The Dale Jr. Download - This Is Where Dale Jr. Draws The Line

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

After a smashing (pun-intended) weekend in St. Maarten and Antigua, Dale Earnhardt Jr. is back in the studio for a new edition of Dirty Air. He joins co-host TJ Majors to chat about NASCAR’s weekend in Kansas: - Mokes, bad suspension, and lost phones - How Carson Kvapil's flip cars ruined dinner - Cody Ware’s bad day gets worse - We’ve seen a decrease in natural cautions in the last two decades - Is Denny Hamlin over the conversation about his comments on Kyle Busch? - Can Kyle Busch rally back from this year? - Trackhouse is in a rebuilding phase - The future of the O’Reilly Series and CUVs - Kansas race winner Tyler Reddick joins the show During the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, listeners sent in questions regarding: - Best plans for Mother’s Day - Amy’s racing career - Other childhood collectables - Countries Dale would like to visit - Running out of gas during a race 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. Welcome again for another episode of the Dale Jr. download here in the Arby's studio with my co-host, T.J. Majors. Don't forget about Arby's new meat in three bucks. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats, and we've got a great show for you today. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half.

I don't know if we've ever argued. Did I piss you off over the weekend? I'm still sour. Did I want the best man at your wedding? Who was your best man, Dale? TJ. You don't need a cool best for that race. What are you thinking?

Get them, TJ. Hellway is starting a show. All right then. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Jr. Download and it's Tuesday. Co-host, TJ Majors, is here. How's it going?

Hey, how's it going? Brett, you back in the swing of things? No, not really. We went out on a trip to St. Martins. We went to a couple different, we went to Anguilla and a couple of the spots. They're all little boat trips. But we spent four days there.

It was fun. We had bought this trip at a charity auction. We go to all the charity auctions around town, right? With drivers invite you, and they come to yours, and you want them to come to yours. You go to theirs, right? and every one of them probably has some kind of a trip yeah a little vacation to get away and those never and i've experienced this happens at my own they never go in the auction for

what they're worth really never and you can get some of these at very very good bargains and so we always bid on the trip because it's more likely going to go for less than it's worth And if we can't take the trip, we'll give it to our employee of the year here at June of Mercerport. So we'll use it somehow. We might even, I don't know, we find somehow to use it. But we had a great trip while we were on the trip,

and I'm sure we'll talk about this a lot on Thursday with Bless Your Heart. But while we were on a trip, I rented one of them, we get a Mokey, right? You know, our Moke, whatever they call them things, a little golf cart thing, it's a little bigger in a golf cart. they call them mocks and we've seen them all over Charleston and stuff and we just never got one

we thought about it but they're I don't know it's kind of It's like a car right? Yeah it's a little bit of a car but not a car Yep yep it's a little large Like golf carts are convenient because of the size You park them anywhere Mokes are getting back into the car size

And you don't really I don't know you don't I'm like yeah it's only only four people can ride on it My golf car six can be where people So I'm not buying one Yeah, we just look at them, wonder how they are. Wonder what it's like to have one. We rented one while we were at this house,

and I'm going to tell you, man, that s'm going to say, man, that sump, I got no suspension on it. It is the roughest, it is the roughest ride. Really? Damn it. So it didn't do itself favors with you. Listen, it's in St. Martin's,

the roads are kind of being banged up. You know, the roads are what they are. It's okay. But riding around in the moke, no suspension on the damn thing. I mean, basically all the suspension you got is the sidewall of the tire. It's, rough as shit. And so I'm

damn glad I didn't never mess with one them things. Also, we were riding home from dinner and the moke when you sit in the moke there's no door, right?

So my phone went on out the smoke going on home from dinner. Okay? We get back to the house and I'm just kind of looking around from my phone.

I'm like, man, I must have left it at the restaurant. I got to run back to the restaurant. It's only a half mile mile at the road. So we riding up, me and me and my buddy, we got to getting that damn mocha and haul ass to the damn restaurant. Phone ain't there.

I'm walking around. I got my, um, Garmin watch. And when my Garmin watch is near the phone, I'll start getting the text and alerts and stuff. I'm not getting, you know, I'm walking around everywhere we were in this little area. It's kind of like a little burkdale. Yeah. If you will. And there's restaurants and all kinds of stuff.

So we're kind of wandering around and, man, my phone, it just ain't there. But I'm convinced. it's there. It's got to be. So we drive back home. We get back home and, long story short, the phone ended up exiting my pocket on the way home in a turn and ended up on the road, got run over a bunch. So the phone is destroyed, but it sent Amy a text that we had been an accident. Oh, yeah. It's like, hey, SS. No, S-O-S. Dale's been in a crash. So it saw, you know, I saw these G-forces. Was you with Amy when this alert got sent out?

Yeah. Okay, that's good. And so she's like, well, there's, you know, here it is in this turn on the street. So we went to. So it showed you where the accident was. Went right to the spot. There's the phone making noise. Like, hey, I'm over here.

I've been in Iraq. Help me. I had my iPad so I can still communicate with folks and receive text messages and and answer emails and stuff. But I'm getting a new phone. And again, I'm integrating into society after this. These trips are tough. You know, barely.

You go, I don't know how y'all are about trips, but if I go on a trip, when I come home, it's like I've been going on a year. Yes, 100%. Yes. You're like, like, I don't want to, I don't want to work. Yeah. I don't want to, like, I want to wake up and have drinks at 9 a.m. I don't want to, no, it's a adjustment.

Definitely more of an adjustment. Even like a two-day trip is. It's like waking up out of a coma. You're like, what year is it? Yeah. What's, what all's going on? Definitely gets harder. I feel like as you get older, too.

I know you're on your... I don't know how to say this too. And I think I need to be honest about this. And I don't know how to say this. And I don't want anybody to take this the wrong way. Oh, boy. But I was, like, when I'm on a trip, it's hard for me to, like, plug into NASCAR.

You know what I mean? Oh, 100%. I just got it ingrained in my head. that I ain't going to watch the race today. So we're sitting there at dinner and I get a text message from or Kelly text messages Amy Carson flipped.

Does Dale know? And I'm like, flipped. About Taledagas next week. What the fuck we doing flipping? We can flip at Daytona. We can flip at Tadaldauga. We ain't supposed to flip anywhere else. Yeah.

And I went. And I went from, hey, man, it's going to be cool. They're going to race. I'll check in. I'll see how they finish to 10 out of 10 smoke coming out of my ears. Dinner ruined, night ruined. Like, what in the fuck? And so I watch a video of it.

I'm like, how in the hell? I'm like, they come off the corner and he hits him and they wreck. What is going on? and then William Byron texts me in the morning and he's like, man, I'm so sorry. He's like, I was just trying to go and I got, I f***ed up. He's like, I'm sorry I f***ed up.

And I'm like, damn it. And so that sucked. Yeah, it sucked. So. It sucked being there too. Dude, I bet. Yeah, I'm sure. I think I would have rather had been there

than to learn that shit in the Caribbean. Yeah. You're trying to, you know, half drunk trying to drink a my tie or a you know i will say that couple cold beers the only saving thing was probably when you probably found out you probably already knew that everything he was okay and all yes of course so because there was a time i don't know if you knew this or not it didn't he couldn't talk to us yeah well and that wasn't the fun part so well i'm sure it wasn't a lot of fun banging around

bouncing down the back straight away in that you know cocoon of a headrests and them hard-ass foam on that thing. Yeah. It was bouncing his little head around and they're pretty good. The asphalt hits were definitely. Yeah. Well, and then, you know, and then Sunday, you know, watched all the highlights, watched a bit, you know, thankfully on YouTube, they throw the highlights together and put it on

there and you can watch, you know, chunks of the race or all the race or whatever. So, um, I, I learned that the only natural yellow was, uh, Cody Ware, Cody Ware spinning out. and there were some, you know, there's some opinions around that. So we're going to talk about that. But I think, you know, Kyle Petty, I watched a little content with Kyle Petty and Lattard. And they're like, hey, man, that's just the way life is. You know, sometimes people spend out. It sucks.

And I totally get how Denny feels because you race all day long. I don't care if you're going to win. You're going to run second, third, or fourth, or whatever, you run all day long. and you're like, how in the fuck can we not finish a couple more laps without spinning out? But it just happens. And so there's a side of me that totally gets where Denny's coming from. If I'm the race car driver, I'm 100% on Denny's side.

But at the same time, golly, man, that was the only natural yellow we had all day long. Like, we don't, we need more of those crashes and spins. We need self spins. we need engine failures. We need things that are... Natural. Naturally. You know, clunky.

But this one is just a dumb one. Here we go. No, no. What I'm saying, though, is... Here you got five minutes. Get it out of your system. Go ahead. You're five or six laps down.

You just got into the wall. Why are you not bringing him in? You can't make up a spot. Why would you bring him in? How has it got to quit? He was racing somebody, wasn't he? I thought I read he was racing two other cars. He can't make up a spot.

Why? What difference does it make him? Yeah. I mean, if there's a wreck... As soon as you realize you can't gain spots, you're supposed to pull in? There was no other car within a lap of him? That's some...

Entitlement. That's a new level of entitlement. Yeah, that is... That's not right. He just got on the wall there on, like, 60 lap. Okay. Well, Tyler Reddick got in a wall and didn't pit either. Yeah.

He also was racing for the win. It doesn't matter. He's running their own race. He should hit the wall. He could spin out and ruin somebody else's race. He should pit. I mean, everyone's running their own race. That Denny's race is no more important than any other car out there, in their opinion.

You're on old tires. You know it. You just got into the wall. Why wouldn't you? He didn't just get in the wall. He got into the wall way before that. Bring the car in. That's all like.

Bring it in for what? I'm on four, like. What do you want to do? Look at it. Put your tires on it. For five laps? He ran more than, he ran more than like a lap. He got in the wall way before that.

