.
But I'm not going bullshit.
I wanted to hinder it motorsports to be the champions.
Rick's my friend.
I got a lot of friends over there.
We have an alliance here, you know,
or a relationship through Juniper Motorsport.
You're tied to a lot over there.
Yeah, man.
So, yes, I'm pulling for HMS to pull it off.
And they did, and I was happy for them.
But I,
and and I don't, I'm telling you, man, I don't know, I don't know how to feel about all this that happened Sunday.
And I know, you know, I know it's tough for you, Travis, as a, you know, one of, one of Denny's biggest, you know, you're a friend and a, and, and certainly want to pull for him and see him do well.
Denny
Denny has
Denny's
last couple of years have been really
intriguing
the perception of Denny
the
he's as good as he's ever been
he's absolutely
kick-ass behind the wheel
he's winning races
every year
going to the racetrack one of the best cars
gets out
gives you that sound bite
talk shit, likes to do it, and he'll get out of the car and say, man, I'm just, and he, not in
some many words, but he's like, man, I'm just fucking with him. They want to fuck with me. I'm
going to fuck with him. It's all good. We can give and take. It's a, he's a, he's a villain,
anti-hero, but one that fans can, can respect. They're starting to understand him,
so they're able to respect him. I think prior they just hated him. I doubt they are
understanding him.
So, I mean, I kind of know what Travis is saying.
Denny will tell you, he's the most misunderstood guy.
But they understand like he's doing this.
They know what, yeah, they know what it is.
They know what the stick is.
Yeah, they know what it is.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, I agree with that.
He said a lot of things on his show on Sunday nights that I think people have related
to that.
Yeah.
Well, look, he's, I think that his, there's a lot there.
He gets out of the car and says, fun, and funny shit.
And the fans eat it up.
and the haters hate it more
and his fans love it
they love the attitude
which is great
it is great personality
it's perfect and it's turned him into
you know a real
he was already well known
already a star
but it's really elevated him
into a new plateau
of
of you know of superstar
and and so forth
I gotta give him
And it wasn't, I don't know that it was like a calculated thing.
It's just like, hey man, he got to the point in his career.
He's kind of like, you know what, fuck it.
I'm just going to be me.
And I'm kind of at the point now where I really don't give a shit what anybody thinks about that.
And so when Denny gets out of his car and says what he says, I mean, that's him.
That's him into his core.
He's that guy.
That's not a play.
He's not playing a role.
No, that's him.
Yeah, I agree.
You know, and we all kind of know guys like that, right?
And some days you're going to walk up on them, and they're going to be like,
what's up, dude, how you been?
And some days you're going to walk up on them, and they're going to say a fucking thing to you.
They're going to look right past you.
And that's how, then he is.
And it ain't personal.
It's just who he is.
But anyways, he's, he's, he sort of become this guy, like, you know, you don't, a lot of
people still maybe don't pull for him.
They aren't fans his, but he somehow had fell into this position Sunday over the course
of the last several months of, man, I don't like the guy, but I hope he gets it because he
deserves it.
Yeah.
And he goes out there and is by far the best car, by far the best car.
You're driving away.
By far the best car.
Like, and you're sitting there going, all right, it's his date.
Then he's going to get his damn championship.
and everything, you know, we can all go on down the road.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, we're sitting there feeling like that this was,
this was how it was meant to be.
This is a very similar, you know, you know,
Dale Earnhardt going after the Daytona 500, right?
20 years of trying.
Very similar.
And if Denny wins the championship,
everybody in the industry would be like,
you know what?
I'm glad he got it.
Even the people that don't like him.
glad he got it, right? Even the people that
think that, you know,
they don't like competing against him, whatever.
I don't know.
He's got a lot of fans, but he's also got a lot
of people that aren't quite fans of his.
You know, he's kind of had this,
he's 50-50, right?
He's earned some fans over the last couple years, though.
I feel like a few of them have...
Becoming more, being more true to who he is
in and out of the car.
He's earned some people's respect and appreciation.
His accomplishments have brought people
win to respect you know it's very respectable and his yeah his statistics his pure
fucking ass kickin how can you not respect yeah he's a great race car driver um and so we're
sitting there and we all watched what happened in the end there and i'll be honest i don't know
how to feel about it i don't know i know how dany fans feel about it i know how i've read a lot of
social media i know how a lot of people feel about it
And you know what the most interesting thing to me is,
this format's been here for a while,
but I don't know that it,
the format betrayed us really badly.
I guess that's kind of the gist of,
maybe that's,
I'm trying to like understand like where I'm,
where, where is my angst?
Where is my frustration or my,
my angst, what is it to be directed at?
We've had this format for a while.
It's done this before, too.
But I've never walked, I've never walked,
it's done this before, but I've never walked out of there going,
that was, that was way egregious.
You know, I don't, what is it about this particular year?
We've had this format.
We don't like it.
A lot of people don't like it.
We've all kind of not said too much shit about it over the years.
Now, this year, everybody went full score sturst on this format.
They did.
We did.
We all did.
Everybody did.
And about the damn time.
It took everybody a long time to come around to really what I've been feeling about this format since it came into existence.
Like one race to decide it is too aggressive.
But we all lived with it for a while.
But I never walked out of Homestead or Phoenix going, that was just that.
That was too.
Well, one time.
One time.
Carl Edwards.
Oh, when he got, yeah.
Homestead.
Thirteen car has a issue or whichever car it was.
I can't remember who it was.
It wasn't a 13 car.
It was somebody else.
Yeah.
But everybody knows this.
I was out of the race, and I was in my bus,
and I heard the cars slow down.
And I recognized in that moment that the caution was out,
and I looked out the window, and I saw that car come by on the apron,
and I went, damn, that that don't seem like nothing serious.
I can't believe they threw the fucking yellow,
because I'm sitting there watching Carl, like,
he's going to win this thing.
Not many laps to go.
And not only did he not win it.
Holy shit, they about damn near killed his ass down in turn one,
hitting a fucking inside wall and flying up into the outside wall.
And he had like three big, fucking geez.
force hits in one wreck.
Bam, bam, bam. That ain't fucking good.
Not fun. No.
And so
that was
a year where
I walked out of there
kind of nauseous.
And I'm not a
Carl Edwards fan at that time. I'm not even
I don't call Edwards at that
I mean at that point, you know, I like Carl
now. We're good. But you know, at that
point, at that
day, I'll be clear. I was
I was not a big fan of Carl's.
But I was sitting there feeling like that was bullshit.
So, but that was a whole different thing.
That was like one of those, you know, quick, quick yellows, you know,
that maybe could have been held on to, right?
That was a little bit different than this.
I mean, the 24 car blows the right front tire, goes up,
slams into the wall.
You know.
In front of the field.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I'm not, I don't think there's an outrage.
over the fact that the yellow came out.
It's just...
No, they let plenty of them go.
Yeah.
Like they should have.
With the flat tires,
those guys all got down,
there wasn't no yellows
for just a flat tire.
Yeah.
So that was...
I'm just saying...
So is it the wall part
that they made them...
I don't find any outreight.
I don't...
I'm not outreight.
I don't look at the caution
and go,
damn it, NASCAR,
why'd you do that?
No.
I don't.
I mean,
and I don't know that...
Denny's looking at it going...
They didn't...
Why did they...
I'm mad they threw the yellow.
I don't know how to feel about this, man.
It's like, you know.
It's almost like it was set up.
Like, not by anybody.
Just, like, I don't even, uh, what you'd even call that.
Like, Larson wins the championship and Larson says, man, we didn't even have a great car and we didn't lead a lap today.
Listen, careful.
Because next year, at the last race of the year, the champion might not have a great car and he might not lead a lap.
100%.
And that's got to be.
And everybody's going to be okay with it then.
That's not, I mean, the fact that he had an average car and didn't lead a lap doesn't bother me.
They, you know, I'm sitting there, honestly, I'm sitting there, the green flag comes out,
and I'm watching Denny trying to get underneath those guys and get bottled up and not be able to finish the throttle.
Yeah, off a two and stuff.
Off a two.
Yeah.
Lap, the next lap, two laps in a row.
I'm like, God Almighty.
I thought his four tires would do better.
I did a little bit too.
I was like, man, we watched Corey Haim come from 10th drive to the bottom of the racetrack
and damn near take the lead.
I'm sitting there like, I'm thinking he's going to at least, I mean, when they got to
turn one, he was damn near side by side with the five.
He was a row behind him.
But Legano got down on him.
I know.
When they got to term one, the 11 is on the five's quarter panel.
Watch this, T.J.
Yeah.
I know you've probably watched it.
I did.
I've seen a few times.
11's only one row back.
They're side by side, right?
11 goes the inside of Josh Berry.
Right here, they're nearly side by side.
Yeah.
I'm like, oh, he's fucking got him.
That right there, I was so surprised that the 11 couldn't make that bottom work,
kind of like the 12.
