The Dale Jr. Download - What Dale Hopes For Keselowski Moving Forward

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

It's your favorite day of the week! We've got 30 minutes of pumped-up fun coming right at you from Dirty Mo Media. This week's Dirty Thirty is all about Brad Keselowski's move, Jeff Dickerson's lawsuit remarks, and Shane Hmiel getting banned from NASCAR. Let's get into it!We start off with Dale Jr. & TJ Majors discussing what comes next for Brad Keselowski now that he has announced his departure from RFK Racing. Dale has hopes for where he says Brad takes his leadership, talents, and abilities.In Actions Detrimental this week, Denny Hamlin reveals how the spin went down and that he didn't know where Larson was in the field — should he have?This week's Door Bumper Clear was spicy as usual, but this time it was Jeff Dickerson who was bringing the heat, talking about the lawsuit against Spire Motorsports from Joe Gibbs Racing.The guest show this week was something to behold, as Shane Hmiel entered the studio for an episode that was so good, we had to cut it into two parts. In this clip, he talks about the moment he got banned from NASCAR for smoking weed. Catch part 2 next week!And finally, Amy is taken aback by Dale Jr's antics in first grade — and it leads to a hilarious story about his first girlfriend.That's all for this week! Catch us right here next week on Dirty Thirty. 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, I'm Dillon Hart Jr. and this is The Dirty 30. The best highlights from all of our podcast this week, 30 minutes every single Friday. The Dirty 30 coming in short. Let's get right to it. This episode of The Dirty 30 is presented by Arby's new Meat in Three Box. Get more meal for your money at Arby's. We have the meats. Let's talk about Brad Kislowski leaving RFK. Why is Brad Kislowski leaving RFK? well, we, you know, we listened to Chip Bowers, the RFK racing president. He said the main reason centers around Kozlowski wanting to continue racing for another five years. RFK preferred his transition to focus more into competition. So what I believe they wanted is possibly for Brad to say, hey, I want to race a couple more years, one, two, whatever it was.

And then they wanted him to transition into a competition role, competitive competition director or something like that. GM for the race team. They couldn't find a workable solution and the decision is to part ways. It's unfortunate. And this reminds me a lot of kind of Cobbush Joe Gis racing. I think in hindsight, you know, if we could have, if we could go back and, me personally, if you could go back to that time, I'd say to Kyle Busch, I'd say, oh, man, you've got to

make this work. You know, you're going to have to accept less money. whatever the thing is that's making you sour on this decision, driving good winning race cars is important. And so it kind of feels similar where Brad, I feel like Brad could have concede it a bit to, all right, man, you want me to just run one year and get out? I'll run the one year.

because I don't know that he has another cup ride to go climb into of this caliber or better, right? So he's, why not, you know, is if the chance to stick around at RFK, maybe you don't get the five years you want. Hell, dude, what is he? 42? Yeah. So, I mean, I wouldn't sign a guy that's 42 to a five-year deal. I'm not going to do it. So why not say, hey, man, let's sit down and figure out what your plan is.

You want to run one or, I'm going to run you two years max, Brad. So do you want to run two years and retire? Do you want to run two years and go try to do something else? That's all I'm will do. I think he should, if that was on the table, he should have absorbed that. Because I don't think he has any options. I don't think there's a cup option out there. And so what, you know.

But there's not really an option at RFK either because they don't have the third charter anymore. Well, they say they're going to run it. I don't believe that's true. I don't think they're going to run the third charter. Maybe that's, maybe he doesn't have a car to drive at RFK and it just doesn't exist. But if there was any, I'm only saying, and T.J. knows more than I do, and he's not going to tell us, I only, I'm only saying if there was a sliver of a chance to compete in. in a cup car in next year's cup series,

he should have tried to make it work. If there is no chance, if they were like, hey, you're not going to drive here, you will employ you, you're not driving here, then I got to get up out of there and I'm going to go climbing something that I can win in. I don't care if it's a truck, a Riley, I don't care.

I'm 42 years old. I'm going to go race, win. I'm going to have a ton of fun for the final few, years of my career, and then I'll figure it out from there. He's well off financially. He's going to want to go see the world. I wouldn't tack myself or weld myself down to some obligation in the cup garage. I would go and have freedom on my schedule to drive cars that can win and do some shit before I'm too old to do it. I didn't give a crap about seeing the world, traveling in different countries. I didn't give a crap about that. I was a homebody.