That's like $5,000 a lap. I don't think the tire cut because. If we're worried about the tire, like we've got a bit, there's a bigger issue at hand than if they're making decisions because of money. Everybody does. For a set of tires is the, like, I mean, it's five laps to go. Why would you put on a set of tires to ruin them for five laps? I don't think they're just trying to save a set of tires.

I think they're trying to gain as many spots because if he's sitting here, it's the same, if he's sitting here, it's absolutely fair to say, Cuddy Ware, finish the fucking race, don't spin. I don't think Cody Ware's fault. I think it's a team, and Tommy even admitted that. Well, I think how come the guy can't get to the finish line? Did he have flat? But like what did it?

Did he know he had a flat? I mean, he was complaining about issues before. When did he hit the wall? Many, many laps before? How far before, T.J. It was quite a ways before. A couple. From what I was, from what I, the info that I gathered on it.

Like several corners? Oh, several laps. 60 laps. Yeah, okay. So he just had. You think the flat tire was random? I think it was wore out. Oh, totally.

Down to the fab. Fabric. I think it was. wore out. Yeah. I'm just guessing, but 60 laps was a long way. People were hurting tires in 35 to 40.

Hey, all right. I mean, that to me is a natural, just a happenstance. It sucks. But let's be honest. I mean,

Denny, like, just got the lead because of a kind of a lucky break. Yeah. I mean, he got the lead because Tyler was running out of fuel. Or had a fuel issue.

Yeah, full issue. So, I don't know if you saw that. Yeah, so it's not like Denny had this gigantic lead. This isn't like a,

to anything for me I think I want our races to have more things that happen with Cody Ware. Agree, but I don't want it Sorry it happened and Sorry it bothered something that you enjoyed. I don't want it to ruin Denny's race.

No, I don't want it with three to go with the guy that's five laps down spinning on his own. Well, they don't control that. Well, he didn't spin on his own. Apparently he had a flat tire. He wasn't like, watch this guys. Here we go. Apparently he had a flat tire. Yeah. You ever driven a cup car with a flat tire?

I haven't driven a cup car, period. Sorry. I don't think that matters, though. I do think your point of lack of cautions is... When I was watching the highlights, and Mike Joyce said, the first natural caution of the day, I was like...

I feel terrible. I felt terrible for all the people to watch that. whole thing in full. Why do you think we're having so little? Is it, I think Gluck said maybe is it because of the playoff format and people racing differently? No. No. I mean, dude, we don't, we haven't had many natural yellows for the last 25 years.

I mean, this is, according to NASCAR insights, the fewest amount of cautions to this many races since 2012. Yeah. Kansas usually has. So in 2012, what was going on? I don't remember. You tell me. I think it's just the car is just not as, I mean, the lack of yellows has been, the lack of like natural yellows has been a thing for 25 years.

It's not, I mean, some years there's a little more, a little less, whatever, but 2012, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, you go back to 2002, 2004, we started having less yellows. We started having less engine failures. We started having less guys running over each other accidentally, spinning out on their own by themselves. Cars got more down force. Cars got more grip. For the cars got easier to drive.

You know, I think if you had a driver come in here and sit down and give us their honest opinion, they would say that, you know, the guys aren't going to bust their ass driving these cars. When we first introduced the next gen, you had a lot of failures, tire failures. You had a lot of guys busting their ass, overcorrecting, crashing into the wall. You had all kinds of things, but they've made them better. They've figured them out. They've gotten more stability.

They've given the drivers what they've asked for. And that's a good car. and when they've all got really pretty decent solid race cars out there, they can get them to the finish line, right? And that's your job. Your job is to get it to the finish line without doing something stupid. I don't really know what the answer is. The engines are bulletproof for the most part.

There's not a lot of part failures. There's not a lot of little nuanced, you know. You used to have one or two a weekend. Yeah. And it doesn't, I'm not talking about just breaking rods and breaking cans. I'm saying like there's all the little things like the oil assistance. in the engines and in the cars. All that stuff has been science out to perfection.

And they have spent millions of dollars developing all this technology on these cars that cannot fail. And they don't. They don't fail. You're not going to have like an oil pump brake and starve the engine of oil and break it like you used to have in the, you know, in the 2000s or 90s or 80s. You're not going to have fan belts flying off and braking. power steering pumps and things you know we used to have guys that would say natural failures what happened man all the fan belt came off yeah and the water pump seized up this happened that happened and it was common common yeah we don't have that anymore yeah and so you know you know what's incredible to me is watching like

that last lap of Tyler you go back and watch his ink card the amount of speed that he carries to catch when I look down at the start finish line and we're running six seven something like that and I looked at the lead Larson had. I thought Larson had the race in the bag. And then the amount of speed and throttle that Tyler can carry in that car around the bottom. Oh my gosh. I can believe it. Like, it's incredible. I couldn't believe he drove in there like he did. And got, he almost cleared him in one and two from like, yeah, when they went by the start finish line, he was like five, seven car lengths back. Yeah. And almost clears Larson through one and two. And then it was like an incredible move. And I, there's a lot of people that think that there's some sort of conspiracy just because

the guys win in a lot of races. That's not happening. There's no way in hell NASCAR would do. I know, I just got to say it. So people out there that really truly believe this shit. There's no way in hell that NASCAR would risk the integrity of the entire sport. Everything they've built, everything that the sport is hinging on. And for what?

What does it reward them? Yeah, what are they getting out of it? So it's also, it would be really hard to pull off. even let's say they wanted to it is yeah there would be so many people that would be in on this and i'm talking about people that are just making making a base salary you think that guy gives a you know he's the one keeping the secret i'm sure rick hendrick signed off on this one yeah i'm good with uh 26 hey kyle we're gonna need you to lift a little bit one and two so tyler can pass you make it look good yeah okay yeah right well it's uh you know some people out there really

think it um it is it's everywhere coincidence it is the crazy it is the crazy easiest coincidence for sure yeah i mean a few like tyler's wins they have just a lot like three of them have lined up Atlanta lined up perfectly yeah Daytona 500 lined up perfectly yeah and this is the same thing he got it lines up just right they've just they've got speed right now darlington they're I mean they've got speed they've got fast cars he's like 189 laps that's it yeah yeah and Tyler's just making it things are working out right for him you don't even know what he he's not doing anything different right now than he was probably a year ago right and it's just working out out. So, I mean, good for them.

Yeah. I'm, I wonder how long they can sustain the success before, you know, another team or another organization gets up in there and starts having that type, similar type success. But it's just evolving all the time. Yeah. Five wins, nine starts. It's crazy. Insane. No stage wins. We've seen it before. Good time to be negotiating. Rare. It's very rare. But it's, uh, Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting.

But I don't, I mean, are they cheating? I don't think that they're cheating more than anyone else. Everyone cheats. Everyone. I mean, there are all, now there's probably no, I don't think there's blatant, like pure illegal parts anymore at the cup level. I just don't think there are. Not like there used to be.

Nope, NASCAR's done a really good job of being able to kind of make the, the way the car's built, put together, bought, made. It's really hard for teams to, it's hard for teams to make a part that's not the part and get away with it. And, but everyone in the garage is pushing everything to and beyond some limits and working in a lot of gray areas, and they're doing,

they're doing it better than anybody else. I mean, you hear, after every race, the crew chief telling the driver, go pick up some rubber on your they know that the tolerance is so small that's right and so tyler and its team are are they're not going to races and dominating they're going to races and they're running into top five and then when some shit goes down at the end they're there he's the kind of guy that's going to fire fire off and get up on the wheel and make something pretty impressive happen like brisco briscoe briscoe was pretty far back on that last green white checker

and where did he restart do you know he restarted like in 11th or 12th. I was going to say 10th. Was he the first on four tires? He was, and he got up to, what did he get to? Third? Yeah. I mean, that's pretty good.

Meanwhile, Briscoe dropped to 20th. But you just said Briscoe dropped to 20th. Sorry, Bell. He got hit. Yeah, he got. It ran into the wall. That's another thing. There's a lot of contact later late in a race.

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He's ready for that to go away? I'd say so. You were with him yesterday talking about it a little bit more. I mean, we really didn't like talk about it. He mentioned it like I know Kyle's been talking about it. I honestly don't think Kyle has watched the entire 13 minutes. No. He's going to watch 13 minutes of that.

Kyle's not going to watch 13 minutes of that. I bet you $100,000 his ass ain't watched the 13 minutes of it. If anything, he heard. He probably, in the way the way this world works, he probably got a text from somebody. He got told about it. Hey, he's the guy who's talking shit about you. And then he goes to the racetrack and the media asks him about it.

And he goes, Motherf-f-talking about me. I'd swap cars with him any day. You know, yeah, yeah. And so Kyle's like, you know, that's kind of how it probably happened. But hey, it's good for the sport. Yeah.

I guess. I, yeah, I mean, I don't know, man. It's just, it's odd to watch, watch them struggle the way they have. Jim went over there from here to be the crew chief. They came out of the gate with a great performance

and qualifying at Daytona, and, you know, it's kind of been tough ever since. All the while, Austin Dillon, you know, is kind of, you know, running, where's Austin? He's, he actually, I don't think, he qualifies the greatest. He doesn't qualify great.

And he doesn't, they've not been great. RCR is not good right now. They're just not, you know, it's okay to say that. It's fair judgment. It's fair criticism.

But Austin Dillon will, if Austin Dillon's car is an 18th place car, he seems to kind of get home in 18th. I feel like Austin's been anywhere between 10th and 15th a lot. Just not noticeable, but just kind of there. I know, I agree.

And Kyle, uh, keeps having problems every week. You know, I think they, would probably run just as good as Austin if they weren't having the issues. Yeah.

I don't know what that is. But it's, Kyle is a first ballot hall of famer. Dude is still a badass race car driver and he's just not having a good time right now. No. Yeah. And it's hard for Kyle to go and when the car is not running good.

