The Dale Jr. Download - Victory Edition: Dale Jr. & Connor Zilisch

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

Dale Earnhardt Jr. returns from the pit box to the studio for a new episode of Dirty Air. After making his debut as a NASCAR Xfinity Series crew chief and helping Connor Zilisch find Victory Lane, Connor joins Dale as a special co-host to relive their remarkable weekend:Dale Jr. wins in his crew chiefing debut with Connor Zilisch and the 88-teamPractice and preparation makes perfectHow did Connor react to the news that Dale would be atop the pit box?Pocono race winner Chase Briscoe joins the showPlus, during Ask Jr., listeners sent in questions regarding:JRM’s beer toast for Connor Zilisch’s winLearning how to race from Mark MartinBrad Keselowski’s pit stopAnd, during Dirty Mo Dough, the guys chat about the mid-season bracket challenge. Dirty Mo Media is launching a new e-commerce merch line! They’ve got some awesome Dale Jr. Download merch on the site. Visit shop.dirtymomedia.com to check out all the new stuff.And for more content check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaFanDuel disclaimer: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. Consumer Cellular disclaimer: New customers get a $5 credit on first five monthly invoices. Visit ConsumerCellular.com/DJD for details. Check out Dirty Mo Media on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMedia  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey everybody, it's Dale Junior. Welcome back for another episode of Dale Jr. Download. We're going to have a co-host, join us today, Conorzil, the winner from the Xfinity Race. And this episode is brought to you by Safety Culture. Thank you for everything they do. We're going to talk about the Xfinity series win. We've got all kinds of things going on.

Dirty Moe Doe. That's going to be a fun episode today. Asked Jr. That'll be another great segment, so let's get to it. The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. I'm still sour, man, that I wasn't your best man at your wet. When will you start mentally, like, getting ready for the race? Can you not tell I'm mentally ready?

Travis has some dumb ideas, but I agree with them on this one. It doesn't sound like you know what you're talking about. You haven't scratched the surface yet, no, boy. I mean, what the fuck do you won't? I just think the last few lapsed. It was just like stop every time. You're picky. This ain't walking in and have it your way, motherfuck.

All right? This ain't Burger King. Travis is like, wrapped us up. They all have no fun around here. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for another episode of the Dale Junior download. It's dirty air. It's Tuesday. And I'm here with my co-host, but it's not TJ Majors. We got a special

co-host guest today. It's Connor Zillich. What's up, Connor? What's up? Thanks for having me. It's going to be fun. It's crew chief. Yeah. Yeah, it should be a lot of fun. We've got a lot to talk about. Thanks for giving us a little a time today. And I want to remind everybody that this episode of the Dale Ginger download is brought to you by Safety Culture, the workplace operations tool-giving teams from the racetrack to the factory floor, what they need to get the job done quicker and improve every day. Safety culture is a partner of Track House where Connor does a little cup racing.

Yeah, sure. Actually, this weekend. Oh, is that right? Yeah. What are the safety culture folks like they pretty cool to work with? Yeah, track house has got as very. very lucky to have a lot of good partners and people and yeah safety culture is one of them they're mainly with Shane but they've spread out and done some races across the board and uh yeah enjoying the

nascar stuff i think Shane yeah Shane brought them into it and oh yeah they're they're they're having fun that's good um Shane seems like a cool dude yeah he's awesome and it took him a little bit to get warmed warmed up to everything here but um Yeah, I go to his house and he's got this farm that he turned into a racetrack and he bought these beater cars. And we go out there and race these beater cars around his farm. And he's a he's a fun dude. He's cool. He is not told anybody else about that.

Ah, shoot. Maybe I shouldn't have. But the beater car farm racetrack story. Yeah. That's like a lot of people have done that over the years. We had a little go-cart track on the property. And I bought, um, I cut a dirt track down at the bottom of the, hill on my property.

Yeah. And we bought 18 Revo indoor go-carts. Yeah. Gas power, though. And, uh, and we'd race them on that dirt track. And, uh, we'd pack it and get it ready. We'd spend all day getting the track right, you know, and get the top groove worked in. And we had a truck with racing, racing slicks on that we would pack the track with.

Yeah. And we had a, um, we had a wire, I, I piped in a, uh, water system from the creek. So we'd spray the track. And, man, it was first class. Yeah. And we'd invite junior motorsports or Hendrick Motorsports. We'd have 150 people come out there. We'd have like heat races and we'd spend all night, you know,

getting to eventual main event. Yes. It was fun. That's cool. Those are the most fun things to do, friends. Yeah, I got a bunch of pictures. I got a bunch of pictures because from one specific night where some people that SVG knows, Paul Morris and some other.

V8 supercar racers had flown. They shipped one of their cars here. I kept it at my shop, and they were going to take it to the wind tunnel and do some other stuff with it. And Paul flew over here with a couple other guys, Owen Kelly, a couple of other racers that would end up

actually end up racing over here for a while. Owen ran an Xfinity race or two, ran my late model for a year. But Paul used to race V8 supercars, and we still talk. today. Anytime SVG races, like he'll be out on the racetrack. Like we were at Mexico, and I'm texting Paul. And Paul's in Australia. And I'm like, hey, man, tell me what he's doing with his feet.

You know, tell me how he uses the clutch and stuff. So pretty cool. But yeah, those racetracks at the house, you got to build you one. You got you? I'm not. I still live with my mom and dad. I think they'd kill me if I tried to build a race track at our house. I'm surprised, man. As mature as you are, you moved, you went off to Europe when you were 12. Yeah. And now you're back home and you don't live alone. You don't erase it.

Yeah. I'm still a kid. Full time. They don't pay me the big bucks yet. You're a game in the systems, what I think. Yeah, well, I don't have to pay any rent. Sounds like Junior Motorsports needs to pay him a little more, Dale. Whatever.

He's doing good. He just made him a nice little check this weekend. Yeah, that's true. With that win at Pocono. The coolest thing that I learned about all of this is, so, Ila, my oldest daughter, says she wants to grow up to be a gymnastics teacher. And I was talking to your mom and dad yesterday, and she said she was an Olympic gymnast for Canada.

And I'm like, hey, I need to introduce you to Ila, tell Ila how to do this thing she wants to do. She wants to be a teacher. But, yeah, and then I tried to take them into the gift shop and get them a bag of here, Where's where's a bag of jerky boys beat jerky but we're out. Sold out. Stuff in stock.

Yes. Oh, that's a good problem now. My gosh. Yeah. Your dad apparently likes jerky and I was like, man, I got the best jerky in the world. I know. I need to get some. I need to get some.

I need to get some. It should be some. They should have it in there now that came in yesterday. I'll go over there after this. Put on Dale's tab. God. Yeah, you can have a free bag. Well, hey, let's talk about this race weekend.

We had a, we'll get to the cup race here in a bit. It'd be fun to get Cotter's take on that. obviously the Xfinity race went really well for us. I was asked to sit on the pit box. Marty had gotten suspended a couple weeks ago for lug nuts. I remember that race, and I got the text message that Marty was going to be in trouble. Yep. And I was like, well, I was like, man, he's time this perfectly because everybody knew about the challenges with the logistics to getting to Mexico.

And I thought, hmm, well, he won't have to go through that, right? And he decided, you know, he was going to actually go to Mexico and then forego the suspension toward the Pocono weekend. He thought I was going to win at Mexico and not Pocono. Is that right? Is that what was up? I think, no. But it would have been a pain in the butt to get every, all the travel stuff worked out.

But didn't, well, when you were at Nashville for the Xfinity race and it was the last stage. And I think the pick the crew guys knew that they didn't hit five on the last stop. Well, I guess we can tell this story. Can we? I assume. Well, what the hell is going to happen? Yeah. So Marty is out there.

You're running second? Yeah. Yeah, I had a chance to win. It was me and Allgaier, and we had the field covered. We knew. I get a text message with, like, dirty laps to go. There are lugs missing on your wheel. If we finish the race, we're absolutely.

getting suspended. And it's a fine. There's a hefty fine that goes along with it too. There was a conversation of bringing you to pit road. Yeah. And putting the lugs on so you don't get suspended. Or do we stay out there, finish the race, and take the suspension, which I'm sure is kind of common.

I mean, I'm sure that teams that are in this situation have this very conversation every time. So it's probably not too taboo to speak about it. but yeah, so we're sitting there going, hmm, well, I was like, listen, me and Bummy, Bumgarner, Mike Bumgarner were talking about it in the infield, and I said, I'm getting ready to go to Victory Lane. And they're like, hey, man, you know, should we pit and not get suspended? I was like, that's a Marty decision. Well, Marty wants to stay out there.

And I was like, well, he gets suspended. He won't have to go to Mexico. And they were like, well, maybe. And he ends up getting suspended. He decided to go to Mexico, thinking you were going to win the race. You ended up destroying the race car. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, finishing fifth or something, right, fifth?

Yeah, fifth, yeah. I don't know how. I don't know how I've got to fifth. I don't either. We did. Apparently he had the damn ball joint was about to break in half. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff. He ends up taking Pocono off.

Well, he texts me. I probably still have the text. you want to crew chief the car. I was like, are you serious? Like who else is, who else is going to do this? Right, we had Mike Bumgarner, who has crew chiefed our cars in the past? He's kind of like our top dude to technical director, runs everything on the shop floor kind of guy. Goes to racetrack overseas, everything between the four cars or five at times.

We got Corey Shea, who's done some crew chiefing for the fifth car. We got all kinds of talented. incredible people. Pat on your car could have done it. Yeah. I mean, you know, anybody could have done it besides, I'm not anybody, but anybody besides me, there's multiple people. So I was like, what is going on? What is he trying to do?

And Marty is a little bit of a wild card like that. It's kind of done it and seen it all kind of guy. So he knows he wants to have a little fun every now and then. And there's a unique relationship connection between our families. His dad, I'm sure, you know, I'm not telling you anything. You don't know, Connor, but for the people listening, his dad, Butch Lindley, is still today considered by many people in the industry as the best short track racer in history. In the 70s, he raced in the late model in sportsman division, which is now the Xfinity Series.

And he was really unbeatable. Beautiful blue or beautiful red, number 16. Anytime you see that car, it's just like, You know, you think right away what a talented man that Butch was. My dad raced against him. They had some battles. Dad won a couple, but usually got beat by Butch. And so there was some big respect there.

Marty was growing up as a kind of a grunt mechanic trying to find his way through the sport without his father's guidance. And my dad would have his guys picked Marty up on the way of the racetrack. I remember riding in a 15-pasture van one specific weekend. going to Atlanta. We didn't fly on planes. We used to drive in a van, and we're driving down the interstate. We pulled off in South Carolina on an exit ramp

and picked Marty up, and he went with us and was part of the team that weekend. And Marty would come in and out of our lives as a mechanic and then got itself into racing and ended up being a really, really good short track racer himself in Pro Cup and stuff like that. So his driver career doesn't take off. He goes into crew chief and finally.