I guess where Blaney was, maybe was disturbing the grip and the front grip on the 11,
because Blaney was kind of where I thought Denny needed to be.
Low on the racetrack, way down on the apron,
away in clean air.
But damn, Danny couldn't get his car
to work around the bottom of one and two.
And, man, we just
hear this lap here, the last lap right there.
Like, he gets in there and it gets tight.
He's just a little too far back in the Cup Series.
Like, you can't.
Man, it's hard in the Cup Series, man.
Truck Series is much easier.
That was excruciating to watch.
Knowing that, you know, Denny was,
somewhat, I heard emotional on the front straightaway or around the car before the race, right?
There was he.
The Joe Gibbs video.
Yeah.
And so you knew whether Denny was going to show, Denny doesn't really show a ton of emotion.
And so, but you could tell this was this, he knew that he had a very fucking good shot at this before he even got in his car.
and the race, you know, and the race begins,
and, you know, he drives this car for 90% of the race going,
they ain't a car here as good as this one.
I got this.
You know, of course he's not assuming anything,
but he's sitting there going,
I've never had a, he never had a better shot at winning a championship.
Oh, easily. That was the...
He's never had that car at Phoenix.
That car would have beat the fucking Pinsky cars.
You think about practice could qualify.
He goes out there and wins the pole.
Like his car was a missile.
Every time he'd come off pit road second or third,
he'd drive right back to the lead.
I'd look over there and he'd be a straightaway in head.
He was like, you know, three to half,
three tenths to a half a second faster at times than the rest of the field.
And Denny, you know, he's heartbroken.
It sucks.
There ain't nothing I could say.
They ain't nothing I can say.
I don't even want to say anything about,
because there ain't nothing you can tell this guy.
Nothing, no one's ever going to be able to say anything to him
that'll make him feel better.
I think the only thing that might be out there for him
is if he were to have a conversation with his dad,
his dad would have to tell him that, you know,
if his dad hasn't already,
If his dad gets a chance to really truly tell him how proud of him he is for the career he's had,
for the success that he's created, they, they, you know, Denny's story, he's told his story.
His family, his dad, his mom, they gave up everything.
They mortgaged everything to have this kid get the opportunity he's gotten.
They took him to the racetrack.
They allowed him to teach him, you know, learn how to drive a race car, learn.
all of that go-carts, many stocks, late-model stocks,
all of that growth and progress under, you know, on their dime.
And, you know, if there's anybody that could ever make Denny feel somewhat better
or just at least be able to, like, move beyond and continue to do kick-ass things,
it would be probably his dad telling him, you know, what you did.
was enough for me, you know?
And so hopefully that happens, and I'm sure it will.
But I'm just thinking, I think that's probably the only person in the world
that could probably actually take a little bit of this thing out for him.
I don't know where he goes from here.
He said he doesn't want to drive race cars right now, and I can understand that,
but I'm assuming that that's a somewhat temporary emotion.
Heat of the moment.
Yeah.
I feel like when you ever see like a heavyweight box or get knocked out,
they never want to talk about their next fight.
No.
So I feel like that's where he's at right now.
Yeah.
If he, if this was like his third team, I could see him, but like he has a two-year deal
and it's with Gibbs.
He started there.
Like I don't.
He's going to go finish.
He's not going to not race.
And he very well maybe in the same spot next year.
Yeah.
I mean, he still.
Most.
Well, he's got another chance is what you're saying.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think, yeah, he'll come back and they'll run good and they'll win races next year.
He probably win.
another six races.
And if he can do this again, he might be...
Yeah, he might not have to worry about what the format we'll have next year.
He might be able to just go and just get the points, right?
He can do that and win the championship, yes.
I think if he were sitting here, he would tell us that he feels more confident
in whatever the format may be.
We're assuming the format's going to be 36 races, maybe...
or maybe a 10 race playoff.
It's going to be one of those two.
You think?
Not like a 3-3-4 or something?
Well, let me ask you,
is the 3-3-4 not really just a 10-race playoff?
Because they talk about a 3-3-4
and having no resets.
So, I mean, if there's no resets,
is it really 3-3-4?
Yeah, but then you get guys that are getting knocked out.
See, that.
Yeah, but they're pretty much eliminated in a 10 race either way.
Yeah, I agree.
I don't see any.
I see a 3-3-4 exactly the same as a 10-1.
10. They're the same to me.
As long as you get rid of the win and you advance.
Yeah, I think that...
Which I want gone.
Yeah, I want it gone to.
Damn.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how I'm going to do it,
but I think if any of were sitting here, he would tell us,
man, I'm looking forward to that.
I don't want to go do this one again, right?
Get this one to hell out of here.
And let's go try something else.
And I feel like I, you know, as a driver,
and I got more control over my destiny.
Denny's a smart race car driver,
so that definitely falls in his life.
No question, Denny.
And think about it.
Think about if that were to be the story.
Imagine if Denny goes next year,
like this is me trying to find that silver lining.
Imagine if Denny,
this is a chapter in his book,
the one we just wrote.
This is what fucking movies are made of.
He loses a championship
with 40 seconds to go in the race.
All he needed was 40 seconds, the green flag racing to get that title that's been so elusive.
He follows that season up with a championship year.
That could be pretty incredible.
Great story.
Yeah.
Better and better, yeah, yeah.
I mean, regardless how it ends, Danny's story is still pretty.
Dany's story is still pretty good.
Dase of Thunder 2 storyline right there.
What do you make, though, should the 11 team have made an audible and went to two tires to just to cover Larson?
and like forget the field.
Your job is to beat the five.
You think?
But,
so T.J,
you're a spotter,
you're in,
you know what's going on.
I don't make that call.
I can tell you that much.
No,
but I'm saying like the conversation,
like they had like seven seconds.
Is that enough to make that choice?
I mean,
to me,
it's,
to me,
you look at the 24 was the best,
the hardest competition.
He hit the wall.
You know the five is going to do something.
He's,
he took to the previous and they,
so you're thinking they're going to do some.
Yeah,
he's going to do something to get in front of you.
Because if he comes
They have to.
You have to because you need to run one lap.
If the caution comes out after that, it's over.
And you never know on the restart.
So if you've got to put yourself in front of them.
And I mean, you know the FI's going to do something crazy.
I'll tell you right now, I am not, I'm not equipped with the expertise and the knowledge and the authority to tell.
to say what they should have done
I know what they could have done
we can all say yeah they could have done too
how that works out I don't know
they made the choice based off of all
they've got so much information
they got war rooms they've done
they've spent weeks
on strategy and what ifs
and they saw what it was like on all these restarts
man they figured they made the choice
that they believed was the right choice
and they didn't
like again they had a small window
maybe too, you know,
audible to a different call and they didn't.
They believed in what they were doing.
Cliff mentioned something the same noise.
They said their room back there was like,
we were looking at us off all day and said,
hey, Cliff, think about doing something different here.
We're not going to beat him straight up.
Nobody was going to beat Denny on straight up yesterday,
on Sunday.
Nobody.
And like if two other cars don't take two,
you know, that's your thing.
The amount of cars that took two tires,
or stayed out.
Well, that's the thing, too.
You're not just racing in our sport.
It's different than football.
In football, you're playing against one other team.
Man.
In racing, you got how many of 34 other cars, whatever,
that are trying to win the race still.
And they're not, like, they're going to race Chiqueline,
but their goal is still to win that race, not finish fifth.
Yeah.
Like if Blaney and Lugano take four,
yeah.
Denny's up two spots and boom.
I mean, I mean,
I felt like we were in the best spot to win the race,
going and turn three in the last lap.
I mean, and that was on no tires.
Yeah.
So we're still trying to win the race as well.
And there's other cars in the same boat.
48, you know, 60 was trying to do the same.
If you can get the front row on a restart,
I think you almost always take it on a green-white check.
And it lets us to like a Fontaine or homestead somewhere like that.
But a lot of places, if you can get the front row,
you get to that white flag, the race is over.
I don't know how much the 48 was trying to win,
but I don't blame them for how they race there.
No, he had to do that.
Yeah, you do that every time.
Good year tires.
Kudos.
Do not blame Goodyear for this shit.
Oh my gosh.
If you blame Goodyear, you're an idiot.
Yeah.
Listen, I mean, I'm, you know, the right front, I don't know everything about, I don't, when I see a rear tire failure, I kind of think I know why that happened.
And we've seen enough over the last couple of years to understand.
They're trying to get the cars lower, and they're running minimum air.
And it's, and it's, you know, it's tearing the tire apart because the air pressure is too low.
They're not really running...
We saw that with the...
They're not running minimum air.
They're running below a minimum.
Yeah.
We saw that at Fontana with the old tire.
You know, we've seen this at Pocono with the old tire.
Low air hit them bumps at Fontana.
That's right.
And, you know, and New Hampshire, even with the old tire.
So I was...
I do not understand, I guess, why the right fronts fail, but I guess, again, it's minimum air
or too much camber or courting.
the inside edge and blowing it out. I don't know.
