The Dale Jr. Download - Tears, Questionable Calls & Scaring Your Kids

Episode Date: November 7, 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 JRM coming up short in Phoenix for the Xfinity Championship.On Door Bumper Clear, they breakdown the final pitstop and the decision by the 11 team to take 4 tires vs the 5 team taking 2 tires.And finally, on Bless  Your ‘Hardt, Dale and Amy explain how they scared their kids And for more content, check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaReal fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.👇https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. 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. Listen, man, I'm telling you, my head is spun out. This weekend, there's a lot of not expected. Yeah, and first off, I think, um, 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 hike in. Dude, we pack some drinking hiking cheese. So this was, I was, she was there.

race is over. She was standing there like, holy shit. I can't believe. We're watching the last several laps on Rabble 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, Amy's feed are are blistered to shit at this point because I made her, we, we start the race. The race is getting ready to start. And I said, honey, I'm going to 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. then kind of getting ready to get out of there and got interviewed on Pit Road. And, you know, the feeling that I had after that race, and this is, it was heartbreaking.

You know, Connor was crying. Justin was, Justin seemed like he was emotionally upset as well, which I was a bit surprised. I walk up to Justin and I said, man, ain't you glad of you, 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 shit to go away. I don't, the feeling that I had of being heartbroken, hung on, and it's 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, go to the Frize shop on Monday,

start preparing for the next season. That'll make me feel better. And so 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, miss, 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 bring that up 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 able to, at some point, kind of come to terms with it. You won't love it. It 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 spend 15 minutes day 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 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 racetracking it 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 just moments and everything. Moments. Yes. I mean, 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 this shit. And so, you know, my mind's going a million mile an hour. And I had, I've got all this stuff kind of pent up. But, man, it was, it was heartbreaking. With all of that said, something, listen, something, I pause to, I pause 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. 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, 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, they had a, you know, the car was a little bit off on the first day.

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 they call it fair they took advantage of every single corner and and 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 so Jesse Love, they'll celebrate tonight. 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 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. how you put it behind you.

How do you put it behind you? You get back, get your ass back in the grinder and go again. And so, you know, we've 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. Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to door bumper clear. I am Freddie Craft.

Spotter for Bubba Wallace, Dean Thompson, Gio, Rizzero this week. Thomas, how are you today? I'm ready to go. You ready to go for us? I don't know where we're going, but I'm ready to go. Typical. Yep. That is very, very typical.

Tires all stayed on, yes. Wheels all stayed on yesterday. Congratulations. Made a clean race. Carson, how is your weekend? Not ideal. I assume you did come to Phoenix. I know that.

I made a 24-hour trip to Phoenix. Supposed to be longer, but we all know how that played out. How was the, how was- How did it play out? That's how. joining us today. Thank you. So I had a, my Regan bailed us out yesterday.

Regan Smith, thank you for coming today. He bailed us out yesterday because T.J. was supposed to come. And we kind of had this planned out where T.J. was going to be here as long as one of the J.R.M. cars won. And we kind of figured with the 75% chance, that was a safe bet. So we didn't really have any backup plans. And then, of course, Jesse Love, the whole show up on Saturday night. And won the race.

So Regan, welcome back to Door Bubble Clear. I know you were here last year. Kyle Larson fails to lead a lap but wins the championship. Denny post race also says, in this moment, I never want to race a car again. My fun meter is pegged. Spot on, spot off. Fred, do you want to talk about?

Spot on. I mean, Larson shined when the lights were the brightest, I think, right? I mean, that's what everybody said. Listen, this is what they wanted. This is what the format does. This is what, this is. I haven't talked to one person yet since that says that race wasn't absolutely incredible. The cup race was

The Xenny race was born as shit No, it's because you lost No, it really was, truthfully Listen, it's a phenomenal I haven't used that in the world I feel like a while But phenomenal pick call by Cliff Daniels I don't think they don't have a choice

I didn't think I loved That was an easy pick call for Cliff Daniels And the 19 So the first one was easy I don't think The 19 put four on there I don't think so did they Yeah, 19 they were by day

They should have put two I was going to say that The first one was easy That second one, to me, wasn't quite as cut and dry. Like, yeah, put two on it or don't put two on it. Just because you had done it once already. You know, and I think there's a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks saying Gail should have done two, you know, obviously in hindsight, yes, he probably should have done too.

