The Dale Jr. Download - The All-Star Race Is The Perfect Opportunity To Learn Something

Episode Date: April 29, 2025

It’s Tuesday and that means Dale Earnhardt Jr. is BACK for some more Dirty Air. He joins co-host TJ Majors to recap the action from Talladega and weigh in on the hottest topics in the racing world this week:"Run What Ya’ Brung" DeniedLet’s Try a Different Car for the All-Star Race?Potential Playoffs ChangesNeed to Improve Single Car Plate Racing SpeedRace Winner Austin Cindric Stops ByDuring the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners asked about:Ross Chastain’s late race block on Denny HamlinHow the swans are doingCleetus McFarland’s ARCA runStrangest race winnings purchaseDirty 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 stuff.And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia FanDuel disclaimer: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everybody, it's Dale Jr. for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download. This episode of the Dale Jr. download is brought to you by Safety Culture. We're going to talk a lot with my friend, TJ Majors, and Travis, about, yeah, the race at Talladega. We've got Ask Junior. We've got a lot of fun things going on, and it's going to be a hell of a show. Let's get going. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. I'm still sour, man, that I wasn't your best man at your wedding.

When will you start mentally, like, getting ready for the race? Can you not tell I'm mentally ready? Travis has some dumb ideas, but I agree with them on this one. It doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about. You haven't scratched the surface yet. I mean, what the fuck do you want? I just think the last few laps, it was just like stop every time. You're picky.

This ain't walking in and have it your way, motherfucker. All right? This ain't Burger King. Travis is like, I'm wrapped us up. They all have no fun around you. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Del. in your download it is Tuesday dirty air time with my buddy tj majors and tj there's a lot of

going on yeah a lot to talk about a lot of being talked we have uh we have a guest dumb on the show today and um looking forward to talking to dumb about his race win uh so that should be pretty cool he'll come in later and um but we got a lot to talk to a lot lot to get to first off man I want to open the floor up to you. Before I do that, I want to make sure everybody knows this episode of the Dale Jr. Download is brought to you by safety culture. And this is probably good that this episode is brought to you by safety culture. The workplace operations tool giving teams from the racetrack to the factory floor,

what they need to get the job done quicker and improve every day. So that's who is bringing you. this episode of the Dale Jr. Download. Safety culture. I just like saying that. So, DJ, we have already cycled. Remember everybody sees my helmet here on. Oh, yeah, we see it.

Yeah. So that was from me winning the national championship in our NCAA college football league on Xbox, which Travis has now joined as Miami. Going to do a Miami rebuild. That'll be tough. He doesn't need to rebuild them now. I know.

That's a fucking joke. So he just jumped on the wagon of a great team. I didn't know that they were going to be good. This is not on me. It's, Miami. Are they ever not? Okay, but what year?

You're not taking Buffalo. But what year are you in the dynasty? It ain't Jackson State. Wyoming's good. Charlotte's good. I know. It took a while. So how do I know that Miami is still good?

Well, all right, whatever, man. Yeah. You're taking a huge risk, aren't you? He knows. He knows the lines and stuff. So, anyhow, we've already. In the short time that since I've celebrated my big championship, we've already cycled through another season.

And this year's winner, this year's champion, is T.J. Majors with Michigan. Again. He is. I think it's four, five. That's five. Five. And so.

I know it's hard to lose count when you get that many. He beat Charlotte. He did beat Charlotte, beat me in the semifinals before we, he went to the finals against Texas State, which is Dominant Corelli. Dominic Corelli. which is Rick's son. A lot of cool people in this league. But congratulations, T.J.

Hey, we had a tough game. You played great. Kudos to you, man. You did a good job. You're tough to beat. It's fun to brag when you do get beat because it's hard to do. And so we went off the rails last time when Charlotte won the national championship. Because it's tough to do.

Tough to beat you, man. So I just want to give you some credit. We give you a hard time. He's the commissioner of the league. handles all of the Someone say dictator Yeah he is He's tough on

I mean there's some things That I wish we did differently But it's like NASCAR You know you can't NASCAR's gonna NASCAR They're gonna do what they're gonna do TJ's gonna TJ That's right

That should be a shirt And so anyhow Hey I wanna leave I wanna open the floor up to you man Go ahead Well I mean I don't need to brag Too much about it I think you said enough there

It's just fun either way Win or lose Most of my games against you Have been pretty fun Obviously I want to get into what the all-star race conversation, the run what you brung. It's interesting.

Denny said it would cost teams $2 million to run a run what you're brung race. That's overstatement. I think it would cost the team some money for sure, but not $2 million. I just don't believe it. I think that is just an excuse. I think that's just like a heavy

excuse to say, yeah, this is why I didn't want to do it. And I think he's inflating the cost of it. How much do you think a car cost? I think he's overstating the cost to make a point. Will it cost money? Is it, he's already mad about the damn purse being $1 million for 30 years. He said that over and over. And that's fine.

That's a great argument. I think that race should pay $3 million to the winner. It should, you know, the purse absolutely is a reasonable auto. argument. He's got a valid point. The cost that it would take for these teams to do or run what you brought. If you listen, Denny had a great show. I text and compliment him. Good show. It was fun listening to him. If you haven't heard, actions detrimental, he goes into detail about how the restrictor plate racing, and I call it restrictor plate racing, and I know we don't run them anymore, but that's what we, that's what we can call it. We don't call it. We still consider it. This

drafting track bullshit. And I saw that tweet from dirty mode media. It's bull's shit. We call it restrictor plate racing. That's what it's called. Just because there ain't no more restrict plates don't mean we need to change what it is, what it's called. It's been called that for years.

We don't need to change. That's what's called. It's what's been called. Now you, this fucking new generation wants to come in. These little young punks want to come in here and change fucking because, well, we don't have plates anymore. We don't have restrictor plates. We should probably call it something else.

It's a super speedway. Drafting tracks, yes. I mean, by definition, then, you got to throw Michigan in there and a couple others because there's drafting at those as well. Okay, Dalton, make sure from Michigan we use drafting too. Oh, you a... You a...

Yeah. Hey, so, look, Denny had a great show. He talked a lot about the struggle with... Everybody was like, oh, you know, we're going to get to this, but he's like, everybody was like, man, why didn't nobody try at the end of that race at Talladega? Well, he explains why you can't, you can't get out of line. And so, and I totally agree with that.

Like the guy in the second, third, and fourth row, if they pull out of line, they're going to the back. There's so much drag on that car. As soon as you get out in clean air, everybody's going to go, well, that's a dumb, move. And they're just going to send your ass to the back. The only way you pull, you make a move is if you have help behind you for sure. And coming down to two, one to go, your ass ain't willing to take that chance. No. Because you don't know 100% whether that guy behind you is going to go with you or not.

Yeah. As soon as the outside lane of like if you're a second car on the outside and you pull out and go to the third lane, the inside lane is going to move forward and they're going to clear you and the guy's going to get control of the race. So it's really a lose, lose. So he had a great show talking all about that. Man, I thought that was such great insight and helping us understand why the races at Dayton Taladegh look the way they look. And then, you know, he also goes into some good detail about this All-Star Race, Run What You Brung. Now is the fact that we're not going to have a run what you brung? such a big deal. I don't know. I thought it had been kind of neat to open the rules up

a little bit and that was Denny's point that I really, really liked. I'm giving him a hard time because I think he's overstating how much cost

this would be for the teams. But one of his ideas was why didn't NASCAR just say this particular part of the car is free game? This particular part

of the car is free game. That might have been a way, and maybe they did. Maybe they had this conversation. But Denny was saying, you know, they would have came to us and said, we're going to open this part of the car up a little bit. We'll open this part of the car up a little bit.

That might have been something they didn't entertain. And, man, that would have kind of, I look at this all-star race as the, I mean, look, there's, in my mind, the all-star race is still incredibly important. It's a big event. There is, you know, I hate to say it, social media and especially Twitter is just a small, tiny, part of the conversation. Like, it's not the, everything being said about anything on social media has to be measured because there's a, it's just a very small part of the entire conversation going on.

So I try not to get too wrapped up in opinions and, you know, certain things that are getting said on there about our sport. But there's some people that think, oh man this race is not important this race is you know maybe this race needs to go away entirely i'm like why we're doing that um why are we even having why is why is that even a conversation why don't we just fix it you know why don't we just fix it it's the all-star race is an awesome opportunity for us to try to learn something and for NASCAR for the teams for everyone not to look at it as a place to discover and and and and and and and give a few ideas some some real uh testing is that that's

way that's what this race should be about there's no points on the line you know i'm i'm not enough of an engineer i'm not a crew chief i'm not smart enough don't know enough about this car to sit here in front of you and say well they should have just they should try this they should try this I should try this. But there are some people that do have some great ideas. And I think that this is the race to throw some of that stuff out on the racetrack. Yeah, I don't necessarily think you open it up to the, I don't know, like, if run what you brung is enough to leave it open to the teams.

But it's definitely a good test session for at least NASCAR to try some stuff with, you know, hey guys, we're going to come there with this package. We want to see how you guys race with it and see what happens. That's right. So I wonder if there was even a conversation about like a true, like it wasn't really like, hey, NASCAR sat down and said, run what you're wrong. We're not even going to tech a thing. No tech.

I mean, I don't think that. I don't know that that was really probably what was. I doubt it. And I think, I don't think, I think Denny is exaggerating how much it would cost. But from. Even if he is, though, let's say it's a million dollars. There comes Denny, bro. Even if it is, let's say it's a million dollars.

Is that not? Why should a team have to front that bill? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's a race. and this is the way I feel about that. It's a race that you're going to spend money to go to, just like you do any other. If the governing body presents a set of rules or a rule change

or any kind of alteration to the standard, you show up in your race. If you don't want to, don't. Right? But you've got obligations, partners, sponsors, you're going to have to do it. A million dollars is, is, it's, too much to ask any team to put forward to go run any single event.

What does building a one car cost, you think? Well, Denny has said that, you know, a complete car is $350,000, $450,000. You know, we're all said and done. So if they say you can build a car for this and you go and they say, hey, it's running what you're modifying the chassis, you're basically building a car that you're never going to be able to race again. Well, see, that's not what I, that's not what I think would be happening. So NASCAR gives you the center section, the front clip, the rear clip, you bolt it all on,

and you get all of the suspension stuff, and you bolt all that shit on. It's all ready. The hubs packed, everything's ready. You get the whole assembly all put together already, and you can't take it apart. So even, I mean, NASCAR wasn't going to allow them to cut on the chassis and chop chassises up and start, you know, creating a car that they'd never be able to with again. But even any modifications of that ruins that chassis. They're not going to let them.

But that's like what people are pushing for. Run what you're brung. If you say run what you're wrong. So in my mind, I think there are some parameters on the actual setup of the car, springs and shocks and stuff like that. Listen, I don't know what run what you brung means when this is a fucking kick car and there's really not a whole lot you can do to it. Yeah. But Denny talked about how, well, if you were just like, hey, put the body on how you won't, you know, then. They're going to have to make some new mounts and so forth.

And he's got to go to Big Brother over at Gibbs and ask for them to make him some mounts for his team and all that. And it's a complicated issue. And don't forget, not many, not every, not every team anymore has a FabShop. I agree. My point, my thought about this is like the run to present it as, I don't think this is what happened. I just can't believe that NASCAR sat down and said, yeah, we're not going to, we're going to do a run what you brung. Just figure it out. if they did, that wasn't a good delivery.

That's absolutely everybody's going to shut that down. Any team. If they said that to the Xfinity series, if they said to the Xfinity series, we're going to have a run-with-your-brung race. We'd all push back on that. That's absolutely not what they should have done or should be doing.

