The Dale Jr. Download - That Was Old School Bristol

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

The first round of the NASCAR Playoffs is officially in the books, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the studio to recap it on a new edition of Dirty Air. He joins co-host TJ Majors to chat all things Bristol and the current Playoffs picture:Key West essentialsThe evolution of BristolRace fans got their monies worth this past weekendThe new state of racing tiresWhy are there such long caution periods?Playoffs picture updateMore stages for Daytona and Talladega?Plus, Christopher Bell joins the show to chat about his win at Bristol.During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners wrote in questions regarding:Dale’s influence on Chase Elliott’s number changeTalladega being in the final round of the PlayoffsDoing ridealongs with sports celebritiesChatting with the pit crew after a bad performanceGetting out of a car when it’s on fireAnd in the Dirty Mo Dough segment, Tampa Timms and the Professor join the guys to handicap the upcoming race. 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.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.

You know, I told them, I said, if I have a wheel come off and I hit the damn wall, I'm going to take a hammer to all of y'all and show you how it feels. And, you know, that was a pretty stupid thing to say over the radio. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half. I don't know if we've ever argued. Did I piss you off over the weekend? I'm still sour.

Did I want the best man at your wedding? Who was your best man, Dale? T.J. DJ. You don't need a cool vest for that race. What are you thinking? Get them, T.J. Hellway is starting a show.

All right then. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download with my good friend and co-host, T.J. Majors, how's it going, TJ? It's going good. How are you doing? I'm all right. I was all right. I was sick last week. But I just had a head cold for about five days, but got over it and went to

went to the keys for a couple nights. Good times down there. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's different these days. You know, I had a house down there for, I don't know, 10 years. Then we renovated another house. And so we spent a lot of time down there. But when we had kids, we were thinking,

all right, we need to find another place for our vacation spot that's a little easier to get to. for one, but also maybe a little more kid-friendly. So we only kind of go to the Keys once a year. It's a fun time. It is fun. Cool, yeah. Yeah.

We send a lot of people down there. A lot of people ask us all the time because we spend so much time down there. A lot of people go down in the Keys and want to know what some of our favorite spots are. There's some really good spots. How many oysters did you have? I had a dozen. That's it? Yeah.

We did have some buffalo shrimp at the raw bar. Every time I go, like the first thing I need to do is go to the raw bar for buffalo shrimp, and that kind of starts the day. And, um, yeah, schooners for some beers. Schooners is great. The taco place is good. Amigos is what you're talking about. You can sit there.

People watch. Yep. I sat there and had a margarito. Margarito. Margarito. Margarito. Did you have any hot salsa this time? Nope.

Okay. I just had to marg. And, um, hanks and Captain. I had a flying monkey drink. I hadn't had one of them in a long time. Whoa. Yeah. I don't, I don't, that's a place where you go and have all the flavors that's in the machines that are swirling.

And I don't usually drink frozen drinks. And I can't tell you the last time I had had one of those. It's been over 10 years. What did you pick? You remember? It's kind of like a chocolate vanilla swirl thing. Really? Yeah.

Did you get the thing in the middle? The shot? Yeah. No, I didn't do that. I like the grape eight. Yeah. Yeah. I said that it's not necessarily kid-friendly, but I will say this.

There are things to do with your kids. The Butterfly Museum is incredible. So if you have kids and you go to the keys, the best thing to do, I think. There's all kinds of options. But the Butterfly Museum is neat because, so butterflies, It's stuff that I never knew, right? Butterflies only live for a few days. They import a lot of these butterflies

into this greenhouse that's in the back. You go in the front, it's a huge gift shop. And we went and got the girls and things to take back to them as gifts. If you walk into the back immediately, you'll walk into the greenhouse, and typically, Key West is really hot. You know, it's like 85-00 degrees down there.

Well, that greenhouse is really nice and cool. It's kind of a... break from the heat, but there's thousands and thousands and thousands of butterflies flying around in this greenhouse and they land on you. They land on your hat, your arm, your hand, your shoulder, all over you. And they land all over the girls, right? They land on them. They're big, blue, beautiful, all these colors. And so if you want to be the hero to your little girl or your son or what have you, that's a pretty magical experience because they'll, I don't know anywhere else, they'll go where that will, you know, be what happens.

So butterflies don't typically land on you. Please tell me there's a picture of you getting with butterflies landing on you. I'm sure there's one out there somewhere. I mean, we didn't go in the greenhouse. They didn't go out there. No, but if I take the girls, that's what we're doing. You're going. Yeah. Mr. C's still open?

Mr. Z's. Yeah, my bad. Mr. Z's pizza. iconic picture of me taken there at one time. Yeah, one of my favorite pictures of T.J. was taking at Mr. Z's about two, three, four o'clock in the morning, him devouring a slice of pizza. And he looks as bad as... You can imagine, yeah. He's in bad shape.

The general was hurting. Yeah. Mr. Ziz, that's, I mean, some of the best pizza. So good. It was that night. My second favorite pizza place in the world next to pine in the sky here in Moorsville, Mr. Z's. So, um, anywho, we, uh, we got quite the race. this weekend got what we wanted again did we did we not sounds like some people didn't get what

they wanted hmm just a little short on that victory lane celebration there yeah a little short yeah braggieie yeah come in second uh with a spirited run to the finish trying to trying to get the uh trying to get the win um i was i was pretty uh pretty happy to see the uh pretty happy to see the the contact, you know, how physical the race was. It was definitely a physical race. Yeah, yeah. So, first off, before we go any further one, and let you all know that this week's Dirty Air Segment

is brought to you by Bass Pro Shops, North America's premier outdoor and conservation company, playing your next adventure at a Bass Pro Shops near you or online at BassPro.com. It's a great place to go shopping. The Bass Pro Shops car almost pulling one out for the wind. they were leading the race there for a while with Chase Briscoe. There's been this really long, you know, sort of debate conversation around Bristol

and how to, you know, man, I miss this Bristol, I miss that Bristol, and this is what I want out of Bristol, and this is what I wish Bristol was like. And it seems like that this weekend we kind of got as close as we've been in a long time to the traditional idea of Bristol and the product that, Bristol had delivered at its peak. And that's not a nostalgia quote. That's, you know, this isn't about nostalgia. Basically, you know, back in a certain time frame,

the ticket for Bristol was by far the hottest ticket on the, on the circuit. And you had, it was, it was almost difficult to get an opportunity to get that ticket. There was a waiting list and all of that stuff. So, you know, it's changed quite a bit since then. It's no longer selling out. And they've had to, you know, and it's no secret or everybody listening to this show. I'd probably know most of the history of how the track changed. It was asphalt for years.

The track's actually been configured multiple times when they first built Bristol back in the, I think, the early 60s. It was much flatter. Bristol used to be quite a bit flatter, and they eventually, I mean, after only about three or four years, they came in and then built the track, the banking up, because cars were running all over the racetrack. You had guys running on the apron, like there was 30 foot of apron before you got to the bank. Use it, huh? Part of the race. Yeah, guys were everywhere all over the place. It was just the strangest looking track. And after several years, they did the same thing at Rockingham. When they first built Rockingham, it was flat. And they did this, and right, this was all right around the same time frame uniquely, or coincidentally, when they built Bristol and Rockingham, they built them within years of each other.

And they built them both flat. And then within four or five years, they reconfigured them to have more banking, both the same track. So they, they reconfigured it then. then, you know, we had this asphalt version that was highly popular. And around the mid-90s, they had resurfaced the racetrack. Sir, I imagine paving technology wasn't very good back in those days, T.J. Well, it was probably good for the time. Yeah.

But you're running 16-second laps around the racetrack. And I suppose when we went, maybe it was warm on Thursday, Friday, Friday when we had practice for the Bush series and the Grand National Series, which is a cup series back then. And the track began to come apart in practice. And all through the weekend, they had a lot of problems with the track coming apart. Track coming apart is not good. Yeah.

I believe, you know, Bruton, having looked at what Dover did, decided, well, we're going to fix that. And they concrete the racetrack. Was that the second ever concrete track? I believe it was. Well, second concrete track in NASCAR's history. Unless you count. So Dover was the blueprint probably.

Well, unless you count, I would say Martinsville in the interior bottom groove of Martinsville Speedway and how they concreted it as well was also probably an influence on Bruton's decision to concrete Bristol because it didn't give up. they had the same problem at Martinsville. It was all asphalt. The asphalt started coming apart. And then, so they decided to concrete the bottom groove and a half of Martinsville. And that's why you have that concrete there today is because of the track coming apart back when it was asphalt. And you don't want that. On one particular weekend.

Yeah. So they're like, all right, we'll fix this. We'll fix this. We'll have this problem. And I will say that that version, that concrete version, the initial concrete version of Bristol, was still very similar and the racing looked quite similar to what we saw with the

asphalt racetrack. You can go back though and look at some of the asphalt races at Bristol and man they ran way up the track. The groove would move around in the corners. It wasn't all on the bottom. What made the groove move around of them in that time?

Was it the tire? I mean, who knows? I would have, I would be guessing if I was trying to tell you what made the groove move around back then. because I thought I knew a lot about things till the last couple weeks with this tire and this car and all that.

Yeah. A lot of people talk about Bristol is the best, you know, Bristol is a bottom groove, beating bang. Well, back when it was asphalt, they ran all over the corner. There was races where they'd run the top of one and two or the bottom of one and two, depending on the temperature, the day, the tire, whatever, right? So, I mean, they moved all over this racetrack.

When they concreted it the first time, that's when it truly became a bottom-only racetrack. There was no second or third groove ever at those races with the first rendition of concrete. And there was this funky little sort of dip off a turn two where you kind of had to hook the old concrete or the old asphalt. With the left front. Yes. And it was so much fun. And you had to really, you had to hit this little spot every time.

And there was, you know, it was a fun little racetrack. And I don't, you know, I'd have to, you know, to go back and relive all of that. But for some reason, you know, they wanted to reconfigure it again. And they put the variable banking in there. And that's what we have today. I half joke about them, you know, man, they should pave it with asphalt. I truly would do it if I had all the money to, if I could afford to pay for them to pave at asphalt, I would do it.

if you could just snap your fingers and have it. But honestly, you know, the variable banking has kind of went through these good and bad times. I remember one of the first races that we ran on the variable banking version of Bristol we had today. We were in the COT, middle way through the race. I ended up running fifth in this race, but middle way through the race. I, Casey Kane's leading Edwards, Carl Edwards is second and I'm third. And we're all within 10 car lengths of each other or closer, battling for the lead. And everyone was running on a different part of the racetrack.

And I was thinking in that moment, I'll never forget it. I thought in that moment, I was like, this is badass. Like, I didn't think that is. How does it get any better? Yeah. Like everybody's, he's on the bottom. He's in the middle. I'm on the top.

