The Dale Jr. Download - Welcome Back, Chase Format

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

After taking part in a monumental NASCAR press conference, Dale Earnhardt Jr. kicks off 2026 with a brand-new edition of Dirty Air. He joins co-host TJ Majors to discuss the major overhaul of the NASCAR Championship points format and more:Reflecting on a tragic off-seasonThe new points format is hereThe Chase for the Championship will reignite fans’ passion for racingDrivers will need to put together an entire seasonAfter a frustrating year, this is a step in the right directionTony Stewart to make his NASCAR returnSteve Phelps resignsCARS Tour is kicking off soon, with the biggest season yetDuring the Ask Jr. portion of the episode, fans wrote in questions regarding:Using aliasesThree-person team for the zombie apocalypseFavorite recess gamesDream professions growing upAnd for more content, check out our YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@DirtyMoMediaReal fans wear Dirty Mo. Hit the link and join the crew.👇https://shop.dirtymomedia.com/FanDuel: Must be 21+ and present in select states (for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino) or 18+ and present in D.C. First online real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable bonus bets which expire 7 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit GamblingHelpLineMA.org or call [phone] for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York. 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.

The following is a production of Dirty Mo Media. This is the most fun I've had in this chair in the last hour and a half. I don't know if we've ever argued. Did I piss you off over the weekend? I'm still sour. Did I wait the best man at your wedding? Who was your best man, Dale? T.J.

You don't need a cool best for that race? What are you thinking? Get them, DJ. Hellway is starting to show. All right then. Hey, everybody. It's Dale Jr. back again for a nice. another episode of the Dale Jr. Download, another season of the Dale Jr. Download with my buddy

T.J. Majors. It's starting. Yeah. Hey, congratulations to your bills. Oh, yeah. We're still alive, right? Still alive somehow. Man, I had this really great parlay put together, and the Jags killed. I almost won at Jags. Yeah, almost counts. Well, hey, I am, I'm glad to be sitting here. I'm glad to be back at the table with all of y'all. It's a great, uh, to be in the room with all our friends, and I miss doing the show. I miss everybody that's out there listening. So here we are. We're back, and there is a ton.

A lot. A ton to talk about. But first thing I want to do, we haven't been able to have a chance to say this. I want to send all of our thoughts and our prayers out to Greg Biffle, his family. That was really tough. Very tough. Yeah, that was tough. And it, uh, the time of the year, just the everything about it was.

Yep. It was hard. Uh, and I can't imagine what it must be like for, um, for his friends, his close friends, his family members. Um, and I'm sure that they're all still, uh, absolutely devastated. And we just were, we're thinking about them. Also, want to, um, give a, uh, give a minute to, to mention Denny Hamlin and, uh, what he, uh, what he had to, you know, had to experience and go through with his father, the house fire, and his mom.

And, you know, I, I don't have any firsthand knowledge or information, but I'm hoping that his mom is doing well. And, um, look like she was recovering from some of the stuff that I saw. Okay. Well, I'm hoping that she's doing well. And, um, tragically losing a parent. I mean, Denny had been open and vocal about his. dad and his dad's had an illness that he's been dealing with and things weren't looking really good long term in that situation but then to tragically lose him like that in a house

fire and just scary. That is super, super scary. Can't imagine how terrifying that must have been and sad for Denny to have to have to have to go through this. But both incidents are terrible tragedies. Yeah. Thinking about going through either of them are just really bad. It is.

I, uh, yeah, it is. It really is. Um, you know, we kind of, we kind of get called up in our lives and, and doing the day to day and trying to, you know, trying to get our kids of school and get up and do things and just, you know, get here and do a podcast and, I think we forget about how delicate things are, how delicate life is, how quickly things can change. And, you know, sometimes these sort of situations can absolutely put things into perspective and remind you how brief and shortest life is that we live. And, yeah, you take a lot away from it.

But I don't know. One thing about it to me is with this hits close to home when it's people that you've raced against or you kind of know we've all had personal experiences with these people. Yeah. I, um, Greg, man, Denny and Greg. So, um, both of them for sure. Yeah. So a lot of people have heard about this, but you were going to test, you knew Denny because

we, you raced against him. We built a late model and you went and raced against him a little bit. Yeah, he was one of the first guys that I got to really be good friends within the late model racing. That's right. and such, you know, such good friends that we decided you were going to go test a dash car down in Daytona. Yeah. We had spent a couple thousand dollars to figure out. Yeah, it wasn't.

It was an experience. It was a junk old race car, and we gave these folks a couple thousand dollars for you to go down there and run some laps. Yeah. And trying to get you cleared to actually race in the race. And so Denny rode down in the truck with y'all. Oh, yeah. roomed with each other that weekend in the hotel yeah yeah and what year was this that had been oh three it would have been January of oh three I think yeah and um so we then you know we started

kind of hanging out Denny Denny we started talking to Denny spending more time he started making trips down and hanging out with us and stuff and became a pretty good friend we sim sim raced with him a lot a lot yeah on NASCAR 2003 and then He was trying to get into a job at Gibbs. Yeah. And he called me and he said, hey, I'm coming down to Daytona and I ain't got anywhere to stay. I'm meeting with Gibbs. And I wanted him to come drive the affinity car at DEI.

And I was, but he told me, he's like, I'm going to go to this Gibbs meeting, but I don't have anywhere to stay. I was like, come down, stay on the bus in the driver's lot. And so I think he spent the night on the couch a night or two in Daytona. And then we won the Daytona 500. That had been 04. And he was in Victory Lane. And then when the Victory Lane celebration is over, he carried the trophy back to the bus. Yeah.

And so, and, you know, he would go on to become Denny Hamlin. He had a really good, he got that shot with Bobby Daughter and the trucks. And he went and ran like IRP and ran really well. Really well and opened a lot of doors for him. Yeah. And then he would become, he would become the. You know, big time, you know. They become Danny.

Danny, yeah. Winner, car owner. And, you know, even though we don't really, you know, he is a part of the Dirty Moe Media family. And that's a picture of us all in Victor Lane right there. So he's a part of the Dirty Moe Media family. I don't, I talk to Denny every now and then. We might talk about the trial or texts back and forth about different things going on in the sport every now and then. but regardless that we, you know, we're not quite as close, I guess, as we were back in 2004.

You know, when somebody goes through that kind of a tragedy, you're, you think about them, you want to know that they're okay. You want to reach out to them, make sure that they're feeling supported. There's nothing you can, you know, I've been through some tragedies, and I still don't think that I know what to really say or how to really be there for somebody, but you just try, right? you just give them. I think it's just the message that you get.

Like, they like seeing the message that you actually thought about them. Give them a call. Yeah. I know. Sometimes. Just a text. I mean. Yeah.

There's been times when, like, when I've had some, I wouldn't say close friends. I think I would do that for every single close friend. But there's been some people that I wish I would have done something more, you know? Yeah. So you learn from those experiences. But yeah. As you get older, I feel like there's more of that. Yeah.

Like I should have reached out to that. I should have reached out. Like, you know, and Christmas comes around. You want to send a group. You send it like that. I wish it like cares. You want to text everybody in your phone at this point. I know.

With Greg, I knew Greg because we, I got a boxer from Greg. Yeah, that's right. Killer. Killer. He came from Greg's.

Greg had two boxers and they had a litter and killer came from that. And Greg would have. And so, you know, I'm racing against Greg and I don't know him. I get a dog somehow. My sister knew them really well and was like, Greg's got a dog.

You want a dog? I'm like, yeah. And so then, you know, Greg would see Killer in the bus lot and come by and check on him. And we got to be coming, starting to communicate. Yeah. It's weird how that works. And then Greg would do this calendar every year for the Humane Society. And Killer would, they'd won't kill it to be in there yet. So we'd take these pictures.

And so I felt like sort of friendship with Greg because I was supporting something that he was doing. And, but I saw the things that him and Hart. it got into and I saw Greg. Greg was like, you know, rub a couple guys the wrong way. A little bit. Yeah. In 10 years of spotting a few. I can't ever remember running, having running with Greg.

Not once. Yeah. And so, so, you know, I'm kind of like, I don't know who Greg is really, right? And then when he, you know, we rate, we never had a problem on the racetrack. We always race fine. When he were, when he retired or kind of, I retired and we kind of both started kind of slowing down at the same time, I started seeing him more. and we start me,

Amy wanted to do stuff with some of the animal hospitals and stuff that Greg was involved in. And so we would go and hang out and see Greg and we would run into each other on the lake on our boats and stuff and cut up a laugh. He's got that houseboat too. I had a 50-foot one and he has an 80-foot one.

