The Dale Jr. Download - Perfect Playoff Format, Burt Reynolds and Trick or Treat

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

The Dirty 30 brings you the best 30 minutes from Dirty Mo Media every Friday — the funniest, wildest, and most jaw-dropping highlights from your favorite shows. This week, Dale Jr. and TJ Majors react to Joey Logano’s comments on the current Playoff format and what they think is the correct format.Dale sits down with prolific journalist Deb Williams to discuss interviewing Burt Reynolds, breaking the “no women in pits” barrier, and stories she’d like to have back.On Bless Your ‘Hardt, Amy and Dale chat about when is the right time to put up Halloween decorations and costumes they had as kids. Plus, Dale has a secret trick to getting rid of a hangover that Amy isn’t too big on. And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaDirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Dale Jr. Download merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuffFanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey everybody, I'm Dillon Hart Jr. And this is the Dirty 30. The best highlights from all of our podcast this week, 30 minutes every single Friday. The Dirty 30 coming at you. Let's get right to it. Joe Lugano had this comment on the playoff format. Jeff Gluck with the athletic and here at Dirty Mo Media, him and Jordan Mianki. We're at Fan Day over the course of the week where they talked to all of the playoff drivers

about all the things going on in the NASCAR. car universe before they went to Darlington. Joe Lugano says, as a fan, I want to see drivers scared, and our playoff system does that. I've always been the person to say, if you're complaining about it, then just go do better.

If you scored a bunch of points during the regular season and you didn't make it to the championship it for, then shame on you. You had a head start and you still couldn't do it. But don't say it's not legit. You could have gone out there and won to get it, and you didn't, just because it didn't work out

few, it doesn't mean change the rules. So, the only thing, like, I think, first thing I want to say is this. You can believe that Joey Legano is a legitimate champion and still believe that the playoffs should be different. So I think that Joey is a legitimate champion. I think that Joey's trophies that he has in his possession are as cool and as real and as real and as historic as any other champion in our series ever. I agree. Right?

All through the history of NASCAR, every championship has been won under a different set of circumstances, whether it be how the playoff points are tallied, whether it be the, competition level. You could argue, you know, in the 70s, there were eight capable cars of winning races, maybe even less capable drivers of winning a championship. Oh, way less. Right? Now we have, oh, it's tough.

You know, it's way more competitive. My point being that not just the playoffs and how you score points has changed, the sports evolved. Every championship is unique. So are Joey's. But I don't think that the single race format is the best way to decide. I don't either.

The champion. It doesn't mean that Joey doesn't deserve to be celebrated. And it doesn't mean that if they were to change it, it doesn't really dilute or take away from what he accomplished. What's done is done. Yeah. and he says you had a head start well the points reset that's the other thing

that he's missing I think when he at the if you if we could look at it at the end of the regular season he was over 200 points behind the leader that advantage was erased

in his favor he went from how many races out of the points lead to like one and then they get It raced after each round. I see the same way.

Yeah. That's the way I see it. You're definitely, this system definitely benefits, Joey went from eight races behind the leader in points to one race. I mean, that's nice. When you know you end the season with some strong races for your company or your team, like you're going to, and he is arguably the best at this type of system. He knows how to grind out every single point and take the,

those, like, he, like, well, the other thing, too, is, is the 48 gets thrown out. He wasn't even been in the next round if the 48 wasn't a limit. I mean, there was just some of the weird things that happened. And, you know, I just feel like that change is coming. And I think that NASCAR has warmed up to the idea that they're hearing enough to convince them that they probably do need to make an adjustment. You know, what that is, it's, it's, I would say, if I had to guess, we're looking at a probably a three, or four race round to decide the title. Which I like.

I do too. I do too. I like it too. You know, Joey can go to bed, feeling comfortable and confident. I know people use him as an example as to why we need change. It's a good example to use. It is.

It is. But he did win it. He does have the trophy. His name's on the stat sheet. Forever. Forever. Just like. Benny Parsons, won in

1973, only finishing on the lead lap once all year long. Just like, you know, Kenseth. In 03, I believe, right? He wins the race and just consistently was awesome all year.

So consistent then. And won it early over guys like Jimmy Johnson, Jeff Gordon. Really, really good competitive teams. And he would qualify like 30th every week too. But I think,

we can all agree that there's not a perfect system. There never will be a perfect playoff format, never. But we all do think that there needs to be a little bit bigger of a sample size of final races for that final round. And I think that's probably what we're going to get. Do you ever see the page that actually calculates the points like how they used to? I always look at that. I do too. It's cool.