We're all racing the shit out of each other. I mean, I don't know what else, what more you could want. This is pretty cool. That's what happens anytime we like introduce something completely new. It looks amazing the very first time we try it, whether it's a car, a track, or what have you. Because it's, no one knows how to work it, how to use it. Where's the advantages? Well, we all learned eventually how to run the top of this racetrack.

And that's where the steepest banking was. And so that's where a lot of the racing started to go. And it was impossible to pass. Everybody would go run the top and, boy, you try to go to the inside of somebody and you couldn't, you get trained by all the people on the outside line. Couldn't run fast enough down there. So Bruton ground the top groove to try to make it where it was unusable. Well, that made it actually better.

The rubber would stick to it even better and we ran the top even more. And so I remember all these little moments where they were trying to figure out. out of way to get us to the bottom of the racetrack. And eventually, they found the PJ1. And PJ1, I believe, if you live this, PJ1 ended up coming to Bristol as we were trying to get, you know, old school Bristol, run the bottom, run over each other, beating bang Bristol that we had this weekend.

And then PJ1 comes in and we're, oh man, that, that seems to be nice. Well, let's, you know, now let's take PJ1 everywhere. Pocono's second, third corner. Remember that? Yeah. The lane up there. Well, that was a brand new asphalt. Unfortunately, you know, this big PJ1 craze happened where we were sticking, though,

and PJ1 everywhere on all the racetracks. And that was because of Bristol. It was tricky stuff, too. It was. But then, and I got Marcus's ear, and I told Marcus, I said, all right, everybody wants this particular type of Bristol, right? And if you want to know how to get it, I'll tell you. I told him, I said, go back and watch the 2000.

for race at Bristol. That's the one that I was fortunate enough to win. And there's anywhere around that time frame, 02, 03, 04, 05, just look at still images of cars in the corners at Bristol.

And there's something you'll recognize. So you still had the asphalt apron. And they sealed it. They would seal, they would put sealer down on that apron, and it looked good. They paint their logos and shit all over it.

And the actual line, there's always this yellow or white painted line on the bottom of these racetracks to separate and differentiate the apron from the racetrack. Well, the line at Bristol is actually around 2004 was painted on top of the banking of the racetrack almost a foot up from the real true seam between the concrete and the asphalt. and they would seal all the way up to that line. So what you had was about a foot of sealer, asphalt sealer, on top of this concrete for the left front tire. And man, if you were smart enough to be patient enough to connect the left front tire to that sealer the entire corner, there was a ton of grip, a ton of turn there. and so when your car is great that's what you try to do

and I told him I said man they were putting that PJ1 the entire bottom width of the car like a full car length of PJ1 it's too much I was like all you need is to really like saturate the bottom foot and a half two foot

three foot of the corners with this PJ1 all you need is for the guy on the bottom groove to be able to use use it and get his left side tires in it. And so that's what they started doing. They narrowed up this application of PJ1. It's probably half a car length now.

Yeah, so that you can only get the left side tires in it. If I were them, I would even make it more narrow. It doesn't need to be but only the width of the tire itself. Make it harder to run. I know. So you would have to be so perfect to be able to put the tire in it. It was hard to run that one. And if you missed it, right, you saw what happened.

to guys that came out of it. Oh man. They checked up. You got your ass right over. And so make that even more narrow. And you have that opportunity for guys to miss it even more so. You have even more passers and action. More passers.

More checking up, bumping and banging. So anyhow, that's kind of where we are. We're almost all the way back. It's probably as close as we're ever going to be to the Bristol that a lot of people love. the only way I think we can get even better is yes I'd narrow that application of a PJ1 up to about 50% of the width it is today take another foot or so off of it yeah maybe a couple that's it outside of that I mean the only other thing you can do is tear the track up and get rid of the variable banking entirely but that's not happening that's an that's an unnecessary expense that they probably don't can't justify especially after watching the race they

saw this past weekend. All three races, all four races were actually pretty good. The truck race actually moved up. You had guys that could run the top, guys that could run the bottom, and competitively, too. Honestly, that's such a great point, T.J. No matter what version of Bristol you like, I think you got it in one of the three events. The other thing, too, T.J. is, I don't know why, but, you know, I was there for the Xfinity race all day,

and I knew that they had ran the truck race the night before. You had the Arka race. It felt like the typical, it felt like the kind of weekend that people need to justify pulling their camper out there, getting a camping spot, spending three or four days, you know, putting all that shit out and having a fun, grilling, hanging out, concerts, doing all the things. Like, what Bristol provided this weekend is almost, in my opinion, it's what we used to do, you know, when we had more on-track action, such as practices and so forth.

It is the blueprint, in my opinion, of the weekend that a NASCAR fan wants. Yeah, the events you can see. Yeah. We got another one this weekend. It's similar to it. Really? Well, we got the trucks and cup cars. you also get a couple modified rates or a modified race too which is always a good compliment to the weekend yeah

that to me is what a lot of these other tracks um neat could could work on like if you're if you're a fan you're like all right i'm mine this ticket i'm spending this money i'm going to go to bristol and i'm going to see all these different things happening and you know i'm in and out of the grandstands in and out of my seat to witness this race this race this race there's always something happening. Does it have to be that track though? Because like look at Darlington. I thought Florence was a great compliment. Well, yeah, but a lot of people might not. I don't know

that a lot of people look at it that way, but that's something I think we can add to the conversation. I'm just, I'm just saying like, it's a great race weekend. The fans, I think all the, I'm speaking for the fans, and I think they might agree that the value of content they able to experience things they were able to see and do, that's the, that should be like the standard should be for every race weekend. You can justify going, like.

Yeah, not the exception, right? Yeah. My cousin went, didn't even tell me he was going. He camped all weekend. Didn't even tell me. Is that a, what a tool? I think that's an indictment on you that he didn't want to tell you. I know.

Yeah, maybe. So all the other tracks, like, that's the standard. That should be the bare minimum, right, of what you would expect if you're going to go physically be there. And so a lot of times we go to these races, and, man, it's like, all right, qualifying is an afterthought. It's, you know, it's on an app. And we don't, it's not like, it's not like something you're going to go sit in the grandstands for. And so, and there's not any practices, you're going to get an Xfinity race or a truck race, and then the cup race.

And there might be a concert, I don't know, but it's very thin. I think over the course, if you said, hey, man, you know, we're going to try to offer more content, more on-track product, whether that's more practice. You know, I would love to get some practice back. Not because the drivers need it. Not because, you know, and yes, it conflicts with the idea of trying to save the team's money. But, man, the storylines that it creates and the opportunity for the fans to hear cars, go into the garage, see teams working and things going on to see action to just feel like there's a Friday and a Saturday yeah it gives you content too yeah everything it just gives it makes it feel like there's something going on and I need to be here

and I'm gonna bring my fifth wheel and hang out with my family you know instead of you know dragging your fifth wheel out there and it being dead silent between the you know the green and the checkered flag of the two races you're gonna happen to see um I don't know I just thought there was all it just felt like at Bristol this weekend there was always something going on there was some racing noise practice something there was it was just an action-packed busy place and it felt

it felt it reminded me of the fun experiences of when weekends had more shit going on hey everybody you want the latest Dale junior download apparel visit shop dot dirtymomedia.com we're always adding new stuff all the time

especially like when we say something silly on this show we'll put it on a t-shirt Again, check it out at shop.dardimomedia.com. Yo, TJ, see you've been walking around with the new phone. Where did you get that new phone? Yeah, man, I love this phone. I recently joined a consumer cellar family, and they hooked me up, man. I got a great new phone, and the service is awesome.

That's great, but how's it, Iowa, Richmond, 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 hot spot on and use some internet on it, text calls, everything, man. I'm, 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 two-for-60 plan. It's not a prepaid option. They helped me decide which one was best for me, and I know exactly what I'm paying each month. Everything is easy to understand with no long-term contract. Switch to consumer cellular now and get 25 hours off with the code DJD-25. That's DJD-25 for 25 hours off when you switch to consumer cellular. Go to consumer cellular.com slash DJD and use promo code DJD-25. I think that one of the things to pull away from this is I think everybody loved the direction that Goodyear's going. maybe it's a bit extreme

but you know there's I don't know that I think what Goodyear would tell you is you know it's we no one knows what track temp we're going to have

there's too many dynamic variables on any given race weekend to be able to say okay man we brought a tire that's going to run 70 laps If it's 40 degrees Yeah

You know what I mean There's no So I know Rudy Frugal had some comments on Fugel Fugel Fugel

Fugle Same thing Rudy had some comments on Sirius XM About like Man you know He's You know he understands like the

The quest to get the tire softer And make You know Try to affect how what the product looks like, but he would have liked, you know, what is our objective?

What's the end game here? And the problem seems to be, well, we know now, you know, we had that race a couple, you know, a year or two ago at Bristol that, like, confused the hell out of everybody because it was cool. And we had massive tire wear.

And for all of my life, I always associated tireware with heat and high. temperatures and if you were going to have a cool temperature you would have less fall off less wear all those it would you know cool temperatures weren't conducive to good racing or where but now it's the opposite it's the opposite and it's my opinion that the way they make the tire and the chemicals or the lack of chemicals oils and different things that were part of the process and infused into the rubber have changed the tire and how the tire reacts to different surfaces and temperatures.

And so we're starting to see this across the board in short track racing as well. And we had a, you know, we had tires, whether it was the Hoosier tire we race in the short track series, the buy supply, or the original, the radial that Goodyear makes. It used to have these oils and different chemicals and stuff in it and when it would wear the balls of debris and tire debris that would go up the racetrack were oily and, well, you could, you could smear it into your hand. Mash it, yeah. Yeah, and you could smear it into your skin, and it would, it was, it would rub off on you.

Now, when this tire does wear, it's a powder. It's like a fine powder. It is, yeah. It is completely foreign to what I think we've known for years and, and, and, and, and, you know, we've known for years and so now we're all kind of relearning what what does instigate the tire to wear and what conditions do we need what makes it do this to create this right and it's cool it's the cool temperature it's what it seems to be what it seems to be so we had we've kind of had two back-to-back experiences to of data points at bristol and what's crazy though is no one in practice

it was only a very minimal difference. There was nowhere, not much fall off. Not like this. Talking to Ryan Blaney, he said, I go out on the racetrack, I run a 1530, and it goes, you know, in a couple laps, it's like 40s, 50s, 60s, 80s, flats, but then he ran flats forever.

And he could have just kept on going and going and going, right? The tire was completely durable. 10 degrees cooler in the race. Not even. Right? Like five degrees cool. Five, six degrees. Something like that to start.

The tire can go 30 laps and it goes to the cords and blows the right front. Yeah. And so. And we got better. Teams got better at the race. Yeah, we went 50, 55, 60 some. Blaney went 50 or 60 the first run. Yeah.

If you anticipated it, right? So I don't know that Goodyear can take the tire to the racetrack and say, all right, man. This one's going to do. No matter what temperature it is, this tire is going to do 70 laps. Now, they can make you a bulletproof tire. Oh, they can make a hard tire. They'll run forever, yes. They sell them on the street every day.