And before he worked with Junior Motorsports, he was a Cowbush Motorsports doing trucks. So anyways, it's pretty cool that we get to work together. When we had the opportunity to hire Marty, I was thrilled because of the connection. So here we are, fast forward. And he's like, you should do this. You should crew chief the car this weekend. He's like, don't worry about it. The guys know everything they need to do.

You won't have to really, you know, worry about. adjustments and all the all the all the all the all the really fringe details and and he said what you will have to do I think you can do and I was like all right I didn't even know what those things were but it was fun and I'm glad I did it I got to the rate I was like hey I want to be in the meetings I want to just know everything I can know and I came to to Tech on Friday, followed the car through tech. I told Amy, I said, I'm going to go to the racetrack. Our girls and Amy were at a house in Pocono.

We had went to Hershey Park the day before, which was awesome. They're at the house, and I said, I'm going to the racetrack. I'll be there from probably 10 to 2 max. I just want to show my face, see what, you know, just kind of be there. I didn't want, I did not want to walk up on Saturday right before the race and hop on the bootbox. And that'd be the first thing I did. So tech didn't go well. We ended up failing, having to park over back by the trailer and wait for them to call our name again.

They called us again around 2 o'clock and we go back through. They didn't like our side skirt. They passed it the first time. The second time through, they didn't like the side skirt. They saw something on our other cars that they were like, oh, well, we'll check it on this 88 a little closer. Well, they made us take the side skirt off and put a brand new one on. And we had some spares in the trailer. We had the little hacksaw and cutting for that.

And, but we get the car through tech, and then I could take off and get to the house. So that was fun, thrilling. You're working on it in tech. It was an adrenaline rush. I can't, you know, I, so I can work on a race car, you know. I know how I can look at that race car and tell you what every party is, how it works, why it works the way it works. now the new cup car I can

you know I can somewhat do that but I don't know it as well all the physics and geometry and all that stuff still work the same but all the parts look different right so still learning on the cup side on the next gym but I can look at that affinity car and I've built those cars

and so that was really comfortable the you know on race day well hold a second Connor when you found out that Dale was the crew chief, what was your thoughts and what was going through your mind? Yeah. Well, at first I thought it was a joke. Marty texted me like two weeks ago and was like, I think we're going to have Dale

crew chief it. And I texted, I texted Dale and I was like, so you're crew chief in this thing at Pocono? And I don't think he knew for sure at the time either. He's like, oh, we'll see, maybe. I was like, man, I don't know how you, I didn't think about how you felt. about this? No, I felt good about it.

Was there any pressure? Like, was there like, oh, crap, now I got Dale Jr.? Yeah, definitely. There was definitely some extra, because I, you know, I can't let him come out here, crew chief at one time, and we go run 15th.

Like, that would be embarrassing. So, yeah, definitely there was some added pressure. But I just wanted to enjoy it, honestly. Like, it was just such a cool experience and such a cool weekend. And, you know, I hate Marty wasn't there to sit in Victory Lane with us and, you know, do his woo's and have fun with us. But, you know, at the same time, it was cool to be able to, you know, miss a key part of your team and still be able to go to Victory Lane.

So, yeah, I was shocked at first when Marty told me and I was, I didn't believe it. And, you know, it took about a week. And then, you know, I get a text on Monday. Yeah, I'll be at your meeting on Wednesday for the pre-race meeting. And I was like, man, he's taking it seriously. and then I got to the pre-race meeting and Marty told me that you were going to pit practice. And I was like, wow, I was like, that's good. I respect the dedication, right?

If you're going to do it, you don't just want to, you know, show up on Saturday and sit on the pit box and, you know, have someone tell you what to do in your ear. Yeah. I'm glad you embrace the role and, you know, did it the right way. And, you know, I think it was definitely played a part of us having a successful day, you know, having, having you, having you. understand the goals and the strategy and, and, you know, be able to manage the race from your end a little, little more seriously. And, you know, I definitely think you had more say than you expected to.

Yes, man. So that was the best part. Everything went really good. We, we, we, I stood by the, I stood by the pit box for practice, watched our lap times, got a lot of confidence in our car. We were in group. B, a couple of cars, the 7 and the 17, which were the, eventually we would understand. And we assumed it would be the best cars that weekend.

We're in group A. We fired off a little off of them. The entire second group kind of did. But our car started to match those fast cars, the 17 and the 7 after a few laps. And I'm thinking, hey, we're in a different group. I think our group is a little slower. Tracks warmed up. It's a little hotter.

But we're running as well as those guys at lap 5. and on through. We got a really good race car. We got a winning car. And it was your first laps on the racetrack. Literally, literally, the very first lap you ran on the racetrack went to P2 on the board. Yeah. And listen, dude, I mean, you're, I know, I know you hear this all the time and you're young and you really, I didn't know how, uh,

to take praise of any kind, really, when I was your age either. But that is a very rare quality. And it speaks to your talent. It speaks to the just raw ability that you just possess, a God-given skill. But also it speaks to your preparedness, your attention to detail when you're simming, work with Josh Wise,

is all of the things, how you're absorbing all of the meetings and the conversations. So when you go out there on the racetrack, you're not exploring. You're ready to hit the track and go make a lap. And that is so, so freaking awesome to be on a crew when you have a driver that can't go out there and do that. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah, dude. Do you remember going to places for the first time?

you know, back, back. Yeah. It's intimidating. Like, I was going down the front straightway for the first time, and I got off three, and I'm like, I needed damn binoculars to see turn one, and I was like, this is, this is, this is fast. Yeah. I remember pulling out on the racetrack for Talladega.

My dad called me one day and asked me to come test his Xfinity car, and I was 16. And we went to Tal. I showed up to Talladega, and they were testing motors, and he said, all right, get in. I had only raced a street stock, maybe some late model stock stuff too. Short tracks. Short tracks. Yeah, half mile. And nothing more than 360 horsepower.

So I pull out on the racetrack and I'm looking down the back straight away. And I see the bank in a turn three off in the distance and the track wraps around toward turn four. And I'm thinking, how does it not fly out of the racetrack? When I get down here, how do I not just ramp on out of this place? And they tell you you, you got to be flat out. Yeah. They're like, well, even back then, he might have been lying just to make sure I wouldn't lift, but he's like, if you lift off the gas, you're going to burn the pistons.

It's, you know, it's jetted a certain way that you've got to stay in the throttle. You can't lift. It'll burn the motor. So he scared me into running wide open. But, yeah, I remember, you know, I remember going to racetracks and being purses. intimidated and mainly just not so much i mean i knew i was going to have we had a lot of practice you know yeah yeah we get 20 minutes and we're very fortunate to have simulators that are so accurate yes um yeah and the simulators we were running the exact same lap times lap times that we

fired off at and that's tough sometimes like some weeks you know we miss it mexico we missed it we were three seconds faster in the simulator than we were at the racetrack. And there's times that, you know, you hit it in times you don't. And this weekend was definitely one of the ones where, you know, Justin did a really good job, tune in the tire to make it as accurate as possible. That's good. Well, it was pretty impressive. Here's a little inside knowledge.

So there's some changes that will happen to the car. between practice to qualifying and then back to the race. There's a, let's say there's a short list of things they'll change and adjust. And they're probably relatively common and similar week to week. It's not like a challenging puzzle. But Pat, I saw the list of things we're going to change. And I'm like, yep, I don't need to look at this.

Pat is going to do it. That's not something I need to worry about. so there's one thing that I didn't do, right? There's a crew chief job that I wasn't privy to or wasn't really messing with. But, you know, I was still really not doing a whole lot other than just trying to, just being present for practice and so forth. And sort of, you know, just kind of starting to make. relationships with these guys, right, on the team.

It was fun talking to your guys and getting to know them even better. Where were they working before they came to us? Where do they go to school? What did they want to be when they grew up? You know? Yeah. All those things. So had some great conversations.

And by time we get to Saturday, we were ready. We had went to the track house facility and, in Concord. I did three stops with the practice crew, with them during practice. They, I think, set that up just for me to really get a couple reps. They weren't really practicing that day. So that was super nice of them to do that.

Literally, this is the same, Marty does this job. So this wasn't like a, we didn't adjust any, we didn't change anything. I just took Marty's place. He does this job for the pit stops every week. week. Basically, the left front tires laying flat on pit wall. When the car comes in, everybody gets, you know, once everybody kind of gets out of my way, I can take that tire, set it on the ground. But there's a stripe across the surface of the tire that signifies

where one of the lug holes is so that when the carrier grabs it, he can see that stripe and know to line that stripe up with one of the studs. And so I have to make sure that that stripe is at top dead center, 12 o'clock. So I put the tire on the ground with the stripe at the bottom, and I roll the tire forward toward the car to where when I get it out there, fully extended the stripes at the top, I got to get it out of the way of the jackman, so he does it, I don't slow him down.

And as well as the changer, they both got to get through. And that's it. He grabs a tire, and then my attention may go immediately to the right front. did it get over clean. He rolls the right front to us, to me and the sign guy. We got to make sure we'd corral all of those things and make sure they don't get loose and get a penalty. So it's pretty simple.

If it goes right, it's easy. But we've seen some problems in the past where we've gotten popped for some penalties where those things can go wrong. So one little thing, everybody has to do everything right. But that was fun. I was more nervous about that than anything else. I would be too.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a small job, but it's a big, big responsibility. Yeah, and they were the first, so we did three stops at practice, and each stop, they were like, hey, you can't do that. You got to change this. Hey, I need you to do this. That's not going to work. And so they're serious, and there's guys that pros, and they're like, if you do it this way, we're good.

If you don't, if you screw that part up or this part of that part, we're going to be a little slower. So they were serious about it, and they held me accountable. That was fun. So that was probably what I was most worried about. We get on the pit box, and I asked Marty, I said, hey, do you go to the car? Because I didn't really want to go. I didn't want to not be there if you're used to Marty being there.

I wanted to be there. Marty's like, I don't go to the car. I'm like, oh, okay. Marty's different than most crew cheese I've ever worked with. He does things a little differently. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I've not worked with enough to know, but. I've worked with a few

and yeah they're all they all do things differently and you gotta get used to it yeah but like most of my cruises would eventually

come out to the car and give you uncles or something right Marty doesn't go out to the car so I was like all right I won't go to the car

either then I don't need to be you know showing up out there for no reason I asked Steve LaTart I said hey you know

Steve LaTart is one of my best friends and as I said to him a couple days ago I was like, man, every, you've always, you always have a way, you know, a good friend knows when to be there. And Steve's the kind of guy that if you're getting ready to get involved in something, say we're going to do some broadcasting work or something, and he knows a shortcut or a tip of any kind.