It's huge. We would laugh about how silly those things were. And so I got to know him, you know, we all did. We all got to know him watching him do some YouTube stuff watching him do his little dirt race out on his farm and become friends with cletus and sort of opened up a little bit and do these videos and things and i think we all got to see more of him more of him you know really the true individual that he is yeah and it i learned i think all the way up until recently that you know he all the stuff with kevin you know even back in the day

like he just loved to kind of fool with people mess with people right and he was always kind of poking and prod and playing but uh had a really good personality those two guys on the track at the same time too I can see where I just yeah they could run to have some run-ins oh yeah but Greg was uh you know I mean I'm not you know we all know what he did for the western North Carolina and all that stuff, but I'm just saying just as a person, like if you're sitting at the table with him, you know, hanging out, he was, he was so fun. I just, I, I always remember the story. I, I don't know what we were doing. I was at your house and this hell. Remember when the helicopter landed? He just landed in the yard. And we're like, I don't know who that is. And he comes walking up and he's like,

I thought you lived there. I followed this creek bed around and we're like, holy cow. And we just hung out for a little bit. Yeah, he's landing in the yard. Which was kind of cool. I mean, I mean, I don't know many people that would do that, just Greg Biffle, which was kind of neat. So, but like that, like, every time you see him from him, he'd always say, hey, he's always super friendly. He just loves to have fun, too, man. Like, he, them races he did on his farm and stuff, like you said, man, they were fun to watch. Yeah.

And, yeah, just a great guy. Yeah. I love what Cletus is doing, be like Biff. Yeah. I think that's, um, that's a good slogan. Yeah. I love that Cletus is trying to keep, keep, remind, you know, help, cool, social. to remind people of who Greg was.

So anyhow, I want to get into, we had a big announcement in NASCAR yesterday. The playoff format was announced, and I was invited to come be a part of that. And I was excited to, honestly, I'll be honestly, I did not know exactly what they had decided up until a couple weeks ago, maybe, maybe even seven days ago.

we got an email probably middle of the off-season last year said you've been picked to be a part of this committee you want to be a part of it and I said yeah and so didn't know who else was on it we get to Daytona and we had our first in-person meeting and go up to this room at the top of the top of the grandstands and was like holy moly there's all these people here drivers NASCAR folks network people media personalities. A lot of people. Lots of people. And I'm thinking, I really thought out of the gate, this is going to be noisy. And I'm pretty sure how I feel about all this is going to get lost in the conversation. I looked across the room and I'm like, I don't think I can convince the networks to let go of what they want to hang on to. I don't think I can convince NASCAR to go as far as they need to go.

we started conversations. We started talking. And honestly, Christopher Rebell, a couple of the drivers, were super honest about, you know, how they wanted this to feel. And that was really helpful hearing

from the drivers out of the gate. Mark Martin, obviously put his foot down right away. 36 races is a way to go. He went far. I mean, that's Mark. Listen, there's a lot of credit being given to Martin and it's due,

it's, it's, deserving because right out of the gate he's like this is the best way to do it. And he never let off the gas with that. I appreciate that about Mark a lot too. If Mark hadn't have been so adamant at first and stayed the course, I don't know that we would have gotten this far. And so, and he really did put his neck on a line. Because when he first said that at first meeting, I'll be honest, man.

there's a lot of people, I think, rolled their eyes, just, you know, blocked it out. They were like, yeah, yeah, this is never, we're never going to do this. So why are we, why are we wasting our time in this meeting going on and on about 36 races? So, um, did you feel that when you were there? Yeah, I got a whole story for you, pal. We, we get through that first meeting and, you know, it was still, even though we didn't even, you know, the first meeting was just, just, hey, this is what we're trying to do. We're all going to gather.

We're going to spend the year going over this and figure this out. And even after the first meeting, I was still hopeful. I'm like, hey, I'm going to see this through. Hey, I'm going to, you know, we'll see what happens. Who knows? A lot of the rest of the conversations were done through email. We had a couple more gatherings over Zooms and stuff. And every time, Mark was still full on, you know, 36 is the way to go.

fans are telling me, I'm hearing this, I'm hearing that. And everybody was like, yeah, you know, the fans that are telling you that are your age. And we're not sure about, you know, the 25-year-old fan. He's not saying that to you. It's always, you know, we really weren't sure whether we were being sold a bill of goods. Like, I felt like, hey, man, are we really going to determine a new system here? Or do y'all already know what you want to do? And this is just a show.

right and so you understand what I'm saying am I making sense to you yeah okay I know just nod so because I can't tell whether you're lost am I lost am I lost am I losing you no I'm locked into what you're saying so during like some of them zooms in the middle of the year were you kind of like feeling we had a zoom up we had a zoom I remember I was in Kelly's office and uh I said I said hey it was like I don't know June yeah and I was like I'll be honest y'all I was like I'm like I'm with Mark on it. I feel like 36 is the best way to decide it. Like 36 is the best way to choose who truly is the champion. There's no argument. You're not going to change in my mind. There's no way you could ever change my mind about that. And I said, look, I know that's probably a bridge

too far for everybody here. I don't expect us to ever get there. But we need to keep in mind that that is truly the best way to do it. So this new system has to have a feel for that, an element for that. And one of the things that I said that I think was important to me, I remember being a kid and just wanting to devour this sport and just take in, I couldn't get enough. Couldn't get enough. And so I was every weekend, I was like,

what's going to happen? and I had obviously my dad to root for. And so I imagine that diehard fans who love this driver, pull for that guy just as hard as I pull for my dad, right? And they tune in and they want to know how that guy's going to do. And when we had the full season points, you couldn't take a week off as a fan.

Because that race might be the race where your guy breaks a motor and gives up 180 points. Yeah, you don't want to miss it. You know, that could be, that race that's in the middle of the year that seems like it's not really that important, could be the one that loses the year of the championship. And we had lost that.

I had lost that. I was not being drawn to the sport every weekend. I was not wanting to devour it up. I was sitting there going, you know what? I kind of know who's in the playoffs. so I can kind of check out. You can see the highlights. I'll see the highlights in the middle of the week.

I can miss this one. I don't need to tune in today. I'm not drawn to it. I had lost. Same. Yeah. Dude. And I'm careful to admit this because,

hey, man, I'm a broadcaster. I got all kinds of roles and responsibilities. And so I don't know if that hurts my position in the sport to say, I was falling out of love with it. I really was. Yeah. And so, you know, I still, the core of motorsports I love and the idea of getting cars together and putting them on a track and throwing a green flag and a checkered, I love that idea and always will.

But what we were and had become was so far removed. It was. And so gimmicky and contrived and complex, hard to follow. And so I was not looking. Looking forward, I had gotten to the point to where it was like, man, I don't want to watch this season because they're just going to go all the way to Phoenix and four guys are going to see who goes and wins it. It's so, it's too much happenstance, too much potluck. It's too much. It's not enough.

I need to really truly watch this person build this body of work. It needs to be a whole season's worth of work. Yeah. And, yeah. A hard work. Yeah. of good work. Yeah.

And so, you know, there was a lot about it that it was just falling away for me. And I was falling out of love with it. But what I miss was being pulled like a moth to a flame, being pulled back in every single weekend and going, damn, my guy's, you know, my guy needs to make up 80 points. Is he going to get a chunk today? Am I going to watch him freaking work his way back into this battle? you know, because that was the way we lived it. That's how you, listen, that's how I lived it in the 80s and the 90s and so forth was, and even in my own career, I would sit there and go, man, we got to gain 80 points or we need,

can I get 30 on this guy this week? You know, and every single week, you knew you needed to do something, achieve something. Even if it was a littlest bit. I remember during the summer we'd get on a little bit of a role of like, you know, you know, like five or six top fives in a month. And you can, I mean, every week was like, man, we gained a little bit here. We're shipping. And like them hot streaks to me were like fun. Yeah. Those battles during the summer and being consistent and earning it that way. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I, you know, I think that I'm excited to tune into a race season where how you perform at Daytona,

how you perform at Atlanta, how your season begins. is going to really sort of give you an idea of whether you're championship worthy. Because with the old system and this system that we're bringing back, if you start off in a hole four weeks in a row, you know, if you come out of the gate cold, you have a bad Daytona, bad Atlanta, you get yourself in a hole. It's hard. You got a hard, you got a lot to consider.