You know, you mentioned earlier being able to see the, you know, the 98 coming on to for the 11 to maybe abort. What I will say is normally that's kind of on our, that's not the spotters. And I'm sure some of the war room people can do the same. but you know we're looking usually we're on the front straightaway we're looking at the entirety of pit road and we can see the guys in these late stalls all right you know and relay all right he put two on this one put two on this one put two on phoenix is a different story because we're in the middle of that corner and you have no depth going down that back straightaway like if you're i don't know what the conversation was with lambert he might have told him or not but lambert wouldn't have known that the five mean you could

have guessed maybe by how fast he got out of the box but he would have known not known for sure that the five put two tires on because you can't see his box from where we're standing. Now maybe somebody in the war room could say, hey, the five only did two if they're, I don't know what the kind of camera system they got is. But, you know, so I think that Gail, for Gail, you just can't expect six guys, five of them that have no implications in the championship to do two tires there because, I mean, are they just getting in there to disrupt things maybe? I don't know. But, you know, you've got three guys that you probably don't expect to stay out. Then you've got six guys that take two. You know, he just,

put four on and it worked out. He took the lead off a turn two essentially on the first lap. So you're thinking, same thing that Sippy was thinking, I got the best car, I'm going to fire four on it and let my guy go execute a restart like he just did and win the championship. So I don't even know that even if Lambert told him these guys are coming on two, he probably

said, all right, I don't give a shit like we're going to go beat like we just did. So the people that are Monday morning quarterback and Gail and going that you should have done two, you should have done two, maybe in hindsight, but I have no fault with the four tire call. And that's, you know, my takeaway from all of it, right? In the moment, you make the best decision with the information available to you in the moment. And whether that's two, four, or stay out, you make the best decision.

And that's what the 11 team did, right? They said that we're going to put in our driver's hands and let's let's let him go win it on four tires. We've seen it work there how many times in the past. And, you know, I guess even Friday night, we saw it work on Friday night. different, different vehicle, all right, truck versus this current generation cup car. Maybe that affected a little bit. Didn't appear the cup cars could get as far to the bottom. Like when, when Denny fired off on those four tires, it just didn't look like there was ever

a lane down there the way the weight comes off of this car and where the grip level is going to be at. But he put it in his driver's hands. And, you know, I think in that moment, that's all you're thinking about. The only thing that I look back on, and again, we're looking back on this. So we're not beating anybody up by any means because none of us had to make that call sitting here right now. And I wouldn't want to make that call one way or another, whether it was to, you know, two tires for Larson. I wouldn't want to be any of those guys in that moment.

But the one thing about that championship race that always throws it for a curveball is you do have, what was there probably 20 cars on the lead lap at the time, give or take a little bit. you've got basically what 16, 17 of those 20. It was 31. 31, okay, so even worse than what I was thinking. But 31 cars on the lead lap, and of the cars that are on the lead lap, basically 28 of them are there for one reason to win the race. So, you know there's going to be quite a few. If you see a couple stay out, you know, there's probably going to be quite a few that also take two tires as well. And, you know, they also had the number one pit stall, which is a huge advantage.

you think, okay, we're going to save some positions that way as well, even if we, you know, take four tires. I'm of the mindset. I don't think they had enough time based on where Larson was pitting. Yeah, I mean, he was a ways down towards turn three. They likely didn't have enough time to abort and try something different even if they wanted to. Maybe they did. I don't know. But the four tires were up on the wall immediately. And I really wanted to like, I really wanted to say it was very stupid on the sixes part, six and 60 and 48 to stay. were. You were saying that. I said I really wanted to say.

I said it in the group text. I said, I said, this is not a good idea. Brad almost wins the race. Should have won the race if he doesn't miss turn three on the last lap. So, you know, you can't really fault them guys either. But it's, man, it's this, you know, this championship was won in the middle of one and two on that restart. Danny basically goes into one and two side by side with Larson. He's made it to the bottom.

He's bottom of three wide. Just looked like he couldn't get inside of the 22. he kind of gets in his wake, gets up tight behind him. Larson has the benefit of having a teammate in front of him that's going to leave him a lane on the outside. No, there's nothing wrong with that, I don't think. But that's where that's really, if there's somebody else in front of Larson and they keep Larson

boxed in that third row and Denny's, you know, one row back, maybe we have a different race there. But as soon as Larson cleared the 48 around the outside and had that two or three row buffer and then he was kind of pinned in the bottom behind the 22, I think off a turn two that the championship race was over in that moment. Yeah, so there's obviously there's more competitive cars in the cup level than trucks or maybe Xfinity. So it's a little bit different thought process of a crew chief, right, to think of all that. With Chris, what his thought process was he had the best car, right, all day.

By far he was two or three-tenths. Right. I mean, the guy would run a 50 on lap, whatever number it was. was like, holy shit. And that was, at the time, two-tenth faster than the second fastest lap of the race. His car was fast. But at that point, you're only racing two guys, right? That's the only ones you're supposed to be paying attention to, right?