Yep. I got a set of tires on my pickup truck that I need to change now that's got 30,000 miles on it. Yeah, go forever. So I, but they're, you know, kudos to Goodyear for getting aggressive. We asked them to for a tire manufacturer to make a tire that wears out, that fails, that will be something you need to manage is not helpful to their bottom line or it is not helpful to them selling tires

at a tire store on Monday. So what we're asking them to do is almost a detriment to their actual business model, right? They're not making, Goodyear does not make money building racing tires. They don't.

The Goodyear racing tire business is supposed to be a compliment to their brand, and their ability to sell tires to the customer on the street. And so making these tires wear out and fail doesn't look good. It's a risk to their brand.

Unless a race, you know. Yeah, someone that's not as educated is going to look at it and be like, man, these good year tires are terrible. But we all know that. So the driver, yeah, and right, and Goodyear also knows that the drivers are the big sounding board.

And so if they get out and speak negatively about the tire, that then is also problematic toward their ability to sell a tire to a customer on the street because the customer hears what the driver says and says, well, Goodyear's product isn't very good or they don't know how to build a tire that I should probably go get a different tire. So Goodyear got very sensitive, you know, toward all of that. After Indy years and years ago, we had the indie tire that wouldn't go 10 laps.

That was rough. Oh, man. After that race, Goodyear said never again. We're going to build a hardest tire we can make. you know, we're going to be very conservative. We're not going to ever get anywhere near taking any chances of having this happen again. And so it's taken all of those years to get them sort of to come back to the board and draw on board and say, all right, man, we'll go for it.

We'll try to make a tire that's going to be a problem, right, or going to be a challenge. And it's helped. I agree it's helped. And it's also been nice that the drivers are all understanding. I think the industry is understanding of the effort, right? Yeah, for sure. I think so. Yeah, you're not getting out of the car and going, damn, this is a dumb idea.

Yeah, it's terrible, terrible. Yeah, awful tire. So that's important. And I know that, you know, I think that my opinion is, is like, I think what Goodier might say is, look, man, we're trying to make the tire wear. we can't we don't know what temperature we're going to get when we get there and we're going to have to hope you know we're just going to have it's this is the tire and you guys just going to have to manage it if the temperature's this it might go 30 laps if the temperatures add it'll go 100 laps

there you go I'm fine with it I am too I am too and so it's not so much a good year thing it's a temperature thing right it's it's and the teams will learn and adapt right just like we talked about with the racetrack, you give them something new. It looks amazing and awesome because they don't know how to use it. They don't know how to take advantage of it. Well, they will learn that, right? And so the teams will get smarter and smarter. Drivers will get better.

Drivers will get better. They'll go into these races and go, hey, we've got all these data points. This tire did this, this, this, this, this, this. Be ready for that, expect that. And we'll adjust as the race goes on and we learn, which I think would be really fascinating. My opinion is I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't either. You have more factors with this tire.

You have more factors when it's like this because the driver comes into play a lot more and the setup comes into play as well because how aggressive you want to be. There's so many more factors that are, I mean, it's more fun for a race fan. It's got to be, right? Yeah.

I talked to a driver this morning and they love the idea. loved having an opportunity as a driver to maybe do it better than the guy in front of him. Exactly. That's never really part of the game anymore. At a lot of races, you just fire off and you got the car you got, and if you can, you know, if it handles better and you can drive it, you know, the way you want. Like Chase Priscoe said, this car turns better. You have a great day, yeah.

And so here we are at a racetrack where now you have a new variable or an old variable that's been missing of the driver. feeling like, all right, if I'm smarter, then maybe I don't cord my right front as soon as this guy up here who's being a little more reckless or a little more brazen. I think we missed that point, you just said a lot. If I am smarter, right now, there's not a lot of that. It's just, this car is usually faster. Yeah. You just run like hell because you just run as fast as you can every lap.

Tires more, tires often a little bit too durable. I want them to think that. If I be smarter, I can beat this guy. That should be a thought process way more. Yeah. Well, I think it was a good move in the right direction for a good year. And, you know, you don't know you could go back to this racetrack six months from now and have a completely different race and have a completely different wear. And so for them to sort of be chasing the temperature feels like that would be just a waste of everybody's time.

Yeah. Right? for them to be chasing, you know, moving the durability of the tire all around, chasing a dynamic variable that's going to be different every time you go to the racetrack. I just say, hey, man, we've made you this tire. Everybody's asked for it. Surely they can tweak and play with, you know. Richmond was a good tire, too, and it was warm. Yeah.

You know, so they're still. Yeah. And Good Year will continue to tweak and play with it. For sure. But I think this direction's a good direction. Oh, my gosh. It's so nice when we have these. Yeah.

Yeah, it's such a nice change of pace from what we're experiencing at other racetracks with the, you know, the mile and a halfs and so forth. It's kind of nice to go to a racetrack and go, oh, yeah, man, this is going to be cool because of the tire wear or, you know, the drivers are going to drive completely different or they are more, this will be a, I loved, you know why I've always just loved short track racing? Not because of the shape of the track or any, it's always the contact and the physicality of short track racing. close since the cars. When I was a little kid, I'm like, man,

we're going to see them boys beat on each other today. It's going to be fun. And we, that's what we got this past weekend. That's why I loved short track racing,

not because of just, you know, that was the only reason. Was it hard to stop? Like, you watched, did you, you watched a race when it was going on?

Was it entertaining when it's going on? Like, there was a lot of stuff happening at one time, right? Like, the strategies,

it was kind of hard to, like, figure out where, who's where, but it was entertaining. Like, you had comers and goers and people like I don't know what more you could want from a fan yeah like if you weren't happy with that like I can't help you yeah I thought it was uh you know

it was neat that you know like Bowman spins early he's able to figure out a way to get some of that track position back at a risk right that he's going to have to stay out on tires a good job of doing that yeah so like even though your guy might have ended up upside down at some point in the night metaphorically, he could figure out a way to rebound or take a risk, right, with the tire to give himself the track position. I'll tell you what was cool. Nine laps on our tires was like, uh, should we come? Should we not?

It was like, that's awesome. Yeah. Like, it was on defense. Like, we got to stay out here. We got to stay with us. Guess what? We had about a handful of guys pit and you're like, oh, here they're going to be coming through here.

That is awesome. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, the playoff standings are. set for the next round of the playoffs. TJ, you had Barry Chastain, Dillon, and SVG. Yeah, I had it perfect until Travis talked

me out of it. Yep. I had Chastain, I put Chastain and had Bowman advancing. Yeah. I had Cendrick Chastain, Dylan, and SVG, so I didn't get it right either. So, Josh Barry, we're going to

take them off? Yep, he's gone. These guys, all autographed. All autographed. All autographed. Pass them over here, pal. Here we go. A little Austin Dillon. I saw where Austin Dillon, his team won the bull riding thing.

Yeah, that's cool. Yep, so they're gone, and they're relegated back to the rest of the field. This is getting tougher. And so now the remaining cars on the field on the table here. Denny Hamlin plus 26, Byron plus 24, Larson plus 24, Bell plus 20, Bill adding a few playoff points to that overall total this past weekend at Bristol. Blaney minus or a plus 19, briscoe plus 10. Then you have Chase Elliott at plus five in eighth, right at the cutline, plus one, Bubba.

And then ninth, Cendrick, Ligano, Chastain, Reddick, all minus one, minus two, minus two, minus three. That's tight. Very tight. All right, let's pick our four. Who's going to get rooted out? Let's look at the tracks first. We got Loudon, Kansas, and what's their one? Roval.

Oh. Loudon, Kansas. And the Roval. Roval. Well, I mean, the top four or the top five are safe. Are they? I think so. I mean, without a mechanical issue or something.

So what do you think the top four or five, like average finish, what you think they need? top tens. They'll come around there with the top 10. Those are top 10 cars every week pretty much without minus a mechanical issue or a wreck or something. But I feel like you're going to see one of those guys have an issue. I don't know, man.

He thinks he's going to have an issue. He doesn't feel it again. He's doing it again. I think TJ's right. I'm just going to go ahead and transfer the top five in. I think Briscoe is going to be safe because of Loudon and the Roble. He's won at the Roble. Yeah.

I mean, you look at Briscoe's performance lately. He's probably the most consistent, highest driver. I'll tell you what scares me with Brisco, and I saw this before it happened at Gateway. He got in the pack, and he started driving a little reckless. And that's what I'm afraid of with Briscoe, is him getting a little bit behind and trying to make up for it. He wrecks somebody at... Who do he wreck at Gateway? He wrecks somebody into one.

But that was him trying to get back through the pack on a different pit strategy. And this isn't the time you can't. do that right now, but he's got a 10-point lead. Elliot, I mean, that's a tough one, man. I do feel like Cendrick's going to drop. I don't know. This is so tough. They're all so good.

Yeah. Yeah, this is really hard. No scientific data here, no evidence or real hard. hard study to back up this prediction but my four that are going to struggle to make it into the next round

are Chase Elliott Cendrick Chastain Reddick I think that Lugano who tested at Loudon did he not I think he did that a tire test at Loudon I think Bert and Jeff Burton was talking about it on our

on our door up clear this year I feel like Loudon and Kansas are two good tracks for Joey and so I think he'll do just enough to advance

and he's still even at Gateway he didn't have track position in the beginning of the race the next thing you know he's up there grinding it out he always finds a way to get himself just as one of the drivers competing it's ridiculous like he'll be 18th and then you look up there and he's fourth yeah I mean

I don't he doesn't have two years in a row, maybe you could go back further and determine if it's more, but two years in a row he's had a very subpar regular season. But then when we get into the playoffs and you look at the tracks and you go, yeah,

could seem doing pretty good there. And so... I think Loudoun last year he had an issue, though. This put him behind in this round. Look, I mean, if they have an issue, they have an issue. But I'm saying if everything goes well, and he tested there,

Jeff Burton said he had some in pretty good speed, that particular test at Loudoun. Of the three cars that were there? Listen. Burton knows what he's talking about. He does, yeah. And then Kansas is a pretty reasonable track for him. So, yeah, I think he gets through. The margin of error here, though, on this is like I wouldn't be surprised if I only get one of these right.

The thing about Joey is, one, he's talented enough to just be up there to compete for but then if he's having an off day, that's where Paul Wolf comes in and is great with the strategy and gives him a shot. How does Chase Elliott not get eliminated? I feel like he's had decent speed as the finishes aren't there. Well, at the start of the year, they were the most consistent team in the garage and leading the points, right? So, I mean, he's points leading worthy. He's led the points for most of the season. But where is my confidence?

You know? I guess it's been, they've been just so quick. quietly doing this that I don't, I look at the other names and I'm like, hmm, at plus five is he's going to be able to do enough to sort of separate himself. I think he can outpoint Bubba, but I don't know, man, Bubba's really kind of turned it up another notch this year. I feel like he's just like right now, he's playing with house money, he doesn't care and he's just going out there and driving. It seems like since Indy, he's, he's sort of switched into another gear that I've never seen him really have before.