But what they should do is look at this race as an opportunity to fucking try something to fix the short track package. And there's a lot of great ideas, and I would listen to the drivers and the team, about some big chunk items that they think they could really get away with trying that wouldn't be too costly to give this a go. It is so foolish for us to go knowing that the short track package is not good

and that this car needs some real attention. It's foolish for us to go to Wilkesboro for this All-Star race and not change anything. You keep doing the same thing. You keep getting the same result. exhibitions tend to have you know some some differences in any other sport right

when you have an exhibition they're looser they tend to have some sort of a you know gimmick or something unique fun different any other all-star game in any other sport they do all kinds of fun things every year they change it up

and I know they do that as well with the format of the race and so forth and we've got to yeah we look for something exciting every year kind of but this is a great chance for us to really give this you know, kick this car in the ass and turn it upside down and change a few things that, you know, the teams and the team, I think the teams in NASCAR could have got on board with a few big ticket items that might have made a difference. I know that they've taken this car to Richmond and other places and tested their ass off

with all kinds of different diffusers and spoilers and all kinds of stuff. But it was two or three cars, four cars on the racetrack. The drivers would get out and say, I can't feel the thing. That changed nothing. But here we are about to be able to throw them into a full-on race experience where we could truly see what some of this might do when there's, you know, 25, 30, 40 cars on the racetrack. I'm still bullish or positive about this race because, and I know we talked about this, the race itself, I think, is still going to be pretty interesting because of the racetrack

and how the racetrack may be changing. And if you watched the race there last year, the way that when they repaved this, man, I thought it was going to be all on the bottom at Wooksboro. For sure. It surprised me. Yeah, they ran the wall in one and two. It's wild.

So I'm still sort of interested enough about the racetrack and its rebirth. You know what made it look really good? It was when they started the first year we went back there. They started the race on rain tires. Yeah, I know. And the cars were kind of up on the track, moving around a little bit. Yeah.

And the drivers were, they just had their hands full. like driving. They were actually driving the car harder, like, you know, finessing and stuff. Well, I am, I just disappointed that I was disappointed overall. And I think this might be the whole, the whole gut feeling for a guy like Jeff Gluck, who had a hell of a rant on the tarot. Yeah. So I guess we, Jeff is probably feeling the same way. And I bet you deep down Denny and everyone else has the same feeling. NASCAR finally sat down at the table and said, we're going to, hell, we'll just do something.

We'll put it in your hand here. Do what you want. For probably the last three or four years, there's been no real, no real change to address how the car races at Talladegh and Daytona and the fuel mileage, fuel saving, and all. that stuff, even though this race seemed to be a little bit more favorable or positive or accepted by some people in the industry or some of the fans, it's still, you know, we still have some things that are happening at Daytona and Talladega that produce racing that I don't

think we all want to watch. So, um, so it feels like, I know that it feels like that NASCAR has, you know, their feet stuck. in the mud in terms of moving forward and trying to do anything about that and and the car doesn't race well at short tracks and again we feel it feels like that there's zero movement zero movement on trying to make that different yeah this is a big test and here we were with with with NASCAR basically going ah here y'all y'all won't with it with it here's your chance and we ain't gonna get that. So that might have been if Denny

could have been the Savior and taken them and if they if NASCAR really put it in put the ball in the team's courts in terms of run what you brung in that conversation Denny could have went why don't we you know he could have presented these ideas that he presented on the show to NASCAR and said instead of that maybe we just open this spot up

and open this spot up and y'all do you know let us do this. How about that? you know, and then go to the racetrack and see what we get. Damn it. We just, I think everybody's feeling about this isn't so much, why didn't they just do it, run what you brung? It's more like we had a chance to really fucking do something different and we're not going to get to do it.

And it just feels like a missed opportunity because you don't get, because it's slow as shit moves in this sport in terms of change and improving things that need improving. It's slow. And here was a chance to really try to, you know, give some ideas, some merit out on the racetrack, T.J. I agree that you can't. I don't think you can do the run-what-you-brung, just straight up everything.

But Denny, I mean, I agree with the, there are parts, and maybe there are some great ideas from people that know these things really well that could come up with that we could try and we could be working in that area. Maybe we go and find something that's just a quick fix for everybody. Yeah. And it's not very expensive. And we don't need an all-new car. It's just a quick fix.

And we're in the right direction. Next time we try something else. It's not that simple, though. I mean, I know I just put it on Denny. be like, why didn't you just go, just go to NASCAR and say, hey, how about instead of running what you're running, we'd doll it back a bit and just have a couple of open areas. It's so complicated. Yeah, we're not going to take these areas this weekend, guys.

Go ahead and do what you want there. Yeah, it's just, that whole conversation would have probably been complicated. It's just frustrating, I guess, how difficult it is to, like, get something changed. I'll tell you what, I got a solution. Oh, you got a solution. I mean, well, this All-Star race is an exhibition, no points. And I know that, and this will never happen. But for the last handful of years, there's been some conversation.

When the All-Star race was at Bristol a couple years ago before Wilkesboro came back, there was some calls and conversation going on around getting Jeff Gordon, myself and some other drivers into the All-Star race. Jimmy and different you know and we were going to how much what it you know how do we how much what it costs what would we need what would we demand or all that you know so there was a real conversation that didn't win it didn't go any farther than that but there but there's been you know and the fans will say you know man in that all star race I wish you know you could you know Harvick and all these other drivers could come back and run it. The way for that to happen, and that would be more financially reasonable, is to run a cheaper car.

And so, you know, there's all kinds of different options for that, but I think the late model stock is not a terrible idea. This is way out there in left field, never going to happen. But for a team to, I mean, there's plenty of, plentyful teams out there that have late model stock cars and you could field the you know the entire all-star you could field cars for the entire all-star event for all the current cup guys you could basically just leave the next gen at the house everybody shows up when we race late model stock cars and then you could have you know a real conversation around you know getting a you know getting a jeff

Gordon or maybe not Jeff because he probably wouldn't do it either way. But you know, you could probably then turn it in through the true exhibition you want it to be and more of a celebration of our sport. And, you know, when those cars, you know, put on a hell of a race, Goodyear could fire up its old buy a supply short track tire machine and make a few tires. I know where it's at and I know it's sitting there ready to go. even if the teams wanted to rent from a current team that had one and get the car and put some work into it I mean we're talking we're talking under $50,000 probably um to go run that race well well south of that i mean the cup teams would make would find a way to make it expensive so does that open the door

for like a preliminary event like the open where you can have uh would you allow the local if they entered a local late model guy could he run? Yeah, I mean you could have all kinds of races happening we have the cars for race that week so that tells you like the weekend has enough room in it

to where you could have some, you could have like a true short track feature on like a Thursday or Friday night that was very much what the Martinsville late model stock race is and you take the top you know the winner out of that race

and he gets to run the All-Star race with the Cup guys. Well, that's what I'm saying. Is there a way to bring a guy? There are all kinds of ways. Does that open the door? I mean, that could be a huge event. Yeah. I mean.

And in terms of costs, those cars are far and far easier to. Less than $2 million. Less than $2 million. There you go. And there you have it. So, but I, you know, that if we're just trying to put on a weekend where we're all going to have fun and the cup guys can enjoy themselves. and they want to be there and everybody's not spending a ton of money.

Now you're taking something relatively affordable and that $1 million purse looks a lot cooler. Yeah. And if you ticket sales and people watching, I think, would grow too. Yeah. I don't hate the idea of seeing all these guys race them type of cars. People, well, the idea, the idea of them driving those cars isn't too unrealistic because, you know, when you hear people online, they're like, oh, man, the Xfinity cars, the car. Why don't they just race the Xfinity car into short tracks? Just leave the next gen to the mile and a halfs

and race the Xfinity car to short tracks. Is an Xfinity car too expensive to do this with? It's probably, if you're going to change the car entirely, I would as an owner, I would probably choose the late model car because it's cheaper, way cheaper than an Xfinity car. Gotcha. I mean, definitely cheaper than an Xfinity car.

Way cheap. And, I mean, again, when you give this idea to a Cup team, they are going to make it, they're going to find way to spend a ton of money doing it. And I think they would not inflate the expense and costs on racing a true short track car. It could be a pro late or a super late, whatever. I'm not, you know, I'm favorable to the late model stock car, but if you said, hey, guys, for this event, we're going to, hey, NASCAR is trying to find

ways to reconnect itself to the grassroots level. Great opportunity. But all of our greatest guys, the best racers in the world, in a grassroots car for that event. So if they did that, would you run it? Hell yeah. If they called me and said, I could do it, you know, former winners or whatever, however, I would be eligible. That'd be interesting. But I would not be interested in going and drive in a next-gen car.

No. And that was the hold up for me to go out there and run a next-gen car. They're running those things every week. I'm in a huge disadvantage showing up there trying to race with them and be competitive. I'm probably not going to get a competitive car because I don't, you know, they're just not going to build me no matter who it is, Hendrick or anybody.

I don't think they'd build me a car with as much emphasis that Larson and all those other guys are going to have, and I'm going to need it. Yeah, it'd be way too much. Yeah. Two million. It would just, oh, man.

It would just be, it wouldn't be fun for me. It wouldn't be a fun experience. People are like, oh, man, we'd love to see you go run one more cup race. but I don't think it would be that fun for me. I don't think any cup driver now, like if you want to bring some of them guys back, they're not going to look at this car and be like, yeah, I'm going to go back. I mean, it's too far removed from that type of car. You know what's important to the race teams?

It's having a data-driven approach to their processes at the shop. It matters to us here at Junior Motorsports and over at Trackhouse as well. Justin Marks has been open about how they use safety culture to track all of the details on their shop operations. 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 race shops, like ours and trackhouse racing. Every detail is tracked and everyone has full visibility

to make sure that nothing is missed. Because the workers on the ground floor know what's happening the best, safety culture makes it easy to share those insights, giving visibility to other departments all in real time. This means you and your team get the job done faster, you make better decisions, and you constantly find more ways to improve so that you can spend your time where it counts.

You want to see how it could help put your business on the pole position? Head over to safetyculture.com slash SVG. Short tracks bring on the short tempers, and there's also a million bucks on the line. The NASCAR All-Star Race roars back to North Wilkesboro Speedway, May 15th through May 18th for an action-packed weekend at the 5-8th mile Bullring. It's one of the best tickets in racing, and it's also one of NASCAR's most iconic tracks. Starting it off are the two Z-Max Cars Tour races.

I love when the Cars Tour gets its chance to race at Wilkesboro, and I'm going to be there working the booth for that. There's also going to be the Pit Crew Challenge, presented by Mechanics Ware, the All-Star He races, and the Window World 250 Craftsman Truck Series race and a J-Go-in concert all on Saturday, free for Saturday and Sunday ticket holders. If that isn't enough,

how about the NASCAR wheel and modified tour on the All-Star Sunday? They'll get the green flag right before the All-Star Open where those guys that are trying to make the show for the biggest All-Star event in sports. There's never been an All-Star Race weekend like this. So much racing all in one weekend Get your tickets today at Northwiltsboro Speedway.com.

Military personnel, first responders, law enforcement, teachers, and other government service personnel can save all tickets thanks to GovX. Visit Northwiltsboro Speedway.com for details. We talked also, there's a conversation going on in the sport and a real possible change in the playoff format coming. and that has that had a lot of that was kind of a conversation that was rumbling there throughout the off season after we had the playoffs last year a lot of people kind of frustrated or not in favor of the way that that playoff played out with Legano and so there's a real healthy

conversation and debate going on in the industry about what the playoffs should look like if they were to change. And, man, every, probably every, there's, we can all sit here and kind of debate on what we think the best format might be. And there are people that say, well, there'll never, you know, a lot of people want to go back to the original format where there is no clouds. Yeah, I don't think you want to do that. well there's it's not off the table entirely it's my I would give it I want to make sure I'm clear on this

t.J don't it has a very tiny percent chance of actually happening near zero but it is on it is in the conversation like and I like that it's a healthy debate of saying look we're probably never going to go back to this original but let's let's discuss the merits and the positives of and why did we go away from it, right? Is there, is, and I think that helps us actually find, all right, what did we love about the original format? Well, the original format is argue, there's no arguing on who the champion was. He was the person that got the most points throughout the year and there was no fluke,

right, or no sort of gaming the system. And that's what people loved about that. So how can we find a playoff format that includes that legitimacy and, and, and, So in the end, I don't believe that we're ever going to say, oh, man, this is the perfect format. We'll never have the perfect format. No, you're never going to have. Never. Every sport has that.

