The Dale Jr. Download - The Action Track is Back

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in studio fresh off his CARS Tour run, and he and cohost TJ Majors have plenty to say about a wild weekend.Highlights:Dale Jr.’s revelation about how important the tire may beReacting to O’Reilly Auto Parts becoming the new sponsor of the Xfinity SeriesAustin Dillon calls in after his win and talks about the future of RCRDuring the Ask Jr. segment of the episode, Dale talks about:His eventful CARS Tour race on SaturdayIs it good if we see Cup drivers racing more in the Xfinity Series?The backstory behind Buddy the cat (and a few other memorable pets)And if that’s not enough: The Professor and Tampa Timms joined for Dirty Mo Dough, dropping their weekly manufacturer parlay, top-10 picks, head-to-heads, and a little strategy for surviving Daytona’s chaos. And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaDirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Dale Jr. Download merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuffFanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York.Consumer Cellular: New customers get a $5 credit on first five monthly invoices. Visit 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.

T.J's such an... I'm just joking. You've been joking. You know, your jokes are great. I am joking. That one hurt. Your jokes are great. But they're always like little digs.

They're not jokes, really. They're just insults. I promise you. I'm not mad. I'm not mad. I'm not mad. He's more insulting than joking. Wouldn't you say?

Yeah, there's... I think that's the buffalo in him. Yeah, that's probably right. Yeah. I don't insult you. Yes, you do. No, I don't. Bull-h-

Thank you for being here. Thank you, Travis. All right. The following is a production of Dirtymo 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 that I went to the best man at your wedding.

Who was your best man, Dale? T.J. You don't need a cool best for that race? What are you thinking? Get them, T.J. Hellway it's starting to show. All right then. Hey, everybody.

It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download. And it's Tuesday and it's dirty air. And T.J. Majors, my co-hosts is here. How's it going, T.J.? It's going good. Do you tired from that long race you ran Saturday night? That your best work? I don't know. You're getting old. These races are getting long. Is that as good as you got this morning?

You act like he doesn't stay up late on his own. I know. He always stays up late. He doesn't work that hard. TJ has been hanging on to that one. I've been waiting. 48 hours, can't wait to ask. I laid, I laid in bed, like, how can I get him? Yeah.

Babe, what do you think about this line? I'm going to start with? I hear you, man. No, I don't, I don't disclose my information. How to go? Fun night? I mean, yeah, it's good. I saw you backwards at one point.

Yeah, I got spun around here. I spun myself around, however you want to look at it. I, uh, yeah, I ran me a little cars tour late mall race. We're going to get into that. But yeah, it's, uh, there's a lot going on. I listened to Denny's show a little bit. Y'all did a good job. I did not get to sit down and watch every single app of the cup race,

but I do know what happened. He missed a good one. Yeah. So. It was pretty good. Sorry, to finish. Let's get right on top of that, man. The, there has been a, you know, I would say this happens from time to time.

We get ourselves a little bit mired in the conversation around, you know, the direction of the sport, and we do that from time to time. Well, things are good, things are good, and then something will happen, there'll be a race, and we get all riled up, and social media gets us riled up,

and, man, it happens fast. Happen's fast. Things are great. Oh, sky's falling. Oh, things are good again. Sky's falling. You could have five great races in, one bad one, you races them all.

Oh, yeah. But, and, you know, so I admit that. I admit we do that. but we got into a conversation and a debate with, you know, there's a big, there's a lot of people on social media that have opinions about NASCAR, good and bad, right? And, of course, I think everybody wants NASCAR to be awesome, right? And their version of awesome, whatever that is, right? Everybody wants NASCAR to succeed. Now, there might be some people out there that want NASCAR to fail.

but we don't pay attention to them people. Everybody that's in the room that's conversating whether they agree or not is in the end wanting the best for NASCAR, right, a successful NASCAR. But I'll tell you, you know, I've been talking about the short track package and how they need to act and they need to be working on it and improving it, trying to make sure it's as good as it can possibly be. And they go out and have a great race. it's short track.

Is there no problem? Is there a no, is there, is the car, the next-gen car, okay, it short tracks now? I think there's many, this race had more factors than the normal short track does though. Like what? The fact that you can fall off however many seconds it was.

So it's the tire. I mean, I think it, the tire definitely made it where you still could move lanes. but the tire, like you were fighting the tire so much that you didn't have the grip. The one thing that I asked for at the short track races was for the guy if he was, you know, mad enough or aggressive enough, if a guy wanted to drive down in the middle of the corner and run in the back of somebody and knock him up the track, I wanted them to be able to do that.

Even if that's not the wise decision, I want those drivers to be able to make some fucking dumb decisions. And I mean, in the 80s, that's what I loved about NASCAR. And I loved that guys could run into each other and push each other around, you know, even in the 90s or, you know, all my life growing up in NASCAR. NASCAR was hitting, pushing, shoving. My dad was very aggressive. That's what it was built off. Yeah, I loved it. And with this car, my complaint a couple weeks ago was that, you know, a guy can't drive down in the corner and hit somebody in the back bumper and push them up.

track because they would get arrow tight and lose the grip and they knew that that wasn't realistic but they did it this weekend the 99 sores knocked into 54 up the track into the 45 hell of a wreck or you know big big drama um and i watched some of the some of the race you know they're right on they're driving right on each other's asses in the corners so maybe the tire is a bigger part of this than i realize Yeah, Goodyear's been crushing it for helping save NASCAR, really. Well, hey, come on, it ain't saved it. NASCAR is not dying.

Not saving the sport, but, like, with this next-gen car, Goodyear has been progressively trying more. I think it's just that. The tire may be a bigger part of this than I even realize. I think it's a huge part of it. Right? You know, I still, would I have built the car this way? No.

and I said it four or five weeks ago it is what it is it ain't changing we're down the road too far too much money's been spent to be too expensive to turn around and go back

Chris Gabehart said so eloquently on social media the other day he's like you know there's the only one thing to do when you drove down the road and you don't and you realize you're going the wrong way you got one choice

I thought that was awesome but you know a lot of money's been spent to get down to this far down the road, right? You'd have to spend that much money to get back, I'd assume. But the car is what the car is. So if we got what we got and Goodyear can do what they did this past weekend, maybe we kind of have an opportunity.

Maybe this is light at the end of the tunnel. This is maybe this is the path toward something we can all appreciate. What I did hear from Goodyear a couple of over the past probably two or three months, T.J. is that they are pretty much at the end of their rope in terms of how soft they can build this tire until they can retool at the plant. So they want to go softer, even more. And a lot of, you know, in a lot of opportunities throughout the season, they can get softer. but they need to be able to change the tooling at the plant on how they build the tire to be able to actually make it softer. So like they have exhausted themselves to be able to do what they did and provide us what they did this weekend,

which I appreciate they should be applauded, good job, good year. And they want to go softer and try to get more aggressive, but it's going to be, it's going to take some time to be able to get what they need in their plant to be able to do it. That's at least what I was told. And that might be the tools to actually make the tire are actually the materials that the tire is made of. But either way, they intend to continue to travel further down this path. So I'll give credit where credits do, man.

Apparently, you know, this one did really good on the gluck, good race pole. I think 83, 86% second overall Richmond since the poll's been taken. Some shit like that. So anyways, either way, great race. And so, yeah, maybe the car really looks bad and frustrating when the tire is hard and not allowing the drivers to really, you know, do what they need to do. What other races are we going to get this tire from? Because I think that'll help other future.

Sorry? Like, isn't New Hampshire getting the same tire? Look, I think going softers great. and good deer needs to keep doing it, and I think it's going to help us at a lot of racetracks. Awesome. But I couldn't tell you what to expect when we go to these races with this tire. Because the temperature seems to matter a lot.

Honestly, when it's colder, it seems to do odd things, right, like it did at Bristol that day. I'd have never assumed the cold temperature would have increased tireware. but what happened is is when it's cold, the track don't rubber in, the track don't adhere to the rubber. And so it just stays green. The track, for the most part, stays very green and very abrasive. And so it just continues to wear every tire you put on it.

When the track is hot, for example, like the summer race at Dover, it rubbers the track in. It gets really dark, and tire wear is bad until the track's rubbered in. When the track rubbers in, tire wear or tire durability improves. you know, you don't have tire wear as severely throughout the day. But is that something the teams can manage? Like, is that something you just say, hey, this is a soft air? You can't control the weather.

That's what I'm saying, though. Is that something like, hey, but Goodyear doesn't have to say, we've got to bring a hard tire here in case it gets cold? You know what I mean? Like, is it something where, hey, this is a soft tire, manage it correctly. If I was Goodyear, I'd be like, here's a fucking tire. Hope it lasts. Make it work.

Yeah. Yeah, it's on your team. Yeah. Figure it out. I'm in agreement with that. For sure. Were you okay with the amount of set of tires they had for this week? Why was Brad complaining?

I didn't hear what he said. What do he say? He wanted more sets. He wanted more sets because he's afraid of damn tires going to wear out too fast. Say it wasn't going to last 40 laps. Well, in practice it was bad. It was showing that it was going to be bad. Why didn't you tell him to slow down?

Figure it out. We did. And it's your tires. Yeah, we managed it. Why didn't you tell him? I did. We managed it better than Danny. I don't think it was managing.

Denny's managing tires wasn't the issue. Yeah, I don't, in practice there was some people were, I mean, there was some issues. It was going to be some issues. Let me tell you this. Let me tell you this. And you know this, motherfucker. If you, listen, well, you back, you don't, you play dumb. Do what?

You play dumb. I was kidding. So if you, if I give you a really soft tire that's going to wear in the race on Sunday, that's going to be a challenge, a tire you'll need to manage, you are going to have some fucking problems and practice on Friday. Sure.

I think you're... So like, all right. Can you not... On Friday, if you have all these problems, can you stay off the fucking internet and out of the media center? I don't think we've had enough.

So can you not go, hey, you know what? It's bad today. But I know I've been around this long enough. Sunday will be okay. It's going to... Track's going to change. It's going to improve.

You know, wearing tear. All that bull's going to improve. And so, you know, where my tire won't go fucking 20 laps right now in the race. Because I'll take you to Darlington in 2004 on a fucking Tuesday, and you can't keep a tire on that car in 10 laps. You can't keep a tire on that car in 20 laps. You'll wear it right to hell out. But I'll take you back there in the race on the race weekend. You'll be fine.