It's cool. Chase Briscoe's within 30 or 18 or something points after his win. I think Chase Elliott's still leading the points. There's top six or seven that are still eligible point-wise here. I have to be honest, I find that really entertaining. I don't know if that says anything. Yeah, I mean, I don't mind it. Is it only entertaining because it's nostalgic?

Yes. Because it doesn't exist? Correct. Like if it was the way it was, I wouldn't feel this way. Yeah, because you're yearning for it. So it's like, yeah. But if that was, if somebody came in tomorrow and said, we're adopting this right now.

Going forward, this is what we're doing. Would we all like it? Would we all kind of like it? Not like it? Not care. You would love it. It would love it. It might be a little closer. It might be a little closer to because we race differently for, you know, stages and

use flip stages more and stuff now for playoff points. So it might even be a little closer. Fans like me would not like it. You wouldn't like it. No. Because I didn't grow up with the sport. I didn't grow up with this. You don't like it that Briscoe,

won the race and now he's within 19 points? Like that's four spots on the racetrack. I want to tweak the playoffs, but I like the idea of playoffs. Yeah. I mean, if Chase Elliott and him were going into the final race of the year, that's four positions, 19 points. I don't disagree with your feelings about

it's just I didn't grow up with this so I don't have this nostalgia. I don't miss it. No, I get it. I get it. So either way, you're like, whatever, or one of the other, doesn't matter to me. I want the playoffs tweaked, but yeah. But if they went to this, I wouldn't be against it. Yeah, I didn't really want to get into this conversation today,

but I think what I'm missing and what I believe has more value than people realize is we'd go to Charlotte in October. Dad's right in the thick of the battle, right? So he's 40 points behind Rusty Wallace or Mark Martin or somebody, right? and we go to Charlotte and 13 laps into the race he broke a cam. That was a gut punch equal to missing the final four. You're sitting there in the regular season that we know today, but in a 36 race playoff, you've broke a cam, finished last at Charlotte,

and lost 150 points. Or say he's 40 points behind Mark Martin, and Mark Martin, Mark Martin blows the damn motor. And dad runs and goes wins the race. That kind of thing being that impactful in the middle of the season or even at the front of the season, right, that is missing now. You know, your driver goes to Daytona in the final race of the regular season and flips out and crashes.

It's just is what it is. He's in the playoffs. So that's what is gone. And those things had you plug in at race 18, 16, 20, because that soul-crushing moment was always around the corner. Or the opposite of soul-crushing, right? That moment of, holy shit, man, we've just busted out and got a hundred-point lead today because this guy had bad luck.

That moment was always possible in the regular season. So you were there to see it. you knew you needed to watch. Deb Williams has worked in NASCAR for decades. The first female reporter inducted into the National Motorsports Press Association Hall of Fame. You got to interview, Bert Reynolds. I did. Yeah.

That was when they were filming Stroker Race. Really? Yeah. And they were at Charlotte Motor Speedway filming that day. Great movie. Yeah. I liked it. I loved your dad, racing gurneys.

Yeah. I know. It really didn't seem like a movie because you. you knew so many people that were in it, you know. And you know the big contract that he had in there. That's a spoof on the Darrell Waltrip, DiGuard contract. Yeah. So when you got to interview Bert about, I guess you were asking him about the movie,

being a part of the movie, he's coming off of, let's see, he's coming off of Smoking the Bandit and Cannonball Run and all these great. You know, he's a big deal. Yeah. What was that like, I suppose, for the sport of the industry, I guess, to have somebody of Bert, I know the connection with Howe Needham and the 33 car and all of that. And Bert was a part owner in that deal. His name on the sea post of that car that Harry Gent drove in 81, 82. But what was it like, I guess, for the sport, the industry, the buzz, to have Bert Reynolds and them making a movie?

It was a very, it brought attention, you know, a different group of people, and it brought that Hollywood magic. And I was giving like 20 minutes with him. That was all I had, 20 minutes during a lunch break. And it was like, so I went back to when I first started, where I would write my questions down in the back of my notebook so that I'd make sure I ask everything. And he was very nice, very polite. And, you know, he talked about. how he was impressed by the people in the sport and their hard work ethic and everything. And so, yeah, it brought a magic, I would say, to the sport. It created a lot of eyes on it that people had not paid really attention to it before. It put a little glamour in the sport is what it did.