Like you said, if you have an 18th place car, you can't just run 10th with it. And I'll be honest. a long time ago there was a bit of a spat between me and him that was kind of ongoing and every week in the media the media would go to him or go to me and try to get a sound bike and I was struggling with Lance and we were between you know between crew chiefs and he said to the media said it's never the crew chiefs fault or it's never Dale's fault it's always you know it's always a crew chiefs never Dale's fault is it you know it's a really shi-thing thing and I mean, it's kind of what he's dealing with now, you know, and it's very similar. It's very, it is, it is, it is very similar.

He's in a, he's in a bad spot. He's in a car that ain't going. And he. He's running better. His teammates doing better, yeah, or finishing, you know, running the, you know, getting the better results. But what, to, to Kyle's credit, when I listen to the radio from where, from what I have heard.

Kyle has remained relatively professional. I agree. Yeah, I would say more than I would probably expect. Yeah. So now there's other things happening on Channel 2 between the Spotter and the Crew Chief that are strange because you would think you would get that kind of from the driver. But the driver is actually the one that sounds the most professional out of the three, right? Because on Channel 2, which you talked about this, the crew chiefs and the drivers will go

to channel two and say all kinds of Creechee and Spotter. Sorry, Spotter. The crew chiefs and Spire will go to Channel 2 and there, there's no filter over there. They just say whatever the hell's on their mind. You can't do that anymore. All their frustrations. You can't do that. That's not happening on other radios anymore? No, it's everything's

recorded and on there. Even like when people listen, it's like if you're listening on the app or something, it plays Channel 1 and and Channel 2. It doesn't separate them. So people will be like, oh, I heard this. And I'm like, that wasn't on channel one but it won't be you just can't say anything yeah not like we used to well my my guess if i had to predict what's what ends up happening uh cobbush ends up getting an opportunity

that gets him gets him back toward the front of the field hope so but where would where would you i would i just got a weird feeling he's going to end up at spire for some reason as you said that's the that's got some speed he's driven there he's one there he's one on their truck trucks and stuff. And they would probably absolutely take him. Well, him and Jeff Dickerson have a past as well. A good one? Jeff Spotted for him, I think.

When you say somebody has a past, it sounds negative. No, good. I mean, they have a relationship. All right. I didn't know if they had an argument. I didn't know about it. No, they have a good relationship. No.

No. I would, I could see him getting over there. I think that he ends up getting in a decent car before it's all said and done. Like, he's not going to, he's not going to, he's not going to, he's not going to drive cars. He's not going to drive cars that are underperforming for the rest of his career. He's going to get in something. He's going to find his way back to the front. He's going to

have a couple moments of all right, I still can do this, proving it to himself and the rest of the world that he's, you know, as good as he's always been or he's as talented as he's always been. But, you know, the times,

time and hourglass is running out. Father time is undefeated, all that stuff. But I believe it happens, and it could be, I mean, obviously, it could be next year. He's not got a long-term deal at RCR that I know of. I think he's up this year. Right. That is what I was aware of.

So, I mean, that is the story moving forward, right? And I believe that that's what happens in, you know, in the summer. What do you think, T.J., when do we start here? When did we start? When does the media start really covering this part? I feel like this year might be a little earlier. I do feel like there's a handful of drivers like Kyle that are that are up for contract. And yeah.

Packers tweeted. I didn't give names, but he said there's close to 20 drivers that have contracts up. So. Interesting. Well, I do agree that with Kyle, though.

It seems like I feel like that was kind of what people thought before could happen. And now it's probably going to, it's probably going to be another, you know, I mean, I do think it's a good fit for him too. But yeah. Well, it'd be interesting too.

That guy that's got all the money over there at track or not trackhouse, but at Spire. I mean, he might pay Kyle what Kyle's looking to make, right, to move on to a different program. He might. That would be maybe where he could land the contract financially that he's looking for. And a fast, a relatively fast car. And the car that can run top 10 and give Kyle some opportunities and some wins. and it gives him I feel like that gives him

he does like to run the other series like trucks and stuff and that gives him some opportunity with that. Well he's talked about running driving our stuff he wants to come race our cars wow there you go

because he wants to get back to Victor Lane but and that moving to Spire would present some avenues where that could that could be a possibility he just wants to wreck cars in too

I'm just kidding you don't like them cup guys No, I don't mind the cup, guys. Well, am I concerned, here's another note. What's, am I concerned about intermediate tracks not being entertaining enough? Not really. They've been kind of the bread and butter for the next-gen car.

And until we have two, three, four of them in a row where they're not all that fun to watch, then we've got a conversation to have. But it's just, this was one. Kansas every now and then has a race like this. and it's okay yeah it's okay so not too worried about it now if we go to charlotte for the 600 and it's a long snoozer now we got issues yeah they will have to have a conversation but what makes it not a snoozer well i mean you're going to have very similar racing yeah yeah i mean you know you just you want a you want a guy that can pass drive through the field you want something to talk

about a guy coming up through the pack somebody that hey he's going to arrive toward the front and will he be able to go up there and take the race away from whoever's got it under control um and let me ask you this so we were having there was a lot of talk about there was a lot of people wearing their tires out by like lap 35 35 was like pretty far yeah but it happened to be 35 was almost it was a little short i think the stage was 90 maybe so it's almost right in the middle what guys were doing is they're just splitting it a little bit. Yeah. What happens if you can go most of a fuel run like we used to? Like we used to run to things out of gas when pit, right?

We'd almost pit. Like we only got five laps left stuff. Let's pit. Now we're just cutting in half and pitting. Well, we want the tires to wear. But do you think if we got rid of the stage break that they would run or, you know, people would stretch it out more? I mean, they'll run until they feel like they either need tires or fuel. Yeah.

Right? I guess I don't know, I feel like every time we get to the point where guys start really fighting the cars, because guys are starting to really struggle right before they would pit at like 35-ish, like 30-35. So, okay, that's to answer the question, I think you would need to say, if they don't have the caution, right? Yeah. But they award the stage points. Sure. Would you not still maybe you would run that?

you would run to get those points the best way possible, which is probably still by cutting it in half. You're going to have to, if you stay out there and bleed lap time to the guys that do cut it in half, right? Sure, yeah, that's right. Then when you cross the line and those points are awarded, right?

You're trying to get them, right? Because we learn it. You're always going to go for them points. I know, we're not. If you're in a position to go for it. Right. If you're not, then maybe you do something different. Well, that's what I'm saying, those guys, you're going to have the top seven or eight, maybe seven, probably take all

them stage points. But what if you have the guys that run up? They make one less stop. You know what I mean? Or, you know, they can run. I just think it open. I mean, you're going to have to. If you keep short-pitting, if I can run 80 laps, then you can only run 30.

If the entire race went under green. I'm just saying, it definitely gives different strategies more of an option, though, doesn't it? Yeah, it opens it up a little bit, I suppose. What's wrong with track house is the next note? Look, I didn't write this one, Justin. Justin Mark says, I mean, Bristol was one of those races and one of those weekends where you just got to zoom out a little bit. You got to realize we're in a building phase right now.

We're working hard. We got some highlights from the weekend, but ultimately at the end of the day, it was a tough race, tough results, and just another step in the process of rebuilding the race team. Chastain, he said that this past off season was the biggest change that he's had to deal with. changes in what? It was like rebuilding.

It's not a crew chief and just, I think, a little bit of everything. Yeah. Look, I mean, track house came in when the new next-gen car was developed and raced. They were able to smartly take advantage of everyone else's inexperienced with the car, be competitive, win some races, put themselves in a great position as a company to be successful. they've lost a step for sure over the last two or three years. Now Shane's come in and won some races for them with the road courses and whatnot.

See, I feel like last year was a really successful year for. Ross, well, take out the road courses, though. Ross had a big night at the 600. But, I mean, yeah, they went from a team that was running top 10, felt like they were running top 10 regularly. We talked about Shane a lot. well, I'm saying way back when the next gen just came out. Now they're a team that pops off a great run.

Like they could show up at Charlotte like they did last year and win the race and you'd be like... It's here or here. Yeah, they're either fifth or 25th. They ever hit it, the setup where they don't. And, yeah, that's hard to... That's hard to... That's got to be tough, I think, for a company to understand. understand, okay, how are we doing that?

What is happening when we're landing on what we need to be doing, and then we're not near it the next week? There's no obvious things staring them in the face that's saying, hey, here's the problem. And so that's got to be frustrating and difficult for a team. Right now, Ross is 20th in points. Shane is 18th. Shane is steadily sliding down the rankings after having a pretty solid start of the year. And Suarez, who is no longer with you, is outperforming.

Yeah, Suarez is doing well over at the – he's 16th in point. They didn't get rid of Daniel because he couldn't do the job. I mean, Daniel's – Daniels an accomplished driver and pretty solid talent. They just had Connor coming up. They have a generational talent. Yeah, but you're gambling on – Connor being the next great thing. And after coming out of a successful season like you had in the O'Reilly series last year.

Where is Connor? And the points. He's down there pretty good. Remember we had the conversation? Does he make into the top 20 or whatever about a month or two ago? I don't think you do. But back to, I think obviously they knew what they're banking on kind of being, you know, future. But Suarez out racing to Ross is a issue.

That is. Yeah. I mean, look, it's, it is reality of the situation. This is a tough, tough sport. It's competitive. It's very competitive. Connors told us that. He's like, man, you know, come up here, they ain't no days off.

They're no laps off. They know corners off. It's the grindin. These guys race the shit out of you. Whether you're running 30th or, or third. And he's right. You know, you go into the, you go to the rally series. There's no disrespect to anybody in that series, but everybody's on a different agenda, right?

right there's teams out there they're like man you know we just gonna try to get this thing home we can't tear this thing up we gotta finish top 20 you know come on top 25 which no no donuts um you know there's a lot of that going on guys out there just trying to make a living it also seems with the cup and i may be wrong it feels like kaiser getting out of the car more often this year than pass and going we just didn't have it we missed it it it just seems like yeah there's more variables that teams are dealing with. Well, it's morphed more into F1 style where it's like this organization has the speed, right? Yeah.