Just in his pace and speed, his confidence, and that he deserves to be up there, can do it, should be able to do it. Reddick worries me a little bit. Just I don't see the speed that I think that they're capable of. Again, Chastain, the trackhouse hot and cold. You never know they might show up in Kansas and dominate, just like they did it to 600. But if they don't do that, they're, what, an 18th, 20th place team, right?

Probably, yeah. To your point with Chase, he's got 11 starts in New Hampshire, three top tens. Yeah. New Hampshire's that kind of track, man. Jesus. I loved running there, but for the life of me, couldn't figure out how to consistently finish well there. What was it about the track? Well, if it don't turn in the middle, you're screwed.

I mean, if you're just a little bit tight center, the corner's really flat, and there's nothing you can do about it. But I don't know, there's always kind of this track where I always felt like I was just a bit off from where I needed to be and what I needed a car to have. I would have races where we'd run good, but just couldn't consistently put it together there. Fun track, though. I felt like we ran pretty good there. We might have.

Yeah. I felt like it was one of the better tracks that I knew when we were. Always came down to this stupid strategy at the end because it's this weird race where you're going to have a lot of guys that don't pit for tires with 100 laps to go. And so you could run fourth and fifth all day long, but at the end of the last cycle, you come out in your 12th or 15th because there's these six or seven guys that didn't come down on pit road that are good on fuel, right? They're going to try to make it work. And they weren't really there all day. They weren't there all day. Not leading anyway.

And then you beat the, yeah, and then you destroy your shit trying to race through the pack and get your spot back. you know, and get your finish back that you thought you're going to deserve. You got wrecked by your guest last week. We talked about that. Oh, you did? Yeah, me and Ruderman got up from the table and had a conversation about that. Yeah. Here you go, Dale.

You had 35 starts there, eight top fives, 15 top tens. There you go. Well, not one of my best. I feel like that was a good one now. Yeah. Average starting position, 16.1. Wow, qualify. Can you sort by average finish?

Your average finish was 15.9. Yeah, can you sort it at the top? Go up to top of the average finish and click that. Yep. Just, there you go. Wow, that's lower than I thought, though. Where is it? Oh, wait, that's not Loudoun in general.

That's every track. Yeah, that's every. Can you click Loudon on the left and bring it up? Why? And now sort of by average finish. Who has the bat? I don't know. No, this is just stales numbers.

Oh, okay. Fool. Atlanta was my best track. Old Atlanta. Well, look at this. Atlanta, Martinsville, Bristol, Richmond. Martinsville, Bristol, Richmond.

I was a short track guy. Vegas does not... Vegas stands out. I know, right? Vegas does not... Texas... But Vegas and Texas was similar? I had eight... Vegas was my best,

my fifth best average finish at 13.8, but I only had four top fives there in 18 starts. Ten top tens. Just running right around that average. 13th. But yeah, I was a short track guy.

Look at Daytona. down there, Talladega, right in the middle of the pack. Everybody thought I was just a plate guy. But man, I was a short track guy. We had many years where I've scored more points than anybody on the short tracks. I pointed everybody at all the short tracks. I felt like that was definitely a strength. Yeah.

Even the old Phoenix. Hell yeah. 13 top fives at Martinsville. You would not like the new Phoenix. No, I didn't. I don't. I don't like the new dog leg. I like the flat track.

Yeah, where you could use the apron. It was somewhere to Bristol where you could get the left front down there at times and stuff. The NASCAR playoffs are here, and so is your chance to bring the intensity home. Celebrate every pass, pit stop, and photo finish with a collectible car from Lionel Racing, the official diecast of NASCAR.

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Follow along with us throughout the playoffs to see what drivers advance and which ones don't and we'll feature these die casts on the set here at the Dale Jr. download. Now through the end of September, get free U.S. shipping when you purchase the Cup Series diecast of a NASCAR playoff driver. Just go to linelracing.com and use promo code playoffs. That's promo code playoffs at linelracing.com. If you had to critique one thing, there was a lot of caution laps. You think that the cautions were too long? Yeah.

They needed to be quicker. But I don't, I can't really critique NASCAR, because I don't know if they could have sped it up. But it just there was a lot of time spent under yellow. Yeah. I think that's a common complaint that we hear as well in the short track world. And there's a lot of reasons why the cautions are the way they are. And they are too long, but there's reasons why that that extra app, the lap is added.

I remember, and Bristol is such a small track that cleanup is tough to do because there's constantly cars coming around. And so the trucks and the people that are trying to do what they need to do to get the track ready for racing have a tougher job. have a tougher job. And I remember this was the race where me and Robbie Gordon got into it, and I flipped him the bird on the pit road afterwards. We had ran, if I remember correctly, we had ran really well all day. Did you get a stage win? Somewhere late in the race, we lost a ton of track position.

Failed back to like 15th or so. we had about 40 laps to go, and I needed all of those laps to be green to try to drive through the field. And I don't think, I don't know, we weren't doing double-file restarts and stuff at this point. So, like, you know, if cautions come out,

now you've got all the lap cars back on the inside, and if you're lining up 12th, you're really 24th. No choose then either. Yeah, no choose or nothing. So, like, you didn't need any cautions. And so I'm driving physically up through the pack. Robbie's a lap down and I'm trying to pass his ass and he's not letting me get through right and we're beating on each other Caution comes out I'm mad as hell

Just in general and I get on the radio and I'm like I don't know what the heck is going on here With these yellow flags they either need the red flag the race or drop the green flag So we've got like 15 to go 14 to go 12 to go 11 to go 10 to go. I'm like let's go. I want an opportunity to get back into the top 10 here and at least salvage something and I'm just animated as heck on the radio. And all of a sudden

they said over the radio to me, NASCAR wants to see you and Tony Sr. in the caller afterwards. And so, okay, I guess we're in trouble. So we get going and finally green flag comes out. I don't know where we finished, 11th, 12th or something like that, get to beating and banging on each other with

Robbie coming to pit road. I'm mad, he's mad, and all that happened. Then I have to go over to the NASCAR hauler. And I don't really know for sure what kind of conversation I'm about to have. I sat down in the hauler with Tony Sr. Tony Yuri Sr.

is mean, fiery. He will not back down to no one. He will get in anybody's face. He's ready to fight. he's that kind of guy right you don't tell him nothing and uh so i'm i'm i'm a little nervous because i'm not sure what we're going to have here so we walk in there and sit down and no one's there yet we got there before helton and all those guys have come down from the booth helton walks in there we sit there for 20 minutes waiting um finally helen walks in there and

as soon as he comes through the door me and tony senior start talking. Like, hey man, listen. And we got, you know, we've been going to plead our case. And he said, y'all ain't here to talk. Y'all are here to listen. And he said, man, there were, there was parts and pieces of brake rotor and all kinds of stuff littered all around the top groove of that racetrack that we're trying to clean off

the racetrack. We're not riding you under caution for no reason at all. There's a purpose and a reason for us to be. be under yellow. And there's a lot of things going on that you don't know anything about. And you said it and made it pretty clear that we needed to be a little bit more particular about what we said on our radio. And so, you know, that was a moment where I always, ever since then, I've kind of, you know,

even though cautions can get drawn out. And I'm definitely one of the people that feel like that the stage break is a little long, but you know, you've got to in the stage, you know, award the winner, understand all the rundown, open pit road, you know, TV is going to run off to commercial, you know, and so there, and you eat into the second stage, right? The second stage is like already eight laps old before you get back to Green Flag. I don't love all of that But I wish they could figure out a way to shorten that particular stage

The stage breaks are unnecessary In terms of how long the caution is But yeah I don't I'm sure there's a reason So do you have your four that you think are going to get knocked out of the play of the round? I do I think I think Cendrick drops out I think Bubba just he's up and down for me And I don't I think this is a tough round to get through.

I have Chastain just kind of being average there and this isn't a great time for being average in. Reddick just is having an off year. I mean, he's still having a good year, but it's just an off year

for him, in my opinion. I think Lugano can move up. I do too. So you and I are the same except for Chase Elliott and Bubba. And honestly, I'm on the fence between them too, but I just, I don't know,

I got this feeling that Bubba's gonna, gonna pull it. He could. He's got a different book. It is gonna be, razor thin. Chase has to show up now. Yeah, like the margins of you know, between, I think between

seventh and twelfth. It's right now plus five and Chase Elliott it's plus five and seventh. Reddick's only three out and twelfth. I think it's going to stay this tight all the way through. I think, I mean, if you're a crew chief or you're looking at the strategy for this now, do you just write off the top five? Like you're really

racing these guys right around you, right? I know you want to win, but like you're not really racing William Byron right now. No. I think if one of those guys in the top five do have an issue, it's a bonus. Now, the interesting thing is also you have the Roval waiting as your third race too, so

depending on the driver, you better get some work done now. Yeah. Roval is not where I want to go on a points position, you know, on the edge. Yeah, I mean, I don't think anybody wants to go to the Roval this year, not after the way the Oval's been racing.

Mark is so hard-headed. I don't know why. I mean, I'm sure there's a really good reason why you wouldn't change. You can't change in like the, you know, inside of a 12-month window. Like, all right, let's just not do the Roval this year. I guess, you know, there's a lot of people that have bought tickets thinking they're coming to the Roval, right? Yeah, but how many of those fans would honestly be, but you know what? Damn, and I wanted the Roval.

I don't know. I think that's the one thing the NASCAR community can agree on is bring back the Oval. I think they do. And I bet there's part of Marcus that he would. wish as he could i think they're he can right no i think there's probably some legal you know there's probably some lawsuit that could be filed by somebody if they were like wait a minute you said this was on the schedule to be it a roval i'm not getting my roval i mean i get that there's contracts and stuff but i think they can all get in a room in but like hey can you just text him and ask him

i mean come on he might love the roval can't imagine if we have maybe he does maybe that's it the oval is the cutoff I'm here. I'm fine with that. I'm fine. I wish you was. Marcus. Yeah.

Oh, on Holler Talk. They mentioned about the idea of adding a fourth stage to the super speedway. So Daytona Talladega. Fans did not like this idea. I spoke of this myself on the show, guys. Don't y'all remember? I do. Yeah.

And so I. We were talking about how at the last restrictive plate race, we had this first stage where everybody raced like hell. And it's like, well, if we want to try to get that style of racing the entire time, maybe we don't, you know, maybe take fuel out of it entirely. Well, fuel out of it as much as you can and add a fourth stage. that doesn't sound so crazy to me because we have a fourth stage in the 600 and no one cares, right? And so I'm like, all right, well, it's super speedway racing.

The other thing that I like about it is it adds importance to those two races because there will be more points on the line. It's the most important races of the year. Yeah. So the 600 has the extra stage. So there's that opportunity uniquely in that particular weekend where you can gain more points than your traditional race weekend. So now, you know, there's been this, I love Daytona. I also love Talvega. I had a success, a lot of success at both of those racetracks.