Yeah. A lot of things that happen in that movie that are very relatable. Yeah, and Days of Thunder, I can pretty. much pinpoint to you where all it happened. Yeah. Yeah, because, you know, like where they're eating ice cream. It says, don't pit. We're eating ice cream. That was at Darlington. When Benny Parsons was in the car and Harry Hyde was the crew chief. Yeah. No kidding. Yeah. So your first time being able to pick up a media credential was at Darlington and there was on the credential it said no women allowed. Yeah. That was Labor Day, 1980. 1980. Yeah. No women allowed in pits. Yeah. Yeah. And you were an exception.

Well, I didn't really need to go in the pits that day, but it was interesting because Jay Wells was helping out at... Who's that? Jay Wells was the PR person for Harry Gant for many years on smoking, I mean, in the U.S. tobacco. And he was PR at Rockingham at that time, but he was down at Darlington that year helping Bill Kaiser, who was running PR at Darlington.

And he was in the press box. and when I got in the press box and I saw him and that was on my press pass, I chewed him out. And he's up there going, we're not talking about women like you. We're not talking about women like you. You chewed him out. Yeah.

Really? Yeah. And so the next time I went back, it wasn't on the press. No. No. I hear you. You know, how do you feel like, you know, NASCAR has certainly had an evolution over my time around the sport.

And if I look at, you know, if I really look back into the 60s and 70s, that evolution has just always been constant. You know, what's, I guess, what's that been like for you as a female to see the sport sort of adjust and shift away from, you know, some of those policies that just didn't make sense, such as just like having that on the pit pass

feels ridiculous today. But there was a time when like someone might look at that and not bad an eye, right? But today it sounds silly. Yeah. Well, it's just like women weren't allowed on pit road, you know, at Indianapolis. And back in the 50s and all. But, you know, it was when corporate America started coming into the sport that it started to change because you had women executives in corporate America. And I just don't, I look at a lot of these young people coming along now that didn't have the, to deal with some of the things that my generation dealt with. And I just look at them and think, I wish you could understand so that you could be more appreciative of the changes that have occurred.

Yeah. You know, because they take everything for granted. Sure. And it's just like when I started covering at Darlington, there was one bathroom in the press box. Yeah. There was one bathroom at Rockingham. Martinsville didn't even have bathrooms in the press box.

And the first track that had men and women's bathrooms in the press box was North Wilkesboro. which I have always found amusing. Yeah. But Clay Earls, and he was, I just say, he was so cute because he had to be in his 80s. And it wasn't the current press box. It was the previous press box at Mortonsville. He comes to me and he says, I'm thinking about building some bathrooms here in the press box. And he said, but, you know, there's not enough women.

I really can't afford to have a men. and a women's. I can have two. But do you have a problem with using the same bathroom that the men use? I said, Clay, as long as you put a lock on the door, I'm fine. I said, we all travel together. We're all at the same hotels. We're like brothers and sisters anyway. But I said, as long as you have, and you could tell he was very embarrassed. Yeah. But you could tell he was very embarrassed about having to ask me about it. Oh, yeah. But yeah, I told him, I said, as long as you have a lock on it, that's fine. There's, I've talked to a couple friends that I've made in the journalism side of NASCAR, and they would admit to a story that they were wrong or, you know, wish they hadn't a writ.

Do you, do you have one that stands out by chance that you're like, oh, man, you know, I definitely didn't have that right? Or, or I had, I went and had to, you know, is there ever time where you really felt like you had to go in a polli? apologize and or so man I really I didn't get this correct the the column that really stands out in my mind is being wrong and actually it was when by Brian france actually called me on it called me on the telephone but I wrote about how NASCAR was trying to make the drivers vanilla and they were losing the personality of the sport and all and then after I worked for went to worked for a race team, I discovered it wasn't NASCAR that was doing it. It was the sponsors that were doing it and how the sponsors wanted their drivers to be because they were concerned about

losing sales if their driver got into it with another driver or made someone mad. And that's when I realized. And I've told many people that when they fuss about NASCAR making the driver's vanilla. And I say, no, no, no, no, you don't understand. It's corporate America that's making the drivers that way, not NASCAR. Yeah. And that's the one that really stands out. Wow. In my mind.

Yeah. But one time, Tim Brewery was after the All-Star race, and it was when Jeff Bodine was the driver. And there had been something in the qualifying, All-Star qualifying that happened. And Dick Beatty had, who was the garage director at the time, Winston Cup director, had penalized them or something. And the PR person for NASCAR at the time came in and gave a statement in the Media Center at Charlotte. Well, we get to Dover after the Charlotte race weekends. And Bob Latford, who was handling PR for Budweiser at the time, came into the media center at Dover.