It's really difficult. It is. That wasn't the case last year. No. You'd get in a hard. hole and pop off a win. Everything was fixed. Well, that just became if you had a bad month to start a season, you just put all your

cards in for the wins and you did all, like, it wasn't like a, you could have ran 30th, three races in a row after that. It didn't matter. That's right. You were going for the win. And I think we talked about it on the show. I need the lows to be low. I need the highs to be high.

Mm-hmm. And we had lost, the highs weren't any, the highs weren't as high. You know, your driver would win a race in the fifth race. of the season. Yeah, it was great. He's into playoffs, but other than that, I mean, and then if he had a bad race, you didn't care. He didn't even care. The drivers would get out and go, that. Bad race. Oh, well. Yeah, I can win next week and still be fine. But not anymore. I think even though we still have a chase, even though there is a reset, bad weeks are going to affect your ability to really go win the championship in that, in that chase.

Okay, they've done some, they've done tons of modeling on this thing and they ran. So I know the dudes that work on the, the algorithm or whatever you want to call it, where they basically kind of set up the model and then they run it through all these hypotheticals. I know that people that have worked on this and they've told me that while no format is full proof to a fluke, this one is going to be, if you're, outside the top five at the start of the chase, you're going to have to be, like, remarkable to make it work. That's why people are, like, I want less people in the playoffs.

It's fine if you have 16 because... It's fine because, yeah, like 10th through 16th, you have a very, very slim chance. You got to hit it if you're going to make it. Freaking 8. So what's the point between first and 16th that start the chase? The regular season champion gets, starts at 2,100. Yeah.

And each person and then seconds, 75 points and so on with a 5-point. drop after each. Sorry? Second, 75 points. What? First gets 100. Second gets 75.

Third gets 65. With a five point drop for each seat after. Yeah. So the guy out front, the person, the, the dude's number one's 25 points. 25 ahead. 25 head to second place. To start. Yeah.

Yeah. And it's half a race. And that's pretty big because you think about like... It's half a race. You know, in the original point system, that would be like 90 points. Right? We'd get 180 points for a good day. But if you get hot, it is obtainable.

It is. Which is good. Yeah. But I mean, you don't have to get hot. And you get 55 points if you win now. But let me ask you this now. P-16 and points. Joey Lagano, 16 of the points.

Gets hot. First race of the playoffs. How far behind is 16th to the leader? Look at your notes right there. You're basically starting at zero, right? You're starting at just 2,000. Okay. So he's how far back?

100. That's two races. I mean, if he wins. points from that. I mean, but if he wins the points from that, that's deserving to me. From that point.

Yeah. Yeah. But listen, so we'll sit there. We'll sit there in the middle of the season. We're watching in the old system. We're watching the bubble. We're watching the bubble.

And it's like, you know, a couple guys and they're like 20 or 10 points apart. And you'll have this guy that's in like 20th, that's 40 points back or a whole race back. And they, that when they get kind of close, maybe 30, maybe 20 points

with them, but they never get to that bubble. And if you're, you have, so let's just say the top three guys in the chase are going to have a points advantage. They are also

the top three, the best three cars of the season. They're great. They're good. They're going to go run 10 races. They'll make stub their toe here and there. but they're not going to give up two races to the guy that's been 16th in points and had a 16th point season. You know what I'm saying? It's going to be tough.

They're not going to give up two races. Three of them aren't going to give up two races to the guy in 16th of points. So, like, you might beat one of them because they might have just, they're going to blow, you have to blow a couple motors. A couple accidents and motor. Yeah, they're going to have just chase, which can happen. But I just, you know, I just. You know, it doesn't, I agree.

Like, they could have cut it to 12. They could have cut it to 10. They probably should have. But it doesn't really matter because 16th has such a disadvantage. It's like, why are we going to argue about that? And it creates more work anyways with contracts. And it'd be deserving because he's had to have a phenomenal play. I don't see how he's.

I don't see a world where it happens either. So I ain't worried about it. but it's not going to happen by locking into a win and then being in the final race. You know what I mean? Like how it's been. It's like you're going to have to earn it every single week. Like you're going to have to be outstanding. Yeah.

I'm happy about it. Yeah. Me too. There's 12 drivers in the Xfinity series and there's 10 in the truck, which I think are those are better. But it doesn't really matter that they're 16 in the cup because, again, like I don't think I'm not that. I don't feel like, you know, 12th to 16th is much of a thing.

threat 13th to 16th and i mean they take offense to that if you're 14th or something in points when the cut you know when the chase begins but i don't feel like they're a threat to go out there and and beat the guys that are going to have you know the top three points six seasons yeah so i mean your champion's probably going to come out of the top three maybe the top five some years yeah i um i like that's just easier to explain to people now god of my yeah that's true trying to explain the The playups to my dad was like impossible. Simpler. Very, very difficult.

I'm so glad winning your inn is gone. Look, I love that when it was me. I love that when it's my favorite driver. Yeah, of course, but I'm glad it's gone. What moments do you think that takes away? The winning you're in, like the Austin Dillon thing at Richmond, does, you know what I mean? Does he get that aggressive to win a race still?

No. Can you think of any other instances? Probably a good thing. I mean, you lose the Harrison Burton moment, but like, it's still cool for them to win, though. So, hey, Harrison Burton, let me tell you this. And Harrison won't admit this. Jeff Burton won't admit this.

And they don't have to. They won that race at Daytona. They did not. They went into that, you know, they went into the playoffs saying all the right things, and of course they should. But they knew damn good and well. They didn't have a shot in hell winning a championship. And if that didn't exist, right?

And they had this system. And he goes out there and wins Daytona, they celebrate it just as hard. They're just as happy. It's just as big of a story. And we've lost nothing as a fan. I've not lost anything. You know what?

I actually feel like that I would appreciate it more if it was just celebrating a Wood Brothers win with Harrison Burton and nothing else. Yeah, I was fine with that. The fact that that other playoff baggage was tied to that moment was actually problematic for me. You know what I mean? It might eat, like, I agree with that somehow.

It's weird to think about, but I would, I think it weighs it down some. It did. Like, I'd be happy. I was happy that he won the race and he should be. And like, I do think that it went from like here. Like, oh, but I mean, you're taking up a spot. John, John Wood would sit here and tell us, well, asshole, that costs us a lot of money. Because we would, we make, that's like a, that's like a $2 million check when you lock into the playoffs.

Yeah. So that's gone. So there's, listen, I am a fan, I've got an opinion. I don't expect everyone to agree with mine. John Wood would say that the win in your end was good for the Wood Brothers a couple of years. And by God, I can understand his point of view. And if I was a, you know, if I was a guy that was, you know, running the Wood Brothers and I had a charter, I would be like, man, I really enjoyed getting that, you know, that money if we could get ourselves into playoffs with a win.

So it affects everybody uniquely. It really affects probably trackhouse the most. Why? Well, you had SVG and then you bring it over Connor who you think might have a chance to win a road course. Has anybody done the math on whether SVG would have made it on this system? That's a good question. I don't know what the new points.

Yeah, I think he's 60. Because that would have been 60 more points. He was 22nd points in the old system. I think that if you do the math, I bet you SVG is 16th in points. I would hope so. With his season last year. It has to be. Yes, by two.

And you know what? He deserves it. Yeah. I would have been like, hey. Yeah, he deserves it. He deserves it. He won, what, six races. Yeah, man.

He had a great season. Four in the regular season. Yeah. Yeah, he had a great season. Yeah. And he got the biggest thing to, the biggest thing. the biggest thing that I saw with SDG wasn't the road course wins because you expect that from him. It was the other tracks that I saw him get better at.

And he's learning them. So that's really good. I don't know who doesn't know what's going on with all this. I'll give you some more information around the playoffs if you haven't been paying much attention. Just for Cup, 16 drivers, no win and you're in. We're going to start the season. You're going to accumulate your points. The top 16 in points are going to go into the chase.

Race winners are going to collect more points, 55 total. That's a 15-point increase over last year. All the points awarded for positions and stage results remain the same. There are no bankable playoff points, so you don't get a playoff point. You know what? This sucks for broadcasters, because our asses are used to one thing, right? I'm going to, I'm going to mess up. Be ready.

Call my ass out. points are going to reset for each series, and there'll be a 25-point premium awarded to the regular season champion. So, meaning when we start the chase, the top seed will have 2,100 points, second, 2075, and then third will be 2065, and there's a 5-point drop after each. Yes.