I just don't, I don't think we're consistently at that point enough now. So whenever we have anything. How did you forget what the f f f*** been going on for the last 30 years in the sport? Well, this is way different now. I mean, it's way different now, like with this tire and stuff. We didn't have to worry about heat back then. Now it's a heat thing, not always a wear thing. Yeah.

There is different, there is different, you know. The tire does behave differently. And we don't, we're not consistently enough in the same position. Yeah. To where you can get, we can count on it. Like with, you know, Bristol, everyone's worried about that again. Yeah. You know, but I do think they're making progress with the tire.

And in practice, it was showing. I think, look, I just think if we want this softer tire, if we love what we saw at Richmond and we love, you know, the uncertainty that we had at Bristol a couple years ago, we just got to be willing for it to fucking suck. Yeah. And wear and wear really badly sometimes. If you're going to, if you're going to, if you're going to want the fall off and want the comers and goers and want the tire to wear out, sometimes it's going to be super aggressive. and you're just going to have to go, hey, it's what I asked for. And so in practice, when we started that practice, like I watched John Hunter and these guys go to the top of the board in our group,

and I'm like, dang, that's a fast lap. So we all get about 40 laps on our tires. Man, were they struggling? Sure. They were real bad, you know. But it was at that point, I was like, ooh, I mean, I was a little worried myself too, just seeing how bad it fell off, you know, but I was happy with it.

Yeah, I was really surprised that Goodyear could do, that because they I don't know enough about tires I was on the phone with a Hoosier guy this morning talking about Cars Tour tires and late model stock tires and the 45 ST2s, ST1s and all that stuff. So the Hoosier tire

on our on our late model stock cars it's gotten more durable. They've changed construction to try to improve some problems that we're having and in turn inadvertently have made the tire really durable to where in ASA super late model pro late model any kind of asphalt oval racing you go out there in the race and you're just going as hard as you can um there's no

conservation there's no planning there's no you don't like need to be careful or drive you know smartly you just go out there and drive your ass off and the tire can take it it gets mad when it's hot but it cools off comes right back and so i was really of the mind and what What's happened, a lot of what's happened is the tire manufacturers have had to change chemicals in terms of the rubber compound and the components in the tire to be better for the environment. So some of the oils and things that would actually make these tires act a certain way have been removed out of the rubber itself. And so Goodyear started doing this years ago. and when the tire would wear, it would not rubber the track in.

It would just turn into dust and go up the racetrack to the top of the surface, but the track wouldn't wear, it wouldn't rubber up anymore and wouldn't get greasy. And like you would see for years and years, I grew up on tires that would put rubber down. The track would get greasy. You'd move out of that rubber and find more speed. Well, when they took all the oils out of the compounds and how they make the tires,

it really, the tires just started acting crazy. and and I wasn't sure and that's kind of what we've done what that's kind of what every tire manufacturers had to do right because of government regulation and so forth and what the chemicals they use to make the tire and so I wasn't sure where we've ever get back to having tires that wore

tires that you would need to be careful with at the cup level because A, we can't use the cool dangerous chemicals that would make those tires respond that way. When they changed that, when they went to the greener tire, it really just stopped wearing and started just kind of shredding away rubber. And then they had to make the tire more durable. And now it's harder. It's too hard. And now you can't pass.

Now the tire doesn't fall off. And now everybody's running the same speed the whole race and all this bullshit. So that's what we've been dealing with over the last several years. Until we really got aggressive and Goodyear said, okay, we'll do it. We'll try to make a softer tire. And they did. And now we were happy.

I didn't really think that that would be possible. So I'm excited about Goodyear's ability to make a tire that wears out and can cause a driver to struggle. I also want to say that the other incredible thing is, is it's not in Goodyear's best interest to make a tire that's failing. Oh, for sure. And I've read in, you know, I've read about tire manufacturers that aren't in F1. Some of these big players in the tire manufacturing world were asked about why they don't want to be in some of the bigger series in motorsports. and they said they want us to make a tire that degrades over the course of the race,

and that's not good for our business. It's the opposite of what they promote. And so I'm like, you know, as a tire, if you're a worldly tire manufacturer and you're trying to sell fucking street tires to millions of billions of people. These last forever. I hate that excuse. Well, I don't love it either, but listen. You can understand it, though.

No, I don't understand it though. Well, you need to. I think again, we need to say thank you, good year. We appreciate you for sort of being, understanding that the fans can tell the difference between, look, you know, if I see your tire struggling on Sunday, that doesn't mean I'm not going to go buy it for my truck on Monday. Because that's what tire manufacturers are afraid of. If they have a bad day at the racetrack and drivers get out and go, this tire. What a terrible tire. then nobody's going to go buy their shit at the store.

And that's why they're here. They're here to fucking sell tires to the consumers, not to make racing awesome. I mean, they want, that'd be a good byproduct of their involvement is right to make racing better. But at the top of the list is selling tires to the consumers. They're here to promote their tire. They're here to promote their brand.

Good Year is in NASCAR to raise their profile to a Monday, Tuesday consumer. And so if their tires are bad and falling apart and blistering or going flat or running down into the cords after 30 laps, they're nervous that the drivers are going to get out and get it all over the tire. And then, you know. It's a fine line. Yeah. When I would complain about the tire, like I said some shit about the tire at Bristol or at Dover, you know, say, let's go back 2005 or six.

I'm on the radio, it's tire. I told them at Bristol, these are like hockey pucks. These things are terrible. I can't get a hold of the track. They come up to you at the end of the race. Hey, could you stop?

Like, we know you're unhappy, but do you need to get all over the tire during the damn race? Because a lot of people listening to you. And so, you know, and then, man, when Tony Stewart got out after Atlanta and said, this is a terrible tire, I know why the Goodyear bailed out of all these different series, because they can't make a tire, right?

Oh, man. Not good. Not good. Right. So, you know, congratulations, but thank you, Goodyear for going an extra mile, being aggressive, doing something. Maybe you didn't really have to do. You could have, Goodyear could have said, look, we're making the tire we want to make, figure it out. And they could have left that hard-ass tire on there.

We'd have had a shitty race on Sunday. but I was not expecting the race to be as good as it was. I guess I'll eat a little bit of crow. What made it good do you? I think the tire. I mean, like, what did the tire bring? Just the fall off and the speed difference in old and new? Some bitch wore out.

You had guys that could run over each other in a corner if they got mad at each other. That's all I want. I want NASCAR. My NASCAR that I love, everybody's is different. The NASCAR that I love is I love fucking tire marks, donuts on the side of of each other's cars. I loved walking into the shop and seeing, all right,

if there's donuts on the right side, we're passing people. If there's donuts on the left side, we must have been getting past. You know? Yeah. That was the old sayings back then, yeah. Yeah.

I love looking at a car and seeing the scrapes, the marks, the story. The fact that you could get to them points and have that. Yeah. And man, you know, the way the car has been racing,

it's been tough for the drivers to, to be able to, you know, be aggressive with each other. Now, it's a tough little race car. And when they can, they beat the shit out of each other. They do, yeah. One thing that I could see differently as race is I could see the guys. You could see the guys fighting the handling on the exit of the corner.

They could spin the tires. See the car, bobbling. You could see the car. And I went back and I was watching some in cars. And I listened to Bowman's. I was watching Bowman's in car. And, man, off of four a couple times. I mean, he was like, whoa, whoa, like how it used to be,

where if you just leaned into the throttle a little bit too much, it stepped out. Oh, yeah. And I love to hear that. Yeah, me too. Yeah, I mean, making the cars harder to drive and more out of the racetrack at a place like Richmond or any of the short tracks is going to be beneficial. It's kind of like what it might be like if they had a lot of horsepower. That's what it sounded like. Yeah.

I mean, it actually sounded like they had a ton of horsepower. I think, I mean, and I'm thinking that, you know, I've never really. I've never really give a shit about the horsepower debate myself. That's why I don't talk about the horsepower too much when I talk about what I would like or don't like or where I think, you know, I don't give a shit. I saw good racing in 1980. They didn't have a whole lot of power back then. I saw some good racing in 2004. We had a ton of power.

You know, so I've seen good racing no matter what motor is in the car. But, yeah, I think that's why the drivers ask for more horsepower is because, it would make the cars harder to drive, harder to get the power down, more mistakes and more opportunity to pass, right? You got a guy jumping in a gas, getting too aggressive off the corner. And ability to drive the car that. Like, yeah, well, the ability to manage your stuff and actually have to finesse the car, like throttle control, things like that. Exactly. That's what I'm, that's kind of what I'm, yeah, I'm referring to is, is like some guys can finesse and have throttle control off of the term for Richmond and some guys their car will carry them to a certain point and then they're going to

fall off a cliff. Yeah. It hurts in the long run. Yeah. Big time. Yeah. But that's how you have guys, comers and goers, though. That's what you got a guy that's fate.

He's struggling in the way, gets jammed up a little bit. That creates an opportunity to pass. Like anytime there's separation and speed and lap time, there's going to be opportunity. Yeah. I agree. Pretty cool. Man, the big crash they had down in turn three and four. Big crash.

That was something. Kyle Busch run in the back of the 19. Why did that happen, you think? I think he was just over it. Kyle? Yeah, I think he just got in. I think he got mad. The 19 came down right in front of him.

It was like, not today. I mean, I could be wrong, but watching the N-Car, he didn't lift when the 19 came down. He was just like, bad. Was he thinking maybe the 19 was going to not lift so soon? I mean, Chase did cut down in front of him, like right in front of him really close. And I think, I don't think Kyle appreciated it.

it. Mm-hmm. So, I mean, maybe he just misjudged it, but you watch, I've watched Kyle's Inc. car and it's pretty good. Man. Big wreck here. Yeah. The old nine got turned into the wall.

See, Kyle's going for the same spot. Yeah. He definitely had time to lift. Yeah. There's a lot. A lot of going on there. We've seen that before. We've seen some big wrecks in turn three and four at Richmond.