He'll be like, hey, man, they're going to ask you this, make sure you know this, or whatever, right? He's going to give you the answer to a question on the quiz, so to speak, metaphorically. He's that kind of guy. And he always, you know, if he can help you out or if he can help you cut a corner, he's going to give you the answers. And so that's the kind of friends you want. And I told him, I said, hey, man, you know, I think you should come up and hang out. And he's like, oh, I'm not going to miss that.

And I told him what I was going to do on the pit stops. I said, that's what you probably want to watch because that's the part that I probably screw up. Yeah. And I was like, otherwise, man, come hang out on a pit box. If you see something,

say something. I ain't too proud. I'm not a crew chief, right? I'm not going in there going, I got this. Yeah. So I was like,

everybody come, hang out. If anybody, you know, sees the way we can make this better, let's do it. So I didn't care. He come and hung out a little bit.

He got up there after, in the middle of stage one or so. I can't remember exactly when, but he hopped up there. He just sat over there. They're quiet, talking to some of our guys on the pit box, which I thought was cool for them. And we're, you know, green flag drops, and that's when all the kind of anxiety and nerves went away. As soon as you come off turn, you know, we had a little conversation before the race or under the pace lap, say everybody, bra, bra, bra, we're going to have a good day.

This is awesome. Pit crew, they're confident. I can see in their faces. They got this. They know what they're doing. You know, they work on Sundays. This is no big deal. um pat's feeling good guys on the box are feeling good everybody's pumped and i think the reason

why everybody felt like this was going to be okay was because we had been meeting and sitting and talking for the last four or five days right yeah it's nothing new the community the vibe that i got from marty was uh almost like he gave us he gave us the playbook on wednesday and then he just kind of stood set back and was like as we get the race started i'm like yeah man we're on our own so pat is marty's car chief right-hand man he's been they've been together for before here yep been together for a long time pat is on the ground with the crew never came up on the box maybe once but he he he was the brains he was the he was the wizard of odds behind the curtain and so it was so much fun, dude.

I'm telling you, I wish I could relive this day over and over and over. Because once I sort of, we get through about halfway through stage one, and, you know, that was a very basic, hey, we're going to run to the finish. We don't need to flip that stage. It's not even a conversation. If we're going to flip a stage, it's stage two. Stage one, straightforward. Yep, don't need gas, not going to pit.

So we ran that stage, and that was, you know, That was, it was good that it was that way. And I think every stage, for every first stage and every race for the Xenity Series is probably just pretty straightforward. There's no stopping. Can go on a tank of fuel. So, okay. So that was nice. I looked over on a sheet of paper that the engineers were writing on.

We're up there just writing notes like crazy. Yeah. And it, and it's, I write a lot of notes. I know I'm rambling everybody, but I like, I write a lot of notes because I'll write down something. may see this if you ever sit around me. I write down that's very obvious sometimes, but I need to write it for my mind

to remember it. I can remember things by reading it off of a page, but if my hand writes it, it's like locked in. And so I'll be sitting down there thinking about things that I know I need to remember for stage two or for stage

three, and I'll just write them down, and that locks it right in my brain, and that's how I work. And that's the way I do broadcasting as well. And so I look over at the engineer, and he had two rounds, TB, track bar. And I was like, oh, shit, nope. And I was like, Pat, he comes over. I'm looking down. I'm like, man, I think it was this what we were talking about.

I was like, you got the, you're going to put two rounds in the screwjack? He goes, yeah, screwjack. And the engineer, there was just a little, somebody got a little confused about what we were going to do. Yeah. And so I was like, I don't remember, but I was just, I looked down at Pat and I was like, Pat, you got them boys, you got that, you got that shit figured out, you got them boys straight? Because the crew guys are the ones that are going to go over the wall to do this. Yeah.

Right, they can't stick it in the wrong hole and turn the wrong screw jack. That was the moment where it, where the switch flipped. That's when it started to feel comfortable. And I started to really feel like, you know, I got to, I started to understand what my involvement in my role was. And so from that moment on, we started, we got into stage two. There's about three different strategies that you can do at this point. We can stay out and win the stage pit at that moment, and we're going to lose a lot of track position.

But we've got great stage one and stage two points plus a playoff point, and then I can just say, hey, man, you're going to race from 12th or so and get the best result you can get me. Or we can flip the stage, come in a little bit early, give up the stage point, give up the playoff point, and put ourselves in a really good position to win the race. That's what the 17 and the 7 did. We needed to be within about 10 seconds of the leader to do that.

We were. Or we could win the stage, continue to run into stage three, not pit, and only pit one more time and race it to the finish. That is the best strategy because we win the stage, we get the stage points plus the payoff points, and we get all of the track position. And now we are the leader.

But we'll have a little bit of a tire deficit, and we can't, and if we lose the lead, now we're at a tire deficit and we're in dirty air. So then your job gets really hard as a driver. This is sort of similar to what we had done in 2014 with Steve and I, and this was something that we as a team had talked about in our meeting Wednesday. And the one thing that was important, I think, was when we left you out when the 17 and the 7 come to pit road and you now are the lead car,

I think in that moment you gained a ton of confidence in the car. Right? You're driving away from the car. guys you can see it right you'd up to that point in my mind we're getting beat by the 17 that day unless you know you can kick some ass on a late restart or something 17 was the best car yeah seven and us were about even maybe this you know whoever's going to be in front was probably going to control the second place finish so that's kind of how it was looking to me but when we put when we were able to get out there and have a couple restarts and a few other things where you

could drive away, I think it flipped a switch in all of our minds, yours most importantly, that, hey, man, if we have this track position, we're good enough to keep it. Yeah. Right. And even if that 17 gets in my mirror, I can hold him off. I'm going to hold his ass off. Yeah. Right.

And so that was really important. And that was something I didn't really, I wasn't planning for that, but that's something that started to happen. It gave you confidence. It gave us the confidence to gamble on this. risky sort of strategy because it was a risk on fuel. And I'm standing there talking, Tanner is sitting next to me. Tanner is our engineer.

Tanner is in his first year with us. Tanner worked with niece at the trucks for the last three years, two years. He's been in NASCAR for four years flat. Before that, he was going to UNC Charlotte, I believe. Yeah, engineer. We're not even thinking about racing. So this guy's still very green. Super sharp, though.

And every question I had for him that weekend, he had an answer for. But I'm standing up pacing at this point. And I'm like, man, should we do this? This is crazy. Because if I run his ass out of gas, I'm going to look like the biggest dumbass. Everybody's going to go see, see, told you so. This is why we shouldn't have done this. Yep, this is exactly why we shouldn't have done this.

Look at Dell. Dummy. And so I'm like, but shit, man, we could, this is so easy. This is exactly what we did in 2000. And this is, we talked about this, this is, this seems like the obvious thing to do. And I'm standing over Tanner going, hey, are you f*** sure about this fuel? Are you fucking sure? I'm like standing over him.

And I would walk away. I'd walk to the back of the pit box and I'd holler from back there. Tanner! You fucking sure! Every like five seconds. And I am trying to get him to crack. You wanted to say no So you can

I want him to I'm beating it out of him Like I'm trying to get him to crack And go Oh I don't know I don't know But every time He's like

It worked We're good We're good to 70 We're good to 70 And that's set lap 70 Right That gets us in our window Yeah

It's 32 33 laps Yeah I'm like All right We're going to be I said I said to him I said

I want to be one lap To the good Like I want to be able to run 101 laps confidently. Our race was 100 laps. I said, if we get it yellow, we'll save the fuel we need for the green-white checkered during that period. But I want to be, can you tell me that I can go to 101? He's like, yep.

And then I'd get up, walk away, and had to holler from the back of the pit box. You f*** sure, Tanner! Tanner! And I mean, I'm trying to get him to waver a little bit, but he's solid, man. He's like, nope, I'm confident. We got this. And I'm like, all right, we're doing it. we're doing it staying out yeah and you win the stage awesome held the track position got to stage

point and and then uh you know steve says to me he's sitting there he's like all right man he's like you need to tell everybody on the radio what you're doing i was like oh yeah he's like uh yeah you need as many people as you can to buy into this they're scanning you yeah all the crew chiefs are listening to our radio and that's right we have an audio transcript too on the the GM tools so we can have everyone's radios and read what they're saying yeah so that was where Steve comes in he's like hey man tell everybody what you doing I was like oh okay so I'm telling you hey Connor guess what we're gonna do blah blah blah blah blah I paint the whole story out right and just oh man we're gonna win this race you just watch this is great strategy here's what's happening and the two

another Chevy driver and the 16 colleague car, they stay out. They do this with us. Whether it was because they heard what we were doing, it doesn't really matter, but we needed a buffer between us and the 17. Yeah, more than some space to get some, get to the lead on the restart. Keep the clean air, yeah. So that was pretty neat. Whether you're on the track or the job, wherever you are,

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Your team gets better every day. That is what safety culture is all about. Want to see how it could work for your crew? Head to safetyculture.com slash SVG. You know what? In the end, the strategy really didn't matter. So, you know, if you don't lose the lead, we could say that the strategy was one of the main reasons why we were,

won the race. But, you know, we talked about the restarts. You know, I got all this data in front of me telling me, all right, man, if you line up in the outside line, 71% of the time you're going to gain a spot, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, I got all this information, this whole report in front of me to tell, to sort of help understand what we need to do

and to give you information. You have the same report. You've read it. You studied it all week. And so we're doing what we can on restarts. unfortunately on one particular restart we didn't get the push we needed the inside line did a better job

they got off into the corner and we lost the lead and I'll turn it over to you at this point now it's in your hands I've done what I can do on the pit box but now we're in stage three and you're not coming back to pit road thankfully I don't have to worry about

setting a tire on the ground and doing something wrong but now you've got to drive the race car you've got to figure out a way to get the lead back so what's going through your mind at that particular point when you've had all you know you've i've told you hey man if we're keep the lead that's what we got yeah this is what's happening that's what i need and uh restart didn't go our way and well the first one did so in stage three the first one goes our way and i get the lead and jesse's jessie's in second and the 17 and the seven are behind him and justin's trying to pass them and just and just and Justin couldn't get by him.

And the 17 passes Justin and gets into third. And I'm leading the race, and I'm watching the two get smaller and smaller and smaller. And I'm driving away as the two's holding them off. And I talked to Jesse about this yesterday, and I was like, you won me that race. Like, that was important, right, to have the two hold the 17 off because we had to run 10 laps in stage three to get into our fuel window before we could pit. So you told me, all right, these 10 laps, you know, we got to run qualifying laps, get out front, and set yourself a gap. And Jesse was able to hold the 17 off. And Justin actually told me he was like, the 17 was so damn close to wrecking the two because he was just blocking.