So just, you know, pretty silly, basic, simple. We'll learn that quick. Yeah. That's easy. But I'm going to screw up a couple times in the booths. But hey, I'm, I'll be honest, I am, I'm so relieved. Like when you guys heard this announcement, I don't know if y'all felt this. But when I got out of there yesterday, it was like a ton of bricks being pulled off my shoulders.

And I had this feeling of anticipation about the new season. I have this feeling that we're back. Let's go. Let's go. I am so excited to tune in and know that the Daytona 500 is one, one cog in the leg of this big wagon wheel that you're going to have to build all season long to complete this journey to be a champion. In the week after that, in the week after that, in the week after that, you're going to have to tune in.

You're going to look at the finishing order. You're going to look at the rundown. You're going to see where this guy finished and this guy finished. Oh, man, is it going to be sweet? Oh, it's going to be so fun. Yeah, those DNFs are going to really hurt. Oh, it's going to be fun.

I was worried that they weren't going to, like, truly nail it. I thought there's going to be, like, something they missed. I got no issues. The only thing that some people will say is that it's not 36. But damn, it is nestled. right up beside it. It is close. It is as close as you can get.

It is. And I was thinking about this. It's like we've drove, you know, we started on the one yard line in February with this meeting. And it looked like we would never go and get across the 50. We drove this some of the field goal range and we need to take the points, people. We need to kick the three and get on out. Right? And so.

No, don't need to go for it. No, don't need to go for it. let's just kick the three get on out of here. This was a win. All right. And I love NASCAR. I think the world of O'Donnell and all those guys and everybody that was a big part of that, Tim Clark and everybody,

I think the world of Jeff Beakey and a bunch of people that were in that meeting. And they're my friends. I would freaking do anything for them. They were great people. But I did not believe that they would allow us to go this far. And I didn't believe that they were willing to be malleable enough and open-minded enough to think and consider getting this close to 36. And so, and I'll be honest, I told him this in a meeting, and I think Mark Martin might have said this as well. Where we were last year, I would have been nervous to have to be the guy to make the decision to go to 36.

Mark Martin and I were sitting right next to each other and off camera. He said that to me. He said, I wanted 36, but I'd have hated to be the guy to make that call. because that's a freaking risk. If you swing and miss. You swing and miss on that. But this is a good, this is a good route to almost getting there.

And I can look, I can really look at this. And the reason why we love 36 is because we know it's the whole piece of the, it's the whole pie, right? And it all, all the pie has to be good. And so that's why we love 36

because we feel like that means every single moment, every lap plays into the result. I can look at what we're doing and feel exactly the same way about this as I do about 36. This is a full season. This, what you'll have to do is put together the whole year. That's what I want you to do. And this gives me that, right?

And if we need to, you know, if we need to have a chase and something to sort of, you know, if we need to have something to sell, fine. How does this change? Does anything change during the races for, like, does race team strategy change for stage points or anything like that now? Man, that's a great question, T.J. And honestly, I can't, I don't know what we're going to see in some scenarios. I'm just thinking ahead, like, how does it change your overall look for the race, you know? I feel like since they've added so much to winning that now winning, putting yourself,

in position to actually win the race. So the stage points will still be important. We know that guys will strategize sometimes to actually lose the, you know, take away their chances of winning the race, hurt their chances of winning the race to gain more stage points. We've seen guys do that. Yes, we have. We've seen them do the opposite too. Yeah.

The green flag will drop. They'll start racing and the guy will go, our car ain't good today. But if I do this and this, I can get these stage points and we'll just see where we end up in the final stage and voila we've got you know the third most points even though we finished eighth or whatever right so they'll do that we know they will but now so they'll still be some of that but now since we've added some points more points to winning that becomes more important right so you're going to see you might not do that yeah you're going to see people still do a little bit of stage racing but less because winning points wise means so much and so and i think when these

guys start to realize, T.J. How important it is to be in one of the top five seeds, when they realize the advantage of being one of the top two top seed, they're going to have to get points, points, points, all year long. And that's winning races. That's running in the top three. So we still have the element, though, of like you said, the guys that are, you know, eighth to 15th, if they get an opportunity to jump.

jump up there and get some stage points, they're going to do it still to try to make their day a little bit better. Make their day better. Yeah. And then you're going to have guys that are going to go for the win, like SVGs leading the road course, pits with three to go because he's going to win the race. He's probably still going to do things like that. And then you're going to have guys that are going to, you know, cycle and come out, you know,

get the stage points and stuff. So I feel like you're going to have a lot of the same stuff. Sure. All right. We got some breaking news just coming across the desk. Tony Stewart, we heard some rumblings. about this Dodge truck campaign, Dodge teasing that they had some legends that were returning to the sport. And this is one that we felt like might be in the works for a race or two.

Looks like Tony Stewart's going to be back in NASCAR for one night, three-time series, three-time Cup champion. It's going to drive the truck for Colleg at the opener in Daytona. Hintn't been in NASCAR since 2016, and this will be his first truck race since 2005. Wow. Boy, he picked a dozy. He did. My goodness. I don't, I wouldn't expect less.

I wouldn't. I was going to say, Tony Stewart ain't scared of it. No. The dude don't give it. Because I wouldn't have picked Daytona. I would have picked somewhere else. A little slower. Bolly, moly.

It must be writing him a nice chick. I'll say that. But listen, this is what Dodge wants to do. They want to create noise. They want to create a splash. They want to, this doesn't work for Dodge by just building trucks, cars going out and winning races. They need the story.

They need to be the big deal on social media. They need everybody talking about this. This is a start. That is the way that they'll get their board and everybody at Dodge to help support financially what's going to be required for them to get all the way back through the Cup series. And so going out and winning races is good,

but they need engagement. And so this is what this is all about. They are going to have the attention. Bringing Tony Stewart back to Daytona and a truck, that's how you do it. 100%. Wow. I'm more inclined to watch the truck race now than it was 10 minutes ago. I ain't going to miss it.

You know NASCAR's got to be loving that. You know the truck series has got to be loving that. All the drivers that are going to be in that series for that one night in Daytona. And there's a lot of, like, not to take away from Tony, but there's a lot of young guys that are coming to the truck series this year too that are out of late models and stuff. There's going to be a lot to look at the truck series here. That's right.

One thing that we got to talk about, the lawsuit. I think everybody's ready to put that behind them. We hadn't really reacted to it. You know, I feel like that I talked to Jim France, I don't know how long ago, a long, long time ago. And I was like, what's going on? What's going to happen here? And he said, eh, he said, it's going to take a while.

He said everybody's going to have to compromise a little bit. on both sides, but it's going to be all right. And that's what happened. That's kind of what ended up happening. Everybody, you know, it went probably farther, way farther than it needed to. A lot of things came to light that a lot of people probably wish that hadn't. And that was unfortunate for NASCAR. A lot of dirt came out.

We saw a lot of bullshit that none of us really wanted to see, but it is what it is. And so NASCAR had to give up. a lot. The teams even probably compromised a little bit as well for the good of the sport, but they walked out of that courtroom together and faced the media. And from what we can tell, have put that behind them. It's been quiet. Yeah, moving forward. It has been quiet. Which I like.

Yeah. The one thing that has happened since is Steve Phelps stepped down from commissioner, his commissioner role. he was the president in NASCAR, and then NASCAR made this commissioner position, and he has stepped down. I talked to Phelps about that. He told me he hopes this is a way for the sport to move forward, if that's what needs to happen.

I don't mind telling you that I think Phelps is a great dude. I know what he said about Richard Chuders is not cool. I don't, I didn't like it. I don't think that that was a good thing to say about Richard. No matter what you think about Richard Childers, Richard Childers is close. Pioneer icon. Yeah, but he's near family to me.

He is, yeah. I grew up in his shop, and my dad drove his race cars, and we've got a connection and a bond unique to a lot of other people that I'm friends with in the industry. And I did appreciate what Phelps said about him. And I would tell that to Phelps, and Phelps would agree that it was a dumb thing to say. I agree.

We've all said things and text messages that we probably would prefer, you know, some people not to see. but, you know, that, if you're a, you know, if you're a guy in Phelps position, you can't say that in a text message. You can't be bull's your buddies and think that, man, you know, this is a safe space. And so, you know, that was a mistake on his part. He's owned it from what I could tell. And Steve Phelps will land on his feet.

He's a good dude. And he's done some great things in our sport. And he's shepherded at our sport through some tough times. And I know I'll catch some for that. I don't give a shit. This is what I believe. And I also like O'Donnell. I've been around him my whole career.