You never get that. So, but I was thinking about it like this. And I really think this was as close as we can get between the best of both worlds. what if we what if we got rid of the regular season and starting in Daytona with the Daytona 500s

the playoffs began and the playoffs are the whole season ending with a final one round championship round so or three or four race championship round like one round

instead of this you know eight four rounds and eliminate a few guys and all that. Make the regular season feel like the playoffs. So the problem with what we have right now is that when the season begins, there's not a lot of urgency.

And a bad, like in the old system, a bad race was damning on your championship hopes. So week two, week four, a bad run, a broken engine, whatever. You're in a hole. You felt that. Yeah, for sure.

We don't feel that anymore, right? We have bad races, guys, guys get out. They don't give a, they're going to come back next week with a chance to make the playoffs. Every week is another chance to punch your ticket and go on into the playoffs, regardless of what kind of season you had. What we have lost as a sport is the agony of defeat, the highs and the lows and the lows, have kind of been the peaks and the valleys

have kind of been neutralized and so we don't have those heart breakers and we don't and the highs aren't as high anymore. But do you want someone's season ended? I'm sorry this is big boy yes I'm sorry man

like this is at the top level of this game you can't be coddled and handheld and ushered through the season to your little playoff seat. Like, that's not, this is, this is, that's what we have lost. So get rid of the one in your end.

So I feel like that you start the season and you run, if there's 36 races, you run, let's say 30 or 32 races to determine the three or four drivers that are going to race for your championship in a single round of. of maybe four or five, six races. So it's... Do you really want us to be three or four? What about, like... Yeah. What about six or eight? No.

You don't think six guys are capable? No. I'm sorry. You didn't have good enough season. So that puts the pressure on the teams. The fans will feel that intensity and urgency from the moment we drop the green flag in Daytona. We talk about how every spot matters, every lap matter. It truly will bring all of that back because you'll be watching.

knowing that your guy needs a fucking good day today. And that all of that's going to add up and produce this opportunity for him to race for the championship or not. When we really get down to it, when we really get down to it and we go through the entire season, you'll look at the playoff picture and go, man, there's really three or four guys that really truly deserve to win this championship. Well, that's the guys that need to be in the final round or the only round to go for the championship. championship. And so it is, we have, we have been doing this thing for so long that I can see look on y'all's faces. We made it 10 races, 10 drivers, nope, 12 drivers, 14, 16, it f***ed everybody. And it's, y'all are so far down that road that that is normal to you. And y'all are so

far down the road of, yeah, the regular season doesn't matter. You win a race, you get in a playoffs that's all it matters that is not a recipe for success and so what we need we need to bring back the you know we need to bring back what that original point system had and that was like man

we knew when the season started it was going to probably come down to like two drivers and we can't go back we won't go back to that but we do need to start the season with a playoff for sort of environment a playoff

intensity. The regular season has been numbed and dumbed down by the playoffs. And our insistence on creating game seven moments in every possible opportunity is squeezed all the juice out of the lemon. And so, you know, the rounds are getting wilder. The races that we're putting in each of these rounds are getting, like it was around this past year. Guys are getting more desperate and doing more desperate things too. Yeah, that is good. But honestly, man, I feel like that you start the year off, you run, you know, all the races. We're going to get to the end.

There are going to be four of you. Or, you know, that number can be adjusted. There are going to be a few of you that are going to get into this championship round. And it's going to be a robust four to six races that these guys will race it out. and I honestly, I can't see a way a guy flukes his way into that group, and I can't see a way that somebody that wins it isn't justified and credible. Okay, so if you run this, what are your final races? I think that's, you know, that's a great conversation.

I think it would, you know, you could putting those four, you want to put those four drivers through all of the variables, so you'll have a road course in there. You'll have a Daytona or a Talladega in there. You'll have a mile and a half, a short track, some intermediate or, you know, one-mile race track. So, I mean, I think that's the easiest part, honestly. And is there a way to do a point system for just the championship guys, so it doesn't involve other team cars?

You know what I mean? Like, if you win the race and I finish fifth, I still get second place points for that race to keep it tighter. That way you don't have the aim manipulating or anything like that. So I don't know. That'd be a tough conversation. You'd have to get the racing insights guys to run tons of simulation to see, all right, man, could you get a f***ed up sort of result from that?

You either get first through fourth place points if you got four guys in there. And if you're the fourth guy. Yeah, but if your fourth guy runs 35th in the race, you want him really, I mean, if the other two run first, second, third, and he ends up in 35th, then do you really want to give him a break. Yeah, I'm just trying to look at ways where people could... You've got to keep it easy and simple for the fans, too. I mean, I think you make it as simple as possible, but... Why not just get rid of the winning year in the playoffs then if you want these bad finishes to hurt, and then it's not about just winning one race in your season

save now. You still have to race well for multiple races. And you still get your playoffs. Because if you do where the oldest, I think you're going to have drivers out of it early and fans might be disinterested. Man, did that really hurt the growth of the sport through the 90s and 2000s? Were people just turned the

off? Yeah, well, the sport was at its best. The sport isn't out of its best now, so you're going to add something that potentially could hurt it. No, you're bringing something actually back that actually worked. I see Travis's point, though. I don't know if people, the newer fans are going to say interesting. But you can't compare the The sports landscape is different.

Social media, people's attention span. I don't buy that. You look at every sport. I don't buy that shit. I don't buy this fucking, we got to change it because attention spans are fucking awful. That's a fucking weak-ass excuse, honestly. But are you going to get the hardcore fan you've already got locked in,

but are you going to get new fans when it's down to a couple drivers? What's work? What we're doing ain't working. I'll say that. I mean, good racing brings fans. Yeah. To me, it's not. not just, and if you have good racing, people are tuned in no matter what you're there.

What you got right now, the drivers don't give a fuck about. I mean, the guy, you know, the guy that wins the championship, Joey, of course, he's thrilled. But they're always, always going to compare what we're doing today to the way we used to crown champions and not in a positive way. They're going to, they, the drivers, I've heard drivers tell me that they want it to matter more to win a championship. They want to feel like when they've won that championship that they've truly been the best and the best person has won it. They want it to matter more than it matters today.

It don't, that's, that's a issue for me that. I don't disagree with that, but I don't disagree with that, but I don't. this thing. Do you tell, I got drivers telling me they want to win the championship the way they used to. The way they want to win the championship by the accumulation of their entire season and looking at that and going, it is the best. I was better than you. I was better. And that's how they, that's how they get up to try to win that. And so right now the way we're doing it has, they're more proud, they're more proud of getting to the final race

and how difficult that is than actually taking home the big trophy. I don't disagree with the format right now needs fixed. The big trophy and the big championship win is just a label that they're proud to have. Hey man, you're going to call me a champion. I'm a champion.

I've always wanted to be a champion. But the actual experience in the process to get there isn't as enjoyable for them as the original format and what they grew up doing at every other level of racing, right? And so this sort of, we got, so, okay,

we can agree the current format isn't quite the best. We worked our ass off to get to this point. Yes, but is it the best? Probably not. I'm trying to find a way that we get it to, we give it back to the drivers

and they're like, yes, man, this is a badass points championship. This is a, I know that if I go out and do this and go through this process, I'm going to be very, very proud of this accomplishment in my life. And it matter. And it's everything in the world to me.

That's what's missing. What if also in the playoffs, you got rid of the points resetting. So when you mess up in a playoff race counts going forward. Yeah. Yeah. I just feel like there's too many rounds, too much,

too much, you know, too much circumstance, too much luck. and oddities, and it needs to come back down to more purely, here are the best, put them on the track,

give them a handful of racetracks to go to, and let's find out who does it better. But that conversation is ongoing. I definitely, I've always liked the traditional format, kind of like what you're saying, where you put together a whole season, it's not just, I think last year kind of opened everyone's eyes to more of,

you know, the guy didn't have the greatest season, but he won when he needed to. And, you know, I'm not necessarily, I don't know about, do you keep stages as well? I go back and forth. I think you, I think I like. I mean, I don't mind the stages. I like the points.

So I like that there's points earned in the race as the race is happening. I don't think, I don't really hate that at all. It's not really bothered me. It's not taken away from my experience. sometimes though the cautions things up you know and

the caution will come out a couple laps before the end of the stage and so we just circle around and end the stage under caution and then we still have to have the eight or so laps of stage break caution what do you think about taking just paying the stage points no caution at like plate races

you know just paying them and keep going that takes the the fuel deal you know what I mean makes everybody try differently. It might. It might, yeah. I think there are races where the cautions for these stages are unnecessary. But we tried that at the road courses and everybody hated it.

Yeah, I didn't like it either. Yeah. So, you know, that to me is maybe a something to look at it. It maybe, you know, the plate races. I've got to tell you how happy I'm that I've joined the consumer cellular family. They offer a great service, and the best part is how much money I'm saving. After all, it's all about being smart with your money. Now I'm getting the same fast, reliable nationwide coverage is big wireless, but without the cost.

Normally when you go to a racetrack, you have a ton of fans all trying to use their cell phones, and their service isn't great. And the last thing you want to have happened is someone trying to get a hold of you, but the call or text is not going through. With consumer cellular, you don't have to worry. All weekend when I was at Talladega, I had great service and didn't have to think twice. Do you know about consumer cellular? it's not a prepaid option. You pick a plan and you know exactly what your bill is going to be every month. It's so easy to switch. I called and spoke to an actual human based right here in the U.S. Their entire customer service team is 100% U.S.-based and they're great. I wish every company had humans on the other end when you called their customer service number.

Switching was really so much easier than I thought, almost as easy as beating Dale in NCAA. It took less than 20 minutes, not sure why I waited so long. I end up choosing their two-for-60 plane. It's so much less than I was paying with my previous provider. You should check them out. Save your money for something else.

And now you can get your second month free with my special promo code, DJD. Taxes and third-party fees will apply. Check out consumer cellular.com for more info. Hey, everybody. You want the latest Dale Jr. download apparel? Visit shop. Dot dirtymomedia.com.

We're always adding new stuff all the time, especially like when we say something silly on this show. We'll put it on a t-shirt. Again, check it out. It's shop.dirtymoomedia.com. I don't know what we do to work on that or fix the race in there, but we don't have this problem at Atlanta yet. You know, in Atlanta, it looks like to me,

that most of the fields busting their ass, hauling ass, running hard as they can. I mean, am I wrong? No, they got their hands full there. There's handling characteristics and stuff. So you can't really sit there and play the fuel game at that racetrack, right? No. When you go to Dayton and Talladega,

do we need to make cars back? handle worse. Is there a way to get the cars to sort of have some balanced challenges? I don't want guys out of control, but... I mean, I want to see guys lift off a turn for at Daytona because they're tight on the bottom. Like a truck race. Like truck races, they still do it in the truck race. Like, you can see a guy every race I spot there. If I'm in the second lane, you know, if we're in a second lane, I tell the guy, look, you're going to have to give him an extra half a lane because he needs it. Yeah. Well, I want to see that. The simplest thing would be to add a stage, like a fourth stage,

or whatever it would take, so that they could get to the end of the stage on one tank, right? If you make it where fuel isn't a problem, but that is not, that's not the purest form of, I don't know, I don't know if I love that, but hey, might be the, that would be the quickest way to fix it

is to basically say, hey, okay, we're going to make enough stages in these races to where you're going to race. It's like, you know, we're just going to run a heat races. You know, 35 laps, caution. 35 laps, caution. 35 laps, caution. But then what if, what if the racing is just two by two the entire time?