But it's a, if we aren't careful with our words around Goodyear's involvement,
so like fans, what Goodyear's done to soften the tire and make the racing better at
Martinsville and all the other short tracks is a massive gain.
Yes, big time.
Massive gain.
And they had a pretty solid tire for this weekend.
That's what everyone's been asking them for.
Yeah.
If we get on social media or if our drivers get out of their cars or if I come on this show and we get on Goodyear, they're going to say we don't need bad publicity no matter what.
Even if we know the direction we're going with the tire is correct, we do not need negative publicity.
So we will make sure that when we go to the next race, we avoid negative publicity, which means we're going to do bricks.
Bricks.
and we're going to have drivers not being able to pass.
We're going to have a bad product on the racetrack.
So be careful.
They've done an amazing job this year.
They have.
Be careful, though, because if they see negative press around their involvement in the sport,
they react to that, and they'll go change whatever they need to change to avoid that.
They want the race to end and not anyone say anything bad about Goodyear, right?
So they're going to do whatever they can to make sure.
but that doesn't happen,
and that means a harder tire and a tire nobody loves.
That's my fear with the William Byron flat tire at the end
is now all these fans that didn't get the outcome are then going to know.
If there's tire failures,
a very, very, very high percentage of the time, it's self-inflicted.
Yeah, well, I'll just say, let's just be careful.
Let's just be careful because Goodyear's going in a really, really good direction.
And honestly, we've asked for a lot of change for the product on the short track and the road course.
And we understand that the car, changing the car is a long process, right?
Getting any kind of real change out of the car.
O'Donnell said they're going to go test at Wilkesboro this year, this offseason.
But any kind of real change out of the car takes a while, while the tire itself, they can change from race to race.
And so this has been a very good year for good year.
A lot of progress made.
Let's not derail that, getting all up in arms about something that none of us know truly.
None of us truly have data and information on why those tires are failing,
but we can all assume that it's more often something that the teams are doing at the, you know,
with gambling to find speed.
Yeah, it's grip.
tires are you you know you can build any tire you want and teams can find a way to tear it up
oh yeah if there's speed in that you know speed at running that risk so we've done that with
the bricks too i know it you used to have to NASCAR used to minimum uh mandate like a 50 50 pounds
in the right sides and stuff like that because if we went we went lower it go faster yeah and
but you might blow the right front tire out um like your street car on the tire it says you're
truck what's it's 3540 if you run that thing every day at 15 pounds you're not going to they're
not going to last on but that's speed in a race car um brad kislowski after the race had a little bit of a
ask me anything or just offered up his thoughts on social media as he often does i love to listen
brad and see how this guy he has such a unique perspective on things and i don't always agree
with everything he says but he doesn't mind saying it which is fun um can someone other
than Hendrick Penske or Gibbs
win the Cup Series Championship.
So Brad posed a series of questions
and then answered them.
And I don't believe that these were
questions that people...
This was his thoughts.
These were his thoughts.
These weren't asked junior questions.
He was like, ask me anything,
but I will...
Here's the questions.
I will offer you the questions.
Ask me anything of these six questions.
Well, you can ask yourself.
I know.
Yeah, it was to ask yourself.
That's so funny.
That's the own brand for Brad.
But one of his questions that he posed to himself and the rest of the world was,
can someone other than Hendrik Penske and Gibbs win the Cup Series championship?
And he says, not realistically with the current OEM rules.
A non-Big Three championship in the last 20 years.
Truex with Furniture Row.
They had the Gibbs connection.
Harvick with S.HR.
2014, they had a Hendrick alliance.
And then SHR in 2011 with Tony Stewart, which was probably the one.
That's probably the real one-off.
Non-aliance.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I think that he has a bit of an agenda here to spotlight this, right?
He's racing for a team that's not one of these three.
And I think what he's trying to say is, I want some things to change.
And that's all this is.
and
Bravo to him
I mean I think he's taking an opportunity
to shine a light on some things
that he'd love to be different
and
pretty interesting though
but do you believe that
Travis
T.J.
Your opinion is
somewhat tainted in this
I mean
the facts are the facts
to argue to say otherwise
it'd be crazy
we saw who were in the final eight
I don't know what the problem is
so in
you know I think
I look at other forms of motorsports
and the teams that have real
history and success are traditionally
you could say this is very similar to other forms of motorsport
look at you know
any pick a form of motorsport pick one
Indy car
Indycar
Penske's been great and Gannasi
right you got two teams that
probably more than there's two teams.
Hell, F1 only has like 10 teams to begin with and it's the same three.
Yeah, I mean, there for a while you had Ferrari McLaren just going back and forth back in the 2000s.
Red Bull now and McLaren, they're kind of the two.
I do think, though, the way that information is shared and flow to teams and stuff could be improved.
Well, I feel like, though, that what that would create is more parity and,
everybody running more similar everybody running the same lap time i mean it's we already do that but
could they get even more similar yes if everybody had the same blueprint well i would say didn't
you couldn't share like less year there's no alliances well if they had that then this would be
even more prevalent like i think if we didn't have alliances then hendrick pinsky and gives would be
even more dominant i don't know i think i don't know about that i think if you all right so hendrick
Penske and Gibbs, Chevrolet, Toyota, Ford, most of the information that those teams learn on
their own, some of it they're able to keep to themselves, but a lot of it ends up leaking back
into the manufacturer pool that all the other teams of those manufacturers can see and pull from
and utilize. And so if I were, if you're saying, man, I don't want anybody sharing anymore,
Hendrick's going to go, yeah, I don't want to share anyways. I'm going to take everything I learn
and wall it off from every other Chevrolet
and they can't learn they can't they don't know
about what we're doing over here
and they're just going to separate themselves further
in performance from the other Chevroletes
and so but doesn't it also
give them the reins of like okay you guys are getting too good now
we're pulling like okay so Hendricks
they took the 77 or seven's pick earlier this year
yeah because they were doing good
I mean
how does that make them hire them
well no they took they took I know but they if you
want to, if you want to eliminate that, they'll just go hire them.
Yeah, that was a little different, TJ, because that's, if, I'm just saying,
inspire whoever wants to not lose their pit crew, then go hire your own, like 2311 and left
JGR so they can control it.
They're not going to hire eight pit crews to start to season and have a backup crew for
everybody, you know what I mean?
They would get through the year because those guys would all have contracts, pick
crew guys that have contracts, they're not leaving.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
I know what you're saying after that year, but then still what, what they're getting
rid. I was probably better than what
Spire would have had to start with.
All right. Spire pit crew.
I'm just saying they see things and like
JGR and front row.
I think Brad's right.
I don't see many
I don't see anybody else like sneaking up there
and stealing one away. It could happen. There were
some examples that he gave.
He gave three examples. No, I went and found those.
He didn't give those. I'm sorry.
I thought he did. No. I did that work.
You did that work.
Bravo.
Yeah, wow.
Don't be giving that to Brad.
Well, I mean, True X had the,
TrueX was a Gibbs car.
Not really.
They were still up north.
But they took all the Gibbs information and made it better.
He did, yes.
Corvick, S.HR.
Rodney Childers, they took all the Hendrick information,
made it better, and kicked our ass.
Tony Stewart in 2011, they had a Hendrick Alliance.
So, I mean, all these, I would say that Brad
I think Brad's right.
Hendrick Penske gives they're going to win the majority of the championships.
There'll be some anomalies when one of these teams that has an alliance.
It could, I mean.
Can get up there and get it done.
Especially in this new format, whatever it is, I think it gives those teams that opportunity.
You get a guy on a hot streak, you know, one of these teams finds something and they put five good races together.
It might be enough to win the 10 race championship or whatever it is, right?
This format change would definitely open the door to more of that.
Yes.
I agree.
But I don't, you know, I don't know that you can really level the playing field.
I'm not bothered by it, of course, you know.
I don't, I think, I don't know how we get to it.
I don't know how we get to whatever, you know, what Brad wants where, you know,
there's eight teams that can, that are level or 10 teams, right, that are, that,
that everybody that has a charter
has an equal opportunity to go win a championship.
I just don't know that you'll ever have that.
You're always going to have disparity in talent
throughout the entire building,
behind the wheel on top of the pit box,
a fucking janitor.
You're going to have parity and talent.
And you have people that can spend more money
and win.
And there's this other idea, too, of a cost cap.
How do you please?
that.
Yeah, I don't.
They've talked about it.
You can't do that.
It's so bad.
Can it be done?
I guess.
I mean, F1 does it, but I don't know.
How does F1 do it?
They tried, well, they tried to, but do we believe that it?
I don't believe it.
But their cap is so high, it's not even relevant.
Well, I don't believe that you can police it.
I don't believe you can.
I believe there'll be some shady behind-the-scenes things going on, and it's just going
to make it feel eikier and dirtier.
I mean, you look at the other sports,
have salary caps and they're having issues and that seems a little more straightforward.
I feel like if you, I feel like motorsports again is just different.