Want to be at home. Want to do nothing. When I had a weekend off, I ain't going to where. What the hell would I go somewhere for? I'm going somewhere when I'm racing. I don't want to go somewhere when I'm home. But as you get older, you want to go and check boxes. You want to see part of the world. You want to do things. And he's entering into that window where he's raced forever. It's all he's done. And so now he has a chance to sort of bust it up a little bit, go drive some stuff that he can win in, run well, have some fun,

finish out, you know, get all of that out of his system, and then maybe, you know, at 45-ish or 6, you know, he could get him a, you know, a super late model or something and go have some fun up north at them old tracks he raced at when he was a kid and then go to freaking Switzerland and Japan and all these badass places to go see what they, you know, go see what it's like because it's fun.

It really is. And so that's kind of where I would be, I guess, if I was Brad, mentally. I wonder if, though, how much he had to say in this, because it's happening so late in the season. We'll never, we'll never know. T.J. knows. TJ's keeping that private to himself. And I totally understand that, T.J.

Because this is Brad's business. It's not our business. We're not going to spill his shit all over the fucking internet. But I'm picking through the weeds of figuring out what's going on. If he didn't have a chance to run at RFK and they didn't want to race him, then go run something you can win in and have fun. Yeah. Just go do it.

There's no point in climbing in a subpar cup car at 42 years old, dude. You, it is going to be miserable. You are not going to be happy with the results. I agree with that. You're not going to be as competitive as you want to be. No fun. Yeah. What are you in a, what are you in a, you know, what are you, 42 year old?

You're going to get into a build, build it up program. You're going to, you know, you're going to only to. I mean, if he was an owner in something, I could see him, I could see him doing, kind of hitting a reset a little bit and growing it maybe for three, three, four years and then moving into something. Well, I just, I felt like that that's what. RFK was supposed to be. Yeah. All right. And that didn't work out.

Why would you take the risk of being offered that carrot all over again to go through this whole process of being, I'm just saying. I mean, I see what you're saying. But like, to me, that's just not the way Brad's wired. He wants to, he wants to build businesses. He wants to, like, he's always been. Go build one. I mean, that's what he, but, I mean, it's what he wants to do.

I get it. Well, if he needs help, he can get an agency to help him find a business to build. The Larson response. Oh, all right. So, Brad, listen, Brad, my hope for you is that you can climb into winning equipment. I don't care where is that. And go have fun and enjoy success at any level. You've earned that right.

You're a cup champion. You've done everything you ever wanted at the cup. up level. And you know as well as I do that the cup level is a lot of work. It's cutthroat. It's hard. And he's kind of been in that for long enough. If I was him, I'd go find something that was a little less stressful. And he can go GM truck O'Reilly teams. He can, you know, he can go drive for those teams and turn himself into that business mind and GM and earn some equity and build the culture he wants and have a ton of fun at that level. And he's done it before.

He did that successfully with his own truck team. So obviously hindsight is 2020, right? We know how the race plays out after that, after that caution and pitting. But can you go back to that and just kind of break down the pros and cons of each decision there? Like in the moment, what are the pros of staying out? And then what are the pro- What are the pros of pitting? Nobody's remotely close.

That's the pro of staying out. Right. But you don't necessarily know how tires are going to affect everyone else at that point in the race? We had ran 15 laps in practice and had a caution. And when we fired back off, we were running just as fast as we did on new tires. In practice. So I knew that it was, you know, going to be difficult. And again, it's not like I got four tires.

I'm only, I'm trying to come from ninth with two, you know. And if you think about it, we knew that there was going to be some cars that were absolutely going to stay out because they'd only had three or four laps on their tires. Well, I've got now nine on my lefts. And while I got better rights, I got worse lefts. and worse track position. So, yeah, I think if you have time to think about it and all the things, I think there's no question that we do something different next time around.

Yeah, that's an interesting element about practice that, like, when a caution comes out in practice, you kind of treat that the same way as if a caution would come out in a race. Like, okay, the run now stops. Yeah, we had a reset and, okay, where's we firing off? And it was, balance is great. one of the discussions with how you were racing there after the pit stop was is this a product of the chase versus the old format with the playoffs for you know every point matters do you think that how you were racing at the end of that stage is different this time because of the new format um maybe maybe um i think if i would have unnew the bigger if i were maybe knew where Larson was, then I maybe don't try to go up there.

But for all I knew, he was right behind me. I had no idea. So you had no idea that he had this long pit stop and was where he was at? Nope. Nope. No idea. So I didn't, and I'm not looking at the scoreboard. You know, I'm just trying to get all the positions that I can get.