Well, that's the car. The fucking car is another problem. I think that's what's going to happen. Yeah. I mean, you saw it at the end of the race. When they get, when they went, when it was all like, all, like, all fucking going, they were, they were, they can't do nothing but run toe by two. Denny explains it on his show.

He's a driver. Like, he's, nobody better to tell us what, why they're, why those guys in the second, third, and fourth road didn't duck out on the last lap or coming to the finish line. He's explaining it. The car's got way too much drag on it. And so, I mean, if they took some drag off this thing, big chunks, it would make the racing look completely different. It separate them a little bit, too.

Yeah, you'd maybe have guys that try to have form runs, just like you see in the Xfinity series or just like you saw in the Cup series before the next gen. Yeah. Or lifting because they're loose something. Yeah. Yeah. They're chasing the car through the trial and stuff and having to get out of gas on the inside of people creating some gaps between cars.

What did he talk about was like, man, we're all bumper to bumper and you're just kind of moving a half a car length back and forth, stuck beside the guy you're beside, the front line, the front two lanes are both just sitting there side drafting, nobody's going anywhere. And there's no gaps between cars for you to change lanes. you're stuck. You're in the lane you're in. You can't go right.

You can't go left. You're just stuck. You can't go nowhere. You can't even get out of it. No. You can't get out of it. You're stuck in the middle. Yeah.

And so that's awful. That's not good. Yeah. It's not. In the beginning, the first 40 laps, we spent two inside, one outside, or two outside one inside. It was like that the entire first 40 laps for us.

I did not like it a bit. I know. And there's a group on, you know, there's a group of people that sit there and watch that race and went like, it wasn't as bad. some, you know, but there's some glaring problems with the restrictive plate pack or, you know, the racing at Daytona, Talladega with the next year.

There's some, there's some issues with the car. They need to work on them. They need to fix them. And I think if they pulled a bunch of drag off the car, that would be about, that would be a lot of it. That would be a lot of the problem. But NASCAR is scared of how fast it would go and, and they're already flipping up in the air because they're, you know, when they go, they turn around backwards, they're

an airplane. So, you know, they, there's, it's not, you know, you take the, you can take the, you can take the drag off, but then you've got to slow them down. But, I mean, that's always kind of been part of it too, though, right? Well, do you think maybe this car has made it where we can hit each other this hard and race like it? Flipping at Dayton and Talladega is not a new thing.

And I know we're trying all we can. We're trying all the time to try to keep the cars on the ground. No one wants to flip, especially violently, in these cars. So, of course, we always should be trying to figure out a way to try to keep the cars from coming up off the ground. But that, you know, that's going to hunt. 190 mile an hour is going to happen. But the problem with the car is the drag on the car.

When you run the car by itself, what is it? 15, 10, 20 mile an hour slower. It's way slower. That's a fucking problem. There is the problem. When you put the car in a draft, they run 190, 195 mile an hour. When it runs by itself, it runs 181, 2, whatever. Yeah.

It's terrible. So you're telling me that I'm coming down. to the white flag, or coming to the checkered flag, and I'm in the second or third row, a car that runs 20 mile an hour slower by itself. You're wanting me to pull out, hoping to get some help. And if I don't, I'm going to bleed speed all the way to the finish line. No way.

I ain't doing it. I wouldn't get out of line either. Yeah, you're just going to finish where you finish. Yeah. Do I sit here in the outside line, the fourth car in the outside line and finish seventh or eighth or do I pull out of line and run 18th. Or worse. Or worse.

How are you going to? So that's what's wrong with the car. It's too much drag on it. When they can take the drag off the car, get the car to qualify more realistically close to what the car runs in the draft, we'll see a whole lot different of a show. Let's move on to a couple more items that want to discuss. We got our dumb,

race winner coming in here. shortly. Rodney Childers out at Spire. Man, I was shocked. I know they hadn't, you know, listen, I was shocked by this. I don't think we spent a ton of time on it. I was, I don't know, you know,

apparently Rodney and them have discussed it publicly that it was deteriorating. They weren't happy. He wasn't happy. All of that. I get it. Sometimes the marriage doesn't work. Odd time of the year.

But, man, sure. Rodney is a very talented guy. Where does he go from here? I honestly think, man, that if he can find his way into that Chevrolet building, he does. That's what he ought to do. There's a,

and I don't know if there's opportunities over there for him, but with his experience, a lot of the, you know, a lot of the great, talented people in our business that he's done the cup stuff, the travel, the crew chief.

Champion. It's, dude, it's time for him to find another space in this industry where he can be an asset to something, but be at home. Yeah, he's graduated. Yeah, it's time. He's paid his dues.

And I think I would love to see him find a place within management or, you know, over at one of the tech buildings. Something like that. And maybe even working for NASCAR. He's probably not going to make what he wants to make. And that, you know, he might have to make a couple small, but if you're not traveling,

that's a yeah yeah i've his kids his boys yeah he he just loves his son so much he's so proud of him yeah and he's earned this opportunity i think and so i hope i know he's probably going to be great he he said so much in an in an interview that he wants to get back on a bitbox and i'm like man i hope that that i hope that he finds a different opportunity honestly yeah maybe he'll maybe he'll get an opportunity something and see like it yeah If I'm, there's a handful of teams that should be knocking on his door, not taking no for an answer. Well, I mean, I'm sure he's had some calls. Well, I don't know that he loves the next gen car.

And I don't, I don't think that his, his expertise and his tools as a crew chief, he can't apply them to this car. Yeah. And so his, his ability to be creative, smart, think outside the box, do something completely. different from the competition is gone with this car and the rules that we have. And so I don't know that he really was enjoying himself all that much. I don't think it's a spire Rodney Chiltern's issue. I think it's a Roddy Chiltern's Gen 7 issue. In my mind, I'm like, man, don't do this. Don't go back into the routine. It's not, you're not enjoying it. It's not what you cut out for.

it's not why you fell in love with all this to begin with, but he could go to, you know, like the GM building or even a different organization into their, into their development of, you know, new parts and processes,

right? And maybe, you know, find some of that creativity opportunities that he loves and find a way to influence whole organizations, right? I don't think you can look at, it wasn't a performance thing because you can't look at that team.

Their performance has kind of steadily been improving over the last several years. Right, yeah. It's been getting better. I didn't see anything glaring that was like, oh man, this isn't working. I did expect more out of the box, but there was, they were climbing. Yeah, we expected more out of Spire overall because of the big changes they had in the off season. For sure. And it didn't, it's not really happened.

and so we tempered our expectations they are doing better nothing not a knock on spire they're doing great but um you know and they're they're on this very you know linear sort of growth

and and and they're steady on that we talked a lot about the cup cup race in the super speedway package uh we're gonna yeah the plate race uh busher wasn't happy Chris Chase Briscoe not happy um And I want to wait for some of this stuff for our guests.

So let's talk Cars Tour. Cars Tour. I went to Orange County Speedway. Did you throw a promoter caution? I did not. Did you black flag? We already have those baked into our process. So the Cars Tour was awesome.

I went to Core Deal, ran that race, got out. I went on Flow and all these other, you know, Matt Weaver and all these guys and did some content. about things we need to fix, things we need to do better, mis shifts and stuff like that, causing some crashes. We went to Orange County, and we had, in my mind, an exceptional weekend. Everything that you want the series to be and how you want it to perform, it was that. I just rolled up there Saturday morning, watched our staff work through tech and practice, and all kinds of other things.

We had a long, we had a short, actually, short conversation with the drivers about, you know, kind of cleaning our restarts up a little bit. And, you know, we're putting some, we're putting some of the responsibility on them. They argue that we need to do a few things as a series to hold them more accountable. And so there's a little truth to both sides of that.

But, man, I will say this, the drivers, the spotters, the spotters play a big role too in coaching these young drivers and telling them kind of what's expected. and so they can help or hurt what's going on on the racetrack. Everybody did a great job. Our restarts looked great. We didn't have any real big mistakes, no miss shifts, no cars destroyed on restarts. And our races, another issue I had was we ended up at midnight, I think, around midnight at the Cordile race.

It was pretty late. Yeah, pretty late. So my beer drinking hours got eight in two. Can't do that. Can't do that. And we got done at 915. people were pulling out of there. I was on the highway at, you know, 9.30 to go home.

So it was a lot of fun. We had Ryan Newman race. So I called Matt Piercy, who owns a car. His dad manages Hickory Motor Speedway. And Matt's been racing at Hickory with his cars and in the cars tour here lately. Been a champion there, hasn't he? Yes. One to all of the South Carolina four.

a couple years ago. So Matt's got some great cars. Tristan McKee's driving his car this year in the late mall stock, but Tristan was running some Trans Am stuff. So I called Matt because I was complaining to him about something he said on the radio at Cordill that we needed to clean up. And in that conversation, dang, you calling drivers, huh? The team owner.

Yeah. You're calling him out. Well, I call him when we got a... No, I think it's good. He actually... I think it's good you do it. Yeah. He wanted to talk to me about it, so we talked.

And we, in that conversation, he said, we got around to talking about races and inventory. And he said, I got a couple of races open. Tristan's not going to run. And I'd be open to run a driver. And I said, well, I got this little list of drivers. Ryan Newman. Let me see. Casey Kane, Matt Kenseth, maybe Kurt Bush, Bobby the Bonnie, Greg Biffle, Clint Boyer.

I want to, and reply down in the comments. What driver, it could be anybody, Bubba Pollard, Nassie, I don't care who it is. What driver you want to see running the car store that hasn't ran there? Say you are going to plug a car, plug a driver into a car for a one-off, one-time experience. Who do you want to see come to the car store and race? Well, I called Ryan Newman, and I said, hey, man, I know it's short notice, but I got a car for you if you want to run it.

He went to the racetrack. They qualified good and raced 14th, kind of struggled in the race a little bit. That's really a not struggle on it. the car's for a race, to be honest with you. But Ryan, Ryan Newman got out of the car, pouring sweat. His helmet blower didn't work,

so he didn't have any cold air blowing in there. So that would have been miserable. But he's like, dude, these guys are intense. The racing is intense. So intense. He thought when the race started,

they were just kind of going to be, you know, kind of smooth and steady pace. And he kept losing spots. And I'm like, damn, Ryan, you better, don't want to lose too many here.

And, and he noticed that. He's like, man, I didn't think they were, were going to fire off the way they did at the start. It was really intense. Loved it. He had a great time. He'd love to do it again. He'd never ran a late mile before. So that's what I want to do is, you know, take a couple of these guys and plug them in.

I had a little bit of a list for you. Yeah. I had Mark McFarland. I would like to see Mark get back in there. I wouldn't mind seeing Coleman Presley get back in something. Coleman's a pretty good little driver. And your boy, Danny. So I would like to see Dan. go run a late model again. Well, Danny's already said that he wants to run Xfinity next year. I don't want to run.

I want him to run. So I'm saying let's add. I want to see Danny go run the car store. Yeah, I'd love to get Kyle Busch in our car in one of my cars for a race. As long as he doesn't follow you to pit road. You're good.

I know he would do it. I know he would do it if I, if we could figure it out. But tough thing about it with the Cup guys is that race is every weekend we are too. Yeah. But there's a couple options. Carraways a Wednesday race.

And then the Florence race is on Friday or Saturday before the Darlington race. I mean, that's our weekend. All-Star weekend, I guess they wanted to. But anyways, we had a great weekend in Orange County. We go to Ace this weekend on Saturday night, May 3rd. So tune in to flow if you want to. So Austin Cendrick has joined us on the show. Austin, thanks for coming.

Yes, sir. I appreciate you being here in person. Usually our winter calls in. Congrats. Yeah, thank you. What's you been up to? What's the last couple? What's this morning look like?