The racing there over the last several years has taken a beating from critics, myself included. and drivers would even argue that is the Daytona 500 still the most important race of the year? Yes, everyone wants to win a Daytona 500, but is it the most important race? It's fallen from that perch. And that is a problem for me. The Daytona 500 for all of my life has been compared to the Super Bowl of the NFL. it has always been this very important event that everyone did everything they could to try to find a way to win it once. And it would even be compared to a championship.

To some drivers like myself, would you trade a Daytona 500 trophy for a championship? That was a legitimate question you might get. No one's asking those questions now because obviously everyone would say I want that championship. because the Daytona 500 and its solidified spot as the most important race is no longer the case. And so adding this four stage and making those races mean more from a point standpoint would also make the races again mean more from a competitor's standpoint. Is it the best solution? No. Is it the perfect solution is not?

I'm sure fans will tell you, we'll get rid of the stages. Don't tell them when you're going to throw the yellows, right? And maybe, you know, then they can't predict and plan. Great points by all of those people. But I don't know that that's on the table. I don't think NASCAR is considering that, or else I would try to use whatever influence we have here to support that. But I think adding the fourth stage is, you know, maybe not the best idea, but it's an idea, I guess, that they are contemplating.

They brought it up. It's moving in the right direction. At least they're trying. Do you think, T.J. Travis, do you think if they took the stage cautions out, you still award points at a certain point in the race, drivers are racing toward that moment? but if they took outstage yellows and you didn't know if and when a caution would come, would you still save fuel knowing that you needed to minimize the time on pit road? Yeah, I think no matter what, you're going to take that whatever the final lap, you're going to run the race backwards and you're going to try to make your last stop

as short as possible to cycle in front of everybody. Exactly. But I do think it worries me doing that, though, that Talladega is going to have basically zero passing maybe because it's hard to pass when everybody's going hard, and the guys in their front can control that. The front two cars, the first two cars in the line, can control the third lane, whether there's a third lane or not, right? The third lane only forms when they save.

I felt like that their passing was good in this past Talladega race where there was a lot of... But it was why was it good because they were saving fuel? That's what I'm saying, though. If they're not saving fuel, I don't think you're having a third lane. like the front two cars of each line are kind of controlling the third lane whether they wanted to be there or not and I think you run hard enough to maintain your track position might it might it give someone that just rise in the back all day a little bit more

of a shorter stop at the end but I mean yeah there's it's definitely another variable to add in there but I still think you're gonna I still think you're gonna have the same stuff Teledega just it's hard to in Daytona I mean Daytona was good yeah but it was still hard because you were, we got back there and we were gridlocked. We couldn't move. Even with the, and I know everyone was like, well, Blaney came from 12th on the outside lane. Things worked out perfectly.

It's not going to happen every time like that, no, I don't think. It's not going to form like that and do that every single time. So we got to keep that in mind as well. I just felt like at Daytona that the racing looked more like what I thought plate racing should look like. It did. And I felt like guys were going harder,

but runs and passes and things were still possible. guys were taking chances and I feel like if you, I think that if you add the fourth stage, you more than likely, more often get that style of race. If you take the cautions away from

the stage breaks themselves, take them out, you're still going to have guys that are going to sit in the draft, save, save, save, save, to your point to knock a couple seconds off of that final stop and leapfrog the field, and so we're going to it will not I don't think taking the cautions out is the answer I think you're still you're still going to have fuel mileage yeah these crew chiefs are too smart at what they're doing yeah but if you say hey we're going to have you know it's 40 laps you don't need fuel race your ass off bam bam bam I think you're going to have more action there was Daytona also had man they were sliding up and I can tell you from my point of view handling that when I can see that when I can see the the car on the bottom sliding up to the middle groove and the guy in the outside being on the sliding up and they're all like in unison with each other that tells me those guys are having to

open the wheel up on purpose like they have to or they're going to crash the driver's all said like chase elliot and them guys in the pack were like tires matter y'all don't you know they were all alerting their crews like i know that we probably don't want to put tires on this thing no more and we have to because we're just going to try to pack it full of fuel and beat everybody all pit road but tires matter. Like I need to be on the offense and I need rubber on the car. What if we had tires that wore out more?

I'm sure that's another direction. I know it's going to be hard to Talladega to make a difference, but Daytona, I could for sure see it. Well, I think they don't need to change the tire because the tracks are going that direction. Like the tracks are heading. Trending.

Trending in that direction to make the balance matter. Cars sliding around more, creates heat in the tire. When the tire gets hot, it loses grip. I don't know that, I need a tire to wear out at Daytona Talladega. But if you're sliding, then you're going to lose grip,

lose confidence, lose ability to hold people off. You're going to, you know, you're going to create comers and goers. Passing. Passing, yeah. So, and I think that's coming just because of the tracks and sales are starting to age a little bit. And if the guys are running hard, right, they're pushing the tire, you know, challenging the balance of the car instead of sitting in line and. running half throttle.

Daytona was definitely a lot more running hard, a lot more. And that's going to heat the tire up. That's going to make things mad and get the balance angry. Whereas if you're saving fuel and everybody's riding 80% throttle or even less, nobody's really going to start getting tired or start getting loose or start to struggle and slip up out of line and, you know, create the comers and gorge and passing. So I don't, you know, I know that everyone doesn't love this idea of the four stage, but I'm telling you it's a nothing burger because,

We don't look at the 600 and go, oh, damn, that four stage. Nobody even cares. Nobody even really, I don't think anybody even picks up on the idea that it's even in there. You know what I mean? If it adds another stop, it definitely,

there's another green flag stop. It definitely adds the element of like, you know, what are these? It wouldn't be a green flag stop. Where if they add another stage. You have no stage. You don't need fuel. Yeah.

I mean, yeah. You just race your ass off. Go get you 10 points if you won't. Go get you a playoff point if you won't. But at Charlotte, they got a pit with the fourth stage. Yeah, because it's 600 miles. Yes, you got a pit during your stages there. So that, to me, you got, okay, do you short pit, do you run long?

And that gives guys that if you're running 12th, you're going to run long and you get that caution, guess who's getting track position? You know what I mean? That's not a strategy at the television. Not the big tracks now. Um, well, it'll be interesting to see if there's more conversation around that going into, uh, next season. As we told you, this episode of, uh, Dirty Air is brought to you by Bass Pro Shops. The Earnhardt family has always relied on Bass Pro Shops for our outdoor adventures. And I grew up shopping there.

It's a place that I love sharing with my own family, taking Isla and the girls over to the fish tank. Oh, it's the best. Oh, yeah. Uh, we love to gear up together for every. everything on our weekend getaways, taking the fifth wheel camping, or just hanging around the house and fishing out of our own pond. I'm thankful for the support that Johnny Morris and the entire Bass Pro Shops team have shown across all of our businesses here.

We've got Bass Pro logos on our Xfinity program. They're helping a little Wyatt out as he goes through the process of his career. They've been on our late model program on the hood of our cars that we've raised. in the Cars Tour for years. And so they believe in what we're building here, and they stood behind us every step of the way. They're great partners and they're great people. Be sure to check out all they have to offer,

no matter what you're into, camping, hunting, fishing. You just need some warm clothes for the winter. You can find everything you need at the nearest Bass Pro shops, or you can shop online at BassPro.com. All right, we got Christopher Bell on the show. The winner from Bristol, And we've had him on a lot this year. It's been nice to...

It's been too long, Dale. It's been too long. It doesn't feel like it, man. It feels like you've been winning with quite consistency, but I know that you've... You probably don't feel that way. But an awesome place to win races at, being able to go up that ramp at Bristol

and experience all that is quite unique. Tell us about your night, man. Oh, boy. That's a loaded question there, Dale. That night was wild. And I'm sure everybody, every driver would say the same thing of, you know, you didn't know if you were leading the race, if you were running last, if you're on the lead lap, if you're two laps down, three laps down. It was wild. It was wild

and chaotic. And fortunately, you know, the race played out for me. I think I said at post-race that whoever was going to win that race was going to get really lucky. There's no way that anybody was going to win without luck being on their side when the yellows came out, when the, you know, the long green flag runs played out, what tires you were. on at that point in time. So yeah, Adam did a great job calling the race and the race fell for us. So it worked out. What's that feeling like going up that ramp on top of that building for Victory Lane? I always felt like that winning at Bristol was special. It's one of my favorite racetracks as a kid going to and I love the energy of the night race. Does it have a unique feel

compared to what you experience in other wins? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Well, first off, the Bristol night race has been the top of my list for ever since I got into the Cup series. Like it is just so you can feel the energy. The pre-race ceremonies are always incredible. And then Bristol's Victory Lane, like you literally drive on the roof of the media center. Like how cool is that? That is that that's about as cool as it gets.

And I, yeah, I got fortunate enough to drive up there with dirt tires on, but I was been wanting to do it with asphalt tires for a while. So the tire was quite the conversation, a big talking point leading into the race and tended, you know, we tended to think we might not have much tire wear after practice, but the race was a whole different outcome. In the end, you know, there's, I guess everybody's kind of taking stock of what we saw, what do we want going forward, where do you kind of lie in all of that? I know you won the race, so people are going to be, you know, people are going to be critical

of your opinion because of the whim. But, you know, I really, we've talked about it, and we really feel like that it's, you know, with the temperature being so unpredictable, I just kind of keep going down the road the way we're going, you know, because you never really know what you're going to get in terms of temperature and so forth. So that kind of makes the wear unpredictable.

But where do you lie? So I, I, uh, I'll start by saying I want the best teams and the best drivers to be able to win the races. Like that that's what I want to happen. And with the way that the races play out on the, or specifically this race with the high tire tag, it is so much luck, Dale. It is so much luck. And, you know, it, you don't, I guess if you had more tires, it would probably make it a little bit less lucky.

because you're able to just put tires on whenever the yellow flag comes out and you're you're less at risk. But the way that that third stage played out with all those rash of yellows, like you can't put tires on all the time. And then if you don't put tires on and then it runs green, you're going to be buried. You're going to lose your track position. And it becomes so difficult. And even in stage one, like the guys who, you're going to be buried. had the one-stop strategy. They paid the price because the yellow flag came out at the wrong time for them

and it benefited the guys who pitted early and were going on the two-stop strategy. So I don't know how you, you know, we have that problem a lot at other racetracks, but the difference is you don't go so many laps down whenever the green flag cycle happens. And so I just, I don't like the aspect of so much luck is, you know, indicative of the outcome. Yeah, that's a great point. We, you know, we kind of wonder, you know, if it's hard to believe, though, that like five degrees of temperature can affect how much wear that we see in the tire. And then it's on top of that, it is on totally different ends of the spectrum. Like, you either have zero wear or the most wear we see all year.