And so, you know, if you're in an organization that's struggling, you show up and you feel like, you know, chances are you're not going to have seen a ton of progress in the last five days. You're going to show up to the racetrack and struggle. And if you're a 15th place car, you're going to be a 15th place car most weekend. Yeah. Denny said that 50% of the car, whatever you bring to the track is whatever you got, you can't fix that. So if you get there with 30%, there's 20% that you're at best, you're going to get to 80%. Yeah. I agree with a lot of that right now, which is also why we talked about, I know you can't change a lot in practice, but I think if you had a couple different practice sessions, maybe you could do more to the cars. And like, like, Denny is fortunate. All the good, all the really, you know, the Gibbs car. Hendrikars, they show up and they're within, they're really close. You know, sometimes the other teams don't show up as that close. Yeah. They can't show up as close. So sometimes I feel like a little more practice would get some of them closer at times. Yeah. But he's right. I mean, it's hard. You don't fix a lot of it. But in the, what do they give us, 25, whatever minute, 50 minute practice, 225 minute practice or 220 minute practices or whatever it is.

That's it. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like, you know, teams are going to have some tough. Teams are going to struggle. And right now, track house is one that's definitely trying to turn things around a little bit. It's interesting. Justin, use the term, rebuild a couple different times.

And, you know, you don't often, rebuild isn't a NASCAR term. You know, but apparently they've decided to shuffle. the deck a little bit this offseason Chastain saying a lot of big change and that might take some time to net out because you think about it Ross is a new crew chief Conner's crew chief is new

I don't know about SVG so there's I mean all sorts of stuff that they're moving around I don't think SVG is having a terrible year by any means but he's definitely He's the highest one in points Yeah I mean I think he's He started out the year really good last couple of weeks have been tough

but yeah and he I mean I watched his qualifying lap I mean he was he was almost wide over he tried to hold it wide open like he was like no lack of effort yeah Talladega this weekend I'm going to go over to

the cars tour race and hang out where is it at it is in caraway I'm going to go try to just kind of watch and observe and help the series best I can while you guys go to

Talladega. Yeah. There's also a Chicago test going on at the Chicago land today, today and tomorrow. Is that right? I'll be curious to hear about how they feel about the bump over the tunnel in three and four. That was very, very severe. And we haven't run the next-gen car there.

Yeah. Right? And so trying to get across that is going to be a real handful for a lot of teams. How big of advantage? is it for the guys. I know Danny's one of them that's going to be at that test going to attract that.

Massive. Because I'm telling you. So this car with the this car with the underbody it's really important to try to figure out how to get that car

down on the ground as close as possible and create as much down force as you can and have the platform, the pitch of the nose up, down, get that thing

really. doing what it needs to do, but you also got to go across one of the, this is going to be a top three, in terms of severity, a top three bump down in the middle of three and four. And you've got to get the car on the ground, but get across a bump, right, and not drag the, you know, drag the bomb of the race car off. And so who, the guys, the teams that don't get to go to do the tests are going to show up, for the race weekend and have to figure this out

in a real short period of time while the teams that are at the test are going to get to science this out and really narrow in on where they need that car to be for the driver to be comfortable. It's a big advantage. Huge advantage.

And they get, so it's, it's Kyle Larson, Denny Hamlin, Ryan Blaney, and the O'Reilly teams that are there would be Justin Algar and Brandon Jones. So the team, Teams that are there are going to be able to bring home all kinds of great information, data and all types of things that are going to help them run SIM and all kinds of programs

to be able to help all of their drivers and teams make the best guess on kind of how to start the weekend. The other teams that don't have this information are going to have to show up with trying to hit a moving target, you know. Should we have a test like this at a track that none of them been to? Yeah, I think you have to test the tire to make sure the tire is going to be able to hold up. It's a very abrasive. So it's really abrasive. This racetrack is extremely abrasive. And now that we haven't ran on it for several years,

it's increased dramatically probably in terms of abrasiveness and how it's going to wear the tires. So what's probably going to happen is, I've seen this a million times, they're going to show up to this test. They're going to, the first set of tires is going to wear off the car in 10 laps. Yeah, and they're gone. And Goodyear is going to freak. They're going to put on the hardest set they got there, and that's what you're going to end up testing the rest of the test.

And they're going to figure out how to make that tire. They're going to get to where that tire is living, and they're going to go, all right, our work is done. And which is fine. I mean, to have a super, super hard tire at a very abrasive racetrack like that, it's probably what you have to have. But I'll be surprised if they are aggressive. And we show back up and we're having tire issues.

but it's absolutely possible. I think if it's a new track, every team should have the option. I should say tire wear issues. There's more than likely going to be some teams that are going to gamble on air pressure. And with this bump, you could get yourself into some trouble there, getting too low on air, and putting the tire through too much as it goes across some of the imperfections on the surface of the racetrack.

And then you might have some guys having some tire issues in terms of flats that we've seen at the back of the car, the right front, left front. Self-inflicted a lot of that. Self-inflicted, yes. And with that bump, right, the teams have to be careful about skirting near that danger zone of low air. That could, we could probably see some teams

cross over into the danger zone there and have some issues in practice and then dial it back out. But, you know, tire wear, or tires like you had this weekend where you said tires are wearing out in 35 laps. and guys running through the fabric. You could see that in the race a little bit. But I imagine that this tire test, Goodyear will determine a hard enough tire that it'll live.

You could, this last weekend, there was some of the driver back into play in it. Like, you could run too hard in the beginning. It cost yourself on the back end. You could, yes. Yeah. Which I love that. Yeah, I like it too.

Do you think every team should have the option to test at a new track so that there's not an advantage? I don't see why you couldn't do that but the team's ever to be expensive for the industry What's up to them if they don't want to? That's easy to say that I mean I think it should be

If you're going back to a place Give them the option if you want to go Yeah Tracks open come on I mean yeah I mean you love track time I mean I think it's fine I think for Chicago with the Challenges that it presents and the advantage

I think that it gives to a team that does get to test might have been better to have an open test. Yeah. I mean, San Diego, everyone's going there for the first time. Yeah. Clean slate. No one's been there at Pratt, the center test. Yeah.

That's fair to me. So you look at a team like Legacy, no alliance with JGR at 2311. So they're going in absolutely blind. Some of these other, same teams, other ones. Well, I mean, don't forget you got, you know, they can choose, you know, what info they're going to give, you know what I mean? Like, the teams that have went can disguise. can determine how much they share with what they learn.

Yeah, I mean, I'm guessing, right? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it depends on what your alliance agreement. Exactly. And how honor you want to. That was definitely the case 20, you know, 10 years ago, 10 years ago. When there's teams that had alliances, there'd be some, you know,

not all the information would be on the sheet. How much as a driver do you try to keep instead of sharing with your teammates? There's not much from a driver standpoint. They can see SMT, all the information data, and stuff like that. But, you know, there's some rare moments or instances where a driver might know something or understand how to do something differently around a racetrack. But it's mostly going to be in that setup sheet. So there'll be a set up sheet or a book with all the information of how the car is set up

and all of that information in there might not be entirely truthful. Maybe they'll have SMT. Yeah, I'm sure that happens, especially when teams start competing with each other as they get closer to the championship. Yeah, they don't want to get beat. You got to be very protective of it. They do.

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the winner and announce it here on the show. Lionelracing.com. There was one other topic that I saw that did add. Did you see the comment from Jeff Probst about the Riley series? Oh, boy.

John Probst is NASCAR. EVP. Evp. His comment, This is an Adam Stern tweet, and he says, long-term, you see it as we do have the C-U-V body that we developed in our electric vehicle. I'm not sitting here saying today that we're breaking news.

It's going to C-U-V. But there are the things that are on the roadmap to consider. So you have a truck, a C-U-V, and a cup. That's three very different bodies that are relevant to. to our OEMs today to create that brand identity for each series. So he thinks that there's a possibility. It's my belief. I'm probably, it's my belief that absolutely the electric car and that body style and all

that is something that NASCAR is looking at as a possibility for the future of the O'Reilly series. I would say that the O'Reilly series has got a lot of good things going right now. viewership is continuously on the rise and our cars we can all kind of relate to those cars when we look at them when we see them on the racetrack. I think making a switch to anything unlike what we have would be a massive, massive mistake, and it would probably be that. probably be the end of the rise.

We're going up, right? Things are going well. We got a great TV partner. We have great numbers. We got great fan engagement. And I think any kind of a change like that, so dramatic as that would be, would destroy the series,

as we know it. I would not be interested in that. I don't think Junior Motorsports would be interested in that. I'm certainly not interested in that car or that body or any of that. I think they need to leave well enough alone, quit fiddling with everything and having to feel like everything needs to be improved, fixed, changed. The series is doing really good. There is an issue in terms of parts and pieces.

the parts and pieces that we use aren't in being manufactured in manufacturer they're not being developed or made at a rate that the series can sustain itself what I would love for them to do and this is a big conversation to have

but what I would love for them to do with the O'Reilly car is take that nine inch forward rear end out of the car that we're running and make me a modern version of that. Take all the front suspension off of our car and make me a more modern version of that.

Not an over-engineered hub or rear-in like we got in the current cup car. I don't want any of that that's in the current cup car. I don't want no influence at all that the current cup car has. I don't want any of the parts. I don't want the bolt on front and rear clip. I don't want none of that. I want, if you want to do anything to the O'Reilly series, take that, take the parts that are in short supply,

and let's figure out how to make a more, a newer modern take on that specific part, whether it's ball joints, different things like that, that are, that are, you know, when our cup teams moved away from this technology, the people that made it don't have, there's not a demand this series and so forth. There's not enough demand, I suppose,

to be able to continue to make a lot of the parts. And things are just getting tougher and tougher to get. And so I would just think about how we take what's working. This is working. This series is working. This series is working the way it is. So if we need anything, we need to try to figure out how to, you know,

keep this thing going the way it's going. And I don't know. I think I don't love the idea or the thought of the series changing vehicles. And wouldn't want to be, I don't know how to say it. I just wouldn't be interested in that. I agree with you. Yeah. I think I wonder if this is his trial balloon.