This morning's been pretty busy, a couple live TV interviews. Most fun thing I did so far this morning. I went to Rouse Yates, delivered some donuts. It's kind of been a thing for me in the past. You know, I was racing the Xfinney series and kind of expected to win a bunch of times throughout the year. You know, I'd come there every couple months and bring donuts and thank them for a win. And, you know, it's been spaced out a little bit more since racing the Cup series. You got the big motor.

It's kind of a, it's kind of a bigger deal now that we do it. and it was their 200th cup, cup win. Damn. Points paying wins. So it was a big win for them. And to do it, Talladega, I know it's a big deal for Doug and the family. Talladega is an important place. So kind of cool for it to all come together there.

Really nice. Well, you've established, I think, yourself and Denny said this a couple months ago, as one of the best racers, it's a restricer plate tracks or the plate tracks like Daytona Talladega. And, you know, you're able to put together a really great race. do everything right and want to want to celebrate that. With that said, you know, obviously you hear the conversation around the how the car race is there and there's no, you know, you've raced in the Xfinity series there, you've raced in the old cup car there, this current generation of the cup car there.

You know, do you feel like that it's, you know, if, you know, I know you cross finish line first so it's hard for you to kind of put yourself in the mind of the guy that's sitting there on the last lap running eighth or tenth. But what kind of style of racing do you enjoy at those racetracks? Yeah, I think, first of all, the more that we can help educate what's actually happening is going to make these races more exciting. And not that, I mean, that race, in my opinion, yep. Yeah, as the winner, but like, this is an exciting race.

And it's Greenflake finish too. Yeah. And I feel like there's a lot of like, oh, we, all these photo finishes on, you know, the backstretch from a camera and where's the camera angle? Definitely better than that. Not definitely better than that. We're not single file out by the wall. I mean, we're doing four wide.

I mean, you know, somebody who might not even know what's going on, you probably thinks it's the coolest thing ever. Yes. Obviously, you know, you want to be able to to race through the field and be able to push your way forward and make moves and make decisions because we've had that before. and you know I feel like there's there's a skill set with that and there's a skill set with with perfect execution there's a skill set with saving the fuel that there's there's a skill set with controlling lanes I feel like that doesn't happen as much as it used to I feel like that's something

you used to be really good at something Brad used to be exceptionally good at so and and that's a lot harder to control now because of you know the the whole the car punches and you know different factors right so the the racing that that I would want to see I never give myself the luxury to think that way, I guess, because I feel like that will influence your decisions emotionally in the car. Maybe as a race fan or as a competitor, you know, I feel like I have to separate those two. But sure, I watch a lot of these races. And, you know, to me, they are, they are very challenging because the funny thing about this car, and we've changed it a bunch of times with different arrow packages, trying different things. To NASCAR's credit, we have tried a ton,

especially at short tracks. But this package, has not changed at all. Since we did our first speedway race at the Daytona 500, same package, same engine, same everything. But the race looks different every time. Yeah. Every time. And it's the human element.

And the human element is so important at those tracks, whether if it's the, the strategy calls or what drivers think are going to work. And if there's enough people that believe in one thing, all of a sudden there's a lane that works that never did before. Yeah. You know, it's very interesting to kind of follow along with that and understand what's, what's actually happening versus what's being influenced. Yeah.

That's a great point. I mean, when we did run a high line and single file, like that was, that was an option for years that none of us ever did. We didn't do it, right? And then once we got up there and we saw how that changed,

how the cars engaged with each other. And instead of, when we ran the bottom of the racetrack, only really the leader was wide open. All the other guys were a little bit out of the gas at different times throughout the lap. But when you move to the top, more people are wide open.

That's why that was hard to really race against or hard to make, you couldn't make any moves or go, you know, move forward unless you really got a ton of people to believe in that bottom line. And, but that high line was there for years before any of us discovered what that phenomenon was. Right. The one thing that I don't love, or I think it's kind of problematic, is the difference in the speed of the car by itself versus the speed of the car in the draft. And if there was a way to close that gap, that might allow you guys to have. more influence over what you're doing when you're mid-pack or trying to make some moves

instead of just kind of being boxed in. Like when we come down to the finish line, not so much the guy's pushing you and the guys in the second row, but like the car in 8th or 10th can't get out of line because the fucking drag on the car is so bad. He's like, yeah, I'm not going anywhere.

Because if you get out of line, you're driving a car that's 20-mile-hour sloth. lower and you're just going to bleed speed to the finish line. Everybody's going to go, wow, what a dumb act, you know. So people wonder, you know, that part is like, again, that's why people like sit there and watch and go, what the hell? None of them tried anything. Well, there's a reason why they didn't try anything, right?

And explaining that to your point is kind of what's missing a little bit. But the thing that you did do was you had a flawless race. You did everything you're supposed to do to be able to put yourself in that position. late in the race to where you had the track position necessary. Talk about how that process begins, and I'm sure it starts Monday morning and in the office. Yeah, I think rarely can you leave a Super Speedway race and go, we did, every single person on the team had an influence in the win. And I think that's what makes this win really satisfying for me. Obviously, I have to do my job been executing, but from the fuel mileage, from the fuel that we put in the car, to the man actually

physically putting the fuel in the car, to the spotting on the roof, to the speed in the car through inspection, how the car handled. Like, I can't think of a category in a box that wasn't checked for us for that race. And that's hard to do. Like, we can go to Texas this weekend, have the fastest car and do all these things and feel good about it and probably win the race. But that doesn't happen very often at speedway races. And that's what's so exciting for me about a win like this. But what goes into it, I mean, you have to prepare for these races differently. I mean, you know, I'll go out back and practice with my fueler. I'll, you know, study film. I study film every week, but, you know, you have to study it differently for, for these types of races and

really understand. I mean, I watched the Xfinney race from the spotter stand with Doug. I mean, it's just, it's whatever you want to do, right? I mean, and every driver is going to be different. You know, Some people want a quiet mind and some people want to want to just lose themselves in what they do. And, you know, I've got nothing else going on. This is all I care about. So, and I get confidence in my preparation. You know, I don't like confidence isn't like an emotion for me. It's, it's more of, have I done everything I've, I could possibly do to be ready for the race? And if, if I have, then my mind's quiet and I can just go do my thing. Yeah. So a lot of was made about, the comment that Joey made during the race.

What comment. Yeah. I said, I put out a post on social media when that was going on, and I said, man, it's, when you're in that car, there's nobody to sit there and go, hey, man, maybe you shouldn't do that. And there's no time for you even to go, should I say this? You just say it. And there's no point in saying it unless somebody can hear it. And so there's no point in saying anything unless you mash the button.

And so there's a thousand times where I've been in a race car and mashed the button and said something. And immediately, if not right after that, maybe later that day, he went, you know what? Probably didn't have to air that out. And the great thing about it today is that all that stuff gets easily captured, it out to the masses, right? Either it's on the broadcast or it's going to be a YouTube clip, it'll live forever. So we know that this is not too uncommon. it was a bit personal, right?

And so, like, how do you handle that going forward? Have you and Joey had a chance to have a conversation about it? Because it's gotten a little more, you know, talk and traction than most things do. Yeah, I mean, I don't really take that overly personal. You know, Joey and I know each other really well, and we've been teammates for a while now. I like to think of that. It's just he's a bit Italian. You know, that's where that comes from.

and that's about it, really. I think about that. We just talked about it yesterday and talked about it as a team and, you know, cleared the air on some topics. And what that really comes down to is, I think between the three, the four of us, really, we're all good enough at this to expect a lot out of each other. And we do a lot for each other. So with that comes, I mean, when we have three of our cars, you know, in proximity at the

end of a stage, like, we want to capitalize. I mean, these are great opportunities for us. And that's obviously where the frustration comes from. I mean, you can dig into the weeds of what we could and couldn't do, and I feel like everybody has a role there. But otherwise, I'm cool about it. I don't, I feel like I've got. With Joey surprised how much traction that got?

I mean, I didn't ask him that question, but. What did he say? About. To you. Not all. I mean, I think we talked more about the racing stuff than anything else. I don't think there was, there was no like. You stood face to face with him and didn't like have a conversation about this?

Not really. I mean, like, we acknowledged that like, hey, I probably shouldn't have keyed up and said that. That's what he said. Yeah, good enough. It's kind of one of those things. So he acknowledged it at least. Yeah, you know, you know, you don't want to, I mean, I mean, it really is great that you won the race. There's not much he could say. No, but like, it's the ultimate. It totally doesn't matter. If you lose the race, like, he could be like, dummy, you dummy, see, you know, he could have continued his point. I've, I've, it's been a long time since I've been called every word in the book and that's about as close to it. So, like

said, it doesn't, it doesn't really bother me that much. Did you see what Chipper Jones said? I did. I did. I did. That's been. I did. That's been. fairly entertaining, to be honest. Who knew Chipper Jones? Are you and him golfing buddies or what? No, I was kind of surprised. I mean, I don't know. He's not a joey.

I don't follow much baseball. Yeah. But I would say I'm a very casual Braves fan. A bigger fan now, I suppose. I do have a Braves hat in my truck, but it's not something I wore into the meeting by any mean yesterday. I would have been awesome. No, it would not have been awesome.

That's absolutely right up your alley. Yeah. sense of humor. The thought, the thought crossed my mind, but it was not the right moment. No, it's, it's, it's, good. That would have been fine. I don't, I didn't know that he was such a big race fan. I would like, wear the hat, carried the trophy. Yeah, probably not. I was surprised, man, I was staying, I was in Vegas doing an appearance standing there and saw that on my phone. I was like, I had to look at it and make sure it wasn't a fake account, like, chipper with three peas or something. I triple checked it. Yeah. I'm like, this is, the chippers don't, like, he's very, uh, this is a lot of detail.

You know him at all? Yeah, he's done the show. I reckon he's a big race fan. Bigger than I thought. And I love that. I mean, the comments and all that is, wow. Yeah. But like, just the passion, like, he's a NASCAR fan, clearly.

Like, that is a NASCAR fan. Absolutely. He picked up his phone and sent a tweet out because, like, that's pretty good. Like, if you're that engaged with the race. Yeah, exactly. It's only good for our sport from that standpoint. So I love the support. But, yeah, the rest of it's a,

It's a bit noisy. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. We were flying home, and all I saw was teammate beef, and I'm like, oh, boy. And I'm like, whoa. Yeah. Okay. Pretty interesting.

Well, I'll say this. I know it's probably not a ton of fun to be in the muck of those type of things and the, you know, the awkwardness of it. But it's awesome, awesome, awesome for the sport. So like to have Chip Jones. It is. It is. Chimbing it, you know, any kind of athlete or any entertainer outside of our world, giving about what's going on.

For sure. Awesome. Winning the race, though. Yeah. This is what really did it. No doubt. I mean, that's, that's definitely the best part of my week.

Oh, yeah. You know, that's, it's such a, it's such a satisfying feeling to win those races. And I mean, I even did just a cool down lap, like by myself,

like did the full lap, kind of looking around the infield and just looking around my car, you know, you don't know when your next win's going to be. And these things are so hard to do. And it's, I'm glad I did that.

It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, It's a fun feeling and it's a fun group to do it with. Yeah, for sure. So there's a conversation in the industry around the playoffs and changing the format. What's your favorite format?

I like playoffs. You like how it is? I like playoff. I mean, for the most part, I feel like you can nitpick it. But yeah, I'm playoffs. What if I said there's a 36 race season, right? What if I said we're going to run 30 races and then somehow through wins, points and all those things, the top four or six are going to go race in six races for a championship.

No rounds, no eliminations, just six drivers. That doesn't sound very exciting at all. What? Like, that doesn't sound exciting at all to me. I mean, and I'll tell you why, because the elimination factor, like, no different than the playoffs in the NFL than the NCAA. Those parts are exciting. They are.