And, you know, the 17 would get to his right rear in the middle of the corner. And Jesse would just clear high and take it. And yeah, Justin said that the 17 was about a wreck him. So he finally gets by. and when he gets clear the two, the 17 was three, four. Oh, my God, he was absolutely flying. And we pit on what lap, 67? We pit a little early, earlier than we anticipated we were going to.

Yeah, we could run to 70, but we were losing that time we were losing to the 17 was critical. We couldn't stay out. We needed to pit. We were going to run another lap or two, but we were losing the weight was going to cycle was going to put us behind the 17 if it's when it's all said and done because he's got to come to pit road too yeah right yeah everyone's got a pit we just have less opportunity to go farther into the window so yeah we uh he's coming and and you know he gets within five carlings and you tell me to pit so um actually i looked at it yesterday and that was like the best pit road run anybody did all race that one i did

i nailed it so um yeah it was uh we did did the green flag stop our stop was really good good and, you know, I look in the mirror and the two car is straight away behind. And I'm like, all right, you know, that was a good cycle. And then the caution comes out. And immediately, I was like, hell yeah. And you come over the radio, you're like, it's going to work out. Great for us. I had, what, one lap on my tires at the time, maybe, not even a lap. So, yeah, we cycle back to lead. Everybody else has to pit. And we don't have to pit. We just pitted. We're good to the end on fuel. This helps our fuel even more, because we're, we need these cautions to, you know, give you some peace on the pit box, you know,

make sure that we're going to get to the end of the race. So, yeah, the caution saved us. And, you know, I was able to restart from the lead. And that was the restart that I didn't get a good push. And I think the 7 and the 17 were on the bottom. And the 2 was lined up out back behind me. And the 17 and the 7 got such a good run. And they both passed me down into one.

and I was running third for a little bit. And then another caution comes out. And I think this is the caution where the 7 and the 17 about wrecked each other with Justin. Justin was underneath the 17. And I was row 2 on the outside. And Justin drives it off in there and just the 17s on his door. And Justin got loose and slid up the track and hit the 17. And that was the moment where I was like, I have a chance to win this race now.

Because I went behind the 2 and the 16. And I knew we were better than that. them and whatever. A few more cautions come out. And, you know, with 10 to go, I think we restart. And I'm restarting from third in row two. And it's funny. Because in stage one, you know, you were getting warmed up to the crucci frule.

And, you know, you were more quiet. And by the time we got to stage three, I mean, you're on the radio, we're going to win this race. You know, you go execute this restart. And you're pumping me up. You know, Marty doesn't do that on the on the radio. He's a more quiet guy, but you were kicking me in the ass on the radio, and I could feel the emotion through the radio. It was cool. And you know, you were amped up and telling me what to do with the side draft and coaching me up as much as you could.

And yeah, that last restart, I passed the 16. I start row two on the outside. I get by the 16 and, you know, I've got eight laps to get by the two. And we're a good bit faster. And, you know, I was pressuring them. And one thing about the Xfinity cars is, you know, that I've had to learn is the bubble is so big when you get behind a guy and you can have a run off the corner and you can come, you know, three back, two back, and you get to one back and you push them away in the air. Yep. And it's tough to pass because of that because, you know, you can have such a good run off the corner, but it doesn't matter because you lose it right when you get within that bubble. So I realized that I was going to have to make my pass on the entry of the corner and I was going to have to, you know, try and pack air and get them

loose and do something like that to pass the two. So I'm pressuring them and I'm a lot better in the tunnel turn and every lap in the tunnel turn I'm making up ground and I'm getting really close. And one lap I get, you know, within two or three car lengths of them and in the tunnel turn and we're going into three and I drive it off in there to try and, you know, get to his inside to pack air, you know, get to his left for a quarter panel and get them loose. And he did it himself. He made himself get loose. I didn't even have to do anything. So, um, Yeah, he overdrove the corner and I was able to get up under him. And one thing that Jesse did that I actually thought was really smart,

that after the race, I took note of it. But when I was, I came off the corner at his left rear. And I pulled, pull away so that I can time the side draft at the end of the straightaway to get the run and clear him into the corner. And he actually lifted as soon as we got onto the straightaway so that he could get to my right rear and side draft me. to the corner. So that was pretty smart of him. I told him yesterday. I gave him some props for that, but I still ended up clearing him down into one our car. We just, you know, wrap the bottom and

got by him and, you know, that was the race-winning move. But yeah, it was a, it was a cool, cool day. Were you nervous? Like, as a driver, you know, you get those restarts and you're nervous and, you know, I imagine it's the same from the pit box or even more because you have Yeah, you're not in control. Yeah, you're driving a car. I think you're more nervous as a driver. You're more nervous as a driver because you are the quarterback, right? As an, you know, the owner or the crew chief, you're more like the tight end or a receiver.

There's other players on the field and there's other things going on. But the quarterback's kind of got the ball in his hands at all times. And as an owner, you don't offer nothing. Yeah, to the weekend. You're there. You're just there. Yeah, you were there. And it's like, I mean, it's awesome.

Don't give me your own. But damn, man, there's no sense of competition, right? Yeah. You're not really part of what's happening. But, you know, I learned a few things that I need to be, you know, I need to be more visible on the radio. I've always not done that because I didn't want the other, you can't do it for all four all the time, right?

And I didn't want to be like, all real, you know, he loves, he loves Carson. Carson raced his late models. He's going to take care of him and not do what he needs, you know, not do the same for the other guys. I didn't want anybody to get twisted. So I would always really be kind of hands off. But this weekend really helped me. This weekend was so helpful for me in so many ways beyond.

just crew chief in an Xfinity car and understanding what that looks like. I gained a bunch of confidence to go into the booth on Sunday and actually join Steve a little on talking strategy. Usually whenever we get into a pit cycle or strategy conversation, I step back. Yeah, he does it. That's his job. That's what he's there for.

but I felt like that, man, I could confidently, like, add a little or agree with him or bolster his point of view. And that was helpful. So, and I know, hey, people are going to go, yeah, you, you know, you crew chief for one fucking race. But, like, it really did, like, give me a little bit of confidence to sort of, you know, understand more. Yeah, help support Steve. I kind of understand. I always understand because Steve's so good at describing what we're about to see.

He's way ahead of it. But I'd easily never got involved in that conversation. The other thing that it helped me with was being more communicative on the radio, like speaking, telling you guys what I see and think. Yeah, it was funny. When you were one of the cautions come out and you're telling me, you know, side drafts, You were talking to me about that, and then you said something else, and you're like, I know I'm talking a lot. And I was like, like, no, keep talking.

And, you know, I guess I had to give you the confidence that, you know, that I am listening. And, you know, I'm 18. It's my first year racing this stuff. I have plenty to learn. And, you know, you're a guy who's learned those things. And if you can tell me something that I, you know, if you can tell me something that can save me for making a mistake, or save me from having to learn it myself, then, you know, that's helpful. And, you know, I was definitely taking in what you were saying. And it was helpful. You know, it's not often you have someone on the pit box that has been through what you're, you know, as a driver, what you're about to go through. And, you know, Marty's got a racing background. And, you know, he's able to help. But it's different when, you know,

you're up there and you're able to tell me things that I can use and utilize on the racetrack and and you know that was that was cool to be able to have that and you know I'm glad that because usually you know you're there and you know you watch the race and you know you don't have much say and you don't you don't talk on the radio and you know you definitely made a difference on Saturday and helped me some people and I was a little bit this way some people So when you're racing a car or really doing any kind of a job, how much information are you able to absorb at the same time as you're doing this job? Can you handle one person talking to you?

Can you handle two lines of communication, three, four, five, all at the same time? Some people aren't built that way. You got a spotter, you got a crew chief. You may have an owner that's conversational as well, like a Roger Penske or a Hendrick that will drop in every now and then. There is a point, I guess, where I thought, man, I might, you know, you could say so much that you kind of take his focus off of the most important thing, and that was, you know, what he needed to be thinking to get this restart right or whatever, right?

And so it was pretty impressive to see you, to see you kind of be able to take every little piece of advice and put it on the right shelf in your mind and know where it was and know when to use it and know when to go to it when it was time to use that advice. And that's a very good quality to have. But listen, man, when it all comes down to the end, it wasn't nothing about the pit strategy

it wasn't anything about what the crew chief did you drove the car you got you got the lead when we needed it at the end of the race you made the moves that got us into victory lane um it was a like I it still hasn't really sunk in like I can't I was standing there everything when you come off a turn four and

they're going to win this or turn three you I can't see you. I'm watching, so I'm watching on the monitor a little bit, but when you come off the corner and started yelling. Yeah. I was like, he knows he's going to win. He knows, you know, he knows he knows he's going to win this race. That was like such a relief.

Yeah. No, that's the best thing ever. When you come off the corner, you have made it to the finish line yet. And, I mean, that, that fucking damn button. Yeah. It's always there. It's always there.

If you're going to say something, you've got to have the bottom. button on. It doesn't feel as good if you don't hear it. Somebody has to hear it, even the good and the bad. Yeah, exactly. As soon as I came off the corner, that's the first thing I went to. The guys, it was so much fun, man, sitting on that pit box. You can't really see out into the pit road because of the monitors, but I could see the water and everything flying up in the air. That's cool. So I know that there's a celebration going all down there. You just can't see it. And then, and I turned around and me and the guys on the pit box were, Amy,

said that we might all broke each other's ribs. I got up the next day and I was sore all over. You didn't know why. We were all, we were punching the shit on each other and back slapping. I had two ribs out on my right side the next morning. I know shit. Like I woke up sore from all of the like punching and backslaffing. I think we've done a good job sort of putting a bow on on the Xfinity race. Hey one more thing. One more thing. In Victory Lane. I told Dale, I said, you know, I got out of the roof hatch, right? And he said, you know you didn't. It was funny.

Yeah. So what did you think about that? Well, I said on this show several weeks ago that if anybody comes out of the roof hatch, I assume they're cheating up the roof hatch. And that they've opened this roof hatch just sort of. This is turned on you. So NASCAR, when they tech it later, oh, if they find something, well, I've opened it. You know, it could have happened when we opened it to celebrate.

break. Yeah. And so because I'll tell you where this comes from. He used to racing at DEI had a teammate Michael Walter, Slugger Labby, the Blue 15. When we went to Tallinnia, Daytona, I knew I was racing the 15 for the win. Me and him were going to help each other if we could, and it really came down to who was leading at the end who was going to win and who was going to help. Yeah.