I don't know, man. I mean, I think it's just hard short track racing. I love seeing I know all those guys don't want to be in that wreck But damn it Yeah we were right in the middle of it I love seeing all that shit I thought we were done

Yeah Is that you down on the inside? No, yep, watch it Where are you locking the left front up into the... Did you not tell him that was happening? Did you not tell him the crash? I don't think I need to tell us Can you not tell him to slow down?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, back it down, back and down Wait, what were you saying T. Last I checked the windshields were clear Wait, so you're saying you don't think You're the spotter Even though you think you can see it as a spotter Yeah, I mean, I still spotted it. Yeah.

But, I mean, he's going to make a decision from what he sees in the front windshield before he listens to me at that point. Well. We carried on. We were fine. We were fine. That little bang up didn't do nothing to your car? A little crinkle or something here and there.

No, nothing. Man, there's nothing these guys could do to miss this wreck, but it's so fun sitting here going, damn it. It is fun. I don't mind it. Look, a cold cluster. I'm telling you, Chase Elliott hit hard right there. He did.

really hard. I saw it. He thought he cleared the wreck. Yeah. Oh my. And he probably relaxed too. Like, oh, I made it through. Well, it's probably good to be relaxed if you're going to hit something.

I guess. Man, a lot of drama. Anything else about the race? With the tire strategy, with the tires, I mean, there was so many different strategies. I mean, I don't want to dive too far, but you could run. There were guys that three stopped it, guys that two stopped it. That's great. Man.

So I think that was pretty cool to have one. And that's what tire, that's what it does. Yeah. We saw a lot of guys split the first stage. Some people stayed out a little longer. So, yeah, right away, you can see people trying different things. Maybe they slow at the end, the guys stayed out. Yeah, it's cool, though.

It's cool to kind of see how things are going to net out. I think if you're a race fan, that's enough. A lot of people might, like, casually look at that race and go, I don't know. You know, that's kind of boring. But if you're really the demographic that I think we should be going after or are going after, is the fan that would truly look at that and go, hell yeah, man, there's a lot happening here. I'm going to hang around to see how this plays out at the end of this stage.

Right? Yeah, you want to see this guy stopping twice. This guy's stopping one. This guy's not stopping. Man, I can't wait to see where they meet. It's true. Like, even some fuel mileage races are that way for me. Like, I know a lot of people hate that shit.

And a lot of people think that we're pulling their leg about, man, And they're really tight on fuel. And the guy will win the race and go do a burnout and all that bulls shit. But, you know, the numbers would tell you. And even the crew chief is sitting on the pit box, nervous is going, I'm not sure, you know. And I like, like, see. The nervousness. I like, hey, I'm like, look, all right, I'll sit around here and see how this plays out.

That's what I like about NASCAR is the inexact science and these things. Like the crew chiefs don't know exactly how much fuel they have. So that still there's a variance there. When it works out, it looks like they do. But, man, there's that time where you're just not sure. Yeah. Like that's why I like how NASCAR isn't as too much technology

and they know all that. Yeah. Like that time LaTart ran us out of fuel at Charlotte. All right. Jesus, T.J. We got a... T.J. is such an... If anybody has that, Rick.

I'm just joking. You've been joking. You know, your jokes are great. I am joking. That one hurt. Your jokes are great. But they're always like little digs. They're not jokes, really.

They're just, they're insults. I promise you. I'm not mad. I'm not mad. I'm not mad. He's more insults. than joking. Wouldn't you say? Yeah, there's...

I think that's the Buffalo in him. Yeah, that's probably right. Yeah. I don't insult you. Yes, you do. No, I don't. Bull-sh- Yeah.

Thank you for being here. Thank you, Travis. All right. So there's a schedule update. It's coming out this week. Oh, no. Fully. Ready to go.

Yeah. And I think everybody knows everything, right? We're not breaking news here. No. Right? Everything is known. But I'll say this. The All-Star race is moving to Dover.

North Wilsonboro is getting a points race. North Wilsonboro getting a points race is badass. I think it finishes the entire rebirth story, right? It finishes the story. And it'll be on in the broadcast window. I will be there to fucking broadcast it. This is what is important. There it is.

Yes, of course. What? I don't blame you, though. Dude, I mean, it's great. Are you all surprised at my excitement around this? No. that I think it deserves. No one disagrees with North,

North Wilkesboro getting a points race. All right. And it's off tire. Dover, everybody's like, man, why in the freak of we going to Dover for the All-Star race? I also had that same reaction. I've had an opportunity to talk to Marcus Smith about this, obviously, right? Because of our friendship,

but also my connection with Wilkesboro. And so I don't have a, I don't, I don't, I'm not on their payroll. I'm not, I'm not on a payroll around Wilkesboro. I'm not made a dime from Wilkesboro. I've enjoyed the entire experience, but I'm just trying to make clear that there's no monetary, uh, benefit to me whatsoever, no matter what happens to Wilkesboro. But, um, I'm, I'm thrilled that they're getting a points race.

And I'm happy that it's going to be in the middle of the summer because I think that track needs to be hot and it needs to be tough, right, for it to really put on the 400-mile race, I think we want. Hopefully we get a, you know, get that soft tire and all that good, and that damn, oh, that groove is going to move around. They're going to be right on the fence in one and two. It's going to be awesome. So Dover, there's a lot of reasons why Dover is going to be an all-star race.

Oh, yeah. Like what? Huh? Like what? The DJ trying to play dumb is so funny. And I just want to hear it like, why? Why? So,

the, I think there are people in the industry that would mothball the All-Star race for a few years and it'd be fine. And I think there are contracts in place with networks and so forth that make the promise of an All-Star race that can't be broken. And so I'll say this, like with with with every, it's very similar to like, it's very similar to the car itself in terms of being able to change anything on the car. It's committee. NASCAR can't just change something that wants to change on the car. You have to go through the teams, the owners, all those things. Same thing with like, hey, I want to, I want to, let's park the All-Star race for a couple years.

Maybe we bring it back. All that stuff is. just the decision of the track owner. It isn't just the decision of one person or one business or one entity. NASCAR would want to improve. The networks have a ton of leverage

on really how that works out. I am shocked, honestly, that they were able to even switch Wilkesboro and Dover. And I'm shocked that Marcus was able to convince all the other people involved

NASCAR and the networks to take the two tracks and flip them. I didn't think it was possible. I didn't think it was possible either. I heard about this about probably a month or two ago that there was conversation around Wilkesboro becoming a points race in the summer and that, you know, they weren't sure really what was going to happen with Dover. Would it be a points race?

Would it, you know, what would happen? I never thought that they would make it the all-star race because, number one, it doesn't have lights. And it's Dover. It's not, Denny had such a great point on his show. Denny said on his show, you can go back and listen to Action's Detrimental, came out yesterday. Denny said, man, you know, Dover's, Dover needs 400 laps to be a good,

to have a chance at being a good show. The All-Star race are quick segments, you know, 30, 20, whatever it is, right? quick, quick, you know, stages. And a 30-lap run at Dover

is not going to be that compelling. You're not going to see a lot of change. You're not going to see a lot of change. And it's so arrow there. Like, you know, we want to have a conversation around,

whoa, what's wrong, you know, where this car doesn't really do all the things great. Dover is one of them. But you need, you need 80 laps of racing

at, Dover just to see a little bit of, you know, cars moving around, running different lines, guys maybe having a chance to drive up and take the lead. It takes a while. It takes a while to happen there. And so, you know, that made me, that was a little surprised that they thought that that was a good recipe for the All-Star Race. If the track is the main ingredient, Dover is not the track I'm adding into that recipe. But that's what we're doing.

and I don't and it ain't it ain't one person's fault if you don't like this idea I'll just say that but that's the one thing I think it was a bit surprising or something I think we're all kind of looking out in the future going hmm I wonder how that's going to work out but I'm as as confused or perplexed I guess as I am about that all-star race I'm as equally excited about Wilkesboro. And so I'm kind of like, it's a wash. Is it actually, is it a wash or is it maybe a net gain with North Wilkesburg getting the points raise?

Yeah, yeah, I wanted to say it's a wash to be conservative because of the public reaction that I've seen. But for me, it's a net gain. I hate to think about it like that, like, man, I don't give you what happens in Dover. You know, go on Dover, dover, do what you do, do. Man, I'm excited about this new toy that's the points race at Wilkesboro. So yeah, I mean, for me personally,

massive net game. I'd like to see NASCAR say, okay, teams, let's try some things at Dover with this exhibition race, All-Star, and maybe find some things. Now you're reaching. But if you're going to... Dude, I love this idea.

I love this ambition. What if that's the race? You just, hey, guys, we're taking all this stuff off the car. You decide you're going to run it. It's an all-star race. Yeah, you're wishful thinking. I get because I have to live this experience. I know.

I don't. Yeah. Well, let's move on to the O'Reilly Auto Parts story, taking over the Xfinity series as a new sponsor. I don't have a problem with this. I think it's great. Changes from time to time. Infinity had a good run.

Sure. A lot of people were thinking, man, what are they going to call it? But they stayed pretty much status quo. O'Reilly Auto Parts series. Am I right? Yeah, you're good. What kind of partner O'Reilly is going to be?

Xfinity's been great. They've been... They're active. Yeah, they are. They've been working with here at Dirty Mo Media for years, so we're kind of fans. But, yeah, so I mean, I think when a new partner

comes into a role like that, you're just a little curious as to how it's going to feel. But I would expect it to be good. All right, it's time for the Lionel Ultimate Racing Collector. That time again for you to send us picks and videos of your Ultimate Racing Collection. We love our Lionel die casts, but it doesn't just have to be die casts. If you got sheet metal, suits, whatever you got. Sim rigs.

Sim rigs. Whatever. Anything racing. Oh, Sim rigs. Well, that's what won last month. You think the Sim rigs will push it over? I think it helps sell me last week. Okay. Last month. Well, whatever you have.

Send us picks, videos, videos probably going to do better. We'll be posting on Twitter and Facebook asking for your submissions. Respond to those posts with your picks or videos. Even if you submitted before, give it another go. And maybe you get picked as the ultimate racing collector presented by Lionel. Yeah, last month was a resubmission. Yeah, he tried. Yeah, don't resend it, man.

That's right. Hire professional photographer, come in there. Don't do that. Light your house and your SIM rig and all the things and get everything looking awesome. Put in some neon lights. Hilly,

RGB lighting. Yeah, RGB. Go on Amazon and get you some RGBs. Put them into corners. Yo, T.J. See you've been walking around with a new phone. Where did you get that new phone?