And he said, I think you need to go talk to Tim Brewer. He's mad at you. Okay? So I went out there. and Tim and I were sitting on the back of the truck talking and he was really angry about what I had written. And I said, well, that's what so-and-so said from NASCAR. You mean that's what NASCAR said? And I said, yeah, that's what NASCAR said.

And then he got mad about that. He said, that number 11 is my car. And if you want to know anything about my car, you call me. I said, fine. If I want to know something about your car at 2 o'clock in the morning, I'll call you. And we've gotten a long fine ever since. Hi, guys, we are back in Dirty Mo Media Studios, and I have my husband back with me this week. Hey, Dale, how are you doing?

Pretty good. How are you? We're here for another episode of Bless Your Heart. Spent a little time in Home Goods and Hobby Lobby getting Halloween decorations. Halloween. Yeah, I mean, I went a little ham on Amazon last week. There's some boxes. Oh, shit.

There's some new. stuff. All right. I know this is a touchy subject in our house, the decorations, but the kids are so excited. And who doesn't love Halloween decorations? Halloween is fine. I'm fine with them. They're like interactive.

You can play with them. It's not like it's finicky, so it's more fun to decorate. I'm not bothered at all by the amount of decorations however you want to do it, you know. It's where does this stuff go when it's over? That's the problem because we don't have. We do. We don't have designated space. We absolutely do.

Well, that's already full. I threw a tantrum about not having space, and you gave me a space. I know, but that's already full. So now I have these giant gorgeous racks. No, they're not. Okay. No, they're not. It's like two thirds.

Okay, two thirds. So I've got plenty of space, and it's got allocations for Christmas and Easter and Halloween and kids clothes and just random stuff I'm trying to hide from you, like for a birthday or whatever. Now I have a space, so, and it's organized. So we're good. But I was getting some of it out yesterday since the boxes were piling up, and I wanted to just start putting it out. but how early is too early to start decorating for Halloween? You can do it. I mean, it's September or what?

Right now, it's like perfect. What's that? Right now it's perfect. Right now it's perfect. Right now it's perfect. It's getting cool outside. It feels like the right time. Yeah, agreed.

So just go for it. I got mixed reviews yesterday on Instagram. Some people said it's too early. Like what about just enjoying fall? Why do we have to decorate for everything? You know? I think it's okay to do it because really our house is down in the woods and nobody really going to see it anyway.

So, that's true. You know, we weren't, I'm just saying like if we lived in a neighborhood where we had neighbors right next door and across the street, you might be a little more subtle. You might work up to it, right? You might put a couple things out and then add a little more into next week and just kind of build up and where it ain't so like, bam, right in everybody's face. You're driving down the-skeletons all over the place outside. Yeah. But I, no, I think I like getting in the mood, getting, I love the holiday season.

I love the, you know, when the, when the, when people start decorating for the holidays, it's the sign to me that Christmas is coming. Christmas is coming. That's right. Yeah. And Christmas is such a special time of year. So just such a special time of year. So I am, I'm all about trying to go ahead and get in the spirit and do the Halloween.

All right. Well, maybe while you're gone this week, I will put it out. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going on. I'm going on a little boy guy's trip. That's right. Shoo-wee!

I'm fired up. I feel like you're going to need a day off when you come back. Would I have such a, would I be granted such a. Yeah, stay away. I'm not going to sit on the couch for you to lay in my lap for a whole day. So you just go sit in Elvis room by yourself. No. There's nothing better for a hangover.

You know, everybody's got cures. There's nothing better for a hangover than your wife's. Were you just about to call me an old? lady's lap. God dang. Yeah. You're supposed to say that without me being present. That's how you talk to your buddies about your wife.

We're doing a show that kind of gets me into that vein. Now you're definitely staying in the Eleventh Room by yourself. Or if you lay on her chest. Yes. I was about to say chest is. If she's in a position where that's possible, then man.