That is high pressure. You want to see people be put in high pressure situations and perform at their absolute limit. Can't argue with that. What about the conversation that a driver has more satisfaction, and you probably won't agree, but there's been drivers that have said to me, man, I'm more relieved and proud of just getting to the finals than actually winning the championship. and that they don't covet winning the championship as much as we did years ago. And so when I've been in these conversations with drivers, I'm like, okay, so our first thing that we need to do is make this really matter

and be the most important thing you're ever going to do in your life. And they all nod their head. Yes, that's what we need. That's what's missing. Right. So how is, would you agree? You wouldn't agree because you ever want a championship, neither of I. Like I would do anything, right?

is still the greatest thing in the world. Yeah, I think I have some perspective because I do feel like I've been on both sides of it. Yeah. In the Xfinity series, I have, I've, I've only ever raced in a national series with stage points, stage racing, and in playoffs. My first year in Trucks was the first time that in all three. And, you know, in Xfinity, I won the championship. I won the last race. You know, you could have argued, me and Briscoe, one of, all of us deserve the championship. We race it out at the end. I won the championship.

the following year, you know, I feel like I could leave there and go, well, I got more points than everybody else the entire year and, you know, this format. I all lost the championship because of it. No, I lost the championship because that's the format. Like I didn't win the race. I didn't finish in front of the other three guys. Like, I feel like I've seen both sides of it to understand the pressure, but, and I understand, like, I would totally agree, like the largest challenge that we have in our sport is to make it to the final four. Yeah, we need to flip it. But, Do you think that you should have more races than one for the championship? I think there's some value in that.

I think maybe having a round, you know, but what does a race win mean in that round? So like I said, I feel like the format can be tweaked, you know, nitpicked, but the concept of having playoffs themselves, gosh, I think there's so much value in the pressure and in the intensity and what it pushes everybody to, do. I mean, you wouldn't get Ross Chastain riding the wall at Martinsville without playoffs. Sure. You wouldn't get so many things that happened throughout the year and so many emotions that happened throughout the season. I mean, the emotion from me winning the race yesterday. I mean, that changes the next 17 weeks of my year, you know, being able to have the pressure not to make the playoffs, but the pressure to double down on yourself and be ready to run for a championship.

But do you think that changes though, you know, like you, Larson, a lot of big guys already have wins does that take pressure off them to be as aggressive as they need to be at times when if he's saying if you have to perform all year he wants the guy i want the best finish i can get every day now you're more likely you know what i've already got a win i'm not tearing this car up for this spot right you know what i mean like we need to find a way to make the regular season have the same amount of pressure and urgency that the playoffs continue carry today and where like your win would be important, but it wouldn't, but a bad run next week would still be concerning, you know. Right.

You know, I think with that, like, say the commanders have a great season, you know, they're going to sit out maybe their starters going into playoffs knowing that they got the divisional title locked up, you know, and as a sports fan, you know, I remember when the Colts, I'm a Colts fan, big Colts fan, and I remember when the Colts were like on an undefeated season run with Peyton Manning and they decided to sit them out for some schmuck. and like we ended up getting beaten the first first game of the playoffs and it was over like and I remember how like

disappointed it was. It's like basically a first round exit after Bristol like it's just all this build up and we saved all this for now and like it sucks. So I agree like there's there's probably and I don't necessarily have the answer on what it would be or spend too much time.

I kind of think about like your question with speedway racing how do we fix them like I'm a competitor. I haven't worried about fixing. I'm worried about the game so I think the the incentives for, you know, running well are, they're currently in place. Like, we have playoff points. Regular season points do matter for those that are in the playoffs. I mean, that's, that's a point per spot, regular season points. So, you know, it's 15 to win the whole thing. That's a lot. That's, that's three race wins. So I think the incentives are there.

It's just, are the incentives not high enough, I think, or maybe, you know, could you incentivize in different ways? Because, you know, yes, to your point, I do now have a softer landing. if I have a bad day at Texas or at Charlotte or somewhere else. Like if I have a bad day, I have a softer landing. But I feel like me, mentally, my pressure is now different, you know, than maybe somebody else that isn't locked in at the moment. Yeah, for sure. Man, I appreciate you giving us some time today.

Thanks again for coming in. Thank you. Appreciate it, man. All right, y'all, before we get to ask Jr., it's time for this month's selection of our ultimate racing collector, presented by Lionel Racing, the official diacast of NASCAR. Lionel Racing is your go-to source for all your racing diacast needs. Check out the latest pre-orders at lionelracing.com.

And the winner of this month is Big Dan on Twitter. Big Dan? Big Dan. Big Dan. That's it? Yep. All right. Well, hey.

Look at this room. Big Dan's got it going. Holy. He's got some helmets. Suits, full suits. Jukebox. Oh, man, everything's in beautiful cases. Crew uniforms.

Some, oh, look at the bar. I love that. Yeah. It's not hard to tell who his favorite driver is, is it? Well, he loves the number two Miller-Light Ford. I believe it's Rusty Wallace. Yeah, jukebox right in the middle. Got him a jukebox.

This is an awesome man cave. It is. Big Dan, you're doing a hell of the job here, brother. I'd love to come in there and drink some beers. Got him a little game cast. Oh, look at the same. Look at the game thing in the middle there. So I'm saying.

Little multi-cade. Wow. A little multicade arcade down there. You got you. It's a true two fan. Yeah. Got all of that. You got several die casts.

Lava lamp. Got to have that. There's a couple of helmets autographed. He's got a lot of helmets. He's got a lot of helmets. Loads of autographed helmets. Neons and lights. You got to love it.

There's a little, oh, yeah. A little TV. Yep. Got a couple of cars. Those are probably like. Dang. Look at the blanket. Oh, it's a blanket of shirts.

Yep. All rusty shirts. Took a bunch of T-shirts from Rusty and made a blanket. Damn it. And the jukebox. It's badass. Let's get to, I'm hoping we can get to the bar. He's probably not going to show us the bar.

But that would be cool. Yep. We're not heading to the bar. Oh, no. Might, maybe. Nope. Damn it. Here's Rusty.

There's Rusty, Rusty, Rusty. Rusty. He's got a lot of Rusty Wallace. He needs to go, Rusty needs to take his fool to Cabo. Rusty's got a house in Cabo. He does. They vacation there a lot. He's to take Big Dan to Cabo once. Are we getting near the bar? We're at the bar. There it is. Oh, we got another multi-cade on the bar top. I love it. And, uh, oh, he's stocked up. He is. Plastic cups, rusty cups. He even had a rusty, uh, a lot of crown. Easy. Look at this.

Oh, wow. Liquor collection. Oh, a lot of autographed Rusty Wallace liquor bottles and moonshines and all types of stuff. I don't know. There's my high rock. I saw some high rock vodka in there. All right. Big Dan, you are doing it. There's a lot going on here.

Damn right, dude. Oh, it's a tight little spot, but I love it. I know, man. That's all you need. Great tour. That's all you need for a man cave in a bar. Yeah. You don't want too many in there.

Just a couple of bar stools just for my friends. Everyone else is going to have to stand. I want to hear the music. I bet it plays good and loud. I know. I wonder what he plays. Gat almighty. That is awesome.

Good job. Big Dan, appreciate you sending that in. A very deserving winner of this month's ultimate racing collector. Now y'all see what we're doing. Now, let's see who can bring the competition to Big Dan. He's on top right now. Look at that cable management.

Big Dan's on top. Who can take him down? Send in all of your photos. As we continue each month, we're going to select a new winner for the Ultimate Racing Collector, presented by Lionel Racing, the official die cast of NASCAR. Damn, that was good. That's an awesome one. That's really good.

Big Dan goes into the Hall of Fame. Big Dan goes hard. Immediately. He's still got a couple years left of his playing career, but we're going to plug him into Hall of Fame already. All right, everybody. It's Dale Jr. here for the Ash Jr. segment of the show. brought to you by Xfinity NASCAR fans.

You know booming speeds when you see it. And Xfinity Wi-Fi, well, it's booming like the roar of a NASCAR engine on race day. It's as fast as a V8 engine and as reliable as an elite pit crew. Xfinity Wi-Fi gives you the power and the speed of NASCAR in your home. Choose the right plan for you and you're off to the races with the latest streaming experiences for NASCAR and all your favorite sports. because Xfinity Wi-Fi, it's booming, bud. Don't just raise the bar. They stream in overdrive,

Xfinity the proud premier partner of NASCAR. And you know what else is cool about Xfinity? Their Wi-Fi service, they'll upgrade that, man, just for free. It's cool. Sometimes, like, I'm a customer, and I'm an anonymous customer, right? So they're not just doing this to me as a favor.

But I'll get an email. And I got an email saved in my phone to remember when I go back to this house where I have this Xfinity Wi-Fi, they want to upgrade some hardware to give me faster speeds. For free.

And that's just a customer service deal. I didn't even special favor. So I like that. Like, because I've been doing this shit. I've been in a Wi-Fi game a long time, man. I've been in the internet game for a while. You have two. Remember, remember T1 lines and all that stuff?

First guy to ever have a T1 in his house. Yeah. So, you know, as speeds increase, you don't have to increase the price of your plan. They just give you the speed free. Hey, man, we've got faster speeds. We're just going to keep getting. Yeah, we're just going to charge it the same for faster shit. I love that.

I got off on a tangent there about that. Hey, and I've got a lot of blank stairs from the folks in the booth over here, Andrew and Travis. Andrew's back. It's good to see you, Dale. Yeah, it's good to see you, too. TJ Not so much Good to see Andrew

All right Let's get to some questions I don't ever I want to pull my stuff up here Yeah pull the chat up But there are a lot I'm seeing a lot of our regulars in the chat Which is great to see

Bev Pamela Darrell Did everybody watch wrestling last night Did anybody on the chat Watch wrestling last night Did you see Mr. Blaney Oh yeah And he was wearing a Steve Austin shirt

Wasn't he? Yes he was not chugging the beer Yeah That's pretty awesome Yeah They put him on the screen green announced him he stood up uh showed everybody his his uh steve austin's shirt which i mean absolutely awesome to see you know steve austin's a man right so yeah um but he he drank a bit

a beer he drank a swig of beer as steve austin would say um but he didn't chug it i think and and didn't pat maccaffe say as much oh he had maccaffe or whatever I can't never get his name right. I wonder if he regrets. Maybe not chugging his beer with just about a quarter of a cup left. Yeah. Just to give the people what they want.

That's what they want. Anytime you put on a big screen at a sporting event and you're holding a beer, I think it's a must. We've got a bunch of questions. This first one's coming from Tyler, and I don't think you guys have talked about this yet today on the Dirty Air Show,

but what did you guys think of Ross Chastain's moves on Sunday? I'll watch a bunch of. T.J. Adams in the chat is asking if I got that Little League Intimidators baseball uniform sent my way. Yes, I did. Awesome. The Ross Chastain move. Like,

I saw in our notes, right, as we getting prepared for the show yesterday. Should he be blackflak? Is that coming directly from you, Travis? No, I'm asking the question. Is there a real conversation? Denny Hamlin on Action Demental

asked about it. Here we go. There comes a Denny, bro. I did it. But did I say he should be Blackflag? No, I'm presenting what a cup driver of 56 wins is saying. Oh, what are you cooking him night for dinner? Andrew's loving that. So wait, so if a driver says something, I shouldn't take it and bring it on this show?

No, I'm messing with you, man. TJ's messing. He's not messing. He's serious. Taking him McDonald's. I'm just kidding, but not really. Dude, we can't be black flagging. drivers for

swerving or blocking I know it's literally part of talent it's how you raise it's like I mean everybody's gonna be like

is this okay if I just move over is that all right it's just an F1 it's not this is talked about too like it's a strategy

to block to open to spread everybody out so the pat just doesn't roll by you guys think that I agree with Denny here I love I know you agree

I don't though I love how listen what Chastain did was absolutely reckless as hell But it's scary. But yeah, it's reckless as shit.