So, yeah, just, you know, certainly in hindsight, wish I'd, known what the bigger picture was, but my job in the moment was to just go get as many cars as I can, every point matters. It's interesting because I said on Dale's show today, I go usually time and scoring is something that you're good with understanding where you're at, but you obviously didn't know the Larson position. So you're racing as if he's getting, he's getting points himself. No, and listen, had I known that Larson was a lap down and he would have got his lap back by me pitting, I would have never turned down pit road. I don't care what the crew chief says. I would have never turned down pit road. So, but you know, you've got to understand, you've got to get my team

a break too, and I got to give my team a break because they are focused on helping me get the fastest car that I can get on that day. And they're focused on what is his feedback? What are the tools we got in the toolbox to make his car as good as we can? And that's what they're focused on, right? they're calling your race they're not calling my race they're not sitting on the couch listening to the announcers say man you know you know breaking down the five cars race like that's just in the bubble of the racetrack it's it's really hard to put all that in perspective listen if we were known that when when larsen took two tires at phoenix and we had 15 seconds to to answer that you know we didn't and that's you know that's something that we got to learn from

and we certainly have got to get better at is understanding who we're racing, what's going on, and you respond the correct way. And, you know, it's not the team's fault at all that I spun the car out. I think our day is still very successful and we still, listen, I, I hate to, you know,

I'm not throwing water on anyone, but there was no one that's going to run with me. I know what my car needs to feel like to win. It was definitely a race-winning car. Now, I do think in the regular season, I am not fighting to try to go get that last spot in that stage. I'm just, I understand in that moment, I'm probably going to win this race as long as I just keep this thing clean. But I try to have a big point stay, and I ended up making a mistake, and that's not the team's fault. But it's not the team's fault that I damaged the race car. It did create a sense of urgency in me to go get it back

what we just lost, but they're not driving the race car. And they did their best to try to give me a car that was going to win the race. They did all weekend. And that's what they were focused on. And that's, you know, we just missed. We took our eye off the ball for just a, for just a, a period of time and then I took my eye off the ball at the end of that stage. I obviously don't expect you to go full Perry Mason here and get yourself in trouble, but where do you, where's your obviously got a lawsuit going on right now? How's that from your side right now? How's it playing out for you, you feel like?

Yeah. Obviously, we can cut this too, by the way, if you need to. No, I mean, look, it's all public, you know, it's all public record. Look, I'll just speak to that then. it would just be nice to see some evidence that's all right it would just be nice it's like you know um as you guys uh in this day and age it's like it feels like we're just taking a lot of shots right or a lot of bullets are coming our way and whether that's stuff we're doing on the racetrack off the racetrack or or whatever and i'm here for it i understand the game and and you know i say it all

time that's just show business i guess but um i think we all remember how this law lawsuit started. And I think we all remember all the allegations that were made. And here we are, six months in, seven months in. And there really isn't anything. And so, you know, I just don't know how we're supposed to, you know, prove negatives. And I don't know how we're supposed to just sit here and take it also. You know, it's tough to just sit there. And like I said, it's tough to sit in court. And you hear that you're all these things. And even when I'm here, I'm like, Jesus Christ, man, we suck. Is that us? Do we do that? Did we do that? And, you know, and again, part of it, you know, obviously did that thing with Glock, you know, a few weeks ago, right?

And come on here. It's just like, we don't have the blow torch of, you know, like the JGR has, right? It's just like, I just feel like, there's plenty of media people that come to us and they'll be like, well, hey, isn't it? I mean, you hear these things. Isn't it interesting? I mean, are you seeing these things? I know, I know what's interesting. There's no fucking evidence.

That's interesting to me. You know, so it's like report that. But I don't know. It's just they want, they can, I guess this is just the courts and, you know, in the United States. dates. I guess say whatever you want. And when is it's, what's your court date? Like, do you have a trial date or? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's in February. And again, this thing has been going on for, for so long. But that's, you know, one thing that's just near and dear to me is, is, look, there's been 80, somewhat third party subpoenas, right? Which is outrageous, right? I mean,

essentially what they're alleging is the biggest conspiracy in NASCAR history. And yet, you know, that involves apparently, you know, Hendrick, General Motors, you know, Rick Ware racing, right, track house racing, you know, all these guys that they said in court. And here we are. And it's just like, I don't, where is all that? Just where is it? And I'm here for it. I mean, if we did it, I'm here for it.