Yeah, man, I love this phone. I recently joined a consumer seller family, and they hooked me up, man. I got a great new. phone and the service is awesome. That's great, but like how's it at Iowa or Richmond, 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 16 and I have had nothing but success with this phone. I've actually, it has bailed me out numerous times now. I was able to flip the hotspot on and

use some internet on it, text calls, everything, man. I'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 Staying in line at a store, wait, grab a number, wait 30 minutes. 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's hellier 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.com slash DJD and use promo code DJD 25. All right, we got Austin Dillon, the winner from Richmond on the show.

Awesome to have you here, Austin. Congratulations on the win this weekend. Huge, huge race for you guys, get you into playoffs, but also having everything that you've experienced there in the past year, having the win taken away, being able to come back and kind of prove out everything that you knew about yourself and your team had to feel pretty good. uh was it redemption um did you feel like you guys uh you know went in there with a chip on your shoulder yeah you know um i definitely throughout the year you know you you look at that race and it's kind of looming in the background of your head like well there's always richmond and uh we knew last year how good we were um and felt like it'd be awesome to do it again but you it's kind of

like a fairy tale dream a little bit you know yeah to come in and and accomplish what we did You know, we did everything leading up to Richmond. We executed really well. And if you even go back to, I would say it started at Iowa. We had a good race car at Iowa, raced up front there. And that kind of prepares you for what's to come at Richmond. Pit crew got to make some competitive stops in that race. So the pressure starts to build for them.

And we go to Watkins Glen, and Watkins Glen's probably one of my worst tracks. And we needed to come out of there with a good finish to set up Richmond from a qualifying aspect because the later you go at Richmond, the better you're going to qualify. So we were able to come out and get a 15th place finish at Watkins Glen. That felt great. Leading up the simulation that we did going to Richmond felt good. I felt like we were just tweaking on our balance to the car instead of really looking for, you know, speed. We were just kind of dialing things in. And when we got to the track, we had a good plan. Practice went good. I didn't think that we were like great, but I knew we were pretty solid,

and I had the feel that we needed to run where I want to run on the track. And when we started the race, it just kind of one at a time that the race started coming and playing out into our favor. And by halfway mark, I felt like, okay, we're capable of winning this race if we do our job. And from that point on, we executed really well. What is it about Richmond? You know, is it set up? Is it something that you enjoy that fits your style?

You know, what have you guys found, I guess, to know that when you show up there, you're going to be dynamite? Yeah, I think it started years ago, truthfully, in the old car even. I should have wanted to race there in the old car, and I sped on Pit Road, ended up coming all the way back to sixth. I feel like I have a unique line there. I mean, TJ, you probably see it. I went back and watched your in-car last night.

I watched a lot of your in-car last night. And you were shifting at points late in the run. Sometimes you're right bouncing off the chip into one. But you're definitely uniquely low. Yep. Yeah, I feel like for whatever reason, the lower I can be, it just helps me from a drive standpoint. And I'm glad that no one really is aggressive down there where I'm at.

I just kind of stay down there and do my own thing. I don't try and, like, change my style. I just stick to it. And I feel like by the end of the race, it kind of comes to me as rubber lays down and everybody else. Richmond, I don't know, you know, it's a very confusing track. Like, it was my worst track when I first started racing in Xfinity Series. I couldn't.

I was like, man, this is, I don't know what to do here. And we went to a test a while back. And I kind of found a rhythm and a line that I liked. And I just started building around that. But it turned into one of my better tracks. And I just feel comfortable with what I'm going to do going there. Like I have a mindset. That's what I'm going to do.

And I'm looking for a feel in the car. You know, like I said, I actually think our car last year might have been a little better than this year's car. This car had probably its advantage was the takeoff speed. Like we took off better this year. But I probably faded a little more than I would have last year. year in the long run there was nobody close. I thought on the long run this year, we were as good as anybody, but we didn't really

have an advantage. A short run, we got better. The thing that I'd like to talk about, and I'm always kind of curious as to where you are, obviously you're in the middle of your driving career, and that's something that's up to you as far as how long you want to take that. but your grandfather Richard Childers is 80 years old, correct? Yeah. You know, I would imagine that, you know, and you talked a little bit about this in the post-race

and how involved you are and how y'all might agree or disagree on certain aspects of the business. But you're, I guess, as time goes by, becoming more and more involved and voting. about what's going on with RCR. You know, is it fair to say, or would it be expected to say that there'll be a time when the reins would fully be handed over to you? You know, we, it's kind of a tough subject to talk about because, you know, Richard's been around forever

and, you know, you can't imagine a world where he's not, you know, managing things and going to the racetrack, but that day will come, you know. And so do y'all talk about, I know I asked you this about every six months, but do y'all talk about the plan? You went into bull riding, the team bull riding. I think you did that to sort of learn a bit more about business decisions,

managing people, managing an operation. I'm sure that's been really beneficial to you. And you can bring some of those things learned, those lessons learned over to the racing side. from a, you know, from a 40,000 foot view of managing a business. But it's my hope, I mean, it's my wish that, you know, RCR would continue and continue with you at the helm for decades to come. Is that sort of what you hope?

Yeah, I think definitely I hope that. And it's a dream of mine. I've come across the railroad tracks here and welcome for my entire. life. It's really all I know. We could go into other things, but it's not what the love and the passion for these people here in welcome. That's what I love. I love this area, the people that I see, the faces that I know. I'm so excited to go down here in a little while and do our team luncheon and get to see all the people in the hard work and effort that gets put in. And when you talk about, I think what's been cool this year, Ty has kind of stepped in here.

and him coming along, I think what my grandfather's biggest fear is that, or regret is his time with family because he has been so committed to RCR in the business that that is what he has put all his focus and effort in, and we love him for that. He's been a rock and like an Elvis of the garage for so long. He's the one owner that you're going to see every weekend standing on a top of a trailer and inside the inner workings constantly, that's just who he is and who he's always been committed to. I think his worry of turning over that position to Ty and I would be he knows the sacrifices he had to make. And he doesn't, I don't know if he really wants us to have that burden a little bit. It's a great thing, but it's also, it's a time-consuming position to be run well.

But what's been nice, what I was leading to is Ty coming in there, and Ty and I look at it is we both want to be able to bring our families along and show them this wonderful life that we have. It's a tough life, but you say that. There's a lot of great that goes with it, but it's a lot. I mean, you're gone every weekend of the year. And if Ty and I could share that burden and that load together and really push RCR forward, I think both of us,

because Ty's aspect has come from a different side of things, He's had to go work with other teams. He's seeing the interworking of other teams. He's now working with one of our partners and colleague, and it's kind of like an inside track to, like, how can we deliver more for colleague on that side of things? And then from my aspect, I really know the competition side from RCR.

I've seen it for my entire Cup series career, where we've done things well, where we've done things what I think is not good, and how we can improve on them. So I think I could directly get in there and make our competition side just that much better because I know how the people that have been here for a long time, it worked,

and I know our trends. I know that at the beginning of the year, we show flashes of speed, we go through the middle of the year, we sometimes struggle, and then we push hard again at the end, and I'd love to get that to where it kind of flatlines, and we compete constantly throughout the year.

But yes, you know, I love this place, and I want to help any way I can. RC is still fired up at 8. He sees the writing on the wall that, you know, and I think he's starting to stay home a couple more times a year. But I hope that, you know, last year, this whole Richmond thing, it really burned him like from a, and I talked about this in a media center, just the sport in general. He felt like he was, I don't know if he's betrayed or whatever it may be. And he's one of those guys, man, when you get him, when he's like that, he's just, he's hard to pull out of that. You know, he's old school.

And when you've done him wrong, it's hard for him to kind of forgive and forget. And I hope that us winning Richmond and the way everything went down this time around, it clears that. And I think it already has. Like, I think he's, this week, he's been in a whole new mood. And just the love of the sport, I want it to come back in his eyes. You know what I mean? Because this sport has done so much for our family.

And I want him to feel that way too. and I think it has and he's excited and we'll just keep pushing. Yeah. I didn't want to keep you too long, but you mentioned Ty. I've kind of bit observed like a lot of people, y'all's relationship over the last decade. Ty sort of left the nest, so to speak, and went out on his own and did things kind of on his own way. but there has been this sort of coming back together, you know, and there's, there is this sort of, you can physically see this bond that's sort of been reborn between you and him.

And there seems to be an understanding, I guess, between you two that you do want to do this together. And that there is this future in front of you in a whole entirely new chapter of keeping RCR going, that you both want to be a shared partner in. You know, how exciting or how happy are you, I suppose, around that relationship coming back together and you and him sort of being on the same page again and being able to be around each other and enjoy each other more. Man, it's really exciting. And I told him, I texted him after the race.

I said, you don't know how much that hug meant to me, him coming out there and just like loving on me. Like that was huge. And it is exciting. And Mike Verlander, our president here, he's done a really good job. He's a great hire that we've had. And he's been a big part of the way we're moving things forward. And we talk to him as like, man, you know, one group that's been around forever

and then it's figured it out was Wood Brothers. You know, I think we could do something similar to what they've been able to do and work together and show a united front and really push RCR forward for the future. But yeah, no, it's awesome. Our kids is what's awesome too is their best friends, like Ace and Captain and Oakley and Blaze, they all came to Victory Lane. And Ace cried in Victory Lane because his cousins left. And I'm like, dude, you can't cry in Victory Lane.

He was like, but Oakley and Captain left. I'm like, I promise you, we'll see him, but man, no tears in Victory Lane. And then we finally got him backgrounded again, and he was good. He was eating a milkshake, drinking a milkshake. But it's cool to see the love of those guys, too. Yeah, that's awesome, man. Thanks for sharing. Congratulations again, Austin.

Always great to talk to you, man. Thanks for giving us a little bit of time today. Thank you, guys. Safety culture helps businesses stay on top of the details in their data and processes so that they can focus on improving. Whether your business is big or small, it can be easy to lose track of all these details. Our friends at trackhouse racing, they use safety culture so that they have the confidence every detail is always covered.