I know exactly how he feels and what he thinks and where I know where his heart is. And if y'all were paying attention during the trial, we all learned that both Phelps and O'Donnell were actually trying to get the teams what they freaking wanted. You know, so I mean for, you know, aside from what Phelps said about Richard, Phelps and O'Donnell were kind of working to get everything right.

They were trying to make it work. Yeah. I mean, so NASCAR, I don't believe, will, the commissioner position will go away. They're not going to feel it. I don't think. There's no need to have a commissioner in our sport.

O'Donnell is the president. He's going to move us forward. And I feel confident about that. I think the dude has, he's been, he's been at the short track ranks. He's traveled around. K&N, he's been to all these little bull rings. He's got 30 years in this sport,

seen all the levels, done all the jobs. Like, he knows the shit, and he kind of knows what, and he, you know, if there's, if you're part of the group that is a bit nostalgic toward what we used to be, you know, and how, you know, kind of fun the sport was in the 2000s, he's a guy that was around for that. And I think he's a guy, too,

that can pull us back in that direction, where I wasn't so sure that the sport was willing to go before all this went down. So I, you know, we'll see, we'll see how it works out. Ben Kennedy's a good dude. He works hard. I wish he were, I wish he were, I wish he were 10 years older with 10 years, you know, more,

I wish he was, maybe he's ready to take on more. but like we need him now and he's you know we need him now and he's not really i don't think ready to be that guy for another chunk of time and so gosh you know i can't wait for those paths to kind of cross to where he can because i i think he's got such a good head on his shoulders he knows a sport he's been around it too and and i trust his level-headed and you know, he's a little bit, you know, you know, I don't like street courses and all this sort of shit. I love short tracks.

I'm just being me. You'd have been great at street courses. I hate road course racing. I know there's people that love it and I'm good with that and I'm good with the sport. Having road courses. I'm not going to be a hard ass about that. And Ben Kennedy loves those type of things. Ben Kennedy loves the San Diego race idea.

It's going to be cool. I'm liking that too, but he loved the Chicago deal. He's all about those kind of things. He also appreciates the short track, too, but he knows the sport needs to try to, you know, do unique and new things every now and then. There needs to be a good mix and all that. So, you know, he's, he's, I think he would be a good, he's going to, I think he will be when he finally decides to really sort of, you know, take over. He'll be the guy to really steer us in a good direction, but. We have done some things that I never thought were possible.

Yeah. Coliseum race. I mean. I hated that. I know, but I mean, I never, 15 years ago, I'd have been... I mean, there's people that would sell, look, I'm just, I'm not saying I'm 100% correct here. You're just too old school. Look, I'm not old school.

I just, I don't think we needed to go to the Coliseum. Yeah. It was pretty cool for one year. No, it's like we went to the Coliseum and we ended up at Bowman Gray, right? When it was right here the whole time, like it was right here. It was right here. Yeah, it's right here. Should have tried this first.

Yeah, right. it's right here we should what do we do it like we waste all right i don't know i mean maybe you need to be the commissioner i would have told you need for commissioner i heard you heard it here i don't know what is what kind of voting power do i have um they will do it if they bring back 36 races no i don't need i think you like i think you like where it's at i would ask i would do it if they if they walked in this room and asked me to do it right now i'd do it i'd have to call amy and say man thinking about being a commissioner. You might want to wait a couple more hours.

Yeah. She's on a trip. Yeah. I'll be honest, man. I'm kind of in a good spot with where everything is. I'm not pissed. I'm not annoyed. I was for, I was all of last year. All that negativity and trial and I was just so.

The trial wore it down a lot. I was so annoyed. And they're, I was. our freaking format. I didn't realize how bad I hated the format until it finally got out of here. And I couldn't say it. You know what I mean?

You couldn't be completely honest. It was like an ex. Girl, you're dating. Well, I mean, I'm a broadcaster and I want that job. I want to be here. I do want to be here. But I can't sit here and go, hell yeah, tune in there, you know, 600 at Charlotte.

I hate this playoff of stuff, though, but don't, you know, still tune in. Tune for the race, but yeah. But so, It's a tough spot for me to be in. I don't lose my job. You know, I don't, not that I would lose my job, but like, you know, you want your... Well, that wouldn't go over well.

Yeah, you want your broadcasters to kind of stay out of... So, I was trying to protect myself in every, you know, I don't know. So a lot of gains have been made with the format, the tire made a lot of gains last year. The car, I feel like there's been a lot of things with the car that are being adjusted and trying to go in the right direction. So there's a lot of things that are looking good. Yeah. One thing that I found interesting, Chip, Chip Wild, good buddy of ours. He's now with the driver's advisory council.

Yeah. They work with NASCAR on safety, other competition initiatives. He was named the executive director of the driver advisory council. He was a former Daytona track president and NASCAR executive also. I wonder why he left the NASCAR building to go do this. driver's advisory council because I don't know I mean he's been in touch with I mean he's always been in touch with all the drivers like I don't you know what I mean so I it doesn't surprise me that he's working with them but I don't know the why would you leave the big building I'll be

honest I don't know yeah I don't the drivers I couldn't do it for you the commissioner you could tell us I mean dude I could not do it I could not be the advisory uh whatever I couldn't do it why You're saying dealing with those drivers. Dealing with drivers. I used to be one. Oh, yeah. We're f***ing ass. Our head cases.

We got egos. Still are. We all think we know everything. Yeah, I deal with that in our league. 31 of you. And we all think that our idea is the best idea. Best one, of course. And so, like, if you got 12 or 30 or 10 or 5 in the room, all five are going to be like, no, this is what we need to do.

100%. And you're like, oh. And then they text on the side. And I'm still sitting here thinking the same way. Am I not? Like, I still am the same way. Yeah, it's tough to do, man. If you, if I annoy the shit out of you because of my takes,

like how, like, hard-headed I am about this is the way, this is how, that's how drivers are. Imagine four or five of those in the same room, trying to be the guy, the corral that. No, thank you. It's tough. I guess Burton was like, I've had enough. I think he's still.

Oh, he's a. He's with, he's still evolved, though, right? what is he uh what do they they always do that what did they he's going to stay on as a what do they say consultant consultant yeah advisor consultant something that's always yeah you can go here for that mug you ain't going to hear from him man if you get the if you get to stay on as a consultant deal that's that gravy you ain't got to do shit you just sit back yeah am i right i mean i guess it is yeah because even when they make like coaching changes and stuff this guy's going to say as a special advisor to the board or something.

Whatever. Yeah, sure. I'll do that. Yeah. Yeah, why not? Do they still get paid to do that? Oh, imagine. Is that a paying role?

Yeah. I'd go change my number. Hey, you want to stay on a consultant? You have an answer to text. No problem. It is a tough deal, though, because everyone has a different view. I don't know. I'm just bullshit, man.

I don't know. It is tough. Good luck, Chip. I hope you enjoy that. I've got your hands full. So the cars tour, I'm wearing a T-shirt. representing. Cars tour is starting their season. Our first race is toward the end of February.

We got two back-to-back races on the 21st of February. The Cars Tour goes to Coast of Plains. That's a Saturday. And then the next following week, we're the Southern National. So two back-to-back races, the 21st and the 28th. That'll kick off the Cars Tour season on Flood. exclusively. If you're not a subscriber of Flo,

you're missing the hell out because they've got all the all the Chilli Bowl. Flo's pretty much got everything. They got everything. Yes, you're missing out. And it's one flat fee. You don't have to buy

the subscription and then buy the races. Some streaming platforms sell you the subscription annual subscription. And then they make you buy the damn race. It's so bad. I get so mad when that happens. Well, that's why the car is towards.

chose flow. That's why we wanted to be a flow. Because you pay one flat fee and you get everything. You get college sports. Oh, there's so many categories. Every weekend, they have 10 to 20,000 college sports events. Every weekend. Not to mention the short track, dirt stuff, everything they have on there. It's ridiculous. So a lot of racing too. Yeah. So anyways, they're also, uh, flow has a new program called the floatium. Think about the word podium. It's called the floatium program. It's a hundred thousand dollar program for the 2006 season. It's kind of like

the Noble 5. Every two races will set up a group of drivers that will be able to race for $10,000 in the third event. And this will just reset.

Every three races we're going to have a driver in the pro and the late model stock racing for 10 grand. All right. For example, if you go to the first race of the year at Coastal Plains and you run into top three, you have locked yourself in to the

floatium in race three. The next race at Southern National, run into top three, you're locked in to the floatium in race three. So the third race could have six guys going to have ten grand. It could have three. It could have six. That's right. The same three could run top three both weekends.