If you got it, go get it.
If you're, if you're rich as shit and you want to go spend all your money on racing, go do it.
Do it.
Do it.
Motorsports is different.
And it ought to, it, motorsports doesn't always need to fit in these sort of, you know, between the bumpers.
It doesn't need these guidelines.
It just kind of needs to be it.
you know, it's always sort of been about creativity, money by speed, you know, all those things.
And I think that that's, yeah, I don't know.
They are going to, the other thing that I wanted to talk about is cup drivers are going to be allowed to compete in more Xfinity races.
now the O'Reilly Auto Parts series and trucks.
So if you've got plus three years of full-time experience in the Cup series,
they're going to now allow you to run 10 races per year in the O'Reilly Auto Parts series
and eight races in the trucks.
And I have zero problem with this.
And if they, I think there needs to be limitations.
So I'm glad there are.
I was fine with what we had,
but I don't know that this is a big problem for me.
I would love to hear from some of the other Xfinity Series teams
that are regulars in the series,
whether they have a problem with it.
But if they opened it up wide open and let them come,
if they were to let the old Keselowski's and Ed Carr-Edwards
to come down and compete for championships,
that would be a problem.
like a Penske Ford or or a Gibbs Toyota with a cup driver in it,
racing us for a championship was for us.
Because it was taking a ton of money off the table and made it harder for us to financially compete.
Our budgets rely on our cars to finish in a certain spot and points to go out and win races.
And if we can't go out and win races,
because there's a Kyle Busch in the field
went in 15 races,
then we didn't make as much money,
and it was tougher for our business model.
So that was problematic.
I mean, how many drivers are going to race 10?
That's the thing.
We have a five race limit now.
How many guys are actually exercising that?
I think Chastain?
Has anybody ever got out of the car
and complained that they couldn't run more?
I honestly feel like right now,
like, yeah, Kyle Larson, he'd run Bristol,
he'd run Homestead.
there's a couple racetracks they like to go to and like to run.
They want to run some road course stuff to learn a little bit.
Maybe they'll be clamoring to enter into the race at San Diego to get more laps at that racetrack.
Yes, that's all great.
But we don't see many of these guys even exercising the five race limit.
And there's not this sort of, I don't believe that going to-
I don't believe going to 10 is really going to make a lot of guys go,
Oh, hell yeah.
I'm going, I'm going to run some Exfinity now.
You know, Ross, he may run 6, 8, 10.
He might be one guy.
There's always going to be that one or two guys in the field that go, I want to run them all.
So Ross did hit the five.
Yeah, Ross did.
And I'm, if Ross wants to come run 10, come on, Ross.
But does this make it easier for someone like?
We're not going to go to the racetrack and see 15 cup guys running in the top 20.
Does it make it easier for like a children to start a car and run Austin Dillon in 10?
And, you know, can he sell sponsorship enough to create a full-time expanding car, run a young guy in a handful of races?
Yes, they may have to.
You know, they may have, they, you know, but they're doing that anyways.
They're already, you know, look at us.
We're, you know, we got, we got a little cup, we got cup guys galore running in our stuff next year.
So we're always going, you know, we're always looking for opportunities to find ways for,
Cup guys to come run, and they'll have a, you know, they'll have a new partner, a new sponsor,
and that partner and sponsor will also do some of our regulars, and we'll put them on a couple of paints in our full-time stuff.
So, yeah, I mean, you're utilizing, as an owner, you're using the cup drivers to bring in sponsorship money to fund the other cars, the other races.
And this opens that up a little bit, which is fine.
I don't really have a problem with it.
I just don't ever want cup guys competing for the title.
And I love that they kept them out of the playoffs and out of the championship race.
If you want to run your 10, here's your opportunity.
Come on, come race with us.
We'll love to have our drivers compete against you.
What about it in the format?
If the format changes, how do they, how do they,
if you're keeping them out of the last 10 still or how does that work?
They said in the announcement, TJ.
I didn't see the announcement.
In the announcement, they actually used the word playoffs.
So they tipped their cap or they tip themselves off.
Got them.
To the fact that the playoffs are going to be back next year.
We're not going to have a 36 race full season championship.
Because they said in this announcement, you're not allowed to race in the playoffs.
So whatever the playoffs look like.
Maybe it's just Xfinity and truck.
Listen, I think everybody, most everyone agrees the 36 race format is the way to go.
It's the best way, but I don't think we get it.
It's too far.
It's too far for them to move.
And they're feeling too much pressure to stay with some sort of a format that has playoffs in it.
The Earnhardt family has always relied on Bass Pro Shops for our outdoor adventures,
and that tradition continues today.
I've shopped there all of my life.
As long as I've known Bass Pro, I've been going there,
and it's a place I love to take my family.
There's kind of cool stuff in the store for the girls to see.
They've got aquariums and so forth.
And if you're gearing up for everything to take your family out for weekend getaways
or fishing in the pond, it doesn't matter.
Go to Bass Pro Shops or you can shop online.
We're incredibly grateful for the support that Johnny Morris
and the entire Bass Pro Shops team has shown our business.
our ventures, whether it's the race team,
Dardimo Media, they believe in what we're building.
They've stood behind us every step of the way.
They're great partners, great people.
Go see what they've got to offer.
At BassPro Shop, BassPro shops near you
or at BassPro.com.
Basspro.com.
All year long on the Dell Jr. Download,
we have been working with Lionel Racing
and promoting and showcasing the ultimate racing collector.
We've had fans send in their videos, photos,
trying to win the monthly contests.
And we've had a lot of fun seeing everybody's collection.
And I've talked about mine.
And today, I want to show you a little bit of that.
We're going to have a little series here where we'll show you a little bit about what I've
been collecting over the years.
And yeah, so let's get started.
I think the number one piece that I have in my collection is this car right here.
And this was given to me by Lionel.
This is, I believe, I've been told, the number one selling diecast in the history of
of the sport. And this car is double-o-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-1. Like this is the number one off-the-line serial number.
And this was actually in the foyer at Linell when you went into their offices. This car was in the
foyer for everyone to see. And when I retired from racing, it was a gift from them. And so let's take a look.
it's the raced version of the 2014 Daytona 500 winner
and I believe that's some real confetti
from Victory Lane that day
right there is the O-O-O-1
I can stay still
I can't say thank you enough to Lionel for the gift of the car
I don't know how you put a value
as far as a collector
on this piece but I'm very thankful to have it
so yeah I hope you guys keep sending yours in as well
as we do the Ultimate Collector Series next year.
We're all adding to our collections all the time,
and right now you can get free U.S. shipping
by using the code playoffs at LionelRacing.com
for purchasing any of the current NASCAR Cup playoff drivers.
That's code playoffs, free U.S. shipping at lionelracing.com.
All right, we got Kyle Larson this year's champion,
calling into the show.
Kyle's still out there in Phoenix.
First off, congratulations,
becoming a two-time champion.
That puts you in a new category.
in our sport, I think everybody can appreciate the talent that you are, but now you have
continued to rack up the stats and the legacy to back up that claim is one of the best
drivers that the series and the sports ever seen.
You know, have you had a chance, I think, removed from the race and the celebration a few
hours to think about what winning two, winning more than one championship does for your legacy?
No, thank you.
I would say still to this point, no, I haven't really thought about what two means to the legacy.
I know it means more than one, but I don't know what it does for my career and whatnot going forward.
But I always think it's something that's hard to reflect on still, like when you're in the middle of competing and I feel like you have a long ways to go.
So I think when I get closer to the end of my racing, that's when I'll probably be like, and hopefully that number's larger than two at that point.
But I think that's when I'll really get to appreciate all the success and people that I've been around and surrounded with and shared that success with.
Yeah, have you had a chance to go back and watch any of the last few laps of the race?
Yeah, I did a few different times.
I love the clips that I've seen, like, where you're kind of riding with me.
You know, you can hear the spotter and kind of hear his excitement, you know,
amping up as we go through those, you know, final couple laps.
So, yeah, it was just an incredible, you know, feeling crossing the start, finish line
of, you know, complete shock and disbelief that we had, you know,
overcame what we did to get to that point and then, you know, capitalize on the moment,
make the right decisions and come away with the championship.
So it was unbelievable in the moment, and still, when I think about it, it still is a shock
and unbelievable.
Yeah.
You know, I was sitting there watching the replays over and over and the restart fires off,
and by time y'all get to term one, Denny and you are side by side with a few cars in between
you.
But the way you use the top of the racetrack and found speed up there, you talked about how
You had learned a lot from the previous restart on two tires and how that benefited you.
Were you a bit surprised, I suppose, on how bottled up Denny was on the bottom and how after being able to go back and watch the replay seeing the struggles that he was having with his own car, that kind of took me back a little bit that he couldn't get anything working on the bottom of the racetrack?
Yeah, I was less surprised about the run that I was able to get around the outside
and definitely surprised about his lack of run that he was able to build through one and two.