And if I could cycle myself somehow early in the race in front of it. him then I was he was going to help me win and if somehow he was in front late I was going to be the one helping him and I knew what they did to their cars and I knew what we did our cars we'd come down pit road on you know early in the race start taking rounds out of both back springs getting the car down yep get you know you'd cross the tech legal and then you you'd make it illegal in the race and do all everybody did all these things but we were doing it and I knew that slugger was aggressive and we were too with our car. It had to be.

And we were, you know, we were sharing a lot of information, but there were other things that maybe we didn't share. And Michael would come out of the roof hatch when they won. And I'm like, they must be messing with that roof hatch. I bet that roof hatch is cheated up. Yeah. Because if you can raise that roof hatch a little bit during their lap, it would knock the air off the spolar.

And I'm like, I bet they're doing something. So that's kind of where I have carried that from. And you don't see many people pop out of the roof hatch, and if they're doing it at Daytona and Talladega, I'm absolutely thinking your ass is cheating. I don't care if it's junior motorsports. You don't care if you're the crew chief. Yeah, now everybody's coming out of the roof hatch where we win.

Well, Justin told me, he said before the race, he's like, if you win the race, you have to get out of the roof hatch because you were my chief. And you said that. So, yeah, that was the first thing. I did when I stopped is I popped that thing open and climbed out. It's a cooler way to get out of the car. Yeah, it's a really...

I hate them. I think it's goofy looking. Then getting out to the window? I know either there. So if you, like, get trapped up against the fence or something in a crash, you can come out of the car. Because, like, popping the side window out, climbing that way with all the headrests, it's just not possible. So I understand why we have them, but I just... I like the...

I like getting out of the room. I think it looks cool. Really? I do. I do like it. I'm not with you on this one. I think I will disagree. I think it's like cartoonish.

But hey, I'm, you know, I've never come out of one. Maybe I would enjoy it. Yeah. It don't matter how you get out of the car when you win. I mean, that's for sure. Who cares? Hey, TJ, I like that phone. Is it new?

Yeah, I got this awesome new phone. I've recently joined the consumer. cellular family, and they hooked me up with a great phone and a great service. You're telling me that your phone actually works at the racetracks? Yeah, my phone has been excellent at the racetracks, and honestly, you can't beat the consumer cellular service and the offers they have going right now. I mean, that's cool, but I'm assuming that it's probably kind of expensive, right? Yeah, that's funny.

Consumers' Cellular is a steal of a deal. I don't know why more people have not made this switch. Nationwide service, fraction of the price, the two-for-60 plan, no long-term. contract. I mean, it's awesome. All right, I'm in. So how do I get this deal? They basically have an elite pit crew on standby waiting for you to call and make the switch. It's 100% U.S.-based customer service. It takes around 20 minutes and it'll be one of the best decisions you ever make. And now it couldn't be a better time to switch a consumer cellular and get $25 off with code DJD-25. That's DJD-25 for $25 for $25

off when you switch your consumer cellular. Go to consumer cellular.com slash DJD and use promo code. DJD-25. We got done with Victory Lane, and I, you know, I ran to the media center and was sitting there doing some of that, and I text Stefan, and I'm like, hey, man,

you're sitting next to me at this point, and I text Stefan, I said, hey, can they get me out of here? Because I wanted to get to the tech. Yeah. I was, like, super nervous. Even when I'm not at the track and we win a race, like I won't tweet.

Like, woo-hoo, you know, I won't tweet anything until I hear text clear. Yeah. Because I don't want to, you know. So I ran over to the garage, and they're pulling the left side trailing arm off, and they're doing all kinds of stuff, right, that they do every week. And I'm standing there. You were nervous.

I was, f***ing nervous as hell. And so, you know, because they, I watched us go through tech on Friday, and they were tough. They tech the shit out of us. Yeah. And I'm sitting there going, dang, this ain't over yet. And, you know, this has been an awesome damn day, but it all go to shit right here in a minute if they don't like something. So I stood there and went through that. That was pretty exhilarating.

Yeah. I remember I walked over and I was like, I asked you, I was like, everything good? And you're like, man, they're looking at this left-roo-roo-trail-in arm really closely. And I didn't get like a, oh, yeah, we're good kind of vibe. It was like a, I don't know yet kind of vibe. Yeah. They have these little tools, and they're messing with the surfaces of the, where the trailer arm mates up with the rear-en-housing and so forth,

and there's a couple of parts of pieces in there, and they're messing, they're looking. And then they put it down, and it's like, okay, all right, I think we're good there. The guy moves on to another part. Well, here comes another guy. He squats down. He's messing with it. And I'm like, it's not over yet. What's this guy looking at?

doing it. The other guy looked at it. It's good. So, but they're, they ain't no bullshit. Them inspectors. Yeah. They don't, they ain't playing no favorites. No, they have no friends. So, um, moving on to Sunday. Chase Briscoe wins

the cup race. Finally gets him a win for, uh, Joe Giz racing. Uh, he's going to be calling in here in a minute. Uh, that was a pretty, pretty interesting race. Uh, Connor, do you watch? Yeah, I watch bits and pieces. Um, Yeah, the cup cars are, you know, it's tough to pass.

Yeah. But Chase did an awesome job. Man, he did a great job managing, you know, that had to have been nerve wrack. And I went through that at Watkins Glen having to save gas. And, you know, every time you step on the gas after a corner, you're hoping it just doesn't stumble. And, you know, the sense of relief coming off that last corner on the last lap is, is second to none when, when you're in, you know, a fuel-saving race. So, yeah, yeah, the fact he was able to save fuel. will manage, you know, hitting his corners and keeping, you know, probably the best in our industry behind him, you know, in Denny was, was impressive. And, you know, it was, there were times in the race where it was more exciting than others. You know, there was, there was some

good racing early on. You know, there was some passing, but, you know, the majority of it, it was really tough to, especially the leader. The leader in clean air is just, it's, it's so dominant. Yeah, this was a, this was a tough one. Um, I, um, I thought as a broadcast, we did a good job making three cars running nose to tail single file for 30 laps to the end sound pretty good. The risk of the fuel issue for Briscoe made it a curious moment, which helped a little bit. But yeah, it was frustrating to kind of sit there and watch that, you know, the top five not really be able to do much to each other.

The track was faster. The track had more grip. There were a lot of variables that made passing harder. This car, as we know, is really difficult and dirty air. You need all that clean air coming under that splitter and get to the diffuser in the back. and some of the variables in terms of the grip and the speed and comfort that the guys had,

not that the cars were easy to drive, but it made getting to a car and getting around them harder on Sunday. Everybody from like six on back was in such shit air that nobody was comfortable and you could pass because everybody was struggling. Yeah. But when you got into the top five, it got harder and harder and literally, you know, impossible. Yeah.

Once you're in second or third, you were not going to pass a car in front of you. That's a problem, you know, I would say that, you know, it's one thing about the car I don't really love, but it is what it is, and we talk about it. We talk about, we got a stat now called defense that we talk about where literally, you know, we say, hey, this guy's really good at looking at the mirror and putting his car where it needs to be to keep the guy behind him. Yeah. It's a reality of, of cup racing now.

And so we discuss it. I wish we didn't because I wish it didn't exist. And the digital mirrors changed the game, too. Like, I'm having that thing is, like when I ran the race at Charlotte, it's funny, actually. Josh, Josh, Josh, the Penske organization at the Coke 600 was not fantastic. And he was back there with me racing, racing, I don't know, we were racing for 30th. And I was, I'm trying to learn, right? I'm out there for experience.

So I'm mirror driving him for 30th, just air blocking him for last place, basically. I felt bad. But, you know, it was, it's just crazy how much you can destroy the person behind you. You can just destroy the race if you want. Like, if you want to be that guy, you can be that guy. And just, it's crazy. And the digital mirror makes it so easy to see where they are. And it's completely changed the game.

and guys who are good at doing that succeed. You know, guys like Ross. Ross is, you know, one of the best at it. So, yeah, it's changed the game. Well, Chase is here. Chase, Briscoe, the winner for Poconos past weekend. Thanks for calling us up, man. You got me and Connor Zillich.

Connor's my co-host today. How's it going? Yeah, man, thanks for having me. Congrats to both of you, by the way. You too. Same to you. We were just talking about You know, Connor was sharing some moments from the 600

and how he's learned about the way you can defend your position with the cup car. I think the fun conversation around the defense part and the air blocking and things, whatever we want to call this, is every driver, so it takes certain, the reason why Joey's good at it, the reason why Chastain is really good at it, is because they're willing to be the biggest out there, right?

And, like, it's not all, it's not ingrained in all of us to be selfish and purely selfish, right? But you have to be. I always tried to, you know, I'm, I, speaking frankly here, like, I want to be everybody's buddy. Everywhere I go around the racetrack on the weekend, I want to be friends with Chase. I want to be friends with everybody.

And, you know, when I raced, I wanted to get out of the car and go, hey, man, that shit was fun. You good? Did you, you know, hope you liked racing me, right? Now, you know, we'd go to Dayton and Talladega, and I would have to tell myself before I got in the car, you're going to have to be an asshole today. Because it wasn't ingrained in me to go out there and drive like that. I didn't do things intentionally, like, screw you, you, you know, run you into the wall. I don't care about your race. But I knew to be good at Daytona, Taleda,

I kind of had to be a bit of a jerk. And I think the way the cup car is today, you have to be a jerk everywhere you go. Am I overstating this, Chase, or is that really part of the game? I think it's, I mean, super accurate to what you're saying. There's some guys that are certainly, you know, just more willing to do it or okay with, you know, living that way. but honestly I feel like you've seen this evolution to where

five years ago it was a couple guys that were okay with doing it thought it was just part of the game where now it's it's really the whole field but you know some guys are still more egregious with it I would say than others but all of us are doing it to a certain extent that's something that you know even my dad has been getting on me a lot about this over the course of the last years he's like you gotta start being dirtier like with your mirror I'm like well that's not how you raised me to race. Like, you don't race that way. He's like, well, everybody else is

going to do it, so you need to be doing it too if you're going to win these races. So it's, it's honestly just part of the game now because it is such a tool in the toolbox. You know, you can do so much, so many things to manipulate the guy behind you. And yeah, I mean, a lot of the time, especially on a mile and a half race tracks, I mean, you literally just go into the corner and say you go to the bottom and that guy goes in the middle, you just turn your hands of the right and drive straight in front of him because it gets him. so tight. So it's frustrating to race that way. And obviously whenever you're trying to pass somebody, it's extremely frustrating. But it's certainly a huge tool that you have as a race car driver now.