And you know the five is going to do something different. They have no choice, right? Yeah, they can't race you straight. Right. And you know how fast your car is. And you know there's going to be some other guys going to do the same thing, taking a shot, because they got nothing to lose. So I think if you take two tires and you lose, you're an idiot, right?

Yeah. You lose, you're dumb. Why did you do that? You should have took four. Well, you didn't know if you would take four. You're going to end up ninth and lose it anyway, right? I think clean air would have been king there, right? Because of the amount of competitiveness of the cup program, right?

Yeah, he should have took two. I mean, there's even an argument as fast as that 11 was and as good as it fired off on restarts for two laps. If he stays out, he wins. Just keep the control of it. If he stays out, Larson probably takes four tires. If he sees Denny stay out, he's like, well, I'll take four. I don't know what they even had left because they had one issue. They had to put an extra set on.

But if the 11 stays out, think about it, now there's two rows of old tires. Yeah. All right. So now that changes. But you also don't know who's going to stay out. I'll say if you stay out, everybody may come down pit road if you know, like, yeah. I think the 60 and the six,

they didn't have a, they were just throwing Hail mallies. They, they would have. Hell we have. Matt have Mary's. Let me ask you this. And I don't know how much, you know, there's probably, what, two laps you got to, you know, after the yellow comes out before they own pit road, I would assume one allowed to pick up the base guard, then they make a lap and then open it.

You know, is it, is it something you need to communicate organizationally, like, hey, we're the 11. We're taking two. I need the 54 on two or staying out. I need the 35 on two. You know, like, I don't think that's really any kind of manipulating. I think it's, you know, that's strategy wise. You're not even thinking.

I know, but I'm just saying is that something that people need to look at moving forward, you know, because it wasn't like, that's not what happened here. Like I looked back last night because I was like, I wonder if the five stayed out and it was six Chevys that stayed out or took two with them to try to build a buffer. because sometimes you're not even going to be, like Denny could come in leading, guys are going to put two on and they're still going to end up behind them. They were too far back. So, but I looked and it was, I think it was three Chevys and three Fords, basically,

where they break down. So it was just happenstance. But, like, you know, in my mind, I'm like, well, it's not a bad play. If I'm the five or the 11, like, I'm putting two tires on, and I need every one of my manufacturers to do the same thing to try to build a buffer on the guy with four. And, you know, it's just something that, you know, who knows, it probably could come into play. It probably has, I'm sure, at some point.

If it did or if it ever does, I really hope that they don't say it on the radio. Maybe they just type it on their chats instead. They would obviously have to type that in the chat somewhere. But another piece of that onion to peel back also, Cliff said after the race he wanted to take four. And his guys back, his engineers back in the war room and his guys sitting on the box with them, they were saying too. And I saw something posted. And I don't know what the percentages of this are. but it was like that maybe if Gibbs was looking at and everybody's running all these programs, right, to try and predictability,

that their program may have said that it was like a two-tenth of a percent chance that the five takes two tires again in that scenario. So there's that there's there's there is so much happening, so quick that you're digesting in the moment. And sometimes it's it's no different than a football coach having to just make a gut call in the moment of what you think is going to. There's still a human element that's got to be involved to all of it. as much as we've gotten technical with all this stuff and we've got all this stuff to help us out. Sometimes it doesn't work out. It's the human call.

100%. By the way, Kyle Larson's still pretty good. He's like, he's still, you know, he's still a heck of a rate. They battle back from a wave around in the middle of the race. You know what I mean? They got back up in there in a position of where he could put two on. Because like you talk about it, if he pits from the wave around, if he doesn't make any progress and he pits from 30th,

he's not even going to come out in front of Danny. He'll be on two and Denny's on four in front of him. So, you know, like to him to battle through the field after that problem they had with a tire, you know, like it's just a team effort. Obviously, we talk about that all the time. And Kyle just did a great job on that restart, executed, you know, benefited from having a teammate in front of him that was not going to race the shit out of him like maybe somebody else might have in that scenario. But, you know, he executed exactly what he needed to do and win himself a championship.

He didn't. And on that restart, I didn't feel like he gave Bowman as a teammate much of an option or, you know, even put him in a spot to where he had to decide. When he throttled up, I'm like, there's no way that car is going to stick. And it stuck. Hey, guys, Dale and I are in the Dirty MoMo Media Studio for our very last weekly episode of Bless Your Heart. We got one more thing that we need to tell y'all. This is hilarious. We or you?

Us. What the hell happened? The very first note. Um, y'all. Okay. This shth. So. It's funny because we're bad parents.

Yeah, we're bad parents. So we were at home the other day. I'm telling you what. Our girls were pissing us off. We've talked about it. They've been on one. I don't know why. At the moon?