But after watching the replay, I could see what kind of kept him from carrying that momentum
by a couple more guys and exiting the corner closer to me.
I think Joey, you know, Joey went below the apron and it kind of took Denny down lower, I think,
maybe than he wanted to be.
And I'm guessing he got a little bit tight down there.
And then from there, you're just bogged down and the momentum's coming around the outside.
And, too, I mean, overtime restarts, the aggression picks up.
The runs just build, you know, sooner and quicker, you know, earlier into the corner.
So I wanted, for where I was restarting, I wanted to.
to choose the top.
And I think he did everything that he could.
I think he chose the right lane and did all that for his situation.
But he just wasn't able to carry the speed and grip and momentum that he needed through
one and two.
Yeah.
What have you been able to do over the past couple of hours since the win?
Have you had a chance to chat with Denny?
Have you had a chance to celebrate with your family yet?
What are these hours like after you win a championship at the top level?
Well, I mean, you're right off the top.
It's a lot of hours at the track, you know, after the checker flag of,
which you've experienced it, you know, on the owner's side of things.
But pictures and interviews and more pictures and more interviews.
And it was about, you know, five hours of stuff after the race, which is awesome.
You know, it's really cool.
And I love to, you know, feel that and soak it in.
And then, yeah, then we finally got done to the track, I think, around like 1030 or so.
and got some in an Out Burger on the way home,
I showered, and then, yeah, met up with the team,
and we went out to a club in Scottsdale, and, yeah, it was cool.
You know, the team was there.
Denny and his crew actually showed up,
so I was really happy to see him.
You know, I thought that was really, you know, big of him
to come out after, you know, an upsetting moment in his life.
and, yeah, I got to talk to him for a minute, which was great.
But, yeah, there was a lot of people there.
A lot of friends, supporters, people from NASCAR, all of it.
So it was great.
And then didn't get much sleep and had some interviews early in the morning yesterday.
And then we had to go buy the kids some outfits for tonight.
Yeah, I had the Champions Dinner last night, which was cool.
And then, yeah, get ready to celebrate the year tonight.
What words did you have for Danny when you got a chance to chat with him?
Well, yeah, no, I was I was super, you know, happy to see him there because I wasn't expecting to see him out, right?
Like, he just went through probably one of the toughest moments of his life and for him to come up, you know, to where we all were.
It was cool.
And yeah, just got a chance to, you know, just hug him, really.
I didn't know what to say.
I don't think there was anything to say, you know.
It was just such a weird kind of feeling for me because I was obviously happy about, you know, winning the championship, but also bummed for him.
weird to like say you know I'm sorry to him and then just you know kind of talking through it and just
talking about this you know the season and the formats and all of it so yeah just um it meant a lot to
me it really did to have him come out because I wasn't expecting him to be out I wouldn't have
wanted to be out but again it just shows you know how big of a person he is so um no matter
the result from Sunday, I'm proud of him.
I'm proud of him as a driver and a true champion that he is.
So, yeah, it meant a lot, though, to see him.
There's been a challenging year.
You know, a lot's been talked about since Indy,
how things have kind of went for the five team.
You know, what will you take away from that going forward?
You know, you're a champion, but going into next year,
like how will you maybe try to avoid some of the struggles,
I suppose that the team experienced through the majority of the season.
Yeah, good question.
You know, I'm definitely proud of our season, no doubt, this year.
I think we overcame a lot of adversity both on the racetrack
and off the racetrack behind the scenes.
And I'm just proud of how we kind of dug through all that
and got ourselves in position to even race for a championship.
And then ultimately, you know, the race and how it kind of played out
was a lot like our season and just kind of sticking with it
and trusting in each other and never giving up.
And then, yeah, I think to be better next year, I don't know.
We just, I think a lot of what we did this year, you know,
trusting in each other, working really hard, trying to get our race cars as good as they can be.
We have a new, you know, body coming next year.
So I don't, I don't go into it, you know, expecting that we're going to be faster than we were this year.
I understand there will probably be some growing pains throughout the, you know,
first couple months and then you know hopefully we can hit on the balance and
and then be even faster but yeah it's just Hendrick Motorsports is the greatest
team out there and they've got all the people and best leaders and it gives
you a lot of a lot of confidence each week and even when you're struggling you've
got confidence that you're going to be able to figure out a way to get through
it all that is absolutely right man that they are an incredible team engine shop
everybody everybody bonds together and when there's speed to be found they
go find it.
Now that the season, the cup season's over with,
how quickly will we see you in another race car?
What's the plan for the offseason?
I'll be back.
Yeah, I'll be racing next week in California.
We got some media tour stuff this week,
and then I'll go to Cabo for a little bit.
And then, yeah, I mean, straight back to work, really,
next week with production days and stuff.
And then, yeah, then I'll get to race the midget at Plasterville for a couple of
nights take a week off, I think, and then go do turkey night at Ventura. I'll go to Australia
for a weekend, and then I'll be in Oklahoma for a couple weeks. And then you don't really
have much time in the clashes right around the corner. And then, yeah, season's starting up.
That's right. Pretty normal off season, though, for me, you know, a little bit of vacation and
some racing. All right, man, we appreciate your time today. I know you got a lot going on. You're busy
going through this champion week and celebrate tonight
and we'll see you soon, bud. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you.
Hey, everybody.
Great to have everybody here today.
And we're live for the Ask Junior segment of the Dale Jr. download,
our Tuesday edition here with my friend T.J. Majors.
And this brought to you by Xfinity.
Over the past 11 years, the Xfinity series,
it's grown into something that I don't think any of us could imagine.
It's been really special.
They've backed young drivers.
They've told their story.
giving them a shot at making it to the Cup Series.
And they've brought you the fans along for the ride.
It's been, they've had some great content, giveaways.
They've done all kinds of incredible things in the series.
They're the perfect series sponsor.
They come in, put their name, their name on the title,
and then they support all of the storylines and all of the drivers involved.
And they've just done an incredible job.
The series name is changing, but Xfinity,
They're not going anywhere, and the next lap's going to be a fun one.
Can't wait to see kind of what they do as they continue their involvement in our industry.
But 11 years as a series sponsor, we have to tip our cap to all of the title sponsors,
the series sponsors.
They are the ones investing the most in our industry.
And, you know, there's been some really incredible ones over the years,
and I think we're all going to remember fondly the Xfinity series and what they brought to the table.
All right, so Andrew's here as well.
We've got some great questions, I hope Andrew.
I'm sure we do.
Yes, this first one's from Tim, who's a big Dirty Mo Doe fan,
and he is disappointed that he can't do any NASCAR bets,
obviously, over the off season, so he wants to know what are the bets he should watch.
College basketball is back.
Yeah.
College basketball is back, man.
I had a big parlay yesterday, and I think TCU ruined it.
But I was going to end up.
pretty well. I've got another
parlay right now going, I need
Oregon Duke
and who did I
just say? TCU.
Yeah, you said TCU? No, no, no.
He's got a new parlay guys. I got a new parlay going.
Yeah, it's pretty much
should be automatic. Duke's got to play Texas.
Famous last words. But yeah.
Should be automatic.
Automatic and parley.
But to Dale's defense, though, I think
basketball college is where you've done the best.
I have kicked ass.
I kicked ass last year.
So I really like college basketball.
We got lucky last year in the tournament that there weren't any upsets.
So if you bet the favorites, you were going to do well, which I did.
And so right now I've got a pick.
And yeah, I need Purdue, which they should win.
Purdue, Duke, and Oregon for this one parlay I punched in last night.
And you're just doing Money Line?
No, it's a parley.
I know, but yeah, right.
Yeah, money line parlates.
College basketball, I had a lot of success last year.
I'm a novice.
I don't know who shit about gambling.
It's fun.
It is fun.
But I, yeah, I had a lot of fun with college basketball.
And I'm watching, I'm sitting there watching games.
Like, I would never watch having fun.
So I'm glad that college basketball is back,
because it's kind of been a flat year for me, for the most part,
betting on college football and NFL and so forth.
I really didn't even get into anything this weekend.
But last night I fired up my app and I was waiting on college basketball to come back
and I didn't realize that I guess last, this weekend is the first week.
Also, so this week is the first week that Mack for college football plays like Tuesdays and Wednesday.
So if you want some weeknight gambling.
Yeah, I love it.
Yeah.
The Major League Baseball is gone.
So there are a lot of fun bets to make with baseball, no runs in a second inning and stuff like that.
just a lot of weird quirky bets to make.
But that's gone.
But yeah, we'll be on this college basketball through March, I suppose.
All right, well, good deal.
This next question is coming from the YouTube chat.
David wants to know, how did you feel about the beat down
the commanders took on Sunday night?
He said, go Seahawks.
Yeah, it was tough.
Jaden Daniels.
We talked about it at the top of the show,
Dayton Daniels dislocated his elbow.
I haven't heard,
X-rays were negative, no breaks,
but haven't heard anything on the MRI.