But it's, it's kind of like if that's, he has the obligation or the right to make that move is, if it wrecks the field, he's fucking and everybody will be disappointed and not upset with him. He's done it before. I'm just saying. But he has that obligation, prerogative to make that move and not be not, there's no, there's no, there's. there should be no conversation of a penalty. And if he wants to drive that way or anybody wants to drive that way, right? He'll suffer the consequences of public opinion and his reputation if it were to create a problem, right? It didn't.

It's risky for him too. It's risky for him too, yeah, for sure. I mean, I remember when we would go out and practice and guys would do that in practice. That's, yeah. Like we would be coming big train. We're out there. You know, practice just to get started, five minutes in. We're about eight or ten of us hauling ass down the back straightway at Daytona.

And somebody pulls out and they will drive across the racetrack to block the line of cars going 10, 20 mile an hour faster thinking we're all going to go, oh, yeah, you want to lead the line here. We'll just slow down. That's how we wrecked our pole winning car. Robbie Gordon pulled up in front of the pack. We checked up and the guy behind us didn't. Kenny Wallace did that one time. Come across the racetrack to try to jump in front of the pack. in practice at Daytona.

I was like, holy shit. Like, it just practice. But, I mean, you know, it's his, he can, to think, like to even think that that should be something considered a penalty is wild to me. Yeah, Travis. That would be a dangerous precedent, I feel like if we start penalizing because of blocks. Oh. How do I say this?

All right. How do I say this? All right. do I like what he did? No. If I'm in Denny's car, I'm pissed. Mm-hmm. But if I'm not a racer, I'm not driving no more, I'm just watching.

Do I want a couple guys out there that are that crazy? Yes. Do you want to be behind them? I mean, if without, if they're not out there, then what are we doing? Right? We're just going to watch them run around and two by two for the whole damn race. We need somebody. We need a couple guys out there.

like a Hosevar and so forth that are willing to be a little risky I'm okay with what he did my issue is be like this all the time but don't then when Carson does something act like you're the garden of you know perfect driving that's what's great about it

all right so he he he's uh you know having you're talking about chastain chastising Hosevar Hosevar on the front straightaway at Atlanta after that race. And then he goes out there and he does what he does. It's awesome.

I want Ross to race like this all the time. I do too. Every lap. I know people that don't. And if he wants to get out and judge a driver who does the same thing, even better for all of us. Yeah. That's where I don't. And when they confront him, it gets even better.

I like that you are bothered by that. I probably am too. But if he doesn't do it, I'm bored. So I do have a question, though. Like if he doesn't do those type of things, things and he doesn't like want to tell Hosevar to drive differently, then what are we going to talk about on this show?

Agree. And I wish you would have talked to the media afterwards. Yeah. But so he does that. Did he, did he, he didn't address the media afterwards. I don't want to talk about it. Ah, he does that. But isn't that? That part, I don't like. Like when he's, I'm talking about the Hosevar incident. Not this one. Okay. I thought he did it again

at Talladega. He didn't do it again at Taleda. Wasn't that because he didn't have a chance to properly look at it? Yeah, I mean, I can respect that. If it's the If it's entirely the truth. But so why is it not allowed? You don't agree, T.J. I want the initial reaction right now.

Sure. I don't want to wait. Show them the camera. That's fair. Put a mic in his face. And give me a soundbite. This next question is coming from the YouTube chat. OG Rocker wants to know how the swans are doing.

Swans are doing good. We had two geese come in. So we feed the swans some chicken feed out of this little silver dog dish. There's a lot of outside. algae in the pond that they can eat as well. They're really self-sufficient. They don't really need us to feed them just yet. But once they clean the pond up,

we might have to kind of have a little secondary option for them to feed. And so these geese came in, and then the geese left after they ate all the food. And then eight more, those geese and six more geese came back. Like the geese were like, hey, they got this food over here. You guys over at the other lake come over this way. Or the other pond. The geese are just here for temporary time.

as they're flying north for the summer. But we... A little community you got over there. Yeah. It's pretty neat. So I was worried about them being lonely down there because it's in this bottom. And there's wood,

there's trees surrounding probably three quarters of the pond. Water moccasins. And so it's a, I don't know. I was just kind of thinking that. If they're down there by themselves, are they going to like that? But they're getting some visitors.

It's kind of nice. Yeah, that's cool. I don't know if they're happy about it. they might not. Yeah, they might have like it being alone. Geese and... Yeah, do they get along? I don't know.

That might be... Is that a... Yeah. Problematic. But so far, no fights. That's good. Yep. You'd have to go in and break those up.

I mean, the swan totally whoop their ass if they want to. I think that's what I'm looking at. I'm looking at and I'm going, yeah, you geese are lucky. The swan just allowing this to happen. If they want to get your ass out of here, they could do it. They're big. Yeah. Man, I don't...

Yes, that's fair. I feel. nervous sometimes walking past geese. There's like a bunch of them. I could see, how territorial? You won't even drink a beer on a big screen. All right. I can see how you, Andrew.

I don't need these strays from DJ. I could see how you, Andrew, would be nervous around. Hey, man, let's go the other way. There's some geese over there. I bet he asks, too, whenever he's invited somewhere. Will there be geese? Are there geese and beer? Yeah. Will there be geese?

When you hear him flying over, do you run and get under something? Will there be jumbo-trons or geese? Poor Andrew. Oh, man, this is just not going. We're glad you're back. Yeah, welcome back. I'm glad you're happy I'm back. There have been people, TJ, they say you need a booster seat in YouTube chat.

I'm just lounging. I wasn't going to share that comment, but. Yeah, I know you're angry. You're angry, I get it. I can get lower. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whoever was in this seat before me had it laid back, and I felt like I was going to tip over. Okay, so Cletus gave you the geese.

This is a good transition to, let's see, Billy wanted to know what did you think of Cletus's Arka run? And I even saw, I think, a tweet out there, Martha, Miami said that the burnout strips were still on the back straight away. That was pretty cool. I didn't even think about that. I was unable to watch some of the cup race because I was flying to Vegas for appearance for high rock.

me and High Rock and Texas Roadhouse have gotten together. And we have a drink on the menu. It's called the Delia. That's awesome. It is, if you like cream sickle, it's going to be like a cream sickle vibe. You can go to Texas Roadhouse and order this drink. It's freaking awesome. So we went out to Texas Roadhouse had a big party in Vegas,

and we went out there to serve some of these drinks to a lot of the owners and so forth of the Texas Roadhouse all over the country. country. And so, yeah, if you go to Texas Roadhouse, check out the deal yet. Anyways, I didn't get to watch the cup race that much, but I saw somebody tweeting about those. And I said, hey, you know, first off, I was asking people, you know, describe the race. What are you seeing? How does it look? Because I was, I was seeing comments and I'm like, yeah, I don't want to, I'm not, I don't want to be all judgy. I'm not even watching this game, see it. I don't want to see here and complain and go, Oh, the racing sucks.

And I'm not even seeing it. Didn't Blaney respond? Like, it's not going good. I didn't have fun. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But TJ too. Yeah. But somebody said they saw the burnout.

So I asked him to take a screenshot. And we got a lot of great screenshots of the, of the. That's cool. Yeah. And so that's pretty neat. But I watched some of the Arc race. I saw Cletus immediately have the engine issue and his car lost power. And some people were, you know, he started losing track.

position and I guess they didn't get that fixed. Yeah, he was down to sell under the rest. He could hang on. He could hang on to the pack at the end. He couldn't make a move, but he could hang on. And he just dodged all the crashes at that point, smart play. Me and him talked about it a little bit. And I thought, you know, look, when you get, when you're, when he realized he's young,

he's super green, right? Super duper green, like as green as you could be. And when your car's not running good, the last thing you want to do is drive it into a crash. He's trying, he's, he's, he's, he's, while he's racing, he's also trying to create content and create moments, right? So, I mean, it's, it's important for him to have a entertaining, uh, show. He's, you know, he wants to get out there and do badass things and make, you know,

make people watching the stream feel like they're being entertained. So, I mean, that's hard to do when his car's not running right, right. And I thought, you know, Is he going to get reckless, careless because he's trying to create YouTube content? Or does he go into driver mode and go, hey, just get this thing to the house. We're down a cylinder. Let's dodge the crash. And it's not to tear our car up worse.

And so I thought it was good to see him sort of make the good judgment calls to just get the car home, right? Don't make the bad day worse by feeling the pressure of the viewing audience that he feels that pressure every time he releases a video, right? To get millions and millions of years. He's got to give him something. He's got to be switched on every day and be able to pump out content, and it's always got to be great. So while he looks like he's having a blast, and he is, he's also in a lot of pressure.

So I was wondering how that would happen, but he did a great job, got it home, and can't wait to see him go to Bristol now. That's going to be different. But he's raced Bristol. He's raised Bristol in the Crown Vic, and when it was dirt and so forth. So it's not going to be completely unfamiliar to him,

but, you know, it'll be different. It's going to be a lot different. It's going to be a lot different. I agree. It's going to be different. But I think he might surprise us. Yeah. Because he races, he races Crown Vicks and stuff at his little short track. So he has the basic understanding of you can't drive the car wide open around the racetrack. Right, right. You got a lift, you got to break, you got to do these things. And he understands like trying to stay off with the guy on the inside of him and all those things.

And so, you know, I think it'll be, I think it surprises how he does it at Bristol. I really do. We're looking forward to it. I'm seeing a lot of bald eagle emojis in the YouTube chat. and a few swans. So it's good to see everyone tuning in. Travis is pointing at his phone, which has the Save the date for J.R.M. Fanday, by the way. What day is that? May 22nd, 2025 this year.

So come check it out. We're going to have a lot going on. Today is my, speaking of dates, today is my dad's birthday. Yes. Tomorrow is Isla's birthday. Wow, yeah. May 3rd, the cars tours at Ace Racing.

So I know those dates. That's awesome. There have been a, I've seen a few. Mother's Day's coming up. Mother's day's coming up. Everybody better have their shit together. I got mine together. Do you?

Yes, sir. I'm ready. Do you have it ready? You've worked out the girls. We're good. We're good for Mother's Day. She's going to be happy. All right.

Just letting everybody know out there, all the guys. The heads up. That it's coming. A few weeks away. Good, good. All right, well, I'm getting the rap signal. Damn, that's it. This was a funger, one more?

Yeah. You want to do one more? One more. Dale wants one more. It's fun. Okay, this one's from Lee. What's the strangest thing you've bought with your race winnings? So, way back in the day, I lived in a double-wide trailer.

My roommate was Josh Schneider, a great friend of mine. And we did not. I had a big screen tube television. Heavy TV. Heavy TV. And I had to take it to the guy in Canapolis multiple times to get it fixed because it kept breaking. This thing was originally from our lake house that dad had bought this thing back in the early 90s or late 80s. It was old.

And when I want, I got a $2,000. I got about a, I don't know, I got about a $4,000 check from a race way back around 97. 98. And me and Josh went to Duke Power to pay our power bill. We were behind about three months. And I was broke. I didn't have a lot of money. And so, I mean, it wasn't like dad was like, here's your credit card.

Right, right, right, right. And so I bought, when I bought a direct TV satellite back when those things were like a freaking $1,000. Right? It's crazy. and I was like, dad was like, you should get a satellite for your,

for your trailer. And I was like, I can't afford that. And he's like, I'll help you with it. And I said, all right, how much?

And he goes, I'll help you with half. Well, when I bought it, I came to collect and he had changed his mind. Isn't that nice? So I mean,

that's kind of how the money situation was with that. But anyways, I won this race or got paid for doing something. and we went to pay our delinquent power bill and as we turned, when we turned around to walk out of the Duke Power, they had this big entertainment system.

So they had a brand new tube, big screen TV, still in the tube TV days. They didn't have flat screens back then. So they had big screen TV and then this big wooden entertainment, you know, big wooden. Massive. Yeah, we had to build. and I was like, it's two grand.