I know. That's, it's just hard to believe there's one single variable, and it's literally around five degrees of temperature. that determine that um you know when you're when you go to bristol what's your what's your preferred bristol do you like that running around the bottom the contact that we saw physicality of that race or uh you know imagine being a dirt guy you love running the top and getting up on the cushion a little bit so to speak as well i mean i i normal bristol has always been my favorite racetrack i just i love the the grinded out mentality, the push as hard as you can, the pace is so fast, lap traffic is everywhere.

And then especially with the track prep that they've had the last, you know, I don't know, five years or so of being able to have the bottom. So we have the bottom, have the top, you have different options. I don't know. I thought it's been racing really well. You know, we've had two races now where the tires have been unpredictable. and to an extent, I like that unpredictability. I think it does provide, you know, it provides another wild card,

but on the same breath, like, we already have six Super Speedway races. I hate whenever luck is a main factor in who wins the races. Like, I want the best drivers and the best cars to win. We have Loudon, Kansas, Roval coming up in this next round. How do you feel about those three racetracks and your chance to be able to continue to move forward. Yeah, I mean, I think it's all in our hands. Certainly, you know, there are three racetracks that we run really well at. I haven't won at Kansas, but I've won at the other two. And we have high expectations and goals of ourselves. And hopefully, you know,

hopefully we can go out there and execute. But certainly there's nothing that, nothing that says we won't, we won't run well. That's for sure. All right, ma'am. Well, hey, appreciate the time you gave us today. Congratulations on the win at Bristol. Always awesome to put one of those Trophies on the mantle. And good luck going forward in this next round. Thank you, Dale. We'll talk to you next time. Hey, everybody.

It's Dale Jr. here at the Dell Jr. Download and the Dirty Mo Media Studios with my co-host, T.J. Majors for this Xfinity As Jr. In racing and in life, speed isn't optional. It's expected. As a driver and Xfinity Series team owner, I rely on things that perform under pressure. And that's why I go with Xfinity Wi-Fi, fast-appendable internet with one price locked in for five years. contracts, no slowdowns, no nonsense. Xfinity proud premier partner of NASCAR.

Well, we got great questions from the fans this week. This first one's from Hunter. Chase Elliott said in an interview recently with Bobby Bones that you helped him change to the number nine from the 24. So how did that end up coming about? Yeah, he explained it pretty well. Basically, there was, I think the nine car was going away. petty or whatever that nine car was at the point was was was going away and available or had been gone for a couple years and I went to chase and I just said hey man I you know if you wanted to change you better do it soon you know you're building some equity with this 24 but it's not too late to you know to change and it not be like a you know kind of an awkward thing so he's like

oh no I ain't I ain't I ain't gonna ask for that I'm okay and I'm like well would you want to he goes yeah I would but I'm I'm okay and so I mean he's young he's only in like year two and so I went to Rick

and I said Rick I said man I was like I was like I got an idea and I think it'd be a pretty big deal I was like an Elliot in the number nine is a big win for everybody and

and so I think William Byron might have been coming in. Yeah, because I think he ended up taking the 24. And so I was like, you know, shift. The 24 is very important to Rick, Jeff Gordon, the legacy, and they want it to be in Victory Circle and continue on, and there's a lot of equity built in that number. And so that was one of the holdups, I think, for everybody.

But I was like, Rick, this will be insane. The fans would love this. chasing the number nine and for him to get this done now and be able to you know hopefully run the next 20 years with this number racking up you know more equity in the number and this the history of the number so um he's like he's like I'd be fine with that so I called chase back I'm like dude I talk to Rick he's he's open to the idea said I'm serious you need to get in front of him and see if y'all can figure it out so um yeah because I I knew down in there somewhere that that's really truly what he wanted but he didn't want to

disappoint Jeff and Rick and you know he didn't want you know and and I think for me right the number fits Byron for you know what you know and the number nine fits Chase like it's very it just seems to make sense right and it was good for everybody but um you know and he'd ran the nine here right now it had been his number right so um yeah so I was I was I was what small role I played in sort of kicking the ball down the hill I was happy to do because Chase I wanted that for Chase you know he's doing he's he's living his dream racing and and uh you know just too good of an opportunity for it not to be perfect it's always interesting in sports when you see a player like change a number and you're just like they just you don't like

it when they wear that yeah they just don't look like themselves or whatever like you just identify them with that number is a very difficult I think for racing too because the number is a big identifier. No different than other sports, right? For your favorite player, if you've got a favorite team and a favorite player and he's ran this number and for whatever reason he changes or goes to another team playing with a different jersey number, it's the strangest thing. But with racing, it's also like the previous drivers that had that number too.

So it's just like... Yeah, there's a lot of history. Yeah. Equity. Yeah. 100%. coming from Grant. They saw that you posted on Twitter

that you'd be okay in a hypothetical 3-3-4 format to have Talladega in the final round. And they wanted to know why. Why not? I don't know. They wanted to know why? Just why was the question? Like, yeah, what the hell? I mean, what's the problem?

Well, I don't know. It feels like it would be a controversial thing if that ended up being the format to have a Super Speedway in the championship round. Should we just get rid of them all together? I don't know, but I mean, Super Speedways have kind of been in part of our DNA, and I don't know why we're, I don't know why that's so problematic to have one in a final round. I think it's because, like, you could see a massive wreck and then the drivers that are involved. Try to avoid the wreck. Try to win the race.

Rec avoidance? Try to win. Go win. I don't love road courses. I don't, but I still. think that that's a probably a perfectly fine idea to have a road course in the final round. I mean, a super speedway, a mile and a half, a short track, and a road course, let's see what you can do. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, road courses are not at the top of my list, but I'm not over here going, we shouldn't have any road courses in the final round. But we have been going to Daytona since the 50s. They built Talladegh in the late 60s. This has been in our sport forever.

And I, you know, I think that it's perfectly normal and fine for me, for it to be one of the races of multiple events in the final round, you know, unpredictably be damned, you know. I feel like, you know, if there's a, you know, if there's a problem with the racing, if there's something about the racing that we don't like, we should fix the racing and keep the track. Where was this when we were talking about Portland? I think I can fix the track there.

That term one's silly. Nobody liked it. I got roasted for that take. I just, you know, I think if they figure out how to make the racing, I think if we're right, we had a really good Daytona, right? If we can get that style of racing at Talladega at Daytona, then I'm all for it being part of the equation of how we figure out how we determine our champion.

TJ, what do you think? I don't think it matters what round it's in, like he said. If it's the final round, you still got to go through it to get there, whether it's the final round, but it would kind of like, to Travis's point, if you do get caught up in something that's just not you're doing in the final round, and it kind of ruins your championship chase or something with three race, whatever it is, that would, but I mean, it could also knock out the previous round as well. I know.

So it's really no different. And whatever happens at Daytona or Talladega earlier in this season can be detrimental to your success late in the year. I don't know that what are we doing if we're insulating ourselves from, from, you know, tough moments and tough things and challenging things about our sport, right? Are we, it's a bit soft, I think, to say, oh man, let's not put the plate race in there and let's not put Taladega in there in the final round because of the unpredictability and, you know, a driver being eliminated by a crash that he had nothing to do. But I like it because it puts that thing I talked to you earlier about in the show being smart.

You know, you don't have to necessarily go in, but if you run a smart race all day, that's what you need to do. Yeah. I mean, if they, I will say this, too, and if they moved it out of the round, I'm indifferent. I really am. I'm not, I don't, I'm not insisting it be there. If they don't change the schedule, and it's one of the four, I'll support it. It's perfectly fine with me.

But if they do say, it's too wild, it's too crazy, we're going to, you know, it won't be in the final I'm not going to pound the table and demand you know they put it back it is what it is but I don't have a problem with it if they do go to a 3-3-4 Taladega is one of the final races

I'm all about it yeah I'm fine with it let's go for it yeah let's go see he can get through there and make it happen that's fair it'll be interesting to see certainly what this format ends up being

and if that I don't have a strong opinion about it either way but I'm damn it stand on the table yeah I don't I don't have a strong opinion about it I've got other battles. Fair enough. That are more important.

On a lighter-hearted side, this one's from Brian. You know, you do, when you were with TNT and Amazon, you were doing some ride-alongs for Bleacher Report. Who's the coolest celebrity you got to take around in a pace car? And do you have anyone you would like to, like anyone on that list that you would like to take around the racetrack? All the rides were great. You know, just getting to meet people that, you know, that typically might, you know, not know much about NASCAR, being able to take them out on the racetrack and give them that perspective is a lot of fun because, you know, a lot of times you have people come to the race and they're just a witness to the event itself.

You hope they have a great time and they want to come back. But to be able to put them in the seat of a car and take them around the racetrack and have a conversation, right? And also be curious about their support. My league neighbors was a receiver for the Giants and plays against my favorite team. And he's best friends with our quarterback, Jaden Daniel. So I had a ton of things that I was curious about that I was hopeful to get to talk to him about. And I did. So it's pretty fun for me.

Like athletes to me would be fun because it's for them to not know your world and go see it. Yeah. And getting their reaction. and then they're you know sometimes sometimes you'll take people out there and you don't know if they're wild or you know you don't know really what they're thinking and you learn all that later like weeks later oh man he got out you know because we go on and we go do something else i got another thing i got to get to or they're they're they're shuffled off to do something else and then you'll hear from somebody like that works with a Bleacher Report that was tagging along with him,

man, you should have heard him afterwards. He was saying this and that and the other, and he was amazed by this, and he couldn't believe this. And you're like, man, you know, that's kind of a payoff, I think, at the end. I always like when you see the person, like, they're taking a little easy, and then all of a sudden, all right, they're stepping on the gas, they're going to give them the full experience, and they're not ready for it. Yeah, we ripped around Atlanta and the Corvette.

Oh, yeah. Have you ever given TJ a ride? I've rode somewhere a long time ago. Where? I'm sure you did, but I forget. Was it Sharp? Might have been Atlanta, Charlotte. Yeah, it was a long time ago. Is it when you guys were working together? It would have been before that, I think. Interesting.

It's been 04, 05ish, probably. Yeah, there's been a handful of times. We used to do ride-alongs for the foundation. So I'd do about 14 or 15 ride-alongs. We'd go to Bristol or Charlotte or somewhere. And all of these people had, you know, paid for this or had been gifted this opportunity through a raffle or what have you. And at the end of those rides, I would always give like three or four to people that were there like my wife or Lattard or T.J. or somebody. So, you know, you try to plug them in there for a couple of hours before we finish up. This next question is coming from JP. You know, we've seen some pit crew mistakes lately with Bowman's team and other kind of important stops in the playoffs. Have you ever had a conversation with your pit crew about a good or bad performance after a race? And what did those conversations look like? I have never gotten with the crew after a race to critique the job they did. There's a couple times when I've said things on the radio after a stop that I probably shouldn't have said.