They were pissing us off. But it's Thursday. We're going to leave and go out of town. I think it was Thursday. We're leaving and go out of town on Saturday morning. So it was Friday night. I'm like, let's just take them out to eat. Let's not mess up the kitchen and all that.

So like, let's take him out. and then you get out of the house. We took them to this. this Mexican restaurant that we love is right close by the house. Yep, it's where we had our first date. And they were... Cute little place. It's an old church. Complete ass. They were such a... Both of them. Even Ila. She's like slinking down in her

seat almost falling underneath the booth. She's sliding down their seat. And they're like, I'm done. Having eaten a bite. I'm done. I don't want to... And what they're going to do is they're going to get home and in 30 minutes they're going to get home and go... Want a snack. I'm thirsty and I'm hungry.

That's exactly how Nicole says it. I'm thirsty and I'm hungry. Okay, you probably should have eaten your dinner. But they're acting like complete jerks at this thing. Me and Amy are trying to have a good meal and she's got a little margarita and I'm having a little diet cola and we're having, this could be an awesome time. But they're making it so miserable. Yeah, the steam is starting to come out of Dale's ears.

He should have had a margarita too. We get home and we all sitting in the living room and they're not really paying attention. We got the TV on, and Amy asked me, she goes, what's your favorite old scary movie? And I was like, well, I don't know. I don't think about that one. I guess Friday the 13th. I remember when Friday 13th came out.

That was a big deal. Everybody was talking about it. We talked about Hellraiser too with Pennhead, yeah. Hellraiser, Friday 13th, Freddie Kruger. We went through all of them. And I was like, maybe you got to fire up Friday 13th. I know, so we get on Amazon Prime, and there's a couple of them right there. We started playing one of them.

And all of a sudden I got chickens. She did. I don't know. This is going to backfire. I was like, these two deserve to have the shit out of them. I want them laying in the bed tonight with her eyes wide open. Worried about Jason in Crystal Lake. Coming out from under the bed.

Yeah. And then we thought better of it. And we're like, yeah, that's probably terrible. Terrible parenting. Yeah. Well, man, we came so close. The intro was scary enough that we both were scared out of our dumbass decision. Amy started the movie and there's this girl running through the woods.

And I'm like, I'm doing this. All right. Any minute now, the kids are going to look at the TV and freak out. Yeah. You know,

Jason's going to get them. And, well, as soon as it started, like, all the color and the thing is red. It's like really total red, like blood.

Yeah. And Nicole's eyes get really big, but not like she's scared, like she's like been revived. I'm like, oh God, maybe we were going to awaken the actual demon inside of this kid.

Did you see her face? No. Oh, I did. I was like, oh, gosh, this is bad. look at the screen and go, this is weird. You know, they had that look like, I don't know about this.

You know, but it got their attention because the font and everything's kind of gruely and spooky. Yeah. And then the scene started playing and I'm like, all right, man, we're kind of about, about to get to the point in no return. I hit the button. I'm about to scare the shit out of these kids or we're going to bail. Yeah.

And Amy bailed. I'm thankful she did. It would have been terrible parenting. Why would you subject your kids, you know, you're five and your seven-year-old to And then they didn't say anything. They ran off and went upstairs to play. And Dale and I looked at each other and were like, what the fuck were we thinking? Like, we were terrible people.

We were so mad at them. We just wanted to get back at them. Yeah. See, sometimes we need supervision too. What would have been something we could have done that would have been in the, you know, within reason? I don't know what my parents used to do when we acted like that. I'm sure we acted like that. There's just no way we didn't, right?

We had a breakthrough yesterday. I was Nicole. Ila wanted a corn dog. Nicole wanted the pizza. The pizza comes out. Nicole all of a sudden wants a corn dog. She won't stop saying corn dog. And I walk over there.

I'm like, you say corn dog one more time. You're sitting on the steps. That's timeout. She goes. I don't want to eat this pizza. And so she puts this look on her face like, I'm not going to say corn dog. But I really want to say.

But I'm not going to eat this. I'm not eating. And I grabbed one of the pizzas of pizza and I eat, I was like, hey, look at me. She looks up and I went, I ate it. I was like, oh. I was like, this is good pizza and I know you like it. And she grabs this plate and slides over and starts eating it.

She's like, it is good. He told her he's like, you're not getting up from this table until you finish it. Yeah. I was like, I think me taking the bite of it and saying, getting right in her space too. I was like, this is good pizza and I know you like it. I've seen you eat it. And she's like, he's not wrong.

And she ate. it and finished with a smile. Yeah, like seconds later. I gave him nuts. I gave him nuts. I was like, God dang, I was about to lose my shit. And he fixed it. And he fixed it.

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