I don't think they've been thinking about it, but it's like let's put this out there and... I don't know, man. There's some conversations that the series has to have with itself, the owners, the NASCAR, all the executives and so forth. And I honestly feel like that those conversations are long overdue and we need to be having them today. Because I don't think the series owners are as excited about that idea as he may be.

Hey, this is Dellenhart Jr. and for all the latest Dale Jr. download gear, including the Imo drink some beer t-shirt we've been talking about here around the office, head over to shop.dirtymomedia.com for all the latest merch. All right, so we got our race winner calling in. Tyler Reddick is back again. It's just a co-host at this point. Yep. We're just going to actually change the name.

The Tyler Reddick Download. Changing the name of the show. Yeah. So Tyler Redick, I mean, there's only a few questions that I need answers to, one of them being, how do you drive down into the corner of that deep? No one else seems to be able to make that car perform the way you did this past weekend. Was it a, did you think in your mind like, I'm just going to send it in there and see what happens? or did you just have that much confidence in the car from how it ran most of the day? I mean, you were having some trouble there toward the end, getting in the wall a little bit, and some fuel issues, but I mean, you just, you're full committed down into turn three

and it was a beautiful thing. What's your thoughts about when you go back and watch that? You know, yeah, in hindsight, and especially after, you know, watching the replay, you know, it looked like a real power move, but honestly, I think it just really shows how off, you know, the five was. For whatever reason, man, I mean, he was able to, you know, make the right move on Denny on the restart, get to the lead. But, I mean, in clean air like that, you know, clear sail, if you will, down into the corner and not have the run that he did off the corner and me to have the run that I did off. the corner was odd to me um but yeah like i mean i was far enough back tj you know this like there's more than there should have been more and enough time for him to cover that move and dude when

i look down at the start finish line i looked down and saw the gap because we're racing for six fifth something like that and i saw the gap and i'm like damn if i was going to win this race and i look i look up and i'm like how did this just happen yeah it was i mean i i i mean i i I mean, I drove it down in there pretty normal. Well, I mean, we're first time on two tires all day, but, you know, about what you'd expect the grip to be able to take. And, I mean, I just, I cut it to the bottom. And, I mean, I would imagine if he could have, he would have covered it.

I think he just got tight or just was tight. You know what I mean? I believe he even said that post race, you know, whether you look at how Denny attacked the corner, racing even the 19, the 19 alongside him. I mean, yeah, I mean, I think more. than anything Kyle's balance just wasn't there that last that last restart I mean he made the right move to get the lead but his car wasn't underneath him and that just kind of helped make me look

like like a superhero there and you know if anything once I saw you know he was having those handling issues right I knew that I just needed to make a smart move you know just stay alongside into three and most more likely I was more than likely I was going to clear him on the bottom because I made up that much ground in the last corner. So yeah, just very fortunate that someone who's really, really hard to pass was just really, really boxed in with what he had left for balance, you know. What did you say in Cody where? Yeah, I don't know.

I guess I need something. What did you think in three and four when you saw that spin? Because I know it's right in front of you. You saw the smoke. and I do believe that the caution, I mean, he started coming back up the track, and I understand the reason for the caution at that point. But, I mean, that was kind of had to be like, because Danny had just gotten around you, and I feel like he was in position to probably win the race at that point.

Yeah, no, he, I mean, I was going to try and get something back to him, but it was pretty wild. I passed him first time all day, started to lose some rear grip. Just as soon as I pass him, it's like, uh-oh, I hit the, light switch and now what do i do and um yeah it was going to be really hard for me to do anything with them with one to go then he kind of found something he had left i i don't know um just race from like he raced bubble last year you know how tg is we come off too and we we make contact and i was like oh no oh yeah i you know what i mean like he the five comes up which he should

I mean, he's clear to the wall, and the five comes up, and Denny loses nose a little bit. I'm trying to just, you know, in my mind, to answer your question, what do I think when I see the caution? As crazy as it may sound, you know, I end up winning this race, right? But in my mind, I'm like, great. We got an overtime restart. What's going to happen? You got to come down. Yeah.

Focus on winning the race, but at the same time, it's like, man, I really just want to get out of here in one piece as well. Yeah. I think we're all like that. when that gosh comes out, you know? So it's like, man, just don't take any huge risks on the restart. And that's when, I mean, I got tied into one when we were three wide. And loud Christopher eats my outside. And it's like in a different, you know, when in your end format, I'm probably more aggressive and shutting off Christopher and just not letting him get to my outside.

But at that point's like, let's just, let's just get out of here and survive, right? And then we get off of two and then it gets tight, gets into me. And then I go flying up track into Christopher. If you take that away from Bell, does he, does Denny clear you on the bottom? You know what I mean? Does that make it? Because I see a lot of that when guys slide up and one and two and blocked the third lane, the bottom clears. Yeah.

I mean, I think for me, I was just, you know, trying to run as the least amount of distance possible. Yeah. Once I knew we were three wide, I was trying to just be respectful. I mean, again, we're battling for the win, but as much as it may sound like line. Me, I don't want to rack. And just trying to give them room. And yeah, just it kind of looked like looking back at it. The Levin was close enough to my left rear.

And then Christopher was close enough to my right rear. Just those two cars on both ends of me. Not alongside, but just close enough. Like, I mean, I got tired. I had to have a big lift. So it's one of those things. Maybe if I would have just been up to track more, I would have got a little bit of push off from Christopher.

And maybe I would have been okay. Yeah, maybe got a run. Yeah. I mean, it's so hard to say. What does it feel like in the car when that guy gets inside of you and they start pushing up and they get into your door? Because that seems to have more of effect than obviously getting right on behind somebody down to the corner doesn't do anything for the car in front. But when somebody gets inside you and they start coming up, I see a lot of people lifting off a turn two of the outside car a lot because does that guy just, does it just push your car up? I mean, it's insane.

It's, I mean, in some way. it's like you're right up the back bumper of another car and they cross your way. Can you just lose the nose? It literally feels like someone is just shoving you to the right. It takes off so abruptly and violently. Yeah, and so, I mean, it's powerful. If you can time it and use it to your advantage,

you know, it's a really effective tool when you're racing other cars. And unfortunately, like what happened to us on that final restart, you know, it was kind of just chain reaction. Denny got tight, I got tight, and, you know, Christopher got smoked. So it happens very, very fast. I mean, that's just kind of the nature of the next-gen car. Honestly, everything that we were kind of used to is drivers in the Gen 6 car, the tendencies of the arrow side, you know, whether it's getting loose or getting tight in traffic. Everything is just sped up exponentially with the next-gen car. Do you see a lot of guys out there still struggling with that after all this time? I mean, we've had the next-gen car for several years.

And I do watch new drivers come out of the O'Reilly series and get in that car, and I watch them find themselves in situations where the air goes completely the opposite of what they expect. They, you know, they put themselves. You, and I watch, you know, I watch guys that have been driving this car for six years, you know heading into the next corner where you don't want to end up arrow-wise, right? And so you all are searching for a place for you to be and be comfortable. and we see a lot of guys kind of struggle with that for a while when they get in that car for the first time and go out there and race it. Do you still see people that have been in this car for several years still kind of struggling to know where to put this car and where to be in comfortable places in terms of arrow?

I feel like that really, in my opinion, I think that shows up even more when you have an ill handling car. when your car is handling and doing what it should, you kind of know what it's going to do, given those circumstances, so you know how to adjust. I feel like where it gets tough is when you have a really loose handling car, and the rear of the car is just not, you can't trust it. You know, just what this car does when you're offset right, offset left, in traffic, when you have the, you know, when you lose the air behind somebody, and then you get it all back and the thing snaps loose. I mean, to some degree, I feel like it's, you do see that, but I feel like more times than not, that is, a lot of it seems to be the case, in my opinion, when drivers are just having, or just finding a really ill-handling car, the tires have really gone away. I feel like, you know, when, when the right rear wears out or the rear's, you just overheat your tires, that stuff really shows up more because this car just becomes that much more unpredictable. You know, it is glued to the racetrack for a lot of laps. And when the tires wear out like that and get to that point, it's no longer glued to the racetrack.

So now it's just exponentially losing grip. So I think that gets shown up. My opinion shows up more when a car's handling is really gone to the wayside. Do you guys understand what might have been going on with the fuel there toward the end of the race? That was something I never really. Definitely weren't low on fuel. Right. I was just talking to my fueler, Brian Dale, about it.

He was like, you know, thanks for throwing me under the bus. I'm like, man, that wasn't my intention. You know, as a driver, again, in the lead, but, you know, going into three there when I drove it straight in the fence, which was not cool. But, I mean, I'm trying to figure out if I need to pit or not, you know what I mean? Sure. Literally trying to win this race, but my mind because of points is like, I do not want to run out of fuel and not finish this race. Yeah. Like, you don't want to.

We got a problem. I'm good with it. I'll pit. I'll take. You don't want to drive by pit entry, run out of gas at the end of the front straightaway. Yes. And so, yeah, it's just, I mean, I haven't got the official word back from the folks at Toyota Racing or TRD. But, yeah, it just seems like the pump, from my understanding, the pump just failed. Wow. It happened on the front stretch. So I'd flip the switch to go to, you know, the secondary, if you will. Yeah, I mean, I was going down the back just trying to understand, you know, I mean, I feel like you're, you know, if it's out of fuel, you're typically not going to get a lot of fuel left when it goes to it. So I was just trying to understand what our situation was.