It's just manipulating the air. And the air and dirty air has always been a thing in racing. But we just have been getting smarter and smarter with it and realize more and more how big of a tool it actually is over the course the last 20 years. Yeah, for sure, man. Well, let's talk about this job you did on Sunday. We watched you pull out of your pit box early. There was some miscommunication on what needed to happen there. They wanted you to wait on fuel. How did that happen? Yeah. So, whenever you're waiting on fuel, you know, especially at Pocono, you know you're going to be waiting on fuel because, honestly, almost everywhere we go now, we almost wait on fuel because the tires get changed so much faster than when they can put fuel in it if you're needing to fill up

the tank. But James had came over the radio, said, hey, you're going to be going on me. So the tire stop itself, I felt like it was a little slow. So I was just anticipating already that I wasn't going to be sitting there waiting as long. And the pit stop before, I mean all but stalled the car. I mean, it was so close to stalling. So as they got done with the left side tires, I just started revving it up. I mean, I'm like rod checking this thing in the pit box. Like, almost. almost eight grand and James came over the radio and he was just keyed up the whole time and I think he went to say wait but as soon as I heard anything I just went because it was so loud I literally couldn't hear so as soon as I heard a

voice of any kind I just assumed that meant go but he was saying waiting waiting and then he's gonna say go so I just went and as soon as I went you know I let off the clutch well the engine gets quieter because it's not revved up so high. And I could hear him saying, wait. And if you go back and watch the broadcast, like, you see me almost like stop and not stop. I'm still rolling, but I'm not spinning anymore. Because I instantly tried to get off the gas and try to sit there as long as I could. And my fuel guy, honestly, won as the race. He had a zero plug, which is essentially like as soon as the car stopping, he was already engaged and he actually followed it out. And, you know,

those couple tenths of a gallon that we were able to get because of him, was honestly the biggest reason that we won the race. Damn, that's awesome. I think that we all, so I saw some fans wondering if the prime broadcast were overstating the seriousness of the situation, but knowing if you could see the body language of the team, James on Pitbox and the dialogue between you and him on the radio, you knew that this was a very serious situation.

I would have said once you got off pit road and on the racetrack and I heard James and all that stuff go down I'm thinking there ain't no damn way he's making it to the finish

I would have bet anything on it how do you think I guess you know we know you saved the fuel how do you learn how to do that yeah to be honest with you I was kind of learning

as I go as well I've never really been in that situation certainly in the lead I've done it before where I was running 18th and we're just trying to get to

the end. But as soon as I came off pit road, I obviously knew that I'd left early. So as soon as I pulled on to the back straightaway, I just started running, you know, wide open halfway down the straightaway, and then 70, 50 percent throttle the rest. And the next lap I came around, I think it was Denny Pitt. And I looked in my mirror and I knew that he was back on the racetrack and he was, I mean, a straightaway behind me. So I instantly just kept trying to save more and more and more. And then the caution came out. So as soon as the caution came out, you know, cut it off. I mean, I think it took us two laps just to catch the field. I mean, we were going so slow trying to save fuel. And under caution, obviously, I was able to save a ton. I mean, literally,

as soon as I got to the restart zone, I finally fired it back up and went to second gear. Like, I was just doing everything I could to just absolutely maximize saving. And under that next green flag run, they told me what I was doing with the, you know, the partial throttle running 50% was going to run us out anyways, so just start lifting all the way. So at Pocono, there's those kind of three sets of cones getting into the corner. You know, turn one, for example, we're typically just past the one cone. So it goes three, two, one. I was all the way lifting out before the cones even started and would just roll. And there was parts of the race where I was cutting the ignition off, but the power steering would go out and I'd miss my corner and so I ended up just leaving it

running. But then also on top all that, I was just short shifting every straight away. I would try to just get to fifth gear as soon as I came off the corner. And then a lot of the time during the race, I would run fourth gear through the tunnel turn. And I just started leaving it in fifth, just trying to save a little bit of fuel. So, I mean, it kind of took it all, right? It all added up just to give us that little bit to be able to, you know, finish the race. I mean, it literally ran out as I pulled into victory lane. Obviously, I did a burnout. But I also cut it off as soon as I took the checker flat, because I was. I was wanting to do a burnout.

So, yeah, I didn't have very much left. I saw that, man. Y'all's commitment to the burnout should be celebrated. Because, yeah, I thought you cut the engine, and then, you know, you crank all that front break-in to do the burnout. I really appreciate that. I do want to ask you before you leave, and I'm hoping you give us the good answer.

But this in-race tournament, we got five races here, with TNT getting ready to start up this weekend. And there's an in-race tournament for a million bucks. I bet, you know, I would say if I'm a driver going into Atlanta, I'm not really that concerned with it. It is what it is. However, you know, I want to do well in Atlanta, and that's what I'm going to be thinking about.

Let's assume that Chase Briscoe gets through rounds one and two and he's still in the tournament. When at what point do you start to give a shit and think, man, I might get a million bucks here. I mean, I'm worried about it already, week one. Who are you racing against this weekend? Noah, so I was already talking smack to him. Me and Noah golf almost every single weekend together,

and we're probably, out of everybody on, like, the circuit, I probably talked to Noah more than anybody. So, yeah, he was actually my first text after the race. They sent me at the bracket thing, and I told him, I said, I'm coming for you. And he said, well, you already won, so I'm just going to wreck you lap one. I was wondering I was like man like does it get to a point I mean you're racing for a million dollars like if you're if you're side by side with this guy for 14th place come the last race

of the the thing like what are you doing to win a million like you're going to wreck a guy for 14th it's I don't know I think it's going to be interesting because like we've never done it where you're just racing head to head right like in the playoffs you're only racing against 15 or 11 or seven or three other guys but but it's never just been head-to-head. So that is going to be interesting. I think, and the racetracks that it's at are just very hard racetracks, I feel like, to be racing kind of head-to-head.

You know, the road courses, they can do something completely different. And truthfully, the teams don't care about the head-to-head part, right? Like, they're trying to maximize the finish, where the driver is almost more concerned about the head-to-head deal. At times, especially if you haven't, you know, had the best year. You're trying to win a million bucks. So it's going to be interesting just to kind of see how that plays out. Because I really don't think the teams, you know, are going to call their strategy based on just, you know, one other guy, right?

Where in the playoffs, you do call your strategy based around the other guys. So I don't know. It is going to be fun. I think just to have that element, I love, like, college basketball and March Madness and everything. So I think bringing that element, especially this part of the season where, you know, it is kind of like the dog days of summer where, like, you don't really have much to talk about. I think we'll be really exciting for our sport. And yeah, hopefully all the drivers embrace it. I saw some guys didn't even know what was going on.

I certainly have already checked out everybody in my bracket. And, yeah, I feel like I have a hard road to get there, but it'll be pretty rewarding if we do. If a driver says they don't know about it and don't know what you win, they're full of shit. Yeah, I agree. They're trying to sound too cool for school if you asked me. the last thing I'll ask you

you've given us too much time so we're very thankful do you know how much of the million dollars you get to keep? I have no idea that's a great question yeah I have no clue because... Are you going to go ask?

I don't even know if when I did my contract with JGR if we even do it if that was going to happen so yeah you've got to write an amendment that's fun you might want to add a new page of that contract buddy Yeah, I might need to. You got a little leverage now.

Oh, as a car owner, what would you give your driver? I would give you all of it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I like you as a car owner. Yeah, I've already made, my budget was set when the season started. Yeah, but I can't win it without the car. I know, but I've already budgeted what I'm going to spend on you this year. All right.

Well, I like it. I like your answer. We got the spot of shit. We got everything lined up. You go race. a lot of diapers you can buy with a million bucks. I like... How is dad life?

I'm sorry, we're sorry keeping you, but how's three kids? It's got to be a lot. It's good. We can talk here for an hour if you want. That's been a lot of fun. It's wild. You know, twins is a lot going from, you know, one to three right away is definitely just craziness.

Because, you know, at some point, somebody's always crying or something, somebody's got to blow out. You go from man to man to zone defense. Yeah, real quick. Honestly, it's not been as hard as I anticipated up to this point. I'm sure my wife would not love hearing that answer. But I think within the next month they're going to be crawling, and then it's going to be absolute full-blown chaos.

Chaos. Yeah. How old are the twins? They're eight and a half months. Yes, they're about to be moving. It's crazy. I remember with my first, with Brooks, I was like wanting him to crawl.

I was wanting him to walk, do all these things. And then as soon as he starts doing it, you're like, man, it's pretty nice when you just put him on the bed and you knew he wasn't going to go anywhere. So it would be chaos with the twins when that happens. Yeah. Well, all right, buddy, we're going to let you go, man. Thanks so much.

Good luck going forward. See you in Atlanta. Yep. See you guys. Thank you. Hey, it's Dale Jr. Did you know that we've got brand new merch from our Star Stripes and Bears Collection available now?

We've got tanks, teas, beach towels, and more just in time for summer. Check it all out at shop. dot dirtymoemedia.com. Hey everybody, it's Jr. And this is an episode of Ask Junior, or a segment of Asked Jr. for the Dale Jr. download. And I appreciate everybody tuning in.

I want to say thanks to Xfinity. As you know, Xfinity Wi-Fi is booming. That's what we're using right now, as we speak. And it's booming like the roar of a NASCAR engine on race day. Fast as V8 engine. Reliable

is an elite pick crew. It gives you the power and speed to have NASCAR in your home or podcast, whatever you want to do. Choose the right plan for you and you're off to the races. And it's a great experience. It's a great experience, actually, being a customer. Sometimes you'll get an email and they'll say, hey, we're going to double your speed just because. I don't know why they do that, but I love it. We're always ready to go faster around here.

And Xfinity Wi-Fi gets the job done. So thank you, Xfinity for everything you do. for us. They've been a great partner here for the Dirty Mo Media crew for years, supporting NASCAR in all types of ways, obviously. So just a great, great partner. We love the support and we love being customers. So thank you. So let's get right to it, man. Let's get some questions. Are we populating out there? We are. Yeah, someone in the YouTube chat says, is this real? So yeah, we are live. real. I don't know. Like his real life. I don't know. Do I need to hold up a sign? Like with my,

yeah, like with today's newspaper. Yeah. But no, the YouTube chat is going. It's great to see everybody. But this first question is from Pat. And they saw you tweeted a great story. I think it was yesterday about Mark Martin. And they wanted to know, like, what was that moment like watching Mark Mark Ark into the corner? And what other lessons have you learned from him over the years? Yeah, so it was early in the morning. It's a fun Twitter post I made. Just kind of came to me. But I'll never forget this moment.

I never will. There's some moments in life, right, that just imprint. And I was young. Mark was always the car to beat when we would go to Xfinity races and he would unload the Windexie car. It was like, gosh, he just had another three-tenths that nobody had everywhere. And it was just like Kyle Busch and the Xfinity C. You know, he was going to be one of the guys that he's going to go out there and lead every lap and it's going to be hard to beat.