Safety culture is purpose built for 80% of the blue collar workforce, the people that are out there working hard each and every day, from factories to stores, even those shops, as big as track house racing. Every detail is tracked and everyone has full visibility to make sure nothing gets missed because the workers on the ground, they know what's happening the best. Safety culture makes it easy to share those insights, giving visibility to other departments all in real time. That means you and your team get the job done faster,

you make better decisions, and you're constantly finding ways to improve so that you can spend your time more wisely where it counts. If you want to see how it can help your business earn the pole position, head over to safetyculture.com slash SVG. R live. All right, I'm going to... You're live.

I'm saving. I know, I am. Just see you now. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this segment of Asr Jr. You do it, DJ. This segment's brought to you by Xfinity. Speeds are booming.

I'm scouring the internet for some cheese plays for college. Well, that other guy is going to play your games for you, so it doesn't matter. We actually do have a question about... Uh-oh. Why did you... College football show? We can talk about it if you know. Let's let Dale do the read, but why are you getting on him about tweeting that civil?

Yeah, no shit. Why? What's wrong with asking for normal plays you don't have to make 18 audibles for? Yeah. They're already in there. They're already there. What's already there? The normal plays. You don't have to audible on every play. I know. I just wanted to know what his favorites are for non-adjustments.

You have plenty of favorites at work. I go on social media and I noticed. And I enjoy reading people's comments. content and watching videos of all kinds of stuff. He does put good content. He does. He does. I agree. And he's asking for like, hey, what do you guys need? What videos do you want us to make?

I was waiting for his reply because I wanted to see. You guys are hacks. What is the hack? I'm not a pro. I'm wanting to use a stock play as it's designed. That's actually something that's not a hack. Just do it. Oh, man.

TJ. TJ wants to micromanage every freaking aspect. Now I get why you get frustrated. No. Oh, really? You don't have to. I don't have to find the, see it immediately once you meet him. You're basically asking for the hack plays. No, we're not. It's not hack plays, but like, what's his favorite plays? Is this read one, read two? Like, I'll go into practice and try to run that play as he says and see if it works for me. Sometimes it doesn't. I mean, I think you're good enough at that already. I like to get better. Yeah, I mean, I get it. I know telling who you're going to invite

this league. I don't know. I want to go steadily improve. Only bad people. He can't have competition. Yeah. We appreciate everybody tuning in to listen to us, argue. Xfinity Ask Junior portion of the show. Xfinity has booming Wi-Fi, and we're very proud of it. Very proud of our relationship here at Junior Merch with Dirty Mo Media with Xfinity.

And they give you the power and speed of NASCAR in your home. And you can choose a real. right plan for you and you're off and running and uh andrew's in there nodding like he's never heard this information before he's like i'm just trying to yeah i'm just trying to be enthusiastic man thanks he looked fake oh boom damn what a burn good segment you can't let that can't let that tj all my enthusiasm is real good segment except whenever you make a joke that's usually a petty K segment. Actually, Xfinity Wi-Fi has the best streaming experience for not only NASCAR fans,

but fans of all sports, NFL, college football is coming back. It is. And, you know, you're going to be, you're going to have your TV on, your tablets out, you're going to be watching multiple things at once. You've got two TVs, a computer. Yeah, it's crazy. We're so spoiled. Can't watch us one game? We're very spoiled.

And Xfinity Wi-Fi is booming. It can handle all this. doing. So they didn't just raise the bar. They stream in overdrive. Xfinity is a proud premier partner of NASCAR. We're going to get to your questions here. We'll ask Junior right now. That's right. And probably the most popular question I saw across all forms of social media was how was the car store race this weekend. Yeah, car store race was good. Um, anus. You spun out. He'll get to it, TJ. I sent him a text for the way he trying to pump him up. And I was like, come on, man, win one of these. I wasn't going to leave.

that part out. TJ is such a cheerleader, pumping you up. I did. I said, let's win one of these for one. While I was asking that whole question, he was just nodding in support. Like you, I was just saying,rew, in it.

I'm going to text you Sunday. All right, Spotter, let's win one today. Well, I'll be at home on Sunday. You might want to do it Saturday. Next week. Let's get above the cut line this year. Come on, TJ. Let's get up.

Get their breakfast cook. All right. Yeah, I'll like. Come on, TJ. Let's get them dishes. just put away. I've been chilling you for years, man. You can schedule the text so you can actually send it now.

You know what he used to get mad at is whenever he were struggling and he'd be like, can I get a good corner for once? You know what I mean? And I'd have to be like, all right, hey man, good corner. And he goes, thanks. And then he'd go on his way again. I never asked for a good corner. Yes, you did.

That's made up. Yes, you did. You made that up. You did. You were angry one time. You're like, can I get a good corner? And I'm like, I don't believe I ever said that. Yeah, you're confusing me with someone else.

No, I don't think so. that's hard to do that's very hard to do I yeah I you know I think that the weekend was great so Anderson

South Carolina is where we went this is a track that was on the schedule about eight years ago it had been a while since we've been there we went up there in July and run one morning for about three hours

just to get familiar with the track felt pretty good about it I guess and went back Friday we had some practice and I had Travis Quapple helping me, Travis, Caden, his son and

Connor Hall was there with our A-car with our regular guys and our regular group and things were going good. We had some pretty decent speed in practice. I felt like, you know, everybody's running about the same speed for the most part, maybe a tenth between, you know,

first and 20th. And so but we were right in there and I was real happy with that having not run a race car or mess with the late model since Cordill earlier this year before the fall

so that track broke small is it small? And it's tight and small yeah a little bit of a bull ring but both corners are different so it's kind of fun one and two you drive a certain way

three and four is a little flat like Florence and so we did a mock run and our mock run was really good in practice and I was like hey you know I'm happy about that yeah nope we were like we were like top 10 overall once ever once we went through all of practice one and two and you you put up everybody's best lap we were we were in the top 10 there pretty happy and then we bolted on a set of tires to do a second mock run and the car tightened way up so we started and the car the tires were a different size so we had to start

pulling Packer and rounds out of the front. We dropped in the front of the car down, trying to get it back down on the racetrack, and the balance of the car took off and got real tight. So when we went to qualify, we didn't have as good a balance on the car as we did earlier in the day. And we qualified at a 16. The pole was like a 94.

One-tenth I'd have been an eighth or something. So it's really tight. Where did you end up? And I qualified. That's tight field, though. Yeah. Yeah. Dude.

I qualify 22 more than anybody I know. I'm serious. Like the entire season in 2017, I was 22nd or 23rd every week. What is the deal with that? It felt like. Second Pace card material. Yeah. So, yeah, I was just trying to get the front road of the second group.

You're right. Consistent front rows all of year long. So it was really, really hot. So hot. Oh, man, it was hot. I took my Camp and World camper out there, put it up in the woods. spent the night. That was fun.

Had a old hound dog in this yard behind me. Let me know if anybody was snooping around. The guy comes over. He's like, I'll put my dog up. If you want me too. I was like, don't put that damn dog up. I was like, I want to hear it. I'm barking in the middle of night.

Somebody's snooping around out here. A dog would light up, boy. I was like, hey, he's like an alarm. But it was good. I started the race. And the Hoosier tire this year, honestly, it's a 45. They label it a 45, but it acts a lot like an SD2. They have an ST1, which is soft, SD2 a little harder, SD3 a little bit harder.

The pros, and I think the super's run the ones on the left and the three is on the right. So the hardest tire on the right. We run an SD2 all the way around, or I'm sorry, it's not an SD2, it's a 45, but it acts a lot like an SD2. It's a pretty hard tire. And so this year with this tire, and I was on the phone with Hoosier this morning talking about this, you run hard all night. You don't save, you don't ride, you don't, you know,

you've got to run smart and straight. You can't just dirt track the car all day. But you don't, there's no, like in the cup race, you guys had to be careful not beached tire up too bad. Not like that at the short tracks anymore. It used to be like that forever. and all of a sudden we've kind of went away from the old 45 and now we have this tire that's a little too good.

Are you trying to go back? Man, I'd love to have a little, I'd love to have some races where you needed to be smart with the tire. Some tracks we're not going to be able to get there because it's just newer asphalt. Do you think it got a little to excessive the tire saving at times, like people riding around, you know what I mean, or did you not care about it?

I didn't care about it. I liked it. It's a chess match. Because you could go to the front if you wanted to. Drive the front fuel to, but you might not be able to stay there when it come time to go. I liked it because it was a chess match. But anyways, I see, the race was fun, but you know, you run hard all night.

You run as hard as you can. And, yeah, I mean, there were some guys that had some troubles, some cars that didn't handle well, and we ended up kind of, I ended up getting spun out. I was trying to pass Laney on the inside, and I was not as good as I wanted to be on corner exit. and I got up into her left rear tire and it yanked the, our tires climbed over each other and yanked the steering wheel right out of my hand. I've never had that happen in a race car.

Like that's usually like a rack and pinion kind of thing. Like if you bump wheels and the wheels grab, it'll yank the steering wheel out of your hand. I've never had that happen with a manual box, so that was kind of interesting. But I spun out, got going again, cause you come out, didn't get lapped. Everybody come down pit road behind me to make adjustments.

And so I kind of restarted exactly. where I was before I spun. That's nice. You didn't get a penalty? No. Spending out, bringing out the caution. I'm just messing. Kip didn't give you a penalty.

That's supportive T.J. Isn't he? I mean, I mean, I went. I don't know. Everybody come down on pit road. It's worked out, yeah. It worked out good. Great race at the front though, too.

That's right when I tuned in, too. I was slipping back and forth between Richmond and literally the second I tuned in to flow, you spun out. Well, that's on me. Sorry. Not going again and pass some cars, and up 10th. I was pretty happy with it.

Certainly would have loved to run better. Got to qualify a little better to be able to run up toward the front. It's such a hard... The tire just doesn't allow you to, like, you know, try to drive through the field. Your car has to be exceptionally good comparable to the field,

and it's just too competitive. Cars tour is some of the toughest short track racing, I think, in the area and maybe in the country in terms of, like, competition from first to 25th. and so yeah great finish up front too oh yeah I didn't get to see it

I could see fifth you know I was like my car was actually really good at the end of the race I burned the rear tires up just giving it you know everything I could and got the rear tires mad

but we were about a sixth place car I think six yeah six would have been pretty you know that's respectable pretty much store yeah I was happy I did the math

12 times in 17 you finished You started 20th to 24th. Yeah. How many? 12 times. And 13 times and there was one that was 28th, but I didn't count that in the... Man, we didn't have groups back then either.