I looked at Josh and I said, dude, we got like a lot left over here. What do you think? He's like, yeah, let's do it. And man, we run home to put that thing together. We threw that thing together. And man, we had in our double-wide trailer, we had the badass entertainment system. It was awesome. We used to have all kinds of parties there.

So fun. Well, good. Good deal. That was a fun one today. Yeah. Everybody, I appreciate y'all tuning in. This was a fun one, and thanks for supporting us here. Xfinity Mobile.

Customers with Xfinity Mobile get exclusive access to the most powerful Wi-Fi network on the go with speeds up to a gig. NASCAR fans, that's important for you because that means faster downloads for turn-by-turn -turn action, smooth live streaming with fewer pit stops, and a strong connection from the parking lot to the grandstands. So for more laps and less lag, stay connected with Xfinity Mobile. Thank you, Xfinity for supporting us here. They do a great job. Great partner.

Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. Dirty Modo is brought to you by Fandul. Fandle kicks ass. That should just be their slogan. It should. I mean, everybody gets that, right? Everybody understands what that means.

Is that like the old Winn-Ap thing, whenever he used to fire it up? It really kicks the long. They're the premier gaming destination in the United States. Yeah. And we've had a lot of fun on there. I've been taking it easy here lately. I haven't. I've been on a run.

You've been on a run. I've I've been I've didn't intentionally do this but I haven't probably made a bet in a couple weeks but that's good. It is. It is. Yeah. It's casual. It's fun. The player to score in the first three minutes has been one of the things I've been on.

Did you? You had a Steph Curry last night. Steph didn't hit but I did throw one. I'm glad I didn't follow you. I know. You kept texting us to follow that bet. The bet was the right move. I also threw money down on Draymon. He hit it. On technicals or what?

No, he had a three to start the game, so his cashed. And then I bet that both teams would score in the first minute. I don't remember seeing any of those. You just told a loser. Those were last minutes. He didn't share those. Those were last minute bets. I'm sorry.

He was impulse betting. There's been a very big issue here lately with the lack of sharing amongst this group on bets we're making. We've all been guilty. Yep. And we need to fix that. Yeah, we do. because there's no shame, no judgment. I think that there's a hesitation of getting your friends to follow your bet and it losing, right?

Yeah. Especially if you've been on. But at least give us that choice. I know. We all, we all got to do a better job. The other one, I think, too, is sometimes you're on a little heater and you're like, if you're on a heater, you got to really, that's even more reason to share. You're like, you're afraid that if you speak it out into existence.

I mean, that's what. Nobody thinks like that. No, that's when you put the info out there. Like, dang, I'm on a roll here. Hey, guys, I've been doing good with this. Yeah. You might want to get on this train. Now I feel confident to share.

Okay. So you're either not confident enough to share, then you're too confident to share. What are we more like, hey, guys, I've been missing everything. You should bet this. I'm not going to do that. All right. I'll be better. I'm going to sit down this week and get back on no runs in the inning on some major league games.

We had a couple of bets, and I'm trying to remember mine. I had a Byron, Stenhouse, and Priest. Or no, Eric Jones, maybe. I liked Eric Jones, yeah. You told me I was stupid. I had a couple in the top ten. For the record, you didn't have me threw them out there for people.

You didn't have them. Yes, yeah. But I still in my mind like to think that I bet that bet. But what was it? It was Byron? Byron for sure. And Priest for sure. Was it a Stahouse?

So where did they finish? Well, priests got DQed. But they don't honor, they are they? What depends on the book? Depends. The book, we're not going to worry about that. We're just going to say that that bet cashed, okay? Byron cashed at top ten.

Top ten, yep. He finished fourth. Stenhouse did not. Damn it. No. So I was going to parlay them, so I bet would have failed. We also had a, I think we had like a Austin Hill or Jesse Love in the Xfinney race, which was.

Yeah, I was pretty high on Jesse. Yeah. Because I figured they were going to lose the appeal, which they did. And I thought he'd come out swinging. And he did. He did. Swinging hard. He was right there.

We also hit the drivers on the lead lap over 25 and a half. That was big. Yeah, there wasn't a big one this time. It was not a big one. No. Which, I mean, early on, those like two, three car crashes, they were knocking out like flies. You really need the big one to hit some of them. I don't want, I'm good if there's not a big one.

Oh, I am too. I was fine with that, yeah. That hurts the long shot, guys. It does. It does. Well, I thought it was maybe weird that there wasn't like a third leg. lane developing at the end. That's kind of what I thought.

Like some guys would jump out if they're a long shot guy to go out. When they run wide open hard, this car is two lanes and that's it. There will be, there'll never be a third lane. Yeah. Well, did you, would you call it a success or a failure for your... I would call it success, yeah. Yeah. I don't bet a ton on Talladega.

Did you have any live betting? No, I would never bet live bet Taledega. All right, well, heading into Texas this weekend. the betting favorites are Larson at plus 550, Byron at plus 600, Reddick, Hamlin, bail all north of 750. How about any of these drivers for a pre-race bet?

I don't know about pre-race bet. I'd like to see how they qualify because you'll get probably a better number if they don't qualify in the top two or three. But I do like William Byron. He's statistically the best driver in next-gen at this track. Feels like he's due.

Yeah. And he's so consistent this year. He's him and I think Larson are like one and two and finishes and everything like that. So he's definitely my favorite. I think Hamlin and Reddick will do well, but I wouldn't touch him with this price. Oh.

No. Ross Chastain, he's 28 to 1 plus 2,800 to win. I kind of like throwing a little bit on that. What about like Kyle? What's he? Kyle Bush is, don't check. He is plus 2,000. Wow.

But not good next-jet numbers at Texas. Yeah, but there's only three starts, but it's a small sample size. My long shot here would be going on a limb here, Josh Barry and Chase Brisco. Yes, I had Chase Briscoe written down too. So how much do you take Las Vegas, which is the only other true mile and a half we've been to? I'm not even thinking about that at all. No.

I just know that I feel like Truex would run good at Texas. I feel like they have fast cars there, and I feel like Chase has an opportunity to put together a good race. He'll be competitive as well. Yeah, he's ran good in the past in the 14 cars, so I put him down too. these plus 18 hard to win. A couple guys' top tens. I kind of like, I like Chastain. I like Brad, too.

I like, you know, he hasn't obviously ran great this year. A lot of misfortune. Well, we've hit everything we can hit. I know, yeah. We've hit everything we can hit. Now, CJ's back. You're going to catch him now with some really good value numbers-wise for like top tens, maybe a win because he's been down.

So this is a good chance to get on him and see if he can get on a run. I mean, they were fast at Darlington. Brad's fast Darlington and stuff too. I think Brad could have a great weekend. It's really dependent on whether T.J. retired. his Wyoming coach or not, and just gives himself a little more bandwidth. Yeah, because he's focusing too much on his two teams.

Yeah, that's definitely probably it. Brad's number three. Brad probably has no idea how that's taking away from his focus. Had I focused on getting rid of Wyoming team before Talladega, we definitely would not have got run over by Kyle at Talladegh. That makes sense. That makes sense. That would have happened for sure.

It would have been far ahead of that. Yeah, we would have been way up there. Absolutely. Yeah. So who's a dark horse? Give me some dark horse. Top 10 me a dark horse. I like Austin Dillon.

You won here before. Usually good track for them in RCR. There you go. You mentioned Kyle, Austin Dillon. I think he's plus 25,000 to win. If you're going to go with Austin Dillon, how do you not take Kyle or something with that point?

No, I agree. I think price-wise, if they're both going to be good, right? Austin's way better value than Kyle is. Just a single bet. Damn, that's nice. Let's see how that cash is. All right.

All right. Appreciate your Tampa Timms. Appreciate you guys. Dirty Mo Doe brought to you by Fandul, the premier gaming destination in the United States. Thank you, Safety Culture, for bringing us this episode of the Dale Jr. download. Remember, from the racetrack to the factory floor, safety culture is the workplace operations tool that gives companies what they need

to get the job done quicker and improve every day. All right, the tear down. was live after the race on Sunday on Twitter and YouTube. Jeff Gluck was on his soapbox. Going off. Yep. He's pissed at the team owners about saving money. But now Denny's come out with some words about how much this shit costs.

I wonder what Jeff thinks now. Yeah, the door bumper clear guys and Carson dropped Monday. Kyle Busch joined the show. Very strong comments on how he ran over Brad, getting the pit road and the All-Star race. you don't want to miss this one. Yeah, I'm sure Kyle gave us a lot of information on what he thought about the restricted plate racing at Talladega.

Drafting. Yeah, restricted plate racing. Plate racing. If you want to shorten it up just a little bit. You can't do that with drafting. Yeah. Action is detrimental with Denny Hamlin, as we talked about a lot in the show,

dropped on Monday. Denny's doing a great job, giving us all kinds of great information. Really dissects or describes how kind of how their hands are all tied out there trying to race this next gen around the atoll in talladega my interview with brad means will come out tomorrow brad is jimmy means son jimmy means was independent in nascar years ago and me and brad became best friends grew up together to racetrack going to have a lot of fun stories about us as kids i'm excited to have him come in here and share that with us uh again that drops on wednesday

along with Herman Strader and Speed Street. Connor Daily making some great content around the IndyCar series as they're ramping up their efforts. Yeah, their efforts to get the Indy 500 going. On Thursday, Bless Your Heart comes out. You're having a lot of fun doing that, and you're coming out with a drink of the week. Yeah, we've got a new partnership with High Rock,

our vodka with Bless Your Heart, so we're doing a drink of the week. And last week's wasn't one of my favorites, but we had a pretty good one. I mean, some of them are going to be different that I don't really enjoy. Others might. Others might. Amy's a big fan of all the ones that we got on.

It's Amy's show, so I'm kind of letting her have it and letting her choose the drinks. So we'll see. We'll see what we like. Lastly, this is something extremely important, folks. And if you're still with us, this is late in the show. Thank you. The Red Bull Soapbox Race show. It's a TV show.

Mike Bagley and myself are the analysts and broadcast team for the new Red Bull Soapbox Race show. It's on Discovery. It's out today. I hope you'll support this. Basically, all across the world, this Red Bull Soapbox race

goes to all these amazing cities and everyone in that area or that country has the opportunity to build their soapbox and come out and compete. And they have to have a theme. They're incredible. Their creativity is through the roof. And then there's all kinds of challenges on the course. And they usually crash in spectacular fashion. It's a fun, fun show to do.

I was thrilled to be asked. I was thrilled to be asked to participate. And I was grateful to work with Mike Bagley. And I think he brings a lot of great energy to the show. Hopefully you'll support it, watch it. Tell us what you think. And, yeah, I can't wait to see the feedback because that was something a bit out of the box. You know, something somewhere that I probably didn't think I'd ever be.

I agree. Was handling the broadcasting analyst duties on the Red Bull Soapbox race. So much fun. Would you do it? Oh, hell yes. Like, I've watched these on YouTube. They've been going on forever and they're hilarious. And they've done a great job with this.

This isn't a new thing. But I was thankful to kind of bring the content to our American audience on Discovery. And I hope that we get to do a season two. I would love to go and compete. Try it. Yeah. But I don't know. I mean, I'd love to build or send a, you know, I'd love to build out and send something down the strip.

I'd like for you to drive it, actually. I would like to build something and you drive it. But there's two drivers sometimes. Oh, boy. Sometimes there's one, sometimes there's two. Pachor. Riding along.

Navigator. Well, that's the show. Hope you enjoyed it. I'm sure you did. I thought it was great. I'm confident that you enjoyed it. Yeah, it was good. Good show.

If you say you didn't enjoy it, you're lying. You had some good ideas. I just think you're telling the lie. You had some good ideas and some bad ones. I thought you did a great job. Thanks. You did a great job. Travis, you did a good job.

Thank you. Andrew. Nah, probably not. Andrew did a good job after taking a week off. Must be nice. All right. See you tomorrow. All right. See it.