And I think into three, Billy told me, you know, we're plenty of good on fuel. It shouldn't be that. I just, you know, wasn't focused going into three. Like said, the handling had gone away a little bit, kind of had trusted, had to. a car that I could trust the back of the back of the car all day long and just got a little loose you know these cars did these super high fast race high speed racetracks like Kansas somehow homestead it kind of works but like place like Kansas man you get too close to the wall the car just loses grip and you get sucked in the wall and you crash so um just a mistake on my part

could you notice at Kansas uh like you could you could you could you could hurt the tires and and you know I don't know what your tire wear was but yeah yeah I mean um I don't know how much it was touched on in the broadcast, but we were running third, comfortably in third. I think we were somewhat closing in on the five. I think Denny was leading that first stage, and the five had gotten by us. We were within range to, like, maybe battle the five for second in the stage, and about three or four laps to go, the thing just kind of took off tight.

And I was like, eh, that's a little weird. I wasn't really near anybody. I didn't make a mistake. And then, like, I just thankfully, 80%ed the car into the next corner. And it went all the way up and dang near smoked the fence. I'm like, oh, we got, you know, we had tire courting issues.

So then I think we got about eight seconds. But that was a little bit longer run compared to the first one, right? That was a little bit longer. Probably. In stage, yeah. Yeah, because you probably come between 30 and 35. And then the second stage was, you probably ran 10, 15 laps longer on the second set.

Yeah. But yeah, I mean, you know, as much as that cost us time and kept us from being able to like, you know, battle with those guys on pit road at the stage end to try and jump them on pit road. It was honestly kind of a blessing in disguise because it really helped me understand, okay, we've, I was kind of in this spot where I wanted to free up, but I didn't want to all of a sudden have loose balance of migration in the run. But, I mean, we're recording the right front. So it's like we're going to have to free up and just find a way to make it work. and it helped us get faster throughout the day. So in some ways, that tire issue for us that we survived got us in the direction of getting

faster throughout the day and then being able to, you know, close in on the 11 and last run, which, as we found out when I got the lead, was just a little too loose. But, yeah, it was a good day. We go into Talladega with the new system and how this is playing out, the new point system. Is there any different emotion going into a race like Talladega? Is there a different game plan, a different attitude, approach, personality that you take to this race with the point system the way it is today? I don't think so. You know, like season long, right, finishing these races is more important.

but I feel like race to race, the mindset that I found in 2024, I've had at other times, like even running trucks in different formats and whatnot. Like I feel like race to race, I've had a pretty good mindset when it comes to speedways. One thing that we weren't able to tip our, you know, put our hat on anything out of 20205, but one of those things that we could do that with was that we scored more points at anybody at the Speedway, super speedway races. So that was telling us like, all right, time in and time out, we're like, we're staying out of the trouble, but we're being aggressive enough to score points, stage points, and be up there in the mix at the end of the races.

So, yeah, I feel like for me, we just, you know, we try and hit the strategy as best as we can. Now, I mean, for sure, how that's going to look this way. What's your strategy this weekend? I know. I know, I know, certainly. I mean, we've done a good job of kind of figuring out what it is and kind of, I mean, in a lot of ways I don't know call me maybe this is not fair to say but almost got a little stale because you know the the setups and how you would approach each stage with the lengths and everything

we're very similar you know between Daytona and Talladega so you just kind of got used to okay this is what we're going to do and I feel like some of those I mean I feel like that same fuel saving strategy is going to take place but now the lengths are different so like the the rhythm the routine that you kind of have and how you approach the stages will be different. So I'm curious. I mean, I feel like, you know, the guys that are super have been really good at it. Joey, Ryan, Austin, like the Penske cars, always seem to really be on top of it. Honestly, you know, I feel like RFK is really good at it too. So, and we've kind of been able to sneak our way in there into that conversation as well with how we go about it.

So it's going to look different, but I feel like the teams and drivers that figure out how to manage that. Best we'll find the way to the front. Is Michael going to be there? Because I feel like if he's there, then we can just know that you're going to be there for the win. I don't know if he's coming or not. I guess I'll find out when we get there, Travis. They did flip the race pretty much where for the final two stages,

you can run those without needing to come for fuel. do you think that will that do you think that that guarantees us a final stage where drivers are all out or will they have ran the race backwards so to speak like in road course to where they're still you know they're still saving fuel toward those final you know in that final stage trying you know because they've measured it out to end to land in this spot where they don't have you know don't have enough fuel to really just go wide open the whole final stage. What do you think? Yeah, I do.

You know, I feel like, you know, the teams are cars that aren't happy with the position and where they're at, you know, in stage two. I just don't know why you wouldn't try to. If you're not where you want to be and you're not going to get the stage points you want to stay. I mean, we're going to save. Then they're going to try and just cut it close. Take only what they need.

Yeah. I mean, I think you're going to see cars up there that aren't going to need to save and you're going to see some that do. But certainly, I feel like if enough cars get up front that need save fuel, I mean, they're going to somewhat be able to kind of control it. So it's wide open. I mean, it could go that way or, you know, I mean, it just when we get the cautions, if there's cautions, you know, who's willing to take that risk, those sort of things will really set that up. I don't see it be in one way or the other. I do feel like there's going to be a mix-up, if you will, at the front. And, I mean, we've seen it, though.

Enough cars get to the front of the field that need to save that fuel. There are ways for them to drag the pace down and keep the track position. So we'll see how it all plays out, man. I mean, it will change it up, you know, but I do feel like the strategy is still going to be in play. It's just going to take a different mixture, if that makes sense. I think that makes perfect sense, man. I appreciate you trying to explain it to us. Thanks a lot for today.

Awesome to have you stop in. I know you're busy. You know you've got a lot of media to do when you win races like this. So we appreciate you giving us a little bit of your time today, Tyler. Absolutely. Thank you guys. Yeah, man. See you.

Congrats. Thank you. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. And you were here for an episode of Ask Jr. And obviously, I'm with my co-host, TJ, majors. We've been sitting here talking racing Kansas. We talked to Tyler Reddick.

We did a little, we did a little dirty-modo talking about Talladega. So if you want to know some of our choices on some of the fun things to bet on Fanduel or what have you, we got some pretty interesting stuff. We even talk about championship favorites. Who are the favorites as we look at the points today? You'll be surprised. There's not many guys that I think have a shot at winning this championship. It's a very small pool.

And right about now is the time to start thinking about that bit. So anyhow, not to rehash everything that we went through, but I was on vacation for a couple days. And so I'm kind of coming back. I don't know if y'all experience this, but anytime I go on a vacation, when I get back, I feel completely unconnected and oblivious to everything that's been going on. I don't remember what I was doing when I left, what responsibilities are pressing, what tasks that I need to continue, that I was. in the middle of when I went out of town. You left me right in the middle of, you did leave me hanging

with your social media clips. Doing what? From Ila and Sello's FaceTime calls. I mean, I'd answer a lot of questions about that. Oh! The kind of stuff you're teaching our kids, I mean. Whatever. Oh, yeah.

What are you doing, Dale? Hey. The question really is, did you deserve the comment? No. I was just, no. What did you say that she said that she's going to kick you in the nut? Sometimes you hear in FaceTime, you kind of peek in there and she saw me and she's kind of like, get out of here. I got you.

Well, we've got Exfinity waving the red flag on Internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings. You get the speed and the reliability in the Wi-Fi that you need. Tyler Reddick just locked in five wins. You can lock in five years at the same price with Xfinity's five-year price. Guarantee lock. No surprises, no late yellows, just straight shot to Victor Lane. And just like that, we've got a winner.

It's Finity. Imagine that. Let's get to your questions. So first question, person wants to know, he's a father with two little kids, and any advice for how to handle Mother's Day coming up with making sure

that he has all the little gifts and stuff? Don't forget. I think that's the bad thing. Advice? Yeah. Like, what do you do? Oh, for a Thursday. Well, this is what my wife told me.

She said, I want to leave the house. I want to get away from y'all. So send her somewhere. Get her a spa day, whatever it is. I would, this is what I did. So you get her a spa appointment that's an hour. Get her a nail appointment that's like two hours after that, you know, or three hours after.

Put a little time in. between. Maybe call one of her friends and say, hey, where do you and her want to eat lunch? I'm going to set a reservation, and I'll tell her to be there, and she won't even know that you're going to be there. Surprise her with lunch with a friend. There's all sorts of stuff, but she, shoo her away for the day. She wants to lead.

She doesn't want to have to be a mother. She doesn't want a mom. She doesn't want to be a wife that day. She just wants to go and, and, treat herself and know that she's, you know. It's a good idea. She needs to know that everything's going to be fine and that she can go on and come on back when she feels like it.

I might have to upgrade my membership packages for my service that I was going to have for that app. Remember that app I was going to make a long time ago where you sign up and you just put in the dates. Get the reminders. Yeah, it does it automatically for you. This would be the goal. That would be somebody needs to come up with that. I know. The dad app.

Yeah. The man app. Yeah, the man app. So then it gets a couple days away, it orders you the flowers. It does it for you. It does all of it. So here's the budget. Yeah.

And it does all, it sets all the appointments, does anything for you. You'll get an email and tell you, hey, they sent this, this time, this date. That's really smart. How long ago I tell you that? It was like 20 years, 15, 15 years ago I said that to you. I'll tell you. I'll tell you. It's a new company.

It's absolutely silly. But you miss one of them damn dates. Ooh, buddy. Man, you'd pay anything to dial that back. You put in that you, when you subscribe, you put in the dates that are important to you and who it's for and you tell them their likes and stuff. And we go through and figure out and send us stuff automatically. And you get an email saying, hey, you know, they're getting, you know, whatever is getting this on this date. Just so you know.

Yeah. It's smart because anniversary birthday. All done. All of them. Bird day. Birthday. Sorry. All right.

This one person I can't find their name said send Amy to the Freedom Factory Mom Prix. Think Amy'd ever want to go race? No, she's done racing. She tried it. Oh, I spotted that. She's never doing that again. Yeah, she's not doing that again.

No, it's not even. That was scary for me. Scary for you. Yeah, spotting. That was scary. You spotted for Amy? Yeah. Of course.