We just didn't do that. And I just, that's what, that's what kind of sucks. And so, you know, I said this earlier and I'll say it again. I want everybody to remember every allegation. I want everybody to remember every redaction. and then when we get to court, I'll come out on the steps. I mean, look, my five minutes of happiness

is going to be when I get to go on the courthouse steps and actually say what you really want to say. Say my shit, right? But unfortunately, after I got to pay the legal bill, so I lost anyway. Right? But it's like, no matter what, yeah. But that's really it, right?

It's just like, you know, I guess that'll be our five minutes of fun. And that's that. But I don't, you know, the other part here, just make sure that the whole industry here is, and I know, I think Tommy and I've talked about this before, I am their ally in the trade secret thing.

I don't want their stuff. And I don't want our shit out. I don't want Mr. Hendrick stuff out. But it's like, you know, I don't have, you know, Mr. Hendrick and coach have a really good relationship. And so many times through the years when I've been like, well, hey, we'll just go get this guy or that guy. Mr. Hendricks been like, no, no, no. We don't, we don't mess with them. Okay.

So it's like, I'm not trying to get their stuff just because I don't think it's right. I don't want to disappoint Mr. Hendrick. Right? I don't want to have to get that call from him that says because the first minute this thing got filed, Mr. Underclaw, he's just like, hey, what's up? I'm like, I don't know what they're talking about. Like, we didn't do that. So I don't want to have to go back to him and be like, oh, by the way, I know you're like my dad. I've been lying to you for like 10 months.

You know what I mean? So it's like that's not what I'm, it's not what I'm trying to do. And that's not what Spire is about. We're their ally when it comes to that. And I can't, I can't help them. I don't know what else to do. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's sad that this really can't be working. out, right, behind closed doors and doing things what normally men are supposed to be doing,

right? That's got to go through the court system. But look, at the end of the day, crew chiefs, tire guys, engineers, they have a fine and they can remember stuff, right? And you can do whatever you want to do. And look, it's like I've worked for teams, learned how to make race cars go fast with that team, have remembered and done everything. went to another team, applied it to that team, and made a difference or not made a difference. It's just, it's the nature of the beast. I mean, back in before computers and before everything, the crew chiefs had the notebooks. Right.

Right. We had the information. We were the ones that were doing all the work. So it's like you hear things, you do things, you ask questions, people talk to you about the things. It's like, I don't, the garage is really hasn't, hasn't changed, in my opinion with that. I mean, no, and look, and there's, there's something, there's something fundamental about this case that I think will be something for the whole industry to kind of learn from, right? Because I do think in a way, it does, it does have the effect of limiting, like, mobility between teams, right? Like what you're talking about in this sense.

It's just like, you know, Tommy, you're known for a lot of things. But there's things that you probably picked up when you were, you know, from your dad. Yeah. that you still apply. Exactly. Well, that's kind of like what we're, you know, some of this is about. And I don't know specifically that's what it's about. But it's like, just because you're at a team doesn't mean that you learned everything under the sun from that team.

Exactly. And you can't go anywhere else. But again, if we were talking about like real, I don't even want to say real, it's like, we're talking about real shit. If we're talking about like real aer stuff, if we're talking about real intricate things, like, I'm like, yeah, let's have a conversation about that. I'm not, you know, this is something, again, it's public. I don't, I think we learned how to seal an airbox when we were fucking 18. You know what I mean? Like, that's not a trade secret, but that's where we're at because there's nothing else, right?

So I think those are the things we need to be careful about. That's why I think, you know, we had a statement a few weeks ago, which it's like, you don't own airbox. We know how to seal airboxes. We know how to, or even to seal an airbox. We didn't need, you know, like, Spire was going to the race. I don't know if you guys know this. We were actually going to the racetrack before we got fucking shit. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, we were almost like winning races before we got sued. You know what I mean? Like, but, you know, I'm not saying, just it's hard sometimes to read these things and be like, God, man, maybe that's what people think. Maybe we are just a bunch of bumble f***ks that didn't know how to get to the track. Hey, this is Dela Hart Jr. And for all the latest Dale Jr. download gear, including the I'm old drink some beer t-shirt that we've been talking about here around the office, head over to shop.

Dot dirtymoedia.com for all the latest merch. That was Toyota. And I was going to be the Toyota truck guy. That's when I got in trouble. They kept the Toyota deal, Innovative did. So that was good. Hank Parker ran the deal and Robert Huffman. That's right.