Man. Yeah. I'm telling you, man, it was maddeny. It really did drive me mad. This is a great time to go to the next question. Yes. This is actually recent news. As of today, Adam Stern reported that NASCAR is considering changing some of its rules in the coming seasons to allow

cup drivers to maybe compete in more Exfinity and truck races. So what's your reaction to that? I think it's fine. They compete in them now. So I think, you know, they have limited them to like, what, five starts a year?

I don't even know what it is. I don't even know what it is. So I can't complain about it because I don't even know what their limits are now. I didn't like when they could race for the championship. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it did take away. Right now, it's five is the limit. And so I would be fine if they went to 10. But the thing is, is like, so there's a lot here. Fans will say, I want to see the cup guys in those races. Fans are going to tune in more if more cup guys are in those races. If you're a fan of somebody that's racing, Kyle Bush or whatever, and you want to see him race more and you're going to the race.

either you're physically going to the race weekend. You're more excited to see the Saturday race because your guys out there. So there's a lot of people that want it, want to see them out there more. And I get that. As a car owner, there's a perfect balance where, yes, I want cup guys in my cars. Because, man, you know, they go win some races. Right. I love that.

but if I'm in a situation where I'm a regular and I don't have a cup guy in my car, if I owned a team that doesn't have cup resources, doesn't have cup drivers, my chance to win, my chance to even run in the top 10 got harder. and your budget in this series is your budget in this series for a lot of teams is based off of or or succeeds off of performance strictly performance so you don't have like a $5 million check from a sponsor and there's your budget you you budget on a prediction of how you're going to finish. And so you're gambling, really, starting the year to say, man, I'm going to run all year

and I, we need to average an 18th, 15th, 12th place finish. I'm going to make this much and I'll spend this much. And we should at the end of the day come out ahead or at least flat. So right, you're predicting this sort of result. And so now the team that was maybe going to run eighth to 10th on average throughout the year may run 12th, 14th. Now they're making less money. Now they're able to not able to spend as much. Things get tighter. And so yeah, when you had when you, I don't know how, you know, the teams made it work when we had, we'd go to Charlotte in the 2000s, man, you'd had 14, 20

cup drivers in the race. You might not have a regular in the top 10. I'm serious. Yeah. No, I believe I lived in. And I didn't have a, you know, I wasn't really a full-time team then, but when we became full-time and we had one car and we had a regular driving it, man, you were lucky if you could

mingle in the top ten with some of the cup guys that were competing. And you felt, you know, you're sitting there running sixth behind five cup guys. You're like, damn, right, we're first in class. Yeah, that's a great day. And so things that,

changed. They made the restrictions. And we got teams like ours started winning more races. Right. When Kyle Bush quit running 25 races a year, right? You know, Carl Edwards and all these other guys. When they stopped running all these races and winning half of them or more, teams like ours started winning races and to go backwards to be tough for us. I encourage competition and I'm not, you know, I think it'd be good if they could run more. But there's a balance.

There's a right balance. And so it'd be curious. And I read the quote from O'Donnell, and it wasn't, I think that, you know, the question he got asked really wasn't. And he didn't offer this information up and say, hey, by the way, along with this announcement with O'Reilly, we're looking at changing this rule. This always gets asked of them, hey, is anything going to be different? different. And he said, hey, we're always open to it. We're always, you know, with new partners

coming in. They always like to make a little change and change of something, get people excited about something, sell a few race tickets or whatever. So I could see them making an announcement like, hey, man, we're going to remove, we're going to change it to 10 or hopefully they don't remove it all together to where we did, we have like cup guys running for the championship. Yeah, I don't think that's good. Because that, that would be really, really hard on teams like ours. financially. Do you think having some cup guys

more regularly in there, not like all year, but would help teach some of the community guys like race etiquette and things like that? All you need really is one good cup guy. I mean, you know, I raced a lot of,

I raced cup guys in the 98-99 season. There were some cup guys that would come in there and run, but the one that I, the one we all learned from was Mark Martin. You know, I remember getting my ass kicked by Jeff Burton and a few other guys for sure during those years. But the one man that was really the teacher was Mark. And so if you get one cup guy that like really, really would commit to the series that was truly a good teacher,

like somebody that wanted to help you, talk to you at the driver's introduction, want to show you things to make you better at every track. You know, that'd be awesome for the young guys. You know, some of the cup guys come into those races, even myself. I don't know that I was a great teacher. Like when I was running the cup car in the 2000s and I started running some Xfinity races, I would just show up and run them and wouldn't think much about it. So I wasn't really helping the kids.

But Mark was really good at making you better and helping you get better. But I'm sure you did some things on the track that they learned from. know, maybe. But, I mean, if you get one, all you need is one good cup guy that's like, will mentor. Yeah. You don't need like 10 of them out there, you know, make, you know, that's not really, just one to lead by example.

One kick-ass guy that's out there being a good, you know, teacher. Yeah, because if 10, are you really learning, or you just watching those 10 pass you and then you're just in the back, just like, I wish I was up bleeding, but there's 10 cup drivers. There's positives to that for fans, but there's some, there's some drawbacks to it that, that that people probably don't know about or don't even want to acknowledge for some of the regular teams in the series, it would not be good. Our team would probably be able to adjust.

It would be even harder. The further you go down that list in terms of regular teams, the further you go down that list is more difficult financially if we were to be overran by cup drivers like it used to be into 2000s. I don't think that's what's going to happen. I think it'll be interesting to see what that balance looks like. Once we settle on a number. You know, the interesting thing is, is like, even at five, there's a lot of cup guys that don't even exercise the five.

Right. Like, Kyle Bush, how many does he run now? I hardly see him. Yeah, he texts me. He runs a lot of truck races. He texts me from time to time. He's like, man, if you got to open Bush race, Exfitting race, I'd love to run it. O'Reilly race.

Right. Yeah, what cup driver hits the max right now? There's a couple, but not many. I'll be honest. I don't think the cup guys are all that. I mean, there's a couple that are interested. Like Kyle Arson's going to go run Bristol and Homestead if he can every year. I know Denny said he'd love to do Super Speedway next year because of how the car races, but he does zero right now.

Right. He just wants a taste of that old, you know, familiar. But he's not racing five. No. You know, a lot of them don't want to do it. A lot of them are well paid. They're really happy. They're busy with that.

That car is so different. They don't really need. Kyle Larson will tell you that it's kind of, it's counterproductive. to race them both in the same weekend because they drive so differently. It's not the way it used to be where you could learn from it tremendously driving on Saturday versus Sunday. And so a lot of guys just don't even fool with it because they're not going to go out there and make it a lot of money like a difference maker.

Like man, you know, it's lucrative for me. They're already good on the cup side. And, you know, but for our team, you know, we'll get, you know, we might get a, you know, package deal where we're helping Connor Zillich continue to get better at Oval's and progress his racecraft, SVG, you know, whatever,

right? And so we'll take that any day. We'll take that any day because it's good for us. But yeah, I don't know. It'll certainly be interesting. I think the change is, if they did change it,

it would be a bit of, people get excited about it, but I don't know that anything would really physically change. This next question is coming from, Nick, responding to a post you put out this week, I think you're actually responding to someone. Who is Buddy the cat? Really? Yeah.

Yeah. I like pets. I've had dogs, cats. I've had four cats probably in my life. I didn't know that. Three rescues. I guess I rescued Buddy. He was in a mall.

That would be deemed a rescue. Yeah. Me and my bus driver, Shane, Shane was just a little bit older than me, maybe around, yeah, he was just a little bit older than me. And we were, we played a lot of video games, and we just be bored of death sometimes on some race weekends. We went into New Hampshire, it was my rookie year, Cup series, and we were farting around, went over to the mall, and we're walking around in the mall, just, you know, getting CDs. or something, right, buying music. I don't know what we're doing, but it's a long time ago, 2000.

And walked by the pet store, and then the window, there was some kittens running around in this little window. And he said it jokingly, like, we should get one. And I was like, really? Like, on the bus?

And he's like, yeah, he could live on the bus. And I'm like, man, you'd put up with that? Because I'm not, I'm only on the bus on the weekends and Shane's driving it all over the place. And he'd have to take care of the freaking litter box and all that bull. And I'm like, you really want to fool with that?

And he's like, yeah, be cool. Keep me some company. And so we built right next to the bedroom that was a little big drawer and we tore that, took that drawer out and we put a door

where he could crawl through this hole into a litter box. And that's where he lived. He lived on the bus. And I mean, he stayed on that. Shane wouldn't come back home. He would drive from track to track

the track all around the country. He'd come home every three months or so. And so Buddy would be out there with him. Yeah. Laying in the front window, everything. Riding. And Buddy was on this bus for five, six years. Yeah.

And then he developed diabetes. And he was, actually, he came off the bus because Shane got in an accident. Shane was driving down the road. and Buddy would just out of nowhere come running up and jump on to the dash and somehow or another Shane clipped the car

and shoved this car down the interstate because he jumped on the dash oh my God he blamed Buddy whether that was really what happened I don't know but it was like there was no not even scratch on the front of the thing

but so it wasn't like his dramatic crash or anything right but like at least Yeah, road incident. Yeah. And so I'm like, all right, buddy comes off the bus. And so we, buddy comes off the bus and he's throwing up

and we just fed the shit out of this thing, right? We didn't really think about it. Just random? Yeah, we just, no, we just fed him all the food he wanted. Oh, okay. You know, we'd pour more, more in his bowl, just regular cat food,

but he was eating too much. He got really heavy. And he'd become diabetic. And he started to have, you know, he'd vomit and things like that. And we started having to give him shots. And so we had to give him shots for years. years and he ended up being a shop the the way that the way we knew we could put him on a

pattern of getting his shots regularly was to make him a shop shop a race shop cat so he stayed in a race shop and everybody that would guys would get there in the morning give him his shot and he just roamed around under the cars and you'd be working on the cars and he just kind of hanging out he's hanging out in the shop keeping the mice out and all that stuff race shops get mice all the time you know they're just old 10 buildings and um he he he he's lived in a race shop for another six eight six years or so and then eventually just he passed away and um yeah that was it that was his life i rescued another main coon from the local pound down here in charlotte because he looked identical to buddy i went in there and um after buddy huh this is after

buddy nope oh i might have been after buddy are you talking about dude yeah yeah i was got to tell a story So we went into, so buddy passes away. We went into, I was going to rescue a cat. We went into the, I like to have cats because I lived in, I lived in the country and we live in fields. And those fields get mowed. The mice come running. They run the mice out of the fields and you're going to get a mice in the basement. You're going to get a mouse in the house.