I would just, this is, you know,
I hesitate to say much about the commanders on here because they're one team.
And this ain't a commanders or a football podcast.
But people do know I'm a fan.
So there's a lot of people in the YouTube chat right now that don't give a shit about
what I might say about the team, and I get it.
So I don't really talk about it too much.
But it's been a terrible year, tons of injuries.
I think it's time.
If the fan base could handle it,
I would basically just spend the rest of this year
seeing what you got in your roster.
I would park all your veterans for the most part.
I mean, I don't know if that's realistic.
They've got clauses in their contracts.
They want to go out.
They want to play.
They want to meet certain targets
and their incentives and so forth.
But Jaden with the elbow,
I don't know what the MRI is going to say,
whether there's damage or,
or not, but he needs to just go wait till training camp and get, you know, next year.
And so, you know, they've got a lot of work to do, man.
Got a lot of problems.
Need a lot of, need a lot of, they do.
They got a lot of problems.
They got a lot of positions of need, and they don't have a lot of draft capital.
It's time probably to sell right now.
There's a couple of the trade deadlines right now.
So if they could get some draft capital, that'd be good.
I think it's, yeah, I don't know.
I don't run an NFL team.
Wouldn't know how to do it.
I think it'd be fun.
That would be great.
You would not enjoy it because they, you know, if it doesn't go well,
people like me are going to shit on all the decisions you make.
Like we, this, our being an owner camp.
We were in love with our new coach, our new ownership.
And right now everybody's just all down and mass.
And once, you know, once that, once change.
But you could find the silver lining for your fans if you were the owner.
Yeah.
It's very cutthroat.
Yeah, it is.
It's worse than it's ever been.
It is.
Like, I remember being a fan in the 80s and 90s, and, man, we didn't ebb and flow from game to game between higher and fire.
You know, we weren't like, you know, everything's great.
No, the sky's falling.
You know, but that's what we do now.
It's like one week, okay, things are going to be good.
Things are going to be okay.
That was a good game.
And then the next week, no, fire everybody.
This sucks.
You know, it's like this sort of massive sort of roller coaster ride that I don't particularly like to be on.
The bills lost two games and all the boards are like, fire your coach.
Right.
Yeah, what is that?
I think it's the social media because, I mean, I'm guilty at times with like Ohio State.
Oh, your social media is guilty of a lot at times.
But that's what I'm saying, though, is I think fans with social media now you're seeing it more and it's bad.
It's bad.
Fans want this instant success.
I will say, speaking of YouTube,
there is a
there's a dude
kind of a young guy
that I've been watching on
on YouTube
let's see
I just want to shout him out he's fine man
it's WSH Carter
he's a Washington fan
young guy and he does daily
content he's only got about
he's trying to get 3,000 subscribers
He's got about two and a half, two, two, two, two, two, five hundred right now, two, six hundred.
But he does, uh, almost every day, does about two or three quick videos.
Young kid.
Uh, and that's, honestly, man, I don't know how, I, my algorithm sent me him, but I sit there, I listen to him.
He'll tell you every day about, like, what, what's going on with the team.
You got a guy like that?
Yeah, the bills have a couple guys like that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he, I, I'm like, man, you know, tell me what's happened.
Have we, are we going?
Are we going after somebody in the trade market?
Are we trading some of our guys?
And he's gleaned the social media post and, well, this is a rumor, this is that rumor.
We might do this.
We could do this.
Should we do this?
And it's just a conversation.
But I kind of...
Do you have like an official guy that goes with the team a lot?
Yeah, there's a couple of guys I follow on social media that are pretty...
And then you got the young guys like this guy.
He's a fan, but he's also...
Knowledgeable.
He's the one out there reading everything.
Right, and it's kind of a catch-all doing a good job.
We are basically, though, as Commander fans,
we know our season's over before Thanksgiving.
That's tough.
And we're just going to, yeah.
You can support TJ the rest of the year.
Yeah, you can come on the Bill's bandwagon.
I'll jump on your Bill's bandwagon.
We don't want.
He doesn't want you.
Yeah, you can join.
Oh, we're friendly.
Yeah, they're fun, man.
Oh, thank you.
Thanks for having.
You have to just jump through one table.
Yeah, why not?
You want to go to a game this fall?
Are you guys going to go to a game to?
Is he going to take a
Bills game?
He won't go to a Bills game.
He should.
I will.
He should.
You all you want to.
I don't want to go.
This is the thing.
It's kind of like that, you know, I got my kids and Amy at home.
I'm not racing this year.
I'm not racing anymore this year.
Usually I run another late model race or something around Thanksgiving.
But this year, I'm like, I'm not, I'm going to go, I'm going to stay home.
I feel like I've done a lot this year.
I feel like this year's been really busy.
Well, you turn back to the broadcast booth.
And so I kind of just want to sit at home and do nothing.
And so even when there's a Sunday off, my Joey, my pilot was like,
won't you go to the game next weekend?
I'm like, I don't want to.
I want to stay home.
It's like, but you can.
I'm like, I know, but I don't want to.
And so it's kind of like, you know, when your buddy calls you and he's like,
man, I'm going to that party.
You should come.
And you're like, I know I'll have a good time.
And I'll have a little bit of a hangover tomorrow.
And maybe that I can put up with that.
but yeah, I'm just going to stay home.
I'm always sitting home.
I'm a little...
I'm going to play my Xbox.
I don't really want to go there.
It's hard to argue with you because I know exactly what you mean.
Yeah.
Listen, I promise if TJ will take me,
I will go to a Bill's game with him.
But I am not going to sit my ass in the snow.
It will be an early season game.
No way I'm sitting in snow.
Oh, my gosh.
I ain't doing that.
It's not enjoyable.
I'm not going in December and sitting there.
I could...
If I'm all sitting in, I'm a full of...
If I'm going to sit anywhere and freeze my ass off,
it's going to be in a deer stand.
It ain't going to be in a stadium
watching a team that I'm not really a fan of.
It's the experience, man.
I get it, and I want you to have it,
and I'm glad you enjoy it.
I want you to have it.
I want to go when the weather's reasonable.
Can we just do that?
Like, jeans in a hoodie weather.
Yeah, let me, let me, let me, let me see the weather is Sunday.
Let's crawl before we walk.
Walk before we run.
Let's go.
Let me go to a game.
check it all out before we just go into the deep end of the pool, man.
All right.
What about it?
I just get you, we can sit in sweets.
He's like, hey, T.J's like, I need you to go in December.
There needs to be two feet of snow.
I want you to jump off the hood of a Cadillac onto a table.
Snots freezing in your nose.
I'm awful.
I want you to have the full experience.
The full experience would be great.
I want you to climb on the roof of a station wagon and dive off onto a table.
You might want to get a little higher than that.
Maybe spraying with ketchup and mustard.
You guys do that crazy stuff.
Bill's Mafia.
Maybe Fitzpatrick will go and show you around.
Going into the stadium and hand shoveling two foot of snow out of my seat
before I can sit down is not.
No, that is.
You mean you didn't want to do community service at a football game?
It is pretty bad.
You got to get there early because you just move the snow into someone else's seat
Oh my God.
Yeah, you got no choice sometimes.
Isn't it a lot of the people from the town volunteer their time and come?
Yeah, that's what he was saying.
They all go in there and do it, yeah.
Do you have like a, I know you probably have like a warm body suit or something that's electric battery powered.
He probably has all.
I do now, yeah.
I mean, I have a vest that's heated.
Yeah.
So you'll get there, your ass will be like wearing every layer of clothing you own, still freezing your eyes.
still freezing your ass off,
your ass sitting on an icy seat,
and T.J's over there with his electric vest on.
Oh, this is great, guys.
Sweat, pour it off the brow.
What's the problem, guys?
I'm getting hot over here.
Yeah.
You always go prepared.
These boots are electric.
I do have heated socks.
Yeah, I know.
Of course you do.
I mean, I stayed on a roof for a living.
You don't want to be cold at times.
Yeah.
That's what he won't tell you about.
I mean, I'm not going to lie.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It can be miserable.
You should have checked the weather yourself.
Yeah, it can be miserable, but it could also be a ton of fun.
And he'll be like, oh, man, I brought you a vest.
And it's his old one that don't work anymore.
Yeah.
I brought you one, and it don't fit and it's old.
Hey, you want to buy mine?
I'll sell it to you.
I'd be surprised if you don't already have a lot of this stuff already.
I probably do.
It's up in, it's at my hunting camp.
Exactly.
We can go by there on the way.
That's all.
Dexter said you have to go bare chest.
Yeah.
Not doing that.
Not doing that.
Bill's Mafia would embrace you, I promise.
Oh, I know.
I have a good time everywhere.
Everybody's always nice to me.
You would enjoy it.
This next question is also from the YouTube chat.
I'm worried about mispronouncing this name, but it's the crampster.
Okay.
Like hamster, but with the K.