It's what he does for living. He's an expert. Yeah, expert. You saw my work Saturday. great how was that spotting framey uh it lasted about it lasted three quarters of a lap yeah it was quick it was like cars and quaple's race

it was the green green all right yeah we're in it all right hold the break yeah that race was not because she was in that the bandolero cars in the front stretch of charlotte they were scary already so all right uh next question someone said you know i know you're into trading cards did you ever collect comic books or anything else as a kid. I brought a box today.

89 tops. Some good bubble gum. These are the hangar packs. These are fun because you can kind of see who's in them. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah. They're fun. Re-sealed.

That year you would want to get the Randy Johnson rookie. Yeah. It's like Ryan Sandberg. Oh, Sandbergs are all good in 80s. What was the question, sorry? Did you ever collect, like, comic books? I was big into starting lineups as a kid. Yeah.

I didn't collect anything, but I did enjoy, I did enjoy cartoons. It was a comic book around cars called cartoons. Mad magazines. I used to get tons of Mad magazines, you know, to fold the last page together, and it made some kind of funny thing. Oh, yeah. I used to, oh, man, I used to read Mad Magazine a ton when I was, you know, 9, 10 years.

Is it like Archie? same time. Arching Jugghead. Yeah. Did a little bit Archie and Jughead. Madd Magazine was a big deal.

I'm kind of flipping out right now. My mind's blown because it's just not doing it anymore. It's not around anymore. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, I don't know what happened

to Mad Magazine, but it was interesting for sure. Surprised my dad and Trisa let me read that considering how strict they were with other things like wrestling and stuff.

But no, I didn't really collect, collect anything. You know what I just remembered? Remember the tough stuff books for a card collecting? And it had like, it was one of the ones that told every, you looked the card up and it told the price. Like it's one of them really thick. Yeah, it's like same thing as Beckett.

Well, they put one of the pages had all the team's address for their stadium. Well, I sent, remember their Washington running back, Ricky Irving, remember him? Kind of, yeah. So I sent a car, two cards into him to get signed, got him back. And I thought, well, this is actually really cool. So I sent in, I had a Michael Irvin, Ricky card from the Cowboys. Oh, you send it in and never got it back.

I've been mad about that. That's why I hate the Cowboys. Why don't you just go on eBay and buy the card? Maybe it's my card. I don't know. Well, I'm just saying, does it get to close the loop? Yeah, maybe I should. Yeah.

I just remembered about that. Still mad. Yeah. Someone's to know, did you ever get into goosebumps? What hell is that? Was that after your time? I don't know nothing about that. I think that's the books.

No. Yeah, there's no stuff happening. No, sir. Oh. I want to go to the, uh, if, uh, I want to go to the antique mall. Oh, yeah. Oh, they got everything. They do.

They got a big antique mall here in Moorsville. A lot of comic book stuff there, too. Next question. You're just coming off your vacation. They want to know if you were to go to any country you haven't been to. Oh, um, I'll tell you, man. I there's a couple I want to go back to but I want to go back to Japan when we went to Japan in 1999 I wasn't I didn't eat sushi here in the States and it's different I know but I'm just trying to

say like I wasn't when I went to Japan I did not appreciate the opportunity that I had to like enjoy that culture all the food and different things I would love to go back to Japan and spend a week there with Amy. That'd be awesome. I'd love to go to Australia. I was there in 06. T.J. went, and I'd love to take my family back. That's a lot of fun.

It's so great. It is. And so we... We did it right. We did it right. But I'd love to go back and do that. But to a country that I've never been. Maybe a state, Alaska?

I've wanted to drive. There's this road from Vancouver-ish. up through to Alaska. And I wanted to drive that road because I don't know how long that might take, but there's all these old vintage mining towns and stuff that were, you know, that are still there and some original saloons and stuff like that. But that would be, and man, how beautiful would that be to drive up.

So much scenery up there, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Northern Canada up to up into Alaska. I've never been to Alaska. Would you like to do some of that gold mining stuff? I don't know.

Maybe. Yeah. Would you do one of those like cruises up through Alaska? Or do you want to just go and stay at like one spot? I kind of want to drive through the wilderness, if you will. You told me about this town that there's like this wrath or this. Oh, they did. Yeah.

You know what I'm talking about? We've talked about that on here multiple times. But there's a river in Alaska where, yeah. I don't know if they do any more. but it's like a seasonal thing where all these guys, you know what, you know, city slickers where they like paid to go Russell cattle,

remember? Yeah. And so there's dude ranches and stuff. And so there's a, there's a river in Alaska where I think, you know, I don't know if they still do this. It'd be curious if they do,

but guys get together and they build rafts in this particular town. and they set out on this river and go down this river until they don't want to do it anywhere. Alaskan log raft adventures on the Yukon River. When you told me what this, I was like, he's going to do it. Like, we're going to have to do this. There's guys that they'll build a 20 by 20 raft, put a couple of tents on it to be two or three dudes on there. They just float down the river and they cook and eat and talk and hang out and have fun.

and when they were done, they just parked a damn raft on the side of the river and get off. You're done. And so in this video that I was watching, and this was 20 years ago that I saw this, so it's very old. So they're going down this river, hanging out, video themselves,

and on the side of the river's old rafts that were from the last year, the year before, or several years ago, that guys were just like, yep, we're done, we're ready to get off.

Yeah, and I don't know that they do anything other than fish. and hang out and talk. What else could you do? Bullsh-ish. Yeah. I don't know.

Yeah. I mean, it sounds fun. It does. Yeah. Sounds cold. I tell you, I was on this trip. We went to St. Martins and Anguilla and a couple other places this weekend. And I would like to live on a boat for a chunk of time.

Yeah, I'd like to have my family and live on a boat. And not like a... like a catamaran or something like Carl Ledwards is doing, right? And sail and, you know, spend a month or something like that in the ocean. That'd be badass. I would love to be on a sailboat. What does it feel like to be on a sailboat and look out and not see a piece of land anywhere? Be wild, right?

Peaceful. It would be peaceful, wild. I followed a couple. A little bit of anxiety. I don't know. Yeah, probably. I follow a couple people that actually, there's like a family of four or five that live on. a boat and they're gone like that yeah and they like they're sitting there doing their school

work during the day yes they dock or they when i say doc they drop the anchor some of these places and they dive in and swim i mean i'd like to do it though we're like turn the technology off and like you might get on just to see what's going on but for the most part like yeah you're just out there like you're no connection to the world really i'll tell you man we went to st martin's and anguilla and we were we were all over these these islands going to marinas and getting on boats and getting in taxis and going here and going there and doing things. Losing your phone. And I'm there, they're living.

They're living. Just how we are oblivious to what's happening there at this moment, you know, they are just as oblivious to what we're doing over here. For sure. And it feels, yeah, it looks like a lot of fun. Amy thinks that we would go over there and do it. And after a while, we'd be like, all right, you know, this is, okay, this is like Groundhog Day, same thing every day, you know, but I don't know. I could get into it. Jay Wayne said, just make sure you take Wilson with you just in case.

Yeah, for sure. So Reddick thought he was running out of gas at the end of the race. What's that feeling like? Which time. It's frustrating. I mean, if you, when you, he didn't run out of gas, right? So let's be clear. Like he was...

He still won. He still won a race. He didn't run out of gas, but I'll say, the one race that I think about is Pocono. Me and Tony Jr., 2008, we had ran 5th to 8th all day. And we weren't good enough to pass anybody, but we were good enough to not get passed. And I busted my ass for 400, 500, 500 miles, whatever that, race was back then. It might have been a 200 lapper.

But I had busted my ass to, to, you know, finish what I, I wanted to finish what I started and get what I thought I should get. That's how I raced every race. And we ran out of gas off a turn two coming to, coming to two to go. Like, we were short quite a bit. That's a big racetrack. And Tony Jr. never really said that we were close. And I don't know, I got out, showed my ass a little bit.

I smashed, I grabbed my helmet and smashed the fender of the race car. And knocked a big ass, didn't offender. And I was just mad. But I kind of regret doing that. But Antonio Jr. was mad at me. He's like, no, that's not how we're going to act. But, man, if you know you're going to be short, is one thing, right? because you can pedal and do things during the run.

Kind of expect it. Yeah. There's times when we're in, we've been in races together, TJ, and we're running along, and all of a sudden, the crew chief would say, hey, can you save me a little gas here?

And it's like 10 to go, 15 to go. Like a little too long. I'm like, what the . Yeah. Like, I could have done that. I'd love to have started doing that 40 laps ago. Yeah.

But that makes you pretty nervous. Man, when you run out of gas, it just sucks because you just, you're bleeding spots. Yeah, you've just, you just, the race is ruined. I mean, most notably, obviously, Coke 600. Yeah. But at least there we got to coast across the line for a top 10.

Yeah. Vegas, similar. Vegas was similar ones. We're on third there, I think. Yeah. And then I feel like when the rules were reversed, we had enough fuel. We're running second to Kurt at Pocono. And we're listening.

And they're like, all right, Kurt, you got to save fuel. And I'm looking at his lap time. I just saw a clip. the other day where Brad beat us at Kansas. We ran second in Kansas. Brad's second career win. He was clutching the car down in the corner and saved enough fuel. Yeah.

And so. Well, they told Kurt to save fuel and I'm like, oh, we got this guy. He's got to back up to us. And I look at his lap time at Pocono. And he starts running faster when he's like going, he's slowing down, lifting earlier, and going faster. And I'm like, I'm like, damn it. Like, why can't this work out? Oh, yeah.

All right, everybody. Appreciate you all tuning in. It's been a fun show. I hope you'll check it out when it comes out later today. Thanks for sharing your day with us here on As, Jr. on YouTube. Xfinity's waving the red flag on Internet price hikes and raising the green flag for savings. It's speed and reliability you need with your Wi-Fi locked in,

one price, five years, no surprises, no late yellows, right to victory lane. It's Xfinity. We've got a winner. Imagine that. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets Get your bets now, ladies and gentlemen. Get your bets.