You will. I still get a mouse once a year in my house. No big deal. And so I got one in the garage the other day. but, you know, so I like to have cats just for that purpose because you didn't ever see mice and they always take care of it. One time, I think it was buddy. No, this was Tux.

I had another cat named Tux. He had a black and white coat. He brought a mouse in the house. Me and Amy are laying in the bed sleeping, and Tucks come running in the bedroom, jump up on the bed, jumped on to Amy's chest, and dropped that mouse on it. Oh my God. And that mouse ran.

Yeah, I was going to say it wasn't dead. No, that mouse ran down her leg under the covers. Oh, my God. And then, buddy, called it and then took it back outside. Good cats. Yes. Wow. I'm sorry, Tucks.

This was hilarious. I would have lost there. We need her side of the story later this week, too. But I went into this rescue, this pound. and I was like, hey, I want a cat. And they're like, all right, we'll show you the cats. So they're showing me all the cats, right? And they got this big wall of cats.

Yeah. And I was there, wouldn't you? Yeah. I went with you. And then way over here is another wall of crates, and they're all empty except for one. Bad cats, basically. And I go over there, and they're, damn, I'm like, holy shit, that's Buddy.

I think Buddy was still alive because I, I'm thinking, how in the hell did they get my cat? This is my cat. It looked identical. But then I noticed, so Maine Coons, they cut their tails when they're born. This cat's tail was still full. So he was astray, and he hadn't been taken care of. And I was like, I saw what I want.

He's identical to buddy. That's the one. And the lady's like, yeah, we can't let you have that one. I was like, how come? They're like, well, this is the side where they're so mean. like we can't even give them their shots we can't even check them out to be able to turn them loose to

to home. They're like, you know, if we can't get in the cat, you walk near the crate in the damn thing where we start going. It would. I went by and put my hand up and it tried to attack my hand like through the crate.

That's just a good cat attack the T-D. I was like, I was like, I want it. And she's like, look, we'll try again to do everything we're supposed to do to be able to legally release it to someone. but I don't, you know, I don't know if we can't, we can't. And they weren't going to, you know, get all torn up trying to make it.

This cat was ready to rip anything apart that came near it. It was. And so it was. And I was like bound and freaking determined to take this cat and get it to chill. And so they call me back. I drove home like four hours later, they called me. They're like, hey, we got it done. And so they call me back.

And so in 24 hours, I'm back up there. and I'm getting the cat. And I take this damn thing home and I turned it loose in my house and it ran under the bed. And it stayed under my bed for a week. Would not come out. And I'd have to put it food under there. And I'd look under there. Every day I'd come home.

Yep, still there. Not moving. Not coming out. And every day I kept putting food under this damn bed. And I'm like, I don't know what's going to happen. This cat's going to rip me to shreds one day. Or I just don't know what's going to happen here. and I was laying in bed one night

and it's probably midnight and the damn cat jumped up on the bed and came over and started kneading where they do their paws right next to me and was like I'm like all right it's going to be good and so you know he was he was around for a while

he was fine wow he's skittish for a little bit but he got better yeah That's cool. He finally calmed down and like you could pet him and he was. He was chilled out. But man, from where he was to that, that was a cool experience. Absolutely. You weren't.

What you think it was going to happen in that, in that shelter. But we had fun with the cats. We named them easy names because we didn't want to have to remember a name. So we had buddy. We had dude. We had Cuzz. What was up, Cuzz? Because we used to say that all the time.

It's kind of one of our slang. What's up, Cuzz? And then we had tucks because he had the black and white tuxedo. But, yeah. Cats are cool, man, but, you know, you get the wrong, and it's the same with dogs, too. You get the wrong one. It just ain't just, it just ain't working.

It's a field thing. Yeah. No, I mean, you know, some cats, oh, tear your shit up. Some dogs tear your shit up. Yeah. You know, if you just, you get the right one, though, it's awesome. Yeah. Wow. Well, that is a nice wholesome way to Andash Jr. this week.

Well, all right. We appreciate everybody tuning in. Some more lifestyle questions similar to this can be found on Bless Your Heart. We'll have another episode of that out Thursday. A lot of people, I went to Anderson, South Carolina, to race the cars tour this weekend, and more people came up to me telling me about how awesome they thought, bless your heart was. And it's dudes. And they're like, me and my wife, me and my girlfriend. in. Or hey, I was in the house and my wife heard it from the other room and come in.

It's like, what is that? Wow. Now we're big fans. So it's pretty cool to hear that feedback. That's awesome. But anyways, thanks to Xfinity for bringing us to the Ask Junior segment today in racing and in life. Speed isn't optional. It's expected.

And we rely on things that perform under pressure and that's why we go to Xfinity Wi-Fi for fast-dependable internet. One price locked in for five years. I think what that means is you pay one price, and that's the price for five years. I'm pretty sure that's what that means. You're really comprehension is phenomenal. But I will add, the speed should increase. Now, can't predict when.

But they, dude, they emailed me. They know I ain't, they email me like to my, you know, they don't know who I am. Your personal email. Yeah. Yeah. They email me and they're like, customer, we are very proud to announce that your speeds will increase. Price will remain the same.

We're improving everybody's internet out here. I'm like, all right. Awesome. So over the course of five years, I'm sure you're going to get better, but you ain't going to have to pay for it. No contracts. No slowdowns, no nonsense. Xfinity.

Proud, premier partner of NASCAR. Xfinity can't make that promise, but I can make that prediction. Whether you've got one shelf or a whole wall dedicated to NASCAR, NASCAR die cast, there's always room for more. And nobody brings the excitement to the track and to your collection, like Lionel Racing, the official diecast of NASCAR. From the legendary rides like the number three Goodrichs car to the paint schemes of today's hottest stars like Kyle Larson and Ross Chastain, Lionel Racing Diacast are built for true fans.

Every car is authentically detailed and most are available in both 124 and 164 scales, whether you're after race wins, special finishes, autographed pieces, or the elite premier editions, Linole has you covered. And right now for a limited time, fans of the Dale Jr. download can get free U.S. shipping on their next order at Lionelracing.com. Just use the promo code DJD.25. That's promo code DJD.25 at Lionel Racing.com. Hey, everybody.

You want the latest Dale Jr. download apparel? visit shop.3durtymodea.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.dirtymobedia.com. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets.

This segment of Dirtymodeau is brought you by Fan Do It is time to hang out with Tampa Tims and Russell from Racing Insights the professor. Not to be confused with the professor from and one. That's not who you are. You're not the

and one professor that's now old and bald. Can you dribble? No. I'd rather not. He was a hell of a ball player. He's still out there doing it. Is he? Yeah, his ankles are a little beat up, but hey, the professor's still out there at the pickup. I remember waking up

in the early mornings before school and watching and one mixtape tour on ESPN. I watched that, I watched that documentary on the AN1 on Netflix. Pretty good. I remember that too, man. Big deal. And the professor, yeah, he's still out there doing it.

Yeah. Yeah. And for the record, you gave me the name of the professor. I did not give myself that nickname. No, you can't. So you cannot self-proclaim a nickname. Correct. You are a real strange fellow.

If you give yourself a nickname. Correct. I just can't abide. You don't pick your nickname. No. No. And some people do this. Don't you find that so strange?

Yeah. People that are like, hey man, you know, call me this. Or what about the people that refer to themselves in like the first, you know, like third person? Yeah, we have a friend from the past that did that. Yeah. There's people, though, in the sports world that will give themselves a nickname, start making merch and all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah, pretty weird.

Tampa Tims did not give himself that name. Of course not. Tampa Tims doesn't, you don't come across as a kind of guy that would nickname yourself. No, definitely not. And if you did, I'm going to change the way I think about you. No, definitely not. If you give yourself a nickname, you have it tattooed on you as well. I feel like Andrew would nickname himself.

She's been trying to get a couple of them. Travis, you look like the guy that wouldn't name. They call me AK. That's what it's. Man. Listen. We had a bad beat this week. It wasn't a bad beat.

We just sucked. We had a bad beat. I got one right, though, man. Nobody's talking about this. I called Josh Barry at Top Ten. You did. Josh rang good, yeah. Did I?

You needed that, yeah. Yeah. Who else did? We had a top 10. Oh, man. We didn't write the notes. We had Austin Dillon top 10. Did we?

Hey. We did. So if you did it in a top 10, Austin, Dylan, Barry, you made a little money? Yeah. So where is the shit from this past week? Is it on this page? Yeah. Not, well, just top manufacturer.

Oh, top manufacturer. Bell Caslowski-Baron. All of them missed. Yeah. All the bees left us down. What, damn it. It wasn't even that bad. TJ.

What happened with Brad? TJ, can you not go win a race? I'm trying every week, man. We told you if Brad doesn't win this, we're giving you crap. Hey, I mean, what can I do? Finish 9th. Spat, spot better. Didn't you say Blaney had terrible luck at Richmond?

That's his first top five ever there. So, I mean, it's like... I didn't say that I was speaking for Russ. Yeah, well, I mean, so it's not like we won against the grain big time here. I feel like the guys we picked all had legit shots at being the top guy for that manufacturer. I mean, how do you, I mean, Bell, he could run good there.

He could do. Byron was running good. Jesus, don't, what are we going to spend 30 fucking minutes trying to make, fucking sense of this manufacturer bet we missed? Or we can swing and swing again. Let's do it. All right. We're going to swing.

It's Daytona. Yeah, so, swing it hard. Yeah. So it's really like, if you want to set your money on fire. Let's just spin a wheel at this point. Set your money on fire. I'll take Cody Ware. How many of y'all want that to happen?