He wants to know, have you ever done VR?
racing have you ever tried that yeah what's that like i mean it's amazing um i'll i'll uh
VR i had a i don't forget exactly i had a different a couple different um headsets that i
went through over the last couple years but dude what you put it on and you look everything is
perfectly in perspective this uh the depth perception is dead on you look around in this thing
you're in it you're in the truck right i
I was racing, took a truck to Rockingham, and you're in it.
And you go down and you drive around.
You feel like you're freaking in this thing.
It's insane.
And the only problem right now with VR is how much better triple monitors or even a single monitor is at distance.
So if I come up off the turn, everything in the car is very clear, crisp, sharp, the day,
the gauges, the dash, even the car right in front of me is very crisp and sharp.
But if you're coming up off of turn two, it's the car that's going into turn three that's just a blurry, fuzzy ball.
And it's just not crisp enough.
And when you're racing on monitors, all that shit at distance is very clean.
And it's hard to, once you've had that, it's hard to give that up.
the immersion and the feeling of being inside the car is very real in VR.
And I think playing other games in VR would be the way to go versus monitor.
But in racing, until they can actually get that distance, CRISPR,
a car that's a half a mile or a quarter mile in front of you,
until they can really improve the performance, the graphical performance there,
I'm just not willing to dive in.
A lot of the surroundings are just a little, just not like you say, crisp enough.
Just a little furry, fuzzy.
Furry?
Yeah.
It's like everything's a cheetah pet.
You mean blurry?
Yeah.
No, it's like it's furry.
It's like at distance, it's like it's got fuzz all over it.
Everything is so blurry.
Yeah.
Good song.
Listen.
I, it's, and I, every probably two or three years, I like tap back into the VR conversation,
whether I go to Reddit or whatever
and I see where people feel like it is.
Somebody pumped it up and you try it.
And you're like, yeah, you'll hear people talk about it
and you're like, hmm, is it gotten to where I needed to go
for me to give up the triple monitor?
The triple monitor, man, it's freaking awesome.
And so if, and the other thing about VR too is,
and I think you can only understand what I'm going to say
if you have tried it.
when you put the headset on,
you leave the room.
Like you,
if you're sitting on,
you do.
If you're sitting on the couch,
when you put the headset on,
like in trouble monitor,
I look and walk into the room and go,
dad, time for lunch.
I can see her.
Right.
And I can go,
all right,
I'll be there a second.
Hit pause,
whatever, get up.
Or,
you know,
if you got to look at your phone,
somebody calls,
somebody text messages,
whatever, right?
Anything going on, dog might walk up.
When you got the headset on, you don't know none of that's happening.
And it break when the immersion gets broken.
You get into this game, right?
And you're driving this car and you're hauling ass and you're yawed out in the middle of corner.
And something in the room happens.
That is somewhat disturbing, how it breaks the immersion.
And it's weird to be that far into something and be yanked out of it so quickly.
Yeah.
And I don't like that.
I don't like that feeling, but I'm weird.
The videos are those people running into TVs and just diving off the stuff.
Like, that's how you can get.
Matthew wants to know, have you ever been so mad you threw your video game controller?
No.
TJ?
I've never broke.
Those things are so expensive.
Like, I know people that have, but yeah.
Yeah.
Now, I mean, I've gotten mad enough to throw it, but I haven't.
I don't throw it.
But I, we were in, we were in a Madden League together probably 10 years ago.
And somehow it's not happened with our college football league that we have, but we're only in year two.
But we played Madden for, God, it felt like four years, five years.
It was like five.
You played longer for sure, but I was only in there for about four years, probably six or eight, ten seasons, maybe more.
I don't remember.
But it was like total 20-something seasons of Madden.
if you had all the games up we did.
Yeah.
And that may, I got so angry that I had to quit, that I had to stop doing it because it was bad for me.
I was, this guy right here, TJ, I love this guy.
This is one of my best friends.
We give each other total shit, mostly me giving him shit.
He hardly ever gives me shit.
But I give him such a shit sometimes.
but this is one of my best best buds.
And the Madden League had me so mad that it was really making me,
I'm like, man, I value our friendship over what this is making me feel like.
And so I'm just going to drop Madden and get out of the league.
I want to be friends.
Let's just be pals.
But I couldn't separate the two.
I don't get that mad at it.
I get mad, but not like that.
I've had to apologize to a friend afterwards.
I'm like, I was just mad.
I was losing the game.
Like, I'm good.
We're good.
Like, it ain't about you.
It was just me losing.
And I just started just spewing stuff.
Yeah.
I got,
I don't know what it was about Madden,
but it made me very,
very angry.
And it hasn't happened in the college.
I don't get mad at it.
And maybe it's just,
yeah,
I don't know.
I put a lot into it.
So about the big leagues.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Madden's fun,
but.
It was fun.
We had a,
I don't know.
It ran its course.
It did run its course.
Alex wants to know what the best Thanksgiving side dishes.
Damn.
Good question.
Man.
All right.
A good green bean casserole to me is...
Green bean casserole is good.
My mom used to make a mean green bean casserole.
Especially if they used fresh green beans and not just, like, out of the can.
Cornbread on the freaking way.
Dude, I was going to say the same.
Cornbread's good.
How do you prefer it, though?
Sweet.
Yeah.
I saw a tweet where it was like a...
woman asking, hey, like men, what do you think?
Like, what's the equivalent?
Deviled eggs.
Oh, yeah, that's good.
So we've talked about this on here.
Yeah, doubled eggs.
Amy.
Oh, yeah.
Amy's recipe.
Yeah, it's great.
It's got wasabi in it and it's got soy sauce in it.
And she makes the deviled egg part.
She mixes some wasabi in there.
But the part that's perfect is right before you put
the filling in the egg white
she puts a drop of soy sauce in the egg white
and so when you put the feeling in there
the soy sauce covers all the interior
dish of that egg white and it's like
it's amazing it's really good
Chetton made those in a while
you had to ask her to
get them things fired up
some Alex said deviled eggs are elite
yes they are I think Colin's got a question
Dale will like
where's Colin's question oh it's going so fast
Are you guys going to release any new jerky boys flavors?
So jerky boys, I do, thank you.
Jerky boys is kicking ass.
Everybody that gets jerky boys in their hands loves it.
I've never, I've had, I've give it to every, if you walk into this gift shop and I happen to see you, I am often going to give you a free bag.
So. Smart marketing. Get them in.
If I give you the bag, I know you're going to love it.
No one has ever ate the jerky and said,
it's okay.
Everyone that's ate it says,
you're right.
It's the best jerky I've ever had.
We have a very,
we have like our regular,
whatever you want to call it, flavor.
And we're a small company,
and it's really expensive for us to make our jerky
because we're making such,
we don't have a massive production.
We don't have a lot of dehydrators.
We don't have a lot of employees.
but as we as demand goes up and we can make more the price goes way down we already have a plan
we already know where we can get the price down as we ramp up production we want to bring it down
and um and so we got a really good plan but it's kicking ass everybody that tries it loves it
we just sent out a bunch of boxes to some of my some of my friends that are that are high
celebrities hopefully they'll eat it and go damn this is good and share um and so we're
trying to, we got a little campaign, a little grassroots campaign.
We did a deal the other day where I sat in the lobby right here and called some of our best
customers.
That was cool.
Just cold called them.
We had eight people on a list that were our best customers.
And the first three, the top buying guys, I called them and they didn't answer.
No.
Yeah.
And so the ones that answered are like number four, number six, and number seven in our best
customers so the top three didn't answer the phone but you know you don't it does it should say
on caller ID junior roller sports yeah but um it's kick and tail man so to answer the question um right now
we're we're like just trying to establish ourselves and to to try to like make a new flavor
or an additional flavor and have like two two basic assembly lines would be very expensive
and that would make our jerky expensive.
We need to really just kind of land the plane
with this one original flavor,
and then we can think about, all right,
what's the next flavor,
what are the other, what other treat,
what are the kind of, can we do beef sticks and things like that?
So it's like starting over again with another flavor kind of.
It is, and we're not big enough yet.
We're not established yet.
Actually, we're making,
our company started Christian cook,
Blake's brother started it in Nashville.
Blake with Filter Time,
my filter time partner.
Pilter Time's doing great.
We're having our best month,
filter time, subscription air filters for your house.
I'm a customer of my own business.
I believe in it, man,
because I believe it's truly the best jerky I've ever ate.
And so if it wasn't good,
I wouldn't have wanted to buy into the company.
But I tried it and I said,
this shit's going to win.
And so I want to be on this ride
and plus I like the product.
and it's a lot of fun to sell.
It's a lot of fun to give to somebody
and have them try it
and watch them eat it right there in front of you and go,
holy crap.
You know, that's a lot of fun.
All right, well, that's a good place to wrap up, Ash Jr.
Let me ask you a question.
If you see a number that pops up on your phone
that you don't recognize,
and this is for everybody in the chat,
y'all can answer this question.
But I get a lot of calls.
Apparently, whoever had my number before
let it out there.