And that was cool because Robert, our goodies dash raced. Yeah. And it was cool because we swapped. You know, he, like, knew everything in the Dash series. Yeah. And then when he got to Truck Series, I knew it. You know what I was the experienced guy I was the one out running him

He had to come ask me When I was asking him before You know what I mean It was just cool So let's go to Let's go to Richmond In 03 Jason Keller

You guys got to fuck around each other And you ended up sending it down in the three And And I was a short track racer I was good at it I fucking run your ass over if I needed to I ran in

top 10 all the time at short track races. And that was like my thing, you know. It didn't matter what body was on the car. I could knock the right front fanor and run 10th, at least 8th, Richmond. So I was fighting. I had to get the 10th. I had to get the 10th. It meant something.

I about crashed it off of 2, saved it only because Keller was there, Doored him. They come out on a fight after the race. Yep. me and Keller get to throwing each other around. Really? Yeah. Okay.

It wasn't a very good fight or anything. I didn't know y'all got together after the race. Yeah. That's what actually made I've been smoking pot with his mechanics. Oh. And so what happened is when I got a fight, they went and snitched on me. Damn. And they said, well, he smokes pot.

Yeah. And I went and peed. I mean, it wasn't more. That was that. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't lie. Yeah.

So when that happened, did they take you out of the car? Did NASCAR take you out of the car? I was at, I went and I was debating on running either want to raise cars at Dover, the 91. Cup. Yep. Or the 43. Yep. They hadn't picked anybody to run the nine yet.

Casey. The cut car. Yeah. Filling in for Bill. This is 03. So I talked to Ray a lot. I've been to his shop a lot. I talked to Ray that day.

Not a lot of people know that. But it made the decision a lot easier to pick Casey Kane after that race. Yeah. You know, fell on that drug test. It worked out great for me. because what happened to where it turned out to where I'm at today, I would not be here if I hadn't ever changed my life that day. Yeah.

And that's, I have to thank NASCAR for that. I mean, I just got text from Steve O'Donnell. Yeah. I don't know what it's about. You don't know how to tell us what's about, but if you want to get to it, I know that's probably something you're curious about. Not really, but it's just cool that it's, he's the first person that pee tested me. Really?

Yeah. And now he's the CEO. So I can't wait to hear you on juniors. Yeah. Oh, is that right? Damn, that's cool. So that's the CEO of NASCAR to a guy that was banned at one time that fix his life. Sorry, I did say it because it was hard.

Somebody wanted to know. What games did you guys play when you were on recess growing up? Red Rover. Did you play recess Red Rover? Oh, yeah. You could Marko Polo We play that

Like you'll remember Is it a geodesic dome That thing you climbed on? Oh yeah We'd close our eyes And play Marco Polo Around that thing Around that thing

Like inside it? Yeah Inside outside People have run into it Yes I mean we really didn't play Hide and seek Do you play four square

It was Red Rover Four square? Mm-mm I don't even know What four square is Four people And then there's a like A ball in your bouncing

And you're trying to get People out And there was like a king, queen. Nope, I never played that. Did you? We played basketball. We just split up into groups and played like a game of basketball or out, if it was outside, it was like we'd split up into two giant groups and play two games of football.

There'd be a game going on on on the big field and a game going on on a side field. Oh, we didn't have like spaces like that. It was just like a playground with grass. Yeah. From what I recall. Yeah. I don't remember anything else. Yeah.

Breaking up and just playing a game of football And just like a little tackle football To get the energy and get the aggression out Just had a good old plane chase We'd probably chase each other around tag I mean this is in Elementary school No I don't remember

I'm talking about like being a freshman You don't have recess as a freshman do you We had gym class That's not the same I'm thinking like playground recess The best though Like if you're going to high school playing dodgeball In high school that was all

When I was on smoking people. When I was in first or second grade, we were just trying to hide behind the trees and kiss girls. I mean. What? Yeah. Who are you trying to kiss in the first grade? When I was in the first grade,

every girl in there but one was my girlfriend. In your mind? No, I asked them all. They said they would be. Really? Yeah. That was the end of his game era. Yeah, my peak.

He peaked out in the first grade. Dale, who was like your, do you remember like your first girlfriend's name? Yeah. I do. Not going to say it, but I do. They were, she, I can't, it was, there was, there were twins and it was one of the twins. And I can't remember which one of the twins it was. Oh, you dirty dog.

All right, that was another episode of the Dirty 30, presented by RBS. new meat in three bucks get more meal for your money at arby's we have the meet