It could have three, it could have four, five, or six. And you don't have to win the race to get to ten grand. But if you win, you're in. You don't have to win the race to get the 10 grand. If you're in, you know, just finish ahead of the other guys in the floatium. They'll have a banner on the windshield to signify that they are part of that program in the third race of the season. Or third race of each, you know, each block. That's just a bonus on top of the purse.

It's just a 10 grand carrot out there for these guys to put in their pocket. Somebody's getting it. Damn right. All right. Our purses have increased for our champions in both the pros and the late model stocks. 30,000 to win the championship in late model stock. The pros doubles to 15,000. We're paying back to fifth.

And pros, we're paying all the way back to 10th in the late model stocks. The late model stock purse is crazy. I think seconds, 20 grand. Third is 12,500. It's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. Damn right. We're going to Nashville Fairgrounds.

April the 11th. Got to get up there and do a little tire test and see what's going on. Make sure we're ready to go. But hopefully everybody comes out and supports us. Nashville Fairgrounds is in a battle for its own existence. The cars tour.

There may be a one and done. I'm not sure. I hope not. But the people in Nashville are going to have to get to work if they truly want that racetrack to survive. We had an owner's meeting that kicked off our season.

We all got together. We're voting on a couple things, some procedural stuff for our series. But everybody's really, everybody's in a good frame of mind to get this season started. Any other big changes with the cars or tires or anything? No. Hoosier's going to keep building our tires. I know there's some series that are changing. We're pretty happy with the Hoosier. We may make the tire change at some tracks from the 45, but that's still on the table for conversation.

Are they looking for more tire wear? Are you looking for more falloff still? I love fall off. Yeah. Every time we can get fall off, we're going to take it. Yeah. But we don't build the tires, Hoosier does. So we've been running to 45.

Yeah, I know. Yeah. I'm excited about the cars tour. I hope everybody will continue to support the series. I think it's the best short track racing in the country. It's open the doors for a lot of young guys. Yeah. Which is what it's supposed to do. So that's right. Yeah, buddy. Let's go do some Ash Jr. Hey, everybody. Stale Jr. We're live on YouTube. I'm rusty. Got to get back going again. That time of year.

Yeah. This is Ask Junior. And a fun little segment we do where you guys send in some questions. It's good to see everybody. How's everybody being? How was your Christmas? Your New Year's. Yeah. How's everybody? Are they responding in the chat? They excited about today? Did you get crazy on New Year's? We did. We did. We did have some fun. I went to Texas, see Amy's family.

Yeah. We did a Christmas after New Year's. So we had a lot of fun. But I'm excited. We've been here today talking about the new ports format, wrapping up some comments about things have been going on in the sport. The Cars Tour. We're cranking that back up.

Got my year on today. Excited about all the things we got going on. So I don't know, man. After that announcement yesterday, I feel like a ton of bricks been lifted off my shoulders. I'm excited and looking forward to the season. Ready to go to Daytona? Ready to see some racing?

The chat's excited to be back. Awesome. Yeah. I'm excited to be back. It's going to be a good year. I got a feeling. We got the Tony Stewart news today. Like, it's just like a good week.

Tony Stewart. Going race a truck at Daytona for Dodge. Crazy. We had heard some rumblings that there was a, you know, and I don't think that's the end of the, you know, bringing the legends back. You know, I don't know who else. Casey Cain I heard was rumored to possibly

maybe be in that truck at a time or two. But yeah, it's going to be fun to see what Dodge does. But Tony Stewart coming back running Daytona. That's a big story. Are you ready for questions? Let's go, yeah. All right, so first question is, when you were racing and you stayed at hotels, did you ever stay under fake names?

Yes. How'd you pick them? I was in, when I got burned in the Corvette, we were in the hospital under William Bonnie. I remember that. Billy the kid's real name. Yeah. William Bonnie.

It's mostly the one I use. That's it, no other ones? Isn't that Billy the kid, I think? Yeah. So, William Bunny. Like, I always just wanted, like, I always, I don't do that anymore, but, you know, back in the day, that was fun to do.

It was fun to do. More fun to do than practical. Yeah. I would say for the most part, it was easier in, like, Mike's name or J.R.'s name or something, too, a lot. So, that makes sense. That's not fun.

No, it's not fun. Um, next question. Uh, the Zon. zombie apocalypse is coming. Who are three people you want in your team? Does anybody know, did they give us a date when it's coming? Nope. Oh, okay.

You mentioned it like it had just been, you know. No, like an apocalypse coming like you know three people. Breaking news. Apocalypse is coming. Next week. Okay. What am I doing? You want three people on your team to help fend off the zombies. Damn.

True X. He's a good shot. He's a good shot. Dude, I've seen True X hit a dollar bill with a bow and arrow. at 100 yards. Hank Parker, Jr. But you can't fend off zombies with bow and arrows. Hank Parker, Jr.

And all the juniors. Hank Parker Jr. True X, Jr. And me. You get one more? Oh, shit. Well, while we're at it, let's see, what are the juniors right there?

I would say, I need somebody who can. Oh, the dude who, oh, wow. he's on YouTube. The outdoor boys? Yes, the outdoor boys. The dad?

Oh, that guy is crazy. My fingers are so cold. Yes. Outdoor boys. Him. Yeah, that guy. I was thinking about him. Luke?

Luke. Luke Nicholas. Hell, yes. Dude, we are surviving this shit. I am not worried. Oh, yeah. That's the main guy right there. The three juniors and Luke.

We got it. I would just take him. I'd probably take you because of your basement. We could just, lot of supplies down there. No, you can't, though. Dale's on his own team. Yeah.

I got beer. Well, that's my team. I can pick my own team. Got the supply of beer down there. No. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good.

That guy's channel is good. Yeah. Who else you taking, TJ? We do need a compound, so I do like my property. Come on. Oh, with the property. Yeah. If there is a, yeah.

I feel like we could set up a good facility there. If there was a zombie apocalypse, I would be. texting all my family, be like, y'all come on. We'll just all camp here. It's in the right place to defend, too, like where it sits. Do you know anybody that has a bunker? No. Yeah.

We thought Carl Edwards had a bunker, but we've learned that he's not the prepper that we thought. We thought he was prepping all these years, but he's just sailing. I don't know when that has a bunker. Yeah. Surprisingly. Yeah. Do you want a bunker? I mean, you know, if you're...

No. No, no. I was thinking about this the other. day. I mean, the bunker, right? It's underground. Great. You're hidden.

But once they know the bunker's there, they just got to just suffocate the breather pipe, right? Or the, you know, the way, the ventilation, right? They just, I mean,

eventually. They could run you right out of there. Pretty easy, right? You can't stay there forever either. Yeah. Well, I don't know how those, yeah,

how do you get the oxygen? Well, there's ventilation and stuff. There's some fun, fun ways to hide it through, you know, shrubs and bushes and whatnot. But,

I mean, once they've kind of learned that it's, there, you're kind of trapped. You're also wasting a lot of money on something that, like... Oh, dude. Yeah. Could you imagine? No.

Like building a bunker and then never using it, never needing it? And then... Yeah, that would be awful. Or you do use it, but you have no idea when you can even go out. Yeah. You're just in there for, like... Like, I'm not talking about, like, hurricane shelters or, like, out in the Midwest where there's tornado shelters under your house.

Like those kind of bunkers. Like a house underground. I mean, like, a prepper bunker, like a, you know, these, you know, buying a silo or missile silos somewhere out. in the world, in the middle of the country. And then, yeah, like building your house underground, really. I don't know, man. It's a lot of waste.

Yeah. I would love, though, to tour one. What, you want to tour one? Like a real bunker that's been remodeled. Yeah, probably. Renovated. It's probably nice. I don't want to tour and check it out.

Go down and in there. I think if you're going to do that, you need to make it also like your... Somebody get us a tour. We need to find someone's got one. We're going to. This is live on YouTube. This is how the internet works. I know, but like then for the guest show, we go to their bunker.

I know. Well, I don't know about that. Let's not do a show. Let's not work. Let's just go look at it. I want to go work. If I was going to do a bunker. Your ass is always trying to put me work.

I don't want to go. I want to go and it's like super awesome. I'm trying to build content. What if you go and it's like super awesome? Okay. What if you go and it's super awesome? And you want one. You're not micing me up.