I do. I do. I do. I do. I'll be honest. I do too. I do too. BJ McLeod. All right. Fine. The favorites according to Vegas. Legano-Cendrick at 1,000. Elliott at 1,100 plus 1,100. Byron plus 1,200. Blaney plus 1,400.

Kislauski's Denhouse plus 1,600. Russ, who are some of the names we should be thinking about for this week's manufacturer parley. Yeah, so I disagree with Vegas this week. I am actually on, I hate to say this, but the Alex Bowman bandwagon this week, he is top of the predictor. He's been sixth or better and four the last five of Daytona. And he needs this result.

Yep. And I think he'll have all the Hendrik guys behind him, like that, you know, for helping him there. We'll go with Bowman for the big Chevrolet. Just throwing this out there. You can also get plus money for Bowman top 10. Even money. I love that. Plus $1,100.

Yeah. Plus $25,000 to win. Are there anybody that wants to push back on this? No. No. I think from what he said with the way the points are lining up, he's going to have a fleet of cars. Who is the top Ford?

The best one for me would be Chris Busher. He won this race in 2023, finished top 10 and four of the last five at Daytona. And he has to win. Has to win. So he's going to be. So he won't be fucking around. trying to race hard in a stage one or two.

Right. If there's a chance where there's a lot of collateral damage, he's likely to miss most of that and be there in the third stage with an opportunity to be the top forward. Yeah, a lot of people are going to say Keselowski, but he can't finish there anymore. DNF and 11 of the last 17. Damn, PJ. Yeah.

Hear that shit? You're welcome. Spada plays a big role in the results at Daytona, too. So damn, it's been a tough stretch. Yeah, let's get back to where you can actually, they're right.

We already had that discussion. We need one more B for another killer Bs. We need Toyota. Do we go back to, wait, we got Toyota? All right, who's our top,

top finisher in the Toyota can't? I might go, I might go Bubba actually. Oh, Jesus. You don't like that? All right. Why do you like?

I like Bubba, We're going with the triple Bs again. Why do you like last week? Nobody's going to tell this bet. Nobody. Honestly, though, who else would you pick? Yeah. I'll take Bubba.

Yeah. Russ, what's his numbers? Well, he's been sixth or better and two of the last three there. He's been really good on drafting tracks lately. So that includes Atlanta. I didn't want to bring it up, so. I don't like your B.

I'm going with the sixth, the Brad on that one. So just so you know. Okay. I mean, Busher won the race in 23 with Brad pushing him. Brad also was on the front row last year and got black flag on the restart. The results are still stand. I mean, how come you're not picking Parker Retzeloff? Because last year he was up there.

I mean, where is he? He is not in the race, so we cannot pick. I'm just saying. There's other guys with higher average finishes than what the guys you're picking. And you're not going with him. This is, this is purely statistical information, TJ. Okay. The other guy I like is Byron.

He's statistically the best that accident avoidance. Yeah. Because he won from 12th Latin the 500. Is that a stat you keep? Yeah. Yeah. Apparently. Not good at that?

Me. That's correct. Yeah. Man. I'm on a good role this year. You are. I feel like we're. What is the spotters?

job. My top job of the spotter is to help guys miss Rex. I don't. I feel like Russell is not giving us enough respect in the last month and a half. He didn't give you much respect right here. In the last month and a half, we've actually been pretty solid. You still fail to recognize any other. Geez. Hey. Hey. What? We've been doing this for 20 years, but this last month and a half has been a good run. No, I'm talking about this season. We've rebounded pretty well in the last couple of months. We've raced. This is going to be a 26th race, Bill, but basically I haven't wrecked him.

I haven't wrecked Brad in the last month and a half. Wait, wasn't he caught up at a wrecked last week? Yeah. No, we finished 9th at Richmond. But he was caught up in one, though, right? No, we drove through it, made it through. Drove through it is a fucking, did we lose position? Did we lose position?

Yeah, I mean, but were we in it? Did we lose spots? No. You were in it, for sure. We didn't even pit. There was a bottom groove that was completely clear that nobody told him to go through. Clear up. Clear up.

Clear up. Yeah, hit it. Keep going high. We're wrecking up high. Keep going up there. Locker down. Lock her down. Just like the first Atlanta race, man.

I saw Chase spin him like, broad side in front of you, hammer down. All right. I think we have a manufacturer's parley, Bowman, Busher, Bubba. I got a top 10 parlay, Bowman, Brad, Bubba. I'll give it to you, TJ.

I'll take Brad for a top 10. I feel like we're a winner wreck, so I think that's a bad choice. I believe you're going to wreck everyone by pushing them out of the way. I'm fine with that. Yeah. That's what it takes.

You'll be on the graphic involved in the wreck. It's just if you're going to be the one that pushed them or in it. You know what? Usually when we start it, we're not in it. Yeah. So we need to maybe get back on that train. That's right. Well, Tyler Redick and Alex Bowman are fighting for potential playoff spots.

So what, you know, even though Bubba's kind of the guy that you think, you know, will be the best finishing Toyota. You'd have to imagine that Tyler Redick will probably be out. out there just trying to make sure he gets to the end of this race, keeping his car in one piece, not doing anything crazy, that tends to, that guy always tends to sort of check the box that he needs to check at the end of the day. And how do you,

he'll be close to, you know, putting your Bubba prediction in danger. Yeah, but I think he, he just needs a clean race. Like, I don't think he's going to be trying to do anything,

anything crazy. Like, And Bowman hasn't scored more than 28 points on him all year. So he just needs to just have a clean race. All right. Some other featured matchups. And let's go through those. These will be fun.

Austin Dillon, Chris Bisher. Austin Dillon is the underdog plus 100, Busher minus 140. Yeah, Busher's the clear winner for me. Really? All right. Tim's. Ryan.

Oh, yeah. I like awesome. I think, yeah, I thought you're not. Right. He's already got to win. He's just going to go in the front. Maybe push tie. I don't know. I hope I'll probably be aggressive. Austin Dillon always goes to the back in the stages.

Yeah. And then he's at there. He's there at the end. Got a shot at the end. Yeah. I like Austin Dillon. Preece, Kyle Busch. I go Kyle.

I like Kyle. RCR at Daytona. They've had strong cars. Kyle's been in some positions to win races even in the next-gen era. I think Kyle Busch is going to Daytona thinking he's got a great shot at stealing a win. minus 140. What are the numbers say? It's Kyle Bush like

4 to 1 in the next gen car. Yeah. You probably would have picked Kyle on that last restart last year too, wouldn't you? If it wasn't for Parker Redslaff, which he's not in the races here,

he would have won. Oh, yeah? Ty Gibbs, Brad Kisalowski. Well, you know where I stand on this one. Ty Gibbs? Yeah. The numbers I can see now.

Me too. Damn. No respect. What are the numbers say, again? They lean that way with like a Daytona in the next gen car

four to two better finish. Ty Gibbs plus 125. I got you back, T.J. I'm going Brad. I'm just saying like. I'm going Brad as well. Let him have his moment. All right.

We could talk about long shots for top tens. I like, apparently it's Brad. I like Brad. Yeah, Brad. Long shots for top 20, Brad. I like, we're Cindrick on there.

That's my long shot guy. He's probably one of the favorite. No, he's a favorite to win, Russ. Well, I like him. He's 250 for top 10. That's terrible money. Yeah, I'll throw out like the collard cars, the legacy cars. I think that if both cars have to win to make the playoffs, they'll just be pushing

the shit of each other. I feel like Eric Jones. Yeah, Eric Jones. I feel like Eric Jones can be a good long shot. Plus 180. I'll be honest. I like. priest for a top 10 plus 120 all right good i do i you know when you look at his his strategy and it's

different now because he's in a better race car but he was always really good at understanding that this was the opportunity when he was racing for other teams that they could you know play it safe be smart and he was going to get that opportunity to run in the top 10 and traditionally did when i would look at his statistics over the last probably five or so years He often ran top 10 at Talladega, Daytona, just by attrition, right? And now I know he's got a different situation. He's got to go win the race, try to make the playoffs. So again, I think he'll be in a situation where he's not going to race for stage points.

He's not going to worry about, you know, mixing it up. If we have accidents at the end of stage one or two or both that eliminates some cars, that field bends out really quickly and presents opportunities for, you know, a lot of these guys to get those results. So I would say a priest's top ten is a good possibility.

He's been DNF accident and seven in the last 10 at Daytona. He's just like his boss. Damn. What's his Taladega stats? I know that they never correlate. So Taledega was good for him this year until he was decued

for the spoiler dealer at the end. He was runner. up. So, yeah, and in years past, he's had some good numbers there. I just, and I find it strange,

and I believe that, yes, Talladega and Daytona do not really correlate. Like, if you're, you'll, Brad Kislazowski is a great example of that. Um, his numbers at each track are vastly different.

Um, whereas we know he's a great restrictive plate racer, but, you know, they do not, what happens for, what happens at one doesn't traditionally happen at the other.

like a lock. But I feel good about priests being able to go out there and get a top 10 so you can plug him into a top 10 parlay if you wanted to. All right, you guys good. I'm good. The Dirty Mo Doe segment was brought to you by Fanduel, the premier gaming destination of the United States.

Appreciate you, Russell. Thanks for tuning in, buddy. White flag. All right, it's time for the white flag. The Teardown was live on YouTube and Twitter following the race. Shout out to Jordan and Jeff for going live that late on a Saturday Actions Detrimental dropped on Sunday. Not easy coming in after a bad night to discuss what happened for Denny, but he got it done.

Great show, actually. I listen to it. Denny's doing a great job with that. Door Popper Clear dropped on Monday. Bob Prochris was the guest this week. Always fun to have Bob come around. That dude knows what's going on in the guest episode this Wednesday will drop. Ted Musgrave will be sitting down at the table.

We're going to go through his career. It's going to be always exciting to catch up with him. I hadn't seen him in forever. Herman Schrader and Speed Street, also coming out on Wednesday and Thursday, another episode of Bless Your Heart. Friday, our newest show drops. It's called The Dirty 30. Every Friday, we're going to have a best of show. That is only 30 minutes long.

It's going to compile all of our shows together, and it'll be a lot of the high-end highlights. And you can just kind of catch up with what's been going on. We'll see how people enjoy that. I think it's going to be good. We'll see you next week.