But you would, you know, you would watch him in practice and we would show up and Xfinity was the first, they didn't have the truck series back then. Xfinity was the first car on the racetrack for the weekend. Track's track hadn't had a lap on it. A little bit dirty, very green, dusty, a little bit. bit we pull out on the racetrack and he would go out and put a lap down he would hammer the gas and drive off into one full commit i'm in i'm in my first or second year of exfinity and i'm i got to work up to it i'm going to run my best lap around lap five or six and still be in the top five in practice right if not one of the fastest cars but mark could go out there and just

boom off into one i'm like So I wanted to be great at Charlotte And it was a track that was very intimidating to me He had a very nasty bump down into turn one I'd busted my ass and wrecked a car there Testing and I'd wrecked off a term I'd wrecked a lot at Charlotte So I'm like a bull

I pull out on pit road And there's Mark Martin sitting there waiting for the official To wave us onto the track and I'm I work my way up there toward Mark I'm gonna follow him out there So we go off on the racetrack and I'm going through the gears. He's hauling ass. I'm like, shit.

I'm trying to keep up with him. We go through three and four wide open, you know, trying to build up speed. Come off from, come off turn four, bouncing around down the front straightaway. And I'm like, man, I'm scared. It's the only word I can really use to describe it. I'm scared because I know to stay with him. I'm going to have to go in the corner like he does. And that's hard to do.

And I didn't want to wreck. wrecked a lot at Charlotte. I just was like, I got to figure Charlotte out. And we're headed down the front straightaway, and I start to fade to arc turn into the corner. I start fading left to get down into the bottom of the corner. And he just drives straight, really wide arc and just stealing the gas. And there's dirt flying off the right side tires because he's out there in that nasty mess.

And it turned, wow down in there. And he's gone. I was like, God Almighty. How? You know, how did he? Well, he didn't have to do that. He knows his car is amazing. He knows it's going to be fast.

He doesn't have to go out there really do anything in practice. He's just going to qualify and race and win. But here he is. First minute of practice, he has went off into that corner faster than anybody else will go all weekend. And I was like, Holy shit, dude. I mean, that's what a cup driver is right there.

I got a long ways to go. And, man, it was something. I'll never forget it. Mark, you know, I would end up racing Mark a little bit throughout the year in 98 and 99. One of my proudest moments was passing him at Richmond on the outside and beating him. Heads up. Holy shit. Man, I was proud because I knew Dad was watching and all that.

you know um and mark has always been so so supportive to me friendly to me we were teammates um but he taught me and everyone else during those years when he was racing the xfinity series so much um and he was such a great example for folks like me to sort of try to emulate and um i might be delin hart's son but i'll be honest a lot of the things that i learned on the racetrack and what i able to do as a driver in my career are due to Mark Martin and what he taught me. So, you know, he was a great guy to race against and learn from. Wow. I love that.

I love that you kind of mentioned the fearlessness of just go. That's the one thing I don't think I can comprehend quite yet about your race car drivers. It's just like you have to have a certain level of fearlessness to attack each corner the way you do. But next question is from. Tom, how was the beer toast as a crew chief? You didn't get to celebrate it as an owner, but as the winning crew chief, how was that? So I was not going to be there physically for the beer toast

that they used, they had scheduled. So I called the shop and I said, hey, I'm coming over and I'm going to, I'm going to, I just want to speak to the employees. I didn't want to do a beer toast. I didn't even think about ringing the victory bill. All I wanted was to get them, microphone and say to everybody thank you um and so uh but they you know they as our employees do they

they take take it they take the baton and they do what they do and when i got there we ended up ringing the bell a little bit but uh so i like got to ring it which was fine i didn't i didn't not want to do it but i didn't need i didn't think about it i just wanted to say thank you because um you know being able to sit on the pit box and and crew chief the race was a was something I would have never asked for um there's certainly people at junior murder sports that are more qualified have done it already that have the experience that could do it um so I would have never assumed or asked for that opportunity but it was great to to go through that experience I was way more involved in what happened on Saturday than I thought I would be um man it just

It was a damn dream come true. It got really comfortable. Like I guess in stage two, I got super comfortable with kind of helping run things as it was. But it was great. Man, what a great experience. As the owner, you obviously see all the hard work that gets done in the shop. But as the crew chief and then seeing the things that they made your job easier, do you have a greater appreciation this week for the crew and the shop floor?

I think the pre-shadow. was already way up there. It's just, I'm just grateful to be able to have this opportunity to see the sport through so many different vantage points and lenses, right? Man, I would have never thought that I would get a chance to live a day in a crew chief's shoes, right? And that's what happened. I went through the entire weekend and just really tried to,

understand the experience. And it's a lot of pressure. I knew they were under a lot of pressure. And I'm sitting there going, all right, we can try this strategy, win the stage and stay out and run to lap, you know, 70 or so or 67, 68. Nobody else is going to do this.

So I'm going to stick out like a sore thumb. And if I run Connor out of gas, everybody's going to go, yep, that's why Dale Jr. shouldn't have been on a bibbox. And so I was really, I was like, I was standing there with the, I was standing over the engineers literally, you know, shouting at them going, are you sure we can make it on fuel? Because God darn, we're going to look like idiots. And so I was so angry. But I needed to like scare the truth out of them, I guess. but it was fun as hell.

But I was like, you know, if we do this, we got to be sure about it. And I asked the engineer next to me, I said, I want to be one lap to the good on fuel. Can I be one lap to the good on fuel? Can you promise me we can run a 100 and one lap race? And he said, yep, no problem. And then I screamed at him a couple times to tell me if that was true or not. And he said, he never changed his answer. And I was like, all right, I'm buying in, we're doing it.

And so we were, we made the commitment to make that strategy work. And we had talked about that strategy on Wednesday in the meeting in the team debrief. And so it was sitting right there in front of us like, hey, here's your chance. and that's not really what won the race Connor won't you know we lost the track position that we were trying to get through the strategy and Connor went back and got it past the two at the end so he kind of he's the reason we won the race not not the pick call but it was fun as shit running that deal and I'm telling you by the third stage I was running it sorry to my language hell yeah dude I was on that

I was on that I was on it it was it was my team by that point. It was awesome. It sounds like a blast. It was a blast. I do have a follow-up about the beer toast, but since we're on the topic, you know, you're talking about all the different vantage points that you have been able to do. And I saw a comment in the YouTube chat from Kelly. Is the next job going to be spotting? Could we ever see you up on the spotting stand? I spotted for my friend Brad Means. That's Jimmy Means son. He was racing a late model at Tri-County in 1990. seven or eight.

All right, so you did it. I spotted for him and drove him right into a wreck. Oh, great. Yeah, I don't want to spot. Spotting is miserable, man. They're up on the roof. It's your cover. You can't, you know, you got to wear long sleeves.

It's 100 degrees. Got a cool shirt. It's hot. It's miserable. And you get blamed for everything. And I don't know. no fun and they're moody and they're a little oh boy spot the spotter gossip and the back oh i don't know i ain't that ain't for me tj's told me enough to make me not want to ever spot

yeah even he's like hey come up on the roof and watch from up there i'm like no what no i was just getting a sweet right underneath you but um yeah i would i would absolutely love to to to crew chief again. Now, I'm not, you know, and you can, you know, we talk about this early in the show. There's things about the crew chiefing job that I didn't do, surely. Yes, I understand that. I'm not a fool. I know there were a lot of things.

I never fooled with the adjustments that we made between practice and qualifying and then getting the car from qualifying back into the race. I let Pat handle that. I didn't even know what they did. You know, I could see it on a sheet, look at it, but I didn't care. I'm like, I'm not mess with that. You just make sure you do what you're supposed to do, Pat. But I would love to call a race again.

That's fun. It's an adrenaline rush. And getting off the pit box and just setting that tire down there, it's not hard to do. But you can screw it up. And the guys that are coming around the car, the Jackman, the changer, they'll tell you, don't screw it up. These are the things you can do to slow this pit stop down. Don't do that. So, I mean, it's fun.

It's fun to be part of it. of it. And it's fun to get on the radio and coach the driver to fire up the pit crew for the pit stops and stuff. They respond to that, you know. And that was neat being the coach, if you will. That was freaking awesome. So it's fun to be a crew chief, not fun to be a spotter. Listen, we won the race too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always fun when you win. Yeah, it's fun because it all worked out. Now, it could have been really miserable. very easily. But for example, it wouldn't be fun if you get blamed for your driver coming down pit road when it's closed, which leads into the next question from Dan. Have you given T.J. Hell

for Brad missing pit road? I wasn't sure if that was a T.J. deal or not. I think it's a Brad deal. TJ. I'm going to hold off. I'll say, let's say, what do you think T.J. is going to come in here and say. I don't know I saw him yesterday and he I mean he spoke to me like he was a team player he's like yeah you know could have done better on that

he's not going to say it's not going to say it's Brad's fault 100% though oh I didn't think I thought we'd never hear TJ claim any responsibility maybe that's why he told me and then took the week off that's why he's not here yeah yeah yeah he's at home right now no he's not he's not he's not

He doesn't ditches that ever happened to you, Daler? Like, how does that happen? I mean, it could happen in a number of ways. Either the information, you know, somebody could talk over the top of somebody and the information doesn't get to the driver and he doesn't know what to do. The spotter could give you the wrong information, tell you to come down pit road when it's closed, when it's, you know, tell you it's open, come on. The crew chief could make the call.

I mean, there's multiple ways of how that could happen accidentally. And, yeah, we were all dumbfounded when it did, and we could stand there and go, well, what a bunch of idiots. Look at the six. How do you screw that up? But it happens. It can happen to the best, you know? And, man, well, I remember one of the dumbest things where I think it's Bristol.

Oh, my gosh. I can't believe I did this, even today. So dumb. Caution comes out, going down the back straight away, immediately. get on the microphone, mash the button, and I'm talking to Tony Jr. And I'm telling him all the things

that I want him to fix on the race car. It's too loose this. It's too. I think we could do this. I'm giving him all this great information, man. I'm like, oh, man, I'm really helping here. We're going to get this car adjusted, and we're going to haul ass.

And I get off the button, and he goes, well, all that's great, but I needed you to come down on pit road with everybody else. Oh, ha. And I had talked on the microphone all the way around the racetrack, passed the interest to pit road, and missed the opportunity to come in pit.

And I knew it because I'm watching everybody go down pit road, and I'm like, what to, and it's just a, you know, dumb mistake. But, you know, those things can happen. It's like when you're like in a long phone call and like you miss your exit, just like driving down the, oh, man. Yeah, that's, that is embarrassing. Yeah. Thank you for sharing.