So I get a bunch of spam calls.
and all kinds of, it's always like potential spam, potential spam.
Do y'all immediately, like, hit...
Report?
Not report, but block caller.
Yep, immediately.
You block every one of them?
Yeah, I do too.
I do, I block them.
You must not get a ton.
Do you get multiple a couple a day?
I get a couple.
No, no, it's like maybe once a week.
I went through a stretch where I was getting like five a day.
Yeah.
And then it chilled?
And it stopped, and I started to get them again.
Yeah.
I get, yesterday I got two.
Blake said, Blake in the chat said, I answer.
Wow.
Every now and then, I'll have a wild hair and answer.
Yeah.
Just to F with them, you know, just to like, because it'll be.
It'll be this person to be.
I want to give you a cash offer on this property.
And it's like property that I don't own.
It's whoever owned the phone number before me has like an acre and a half up in, you know,
Statesville, North Carolina.
And they're like, hey, we want to offer you some cash offer on that property on Mr.
I think is
oh, it's always
Ernest.
Ernest was the guy who had this
phone before me, this number. I was Kimberly.
Hey, Ernest. And it's all
the political text messages.
Hey, Ernest.
Blah, blah, blah.
And I'm like, and sometimes I'll answer.
I've answered a couple times just to go
take them on down the road, you know,
see how far we can go in this conversation.
Mine was Kimberly and she owed some money.
Sometimes I get text messages. I get text messages
about the cash offer on the house and I'll write them back.
I'll pick them back and see if I can keep them.
You get a lot of them too?
Yeah.
I'll be like, no, man, that ain't going to be enough.
How much you go?
Oh, man, I'll tell you what, a $5 million.
You know, I'll start haggling with them.
I'm glad you get all these.
You know that last time you made me mad?
No, I'm just kidding.
You put my phone number in some kind of.
I'm going to sign your email up for all these.
I wonder where you can go.
I wonder if, um,
you see these advertisements for these services that can take your number off of whatever these lists are.
I wonder if those are really true or not.
I think you just get added.
I know.
I see it on Instagram.
There'll be the Instagram is like sending me these ads for these companies that will take your number off whatever these lists are.
And you'll read the comments and these people will be like, yeah, it doesn't work.
I tried it.
It doesn't work.
It's a bullshit.
I don't get many.
I don't get that many, but I do block them.
Yeah, I do.
But I do think there's services like delete me and things like that.
that you're supposed to be able to remove yourself from a lot of stuff.
Well, curious, interesting.
That's a good place to N-S Jr.
Danica in the chat said her previous person's name was Ralph.
So, hey, maybe you guys swap phone numbers.
Awesome.
Well, thanks to Xfinity for sponsoring this segment all you.
Do y'all want to know one of the most, do you all you?
Y'all want to know something that's, have you ever changed your phone number?
Never.
Nope, this is my original number.
Man.
You want to talk about like, you ever went on a vacation?
Like sometimes you go on vacation and you're like,
you can't stop kind of thinking about what's going on back at home, work, whatever it is, right?
But sometimes, every now and then, you go on a vacation and you feel like you totally get the,
you're like, you feel like no guilt, you're having fun.
Like changing your phone number is like a massive permanent vacation.
because like once you change your number like it's quiet only people that you give your number
no one has it yeah like that first day of changing your number it's such a badass feeling
because no one has it like no one quiet yes you're like hey I'm shut off from the whole world
this is awesome how many times have you changed it then your dumb ass starts handing it back out and
you kind of get back to where you are but you can trim down the people I can get a hold of you
Yeah, well.
How many times have you changed it?
I mean, the last time I changed my number was years ago, like over 15 years ago.
But I remember doing that and I like, instantly, I'm like, no one can talk.
No one can call me.
No one can taste me.
This is awesome.
Until people start calling you thinking you're earnest.
Yes.
And then you're like, you're getting all these calls from people.
I'm sure there's more worst case scenarios too where you get somebody's number.
that gets even double or triple what you get.
You know what I mean?
Like, I'm sure there's more worst-case scenarios.
I feel for the people who get your old phone number.
That's what I'm saying.
Or get an earnest number.
Like, if you change your number now,
whoever gets your old number is going to get a lot.
Oh, yeah.
I hear from, I.
Dale won't respond to me, damn it.
What would I do?
There's a lot of people out there that think I'm a real.
I mean, he is, but.
I haven't texted them back.
Yeah.
In 15, yeah.
Do y'all ever get text messages for people and you know you're supposed to know who this is?
Oh, yeah.
And you're like, oh, how do I learn who this is?
Because they'll do like a paragraph of, hey man, you ever coming back down?
Ever, never do, yo, I'm over here.
And you're like, I'm supposed to know who this is.
It's rough.
I got two messages yesterday from unknown numbers.
I just didn't respond.
One said, can I run something by you?
I have no idea who it is.
and then one was just hello
Both of those
Are getting blocked on my phone
Yeah no
Those are text messages though
The hello you just
You just respond
It's me
You know what I mean
Like
If you're hitting me with a vague
Yeah
You're out
So Curlin got added
To a group text
Like two years ago
About a work
Christmas party
And so we started
Responding
And for a while
We were trying to like
It was like a group
In Indianapolis
And they're like
Are you guys still good
for dinner and I'm like yeah just remind me what time
let's the dress code all these details
that's awesome yeah there's I've had a couple of them too
I think they realize it was not the right person when I suggested
after the work dinner we go to the strip club
we found a strip club in Indianapolis and recommended going to it
that's perfect
how come y'all been sitting on that story for a while geez and then I think
a year later I texted the group chat again I'm like hey we running it back
this year.
Bullshit.
I swear it.
You still had the group
saved after a year?
Let me find it.
Oh, he still got it.
He's going to do it again this year.
Oh, my gosh.
Jaguar.
Oh, I don't know if I have it.
Oh, no.
Oh, because you got a new phone.
I got a new phone.
That's why.
Yeah, I'm rocking the invincibility right now.
Same phone number, though.
Yeah.
All right.
All right.
Thank you again to Xfinity.
and life and racing speed isn't optional.
It's expected.
And as an owner in the Xfinity series,
I rely on things to perform under pressure.
Boy, that's an interesting, interesting read
after everything we went through this weekend.
That's why I got Xfinity Wi-Fi.
Their fast, dependable internet never lets me down.
It's priced and locked in for five years.
No contracts, no slowdowns, no nonsense.
They're a proud premier partner of NASCAR.
they've been in our industry forever and we're thankful for Xfinity.
And Xfinity Wi-Fi is a hell of a product.
So hopefully you'll try it out.
All right, it's time for White Flag.
The Terradown was live on YouTube and Twitter following the race.
And Kyle Larson stopped by.
We enjoy their instant reaction every week immediately after the races.
Thankful for the year that Jeff and Jordan have provided to us,
all the information and insight, their opinions, whether you agree, disagree.
Those two guys are inviating.
to the industry and to the media
footprint that we have.
Door bump a clear dropped on Monday,
and Regan Smith was our guest.
Regan, always great to see Regan come through.
Great friend of the family here,
driver for junior motor sports,
always part of the family.
Deljutor download is going to be a little bit different
this week, the schedule at least.
You're listening to the Tuesday show as we speak,
but tomorrow, Bless Your Heart will be out.
Instead of Thursday, tomorrow on Wednesday,
we're going to release Bless Your Heart with my wife, Amy.
The Wednesday show is going to move to Thursday,
and we got a little bit of a plan for something unique
instead of our traditional guest segment.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
So the Wednesday show for the Dale Jr. download moves to Thursday,
swapping places with Bless Your Heart.
Also on Wednesday, Herman Strader will drop,
and that's the show, folks.
This isn't our last show of the year.
We got a lot playing for you in the off-season.
So we'll be back at the table before you know it.
And we're giving action detrimental a couple days to...
Oh, should I say that?
You're just doing it now.
Yeah, doing it now, but we're giving them a denny couple days to come back
and then we'll have something out.
Yeah, I don't...
I have zero problem with that.
Give Denny all the time he needs.
And hopefully, you know, again,
Again, like, Denny, my hope is that Denny hears this message.
I love what you deal with you download with your podcast.
I love what you did to share with folks your insight and your experience and your thoughts, your opinions.
You doing that show has, I think, helped everyone in the industry.
Appreciate you more, respect you more.
It's been incredible.
hope you'll continue podcasting.
I know you'll probably continue racing.
I'm not worried about that.
And I hope that you'll be able to, you know, enjoy more successes going forward.
But just wanted to shout out, Denny, for being a part of the Dirty Moe Media family over the past year.
And his show has been a game changer for our industry.
Having a current active driver weekly, constantly doing the work.
It is an effort to get home and go do the show and he's done it.
weekend, week out, and it's really appreciated.
As quick as he's done it.
Sunday nights for Denny after a race, it's very...
It's been great.
It's invaluable.
It's so important to the industry to have drivers doing those type of things.