Huh? What if you go and it's like super awesome? What if you go and it's like, man, I want to build one of these. Well, I was hoping that would be the case. Like you would go in there It could be It'd be It'd be

It'd be I have a feeling I'm not building a bunker You say that now I mean you build a western town It's just things like You know how tight I am And I'm like

What if I build this thing And then I'm like Get to the end of my life And I'm like Damn that was foolish Shouldn't have built that But you could make it Like your man cave too

So like you can use it Like that's what I would do You bought every pair A night vision Goggles in Moresville one day. That was to play paintball. I'm just saying, like, you've made some decisions.

You've made some decisions that were... We bought Night Vision goggles to play paintball at night. And then to chase each other around on golf cards. It pitched black without headlights. But I'm never built a bunker and wasting that money. How many Night Vision goggles did you have? I think we ended up with five, maybe. They weren't the big $20,000 pairs.

No, but back then they didn't have, like, they were as good as you could get. He bought every pair like they had. had in all the stores here. Look, stop it. That was a different time. I was a different person. You bought 10-quarter-scale R-C cars. I'm not that person anymore.

I'm so much, I'm more frugal. Your go-carts are on sale on eBay. Yeah, see, I got rid of all that crazy stuff. We painted the curves of a road course so we don't erase out anymore. I know. I've got a little paved kidney-shaped go-cart track on my property, and I want to dig that damn thing up. What a waste?

It's, because every time I walk by it, I'm like, what a waste? It is. a waste of money. So build the bunker there. Oh, well, it's down on a creek bed and a floodplain so it can't. Yeah, you don't want to be there. It'll flood the bunker now. Yeah.

Yeah, it would flood the bunker now. So what would you put there? I just dig it up. I want to dig it up because it's a reminder every time I drive by it that I was stupid. I'm like, you know, if I could just make it a grassy meadow, I will maybe forget that I did that. That one time we came back from Talladega and you're like, you want to go paint the curbs on the go-car track? Sure. This SAS Jr. is getting a little too honest.

Can we move on to the next question? Do you want a random one from a fan here? That's usually what this part's about. That's usually what this segment's about. So Penn Buser Rule wants to know which current or past driver is the best cook? Huh? Is there a driver that's a really good cook he wants to know? I don't.

How would I know? Random, random. I did go into Elliot Sallers bus one time and he was cooking pork chops and vinegar. Or he was boiling vinegar? Yeah, I got that right. So he was boiling white vinegar in a frying pan, and he had pork chops in there. White vinegar and porch? Are you sure?

I've never heard of that before. Sure it wasn't like apple sauce? Huh? What? Apposols and pork chops. Boiling applesau? No, no. He had a frying pan with about a half inch of vinegar boiling, and he had the pork chops in it.

Oh, Jesus. Yeah. That doesn't sound good. I know. I was like, hey, that's interesting. But that's Elliot. I wish I could do his accent. Because then I would tell you, you know, I would do an Elliot Saller impersonation.

I really sell this story, but it's kind of... Try it. His accent would make you want to try it. I don't think you would. I mean, it's probably good if he's cooking it. Yeah, I mean, if he's cooking it. I'll admit it. I went home and tried it.

It wasn't too bad. Gives a little tang to the back end of the... Portchop. Yeah. Not bad. What was your favorite recess game growing up? Kickball, freeze tag, 4th Square, dodgeball. Red Rover?

I was always good for some kickball. Kickball, like, you know, on the diamond? Yeah. Yeah. Where else do you play kickball? Well, we had a game called Matt Ball, which is like kickball, but a little different. Oh. Once you got on base, you could stay on base for just running.

I just like hide and seek, just regular hide and seek or tag. Do you ever capture the flag? No, man. Dude, I was old. We didn't even, we didn't have like, we just had, see, when I was, when I was, when I was, when I was a kid, we were just still playing tag. We were still hiding and seeking. The problem is that you're just sitting there all day. You're good.

Well, when we got to, when we got a ball for kickball, that was like. That was like upgrade. Like the new PlayStation coming out. TJ? I mean, kickball was always pretty fun. Dodgeball was always fun too. Dodgeball was fun.

They had the, you had either the rubber ones or like the... Did y'all ever play hide and seek in the neighborhood? Yeah. So like we lived on a, we'd go up to Mammals in Canapolis on V8 Street. I mean, it's a block,

you know, that was fun. If you knew that, yeah, when you knew the neighbors and everything. Yeah, I mean, like you were literally like, All right, you start, you're up at Mammal's house on the steps,

counting to 150 or whatever. And you had limits how far you could go. You could literally go to the other end of the block and hide under somebody's front porch. And they would, you know, it'd be like an hour. This one little leg of the game taking this old hour for the, for the person to find. I mean, it was like fun.

That's the way to play it. Long form. Yeah. Hide and seek. Long, yeah. Speaking of hiding. So I, when I, when I, I used to do this to Amy all the time. But now, I don't know why, I guess, because the girls are in the house, I quit doing it.

But I used to hide and scare her all the time. All the time. Simply, like, literally just around a corner. Oh, yeah. Not like, and just so easy. So much fun. And Nicole, or Ila, my oldest, is doing that. Oh, nice.

All the time to all of us. Perfect. It sucks. Because she's good. This little girl is hiding around every corner, ready to get you. Have you thought about return the favor? I'm going to have to start. It's probably a good idea.

I didn't want to encourage it because I didn't, you know, Amy's not a big fan of all of this. She didn't like getting scared all the time. So I didn't want to kind of, but now Amy's on a trip. So I got the girls this week. And I'm going to say, I'm just going to say we've had a really good week. I don't want to say it's easy. Don't do that. It's early in the week.

It is early. It's Tuesday. It's still got a couple days. I've got the girls for the whole week. It's been great. It's easy. It feels like a whole week. It feels like it's been a whole week.

Oh, the days are long. I had them all day Sunday. This long day. All day yesterday and today and then tomorrow and Thursday. And we haven't had one hiccup. Not one argument. Not one disagreement. We get up in the morning.

We brush our teeth. We're downstairs. We're dressed. We've left on time for school every day. We are happy. We're not arguing. We're not fighting. Going to bed on time.

I can't wait for Wednesday. Everything's going well. Yeah. So maybe while Amy's gone, I can start scared her at Eila, seeing how she feels about it. But here's the problem. Because Amy would get mad at me. If I scared Eila, Amy would be like, you're encouraging it. Don't do that.

That's the problem, though, is you're going to do it now thinking you're okay. Isla is going to see it as, oh, I can do this. Oh, she's already doing it. But then she's going to do it more. And then when Amy comes back, she's going to get her good. They'll grow out of it. They're going to grow out of it. I like it.

I like a little mischievous. I like a little... Oh, Nicole's got that. Dude, I know. Nicole's me. Nicole's, yeah. She's going to be a problem. I mean that in the nicest way.

But... So, we have one user saying they used to play tackle height and seek. Damn. How do you play that? I think that's just football. Damn, yeah. I mean, that's like... So to tackle it, to get them, you got to tackle them?

Holy cow. Yeah. Like, okay. Wow. Yeah, that seems a... I'd never heard of that. Me neither. I don't...

Next question. We had some people asking what the hood's going to be next year. Hey! I'm glad we got around to that. So the hood on the wall, we get this hood made, and then we sign, all our guests sign it, and then we donate it to the foundation, and they auction it off,

which we have an item right now on eBay for the Dale Jr. Foundation. NASCAR has an alumni group and they sent hats to all the people that are in the alumni and I guess I'm one of them. Kenny Wallace got a hat. Well, I got that hat in a box and I thought, well, I'm never wearing this, right? I'm glad to be an alumni, but I'm not walking around with a hat. It's weird to wear it. It says alumni.

I'm not doing that. So I signed it and I put it on the Foundation's eBay. You can go to the Foundation website if you want to bid on this. It's a one of one and I signed it. So it's like there's not another one like. it. Maybe you'll want it. But anyways, like that hat, we're going to put this butt hood that we have in here. So we had everybody signed myself, all of our guests, and we're going to have to put up a new hood. So I thought to let TJ pick the hood this

year. And TJ has chosen. I've chosen. And we're not going to tell you what it is, but I want everybody to try to guess what TJ, what hood. And you're never going to get it. Try as you may, you will never guess this hood. But I think... It might upset some people. It might. But it's going to make a lot of people happy. And it's going to surprise the people.

And it's pretty badass. It's a good one, DJ. It's a bad ass idea. It's going to look great. I'm going to take some for it. Yeah, you might. The fact that we have to give you a compliment hurts me. I will say this.