But then there's times when you'll have a great stop and you know it's all them, you know. You know, that it's something they did and they themselves, you know, it's nice. Like, so it was, you know, you're the driver out there in the race car and you're always the one sort of either winning or losing the day, right? And every now and then there's these moments during a pit stop where the pressure's on someone else entirely, right? And when they get you a couple spots or you beat everybody out on pit road, you're like, hell yeah, you know, because you're in there. you feel like, and drivers are always this way, but you feel like you're on an island out there doing all this work and nobody really understands how hard it is

and really appreciates just how difficult what you're doing is. And it's nice when the team is a compliment to the day. But then you'll lose a couple spots or have something happen. You went from wanting to hit guys with hammers to tell them and brush it off. We'll get them on the next one in your career. Yeah. We had a couple loose wheels, and I was, you know, I was dealing with some head injury stuff.

And I, we were, we were at Atlanta. Yeah, I was spotting for you, the last one. This one where me and McMurray went up into the fence. You wrecked and hit the wall off of two. Was it in, yeah. In the bud car. Yeah. I did the last 10 races in the bug car.

I don't remember that. Probably because of this rate. So this was one of the worst. But we're at Atlanta, caution comes out. There's going to be a little four lap, three lap back, you know, run to the finish. On the pace laps,

I can feel, I can feel the wheel. rocking back and forth on the stove. Yeah, click, click, click. It is, it is loose. It is loose as it can be without falling off the car. But we're going 40 mile an hour, right, under pace. And I'm like, I'm talking to them, like, do we, do we pit? Do we come, do you, what do you want me do?

This freaking thing feels loose. And they're, they're kind of like, hey, man, you know, kind of up to you. I'm like, man, we're pit. But the thing is, it's like, they may be able to look at the wheel and say, yes, it was loose. They may look at the wheel and go, we don't see anything. And then they're taking your word for it. And you've came down on pit road and went from fourth or sixth to 25th, and that's where you're going to finish because it's going to be a green-white checker.

And so are you willing to come down pit road and give up all that track position? Or are you going to be able to stay in the car and hope that, it don't come off. And so I decided to stay out there. I mean, I can feel this thing rocking back and forth on pit. I can feel it sitting here right now. And it was absolutely,

I should have absolutely come down pit road. We get the green flag, we start accelerating, and we go off into term one, and as soon as I land, it shoots out from the left rear. The wheel just takes off. And I spin around and take McMurray and me and him just,

kill the fence, right? And it hurt. And so, you know, I was mad about that. And so, you know, we would have wheels that would be, we, so fast, so that happens, right? And maybe that, there was another loose wheel or two that came off and we crashed really hard. We get in, you know, we get four or five years down the road into this new, um, era of NASCAR where they're only putting four lugs on the left side

they're only doing four on the right side we're like intentionally not even hitting the fifth lug at all because you could have one you could be missing one legally yeah you can miss one legally and it was a whole second faster on the pit stop if they just skipped the fifth lug entirely

they didn't even try to hit it and I'm like man what are we doing and now loose wheels are much more common and I'm like, I can't hit walls. I can't. I'm like, I know my days are numbered with my head and all the injuries I had over the years. And I'm like, I can't be taking this kind of risk. And so, you know, I told them, I said, if I have a wheel come off and I hit the damn wall,

I'm going to take a hammer to all of y'all and show you how it feels. And, you know, that was a pretty stupid thing to say over the radio. But I was saying it as like, come on, man, like, what will we do? doing but yeah so say you'll say stuff like that over the radio you know instantly that you didn't need to say it you shouldn't have said it it needs to be a conversation you have later somewhere else because it comes back like there's we were at sonoma racing and all the guys on this team and the budcar are my their family tony junior is my cousin two beer is married to his uh or t's at the time told a June

was married to two beers sisters. So, I mean, we're all, we all have known each other forever. And we've raced together and we're very close. And so you'll say to your friends that you're very close to that you shouldn't say or would never say to other people, you know? You'll get in arguments and you'll say things and you'll be like, I can only say that to you.

I would never say that to my, you know, my other friend that's just a, you know, a friend from work or whatever, right? and so 2bair apparently broke his finger or something on one of the pit stops jack man somebody it was him or somebody we're grinding through a you know a frustrating miserable day because i'm i don't know how to get around this damn racetrack and his i said uh we lost some spots or something and i'm like or i was talking to tony junior about something he wasn't answering i'm like what what the hell's going on he's like well we got a guy broke his finger i was like who He goes, two beer.

I was like, tell him to walk it off. You know, joking. I knew he'd be fine. But everybody hears that and goes, wow, what a . You know, but. You never, after a bad race where they had bad pit stops talk to him afterwards or anything?

Here's why you wouldn't do that. The guy on the right front of your car is one of the best guys in the garage. And nine out of ten times, he's going to be the best guy on pit road. And he's getting a call every other week to come work for this. other team. And so are you going to go up to him after the race and critique the job he did that

day or be, you know, or put pressure on him or, because he can just as easily say, I don't got put up with this shit. I'll go over here and make a little bit more money. I'm here because of you. But if you're going to, you know, get my ass after every bad stop, I'll just go ahead and take this job that they've been trying and begging me to come do for six months, you know, and I'll go over there and go do it over there. They've actually. value me they want me and it's it's going to it's going to make a difference in in my quality of life because it's you know it's a big race or whatever right so i mean that back back when i was racing man you were trying to keep all your guys you know and you had real friendships with them like um

are my jack man my gas man you're hanging out with these people they're your friends they're your buddies they're athletes too they know when they mess up yeah and they don't need there's a coach exactly there's a coach and a crew chief to handle that i don't i didn't have to do you it. If it was a serious issue, Tony Jr. or Tony Singer or somebody else was going to handle it. I look at as a quarterback talking to his offensive linemen. I'm not saying like you're going to just berate them. I don't know. Especially nowadays, because to TJ's point,

like you've got former football players and wrestlers and like it's a performance base. They're athletes. Yeah. They know how to handle it. I always thought I was very lucky, you know, with I wasn't really, I'll be honest, man. I was more interested in like being friends with these guys and us being us us having each other's back because being a team well i always felt like that you know if they if they if you were if you could build a friendship then they would they were going to try to do their best they're invested yep

when you come down pit road and they're indifferent and they're like that guy behind the wheel don't give a shit if i'm here or somebody else's here he doesn't he's not reached out to me He doesn't know what's going on in my life. He doesn't care to get to know me. Do they really fight for you? What's their motivation, right? And so I always wanted to try to make sure, you know, we had camaraderie. You know, we, you know, everybody felt like it was all level.

And if they were excited about you and trying to help you, they were going to try to be the best on pit road every stop. And so, yeah. That's a good place to wrap this Ash Jr. Yeah, for sure. Hey, I appreciate y'all. Thanks for tuning in. And, man, we talk a lot about the Bristol race, obviously.

There's a great conversation going on in our sport around whether that was a great race and what we should do going forward, if anything different. I kind of enjoyed it, but I know you'll want to listen to our take on what we thought of the race weekend. and we're thankful for Xfinity for the support here at Dirty Mo Media in the Asch junior segment of the show in racing and in life. Speed isn't optional. It's expected. As a driver in the Xfinity series,

as a team owner in the Xfinity series, I rely on things that perform under pressure. And that's why I go with Xfinity Wi-Fi, fast-dependable internet. One price locked in for five years. No contract. No slowdowns and no nonsense. Proud Premier Partner of NASCAR.

Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, here we are. It's time for Dirty Mo Doe. This segment of Dirty Mo Doe is brought to you by Fan Duo. We got Tampa Tims, Russell, Travis, T.J., everybody here to talk about some parlayes. And anyways, the parlay that I had for Bristol Allmiss, Hamlin, Larson Blaney. Did anybody get close?

Nobody. I only see mine on the page, so y'all must have been pretty far off, too. And you just didn't even want to bring attention to yourselves. I don't remember what I did. Host of our was the best Chevy in 7th. So, you know what? Tough night for Chevy. Speaking of Gambling, Dale, good weekend for you?

Not really. You texted me and said you had a good day on Saturday. I didn't last night. No. Monday night football. They shouldn't have two games. That late was terrible. I didn't know it was.

I panicked it. I bet the late game, no research, and that was a bad decision. Yep. I usually lean on some folks I followed on social media, but that didn't work this weekend very well. No. I did have one, I did have one payout that was really cool. I was down in Key West hanging out with a friend of mine and my wife Amy, and so put a little money on some college games, and just to have something to kind of pull for throughout the day.

and I had one unit that, damn, I mean, it won 100 bucks. Pretty good. That's pretty good. That's a good payout. Yeah. That's a good weekend. And my buddy's like, boy, you should have bet more. I'm like, well, yeah, you would think that all the time on the wins.

Yeah. Of course. Yeah. You have Texas Tech, Georgia, Arkansas State, Miami, and LSU. And some of those were the spread. Yeah. I lost my fantasy football game, too. I'm o' and two.

It's been a rough run here. But getting into Fanduil and creating a account, you know, if you manage your habits, don't chase losses. Like I lost, you know, I lost my three bets and that's my three bets. That's my day. Wasn't a good day. I closed the book and I'll get it out again tomorrow or four weeks down the road. Who knows? but if you

I enjoy it because it makes the you know if you're hanging out with your friends and hanging out of the bar something it kind of makes what you're watching on TV even more fun it does adds a little another element to it yeah so I would probably hate betting on racing though

because we've done this parlay and man we can't hit it now Tims how's it going for you honestly I have been less active in the playoffs it's a little different You have to kind of treat it like two seasons. Yeah.

Because the playoffs, we've seen it, Pickruz, it's high pressure, a lot of more mistakes. We're still, I don't know how anybody went in there knowing that race was going to be because it was one thing in practice, another thing in the race. I wonder, so the parlay has been tough. Yeah.

To nail. And I would probably, if I were actually betting this, I'd probably like change my habits and move away from the parlay. Yeah. One of the things that I think, do they offer basically kind of an over-under

finishing position? Not every week. I've only seen a handful of times this week. Last year, it was almost every week, but not as much. That to me sounds like, all right, I might be able to determine, like, is Chase Briscoe going to be

eighth or better? Or were, right? If his line's eight and a half, I think he'll finish better than that or worse than that. That to me sounds like a more, So gambling and betting in motorsports isn't new, but for sports books it is. And what they offer, I think, is this, they're still in the learning phase.

What really is good for the player, but also good for the book. Yeah. The sports book. I guess they didn't see a lot of people betting on those to bring it back. But I bet them every week. Like you said, I thought they were easier to figure that out. Plus, if it was close, you could just hedge. it and bet them top 10.

It's like roulette where I feel like I almost got a little fighting chance. Yeah. You know, at making the correct choice between A or B. This week's favorites going into the Loudoun race is no surprise. Bell's at 350 and then Hamlin at plus 650. And then Briscoe at plus 700. I mention all the JGR guys because I feel like this is a very strong track for Joe Gibbs racing and Toyota.

Larson's also at plus 650. I mean, I would back away. Why did the books not give you better odds on that? He's one of the guys that, like, they're just not going to get beat. If you see Kyle Larson at plus 1,000, it doesn't matter the track. You're betting that. So they're just going to hedge themselves and say, I dare you to take $6.50. And honestly, they probably get a lot of action on, like, some casual people that don't really watch a sport like that.