Happens to the best. Well, that is a good place to wrap Ash Jr. this week. It was a lot of fun, but thanks to our friends at Xfinity. Yeah, thank you, Xfinity. Thanks for everybody for tuning in. I hope you'll listen to the rest of the show. We have, you know, we had Conner Zillich on to talk about the Xfinity win, Chase Briscoe.

And also listen to the White Flag. There's some good information about all the content we have going out. week and also at the end of the white flag you'll learn about the next episode of becoming earnhard that's coming out on Sunday we've got the fourth episode coming out in the we're focusing on the 1980 season it's really good this year you guys got to check it out I'm pretty pumped about it so anyhow thank you all I had a I've had a great weekend at Pocono getting ready geared up for TNT and Atlanta and all that good stuff so a lot of work to do this week but we'll see you thank you Xfinity

for supporting the ass junior segment be sure to check out Xfinity Wi-Fi. Experience the booming speeds for yourself. It's fast, and as NASCAR fans, we love everything quick. And just choose right playing for yourself, and you're off to the races. You're streaming everything you need. NASCAR are all your favorite sports. And they don't raise the bar.

They stream and overdrive. They're a proud premier partner of NASCAR. Thank you, Xfinity. We'll see you all later. All right, it's time for this month's selection of our ultimate race. collector that's presented by lionel racing the official die cast of NASCAR lionel racing they're your go-to source for all your racing diecast needs check out the latest pre-orders at lionelracing.com I'm going to be getting the race win of Connor

Zillich and I will be paying American dollars for it I'm going to go out there and buy it myself I'm probably get Connor to autograph it for me I think they're selling an autograph version with my autograph on the back, and Conner's on the front as well. That's cool. Yeah, that'll be really cool. But let's take a look here. This month's winner is going to go out to Matt, Frederick, Frederick.

Matt, good job. Congratulations. I've got the video right here. Looking at Matt's house, he's got some body panels, quarter panel piece from Kyle Bush, and a wall of die casts. tons and tons of die casts I love it

I like it's got it's Amir's behind it so I don't know it just makes it pop I agree with that man good job this is all stacked up wall mounted he's got a fire suit hanging yep I'm not there yet

stop it just a good job man I know you've got a ton invested in this and I'm proudly displaying all these different die casts and wow incredible man. So many. There's the fire suit.

The old ortho. I wonder who that is. It's probably like a Greg Biffle or somebody. He's got some other stuff going on, some cans and things. Pretty neat. More quarter panels. We got another room over here, boy. Some more stuff, more die cast. Got his TV. Got a little man cave.

Pretty awesome. And a Larson. poster a hamlin poster there we go yeah he's one of the denny bros eric jones and denny hamlin right there sports clips good job man all right matt congratulations appreciate the video good job filming um even if you didn't win this month give it a try next month we'll announce another winner keep sending us all these great collections and we appreciate everybody who's out there important to die cast industry. I'm a collector and I enjoy being a part of it.

So yeah, good job. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen. Place your bets. All right, it's time for the Dirty Bowdoze segment with Tampa Tims. And Russell is back with Racing Insights. Thank you, Russell, for joining us today. Tampa Tims, how y'all doing? Doing good.

Have we guess. Russell? Good. Thanks for having me. yeah well um appreciate everybody coming in let's go ahead and get right to it man for the uh polka no race we had our manufacturers parley denny hamlin byron and the chevy and blaney and the ford uh we did not win what the hell well briscoll us it's not our fault killed us for sure man came out of nowhere you're not good at polkineau denny bros failed us yes no i didn't no

failed us, not the Denny Bros. Didn't get it done. Yeah, he needs to step it up. He does. We head to Atlanta. I think this is a waste of time. But I'm going to ask the question, what does the predictor tell us, Russell? Thanks a lot, Dale.

Blaney and Byron up top. Oh, really? They're the leading one. Oh, boy. Who else? But here, I have a sleeper here in the top five this week. Austin Cindricks is third this week. Then we go.

The Bell, Chase Elliott, then Kyle Bush. He made it to Tier 2 this week. Larson, another surprising one, and Joey Lugano. All right. I'm just going to get the parley out of the way because that's got my mind rolling. Now, Chevy driver is going to be Kyle Busch, even though he unintentionally said some really dumb stuff about me, crecheefing.

He didn't mean to sound dumb, but he accidentally sounded dumb. Kyle Busch is my Chevy driver. Austin Cendrick will be my Ford. And my Toyota driver, who's in a must win? What's the – because then he's not going to – Bubba. Bubba Reddick. Yeah.

Bubba. Reddick will be up there, but he'll do something. He'll wreck himself. Ty Gibbs is in a must win, too. yeah but I don't like him in Atlanta Bubba I like better so Bubba Cobbush and Cendrick

what do you think for that parley I like that I like that there's not much else you can like at Atlanta no I mean you can't even get close to being happy trying to make a bed around that race but that's not too bad

we'll go with that let's let's talk about the bracket challenge That is one thing we can do with Atlanta, right? And the bracket challenge is going to give us tons of opportunities to get out, because you don't want to bet a winner on this week. You don't want to do any of that dumb stuff. You're just pissing money away.

But the bracket challenge is going to present so much opportunity for us to feel like we're making a confident decision. The featured matchups, you can bet on every matchup and parlay them also. but the featured matchups we're going to do right here today are Keselowski versus Kyle Busch, Joe Legano versus Alex Bowman, Larson versus Redick, and Chastain versus Eric Jones.

In the Keselowski-Kalbush matchup, Kyle is favored at minus 1.30. And again, we have him in our parlay, so I think we all are going to say that Kyle Busch wins this out. Yeah, I would agree. It goes and makes it happen. I think he's a sneaky one to go all the way. Yeah.

Because if you look at how this plays out, you know, he's great at Atlanta. Does Kyle Busch go winless this year, but wins the bracket and the million bucks? I think he could. Wow. You go, he gets past Atlanta. Then you go to Chicago where he finished fifth and ninth in both races.

there and he could be up against Denny there who's not good on road courses lately then he goes to Sonoma his average finished with RCR there is 7th then he goes to Dover he's on the pole there last year and he's finished 4th he's a two-time brickyard winner and he's in the weakest

if you say like quadrant like group oh is that what we're going to say quadrant yeah I don't think we're going to use we're not going to say that again we're not going to name these things quadrants you and you you are the people

you're the reason you're the guy that we're calling these f*** deals drafting tracks you're the reason for that I am and I stick by that all the people in the industry that are like me

that want to continue to call them restrictive plate tracks and we don't count Atlanta in that group we got you to thank for all the confusion I could defend myself if you want

but if you walked into the sport and you just started doing your own just making shit up all right Alex Bowman Joey Legano

Joey heavily favored wouldn't even touch Joey if you want this if you like this one you bet Bowman but I don't like this one at all but what about with the parlayes yeah you could parlay Joey

would you put Joey and Denny together not at Atlanta no because Joey it takes it takes one bad block it takes one bad move he's gone why don't we let the expert tell us that's why I'm asking the question

okay So you wouldn't take him because of the juice, though. Yeah, because it's not him moving on. It's more of the juice-wise. I don't, yeah, I don't like minus 230, and I don't like the randomness of this track for him to be favored that much. That's a lot to lay. Tyler Rennick versus Larson.

Larson's favorite here, even though he professes to not quite enjoy or understand really the style of racing. But he did. Hey, I will say this. everybody that ran Atlanta last time came out of there saying that was the funest shit they've done in a long time, right? So attitudes are changing around the style of racing at Atlanta. Does that mean Kyle Larson goes in and starts getting the results that we typically see from him at all the other racetracks? He has the best average finished in the last four drafting tracks. There it is. Including third on the drafting track in Atlanta.

Michigan? that's a drafting track are you including that stat it's not the same why not they draft it's not they don't have the same rules we talked about it this weekend at Pocono they drafted they draft down the straightaway the front straightaway we talked about the draft at Pocono

did we qualify at Michigan did we qualify at Michigan yeah do we qualify at Atlanta I guess yeah we just qualify it's not practice we don't have practice the same rules that what the hell oh what so if practice doesn't exist you call it a drafting track how what is that one of the reason yeah and that's crazy and the same rules package that's silly it is silly is it's it's all the same rules package it's this younger it's this younger generation

i've been doing this for a long time dale well you don't act like it if you were if you had been you'd still be calling them restrictiplate tracks and it would be day-tube Tony and Talladega. Atlanta, because Atlanta, what are you going to do when Atlanta ages, and we might be there this weekend, where Atlanta ages and they're all lifting and sliding around, and nobody's drafting or pack racing. Then we'll remove it as a drafting track. What?

It'll go back to be in a mile and a half. It's going to. Be ready. At some point. Chastain versus Jones. Chastain massively favored here. Well, not really. It's basically Joey Ligano and Bowman reversed.

So chastain's minus 230. But man, I'm liking Eric Jones right now. Eric Jones has won races at Daytona. Eric Jones and that team are kind of on an uphill climb. I like this upset. You can make the argument. The 43 team has more speed than the one team right now. You could make that argument.

Yeah. I like Eric Jones here. I think this is incorrect. The odds are wrong. So is Daytona drafting track and Atlanta drafting track? Is that why you, have you connected those on me? Shut up. So I like Eric Jones here.

Am I the only one? No, plus 165. I love that. Well, I think we've done our work here. I think we've turned in this tough weekend into easy win, easy victory for the betters out there. I agree. Good job, good job, fellas. Good luck, everybody.

I can't bet, but you can. Dirty-Modeau, this Dirtymodeau segment is brought to you by a fan duel. You can go on there and maybe get your profit boost, the premier gaming destination in the United States. Have some fun out there, but always bet responsibly, please. White flag. All right, it's time for the white flag. Thank you to Safety Culture for bringing us this episode of the Dale Jr. Download.

Remember from the racetrack to the factory floor, safety culture is the workplace operations tool. that gives companies what they need to get the job done quick and improve every day. The tear down was live from YouTube and Twitter following the race on Sunday. Denny Hamlin returned for actions detrimental after taking a week off for the birth of his son. And Doorbopper Clear dropped on Monday as well. They had Kelly Crandall as a guest. She's a experienced part of the media group that follows and covers our sport.

And also tomorrow, an interview with Daniel Swarrow. as for the Dale Jr. download will be dropping. I look forward to talking to Daniel tomorrow. Herman Schrader and Speed Street will be out on Wednesday as well. And then an episode of Bless Your Heart with my lovely wife, Amy. It's fun being in Victor Lane with her and the girls. We'll talk all about that and more. And then Sunday, the fourth episode of Becoming Earnhardt.

We focus on the 1980 season in this series. And the fourth episode will be available for y'all. We'll see you next week.