As long as your face is down. If your face is up with that old sour beer breath, I'm like tortured. That's torture. right thing. And he's like, we were, I drank some beer the other day and Amy's like, it was after your race. You came home. You had had to sleep and drive home and the whole thing. I went down to the beach. It was a full 24 hours almost. It felt like, like, God, it's coming out of your pores. You smell like, yeah, we've got rotten beer coming out of your nose. Yes, he was breathing it out of his

nose like a fire breathing drag and I'm like, oh man, go take a shower. Brush your whole face. She puts up with some shit. Yeah, Halloween. So back to that, we've got, cost of that, we've got, Order also. The girls have fallen in love with this movie called the K-pop Demon Hunters. If you have kids within the range of 5 to 18, I'm sure that they have watched this movie on Netflix and it's just nothing but like singing really, but it's become like the only thing the kids think about. So that's what they want to be for Halloween. So we've already ordered I've already ordered the costumes and now I'm trying to be talked into being one of the boys from the boy band and

not you. I wouldn't sign you up for that. I mean, we're talking, like, crazy wigs, and, like, it's very anime. Okay. Yeah, so it's a lot. But I'm getting an ad for, ads for masks and Satt's Dale's thing. Yeah. And I sent him one the other day.

I'm like, you really need this. You and T.J. should just be these for Halloween. Do you want to tell them what it is? Yeah, you can. It's Beetlejuice. You know, remember the part of Beetlejuice where they pull their faces open? Yeah. Like, wretched looking.

Very fun. Yeah. Feels me to walk around. we go to TJ's neighborhood, all the wives and dads, and then their kids, right? She wants me to walk around with a really pretty, pretty freaking scary looking back. It's pretty scary. Like, I am, everybody on the block's going to go, damn, really? That's what you choose?

Last year he was that creepy old man and everybody was still kind of going, like, who's this freaking old guy walking around with all these little kids? It's still kind of creepy. It's still kind of creepy. In a totally different way. So I feel like this way, at least the people that are our age will recognize what he is. and it's still scary, but you can see his eyes and everything. It should be fun.

It's the thing where the mouth opens way up and it's like got a hundred teeth, like 70 molars. And the eyeballs are above his eyeballs. Or the eyeballs are in the tonsils. It's really weird. And then the other ones that like long stretched out. Yeah, TJ can do that one. That is scary though. That'd be fun.

It's Halloween. I'll totally do it. I'll totally do it. I bet Jonathan Davis would do it. He lives across the street. Yeah. I'm not. No, he's not getting.

to do that. I'm doing it. Oh, now we're liking it. I'm doing it. That's all you got to do is just make him a little jealous. He's all excited. When we were kids, what was your, out of all the Halloween costumes that you had when you were young, when you were trick-or-treating, what was your favorite? So here's the thing about Halloween and when we were kids. We didn't have all those, like, princess dresses, just dress up all the time. So Halloween was like really extra special. And we, a lot of the time when we were little, we just wore like our previous years ballet outfits like a recital outfits. And then one year my mom made me,

you'll like this, I was Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie. And she made the whole thing, the little crop, the little thing that my ponytail went through. I think I was probably about Isla's age. And we don't still have it. I know. She has, my mom has photos somewhere. But I think that whole outfit got sold in a garage sale at some point.

But it was absolutely my favorite. I wanted to be a football player in real life. and so I had a my mom got me the entire kit like the shoulder pads the pants with the pads in the pants so I was a football player the same pants same jersey

same helmet you know plastic two bar yeah for four years in a row oh really and it fit you for four years yeah I mean I was when I was when I got my driver's license I was 410 5 3 5 3 5 foot 3

that's me that's all that's all that I was Yeah. I was short. I was the same size for a long period of time. I'll just say that. Yeah. Until I finally got my legs. Finally got my legs. Lieutenant Darren, you got your legs. Okay.

So that was your favorite, just being a Washington football player? I wanted to be a football player so bad. Was that what it was? It was just red, had no number on it. It was like an unidentifiable, no team. Totally generic. Totally generic, white helmet. But I had a, nope. We didn't have stickers. You didn't have stickers? No, racing stickers. I had a, it was a red jersey with blue and white stripes on the shoulders, no number.

It was so cheap. But I loved it. I wanted to be a football player. And it was an excuse to be a football player all day. I was like, you know, if I could do this every day, I'd dress up like a football player. When did you stop trick-or-treating? I can't remember when I stopped. trick-or-treating you know I think it was probably 12-13 because we didn't have a neighbor we didn't

have it organized like yeah you know we're going to this neighborhood we lived on this road and you would go to six houses oh okay you know it was a lot more work and it was really you know they didn't try that hard around there so the you were getting you're like you know so after a while you just kind of quit doing it oh we got gobs of candy I mean you know my neighborhood yeah it's like house house house yeah it was covered with kids I mean people would come to our neighborhood trick or treat it was awesome we had the exact opposite we had to get in a car and go and go to like the six houses drop off run inside come back and then we were trying to get home and see what we got okay we had so much candy dad took half of it to work check out dirty mo media on instagram facebook x and