Kyle Larson, oh, yeah, I'll take that. It's the same thing as, like, when Tiger Woods was golfing. going to have them as a favorite just because they don't want to be at risk yeah um blaney's at plus 700 legano is on our sheet that's surprising plus 750 yeah i'm surprised i'm surprised i'm what does the predictors say about legano here i have them sixth and i really like them this week he tested there too so he did no he did he did test there jep burton on the doorburn perclear said he was really fast in the test and um i just think that this is what he does Yeah. How is it just a crapshoot if you're fast, the test you'll show up faster? Is there really something to that?

Oh, testing is always helpful. Yeah. You kind of, whether it's a tire test, you don't get to work. It's not like the testing used to be back in the day where the tire test you get a little bit of time, but you can, it just helps you unload faster. You kind of know what direction to go when you come back. Can you bet the winning manufacturer? Yeah. So that's where another, I'd feel more comfortable betting the winning manufacturer is. than trying to put together the parlay because I think Toyota's going to get it done. You know, they just, and I wonder what the numbers are on that, but I guess the line maybe aren't out. Not out yet. Not out yet, but yeah. We have some featured matchups. Well, hold on. Russ, what's your model, say, compared to Vegas?

Bell is the overwhelming favorite for sure. And then, you know, Denny again. And then I have Blaney, then Larson. Briscoe's the one that's a little off just because he's, new to Gibbs and it takes a lot of New Hampshire into it. So even though he's been decent in that New Hampshire, he's eighth, but I still think that's high. The other guy that's kind of in there that is really good on these tracks is Josh Barry. He's higher than he normally would be. Really? If you're looking for like a top. Wouldn't that be the most NASCAR thing ever for

Josh Barry to finish last in the three races in the first round and go win? I'm not saying he's going to win. I'm just saying he's higher up. I don't know. Y'all remember there was not a fluke but a bit of a underdog win not too many years ago with Eric Amarola. Yeah, Dominate that reason. Do you feel, what about, my sleeper here might be priests. That's a good point, yeah. This is his place. He ran well there last year.

And I know it was the rain race or whatever, but I feel like he's got a lot of laps around this track. He kind of goes there with a little bit of an edge as well, home track kind of in that area. Russell, could you give me three drivers in the vein of that, you know, Priests or Barry or even Keselowski? Give me three guys I can put in a parlay for top tens that's going to give me good odds. I would look at Barry, Busher, and Kislauski if you're looking at that. If I can't pick like a playoff guy. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. Okay. And don't parlay those people. Bet them individually. Okay. I like your advice. because I mean you've got you you're basically saying there's three guys that got to finish in three of ten positions and the odds of that really happen and are pretty low.

Parleys are fun for like football and basketball where they're individual games when they're all together to hit those that's really tough and most likely you're going to get plus odds anyways. Yeah. So you're not like basketball you've got heavy juice to make it plus money. You don't need to do that here. All right. Russell, I got a question for you. As we get deeper into the playoffs here, does the guys that are chasing the points pretty heavy there in the back? you know, like Lugano, does that give opportunity for some of the guys like the priest,

the busher, the Brad, all these guys, does that give them more opportunity to take advantage of them taking stage points and going for wins more? You know, does the underdog have a little bit more of a, you know, chance here? I would say that, more of a chance because of mistakes. There's just so much pressure. We see so many more mistakes in the playoffs and we do during the regular season. So I think that's where their chances for those guys to finish top 10 really comes in. And Loudoun being an odd number, it's a weird race sometimes with the length of it. It's a fairly short race at times. Yeah. So. Well, we'll do the parlay at the end of the segment, but let's get to the featured matchups. There are four featured matchups that we're going to discuss.

And I'm, I feel like these are pretty straightforward. Bell versus Larson. I would take Bell. Brisco versus... Yep, Brisco versus Elliot. I would take Briscoe. And then Ligano and Chastain and Blaney and Bubba, and I would take both Penske drivers just due to the fact that Ligano did test there.

And I believe that gives them the competitive edge going into the race. I agree. And I think Blaney is a solid back half, the top ten guy. I was kind of surprised at the matchups. Yeah, they seem like blowouts a little more one-sided. I suppose, no disrespect to the other drivers. All right, so our parlay for this weekend,

I'm going to put Logano as the top forward. I just got a feeling that he's going to do what he does in the playoffs and having tested there, and I just feel like that they're loaded up and ready to rock. I can't go that way because I feel like he's going to chase stage points all day, and I think he's going to be really solid with the points at the end of the day, but I think it hurts his overall finish at the end maybe because he takes so many stage points

into the first two stages. You think it gives up the track position in stage three for the stage points, huh? I think he takes... Yes. Who's your top four then? I'm going to go... Honestly, I just feel like...

I feel like Priest is going to run really good. Yeah. I have to agree with TJ. I'm going Priest for top forward. I like what you're saying there about Priest because you're right. Like, Ligana is going to have to do particular things here that may

cost him a spot or two or a position at least on another manufacturer. Priest doesn't need stage points. He didn't care. He's going to do whatever he needs to do for the track position late in the race, and that's exactly how this race always shakes out. Me and T.J. were talking about it earlier. You'll run forth

all day long, thinking, man, I'm motoring to a top five, and then come down pit road with 80 laps to go get tires, and a bunch of guys are going to stay out or not get tires or leapfrog you on pit road and try to, you know, they ran 20th all day, and then they're going to try to, you know, luck out

a top 10 or a top eight finish and everybody gets to beat out of each other late in the race. And, you know, the guys that we're running the top five, you know, might end up with 12th, 11th, 10th, 8th place finishes. That could happen to Joey. Joey's still going to have a strong point day, in my opinion. Yeah, yeah. But maybe there's one or two fours in front of him when it's all said and done. And you think it's going to be pleased.

All right, I'm going to stick with Lugano, but I don't hate the idea you got there. On the Chevrolet front, again, tough. This has been a different guy the last nine weeks. Yeah, Chevrolet is in a state of confusion for me. Yeah, who's going to? Help, help, help, Russell, help us. Well, like, Byron's never out of top 10 there. So, like, I just don't, I don't know where to go with this.

But if you finished top ten, would you be surprised? I wouldn't be. No, I wouldn't be. But, like, Larson was top five. They're the last two. I think you can't, like, he's going to do it at some point, right? Like, he's going to, it's got to be him at some point. So I stick with Larson.

Who, what Chevrolet was good at St. Louis? I mean, Larson was really fast until he had to. an issue there. So, I mean, I would, could you lean on St. Louis a little bit to help you make a decision, make a, you know, some sort of educated decision? I mean, I think so. I think you can. Any Larson was fast there. He tested there. Are you going Larson or? I can go Larson. I can go Larson. I can go Larson. I can't trust Hendrick. I'm going off off the wall. I'm going Kyle Bush. If it's been different, Kyle's got to show up and be different again. This is your segment. You're going to say that.

I mean, it's Kyle Bush. All right. His teammates won before him. Oh, trust me, I know. Do you know Kyle Bush's numbers there recently? I don't care. It's going to be, it's a weird. Now tell us, we got to know.

It's a weird week. It's going to be Kyle Bush. He's been 35th or worse than four of the last five there. That means he's due, Russ. He's due for a top 20, maybe? Yeah. Maybe. Got one out and finish 18th?

I'm going high odds on my. All right. Okay, you feeling okay? I will say, I mean, you know, there was a time, I don't know what it's like these days, but there was a time where we compared Richmond and to, you know, we kind of, Richmond and New Hampshire, we might compare some information notes and run similar, you know, if you kind of. I appreciate you searching to find some.

I'm trying to figure out how this can work out for you. I appreciate. PJ had some speed in Richmond. What's that? This is the same tire, right? At Richmond? Yeah. At least one side of it is, I think.

I think it is the whole thing. Yeah. That's always important to factor in to your decision. I knew that. Maybe I changed Larson with Austin Dillon for my... Oh. No, I'm just kidding. Shout out to Austin Dillon. Yeah.

I'm sorry. Austin Dill is a good friend of ours. I know, I know. It's a friend of the channel here. All right. The best Toyota is a real toss-up for me. Denny is so good here. Christopher's good here.

I really want to say Briscoe goes out there and gets it done because I just like the story. But that's probably not the best choice is going with your heart. You've got to go with your mind, what the data, what the points are telling you. So I think we're going to have to say Christopher Bell. Doubles up, back-to-back wins.

I'm not going, Bell. What do you think? What do you think, Russell? I don't know. You think about how good the 19's been here in the past, too. That's what I'm looking at. And Chase is adapting. He's found something with it.

And he's been good here. All right. I'll take Briscoe. Everybody's taking Briscoe. Everywhere we said, well, the 19 runs good here. Can Chase do it? I didn't want to bet with my emotion, but y'all are making the numbers sound good. No, I've got emotion and data to back up.

Has Chase not stepped up when we've called him out a little bit, Russ? totally totally he's been he's been so impressive yeah and this is a race where James small could get a little you know pull some strategies off out and put him in the front and when you put chase in front it's gonna be hard to get around him

in that 19 car all right all right I got Logano Larson Briscoe TJ's at Briscoe Larson Priest the rest of y'all I got Priest Bush and Brisco maybe just put a dollar on that one Not the full unit.

Travis, you got any of? We will go Warson Blaney Hamelin. Okay. Oh, I didn't do that called me. Denny bro. Russell, you want to pick three?

I'm the same as you, Dale. Okay. Hey, I like it. All right. Well, that'll do it for Dirty Modeau. This segment was brought to you by Fan Duel, the premier gaming destination in the United States.

Thank you, Russell. Thank you, Tim. All right, it's time for the white flag. The Tear Down With Jordan Mionki And Jeff Gluck Was live on YouTube And Twitter following the race

If you haven't already Done it You need to head over to the Dirty Mo Media's YouTube page Hit subscribe Turn on your notification So that you don't miss anything That we're posting over there Actions detrimental dropped on Monday

After a race Like we had on Saturday night It's always nice to hear from the driver And Denny does such a great job of giving us pretty non-biased opinion. You know, he kind of takes off his driver hat and just kind of gives you a good perspective. Yeah, very honest. We're very appreciative.

Doorbop Clear also dropped on Monday. They were joined by Jeff Burton. Jeff Burton gave us his opinion on a lot of different things going on in the sport. The mayor. Yeah, the mayor. And on Wednesday, the guest show, I've got two guests coming in for a huge announcement. You're not going to want to miss. Herman Schrader and Speed Street have their episodes dropping on Wednesday.

Thursday, another episode of Bless Your Heart with my wife, Amy. And on Friday, the Dirty 30 comes out, a new 30-minute recap show. Everyone doesn't have time to listen to all the podcasts, so we put it in a 30-minute highlight reel for you every Friday called The Dirty 30. We'll see you.