It's a past driver. And he's still with us and we'll get him to come in and sign it. maybe he'll be a guest. That'd help it out. There you go. Yeah. Oh, yeah, he's got to sign it. He's definitely got to sign it, yeah.

Okay. It's going to look cool. Yeah, it will. It's very iconic. I can't wait. And it's TJ's idea. Look at me. Let TJ get a little skin in the game here.

Have a little fun. Yeah. Do you see this Reddit? Dale's being nice to TJ. Yeah. I'm just waiting for your turn. Dale's always nice to me. They said I was an ass-f asshole last year.

Yeah. It was because of the points format. We're good now. We're good now. It's going to be a great year, y'all. Write that down. It's going to be a great year. I'm going to bookmark this one, T.J.

I feel like it really is. I'm not bullshit. I feel like it's going to be a freaking awesome year. We're all going to have fun. I think it'll help, but you're still pretty damn moody. We'll see. I do get moody. Usually when you lose your football games.

I lost last night in the national championship. Got beat by Houston. T.J. got beat by Houston as well in the playoffs. But I made it back. I just didn't defend my crown. I can't believe you did. pull out the trick play. He would have been ready for it.

I was waiting for you to do it just for fun. He had my ass kicked by halftime. It was over. There was at one point I think you were going to score. One point I didn't think you were going to even score. I know. So I was like, geez. When you kicked that field go, I was like,

yeah, that's just getting the points right. That's just getting it. Yeah, make it not look bad. Yeah. All right. But anyway. We got one more or no. You want one more?

Yeah. Okay. Let's see here. If you could erase one slang term from existence, what would it be? The hell? Six, seven. God, I would love to get rid of that.

I didn't know if your kids are saying words. Oh, my gosh. Six-sevans. I want that gone. A slang term from existence. Like, even my buddy's three-year-old saying six-seven now. Yeah. I know everybody's saying that.

I don't mind the point guard from Charlotte. He came up with that, right? I think so. Yeah. There's different. There's different. I've had this argument already with, with Madeline and Estella, that there's different origins of how it started.

I thought it. was the guy, we're like, how tall already? He was like, ah, six, seven, and that's like how it started. I thought that's how it started. Me too, but who knows? We'll do a different one then. If skill, experience, and capability was no issue, what profession would you like to have?

Just basically, what profession would you like to do? Yeah. What would you like to do if you could do it? Man, I had two, I think I had, there were two that I do recall, like growing up, man, I want to be, I wanted to play for Washington as a football player, and I wanted to be a rock star. That would be mine.

This is like 12-year-old me. Like lead guitarist. Oh, you don't want to be the singer? Okay. I think football players is almost like, every kid probably wanted to be a football player. I wanted to be a football player, but now that I watched the game, I'm like, yeah. Oh, I know. I want to be it anymore.

I don't know if I won't be that. You know, we get hit? They hit hard and they get hurt a lot. There's a lot. It's so much different now, though. I mean, their injuries are like eight months of rehab. Oh, man. Yeah.

Did you see George Kettle this week when you get hurt? Do you see what he requested at half a lot of room? Tequila. Yeah. I guess he drank the whole thing. Yeah. Rockstar. Yeah.

That'd be cool to be in front of it like a massive crowd and you can control it. Could you imagine? I'm sorry. Cut you off. They're good. I was just going to kind of join what you were saying. Like, when you think about being a rock star, we're all jaded or we're all kind of,

we all think it's just you get up on stage, you got thousands of people singing in your song, and it's just, you know, sunny and 70 and sunshine and roses. But I bet there's some crappy stuff. Oh, tons of crappy stuff. Oh, all bad. There's got to be. You see it when they've made it,

but when they're in a, you know, a 12 passenger van going from small venue to small venue. But I mean, I think that even that part of it could be pretty fun. But trying to figure out how to get a,

I've been around some dudes that are like not, I've been around some bands that are like local bands and so forth. And it's like they feel like they're this tiny minnow and this giant ocean and no one's ever going to hear them, right? Or they're never going to get that song. that like takes them to a national level.

And living that would be tough. And then once you do get the hit, right, you write this badass song or it gets really popular. Then you got to back it up. And you see so, you see a lot of people like just never can replicate the success. And some are the one hit wonders. It's hard to hit.

It's hard to write one hit. It's hard to write a second. Harder. I think I was texting you during, during the Christmas break there. we went to saw my mom playing an ACDC tribute band and it was actually fun to go and see but they had their renegade parked out front I was thinking like the whole time like man these guys they're this minnow right now but they were really good and I was thinking about things like

where you and I went looked at their schedule and they're like all over the U.S. They're from Kentucky but working their ass off they're working their asses off man yeah I would ruin that I would say I would do it for the partying and so I'd probably you know I'd be a bit of I'd be like a short little, I'd have short shelf life as a rock and roll star because I would, I would be, I would explode and burn out. VH1 would have had a documentary, whatever happened to Dale Jr. So we would go. I'm sorry. I'm being honest.

I would, you're probably right. I would have not held it together. Nope. I would have raised hell. And, and hey, some, some of survived it. But I'm not sure. Like we would go see Kid Rock. like we'd see it when they were in, you know, when they go to their next show, the next night,

somewhere else they're hanging out with other people. Yeah, they're partying all the time. So, yeah, TJ, we would hang out with Kit Rock and all times of different people over the years go to concerts and raise hell with them, third-eye blind and all kinds of stuff. And we went to a third-eye blind concert. Were you once on that? You probably weren't. I don't think it was.

This is like 2003. And we parked the bus in the behind the stage. They let us park in their little place. And we were out in the middle of the Midwest near Indianapolis, but we were about three hours away from Indianapolis. And they had this big amphitheater in the middle of the corn field. It was somewhere out of Indiana or somewhere. But I remember us watching the concert,

and then afterwards we drank beer with the band and everybody that was back there. We partied all night. And we're sitting there. They were like, hey, where's the next one? And they're like, where we're playing in Indianapolis, in town. And we're like, well, Well, we'll go.

Well, we'll just get up and when are y'all leaving? Well, we're cranking up. They told, they're like, we're cranking up at like 4 a.m. And they're going to pull out. And we'll be in our bunk sleeping. And I'm like, to my bus driver, I'm like, can we go? You want to get up a 4th drive, follow him? He's like, yeah.

So we went to the next thing and watched them again the next night. That'd be pretty fun, yeah. Yeah, but it gave you an idea of like, you know, you can party, but you got to figure out how to like have enough for the next night, the next night, the next night, then you get a day off and maybe, you know, give another three-night run. I wouldn't like that. That's why on the stage they sometimes

duct tape the city name so the singer doesn't mess it out. Oh man, Turing would not I wouldn't Why don't they have a little more time between shows, right? That's quick, man. Yeah, they've got to go

and got to bam, bam, bam, bam. Make their money. What was the show you remember going to Raleigh that first band that he was in before he was, remember we went up there to see him one time. What was the band? Oh, that's what it was, yeah. I forgot.

We went and saw Tenacious D in Greensboro. It was awesome. I don't remember where it was. I remember going up there. It was hilarious. It was good. We got to meet them. Went backstage.

This was like 2004. Like way back when Tenacious D was just Tenacious D. It was so fun. I forgot about that. Yeah. We saw three doors down in Tremont. Shat, you old, badass, you know, flat one level bar in Charlotte. but badass place.

A lot of history. But that's like the place where everybody would go before they would blow up. Damn, we've seen a bunch of bands. Oh, Arrow Smith here one time, which was pretty good. All right, well, that's it.

All right. Well, this was fun. Anyways, I hope everybody's having a good offseason. Off season, yeah, good start to the new year. We'll have a couple weeks off. A couple more weeks until we go to Daytona. We'll be back after the clash.

We'll be back on this show. When are we coming back? After the clash. All right. Just after the clash. We're coming back. Tuesday. So we'll see how the clash goes.

In Bowman Gray, that should be fun. Looking forward to that, but I'm really excited about cars going to Daytona and getting out on that racetrack. Yeah, it's going to be awesome. Seeing how that all goes down. Wednesday, 10 a.m. That's right. Fire them up.

Yep. So everybody, thanks for tuning in. Thanks for being a part of this with us today. Appreciate everybody that's going to tune in to the whole show later on when we get that out. And, yeah, have a good week, and we'll see you around. Check out Dirty Mo. on Instagram, Facebook, X, and TikTok.