All right, it's time for Dirty Mo Doe. The segment brought to you by FanDuel. FanDuel is the premier gaming destination in the United States. And it's time to talk about Talladega. One of our favorite races when it comes to gambling. We don't need Russell for this. Just throw a damn dart at the dartboard. We're going to do a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of

We did a manufacturer parlay last week. One of them almost hit. Who was that? Not yours. Not mine. No, mine was terrible. I think it was, uh, the, uh, Russ, T.J. and Tim's kind of all agreed on it. Yeah. Larson Reddick.

Busher was the one that missed. You know who beat Busher? Who? Brad, because that's right. Yeah. I ruined it. Well, we head to Talladega. Um, the favorites are Ligano Blaney.

And Byron Reddick, Larson Elliott are in the conversation. Russell, what are your thoughts? I, I don't think you can go away from the Reddick train here. That's where I'd go. He's won three of the last 13 on drafting tracks, one both of them this year. Other than that,

I get scared at Talladega to even try to tell you what's going to happen. Oh, my gosh. 11 different winners in the last 11 races at Talladega. TJ seems to have. There's not a lot of trend. Some of these wins are like, like three of the last 13.

Well, two of them, because the right guy showed up at the right time. And things happened in front of them. them that were perfectly laid out. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, but like, you can't, it's not a dominating win like it used to be. Like, these guys used to dominate these tracks. And like, then you say, then you say, yeah, you get on that train because those are the guys that know how to manipulate air, manipulate, not the guy that gets the lucky push.

It's down halfway down the backstretch all the way to the line. That's like, you're counting that and like, you're giving it too much credit, Russell. Your predictor's wrong. Hey, came, he came in. here. That was TJ's main goal today. He was coming here. He was waiting.

He's been waiting for this. Russell, I've been waiting for this moment. To unload. Russell, did you tell him the backstory while you're mad at me? I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at you. Right before the race, it's Russell's fault. Your car ended up upside down.

Let's hear. Russell looks, Russell, we, I mean, Russell were having a, you know, we're just talking about stuff. And then he's like, don't wreck him. And then like, five minutes later, upside down. I said don't wreck him on the first couple laps is what I said. We almost made two. And the next thing I see, I turn it on and he's on his roof. Yeah. That's sound advice you probably should have defeated. I mean, I did say, I did walk away from

that saying I will do my best. He does have, he does have a predictor. Yeah. I think I would listen to a guy who owns a predictor. I mean, I can make my own predictor as well. Oh, I'd love to see that. Yeah. Tim's. You're always, you're always, you're always, You're probably the... What's up, Tim? What's up? You're the best person to ask. You didn't even say hi to Tim's yet.

You haven't even seen him. He said I. Did I? I think so. No, he did not. You're the best person to ask around Talladega, Daytona. I just... I do believe in the predictor.

I do appreciate Russell and his value, but this is Talladega. This is Daytona. This is a crap shoot. Thank you. What are we going to do? I think you just bet guys that are consistently up front and you hope they miss the wreck. They get the right time push. guys like Austin Dillon.

Tyler Reddick. Tyler Reddick. Brad Keselowski's up there. I mean, he's got to win one of these, right? Yeah. I don't know. I'm spotting. But they all have good odds, too.

Like Brad's plus 2,000. That's good for a guy who runs up front. Austin Dillan's plus 5500. That's good. You know, I would bet those guys and take a shot. Plus wreck avoidance. We got to look at that category. Crash avoidance.

Before last race, it was William Byer. Then he gets in a wreck. Now he's off the charts. Yep. So, well, you know, going into, he's still up there. We know going into Talladega, there's really no rhyme or reason. Of course, yes.

A little bit of money on Reddick, Byron, all these guys that we mentioned. Who were some of the dark horses? Give me two dark horses. Cody where are top 10? I like Zane Smith. Zane Smith, top five, top 10, win? I would start with top 10 if we can. Yeah.

He was top 10 last year. won the poll for this race last year. Finished top 10 and four the last five drafting track races. Okay. You sold me. But TJ doesn't like those numbers. You sold me. All right.

What about Stenhouse? People are going to say Stenhouse. Stenhouse. It's a good bet. That's haven't been that great a bit. Plus 5,000 to win. Do it. 123rd top 10.

They haven't been that great. He's always worth a bet. Yeah. He was runner up in the 500. The scrappier the race, the messier of the race, the better sent house. I kind of like Cole Custer, too. I like Eric Jones. Eric Jones.

Throwing around some names, I think you could throw into a top 10 bet. Yeah. We got some numbers on the championship, Reddick, plus 400 to win the championship. Do we have Denny's odds? He's 450. 450? With this, with the way. Dennybro knows.

And with the way things are going, I think that it would be a smart money to put down something on the guys that are in the top three. Yeah, this early. If you believe that they could stay there, Tyler Redick, I believe does. To Denny Hamlin, I believe does. We said it every year for the last, I don't know, it feels like 10 years. This could be Denny's year. I honestly feel like betting money on Denny to win the championship is a good idea.

I look around, you know, in that top five, top six. I see Larson, Chase Elliott, Byron, they're all kind of right outside the top, top five there. Those are the only other people in the conversation for me. Really? Like, if you're talking about making bets for the championship, everybody could chime in here, but I think you're betting the top three. If you believe those three, you're going to stay. And the only other people I would even consider putting money on would be guys in the top.

top six, top seven at this point. What do you think, Russell? I'm Reddick, Larson, Hamlin. That's where I would stay. I agree to. I think a way to try to bet them is to try to bet them on their slump. They're going to go through the roller coaster. Bet them on the slump. That's the best number you're going to get. And don't bet Reddick right now because this is the highest he's going to be. What about Blaney? How many weeks do you think the books need to recognize a slump? I would say two to three. Two to three bad races. Yeah. You'll go through that.

Like Bell did it last year. One three out the gate. Slow summer. It lasted longer now. But I would have put him maybe July. I would have bet him. Yeah. He's going to come back up.

Smart. I mean, it's crazy that we go a week later. Blaney's hot at Bristol. And now we don't hear from, you know what I mean? Like, to me, Blaney's still in the conversation. I know. That's been something that's always fascinated me. And I don't remember that being the case when I was younger.

But in the last like 15 years, we go from our championship favorite literally changes every week. Yeah. In turn. Zero last week. Zero this week. As a broadcaster, every week we go into the booth talking about another guy that's the championship favorite. Depending on what they did the last week.

It's nonsense. Does it worry with Blaney being like so many intermediate races in the chase? Like he hasn't been that great on those tracks. Yeah, but I mean, if he survives them, if he survives them, if he's survives them and gets to the light near the end. I mean, the season still ends pretty strong for him, doesn't it? Yeah. I mean, well, it's still what four or five of the ten races are on intermediates.

You still don't think Blaney can run fifth, sixth at an intermediate and, you know, still win at like a Martinsville and a Phoenix? No. Not. They got to get their act together. Well, I mean, this last week he got, I mean, he had a hole in his nose from the first stop. I understand. Yeah, I'm just saying, like, to his point, it's a 10 race championship race now, and you kind of got to look at it. Yeah, it's a bigger, bigger thing.

Yeah. I like Denny a ton for this. Reddick is certainly, if he can continue to be great. Kyle Larson just, I don't know if I should be nervous about him if he's not into top three. I think Kyle Larson or Chase Elliott and even William Byron could actually get a lot of points. But is it going to be enough in terms of the deficit they'll start the playoffs in if they are not at top three? It's hard to go against like Denny right now, though, where he's at and he always running. You know, you would know as well as anyone, how confident are you, Russell, in betting, for the championship if he's fifth or sixth starting the playoffs. I think fifth or six, you're okay.

Any further back, I would be worried. And that's for Larson. But when you look at, like, yes, yes, yeah. So if it's anybody. When I expect him to. You think he's going to, like, I expect him to be, yeah, I think he's going to finish in that three or four. Yeah, I do.

the highest percentage I have right now is third. Yeah. I mean, if he can finish top three, I gave him a damn great shot. It went into the championship. But, man, you know, everything I've heard and seen, I just feel like even a Kyle Larson will have a very difficult path forward to try to win the championship from sixth, seventh, maybe even fifth.

Definitely doable, but against. But when you look at those chase races, is they all set up for for larson or hamlin to me like it's like darlington those two come yeah but even redick's got a lot of speed Tyler's got maybe one of the best I mean he's obviously got one of the fastest cars but Denny is just more consistent to me like like I was we talked about earlier Tyler's went you know two or three of them have just been at the right times but he's in the right spot but Denny's leading a lot of like how many lapses Danny led compared to Tyler probably quite a bit right yeah we're not talking about Ty Gibbs who's you

Right in the middle of all this. Just won his first race. Yeah. Fourth and eighth in the stages this past weekend, ended up with the top 10 and ninth. Plus 2,200 to win the championship. If you do think he is going to do that, that's a good time of place that's right now.

I don't think so, though, so I would save your money. But I don't think he's winning this year. Well, I mean, if we're talking, I guess it's that time of year where you could basically say there's literally only about five or six guys have a shot at it. Yeah, it's going to take a heck of a run. How about that? Yeah.

Pretty cool. That's cool. Yeah, I like that. I do too. I kind of like knowing. Yeah. I mean, even Byron and Bell, which I would be kind of... What is it?

I'm feeling, I'm kind of nice and I'm relieved. The guy sitting in 16th isn't going to steal this thing. See you, Joey. I'm nothing against Joey. What are you? I love it. I love that it feels like it's happening, happening, I feel like it's happening normally. I just like, I love how this is working like a normal.

We're going to get a true champion. What a concept. I don't know, yeah. I don't know what I'm trying to say. You're trying to be nice. All right. Well, that's the Dirty Modo segment. Brought to you by Fanduel.

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